American Politics

[Sirioja]

Did they catch Trump in the Epstein Files yet? Haven't had time to follow the news a lot lately?

Trump is protected as president, when he appears a lot in Epstein criminal sexual business. His friend, criminal Netanyahou also avoid justice, not for same reason, with his war business.

[Tiny 12]

"A grid composed solely of solar, wind, and batteries is preposterous on its face the volume of batteries required to provide baseload power for days or weeks at a time borders on the absurd. This is why no such system has ever been piloted at a reasonable scale: the moment it is, the flaws would become immediately and fatally obvious. ".

Absolutely true. Spidy has used South Australia as a role model. Well, conditions for solar and wind there are among the best in the world. But for baseload power, South Australia still must rely on natural gas from the Cooper Basin and interconnects from Victoria. And Victoria generates electricity mostly from dirty, dirty coal.

Here it is:

https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/nations-...-in-four-years

Granted, your link gasbuddy.com says stations in Oklahoma were selling gasoline for $1. 99 a gallon in November, 2025. But gasbuddy.com is not the New York Times, ProPublica or the Guardian. It is not from a LWM (left WINGER media) source and cannot be trusted. Please do more research, using approved media only.

You're just like your MAGA Fuhrer, claiming victory, when there is none!. Just take the latest bullshit bungling and incompetence in Strait of Hormuz, where according to many political pundits, has left Iran, stronger and in more control of the region. But on the other hand, has left the world looking at renewables, clean tech and EV, more favorably. So thanks MAGA Fuhrer!

I didn't like Trump, so much so that the Marquesa clearly viewed me as a greater threat than you to all that he holds dear.

I'm trying to do something about that though. I've been in a 12 step program, like Alcoholics Anonymous, to conquer my TDS. The first step was to acknowledge that, "My name is Tiny, and I have TDS. " I'm not out of the woods yet. But I do now hate Elizabeth Warren and the Squad more than Trump.

And why are you bitching about Donald's Big Iranian Adventure anyway? The problems with the strait of Hormuz will encourage improvements and development of battery storage for wind and solar energy, along with other alternatives to Middle East production.

So while the U.S. has emitted around 400 billion tonnes of accumulated CO2, the most in history, making it responsible for 25% of historical emissions, in comparison, China is the second-largest contributor with about half that amount. https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2

And while many in the U.S. would like to deny their CO2 emissions history, China has acknowledged they are today's largest CO2 polluter, accounting for approximately one-third of annual global emissions, China is on track and has committed to their long-term carbon-free goals, in 2030 (peak) and 2060 (net-zero).

China's transition speed, to meet their carbon free goals, is so impressive, they're on track to achieve said goals, earlier than expected. The U.S. not so much!

What can I say that I haven't already said.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/a...ns-per-country

Climate is your religion. I'm not going to change your mind, any more than I could change the minds of those members of the Iranian National Guard who are itching to die as martyrs. And who have no problem if they take down the rest of the Iranian people with them.

Alberta sounds like a one trick pony?

And BTW, as China and Asia become more and more clean energy and renewable led dominant economies and less reliant on oil and gas, I wonder if Alberta (this one trick pony), which remains one of the highest cost oil and gas producers in the world, will compete be able to with cheap U.S., Russia, UAE and/or Saudi oil and gas?.

Alberta conventional oil and gas production is probably lower cost overall than the USA's. With additional infrastructure, Alberta's unconventional resources (shales and tight sands) would be competitive with the USA. Some already are. I'm sure that there are Canadian Montney shale wells that outperform most new shale gas wells in the USA. New oil sands projects are indeed higher cost, but existing projects and brownfield expansions are competitive.

Yes, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are much lower cost, and Russia is lower cost.

But thank goodness red state America and Alberta have exploited their hydrocarbon resources! They keep us out of a world of hurt, versus relying on places like the Middle East, Venezuela and North Africa. Like California does.

Nothing like blaming years of incompetence, on the Feds, right! Correct me if I'm wrong, but at one time, didn't Alberta have some sort of sovereign fund equal to that of Norway?

