When you are the one starting a war in the middle east, you should first ask yourself “what will happen to oil prices?” and “How will this affect the November elections?”.
birgerjohanssonsays
Dollar Collapse: Japan may have to DUMP $1.2T in US Treasuries After Trump Cuts 95% of Japan’s Oil Supply By Starting War
@2 birgerjohansson wrote: A Different Bias: “Trump Should Have Filled Oil Reserves First
I reply: from my perspective, the first thing I would have wanted him to do is ‘CRAWL OFF AND DIE’. But, of course his megalomaniacal murderous ego would never even consider that.
and birgerjohansson wrote: with DJT everything is worst case.
I agree, this just proves ETTD (Everything Trump Touches Dies)
Even though some are probably getting tired of me saying this, I’m getting to the point where I wish Martha and the Vandellas were wrong when they sang: ‘nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide’. But, I can’t disprove their words.
“The MAGA Department of Justice is trying to shield Trump from something in the Epstein Files!” a Senator declared Thursday on the floor of the U.S. Senate. But then 70-year-old Sheldon Whitehouse — a 19-year Democratic Senator from Rhode Island — laid out all the evidence that exists for Russia’s ties to Epstein — and its highly suspicious connections to Trump — in an extraordinary 48-minute speech.
Epstein’s crimes actually left a long money trail that winds back to Russia, the Senator said, notingEpstein had 4,725 different wire transactions with Russia worth over $1 billion between 2003 and 2019 (according to a report from JP Morgan).
And as this evidence becomes widely known, it could prove fatal to Trump’s presidency. Just weeks ago Poland opened an official investigation into Epstein’s links to Russian intelligence, and the Senator says there’s finally “More and more leads… all related to the suspicion that this unprecedented pedophilia scandal was co-organized by Russian intelligence services.” The Senator warned there’s “a cover-up afoot at the Department of Justice…”
Epstein’s $1 billion in Russian transactions were even flagged as suspicious at the time — and specifically as “consistent with alleged sex trafficking of minors” and involved “high-risk” Russian jurisdictions, JP Morgan acknowledged. (
[…] One financier also said Epstein allegedly hired “scouters” to transport underage girls, many 15 years and under, for sex trafficking and to give “massages” […] “Epstein wrote [roped ?] many Russian and East European girls and women into his trafficking operation,” the Senator notes. […] Putin is named 1,000 times in just the latest Epstein Files — and there’s 10,000 references to Moscow. [!]
And then the Senator pointed out that “Many of Epstein’s victims have said they believe they were recorded.”
There’s proof in the Epstein files. There’s a 2014 email which shows Epstein directing a staffer to procure — yes, hidden cameras (which were installed in tissue boxes). And Virginia Giuffre even wrote in her posthumous memoir that Epstein had a “huge library” of videotapes in a room at his New York home where monitors also displayed real-time surveillance footage from his properties. Giuffre also revealed that Epstein “explicitly talked about using me, and what I’d been forced to do with certain men, as a form of blackmail, so these men would owe him favors.”
And there’s more sources saying the exact same thing, the Senator added. “Another survivor said Epstein once walked her through his mansion, pointing out pinhole-sized cameras. He boasted that they were in every room.” [Maybe that’s why the parties were always at Epstein’s own properties, or on his resort that locals called “pedophile island”…] Epstein is even said to have once told an ex-girlfriend point-blank that, “I collect people. I own people. I can damage people.” […]
The pattern is so clear. When police searched Epstein’s Palm Beach home in 2005, they located two hidden cameras located inside clocks. The New York Times also obtained photos of the interior of Epstein’s New York mansion which show a camera installed near the ceiling of the master bedroom, and another along the moulding of an adjoining room, and near a suite of bathrooms near his bedroom. Rolling Stone Journalist Vicky Ward heard from numerous people who believed Epstein decided to compromise influential people byrecording them doing things they wouldn’t make public.”
And this gets us to how “documents in the files about President Trump that should be released have not been released…” as the Senator pointed out. (Though hours later the Guardian “obtained the missing FBI form 302 reports” on that accuser who said Trump sexually assaulted her when she was 15.)
When Trump was asked about Epstein, his response was telling: “It’s just a Russia Russia Russia hoax,” Trump said. […]
The Senator went through the evidence of Trump’s place in Epstein’s world. (There was even a 1992 Mar-a-Lago beauty competitionwhere Trump and Epstein were the only two men present.) One Epstein victim says she was taken to Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump when she was 14. Epstein recruited a 16-year-old from Trump’s spa. Trump of course was close to Epstein for at least 15 years […]
The president of Trump’s Atlantic City hotel said he saw the twotogether so frequently he believed they were best friends — and thatTrump once illegally brought Epstein and a 19-year-old girl onto the casino gaming floor. (New Jersey requires you be 21 to enter a casino floor.) Epstein once took a model to Trump tower, “where she says Trump groped her with Epstein laughing.” Another survivor says Epstein once summoned her, and when Trump arrived Epstein said “No no, she’s not here for you.” And that Trump had thought she was a teenager. Meanwhile the Daily Mirror even has reported Ghislaine Maxwell “introduced several of her attractive friends” to Trump.
Epstein’s Russia connections are clear, and go back for decades. Ghislaine Maxwell’s father reportedly accepted secret payments from the KGB — and was described as “an opportunist in search of wealth with ties to British,Soviet, and Israeli intelligence”. (One newspaper flat-out claimed he was ‘a political asset” for the Soviet Union.) His file in the UK Foreign Office called him “a thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia.” Ghislaine was said to be involved in her father’s work. Four separate on-the-record sources said Epstein’s dealings in the arms world inthe 1980s after he met Ghislaine’s father led him to work for multiple governments. Including the Israelis,” Rolling Stone reported — and there were also allegations he was involved in”influence trading” and blackmail. And in 2021 Rolling Stone remembered Epstein saying he’d worked on solving Mr.Maxwell’s “debt” issues.
[…] In short, the Senator said, there’s proof of Epstein’s “links with Russia, girls from Russia, money from Russia, people from Russia, deals and transactions with Russia, contacts with people with Russian intelligence, news reports exploring contacts with Russia, and an official investigation from the government of Poland into an Epstein-Russia connection. […]
Some of the claims in the quoted text look like more backup is needed to establish the facts.
birger and shermanj in comment 3, please keep these guidelines for The infinite Thread in mind:
Lynna (2025-05-26):
Time to repost this guideline for The Infinite Thread: You should not fantasize about violence [or the death of other human beings] when posting in The Infinite Thread, nor should you propose that others do violence. The rule holds even if you are speaking metaphorically or jokingly.
Please also refrain from wallowing in, fantasizing about, or enjoying the prospect of other human beings dying.
U.S. military investigators believe it is likely that U.S. forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reached a final conclusion or completed their investigation, two U.S. officials told Reuters.
While President Donald Trump surprised some Thursday by predicting regime change soon in Cuba, an arm of the Justice Department has been running a quiet operation over the past several weeks to find criminal charges they could bring against Cuba’s top leaders, according to two people familiar with the effort.
The United Arab Emirates is weighing freezing billions of dollars of Iranian assets held in the Gulf state, according to people familiar with the discussions, a move that could sever one of Tehran’s most important economic lifelines. If the UAE goes ahead, it would significantly curb Tehran’s access to foreign currency and global trade networks, as its domestic economy, already buckling under inflation, is now engulfed in a military conflict.
Russia has provided Iran with information that could help Tehran strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, according to two officials familiar with U.S. intelligence on the matter.
The Justice Department has now produced FBI memos from three 2019 interviews of a woman who accused both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager in the 1980s, after reports that the DOJ may have purposely withheld them from public release as required.
Anthropic said Thursday that the Defense Department has designated it a threat to national security, a striking move that bans it from doing business with the U.S. military and could send shock waves through America’s AI industry. […]
While the Pentagon has sought to harness powerful AI systems for “any lawful use,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had wanted stronger guarantees the Pentagon would not use its AI technology for deadly autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.
Amodei confirmed the supply chain risk label in a statement Thursday night and said the company did not agree with it, writing “we do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court.” […]
A newly formed anti-corruption group has sued President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi over the deal that sold TikTok’s U.S. operation to a group of administration-backed investors.
Scientists and other experts were preparing a first-of-its-kind assessment of the health of nature in the United States when President Trump returned to the White House. He canceled the report. The researchers went ahead and compiled it on their own. This week, they released a 868-page draft for public comment and scientific review.
When […] Trump imposed tariffs hither, thither, and yon, he was a colossus striding across the world—America First, the toughest country you know.
But now that it’s time to give those back, per the Supreme Court, the administration is suddenly just a smol bean, and they can’t do it.
That’s what it just told the Court of International Trade, where Judge Richard Eaton ruled that the administration has to refund the reciprocal tariffs to everyone, whether they filed a lawsuit or not.
That’s about 333,000 importers, in case you were wondering.
[…] Eaton’s ruling instructed Customs and Border Patrol to start refunding importers with the same system it used to charge the tariffs. When importers bring in shipments, they pay an estimated amount that isn’t finalized until about 314 days later. So Eaton ordered CBP to finalize those costs without tariffs, which results in a refund.
Oh, and the administration also has to pay interest.
During a court hearing, Eaton told the administration that CBP “knows how to do this” because “they do it every day. They liquidate entries and make refunds.”
But according to CBP, it’s just too hard to do at this scale, and they need a whole new system, which does not yet exist and will take 45 days to set up.
They’re also whining that they don’t have enough capacity to manually process this many refunds.
According to an agency spokesperson, CBP’s “existing administrative procedures and technology are not well-suited to a task of this scale and will require manual work that will prevent personnel from fully carrying out the agency’s trade enforcement mission.”
[…]it’s pretty obvious that the administration’s plan all along was to just do nothing and keep the tariff money instead.
Pretending that they just can’t staff up is absurd. Why not take some of that $4.1 billion that the dearly departed Kristi Noem bragged about getting from the “One Big, Beautiful Bill: to hire 3,000 additional customs officers?
And pretending that they can’t quickly deploy a technology solution is also absurd. The Department of Homeland Security has been handing out massive no-bid contracts to tech companies like candy to help terrorize immigrants […]
Remember how, during the shutdown, Trump unilaterally and illegally decided to pay the military, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and CBP? […]
Crying about a lack of infrastructure or money to unwind these illegal tariffs is just another way that Trump is going to try to keep your money—even though the Supreme Court said that he can’t.
The administration can’t be both all-powerful and a little, helpless baby. It’s time to pay up.
“Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’ ”
It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.
Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.
But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.
William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting. [JFC]
Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald. […]
“Trump’s comments on Friday reflected yet another shift in the goals of U.S. military actions.”
[…] Trump declared on Friday that he would settle for nothing short of “unconditional surrender” by Iran, the latest and broadest expansion of his goals for the conflict, and one that could portend a much longer conflict if he persists in that aim.
Six days into the Israeli and American bombing campaign, Iran has shown no interest, at least publicly, in surrendering. Instead, it has done the opposite, expanding the war to Arab states that host American bases […]
Mr. Trump’s statement came in a social media post, in which he said that after the country’s surrender would come “the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s),” and promised that the United States and its allies “will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction.”
His statement was the latest in the shifting goals Mr. Trump has laid out for the war, leaving his aides, and congressional allies, struggling to keep up and at times contradicting the president.
Mr. Trump declared on Saturday, in the opening hours of the U.S. attack, that Iran’s people should rise up and overthrow their government.
But in the following days, both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pivoted away from the emphasis on regime change, saying that the United States was simply focused on assuring that Iran’s nuclear program was permanently destroyed, and that it no longer had the missile capability to attack Israel, its Arab neighbors, and perhaps someday America.
Mr. Hegseth went further on Wednesday, telling reporters there would be no “nation-building,” and spoke dismissively of the Bush administration’s efforts to build new governments in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But Mr. Trump keeps returning to exactly that goal. He has repeatedly cited the model of the American action in Venezuela, where U.S. forces removed Nicolás Maduro and sanctioned the ascension of his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, saying she could run the country as long as she complied with American demands, particularly access to oil.
Mr. Trump has resisted suggestions that Iran — a country with 92 million people, nearly three times the size of Venezuela’s population, and a government run by clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — differs in every respect from Venezuela.
“It’s going to work very easily. It’s going to work like in Venezuela,” he told CNN in a brief telephone conversation Friday.
He said he was not concerned about whether there was a democratic government elected in Iran, saying he was willing to work with moderate Shia religious leaders.
“I don’t mind religious leaders,” he said. “I deal with a lot of religious leaders.”
As long as they were “fair” to Israel and to the United States, he said, he was willing to keep a clerical government.
Mr. Trump went on to say he expected Cuba to fall soon, which would give him a trifecta: a change in leadership in three countries that have been American adversaries.
“The president’s private comments have not focused on a large-scale ground invasion of Iran, but rather on the idea of a small contingent of U.S. troops that would be used for specific strategic purposes, sources say.”
[…] Trump has privately expressed serious interest in deploying U.S. troops on the ground inside of Iran, according to two U.S. officials, a former U.S. official and another person with knowledge of the conversations.
Trump has discussed the idea of deploying ground troops with aides and Republican officials outside the White House while outlining his vision for a post-war Iran in which Iran’s uranium is secure and the U.S. and a new Iranian regime cooperate on oil production similar to how the U.S. and Venezuela are, the sources said.
[…] “This story is based on assumptions from anonymous sources who are not part of the President’s national security team and are clearly not read into these discussions,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump always, wisely keeps all options open, but anyone trying to insinuate he is in favor of one option or another proves they have no real seat at the table.”
Publicly, Trump has not ruled out putting U.S. “boots on the ground” in Iran, though the war has so far consisted only of an air campaign. His private discussions about the idea show a president perhaps more willing to consider taking such a step than his public comments on the issue so far have suggested. [True]
[…] Since the war began on Saturday, six U.S. troops have been killed and 18 wounded in counter attacks from Iran, according to the Pentagon.
[…] The president said in an interview with the New York Post this week, “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground.” He said while other presidents have ruled out boots on the ground, “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’” […]
From reporting by Politico.eu: EU still struggling to find solution to Hungary’s veto of Ukraine’s €90B lifeline
“President Zelenskyy reluctantly seems to think the only option might be for Ukraine to fix an oil pipeline to Eastern Europe.”
The EU’s insistence it can deliver a massive loan to Ukraine is slamming into hard reality: Hungary is showing no signs of ending its opposition and the European Commission is in a legal bind over what to do about it.
European leaders promised last December to send Ukraine €90 billion that it desperately needs to meet a funding shortfall in April. While Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán initially gave his consent, he’s now changed his mind.
Under EU rules, all 27 governments must support the loan, which is to be financed by the EU borrowing money. Commission officials are discussing whether there’s a way to get Ukraine the cash despite Hungary’s dissent, but so far a clear answer hasn’t emerged, four EU diplomats and officials told POLITICO.
“We will deliver on the loan one way or the other,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said. “Let me be very clear, we have different options, and we will use them.”
[…] Hungary isn’t budging from its position and is still pushing for Ukraine to back down in a bitter feud over a broken pipeline transporting cheap Russian oil to Central Europe before it contemplates allowing the loan, a second senior European diplomat involved in the discussions told POLITICO. […]
There’s skin in the game and then there’s directly hooking the US treasury up to Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Suddenly every strike goes from indirectly harming the US through its economy and financial relations, to directly costing a couple billion here, couple billion there…
[…]
A fifth of the world’s shipping moves through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran controls. If I recall, two fifths of total world shipping is fossil fuels. Since the war started, Iran has closed the strait and attacked oil tankers in transit, stopping all shipping.
This has made insurance super expensive, or forced the cancellation of policies. Importers/exporters and shipping companies don’t do this for free. Without this coverage the shipping company loses everything in a strike or incident and takes a massive loss. No insurance, no transit.
The US government wants to get traffic flowing again, or it is subject to compounding crises involving food production, transport fuels, and inflation for anything that contains plastic. Using public finance to underwrite massively risky ventures is what you do when you made a very big mistake.
It’s dangerous gamble for a number of reasons. For a start, it assumes those public institutions have enough money to cover claims if stuff literally starts blowing up. If they don’t, you have people relying on them but suddenly unable to cover their debts.
If claims start getting paid out, you’re looking at a transfer of wealth with US taxpayer money going to private companies. There’s also the possibility that you create an incentive for companies, particularly with older tankers, to feed ships and crews to the woodchipper.
Rando 2: “To state the obvious: it allows Iran to harm us financially at will.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Elizabeth Jacobs (Epidemiologist):
Summary of recent HHS departures:
– Unqualified weirdo Jim O’Neill out as CDC Director.
– “Measles outbreaks are the cost of doing business” Ralph Abraham out as his Dumbass Deputy.
– Venomous podcaster Vinay Prasad out at FDA.
Yet human cassowary and denim enthusiast RFK Jr. remains.
Rando: “Don’t forget about the time O’Neill demanded that Merck and GSK produce 3 separate vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella.”
Jim O’Neill is being nominated to be director of the National Science Foundation instead, announced March 4th.
Vinay Prasad, who helped lead a campaign against lifesaving mRNA vaccines at FDA, is being welcomed back to the University of California San Francisco, where he was prior to joining the Trump administration.
None of these contrarian types who gladly went to work at HHS under anti-vax conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Jr. should ever work in academia again. If allying yourself with an anti-vax lunatic and helping him gut public health in America while children die of vaccine-preventable diseases doesn’t get you expelled from academia, then the whole system is utterly broken.
FDA Commissioner Makary is calling Prasad’s time as head of CBER a “one year sabbatical” from academia. Makary is someone else who doesn’t belong at any higher learning institution.
I don’t know if this was prearranged with the school—the fact that Prasad was forced out previously is suggestive. But either way, he shouldn’t be back at UCSF. Nor should he work in government.
DC Metropolitan Police released the nearly six hours of body camera footage taken by their officers on March 17, 2025 when DOGE raided the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). […] my main takeaway is this: The people representing the Trump administration knew they were entering a privately-owned building, and the DC MPD allowed them to enter despite that fact.
[…] They were let in a side entrance by MPD, who had been called there by both the USIP staffers who believed Trump’s people were trespassing, and by Trump’s people who believed the USIP staffers were remaining in the building unlawfully. […] local police officers were brought into a situation of which they were given very little background, and for which they were ill-equipped to handle.
[…]
After the DOGE group showed up but before MPD arrived, the USIP building had been placed in lockdown mode, meaning all interior doors were locked and elevators were no longer operable. So when DOGE presented MPD with an order supposedly showing [fake prez Kenneth Jackson] now controlled the building, it was up to MPD officers to get him and his team up to the 5th floor where USIP President George Moose remained in his office. Colin O’Brien, then USIP’s Chief of Security, certainly wasn’t going to help them, despite their many requests for him to do so. At one point MPD officers openly muse about pulling the fire alarm to open all of the doors, but decide against it. That’s why a great deal of the footage shows officers attempting to break the locks on a variety of doors, from interior glass doors to heavy duty fire doors in stairwells.
[On multiple occasions, DOGE folks tell officers it’s a private building, or officers tell each other, hence the need for help forcing open doors.]
[…]
Eventually the footage shows MPD officers managed to break their way through enough doors to reach the 5th floor and escort then-President Moose out of the building. “We thought you guys were our friends,” Moose says to [MPD commander] Bagshaw and the other officers.
Marisa Kabas: “I planned to share my report […] early next week when I learned that a DC news station had obtained some of the footage as a result of my lawsuit, and they were going to scoop me. After working on this for a year, I couldn’t let that happen. Published 2 mins before they aired [ascii smile]”
@6 Lynna, OM admonished us to refrain from wallowing in, fantasizing about, or enjoying the prospect of other human beings dying.
I reply: I apologize. Sometimes it is difficult to avoid reacting to all the murder and mayhem without resorting to violent thoughts and words. You are correct, such language won’t accomplish diminution of the problems,.
It’s hard to be optimistic. there are may articles about this: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2026/03/02/860022.htm
Insurers Cancel War Risk Cover
Companies including Gard, Skuld, NorthStandard, the London P&I Club and the American Club said their cancellations would take effect from March 5, according to notices dated March 1 on their websites.
War risk cover will be excluded in Iranian waters, as well as the Gulf and adjacent waters, according to the notices.
Japan’s MS&AD Insurance Group told Reuters it had suspended underwriting of a range of insurance policies covering war risks in the waters around Iran, Israel and neighboring countries.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Sounds like that was the prelude to the US-backed re-insurance @20.
So let me get this straight…
1. US bombs Iran.
2. Oil price goes up a bit, benefitting Russia’s petrostate.
3. Russia gives Iran targeting info.
4. Oil price shoots WAY up.
5. US unsanctions Russian oil.
Rando: “Yes, let’s unsanction Russian oil while they are feeding targeting coordinates to Iran.”
Iran is seeking to degrade air defenses by destroying US-made radars that detect incoming missiles and drones. The radar system for an American THAAD missile battery in Jordan was struck and apparently destroyed in the first days […] Buildings housing similar radar systems were also hit at two locations in the United Arab Emirates, […] although it is unclear if the equipment was damaged.
The US operates eight THAAD batteries, while the UAE operates two and Saudi Arabia one. This one was at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, over 500 miles from Iran. The radar system for THAADs is the AN/TPY-2 transportable radar, manufactured by Raytheon. According to a 2025 Missile Defense Agency budget, it costs just shy of half-a-billion dollars. […] the system, which is split across five 40-foot trailers. All appeared to be destroyed or seriously damaged.
[…]
It may not be the only THAAD radar struck in the opening days of the war with Iran. […] In a satellite image taken March 1, smoke can be seen rising from a radar site near the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia […] a tent used to shelter a radar system for a nearby THAAD battery was badly charred, and debris was scattered around it.
[…]
Damaging the radar does not make the THAAD system completely inoperable, experts say, as there are other assets and configurations, but it certainly degrades capability […] “The AN-TPY/2 radar is essentially the heart of the THAAD battery […] It is probable that a replacement unit would have to be redeployed from elsewhere[“]
Robert Evans (CoolZoneMedia): “eight THAAD batteries. Not in the region. Not in this conflict. Period.”
drones are much easier to launch than missiles, require less risk to do so and can reach some targets in the Gulf within minutes. Iran is estimated to have 80,000 of them.
Ukraine has faced this type of attack mix for years and it has developed complex, multi-layered air defences to counter it. This means using expensive interceptors (each Patriot missile costs US$4 million) to take down ballistic missiles and using a combination of other things—even a machine gun will do—to take down drones. […] The Gulf states have not done this. Instead, they appear to be using Patriot missiles and other extremely expensive and scarce missiles to take down everything from ballistic missiles to US$20,000 (£15,000) drones. Missile defence systems are designed to launch several interceptors at each incoming projectile, meaning their stocks can run down quickly.
[…]
According to South Korean media, discussions are already underway about removing Thaads and Patriot systems from South Korea and sending them to the Middle East. Ukraine will get fewer. And US military readiness will be severely degraded around the world, inviting aggression and the possible opening of a second front.
Stars&Stripes: “The U.S. fired 92 THAAD interceptors during the [12-day-war last summer, 14% of its then arsenal of 632] and cost about $12.7 million apiece […] the U.S. used roughly 30 Patriot interceptors”
Rando: The United States produces 96 THAAD interceptors per year. Eight per month. Two per week. Iran launched over 500 ballistic missiles in the first week”
Israel is announcing that the entirety of Dahieh is being ethnically cleansed a day after announcing that the entirety of South Lebanon is being ethnically cleansed. “Save yourselves and evacuate immediately.” [Map]
Malek Teffaha (Lebanese diasporan): “They want to ‘evacuate’ one of the densest suburbs of Beirut and have a quarter of a million+ people just move elsewhere and accept the fate of the destruction of their homes or worse, the loss of their life. Fucking nightmare.”
Elia Ayoub: “The Israelis are even telling people which roads to take. That’s why there are two colours. There is mass panic.”
Elia Ayoub: “You see the black label at the bottom left? That’s Lebanon’s only airport. Dahieh borders it.”
StevoRsays
Latest episode of If You Are Listeninghere – Trump thinks he can switch off the Iran War (25 mins long) on Trump thinking he has an on / off switch for war and explaining his past opposition to war vs current embrace of it.
StevoRsays
Rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah has secured a landslide victory in the country’s general election — the first since deadly Gen Z-led protests last year.
The Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) that he leads is also on course to win a commanding share of parliamentary seats.
The 35-year-old former Kathmandu mayor rose to prominence during last year’s youth-led uprising that forced the government to resign.
Shah defeated former prime minister KP Sharma Oli in his home constituency. Final counts confirm Shah secured 68,348 votes, more than triple the tally of Oli, who finished with 18,734.
while the cabaret of outlandish and contradictory statements and claims continues in Washington, there is considerable pragmatic pessimism in the Gulf about the mess Trump will leave behind.No-one knows how the current conflagration is going to end. But few really believe there will actually be regime change achieved in Iran.
There is a high degree of confidence however that the US will just walk away at some point, showing no sense of responsibility for the mess.
The language from Washington has morphed into a picture which focuses mostly on Iran’s military capabilities being so degraded as to not be a risk — for which you can perhaps read “to Israel”.
But in the meantime all sorts of realignments and ethnic, religious and national tensions have been ignited.
& also from a Gulf state billionaire who formerly supported Trump and worked on a Trump tower project :
Al Habtoor wrote an open letter to Trump on X this week:
“Who gave you the authority to drag our region into a war with Iran? Who gave you permission to turn our region into a battlefield?” it began.
He wanted to know whether the decision to go to war was “your decision or Netanyahu’s pressure?”
“Did you calculate collateral damage before firing?” he asked.
He said Trump had “placed GCC [Gulf Cooperation] countries at the heart of danger they didn’t choose”.
“Your ‘Board of Peace’ initiatives were funded by Gulf states. Now we’re getting attacked. Where did that money go?”
Since the late 1990s, Mojtaba has also built more and more influence across the regime’s political, security and clerical institutions.
He holds extremist and anti-Western views and is said to be more violent and ideological than his father.
When Iranians went to the polls in 2009, the result was allegedly rigged in a campaign “spearheaded and orchestrated by Mojtaba and the Bayt”, a secretive and complex institution rooted in religious doctrine, Iranian specialists Kasra Aarabi and Saeid Golkar wrote in their 2026 report, Unmasking the Bayt. “As protests erupted in response, Khamenei’s second son would transform himself into the unofficial supreme security commander to control the repression of demonstrators,” the authors wrote.
The Bayt, they went on to say, is the single-most important entity in the Islamic Republic’s policymaking, and the true powerbrokers of the system are Khamenei’s four sons: Mostafa, Mojtaba, Masoud and Meysam.
While his oldest brother kept a low public profile, Mojtaba effectively served as a “mini-supreme leader” within his father’s office, they added.
… (Snip!)..
.. US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in the early 2000s recounted criticism from those close to conservative circles that claimed Khamenei tapped his own father’s phone and served as his “principal gatekeeper”.
“The doctor indicated that while Mojtaba essentially derives his power from his father’s position, he is building his own power base,” it said.
Late at night a few years ago a villager approached a group of mammal-watchers in the remote forests of West Papua, holding a peculiar possum.
The mysterious marsupial had a giant finger on each hand.
Now its identity has been revealed thanks to a collaboration between scientists and West Papuan elders.
The animal was a pygmy long-fingered possum (Dactylonax kambuayai) previously only known in modern science from 6,000-year-old fossils.
It is one of two “Lazarus taxa”, alongside the ring-tailed glider (Tous ayamaruensis), from the remote rainforests of the Vogelkopf (Bird’s Head) Peninsula described in a pair of new studies.
During a White House event on college football, Trump mocked and shut down a question about Russia allegedly helping Iran target U.S. assets. “What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time. We’re talking about something else,” said Trump.
Video is 8:00 minutes
JMsays
@27 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain:
This means using expensive interceptors (each Patriot missile costs US$4 million) to take down ballistic missiles and using a combination of other things—even a machine gun will do—to take down drones. […] The Gulf states have not done this. Instead, they appear to be using Patriot missiles and other extremely expensive and scarce missiles to take down everything from ballistic missiles to US$20,000 (£15,000) drones. Missile defence systems are designed to launch several interceptors at each incoming projectile, meaning their stocks can run down quickly.
It should be noted that this isn’t stupidity, it is having a system optimized for a different problem. Until this war the risk those countries faced was single raids and included more large missiles. A lot of the middle eastern countries have missiles systems derived from the Russian Scud missiles, much larger and more powerful with longer ranges then a drone but also much more expensive. So constant small attacks was not the risk they faced, instead they wanted to block single highly dangerous attacks by a small number of missiles.
[…] On one side, we have President Donald Trump and his Republican Party running the country like a chaotic talk show—the really trashy ones from the old days hosted by the likes of Jerry Springer, Geraldo Rivera, and Phil Donahue—lurching from scandal to scandal, recklessly launching a new war with Iran, and waging civil war on itself.
On the other side, the Democratic Party is quietly putting together the pieces for a return to power this November.
Republicans are certainly doing their darndest to make Democratic victories possible, starting with Trump himself. What better way to sell an unpopular, unnecessary, and stupid war with Iran than to, well, brag about his unpopular, unnecessary, and stupid ballroom? Trump is literally condemning people to death, and he can’t even pretend to appreciate the gravity of the moment. Yes, six American service members died, but hey, let’s talk about my ballroom!
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wasn’t much better, gleefully boasting about the bloodshed in Iran, bragging that “it’s not a fair fight,” and offering little clarity about the administration’s actual strategy. The result is a conflict that even Trump’s usual cheerleaders on the right are struggling to defend.
[…] Remember, don’t call it a “war,” even though Trump, Hegseth, and every other Republican are calling it a “war,” and Hegseth has renamed himself the “Secretary of War,” and Trump rebranded the Defense Department the “Department of War,” and, well, it’s a freakin’ war. But sure, it’s a “Special Combat Operation,” because why not borrow a page from Vladimir Putin’s very successful “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine?
[…] the theme of reckless leadership permeated the entire week. The other non-war headliner this week was former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, way out of her depth and barely lasting a year on the job [14 months] before getting fired. As consolation, Trump gave her the role of “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” whatever the heck that made-up thing is supposed to be.
[…] Meanwhile, the administration’s immigration apparatus may finally be facing consequences. Trump’s top deportation enforcer, Border Patrol’s big tough guy Gregory Bovino, suddenly finds himself under scrutiny that could threaten his position.
[…] Of course, none of this dysfunction has stopped Republicans from returning to one of their favorite hobbies: obsessing over Hillary Clinton. […]
Republicans thought they had uncovered a political bombshell when they pushed to release old Clinton deposition material. Instead, it mostly reminded everyone how empty the GOP’s decade-long crusade against Clinton has always been.
[…] And while Republicans dominate the chaos cycle, Democrats are competently assembling the pieces for a very different story heading into November.
The biggest sign of that came out of Texas this week.
State Rep. James Talarico won his Democratic primary, setting up a Senate race that suddenly looks far more competitive than anyone expected. […]
Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in decades, but Republicans seem hell-bent on serving it up. And Democrats are taking full advantage of the opportunity.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Can we observe Earth-like exoplanets from our own planet?”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-earth-exoplanets-planet.html
“In this Perspective, we present the expected image plane contrast of the three large telescopes operating with a shared orbiting 99-m-diameter starshade”
Treasury Sec Scott Bessent announced $20B plan for maritime reinsurance in the Gulf.
[…] Using public finance to underwrite massively risky ventures is what you do when you made a very big mistake. […]
So true. Bears repeating. Could be applied to many actions the Trump administration has taken, including tariffs that negatively impacted farmers in the USA.
This also is a good point:
[…] If claims start getting paid out, you’re looking at a transfer of wealth with US taxpayer money going to private companies. There’s also the possibility that you create an incentive for companies, particularly with older tankers, to feed ships and crews to the woodchipper.
The U.S. Navy’s attack on an Iranian frigate, the IRIS Dena, on Wednesday was the first time an American submarine has sunk an enemy ship since World War II. But the Dena may not have been armed because it was returning from an international exercise in the Indian Ocean, and the U.S. Navy likely knew it because it was taking part in the same exercise.
Commentary from PZ:
To add to the United State’s shame, the IRIS Dena immediately sent out a distress call; the Sri Lankan navy responded to rescue survivors. The American navy, despite obviously having a ship nearby, ignored the SOS.
YouTube link to the Associated Press’s presention of “Pete Hegseth says the US is winning against Iran ‘without mercy’.
Hegseth thinks that operating “without mercy” is a virtue.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Rando: “Upon seeing the headline here, I repeated “NO WAY! NO WAY!!!” Multiple times. I’m happy the author agrees, though perhaps not as vehemently or as concisely.”
There are folks out there dreaming about a daring raid by special ops forces to grab Iran’s stock of enriched uranium. […] I would advise against such a raid. […] the relative lack of attack on Isfahan seems to indicate that that is where the US military believes it to be, although today Isfahan was hit. The amount of enriched uranium is said to be 400 kilograms or more.
[…]
The uranium is most likely in the form of UF6 gas, which would be stored in heavy metal cylinders. The Iranians have been moving it around, so it’s probably in medium-sized or small cylinders. UF6 is difficult to handle and reacts with water to produce uranyl fluoride and HF gas, which is nasty stuff. But this is a one-off, if a cylinder is opened. After that, no big deal. Contrary to a belief that seems to be circulating on social media, there is no point in making uranium into a dirty bomb. Uranium, enriched or otherwise, is slightly more radioactive than dirt. […]
Iran is highly motivated to keep the uranium safe, but those guarding it could be killed or might have to evacuate under wartime conditions. Those same wartime conditions would also make it difficult for others to access the uranium, which the regime may have stored in a tunnel and then covered […]
What would a special operation look like?
Let’s start with getting to where the uranium is. If it is at Isfahan, it’s about 500 miles from the coast, maybe 800 to where the US ships are. That’s a long way to go in a helicopter in a war zone. Or would the approach be by land? A long way to drive. Either vehicle is going to need fuel on the way in and out. […]
At 60% enrichment, nuclear criticality becomes a concern […] The UF6 will have to be stored in increments […] For 400 kilograms of uranium, the total weight of UF6 will be 593 kilograms […] Also for criticality safety, there will probably be […] a larger structure for easier transport. […] That’s 60 cylinders. If it’s 20 kg per cylinder, that’s still 30 cylinders. A large enough transport vehicle is needed, or more than one vehicle. And then the vehicle(s) must get out of the country, through the war zone.
Alternatively, the special ops forces could set a large explosion to […] release the UF6. The UF6 would rapidly react with the water in the atmosphere—there’s always some—and […] would contaminate the soil and possibly water in the immediate area. It would prevent future use of the stock by Iranians or others, but it would be fodder for never-ending conspiracy theories.
[…] Project Sapphire, which removed 600 kg of enriched uranium from Kazakhstan, was done under peacetime conditions, with the cooperation of the Kazakhstani government. It took a month.
* Cheryl Rofer (Retired nuclear scientist, LG&M): “the NYT article that breathlessly advocates this mission”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Chris Hayes (MSNOW): “This was clear from the jump, but the Venezuela invasion going as smoothly as it did, from a pure operational perspective, is going to prove catastrophic in the long run.”
Asawin Suebsaeng (Zeteo): “Yes and also I’m not sure how publicly known it is how close it came to becoming black hawk down in Venezuela.”
During the American raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Slover was the flight lead in the cockpit of the first helicopter, a MH-47 Chinook. The helicopter came under severe machine-gun fire and Slover was hit four times in his leg and hip. Maintaining control of the aircraft despite his wounds, Slover safely landed the helicopter, allowing the operation to continue.
Rando: “the bullets a couple inches up or down and it could’ve been obviously a much bigger problem and that dude would’ve crashed.”
browsing the Eisenhower Library site this morning […]
“War is mankind’s most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington—not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict.” —Graduation Exercises at the United States Military Academy, 6/3/47
“Possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the conditions that beget war.”
—Remarks at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10/19/50
Bill Scher (Washington Monthly):
1. This is a good quote
2. As President, the way Eisenhower applied this logic led to a penchant for covert action, including the CIA’s ouster of Iran’s Prime Minister mere months after inauguration which began the chain of events that led us to today’s war.
“Ukrainian forces halt advance in Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv officials say”
“Ukraine has claimed a slew of successes on the front line in recent days, underscoring the effectiveness of its weapons systems, including anti-drone interceptors.’
Ukrainian special forces have halted a Russian advance in the southeastern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv officials said Saturday — the latest military success in recent weeks amid Moscow’s ongoing aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities.
The operation “stopped the enemy’s approach” on the regional capital, the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Ukraine’s main military intelligence directorate, known as the GUR.
The GUR statement, posted on social media, could not be independently verified, but corresponded with a slew of upbeat news for Ukraine from the front line in recent days. It also underscored the cutting-edge effectiveness of Ukraine’s weapons systems, such as anti-drone interceptors, which are now actively sought by the Trump administration for its operations in the Middle East.
Zaporizhzhia is a major urban center and longtime target of Russian forces, as they attempt to conquer the entire region. Moscow’s troops are now about 15 miles from the outskirts of the city, according to the online maps published by Deep State, an open-source military website.
[…] Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials said that Ukrainian forces are clawing back territory on other parts of the front, as the full-scale war with Russia passes its four-year mark.
Kyiv’s troops have recaptured close to 200 square miles since the beginning of the year, Zelensky said in an interview published Tuesday in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, while Moscow is losing up to 35,000 soldiers a month to deaths and injuries. […]
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) has dropped out of his primary runoff after admitting to an affair with an aide who later died by suicide [immolation] and amid a House Ethics probe. His exit makes Brandon Herrera the GOP nominee in Texas’ 23rd District.
Courier Newsroom is circulating a [video clip] of TX23 Republican nominee Brandon Herrera showing off his “1939 edition” copy of Mein Kampf.
[…] the moment Maine Democrats nominate Graham Platner, a guy with a Totenkopf tattoo, for U.S. Senate, there will no longer be any moral high ground for any Democrat to criticize any Republican who openly displays Nazi symbols and use Nazi rhetoric.
a Nazi skull and crossbones […] “It was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol,” Platner said […] Platner reiterated that he got the tattoo while out drinking with fellow Marines in Croatia, choosing the skull and crossbones off a wall at the tattoo parlor. He said the similarity to Nazi iconography never came up, including when he underwent physical exams mandated by the U.S. Army, which prohibits tattoos of identified hate symbols. “In the nearly 20 years since, this hasn’t come up,”
[…] “Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means,” Platner’s former political director, Genevieve McDonald, wrote on Facebook.
[…]
an acquaintance of Platner recalled him referring to the tattoo as “my Totenkopf,” […] a German word typically referring to an image of a skull and crossbones. During the Nazi era, one form of the image was adopted by the Nazi police […]
The tattoo revelation came after Platner apologized last week for a series of offensive Reddit posts, which he said came during a period in his life when he was disillusioned […] following his military service. Those include a 2013 post downplaying sexual assault in the military and a since-deleted 2018 post suggesting violence is necessary to enact social change.
If people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,” he wrote […] he called himself a “communist” and said that “all” police are bastards. […] posts, which were removed three months ago shortly before Platner launched his Senate bid
[…]
“I made dumb jokes and picked fights. But of course I’m not a socialist. I’m a small business owner, a Marine Corps veteran, and a retired shitposter.”
AP News – Platner says tattoo recognized as Nazi symbol has been covered
[He] 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. […] “I was on Lejeune, and know lots with bolts,” he wrote. […]
The Marine Corps has long faced scrutiny over Scout Snipers’ use of SS-style insignia—a practice denounced by military officials and Jewish civil rights groups after photos emerged in 2012 showing Marines in Afghanistan posing with an SS flag.
[…]
In the 2019 Reddit thread […] featuring a wartime photo of Nazi soldiers, users discussed the “Totenkopf”—or skull emblem—visible on one soldier’s cap. Platner joined the discussion, noted that skull imagery remained common among US military units, citing the Punisher logo.
* His large right-pectoral tattoo was specifically the Nazi “Are we the baddies?” hat design, not a Punisher skull. It’s shown in Rebecca Watson’s video below.
Platner’s stint working for [Blackwater] in Afghanistan after doing one tour there and three in Iraq. […] joining a mercenary group just ten years after they very famously committed a massacre
[…]
I also do not think Platner is a “secret Nazi” at all. No, I do not think it’s “normal” for white men to go through a Nazi phase […] What I DO think is normal, unfortunately, is for privileged white men to volunteer to join the military to have an adventure and kill brown people, get drunk and get a tattoo without caring what it may mean besides “I kill people,” and when they find out that it is in fact a Nazi tattoo, they don’t really care. That’s it, that’s how deep it is.
[…]
If Platner actually cared about advancing progressive policies and ending the genocide, he would take all of his funding and hand it over to someone just as committed to pushing the Democrats left but who hasn’t branded themselves with anything representing an actual genocide, or my god at least someone who can apologize if they did. That’s where the bar is.
The Trump administration is 0/7 in its attempt to whack hospitals that provide gender-affirming care for minors with broad and invasive subpoenas.
So far, every district court has either quashed or narrowed the subpoenas, finding them overbroad. TPM’s own reporting has shown that the subpoenas, under the guise of investigating drug manufacturers and distributors for mislabeling, have sought such sensitive information as patient diagnoses and Social Security numbers. [!]
“I think they’re intent on prosecuting someone with regard to the provision of gender-affirming care, and they’re fishing for someone to prosecute,” a lawyer involved in one of these cases told TPM.
On Friday, one of those cases got up to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel composed of one Democratic appointee and two Republican ones.
“In the states that we’re dealing with here, there’s nothing improper about the gender affirming care that is taking place, correct?” asked Judge Richard Paez, a Clinton appointee. “In the state of Washington, they don’t have any laws against it, do they?”
The Trump administration has been fairly transparent outside the courtroom that its goal is to intimidate hospitals into stopping providing the care rather than risk criminal prosecution
Inside the courtroom, though, the DOJ’s Sarah Welch took great pains to feign that the fishing expedition is really to enforce the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which guards against mislabeled drugs flooding the markets.That’s in large part because the Trump administration, even with its Republican trifecta, has failed to pass legislation banning gender-affirming care and instead has to depend on lawsuits, executive orders and intimidation.
Marc Ernstoff, a physician who has pioneered immunotherapy research and treatments for cancer patients, said his work as a federal scientist proved untenable under the Trump administration.
Philip Stewart, a Rocky Mountain Laboratories researcher focused on tick-borne diseases, said he retired two years earlier than planned because of hurdles that made it too challenging to do his job well.
Alexa Romberg, an addiction prevention scientist focused on tobacco, said she “lost a great deal” of the research she oversaw when federal grants vanished.
[…] The National Institutes of Health is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, with a mission statement to “enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness.”
Over decades, the value of the NIH may be the one thing everyone in Washington has agreed on. Lawmakers have routinely boosted its funding.
[…] But in […] Trump’s second term, the NIH has seen an exodus of scientists like Ernstoff, Stewart, and Romberg. Federal data shows the NIH lost about 4,400 people — more than 20% of its workforce. Scientists say the departures harm the U.S.’ ability to respond to disease outbreaks, develop treatments for chronic illnesses, and confront the nation’s most pressing public health problems. […]
Why They’re Leaving
KFF Health News interviewed a half dozen scientists who said they quit their jobs years before they’d planned to because of the tumult of 2025.
[…] The Trump administration enacted a campaign to purge government workers perceived as disloyal to the president. People were fired or encouraged to leave. Officials instituted a months-long freeze on hiring.
The NIH workforce has plummeted to about 17,100 people — its lowest level in at least two decades. Most who left weren’t fired. Roughly 4 in 5 either retired, quit, had appointments that expired, or transferred to a different job, according to federal data.
Scientists watched with dread as their colleagues were forced to terminate research funds for topics the Trump administration deemed off-limits. Across NIH labs, routine work stalled. They said they faced major delays in accessing equipment and supplies. Travel authorizations were slowed or denied. [!]
Agency staff were instructed not to communicate with anyone outside the agency. When they could talk again, they were subject to greater constraints on what they could present to the public.
And under the administration’s agenda to eliminate “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” references to minorities or health equity were purged from NIH-funded research. Initiatives to protect Americans’ health were gutted. Among them: support for early-career scientists, ways to prevent harm from HIV or substance use, and efforts to study how different populations’ immune systems respond to disease. […]
A ‘Fundamental Destruction’
Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said in a statement that the agency had shifted to focus on evidence-based research over “ideological agendas.” She said the NIH is still recruiting “the best and brightest” and advancing high-quality science to “deliver breakthroughs for the American people.” [Bullshit] The federal health department oversees NIH.
[…] Many scientists, however, question whether the NIH can still fulfill its public mission.
“There’s been a fundamental destruction,” said Daniel Dulebohn, a researcher who spent nearly two decades at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. It’s going to “take a very, very long time to rebuild.”
Dulebohn left the NIH’s infectious disease and allergy institute in September.
He analyzed how molecules and proteins interact in diseases, such as Lyme disease, HIV, and Alzheimer’s — information that’s key for new treatments. Dulebohn was a resource for scientists […]
Now he and his wife are living off savings in Mexico with their three young kids. Dulebohn’s thinking about what’s next. One option: real estate.
The expert in biochemical analysis operated equipment few others know how to use. His exit further depletes resources in the specialty. […]
Laura Stark, a Vanderbilt University associate professor who specializes in the history of medicine and science, said wiping out NIH staff will propel a shift toward private-industry research, with its profit motives [!], “as opposed to actually helping American health.” […]
From Support to Scrutiny
Stark said the seeds of the present-day NIH were planted during World War II when the U.S. government spearheaded an effort to mass-produce the antibiotic penicillin to save soldiers from infections.
The agency has played a central role in lifesaving discoveries and treatments — including for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis. […]
Jennifer Troyer left the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, on Dec. 31, after working in various positions at the NIH for about 25 years. The division she led reviews research and oversees grants to organizations studying the human genome — or a person’s complete set of genes — and how it can be used to benefit health.
Last year, she said, her division lost about two-thirds of its staff. “There really are not enough people there right now to actually get the work done,” Troyer said. “It’s extreme harm.”
She decided to quit the day Trump issued an executive order in August that prohibited the use of grants to “fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate” what it described as “anti-American values.” It also allowed political appointees to review all funding decisions. […]
Research aligned with the administration’s stated priorities has suffered.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease — a tick-borne infection that can cause debilitating lifelong symptoms — a priority. In December, Kennedy said the government had long dismissed patients burdened with a disease that nearly 500,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with annually.
That same month, Stewart, who had dedicated his career to ticks and Lyme disease as a federal scientist, retired early. He’d worked for the government for 27 years. Stewart said workforce cuts and travel delays stalled his efforts to confirm how far Lyme-carrying ticks had spread — information that could help doctors recognize symptoms sooner.
[…] Stewart was a lead scientist on research published last year identifying a black-legged tick, or deer tick, in Montana. It was the first time the tick best known for transmitting Lyme disease had been confirmed in the state. […]
Scientists said those early in their careers are looking abroad for jobs and training. People who want to stay in the U.S. are running into problems getting hired because of cuts to research grants and uncertainty about funding.
Collectively, people studying diseases warn the U.S. could lose its long-held position as the global leader in biomedical research, with devastating impact. […]
JMsays
@48 Lynna, OM:
That’s in large part because the Trump administration, even with its Republican trifecta, has failed to pass legislation banning gender-affirming care and instead has to depend on lawsuits, executive orders and intimidation.
That is sort of amazing until you realize that Trump isn’t trying to work through Congress. Trump doesn’t like sharing power, isn’t a good negotiator, and Congress is treacherous grounds. Trump spent a lot of time frustrated at them in his first term and this time he is doing what he wants through commands from the throne.
one option at the president’s disposal—developed by both US Central Command and the US’ Israeli allies—would send Special Operations units into the country to seize and destroy key nuclear sites.
[…]
Iran also appears to already be making preparations to try and fortify Isfahan against an attack by the US: A report published late January […] found “new efforts by Iran to bury the middle and southernmost tunnel entrances [in Isfahan] with soil.”
[…]
The US could also continue to limit its attack on Iran to air strikes. Last June, the Trump administration conducted air strikes against facilities in Isfahan […] the US could just “destroy the land around” the nuclear sites “to such a degree that would be nearly impossible” for Iran to remove key nuclear items “without advanced engineering equipment that’d be highly noticeable to outside viewers.”
The US committed a blatant and desperate crime by attacking a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island. Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted. Attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The US set this precedent, not Iran.
That’s the claim anyway, text-only. Some outlets reporting the tweet have decorated their articles with photos of irrelevant destroyed buildings.
the former U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia who brought criminal cases against President Trump’s enemies […] who had never worked as a prosecutor […] had not been lawfully appointed as U.S. attorney. Federal judges in the district raised concerns about Ms. Halligan’s actions with the grand jury, and those concerns are now the basis of the bar investigation.
Kel McClanahan (National Security Counselors): “Just think, what does a MAGA lawyer have to do to be investigated by THE FLORIDA BAR.”
DOJ proposes surprise rule aiming to let Attorney General Pam Bondi suspend state bar investigations into alleged misconduct by DOJ lawyers. Very unclear if there’d be legal authority for the AG to intervene in this manner.
[Link] Here’s the rule […] Not sure how this would work—”should the relevant bar disciplinary authorities refuse the Attorney General’s request, the Department shall take appropriate action to prevent the bar disciplinary authorities from interfering”
the attorney general “will have the right to review the complaint and the allegations in the first instance,” the proposal states. […] If the DOJ finds no violation, that blocks the state from investigating the alleged infraction.
[…]
“This is about […] DOJ attempting to identify those who complain about DOJ attorneys and potentially target them,” said Kevin Owen, […] who represents whistleblowers
[…]
Without time limitations in the proposal, the Justice Department could run out the clock on investigations instead of actually pursuing them
Skip down to the “what’s the authority for this?” section, and it’s pretty hilarious. tl;dr Congress said that DOJ attorneys had to follow state bar rules, but because they didn’t say state bars could MAKE them, then the only person who can punish them is their boss, who told them to violate the rules. Because SUPREMACY!
Liz Dye (Law&Chaos): “Bondi can appeal contempt and sanctions orders. But she can’t protect lawyers from state bars—not legally anyway.”
Ben Penn: “What’s interesting about Bondi DOJ decrying ‘weaponization’ of state bar complaints is that a GOP congressman—frustrated w/ Clinton DOJ prosecuting him for bribery in ’90s—who came up with the idea for changing law to subject DOJ prosecutors to bar investigations. Look up McDade amendment.”
bmaz (Lawyer): “This is a stupid hornet’s nest for Bondi to poke. What she wants is already effectively policy. Anybody that has ever tried to process a DOJ complaint in a state bar knows this. The only way it ever happens is if [DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility] forwards it or it comes directly from a federal judge.”
Matt Collette (Attorney): “I’ve been gone since 2018, but when I was there, DOJ attorneys absolutely had to be barred somewhere (although maybe not in the state where their office was). People got disciplined if they let their state (or DC) bar licenses lapse.”
Eric Columbus (Obama DHS/DoJ): “28 usc 530C(c)(1) says the AG can’t pay any lawyer who isn’t a member of a bar.”
U.S. and Israeli forces expanded their bombardment of Iran late Saturday, including with strikes on fuel depots near Tehran, as Iran’s de facto leader vowed to continue retaliatory strikes and to make the nation’s enemies “pay the price” for attacking it.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said the attacks on fuel depots, which appeared to be the first on Iran’s energy infrastructure since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran last weekend, were part of Israel’s attempts to reach “many more targets” in order to destabilize Iran’s government and “allow for change.”
The Israeli military said it had targeted the fuel depots because they were being used by Iran’s military. U.S. forces on Saturday intensified strikes into Iran against a swath of military targets, including Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, air defenses and missiles, a senior U.S. military official said.
Iran’s de facto leader, Ali Larijani, a close confidant of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s, said that Iran was determined to avenge the killing of the leader, who died Feb. 28, the first day of the U.S.-Israeli campaign of airstrikes against Iran. Mr. Larijani said the United States “must pay the price.”
“Americans must know that we will not let them go,” Mr. Larijani said on national television, as the war entered a second week. “Our people are with us, our leadership is united, there is no division in fighting Israel and America.”
Earlier, Mr. Trump blamed Iran for an airstrike that hit an elementary school in Iran on Feb. 28, killing scores of children. “In my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” he said, adding, “They have no accuracy whatsoever.” [I was expecting Trump to put out some kind of lie like that. Took him awhile.]
A New York Times visual investigation indicates that the school was most likely hit by an American airstrike.
Mr. Trump also said aboard Air Force One on Saturday that he had ruled out involving Kurdish forces in the war against Iran, telling reporters “we don’t want to make the war any more complex.” Two days ago, he said that he would be “all in” for the Kurds launching an offensive.
When asked whether he would consider sending ground troops into Iran to secure its nuclear facilities, Mr. Trump said that “at some point maybe we will.” He added: “It would be a great thing, but right now we’re just decimating them. We haven’t gone after it, but it’s something we could do later on. We wouldn’t do it now, maybe we’d do it later on.”
Iran kept up its retaliatory strikes, sending missiles and drones into Arab states on the Persian Gulf. Air-raid sirens rang out in Bahrain and Qatar. The United Arab Emirates reported on Saturday evening that the country’s forces were intercepting Iranian missiles and drones entering its territory. Saudi Arabia reported it had intercepted several drones.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement that it had launched attacks on American and Israeli targets, including sites in Haifa, Israel, and in Dubai’s marina area.
Israel’s military confirmed it had detected at least two salvos of missiles heading from Iran toward the country.
Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said it had intercepted more than 30 drones, many around the capital, Riyadh, in a series of social media statements early Sunday. It did not name the source of the attacks. […]
“The judge ruled that Lake was ineligible to serve as acting CEO because she was not employed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media when the former CEO resigned in January 2025.”
A federal judge ruled on Saturday that Kari Lake‘s leadership of the U.S. Agency for Global Media for much of last year violated federal law, invalidating a sweeping series of actions she took to cut staff and end many operations at its Voice of America unit.
In another blow to the Trump administration’s attempts to diminish various government agencies, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted a summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs — including VOA journalists and a union representing federal employees — who argued that Lake‘s appointment as acting CEO and actions she took in that role ran afoul of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.
Lamberth ruled that Lake was ineligible to serve as acting CEO because she was not employed by USAGM when former CEO Amanda Bennett resigned in January 2025, and had not been confirmed by the Senate to any other federal post. Lake officially joined USAGM in March as a senior adviser. A November 21 news release from the agency called her deputy CEO.
The judge also rejected the administration’s argument that Lake could wield CEO authority through a delegation from previous acting CEO Victor Morales.
Saturday’s decision marks at least the third time Lamberth has ruled against the Trump administration in cases involving the Voice of America. The judge in April and September halted plans that would have put many VOA employees out of work, although the April ruling was later overturned by an appeals court.
Lake vowed to appeal Lamberth’s latest ruling. […]
Voice of America, which had broadcast in 49 languages to 420 million people across more than 100 countries, was limited to four languages under the administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Sky Marchini (An economist): “Turns out, the Haber Bosch process working best with piles of cheap natural gas means that all the fertilizer is now made in like three places.”
Molly Taft (Wired): “did you know a massive amount of the world’s fertilizer flows through the Middle East, and did you know that that fertilizer needs to be shipped to the US *right now* for planting season, and uh did you know we are at war with Iran?”
Potash and phosphates are both mined from different kinds of natural deposits; nitrogen fertilizers, by contrast, are produced with natural gas. […] [Qatar] took nearly a fifth of the world’s natural gas supply offline […] said that it would also stop production of downstream products, including urea. Qatar was the second-largest exporter of urea in 2024. (Iran was the third-largest; it’s also a key exporter of ammonia, another type of nitrogen fertilizer.) […] The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is also preventing other countries in the region from exporting nitrogen products. “When we look at ammonia, we’re looking at almost 30 percent of global production being either involved or at risk in this conflict […] It gets worse when we think about urea. Urea is almost 50 percent.”
Other types of fertilizer are also at risk. Saudi Arabia […] supplies about 40 percent of all US phosphate imports; […] Other countries in the region, including Jordan, Egypt, and Israel, also play a big role in these markets. “We are already hearing reports that some of those Persian Gulf manufacturers are shutting down production, because they’re saying, ‘I have a finite amount of storage for my supply,'”
[…]
while the US produces some of its own fertilizer, it’s not enough to close the gap. [There’s no US strategic reserve for fertilizer.] Making matters worse, China, the world’s largest phosphate producer and one of its largest exporters, announced last year that it would concentrate its fertilizer supply to meet domestic demand, suspending all exports until August.
Molly Taft:
Couple qualifications on this.
– The shortage is not affecting potash right now, but diff fertilizers serve diff purposes. Corn, for instance, needs both nitrogen AND potash.
– Piece focuses not on food *shortages* but how this will affect big cash crops i.e. corn, soybeans.
– And finally: yes, using less nitrogen fertilizer is a good idea for the environment—that’s a shift that needs to happen over the long term. However, this is an immediate shock! Which isn’t great
They ALMOST made it to “This could be solved by the US cutting back on the bulk crops that it doesn’t have a market for anymore anyway.” But then they didn’t. [shrug emoji]
Trump is a moron, but let’s not get too far out on this. Our small operation has about 60% of our N fertilizer for the year on hand, and we’ve pre-paid for the rest. We might not be able to get that 40% delivered, but we won’t need it until mid-June, and it should have been moving this way already. A ton of guys in Iowa already applied most of their nitrogen fertilizer for this year.
A classified report by the National Intelligence Council […] completed about a week before the United States and Israel initiated the war on Feb. 28, outlined succession scenarios stemming from either a narrowly tailored campaign against Iran’s leaders or a broader assault against its leadership and government institutions […] In both cases, the intelligence concluded that Iran’s clerical and military establishment would respond to the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by following protocols designed to preserve continuity of power […] The prospect of Iran’s fragmented opposition taking control of the country was described as “unlikely,” […]
The National Intelligence Council, or NIC, is composed of veteran analysts who produce classified assessments meant to represent the collective wisdom of Washington’s 18 intelligence agencies.
[…]
Current and former U.S. officials say they see little sign, at least so far, of a mass popular uprising in Iran or of significant fissures within the government or security forces that will result in a new regime.
[…]
“There’s no other force within Iran that can confront the remaining power that the regime has,” said Maloney, of the Brookings Institution. “Even if they’re not able to project that power very effectively against their neighbors, they can certainly dominate inside the country.”
Dan Silverman (PoliSci prof): “Per Zeteo, at least some admin officials think Trump is leaning toward sending in ground forces and being pushed to do go big if he does.”
Time to discuss the realities of, “So You Want to Launch a Ground Invasion of Iran.”
1. First, of course, you need ground connected to Iran. That means Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan or Pakistan.
2. The ground must be near a port or military-grade airfields. Can’t be too remote or terrain-restricted. This means no Pakistan, Armenia or Turkey.
3. The country must be on board (or else you have TWO invasions). At a minimum, this means no Afghanistan. Iraq’s government is deeply influenced by factions allied with Iran. Turkmenistan is generally aligned with Iran, Russia and China. That leaves Azerbaijan, which is land-locked.
4. The airspace around the ground must be fully controlled to allow for staging.
5. You need several months to build up forces. (The Persian Gulf War was five months. The Iraq invasion was three to four.)
Gonna stop here because this is so unreasonable. These are just a few of the obstacles you face *before you even cross the border*—when a whole new set of obstacles arises. It is all so stupid.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to Sarah Taber quoted in 56. Sarah Taber:
Rando: Uhhh what happens to those crops without a market? Are farmers just gambling that’ll be fixed?
Here’s the fun part, it’s not gambling!
A) Federal crop insurance covers “Awww, prices were really low. Here’s some $ to make it up to you.”
B) The taxpayers pay for most of that insurance, not farmers.
C) The White House likes to give extra bailouts on top of the subsidized insurance.
Gives some insight on why the farm sector keeps voting for Trump even though he keeps wrecking their markets. Doesn’t it.
What happened last night is quite unprecedented. It’s daytime here in Tehran today, but it looks like night as the city is engulfed by a thick black cloud. On my way to the office, I saw drops of rain falling onto my window, and they were black.
There is a high risk of toxic air as several fuel depots and oil refineries were targeted across different locations overnight, including the southeast of Tehran and the eastern part of Shehran. […] Back in June, during the 12-day war, we also saw fuel depots being targeted, but this is unprecedented. We are dealing with a critical situation in terms of war and environmental circumstances in the capital.
Video at the link. The roiling smoke and flame is like when folks drove through the California wildfires.
Al Jazeera shared this tweet. Living in Tehran: “Spill of oil in the sewage system has created a flowing burning river in parts of Tehran after oil depots were bombed earlier tonight, setting the streets in the Iranian capital on fire. [Video clip]”
KGsays
Gonna stop here because this is so unreasonable. These are just a few of the obstacles you face *before you even cross the border*—when a whole new set of obstacles arises. It is all so stupid. – CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@60 [bolding added]
So, we can be pretty confident Trump will do it; he’ll get frustrated and bored when the mullahs don’t “cry uncle”, keep sending drones, and the continued bombing stops being headline news. My guess would be he’ll try an amphibious landing after building up troops in Saudi Arabia and blitzing Iran’s Gulf coast to suppress opposition.
More than 20 people have been killed and 50 others injured in a US-Israeli double-tap missile attack in Iran’s central city of Najafabad, according to the Fars news agency.
The report quoted an unnamed police officer as saying that rescue workers and common residents were helping the injured after a missile attack in the city when the second missile hit the same spot minutes later.
I seem to recall that this sort of tactic was once decried as horribly evil, used only by the worst of the worst. But I guess now that it has a cutesy name, we’re all good.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to the alleged US strike on Iran’s desalinization plant @52.
Iranian aggression indiscriminately attacked civilian targets and caused material damage to a water desalination plant following a drone attack.
From other tweets, the account seems to be using “material damage” to mean property damage, of any degree. An underwhelming announcement if Iran is going nuclear.
Iran is about one-sixth the size of the US, about one-fifth the size of Australia, roughly half the size of India, about four times larger than Iraq and about 80 times larger than Israel. […] Iran is nearly as large as the largest state in the US, Alaska, and more than twice the size of Texas. […] With 92 million people, Iran’s population represents about a quarter of the nearly 350 million people of the US.
“The ‘brain trust’ of opposition leaders in the country are in grave danger of regime ‘shoot-to-kill’ reprisals and U.S. and Israeli bombs.”
As U.S. and Israeli airstrikes intensify across Iran, political prisoners held in some of the country’s most notorious facilities are facing an acute and immediate threat. These prisoners include those in academics, activists, labor unionists, students and teachers — essentially the building blocks and brain trust of a future Iran free from theocracy.
Yet while the Trump administration has called upon Iranians to “rise up” and take back their country, the administration has yet to articulate how it will safeguard these prisoners from being collateral in the war. [Incompetence on the part of the Trump administration.]
U.S. strikes have already targeted police stations, intelligence offices and detention centers […] The Trump administration considers these legitimate targets, and many of these detention centers do indeed house Basij, the thug-like militia group that terrorizes ordinary Iranians daily, and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.
[…] these prisoners are now caught between the apparatus of the brutal regime and the machinery of foreign-led war with no consistently articulated goal.
There are several reports from family members of prisoners that their loved ones have been moved into government-run facilities, providing the regime with human shields […]
Hadi Ghaemi, the founder of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, or CHRI, told me this week […] that many of the country’s future leaders are housed inside Tehran’s Evin complex — the nation’s most notorious prison — and other jails around the country.
“Within the political prisoners’ ward, they call it ‘Evin University’ because some of the most accomplished people in the country have been incarcerated there, and they teach each other,” Ghaemi said. [interesting point]
Those accomplished figures also until recently included Oscar-nominated film director Jafar Panahi, who has frequently been detained and imprisoned in Evin by the Iranian authorities for making movies. […]
Last year, during the 12-day war between the U.S./Israel and Iran, Israel’s defense minister said Evin was targeted as a site of “government repression.” According to Human Rights Watch, at least 80 people were killed.
On Tuesday, reports from inside Iran suggested that part of the perimeter wall of Evin Prison was struck by a U.S. or Israeli missile attack, and that sections of the prison wall were damaged.
“That means there is a possibility that prisoners may be able to walk out, but given the [regime] special forces have taken over, it’s likely that those prisoners are sitting ducks,” Ghaemi told me. […]
It isn’t just Evin’s prisoners under threat. One of the most internationally recognized Iranian opposition figures, 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, was given yet another arbitrary prison sentence in early February. Shortly thereafter, Mohammadi was moved to Zanjan prison, a jail northwest of Tehran that was shaken by huge explosions from U.S. and Israeli bombs this week.
Now, compounding the danger is the collapse of internet connectivity inside the country. […] Iranians have been offline for more than 100 hours and internet connectivity is flatlining at 1% of ordinary levels as the conflict escalates. […]
The Narges Foundation, a human rights organization run by Mohammadi’s family, told me on Thursday that, due to internet connectivity being heavily restricted in the country, it’s been impossible to contact lawyers inside Iran to get updates on her well-being. Mohammadi has been severely ill after years of incarceration, and has been denied medical assistance. “When they treat a Nobel laureate like this, imagine what they do to others,” the Narges Foundation said.
Another deep concern is the health and safety of the many dual nationals and foreign prisoners who are also currently incarcerated. These people — such as The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian, who was eventually released after 544 days in an Iranian jail — have been used by the Islamic Republic regime in the past as bargaining chips in negotiations with the U.S. and European nations.
There are thought to be at least six U.S. dual nationals imprisoned, according to The Foley Foundation, which tracks and monitors American hostages overseas. These American citizens include journalist Reza Valizadeh and Kamran Hekmati, a Jewish Iranian American from New York, who has been detained for more than 280 days. A family member of another dual national told reporters this week that one of the bombs landed so close to Evin Prison that it punctured the windows and the ceiling.
Hours before the U.S. military strikes began last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Iran as a “State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention,” the first time this designation has ever been used. But there have been no formal statements from the administration about what lengths it is going to try and safeguard detained individuals.
[…] The rationales offered for this war are dizzying in number; the legalities and the debates will continue to rage for years to come. […] The U.S. and Israel are now embroiled in a war that has and will continue to claim civilian lives. Both parties, but particularly Israel, have been dogged about wanting this regime to go. […]
it’s in the inherent interests of the Americans and Israelis to safeguard those civilians they claim should be helping shape and build a post-Islamic Republic regime in Iran.
[Aaron Rupar: Wow — as first spotted by @BadFoxGraphics on X, Fox & Friends this morning used *old footage of a previous dignified transfer* to mislead their audience about the fact that Trump wore a baseball cap during the one yesterday.
Even FOX thinks the baseball/golf cap look was terrible, so THEY ARE SHOWING OLD FOOTAGE OF TRUMP AT PREVIOUS DIGNIFIED TRANSER!
Tom Nichols of the Naval War College pointed out that Trump’s hat is actually a WHITE GOLF HAT, which somehow makes this even worse. I know. Not a real difference between the two, but Trump loves to go golfing. And I think, besides protecting that comb over mess on his head, this was another “Fuck You!” to the fallen. This was Trump’s way of saying, “I’d rather be golfing than be stuck at this shitty ceremony!” With Trump, it’s not even a subconscious rebellion.
I see the same “headline” from MSNow to FOX propaganda. Trump was in Dover for — ahem — a “dignified” transfer of soldiers killed in Kuwait.”
Here’s the video: [video]
What immediately hit me was, “WTF is he doing wearing a BASEBALL CAP to this solemn event?” Next, you notice how Trump is walking to plane? That’s one tired old man to me. Also, with that lovely side view of all the men there, you get to see the contrast between the obese Trump and the rest, which brings me to my last point: the painfully obvious lie that Trump is 6’3”.
JD Vance is 6’2” and just look at the damn difference. [Yes, JD Vance looks slightly taller.]
[Trump] never bothered to remove his inappropriate hat during the ceremony. This was because he didn’t want his comb over fly free in the wind. […]
What is also obvious is that Trump wanted to be seen at Dover being all “dignified.” […]
Does anyone think that Trump is going to show up over and over again at Dover during this war he started by choice? […]
[…] On Sunday morning, “black rain” fell in Tehran. The Iranian Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian organization in the country, advised residents to stay indoors because the rain can be “highly dangerous and acidic.” Residents who go outside are being urged to wear face masks with filters, such as N95 masks.
The war is estimated to cost the US roughly $1 billion per day, but on Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social that “we’ve already won” the war.
“Colin Jost added to his airtime playing Hegseth, the defense secretary, in the opening of a “Saturday Night Live” broadcast hosted by Ryan Gosling.”
It’s a fickle and competitive environment playing the members of the Trump administration in the opening sketches on “Saturday Night Live.” James Austin Johnson’s familiar impression of President Trump was out — at least for this week. In his place and on the ascent was the longtime Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost, in his own recurring role as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
This weekend’s “S.N.L.” broadcast (hosted by Ryan Gosling and featuring the musical guest Gorillaz) began with a satirical news conference on C-SPAN where Jost took questions about the war in Iran — that is, after he finished a keg stand that left him covered in froth. “And relax, it was Sprite,” Jost said belligerently. [Video]
He explained that the U.S. military was treating Iran “like the breathalyzer in my car and blowing it the hell up.”
Jost said, “The situation’s complicated so let me put it in terms that I can understand. We’re giving Iran a third-degree purple nurple.”
And, he said, “we torpedoed their ships so bad, their Navy’s going to be singing ‘Under the Sea,’” singing that last portion with a mock Jamaican accent. “That’s right,” Jost added. “We can do Jamaican again, you’re welcome.”
When a reporter described the conflict as a war, Jost took umbrage.
“Whoever called this a war, except maybe the president a couple of times accidentally?” Jost said. “This isn’t a war. Also, why do we have to put labels on everything. What are you, my high school girlfriend, which I had?”
He continued, “This isn’t a war, it’s a situationship. We’re just going to hook up, we’re going to see where it goes. If it feels good, we’ll keep going and if we get bored, we’ll start hooking up with Cuba.”
Jost then turned the lectern over to Ashley Padilla, who was playing Kristi Noem, the recently ousted homeland security secretary (and whom Jost said had been “reassigned under the bus.”)
Bidding goodbye to her role as secretary, Padilla said, “I didn’t get fired. I self-deported.”
She said that she would not be giving up on her overall mission, adding, “As I told my plastic surgeon, the work is never done.”
But for now, Padilla said, “The time has come for me to turn in my badge, gun, lips, lashes, teeth and forehead.”
“So,” she said wistfully, “this may be goodbye, but this isn’t goodbye forever.”
Jost ducked his head back into the frame: “Yeah, except that it is,” he said.
“Oh, OK,” Padilla conceded. [Opening monologue of the week video.]
[…]
YouTube link to the
Hegseth Iran Presser Cold Open – SNL.
YouTube link to
Weekend Update: Trump Fires Kristi Noem, Wants to Pick Iran’s Next Leader – SNL.
I tried the “Living in Tehran” link again, and it did work on the second try. Link is in comment 61.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lynna @ 487 , 482
I have been very naive, as I am not a proper IT nerd. Some AI slop is easy to spot, other is hard.
So far I have caught maybe 80% of the AI slop and was congratulating myself. These examples should have been caught if I had done the same due dilligence that I do when it is not 3 AM local time. I need to be extra cautious. My bad.
.
BTW I have no doubt the MAGAistas will dismiss the jobs numbers as “fake news”. You need a full-on recession for reality to be recognised.
birgerjohanssonsays
DW News:
What would Sun Tzu and Clausewitz say about the Iran war?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=N85Ro3_IX-w
.
My guess: Sun Tzu would have decapitated any general that made a fraction of the mistakes DJT and Hegseth have done.
birgerjohanssonsays
Soumaya Ghannoushi, British-Tunisian blogger at Middle East Eye
“How Iran war may accelerate the fall of the US empire”
I realised there are Galapagos turtles, whales and Greenland sharks that regard 128 years like, yeah that is puberty for you. A short time of bad decisions.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Inland China experienced typhoon-related population decline 3,000 years ago, according to ‘oracle bones,’ AI and physics ”
^
I assume it could take a decade or more, but if optical astronomy can have synthetic apertures of 1.5 km it is a revolution.
.
I forget, did I post a link to the study about combining ground-based telescopes with orbital starshades? It would be nice to learn about all the planets in the Alpha Centauri or Tau Ceti systems.
“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY…,” the president wrote in his Sunday morning Truth Social post.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether the president will sign a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security amid the partial government shutdown.
It will be interesting to see if he carries through. He doesn’t have a great history of following through on his Truth Social threats. It also isn’t clear if he understands how the mechanics of laws work in this regards either, he doesn’t have to sign bills for them to go into effect. As long as the president doesn’t veto them if they are approved by congress they go into effect in 10 days.
The leader has pressed Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to use a talking filibuster to pass the bill, which was approved by the House in February.
Thune has no interest in forcing the Democrats to talk. It would require changing the rules and Thune ran for majority leader on not changing the rules, a lot of Republicans don’t want those rules changed. The Democrats have the numbers to filibuster forever if they stick together.
birgerjohanssonsays
Meidas Touch : Military Leaders throw Trump under the bus over war.
I see Lindsey Graham is confusing Hizbollah with Syrian Intelligence (who blew up a US barracks in Lebanon in the 1980s, using a small fascist militia as proxy).
birgerjohanssonsays
The Guardian
Fox News uses old clip of Trump after he wore hat while saluting slain US soldiers | Donald Trump .https://share.google/pys94iXG9e8wS7Zer
.
The Guardian
Nicola Coughlan is right: ‘body positivity’ traps us in the same old conversations | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett .https://share.google/iT8RLPkSRff5MoOd1
The SAVE Act is Jim Crow 2.0. It would disenfranchise tens of millions of people. If Trump is saying he won’t sign any bills until the SAVE Act is passed, then so be it: there will be total gridlock in the Senate. Senate Democrats will not help you pass the SAVE Act under any circumstances.
