Politics

[Brent in Az]

The conservative SCOTUS ruled the tariff illegal. Do you really think payers shouldn’t get the money back that was paid on an illegal tariff? It’s essentially an overpayment of taxes. Should no one get tax refunds?

The ruling is what it is.

My concern is that importers/companies getting a refund on tarrif costs that were passed on to the consumer/ end user.
We are the ones that shoulder the burden of higher prices. Should not the taxpayers get a refund, or will it be importers and businesses?

 

[Marine 1]

Phoenix gas prices rise to an average of $3.91.
Biden era prices.
They better figure out a way to lower them before the midterms, or......

Isn't paying a little more for gas the least we can do with 1000s of American service people putting their lives on the line? Six have given the ultimate sacrifice. If they are willing to die for the cause, I will pay more for gas.

 

[Brent in Az]

Isn't paying a little more for gas the least we can do with 1000s of American service people putting their lives on the line? Six have given the ultimate sacrifice. If they are willing to die for the cause, I will pay more for gas.

I have already stated that very thing, however, most voters don't think the way that some of us do.
Most only think with their wallet.

 

[Marine 1]

Phoenix gas prices rise to an average of $3.91.
Biden era prices.
They better figure out a way to lower them before the midterms, or......

The reason your gas is so high is the taxes you pay. I filled up today in Texas for 2.35. I use the high-octane, no-ethanol blend at Shell. The difference in what I pay and what you pay is taxes. What can the POTUS do about state taxes? Gas is something you need, so it is a target for taxes.

 

[Marine 1]

I have already stated that very thing, however, most voters don't think the way that some of us do.
Most only think with their wallet.

Very true. When some in society get something for free, it means taxes go up to pay for it. That is how democrats get elected, promising to make someone else pay for the stuff you get for free. Such as paying off student loans. Democrats took money from taxpayers to pay off a debt incurred by someone else. One of the gold medal gymnastics athletes is worth 2 million but had 40,000 in school debt, paid off by taxpayers. It is called buying votes.

 

[Brent in Az]

The reason your gas is so high is the taxes you pay. I filled up today in Texas for 2.35. I use the high-octane, no-ethanol blend at Shell. The difference in what I pay and what you pay is taxes. What can the POTUS do about state taxes? Gas is something you need, so it is a target for taxes.

Yes the taxes are higher here, but that has nothing to do with the recent price increase. The taxes are a set amount per gallon.
The oil situation seems to be hitting some states harder .
We were an average of $2.99 before the Iran situation, and it has now increased by almost $1.00 in some areas

 

[cwpayton]

Thinking about this operation a bit, it must be presenting huge implications to the Chinese with respect to Taiwan.

For instance, the power and simultaneity of the joint force attack is pretty staggering. Those initial fires included ground launched ATACMs missiles; air, ground, and sea launched cruise missiles; precision airstrikes using HARM anti-radar munitions and JDAMS; cyber attacks; and undetectable strategic bomber sorties flying 38-hour round trip missions from the American heartland (something no other nation has the remotest capability of doing). That is scaling the initial blow to thousands of simultaneously struck targets. That sort of scale not only reflects on the quality of the hardware, but perhaps more directly on the professionalism of the entire joint force from command planning, through execution, to support and fielding. This and the observation below also casts significant doubt about the quality and effectiveness of Russian and Chinese air defense capabilities and doctrine.

Second, would be the utter ruthlessness of the attack. In the opening minutes the presiding leadership of both the nation and its armed forces was killed. The most newsworthy was the strike which hit the leadership meeting in Tehran, but at the same time headquarters and command and control centers all across the Iranian defense structure were also hit. The Chinese leadership has to realize that those same assets could be carrying out the same sorts of conventional missions virtually anywhere in China.

