It is just getting so very tiresome. The racism stuff. You know what I always skip over when looking for something to watch? The latest entry in “black people triumph over racism” movies. They are just boring as heck. And in two different ways: they aren’t historically accurate and all of their views are 21st century…they don’t, that is, even try to tell us what a black person in, say, 1940 might have thought about things. They tell us what a “studies” graduate wants the past to be…not what the past actually was. And they never show the real triumph – that black Americans from 1865 to 1965 switched from being almost entirely illiterate field hands to being integral to the highest aspects of American economic and cultural life. You’ll get a movie claiming the black woman got us to the Moon (an absurdity as 100,000 people got us there)…but not the movie of the black sharecropper who wound up middle class.
But we can’t talk about that – it shows America works. That even when emerging from slavery and being held down by various legal and cultural bigotries, if you are hard working and sober, you will get ahead. If you look at the run of movies and such on it over the past 20 years then apparently highly educated black slaves fought for the freedom of a fat welfare chick to have a bizarre hair style. And I think we’re all getting done with that.
I first noticed it about ten years ago among white youngsters – a growing contempt for the whole race system. And why not? They were being told from preschool that their white skin makes them devils who can never be cured of racism and who must crawl on their knees just to be barely tolerable in polite society. They could see themselves striving and getting nothing while other kids, with other skin colors, quickly figured out that they had been given a pass…don’t do the work, back talk, even be violent and the system would still reward them, and better than the white or Asian kids who actually put in the effort. People do notice injustice. It can’t be missed. Just as a black lawyer in 1926 could clearly tell that society was unjustly discriminating against him, so can a white kid today see it.
And we do need to get completely done with it. Race must play zero role in how we decide things. I don’t care how much you claim racism caused you a problem. Just deal with it. There were black people forging ahead when genuine Klansmen were out for blood. If your great-great-grandpa could become literate and own his home with that going on, then you’ve got no excuse. These days, the Klan is a division of the SPLC and so ain’t much of a problem. But here’s the thing – race will become a problem if we keep dwelling on it.
That is, if we keep up this system today of racial spoils where if you’re dark skinned you get advantages not available to white or Asian skin, then guess what will happen? The Pretend Racism being used today will become Real Racism – the whites and Asians will join up to assert privileges for themselves…and as the combination massively outnumbers the Black/Brown population, they will win and do whatever the heck they want. And feel good about doing it. The attempt by the Left to elevate Race isn’t going to lead to peace and justice…its going to lead to a system more overtly racist than anything Jim Crow ever thought of.
I understand that the Texas university system is now dispensing with the various “studies” program – that is, the mills which grind out bogus degrees while propoagandizing young people into believing that there’s a cabal of white racists out to get them. This is a good first step – but we have to get after it all. Racism must end – and the only way to end it is to destroy the groups promoting it. Easy to spot: they mostly identify themselves by some sort of civil rights activity. Defund them. Arrest them (we’ve seen in BLM how the leaders are just raking it in for themselves). Insult them on a day to day basis. Bring suit (civil and criminal) against them for conspiring to deny civil rights. Get rid of these hate filled leeches…so that we may have peace, and an end to racism.
The thing that a lot of white Liberals either forget, or, if they’re younger, were never taught, is that persecution of blacks from the end of the Civil War till the mid-1960s was almost exclusively perpetrated by Democrats, albeit, mostly southern Democrats. A few of them became Republicans, but the vast majority went to their graves hating blacks. Then in the late 1960s they or their successors did a 180 and decided they could put blacks back on the plantation, albeit a different kind of plantation, by giving them free stuff and discouraging traditional marriage in the black community, resulting in massive out-of-wedlock black births and generational welfare dependency. Then along came Roe v. Wade, and there have actually been years in large cities like New York where black abortions exceeded black births, again thanks to Democrats. We are still reaping the spoiled fruits of that despicable, unforgivable behavior.
Off topic, but extremely important in the overall scheme of things is this from Coffee & Covid this morning:
The map doesn’t list the Red Sea, which is a pretty important route. I’m also curious about how he thinks the U.S. controls all these other routes.
The last active engagements involving direct Houthi attacks targeting U.S. Navy warships in or near the Red Sea occurred in March 2025, when the Houthis claimed and launched retaliatory missile and drone attacks against the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group following U.S. airstrikes in Yemen (though U.S. officials stated the projectiles missed by wide margins). [1, 2, 3]
Context and Recent Developments
Sounds like the Red Sea isn’t a problem for us.
We control all sea routes. All air routes, too. This is because our Navy and Air Force are supreme. Just because some dirty necked barbarians say they control something doesn’t make it so. Nor does CNN quoting “anonymous sources familiar with the situation” make it so. Whoever has the warship on the sea and the bomber in the sky is in control. You really gotta start living in the Real World, Cap.
