When the American-Iran war started I was a bit baffled about why Putin would allow his pawn to attack his ally, Iran. Now it becomes clear. The entire affair diminished the United States and enriched Iran. Mission accomplished.
Timothy Snyder would say correct you are, Annabel.
Except, in his "The Road to Unfreedom," he expanded to the larger world where many dictators are interlocked and complicit: Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Sisi, Erdogan, Bukele, Milei, Kim, and the Iranian mullahs, all current parts of the Trump/Epstein rape traffickers, gun runners, drug dealers, money launderers.
Yes, and during all this note that "Rocket Boy" of N. Korea has been given carte blanche to build ever more powerful nuclear armed ballistic missiles. Of course should he use them, South Korea ceases to be a penninsula.
Thanks to Jimmy Carter's bold visit with Kim Il-Sung in North Korea, Bill Clinton was reluctantly drawn into the Agreed Framework limiting the DPRK's development of nuclear weapons. Which George Bush effectively tore up.
Thanks to the Obama State Department, we had the JCPOA, which, despite the lesson of North Korean nuclear armament, Trump tore up.
Yet while "low information" Right wing extremists vote strategically and successfully to remake the Republican party and the US government in their image. Those on the Left and in the Democratic establishment refuse to understand voting as a strategic joint exercise in taking power - and by treating voting as an individual exercise in self expression, instead help put Republicans in power.
As we see happening here in Maine. Where Democrat Genevieve McDonald (who flacked a friend's intimate confidences to the media) and Republican operative funded by Leonard Leo Lindsey Fifield (who helped raise Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court before touting unsubstantiated accusations to sink Graham Platner) are suddenly the amplified advocates for women's rights and arbiters of American morality. Effectively working to re-elect Susan Collins, maintain the Republican majority, prop up the Trump regime, and perpetuate the Project 2025 repurposing of our democratic republic as a ChristoFascist state.
We are the "self-made" losers if we choose not to vote! We cannot just follow our "friends" but must engage in our own research and accept only facts before we cast our precious vote. We must encourage friends and family to do the same.
Our right to vote, to choose a candidate we believe will stand up for...fight for...the country in which we want to live....a country inwhich our children will be enabled to have opportunities to thrive as well as one who will work to maintain a strong foundation of support with our friends throughout the world, who also believe in serving, "the people".
Ya know Emily, During my 22 years of active duty in the Air Force there were a couple of times as a Senior NCO I had over 500 troops to look after. During Branch roll calls leading up to election time, my spiel to the troops preached one thing - To Vote! Preceded and and concluded with how important it was that EVERY 'Air Person' voting showed that the Air Force along with our entire Military was a force to be reckoned with. A "Force" that every elected official needed to take into consideration. I had some good troops, They got the message.
I just googled Graham Platner and what came up as the first result was a targeted attack ad website "grahamplatner.org". I was disgusted and didn't look at the whole fake content page but did see that it was paid for by SLF PAC. A quick search brought up that this is the "Senate Leadership Fund" PAC. I sent feedback citing the fake content and asked why it showed up first. My answer to why I saw this first is that it's a paid ad "ranked by factors like advertiser bid and ad quality". It shows up first in my results based on location, time of day and search history. I don't use google as my default search engine but somehow it always manages to weasel it's way back in. On the bright side, I am now aware of the SLF PAC and what they're trying to do in my state, along with other battleground states. Fired up to see that Ohio is still considered a "battleground" state since it's felt more like a state in the deep south over the past 15 years thanks to gerrymandered Republican rule.
For those interested, here is AI generated content about the SLF PAC, sourced from Wikipedia, Politico and others:
Core Facts/Leadership: The super PAC is chaired by former Sen. Cory Gardner, operating under the Senate Majority leadership of John Thune.
Fundraising: The SLF raised historic off-cycle sums, including a massive $180 million raised over the course of an off-year in tandem with its affiliated 501(c)(4) nonprofit, One Nation.
2026 Strategy: For the 2026 cycle, the SLF announced an unprecedented $342 million battle plan across eight battleground states. Ohio is the largest target, with $79 million directed toward the race there, followed by major investments in North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, Maine, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Alaska.
Operations: The PAC utilizes broad-scale strategies including broadcast/streaming advertising, targeted digital ads, direct mail, get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts, and ballot-chasing.
In Tug of War, the “center” is a line drawn on the ground, not where the flag tied halfway along the rope happens to be at any point in time.
In the same way, real centrists are not halfway between the radial left and the far right. Real conservatives protect the status quo by identifying flaws in the logic used by real progressives to support proposed changes to the status quo. Then the flaws are corrected, and the process repeats until the proposed change is at the “real center” because it is acceptable to both sides.
In other words, real centrists are inclusive of real progressives and real conservatives that only want to get to the truth. That is the solution.
The problem is people on either side of center trying to get “our” way at “their” expense.
A physician doesn't have to wait to cure the patient before curing the physician.
In the same way, the pro-democracy movement doesn't have to wait for the Republican Party to come on board to solve the problem within the pro-democracy movement.
Although one does wonder if “real conservatives” would have fought a Civil War to end slavery. Or would they have simply let the South go. One does wonder if real conservatives would have created the New Deal - which of course they did not and have been opposing it ever since. One does wonder if real conservatives would have given the vote to women before women had to fight so long and hard to get it.
My first thoughts (especially after watching Heather and Paul Krugman), was about the Republican sequence of Reagan creating the huge debt, GWH Bush at least starting some recovery, despite Grover Norquist's requirements on the insistence on all of my old party taking the No New Taxes pledge, and losing to Bill Clinton, who was able to get the deficits under control enough to have a surplus the last year. Then the GW Bush administration had so fouled up the economy with tax cuts and the FERC doing nothing about the ENRON market manipulation that I was ready to support impeaching Bush by August of 2001.
The party that I left in 1996, when a highly placed fund raiser asked half a dozen of us to fight dirtier than Democrats, was doing everything they could to smear Clinton in particular, as we had more members of our own party doing as bad or worse indiscretions, and more convicted of election related crimes. They squeaked through in 2000, and 2004 when the Swiftboated Kerry which got us an extended unsustainable bubble that crashed early enough in 2008 to finally crash the system and get a Democrat elected to fix the mess my old party made.
We then got 8 years of Obama, followed by the 1st Trump road towards ruin, a good fix started under Biden, cut in its prime by the 2nd Trump even more disastrous term.
It made me wonder what it would have been like to have Herbert Hoover win reelection after Franklin Roosevelt's 1st term.
Seems we had the Business Plot during FDR's 1st term, a bit like Jan 6, 2021? I guess FDR made enough progress early enough to carry on through 1936 and through the CCC, WPA , Civilian Pilot Training program, and even the Northeastern Timber Salvage Administration to clean up the millions of downed trees from the Hurricane of 1938.
Those programs gave us masses of trained people, new aircraft which may have been just training aircraft originally (1 trainer for every 10 pilots) at any time in the training programs, and about 435,000 by the end of the war.
Funny how taking care of people in a time of need and giving them useful work prepared us to handle the biggest test of all, followed by GI Bill college educations and making a strong middle class (while also paying down massive war debt, and helping so much of the rest of the world, including former enemies and allies.
If we could do all that back then, what does this administration have for an excuse?
Real conservatives are not against change. Real conservatives are against changes that are not demonstrably improvements. Defeating the Confederacy, the New Deal, and giving women the vote are demonstrably improvements. No wonder real conservatives supported all three.
Sometimes real progressives are right, sometimes real conservatives are right, and “right makes might” when real progressives and real conservatives working together get to the truth.
"real centrists are inclusive of real progressives"
So this tug of war is a fairy tale then right?
Because the centrists have made it clear that they hate the progressives and are willing to support Trump's GOP in order to punish us for the supposed sin of not voting for Kamala (which is pretty much a lie since literally everyone I know except one held their noses and voted for the cop though we may have worn ACAB tees as we did it).
This is why the government shutdown ended. Because the centrists under Schumer decided that Israel's weapons were more important than my healthcare.
The centrists are more concerned with how the UFC claw 'looks' than they are about the people losing their SNAP, Medicaid and ACA.
And then they call me names for thinking that we should fight for better than Schumer and Jefferies.
The tug of war analogy is pretty useless when there are at least 3, if not more, factions and the centrists gave up all pretense that they will align with the left during Mamdani's election campaign and their continued constant media grind against anyone who isn't completely in AIPAC's pocket.
I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again. "Liberty and Justice for All".. this is what I was raised on. 50 years ago that made me a centrist. Today that makes me some sort of far left activist that needs to STFU.
The centrists are still fighting over whether Medicare should be able to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies while the 'progressives' are screaming that everyone should have a right to healthcare.
I wonder how many people's lives could have been saved if the billions and billions of dollars going to Iran had been added to Medicaid or Education or Transportation or SNAP instead...
Right On! BLB, Two New Yawkers more concerned with raising Wall Street money than being out front and leading for policies that can be of benefit to all the rest of us.
Where do you get your sullied conclusion that Democrats and with them independents don't GET strategic voting. We've won almost every special election up until now! You're drinking from the wrong GOP water tank to conclude that! The GOP is in the toilet of history failing to go to Trump in the manner done to Nixon and demand he resign.
"Where do you get your sullied conclusion that Democrats and with them independents don't GET strategic voting."
What I wrote: Those on the Left and in the Democratic establishment refuse to understand voting as a strategic joint exercise in taking power - and by treating voting as an individual exercise in self expression, instead help put Republicans in power.
What I ought to have specified: Many of those on the Left and in the Democratic establishment.
The biggest loser is them. I'm not sure about Platner, but he did own his lapses in judgements and mistakes. Collins has done nothing of the sort....ever. No apologies for Kavanaugh, the big beautiful bill, or Trump. Plus she is an adulterer herself. So what?
Lin, not buying the “ Democratic establishment refuse to understand voting as a strategic joint exercise in taking power”!
Exploiting the originators of hate radio, and the exploding of like minded talking heads with a podcasts the right capitalizes on fear and generates it with their false conspiracy nonsense! Brainwashing!
When I see Chuck Schumer refuse to endorse Zohran Mamdani after he won the Democratic primary. And I see Schumer's hand picked candidate Janet Mills refuse to endorse Graham Platner after he won the Democratic primary - just for instance - I question the Democratic Establishment's commitment to unity at the ballot box.
What Some Ancient Rulers Have in Common with Trump
(From my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums:") I assume you read it, Phil.
During ancient Egyptian dynasties, monarchs often defaced or destroyed statues representing the previous ruler to erase the reputation and deeds of the former ruler. Sometimes damage was limited to facial disfigurement as with Pharaoh Senwosrett III (1878-1840 BC) whose nose was broken off because ancients believed that the life force emanates through the nose.
Trump shares this goal when renegotiating and tearing up Clinton and Obama-era treaties.
NAFTA is one such remake that removes Clinton’s name from the global trade agreement. As Politico writer Adam Behsudi quotes Lori Wallace, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch said, “For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or any other same-old, same-old trade deal.” There are no improvements -- only the removal of the Obama legacy and any other former president’s name.
This symbolic effigy-smashing of Obama extends to the Iran Nuclear Deal, to recertify to Congress every 90 days that the Iranians are complying with the rules; the Paris Climate Agreement; The Affordable Healthcare Act and all other agreements that Obama successfully negotiated regarding the environment and human rights.
In the land that I call home, tens of millions of Americans who couldn’t tell the difference between shit and Shinola, resulting in the election of a malevolent quasi-life form that makes George W. seem like Jesus, Moses, and George Washington rolled into one. Maybe our next president, if we are still electing presidents that is, will take cues from Trump and the ancients as well. A good start would be to remove any future White House portrait of him that might eventually be installed.
The garish monstrosity that is the current and soon-to-be Trump White House will need to be totally torn down and restored. Same for the city of Washington DC. It's suffered significant 'imperial stinkspread' during his reign.
Yes. The MOU Trump signed is a complete surrender to Iran, leaving Iran in a much stronger position than it was under the Obama agreement that Trump tore up. Trump now claims that the US will not contribute to the $300 billion to repair the war damage he caused in Iran that the MOU requires. In that case, I don't see why we should expect Iran to stick by the MOU either. Trump will then have lost his war and left Iran free to do as they like.
David, we have already lost the war and the lives of 13 American people - not to mention the tragic loss of Iranian children and others. We have lost a lot since one third of the country decided not to vote (or whose right to vote was stolen).
And in four weeks I'm in U.S., so can go to my bank and get a check cut to repay you. (Don't know why bank site now doesn't allow new payees for online payment.)
Thank you I was going to ask you about that. I do Venmo just to be clear. I need to get past that book and ready my manuscript, “Katz on Cats and Other Animal Tails.” A more delightful topic.
Well Bill, maybe we should leave his portrait as a reminder of what we don’t want to see again. But let’s definitely clean up the algae and other remnants of his ego driven remake of our sacred shrines.
Yes, a "band of oligarchs." Here at home, I recommend the book, "Democracy in Chains" by Nancy MacLean, about "the radical right's stealth plan for America."
Richard Sutherland, I read “Democracy in Chains” years ago. As a UNC-CH alum, wrote to Nancy MacLean the time to ask if she, a professor at Duke, could persuade the university to rescind Steven Miller’s degree. She replied that she could not. Now I wonder if some of the “visiting scholars” at Duke are there to protect the Tobacco University from their folly.
I LOVE your thinking, Virginia. How could an institution of higher learning of the caliber of UNC at Chapel Hill produce something as vile, demented and cruel as a Stephen Miller? Miller is only one, to be sure, but he represents a large segment of the Trump group, which includes Nick Fuentes, who is decidedly an extreme male chauvinist and racist. The "enemy within" includes the extreme white Christian Nationalists who are supported and urged on by the ultra wealthy in this country, the goal being to reduce us to nothing more than a feudalistic system, a mere fiefdom. with white Christian theocracy as our form of government. This isn't hyperbole.
Clearly some sort of derangement syndrome. Fuentes is also a misogynist. But, so is Miller and the whole stinking lot of them. All of this will give future Ph.D. candidates a plethora of material for their dissertations. That's assuming that we win this war.
Richard, the rivalry between the two schools when I was there—was in part based on history (UNC, closed after Native American attacks, was founded before Harvard; Duke is Doris Duke’s tobacco money) and was intense. Although there may be a blot on the UNC escutcheon that I don’t know about, suspect that the tobacco university with Miller, takes the prize.
I got it. I got my B,A, in political science and history from Whittier College, Richard Nixon's alma mater. He, Margaret Chase Smith and Bob Hope were at our graduation ceremonies in 1965. Senator Smith was the commencement speaker. Her theme focused on the decline of personal responsibility, the suppression of independent thought and the danger of group conformity in American society and higher education.
Virginia, I take it you are referring to UNC as the first established public school of higher learning, but not preceding Harvard’s founding over 150 years earlier, correct?
Everything he touches turns to dust strikes again, proof keeps coming in Aces.
Vote every Republican out… that they were complicit in every death resulting is a given, that they should be forever banned from public office , and the main and the numerous jailed…is without doubt. That we will spend another fortune cleaning up this mess should fall squarely on the rich duffs who kissed his …ahhh …ring? Absolutely is demanded.
A grand apology should be due ….to the rest of the world.
But for the utmost action ..the sanctions restored as well as doubled …to the dictators he so admired plus……
for those names we asked you to …”remember” …jail time, long sentences, because
A good & key point, Phil: Illustrating the need to help more people see the need to boycott and turn away from oligopolist’s toxicity and turn toward cooperative & regenerative systems. <> Jim Stewartson has an excellent, current post about the unrestrained mania of the Broligarch wing of the Epstein class. It sums up with “We earthlings have a choice. We can take a hard look at our lust for eternal growth and build a new system that prioritizes a sustainable planet and healthy population, or we can submit to the will of capitalists who want to extract all the resources from Earth, including human intelligence, for themselves,” <> https://jimstewartson.substack.com/p/spacex-ai-and-the-opium-of-capitalism?r=41pd0&utm_medium=ios <> Thing is, we have the resources to build regenerative systems but the concept of cooling & balancing the Earth and people as partners is mostly suppressed by mainstream media, owned by fascist mafia state oligarchs who created the conditions for Trumpism / MAGA bovine fecal matter. <> David Graeber & David Wengrow document the obscurred Western civ. history of North American (Turtle Island) native people leaders critique of exploitive European philosophy in dialogs in comparison to 10,000 years of Native Planetarity & subsidiarty system of organization. The records of early 17th century French Jesuit missionaries present when French fur traders first artived. Summary notes of Jesuit dialog with Native leaders filtered back through commercial fishing logs and influenced Enlightenment thought leaders like Voltaire & Rossesu. This type of thing inspired Pope Francis’ thinking & reviewing & validating liberation theology ad a reflection of ancient Earth/People traditions in Central & South America: Their peaceful partnership with Earth & subsidiarity method of civic & sustainable survival economics organization. He clearly explained it in his executive summary of Querida Amazonia. <> Using all of our technoligy, including AI, we can boycott toxic fascist mafia domination while building new regenerrative paradigms like those advocated by John Elkington in his book, Green Swans and through his Volans organization. + in the book, Planetarity by Blake & Gilman. They note how subsidiarty; enabling the lowest competent level to find practical solutions became a central organizing tenet of the early Church. <> I write on building grassroots level working models based on the geography of drainage basins: Port Dorchester series of essays.
I believe you may be simplifying the situation with Putin. He has his hands full with Ukraine. More than full. In fact, Russia is on the cusp of losing (one hesitates to go further than that, but still). Russian oil refineries are being bombed daily, Crimea is virtually cut off, Ukrainian cruise missiles dominate the sky. Russian generals are experiencing sudden automobile explosions far from the front lines. One could make a very convincing argument that Putin is much weaker now than at practically anytime before.
Many outcomes are unknowable until they actually take place. Putin might have reasoned that President Dementia Doofus was such a lost cause that everything he touched would still turn to shit. But he might have been as surprised as anybody to find out just how incompetent Doofus actually was. Russians have long been accustomed to seeing America ready at the wheel, acting at least half-way smart about its responsibilities as the "indispensable power" to the world. I'm willing to bet our sheer incompetence and fuckupery in Iran took even Putin by surprise.
Iran has supplied Russia with drones during its war with Ukraine and Russia reciprocated by offering Iran satellite intelligence on the location of US bases in the region, some of which were hit by Iranian missiles and drones injuring 400 service personnel. The US inexplicably dismissed concerns about this collusion saying that it had not affected its operations.
The Russian economy is literally running on fumes now from its gas and oil reserves. It's civilian economy is so battered that Russia has had to recruit workers from abroad to replace men sent the front. Putin has even had to resort to asking oligarchs to chip in to the war effort.