Noah Berlatsky (Writer): “This is the right thing to say from Schumer, for once.”
The US is the only participant in the war that is known to have Tomahawk missiles. Israel is not known to have Tomahawk missiles.
Brian Finucane (Just Security): “DoD obviously knows where it conducted TLAM strikes and could have acknowledged responsibility for this tragedy even while it investigated the attack.”
Rando: “Admission of responsibility is not part of Hegseth’s warrior ethos.”
birgerjohanssonsays
^
I realise that many headlines are clickbaity in style, but if the actual content seems solid I give the link a chance.
I recall the US stagflation of the 70s, even if we in Sweden escaped it. This is one advantage of having a separate currency.
birgerjohanssonsays
Hegseth may not be all there. I mean, everyone in the administration is flawed but Miller and Hegseth are the only ones to be more aggressively nuts than DJT. The idea that he rose to major in the National Guard is scary.
ProPublica is releasing a trove of disclosure records that detail the finances of more than 1,500 Trump appointees, including former lobbyists, industry executives and at least a dozen officials who declined to identify former clients.
Thousands of companies are jockeying for billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts to build a shield designed to intercept and destroy missiles launched against the United States.
But amid the intense competition, a handful of firms have an important inside connection.
At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded by billionaire Steve Feinberg, who until last year ran the company and is now the deputy secretary of defense — the second-highest-ranking official in the Pentagon.
Feinberg oversees the office in charge of the Golden Dome for America project, which is modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Feinberg filed paperwork saying he divested from Cerberus and its related businesses. But his government ethics records contain an unusual clause: He is allowed to continue contracting with the company for tax compliance and accounting services as well as health care coverage, a financial relationship that documents show could continue indefinitely. [!]
Feinberg’s financial statements and ethics agreement are part of a trove of nearly 3,200 disclosure records that ProPublica is making public today. The disclosures, which can be viewed in a searchable online tool, detail the finances of more than 1,500 federal officials appointed by President Donald Trump. Records for Trump and Vice President JD Vance are also included.
The documents reveal a web of financial ties between senior government officials and the industries they help regulate — […] Trump has dismantled ethics safeguards designed to prevent conflicts of interest.
[…] Trump [also] fired 17 inspectors general charged with investigating fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest across the federal government.
[…] senior executive branch officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, made well-timed securities trades, at times selling stocks just before markets plunged because Trump announced new tariffs. […]
Other disclosures revealed that two high-ranking scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who recently helped downgrade the agency’s assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde had previously held senior positions at the chemical industry’s leading trade group. […]
In December, ProPublica reported that Trump has appointed more than 200 people who collectively owned — either by themselves or with their spouses — between $175 million and $340 million in cryptocurrency investments at the time they filed their disclosures. Some of those appointees now hold positions overseeing or influencing regulation of the crypto industry. Among them are Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney and now the second-highest-ranking official in the Justice Department.
Blanche’s disclosure records show that he owned at least $159,000 in crypto-related assets last year when he shut down investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges. [!]
[…] Trump has openly defended his family’s financial enrichment while he is in office, including through cryptocurrency deals that critics say allow investors, including foreign entities, to curry favor by boosting the president’s personal wealth.
“I found out nobody cared, and I’m allowed to,” Trump told The New York Times, referring to his family’s business dealings.
Trump also remains unapologetic about accepting a Boeing 747 worth about $400 million from the Qatari government and transferring nearly $1 billion from a nuclear weapons program to retrofit it. [!] Virginia Canter, chief counsel for ethics and corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit governmental watchdog group, cited Trump’s new plane as a brazen example of self-dealing.
“Ethics is in the toilet,” said Canter […]
[I snipped some White House Spokesdoofus comments. I also snipped more details related to Feinberg and Cerberus.]
Another top official in the department is Marc Berkowitz, who was confirmed in December as assistant secretary of defense for space policy. During his confirmation, Berkowitz described the Golden Dome project as one of his top priorities.
Berkowitz previously worked as a space industry consultant and vice president for strategic planning at Lockheed Martin. The giant defense and aerospace company was among the firms awarded Golden Dome contracts days before Berkowitz’s confirmation.
[…] Other agencies have similar industry links. Across the administration, former lobbyists and corporate executives now occupy influential positions, including Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Their ties to former clients have made national headlines, but ProPublica’s searchable online tool provides the public an important glimpse into the financial relationships of a powerful and often hidden cadre of presidential appointees within the federal bureaucracy.
Reports show that after being nominated to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Jonathan Morrison revealed he served for two years as a director of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, the trade group that represents companies that make and use self-driving cars. He left the position in February 2024.
[…] Most political appointees and senior officials in the executive branch are required by law to file public financial disclosure reports […] At least a dozen appointees withheld the identities of previous clients, ProPublica found.
[…] Appointees are allowed to keep the name of former clients confidential under exceptional circumstances, such as when the identity is protected by a court order or revealing the name would violate the rules of a professional licensing organization. […] Guidelines issued by the Office of Government Ethics say that such situations are unusual and “it is extremely rare for a filer to rely on this exception for more than a few clients.” [I snipped specific examples.]
[…] ProPublica’s journalists have been gathering these records for more than a year. We obtained all of the disclosures that were available from the Office of Government Ethics. Those consist of the top appointees who require Senate confirmation. To get records for people working in lower-level positions, we made requests to individual federal agencies. Some didn’t respond or responded partially; records we requested for about 1,200 people weren’t provided.
Still, ProPublica’s online tool is the most comprehensive public source of financial disclosures from across the executive branch.
More than half of American citizens who requested help departing have since turned down US government-provided transportation options in favour of remaining in country or an alternative travel plan, the department added.
With much of the region’s airspace closed, tens of thousands of people have scrambled to leave the Middle East—prompting some to pay huge sums to charter private jets.
Sure, over half of them asked for help escaping a war zone then changed their minds. Maybe they hitched a ride with their Italian friends.
Sri Lanka will issue a monthlong visa for the Iranian sailors evacuated outside its waters after a US submarine attack sunk another ship in the same area […] “it will take some time for them to leave this country”. […] The ship sought help from Sri Lanka reporting an engine failure.
birgerjohanssonsays
“ALMA just made the largest radio image EVER of our Galactic Center”
The image is 650 light years across. If we could see it with the naked eye I estimate the image would be just a little less than the with of three discs of the moon superimposed on the sky.
(I did the estimate in my head, so feel free to fact check it. The distance is 26 000 light years)
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Rando: “[Photo] Marco Rubio hanging out with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio at the ‘Shield of the Americas’ event, in case you were still thinking it had some sort of legitimate purpose.” (Tarrio had tweeted it)
Commentary
It was held at a golf course. It was never a legitimate thing.
Doesn’t lil Marco have like, 8 jobs to be doing poorly?
Oh nothing, just our Secretary of State hanging out with a guy who plotted to potentially have him killed 5 years ago.
Remember when Sarah Palin accused Pres. Obama of “pallin’ around with terrorists” and it became a huge scandal?
Has there been any other photo of Rubio smiling so smilingly since he became Sec of State and adopted a permanent mask of utter depressive obliteration?
“No organization put more boots on the ground at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, than the Proud Boys, and they were at the forefront of every major breach of the Capitol’s defenses, leading the on-the-ground efforts to storm the seat of government,”
A refresher on what Rubio once said about the Jan. 6 insurrection that Tarrio helped provoke: “3rd world style anti-American anarchy” “disgusting” “unpatriotic” “inexcusable” “national embarrassment” “one of the saddest days in our history”.
Zach Roberts (Journalist): “To be fair, Tarrio as far as we know has never killed anyone. Rubio is complicit in […]”
at least 41 people killed and 40 injured […] Three Lebanese soldiers were among the dead, and locals listed the names of civilians, including children […]
The focus of the operation in Nabi Chit was recovering the remains of an Israeli military airman who went missing in Lebanon 40 years ago. On Saturday, there was a hole in the ground in the corner of the town cemetery where a grave had been dug up. “They thought he was there but there was nothing,” one local man said
[…]
The Lebanese military said it had observed four Israeli aircraft appear by Lebanon’s border with Syria late on Friday night, with two of them landing and deploying special forces soldiers onto the ground. A “large-scale aerial bombardment” began at the same time, it said. […] In Nabi Chit, clashes then broke out on the streets between the Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters, and civilians defending their homes. […] Hezbollah and local residents said Israel had conducted some 40 airstrikes in the area to give cover to the special forces soldiers and allow them to withdraw.
[…]
Witnesses told the BBC that the Israeli soldiers had arrived disguised in Lebanese military fatigues and used ambulances with signs of Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Organization. The Lebanese army chief later confirmed this
[…]
The town is covered by sweeping Israeli evacuation orders, and locals say a further call for civilians to leave their homes came shortly before the operation began.
[…]
The Israeli military said no IDF personnel had been injured in the overnight operation. […] Across Lebanon, at least 294 people have been killed by Israeli military action since Monday […] In the town, as some grieved, others said they felt victorious after fighting back and discovering Israel had failed to recover the remains.
Luke Moffett (Human rights prof): “This is blatant perfidy and a war crime under Art.8(2)(b)(vii) of the Rome Statute of the ICC and Art.37 of AP I to the Geneva Conventions which prohibits misuse of Red Crescent emblem and enemy uniforms that results in death or serious injury.”
Hegseth may not be all there. I mean, everyone in the administration is flawed but Miller and Hegseth are the only ones to be more aggressively nuts than DJT.
I think someone (probably a girl) took a GI Joe doll away from Hegseth when he was a child.
named as Chief Data Officer […] Reuters reported last year that Kliger had reposted content from white supremacist Nick Fuentes and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate [in fall/winter 2024]
The post, which Musk shared […] was potentially deadly. “United States Institute of Peace Funded Taliban,” the post read. At the bottom, the post named Halimi and described him as a “former Taliban member,” and the payments to him as U.S. support for the militants.
[…]
It was true that he’d once worked for the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, but he had switched sides after the United States invaded following 9/11. […] Halimi was part of a team of advisers that helped the U.S. prepare for difficult diplomatic talks with the Taliban […] The Taliban had attempted to assassinate Halimi as a traitor at least three times […] The work he was pursuing with USIP had nothing to do with supporting the Taliban. It was the opposite. […] DOGE should have known this too. Halimi’s work at USIP was spelled out in precise detail in the agency’s records […] treated as highly sensitive and confidential. […] But Musk’s crew was then locked in a pitched battle for control of USIP. The misleading narrative about Halimi became central to DOGE’s argument; American foreign aid was corrupt and even, at times, funding America’s enemies—and that’s why DOGE had to take over.
[…]
About a week after DOGE outed him, Halimi’s worst fears were realized. Taliban intelligence agents in Kabul descended on the homes of his relatives and detained three of his family members. They were blindfolded, thrown into the backs of 4×4 pickup trucks and driven to a small remote prison. They were held incommunicado over several days and repeatedly beaten and questioned about Halimi
[…]
He’d been frantically reaching out to his bosses in Washington to ask what was behind Musk’s social media blasts against him and to seek help clearing his name. But everyone Halimi worked with had been fired. A 28-year-old college dropout named Nate Cavanaugh had been installed as USIP’s new president. DOGE had ousted its leader, State Department veteran George E. Moose.
[…]
With little warning or awareness of the potential danger to overseas employees, former staffers said, they shuttered USIP offices in Pakistan, Nigeria and El Salvador. After DOGE fired USIP’s international security team, its staff in Libya feared for their safety and were forced to flee on their own across the border. […] Over the following weeks, the DOGE team celebrated its newfound power inside the USIP building. Members were seen smoking cigars in the office and drinking beer
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Matt Novak (Gizmodo): “We’re still murdering people in “drug boats” even as we start a new war in Iran. Six people today. [Screenshot of SouthCom tweet]”
birgerjohanssonsays
Warning for AI slop. On Youtube there is something called “BNC News 24” that looks very professional but the headlines fail the skepticism test.
.
BTW the woodpeckers have started doing their thing. And we got a rain wetting the ice on the ground, making the walk to work an “adventure” ending with me flat on my ass.
birgerjohanssonsays
The new supreme leader is already getting help from Russia and China
“The Trump administration sent negotiators without nuclear expertise to lead talks on Iran’s enrichment program. Now, its public case for war centers on a facility that experts say cannot do what officials claim.”
The Trump administration has cited Iran’s Tehran Research Reactor as a central justification for its military strikes, but has provided no evidence that the facility — built by the United States and used for civilian research for nearly six decades — was being used to develop nuclear weapons. Multiple nuclear scientists and nonproliferation experts told MS NOW that the reactor does not have the capacity to serve as an easy conduit to a bomb as asserted by the administration.
[…] Just 36 hours before the United States opened its military assault, Iran’s nuclear negotiators, along with Oman’s foreign minister as mediator, presented the U.S. with a seven-page proposal for a potential nuclear deal, [!] according to U.S. negotiator Steve Witkoff. But the American negotiators, Witkoff and Jared Kushner — who, according to a senior Middle East diplomat with knowledge of the talks, chose not to include nuclear technical experts in the negotiations — balked at Iran’s request to continue using 20%-enriched uranium at the reactor, a facility for civilian nuclear development that the U.S. first built and provided to Iran in 1967.
[…] the Trump administration has yet to provide evidence or intelligence — to the public or to Congress — demonstrating that Iran intended to use the uranium at the Tehran Research Reactor for weapon development or that the facility was being covertly used for stockpiling purposes. […]
Witkoff said on “The Mark Levin Show.” “They were stockpiling again at the 20% level.” [I snipped other comments from Witkoff, and I snipped comments from White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.]
[…] In the week since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks, the IAEA and the White House have issued conflicting statements as to how close Iran was believed to be toward the production of a nuclear weapon.
“This [what Witkoff and Kelly said] is spin, it just isn’t true, and the conversation that did take place with Director General Grossi present has been taken completely out of context by Mr. Witkoff,” [!] a Persian Gulf diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations said in response to the claim.
‘Confusing and misleading’
[…] Elena Sokova, the executive director of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, called the administration’s assessments of the Tehran Research Reactor “confusing and misleading” and riddled with “technical errors.” [!]
“It mixes up different elements of the nuclear program and their potential proliferation capabilities,” Sokova said. “Research reactors are not capable of doing enrichment of uranium, whether for civil or military purposes.”
[…] the White House opted to forgo scheduled technical talks set for this past Monday in Vienna, where more detailed nuclear details were expected to be addressed. [!]
“When it comes to nuclear nonproliferation discussions, the details matter,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “And working out the details requires time and technical expertise, and the administration was not patient enough to apply either to this effort.” […]
A 60-year-old facility
The U.S. first built and provided the Tehran Research Reactor to Iran in 1967 as part of the “Atoms for Peace” program that began under President Dwight Eisenhower. The initiative aimed to expand civilian nuclear capabilities for electricity, medicine and other domestic purposes. [Interesting history.]
[…] Under the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, the reactor would have access to no more than 5 kilograms of 20%-enriched uranium at a time, supplied from outside the country and monitored by inspectors.
The reactor has not come under IAEA scrutiny for suspected nuclear development in more than 25 years, […]
“TRR is not ideal for any other activity than what it is designed for — i.e., civilian use (isotopes, research, training),” Simonen told MS NOW. “It is a small, light-water reactor supplied by the U.S. under the Atoms for Peace program.” [Katariina Simonen, a board member of Pugwash Conferences of Science and World Affairs and an adjunct professor at the Finnish National Defence University.]
The dispute over 20% enrichment
At the heart of the Trump administration’s case is the 20%-enriched uranium that Iran uses at the Tehran Research Reactor. In the seven-page proposal presented at negotiations in Geneva last week, the Iranians sought to maintain a certain level of enrichment at 20% for the purposes of producing radioisotopes and medicine — standard civilian applications — at the facility. [Sounds reasonable.]
Witkoff argued that the 20% enrichment level gave Iran “five times the level that the JCPOA would have allowed,” [Witkoff is either lying or so ignorant that he misstated that] referring to the Obama-era agreement’s cap of 3.67% for Iran’s broader enrichment activities. But the JCPOA separately provided for 20%-enriched fuel to be supplied from outside Iran specifically to meet the reactor’s needs, capped at 5 kg at any given time [!!]
[…] Administration officials argued this week that the Iranians had effectively sought to convert the reactor from a civilian nuclear facility into a cover for stockpiling industrial-grade material that could eventually be further enriched to weapons grade. Uranium enriched to 20% is roughly 90% of the way to weapons-grade material, […]
But the administration has not provided evidence of its assertion that Iran intended to use the 20% fuel for weapon production, nor that Iran had amassed enough material that could potentially be further enriched to power a single small weapon. For Iran to make a bomb, the uranium would need to be enriched to a higher level. Last year’s strikes destroyed nearly all of Iran’s centrifuges, and there’s no evidence that enrichment has resumed. [!]
“An [active] operating reactor cannot be used as storage,” said Claus Montonen, a retired nuclear physicist and an adjunct professor at the University of Helsinki and board member of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility. “I am not aware of this ever having happened.”
As an extension of the administration’s argument for further destroying any would-be Iranian nuclear operations, Witkoff warned in a Fox News interview this week that Iran “controlled 460 kg of 60%” enriched uranium at the facility — a level that would bring Iran roughly one week away from being able to have weapons-grade material.
However, during negotiations, the Iranians told Witkoff and Kushner that they would turn over that uranium as part of a new nuclear agreement with the U.S [!]., according to the Persian Gulf diplomat who spoke with MS NOW. The Iranians also told Witkoff that the country enriched the uranium after President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA brokered by the Obama administration. [Important point]
The senior Trump administration official acknowledged on Tuesday that Iran had, in fact, “talked about turning over material to us” as part of the talks, which ended abruptly when the U.S. launched military strikes roughly 36 hours after Witkoff and Kushner left the third round of talks in Geneva.
On Wednesday, Grossi, the head of the IAEA, reiterated that the organization has “no evidence of Iran building a nuclear bomb.” […]
‘Plenty of time’ for congressional authorization
Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., the sole physicist in Congress, has called for answers from the administration about existing Iranian stockpiles and disputed the administration’s argument that potential accumulation of 20%-enriched uranium would require immediate military action. [!]
“If they’re talking about inventories of 20%-enriched uranium, the timeline to convert that into higher enriched uranium and into a metal and then into a weapon gives you plenty of time to go to the United States Congress and say that the nuclear talks have broken down and to request military action — and that was not done,” said Foster. […]
Inspections cut off by prior strikes
Iran cut off the IAEA’s oversight access to the reactor last summer after the U.S. and Israel bombed three of its enrichment facilities — strikes that also took place while Witkoff was actively negotiating with Iran. Iran’s stockpile of 1,000 pounds of enriched uranium is believed to be buried underground in tunnels beneath the three sites targeted in those strikes.
[…] Alicia Sanders-Zakre, head of policy of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons [said] “Israeli and U.S. military strikes on Iran stopped these international inspections. The only successful nonproliferation path forward lies in negotiations, not military action.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, who led Iran’s negotiating team, criticized Witkoff and Kushner for leaving the nuclear negotiating table.
“When complex nuclear negotiations are treated like a real estate transaction, and when big lies cloud realities, unrealistic expectations can never be met,” Araghchi wrote last week. “The outcome? Bombing the negotiation table out of spite.”
In less than a week after launching a massive military assault on Iran, President Trump has gone from telling its people the future is ‘yours to take’ to insisting he will decide on a new leader and demanding the ‘unconditional surrender’ of the current regime.
The rapid shifts continue to muddle the administration’s endgame in Iran, and raise the stakes for Trump — who built his ‘America First’ movement on the promise of avoiding foreign entanglements — if he now seeks to dictate the political outcome of a country of 92 million in the world’s most combustible region.
Commentary:
[…] the president appears to be winging it and making up new justifications and objectives on the fly.
It’s tempting to say there is no endgame in the administration’s policy, but it’s more accurate to say there are all kinds of endgames, and Trump’s meandering support for each is based on a combination of whims and whoever had his ear last.
New York magazine asked Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut whether he believes the White House is likely to deploy ground troops in Iran.
“I think it’s impossible to know because of the incoherence and incompetence of this administration,” the senator replied. “They are making it up as they go along.”
If there is a big mistake to be made, like putting troops on the ground, I think Trump will eventually make that mistake.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Trump’s Westchester Golf Resort Infested With Bugs And Rodents”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yt11oE5T-OA
Looks like someone has been going cheap on maintenance. Or not hired competent managers.
.
BTW I see the term “force majeure” pop up a lot about oul and natural gas companies in the Gulf. I assume this is not “good” news.
[…] in 2024, Donald Trump recognized that Americans were still deeply concerned about inflation and the cost of living […] To that end, the Republican candidate focused heavily on the issue and made all kinds of bold promises about “Day One” improvements, all while struggling with the most basic of questions: What would he actually do on the issue?
When pressed, he tended to focus on gas prices. To hear Trump tell it, he would focus obsessively on drilling for oil, everywhere and all of the time, which he said would lower gas prices, which in turn would make it more affordable to transport goods to marketplaces, which in turn would lower prices.
It was, to be sure, a highly dubious pitch rooted in suspect assumptions, but it was a line much of the electorate was willing to embrace, as evidenced by his return to power.
The gap between what Trump promised to deliver and what he has delivered is enormous — and growing. As The New York Times summarized, “Oil prices surged on Monday in a sign of growing concern that the war in the Middle East will continue to take a toll on energy supplies, raising gas prices for American consumers and weighing on the stock market.” […]
To put the increase in perspective, I put together this chart showing WTI prices over the last year. [chart]
[..] In an item published to his social media platform on Sunday afternoon, the president argued after his latest golf outing, “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” […]
[…] in the meantime, I find myself stuck on one nagging detail.
On Thursday afternoon, at a White House event intended to honor a championship soccer term, Trump took a moment to comment on an issue on the minds of many.
“Yesterday, my administration announced decisive action to help keep down the oil prices,” he declared. Moments later, he went on to say that oil prices “have pretty much stabilized.”
Right around the time Trump made those comments, oil prices were roughly $80 a barrel. They topped $100 soon after. [!]
So here are the questions for the communications team in the West Wing: (1) Was the administration’s “decisive action to help keep down the oil prices” a failure? (2) Does the president know what “stabilized” means?
Boots on the Ground Watch
The abrupt cancellation of a planned training exercise for the 82nd Airborne Division’s headquarters element fueled internal Pentagon speculation that the division’s Immediate Response Force may be deployed to the Middle East. [!]
[…] Latest from the Middle East … Iran selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as its new leader, and oil jumped to more than $100 a barrel as the flow of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz slowed to a virtual stop. […]
In its first reported combat deaths in the Middle Eastern conflict, Israel announced that two soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon. The overall death toll in Lebanon has risen to nearly 400 people.
Quote of the Day
Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago:
Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store. But, in the end, we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military. We become addicted to the “spectacle” of explosions. And the price of this habit is almost unnoticeable, as we become desensitized to the true costs of war.
U.S. Conducts 45th Boat Strike
Six people were killed Sunday in another lawless U.S. strike against a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific, raising the campaign’s death toll to at least 156.
Cuba Next?
With President Trump openly touting regime change in Cuba, the Trump DOJ has established a working group led by Miami U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones to drum up possible federal charges against officials or entities within Cuba’s government.
So it turns out that even packing the National Capital Planning Commission with cronies wasn’t enough to get […] Trump’s big, dumb ballroom approved.
The NCPC was planning to vote on the monstrosity on Thursday, and it seemed like a foregone conclusion that it would sail through just as it did for the Commission of Fine Arts—which Trump also stuffed with sycophants.
But the NCPC apparently didn’t count on the fact that normal people really, really hate this thing. In fact, the commission received more than 35,000 comments about the hideous ballroom, with 97% of them opposing it.
Would you like some examples?
How about one that called the ballroom a “gaudy, personalized palace” and “a complete razing of American history.” Or perhaps the one that said it’s “absolutely shameful” and “hideous.” And one comment that called it a “soulless hotel conference space” was so good that CNN made it a headline.
[…] The NCPC didn’t vote the ballroom down, of course. It understood the assignment, which was to approve this unthinkingly. But the deluge of comments would have made for a very bad look, so NCPC Chair Will Scharf moved the vote to next month to “take some time to deliberate.”
What Scharf really means is that he wants a cooling-down period where he hopes that people will stop paying so much attention before he forces a vote to approve it—because that’s all he’s there for.
There’s not even any pretense that Scharf is independent of Trump, since he’s currently the White House staff secretary and—you guessed it—was one of Trump’s personal attorneys. [!]
[…] If you’re wondering how the White House is handling this setback, here’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt being very cool and normal and professional in a statement to The New York Times:
These nasty comments are clearly stemming from an organized campaign of Trump-deranged liberals who clearly have no style or taste. [LOL] It’s a shame that some people in this country are so debilitated with Trump derangement syndrome, they can’t even recognize or respect beauty when they see it. President Trump’s ballroom will be extraordinary, at no expense to taxpayers, for generations to come. [LOL]
[Ha. When I started to read this article I was just waiting for the “organized campaign of liberals” explanation to surface. I was not disappointed. Trump and his lackeys are so convinced that their taste in decor is superior. Hoots of laughter.]
Things also aren’t going so great with Trump’s plan to turn the Kennedy Center the World’s Tackiest Fascist Performing Arts Center either. Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio filed a lawsuit Friday to try to block the center’s closure and possible demolition.
[…] No one wants what Trump is selling, save for his sycophants. The people don’t want the ballroom, and they don’t want the Kennedy Center to be gutted.
But all we can do is keep trying to gum up the works.
“As Russia provides intelligence that could put Americans at risk, the White House responds by easing Russian oil sanctions.”
MS NOW reported over the weekend that Russia has provided Iran with information that could help Iranian forces strike American ships, aircraft and bases in the region, according two U.S. officials, one whom said point-blank, “Russia is providing intelligence help to Iran.”
The Associated Press and The Washington Post had related reports, with the latter noting, “The assistance … signals that the rapidly expanding conflict now features one of America’s chief nuclear-armed competitors with exquisite intelligence capabilities.” On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker pressed Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on this, and he made no effort to deny the accuracy of the reporting, emphasizing that Iran’s “strategic partnership” with Russia is “not a secret.” [!]
[…] White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, for example, told Fox News on Friday that it “does not really matter” whether Russia is sharing intelligence with Iran to target U.S. assets. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth similarly told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the administration is “not concerned” about whether Russia is assisting Iran. [JFC]
At a White House event on Friday, the president himself brushed off the issue, chiding a reporter for asking what Trump described as “a stupid question” — because he wanted to focus solely on college athletics, not the deadly, ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
If we were to stop here, it would be a striking story about a Republican administration that has expressed little more than indifference to serious allegations. But as it turns out, Team Trump isn’t just shrugging its shoulders about Russia’s aid to Iran during the war, it’s also taking steps that would benefit Russia as it aids Iran during the war. Reuters reported:
Trump administration officials on Sunday defended a decision to temporarily lift some sanctions on Russian oil and predicted that a sharp increase in gasoline prices resulting from the Iran war would last only weeks.
Appearing on multiple TV talk shows, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said a waiver issued last week to allow Indian purchases of Russian oil would alleviate pressure on the global market.
(It’s worth noting for context that Trump has publicly boasted about getting India to stop buying Russian oil, including at a White House press conference in late February. So much for that idea.)
On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” host Margaret Brennan asked the energy secretary about the decision to suspend those sanctions, which would benefit Russia financially. Wright responded that the administration is “worried about American consumers,” which might be true but didn’t negate the underlying point.
Around the same time, on “Meet the Press,” Welker asked the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations about why the Republican administration would choose to help Russia right now.
“I wouldn’t characterize it that way,” Waltz replied. [social media post and video]
[…] the fact remains that Russia’s assistance to Iran certainly didn’t stop Team Trump from easing oil sanctions on Russia.
No one has suggested the White House is helping Russia because of its support for Iran — this is almost certainly because of anxieties about rapidly rising oil prices — but that the two developments are unfolding at the same time makes Trump’s move that much tougher to defend.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed on Capitol Hill.
“Russia is our adversary,” Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told MS NOW last week. “[…] The White House has had a moral blindness when it comes to Putin and Russia.”
Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, added, “This is an intolerable escalation by the Kremlin — one they must come to deeply regret. I call on the administration to impose swift and severe consequences for this blatant attempt to endanger American lives.” [Correct]
The White House appears to have come to the opposite conclusion.
birgerjohanssonsays
Nearby red dwarf star hosts at least four planets—with one in the habitable zone
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-nearby-red-dwarf-star-hosts.html
Lacaille 9352 / GJ 887
Distance 10.7 light years.
Mass 0.48 of the sun.
Luminosity 3.7 % of the sun
The outer edge of the HZ is at 0.4 AU.
Considering how quickly the tidal pseudoforce increases with reduced distance we can assume any terrestrial planets either have a 1:1 rotation or are so distant they are frozen snowballs.
[…] In other news of murderous civil rights violations, newly released bodycam footage of the homicide of Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, in Austin, shows that — as they’ve done every single time they have shot someone in a moving car —DHS agents were lying and Martinez did not try to run any of them over before being fatally shot three times by Homeland Security Investigations Agent Jack C. Stevens. (Scripps News)
Not a Drag Queen Dept.: “Capitol rioter pardoned by Trump given life sentence for molesting two children.” (The Guardian)
[…] Another thing to blame Elon Musk for: it turns out Ndiaga Diagne, the suspect accused of a mass shooting in an Austin bar, was a Tesla employee who also had allegedly assaulted a 65-year-old co-worker, unprovoked. And the victim, Lillian Mendoza Brady, who’d never seen or met Diagne before he attacked her, says that Tesla refused to tell her Diagne’s name so she could not press charges, and she only learned who he was after seeing his picture after the shooting. She’s suing Tesla now, as well she should. (Austin Statesman) […]
“The country’s ruling party introduces a bill to freeze recently seized Ukrainian state bank funds and gold as tensions between Budapest and Kyiv deepen.”
Hungary’s ruling party on Monday introduced a bill aimed at cementing last week’s controversial seizure of millions of euros worth of Ukrainian state bank cash and gold.
The measure would allow authorities to freeze the assets while a national security investigation unfolds. [Sounds like an excuse the Trump administration would give for misdeeds.]
The proposal, introduced by Fidesz parliamentary leader Máté Kocsis, would treat the €35 million, $40 million and 9 kilograms of gold seized from vehicles linked to Ukraine’s state-owned Oschadbank as confiscated property until Hungary’s tax and customs authority concludes its probe.
According to Hungarian outlet Telex, lawmakers plan to debate the legislation under an unusual fast-track procedure after the parliament’s national security committee met Monday.
Hungarian authorities say they are examining whether the convoy — stopped while transiting the country last week — posed national security risks. They are also investigating the origin and intended use of the money.
[…] Fidesz parliamentary leader Kocsis described the episode as a “scandalous Ukrainian gold convoy” and said investigators are examining whether the transport of such large quantities of cash and bullion could pose security risks to Hungary.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, slammed the move on X, accusing Budapest of trying to retroactively legitimize an illegal seizure. “Hungary is falling down a spiral of lawlessness,” Sybiha wrote, calling the bill “a de facto recognition that Hungary’s actions lack any legal grounds.”
[…] Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has repeatedly butted heads with Ukraine over energy flows through the Druzhba pipeline, opposed Kyiv’s bid to join the European Union and blocked major EU financial support packages — including a €90 billion lifeline intended to keep Ukraine’s government functioning during the country’s war with Russia.
Hackers from the Kremlin have mounted a “large-scale global cyber campaign” targeting civil servants, military personnel and other notable figures via messaging applications WhatsApp and Signal, Dutch intelligence services warned on Monday.
The Russian operation aims to trick victims into revealing PIN codes for secure messaging apps Signal and WhatsApp, the Netherlands’ military intelligence service and domestic intelligence agency said in a joint public advisory. […]
Hackers are posing as a fake Signal support chatbot to persuade users to share their codes, allowing them to take over an account to read incoming communications and group chats. The culprits were also found to have exploited the “linked devices” feature of the apps, which lets them connect another device to the victim’s account and quietly monitor messages.
The campaign has targeted government personnel as well as individuals of interest to the Russian government, including journalists, the Dutch authorities said. They also emphasized that individual accounts have been compromised, not the messaging apps as a whole.
Signal is used widely by public officials as a secure and independent communications channel, and has been the recommended application for EU officials to use for external comms since 2020.
“Despite their end-to-end encryption option, messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp should not be used as channels for classified, confidential or sensitive information,” said the director of the Dutch military intelligence service, Peter Reesink.
United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other top U.S. officials came under fire last year for using the app to exchange classified information in an incident known as Signalgate. […]
“Lindsey Graham Loses Mind, Demands MORE BOMBING!”
Remember when John McCain tossed off that flip “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” line like he was some morning show shock jock, and then defended his asshole warmongering by telling the rest of us to “lighten up”? We cannot believe we are typing these words, but: it is a damn shame that John McCain is no longer alive to act as a moderating influence on his old mini-me Lindsey Graham.
We’re not even exaggerating for comedic effect. Graham showed up on Maria Bartiromo’s show on Fox News on Sunday and proceeded to give a performance that would convince his loved ones, if he had any, to strap him to a gurney and sedate him. The man has always been a panicky warmonger, but he’s gone beyond that now. Something in his brain has broken.
Behold, for example, his first rant on Sunday. Bartiromo started off by reciting some of the budgetary info about the war (A billion dollars a day! Oil prices rising! The president wants a $1.5 trillion defense budget!) before asking Graham for his take. And Graham responded with, we kid you not because we timed it, an almost three-and-a-half-minute uninterrupted tirade that made us seriously wonder if he was hopped up on cocaine or had snorted someone’s ADHD meds. It was that unhinged: [Video]
Bartiromo couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The best she could do was mumble the occasional “Yup” and hope Graham shut up[…]
It’s tough to fact-check that slop, but here’s a couple. Graham’s claim that Iran has enough uranium enriched to 60 percent to make 11 nuclear bombs is apparently true. Or at least that’s what the Iranians allegedly told Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who is a moron.
What Graham failed to mention is that Iran also told Witkoff they enriched that uranium AFTER Trump tore up Barack Obama’s deal with the country, otherwise we wouldn’t be in this position. He also failed to mention that the Iranians offered to give up that 60 percent enriched material as part of a new agreement to replace the old one. Which, again, Trump tore up in his first term.
Then there was Graham’s hollering at Arab Gulf nations that they need to join in the fighting, yelling at Bartiromo, “I want them to get in the fight!” [!] […]
This went over poorly with at least one Gulf billionaire. If this is a widespread attitude, then maybe Graham should shut the hell up: [social media post from Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor: I heard the statements of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, in which he calls on the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to enter this war, saying that we are also under attack and that we must join the fight. And I say to him clearly: We know full well why we are under attack, and we also know who dragged the entire region into this dangerous escalation without consulting those he calls his “allies” in the region.
We thank God that the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries are doing well, and we have no need for someone who claims he came to the Middle East to save us. The truth is that hasty American decisions are what embroiled the region in a war whose peoples were not party to its decision-making, and its local allies were not consulted before it was launched. [I added bolding]]
Graham has been, next to Pete Hegseth, the biggest public supporter of Trump as he began his bombing campaign against Iran. […] Blowing up Iranians has been one of his longest-standing goals, something he has encouraged Donald Trump to do ever since the Orange One’s first term. […] It is grotesque in a way that almost can’t be parodied. […]
“We’re gonna blow the hell out of these people. This regime is in a death throe now. It is gonna be on its knees, it’s gonna fall, and when it falls we’re gonna have peace like no other time. We’re gonna have prosperity unlike anyone could ever imagine.” [JFC, seriously? Yes, that is as unhinged as Pete Hegseth’s “no mercy” performance.]
[…] This Wall Street Journal piece from last week took a deeper look at Graham’s lobbying. The paper makes it pretty clear Graham might have gotten played by Israel, although Lord knows he wanted to be played so badly, he was all but begging […]:
Graham traveled several times to Israel in recent weeks, meeting with members of the country’s intelligence agency. “They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” he said. He spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coaching him on how to lobby the president for action.
[…] The Journal also notes how Graham worked with a couple of neocons, including former Bush speechwriter and current worst opinion writer at The Washington Post Marc Thiessen to push for war in the paper and on TV. It was basically a full-court press of Trump […]:
For months, Graham worked the issue, at times irritating senior White House aides. One called him an “annoying crazy uncle.” He kept showing up at Trump’s Florida clubs.
Shoot, even John McCain’s daughter, Meghan “My dad is John McCain!” McCain, is publicly begging Donald Trump to rein in his Lindsey Graham-shaped lapdog on the grounds that the dude is scaring the crap out of people with his “WE’LL BLOW UP IRAN AND THEN CUBA AND THEN ANTIFA AND ANYONE ELSE WHO GETS IN THE WAY OF OUR GREATEST PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” […]
By Sunday night, even Graham seemed to realize he had gone too far with the murderous chest-thumping. After weekend bombing took out oil facilities around Tehran and turned the city’s atmosphere into poison, he was suddenly begging everyone to chill out: [social media post: Our allies in Israel have shown amazing capability when it comes to collapsing the murderous regime in Iran. America is most appreciative. However, there will be a day soon that the Iranian people will be in charge of their own fate, not the murderous ayatollah’s regime. In that regard, please be cautious about what targets you select. Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life when this regime collapses.The oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor. [What about the children, Lindsey? What about the political prisoners in Iran?]
[…] on Bartiromo’s show, Lindsey told the host she should just wait and see what would happen in the next two weeks. Asked what he meant, Graham said:
“You see this hat? Free Cuba. The liberation of Cuba is upon us. It’s just a matter of time now.” [JFC]
Man, how about we deal with the catastrophe we’re unleashing in the Persian Gulf before we start a possible refugee crisis 90 miles from our own shores?
Graham closed by telling Bartiromo that America is “marching through the world. We’re cleaning out the bad guys.” […]
Other people are doing the fighting. Other people are dying. Graham is just getting off on the war-not-war.
birgerjohanssonsays
The TEC Show:
“BREAKING: My Plus One Model Predicts a Major Democratic House Surge.”
New House model shows Democrats on track for a big 2026 gain
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5tn5qGOrMAE
U.S. Central Command says two more U.S. service members have died in the war in Iran — one from injuries sustained during an Iranian attack on American troops in Saudi Arabia last week and another from a ‘health-related incident in Kuwait’ on March 6. A total of eight U.S. service members have now died during the conflict.
The U.S. military said it killed six men Sunday in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against alleged traffickers.
Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight on Saturday, damaging infrastructure and killing at least 10 people, including two children, in the northeast city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.
Press freedom organizations are celebrating the court decision invalidating Kari Lake’s tenure at Voice of America and nullifying the mass layoffs she ordered last year.
Reporters without Borders’ Executive Director Clayton Weimers, said the Saturday evening ruling “confirms what we knew when we first filed this lawsuit almost one year ago: that Kari Lake and the Trump administration acted unlawfully in gutting Voice of America (VOA). There is still more to unpack in this decision and work to be done to ensure VOA’s journalists get back to work. Beyond the immediate implications of the decision, this case is proof that fighting for press freedom matters.”
Lake, a former local news anchor and failed gubernatorial and Senate candidate, had tried to dismantle Voice of America […]
Trump has repeatedly counted decades of fighting between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo as one of eight wars he settled as he openly sought a Nobel Peace Prize. … But on Monday the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the Rwandan military and four senior officers, saying they are supporting militants in eastern Congo who resumed fighting within days of the December pact.
The Trump administration’s retribution campaign has landed in court again, this time with a lawsuit from Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the AI tool Claude.
The Food and Drug Administration’s controversial vaccines chief is leaving the agency. Dr. Vinay Prasad, who has led the FDA’s vaccines and biotech drugs division, will depart at the end of April, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said Friday. Federal health officials are searching for his replacement, Makary said.
Recently appointed Postmaster General David Steiner said he expects the United States Postal Service (USPS) to run out of cash by 2027 without Congress’s help. In recent interviews with Reuters and the Associated Press, Steiner said that unless Congress lifts the agency’s statutory debt limit of $15 billion, which was enacted in 1990, USPS may not be able to pay its vendors or employees by February 2027. The agency would need to borrow more money from the U.S. Treasury to continue operations.
Jeffrey B. Clark, an architect of many of the Trump administration’s most consequential climate rollbacks, has left his position as the White House regulatory czar, according to three people familiar with the decision.
Jeffrey B. Clark oversaw the dismantlement of government restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and water and air pollution. He had also faced a criminal probe in connection with the 2020 election. […]
“Munitions experts said the video appeared to show a Tomahawk strike near the school in Minab, where scores of children were killed last month, according to Iranian officials.”
Newly surfaced video adds to evidence that the United States likely struck a school in Iran, killing more than 170 people, including scores of children.
The video, geolocated by NBC News, shows what experts say appears to be an American Tomahawk missile hitting a compound belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps next to the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school where witnesses said children were trapped under the rubble and “people were pulling out children’s arms and legs. People were pulling out severed heads.” […]
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to the buried ambulance massacre last year.
birger, myself (adding to birger), and Lynna (https://archive.is/JoQBr).
Lynna’s WaPo: Two audio forensics experts who reviewed the video […] said more than 100 gunshots are audible from […] at least two shooters
Further grim but fascinating acoustic analysis: way more shooters and bullets.
the most detailed reconstruction to date of the massacre in Tal as-Sultan, a neighbourhood west of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on March 23, 2025. Fifteen aid workers were killed […] then buried along with their vehicles.
[…]
a coordinated ambush, an absence of return fire and a calculated move to eliminate survivors. […] at least 910 gunshots […] “The density of gunfire … frequently exceeds 900 rounds per minute,” the report states, noting that, at one point, five shots were fired in just 67 milliseconds. This rate of fire confirms that at least five shooters, likely many more, were firing simultaneously from an elevated sandbank approximately 40 metres away.
[…]
By analysing the time delay between the sound of the gunshots and their echoes bouncing off a nearby concrete wall, investigators tracked the movement of the soldiers […] down the hill, advancing roughly 50 metres towards the convoy while continuing to fire. This corroborates the testimony of survivor Assaad al-Nassasra, a PRCS worker, who told investigators: “They were walking between [the aid workers] and shooting.”
[…] The audio analysis identifies specific gunshots where the distinct “supersonic crack” of the bullet disappears, leaving only the muzzle blast. Ballistically, this indicates the shooter was within 1 to 4 metres (3 feet to 13 feet) of the victim.
* Al Jazeera summarizes the report. https://www.earshot.ngo/investigations/israeli-executions-of-palestinian-aid-workers
* DropSite News synthesizes a richer narrative with large graphics and testimony.
President Donald Trump at a press conference on Monday said the war against Iran will end “very soon,” and also said that oil prices will drop.
“We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective,” Trump said nine days after launching the war on Iran with Israel on Feb. 28.
Trump, who with his deputies has offered shifting explanations of what the war’s objective is, did not on Monday detail his end game, instead touting military successes.
Bomb some stuff, declare victory, go home. Possibly continue to help Israel hit key targets in Iran but I suspect Trump really wants to get his “victory” and get out.
Trump said he is “disappointed” in Iran’s choice of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father as the country’s supreme leader. But, when asked at the press conference, he declined to say he would seek to assassinate him.
Trump earlier Monday spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who reportedly shared proposals about the U.S. quickly ending the war.
A little fawning over his success and Putin has gotten Trump to accept the new leader of Iran and talk about going home. Putin may not be able to help Iran militarily but they have the right diplomatic connections.
It can set homes, agricultural areas, and other civilian objects on fire. Under international humanitarian law, the use of airburst white phosphorus is unlawfully indiscriminate in populated areas
[…]
Human Rights Watch has previously documented the Israeli military’s widespread use of white phosphorus between October 2023 and May 2024 across border villages in southern Lebanon
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Regarding the fuel depot strikes near Tehran. SasanianShah (Iranian historian):
Iran’s Health Services are warning of “toxic acid rain”
“The sky over Tehran is black. Like the night sky…” a friend.
“I cannot breathe, I am breathing through a wet towel,” my mum.
10,000,000 people are being choked to death. Tehran is surrounded by mountains. There is very little wind.
Ecocide is defined […] as ‘unlawful or wanton’ acts carried out with the knowledge ‘that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts’. […] potential examples of ecocide include transboundary nuclear accidents and major oil spills.
[…]
Around a dozen countries, including Belarus, France and Vietnam, already view ecocide as a crime, while the EU’s Environmental Crime Directive entered force in May and includes measures to prevent and combat environmental crime. […] Following Vanuatu’s proposal, the next step is for a wider debate on what the specific legal elements would entail. These could take several years.
Pictures emerging from today’s heavy bombing of Isfahan. Damages to the mirror works, tiles, floors, and carved wooden doors of Safavid palaces of Aali Qapu and Chehelsotoon. Both of these are within the UNESCO Heritage complex of Naqsh-e Jahan Square. These are 16th-17th century bldgs. [Photos]
Elia Ayoub: “400-500 years older than Israel, gets destroyed by Israel.”
This video of the damages to the Chehel Sotoun palace in Isfahan is hard to watch. The finest example of Safavid architecture, the palace is a marvel of art & architecture that has survived more than 400 years. It is unbelievable that the “most moral army in the world” has cared so little about it.
Some photos of Chehel Sotoon before the Leader of the Free World got to it. Some of these paintings are irreplaceable historical record, including the scene of Shah Abbas hosting the Mughal emperor Houmayoun.
I just remember when the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris was on fire and how every Western leader became a cultural expert and lamented the damage and how everyone donated money to rebuild it. I am having a hard time finding a single article in any European or American publication about this.
SasanianShah:
Feels so weird that I am an Iranologist and that Iran as a country might no longer exist. I know the culture goes way beyond the nation-state, & that I work on the pre-modern period, but it still is a bit odd to be a specialist of a land that everyone seems to hate & gleefully watch being destroyed.
If the land is destroyed, becomes a failed state or a plaything of warlords, if the Western pundits try to explain to you the “ancient, complicated sectarian divide” in the country, remember that at this moment, before all that, this is not how we, the citizens of Iran, think of ourselves. We didn’t grow up thinking of Kurds, Turks or Baloch as alien “tribes”. We were never “Persians”, the European divisive exonym. We are Iranians, with a diverse range of languages, cultures, and religions. What makes us Iranian is the myth of a common history: of Jamshid & his expansion of the world, of Azhidahaka/Zahhak the 3 headed monster, of Feridōn & his 3 sons, of Afrasiab the Touranian monster, of pure Siyvash, of just Kay Khosrow, Alexander’s misrule, Ardashir’s righteousness, Wahram’s feasts, & Khosrow’s immortal justice. We weren’t the nation of factions, we are the children of a myth.
Juan Cole (Historian): “Hang in there; Iran dealt with Mongols, it can deal with Trump.”
SasanianShah: “Honestly, I feel Hülegü had more respect for culture than this steak ‘n’ ketchup guzzling human excrement.”
SasanianShah: “We used to be a safe country where things like explosions, terrorist attacks, etc. were unknown. Tehran was one of the safest megacities, with very little violent crime. You could walk around at 1am safely. Beautiful cities, parks, museums, shopping, & cafes. Now it’s all gone to shits within a week.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@148 “safe” Iran was strange to hear from a secular leftist historian. Seems like it needs an asterisk: like boundary conditions on who was safe, or a time period more distant than a week ago, more than two months ago, more than several years ago… He was excluding state violence, I guess.
SasanianShah: “Thinking of my forever home, Tehran, tonight. A small town of prob less than 5,000 in 1790, it grew to a proper capital in 1880s, expanded to a modern city of over 1mil by 1940s, & now is home to 10 million people. My family, there since before 1790, is part of that city’s soil, & so is my heart.”
My personal history of Ali Khamenei’s rise and fall [as] someone who has been alive during his tenure. […] Khamenei was a compromise candidate. He was a low ranking cleric […] who became the president in the 1980’s after a terrorist attack took out Rajai, Khomeini’s crony. Back then, he was known for being a bit of an idiot, & so easy to manipulate, & was seen as Rajsanjani’s puppet.
When Khomeini died in 1989 (now the 2nd happiest day of my life!), […] Rafsanjani’s machinations won the day. Khamenei got the votes against powerful candidates […] Upon succession, the media started calling him Ayatollah […] But R’s plan had a little flaw: Khamenei was in no way a Shi’a scholar […] the fakeness of his qualifications was an open secret. In the meantime, R thought he has won the day. And he had, for a good 25 years.
He instituted neoliberal reforms, started a plan of post-war recovery, and appointed his cronies to high position. But he always contributed to the cult of K because he wanted to keep the VF system going.
* VF = Vilayat Faqih = Guardianship of the Jurist = Shi’i clerical rule.
* The thread ended prematurely.
SasanianShah (January protests): “I have been very careful about opining on what is happening in Iran right now. But omg omg omg! This is exciting and scary. I am dead afraid for these people & shudder at thinking what might happen. They must succeed & I am mot brave enough to go there & help them.”
SasanianShah: “Suppression of journalists, mass arrest & torture of protestors, violent crackdown of protests, ‘chain murder’ of intellectuals & academics, corrupting the country’s educational system, and so many other things. Plus all the humiliation we had to suffer for 37 years. No one will mourn Khamenei.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Rando:
Tired: The emperor has no clothes.
Wired: The king wrongly guessed your shoe size to your face, and now you’re afraid to not wear the painful shoes he gave you.
Trump has been gifting footwear to agency heads, lawmakers, White House advisers and VIPs. “Did you get the shoes?” he asks at cabinet meetings. […]
“All the boys have them,” said a female White House official. Another joked, “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.”
[…]
The president has taken to guessing people’s shoe size in front of them. He asks an aide to put in an order […] Trump sometimes signs the box or attaches a note of gratitude […] He pays for the shoes, the White House said. […] Sean Hannity and Sen. Lindsey Graham each have a pair. […] One cabinet secretary has grumbled that he had to shelve his Louis Vuittons […] Trump had a stack of them in an office.
If this goes wrong, it could potentially be dangerous, menswear writer Derek Guy told [WSJ]. “If you have a suit that doesn’t fit well, you’ll just look bad. But if you have a shoe that doesn’t fit well, you can develop physical issues,”
[…] Rubio, a size 11.5, was photographed […] and a wide chasm was visible at the back of his right shoe.
Photo at the link. =)
Commentary
I know the world is on fire but this subplot is incredible.
He really is like a mad king in a folk tale.
This is the closest he’ll ever get to having a sole.
Marco Rubio is Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, US Archivist, USAID Administrator, Overseer of Venezuela, future Viceroy of Cuba, and one of multiple officials in charge of telling Europe it isn’t white enough, and now you expect him to be a footwear expert too?!?
His successor is going to have some big shoes to fill.
It would be the work of minutes for one of these guys to just reorder the same shoes in the right size without telling the Big Guy, but that would be defeating the purpose, which is to demonstrate a willingness to humiliate yourself the second he tells you to.
I’m far from the first to point this out, but the juxtaposition between all this overwrought tough guy talk and the sycophantic, emasculating humiliation these chodes constantly put themselves through is really mind-blowing. […] These guys do this and then immediately wax Michael Bayish about bombing Cuba. It’s fuckin weird.
birgerjohanssonsays
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert:
“Iran’s New Iron Fist | Trump Under Fire For Undignified Transfer | Not Learning Your Damm Language.”
I don’t think you have to Nostradamus to figure that bombing Iran might raise oil prices. And it seems pretty obvious that buying oil in advance of causing an oil price spike might just save Americans a lot of money. But… maybe there wasn’t much planning?
[Chart: Prez could’ve refilled the strategic reserves, but he didn’t. Currently at early 1980s level, half of the peak in 2010.]
Rando: “Don’t worry, I’m sure they bought plenty of oil futures in their personal accounts.”
This puts me at 10 people released. I filed my 1st habeas petition 29 days ago. I am an incredibly small-time, nobody lawyer who knew nothing about immigration law the day I submitted that case. I barely know any more today. I had never sued the federal government, and now I’ve beaten them 10 times.
This is to say: if you’re an attorney who’s hesitated to take on habeas cases because you think you lack the knowledge, or you’re worried about whether you’ll really help, I PROMISE you can make a difference. I’m just a dipshit with a 7-year-old laptop and a bad attitude. If I can do it, so can you.
[…]
This has been the most rewarding work of my career. It’s nothing like what I’ve done in my day jobs, and it pushed me outside my comfort zone, but the minute I got involved, it all seemed much easier.
Question: isn’t Graham up for re-election in November? And didn’t he win with 10% the last two times, which puts him in the danger zone as votes shift?
birgerjohanssonsays
Farron Balanced:
“Red State Hospitals Shutting Down Thanks To House Republicans”
A federal judge has ejected the leaders of the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, concluding that Attorney General Pam Bondi illegally appointed an unusual “triumvirate,” at President Donald Trump’s whim, to oversee the powerful federal prosecuting office.
“Why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this District potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure?” U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote. “The President doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants.”
Brann has rejected the latest attempt by the Trump administration to get around the law. Unable to appoint the US Attorney for New Jersey or another interim replacement, the administration tried a new scheme where they appointed 3 different attorneys to lesser titles and split the powers of US attorney among them.
Brann stayed his decision pending an anticipated “speedy appeal” by the Department of Justice. “However, my reasoning makes clear that a stay cannot validate an unlawful appointment. If the Government chooses to leave the triumvirate in place, it does so at its own risk,” he wrote.
There is something amusing when a judge makes a ruling and then stays their own ruling because they know it will immediately be appealed. Expect the administration to press this one as far up the appeal courts as they can just to delay having to come up with another solution, if nothing else.
“As long as the President is willing to find compromise, there is no reason that someone cannot always be performing the functions and duties of the office in complete conformity with the law,” Brann wrote. “Yet through its statements and actions, the Administration has made clear that it cares far more about who is running the USAO-NJ than whether it is running at all.”
Brann makes it clear that he is unhappy with the administration’s attempts to find a way to dodge around Constitutional requirements. He says directly that if the administration continues on this course then criminal cases may be dismissed for lack of proper authority to bring them. This is a huge threat because it would shut down criminal prosecution on a large scale.
Rep. Kevin Kiley of California said Monday he was immediately leaving the Republican Party to become an independent.
“I’m also today asking the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives to have that reflected in the official roster,” Kiley said in a call with reporters.
The move complicates House Speaker Mike Johnson’s narrow majority, though Kiley said he plans to caucus with the Republican Party “for the remainder of this term.”
Depending on what Kiley does this could really put the squeeze on Johnson. There wouldn’t be a lot of reason for Kiley to do this if planned to line up behind the Republicans for voting but his sticking with the caucus means he rejecting them entirely either. Even before this he has messed up several Republican votes that needed total party line votes.
Kiley’s switch means Republicans now hold 217 seats compared with Democrats’ 214, with three vacancies. Kiley is the only independent in the lower chamber.
Essentially leaving the Republicans with no margin for error and more question marks on how people will vote. Johnson really needs to get a Democrat or two to agree to vote for the Republican position before he can have any confidence of anything passing. Another significant change and the Democrats could take over before the election.
Kiley announced Friday he would run in California’s newly drawn 6th Congressional District as an independent, saying “political division has become a serious problem for our country.”
“It is no secret I’ve been frustrated, at times disgusted, by the hyper-partisanship in Congress. In the last year it’s led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a massive increase in healthcare costs, and of course, a pointless redistricting war. The epidemic of gerrymandering has spread from Texas to California to states all across the country. Both parties are complicit,” he said Friday.
So he is acting out of some degree of self interest and some degree of actual belief that the political situation in the country is bad.
birgerjohanssonsays
Upcoming film from God Awful Movies on Youtube.
“Dr. Alice Howarth and Michael Marshall join us to figure out if big stuff was aliens in a review of Chariots of the Gods. I won’t spoil it.”
Good grief. Just as that Swiss grifter finally croaked.
birgerjohanssonsays
Since a lot of the GOP congressmen in the House seem philistine, maybe we simply could bribe a couple to retire early, leaving the Collaborator Cabal (TM) without a majority?
It’s not like the MAGAs aren’t fighting dirty.
Wait! An offer of a well-paying job after the political career! That is how the lobbyists tie congressmen to them.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Trump Suffers Massive Humiliation As Board Of Peace Meeting Instantly Flops:
Not even a single west European nation has signed on.
France 24 has some good coverage & discussion of the Iran war – Iran’s American war – on C35 (SBS Worldwatch) right now here in Sth Oz. FWIW. Dunno how much will be online later or currently but still..
StevoRsays
@ ^ Plus interviews with real Iranians currently inside that nation.. Albeit only a few indivduals & necessarily anonymised.
In a rambling press conference full of bizarre answers to questions about the war he started against Iran, Donald Trump admitted that he is doing it “for the other parts of the world.” Rachel Maddow looks at how Russia is benefitting tremendously from Trump’s attack on Iran, even as it helps Iran target American interests, and how Trump has set off a global energy crisis of historic proportions.
Maddow also covers the fact that Russia is helping Iran target USA facilities and forces.
Video is 10:17 minutes
Rachel Maddow points out that the extremely narrow Republican majority in the House is more precarious than ever after several members have lost their primaries, leaving little incentive to continue coming to work, and others are already looking ahead to other things. Even if Republicans technically maintain control, they may not have the votes to do anything.
Rachel Maddow reports on how the horrifying stories coming out of Donald Trump’s existing immigrant prison camps are not only tanking Trump’s approval ratings with the American public but are hindering his ability to bring his nationwide prison camp plan to reality.
“The FBI’s subpoena in Maricopa County is absurd, but it’s part of a larger campaign that shouldn’t be ignored.”
Related video at the link. It’s a good video. 4:06 minutes. Features comments from Vaughn Hillyard, who is an excellent reporter.
The results of the 2020 election in Arizona have never seriously been called into question. There was an official count of the state’s ballots, followed by an official recount. There was also an independent audit, which found literally nothing untoward. The facts were unambiguous: Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump […]
Republican conspiracy theorists nevertheless refused to accept the outcome. In 2021, GOP state senators hired an odd and unqualified company called Cyber Ninjas to conduct yet another review of the ballots from Arizona’s Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county.
The whole endeavor quickly turned into a humiliating fiasco (“Rachel Maddow Show” viewers might recall our coverage of the hunt for “bamboo fibers” and the scrutiny of “kinematic artifacts,” whatever that meant) that left some Republicans feeling embarrassed.
“It makes us look like idiots,” one GOP state legislator conceded at the time. “I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous.”
In September 2021, the monthslong “audit” (such as it was) came to an ignominious end, after having found nothing to bolster Republican election deniers’ nonsense. (In fact, it found some extra votes for Biden.) Trump actually told people Cyber Ninjas’ probe might somehow propel him back into the White House, but those claims proved bonkers.
As difficult as this might be to believe, 4 1/2 years later, the absurdity is back for sadly predictable reasons. MS NOW reported:
The Trump administration has taken voting records from Maricopa County, Arizona, related to the 2020 presidential election, a state lawmaker said Monday, escalating a federal effort to sustain baseless claims that the results were rigged.
Republican state Senate President Warren Petersen said he provided to the FBI records from a GOP-commissioned review of the election results in the most populous county of the swing state, which President Donald Trump lost to former President Joe Biden in 2020.
[…] There are still come questions as to the precise nature of the records, since the ballots were ultimately discarded as part of the state’s standard operating procedure, and the machines used during that election to tabulate results were also decommissioned.
Nevertheless, in a written statement, Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said, “What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry. It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.” [Yep. That’s an accurate description.]
[Trump] and his team have also deployed FBI agents to raid an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia; seized voting equipment in Puerto Rico; waged an aggressive campaign to acquire voter rolls from states that Democrats won; organized an unnecessary FBI elections “briefing” for state officials; and provided Kurt Olsen, one of Trump’s highly controversial former campaign lawyers, with classified information as he tried to advance election conspiracy theories. [That’s a lot of ill-founded and nefarious activity.]
[…] it also dovetails with Trump’s ongoing interest in a possible federal takeover of the nation’s electoral system.
Or put another way, the FBI’s subpoena in Maricopa County is absurd, but it’s part of a crusade that shouldn’t be ignored.
Multiple British news outlets reported late last week that the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier was being prepared for possible deployment to the Middle East to assist the United States and Israel in their joint war with Iran. On Saturday, however, Donald Trump, who has a habit of insulting and alienating our closest allies, used his social media platform to deliver a message to leaders in the U.K.: Don’t bother.
“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East,” the American president wrote. “That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!” [JFC!]
There was quite a bit wrong with the undiplomatic missive, but the relevance of those last four words that lingered: Just seven days into the military offensive, Trump made it sound as if the war in Iran was already over, and as far as he was concerned, victory was already at hand.
It wasn’t an isolated comment. On Monday, [Trump] told CBS News, “I think the war is very complete, pretty much.” A few hours later, at a press conference, he added that he expects the offensive in Iran to end “very soon.”
The president, however, has apparently failed to convince his own administration, including the Defense Department, which declared online on Monday afternoon, “We have Only Just Begun to Fight.” In recent days, other U.S. officials have suggested that the bombings could last for several more weeks — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that “this is just the beginning” of the conflict — suggesting they don’t see a war that’s “very complete, pretty much.”
The president was asked to reconcile the contradiction. “You said the war is ‘very complete,’ but your defense secretary says this is ‘just the beginning,’” a reporter noted at Monday’s press conference. “So which is it?” [Video]
“You could say both,” Trump replied.
The press conference followed remarks the president delivered to the House Republican conference, in which he said, “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.”
So to recap, we’ve already won the war, which we’ll win soon, which we haven’t won enough, which is both over and just getting started.
That ought to clear things up.
[…] The incoherence is certainly exasperating, but the larger problem is far more serious: The contradictions fuel impressions that these guys just don’t know what they’re doing.
If the White House wants to better understand why so many Americans are opposed to the war in Iran, it can start by coming to terms with the fact that the administration’s overlapping contradictions reflect incompetence […]
Markings on purported fragments of a missile that struck an elementary school in southern Iraq last week indicated it was a U.S.-made weapon, according to a NYT analysis.
Meanwhile, President Trump continued his one-man disinformation campaign to blame Iran for the incident, preposterously claiming that the Islamic republic has its own U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles.
Narrator, with a heavy sigh: Iran does not possess Tomahawks.
Last week’s reporting that the Trump administration had expanded its lawless campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats to include land-based operations in Ecuador was murky about the level of direct U.S. involvement against drug traffickers. But now the Trump administration has sent a notice of the Ecuador operation to Congress under the War Powers Act.
The operations against drug traffickers, rebranded by the Trump administration as narco-terrorists, were reportedly advised and supported by U.S. Special Forces. But the War Powers Act notice would seem to confirm a more direct, if still unspecified, level of U.S. involvement, which would be consistent with President Trump’s repeated promises that the U.S. would be taking it to the drug cartels on land not just at sea.
Sky Captain @144, thanks for following up on the crime that was perpetrated last year when aid workers were gunned down by Israeli forces, (ambulance massacre last year), and then the crime was buried. Or at least Israel tried to bury it—in part a literal burial. They used heavy equipment to bury the ambulances and the victims.
The analysis that you posted, showing that Israeli forces fired more than 900 shots, is fascinating, horrifying, and thorough.
@178 Lynna, OM asked: They used heavy equipment to bury the ambulances and the victims.. . . showing that Israeli forces fired more than 900 shots, is fascinating, horrifying, and thorough.
In what court will Israel be held accountable?
My definitive reply: NONE! murderous atrocities are now normalized in the numb minds of human society.
Excerpted text from the DropSite link that Sky Captain provided:
The investigation’s findings include:
– Israeli soldiers ambushed and subjected Palestinian aid workers to a near continuous assault for over two hours even though the soldiers never came under fire.
– At least 910 gunshots were documented across three video and audio recordings of the attack. The vast majority of these gunshots, at least 844, were fired over just five minutes and 30 seconds.
– At least 93% of the gunshots recorded in the first minutes of the attack were fired directly towards the emergency vehicles and aid workers by Israeli soldiers. During this time, at least five shooters fired simultaneously. Witness testimonies suggest as many as 30 soldiers were present in the area.
– Israeli soldiers were initially positioned on an elevated sandbank by the road, with no obstructions limiting their line of sight. The emergency lights and markings of the victims’ vehicles would have been clearly visible to the soldiers at the time of the attacks.
– Israeli soldiers first maintained fixed firing positions from the elevated sandbank, then walked toward the aid workers while continuing to shoot. Upon reaching the aid workers, the soldiers moved between them and the vehicles and executed some of the aid workers at point blank range, as close as one meter away.
– In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the Israeli military conducted extensive earthworks at the site. In the days and weeks that followed, the area was further transformed by the Israeli military’s construction of the “Morag Corridor,” a security zone splitting the southern Gaza Strip, and the erection of an aid distribution site operated by the Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“This seems to be a very well documented case using a number of forms of credible evidence that are cross referenced,” Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told Drop Site after reviewing a detailed summary of the investigation. “It presents a very compelling case, and honestly, a very devastating one.”
The Israeli military did not respond to specific inquiries from Drop Site and instead pointed to the findings of an internal investigation published on April 20 that found “the incident occurred in a hostile and dangerous combat zone, under a widespread threat to the operating troops.” It also “found no evidence to support claims of execution,” which it called “blood libels and false accusations against IDF soldiers.”
[…] One of the survivors, Abed, was released hours after the ambush. The other survivor, Asaad, was held in Israeli custody without charge for 37 days, tortured, and interrogated in relation to the incident at the Sde Teiman detention camp, a notorious Israeli prison camp in the Negev desert, before being released on April 29.
Jonathan Whittall, a senior UN official in Palestine between 2022 and 2025, was one of team members on the ground when the mass grave was discovered on March 30 and provided evidence to Forensic Architecture and Earshot for their investigation. “Following our discovery of the mass grave, the narrative from Israeli forces shifted multiple times; we were fed several versions of a blatant lie,” Whittall told Drop Site. “The men we retrieved on Eid last year were medics. We found them in their uniforms, ready to save lives, only to be killed by Israeli forces fully aware of their protected status.” […]
“This illustrates an abhorrent disregard for international law,” he continued, “where any Palestinian in an Israeli-designated evacuation zone is targeted regardless of their civilian status. It highlights the total lack of accountability under which these forces operate. International governments continue to arm and trade with a leadership accused of genocide, whose soldiers massacred medics and buried them in a grave marked by the siren light of the ambulance they destroyed.” […]
Gallagher, who previously worked at the UN’s International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia, said that a legal analysis of the massacre would find serious violations of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. “When you’re talking about grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, in particular war crimes, you have obligations, not just the possibility, but obligations, to open investigations,” Gallagher said. […]
“Voting machine company Smartmatic says DOJ is targeting it to bolster false 2020 claims.”
A voting machine company at the heart of President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election accused the Justice Department on Tuesday of bringing a criminal case against it to further his administration’s baseless claims about that vote. [Yep. True.]
The parent company of London-based Smartmatic asked a federal judge in Miami to dismiss foreign bribery charges filed against it last year, alleging they amounted to little more than a vindictive and selective prosecution. The company also contends that Fox News and others it has sued for defamation for statements about the firm’s voting machines are exploiting the criminal case.
[…] “Since returning to office, President Trump has openly waged a campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies — chief among them those who undermine his mantra that the 2020 election was rigged,” attorneys for the company wrote in a court filing Tuesday.
[…] Though Smartmatic machines were used in only one U.S. county during the 2020 election — heavily Democratic Los Angeles, which Trump lost by more than 1.8 million — the company has remained a target for Trump and his allies, who have claimed without evidence that the 2020 election was rigged.
The company’s claims of vindictive prosecution come as Trump has continued to fixate on his election loss to President Joe Biden. […]
“The only consequential changes in this case since 2024 were the President, his DOJ and their well-documented crusade to unconstitutionally target their perceived political enemies,” company attorneys Jenny Kramer and Christopher C. Marquardt wrote.
Trump and his allies have persistently — and baselessly — claimed Smartmatic’s voting machines had a role in reversing the election to benefit Biden. They have maintained that the company’s technology, originally founded in Venezuela, was used to rig elections there before being exported to do the same around the world — despite a lack of evidence to back those claims.
Since the 2020 vote, Smartmatic has filed defamation suits against several right-wing figures including My Pillow founder Mike Lindell, former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, and Jeanine Pirro, a onetime Fox News host who is now D.C.’s U.S. attorney.
In their court filing Tuesday, company lawyers suggested that the case filed against Smartmatic was designed, at least in part, to aid those Trump allies as they defended themselves in court.
Lindell, for instance, took to social media days after a federal judge in Minnesota ruled in Smartmatic’s favor in its defamation case to allege that the case should be reopened because of the allegations of criminal wrongdoing filed against the company.
[…] Fox News has also cited the criminal case in its defense against a Smartmatic defamation suit in New York, asking the court to delay proceedings. […]
Sheesh. Conspiracy theories that just won’t die. Considering the tenacity with which Trump, Lindell and others are clinging to the Smartmatic conspiracy theory, you would think they were being asked to renounce their religion.
Proving that the Trump administration can multitask, even as President Donald Trump’s pointless war against Iran rages, two Cabinet secretaries carved out some free time on Monday for a splashy White House event about the absurd IndyCar race that will take place as part of the celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
The administration is calling this nonsense the “Freedom 250 Grand Prix” and even got a race car custom-painted with that ridiculous name.
This is all part of America 250, which is supposed to celebrate America but is rapidly devolving into a celebration of Trump and his favorite things. And never fear, Trump is planning on making money off of this: The Trump Organization, his private company, has already applied to trademark “Trump 250.”
Is a high-speed race through the streets of Washington, D.C., something the people were clamoring for? Not that anyone is aware of!
Did the administration figure out a way to go around Congress so it could do this nonsense without its approval? Of course!
The original proposed route for the race would start and finish before the U.S. Capitol, but that would violate the prohibition on advertising on Capitol grounds. IndyCars are slathered with ads, which means they would have needed Congress’ permission. By this past January, the Trump administration hadn’t landed that permission, despite the president of IndyCar’s parent company trying to whip votes for it and having conducted 81 meetings—yes, 81—with lawmakers.
After that failure, they changed the route to run around the National Mall. [map]
At Monday’s kickoff event, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy whined about how hard it was to get this event arranged if the administration had to follow pesky laws. […]
Better yet, IndyCar and the Trump administration aren’t yet saying who will pay for all of this. It’s easy to imagine the race becoming another opportunity for private companies to bribe the president, just like his big ugly ballroom at the White House. However, Trump’s executive order about the race, signed in January, says that “the Secretary of Transportation shall use available funds to help facilitate the presentation of the race, consistent with applicable law and as deemed appropriate by the Secretary of Transportation.” That makes it sound an awful lot like your tax dollars might pay for this. [Yep]
According to those involved, the three-day event in August will somehow help celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. After all, nothing says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” like fancy race cars roaring through the nation’s capital.
Undeterred, IndyCar is trying its damndest to make this thing sound patriotic, saying the event will offer “unprecedented access to North America’s premier open-wheel series framed by America’s most iconic symbols of democracy, freedom, and unity.” [propaganda]
In the Trump era, even giant corporations have to adopt Trumpspeak.
As do IndyCar drivers, apparently. Here’s two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden burbling about it: “Racing through the heart of American history, with those amazing landmarks lining the course, is going to be incredibly powerful. I can’t wait to be back here to race and celebrate America’s birthday at the Freedom 250 Grand Prix.”
Nobody is trying as hard as Fox Sports to pretend this is a patriotic, all-American endeavor. The network has the television rights to IndyCar races and will be airing the Freedom 250 race. […]
Here’s Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks being absolutely ridiculous: “We want to thank the administration for recognizing that there is no better way to celebrate America 250 than by showcasing American speed and ingenuity than on the streets of our capital. […]
Nothing about this is in any way related to America or the Declaration of Independence or anything of the sort. It’s just that Trump likes big events with big manly men and apparently cars that go vroom vroom. It’s the same stupid reason we are going to have a UFC fight outside the White House and pretend that it is for freedom. […]
Ukraine says it has liberated nearly all of the territory in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast that Russia had taken. [social media posts with additional links]
[…]
Major General Komarenko said that most of the Dnipropetrovsk region has already been liberated from Russian forces. The Armed Forces of Ukraine only need to finish operations in three small settlements and conduct clearing operations in two more.
[…]
Ukrainian forces advanced further into the Zaporizhzhia region. The new positions are directly threatening the Russian occupation in Uspenivka.
The Russian presence in the Dnipropetrovsk region has been almost completely removed. […]
Lynna @178: “In what court will Israel be held accountable?”
Mustn’t let that be a rhetorical question. Other countries can start on that by holding themselves accountable. (See: the Francesca Albanese interview)
A final decision on whether to resume deliveries is expected within six months. The Supreme Court ruled on October 3 that the country must reconsider the export […] Shipments of F-35 components to Israel have been suspended since February 2024, following a legal victory for several human rights organizations […] The court stated that “there is a clear risk the parts may be used in breaches of international humanitarian law.”
Following the Supreme Court ruling on October 3, a ceasefire in Gaza began on October 10. The Dutch Cabinet, however, believes it is too soon to issue a new assessment
[…]
During the reassessment, the [foreign] minister is required to take into account standards from international agreements, including the Arms Trade Treaty and EU rules on arms exports. In April 2025, the Netherlands government introduced tighter oversight of military and dual-use exports to Israel, meaning future export permits will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis rather than granted through general licenses.
LA Times (2025-10-03): “Foreign Minister David van Weel welcomed the ruling and said he would make a decision […] but it was unlikely ‘given the current situation’ in Gaza that exports would resume.”
That case was first rejected on presummption that existing measures were adequate, then an appeal enacted a ban, then the supreme court rejected the ban and said that was the minister’s role.