If you were curious you would look it up. You’re not curious, you’re just trying to bait others into another Casper bickerfest
Greg Gutfield once said “America is not as racist as Democrats want it to be” and he is 100% correct. None of us see racism on daily basis when out and about. It’s virtually non existent. I am not a racist but I am a culturist, as are many Americans and that’s what the media contorts to be racist. A multicultural society WILL fail, it’s just a matter of time, so if the Somali’s, Haitians, etc., want to continue to wear hijabs and practice their tribal traditions, they need to go back home.
Also noteworthy is, as Spook noted, that racism is almost exclusively Democrat. “If you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black” was Joe Bidens most recent proclamation as the party of the KKK, Jim Crow, and BLM continue to leverage blacks for power.
And the map posted by Spook speaks to American hegemony right? Weren’t we told yesterday that America is much less powerful and respected than before Trump? Trump is reorganizing global power and this will be his greatest legacy.
“If you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black”
No way to know how many blacks switched their vote because of that, but I’ll bet it was more than a few.
And the map posted by Spook speaks to American hegemony right? Weren’t we told yesterday that America is much less powerful and respected than before Trump?
That comment was so typical of Forty/Rocks/Cody/Howie/DanHicks/JAG. Pretty much everything he says is either wishful thinking, false on its face, or proven either false or irrelevant within a short period of time. Most people with a track record like that would just crawl under a rock and hide. Instead, our troll names himself after the rock.
“Instead, our troll names himself after the rock”
LOL
“Instead, our troll names himself after the rock”
Actually, it was “Rocks and Cows.” You should look it up.
Ohhh—so witty and biting! As if the latest in a long string of aliases is worth spending time on.
Actually, it was “Rocks and Cows.” You should look it up.
Actually, I did, a while back because it seemed such as odd screen name. IIRC, its’ a phrase that Tampon Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota used to describe the red areas of Minnesota, although I think he may have been a congressman at the time. So, does that make you a closet Conservative, or do you just have a perverse sense of humor?
So, does that make you a closet Conservative, or do you just have a perverse sense of humor?
Which do you think? lol
No one would ever think of you as a conservative, closet or otherwise, because conservatism is based on actual thought—not lurking in hopes of finding a place to hurl some snot bombs. lol
We missed your name-calling and elevated discourse, Amazona.
Awwww.
“A multicultural society WILL fail, it’s just a matter of time,”
Really? I can think of a number of multiculturalism societies that are doing just fine all across the world. Hawaii is about as multicultural as it gets and I certainly don’ see it as failing.
Hawaii is American – infused with all sorts of Asian and Pacific cultural identities, but American. That is why it works. It is why there isn’t tribal violence. Multicultural means violence – it can’t be otherwise. Little Italy became a tourist attraction …. Dearbornistan is an indigestible rock in the heart of America and it has to go.
So multiculturalism is okay in places like Hawaii, but bad in cities like Dearborn. Got it. So how does that figure with groups like the Amish?
Well, given that the Amish are pacifists not a great concern. But it isn’t multicultural in Dearborn…very much monocultural, and increasingly forcibly imposed if you don’t want to be part of it…a little slice of Islamist land set in America. It has to go.
Got it. So how does that figure with groups like the Amish?
Well, for one thing, the Amish aren’t violent, and secondly they don’t hate America. They also don’t want to force their religious views on others. Is that enough, or do you want more?
So it’s not multiculturalism you are against, it’s muslims. Got it. BTW, Dearborn has one of the lowest crime rates in Michigan.
So the Dearborn authorities claim – but without an outside audit, can’t be sure.
And not against Muslims – against a Muslim city which is becoming overtly unfriendly to anyone other than Muslims being in it. I don’t want a Jewish or Hindu city in America, either.
I was laughing at Casper’s oh-so-typical simple-minded concept of “multiculturalism” and then ran into this toxic mixture of that with the smug virtue signaling assumption of moral superiority so common on the Left it is actually a signature. He has always had a tendency toward bitchiness, so much so that even an effort to claim others are racist has a distinct feel of simpering pettiness more than actual tough-guy venom.
If you define “culture” as little more than a food-court mix of different foods, languages and customs, then I suppose it makes sense to think that is actually a definition of “multiculturalism”. But you go beyond this oversimplified cartoonish vision of “culture” and look at things like national self-identification and resistance to assimilation you can see the problems of a nation comprised of tribal alliances and conflicts with no unifying allegiance to a single national identity.
Even Hawaii, with its lingering resentment toward being assimilated into the United States, is still American. Yes, among the Americans living in Hawaii there are ethnic and national customs that enrich the culture, but in general I don’t think there are prevalent anti-American groups demanding that ethnic or national identities supersede American identity.
