Looking back to when Trump announced that the United States would accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 aircraft as a gift from Qatar on May 11, 2025, after that trip to the Middle East, and all the other hand shaking going on during that trip, we are now seeing the true quid pro quo, take down Iran. The facts listed below are from Forbes, Nov, 14, 2025. “Here’s Everything We Know About Trump’s Financial Ties To Saudi Arabia.”
December 9, 2024, Trump wins a second term and Dar Global announces two more Trump projects in Riyadh. “These developments will redefine luxury living in Saudi Arabia’s capital,”
May 13, 2025, Trump travels to Riyadh for a three-nation tour of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar—all countries where the Trump Organization is actively working on real-estate deals with Saudi Arabia’s Dar Al Arkan.
September 29, 2025, Dar Global announces a second Trump property in Jeddah – Trump Plaza Jeddah, which will include offices and apartments.
September 29, 2025, Kushner’s Affinity Partners teams up with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to buy videogame giant Electronic Arts for $55 billion.
October 29, 2025, Donald Trump Jr., flies to Saudi Arabia for an investment summit with Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Carlyle’s David Rubenstein, Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon. “Who would have thought 20 years ago that anyone with a few brain cells would be investing in the Middle East versus anywhere in Europe?” Don Jr. marvels on stage. “I think the opportunity over here in the region is spectacular.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2025/11/14/how-trumps-finances-got-tangled-up-with-saudi-arabia/
Professor Richardson, on the Feb. 28, letter, said that the "Washington Post ... reported that Trump decided to attack Iran after Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman made “multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a U.S. attack” while at the same time publicly calling for a diplomatic solution."
All of this is a direct result of "Trump v. United States," 603 U.S. 593 (2025) in which The Roberts Six held that under the separation of powers of our constitution the nature of executive powers entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for "official actions of the executive branch." Thus they spit in the faces of our Founders who created our Republic, the separation of powers, to avoid exactly that; the creation of a king who now claims the power to make WAR is an official action of the Executive branch. Thus this war and the corruption behind it, is all on the Roberts Six. They are our enemy. IMO, we go big to save our Republic or go home. UnitedWeAmend.org
Trump gets a plane and we get to pay for our military to become the white slave army for the Arab leaders who want to use Trump’s dementia to rid the world of all Persians. How clever!
The (deliberate) bombing of the girls’ school is undoubtedly Trump’s reaffirmation of ChristoNazi misogyny – the same hatred of females and contempt for femaleness that leads to both the victimization of terrorized children by the Trumpstein cult and to capitalism’s apocalyptic assault on our Mother Earth. That hatefulness – also manifest as white male supremacist bigotry – fuels the crimes against humanity that define the entire Trumpstein Regime. Thus the vital, know-our-enemy relevance of the full text of the Jane Doe lawsuit against Trump and Epstein -- later withdrawn by the plaintiff in response to credible death threats: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf
I very much doubt that the bombing of the girl’s school was a deliberate act. The horrendous nature of our modern weaponry makes this sort of tragedy inevitable.
Regardless, the optics prove Loren Bliss’ point. Out of all the “legitimate” (so called) targets, we bomb a girl’s school? Really? F**k the weaponry; shame on us for the “tragedy.”
You, Mr. Quinn, are either pathetically ignorant of today's military technology or are an apologist for Trump; bombing that is precise enough to kill an ayatollah or drop 1000-pound general-purpose bombs down ventilator shafts from aircraft flying at altitudes of 20,000 feet is precise enough to deliberately miss a known girl's school -- and, yes, the pre-attack aerial photo interpretation and satellite surveillance that is SOP would unquestionably reveal the nature of the target. Understand the Original Nazis' approach to warfare, which the Hitler-emulating Regime is duplicating: realistically and in all probability-- given the Regime's utter disregard for females and all non-Aryan human life in general and the fact its war-criminal Legions of Death are already in complete violation of the Geneva Convention -- the Death Legion General Staff wanted an example of mass civilian casualties to terrify the Iranian population and chose a girls' school because of all possible choices it deems girls and women most expendable. That is the magnitude of Evil that assails us, and to deny it is in fact to serve the enemy.
With today’s technology & the ability to conduct targeted strikes how did they manage to hit a girls school & a hospital? Bibi wants everyone dead, just like Gaza.
If you drop a bomb deliberately to kill people on the ground, then you have committed a deliberate and indiscriminate act of murder. Do you think the bomber just accidently let the bomb slip to the ground and said "oopsie, I didn't mean it"? Maybe you would like to go into the war zone and debate the dead if they think the act that killed them was deliberate?
Trump saying he expected the people to rise up and take over and that the authoritarian government would voluntarily hand their weapons and power over to "the people " is Trump advocating for socialism! Of course these same people were being brutally murdered by the regime just weeks ago, so that's just more evidence of Trump’s incoherence. TOFU is a perfect descriptor.
Loren, I am sharing a pasting of a petition I received from Senator Tammy Duckworth, please feel free to share it with everyone you know who wants to stop the war.
Senator Tammy Duckworth wrote among other paragraphs that
“He (meaning Donald Trump) owes it to the American people he promised he would always put first to attempt to justify before Congress how this illegal war will serve their interests. And the Senate must immediately come back to Washington to vote on Tim Kaine’s War Powers Resolution.”
🚩She has included the following place anyone can sign to call the Senate back to vote. Here it is:
SIGN ON: CALL THE SENATE BACK TO VOTE NO ON WAR WITH IRAN
Add your name to demand that Senate Republicans call us back to vote on Tim Kaine’s War Powers Resolution.
If there was ever a time for Republicans to find their spines, it’s now. The Senate must immediately vote on Senator Kaine’s War Powers Resolution to block this illegal military campaign.
Judy...Can you please provide an active link to this material? Thank you! (Also -- with a working link -- I suggest you post it early on Dr. Richardson's threads for several days.)
Thank you, Loren, for continuing to post this link so every person who reads it can understand what all this is really about-his way to distract from the Epstein files while simultaneously enriching himself and his family with more billions in bribes from foreign countries.
I saw an image in my mind this morning of a newspaper headline, "Our Long National Nightmare is Over". Oh, how I wish that image were today's reality.
It was Israel that bombed the girl's school. That is what they do. Bomb hospitals, caged civilians, target toddlers, ...in Gaza, in Lebanon, now in Iran.
Of course trump is fine with all that...as are most of our not very supreme leaders.
I like your name for trump, "TOFU" I"M wondering if I can adopt that? The only question I would have in using it is does it need to be capitalized? I wouldn't want o convey any kind of respect for the narcissistic fascist.
Stephanie, nor do I even when I am using one of my nicknames for him. I refuse to use his name or call him president....usually that is occupant of the WH.
Dale, as you probably know, tofu absorbs flavors nicely. I guess when applied to death star, that can mean the puppeteers can feed him all sorts of nonsense because we know he does not and cannot read.
Thinking through any action by the right wingers is just beyond their greedy capabilities. Everything is done for immediate gratification or good TV for their drooling followers. Trump's incessant hyperbole is one more sign of his many emotional disorders.
Kindly do not mistake his glut, greed, selfishness and depravity for dementia. He is fully aware of the harm he is unleashing on the world; as long as he and his family profit from it all.
"Fully aware" does not really fit a person who has led a remarkably insulated life with zero exposure to the realities suffered by the majority of humans on this planet.
Trump may not have personally experienced want and vulnerability - but he is certainly aware of the precarious lives and suffering of the majority of people on this planet.
Honestly, I don't think so. Like many malignant narcissists, he blocks that from his awareness, because his ego couldn't survive the effects of encountering actual suffering.
TrumpStein has always reminded me of a mean and nasty version of the simple-minded character "Chance, the gardener" in the 1979 film "Being There." All of Chauncey 's knowledge came from watching TV. The film was a satirical comedy-drama starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, and Melvyn Douglas. IMO, a perfect story about America. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/
I was going from observations made by John Gartner, Ph.D. He is a psychologist who has worked with and observed dementia patients. He gave an interview with UK’s Times Radio in which he said that Trump’s leg movements, and difficulty with his leg movements reminded him of patients he had observed who had frontotemporal dementia. Dr. Gartner also noted that Trump had developed difficulties in remembering and recalling correct terms when he was speaking. This is a condition called phonemic paraphasia, and it is a symptom both frontotemporal and Alzheimer’s dementia patients have. It occurs when the patient is speaking, is unable to remember a word, and substitutes a word which is incorrect, but which sounds correct to them. An example would be substituting the word wishdasher for the word dishwasher.
I’m not a professional in psychology or medicine, and don’t claim to be one. I could very well be wrong and Trump has Alzheimer’s dementia. I considered the possibility of frontotemporal dementia based on Dr. Gartner’s discussion. I appreciate you sending the Mayo Clinic article on frontotemporal dementia. The only thing I know is that Trump clearly has some type of dementia obvious to even a lay person like myself, and it is severe enough that it raises questions as to his continued fitness to remain in office.
I keep wondering what infusions he is getting in his hands. I keep tracking the daily pictures of his face and I swear he is like Putin and using a body double because his face goes from puffy to more chiseled overnight, or he has really bad fluid retention issues.
I think he falls asleep more often on the puffy days. His waistline also seems to grow and shrink a lot, more than I think you could cinch in with a girdle.
I started looking carefully after I saw the picture of him with Ivanka at around age 10 with Epstein on the plane. Trump's face looked significantly different to me. Like a B list movie actor in a cheap biopic of Trump.
Speaking of Putin--remember about a year ago HE had hand bruises, as I believe he fell a few times? I could be crazy but I thought I recall a report that he'd soiled himself.
HMMMMM.....who knows? Maybe the obscenely rich have found a infusible drug that gives immortality? I know, don the tin foil hats, but every day in Trumplandia there is something new that defies reality.
yeh..Ligia..., I've often felt the silliness of having our simple-minds drawn to little twitches in "His" behavior.., speech manner.., stubbing "His" toe on those steps leading into the airplane/helo. (have you ever used them..?..., I have, they're not friendly).., or other trite "things" he does which can be made-fun-of. I even wonder if the 'sources' of what has pretty-much been obvious dementive-baloney are actually an effective part of "His" Grab-Team tactic? Yes! And so-named because they have "grabbed" our simple attention and their boss has been re-elected! We have been sucked in again. Forming up in some kind of a 'tea party team' won't do it. So, the question remains: Why are we easily influenced? And, I've blabbed on enough but, I'll leave ya'll with this: Do the kids of parents who were kids back in 1970-79 know what went on in Iran? No! Hahahahaa..., I had a super-hot girlfriend from back then.., she had diamonds in the soloes of her slippers. Her daughters are well-off doctors.., good ones.., but they don't have a clue.
The United States just bombed a girls school in Iran, killing 118. Trump's strategy for this war is that the "people" of Iran will overthrow the remaining government and line up with the United States. That is complete dementia!
Yes. And... let's keep an eye on Sen Wyden's pursuit of financial records from JP Morgan Chase. Epstein was more than a sex trafficker of girls. And more and more of us are calling them the Trump Files. The Epstein Class has a lot to hide. "The truth is out there."
In my experience, Trump is not exhibiting complete dementia. Rather, he routinely exhibits complete stupidity, ineptitude, lunacy, ignorance and idiocy.
"WE" just murdered The Supreme Leader. In his home, at his desk. With family members, including his young granddaughter.
Why wasn't he hiding under a mountain? He said that most Iranians have no where else to go so he was not going anywhere else.
He is an even bigger leader now. This is now, besides being an existential war, it is a holy war. And, the Iranians are not wimps. Smart with the advantage of becoming martyrs if they die for their country.
Assuming that is correct, it was undoubtedly a mistake in targeting, not a deliberate act. Modern weaponry is capable of horrendous damage, and even our most sophisticated targeting systems are not oerfact.
This is the face of modern warfare. If this one continues, there will be more of the same. Such as the Kuwait error in shooting down three US jets.
Because the Joint Chiefs are in the Administrative Chain of Command. They advise SECDEF & POTUS on military operations. There main job is to "Man, Train & Equip" the forces. War fighting orders are issue from POTUS to SECDEF to the Operational Chain of Command, the Combatant Commands (as in the case, Central Command or Southern Command with the boat strikes). I refer you to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. On the operational side, my concern big concern is are these attack orders actually coming from POTUS or are they coming from a non-elected person. On the Administrative side, are Joint Chiefs even being consulted? With the SECDEF "gag' order on military leadership and no DoD press corps ... we'll never know & that is extremely dangerous.
No worries… my last Navy job was a school commanding officer for engineering duty officers (acquisition corps). In the Junior officer course, I taught a Chain of Command lecturer, from POTUS all the way down to lowest echelon commands. It’s complicated because some of the admin chain of command leaders wear a dual (operational) hat. It can get very blurry sometimes & when there’s a civilian gov’t person that doesn’t understand those nuances ( lack of experience) command & control can get fouled up.
"Our army has people of all colors in it. Their key is that they are all Americans."