BBC – UK F-35 parts exports to Israel are lawful, High Court rules (2025-06) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g88rgenlvo
The government suspended about 30 arms export licences to Israel last September because of a risk of UK-made weapons being used in violations of international law in the Gaza Strip.
But the UK supplies components to a global pool of F-35s which Israel can access. The government had argued it could not pull out of the defence programme without endangering international peace.
“Under our constitution, that acutely sensitive and political issue is a matter for the executive which is democratically accountable to parliament and ultimately to the electorate, not for the courts,” they ruled.
Denmark’s Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in a lawsuit filed by four humanitarian organisations […] In April 2025, a lower court rejected the lawsuit [saying the orgs lacked ‘legal interest’ to bring it] […] The organisations allege Denmark is violating its international commitments by selling Israel parts for F-35 jet fighters, given […] Israel’s “war crimes and genocide” in Gaza.
The Supreme Court will solely address the question of whether the organisations are entitled to test the legality of Denmark’s arms sales in the courts.
conflicts with the US are prompting the newly elected government under Prime Minister Mark Carney to consider exiting the F-35 program and procuring another aircraft.
[…]
Ottawa objects that despite parts for Canada’s F-35 fighter being stored at air bases in Quebec and Alberta, these components will nonetheless officially be “owned” by and controlled by the US Government. That the US is authorized—as required—to requisition these parts and send them anywhere it wants was not a well-known fact until now.
[…] NATO member Denmark found the US Government taking F-35 components stored in their country and transferring them to Israel. […] The Danish government was forced to admit that, under the terms of the agreements signed along with the F-35 procurement, it had no option but to accede to the US Government’s instructions. In general, shipping these parts to Israel not only seemed to intrude on Denmark’s sovereignty, but it was also counter to the nation’s foreign policy guidelines regarding Middle East conflicts.
[…]
Washington’s usurping of Copenhagen’s authority took place in parallel with US President Donald Trump discussing options for taking control of Greenland from Denmark, creating concerns about the US attempting to use the F-35 program as leverage in any future dispute. Since then, the Chairman of Denmark’s parliamentary defense committee has reacted, saying he regrets advocating for the F-35 procurement.
[…]
Canada is in the same boat as their Danish NATO allies: until they are on-board an aircraft, F-35 parts being stored in-country are still the property of the US government.
“Pro-Iran propaganda network gains traction with posts about Epstein”
A grainy video appears to show a line of blindfolded young girls parading past an underwear-clad Donald Trump. A girl’s anguished voice cries out in German. The video cuts to scenes of Trump and other famous figures talking with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“This video is not fake,” said a post on X from an account called HDX News that was viewed more than 6.8 million times. “These pedophile perverts started a war so that this wouldn’t be talked about.”
The video is indeed fake, disinformation researchers say. And the account is part of a pro-Iran propaganda network that has found viral success by tapping into the theory that Trump attacked Iran to distract the public from the Epstein files.
To erode public support for the joint U.S.-Israel military operation, Iranian state media has sought to portray those countries’ leaders as part of a corrupt and depraved “Epstein class” or “Epstein regime.” While such content often fails to gain much traction outside Iran, the message is spreading through generically named “news” accounts that researchers say appear to be using the Epstein conspiracy theories to serve pro-Iran talking points to a global audience.
[…] “You come for the Epstein content, and you stay for the propaganda.”
The Epstein posts are part of a maelstrom of Iran-related misinformation that has engulfed social media since Feb. 28 […] real footage from past conflicts being passed off as new, or scenes from video games.
HDX News was part of a network of at least 15 anonymous X accounts churning out content that aligns with the messaging of Iran’s Islamist regime and resharing one another’s posts, according to ISD researchers who identified the campaign. Another, called GPX News, posted the same fake Epstein video — a mishmash of imaginary, AI-generated scenes with bits of real footage — and received more than 4.7 million views, according to X’s publicly viewable metrics.
[…] Both accounts were suspended by X after The Post reached out for comment, though others in the network remained active as of Monday. […]
[…] posts included triumphant reports of successful Iranian strikes on American and Israeli targets; calls for followers to “stand with Iran”; and suggestions that China and Russia stand ready to back Iran in a cataclysmic world war. All 15 accounts ISD found were created in the past two years, and nine of them were verified on X, meaning they pay a subscription fee to Elon Musk’s social network in return for features that can include greater visibility, a blue checkmark verifying their authenticity and the chance to generate revenue from their posts.
Both of the accounts that posted the fake Epstein video have also generated some engagement on X with explicitly antisemitic and even pro-Nazi posts. […] A third account from the network, called GPX Press, received more than 27,000 likes and 2.6 million views on a post showing a video of an Adolf Hitler speech, to which it added the message: “Today, the world has truly discovered why Hitler killed the Jews.”
[…] It isn’t only pro-Tehran accounts that are drawing those connections. Hours after the strikes, Candace Owens, the American right-wing political commentator who has more than 5.9 million subscribers on YouTube, re-shared a post on X that included an AI-generated image of Trump flanked by Israel flags and suggested that the United States was “blowing up” Iranians because it’s “controlled by” Jews.
[…] Asked whether she stands by her posts, how she felt about her posts being shared by a pro-Iran propaganda account, and her reaction to Segal’s concern that she was fueling antisemitism, Owens said via e-mail: “Of course I stand by my post. Israel is a filthy, terrorist state that mass murders children and Christians.”
[…] While many liberal-leaning users have left X since Musk bought it, Brooking said, the network remains highly influential in geopolitics, partly due to its popularity among Republican leaders, right-wing influencers and the MAGA base. X is banned in Iran, yet the country’s leaders — including Khamenei and former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — have long maintained accounts to project their messaging to the wider world, he said.
Brooking said the impact of any given piece of propaganda or disinformation may be limited, even if it finds a large audience. But in aggregate, they can spur shifts in public opinion over time, especially when they reinforce narratives — such as the idea that Trump attacked Iran to distract from the Epstein files — that many people were already inclined to believe.
Sky Captain @185, thanks for that additional information. It is kind of a rat’s nest of regulations and laws, made more complicated by the different approaches from various countries. Good to see Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and others addressing the issue in the courts.
The UK seems to be straddling a gap between good intentions (to refrain from exporting weapons to Israel), and regulations (treaties/agreements?) that require the UK to supply components to a global pool of F-35s which Israel can access.
Nearly 700,000 people have been driven from their homes in Lebanon, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as Israel’s mass evacuation orders and bombing campaign transform the country into a major new front in the expanding Middle East war.
Israeli airstrikes pounded Lebanon anew, sending residents fleeing for safety and prompting warnings of a growing humanitarian crisis. Bombing also continued in Iran, where a resident warned that “if they keep hitting Tehran like this for another 10 days, nothing will remain.” And the Pentagon said on Tuesday that Iranian strikes, which have killed seven U.S. service members since the war with the United States and Israel began, had also wounded 140 U.S. service members, eight severely.
In Beirut and its densely packed surrounding area, tens of thousands of people fleeing Israel’s attacks on the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah were living in schools and government buildings, while others slept in cars and on sidewalks along the city’s seaside promenade.
More than 667,000 people have registered on the Lebanese government’s online displacement platform, the U.N. migration agency said on Tuesday, citing government figures. That included more than 100,000 in the past 24 hours, the agency said.
[…] The conflict has killed more than 1,800 people and seriously disrupted global energy markets.
[…] The easing of Russian oil sanctions, which were intended to help force an end to the war in Ukraine, includes a 30-day waiver for India to buy Russian oil already at sea without retaliation from Washington. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the United States was considering lifting more sanctions on Russian oil.
[…] Death toll: U.S. and Israeli strikes have killed about 1,300 people in Iran, according to Iranian officials, while Iranian attacks across the Middle East have killed at least 30. Israeli strikes have killed more than 500 people in Lebanon, state media reported.
Health fears: Strikes on Iranian fuel depots led to dark plumes of smoke, black rain and sanitary concerns for local residents. “The war has entered our throats,” one said.
Militant Agnosticsays
Lynna @181
Considering the tenacity with which Trump, Lindell and others are clinging to the Smartmatic conspiracy theory, you would think they were being asked to renounce their religion.”
To be fair, letting go of the conspiracy would be renouncing their religion.
As the Iran war stretches into its second week, one question emerging is, how has Iran been able to hit American military targets in the Middle East?
Some targets are obvious, like air bases or embassies. But for all the damage that has been done to Iran’s offensive capabilities, Iran has also reportedly hit things like a CIA facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; a naval command and control facility in Bahrain; and U.S. radar facilities across the gulf.
How was it able to find targets like that and aim its missiles and drones at American facilities with such specificity?
Well, according to reporting from The Washington Post, The Associated Press and MS NOW, Iran has been getting help from a sophisticated military ally in targeting U.S. personnel and U.S. military capabilities all over the Middle East.
The Post’s report was first, and it explained it bluntly: “Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East.”
According to the Post, “Iran possesses only a handful of military-grade satellites, and no satellite constellation of its own, which would make imagery provided by Russia’s much more advanced space capabilities highly valuable.”
Russia, as much as it may not want to see its ally [Iran] under attack, is financially enjoying this moment.
On Tuesday, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said the Russians have denied sharing intelligence on U.S. military assets with Iran.
“We can take them at their word,” Witkoff told CNBC. [Oh FFS. How naive can you get.]
But, according to the reporting, this is the upshot: Russia is helping Iran by giving it targeting information, very specific locations, to attack American troops and American facilities.
And in response, under the leadership of Donald Trump, the United States has eased sanctions on Russia, allowing the country to sell its oil and gas more easily.
Russia is ostensibly an ally of Iran. Russia even issued a statement of congratulations when Iran chose Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes, as the country’s new leader. […]
If you don’t count vodka and potash — a mineral used primarily in fertilizers — Russia basically has two things to offer the world: oil and war.
Right now, it’s using its war-making abilities, including its intelligence and satellite technology, to help Iran target and kill Americans in the Middle East. I’m sure it’s enjoying seeing the U.S. burn up lots and lots and lots of missiles and interceptor munitions in the Middle East, so we’ll be less happy and less able to provide those to Ukraine to fight Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia’s other industry, oil and gas, is as happy as it’s been in a long time because of the huge spike in oil and gas prices worldwide, as its competitors in the Persian Gulf are basically knocked offline.
If Russia can just sell its oil and gas, the country will be rich again, which it desperately needs, given how it’s spending itself into oblivion in its endless Ukraine war.
And so, we now simultaneously have the U.S. intelligence reports that Russia is helping Iran target American personnel and military facilities in the Middle East, and the news that Trump has cut sanctions on Russia to ensure it can sell practically all the oil and gas it wants.
However, during a phone call on Monday afternoon with CBS News, Trump signaled that the war could be nearing an end.
“I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” he said.
But shortly after that, the president called a bizarre and incoherent press conference where he contradicted his earlier statements.
Later in the day, we learned that, in the middle of that swirling dust-devil of nonsense, Trump had an hourlong call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
We only learned about that call because the Kremlin told us about it. [!] The White House didn’t announce it.
So, did the White House even know Trump had done it before the Kremlin told everyone it happened? Did he just call Putin from his flip phone? Was it while he was playing golf? Was it even in the White House calendar that Monday was the day Trump was supposed to check in with his boss?
The First Gulf War was because Iraq invaded Kuwait, and we wanted to make it un-invade it. The Second Gulf War, also known as the Iraq War, was because George W. Bush’s administration wanted somewhere else to invade besides Afghanistan, so it made up a fantasy about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction when it didn’t.
Gulf War III is now, and we started it. But, two weeks into the war, there is still no coherent explanation from the president or the White House as to what exactly this is all for.
Perhaps Trump offered a glimpse at a possible explanation during his rambling press conference on Monday when he said, “We’re doing this for the other parts of the world.”
The Wall Street Journal said the Iran war has caused “the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s.” CNBC called it “the biggest oil supply disruption in history.”
Because there’s no way to safely move it to market amid the U.S. attacks, Saudi Arabia has now cut its oil production.
It’s not only impacting the world’s fuel, but also its food. Huge amounts of fertilizer pass through the Strait of Hormuz for crops all over the world.
Iraq’s oil production is down to less than one-third of what it was before Trump started this war.
In Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, major energy companies have declared “force majeure,” which basically means they’re saying that, because of events outside of their control, they can no longer be held to any contracts we previously signed.
Raw materials related to the petroleum industry have also been choked off. A plastics plant north of Tokyo started to scale down production on Friday because it couldn’t get the raw materials it uses in its production process.
It’s also aluminum and other commodities, as facilities like smelters shut down for lack of fuel.
Bangladesh just closed its universities to conserve electricity and reduce the need for people to drive anywhere. Whole regions in the Philippines, including the capital city of Manila, have just moved to a four-day work week to try to save energy. Gas stations in Vietnam have started to run out of fuel.
The New York Times reported that Pakistan’s strategy is to hike gas prices so people hopefully stop driving, as a protective measure to try to preserve both the supply and the price of diesel for trucks and buses.
Maybe some of that will work. But, again, why did all this happen in the first place? What was all this for?
Well, as Trump said, “We’re doing this for the other parts of the world.” I’m sure they’re delighted.
Trump threatens to destroy a country of 90+ million people and describes it as “a gift from the United States of America to China”. [Screenshot]
we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again—Death, Fire, and Fury will reign [sic] upon them—But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen! This is a gift from the United States of America to China, and all of those Nations that heavily use the Hormuz Strait.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
^ I forgot the threat condition: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil…”
[…] Despite a longstanding and false Republican narrative that immigrants are taking native U.S. workers’ jobs, the president’s aggressive deportation agenda hasn’t been as beneficial to blue-collar folks and their employers as they hoped.
According to new data from the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution—which are center-right and center-left think tanks, respectively—as net migration into the U.S. hits record lows, joblessness is rising as well.
“Look at what we’re seeing: The US-born unemployment rate has been going up. The US-born labor force participation rate has dropped,” Mark Regets, a senior fellow at the National Foundation for American Policy, told Bloomberg.
[…] “So if we’ve had a big withdrawal of immigrants from the labor force, we don’t see any sign of the US-born workers getting more employment because of that,” Regets said.
[…] U.S. workers are unwilling to take jobs that have historically been filled by immigrants. Some of these include back-breaking jobs on farms and construction sites, but employers seeking temporary or seasonal employees are also struggle to fill roles, according to Bloomberg.
Essentially, Regets’ point—through looking at the data—is that U.S. workers are unwilling to take jobs that have historically been filled by immigrants. Some of these include back-breaking jobs on farms and construction sites, but employers seeking temporary or seasonal employees are also struggle to fill roles, according to Bloomberg.
Even construction companies are turning away business opportunities, the outlet reported, because they don’t have the labor.
The Trump administration has campaigned on removing millions of undocumented immigrants in an effort to “protect the homeland.” They’ve even boosted their ICE budget by $38.3 billion through the Big Beautiful Bill as a means to achieve these efforts.
But after raiding farms and food stands, even farm owners were left questioning how they would harvest food. Ironically, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has tried to mitigate this issue by making it easier for immigrants to obtain H2-A visas to come work in the fields. But this plan has already started to fall apart as well.
The Trump administration is facing a similar fate of rolling back its own mistakes by having to hire many federal workers after DOGE ripped through the government workforce.
In other words, Trump’s agenda is getting a reality check now that the workforce is feeling the impact.
“Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed in a now-deleted social media post that the Navy escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Trump administration officials denied a claim from Energy Secretary Chris Wright in a now-deleted social media post Tuesday that the U.S. Navy escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.
A U.S. official told POLITICO before Leavitt’s press briefing that Wright’s post was “not true.” Crude prices tumbled below $80 a barrel on Wright’s announcement before jumping again after it was deleted.
Leavitt noted that the post was “taken down pretty quickly” but referred further questions to the Energy Department.
In a statement, a DOE spokesperson said the post was deleted after it was “determined to be incorrectly captioned by Department of Energy staff.” The spokesperson did not answer questions as to who wrote the caption or how the mistake was introduced into it. [Always blame someone else!]
“President Trump, Secretary Wright, and the rest of the President’s energy team are closely monitoring the situation, speaking with industry leaders, and having the U.S. military draw up additional options to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, including the potential for our Navy to escort tankers,” the DOE spokesperson said.
In the now-deleted post, which appeared briefly on his official account, Wright said the Navy “successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.” The post was accompanied by a video of Wright’s remarks in Colorado on Monday, in which he referenced a tanker passing through the Strait but did not mention naval escorts.
[…] Iran has continued to threaten vessels passing through the strait, and U.S. intelligence has assessed it is taking steps to place mines in the waterway [!]
One vessel, the Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Star Maria, passed through the Strait of Hormuz from West to East on Tuesday, commodities research firm Kpler told POLITICO.
The U.S. announced plans to escort tankers through the Strait last week, though it had not provided details or a timeline for the effort. Administration officials, including Wright, had indicated that military assets were tied up at the time taking out Iran’s offensive capabilities.
President Donald Trump said Monday that the Navy was prepared to launch the escorts, but he did not expect them to be necessary. [Trump shows his ignorance.]
Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine also indicated in a Tuesday morning briefing that military officials had yet to finalize plans for the escorts.
“If tasked to escort, we’ll look at the range of options to set the military conditions to be able to do that, and then, like we always do with every potential mission, come to the secretary and the president with both, what are the resources required, what is the command and control required, and what are the risks, and how do we mitigate those risks?” Caine said.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, seized on Wright’s post to accuse the U.S. of market manipulation.
“U.S. officials are posting fake news to manipulate markets,” Araghchi wrote on X. “It won’t protect them from inflationary tsunami they’ve imposed on Americans.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Small South Carolina newspaper confirms 16 of the claims made by Trump r*pe accuser while national newspspers do nothing.
[Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) had 200 personnel and called] for more in-depth planning before an attack, such as real-time mapping of the civilian presence in an area and in-depth analysis of the risks. After an operation, reports of harm to noncombatants would prompt an assessment or investigation to figure out what went wrong and then incorporate those lessons into training.
[…] Around 90% of the CHMR mission is gone, former personnel said, with no more than a single adviser now at most commands. At Central Command, where a 10-person team was cut to one, “a handful” of the eliminated positions were backfilled to help with the Iran campaign. Defense officials can’t formally close the [central office] without congressional approval, but […] it now exists mostly on paper. “It has no mission or mandate or budget,”
[…]
plans for civilian protection would’ve begun months ago, when orders to draw up a potential Iran campaign likely came down from the White House and Pentagon. […] They would also check and update the “no-strike list,” which names civilian targets such as schools and hospitals that are strictly off-limits. One key question is whether the school was on the no-strike list.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed to MS NOW that about 140 U.S. service members have been wounded since the start of the U.S. operation in Iran 10 days ago. ‘The vast majority of these injuries have been minor, and 108 service members have already returned to duty,’ Parnell said. He added that eight U.S. service members remain severely injured and are receiving medical treatment.
Senators on the Armed Services Committee just received a briefing at the U.S. Capitol about the U.S. military offensive against Iran. As the war with Iran enters its 11th day, lawmakers look to understand how much it costs — but get no answers. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told reporters that briefers did not provide a cost estimate.
birgerjohanssonsays
Col Doug Macgregor (former advisor to sec of defence): IRAN NOT RUNNING OUT of MISSILES
I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can’t defend this war in public. I obviously can’t disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.
[…]
the war goals DO NOT involve destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program. This is, uh… surprising… since Trump says over and over this is a key goal. But then of course we already know air strikes can’t wipe out their nuclear material.
Second, they confirmed “regime change” is also NOT on the list. So, they are going to spend hundreds of billions of your taxpayer dollars, get a whole bunch of Americans killed, and a hardline regime—probably a MORE anti-American hardline regime—will still be in charge.
Ok, so what ARE the goals? It seems, primarily, destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories. But the question that stumped them: what happens when you stop bombing and they restart production? They hinted at more bombing. Which is, of course, endless war.
And on the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN. I can’t go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it say, right now, they don’t know how to get it safely back open. Which is unforgivable, because this part of the disaster was 100% foreseeable.
Jadehawk: “There’s 5 posts in this thread, and they all physically hurt, and can you even imagine how much stupider the actual classified details are?”
birgerjohanssonsays
(I did not know Guillermo applied to work on Melania’s staff)
Jimmy Kimmel Live
“Trump Claims Iran War Will End Soon, Suggests School Bombing Wasn’t U.S & Hegseth Blows Billions.”
the former DOGE software engineer, who worked at the Social Security Administration last year before starting a job at a government contractor in October, allegedly told several co-workers that he possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information, and had at least one on a thumb drive. The databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names.
[…]
he allegedly told the whistleblower that he needed help transferring data from a thumb drive “to his personal computer so that he could ‘sanitize’ the data before using it at [the company.]” The engineer told colleagues that once he had removed personal details from the data, he wanted to upload it into the company’s systems. He told another colleague, who refused to help him upload the data because of legal concerns, that he expected to receive a presidential pardon […] The complaint does not allege that the engineer was successful in uploading the data to the company’s system.
[…]
the former DOGE member told colleagues he […] had kept his agency computer and credentials, which he allegedly said carried largely unrestricted “God-level” security access to the agency’s systems—a level of access no other company employee had been granted in its work with SSA.
If they intended to wipe all the personal data, there’d be nothing left to copy.
If they wanted minimal example data to design software around, they wouldn’t need a copy. They’d build a new empty database from scratch with similar specs and fill it with lorem ipsum gibberish. Except it’s been established DOGE folks were incurious about the systems they’d mucked around with.
If they anonymized names and such, for pattern seeking, that would still be a partial leak, which could be correlated with other sources later.
Regardless, they allegedly walked out of SSA and into the new job with original data. It was already a leak.
birgerjohanssonsays
(Loud purring noise. Extending claws to shred coach)
Republicans PANIC as Senate odds collapse nationwide.
.https//youtube.com/watch?v=5kre-q5WRhU
“He is lying about civilian strikes as audaciously as Vladimir Putin would. Just as he has lied about nearly every aspect of this war of choice,” says Chris Hayes on Donald Trump’s war on Iran.
At a press conference last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took a moment to push back against reporting that he disagreed with. The beleaguered Pentagon chief said he’s heard commentary that the war in Iran “might be expanding” beyond Iranian borders.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.
On Tuesday, the former Fox News host tried to re-emphasize the same argument. [video]
“It’s worth underscoring, I see in the media banners that say, ‘War expanding,’ or ‘War spreading,” Hegseth said. “It’s actually the opposite. It’s actually quite contained.”
Perhaps he was referring to some other war?
On the first day of the military offensive, the conflict involved three countries: The United States, Israel and Iran. But it wasn’t long before that list grew. By the sixth day of the war, The Washington Post noted that the violence had “touched 12 countries across the Middle East.”
Soon after, an Iranian drone strike hit Bahrain, injuring 32 people, and the day after that, the United Arab Emirates felt the need to shut down one of the larger oil refineries in the world in response to an Iranian strike. The developments coincided with related violence spreading to Iraq and Lebanon, where a conflict with Israel has intensified.
What’s more, other countries around the world have been economically impacted by the war, widening the conflict beyond the Middle East. [video]
[…] a few simple questions for Hegseth: Is he (a) unaware of the developments that make clear just how quickly and aggressively the war is expanding; (b) trying to deceive the public about the consequences of a war the administration launched for reasons it’s struggled to explain; or (c) confused about what “expanding” and “spreading” mean?
On the fourth day of the U.S. war in Iran, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Donald Trump made the decision to launch the military offensive because he “had a good feeling that the Iranian regime was going to strike” U.S. assets and personnel in the region.
A week later, the White House appears to be intensifying its emphasis on the president’s feelings, thoughts, beliefs and opinions.
At a press conference on Monday, for example, Trump argued that Iran was prepared to try to “take over the Middle East,” defending this absurdity by saying this was based on “information and belief.”
A day later, Leavitt held another briefing in which she reflected on the president’s feelings. [Video]
Asked about Trump’s argument that he feared an Iranian strike on U.S. targets within seven days, which he then bumped down to three days, the press secretary replied, “This was a feeling the president had based on facts.” (Soon after, in response to a question about Cuba, she similarly said the president has shared his “belief based on fact.”)
As for Trump’s false assertions that Iran might have struck an Iranian girls’ school with a Tomahawk missile that the country did not have, as part of a broader effort to deny possible U.S. responsibility for killing several dozen children, Leavitt said, “The president has a right to share his opinions with the American public.” [Video]
Perhaps, but we’re not really talking about presidential preferences here. Either Iran has Tomahawk missiles or it does not. Either Trump is correct that Iran was responsible for a deadly strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school building or he is incorrect.
[In the video in comment 207, Chris Hayes shows a photo of a bomb fragment from the strike on the school. The fragment says “made in USA” along with other identifying information.]
The president may very well have a right to share his opinions, but there’s a war underway. He’s not a pundit, and he has a responsibility to respond to factual inquires with public assessments that reflect reality, rather than to pontificate based on hunches.
Making matters worse is the frequency with which this comes up. Last week, on the third day of the war, the Republican said, “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. … I think they were going to attack first.”
As an analysis in The New York Times noted, “His decision to order the attack on Iran … was mostly a matter of gut instinct.”
A normal American president, before launching a war, might consult with the National Security Council, among others. The incumbent president, however, is instead relying on his feelings, which wouldn’t be quite so terrifying if (a) he had any idea what he was talking about; and (b) we weren’t talking about matters of life and death.
“EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon bars press photographers over ‘unflattering’ Hegseth photos”
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s staff took issue with images taken in a rare briefing last week and decided to shut out photographers from two subsequent news conferences.”
The Defense Department has barred press photographers from briefings on the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military conflict with Iran after they published photos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed “unflattering,” according to two people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
[…] Several outlets including the Associated Press, Reuters and Getty Images sent photographers to the briefing from Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But after they published photos — which have broad reach because they are licensed by publications globally — members of Hegseth’s staff told colleagues that they did not like the way that the secretary looked. […]
[…] Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has repeatedly sparred with the press since being confirmed at the outset of President Donald Trump’s second term. Tensions hit a fever pitch in October when hundreds of credentialed Pentagon reporters turned in their credentials and dozens walked out of the building after refusing to sign a policy prohibiting journalists from soliciting any information the government did not authorize.
The New York Times and one of its reporters, Julian E. Barnes, has sued the government alleging that the policy violated their constitutional protections of press freedom and due process. That case is ongoing, and a federal judge in Washington is weighing motions for summary judgment following Friday’s oral arguments.
After the mass exodus of reporters, which included The Post, a new, largely right-wing press corps signed on. They later received a December meet-and-greet with Hegseth and a press briefing with Wilson. But until last week, Hegseth had still not done an on-camera briefing for the new crop of media.
That changed after the strikes in Iran. Hegseth and Caine’s March 2 press briefing was initially meant to involve only newly credentialed media, but after the department requested a TV camera from the major broadcast networks, the journalists who had relinquished their badges negotiated an agreement to allow some of them in the briefing room, a lawyer for the Pentagon Press Association said in court Friday.
[…] When photographers showed up for last Wednesday’s briefing they were not allowed in, according to two other people familiar with the situation who also spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
Since then, only the Defense Department’s staff photographers have been permitted into the briefings.
“Tracking the inane MAGA responses to the White House’s war frivolity.”
War is an extreme action and, thus, triggers extreme reactions. Including extreme stupidity. It’s always disheartening—or ought to be—to see what should be a last resort comes to pass. It’s worse when a war is accompanied by cruelty, callousness, recklessness, and idiocy, though for obvious reasons that might be unavoidable. As for Trump’s war in Iran—which could well be an immense blunder—it has been enveloped in layers of excessive dumbness.
I’m not talking about the strategic wisdom—or lack thereof—of this attack, which could precipitate calamities throughout the region and beyond. Or the madness of impulsively launching such a war without planning for what comes afterward. I’m referring to how it has prompted imbecility among its supporters, including at the White House. [!]
At 1600 Pennsylvania, the belief seems to be that war is the continuation of trolling by other means. First, the White House released a video intercutting scenes of bomb strikes with video game footage. (Look how fun it is to slaughter people!) Then it posted a video featuring movie clips to hype the awesomeness of this war—a military action that opened with a strike, probably American in origin, on a girls’ elementary school that massacred scores of students.
This White House video moves quickly from Iron Man 2 to Gladiator to Braveheart to Top Gun to Better Call Saul to John Wick to Breaking Bad to other fare, including Tropic Thunder, Superman, and Transformers, and ends with a sound clip from the Mortal Kombat video games declaring, “Flawless victory.” Then a fade to the White House emblem. In the middle of all this, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth intones, “F.A.”—as in “fuck around, find out.” [Video]
It’s juvenile and demonstrates a lack of somberness about the nasty and brutal business of war. Kudos to Ben Stiller, who directed, co-wrote, and starred in Tropic Thunder, for demanding the White House remove the clip from his film: “We never gave you permission and have no interest in being part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.” […]
Making light of warfare that’s killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, and creating potential environmental and health disasters and perhaps a humanitarian crisis shows an utter disregard for human life and dignity. […]
We also saw what might be called war frivolity at the Free Press, where Nellie Bowles, who created the site with spouse Bari Weiss, found lots of fun in the latest war news, joshing that Trump will pick Iran’s new leader “via swimsuit competition,” celebrating the torpedoing of a ship (“Welcome back to water warfare, baby!”), and joking that it was a good thing a downed American pilot “didn’t land in Minneapolis.”
Curtis Yarvin, a self-proclaimed political theorist of the far right who denigrates democracy and celebrates monarchy, got into the act. He blamed the United States’ problem with Iran on the American left, tweeting, “The Iranian Revolution was a diplomatic crime of the American left. The Islamic Republic, like its proxy Hamas, is a client power of the American left. Trump is only bombing Tehran because he can’t bomb Brooklyn.” [social media post]
There is so much inanity in those three sentences.
The Islamic Revolution was a product of 26 years of repressive rule from the Shah, who was installed by the United States after Washington and London orchestrated the coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, a democratically elected leader who dared to nationalize the British-controlled oil industry. Moreover, the fundamentalists of Tehran have more in common with anti-woke Trumpists than they do with NPR listeners in Park Slope. (Ask them about queer people, abortion, and secular relativism.) And it’s swell of Yarvin to suggest that fellow Americans deserve to be bombed.
Such nonsense from him is not surprising. After all, he has called for liquidating democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law and handing power to a CEO-ish leader who would turn the US government into “a heavily-armed, ultra-profitable corporation.” Sounds like a nutball, right? Yet he’s pals with JD Vance and Peter Thiel. So be afraid.
For outright ignorance, we have Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.). On Fox News, he proclaimed, “We have been at war with Iran since 1947.” [Video]
Nope. As noted above, from 1953 to 1979, Washington was pals with the Shah, helping him run his authoritarian regime. And here’s the kicker: Crawford is the chair of the House intelligence committee. Ponder that. […]
with public sentiment tilted against this war, Lindsey Graham believes it’s fine to turn up the warmongering dial to 11. On Fox News—of course—he bellowed, “We’re going to blow the hell out of these people.” [video]
[…] Daniel Pipes, a longtime Islamophobic foreign policy analyst, expressed his disappointment and surprise that the Iranian people last week did not mount a revolution against the regime: “The populace now appears cowed into near-silence.” [social media post]
When bombs are raining down, many people might prefer to seek shelter and protect their families rather than hit the streets in protest. Also, given Trump’s erratic signals—first he suggested the US would support an uprising, then his team drew back from that—Iranians opposed to the regime might be a tad reluctant to move on the government, while the 200,000-member Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still intact. Perhaps they can apologize to Pipes for letting him down.
[Trump is] devoting hours to swinging a stick at a tiny ball. [social media post, with video]
Didn’t any of Trump’s brilliant advisers suggest that for just this weekend he skip the links? This decision demonstrated tremendous lack of judgment. It suggested Trump views himself as an emperor who can do whatever he pleases and need not worry about consequences. Anyone who pulls such a dumb move cannot be trusted to run a war—or a country.
birgerjohanssonsays
British politics: Parliamentary questions.
Tory Leader Badenoch Hammered Over Iran U-Turn
War, what is it good for? Billions and billions of dollars! Conflicts of interest […]
The Pentagon burned through $5.6 billion in just munitions in only the first two days of the war [!] […]
And now, just 11 days in, the Wall Street Journal is fretting that the US is already running low on Patriot missiles and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors and could run out of munitions. Trump denies that, and says there are enough munitions for the war that is both over and also could go on forever, and maybe we’ll have boots on the ground too, why not! But the US reportedly already reached out to Ukraine last Thursday to ask for their help supplying drone missile interceptors, and Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy said Ukraine sent them and also a team of drone experts to help protect US military interests in Jordan.
Holy shit so many levels right there. Ukraine’s entire 2025 defense budget was a record $71 billion, and Russia’s was estimated to be about $149 billion. Meanwhile the US’s was $839 billion, nearly four times the both combined, representing about 40 percent of the entire military expenditure on the planet. And Trump has moaned he wants even MORE, to get up to $1.5 trillion […]
And not even two weeks into the war the US is already begging its war-torn ally for interceptor drones! Ukraine! You know, that country Trump has been gleefully threatening to abandon if they wouldn’t just go ahead and surrender some land to his buddy Putin, while also telling Putin and the world that only he could convince them to surrender (and failing). And oh look, on this one thing he finally followed through. [Chart showing Aid allocation to Ukraine, 2022 to 2025 (by country group)]
And yet, in spite of all that flagrant backstabbing, and Ukraine’s own desperate need for munitions to save lives at home, they came to the rescue of the US anyway. And Trump and Marco Rubio et al. are not even saying thank you. They won’t even comment on the report, and Fox News even oops-mislabeled the Ukranian drones as US-made ones in spite of a visible label on the tail. [social media post with photo and additional link]
Longtime-Iran-ally Russia has also reportedly been passing its gathered intelligence about US targets to help Iran strike. Watching the US already at the limit of its capabilities is surely not lost on Putin, or China either.
And Reuters has reported China may sell Iran anti-ship missiles that could target American aircraft carriers and destroyers. There will be no winning this war.
And so how did Big Tough Man Trump respond to these threats from the east? Why, by calling up Vladimir Putin, and then immediately announcing he was considering easing sanctions on Russian oil! […]
And so anyway where the fuck are all those unfathomably massive piles of money going, since it is obviously not towards making enough munitions to fight a war in the Middle East that lasts longer than a week?
Here are some! Behold the boondoggle of record-breaking $93.4 BILLION fiscal-year-end dump-spending on grants and contracts at Hegseth’s Department of WAR documented by Open the Books spent in order to continue to justify the massive Department of WAR budget, some of which make Nero’s dinner parties sound like a Mennonite pie bake:
Included in this spending was $2 million on Alaskan king crab last September alone, as well as $6.9 million on lobster tail and $1 million on salmon. The Defense Department also spent nearly $140,000 on doughnuts, $124,000 on ice cream machines, $26,000 on sushi preparation tables, and a whopping $15.1 million on ribeye steak.
[…] $1.8 million on musical instruments, such as a $98,329 Steinway & Sons grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home, a $26,000 violin, and a $21,750 custom handmade Japanese flute.
And,
The Pentagon found a way to spend more than $12,000 on fruit baskets, as well as a total of $3,160 on stickers featuring beloved children’s characters from Dora the Explorer, Frozen, and Paw Patrol. The department also spent $5.3 million on Apple devices, including purchasing 400 of the more expensive 512-gigabyte edition iPad Air M3s rather than cheaper models with less storage.
[…]
Also $225 million spent on furniture. In one month! And yes, a literal sad and wildly expensive violin to play for the masters while the prolitaristy outside beg for food, medicine and enough kopeks to buy fuel for their winter fires! […]
[…] Trump setting a “peacetime” record for striking in the most countries in a year (eight), and welcome to Trump World War Everybody. Oh, and now Australia says it will give missiles to the UAE and deploy a military surveillance aircraft to the Middle East and send missiles to the UAE too. Every hemisphere is getting in on this thing because of interests and alliances there, plus the US is fighting itself by proxy on two sides via Russia, holy armageddon clusterfuck!
And for all the financial advantages Russia has still not conquered Ukraine and the US still does not have air supremacy over the skies of Iran.
[…] lots of nasty surprises for the little people, and lots of graft, corruption and lobster for the platters of the fatcats above!
“Nations agree to release oil reserves as war in Iran hits global economy”
“The International Energy Agency announced that it would carry out its largest-ever release of oil reserves — 400 million barrels.”
The International Energy Agency on Wednesday announced that it would carry out its largest-ever release of oil reserves — 400 million barrels — in a bid to control spiking energy prices caused by the United States-Israel war against Iran, which shows no signs of slowing as it ends its 12th day.
The plan, aimed at stabilizing oil prices that have soared since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, came as Iranian leaders declared they were widening their assault on countries in the Persian Gulf, aiming to raise the economic price of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign to oust the government in Tehran.
About a third of global emergency stockpiles will be depleted once the IEA’s 32 members release the reserves — a decision that the organization’s executive director, Fatih Birol, said was made to address challenges in the oil market that are “unprecedented in scale.” […]
“A new report says that the military investigation has found that the United States struck the school in Iran,” one reporter noted. “As Commander and Chief, do you take responsibility for that?”
“That is what?” Trump asked.
“The school in Iran. A new report says the military investigation has found it was the United States that struck the school,” the reporter repeated.
“I don’t know about it,” Trump replied dismissively.
Trump has moved to not knowing anything about the strike on the school. Essentially the same pattern Trump goes through when his allies get into trouble. He starts by blindly defending them denying anything happened. Then trying to shift the blame to somebody else with absurd lies. When mounting evidence makes this impossible, Trump suddenly claims to barely know the person and questions why the press is asking him.
A preliminary investigation by the Pentagon found U.S. forces bombed a school in Iran due to dated targeting information that identified the building as part of an adjacent military complex, a U.S. official familiar with the matter told MS NOW. The findings were first reported by The New York Times.
Commentary:
[…] According to The New York Times’ account, U.S. officials relied on dated information that indicated the school had been part of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base, but had been turned into the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school several years ago. The same report added that the outdated data was provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency to U.S. Central Command officers who created the targets for the Tomahawk missile strikes.
If these preliminary assessments hold, the strike will rank among the worst cases of U.S.-caused civilian casualties in a generation.
Shortly after these revelations reached the public, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether he’s prepare to take responsibility for what happened. After initially suggesting he didn’t hear the question, the president eventually replied, “I don’t know about it.” [video]
[…] On Saturday, one week after the deadly strike, a reporter asked whether the U.S. was responsible for the horrific incident. The president replied, “No. In my opinion and based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran. … We think it was done by Iran.”
At a press conference on Monday, Trump addressed the same subject and again suggested that Iran might have launched the strike, claiming that Iran “has some” Tomahawk missiles. (It does not.)
A day later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump would accept the results of the U.S. investigation into the incident.
“[…] the Republican administration has made bad decisions and showed poor judgment in ways that have already had lasting effects.”
As the war in Iran continues, there are growing concerns about heightened terrorism threats on U.S. soil that make the recent purges in federal law enforcement even more difficult to defend. […] roughly 300 FBI agents who worked mostly on national security matters have left the bureau since Donald Trump returned to the White House, including 45 who were fired.
“Most of those agents hunted terrorists and spies, and at least 50 of them were in leadership roles,” the report noted, adding that their absence creates vulnerabilities at a dangerous time. [!]
And it’s not just the bureau: […] at Trump’s Justice Department (which has seen its own politically motivated purges), an elite counterespionage section has been cut in half “because of firings and resignations.”
[…] Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon oversight offices that would have investigated the recent strike on an Iranian girls’ school — a move that has degraded America’s ability to protect civilians amid its largest air campaign in decades.
The Pentagon chief last year slashed offices that didn’t contribute to his goal of ‘lethality,’ including the group that assists in limiting risk to civilians, known as the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence.
[…] Politico cited multiple sources who confirmed that the office was reduced by roughly 90% before the war. Politico added that the team that addresses civilian casualties at Central Command, which deals specifically with events in the Middle East, has dropped from 10 people to one. [!]
[…] The New York Times noted that the administration was largely indifferent to the idea that a war in Iran “might disrupt oil supplies in the Middle East and wreak havoc in energy markets,” shortly before the war disrupted oil supplies in the Middle East and wreaked havoc in energy markets.
In isolation, each of these reports is important; taken together, an unsettling picture comes into view. We are already dealing with the avoidable consequences of not only tactical errors but Team Trump’s miscalculations across multiple fronts and departments.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but the Republican administration’s bad decisions and poor judgment will have lasting effects, undermine public confidence and reinforce concerns that these guys just don’t know what they’re doing.
That guy is clueless. And he does not understand the world in which I live.
Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida appeared on CNN Wednesday and delivered what could end up being the GOP’s midterm message on affordability and President Donald Trump’s move to create chaos in the global oil market.
“It’s fascinating to me that Democrats now talk about gas prices. Under [Barack] Obama and under [Joe] Biden, they tried to destroy the U.S. oil and gas industry,” Scott said. “I think unfortunately prices are going to be up for a while until this ends.” [Video]
Rising costs are unlikely to bother Scott, whose fortune is estimated at north of $550 million. Given his history—such as the massive fraud scandal tied to the health care company he once ran—easing the financial burdens facing ordinary Americans seems pretty low on his list of priorities.
U.S. crude oil prices briefly fell to lows on the day on news that International Energy Agency member countries had unanimously agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from their reserves, but soon climbed higher, passing $88 per barrel around midday.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants Donald Trump to turn up the heat on Vladimir Putin — and stop piling pressure on him to agree to a truce after more than four years of war.
[…] Zelenskyy urged European leaders to come up with a Plan B to secure Ukraine’s long-term funding, to find a way to work around what he called the “blackmail” of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is holding up a promised EU loan of €90 billion.
POLITICO reported Wednesday that some Baltic and Nordic countries have a plan to give Ukraine enough money to keep it afloat through the first half of this year, even if Orbán maintains his veto.
But when it comes to peace negotiations, Zelenskyy was clear that Trump’s influence will still be key. “We need negotiations. We support them,” Zelenskyy said in the interview. “We don’t trust Russia, but I think, and I trust that Americans really want to finish with this war. I hope that they will help us, but we need more pressure on Russia, not on me.”
His comments come a week after Trump voiced renewed frustration with Zelenskyy, telling POLITICO that Ukraine’s leader needed to “get on the ball” and do a deal. Trump suggested he had more confidence in Putin’s willingness to negotiate a truce than Zelenskyy’s, without offering evidence for his view. “I think Putin is ready to make a deal,” Trump said. [Oh FFS. Trump is still fluffing Putin.]
[Trump has repeatedly taken] Putin’s side, condemning Zelenskyy as a “dictator” and blaming him for starting the war, despite the fact that it was the Russian military that invaded in an unprovoked attack in February 2022.
Even so, talks with Trump’s envoys in December suggested the U.S. was ready to provide some form of security guarantee for Ukraine, which would underpin any peace deal. But there are still no details on what those promises would look like, Zelenskyy said.
“Be honest. For us, it’s very important, but we don’t have a clear answer,” he said.
[…] Hungary and Slovakia are holding up a previously agreed €90 billion loan from willing EU countries to help prop up Ukraine’s economy and defense industry. Ukraine is due to run short of cash within weeks.
Zelenskyy said he wanted the EU to come up with a Plan B in case Orbán’s “blackmail” could not be overcome in time.
“We and Europe, we all need this plan B,” he said. “Our European partners and real friends, they know that we defend not only Ukrainian values, we are defending freedom of all Europe.”
[…] He delivered some of his most outspoken criticism ever of Orbán’s attitude, slamming him for trying to block and then undo sanctions against Russia, and accusing him of “blackmail” over the EU’s loan.
Hungary and Slovakia want Zelenskyy to repair damage to the key Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil across Ukraine to their countries. Orbán accuses Zelenskyy of deliberately delaying the repairs for political reasons. But Zelenskyy insists the problem is Orbán, not the pipeline, which has been damaged by Russian bombing.
Hungary’s prime minister is “friends” and “strategic partners” with Russia, and is Putin’s “ally,” he said.
“He’s standing on the side of [the] Russian leader. He’s doing the same, blocking everything for Ukraine. Only one thing he doesn’t do today — he is not attacking by missiles or drones our territory,” Zelenskyy said of Orbán. “And he is not sending his soldiers.” But he is blocking funds for Ukraine, weapons for Ukraine, and opposing Ukraine’s accession to the EU, Zelenskyy added.
“And also with Russian narratives, he’s sharing the same narratives. He personally is doing this.”
“Confronted with evidence of Russia aiding Iran, Team Trump has shrugged, boosted Russia’s economy and vouched for Moscow’s reliability.”
As the war in Iran continues, the Middle Eastern foe hasn’t just attacked obvious U.S. targets, such as embassies and consulates in the region. Despite the extensive damage that’s been done to Iran’s offensive capabilities, the country has reportedly managed to target things like a CIA facility in Saudi Arabia, a naval command-and-control facility in Bahrain and U.S. radar facilities across the Gulf.
There’s ample speculation as to how this happened, but it’s hard to overlook the reports from multiple news organizations, including MS NOW, over the weekend that Russia had provided Iran with information that could help it strike American targets. One U.S. official told MS NOW point-blank, “Russia is providing intelligence help to Iran.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker pressed Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on this, and he made no effort to deny the accuracy of the reporting, emphasizing that Iran’s “strategic partnership” with Russia is “not a secret.”
Common sense might suggest that Donald Trump and his team would express outrage over the development and condemn efforts to help Iran target American personnel and assets.
Common sense, however, is apparently in short supply.
In the wake of the reporting, the president and his team not only expressed public indifference to the news that Russia was assisting Iran, the Republican administration also extended a new reward to Vladimir Putin’s regime, temporarily easing oil sanctions on the country.
If that weren’t quite enough, one of the key figures on Trump’s foreign policy team went even further on Tuesday. MS NOW reported that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff appeared on CNBC and emphasized that Russian officials have denied the allegations.
Witkoff said Russian officials told President Donald Trump on a call [Monday] that ‘they have not been sharing’ the information.
Witkoff added that Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, ‘reiterated the same’ on a call with himself and Jared Kushner, one of Trump’s sons-in-law, whom the president named as a ‘special peace envoy.’
Witkoff went on to say of the Russian officials, “We can take them at their word.” [FFS. both Witkoff and Kushner are now also Putin’s puppets. They join Trump.]
[video]
So as far as Team Trump is concerned, when confronted with evidence that Russia is aiding Iran during the war, the proper response is to (a) shrug; (b) boost Russia’s economy; and (c) vouch for Moscow’s trustworthiness.
Witkoff’s on-air comments came a day after Trump said that he had a “positive call” with Putin and that the Russian leader “wants to be helpful” and “very constructive.”
The American president didn’t specify for whom Putin wants to be helpful and constructive.
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware appeared on MS NOW this week and said, “The clearest winner from this war in Iran is Russia.” Soon after, The Wall Street Journal reported that Putin “can barely conceal a smirk” as the war continues.
“Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to End Protections for Haitian Immigrants”
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to allow it to end a program shielding hundreds of thousands of Haitians from deportation.
In a court filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to block a lower court decision that found the Trump administration had violated the law when it terminated Temporary Protected Status, a program that allows some 350,000 Haitians to live and work legally in the United States.
Mr. Sauer urged the justices to clear the way to end the protections, asserting that “lower courts are again attempting to block major executive-branch policy initiatives in ways that inflict specific harms to the national interest and foreign relations.”
He added that Haitian immigrants were aware of the possibility that the program could be ended, saying that reality was inherent “in the temporary nature” of the T.P.S. program.
The justices asked lawyers for the immigrants to respond by Monday.
“We think the facts and the law speak for themselves and look forward to defending our Haitian clients in the Supreme Court,” said Geoff Pipoly, a lawyer for the plaintiffs and partner at the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
The filing is the second such emergency petition pending before the court dealing with whether the Trump administration can end the protected status for a group of immigrants. In late February, the solicitor general asked the justices to remove protected status for Syrian immigrants. The court has yet to rule in that case. […]
Well, well, well. Looks like that sweet, sweet “settlement” money for President Donald Trump’s Presidential Library has gone on a walkabout. No one could possibly have predicted that the most corrupt president in history would do such a thing.
Now Senate Democrats are asking what, exactly, happened to the at least $63 million that Trump extracted from media and technology companies to settle his fake lawsuits against them.
It turns out that the fund set up to receive those millions, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, Inc., no longer exists—because of course it doesn’t.
The fund was set up in Florida, but state officials dissolved it in September 2025 after it failed to submit a mandatory annual report.
That might seem like nothing but an odd misstep, perhaps an inexperienced person serving as a registrant for the fund who didn’t understand the paperwork requirements. But that argument falls apart when you learn that the registrant was Jacob Roth, who was at a little law firm called Dhillon Law Group at the time.
Yes, that’s the firm that was founded by Harmeet Dhillon, who now heads the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice—not because she loves civil rights but because she’s an election denier and voter suppression enthusiast.
Roth formed Trump’s presidential inauguration committee fund—which also served as a sterling opportunity for big donors to bribe the president—and has raked in millions over the years that it’s represented Trump and his campaigns.
This is not some babe in the woods who didn’t understand what he was doing. Instead, it looks a lot more like an attempt to avoid filing any paperwork that would have revealed anything about this murky fund, letting Florida dissolve it instead.
If that seems like an unduly cynical conclusion, it probably won’t when you learn that not long after the fund was dissolved, a new one called the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc., was created in December 2025. It reported receiving $50 million in contributions, but there’s no confirmation that this is where the faux-settlement money went.
And now, no one’s talking.
The White House says to ask Trump’s library, the foundation’s trustee won’t answer questions, and Roth referred questions to the Dhillon Law Group—a perfect closed circle of nonanswers.
When Trump first started collecting “donations” for his library by suing media companies for bribes, the amounts seemed impossibly large.
ABC gave him $15 million to “settle” his defamation lawsuit in December 2024, which was absolutely staggering at the time. But then there was $25 million from Meta, another $10 million from X, and $16 million from CBS, and suddenly bribing Trump became routine, just the cost of doing business.
But that’s piddly shit.
The real grift for the library has come in the form of the largesse of the GOP in Florida, exceedingly happy to give the property of their residents away to Trump.
In an elaborate scam, Miami-Dade College gave a state board a downtown Miami parcel valued at more than $66 million for just $10. And the board then gave it to Trump’s library fund for another $10.
Yes, $10.
[…] Some back-of-the-envelope math here shows that this nonexistent library has already netted Trump a cool half-billion or so, and that’s just in the last 16 months. [!]
He’s got almost three more years of being able to leverage his presidency into making the richest, most craven people give him even more money for a library that’s likely going to be nothing but pictures of Trump […]
“EXCLUSIVE: RFK Jr.’s advisers had a plan to target covid shots. Then it fell apart.”
“Some members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel have publicly questioned the safety and manufacturing of the shots, including raising a debunked theory that DNA contaminants in the vaccines are harmful.”
A key federal vaccine advisory panel has abandoned an attack on the covid-19 mRNA vaccines — a shift that comes as some Republicans warn that any more changes to vaccine policy could damage the party in the midterms.
Some of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked vaccine advisers had been seeking to potentially stop recommending mRNA shots. That plan is no longer moving forward, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
In recent months, some members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) have publicly questioned the safety and manufacturing of the shots, including raising a debunked theory that DNA contaminants in the vaccines were harmful.
One option under consideration was a potential vote to withdraw the federal recommendation for covid-19 mRNA vaccines altogether […] Such a change could throw into doubt how long insurers would continue to cover the shots for free and whether pharmacies would continue to carry them.
[…] Uptake of the updated covid shot has been paltry: About 17.5 percent of U.S. adults and about 9 percent of children have received this year’s covid shot, according to CDC data collected through late February.
[…] Last year, Kennedy replaced every member of the influential vaccine advisory panel, selecting several members who had previously criticized mRNA vaccines.
[…] a federal judge in Boston could rule as soon as Wednesday on a request by medical groups to block changes to the childhood vaccine schedule and prevent the panel from convening.
[…] Harmful side effects from covid-19 mRNA shots have been a focus of some ACIP members. Public health experts say such injuries are rare, and the focus on such events distorts risks while minimizing benefits. Vaccines undergo rigorous safety testing before they are licensed by the FDA, and federal agencies rely on several vaccine safety reporting systems to monitor their safety while in use.
[…] Covid vaccines are effective at protecting people from getting seriously ill, being hospitalized and dying. Public health experts say staying up to date on vaccinations remains one of the best ways to protect older adults and other vulnerable people. But surveys show many Americans are still hesitant — or simply not planning to get the shot.
“Pentagon Tells Congress First Week of Iran War Cost More Than $11.3 Billion”
“In a Capitol Hill briefing, officials gave their most comprehensive assessment of the cost of the first six days of the war, but the number omitted several aspects of the operation. [!]
So, MORE than $11.3 billion.
Pentagon officials told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that they estimated the cost of the war against Iran had exceeded $11.3 billion in the first six days alone, according to three people familiar with the briefing.
The estimate did not include many of the costs associated with the operation, such as the buildup of military hardware and personnel ahead of the first strikes. For that reason, lawmakers expect the number to grow considerably as the Pentagon continues to calculate the costs that accumulated just in the first week.
[…] The New York Times and The Washington Post reported earlier that defense officials had said in recent congressional briefings that the military used up $5.6 billion of munitions in the first two days of the war.
That is a far larger amount and munitions burn rate than had been publicly disclosed. The Center for Strategic and International Studies had estimated that the first 100 hours of the operation cost $3.7 billion, or $891.4 million each day.
The first wave of the bombardment used weapons including the AGM-154 glide bomb, which can cost from $578,000 to $836,000. The Navy bought 3,000 of them nearly two decades ago. Since then, the U.S. military has said it will switch to using far less expensive bombs, such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition. The smallest size of warhead costs about $1,000, and the guidance kit runs about $38,000.
Some Republicans […] have urged that the United States ramp up its spending on munitions production.
[…] Democrats have cast considerable doubt on their willingness to back an emergency funding measure for the operation […].
“Washington seeks to reassure the EU it won’t walk away from the deal as the European Parliament threatens to sink it over Donald Trump’s attacks on Spain and strikes on Iran.”
A top Trump administration official has reassured Brussels that Washington remains committed to its trade deal with the European Union, amid mounting fears in Europe and the U.S. that the agreement could unravel.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the EU’s trade chief Maroš Šefčovič in a call Monday evening that the United States intends to stick to the deal […] [OMG. Do not trust Scott Bessent, and do not trust the Trump administration.]
[…] The outreach came as the European Commission scrambles to convince skeptical lawmakers in the European Parliament to back legislation implementing the EU’s side of the pact struck at the U.S. president’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last summer.
The Parliament has been slow-walking its deliberations on the agreement since the start of the year. Following a Supreme Court decision in late January that overturned much of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda, lawmakers have been pushing for guarantees from the Trump administration that European exports would not face higher tariffs than the 15 percent ceiling set out in the EU-U.S. trade deal. [Good luck figuring what Trump will do or not do regarding tariffs.]
Center-right and right-wing lawmakers want to fast-track the deal and approve it as soon as possible [support from the right-wing is not a good sign] — but the Social Democrats, liberals and Greens have voted against moving forward, citing the U.S. president’s latest attacks against Spain [Trump threatened to cut off trade with Spain], strikes on Iran and threats to stage a “friendly takeover” of Cuba.
[…] Šefčovič on Tuesday launched a last-ditch attempt in Strasbourg to convince lawmakers to throw their weight behind the pact, briefing top EU lawmakers on his talks with the Trump administration.
[…] Lange [Bernd Lange, who hails from the S&D and helms the Parliament’s trade committee] said that the lead lawmakers on transatlantic relations would on March 17 assess whether to move ahead to a committee vote on March 19. This would then pave the way for a plenary vote on March 26.
The center-right European People’s Party also sought to convince the centrist majority in the Parliament to go ahead with the vote by proposing a “sunrise clause,” which would ensure that preconditions must be respected by the Trump administration before the trade deal can kick in.
I don’t think anyone can be certain that the Trump administration would honor any agreement, including the “sunrise clause.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it struck two ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, as the war disrupts one of the world’s most crucial economic passageways and threatens industries across the globe.
The U.S. must keep making payments on the $16 billion New York Hudson Tunnel, after an appeals court on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to halt paying for the project.
On the heels of news reports that more than 40,000 files were either withheld or taken down from the Department of Justice’s site with documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case, the DOJ late last week released documents including FBI memos related to accusations against President Donald Trump. But MS NOW has found that the released files still appear to be incomplete [!], missing FBI notes and memos reflecting interviews with women alleging abuse by other prominent men.
Nothing stings quite as much as your favorite shoes giving you blisters. And in President Donald Trump’s case, that blistering is to the tune of millions of dollars.
Weyco Group, the company behind the president’s favorite oxfords, is suing the administration for a refund on the money it paid due to Trump’s sweeping tariffs. [LOL]
“The idea behind the tariffs originally was pro-business, and it feels like somehow the pro-business part of this has gotten lost,” Weyco Group CEO Tom Florsheim told Spectrum News. “You’re paying more for the tariff than you were for the shoes.” [!]
Florsheim told the outlet that his company was originally manufacturing its shoes in China, having to spend millions on tariffs alone. After moving their business to India, Trump’s tariffs followed them. [!]
“From a business planning standpoint, it’s been almost impossible,” Florsheim said.
[…] Despite Trump’s claims that the cost of his tariffs would be paid by other countries, companies have started demanding their money back after the Supreme Court struck down those tariffs.
It’s unclear if the lawsuit will prompt Trump to have a change of heart on his fashion choices.
After all, he has been tossing out boxes of Weyco’s Florsheim oxfords to everyone in his administration, as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.
“All the boys have them,” a female White House official told the outlet.
Another quipped, “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.”
Equally as hysterical is a recent photo showing that, despite forcing the shoes on his Cabinet members, Trump didn’t seem to care enough to check shoe sizes.
A photo quickly circulated of Secretary of State Marco Rubio sporting a pair of oxfords with a healthy gap between the back of the shoe and his heel. [photo … yep, those shoes are too big!]
Oddly enough, according to the WSJ, Trump had openly asked for Rubio’s shoe size—reportedly 11.5—before making the purchase.
If anything, Trump might not be the only one in his administration feeling blistered from this lawsuit.
So, as CNN reports that a couple dozen mines might’ve been laid in the gulf by Iran—with about 80-90% of their small vessel fleet available to spread more—it’s worth noting the Trump administration basically decommissioned all of the US’ mine hunters in the gulf in the run-up to the war, never to be seen again.
Rando 2: “minesweeping will be done by the littoral combat ships. Yes, those late, over budget duds that were supposed to also hunt subs and carry helos for surface fighting. They’re down to one mission: blowing up mines and trying to not break on their own.”
Rando 1: “They should try sweeping the mines with aircraft carriers, since they are so wide. Just use them like big industrial brooms to sweep the seas clean! Like, why have specialized ships performing specific tasks, when you can use big vessels like expensive sledgehammers?!!”
Rando 3: “That’s either a stunning lack of imagination or someone is trying to escalate this to ‘unmanageable crisis’ levels. I… I struggle with believing there’s sufficient competence within the Trump administration to plan this level of chaos.”
One would think the heavy US strikes would have focused on destroying Iranian mine stocks and mine laying vessels. But if Iran distributed mines before the war to hundreds or even thousands of small craft up and down the coast, and can engage in minimal coordination of them, Iran’s odds of being able to lay some decent minefields (say, in the hundreds) go up considerably.
Mines are very unlikely to sink a tanker. But they could disable one in a manner that would impede shipping, and the fear of mines would probably scare other traffic out of the Strait.
U.S. efforts to go in and clear the mines—a process that can take weeks—would then make US surface vessels vulnerable to Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles, drones, and small boat attacks.
Very thorny military problem without an easy solution given geography of the Strait—if Iran prepared and US did not prevent.
Cheryl Rofer: “Iran doesn’t have to deploy any mines in the Strait of Hormuz. All they have to do is say they did.”
Rando 4: “US minesweepers successfully removed mines in the Strait Of Hormuz that were never there after an oil tanker was escorted by a naval vessel that doesn’t exist [@194] in an operation to obliterate a nuclear program that’s already been obliterated in an escalating war that will be over shortly.”
Reginald Selkirk @232: At least he didn’t hit a proper small-time comic book store. I’m kinda shocked Walmart carried cards worth anything. Their CCG offerings always struck me as an afterthought, like their books.
Geoff Brumfiel (NPR): “The Department of Energy has made public a set of newly revised nuclear safety rules that slash security and environmental protections.”
Geoff Brumfiel: “These are not the rules that govern large nuclear reactors operating today. Rather, these rules apply to a set of experimental reactors being built at the Department of Energy. Last year, Trump signed an executive order calling for 3 reactors to be running by July 4, 2026.
Secretly rewriting rules is not how the nuclear industry builds trust. Allowing microreactor developers to employ a move fast and break things ethos is not good for anyone except their investors short term pocketbooks. Not good for the environment, the public, even the nuclear industry.
[…]
I’m on the decommissioning and environmental sciences division of [American Nuclear Society] and let me tell you, we are not asking for brand new and novely complicated projects to clean up!!
As someone who once co-authored two books in support of nuclear energy: this is likely the kiss of death to nuclear power. […] It is quite safe. But the issues with nuclear power are not really technical ones. They’re political and social. […] the investment is huge, long term, and up front. Investors thinking about a nuclear project have to consider that before the investment generates *any* positive cash flow
[…]
One of the biggest risks in nuclear investing is the so-called sovereign risk. […] politics can change during the economic lifetime. […] for nuclear projects—at least 20 years after plant completion, often 40, sometimes more—it means an investor looking for profit has to take a very long risk. And not a theoretical one: even completed nuclear plants have been shuttered by political decisions.
[…]
Seeing the terminal incompetence and, frankly, malice just about everyone in the administration has been exhibiting, their open contempt for expertise […] I really couldn’t in good conscience recommend anyone to accept a nuclear reactor project nearby with those clowns in charge. Not until expertise is restored and the changes *thoroughly* reviewed.
[…]
Financiers—banks & funds—will realize this. The risk premiums they demand go up. And they compound with the risk premiums financiers demand when building unproven technology. So [small modular reactors] are going to be in a deeper hole, relatively speaking. Meanwhile, renewables and batteries etc. get cheaper.
[…]
Now, one might claim the savings from relaxed regulation will offset higher risks. […] For one, reaping full benefits would require new reactor designs that take advantage of the looser regulations. For two, even though the claim that “red tape” makes nuclear projects too expensive is common, as far as I can tell, it *is not really true.*
[…]
what increases nuclear costs is not so much regulation per se, but *changes* in regulation. By far the most common cause for cost overruns was that projects had been started before design was complete—and then regulations changed. […] whatever these clowns do WILL be tainted.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Ted Lieu (Rep D-CA):
A foreign hacker likely has the Epstein Files. The best way to prevent blackmail of government officials, such as trump and Howard Lutnick, would be for AG Pam Bondi to stop the cover up and release all the Epstein Files as required by law.
Rando: “the best way to prevent blackmail would be to arrest the pedos and remove them from the government.”
the intrusion appeared to have been carried out by a cybercriminal rather than a foreign government […] It was discovered the following day when [an agent] turned on his computer and discovered a text file warning him that his network had been compromised
[…]
A timeline […] in the large cache of Epstein documents released earlier this year […] “included combing through certain files pertaining to the Epstein investigation.” The timeline does not say which specific files were accessed, whether the hacker downloaded the data, or who the hacker was.
[…]
a foreign hacker who did not appear to realize they had penetrated a law enforcement server. The hacker expressed disgust at the presence of child abuse images on the device and left a message threatening to turn its owner over to the FBI […] officials defused the situation by convincing the hacker that they actually were the FBI, in part by having the hacker join a video chat where they flashed their law enforcement credentials in front of a web camera.
Reuters could not determine—and the source said they did not know—who the hacker was, what country they were operating from, what they did with the material accessed, or whether any effort was made to identify or punish them for breaking into the FBIs server.
Southpaw (Lawyer): “Still reeling from the idea that if you—a computer hacker—blunder into the FBI’s digital evidence locker and then leave what appears to be a moralizing blackmail note, their response is to apologetically propose a zoom call where you get to anonymously inspect their badges and ID.”
Commentary
That’s as close to an ethical actor as we’re going to get in this mess.
Pretty fascinated by why this shit would be connected to the Internet tbh, and also how this isn’t somehow fouling the evidence.
I’ll bet the FBI expected to trace them during the zoom call. Impressive if the hacker dodged that too.
Information security professional here—if this stuff was open to some random hacker, assume that multiple foreign intelligence agencies have it too. And this may explain why the President is seemingly acting against American interests so often, and in so many different ways.
Here’s Jake Tapper having American-Israeli *journalist* Emily Schrader on to tell CNN’s audience most Iranians inside Iran actually support Trump & Bibi’s war on Iran, and claim Iran is moving weapons into mosques and schools (to justify bombing them… the Gaza playbook). [Video clip]
Rando 1: “She is an *extremist* disinfo peddler [Screenshots]”
Rando 2: “This is Protocols of the Elders of Mecca shit.”
Hegseth alleged Iran was deliberately firing missiles from schools and hospitals
SasanianShah:
this lie only works if they have previously […] convinced you that cities in Iran are ramshackle slums along dusty unpaved streets, with makeshift schools & hospitals in tents & mud-brick buildings. A malicious lie.
[Photos] This is a Kheybar Shekan ballistic missile, likely the smallest missile Iran possesses that can reach Israel. It’s like 30 feet long and is fired from a 3+ axle truck. When it launches, the rocket motor will scorch and damage an area of hundreds of square feet due to the extreme energy output.
If you launched one of these from a schoolyard, everyone within a few miles would be able to see it, and also we’d likely have at least one US or Israeli drone video of destroying one in a schoolyard or hospital. We don’t. Instead, they are in empty desert areas or on roads.
Very intense bombing in Tehran and Karaj, a city of about 4mil immediately to the west of Tehran. Several electrical plants were hit and went offline. Widespread electric outage in most of Tehran. Eye-witnesses report explosions never seen before. [Video clip]
SasanianShah on Mar 10:
Mum reports heavy snow in northern Tehran today, and with the fuel shortage (US blew up 30 reserve fuel tankers around the city…), the municipality cannot run the snowplows. So grocery & other delivery services have been interrupted. I hope the electricity does not cut off in the snow.
SasanianShah on Mar 10:
Surreal experience. Was talking to mum on the phone when a sound in the background like a heavy pillow falling on the floor came through. Mum said coolly: “Did you hear that? They have started raining death, destruction, and fury again!”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to 148. Sasanianshah (Iranian historian):
[Photos] The before and after pictures of the damage to the Golestan Palace’s throne room, with the stripped down Marble Throne of Fathali Shah (built 1805) in the middle (the before pic was taken by my wife).
the Golestan Palace, was badly damaged during an attack on a police station in downtown Tehran, according to the ministry. Golestan Palace dates to the 14th century and eventually became the seat of the Qajar dynasty. Its famed hall of mirrors was shattered
[…]
Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Heritage said it had installed blue flags, in keeping with international wartime protocol, on all of its cultural and heritage sites to signal to Israeli and American jets that they were protected. But to no avail.
[…]
Iran’s Red Crescent Society said Tuesday that since the start of the war on Feb. 28, almost 10,000 civilian structures had been destroyed or damaged in airstrikes. Of those, it said, 7,493 were residential; 1,617 commercial; 32 medical and pharmaceutical facilities; 65 schools and educational sites. Thirteen, it said, belonged to the Red Crescent.
And now at least six cultural gems: Naqshe Jahan Square, Jameh Mosque, Ali Qapu Palace, Chehel Sotoun Palace and Garden, Golestan Palace and Falak ol-Aflak Castle.
The speed and extent of the damage have so concerned Iran and Lebanon that they sent a request to the United Nations’ cultural agency, UNESCO, this week to add more sites to its enhanced protection list. UNESCO confirmed that it has verified damage to the lavish Qajar-era Golestan Palace in Tehran as well as the 17th century Chehel Sotoun palace and the Masjed-e Jāme, the country’s oldest Friday mosque, both in Isfahan. There also was verified damage at buildings close to the Khorramabad Valley, which includes five prehistoric caves and one rock shelter providing evidence of human occupation dating to 63,000 B.C.
At Golestan Palace, shattered glass from the mirrored ceilings blanketed the floors alongside broken archways, blown-out windows and damaged molding scattered below its glass-mosaic walls […]
UNESCO said it provided all parties to the conflict with the geographical coordinates of the heritage sites ahead of time, “to take all feasible precautions to avoid damage.” […] The program provides countries with technical assistance and professional training to preserve the sites.
The Trump administration announced last July that it would once again withdraw from UNESCO […] The decision won’t go into effect until December.
birgerjohanssonsays
USA Left to its own devices – “Europe Refused Oil Help, Says ‘Not Our Problem’ as Reserves hit a historic low.”
This is very much a “Trump” problem, not a “Europe” problem. They have no incentive to help a government that would not help them in a similar situation.
The Post and Courier used public records to corroborate details of the woman’s life described in the FBI interview where she accused Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump of abusing her as a minor. Marilyn Thompson joins to discuss her reporting.
“Amid all the chaos and death, how did our wartime president spend the afternoon? By palling around with internet personality and aspiring boxer Jake Paul in Kentucky—and of course, dancing to the YMCA,” says Chris Hayes.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a move that many called long overdue, on Thursday God formally notified House Speaker Mike Johnson that he was going to Hell.
In a rare public statement, the Almighty said that Johnson’s support of Donald Trump’s war in Iran was the “last straw” that sealed the Speaker’s eternal damnation.
“What do you do with someone who claims to be a Christian and supports killing civilians?” God asked. “You send his ass to Hell, that’s what.”
Confronted by reporters in a Capitol corridor, Johnson said he was “disappointed” by the Heavenly Father’s decision, but added, “I serve a higher power: Donald Trump.”
Summarized by Steve Benen from a report posted by Political Wire:
House Speaker Mike Johnson invited the entirety of the House Republican Conference to their annual retreat this week. In a sign of the times, fewer than half showed up.
“We’ve reached the point at which the president wants consumers to be glad they’re paying more at the pump.”
Related video at the link.
In late October, […] Trump made one last effort to scare voters in New Jersey and Virginia. The president focused much of his message on a single issue: energy prices.
“Under President Trump, ME, Gasoline will come down to approximately $2 a Gallon, very soon!” the Republican argued by way of his social media platform. “With the Democrats, you’ll be paying $4, $5, and $6 a Gallon.”
The argument was foolish on its face, in large part because governors have very little control over the price of gas, and it also failed entirely, as Democratic gubernatorial candidates racked up double-digit victories.
But almost five months later, the White House has a related problem: Thanks to the war he started for reasons he has struggled to explain, Trump is the one pushing gas prices toward the same levels he warned about in the fall.
It was against this backdrop that Trump rolled out a very different kind of message on Thursday morning. Just 17 weeks after he wrote, “Under President Trump, ME, Gasoline will come down to approximately $2 a Gallon,” Trump tried selling Americans on the opposite message.
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Trump wrote.
Yes, we’ve reached the point at which the president wants consumers to be glad they’re paying more at the pump.
As a substantive matter, the problem with Trump’s claim is that the word “we” was doing a lot of work in his sentence. It’s true that the United States is producing a lot of oil, and it’s also true that higher prices help generate oil industry profits. But since the number of Americans who benefit from oil industry profits is very small, few will likely celebrate the hit to their wallets.
Complicating matters, Trump isn’t alone on this. Kelly Loeffler, head of the Small Business Administration, downplayed the importance of rising gas prices in a podcast interview this week. And on Thursday morning, Energy Secretary Chris Wright appeared on Fox News and pushed a line that was eerily similar to the president’s: “Fortunately, the United States, we produce more oil than we can consume; we’re a net oil exporter. So overall for the U.S. economy, this isn’t bad news.” […]
“Our freedom was not in danger two weeks ago. There was no binary choice: a war that increased the cost of living or the collapse of American liberty.”
[…] There’s ample evidence to suggest consumers can expect to see prices continue to get worse in the near future, not just on fuel but on a variety of other products, including food.
By and large, GOP officials aren’t denying the trends, though they are urging Americans to accept higher prices as an unfortunate necessity. Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, one of Congress’ wealthiest members, conceded this week, “Unfortunately, prices are going to be up for a while” because of the war.
Republican Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri, meanwhile, said he believes his constituents are willing to accept cost-of-living hikes to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons that can hit the U.S.
And if Iran were anywhere close to having nuclear weapons capable of hitting the U.S., that might be a sensible argument. But since the idea was and is absurd, the congressman’s pitch falls far short. [!]
One GOP senator was especially explicit, however, in making the larger point. As The New Republic summarized:
Kansas Senator Roger Marshall dismissed rising gas prices as a ‘sacrifice’ Americans needed to make for their freedom.
During an interview Tuesday night, Marshall became extremely defensive when CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pressed back on his claim that soaring gas prices were simply ‘a little bit of a hiccup.’
After the host pressed the Kansas Republican on rising consumer costs, Marshall concluded, “Freedom is not free. Americans are gonna have to make some sacrifices.”
At face value, some viewers might have found this vaguely compelling. American service members and their families certainly have to make sacrifices during a war, and it stands to reason that civilians also have to accept the disadvantages that come when their country is engaged in combat operations abroad.
Except, in this instance, it’s not nearly that simple.
When American civilians accepted all kinds of sacrifices during World War II, for example, there was a broad understanding that day-to-day inconveniences were small prices to pay given the stakes of the global conflict.
But in 2026, a year and a half after Americans elected Republicans to help address affordability and the cost of living, it’s a much different story. Almost certainly with the knowledge that it’d push consumer costs higher, Donald Trump launched a war for reasons he has struggled to explain, with objectives he’s struggled to identify and after making no meaningful effort to convince Americans ahead of time that the mission was worthwhile.
Is it easy to believe Americans will be willing to sacrifice in pursuit of a noble goal? Yes. Has the White House made a coherent case that the war in Iran is worth the costs? No.