His visit to China hot on the heels of Trump's visit failed to secure agreement to his proposed Siberia 2 gas pipeline project. I find it interesting that those two beleaguered authoritarians (Trump and Putin) should both go cap-in-hand to Xi for economic support, an indication of the decline of each power.
"chip in" is an understatement. Stolen is more like it.
But yes, Russia is running on fumes. Moscow and St. Petersburg have both had refineries and oil storage facilities hit by Ukrainian drones. And keep in mind, that the airspace around the Moscow refineries and storage facilities is among the most difficult air space to attack through in the world. And the Ukrainians have done it.
And they have almost cut off Crimea where there is around.a 5 gallon limit per customer at the pumps. Diesel deliveries to the military vehicles is being made from tanks in the trunk of cars on the front.
Putin's best way out is death by oligarch. His preferred method of taking out his enemies is death from a 10th floor window. Video at 11...
ICTT, one of Trump's few allies and dare I say, friends is Putin. He talks to him several times a month at least. Of course, none of us are privy to any of these conversations, which likely verge on treason. Ukraine is kicking Russia's ass right now having bombed the refinery outside Moscow that supplies around 1/3 of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel used in Moscow. Trump promised us that within 24 hours the war in Ukraine would be over.
So if Putin is eliminated in Russia and Bibi is taken out in Israel and with Orban already gone, then what strongman does Trump latch onto? And how will that make his Project 2025 cronies look that have fashioned their entire plan on having an autocrat like Trump in charge?
Why are we hesitant to call relationship between Putin and Trump treason? Russia was, and is, an enemy of democracy. Also, after Obama and other allies negotiated with Iran, the U.N. monitored Iran regularly to ensure it was not building a nuclear weapon. UN and allies play a role in all this. And they should. As for Iran charging for use of Straight of Hormuz, are there charges to use Suez Canal? Do rules over international waters only apply to fishing? With all due respect to the G7, other key players not represented at G7. Everybody represented at UN. This international forum needs to be front and center. Why isn't it? If Israel continues to bomb Lebanon and starve Palestine, sanctions should be used to enforce peace if Netanyahu does not comply. It's not a religious argument. War mongers out, peace in.
Yes, as I was reading your post the thought that came to my mind was "sheer incompetence," and then, there it is, in black and white. We are now at the bottom in terms of intelligence, experience, education and competency among our government personnel responsible for foreign affairs. Well, add a dose of stupidity. The "enemy" is definitely "inside the gates." Nancy MacLean does an excellent job of detailing it in her book, "Democracy in Chains."
MaryPat: suggestion - read the last chapter, "Conclusion: Get Ready." It is an excellent summary. The book was published in 2017. All of this that we are now experiencing did not come about by accident: it has all been engineered. As one looks back at it, one can see the effort to push the Christian agenda forward with charter schools and more.
Old age is coming on rapidly. How in hell did I fail to mention Barbara McQuade's books, "Attack from Within" and "The Fix." Grrr. All of this leaves no doubt: we are now living in a time where the actions that are won and/or lost will affect this nation and nation's around the world for decades, even perhaps hundreds of years, to come. We're back to the 18th century. The war between capital and labor, democracy vs. authoritarianism, is on-going. [Note: I had just finished reading the last chapter of Nancy MacLean's book - that's my explanation for the oversight of Ms. McQuade's excellent work.] These ladies, HCR, included, are brilliant, and yet there is a movement within the Far Right that wants to abolish the 19th Amendment and return us to a male-dominated society and culture. As a note, IMO, the most qualified person ever to run for the U.S. presidency by dent of intelligence, experience and training was Hillary Rodham Clinton. We blew it in 2016.
Richard, your comment brings to mind that misogynous patriarchy originates way back in the Middle Eastern religions, both Islam and Judaism, which begat Christianity.
As those religions, evolved, mutated and spread, so did misogynous patriarchy.
I cannot think of any Indigenous spiritual system that incorporates misogyny. Perhaps I'm not well enough educated on Indigenous spiritual systems.
“Their cause, they say, is liberty. But by that they mean the insulation of private property rights from the reach of government—and the takeover of what was long public (schools, prisons, western lands, and much more) by corporations, a system that would radically reduce the freedom of the many. In a nutshell, they aim to hollow out democratic resistance. And by its own lights, the cause is nearing success.”—Nancy MacLean, “Democracy in Chains”
The American wealthy and well-connected are doing a very effective job of gobbling up all of the money that the people produce. The New York Times recently published this: The New York Times
Your comment has been approved!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with The New York Times community.
Richard | Florida
The Democrats need to promote a new New Deal, the form of government that created a huge Middle Class, which was destroyed, beginning with Reagan, by the ultra wealthy, stripping $39 trillion out of the economy. Frances Perkins, FDR's Sec. of Labor and the person most responsible for our having Social Security said it best: "The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to facilitate the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life." It is the people who create wealth. If the U.S. population were only 3.4 million people, there might not be any billionaires. But the U.S. population is 340 million people, so we have 1100 billionaires. We need a redistribution plan in place, similar to what they have in the Scandinavian countries, i.e., Pragmatic Capitalism.
Just to make it all a bit stranger, unlike Iran Putin already has a nuclear weapon, we have a nuclear weapon, in WWII Germany had a plan and an amazingly disaplined and armed military. Finally, finally, finally the proof is obvious. Right is Might and Might isn't Right Let's keep throwing bazillions of dollars at our Dept of War. But that would ruin our really not so great economy. Our leaders keep acting like they are the stars of action hero movies and comic books. We badly need a reset. When will we come to our senses or are we all like the woman who plead in the NYT about how we should have room in our lives for people to have a good time at UFC fights at the White House because she just couldn't possibly say no to her 12 and 15 year old boys when the tickets were free? She is raising the next generation! OMG my head hurts.
Martha, do you have a link to the NYT article or opinion or LTE about this woman? The NYT is so vast that merely searching it is both time-consuming and, eventually, fruitless.
And no, "lady," we DON'T need to make room in our lives (especially not at the White Trash House f/k/a the White House) for a trashy "event" for ugly people to watch other ugly people do ugly things to one another - to say nothing of providing a platform for the objectively ugly people to say ugly things about objectively beautiful people who are not only not present but who have done nothing to them at all in their entire lives. Not ever. Do better: teach your boys NOT to be violent, foul-mouthed thugs.
Yes, ICTT, Trump appears to be a “lost cause,” but my ears perked up when I read a recent thought by Adam Kinzinger. He basically indicated that the $300B in the Iranian Reparations Account (IRA - my name for it) will go into the pockets of Trump, Kushner, Witkoff….etc. Something to keep an eye on!
Same as all the donations made for his ridiculous ballroom by Bezos, Zuckerberg, et al. trump 'encouraged' them all to 'donate' knowing from the start that all that money would end up in his own bank account.
No question that trump has questionable brain power but from where I'm sitting he seems to be thinking straight: to stem an economic disaster, and to end this mess that can only get worse. Someone in Israel said that Trump is Israel's worst enemy. He should stick to that....it has to be damn near impossible considering the forces that want war to continue.
. He has to stay strong. We'll see if he can do that. If so, give the man his Nobel Peace Prize.
What I have been predicting is a False Flag attack the Mossad, and prob. the CIA, is planning for NYC or D.C....with Iranian "fingerprints" all over it.
Maybe they will assassinate trump....not Iran, like the lies we have seen in the past year, but good ole predictable Israel.
A Peace Prize for ending a war he started? Right out of the Narcissist's Playbook: Create chaos, sweep in to clean it up, look like a hero. Chapter Five, I think.
“Dementia Doofus”, first laugh of the day and sadly correct,while professionally I am aware what this entails, make no mistake that he used it to mask a sadistic narcissism.
1. Democratic members of Congress ask SCOTUS to say the MOU is unconstitutional because it has not been ratified by a 2/3 majority of the Senate, so it commits the US to nothing, and then a Democratic majority negotiates a new deal after the midterms with bipartisan support.
2. We turn tail and get US forces out of range as soon as possible, and the Trump regime has mass amnesia about Trump's signing. I think Macron got his signature to keep Europe from having to pick up the $300B reconstruction tab, likely by asking him to autograph a fake UFC fight card as a souvenir.
3. We watch Bibi break the deal and see Iran come back with even more cards for the next phase of negotiations. Iran retaliates against Israel, and we get to see how well the Iron Dome works against mass drone attacks, saving enough by avoiding a bad investment in our own Golden Dome version of the technology, to provide Iran with the reconstruction funds. The average US taxpayer is screwed either way.
4. The US walks away from the deal, and the UN Security Council condemns us as an aggressor state. The US vetoes the resolution. Trump's feelings are hurt, so he walks out of NATO and the UN. Putin chokes while laughing uproariously while eating caviar on blin.
Feel free to add more possibilities.
PS Following up on yesterday, as an example of the potential for fraud, Polymarket resolved the "US x Iran permanent peace deal by June 15?" and all similar contracts with later dates as YES!
Here are the criteria that they said had to be met:
This market will resolve to “Yes” if Iran and the United states agree to a permanent peace deal by the specified date, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to “No”.
A permanent peace deal refers to any agreement which explicitly indicates that military hostilities between the United States and Iran have ended or will permanently cease, or uses equivalent language clearly signaling a lasting end to military hostilities between the United States and Iran. Agreements that are explicitly temporary or which do not include a definitive agreement to end military hostilities between the US and Iran on a lasting basis (e.g. a temporary extension of the two-week ceasefire agreement announced on April 7, 2026), will not qualify.
A qualifying agreement will be considered to have been established if either of the following conditions are met:
- The United States and Iran each sign or formally adopt a written agreement (e.g. a treaty or multi-point agreement) which meets the above criteria.
- Both the governments of the United States and Iran provide clear public confirmation that a qualifying agreement has been definitively established. Negotiations, statements of progress, or other statements which do not constitute a definitive announcement that a qualifying agreement has been reached will not count.
The primary resolution source for this market will be official information from the governments of the United States and Iran; however, a consensus of credible reporting may also be used.
There was a dispute over the resolution on the meaning of "permanent." You can read the details at the link below. According to Polymarket the MOU is "permanent". $345 million was contested over all the outstanding future contract dates. During an active UMA dispute, contracts remain open for trading, so positions continued to shift through at least June 16–17. The price of YES shares as of June 14 was sitting around 23.8% before the weekend announcement, then surged toward resolution territory — and the contract now shows 100% Yes as the current outcome.
Did you see the story about the Cardinal who read the names of every child that has died in Gaza in the recent past. It took him over 7 hours to read the names.
Bibi is a war criminal, Trump is a war criminal, Putin is a war criminal.
The world will be a better place when the three of them are dead.
"Suburban Fury is a gripping portrait of Sara Jane Moore, a single mother from suburban San Francisco who, in 1975, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
More than a historical retelling, the film is an intimate character study — and a chilling mirror of America’s ideological divide. Framed around unprecedented access to Moore herself, it unfolds as a first-person monologue shot across the Bay Area sites where her radicalization took root. Blending rare archival footage with a stylized imagined exchange between Moore and her FBI handler, Suburban Fury traces her transformation from patriotic volunteer for the Patty Hearst rescue, and government informant to disillusioned revolutionary with a gun in her hand.'"
It sums up a lot about the America most of us never paid attention to.
What our government was doing was none of our business.
"It was overturning socialist leaders to save us from Communism"
Chile had voted in Allende; we had $150,000,000 corp. interests at risk.........so
It didn't start w/ trump. It started with the powers that are behind any Presidential throne. The CIA, the uber-wealthy, AIPAC , military industries, ..what am I missing?
Now, attacking Iran has exposed the essence of Amerika and its attack dog Israel. It's a joke really. We were chugging along, benefitting from our wealth in the only un-bombed out country after WW2 with the industrial revolution offering opportunities for anyone, even poor Blacks from the south...who were still in slavery.
Our wealth got used to invade, topple, make wars on anyone we conceived as a potential threat...to keep our corporations rich w/ their resources.
Made up stories convinced the boys to go fight and die.
I think we have to fail to a point of defeat. Economic defeat. Why have we set our sights on the 2 other powerful countries? I don't know about Russia because I don't trust the BS and haven't had time to study it. But China just wants to do business.
We should be grateful to Iran. FINALLY! We did something that in an asymmetric fight, we are losing. We deserve to lose.
I watched 9/11 from 2 miles north. THAT was an event we earned. Then we royally fked up the "rescue". Then we attacked Iraq for Israel using the excuse of 9/11.
I hope trump succeeds in handing over to Iran their sovereignty. If he does, it will be a miracle. It goes against everything we stand for: Imperialism, being ruled by Zionists....Not giving a damn about people in other countries.
Right now it seems that most people (apart from the nutters - Israel, MAGA and the IRGC) are just relieved that they can look forward to the resumption of commercial shipping in the Gulf. No one really cares about the humiliation the US has suffered due to this stupid war. Even Democrat Chris Murphy, a constant critic of the war, has called the MOU a "necessary disaster".
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a hoot if we're humiliated. Don't we deserve to be? Don't we need to be taken down a peg or two after all the war crimes (starting in Viet Nam) we've been given a pass for? All the bullying we've done? (The current guy just does it unapologetically,) I've loved my country, took an oath to serve my country as a Foreign Service Officer long ago now, and try to be a good, voting, attention-paying citizen always. We sabotage democratically-held elections, underwrite despots, and allow official corruption to flourish right under our noses. We have great accomplishments to be proud of in our history. We have so much to be grateful for. But our current humiliation is deserved.
Amerika is the loser. Finally! Thank God! Starting to cut ties with Israel....now, they consider trump as their worst enemy. It didn't take much, did it? Eventually, Israel was going to throw the USA under the bus. They, in their mistaken interpretation of being the Chosen People, view all gentiles, non-Zionists, as Amalek. Dirt under their feet.
I was the same as you except for never serving as a Foreign Service Officer. Just a proud American, never missing an election.
America has lost and in that losing we may gain something. If this loss makes more evident to the world our president's unfitness for office, then we've won something. If it breaks Congress's willingness to fund Israel's genocidal warfare, we've won. If it leads in the future, under a more informed Administration willing to open genuine negotiations with Iran instead of some attempt to subjugate them, we've gained something.
Trump lost the war with Iran the minute we fired the first shot.
175 school girls dead, at least 13 Americans dead and hundreds wounded, many schools and hospitals in Iran bombed, over $40 billion in US missiles, fuel, ammo wasted, farmer's without fertilizer this year, Americans losing hundreds of billions in additional gasoline costs, inflation at 4.2% and rising.
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one Judy. Trump is a loser.
Understatement of the Millennium Frau Katze. He lost it on day one when he decided that wasting billions of American dollars and lives was worth whatever the fuck winning looked like to him. This War, Venezuela, Greenland, Canada, etc. is all about stealing natural resources (mostly oil) from other countries. His Art of the Deal relies on murder, stealing and starving.
trump knocked a goal in his own net! Come on! You can see that right? He started an unnecessary war, killed 13 American military personnel and numerous Iranians. And got a worse deal!!! Why? Because his sociopathic malignant narcissism has to destroy everything his predecessor did.
What if Trump loved renewable energy like he loves fossil fuel? No war with Iran. No BS about Canada becoming the 51st state, no killing innocent fishermen in boats in the Caribbean, no talk about Greenland.
Of course, Trump would still be cray-cray and love his insane tariffs that have been declared illegal by SCOTUS, but Trump still rages on.
5. Bibi sabotages the deal by disclosing new material on T and other officials.T says he is no longer deeply in love with Bibi as he is with Egyptian Prez Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.He continues to target legislators seeking release of Epstein Files.The average US taxpayer is screwed either way.
There is a former Israeli intelligence officer who is claiming Netanyahu will try to sabotage the Iran peace deal by disclosing Epstein materials targeting Trump and other officials.
It is strange. Russia and Iran are friends. Russia and America are friends. The friend of my friend is also my friend. So why did we bomb Iran in the first place? We made them our enemy by bombing and killing their leaders. And now we want to be their friend again. And give them a lot of our citizens' money. Strange.
Russia and America are not friends, no matter how much Donnie Doofus wants it to be so. As to why we bombed Iran -- the answers are not complicated, though many search for complexity.
It's the black guy. You know. The guy who made fun of Donnie way back in 2011, the guy with the terrific family, the Harvard Law graduate. That black guy. The handsome, popular, kind one. The one who served two consecutive terms in the White House. Him hates the black guy. Him hates everything black guy did. That's why he tore up the JCPOA to begin with -- it was the black guys JCPOA. It's why he stole somebody else's Nobel Peace Prize. (Him got Nobel, why not MEEE?) His daughter got into Harvard, but MY son didn't! (sob).
Remember that the pee-pee tapes accused Trump of hiring prostitutes to pee in the bed the Obamas slept in in Moscow. With anybody else, I would have filed this one under 'too-ridiculous-to-be-true.' But with Trump? Made perfect, weird, Freudian sense.
With Donnie shit-for-brains, this is what's most important. Not foreign policy. Him no understand or care much about policy. It's about what goes on in his small, pissy, petty, whinybitchy, teeny-tiny little, spite-filled, revenge-fantasy-obsessed brain.
ICTT, as Carole Langston implies, your comment is not a comprehensive psychological analysis of Donald, but you do identify an important component.
If Donald's psyche were a pie chart, his racism would be represented by a wedge more than 40% of the pie. Barack Obama would fill two-thirds of that wedge.
Racism is perhaps the icing on the cake. The cake itself is an abiding, life-long insecurity. He co-splays a phony strongman and leader to cover up the reality of being a tiny, whiny little piss-ant, penny-ante putz he's always been.
I recall upon settling in Florence, Italy in 1977, the first acquaintance I made was with a street peddler in the markets named Sammy, who was an Iranian that escaped the Iranian military conscription. Not unlike I would have had my Nixon lotto number been low the year I was eligible to be drafted. I think it was 1972. My number was high but I knew I would have gone to Canada or Sweden had I been drafted.
Funny thing Bill. I was drafted in 70. By December my brand new lotto number was high up over 300. I wouldn’t have been scooped up at all. What two different Americans think they would have to do is a choice most of the world would not find available. Myself I would have followed the law been drafted and gone not only to chronicle the war but more importantly to myself to understand in no uncertain terms what my generation was suffering through, a time of division much like adult Americans face today. Although made of salami one and all we get sliced into a million pieces and repackaged as cohesion when in truth we are sandwiches and pizza and such. The real problem wth the draft was that some of us were steak and untouchable while salami was asked to carry the day. Nothing has changed except steak keeps getting more rare.
We've used every method, mostly hard power, to harm them...hoping they would be forced back on their knees.
If Iran was left alone, it would be a major true power in that region, not one dependent on subsidies from Uncle Sam.
THAT is very threatening to Israel. I am sure Israel will never stop trying to destroy them.
BTW: one factor important to China, Russia and that region is the new "silk road" that goes right through Iran. Iran is the hub. They are not helping Iran just to get back at us. It's a key economic benefit that, gee, we can't allow That to happen.
