Mark Davis

We do want a democratic and peaceful Iran. The problem is we don't get to make that decision. We tried that in Afghanistan and Iraq. We at the very least aided such an effort in Libya. We have zero track record for successfully achieving that and in my mind make it even worse when we try to stipulate who leads those nations. Nobody wants terrorists striking around the globe or the Strait of Hormuz closed, but if we capitulate to the possibility that Iran may do this, then where does that leave us when it comes to North Korea, China, any other foe? There's a difference between being peaceful and trying to avoid foreign entanglements and cowering from those who threaten you. I prefer we don't strike, as that would leave the unintended consequences out of the equation. I'm glad Trump is giving this a chance to play out and hope they either give up the program or the regime is toppled from within. I don't think either is the likely outcome, but we need to give it a chance. But if all else fails, I agree we should not let them have nukes. At least with the North Korean regime they are self interested and use them as a threat to stay in power. In Iran, you are dealing with religious zealots who don't care if they die as long as they take us with them.

There has always been a belief that if you bomb, you have to have a plan for the regime collapsing, whether that's helping a new government or rebuilding the society. I submit to you the idea that Afghanistan is in the place today that it would be had we simply bombed them until Bin Laden fled and then just left it as it was. We didn't need to spend fortunes and lives in a hopeless effort to turn their society into something it isn't. It's up to the Iranians to determine their society. The only reason I give a moment's care to whether their leader lives or dies is the nuclear program. It's becoming pretty obvious that if he gives it up, for the time being the window is open for him to stay in power. If he fails to do so, that site will be bombed by the U.S. or be subject to an Israeli commando raid, at the end or simultaneously with either the Ayatollah will cease to breathe. I simply don't think Trump is the old standard in where he much cares what happens to that country after he deems our direct interests are met. It would have served us well in Afghanistan and maybe would have helped us stay out of Iraq. I still have extreme anger towards Bush/Cheney for getting us into that mess. Part of the reason Iran had to be dealt with now is that removed the counter-weight to their power in the region when we toppled Saddam. When you have two bad actors that hate one another, let them constantly fight and weaken the other and it also keeps them from turning their attention to you.

Yep. We need to outlaw Chinese companies taking ownership in American land.

I have a lot of old minor league baseball items around my office. Some old jerseys and hats, things like that. Especially those teams that no longer exist that I remember.

Is this the point we walk out on the day and go celebrate by looting the Von Maur?

I'm not big on us having to bomb them. But the question remains on what to do if we don't. I don't think there's any way you can trust the Iranian regime on any negotiated deal. They've shown they will cheat on any deal just as the Chinese do on trade, they are intent on the need for the bomb. If you think they are hard to deal with now, once they have the bomb it will be way worse. I'm not in for nation building. The best case outcome is the regime is overthrown from the inside, but that is probably a longshot. If we bomb them and aren't down for nation building, which I hope we aren't, it is saying we are wiping out the nuclear program and just spinning the wheels on the slot machine and see what shows up in their place. In retrospect, we should have done that in Afghanistan and we would have ended up in the same place, just without all the loss of American lives and money. There's also the longshot that suddenly the regime doesn't have a death wish and heeds the warnings and makes a settlement of giving up the program and agreeing to outside verification in order to survive.

What they are trying to achieve, and have some varying probability of success of achieving any of these, is to weaken Iran and their defenses to the point the U.S. will use the bunker buster bombs to clean up the nuclear sites with little to no resistance left from Iran, weaken the regime enough so someone overthrows the regime from inside, or floats out they have a plan to kill their leader so they are forced to the table and allow a supervised dismantling of the nuclear program. Failing any of those three they may just kill the Ayotollah with the obvious risks as to what follows for Iran itself. I just think we are out of time to stop them from having the bomb and this thing is so far down the road now one of the above is going to happen.

If I were him I'd rather go with the Feds than a state. Maybe it's different in the upper Midwest. I've been told the Pacific Northwest prisons aren't as bad as the ones here in the South but the guys who get out here think the Fed prisoners have it made by comparison. Look, every outcome is bad. Some hells are just worse than others.

For me I think if I ever were off the rails enough to do something where that was the likely end result if I got caught, whatever I was doing I'd better be ready to die for it. I've listened to too many ex prisoners talk about spending lots of years in prison. I think I'd rather just take the L up front. But who knows, if you're loony enough to do something like that, your mind isn't working right to begin with.

