quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
This war needs to stop . These gas prices are going to kill the Republicans in the mid terms.

Name a year that high gasoline prices impacted a midterm election. Here are the last 25 years:

2002 - low prices, no congressional control flip

2006 - High prices (190% higher than 2002 and 139% higher than 2004), both houses flipped. However, at the same time the Bush admin showed gross incompetence in response to Katrina, it was our 4th year occupying Iraq and US Military fatalities were mounting with no end in sight, and Republican Congressional Critters had one scandal after another (e.g. Jack Abramoff). In other words, I don't think gasoline prices were as much of a factor as the rest of what was happening.

2010 - Prices lower than 2008 election, house flipped.

2014 - Prices lower than 2012 election, senate flipped.

2018 - low prices, house flipped

2022 - very high gas prices that were even higher than today:


In 2022, Republicans were supposed to have a “red wave” because there was drooling drooling, incompetent, moron in the White House and the gas prices were through the roof. However, the house was a tiny gain and the senate was a loss:


Turns out that only 46.2% of eligible voters bothered to get off their ass and vote in 2022 midterm which was a decrease from 50% in the 2018 midterm. Except for a few congressional seats, the biggest factor in an election outcome is whichever party gets its base voters to the polls and the fickle middle has little to nothing to do with it.

Looking at election participation, a Sigforumite's biggest opportunity to contribute to society would be to encourage conservatives in their sphere of influence to get to the voting booth.

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Say the US committed war crimes without saying the US committed war crimes

Fuck the Useless Nitwits and especially this "war crimes" shit. Only the losers of the conflict commit war crimes. After all, it's always the victors who hold the trials.

Does anyone else think this adventure is going a bit sideways? I guess I mean in the political venue, which 40 some days before the midterms is all that matters. And in no way am I suggesting that Iran is “winning”, they’re just proving harder to kill than a cockroach on steroids. Even VDH thought this would be resolved in “2 more weeks”. On multiple occasions.
I expected more urgency

Even if the conflict stops, there is no guarantee that oil will flow. Europe will see the effects first. They can choose to starve or go help get the oil

quote:

Originally posted by FrankMoses:
Does anyone else think this adventure is going a bit sideways? I guess I mean in the political venue, which 40 some days before the midterms is all that matters. And in no way am I suggesting that Iran is “winning”, they’re just proving harder to kill than a cockroach on steroids. Even VDH thought this would be resolved in “2 more weeks”. On multiple occasions.
I expected more urgency

We already won in the first week. We smashed their air force, navy, and leadership. There's a new regime in power and they are begging us to for a deal but we are in no rush to accept their surrender.

quote:

Originally posted by FrankMoses:
Does anyone else think this adventure is going a bit sideways? I guess I mean in the political venue, which 40 some days before the midterms is all that matters. And in no way am I suggesting that Iran is “winning”, they’re just proving harder to kill than a cockroach on steroids. Even VDH thought this would be resolved in “2 more weeks”. On multiple occasions.
I expected more urgency

The only reason its lasted this long is Trump really hates people dying, and wants to give the Iranian people a chance to overthrow the government. If we obliterate their infrastructure, it makes it difficult to rebuild.

quote:

Originally posted by Carpentermaass84:
There's a new regime in power and they are begging us to for a deal but we are in no rush to accept their surrender.

It's quite difficult to take this statement seriously. It's flat-out wrong, of course, but I'm having a really hard time believing that you actually believe what you said.

Fresh news article. It get's me to hear that the Strait of Hormuz is subject to Iran opening it, when we also hear that our Navy is escorting ships through. Which is it?

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfr...dkt_nbr=010502ryshh9

Iran Says War-End Terms Sent to Trump

Iran has sent its conditions for ending the war to President Donald Trump through Qatar and is awaiting his response, Tehran's top security official said Saturday.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Al Jazeera that Qatar had conveyed Tehran's terms to Washington as indirect diplomatic efforts continue to end the conflict.

Rezaei said Iran's conditions include ending the war on all fronts, unfreezing Iranian funds, and ending the U.S. naval blockade.

He said Tehran remains in talks with mediators Qatar and Pakistan and has communicated its conditions for negotiations through them.