I agree with everything that you've written here. When I said Iran has been our enemy the meaning is, we are enemies. You're right, Iran could be a major power in that region and they almost certainly would have been a democracy and a friend, if we hadn't sided with the British and overthrown Mosadegh. And even now, we obviously haven't learned the lesson.
During his 38-year reign, the Shah undoubtedly had difficult relations with the US but I don't think that they would have regarded him as an enemy. The enmity against the US begins with the Iranian revolution in 1979.
The Coup change to Pahlavi was a joint UK, CIA operation headquartered on the island of Cyprus & included well funded & intense disinformation tactics apparently still working.
And you forget the Shah's use of his SAVAK -- state terror secret police he used outside the law to arrest, torture, and disappear so many decent Iranians that the larger body of people stewed in resentments against Pahlavi.
Worse, all Iranians knew that SAVAK was financed, trained, and armed by the U.S. C.I.A. It was the accumulation of these anti-U.S. resentments that led to the Shah's overthrow in '79, and the people's enthusiastic embrace of popular alternative to the capitalists' torturing secret police regime.
True. However some in the US were beginning to become disaffected because the Shah's oppression of his people, and their opposition to him, was growing. The US misjudged how much of the opposition was grounded in the opposition to the Shah's attempt to impose western ways that were in conflict with Muslim tradition and beliefs.
No, the Shah's government most likely considered the U.S. a friend and ally. The people who elected Mosadegh surely didn't see things that way. And of course, the Islamists considered the U.S. and Britain as the main enemy. That hatred of America began well before the revolution.
I seriously doubt this. The Gulf states have been trying to use their fossil fuel wealth to create new hubs for tourism, international banking, cutting-edge technology as well as major sports events. I suspect that all that is over now because of the war and the continued looming threat of Iran. They mostly all blame Trump because he started the war and failed to protect them as he had promised.
Yeah, that WAS intended as slightly sarcastic. I generally agree with you. Trump shot himself (and the country) in the head with this "war" and he didn't miss as badly as that guy did a year ago.
Trump insists that not one cent of US money will go towards the so-called investment plan for Iran. He's expecting the Gulf states to make up the lion's share of this fund and they've lost around $150bn during this war. None of these powers can be called 'friends', they just sometimes have common interests. Trump doesn't have any friends.
Exactly! When it comes to money we can't believe a single thing he says. As Americans have become poorer due to exploding prices, he and his family have become billions of dollars richer.
"Americans have become poorer due to exploding prices"?
Yes, true enough, laurie. But for causality's sake we needn't settle for the logic of testing, which always insists on one answer only -- and never permits complexity to enter.
But let's just venture another truth, that Americans have gotten poorer over many years of the billionaires always getting Republican tax breaks for them, and reduction of pro-public regulations, and both Dem and Republican eagerness to let corporations more, more consolidate and monopolize (Dems and Republicans ever pocketing more, more $$$ in pay-offs for their voting for the rich).
. . .for causality's sake we needn't settle for the logic of testing, . . ."
Oh, my, and holy f-ing god, Mr. Balla! Why do you perseverate so adamantly your elaborate, false, and egregious 'testing' narrative beginning with Powell, embracing a half dozen or more fanciful elements of shared responsibility and blame in between, and ending with Ravitch?? Your "scholarly" sins are at least the equal of Trump's sophomoric MOU language . . .
Borrowing a quote from Joseph Welch 72 years ago "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Bibi talked him into it. But that’s no excuse. Trump thought he could replicate Venezuela: replace one autocrat with another more pliable one. But that failed.
Adam Kinzinger posted on Facebook a rather tidy opinion concerning Trump's illegal war. In it, he also posts a poem he says was one of John Boehner's favorites and cited at times. Republicans by and large have been the central problem that led to this war 4 months ago. However, Kinzinger makes no bones about who's to blame when it comes to this side of the Atlantic. The poem speaks to the wrecking of a building which took years, time and effort to build. However, there were Additional outside forces that contributed to the "wrecking." The State of Israel, for its complicity, will have much for which to answer. Like the onlooker who cares not a whit of what happens to the building, Netanyahu and his goons looked on, egged on, and participated in this destructive mode which was completely unnecessary. It is the actions of Israel, primarily, why the Iranians, most likely within their own discussions, would very much like to go nuclear. Frankly, I don't blame them; Israel is a nuclear weapons state: why not Iran? Israel refused to be part of the NPT while Iran signed on to it. As Trump has torn up the JCPOA agreement, Iran is within its rights to tear up the NPT agreement to which it is a signatory. So typical of Trump and Netanyahu (both now who are at odds with each other) to want their cake and eat it too. Trump can't afford to eat cake; this lesson will most likely do him in sooner than he believes. As for Netanyahu, his nation is flailing and failing. It may be that he experiences the Nicolae Ceaușescu moment. One can only hope.
In part, Kinzinger writes:
"I keep coming back to a poem that John Boehner used to quote. The poem paints a picture of the struggle he and other establishment Republicans like myself were waging against the people in our own party who were tearing the institution apart from the inside. We were constantly at odds with the members who would shut down the government, blow up a negotiation, or torch a coalition, not because they had a better plan. But because breaking things is easy and it got them on television. The poem goes like this:
'I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.
I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
The kind you’d hire if you had to build?”
He gave a laugh and said, “No indeed!
Just common labor is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do.”
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
Which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds by a well-made plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor of tearing down?'
The line that haunts me: 'I can easily wreck in a day or two what builders have taken a year to do.'
The JCPOA — the Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore up — was not a perfect agreement. I had real concerns about it, and I said so at the time. But it was the product of years of painstaking work by career diplomats from seven countries, built on a foundation of sanctions architecture that had taken a decade to construct and required the sustained cooperation of allies who were not naturally inclined to follow America’s lead. It capped Iran’s uranium enrichment. It established an inspection regime. It delayed, meaningfully, Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. It took years to build.
And it took one signature to wreck.
I served in Congress with the people Boehner was quoting that poem about. I watched the Tea Party wave come in, watched members who had no interest in governing use the institution as a stage for performances that were never going to produce results. I watched Boehner try to hold together a conference that contained within it the seeds of its own destruction."
One can go to Kinzinger's Facebook page to read his full opinion.
Why does the Iranian regime continue to insist “Death to Israel” and “Death to America”?
Why does Iran fund Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israel? Iran also funds Hamas.
You’re being awfully one-sided here. I’m not defending Netanyahu but Iran is far from innocent.
Their attempt to “export” their “revolution” has also destabilized many Middle Eatern countries, including Lebanon and Iraq. They also fund the Houthis, who attack Saudi Arabia.
As a complete aside, I'd have thought that a non-voting but tax-paying, mostly illiterate-in-English, mostly unskilled (for a given value of "unskilled"), "illegal" (i.e., undocumented resident of the US) and therefore terrified-of-deportation, labor force would have been a republiConfederate's dream come true.
It also enriched Russia. Remember, Russia exports oil and the price of a barrel of oil is important to Putin. He gains a lot from having his lackey attack Iran. Consider the weaponry America used that won't be going to Ukraine. When the first bombs fell, Putin was no doubt rubbing his hands in glee.
Ukraine is still kicking ass even without US help. The furious Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civil infrastructure are a sign of Putin's desperation.
Has anyone noticed that it reads like a fourth-grader's take on international diplomacy? Given that a fourth-grader signed it tonight, I guess that shouldn't surprise anyone. It keeps talking about "the deal". Trump words, without almost any doubt.
Maybe G.W. Bush will loan his Mission Accomplished banner to Iran. And as the markets are set to open in a few hours, Dow futures are up because the market due to a possible hint the Fed may rise interest rates ??? New Fed Chair may be in for some fodder from Sideshow Don. I applaud all of you who are trying to make sense of all this mess. As the young kid in a classroom said to his teacher in one of my favorite Far Side cartoons... "My I be excused, my brain is full."
The best part is the administration discovering, apparently by reading its own paperwork aloud, that the thing it has been calling “not a war” is, in fact, a war.
This is bold new constitutional theory: if bombs are falling, troops are involved, ports are blockaded, sanctions are moving, and foreign governments are negotiating ceasefires, it is still not a war until somebody accidentally types the word.
One imagines the panic. “Who put ‘current war’ in the memorandum?” “Sir, the current war did.”
Washington has always loved euphemism, but this is performance art. It is like robbing a bank, then arguing in court that it was merely an unauthorized withdrawal with dramatic lighting.
The contradiction is almost beautiful. Congress is unnecessary when the executive wants action, but language becomes sacred when the executive wants credit. The Constitution, meanwhile, sits in the corner like a parent watching toddlers rename the broken vase “floor pottery.”
That is the real punchline: authoritarian politics often depends less on genius than on the hope that nobody reads the memo. And this time, unfortunately for them, somebody did.
Putin: "Hey tubby. Get out of the Mideast. Go home. Work harder on destroying the US economy. Start really ruining their electoral processes. Stay on task!" Signed, Vladdy.
I'm starting to feel more and more as if I landed in a dystopian media landscape reading HCR.
The GOP has become a neofascist party.
They are destroying US democracy at all levels of government, including the judiciary. Because they are neofascists.
They are trying to destroy all foreign democracies. Because they are neofascists.
They don't want regime change in Iran or Venezuela or Russia or China. They are HAPPY that those countries are already fascist regimes. Because they are neofascists.
All they want is to have people leading those fascist regimes who agree to deal with the US government in the most corrupt way possible, benefiting the leaders of both countries financially. Because that's all that there is still to negotiate once you're perfectly on the same wavelength when it comes to ideology.
Each article that doesn't mention this and pretends to be surprised is still looking at the US from a perspective that is no longer connected to reality at all (a perspective that imagines that the GOP is still pro-democracy and wants to strengthen democracy inside the Us and around the world).
I wouldn’t believe the GOP CODDLING of fascism possible knowing the patriarchal republicans as I do. Then again they don’t unchange their minds or the direction they move in. They think the rope from the front door to the barn is the way to go. Now in my opinion they should just dig a tunnel and come and go secretly. Never mind the gps of it all.
You’d think world leaders would want to move away from oil dependence as soon as possible, given the worldwide economic consequences of the Strait closure, but that would require foresight and courage. Hmmm… never mind.
Indeed he did have his hand in the cookie jar. You may also note the cookies were probably already gone. Not a problem except mom makes the good cookies and she’s getting to the point where she’ll toss in her apron pretty soon. Let’s give the “good” cooks a breather. Let’s cut off all the hands that reach except by committee. In fact let’s go one better. Let’s have a multi-continental army to crawl up the sleevies of those who get up in the night.
Annabel, you are correct. What a mess this administration has made of our standing in the global community. I do hope we see a surge of voters this November and the taking back of the House & Senate. But for me, there is another key to our better future. We need to do a better job educating the electorate while taking back the media world dominated by the right wing misinformation machine of FAUX media.
Keep up the pressure! Tell the Republicans in Congress we’re paying attention and they should be furious! Read, listen and speak up!
Resource below to easily contact all of Congress - Be LOUD. Trump/the administration is dangerous for our country 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly!
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Thank you, Megan!! More than ever we need to keep contacting our legislators even the do-nothings so that they know that We the People are watching, and expressing our disgust and displeasure with how the current regime is tearing down our country; we also need to keep encouraging the ones who are starting to stand with us as well as the ones who have been doing their best all along (AOC, Crockett, and Raskin come to mind immediately).
No it isn't. It took decades and in particular the past 10 years for the Democratic Party to allow this to happen. The Democratic Party elite knew a very long time ago about the Heritage Foundation, AIPAC, Christian Nationalists, Tea Party, Russian influence, gerrymandering and still kept on acting like everything was business as usual. Did you know that Democrats and Republicans take money from the same PACs? Did you know about the huge influence Israeli wields in our government; including Democrats? It is super convenient for the Democratic Party elite to hide behind the rather large derriere of trump and his fellow fascists but the reality is the Democratic Party is complicit on where we find ourselves today. The Democratic Party's major Israel supporters such as Schumer are as involved in the war on Iran as the Republicans.
What to do?
We work for change within the Democratic Party. There are candidates today free of AIPAC money, working directly for the working class, and are not tied to the elite DNC or old Democratic Party leaders. Go to AIPAC Tracker.
It is vital that people fight against the Data Centers in their communities. Politicians are getting rich off these constructions. Communities are really suffering from them.
The administration spent months insisting the strikes on Iran did not constitute a war — a position that mattered because war-making requires congressional authorization. The MOU reads "the current war," which collapses that argument and reveals that the legal rationale for bypassing Congress was false from the start. Whatever one thinks of the deal's terms, the executive branch waged a war, told the legislature it wasn't one, and has now contradicted itself in the text of its own agreement — that is a direct breach of the accountability structure the Constitution places on military force.
First it was a war, then it wasn't a war. Then it was a war that had finished within the 60-day period allowed by the War Powers Resolution. Then it wasn't a war again. Now that it's over, it's a war again - a truly protean conflict. Metternich would have approved.
We are in a "Trump Regime" ie No accountability necessary! Trump speaks and "it" happens.
Who can believe Trump is the one in command???? Who are the true "con-artists? Herein lies the foundational rot that has been growing for years but unfortunately has NOW the opportunity to take root!
We, as citizens of The United States of America, are NOT helpless but ACTION is necessary!!!!
I am grateful for leaders who have the courage to stand up for our country and we as citizens MUST stand by our brave leaders and support their courageous stand!!!!
I agree Emily. They understand money, right? Money makes the wheels go round. Like babbling idiots we keep sending them money. A vote is one thing. A paycheck keeps that boat afloat in the Bahamas. Baha by-by. We don’t have to buy in to that which offends us. What we do is give up our blank checks. Cool. What we need to do is earmark that which we agree to fund. Let you and me take away the blank check trust. We get what we pay for.
The Iranian people now have a military theocracy. The US now has an incompetent government led by a diminished narcissist. “ You’re going to get tired of winning.”
I forgot to mention that the US is also left with a spendthrift government more concerned with outward appearance than actual substance. If you thought “America First” meant maintaining health insurance for millions, no foreign wars, a focus on infrastructure, and securing the blessings of liberty, you were mistaken.
I think Iran should live by whatever they end up with, when this crisis quiets down; the US should concentrate on its own mess of a government...w/ the madman in charge.
I have to disagree with what Heather quotes Tom Nichols as saying about this incredible misadventure. He characterized it as “the weirdest and most astonishing day in US foreign policy in decades,” but I have to quibble with his use of "foreign policy." There was nothing in this debacle that could be called "policy." Trump has told us that his gut is the source of his decision-making. A gut can give us feelings, even presentiments, but it is not the organ that is capable of designing a policy. Let us hope that one day we will return to a government where policy is debated, where all of the pros and cons of taking an action are considered, and where a policy is finally adopted. There was no hint of a policy in this weird and astonishing enterprise.
"Foreign undertaking"? Misadventure, maybe? You are right. There was no "policy" -- no point, no brains, no forethought, no debate, no nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilchy-poo.
Yes there is no foreign policy or diplomacy with Trump, only strong arming, bullying and an impulsiveness to do or get what he wants.
It isn't just one day either, anyone that's been paying attention knows this has been "the weirdest and most astonishing" eighteen months in U.S. foreign policy, ever...or at least so far in the 250 years existence of this Nation.
That would be a refreshing change when it comes to US foreign policy which has all too often proceeded on the basis of the instinctual impulses of your presidents. You had hardly ended your 20-year war on terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria when off you went again with attacks on Venezuela and Iran. You need a Constitution that properly reins in the power of your presidents.
"Trump responded: 'I like that idea…. This way, if it works out, I’m gonna take the credit; if it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming J.D. You better be careful, J.D. He’s gonna turn his plane around and get the hell outta here. Yeah, I like that idea. I think that’s a good idea.'"
Wanker Boy about to discover for himself what the wheels of a speeding bus feel like. That eyeliner's going to get smudged big time. Was it worth it, JD? Inquiring minds want to know....
And pf course the supreme irony in that is that Wanker wasn’t in favor of this debacle in the first place. For a regime that doesn’t understand irony, they do irony very well.
He continues to try to sell this war as though the US has being doing the whole world a favour by denying Iran the right to build nuclear weapons yet he has achieved nothing of the kind. If Iran wanted a nuclear weapon in the future I have no doubt that they would be able to acquire one or to build one. Trump has shown no interest in the issue of nuclear proliferation. Earlier this year he allowed the New Start treaty to expire, the last such treaty with the Russians. He is asking Congress for vast amounts of money to build his ridiculous Golden Dome which both the Russians and the Chinese see as a provocation.
(Paging Dr. Freud)...Perhaps JD could lie on the couch to expound on it...although lying is a given with JD and the couch would not be safe from his molestations either...
ICTT, the Manchurian vice president would take anything thrown at him, in order to still have a chance of being presidential candidate after Trump. And, considering the decrepit state of mental and physical health of the scumbag president, maybe that chance will come much earlier.
It's likely -- and it will be the kiss of death for Wanker Boy. His only use and function is to play loyal Wormtongue to a powerful, telegenic asshole. His own personality is less appealing than a bowl of small, cold, wriggling eels. He won't last long.
J.D. is the ‘ugly (scruffy) bridesmaid’, chosen to make ‘clean-shaven’ DJT look better in comparison…um…😆
Also…Vance’’s spouse is the added bonus of “PROVING” the current administration is not racist…at all…love all colours of skin…but, especially ORANGE!
When Trump is dead and gone, unless he can somehow prohibit an autopsy, the damage done to his system by the constant ‘spray painting’…to LOOK RIDICULOUS 🙄…will be made public.
Inquiring minds want to know…now…WHY THE BURNT SIENNA?
Is there some lizard, like the komodo dragon, with that colour of skin??
And here’s me thinking that DJT is channeling the power of “the Great Pumpkin” and we all KNOW it exists…right, Charlie Brown!! 🎃
Panama Canal tolls range from $15,000 to $300,000 depending on tonnage of the ship. The Suez Canal levies fees up to $700,000 for mega-size bulk carries and tankers. Why should Iran not do the same? The United States gave them the bright idea.
The Panama Canal lies entirely within Panama. The Suez Canal lies entirely within Egypt. The Strait of Hormuz is (or was) an international waterway that lies within missile, drone, and artillery range of Iran, and which Trump just surrendered to Iranian control. Nice job, Trump. Demonstrating the Art of the Dumb Deal. What a loser!
Hello James... Tony Schwartz, who actually wrote 'Art Of The Deal', said DJT was an Idiot... DJT was an Idiot in starting this War at Netanyahu's behest... The Iranian's didn't rise-up, and there were no Nuclear Weapons, or ICBMs.... This Idiocy has cost the USA at least 14-Lives, and over 131-Billion Dollars that could have been spent making USA lives better... Let's Hope that this Agreement holds, or there will be Global Economic Catastrophe...
