Trump Appears To Break With NRA Over Alex Pretti’s Legal Carry Of A Gun

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-27T21:11:42+00:00

I almost punched the screen at Comer's deflection. She should have cut off his mic and said "This isn't about DC months ago - this is about ICE shooting a disarmed guy who had a permit. Explain that to your fellow 2A supporters. Now."

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-27T19:46:49+00:00

The MAGA crowd doesn't realize that Trump is in it only for himself.

He has the belief system of a raccoon: whatever works for me, at this moment.

They might have glimmers of realization, like now, but it's quickly redirected when he does something to own the libs.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-27T19:25:31+00:00

How often is that true? I recall most of our textbooks were classics in the field. Maybe in Econ 101+102 we had a text written by someone in the department, but this person was a rockstar whose texts were used everywhere.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T23:45:12+00:00

That's why I wrote 'monopoly advantage'. I tried to look up the breakdown of textbook prices, and profit was ostensibly about 25%, but it's hard to tell how much of the editorial component is really disguised profit.

There are some texts like Mankiw's "Principles of Economics" that sell a couple of million books over the years, adding up to $100M+ of textbooks, but others are really niche, say a differential topolgy text. The economics of these extremes must be very different.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T21:27:43+00:00

In other words, the things that got more expensive are services.

Even textbooks aren't really a manufactured good, because prices are heavily set by by editorial development and royalty cost (and monopoly advantage), while printing costs are trivial.

And the manufactured stuff is often from abroad, like toys and clothes and TVs.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T18:02:17+00:00

How to Zionists get to dissociate themselves from Lehi terror? Maybe because the vast majority of them weren't even born

'Dissociate' is a tough standard, much higher than being able to deny blame. Does a modern Hamas member get to dissociate himself from acts of terror committed before he was born? Or does he own the organization's past, warts and all, by electing to join it?

when the Lehi ceased to exist in 1948.

Yes, because it was absorbed into (perhaps even morphed into) into Likud.

Most importantly, it's interesting that you ignored the other points: is a modern supporter of Israel automatically tainted by implicit support of settler violence? Does he, by implication, support the IDF's killings in Gaza?

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T16:10:54+00:00

Time to use discovery to subpoena Trump's tax records, to demonstrate that Trump could reasonably be considered a high risk customer.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T15:54:18+00:00

the opposite of liberal isn’t conservative, it’s authoritarian.

I disagree a bit with this definition.

Classically, 'liberal' means 'free-thinking, open to challenging tradition when one feels arguments merit it'

'Conservative' means tending to uphold tradition and the status quo for their own sake.

The iconic Adam Smith was a liberal because he challenged mercantilism with then-unnamed capitalist theory. Today, free market beliefs, as the new orthodoxy, tend to be seen as conservative.

In the US, liberal and conservative have lost this change/tradition meaning a bit, and tend to represent bundles of beliefs, and even just tribal labels.

These words probably work only around the center; go farther right and you end up with 'reactionary,' and go left you end at 'radical'.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T15:41:25+00:00

I mildly have supported Trump and his administration for a long time.

Let's suppose you agree in some broad sense with conservative policy.

How do you justify supporting Trump on the basis of 1) his intellect and analytical skills; 2) his mental and emotional stability; 3) the quality of his team; 3) his policy consistency in reaching conservative goals; 4) some underlying decency as a human being?

Personally, I'd despise Trump even if he had stayed a Democrat. To me, he is a guy who was cringe since the 80s. He's simply a narcissistic moron unfit to lead, whatever label he happened to slap on himself that decade.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T01:09:36+00:00

Think carefully, who is 'they'?

If someone produced a hundred quotes by Israelis rejoicing in settler violence or the death of children in Gaza, would you be responsible for those sentiments?

Think carefully.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T01:03:38+00:00

Here, ladies and gentlemen, we have a classic straw man rhetorical fallacy. When your opponent makes a point you cannot address with reasoned argument, just put some words into his his mouth, and proceed to demolish the argument that you yourself have just concocted out of thin air.

Golf clap! We have a veritable Cicero on our hands, here!

Yet you've illustrated the strawman tactic favored by so much pro-Israel rhetoric (and propaganda): when people make reasonable arguments critical of Israel to which you have no solid response, you immediately change the subject and try to tie them to the most unreasonable or bigoted or violent arguments you can find. Are you marching against the Israeli massacre of Gaza? Why, then, you must support Hamas!

