@sodiummuffin's banner p

sodiummuffin


				

				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					

					
joined 2022 September 05 03:26:09 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
User ID: 420


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
sodiummuffin


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 03:26:09 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 420


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					
					Year
					All
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Issue is that well, I don't really know if he had any knowledge of it.




CNN: Graham Platner’s claims that he didn’t know tattoo was Nazi-linked undercut by new evidence




In one thread from 2019, Platner weighed in on a conversation about the “Totenkopf” — the skull-and-crossbones emblem worn by Nazi SS units that his own tattoo would later draw scrutiny for resembling — to note that many US service members had adopted similar imagery, such as the Punisher skull used by some Navy SEALs.


Using his longtime Reddit handle P-Hustle, the former Marine infantryman and future Democratic Senate hopeful also argued in a 2020 online discussion that “SS” lightning-bolt tattoos were a "culture” marker within Marine Scout Sniper units, not an expression of White supremacist ideology.


When commenters in the 2020 thread described the lightning bolts as a Nazi or racist symbol, Platner dismissed the criticism, writing that outsiders “have no idea what they’re talking abou” and added, “I will be sure to inform the Black guys I know with bolts that they’re Nazis now.”


Copies of the threads were archived through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and on a separate Reddit archiving website.


CNN also spoke with an acquaintance of Platner from more than a decade ago who said Platner spoke about his tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. A second person told CNN that they learned of the tattoo years ago from the acquaintance, who told them that Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.


CNN also reviewed a text chain between the acquaintance and another person discussing Platner’s Nazi-like tattoo several months ago, before the story became public.




I find the position he implicitly expressed in his Reddit comments, that Nazi symbols are a cultural tradition in the military with no particular ideological meaning, to be much more believable than his public claims. Because Nazism is the most taboo ideology in western society, Nazi symbols are likewise taboo, which means they are cool and edgy and costly ingroup signaling, which means they become cultural traditions among certain groups like criminals and soldiers that some people get regardless of ideology. The appeal is especially strong when combined with the Nazis being a militaristic group associated with the most famous historical war. As he alludes to in the second comment, the Nazi SS symbol was particularly heavily used by the Marine Corps Scout Snipers, with Wikipedia claiming its usage dates back to the 1980s and continued to some degree after being banned in 2012, but similar dynamics cause people to get other Nazi symbols as tattoos on a less organized scale. Sure. However I don't think this is an argument that most of his political allies would normally be sympathetic to.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The direct impetus for the air strikes was obviously the Iranian protests and the slaughter of thousands of protestors weeks before. Having the government of Iran be replaced by protestors who owe the success of their revolution to U.S. airstrikes is presumably a best-case outcome for the U.S. (and for Iranians), but Trump has varied between explicitly calling for regime change and minimalist goals regarding further destroying their nuclear program, probably in large part so that he can declare victory regardless of how things turn out.


When the protests were still ongoing Trump was supposedly hours from ordering air strikes against Iranian police/etc. to support the protestors but was talked down, supposedly in part by Netanyahu fearing retaliation before Israel was prepared for it. There was a lot of talk at the time about how this was a betrayal of the protestors, who he urged to take over the institutions and implied U.S. support but then didn't deliver while they were slaughtered. Meanwhile U.S. assets were moved into the region to support a better-prepared attack. By the time U.S. assets were in place the protests had been suppressed but Trump went ahead with the attack anyway. Since the attack both Trump and Reza Pahlavi have been explicitly urging the protestors to wait and it is unclear if Trump believes revolution is now futile, if he wants to do more work to weaken the regime before calling for protests to resume, or if he wants to keep his options open between some sort of agreement and attempting regime change.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The initial reaction seems to be that this is largely more of the same grainy video that we’ve previously had - with a few key exceptions. The big on being reporting by Peter Doocey is NASA records (picture and communications logs) from the Apollo missions. NASA astronauts reporting and confirming observations of very bright luminescent angular objects tumbling in the moons atmosphere. Also appearing formation in some videos. The NASA comms logs seem significant. Trained military and science professionals of the highest order. Reporting that they see a bogey out the window. Ground control asks “is that the booster?”. Astronaut says “it’s a bogey”.




The NASA/Borman audio is also old. I checked the Metabunk thread (my usual source of analysis on UFO stuff) and someone pointed out an 8 year old Youtube video with the same audio. The thread is only a few hours old so they don't have analysis of most of it yet, but the linked explanation of the Chandelier video as a diffraction pattern is typical of how I expect the rest of it to turn out.