Third, the intelligence preparation of the battlefield is better than anything I have yet seen. Most importantly, it seems to be extremely timely. One of the major criticisms to which I can personally testify was the lack of timeliness of national and theater-level intelligence during the Gulf War and much of the more recent Afghan and Iraqi conflicts. The US seems to have finally broken the intel parochialism, particularly strategic, that delayed so much critical targeting information in the past.

Fourth, the US seems to have total control over the cyber and non-hardwire communications network. To the extent the Iranian Aerospace forces had any ability to exercise current targeting, that was destroyed in the opening sorties. An Iranian hypersonic missile with terminal guidance might seem a real threat to something like an aircraft carrier, but without the ability to target transient targets in real time, that asset becomes simply another target waiting on the ground to be destroyed.

Fifth, underground facilities sound impressive. But with the right munitions and delivery mechanisms, they suddenly are nothing more than highly vulnerable and easily identified fixed targets. According to CENTCOM, Iranian missile launches are down 90% from the opening day or two of the conflict. That is because Iranian missile stockpiles are being hugely attritted inside their caves. China can be assured similar targeting is being updated daily of its storage locations.

For both nations, the challenge represented by cheap attack drones needs to solved. The US used them for the first time during this campaign against fixed soft targets like radars, air defense sites, and naval assets. An interceptor like THAAD or Patriot can easily engage them, but it is an unsustainable trade ratio. Instead, both area and point defense solutions need to be fielded quickly. The navy is currently operating a laser equipped destroyer with the Ford battle group. Other energy related solutions are being tested by the USMC and Army. One would assume the Chinese are doing the same.

Finally, this challenge is likely only get worse for the Chinese. The first US Army hypersonic units have already been deployed in PACOM (that is now open source) and will soon be a permanent asset. The B-21 Raider will soon go into full rate production, and instead of having 19 stealth strategic bombers, the US will have 100 or more. The F-35 will continue its fielding across the joint force and the F-47 is on the horizon. China must also decide what to do about US bases in Japan, the Philippines, the Indian Ocean, and likely Australia. They can not hope to be successful in taking Taiwan if the US Air Force and Navy have regional sanctuaries that can not be interdicted. This has not been a particularly successful effort by Iran. Japan, especially, can be counted upon to vigorously defend its sovereignty - I wish I felt the same way about Australia.

You have rightly identified the problem #1 the drones, drones in Ukraine are kicking Russias butt, and drones are doing damage to US bases as well as the hypersonic missile batteries we are desperately trying to bomb. the 5th fleet base in Bahrain has sustained 2 substantial hits as well as a marine base in Kuwait. also not mentioned widely is the Ben Gurion apt. in Isreal has been hit and was closed down as of yesterday. The Bahrain naval base is the closest base for rearming the ships with missiles.
the laser weapon on some ships appears to be working , but IM not aware of that weapon being used at bases yet, are you?
And a 3 million dollar missile against a 20,000 dollar drone will not work in the long run, or isit 30,0000?
as Iran was a proxy of both China and Russia Im concerned to see how they plan to redeem their utter failures in air defenses. what are they planning, I think it would have been better to equip Ukraine to deal with Russia, but that canoe is already floated down river now.
#2 As any ground commander knows , on the ground is where things grind out and sometimes very slowly. as we learned or should have in Vietnam, we owned the air but the ground war was a meat grinder, same lesson in Irag and Afghan. Eventually someone is going to have to put thousands of boots on the ground , the Kurds cant accomplish that alone. Since we havent proven to be the most faithful allie to the Kurds who else will step up,...well that leaves us. So how is this going to be a Quick war?

 

[HookMeUpII]

With all that went on in Venezuela, now Iran, and even Ecuador...

The world doesn't seem to be talking about this. One fundamental Islamist country with nuclear weapons on the brink of war with another.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-strikes-afghanistan-targets-clashes-intensify-2026-02-27/

 

[Wheels]

Regarding the open Oklahoma Senate seat. Governor Stitt will appoint a new Senator after Mullins confirmation. That Senator can not run in the next election per Oklahoma law so his term would only be around nine months.

