Did anyone actually see him, or did they just wheel him out with a heart lunch machine attached?

First image that sprung into my head:

Agree, that beak don’t lie…

The weird little ear ruffs just put it over the top

Yeah it’s internet disease, FBI drumming up wins or Mossad for my top three.

They’re not sending their best people

Need that gif/video clip from one of the previous Houthi sealane blockades where Houthi soldiers boarded a tanker and took control, then smoked hookah/weed with the crew…

I think the MAGA version includes variations of deliberate leak of the virus for political purposes. This guy is saying something that really shouldn’t be that controversial—it may have escaped a lab doing gain of function by accident, through negligence. Which from the get go has always been a reasonable possibility, and has happened in other contexts before (Reston, VA Ebola monkeys for one—the animals didn’t get out, but died of Ebola when they weren’t supposed to be sick, in a private facility in an office park and there were concerns about aerosol spread at the time, luckily the strain wasn’t a threat to humans as they found out).

Whaaaaat a foooooool beeeelieeeeeevs!

This could actually be true, can’t really know, but it would run counter to most of the news and commentary of the last couple weeks that all shared the theme that reformists have largely been marginalized after previous two betrayed talk processes and that Iranian hardliners (really just “realists” TBH) have more or less accepted that it may be structurally impossible for US and Israel to make any deals of any kind, and given that a solution must be found through continued defeat and not diplomacy. All of that could certainly be a ruse, but just feels less likely than it being the truth, since it accurately describes the situation. There are other harder to know factors of course though, like what kind of pressure is China applying, anger from other nations nearby or affected like India or Pakistan, etc etc.

Anyhow will be interesting to see where things go I guess. It always feels like the western economic system is about to implode from these events, but there must be many hidden break-in-case-of-emergency functions because it always seems to take longer than I imagine.

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So based on various reporting from last week, Iran has been repeating that it is not negotiating. Trump TACOS here because military tells him we’ll run out of munitions, can’t protect Israel, gulf states call and say we will be wiped from region, etc. Wouldn’t the funniest or best thing for Iran to do right now be to continue to hit US military targets and call the lie that Trump is trying sell?

There’s clearly zero value in this bullshit “framework of a deal” lie, they know there will be nothing that can come of this as long as the current incarnations of US and Israeli gov’ts continue to exist in their current configurations.

I suppose given how calculating and cautious Iran has demonstrated itself to be, they might see value in stringing the thing out more to let the economic damage continue to accrue, so perhaps that provides a decent explanation if they don’t continue.

They had previously restricted themselves to reaction for PR reasons but had also recently announced a change in doctrine to preemptive self defense in recognition of the seeming futility of a diplomatic solution to America’s war of choice. So continuing to harass and destroy American regional capability would seem to be inline with this policy shift?

This was gonna be my exact pick.

Sending Good vibes to you. I was recently caring for my dad too, while my mom got a much needed break/trip. It ain’t easy, but it’s also good somehow.

I’m getting so much joy imagining a coupon of folks like this now, o7

Yeah, amazing

Eh he might be a centrist, not surely but his youtube has all the regular skeptic commentators on it, I think he’s being funny here. The all caps point that was as well. I mean he just had Trita Parsi on.

Yeah that’s an incredible description. Fingers crossed.

I think you’ve got the right read. It is definitely in US’ interest to keep a lid on this silent; it’s a proxy war and we’re supposed to involved in a support only capacity, and admitting he was killed by a Russian strike would put them under pressure to do something direct. But it is absolutely in Ukraine’s interest to use it as a bargaining wedge, since this would further lock US in with them. Be interesting to see if a generous new package from Trump admin to Ukraine appears in the next couple weeks…

But like with all conspiracies theories, this one is 50-50 on whether it has too many people involved or not, and more people involved the harder it is to buy that it won’t be leaked.