12 hours ago, Pooter said:

Googles:

When did the chips act start being drafted?

June 2020

12 hours ago, Pooter said:

Couldn’t possibly be that a democrat admin did a proactive domestic thing in alignment with their foreign policy. We’ve already established it’s impossible for anything smart to happen without first punching oneself in the face.

Maybe I've got long covid, but who was the president in 2020? If there's one area that you and I will be in violent agreement on, it's that Donald Trump is a fierce critic of globalization and the destruction of American manufacturing.

But he's been that way for decades, like a few other largely ignored voices, and it wasn't until a global pandemic erased the narrative surrounding just-in-time inventory that the Chips act was able to grow, let alone pass in 2022.

Now, if I'm wrong and the pandemic had nothing to do with it, which is laughable given the numerous auto factory shutdowns during late 2020 and early 2021 that slammed everybody in the face over and over and over with semiconductor supply chains, but even so. The only other explanation is that the phenomenon is wholy and entirely attributable to Donald Trump, The first Republican and really first president of either party to dare to question the gospel of the free market. Personally I think he is a benefactor of timing rather than cunning, but if that's the route you want to go, sure. It is quite cute to hear someone attribute Chips to a democratic administration.

If the supply-chain-wrecking pandemic that started before the chips act was drafted can't be responsible, I'm a bit perplexed as to how the Democratic administration that started after the act was drafted is somehow the champion.

You can go back and forth on whether or not the Republicans or the Democrats get any credit for passing the thing. The Republicans were for it in isolation, but then the Manchin betrayal happened and everybody on the right went ape shit. It's not like the Republicans get much credit here, they've been shoving their head in the sand about globalization for decades.

I'll give you the Russian invasion gaff. I was crossing wires between chips and energy.

12 hours ago, Pooter said:

More broadly speaking though, I don’t want you to get frustrated with me. I’m asking genuine questions and soaking in your points and calling out the parts I think are silly. I’m here for a friendly and lively debate and yes enjoy being the contrarian in a den of mostly aligned war hawks. I will give you your ideas have a unique flavor and honesty here and it’s not just the predictable Fox News word vomit. I admit I definitely have never heard the #GETHARD (David Goggins ™️) strategy of foreign policy strength through self-sabotage before.

It's not frustrating, it's just boring. I understand that it's not necessarily some Grand strategy. You are in a vast majority of conservatives here, so there is more that you disagree with than you agree with, and only limited bandwidth to waste here (hopefully), and so you can spend all of your time trying to prove something wrong instead of just saying what you think is right. A contrarian has a contrary point. Not just "that's dumb let's just do all the good stuff without any of the bad stuff happening."

I mean... You literally said that

On 6/30/2026 at 10:53 AM, Pooter said:

But if you do want my policy prescription that badly it’s basically: do all the smart stuff you listed in your comment but don’t do all the really stupid parts.

The point about harassing you to run for office is to illustrate that you are obviously either hilariously arrogant, which I doubt, or you just haven't considered how many hundreds/thousands of people exactly like you with exactly your ideas have tried and failed to get anywhere near the levers required to "do all the smart stuff ... But don't do all the really stupid parts."

I could get that kind of policy prescription from the kids at my daughter's daycare. If it's so easy, why hasn't it happened? And if you know why it hasn't happened, and it's none of the things that I've said, then how do we get it done?

I can't remember a single time that you have answered that question or even come remotely close to answering it. Your foreign policy basically boils down to finding a magic wand as far as I can tell. I'm no big fan of the political class, but there are some incredibly intelligent people throughout and none of them have been able to crack the egg.

So what's your solution? What's your projection? You called it a straw man to say that you don't think there will be a giant war ever again. So when? Do you believe as time goes on we will be more or less prepared for that war? Do you believe we are more or less prepared than we were 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 30 years ago? Is our preparedness for this type of conflict trending upward or downward over time, and do you believe it will continue in that direction? Of the things we need to do to be prepared for that type of war, what should we be doing, and why do you believe we would do it despite the fact that for the last 30 years we have done the exact opposite?

