MarkMan

@madmanmark84

Just another older white guy, 1st-gen college in a purple state & family

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MarkMan@madmanmark84· 29d

With reports that our air bombardment of Iran has greatly intensified today, time to repost this prophetic interview from nearly four months ago, from a man who'd know better than most

There are three great seductions that happen to American administrations and to the military.

The first is the idea of covert action. A new president comes in, and he’s told by the intelligence community, “We can create this great effect and it will be covert. No one will ever know who did it, and it’ll just be a good outcome.” And in my experience, it never stays covert and it rarely works.

The second seduction, which I lived as a part of, is the surgical Special Operations raid. That is probably epitomized by the Maduro raid. I would argue that we demonstrated extraordinary competence that night, but not much changed. I don’t think that we actually demonstrated the ability to change the facts on the ground to any extent.

Which gets to the third great seduction, and that’s air power. We all love air power. In World War II, we went into the war with the Douhet theory, that air power, the bomber, will always get through, and therefore air power will be dominant.

It was certainly very, very contributory, but it was never dominant.

When we got into Vietnam, which was the classic case, we developed a strategy that said: For North Vietnam, we will have an escalation strategy, and we will raise the pressure on them until we hit the point at which they’re willing to quit.

It’s not worth it anymore. What we didn’t perceive is — like the Shia wounded that your medics ran into — there was no point for North Vietnam. They were asymmetrically committed to the outcome.

So, we entered Iraq in 2003 with “shock and awe,” and then we spent a decade there fighting after it.

I think, in this case, we again fell for the seduction that if we bomb key targets, we will produce the outcome we want — but the outcome’s in the minds of the people. And unless you’re going to kill all the people, you may not affect that outcome.

You used the word “quagmire” in your article — but we may be at a point where we’ve run into a country that has an extraordinary capacity to be bombed.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· 29d

I didn't realize that the experience on the Chinese Exclusion Act confirmed what I had only suspected would be the long-term outcome of current ICE actions: long-term negative economic outcomes for *everyone* (not just the deported/excluded)

Supporters of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act argued that prohibiting Chinese immigrants would help U.S. workers. “Proponents argued that Chinese workers, who constituted 12% of the male working-age population and 21% of all immigrants in the western United States, reduced economic opportunities for white workers,” according to research by Joe Long (Northwestern University), Carlo Medici (Brown University), Nancy Qian (Northwestern University) and Marco Tabellini (Harvard Business School). “Many business owners opposed Chinese Exclusion.”

The economists found the Chinese Exclusion Act “reduced the Chinese labor supply by 64%” and produced “negative effects.” Those negative effects included reducing the white male labor supply by 28% and whites, on average, moving from higher-paying to lower-paying occupations. The lower labor supply caused a slowdown in growth in the Western part of the United States. “We find that Chinese Exclusion reduced total manufacturing output by 62% [and] reduced the number of manufacturing establishments by 54% to 69%.” The legislation ended up discouraging white workers from moving to the West and resulted in many deciding to stay in the East.

“The main finding is that the Chinese Exclusion Act, which triggered an exodus of Chinese workers from the U.S. West, slowed economic growth of those states for at least 80 years,” said Nancy Qian in an interview. “In other words, the economic development would have been faster and sooner had the Chinese (and later immigrants) not been banned. The departure of the Chinese undermined the economic dynamism of budding Western locals and those who would have moved from the Eastern U.S. to help growth in the West instead chose to remain in the East.”

MarkMan@madmanmark84· 29d

Your article can't even keep facts straight from one sentence to the next. First it says Biden brought him, then it says he's an "illegal alien" And it was *Trump* admin - not Biden - that firs granted his CDL in 2025, then renewal in 2026 - a year after they terminated his residency. Incompetence!

But Massachusetts officials confirmed to WVIA News that Bon was legally eligible for a CDL at the time he applied in March 2025, because he had not been ordered to leave the country.

Bon applied for renewal in February 2026 and was approved in accordance with federal law, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) said.

The registry relies on the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database to determine whether someone is eligible to work in the United States. When Bon applied for the CDL in 2025 and 2026, the federal government listed him as eligible, the agency said.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· 29d

IMO this article overstates relative magnitude of Monday's drop. AMD is Intel's closest comparable, and was down 4.12%. The smaller drop makes sense in context of AMD having run up less recently. Similarly, NVDA fell less than either yesterday. In terms of "irrational exuberance," INTC > AMD > NVDA

MarkMan@madmanmark84· 29d

But Goldberg's destination is that this isn't just the GOP anymore

It’s easy for liberals like me to feel smug about this Republican fiasco. But the ridiculous rise of Victor Marx is the product of trends that, having transformed the Republican Party, are beginning to show up in Democratic primaries as well. When I asked Republicans how Marx had won, they described his charisma and social media reach, as well as voters’ contempt for professional politicians. “Victor Marx did a very good job of marketing himself as an outsider, as an answer to some of the angst Republicans have in Colorado,” said Chuck Broerman, a Republican official in El Paso County. “He has a great social media following,” Broerman added, and there was a bandwagon effect online. Marx, he said, “created a vehicle for people to focus their emotional energy.”

