2018 Midterms and Israeli bombing Syria

As everyone predicted, the House is now narrowly Democrat, and the Senate is narrowly Republican, meaning the House can block any idiocy by the Senate and Trump. Not that they're likely to do so. The Republicans condemned Obama's regime change in Libya, but the regime got changed anyway. There was an act passed after Vietnam that the president can't unilaterally start a war, so it's just a military action unless the Congress votes to call it a war. The Congress have no control over anything except what it's called. And the Democrats let Bush, jr do whatever he said he had to do to keep the US safe. Torture? It's torture, punishable by death, if an enemy does it to an agent of the US government. If the US does it to an enemy of the US, the exact same procedure is just 'enhanced interrogation', completely legal under International Law (with the legality defined by Thrasymachus). Killing grandmothers and babies? Terrorists all.  We thank our brave, brave soldiers for keeping us safe by killing them.

The Democrats will probably block any Republican attempt to cut Social Security and Medicare, but will probably let the Republicans do anything else they like. They'll send subpoenas to the White House every day, and Trump will invoke Executive Privilege, and he'll be backed up by his Supreme Court, so all the House can do is send the daily subpoena, annoying the White House and forcing them to write the daily 'Executive Privilege' letter.

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Regime change in Iran is very likely in 2019, it's been planned since 2003. After all, the US courts said the Iranians funded the 9/11 attack and trained the hundreds of hijackers, a few of which are still incarcerated in Guantanamo, and the rest, of course, returned to heroes' welcomes in the Axis of Evil: Afghanistan, Iraq, the DPRK, Libya, Syria, and Cuba. Many don't realise that all those countries are co-religionists of the Ayatollahs, but the US President has access to intelligence the rest of us lack. So when Bush, jr and the US courts said no Saudi was involved, it was all the Axis of Evil, that's final, and was accepted by Obama and Trump (and again, we have to use the Thrasymachus definition of 'irrefutable proof').

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Russia has sold a very few S-300 missiles to Syria, but RT says they cover less than 10% of Syria, so Israel can continue to bomb at will (Israeli intelligence would know where they are so the Israeli Air Force can avoid them). It seems, if the planes fly low, the S-300 is only effective over a 25 km range, and Russia only sold between 2 and 4 of them, so not much coverage (but Israel won't be able to safely bomb within 25 km of where the 2 or 4 are).

So RT has made it clear that, for protection, one must buy lots of S-400 anti-aircraft batteries. Two or four S-300s won't provide much protection at all. Decent marketing by the Russians.

Living with the US of A

The US media keep saying that MAD no longer exists, the US military is so strong, they have impregnable defences and an offence that can completely destroy any enemy of the US. The US media say that Russia's recent video of MAD weapons that can penetrate US defences are just Photoshop, so the US is invulnerable, and can destroy any nation that does not do as they're told by the US (e.g., China and its 9-Dash Line).

Meaning, the nuclear powers led by sane leaders have to figure out what is the best thing they can do about the nuclear power led by a bunch of crazies.

For years, the US picked proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam with the USSR and China, or neo-Imperial wars with Iran, Grenada, Panama, Chile, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, etc., etc., and so managed to avoid the danger of a nuclear war, but then, the US knew that nuclear war meant MAD, and now they don't.

The Concerned Scientists say the Doomsday Clock is two minutes before midnight. Pollyannas, those Concerned Scientists.