No, American troops have never been only American citizens. In recent decades immigrants join the military as a 'faster track' to citizenship. The paperwork when they leave the military is complicated and no matter how honorably they've served they are not properly 'vetted' through it. Often such Vets have been deported - to countries they've not seen since they were young children. This has gone on for decades - and more so recently.
Ignoring Policy, History, and Humanity: ICE Continues to Deport Veterans – Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy
Well, I didn't say they were citizens. I said they were Americans of all colors. I am glad you mentioned that immigrants are part of the American army. No one wins here. No one.
I remain convinced that what we are seeing -- the conduct of the ChristoNazi Regime and the oath-breaking military's self-reduction to the Regime's Legions of Death; the cunningly perfected, always plausibly deniable collaboration of the Democrats; and the embrace of tyranny implicit in the refusal of the people to (effectively) resist -- is the true face of the (real) "America." And given that the Regime has started a potential world war in an attempt to preserve its power, I believe that any notion of ousting it by election -- or by any other Constitutional means -- is thereby proven not just impossible but absurd.
"... the cunningly perfected, always plausibly deniable collaboration of the Democrats"
' ... no possibility of change through elections and other Constitutional means.'
Sheesh! This sort of specious rhetoric helped elect Trump, twice. I thought we were finally past this. Alas. Please google the Progressive Caucus. And please consider that your assertions regarding elections is a form of voter suppression and implicit call for illegal means.
Kuwait has shot down three U.S. planes in a "friendly fire" incident. The crews ejected.
Trump and his wealthy Gulf States patrons wanted this attack. Did any of these obscenely wealthy men give ANY thought to the long term consequences of attacking Iran?
May Mohammed Bin Salman reap what he has helped to sow
When Trump bombed 3 of Iran's nuclear research facilities several months ago at a cost of almost a billion dollars, he supposedly ended the nuclear enrichment program for good.
The independent reports-
"In 2012 and 2013, Trump repeatedly insinuated that then-President Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to shore up his re-election effort and to distract from his supposed faults as a leader.
Obama never did attack Iran. That cannot be said for Trump, who has now attacked the Middle Eastern republic three times during across his two terms in office."
It's time Donald and Melania testify in the Trumpstein debacle under oath. There isn't a Republican politician or pundit that wants this to happen. Let's do it.
If he does, he’ll lie. That’s what he does. That’s all he does. He’s a narcissist with frontal brain dementia, and a Supreme Court that’s been bought among other things.
Perhaps Christopher Armitage’s focus on state rights is the most powerful solution. However, I’m skeptical that the 24 Dem state Governors and their attorney generals will be able to coordinate quickly enough to gain some control. I’ve been advocating for this in MA., NY, MN,
ILL. Apparently, the attorney generals are coalescing because I got a fundraiser email for that…as well as for electing more Dem Governors. My in box seems to attract
There is a lot more quid pro quo. Don't forget what he will get from the billions in the Peace Board, of which he is Chairman for life, for the redevelopment of Gaza.
Here is a summary from Perplexity AI:
From Gulf real‑estate licensing since 2021:
A Saudi developer, Dar Al Arkan/Dar Global, paid Trump about $27 million in licensing fees from 2021–2024 for Trump‑branded projects in Oman and Dubai.
2024 alone: financial disclosures show $21.9 million in license fees from Dar Al Arkan, making it his single largest business partner that year.
Broader Middle East portfolio and projections:
CREW estimates Trump’s overseas development income (all regions) over 2014–2024 at at least $430 million, with a large recent spike from UAE/Oman/Saudi licensing and projections that foreign‑property income in his second term will exceed $400 million and likely top $430 million if 2024 levels continue.
Reporting focused specifically on Saudi‑linked ventures (including LIV golf, Dar‑linked projects and other deals) estimates around $50 million from Saudi‑connected deals in 2024 alone for Trump and family.
What this implies for “how much” the Middle East is worth to him
Hard, documented income tied specifically to Gulf real‑estate licensing and related deals since 2021 is already well over $30 million, mostly from Oman, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Including hotel stays, condo purchases, rents, and other business from Middle Eastern clients during his first term brings the known total over $40 million (the $9.6 million CREW found during his first term plus the post‑2020 licensing payments), with strong evidence the real number is significantly higher because many arrangements and profits are not fully disclosed.
Forward‑looking analyses emphasize that Middle Eastern projects are a major driver of the projected $400M+ foreign‑development income Trump is expected to earn over his current term, with several new Saudi, Qatar and UAE projects not yet generating full revenue.
So, based on what’s public, Trump has already realized many tens of millions of dollars in personal/business income from Middle Eastern deals, and credible watchdog and financial estimates suggest that, if current projects mature, his Middle East pipeline alone could ultimately be worth low‑ to mid‑hundreds of millions over the next several years.
How about all of the “investments” nations from the Middle East are making in American corporations and institutions including media, entertainment and real estate. Having his son in law and special advisor doing the “deals” is unconscionable given their private partnerships with these same nations.
And Albert, you forgot to mention that it's going to cost a BILLION dollars to refit this "FREE" airplane as Air Force 1 AND then his fuckingassholeness will be taking it as a gift when he leaves office. Doesn't fall under Elox definition of fraud, waste and abuse i guess.
donna, I have the greatest hope that the somehow, the entirety of messes the Trump regime has cost the US taxpayer will be recouped by TOTALLY DRAINING the accounts of the Trump family!!
(BTW, you're sort of new here.👋🏼 I appointed myself the WalMart greeter of this forum😁, so may I WELCOME you here! It's good to have our group grow and grow and grow!)
Thank you, Miselle. Here's to recouping the DJT fortune! And thank you for your welcome! I've been on Heather's ss only a few months but find it so wonderful. Lots of super contributors! So thank you Walmart/HCR Greeter! :) :)
donna, I was (in many ways still am) a mouse. NEVER in a million years did I imagine myself calling Congress, writing postcards, protesting in the street. (My heart race and sweating hands the first time I called McConnell's office!!! LOL)
The forum adds so much via news they read, their own career expertise, etc. I grow smarter because of them!
Also, over time, I've come to learn about many of the folks' personal lives. When my brother passed away, I was literally brought to tears by kind words from people here. I've never done social media, so I never quite got the "facebook friends" thing, but I feel like I've made friends here who I'm unlikely to ever meet.
I would agree with most of this: all except putting all the blame on SCOTUS. Had Trump supporters not re-elected him last November, despite the clear evidence that he utterly disdained and disavowed our electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law, thus putting him out of reach of Jack Smith and the DOJ, we wouldn’t be here. If it hadn’t been for Mitch McConnell and his obediant Republican Senators who failed to convict him after January 6th, we wouldn’t be here.
There have been many steps in this march to war and all the rest of Trump’s degradations. Trump v USA was only one of them.
I think you are ignoring the impact of Citizens United (2010). From my Memorandum, "The impact of Citizens United has been a rapid concentration of force in billions of dollars primarily in television and online political advertising, particularly through independent expenditures by ultra-rich persons, Super PACs and "dark money" groups (nonprofit 501(c)(6) corporations that do not disclose their donors), leading to more hard-hitting, often negative, attack ads targeting candidates and issues that are not supportive of its cause." UnitedWeAmend.org
I read about the phone calls with the Saudi Prince. I also watched a YouTube video with Jeffery Sachs who is an economics professor at Columbia. He stated Netanyahu is telling Trump what to do. Netanyahu’s goal is to take over the Middle East. What a corrupt administration and world we live in.
There’s always the possibility of blackmail. Netanyahu likely has incriminating information / Epstein files, and has threatened release if Trump doesn’t do his bidding.
👋🏼Nancy, as I posted to donna above, I am overjoyed when I discover yet another new face on this forum! Some reply and tell me they've read for a long time, just either lapsed payment or finally decided to jump on, but to me, every person joining the herd here is WELCOME. Thanks for doing that.
You can blame the Supreme Court, but for me all the Trump-induced pain we have experienced is on the heads of Congress. Letting Trump off the hook after he leaves office does nothing to address our current problem, which is Trump in office currently acting outside the bounds of his oath and legal authority.
The remedy for that is impeachment, and that is the responsibility of Congress. They are the sole governmental body with the power to stop this illegal executive takeover of all the powers of government. In fact, they have each sworn an oath to do exactly that.
Congress has ceded to this unstable President the power to tax, to spend, and now, to make war. The only power they can't delegate is the power of impeachment, to make sure the other branches follow their paths to the Constitution. They can't give that power away, but they seem determined to ignore it. They should also be impeached, but there is literally no one left to impeach them.
So it's up to the voters to exercise the ultimate power of removal in November. Remove the scoundrels who refuse to do the job we hired them to do, the one they swore an oath to do, to defend the Constitution. Bring in a body of people willing to do the work, impeach the executive branch, then impeach their remaining colleagues who stood by and let this happen.
You can blame the Supreme Court for taking away our power to punish Trump and his cabal after the fact, but from our position in the middle of the fact it is more important that we stop the criminals now and worry about punishment later.
There would be no Trump in Office but for Citizens United. From my Memorandum, "The impact of Citizens United has been a rapid concentration of force in billions of dollars primarily in television and online political advertising, particularly through independent expenditures by ultra-rich persons, Super PACs and "dark money" groups (nonprofit 501(c)(6) corporations that do not disclose their donors), leading to more hard-hitting, often negative, attack ads targeting candidates and issues that are not supportive of its cause." UnitedWeAmend.org
I completely agree about the damage the Supreme Court did with Citizens United. Besides Trump, it's a primary reason Congress has been hamstrung - unless they have their own cult, no one there can afford to go against the oligarchs.
But my point was not about the past, it was about who has the power to make all of this go away, right now, and the only body that has the Constitutional authority to investigate and remove Trump and the other sworn officers of the Executive branch, right now, is Congress.
We've seen how much impact the Supreme Court has had when they rule against Trump. They struck down the tariffs, he effectively ignored them. At this point he has heard Andrew Jackson's quote many times and has completely bought into the belief that the Court is powerless to stop him.
Impeachment is the only avenue to get this crew out of power before 2028. We have to elect candidates in November who will take back all the enumerated powers of Congress and exercise the impeachment clause, if we want all of this to stop sooner, if ever.
I would love to see articles of impeachment introduced this session, even though they have no chance of passage. It would be good to have the position of all members of Congress on the record regarding the Trump administration. That will make it easier to clean house in the House and Senate when the time comes.
Mobiguy, so true! Heather has at times seemed incredulous that Congress has so willingly given up their powers! I have often said this to aides when I call, or put it in the emails to Congress: WHY do we need YOU, when YOU let the Executive branch usurp your power?!?!
It's not hard to understand the reason. The original post nailed it: Congress as a whole is bought and owned by the same people who own Trump, and the members can either toe the line, get primaried out of office, or resign. Most don't want to lose a cushy job where they get lots of money and government perks for doing nothing. So they happily assume the role of figurehead and let the people who bought them their jobs pull the strings and run the place.
The Ellisons, Musk, Bezos and the rest of that gang can buy a Congressman with the loose change they forget to take out of their pockets when they send their pants to the dry cleaners. It used to be called bribery; now it's just unlimited campaign contributions.
We've reached the point where the needs of people who aren't oligarchs are simply irrelevant to the small group that has the financial power to determine the outcome of the majority of elections. The bottom 99.999 percent have no effective voice in government now, and will not have one again until the Supreme Court decides to rescind Citizens United and allow elections to be decided by voters instead of money.
Let’s Not forget Jared Kushner’s role in these negotiations. He’s a private citizen working for Qatar, SA & UAE. He has an interest in destroying Iran for profit.
No “presidential duty” that is in violation of the Constitution can be considered a legal exercise of his powers as president. He needs to be impeached and convicted.
Can’t say I really “like” it because it’s horrible but it’s the truth. The truth REALLY hurts! We are in the hands of a moron who thinks he’s smart and is drunk with power. The people he’s given jobs and responsibilities to are also incompetent morons. While we were bombing iran iranians were dying while Trump was holding a million dollar ticket fund raiser at the White House. Congress had better step up soon or we are on our way out as a democracy and a nation. This has got to stop. Let Trump go live with his saudis, and he take the whole corrupt Trump family with him.
Ok, good sir, what precisely does "go big or stay home" mean--other than taking up arms against this criminal cult who happen to control the House, Senate, and Supreme Court?
I'm reminded of T. Jefferson's comment about the tree of liberty needing the occasional watering with patriot blood.
I made my contribution with the Ist Bn 5th Marines in Quang Nam Province in '69-70 (before I knew better). At 77, I still have some blood left to give.
Who's organizing the rebellion? If you are waiting for a blue wave to kick the grifting thugs out of power, dream on. I think that ship has sailed, especially if the Save Act passes the Senate.
Following my words "Go Big... " I included my web page to my Memorandum of American ideals and values, Court lies and attacks upon us by others. It ends with a five section model amendment which would address nearly every lie by the U.S. Supreme Court since it created Corporate Personhood in 1886 in a headnote of in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 US 394. Please see UnitedWeAmend.org.
lauriemcf--I could even see Trump sacrifice his kid to make a HUGE headline splash: "Barron Trump Enlists!" as he wants those TRUMP-EPSTEIN files buried! Melania would have an absolute heartattack--and might then spill the beans. After all, if Hilary can testify, so can she.