A lot of people have put a lot of time into a lot of very insightful posts about what they think is happening, why, and what to do about it. I don't mind explaining my contribution to that conversation, but if it boils down to: you are a utopian and I am a realist, well, like I said, that's just boring. At a certain point any belief system must rely on an element of faith at the foundational level, and when you get all the way down to that level, you've exceeded the capabilities of debate and discourse. Despite my best efforts, I can't seem to find anything from you that isn't just an article of Faith.

7 hours ago, Negat0ry said:

I had no idea I have so thoroughly destroyed you lmao.

One of my volunteer gigs at the union was moderating the union message board. We dealt with a lot of the same few dozen people who couldn't pry themselves away from the keyboard, despite it obviously being in their best interests. Every once in awhile one of them would message me in private asking me to ban their access, because they just couldn't let go of the endless battle over nothing, no matter how many times they tried to block themselves or delete their account. They always came back.

So who thinks the Iranians are going to overplay their hand and piss Trump off into another 60-day AUMF bonanza?

6 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

So who thinks the Iranians are going to overplay their hand and piss Trump off into another 60-day AUMF bonanza?

Whether it's the Iranians, or the Israelis, or the mid-terms in the rear view mirror.

11 minutes ago, busdriver said:

Whether it's the Iranians, or the Israelis, or the mid-terms in the rear view mirror.

I'm betting post mid-terms, Israeli led/US assisted.

On 7/1/2026 at 12:00 PM, Lord Ratner said:

Maybe I've got long covid, but who was the president in 2020? If there's one area that you and I will be in violent agreement on, it's that Donald Trump is a fierce critic of globalization and the destruction of American manufacturing.

Since I clearly have to spell this out .. it began being drafted in 2020 by mostly democrats (I.e. in no way caused by russias invasion of Ukraine) before being signed into law in 2022 by the Biden admin (I.e. having nothing to do with the Trump admin)

Good lord first you’re arguing the chips act was a useless Democrat knee jerk to Russia, then when I clearly disprove that, you latch on to trumps lame duck year of 2020 as the year it was drafted to somehow mentally contort yourself to give him the credit.. for the thing you didn’t even believe was proactive in the first place..

I didn’t mean for this to become a sidebar on the chips act but this is genuinely so dumb I can’t let it go. Not much point in talking about complex foreign policy issues if we can’t even come to a collective understanding on a basic order of events or who is behind a piece of legislation without you shifting your self-contradictory argument multiple times..

On 7/1/2026 at 12:00 PM, Lord Ratner said:

I could get that kind of policy prescription from the kids at my daughter's daycare. If it's so easy, why hasn't it happened? And if you know why it hasn't happened, and it's none of the things that I've said, then how do we get it done?

We get it done by ending our complete subservience to a foreign government.. I don’t expect anyone in your daughter’s daycare to know about AIPAC but a good start toward a solution might be reducing or eliminating that lobby’s influence in our politics.

25 minutes ago, Pooter said:

We get it done by ending our complete subservience to a foreign government.. I don’t expect anyone in your daughter’s daycare to know about AIPAC but a good start toward a solution might be reducing or eliminating that lobby’s influence in our politics.

Ah yeah, the Jews.

The all powerful lobby that donates less to American politics than SpaceX, Coinbase, or Bloomberg, and who's lobbying is outdone by Lockheed, Facebook, the Realtors lobby, and AARP. But they have "complete subservience" from the US 🤣😂.

You just can't live without the idea of a conspiracy. Weak tea.

On 7/5/2026 at 10:21 PM, Lord Ratner said:

Ah yeah, the Jews.

The all powerful lobby that donates less to American politics than SpaceX, Coinbase, or Bloomberg, and who's lobbying is outdone by Lockheed, Facebook, the Realtors lobby, and AARP. But they have "complete subservience" from the US 🤣😂.

You just can't live without the idea of a conspiracy. Weak tea.

For the millionth time it isn’t about “the Jews.”