On the contrary, this war is unpopular on a historic scale, making it that much more difficult for assorted partisans to insist to Americans that they are “gonna have to make some sacrifices.”
The “freedom isn’t free” phrase is especially jarring under the circumstances. Our freedom was not in danger two weeks ago. The nation was not confronted with a binary choice between a war that increased the cost of living and the collapse of liberty in the U.S. The very idea is inherently ridiculous, and Marshall’s argument reflects a degree of election-year desperation that’s likely to get worse in the coming days, weeks and months.
“It seemed obvious that someone in a position of influence had intervened in the case, and that person was apparently, and predictably, the president.”
After Donald Trump launched an unprecedented offensive against prominent law firms last year, most of the president’s targets capitulated, fearing White House punishments. Four firms, however, fought back, challenged Trump’s orders in court, and went undefeated.
The victories for the quartet — Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie and Susman Godfrey — looked even better last week when the Trump Justice Department announced plans to throw in the towel: Instead of appealing their earlier defeats, DOJ lawyers said they would abandon their defense of the president’s executive orders.
One day later, federal prosecutors changed their mind, completed a 180-degree turn and notified the four firms that they would proceed with the appeal after all.
It seemed rather obvious from a distance that someone in a high position of influence had intervened in the matter, and according to the latest reporting from The Wall Street Journal, that person is exactly who most observers assumed it was.
The Justice Department’s surprise reversal last week on defending the White House’s sanctions against law firms came after an angry outburst by President Trump […]
After The Wall Street Journal reported on March 2 that the department was dropping its defense of executive orders that outlined punishments against specific law firms, Trump told advisers to stop it immediately, the people said.
[…] press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Justice Department changed course “at the president’s direction.” [!]
The same report added that Trump specifically told White House officials that he hadn’t signed off on the DOJ’s decision and directed his team “to change course,” which they promptly did.
The move opened the door to the administration extending a losing legal fight simply to make the president feel better — a variety of judges from across the ideological spectrum have already ruled against the White House in this case, concluding that the move was plainly illegal […]
As last week came to an end, the hyperpoliticized Justice Department completed a dramatically different court filing in the case that, among other things, lashed out at the federal judiciary and accused judges of “encroaching” on the president’s powers. The New York Times described the language in the filing as “blistering,” adding, “The tone and language of the brief were remarkable as Justice Department lawyers opened an argument to federal appeals court judges by attacking those judges’ lower court colleagues.”
This was, in other words, a court filing that echoed the kind of rhetoric Trump likes to use — and likes to hear those around him echo.
[…]for the past 14 months or so that the Justice Department has become an extension of the West Wing, and the reversal in the case against the defiant law firms reinforces the unmistakable pattern.
But the revelations add fresh weight to the broader indictment about Trump’s control over federal law enforcement.
A few weeks ago, Main Justice unfurled a giant banner featuring the president’s face on its facade. […] As The Wall Street Journal summarized in November, this is a Justice Department in which the president, not the attorney general, “calls the shots.”
[…] Reuters reported on Thursday that despite bombardment from American and Israeli military forces, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the leadership structure of Iran remains in place. Reuters’ source told them that intelligence reports show “consistent analysis that the regime is not in danger.”
Underlining these reports, newly appointed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei released a speech on Thursday indicating that he intends to keep up attacks against other nations in the region and will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed off. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused global oil prices to soar, significantly increasing gas prices across the world.
As these global developments continue to grow chaotic, the Pentagon has focused on matters like barring photographers from briefings with Hegseth. Apparently the former Fox News host is upset that unflattering pictures of him speaking at the briefings have been circulated. […]
“How ‘Handala’ Became the Face of Iran’s Hacker Counterattacks”
Amid a paralyzing breach of medical tech firm Stryker, the group has come to represent Iran’s use of “hacktivism” as cover for chaotic, retaliatory state-sponsored cyberattacks.
[…] Late Tuesday night, the first of those attacks arrived in the US: a devastating breach of the medical technology firm Stryker that has reportedly disabled as many as tens of thousands of computers and paralyzed much of the company’s global operations—all carried out by an Iranian hacker group that calls itself Handala.
“We announce to the world that, in retaliation for the brutal attack on the Minab school and in response to ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance, our major cyber operation has been executed with complete success,” read a statement posted to Handala’s website, referencing both the American Tomahawk missile that killed at least 165 civilians at a girl’s school in Iran and numerous hacking operations that the US and Israel have carried out as part of the two countries’ assaults across Iran. “This is only the beginning of a new era of cyber warfare.”
Even among American cybersecurity researchers who closely track state-sponsored hacking groups, Handala—which takes its name from the well-known Handala character in the political cartoons of Palestinian artist Naji al-Ali—has until now hardly achieved much notoriety. But those who have followed the group’s evolution, particularly in Israel’s cybersecurity industry, say the group is now widely believed to be a front for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, or MOIS. […]
Handala has grown into “probably the most dominant group,” says Shykevich. “They are the main face now.” [Sergey Shykevich leads threat intelligence research at at the Tel-Aviv-based cybersecurity firm Check Point.]
Although hacking groups are prone to exaggerate or embellish their successes and the impact of their activity, Handala has publicly claimed more than a dozen, mostly Israeli, victims since the start of the war two weeks ago. […]
Publicly, Handala has loudly promoted its claimed hacks on Telegram and X accounts, and has run public websites posting updates on the attacks. It has also relied upon Starlink’s satellite internet connectivity to bypass Iran’s draconian internet blackouts, Forbes recently reported.
[…] the group has also used destructive wiper malware to delete victim files, impacting their systems deeply and indicating a more sophisticated presence aimed at causing “real operational pain,” […]
In fact, Check Point has found that Handala is just one of several hacktivist fronts that it says—based on connections in the groups’ malware and server infrastructure—all represent a single state-sponsored group of hackers that it calls Void Manticore. Check Point has tracked the origins of the MOIS-linked group, which is also known by other names in the cybersecurity industry, including Red Sandstorm and Cobalt Mystique, as far back as 2022. […]
Void Manticore appears to have created the Handala sub-group to attack Israeli targets under the mantle of the pro-Palestinian cause. […]
[…] it used repurposed criminal malware like the Rhadamanthys infostealer, but in others it used destructive tools to delete as much data as possible from the networks of victims across the Israeli government and financial industries, using phishing emails and fake security updates to deploy code specimens that included Coolwipe, Chillwipe, and Bibiwiper, named for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This combination of a ransomware front, layered with hacktivist branding and state-sponsored tactics, makes them unique among threat-actor groups,” says Ian Gray, a researcher for security firm Flashpoint.
In its most recent high-profile operation prior to the US and Israeli war on Iran, Handala shifted again to hacking and leaking the private phone records of Israeli officials. […]
With the outbreak of war, Handala’s hackers may have been partially reassigned to reconnaissance work: The group was one of three Iranian hacker groups that Check Point spotted attempting to exploit vulnerabilities in civilian internet-connected security cameras across the Middle East. […]
Despite its opportunistic tactics, the breach of Michigan-based Stryker may be its most impactful operation yet, given the company’s continued struggle on Thursday to return to normal operations. Handala has claimed it attacked the company’s due to “Zionist” ties, such as the Israeli company Orthospace it acquired in 2019 and a $450 million US military contract last year, as reported by Bloomberg. […]
More likely, Check Point’s Shykevich says, Handala hacked Stryker because it could. “I’m not sure they had a plan,” he says. “Probably they found an opportunity, and now it’s a big win for them.”
[…] As one of Handala’s posts put it, “control of the game is in our hands.”
“Too often, the president doesn’t appear to understand the conditions in Iran.”
On Wednesday night, after headlining a campaign rally in Kentucky, Donald Trump spoke briefly to reporters at the White House, one of whom asked about developments in the Strait of Hormuz. The president responded, “The straits are in great shape.”
This was plainly absurd. Indeed, the crisis conditions in this relatively small waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, which includes shipping lanes that provide much of the world with oil and fertilizer, have generated deadly violence, disrupted oil supplies and wreaked havoc in global markets.
So why did Trump say things are “in great shape”? It’s certainly possible that he was just trying to deceive the public, as he has been known to do, but there’s another explanation that’s worth considering: What if the president has no idea what he’s talking about, and appears generally clueless […] The New York Times had a report this week that included a memorable element:
Inside the administration, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war. But they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.
According to Trump, we’re currently in a war that will keep us out of a war, except for our enemy, for which it is an actual war. (This came just a couple of days after Trump offered a related assessment, in which he said the United States has already won the war, which we’ll win soon, which we haven’t won enough, which is both over and just getting started.)
The evidence that this guy is just in over his head is overwhelming.
But I’m also interested in the nonsensical claims that might also be attributed to the president being in an information bubble of the White House’s making. Trump insisted this week, for example, that the entirety of Iran’s political leadership has been completely eliminated. Reuters reported soon after that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran’s leadership “is still largely intact and is not at risk of collapse any time soon.”
Did Trump just peddle made-up nonsense, was his team afraid to present him with inconvenient facts, or was it both? [Both]
Similarly, earlier this week, the president said several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have attacked Iran in recent days. That has not happened. [!!]
Was Trump, who has long struggled to tell the difference between reality and events he wishes were true, telling another tall tale, or did administration officials assure him that we have many allies that have joined the fight?
The most obvious explanation for Trump’s rampant falsehoods is that he’s the most prolific liar in modern American history, one who wants the public to believe his war/excursion is a great success. But as the crisis continues, it’ll be worth watching to see how many facts are kept from Trump by aides and officials who are afraid to tell their boss what he doesn’t want to hear.
birgerjohanssonsays
Seth Meyers: Trump Says “We’ve Already Won” Iran War
The Trump administration is moving to open federal waters surrounding American Samoa to deep-sea mining despite widespread opposition from leaders and environmental advocates from the U.S. territory.
Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began mapping more than 30,000 square nautical miles of the territory’s seabed, surveying the ocean floor for deposits of manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper found in potato-sized, rock-like formations called polymetallic nodules.
[…] Meanwhile, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is advancing the federal leasing process that could eventually allow private companies to mine those mineral deposits.
Together, the two federal agencies are helping carry out President Trump’s 2025 executive order, “Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources,” a mandate that directs officials to identify and accelerate access to seabed minerals, claiming the minerals are “vital to our national security and economic prosperity.”
[…] American Samoa is not the only place being targeted for its minerals. In recent months, BOEM has expressed interest in issuing leases to mine seabed minerals in several offshore areas, including waters near other U.S. Pacific territories such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. Areas off Alaska and Virginia are also under review.
[…] worried about the environmental risks the industry poses and the speed at which the Trump administration is moving to pave the way for an industry that has not yet operated at scale anywhere else in the world.
“No one has done commercial-scale deep-sea mining,” said Becca Loomis, a staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, where she promotes ocean health by working to prevent offshore fossil fuel development and deep sea mining.
“This would be brand new, and they’re kind of forging ahead,” she said. “Rushing ahead with this industry is really scary for the ocean, the ocean ecosystem, for people who rely on fisheries.”
Under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, BOEM is authorized to issue leases and permits for extracting minerals from the seafloor in U.S. federal waters, as it does for oil and gas. NOAA is in charge of overseeing permits for deep-sea mining activities by U.S. companies looking to mine in international waters.
But, in the case of American Samoa, NOAA is also playing a direct role domestically by mapping and sampling the deep ocean floor around the territory. […]
In early 2024, when a California-based technology company, Impossible Metals, expressed interest in mining polymetallic nodules in American Samoa’s waters, alarm spread quickly among local leaders, fishers and community groups […]
In response, former Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga issued an executive order establishing a moratorium on deep-sea mining, prohibiting all exploration and exploitation activities within their waters. But that ban applies to only around 3 miles of water offshore of American Samoa’s islands.
Beyond that boundary, authority shifts to the federal government, which controls waters farther offshore, including areas of the outer continental shelf that extend up to roughly 200 nautical miles from the islands.
[…] “Florida is famous for not having offshore oil because the people were against it to preserve the sanctity of the Florida Keys and the fishing and the tourism and so the federal government didn’t force Florida to do it,” Hemphill said. “The Trump administration is not giving American Samoa that same respect.”
[…] “Deep sea mining poses significant risks to marine biodiversity, including the potential for habitat destruction, pollution and the disruption of critical ecological processes,” Mauga, American Samoa’s former governor, wrote in his order to ban seabed mining.
More than 1,000 marine science and policy experts from more than 70 countries have also signed a statement calling for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining related activities until—and if—independent research demonstrates the industry can operate without causing serious or irreversible harm to ocean ecosystems.
[…] Scientists warn that much of the equipment deep sea mining companies are proposing to extract seabed minerals, up to 4 miles deep, could generate sediment plumes that travel long distances, potentially smothering coral reefs […]
[…] Over the past year, Suluai-Mahuka has organized a series of town halls and virtual forums to help American Samoan residents better understand the federal government’s efforts to pave the way for deep-sea mining in their waters and to hear directly from industry representatives, including Oliver Gunasekara, co-founder and CEO of Impossible Metals.
Last spring, the company submitted an unsolicited request to BOEM to mine polymetallic nodules off American Samoa. According to Gunasekara, the technology his company is developing would avoid producing the toxic sediment plumes often cited as one of the primary environmental risks of deep-sea mining. “We don’t have any sediment plumes,” he said.
Instead, he said, his company is developing a fleet of underwater robots that would hover just above the seabed, using cameras and sensors to locate polymetallic nodules and collect the mineral deposits without disturbing marine life.
[…] In response to Impossible Metals’ request, BOEM initiated a six-step process that could lead to leasing parts of the seabed for mineral extraction. […] According to BOEM’s own summary of the public comment period, several commenters emphasized that American Samoa’s moratorium on deep-sea mining remains in full force and has been reaffirmed by the territory’s current governor, Pulaali’i Nikolao Pula, and other leaders.
[…] At least 40 countries have expressed their support for a global moratorium on deep sea mining. […]
In spite of these comments, BOEM completed the second stage of the leasing process […] the agency also significantly expanded the area under consideration for mining.
“After receiving about 76,000 comments in opposition, the administration went ahead and essentially doubled the potential lease area [originally 73,222 square kilometers] to over 130,000 square kilometers,” said JV Langkilde, an American Samoan associate attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental law organization based in the U.S.
More recently, Suluai-Mahuka said, the agency moved to the third stage of the leasing process by launching an environmental analysis of the potential impacts of offering mineral leases in the identified areas.
[…] “For the industry, it’s seen as a lottery ticket. They could potentially make so much money,” Suluai-Mahuka said. “But for us, it’s a gamble on our livelihoods.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday announced a “ruthless” overhaul of the military’s legal offices.
“For too long, over 20 years, legal shops across the services have grown bloated, duplicative, they’ve muddied lines of authority and pulled critical judge advocates away from what matters most — advising commanders in the fight on operations in deployed environments where seconds and minutes count,” Hegseth said in a video posted to social media.
He said he had directed the service secretaries, through their general counsels, judge advocate generals (JAGs) and the staff judge advocate to the commandant “to execute a ruthless, no-excuses review.”
“Scrub it clean, cut duplication and bureaucracy, clarify roles and reporting. No more moral ambiguity,” according to Hegseth.
[…] The push to reorder the “current allocation of legal resources and functions” of the Defense Department’s uniformed and civilian lawyers comes amid the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran and ongoing strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean — both of which have been decried as illegal operations by Democrat lawmakers and some legal experts.
[Hegseth just doesn’t want any military legal personnel telling him the truth: what Hegseth is doing is illegal.]
The United States also has reportedly been found responsible for a deadly Feb. 28 Tomahawk missile strike on an all-girls Iranian elementary school due to a targeting error by the U.S. military. [!] [Is that “moral ambiguity”?] The strike killed at least 175 people, most of them children. […]
[…] Hegseth’s directive also follows a little more than a year after he fired the top lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force, claiming they were potential “roadblocks to orders” given by President Trump.
The JAGs’ official duty is to provide independent legal guidance to senior military officers in the Pentagon and on battlefields to avoid potential legal issues with U.S. or international laws surrounding armed conflict.
But the recent changes have raised concerns that Hegseth is gutting legal oversight of the administration’s actions, reducing accountability by seeking to cut those seen as disloyal to the president or his agenda and by separating the duties for uniformed and civilian lawyers within the Pentagon — reducing civilian oversight in times of conflict.
“The Curious Case Of Donald Trump’s Epstein New Mexico Human Breeding Ranch Coverup”
Gott im Himmel, Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexican Child Rape Ranch! [photo]
[…] Short version, fucking creepy shit from multiple reports […] the alleged buried bodies of girls strangled to death during rough sex, the “people coming forward saying they were drugged, had sex organs and sperm harvested from their bodies, and woke up around medical equipment not knowing where they were or what happened to them,” or the coverup that went and still goes all the way to the top, and the New Mexico Legislature and State’s Attorney’s quest to uncover the truth!
Monday, at the direction of New Mexico state Attorney General Raúl Torrez, New Mexican authorities searched the property formerly known as Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro ranch in Santa Fe County.
The impetus was an anonymous November 2019 email, included in the recent Epstein Files fatberg, which had been sent to a local radio host named Eddy Aragon, claiming that “somewhere in the hills outside the Zorro, two foreign girls were buried on orders of Jeffrey and Madam G. Both died by strangulation during rough, fetish sex.”
The writer claimed to have video footage of Epstein and also late banking heir Matthew Mellon having sex with minors, and a “Girl from Bay Area suicide attempt confession to Madam G (audio)” and said they’d turn the files over in exchange for one Bitcoin, which at the time was only worth about $4,000.
But the FBI was unable and/or unwilling to follow up or corroborate the tip.
And holy incriminating, this New York Times report on Kash Patel’s FBI’s shambolic attempts at coverup!
In late July, F.B.I. agents exchanged a flurry of early-morning emails about a sensitive task relating to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
An agent listed the names of 14 prominent men, with President Trump at the top, and gave direct instructions: “Take these names and build out new spreadsheet w all the derog on them,” referring to derogatory information found in the Epstein files.
That morning [the same day Todd Blanche flew to Florida to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, BTW], agents prepared summaries of the “salacious statements” that tipsters and other interviewees had made against Mr. Trump and others. Their rundown on the president consisted of two bullet points. One was an allegation from a woman who said that he sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager. The other was a claim that Mr. Epstein once introduced a woman to Mr. Trump, saying, “This is a good one, huh?” with Mr. Trump replying, “Yes.”
Then derp,
In the days that followed, the F.B.I. converted the summaries on the prominent men into a slide that was part of a 21-page internal presentation on the Epstein case.
And later in August an unclassified version of the table with more detail was circulated, which also revealed that the FBI had done background checks on the tipsters for any of their criminal histories. For the “derog.” (!)
You don’t make a PowerPoint slideshow about a criminal fucking conspiracy!
What’s more, five days after Epstein’s death, according to no one less prominent and Trump-humping than House Oversight Committee Chair […] James Comer, Bill Barr’s FBI issued an order to states and the US Virgin Islands to stand down on any ongoing investigations of their own. [!]
Now New Mexico state investigators have opened up their own inquiry, and three weeks ago established a Truth Commission of four members to investigate. Just like in Rwanda.
New Mexico! […] It has more than 7,000 abandoned mines, and areas that are still remote, including that Zorro ranch property, which sprawls over nearly 12 square miles in Santa Fe County, that Epstein bought in the early 1990s, making him the state’s largest landowner at the time. Then he erected a massive complex that included a 28,636 square feet main house, which was the largest private residence in the state too, and later added a private airstrip, a helicopter pad, a firehouse with engines and an airplane hangar for a jet. The property is so private it has its own half-mile private road, and is surrounded by land owned by the family of the former New Mexico governor Bruce King and the government of New Mexico, who Epstein bought the parcel from.
Epstein had willed Zorro ranch to his final girlfriend, Belarusian dentist Karyna Shuliak, but it instead went into a trust to settle victims’ lawsuits, and in 2023 the property was bought by a real estate magnate from Dallas named Don Huffines, who just very last week happened to have won the Republican primary for Texas comptroller. […]
And though it is called a “ranch,” it’s in a high, cold desert, not suitable for farming much of anything. […] [images at the link]
NYT: “Since purchasing the property, Mr. Huffines has rechristened it San Rafael Ranch, after the patron saint of healing, and said he would transform it into a Christian retreat.” […] [That is not reassuring.]
But back in Epstein’s heyday, the ranch entertained a lot of visitors.
Maria Farmer and her little sister Annie claim to have been abused there; Maria went to the FBI back in 1996, six administrations ago, to say that Epstein and Maxwell had lured her and her underage sister to the ranch and sexually assaulted both of them, and also that Donald Trump had chillingly sized her up with Epstein like a piece of meat. She even called them again a decade later. Two tips that the FBI proceeded to ignore! Poor Virginia Giuffre reported that she was raped at the ranch also.
Another frequent guest was JPMorgan Chase banker Jes Staley, who appears in the files nearly 8,000 times, gushing to Epstein in more than a thousand messages about visiting him, including a request to “say hi to Snow White” at the ranch, and requesting to play “Beauty and the Beast” the next time. […] Epstein flaunting a jailbait entourage, gatekeeping who could invest with him, […] that wasn’t just about wanting little-girl massages, though he did. It was also key to his forbiddenest-fruit mystique, and the whole package made him and his banker friends a money-hoovering machine.
[…] JPMorgan Chase paid a $290 million settlement and Staley was shitcanned and banned from bank-management roles in London. And, but, yet, still, it does not seem like the FBI ever opened any kind of criminal investigation, and he’s never been charged with a crime.
Another visitor, the Democratic New Mexico governor from 2003 to 2011 Bill Richardson. Before he died in 2023, he was also a congressman, US Ambassador to the UN, and then Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton. And somewhere in there he also found time to meet with Epstein at least nine times, including at the ranch and on Lolita Island, flew on his plane and helicopter, and Epstein contributed at least $50,000 to his campaign.
Other guests to the ranch: Robert Redford, Woody Allen, Reid Hoffman, Joi Ito, and Peter Thiel.
[…] For better or worse, that is all the details we have to go on. But considering Epstein was fantasizing about a breeding ranch for his superior sperm, and Virginia Giuffre said he and Maxwell had been hitting her up for her womb, and Epstein somehow was able to ship in countless of Russian, Western European, and Eastern European girls between borders with little to no trace, and with a manse and spread big enough […] who fucking even knows any more.
Well, perhaps somebody. Concluded the NYT:
One F.B.I. document said that shortly after news reports said Mr. Epstein was under investigation by the local police for abusing girls, the police chief in Palm Beach, Fla., Michael Reiter, received a call from Mr. Trump. Years later, the police chief told the F.B.I. what he remembered of the conversation.
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document recounting their conversation.
Everyone! Is Putin everyone? […]
birgerjohanssonsays
“Terraforming Mars isn’t a climate problem—it’s an industrial nightmare”
“Lebanon appeals to Israel’s allies to stop strikes as death toll rises”
“The Iran war is expanding into Lebanon, as the Israeli offensive to dismantle Hezbollah has displaced 800,000 people there, with more than 680 people killed.”
The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has engulfed Lebanon, pushing the beleaguered country to a new precipice as Israel expands a ferocious bombing campaign and threatens an invasion of south Lebanon in response to strikes by Hezbollah, Tehran’s most powerful proxy.
More than 680 people, at least 98 of them children, have been killed in Lebanon in the past week, while Israeli evacuation orders and strikes have forced 800,000 people to flee, authorities here say.
Lebanon’s government, trying to stave off a disaster that threatens to overwhelm it, has appealed to U.S. and European leaders to intervene, officials said, even offering to engage in once-taboo talks with Israel. Israel rejected the proposal, according to two people familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
Lebanese officials, in a diplomatic scramble from Beirut to Paris to Washington, have called for an immediate ceasefire, support for the Lebanese army to seize Hezbollah’s arsenal, and eventual direct peace talks with Israel “under American sponsorship,” according to an adviser to President Joseph Aoun.
“The president of the republic is desperate and seeking all means to stop the destruction of the country and halt attacks,” the adviser said.
Israeli airstrikes on Thursday pounded the capital, Beirut, and Lebanon’s southern borderlands, provoking warnings of a humanitarian crisis. Families have crammed into schools and spilled out onto the streets of the Beirut waterfront, and traffic has choked off roads needed by ambulances to reach the wounded. […]
Macron has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against another invasion of Lebanon. France has also suggested its forces could back the Lebanese army in disarming Hezbollah — a mission the army says Lebanon can’t complete while under bombardment.
[…] With U.S. attention focused on Iran, one diplomat briefed on mediation efforts said, Israel sees a window to “get rid of Hezbollah once and for all.” [At what cost in civilian lives?]
[…] An overnight strike hit Beirut’s public beach, where displaced civilians are sheltering. Residents of some Christian villages in the south, who had sought to distance themselves from the war, have been forced to flee this week.
[…] With the threat of bombardment, Israel has sought to clear out more than 10 percent of Lebanon, in a part of the country that it occupied for nearly two decades until a U.N.-monitored withdrawal in 2000.
[…] The U.S., France and other nations have long backed the Lebanese army as a potential counterweight to Iranian influence in the country. Still, Western support for the cash-strapped force is no match for U.S. military aid to Israel or Tehran’s backing for Hezbollah. […]
“The vote marks a rare bipartisan breakthrough on a salient issue. The bill aims to boost housing supply and prevent Wall Street from buying up single-family homes.”
[…] The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, written by Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., won 89 votes. Ten senators voted against it. Scott is the chairman of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Warren is the ranking member.
The 303-page legislation creates a series of grants and pilot programs for housing construction, while revising federal definitions to encourage more housing units and prevent Wall Street from buying up tons of single-family homes.
[…] House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Republican leaders and committee chairs at their annual retreat earlier this week that Trump wants the SAVE America Act to be a top priority, brushing aside a GOP fight over the housing bill.
Johnson told members that Trump privately stressed to him the importance of the SAVE America Act and that the president said “no one gives a (bleep) about housing,” according to a lawmaker who was there. […]
birgerjohanssonsays
Me @ 259
There is a huge number of icy planetoids in the size range of 100 km in the Kuiper belt and the “scattered disc”.
Maybe it would be possible to use them in a ‘brute force’ terraforming attempt, with a Martian ground pressure of 500 millibar.
Judging by their low density (typically the same as water), they are typically 50% frozen volatiles, including water. I am making the assumption half the volatiles are water, the other half volatiles that would be gaseous at Martian temperstures.
Sperical objects have roughly half the volume of a cube with the same width. Assume the other frozen volatiles have the density of water.
Assume a 100 km sphere. This is approx. 5 times 10 to the 17th power liters.
One extra millibar requires 3.89 times ten to the 15th power kg of gas added to the Martian atmosphere.
500 millibar requires 1.95 times ten to the power of 18th kg. ☆
If the gaseous volatiles have the density of 1 kg per liter when frozen and are half of the volatiles (which in turn make up half of the mass of the Kuiper belt object) we need (4× 5 times 10 to the power of 17 ) × 4 to get the gaseous volatile mass ☆. 4×4 = 16. So sixteen 100 km ice planetoids. That is A LOT.
.
I think we can safely tell Musk he is an idiot.
(This does not rule out a future supercivilization might do it but they may not prefer living on planetary surfaces)
“The president and his team have embraced a cavalier, anti-humanist attitude to matters of life and death.”
At his political rally in Kentucky, Donald Trump told a curious story about Iranian ships destroyed by the U.S. military in recent days. According to the president’s version of events, he grew angry with his military leaders, asking, “Why the hell did we kill them? Why didn’t we just capture them and use them in our navy?” [Oh FFS]
Eventually, according to Trump, a U.S. general told him, “Sir, it’s a lot more fun doing it this way.” [JFC!] [video]
Trump told a nearly identical story to members of the House Republican conference two days earlier, again claiming that military leaders told him it’s “more fun” to sink Iranian ships than to capture them.
The use of the word “fun” was jarring for all of the obvious reasons. Trump was, after all, talking about a U.S. military offensive that has killed some American service members and left many more wounded — in addition to the massive casualties in Iran, including an apparent American missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed 175 civilians, most of whom were children.
There are a variety of adjectives that a wartime American leader should use when talking about this avoidable crisis. “Fun” isn’t one of them.
But by all appearances, the White House has come to a very different conclusion. As The New York Times reported:
On Feb. 28, the Trump administration launched war on Iran. The following week, it drafted Iron Man, Walter White and SpongeBob.
These characters, and many more figures from movies, TV, sports, music and video game memes, appeared in a series of short, trolling videos from the White House, on platforms including TikTok and X (formerly known as Twitter), that reduce the war’s carnage and upheaval to flippant, dystopian amusements.
On Wednesday night, the White House released another installment that featured Iranians as bowling pins. It looked like the sort of thing one might expect from an over-caffeinated 12-year-old, but it was instead released with apparent pride by the executive branch of the world’s preeminent superpower.
It was followed a day later by yet another video, this one combining actual footage of combat in Iran with clips from sports video games.
Connor Crehan, an Army veteran of the war in Iraq who co-hosts a Barstool Sports military podcast, argued via social media last week, “War isn’t a video game. The consequences of war are final. I wish we didn’t treat it with such a cavalier approach.”
The president and his team, however, appear eager, almost gleeful, to be cavalier about matters of life and death in ways that are fundamentally at odds with basic human decency.
It’s as if the White House saw the evidence of widespread public opposition to the war and concluded the way to turn things around is through juvenile taunts and jokes an adult should be embarrassed to make.
I don’t know what, if anything, could improve public support for this inexplicable war, but if the president and his team could try acting like grown-ups for a while, it’d be a step in the right direction.
Perhaps the best thing you can say for this particular public-relations effort is that at least it accurately embodies the pointless, slapdash amorality of the military offensive it’s meant to bolster.
“Temple Israel synagogue shooting leaves gunman dead, kids safe”
A gunman rammed his truck into a West Bloomfield Township synagogue Thursday afternoon and then opened fire on the temple, exchanging gunfire with security guards before he was killed.
The shooting happened before 1 p.m. at Temple Israel at 5725 Walnut Lake Road, west of Orchard Lake Road and east of Drake. The gunman rammed his truck through the synagogue’s front doors and then engaged with security guards, said Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard. It appeared no one else was injured.
Members of the synagogue, some of whom rushed to the scene to check on their children who attend Temple Israel’s school, were told via text before 1:30 p.m.: “Lockdown is still in place, but the active shooter has been taken down. Lockdown will be in place until they know that the shooter was working alone. All kids and all staff accounted for and fine. Truck rammed into front door and opened fire.”
[…] The incident in West Bloomfield comes amid a wave of violence targeting synagogues in North America. In Toronto alone, three synagogues have been hit by gunfire this month, according to authorities there.
[…] Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called the incident and shooting “heartbreaking.”
“Michigan’s Jewish community should be able to live and practice their faith in peace,” she said in a statement. “Antisemitism and violence have no place in Michigan. I am hoping for everyone’s safety. Thank you to law enforcement for their swift action.” […]
It becomes clearer with each passing day that the people who took us to war with Iran had and have no idea what they’re doing — that they’re adolescents who think they’re playing video games while thousands die and the world careens toward economic crisis. The New York Times reports that Trump officials dismissed warnings that attacking Iran could disrupt world oil supplies. Among other things, the Times reports that
Mr. Trump, both publicly and privately, has been arguing that Venezuelan oil could help solve any shocks coming from the Iran war. [Trump is a naive, ignorant doofus.]
In 2024 Venezuela produced 900,000 barrels of oil per day; normally 20 million barrels a day transit the Strait of Hormuz [!!]. But arithmetic has a well-known woke bias.
[…] Amid the bloody shambles, one big question is, who put The Gang That Couldn’t Think Straight in power? In an immediate sense, Trump was put over the top by low-information voters […] But the groundwork for the MAGA takeover was laid well before by the Roberts Supreme Court and by right-wing billionaires that the court enabled.
A few weeks ago I wrote about Billionaires Gone Wild, the extraordinary influence acquired by a tiny group of ultra-wealthy men. I shared this chart on campaign contributions, based on estimates from Americans for Tax Fairness: [chart]
On Monday the Times published a deeply reported story about billionaires’ influence that, among other things, found that the chart above somewhat underestimates their role in campaign finance: According to the Times, they accounted for 19 percent of contributions in 2024, not 16.5 percent.
The Times also pointed out that the big money swung hard right in the 2024 election. The magnitude of the largesse showered on Republicans is clear in OpenSecrets data on the top 100 donors in different cycles: [chart]
Moreover, the Times presents numbers that are even more extreme than the Open Secrets data:
In past elections, as ultrawealthy donors became more active, both major parties reaped rewards. But there was a stark divergence in 2024, with less money flowing directly to Democrats and a sharp increase in the amount donated to Republicans. [!]
For every dollar donated by billionaires and their immediate families to a candidate or committee associated with Democrats, five dollars went to Republicans.
Much of that was a result of ultrawealthy people in the tech industry, who aligned with Mr. Trump’s tax and deregulation policies. More than a dozen billionaires were awarded roles in his administration.
And these explicit money flows don’t capture the immense effect of other deployments of billionaires’ wealth, notably the subversion of both conventional and social media. Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 and quickly began converting it into the Nazi-friendly cesspool it is today — and no, that’s not hyperbole. How much did this contribute to the degradation of public discourse? Paramount, controlled by Larry Ellison and run by his son, has taken over CBS News — which is rapidly going downhill — and is on the verge of taking over CNN too. And Jeff Bezos is gutting The Washington Post, although kudos to the remaining reporters who are still trying to do their jobs. [Yes]
There is, however, something that is still puzzling me: To a large extent billionaires bought themselves a government friendly to their interests. Trump and company have granted many items on the tech broligarchy wish list, from tax breaks to deregulation to promotion of crypto and unregulated AI. But why the abject incompetence? Couldn’t billionaires find political allies who wouldn’t plunge the country into a potentially disastrous and historically unpopular war without considering the risks?
I have two tentative answers.
One is that no, competent allies weren’t available. Money buys a lot of influence, but to actually take over the U.S. government requires more than money — it requires politicians who are utterly corrupt. In his first administration, Trump learned that hiring people who were even modestly competent eventually presented barriers to his authoritarian instincts – for example, his former Vice President Mike Pence. Hence Trump learned that in choosing his political hires the more incompetent, the more venal, the more bigoted, and the more cruel, the better.
[…] My second answer is that the vast wealth of tech billionaires has made many of them unconcerned with the little people’s lives — and deeply unpatriotic. If Americans are being brutalized and murdered by rogue ICE agents…well, that’s not their problem. If the Justice Department and the FBI are totally subverted and operate as Trump’s enforcers, they know that vindictive, unlawful tactics will never touch their lives. If Republican budget cuts decimate rural hospitals and deprive hundreds of thousands of health insurance…well, they have their own private doctors and clinics. If Trump starts an ill-conceived war that doubles the price of oil…well, they can certainly afford the higher gasoline bills for their limousines and yachts. And it won’t be their kids hunkered down in a bunker in the Middle East.
So if you want to understand how this country has degenerated to such a state, how we can be spending nearly $2 billion a day attacking Iran without a clear endgame in sight, while children go without healthcare, nursing homes are understaffed because their workers have been deported, home electricity bills skyrocket due to data centers, consider who benefits and who isn’t hurt.
This is a billionaire’s war, waged at everyone else’s expense.
Two police officers who protected the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are seeking to continue their lawsuit over a plaque commemorating their and other officers’ actions that day after it was installed last week “in an area blocked to the public,” their court filing said.
Tuesday’s court filing argues that the “decision to install the plaque in a part of the Capitol hidden from the public fails to comply with the text law.”
After delaying for years and losing a lawsuit the Trump administration has finally put the Jan 6th commemoration plaque up. It was put up inside the building in a location not open to the public so few people can see it at all.
Lawsuits will continue until the next president takes office. Then it will be moved to where it should be. A Republican president will quietly move it just to end the lawsuit, while a Democratic president might hold a small public event for the hanging.
Jeffrey Epstein’s personal accountant sat before the House Oversight Committee for seven hours yesterday, and by the end of it, the levy had broken.
Richard Kahn — the man who managed every dollar Epstein moved for over a decade, who was named in Epstein’s will two days before his mysterious death, and who appears more than 50,000 times in the DOJ’s Epstein files — confirmed under congressional questioning that a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexual abuse received a settlement payment from Epstein’s estate.
Epstein’s estate.
Trump’s accuser.
A cheque that matches up perfectly with the infamous 53 missing pages and hundreds of thousands of redactions referencing Donald J Trump in abuse accounts so sick, I had a hard time detailing them […]
Why does Epstein’s estate — managed by his closest financial operative — have a Trump accuser in its survivor fund at all? That question is going to need an answer. Under oath.
[At the link, detailed accounts of the “rich and powerful” people who bankrolled Epstein are presented. See the link for details. Here is just one example:
Dubin is a hedge fund billionaire who co-founded Highbridge Capital and is a MoMA board trustee. His entanglement with Epstein is among the most document-heavy of all five. Dubin appears prominently across multiple dimensions: as a named individual in Virginia Giuffre’s allegations of sexual abuse, as a long-term social contact of Epstein’s documented through emails spanning at least 2011–2018, and as a figure whose former employee Rinaldo Rizzo was identified as possessing “knowledge of Epstein underage activity.” […] The Giuffre allegation is damning. In a 2015 defamation suit, Giuffre claimed that Epstein trafficked her as a “sex slave” to several of his influential friends in 2001 when she was 16 — and that Dubin was the first. […]
]
The 13-Year-Old
We already know Trump’s name runs through the Epstein files like a river. We know a woman accused him of sexually abusing her when she was 13 years old — an allegation credible enough that the FBI interviewed her four times. We know Pam Bondi’s DOJ tried to bury those interview records before they were finally uncovered.
Now we know that at least one Trump accuser received money from the estate of the man Trump called his “terrific guy” friend.
This is the first confirmed, first-person, financial corroboration connecting Epstein’s money to a Trump accuser. That’s not nothing. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s testimony, before Congress, under oath, from the man who ran the books.
[…] the financial infrastructure of a convicted child sex trafficker paid off an accuser of the President of the United States. […]
U.S. Central Command today released an updated report on the war with Iran, raising the number of targets struck by U.S. military forces to approximately 6,000.
Pro-Iranian hackers are targeting sites in the Middle East and starting to stretch into the United States during the war, raising the risk of American defense contractors, power stations and water plants being swept into a wave of digital chaos that could expand if Tehran’s allies join the fray.
The Trump administration took a major step toward replacing the global tariffs that the Supreme Court recently invalidated, announcing new investigations of unfair trading practices that will almost certainly result later this summer in permanent new taxes on U.S. imports.
StevoRsays
The Kurds are gunna cop it in the metaphorical neck again aren’t they? Whatever happens now..
While all eyes are on the continuing US and Israeli strikes against Iran, another potential battlefront is brewing on the border with Iraq.
Kurdish militia fighters are mobilising with the hope of liberating their fellow Kurds in western Iran. ABC correspondent Karishma Vyas with this report.
“U.S. Air Force refueler crashes in Iraq while supporting Iran war”
“Rescue efforts are ongoing, officials said, after the KC-135 tanker and another aircraft were involved in an apparent accident.”
A U.S. Air Force refueler crashed in Iraq on Thursday following an apparent accident involving the KC-135 tanker and another aircraft, military officials said in a news release.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said its brief statement that the second aircraft landed safely and that “rescue efforts are ongoing.” The statement does not disclose whether there are confirmed fatalities, saying, “We ask for continued patience to gather additional details and provide clarity for the families of service members.”
The incident “was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” the statement from Centcom says.
More than 50,000 American troops are deployed in support of U.S. and Israeli war operations against Iran, including almost every type of warplane in the Air Force fleet.
“Nearly 80 percent of the children documented to have been snatched by Russia have not been returned to Ukraine, a U.N. report finds.”
Russia committed crimes against humanity by deporting Ukrainian children, a United Nations inquiry said Thursday — with President Vladimir Putin’s involvement in the policy “visible from the outset.”
In its latest report, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said the deportation and forcible transfer of children by Russian authorities, as well as enforced disappearances, represented crimes against humanity.
“Based on new evidence, the Commission has now concluded that the Russian authorities committed crimes against humanity,” Commission chair Erik Møse told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The determination marks a legal escalation. Earlier investigations had documented the removal of Ukrainian children from their homes but stopped short of classifying the practice as a crime against humanity — one of the most serious charges under international law.
“The deportation and forcible transfer of children is a grave violation of international law,” Møse added. “Children must never be separated from their families coercively.”
The finding adds to growing legal scrutiny of the Kremlin. In 2023 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.
The commission documented the deportation or transfer of more than 1,200 children.
Investigators said the policy was conceived and implemented at the highest levels of Russia’s leadership, including by Putin and Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.
Nearly 80 percent of the children documented have not been returned to Ukraine, the report found. […]
Radio (891 ABC) noted now that today is the anniversary of the Algal bloom that has devastated our coastal ecosystems and stopped many of us (raises hand) going to the beach ever since..
Leaders debate for the South Aussie election today BTW.
SA Election Leaders’ Debate
Friday, 13 Mar
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM [60 mins]
ctcCC
Ahead of the SA State Election on March 21, ABC Local Radio’s Rory McClaren moderates a Leaders’ Debate between Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas and the Liberal Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn at the SA Press Club.
Minnesota continues to deal with the fallout from the monthslong federal immigration crackdown. Even though the number of agents in the state has dwindled, many immigrants in Minnesota say they remain fearful. As special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports, that includes those who entered the country legally, and some on the path to citizenship.
Plus from that :
Mevlude Akay Alp, International Refugee Assistance Project:
Everybody should be disturbed by the administration’s insistence that it has the right to indefinitely detain people who have legal status.
Hours after the US and Israeli assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was confirmed, protests against the killing […] spread across the Gulf island. “There were demonstrations in many cities and villages. These were angry marches but they were peaceful,” […]
Much of the population is Shia, from the Baharna ethnic group. The group was one of the earliest adopters of Shia Islam, dating back to the 7th century. Bahrain’s ruling Al Khalifa family, who are Sunni, arrived on the island in the 17th century.
“Khamenei is also a religious leader. If the US understood anything about Iran and Shiism, they would’ve recognised that killing Khamenei in Ramadan, in old age, is the greatest gift they could have given him,”
[…]
The anger of protesters in Bahrain has been largely directed towards the US role in the war. Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, where over 9,000 American troops are stationed. It’s the second-largest US base, in terms of personnel, in the region. […]
The presence of American troops in Bahrain has been a point of contention for decades. Bahrain’s legislative assembly was disbanded in 1975, just two years after it was created, partly due to the fact it opposed the presence of the US Navy on the island. The permanent dissolution of parliament prompted a period of 25 years’ emergency rule by decree.
[…]
Separate to the protests, at least 11 people have been arrested for posting footage of Iranian attacks online. […] it could lead to prison sentences of up to two years, as well as a fine. […] Khawaja, whose father […] was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 after leading peaceful protests, is all too familiar with the Bahraini legal and prison system. […] Khawaja herself has been detained too. “From personal experience, there is no due process in Bahrain,”
The deployment marks the first time since the Arab Spring that Bahrain has called in foreign forces to quell domestic unrest—a sign of how seriously the monarchy is taking the threat of protests
The man who rammed his explosives-laden truck into a Michigan synagogue today was named Ayman Ghazaleh, according to a source familiar with the situation. Ghazaleh posted photos overnight of his family members, including young children, who were killed in a recent Israeli attack on the town of Mashghara, Lebanon. [Screenshots]
Ayman Mohamad Ghazali […] The attacker of a Metro Detroit synagogue is dead after driving a vehicle into the front entrance of Temple Israel and getting shot by a security guard. […] One of the guards was injured by the vehicle and was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. […] all staff and 140 students were evacuated [with no injuries].
Apparently the driver was armed and exchanged gunfire with the guard, then was found dead in the burning vehicle.
birgerjohanssonsays
The TEC Show:
Senate: “New Ohio Poll Stuns GOP as Sherrod Brown Takes the Lead”
Top allies of President Donald Trump are furious at the White House’s new rhetorical emphasis on deporting violent criminals over all unauthorized immigrants — and they’re launching a lobbying effort to reverse that reversal.
A group of longtime Trump allies, immigration restrictionist groups and hawkish policy experts have formed the Mass Deportation Coalition to lobby the Trump administration to refocus its efforts on deporting all eligible migrants. The group has commissioned new polling from one of Trump’s top pollsters to back its thesis that doing so will ensure GOP wins this November, and plans to share that data with White House officials, agency heads and every member of Congress.
The politics here are interesting but not really surprising. The coalition behind it is super conservative groups and people who profit from private prisons.
The new poll was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, a pollster that Trump has used in all of his presidential elections, and shared exclusively with POLITICO. It found that 66 percent of likely 2026 voters support deporting any migrants who enter the country illegally. When asked if they support deporting all deportable migrants, not just violent criminals, a majority (58 percent) say they do.
Still, the coalition’s poll results differ drastically from other recent polling on immigration: A January POLITICO poll found that nearly half of U.S. adults say Trump’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, including 1 in 5 of his 2024 voters. A February NPR/PBS/Marist poll found that 65 percent of U.S. adults think Immigration and Customs Enforcements has gone too far in enforcing immigration laws.
This apparent discrepancy is just a result of the biased polling that this group paid for. They are asking people “If the government could magically make illegal immigrants go away with no bad side effects and costing nothing would you support it?” If people are asked “Is Trump’s immigration policy working?” you get very different answers.
Since then, the administration has pivoted its message on immigration enforcement while overhauling its leadership at DHS. Border czar Tom Homan replaced CBP chief Greg Bovino in Minneapolis and drew down the immigration enforcement presence there; the president ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem last week and tapped Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to replace her; and even Trump, in his State of the Union address, focused mostly on border security and deporting violent criminals.
Notice that it’s not a big change in policy, there is more public relations change involved. That is still enough to upset the far right that wants to hear hard anti-immigration policy.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
404Media: “This is Nathan Cavanaugh, another DOGE staffer explaining how he flagged grants at NEH for ‘DEI’ which would be reviewed for termination. [Video clip: A montage of deposition moments]”
Marisa Kabas:
Lawyer: You don’t regret that people might have lost income?
Cavanaugh (DOGE): No, I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from two trillion dollars to close to zero.
Lawyer: Did you reduce the federal deficit?
Cavanaugh: No, we didn’t.
–
Honorable mention for “I think I’m qualified to determine which grants should be terminated bc I’ve read books.” “Oh yea, which books qualify you?” “There are no books.”
Justin Fox, a former investment banker turned DOGE bro, refused to define what he believes counts as DEI; admitted he used ChatGPT to scan government contracts for terms such as “Black” and “homosexual” but not “white” or “caucasian;”
[…]
what stands out to me is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the arrogance. […] these members of DOGE are essentially unapologetic for what they did.
On March 12, the code monkeys descended on the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent agency established by Congress in 1965 to “foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.” Which is a little on the nose, to be honest.
more than 1.2 million of the small plug-in systems are registered with the German government. For the panels to become more widely available in the U.S., state lawmakers are proposing bills that eliminate complicated utility connection agreements, which are required for larger rooftop solar installations and, most utilities say, should apply to plug-in solar too. Those agreements, along with permitting and other installation costs, can double the price
[…]
Plug-in panels cost much less [than rooftop] and generate enough electricity to power a refrigerator or microwave. They can sit on a balcony, hang out a window or be set up in a backyard […] and then feed electricity into a home through a regular outlet, displacing electricity that otherwise would come in from the grid.
[…]
German utilities expressed many of the same concerns nearly a decade ago when plug-in solar started […] But […] no safety incidents have been reported […] In Germany, smaller plug-in panels cost just a few hundred dollars, and customers can recover that in saved energy bills within seven years. The panels should continue to produce power for up to 30 years. […] plug-in solar took off in Germany once renters were allowed to install the systems
[…]
since the [proposed] bills require UL Solutions certification, manufacturers will have to get their products through that process. […] certifications are likely to come in months, not years.
It’s not “just” a solar panel, to be legally compliant in Germany. The part you plug in is basically a control unit. They aren’t super big and complex, but they need to be able to do 2 things:
1. Detect if there’s a live circuit, and not transmit any power if not. […] You don’t want an electrician dying because a line they turned off is actually live due to someone having this plugged in.
2. Power limiter, similar in function to a circuit breaker. This prevents overcurrents happening in your walls and starting a fire. Because all of this is happening after a house’s breaker box, they won’t flip if the combined grid + solar current is too high, so the solar unit’s control unit has to be able to deal with it.
Rando 2: “3. Detect and provide that AC power in phase with the grid power.”
The facility went offline on March 2 following drone strikes, removing approximately 30% of global helium supply from the market. […] no imminent restart is planned. […] if the outage extends beyond roughly two weeks, industrial gas distributors could be forced to relocate cryogenic equipment and revalidate supplier relationships
Rando:
Hey did you know where helium comes from? It’s a by-product of natural gas extraction. […] The US has large reserves but Qatar is a major producer. Helium has a lot of uses you probably haven’t thought about. The US used to maintain a Strategic Helium Reserve but it was privatized and sold off.
The U.S. Mint has unveiled new coin designs to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, including a redesigned dime that departs sharply from its long‑standing imagery.
While the new reverse features a bald eagle in flight clutching arrows in its left talon, one familiar symbol is absent—the olive branch traditionally held in the bird’s right talon.
…
On the newly released dime design, the eagle appears mid‑flight with arrows in its left talon, while its right one is empty. Beneath the image appears the inscription “Liberty over Tyranny.” The olive branch has historically signified a national preference for peace, making its absence notable to historians and observers of American symbolism…
And here’s a clear indication that the wrong chud is in charge:
U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach told Fox News Digital: “The new Semiquincentennial Quarter designs will celebrate American history and the founding of our great nation. While the Biden administration and Secretary Yellen remained focused on DEI and Critical Race Theory policies, the Trump administration is dedicated to fostering prosperity and patriotism. We have no doubt these new designs will be wildly popular with the American people.”
The Senate just passed a bipartisan bill to lower the cost of housing, but Trump apparently isn’t interested. According to Punchbowl News, Trump told Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a [bleep] about housing.”
“Do you think that is a winning message heading into the midterms? ‘I started a war that is going to make gas way more expensive, but don’t worry, the oil companies are going to get rich,’” says Chris Hayes.
US immigration agents in Oregon used a custom-made app to identify neighborhoods and people to target, and had daily arrest quotas they sought to meet during operations, courtroom testimony has revealed.
Details about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers’ surveillance tools and arrest goals in the state have come to light in a federal lawsuit that compelled officers to answer questions under oath, offering a rare window into opaque, internal strategies that are generally kept secret and have been driving mass detentions and chaotic raids.
Nothing really surprising but it contradicts what the upper level staff have been saying. The street level officers have daily quota of arrests, something that is stupid. It’s the sort of situation where having high level targets is fine but trying to distribute that down to individual officers is doesn’t work.
There is an internal application that tells them where and who to target. Something that is OK if implemented correctly but very easy to do badly.
Among the many things Americans don’t know about the war in Iran is how much the U.S. military offensive costs and will continue to cost as combat operations continue. As of a week ago, congressional sources with knowledge of the matter said the war was costing the United States an estimated $1 billion a day.
It now appears that the price tag was even more. MS NOW reported Thursday as part of the network’s live blog coverage:
The Trump administration told Congress at a briefing this week that the first week of the Iran war cost at least $11.3 billion, a congressional source told MS NOW.
The figure, which was first reported by The New York Times, is not exhaustive and does not include the cost of the build-up before the war, the source said.
In other words, the initial estimate was $1 billion a day, and the administration has since revised that number to roughly $1.6 billion a day. Whether that number might yet grow again is unclear.
To state the obvious, the most important cost in any war is the human cost, and this avoidable conflict has already taken a brutal toll, from the American service members who have been killed and wounded to the massive casualties in Iran, including an apparent American missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed 175 civilians, most of whom were children.
[…] House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference last week: “We’ve seen Republicans, led by Donald Trump, plunging America into another endless conflict in the Middle East, spending billions of dollars to bomb Iran, but they can’t find a dime to make it more affordable for the American people to go see a doctor when they need one. Can’t find a dime to make it easier for Americans who are working hard to purchase their first home. And they can’t find a dime to lower the grocery bills of the American people.”
What’s more, there’s also a legislative dimension to keep in mind. As The New Republic noted this week, “The Trump administration is expected to submit a supplemental defense budget in the coming days — asking for billions more to keep dropping bombs.” [!!]
A related Politico report […]:
Administration officials will have to spend significant time and political capital to push through a hugely expensive supplemental spending bill— for a war that’s largely unpopular with the American people — even as the administration tries to burnish its affordability bona fides. […]
This is, in other words, going to get even more complicated in a hurry. […]
The president took the total number of jobs created in 2025, doubled it and then boasted about setting “a record” (despite reality).
Donald Trump’s public remarks invariably meander in a variety of directions, and his Women’s History Month event at the White House was no exception. But while much of the president’s rhetoric was forgettable, he took some time to address one of his most important failures — which he pretended was one of his impressive accomplishments. [video]
“Since I took office, we created more than 300 — hang on, listen to this — 300,000 jobs now filled by proud, hardworking American women,” the president said, appearing to slur his words a bit mid-sentence. “It’s a record.”
Soon after, he went on to say, “Jobs are coming in through the roof, and we have factories being built all over the country. … We’ve taken in $18 trillion-plus in 11 months.”
For now, let’s not dwell too long on Trump’s claim about $18 trillion in foreign investments, which is entirely made up and at odds with assessments from his own White House. We can also brush past the president’s claims about factories, which aren’t true, either.
What struck me, however, was the president’s lack of awareness about just how awful his record on job creation is.
[…] Is it true that Trump’s administration has created 300,000 jobs? No, that’s not even close to being correct: As we learned earlier this month, the U.S. economy actually lost 90,000 jobs in February, and looking back over the 14 months of Trump’s second term, the cumulative total was 150,000 jobs. (In contrast, in the final 14 months of Joe Biden’s presidency, the American economy added 1.74 million jobs.)
In other words, the president took the actual number, doubled it and then boasted at a Women’s History Month event about setting “a record” (and that’s without getting into his suggestion that all of those jobs were filled by women). [!]
[…] the president’s response to his failure has been to play make-believe, all while generating fresh attention to an issue that should be among his greatest embarrassments.
In the first year of Trump’s second term, economic growth fell to a nine-year low, and job growth fell to a 16-year low.
Throughout last year, as the U.S. economy struggled, Republican officials repeatedly insisted that there was good news on the way, and Americans wouldn’t have to wait too much longer to see satisfying results. As recently as August, for example, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confidently predicted to a national television audience that the U.S. economy is “really going to pick up in the fourth quarter” of 2025.
It did not pick up in the fourth quarter of 2025. CNBC reported:
Economic growth was much slower than expected in the final three months of 2025 while core inflation rose to start 2026, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced across the sprawling U.S. economy, rose at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate of just 0.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The original expectations for the fourth quarter, spanning October through December, was 2.5% growth. This led to disappointment a month ago when a preliminary tally showed 1.4% growth.
This newly revised figure showed the economy grew at just half of that earlier, disappointing data.
[…] Excluding the pandemic, 2025 showed the weakest economic growth in the United States in nine years.
In other words, despite endless Republican hype, economic growth and job growth were significantly stronger during Joe Biden’s final year in office compared with the first year of Donald Trump’s second term.
[…] during one of JD Vance’s recent Fox News appearances, the vice president celebrated the “Trump boom” in the economy. A week earlier, Peter Navarro, a leading White House voice on trade and economic policy, told Fox News that the U.S. economy was “perfect.” […]
Republican state lawmakers in Florida passed a bill on Thursday that would require voters to verify their citizenship when registering and limit which forms of identification they can present at the polls. Critics say the new requirements would result in the removal of perhaps thousands of voters from the rolls and in the disenfranchisement of young voters.
The bill passed in the State House by a 77-28 vote, hours after clearing the State Senate. The votes in both chambers were along strict partisan lines, with all Democrats against the measure.
Commentary:
Note, this proposal no longer allows young adults to use college IDs to meet Florida’s voter ID law, specifically targeting a constituency that in recent decades has been a key part of the Democratic coalition.
It’s important to emphasize that the GOP-imposed changes will not apply to the 2026 election cycle, and there is likely to be litigation between now and 2028 to challenge the overhaul in court.
But the unavoidable question remains: If Florida’s system of elections is among the nation’s best, and no one can find any meaningful problems with improper balloting, why in the world do Republicans keep putting new hurdles between the state’s voters and ballot boxes?
It’s possible that this is an elaborate effort to curry favor with Trump and assorted far-right conspiracy theorists, but the simplest explanation is that Florida Republicans intend to maintain their stranglehold on the increasingly red state by making it systematically harder for local citizens to vote.
It’s been about a week since multiple news organizations, including MS NOW, reported that Russia had provided Iran with information that could help it strike American targets. One U.S. official told MS NOW point-blank, “Russia is providing intelligence help to Iran.”
The initial reaction from Donald Trump and his team was to express total indifference, despite the severity of the allegations. This was soon followed by news out of the White House that he Trump administration had agreed effectively to reward Vladimir Putin’s regime, temporarily easing oil sanctions on the country.
Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA and Pentagon official, said during a Senate hearing this week, “If Russia is helping to kill U.S. forces, we have crossed a Rubicon. We are in another moment. We have to take decisive action on that. Instead, we’re giving them breaks on oil; they’re making a ton of money.”
Soon after, the president’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, announced that the United States is rewarding Russia again. The New York Times reported:
The United States on Thursday temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil that is currently at sea, allowing it to be shipped to buyers around the world as the Trump administration scrambles to contain energy prices that have been soaring because of the war in Iran.
The exemptions, which were issued by the Treasury Department, will be in place until April 11. … The decision was a significant turning point in America’s effort to punish Russia for its war in Ukraine.
[…] The Kremlin is getting another financial reward from the U.S. amid allegations that Russia is helping Iran target American assets.
For his part, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy who has repeatedly met with Putin in Moscow, appeared on CNBC on Tuesday and emphasized that Russia has denied the allegations.
“We can take them at their word,” Witkoff said.
One day later, Matthew Whitaker, Trump’s ambassador to NATO, appeared on Fox News to emphasize the denial from Putin’s regime. And on Thursday, Whitaker appeared on Fox Business and again said Russia has denied doing what it’s been accused of doing. [video]
Taken together, over the course of the week, Trump and his team have (a) brushed off credible reporting about Russia helping Iran; (b) twice offered Russia sanctions relief; and (c) repeatedly echoed Kremlin talking points on national television.
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware appeared on MS NOW this week and said, “The clearest winner from this war in Iran is Russia.” Soon after, The Wall Street Journal reported that Putin “can barely conceal a smirk” as the war continues.
“Pentagon Is Moving Additional Marines, Warships to the Middle East”
The Pentagon is moving additional Marines and warships to the Middle East as Iran steps up its attacks on the Strait of Hormuz, according to three U.S. officials. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved a request from U.S. Central Command, responsible for American forces in the Middle East, for an element of an amphibious ready group and attached Marine expeditionary unit, typically consisting of several warships and 5,000 Marines, the officials said.
The Japan-based USS Tripoli and its attached Marines are now headed for the Middle East, two of the officials said. Marines are already in the Middle East supporting the Iran operation, the officials said. […]
The Trump administration argued in court that one of the most basic acts of journalism—soliciting news tips and information from the public—is an act of “solicitation” and therefore is not protected by the First Amendment. [!]
[…]The New York Times is suing the Pentagon in response to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s policy that bars news outlets from reporting […] [In some instances, the Pentagon requires that reporters have prior approval.]
As part of ongoing court proceedings between the Times and the Pentagon, the administration argued that the Washington Post’s web-based request for news tips goes over the line by asking readers to “help us report on the Pentagon” and requesting information related to “changes within the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. military.”
[…] It’s a basic tenet of journalism to solicit information, which can then be investigated and possibly turned into a news report.
The opposition to the Post’s tip request is even more glaring because the Pentagon made clear in November that it’s fine when a pro-Trump figure makes a similar request.
President Donald Trump is close to right-wing activist Laura Loomer and leans on her for advice despite her openly racist views. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said that Loomer’s request for tips did not violate the Pentagon’s policy because she operates a “general tip line” while the Post “explicitly and exclusively” targets military and Defense Department employees.
“If fake news reporters actually had a brain and could read our policy correctly, then maybe one day they will be as effective of a journalist as Ms. Loomer is,” Wilson said. [eyebrows raised]
[…] several conspiracy-minded individuals like Tim Pool have taken over the Pentagon’s press pool.
The administration’s opposition to the Post is ironic, since its owner, Jeff Bezos, has overseen a rightward shift in the paper’s editorial stance and posture. In fact Bezos’ actions have been so pro-MAGA that they’ve even been praised by Trump himself.
But going after a basic journalistic technique in court is in line with Trump’s hostility toward the free press, which has encompassed multiple lawsuits against news organizations and pollsters, severe cuts to public broadcasting, and multiple attempts to control talk show hosts.
All of it amounts to nothing more than a fascist trying to control the narrative.
In spite of people like Lynna, providing us with lots of valid info, with the magat plutocrats owning, censoring and distorting virtually all the news media, it is becoming almost impossible to get full, objective coverage of the disasters that is the world today. And, ‘heaven forbid’ that we see unflattering photos of pete pigseth.
on all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com 20260312 there is an article about all the news outlets controlled by the magat ellisons and they put up a sign changing the banner from washington post to amaz0n post.
And, PZ said 2026/03/09/ “i-just-cant-watch-tiktok”
I don’t want to list too many links and cause complications, but there are so many credible articles showing how information is being strangled by a few magats:
One article shows: The Biggest Media Company, Doesn’t Own a Single TV Station. The biggest media company in the world is YouTube (G00GLE).
This just points up the absurd chaotic state of (mis)information and lies everywhere with this magat admin.!
My question is: is this incompetence or is it a planned gish gallop of BS shoveled at the public??
I think I’m being diligent, not obsessive, when I mention these headlines at Daily Kos:
1) White House now in charge of HR at CBS
2) Hegseth confesses plan to turn CNN into MAGA propaganda
3) A new low: Trump says First Amendment doesn’t apply to Journalism
O.K. that’s enough doomscrolling for today.
If you were hoping to see what some of the racist [DOGE bros] behind the short-lived Department of Government Efficiency look like and how they justified their actions to dismantle scores of federal agencies, you’re in luck. Well, “luck,” really.
The Modern Language Association, which sued the Trump administration over its arbitrary and illegal termination of over $100 million in National Endowment for the Humanities grants, just posted six hours of one DOGE bro explaining how he chose which grants to cut.
Meet Justin Fox. He enjoys being sullen, wearing his best tech bro quarter-zip sweater, and failing miserably to explain his actions. [video]
Despite having held a high-profile slash-and-burn role at several agencies, Fox really hasn’t deigned to talk about his background. What little we know is that he was formerly an associate at an investment firm for a spell before multibillionaire Elon Musk tapped him to be a DOGE dork, so Fox was pretty sure he was super-qualified to terminate millions in arts grants.
Of course, this lazy grifter doofus used ChatGPT, feeding the AI bot every NEH grant with the prompt: “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”
120 characters definitely seems like plenty for a chatbot to explain whether something is “D.E.I,” an entirely amorphous and meaningless concept that is really just conservative-speak for “We don’t want any money to go to minorities.”
But when asked to explain a little bit more about his very rigorous method, things fell apart. Fox searched for forbidden DEI terms like “Black” and “LGBTQ,” explaining that a documentary about Black civil rights was “not for the benefit of humankind. It is focused on this specific group, or a specific race, here being Black.”
Buddy.
Notably, when asked about it during the deposition, this genius admitted that they didn’t search for, say, “white” or “heterosexual,” because we all know that white straight people are the only ones who matter because they are blessedly free of DEI.
But thank god that Justin Fox and ChatGPT saved us from DEI horrors like a $349,000 grant to upgrade an old HVAC system at a museum. Here’s the ChatGPT rationale Fox swallowed whole: “Improving HVAC systems enhances preservation conditions for collections, aligning with the goal of providing greater access to diverse audiences.”
And as far as the fact that DOGE didn’t reduce the deficit at all?
“I have to believe that the dollars that were saved went to mission critical, non-wasteful spending, and so, again, in the broad macro: an unfortunate circumstance for an individual, but this is an effort for the administration,” Fox babbled during his deposition.
Oh, okay then. As long as it was “an effort for the administration,” it doesn’t matter what any of the real-world effects were. Got it.
Now, meet Nate Cavanaugh. Nate enjoys smirking, rocking in his chair, and being smug about how he destroyed “useless small agencies.” [video]
Cavanaugh also oversaw the raid on the U.S. Institute of Peace because of course he did. As a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur, this DOGE doofus was just as qualified as Justin Fox to terminate roughly 97% of NEH grants, which is to say he was not qualified at all.
Cavanaugh did, however, manage to target an Afghan scholar on social media for the crime of working with USIP, leading to the Taliban taking his family. […]
What comes through the most when you watch these little masters of the universe is their profound arrogance, their confidence that they knew better than the whole of government, and their certainty that they’ll never suffer any consequences for their actions. […]
[…] when you hear Karp making this overt appeal to bitter white conservative men who think “humanities-trained” [B-word] have stolen things from them, do you actually think the tech billionaires are going to let the largesse of their AI windfalls trickle down to those guys […]
And how is he so certain that the people truly about to be hit the hardest by AI are those educated Democratic women […]
So many questions, but at least these fucking losers are just saying all the quiet parts loud now!
Here is some more batshit from Karp from the same CNBC interview, about how the thing that really makes America special is our ability to kill. [Video]
[…] Pete Hegseth’s Christian extremist masculine insecurity freakout over Anthropic refusing to let him use their AI robots as assassin drones makes a lot more sense now.
Hey, was Palantir software involved in the Trump/Hegseth mass murder attack on that Iranian girls’ school? […]:
On the U.S. side, targets for Operation Epic Fury were identified by Palantir’s Maven Smart System — a sophisticated military planning tool that takes in data from surveillance, logistics, sensors and intelligence, and can create a dashboard for commanders to inform their decisions
And here is Karp bragging about how he’s “heard” that Palantir’s Maven is the “backbone” of Operation Hegesth […]: [social media post and video]
Weird how he says he’s against “regime change,” but supports this war, where we just assassinated Iran’s leader. Oh well, we didn’t accuse him of being smart. (That’s why he needs so much artificial intelligence! […]
These people are absolute degenerates. Dumbass deplorable degenerates.
“Cuba acknowledges secret meetings with U.S. as Trump dials up threats”
Trump has warned that Cuba is next in line after Venezuela and Iran, saying that the Havana regime is in its “last moments of life.”
Amid crippling U.S. sanctions, an oil blockade and threats of a takeover, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday said his government has held direct talks with the United States “aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences between the two nations.”
The acknowledgment came in a publicly broadcast speech during a meeting in Havana of the top levels of the government and Cuban Communist Party. It confirmed widespread reports of recent secret meetings between senior Trump administration officials and Cubans close to Raúl Castro, the still-influential former president and party head.
“We want to avoid manipulation and speculation,” Díaz-Canel said in a news conference following his speech. The talks, he said, were still “in their first phase … to establish an agenda” that high-level groups of officials on both sides would address.
“We have to construct the space that lets us move forward,” he said.
[…] “They’re down to fumes,” Trump said Monday, “It may be a friendly takeover, it might not be a friendly takeover. It wouldn’t matter.”
“We are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal,” a White House official said Friday in response to questions about the talks. “Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela and with Mexico ceasing to send them oil.”
[…] Asked by lawmakers in testimony earlier this year whether the administration was seeking regime change in Cuba, Rubio said, “I think we would love to see the regime change there … that doesn’t mean that we’re going to make a change, but we would love to see it change.”
On Thursday, a group of Democratic senators introduced a measure intended to block military action against Cuba, legislation that could receive a vote by the end of March.
But the administration’s strategy appears to be tilted far more toward economic strangulation than military intervention, with the goal a bloodless takeover of Cuban institutions that would at least temporarily leave the current governance structure intact, similar to what it has effected in Venezuela.
Talks between the two governments in the past have been mediated by the Vatican. Díaz-Canel, in his remarks to the government and party leadership, said that exchanges with the United States have been “facilitated” by unnamed international actors.
[…] Cuba’s tenuous situation has worsened abruptly since the administration cut off oil supplies from Venezuela that had long provided a lifeline to the island. Trump then threatened to impose high tariffs on any country that supplied energy to Cuba. A tanker fully loaded with Russian fuel, reportedly destined to reach Cuba the first week in March, never arrived.
In his Friday remarks, Díaz-Canel indicated that the U.S. pressure strategy was working. No fuel has entered the country, he said, for the past three months. […]
JMsays
@300 shermanj: The reporting on what Trump has said and what has leaked from the administration says Trump wants the conflict to be over. He has already moved on to other issues. Republicans wants the fighting to end because it’s bad for Republicans. However, as long as the government in Iran is locking down the Straight of Hormuz Trump can’t get away from Iran, he can’t just declare victory and ignore them. Also, the leaders of Iran have a long history of insulting or making fun of the current president, Trump isn’t the sort to just ignore that.
As long as the conflict is going on Trump will be taking advice from Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth. They are not going to be recommending anything to tone down the situation. They are going to recommend escalation as a way to force Iran to surrender.
There is a very big risk that the US is going to blunder it’s way into a real ground war. It’s also going to make what is coming out of the White House a self contradictory mess. Trump is going to say and do one thing and then talk to Miller and Hegseth and say and do something else entirely.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday officially nominated Kevin Warsh to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Warsh, if confirmed by the Senate, would succeed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, for a four-year term.
Not a surprise, Trump has mentioned Walsh as a possible nomination previously. Very conservative but not a right wing hack. Has no big controversies attached to him. Was previously a member of the Federal Reserve Board. Has not had a real position in either Trump administration, sitting on some remote policy advisory board. Doesn’t seem to have any ties to Epstein. Seems like a reasonable nomination and likely to have an easy time at confirmation as long as no other Federal Reserve controversy gets in the way.
A federal judge has quashed a pair of grand jury subpoenas sent to the Federal Reserve Board as part of a criminal probe by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office, saying they were merely a pretext to pressure Chairman Jerome Powell into voting for lower interest rates or resigning.
“There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will. On the other side of the scale, the Government has offered no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the President,” Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in his ruling, which was dated March 11 and unsealed on Friday.
Very harsh rejection from the judge on something rarely rejected at this stage of an investigation. The judge was clear in his decision though. The investigation was political punishment rather then a proper investigation.
Trump complained that the work on the Federal Reserve building had run over price and was “ostentatious”. Trump calling anybody else’s project ostentatious is absurd.
All six crew members on the U.S. KC-135 refueling tanker have died after the aircraft crashed in western Iraq yesterday, U.S. Central Command said in a post on X. The crash ‘was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,’ but the incident is under investigation, it added. The Pentagon previously confirmed that four people aboard the aircraft had died.
New York Times:
At least 16 oil tankers, cargo and other commercial ships have been attacked in the Persian Gulf since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began nearly two weeks ago, a New York Times analysis shows. Iran has claimed responsibility for several of the attacks. On Thursday, two Iraqi tankers were ablaze at sea, some of the latest visible examples of how attacks have increasingly focused on oil and energy infrastructure as the war has sprawled.
Politico:
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has triggered the largest supply disruption in global oil market history, according to a Thursday report from the International Energy Agency, as tensions escalate along a critical waterway for international trade.
Given how easy it would be to reopen and fully fund TSA, reports like these are especially painful: “As the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security continues, roughly 50,000 TSA workers have been working without pay. Union representatives said screeners have taken second jobs […] to supplement their incomes. Others are facing eviction notices and have temporarily slept in their cars.”
“With the DHS shutdown showing no signs of ending, roughly 50,000 screeners are working without pay.”
For TSA employees across the country, missing a paycheck is no longer a surprise. This is the second time in six months that federal workers have faced the financial strain of a government shutdown — and this time, the effects are already rippling through some of the nation’s busiest airports.
“Officers are really at their wits’ end,” said Aaron Barker, president of AFGE TSA Local 554 in Atlanta. “If I can be frank, they are pissed off and frustrated with how our congressional members are handling this situation, which has nothing to do with TSA.”
As the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security continues, roughly 50,000 TSA workers have been working without pay. […]
DHS said unscheduled absences have more than doubled since the shutdown began, and more than 300 TSA workers have left the agency entirely.
The consequences are now visible at airports. Lines at Kennedy International Airport in New York have stretched to two hours. At William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, more than 53% of the TSA workforce called out on at least one day, prompting workers from Dallas to be relocated there to fill the gaps.
[…] “They may not have money for childcare. If you got to come up for money for your car payment, mortgage payment, rent payments — […] these places don’t take IOUs,” he said.
Some airports have stepped in to help. Denver International Airport has asked travelers to donate $10 and $20 grocery and gas gift cards to screeners. Seattle-Tacoma International and Harry Reid International in Las Vegas have opened food pantries for workers. [!] Burlington International Airport is also soliciting donations.
For travelers, the timing could hardly be worse. Spring break travel is underway, and passenger volumes are expected to climb in the coming weeks. A deal to end the shutdown has yet to materialize on Capitol Hill.
Barker said he found it unconscionable that workers were being caught in a political standoff unrelated to their jobs.
“It’s terrible that TSA officers are being used as pawns, held hostage for something that’s not a partisan issue,” he told MS NOW. “We should not have to go through a shutdown every year. We elect you to go to Congress to make sure that the country is running safe. … Do the job just as you are expecting us to do the job.”
“The problem isn’t just with the inaccuracy of the GOP’s favorite talking point — it’s also with the bad-faith motivations behind the claim.”
Since the launch of the U.S. war in Iran, there’s been one number that Republicans have used more than any other. Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, for example, used it Friday morning during an appearance on Newsmax. [video]
Donald Trump “is ending a 47-year war with Iran,” the far-right congressman said.