Speaking to Broerman, it was hard not to see at least faint parallels to emerging dynamics in parts of the Democratic Party. In Texas, the antisemitic sex therapist Maureen Galindo made it into a runoff for a congressional seat and, even after she proposed imprisoning Zionists, got more than a third of the vote. The New York socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier beat out the aging progressive Adriano Espaillat, and though not nearly as toxic as Galindo, other Democrats still had to answer for her outré positions, including her refusal to say that murderers should be imprisoned.

Schoening said some in Colorado are comparing Marx to Graham Platner. I would never go that far; Platner’s faults required digging, while Marx’s unfitness should have been evident from his public pronouncements. Still, Marx demonstrates what can happen when voters, feeling apocalyptic, disdain concerns about expertise and electability and let themselves be guided by their id. Many of us have welcomed the rise of a Democratic Tea Party, in no small part because the Tea Party was very effective at moving the country in its ideological direction. But once started, the process of voter radicalization isn’t easy to modulate.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jul 13

Let's see how Marco tapdances around THIS one ...

President Trump’s threat that the United States could charge fees on ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz breaks with his own administration’s stance. Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “It’s an international waterway,” referring to the strait. “No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law.”

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jul 10

Rates (and with it, inflation) have been "stoked" the last couple months, even as oil prices went *down*

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jul 10

God I love British journalistic style!

Then the candidate looked aside, became emotional and made it all about himself. “It has placed an immense amount of weight on me,” he said haltingly, “as I think about what needs to happen now.”

You need to think about what happens now? Maine Democrats have made it clear they would rather now take advice from Britain’s Count Binface. Still, with faux gravitas, Platner put his left hand to his moustache and stroked it, displaying his wedding ring. He looked down for a moment and kept going.

He spoke darkly of “larger forces” working against him. “I learned about this through press inquiries with no time to truly respond, no time for investigations before a corporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury and executioner.”

There was another whiff of Trump in the sense of grievance and victimhood and the desire to blame the Democratic equivalent of the deep state along with the fake news. At least he stopped short of calling them “the enemy of the people”.

He was asking the world to believe that these forces had conspired to get Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old resident of Maine, to come forward with a detailed account of sexual assault, plus other women to accuse him of disturbing behaviour, plus Platner himself to write offensive social media posts and get a Nazi tattoo. If only the Democratic establishment was so well organised.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jul 7

He's already deleted some, I see. Probably more will follow. I think I'll just preserve this "blame the victim" repost on their timeline in case it also later disappears Based on the fact "Angry Wisconsinite" reposted this, I question if they even READ the CNN reporting before deciding to discredit

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jul 3

This was also a nice bit of composition (calling back to an earlier paragraph about what USA represented to the rest of the world during the Cold War)

All of these changes are part of a larger shift, a revolutionary transformation in the way Americans present themselves to the world, and the way they are therefore perceived by others. The most ubiquitous form of American culture nowadays is not jazz programming going out on shortwave radio across Eurasia, but the social-media platforms that pump conspiracy theories, extremism, advertising, pornography, and spam into every corner of the globe.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jul 3

Local papers say Sunday www.yahoo.com/news/politic... Either way, Sunday or Monday: what's your ultimate point? Are you saying her release. without explanation, has totally different meaning if it happened after 24 hours instead of 9? Do you have an actual point, or are just nitpicking adjectives?

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 29

This graphic makes it a little easier to see changes in recent activity (IMO)

Ships pull back from the Strait of Hormuz as Iran-U.S. strikes heighten risks.

Note: Data may not include all activity because some vessels have turned off tracking capabilities during the war.Source: Kpler.

Renewed attacks between Iran and the United States have injected fresh uncertainty into the calculations of shipowners weighing whether to free stranded vessels.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped significantly over the weekend, as a four-day exchange of attacks between Iran and the United States left some shipowners deciding it was too risky to pass through. Now, Iranian and U.S. officials have said they would hold talks on Tuesday. But the recent outbursts of violence underscored how closely tied any sustained resumption of shipping is to a cessation in the conflict.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 29

But Kavanaugh made it very clear that they might have decided differently, had they not been worried that the precedent would be set for the other "side" to do the same later. In case anyone needed more proof that Brett Kavanaugh is a politician first, and judge only a distant second.

Thinking back to the oral arguments, many of the justices seemed chiefly concerned about the precedent that would be set if President Trump were allowed to fire Lisa Cook and what it would mean for the Fed’s ability to operate independently.

“Thinking big picture, what goes around comes around,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said. “History is a pretty good guide. Once these tools are unleashed, they are used by both sides, and usually more the second time around.”

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 26

"legend" for others not sure what their looking at here

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 24

There's this too ... Trump vandalized his OWN pool not once, but TWICE. IDIOT^2

Though Mr. Trump claimed vandals dumped fertilizer in the pool, his administration refilled it with D.C. municipal water, which is treated with phosphate to keep lead from leaching out of old pipes. But phosphate also provides nutrients for algae, as do droppings from ducks swimming in the pool.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 22

In case anyone else didn't fully understand what they were looking at

When you look at a chart comparing the Momentum Index to the broader market (like the MSCI US Index), it serves as a gauge for market psychology:

High Outperformance: Indicates a "risk-on" environment where investors are aggressively piling into winning stocks, often creating crowded trades.

