Not sure I understand the reasoning here. Making the judiciary elected directly instead of appointed would make them less independent? Seems like they’d be more independent from the rest of the state. There certainly are pros and cons to different judicial systems but this particular complaint doesn’t make sense.

I wonder if the real concern is that instead buying off just the president they’d also have to buy off the judiciary if they wanred to have more influence in Mexican politics. To be fair they seem to have trouble buying off the president anyway.

The most high value targets are probably close to the actual battle lines. The oil refineries are also decently high value, but they don’t need to go deep into Russia to disrupt that.

TBH don’t know which one would have been more embarressing for the Iranians. That the air defenses would have let an airstrike in Tehran or that they let the Israelis plant a bomb in a secured compound. Honestly I think this is worse for them.

Probably true lol.

Genuinely curiuos why this comment in particular got obliterated. Do people dispute the premise that the leaders are more rational then the followers?

The trouble with killing the people who say the propaganda is you eventually end with the people who believe the propganda in charge. This was a consistent takeaway from the war on terror. If Israel were looking to prolong the war, taking out the relative moderates would probably help.

Yeah that post war economy is gonna be hell, and this has knock on effects for years since it limits the spending that can be used to modernize the military in the future. It’s hard to see how this invasion will be remembered as a move that helped Russia long term.

Seems like AP is getting some basic facts mixed up here?

Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel during a single incident in April in response to Israel’s alleged assassination of a pair of Iranian generals in Syria at the time.

Here’s the contemporary source https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/13/middleeast/iran-drones-attack-israel-intl-latam/index.html

Iran launched an unprecedented large-scale drone and missile attack at Israel on Saturday night, in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic complex in Syria

tbh, pretty disappointing from AP.

Basically nothing, but he had a veto if he really was anti-NATO.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO

NATO expanded under Trump. While he talks a big game, I have serious doubts about Trump or any other president going against the MIC.

This is El Pais America, separate from the outlet in Spain.

lol

Couldn’t find it in English since lets be honest western media lies about what happens in South America, but here’s El Pais in Spanish about it.

https://elpais.com/america/2024-06-26/el-comandante-del-ejercito-de-bolivia-fue-destituido-tras-amenazar-a-evo-morales-no-puede-ser-mas-presidente-de-este-pais.html

Basically he was dismissed since he threatened to arrest Evo Morales who is the former president and a possible future canidate for the president. Morales is a very popular left wing leader who was forced out in 2019, but all western media will tell you is that he is corrupt while denying the legitimacy of the elections he won. Morales is also the first indigenous leader of Bolivia the only majority indigenous South American country I believe which has a lot to do with the opposition to him.

Bit of a double standard though, right? They don’t have to affirm Palestinian’s right to statehood. If not saying Israel is a legitimate state is anti-semitism, wouldn’t that make the same stance toward Palestine islamaphobia?

Modi better be careful lest he get the Imran Khan treatment from the US.

Asked about those findings on Monday, Miller noted that Israel said there were no tanks in the area, and that the State Department couldn’t attest to any particularities because it is only conveying what Israel has said.

The Washington Post previously confirmed there were armed military vehicles in the vicinity, as did Al Jazeera’s analysis of satellite imagery.

Most expansive intelligence apparatus on the globe, but they just can’t figure out what’s going on in Gaza.

What Euro Med said was also based on the testimony of locals. Sounds like he said she said and since the IDF destroyed all the buildings in that area it’ll be tough to prove definitely.

There are holes in Israel’s story here.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/middleeast/israel-gaza-hostages-journalist-hamas-intl-hnk/index.html

Aljamal lived on the first floor of a multi-story building, according to Euro-Med. The IDF said the hostages were found on the third floor.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/logan-act-michael-flynn-trump-russia/516774/

From this interview in the Atlantic, looks like the guy being interviewed thinks it’s probably not constitutional as written. Basically it could run afoul the first amendment and they’d have to write a more specific law to enforce it.

Hmm, I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for the info.