His party’s recent emphasis on the number has been about as subtle as a sledgehammer. The day before Perry’s comments, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN, “We’re less than two weeks into this 47-year-long conflict.” That came on the heels of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz also claiming that the American president is “ending a 47-year war.”
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas has echoed the claim in recent days, as has Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. A seemingly endless stream of GOP House members have pushed the same line, as have some conservative media figures.
Republican Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, tried to peddle the same talking point on Fox News, but he apparently got tripped up and instead said, “We have been at war with Iran since 1947.”
The point, however, was effectively the same: GOP officials allied with the White House want the American public to believe that the war in Iran started in February 1979, not February 2026.
The argument certainly has an Orwellian “we have always been at war with Eurasia” quality, but it’s a tough sell.
The obvious problem is that the talking point isn’t true. While Iran has certainly been an enemy of the U.S. since its revolution in the late 1970s, the idea that there has been an ongoing war for nearly a half-century would probably come as a surprise to most Americans, who likely realize there’s been no such military conflict.
Indeed, the underlying idea is rather silly. The Iran-Contra scandal unfolded in the 1980s, for example, and I have a hunch Republicans would be reluctant to argue that the Reagan administration sold arms to a country the U.S. was at war with.
Relatedly, in June 2019, Trump declared that if Iran were willing to forgo a nuclear weapons program, “they are going to have a wealthy country, they’re going to be so happy, and I’m going to be their best friend.” Why would the Republican president offer to be best friends with a country during its war with the U.S.?
But making matters worse is the motivation behind the lazy talking point. Trump and his political operation invested a lot of time and effort telling voters that he’d keep the country out of new wars, especially in the Middle East, only to do the opposite 14 months into his second term.
Republican officials are peddling this “47 years” claim as a tacit defense, as if Trump hadn’t launched the war and Iran did. But if the party expects anyone to take the argument seriously, it’s likely to be disappointed.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 310
There are right-wingers still whining about Jane Fonda’s Vietnam trip and Ted Kennedy’s escapades. They’re banking that their Boomer base remembers the OG Ayatalloah and the “humiliation” of the hostage crisis.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Lynna quoting Steve Benen #309:
Given how easy it would be to reopen and fully fund TSA, reports like these are especially painful […] Union representatives said screeners have taken second jobs
TSA have been accused of being ineffective and fostering a false sense of safety. This led security expert Bruce Schneier to coin the term security theater
[…]
[In 2006] screeners had failed 20 of 22 undercover security tests, missing numerous guns and bombs.
[2010] “the failure rate approaches 70 percent at some major airports”
[2015] undercover investigators were able to smuggle banned items through checkpoints in 95% of their attempts.
[…]
In 2008, […] despite over 400 reports of baggage theft, about half of which the TSA reimbursed passengers for, not a single arrest had been made. The TSA does not, as a matter of policy, share baggage theft reports with local police departments. […] between 2011 and 2012, passengers at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport reported $300,000 in property lost or damaged by the TSA. The agency only reimbursed $35,000 of those claims. Similar statistics were found at Jacksonville International Airport—passengers reported $22,000 worth of goods missing or damaged over the course of 15 months. The TSA only reimbursed $800 total
[…]
An ACLU study found that the TSA disproportionately targets Arabs, Muslims and Latinos
whheydtsays
Re: Akira MacKenzie @ #311…
What I remember about the Iran Hostage Crisis was that incoming Republican secretly got Iran to NOT follow through on a negotiated release in order to win the election and get credit for the hostage release. Hardly a memory to would make me think any better of the current cluster-fuck being incompetently executed by That Felon in the White House and those around him…who make the Keystone Kops look like paragons of virtue and efficiency.
Brazilian President Lula announced that he was banning Trump envoy Dennis Beattie […]
Earlier this week, the Brazilian Supreme Court granted Beattie the right to visit former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving 27 years in prison for attempting to assassinate Lula and overturn the 2022 Brazilian presidential election. Then, yesterday, the Brazilian Supreme Court reconsidered Beattie’s visit at the request of the Lula Administration, and denied him […] Citing international precedent that allows countries to block visas of diplomats, Lula said that he would not grant a visa to Beattie until visas were granted to members of the Brazilian Ministry of Health that were denied in August.
Rando: “[Visas] So it actually DOESN’T have to do with morals. Oh well.”
Lula also has a close election coming up against Jair Bolsonaro’s son. Besides election interference, there are fears that Trump will label local drug gangs “terrorist orgs”, to justify coercive threats of economic sanctions, military strikes, sabotaging Brazil’s popular fee-less money transfer system (foreign private finance companies can’t compete with free), and deporting Brazilians in the US.
Marco Rubio […] took steps to revoke or restrict visas for some African, Caribbean and Brazilian officials who Washington alleges have ties to a Cuban program that sends medical workers overseas.
[…]
Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha said his government will not bow to what he called “unreasonable attacks” on Brazil’s Mais Medicos, or “More Doctors,” program mentioned by Rubio. The program was created in 2013. Cuba’s contract in it was terminated in 2018.
Hegseth: “Iran’s leadership—desperate and hiding, they’ve gone underground. Cowering. That’s what rats do.” [Video clip]
“Underground” [Photo: A large rally march in Tehran led by Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi]
Btw, there was a US-Israeli bombing DURING the pictured march earlier today, and the crowd just started chanting even more loudly and putting fists in the air. [Photo]
Other leadership present: Prez Masoud Pezeshkian and Sec of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani.
Wikipedia – Quds Day: “an annual pro-Palestinian event held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to express support for Palestinians and oppose Israel and Zionism. It takes its name from the Arabic name for Jerusalem: al-Quds. […] The day exists partly in opposition to Israel’s Jerusalem Day”
Hegseth: “We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” [Video clip]
No quarter is the refusal to take prisoners and instead just execute everyone.
Brian Greer (Former CIA attorney): “I think it’s more likely that Hegseth thinks ‘no quarter’ sounds cool since he sees it in his Christian Nationalist 4Chan groups all the time, and doesn’t know what it actually means.”
Former USG war crimes lawyer here. […] Denial of quarter—even the declaration of no quarter—is a war crime.
And recognized as such by the US Government. From DoD’s Manual for Military Commissions [Screenshot]. “Declaring that no quarter will be given” is specifically prohibited by Art 23 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, which means it is a war crime under US domestic law by virtue of the War Crimes Act […]
And as a fun related legal fact, the failure of a commander to punish war crimes by his subordinates is also a war crime under the doctrine of command responsibility. Published by the Naval War College in 2021 [link].
[etc. etc.]
Allison Gill: “It’s not just The Hague—which we aren’t a party to. It’s our own law as well.”
Mr Princeton and Harvard would have a hard time asserting ignorance since his use of the term is in line with his stated beliefs.
The anecdote is contained in a book Hegseth wrote last year [War on Warriors] in which he also repeatedly railed against […] the laws of war and the Geneva conventions.
[…]
He has expressed admiration for his former commanding officer, […] Michael Steele, who was reprimanded after reportedly ordering soldiers in 2006 in Iraq to “kill all military-age males” in a raid. […] Steele had promoted body counts as a measure of performance
The payment is part of the agreement through which investors friendly with the administration gained control of TikTok […] backers paid the Treasury Department about $2.5 billion when the deal closed in January and are set to make several additional payments until hitting the $10 billion
[…]
JD Vance previously said the new TikTok entity […] is valued at about $14 billion in the deal, which some tech analysts have said dramatically undervalues the company. […] Investment bankers advising on a typical deal receive fees of less than 1% of the transaction value, and the percentage generally gets smaller as the deal size increases.
Benjamin Kabak (Lawyer): “A ‘fee,’ WSJ? That’s a bribe. Come on.”
BROKERING THE DEAL is when my brain melted […] JFC. Impeach and remove this lawless man, you fools.
This still doesn’t really explain exactly what is happening—raising further questions about the repeated use of “Trump administration” and “administration,” as opposed to “paid to the federal government.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Elia Ayoub: “Nabatiyeh is being completely razed to the ground by the Israelis. It was one of the largest cities in South Lebanon, around 100,000 people. Now around 150 families left there. [The Guardian video]”
The BBC heard or went to the scenes of seven Israeli strikes on Wednesday. The ones we saw the aftermath of in Nabatieh were in areas that were not under official Israeli evacuation orders at the time, and locals and first responders said no warnings had been given.
[…]
despite the escalating war, some residents in Nabatieh had stayed behind, saying they could not afford to move, or find any space at shelters, or simply did not want to leave their homes.
[…] “We didn’t leave because we saw on TV how people are stranded on the roads and sidewalks and I didn’t want that for my two grandkids so I decided to stay and trust in God’s will,” said 60-year-old Mona Najem. The family were having lunch and watching TV, she said, when “suddenly half the house collapsed and we couldn’t see a thing—windows and glass got shattered”. She grabbed her two grandchildren—aged seven and 10—and went to hide in a small room that was still standing, until rescuers arrived […] “It is six of us [living there], and we are all fine—thanks to God. My older son stepped on a piece of shattered glass but it’s minor, otherwise God was merciful,” she said from a hospital bed. […] “We didn’t leave in the previous war and we got used to it.[“]
[…]
hospitals in the area are now operating with greatly reduced staff—many of them living there.
Elia Ayoub: “This is routine. Israel issues warnings for some areas, and bombs other areas anyway.”
Elia Ayoub: “The Israelis bombed [Qantara] bridge over the Litani river. They are actively cutting off South Lebanon from the rest of the country. They bombed a 2nd bridge [Zrarlyeh].”
The political echelon has instructed to add all bridges south of the Litani to the bank of targets. Senior security source: “We will not hesitate to cut off the territory of southern Lebanon from the rest of Lebanon beyond the Litani.”
In addition to the bridge that was attacked early this morning—five additional bridges were used by Hezbollah and are expected to be attacked soon. The goal: to cut off the routes of Radwan’s force from the center to southern Lebanon. […]
The Lebanese army was stationed on them at the start of the campaign to prevent Hezbollah from moving south—and failed. UNIFIL was also of no use. […]
Elia Ayoub: “At this rate neither UNIFIL nor the Lebanese army would be able to operate. Israel says they want Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah while being the ones weakening the state. Again: the goal is to destroy Lebanon itself.”
CNN: “a senior Iranian official told CNN that Tehran is considering allowing some vessels to pass through [the Strait of Hormuz], provided the cargo is traded in Chinese yuan.”
Rando: “Stylish trolling, here.”
drdrdrdrdralhazeneulersays
I just realised the most important thing about the “culture” in Iain Banks’ novels: There’s only one of them; diverse as it may be, it is all-inclusive.
…
The letter itself contained a basic factual mistake, addressing Paul Ziriax as Oklahoma’s “Secretary of State.”
Though Ziriax is the state’s chief election official, he actually serves as secretary of the Oklahoma State Election Board — a different position entirely. Ziriax has never been the secretary of state.
…
There was just one small problem. The emails were never delivered.
The confusion came to light on Jan. 28, when Oklahoma officials finally received the messages — and immediately realized what had happened.
“I regret to inform you that we did not receive the emails you sent on December 10, December 19, and January 13,” Oklahoma election official Misha Mohr wrote in a reply. “Today, January 28, 2026, is the first time we have seen these communications. The email address was misspelled on the previous correspondence.” …
MS NOW’s Brandy Zadrozny reports an untraceable political group offered influencers cash to post scripted attacks against Illinois candidate Kat Abughazaleh just days before a high-stakes Democratic primary.
Federal prosecutors in D.C. on Friday moved to drop charges against a man who was charged last year after he burned an American flag outside the White House, after President Trump had signed an executive order directing the DOJ to investigate flag burning.
Jan Carey was facing two misdemeanor criminal counts in Washington, D.C., federal court. Neither charge focused on the fact that he burned a flag, specifically: One of the counts was for lighting a fire “not in a designated area and receptacle,” and another was for lighting a fire “in a manner that threatened, caused damage to, and resulted in the burning of property, real property, and park resources.”
The DOJ trying to get out of another unwinable case. Hopefully Trump doesn’t hear about this one and it quietly dies.
This is another case where Trump’s intervention made the situation worse. If it wasn’t for Trump’s order that the DOJ abuse these laws to block free speech there is a chance that he could be fined for doing something fairly dangerous. Having made public that the principle is trying to block free speech, Trump has pushed the courts to take the defendents side. The DOJ lawyers don’t want to be in another embarrassing losing case and they have piles of more important work to do. So somebody at the DOJ is trying to give up on this one.
Trump doubled down on his “feelings” explanations for attacking Iran, and is now using the same befuddling language when asked when/how the war will end:
Trump’s White House and he himself have given the American people little insight into how long the operation will last or why he brought us into this matter in the first place beyond Trump’s “feelings.” He’s only doubled down on that too. In an interview that aired Friday, Trump told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade that the war will be over “when I feel it — feel it in my bones.”
Arizona Officials Remind County Recorders to Not Give DOJ Voter Data in Wake of New Subpoena.
Same link as in comment 326.
In response to the Trump Justice Department expanding its supposed 2020 election probe to Arizona, Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes are warning county recorders in the state that the Department of Justice may try to use the expanded investigation to access the state’s voter rolls.
They’re warning county recorders not to succumb to pressure to do so.
[…] In a joint letter this week, Fontes and Mayes told the state’s county recorders to not cave to the administration’s demands, warning that doing so would be a violation of both state and federal law.
“Although Arizona has made its opposition to disclosure clear in ongoing litigation with DOJ, we reiterate our Offices’ position here just in case you may be contemplating disclosure. We write to inform you that doing so would violate both federal and state law,” they wrote. […]
Wow. JD Vance fails at explaining skyrocketing gas prices:
“All this conversation happens where Joe Biden left us in a terrible situation, and the reason why gas prices are where they are today is because of Donald Trump’s work to get them lower, because in the Biden administration they were crazy high,” he said.
Vance blurted that word salad uring a visit to North Carolina’s GOP redrawn 1st Congressional district Friday.
Commentary:
[…] The harsh reality is that most presidents have very little to no control over the price of gas. Biden’s high gas prices were largely due to fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coupled with inflation and corporate gouging—stressors that he eventually alleviated.
By contrast, Trump’s “work” largely consists of causing chaos in the global markets by bombing Iran, predictably driving prices higher. […]
Sky Captain @312, thanks for that information related to the failures of TSA.
For example:
[2015] undercover investigators were able to smuggle banned items through checkpoints in 95% of their attempts.
So,TSA screening is slowing everything down at almost every airport in the USA, but the job they are tasked with is not being done effectively. Sheesh.
[…] Yes, it’s time for another memecoin bribe dinner opportunity! The top 297 investors who are equal parts corrupt and gullible enough to buy the very mostest of $TRUMP can go to his Mar-a-Lago resort and have lunch with Trump at “THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD” (yes, of course it is in all-caps).
Mark your calendars for April 25.
[…] you can start panic-buying it now to climb the ranks of Trump butt-kissers.
The splash page for the event, complete with an AI slop illustration [AI slop image is available at the link] of Trump that’s flattering compared to what he looks like in real life, boasts that he will be at the luncheon.
[…] One wee problem: Trump is supposed to attend the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that night, and this luncheon doesn’t appear on his no-doubt-very-busy calendar yet. So maybe these suckers will be spending their millions for naught?
This latest round of bribery is being put together by Fight Fight Fight, and yes, that is the same dumb name Trump wants to put on the coin honoring himself, and also what he named his set of fragrances. ABM: Always Be Monetizing.
Fight Fight Fight is the Trump-affiliated group that also organized the May 2025 memecoin dinner—remember that one? That’s the one where people who bought a bazillion dollars of Trump’s worthless memecoin got a dinner with Trump but, more importantly, a chance to buy their freedom from criminal or civil fraud charges, which is priceless, really.
Just ask Justin Sun, the crypto bro who was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for a truly breathtaking bunch of fraud, but then that case just disappeared. Surely it’s just a coincidence that Sun reportedly spent $40 million on $TRUMP coin to attend the May dinner, right?
Look, when it comes to ways to bribe him, Trump’s gotta keep it fresh. He can’t rest on his laurels of the ballroom grift or the media lawsuit “settlement” grift. So, why not recycle the reliable crypto grift? It’s far more low-rent, but also far quicker into Trump’s pockets. […]
“Idaho House Passes Bill Forcing Schools To Out Trans Kids So Parents Can Disown Them”
“No ‘aiding or abetting’ of boys with long hair or girls wearing dungarees, either.”
As we mention whenever we get the chance, our home state may not have the size or influence of a Florida or a Texas, but when it comes to pushing far-Right culture war bills, the Idaho Legislature punches above its weight in crazy. Hence our beloved state motto, “Though she be but little, she is batshit.”
(Okay, we’re also a small enough media market that rightwing dark money goes a lot farther than in bigger states, making it easier to elect weirdos and lobby them once they’re elected.)
Here’s the latest horrible idea from the state that was first in the nation to ban trans girls and women from sports: Having already banned gender-affirming medical care in 2023, the Idaho House this week passed HB 822, a bill outlawing what it calls “pediatric secretive transitions.” School staff, health professionals, and childcare providers must inform parents if their kid attempts any kind of “social transition” in their gender identity, because we all know about how schools are trying to forcibly turn kids trans and hide it from their parents. [That last bit is a thoroughly debunked right-wing conspiracy theory.]
Like most such legislation, it’s deliberately vague about what exactly must be reported to parents, and it includes a massive penalty that probably violates the state constitution: Not only can aggrieved parents sue for damages, but the state attorney general could seek civil penalties of up to $100,000. The bill also doesn’t include any exceptions, so a school or a counselor in private practice would be required to out trans-maybe kids even if they have reason to believe the parent might abuse or abandon the kid. […]
The bill passed Wednesday on a nearly party-line vote, 59 to 9, although one Republican, state Rep. Jack Nelsen of Jerome, voted against it. […]
The bill is the scrawny brainchild of state Rep. Bruce Skaug, who previously led the Lege’s drive to criminalize gender affirming care to minors, and then to prohibit taxpayer funds from covering transgender healthcare through Medicaid, even for adults. That 2024 law pushed a clinic at Idaho State U in Pocatello to stop providing gender-affirming care other than counseling, because the statute also prohibited gender-affirming care on state property.
HB 822 would require “covered entities” — schools, medical providers, and childcare providers — to notify parents within 72 hours if a minor asks them to “participate in or facilitate the social transition of the minor student,” including asking the adult to refer to them by different pronouns, a different name or nickname that isn’t a “derivative” of their given name, asking to use the wrong terlet, locker room, changing room, or litter box, or wanting to play on the wrong sex’s sports team. (Presumably, a good portion of Shakespeare’s plays would be off limits too.)
Weirdly cramming the language of criminal law into a civil law bill, HB 822 states, “A covered entity shall not aid or abet a child’s efforts to socially transition without first obtaining written consent from the child’s parent.” Helping kids be who they are is “aiding and abetting” now, even when parents support it.
The bill’s definition of “social transition” is dangerously broad, opening the door to all sorts of litigious mischief:
“Social transition” means the process by which an individual goes from identifying with and living as a gender that corresponds to the individual’s sex to identifying with and living as a gender different from the individual’s sex and may involve social, legal, or physical changes, including adopting a name, pronouns, appearance, or dress that does not correspond to the individual’s sex.
Skaug claimed in committee debate that the bill is sufficiently specific that it would never ever be used against teachers who fail to report minor departures from gender stereotypes.
“So that’s not when a girl wants to have a short haircut. That’s not when a girl wants to dress in boy’s clothes or vice versa,” Skaug said. “But if there’s that desire to have social transitioning from one gender to the other, then that needs to be reported to the parents.”
But there’s nothing in the bill to stop parents from suing a teacher or counselor for not reporting a girl who wears her hair short, wears a man’s dungarees, and even operates power tools while cursing. As House Democrats noted in a seven-page Minority Report on the bill, the question of whether a kid has “adopted an appearance or dress” inconsistent with their sex is “entirely in the eye of the beholder,” and in the face of a potential $100,000 shithammer of punishment, the bill would encourage over-reporting.
The Democratic minority report also highlights the lack of any exceptions for the minor’s safety, an omission that’s sure to be the basis of a lawsuit if HB 822 makes it into law. Nope, have to tell the parents if a trans kid confides in a trusted adult, even if the kid fears their parents might react with violence or throw them out of the house. The result, say the Democrats, “is not greater safety — it is more fear, more isolation, and less access to care for Idaho’s most vulnerable young people.”
[…] Republicans in House leadership took the unusual step of voting to block the minority report from being included in the House Journal [!], the official record of the body’s activities. The reason they offered was that report was rude to the GOP committee chair because it (accurately) complained that he’d only allowed 14 minutes for public comment, and the comment period was dominated by opponents of the bill, including two witnesses who weren’t from Idaho. Seems like a good opportunity to Streisand Effect the heck out of the minority report.
As we’ve noted, once in a while the Idaho Senate does the state a favor and refuses to consider some of the flaming paper bags of dogshit the House sends it, but it hasn’t shown any willingness to do so with recent anti-trans bills. Gov. Little seems likely to tout the “parental rights” rhetoric and sign the thing, and then we’ll have to see how the lawsuits go.
[…] We should also note that at least one part of the bill is opposed by the far-Right Idaho Freedom Foundation, the dark-money group which has huge influence in aiding and abetting culture war legislation in this state. The IFF generally supports the law, but complains that the “written consent” requirement is too lax, because “There should be no allowance — even with the written consent of a parent — for a child’s mental health issues to be affirmed in the facilitation of a sex change, even if only socially.” […]
Secretary of Defense […] Pete Hegseth was unhappy. It was the fall of his first year steering the Pentagon into a steep and unrecoverable dive, and the building’s press corps refused to [be his lackeys].
So Hegseth demanded all the reporters on the Pentagon beat adhere to some limiting rules that no self-respecting journalist would ever agree to, such as not publishing anything unless he had signed off on it. Those who would not sign this pledge were invited to get the fuck out.
The result was that any respectable journalist at the Pentagon got the fuck out. The new Pentagon press corps was made up of lickspittles from fringe right-wing news sites who would happily polish Pete’s shoes […] for the right to ask him questions like Secretary Hegseth, how badass is America’s military and Secretary Hegseth, how are you so handsome?
That last one would be especially ironic since Hegseth reportedly banned still photographers from his briefings recently after they took pictures of him he deemed unflattering. Man, they’re photographers, not magicians.
But it is still a free-ish country where the media is concerned. Which means journalists can still report stuff Hegseth doesn’t like. And boy, does that make him whine […]
Hegseth spent the first few minutes of a press conference on Friday bragging about all the badass warmaking and warfighting and warkilling the American military is currently doing in Iran, all the Iranian military capacity it has degraded and all the killing it has done and will do. He promised to give the enemy “no quarter,” which is a war crime in violation of the Geneva Conventions. In America’s new Hegseth-directed age of manliness, only [P-word, plural] care about such civilizational guideposts.[video]
Then he got to the heart of his complaint, which is that the media — not the awesome patriotic wingnut media, of course, but the mainstream — insists on reporting […] that people are dying and the Trump administration seems to have done whatever the opposite of planning is for this war that it keeps saying is not a war.
“People look up at the TV and they see banners. They see headlines. I used to be in that business and I know that everything is written intentionally.”
My man, you were not in the news business, you worked for Fox. But yes, people generally intend to write what they write. For example, we assure you when we write that you are a slimy, smarmy, drunken gecko-brained fuckwit who couldn’t out-think the pull cord on a lightbulb, we absolutely intended to say that.
“Or more fake news from CNN reports that the Trump administration underestimated the Iran war’s impact on the Strait of Hormuz. Patently ridiculous, of course. For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do. Hold the Strait hostage. CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report.”
CNN is not the only outlet that has reported that the Trump administration had zero plan for Iran maybe closing the Strait of Hormuz. And the administration’s actions in this regard — demanding sailors show some “guts” and sail through the Strait, scrambling to learn how the shipping insurance market works so it can underwrite policies as an incentive — suggest very strongly that Hegseth is lying here. [!!]
[…] it was the next bit that made people sit up.
“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”
Nothing says “free press” like a high-level political apparatchik [happy that] a wingnut billionaire is taking over a major news network and turning it into a mouthpiece for the government. And that’s before you get to the wingnut billionaire already owning another major news network [CBS], which his hand-picked idiot [Bari Weiss] is busy turning into Fox News without the charm.
[…] We have given CNN our share of crap over the years for its reporting and its personnel […] But still, it deserves better than to be sneered at and belittled by the likes of Pete Hegseth […]
After he had finished trashing the media, Hegseth took questions from the real journalists at One America News Network, the Daily Wire, the Epoch Times, Real America’s Voice, and Mike Lindell’s TV channel. [!] […]
[…] Today is Pi Day. Get it? Because of how today is March 14 and the first three digits of pi are 3, 1 and 4? So clever!
Anyway, I can’t make myself care about pi, except to the extent that I find it very annoying when, on television shows, they use “can recite pi up the the 37th digit” or whatever as a tropey shorthand for “is a genius.” […]
Speaking of geniuses, today is also Albert Einstein’s birthday, as well as the birthday of Billy Crystal, whom we could say is a comedic genius, and of Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was an astronomer genius when it came to Mars and also the uncle of one of my most favorite geniuses, the anti-fascist fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli.
Also speaking of geniuses, your first present today is a 1990s commercial for The Church of the Subgenius, a thing I should probably know way more about than I do. (Rebecca says her brother is a pope.) I definitely did not know that was what the picture of the 1950s guy with the pipe was about! [video]
Apropos of nothing other than it being on the front page of the ObscureMedia subreddit, your next present is this wonderfully batshit motivational record for 1950s shoe salesmen. [Video. Holy fuck. Audio only, but still 12 minutes of batshit blathering about “girls” who watch TV and become more “fashion conscious” etc.]
[…] And, apropos of Donald Trump not being able to rule out a draft, I bring you The Smothers Brothers and George Segal performing the Phil Ochs song “Draft Dodger Rag.” [video]
[…]
“An NBC News analysis of 30 videos and satellite images shows Iranian drones are presenting a new type of struggle for the U.S. and its allies.”
The buzz came before the explosion. An aerial vehicle dove from the cloudless sky toward its target at Camp Buehring, a U.S. military base in Kuwait. It struck near a running track with a fiery plume of black smoke.
“Oh s—t,” a man recording from the base said. “Oh my God. Oh, that was right here. They’re f—ing getting… They’re starting to dial into our building.”
[…] The footage of this attack, posted online on March 1 but possibly filmed earlier, is one of over 30 open-source videos and satellite images verified by NBC News showing Iranian drone strikes and interceptions by the U.S. and its allies across seven countries. Apparent targets include military bases, transportation hubs, energy infrastructure and diplomatic centers. In 21 of 26 videos, drones appear to reach their targets. [video]
The videos […] reveal a pattern of inadequate protection for strategic locations targeted by the drones from the outset of the war. As the U.S. and Israel bombard Iran with the stated goal of crippling its nuclear, ballistic and drone capabilities, Iran retaliates by utilizing its arsenal of missiles and cheap exploding drones.
[…] The weapon’s versatility may allow Iran to prolong the war by straining enemy resources […] Iran is a pioneer of the technology, which it sold to Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It has challenged the economics of warfare. While the U.S. remains firm in its air dominance, Iran’s drone campaign has forced the targeted countries to use expensive munitions for interceptions.
[…] [map of confirmed strike locations]
While the drones can be shot down with a range of weapons including heavy machine guns, fighter jets and advanced interceptors, they can overwhelm air defenses and even one such aircraft can inflict deadly damage.
A drone strike killed six U.S. servicemembers at the civilian Port of Shuaiba in Kuwait. Video verified by NBC News shows that others have bombarded oil infrastructure and logistics hubs. Some drones have struck U.S. consulates and embassies across the Gulf states as passersby gasped and filmed the nosedives. An oil storage facility in Oman was hit twice: […] underscoring the ongoing vulnerability of crucial targets.
[…] Data from the United Arab Emirates, which has been heavily impacted by Iranian strikes, says that 1,475 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were fired at the country as of March 10 and 1,385 were intercepted.
The UAE, one of the hardest hit Gulf countries, has reported six killed and 122 wounded resulting from the conflict as of March 11. Israel has reported 13 dead. In Iran, more than 1,200 people have been killed by U.S.-Israeli strikes, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. [Chart of drone launch strike rate in UAE]
The drone most frequently deployed by Iran is the Shahed-136, according to the weapons tracking project Open Source Munitions Portal (OSMP). With a wingspan of 11.5 feet, it is capable of flying some 1,200 miles and carrying up to 110-pound warheads guided by a satellite navigation system, OSMP says. The drones are pre-programmed to fly to a specific target and operate with no pilot.
[…] “CENTCOM continues to attack ballistic missile and drone capabilities so that they are no longer a threat to us, our forces, our bases or our partners,” said Caine [Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]
[…] The U.S. is one of over 10 countries formally requesting help from Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy […]
The Trump administration’s official ask came six days after the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, according to a post from Zelenskyy on social media at the time, despite Ukraine offering it months earlier. […]
An NBC News analysis of online video of Shahed-type attacks shows that the majority of them have hit along the Persian Gulf coastline. […]
In one video, a drone follows its pre-programmed path to an oil storage tank in Oman, the second such attack on the facility. [video]
A Dubai beachgoer filmed another video showing a buzzing drone flying inland as a warplane boomed after it, releasing an interception missile moments later. [video]
The drones have reached Azerbaijan, verified videos show, bombarding the airport in Nakhchivan. Azerbaijan is not a party to the conflict and demanded an apology from Iran, which has denied responsibility. [video]
The attacks by primitive drones and more sophisticated ballistic missiles have crippled both air and sea traffic in the crucial oil-rich region. The strategically critical Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed to traffic. […] [chart of trial attacks launched by Iran]
The size of Iran’s drone arsenal and production capabilities is unclear. Interception numbers released by the UAE suggest attacks have dwindled, but that could be an indication of regrouping and stockpiling before the next attack rather than a diminishing supply, […] the only other country using these types of weapons regularly, frequently breaks between major bombardments to amass more drones to release in one attack.
[charts of Iran’s aerial attacks on Persian Gulf countries]
The benefit of Shahed-type drones is the ease of assembly and relatively inexpensive price tag. Ukrainian authorities have found that the drones are constructed with dual-use components that can evade sanctions. […]
[…] “There’s an assumption that seems to be at work, that the United States can decide when the war ends,” said Grieco [Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center].
“I don’t know if the United States is in that position as much as it thinks it is,” she said. “The Iranians may not agree with that. […]” [video]
“Trump urges countries to send warships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.”
Tehran warned it would strike U.S.-linked oil and energy infrastructures in the Middle East if its own oil facilities are attacked, reiterating its threat in response to U.S. bombardment of military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island.
“In the event of an attack on the oil, economic and energy infrastructure of the Islamic Republic of Iran … all oil, economic and energy infrastructure belonging to oil companies throughout the region that own American stocks or cooperate with the United States will be immediately destroyed,” a spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said […]
Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned that U.S. interests in the United Arab Emirates, including ports, docks and military locations, were legitimate targets, according to media reports. Hours later, a drone attack on Fujairah port, a major bunkering hub in the UAE and crude export terminal, forced the facility to suspend some oil-loading operations, Reuters reported.
U.S. President Donald Trump late Friday said the U.S. had launched air strikes on Kharg Island, targeting only military assets in what he called one of the “most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East.” The island, a 5-mile strip of land, is home to Iran’s most important oil facility, where roughly 90 percent of the country’s crude is processed.
Trump said the U.S. attack spared vital oil infrastructure on the island.
But “should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” he said on social media.
On Saturday, Trump said “many countries … will be sending war ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe.” [That sounds like Trump is wildly exaggerating (or lying) about engagement by other countries.]
“Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the U.K., and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait” can be protected, Trump said in a post on Truth Social. […]
The Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions on Kharg Island with thick smoke rising over the island following the U.S. attack. The agency said the strikes targeted an air defense facility, a naval base, the airport control tower, and an offshore oil company’s helicopter hangar. No oil infrastructure was damaged in the attack, it said. […]
“As the Iran war disrupts oil and gas supply, Oslo is positioning itself as Europe’s energy-rich savior.”
Norway is doubling down on its role as Europe’s energy lifeline as wars and geopolitical turmoil rattle global markets.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said “[…] Norway needs to be reliable.”
Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Norway has become Europe’s largest pipeline gas supplier, replacing much of the fuel that once flowed from Russia.
“All the gas we produce in Norway goes to Europe, and around 90 to 95 percent of oil we produce goes to Europe,” Anders Opedal, chief executive of Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor, told POLITICO.
But while Oslo is positioning itself as a pillar of Europe’s energy security, Norwegian officials say the country cannot quickly ramp up production […]
Norway’s Energy Minister Terje Aasland said his country is already operating close to maximum output. “We are at the top of production capacity just now,” […]
Norway is pushing back against calls in Brussels to halt oil and gas development in the Arctic as the EU revises its Arctic strategy.
The EU’s current policy commits the bloc to pursuing an international moratorium on Arctic oil and gas extraction, but the strategy is now under review […]
Norwegian officials, industry groups and unions are lobbying Brussels to drop the idea, arguing Europe will continue to need Norwegian Arctic gas as it phases out Russian supplies.
Aasland defended Norway’s record in the region, pointing to the Barents Sea — where the country launched the Johan Castberg oil field last August — as an example of responsible development.
[…] Even as Norway expands renewables, leaders insist fossil fuels will remain crucial to Europe’s energy system during the long transition to cleaner alternatives.
“We have to have two thoughts in our heads at the same time,” Aasland said.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Wonkette quote in 332: “a slimy, smarmy, drunken gecko-brained fuckwit”
I’ll headcanon that as Gordon Gekko, rather than lizard-brained or otherwise besmirching geckos.
Since the 1970s, the concept of the triune brain has been subject to criticism in evolutionary and developmental neuroscience and is regarded as a myth. […] MacLean proposed that the reptilian complex was responsible for species-typical instinctual behaviours involved in aggression, dominance, territoriality, and ritual displays.
Gekko has become a symbol in popular culture for unrestrained greed […] Gekko is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of gecko […] In 2013, psychiatrists […] published a study of the portrayal of psychopaths in film, […] “Gordon Gekko from Wall Street (1987) is probably one of the most interesting, manipulative, psychopathic fictional characters to date.”
Sky Captain @337, Ha! Good Point. Gordon Gekko is a good comparison.
In other news, the New Yorker posted an interview with Yehuda Shaul, a co-founder of Ofek: the Israeli Center for Public Affairs, an independent think tank based in Jerusalem. Shaul also co-founded Breaking the Silence, an organization of former Israeli soldiers which aims to spotlight life in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
Excerpts:
[…] Do you think that what’s been happening in the West Bank in the past several months is noticeably different from the past several decades?
[…] what we’ve been seeing is an acceleration of annexation at a significant pace, in a context where it is openly stated that the purpose is to bury the possibility of a future Palestinian state beside Israel. [!]
We see the massive acceleration of the policy of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that goes beyond the forcible transfer of Palestinian communities to Israeli settlers. The goal in the West Bank is to create a homogenous ethnicity in a space that is being cleansed of Palestinians, and to expand the Israeli footprint there. That’s why I call it ethnic cleansing, and I don’t use this term lightly. […]
Can you talk about what the Oslo Accords envisioned for the West Bank and why the different areas are important?
The idea of Oslo was that we don’t jump from zero to a hundred, but we have an interim agreement, over five years, where parts of the West Bank would become Area A, where the Palestinian Authority, which was created by Oslo, would manage internal security and civic affairs. Area A mainly included the big population centers. Parts would become Area B, where the Palestinian Authority would manage civilian affairs, while sharing internal security with Israeli forces. And then parts would become Area C, which would remain under the complete control of Israel until a final status agreement. The accords intended that the majority of the West Bank would become A and B. The way things turned out is that about sixty per cent of the West Bank remained Area C. So most of the open space in the West Bank, the main highways and corridors, and, of course, many of the settlements, have remained under complete Israeli administration. And it’s estimated that more than three hundred thousand Palestinians live there. [!]
For many years, the Israeli government has been attempting to cleanse Area C of Palestinians. One way of doing this is to not give them building permits. About ninety-eight per cent of building requests by Palestinians in the area are denied. So Palestinians build “illegally.” Since 1988, the Israeli government has issued more than twenty-two thousand demolition orders, according to its own data, with around a thousand issued annually in recent years. But it is really the sharp escalation in settler violence in the past five or so years that has ultimately led to the displacement of a large number of Palestinian communities. […]
From the mid-nineteen-nineties, more or less, Israel had formally approved and established only a handful of settlements through 2022. This government came to power in December of 2022. From 2023 to 2025, the Israeli government approved nearly seventy settlements. […] Under the current government, since 2022, we had about a hundred and eighty of them being built […]
When the U.N. started tabulating settler violence in 2006, it recorded a hundred and seventeen incidents of settler violence against Palestinians that caused casualties and/or damaged property. In 2018, there were more than three hundred. In 2022, there was a new peak of more than eight hundred. In 2025 alone, we’re talking about 1,828 incidents. That is more than a tenfold increase. […]
Even the majority of what is done “outside of the law” is orchestrated and supported by Israeli institutions and by the state. When we talk about a hundred and eighty outposts being built, most of them are herding farms, where you take over a hilltop. These are often one family, two families, max, with ten or fifteen youngsters. They are small numbers of people taking a huge amount of land. And you go over and basically beat Palestinian farmers and shepherds off their land. And, today, large parts of the West Bank are inaccessible to Palestinians because of violence from settlers living in these herding farms. The scale of this is like nothing else since the 1967 war.
[…] Then, we just had the Cabinet decide to restart the so-called Settlement of Land Title registration process in the West Bank, which had been halted in 1968, and which raises the bar for Palestinians to establish ownership over land. This puts the burden of proof on Palestinians to show original documents from the Jordanian, British, and Ottoman times, and any parcel which is not proved private likely becomes public and goes to the state. We’re talking about sixty per cent of Area C that is now up for grabs because of this process. The Cabinet also gave an order to allow Israel to work against construction in areas A and B on the basis of environmental, archeological, or water-access concerns. Again, this is formal and official.
[…] There is complete impunity for settlers committing violence against Palestinians […] standing idly by while Palestinians are being beaten up by settlers is actually soldiers following orders.
[…] after October 7th, things completely, fundamentally changed.
[…] f you are a Palestinian who was being beaten up by the settler who lives in an outpost above you, the same settler who has been trying to displace you for years, suddenly October 7th happened, and that settler is now part of the regional-defense battalion and has been issued a uniform and a gun. He is now the military. So when, in the middle of the night, he enters your house, puts you on the floor, beats you up, puts a gun to your head, and says, “You have forty-eight hours to leave. If not, we’re going to shoot you,” you leave. So, since October 7th, there has not been even a pretense of a buffer between the violent settlers and the Army. It’s the same people.
[…] This idea of squeezing a growing demographic of people into a shrinking territory with the belief that technological superiority will allow you permanent domination is the bubble that exploded on October 7th. If anyone wants to prevent another October 7th, if anyone wants to protect and defend the lives of Israelis and Palestinians, then you must give Palestinians freedom. The security of Jewish self-determination is interlinked and intertwined with achieving Palestinian self-determination. And what’s happening in the West Bank on a daily basis is eroding this possibility. So we are basically heading toward escalation and increasing conflict.
When Couturier first noted all the puzzling bunk beds he asked who they were for.
“There were bunk beds and I said to him, I said, ‘oh my god, are you expecting grandchildren?’ And he said, ‘no, these are for my — these are for the girls.”
“Jury finds eight members of a supposed ‘Antifa’ cell guilty of material support for terrorism”
[…] Trump won a key victory on Friday in a case that tested his efforts to stage explicitly political terrorism prosecutions of activists who oppose him.
A Texas jury found eight members of a supposed North Texas “Antifa cell” guilty of material support for terrorism over a July incident in which the group staged a demonstration outside an ICE detention facility. The group allegedly damaged property at the center and shot fireworks; one member, Ben Song, was convicted of attempted murder of a government official for allegedly shooting a police officer.
The case was the first time that the Trump DOJ brought terrorism charges against what it labeled as “Antifa,” the ill-defined array of antifascist beliefs that the administration has deemed a national security threat. Attorney General Pam Bondi made the point of the “Antifa” label clear […]
“Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities — not under President Trump,” Bondi said. “Today’s verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets.”
The case began as a prosecution over the shooting of the officer and damage to government property […].
[…] Trump designated Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization,” a move that has no basis in American law but still provided a signal to federal law enforcement to prioritize those who might fit into a definition of “Antifa.”
Weeks later, federal prosecutors in Texas upgraded the charges to material support for terrorism. […]
The Trump administration used the case as part of its national efforts to suggest that ICE agents were under attack by “Antifa” and “domestic terrorists.” […]
But throughout, the government has struggled to define what it means by “Antifa.” At trial, federal prosecutors called Kyle Shideler to help explain. Shideler is a longtime employee of the Center for Security Policy, designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. […]
The prosecution came in for criticism in part over the tenuous links some defendants had to the core charges […] Some defendants were not alleged to have been part of chats used to plan the demonstration; prosecutors tied others to the incident by alleging that they created “insurrectionary materials called ‘zines.’”
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman for the Northern District of Texas, an appointee from Trump’s first term, tried the case. Pittman initially declared a mistrial after a defense attorney questioned jurors while wearing a shirt under her jacket that had the faces of civil rights leaders. […]
After a 12-day trial, a federal jury found eight of the defendants guilty on material support of terrorism. Those eight were also found guilty on charges of riot, and conspiracy to use an explosive. Song, the alleged shooter, was found guilty of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence and attempted murder of an officer of the United States. Two defendants were found guilty of corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal.
Four others charged with attempted murder were acquitted of those counts. The jury acquitted Song of two additional attempted murder counts.
This sounds like just the kind of case Pam Bondi was looking for. She and Trump want to create in the public’s mind an organized domestic terrorist group named “Antifa.” That doesn’t really exist.
Comments posted by readers of the article:
Another move right out of the ascendant dictatorship playbook: Manufactured enemies. Be sure that any number of trumpians believe that Antifa exists and meets on the 2nd Thur of every month.
————————–
The material support for terrorism charges are gross overreaches, but they’re mostly going to stick on appeal because it’s a shitty statute. And Mark Pittman is a Fox News brained MAGA asshole through and through.
That said, these people were morons who were definitely asking for it. That was no peaceful protest.
“Cascade of A.I. Fakes About War With Iran Causes Chaos Online”
A.I. images and video are available at the link.
A torrent of fake videos and images generated by artificial intelligence have overrun social networks during the first weeks of the war in Iran.
The videos — showing huge explosions that never happened, decimated city streets that were never attacked or troops protesting the war who do not exist — have added a chaotic and confusing layer to the conflict online.
The New York Times identified over 110 unique A.I.-generated images and videos from the past two weeks about the war in the Middle East. The fakes covered every aspect of the fighting: They falsely depicted screaming Israelis cowering as explosions ripped through Tel Aviv, Iranians mourning their dead and American military vessels bombarded with missiles and torpedoes.
Collectively, they were seen millions of times online through networks like X, TikTok and Facebook, and countless more times within private messaging apps popular in the region and around the world.
[…] “Even compared to when the Ukraine war broke out, things now are very different,” said Marc Owen Jones, an associate professor of media analytics at Northwestern University in Qatar. “We’re probably seeing far more A.I.-related content now than we ever have before.”
[…] Social media companies have done little to combat the scourge of A.I. videos that overwhelmed their platforms last year after OpenAI released Sora, a video-generating app that allowed anyone to create realistic fakes through a simple app.
[…] “A.I. is actually a tool of war” [said Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution studying foreign policy and A.I.]
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Lynna @335 quoting Politico:
The Fars news agency reported at least 15 explosions on Kharg Island […] the strikes targeted an air defense facility, a naval base, the airport control tower, and an offshore oil company’s helicopter hangar. No oil infrastructure was damaged
it said the strike “destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites”.
NYT: “Iran’s Oil Ministry said the attacks had been enormous and destructive, and that employees of the oil refineries had reported nearly two hours of nonstop explosions that shook the island like an earthquake.”
Al Jazeera: “The foreign minister of Iran […] says the Americans used cruise missiles launched from […] United Arab Emirates, near Dubai.”
The suspension comes hours after the U.S. attacked military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island […] and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) responded by saying that U.S. interests in the UAE—including ports, docks and military locations—were legitimate targets. Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz, is the outlet for about […] 1% of world demand. […] Iran threatened more UAE ports on Saturday, warning residents to leave areas near Jebel Ali port in Dubai and Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi as well as Fujairah […] [A stubborn] fire in Fujairah occurred after debris fell during the interception of a drone
Alex Shams (Anthropologist, journo; worked in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine):
Kharg Island isn’t just a military target. It is home to a medieval Portuguese fort, religious tombs, and the ruins of one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world. It also is home to 8,000 people and flocks of wild gazelles. This is what Trump just bombed: [Screenshot]
* Alex embedded a dubious tweet from Adam Cochran—a fintech AI crypto Twitter bluecheck—who was incredulous that there were any significant military targets on the 5-mile island, based on aerial photos. Iran’s own Fars news acknowledged a “naval base” in my first blockquote.
* Also in Alex’s thread.
Sahar Maranlou (Law prof, Iranian law reform): “The first time I visited Kharg Island, I was told that it was bombed nearly 3,000 times during the Iran-Iraq War, forcing Iran to relocate its exports to ship-to-ship transfers in the Strait of Hormuz. This means Iran already has other means of exporting oil. Kharg, known as the Pearl of the Persian Gulf, is a beautiful island”
President Donald Trump claimed Saturday that “other countries” will be sending warships “in conjunction” with the US to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
It is unclear which countries the president is talking about and whether any countries have agreed to send ships. Trump wrote later in the lengthy post on Truth Social, “Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others” will send ships to the region.
Trump has gone from saying the US didn’t need other countries to the US could use help keeping the Straight of Hormuz open to other countries will be sending ships very quickly. Which countries? Not identified yet.
It’s impossible to tell what is really going on. There are lots of possibilities, including other countries taking steps to open the straight without the US.
President Volodymyr Zelensky told Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, that Ukraine wants “a free and democratic Iran” that will not cooperate with Russia, according to a statement published by the Ukrainian president’s office after their meeting in Paris on Friday.
It’s obviously in Ukraine’s best interest that Iran disolves contacts with Russia but he needs to be careful getting in bed with Pahlavi. Pahlavi has some international support but his support in Iran is shaky. The whole reason for the revolution was to get rid of his father and a lot that don’t support the clerics don’t was the Pahlavi family back either.
The elevated price of oil and the US decision to ease sanctions on Russia will provide Russia with greater flexibility and support the Russian domestic economy, Russian force generation, and the Russian defense industrial base (DIB). The Financial Times (FT) reported on March 12 that Russia is earning as much as $150 million dollars a day in extra budget revenues from oil sales.[3] The FT reported that Russia has already earned an estimated $1.3 to $1.9 billion dollars from taxes on oil exports after the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Closing the Straight of Hormuz really helps Russia. Not only does it split internal interests but it brings in a lot more money for Russia. This money will open up Russian options over the summer as they will be able to buy more for their military and feed more into the economy.
Ukrainian forces recently maintained positions or advanced in the Novopavlivka direction.
The advances are not big but they are significant in that they are the only advances happening anywhere along the front. The Russians are trying to advance along multiple fronts and are not making any progress on any of them.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to 56, 60. Sarah Taber (Crop scientist):
Panic! At The Fertilizer Desk, US Edition. Americans: this is your regular reminder that maybe 0.01% of people who write for the news actually understand how fertilizer works. But their editors all found out that scary headlines about “GLOBAL SHORTAGE??” get clicks.
[…]
The US already makes 96% of the N fertilizer we use. The fertilizer we import the most is POTASSIUM. Which we get from CANADA. When we import phosphorus, we get 98% of it from PERU. Not [the Persian Gulf]. So the reason we’ve had trouble getting those is TARIFFS.
That’s not even getting into “Hey, since we’ve cut off most of our own export markets anyway… couldn’t we just stop raising so much corn & soy?” That would cut US fertilizer demand way down. Cut fert prices for the crops we’re still growing. And do a lot to alleviate global fertilizer shortages.
Yemen’s Houthis have announced they’ll be joining the war in support of Iran shortly. Analysts expect them to shut down another strait, Bab El-Mandeb, which will close the Suez Canal. The global economy hangs by a thread. [Map]
I can’t corroborate the “shortly” bit. Chadbourn had posted a readiness announcement the day before, which itself was echoing prior readiness announcements. This second link published March 14th said, “Despite these escalatory statements, the group has not yet officially announced its direct entry into the war.”
The movement that had spent two years disrupting global shipping, launching ballistic missiles at Israel, and branding itself as the most committed […] staked its credibility on a single proposition: If Iran is hit, we strike. Iran has been hit constantly for more than a week. The Houthis have not struck. […] [On March 6, leader] Abdul-Malik al-Houthi seemingly met the moment when he pledged to join the fight “at any moment.” But no missile has been fired
[…]
If the Houthis retaliate on behalf of Tehran […] they are no longer fighting for Palestine. They are fighting for the country that is bombing Arab cities. The same Arab public that celebrated them for standing up to Israel is unlikely to celebrate them for standing with the power raining missiles on their neighbors.
[…]
Every day that the Houthis hold back while maintaining the posture of imminent action, the threat generates value without expenditure. Shipping insurance premiums remain elevated.
[…]
None of this means that the Houthis will not act in defense of the IRGC. But consider what they are protecting. The Houthis of 2015 were insurgents; they had territory but no state, no institutions, no international profile, no Red Sea leverage. The Houthis of 2026 run ministries, control ports, operate a tax system and a university network, maintain a diplomatic track with the United Nations, and negotiate indirectly with Riyadh [Saudi Arabia] through Muscat [Oman]. […] subjugating Yemenis is safer than fighting Americans. […] The Houthi economy is brittle, sustained in part by coercive tools that depend on military credibility
Nicholas Slayton:
If only the US had just spent 18 months fighting the Houthis in the strategic commercial choke point that is the Red Sea that involved cheap drones and using up interceptors AND LEARNED LESSONS FROM IT.
Rando: “I wonder how many F-18s we’ll lose this time.”
Nicholas Slayton: “Hey hey hey hey hey. The Houthis only shot down US drones, not fighter jets. The US Navy shot down that F-18 that one time.”
To be fair, the cursed aircraft carrier was swerving to avoid Houthi fire when it tiped a plane overboard. (preceding this comment) https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-4/#comment-2264143
[…] But you know which drivers don’t feel a wave of anxiety as they motor past gas stations with higher prices than the day before? Those in electric vehicles. [Sort of true. There are caveats.]
Unfortunately, because of Trump and congressional Republicans, there are fewer EV owners than there otherwise would be, and we’re falling behind other nations — especially China — in the race to create a secure, affordable energy future that produces less pollution.
When Trump came into office, he promised limitless energy abundance and “energy dominance” if only we would turn away from those prissy renewable sources of energy and back toward the kind you get when a bunch of manly men drill into the ground. It wasn’t just rhetoric; the One Big Beautiful Bill he signed last year was the most concerted attack on renewable energy we’ve ever seen. [!]
The bill repealed a whole series of green tax credits, loans and incentives, starting with the $7,500 credit for buyers of American-made electric vehicles. That was just the beginning. Programs meant to promote solar, wind, energy efficiency and high-tech green manufacturing all went on the chopping block. [!!]
The effect on EV sales was immediate. The bill ceased the tax credit at the end of September 2025, and EV sales in the fourth quarter were down 36% over the year before. […]
The decline in American EV sales happened as global EV sales kept growing — by 20% in 2025. Here at home, the Big Three American automakers have all pulled back on their plans for EV production, absorbing huge losses and canceling product lines. Meanwhile, the Chinese EV industry keeps leaping ahead. [!]
[…] Because of tariffs initially imposed by the Biden administration, you can’t buy all those fancy, affordable Chinese EVs in America. But even as Trump tries to throttle the EV industry, one of the biggest impediments to EV adoption, range anxiety, is becoming less of a problem. The buildout of the EV charging network has continued at a rapid pace, and there are now more than 77,000 EV charging locations in the country. Ironically enough, the Trump administration’s distaste for regulation has produced a streamlined system for funding construction of new charging stations.
[I snipped a discussion of solar sources of energy, and of Trump’s restrictions.]
To hear the Trump administration tell it, all that matters is that we remain “dominant” in fossil fuel production. As Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said proudly when asked about the Iran War spiking gas prices, “We’ve never been in a more dominant or secure position in the history of the country.”
If he’s just talking about fossil fuel production, then he’s right. We’re the world’s leading producer of oil and have been for years, and the same is true of natural gas. But that only proves what a fool’s errand it is to pursue the illusion of fossil fuel “dominance.” All that oil and gas we produce hasn’t protected us from the effects of Trump’s war because oil is traded on world markets. As everyone who has filled up their car these past two weeks has learned once again, a disruption in the global supply chain shows up at your local gas station in a matter of days.
Even those who drive EVs aren’t completely insulated. With so many goods moved on trains, planes and trucks, higher fuel costs are inevitably passed along to every consumer. […]
There is a different future we could have, one in which fossil fuels become a much smaller portion of our energy mix, where most of our energy comes from renewables, most people drive EVs and the Strait of Hormuz being open or closed to tanker traffic isn’t something we have to worry about.
That would be real energy independence — and we wouldn’t even have to bomb anyone to secure it.
“The New Faces of Christian Nationalism,” by Rachel Monroe
“Trump has hollowed out the Johnson Amendment, which prohibited churches from endorsing candidates. Mercy Culture, in Fort Worth, has sprung into action.”
[…] The senior lead pastor, Landon Schott, gave a sermon that was mostly about the virtues of generosity, although he occasionally veered into political territory. “I do not believe with any part of me that the vaccine was the mark of the beast, but it sure was conditioning for it,” he said, at one point. […]
A few hours later, the church hosted a more explicitly ideological gathering put on by For Liberty & Justice, the church’s political arm. [The church has a “political arm!”] The organization was founded in 2021 to promote candidates who may not attend the church but who are committed to a shared vision of religiously infused far-right politics; it has since helped usher more than a hundred candidates into office. Nate Schatzline, the founder of For Liberty & Justice, is a living embodiment of the goal of Christianizing government […]
That evening, a crowd had gathered to hear from a handful of people running for office, including Ken Paxton, a U.S. Senate hopeful and the current Texas attorney general. […] “God, I pray right now that you are sending a wave of your spirit throughout our country, and that, God, it doesn’t matter how bad polls look. Father, you are going to bring awakening and spiritual revival to America this year.”
People not attuned to the evangelical world may have missed the growing prominence of hyper-politicized churches […] Compared with the religious right of previous generations, this cohort of pastors, influencers, and self-described prophets offers up a version of worship that’s at once more mystical, with an emphasis on supernatural powers, and more militaristic, with heightened political rhetoric. Many adopt a Christian-nationalist framework, arguing that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and should be governed as such.
The Johnson Amendment, a long-standing provision in the U.S. tax code, prohibits nonprofits, including churches, from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Houses of worship aligned with both political parties have long flirted with defying the rule, but, after Trump was first elected, that defiance became more overt. [!] Mercy Culture’s pastors hung a candidate’s banner behind the pulpit, endorsed politicians during Sunday services, said that people who vote for Democrats weren’t truly Christian, and described Kamala Harris as a demonic Jezebel taking the form of a snake encircling the White House. […]
After the 2016 election, Trump told leaders at the National Prayer Breakfast that he would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment; last July, the I.R.S. announced that it was weakening the enforcement criteria. […] The move was interpreted by many, including Schatzline, as permission for churches to endorse candidates to their congregations. […]
As Schott relates the story, God told him that, before he opened his own church, he needed to consult with a Dallas megachurch pastor named Robert Morris. […] Following in the footsteps of social-media-savvy churches such as Hillsong, in Los Angeles, Mercy Culture had a worship band that played earnest, anthemic rock […]
Last year, Morris pleaded guilty to five counts of lewd and indecent acts with a child, and Schott’s pastoral lineage became something of a liability. But Schott—who visited Morris in prison in February and said that God has forgiven him—tends to lean into controversy. Last year, he posted a video of himself at a school-board meeting for M.C. Prep, a private school affiliated with the church, beaming at the camera as balloons bobbed behind him. “I just found out we are the No. 1 school in Texas for least vaccinations!” he enthused [JFC]
[…] In January, 2025, Schott led a worship service at the Texas state capitol, […] spitting out incantations meant to protect lawmakers from malignant spiritual forces. […] Since Trump’s rise, Taylor [Matthew D. Taylor, a religious-studies scholar] had been tracking what he has called a “tectonic shift in the culture of American evangelicalism,” a move toward more militant, authoritarian, and politicized expressions of faith. […] The self-identified spiritual warriors were no longer relegated to the fringe but invited into the inner sanctum of government.
[…] The influence is apparent even among non-evangelicals. Tucker Carlson, who is Episcopalian—traditionally among the most buttoned-up of Protestant sects—claimed in 2024 that he was “physically mauled” by a demon while asleep in bed next to his wife and four dogs. Trump [claimed he was] “saved by God to make America great again.” According to one study, forty per cent of evangelical Christians who did not believe in prophecies thought that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump; among prophecy-believing evangelicals, the figure was more than eighty per cent. [!]
[…] Mercy Culture recently purchased a building in Washington, D.C., across from the Supreme Court, where it hosts Bible-study groups made up of congressional staffers.
[…] Christianity is serving as cover for the authoritarian turn in right-wing politics: if your enemies are controlled by demonic forces, why would you respect how they voted?
[…] Christian nationalism is arguably the dominant political force in Texas today, thanks, in part, to multimillion-dollar donations from two West Texas billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. It has become routine to hear Republican leaders proclaim that the principle of separation of church and state is not aligned with the Founding Fathers’ true wishes. In the past few years, Texas has mandated posting the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms, approved an optional “Bible-infused” curriculum for public elementary schools, and forced school boards to vote on instituting a daily prayer program.
[I snipped a description to some on the backlash.]
[…] Turcios [Carlos Turcios, the Tarrant County director of For Liberty & Justice] told me. Moore rejected the idea of moderation, even if it meant losing elections. “We’re not compromising our principles. We’re not compromising our values. We’re certainly not going to compromise the Word of God,” he said. “Scripture tells us that the blessings rain down on the just and the unjust. And I say that to say, when Christians lead, when Christians are involved in leadership positions, especially in politics, everybody benefits.”
“Trump Tries To Lure Canada Into [Paying to Correct] Fish Fiasco”
Donald J. Trump resurrected his “Governor Carney” shtick last week to try to bait the Canadian prime minister into sinking some cash for the construction of a high-tech aquatic barrier meant to save the Great Lakes and their $5.1 billion fishing industry from an invasive species […]
[…] Trump is clearly suggesting Canada should help bail the US out from a mistake made half a century ago.
A Truth Social post, likely written by a minion given the proper punctuation, stated:
I’m working with Governor Gretchen Whitmer on trying to save The Great Lakes and the rather violent and destructive Asian carp, which is rapidly taking over Lake Michigan, and all of the beautiful surrounds. I’ll be asking other Governors to join into this fight, including those of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, New York, and, of course, the future Governor of Canada, Mark Carney, who I know will be happy to contribute to this worthy cause…
[Social media post with complete text.]
Nice eco-system you’ve got here, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
As usual, there are a few other things he got wrong. Asian carp are normally referred to as “invasive carp” for the same reason his kung flu jokes in the pandemic mostly fell flat, but the old man has never been one to pass up an opportunity to be racist. Also they aren’t “rapidly taking over Lake Michigan” yet, which is the whole point behind the urgent Brandon Road Interbasin Project.
The name may sound like a boring municipal rezoning initiative but instead is a last gasp effort to beef up security at the historic Brandon Road Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River in Joliet just 47 miles south of the mouth of Lake Michigan to prevent the underwater invasion […]
Big Gretch went on an excursion to the White House last week to demand the release of promised funding as well as lobbying for FEMA support after recent ice storms and for new fighter jets to be stationed at the military base in Harrison Township, while presumably also quietly reminding Dear Leader of his promise not to pardon the domestic terrorists who tried to kidnap her in 2020.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also weighed in Friday with a press release featuring the Wonkette-worthy headline “President Trump Betrays the Great Lakes (Again).”
“The Great Lakes are a treasured international resource and the largest fresh water source in the world, and if the Trump Administration does not deliver needed federal funds, then they are betraying every American that relies on this water,” said Pritzker. “It is imperative that President Trump uphold his stated commitments to stop the invasive species threatening our Great Lakes and release the funds needed to resume construction on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project. Illinois has always done our part, and it is past time President Trump do his.”
The Department of the Interior issued an “administrative review and pause” on the whole $1.15 billion shebang back in December, while the $225 million Congress already pinky-swore to provide for the dam upgrade remains under lock and key. […] [Funding being withheld!]
The problem began in the early ‘70s when government scientists in Arkansas chose to import foreign carp as a way to gobble up algae from catfish farms and sewage lagoons without using chemicals. […] it was a bad call. Some of them eventually escaped into the Mississippi due to flooding, and they’ve been wreaking havoc on watersheds ever since […] driving out more edible and valuable fish who belong there.
[…] The project is meant to be the last line of defense […]. Deterrents include a wall of bubbles to disorient them followed by electrified water and blaring underwater speakers and then a Final Boss release valve meant to flush away anything that made it close to the finish line.
Michigan and Illinois are the only states ponying up to address the threat, but it seems unlikely Carney would want to help with a problem born in the USA. Especially after the toddler-in-chief took one look at the new Gordie Howe International Bridge that Canada paid for and decided it instead belonged to him.
“Poland’s prime minister warns domestic Euroskeptic forces are emboldened by allies from Moscow to America’s MAGA movement.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Sunday that a potential Polish exit from the European Union is now a “real threat,” accusing nationalist President Karol Nawrocki and right-wing opposition parties of steering the country toward leaving the bloc.
In a post on X, Tusk said both factions of the far-right Confederation alliance and most lawmakers from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party wanted to push Poland out of the EU. He called such a scenario “a catastrophe” and vowed to “do everything” to stop it. [Yep, that does sound like a catastrophe to me.]
Tusk also linked the risk of “Polexit” to forces seeking to “break up the EU,” which he said included Russia, the American MAGA movement and European far-right leaders led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
The warning comes after Nawrocki vetoed legislation on Thursday that would have allowed Poland to access up to €43.7 billion in low-interest EU defense loans. Tusk’s government lacks the parliamentary majority needed to override the veto, deepening uncertainty over how Poland will finance planned military spending that is set to reach nearly 5 percent of gross domestic product this year.
Tusk has warned that Nawrocki’s veto could weaken Poland’s position inside the EU.
On Friday, former PiS Europe Minister Konrad Szymański wrote in a newspaper commentary that Poland’s nationalist right was drifting onto a “road toward Polexit,” drawing parallels with the political dynamics that preceded Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the bloc. […]
Sheri Chessen was important for altering US public opinion about abortion after she had been prescribed thalidomide that messed up her pregnancy. She had to travel to Sweden to receive an abortion 1962.
Sherri Chessen – Wikipedia
.https://share.google/M5LaKyO1mXCVIVjIG
Fountain Street Church, where the formerly religious comedian filmed her special in November, has a legacy of rejecting dogma and pushing the envelope…
In the world’s waters, fish are making a quiet, biological retreat. The once simple rules of the ocean—grow larger than potential predators—are being rewritten as temperatures reach record highs. Desperate to survive, fish are hitting the fast-forward button on life in a biological shift that will soon impact what ends up on dinner tables globally.
Fish are getting smaller and dying at higher rates as they adapt to warming waters, researchers warn in a report released Thursday in the journal Science. This evolutionary change will reduce global fish yields by one-fifth under current warming predictions, and up to 30 percent in high-emissions scenarios.
[…] Fish mortality rates have already been rising as waters warm. […] fish are maturing at a younger age and at a smaller size to improve their chances of surviving long enough to reproduce, according to the report.
Fishery yields were already expected to reduce by 14 percent when global temperatures reach 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. However, when incorporating evolutionary impacts, the researchers’ new model predicts this reduction worsens to 22 percent.
For the Alaska pollock—a key species for human consumption in North America—this would equate to a reduction of half a million metric tons harvested per year.
“This is a loss of over 1.1 billion meals of high-quality protein per year as a consequence of the effects of global warming on just one species,” said David Reznick, a professor of evolutionary ecology at the University of California, Riverside, who was not involved with the study but co-wrote a new piece about it in the journal Science. “Climate change represents an immediate threat to the earth’s capacity to sustain human life.”
Decades of decreases in size, age at maturity and abundance in species like Atlantic salmon and Baltic cod appear to validate the model’s predictions. In total, the life histories of nearly 3,000 species of fish were tested to corroborate the model’s accuracy.
Researchers noted impacts will vary by geography. Freshwater systems are predicted to warm more than oceans and will therefore see the most severe size reductions.
[…] highlighting the example of the reconfiguration of Canada’s western Scotian shelf in the late 20th century. Here, the average size of 53 top predators—like cod and haddock—dropped 40 percent in 40 years. As a result, former prey increased by 300 percent as they became predators for young cod.
Increases in fish death frequency from disease, deoxygenation or overfishing will only add further pressure. […]
[…] “What we can’t do is assume that species will evolve their way out of trouble in a way that suits us,” said White, highlighting that effective climate policy could preserve roughly 18 million metric tons of fishery yields each year.
His message to policymakers is clear: While fish can adapt to survive, the only way to protect people who rely on fisheries for their protein and their livelihood is to reduce warming.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the forces had “perceived an immediate threat to their safety and responded with gunfire.”
Israeli forces killed a Palestinian father, mother and two of their children as they drove in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, Palestinian health authorities said, and the Israeli military said the incident was under review.
Ali Khaled Bani Odeh, 37, his 35-year-old wife Waad, and two of their children, Mohammad and Othman, aged 5 and 7 respectively, were each shot in the head in the village of Tammun, while two of their other children sustained injuries, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The Israeli military said in a statement that forces had operated in the village of Tammun to arrest Palestinians wanted for involvement in “terrorist” activity against security forces.
“During the operation, a vehicle accelerated toward the forces, who perceived an immediate threat to their safety and responded with gunfire. As a result, four Palestinians who were in the vehicle were killed,” the military said.
[…] Speaking to Reuters at the hospital, Khaled, 12, one of the two surviving boys, said he heard his mother crying, his father praying, but no voice of any of his other brothers before silence prevailed after shots sprayed the car.
“We came under direct fire, we didn’t know the source. Everyone in the car was martyred, except my brother Mustafa and me,” the boy said.
He said soldiers, who pulled him out of the vehicle before beating him, cried: “We killed dogs.” [Photo of Mustafa Bani Odeh]
[…] While Israeli attacks on Gaza declined at the beginning of the war with Iran, they have since begun to rise again. While a ceasefire went into effect in Gaza in October, there have been regular outbreaks of violence since then.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Stevor @348: That Map Pack video seemed well presented at first glance, but I noticed some concerning things.
The framing was explicitly biased: “why everyone fears Iran” (intro says hates). This resulted in double-standard complaints about Iran that apply to many other countries. (The Saudi gov is famously oppressive. Trump, Israel, and the history of US meddling were absent.) He emphasized “weeks away” from a nuclear weapon (parroting Netanyahu and Republicans is a red flag)—Netanyahu’s been saying that for over 30 years. (Israel already has scary nukes.) He does acknowledge Saudis have been working on nukes via Pakistan, but that’s acceptable apparently. Lots of commenters pointed out the youtuber was mispronouncing the country’s name: it’s ee-ron, not eye-ran. Desalinization plants were framed as a vulnerability for gulf states (Iran wishes it had enough plants and is more vulnerable, see below).
A glaring factual error, central the subject.
Youtuber (12:36): “The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint. 2 miles wide at its narrowest” with a graphic drawing a line from coast to coast.
Reuters: “It is 21 miles (33 km) wide at its narrowest point, with the shipping lane just 2 miles (3 km) wide in either direction.” Wikipedia: “To reduce the risk of collision, ships moving through the strait follow a traffic separation scheme: inbound ships use one lane, outbound ships another, each lane being two miles wide. The lanes are separated by a two-mile-wide “median”.”
After a fifth year of [Iran’s] extreme drought, water levels in Tehran’s five reservoirs plunged to some 10% of their capacity, prompting President Masoud Pezeshkian to warn the capital may have to be evacuated. Unlike many Gulf states that rely heavily on desalination, Iran still gets most of its water from rivers, reservoirs and depleted underground aquifers. The country operates a relatively small number of desalination plants, supplying only a fraction of national demand.
Iran is racing to expand desalination along its southern coast and pump some of the water inland, but infrastructure constraints, energy costs and international sanctions have sharply limited scalability. “They were already thinking of evacuating the capital last summer […] I don’t dare to wonder what it’s going to be like this summer under sustained fire, with an ongoing economic catastrophe and a serious water crisis.”
On the morning of Saturday, Feb. 28, Donald Trump launched a war in Iran. Later that same day, the Republican president offered a peek into his priorities: He capped the first day of combat operations by attending a glitzy fundraiser at his glorified country club, hosted by a super PAC aligned with his political operation.
That prescheduled event, however, was not directly related to the war; it just coincided with the start of the military offensive. Almost two weeks later, however, war-related Republican fundraising began in earnest. MS NOW reported:
President Donald Trump’s political action committee this week sent a fundraising email promising donors ‘private national security briefings’ by the president himself and featuring a photo from the dignified transfer for U.S. service members killed in Kuwait.
Meidas Touch Network published the entirety of the fundraising appeal on Thursday, which was sent to prospective donors as an “announcement from Donald J. Trump.” The message, filled with links to a donation page, claims that the president is “opening up spots on the National Security Briefing Membership” — some kind of undefined entity, which almost certainly does not exist. [JFC]
“As a National Security Briefing Member, you’ll receive my private national security briefings, unfiltered updates on the threats facing America. The straight truth on border invasions, foreign adversaries, deep state sabotage, and every danger the fake news hides,” the Never Surrender fundraising letter continued. “You’ll get the inside scoop DIRECT from me, President Trump, the leader who’s rebuilt the greatest military in history, and put America First like no one else.”
[…] The same appeal presented donors with an image of Trump and a flag-draped coffin during a recent dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base (which was already controversial because the president wore a baseball cap to the ceremony, which he didn’t take off despite American norms and customs).
As NOTUS reported, one day earlier the Trump National Committee JFC, a different Trump-affiliated committee, sent its own Iran-themed message, “asking everyone who approves of Operation Epic Fury to rally behind me with incredible messages of support” — and a donation.
[…] The Democratic members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee issued a statement saying that Trump “never misses a chance to make a quick buck off the backs of the American people, even if it means turning a dignified transfer of fallen service members into a fund-raising opportunity. Deeply shameful.” [I snipped other examples.]
On Sunday night, after the latest in a series of weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago, a reporter asked Trump about the propriety of such efforts.
Trump’s initial defense was that he was on hand for the dignified transfer, “unlike a lot of other people.” That didn’t make a lot of sense: Presidents don’t get credit for simply showing up at such a ceremony; there was no reason for unnamed “other people” to be there; and none of this had anything to do with the underlying question.
Pressed further, Trump defended the fundraising practice by saying, “There’s nobody that’s better to the military than me.”
Putting aside the inconvenient fact that Trump’s record related to military service members is actually quite atrocious, there’s still a disconnect between the defense and the allegation. To hear the president tell it, he’s been good to the armed forces, so he’s entitled to exploit a flag-draped coffin when begging for cash.
“The president has publicly excused an adversary for helping a different adversary target U.S. troops and assets during the war.”
It’s been about nine days since multiple news organizations, including MS NOW, reported that Russia provided Iran with information that could help it strike American targets. […]
There’s no longer any real doubt about whether the reporting is accurate. Iranian officials have publicly confirmed Russia’s “military cooperation,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz acknowledged Russia’s wartime “strategic partnership” with Iran and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a matter-of-fact sort of way that Russia “is providing intelligence to Iran to better attack and kill American troops.”
The question is less about whether Russia has assisted Iran and more about what Donald Trump intends to do about it.
The initial reaction from the American president and his team was to express total indifference, despite the severity of the allegations. This was soon followed by news out of the White House that the Republican administration agreed effectively to reward Vladimir Putin’s regime by temporarily easing oil sanctions on the country — twice.
For good measure, let’s not overlook the frequency with which top members of Team Trump have publicly vouched for Russia’s trustworthiness and echoed Kremlin talking points in recent days.
But in case this weren’t quite ridiculous enough, Trump has continued to find new ways to make the problem worse. In his latest interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, for example, the president conceded that he believes Russia “might be” assisting Iran, but said Putin’s regime deserves a pass because the United States has assisted Ukraine. [social media post and video]
“You know, it’s like, hey, they do it and we do it, in all fairness,” Trump said. “They do it and we do it.”
Over the weekend, he went further, telling the Financial Times, “You could also make the case that we helped Ukraine to an extent. It’s hard to say, ‘You’re targeting us, but we’ve been helping Ukraine.’”
Just so we’re clear, the incumbent American president, during a war, is both echoing Putin’s talking points for him and excusing an adversary for helping a different adversary target American troops and assets.
[…] As for the White House’s decision to offer Russia sanctions relief while it helps Iran target Americans, the move hasn’t just drawn criticisms from Capitol Hill, including from Democrats and some Republicans, but it also has generated pushback from some of the same countries in the region that Trump has “demanded” help from. […]
The foolery reached new heights over the weekend as President Trump veritably begged other nations, including rival China, to rescue him from his self-own in the Strait of Hormuz.
In social media posts and news interviews, the president concocted new and implausible rationales on the fly for why other nations owed it to him to pitch in to thwart Iran’s stranglehold on the vital shipping channel.