The kind of multiculturalism that poses a threat to the United States is perhaps best described by the comment that we became greater when we were a melting pot of different backgrounds and cultures all assimilating into the overall identity of Americans, instead become more of a salad bowl of permanently separate national identities with no interest in becoming Americans and even hostile to the country.
We happily flourished with ethnically-defined neighborhoods–the predominantly Italian neighborhood next to and sometimes overlapping the predominantly Irish section of a city, the Jewish sectors and the Latino neighborhoods. What made it work was the fact that the ethnic immigrants came here to BECOME AMERICANS.
It takes a special kind of stupid to fail to see the difference between this and an entire ethnicity that has come here to flout its contempt for American and Americans while trying to impose its own culture, its own legal system, its own historical attitudes toward things like treating women as chattel and endorsing “honor killings” for culturally defined “crimes” like choices of clothing or music. Cysts of foreigners openly despising this country, openly demanding a separate and anti-American culture with a separate and conflicting legal system, a separate and conflicting social system, a separate and conflicting judicial system, a separate and conflicting and unconstitutional way of life, are not the same as the mingling of various cultural elements of Americans from different backgrounds that Casper seems to conflate with them.
“Dearborn has one of the lowest crime rates in Michigan.”
A low bar, but you have to take your bragging rights, thin as they are, where you can find them.
BTW there is a difference between an actual low crime rate and merely a low rate of reported crime. In a community where so many things considered crimes in civilization are merely part of the “culture”, and where there is great resistance to complying with Western/American laws, it is foolish to pretend that lack of reporting means lack of crime.
A multiculturalist society is a tribal society and eventually they tear each other apart. The three elements needed for a functioning and healthy society are language, borders, and culture. Without shared language, secure borders, and a common culture a country will not thrive and no magical thinking can make it happen.
Re: your comment “you are against Muslims” which is typical Democrat and so fucking old. Democrats really need to stop pretending they own the moral high ground, because it’s tedious and childish. Adults don’t think like that. We recognize that having fundamental differences, doesn’t mean hate. You know who is experiencing hate right now?? Ed Sheeran. Turns out if you don’t think and act exactly like you’re suppose to, the Democrat Left will attack you. Have you noticed that Casper? Kind of puts your Muslim comment into perspective doesn’t it? You look like a fool
America started out as a multi-cultural “melting pot.” Pretty much everyone who came here brought traditions with them, but most wanted first and foremost to be Americans. That’s not the case anymore, especially with Muslims. I don’t think it would be a bad idea to just halt immigration for a couple of generations like we did from the 1920s to the 1960s. Let those who want to assimilate do so, and deport the rest. Then restart with a very selective immigration policy.
Side note – I’m being flooded on Social Media with accounts pushing Iranian, Islamist and “Palestinian” propaganda…gotta say, the more I see these guys talk well of themselves, the more loathsome they become to me.
I think it’s worth noting that two very blue states are lowering scholastic requirements to help students graduate high school. NY and OR, and they think MAGA are the dumb ones LOL. This is just a straight up admission of failure. The one party Democrat apparatuses of NY and OR have completely failed their children and now they will make the children suffer by sending them out in the world unprepared. This is how Democrats operate. Fail, blame, move on.
Alabama is on the path to become the Athens of America – they ditched the DEI nonsense and are now on their way to genuine educational achievement.
ALRIGHT, this shit has to STOP!!!
Far-left Democrat Governor Maura Healey is pushing a shocking new proposal that would expand state-funded home visits to the house of every single newborn babyborn in the state.
Under the guise of “maternal healthcare” and mental health support, Healey wants government-appointed healthcare providers to physically enter the homes of parents to conduct “assessments” on families.
Never let a crisis go to waste right? That’s the Democrat mantra, so now on the heels of Lindsay Clancy’s evil and psychotic actions, MA Democrats see an opportunity to seize more control. I would never let faceless government bureaucrats enter my home to make an “assessment”. In fact they would be given 10 seconds to leave my property before Mr Glock would come out to see them.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/09/far-left-ma-gov-maura-healey-wants-government/
“We control all sea routes. All air routes, too.”
Really? Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which according to you we “control,” remains almost nonexistent. Great job, everybody.
You guys don’t even try to make a point, just look for a crack to fill with your pissy snark.
BTW, Trump made the Strait of Hormuz pretty much irrelevant. It was for a long time considered vital to shipping, especially for oil. Then when Trump shut it down, countries realized they had options—and when they explored those options the leverage of the Strait diminished. I know, that is a pretty complex concept, and you won’t even try to keep up, but it’s still a fact that Trump’s actions radically created a massive reset in the Middle East.
