Best Of

Paris has elected a new socialist Mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, joining London and New York city again electing a left wing Mayor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk14m7mjddo

The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.

There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU

eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE

https://x.com/richardhanania/status/2035758062011834445?s=46

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?

We are

But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany

My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments

They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill

Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.

Something I learned today: Graphite bombs.

https://x.com/mcccanm/status/2035592536191086865

Ok, here’s what you need to know about “Bombing Electrical Facilities”…

Several countries, to include the U.S., use “Graphite Bombs”. These aren’t bombs in the sense you are thinking; they have a small explosive charge, but don’t destroy something by brute force.

Instead, long graphite filaments are expelled. They extend across power lines & create a short-circuit. Either some form of protection cuts power to the line, or the line eventually fails. The graphite is vaporized in the process, leaving nothing behind.

The effect is that the power goes out. These are sometimes called “Soft Bombs” & “Blackout Bombs”.

We’ve used these before. They were used in Desert Storm, but unfortunately we used actual bombs later & did a lot of damage that couldn’t be repaired quickly. This is considered a mistake…the point is to disrupt electricity in a way it can be rapidly restored when hostilities cease, minimizing suffering of the civilian population. After all, without electricity, water & sewer systems stop working…which leads to public health issues.

I'd forget that many people don't know about them.

Actually what happened in Desert Storm was that they were used at first - a version with a cruise missile flying a pattern, unreeling graphite lines. Used on electricity substations and the like, where there are bare wires, insulted with just air.

The Iraqis got very good at replacing the blown equipment and swapping components around to keep things going. So eventually the coalition started hitting the infrastructure with conventional weapons.

As a result there was a proposed plan to look at hardening the UK electricity system. Which quietly got binned, when they saw the cost. Much was simple stuff, like anti-bird netting on the top of the fences round vulnerable electrical installations.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak

“Can the Strait of Hormuz be opened? You need to deploy two American divisions there and prepare to stay for months. That’s how the start of the war in Vietnam looked, the start of the war in Iraq, and the same in Afghanistan.

It succeeds at first. By the way, all wars, including this new chapter of ours, one must know: an initiated war starts with a brilliant achievement and impressive damage.

Then comes the stage of treading water, which I believe we have entered.

And if you don't know how to get out of it and cut it short in time, it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat.

And America hasn't won a single war. It won almost every battle, but it hasn't won a single war in the last 60 years.

All of this needs to be considered, and I very much hope I am wrong.”
https://x.com/Osint613/status/2035993996095258682

America won the war in Iraq.

It cost a lot of blood and treasure, and is not as great as one would hope, but Saddam is gone, Iraq is a far better and less threatening place today than it was under Saddam.

One can debate whether that victory was worth it, but it was won.

..it ends in negotiations under conditions inferior to what existed before it all started, or in defeat...

Is Iraq today inferior to what existed before?

No, it is far superior.

Saddam has gone. The threat from Iraq is vastly diminished. We are no longer needing to enforce a No Fly Zone as we were to contain the threat. The country is now an albeit flawed democracy, not a totalitarian dictatorship.

That's not a perfect win, but its a win and a vast improvement on the status quo ante.

Jeremy Corbyn and friends’ trip to Cuba is going about as well as expected.

They’re staying in the only hotel in Havana that appears to have power, as even hospitals have run out of fuel for their generators, then there’s what can only be described as a poverty safari, the Western communists going around in tour buses looking at the local poors as if they were animals in a safari park.

https://x.com/samanthataghoy/status/2035887568294686816
https://nypost.com/2026/03/22/world-news/champagne-socialists-in-cuba-stage-concert-stay-in-5-star-hotel-as-country-plunges-into-nationwide-blackout/

Yes, we should really be concentrating on the rsoles that have cut off fuel causing patients on ventilators to die bacause of powercuts.
Bound to be woke Dems at the bottom of it.

No, it’s the Cuban leadership preferring to give scarce fuel to the Western commies than their own hospitals.

Why is the fuel scarce, skip?

Because it is a poorly-run, impoverished, corrupt, communist nation.

I thought it was because of a US blockade on oil imports.

The US has long been blockading Cuba, which has chosen to ally itself with Venezuela, Russia and other communist dictatorships.

Cuba is paying the price for its own leadership's choices, not America's.

How long has the USA been blockading oil imports to Cuba?
Venezuela is now under the Trumpian (the good guy!) umbrella and Russia isn't communist btw, just to keep you abreast of events.

The USA has been blockading oil imports to Cuba since 1960, which became a full embargo of Cuba under Democrat President John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Trump is not a good guy, but Cuba has made its bed. And Cuba is communist, still.

Happy to keep you informed.

Kennedy blocking exports of US oil to Cuba was not a 'full embargo', Trump stopping eg Mexico exporting oil to Cuba is.

