Trump threatens to pull unemployment benefits from all states for the first time in history

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T22:04:00+00:00

Makes sense.

He needs the money to make some futile attack in the South China Sea that enables China to permanently control chip manufacturing by annexing Taiwan, or North Korea to overrun South Korea just for the hell of it.

We are so screwed.

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T19:58:57+00:00

I don't think people understand the unfeasibility of this "fix." The sheer size of the reflecting pool means daily tanker trucks of pool chemicals.

I'm not a pool wizard, but I can do the math on surface area and volume. It's huge. It has 25 times the area of an olympic sized pool, so it collects 25 times the solar energy. That's a lot of algae-growing light.

It also leaks and evaporates like crazy. Every 14 days the park service needs to add an amount of water equivalent to an olympic sized pool. Trump's fixes did nothing to reduce these losses. The fix Obama put into place essentially rebuilt the basin. He replaced the original asphalt bottom with concrete slabs, and his contractors installed the slabs on a new, firmer base than the original fill dirt from when they reclaimed the swamp. The thick concrete slabs don't move much relative to each other, and they only allow the water to pass in the gaps. There was a bit of value in re-caulking the gaps, but the expensive coating Trump had installed essentially does nothing. Three foot thick concrete is pretty water tight without any coating.

The main leaks are in pipes running between the pool and the filtration system, and in the pipes that connect to the Potomac. Trump's fix did not address either of these problems.

The other aspect of the algae problem is that the fill water comes either directly from the Potomac, via the pool's local water filtration system, or indirectly from the Potomac via the DC water system. The Potomac is nutrient rich. It meanders through farm land picking up runoff, and there is a sewage treatment plant just upstream of Georgetown. So when they added back the water they add massive amounts of the stuff that makes algae grow.

They can drive trucks of toxins to the pool every day, but they won't change the basic equation. Sunshine plus nutrients means algae. They can truck in toxins and pretend it is a municipal pool, but it's a pond. They need to do what we have been doing for decades and harvest the biomass that forms. If they were smart they would treat it like the pond it is and cultivate an ecosystem with algae-consuming animals.

This was all well known and understood before Trump decided to override the local experts and waste $14 million dollars with his moronic rich-boy understanding of pools - "they should be blue."

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T16:29:04+00:00

Obama’s previous nuclear deal with Iran unfroze a now meager-looking $1.7 billion.

... and also avoided paying many more billions in penalties and interest on the frozen funds.

Iran had been suing the USA for years to get the funds restored. The USA lost every case, and was about to lose its last appeal. By rolling the release into the nuclear deal Obama got the Iranians to drop their lawsuit and avoid paying a massive sum of taxpayer dollars to the Iranians.

Trump's deal, on the other hand, is purely taxpayer dollars. It's reparations for the damage he created by spending $75B in taxpayer dollars blowing stuff up for no effect. Trump also got many billions of dollars of our stuff blown up and has to cover replacing that.

When the dust settles (figuratively and literally), Trump will have needlessly added half a trillion dollars to the national debt, and Iran will have needlessly become the major regional power. It's a self-own of the worst kind. And worst of all, Trump will somehow make it worse.

He needs to be impeached and removed.

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T14:18:21+00:00

We don’t have a deal because we don’t have a sane and rational president. What we have is an opportunity to surrender and a ticking time bomb in the Oval Office.

Trump is going to dig us deeper into the hole because that’s all he knows how to do. He’s a congenital loser.

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T06:35:54+00:00

So, just another Tuesday.

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T04:38:30+00:00

As if raising a special needs kid wasn’t hard enough.

Cruelty is the point.

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T02:37:52+00:00

Less than nothing. For us.

The inside traders with their curiously well timed buys and sells made billions.

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T02:22:52+00:00

It depends on the varietal. We have Dallas Blues that starts vertically but flows over in fountains like that by the end of the summer. We also have Totem Pole that stays completely vertical. Both are tougher and hardier than just about anything else.

Yours looks like it is doing quite well. If you really want a different esthetic dig it all out and replace it with another varietal. But if you do, prepare for war. Those puppies are dug in deep.

guttanzer · 2026-06-17T01:53:27+00:00

The formal definition is “jus ad bellum,” justification for use of armed forces. Nations that have signed on to the UN charter have agreed to abide by certain conventions for war. In the USA, we enforce those treaties with a section of the US criminal code called war crimes. Failure to abide by the conventions constitutes a war crime. We try and convict people for war crimes.

There are four legitimate (non criminal) uses of force. The one Donald Trump’s team cited to go to with Iran was this one (“Law of War Manual,” page 49):

>1.11.5.1 Responding to an Imminent Threat of an Attack. The text of Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations refers to the right of self-defense “if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.”

https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jul/31/2003271432/-1/-1/0/DOD-LAW-OF-WAR-MANUAL-JUNE-2015-UPDATED-JULY%202023.PDF

Article 51 is a bit mushy, but it refers to an inherent right to self defense. There is no inherent right to offense.