Governor Stitt is termed out. It sounds like he is considering running for the vacant Senate seat.

These are thoughts from people who are closer to the situation than me.

From my perspective Stitt falls between Mullin and Lankford politically, probably closer to Lankford.

 

[Russ16]

The ruling is what it is.

My concern is that importers/companies getting a refund on tarrif costs that were passed on to the consumer/ end user.
We are the ones that shoulder the burden of higher prices. Should not the taxpayers get a refund, or will it be importers and businesses?

I don’t disagree but that’s not how taxes work.

Not all companies passed the tariffs on to consumers in part or in full. There are many products that were subject to the tariff that the shelf price didn’t increase. The process of what products had a price increase at what point in the supply chain and refunding that is almost impossible.

All the government can do is refund the illegal tax that was collected to the entity that paid it.

 

[SaintPanzer]

Thinking about this operation a bit, it must be presenting huge implications to the Chinese with respect to Taiwan.

For instance, the power and simultaneity of the joint force attack is pretty staggering. Those initial fires included ground launched ATACMs missiles; air, ground, and sea launched cruise missiles; precision airstrikes using HARM anti-radar munitions and JDAMS; cyber attacks; and undetectable strategic bomber sorties flying 38-hour round trip missions from the American heartland (something no other nation has the remotest capability of doing). That is scaling the initial blow to thousands of simultaneously struck targets. That sort of scale not only reflects on the quality of the hardware, but perhaps more directly on the professionalism of the entire joint force from command planning, through execution, to support and fielding. This and the observation below also casts significant doubt about the quality and effectiveness of Russian and Chinese air defense capabilities and doctrine.

Second, would be the utter ruthlessness of the attack. In the opening minutes the presiding leadership of both the nation and its armed forces was killed. The most newsworthy was the strike which hit the leadership meeting in Tehran, but at the same time headquarters and command and control centers all across the Iranian defense structure were also hit. The Chinese leadership has to realize that those same assets could be carrying out the same sorts of conventional missions virtually anywhere in China.

Third, the intelligence preparation of the battlefield is better than anything I have yet seen. Most importantly, it seems to be extremely timely. One of the major criticisms to which I can personally testify was the lack of timeliness of national and theater-level intelligence during the Gulf War and much of the more recent Afghan and Iraqi conflicts. The US seems to have finally broken the intel parochialism, particularly strategic, that delayed so much critical targeting information in the past.

Fourth, the US seems to have total control over the cyber and non-hardwire communications network. To the extent the Iranian Aerospace forces had any ability to exercise current targeting, that was destroyed in the opening sorties. An Iranian hypersonic missile with terminal guidance might seem a real threat to something like an aircraft carrier, but without the ability to target transient targets in real time, that asset becomes simply another target waiting on the ground to be destroyed.

Fifth, underground facilities sound impressive. But with the right munitions and delivery mechanisms, they suddenly are nothing more than highly vulnerable and easily identified fixed targets. According to CENTCOM, Iranian missile launches are down 90% from the opening day or two of the conflict. That is because Iranian missile stockpiles are being hugely attritted inside their caves. China can be assured similar targeting is being updated daily of its storage locations.

For both nations, the challenge represented by cheap attack drones needs to solved. The US used them for the first time during this campaign against fixed soft targets like radars, air defense sites, and naval assets. An interceptor like THAAD or Patriot can easily engage them, but it is an unsustainable trade ratio. Instead, both area and point defense solutions need to be fielded quickly. The navy is currently operating a laser equipped destroyer with the Ford battle group. Other energy related solutions are being tested by the USMC and Army. One would assume the Chinese are doing the same.