Happy to keep you informed, but sorry to drag you away from your 24/7 simping for Israel, Hasbaratholomew.

The USA attempted to do a full embargo of Cuba, the problem was they could not enforce it against the USSR which shipped oil to Cuba despite America pressuring others not to do so.

It has been American policy since 1960 to try to prevent third party nations from getting oil to Cuba too. With more or less success over that time.

The Toricelli Act passed with bipartisan support in 1992, and the Helms-Burton Act passed under President Clinton with bipartisan support in 1996 have both targeted foreign companies trading with Cuba.

Cuba has been getting its oil from enemies of America, not its allies. America has been consistent in trying to prevent this, since 1960.

At last concord, we agree there was not a 'full embargo' (much as petulant US losers might have wished it) against Cuba until the current petulant loser Trump enforced maximum pressure this year.

Paris has elected a new socialist Mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, joining London and New York city again electing a left wing Mayor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk14m7mjddo

The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.

There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU

eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE

https://x.com/richardhanania/status/2035758062011834445?s=46

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?

We are

But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany

My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments

They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill

Its not unknown for rich posh boys to be right wing.

Yes, see Mosely and Lowe.
Hail, Spode.

Paris has elected a new socialist Mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, joining London and New York city again electing a left wing Mayor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk14m7mjddo

The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.

There are some interesting election results and polls coming out of the EU

eg in Spain the political gender gap is now enormous. For young Spanish men the far right Vox are the most popular party. By a distance. Yet young Spanish women support the centre left PSOE

https://x.com/richardhanania/status/2035758062011834445?s=46

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Leon, are we not seeing similar things elsewhere in democracies?

We are

But this is a quite recent evolution in Spain - it is now following France and Germany

My flint agent told me the other day that her two sons - 15 and 18 - are very very right wing. As in - they think Reform are pathetic centrists. Nor do tbey try to hide their sentiments

They are both privately educated and grew up in impeccably liberal Notting Hill

Not to worry, I'm sure if the Government just tells them liking Lord of the Rings is a sign of extremism that'll bring them back aboard the mainstream centrism train... ahem.

More seriously, that sort of thing is concerning. Had coffee with a friend recently who lamented not having the ability to leave the country easily if Reform won.

I don’t understand this kind of reaction

Reform are not Nazis. They’re not even Vox or AfD. They’re much more like traditional conservatives from about the 1950s. Was Britain a fascist hell hole in the 1950s, such that people needed to flee abroad? No

The hysteria Reform induce in liberal snowflakes is absurd

To my mind the biggest danger from Reform is their total incoherence on economic policies. Tho they are belatedly trying to fix this

Paris has elected a new socialist Mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, joining London and New York city again electing a left wing Mayor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk14m7mjddo

The Guardian is spinning this result as bad for the right. Getting 42% in Paris isn't a bad result for them at all.

Up 6% for Les Republicains on the 36% they got in 2020 even if they still lost again to the socialists, the National Rally candidate was eliminated in the first round

Mixed results for Le Pen last night. Failed in Marseilles (tho they never really had a chance of victory, they just manager expectations badly). Yet they took the Nice mayoralty, thanks to canvassing by @roger - I think that’s the biggest city they’ve won, yet?

The AfD did pretty well in Germany. 19.5% in the Rhineland - arguably their best result west of the Elbe

The US wasn’t militarily peerless or invincible in the 20th century either. It ground out a score draw in Korea, cocked up an attempted invasion of Cuba, and lost a decade long war in Vietnam.

Wars against a determined enemy are difficult. The two gulf wars were won easily because the enemy military effectively disbanded itself. I’d say that was the exception, not the rule.

That’s somewhat wrong. It was peerless. Even the USSR never quite matched the military power of the USA. Tho nukes made war between them unthinkable. It was also invincible - in the pure sense it could not be conquered.

However it’s fair to say American military adventures did not often go well, even back then

And now, with drones, it’s even harder for large powers to truly defeat smaller powers. As Russia has discovered in Ukraine

There is no way Trump will send troops into mainland Iran. It would be Iraq on meth. He MAY try and seize Kharg island

Iraq is now Saddam free and elects its own government

Well maybe. But it’s still a major mess, and badly divided. And jihadism has not disappeared

To get Iraq to this state America spent about eleventy trillion dollars, and tens of thousands died, and the world was thrown into turmoil

Was it worth it? I don’t think so. It was a calamitous error

If Iran were in the state Iraq is now, the Middle East and the world would be a far more peaceful place.

Iraq has the Iranian proxy PMF and the Kurdish groups with their own private armies.

Indeed, which is still a tremendous improvement on the state of Iran.

If we could flick a switch and magically have Iran in the same state as Iraq is, without any cost or conflict, then I 100% would, it would be a huge improvement to global security and security in the Middle East. As well as for the civil rights of Iranians. Would you?