Instend of #SendBarron, I think it should be #BarronEnlist!!
He rules by fiat. This time he's gotten himself into a situation where his fiat won't work. He can't manage the course of war by fiat. That's the way it is.
He has a criminal army at his disposal. W had to use our military with limited civilian support. Chump has “deputized” the republic party and all the monied crooks.
Now that he's officially validated decapitation and kidnapping as a legitimate foreign policy, I would caution our unitary powered, deludional president to be very very careful. He has put a big target on his chest.There are many state and gang actors who don't want his global chaos.
I would also caution all Americans to stay away from Mar a Lago and the White House for the foreseeable future.
Indeed. To me, it’s rather callous and cruel, and fails to recognize the soldiers’ sacrifices of their lives and the grief their families must feel. I can only empathize with their families and offer my prayers and condolences. Trump will never put Barron in harm’s way like that.
Worse still than just saying “that’s the way it is” is when you don’t even know yourself what “that” even is.
Little Johnny comes home with an “F” on a major test. “Didn’t study much, did you?” says the father. “We’ll, that’s the way it is,” responds little snotty pants...
Apparently, we are once again liberating the Middle East from the grave danger of insufficient chaos.
According to the latest explanation, Iran posed an “imminent threat.” The kind of imminent threat that apparently leaves no paper trail, no clear intelligence, and no consensus briefing for Congress. It exists in that sacred realm where facts are optional, but cruise missiles are not.
Three American service members are dead. Oil prices are climbing. Regional powers are mobilizing. Hezbollah is involved. Israel is exchanging strikes. The Strait of Hormuz is tightening. But don’t worry. The strategy is “strength.”
Strength, in this case, seems to mean lighting a match in a room full of gasoline and then announcing you are open to negotiation. One day, the goal is deterrence. The next day it is regime change. Then it is letting the Iranian people handle it themselves, presumably after we destabilize the entire region on their behalf.
Congressional oversight appears to be treated like a suggestion box. Constitutional war powers are brushed aside in favor of executive impulse. The American public is told to trust the vibes.
If there is a plan, it is being kept safely hidden from both lawmakers and reality.
Nothing says “America First” quite like starting a war no one can clearly explain, in a region that has already swallowed decades of American blood and treasure.
If there ever was an example of "Wagging the Dog", this one would be it. His indifference to killing children is right in line with his indifference to the assertion, of one who experienced rape at his hands, that he rapes them. Dagens.com US reports that only 27% of Americans approved of this assault against Iran; 43% disapproved while 29% remained undecided. Trump thinks he knows the Middle East; in reality, he knows nothing of the history nor the disposition of this region's population. Although technically, Iran is not part of the "Middle East" (it is part of Persia, geographically) Muslims have a long memory as their history has well demonstrated. If anyone believes that we will somehow make "quick work" of this situation, only proves how unlearned, uneducated, and arrogant they are. I fear that we are in for a long haul, folks: economically, politically, and violently.
Thanks Frank. I hold a more sceptical view (if that’s possible); does the Trump Administration’s behaviour represent the behaviour of a declining hegemon? Maybe this is far too big an idea for the circumstances, but so much of the politics of Trump seems to simply waste the power of the US, and that c. 40% who still support him when polled seems to point to a very serious malaise in our ‘western’ society (sadly, I have to report that he has support outside of the US too). I am encouraged by the lively interest in society and in politics evident in forums like this by the way, ‘it’s not all bad’. But I wonder how much more of this ‘diversionary’, and divisive’, behaviour the US can recover from. Alliances are being wrecked around the world by the Trump Administration, and there is a limit to everyone’s tolerance. With regard, Anthony.
Today, I got to hear the other side of the argument I put out yesterday. While I dislike the sneak attack; mistrust Trump; and remain concerned about the extra-constitutional nature of the attack, there are points to consider here.
BLUF: one can only hope the ¿plan? works.
1st, Iran sponsors more terrorism, often aimed at civilians, than any other enemy state.
2nd, Iran's rhetoric poisons public discourse with an eliminsationist anti-Semitism.
3rd, hopefully, the drone-making facilities in Iran will be closed, helping a sibling democracy in Ukraine.
4th, Iran and Israël had been on cordial terms under the Shah.
5th, Iranians are cosmopolitan and more akin to Israelis in levels of education and modernism than any other people in the region.
There is merit to at least some of these points. First, I believe that one of the sought from of Operations Iraqi-&-Enduring Freedom was to empower Iran's comspolitan middle class to democratize -- as the Iraqis and Afghans would have done by example -- to throw off the shackles of religious tyranny. Second, when the Shah left Iran, Teheran had been scheduled to hold the second international women;s conference the following year.
The WPR has largely proved to be toothless. No President has been impeached for a violation. Of course, there is always a first time, but if hostilities cease within the 60-day (+30 for withdrawal) window, repercussions are unlikely.
Even if Trump were impeached for a WPR violation, a conviction is almost beyond any possibility. Right now, the GOP holds the power in the Senate 53-47. It would take TWENTY GOP Senators to join ALL of the Democrats to convict on an impeachment resolution. That simply isn't going to happen.
So putting any kind of faith in impeachment is total folly. This isn't 1974 when the Senate was a more rational body. It was also controlled by the Democrats 55-45 although that still required 12 GOP Senators to join in conviction, something that, after the revelations about Watergate, actually seemed possible. Possible enough that Barry Goldwater joined other GOP Senators in telling Nixon he needed to consider the seriousness of an impeachment trial. That, along with the Supreme Court decision to require releasing the White House tapes, ultimately led to Nixon's decision to resign "to protect the nation".
There is about ZERO chance that any of those things (let alone all of them) are likely to align in 2026. The GOP controls the Senate. As noted, it would take 20 GOP Senators to jump ship and support a Democratic impeachment conviction. The GOP Senators are nowhere near as rational as the ones who existed in 1974, when the Senate was much more independent of the Executive. Now, with lapdogs like Lindsay Graham and Tom Cotton leading the way, coupled with the large majority of MAGA GOP Senators, there is virtually no chance that 20 GOP Senators would join the Democrats to convict Trump. And the Supreme Court will tread very lightly on Trump if at all, because he has at LEAST 5 solid votes there, probably six.
We can all wish it weren't so, but elections have consequences and this is the consequence of a Democratic party that acted in 2024 like it owned the castle when it was clear to many of us that we barely had a functional lease. Our disarray cost us, and the nation, dearly. We all HAVE to turn our attention solidly to the 2026 midterms because the future of our country will be decided in the next 8 short months.
I have made the same argument about needing 20 Republican Senators to override a Trump veto many times in the past because it is so hard to achieve for any legislation and for conviction on impeachment.
But this is something where there is, at least, some MAGA types who believed Trump when he said no more foreign wars, and explicitly promised not to go to war with Iran. MTG and that faction are pissed, as are a lot of the podcasters in the MAGAsphere. Americans know this is a distraction from the Epstein files and Republicans can read polling data.
The WPR needs to be passed because it is the right thing to do, Then Trump will veto it, as he did in Trump 1.0 for the Yemen war powers resolution in December 2018. It lays the groundwork for impeachment after the midterms.
There are already coffins coming back to Dover AFB. Then every Republican will have to vote on overriding the veto ahead of the midterms. Pictures of Trump either at Dover or missing, should appear in a lot of ads ahead of the midterms. So should Stop the War rallies with millions of people across America.
If the House can impeach Trump on proof of him being a pedophile as well as a trafficker and money launderer, and the Senate fails to impeach because the Republican Senators that are up for reelection didn't vote to impeach, it is going to look really bad for their reelection campaigns.
The prize needs to be a majority in the House and the Senate to block anything Trump tries to do after 2026.
GJ, compared to the necessity of his impeachment, blocking anything Trump tries would be the second-place prize or quite frankly, the booby prize. Being mindful of what Jon Rosen has said, your option may be the only option left to us. I don't like it; hopefully, the midterms will provide much needed relief.
Simple majorities lets you control the legislation that gets to the floor so nothing Trump propsoes would pass.. But two thirds in both houses are needed to enact legislation, because Trump will veto anything the Dems propose. Just out of spite and to not givr “the libs” a win. So what if there are some Republicans who support a bill in a Dem majority chamber, They are RINOs . He would rather collapse the house of cards on top of them to get his retribution,
I do not disagree at all with your assessment here Georgia. We are in a "stand-off" that is likely to continue until the 2028 election since removing Trump is a highly speculative goal (and likely to fail) and as you note, he would rather bring the house of cards down on everyone than to have to negotiate in good faith.
But that IS our system, like it or not. Hopefully, in the future we might be able to make some modifications to make it more sane, but for now, this is where we are.
Fight. No matter the odds. Never give up. Never. You don’t fell a tree with one swing of the axe. Put that undercut in there. What if Jon’s delay is too little too late? Heighten the stakes for every Republican coward. Let them feel the undercut. Let them anticipate the backcut.
Basically the checks and balances envisioned by Madison and the other founders have been overridden by the rise of partisanship, and geographic expansion, not to mention the furtherance of personal ambition over the protection of institutional integrity. Even after we change the makeup of our congress, serious institutional obstacles will remain.
So what do we DO about it? Impeachment and veto overrides are nearly impossible, and constitutional amendments are even harder. So we nibble around the edges. Even a statute to outlaw Citizens United will be difficult because it will need 60 Senate votes and there are plenty of Democratic senators sucking off the corporate donor teat just like Republicans.
It's quite a corner we have painted ourselves into.
I certainly wouldn’t try to clean up the corrals during these cold months. IDE just give up and keep feeding them all winter and let the shit stack up. When it gets deep enough they’ll be able to just step over the fences as if they weren’t even there.
It is incumbent upon us and the decent people in Congress to establish a position. And make every effort to push that position. The backlash against this war could be enormous. The House and the Senate could be in Democratic hands soon.
Regardless. When criminals attempt to enter your home and you have any strength left in your body, do you just roll over and say it is inevitable? That your family should suffer because you are outnumbered?
Was it inevitable that Trumpstein be elected twice? Of course not. He got where he is because of apathy, detachment and a sense of non involvement. And a lame sales pitch that too many people gobbled up. Many of them are now - NOT HAPPY.
Saying that impeachment or a WPR are toothless is surrender. The Fascists are counting on it. We need to stand up and stand for something.
True, a WPR has been ineffective in the past. And effective impeachment - not yet. But we never thought we would be led by a demented monster. That's a first. We never thought that the Epstein scandal would encompass and reveal an enormous ring of money laundering and influence that is still only being partially revealed. Keep an eye on Sen Wydens investigation of JP Morgan Chase. Remember, Al Capone wasn't imprisoned for murder. It was tax evasion. Follow the money!
There is a revolution brewing. Let's all do what we can to be a part of overthrowing the Oligarchy.
You and Jon are practical and offer fact based reasoning. But history is filled with incidents where the unexpected led to the unexpected. Let's all campaign for something new.
Yes, Bill! Agree something new definitely needed! What I don't understand re WPR and Military is, proven existence of a direct threat to U.S. by a foreign power. It seems, this is not essential in soooo many conflicts in which U.S. engaged. How about a change here??? Instead of Reacting by Attacking, how about a change here??? Instead of 3 out of 4 people objecting, how about declaring that the 1/4 not objecting need to accept their responsibility for supporting a draft-dodging, convicted felon, pedophile and rapist. RESIST!!!
Shoshone Lake fire. 1974. Ed and I jumped that fire late one afternoon. Small fire, we lined it and set up a silk cargo chute to keep the mosquitos off. Early the next morning about 2 am a grizzly found us. He stalked the tent round for hrs. In fact he wore a trench path around that old wwII cargo chute. Now old Ed he was a snore factory. Every time he cut loose that damn bear came back. That bear was hungry but was reticent to plunge through that silk barrier. I kept dropping pine needles in Ed’s mouth every time he opened it to snore. That seemed to be proactive. About 4 am Ed got enough beauty rest and woke up spitting pine needles. I didn’t confess. When he stepped out into the grey dawn he noticed the bear’s trench and accosted me for not waking him up earlier. Knowing Ed I figured he would jump up with his Pulaski and the bear would attack and I told him so. We gathered our gear into 120 lb packs and headed down the hill towards a trail that would bring us to Old Faithful as we were in Yellowstone where there were always grizzlies dining on unwary hikers. Once we hit the trail that damn bear caught up with us and was closing rapidly. We shed packs clutched our pulaskis and walked away fast. We got tired of full on retreat and agreed we had enough. As we finally faced that bear he stood. Unfortunately bear spray wasn’t invented yet, and we were fresh out of fusees, our normal bear defense. As he closed a ranger on horseback with pack mules for our gear rounded the bend. He sized it up fast and sent four rounds over that bear’s head. Good thing he empeached that son-of-a-bitch.
I agree with you ... BUT even if the War Powers Resolution were to pass, he would ignore it. None of this is going to happen. He is not going to be impeached unless we (meaning the Dems) take over the House. We are very close. .