The headlines are almost comical:
– WaPo: Trump urges world to help open Strait of Hormuz
– Politico: Trump demands ‘about 7′ countries join coalition to police Iran’s Strait of Hormuz
– WSJ: White House Tries to Build Coalition on Iran to Address Energy Crisis
– Bloomberg: Trump Floats Xi Summit Delay If China Doesn’t Help in Hormuz
– NYT: Nations Respond With Caution to Trump’s Call to Send Warships to Strait of Hormuz
While accurate, the headlines don’t quite do justice the mix of magical thinking, narcissistic indignation, and pseudo-economics Trump spent the weekend trafficking in: [Videos]
Trump, who was reportedly warned in advance by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the eminently foreseeable Iranian response of closing the strait, is left to grovel on the international stage, though in classic Trump fashion he compensates for his weakness by berating, lashing out, and threatening other countries.
With oil executives warning the White House that oil prices are not likely to retreat anytime soon and the crisis is likely to worsen, it is slowly dawning on Trump that he has an election year nightmare on his hands.
Trump’s invitation for China to assert itself more vigorously in the Middle East and to take on more of the U.S. Navy’s century-plus duty of keeping shipping lanes free and open is a huge capitulation to the rival already eager to flex its own Navy. No U.S. interest is too valuable for Trump to forsake it for his own political expediency.
Trump and his coterie lashed out on the home front, too, with news outlets being the easy and obvious target of his scorn.
An especially peevish Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth railed against CNN Friday, saying he couldn’t wait for the tech oligarch David Ellison to take over its corporate parent.
FCC chair Brendan Carr, always looking for a chance to curry favor with Trump, launched a new wide-ranging threat against the public broadcast licenses of news outlets who report “fake news” about the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran.
Trump seized on Carr’s threat to accuse out-of-favor news outlets of “TREASON” in a social media post: “you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!” Given the way Trump runs the Justice Department from the White House and how DOJ has responded to past calls from Trump to pursue prosecutions, these are not idle threats […]
The authoritarian impulses, themselves noteworthy and with few historical precedents in the United States, are clearly the default fallback position in a global energy crisis, where gas prices are spiking and there are few viable options for Trump to take decisive action to fix the problems he created. With no easy way out that doesn’t involve a debilitating loss of face, Trump is left to punch down at other targets like the press to try to maintain his aura of power and invincibility.
“Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal served with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and legally evacuated the country, then died within a day of being taken into ICE custody, according to his family”
An Afghan man who fought with U.S. forces and was legally evacuated to the U.S. after the fall of Kabul died this week within a day of being arrested by federal immigration officers in Texas, according to his family.
The reported death would be at least the 24th in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody this fiscal year, which began in October. The administration is on track for the deadliest year in ICE detention in more than two decades.
Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal, 41, was preparing to drive his kids to school in the Dallas area on Friday when agents in unmarked vehicles allegedly surrounded him and arrested him in front of his children.
Later that day, the former Afghan special forces soldier contacted family members from ICE custody to say he wasn’t feeling well, they said. Around 11:45pm on Friday night, he was allegedly admitted to Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Around noon the following day, family members said they were informed he had died.
“It’s unacceptable,” Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, an advocacy group that’s been in touch with Paktyawal’s family, said in an interview with The Independent.
“This man fought our war for 10 years,” VanDiver added. “He had six kids, one of whom is an American citizen. He was brought here by the United States of America. He’s been working hard in Texas, paying taxes … He was doing everything right.”
Paktyawal had been working at an Afghan bakery and had a pending asylum case, including a completed interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to #AfghanEvac. […]
VanDiver is calling for an independent investigation into the death, and said he has little trust DHS will be transparent about the case, given its record of making misleading claims in advance of hard evidence.
[…] VanDiver said he’s been tracking “thousands” of cases where Afghans were able to successfully legally challenge their arrests using habeas corpus requests and be released from detention, a sign they were taken in on flimsy grounds.
Immigration analysts were alarmed by another apparent death in custody under the Trump administration.
“This is the 12th death in ICE custody in the first 2.5 months of the year,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on X. “Last year, 30 people died in ICE custody, a record level. This year, we’re on pace for just under twice that amount.”
[…] Centers across the country have faced accusations of medical neglect and unsafe facilities. […]
[…] Trump’s mass deportation policy, which was touted as a way to grow the American workforce, has actually led to increased demand for immigrant farm labor.
[…] As farmers have begun to see their labor force shrink thanks to raids targeting undocumented immigrants, the administration has been asked by the farm industry to address the issue. In response, the Trump administration made changes to the H-2A visa program which will allow farmers to hire migrant farmworkers working on temporary visas at lower wages.
[…] a filing from the Department of Labor made in October admitted that Trump’s actions have led to “significant disruptions to production costs and threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.”
[…] Backlash to the wage cuts is underway.
The United Farm Workers union sued the administration in November, noting in a release that “the Trump wage cut rule represents one of the largest wealth transfers from workers to employers in U.S. agricultural history.” The union noted that the rule incentivizes hiring foreign workers, not Americans. [True]
The Economic Policy Institute has calculated the data and determined that the changes will lead to a reduction in the annual wage of U.S. farmworkers of nearly $3 billion, which is up to 9% of their total wages.
Economic fallout from Trump’s actions add to the growing problems associated with mass deportation. […].
Trump can lash out all he wants, but no other countries are coming to his aid:
[…] On Sunday, Trump tried to extort NATO countries into helping the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz, telling NATO member nations that they will have a “very bad future” if they don’t send their militaries to help open the Strait.
But NATO nations and the media responded to Trump’s latest demands with a collective yawn.
Germany said it won’t be helping reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“This war has nothing to do with NATO. It’s not NATO’s war,” German spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Monday, adding, “NATO is a defensive alliance, an alliance for the defense of its territory.”
The United Kingdom, France, Australia, and Japan all said they had no plans to send military assets to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
In fact, a British cabinet official said that the U.K. isn’t even flinching at Trump’s NATO threat.
“We always take the president seriously, but we have learned in the last 15 months or so since he came into office that there is a lot of rhetoric and statements,” Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said Monday.
Ouch.
Meanwhile, Trump’s threat to revoke broadcast licenses for media outlets that don’t report on the war the way Trump wants went ignored. Outlets broadly know that the First Amendment would protect them from any Trump administration attempts at retribution.
[…] Backed against a wall in a quagmire of his own making, Trump is yelling at reporters aboard Air Force One and posting insane screeds on social media—his go-to methods for blowing off steam when things aren’t going his way.
[…] Ultimately, the global economy is teetering on the brink, and we have an unhinged madman at the helm. […]
[…] Number of legislative seats Democrats have flipped since Trump became president again, while Republicans have flipped none: 28
Percent of the 2,000 Ohio voters polled by EMC Research who prefer Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, respectively, to be their next governor: 53%, 43%
Percent chance, according to Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ), that Trump was warned by the Pentagon that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz, but chose to ignore their assessment: 100% [Not exactly good news, but it does show that the Pentagon got that right.]
Percent of Americans polled by Navigator Research who blame the DHS shutdown on Democrats and Republicans, respectively: 25%, 40%
Age of the underage girl that Jan. 6 insurrectionist and MAGA/Nazi hatemonger Jake Lang thought he was grooming online when he got caught in a sting operation: 15
Trump blurted out Florida congressman Neal Dunn “could be dead by June”.
He cannot keep secrets. God knows what he has told Putin when speaking with him in person.
“Alexander Smirnov’s lies about Joe Biden were at the core of the GOP’s impeachment drive.”
For a year, the Trump Justice Department has been on an odd mission: to assist a mysterious former FBI informant with ties to Russian intelligence who ended up in prison for passing disinformation about Joe Biden to the bureau. His crime deeply affected American politics. The false claim he slipped to the FBI—that Biden and his son Hunter each were paid a $5 million bribe by a Ukrainian energy company—became the main evidence in the House Republicans’ reckless and ill-fated impeachment drive against the Biden.
[…] Trump’s DOJ has been helping Alexander Smirnov to get out of prison. On March 4, in a move that has drawn no media attention, the department quietly filed an unusual brief—submitted by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche [!]—supporting Smirnov’s attempt to throw out his sentence and withdraw his guilty plea.
[…] A fortysomething Israeli American businessman who grew up in Ukraine, he was a longtime confidential informant for the FBI. […] He made millions of dollars through activity federal prosecutors could not identify.
During the 2020 campaign, Republicans—most notably, Rudy Giuliani—were promoting the debunked allegation that Biden, when he was vice president, had threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine unless its government quashed an investigation of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that had recruited his son Hunter to be a well-paid board member. As that conspiracy theory was being hyped by the right, Smirnov told his FBI handler that in late 2015 or 2016 the CEO of Burisma had said to him that Hunter, through his father, could end an investigation of Burisma if the two Bidens each were paid a $5 million bribe. [good summary of the debunked allegations]
The FBI handler dutifully recorded Smirnov’s account in what the bureau calls an FD-1023 form. The FBI reviewed this information—which was much at odds with previous statements Smirnov had made to his handler about Burisma—and decided there was nothing to it [!]. […] And that was that.
Yet three years later, someone in the FBI passed the FD-1023 to congressional Republicans [!], and they went to town, claiming this was the proof President Biden had pocketed a huge bribe and was leading a crime family.
The document clearly stated there was no confirmation of the hearsay information Smirnov had provided. But […] the House oversight committee—hailed the FD-1023 […]) as Exhibit A for their baseless impeachment inquiry […] Fox News aired scores of segments about it. Kash Patel and other MAGA stalwarts cited it as evidence of Biden criminality.
[…] With Republicans raising a fuss about this once-confidential report, the FBI brought Smirnov in for questioning. He stuck to his story. He even added new allegations about Hunter Biden that he said he had received from four Russian officials, including two associated with Russian intelligence, telling the bureau the Russians had made incriminating recordings of the president’s son.
The bureau dug into all of this—reviewing Smirnov’s travel records and other information—and concluded that he was lying [!] and that he had never even had those conversations with the Burisma CEO outlined in the FD-1023. His new allegations about the younger Biden were also false. It appeared he had been trying to plant anti-Biden information within the bureau. [!!]
t Smirnov had been indicted for making false statements to the FBI [in February 2024]. His indictment was later expanded to cover the tax charges. Smirnov’s arrest outed him as the confidential informant cited in the FD-1023—and essentially ended the GOP impeachment crusade. The Republicans had been duped. [Republicans seem to be easily duped.]
[…] The feds characterized Smirnov’s interactions with Russians as “extensive.”
[…] The Justice Department’s filings in the case depicted Smirnov as having “spread misinformation” about Biden, adding “the misinformation he is spreading is not confined to 2020. He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November [2024].” It looked as if Smirnov had been part of a Russian operation to tarnish Biden in both 2020 and 2024. [!]
[…] A scamster tied to Russian intelligence who had promoted disinformation to the FBI to harm Biden in two elections was behind bars [in 2025]. A win for the Justice Department. Case closed.
Not quite. Shortly after his conviction, Smirnov requested he be released on bail from prison pending an appeal he had filed. The Justice Department, now tightly controlled by Trump, joined Smirnov in supporting this request. […]
What was different now—and peculiar—was that that the Justice Department had flipped and was supporting the request of a man who had tried to deceive the FBI and who, as Judge Weiss said, betrayed the United States.
[…] The government had once said Smirnov was a flight risk; now it argued the opposite. […]
On April 30, 2025, Judge Wright turned down the joint Smirnov–United States request for his release, noting that nothing significant had changed since Smirnov was determined a flight risk and “the fact remains that Smirnov has been convicted and sentenced to seventy-two months in prison, providing ample incentive to flee.”
[…] the former informant did catch a break after losing the fight for bail.
In November, independent journalist Jacqueline Sweet discovered that Smirnov had been released from FCI Terminal Island, a low-security prison in Los Angeles, where he had been fulfilling his sentence. A process server who had been trying to serve Smirnov with papers related to a civil lawsuit had been informed that Smirnov was “furloughed.” David Chesnoff, Smirnov’s lawyer, told the New York Post that his client had been released on a “medical furlough” due to his eye condition, which required surgery. A health-related furlough from a federal facility can last up to 30 months. Chesnoff said at the time he expected to request multiple furloughs for Smirnov.
With Chesnoff, Smirnov had a high-powered and widely connected lawyer who was part of the Trump administration. A well-known celebrity attorney based in Las Vegas, he was appointed in June to serve on an advisory council for the Department of Homeland Security.
Several years ago, Chesnoff represented Republican political operative Corey Lewandowsk […]
It’s unclear how long Smirnov was out of prison for the medical furlough. […] the Bureau of Prisons confirmed Smirnov was currently in custody at Terminal Island.
This month, the Justice Department continued to go all-out for Smirnov. On March 4, with no fanfare, it submitted a filing supporting Smirnov’s appeal of his conviction.
Smirnov […] claimed Judge Wright had not stuck to the deal’s provision regarding a reduction in Smirnov’s sentence to match his pretrial detention.
The Trump administration appears to be bending over backward to help him escape his sentence and win another trial—or perhaps avoid one. [!]
[…] There’s no guarantee the Justice Department would continue the prosecution if Smirnov succeeds with his appeal. One government official who has followed this case tells me he wonders if the ultimate plan of the Trump administration is to let Smirnov go free. [Duh.]
Judge Wright […] said that Smirnov’s claim that he had not followed “all of the stipulations” of the plea agreement was “factually and legally incorrect.” […]
Wright pointed out the agreement did not “provide that the Court would order that Smirnov receive credit for time served…This provision regarding credit requires nothing of the Court.”
Smirnov’s case does not seem a strong one […] Blanche signed this filing. Deputy attorneys general usually don’t get involved in such matters. […]
Trump’s Justice Department has shown an unusual amount of consideration for Smirnov, a confessed criminal tied to Russian intelligence who betrayed the FBI and who perpetuated a fraud that roiled American politics. But he did make trouble for Biden and the Democrats. This case warrants scrutiny as Smirnov’s appeal proceeds. [Understatement]
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, President Donald Trump announced Monday.
In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that Wiles has an “excellent” prognosis and would be “virtually full time at the White House” while she receives treatment.
Wiles also put out a statement saying she intendeds to stay as chief of staff. Wiles is one of Trump’s enablers, keeping things as organized as she can and never questioning what he wants to do. The White House would likely become even more disorganized if she had to leave or work less. Without any real information on how bad her condition is or what sort of treatment she is getting it’s hard to say what the impact will be.
A federal judge on Monday blocked Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s changes to vaccine policy, including the reduction of the recommended childhood immunizations and his remaking of a key vaccine advisory panel. [Good news.]
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy, a Biden appointee, granted a motion by the American Academy of Pediatrics for a preliminary injunction against the reduced childhood immunization schedule earlier this year, along with the remaking of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, invalidating all votes made by the committee since.
Murphy found that the reconstitution of the ACIP last year failed to abide by the Federal Advisory Committee Act. He also found that the CDC bypassing the ACIP when changing the childhood immunization schedule was both a “technical, procedural failure” and “an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee.”
“The Court concludes that, in addition to being contrary to law, the issuance of the January 2026 Memo was arbitrary and capricious because it abandoned the agency’s longstanding practice of getting recommendations from ACIP before changing the immunization schedules without sufficient explanation,” Murphy wrote in his ruling, referring to the CDC’s announcement at the start of the year altering the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule. […]
“Ric Grenell Leaving Kennedy Center After Spending Full Year Wrecking It”
Let us now hold a requiem for Richard Grenell, the asshole Donald Trump had the poor sense to put in charge of the Kennedy Center in February of 2025. Though we suppose saying Trump displayed poor sense implies that there was ever an occasion when he displayed good sense. He never has. Wonkette regrets the error.
Trump announced on Friday that Grenell will be leaving his position as head of the Kennedy Center after 13 months of wrecking everything good and decent about the place. In just over a year, Grenell and his patron have turned the Center from the nation’s premier performing arts space into an utter joke — feuding with artists, slapping Trump’s name on the building and rebranding it the Trump Kennedy Center, and watching ticket sales plummet […]
The problems started practically the minute Trump declared himself the chairman of the Kennedy Center board, which he then filled with his own flunkies, lickspittles, and people whose idea of great art is whatever gold shit Trump has slapped on the walls of the Oval Office.
The artist cancellations began immediately. Lin-Manuel Miranda announced he wouldn’t bring Hamilton to the Kennedy for a two-month run. This led to Grenell complaining that Miranda was “intolerant” of conservatives. This was a long-running theme for Grenell: anyone who didn’t like anything he was doing did not have a compelling aesthetic objection or a different view of what makes art. No, they were just woke bigots who had never made conservatives feel “welcome” at the Kennedy Center.
Why conservatives did not feel welcome watching the same symphony performances and jazz concerts that everyone else enjoyed was never explained […]
Grenell fired the entire staff of the dance department and replaced the programming head with a guy who claimed ballet has become too “woke,” and he was the only one who could restore it to its previous luster. […]
In between all this, Grenell kept claiming that the Center’s finances had been mismanaged. In what way? He could never say. […]
A CNN story on Grenell’s departure has all sorts of tidbits about his tenure that add up to one thing: he was a hateful jerk who barely ever showed up at the office, didn’t really want the job, and only took it because he thought eventually Marco Rubio would screw up and he would take over as Secretary of State, the job he wanted originally instead of being banished to the administration’s hinterlands:
“He kept saying that he agreed to take on the Kennedy Center role because he was assuming that he would that he would be taking on the State job quite quickly, so he was just a matter of time,” a person close to the Kennedy Center said.
[…] There is no word on what might have been the final straw that finally rid the nation’s cultural scene of this giant rock in its own shoe. […]
In recent days, Trump has been “souring on him,” a source close to the Kennedy Center said.
“Ric worked really hard to keep in Trump’s good graces, but Trump got tired of turning on the news and hearing every day how bad the Kennedy Center was being run and (how) Trump is killing it,” the source said.
[…] Grenell didn’t want to stick around for the two-year shutdown of the facility that Trump is planning for a massive renovation, a shutdown that was definitely not initiated to stop performers from embarrassing him by canceling so many shows […]
[A] gossipy meow of a story that he was butting heads with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who reportedly “hates his fucking guts.” Once those stories start appearing, a person’s days are numbered.
On Monday, Trump tried to give Grenell a sendoff at a meeting of the Kennedy Center’s board. Naturally, this involved some rambling about both how great it was when Grenell pretty much alienated all of Germany while serving as America’s ambassador to it during Trump I, and how happy he was watching Grenell fire lots of people when he briefly served as the Director of National Intelligence.
In between, Trump kept drifting to his plans for the Kennedy Center’s renovation. And oh Lord, it sounds as if he’s going to turn it into one of his gilded, marble-heavy monstrosities that even Middle Eastern sultans would think should be toned down:
Trump: But subject to board approval, we determined that the fastest way to bring the Trump-Kennedy center to the highest level of success is to cease the entertainment operations for a two-year period of time… Getting quality marble is hard the get, takes a long time. It comes from areas where it takes a long time to mine.
Trump: It was painted a cheap gold and we turned into a very expensively painted white, very heavy coat of very powerful white paint meant for steel, exposed steel, a very different kind of paint. But it’s almost like putting a stone over the top of it. And the color is white, shiny white. Nobody has ever made a gold paint that looks real.
Please. We’ve all seen what Trump did to the Oval Office. The man has never seen a cheap gold he wouldn’t slap on every inch of wall space until the entire room looks like King Midas had a seizure. Our long national taste nightmare goes on.
Anyway, goodbye to Ric Grenell, one of the smarmiest, meanest, mouthiest, most unlikable assholes to ever slither across our consciousness. And considering Wonkette’s long and vast history, that is really, really saying something.
Two of the three Littoral Combat Ships that had taken […] the place of a group of now-decommissioned Avenger class mine hunters […] have emerged [in Malaysia] thousands of miles away.
[…]
The current disposition of a third Independence class LCS, the USS Canberra, which had also been forward-deployed in the Middle East at least as of January, is unknown. […] There are only four Avenger class ships left in active Navy service, all of which are forward-deployed in Japan
questions continue to be raised about whether metal-hulled LCSs with mine countermeasures packages are adequate replacements for ships purpose-built for this mission. […] The [Avenger class] ships themselves have fiberglass-coated wooden hulls to reduce their own vulnerability, particularly to mines that detect targets by their magnetic signature. […] Both subclasses of LCS are also much larger than the Avenger class
“U.S. Considers Withholding H.I.V. Aid Unless Zambia Expands Minerals Access”
“A draft State Department memo outlines ways the Trump administration may ratchet up pressure on the African country by ending health support ‘on a massive scale.’ ”
The State Department is considering withholding lifesaving assistance to people with H.I.V. in Zambia as a negotiating tactic to force the government of the southern African country to sign a deal giving the United States more access to its critical minerals.
[…] Some 1.3 million people in Zambia rely on daily H.I.V. treatment that is provided through the decades-old U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (known as PEPFAR) and on tuberculosis and malaria medications that save tens of thousands of Zambian lives each year. The Trump administration is considering whether to “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May, to increase pressure on Zambia, the memo says.
[…] Twenty-four other countries have signed agreements so far, worth a total of $20 billion in health aid over five years. In most cases the main requirement on the recipient country is that its government commit to increasing its own health spending.
While most countries have signed, Zimbabwe’s government recently walked away from negotiations, saying demands about data and biological sample sharing were an intolerable infringement on sovereignty. Activists in Kenya have taken that country’s deal to the courts over similar concerns.
Unlike the other agreements, which are limited to funding for health programs, the United States is trying to use the deal it is negotiating with Zambia to address a longtime source of frustration: what is sees as China’s unfettered access to the country’s mineral wealth. Zambia is one of the world’s major copper producers, and also has huge reserves of minerals like lithium and cobalt, all of which are key in the green energy transition.
While the terms of the deal have not been made public by either government, a draft of the health component seen by The Times says the United States proposes to give Zambia $1 billion in health funding over five years, if Zambia commits $340 million in new health spending of its own. This is less than half the amount of health assistance Zambia received before the Trump administration took office.
The second piece is an agreement on steps that would give American businesses more access to Zambia’s vast mineral deposits and, by extension, end what the United States sees as China’s preferential access to Zambian mines.
[I snipped a third piece that is a renegotiation of construction with the millennium Challenge Corporation.]
Zambia will need to agree to all three by May in order to keep a portion of the health aid it now receives through PEPFAR, the draft memo suggests.
[…] the Trump administration’s frustration has grown with Zambia — a country with […] immense foreign debt burden that has long been dependent on foreign aid and cheap loans from China.
[…] Zambia has been one of the largest recipients of PEPFAR assistance — more than $6 billion — in the past two decades. When the assistance began, during the administration of George W. Bush, some 90,000 people a year were dying of H.I.V. in Zambia and the health system was entirely overwhelmed.
The Zambian government has been taking over some of the H.I.V. programs since the Trump administration’s cuts to aid began last year. Nevertheless, everything from the essential medicines supply chain to the medications that stop babies from being infected with H.I.V. at birth still relies on American financial and logistical support. [!]
[…] In December, the United States suspended the health funding talks when Zambia wasn’t engaging on the minerals issue, the memo says.
[…] More recently, the memo says, the State Department notified the Zambian government that it would cancel a planned deal that would have relieved Zambia of hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign debt payments, an amount roughly equivalent to half of what the country receives in health aid.
“Within days, the Zambian Mines Minister explicitly reversed course, telling USG officials the GRZ is amenable to negotiating preferential access, and the GRZ gave USG technical experts unprecedented access to their mining database,” the draft memo says.
[…] Would-be investors from the United States, Canada and Europe have long complained that Chinese companies bribe senior officials to obtain mining licenses, and smuggle out much of what they produce without paying taxes, viewing the occasional small fine levied as a cost of doing business.
[…] transparency and human rights organizations are using the country’s freedom of information system to try to make the proposed health agreement public.
They are chiefly concerned with a provision in the draft deal that requires Zambia to share its citizens’ health data with the United States for 10 years, although the United States pledges health funding for only five; and to share biological specimens collected through disease surveillance for 25 years, with no guarantee Zambia would have access to any product of research done with those samples, such as development of a vaccine. [Yes, that sounds like a bad deal.]
Rumors about the negotiations have spread through Zambia, and they are wrenching for people dependent on the U.S.-supplied antiretroviral medications, or ARVs, they take each day.
“If they told me to be buying ARVs, the fifty kwacha, or a hundred, that’s four or five dollars per month, even three dollars, where am I going to get it?” asked Julius Kachidza, a 56-year-old advocate for people living with H.I.V. who lives in Chongwe, near the capital. “I barely eat a meal a day.” [I snipped more of Mr. Kachidza’s personal story.]
Surely there is a better way to do this, a way that does not include a disaster for people living with H.I.V. in Zambia.
Border Patrol official Greg Bovino, most widely recognized for leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, will retire at the end of the month, CBS News reported, citing two sources directly familiar with his decision.
The war with Iran is driving up more than gasoline prices. It is beginning to hit semiconductors, medical imaging, backyard gardens and even children’s party balloons.
A combined missile and drone attack on the Kyiv region killed at least four people and wounded at least 15 overnight into Saturday, according to the head of the regional administration for the Ukrainian capital.
Some 200,000 immigrant truck drivers will begin to lose their commercial driver’s licenses as they expire under a new Trump administration rule that takes effect Monday.
As Steve Benen points out:
Whether the White House understands this or not, moves like these are likely to push consumer prices higher.
President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson made everyone uncomfortable during a board meeting Monday, where they discussed the health of GOP Rep. Neal Dunn of Florida.
“He would be dead by June,” Trump abruptly interjected while Johnson was addressing earlier reports that Dunn’s failing health had prompted him to announce his retirement in January.
“Okay, that wasn’t public, but yeah—okay—that’s … it was grim,” said a visibly uncomfortable Johnson before pivoting to claim that Trump’s doctors gave Dunn “a new lease on life.”
“They gave him more stents,” Trump boasted. [video]
“Number one, it was bad because I liked him. Number two, it was bad because I needed his vote,” Trump added.
Dunn’s retirement announcement led to speculation that he might leave office early, further hurting the GOP’s razor-thin House majority. […]
HIPAA violations? (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996). It is a U.S. federal law that establishes national standards to protect sensitive patient health information (PHI) from being disclosed without consent. However, HIPAA may only apply to holders of the patient’s records and not to the Orange Hair Furor narcissist in the White House.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Secretary of State Marco Rubio was reportedly in an irreversible coma on Monday after falling down several flights of White House stairs in an ill-fitting pair of Florsheim shoes.
According to witnesses, Rubio tumbled down the marble steps headfirst before braining himself on a newly installed statue of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Donald J. Trump, who had demanded that Rubio wear the hazardous wingtips, took the mishap in stride, telling reporters, “It is what it is.”
Briefing the media, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “We are confident that Marco Rubio’s coma will in no way affect his performance as Secretary of State.”
Those more decorative columns, a style known as Corinthian, are considered the most luxurious in classical architecture and appear on buildings such as the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court. They have long been deployed on Trump’s properties, and the president has handpicked them for his planned White House ballroom, too.
[…]
Cook said he had yet to discuss the idea directly with the president. […] the president’s deputies and allies often anticipate and implement his desires
Trump’s all about knocking down load-bearing structures. He started the ballroom because he didn’t like tents. In the end, he’s gonna reduce the whole White House to a tent. /s
Joanne Freeman (Historian): “The White House [was] designed in a deliberately straightforward & non-ornate style—in sync w/the rejection of the pomp of monarchies. People sometimes specified ‘plain style.’ It was supposed to be a tribute to NOT being a monarchy.”
Rando: “Give him two corinthians.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Seth Meyers:
“NATO Countries Rebuff Trump’s Plea to Help with Strait of Hormuz Amid Iran Oil Chrisis: A Closer Look”
Russian authorities began slowing down access nationwide to the messaging app Telegram, the service that frontline troops use to coordinate directly with one another and bypass slower chains of command. “All military work goes through Telegram—all communication,” [a Russian soldier] told POLITICO […] “That would be like shooting the entire Russian army in the head.”
[…] Kremlin policymakers have already blocked or limited access to WhatsApp, along with parent company Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Microsoft’s LinkedIn, Google’s YouTube, Apple’s FaceTime, Snapchat and X, […] Signal and Discord, as well as […] Viber, have been inaccessible since 2024.
Last month, President Vladimir Putin signed a law requiring telecom operators to block cellular and fixed internet access at the request of the Federal Security Service. Shortly after it took effect on March 3, Moscow residents reported widespread problems with mobile internet, calls and text messages across all major operators for several days, with outages affecting mobile service and Wi-Fi even inside the State Duma.
[…]
On Feb. 4, SpaceX tightened the authentication system that Starlink terminals use […] The change effectively blocked many terminals operated by Russian units relying on unauthorized connections, cutting Starlink traffic inside Ukraine by roughly 75 percent […] Russia has turned to a workaround widely used before satellite internet was an option: laying fiber-optic lines, from rear areas toward frontline
[…] throttiling is being used as a pretext to push Russians toward a government-controlled messaging app designed for surveillance and political censorship. That app is MAX, which was launched in March 2025 and has been compared to China’s WeChat in its ambition to anchor a domestic digital ecosystem. Authorities are increasingly steering Russians toward MAX through employers, neighborhood chats and the government services […] “It works badly. Messages are delayed. Notifications don’t come,” […]
Unlike China’s centralized “Great Firewall,” which filters traffic at the country’s digital borders, Russia’s system operates internally. Internet providers are required to route traffic through state-installed deep packet inspection equipment capable of controlling and analyzing data flows in real time. “It’s not one wall […] It’s thousands of fences. You climb one, then there’s another.”
[…]
In practice, the disruptions rarely amount to a total communications blackout. Most target mobile internet rather than all services, while voice calls and SMS often continue to function. Some domestic websites and apps—including government portals or banking services—may remain accessible […] The restrictions are typically localized and temporary, affecting specific regions or parts of cities rather than the entire country. […] Demand has risen for dated communication devices—including walkie-talkies, pagers and landline phones—along with paper maps
security forces began testing the system a few months ago in other, less populated regions. […] The Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor has the technical capacity to monitor VPN traffic, and will begin restricting it gradually. […] Promoting VPNs not approved by the government has been a crime since last year
There’s tabloid chatter of an influx of armed Federal Security officers posted on the Kremlin Wall, Lenin’s mausoleum, and on pickup trucks with mounted machine guns.
Mojtaba Khamenei, was wounded on the first day of joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on the country that killed his father, according to multiple reports.
Khamenei suffered a fractured foot, a bruise around his left eye and minor lacerations to his face in the bombardment campaign, CNN reported. Reuters also reported Khamenei was lightly injured but continues to be active, citing an Iranian official. And three Iranian officials told The New York Times that Khamenei suffered injuries to his legs, but that he was alert and sheltering at a highly secure location with limited communication.
A high-ranking source close to the new Iranian Supreme Leader […] revealed to Al-Jarida that Mojtaba was transferred to Moscow by a Russian military plane […] he underwent a “successful” surgical operation, and is currently receiving treatment there in a private hospital in one of the presidential palaces.
According to the source, Mojtaba’s injury in the American-Israeli bombing during the “opening raids” on Iran on February 28 required a well-equipped hospital, close medical follow-up, and special monitoring, which are impossible to provide in Iran with the continuation of the violent bombing, especially with Israel’s announcement that it would target the new Supreme Leader. […] Mojtaba was transferred on [March 12th]
The Justice Department has waived a policy requiring newly hired federal prosecutors to possess at least one year of experience practicing law, as US attorneys’ offices struggle to find qualified replacements following mass departures.
Many offices have previously adopted their own rules mandating at least three years of legal practice, rather than the nationwide baseline threshold of one year. But the reduced standards this month were implemented in federal districts such as Minnesota and Southern Florida that have experienced significant attrition to put new prosecutors to work straight out of law school.
The Trump administration is so desperate for attorneys they are now lowering the standards. In no way is this a surprise. Not all states are taking up this new minimum, it depends on how short of staff they are.
Trump claimed in the Oval Office that he had spoken to a former president about bombing Iran, and that the former president had approved of the operation. Trump added that the former president claimed he “wished” he had made the decision to bomb Iran. The president also declined to identify which president he was talking about.
Typical Trump making things up. If pressed he will probably claim to have spoken to the spirit of Reagan and Washington.
Donald Trump’s avoidance of accountability or even having to give any real answers on his decision to go to war against Iran may be coming to an end as Senate Democrats are poised to bring the business of the Senate to a grinding halt by forcing a wave of votes on U.S. military action in Iran. Senator Cory Booker talks with Rachel Maddow about Trump’s handling of his attack on Iran and the questions Senate Democrats want answered.
Rachel Maddow looks at how Donald Trump’s fast talk and gaslighting can’t change the reality of the mess he has made in the Strait of Hormuz as allies resist his bullying and rivals and opportunists take advantage of him to enrich themselves.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a testy Oval Office meeting on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected Donald J. Trump’s desperate pleas for military aid.
Referring to Iran’s ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, Zelenskyy said, “Iran has cards. You don’t have any cards.”
“You’re gambling with World War III,” he added.
Turning to Vice President JD Vance, Zelenskyy scolded, “Ukraine has kept Russia from attacking NATO for four years, and you haven’t said ‘thank you’ once.”
“After less than a year as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent is quitting over his disagreement with Trump over Iran.”
Related video at the link.
Joe Kent, whom Senate Republicans confirmed last summer to serve as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, has made headlines for a variety of unfortunate reasons, but on Tuesday morning, the Washington Republican made news in an entirely unexpected way: He announced that he’s resigning in protest from the Trump administration over the war in Iran.
In a brief item published to social media, Kent wrote:
After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
Kent, who included an image of his formal resignation letter, added that he considers it an honor to have served under Donald Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. His tweet concluded, “May God bless America.”
He is the first and only prominent official from the Republican administration to step down over the U.S. military offensive in the Middle East.
[…] The Associated Press published a memorable report during Kent’s 2022 Republican congressional campaign, highlighting his “connections to right-wing extremists, including a campaign consultant who was a member of the Proud Boys.”
The Seattle Times later noted Kent’s “reported associations with white nationalists and other far-right groups, and embrace of conspiracy theories on an array of subjects.”
Kent insisted, for example, that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged and stolen” and that the FBI was “corrupt” and needed to be brought “to heel.” Kent has also defended Jan. 6 rioters as “political prisoners” and called the Covid-19 vaccines an “experimental gene therapy.” […]
Kent’s departure leaves the United States without a director of the National Counterterrorism Center during a war, which seems less than ideal.
StevoRsays
Also on Triops :
Triops are a group of freshwater crustaceans commonly called tadpole shrimp or dinosaur shrimp. They look like ancient armored tadpoles, a look they’ve rocked for hundreds of millions of years. The word “Triops” means “three eyes” in Greek, and the group is so named because they have two main compound eyes and a third simple organ called an ocellus eye that helps them detect light.
The animals are not shrimp, which is a name usually reserved for marine crustaceans in the order Decapoda (Triops are in the order Notostraca). But like shrimp, Triops — one of two genera in its own family and order — live in water. In fact, Triops have adapted to an extreme life in temporary freshwater or slightly salty pools that may only last a few weeks before drying out.
… (snip)..
.. Scientists used to consider one Triops species, Triops cancriformis, as being the same animal seen in 250 million-year-old fossils. That would mean Triops cancriformis had survived to the present day from the Triassic period (about 252 million to 201 million years ago) when dinosaurs first emerged — hence the name “dinosaur shrimp.” However, a 2013 study of Triops DNA published in the journal PeerJ found that the current species evolved within the last 25 million years.
… (Snip)..
Four species of Triops face extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN): Triops gadensis, Triops baeticus and Triops vicentinus are endangered and Triops emeritensis is critically endangered. All four species live on the Iberian Peninsula in Spain and Portugal, and are threatened by human activities such as development and agriculture.
Waht Kyle says at end of this esp strikes home for me- given how hard it is to tell AI from reality these days as noted here – Is Netanyahu Dead or Alive? by Kyle Kulinski (Secular Talk) lasting 15 mins.
During Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in February, the president announced what he described as a “war on fraud, to be led by our great vice president, JD Vance.” A few weeks later, Trump took steps to formalize the effort with an executive order. Reuters reported:
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday launching a national task force led by Vice President JD Vance aimed at proving Trump’s claims that federal funds intended for social-welfare programs are being stolen in some states. […]
A copy of the executive order released by the White House said members of the task force are to come up with a plan in 90 days to implement anti-fraud measures.
[…] The Vance-led task force won’t start rooting out fraud right away, it will take three months to figure out a plan to root out fraud.
Time will tell whether the initiative amounts to anything, but there are a handful of reasons why failure appears inevitable.
1. The White House doesn’t understand the nature of the problem it’s trying to address. During the Oval Office event kicking off the task force, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller insisted that if all fraud from social insurance programs were eliminated, “it would be enough to balance the budget.”
Given that the budget deficit in 2025 was $1.8 trillion, Miller’s claim wasn’t even close to being correct, though it was followed by the president claiming that a recent fraud controversy in Minnesota cost $19 billion, which is a figure so wrong that even Trump’s Justice Department doesn’t believe it. [!] […]
2. This is shaping up to be an entirely partisan endeavor. As The New Republic noted, the administration has made no effort to hide its intention to focus on “majority-blue states,” despite the absence of evidence that fraud is more common in states run by Democrats. […]
3. Vance has no relevant qualifications. The least experienced vice president in nearly a century has no background in auditing or administering social insurance programs. Putting him in charge of an anti-fraud task force makes about as much sense as putting a billionaire megadonor with no background in federal budgeting in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency.
4. […] Trump ran a fraudulent “university” that led him to pay a steep out-of-court settlement, oversaw a fraudulent charitable foundation and had to pay $2 million in court-ordered damages, ran a family business that was found to have engaged in systemic fraud and has issued presidential pardons for people convicted of fraud — all of which makes him the wrong guy to launch an anti-fraud task force.
As Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington recently noted via Bluesky, “Trump announcing a war on fraud is like a criminal announcing a war on crime.”
[…] If Trump were serious about fighting a “war on fraud,” he should expect to see that war arrive at his own doorstep.
“The president is certain he’s on the right track in Iran because he’s received backing from powerful people he refuses to identify.”
Toward the end of Donald Trump’s remarks at a Kennedy Center board event on Monday, the president took a moment to congratulate himself on launching a war with Iran, while claiming to have received private validation from one of his White House predecessors. [As noted by JM in comment 398.]
[Social media post and video]
According to the Republican incumbent, he recently spoke to “a certain” former president who allegedly told him, in reference to the military offensive in Iran, “I wish I did it. I wish I did.” Asked which former president made the comments, Trump replied, “I can’t tell you that. I don’t want to embarrass him. It would be very bad for his career, even though he’s got no career left.”
Hours later, in the Oval Office, he repeated the story, claiming that a former president told him, “I wish I did what you did.” (Trump specifically said it was not George W. Bush.)
To know anything about the way Trump communicates is to know that he often shares the details of conversations that have only occurred in his imagination, though he often publicly describes these chats as if they were real.
Does this latest anecdote fall into the same pattern? Apparently, yes: There are only four living former presidents, and with Bush removed from the equation, that leaves Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The Associated Press, NBC News and The New York Times separately reported, however, that none of the former presidents has spoken to Trump recently, suggesting that the Republican was once again describing a chat that never happened, just as he’s done too many times before.
Relatedly, the incumbent president boasted that there are countries that have responded to his call to assist the United States in the Strait of Hormuz, and that his administration would be “announcing them” soon. “I have to tell you, we have some that are really enthusiastic,” [eyebrows raised … “really enthusiastic” is not how I would describe it. Everyone refused Trump’s request, with some reiterating that he had started a war of choice] Trump added. “They’re coming already. They’ve already started to get there.” [JFC. Blatant lies again.]
[Social media post, with video.]
The comments were notable in part because of Trump’s increasing incoherence on the subject, having changed his mind several times about whether he wants, needs or expects other countries to provide assistance in the region. (At one point on Monday, he claimed that he’d only sought international support as part of some kind of test, “because I want to find out how they react.”)
[…] Officials from the U.K. and throughout Europe continued to express public skepticism about intervening in the region, with Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, saying, “This is not our war; we did not start it.”
[…] In 2018, Bloomberg News published a memorable report that referred to Trump’s many “anonymous validators”: unnamed figures who were invariably important and powerful, who privately and habitually assured the president how right he was about his positions and priorities.
Eight year later, Trump continues to revel in the support of his many secret friends.
“If Trump is right, and he predicted the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, why didn’t his administration take steps to prepare?”
Related video at the link.
Among the many things Donald Trump wants Americans to believe about his vast and impressive powers is his ability to predict the future. […]
Late last week, for example, he told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade that he predicted the rise of Osama bin Laden. “I said, ‘You have to go out and kill Osama bin Laden. He’s big trouble. Kill him.’ Nobody did anything,” the president said. “A year later, he knocked down the World Trade Center. Do you know that? It was in a book. Did you know that I wrote it in a book? One of my many bestsellers.”
On Monday, Trump said it again, linking his alleged prediction from the 1990s to a related prediction about the Strait of Hormuz. [social media post and video]
“I knew about the strait, that it would be a weapon, which I predicted a long time ago, predicted all of this stuff,” he boasted, adding, “I predicted Osama bin Laden would knock out the World Trade Center. I made that prediction a year before he did it. I said, ‘You better get him. He’s a bad guy.’ I watched him be interviewed one time and I said, ‘That’s a bad guy, you better get him,’ one year before exactly; I wrote it in a book.”
As is too often the case, Trump was referencing events that only occurred in his overactive imagination. He has told this falsehood several times before, but The Associated Press and CNN separately scrutinized the claims and found that Trump’s book made no predictions about bin Laden, no matter how often the president has pretended otherwise.
But as tiresome as it was to see the president peddle nonsensical boasts that have long been discredited, let’s not brush past the other point he raised about his powers of prognostication: “I knew about the strait, that it would be a weapon.” [!]
[…] the strait has effectively been weaponized, which in turn has created economic problems for countries around the world, including the United States, increasing costs on everything from oil to food to semiconductors.
To hear the president tell it, he knew this would happen. That’s easy to believe, given recent reporting that U.S. military leaders, including Gen. Dan Caine, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told him in advance that this was an all but certain development after the start of the war.
[…] If Trump predicted the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, why wasn’t his administration better prepared? Why not establish partnerships in advance with regional and military allies? Why not emphasize oil reserves before launching the military offensive?
Last week, MS NOW spoke with former Navy officers and maritime experts who marveled at the Republican administration’s failure to anticipate the events that Trump has said he saw coming. Sal Mercogliano, a maritime historian and professor at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and Campbell University, told the network, “I’m kind of floored by the fact that the administration failed to plan or have any guidance in place for what to do with the commercial shipping.”
Retired Army Gen. Mark Hertling, an MS NOW national security contributor, added that the White House’s rush to war apparently did not allow for enough resources to be moved to the region.
“It’s just a lack of understanding fueled by Hegseth and Trump not understanding how the military works,” he said.
If the president said he had no idea what to expect, that would be a problem. But the fact that Trump has insisted that he saw all of this coming, and simply failed to properly prepare, makes that problem even worse.
The nonprofit consortium that runs the National Center for Atmospheric Research has sued the Trump administration to block its effort to tear apart the premier U.S. weather and climate lab — and it fronted the wacky Tina Peters connection in its lawsuit.
The Trump administration’s attack on NCAR is part of broader campaign of retribution against Colorado, the lawsuit alleges, for: (i) failing to end mail-in voting; and (ii) imprisoning former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, a Big Lie obsessive, for her conviction for tampering with voting machines to try to prove that Trump’s loss in the 2020 election was a fraud.
[…] the attack on NCAR is just one of the retributive acts the administration has taken against Colorado. The list of others that appear in the lawsuit is remarkable, too. The lawsuit calls it “a widespread and coordinated campaign of punishment and coercion” against Colorado for refusing “to accede to attempts to infringe upon its sovereignty.”
Among the examples in the lawsuit, all from December:
– The U.S. Department of Transportation announced the termination of $109 million in transportation funding for Colorado … and only Colorado;
– The U.S. Department of Agriculture ordered only Colorado to “participate in a SNAP ‘pilot project’ requiring the State to recertify eligibility and conduct in-person interviews for more than 100,000 Colorado households in five counties within a mere 30 days during the winter.” The threatened sanctions for failure to complete the task included removing Colorado from SNAP. Minnesota was the only other state whose participation in SNAP was targeted.
– FEMA denied two disaster relief assistance requests from Colorado related to devastating wildfires and flooding.
– Trump vetoed a bipartisan bill to fund a Colorado water project.
The case was assigned to senior U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn, a George W. Bush appointee.
“This is not Europe’s war,” the EU tells Washington in a bruising rebuke on Iran even as oil prices rise.
Europe’s message to Donald Trump on Monday was clear: We’re not helping you secure the Strait of Hormuz.
Foreign ministers from the 27 EU countries gathered in Brussels to discuss the American president’s call for European countries to help secure the narrow waterway, a vital oil shipping channel that Iran has largely blocked in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli airstrikes.
[…] after hours of closed-door talks about the war in Iran, Europe’s foreign envoys made clear they see this as America’s problem to solve.
“Europe has no interest in an open-ended war,” EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Monday evening after the meeting. […] “Nobody wants to go actively in this war.”
Trump told the Financial Times at the weekend it would be “very bad for the future of NATO” if European countries failed to respond to his call for help. [Of course Trump had to include a threat when he asked for help.]
[…] And on Monday, Trump told reporters that he was confident France would assist the U.S. “I think he’s gonna help. I mean, I’ll let you know, I spoke to him yesterday,” the American president said, referring to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. Trump also said he was “not happy” with the response from the U.K. and “very surprised” after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would not be drawn into a “wider war” over Iran.
Trump was adamant that “we don’t need anybody” and “we’re the strongest nation in the world,” but his request for assistance was a test of solidarity, to see how European countries would react, as Iran’s closure of the strait drives up oil prices. [Effing lie. Trump was just attempting to cover his ass.]
“I’ve been saying for years that if we ever did need them, they won’t be there,” the U.S. president said.
European capitals clearly don’t want to get involved, though — and wish Trump would stop asking.
“The Americans chose this path, together with the Israelis,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, adding that Germany’s main responsibility was to defend NATO territory.
[…] German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also poured scorn on the idea of committing Berlin to the conflict, triggered when the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Tehran on Feb. 28 and killed the Iranian supreme leader. “NATO is a defensive alliance, not an interventionist one. And that is precisely why NATO has no place here at all,” Merz said. […]
Six months before the Trump administration started bombing Iran, the Department of State fired its oil and gas experts.
[…] In July 2025, as part of President Donald Trump’s reduction-in-force initiative, the administration laid off staff who would have been responsible for gaming out possible scenarios if the Strait of Hormuz was closed.
The agency also let go of staffers with close professional relationships at oil and gas companies in the Middle East and experts tasked with maintaining diplomatic contacts at foreign energy bureaus.
[…] When 1,300 people working at the State Department were cut last summer, the only people left from the agency’s Bureau of Energy Resources were those who worked on critical minerals and clean energy, the administration told Congress when notifying lawmakers […]
Trump administration officials apparently felt that shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development and killing billions of dollars in foreign aid was too subtle and failed to convey the real depths of their depravity. So the president’s lackeys figured out a way to make their monstrous intentions crystal clear.
A State Department memorandum prepared for Secretary Marco Rubio pitched the genuinely horrifying idea that the U.S. should threaten to withhold funds for HIV treatment in Zambia, where 1.3 million people require daily HIV medications. For good measure, why not also threaten to cut funding for tuberculosis and malaria medications?
This is all in service of forcing Zambia to give us better access to the copper, lithium, and cobalt minerals within its borders. It’s tough to get much more direct than telling a country that President Donald Trump has no problem whatsoever with letting people die if he doesn’t get his way. […]
[…] “We’re doing a lot of special things. We have a lot of things happening,” Trump said before boasting about the Ultimate Fighting Championship event scheduled to take place on the White House lawn on June 14—which “only by happenstance” is Trump’s 80th birthday. [Video]
The ridiculous spectacle will also apparently be broadcast on CBS, which is owned by the Trump-friendly Ellison family.
“It’s a great family, and it’s gonna be a tremendous event,” Trump said.
And if that weren’t enough, a few weeks after Trump’s low-rent “Gladiator” birthday bash, the White House will host an IndyCar race around Washington.
As U.S. troops die as a result of Trump’s Iran war and Americans struggle to access food and gas, it’s good to know that the president has his priorities straight.
Last week, Tennessee state House Rep. Jody Barrett did what many likely thought was impossible — he advocated for an anti-abortion bill so obviously repugnant that even other Tennessee Republicans wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot-pole.
Abortion is already illegal in the state, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or lethal fetal abnormalities, meaning that these are people who are totally fine with forcing a 12-year-old rape victim to give birth to her father’s baby, even if that baby will not survive outside of the womb because its brain is outside of its head. […] But Barrett’s bill, which would have classified abortion as criminal homicide, a crime punishable by death in the state, went a little too even far for them, as not even one single member of the subcommittee was willing to support it or speak in its favor.
[…] This, of course, came as a great disappointment to Rep. Barrett and the “crowd of loud, mostly male pro-life activists from Tennessee and surrounding states” who came to support its passage.
Rep. Barrett has since complained that the bill did not pass because it was unfairly characterized as a “death penalty for abortions” bill, just because it would have allowed abortion patients to be sentenced to death.
Via Nashville Banner:
“The fear tactic of calling it a death penalty bill was just as effective at scaring actual pro-life people as it was the others,” Barrett said, adding that it was an “insulting” characterization of his bill. Barrett believes that whether the bill could have resulted in execution was irrelevant because it was not likely that it would.
“There’s only one female on death row in Tennessee, and she’s been there since 1996,” Barrett said. “We’re not going to execute women. We don’t have the stomach for it.”
[…] the surest way to ensure that women are not executed for having abortions is to not make having an abortion a crime that is punishable by death. […]
During the trial, Barrett said, the defense could bring up factors like rape or incest, in the way someone else might claim self-defense, but there would be no explicit exceptions because “all unborn lives would be treated as victims” and someone would have to stand trial.
And, again, Tennessee does not have exceptions for rape and incest in its abortion ban.
During a press conference on Thursday, Republican Majority Leader Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland) explained that “We don’t punish mothers here in this state. We’ve been very clear about that. We did away with abortion by saying, look, a doctor could get arrested for killing a baby, a doctor could lose their license, a doctor could be sued.”
[…] But these fellas are a pretty good representation of the two primary anti-abortion-rights camps — the “women are evil sluts who must be punished by being forced to give birth against their will or put in prison” camp and the “Women are stupid and vulnerable to being manipulated by evil doctors who just want to perform abortions for funsies, or as tribute to their lord and master, Satan” camp.
[…] probably a whole lot more honest, re: their “actual priorities.” After all, if you believe abortion is murder, you necessarily believe that those who have abortions are murderers. The reason they try to transfer the “evil” to doctors is because they know that no one wants to say that a woman who doesn’t want to be forced to give birth against her will is an evil murderer who should spend the rest of her life in jail. They know that would be a turn-off for people, and they are correct.
Jody Barrett is a monster, […] honest about his terrible beliefs. Personally, I hope that more follow in his footsteps so that more people can see what the “actual priorities” of the anti-abortion rights crowd actually are.
“EXCLUSIVE: Israel urges Iranians to revolt but privately assesses they’ll be ‘slaughtered’ ”
“Israeli officials told U.S. counterparts they hope for an uprising even though it would lead to a massacre.”
Senior Israeli officials have told U.S. diplomats that Iranian protesters will “get slaughtered” if they take to the streets against their government even as Israel publicly calls for a popular uprising, according to a State Department cable reviewed by The Washington Post.
The cable, circulated by the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Friday, relayed an Israeli assessment that Iran’s regime is “not cracking” and is willing to “fight to the end” despite the Feb. 28 killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the ongoing U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign.
The regime killed thousands during wide-scale anti-government demonstrations earlier this year. If large numbers of Iranians return to the streets, Israeli officials say “the people will get slaughtered” because the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s principal military force, “has the upper hand,” according to the cable. The document’s authenticity was verified by two State Department officials.
[…] Other Israeli officials have said the assault on Iran is a success even if a popular uprising doesn’t materialize. “Every day that we weaken this regime is a gain for the state of Israel,” Ze’ev Elkin, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, said in an interview on Israeli television.
Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and vice president at the Brookings Institution, said the vulnerability of Iran’s unarmed protesters should be a consideration for U.S. and Israeli officials. “The Iranian people are at grave risk at the moment from the regime, and it would be unfortunate if they were used as pawns in an effort to try to further inflame the situation,” she said.
The Trump administration’s outlook on the peril facing Iran’s opposition has shifted since the start of the war. President Donald Trump initially urged Iranians to “take over your government” but has recently acknowledged that Iran’s security forces would kill protesters if they took to the streets. […]
The regime’s response to protests in January, which were brought on by economic mismanagement and authoritarian tactics, resulted in a brutal crackdown condemned by much of the West.
[…] Israel expected that the Iranian supreme leader’s assassination last month would sow “more chaos” within the regime in the immediate aftermath, Israeli officials told U.S. counterparts, according to the cable.
But in recent days, the Islamic republic’s hold on power has been evident in its ability to continue launching ballistic missiles and drones “everywhere they want to,” Israeli officials told U.S. diplomats, according to the cable.
Maloney said she was surprised the Israelis underestimated the regime’s resilience.
[…] Iran has funded militias and political movements across the Middle East that are hostile to Israel, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Israel’s effort to push for an uprising in Iran regardless of the number of fatalities is consistent with its decades-long effort to cause the “fragmentation of Iran” and “state collapse,” said Bajoghli, the Iran expert.
“One of the ways of achieving that is creating more opportunities in which the guns of the state get turned onto the population,” she said. “The goal is not creating a liberal democracy for the Iranian people. It’s widening the chasm between the society and the state.”
“Israel Says It Has Killed Iran’s De Facto Leader”
“Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, was killed in an overnight strike, the Israeli military said. His death would deal another severe blow to Iran’s power structure.”
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had killed a high-ranking Iranian leader, Ali Larijani, in an overnight airstrike near Tehran […]
Mr. Larijani was the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and became Iran’s de facto leader after airstrikes killed the upper echelons of Iran’s government and military. The Israeli military said that it also had killed Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij, Iran’s powerful plainclothes militia.
The Iranian authorities and state media did not comment on the Israeli announcements. But two Iranian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said they believed Mr. Larijani and Mr. Soleimani had been killed.
President Trump, speaking during a White House meeting with the Irish prime minister, said Mr. Larijani had a lot of blood on his hands. He again defended the war effort, asserting the United States had destroyed the Iranian military and the nuclear threat the country posed. He again expressed anger that NATO allies had not heeded his call to help defend the Strait of Hormuz. […].
The killing of Mr. Larijani would remove an influential pragmatist who was seen as having the clout to negotiate with the United States. His death could also embolden even more hard-line Iranian leaders who believe that the Islamic republic can survive only by doubling down. [!]
Mr. Larijani was a close confidant of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who was killed in an Israeli airstrike at the start of the war on Feb. 28. Mr. Larijani in effect ran Iran behind the scenes even before Ayatollah Khamenei’s death, leading the brutal crackdown this year on protests against Islamic rule.
The death of Mr. Larijani renewed serious questions about President Trump’s endgame. When asked on Tuesday in the Oval Office about his plans for Iran after the war stopped, Mr. Trump responded by praising the damage the attacks have wrought. “Look, if we left right now it would take 10 years for them to rebuild,” he told reporters. “We’re not ready to leave yet, but we’ll be leaving in the near future.”
[…] Donald Trump’s presidency is failing. His economic record is an embarrassment, the war he launched in Iran is causing adverse consequences he should have seen coming, his crusade against his perceived enemies is faltering, and even the most conservative Supreme Court in generations has refused to endorse his illegal trade tariffs agenda.
Just as notably, the Republican incumbent is historically unpopular […]
[…] When the White House announced that the president would hold an afternoon press conference, many assumed that he’d take the opportunity to update the nation on the latest war in the Middle East. Instead, speaking at a Kennedy Center board lunch, Trump fielded questions that touched on a wide variety of subjects — not because reporters asked questions about them, but because the president wouldn’t stop bringing them up. [video]
In apparent reference to Kennedy Center renovations, Trump went on and on about, of all things, paint.
“There’s actually never been a paint that’s made that will look like gold. … Either gold leaf it or use real gold bullion, or you use a different color,” he said. “Nobody’s ever been able to make a gold paint that looks real. A little minor thing for the media. I’m sure you’re thrilled with hearing that. But there’s never been a paint. I said, ‘Someday I’m going to discover a paint where you don’’ have to actually use gold leaf.’ Gold leaf is a very, very big and expensive process, but it’s a beautiful thing, but not when you use paint.”
The president focused on his marble preferences. He spoke at great length about his ballroom vanity project. He brought up curtains. He touted the Kennedy Center’s “bones.” He whined about Disney having gone “woke.” He seemed quite animated about an upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship bout at the White House.
Did I mention that the president also blurted out private medical information about a member of Congress? Because he did that, too.
It was a jarring display, but it was not unusual. In recent weeks, Trump has been preoccupied with the Super Bowl halftime show. And finding things he wants his name on. And complaining about the Grammy Awards. And obsessing over which comedians are making fun of him. And playing an excessive amount of golf at properties he owns and profits from.
As part of the president’s appeal in the E. Jean Carroll case, his lawyers argued in a court filing that Trump is simply too busy to deal with the civil litigation, which was odd for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that Trump doesn’t seem focused on his weighty responsibilities at all.
Given that recent polling found 68% of Americans believe the president has the wrong priorities, it’s amazing to watch him try to push that number higher.
Kevin Hassett, President Donald Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, said on Tuesday that the administration is not really concerned with the economic impact that the war on Iran is having on millions of American consumers.
Hassett made his statement during an appearance on CNBC.
“The fact is the U.S. economy is fundamentally sound and if [the war] were to be extended, it wouldn’t really disrupt this economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers—and we would have to think about what we would do about that—but that’s really the last of our concerns right now,” Hassett said.
[…] The economy was on shaky ground before Trump attacked. Despite inheriting a recovering economy from former President Joe Biden, Trump has instituted other policies like tariffs that have slowed the economy and contributed to increased unemployment.
[…] Democratic leaders lashed out against Hassett’s tone-deaf remarks soon after they were made.
“The Trump administration is saying the quiet part out loud: the higher costs you’re paying are the LAST of their concern,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote.
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz noted, “Well I’m not some sort of political expert but this feels like an unhelpful thing to say.”
[…] Trump and his fellow Republicans have already been feeling backlash from the public about their lack of sympathy for worsening economic conditions. As elections grow closer, Hassett’s callous rhetoric won’t help the party’s negative trajectory.
Hassett smiled while he spewed that “callous rhetoric.”
“The Finnish president predicts the U.K. will rejoin the EU, and wants closer integration on defense and trade as Donald Trump rips up the world order.”
Brexit was “a colossal mistake” and the U.K. should rejoin the European Union, Alexander Stubb said Tuesday.
But instead of waiting for that to happen, London and Brussels should work together now to deepen their relationship in key areas such as defense and intelligence sharing, trade and access to the single market, and technology and innovation, the Finnish president said.
Speaking at the Chatham House think tank during a visit to London, he said the chaotic state of the world in which the old, rules-based order no longer holds should prompt a radical rethink of the EU-U.K. relationship.
“I think Brexit was a colossal mistake,” said former London student Stubb, who has a British wife and children with dual nationality. “I am too diplomatic to express exactly what I think about those who promoted Brexit during the campaign, and those who still say that Brexit is a good thing … But I do think it’s not only shooting yourself in the foot, but it’s like amputating your leg without medical reason for doing it.”
Stubb said he recognized that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not aim to rejoin the EU but argued that Brits and Europeans should be “pragmatic” now and show flexibility on both sides.
Negotiations have been ongoing over moves toward deepening the partnership between London and Brussels since Starmer’s Labour won power in 2024, but progress has been held back over disagreements over youth mobility programs, student fees and how much the U.K. should pay to take part in an arms investment package.
[…] Stubb said British membership of the EU’s customs union should be possible, alongside participation in the single market. Red lines during years of Brexit negotiations meant the U.K. left both structures five years ago, under a bare bones deal that Boris Johnson negotiated.
“We need to be super pragmatic,” he said, instead of Europeans thinking they should “continue to punish” the U.K. for leaving the bloc. “[…] Think about a flexible way of dealing with it.”
More broadly, Stubb suggested the EU should reform its structures to allow more flexibility […]
He said Iceland is renewing its interest in becoming a member, he’d like to see Norway join the bloc, and he joked to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada should also take a look at EU membership when the pair went running together on Tuesday morning in London.
birgerjohanssonsays
Crossposted with Mano Singham’s blog.
About the ‘manosphere’ and the documentary by Louis Theroux
A lot of people from Ayn Rand to the original ancient sophists have gotten rich by telling people what they want to hear. They are analogous to the royal courtiers who would praise the vices of the king as virtues.
The internet have made them far more dangerous.
.
Inside the Manosphere review – why doesn’t he focus more on the impact on women? | Louis Theroux | The Guardian .https://share.google/WCGUXm0zUjMFs0OLm
Regarding Trump’s claim that he had spoken to a former president about bombing Iran, and that the former president had approved of the operation and “wished” he had made the decision to bomb Iran.
Typical Trump making things up. If pressed he will probably claim to have spoken to the spirit of Reagan and Washington.
Not necessarily, He was probably talking to himself.
Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old from the West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Her detention was linked, in part, to her participation in a protest outside Columbia University in 2024.
[…]
An immigration judge had ordered her released on bond three times. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was freed Monday on $100,000 bond after it did not challenge the third.
[…]
Kordia said she joined a 2024 demonstration outside Columbia University after Israel killed scores of her relatives in Gaza, where she maintains deep personal ties. She was around 100 people arrested by city police at that protest, but the charges against her were dismissed and sealed. Information about her arrest was later given to the Trump administration by the New York City Police Department, which said it was told the records were needed as part of a money laundering investigation.
Kordia was arrested during a March 13, 2025, check-in with [ICE] in New Jersey. She was detained immediately and flown to Prairieland Detention Center, south of Dallas.
[…]
An immigration judge found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth […] “I’ve heard testimony. I’ve seen thousands of pages of evidence presented by the respondent, and very little evidence presented by the government in any of this,”
Leqaa Kordia is out of detention after more than a year. Leqaa was never charged with any crime. She referred to as a “columbia protestor” but she isn’t a student—she was targeted simply for existing while Palestinian in the vicinity of anti-genocide protests at Columbia university. Her treatment has been appalling.
Leqaa Kordia has been a victim not just of Trump’s deportation agenda but the criminalization of Palestinian identity for which the Biden admin and university leaders bear considerable blame.
birgerjohanssonsays
Britain:
Newly unearthed Nigel Farage videos reveal support for rioter, neo-Nazi event and far-right slogans | Nigel Farage | The Guardian
.
.https://share.google/5dFwKPADm2ZFB5Avw
birgerjohanssonsays
The Guardian
“Trump counter-terrorism chief quits over Iran war, blaming Israel ”
According to reporting by The Washington Post published Tuesday, top Israeli officials relayed the message to U.S. diplomats in a cable that circulated in the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on Friday. The cable said that Israeli officials assess that the Iranian government is “not cracking” and will “fight to the end” — despite hopes by U.S. and Israeli officials that they could “decapitate” the government and achieve collapse.
The cable further said that if Iranians were to stage more protests against their government, as they did in demonstrations earlier this year, “the people will get slaughtered,” Israeli officials said. According to UN Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato, around 5,000 people were killed in the government crackdown on protests as of January, though it has been difficult to assess the precise number of deaths due to biases on all sides.
The cable, which summarized recent meetings by top Israeli officials and U.S. officials, said that nonetheless, Israeli officials are hoping for a revolt and that the U.S. should support such an uprising as well.
The government of Israel has been encouraging the Iranians to revolt and urged US officials to join in. At the same time Israel’s internal assessment of the situation is that the civilian population would be slaughtered if they did so. That is a remarkable level of organized cynicism there, Dick Cheney level evil.
Scotland, like the rest of the UK, turns out to be still in thrall to religious bigots who think they have the right to impose their beliefs on the majority.
birgerjohanssonsays
Before ceramics, the gourd plant seved as a vessel. Because of this, it may be the first plant to be domesticated, long before food crops.
Afghanistan accused Pakistan of killing at least 400 people in an airstrike on a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital late Monday. It marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict that began late last month and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan.
Officials in Cuba reported an islandwide blackout Monday in the country of some 11 million people as its energy and economic crises deepen and its power grid continues to crumble. The Ministry of Energy and Mines on X noted a ‘complete disconnection’ of the country’s electrical system and said it was investigating, noting there were no failures in the units that were operating when the grid collapsed.
Washington Post:
‘I do believe I’ll [have] the honor of taking Cuba,’ Trump told reporters Monday afternoon. Asked whether this meant diplomacy or military action, he said: ‘Taking Cuba in some form … whether I free it, take it — I think I can do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth.’
The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee formally subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before lawmakers over her department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
President Donald Trump is delaying a diplomatic trip to China that had been planned for months but began to unravel as he pressured Beijing and other world powers to use their military might to protect the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said Tuesday while meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin in the Oval Office that he would be going to China in five or six weeks’ time instead of at the end of the month.
Somewhat unexpectedly, the US government has submitted an Article 51 letter to the [UN Security Council] articulating the US int’l law justification for attacking Iran. As someone who used to help draft these letters for the USG, I find the administration’s legal arguments completely unconvincing. [Screenshots] [*snip*]
Rando: “Trump uses the attack on US Marines in Lebanon *in 1983* as one of the justifications”
1) The letter states that these strikes are “the latest stage in the ongoing international armed conflict” with Iran, since before last June. Yet the USG’s position on its war powers resolution obligations will be that the hostilities have not surpassed 60 days. And
2) As a matter of constitutional law, the Administration’s position is surely* that the USG is not in a “war” with Iran, and thus POTUS need not get congressional approval.
Kyle Reed (Intl rels prof): “I teach a MA course on the politics and practices of international law. In that course, students write […] a use of force/Art 51 letter. Their roughest first drafts are more coherent and competent than this Art 51 word salad from the US.”
The UK saw no compelling evidence of an imminent threat of an Iranian missile attack on Europe, or of Iran securing a nuclear weapon. This is the first time it has become clear that Britain was so closely involved in the talks, and so had good reason to decide whether diplomatic options had been exhausted
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton has won the Democratic Senate primary in Illinois, NBC News projects, vaulting ahead of two members of Congress with a boost from Gov. JB Pritzker in the expensive race.
Stratton defeated Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, taking aim at members of her party in Washington, D.C., for not standing up to President Donald Trump.
[…] Stratton would become the sixth Black woman to serve in the Senate. And it would be the first time three Black women served in the Senate at the same time.
[…] Stratton managed to overcome a significant financial disadvantage. Krishnamoorthi, who became a prolific fundraiser during his five terms in the House, spent $29 million on ads in the primary, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Kelly’s campaign spent $1.4 million, and Stratton’s campaign spent $1.1 million.
Stratton had served in the Legislature before Pritzker tapped her as his running mate in 2018. She was endorsed by Pritzker in the crowded primary, as well as Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Pritzker, who is also a billionaire and a potential presidential contender in 2028, helped fund Illinois Future PAC, which spent $14.9 million on ads in the race boosting Stratton and attacking Krishnamoorthi. Stratton also faced nearly $10 million in attacks from Fairshake, a group funded by cryptocurrency executives.
[…] Stratton has also been endorsed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who supports crypto regulations.
Stratton cast herself as the most progressive candidate in the race, supporting policies including “Medicare for All” and a $25 minimum wage, as well as abolishing ICE amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.
[…] Stratton is expected to be in a strong position to win the general election in November in the historically Democratic state. She will face former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy, whom NBC News projects as the winner of the Republican Senate primary. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won Illinois by 11 percentage points in 2024.
A Times of Israel reporter says online gamblers pushed him to alter his story about an Iranian missile strike so they could collect a payout. Chris Hayes and Sen. Chris Murphy discuss that and more.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Claiming he does not need the help of “those sad NATO losers,” on Wednesday Donald Trump said he was sending Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to the Strait of Hormuz.
“No one clears a place out faster than Stephen,” Trump said. “It’s his superpower.”
Though expressing confidence in Miller’s effectiveness as a human repellent, Trump disclosed that he had a backup plan.
“I will put my name, Donald J. Trump, on the Strait of Hormuz,” he declared. “That emptied out the Kennedy Center very rapidly and very powerfully.”
If the prediction markets were betting they would have a good week, they were wrong.
First, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed criminal charges against betting platform Kalshi—20 counts, to be precise. It’s illegal to bet on elections in Arizona, but Kalshi lets people bet on elections everywhere, thanks to the Trump administration dropping Biden-era attempts to block just that.
It’s also illegal to run a sports betting business in Arizona without a license, but according to the criminal complaint, Kalshi let Arizona residents bet on sports anyway.
Kalshi knew this was coming, as the Arizona gaming department sent them a cease-and-desist in December, so it preemptively sued the AG and the Department of Gaming last week to try to get a ruling that they can ignore the laws, basically. Kalshi has also sued Iowa, Utah, and Ohio to try to force those states to let them do whatever they want as well.
In another development that is probably suboptimal for Kalshi and its competitor Polymarket, Democrats have introduced a bill to try to regulate this runaway nightmare that lets people bet on wars.
Sen. Chris Murphy’s bill would ban prediction markets from allowing someone to bet on any government action if they have inside information. It would also ban all betting on acts of terror, assassinations, and wars.
[…] “For my part, this bill doesn’t cover the waterfront in terms of what is concerning in these markets,” Murphy said. “But this seems to be the most urgent problem right now because there is such obvious, deep corruption happening inside the White House.”
That corrupt White House has no real interest in imposing any regulations on these things. Instead, the Trump administration is planning to force every state to allow prediction markets by pretending it isn’t gambling. That would mean that any state laws regulating or banning gaming would essentially be nullified.
The two leading companies, Kalshi and Polymarket, have another not-so-secret weapon: Donald Trump Jr., who is a paid adviser to Kalshi and an unpaid adviser and investor in Polymarket. It really highlights how much Junior is just there to lobby his daddy, because otherwise the two market leaders—which are huge competitors—would likely not employ the same adviser.
Incapable of passing up an opportunity to be corrupt, the Trump family business is going to start its own prediction market as well.
Meanwhile, in the most gruesome and bleak lawsuit imaginable, a bunch of people have sued Kalshi in a class action lawsuit over bets on the death of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. [!]
After some people who clearly had inside information won big on “predicting” Khamenei’s death, Kalshi roused itself to say that you can’t bet on death—just war, and whether a leader will be “out.”
So Kalshi said it wouldn’t pay out on bets on Khamenei and refunded everyone their original bets plus any fees. These gamblers … er, “investors,” are mad that there is a “death carveout” and they want to be properly rewarded for betting on death.
[…] most people—even Republicans—want to see much of this sort of thing banned. [graph]
[…] we don’t have a functioning government. Instead, we have a corrupt monstrosity that’s going to force these markets on everyone, all while President Donald Trump and his family profit.
With Trump’s wars abroad, and those Epstein files, did you forget about his war at home? Kristi Noem may have left on her sex plane, and Greg Bovino has officially retired, but still somewhere around 70,000 people are languishing in Trump’s filthy, overcrowded, Geneva Conventions-violating ICE detention centers. As (acting) ICE director Todd Lyons put it, they have made an Amazon “Prime for human beings,” an assembly line that violently grabs and disappears people with no due process — 75 percent of them with no criminal records, and plenty of them here legally in the first place — then warehouses them indefinitely in dangerous and disgusting conditions.
Now another person has died in Department of Homeland Security custody under unclear circumstances, a previously known-to-be-healthy 41-year-old father of six and asylum seeker from Afghanistan, Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal. On the morning of March 13 he left to go drop his children off at school in Richardson, Texas, and agents swarmed their car and dragged him away in front of his traumatized children. Within 24 hours, Paktyawal was dead.
ICE said in a statement that he’d complained of chest pains and shortness of breath, and was taken to the hospital. And then ICE immediately set about trying to smear Paktyawal as a criminal, though he has never been charged or convicted of any crime. He even fought alongside US special forces in the Paktika province in Afghanistan! The moral bankruptcy, the depravity, knows no bounds. […]
And Trump also suspended the refugee admissions program, stranding thousands of refugees and their family members; stripped 200,000 such Afghan refugees of protections; ended the Afghan special immigrant visa program; and in March added a travel ban from Afghanistan and 11 other countries too. And now he’s been sending back refugees […] who helped the US, so that the Taliban can kill them. […]
At what point does it get fair to call them death camps? Deaths in ICE detention have soared under Trump, with a record-setting 41 deaths in custody so far, surpassing the rate of state and local deaths in custody. And while the private companies running these hellholes maybe don’t intend to kill people, when humans are forced-concentrated in overcrowded spaces with no medical screening, some of them with life-threatening conditions, with limited access to health care, everybody sleeping on the floor and sharing an overflowing toilet, women with no pads or tampons, it’s the ideal environment for any communicable disease. […]
state governments generally can’t keep the feds from buying or leasing property in their state and generally doing with it what they please […] But DHS is also meeting resistance! Though it’s a game of Whack-a-Mole.
DHS has spent nearly $700 million trying to secretly buy and lease warehouse properties for humans, with the goal of 34 of such across the country in what it calls a “detention reengineering initiative,” without notifying local governments and bypassing any oversight […] DHS has still got a budget of $45 billion from the Big Boots for Bigots bill to expand between now and 2029. [social media post]
Judges have been demanding cleanups and basic standards for detainees too, which DHS could readily afford. […] US District Judge Julie Rubin in Baltimore [ordered] that the ICE detention rooms in the George Fallon Federal Building adhere to basic standards. Lawmakers showed up to find the detainees had been instead relocated to parts unknown, plus a lingering case of Legionella. Or at the Broadview ICE facility in Illinois, a judge ordered clergy be allowed to visit for Ash Wednesday, but when they did, the place was empty. […]
But, all over the country, citizens, states, reps. and local governments — see latest examples Michigan, Maryland, Oregon, Utah, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Virginia — have been fighting the construction of ICE facilities and/or demanding they be held to at least the basic hygiene and safety standards US prisoners are entitled to get; sometimes winning. Sometimes not.