Why do you even attempt to argue Alberta politics with an Albertan? He's going to kick your ass, if he chooses to waste the time to do so.

Even without reading that link a day ago I nailed the "middle of podunk nowhere" aspect of your claim.

Oklahoma City is podunk? Balderdash. Oklahoma City is well situated with respect to pipelines and refineries. The gasoline tax and regulation are not excessive.

California could have similar gasoline prices. At one time your home state had lots of oil production and refining capacity, and would still if not for the green energy zealots running the place.

[Spidy]

Even without reading that link a day ago I nailed the "middle of podunk nowhere" aspect of your claim.

See, this is why providing links is helpful. The next major step that I see neither Tiny nor Elvis and we all know MDS have mastered is to actually quote a sentence or two from your links, on the rare occasion you might provide one, that could conceivably support your grandly announced contention.

Well, in the case of MDS he not only doesn't provide such a sentence or two from the various bizarre "news" source links he provides but a painful scan of whatever link he has provided usually reveals it has little or nothing to do with his grand claim, nothing to do with the quote he is supposedly responding to and quite often utterly refutes the grand claim he made..

So very, very, very true!

But when the suckers who voted for the MAGA Fuhrer president, see reports of his senile and incapacity to read and understand intelligence reports and would rather watch videos of Iranian stuff being blown up (like a video game), as some sign of "winning", while Iranian depleted forces fight a masterful asymmetric war (like Ukraine) is it any wonder, why the war is a shit-show of incompetence.

[Spidy]

This will be remembered in the annals of history as a watershed moment: when America began its downfall from its unimpeached dominance. Humbled and humiliated by a basketcase of a nation like Iran.

What hope does America have against China? None. The Chinese cannot believe their luck. The Americans have wasted vast amounts of money, ammunition (which will take years to build up) and most of all political and global goodwill. The writing is on the wall for Taiwan.

Not only has America lost a great deal from this farce, but so has most of the world. The only ones who've gained are Israel and Russia and possibly China.

The MAGA fuckwits who still endorse Trump are beneath contempt and beyond comprehension.

Yes indeed, and quite right on all accounts!

BTW, what other ways, do you see China benefiting from this massive MAGA Fuhrer / Iran war cluster-fuck, other than Taiwan, in which I think China will adopt a more prolonged and patient, sort of passive aggressive approach to winning over Taiwan.

[Spidy]

Alberta is voting October to 9 to separate from Canada. It will never pass but it shows the frustration by a conservative province getting screwed by a socialist government.

Nothing like blaming years of incompetence, on the Feds, right! Correct me if I'm wrong, but at one time, didn't Alberta have some sort of sovereign fund equal to that of Norway?

Alberta ran surpluses in four of its last five fiscal years. If you don't believe that, look it up instead of asking me to jump through hoops like a trained seal.

Yeah, when oil prices are low, the province will run deficits. The 9.4 billion CAD deficit estimate for the 2026/2027 fiscal year was made before the Iran war. If current strip prices for oil are indicative of what comes to pass, Alberta will have a surplus in 2026/2027, not a deficit. So you actually came up with an example of "right-wing conservative" competence?

Alberta sounds like a one trick pony?

And BTW, as China and Asia become more and more clean energy and renewable led dominant economies and less reliant on oil and gas, I wonder if Alberta (this one trick pony), which remains one of the highest cost oil and gas producers in the world, will compete be able to with cheap U.S., Russia, UAE and/or Saudi oil and gas?.

[Spidy]

I haven't cut and pasted anything from ChatGPT Spidy. I just write and know fossil fuels a lot better than you do. And I'm more accurate on this subject than many of the sources you quote.

OK, if it will make you happy, China is an electrostate that emits 33% of the world's CO2 and relies on fossil fuels for over 80% of its primary energy.

LOL! That's funny "you know fossil fuels", since you didn't seem to know the U.S. was still, the world's largest/biggest cumulative CO2 emitter in history, with China as a distant second, just overtaking Europe. For example see: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis...rming-than-eu/ OR https://ourworldindata.org/data-insi...l-co-emissions.