As far as I can see, Dems are still going with a “We ain’t Trump so vote for us” strategy again. They still are playing catch-up with the flood of crazy. That being the case, they need the receipts on what crazy the Repubs voted yes on. Just to remind Repubs of all there is ober the last 13 months and going forward.
This is all in the hands of the Republicans who serve in Congress. Those of us here every day knew exactly what kind of man T is and with Project 2025 what the goals of his cronies were. We heard about it, we read about it, we watched him for years even before he ran for office and won. They are all bootlickers. They are the ones I put the responsibility with the most. They could start an end to this nonsense tomorrow. Your response should be sent to every Congressmen and Senator in the country.
Congress, in effect, is the GOP who, en mass, refuse to stop it. Worse, the balance of power between the President, Congress and the Judiciary is apparently based on trust; the teeth — the underlying Constitutional law — is circumvented by the law's delay combined with a Congress and Judiciary loyal to the president. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is thereby, at least temporarily, eviscerated.
You can be sure that Susan Collins would claim, with a straight face, that impeachment of Trump is enough to teach him a lesson and conviction is not necessary, he will be a good boy from now on.
Thomas, you read my mind. I think about that ALL the time whenever I hear her name! I hope that she gets voted out!
(As the self appointed WalMart greeter of this forum, WELCOME! Whether HCR is new to you, or you've been reading "free" for a long time, our strength is in numbers. Times are hard for many folks, and I admire anyone who supports her voice of truth. Thanks for that! This forum gives me hope.)
As I have been saying, this entire spectacle has been a WAG THE DOG moment for tRump. He desperately needed a diversion from his real problem, him being a huge part of the EPSTEIN FILES and this was it. Sadly, it seems to have worked beautifully for him. Today, there has been NO mention of his more pressing personal issues, only reporting and, in many cases, support for this “war.”
I was watching MORNING JOE this morning and was kind of disappointed in Joe and his entire crew. They seemed to have focused their attention on the Iran attacks and how successful they seemingly were. In fact, Joe, himself a former Reagan Republican, seemed to be waxing poetically about his hero, Reagan and how, in a sense, he would have appreciated this. And, Hell, maybe he would. The demented behavior, name calling words, reckless behavior, and most of all, perverted past of this “President” had been forgotten.
There has been very little mention of the FACT that, according to our CONSTITUTION, a president is to notify and get approval from CONGRESS in order to wage war. This was not, in any way, done. What to make of all of this? Frankly, I’m not sure but it sure does worry me that, maybe, just maybe, the FLIM MAN, that tRump most definitely is just might be pulling the wool over our country’s eyes once more. PLEASE, SAY IT AIN’T SO???
We also owe to those our military have killed on the ground in Iran and to the military members who have been sent through propaganda and lies. No threat was imminent before we struck. This administration has lied so prodigiously, only the weak minded have become prone to it.
There is a parallel between approving public executions of innocent American citizens in Minnesota and saying it's just a necessary price for more American troops to be slaughtered and seriously wounded for the crap shoot that attacking Iran with only air strikes and clearly no other plan can destroy its evil regime. As Dr. Richardson suggests with the "#sendBarron," it's easy when you are amoral and you don't have any of your own skin in the game. But again, ignore Trump. This is only happening because Republicans in Congress believe in dictatorship. Keep the heat on the Republican Party.
Back in the Pandemic, I recall some prominent Republicans suggesting that old people had lived long enough, and should brave the virus to corporate sales from dipping. Other people are just animate objects, if not prey, in the mind of malignant narcissists.
And the Pentagon are a bunch of old, past retirement age, but the pay is good as their pension plans keep going up are just not only a drain on our tax dollars but also a bunch of warmongers that is needed to keep themselves relevant.
I honestly do NOT believe this is true. Pentagon generals have a very tough line to walk as their command-in-chief is the President and disobeying orders is a VERY serious thing to consider, and can be a crime. If a commander-in-chief told the generals to go commit murder on the streets of New York, they would resist (as they have in limiting the actions that the military have been permitted to take in Trump's domestic agenda). But if the command-in-chief declares a war in a foreign country, the generals need a REALLY SERIOUS ASSESSMENT before they can reach the conclusion that such orders are illegal and therefore subject to being disobeyed. And that is why this action in Iran is so much more obvious to me than some of the actions Trump attempted in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and Minneapolis. THIS action he CAN justify because its within his power to order the military to take action.
Maybe that needs to be changed, reevaluated in the future, but for now, he has that power. It should be limited in terms of time and scope but so far, he really hasn't violated (in Iran) the "rules" that have been followed by previous President. Its outrageous to us because we evaluate it in terms of all the horrible things he has done, but as a single solitary military action, I dont see any way the generals could refuse to follow his orders here.
There has been no credible evidence Iran was /is an imminent threat. Only Congress can declare war. Netanyahu convinced Trump he was striking a pinata, not stepping on the biggest hornets nest in the mid-east. With all the civilian deaths in Iran now, there'll be decades of young Shite martyrs willing to continue the work of the Ayatollah. The brutal mliitary police remain in place. They will just become even more brutal. Trump is stupid.
As always, it is appropriate to repeat, the moniker "only Congress can declare war" is a very misleading statement. Congress is the only body of government that can issue a declaration of war, that is correct. But bringing troops into a battle does NOT require declaring war, as has been proven that we have done so since 1941 (the last time Congress OFFICIALLY declared a war) over a dozen times, in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other countries. The President is the Commander-in-chief and has tremendous power to use the country's military without a declaration of war. The current "war" in Iran is not declared, but none of Trump's "wars" have been declared and as always, nothing at all has been done about that so why would anyone think this time would be different?
Yes, it's a hard decision. It's so much easier just to go along with a demented autocrat - the targets are just a bunch of brown-skinned people on the other side of the planet, after all. We're only throwing massive bombs and missiles at them, no boots on the ground (yet, anyway) so what's the downside? Sure, we'll have some casualties, but nothing major that can't be explained away.
The idea that Congress can put a halt to this is ludicrous. Why should a war powers resolution have any more effect than the Constitution, which has been reduced to meaningless pieces of paper by the Orange Menace and his henchmen in the Grand Order of Pedophiles.
What The F??? ***I*** am pushing for mass extinction? In what sane world do you have the chutzpah to suggest such an outlandish notion? Where have I ever said anything like that? Please PLEASE quote me if you can find any evidence that I believe we should permit such an atrocious idea. I am pushing to sane political steps under our Constitution to fix this awful mess. That means focusing on the things that CAN solve the problem, not wasting time on things that can't or won't.
Everything you have said is true. And as always, well explained.
But it is never an impossibility that Congress could decide to reassert its power as a coequal branch of government. For too long, American presidents of both parties have assumed "king" like authority to conduct war on other nations.
This could be changed. We should demand it. History is filled with reactions to overreach and domination.
There was no immediate threat from Iran.
The vast majority of Americans did not want another war.
Most people think this bombing is a distraction from the Trump Files.
The president ignored the people. Congress represents the people.
He will pay a price. If the people demand it.
So, again. I call on all of us to demand accountability. Demand that our representatives ACT. Time to overthrow the Epstein Class.
Yes, it is NOT an impossibility that Congress could reassert its power. But as Phoenix notes in another comment, the current Congress is highly unlikely to do that. Which is why I think all efforts MUST be devoted to fixing THAT problem and not tilting at windmills hoping for an impeachment conviction that simply isn't going to happen.
Jon, I often disagree with you, but not this time. To me, the parallel to "W's" Iraq war is obvious.
I have often opined that George W. Bush was the "crash test dummy" for the long-planned Republican strategy of putting a weak-minded, malleable ignoramus in the White House.
"W" got us into the Iraq war on evidence that turned out to be flimsy and/or false. Nobody was calling for the generals to disobey his orders at that time because he was within his rights to launch the military action. At least he had a response to the 9/11 attacks to justify his actions. Donald has nothing of the sort.
Totally agree with your assessment. This is clearly ONE of the LEAST justifiable uses of force of any President in modern times. But in the end, objection to that is (under our current laws and Constitution) a purely political act and that is why I emphasize focusing on the upcoming elections because that is the most effective way to force a change.
" But if the command-in-chief declares a war in a foreign country,..." That's the starting point. War declared by the C-in-C and not by Congress is unlawfully declared, i.e. unlawful. He then found yet another emergency to bolster his authority, the Iranians would have a nuclear bomb in a week. Several intelligence sources rebutted this lie. We faced no imminent threat to our security that might have, might have justified his declaration of war without Congress. The military used to be known for honor and courage. I don't seem much of that it today's military.
Good catch... my words were written late at night and were not as precise as I typically try to make them. You are correct that a C-in-C has no more right to "declare war" in a foreign country as here in the US, but he DOES have the right to USE the military to commit troops into battle in foreign countries WITHOUT an explicit declaration of war as Presidents have done over a dozen times since the last declaration of war (December 7, 1941). No declarations of war were ever issued for Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Panama, Kosovo and many more. So I apologize for that misunderstanding and misstatement.
And as C-in-C, the military commanders are REQUIRED to obey his orders UNLESS those orders are "unlawful". Attacking another country is borderline, but we have done it in the past (many times as noted above) and we have never declared it to be illegal. Democrats have gone along with this just as often as Republicans (remember LBJ and Vietnam?). This is why his orders to put the military into action INSIDE the US was clearly a violation of law. Using the military in foreign difficulties is much more likely to be considered legal, at least for brief moments in time (and remember Vietnam went on for almost 10 years under both Democratic and GOP Presidents!)
You're right that there is precedent for presidents to be given deference on foreign affairs decisions. And we've given presidents like LBJ a pass on questionable attacks on countries without a declaration of war, Jon. I don't think that the current president has articulated any emergency that would justify waging war without a declaration approved by Congress. I admit I'm basing my opinion largely on the fact that I do not consider this president at all honest or trustworthy. He claimed that Iran would imminently have nuclear weapons to attack us. Intelligence sources have denied this. And today Rubio talks about Iran's having short-range missiles; these could not reach the US. P47 has a record of acting in his own self-interest rather than for the common good. I guess in days or weeks to come a decision will be made by Congress that we'll all need to live with, for better or for worse.
I am not sure you're completely right about this bombing of Iran as being within the rules, but I agree that it is certainly a deep grey area, and needs to be changed.
Hey "within the rules" is one of those things that requires SOMEONE to make the decision! We practically bombed North Vietnam into oblivion in the 60s and early 70s and despite LOTS of protest, it didn't stop until they beat us plain and simple. Rules in war are pretty flexible. Try to kill others without getting killed yourself. Essentially legalized murder. And it depends on whose ox is getting gored, too. As well as who is leading the charge. Vietnam played out BETTER than this current atrocity precisely because the leader at the time was fairly well thought of by the ones mostly likely to protest it (Democrats) at least for a long while.
No Jon. Why do you always cower to authority? Your logic is like a sponge here. Trump can issue as many illegal diatribes as he wants to. Given. Illegal diatribes must be condemned on the spot. Fuck the consequences. Tell me please about your last real time combat assault in which you were ordered to blow up a school full of fucking children. Your logic makes him imperial. Do you think he is a fucking authority when breaking the law? When do you slap him in jail? Before he kills again? Oh pardon me that would be you killing again. I forget you must follow his orders. So in other words those who used the following orders defense at Nuremberg should not have been hanged. You have the duty, not the right, to flat refuse illegal orders. You realize you would have hanged at Nuremberg! This cut and dried bullshit is not cut and dried. No one, not even God.
No matter how many times you tell a lie it is still a lie and that is on the test to gain access to the military academies.
You are clearly not a very good study of history. I love it that so many people point to Nuremberg at the killers who we executed. How many? We tried 199 people at Nuremberg and executed 37. Literally TENS of THOUSANDS more Germans who executed people in concentration camps, machine gunner people into ditches, etc., were simply set free or ignored. They killed millions of Jews and others in concentration camps. Yet we only executed 37. So, no, I probably would NEVER have been "hanged at Nuremberg". At least the odds would have been in my favor.
But that completely ignores the fact that I am NOT trying to justify what we are doing or what Trump is doing. I am trying to make sure we take actions that are LIKELY to create change.
So you can rail on about my excuses or avoidance, but trust me my comments are not to excuse OR avoid. They are to FOCUS on things that are possible as opposed to wasting time on things that are IMPOSSIBLE.
Remember when G. W. Bush and his cabal essentially said there was no need for a plan to establish the rule of law and good governance in Iraq, because the Iraqi people would spontaneously opt for democracy and free-market capitalism after Sadam was removed?
Actually, they didn’t say that. There were plans for rule of law and governance in Iraq — worth hundreds of millions in DOD contracts and the like. Rumsfeld spent a great deal of time and resources trying to manage the “known unknowns” and the “unknown unknowns.”
He was remarkably unsuccessful because the templates they were using didn’t have much to do with Iraq (or the United States for that matter). Condoleeza Rice would periodically issue vapid statements about the ease of “nation-building” based on the postwar experiences of Germany and Japan — two largely cohesive, highly-disciplined, mono-ethnic societies long before war and militarism undid them.
