Remember, the Trump administration has insisted it is not a war. I guess it is instead a 3 day special military operation?

And like Putin, Trump will keep doubling down forever, instead of rationally withdrawing from the war and thereby admitting defeat.

And what does that difference matter?

Trump apparently took the decision to go to war against Iran ignorant of the Iranian threat to close the Hormuz straight. Even I knew Iran would do that.

The whole reason to go to war with Iran was to stop the Iranian nuclear program… which Trump himself cancelled Obama’s deal to stop.

Harris would not have been Bibi’s little bitch.

There is no reason to think that Harris would have gone to war with Iran.

Dems/Repubs will happily play hot potato together forever,

Well, yes, there is a perverse incentive here. It sucks.

Basic math and game theory still means that voting third party is self-destructive, in the current US climate.

But I have actually been surprised by how fluid the UK system is right now. They have third parties, in a FPTP system. But the slavish Republicans voters seems to make that not viable in the US.

Well, enjoy your Iran war, after refusing to vote for Kamela Harris. Harris would not have invaded Iran.

So the title is

Group with GOP ties backs Green Party’s Jill Stein with ads, mail

Seems pretty direct to me, right?

I am always surprised at how cheap it would be to save the world - for example decarbonize to stop global warming. $10 trillion is 1/4th the US national debt. That kind of stuff is payable, if we want to.

…And that is how Trump became President.

Which is why the Republicans are directly helping the Green Party. Because every vote for the Green Party is one less vote for Democrats. Should give you a hint about who voting third party helps.

Solution is to abolish first-past-the-post first. Not to ignore mathematics and pretend reality does not exist.

The Republicans would never have been able to steal it, if third party votes had not made it close.

If everybody who voted Nader had voted for Gore instead, there would have been no wiggle room for the Supreme Court to butt in. And every Nader voter who was not an idiot know from the polls that Nader would not win.

With Gore instead of Bush, there would have been no Iraq War, for one thing. And the US would have taken climate change seriously.

Fighting back and occupying are not the same thing though. And where does self defence become aggression,

The solution here is incredibly simple. Hezbollah stops attacking Israel. That is what Israel wants - Israel has no interests in using money and lives on occupying Lebanon.

There is the nation-state equivalent of personal responsibility here. Lebanon can credibly commit to make sure Israel is not attacked from Lebanese territory, if Lebanon doesn’t like Israel having to actively defend itself there. The overall moral outline is so clear it almost seems too obvious, especially for the Middle East - but as far as I can tell, the overall picture just is that one-sided.

there have previously been ceasefires in place, agreed to by all sides, that immediately fall apart.

Well - because Hezbollah are the ones who want war with Israel. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1701 , which Hezbollah broke.

What do you imagine that Israel gains, by occupying Lebanon? There is no gain for Israel, except to stop Hezbollah shooting rockets into Israel. Whereas the goal of Hezbollah is to destroy Israel, because they are religious fanatic terrorists. If this is not as black-and-white as it looks to me, then please explain what the motivations really are?

Until enough people do, and sufficient votes are taken from the purple party, that they lose.

Nope, you utterly miss the point. First past the post means that Republicans win when the anti-fascist vote is split.

If you don’t like the current candidates of the Democrat party, then go vote in the Democrat primary.

Imagine if the people in USA got a system that helped them vote for what they want, not against who they don’t want. Imagine… :)

There is this little thing called “objective reality”. First past the post sucks, but it is objective reality. You should try taking it into account, some time.

From both a moral and an economical perspective, price controls on oil in the US would make tons of sense right now.

• The US oil producers have done nothing to deserve the current arbitrary price windfall. So morally acceptable
• The US economy would do much better without the price increase

The US is self sufficient with oil, so technically there is no problem with shortages if price controls were put into place.

But as Krugman said, in the current political environment, such price controls are simply not being considered. The US is run by free market morons.

Republicans also really love when you vote third party.

Republicans also really love when you vote third party.

But assuming you’re being sincere, what’s the functional difference?

Under international law, Israel has an explicit right to fight back, until Hezbollah promises to stop shooting rockets at Israel. It is completely black and white, international law gives the right to fight back.

Who decides when it’s OK to stop ‘occupying’ and that things can just go back to how they were before?

Hezbollah does. Hezbollah can promise to stop shooting rockets at Israel. Or Lebanon can choose to actually enforce control over Hezbollah.

How would you feel, if your neighboring country was shooting unguided rockets at random at your population centers, I wonder? Would you also feel that it was illegal to invade the neighboring country, to disable the launch sites?

Hezbollah started it. International law gives Israel a legal right to fight back.

Your nihilism, utter amorality, and utter ignorance frightens me.

and understand that Israel are the bad guys?

Your viewpoint is more one-sided than a mobious strip.

Yes, Israel does some bad shit. But so does Hezbollah.

Yes.