You're just like your MAGA Fuhrer, claiming victory, when there is none!. Just take the latest bullshit bungling and incompetence in Strait of Hormuz, where according to many political pundits, has left Iran, stronger and in more control of the region. But on the other hand, has left the world looking at renewables, clean tech and EV, more favorably. So thanks MAGA Fuhrer!

That said, I look forward to your so called "reverence" on fossil fuels, have at it.

Naturally, I'll continue to focus and discuss my topics choice: Low Carbon to Clean Energy & Tech, Renewables and Decarbonization of the residential, commercial and industrial world, by any and all countries, companies and entities, helping move toward a cleaner, greener energy transition and non-fossil fuel choice, where possible.

So while the U.S. has emitted around 400 billion tonnes of accumulated CO2, the most in history, making it responsible for 25% of historical emissions, in comparison, China is the second-largest contributor with about half that amount. https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2

And while many in the U.S. would like to deny their CO2 emissions history, China has acknowledged they are today's largest CO2 polluter, accounting for approximately one-third of annual global emissions, China is on track and has committed to their long-term carbon-free goals, in 2030 (peak) and 2060 (net-zero).

China's transition speed, to meet their carbon free goals, is so impressive, they're on track to achieve said goals, earlier than expected. The U.S. not so much!

[EihTooms]

Here it is:

https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/nations-...-in-four-years

Four stations, located in Midwest City, Oklahoma (Oklahoma City metropolitan area), stood at $1.99 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline early Monday morning, November 24.

Even without reading that link a day ago I nailed the "middle of podunk nowhere" aspect of your claim.

See, this is why providing links is helpful. The next major step that I see neither Tiny nor Elvis and we all know MDS have mastered is to actually quote a sentence or two from your links, on the rare occasion you might provide one, that could conceivably support your grandly announced contention.

Well, in the case of MDS he not only doesn't provide such a sentence or two from the various bizarre "news" source links he provides but a painful scan of whatever link he has provided usually reveals it has little or nothing to do with his grand claim, nothing to do with the quote he is supposedly responding to and quite often utterly refutes the grand claim he made.

So in their case it is understandable why they rarely quote the supposedly pertinent sentence or two from their links.

[RamDavidson84]

Did they catch Trump in the Epstein Files yet? Haven't had time to follow the news a lot lately?

[KeviKev68]

This will be remembered in the annals of history as a watershed moment: when America began its downfall from its unimpeached dominance. Humbled and humiliated by a basketcase of a nation like Iran. What hope does America have against China? None. The Chinese cannot believe their luck. The Americans have wasted vast amounts of money, ammunition (which will take years to build up) and most of all political and global goodwill. The writing is on the wall for Taiwan.

Not only has America lost a great deal from this farce, but so has most of the world. The only ones who've gained are Israel and Russia and possibly China.

The MAGA fuckwits who still endorse Trump are beneath contempt and beyond comprehension.

You left out North Korea a country that has nuclear weapons and has threatened the US.

[MarquisdeSade1]

This will be remembered in the annals of history as a watershed moment: when America began its downfall from its unimpeached dominance. Humbled and humiliated by a basketcase of a nation like Iran. What hope does America have against China? None. The Chinese cannot believe their luck. The Americans have wasted vast amounts of money, ammunition (which will take years to build up) and most of all political and global goodwill. The writing is on the wall for Taiwan.

Not only has America lost a great deal from this farce, but so has most of the world. The only ones who've gained are Israel and Russia and possibly China.

The MAGA fuckwits who still endorse Trump are beneath contempt and beyond comprehension.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...-compromise-us

[Canada]

So while, my esteem colleague EihTooms, was very generous giving you credit for posting a link with you post, "...rather than laying back in your barcalounger with a Tim Horton donut utter nonsense pro Trump fantasies", I think your post was being a bit disingenuous and failed to mention those budget numbers were only projected numbers. Take a look the most recent projected numbers, posted well before your post.