Iraq looked nothing like Germany or Japan of course. De-Baathification in Iraq simply served as the single most powerful growth medium for ISIS — perhaps even stronger and deadlier than Al Qaeda. About 150 US soldiers were killed, with 1,000 wounded in the twin 2004 battles to retake Fallujah. Iraqi governments after Saddam barely managed to hold on as pro-Shia, pro-Iranian influence grew rapidly.
All this in spite of ‘great’ minds thinking and planning and imagining they knew exactly what would happen and made policy accordingly. The best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley…
Now fast forward to today. Not 10 minutes of “planning” or thought has come anywhere near the vapid emperor and his brain-dead, lazy, sycophantic Cabinet of wormtongues. That was the lesson THEY took from the great failures of the American foray into Iraq. “What, me worry?” — MAD Magazine’s famous envoy and dodo-head, Alfred E. Neumann.
This is so much worse — orders of magnitude worse — precisely because they *haven’t engaged in the slightest thinking about ‘what comes next.’ Every syllable uttered by our greedy, shit-and-fake-gold-for-brains emperor demonstrates that.
I remember it too. Removing, and then hanging, Saddam left a power vacuum. A civil war with American troops, allied coalition forces and private military contractor mercenaries as occupying forces of such an unmanageable quagmire in Iraq that we finally left them to fend for themselves. Iraq is still not a stable country and there probably would not be an ISIS if the U.S. had not invaded.
ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), or Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist militant organization and unrecognized quasi-state founded in April 2013.
Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. Could we call this murder? He wasn’t in hiding. He was just working in his office.
On 3 January 2026, US forces captured Venezuela’s President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores; they were transported to the US and charged with drug trafficking. Could we call this kidnapping?
When will countries start retaliating and do the same thing to trump and his cronies?
I think it becomes clearer by the day that we in the West are ruled by a racket - Trump is the highest mafia boss, the other Western governments are just his underlings.
I wouldn’t say other “Western” nations are his underlings. Not all, but at least some, are pushing back and going their own way without the good ole US of A. I think this is the beginning of a long term global realignment. When our country’s government finally wakes up from this bender, the hangover will be severe and the rebuilding of trust and restoration of our reputation will take decades. The USA doesn't do humility very well, nor does it really know how to apologize for bad behavior. But we are going to have to learn quickly because that will be our new reality.
Vladimir Nabokov explores how the symptoms of hurt emerge mid-way in “Lolita,” after the main character/narrator – a middle-aged man – since a year earlier has been raping, traveling with, glorifying in his 14/15-year-old girlfriend.
The trouble for the girl – all girls in her situation – is unfinished cerebral growth. The brain’s synapses do not make their full set of connections till about age 25. No one in one’s teens can see anywhere near full context even of one’s own life.
David Cay Johnston, talking with Mark Thompson yesterday, mentioned his surprise as a reporter in the early days of the Catholic church’s scandals of its many priests raping children. Many mothers he interviewed knew about it. Normalized it.
This shocked him, but at the time few understood how the symptoms of hurt delay appearing till typically one, two, or three years later. Nabokov knew of this delay. But mainstream America for the sake of honoring status quo authorities chose its massive culture of denial. Hurt’s symptoms would yet lie latent, appear willy-nilly, then face the culture’s massive silence.
That silence, paralysis, still reigns, as the emerging Epstein evidence shows of the entire Republican party still supporting the would-be dictator, Russian money launderer, sex criminal, war criminal in the White House.
(Addendum: a quote from part of Heather's today, " . . . tickets for the dinner dance were $1 million apiece. The optics of Trump partying with his rich cronies while American soldiers died . . ..")
To clarify, it is the forebrain that continues development into the early and mid-20s. The forebrain is the seat of judgment and decision-making. This is why we look back on some of our own behavior in our teens and wonder, "how was I SO stupid?" For abused children (sexually or otherwise), they tend to feel guilt and shame, blaming themselves for the abuse because the forebrain is not adequately able to sort out WHO is actually to blame for the abuse. Thus, survivors often carry their "secret" to the grave, or only bring it out much later as development take its course. Therapy helps. PTSD is a complicating factor for many.
For a great movie on young people (in this case successfully) learning to deal with challenges, do you happen to know the 2017 "Wonder"?
For too many of the Trump-&-Epstein world, the bar for dealing with that was impossibly high, given the massive corruption, the total human emptiness of so many rich-&-high-placed.
I haven't seen that; will check it out. For the righ-&-high-placed I turn to Jamie Johnson's documentary, *Born Rich.* It gives amazing insight into the lives of young people born into unimaginable wealth and opportunity. Troubling, yet clarifying.
At long last, NO decency. None. Few if any of us are saints, but OMG. Most of these creeps claim to be "Christian", but that's long been cloak for its antithesis. Trading power for one's "soul" is the classic "devil's bargain".
I read some time ago, yet something that seems to be left out if the whole epstein conversation, and that is the name of epstein's plane. Wasn't it called " The Lolita Express"? Time to start calling the plane by it's name.
Yes, we are. But we share the appellation because we were also imbeciles in electing him. Even if you voted for Harris, we all share the common responsibility of this massive failure in electoral politics.
Well, the chickens (more like wolves) have come to roost in the hen house.
No, I worked my butt off talking to potential voters in 6 States, writing postcards, and ran down my savings drastically. I worked the polls too the last several years. I refuse now to accept responsibility for the utter corruption or stupidity of a majority of American voters. I gave up my hobby to try to prevent this. All this was absolutely predictable. I am beyond apoplectic.
I agree Marie. There are millions of Americans that trusted Trump when he said that he would lower prices on day 1, end the Ukraine War in 24 hours with a phone call and never start a war. Of course, he lied about dozens of other things as well that the idiots believed. Many of the people you connected with chose to believe a fat, stupid, cruel, lying, narcissistic murdering pedophile over a brilliant experienced kind woman.
As a nation, we all must shoulder the responsibility. But that's a bit hard to do, when there is no mechanism for stopping the sheer madness of which so many were victims (and still are). So those of us who worked hard to convince others of his complete unfitness for office were stymied. Let us not forget those who didn't even bother to vote.
I significantly discount the accusations of voter suppression. I would MUCH more likely think that sexism played a greater part in the calamitous loss in 2024, coupled with the Democrats' horrific ability to do politics in a sensible way. It is much easier to believe that WE caused our own problems than to think that outsiders managed to influence enough people in our party to not vote. The latter would suggest that our party's voters might be as stupid as the GOP's voters and I don't believe that. We were our own worst enemy in 2024 and it cost us the election. Hopefully (assuming we don't lose the entire republic before that) we are smarter in 2026 and 2028.
"...when there is no mechanism for stopping the sheer madness of which so many were victims." On point here James. We have a Constitution which is miraculous in many ways, but highly flawed in others. As a nation, we have a responsibility to try to fix those problems as often and as soon as possible. We obviously have not fixed the ones here that permit Trump to act in such an outrageous manner, and we need to do that as soon as possible. But if at all possible we need to continue to act in concert with the Constitution, regardless of its flaws, because otherwise we just become another anarchic or despot-ruled society, and despots aren't any good no matter WHICH side of the political spectrum they come from.
James, when I read a comment that attacks people who don't vote, I always assume that the commenter is someone who enjoys voting in a district that hasn't been gerrymandered into oblivion. In addition to voters who've been silenced by gerrymandering, others live in states with populations that have been poorly educated for generations, to the degree that the overwhelming majority can't discern shit from shinola.
Rather than attacking voters who don't participate, we should be attacking the systems that demoralize and disenfranchise voters who say, "Why bother? What's the point?"
Even in the somewhat politically active state I live in, our voter turnout is, to put it mildly, miserably disappointing. So, sorry, but I won't give a pass to those who won't get off their ass and pay attention and vote. Nope. Because they're the same ones who bitch about the result. And I've had it with those folks. No pass for gerrymandering or not being educated: those are lame excuses. Enough. This democracy is supposed to be 'participatory'. You don't want to participate, or won't put out the effort, then, to borrow a line from Jack McCoy in an episode of Law&Order: "sit down and shut up."
I think that the individuals are multifaceted. Uninformed only because they get their "information" from manipulative sources that tickle their amygdalae and feed them propaganda; I'd prefer the "mis/disinformed" moniker. I will agree on your imbeciles since they believed that H. Clinton had a sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor. WTAF?????
I used to say that Trump is “the boy giving a book report who hasn’t read the book”. I now believe Trump is “the boy trying to write an essay who does not know how to write”. He has concepts of a plan, but can’t even express what the concept is. Reminds me of his “concept of a healthcare system”. He’s a mad man and belongs in a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane!
“Trump seems unclear about the end game of the conflict he has started.”
He has no effing idea. That is much too complex a thought process for him even back when he still possessed all his mental faculties, such as they were.
I believe Trump is being manipulated by Netanyahu, Arabs who oppose Iran, and the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein. There’s a big question about how Putin fits in, and how he takes advantage. The military resources being expended on Iran should really be being sent to the Ukrainians. They love freedom too.
He’s being “managed” chiefly by the Gulf states and the Saudis after they’ve bribed him to the tune of billions. This is what THEY wanted. This is what they’ve spent bucketloads of cash to get.
“The Ellisons' pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery is driven not by acquiring assets, but by the strategic desire to gain control over and neuter CNN's editorial standing. For this coalition, neutralizing CNN is more valuable than gaining Paramount or Warner Bros., representing the final step in a rapid transformation of the American information infrastructure into an aligned political tool. (Read more on the situation in The Atlantic's analysis, The Atlantic.)”
➡️ We Should All Be Freaking Out About CNN
"If you live in a coastal city, CNN probably feels like a relic. But it remains one of the most powerful news brands on the planet. It plays in airports in every country, in hotel rooms from Dubai to Bangkok, in the break room of a factory in Youngstown, Ohio. It has reporters on the ground in Gaza, in Kyiv, in courtrooms and disaster zones across every continent. That is not a declining cable asset. That is the last global news infrastructure the United States has. And here is something those of us in independent media need to be honest about: CNN sits at the top of the journalism funnel. When creators break stories, that information almost always originated with a journalist who filed a FOIA request or sat through eight hours of congressional testimony. They are the headwaters. We are downstream. If editorial decisions at the top start being made for political reasons, it affects what stories exist in the first place. You cannot build what CNN has from scratch. You can only acquire it. Or destroy it.”
Yes, CNN is everywhere, all over the world. It's also a pale shadow of the reporting wizard it once was. They used to have, at least, a leg up on breaking news but that's no longer the case. I too mourn the loss of our independent news sources. CNN will be less independent, but in terms of quality reporting, will it really be a lot worse than it already is?
Mainstream news is already the disaster. It's enabling and complicity with this president is the disaster, and if the remaining MSM outlets devour each other, good riddance.
'“The presumption created by the surrounding evidence is that this war could very well be about (1) subverting US democracy, (2) enriching the president, or both. These are presumptions, not proof — but they provide the solid lines of inquiry as we learn more about the war.”
Heather is it possible that the billions the Saudis and Qatar have poured into Kushner’s business and the Trump boys businesses were ways to pay Trump to use thr US military to attack Iran???
If I were president of the US, I would be begging both God in heaven and the parents of the 150 children executed in the primary school to forgive our atrocity.
Thanks for more details on our new Trump escapade-- a war on Iran that is insane, unnecessary and illegal. Congress must be called back immediately to impeach Trump for his abuse of office and numerous illegal and unconstitutional acts. And three dead Americans to date as the blood thirsty president assures more to come. So it goes.
Kristin, you have only to listen to the gruesome details that made up so much of the State of the Union speech to see how much he enjoys focusing on gore and suffering. No one with any empathy would have belabored the pain of the victims, especially with parents in the audience.
Please, PLEASE, stop focusing on impeachment. It is a waste of breath and energy. At this point, it is even doubtful that the House could raise the votes for an impeachment resolution (requiring a majority of Congresscritters to vote in favor). And even if they did, the possibility of an actual conviction are literally ZERO. It takes 2/3s of the Senate to convict and the GOP holds a 53-47 majority. That means that TWENTY (count 'em 20!) GOP Senators have to join the Democrats to convict.
NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN. Not in my lifetime, not in yours.
"Trump"eting this over and over just deflects from what is REALLY needed which is a full-scale effort to guarantee that the Trump and his henchfolks don't screw up the 2026 midterm elections in a variety of nefarious ways, and at the same time, keep bringing light on the Epstein files in the hopes that enough Americans will get sick enough of him to finally bring him down. The latter is NOT guaranteed to happen, but it has MORE chance of happening than a conviction in an impeachment trial.
The latter is just a cosmic waste of time and energy in a publicity charade.