And private companies are taking a stand, too. Architecture firm DLR Group is now refusing to take any detention-center jobs after employees became outraged. A Canadian company refused to sell its Virginia warehouse to DHS. And even in El Paso, Texas, community pressure led to Majestic Realty refusing to sell a warehouse to DHS there.
Community pressure and shame work! And DHS knows it, too, which is why they’re being so fucking shady, while rolling around on piles of everybody’s tax money.
“Esmail Khatib was killed in a strike in Tehran, a day after Israel killed top national security official Ali Larijani and former Basij militia chief Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has confirmed the killing of the country’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, calling his death and those of several other top leaders in recent days “cowardly assassinations” in a post on X.
Israel said earlier today that Khatib, who it said was responsible for the regime’s internal repression and assassination apparatus, was “eliminated” last night.
It came after Iranian authorities yesterday confirmed that top national security official Ali Larijani and former Basij militia chief Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani had been killed, after Israel announced their deaths.
[…] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Ukraine will face a deficit of missiles due to the war in the Middle East.
There would “definitely” be a deficit of Patriot missiles, which would be “a challenge,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with the BBC, referring to the critical air-defense missile Ukraine uses to protect its skies against Russian strikes, saying the question now was “when will all the stockpiles in the Middle East be exhausted.”
“America produces 60-65 missiles per month. Imagine, 65 missiles per month is is about 700-800 missiles per year, produced each year,” he said. “And on the first day in the Middle East war, 803 missiles were used.”
Zelenskyy said he had a “very bad feeling” about the impact of the conflict on the war in Ukraine, saying negotiations toward peace are being “constantly postponed. There is one reason — war in Iran.”
Trilateral peace talks were underway for months before the U.S.-Israeli operation in Iran, but have yet to resume.
[…] U.S. UNLEASHES BUNKER BUSTERS: U.S. forces “successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites” along the Strait of Hormuz, CENTCOM said […]
The Federal Open Market Committee voted 11-1 to keep the benchmark federal funds rate anchored in a range between 3.5%-3.75%.
The policymakers are navigating their way through higher-than-expected inflation readings, mixed signs on the labor market and a war.
In its post-meeting statement, the Fed made few changes to its view on the economy, with a slightly faster pace of growth and higher inflation projections for the full year.
The important thing to note is that the vote was 11-1. Even if Trump gets his nomination to head the committee it isn’t a sure thing the committee will do what he wants. The Fed charter favors stability and it’s going to be hard to get them to chase after Trump’s whim.
birgerjohanssonsays
John Mearsheimer: “Iran Has Powerful Cards to Play”
An Israeli politician says “Iran is a threat to western values”. Mearsheimer comments that Israel – as an apartheid state and an agent of genocide in Gaza – is a threat to western values. Iran – no matter how repugnant its government may be – has not invaded any of its neighbors in modern times.
There is also a comparison with Gallipoli and how much harder an invasion of the Hormuz Strait would be.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says he will keep serving as head of the central bank if his nominated successor, Kevin Warsh, is not confirmed by the time his term is up.
Powell also said he will not leave his Board of Governors position until the Department of Justice investigation of him has concluded.
This is really Powell playing some subtle politics. He is encouraging Trump to give up and the DOJ to finish their investigation so he won’t have it looming over his head after he leaves.
[…] Trump is revisiting his tried-and-true grab for a “51st state”—this time, he has his sights on Venezuela.
“Wow! Venezuela defeated Italy tonight, 4-2, in the WBC (Baseball!) Semifinal,” he posted via Truth Social. “They are looking really great. Good things are happening to Venezuela lately! I wonder what this magic is all about? STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE?”
Trump’s grand idea was prompted by the South American country’s first-ever win of the World Baseball Classic Tuesday evening.
This sports win is a big deal for Venezuela. Enough so that sitting President Delcy Rodriguez deemed Wednesday a public holiday, giving nonessential workers the day off. And they needed a reason to celebrate. Right now, the South American country is undergoing plenty of political change and tension at the hands of the U.S. after Trump greenlit a military operation on Jan. 3, to capture former leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
Many, including Trump himself, have said that Rodriguez and the rest of the Chavista government—a term to describe the ruling party that follows a semblance of ideas brought about by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez—are under the thumb of the Trump administration until another election is carried out. Meanwhile, that hasn’t stopped Trump from reestablishing the sale of oil from Venezuela.
But Trump has been […] pursuing his 51st state, or “Donroe Doctrine,” as his grip on Latin America grows and his quest to expand continues.
Outside of Venezuela, the president has threatened to invade Colombia while puffing his chest at Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. [I snipped Trump’s comments about Cuba.]
The island country has recently faced extreme power blackouts, with hospitals losing electricity and people taking to the streets as the U.S. threatens tariffs against countries who supply them with oil.
But more cooperative countries, like El Salvador and Costa Rica, are, or were, allowing the Trump administration to send non-native immigrants to their prisons.
The desire to get entangled in regime changes from Venezuela to Cuba challenges Trump’s “America First” approach on the campaign trail that helped land him his second term. And, in part, it seems to be impacting his once steady Latino vote in the U.S.
So, while the president jokes about making Greenland and Canada, and now Venezuela, the 51st state (53rd?), his actions tell a larger story of America’s planned control of the Western hemisphere.
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Wednesday, where Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Jon Ossoff of Georgia were relentless regarding the consequences of President Donald Trump’s ill-conceived war in Iran.
Kelly began by asking whether China and Russia are “our primary geopolitical rivals,” a point the two officials affirmed. He then laid out the fallout of Trump’s war: soaring gas prices and a policy shift that lifted sanctions on Russia, syphoning billions to President Vladimir Putin that he can use against Ukraine. [video]
Kelly then pressed further, probing what Trump knew—or failed to understand—about Iran’s capacity to retaliate by creating chaos in the Strait of Hormuz.
“I’m having a hard time finding out whether the White House asked or whether there was a brief, whether the president knew,” he said. “Did he know this was going to happen, or did he just disregard it?” [video]
Ossoff was far less friendly in his approach, challenging Gabbard on the administration’s claims that Iran posed an “imminent nuclear threat” just months after claiming that its nuclear facilities had been “obliterated.”
“Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an ‘imminent nuclear threat’ posed by the Iranian regime?” Ossoff asked.
“The only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president,” Gabbard responded.
“False,” Ossoff shot back. “This is the worldwide threats hearing where you present to Congress national intelligence—timely, objective, and independent of political considerations.” [video] [Good for Senator Jon Ossoff!. He is knowledgeable, precise, and doesn’t back down.]
[…]
Gabbard spouted lies and the revealed her incompetence once again.
Ukraine says that Russia began its spring-summer offensive yesterday, taking advantage of what it assumed would be favorable weather conditions.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t work.
🇺🇦 Magyar: Yesterday, taking advantage of the fog, the Russians actually began their spring-summer offensive on the Rodynske-Huliaypole section (≈100 km of the front). In particular, they advanced on horseback (!).
Bet on “invisibility” did not work – SBS worked out their assault groups
According to Madyar, Ukrainian drones eliminated over 900 Russians in just a day and a half.
900+ enemy soldiers were wiped out by the SBS Birds in the savannah over a period of one and a half days, on a frontline stretch of exactly a hundred kilometers […]
The sudden change in weather on March 17-18 on the three most critical sections of the Donetsk and Zaporizhia fronts (Dobropillia, Pokrovsk, and Gulyaypole), as well as the enemy’s planned and somewhat premature launch of the spring-summer campaign, prompted the enemy to resume assault operations under the cover of the long-awaited March weather. […]
Just before midnight, the first pre-infiltrated assault units, which had been in reserve, began their advance in the drizzle and encountered drone backfire – over a hundred well-armed enemy soldiers were knocked to the ground before midnight. At dawn on March 17, the enemy launched a gas attack with accumulated infantry, motorcycles, armor, and even horses simultaneously on a dozen sections. Over 500 of them […] were hit by the SBS Birds on March 17 and paid the price with either evacuation to the rear or irreversible losses. However, the fog of varying densities did not disappear until now, so the night of March 18 dragged on, albeit with less compression, but by 12:00, another 277 enemy soldiers[…] had been eliminated.
“Russian intelligence, Chinese cybercriminals and others are hacking phones that haven’t installed September’s update, researchers say.”
Apple is encouraging people to update their iPhones in light of new cybersecurity research that suggests that Russian intelligence, Chinese cybercriminals and other hackers have been using tools nicknamed DarkSword and Coruna to take over phones running older versions of the iOS operating system.
[…] On Wednesday, iVerify wrote in a news release: “DarkSword appears to be a surveillance and intelligence gathering tool, blanket pulling data including Wi-Fi passwords, text messages, call history, root location history, browser history, SIM card and cellular data as well as health, notes and calendar databases.”
An Apple spokesperson, Sarah O’Rourke, said that the two tools can only work against devices running older versions of Apple’s operating system, reinforcing the need for people to regularly apply updates.
[…] The news has prompted worry from industry experts that while Apple enjoys a reputation for producing devices that are safer from hackers than other brands, versions running on older software can still be vulnerable to takeover.
Research from three companies on the campaigns shows several groups of people targeted with the iPhone hacking tools: Ukrainians targeted by Russian intelligence; Chinese cryptocurrency users; and people in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Malaysia.
While none of the companies reported evidence of Americans being targeted, the tools could also easily be used to hack anyone whose iOS is out of date, said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto-sponsored cybersecurity lab.
[…] “The scary takeaway for regular users is they can’t spot this attack,” he said.
Apple’s latest operating system, iOS 26, was released in September and protects users against both hacking campaigns, according to the company. Last week, Apple made the unusual move of releasing a special update for iPhone users with older devices that cannot handle fully upgrading to iOS 26, specifically to block hackers from using the hacking tools. [good]
[…] Hacking an iPhone is still a significant technical challenge, and the two campaigns rely on a complicated chain of hacks that work in tandem to take over a phone.
Coruna has a remarkable origin. Peter Williams, a former cyber executive of the military defense contractor L3Harris, pleaded guilty last year to selling his company’s hacking tools, which included Coruna, to a Russian broker. [!]
That tool was deployed last summer by hackers associated with Russian intelligence groups, Google found, who targeted Ukranians, according to iVerify.
It’s unclear how, but by December, Chinese cybercriminals had obtained the tool and begun to create “a very large set of fake Chinese websites mostly related to finance,” Google said, with the intent of stealing cryptocurrency.
[…] The origin of the second tool, nicknamed DarkSword, is unknown, but it was also used by the same Russian intelligence unit, Google said. Its use has spread and appears to have proliferated into several related versions affecting people in Ukraine, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
[…] Rocky Cole, iVerify’s chief operating officer, said the campaigns should puncture the idea that owning an iPhone alone is enough to protect from hackers. […]
Meta is shutting down Horizon Worlds, the company’s virtual reality social network, on June 15.
The platform, originally designed for Quest VR headsets, will still be available on a mobile app.
The announcement comes as Meta scales back its once-prominent metaverse focus to prioritize artificial intelligence.
This is Meta more or less giving up on VR. The perennial it will be big in 10 years technology. VR Chat can be a lot of fun and some games are fun but it’s still not ready for prime time.
As for AI, Meta is working on AI agents they can use to fill your Facebook interface. There can be constant activity and stuff for you to see without actually having many real people posting.
At a Senate hearing, Tulsi Gabbard was pressed over why she left out a key line from her prepared remarks that appeared to undercut Donald Trump’s claim that Iran posed an imminent threat.
With oil briefly topping at over $119 per barrel, Israel attacking Iranian oil facilities, and Iran retaliating against LNG facilities in Qatar, while the Strait of Hormuz remains bottled up except for select Iranian-approved shipments, President Trump is on social media offering his hot takes like an online troll — and with about as much credibility
After disparaging Israel’s earlier attack on oil tanks in Tehran, Trump took to social media last evening to distance himself from the latest Israeli attack, on the South Pars Gas Field in Iran. The post is a mix of special pleading, dubious assertions, and self pity. Trump pretends to calm the waters by pouring oil on them while simultaneously threatening to light the oil on fire: [social media post]
More importantly, however, there’s reporting that Trump is full of shit when he claims the United States knew nothing about the impending Israeli attack. Under the headline “Israel strikes Iran natural gas facility in coordination with U.S.”, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports that the Israeli strike was done not just with the knowledge of the Trump administration but with its approval.
“The Israeli officials said the strike was coordinated with and approved by the Trump administration,” Ravid reports. “A U.S. Defense official confirmed that.” [map]
The coordination took place between the White House and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, according to officials Ravid spoke to. “The U.S. was aware, but was not part of the attack,” a source told him.
Perhaps you find yourself bedeviled trying to following the Middle East conflict in a serious and sober way while the President is poorly play-acting as commander in chief.
Latest on the Middle East … WSJ: Escalating Attacks on Gulf Energy Assets Plunge Iran War Into New Phase WaPo: Pentagon seeks more than $200 billion in budget request for Iran war WSJ: Short-range U.S. missiles are likely being launched from Persian Gulf countries, though none of them has admitted to allowing their land or airspace to be used to attack Iran.
Quote of the Day
“We’re over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude. There’s an entertainment factor to what we do. But ultimately, it boils down to the fact that no one has ever attempted to communicate with the American public this way before.”—a senior White House official involved in producing TikTok-style mash-up videos to promote the Iran war.
Wall Street Journal:
Escalating attacks on Persian Gulf oil-and-gas infrastructure are sending the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran into a dangerous new phase that threatens to worsen the crisis over global energy supplies.
Israel struck at the crown jewel of Iran’s energy industry on Wednesday—the giant South Pars gas field that Iran shares with Qatar and is by far the largest in the world. Iran retaliated with two attacks on a major gas hub in Qatar just across the Gulf and a missile barrage fired at the Saudi capital, Riyadh, with debris landing near a refinery. […]
Washington Post:
The Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion request to Congress to fund the war in Iran, according to a senior administration official, in an enormous new ask that is almost certain to run into resistance from lawmakers opposed to the conflict.
That number would far surpass the costs of the administration’s massive airstrike campaign to date and instead seek to urgently increase production of critical weaponry expended as U.S. and Israeli forces have struck thousands of targets over the past three weeks, according to three other people familiar with the matter, who confirmed that the Defense Department is seeking packages of that size. […]
Wall Street Journal:
In the opening hours of the war, the U.S. fired ballistic missiles that streaked high over the Persian Gulf and slammed into targets in Iran, the first use of the Army’s two-year-old highly accurate missiles in combat.
The attacks with Precision Strike Missiles were followed by more barrages, including from so-called Atacms missiles, that have hit and sunk Iranian navy vessels and a submarine in port, said Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who said last week that the missile attacks have “made history.” Iran has accused the U.S. of using ground-based missiles to hit Kharg Island, its offshore oil-processing facility. […]
Everybody knows that Trump’s irrational hatred of wind farms is driving our energy policy these days. But after court after court told Trump he can’t just arbitrarily block these almost-completed projects,the administration has a new plan: Using almost $1 billion of your tax dollars to permanently block those wind farms.
The administration is kicking around the absolutely unhinged notion of paying TotalEnergies, which is building two wind farms in New York and North Carolina, $928 million, the amount TotalEnergies paid for the leases to build the farms. Then, the administration gets to cancel the leases. No leases, no wind farms. [!]
Oh, also, TotalEnergies would have to agree to invest in a natural gas infrastructure in Texas. [!!]
[…] Isn’t it great to have our energy future in the hands of one man who thinks that wind farms “drive whales crazy,” that they are “killing our economy,” and that the wind is the most expensive form of energy. If someone cornered you at a party saying this sort of thing, you’d edge away, leaving them to find another unwilling victim to listen to their conspiracy nonsense. […]
The New York wind farm was expected to generate enough clean energy for almost 1 million homes. And this is at a time when Trump has declared that we have a national energy emergency. But somehow, that emergency can only be solved by fossil fuels instead of the nefarious, terrifying wind.
Of course, natural gas isn’t the only fossil fuel the administration is pushing on the nation. It is also forcing coal companies to keep aging coal plants running, even when that costs consumers more. […]
Trump also delegated his authority under the Defense Production Act to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who just invoked it to compel the restarting of an oil pipeline in California, despite state officials keeping it offline and opposing any restart. What does a pipeline have to do with national defense?
Well, Trump’s war, of course, as Wright explained: “Today, more than 60% of the oil refined in California comes from overseas, with a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz—presenting serious national security threats” and this will “strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness.”
This is quite the stretch: Trump wrecked access to oil via the Strait of Hormuz, which in turn makes California a national security risk because it gets some oil via that route, so we need a pipeline for our national security.
Wright is also obscuring how much of California’s oil comes through the Strait by waving around that 60% number and not breaking it down. The actual amount of California oil that comes through the Strait is much closer to 30%. [Good point]
Meanwhile, in the real world, Trump’s fetish for war and oil has led to a catastrophic increase in gas prices, and his relentless attacks on wind farms are making the future prospects of the entire wind power industry pretty dim. [!]
[…] other countries have been smart enough to invest in clean energy and may be able to weather Trump’s war better. […]
A poll released on Wednesday reveals that clear majorities of Americans have an extremely negative view of President Donald Trump, another sign of the sour mood of voters ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Republicans could be in for an electoral disaster. [May it be so.]
According to the poll from YouGov, majorities of Americans say the following terms describe Trump “a lot”: arrogant (65%), opportunistic (57%), reckless (56%), dishonest (54%), corrupt (54%), hypocritical (53%), and divisive (51%).
By contrast, only 38% say “strong leader” describes Trump a lot, and just 35% say the same about “intelligent.” A paltry 22% of Americans strongly identify Trump as “likable,” while 54% say that term does “not at all” describe him. [chart]
Despite America’s low opinions of Trump, Republicans are determined to hold on to his “MAGA” brand. The National Republican Congressional Committee recently announced that it is rebranding its program to support GOP candidates in swing districts as “the MAGA Majority.”
While Trump is not directly on the ballot in this year’s midterms, it will be the first time since 2024 that the whole nation’s voters can register their feelings about him and the Republican Party. That’s bad news for Republicans.
[I snipped details of Republicans already losing special elections in some states.]
[…] The Trump administration has been unable to explain to the public why the nation is waging war against Iran, and the conflict is causing fuel costs to surge. It is unlikely that many voters will be soothed by rhetoric like Vice President JD Vance’s spin that the skyrocketing gas prices are merely a “blip.”
There is also widespread anger about violent immigration raids, censorious attacks on free speech and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as the administration’s open corruption and promotion of racism.
[…] Trump has focused his attention on matters like the construction of his obscene White House ballroom and his obsession with taking over Cuba, Greenland, and Venezuela.
Congressional Republicans have recently focused their legislative attention on bills like the SAVE America Act, designed to suppress the vote and give legitimacy to Trump’s long-debunked conspiracies of election fraud.
That bill is unlikely to pass, and there doesn’t seem to be anything on the horizon that will prevent a major electoral disaster for Republicans and their “arrogant” leader.
[…] The shamelessness of the Trump administration to ask for $200 billion for war while it also argues that the United States cannot bear the expense of extending health care subsidies is stomach-churning. […]
At least 13 American soldiers have died in the war so far, and more than 200 have been injured. Hundreds of civilians across the Middle East have also been killed in attacks related to the war. That includes the over 170, most of them children, whom the U.S. killed in an airstrike on an elementary school.
Meanwhile, gas prices are up 95 cents per gallon on average from a month ago, according to data from AAA. Patrick De Haan, an pricing expert with GasBuddy, said the speed of the gas price increase is setting records.
Not only is that a significant amount for millions of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, but it could also have serious downstream effects on the economy if consumers have to cut back on other spending to afford gas.
This is a mess of Trump’s making, and with each passing day, it’s harder to see how we get out of it unscathed.
Things got crazy awkward during an Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, when a reporter asked Trump why he hadn’t warned Japan before attacking Iran.
“One thing, you don’t want to signal too much,” Trump said. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, okay? Hey, why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” [video]
Trump appeared to register the room’s abrupt discomfort with his remark.
“Okay? Right?” he continued. “He’s asking me, ‘Do you believe in surprise’—I think much more so than us. And we had to surprise them, and we did.”
[…] Takaichi is in the U.S. seeking to smooth over relations with Trump, who has criticized Japan for not helping him clean up the fallout from the war he started with Iran.
“Don’t Be Too Shocked, But Trump Did Not Actually Get The Lowest Drug Prices In The World”
During his State of the Union address last month, Donald Trump went on and on (and on) about how he had successfully worked out an agreement with pharmaceutical companies to get American consumers the lowest drug prices in the world — through his “TrumpRx” site. […] he was not exactly telling the truth about that.
A New York Times investigation has found that, despite his claim, American consumers are still paying more than people in other countries, and, in many cases, a whole lot more. Now, we could have told you that already, but they ran the actual numbers of drugs on the TrumpRx site and compared them to Germany’s (which makes its negotiated drug prices public), only to find that German customers still pay a whole lot less than we do. […]
The Times reports:
The drugs listed on TrumpRx can cost American patients up to hundreds or thousands of dollars, while a patient walking into a German pharmacy pays next to nothing. The German health system foots the bill, and records show that, more often than not, it pays less than what the Trump administration negotiated for Americans.
The TrumpRx website shows the prices that the administration negotiated for a few dozen of the several thousand prescription medications in the United States. The list includes almost none of the most widely used drugs, like statins, or ultraexpensive drugs like cancer therapies.
Some well-known drugs on the list are Xeljanz, for autoimmune conditions, and Farxiga, for diabetes and heart and kidney problems. Both are cheaper in Germany, a rare example of a country that makes its negotiated drug prices public.
The explanation from the administration? The prices are cheaper, but only when adjusted based on the “economic conditions” in other countries. This might make some sense, if you squint, except for the fact that the money going to the pharmaceutical companies is the same.
The fact is, even the supposedly discounted prices on the TrumpRx site are of no help whatsoever to the 92 percent of Americans who have health insurance, anyway. They are only for those paying out of pocket. Even those with high deductibles will end up paying more in most cases, as those purchases will not count towards that deductible. [!]
In other words, it’s almost entirely useless. [LOL. Good description of most of Trump’s efforts.]
For a while now, the conservative “solution” to the high cost of healthcare in the United States has been to push for price transparency so that everyone would just pay out-of-pocket and get lower prices through “comparison shopping” on the free market. Like, they actually want people who are bleeding out in an ambulance to discuss the costs of treatment at various hospitals before deciding where they want to go. The TrumpRx plan fits nicely within this “solution.” The problem, of course, is that it is a deeply stupid way to do healthcare, and would mean that even more people would go totally broke as a result of healthcare emergencies.
The reason people in other countries pay less for prescription drugs is because they negotiate prices for all consumers, and then also fund healthcare with their tax dollars. […]They pay less by cutting out the middleman and having more leverage by operating as one large health insurance group rather than a bunch of small health insurance groups. […] Instead, we’re just going to bankrupt ourselves silly in a desperate bid to find a capitalist solution to healthcare.
The fact is, there is never, ever going to be a capitalist “solution” to healthcare that is not both very expensive and kind of stupid. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is the closest anyone is going to get […]
[…] Americans should be pissed off that people in other countries pay less than we do for pharmaceutical drugs, that they pay less for healthcare and get more, that they don’t have to worry that they’ll lose their house because they were severely injured in a mass shooting. […\]
I hope that Trump gets them so mad about it that they start to actually ask themselves why people in other countries pay so much less than we do and start considering that it might be a pretty good idea to do that ourselves, even if it is “socialism.” […]
For fuck’s sake. Jeff Bezos’s “climate charity” is promoting AI to solve “climate.” (Oligarch Watch)
Oligarch Watch: Bezos’ $10 billion climate charity has a new mission: promoting AI
[…] While Amazon’s artificial intelligence buildout drives its vast carbon emissions to new heights, Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder and executive chairman, is using his environmental charity to promote AI as a solution to the climate crisis.
Last fall, the Bezos Earth Fund, founded in 2020 and chaired by Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez, began describing one of its missions as “harnessing AI to help save the planet.” This new focus on AI came after years in which the fund emphasized decarbonization, conservation, and other traditional climate initiatives.
“At the Bezos Earth Fund, we believe that on balance, AI is going to be a tool and a force for good and a tool and a force for saving the planet,” said Amen Ra Mashariki, the Bezos Earth Fund’s AI director, during a TED Talk session at the New York Climate Summit in September. “AI, on balance, will have a positive impact on the planet,” he added.
However, by Amazon’s own admission, its massive spending on data center construction and AI infrastructure operations is a leading cause of its rising emissions. In 2024, Amazon’s self-reported carbon emissions grew by 6% year-over-year, “primarily from data center construction and fuel consumption by third-party delivery service providers.” Amazon’s 68.25 million metric tons of carbon emissions in 2024 were more than the combined fossil-fuel emissions of Norway and Finland that year. [!!]
The company […] also disclosed a 33% increase in emissions since 2019, the year that Amazon announced its Climate Pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. [eyebrows raised]
[…] Last month, the company announced that it would spend $200 billion this year, much of that on data centers, computing infrastructure, and other AI-related investments. […] a Business Insider report estimated that its data centers are on pace to consume the most electricity in the industry. [!]
[…] Data centers, particularly those used to train and power generative AI models, play a clear role in heating the planet. They consume massive amounts of electricity, often relying on gas- and coal-fired plants to meet their power needs.
The Energy Information Administration reported this month that U.S. electricity generation hit a record high in 2025 for the second year in a row, with the economic sector that includes data centers accounting for the largest increase in demand.
A November study by Cornell researchers looking to measure the environmental impact of the AI boom found that “the current rate of AI growth would annually put 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere [by 2030], the emissions equivalent of adding 5 to 10 million cars to U.S. roadways. It would also drain 731 to 1,125 million cubic meters of water per year — equal to the annual household water usage of 6 to 10 million Americans.” [!!]
However, according to the Bezos Earth Fund, AI could be humanity’s best hope for curbing climate change, even though the technology has never been used to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“We really want to get to a place where, in climate and nature, AI is actually offering solutions, creative solutions that even the world’s greatest experts find counterintuitive but are actually really powerful,” Mashariki, the Bezos Earth Fund’s AI chief, said in his September talk. “We haven’t gotten there yet. And that’s where we should be going.” [Wishful thinking … based on facts? No. Not based on facts.]
The comments came after Bezos chose longtime Amazon executive Tom Taylor to lead his climate fund’s day-to-day operations. While Taylor, who replaced economist and environmental policy expert Andrew Steer, does not appear to have experience in environmental science or related fields, his work history does include overseeing Amazon’s AI products.
And under his tenure, the Bezos Earth Fund has focused its messaging on using AI “as a force for good,” [I snipped details]
Expanding nuclear power is also a top priority for AI companies, including Amazon, which last year said it had invested more than $1 billion in nuclear energy projects and technologies to meet the ever-growing power demands of its data centers.
[…] In September 2019, one day before a planned walkout by 1,500 Amazon employees over environmental concerns, Bezos vowed that the company would reach carbon neutrality by 2040. “We’re done being in the middle of the herd on this issue — we’ve decided to use our size and scale to make a difference,” he said in a statement announcing the Amazon Climate Pledge. “If a company with as much physical infrastructure as Amazon — which delivers more than 10 billion items a year — can meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early, then any company can.”
[…] But in the years since, Amazon has loosened some of its climate goals. In 2023, the company quietly eliminated its pledge to reach net-zero carbon emissions on 50% of its shipments by 2030. […]
After receiving an $18 million grant from Bezos’ fund, Science Based Targets, an initiative that tracks whether companies’ emissions are aligned with the Paris Agreement, announced it would allow businesses to apply voluntary carbon market offsets toward their emissions-reduction goals. So, for every metric ton of carbon emitted by Amazon’s data centers or shipping business, it could purchase a “credit” from an environmental organization, which, in turn, would claim to capture an equivalent amount of carbon by filtering it from the atmosphere, planting and preserving forests, or creating clean energy.
In practice, the carbon market often provides companies with an easy way to sell themselves as environmentally friendly to the public and regulators while continuing to increase their emissions. The voluntary and unregulated market, which the oil and gas industry has embraced, does little to reduce global warming, according to a 2023 report from Corporate Accountability and The Guardian. It found that the vast majority of projects selling carbon credits likely overstated their greenhouse gas reductions. [!] In many cases, renewable energy projects that sell credits on the carbon market would have happened without a corporate buyer. [!]
[…] Nevertheless, Conservation International also awarded Bezos its Global Visionary Award at a glitzy 2024 environmental gala attended by Harrison Ford and other stars.
As Bezos has used Amazon’s pledge and his climate fund to bolster his standing as an environmentalist, The Washington Post, which he purchased for $250 million in 2013, has become a purveyor of climate-change doubt. The paper’s editorial board questioned whether the “modest benefits of regulating greenhouse gases outweigh the considerable economic costs” in a February piece praising Trump for neutering the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate some pollutants. […]
That same month, Bezos opted to lay off 14 members of The Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning climate team, leaving a skeleton crew of five remaining reporters […]
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni broke ranks with much of the EU by speaking sympathetically about Hungary’s Viktor Orbán over his stance on Ukraine during a private session of Thursday’s European summit.
Meloni told her counterparts she understood the reasons the Hungarian leader had angered the bloc by going back on his word and refusing a €90 billion loan to Ukraine after having approved it in December […]
Orbán’s about-turn has infuriated his fellow leaders and stunned Ukraine, which is running out of money as its war with Russia drags into its fifth year, and goes against EU convention because of his formal approval just weeks ago. [!]
While Meloni emphasized in the meeting that she personally still supported the loan being channeled to Ukraine immediately, she said she understood the position of Orbán, who faces an election next month, according to the five diplomats, representing four different European countries.
One of the five diplomats quoted Meloni as saying that Orbán’s stance was “normal” because “things change” and that “if I were in the same situation I would understand it.”
The Italian government denied that. “The sentence attributed to the prime minister is totally baseless” an official from Meloni’s office in Rome said.
Hungary and Slovakia are blocking the release of the funds, which needs all EU governments to approve. Budapest has linked its consent to demands Ukraine repair the Druzhba pipeline, which brings Russian oil to Hungary and was damaged by a Russian drone in January, weeks after all 27 EU countries backed the loan plan.
Orbán has accused Kyiv of deliberately delaying the repairs. The EU has said the issues of the loan and the pipeline are not connected. [Orbán is looking for excuses for his decisions that help Putin.]
An announcement on Tuesday that the EU had agreed with the Ukrainian government to fund repairs and send a fact-finding mission to the site was not enough to overcome Orbán’s objections on Thursday. [!] […]
Most other EU leaders reacted with fury on Thursday morning as it became apparent Orbán didn’t intend to budge on the loan. European Council President António Costa blasted the decision as “unacceptable” and an unprecedented violation of a “red line” in behavior, diplomats told POLITICO.
Aside from Hungary and Slovakia, the remaining 25 countries have since issued a joint statement welcoming the decision to loan the €90 billion and calling for “the first disbursement to Ukraine by the beginning of April.” […]
Looks to me like Orbán always intended to be the spanner in the works. He delayed as long as he could, and now he is looking for excuses. Putin must be pleased.
“Black Cube operatives are accused of “illegal surveillance” after leaked recordings blew up the campaign ahead of March 22 vote.”
Slovenia’s Prime Minister Robert Golob has urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to investigate accusations that Israeli spy firm Black Cube interfered in the country’s election campaign, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO.
“Such interference by a foreign private company poses a clear hybrid threat against the European Union and its Member States, which negatively impacts or potentially threatens our common values, procedures and political processes,” Golob wrote.
“It is troubling that such a pattern of coordinated deceptive behavior by a foreign non-state actor again occurred just days before the national parliamentary elections, thus presenting systemic risks to Slovenia’s democratic processes,” he added.
Slovenia goes to the polls Sunday in an election pitting the liberal Golob against right-wing populist Janez Janša, who currently has a narrow lead […]
Slovenian authorities this week announced that four operatives of Black Cube, a private intelligence firm founded by former members of the Israel Defense Forces, had visited the country and conducted “illegal surveillance” and “wiretapping.” […]
A US F-35 fighter jet made an emergency landing at US air base in the Middle East after it was struck by what is believed to be Iranian fire, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
No confirmation from the US on what happened yet, only that a F35 had to make an emergency landing. Iran is taking credit but can’t be trusted about that.
Without more information it’s speculation what really happened. It could be a failure by the F35 or the pilot, it could be another friendly air defense fired on the plane, it could be blind luck by Iranian air defense, it could be that Iran has some air defense that is dangerous to a F35.
birgerjohanssonsays
Is Tombstone’s Boothill Cemetery fake?”
Carl Kasarda of In Range (at Youtube) strives to resurrect the historical truth about Old West, and other parts of American history. He is impopular with other US gun enthusiasts because he rejects the MAGA narratives.
Question: can a state recall a senator if they are disappointed in him? I am thinking of Fetterman.
Trump will get increasingly impopular, even among former Republicans.
So a recall petition – if permitted by the rules of that state (I think it is Pennsylvania) might have enough support, as Fetterman is fettered to Trump’s political corpse.
whheydtsays
Re: birgerjohansson @ #465…
whheydtsays
Re: birgerjohansson @ #465…
(Let me try this again.)
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: to the best of my knowledge, state recall laws do not apply to elected Federal office holders.
birgerjohanssonsays
Whheydt @ 467
Goddamn. So Dems need 52 senators. 51 if the independent candidate in Nebraska makes it (and supports Dems).
birgerjohanssonsays
New Scientist: “The Real Dinosaurs Were MUCH Weirder” (one-hour video)
“NEW Senate Map Gives Democrats a Serious Opening to Flip Control”
There are many Youtubers that do election forecasts, I like the one doing the TEC Show because he is relatively calm and succinct .
.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Iz-YxPzdKhU
As mentioned above, Dems may need 52 senators to avoid sabotage.
The 5-year-old boy from Columbia Heights received national attention after he was detained by U.S. immigration authorities along with his father. […] if the family loses the appeal, they are expected to be deported to Ecuador, their country of origin. […] the firm was “fully committed” to fight for the family and do what it can to keep them in the country.
Rando: “The judge is John P. Burns. He has a 99% deport track record. Way higher than the national average.”
* This site said 96.1%, but yeah, uncommonly high, vs 58.9% nationally and 39% in New York where he was..
JMsays
@470 birgerjohansson: Given the Democrats history they will need more then that. They need some margin of error so that single Senators can’t threaten every vote. The Democrats also need to bite the bullet and reform the rules for fillibusters. As long as every bill gets fillibustered they will have trouble just getting the essentials done. They next Democratic congress will have a lot to do and need to not get trapped in partisan deadlock over every little issue.
The only thing really working in the Democrats favor is that the things Trump did by executive order can be reversed by executive order. This is true even if Trump’s order was illegal or over reaching, reversing it and going back to a legal government will provoke fewer court cases and they will win in court.
Julius Caesar started off 44 BCE feeling pretty good: In January, as the story goes, the Roman Senate renewed his appointment as dictator, and the following month, they decreed he’d serve as dictator “for life.” They also announced that Caesar’s portrait would appear on coins—the first time any living Roman had appeared on currency. By March, he was murdered. […]
In the ultimate culmination of Trump’s interests, the US Mint may soon produce a 24-karat gold commemorative coin bearing his image […] in addition to a proposed one dollar coin with Trump’s image
[…]
The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC), an impartial group that advises the Treasury Department on issues of design, held their most recent meeting […] acting CCAC chair Donald Scarinci announced […] “Only those nations ruled by kings or dictators display the image of their sitting ruler on the coins of the realm.” The following day, […] the New York Times published a story about the meeting. Three hours later, […] the recording was gone. […] A copy of the video has been uploaded [to YouTube].
[…]
a design that shows a menacing-looking Trump with balled fists resting on a desk, the word “LIBERTY” in all caps above his head like a halo, the years 1776 and 2026, and “IN GOD WE TRUST” on the bottom. It is a replica of the photo of Trump that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. The flip side is an equally-menacing bald eagle atop a perch.
[…]
The ultimate design discretion […] lies with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. As opposed to commemorative coins with actual denominations that require Congressional approval […] Mint representatives said the idea for the gold coin came from “outside the agency.” That “has never happened before in my 20 years there,”
[…]
If the Trump coins are produced, the “No Kings” movement will have a powerful new symbol.
Rando: “One thing’s for sure: There’s no way in hell Donald Trump would heed any kind of warning from his wife.”
The Commission of Fine Arts, a seven-person panel appointed by the president, passed a motion calling for the U.S. Treasury to manufacture the coin. […] The committee’s vice chair, James McCrery II, the initial architect for Trump’s White House ballroom project, called for the motion to pass “with the strong encouragement that you make it as large as possible, all the way to three inches in diameter,” the biggest size the Mint has available. “In terms of the diameter, I think the President likes big things,” he said. “Generally, I do too.”
[…] The body previously approved the president’s plans for a massive White House ballroom despite widespread opposition from both the public and preservationists. In January, its members also greenlit the design for a $1 coin emblazoned with the 79-year-old president’s face, which the Treasury has confirmed it plans to manufacture. […]
The Treasury makes the final decision on the design of commemorative coins after consulting with both the Commission of Fine Arts and the independent Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee
[…]
The Treasury sells commemorative coins—which are intended to be souvenirs and collectors’ items—for several thousand dollars. […] officials were considering making it larger than their typical one-ounce coin, which measures about 1.29 inches in diameter
The only other time a living President was depicted on an official US coin was in 1926, when Calvin Coolidge appeared on a coin in celebration of, yes, the 150-year Sesquicentennial of the nation’s founding. The event was a flop and additional money had to be raised by the host city (Philly) to cover debts. [Images of newspaper clippings]
birgerjohanssonsays
A small French town has a election for mayor with two candidates named Charles Hittler and Antoine Renault-Zielinski.
The war so far:
– In UAE, one of the biggest refineries in the world is shut
– Saudi Arabia’s largest crude processing plant was temporarily closed
– QatarEnergy’s LNG facilities were hit, triggering fires
– Iran’s giant gas field is partially closed
Over the past three weeks, dozens of refineries, oil fields, gas plants, ports and other energy infrastructure have been damaged […] attacks have escalated in the past two days, as Iran targets some of the Middle East’s most important energy facilities in retaliation for Israel’s strike on its South Pars gas field.
*Travels back in time to 2004 college economics class*
Me: We may have hit peak oil in 2026.
Class: Wow. The environmentalists were right.
Me: No, it’s actually worse.
In this world, it’s not enough to be moral. It’s not enough to be just. It’s not enough to be right. You know, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, someone that I admire a lot, was the historian Will Durant. […] he said, well, history proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation. […] We have to be armed. We have to be more powerful than the barbarians, or they will not be merely at the gate. They’ll crash our gates and destroy our societies. That’s what Israel is doing now with the United States.
Eiynah Mohammed-Smith: “I mean, it’s really on brand.”
Meanwhile in the US
Jimmy Gomez (Rep D-CA): “This is the man Trump thinks will ‘fix’ the most violent, out-of-control DHS in our nation’s history, someone who believes caning and dueling to the death is an acceptable way to settle disputes.”
RAND PAUL (R-KY): In the days after the [attempted fist fight in the Senate with Teamsters leader Sean O’Brien], you did many interviews in which you justified the violence as historically justified by precedents such as caning and dueling. […]
MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): […] Dueling with two consenting adults is still there.
RAND PAUL: It’s been illegal for 170 years! There’s no precedent for legal dueling. [Video clip]
Judah Grunstein (World Politics Review): “At its core, Trumpism is fundamentally about normalizing the resolution of political differences with violence, whether threatened or applied. In this sense, the caning of [abolitionist senator] Charles Sumner is both origin story and logical conclusion.”
Sean Marotta (Lawyer): “Of course, Rand Paul is well-situated to know this because Kentucky requires General Assembly members, officers, and lawyers to all swear they have not fought a duel before assuming office or being admitted.”
Good news of the day, or rather bittersweet news: Mum’s out of Iran now and safely (?) in Europe. Her first words after getting off the plane: “I dunno if I can ever go back…”
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Clearly, I think the Trump people are in a bit of panic. They’re losing ground. Gas prices are soaring. There is massive discontent against this war. It’s got to end.”
Former FBI Director James Comey has been subpoenaed in the wide-ranging “grand conspiracy” case against the ex-officials who investigated and prosecuted President Trump, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell Axios.
Why it matters: The investigation has produced more than 130 subpoenas since cranking up last year, the sources say, and targets top officials who worked under former presidents Obama and Biden. […]
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything as tortured, corrupt, and upside down as President Trump’s attempt to save his own political skin by lifting sanctions on Iran so that it can sell its oil and stabilize energy prices while simultaneously conducting a war against Iran.
[…] this is truly one of the most eye-popping things I’ve seen in the Trump II presidency.
Shoring up your adversary in an armed conflict a desperate attempt to mitigate the consequences of your elective war may forever stand as the paramount example of Donald Trump putting his personal and political interests above the national interest.
Trump’s election year self-bailout is bolstering a key economic lifeline for Iran — and inevitably boosting its war-fighting capabilities — while U.S. service members are actively in harm’s way in the air and at sea. Anything to drive down gas prices ahead of the midterm elections.
WSJ: U.S. War Planes and Helicopters Kick Off Battle to Reopen Hormuz
In the face of overwhelming evidence, President Trump backtracked from his wild claims that Israel had attacked Iran’s South Pars Gas Field without his knowledge.
The WSJ charts the critical energy assets hit in the Middle East conflict, including most recently a major Kuwaiti oil refinery
Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. and its allies have intensified the battle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, sending low-flying attack jets over the sea lanes to blast Iranian naval vessels and Apache helicopters to shoot down Iran’s deadly drones, American military officials said.
The stepped-up operation is part of a multistage Pentagon plan to reduce the danger from Iranian armed boats, mines and cruise missiles, which have halted ship traffic through the waterway since early March. If the danger can be reduced, the U.S. could send U.S. warships through the strait and eventually escort vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf.
The solution to the Iran war (and many other issues) is regime change but not in Iran; it needs to be changed in the US and Israel. That would go a long way to solve a lot of problems that affect the entire world.
birgerjohanssonsays
From the SaveAFox animal sanctuary: Meet Dixie’s new boyfriend!
Chuck Norris and his wife Gena made a YouTube video encouraging evangelical Christians to oust President Barack Obama, with Norris warning that the nation stands on the brink of “socialism or something much worse.” Gena Norris also quotes a 1964 speech by Ronald Reagan, saying that failed actions “will sentence (our children) to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.” Reagan gave the speech on behalf of then-presidential candidate Barry Goldwater
He told Fox & Friends, “It’s just something my wife and I decided to do.”
He wrote a 2012 article in WorldNetDaily hyping president Newt Gingrich.
Mainstream media is saying goodbye to another longtime staple, asCBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss made the call to shutter its legendary CBS News Radio, effective March 22.
This includes the “World News Roundup,” the longest-running newscast in the U.S. Weiss’ decision won’t just end a historical newscast, though. CBS Radio also provided radio coverage for 700 local affiliates across the nation, leaving a gap in coverage.
“A shift in radio station programming strategies, coupled with challenging economic realities, has made it impossible to continue the service. We are sharing this announcement now to fulfill our commitments to our radio partners and affiliates, which require advance notice of the service’s conclusion,” Weiss and CBS President Tom Cibrowski wrote in a memo to CBS Radio staff, obtained by the Daily Beast.
[…] In the same breath, Weiss also announced a six percent cut to CBS staff as well. “It’s no secret that the news business is changing radically, and that we need to change along with it,” Weiss and Cibrowski wrote.
“New audiences are burgeoning in new places, and we are pressing forward with ambitious plans to grow and invest so that we can be there for them. That means some parts of our newsroom must get smaller to make room for the things we must build to remain competitive.”
[…] But she’s also been accused of whitewashing the outlet, allegedly targeting programs and employees of color while giving exit opportunities to employees who disagreed with the changes happening behind closed doors. Many, including Anderson Cooper, bid farewell amid the changes.
But Weiss is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the consolidation of media voices. David Ellison, the owner of many, many media outlets now, is poised to grow his empire. Under the Ellison family, a historically MAGA-loyal group, they are set to come into possession of Warner Brothers—which includes CNN—in addition to their already owned CBS and TikTok. […]
The meeting was convened by 31-year-old lawyer Seth Cohen. Just five years out of law school, Cohen brought no significant experience in nuclear law or policy; he had just entered government through Elon Musk’s [DOGE] team. As Cohen led the group through a technical conversation about licensing nuclear reactor designs, he repeatedly downplayed health and safety concerns.
[…]
The new Trump officials at the NRC seemed to have no experience with the intricacies of nuclear energy policy or law, they said. One NRC lawyer who briefed some of the new arrivals decided to resign. “They were talking about quickly approving all these new reactors, and they didn’t seem to care that much about the rules—they wanted to carry out the wishes of the White House,”
[…]
Cohen has been pushing to raise the legal limit of radiation that nuclear energy companies are allowed to emit from their facilities. […] many firms are fixating on changing these radiation rules: Their business model requires moving nuclear reactors around the country, often near workers or the general public. Building thick, expensive shielding walls can be prohibitively expensive, they said. […] The DOE has been considering a fivefold increase to the limit for public exposure to radiation […] As it deliberated rule changes, the DOE has cut out its internal team of health experts who work on radiation safety […] The advice of outside experts on radiation protection has been largely cast aside. […] Internal DOE documents arguing for changing dose rules cite a report produced […] with the help of the AI assistant Claude.
[…]
[Cohen] shot down the notion of companies putting money into a fund for workplace accidents. […] He also suggested that regulators should not fret about preparing for so-called 100-year events—disasters that have roughly a 1% chance of taking place but can be catastrophic […]
“When SpaceX started building rockets, they sort of expected the first ones to blow up,” he said.
Well, would you look at that: Even the Trumpiest of sycophants can develop a hint of a spine.
On Thursday, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, in a move that no doubt startled everyone, refused to sign off on the 33,000-square-foot security screening center that President Donald Trump wants.
What’s a corrupt president gotta do to get a sign-off here?
Last October, Trump fired all the members of the commission to tee up rubber-stamping the OpenAI Meta Crypto Palantir Bribe Palace, aka his new White House Ballroom. His handpicked replacements are supposed to agree to whatever he wants, so what are they doing exercising judgment?
The commission decided that this screening center was not just too big but also too ugly. […]
You may be wondering how the Commission of Fine Arts managed to vote on this so quickly, since the rest of us only learned of the proposal for this enormous thing last week. But really, that’s just business as usual for Trump these days.
The screening center isn’t the only new building Trump wants. He’s also proposed a 5,000-square-foot recessed plaza abutting the screening center and a 4,000-square-foot building to exit the screening center over by the ballroom.
If you’re wondering how all of this is going to be paid for, keep wondering. The White House isn’t saying.
In contrast to mildly standing up to Trump over the screening center, the commission was eager to sign off on the $400 million ballroom with nary a glance, even though this thing will dwarf the White House. […]
The largest ballroom in the state of Georgia is 40,000 square feet. The Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center in New York is 35,000 square feet. Even the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago clocks in at only 20,000 square feet.
The total square footage of Trump’s White House ballroom is expected to be 90,000 square feet. [!]
Everything about Trump’s destruction of the People’s House is oversized, tacky, and stuck in the 1980s. He slathered the Oval Office in gold. Pictures of Trump and Vice President JD Vance are now framed in gold. He paved over the Rose Garden and turned it into the Rose Garden Club, where big donors and political allies can sit at tables that look just like those at Mar-a-Lago.
All of this is the exact opposite of tasteful […] When Democrats get back in power, they’d better tear it all down.
The Pentagon is speeding up the deployment of thousands of additional Marines and sailors to the Middle East amid speculation that the Trump administration could send troops into Iranian territory.
The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), made up of at least 2,200 Marines, set off from San Diego aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer on Wednesday, sooner than expected, according to multiple reports.
Reuters reported that the troops departed the U.S. about three weeks ahead of schedule.
[…] The additional Marines would head to the Gulf region less than a week after another unit of 2,200 Marines and sailors left for the area aboard the Japan-based USS Tripoli. [!]
Satellite images showed the Tripoli along with two escort ships were traveling southwest across the South China Sea on March 15. The ship carries personnel from the 31st MEU, which contains ground and aerial combat units.
The movements come as President Trump has denied the United States is sending more troops to the Middle East. [!]
“No, I’m not putting troops anywhere,” Trump said Thursday at the White House when asked whether he intends to send more service members to the region.
“If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you,” he continued, before adding that the U.S. “will do whatever’s necessary to keep the price” of oil down.
[…] the Boxer and Tripoli […] will join the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group that has been part of the U.S. bombing campaign on Iran. The USS Gerald R. Ford was also in the area but is being sent to Crete for repairs after a fire aboard it last week.
Trump Done Goofed Again.
.
A Different Bias: “Trump Should Have Filled Oil Reserves First …”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5SnLE2xYAN8
When you are the one starting a war in the middle east, you should first ask yourself “what will happen to oil prices?” and “How will this affect the November elections?”.
Dollar Collapse: Japan may have to DUMP $1.2T in US Treasuries After Trump Cuts 95% of Japan’s Oil Supply By Starting War
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=OVGn4KxTn4I
This may be the worst case analysis, but with DJT everything is worst case.
@2 birgerjohansson wrote: A Different Bias: “Trump Should Have Filled Oil Reserves First
I reply: from my perspective, the first thing I would have wanted him to do is ‘CRAWL OFF AND DIE’. But, of course his megalomaniacal murderous ego would never even consider that.
and birgerjohansson wrote: with DJT everything is worst case.
I agree, this just proves ETTD (Everything Trump Touches Dies)
Even though some are probably getting tired of me saying this, I’m getting to the point where I wish Martha and the Vandellas were wrong when they sang: ‘nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide’. But, I can’t disprove their words.
Epstein’s Russia Ties Exposed in New Senate-Floor Speech. Was Trump Connected?
Some of the claims in the quoted text look like more backup is needed to establish the facts.
For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-5/#comment-2294443
Middle East Eye – Iranian girls killed by ‘double-tap’ strikes on Minab school
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-5/#comment-2294491
Trump wants to pick foreign leaders, and his list isn’t limited to Iran
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-5/#comment-2294494
The war with Iran is costing an estimated $1 billion a day.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-5/#comment-2294499
U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February as Trump-era job market continues to suffer
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-5/#comment-2294500
[Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi] are ciphers, meant to fill a TV role cast by Trump and to respond to his every whim and impulse, not run giant organizations or make independent decisions. Donald Trump is the worst DHS secretary in history, and worst attorney general and … you get the point.
birger and shermanj in comment 3, please keep these guidelines for The infinite Thread in mind:
Lynna (2025-05-26):
Please also refrain from wallowing in, fantasizing about, or enjoying the prospect of other human beings dying.
Thank you,
Lynna
Reuters:
MS NOW:
Wall Street Journal:
Associated Press:
New York Times:
NBC News:
Link
More at the link.
NBC News:
New York Times:
See also: https://naturerecord.org/chapters
Trump has the power to do anything—except pay back tariffs, apparently>/a>
The Guardian link
“Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’ ”
More at the link.
New York Times link
“Trump Demands ‘Unconditional Surrender’ by Iran”
“Trump’s comments on Friday reflected yet another shift in the goals of U.S. military actions.”
Trump has privately shown serious interest in U.S. ground troops in Iran
“The president’s private comments have not focused on a large-scale ground invasion of Iran, but rather on the idea of a small contingent of U.S. troops that would be used for specific strategic purposes, sources say.”
More at the link.
From reporting by Politico.eu: EU still struggling to find solution to Hungary’s veto of Ukraine’s €90B lifeline
“President Zelenskyy reluctantly seems to think the only option might be for Ukraine to fix an oil pipeline to Eastern Europe.”
Treasury Sec Scott Bessent announced $20B plan for maritime reinsurance in the Gulf
Rando 1: “Good news, Iran—every ship you attack, the US will pay for it!”
Royce Kurmelovs (Journalist):
Rando 2: “To state the obvious: it allows Iran to harm us financially at will.”
Elizabeth Jacobs (Epidemiologist):
Rando: “Don’t forget about the time O’Neill demanded that Merck and GSK produce 3 separate vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella.”
Jim O’Neill is being nominated to be director of the National Science Foundation instead, announced March 4th.
Walker Bragman (Journalist):
The Handbasket – Police body cam footage shows DOGE knew Institute of Peace was private property during raid
Clips from the raid are on Marisa Kabas’ YouTube channel.
Marisa Kabas: “I planned to share my report […] early next week when I learned that a DC news station had obtained some of the footage as a result of my lawsuit, and they were going to scoop me. After working on this for a year, I couldn’t let that happen. Published 2 mins before they aired [ascii smile]”
@6 Lynna, OM admonished us to refrain from wallowing in, fantasizing about, or enjoying the prospect of other human beings dying.
I reply: I apologize. Sometimes it is difficult to avoid reacting to all the murder and mayhem without resorting to violent thoughts and words. You are correct, such language won’t accomplish diminution of the problems,.
It’s hard to be optimistic. there are may articles about this:
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2026/03/02/860022.htm
Insurers Cancel War Risk Cover
Companies including Gard, Skuld, NorthStandard, the London P&I Club and the American Club said their cancellations would take effect from March 5, according to notices dated March 1 on their websites.
War risk cover will be excluded in Iranian waters, as well as the Gulf and adjacent waters, according to the notices.
Japan’s MS&AD Insurance Group told Reuters it had suspended underwriting of a range of insurance policies covering war risks in the waters around Iran, Israel and neighboring countries.
Sounds like that was the prelude to the US-backed re-insurance @20.
Aaron Rupar:
Noah Shachtman (RollingStone):
Rando: “Yes, let’s unsanction Russian oil while they are feeding targeting coordinates to Iran.”
CNN – Radar bases housing key US missile interceptor hit in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, satellite images show
Robert Evans (CoolZoneMedia): “eight THAAD batteries. Not in the region. Not in this conflict. Period.”
The Conversation
Stars&Stripes: “The U.S. fired 92 THAAD interceptors during the [12-day-war last summer, 14% of its then arsenal of 632] and cost about $12.7 million apiece […] the U.S. used roughly 30 Patriot interceptors”
Rando: The United States produces 96 THAAD interceptors per year. Eight per month. Two per week. Iran launched over 500 ballistic missiles in the first week”
Elia Ayoub (Journalist, Lebanese diasporan):
Malek Teffaha (Lebanese diasporan): “They want to ‘evacuate’ one of the densest suburbs of Beirut and have a quarter of a million+ people just move elsewhere and accept the fate of the destruction of their homes or worse, the loss of their life. Fucking nightmare.”
Elia Ayoub: “The Israelis are even telling people which roads to take. That’s why there are two colours. There is mass panic.”
Elia Ayoub: “You see the black label at the bottom left? That’s Lebanon’s only airport. Dahieh borders it.”
Latest episode of If You Are Listening here – Trump thinks he can switch off the Iran War (25 mins long) on Trump thinking he has an on / off switch for war and explaining his past opposition to war vs current embrace of it.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-08/nepal-election-rapper-turned-politican-balen-shah-party-victory/106428916
& also from a Gulf state billionaire who formerly supported Trump and worked on a Trump tower project :
Al Habtoor wrote an open letter to Trump on X this week:
“Who gave you the authority to drag our region into a war with Iran? Who gave you permission to turn our region into a battlefield?” it began.
He wanted to know whether the decision to go to war was “your decision or Netanyahu’s pressure?”
“Did you calculate collateral damage before firing?” he asked.
He said Trump had “placed GCC [Gulf Cooperation] countries at the heart of danger they didn’t choose”.
“Your ‘Board of Peace’ initiatives were funded by Gulf states. Now we’re getting attacked. Where did that money go?”
And he wasn’t finished. …(snip)…
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-07/gulf-states-pessimistic-about-what-trump-will-leave-behind/106418872
Source :
On the successor to the Supreme Ayatalloah :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-07/iran-supreme-leader-son-mojtaba-khamenei-and-war/106419508
Seems Trump may have changed the Iranian dictator from bad to worse..
This article by Robert Reich warns of truly grave socio-political consequences:
https://www.rsn.org/001/cbs-is-the-biggest-protrump-megamedia-monopoly-ever-its-already-distorting-war-coverage.html
In spite of all the important info Lynna and others post here, I must now limit my intake of all the atrocities of the magat admin. Doomscrolling is bad for my/your mental health.
Breaking Points has a good discussion here – Trump’s Bloodthirsty Ghouls Unleashed LABEL (12 mins) of the vileness of the anti-woke Trumpiust war ghouls esp Shadow POTUS Miller & DUI hire Kegsbreath.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2026-03-06/pygmy-long-fingered-possum-and-ring-tailed-glider-fossil/106415912
Sounds like a marsupial Aye-Aye. Convergent evolution at work?
Thanks for the apology shermanj @23.
In other news; ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES
Mehdi on Trump’s Iran war: ‘Moral abomination and tactically stupid.’
Video is 8:04 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES
Trump snaps at reporter over Iran question, demands football focus.
Video is 8:00 minutes
@27 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain:
It should be noted that this isn’t stupidity, it is having a system optimized for a different problem. Until this war the risk those countries faced was single raids and included more large missiles. A lot of the middle eastern countries have missiles systems derived from the Russian Scud missiles, much larger and more powerful with longer ranges then a drone but also much more expensive. So constant small attacks was not the risk they faced, instead they wanted to block single highly dangerous attacks by a small number of missiles.
Trump’s dumb war and his dysfunctional Cabinet secretaries
“Can we observe Earth-like exoplanets from our own planet?”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-earth-exoplanets-planet.html
“In this Perspective, we present the expected image plane contrast of the three large telescopes operating with a shared orbiting 99-m-diameter starshade”
Text quoted by Sky Captain @20:
So true. Bears repeating. Could be applied to many actions the Trump administration has taken, including tariffs that negatively impacted farmers in the USA.
This also is a good point:
Cartoon: Biden strikes again
Text quoted by PZ:
Commentary from PZ:
Link
YouTube link to the Associated Press’s presention of “Pete Hegseth says the US is winning against Iran ‘without mercy’.
Hegseth thinks that operating “without mercy” is a virtue.
Rando: “Upon seeing the headline here, I repeated “NO WAY! NO WAY!!!” Multiple times. I’m happy the author agrees, though perhaps not as vehemently or as concisely.”
Lawyers, Guns, & Money – Special ops to get the uranium
* Cheryl Rofer (Retired nuclear scientist, LG&M): “the NYT article that breathlessly advocates this mission”
Chris Hayes (MSNOW): “This was clear from the jump, but the Venezuela invasion going as smoothly as it did, from a pure operational perspective, is going to prove catastrophic in the long run.”
Asawin Suebsaeng (Zeteo): “Yes and also I’m not sure how publicly known it is how close it came to becoming black hawk down in Venezuela.”
Wikipedia – Eric Slover
Rando: “the bullets a couple inches up or down and it could’ve been obviously a much bigger problem and that dude would’ve crashed.”
Dan Diamond (WaPo):
Bill Scher (Washington Monthly):
Washington Post link
“Ukrainian forces halt advance in Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv officials say”
“Ukraine has claimed a slew of successes on the front line in recent days, underscoring the effectiveness of its weapons systems, including anti-drone interceptors.’
MeidasTouch:
https://bsky.app/profile/meidastouch.com/post/3mgeiwgigts2cAlex Ip (Journalist):
Politico – Platner says he’ll remove tattoo (2025-10)
AP News – Platner says tattoo recognized as Nazi symbol has been covered
CNN – New evidence undercuts Senate candidate Platner’s claims that he didn’t know
* His large right-pectoral tattoo was specifically the Nazi “Are we the baddies?” hat design, not a Punisher skull. It’s shown in Rebecca Watson’s video below.
SkepChick – Graham Platner is an embarrassing liar (28:34)
DOJ Hopes to Convince Majority-GOP Panel to Be the First to Buy Into Trans Fishing Expedition
Six federal scientists run out by Trump talk about the work left undone
@48 Lynna, OM:
That is sort of amazing until you realize that Trump isn’t trying to work through Congress. Trump doesn’t like sharing power, isn’t a good negotiator, and Congress is treacherous grounds. Trump spent a lot of time frustrated at them in his first term and this time he is doing what he wants through commands from the throne.
Follow-up to 43.
Semafor – Trump’s Iran options include special ops raid on nuclear sites
Follow-up on desalination plant strikes.
Seyed Araghchi (Iran Foreign Minister):
That’s the claim anyway, text-only. Some outlets reporting the tweet have decorated their articles with photos of irrelevant destroyed buildings.
NYT – Lindsey Halligan is under investigation by the Florida Bar
Kel McClanahan (National Security Counselors): “Just think, what does a MAGA lawyer have to do to be investigated by THE FLORIDA BAR.”
Ben Penn (Bloomberg):
Bloomberg – DOJ pushes to sideline state bar ethics investigations
Kel McClanahan:
Liz Dye (Law&Chaos): “Bondi can appeal contempt and sanctions orders. But she can’t protect lawyers from state bars—not legally anyway.”
Ben Penn: “What’s interesting about Bondi DOJ decrying ‘weaponization’ of state bar complaints is that a GOP congressman—frustrated w/ Clinton DOJ prosecuting him for bribery in ’90s—who came up with the idea for changing law to subject DOJ prosecutors to bar investigations. Look up McDade amendment.”
bmaz (Lawyer): “This is a stupid hornet’s nest for Bondi to poke. What she wants is already effectively policy. Anybody that has ever tried to process a DOJ complaint in a state bar knows this. The only way it ever happens is if [DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility] forwards it or it comes directly from a federal judge.”
Matt Collette (Attorney): “I’ve been gone since 2018, but when I was there, DOJ attorneys absolutely had to be barred somewhere (although maybe not in the state where their office was). People got disciplined if they let their state (or DC) bar licenses lapse.”
Eric Columbus (Obama DHS/DoJ): “28 usc 530C(c)(1) says the AG can’t pay any lawyer who isn’t a member of a bar.”
New York Times link to Live Updates section.
U.S. judge voids 2025 actions taken by Kari Lake as Voice of America CEO, including job cuts
“The judge ruled that Lake was ineligible to serve as acting CEO because she was not employed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media when the former CEO resigned in January 2025.”
Sky Marchini (An economist): “Turns out, the Haber Bosch process working best with piles of cheap natural gas means that all the fertilizer is now made in like three places.”
Molly Taft (Wired): “did you know a massive amount of the world’s fertilizer flows through the Middle East, and did you know that that fertilizer needs to be shipped to the US *right now* for planting season, and uh did you know we are at war with Iran?”
Wired – Trump’s war on Iran could screw over us farmers
Molly Taft:
Sarah Taber (Crop scientist):
Rando (Grain farmer):
The Guardian – At least 13 hospitals and health facilities hit during attacks on Iran and one in Lebanon, WHO says
Al Jazeera – Elementary school in Tehran hit, Iran’s foreign ministry says (the 4th school in Iran)
WaPo – US Intel report warns large-scale war ‘unlikely’ to oust Iran’s regime
Zeteo – Trump is dangerously close to sending troops to Iran
Dan Silverman (PoliSci prof): “Per Zeteo, at least some admin officials think Trump is leaning toward sending in ground forces and being pushed to do go big if he does.”
Brandon Friedman (Infantry veteran):
Follow-up to Sarah Taber quoted in 56.
Sarah Taber:
Visuals for Lynna @54.
Al Jazeera – Thick black cloud engulfs Tehran after Israeli attacks
Video at the link. The roiling smoke and flame is like when folks drove through the California wildfires.
Al Jazeera shared this tweet.
Living in Tehran: “Spill of oil in the sewage system has created a flowing burning river in parts of Tehran after oil depots were bombed earlier tonight, setting the streets in the Iranian capital on fire. [Video clip]”
So, we can be pretty confident Trump will do it; he’ll get frustrated and bored when the mullahs don’t “cry uncle”, keep sending drones, and the continued bombing stops being headline news. My guess would be he’ll try an amphibious landing after building up troops in Saudi Arabia and blitzing Iran’s Gulf coast to suppress opposition.
Double-tap missile attack reported in central Iran’s Najafabad city
I seem to recall that this sort of tactic was once decried as horribly evil, used only by the worst of the worst. But I guess now that it has a cutesy name, we’re all good.
Follow-up to the alleged US strike on Iran’s desalinization plant @52.
Bahrain Ministry of Interior:
From other tweets, the account seems to be using “material damage” to mean property damage, of any degree. An underwhelming announcement if Iran is going nuclear.
Al Jazeera – How big is Iran? (A set of infographics)
Sky Captain @61, yuck. That even looks toxic.
In related news: Iran’s political prisoners are in extreme danger. Here’s why that matters.
“The ‘brain trust’ of opposition leaders in the country are in grave danger of regime ‘shoot-to-kill’ reprisals and U.S. and Israeli bombs.”
Cartoon: Bombs not food
Trump’s “Dignified” Transfer of Soldiers Killed in Kuwait. He Wore a GOLF Cap for Starters (UPDATE)
Follow-up to Sky Captain @61. The “Living in Tehran” link doesn’t seem to work. The first link does work.
“Black Rain” and a School Massacre: The Latest From Trump’s War on Iran
Video at the link.
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/arts/television/snl-ryan-gosling-harry-styles-iran-war.html"On ‘S.N.L.’, Pete Hegseth Says Iran ‘Isn’t a War, It’s a Situationship’
“Colin Jost added to his airtime playing Hegseth, the defense secretary, in the opening of a “Saturday Night Live” broadcast hosted by Ryan Gosling.”
YouTube link to the
Hegseth Iran Presser Cold Open – SNL.
YouTube link to
Weekend Update: Trump Fires Kristi Noem, Wants to Pick Iran’s Next Leader – SNL.
Correction to comment 69.
I tried the “Living in Tehran” link again, and it did work on the second try. Link is in comment 61.
Lynna @ 487 , 482
I have been very naive, as I am not a proper IT nerd. Some AI slop is easy to spot, other is hard.
So far I have caught maybe 80% of the AI slop and was congratulating myself. These examples should have been caught if I had done the same due dilligence that I do when it is not 3 AM local time. I need to be extra cautious. My bad.
.
BTW I have no doubt the MAGAistas will dismiss the jobs numbers as “fake news”. You need a full-on recession for reality to be recognised.
DW News:
What would Sun Tzu and Clausewitz say about the Iran war?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=N85Ro3_IX-w
.
My guess: Sun Tzu would have decapitated any general that made a fraction of the mistakes DJT and Hegseth have done.
Soumaya Ghannoushi, British-Tunisian blogger at Middle East Eye
“How Iran war may accelerate the fall of the US empire”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=7EepqfJDtN0
Well, the empire has lasted at least since McKinley attacked Cuba 1898. A 128-year stretch is not bad.
I realised there are Galapagos turtles, whales and Greenland sharks that regard 128 years like, yeah that is puberty for you. A short time of bad decisions.
“Inland China experienced typhoon-related population decline 3,000 years ago, according to ‘oracle bones,’ AI and physics ”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-inland-china-experienced-typhoon-population.html
.
It would be interesting to see how these events correlate with climate events in western Asia. China fortunately never had a “Sea People” problem.
We need to occasionally rise our eyes above the sordid events to conserve our sanity.
-Here is an interesting high-tech development for getting extreme optical astronomy.
“Quantum entanglement offers route to higher-resolution optical astronomy”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-quantum-entanglement-route-higher-resolution.html
^
I assume it could take a decade or more, but if optical astronomy can have synthetic apertures of 1.5 km it is a revolution.
.
I forget, did I post a link to the study about combining ground-based telescopes with orbital starshades? It would be nice to learn about all the planets in the Alpha Centauri or Tau Ceti systems.
The Hill: Trump says he won’t sign any bills into law until SAVE America Act passes
It will be interesting to see if he carries through. He doesn’t have a great history of following through on his Truth Social threats. It also isn’t clear if he understands how the mechanics of laws work in this regards either, he doesn’t have to sign bills for them to go into effect. As long as the president doesn’t veto them if they are approved by congress they go into effect in 10 days.
Thune has no interest in forcing the Democrats to talk. It would require changing the rules and Thune ran for majority leader on not changing the rules, a lot of Republicans don’t want those rules changed. The Democrats have the numbers to filibuster forever if they stick together.
Meidas Touch : Military Leaders throw Trump under the bus over war.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=hwnc-sYB9fk
I see Lindsey Graham is confusing Hizbollah with Syrian Intelligence (who blew up a US barracks in Lebanon in the 1980s, using a small fascist militia as proxy).
The Guardian
Fox News uses old clip of Trump after he wore hat while saluting slain US soldiers | Donald Trump .https://share.google/pys94iXG9e8wS7Zer
.
The Guardian
Nicola Coughlan is right: ‘body positivity’ traps us in the same old conversations | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett .https://share.google/iT8RLPkSRff5MoOd1
Follow-up to JM @79.
Chuck Schumer (Senator D-NY):
Noah Berlatsky (Writer): “This is the right thing to say from Schumer, for once.”
Louis Theroux on the manosphere, marriage and misunderstandings | The Guardian .https://share.google/AJn5rvzpyfkyp0EaB
House Of El warns of stagflation, like under the 1970s.
“USA loses control. Worst US Crisis Since 1970s, Iran War Backfires ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5cfl0I_Fhrc
Follow-up to Lynna @54.
Southpaw (Lawyer): “The ease of the horrific libel.”
Bellingcat – Video shows US Tomahawk missile strike next to girls’ school
Brian Finucane (Just Security): “DoD obviously knows where it conducted TLAM strikes and could have acknowledged responsibility for this tragedy even while it investigated the attack.”
Rando: “Admission of responsibility is not part of Hegseth’s warrior ethos.”
^
I realise that many headlines are clickbaity in style, but if the actual content seems solid I give the link a chance.
I recall the US stagflation of the 70s, even if we in Sweden escaped it. This is one advantage of having a separate currency.
Hegseth may not be all there. I mean, everyone in the administration is flawed but Miller and Hegseth are the only ones to be more aggressively nuts than DJT. The idea that he rose to major in the National Guard is scary.
Documents reveal web of financial ties between Trump officials and industries they help regulate, by ProPublica
Al Jazeera – Italy repatriates 20,000 Italians from Middle East
Al Jazeera – State Dept said on Sunday that more than 32,000 Americans had returned from Middle East
Sure, over half of them asked for help escaping a war zone then changed their minds. Maybe they hitched a ride with their Italian friends.
Follow-up on the second Iranian ship from Sri Lanka.
Al Jazeera
“ALMA just made the largest radio image EVER of our Galactic Center”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6ODwbdtcvV0
The image is 650 light years across. If we could see it with the naked eye I estimate the image would be just a little less than the with of three discs of the moon superimposed on the sky.
(I did the estimate in my head, so feel free to fact check it. The distance is 26 000 light years)
Rando: “[Photo] Marco Rubio hanging out with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio at the ‘Shield of the Americas’ event, in case you were still thinking it had some sort of legitimate purpose.” (Tarrio had tweeted it)
Commentary
DC US Attorney in the press release for Tarrio’s sentencing
Mark Follman (Mother Jones):
Zach Roberts (Journalist): “To be fair, Tarrio as far as we know has never killed anyone. Rubio is complicit in […]”
BBC – Dozens killed as Israeli special forces raid Lebanese village in search of 40-year-old remains
Luke Moffett (Human rights prof): “This is blatant perfidy and a war crime under Art.8(2)(b)(vii) of the Rome Statute of the ICC and Art.37 of AP I to the Geneva Conventions which prohibits misuse of Red Crescent emblem and enemy uniforms that results in death or serious injury.”
They’ve done it before.
The Guardian – Israeli special forces disguised as doctors kill three militants at West Bank hospital (2024-01)
Scathing Atheist 677: AI Slopaganda Edition
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=YUQEZCKbI0s
birgerjohansson @87
I think someone (probably a girl) took a GI Joe doll away from Hegseth when he was a child.
Reuters – Pentagon taps former DOGE Gavin Kliger to lead its AI efforts
* Kliger was the 25yo with 5 iPhones, suspicious wealth, and was inspired to join DOGE by a Nazi. Embedded at CFPB and IRS. Yeah, he wasn’t very distinctive.
New ultra-low-cost technique could slash the price of soft robotics
.https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-ultra-technique-slash-price-soft.html
The Differences in public opinion between this war and earlier wars.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DaGmxrKTo/
Hegseth done goofed.
.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pete-hegseth-iran-war-line_n_69ae64cce4b0fe5c2e75653b
Is he taking uppers or is he mental?
NBC – Jan. 6 plaque installed at U.S. Capitol following yearslong delay. The Senate voted to install the plaque after the House GOP refused to display it.
USAID: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=tU8S13xYJNM
I’d missed this USIP story last year.
TechDirt – DOGE falsely targeted him on social media. Then the Taliban took his family (2025-08)
Matt Novak (Gizmodo): “We’re still murdering people in “drug boats” even as we start a new war in Iran. Six people today. [Screenshot of SouthCom tweet]”
Warning for AI slop. On Youtube there is something called “BNC News 24” that looks very professional but the headlines fail the skepticism test.
.
BTW the woodpeckers have started doing their thing. And we got a rain wetting the ice on the ground, making the walk to work an “adventure” ending with me flat on my ass.
