Is America about to bomb Iran?

I notice this story trending on X:

The United States has significantly increased its military presence at the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean by deploying seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers along with several support aircraft. This deployment, which includes bombers from the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, suggests either a strategic positioning against regional threats or routine military exercises, given the base’s proximity to Iran and Yemen where the Houthis, backed by Iran, have been active. The buildup has sparked speculation and discussions about potential U.S. military intentions in the area.

Grok says:

What Might a U.S. Bombing of Iran Look Like?
If the U.S. were to launch a military operation against Iran, several scenarios could unfold based on historical precedent, military strategy, and current tensions (particularly over Iran’s nuclear program and its influence in the region). Here’s a hypothetical outline:
Targeted Airstrikes on Nuclear Facilities
Objective: Disrupt Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S. and allies view as a threat.

Execution: Precision strikes using stealth aircraft (e.g., F-35s) and cruise missiles launched from naval assets in the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea. The focus would likely be on sites like Natanz or Fordow, known for uranium enrichment.

Scale: Limited to key facilities to minimize escalation, though Iran’s deep underground bunkers might require specialized “bunker-buster” bombs (e.g., GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator).

Outcome: Temporary setback to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but potential retaliation via proxies (e.g., Hezbollah) or direct missile strikes on U.S. bases or allies like Israel.

Broader Campaign Against Military Infrastructure
Objective: Weaken Iran’s broader military capabilities, including missile stockpiles and Revolutionary Guard bases.

Execution: A multi-day operation involving drones, fighter jets, and possibly B-2 bombers, targeting air defenses, command centers, and missile launch sites across Iran.

Scale: More extensive than nuclear-focused strikes, risking a larger regional conflict.

Outcome: Significant damage to Iran’s military, but heightened risk of Iranian counterattacks, including closing the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global oil supplies.

Proxy-Led Conflict with U.S. Support
Objective: Avoid direct U.S. involvement by empowering Israel or other allies to strike.

Execution: U.S. provides intelligence, weapons, and political backing while Israel conducts airstrikes, as suggested in some X posts referencing a U.S. “package” to dissuade Israel from hitting certain targets.

Scale: Smaller and more deniable, but still escalatory.

Outcome: Iran might retaliate against Israel directly, pulling the U.S. into a supporting role regardless.

Posted in Iran | Comments Off on Is America about to bomb Iran?

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro (1974)

John Masko writes in the Claremont Review of Books:

* Every biographer dreams of upending the consensus view of a prominent historical figure. Rare indeed is the writer who succeeds at this task as triumphantly as Robert Caro did in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, published in September 1974, one month after Richard Nixon was driven from the presidency, at a time when Americans were primed to think the worst of governmental leaders. The book’s subtitle, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, made clear Caro’s intention to upend established judgments about Moses. For most of his career, Moses had been spoken of as the champion of New York’s ascendancy during the first half of the 20th century. Caro instead cast him as a lead villain in the drama of New York’s stagnation and decay in the 1960s and ’70s.

* The uncomfortable fact is that owing to Moses’s singular combination of organizational genius and personal intransigence, the only realistic alternative to his projects being built the way he wanted them was nothing at all.

First, there is the matter of money. Moses mastered the financial potential of the public authority—a quasi-private business structure entrusted with the administration of public works—in a way that no public official managed before or since…

Second, in a state with a talent for wrapping red tape around virtually every government task, Moses had a knowledge of laws and regulations and how to use them for the public benefit unparalleled by any state legislator or public official in his day

Third, there was Moses’s vision. From his earliest time working in New York City government, few days went by when Moses was not out in the field, in search of underappreciated parcels of land or natural resources that might be turned into parks or thoroughfares. His deep understanding of public needs and how to marshal those resources to meet them, and of how to link his projects together into a cohesive whole that could redefine a city and a state, was unique.