I’ve become interested in the perspective, as shown in a series of videos, of a group called Promethean Action. The usual host, Susan Kokinda, is consistent in her criticism of the role of Great Britain in world politics. This is one example:
BTW, Trump made the Strait of Hormuz pretty much irrelevant.
Really? So you crow about control the Strait, which you then say is irrelevant? No one buys that.
An observation about the changing status of an area is, to normal people, merely an observation of the changing status. To you, it is “crowing”.
What the F are you taking about?
Ship traffic has been back to pre-war normal for a month.
No, it hasn’t. Look at the one-year chart on TankerMap.com, for instance. Or the CNN Strait of Hormuz tracker. Or any credible tracker.
https://i.imgur.com/YQWGxSI.png
You consider CNN to be credible?
Centcom says it is open – that means it is open.
Iran has no Navy. It has no air force. It can’t blockade anything.
FFS…
Why do you care? Is there a point in here somewhere?
You consider CNN to be credible?
I posted the statistics from tankermap.com. CNN reports the same through its tracker. There are other trackers reporting the same. If you have a better source, post it.
Centcom says it is open – that means it is open.
You have told us over and over that you don’t trust what the government says, that it lies. Now you take Centcom’s word for it? Give us a credible source. Cite credible statistics. Don’t give me a talking head paid to lie to us.
And even if he isn’t lying, notice that he says “the volume of crude oil, cargo, and liquid natural gas these past two weeks is higher than at any point in the past six months.” Not back to normal. Higher than it has been since the war started and traffic slowed to a trickle. The war started more than six months ago. Seriously, Mark, listen to what he’s saying. He’s not saying things are back to normal, just that things are slightly less bad.
So again, great job “controlling” the Strait.
Why do you care? Do you think you are making a point? Other than your inability to keep up, that is?
You are so funny in your passion for trying to score points against Trump. Your whole Strait Of Hormuz rant is not about the Strait, or anything happening or not happening there, but just about how you FEEL about the ways Trump has phrased his comments about it.
You really need a better hobby–maybe one less dependent on your distorted filters and the voices in your head. Quit fretting about Trump.
I do trust Trump – and his people. They say it is so, then it is. The only people who can dispute me on this are known liars. Warned you guys on the Left about all that lying…it sticks forever. Never goes away. Liar today, liar forever. You really shouldn’t have lied about everything.
I did check the bot comments on Trump accounts on X and, yep, everything you say is straight out of the Bot Farm. I do wonder how much is being paid to have people post endlessly the same stupid lies over and over again.
Only question in relation to you is: are you being paid or are you just doing this for free thinking it makes you special?
“Only question in relation to you (troll) is: are you being paid or are you just doing this for free thinking it makes you special?”
When we have asked this, after yet another spate of bait-posts clearly designed to try to lure us into responding in spite of years of proof it will just lead to more mindless bickering and opportunities for posting yet more clickbait and Leftist sludge, the response has always been the non-response of a snickering version of “what a stupid question—who would pay us to post?”
Yet the pattern is consistent, and the dedication it requires to constantly come up with new aliases to try to circumvent banning is hard to explain, given the lack of real content or thought in the resulting posts. Why would a normal person with a real life be so determined to weasel under a fence to be on a site where he is scorned and ridiculed, just repost partisan dreck?
Clearly, the goal is to generate responses which, in botland, means more clicks=more revenue.
And another thing: He’s says Centcom has supported more than one billion barrels of crude oil leaving the gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. That sounds like a lot, but there’s a problem. Before the war, 20 million barrels a day passed through the Strait. That would be about 600 million barrels a month, or about 4.2 billion barrels over the past seven months. So Centcom has supported a small fraction of the normal amount. Again, great job.
I suppose there might be a sense of being relevant for someone to obsess about the shifting status of a remote waterway that is no longer the center of attention.
Now that the day-to-day situation in the Strait depends on what the United States wants it to be, the Strait is no longer a source of control and leverage for Iran but just another waterway leading from one country to another. But if it soothes you to keep track of traffic there, well, you just keep on being you.
“Another thing——he says”…..Your obsession with every word, every phrase, every statement, made by Trump is really sad and, also, a little annoying. I mean, if this is what it takes for you to think your life has meaning, that’s fine, but you really need to get over the delusion that whining about it to us is going to make any difference. And your inability to grasp the big picture of global oil supply, markets and movements has been more than adequately illustrated here—you don’t need to keep belaboring the point.
The fact is, taking control of the Strait caused a massive reset of global oil traffic, and there is no reason to try to go back to old traffic levels through the Strait. It is still there, and will probably regain some of its old levels, but nations have found other ways to get their oil. And that was the whole idea—-erode the leverage of Strait control, to erode leverage by Iran on world oil markets. The fact that this worked, and that the world is still getting its oil in spite of reduced Strait traffic, seems to either elude you or just be swatted aside because it has nothing to do with your incessant griping about how the Trump administration TALKED about it.