Governor Proposes Balanced Budget, No New Taxes January 16th, 2026. "The budget plan released on January 9 estimates more than $42 billion in added General Fund revenue compared to what was expected last June. As a result, the projected budget deficit has dropped to $2.9 billion instead of the $18 billion anticipated last year." https://calchamberalert.com/2026/01/...-no-new-taxes/.

Yes Newsome proposed a balanced budget just like he proposed the following.

Proposed High speed rail. Billions spent and no high speed rail.

Proposed fixing the homeless problem. Billions spent and more homeless year after year.

Proposed new gas tax to fix the roads and highways. Billions collected in gas tax and CA roads worst in the nation.

Proposed a balanced budget in 2025 and huge deficit.

Newsome proposal tax the millionaire to collect more taxes. Millionaires leaving state for Texas and Florida so collecting less taxes.

Newsome proposal to have sanctuary cities. More criminals moving to CA to avoid arrest in law abiding states.

Newsome will be long gone after the 2026 deficit.

You must be so proud to cheer for these Newsome proposals.

[Canada]

You just don't get how things work around here Canada. What you need to do is find a link to the Guardian or the New York Times or ProPublica that says the price of gasoline was $2.20 in Arizona and $1.99 in Oklahoma. Until you do that nobody around here is going to take you seriously.

Here it is:

https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/nations-...-in-four-years

[Canada]

Alberta ran surpluses in four of its last five fiscal years. If you don't believe that, look it up instead of asking me to jump through hoops like a trained seal.

Yeah, when oil prices are low, the province will run deficits. The 9.4 billion CAD deficit estimate for the 2026/2027 fiscal year was made before the Iran war. If current strip prices for oil are indicative of what comes to pass, Alberta will have a surplus in 2026/2027, not a deficit. So you actually came up with an example of "right-wing conservative" competence?

Alberta is voting October to 9 to separate from Canada. It will never pass but it shows the frustration by a conservative province getting screwed by a socialist government.

[Elvis 2008]

Well, once again, the latest Trump is out of his fucking mind tactic once again worked beautifully. He got everyone talking about his unhinged message about blowing up Iran and putting them back into the stone age, drew a red line in the sand, and worked out a cease fire. Markets are soaring. Hormuz is open and everyone is singing kumbaya. So is everything all good?

Hardly.

I have been trying to get a handle on why Trump went in. At first, I thought it was simplistic. A military invasion worked in Venezuela. Why not in Iran? Trump has been engaging in Democrat level lawfare with regards to foreign leaders, and some of actions have been beyond annoying, so I was cynical. I thought Trump was just like, "So Iran's leadership is a pain in the ass? Let's just blow them up!

It was easy to take pot shots at Trump on this matter. Iran is not Venezuela. They have councils and a clear succession plan. Chavez and especially Maduro were meglomanicas who put themselves above their country and had no succession plan in place so taking out an egotistical dolt like Maduro and putting in his #2 as a puppet was easy.

Then of course, you had the drones and missiles of Iran that have been cauing havoc in the Middle East. Some of these missiles have been shot at targets close to a 1000 miles away, and they have caused hundreds of billions in damages. Hell, Iran has even been able to shoot down American planes. The American militray was caught flat footed and woefully underestimated their enemy and have not learned the lessons of Ukraine and been busy preparing to fight the past wars and not the current ones.

So like anyone who peruses the MSM, I did not get this war. Worse, you have this notion being sold that we are losing. This is such a stupid concept, the concept of winning the war. Iran has been decimated. They have lost and so have we and so have the neighboring Arab states. There are no fucking winners here. It is war not a fucking football game. So why did we even bother doing it? Is there any reason outside of Trump being crazy? Well, yeah, there is, and it is not to be found in the MSM.

Quite frankly, Israel has been crying wolf about Iran having the bomb for so long that it has been easy to tune them out and given out recent raid on Iran and supposedly destroying their nuclear capacity, it was hard to have to admit the bombing raid did not work. New intelligence showed Iran has much more nuclear capacity than was thought possible. From the substack link:

Here is what is known about the location of Iran's uranium ore that has been enriched to 60 degrees of purity, just short of the 90-plus degrees of purity needed to trigger a nuclear bomb.