It is about the government of Israel and every time you guys falsely accuse people of racism you dig the hole even deeper for yourselves. But by all means continue and let’s see how far public sentiment for Israel can crater, I doubt we’ve found the bottom yet. Just keep shouting “anti semite” like the right wing doppelgänger of a blue haired smith college student and then ponder, along with the great mysteries of the universe, why your arguments keep losing traction.

I have an issue with a government. A foreign government that we give a shit ton of money to. Not a people, not a race, not an ethnic group. Full stop.

My claim the government of Israel has outsized influence on our politics is based on:

AIPAC not being registered as a foreign lobby, and yes being extremely influential and powerful despite there being a handful of domestic lobbying groups that are bigger

Netanyahu visiting DC more than any other head of state in recent years especially in the lead up to the war

Sitting US senators quoted as saying the main reason they ran for office is to be a defender of Israel

Batshit dispensationalist Christians who believe it is their religious duty to support a foreign government

Israel being the largest recipient of US foreign aid since its founding

The legislation CURRENTLY being pushed to merge some of the US and Israeli government defense functions

The fact that we have attempted to or have toppled the governments of all 7 countries listed in the Israeli clean break strategy

That our welfare baby country actively defies us and sabotages our negotiations on a routine basis

Campaign donations to Trump in the hundreds of millions from the Adelsons motivated entirely by Israel support (Trump admitted they won’t leave him alone about it)

The sitting US ambassador to Israel endorsing the greater Israel project

But yeah since the AARP is bigger than one pro Israel lobbying group probably I’m a racist and it’s all just a conspiracy.

PS. Saw we’re back to bombing as of last night. I’m sure this one will do the trick

Edited Wednesday at 03:38 AM2 days by Pooter

11 hours ago, Pooter said:

Israel being the largest recipient of US foreign aid since its founding

AIPAC not being registered as a foreign lobby, and yes being extremely influential and powerful despite there being a handful of domestic lobbying groups that are bigger

Your entire rant is batshit crazy, but I’ll call these couple out:

1. As one example, Ukraine received 3-5x the foreign aid as Israel for multiple years. Your statement is 100% false. Even in 2021 (pre-UKR and Biden as POTUS) Israel received 4.5% of our foreign aid…man, that’s a scary big number, the Israeli government clearly has a controlling stake in our politics!

   Also, it’s almost like we give foreign aid to countries at specific times to drive outcomes we want. Crazy mind blowing, amirite!

2. AIPAC is not a foreign group based on FARA (1938), which clearly states groups will only register as foreign agents if they are “controlled, directed, or funded by foreign governments or political parties.” None of those apply to AIPAC, except in your progressive conspiracy mind.

   How are you measuring your “extremely powerful” statement? AIPAC made up about 2% of the lobbying financial efforts in 2024. If we’re measuring by direct donations to candidates, they are so far down the list it’s laughable you’d even bring it up. If we’re going purely by PAC/SPAC, they’re not in the top 5, and I’m being generous by including all of the “sub-PACs/AIPAC-adjacent”in that assessment.

In conclusion, a picture is worth a 1000 words, so if you could look in a mirror, here’s what’d you see:

15 minutes ago, brabus said:

Ukraine received 3-5x the foreign aid as Israel for multiple years. Your statement is 100% false. Even in 2021 (pre-UKR and Biden as POTUS) Israel received 4.5% of our foreign aid…man

Reading comprehension bud. I said “since its founding” (1948) but yes thank you I’m sure you can cherry pick years where a crisis temporarily spiked our foreign aid to other places more. Go look it up. It’s simply a fact, not some Pepe Silvia conspiracy.

1 hour ago, brabus said:

AIPAC is not a foreign group based on FARA (1938), which clearly states groups will only register as foreign agents if they are “controlled, directed, or funded by foreign governments or political parties.” None of those apply to AIPAC, except in your progressive conspiracy mind.

This is precisely the problem. It is a lobby thats motivated exclusively by support for a foreign government despite, yes being a “domestic” group on paper. This allows them to contribute to political races—something no other foreign lobby is allowed to do, and that is the root cause of their disproportionate influence.