Jon, are you familiar with the comic "Groo the Wanderer?" One of the recurring characters in the series is The Minstrel, who offers commentary on the story in doggerel. One of my favorite verses described the fate of someone who decided to pull a dragon's tail. "This man named Smeed, With lightning speed, Was barbecued and eaten. Don't die like he, Or you will be regarded as a cretin." (Yes, I am easily amused 😂). If Trump does not rise to the level of "idiot" (BTW, also known as a resident of the Kingdom of Id), can we at least regard him as a cretin?
‘Hope the ‘deal’ holds….!’ it would appear that it is Trump’s only ‘save’ re the Midterms, so…um…no backing out unless he feels he can deliberately anger his base even more and still get their dog-faithful vote.
My guess is he will ‘concoct’ another supposéd ‘win’, perhaps fake evidence of his complete ‘innocence’ in the Epstein Files, that redacters and ‘creative writers’ are busy, busy at…these corrupt acts TAKE TIME! Sheeeesh!
Trump could make the lives of Americans better by not giving his oligarch friends tax breaks; by funding America rather than Iran; by using the ballroom money "his buddies gave him" to rebuild the East Wing exactly as it was; by using his family money to fix Trump's Reflecting Pond; by not building the Trump Arch; by taking all the gild off the White House; by firing all his Cabinet and replacing them with competent non-MAGA people; by reinstating all Civil Servants who are NOT MAGA - the list goes on and on. None of that will happen as long as Republicans continue to cheer for Trump and his band of fascists.
It’s clearly a loss. What did we gain? I suppose we could call it capitulation. Or call it what it is: a repudiation of stupid actions by a stupid administration.
Apparently he can’t even read ‘his own’ book anymore. Of course the ghost wrote it, but i suspect at some time in the past he might have tried to read it. As Clousseau would say, “nut anymore”.
TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report)—In an astounding achievement for a first-time author, on Wednesday Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei nabbed the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers list with a business book entitled The Art of the Deal. The publicity materials provided by the publisher tout, “From the mind of a man who negotiated the sweetest deal in the history of the Middle East, learn how to fend off a hostile takeover—and win!” “Don’t just be a leader,” the book jacket urges. “Be a Supreme one!” Among the topics covered, the book “shows, in five easy steps, how to turn a tiny body of water into a money-spinning goldmine.” An advance excerpt from the book’s first chapter begins, “Rule #1: Only negotiate with morons.”
Yes, that would do it too. Reminds me of those nice friendly books that used to help you to figure out how to use your computer. What I'm anxious to root out is the word "deal".
The canals are manmade structures. Allowing tolls in the Strait of Hormuz violated principles of free navigation of the seas that have been a cornerstone of US foreign policy literally since the beginning of the nation. Look up the campaigns against the Barbary pirates, "the shores of Tripoli," etc
Iran has no right to a fee because God made the strait. It didn’t cost Iran the labor and lives lost that it took to build the two canals. And it costs nothing to maintain the strait. That’s why they shouldn’t be allowed to impose a fee.
The Strait of Hormuz belongs territorially to Iran and Oman, who jointly own and control the strait through which heavy oil and chemical loads pass. They bear costs and responsibilities to keep the waterway safe and navigable and would be the victims should a major upset occur.
Which was the status before Trump launched his attack. International law of the sea requires free transit, according to most experts, not new administrative fees or tolls or whatever term is used.
By the current UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Iran only controls its territorial waters. It does NOT own or control the Strait ( except by force, as it’s been doing).
Part III of the the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, particularly Articles 37 through 44, governing “Straits used for international navigation,” holds that all ships and aircraft have a right of transit passage, “which shall not be impeded,” and that “there shall be no suspension of transit passage” through a strait.
Panama has lots of infrastructure to operate and maintain (locks and pumps, etc) to raise and lower ships. As far as I know, Iran has none of that. Perhaps I’m wrong. Iranian territory sits at a quasi choke point where, like the old fiefdoms on the Rhine, passing boats could be squeezed for money just for passing by.
Watching the wreckage of unconstitutional wars without point in the Middle East, Venezuela and elsewhere, a string of Cabinet voidoids without the slightest qualifications for their jobs still being confirmed by his fools in the Senate, listening to their demented dingbat claim he 'loves inflation' and insists New York boos and catcalls are really hymns of praise....and finally to their deafening silence in the face of yet his 704th attack against Barack and his "husband" Michelle Obama....it's clear the entire Republican party is sticking to its bunker suicide post. This isn't going to change, not until the American electorate has spoken first, and maybe not even then.
No matter the incompetence, the malice, the stupidity, the sheer fuckupery --the Four Horsemen of the Trumpapocalypse -- the GOP isn't really budging an inch. Those who keep hoping for a few more GOP defections here and there, praying for the sounds of scraping, clawing, scurrying rats desperate to flee the Titanic's lower decks will somehow turn to a groundswell are missing the underlying dynamic at play. All these wretched, sad people are immobilized by their own Cult of Dumb. Thought the cult is now melting from the inside out, normal, save-my-ass responses aren't working. Even if 98% of them want to run away as fast as they can, they won't. They can't. They're frozen.
What does this mean for us? Don't wait for Gooberdämmerung to break. The ground is giving way underneath them anyway, faster than you can say "full algal bloom." Support every GOTV campaign you can in the meantime. Reach out to independents, to disgruntled former Republicans. Donate, volunteer, canvas, campaign, be a poll worker or a poll watcher. Continue supporting strong, skillful, qualified Democrats. Voting's the thing that will truly undo the King, nothing else will. And it's got to be a tsunami, not a trickle.
Too big to rig. Too real to steal. Too obvious to dick with us....
May there be such massive voter turnout in these mid terms that it compares to the recent elections in Hungary.
Americans should be inspired and take a cue from the Hungarians on how to vote out an authoritarian regime, we should be protesting the Trump crime family the way the Albanians are doing so right now, fighting against injustice, tyranny and Putin cabal invasions/operations as the Ukrainians have for over 4 years now...
Yes, but the reality is a three hour roundtrip yesterday to replace my finch feeder, one of the few things that still bring me joy. It isn’t easy in the “sticks”.
Thanks! They’ve come back after years of absence. Now if only I could get the crazy aggressive hummingbird to chill a bit I’d have a small peaceable kingdom.
I have a couple nests with baby hummingbirds right now. The nests started about the size of a quarter, but these guys are all ready to fly now and fluffy. So cute.
True, but not all can afford to burn $50 in gas for a $35 feeder. Direct from manufacturer would have taken two weeks. Our world is changing. How we regulate the new reality must change too.
Gave this some thought. We need to rebuild local communities. Share, trade, repurpose. Everyone has something someone else needs. Someone is crafty and can build stuff.
Too late for that unfortunately. People need to make some choices. It is also an option to live with this coming reality and not bitch. I have no more patience for those who complain but refuse to do basics.
(Amanda Marcotte / Salon) "The MAGA concept of manhood is tied up in childish views about violence and domination coupled with the mentality of a rapist or an animal abuser. Trump and MAGA cast about for weaker parties to victimize. The siren call of war is never silent to the insecure man with power. Trump lost the war in Iran a long time ago, but he'll never pull out unless he can pretend he won it."
Cheeto Is Becoming the 21st Century Neville Chamberlain
What does Neville Chamberlain and Cheeto have in common? Well, Mike Pence says the Iran deal in the form of an Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) is nothing more than appeasement. Shades of the 1930’s. Neville Chamberlain the English right wing prime minister infamously made an appeasement deal with Hitler in September 1938 ceding the Sudentenland of Czechslovakia to Germany hoping that it would stop the madman dictator from invading other countries. But one year later in September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland and was the beginning of WWII.
With only one week left of oil reserves Cheeto realizes that Iran has won and Cheeto loves winners. Now that Ukraine has made serious inroads in the war with Russia and so now Cheeto is throwing his dictator buddy under the bus, pledging support to Ukraine.
The uniqueness of Cheeto compared to Chamberlain is that he’s a psychopath who is transactional and always ready to appease whether they’re Iranians or Ukrainians. As Mark Twain wrote, history doesn’t repeat itself but it certainly rhymes. Where does this leave Netanyahu? Out in the cold.
That is simply unfair to poor Neville Chamberlain. Long ridiculed by history, he understood that Britain did not have the military capacity to take on Hitler since it had spent the entire decade previous to the War disarming, rather than re-arming. He was trying to buy time, as much as he could. It didn't work out for him -- or for England.
For his master's thesis at Harvard in 1940, a graduate student named John F. Kennedy explored the ramifications of this in "Why England Slept" -- a play on Churchill's more famous "While England Slept." He argues that had Chamberlain actually chosen confrontation earlier, the results would have been even more disastrous for Britain in the absence of appeasement. We will never know, but it remains a powerful caveat.
History is complicated. Sometimes the truth of that gets hidden underneath layers of later language and narratives that didn't really quite fit at the time the events actually took place.
Little correction - Britain didn't attack Germany in Chamberlain's time, while quite clearly the US and its parasite started the war against Iran.
Most of the world's historians will remind their followers in future that it was the US and Israel who were the "bad guys" in the current events, not Iran.
And if the historians care about accuracy, they will include Saudi Arabia's MBS, who egged on Trump to strike, never anticipating that Iran would strike Saudi Arabia back. And Putin, if they can ever unearth transcripts of Trump's regular contacts with him.
Israel is now bombing Lebanon. The war of Israel terror expands and the Democratic Party leaders continue to send money to Israel. 211 dead in Lebanon.
We need to focus really hard right now. The MOU is what it is. Israel is the core problem. Ask Schumer what is number one priority is and he will openly declare is it supporting Israeli. We stop the flow of money to Israel, stop electing AIPAC controlled Democratic Party candidates and get out and protest. Look at what Albania and Hungry before them accomplished. We, meanwhile, sit on our hands and complain endlessly about a demented old man.
"The group, called Dialog, is a private, invitation-only organization cofounded in 2006 by the billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel. It convenes US officials, foreign government figures, and Silicon Valley executives at off-the-record annual retreats. Dialog has spent two decades declining to disclose its members."
With Heather on the MOU today, let's compare Barack Obama’s success with Iran against criminal Donald’s surrender.
We know that, to get along with others – even very different others – one needs first to consult allies, and then try to see adversaries in light of their own best, most practical interests.
Barack Obama could do that. Criminal Donald could only scorn all the U.S.’s longest allied democracies. Obama could speak primarily of balancing best outcomes for all; criminal Donald could only insult, slander, threaten, and lie to arrogate himself. Barack Obama could draw on all our best experts in many fields; criminal Donald just postured himself as singular, above all others. He rid from government service our most key personnel in all fields.
The world still stews with Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Sisi, Erdogan, Bukele, Milei, and the Iranian mullahs. They’re the ancillaries to the Trump/Epstein rape traffickers, gun runners, drug dealers, money launderers.
And us? Do we look for our schools to key teaching to essays where all learn to see others as individuals amid complicated humanities? Can we nurture the asking decent questions of others? Or do we stay in testing’s dictates, where only the anonymous elites ask questions, to which all defer to their conceits of ever one correct answer only.
Would we were living in a country where history teachers could assign homework essays on comparing the MOU with the JCPOA and deciding which was in the best interests of the United States as an exercise in critical thinking. Instead MAGA parents would get you fired...
Making Iran Great Again! Unbelievable. And his minions still think he is 'strong'? I'm almost wondering if there is something behind the scenes that Trump personally gets (because that is all he cares about) because this is a complete and total surrender! For those who missed the talk between Heather and Paul Krugman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKd8wHUEwoM
Thank you, Heather. I love your work and dedication.
The Bond GIF is hilarious, and the President's speech was quite bad and troubling, so I'm of two minds.
After hearing Trump's speech, I went to YouTube and watched about 20 minutes of cat videos. Silly as they are, they made more sense than our President and improved my mood immensely.
The other thought in my split brain focused on the grief for all of the victims from this war, including our soldiers, mostly caused by the deeply disturbed American President man-child babbling at the G7. It reminded me of Nixon and Kissinger, and all of the lies and corruption about the Vietnam War that we didn't know until we got there and lived it. The weight of all that grief, then and now, caused by incompetent, immoral men, is more than we need to bear. That means we stop it now, and when the absurdity becomes overwhelming, let me recommend a half-hour break to sip some tea and watch cat videos. Your cat will like it.
When the American-Iran war started I was a bit baffled about why Putin would allow his pawn to attack his ally, Iran. Now it becomes clear. The entire affair diminished the United States and enriched Iran. Mission accomplished.
Timothy Snyder would say correct you are, Annabel.
Except, in his "The Road to Unfreedom," he expanded to the larger world where many dictators are interlocked and complicit: Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Sisi, Erdogan, Bukele, Milei, Kim, and the Iranian mullahs, all current parts of the Trump/Epstein rape traffickers, gun runners, drug dealers, money launderers.
Yes, and during all this note that "Rocket Boy" of N. Korea has been given carte blanche to build ever more powerful nuclear armed ballistic missiles. Of course should he use them, South Korea ceases to be a penninsula.
Thanks to Jimmy Carter's bold visit with Kim Il-Sung in North Korea, Bill Clinton was reluctantly drawn into the Agreed Framework limiting the DPRK's development of nuclear weapons. Which George Bush effectively tore up.
Thanks to the Obama State Department, we had the JCPOA, which, despite the lesson of North Korean nuclear armament, Trump tore up.
Yet while "low information" Right wing extremists vote strategically and successfully to remake the Republican party and the US government in their image. Those on the Left and in the Democratic establishment refuse to understand voting as a strategic joint exercise in taking power - and by treating voting as an individual exercise in self expression, instead help put Republicans in power.
As we see happening here in Maine. Where Democrat Genevieve McDonald (who flacked a friend's intimate confidences to the media) and Republican operative funded by Leonard Leo Lindsey Fifield (who helped raise Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court before touting unsubstantiated accusations to sink Graham Platner) are suddenly the amplified advocates for women's rights and arbiters of American morality. Effectively working to re-elect Susan Collins, maintain the Republican majority, prop up the Trump regime, and perpetuate the Project 2025 repurposing of our democratic republic as a ChristoFascist state.
So who's the biggest loser?
Susan Collin’s is a little concerned you said that.
She might even be "Very Concerned" as she votes for Todd Blanche
Funniest thing you ever wrote Bill.
⬆️🤣🤣🤣🤣👏🏼
Lin,
We are the "self-made" losers if we choose not to vote! We cannot just follow our "friends" but must engage in our own research and accept only facts before we cast our precious vote. We must encourage friends and family to do the same.
Our right to vote, to choose a candidate we believe will stand up for...fight for...the country in which we want to live....a country inwhich our children will be enabled to have opportunities to thrive as well as one who will work to maintain a strong foundation of support with our friends throughout the world, who also believe in serving, "the people".
It is OUR responsibility to remain alert!!!!
Ya know Emily, During my 22 years of active duty in the Air Force there were a couple of times as a Senior NCO I had over 500 troops to look after. During Branch roll calls leading up to election time, my spiel to the troops preached one thing - To Vote! Preceded and and concluded with how important it was that EVERY 'Air Person' voting showed that the Air Force along with our entire Military was a force to be reckoned with. A "Force" that every elected official needed to take into consideration. I had some good troops, They got the message.
I just googled Graham Platner and what came up as the first result was a targeted attack ad website "grahamplatner.org". I was disgusted and didn't look at the whole fake content page but did see that it was paid for by SLF PAC. A quick search brought up that this is the "Senate Leadership Fund" PAC. I sent feedback citing the fake content and asked why it showed up first. My answer to why I saw this first is that it's a paid ad "ranked by factors like advertiser bid and ad quality". It shows up first in my results based on location, time of day and search history. I don't use google as my default search engine but somehow it always manages to weasel it's way back in. On the bright side, I am now aware of the SLF PAC and what they're trying to do in my state, along with other battleground states. Fired up to see that Ohio is still considered a "battleground" state since it's felt more like a state in the deep south over the past 15 years thanks to gerrymandered Republican rule.
For those interested, here is AI generated content about the SLF PAC, sourced from Wikipedia, Politico and others:
Core Facts/Leadership: The super PAC is chaired by former Sen. Cory Gardner, operating under the Senate Majority leadership of John Thune.
Fundraising: The SLF raised historic off-cycle sums, including a massive $180 million raised over the course of an off-year in tandem with its affiliated 501(c)(4) nonprofit, One Nation.
2026 Strategy: For the 2026 cycle, the SLF announced an unprecedented $342 million battle plan across eight battleground states. Ohio is the largest target, with $79 million directed toward the race there, followed by major investments in North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, Maine, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Alaska.
Operations: The PAC utilizes broad-scale strategies including broadcast/streaming advertising, targeted digital ads, direct mail, get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts, and ballot-chasing.
ThankYou!!!
Sorry I can only 'like' your significant contribution once.
You're welcome, Lin!
In Tug of War, the “center” is a line drawn on the ground, not where the flag tied halfway along the rope happens to be at any point in time.
In the same way, real centrists are not halfway between the radial left and the far right. Real conservatives protect the status quo by identifying flaws in the logic used by real progressives to support proposed changes to the status quo. Then the flaws are corrected, and the process repeats until the proposed change is at the “real center” because it is acceptable to both sides.
In other words, real centrists are inclusive of real progressives and real conservatives that only want to get to the truth. That is the solution.
The problem is people on either side of center trying to get “our” way at “their” expense.
A physician doesn't have to wait to cure the patient before curing the physician.
In the same way, the pro-democracy movement doesn't have to wait for the Republican Party to come on board to solve the problem within the pro-democracy movement.
Although one does wonder if “real conservatives” would have fought a Civil War to end slavery. Or would they have simply let the South go. One does wonder if real conservatives would have created the New Deal - which of course they did not and have been opposing it ever since. One does wonder if real conservatives would have given the vote to women before women had to fight so long and hard to get it.
Sometimes the progressives are all too right.
My first thoughts (especially after watching Heather and Paul Krugman), was about the Republican sequence of Reagan creating the huge debt, GWH Bush at least starting some recovery, despite Grover Norquist's requirements on the insistence on all of my old party taking the No New Taxes pledge, and losing to Bill Clinton, who was able to get the deficits under control enough to have a surplus the last year. Then the GW Bush administration had so fouled up the economy with tax cuts and the FERC doing nothing about the ENRON market manipulation that I was ready to support impeaching Bush by August of 2001.
The party that I left in 1996, when a highly placed fund raiser asked half a dozen of us to fight dirtier than Democrats, was doing everything they could to smear Clinton in particular, as we had more members of our own party doing as bad or worse indiscretions, and more convicted of election related crimes. They squeaked through in 2000, and 2004 when the Swiftboated Kerry which got us an extended unsustainable bubble that crashed early enough in 2008 to finally crash the system and get a Democrat elected to fix the mess my old party made.