You're right that it's not about impeachment. But you seem to be seeing the future as cast in yesterday's stone. The mid-terms are coming. Congressional majorities can change, and vulnerable Representatives and Senators may wake up and see the writing on the wall. Or get blown away because they fail to see it. :)
You apparently misread or misunderstood my comments. You stated pretty much the same thing I was stating. I am ALL ABOUT focusing on the upcoming elections so that we create our own "regime change" here in the US. I am less convinced that GOP Congresscritters will "wake up" any time soon, but we can take over the majorities in both House and Senate. Just wanted to clear that up, we pretty much agree on what can AND should happen.
I do not believe it effective telling this community to “forget” any offensive or action to stop this reckless administration. Regardless of the results of an impeachment, launching any step to rid the threat to our nation’s democracy is worth its time and intention. Grassroot movement seeks legal action and the rule of law parallel to their objection. Calling for impeachment is part of the protest visible amongst the American people right now.
You certainly have the right to feel how you wish, and I clearly disagree.
ANY step is a pretty wide field "to rid the threat to our nation's democracy". So would you support assassination? That comes within the range of "any step", no?
My point isn't to suppress people's right to protest. I am ALL in favor of protests, but using the political process of impeachment is a huge waste (IMHO) of precious resources which can be much more effectively focused on more likely ways to create better outcomes. Its just like medicine. A doctor can do lots of things that MIGHT heal you, but they focus on the ones that have the best chance.
Impeachment has NO chance (to remove the President) so it is effectively pure political theater. That, IMHO, is a waste of time and resources when there are so many more important avenues to pursue.
Another attack on a sovereign country. The good news is bad people died. The bad news is hundreds of good people did and will join them. The chance of Iran attacking the US was essentially zero but Israel was worried and President Trump is not rational. Halt the bombing, stop the war, and change the leadership in whichever country you choose. Our troops deserve support but they really need to think about that unlawful order bit. Especially the top generals. Using our logic they should be bombed out of existence. If a bad leader who supports killing demonstrators should be destroyed we may have a problem. Contact your representatives. Vote Blue.
I'm uncomfortable with the judgment that comes with "bad people died" being "good news." For reasons I don't understand, although some Iranians rejoice in the death of those "bad" people, apparently millions of Iranians loved the "bad people", particularly their Ayatollah. Millions in the US love a man I consider "bad" -- DJT. But I don't want to be a hater. I am struggling with this.
I sure understand that internal conflict. I do not see how killing someone* is ever "good" news. Ever.
*Intentionally causing the death of another human can be justified, but it is never "good" news. I have been a member of law enforcement peer support formally since 1994 and informally (before there was knowledge of critical incident peer support) since 1988. I have worked with and talked with people who, under extreme threat, killed someone in defense of self or others. In none of these cases was it EVER an easy thing, even when completely justifiable. I've talked with a few military veterans from Vietnam to GWOT who had killed people in combat. It is NEVER an easy thing for them, either.
I'm reminded of a line from Holly Near: "Why do we kill people, who are killing people, to show that killing people is wrong".
The killing is bad of course and rejoicing in death is unfortunate and not appropriate for everyone. The death of a tyrant or someone actively harming you or others is often good news. So be it.
There is a mentally incompetent madman in charge of the country and the bunch of cowards in Congress, the Cabinet, and the Supreme Court are too in love with their precious stock market earnings to do anything about it. How are you going to cash in your shares when the US is glowing with radiation, eh? REMOVE TRUMP NOW!
"Thats the way it is." So said by the king and his court. Indifferent, callous and true to form.
Looking back to when Trump announced that the United States would accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 aircraft as a gift from Qatar on May 11, 2025, after that trip to the Middle East, and all the other hand shaking going on during that trip, we are now seeing the true quid pro quo, take down Iran. The facts listed below are from Forbes, Nov, 14, 2025. “Here’s Everything We Know About Trump’s Financial Ties To Saudi Arabia.”
December 9, 2024, Trump wins a second term and Dar Global announces two more Trump projects in Riyadh. “These developments will redefine luxury living in Saudi Arabia’s capital,”
May 13, 2025, Trump travels to Riyadh for a three-nation tour of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar—all countries where the Trump Organization is actively working on real-estate deals with Saudi Arabia’s Dar Al Arkan.
September 29, 2025, Dar Global announces a second Trump property in Jeddah – Trump Plaza Jeddah, which will include offices and apartments.
September 29, 2025, Kushner’s Affinity Partners teams up with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to buy videogame giant Electronic Arts for $55 billion.
October 29, 2025, Donald Trump Jr., flies to Saudi Arabia for an investment summit with Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Carlyle’s David Rubenstein, Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon. “Who would have thought 20 years ago that anyone with a few brain cells would be investing in the Middle East versus anywhere in Europe?” Don Jr. marvels on stage. “I think the opportunity over here in the region is spectacular.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2025/11/14/how-trumps-finances-got-tangled-up-with-saudi-arabia/
Professor Richardson, on the Feb. 28, letter, said that the "Washington Post ... reported that Trump decided to attack Iran after Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman made “multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a U.S. attack” while at the same time publicly calling for a diplomatic solution."
All of this is a direct result of "Trump v. United States," 603 U.S. 593 (2025) in which The Roberts Six held that under the separation of powers of our constitution the nature of executive powers entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for "official actions of the executive branch." Thus they spit in the faces of our Founders who created our Republic, the separation of powers, to avoid exactly that; the creation of a king who now claims the power to make WAR is an official action of the Executive branch. Thus this war and the corruption behind it, is all on the Roberts Six. They are our enemy. IMO, we go big to save our Republic or go home. UnitedWeAmend.org
Trump gets a plane and we get to pay for our military to become the white slave army for the Arab leaders who want to use Trump’s dementia to rid the world of all Persians. How clever!
The TOFU (Trump Only Fucks Up) king does it again. Him and his cadre of fools never think beyond their illegal actions -- NEVER.
And then he sends two morons that no one has ever heard of to deliver his message to the Sunday talk shows.
I'm with the "Send Barron" camp. He's the perfect age and he can do what no other Trump has ever done -- actually serve in the military.
The (deliberate) bombing of the girls’ school is undoubtedly Trump’s reaffirmation of ChristoNazi misogyny – the same hatred of females and contempt for femaleness that leads to both the victimization of terrorized children by the Trumpstein cult and to capitalism’s apocalyptic assault on our Mother Earth. That hatefulness – also manifest as white male supremacist bigotry – fuels the crimes against humanity that define the entire Trumpstein Regime. Thus the vital, know-our-enemy relevance of the full text of the Jane Doe lawsuit against Trump and Epstein -- later withdrawn by the plaintiff in response to credible death threats: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf
Flooding the zone means taking the focus off TrumpelStein.
I very much doubt that the bombing of the girl’s school was a deliberate act. The horrendous nature of our modern weaponry makes this sort of tragedy inevitable.
Regardless, the optics prove Loren Bliss’ point. Out of all the “legitimate” (so called) targets, we bomb a girl’s school? Really? F**k the weaponry; shame on us for the “tragedy.”
You, Mr. Quinn, are either pathetically ignorant of today's military technology or are an apologist for Trump; bombing that is precise enough to kill an ayatollah or drop 1000-pound general-purpose bombs down ventilator shafts from aircraft flying at altitudes of 20,000 feet is precise enough to deliberately miss a known girl's school -- and, yes, the pre-attack aerial photo interpretation and satellite surveillance that is SOP would unquestionably reveal the nature of the target. Understand the Original Nazis' approach to warfare, which the Hitler-emulating Regime is duplicating: realistically and in all probability-- given the Regime's utter disregard for females and all non-Aryan human life in general and the fact its war-criminal Legions of Death are already in complete violation of the Geneva Convention -- the Death Legion General Staff wanted an example of mass civilian casualties to terrify the Iranian population and chose a girls' school because of all possible choices it deems girls and women most expendable. That is the magnitude of Evil that assails us, and to deny it is in fact to serve the enemy.
With today’s technology & the ability to conduct targeted strikes how did they manage to hit a girls school & a hospital? Bibi wants everyone dead, just like Gaza.
If you drop a bomb deliberately to kill people on the ground, then you have committed a deliberate and indiscriminate act of murder. Do you think the bomber just accidently let the bomb slip to the ground and said "oopsie, I didn't mean it"? Maybe you would like to go into the war zone and debate the dead if they think the act that killed them was deliberate?
Not deliberate, but its cousin, Negligent.
Of course it was. Then a gymnasium where girls were playing basketball. The CIA lets Israel know exactly what they are bombing.
Oh, maybe it was because some Iranian "terrorists" were using the girls as shields. OR, the girls are Iranian, therefore enemies. Amalek
Trump saying he expected the people to rise up and take over and that the authoritarian government would voluntarily hand their weapons and power over to "the people " is Trump advocating for socialism! Of course these same people were being brutally murdered by the regime just weeks ago, so that's just more evidence of Trump’s incoherence. TOFU is a perfect descriptor.
He is lacking the cognitive ability to make any of these statements or decisions.
Dolt!!
Loren, I am sharing a pasting of a petition I received from Senator Tammy Duckworth, please feel free to share it with everyone you know who wants to stop the war.
Senator Tammy Duckworth wrote among other paragraphs that
“He (meaning Donald Trump) owes it to the American people he promised he would always put first to attempt to justify before Congress how this illegal war will serve their interests. And the Senate must immediately come back to Washington to vote on Tim Kaine’s War Powers Resolution.”
🚩She has included the following place anyone can sign to call the Senate back to vote. Here it is:
SIGN ON: CALL THE SENATE BACK TO VOTE NO ON WAR WITH IRAN
Add your name to demand that Senate Republicans call us back to vote on Tim Kaine’s War Powers Resolution.
If there was ever a time for Republicans to find their spines, it’s now. The Senate must immediately vote on Senator Kaine’s War Powers Resolution to block this illegal military campaign.
ADD YOUR NAME
FIRST NAME
LAST NAME
EMAIL ADDRESS
*
ZIP CODE
*
MOBILE PHONE
SUBMIT
Judy...Can you please provide an active link to this material? Thank you! (Also -- with a working link -- I suggest you post it early on Dr. Richardson's threads for several days.)
Thank you, Loren, for continuing to post this link so every person who reads it can understand what all this is really about-his way to distract from the Epstein files while simultaneously enriching himself and his family with more billions in bribes from foreign countries.
I saw an image in my mind this morning of a newspaper headline, "Our Long National Nightmare is Over". Oh, how I wish that image were today's reality.
It was Israel that bombed the girl's school. That is what they do. Bomb hospitals, caged civilians, target toddlers, ...in Gaza, in Lebanon, now in Iran.
Of course trump is fine with all that...as are most of our not very supreme leaders.
I like your name for trump, "TOFU" I"M wondering if I can adopt that? The only question I would have in using it is does it need to be capitalized? I wouldn't want o convey any kind of respect for the narcissistic fascist.
If I may chime in, my opinion is to keep it capitalized.
Yes. Better and far more visceral than just TACO.
Definitely -- tofu is a food. TOFU indicates each letter stands for a word.
Agree. I never capitalize trump's name. He is not a PROPER noun.
Stephanie, nor do I even when I am using one of my nicknames for him. I refuse to use his name or call him president....usually that is occupant of the WH.
He is merely a POS
No, you capitalize, like we do with NATO or USAID--oh, wait...
I like TOFU better than TACO.
More appropriate
Jen, I agree. Tofu is white, soft and tasteless. Under the orange paint, Donald is the same.
Dale, as you probably know, tofu absorbs flavors nicely. I guess when applied to death star, that can mean the puppeteers can feed him all sorts of nonsense because we know he does not and cannot read.
Brilliant: TOFU 🤩
Love TOFU. I am using this!
Thinking through any action by the right wingers is just beyond their greedy capabilities. Everything is done for immediate gratification or good TV for their drooling followers. Trump's incessant hyperbole is one more sign of his many emotional disorders.
Kindly do not mistake his glut, greed, selfishness and depravity for dementia. He is fully aware of the harm he is unleashing on the world; as long as he and his family profit from it all.
"He is fully aware of the harm he is unleashing on the world; as long as he and his family profit from it all."
This is exactly Hannah Arendt's definition of the banality of evil - giving no thought to the harm spreading out from one's decisions / actions.
Hannah tried to warn us.
As did Mary Trump.
I think Anne Applebaum is the modern Arendt as the voice of wisdom, insight, reason and a world view perspective.
I think Arendt also said that people have the right to have rights.
"Fully aware" does not really fit a person who has led a remarkably insulated life with zero exposure to the realities suffered by the majority of humans on this planet.
Malice aforethought.
Trump may not have personally experienced want and vulnerability - but he is certainly aware of the precarious lives and suffering of the majority of people on this planet.
Honestly, I don't think so. Like many malignant narcissists, he blocks that from his awareness, because his ego couldn't survive the effects of encountering actual suffering.
he has no empathy
TrumpStein has always reminded me of a mean and nasty version of the simple-minded character "Chance, the gardener" in the 1979 film "Being There." All of Chauncey 's knowledge came from watching TV. The film was a satirical comedy-drama starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, and Melvyn Douglas. IMO, a perfect story about America. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078841/
That is a very, very good point, Signe!
True, however, I think Trump has frontotemporal dementia, which tends to magnify his personality disorders.