I know I’m slaying the sacred cow here so critical thinking is gonna be hard but let’s put our big boy pants on for a second and ask ourselves what Thomas Massie, Scott Perry, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman have in common from a policy perspective. And why would a “domestic” political lobby equally go after these people all over the political spectrum with seemingly zero policy overlap. I look forward to us pretending it’s for any reason other than the obvious

Edited Wednesday at 05:25 PM2 days by Pooter

2 hours ago, Pooter said:

something no other foreign lobby is allowed to do

They're not a foreign lobby you walnut.

Thomas Jefferson was so livid about the US failing to support the French against the British, he resigned. Was Thomas Jefferson secretly a French lobbyist?

Americans are allowed to have foreign policy views. And they're allowed to donate and vote based on them. That doesn't make them puppets of a foreign government.

3 hours ago, Pooter said:

I said “since its founding” (1948)

Oh, you mean cumulatively. Got it, well in that case they’ve cumulatively received 4.7% of total US foreign aid since 1948. Greater than 95% of US foreign aid has gone to non-Israel countries since 1948 - wow, super compelling numbers to support your super compelling argument that we’re subservient to the Jew government. And again, providing aid to a region where we want things to go a certain way is normal foreign policy - should be easy for even you to understand.

3 hours ago, Pooter said:

ask ourselves what Thomas Massie, Scott Perry, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman have in common from a policy perspective

They’re all shit politicians who are anti-conservative and support bullshit things from a conservative perspective. So, a conservative group lobbied against them. Wow, shocking, it’s impossible to make sense of that one. I assume you’re ready to also attack every leftist lobby/PAC for working against conservative candidates, because that too can only be explained by wild conspiracy theories.

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

They're not a foreign lobby you walnut.

Thomas Jefferson was so livid about the US failing to support the French against the British, he resigned. Was Thomas Jefferson secretly a French lobbyist?

Americans are allowed to have foreign policy views. And they're allowed to donate and vote based on them. That doesn't make them puppets of a foreign government.

Right, they’re just a run of the mill domestic lobby of totally normal Americans whose only priority is a foreign country and whose policy prescriptions are indistinguishable from the government of that country. Got it. Just normal America stuff.

If we subbed Israel for any other country on earth in this scenario, your alarm bells would be rightfully going wild.

38 minutes ago, brabus said:

They’re all shit politicians who are anti-conservative and support bullshit things from a conservative perspective. So, a conservative group lobbied against them. Wow, shocking, it’s impossible to make sense of that one.

Love this. I knew we were gonna play make believe. Didn’t I call it? Yes the off grid gun toting libertarian, former maga loyalist, retired army general freedom caucus chair, and the two lefty loons are all just “anti conservative.” lol that’s what they have in common and why AIPAC hates them 😂

Edit: also hilarious to describe AIPAC as a conservative group when they contribute almost equally to the left and right and in many years more toward the democrats. Anything to avoid admitting the obvious through line here is that it’s all 100% motivated by who will and won’t fully support Israel

Edited Wednesday at 09:42 PM1 day by Pooter

1 hour ago, Pooter said:

Anything to avoid admitting the obvious through line here is that it’s all 100% motivated by who will and won’t fully support Israel

Who is denying that? It's in the name.

You are not called being called out for describing them as pro-israel. You're being called out for giving them a completely unjustified amount of power in your mind.

This is exactly like when liberals bring up the NRA Boogeyman, as though the NRA has controlled American politics, ever. The NRA did not create pro-gun politicians. It merely supports them. Now remove the NRA and replace it with AIPAC.

Some of us believe that supporting the only pro-america democracy in the Middle East who happens to be a technological powerhouse is a no-brainer. The fact that we can share intelligence with them is another bonus considering they are probably the best espionage outfit on the planet.

I also support dumping a shitload of money into Ukraine. So I'm not sure where your narrative holds up there unless of course zielinski is hypnotized by netanyahu and so really it's Israel all the way down 😂

Edit: oh and you can bet your ass if another country that shared our values and priorities was surrounded by barbarian cultures that sought a religious revolution that spanned the globe, constantly trying to exterminate them in the most horrific ways, I would definitely support us spending 5% of our foreign aid on that country.