We then got 8 years of Obama, followed by the 1st Trump road towards ruin, a good fix started under Biden, cut in its prime by the 2nd Trump even more disastrous term.
It made me wonder what it would have been like to have Herbert Hoover win reelection after Franklin Roosevelt's 1st term.
Seems we had the Business Plot during FDR's 1st term, a bit like Jan 6, 2021? I guess FDR made enough progress early enough to carry on through 1936 and through the CCC, WPA , Civilian Pilot Training program, and even the Northeastern Timber Salvage Administration to clean up the millions of downed trees from the Hurricane of 1938.
Those programs gave us masses of trained people, new aircraft which may have been just training aircraft originally (1 trainer for every 10 pilots) at any time in the training programs, and about 435,000 by the end of the war.
Funny how taking care of people in a time of need and giving them useful work prepared us to handle the biggest test of all, followed by GI Bill college educations and making a strong middle class (while also paying down massive war debt, and helping so much of the rest of the world, including former enemies and allies.
If we could do all that back then, what does this administration have for an excuse?
Real conservatives are not against change. Real conservatives are against changes that are not demonstrably improvements. Defeating the Confederacy, the New Deal, and giving women the vote are demonstrably improvements. No wonder real conservatives supported all three.
Sometimes real progressives are right, sometimes real conservatives are right, and “right makes might” when real progressives and real conservatives working together get to the truth.
"real centrists are inclusive of real progressives"
So this tug of war is a fairy tale then right?
Because the centrists have made it clear that they hate the progressives and are willing to support Trump's GOP in order to punish us for the supposed sin of not voting for Kamala (which is pretty much a lie since literally everyone I know except one held their noses and voted for the cop though we may have worn ACAB tees as we did it).
This is why the government shutdown ended. Because the centrists under Schumer decided that Israel's weapons were more important than my healthcare.
The centrists are more concerned with how the UFC claw 'looks' than they are about the people losing their SNAP, Medicaid and ACA.
And then they call me names for thinking that we should fight for better than Schumer and Jefferies.
The tug of war analogy is pretty useless when there are at least 3, if not more, factions and the centrists gave up all pretense that they will align with the left during Mamdani's election campaign and their continued constant media grind against anyone who isn't completely in AIPAC's pocket.
I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again. "Liberty and Justice for All".. this is what I was raised on. 50 years ago that made me a centrist. Today that makes me some sort of far left activist that needs to STFU.
The centrists are still fighting over whether Medicare should be able to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies while the 'progressives' are screaming that everyone should have a right to healthcare.
I wonder how many people's lives could have been saved if the billions and billions of dollars going to Iran had been added to Medicaid or Education or Transportation or SNAP instead...
Right On! BLB, Two New Yawkers more concerned with raising Wall Street money than being out front and leading for policies that can be of benefit to all the rest of us.
Where do you get your sullied conclusion that Democrats and with them independents don't GET strategic voting. We've won almost every special election up until now! You're drinking from the wrong GOP water tank to conclude that! The GOP is in the toilet of history failing to go to Trump in the manner done to Nixon and demand he resign.
"Where do you get your sullied conclusion that Democrats and with them independents don't GET strategic voting."
What I wrote: Those on the Left and in the Democratic establishment refuse to understand voting as a strategic joint exercise in taking power - and by treating voting as an individual exercise in self expression, instead help put Republicans in power.
What I ought to have specified: Many of those on the Left and in the Democratic establishment.
The biggest loser is them. I'm not sure about Platner, but he did own his lapses in judgements and mistakes. Collins has done nothing of the sort....ever. No apologies for Kavanaugh, the big beautiful bill, or Trump. Plus she is an adulterer herself. So what?
Lin, not buying the “ Democratic establishment refuse to understand voting as a strategic joint exercise in taking power”!
Exploiting the originators of hate radio, and the exploding of like minded talking heads with a podcasts the right capitalizes on fear and generates it with their false conspiracy nonsense! Brainwashing!
Leave out of that strategy!
When I see Chuck Schumer refuse to endorse Zohran Mamdani after he won the Democratic primary. And I see Schumer's hand picked candidate Janet Mills refuse to endorse Graham Platner after he won the Democratic primary - just for instance - I question the Democratic Establishment's commitment to unity at the ballot box.
Good point, Lin.
Korea itself may cease to be.
And then Taiwan.
What Some Ancient Rulers Have in Common with Trump
(From my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums:") I assume you read it, Phil.
During ancient Egyptian dynasties, monarchs often defaced or destroyed statues representing the previous ruler to erase the reputation and deeds of the former ruler. Sometimes damage was limited to facial disfigurement as with Pharaoh Senwosrett III (1878-1840 BC) whose nose was broken off because ancients believed that the life force emanates through the nose.
Trump shares this goal when renegotiating and tearing up Clinton and Obama-era treaties.
NAFTA is one such remake that removes Clinton’s name from the global trade agreement. As Politico writer Adam Behsudi quotes Lori Wallace, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch said, “For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or any other same-old, same-old trade deal.” There are no improvements -- only the removal of the Obama legacy and any other former president’s name.
This symbolic effigy-smashing of Obama extends to the Iran Nuclear Deal, to recertify to Congress every 90 days that the Iranians are complying with the rules; the Paris Climate Agreement; The Affordable Healthcare Act and all other agreements that Obama successfully negotiated regarding the environment and human rights.
In the land that I call home, tens of millions of Americans who couldn’t tell the difference between shit and Shinola, resulting in the election of a malevolent quasi-life form that makes George W. seem like Jesus, Moses, and George Washington rolled into one. Maybe our next president, if we are still electing presidents that is, will take cues from Trump and the ancients as well. A good start would be to remove any future White House portrait of him that might eventually be installed.
The garish monstrosity that is the current and soon-to-be Trump White House will need to be totally torn down and restored. Same for the city of Washington DC. It's suffered significant 'imperial stinkspread' during his reign.
No, ONLY replace the East Wing. NOT the whole house. We can funugate the rest.
it will require a very intense smudging ceremony to purge the WH of the negative energy there
Yes. The MOU Trump signed is a complete surrender to Iran, leaving Iran in a much stronger position than it was under the Obama agreement that Trump tore up. Trump now claims that the US will not contribute to the $300 billion to repair the war damage he caused in Iran that the MOU requires. In that case, I don't see why we should expect Iran to stick by the MOU either. Trump will then have lost his war and left Iran free to do as they like.
David, we have already lost the war and the lives of 13 American people - not to mention the tragic loss of Iranian children and others. We have lost a lot since one third of the country decided not to vote (or whose right to vote was stolen).
Yup, have read it, Bill.
And in four weeks I'm in U.S., so can go to my bank and get a check cut to repay you. (Don't know why bank site now doesn't allow new payees for online payment.)
Thank you I was going to ask you about that. I do Venmo just to be clear. I need to get past that book and ready my manuscript, “Katz on Cats and Other Animal Tails.” A more delightful topic.
Good luck, Bill.
Well Bill, maybe we should leave his portrait as a reminder of what we don’t want to see again. But let’s definitely clean up the algae and other remnants of his ego driven remake of our sacred shrines.
Unlike former Presidents, he put his name and face on monuments all over the place. But his name came off the Kennedy Center. It's a start.
Shinola shoe polish went out of business in 1960. I'm surprised to see it mentioned.
Yes, a "band of oligarchs." Here at home, I recommend the book, "Democracy in Chains" by Nancy MacLean, about "the radical right's stealth plan for America."
Richard Sutherland, I read “Democracy in Chains” years ago. As a UNC-CH alum, wrote to Nancy MacLean the time to ask if she, a professor at Duke, could persuade the university to rescind Steven Miller’s degree. She replied that she could not. Now I wonder if some of the “visiting scholars” at Duke are there to protect the Tobacco University from their folly.
I LOVE your thinking, Virginia. How could an institution of higher learning of the caliber of UNC at Chapel Hill produce something as vile, demented and cruel as a Stephen Miller? Miller is only one, to be sure, but he represents a large segment of the Trump group, which includes Nick Fuentes, who is decidedly an extreme male chauvinist and racist. The "enemy within" includes the extreme white Christian Nationalists who are supported and urged on by the ultra wealthy in this country, the goal being to reduce us to nothing more than a feudalistic system, a mere fiefdom. with white Christian theocracy as our form of government. This isn't hyperbole.
Steven Miller is Jewish.
Nick Fuentes is an Antisemite.
Go figure!
Clearly some sort of derangement syndrome. Fuentes is also a misogynist. But, so is Miller and the whole stinking lot of them. All of this will give future Ph.D. candidates a plethora of material for their dissertations. That's assuming that we win this war.
Richard, the rivalry between the two schools when I was there—was in part based on history (UNC, closed after Native American attacks, was founded before Harvard; Duke is Doris Duke’s tobacco money) and was intense. Although there may be a blot on the UNC escutcheon that I don’t know about, suspect that the tobacco university with Miller, takes the prize.
I got it. I got my B,A, in political science and history from Whittier College, Richard Nixon's alma mater. He, Margaret Chase Smith and Bob Hope were at our graduation ceremonies in 1965. Senator Smith was the commencement speaker. Her theme focused on the decline of personal responsibility, the suppression of independent thought and the danger of group conformity in American society and higher education.
Virginia, I take it you are referring to UNC as the first established public school of higher learning, but not preceding Harvard’s founding over 150 years earlier, correct?
A notable list Phil, thanks.
Everything he touches turns to dust strikes again, proof keeps coming in Aces.
Vote every Republican out… that they were complicit in every death resulting is a given, that they should be forever banned from public office , and the main and the numerous jailed…is without doubt. That we will spend another fortune cleaning up this mess should fall squarely on the rich duffs who kissed his …ahhh …ring? Absolutely is demanded.
A grand apology should be due ….to the rest of the world.
But for the utmost action ..the sanctions restored as well as doubled …to the dictators he so admired plus……
for those names we asked you to …”remember” …jail time, long sentences, because
IT WAS TREASON!
See also Anne Applebaum’s Kleptocracy, Inc.
The phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” comes to mind.
Mr. Trump has given DEMs the best campaign message for the midterm. Let's store America's national pride.
A good & key point, Phil: Illustrating the need to help more people see the need to boycott and turn away from oligopolist’s toxicity and turn toward cooperative & regenerative systems. <> Jim Stewartson has an excellent, current post about the unrestrained mania of the Broligarch wing of the Epstein class. It sums up with “We earthlings have a choice. We can take a hard look at our lust for eternal growth and build a new system that prioritizes a sustainable planet and healthy population, or we can submit to the will of capitalists who want to extract all the resources from Earth, including human intelligence, for themselves,” <> https://jimstewartson.substack.com/p/spacex-ai-and-the-opium-of-capitalism?r=41pd0&utm_medium=ios <> Thing is, we have the resources to build regenerative systems but the concept of cooling & balancing the Earth and people as partners is mostly suppressed by mainstream media, owned by fascist mafia state oligarchs who created the conditions for Trumpism / MAGA bovine fecal matter. <> David Graeber & David Wengrow document the obscurred Western civ. history of North American (Turtle Island) native people leaders critique of exploitive European philosophy in dialogs in comparison to 10,000 years of Native Planetarity & subsidiarty system of organization. The records of early 17th century French Jesuit missionaries present when French fur traders first artived. Summary notes of Jesuit dialog with Native leaders filtered back through commercial fishing logs and influenced Enlightenment thought leaders like Voltaire & Rossesu. This type of thing inspired Pope Francis’ thinking & reviewing & validating liberation theology ad a reflection of ancient Earth/People traditions in Central & South America: Their peaceful partnership with Earth & subsidiarity method of civic & sustainable survival economics organization. He clearly explained it in his executive summary of Querida Amazonia. <> Using all of our technoligy, including AI, we can boycott toxic fascist mafia domination while building new regenerrative paradigms like those advocated by John Elkington in his book, Green Swans and through his Volans organization. + in the book, Planetarity by Blake & Gilman. They note how subsidiarty; enabling the lowest competent level to find practical solutions became a central organizing tenet of the early Church. <> I write on building grassroots level working models based on the geography of drainage basins: Port Dorchester series of essays.
It's painful to react with a "Like heart" to this horrifying statement.
I believe you may be simplifying the situation with Putin. He has his hands full with Ukraine. More than full. In fact, Russia is on the cusp of losing (one hesitates to go further than that, but still). Russian oil refineries are being bombed daily, Crimea is virtually cut off, Ukrainian cruise missiles dominate the sky. Russian generals are experiencing sudden automobile explosions far from the front lines. One could make a very convincing argument that Putin is much weaker now than at practically anytime before.
Many outcomes are unknowable until they actually take place. Putin might have reasoned that President Dementia Doofus was such a lost cause that everything he touched would still turn to shit. But he might have been as surprised as anybody to find out just how incompetent Doofus actually was. Russians have long been accustomed to seeing America ready at the wheel, acting at least half-way smart about its responsibilities as the "indispensable power" to the world. I'm willing to bet our sheer incompetence and fuckupery in Iran took even Putin by surprise.
Iran has supplied Russia with drones during its war with Ukraine and Russia reciprocated by offering Iran satellite intelligence on the location of US bases in the region, some of which were hit by Iranian missiles and drones injuring 400 service personnel. The US inexplicably dismissed concerns about this collusion saying that it had not affected its operations.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/09/us-ignoring-evidence-russia-is-helping-iran-because-it-trusts-putin-says-zelenskyy
The Russian economy is literally running on fumes now from its gas and oil reserves. It's civilian economy is so battered that Russia has had to recruit workers from abroad to replace men sent the front. Putin has even had to resort to asking oligarchs to chip in to the war effort.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/26/putin-asks-oligarchs-to-donate-to-russias-dwindling-defence-budget
His visit to China hot on the heels of Trump's visit failed to secure agreement to his proposed Siberia 2 gas pipeline project. I find it interesting that those two beleaguered authoritarians (Trump and Putin) should both go cap-in-hand to Xi for economic support, an indication of the decline of each power.
"chip in" is an understatement. Stolen is more like it.
But yes, Russia is running on fumes. Moscow and St. Petersburg have both had refineries and oil storage facilities hit by Ukrainian drones. And keep in mind, that the airspace around the Moscow refineries and storage facilities is among the most difficult air space to attack through in the world. And the Ukrainians have done it.
And they have almost cut off Crimea where there is around.a 5 gallon limit per customer at the pumps. Diesel deliveries to the military vehicles is being made from tanks in the trunk of cars on the front.
Putin's best way out is death by oligarch. His preferred method of taking out his enemies is death from a 10th floor window. Video at 11...
Did not Musk withdraw the satellite coverage of his Starlink to Ukraine? That act let alone ‘itself’ should be a war crime…
So Iran defeats the US. Ukraine defeats Russia. What's the world coming to...
Russia is selling its oil to India and China. Huge markets.
ICTT, one of Trump's few allies and dare I say, friends is Putin. He talks to him several times a month at least. Of course, none of us are privy to any of these conversations, which likely verge on treason. Ukraine is kicking Russia's ass right now having bombed the refinery outside Moscow that supplies around 1/3 of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel used in Moscow. Trump promised us that within 24 hours the war in Ukraine would be over.
So if Putin is eliminated in Russia and Bibi is taken out in Israel and with Orban already gone, then what strongman does Trump latch onto? And how will that make his Project 2025 cronies look that have fashioned their entire plan on having an autocrat like Trump in charge?
Trump will not survive Putin or Netanyahu--I will put money on that.
Why are we hesitant to call relationship between Putin and Trump treason? Russia was, and is, an enemy of democracy. Also, after Obama and other allies negotiated with Iran, the U.N. monitored Iran regularly to ensure it was not building a nuclear weapon. UN and allies play a role in all this. And they should. As for Iran charging for use of Straight of Hormuz, are there charges to use Suez Canal? Do rules over international waters only apply to fishing? With all due respect to the G7, other key players not represented at G7. Everybody represented at UN. This international forum needs to be front and center. Why isn't it? If Israel continues to bomb Lebanon and starve Palestine, sanctions should be used to enforce peace if Netanyahu does not comply. It's not a religious argument. War mongers out, peace in.
Trump thinks that with the others gone, he'll be "The Man?"
You lost me at "Trump thinks" 😎
Good one!
Yes, as I was reading your post the thought that came to my mind was "sheer incompetence," and then, there it is, in black and white. We are now at the bottom in terms of intelligence, experience, education and competency among our government personnel responsible for foreign affairs. Well, add a dose of stupidity. The "enemy" is definitely "inside the gates." Nancy MacLean does an excellent job of detailing it in her book, "Democracy in Chains."
Time to read it ("Democracy in Chains") again, although I don't remember how it ends...
MaryPat: suggestion - read the last chapter, "Conclusion: Get Ready." It is an excellent summary. The book was published in 2017. All of this that we are now experiencing did not come about by accident: it has all been engineered. As one looks back at it, one can see the effort to push the Christian agenda forward with charter schools and more.
Old age is coming on rapidly. How in hell did I fail to mention Barbara McQuade's books, "Attack from Within" and "The Fix." Grrr. All of this leaves no doubt: we are now living in a time where the actions that are won and/or lost will affect this nation and nation's around the world for decades, even perhaps hundreds of years, to come. We're back to the 18th century. The war between capital and labor, democracy vs. authoritarianism, is on-going. [Note: I had just finished reading the last chapter of Nancy MacLean's book - that's my explanation for the oversight of Ms. McQuade's excellent work.] These ladies, HCR, included, are brilliant, and yet there is a movement within the Far Right that wants to abolish the 19th Amendment and return us to a male-dominated society and culture. As a note, IMO, the most qualified person ever to run for the U.S. presidency by dent of intelligence, experience and training was Hillary Rodham Clinton. We blew it in 2016.
Barbara McQuade, Michigan's Best!
Richard, your comment brings to mind that misogynous patriarchy originates way back in the Middle Eastern religions, both Islam and Judaism, which begat Christianity.
As those religions, evolved, mutated and spread, so did misogynous patriarchy.
I cannot think of any Indigenous spiritual system that incorporates misogyny. Perhaps I'm not well enough educated on Indigenous spiritual systems.
“Their cause, they say, is liberty. But by that they mean the insulation of private property rights from the reach of government—and the takeover of what was long public (schools, prisons, western lands, and much more) by corporations, a system that would radically reduce the freedom of the many. In a nutshell, they aim to hollow out democratic resistance. And by its own lights, the cause is nearing success.”—Nancy MacLean, “Democracy in Chains”
The American wealthy and well-connected are doing a very effective job of gobbling up all of the money that the people produce. The New York Times recently published this: The New York Times
Your comment has been approved!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with The New York Times community.