Finally, this challenge is likely only get worse for the Chinese. The first US Army hypersonic units have already been deployed in PACOM (that is now open source) and will soon be a permanent asset. The B-21 Raider will soon go into full rate production, and instead of having 19 stealth strategic bombers, the US will have 100 or more. The F-35 will continue its fielding across the joint force and the F-47 is on the horizon. China must also decide what to do about US bases in Japan, the Philippines, the Indian Ocean, and likely Australia. They can not hope to be successful in taking Taiwan if the US Air Force and Navy have regional sanctuaries that can not be interdicted. This has not been a particularly successful effort by Iran. Japan, especially, can be counted upon to vigorously defend its sovereignty - I wish I felt the same way about Australia.

This.

Also, to add from a previously posted article:

"Xi’s communications problem may be worse than his strategic one, because there is no good answer. If Beijing endorses the strikes, it loses the “Global South.” If Beijing condemns the strikes, it attaches Chinese prestige to a dead man’s regime, and risks provoking a Trump administration that has just demonstrated, through the act itself, that it does not bluff.

So Beijing chose the remaining option: Hide behind the United Nations. Mao Ning, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, called the killing “a grave violation of sovereignty.” The language sounds forceful, but the Belt and Road countries are watching, and what they see so far is a confused superpower reading from a script while American carriers do the actual deciding.

The truly vicious part of Beijing’s situation is that Iran’s entire playbook for retaliation was designed to punish Washington, but the geography and economics of each weapon mean the damage lands on China instead. Iranian missiles aimed at Gulf states threaten the very oil infrastructure and port facilities that Chinese companies have spent billions investing in across the region....

The clearest sign of Beijing’s disorientation is the absence of action: no emergency summits, no diplomatic maneuvers, no military repositioning, even as a Chinese citizen was killed in cross fire in Tehran and over 3,000 nationals were evacuated. The sum total of Beijing’s response to the largest American military operation in a generation remains a press conference.

Xi bet a decade of foreign policy on Khamenei’s ability to survive American pressure, and the bet did not pay off. Operation Epic Fury was designed to break the Islamic Republic, but it may also have exposed the uncomfortable truth that Chinese influence in the Middle East was only as durable as the assumption that no one would ever call it into question. And in Zhongnanhai, they know it."

 

[Brent in Az]

I don’t disagree but that’s not how taxes work.

Not all companies passed the tariffs on to consumers in part or in full. There are many products that were subject to the tariff that the shelf price didn’t increase. The process of what products had a price increase at what point in the supply chain and refunding that is almost impossible.

All the government can do is refund the illegal tax that was collected to the entity that paid it.

Understood.

 

[Brent in Az]

Iraq rumored to be shutting down it's oil production for storage fills. Kuwait and the UAE may follow suit.
Will we see some form of a global oil availability crisis?
Every oil producing country will manipulate the situation

 

[cwpayton]

This.

Also, to add from a previously posted article:

"Xi’s communications problem may be worse than his strategic one, because there is no good answer. If Beijing endorses the strikes, it loses the “Global South.” If Beijing condemns the strikes, it attaches Chinese prestige to a dead man’s regime, and risks provoking a Trump administration that has just demonstrated, through the act itself, that it does not bluff.

So Beijing chose the remaining option: Hide behind the United Nations. Mao Ning, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, called the killing “a grave violation of sovereignty.” The language sounds forceful, but the Belt and Road countries are watching, and what they see so far is a confused superpower reading from a script while American carriers do the actual deciding.

The truly vicious part of Beijing’s situation is that Iran’s entire playbook for retaliation was designed to punish Washington, but the geography and economics of each weapon mean the damage lands on China instead. Iranian missiles aimed at Gulf states threaten the very oil infrastructure and port facilities that Chinese companies have spent billions investing in across the region....

The clearest sign of Beijing’s disorientation is the absence of action: no emergency summits, no diplomatic maneuvers, no military repositioning, even as a Chinese citizen was killed in cross fire in Tehran and over 3,000 nationals were evacuated. The sum total of Beijing’s response to the largest American military operation in a generation remains a press conference.

