A little noticed decision by Mike Pompeo Sunday may result in tens of thousands dying of starvation and also a massive oil spill 4 times bigger than the Valdez.

1/ A THREAD of the mind blowing insanity of Pompeo's decision to name Yemen's Houthis as a terrorist group.

2/ A civil war has been raging in Yemen since 2014. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. are on one side. The rebel Houthi tribe and Iran on the other. It has caused a humanitarian crisis - the worst in the world. 100,000 children have died of starvation or disease. 16m are malnourished.
3/ The Houthis are bad guys. They target civilians. They steal food aid. But they aren't what we would traditionally consider a "terrorist group". They are using barbaric tactics in the conduct of war. But so are the Saudis. They intentionally target civilians too.
4/ Only food aid keeps people alive in Yemen. But humanitarian organizations can't work in areas of countries controlled by terrorist organizations. Now, these programs will shut down in areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthis.
5/ Gets worse. Commercial food importers will not send food into the same areas. Yemen imports almost all its food. So the designation is essentially a death sentence for millions. No humanitarian food. No commercial food.
5/ Gets worse. The only way to achieve a political settlement is for the U.S. and the UN to broker a settlement between Houthis and the Saudis. But by law, the U.S. can't talk to terrorist groups, and frankly, the Houthis won't talk now anyway. They've been backed into a corner.
6/ And in that corner is Iran. At the start of the war, there was a loose relationship between the Houthis and Iran. As the war has dragged, the alliance has grown stronger. Now, it cements. The Iran-skeptic wing of the Houthis is now pushed into Iran's waiting arms. Disaster.
7/ Gets worse. A Houthi controlled rotting oil tanker sits right off the coast of the country's most important port. Soon, it will start leaking oil, or worse, explode, making the Beirut blast look like child's play. Houthis will now be much less willing to deal with UN on this.
8/ Finally, there's no upside. At all. Pompeo says it will send the Houthis a message. What? The State Dept. briefing today was a disaster. They had no answers for how this will drive Houthis to the negotiating table. No answers for how to prevent starvation.
9/ Biden can, and should, reverse the designation on day one. It's a no brainer. But the damage will be lasting. Some humanitarian groups may be spooked out of Yemen. The Houthis will be pushed to Iran. Peace negotiations will be less likely. A disaster of our own making.

More from Government

1.
Act of 1871
This is VERY Long but it will end with a MEGA BOOM!
Bookmark it and read it in small bits to digest it all.

This info, comes from some reputable anons and my own digging, compiled together as a superthread!
InevitableET, IPOT... to name a few.

2.
https://t.co/udep5WEYUp
https://t.co/bnzeQek6zv


3.
The TL; DR version is they, by military force, and illegitimate legislature, amended the constitution against the will of The People and legally tricked us into becoming unwitting indentured slaves of human capital and resources to THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA the corporation)

4.
Republic vs Democracy
-They needed to get away from the Republic and create a Democracy in order to drive us towards socialism and inevitably a dictatorship (National Socialist Party aka NAZI)


5.
Flag
Which metric is a better predictor of the severity of the fall surge in US states?

1) Margin of Democrat victory in Nov 2020 election
or
2) % infected through Sep 1, 2020

Can you guess which plot is which?


The left plot is based on the % infected through Sep 1, 2020. You can see that there is very little correlation with the % infected since Sep 1.

However, there is a *strong* correlation when using the margin of Biden's victory (right).

Infections % from
https://t.co/WcXlfxv3Ah.


This is the strongest single variable I've seen in being able to explain the severity of this most recent wave in each state.

Not past infections / existing immunity, population density, racial makeup, latitude / weather / humidity, etc.

But political lean.

One can argue that states that lean Democrat are more likely to implement restrictions/mandates.

This is valid, so we test this by using the Government Stringency Index made by @UniofOxford.

We also see a correlation, but it's weaker (R^2=0.36 vs 0.50).

https://t.co/BxBBKwW6ta


To avoid look-ahead bias/confounding variables, here is the same analysis but using 2016 margin of victory as the predictor. Similar results.

This basically says that 2016 election results is a better predictor of the severity of the fall wave than intervention levels in 2020!
They shouldn't be.

The pattern is:
GOP in power - GOP dictates policy

Dems in power - GOP dictates policy


The Dems shouldn't legislate toward the GOP.

The GOP doesn't represent its constituents.

The GOP can push it's agenda on its own time.

If Dems push an agenda that actually helps people, it'll also actually help the GOP constituency.

The GOP won't. So give them nothing.

The Dems should ignore the GOP just like the GOP ignores the Dems.

Make them pay for every moment of obstruction.

Just a hard press on legislation that is unassailable and shine a light on the GOP.

Constant. Relentless. Unyielding.

Shut them out and shut them down.

The GOP is not a legitimate political party. It is an anti-democratic, fascist criminal syndicate with no interest whatsoever in governance.

Nobody should give them the slightest bit of credit or legitimacy ever again.

Not a fucking ounce.

Nobody should engage them in legitimate debate in Congress.

They should be pariahs and treated as unserious occupants of Congress.

Because these people were totally ok with their colleagues being killed in furtherance of the destruction of the insitution.

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