Underperformance: Indicates a market rotation where investors are pulling away from previous winners and moving into value stocks, defensive positions, or unloved sectors.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 19

Here's the two summaries from the NYT advance summary www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/u...

A President Using Super Glue and Irked About Epstein: Takeaways From a New Trump Book
nytimes.com/2026/06/18/us/politics/trump-regime-change-book-haberman-swan.html
Trump enjoyed comparisons of his power to that of Mao and Genghis Khan.
In an interview that Ms. Haberman and Mr. Swan conducted with Mr. Trump for the book, the president, who had started the war with Iran two weeks earlier, reflected on his power.

The president listed a series of powerful figures from history, drawn from a two-page document that an acquaintance had given him, and then explained why he thought their power paled in comparison to his, since they lacked global reach.

Rattling off names including Alexander the Great and William the Conqueror, the president noted, “They didn’t have airplanes,” according to the book.

He continued, reciting more names: Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, Stalin. Those leaders, Mr. Trump told the authors, “maintained power through fear.”

Trump can be a hands-on interior decorator.
Some of Mr. Trump’s construction projects in Washington — a ballroom replacing the East Wing of the White House, a 250-foot triumphal arch by the Potomac River — are multimillion-dollar affairs, requiring workers in hard hats and towering cranes.

But one morning, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, entered the Oval Office to find Mr. Trump personally making changes in décor.

The president had a tube of super glue in his hand, the book says, and was trying to adorn the marble fireplace mantel with new golden decorations.

“As he was known to prefer his own aesthetic handiwork to anyone else’s,” the authors write, “the sight of the president squeezing glue onto gilded appliqués and mounting them on the wall himself surprised no one in his inner circle.”

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 18

Pros put a Papermate Arrowhead eraser on the end of it 😁

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 18

I feel like we're living in a Hilary Mantel novel

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 17

The basis for your conclusion? What your "gut" tells you?

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 17

Huh, I thought that might be a fake photo - Trump's hair & the background in particular look weird - but turns out it's not!

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 17

appreciate the link, but not a big fan of that style of dataviz - at least for someone like me who is interested more in uptake than marketshare, it obfuscates more than it reveals. I think this more useful, same data in a different format (Y axis is monthly users)

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 17

ps.: amen

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 16

... Nine years after first attending the G7, our allies have apparently given up on trying to reason with him, as they did at first (below). Everyone just gives him a wide berth at this point, no longer trying to bridge differences, but simply trying to avoid giving him reasons to act worse

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 16

A picture worth 1,000 words: G7 leaders gathering just before the official photo is taken. One leader is "officially" a part of the group, but in reality, as captured here, he stands alone, shunned and sullen.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 16

Will there be a SINGLE thing which could be called a gain from the pre-war status quo, outside of raw destruction of Iranian military assets? But even those, there will be compensation given to Iran? This stands with in history with our military humiliations in Afghanistan and even Vietnam?

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 16

Wow, not merely "immediately" - we've ALREADY let one Iranian tanker through the blockade, even though the deal won't be signed for THREE days!!! www.wsj.com/world/middle...

The U.S. will allow Iran to immediately begin selling oil and fuel under the deal to end the war, offering Tehran an early financial incentive to wind down the conflict, people familiar with the agreement said.

The provision for waivers of sanctions on oil sales takes effect immediately upon signing the agreement this week and also covers necessary services including banking, transportation and insurance needed to facilitate the sales, the people said.

United Against Nuclear Iran, a nonprofit, said an Iranian supertanker carrying crude oil had left the port of Chabahar, crossed the U.S. blockade and was sailing out of the Gulf of Oman Tuesday with its location tracker active—marking the first such instance since the start of the U.S. blockade in April.

A senior U.S. official said Tuesday that even though Iran would get upfront sanctions relief for oil sales, sustained relief would be tied to Iran’s performance on U.S. demands regarding issues like opening the strategic Strait of Hormuz and its nuclear program. Tehran would still not get immediate access to billions of dollars in frozen funds.

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 16

OMG, the only thing more pathetic than "deal" itself is Trump 1) continuing to not let anyone else see it, even congress 2) bragging it contains something BOTH governments have already said it does NOT (preventing nukes) 3) now trying to get *Syria* to join the war (!)

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 15

Just have to call out this section for capturing the lengths of the absurd "chips on the shoulders" of these MAGA snowflakes ___ "because the White House is run by children ... they had to insult the poor schmuck whose job it was to accurately report the weather, calling them a ‘friendless loser.’"

MarkMan@madmanmark84· Jun 15

... and now I see Trump has just declared the celebration 250th birthday of my country is in fact just a "TRUMP RALLY." The date, and our military, in his mind is only there there do his personal bidding, and be a mirror to reflect his personal "greatness" "L'État, c'est moi" 🤮🤬