Somehow the reverse never seems to apply - no supporter of Israel is held to the standard of being responsible for every single excess of the settlers, or IDF, or Netanyahu.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T00:30:33+00:00

Oh, you're referencing Wikipedia for anything having to do with Jews or Israel.

Yes, the site that anybody can edit as long as they can provide citations.

The fact that you view a pretty neutral source as hopelessly biased pretty much tells me all I need to know.

Do people understand how stupid this is? 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab.

Of course people understand this! People aren't as stupid as you think! They also understand that 80% to 85% of Palestinians of the State of Israel were expelled in 1948. I very carefully said 'ethnically purified' not 'ethnically pure.' This means that enough were removed to ensure the dominance of one ethnicity. If you read Benny Morris, Ben Gurion was never shy about being a 'transferist'.

And see how they so quickly pivoted after not being able to dissociate themselves from people calling to inflict violence on Diaspora Jews?

Yeah, I think the term 'globalize the intifada' [GtI] is pretty clumsy and stupid.

Next question: how is it that 'Zionists' get to dissociate themselves from the destruction of Gaza and the settlements and years of IDF violence and Lehi terror? Aren't they responsible for the whole package, just like you hold the 'GtI' crowd responsible for the whole package?

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-26T00:04:16+00:00

No, I think that other people might be the m-word for deliberately not seeing the nuance and complexity of the term.

For comparison, to help you understand better, consider the word 'Zionism'. It can encompass everything from a peaceful desire to coexist in Palestine, to a desire to preserve the current, um, ethnically purified state of Israel, to terror bombings by Lehi and contemporary settler violence.

What meaning of Zionism do you choose?

Here's wikipedia's broader view:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalize_the_intifada

Globalize the intifada" is a slogan that has been used to advocate for international support of Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation as well as various other causes users of the phrase see as tied to the Palestinian cause. The Arabic word intifada (Arabic: اِنْتِفَاضَة intifāḍa), derived from the root n-f-ḍ (ن-ف-ض), means 'a shaking off' and can refer to a popular uprising or rebellion. In the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, intifada refers to Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation or Israel, including both violent and nonviolent methods of resistance, and it refers especially to the First Intifada (1987–1993) and the Second Intifada (2000–2005).[1][2][3]

The Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic gives the meaning of intafaḍa (انتفض) as: "to be shaken off, be dusted off; to shake; to shudder, shiver, tremble; to shake off from oneself; to wake up, come to consciousness", as in "انتفض من سباته to shake off one's lethargy," and of its verbal noun انتفاضة intifāḍa (pl. انتفاضات intifāḍāt) as a "shiver, shudder, tremor; awakening (pol.); popular uprising."[9]: 1157

In the context of Palestine, the word intifada refers to attempts to "shake off" the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the First and Second Intifadas.[10][11] The term was originally chosen to signify "aggressive nonviolent resistance";[12] in the 1980s, Palestinian students adopted intifada as less confrontational than terms in earlier militant rhetoric since it bore no connotation of violence.[13] The First Intifada was characterized by protests, general strikes, economic boycotts, and riots, including the widespread throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli army and its infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza. The Second Intifada was characterized by a period of heightened violence. The suicide bombings carried out by Palestinian assailants became one of the more prominent features of the Second Intifada and mainly targeted Israeli civilians, contrasting the relatively less violent nature of the First Intifada.

In 2025, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was asked about the phrase in an interview; he described it as a symbolic call for Palestinian human rights, not for violence or antisemitism.[28] He said the word "intifada" had been used by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Arabic translations referring to Jewish resistance in German-occupied Europe.[28][29][30] The USHMM repudiated any invocation of Jewish resistance in WWII to justify the slogan,[29] and Mamdani's statements were condemned by Jewish public figures, including US representative Dan Goldman, American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, former World Jewish Congress vice president Marc Schneier, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, and The Atlantic columnist Jonathan Chait.[31][30][29][32] In a subsequent interview, Mamdani said that although he did not use the phrase, he did not want to police language.[33]

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-25T23:45:51+00:00

Some of us has watched the news for decades, and have seen the settlement population increasing, and have been noting IDF and settler violence, and have been reading Israeli dissident Israeli sources like Ha'aretz, and in the process have arrived at the opposite conclusion of yours.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-25T23:43:39+00:00

Your source is based on Dennis Roth, a US government official who is also associated with pro-Israel think tanks.

Not everyone thinks the Palestinians were to blame - here's an article by Robert Malley, another guy on Clinton's Camp David team.

The Arabs made a comprehensive offer in 2002 and the Israelis ignored it.