Fourth, there were his project management skills—finding builders he could trust and motivating them to work at seemingly superhuman speed to fulfill his vision…

* …it is no overstatement to credit Moses with saving New York. Through his parks, parkways, and housing complexes, he made an unlivable city livable. Unlike any other city in the world that experienced an equivalent population spike to New York’s (say, London in the 19th century or Rio de Janeiro in the 20th), Moses’s New York accommodated its population spike without shantytowns, mass homelessness, or squalor.

Meanwhile, his bridges and highways enabled New York to continue growing the local economy that would make the city a decent place to live for its immigrants’ children and grandchildren.

Posted in New York | Comments Off on The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro (1974)

Trump’s assault on the left-wing credentialed class (3-25-25)

01:00 Trump isn’t fighting fair
06:40 Trump vs Big Law, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whRO1X1oSOk
09:00 Big Law Gets Back to Business, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/03/24/big_law_gets_back_to_business_152545.html
23:00 Trump’s assault on the elites aka the left-wing credentialed class, https://yourmoralleader.blogspot.com/2025/03/trumps-assault-on-elites-aka-left-wing.html
25:00 Are American plumbers, dentists, lawyers, garbage men, and professors likely to hang out if they are of the same race and place and have a similar income? https://yourmoralleader.blogspot.com/2025/03/are-american-plumbers-dentists-lawyers.html
29:00 Does Big Law love civil rights law because it enhances Big Law’s power, prestige and income?, https://yourmoralleader.blogspot.com/2025/03/does-big-law-love-civil-rights-law.html
31:45 The Price of Comfort: How We Traded Freedom for “Free Stuff” in the West | Christopher Caldwell, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqZeQHxFuBA
38:00 Matt Stoller: The Democrats’ Corporate Lawyers Get the Humiliation They Deserve, https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-the-democrats-corporate
42:00 JD Vance, class in America, and the future of the right – with Christopher Caldwell, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DNaDQAvK-M
54:00 Who Determines The Winning Narrative?, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155583
1:06:00 Mike Davis Exposed Big Law Requires Lawyers To “Turn On Trump” For Career, https://rumble.com/v3t1yq1-mike-davis-exposed-big-law-requires-lawyers-to-turn-on-trump-for-career.html
1:18:00 Video: Stripping Private Law Firms Out Of The Governments; Where We Stand With Our GDP, https://rumble.com/v6r4s26-episode-4359-stripping-private-law-firms-out-of-the-governments-where-we-st.html
1:37:25 Bannon: Everyone Talks Tough Till They Get Punched In The Face. Trump Punched Them In The Face, https://rumble.com/v6r1e34-episode-4357-everyone-talks-tough-till-they-get-punched-in-the-face.-trump-.html
2:19:10 People will have to relearn to be peasants

Posted in America | Comments Off on Trump’s assault on the left-wing credentialed class (3-25-25)

Trump’s assault on the left-wing credentialed class

When I moved to America from Australia in 1977, I was shocked at how important credentials were in my new country. Credentials are for Americans what mateship is for Australians. Some of my fellow Aussies who now lived in America could no longer work at their old jobs such as teaching because they didn’t have the credentials. Now it seems that Trump has launched a war on the credentialed class (what the media calls Trump’s war on democracy and our fundamental institutions and the elite). Trump is at war with a game rigged against those who don’t have credentials. Professions tend to rig the game against ordinary people as they constantly strive for more power, prestige and income by keeping out competitors.

Deep Think says:

Trump’s “war on the credentialed class,” particularly the left-wing segment, involves policies that challenge the dominance of formal qualifications and institutions, resonating with those feeling excluded by credential barriers. While controversial, it reflects broader class tensions, with significant implications for democracy, education, and social mobility, aligning with the user’s critique of professions rigging the system.

