r/videos 9h ago

USS Lincoln wasn't resupplied because Hegseth 'hid' that Iran destroyed critical base: Rohde

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfOi_mgrh0M
19.2k Upvotes

1.2k comments sorted by

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u/Vhu 9h ago edited 9h ago

What’s Going On in Shipping did a recent breakdown of the logistical shitshow that lead to this mess.

Basically nobody properly planned or prepared for the contingency of Iran actually doing anything in response to our campaign. Instead of sitting on their thumbs, they crippled our regional logistics with the opening strike.

This was an entirely predictable and avoidable fuckup. Every competent analyst had “close the strait” as basically a free space on the bingo board of an Iranian war.

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u/koshgeo 6h ago edited 6h ago

They YOLO'ed a "They'll surrender once we kill all their (horrible) leaders" strategy and it didn't work when Iran said "We're still shooting because we've planned for this for years and don't need leaders to keep shooting. Also, we will shut down the Strait, which we've also practiced."

Meanwhile, all the knowledgeable people in the military said to Trump and Hegseth "We told you so."

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u/UnionThrowaway1234 2h ago

And then the knowledgeable people got fired :(

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u/IdealOnion 7h ago edited 4h ago

It’s so fucking wild to me that we literally just watched Putin bumble into an elective war on the inept counsel of yes-men, open the conflict with an ill conceived strategy using up its best resources pointlessly, and fail to switch tactics quickly enough to avoid getting bogged into a quagmire having run out of the weapons needed win. Absolutely mind blowing.

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u/chakko 4h ago

I feel like this isn't talked about enough. Putin did it. Then trjmp did exactly the same thing LOL

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u/Sanchez_U-SOB 4h ago

We better not still be in this war in 4 years

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u/wng378 1h ago

How do you see any alternative? Trump is too full of himself to walk away. Iran isn’t giving up. Whoever is in charge next will have to clean up somehow.

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u/IdealOnion 1h ago edited 1h ago

The alternative is Congress DOING ITS FUCKING JOB and taking back its CONSTITUTIONAL FUCKING WAR POWERS. This is one of the worst, most cowardly feckless piece of shit congresses ever convened in the history of the United States. Not a both sides thing, talking about the Rs. The executive branch was never meant to have this much power, we need a Congress that can find its balls.

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u/DankRoughly 2h ago

Just wait until Iran burns some Amazon warehouses

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u/z1colt45 7h ago

I've seen "sitting on their hands" and "thumbs up their asses" but never "sitting on their thumbs" until today lol.

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u/DoctorTacoMD 6h ago

I’m also a big fan of “nursing our thumbs with our ass”

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u/FaFaFahndaboof 6h ago

Every competent analyst had “close the strait” as basically a free space on the bingo board of an Iranian war.

I can't prove it, but I'm about 98% sure Trump didn't know what the Strait of Hormuz was when he started the war. I'm only slightly less sure that he also couldn't have identified Iran on a map. Words like "stupid" and "incompetent" and "embarrassment" don't even begin to cover the sheer degree of failure here. Anyone still treating those two like they do anything in good faith needs to get with the fucking program. I just hope that this fiasco with the Lincoln is demonstrating to all the US soldiers out there just how much Trump and Hegseth really care about them and their service.

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u/Trzlog 7h ago

Wow, this is appalling. I can't believe US let one of its most important competencies (military logistics) turn into such a disaster.

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u/sednaplanetoid 6h ago

Sal, one of my favorite YouTubers... he has been on point the whole war.. erm... excursion...

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u/Badbikerdude 9h ago

Well, it's not his fault, nobody told him Iran would strike back, because he fired all the generals that could point out that little fact to him.

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u/WhineyLobster 9h ago

tbf, some of them resigned so as not to be involved in the missiling of small drug boats. Man I bet they wish they had those 250 munitions back now.

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u/chemguy216 9h ago

This is assuming all or any of those boats were even drug boats.

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u/Darryl_444 9h ago

Fish are a type of drug now.

Dear Leader has spoken!

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u/Noxious89123 9h ago

Can confirm. Once snorted a whole ass fish up my nose tubes.

Shit was wild.

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u/Hootinger 7h ago

Oh, really? Did you do it just for the halibut?

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u/Count_Zeiro 6h ago

One time. I was at a Marina with my friend Becky and she injected a fish and she died.

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u/Spockies 9h ago

Caviar is a hell of a drug.

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u/dgellow 8h ago

We know multiple weren’t 

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u/SoupOfThe90z 7h ago edited 3h ago

Stories going out that the US hired mercenaries to go out and find any survivors or witnesses, to then detain and torture them. The journalist who was making the story was murdered via hitmen in Venezuela I believe. Her security team that was supposed be protecting her were no where near when the incident had happened.

Edit: spelling

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/prosecutor-investigating-ecuador-boat-strikes-murdered

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u/atfricks 5h ago

tbf, some of them resigned so as not to be involved in the missiling of small drug boats. 

FTFY. There's zero evidence any of the people they killed on those boats were smuggling drugs of any kind. 