Rezaei also told Al Jazeera that Iran recently tested an anti-ship missile near a U.S. aircraft carrier, highlighting the continuing military tensions even as Tehran pursues negotiations, and that Iran wants the fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen to end.

The conditions largely reflect demands Tehran has made in recent weeks. Rezaei previously said Iran would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the U.S. ended the war and naval blockade, released frozen Iranian assets, and agreed to a region-wide ceasefire.

The latest diplomatic push comes after Trump said Wednesday that the United States was "hopefully toward the end of the war" and that he had spoken directly with Iranian officials. Tehran has not confirmed direct talks with Washington.

"They want to make a deal. We'll see how that works out," Trump said.

Qatar and Pakistan have been involved in efforts to mediate between Washington and Tehran. Qatar's prime minister met Rezaei in Tehran last month, while Pakistani officials have held separate talks with Iranian leaders aimed at ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by Carpentermaass84:
There's a new regime in power and they are begging us to for a deal but we are in no rush to accept their surrender.

It's quite difficult to take this statement seriously. It's flat-out wrong, of course, but I'm having a really hard time believing that you actually believe what you said.

I am only repeating what our president has said many times at this point. Why people continue to doubt him or seek answers to questions he's already answered is beyond me.

Oh, my goodness, yes. I am one of President Trump's greatest doubters, having demonstrated it, day in, day out, for the past 11 years.

You don't want to pull this obtuse crap with me.

Your lack of perceptiveness extends to Donald Trump's speaking style.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...800016125#8800016125

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Donald Trump has spent a lifetime as a deal-maker. No one succeeds in his field unless deals go through. This deal-making psychology compels him to try to will deals into reality, and he does this through public assertions of success, of the inevitable successful completion of deals. This language is calculated to create market confidence and momentum with those whom he is negotiating.

Every deal is going great, this project is going to result in the finest building of its kind, the like of which no one has ever seen before. People are going to be so happy, everyone involved will benefit, and on and on.

Over and over, we have heard this kind of language and attitude from him. He is smoothing the path by clearing obstacles as best he can, and one way he can do this is through these positive affirmations.

Now, to be sure, closing the deal on a new high-rise in Manhattan is different than negotiating to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of psychopaths, but in both cases, Donald Trump is the Donald Trump he has been, consistently, over the decades.

Iran has not surrendered. Iran is not trying to surrender. Iran has not been defeated in this war, not in the first week, not at any point. This attitude you're displaying is what has been assigned by the political left to all of President Trump's supporters, which is that we all worship him and his every word without question. You do us no favors by failing to realize what Donald Trump is trying to accomplish when he says certain things which have not come to pass.

Most controllers over the last few decades resemble what's used amongst common gaming devices.
1) They're pretty smartly designed from the outset and
2) the end user will be from a generation that they're familiar with it and getting up to speed on the inputs will be fairly easy.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
Most controllers over the last few decades resemble what's used amongst common gaming devices.
1) They're pretty smartly designed from the outset and
2) the end user will be from a generation that they're familiar with it and getting up to speed on the inputs will be fairly easy.

they don't "resemble" they simply are. Microsoft spent a lot of money on that controller getting it right for long life, ease of use, and ergonomic fit across as many human hands as possible. even if they wanted to DoD and DARPA couldn't have built a better one.

“The U.S. is using Xbox video game controllers to control infrared lasers to dismantle Iranian infrastructure, according to the New York Post.”

What type of infrastructure, I wonder.

My Grok query:
“The news reports that the US is using lasers to dismantle Iranian infrastructure. Is that correct, and what infrastructure is targeted?”

Grok’s response (my copy and paste lost some formatting):
“Partly correct, but the “dismantle Iranian infrastructure” framing is overstated. High-energy lasers are being used operationally against Iranian aerial threats—mainly drones and incoming cruise missiles—in the Strait of Hormuz, not to cut down buildings, bridges, or power plants.
The reports circulating today (September 24, 2026) stem from a New York Post story citing confirmation from the Department of War (the renamed Defense Department). The systems take out drones and cruise missiles at far lower cost per shot than kinetic interceptors. Operators can track a drone and hold the beam on a specific spot to disable sensors or destroy it. Some systems use controllers similar to Xbox gamepads.