Xi bet a decade of foreign policy on Khamenei’s ability to survive American pressure, and the bet did not pay off. Operation Epic Fury was designed to break the Islamic Republic, but it may also have exposed the uncomfortable truth that Chinese influence in the Middle East was only as durable as the assumption that no one would ever call it into question. And in Zhongnanhai, they know it."

Chinas silence is deafening

 

[Tanks]

I don’t disagree but that’s not how taxes work.

Not all companies passed the tariffs on to consumers in part or in full. There are many products that were subject to the tariff that the shelf price didn’t increase. The process of what products had a price increase at what point in the supply chain and refunding that is almost impossible.

All the government can do is refund the illegal tax that was collected to the entity that paid it.

It will be a mess. My company and I personally have paid thousands in tariffs which was a line item on our invoices. Once the companies get refunds, they will have to refund it back to people. It most likely will take years.

 

[Wheels]

Some of the Iranian propaganda is truly entertaining.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2029550822091005995

https://twitter.com/x/status/2029724868451913802

 

[Red Leg]

You have rightly identified the problem #1 the drones, drones in Ukraine are kicking Russias butt, and drones are doing damage to US bases as well as the hypersonic missile batteries we are desperately trying to bomb. the 5th fleet base in Bahrain has sustained 2 substantial hits as well as a marine base in Kuwait. also not mentioned widely is the Ben Gurion apt. in Isreal has been hit and was closed down as of yesterday. The Bahrain naval base is the closest base for rearming the ships with missiles.
the laser weapon on some ships appears to be working , but IM not aware of that weapon being used at bases yet, are you?
And a 3 million dollar missile against a 20,000 dollar drone will not work in the long run, or isit 30,0000?
as Iran was a proxy of both China and Russia Im concerned to see how they plan to redeem their utter failures in air defenses. what are they planning, I think it would have been better to equip Ukraine to deal with Russia, but that canoe is already floated down river now.
#2 As any ground commander knows , on the ground is where things grind out and sometimes very slowly. as we learned or should have in Vietnam, we owned the air but the ground war was a meat grinder, same lesson in Irag and Afghan. Eventually someone is going to have to put thousands of boots on the ground , the Kurds cant accomplish that alone. Since we havent proven to be the most faithful allie to the Kurds who else will step up,...well that leaves us. So how is this going to be a Quick war?

We will not do a major land incursion into Iran. It is a country the size of Alaska with a population of nearly 100,000 million. Based on the Balkans (successful) and Iraq (barely so) just a peace enforcement mission would require four or five divisions. We already have a 12 division mission for a ten division force. Even if we decided to do it, it would take at least six-months to assemble such a multi-corps land force in the Gulf. There has not been an iota of preparation for such an action.

We did not have air superiority over Vietnam. Over the North, where all the logistics and manpower originated after 68, the air was contested to the very end of the conflict. Hence our severe losses.

It will be interesting to see if some sort of culmination can be achieved by air alone. It has not been successful in the past, but in spite of Trump's rather confusing, "unconditional surrender" demand, the actual bar seems pretty low and perhaps achievable. Give up your nuclear program, cease production of long range missiles, and end support to regional proxies.

I personally think the most likely power to supplant the government is the Iranian Army. It is separate from the RGC and has chaffed under its control since the foundation of the Islamic State. The Kurds will be a geographically isolated complication for the regime.

 

[Red Leg]

Some of the Iranian propaganda is truly entertaining.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2029550822091005995

https://twitter.com/x/status/2029724868451913802

The sad thing is that not only do many of the Iranians apparently believe their own propaganda, so apparently do many of the idiots in this country who oppose the war.

 

[Brent in Az]

Trump demands "Unconditional surrender" by Iran, or there will be no negotiation.

 

[Red Leg]

Trump demands "Unconditional surrender" by Iran, or there will be no negotiation.

The one precludes the other. It is why that demand of Germany and Japan was the main reason they fought to the bloody end.