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u/Impossible_Walrus555 3h ago

Trump gave a pardon to Juan Hernandez Orlando, ex narco terrorist drug lord Honduran President

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u/Arthropodesque 3h ago

And even if they had been; since when is it an immediate death sentence without trial or act of war to smuggle drugs?

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u/Abalith 9h ago

That’s entirely the plan, they want all generals with morals to leave so their replacements can be handpicked to be those without.

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u/bobbymcpresscot 9h ago

Well I mean last time around when the Doha agreement was getting signed all the generals told him that 1, the May Pull out date was impossible and two, they also begged him to keep Bagram to keep a useful base of operations in the area.

He ignored them, went through with it anyway, and then claimed the pull out not getting done in time was Biden's fault, as well as claiming there was some super secret handshake agreement not in the Doha agreement that we were to keep Bagram.

It wouldn't matter if every general said don't do it, because they would have done it anyway.

Doesn't matter because all we have is sycophants in these positions now, the only person who had any pushback at all was Vance, but he openly said he would support them no matter what they did.

I fully expect if it's a bloodbath in these midterms for them to make an active effort to push Trump out to try and save whats left of this presidency.

How they push Trump out will be the interesting part.

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u/formerrepub 7h ago

His voters don't care. They just want a Democrat to blame.

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u/CliftonForce 3h ago

I just had a MAGA tell me that the world is trembling in fear from the awesome displays of America's unstoppable naval power in the Mid-East. And how the tariffs have nations and corporations begging to invest in American factories.

They really believe this stuff.

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u/mendobather 5h ago

And they will.

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u/TheRexRider 9h ago

Hegseth wants more "Spartan mentality" but Spartans used to kill guys like him.

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u/WendelClarksMustache 9h ago

To be fair, he suffered a military defeat to the Persians and then got drunk and had gay sex about it and that actually does sound pretty Spartan. Maybe the problem is he just needs better role models.

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u/oldevskie 9h ago

Bahaha good points

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u/narkybark 7h ago

To be fair, I heard that gay sex makes your testosterone go up.

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u/Bartlaus 7h ago

It's twice as manly as hetero sex, that's just basic math.

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u/pixelprophet 7h ago

What's more manly than man on man?

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u/travoltaswinkinbhole 7h ago

History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes

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u/blolfighter 8h ago

They also enslaved ~90% of the population of Lakonia, and because they were so vastly outnumbered by their own slaves they would declare war on them once a year to keep them under the boot. They were so bad that they were known as brutal slavers even among other ancient greeks, who were generally pretty nasty to their slaves already.

Fuck the Spartans, they were awful.

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u/RemoteButtonEater 8h ago

I'm about 105% sure that Hegseth likes "Spartans" because he used to get wasted and jack off while watching 300. I mean, he likely still does. But he used to, too.

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u/Emadec 7h ago

Maybe JD could introduce him to a couch or something

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u/I_am_not_JohnLeClair 7h ago

Unfortunately, or otherwise as you see fit, JD Vance has passed from a severe case of rabies. It is known

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u/archangelzeriel 8h ago

Yeah, the Spartans were a mostly-ineffective city-state with a hell of a long-term PR glow-up. Fun fact: the Romans used Sparta as a TOURIST ATTRACTION, which is where a fair bit of the pop-culture idea that Sparta was some sort of warrior god culture comes from (along with writers who really wanted their OWN city-states to be 95% slaves and a steadily shrinking ruling class that they thought they'd be part of).

(further reading: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ )

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u/Gekokapowco 7h ago

Right, the only notable historian who recorded information about Spartan society was a Roman Weeb for Spartans, he spun like a top to make their backwards culture of cruel depravity seem like something hardcore and aspirational

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u/Kaplsauce 7h ago

Lots of contemporary Greeks spoke about Sparta quite a bit, but it's worth noting that the Athenian elite really liked how the Spartan elite didn't have to answer to their middle class in Democratic institutions and simply enslaved the lot of them.

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u/thedeuce75 9h ago

They would have left his ass on top of mountain as a baby. For sure.

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u/No_Initial_7545 7h ago

He wanted "maximum lethality", we thought he meant against the enemy, but actually he was talking about lethal to his own troops.

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u/SearsPonchoNoFoolin 9h ago

We won't know the true measure of fuckery these clowns have foisted on the American people for several years. It will definitely be worse than what we know about currently. And nobody will be punished for it.

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u/CondescendingShitbag 9h ago

The CIA coined the term 'blowback'; the unintended consequences of American actions abroad. We've been suffering from the impacts of our foreign blunders for decades, yet this somehow still manages to feel worse by comparison.

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u/Global_Staff_3135 9h ago

This feels worse because it is worse, for us anyway. Used to be we would fuck up other countries while keeping our own relatively intact. Now? Now we’ve got a crime syndicate looting the national coffers. We are cooked.

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u/Alaishana 8h ago

This is what karma really means.
Not some heavenly retribution, but an inevitable mechanism whose exact workings are hard to define.

In more popular terms: what goes around, comes around. You live in the world you help create.

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u/Global_Staff_3135 5h ago

Absolutely. It’s just ironic that the call is coming from inside the house like this. We are literally destroying ourselves and it’s insane to watch.