Richard | Florida
The Democrats need to promote a new New Deal, the form of government that created a huge Middle Class, which was destroyed, beginning with Reagan, by the ultra wealthy, stripping $39 trillion out of the economy. Frances Perkins, FDR's Sec. of Labor and the person most responsible for our having Social Security said it best: "The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to facilitate the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life." It is the people who create wealth. If the U.S. population were only 3.4 million people, there might not be any billionaires. But the U.S. population is 340 million people, so we have 1100 billionaires. We need a redistribution plan in place, similar to what they have in the Scandinavian countries, i.e., Pragmatic Capitalism.
Elect an unstable conman and drifter, and this is what we get.
Dear BBB: You failed to include the "C" word: Corrupt, contemptible crock of crap.
Just to make it all a bit stranger, unlike Iran Putin already has a nuclear weapon, we have a nuclear weapon, in WWII Germany had a plan and an amazingly disaplined and armed military. Finally, finally, finally the proof is obvious. Right is Might and Might isn't Right Let's keep throwing bazillions of dollars at our Dept of War. But that would ruin our really not so great economy. Our leaders keep acting like they are the stars of action hero movies and comic books. We badly need a reset. When will we come to our senses or are we all like the woman who plead in the NYT about how we should have room in our lives for people to have a good time at UFC fights at the White House because she just couldn't possibly say no to her 12 and 15 year old boys when the tickets were free? She is raising the next generation! OMG my head hurts.
Martha, do you have a link to the NYT article or opinion or LTE about this woman? The NYT is so vast that merely searching it is both time-consuming and, eventually, fruitless.
And no, "lady," we DON'T need to make room in our lives (especially not at the White Trash House f/k/a the White House) for a trashy "event" for ugly people to watch other ugly people do ugly things to one another - to say nothing of providing a platform for the objectively ugly people to say ugly things about objectively beautiful people who are not only not present but who have done nothing to them at all in their entire lives. Not ever. Do better: teach your boys NOT to be violent, foul-mouthed thugs.
Yes, ICTT, Trump appears to be a “lost cause,” but my ears perked up when I read a recent thought by Adam Kinzinger. He basically indicated that the $300B in the Iranian Reparations Account (IRA - my name for it) will go into the pockets of Trump, Kushner, Witkoff….etc. Something to keep an eye on!
Of course it will. Everything Trump does is for Trump and his billionaire pals.
Same as all the donations made for his ridiculous ballroom by Bezos, Zuckerberg, et al. trump 'encouraged' them all to 'donate' knowing from the start that all that money would end up in his own bank account.
No question that trump has questionable brain power but from where I'm sitting he seems to be thinking straight: to stem an economic disaster, and to end this mess that can only get worse. Someone in Israel said that Trump is Israel's worst enemy. He should stick to that....it has to be damn near impossible considering the forces that want war to continue.
. He has to stay strong. We'll see if he can do that. If so, give the man his Nobel Peace Prize.
What I have been predicting is a False Flag attack the Mossad, and prob. the CIA, is planning for NYC or D.C....with Iranian "fingerprints" all over it.
Maybe they will assassinate trump....not Iran, like the lies we have seen in the past year, but good ole predictable Israel.
Trump stated this mess! He didn’t have to bomb Iran! There was no imminent threat of a nuclear weapon!
Trump needed to get the Epstein files off the news cycle!
That’s your idea of thinking straight?
He started the economic disaster!
Wake up Judith!
You are not looking ahead.
You are looking behind at a bunch of facts that now have nothing to do with results.
A Peace Prize for ending a war he started? Right out of the Narcissist's Playbook: Create chaos, sweep in to clean it up, look like a hero. Chapter Five, I think.
ICTT, you said “fuckupery”✌️
“Dementia Doofus”, first laugh of the day and sadly correct,while professionally I am aware what this entails, make no mistake that he used it to mask a sadistic narcissism.
Thank you ICTT, well stated.
ICCT, hoping you’re right about this. I’ve been begging for reports on P/T phone calls, but maybe the “voice” on this end has ceased.
That's why this win was so important to him. He knew trump would be the loser, and that weakens America, one of his foes.
You nailed Putin's role in this
Some possible alternatives to the MOU?
1. Democratic members of Congress ask SCOTUS to say the MOU is unconstitutional because it has not been ratified by a 2/3 majority of the Senate, so it commits the US to nothing, and then a Democratic majority negotiates a new deal after the midterms with bipartisan support.
2. We turn tail and get US forces out of range as soon as possible, and the Trump regime has mass amnesia about Trump's signing. I think Macron got his signature to keep Europe from having to pick up the $300B reconstruction tab, likely by asking him to autograph a fake UFC fight card as a souvenir.
3. We watch Bibi break the deal and see Iran come back with even more cards for the next phase of negotiations. Iran retaliates against Israel, and we get to see how well the Iron Dome works against mass drone attacks, saving enough by avoiding a bad investment in our own Golden Dome version of the technology, to provide Iran with the reconstruction funds. The average US taxpayer is screwed either way.
4. The US walks away from the deal, and the UN Security Council condemns us as an aggressor state. The US vetoes the resolution. Trump's feelings are hurt, so he walks out of NATO and the UN. Putin chokes while laughing uproariously while eating caviar on blin.
Feel free to add more possibilities.
PS Following up on yesterday, as an example of the potential for fraud, Polymarket resolved the "US x Iran permanent peace deal by June 15?" and all similar contracts with later dates as YES!
Here are the criteria that they said had to be met:
This market will resolve to “Yes” if Iran and the United states agree to a permanent peace deal by the specified date, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to “No”.
A permanent peace deal refers to any agreement which explicitly indicates that military hostilities between the United States and Iran have ended or will permanently cease, or uses equivalent language clearly signaling a lasting end to military hostilities between the United States and Iran. Agreements that are explicitly temporary or which do not include a definitive agreement to end military hostilities between the US and Iran on a lasting basis (e.g. a temporary extension of the two-week ceasefire agreement announced on April 7, 2026), will not qualify.
A qualifying agreement will be considered to have been established if either of the following conditions are met:
- The United States and Iran each sign or formally adopt a written agreement (e.g. a treaty or multi-point agreement) which meets the above criteria.
- Both the governments of the United States and Iran provide clear public confirmation that a qualifying agreement has been definitively established. Negotiations, statements of progress, or other statements which do not constitute a definitive announcement that a qualifying agreement has been reached will not count.
The primary resolution source for this market will be official information from the governments of the United States and Iran; however, a consensus of credible reporting may also be used.
There was a dispute over the resolution on the meaning of "permanent." You can read the details at the link below. According to Polymarket the MOU is "permanent". $345 million was contested over all the outstanding future contract dates. During an active UMA dispute, contracts remain open for trading, so positions continued to shift through at least June 16–17. The price of YES shares as of June 14 was sitting around 23.8% before the weekend announcement, then surged toward resolution territory — and the contract now shows 100% Yes as the current outcome.
https://thenextweb.com/news/polymarket-345-million-iran-peace-deal-dispute-uma-whale-voting
Georgia, you laid everything out on the table beautifully. It is a losing proposition for America and for Americans. All negotiated by losers.
I don't see a win in the cards for the USA.
Do we just keep fighting for Israel's causes?
Encourage Israel to ignite a few dozen of their secret nuclear bombs on Iran to take it to the Stone Age?
Did you see the story about the Cardinal who read the names of every child that has died in Gaza in the recent past. It took him over 7 hours to read the names.
Bibi is a war criminal, Trump is a war criminal, Putin is a war criminal.
The world will be a better place when the three of them are dead.
hitler is dead. Alas, someone took his place.
The human race is a war criminal...it's just a matter of who's got the most and biggest weapons.
Right now I am focused on "home": Us and Israel.
I have The Criterion Chanel and last night watched: "Suburban Fury"
trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iDaPkpWXo
"Suburban Fury is a gripping portrait of Sara Jane Moore, a single mother from suburban San Francisco who, in 1975, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
More than a historical retelling, the film is an intimate character study — and a chilling mirror of America’s ideological divide. Framed around unprecedented access to Moore herself, it unfolds as a first-person monologue shot across the Bay Area sites where her radicalization took root. Blending rare archival footage with a stylized imagined exchange between Moore and her FBI handler, Suburban Fury traces her transformation from patriotic volunteer for the Patty Hearst rescue, and government informant to disillusioned revolutionary with a gun in her hand.'"
It sums up a lot about the America most of us never paid attention to.
What our government was doing was none of our business.
"It was overturning socialist leaders to save us from Communism"
Chile had voted in Allende; we had $150,000,000 corp. interests at risk.........so
Versailles is where fascists surrender.
We vote these corrupt embarrassing people out of office and the same day start legal proceedings to indict them Judith.
It didn't start w/ trump. It started with the powers that are behind any Presidential throne. The CIA, the uber-wealthy, AIPAC , military industries, ..what am I missing?
Now, attacking Iran has exposed the essence of Amerika and its attack dog Israel. It's a joke really. We were chugging along, benefitting from our wealth in the only un-bombed out country after WW2 with the industrial revolution offering opportunities for anyone, even poor Blacks from the south...who were still in slavery.
Our wealth got used to invade, topple, make wars on anyone we conceived as a potential threat...to keep our corporations rich w/ their resources.
Made up stories convinced the boys to go fight and die.
I think we have to fail to a point of defeat. Economic defeat. Why have we set our sights on the 2 other powerful countries? I don't know about Russia because I don't trust the BS and haven't had time to study it. But China just wants to do business.
We should be grateful to Iran. FINALLY! We did something that in an asymmetric fight, we are losing. We deserve to lose.
I watched 9/11 from 2 miles north. THAT was an event we earned. Then we royally fked up the "rescue". Then we attacked Iraq for Israel using the excuse of 9/11.
I hope trump succeeds in handing over to Iran their sovereignty. If he does, it will be a miracle. It goes against everything we stand for: Imperialism, being ruled by Zionists....Not giving a damn about people in other countries.
no, stop supporting Israel's causes. It's genocide. Their regime is nothing good but war mongers, with Zionist expansionist plans for the Middle East.
Right now it seems that most people (apart from the nutters - Israel, MAGA and the IRGC) are just relieved that they can look forward to the resumption of commercial shipping in the Gulf. No one really cares about the humiliation the US has suffered due to this stupid war. Even Democrat Chris Murphy, a constant critic of the war, has called the MOU a "necessary disaster".
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a hoot if we're humiliated. Don't we deserve to be? Don't we need to be taken down a peg or two after all the war crimes (starting in Viet Nam) we've been given a pass for? All the bullying we've done? (The current guy just does it unapologetically,) I've loved my country, took an oath to serve my country as a Foreign Service Officer long ago now, and try to be a good, voting, attention-paying citizen always. We sabotage democratically-held elections, underwrite despots, and allow official corruption to flourish right under our noses. We have great accomplishments to be proud of in our history. We have so much to be grateful for. But our current humiliation is deserved.
THAT is why I say, STOP saying Trump is a loser.
Amerika is the loser. Finally! Thank God! Starting to cut ties with Israel....now, they consider trump as their worst enemy. It didn't take much, did it? Eventually, Israel was going to throw the USA under the bus. They, in their mistaken interpretation of being the Chosen People, view all gentiles, non-Zionists, as Amalek. Dirt under their feet.
I was the same as you except for never serving as a Foreign Service Officer. Just a proud American, never missing an election.
That has changed.
America has lost and in that losing we may gain something. If this loss makes more evident to the world our president's unfitness for office, then we've won something. If it breaks Congress's willingness to fund Israel's genocidal warfare, we've won. If it leads in the future, under a more informed Administration willing to open genuine negotiations with Iran instead of some attempt to subjugate them, we've gained something.
Unless Iran continues to charge tolls. The MOU only says it won’t charge them for 60 days. Nothing about after that.
Plus Iran is floating that they won’t charge “tolls” but “service fees.”
If trump can follow through, for God's sake stop calling him a loser.
It was an impossible race, but the winner limped in to the finish line......
He won.
Hey Judith, how about Trump pleads insanity, quits, and goes to live at your house where you both drink more kool aid together?
Trump got played, and he lost...that confirms him as a lifetime loser again.
The worst president ever.
Trump lost the war with Iran the minute we fired the first shot.
175 school girls dead, at least 13 Americans dead and hundreds wounded, many schools and hospitals in Iran bombed, over $40 billion in US missiles, fuel, ammo wasted, farmer's without fertilizer this year, Americans losing hundreds of billions in additional gasoline costs, inflation at 4.2% and rising.
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one Judy. Trump is a loser.
I like the part where he quits.
...the rest is silly talk and old news.
The USA lost. Finally!
Trump, whom we all hate, is just the fall guy.
This has been going on for decades.
It could be a win for humanity.
Trump totally lost. We’re worse off than before.
Understatement of the Millennium Frau Katze. He lost it on day one when he decided that wasting billions of American dollars and lives was worth whatever the fuck winning looked like to him. This War, Venezuela, Greenland, Canada, etc. is all about stealing natural resources (mostly oil) from other countries. His Art of the Deal relies on murder, stealing and starving.
Frau Katze,
We are Better off. We are losing to the winner. We may be even cutting ties with our "ally" Israel..
The world order has shifted, as it inevitably was going to...This just put it in high gear.
No Judith, he is a terrible statesman and person.
There you go:preaching to the choir.
99.99% of Heather's subscribers say that all the time.
Better to embroider it on your jacket for the world to know how you feel about our dead leader.
Biden was better? Bush was better? All the presidents have been doing to bidding of the real powers. Even our lovely Obama toed the line.
We only get perturbed when gas prices go up, not when toddlers are being targeted by the IDF??
trump knocked a goal in his own net! Come on! You can see that right? He started an unnecessary war, killed 13 American military personnel and numerous Iranians. And got a worse deal!!! Why? Because his sociopathic malignant narcissism has to destroy everything his predecessor did.
Trump the Gold Cup Liar can spin it into a win!
Appropriate line.
What if Trump loved renewable energy like he loves fossil fuel? No war with Iran. No BS about Canada becoming the 51st state, no killing innocent fishermen in boats in the Caribbean, no talk about Greenland.
Of course, Trump would still be cray-cray and love his insane tariffs that have been declared illegal by SCOTUS, but Trump still rages on.
What if Trump loved renewable energy? What if pigs could fly?
Sorry, I had a lame Borowitz moment.....
5. Bibi sabotages the deal by disclosing new material on T and other officials.T says he is no longer deeply in love with Bibi as he is with Egyptian Prez Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.He continues to target legislators seeking release of Epstein Files.The average US taxpayer is screwed either way.
There is a former Israeli intelligence officer who is claiming Netanyahu will try to sabotage the Iran peace deal by disclosing Epstein materials targeting Trump and other officials.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1406141-former-israeli-spy-bombshell-claims-netanyahu-has-secret-weapon-to-sabotage-us-iran-peace-deal
Please see above my piece “What Some Ancient Rulers Have in Common with Trump.” From my book.
It is strange. Russia and Iran are friends. Russia and America are friends. The friend of my friend is also my friend. So why did we bomb Iran in the first place? We made them our enemy by bombing and killing their leaders. And now we want to be their friend again. And give them a lot of our citizens' money. Strange.
Russia and America are not friends, no matter how much Donnie Doofus wants it to be so. As to why we bombed Iran -- the answers are not complicated, though many search for complexity.
It's the black guy. You know. The guy who made fun of Donnie way back in 2011, the guy with the terrific family, the Harvard Law graduate. That black guy. The handsome, popular, kind one. The one who served two consecutive terms in the White House. Him hates the black guy. Him hates everything black guy did. That's why he tore up the JCPOA to begin with -- it was the black guys JCPOA. It's why he stole somebody else's Nobel Peace Prize. (Him got Nobel, why not MEEE?) His daughter got into Harvard, but MY son didn't! (sob).
Remember that the pee-pee tapes accused Trump of hiring prostitutes to pee in the bed the Obamas slept in in Moscow. With anybody else, I would have filed this one under 'too-ridiculous-to-be-true.' But with Trump? Made perfect, weird, Freudian sense.
With Donnie shit-for-brains, this is what's most important. Not foreign policy. Him no understand or care much about policy. It's about what goes on in his small, pissy, petty, whinybitchy, teeny-tiny little, spite-filled, revenge-fantasy-obsessed brain.
Not what I'd read in a psychological analysis, but on target in layman's terms.
Perfectly stated!
ICTT, as Carole Langston implies, your comment is not a comprehensive psychological analysis of Donald, but you do identify an important component.
If Donald's psyche were a pie chart, his racism would be represented by a wedge more than 40% of the pie. Barack Obama would fill two-thirds of that wedge.
Racism is perhaps the icing on the cake. The cake itself is an abiding, life-long insecurity. He co-splays a phony strongman and leader to cover up the reality of being a tiny, whiny little piss-ant, penny-ante putz he's always been.
Right on!
Iran has been our enemy since 1953 when we overthrew the democratically ellected President Mosadegh and installed Pahlavi.
Spot-on Julius.
BTW, "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
12,750 ratings — published 2003 — 50 editions"
Repeat, fifty (50) Editions.
I recall upon settling in Florence, Italy in 1977, the first acquaintance I made was with a street peddler in the markets named Sammy, who was an Iranian that escaped the Iranian military conscription. Not unlike I would have had my Nixon lotto number been low the year I was eligible to be drafted. I think it was 1972. My number was high but I knew I would have gone to Canada or Sweden had I been drafted.
Funny thing Bill. I was drafted in 70. By December my brand new lotto number was high up over 300. I wouldn’t have been scooped up at all. What two different Americans think they would have to do is a choice most of the world would not find available. Myself I would have followed the law been drafted and gone not only to chronicle the war but more importantly to myself to understand in no uncertain terms what my generation was suffering through, a time of division much like adult Americans face today. Although made of salami one and all we get sliced into a million pieces and repackaged as cohesion when in truth we are sandwiches and pizza and such. The real problem wth the draft was that some of us were steak and untouchable while salami was asked to carry the day. Nothing has changed except steak keeps getting more rare.
and expensive!
On the contrary, we have been Iran's enemy.
We've used every method, mostly hard power, to harm them...hoping they would be forced back on their knees.
If Iran was left alone, it would be a major true power in that region, not one dependent on subsidies from Uncle Sam.
THAT is very threatening to Israel. I am sure Israel will never stop trying to destroy them.
BTW: one factor important to China, Russia and that region is the new "silk road" that goes right through Iran. Iran is the hub. They are not helping Iran just to get back at us. It's a key economic benefit that, gee, we can't allow That to happen.
I agree with everything that you've written here. When I said Iran has been our enemy the meaning is, we are enemies. You're right, Iran could be a major power in that region and they almost certainly would have been a democracy and a friend, if we hadn't sided with the British and overthrown Mosadegh. And even now, we obviously haven't learned the lesson.
I have traveled long terms (5-6-7 months) in a lot of countries: solo, budget. It's a wonder to me that they are so nice to an American.
I heard that Iran was wonderful and the people so friendly; I wish I had gone there but I thought it was against the "rules"...like Cuba.
