191–200 of 257 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I don't want affordable apartments or housing in my backyard because it lowers my property value" is a pretty clear amplifier of homelessness.
You do realize that normal people who can't afford a city will just move to a cheaper area right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many people voted for that "one individual causing chaos" again? 70 million? He's also backed by billionaires and an administration that seems to be just as unhinged. It's not one person causing chaos, it's a whole country with its violent culture. The scale changed slightly, but it's also nothing new.
This. There are really two explanations here. Either the US hasn't been a democracy in the first place. Or the majority of the US voters prefer autocratic amoral psychopaths running their country.
...
Democracy is only as good as the people doing the voting, who are about as good (as the rules they don't protest againsts) and the content they consume, which is about as good as certain groups make it to be.
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Rather than blame this voter, why don't we put some blame onto the democrats. In San Francisco, progressive democrats have wasted billions on homeless and crime but with little to show for. Sometimes democrats do push too far left. Far left is not that much different than far right.
Because, uh, Democrats didn’t do this? I don’t really give a rats ass who runs the internals of your country, and what goes on in San Francisco seems like a you problem. Due to voters like this, Trump is now my problem many thousands of miles away. Don’t underestimate just how much ill will he is generating around the world, especially in allied nations, by insulting leaders and pushing up all of our energy prices.
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I think we're beyond the point of "you can't criticize them. That's mean and motivates them." At what point is the line drawn? Should it be in bad taste to criticize Orban supporters because it makes them support him more? What about Erdogan? Putin? Kim Jong Un? And why is it one sided that they can't be criticized, but it's all fair and good for their own leaders to demonize everyone? It's a silly double standard an…
If you want to win elections, yes. You never convince voters by telling them that they are evil people. Its fine to say Trump is evil, its not fine to say Trump voters are evil because those voters will now be much less likely to vote for you. They can't take back their votes, they already voted for Trump before, so they will just not vote for you when you attack them like that.
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Spanish tankers are going through. Filipinian and Indian too. Again, what are you on about. France was one of 3 countries that literally blocked UN resolution about opening straight by force. And president repeatedly called it "impossible". You read weird news if you thing "a threat" of anything is making iran to let ships pass. Money and noninvolvement do.
> Spanish tankers are going through No they are not, this French ship was the first European tanker going through.
Spain has permission from Iran to send through tankers if it indeed had some.
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France hasn't bought Israeli weapons systems and vice versa for years, so it's just a quick populist win with 0 practical implications either way. That said, French and Israeli vendors like Thales, IAI, Dassault, Rafael, Elbit, etc still collaborate closely becuase they are both OEMs, vendors, and JV partners in Indian defense deals that integrate both into Indian weapons systems - especially as both are integrated (…
I think there has been some low volume defense trade in both directions. What some people seem to forget is that France and Israel also compete over some of the same defense deals. There was these incidents where France banned Israeli companies from some defense shows: https://www.politico.eu/article/france-bans-israeli-companie... https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250616-france-blocks...
And French and Israeli companies are fine with that - as can be seen by Thales [0], Safran [1] and Rafael (IL) [2] working on Indian JVs for India's Rafale [3] and Tejas [1] requirements.
It's cheap for French politicans to make pronouncements (and given how competitive the 2027 election is going to be, Macron has no choice but to resort to such populism in order to try and poach some amount of LFI voters to Renaissance/En Marche), but France Inc ignores it and carries on because business is more important.
It's the same reason why Dassault bluntly rejected German input on SCAF [4] and why France's Safran and Russia's UAC are working with India's HAL to indigenize the SJ-100 [5]. And now that the UAE has pulled out of Dassault's F5 program [6], they are even more dependent on India.
As I've mentioned before on HN, French and American business culture are very similar.
Even Vietnam is starting to turn the screws on France, especially now that En Marche's Stephanié Do has now become a lobbyist [7] for FPT's defense arm [8] which is partially owned by Vietnam's KGB (the MPS/BCA).