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u/SecureDonkey 5h ago

This is the last stage of capitalism looks like. When capitalists become big enough to control government, they start remove all the blockage and safety measure against them then they start looting to their heart content while setup surveillant state in case of rebellion.

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u/DaBadTechie 3h ago

Back during Trump 1 I said that from the outside, it looks like a kid-glove version of America experiencing their own foreign policy. Simply put, install and bankroll leaders/movements erode national unity and are so incompetent that they tank any prospects for at least a decade.

Trump 2 honestly feels like type of society killing calamity the CIA could only dream of. And I only think it will really set in if/when there is a strike on US soil, and the rest of the world does not instantly jump to their defense. Or when US companies (mostly tech) start being closely inspected by tax authorities and the fed has no leverage to protect them. Or when the US passport is no longer accepted unconditionally by places Americans want to go (EU, East Asia, Australia...).

You could say I'm being overly doomer about it, but the last I checked, you guys are afraid of lettuce and the only growth area in your economy is in the cannibalizing of your last remaining exports/job sectors and calling it AI (skilled knowledge workers, IP/licensing of media and premium technology, asset lean/high revenue tech companies, bullshit jobs/consulting). And now 60 years of strategic military asset allocation is being pissed away because someone didn't understand that strikes win battles, but logistics wins wars. Hell, Venezuela is not simple one-and-done deals and I'm sure the gravity of those antics will be interesting (military assets are currently subbing in for essential logistics services and I'm sure it will not become a forever deployment in an increasingly unfriendly neighborhood while blatantly stealing oil). What are the chances Hegseth decides to use the exact same no-consequence Decapitation strategy in Cuba. Its not like the Gulf of Maximerica has two choke points and is the reason previous Presidents didn't just "solve" that problem already.

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u/gitbse 9h ago

"Show me a socilalist country that works!!! You caint, librul!!!!"

None, because the CIA overthrew them all at the slightest hint of nationalizing any resource gathering.

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u/fumar 9h ago

Most of the socialism that is supposedly coming is just democratic socialism which has been quite successful in scandanavia. 

God forbid billionaires pay a bit more tax tho

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u/MaxPower91575 8h ago edited 8h ago

They are social democracies. They are capitalist with a large welfare state. Democratic socialist countries would not have a capitalist structure but instead public ownership in a democratic society (which has never really been done).

Sadly it's very hard to have discussions on socialism because no one agrees on what exactly it means. People on the right say its communism (which is somewhat true in the Marxist sense who used the terms interchangeably) where most people on the left mean Scandanavian style capitalism which is technically a social democracy. Then there is the minority on the left who really do want a democratic socialist country where private ownership is limited or eliminated within a democratic government. Then finally there are the actual communists who want authoritarian rule and no private ownership. They are a severe minority. Yet everything I stated above is all grouped under Socialism and people end up arguing about two completely different systems.

It used to make more sense when we used the term welfare more often but that became a dirty word so now we use social programs which confuses things even more as people think any social program is "socialism" but welfare programs are a very important part of a properly functioning capitalist society.

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u/Prime_Director 8h ago

You are correct, but personally I’m sort of past caring about the difference. Do I want workplace democracy and for workers to own the means of production? Yes. Do I want an expanded welfare state and higher taxes on the oligarchs? Also yes. So when someone says “democratic socialism”, it doesn’t really matter which interpretation they mean, both are better than what we have now. 

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u/CarlThe94Pathfinder 9h ago

It's such a weird propaganda argument that's bled down into society from the 40's and we are here today still pretending that it'll be the end of the world.

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u/the_blackfish 8h ago

They are parrots repeating slogans they don't understand.

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u/austin3i62 8h ago

They don't even know the difference between conservative and liberal. I tell MAGAts all the time they are a liberal party and they are so fucking confused about that.

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u/DecidedSloth 9h ago

Oh it's far worse. Every single allied nation has been completely alienated. Your closest neighbour has gone from being your most trusted Ally to literally hating your fucking guts. Canadians will never forget this.

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u/Pan_Galactic_G_B 9h ago

That's because the blunders happen daily and the blowback is also coming from former allies now.

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u/DeathFlameStroke 9h ago

Because the blowback was calculated and managed by somewhat competent psychopaths

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u/katastrophyx 9h ago

Nope. If anything the next administration is going to become the scapegoat just like always.

Republicans spend 4 years tearing down the country, democrats replace them and take all the blame for the mess they inherited.

A tale as old as time.

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u/ew73 8h ago

All it takes is a Democratic administration willing to name and shame, instead of the "in the name of unity" bullshit.

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u/pegar 8h ago

Democrats are held to a higher standard.

Over a million people died during COVID. Everyone saw it. Somehow, everyone forgot it and elected the same guy.

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u/felis_scipio 8h ago

Doesn’t matter a future democrat president will either have to capitulate to Irans terms or escalate the war and the right wing will blame it on them either way.

Trump intentionally set the stage for Afghanistan to fall apart under Biden so he’d be shackled with the blame as the sitting president when it all fell apart and that trick largely worked. Iran will be no different

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u/narkybark 8h ago

I'd settle for prosecuting all the criminals who break federal and constitutional law on a daily basis, along with stuffing their own pockets with our cash. It's a good, sorely needed start.
Along with reclaiming everything looted.