Kathy, please read about FTD from a medical and scientific source, the Mayo Clinic.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/frontotemporal-dementia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354737
I was going from observations made by John Gartner, Ph.D. He is a psychologist who has worked with and observed dementia patients. He gave an interview with UK’s Times Radio in which he said that Trump’s leg movements, and difficulty with his leg movements reminded him of patients he had observed who had frontotemporal dementia. Dr. Gartner also noted that Trump had developed difficulties in remembering and recalling correct terms when he was speaking. This is a condition called phonemic paraphasia, and it is a symptom both frontotemporal and Alzheimer’s dementia patients have. It occurs when the patient is speaking, is unable to remember a word, and substitutes a word which is incorrect, but which sounds correct to them. An example would be substituting the word wishdasher for the word dishwasher.
I’m not a professional in psychology or medicine, and don’t claim to be one. I could very well be wrong and Trump has Alzheimer’s dementia. I considered the possibility of frontotemporal dementia based on Dr. Gartner’s discussion. I appreciate you sending the Mayo Clinic article on frontotemporal dementia. The only thing I know is that Trump clearly has some type of dementia obvious to even a lay person like myself, and it is severe enough that it raises questions as to his continued fitness to remain in office.
I keep wondering what infusions he is getting in his hands. I keep tracking the daily pictures of his face and I swear he is like Putin and using a body double because his face goes from puffy to more chiseled overnight, or he has really bad fluid retention issues.
I think he falls asleep more often on the puffy days. His waistline also seems to grow and shrink a lot, more than I think you could cinch in with a girdle.
Dear Georgia, I am happy to not be the one having to watch him so attentively! I cannot even watch the TV screen when he shows up.
I started looking carefully after I saw the picture of him with Ivanka at around age 10 with Epstein on the plane. Trump's face looked significantly different to me. Like a B list movie actor in a cheap biopic of Trump.
To me his sing-song droning voice is even harder to take than his looks. Who is his voice coach?
Why does everyone keep discussing trump?
A: preaching to the choir
B: he is not in charge.
The Epstein class of wealthy greedy leaders from Western and Middle Eastern countries are running the show.
We sure aren't....all we can do is say our pieces and whine.
I suspect heavy doses of diuretics.
Speaking of Putin--remember about a year ago HE had hand bruises, as I believe he fell a few times? I could be crazy but I thought I recall a report that he'd soiled himself.
HMMMMM.....who knows? Maybe the obscenely rich have found a infusible drug that gives immortality? I know, don the tin foil hats, but every day in Trumplandia there is something new that defies reality.
stem cells collected from cord blood used for leukemias, lympomas and immune dysfunction.?
trump does not have dementia. He is just straight up psycho and evil.
Both things can....and probably are.....true.
yeh..Ligia..., I've often felt the silliness of having our simple-minds drawn to little twitches in "His" behavior.., speech manner.., stubbing "His" toe on those steps leading into the airplane/helo. (have you ever used them..?..., I have, they're not friendly).., or other trite "things" he does which can be made-fun-of. I even wonder if the 'sources' of what has pretty-much been obvious dementive-baloney are actually an effective part of "His" Grab-Team tactic? Yes! And so-named because they have "grabbed" our simple attention and their boss has been re-elected! We have been sucked in again. Forming up in some kind of a 'tea party team' won't do it. So, the question remains: Why are we easily influenced? And, I've blabbed on enough but, I'll leave ya'll with this: Do the kids of parents who were kids back in 1970-79 know what went on in Iran? No! Hahahahaa..., I had a super-hot girlfriend from back then.., she had diamonds in the soloes of her slippers. Her daughters are well-off doctors.., good ones.., but they don't have a clue.
The United States just bombed a girls school in Iran, killing 118. Trump's strategy for this war is that the "people" of Iran will overthrow the remaining government and line up with the United States. That is complete dementia!
There is no plan. There is no “deal.” There is just abject stupidity.
The plan was to deflect from Epstein.
Malcolm Nance said war will keep Epstein off the headlines for maybe two days. https://deanblundell.substack.com/
He's killing several "birds." Primary is to detract from Epstein.
Secondary is personal aggrandizement.
Also raises oil prices -- to benefit Putin's war machine.
And a pretext -- an "emergency" to invoke the "unitary executive".
Yes. And... let's keep an eye on Sen Wyden's pursuit of financial records from JP Morgan Chase. Epstein was more than a sex trafficker of girls. And more and more of us are calling them the Trump Files. The Epstein Class has a lot to hide. "The truth is out there."
THE US IRAN WAR IS ON
A recording from Jacob Kaarsbo and Black Man Spy - Malcolm Nance's live video
Jacob Kaarsbo
.https://jacobkaarsbo.substack.com/p/the-us-iran-war-is-on?publication_id=5530472&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=dvsxz&utm_medium=email.
Black Man Spy - Malcolm Nance
.https://malcolmnance.substack.com/s/black-man-spy.
I have heard this being referred to quite a few times as the war by the Epstein class.
Not deflecting...institutionalizing.
The phase "loose cannon" comes to mind to compliment your comment or "Ready, Fire ... Aim"
Perhaps it is fire, ready aim?
Shoot and holler "shit!"
The Plan is Mohammed Bin Salman's Plan. trump has more handlers than just putin.
In my experience, Trump is not exhibiting complete dementia. Rather, he routinely exhibits complete stupidity, ineptitude, lunacy, ignorance and idiocy.
The word "dolt" comes to mind.
And...magical, dysfunctional, incoherent thinking coupled with new heights of stupidity....
"WE" just murdered The Supreme Leader. In his home, at his desk. With family members, including his young granddaughter.
Why wasn't he hiding under a mountain? He said that most Iranians have no where else to go so he was not going anywhere else.
He is an even bigger leader now. This is now, besides being an existential war, it is a holy war. And, the Iranians are not wimps. Smart with the advantage of becoming martyrs if they die for their country.
They will not lose this war on them.
Now, he sits with MLK and Gandhi and Jesus.
Assuming that is correct, it was undoubtedly a mistake in targeting, not a deliberate act. Modern weaponry is capable of horrendous damage, and even our most sophisticated targeting systems are not oerfact.
This is the face of modern warfare. If this one continues, there will be more of the same. Such as the Kuwait error in shooting down three US jets.
Barack Obama Is to Blame for Iran. Here’s Why. https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/02/28/barack-obama-is-to-blame-for-iran-heres-why-n4950069
WHY did our Joint Chiefs comply!?!? This could have been their moment to show true valor!
Because the Joint Chiefs are in the Administrative Chain of Command. They advise SECDEF & POTUS on military operations. There main job is to "Man, Train & Equip" the forces. War fighting orders are issue from POTUS to SECDEF to the Operational Chain of Command, the Combatant Commands (as in the case, Central Command or Southern Command with the boat strikes). I refer you to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. On the operational side, my concern big concern is are these attack orders actually coming from POTUS or are they coming from a non-elected person. On the Administrative side, are Joint Chiefs even being consulted? With the SECDEF "gag' order on military leadership and no DoD press corps ... we'll never know & that is extremely dangerous.
Thank you.
No worries… my last Navy job was a school commanding officer for engineering duty officers (acquisition corps). In the Junior officer course, I taught a Chain of Command lecturer, from POTUS all the way down to lowest echelon commands. It’s complicated because some of the admin chain of command leaders wear a dual (operational) hat. It can get very blurry sometimes & when there’s a civilian gov’t person that doesn’t understand those nuances ( lack of experience) command & control can get fouled up.
because they are all loyalists. The true soldiers were replaced with these traitors. Part of Project 2025.
Some possibilities...Their pensions are on the line? Their families threatened? They want a white christian nation?
My question as well!
"white slave army"? Excuse me?
Our army has people of all colors in it. Their key is that they are all Americans.
"Our army has people of all colors in it. Their key is that they are all Americans."
No, American troops have never been only American citizens. In recent decades immigrants join the military as a 'faster track' to citizenship. The paperwork when they leave the military is complicated and no matter how honorably they've served they are not properly 'vetted' through it. Often such Vets have been deported - to countries they've not seen since they were young children. This has gone on for decades - and more so recently.
Ignoring Policy, History, and Humanity: ICE Continues to Deport Veterans – Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy
.https://publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/jlpp/2020/03/07/ignoring-policy-history-and-
Well, I didn't say they were citizens. I said they were Americans of all colors. I am glad you mentioned that immigrants are part of the American army. No one wins here. No one.
I remain convinced that what we are seeing -- the conduct of the ChristoNazi Regime and the oath-breaking military's self-reduction to the Regime's Legions of Death; the cunningly perfected, always plausibly deniable collaboration of the Democrats; and the embrace of tyranny implicit in the refusal of the people to (effectively) resist -- is the true face of the (real) "America." And given that the Regime has started a potential world war in an attempt to preserve its power, I believe that any notion of ousting it by election -- or by any other Constitutional means -- is thereby proven not just impossible but absurd.
"... the cunningly perfected, always plausibly deniable collaboration of the Democrats"
' ... no possibility of change through elections and other Constitutional means.'
Sheesh! This sort of specious rhetoric helped elect Trump, twice. I thought we were finally past this. Alas. Please google the Progressive Caucus. And please consider that your assertions regarding elections is a form of voter suppression and implicit call for illegal means.
Probably a reference to the Mamluks.
Kuwait has shot down three U.S. planes in a "friendly fire" incident. The crews ejected.
Trump and his wealthy Gulf States patrons wanted this attack. Did any of these obscenely wealthy men give ANY thought to the long term consequences of attacking Iran?
May Mohammed Bin Salman reap what he has helped to sow
But the Epstein Files!…
Oh yeah, the TrumpStein Pedo Files.
Per a Reuters-Ipsos poll, on the first day March, 3 out of of 4 Americans do NOT support trump's War on Iran.
"Go big ...".
When Trump bombed 3 of Iran's nuclear research facilities several months ago at a cost of almost a billion dollars, he supposedly ended the nuclear enrichment program for good.
The independent reports-
"In 2012 and 2013, Trump repeatedly insinuated that then-President Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to shore up his re-election effort and to distract from his supposed faults as a leader.
Obama never did attack Iran. That cannot be said for Trump, who has now attacked the Middle Eastern republic three times during across his two terms in office."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-obama-iran-war-tweets-b2929535.html
It's time Donald and Melania testify in the Trumpstein debacle under oath. There isn't a Republican politician or pundit that wants this to happen. Let's do it.
And it was Trump who tore up the deal with Iran that would limit any nuclear capability -- so this is all on him and his cos-playing Cabinet.
I think Massie does want Donold to testify about the Trump Epstein pedo files. Maybe a few other Republicans too.
Didn't he say he 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear enrichment program?
Good luck with that. Who is gonna force them to testify? We ALL know they’ll NEVER show up willingly and will take the 5th on most questions anyway.
If he does, he’ll lie. That’s what he does. That’s all he does. He’s a narcissist with frontal brain dementia, and a Supreme Court that’s been bought among other things.
Perhaps Christopher Armitage’s focus on state rights is the most powerful solution. However, I’m skeptical that the 24 Dem state Governors and their attorney generals will be able to coordinate quickly enough to gain some control. I’ve been advocating for this in MA., NY, MN,
ILL. Apparently, the attorney generals are coalescing because I got a fundraiser email for that…as well as for electing more Dem Governors. My in box seems to attract
these multiple requests hourly…do I hear echoes?
"Coalescing" AG's is tactically important info samani, thank you.
I have been advocating same in AZ, CA, OR & WA. aka the "Blue State Bloc".
All the AG's are community oriented.
Yes, WA, you may have the best AG in country.
There is a lot more quid pro quo. Don't forget what he will get from the billions in the Peace Board, of which he is Chairman for life, for the redevelopment of Gaza.
Here is a summary from Perplexity AI:
From Gulf real‑estate licensing since 2021:
A Saudi developer, Dar Al Arkan/Dar Global, paid Trump about $27 million in licensing fees from 2021–2024 for Trump‑branded projects in Oman and Dubai.
2024 alone: financial disclosures show $21.9 million in license fees from Dar Al Arkan, making it his single largest business partner that year.
Broader Middle East portfolio and projections:
CREW estimates Trump’s overseas development income (all regions) over 2014–2024 at at least $430 million, with a large recent spike from UAE/Oman/Saudi licensing and projections that foreign‑property income in his second term will exceed $400 million and likely top $430 million if 2024 levels continue.
Reporting focused specifically on Saudi‑linked ventures (including LIV golf, Dar‑linked projects and other deals) estimates around $50 million from Saudi‑connected deals in 2024 alone for Trump and family.
What this implies for “how much” the Middle East is worth to him
Hard, documented income tied specifically to Gulf real‑estate licensing and related deals since 2021 is already well over $30 million, mostly from Oman, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Including hotel stays, condo purchases, rents, and other business from Middle Eastern clients during his first term brings the known total over $40 million (the $9.6 million CREW found during his first term plus the post‑2020 licensing payments), with strong evidence the real number is significantly higher because many arrangements and profits are not fully disclosed.