Edited Wednesday at 10:35 PM1 day by Lord Ratner

Let’s recap on what Pooter’s arguing:

• AIPAC is evil/a conspiracy/aligned with foreign actors/etc. because they oppose candidates who don’t share their values/desires and they support candidates who do…like literally every lobby group and PAC in America. It’s a sign some dark actor is controlling our government.

  If you want to make a credible argument along these lines, then feel free to say all the same things about every PAC out there. At least you’d show a consistent viewpoint - care to do so?

• Israel has massive influence and control in our government because we give “the most FA” to them. Except that number is 4.7% cumulatively since 1948; yawn, doesn’t even reach the level of “weak argument.”

• Giving FA to the only ally we can rely on with shared objectives in a region, so we can advance our agenda in said region is crazy, fraught with dark motives and definitively means this ally is controlling us. So for consistency, you should be against FA entirely. Are you?

  That’s the highlights anyways.

On 7/8/2026 at 8:17 PM, brabus said:

AIPAC is evil/a conspiracy

Not evil and not a conspiracy. They just lobby exclusively for the interests of a foreign government in perfect lockstep with that government's policies, which I think easily rises to the definition codified by FARA requiring agencies to register if: they are acting, quote: "at the order, request, or under the direction or control" of a "foreign principal."

On 7/8/2026 at 8:17 PM, brabus said:

Israel has massive influence and control in our government because we give “the most FA” to them. Except that number is 4.7% cumulatively since 1948; yawn, doesn’t even reach the level of “weak argument.”

No, Israel has massive influence for dozens of reasons, some of which I listed and only two of which you've even attempted to address. And exactly what percentage of foreign aid would be problematic? 10%? 20%? 50%? Because they're getting 1/20th when there are 180+ countries in the world so at the very least it already seems disproportionate. But it's not even just 4.7% because we pay off the other countries in the region to leave Israel alone while they go flattening gaza and starting wars with everyone, so the indirect aid they get through our bribery of everyone else is far higher.

On 7/8/2026 at 8:17 PM, brabus said:

Giving FA to the only ally we can rely on with shared objectives in a region, so we can advance our agenda in said region is crazy, fraught with dark motives and definitively means this ally is controlling us. So for consistency, you should be against FA entirely. Are you?

When we're 37+ trillion in debt, and devaluing our currency to be able to afford all this foreign aid, yes I am against it. All foreign aid should stop immediately and only resume once we have a solvent domestic budget. And yes I know cutting all foreign aid tomorrow would barely make a dent in the debt. But it's more the principle of spending money outside the US when we can't even fund our own stuff. It's like buying your neighbor a car when you're bankrupt.

And it's especially annoying that we're robbing our own citizens to fight wars on the other side of the world on behalf of a country whose technical prowess, espionage, and military capabilities you guys can't stop glazing. Sounds like Israel is shit-hot. I believe you. Maybe they're so shit-hot they could even fight the fights they pick on their own.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Pooter

8 hours ago, Pooter said:

Maybe they're so shit-hot they could even fight the fights they pick on their own.

How many pseudo-governmental militias does Israel train, fund, and direct within and surrounding Iran?

You guys bend over backwards in ways that make a stripper jealous, all to excuse the acts of a bunch of islamist lunatics who are literally awaiting the prophetic arrival of the 12th imam.

I'm a simple man. I just judge a society by what they say and do. And in ~75 years I have yet to see an Israeli street rally calling for death to the Muslims. I haven't heard the orgasmic phone calls of young Jewish men telling their parents they had raped and slaughtered Muslim women and children. I haven't seen any of them strapping bombs to their chest or jumping on buses with knives to kill as many Muslims as they can.

You shed alligator tears for dead Palestinian children who are only dead because their parents decided that the 72 virgins in heaven are worth more than the lives of their kids. How many is too many, you ask with no conviction or thought. Because you know that if it was your daughter or wife you would kill every single one of them if that was what it took to stop them. And if you wouldn't, your wife or daughter deserves better than you.