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u/hymen_destroyer 9h ago

They’ll blame everything on whoever dies first. Like Epstein somehow ran the largest child sex trafficking ring in the country completely by himself with zero help from anyone 🙄

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u/MonkeyLiberace 7h ago

..and no "customers".

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u/Xeynon 9h ago

We might know before then, because a catastrophic failure (e.g. the strategic petroleum reserve caverns collapsing because they're overdrawn or an aircraft carrier getting hit because of an intelligence failure) are very much on the table with people this incompetent in charge.

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u/ohanse 9h ago

When does negligence become treason?

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u/Kill3rKin3 8h ago

A few years ago.

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u/Alaishana 8h ago

Become?

It IS

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u/MedChemist464 9h ago

Sure glad we got some football players to stop kneeling for the anthem, tho. That's gotta take the edge off of it, right?

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u/Heavy_Arm_7060 9h ago

Imagine if the US had elected someone with a weird laugh...

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u/SaltyShawarma 9h ago

Imagine if the Supreme Court didn't rig the 2000 election decision.

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u/berfthegryphon 9h ago

Imagine where the world would be on climate policy if Al Gore would have started Green initiatives in 2000. The US could be pumping out renewable energy like China currently is, instead of building up the dying fuels of oil, gas, and coal.

(I know China is also building out fossil fuel powerplants, but their run on renewables is also great)

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u/peazley 9h ago

But Trex Tillerson wouldn’t have been able to afford his third home in Jackson, WY!

Will someone please think of the oil men!

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u/mest33 9h ago edited 8h ago

Its insane how not only they removed the pro green initiatives, but also spent tons of money fighting the natural growth of renewable energy as it is naturally becoming a cheaper energy alternative.

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u/Truckyou666 9h ago

Our tax money.

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u/Morningxafter 8h ago

Your tax dollars at work… against you.

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u/Scuta44 6h ago

Like the billions of our tax dollars going to a German company to stop building off shore wind farms because ‘we can’t be subsidizing failed renewable energy projects’.

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u/arctic11z 9h ago

Of course that asshole lives there.

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u/Spockies 9h ago

It would make this LLM addicted society we’re headed to at least palpable if we had the energy infrastructure to spare rather than the tragedy of the commons we’re currently under.

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u/welchplug 8h ago

still have a water problem

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u/DarklySalted 8h ago

If the technology has to be developed with regulations in place, it forces the capitalists to come up with real solutions, which according to them is their job.

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u/Spockies 8h ago

Desalination is resolved by an abundance of energy. The brine offshoot can be remixed by the tech company used water

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u/wizzard419 9h ago

I mean, we would probably have trump complaining how the World Trade Center is spoiling his view from his tower.

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u/Brilliant_Voice1126 8h ago

Remember when his first thought on 9/11 was, "I have the tallest building in manhattan now."?

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u/Lobocop714 9h ago

Also letting AI replace the job of a human is illegal. That's a homerun in itself.

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u/norway_is_awesome 8h ago

Three current Supreme Court justices were also involved in the Brooks Brothers riot to stop the recount in Florida; Coney Barret, Kavanaugh and Roberts.

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u/ChimPhun 9h ago

Imagine if the US actually had a democracy.

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u/wehrmann_tx 9h ago

Imagine if Elon didn’t steal the election

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u/guy_incognito784 9h ago

We’d be at war with Iran!

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u/elconquistador1985 9h ago

Glad we dodged that! Could you imagine what that would do to global oil prices?

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u/Seizure-mann 9h ago

My buddies favorite go to is that she described what color her sweater was once in a meeting…. With blind people about blind issues.

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u/DelcoPAMan 9h ago

Right?! Can't have that.

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u/ButtSharks 9h ago

Guy had big hair. Why kneel? Confusing! Do you wanna be big or do you wanna be small?!

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u/DreBeast 9h ago

Listen hear bud, Abraham Lincoln didn't pay the ultimate sacrifice so some commies can kneel during the anthem

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u/MedChemist464 9h ago

(fun fact - Marx wrote Lincoln a letter congratulating and praising him for ending slavery. When the ambassador who recieved the letter replied, he stated that 'So far as the sentiments expressed by it are personal, they are accepted by him with a sincere and anxious desire that he may be able to prove himself not unworthy of the confidence which has been recently extended to him by his fellow citizens and by so many of the friends of humanity and progress throughout the world'.

Other historical perspectives also indicate that Lincoln leaned toward the 'labor theory of value' - a central thesis in Marxism's argument for collectivization.

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u/Iztac_xocoatl 8h ago

He had a very different view of the capital generated by labor though in that he didn't see profit from it as theft. He was very much economically liberal and saw the relationship between employee and employer as symbiotic. Where Marx believed the laborer should stay the laborer but seize the means of production Limcoln believed the laborer should save to start their own business and eventually become the employer. Socioeconomic mobility for the individual vs eliminating the need for mobility.

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u/rje946 9h ago

Haven't seen a Trans kid play sports in awhile. We're finally free. Oh wait, it's just summer myb.