Maybe it's just me, but this whole assumption people can curse and berate police and just do so without repercussion isn't the case where I grew up. I remember being stopped at a checkpoint for drunk drivers one Sat night/Sun morning. I was the designated driver and had a couple drunk friends in the car. The cop cracked to me that "since you couldn't immediately find the window button it's not looking good". I think I used an expletive and said something along the lines of "it's not my car man" after that. Pretty quick I realized a Mississippi city policeman in the middle of the night is probably not the person to argue with. That was a nothing comment but we all just assumed if you popped off too much you were just asking for a good shot to the ribs or jaw and it would have been deserved. I'm seeing way worse than I think it would have taken where I grew up to not just get arrested, but I'm sure I'd have hurt myself taking a nasty fall before the officer could have helped me into his vehicle. These guys do stressful jobs and they don't need some idiot/drunk/loser berating them and being their punching bag. They've shown way more restraint in LA than I think they should have.

Chances this leak wasn't intentional is pretty low. It's a tap on the shoulder as a reminder, you're dead the moment we say you are.

This is what I always expected to happen at some point. He still needs to have ICE root out the ones who are guilty of other crimes.

We must be getting different newsfeeds. Whenever I flip on the news, NewsNation, even CNN, I'm seeing people throwing water bottles and concrete at the police, cars rolling by shouting profanity and making obscene gestures at them. They are just standing there, occasionally walking forward to clear a space. They've shown too much restraint IMO.

Shocking they haven't caught this guy yet. Given that the sun is now down that gives him the opportunity to move more freely. Hopefully they can detain/kill this guy before he kills anyone else.

Either way, he's doing the work of the CCP. The more this kind of violence and rhetoric goes on, we fight each other from the inside while China becomes more of a threat by the day. There's a reason China uses funding and social media to stoke the flames of our political disagreements.

Various reports are out there that others have linked here. I can’t say for sure what happened. It does appear to not be as clear cut as the initial headlines would have led us to believe. To be clear, the post I referred to made reference to statistical likelihood. IMO we are at even money at best right now that the assertion made by that poster pans out to be true. So when I say stay tuned, it means just that. He’s making an assertion that the facts right now aren’t supporting.

God man, that's awful. I feel sick for you on that one. I have a deal with a customer across the country that is on a large scale too. We have legal proceedings going on but the guy stole from lots of people. He's going to end up in jail but the scraps we are collecting are barely keeping the attorneys paid so I have my doubts this is going to be anything more than something large I have to learn a lesson from and consider a cost of business. Hope yours turns out better.

I've heard a lot of ridiculous political rhetoric in the past, but to say China has moral authority was like trying to tell me the sky is green. The Uyghurs would like a word.

I used to deal with a lot of it taking online credit card orders. I now just wholesale to other companies who take that risk. I have been told by others that the bank scams are getting more sophisticated. It seems like there are so many more data breaches today where your data is prone to being compromised.

Stay tuned for how this one turns out

Apparently they've found some writings and a list of lawmakers in this guy's car https://www.wftv.com/news/police-say-they-have/QN6NVORVYJEQ5FXGK5YXQU2FNA/

Whenever one of these things comes up where the slats/flaps are suspected the Northwest Detroit crash comes up. One of the guys I used to work with, his daughter was friends with the sole surviving girl from that flight. She was raised locally by her aunt and uncle. They shielded her from the press while she grew up. The only interview I ever know of her giving was to a documentary a few years back. Supposedly this plane was supposed to be "smart" enough to not allow that type error. However if it is that same cause, very ironic it would also perhaps have only a sole survivor.

It turns out the Egyptians aren't really down for a "March to Gaza". Twitter is full of good stuff on this. https://x.com/EYakoby/status/1933688335337140575 https://x.com/atRachelGilmore/status/1933585105445949815

Looks like Khalil is still staying at the government sponsored Hilton https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/government-wont-release-mahmoud-khalil-rcna212889

I think it's true Trump didn't want Israel to strike. However, from my following of Netanyahu through the years his entire political career has been centered on not allowing Iran to have nukes. Anything short of that he would see as a failure. According to all the intelligence out there it appears we were at the end of the road and the Mullahs weren't taking the off ramps. I think we are going to hear about how this is Trump's fault for peace talks not being successful, Obama's for allowing progress in uranium enrichment even under the old nuclear deal, or Biden's for allowing assets to flow back to Tehran. However, neither party was going to stop Netanyahu from taking this action. It's just a political football here and likely makes no difference because for Netanyahu, a nuclear Iran is a true red line, not just a rhetorical one like some of our politicians create. The genie is out of the bottle unless the Trump Administration somehow pulls a negotiated settlement out of this no matter how unlikely that seems tonight.