The new supreme leader is already getting help from Russia and China
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=_I4e0qWesQI
How Did We Underestimate China’s Moon Program This Badly ?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4O3u17eIpDY
David Hogg: “The Democratic Party Needs to Change or Lose”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=hv–_qVtXZA
A ‘Military Mobility Schengen Area’? Baltic States Sign Declaration
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=9r2gETNFKmE
MS Now:
Iran has ‘many cards yet to play’ in war with U.S., Israel predicts Middle East expert
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=D1eAL_apPs4
Britain / A Different Bias (32 minute video)
“Trump’s War Triggers Cost of Living Fears”
.https://youtube.com/live/FFjnkwdfaDk
“AI fake-news detectors may look accurate but fail in real use, study finds”
.https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-ai-fake-news-detectors-accurate.html
From the departement of “Republicans are projecting”.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DkUtVVnx
The Guardian
Explainer: “Why has the Iran war sparked fears of stagflation for the global economy?”
.https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/09/iran-war-oil-prices-stagflation-global-economy
Nuclear experts undercut White House claims about Iran reactor at heart of case for war
“The Trump administration sent negotiators without nuclear expertise to lead talks on Iran’s enrichment program. Now, its public case for war centers on a facility that experts say cannot do what officials claim.”
Wall Street Journal:
Commentary:
Link
If there is a big mistake to be made, like putting troops on the ground, I think Trump will eventually make that mistake.
“Trump’s Westchester Golf Resort Infested With Bugs And Rodents”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yt11oE5T-OA
Looks like someone has been going cheap on maintenance. Or not hired competent managers.
.
BTW I see the term “force majeure” pop up a lot about oul and natural gas companies in the Gulf. I assume this is not “good” news.
Four days ago, Trump touted the “decisive action” his administration took “to help keep down the oil prices.” Oops.
Related video at the link.
Link
Also from the link provided above:
Trump’s plan to turn DC into Mar-a-Lago 2.0 hits a snag
Cartoon: Victory posters, by Tom Tomorrow
Paramount will be 79 billion $ in debt after aquiring Warner Brothers!
FAFO
Europe WINS $85 Billion Brain Drain – Trump Guts 1653 Research Grants, Tech Talent Are Leaving to Europe
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZjOTgOtcoWI&si=dT8o14wwfSXTuhX0
I thought Brexit was the worst self-harm a democratic nation has done this generation. I was wrong. And the Trump catamites in congress are silent as mice.
Follow-up to Sky Captan 226.
Team Trump says (and does) all the wrong things as Russia helps Iran during the U.S. war
“As Russia provides intelligence that could put Americans at risk, the White House responds by easing Russian oil sanctions.”
Nearby red dwarf star hosts at least four planets—with one in the habitable zone
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-nearby-red-dwarf-star-hosts.html
Lacaille 9352 / GJ 887
Distance 10.7 light years.
Mass 0.48 of the sun.
Luminosity 3.7 % of the sun
The outer edge of the HZ is at 0.4 AU.
Considering how quickly the tidal pseudoforce increases with reduced distance we can assume any terrestrial planets either have a 1:1 rotation or are so distant they are frozen snowballs.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/the-finest-funerary-trucker-cap-tabs
Why being nice matters in a complex world
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-nice-complex-world.html
Hungary moves to legalize seizure of Ukrainian bank cash convoy
“The country’s ruling party introduces a bill to freeze recently seized Ukrainian state bank funds and gold as tensions between Budapest and Kyiv deepen.”
True leadership looks different than Trump
.https://youtube.com/shorts/25YjkCswuXM
Link
Israel’s Own Propaganda Just Triggered A Mutiny!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=IBMv1nvkOKk
Oops! If you don’t pay people asked to lie for you, the gig will soon be up.
Trump as monkey? He looks better this way.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/ayxvbEJgejU
BTW if you recall when this song was on the radio, you are 65+ .
https://www.wonkette.com/p/lindsey-graham-loses-mind-demands
“Lindsey Graham Loses Mind, Demands MORE BOMBING!”
Other people are doing the fighting. Other people are dying. Graham is just getting off on the war-not-war.
The TEC Show:
“BREAKING: My Plus One Model Predicts a Major Democratic House Surge.”
New House model shows Democrats on track for a big 2026 gain
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5tn5qGOrMAE
MS NOW:
MS NOW:
NBC News:
MS NOW:
Link
Washington Post:
MS NOW:
Wall Street Journal:
USA Today:
New York Times:
Trigger warning for gory details that resulted from the bombing of an elementary school in Iran.
Video appears to show U.S. Tomahawk missile hitting the area of the deadly school strike in Iran
That’s new video.
“Munitions experts said the video appeared to show a Tomahawk strike near the school in Minab, where scores of children were killed last month, according to Iranian officials.”
Follow-up to the buried ambulance massacre last year.
birger, myself (adding to birger), and Lynna (
https://archive.is/JoQBr).Further grim but fascinating acoustic analysis: way more shooters and bullets.
Al Jazeera – Israeli forces fired over 900 bullets to kill Gaza medics in 2025
* Al Jazeera summarizes the report.
https://www.earshot.ngo/investigations/israeli-executions-of-palestinian-aid-workers* DropSite News synthesizes a richer narrative with large graphics and testimony.
CNBC: Trump says Iran war will end ‘very soon,’ predicts lower oil prices
Bomb some stuff, declare victory, go home. Possibly continue to help Israel hit key targets in Iran but I suspect Trump really wants to get his “victory” and get out.
A little fawning over his success and Putin has gotten Trump to accept the new leader of Iran and talk about going home. Putin may not be able to help Iran militarily but they have the right diplomatic connections.
Human Rights Watch – Israel unlawfully using white phosphorus in Lebanon
Regarding the fuel depot strikes near Tehran.
SasanianShah (Iranian historian):
A push for ecocide to be added to Rome Statute (2024)
SasanianShah (Iranian historian):
Elia Ayoub: “400-500 years older than Israel, gets destroyed by Israel.”
SasanianShah:
SasanianShah:
Juan Cole (Historian): “Hang in there; Iran dealt with Mongols, it can deal with Trump.”
SasanianShah: “Honestly, I feel Hülegü had more respect for culture than this steak ‘n’ ketchup guzzling human excrement.”
SasanianShah: “We used to be a safe country where things like explosions, terrorist attacks, etc. were unknown. Tehran was one of the safest megacities, with very little violent crime. You could walk around at 1am safely. Beautiful cities, parks, museums, shopping, & cafes. Now it’s all gone to shits within a week.”
@148 “safe” Iran was strange to hear from a secular leftist historian. Seems like it needs an asterisk: like boundary conditions on who was safe, or a time period more distant than a week ago, more than two months ago, more than several years ago… He was excluding state violence, I guess.
SasanianShah: “Thinking of my forever home, Tehran, tonight. A small town of prob less than 5,000 in 1790, it grew to a proper capital in 1880s, expanded to a modern city of over 1mil by 1940s, & now is home to 10 million people. My family, there since before 1790, is part of that city’s soil, & so is my heart.”
SasanianShah:
* VF = Vilayat Faqih = Guardianship of the Jurist = Shi’i clerical rule.
* The thread ended prematurely.
SasanianShah (January protests): “I have been very careful about opining on what is happening in Iran right now. But omg omg omg! This is exciting and scary. I am dead afraid for these people & shudder at thinking what might happen. They must succeed & I am mot brave enough to go there & help them.”
SasanianShah: “Suppression of journalists, mass arrest & torture of protestors, violent crackdown of protests, ‘chain murder’ of intellectuals & academics, corrupting the country’s educational system, and so many other things. Plus all the humiliation we had to suffer for 37 years. No one will mourn Khamenei.”
Rando:
WSJ – Trump is obsessed with these $145 shoes—and won’t let anyone leave without a pair
Daily Beast – Trump’s weird fetish for discount dress shoes
Photo at the link. =)
Commentary
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert:
“Iran’s New Iron Fist | Trump Under Fire For Undignified Transfer | Not Learning Your Damm Language.”
.https://.com/watch?v=hdgFxZ6J5Wo
Justin Wolfers (Econ prof):
Rando: “Don’t worry, I’m sure they bought plenty of oil futures in their personal accounts.”
Follow-up on an someone who attended a habeas boot camp for attorneys.
Daniel Suitor:
“Epstein Bombshell Drops as War Backfires”
The Trump-related video content starts at 3.20 .
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ukVCAZ0xhYk
@ 154
The adjudicated rapist and 34-time convicted felon will of course deny trying to force a 14-year old girl to have oral sex with him.
Jimmy Kimmel Live:
“Trump Golfs Amid Iran War, Wears His Own Merch to Honor Fallen Soldiers And Tries To Fix The Next Election.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=CRf07ag7BLk
Last night’s ep of media watch had a great segment here – on ‘How AI-generated imagery is shaping the narrative of the Iranian conflict’going for 16 mins &, yeah, be very wary what you believ and share when itcoems to this latest South-West Asian war folks. We’re all being absolutely flooded with bulldust at least on social media. (Tho’ not JUST there..)
The Guardian
“Ig Nobels to move awards to Europe due to concern over US travel visas ”
.https://share.google/NxC1NdXqek89bZNoW
House of El: “USA LOSES €860 Billion Defense Deal – EU Builds Defense WITHOUT Trump”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NnzZARoHJ0w
FAFO!
(Meidas Touch is one of the relatiely reliable sites, which is why I often repost their videos)
Meidas Touch:
Trump-Epstein Blackmail Scheme Surfaced Just Before Death
.https://youtube.com/live/kVe1cGzW_Rc
“He really said that !”
Lindsey Graham Is Out of Control
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Gy-xoNClnNQ
Question: isn’t Graham up for re-election in November? And didn’t he win with 10% the last two times, which puts him in the danger zone as votes shift?
Farron Balanced:
“Red State Hospitals Shutting Down Thanks To House Republicans”
.https://.com/watch?v=ocKEb8xKTOs
Ms now
Maddow: “Trump admits what the attack on Iran is really for”
Must-watch video (10 minutes)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=geWyWoYi6OU
Politico: Judge rejects NJ US Attorney ‘triumvirate’ in latest blow to Trump prosecutors
Brann has rejected the latest attempt by the Trump administration to get around the law. Unable to appoint the US Attorney for New Jersey or another interim replacement, the administration tried a new scheme where they appointed 3 different attorneys to lesser titles and split the powers of US attorney among them.
There is something amusing when a judge makes a ruling and then stays their own ruling because they know it will immediately be appealed. Expect the administration to press this one as far up the appeal courts as they can just to delay having to come up with another solution, if nothing else.
Brann makes it clear that he is unhappy with the administration’s attempts to find a way to dodge around Constitutional requirements. He says directly that if the administration continues on this course then criminal cases may be dismissed for lack of proper authority to bring them. This is a huge threat because it would shut down criminal prosecution on a large scale.
CBS News: Rep. Kevin Kiley leaves GOP to become an independent, complicating Johnson’s majority
Depending on what Kiley does this could really put the squeeze on Johnson. There wouldn’t be a lot of reason for Kiley to do this if planned to line up behind the Republicans for voting but his sticking with the caucus means he rejecting them entirely either. Even before this he has messed up several Republican votes that needed total party line votes.
Essentially leaving the Republicans with no margin for error and more question marks on how people will vote. Johnson really needs to get a Democrat or two to agree to vote for the Republican position before he can have any confidence of anything passing. Another significant change and the Democrats could take over before the election.
So he is acting out of some degree of self interest and some degree of actual belief that the political situation in the country is bad.
Upcoming film from God Awful Movies on Youtube.
“Dr. Alice Howarth and Michael Marshall join us to figure out if big stuff was aliens in a review of Chariots of the Gods. I won’t spoil it.”
Good grief. Just as that Swiss grifter finally croaked.
Since a lot of the GOP congressmen in the House seem philistine, maybe we simply could bribe a couple to retire early, leaving the Collaborator Cabal (TM) without a majority?
It’s not like the MAGAs aren’t fighting dirty.
Wait! An offer of a well-paying job after the political career! That is how the lobbyists tie congressmen to them.
“Trump Suffers Massive Humiliation As Board Of Peace Meeting Instantly Flops:
Not even a single west European nation has signed on.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=uzCcBjh3OSw
France 24 has some good coverage & discussion of the Iran war – Iran’s American war – on C35 (SBS Worldwatch) right now here in Sth Oz. FWIW. Dunno how much will be online later or currently but still..
@ ^ Plus interviews with real Iranians currently inside that nation.. Albeit only a few indivduals & necessarily anonymised.
Semi~~ Nah, not actuallyrandom random at all Shakespeare speech here – If You Prick Us, Do We NOT Bleed? Christopher Austin performs Shylock (from The Merchant of Venice) (2.53 mins – secs.)
Follow-up to birger @163.
RACHEL MADDOW: Trump admits what the attack on Iran is really for
Maddow also covers the fact that Russia is helping Iran target USA facilities and forces.
Video is 10:17 minutes
Maddow: The wheels are already coming off Trump’s House majority
Video is 3:13 minutes
RACHEL MADDOW: Catastrophic failure for Trump: Deaths, disease, public outrage derail immigrant prison camp plan
Video is 6:25 minutes.
Obama remembered. With nore details than usual.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1ByEetjwcE/
FBI subpoenas 2020 election records in Arizona, advancing radical Trump crusade
“The FBI’s subpoena in Maricopa County is absurd, but it’s part of a larger campaign that shouldn’t be ignored.”
Related video at the link. It’s a good video. 4:06 minutes. Features comments from Vaughn Hillyard, who is an excellent reporter.
To recap the president’s pitch, we’ve already won the war, which we’ll win soon, which we haven’t won enough, which is both over and just getting started.
More Evidence U.S. Struck Iranian School
See also: Trump stands by claim that Iran could have struck girls’ school
U.S. Confirms Military Ops in Ecuador
Sky Captain @144, thanks for following up on the crime that was perpetrated last year when aid workers were gunned down by Israeli forces, (ambulance massacre last year), and then the crime was buried. Or at least Israel tried to bury it—in part a literal burial. They used heavy equipment to bury the ambulances and the victims.
The analysis that you posted, showing that Israeli forces fired more than 900 shots, is fascinating, horrifying, and thorough.
In what court will Israel be held accountable?
@178 Lynna, OM asked: They used heavy equipment to bury the ambulances and the victims.. . . showing that Israeli forces fired more than 900 shots, is fascinating, horrifying, and thorough.
In what court will Israel be held accountable?
My definitive reply: NONE! murderous atrocities are now normalized in the numb minds of human society.
Follow-up to comments 144 and 178.
Excerpted text from the DropSite link that Sky Captain provided:
Washington Post link
“Voting machine company Smartmatic says DOJ is targeting it to bolster false 2020 claims.”
Sheesh. Conspiracy theories that just won’t die. Considering the tenacity with which Trump, Lindell and others are clinging to the Smartmatic conspiracy theory, you would think they were being asked to renounce their religion.
Link
Link
Okay, Dementia Don.
Trump: “people that died (from) roadside bombs. Died and are right now walking around with no legs”
Video at the link.
Lynna @178: “In what court will Israel be held accountable?”
Mustn’t let that be a rhetorical question. Other countries can start on that by holding themselves accountable. (See: the Francesca Albanese interview)
Netherlands delays resumption of F-35 parts deliveries to Israel pending review (2025-11-14)
LA Times (2025-10-03): “Foreign Minister David van Weel welcomed the ruling and said he would make a decision […] but it was unlikely ‘given the current situation’ in Gaza that exports would resume.”
That case was first rejected on presummption that existing measures were adequate, then an appeal enacted a ban, then the supreme court rejected the ban and said that was the minister’s role.
BBC – UK F-35 parts exports to Israel are lawful, High Court rules (2025-06)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g88rgenlvoAl Jazeera – Danish Supreme Court case opens on arms sales to Israel (2024-02)
About that global pool…
Allies never truly ‘own’ their US-made F-35 stealth fighters (2025-05)
Washington Post link
“Pro-Iran propaganda network gains traction with posts about Epstein”
Sky Captain @185, thanks for that additional information. It is kind of a rat’s nest of regulations and laws, made more complicated by the different approaches from various countries. Good to see Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and others addressing the issue in the courts.
The UK seems to be straddling a gap between good intentions (to refrain from exporting weapons to Israel), and regulations (treaties/agreements?) that require the UK to supply components to a global pool of F-35s which Israel can access.
New York Times link
Lynna @181
To be fair, letting go of the conspiracy would be renouncing their religion.
Trump said the Iran war would benefit ‘other parts of the world.’, by Rachel Maddow
Adding to Lynna @190.
Elia Ayoub:
^ I forgot the threat condition: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil…”
Shocker: Trump’s deportation push didn’t help the job market after all
US official: ‘Not true’ Navy successfully escorted oil tanker through Strait of Hormuz
“Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed in a now-deleted social media post that the Navy escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Small South Carolina newspaper confirms 16 of the claims made by Trump r*pe accuser while national newspspers do nothing.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/17fA17rp9h/
ProPublica – The U.S. built a blueprint to avoid civilian war casualties. Trump officials scrapped it.
MS NOW:
MS NOW:
Col Doug Macgregor (former advisor to sec of defence): IRAN NOT RUNNING OUT of MISSILES
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=h6WKnsbm4-k
@158: Perhaps they should award Donald Trump an Ig Nobel Peace Prize. (Or has FIFA already done that?)
Chris Murphy (Senator D-CT):
Jadehawk: “There’s 5 posts in this thread, and they all physically hurt, and can you even imagine how much stupider the actual classified details are?”
(I did not know Guillermo applied to work on Melania’s staff)
Jimmy Kimmel Live
“Trump Claims Iran War Will End Soon, Suggests School Bombing Wasn’t U.S & Hegseth Blows Billions.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Vcdnl84f8
WaPo – Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job
If they intended to wipe all the personal data, there’d be nothing left to copy.
If they wanted minimal example data to design software around, they wouldn’t need a copy. They’d build a new empty database from scratch with similar specs and fill it with lorem ipsum gibberish. Except it’s been established DOGE folks were incurious about the systems they’d mucked around with.
If they anonymized names and such, for pattern seeking, that would still be a partial leak, which could be correlated with other sources later.
Regardless, they allegedly walked out of SSA and into the new job with original data. It was already a leak.
(Loud purring noise. Extending claws to shred coach)
Republicans PANIC as Senate odds collapse nationwide.
.https//youtube.com/watch?v=5kre-q5WRhU
^ ^ ^ ^
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5kre-q5WRhU
(More purring. Will slash next human that comes within reach)
Dem Shawn Harris at 38% gets most votes in election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in a Georgia district where Trump won by 37 %!
There will be a runoff election in a month with Harris facing the Republican who got second place.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5FK-NAWkG3U
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump lying about war as audaciously as Putin would
Video is 10:37 minutes.
Hegseth rejects the idea that the war in Iran is ‘spreading,’ despite reality
Related video at the link.
White House continues to emphasize Trump’s ‘feelings’ on U.S. policy in Iran
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon bars press photographers over ‘unflattering’ Hegseth photos”
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s staff took issue with images taken in a rare briefing last week and decided to shut out photographers from two subsequent news conferences.”
A Dumb War Makes Trumpworld Dumber
“Tracking the inane MAGA responses to the White House’s war frivolity.”
British politics: Parliamentary questions.
Tory Leader Badenoch Hammered Over Iran U-Turn
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=s6Gtapq7LRU
https://www.wonkette.com/p/whos-doing-pete-hegseths-war-shopping
“Pete Hegseth’s WAR Shopping”
Washington post link
“Nations agree to release oil reserves as war in Iran hits global economy”
“The International Energy Agency announced that it would carry out its largest-ever release of oil reserves — 400 million barrels.”
Raw Story: ‘Don’t know about it’: Trump plays dumb after US military admits it hit Iranian school
Trump has moved to not knowing anything about the strike on the school. Essentially the same pattern Trump goes through when his allies get into trouble. He starts by blindly defending them denying anything happened. Then trying to shift the blame to somebody else with absurd lies. When mounting evidence makes this impossible, Trump suddenly claims to barely know the person and questions why the press is asking him.
Follow-up to comments 85, 143, 176, 207 and 209.
MS NOW:
Commentary:
Link
Team Trump haunted by misguided pre-combat decisions as war continues
“[…] the Republican administration has made bad decisions and showed poor judgment in ways that have already had lasting effects.”
Millionaire GOP senator shrugs off soaring gas prices
That guy is clueless. And he does not understand the world in which I live.
NBC News:
Zelenskyy to Trump: Put more pressure on Putin, ‘not on me’
White House’s Witkoff vouches for Russia’s trustworthiness on Iran and alleged war assistance
“Confronted with evidence of Russia aiding Iran, Team Trump has shrugged, boosted Russia’s economy and vouched for Moscow’s reliability.”
New York Times link
“Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to End Protections for Haitian Immigrants”
Link
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: RFK Jr.’s advisers had a plan to target covid shots. Then it fell apart.”
“Some members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel have publicly questioned the safety and manufacturing of the shots, including raising a debunked theory that DNA contaminants in the vaccines are harmful.”
New York Times link
“Pentagon Tells Congress First Week of Iran War Cost More Than $11.3 Billion”
“In a Capitol Hill briefing, officials gave their most comprehensive assessment of the cost of the first six days of the war, but the number omitted several aspects of the operation. [!]
So, MORE than $11.3 billion.
US committed to EU trade deal, top Trump official tells Brussels
“Washington seeks to reassure the EU it won’t walk away from the deal as the European Parliament threatens to sink it over Donald Trump’s attacks on Spain and strikes on Iran.”
I don’t think anyone can be certain that the Trump administration would honor any agreement, including the “sunrise clause.”
MS NOW:
Reuters:
MS NOW:
Link
Rando 1:
Rando 2: “minesweeping will be done by the littoral combat ships. Yes, those late, over budget duds that were supposed to also hunt subs and carry helos for surface fighting. They’re down to one mission: blowing up mines and trying to not break on their own.”
Rando 1: “They should try sweeping the mines with aircraft carriers, since they are so wide. Just use them like big industrial brooms to sweep the seas clean! Like, why have specialized ships performing specific tasks, when you can use big vessels like expensive sledgehammers?!!”
Rando 3: “That’s either a stunning lack of imagination or someone is trying to escalate this to ‘unmanageable crisis’ levels. I… I struggle with believing there’s sufficient competence within the Trump administration to plan this level of chaos.”
Caitlin Talmadge (Brookings):
Elizabeth Saunders (PoliSci prof): “[Talmadge] published THE analysis of this contingency in *2008* titled ‘Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz,'” (pdf)
Cheryl Rofer: “Iran doesn’t have to deploy any mines in the Strait of Hormuz. All they have to do is say they did.”
Rando 4: “US minesweepers successfully removed mines in the Strait Of Hormuz that were never there after an oil tanker was escorted by a naval vessel that doesn’t exist [@194] in an operation to obliterate a nuclear program that’s already been obliterated in an escalating war that will be over shortly.”
Head priest of Episcopal Church accused of stealing baseball cards from Walmart
Reginald Selkirk @232: At least he didn’t hit a proper small-time comic book store. I’m kinda shocked Walmart carried cards worth anything. Their CCG offerings always struck me as an afterthought, like their books.
Follow-up on the secret nuclear power deregulation.
Geoff Brumfiel (NPR): “The Department of Energy has made public a set of newly revised nuclear safety rules that slash security and environmental protections.”
Geoff Brumfiel: “These are not the rules that govern large nuclear reactors operating today. Rather, these rules apply to a set of experimental reactors being built at the Department of Energy. Last year, Trump signed an executive order calling for 3 reactors to be running by July 4, 2026.
Katie Mummah (Nuclear engineer):
Janne Korhonen (Finnish Environmental Institute):
Ted Lieu (Rep D-CA):
Rando: “the best way to prevent blackmail would be to arrest the pedos and remove them from the government.”
Reuters – Foreign hacker in 2023 compromised Epstein files held by FBI
Southpaw (Lawyer): “Still reeling from the idea that if you—a computer hacker—blunder into the FBI’s digital evidence locker and then leave what appears to be a moralizing blackmail note, their response is to apologetically propose a zoom call where you get to anonymously inspect their badges and ID.”
Commentary
The Tennessee Holler:
Rando 1: “She is an *extremist* disinfo peddler [Screenshots]”
Rando 2: “This is Protocols of the Elders of Mecca shit.”
The Guardian – Pete Hegseth warns of ‘most intense’ day of strikes on Iran yet
SasanianShah:
SomeForeignField (Disaster response specialist, ex-USAID):
SasanianShah on Mar 9:
SasanianShah on Mar 10:
SasanianShah on Mar 10:
Follow-up to 148.
Sasanianshah (Iranian historian):
NYT – Strikes on Iran damage cultural heritage sites
AP News – Damage to historical sites in Iran raises alarm
USA Left to its own devices – “Europe Refused Oil Help, Says ‘Not Our Problem’ as Reserves hit a historic low.”
This is very much a “Trump” problem, not a “Europe” problem. They have no incentive to help a government that would not help them in a similar situation.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=eUWXRgys0Gw
FAFO in action.
Mary Trump: “This Is Where Trump’s Entire Life Has Been Trending”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=9ECjrE5ia3w
She and her late father seem to be the only reasonably kind people in an awful clan.
Birds! Marsupials! Bent politicians!
“First Dog on the Moon” | The Guardian .https://share.google/W8L8UvrqYbMEVr40K
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Key background details in Epstein-Trump accuser’s FBI interview verified
Video is 6:334 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES:Trump dances ‘YMCA,’ pals around with Jake Paul on Day 12 of war
Link
Summarized by Steve Benen from a report posted by Political Wire:
Trump and his allies pitch a new idea: Maybe higher gas prices aren’t ‘bad news’
“We’ve reached the point at which the president wants consumers to be glad they’re paying more at the pump.”
Related video at the link.
Republicans ask Americans to accept wartime ‘sacrifices,’ but keep missing the point
“Our freedom was not in danger two weeks ago. There was no binary choice: a war that increased the cost of living or the collapse of American liberty.”
Trump reportedly directed DOJ to reverse course on case against defiant law firms
“It seemed obvious that someone in a position of influence had intervened in the case, and that person was apparently, and predictably, the president.”
Link
WIRED link
“How ‘Handala’ Became the Face of Iran’s Hacker Counterattacks”
The question isn’t whether Trump is clueless about the war in Iran, it’s why
“Too often, the president doesn’t appear to understand the conditions in Iran.”
Seth Meyers: Trump Says “We’ve Already Won” Iran War
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vcrNq8VfevA
re Lynna @250: “Sir, the military operation is going great”, the big, strong general said with tears streaming down his face.
johnson @252, LOL, but all too true.
Cartoon: True patriots
House of El:
EuroStack: Europe Bans USA Tech – €300 Billion EuroStack ENDS Dependency, America Loses Market
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=nm7We8JVl90
Trump’s New DHS Boss Somehow Doubles His Stolen Valor
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=7-us09mmLdY
Trump explores deep sea mining in American Samoa, by Inside Climate News
Images at the link.
Hegseth orders ‘ruthless, no-excuses’ review of military legal offices
https://www.wonkette.com/p/the-curious-case-of-donald-trumps
“The Curious Case Of Donald Trump’s Epstein New Mexico Human Breeding Ranch Coverup”
“Terraforming Mars isn’t a climate problem—it’s an industrial nightmare”
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-terraforming-mars-isnt-climate-problem.html
“For example, to get to just 1 mbar of [more atmospheric] pressure [on Mars], we would need to add 3.89×1015 kg of gas.”
Washington Post link
“Lebanon appeals to Israel’s allies to stop strikes as death toll rises”
“The Iran war is expanding into Lebanon, as the Israeli offensive to dismantle Hezbollah has displaced 800,000 people there, with more than 680 people killed.”
Senate passes major housing affordability bill by Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott
“The vote marks a rare bipartisan breakthrough on a salient issue. The bill aims to boost housing supply and prevent Wall Street from buying up single-family homes.”
Me @ 259
There is a huge number of icy planetoids in the size range of 100 km in the Kuiper belt and the “scattered disc”.
Maybe it would be possible to use them in a ‘brute force’ terraforming attempt, with a Martian ground pressure of 500 millibar.
Judging by their low density (typically the same as water), they are typically 50% frozen volatiles, including water. I am making the assumption half the volatiles are water, the other half volatiles that would be gaseous at Martian temperstures.
Sperical objects have roughly half the volume of a cube with the same width. Assume the other frozen volatiles have the density of water.
Assume a 100 km sphere. This is approx. 5 times 10 to the 17th power liters.
One extra millibar requires 3.89 times ten to the 15th power kg of gas added to the Martian atmosphere.
500 millibar requires 1.95 times ten to the power of 18th kg. ☆
If the gaseous volatiles have the density of 1 kg per liter when frozen and are half of the volatiles (which in turn make up half of the mass of the Kuiper belt object) we need (4× 5 times 10 to the power of 17 ) × 4 to get the gaseous volatile mass ☆. 4×4 = 16. So sixteen 100 km ice planetoids. That is A LOT.
.
I think we can safely tell Musk he is an idiot.
(This does not rule out a future supercivilization might do it but they may not prefer living on planetary surfaces)
In second week of the Iran war, the White House emphasizes ‘fun’ and meme videos
“The president and his team have embraced a cavalier, anti-humanist attitude to matters of life and death.”
Detroit News link
“Temple Israel synagogue shooting leaves gunman dead, kids safe”
Paul Krugman: The Billionaires’ War: The ultrawealthy put Trump in power but other people will pay the price
NBC News: Police officers say Jan. 6 plaque is hidden from the public’s view
After delaying for years and losing a lawsuit the Trump administration has finally put the Jan 6th commemoration plaque up. It was put up inside the building in a location not open to the public so few people can see it at all.
Lawsuits will continue until the next president takes office. Then it will be moved to where it should be. A Republican president will quietly move it just to end the lawsuit, while a Democratic president might hold a small public event for the hanging.
Epstein’s Personal Accountant Drops A Smoking Cannon On Trump
MS NOW:
Associated Press:
Washington Post:
The Kurds are gunna cop it in the metaphorical neck again aren’t they? Whatever happens now..
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-12/kurdish-fighters-ready-to-take-back-iran/106448598
Last night’s 7.30 Report segment on video there.
Washington Post link
“U.S. Air Force refueler crashes in Iraq while supporting Iran war”
“Rescue efforts are ongoing, officials said, after the KC-135 tanker and another aircraft were involved in an apparent accident.”
Russia’s deportations of Ukrainian children were crimes against humanity, UN probe concludes
“Nearly 80 percent of the children documented to have been snatched by Russia have not been returned to Ukraine, a U.N. report finds.”
Afghanistan is defineltely the forgotten war again as it was back in the 1980’s isn’t it? Their people are being forgotten and left in limbo too as this PBS newshour yt video – Afghans stranded for a year by Trump’s refugee freeze now caught in new war (8 mins long.) Oh and seems Afghanistan and Pakistan are at war now too.
Radio (891 ABC) noted now that today is the anniversary of the Algal bloom that has devastated our coastal ecosystems and stopped many of us (raises hand) going to the beach ever since..
Oh and that has its own wikipage here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_algal_bloom_in_South_Australia
Leaders debate for the South Aussie election today BTW.
Source (among others bt for this summary esp) : https://www.abc.net.au/tv/epg/#/
PBS Newshour
Plus from that :
Middle East Eye – The war on Iran has ignited rare civil unrest in Bahrain
Bahrain imports anti-riot troops from Jordan as protests erupt over U.S. war with Iran
Ryan Grim (Drop Site News):
Attacker identified as Lebanese immigrant who became US citizen
Apparently the driver was armed and exchanged gunfire with the guard, then was found dead in the burning vehicle.
The TEC Show:
Senate: “New Ohio Poll Stuns GOP as Sherrod Brown Takes the Lead”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=XCxDKy4fIT0
Jimmy Kimmel:
Trump Thinks We’re as Dumb as He Is, Gaslights Us on Oil Prices & Hegseth’s A Sensitive Snowflake
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=9ns3UP2gGB8
Politico: Furious MAGA allies lobby Trump to keep deporting migrants
The politics here are interesting but not really surprising. The coalition behind it is super conservative groups and people who profit from private prisons.
This apparent discrepancy is just a result of the biased polling that this group paid for. They are asking people “If the government could magically make illegal immigrants go away with no bad side effects and costing nothing would you support it?” If people are asked “Is Trump’s immigration policy working?” you get very different answers.
Notice that it’s not a big change in policy, there is more public relations change involved. That is still enough to upset the far right that wants to hear hard anti-immigration policy.
404Media: “This is Nathan Cavanaugh, another DOGE staffer explaining how he flagged grants at NEH for ‘DEI’ which would be reviewed for termination. [Video clip: A montage of deposition moments]”
Marisa Kabas:
I watched 6 hours of DOGE bro testimony
* DOGE deposition videos are on YouTube.
Law&Chaos – DOGE bros had more fun burning down government than testifying about it:
Disgusting Trump story confirmed by a small local newspaper.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/6K_twds_Rl0
Trump defends wearing fruit hat, samba dancing during dignified transfer.
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxbX_cI3IievNSws6VI3cL6pBH13pyC8Be
NPR – Easy-to-use solar panels are coming, but utilities are trying to delay
* A map of US states with legislation
Rando 1:
Rando 2: “3. Detect and provide that AC power in phase with the grid power.”
Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
Rando:
US Mint Unveils New Dime Design—but One Detail Is Missing
And here’s a clear indication that the wrong chud is in charge:
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump privately says, ‘No one gives a **** about housing’: Report
Video is 7:27 mInutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump celebrates high oil prices: ‘We make a lot of money’
Video is 10:10 minutes
The Guardian: ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony
Nothing really surprising but it contradicts what the upper level staff have been saying. The street level officers have daily quota of arrests, something that is stupid. It’s the sort of situation where having high level targets is fine but trying to distribute that down to individual officers is doesn’t work.
There is an internal application that tells them where and who to target. Something that is OK if implemented correctly but very easy to do badly.
Iran war’s enormous daily price tag comes with all kinds of consequences
Trump pushes a misguided boast about his failed efforts to create U.S. jobs
The president took the total number of jobs created in 2025, doubled it and then boasted about setting “a record” (despite reality).
New GDP data paints an even uglier picture on the faltering Trump-era economy
In the first year of Trump’s second term, economic growth fell to a nine-year low, and job growth fell to a 16-year low.
The New York Times reported:
Commentary:
Link
Team Trump offers Russia more sanctions relief
Wall Street Journal link
“Pentagon Is Moving Additional Marines, Warships to the Middle East”
Cartoon: Some people will die
Cartoon: Trump’s other dolls
Link
In spite of people like Lynna, providing us with lots of valid info, with the magat plutocrats owning, censoring and distorting virtually all the news media, it is becoming almost impossible to get full, objective coverage of the disasters that is the world today. And, ‘heaven forbid’ that we see unflattering photos of pete pigseth.
on all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com 20260312 there is an article about all the news outlets controlled by the magat ellisons and they put up a sign changing the banner from washington post to amaz0n post.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/116460/how-to-get-the-truth-out-when-some-social-media-platforms-are-blocking-criticism-of-trump-s-war
I’m told that TikTok — now controlled by Trump loyalists Larry Ellison and his son David — is throttling negative videos about Trump’s war. Other platforms whose CEOs are sucking up to Trump seem to be throttling war criticism, too.
https://investguiding.com/article/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic
The 6 Companies That Own (Almost) All Media [INFOGRAPHIC] (2026)
And, PZ said 2026/03/09/ “i-just-cant-watch-tiktok”
I don’t want to list too many links and cause complications, but there are so many credible articles showing how information is being strangled by a few magats:
One article shows: The Biggest Media Company, Doesn’t Own a Single TV Station. The biggest media company in the world is YouTube (G00GLE).
Lynna reported: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/us-israel-iran-war-news-2026/card/pentagon-sends-marine-expeditionary-unit-to-middle-east-WeoODg0XIIe31W3np2aI
BUT,
In a phone interview with CBS News on Monday afternoon, President Trump said the U.S. war with Iran could almost be over. “I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” the president said … Author:Weijia Jiang
This just points up the absurd chaotic state of (mis)information and lies everywhere with this magat admin.!
My question is: is this incompetence or is it a planned gish gallop of BS shoveled at the public??
I think I’m being diligent, not obsessive, when I mention these headlines at Daily Kos:
1) White House now in charge of HR at CBS
2) Hegseth confesses plan to turn CNN into MAGA propaganda
3) A new low: Trump says First Amendment doesn’t apply to Journalism
O.K. that’s enough doomscrolling for today.
The DOGE bros are even dumber—and more racist—than you thought
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3mguiup62lt2j
Video at the link.
Commentary:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/guy-who-thinks-ai-will-put-democratic
Washington Post link
“Cuba acknowledges secret meetings with U.S. as Trump dials up threats”
Trump has warned that Cuba is next in line after Venezuela and Iran, saying that the Havana regime is in its “last moments of life.”
@300 shermanj: The reporting on what Trump has said and what has leaked from the administration says Trump wants the conflict to be over. He has already moved on to other issues. Republicans wants the fighting to end because it’s bad for Republicans. However, as long as the government in Iran is locking down the Straight of Hormuz Trump can’t get away from Iran, he can’t just declare victory and ignore them. Also, the leaders of Iran have a long history of insulting or making fun of the current president, Trump isn’t the sort to just ignore that.
As long as the conflict is going on Trump will be taking advice from Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth. They are not going to be recommending anything to tone down the situation. They are going to recommend escalation as a way to force Iran to surrender.
There is a very big risk that the US is going to blunder it’s way into a real ground war. It’s also going to make what is coming out of the White House a self contradictory mess. Trump is going to say and do one thing and then talk to Miller and Hegseth and say and do something else entirely.
CNBC: Trump officially nominates Kevin Warsh as Fed chair to replace Jerome Powell
Not a surprise, Trump has mentioned Walsh as a possible nomination previously. Very conservative but not a right wing hack. Has no big controversies attached to him. Was previously a member of the Federal Reserve Board. Has not had a real position in either Trump administration, sitting on some remote policy advisory board. Doesn’t seem to have any ties to Epstein. Seems like a reasonable nomination and likely to have an easy time at confirmation as long as no other Federal Reserve controversy gets in the way.
CBS News: Judge quashes subpoenas sent to Federal Reserve as part of DOJ’s Powell probe
Very harsh rejection from the judge on something rarely rejected at this stage of an investigation. The judge was clear in his decision though. The investigation was political punishment rather then a proper investigation.
Trump complained that the work on the Federal Reserve building had run over price and was “ostentatious”. Trump calling anybody else’s project ostentatious is absurd.
MS NOW:
New York Times:
Politico:
News from MS NOW, as summarized by Steve Benen:
See also: ‘Officers are at their wits’ end’: TSA workers brace for missed paychecks
“With the DHS shutdown showing no signs of ending, roughly 50,000 screeners are working without pay.”
Republicans could vote to fund TSA.
See also: Link to a segment of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Senator Adam Schiff calls for Republicans to fund TSA and FEMA.
Why Republicans keep claiming the war in Iran began 47 years ago, not two weeks ago
“The problem isn’t just with the inaccuracy of the GOP’s favorite talking point — it’s also with the bad-faith motivations behind the claim.”
@ 310
There are right-wingers still whining about Jane Fonda’s Vietnam trip and Ted Kennedy’s escapades. They’re banking that their Boomer base remembers the OG Ayatalloah and the “humiliation” of the hostage crisis.
Lynna quoting Steve Benen #309:
Wikipedia – TSA, Effectiveness of screening procedures
Re: Akira MacKenzie @ #311…
What I remember about the Iran Hostage Crisis was that incoming Republican secretly got Iran to NOT follow through on a negotiated release in order to win the election and get credit for the hostage release. Hardly a memory to would make me think any better of the current cluster-fuck being incompetently executed by That Felon in the White House and those around him…who make the Keystone Kops look like paragons of virtue and efficiency.
The Nazi running USIP isn’t welcome in Brazil.
Lula bans Trump envoy w/ neo-Nazi ties from entering Brasil
Rando: “[Visas] So it actually DOESN’T have to do with morals. Oh well.”
Lula also has a close election coming up against Jair Bolsonaro’s son. Besides election interference, there are fears that Trump will label local drug gangs “terrorist orgs”, to justify coercive threats of economic sanctions, military strikes, sabotaging Brazil’s popular fee-less money transfer system (foreign private finance companies can’t compete with free), and deporting Brazilians in the US.
Reuters (2025-08)
Leah McElrath:
Other leadership present: Prez Masoud Pezeshkian and Sec of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani.
[Video clip] NBC – Explosion rocks Tehran during Quds Day rally
Wikipedia – Quds Day: “an annual pro-Palestinian event held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to express support for Palestinians and oppose Israel and Zionism. It takes its name from the Arabic name for Jerusalem: al-Quds. […] The day exists partly in opposition to Israel’s Jerusalem Day”
The weather in Tehran looks much better.
Dark Money Group Caught Paying Influencers To Smear Kat Abughazaleh
AIPAC has run attack ads on her as well to the surprise of no one.
Matt Novak (Gizmodo):
Brian Greer (Former CIA attorney): “I think it’s more likely that Hegseth thinks ‘no quarter’ sounds cool since he sees it in his Christian Nationalist 4Chan groups all the time, and doesn’t know what it actually means.”
Brian Finucane (Just Security):
Allison Gill: “It’s not just The Hague—which we aren’t a party to. It’s our own law as well.”
Mr Princeton and Harvard would have a hard time asserting ignorance since his use of the term is in line with his stated beliefs.
The Guardian – Pete Hegseth told US soldiers in Iraq to ignore legal advice on rules of engagement (2025-12)
WSJ – Trump admin set to receive $10 billion fee for brokering TikTok deal
Benjamin Kabak (Lawyer): “A ‘fee,’ WSJ? That’s a bribe. Come on.”
Chris Geidner (Law Dork):
Elia Ayoub: “Nabatiyeh is being completely razed to the ground by the Israelis. It was one of the largest cities in South Lebanon, around 100,000 people. Now around 150 families left there. [The Guardian video]”
BBC spends day with emergency teams as Israel strikes south Lebanon
Elia Ayoub: “This is routine. Israel issues warnings for some areas, and bombs other areas anyway.”
Elia Ayoub: “The Israelis bombed [Qantara] bridge over the Litani river. They are actively cutting off South Lebanon from the rest of the country. They bombed a 2nd bridge [Zrarlyeh].”
Yinon Yatach (i24News):
Elia Ayoub: “At this rate neither UNIFIL nor the Lebanese army would be able to operate. Israel says they want Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah while being the ones weakening the state. Again: the goal is to destroy Lebanon itself.”
Israel kills two renowned professors in bombing of Lebanese University
CNN: “a senior Iranian official told CNN that Tehran is considering allowing some vessels to pass through [the Strait of Hormuz], provided the cargo is traded in Chinese yuan.”
Rando: “Stylish trolling, here.”
I just realised the most important thing about the “culture” in Iain Banks’ novels: There’s only one of them; diverse as it may be, it is all-inclusive.
In latest blunder, Trump DOJ spent months emailing the wrong address demanding Oklahoma’s voter rolls
Some epic fantasy to cheer you up
“Frieren in a Nutshell – The Lost Episodes”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=uyWYLYjTjhw
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Dark money group offers influencers $1,500 for posts attacking Democratic candidate
Video is 7:15 minutes
CBS News: DOJ moves to drop charges against man who burned U.S. flag outside White House
The DOJ trying to get out of another unwinable case. Hopefully Trump doesn’t hear about this one and it quietly dies.
This is another case where Trump’s intervention made the situation worse. If it wasn’t for Trump’s order that the DOJ abuse these laws to block free speech there is a chance that he could be fined for doing something fairly dangerous. Having made public that the principle is trying to block free speech, Trump has pushed the courts to take the defendents side. The DOJ lawyers don’t want to be in another embarrassing losing case and they have piles of more important work to do. So somebody at the DOJ is trying to give up on this one.
Trump doubled down on his “feelings” explanations for attacking Iran, and is now using the same befuddling language when asked when/how the war will end:
Link
Arizona Officials Remind County Recorders to Not Give DOJ Voter Data in Wake of New Subpoena.
Same link as in comment 326.
Wow. JD Vance fails at explaining skyrocketing gas prices:
Vance blurted that word salad uring a visit to North Carolina’s GOP redrawn 1st Congressional district Friday.
Commentary:
Link
Sky Captain @312, thanks for that information related to the failures of TSA.
For example:
So,TSA screening is slowing everything down at almost every airport in the USA, but the job they are tasked with is not being done effectively. Sheesh.
The grift is ongoing:
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/idaho-house-passes-bill-forcing-schools
“Idaho House Passes Bill Forcing Schools To Out Trans Kids So Parents Can Disown Them”
“No ‘aiding or abetting’ of boys with long hair or girls wearing dungarees, either.”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/pete-hic-hegseth-dreams-of-day-when
https://www.wonkette.com/p/happy-pi-day-go-recite-some-pi-or
EXCLUSIVE: Videos and satellite images show Iran’s drone army puncturing U.S. and allied defenses
“An NBC News analysis of 30 videos and satellite images shows Iranian drones are presenting a new type of struggle for the U.S. and its allies.”
Iran warns of retaliation after US bombing of Kharg Island
“Trump urges countries to send warships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.”
Norway pitches itself as Europe’s energy lifeline
“As the Iran war disrupts oil and gas supply, Oslo is positioning itself as Europe’s energy-rich savior.”
Wonkette quote in 332: “a slimy, smarmy, drunken gecko-brained fuckwit”
I’ll headcanon that as Gordon Gekko, rather than lizard-brained or otherwise besmirching geckos.
Wikipedia – Triune brain
Wikipedia – Gordon Gekko
Sky Captain @337, Ha! Good Point. Gordon Gekko is a good comparison.
In other news, the New Yorker posted an interview with Yehuda Shaul, a co-founder of Ofek: the Israeli Center for Public Affairs, an independent think tank based in Jerusalem. Shaul also co-founded Breaking the Silence, an organization of former Israeli soldiers which aims to spotlight life in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
Excerpts:
Everybody knew what was happening on that island – ex-Epstein architect
Trump Crackdown on ‘Terrorist’ Left Notches a Victory in Texas
“Jury finds eight members of a supposed ‘Antifa’ cell guilty of material support for terrorism”
This sounds like just the kind of case Pam Bondi was looking for. She and Trump want to create in the public’s mind an organized domestic terrorist group named “Antifa.” That doesn’t really exist.
Comments posted by readers of the article:
New York Times link
“Cascade of A.I. Fakes About War With Iran Causes Chaos Online”
A.I. images and video are available at the link.
Lynna @335 quoting Politico:
Al Jazeera – CENTCOM claims to have destroyed 90 military targets
NYT: “Iran’s Oil Ministry said the attacks had been enormous and destructive, and that employees of the oil refineries had reported nearly two hours of nonstop explosions that shook the island like an earthquake.”
Al Jazeera: “The foreign minister of Iran […] says the Americans used cruise missiles launched from […] United Arab Emirates, near Dubai.”
Reuters – UAE’s Fujairah stops some oil loading operations after drone attack
Alex Shams (Anthropologist, journo; worked in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine):
* Alex embedded a dubious tweet from Adam Cochran—a fintech AI crypto Twitter bluecheck—who was incredulous that there were any significant military targets on the 5-mile island, based on aerial photos. Iran’s own Fars news acknowledged a “naval base” in my first blockquote.
* Also in Alex’s thread.
Sahar Maranlou (Law prof, Iranian law reform): “The first time I visited Kharg Island, I was told that it was bombed nearly 3,000 times during the Iran-Iraq War, forcing Iran to relocate its exports to ship-to-ship transfers in the Strait of Hormuz. This means Iran already has other means of exporting oil. Kharg, known as the Pearl of the Persian Gulf, is a beautiful island”
CNN: Trump claims countries will send warships to reopen Strait of Hormuz
Trump has gone from saying the US didn’t need other countries to the US could use help keeping the Straight of Hormuz open to other countries will be sending ships very quickly. Which countries? Not identified yet.
It’s impossible to tell what is really going on. There are lots of possibilities, including other countries taking steps to open the straight without the US.
Kyiv Post: Iran Must Not Cooperate With Russia, Zelensky Tells Shah’s Son
It’s obviously in Ukraine’s best interest that Iran disolves contacts with Russia but he needs to be careful getting in bed with Pahlavi. Pahlavi has some international support but his support in Iran is shaky. The whole reason for the revolution was to get rid of his father and a lot that don’t support the clerics don’t was the Pahlavi family back either.
Institute for the Study of War: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 13, 2026
Closing the Straight of Hormuz really helps Russia. Not only does it split internal interests but it brings in a lot more money for Russia. This money will open up Russian options over the summer as they will be able to buy more for their military and feed more into the economy.
The advances are not big but they are significant in that they are the only advances happening anywhere along the front. The Russians are trying to advance along multiple fronts and are not making any progress on any of them.
Follow-up to 56, 60.
Sarah Taber (Crop scientist):
Mark Chadbourn (Journalist) on Mar 14:
I can’t corroborate the “shortly” bit. Chadbourn had posted a readiness announcement the day before, which itself was echoing prior readiness announcements. This second link published March 14th said, “Despite these escalatory statements, the group has not yet officially announced its direct entry into the war.”
Foreign Policy – Why haven’t the Houthis fired?
Nicholas Slayton:
Rando: “I wonder how many F-18s we’ll lose this time.”
Nicholas Slayton: “Hey hey hey hey hey. The Houthis only shot down US drones, not fighter jets. The US Navy shot down that F-18 that one time.”
To be fair, the cursed aircraft carrier was swerving to avoid Houthi fire when it tiped a plane overboard. (preceding this comment)
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-4/#comment-2264143A good intro and discusssion of Iranian – Arab relations here –
Why Every Arab State Fears Iran (20 mins long) by Map Pack.
Instead of wars:
A very polite border adjustment
.https://youtube.com/shorts/o4-ZkUMD0eQ
Phil Campbell, guitarrist of Motörhead passed away March 13.
Link
New Yorker link
“The New Faces of Christian Nationalism,” by Rachel Monroe
“Trump has hollowed out the Johnson Amendment, which prohibited churches from endorsing candidates. Mercy Culture, in Fort Worth, has sprung into action.”
Cartoon: Forgot the comma
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-tries-to-lure-canada-into-fish
“Trump Tries To Lure Canada Into [Paying to Correct] Fish Fiasco”
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-tusk-poland-exit-eu-threat/
“Poland’s prime minister warns domestic Euroskeptic forces are emboldened by allies from Moscow to America’s MAGA movement.”
Marisa Simonetti, charged in tarantula tossing case, found guilty
Sheri Chessen was important for altering US public opinion about abortion after she had been prescribed thalidomide that messed up her pregnancy. She had to travel to Sweden to receive an abortion 1962.
Sherri Chessen – Wikipedia
.https://share.google/M5LaKyO1mXCVIVjIG
The Onion Film Standard: Oscars 2026
.https://youtube.com/shorts/AgjJdF6C9a0
Taylor Tomlinson’s Netflix special is too ungodly for many churches. This one welcomed her.
Link
Israeli forces kill 2 Palestinian children and their parents in West Bank, medics say
The Israeli military said in a statement that the forces had “perceived an immediate threat to their safety and responded with gunfire.”
Stevor @348: That Map Pack video seemed well presented at first glance, but I noticed some concerning things.
The framing was explicitly biased: “why everyone fears Iran” (intro says hates). This resulted in double-standard complaints about Iran that apply to many other countries. (The Saudi gov is famously oppressive. Trump, Israel, and the history of US meddling were absent.) He emphasized “weeks away” from a nuclear weapon (parroting Netanyahu and Republicans is a red flag)—Netanyahu’s been saying that for over 30 years. (Israel already has scary nukes.) He does acknowledge Saudis have been working on nukes via Pakistan, but that’s acceptable apparently. Lots of commenters pointed out the youtuber was mispronouncing the country’s name: it’s ee-ron, not eye-ran. Desalinization plants were framed as a vulnerability for gulf states (Iran wishes it had enough plants and is more vulnerable, see below).
A glaring factual error, central the subject.
Youtuber (12:36): “The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint. 2 miles wide at its narrowest” with a graphic drawing a line from coast to coast.
Reuters: “It is 21 miles (33 km) wide at its narrowest point, with the shipping lane just 2 miles (3 km) wide in either direction.”
Wikipedia: “To reduce the risk of collision, ships moving through the strait follow a traffic separation scheme: inbound ships use one lane, outbound ships another, each lane being two miles wide. The lanes are separated by a two-mile-wide “median”.”
SciAm – Iran was nowhere close to a nuclear bomb, experts say
Desalinated water keeps the Persian Gulf alive. War could threaten it
Good poignant atheist~ish song to close Colbert recently “Maybe” (When you’re gone you”re gone)- Dan & Peggy Reeder (LIVE on The Late Show) 5 mins long.
House of El:
Norway SAVES Europe From USA Dependence – Stable Gas Replaces American LNG, Renewables Surpass Fossile Fuels
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=LmtyRUu-4MM
Scientists Finally Confirm a Massive Asteroid Hit the North Sea!
Silverpit crater, ca. 40 My ago
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=TMZ3Gz8Ogqg
Let’s see how many really understand the bottom panel of this comic:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2026/3/15/2373264/-Sunday-Funnies-The-Cost-of-Gas
And, here is some serious insight into one of our problems
https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2026/03/15
Frieren’s Master Did WHAT?! 😳⚡| Frieren in a Nutshell 2
.https://youtube.com/shorts/gy3lXfIYmxE
To hear the president tell it, he’s been good to the armed forces, so he’s entitled to exploit a flag-draped coffin when begging for cash.
Trump gives Putin’s Russia a pass on assisting Iran during U.S. war
“The president has publicly excused an adversary for helping a different adversary target U.S. troops and assets during the war.”
Weak and Cornered
When Trapped, Trump Punches Down
Same link as in comment 370
Afghan who fought with US special forces dies in ICE custody as Trump on track for deadliest year of detention in more than two decades
“Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal served with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and legally evacuated the country, then died within a day of being taken into ICE custody, according to his family”
Farms suffer the fallout of Trump’s deportation agenda
Follow-up to comment 370.
Trump can lash out all he wants, but no other countries are coming to his aid:
Link
Maybe Trump should ask Putin to open the Strait of Hormuz.
Good News:
Link
Lynna, OM @ 274
“Trump yells at NATO for a problem NATO can’t solve”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/7r6LQhJf0sc
^ ^ ^ ^
Correction. Should be
Lynna, OM @ 374
Trump blurted out Florida congressman Neal Dunn “could be dead by June”.
He cannot keep secrets. God knows what he has told Putin when speaking with him in person.
Trump’s DOJ Is Helping a Convicted FBI Informant Tied to Russian Intelligence
“Alexander Smirnov’s lies about Joe Biden were at the core of the GOP’s impeachment drive.”
CNN: White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has early stage breast cancer, Trump announces
Wiles also put out a statement saying she intendeds to stay as chief of staff. Wiles is one of Trump’s enablers, keeping things as organized as she can and never questioning what he wants to do. The White House would likely become even more disorganized if she had to leave or work less. Without any real information on how bad her condition is or what sort of treatment she is getting it’s hard to say what the impact will be.
Federal court blocks Kennedy’s vaccine changes, invalidates vaccine advisory panel
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trollish-dickweed-ric-grenell-leaving
“Ric Grenell Leaving Kennedy Center After Spending Full Year Wrecking It”
U.S. Navy minesweepers assigned to Middle East have been moved to Pacific
WTF?
New York Times link
“U.S. Considers Withholding H.I.V. Aid Unless Zambia Expands Minerals Access”
“A draft State Department memo outlines ways the Trump administration may ratchet up pressure on the African country by ending health support ‘on a massive scale.’ ”
Surely there is a better way to do this, a way that does not include a disaster for people living with H.I.V. in Zambia.
MS NOW:
Politico:
NBC News:
Washington Post:
As Steve Benen points out:
Trump brags about saving GOP lawmaker who ‘would be dead by June’
HIPAA violations? (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996). It is a U.S. federal law that establishes national standards to protect sensitive patient health information (PHI) from being disclosed without consent. However, HIPAA may only apply to holders of the patient’s records and not to the Orange Hair Furor narcissist in the White House.
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/rubio-in-coma-after-falling-down
Lynna @386: That’d be helium at 287 and fertilizer at 56, 60, and 346.
CNN – Trump fundraising email uses photo from soldiers’ dignified transfer and promises ‘private national security briefings’
Carl Quintanilla (CNBC): “There is absolutely no bottom.”
WaPo – Appointee wants to replace White House columns with the ones Trump prefers
Trump’s all about knocking down load-bearing structures. He started the ballroom because he didn’t like tents. In the end, he’s gonna reduce the whole White House to a tent. /s
Joanne Freeman (Historian): “The White House [was] designed in a deliberately straightforward & non-ornate style—in sync w/the rejection of the pomp of monarchies. People sometimes specified ‘plain style.’ It was supposed to be a tribute to NOT being a monarchy.”
Rando: “Give him two corinthians.”
Seth Meyers:
“NATO Countries Rebuff Trump’s Plea to Help with Strait of Hormuz Amid Iran Oil Chrisis: A Closer Look”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=xI6f_c4X_QU
The part about “fat and sloppy” was a Freudian slip.
Politico – A superpower goes offline
The Kremlin tests blocking mobile internet in Moscow
There’s tabloid chatter of an influx of armed Federal Security officers posted on the Kremlin Wall, Lenin’s mausoleum, and on pickup trucks with mounted machine guns.
The Hill – New Iranian leader wounded early in US operation (Mar 11)
[Kuwaiti news] Al Jarida – Mojtaba Khamenei was transferred to Russia
Al Jazeera – Which countries’ ships has Iran allowed safe passage to?
Bloomberg Law: DOJ to Start Hiring Prosecutors Directly Out of Law School
The Trump administration is so desperate for attorneys they are now lowering the standards. In no way is this a surprise. Not all states are taking up this new minimum, it depends on how short of staff they are.
Raw Story: All 4 living former presidents deny Trump’s bizarre Iran bombing claim
Typical Trump making things up. If pressed he will probably claim to have spoken to the spirit of Reagan and Washington.
Sky Captain A391, correct. Thanks for the reminder.
JM @398, yep. I thought Trump was lying as soon as he said that. It’s good to see 4 former presidents contradicting the Orange Doofus.
RACHEL MADDOW: ‘Monumental strategic stupidity’: Trump faces wrath of Senate Democrats over Iran
Video is 7:30 minutes
RACHEL MADDOW: Trump frantic over Iran mess as rival nations take advantage of his poor planning
Video is 10:51
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/zelenskyy-rejects-trumps-plea-for
Novara media Trump Advisor: Israel Might NUKE Iran (20 mins length.)
Really new -less than hour old Majority Report clip here –
The Real Reason We’re Bombing Iran? under 15 mins long.
WARNING Swearing but some beaut footage of Aussie “dinosaur shrimps”* here – Aliens in the Desert..!? Triops australiensis!! lasting just over 2 misn by Wildman Adventures.
Extraordinary little crustaceans. very trilobite / face-hugger~ish tho’ obvs neither.
Key counterterrorism official in Trump administration resigns in protest over war in Iran
“After less than a year as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent is quitting over his disagreement with Trump over Iran.”
Related video at the link.
Also on Triops :
Source : https://www.livescience.com/triops-dinosaur-shrimp
Waht Kyle says at end of this esp strikes home for me- given how hard it is to tell AI from reality these days as noted here – Is Netanyahu Dead or Alive? by Kyle Kulinski (Secular Talk) lasting 15 mins.
Link
As war continues, Trump points to support from his many secret, unnamed friends
“The president is certain he’s on the right track in Iran because he’s received backing from powerful people he refuses to identify.”
Trump does himself no favors by boasting about his predictions on the war with Iran
“If Trump is right, and he predicted the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, why didn’t his administration take steps to prepare?”
Related video at the link.
Link
Don’t ‘blackmail’ us: Europe rejects Trump’s demand to help clean up Hormuz mess
“This is not Europe’s war,” the EU tells Washington in a bruising rebuke on Iran even as oil prices rise.
Trump’s DOGE Cuts Slashed Staff That Handled Middle Eastern Oil and Gas Crises
Follow-up to comment 384.
Link
Forget about the war and gas prices—Trump’s having a birthday party
https://www.wonkette.com/p/tennessee-pol-just-because-bill-would
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Israel urges Iranians to revolt but privately assesses they’ll be ‘slaughtered’ ”
“Israeli officials told U.S. counterparts they hope for an uprising even though it would lead to a massacre.”
New York Times link
“Israel Says It Has Killed Iran’s De Facto Leader”
“Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, was killed in an overnight strike, the Israeli military said. His death would deal another severe blow to Iran’s power structure.”
Don’t trust anything Trump says.
Link
Hassett smiled while he spewed that “callous rhetoric.”
Link
Finland’s Stubb: Brexit was like sawing off your leg for no reason
“The Finnish president predicts the U.K. will rejoin the EU, and wants closer integration on defense and trade as Donald Trump rips up the world order.”
Crossposted with Mano Singham’s blog.
About the ‘manosphere’ and the documentary by Louis Theroux
A lot of people from Ayn Rand to the original ancient sophists have gotten rich by telling people what they want to hear. They are analogous to the royal courtiers who would praise the vices of the king as virtues.
The internet have made them far more dangerous.
.
Inside the Manosphere review – why doesn’t he focus more on the impact on women? | Louis Theroux | The Guardian .https://share.google/WCGUXm0zUjMFs0OLm
Louis Theroux on the manosphere, marriage and misunderstandings | Louis Theroux | The Guardian .https://share.google/hIB26ra54AI6kcQrv
JM @398
Regarding Trump’s claim that he had spoken to a former president about bombing Iran, and that the former president had approved of the operation and “wished” he had made the decision to bomb Iran.
Not necessarily, He was probably talking to himself.
Follow-up on Leqaa Kordia.
AP News – Last protester in immigration detention after Trump’s campus crackdown has been released
Joseph Howley (Classics prof at Columbia):
Britain:
Newly unearthed Nigel Farage videos reveal support for rioter, neo-Nazi event and far-right slogans | Nigel Farage | The Guardian
.
.https://share.google/5dFwKPADm2ZFB5Avw
The Guardian
“Trump counter-terrorism chief quits over Iran war, blaming Israel ”
He is a hard-right dude but in this instance he seems to be right
.https://share.google/8NXpJd3gwVb8yz4CG
Truthout: Israel Urges Iranian Uprising While Privately Saying They’d “Get Slaughtered”
The government of Israel has been encouraging the Iranians to revolt and urged US officials to join in. At the same time Israel’s internal assessment of the situation is that the civilian population would be slaughtered if they did so. That is a remarkable level of organized cynicism there, Dick Cheney level evil.
Scottish parliament votes against legalising assisted dying
Scotland, like the rest of the UK, turns out to be still in thrall to religious bigots who think they have the right to impose their beliefs on the majority.
Before ceramics, the gourd plant seved as a vessel. Because of this, it may be the first plant to be domesticated, long before food crops.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/jaKLx2WG3FY
Polling for the Ohio senate race has taken a promising turn. I just thought I should mention it.
NBC News:
Associated Press:
Washington Post:
MS NOW:
Associated Press:
Brian Finucane (Just Security):
Rando: “Trump uses the attack on US Marines in Lebanon *in 1983* as one of the justifications”
Rebecca Ingber (Law prof):
Kyle Reed (Intl rels prof): “I teach a MA course on the politics and practices of international law. In that course, students write […] a use of force/Art 51 letter. Their roughest first drafts are more coherent and competent than this Art 51 word salad from the US.”
The Guardian – UK security adviser attended US-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton wins Democratic Senate primary in Illinois
WSJ – Russia is sharing satellite imagery and drone technology with Iran
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYE: ‘Insidious’: Online gamblers threaten reporter over Iran war bets
Video is 6:51 minutes
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-sends-stephen-miller-to-strait
Perhaps it’s time to regulate gambling on wars and elections
https://www.wonkette.com/p/dont-forget-about-trumps-war-at-home
Iran’s intelligence minister killed by Israel; U.S. unleashes bunker busters
“Esmail Khatib was killed in a strike in Tehran, a day after Israel killed top national security official Ali Larijani and former Basij militia chief Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani.”
CNBC: Fed votes to hold rates steady, notes ‘uncertain’ impacts from Iran war
The important thing to note is that the vote was 11-1. Even if Trump gets his nomination to head the committee it isn’t a sure thing the committee will do what he wants. The Fed charter favors stability and it’s going to be hard to get them to chase after Trump’s whim.
John Mearsheimer: “Iran Has Powerful Cards to Play”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6aKR_NsSuX0
An Israeli politician says “Iran is a threat to western values”. Mearsheimer comments that Israel – as an apartheid state and an agent of genocide in Gaza – is a threat to western values. Iran – no matter how repugnant its government may be – has not invaded any of its neighbors in modern times.
There is also a comparison with Gallipoli and how much harder an invasion of the Hormuz Strait would be.
CNBC: Powell says he will stay on as head of the Fed until Warsh is confirmed
This is really Powell playing some subtle politics. He is encouraging Trump to give up and the DOJ to finish their investigation so he won’t have it looming over his head after he leaves.
Trump has a new country in mind for America’s 51st state”
Tulsi Gabbard can’t handle Democrats’ questions on Iran
Gabbard spouted lies and the revealed her incompetence once again.
Link
Apple warns iPhone users to update software after hacking campaigns detailed by researchers
“Russian intelligence, Chinese cybercriminals and others are hacking phones that haven’t installed September’s update, researchers say.”
CNBC: Meta is shutting down VR social platform Horizon Worlds in further pivot away from the metaverse
This is Meta more or less giving up on VR. The perennial it will be big in 10 years technology. VR Chat can be a lot of fun and some games are fun but it’s still not ready for prime time.
As for AI, Meta is working on AI agents they can use to fill your Facebook interface. There can be constant activity and stuff for you to see without actually having many real people posting.
Don’t get addicted to Darkwave!
‘How Did Richmond Even Get Here??’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=3YDdljZQ-5w
“Cockney goths are too cheerful!”
(From The IT crowd)
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Bait and switch’: Democrats storm out of GOP’s ‘fake’ Bondi deposition
Video 6:49 minutes.
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Gabbard caught omitting key Iran line that contradicted Trump
Video 9:42 minutes
It’s My War and I’ll Cry If I Want To
Wall Street Journal:
Washington Post:
Wall Street Journal:
Trump wants to spend $1 billion to stop his nemesis—wind farms
Americans have harsh view of Trump: ‘Arrogant’ and not ‘intelligent’
That last sentence is good news.
Link
Trump’s Pearl Harbor joke
https://www.wonkette.com/p/dont-be-too-shocked-but-trump-did
“Don’t Be Too Shocked, But Trump Did Not Actually Get The Lowest Drug Prices In The World”
Wonkette says:
Oligarch Watch: Bezos’ $10 billion climate charity has a new mission: promoting AI
Looks to me like Orbán always intended to be the spanner in the works. He delayed as long as he could, and now he is looking for excuses. Putin must be pleased.
Politico link
Slovenia urges EU to probe reports that Israeli spies meddled in election race
“Black Cube operatives are accused of “illegal surveillance” after leaked recordings blew up the campaign ahead of March 22 vote.”
CNN: US F-35 damaged by suspected Iranian fire makes emergency landing, sources say
No confirmation from the US on what happened yet, only that a F35 had to make an emergency landing. Iran is taking credit but can’t be trusted about that.
Without more information it’s speculation what really happened. It could be a failure by the F35 or the pilot, it could be another friendly air defense fired on the plane, it could be blind luck by Iranian air defense, it could be that Iran has some air defense that is dangerous to a F35.
Is Tombstone’s Boothill Cemetery fake?”
Carl Kasarda of In Range (at Youtube) strives to resurrect the historical truth about Old West, and other parts of American history. He is impopular with other US gun enthusiasts because he rejects the MAGA narratives.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=rlVaXqlgwSg
The Guardian -an unusual angle of AI
“I asked AI to explain my mother to me. It translated her worldview” .https://share.google/mIeknVvj0mQkSQWXp
Question: can a state recall a senator if they are disappointed in him? I am thinking of Fetterman.
Trump will get increasingly impopular, even among former Republicans.
So a recall petition – if permitted by the rules of that state (I think it is Pennsylvania) might have enough support, as Fetterman is fettered to Trump’s political corpse.
Re: birgerjohansson @ #465…
Re: birgerjohansson @ #465…
(Let me try this again.)
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: to the best of my knowledge, state recall laws do not apply to elected Federal office holders.
Whheydt @ 467
Goddamn. So Dems need 52 senators. 51 if the independent candidate in Nebraska makes it (and supports Dems).
New Scientist: “The Real Dinosaurs Were MUCH Weirder” (one-hour video)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=h9zdfTheD_c
“NEW Senate Map Gives Democrats a Serious Opening to Flip Control”
There are many Youtubers that do election forecasts, I like the one doing the TEC Show because he is relatively calm and succinct .
.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Iz-YxPzdKhU
As mentioned above, Dems may need 52 senators to avoid sabotage.
Well, this is grim – A Hidden Antarctic Tipping Point May Have Just Been Triggered yt by PBS Terra lasting a dozen minutes.
Anton Petrov Evidence That Mushrooms Were The First and Most Important Life on Earth – 17 mins long.
JD Vance lying again, about Indians this time
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxUy4FcvdAAZiIL2RMyRjiHmql0WsskZBk
Pushback against the California age verification law…
https://agelesslinux.org/index.html
One of the few really good examples of fighting in anime.
Reaction: “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 2×7 & 2×8”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HgLJONKdxE4
MPR – Immigration judge ends asylum claims for Liam Conejo Ramos and his family, orders family’s removal
Rando: “The judge is John P. Burns. He has a 99% deport track record. Way higher than the national average.”
* This site said 96.1%, but yeah, uncommonly high, vs 58.9% nationally and 39% in New York where he was..
@470 birgerjohansson: Given the Democrats history they will need more then that. They need some margin of error so that single Senators can’t threaten every vote. The Democrats also need to bite the bullet and reform the rules for fillibusters. As long as every bill gets fillibustered they will have trouble just getting the essentials done. They next Democratic congress will have a lot to do and need to not get trapped in partisan deadlock over every little issue.
The only thing really working in the Democrats favor is that the things Trump did by executive order can be reversed by executive order. This is true even if Trump’s order was illegal or over reaching, reversing it and going back to a legal government will provoke fewer court cases and they will win in court.
The Handbasket – US Mint takes down video of meeting criticizing proposed Trump 24K gold coin
Rando: “One thing’s for sure: There’s no way in hell Donald Trump would heed any kind of warning from his wife.”
Fine arts panel urges Mint to make Trump gold coin ‘as large as possible’
Rando:
A small French town has a election for mayor with two candidates named Charles Hittler and Antoine Renault-Zielinski.
Artemis II live roll out to its launch pad happening now here on yt via space dot com
Bill Grueskin (Journalist):
Bloomberg – Here’s a list of energy infrastructure damaged in Iran War
Jose Pagliery (NOTUS):
Times of Israel – Netanyahu transcript
Eiynah Mohammed-Smith: “I mean, it’s really on brand.”
Meanwhile in the US
Jimmy Gomez (Rep D-CA): “This is the man Trump thinks will ‘fix’ the most violent, out-of-control DHS in our nation’s history, someone who believes caning and dueling to the death is an acceptable way to settle disputes.”
Aaron Rupar:
Judah Grunstein (World Politics Review): “At its core, Trumpism is fundamentally about normalizing the resolution of political differences with violence, whether threatened or applied. In this sense, the caning of [abolitionist senator] Charles Sumner is both origin story and logical conclusion.”
Sean Marotta (Lawyer): “Of course, Rand Paul is well-situated to know this because Kentucky requires General Assembly members, officers, and lawyers to all swear they have not fought a duel before assuming office or being admitted.”
Follow-up to 147, 237.
SasanianShah (Iranian historian):
NBC – Some DHS contractors told White House officials they were asked to pay Corey Lewandowski
NB! New staistical methods reveal new details of population change in DNA. Germany had (at least) 5 population replacements.
“Why German DNA Is the STRANGEST in the World From Ice Age to Empire!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6puAK8DHLiY
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘They’re losing ground’: Bernie says Trump in a ‘panic’ as Iran war spirals
Video is 6:39 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Flat-out sociopath’ Trump is leading a war with no end in sight, says Hayes
Video is 9:43 minutes
James Comey subpoenaed in alleged “grand conspiracy” against Trump
TPM link
Wall Street Journal:
TPM link
Chuck Norris, Black-Belt Action Star of Movies and Television, Dies at 86
This should get PZ’s attention: (as well as anyone not participating in the magat war on education)
Cowardly corporate run Universities won’t rescind anti-DEI policies even with court order to do so
https://scheerpost.com/2026/03/20/a-court-ordered-trumps-department-of-education-to-roll-back-its-anti-dei-efforts-why-havent-universities-reversed-course/
p.s. to PZ, I’m not a fan of hedges, but this is from a better source
Robert Reich posits a more fundamental (and plausible) reason tRUMPs ‘unlimited’ bombs and troops won’t be able to stop the magat fools’ war.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/116526/the-real-reason-trump-is-trapped-in-iran
The solution to the Iran war (and many other issues) is regime change but not in Iran; it needs to be changed in the US and Israel. That would go a long way to solve a lot of problems that affect the entire world.
From the SaveAFox animal sanctuary: Meet Dixie’s new boyfriend!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=EDoQoFzq3UY
Reginald Selkirk @490:
Chuck Norris: America faces ‘1,000 years of darkness’ if Obama wins re-election (2012)
He told Fox & Friends, “It’s just something my wife and I decided to do.”
He wrote a 2012 article in WorldNetDaily hyping president Newt Gingrich.
CBS News chief continues quest to ruin the news
Follow-up to 234.
ProPublica – DOGE goes nuclear: How Trump invited Silicon Valley into America’s nuclear power regulator
Link
Top Disaster Response Official Claims He Teleported to a Waffle House
US speeds up deployment of thousands more Marines, sailors to Middle East