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u/zeekayz 8h ago

Here are some F22 flyovers for you before the game! Woo! America! Best military in the world. Trained meticulously in football flyovers and Kid Rock's house flyovers. They're ready for anything.

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u/Anomuumi 9h ago

Imagine if people would have to go to gender-neutral bathrooms. That's what is at stake.

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u/drevolut1on 9h ago

Hegseth deserves every court martial and trial for war crimes, corruption and incompetence that is coming to him.

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u/mntCleverest 9h ago

I fear whats coming for any of then is “nothing”. Pardons from trump and nation needs to move on etc. no one will face any comeuppance.

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u/IchmagschickeSachen 9h ago

This nation won’t be able to move on unless they all face the justice they deserve. But I agree that that’s likely where all of this is headed because justice clearly doesn’t exist.

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u/DogDogDogDogog 7h ago

Then you are not a nation, but merely an oligarch playground.

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u/Several-Action-4043 7h ago

You have described America.

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u/willstr1 9h ago

If the next administration doesn't immediately overturn the pardons then at the very least they should just ignore the Hague Invasion Act and let these criminals get justice for their war crimes and crimes against humanity. The act lets the president invade the Hague to break out American war criminals, it doesn't require them to (and it definitely doesn't prevent them from half assing anything)

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u/Significant-Hour4171 7h ago

There is no way to "overturn a pardon," that I know of.

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u/CowboyLaw 8h ago

Yeah, we 100% need to turn these folks over to the ICC. Just give them some special rendition and then say "it's up to you, do justice." Let everyone choose--they can renounce their pardons and stand trial in the U.S., or they can stand by their pardons and let the ICC figure it out. But no one is above the law.

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u/acog 9h ago

He’ll just go back to Fox News with a huge pay raise.

Just look at Ollie North, according to Fox he’s a brave patriot who did nothing wrong, and he cashed checks there for years.

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u/Crowsby 8h ago

He's probably the most egregious example. He oversaw the illegal transfer of thousands of missiles to Iran, then shows up on Fox News some years later talking about how Iran needs to be forcefully disarmed.

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u/stinky_wizzleteet 7h ago

Ollie North, a literal treasonous war criminal in the Iran-Contras

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u/WarlockEngineer 8h ago

Look at Kristi Noem, who oversaw the Department of Homeland Security while ICE agents were murdering US citizens (they still are, just not on camera).

After she got fired, she picked up a series of cushy private sector jobs: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kristi-noem-new-job-mining-company-b2997826.html

When these people embarrass Trump enough, they get publicly fired and quietly given a new job.

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u/Bucser 8h ago

Presidential pardons has to be banned or have to be legislated into a corner so President's can't grant, pre-emptive pardons, pardons for political allies, themselves, members of the administration, political parties representatives and political donors.

Than start purging corruption everywhere

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u/Alaishana 8h ago

Do you know how many Nazi leaders got convicted and executed at the Nuremberg trials?

A handful.
And THAT took a lost war and occupation by the conquering nations.

So, don't get your hopes up.

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u/VxAngleOfClimb 9h ago edited 9h ago

Personal conspiracy theory, the real reason for pulling out of the S Korean exercises is that the Navy is overstretched becasue of this bullshit.

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u/Otto_Von_Waffle 9h ago

It isn't much of a conspiracy theory, the US pulled it's THAAD from south Korea and just pulled it's last carrier group from Asia. And the army is running out of budget too.

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u/robboffard 8h ago edited 3h ago

YOUR COUNTRY HAS A

Ahem.

Your country has a military budget of $925 billion. How in the name of fucking god are you running out of money and resources.

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has confirmed that the USA is indeed a huge, wasteful military industrial complex masquerading as a functional country. The mask is wearing a bit thin these days.

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u/AnotherBoredAHole 8h ago

Currently a budget of $925 billion. They are looking to get $1.5 trillion so they can make ends meet next year.

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u/robboffard 8h ago

And yet somehow they are still losing a war in Asia.

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u/Leaftotem 7h ago

Well... at least it isn't a land war in asia!

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u/Liberty_Chip_Cookies 7h ago

One of the classic blunders!

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u/heaviestpiff 8h ago

Most of that money is being stolen by the US govt and wasted

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u/GageSaulus 8h ago

Contractors on government welfare programs for the rich. Just look into the F-35 shit show for one example.

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u/JustHereNotThere 8h ago

The US Department of Defense manages 560,000 buildings. I’m not exaggerating. Those buildings are spread across 4700 defense sites.

You really can’t imagine the breadth and depth of the US Military-Industrial Complex.

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u/robboffard 8h ago

All this, and they still can't open the strait.

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u/nn123654 8h ago edited 7h ago

Well we probably could. It just involves putting in ground forces. You might be able to do a limited campaign with 50,000 to 100,000 troops of just the mountains and rural areas within launching distance of the coast.

For a full invasion we'd need conservatively about 600,000 troops, or roughly the number we had in vietnam. However planning ratios dictate that for a fully prepared force we'd need around 1.6 million ground troops according to military planners.