What’s funny is that what you probably thought was scathing sarcasm—“great job”—-is actually an appropriate kudo for accomplishing the reset and freeing the world from the stranglehold on shipping that gave Iran so much power.
A couple of thoughts: Disruption of global oil supplies is down from a peak of 14 million barrels a day to around 5-7 million since the start of the Iran conflict. During the same period global oil demand has dropped by around 4-1/2 million barrels. So, not quite back to normal, but pretty close in terms of supply and demand. Higher gas prices are being driven more by refining problems than by global movement of crude oil.
I suppose there might be a sense of being relevant for someone to obsess about the shifting status of a remote waterway that is no longer the center of attention.
First of all, welcome back. Second, as I mentioned the other day, throughout his now admittedly 2 plus decades here, Forty/Rocks/Cody/Howie/DanHicks/JAG’s MO has always been trying to make the fly shit in the pepper shaker seem relevant, OR his “points”, such as they, are are either false or proven to be false, often within a 24-hour news cycle. AND, he apparently doesn’t mind being shown as a complete fool over and over and over. There’s a medical term for that, but it escapes me at the moment. It feels like I’m picking on a kid on the short bus, but a kid who keeps saying “hit me again.”
The fact is, taking control of the Strait caused a massive reset of global oil traffic, and there is no reason to try to go back to old traffic levels through the Strait.
AND, a fact that no one is mentioning is that around 2 million barrels of oil per month that used to go through the Strait of Hormuz was exported from IRAN. That number is now ZERO!
Excellent point.
Peering through a narrow soda straw only at a designated subject means a remarkably narrow perspective, yet this describes the troll focus on the Strait of Hormuz—limited to what it is now carrying and even more crucial WHAT DID TRUMP SAY ABOUT IT?
Forget that Big Picture approach, which would include the loss of Iran’s control and leverage over the Strait and Iran’s loss of economic power through the effects of our actions on her oil industry, from production to storage to export. Understanding the broad scope of the situation is just so darned HARD, when the goal is not understanding but mere parroting of pre-digested talking points. (And remember, “pre-digested” can only emerge from one of two exit points, known as the “vomit/poo” option, neither of which is very valuable.)
I do trust Trump – and his people. They say it is so, then it is.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Listen to you. According to you, everybody lies… except for Trump and “his people.” “Centcom says it is open – that means it is open.” No, it doesn’t. All it means is that they say so. Give us facts. Your ideology is blinding.
But even if he’s telling the truth, it’s still not convincing, as I pointed out.
So then you start with the deflections. Why should I care? The Strait is irrelevant. I’m regurgitating bot talking points. We’re actually swimming in oil (which is why prices are so high). Disruption of the oil supply is not as bad as it was earlier in the war, but still bad. Etc., etc.
And now we’re way off from the original point, which was yours and Childers’s assertion that the US “controls” the Strait. As I said, great job, everybody.
And now we’re way off from the original point, which was yours and Childers’s assertion that the US “controls” the Strait.” Define “open”—preferably without hand-waving or consulting notes.
Exactly. If you lay claim to the definition you can then whinge and gripe to your heart’s content, and make enough noise to try to cover your ignorance about the real factors in gasoline/diesel pricing—the fact that you still try to link oil supply with refined oil prices at the pump.
Are you denying that we control the Strait? Are you denying that we could close it again if we decided to do so? Thanks for the reminder that memory depends on information being lodged in the cerebral cortex in the first place, not just imitated by parroting talking points. We did shut it down, we did then control the shipping we allowed to go through in several ways including cutting off the stranglehold of British insurance control by doing an end run around it, and we did then announce that shipping could resume. When you have the proven power to shut down the Strait and reopen it at will, and lay down the parameters of acceptable shipping, you “control” it. Duh.
How are you defining “control”?
And then, the effort to be sarcastic, while actually stating a fact: “As I said, great job, everybody”. (Is there extra credit for repeating that phrase, or do you just think it’s really clever?)
I guess he’s denying that we are blockading Iran, too. That we aren’t diligently preventing a drop of Iranian oil from reaching the market.
Thank you for proving my assertion, which is that “you” (plural ‘you’) are unserious commenters, but merely playing a game of moving words around and bickering, to get attention. Rephrase a comment to allow for a snide “response” etc. and maybe you can keep your facade of discourse staggering along a while longer. (And don’t forget that invaluable go-to of just complaining about MY posts.)
“even if he’s telling the truth, it’s still not convincing”
An actual admission that truth is not what matters, it’s all about how one FEELS (convinced) that matters. It’s not surprising that this is the way you people “think”, just a little surprise at seeing enough introspection to recognize and acknowledge it.