In the future, it could be a wonderful tourist attraction...but , I never considered myself a tourist.
One problem for American "tourists": I'll bet bars are few. If at all.
In India there were no women in bars and if I bought a bottle, I was the only female in the store.
During his 38-year reign, the Shah undoubtedly had difficult relations with the US but I don't think that they would have regarded him as an enemy. The enmity against the US begins with the Iranian revolution in 1979.
The Coup change to Pahlavi was a joint UK, CIA operation headquartered on the island of Cyprus & included well funded & intense disinformation tactics apparently still working.
26-year reign, Russell (1953-79).
And you forget the Shah's use of his SAVAK -- state terror secret police he used outside the law to arrest, torture, and disappear so many decent Iranians that the larger body of people stewed in resentments against Pahlavi.
Worse, all Iranians knew that SAVAK was financed, trained, and armed by the U.S. C.I.A. It was the accumulation of these anti-U.S. resentments that led to the Shah's overthrow in '79, and the people's enthusiastic embrace of popular alternative to the capitalists' torturing secret police regime.
Good old Ike and the Republicans. That time they blamed Carter!
True. However some in the US were beginning to become disaffected because the Shah's oppression of his people, and their opposition to him, was growing. The US misjudged how much of the opposition was grounded in the opposition to the Shah's attempt to impose western ways that were in conflict with Muslim tradition and beliefs.
No, the Shah's government most likely considered the U.S. a friend and ally. The people who elected Mosadegh surely didn't see things that way. And of course, the Islamists considered the U.S. and Britain as the main enemy. That hatred of America began well before the revolution.
You are missing the most important point. Now Trump gets to build his golf course in the Middle East. Problem solved!
"Friends? Friends? We don't need no stinkin' friends!"
I seriously doubt this. The Gulf states have been trying to use their fossil fuel wealth to create new hubs for tourism, international banking, cutting-edge technology as well as major sports events. I suspect that all that is over now because of the war and the continued looming threat of Iran. They mostly all blame Trump because he started the war and failed to protect them as he had promised.
Yeah, that WAS intended as slightly sarcastic. I generally agree with you. Trump shot himself (and the country) in the head with this "war" and he didn't miss as badly as that guy did a year ago.
Trump insists that not one cent of US money will go towards the so-called investment plan for Iran. He's expecting the Gulf states to make up the lion's share of this fund and they've lost around $150bn during this war. None of these powers can be called 'friends', they just sometimes have common interests. Trump doesn't have any friends.
But, then again - trump insisted not one cent of tax payers money would go towards the ball room.
How's THAT working out?
Exactly! When it comes to money we can't believe a single thing he says. As Americans have become poorer due to exploding prices, he and his family have become billions of dollars richer.
"Americans have become poorer due to exploding prices"?
Yes, true enough, laurie. But for causality's sake we needn't settle for the logic of testing, which always insists on one answer only -- and never permits complexity to enter.
But let's just venture another truth, that Americans have gotten poorer over many years of the billionaires always getting Republican tax breaks for them, and reduction of pro-public regulations, and both Dem and Republican eagerness to let corporations more, more consolidate and monopolize (Dems and Republicans ever pocketing more, more $$$ in pay-offs for their voting for the rich).
Completely agree
. . .for causality's sake we needn't settle for the logic of testing, . . ."
Oh, my, and holy f-ing god, Mr. Balla! Why do you perseverate so adamantly your elaborate, false, and egregious 'testing' narrative beginning with Powell, embracing a half dozen or more fanciful elements of shared responsibility and blame in between, and ending with Ravitch?? Your "scholarly" sins are at least the equal of Trump's sophomoric MOU language . . .
Borrowing a quote from Joseph Welch 72 years ago "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Stop paying attention to anything trump says.
Not just strange. Totally incompetent.
Bibi talked him into it. But that’s no excuse. Trump thought he could replicate Venezuela: replace one autocrat with another more pliable one. But that failed.
It was a gift. Maybe...this will change our devotion to Israel.
Adam Kinzinger posted on Facebook a rather tidy opinion concerning Trump's illegal war. In it, he also posts a poem he says was one of John Boehner's favorites and cited at times. Republicans by and large have been the central problem that led to this war 4 months ago. However, Kinzinger makes no bones about who's to blame when it comes to this side of the Atlantic. The poem speaks to the wrecking of a building which took years, time and effort to build. However, there were Additional outside forces that contributed to the "wrecking." The State of Israel, for its complicity, will have much for which to answer. Like the onlooker who cares not a whit of what happens to the building, Netanyahu and his goons looked on, egged on, and participated in this destructive mode which was completely unnecessary. It is the actions of Israel, primarily, why the Iranians, most likely within their own discussions, would very much like to go nuclear. Frankly, I don't blame them; Israel is a nuclear weapons state: why not Iran? Israel refused to be part of the NPT while Iran signed on to it. As Trump has torn up the JCPOA agreement, Iran is within its rights to tear up the NPT agreement to which it is a signatory. So typical of Trump and Netanyahu (both now who are at odds with each other) to want their cake and eat it too. Trump can't afford to eat cake; this lesson will most likely do him in sooner than he believes. As for Netanyahu, his nation is flailing and failing. It may be that he experiences the Nicolae Ceaușescu moment. One can only hope.
In part, Kinzinger writes:
"I keep coming back to a poem that John Boehner used to quote. The poem paints a picture of the struggle he and other establishment Republicans like myself were waging against the people in our own party who were tearing the institution apart from the inside. We were constantly at odds with the members who would shut down the government, blow up a negotiation, or torch a coalition, not because they had a better plan. But because breaking things is easy and it got them on television. The poem goes like this:
'I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.
I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
The kind you’d hire if you had to build?”
He gave a laugh and said, “No indeed!
Just common labor is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do.”
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
Which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds by a well-made plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor of tearing down?'
The line that haunts me: 'I can easily wreck in a day or two what builders have taken a year to do.'
The JCPOA — the Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore up — was not a perfect agreement. I had real concerns about it, and I said so at the time. But it was the product of years of painstaking work by career diplomats from seven countries, built on a foundation of sanctions architecture that had taken a decade to construct and required the sustained cooperation of allies who were not naturally inclined to follow America’s lead. It capped Iran’s uranium enrichment. It established an inspection regime. It delayed, meaningfully, Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. It took years to build.
And it took one signature to wreck.
I served in Congress with the people Boehner was quoting that poem about. I watched the Tea Party wave come in, watched members who had no interest in governing use the institution as a stage for performances that were never going to produce results. I watched Boehner try to hold together a conference that contained within it the seeds of its own destruction."
One can go to Kinzinger's Facebook page to read his full opinion.
Thank you so much for this.
Why does the Iranian regime continue to insist “Death to Israel” and “Death to America”?
Why does Iran fund Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israel? Iran also funds Hamas.
You’re being awfully one-sided here. I’m not defending Netanyahu but Iran is far from innocent.
Their attempt to “export” their “revolution” has also destabilized many Middle Eatern countries, including Lebanon and Iraq. They also fund the Houthis, who attack Saudi Arabia.
As a complete aside, I'd have thought that a non-voting but tax-paying, mostly illiterate-in-English, mostly unskilled (for a given value of "unskilled"), "illegal" (i.e., undocumented resident of the US) and therefore terrified-of-deportation, labor force would have been a republiConfederate's dream come true.
It also enriched Russia. Remember, Russia exports oil and the price of a barrel of oil is important to Putin. He gains a lot from having his lackey attack Iran. Consider the weaponry America used that won't be going to Ukraine. When the first bombs fell, Putin was no doubt rubbing his hands in glee.
This is also true.
Ukraine is still kicking ass even without US help. The furious Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civil infrastructure are a sign of Putin's desperation.
Everybody, the second LINK in Professor Richardson's LFAA "Notes" tonight is trump's so-called "MOU". Read it & weep.
Has anyone noticed that it reads like a fourth-grader's take on international diplomacy? Given that a fourth-grader signed it tonight, I guess that shouldn't surprise anyone. It keeps talking about "the deal". Trump words, without almost any doubt.
Looks like Iran wrote it!
It also enriched Russia by raising the price paid for Russian oil and removed sanctions on buying Russian oil. A trifecta for Putin.
Though somewhat diminished by Ukraine's recent drone attacks on Russia's oil refineries.
Maybe G.W. Bush will loan his Mission Accomplished banner to Iran. And as the markets are set to open in a few hours, Dow futures are up because the market due to a possible hint the Fed may rise interest rates ??? New Fed Chair may be in for some fodder from Sideshow Don. I applaud all of you who are trying to make sense of all this mess. As the young kid in a classroom said to his teacher in one of my favorite Far Side cartoons... "My I be excused, my brain is full."
The War That Wasn’t, Until It Was
The best part is the administration discovering, apparently by reading its own paperwork aloud, that the thing it has been calling “not a war” is, in fact, a war.
This is bold new constitutional theory: if bombs are falling, troops are involved, ports are blockaded, sanctions are moving, and foreign governments are negotiating ceasefires, it is still not a war until somebody accidentally types the word.
One imagines the panic. “Who put ‘current war’ in the memorandum?” “Sir, the current war did.”
Washington has always loved euphemism, but this is performance art. It is like robbing a bank, then arguing in court that it was merely an unauthorized withdrawal with dramatic lighting.
The contradiction is almost beautiful. Congress is unnecessary when the executive wants action, but language becomes sacred when the executive wants credit. The Constitution, meanwhile, sits in the corner like a parent watching toddlers rename the broken vase “floor pottery.”
That is the real punchline: authoritarian politics often depends less on genius than on the hope that nobody reads the memo. And this time, unfortunately for them, somebody did.
Par for the course for an administration never far from the philosophy of fuckupery.
FUBAR
Putin: "Hey tubby. Get out of the Mideast. Go home. Work harder on destroying the US economy. Start really ruining their electoral processes. Stay on task!" Signed, Vladdy.
I'm starting to feel more and more as if I landed in a dystopian media landscape reading HCR.
The GOP has become a neofascist party.
They are destroying US democracy at all levels of government, including the judiciary. Because they are neofascists.
They are trying to destroy all foreign democracies. Because they are neofascists.
They don't want regime change in Iran or Venezuela or Russia or China. They are HAPPY that those countries are already fascist regimes. Because they are neofascists.
All they want is to have people leading those fascist regimes who agree to deal with the US government in the most corrupt way possible, benefiting the leaders of both countries financially. Because that's all that there is still to negotiate once you're perfectly on the same wavelength when it comes to ideology.
Each article that doesn't mention this and pretends to be surprised is still looking at the US from a perspective that is no longer connected to reality at all (a perspective that imagines that the GOP is still pro-democracy and wants to strengthen democracy inside the Us and around the world).
I wouldn’t believe the GOP CODDLING of fascism possible knowing the patriarchal republicans as I do. Then again they don’t unchange their minds or the direction they move in. They think the rope from the front door to the barn is the way to go. Now in my opinion they should just dig a tunnel and come and go secretly. Never mind the gps of it all.
You’d think world leaders would want to move away from oil dependence as soon as possible, given the worldwide economic consequences of the Strait closure, but that would require foresight and courage. Hmmm… never mind.
Let's not forget to give Netanyahu the credit he is due for getting us into this mess and ripping up the JCPOA.
Indeed he did have his hand in the cookie jar. You may also note the cookies were probably already gone. Not a problem except mom makes the good cookies and she’s getting to the point where she’ll toss in her apron pretty soon. Let’s give the “good” cooks a breather. Let’s cut off all the hands that reach except by committee. In fact let’s go one better. Let’s have a multi-continental army to crawl up the sleevies of those who get up in the night.
Annabel, you are correct. What a mess this administration has made of our standing in the global community. I do hope we see a surge of voters this November and the taking back of the House & Senate. But for me, there is another key to our better future. We need to do a better job educating the electorate while taking back the media world dominated by the right wing misinformation machine of FAUX media.
Exactly. Donnie understands his assignment.
Keep up the pressure! Tell the Republicans in Congress we’re paying attention and they should be furious! Read, listen and speak up!
Resource below to easily contact all of Congress - Be LOUD. Trump/the administration is dangerous for our country 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly!
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Comments/reactions help keep this bumped ✊
Thank you, Megan!! More than ever we need to keep contacting our legislators even the do-nothings so that they know that We the People are watching, and expressing our disgust and displeasure with how the current regime is tearing down our country; we also need to keep encouraging the ones who are starting to stand with us as well as the ones who have been doing their best all along (AOC, Crockett, and Raskin come to mind immediately).
Plus our CA Senators, Schiff and Padilla are on it! They have been on MSNOW off and on for weeks.
We need to stop paying!
This disaster is on you, Republicans.
No it isn't. It took decades and in particular the past 10 years for the Democratic Party to allow this to happen. The Democratic Party elite knew a very long time ago about the Heritage Foundation, AIPAC, Christian Nationalists, Tea Party, Russian influence, gerrymandering and still kept on acting like everything was business as usual. Did you know that Democrats and Republicans take money from the same PACs? Did you know about the huge influence Israeli wields in our government; including Democrats? It is super convenient for the Democratic Party elite to hide behind the rather large derriere of trump and his fellow fascists but the reality is the Democratic Party is complicit on where we find ourselves today. The Democratic Party's major Israel supporters such as Schumer are as involved in the war on Iran as the Republicans.
What to do?
We work for change within the Democratic Party. There are candidates today free of AIPAC money, working directly for the working class, and are not tied to the elite DNC or old Democratic Party leaders. Go to AIPAC Tracker.
This shows what was going to happen when the Senate sat on their butts and did nothing. He could have been stopped a long time ago.
It is vital that people fight against the Data Centers in their communities. Politicians are getting rich off these constructions. Communities are really suffering from them.
Yes Megan we are paying attention and paying and paying and paying.
Thank you Megan!
The administration spent months insisting the strikes on Iran did not constitute a war — a position that mattered because war-making requires congressional authorization. The MOU reads "the current war," which collapses that argument and reveals that the legal rationale for bypassing Congress was false from the start. Whatever one thinks of the deal's terms, the executive branch waged a war, told the legislature it wasn't one, and has now contradicted itself in the text of its own agreement — that is a direct breach of the accountability structure the Constitution places on military force.
Breaching accountability and ignoring rule of law is a modern "GOP" specialty. It's key to their whole shtick really.
Shtick is what Jewish comedians in the Catskills perform.
This is seriously insulting to both Jewish comedians and the Catskills.
:-)
First it was a war, then it wasn't a war. Then it was a war that had finished within the 60-day period allowed by the War Powers Resolution. Then it wasn't a war again. Now that it's over, it's a war again - a truly protean conflict. Metternich would have approved.
I like Rachel Maddow's take: "Submission accomplished!"
Civik USA,
We are in a "Trump Regime" ie No accountability necessary! Trump speaks and "it" happens.
Who can believe Trump is the one in command???? Who are the true "con-artists? Herein lies the foundational rot that has been growing for years but unfortunately has NOW the opportunity to take root!
We, as citizens of The United States of America, are NOT helpless but ACTION is necessary!!!!
I am grateful for leaders who have the courage to stand up for our country and we as citizens MUST stand by our brave leaders and support their courageous stand!!!!
I agree Emily. They understand money, right? Money makes the wheels go round. Like babbling idiots we keep sending them money. A vote is one thing. A paycheck keeps that boat afloat in the Bahamas. Baha by-by. We don’t have to buy in to that which offends us. What we do is give up our blank checks. Cool. What we need to do is earmark that which we agree to fund. Let you and me take away the blank check trust. We get what we pay for.
The Iranian people now have a military theocracy. The US now has an incompetent government led by a diminished narcissist. “ You’re going to get tired of winning.”
I forgot to mention that the US is also left with a spendthrift government more concerned with outward appearance than actual substance. If you thought “America First” meant maintaining health insurance for millions, no foreign wars, a focus on infrastructure, and securing the blessings of liberty, you were mistaken.
Phil, our Substack neighbor summed it up recently...
‘Trump is in office to wreck America as a Democratic Superpower’ Ruth Ben-Ghiat / Lucid https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZVsPeHSg3i/?igsh=MTRnNHFxMnBqMHpwMQ==
.
And to make tons of $$$ for himself and his family and donors.
That seems to be his chief goal.
TV, esp. Fox, personalities in charge.
All Show. No go.
Boxing matches on the White Houses grounds.
Next it could be cock fights. If the president does it, it's not illegal.
Makes section 224 of the 2027 budget for the NDAA even more concerning.
With THIS kind of "winning", who needs losing?
That phrase alone was like a warning bell on a buoy.
Calling Trump a buoy is an insult to all buoys (and boys). He is an infant!
Agreed. But a buoy is sort of like a very small lighthouse...
Another win for the authoritarians?
I think Iran should live by whatever they end up with, when this crisis quiets down; the US should concentrate on its own mess of a government...w/ the madman in charge.
I have to disagree with what Heather quotes Tom Nichols as saying about this incredible misadventure. He characterized it as “the weirdest and most astonishing day in US foreign policy in decades,” but I have to quibble with his use of "foreign policy." There was nothing in this debacle that could be called "policy." Trump has told us that his gut is the source of his decision-making. A gut can give us feelings, even presentiments, but it is not the organ that is capable of designing a policy. Let us hope that one day we will return to a government where policy is debated, where all of the pros and cons of taking an action are considered, and where a policy is finally adopted. There was no hint of a policy in this weird and astonishing enterprise.
"Foreign undertaking"? Misadventure, maybe? You are right. There was no "policy" -- no point, no brains, no forethought, no debate, no nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilchy-poo.
🤣 Zilchy-poo.
Yes there is no foreign policy or diplomacy with Trump, only strong arming, bullying and an impulsiveness to do or get what he wants.
It isn't just one day either, anyone that's been paying attention knows this has been "the weirdest and most astonishing" eighteen months in U.S. foreign policy, ever...or at least so far in the 250 years existence of this Nation.
That would be a refreshing change when it comes to US foreign policy which has all too often proceeded on the basis of the instinctual impulses of your presidents. You had hardly ended your 20-year war on terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria when off you went again with attacks on Venezuela and Iran. You need a Constitution that properly reins in the power of your presidents.
"Trump responded: 'I like that idea…. This way, if it works out, I’m gonna take the credit; if it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming J.D. You better be careful, J.D. He’s gonna turn his plane around and get the hell outta here. Yeah, I like that idea. I think that’s a good idea.'"
Wanker Boy about to discover for himself what the wheels of a speeding bus feel like. That eyeliner's going to get smudged big time. Was it worth it, JD? Inquiring minds want to know....
And pf course the supreme irony in that is that Wanker wasn’t in favor of this debacle in the first place. For a regime that doesn’t understand irony, they do irony very well.