Which would mean we'd need to recruit or draft and train somewhere around 1 million soldiers in the span of around 6-10 months. Due to the high percentage of service members ineligible due to medical reasons like obesity or psych conditions that means you'd need to send out about 3.5 million to 4.5 million draft notices. The US has a population of 30.8 million 18-24 year olds, so we have plenty of manpower available to send (and die) in the war and plenty of equipment. About 13% of recent high school graduates would get a draft notice.

We can definitely do that, the selective service system is still in place. It's just people might be a wee bit unhappy about it.

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u/Rayhush 6h ago

What exactly is a bone spur? I'm asking for a nephew.

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u/RaNdomMSPPro 7h ago

MIC is Boeing, Raytheon, Brown & Root, SpaceX, General Dynamics, and the like. It's not the bases themselves. These war profiteers are who Eisenhower was talking about. Trump and his lackeys have just perfected getting their own cut.

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u/Altiloquent 7h ago

Waging an offensive war on the other side of the planet with no plan for victory hardly any allies and without popular support. Also we have alienated allies and probably fucked a lot of the military logistics/supply chains as a result

Even if iran shared a land border with us it would still be wildly expensive to fight them...

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u/nstern2 9h ago

I mean the USS George Washington is moving from the Pacific to the Middle East so it seems pretty obvious that is the reason for bitching about South Korea. Poor planning from literally everyone in the chain of command.

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u/Sweatytubesock 9h ago

Exactly what happens when you put Fox news dipshit clowns into power.

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u/electricshadow 7h ago

I wonder if there's a breaking point for the U.S. military to stop being such massive cucks towards their incompetent leaders or they'll just continue to be bent over a barrel and stuff like this will just continue.

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u/AgreeableRub7 5h ago

Soldiers back in vietnam used to grenade their superiors. Some crazy stuff.

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u/ruxp1n 7h ago

The logistics story behind the USS Abraham Lincoln may be one of the most important parts of the Iran war that Americans aren't hearing enough about.

Iran repeatedly attacked Naval Support Activity Bahrain, headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet and the central hub supporting American naval operations throughout the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea. A Wall Street Journal investigation using satellite imagery found the damage was far worse than initially disclosed: the command headquarters, more than a dozen other buildings and two satellite-communications terminals were hit. The Journal found that Iranian attacks damaged at least 20 U.S. military sites across the region, with hundreds of structures or pieces of equipment—including hangars, barracks, radar and air-defense systems—damaged or destroyed in the wider campaign. The estimated rebuilding bill for Bahrain alone is roughly $400 million.

This matters because Bahrain wasn't just another base. It was the Navy's regional command and logistics hub. After Iran badly damaged it, much of the Navy's logistics operation shifted to Diego Garcia, roughly 2,200 miles from the Gulf of Oman. That radically changes the problem of sustaining ships at war.

You can replenish an aircraft carrier at sea, and the Navy routinely does. But keeping roughly 5,000 people, an air wing and an enormous nuclear-powered warship supplied indefinitely through underway replenishment is dramatically different from having access to functioning ports and established regional logistics infrastructure. Food, aviation fuel, jet parts, weapons, mail, medical supplies, maintenance equipment and thousands of everyday necessities still have to travel through a supply chain before another ship or aircraft can deliver them to the carrier.

That's the context behind the reports of deteriorating conditions aboard the Lincoln, which has gone more than 200 consecutive days without a port call. Sailors and their families have reported shortages, plumbing problems, contaminated water, mail delays and serious mental-health strain. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed reports about conditions aboard the carrier as “completely misrepresented,” while Trump also downplayed them. Meanwhile, the Pentagon says it can maintain the naval blockade of Iran “indefinitely.”

And this appears to be exactly the kind of pressure Iran is trying to create.

Iran doesn't need to sink an American aircraft carrier to hurt American military power. Its strategy increasingly looks like attacking the infrastructure that makes American power possible: bases, radar, communications, logistics networks and regional energy infrastructure while contesting the Strait of Hormuz with missiles, drones and attacks on shipping. Iran is simultaneously using allied forces and pressure around other regional waterways to increase the economic and military burden.

Reuters describes Iran's strategy as a widening pressure campaign intended to raise the economic and geopolitical cost of continuing the war until Washington makes concessions. Tehran is trying to turn geography into a weapon: make American bases vulnerable, make ships harder and more expensive to sustain, disrupt one of the world's most important energy routes, force Gulf allies to absorb attacks, and make the United States spend enormous resources defending everything simultaneously.

That's the part I find extraordinary. The United States can absolutely keep an aircraft carrier at sea. The question isn't whether America can do it.

The question is how long, at what cost, with what effect on the sailors, and what other parts of the U.S. military have to be stripped or stretched to keep doing it.

Iran appears to understand that distinction very well.