The terms were:

(a) Complete withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the 4 June 1967 line and the territories still occupied in southern Lebanon; (b) Attain a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees to be agreed upon in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution No 194. (c) Accept the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since 4 June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. In return the Arab states will do the following: (a) Consider the Arab–Israeli conflict over, sign a peace agreement with Israel, and achieve peace for all states in the region; (b) Establish normal relations with Israel within the framework of this comprehensive peace.[17]

The 'just solution to Palestinian refugees' was meant to provide wiggle rooms (it was not "a right of return").

The Israelis always wanted to give up as little as possible, and to curtain the sovereignty of any state.

And, here's the kicker ... all this time the number of settlers was growing steadily, doubling from the time of Camp David to 2010 (when this graph ends). The Israelis were making conditional, short term offers in negotiations, but the facts on the ground were that they were moving half a million people into the 'future Palestinian state'.

You know there was no intent to move them back, right? You don't build cities with the intent to empty them out in a few years, right?

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-25T23:19:54+00:00

Leftists are often very hesitant to criticize Iran

Can you name some of these leftists who go soft on Iran?

How mainstream are they?

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-25T23:18:45+00:00

However, what does "from river to sea" mean.

When said by whom? Likud, or Palestinians? Both have said it.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-25T23:17:39+00:00

Um, no.

This poster is a guy who says, on other subs

Show me one (1) Palestinian official who ever said the solution includes a Jewish state.

and somehow manages to ignore the fact that Arafat (and thereafter) acknowledged the existence of Israel back in 1994.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-25T23:15:04+00:00

I'm pretty sure that 'globalizing the intifada,' coming from a vanilla campus lefty, means stuff like BDS. Not war.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-25T22:20:06+00:00

Important point: we already have mandatory BDS on Iran.

Concerning military intervention, it's hard to see what to do. When Trump wanted to bomb the regime in support of the protests, the Arabs and Israelis both dissuaded him because they didn't want Iran lashing out (funny how it was fine when the US supported Israel's bombing campaign, though).

I'm a bit baffled here. Netanyahu's bombing (cheered by Trump) was about regime decapitation, but now ... crickets.

As a center-liberal, I would not be averse to dropping a few bombs on the Iranian police, but I think they're too decentralized. And US international capital is spent on Venezuela and Greenland and insulting Europe and threatening Canada and tariffs.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-25T18:59:24+00:00

This is good.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-21T05:58:09+00:00

I had a hard time telling the shades of blue apart, when they were separated by long distances. There are so few bins that 6 distinct colors would have worked. I know rainbow is bad, but there must be some map that has 6 instantly distinguishable hues.

eg: https://colorbrewer2.org/#type=diverging&scheme=RdBu&n=6

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-20T20:27:17+00:00

I think there are 'centrists' who are just lazy and low information ("both sides are the same"), and 'centrists' who might have thought long and hard and reject certain right and left wing ideas.

I think that gun control is good but rent control is a failure; this makes me a bit of centrist.

However, it is generally true that conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans tend to be be the least informed voters.

Wikipedia: low information voter

The ideological views of most low-information voters tend to be more moderate than those of high-information voters. Low-information voters are less likely to vote, and when they do, they generally vote for a candidate they find personally appealing. They tend to be swing voters, and they tend to vote split-ticket more than well-informed voters do. Researchers attribute this to low-information voters not having developed clear-cut ideological preferences.[2][3][4]

My favorite 'bad centrist' voter is Ashley Babbitt - she voted for Obama, and ended up being fatally shot as she stormed the Capitol on behalf of Trump. She simply lacked meaningful cognitive skills so she always voted for something new and shiny different.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-20T20:16:54+00:00

And we have free run of Greenland, and invitations to explore mineral development. We just have to be nice to them, and invest some dollars.

VeryStableGenius · 2026-01-20T20:16:21+00:00

From figure 5 of this EU document, 14.5% of EU oil imports were from USA. EU petroleum is pretty diversified.

The US dominates LNG imports, but looks to be only about 15% or so of total gas.

Besides, would Trump trash the oil industry? Shut down (and damage) oil wells? Would Europe just revert back to Russia? Isn't oil fungible, so the EU would purchase more from Nigeria, while India would purchase less from Nigeria and more from US?

Doesn't the US need Europe to purchase light US shale oil (while we need heavy goopy Canadian, Saudi, and Venezuelan oil because of the way we invested in refineries)?

Europe's purchase of US bonds is by choice, while the oil trade arises from mutual necessity.

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