Iran's main enrichment center, deep inside a mountain at Fordow, one of three main nuclear weapons sites in Iran, was struck last June by a US air attack authorized by Trump in cooperation with Israel. I now understand that every three kilograms of uranium, once enriched at Fordow, would be stored in a heavy container and quickly shipped to one of the vast underground tunnels—depicted to me as "octopus" tunnels—beneath a second major Iranian nuclear weapons facility at Isfahan. Iran's fleet of ballistic missiles and launchers were similarly stored, among other hidden sites, in the tunnels at Isfahan and at a third underground nuclear weapons facility at Natanz.

At this point, I learned, 390 kilograms of enriched uranium are known by Israeli intelligence to be stored at the underground nuclear facility in Isfahan, 25 to 30 kilograms at Natanz, and 15 kilograms at bombed-out Fordow. US and Israeli military teams have tracked locations and have been studying the question of how to fight their way into the tunnels and retrieve the enriched materials. The next step, so the thinking goes, would be to transport the canisters by helicopter to a covert US base in Azerbaijan.

All in all, I was told by someone with firsthand knowledge, there are at least 26 curving underground "octopus" tunnels throughout Iran used for the storage of ballistic missiles and launchers.

I was further told that Israeli intelligence estimated within the last two weeks that bomb and rocket attacks have destroyed 80 percent of Iran's missile launchers and 90 percent of Iran's ballistic missile arsenal. But the rockets keep coming, as does Iran's huge fleet of drones.

Israeli intelligence now believes, I was told, that the incessant US and Israeli bombing of known tunnel entrances may have shielded entrances to underground Iranian missile and rocket depots that may have other, unknown exits. That would explain the continuing flow of accurately targeted Iranian rockets and missiles launched at sites in Israel and at other states along the Persian Gulf allied to the US.

I've been told that tens of thousands of US troops are in place and poised to invade the Kharg Island export terminal in the northern Persian Gulf that is tightly controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as well as other islands in the Strait of Hormuz controlled by Iran. The order has not yet been issued from the White House. End of link.

This puts the war in an entirely different light. Iran has the uranium to build a bomb, and their missile technology has gotten better. Obviously, Iran can hit Isreal with a nuke, and in a short time, they could hit the USA. Thing is unlike other nations like North Korea or Pakistan, the Isrealis believe the Iranian muslims are crazy enough to detonate a nuke, and they have Trump buying it as well.

If you recall, the Isrealis also hit a nuclear reactor in Iraq when that country was being controlled by Saddam Hussein, and he definitely was crazy enough to have blown up a nuke.

I do not buy that Kharg Island crap. If the USA is going to put troops on the ground, there is a mission and I think a doable mission which is to seize all that uranium. If Iran does not hand it over, I think we are back to square one and the war is on.

So at least there is a why to this war outside of Trump's impulsiveness. It was refreshing to know what he is still rational when everyone is calling him crazy but Iran having nuclear capacity and the missiles they do is downright scary.

[MarquisdeSade1]

This will be remembered in the annals of history as a watershed moment: when America began its downfall from its unimpeached dominance. Humbled and humiliated by a basketcase of a nation like Iran. What hope does America have against China? None. The Chinese cannot believe their luck. The Americans have wasted vast amounts of money, ammunition (which will take years to build up) and most of all political and global goodwill. The writing is on the wall for Taiwan.

Not only has America lost a great deal from this farce, but so has most of the world. The only ones who've gained are Israel and Russia and possibly China.

The MAGA fuckwits who still endorse Trump are beneath contempt and beyond comprehension.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c

https://www.visiontimes.com/2026/01/...questions.html

https://www.investing.com/analysis/a...stem-200676971

https://www.newsmax.com/scottpowell/...02/id/1251621/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBo45Jz0jXU