Great job.
And now we’re way off from the original point, which was yours and Childers’s assertion that the US “controls” the Strait.” Define “open”—preferably without hand-waving or consulting notes.
Aw, we’ve missed you and your word games. Typically, one would consider the Strait “open” when traffic is flowing through it freely. Traffic is not flowing through it freely. But let’s just point out that the assertion was that the US “controls” the Strait. (See how you deflect?) And I pointed out that we’re doing a great job of controlling the Strait.
Is there extra credit for repeating that phrase, or do you just think it’s really clever?
You tell me. Did you get extra credit for repeating the phrase “Why do you care”? Or did you think that was really clever?
Thank you so much for making yet another point for me. That is, that the strategy behind the troll droppings is just to try to pump up as much energy as possible into a non-topic to generate as much response as possible, irrespective of the failure to engage in real discourse or advance a thought or idea.
So we encounter the circular logic throttling your whole Strait of Hormuz panic effort to make something out of nothing. For example, where is the evidence that reduced Strait traffic, such as it might be, is imposed rather than decisions made by shippers? You fret that “Traffic is not flowing through it freely” but fail to follow up with empirical evidence that this is due to whatever malfeasance of Trump you have decided to invent today. Which traffic? What kind of traffic? And what is the problem? Too much control? Then why gripe about what you assert is a false claim that we control it? Too little control, proving Trump a liar? Then why is lack of control a deciding factor in reduced traffic? Pick a lane….
“Why do you care?” is a legitimate question, albeit one steadfastly ignored because the answer is that you don’t care because your feigned concerns are silly nonsense existing merely to provide the pretense of actual political discourse. It’s not necessarily a clever question, just an obvious one. Which you can’t answer.
While squirming around trying to make sense out of simultaneously complaining that Trump lied about controlling the Strait and complaining that his control is strangling traffic there (which I think you are trying to imply though incoherently) you just step all over your own arguments. You admit that your effort was to ” point(ed) out that we’re doing a great job of controlling the Strait” while being unable to settle on what this supposedly means.
All of which is just noise, because the situation there is irrelevant except to the companies deciding whether to not to take that route. Options for obtaining oil are in place and functioning with or without the Strait, with or without Trump control. So take a breath, take a pill, and wait for your next spate of blog posting instructions. Maybe they will be more relevant and interesting and less demanding.
So we encounter the circular logic throttling your whole Strait of Hormuz panic effort to make something out of nothing. For example, where is the evidence that reduced Strait traffic, such as it might be, is imposed rather than decisions made by shippers?
I’m not panicking about anything. I responded to Mark’s assertion, ““We control all sea routes. All air routes, too.” I said, “Really? Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which according to you we ‘control,’ remains almost nonexistent. Great job, everybody.”
I’m not squirming or fretting about anything, but nice try throwing out your well-worn tropes. Rather, you are doing the squirming, looking for anything that will stick. Meanwhile, you are unable to point to any data that shows that traffic is flowing through the Strait at anywhere near pre-war levels. In fact, you’ve just given up on that one and now claim that near non-existent traffic is by design. Or you just deflect. You criticize me for analyzing the minute and a half that Centcom deigned to give us, as though that were a sufficient explanation of the situation at the Strait. And just look at your latest comment. It’s actually quite amusing.
You made the wild leap from controlling a geographic area to decisions by independent business entities about where to point their boats.
You actually seem to think you are making a point when you say I am “unable to point to any data that shows that traffic is flowing through the Strait at anywhere near pre-war levels” and then go on to simply lie and claim I “now claim that near non-existent traffic is by design”. I not only never said that “traffic is flowing through the Strait at anywhere near pre-war levels” I said Trump made the Strait of Hormuz irrelevant. That means, of course, that it is no longer the only option available—and when options are available changes occur. And of course I never claimed that traffic, whether impeded or increased or at any particular level, is “by design”.
You know what I CAN point to? The increasingly obvious determination to keep flogging this non-topic for as long as you can to generate as many clicks as possible. I keep telling other blog members this is the agenda, that of trying to lure us into as many responses as possible, and I have played the game to illustrate this. I have led you into contradictory assertions and lying to generate more discussion, and you have proved every point I have made about you. (Plural “you”—interchangeable trolls or aliases)
Glad you are amused. I found it pretty funny, myself.
You’re per usual for the Left, moving the goal posts. Either it is open or it is not. Either 13 transited today (which they did) or none – if it is open, 13 transited, if it closed, none did.
Since 13 transited today, that means it is open – anyone who wants to send a ship through, can.
Iran has no Navy. It has no air force. Any time it tries to light up a ship, we whack them.
We won the war. Its over.
