Iran, nukes, Trump, Bibi

Let's get to the nuttiest thing of the last 72 or so hours first.

That's Larry Johnson's claim Iran either has or is about to have a nuke. And note those two tense agreements, as I quote his first graf: 

Pepe Escobar and I received the following intelligence report last Thursday, which was produced by a knowledgeable source with access. I am not reproducing the entire report, but want to highlight the issue of whether or not Iran now has, or soon will have a nuke. Let me emphasize that I firmly support past US intel community assessments that Iran, until now, had no interest in obtaining a nuke.

Even Sy Hersh isn't claiming shit like that. 

Speaking of, as I said in restacking?

There’s a BIG difference between "has" and "may have" in the first graf on Iran and nuclear weapons. The rest of Johnson's piece smells highly breathless; at least as “breathless” as some of Sy Hersh’s writings here on Substack.

Yes.

Then, The Dissident linked to it in his own moderately breathless piece. 

I had a longer comment/restack on that, to which I added an additional note, only on the restack, referencing his response to my comment. Here you are:

There's a big difference between the header saying Iran "has developed a nuclear weapon" and the subhed saying "Iran MAY Now Actually Develop a Nuclear Weapon." BIG difference. 

Johnson at your link also tries to go both ways, using both "has" and "may have" in the first graf. 

The rest of Johnson's piece smells highly breathless; at least as “breathless” as some of Sy Hersh’s writings here on Substack. And, it's not the first breathless thing he's uttered here or on You Tube in recent weeks. Or in the past decade. 

As co-founder of VIPS, I believe he signed off on the majority report about the 2016 hacking that believed all the "Forensicator" bullshit and that helped goose the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. Per the one comment, Dissident said he'd edited; you wanna tell Larry Johnson to edit as well? 

== 

The Dissident has since responded to the version of this that was a comment on his site. He further explained the editing while noting Johnson’s claim is “unconfirmed.” The reality is Johnson’s claim is almost certainly fact-free on Iran “May Actually Develop” and totally fact-free on “Has Developed” and there’s no need to have given him the time of day.

And, yes, Larry Johnson is a nutter.

So's Pepe Escobar.

Beyond what I said about Johnson in that note, he also appears to be playing footsie at times with John Helmer of borderline antisemitism fame and other things.

And, as briefly referenced in my response to The Dissident, per a full decade ago and the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, Johnson is a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, the majority of whom, via Patrick Lawrence, signed off on the Forensicator bullshit, bullshit called out by Duncan Campbell, bullshit that helped goose the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, bullshit for which, AFAIK, Johnson remains unapologetic. Per his Wiki, that would not be the only shark-jumping for which he remains unapologetic.

And, the nutter photo? Of Johnson as defender of Free Dumb? From his website, where the photo's a clickable link to this Free Dumb defender event. James Webb is the closest thing to a non-nutter on non-Nat-Sec Nutsacks™stuff of the names I recognize or took time to google. Man, there's grifting there if they're charginpg $999 a pop and getting people to pay.

Thirty-six hours later, The Dissident checked in with people like Mearsheimer and found out for himself the non-proliferation portion of the facts, which I already knew. I didn't even bother with him, because I knew the nuke angle itself was silly. As John said, Russia and China are opposed to proliferation and Pakistan is not a friend of Iran. John didn't even bother mentioning North Korea. He did note that, also contra Johnson, the idea of exploding a single nuke is itself laughable. You just threw away your deterrent. 

There's at least one commenter still defending Johnson on The Dissident's follow-up.  Actually, several more than one. One got butt-hurt when I mentioned Johnson's backstory, then said it was above not only his knowledge level but his interest, then got butt-hurt over my nom de plume to boot. I said "got it on you not wanting to learn more" and "I'm crushed."

Contra other commenters there, Ted Postol actually said that Iran could level up its current enriched uranium to bombs-grade for 20-30 weapons in weeks. Personally, I think months is more likely, and I doubt that Iran would actually build out the two-state U235/U238 bomb he describes. (Think of a thermonuclear without the second, fusion, stage.)  Other commenters there engaging in a bit of hand-waving on that, too.

Also, re Postol, launching the old-tyme gun-mechanism bomb from a ballastic missile has never been tested. 