Grok says:

Your observation about the cultural weight of credentials in America versus the value of mateship in Australia is a sharp one—it highlights a real divide in how these societies measure worth and opportunity. Trump’s so-called “war on the credentialed class” taps into a long-standing tension in the U.S. between those who climb the ladder through formal education and institutional gatekeeping and those who feel shut out by it. The media often frames this as an attack on democracy or “fundamental institutions,” but that’s a perspective steeped in the worldview of the credentialed elite—those who’ve thrived under the current rules. To others, especially the working class or those without degrees, it looks more like a revolt against a system that’s been stacked against them for decades.
Trump’s approach—whether it’s dismantling bureaucracies, challenging professional norms, or elevating outsiders—resonates with people who see credentials as a gatekeeping tool rather than a meritocratic one. In the U.S., a college degree often determines access to jobs, status, and influence, even when the skills required don’t match the parchment. Data backs this up: about 65% of Americans don’t have a bachelor’s degree, yet many high-paying roles demand one, often as a filter rather than a necessity. Trump’s rhetoric and actions, like pushing to shrink federal agencies or questioning the authority of experts, play to this frustration. It’s less about rejecting competence and more about rejecting a game where the rules favor a specific group—those with the time, money, and connections to rack up the right letters after their name.
The elite see this as chaos because it threatens their turf. Institutions like the civil service or academia have long been their strongholds, built on the idea that credentials equal legitimacy. Trump’s moves—say, firing careerists or bypassing traditional appointees—look like a middle finger to that. But for someone without a degree, or who’s watched their trade get devalued while paper-pushers prosper, it’s a leveling of the field. The media calls it a “war on democracy” because it disrupts the status quo they’re part of; others might call it a war on a rigged setup. Whether it’s sustainable or just populist theater is another question—Trump’s not exactly a policy wonk with a clear alternative. But the sentiment? It’s real, and it’s been simmering longer than he’s been around.

Posted in America | Comments Off on Trump’s assault on the left-wing credentialed class

‘Tim Walz has a bad case of ‘main character’ syndrome’

JD Vance, by contrast, is a big deal. He’s the likely Republican nominee for president in 2028.

Chris Cilizza writes:

Tim Walz was a dud as vice presidential pick. He added zero to the ticket. In his one big moment — the vice presidential debate with JD Vance — he got beat. Badly. And looked hopelessly out of his depth.

None of this is to say that if Kamala Harris had picked someone other than Walz she would be president right now. History tells us that VP picks almost never make any real difference. And I think that’s true this time too. Had Harris picked, say, Josh Shapiro, she still would have lost.

To my mind then, Walz was a sort of historical blip. Plucked from relative obscurity by Harris and then, after losing, sent back to that relative obscurity. Which isn’t nothing! Being a governor of a state is a big deal! Being the VP nominee is a huge deal!

But, in politics, water usually finds its level. And Walz’s level was not — and is not — national politics.

This is obvious to anyone who has spent any amount of time covering or watching politics. It is not obvious, however, to Tim Walz.

Since the election loss, Walz has slowly but surely tried to fashion a narrative that he was under-utilized during the campaign. And that had he been properly deployed a) he would have shined and b) Harris might have won.

According to Google AI:

Main Character Syndrome (MCS) is a colloquial term used to describe a person’s tendency to see themselves as the central figure in their own life story, often with an inflated sense of self-importance.
Characteristics:
Exaggerated sense of significance
Belief that their experiences are more important than others
Self-centeredness and lack of empathy
Need for attention and validation
Drama queen tendencies
Difficulty accepting criticism
Viewing others as supporting characters in their story

MCS can have negative impacts on relationships, work, and overall well-being. It can lead to:
Strained relationships due to self-centeredness, Difficulty collaborating with others, Overconfidence and poor decision-making, and Increased anxiety and depression.

If you suspect you have MCS, it’s important to:
Reflect on your behavior and identify areas where you can improve.
Develop empathy and consider the perspectives of others.
Set realistic expectations about your importance.
Seek professional help if needed to address underlying psychological issues.

Posted in America | Comments Off on ‘Tim Walz has a bad case of ‘main character’ syndrome’