When you dig down through the dreck of the troll droppings you are reminded that the issue that has so many panties in such tight damp little wads is not how many ships are going through the Strait, or even why, but what Trump said. Lots of ships, not “enough” ships, that metric is fluid. But it’s really about TRUMP and how they FEEL about it.
Yep – meanwhile, tankers holding 6 million barrels of Iranian oil are crossing the sea to US ports – oil we took from Iran and have generously given to ourselves. Last I checked, the side doing that sort of thing was the winning side. The Iran boosters are Goebbles in April of 1945 shouting “Berlin remains German! Vienna will be German again!”.
You’re per usual for the Left, moving the goal posts. Either it is open or it is not. Either 13 transited today (which they did) or none – if it is open, 13 transited, if it closed, none did.
Moving the goal posts? Where did I do that?
But, wow, 13 ships transited today. That’s more than a hundred short of pre-war volume. I guess we’re supposed to believe this was the preferred outcome all along. Bullshit.
Open, or closed?
Seems to be open.
Seems like we control it.
These guys just get funnier and funnier. It’s hard to tell when they are really illustrating clinical levels of cluelessness and when they might know better but are happy to act dumber than boxes of hair. The thing is—it doesn’t matter. It’s all just noise.
But to try to sell the silliness that the “preferred outcome” of closing the Strait was merely to affect long-term shipping levels and not to exert leverage on Iran while simultaneously resetting global shipping to remove the Strait from its former position of near-absolute control is an even bigger stretch than their usual nonsense.
I suppose we could play along and point out that yes, dramatically reduced numbers of ships using the Strait WAS a “preferred outcome” as this has an impact on Iranian power in the area.
You’re per usual for the Left, moving the goal posts.
Talk about moving the goal posts!
Yesterday you claimed “Ship traffic has been back to pre-war normal for a month.” Today you acknowledge that 13 ships–13!–passed through the Strait today. That would be about a tenth of the daily average before Trump launched his war. You moved the goal posts to another stadium. lol
As for open versus closed: First, if you read my comments I didn’t say it was closed. I was mocking you for the US’s claim to “control” the Strait. Second, I suppose in the narrowest since you can claim that if even one ship passes through the Strait, it must be open. Fine. Third, Amazona asked me to define “open,” even though I was talking about control. I wrote, “Typically, one would consider the Strait ‘ope’” when traffic is flowing through it freely. Traffic is not flowing through it freely. But let’s just point out that the assertion was that the US ‘controls’ the Strait. (See how you deflect?) And I pointed out that we’re doing a great job of controlling the Strait.”
How long do you plan to continue this breathless litany of whining about how many ships are using the Strait? You have twisted yourself and your silly arguments into nearly every pretzel shape possible, and still never made a valid point. Bickering about the definition of “open” and “closed” and inventing metrics for acceptable (to you) shipping traffic is really, to use a Kurt Schlichter term, mere onanism that may pleasure you but is really just annoying.
And you are not distracting from the fact that this whole bickerfest originated not in the actual number of ships using the Strait but in WHAT TRUMP SAID.
How long do you plan to continue this breathless litany of whining about how many ships are using the Strait?
How long do you all plan to continue asking me about it? I’m responding to direct questions.
Meanwhile, ya gotta admit, claiming on one day that traffic is back to normal, then claiming on the next day that it’s a tenth of normal, is some pretty special goal post moving.
“Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which according to you we “control,” remains almost nonexistent.” Yet somehow, almost as if by magic, oil continues to arrive in countries that used to get their oil through the Strait. Oh me, oh my, how can that be? Could it be, could it possibly be, that once other options for oil delivery were explored/developed the Strait lost its power and became less relevant regarding maritime shipping? And—just spitballing here, you understand—-could it be that this was the strategy all along? After all, the whole Strait of Hormuz kerfluffle was really about Iran’s ability to flex and bully other nations. Take away that control, and you take away a lot of Iran’s power and influence. And we did, and it did.
Gee, it’s almost as if there was a plan in play. Hmmmm.
More to the point, how can the Strait continue to be flogged to the masses as the most important subject in the world, in a sad and feeble effort to use it, somehow, to portray Trump as ineffective? Because THAT is the sole agenda—therefore, the obsessive focus on how the Trump administration PHRASED its comments on the Strait.
Yep – here’s the reality:
We’re floating on oil. There is no shortage. The high price is merest market manipulation – the money bags want it high so that it might harm Trump and MAGA in November. Another cause for high prices here in the West is that high taxes and crippling regulations are shutting down refineries in California (my view is that we here in Nevada should build some refineries…and maybe an oil pipeline from Texas/Oklahoma).
“The high price is merest market manipulation – the money bags want it high so that it might harm Trump and MAGA in November.”