He continues to try to sell this war as though the US has being doing the whole world a favour by denying Iran the right to build nuclear weapons yet he has achieved nothing of the kind. If Iran wanted a nuclear weapon in the future I have no doubt that they would be able to acquire one or to build one. Trump has shown no interest in the issue of nuclear proliferation. Earlier this year he allowed the New Start treaty to expire, the last such treaty with the Russians. He is asking Congress for vast amounts of money to build his ridiculous Golden Dome which both the Russians and the Chinese see as a provocation.
Right. Israel seems to have escaped scrutiny in regard to having nukes, along with some other states besides Iran.
What DECADES of HISTORY have shown us ALL...
trump has NO LOYALTY to ANYONE ELSE EVER!!
NEVER EVER TRUST A BULLY because they are SO insecure narcissistic and paranoid that sooner than later EVERYONE becomes one of their TARGETS!!
(Paging Dr. Freud)...Perhaps JD could lie on the couch to expound on it...although lying is a given with JD and the couch would not be safe from his molestations either...
ICTT, the Manchurian vice president would take anything thrown at him, in order to still have a chance of being presidential candidate after Trump. And, considering the decrepit state of mental and physical health of the scumbag president, maybe that chance will come much earlier.
It's likely -- and it will be the kiss of death for Wanker Boy. His only use and function is to play loyal Wormtongue to a powerful, telegenic asshole. His own personality is less appealing than a bowl of small, cold, wriggling eels. He won't last long.
💯 % 👍
J.D. is the ‘ugly (scruffy) bridesmaid’, chosen to make ‘clean-shaven’ DJT look better in comparison…um…😆
Also…Vance’’s spouse is the added bonus of “PROVING” the current administration is not racist…at all…love all colours of skin…but, especially ORANGE!
When Trump is dead and gone, unless he can somehow prohibit an autopsy, the damage done to his system by the constant ‘spray painting’…to LOOK RIDICULOUS 🙄…will be made public.
Inquiring minds want to know…now…WHY THE BURNT SIENNA?
Is there some lizard, like the komodo dragon, with that colour of skin??
And here’s me thinking that DJT is channeling the power of “the Great Pumpkin” and we all KNOW it exists…right, Charlie Brown!! 🎃
Rubio is doing pirouettes in his too large Florsheims.
Panama Canal tolls range from $15,000 to $300,000 depending on tonnage of the ship. The Suez Canal levies fees up to $700,000 for mega-size bulk carries and tankers. Why should Iran not do the same? The United States gave them the bright idea.
The Panama Canal lies entirely within Panama. The Suez Canal lies entirely within Egypt. The Strait of Hormuz is (or was) an international waterway that lies within missile, drone, and artillery range of Iran, and which Trump just surrendered to Iranian control. Nice job, Trump. Demonstrating the Art of the Dumb Deal. What a loser!
Hello James... Tony Schwartz, who actually wrote 'Art Of The Deal', said DJT was an Idiot... DJT was an Idiot in starting this War at Netanyahu's behest... The Iranian's didn't rise-up, and there were no Nuclear Weapons, or ICBMs.... This Idiocy has cost the USA at least 14-Lives, and over 131-Billion Dollars that could have been spent making USA lives better... Let's Hope that this Agreement holds, or there will be Global Economic Catastrophe...
Apache, you are seriously insulting all the idiots in this world.
He really doesn't rise even CLOSE to that level of competence!
Jon, are you familiar with the comic "Groo the Wanderer?" One of the recurring characters in the series is The Minstrel, who offers commentary on the story in doggerel. One of my favorite verses described the fate of someone who decided to pull a dragon's tail. "This man named Smeed, With lightning speed, Was barbecued and eaten. Don't die like he, Or you will be regarded as a cretin." (Yes, I am easily amused 😂). If Trump does not rise to the level of "idiot" (BTW, also known as a resident of the Kingdom of Id), can we at least regard him as a cretin?
The Cretin Creature!
I like it!
Trump’s lovely ‘surfer boy’ tan:
CREMATION ON THE ‘INSTALMENT’ PLAN!
🤣
‘Hope the ‘deal’ holds….!’ it would appear that it is Trump’s only ‘save’ re the Midterms, so…um…no backing out unless he feels he can deliberately anger his base even more and still get their dog-faithful vote.
My guess is he will ‘concoct’ another supposéd ‘win’, perhaps fake evidence of his complete ‘innocence’ in the Epstein Files, that redacters and ‘creative writers’ are busy, busy at…these corrupt acts TAKE TIME! Sheeeesh!
Trump could make the lives of Americans better by not giving his oligarch friends tax breaks; by funding America rather than Iran; by using the ballroom money "his buddies gave him" to rebuild the East Wing exactly as it was; by using his family money to fix Trump's Reflecting Pond; by not building the Trump Arch; by taking all the gild off the White House; by firing all his Cabinet and replacing them with competent non-MAGA people; by reinstating all Civil Servants who are NOT MAGA - the list goes on and on. None of that will happen as long as Republicans continue to cheer for Trump and his band of fascists.
So, stop labeling it a loose. It's the only way out.
It’s clearly a loss. What did we gain? I suppose we could call it capitulation. Or call it what it is: a repudiation of stupid actions by a stupid administration.
If it wakes up people and maybe even our idiot gov. then it is a gift.
We made an asymmetrical war on the wrong "enemy".
We blindly stepped into a pile of DooDoo.
Call it what you will. It's a loss.
Is there a nice, big-type book called "Negotiating an Agreement"?
Apparently he can’t even read ‘his own’ book anymore. Of course the ghost wrote it, but i suspect at some time in the past he might have tried to read it. As Clousseau would say, “nut anymore”.
ICYMI…
TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report)—In an astounding achievement for a first-time author, on Wednesday Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei nabbed the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers list with a business book entitled The Art of the Deal. The publicity materials provided by the publisher tout, “From the mind of a man who negotiated the sweetest deal in the history of the Middle East, learn how to fend off a hostile takeover—and win!” “Don’t just be a leader,” the book jacket urges. “Be a Supreme one!” Among the topics covered, the book “shows, in five easy steps, how to turn a tiny body of water into a money-spinning goldmine.” An advance excerpt from the book’s first chapter begins, “Rule #1: Only negotiate with morons.”
https://borowitzreport.substack.com/p/ayatollahs-art-of-the-deal-becomes?
Perhaps Negotiating for Dummies?
Yes, that would do it too. Reminds me of those nice friendly books that used to help you to figure out how to use your computer. What I'm anxious to root out is the word "deal".
It's worth bearing in mind that Trump once contemplated doing exactly the same thing as the Iranians were doing, in relation to the Panama Canal.
Panama and Suez are manmade and require upkeep, which costs money. The Strait of Hormuz isn’t. Look up UNCLOS.
The canals are manmade structures. Allowing tolls in the Strait of Hormuz violated principles of free navigation of the seas that have been a cornerstone of US foreign policy literally since the beginning of the nation. Look up the campaigns against the Barbary pirates, "the shores of Tripoli," etc
Sounds normal, in the present climate of violation of principles.
Iran has no right to a fee because God made the strait. It didn’t cost Iran the labor and lives lost that it took to build the two canals. And it costs nothing to maintain the strait. That’s why they shouldn’t be allowed to impose a fee.
The Strait of Hormuz belongs territorially to Iran and Oman, who jointly own and control the strait through which heavy oil and chemical loads pass. They bear costs and responsibilities to keep the waterway safe and navigable and would be the victims should a major upset occur.
Which was the status before Trump launched his attack. International law of the sea requires free transit, according to most experts, not new administrative fees or tolls or whatever term is used.
By the current UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Iran only controls its territorial waters. It does NOT own or control the Strait ( except by force, as it’s been doing).
NO! They shouldn't! Let's make that detail a deal killer.
Part III of the the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, particularly Articles 37 through 44, governing “Straits used for international navigation,” holds that all ships and aircraft have a right of transit passage, “which shall not be impeded,” and that “there shall be no suspension of transit passage” through a strait.
Panama has lots of infrastructure to operate and maintain (locks and pumps, etc) to raise and lower ships. As far as I know, Iran has none of that. Perhaps I’m wrong. Iranian territory sits at a quasi choke point where, like the old fiefdoms on the Rhine, passing boats could be squeezed for money just for passing by.
Because those are manmade and require upkeep.
The Strait of Hormuz is a natural waterway. Charging tolls is against the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Watching the wreckage of unconstitutional wars without point in the Middle East, Venezuela and elsewhere, a string of Cabinet voidoids without the slightest qualifications for their jobs still being confirmed by his fools in the Senate, listening to their demented dingbat claim he 'loves inflation' and insists New York boos and catcalls are really hymns of praise....and finally to their deafening silence in the face of yet his 704th attack against Barack and his "husband" Michelle Obama....it's clear the entire Republican party is sticking to its bunker suicide post. This isn't going to change, not until the American electorate has spoken first, and maybe not even then.
No matter the incompetence, the malice, the stupidity, the sheer fuckupery --the Four Horsemen of the Trumpapocalypse -- the GOP isn't really budging an inch. Those who keep hoping for a few more GOP defections here and there, praying for the sounds of scraping, clawing, scurrying rats desperate to flee the Titanic's lower decks will somehow turn to a groundswell are missing the underlying dynamic at play. All these wretched, sad people are immobilized by their own Cult of Dumb. Thought the cult is now melting from the inside out, normal, save-my-ass responses aren't working. Even if 98% of them want to run away as fast as they can, they won't. They can't. They're frozen.
What does this mean for us? Don't wait for Gooberdämmerung to break. The ground is giving way underneath them anyway, faster than you can say "full algal bloom." Support every GOTV campaign you can in the meantime. Reach out to independents, to disgruntled former Republicans. Donate, volunteer, canvas, campaign, be a poll worker or a poll watcher. Continue supporting strong, skillful, qualified Democrats. Voting's the thing that will truly undo the King, nothing else will. And it's got to be a tsunami, not a trickle.
Too big to rig. Too real to steal. Too obvious to dick with us....
May there be such massive voter turnout in these mid terms that it compares to the recent elections in Hungary.
Americans should be inspired and take a cue from the Hungarians on how to vote out an authoritarian regime, we should be protesting the Trump crime family the way the Albanians are doing so right now, fighting against injustice, tyranny and Putin cabal invasions/operations as the Ukrainians have for over 4 years now...
People here still pay amazon and paramount. Don’t hold your breath.
Yes, but the reality is a three hour roundtrip yesterday to replace my finch feeder, one of the few things that still bring me joy. It isn’t easy in the “sticks”.
May you be blessed with an abundance of new finches...!
Thanks! They’ve come back after years of absence. Now if only I could get the crazy aggressive hummingbird to chill a bit I’d have a small peaceable kingdom.
I have a couple nests with baby hummingbirds right now. The nests started about the size of a quarter, but these guys are all ready to fly now and fluffy. So cute.
But you did it. We used to do these things. This used to be normal not that long ago. Somehow we survived before bezos.
True, but not all can afford to burn $50 in gas for a $35 feeder. Direct from manufacturer would have taken two weeks. Our world is changing. How we regulate the new reality must change too.
Gave this some thought. We need to rebuild local communities. Share, trade, repurpose. Everyone has something someone else needs. Someone is crafty and can build stuff.
Too late for that unfortunately. People need to make some choices. It is also an option to live with this coming reality and not bitch. I have no more patience for those who complain but refuse to do basics.
The whole thing was very elegantly played by Macron! Signature and all - in close-up.
He certainly understood the historical significance of the signing even if Mr. Trump had no clue.
Macron is extremely well-versed in this - plus a flair for the dramatic.
(Amanda Marcotte / Salon) "The MAGA concept of manhood is tied up in childish views about violence and domination coupled with the mentality of a rapist or an animal abuser. Trump and MAGA cast about for weaker parties to victimize. The siren call of war is never silent to the insecure man with power. Trump lost the war in Iran a long time ago, but he'll never pull out unless he can pretend he won it."
Cheeto Is Becoming the 21st Century Neville Chamberlain
What does Neville Chamberlain and Cheeto have in common? Well, Mike Pence says the Iran deal in the form of an Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) is nothing more than appeasement. Shades of the 1930’s. Neville Chamberlain the English right wing prime minister infamously made an appeasement deal with Hitler in September 1938 ceding the Sudentenland of Czechslovakia to Germany hoping that it would stop the madman dictator from invading other countries. But one year later in September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland and was the beginning of WWII.
With only one week left of oil reserves Cheeto realizes that Iran has won and Cheeto loves winners. Now that Ukraine has made serious inroads in the war with Russia and so now Cheeto is throwing his dictator buddy under the bus, pledging support to Ukraine.
The uniqueness of Cheeto compared to Chamberlain is that he’s a psychopath who is transactional and always ready to appease whether they’re Iranians or Ukrainians. As Mark Twain wrote, history doesn’t repeat itself but it certainly rhymes. Where does this leave Netanyahu? Out in the cold.
That is simply unfair to poor Neville Chamberlain. Long ridiculed by history, he understood that Britain did not have the military capacity to take on Hitler since it had spent the entire decade previous to the War disarming, rather than re-arming. He was trying to buy time, as much as he could. It didn't work out for him -- or for England.
For his master's thesis at Harvard in 1940, a graduate student named John F. Kennedy explored the ramifications of this in "Why England Slept" -- a play on Churchill's more famous "While England Slept." He argues that had Chamberlain actually chosen confrontation earlier, the results would have been even more disastrous for Britain in the absence of appeasement. We will never know, but it remains a powerful caveat.
History is complicated. Sometimes the truth of that gets hidden underneath layers of later language and narratives that didn't really quite fit at the time the events actually took place.
He might have written about why America slept unti 1941 when it was itself attacked. Until then, as Auden wrote, you were:
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
Thanks for that wonderful historical perspective. And you're right, Neville got and gets a bum wrap. My apologies Neville.
Little correction - Britain didn't attack Germany in Chamberlain's time, while quite clearly the US and its parasite started the war against Iran.
Most of the world's historians will remind their followers in future that it was the US and Israel who were the "bad guys" in the current events, not Iran.
And if the historians care about accuracy, they will include Saudi Arabia's MBS, who egged on Trump to strike, never anticipating that Iran would strike Saudi Arabia back. And Putin, if they can ever unearth transcripts of Trump's regular contacts with him.
I think Cheeto has made sure there are no transcripts....he personally tore up the translator notes in Oslo.
I'm thinking of Helsinki? We'll get those from Finland someday. Or a Russian might give it all up.
Sorry that's correct....wrong Scandinavian capital
No worries; I thought I misremembered. How about we assume that if he's been to Oslo, he's torn up those translator notes, too!
In actuality there were no "good guys" in this recent conflict
Israel is now bombing Lebanon. The war of Israel terror expands and the Democratic Party leaders continue to send money to Israel. 211 dead in Lebanon.
We need to focus really hard right now. The MOU is what it is. Israel is the core problem. Ask Schumer what is number one priority is and he will openly declare is it supporting Israeli. We stop the flow of money to Israel, stop electing AIPAC controlled Democratic Party candidates and get out and protest. Look at what Albania and Hungry before them accomplished. We, meanwhile, sit on our hands and complain endlessly about a demented old man.
Meanwhile:
https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/#:~:text=4%3A21%20PM-,Leak%20Exposes%20Members%20of%20Peter%20Thiel%E2%80%99s%20Secretive%20%E2%80%98Dialog%E2%80%99%20Society,-More%20than%20200
"The group, called Dialog, is a private, invitation-only organization cofounded in 2006 by the billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel. It convenes US officials, foreign government figures, and Silicon Valley executives at off-the-record annual retreats. Dialog has spent two decades declining to disclose its members."
And
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/secretive-dialog-society-exposed-members-revealed-1803509#:~:text=Peter%20Thiel%27s%20Secret%20%27Dialog%27%20Society%20Leak%20Exposes%20Elon%20Musk%2C%20Ted%20Cruz%20and%20Cory%20Booker%20Among%20113%20Names
Astonishing is one way to put it. Disturbing might be another.
With Heather on the MOU today, let's compare Barack Obama’s success with Iran against criminal Donald’s surrender.
We know that, to get along with others – even very different others – one needs first to consult allies, and then try to see adversaries in light of their own best, most practical interests.
Barack Obama could do that. Criminal Donald could only scorn all the U.S.’s longest allied democracies. Obama could speak primarily of balancing best outcomes for all; criminal Donald could only insult, slander, threaten, and lie to arrogate himself. Barack Obama could draw on all our best experts in many fields; criminal Donald just postured himself as singular, above all others. He rid from government service our most key personnel in all fields.
The world still stews with Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Sisi, Erdogan, Bukele, Milei, and the Iranian mullahs. They’re the ancillaries to the Trump/Epstein rape traffickers, gun runners, drug dealers, money launderers.
And us? Do we look for our schools to key teaching to essays where all learn to see others as individuals amid complicated humanities? Can we nurture the asking decent questions of others? Or do we stay in testing’s dictates, where only the anonymous elites ask questions, to which all defer to their conceits of ever one correct answer only.
Would we were living in a country where history teachers could assign homework essays on comparing the MOU with the JCPOA and deciding which was in the best interests of the United States as an exercise in critical thinking. Instead MAGA parents would get you fired...
Trivia for today: MOU, spelt in lower case "mou", means "soft and flabby" in French.
Or a pout in literature, translation dropping the e in moue. The prez is certainly a pouter.
A school librarian was fired for putting up a poster with a rainbow on it, so yeah. That said, that's the school I'd want my kid to go to.
I love your teaching/ lesson plan, Georgia 💕.
A great lesson plan.
And Trump walked in 30 minutes late to the meeting, looking like a pile of rumpled clothes, and proclaimed that the was "the boss" -- I mean WTAF?
Making Iran Great Again! Unbelievable. And his minions still think he is 'strong'? I'm almost wondering if there is something behind the scenes that Trump personally gets (because that is all he cares about) because this is a complete and total surrender! For those who missed the talk between Heather and Paul Krugman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKd8wHUEwoM
And thanks, Dana.
Thank you, Heather. I love your work and dedication.
The Bond GIF is hilarious, and the President's speech was quite bad and troubling, so I'm of two minds.
After hearing Trump's speech, I went to YouTube and watched about 20 minutes of cat videos. Silly as they are, they made more sense than our President and improved my mood immensely.
The other thought in my split brain focused on the grief for all of the victims from this war, including our soldiers, mostly caused by the deeply disturbed American President man-child babbling at the G7. It reminded me of Nixon and Kissinger, and all of the lies and corruption about the Vietnam War that we didn't know until we got there and lived it. The weight of all that grief, then and now, caused by incompetent, immoral men, is more than we need to bear. That means we stop it now, and when the absurdity becomes overwhelming, let me recommend a half-hour break to sip some tea and watch cat videos. Your cat will like it.
Hi Marcus. And then that cat will want to star in their own video. I watch "Al Pacino: The Puppy Interview" on youtube.
GOP forfeit of checks and balances has brought us to ruin.