What is actually being targeted
• Drones and incoming cruise missiles — the primary confirmed use. Lasers heat a spot on the target until it fails or explodes. This is cheaper than firing a missile at every cheap drone.
• Iranian military hardware / “regime hardware” in the Hormuz area.
• Ship-mounted systems such as HELIOS (High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance), a ~60 kW laser on Navy destroyers. There are also dazzlers that blind sensors rather than destroy the platform. The Army recently awarded a ~$500 million production contract for more “war-ready” high-energy lasers.

These weapons have been part of the broader campaign (Operation Epic Fury, which began in late February 2026) that also uses conventional strikes, satellites, and cyber tools. Earlier reporting described lasers on destroyers off Iran’s coast for drone defense. They have also been tested against cartel drones on the U.S. southern border. Reports say they have not been used against human targets.

What lasers are not doing
Conventional munitions—not lasers—have been used against Iranian infrastructure such as bridges, tunnels, roads, rail lines, power facilities, and desalination plants in southern Iran (especially Hormozgan province near Hormuz) to hinder mobility and recovery. President Trump previously said the U.S. could knock out bridges, energy supply, and power plants “in a small part of an afternoon.” That was a conventional-strike threat, not a laser one.
Current lasers are limited by weather, atmospheric conditions, the need to dwell on a target for seconds, and the fact that they typically engage one target at a time. They are large systems mounted on ships, not handheld “dismantling” tools. Sensational headlines that say lasers are “devastating Iranian infrastructure” are stretching the confirmed use against weapons and incoming threats.”

We've deployed the Jewish space lasers!

^^

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
We've deployed the Jewish space lasers!

May the Schwartz be with you.

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...tm_campaign=20260928

Bessent: Iran’s Economy Will Have ‘Nothing Left to Trade’ in Two Weeks

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Sunday that Iran will have “nothing left to trade for anything” within roughly two weeks as its remaining oil reaches China, arguing that the Trump administration’s economic campaign has brought Tehran “to its knees” and is driving the regime to seek a deal.

Bessent said only about 15 million barrels of Iranian oil remain on the water as the United States maintains its blockade of Iranian exports, leaving Tehran close to exhausting one of its remaining major sources of revenue.

“I am confident, given that there are only 15 million more barrels of Iranian oil on the water, that Iran will have nothing left to trade for anything,” Bessent told Fox News’s Larry Kudlow on Sunday Morning Futures.

Bessent put the remaining window at roughly two weeks.

“Probably within the next two weeks, they are going to make their final deliveries of oil to China, and then they will have nothing,” he said. “It is an empty set, and I believe they are feeling the pressure here and that’s why they want a deal.”

Bessent’s assessment comes as President Donald Trump has rejected Tehran’s latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while signaling that negotiations could continue this week, saying Iran is now seeking terms Washington might have accepted before the war.

“They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make,” Trump told Axios on Sunday. “It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago. They overplayed their hand.”

Bessent argued that the changing balance is visible in the strait itself, dismissing Iran’s offer to reopen the waterway within seven days as a concession when millions of barrels of oil from other countries are already moving through it under U.S. protection.

“The straits are open,” Bessent declared. “If you take out the Iranian oil, which we are not letting out, we’re averaging now 15 to 22 million barrels a day; it was at about 20 pre-conflict.”

Bessent cast the result as a stark measure of who now controls the flow of oil through the strait.

“Think of it this way: the score is United States, one billion — more than one billion barrels have gotten out — and Iran, zero.”

The blockade has increasingly worked in tandem with Operation Economic Outcast, the sweeping financial campaign Bessent launched at Trump’s direction in late August to sever Iran’s remaining economic lifelines and isolate the regime from the international financial system.

The campaign has extended far beyond Iran itself. Treasury officials have engaged more than 50 countries as Washington presses governments, banks, airlines, and businesses to choose between maintaining ties with Tehran and access to the United States. Jonathan Burke, Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing, recently traveled across the Middle East and Europe carrying that message directly to Iran’s trading partners.

cont...w/ embedded video.