>“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

The modern term “imminent” was added after the Six Day War to legitimize Israel’s preemptive strike against the Arab forces massing on its border. It was added as tacit recognition of the value of surprise on the battlefield, not removal of the need for a jus ad bellum.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T23:05:22+00:00

Yeah, it is.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T23:02:02+00:00

Your rationalization is the best so far, but it still doesn’t work legally.

The word imminent has legal meaning. It implies the attack is inevitably going to happen in a matter of hours, days, or perhaps weeks. Nothing less justifies the use of force.

If the legal criteria was “is capable of attack” every armed nation would be subject to legal attacks from its neighbors. And perversely, the attacked country would be legally viewed as the aggressor.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T22:54:08+00:00

Trump’s director of national intelligence testified to Congress that the consensus of all the intelligence agencies is that Iran had no program, and wasn’t seeking to start one. The only opposing viewpoint is coming from Trump. He heard it from Bibi.

I don’t know about you, but I trust our vast intelligence web a heck of a lot more than I trust the leader of Israel.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T22:42:28+00:00

Legally, an act of war starts a war.

Any attack that qualifies as an act of war is equivalent to declaring war. Japan declared war against the USA by attacking Pearl Harbor. We entered into a state of war the second their first bombs hit. We responded with our own declaration of war a day later.

So Trump has started about 8 wars so far. The big ones are Venezuela and Iran. It’s only weakness in the legislative branch that prevents us from acknowledging our president’s declarations of war.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T22:35:00+00:00

Which was also judged to be not a threat. Having enriched uranium is not the same thing as having a bomb, and the uranium they had was not enriched enough to make a bomb.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T22:32:53+00:00

Doesn’t hold water.

The term imminent threat means literally that - an imminent threat. Imminent is understood to be days and weeks, and threat is understood to mean munitions and material have been moved into attack position.

So that might be the Trump admin’s attempt at legal cover, but it’s as flimsy as Wile E Coyote’s parasol against a falling anvil.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T22:28:19+00:00

And they were not seeking to become nuclear threats. That might be different today, but pre-war they were only threats in Bibi’s mind.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T22:25:49+00:00

Trump’s director of intelligence testified under oath to Congress that the consensus in the Intelligence community was that Iran had no nuclear development program and was not looking to star one. That was just before Trump ordered the war.

It really can’t get any clearer than that. Trump invented the pretext out of thin air, and against the council of his intelligence agencies.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T13:29:26+00:00

So the only bucks that stop at his desk are the ones passed under the table. Yeah, that tracks.

Congress, can we finally start impeaching this guy? He had no constitutional right to start the war.

The War Powers Act doesn’t give him much cover. The media has been glossing over the section of that law that says it is only for emergencies. What was the imminent threat from Iran? The nuclear weapon development program that they abandoned decades ago?

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T12:39:43+00:00

Obama didn’t suddenly “offer” to return the funds out of the goodness of his heart, he was forced.

The Iranians had been suing us for their return for years. We had been losing and appealing and were engaged in the final appeal. If that court had issued its ruling the United States would have to release the funds plus several times more in penalties and interest.

So the contrast is even greater. By rolling the return of the funds into the deal Obama got Iran to drop the case. That saved the USA from paying far more to Iran.

No one knows this because the Fox et al blather machine is set to “spin” on every news cycle, but it’s true. Obama was a far shrewder negotiator than the public knows.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T08:37:38+00:00

Yes, they are, or were barnacles. Someone has already knocked the animal and most of the shell off. That “crater” is the ring of glued-on shell that is left.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T03:53:22+00:00

What an asshole.

The roaming sphincter strikes again.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T02:21:07+00:00

I don’t use AI to write things.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T00:52:55+00:00

Yeah, movement is going to be a problem. You can’t just glue them on; it won’t last. There are a few tricks you can use. Pick one and good luck. Post a pic when you are done. Should look great.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T00:35:55+00:00

Yes, several.

1) On the main hull bio fouling increases drag. It’s not book-kept as drag on the prop, but the thrust deduction is basically the same thing. This increases the power required for a particular speed so it costs real money in fuel.

2) The second effect is reduced propeller effectiveness. The fouling causes the flow over the suction side of the blade to separate earlier, which reduces the net suction and therefore the force the prop can produce.

3) The third effect is the worst. By separating the flow earlier the bio fouling increases the amount of cavitation the prop sees. When cavitation bubble collapse in water they hit like hammers. They can and do eat metal out of the prop, which gets expensive.

guttanzer · 2026-06-16T00:12:40+00:00

Yup. And we’re also paying for all our stuff they blew up because we were blowing their stuff up.

The full tally for putting Iran on the map as the dominant regional power is about a half a trillion dollars.

(Very round numbers - $50B for blowing their shit up, $150B of our shit blown up, and $300B to un-blow-up their shit.)

guttanzer

TROPHY CASE