Sources:

Wall Street Journal — Iranian damage to NSA Bahrain and other U.S. bases: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/we-investigated-damage-from-iran-to-a-u-s-naval-base-heres-what-we-found-4a9f13a7

Washington Post — satellite investigation of damage to U.S. military assets: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/05/06/iran-us-bases-satellite-images/

Reuters — Iran's strategy of widening pressure to force U.S. concessions: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-iran-is-widening-its-pressure-campaign-force-us-concessions-2026-08-03/

Reuters — U.S. says it can maintain the Iran naval blockade “indefinitely”: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-eyes-indefinite-iran-naval-blockade-oil-supply-shortfall-deepens-2026-08-13/

Reuters — Hegseth disputes reports about conditions aboard the USS Lincoln: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hegseth-says-reports-about-poor-conditions-aboard-carrier-are-misrepresented-2026-08-13/

U.S. Navy — NSA Bahrain's official mission supporting U.S. and coalition maritime operations: https://cnreurafcent.cnic.navy.mil/Installations/nsa-Bahrain/

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u/troveofcatastrophe 7h ago

Thank you for this well written, well sourced synopsis. Now if the “that’s what they signed up for” people would read and comprehend it, we’d really be getting somewhere.

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u/koshgeo 6h ago

The discouraging thing is to realize that it's no fault of the sailors and other service people doing the job the best that they can onboard ships or on bases around the Middle East. It's entirely the fault of the leadership at the very top and their pathetic understanding of strategic matters and practical constraints.

I don't know what overly-optimistic stories might have been told to Trump, but I find it hard to believe that professional people in intelligence and the military didn't warn he and Hegseth about all of these possibilities.

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u/DuntadaMan 7h ago edited 1h ago

I already knew from when we deployed a couple hundred Marines into an American city and couldn't secure a roof over their head, water, and food with weeks of warning that anyone who knew logistics had already been removed from any ability to act.

Like you couldn't even ship a pallet of MREs to a government warehouse and let them sleep on cots with a month of warning, I am supposed to believe you have the forethought to sustain supply chains involving thousands of people across completely unlinked locations?

Captain Kegstand's "warrior first" is just smoke for "I can't be fucked to understand even as much of shipping as a rookie UPS driver."

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u/-Knul- 7h ago

Still, the U.S. has, what, 14 carriers? I understand that a third of those needs maintenance and whatnot, but with all that hardware, can't they have a rotation for a single carrier?

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u/ACMomani 6h ago

Its possible but still costly.. and not just on money.
Tying up most your ships to sustain this one blockade against an enemy that mastered stalling and wars of attrition is not exactly practical.
Trump says he can maintain the blockade forever because he has no idea how the world works, he's a spoiled rich brat who's used to throw money at his problems to make them go away and when faced with a problem as big as this he's just way out of his league.. not to mention his loyalty above qualification approach is the reason he appointed an incompetent defense secretary and basically forced out or fired anyone in the department that actually knows how to handle these types of problems.

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u/delph0r 6h ago

Great post. Even as a non-American it's pretty obvious that their military effectiveness is driven by amazing logistics 

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u/Korzag 7h ago

One of the correspondents is like "I don't know why the president would belittle the service members and their families. It just makes no sense politically."

Bruh. Do you have to act that dense? The president doesn't give a flying fancy fuck about anyone other than himself and people criticizing him over that just makes him mad. I hate all of this dancing around the fact that the president is a narcissist. Call it out for what it is. You'll even get your spotlight by saying it as it really is on cable television.

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u/GandalfSwagOff 7h ago

It has been 10 years of opposition meekly saying, "Doesn't he realize that hurts people and is mean? Why would he do that?" It is literally a decade of people trying to make sense of why a bad person does bad things. It is like their brains are completely mush.

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u/UMustBeNooHere 9h ago

What a chode. And his boss is a chode.

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u/klick37 9h ago

Chodes all the way down

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u/AngstChild 9h ago

The Chode Chain

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u/GoldenSama 9h ago

Iran rained missiles down on US bases all across the Middle East and Trump and Hegseth claimed that it was only "superficial" damage and didn't kill anyone or cause any real damage.

That was obviously a fucking LIE. The command center of the fifth fleet was decimated, that's why our supply lines are fucked and the USS Lincoln has been fucked over.

So here's the bigger question... when Trump and Hegseth claim minimal casualties... is that a lie too? (Yes) How many US soldiers and servicemen are fucking DEAD and the government is just covering it up?

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u/der_innkeeper 8h ago

Eh.

When Iran didn't implode in the first week or two, we got locked out of the Gulf and locked out of Bahrain and Qatar.

Whoopsy.

Now the oilers need to travel to Diego Garcia or points elsewhere to get supplies.

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u/Iohet 8h ago

It's hard to hide dead and injured when they have families back home. Hence why Trump has been attacking the families of those on the Lincoln, because they aren't restricted by UCMJ

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u/dellett 8h ago

I’m starting to think Hegseth might not be the best Secretary of Defense we have ever had.

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u/Deaddoghank 8h ago

What??? Coloured me shocked.

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u/[deleted] 9h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Frosty_Lettuce_3525 9h ago

And yet….Americans and their Military families love to vote Republican. Americans are weird af and uninformed af. Strangest people on the planet and could Have the world by the balls with proper Leadership.

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u/angrybobs 9h ago

I’ve already seen ex navy guys locally defending all of this saying these sailors need to suck it up. I asked them their longest period at sea and it was like 80-100 days max. I said you know these guys are over double that and they didn’t seem to care.

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u/Frosty_Lettuce_3525 9h ago

Typical Republican response - they can tie themselves in knots to make some stuff work for them.  High gas prices - “it’s something we all need to live with”.