That is exactly what I told a friend the other day when she worried that the high gas prices might end up losing Congress in November. I told her that is the whole idea—that blind ISSUES voters will be giving complete control over our government to a few market managers who only have to keep gas prices cranked up to damage Republican chances in the election.
There are so many ways to rig an election, ranging from market manipulation to media manipulation, that ballot manipulation is only one weapon the Cheaters Arsenal. This is the danger of ISSUES politics, of Identity Politics—-overlooking the fact that a vote is not for a person or an ISSUE but for a SYSTEM of government, a system that when analyzed is not really what most people want when the choice is between it and more political control left to the states or to the people.
A typical exchange with an ISSUES voter might be: “(Q): Why did you vote the way you did? (A): Because gas prices are so high”. Followup question: So you want power consolidated in the hands of a few elites because you think the president controls gas prices? (A): “huh”?
No clue that ISSUES are the bait to lure voters into voting for a system. None whatsoever. No concept of the fact that any ISSUE can be addressed in either of our two competing systems, if we only understand how they work, and that any single ISSUE as the basis for vote is not only foolish, it is downright stupid.
(BTW the marking of the word ISSUES in all-caps bolded italics is my effort to convey the sneering dismissive way I say the word vocally, to indicate my scorn for it.)
“(my view is that we here in Nevada should build some refineries…and maybe an oil pipeline from Texas/Oklahoma)”
This reminds me of comments I made about the oil pipeline from the prodigious Baaken oil fields in North Dakota and eastern Montana—why spend billions to ship crude oil from the north down to the Gulf states (where refineries are often damaged by hurricanes) so the refined product can then be shipped back north? Why not build at least one big refinery near the Canadian border to handle the oil being pumped in the area, and then distribute that gasoline and diesel and fuel oil along the northern tier of the country?
“We’re floating on oil. There is no shortage. The high price is merest market manipulation – the money bags want it high so that it might harm Trump and MAGA in November. “
Why would the oil companies which spent millions getting Trump and MAGA elected now try to harm them? And why isn’t the Trump administration doing anything about it?
Just what should the Trump administration “do” about corporate decisions affecting the pump prices of gas and diesel? Are you advocating for the fascist model of government being part of industry? Nationalization, perhaps? What kind of political or economic pressure should/could Trump apply to entities he thinks are acting to rig an election by manipulating economics?
Which “oil companies” spent how many “millions” to get “Trump and MAGA elected”? Have any other mega-billion entities supported Dem candidates? Why?
Why would the oil companies which spent millions getting Trump and MAGA elected now try to harm them?
Good question, considering Trump has done everything possible to curtail other forms of energy production and protect the fossil fuel industry.
That rustling sound you heard was poor panicky “guy” rummaging around in the trash for something to post about Trump, now that the effort to make the old Strait of Hormuz issue relevant.
Of course, it means showcasing another case of the stoopids, but whatever…..
Check out the old Joe Rogan/Trump interview where he went into such great and knowledgeable detail about the need to develop nuclear power and the insane regulations interfering with this.
Or maybe recognizing and discussing the fatal flaws in the “renewable energy” scam is now defined as “curtailing other forms of energy”. That is possible, given the near-religious fervor of the solar/wind advocates. It’s just that Trump, as a businessman, is used to applying reason and logic to problem solving, and when it comes to the beloved “renewables” the math just isn’t there.
“Just what should the Trump administration “do” about corporate decisions affecting the pump prices of gas and diesel? “
I’m not saying They need to do anything. Mark is the one saying they are out to get Trump. If they are doing so illegally then you think the Justice department would be investigating.
Which “oil companies” spent how many “millions” to get “Trump and MAGA elected”?
I’ll let you start here.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/23/big-oil-445m-trump-congress
You complained that the Trump administration wasn’t doing anything. Now you’re saying “I’m not saying They need to do anything. ”
Then you say “If they are doing so illegally” when no one mentioned legality. In other words you invented the straw man of illegality, and then responded to it.
And finally, you cite the Guardian.
In hockey this would be called a hat trick, three examples of why you are irrelevant
Oil companies don’t set prices – the market does; and if you start shutting down refineries and find people willing to lose money by bidding up the price of gasoline you get higher prices.
Reading through the posts I see our resident Democrats think the biggest problem is gas prices. Now coming from a party that wants men like them to beat girls in sports competitions, want to dismantle the Senate and Supreme Court, promote no cash bail, want illegals to have drivers licenses, celebrate abortion to the point of infanticide, and look the other way when fraud is mentioned, I would say gas prices rank pretty low.
They and their ideology are insane and gas prices wont even put a dent into that insanity. MAGA will roll in November.
Reading through the posts I see our resident Democrats think the biggest problem is gas prices
You have a reading comprehension problem. I didn’t bring up gas prices, but Amazona, Mark and Spook sure were happy to talk about it.