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   Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:19 JST Sean Casten

   They started this war with no clear objective and therefore no plan how to achieve it, nor how to end it. In spite of having ample intel and access to people of common sense who understood this risk. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/06/21/trump-confronts-new-hurdles-bid-peace-deal-with-iran/

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:16 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     Their collapsing poll numbers, the huge swings in off-cycle elections are all signs that public virtue is shining through. Their attempt to redistrict and distract with gladiator fights shows they also understand that Americans writ large are better than this. And that accountability is coming.

     Paul Cantrell repeated this.
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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:16 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     But it’s going to be ugly. A leader who will bomb school children, who will slash aid for our nations hungriest, who will destroy USAID AND who has been told by the Roberts court that they have immunity for all will not give up easily.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:17 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     And yet the Senate confirmed those sycophantic inadequacies. Thune, McConnell and the rest of them decided that the orchestrator of J6 was fit to serve again as POTUS. Mike Johnson has never in his life stood up to an abuser (see: Paul Pressler) and has no intention of starting now

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:17 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     All of which is to say that as bad as this is for THEM, WE are the ones bearing the consequences. In higher energy costs, loss of life, a more volatile Middle East, a loss of global respect for the US. Who we place in positions of public service matters for the public at large.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:17 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     We may not have seen all the risks they posed in all the specific detail, but we collectively understood what they were capable of. Per Madison, our form of government cannot rely on the virtue of our leaders, so it must rely on the virtue of those who select them.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:18 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     We knew that the JCPOA had worked to give us intel, slow their enrichment and stitch European and regional allies together against a shared foe. We knew that Pompeo’s “shock and awe” undid that success. We knew a country of 70 million people cannot be moved by bombs alone.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:18 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     We knew - per General Miley - that every $1 cut from global diplomacy spending obligates us to spend another $10 on defense. We knew that China and Russia would be delighted to see us burn through munitions, observe how we use them and break the post-WWII consensus.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:18 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     We knew all of this and more. And “we” is all of us. Yes, our intel professionals. Yes the advisors to every recent POTUS. But also anyone who reads a modicum of history, or has taken the time to rotate their globe and study geography outside of the greater Mar-a-Lago region.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:18 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     But it didn’t matter. Because Trump has a weird fetish for violence. Hegseth has a 12 year old’s impulse control in a fireworks store. Rubio was born without a spine, the better to slither his nose up into otherwise impossible-to-reach places.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:19 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     We knew before they went in that Hormuz was a choke point that Iran could control. That resistance to the Iranian regime wasn’t organized to respond on our time table. That Bibi is a “habitual line stepper” who would overplay his hand.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:19 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     We knew that their nuclear material was still enriched but buried under rubble from the prior bombing campaign and would be hard to access. We knew that Iranian leadership remembers what we did in 1953, even if ours fails to acknowledge any history prior to 1979.

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     Sean Casten (seancasten@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 01:38:19 JST Sean Casten

     in reply to

     We knew that the Iranians have no love for the Emiratis, Qataris, Saudis or their other Sunni neighbors and had the leverage to disrupt their economy as an asymmetrical response to our bombs.