It's the same kind of arm-twisting China used in the 1980s-2000s and 1990s-2010s respectively to force Israel [9] and Russia [10][11] to transfer IP for China's J-XX program, except both India and Vietnam are applying such arm-twisting on France in addition to Israel and Russia.
And Macron and all the other centrists politicans cannot do anything against Dassault, Thales, etc lest they switch to supporting Bardella and RN like Bolloré [12] and Stérin [13] are doing. Macron himself is only in power because Arnault [14] and his son-in-law (and CEO of Scaleway) Xavier Niels [15].
[0] - https://www.asdnews.com/news/aerospace/2022/07/21/iai-select...
[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-25/india-to-...
[2] - https://gbp.com.sg/stories/rafael-eyes-ice-breaker-spike-lr2...
[3] - https://aviationweek.com/defense/aircraft-propulsion/dassaul...
[4] - https://aviationweek.com/defense/aircraft-propulsion/dassaul...
[5] - https://idrw.org/original-sam146-engine-likely-to-power-indi...
[6] - https://www.latribune.fr/article/defense-aerospatiale/defens...
[7] - https://www.tst-consulting.fr/
[8] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/asie-pacifique/2026/04/03/...
[9] - https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/12/world/israel-selling-chin...
[10] - https://thediplomat.com/2010/12/how-chinas-jets-threaten-rus...
[11] - https://asia.nikkei.com/politics/international-relations/rus...
[12] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la...
[13] - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/world/europe/pierre-eduoa...
[14] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-be...
[15] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2022/07/10/u...
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If that was true many more tankers would have passed from other countries that were more against the war. France is one of few countries with large military presence in the area, that is the only thing they do more than most other countries. Edit: And France even directly threatened to use force here. If you only read American news you wouldn't know since they want it to seem like the world is on Irans side here. Wha…
Nobody is on Iran's side. The world is not black and white. Most countries want STABILITY not WAR. Yes Iranian regime is evil. Yes they kill people. And no that's not worth bombing them over. There are politicians who actually THINK and do CALCULATIONS. This war has probably already cost the global economy a trillion USD.
Also, US is certainly gaining here from high oil prices since its not an optional luxury rather a necessity for entire economies.
Last week the US stated they didn't need any of the oil, and that if other countries wanted it they could go figure it out themselves. Looks like they have. And yet the US is now back to threatening Iran if they don't open up the oil.
We are 1 Year and 3 months into this current administration, 2 years and 9 months remain. Despite the short period in office, so much damage and chaos has being caused by one individual and the sycophants who surround him. It is a fact that the reputation of the USA has being damaged, perhaps not repairable for decades or more. This will have consequences. Perhaps, I hope, Americans will take action to save the democ…
The MAGA base does not care about the international reputation of the US. They lean heavily towards isolationism (irrationally, imho).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are 1 Year and 3 months into this current administration, 2 years and 9 months remain. Despite the short period in office, so much damage and chaos has being caused by one individual and the sycophants who surround him. It is a fact that the reputation of the USA has being damaged, perhaps not repairable for decades or more. This will have consequences. Perhaps, I hope, Americans will take action to save the democ…
Approximately the same things were said about Dubya Jr's war with invisible WMDs. If you've forgotten - listen to some songs that came out at the time. It's not about a particular president, it's that the US seems to have a systemic dependency on starting these wars.
These 2 are incomparable on any level. If you want to say it can always get worse that I can agree with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that was true many more tankers would have passed from other countries that were more against the war. France is one of few countries with large military presence in the area, that is the only thing they do more than most other countries. Edit: And France even directly threatened to use force here. If you only read American news you wouldn't know since they want it to seem like the world is on Irans side here. Wha…
Nobody is on Iran's side. The world is not black and white. Most countries want STABILITY not WAR. Yes Iranian regime is evil. Yes they kill people. And no that's not worth bombing them over. There are politicians who actually THINK and do CALCULATIONS. This war has probably already cost the global economy a trillion USD.