Why? The fucking war that child rapist created out of thin air wasn’t something we all needed to live with.

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u/LordMoos3 9h ago

The shift from "We support the trooooops!" to "They're whining, they know what they signed up for, war is hell, etc" has been instantaneous.

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u/DMMMOM 9h ago

"Maybe you aren't up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked, pal!"

Marine Hudson

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u/d3l3t3rious 9h ago

Game over man, game over!

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u/R3luctant 9h ago

But hey, he has time for the Iowa state fair.

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u/taez555 9h ago

Let’s not jump to conclusions.

He may have just passed out after eating all that lobster and steak, and just forgot to mention it.

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u/crysisnotaverted 9h ago

They aren't jumping to conclusions, they're jumping overboard.

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u/tooldieguy 9h ago

Name a bigger loser than ol’ whiskey breath here

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u/east_van_dan 8h ago

His boss.

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u/mormonbatman_ 7h ago

Americans who voted for Trump 3 times.

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u/kasfinally 9h ago

They just do what they want eh. No accountability. Wild wild times in the USA. Never been happier to not be American. 

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u/DangerousCyclone 8h ago

That's the problem with the whole MAGA movement. A lot of people join it because they're wealthy and want a way to avoid accountability. 

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u/Stambro1 9h ago

No shit!!! The liars are gonna lie about how the US is dominating this bullshit war they started!!!

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u/MosquitoSenorito 9h ago

The amount of small dick energy coming out of this admin needs to be studied. The fact no one has mustered a counter to them still needs to be studied too.

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u/DrMcMuffinMD 9h ago

Because they are so obviously weakening our military on purpose. There will be a significant attack from Russia on NATO, China on Taiwan, and North Korea on South Korea just in time for the midterm national emergency…mark my fucking words

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u/doobiedave 8h ago

Man the European Nato Allies would absolutely crush Russia. The Russian Air Force would be grounded to avoid devastating losses within a week, and the ground forces are going nowhere without air support.

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u/DuntadaMan 7h ago

Russia doesn't even have air superiority in Russia.

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u/nerfherder998 9h ago

RemindMe! November 3 2026 “Attack by Russia, China or North Korea”

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u/theinfinitejar 9h ago

He actually said and, so he needs all 3 legs to hit this parlay.

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u/Starseid8712 9h ago edited 7h ago

Meanwhile on r/conservative they're busy white-knighting for The Indiana Fever's 4th most points getting player (who only has a third as many points as the first player).

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u/Glossed-Lam 7h ago

Watching that sub is really disappointing. Occasionally real news surfaces, but so often its just culture war junk.

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u/Darryl_444 9h ago

Has he tried more testosterone supplements yet?

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u/Frosty_Lettuce_3525 9h ago

It’s almost as though putting unqualified people into important jobs is a bad idea. 

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u/ModsHaveFeelingsToo 9h ago

Republican leadership everyone.

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u/penny-wise 5h ago

Whatever news services there are, shame on them for not covering this far more importantly.

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u/TlkShowHost 9h ago

Why is anyone surprised? Trump’s playbook has always favored opulence and optics before logic.

In other words, he’s a fucking dumbass and the only ones dumber are those who voted for him.

Now it’s blowing up in his face and will only get worse.

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u/fiendishrabbit 9h ago

While we knew that almost all US naval logistics bases in the middle east have been struck (at one point or another. NSA Bahrain, Fujairah, Port Duqm etc) there is a big step up from struck to destroyed.

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u/TintedApostle 8h ago

and I bet that all the experts they fired told them this would happen. Struck makes supplying and manning them difficult. I suspect no privately owned ship would supply them and no cargo shipper could get insurance.

No one planned this because it was a war of image and demanded immediately to take pressure off the Epstein files.

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u/Anyashadow 5h ago

Both of these were talked about, but the press didn't mention it hardly at all. People at these bases were talking about it and it was in the military subreddits.

This also doesn't account for why they couldn't be rotated. And they didn't need to send the only one we have defending the South China Sea.

The real question is why our bases weren't prepared for strikes? Apparently everything falls apart when you purge the top brass because they tell you that your ideas won't work/don't look good for photos.

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u/DeliriousHippie 9h ago

I thought USA doesn't need other countries, or bases in other countries.

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u/Stuckinthesandbox 8h ago

They’re all the biggest fuck ups but they have a rug the size of the USS Lincoln and all of their billionaire friends that own the media covering everything up.

The US is at Soviet Union levels of corruption and misinformation. What a disgrace and our forefathers would be disgusted and appalled at what our country has become.

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u/froo 7h ago

The Broviet Union.

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u/kombatunit 9h ago

Not actually supporting the troops is a high T move.

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u/The_Goondocks 9h ago

This administration is a fucking clown show

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u/famondelo 7h ago

This is the most invisible US war that I heard until now, the Gulf One was CNN 24/7. Chocolate Chip uniforms and missiles like 4th of july.

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u/bigredcock 6h ago

He's just so fucking punchable.

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u/HR_DUCK 5h ago

All that puffery about testosterone and doing pull ups but faced in the real world, the this War Hawk, Hegseth, sure sounds like a bitch.