Also also, two months ago, he was saying 10-11, not 10-20. See here. That said, he blames Biden for not resuming Obama's deal after Trump 1.0 killed it. 

Finally, per this piece, there's rumors the Pakistani foreign minister has said something about an Iranian demonstration and more. That right there stresses the need for accurate information, and it also indicates where Johnson's source is. Some blabber either at mid-grade in the ISI, or in some Western intelligence service monitoring the ISI, probably got some info 24 hours early. Besides, the ACTUAL rumor was that Pakistan's foreign minister shared info about Iran's nuke program in general.

==

Trump and Bibi?

Mearsheimer, June 2, appeared to halfway believe there was some semi-existential break between the two, after Trump gave Netanyahu an F-bomb yelling and told him not to attack Beirut.

Reality? Everybody from Zionist Trump-whisperer Barak Ravid on Axios to PBS have reported that yes, this happens but that both say it's no big deal.

For that matter, what if this was some sort of performance theater? 

Boy did I find the nutter on Substack

Samuel Abraham? Muted and will be blocked. A true nutter, this is what he had to say in response to my comment on The Dissident's piece about Tulsi Gabbard when I said Hindutva-fascism WAS the one constant bright line, per my old piece here.

Anyway, here he is 

Tulsi was actually a serving CIA psyop officer all the time on the radicalise Hinduism project run by CIA. The CIA Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation created the cult led by a Bengali Shudra with a double ended radicalise and debauch both the west and India aim. These Bengali Shudras ran the humungous Tantrik death destruction debauch drugs cult that ritually sacrificed 2 million human beings while the British were watching and then the same British put them down only to weaponise the Shudra Tantrik gurus as world teachers or Vishwagurus (which is a meme in India now) worldwide to bring Blavatsky Besant and Baileys end of the world total inversion of good and bad and morality and ethics with mass slavery age or NWO. The CIA using the ISI created and funded the University of Jihad in Pakistan to punish the Pashtun tribes for being the rare Indic people unbending to foreign rule like the Punjabis. When you see these malaria fever radicalism in Pakistan and Afghanistan among the Pashtuns it was created using Islamic textbooks financed by the CIA and authored by a white American professor at the University of Nebraska - not a Muslim. These CIA psyop officers are in the business of death destruction and mass deception.

Can't even try to argue with that. 

Related? This note:

The Hindu fundamentalist RSS and Muslim fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood were created by the same super witch crooked genius - Helena Blavatsky who literally had roaring adulterous wild sex with the founders of both the Muslim Brotherhood and the progenitor of the Hindu fascist RSS. Haha! -śome wild ass's orgasm they had! 

The world is a small place - at least everything including Nazism and Fascism started inside the venomous viper pits between the legs of Helena Blavatsky and her ideological sister Annie Besant. Lucifer does Lucifers things. Nobody fucks the devil for fun!

Wowza. 

But, he's not just calling out Theosophy. 

There's esoteric Nazi conspiracy theories, in another note of his: 

Hitler did not write most of his speeches or a word of the Mein Kampf - they were written by the Jesuit "priest" Stempfle. Neither did Marx write a word of the Communist Manifesto - it was written by a committee under the Jesuit "priest" Jan Paul Beckx. Why two mutually exclusive ideologies by the same papal order? The same reason why there is a left and a right in any "democracy" (but not meritocracy). The thesis antithesis = synthesis Pharaonic system of civilisation management called Hermetic Kabbala simply got too murderous and genocidal.

And, he follows Paul Thacker and other nutters, like a guy claiming an assassination conspiracy theory about John Lennon. 

I just had to separate this from my normal new list of Substack blocks. 

Trump's school privatization tax-credit voucher is flying under the radar

Shock me that Texas has opted in to this system, that like the current state voucher system, won't directly fund private schools but will instead fund a disbursement system.

There's plenty of room for grift, it should be obvious. That's on top of the grift that Strangeabbott's voucher system already incentivizes.

Then, per the story, there's the question about how declining enrollment will damage public schools. And, here in Tex-ass, that's Katy bar the door time for a TEA takeover. 

Data centers: Big win for state-level Democrats in Texas? Nah

Contra Kuff, I doubt it.

Kuff is talking about this Trib piece; here's another from a month ago. 