It's always been very simple for those of us who don't let the emotion get in the way of the reality. If the Israelis put down their weapons and opened up their borders to the Palestinians, how many Israelis would be left alive by the end of the week? And if the hypothetical was reversed?

And let's not pretend like it's just because the Palestinians are oppressed. Absolutely nobody was oppressing the Iranians. No one was oppressing the Pakistani rape gangs in the UK. No one is oppressing the immigrants in France. Not all cultures are equal, and we will continue to support the ones that don't believe in the forcible conquest of the rest of us.

If that means we print some more fake money to give to the Israelis so they can give it right back to us to buy the weapons that we make with other fake money, so be it. I'll worry about foreign aid to Israel and other allies once we stop mortgaging the future to keep old fat people alive forever.

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

And in ~75 years I have yet to see an Israeli street rally calling for death to the Muslims. I haven't heard the orgasmic phone calls of young Jewish men telling their parents they had raped and slaughtered Muslim women and children. I haven't seen any of them strapping bombs to their chest or jumping on buses with knives to kill as many Muslims as they can.

Turns out you don't need to resort to asymmetric attacks and suicide bombing when you have F-35s and JDAMs and AI to tell you when "daddy's home" so you know when to flatten the whole apartment complex.

And no I haven't heard a street rally of Israelis calling for death to all muslims. But I have heard Israeli leaders call the people of Gaza "human animals" who need to be totally eradicated but I'm sure you're about to explain to me how that's totally different.

-Yoav Gallant (Former Defense Minister): On October 9, 2023, declared a "complete siege" and referred to Gazans as "human animals".

-Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister): Invoked the biblical narrative of Amalek in a October 28, 2023 address, which some interpret as a call for total destruction.

-Isaac Herzog (President): Stated on October 13, 2023, that "an entire nation" in Gaza is responsible for the actions of Hamas.

-Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian (COGAT): Stated in October 2023 that "human animals" in Gaza would face destruction.

-IIRC a viral video just surfaced this week of an IDF soldier flashbanging Gazans inside a car at a traffic stop while holding the doors shut..

-Oh and there's this. "According to United Nations and UNICEF reports, at least 21,000 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since the war began, with some figures from humanitarian organizations and local health authorities placing the toll at roughly 20,000."

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

I just judge a society by what they say and do.

No. No you don't. You judge societies based on immense and crippling pre-conceived biases and ignore the atrocities committed by "the good guys" while constantly pivoting back to "the bad guys" who no one here was defending in the first place.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Pooter

Anyway sorry for the thread drift. Let me know when this new round of bombing changes literally anything wrt the strategic situation around the SOH, which as a reminder, was completely open and un-tolled before this entire stupid thing started. I dream of a day where we can get back to the status quo we spent 10's of billions to detonate

16 minutes ago, Pooter said:

while constantly pivoting back to "the bad guys" who no one here was defending in the first place.

16 minutes ago, Pooter said:

Turns out you don't need to resort to asymmetric attacks and suicide bombing when you have F-35s and JDAMs and AI to tell you when "daddy's home" so you know when to flatten the whole apartment complex.

And yet here you are defending them.

"Human animals" is pretty generous for what those people did on October 7th. No, the children of Gaza did not participate in the rape and massacre, but they also weren't targeted. They were positioned like sacrifices by their parents and their parents' friends to make sure they would die when the Israelis attacked. "Human Animals" does not come close to describing that level of depravity.

You can whine and moan all day long about the asymmetry and unfairness of the situation, but there's no amount of poverty or oppression that justifies sacrificing your children. If your moral compass is so defunct that you can't wrap your head around that, honestly it makes the rest of your positions a lot more understandable. It doesn't make them any less wrong, but at least there is an underlying consistency that can be predicted.

“We love death like our enemies love life.”

- Former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh

Killing monsters is never an atrocity (or genocide), no matter how many of them you have to kill, and no matter how many of their children they hold up in front of your weapons. It's ugly and tragic, and an inescapable feature of war for the entirety of human history.