First, let's note that MOST states, including many more blue ones, don't grant county governments a lot of statutory powers. So, this isn't, nationally, totally a blue vs red deal.

And, there is NO way the Lege is reporting out a constitutional amendment to change that. 

Second, here in Tex-ass, one Hood County unincorporated "community" voted down a municipal incorporation effort last year. Per Kuff's piece, it was to give the would-be city more control over a data center Many people in places like that will be fine at bitching about wind farms causing cancer, about "gummint" stealing rights, and about Democraps, rather than incorporate themselves and actually have to pay local property taxes.

Right now, the white collar retirees in these places probably won't even blame Trump for their higher gas prices. (Many farmers actually WILL, on diesel and fertilizer.) 

Texas Progressives roundup

SocraticGadfly had two post-runoff takes, one on The Art of No Deal and the other on Strangeabbott's shrinking coattails.

Off the Kuff shares some post-runoff thoughts. 

Letitia Plummer deserves a kudo for taking down Annise Parker in the Dem runoff for Harris County Judge. 

The music is playing loudly for Corpus Christi's water problems, loud enough the city can't deny it's hearing it, while it is trying to put a Band-Aid over the band. 

Does the Christian Menafee vs Al Green showdown, in the wake of SCOTUS gutting the Voting Rights Act, forshadow more Black-on-Black political battles inside the Democratic Party? The Observer weighs in. 

Mike Pence has at least a bit bigger balls on Trump's slush fund than most Rethugs. 

Black bookstores in Texas face ugly racial pressure.

Wind has long been ahead of coal for solar electricity in Texas. Now, despite wingnuts, despite Texas law not allowing for rooftop solar being metered back to utilities, solar is moving ahead too. 

The Current rounds up the Republican website purge of anti-Paxton attacks.

City of Yes reminds us that no one is ever given the opportunity to vote on highway projects.

Law Dork notes the SPLC’s attempt to get the bogus charges against it dismissed.

G. Elliott Morris deems the Texas Senate election a tossup.

 

 

John Cornyn postmortem roundup

At the Monthly, not only is there not a CD Hooks piece fellating Cornyn one last time, but Ben Rowan offers a skeptic's guide to November, while getting people like Strangeabbott his own self to do some pearl-clutching. He offers this,  halfway through:

Everyone I spoke to, in both parties, believes that the national environment is better for Democrats this year than in 2018—Trump is even more unpopular, facing inflation and the Iran war. And they believe Talarico is a better statewide candidate than O’Rourke. At roughly this point in 2018, O’Rourke trailed Cruz in the polls by 5 points. The polling aggregate currently finds Talarico running 1.5 points ahead of Paxton (he leads by as much as 8 in one survey and trails by as much as 2 in another). As one longtime GOP strategist, who requested anonymity given their current position, told me: “This is not a made-up race. You are covering a real race.”

I'm still more skeptical. We'll see. One reason for skepticism is most those polls had Talarico vs a generic Republican, before the runoff. That always favors a "name." Rowan notes that himself, later on.

And, he concludes with:

Even if Ken isn’t actually all that good, most everyone I talked to believed Democrats could still find a way to blow their advantage. After laying out his fantasy of exactly one GOP statewide candidate losing, and explaining how this year there really were signs a Democrat could win, the former Republican legislator caught himself mid-reverie. “Democrats are killing us now,” he started, “but—and I’m going to use a naughty word here, don’t hold it against me—Democrats can f— up a one-car parade.”

Bingo. 

Kuff peddles some Kool-Aid on possible GOP defections. I'm not drinking.

Nate Cohn at the NYT talks about Hispanic numbers, ignores the Tex-ass reputation as a nonvoting state. 

The Trib fellating John Cornyn? Not surprised. 

At the Observer, Justin Miller doesn't fellate him, but does think Kenny Boy Paxton's win is "judgment day" for the Texas GOP. I shall officially laugh on Election Day.

Gus Bova there also salutes James Talarico's chances while noting the Anglo-ness of Dems' top candidates in general. 

My initial guess? Talarico runs as close as Beto-Bob vs Havana Ted, 2018, but no closer.

No Green in the race? As I told Kuff, I'm undervoting for sure unless Talarico has a real, full-bore, statement about Gaza. That's at minimum and I'm not holding my breath on that.