Forward‑looking analyses emphasize that Middle Eastern projects are a major driver of the projected $400M+ foreign‑development income Trump is expected to earn over his current term, with several new Saudi, Qatar and UAE projects not yet generating full revenue.
So, based on what’s public, Trump has already realized many tens of millions of dollars in personal/business income from Middle Eastern deals, and credible watchdog and financial estimates suggest that, if current projects mature, his Middle East pipeline alone could ultimately be worth low‑ to mid‑hundreds of millions over the next several years.
Ironically, it is likely he won't live or be lucid enough to bask in the glory of his middle Eastern riches.
He's playing "Whoever dies with the most $$ wins."
#SendBarron
I believe he who dies owing the most money wins.
A whole dynasty in the making.
One can only hope.
How about all of the “investments” nations from the Middle East are making in American corporations and institutions including media, entertainment and real estate. Having his son in law and special advisor doing the “deals” is unconscionable given their private partnerships with these same nations.
Those people over there doing that investing are called, "Majority Shareholders."
MBS Noem plans are needing more 💰
Interestingly, Iran has bombed some of the property gifted to Trump in Dubai…
Unite, Unite, Unite. This sickness of Greed Run Amok must be put down like the Mad Beast it is.
And Albert, you forgot to mention that it's going to cost a BILLION dollars to refit this "FREE" airplane as Air Force 1 AND then his fuckingassholeness will be taking it as a gift when he leaves office. Doesn't fall under Elox definition of fraud, waste and abuse i guess.
That refitting is another financial crime against the People that needs to be stopped.
donna, I have the greatest hope that the somehow, the entirety of messes the Trump regime has cost the US taxpayer will be recouped by TOTALLY DRAINING the accounts of the Trump family!!
(BTW, you're sort of new here.👋🏼 I appointed myself the WalMart greeter of this forum😁, so may I WELCOME you here! It's good to have our group grow and grow and grow!)
Thank you, Miselle. Here's to recouping the DJT fortune! And thank you for your welcome! I've been on Heather's ss only a few months but find it so wonderful. Lots of super contributors! So thank you Walmart/HCR Greeter! :) :)
donna, I was (in many ways still am) a mouse. NEVER in a million years did I imagine myself calling Congress, writing postcards, protesting in the street. (My heart race and sweating hands the first time I called McConnell's office!!! LOL)
The forum adds so much via news they read, their own career expertise, etc. I grow smarter because of them!
Also, over time, I've come to learn about many of the folks' personal lives. When my brother passed away, I was literally brought to tears by kind words from people here. I've never done social media, so I never quite got the "facebook friends" thing, but I feel like I've made friends here who I'm unlikely to ever meet.
So, is American democracy now in free fall?
Yes, and it will crash at rock bottom if the Republicans in Congress don't grow a spine.
I would agree with most of this: all except putting all the blame on SCOTUS. Had Trump supporters not re-elected him last November, despite the clear evidence that he utterly disdained and disavowed our electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law, thus putting him out of reach of Jack Smith and the DOJ, we wouldn’t be here. If it hadn’t been for Mitch McConnell and his obediant Republican Senators who failed to convict him after January 6th, we wouldn’t be here.
There have been many steps in this march to war and all the rest of Trump’s degradations. Trump v USA was only one of them.
I think you are ignoring the impact of Citizens United (2010). From my Memorandum, "The impact of Citizens United has been a rapid concentration of force in billions of dollars primarily in television and online political advertising, particularly through independent expenditures by ultra-rich persons, Super PACs and "dark money" groups (nonprofit 501(c)(6) corporations that do not disclose their donors), leading to more hard-hitting, often negative, attack ads targeting candidates and issues that are not supportive of its cause." UnitedWeAmend.org
One the many steps I mentioned.
That global cabal the MAGAs kept warning us about was their leader and his "friends".
Follow the money, on repeat, Albert.
I read about the phone calls with the Saudi Prince. I also watched a YouTube video with Jeffery Sachs who is an economics professor at Columbia. He stated Netanyahu is telling Trump what to do. Netanyahu’s goal is to take over the Middle East. What a corrupt administration and world we live in.
There’s always the possibility of blackmail. Netanyahu likely has incriminating information / Epstein files, and has threatened release if Trump doesn’t do his bidding.
The two of them are just alike. Blackmail is not out of the question. Two felons running different countries. Netanyahu is smarter than Trump.
👋🏼Nancy, as I posted to donna above, I am overjoyed when I discover yet another new face on this forum! Some reply and tell me they've read for a long time, just either lapsed payment or finally decided to jump on, but to me, every person joining the herd here is WELCOME. Thanks for doing that.
You can blame the Supreme Court, but for me all the Trump-induced pain we have experienced is on the heads of Congress. Letting Trump off the hook after he leaves office does nothing to address our current problem, which is Trump in office currently acting outside the bounds of his oath and legal authority.
The remedy for that is impeachment, and that is the responsibility of Congress. They are the sole governmental body with the power to stop this illegal executive takeover of all the powers of government. In fact, they have each sworn an oath to do exactly that.
Congress has ceded to this unstable President the power to tax, to spend, and now, to make war. The only power they can't delegate is the power of impeachment, to make sure the other branches follow their paths to the Constitution. They can't give that power away, but they seem determined to ignore it. They should also be impeached, but there is literally no one left to impeach them.
So it's up to the voters to exercise the ultimate power of removal in November. Remove the scoundrels who refuse to do the job we hired them to do, the one they swore an oath to do, to defend the Constitution. Bring in a body of people willing to do the work, impeach the executive branch, then impeach their remaining colleagues who stood by and let this happen.
You can blame the Supreme Court for taking away our power to punish Trump and his cabal after the fact, but from our position in the middle of the fact it is more important that we stop the criminals now and worry about punishment later.
There would be no Trump in Office but for Citizens United. From my Memorandum, "The impact of Citizens United has been a rapid concentration of force in billions of dollars primarily in television and online political advertising, particularly through independent expenditures by ultra-rich persons, Super PACs and "dark money" groups (nonprofit 501(c)(6) corporations that do not disclose their donors), leading to more hard-hitting, often negative, attack ads targeting candidates and issues that are not supportive of its cause." UnitedWeAmend.org
I completely agree about the damage the Supreme Court did with Citizens United. Besides Trump, it's a primary reason Congress has been hamstrung - unless they have their own cult, no one there can afford to go against the oligarchs.
But my point was not about the past, it was about who has the power to make all of this go away, right now, and the only body that has the Constitutional authority to investigate and remove Trump and the other sworn officers of the Executive branch, right now, is Congress.
We've seen how much impact the Supreme Court has had when they rule against Trump. They struck down the tariffs, he effectively ignored them. At this point he has heard Andrew Jackson's quote many times and has completely bought into the belief that the Court is powerless to stop him.
Impeachment is the only avenue to get this crew out of power before 2028. We have to elect candidates in November who will take back all the enumerated powers of Congress and exercise the impeachment clause, if we want all of this to stop sooner, if ever.
I would love to see articles of impeachment introduced this session, even though they have no chance of passage. It would be good to have the position of all members of Congress on the record regarding the Trump administration. That will make it easier to clean house in the House and Senate when the time comes.
Mobiguy, so true! Heather has at times seemed incredulous that Congress has so willingly given up their powers! I have often said this to aides when I call, or put it in the emails to Congress: WHY do we need YOU, when YOU let the Executive branch usurp your power?!?!
It's not hard to understand the reason. The original post nailed it: Congress as a whole is bought and owned by the same people who own Trump, and the members can either toe the line, get primaried out of office, or resign. Most don't want to lose a cushy job where they get lots of money and government perks for doing nothing. So they happily assume the role of figurehead and let the people who bought them their jobs pull the strings and run the place.
The Ellisons, Musk, Bezos and the rest of that gang can buy a Congressman with the loose change they forget to take out of their pockets when they send their pants to the dry cleaners. It used to be called bribery; now it's just unlimited campaign contributions.
We've reached the point where the needs of people who aren't oligarchs are simply irrelevant to the small group that has the financial power to determine the outcome of the majority of elections. The bottom 99.999 percent have no effective voice in government now, and will not have one again until the Supreme Court decides to rescind Citizens United and allow elections to be decided by voters instead of money.
Let’s Not forget Jared Kushner’s role in these negotiations. He’s a private citizen working for Qatar, SA & UAE. He has an interest in destroying Iran for profit.
No “presidential duty” that is in violation of the Constitution can be considered a legal exercise of his powers as president. He needs to be impeached and convicted.
Can’t say I really “like” it because it’s horrible but it’s the truth. The truth REALLY hurts! We are in the hands of a moron who thinks he’s smart and is drunk with power. The people he’s given jobs and responsibilities to are also incompetent morons. While we were bombing iran iranians were dying while Trump was holding a million dollar ticket fund raiser at the White House. Congress had better step up soon or we are on our way out as a democracy and a nation. This has got to stop. Let Trump go live with his saudis, and he take the whole corrupt Trump family with him.
Ok, good sir, what precisely does "go big or stay home" mean--other than taking up arms against this criminal cult who happen to control the House, Senate, and Supreme Court?
I'm reminded of T. Jefferson's comment about the tree of liberty needing the occasional watering with patriot blood.
I made my contribution with the Ist Bn 5th Marines in Quang Nam Province in '69-70 (before I knew better). At 77, I still have some blood left to give.
Who's organizing the rebellion? If you are waiting for a blue wave to kick the grifting thugs out of power, dream on. I think that ship has sailed, especially if the Save Act passes the Senate.
What's your version of "going big?"
Following my words "Go Big... " I included my web page to my Memorandum of American ideals and values, Court lies and attacks upon us by others. It ends with a five section model amendment which would address nearly every lie by the U.S. Supreme Court since it created Corporate Personhood in 1886 in a headnote of in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 US 394. Please see UnitedWeAmend.org.
The statement from our dear leader - Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism... guess he did not take a good look at Qatar.
Barack Obama Is to Blame for Iran. Here’s Why. https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/02/28/barack-obama-is-to-blame-for-iran-heres-why-n4950069
Wrong. American greed decades ago created the Iran we have today: https://jamesmoore.substack.com/p/the-historic-mindlessness-of-americans?r=f38u9&utm_medium=ios
Time for Barron to put on the uniform. #SendBarron
Trump’s don't give, they take.
Brief, succinct and 100% correct
lauriemcf--I could even see Trump sacrifice his kid to make a HUGE headline splash: "Barron Trump Enlists!" as he wants those TRUMP-EPSTEIN files buried! Melania would have an absolute heartattack--and might then spill the beans. After all, if Hilary can testify, so can she.
Instend of #SendBarron, I think it should be #BarronEnlist!!
Laurie, LOL. I just responded to another post of yours with #SendBarron!
He rules by fiat. This time he's gotten himself into a situation where his fiat won't work. He can't manage the course of war by fiat. That's the way it is.
He has a criminal army at his disposal. W had to use our military with limited civilian support. Chump has “deputized” the republic party and all the monied crooks.
Now that he's officially validated decapitation and kidnapping as a legitimate foreign policy, I would caution our unitary powered, deludional president to be very very careful. He has put a big target on his chest.There are many state and gang actors who don't want his global chaos.
I would also caution all Americans to stay away from Mar a Lago and the White House for the foreseeable future.
Waltz’s response is just the sort of response I’d expect from one of Trump’s minions, callous and disrespectful of the dead.
Let him say that to the families of the deceased soldiers.
Indeed. To me, it’s rather callous and cruel, and fails to recognize the soldiers’ sacrifices of their lives and the grief their families must feel. I can only empathize with their families and offer my prayers and condolences. Trump will never put Barron in harm’s way like that.
Worse still than just saying “that’s the way it is” is when you don’t even know yourself what “that” even is.
Little Johnny comes home with an “F” on a major test. “Didn’t study much, did you?” says the father. “We’ll, that’s the way it is,” responds little snotty pants...
Yes, callous indeed. And transactional.
Yesterday I gave the below comment. I totally forgot about foreign pressure behind this new war.
“”This was a great way for Trump to:
• show off his bully/abuser muscle and scare other countries
•get Israel’s Intel help & other support
•please his hateful base •get revenge for perceived insults
•pay off debts to his war industry donors
•set up a national emergency situation to use as excuse to mess with elections and other things
•give his State media flunkies a way to boost flagging ratings with new clickbait
•and get people to lay off on the talk about the Epstein files.””
https://popular.info/p/the-money-behind-the-new-iran-war?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&utm_medium=email&r=73vlo&triedRedirect=true
Apparently, we are once again liberating the Middle East from the grave danger of insufficient chaos.
According to the latest explanation, Iran posed an “imminent threat.” The kind of imminent threat that apparently leaves no paper trail, no clear intelligence, and no consensus briefing for Congress. It exists in that sacred realm where facts are optional, but cruise missiles are not.
Three American service members are dead. Oil prices are climbing. Regional powers are mobilizing. Hezbollah is involved. Israel is exchanging strikes. The Strait of Hormuz is tightening. But don’t worry. The strategy is “strength.”
Strength, in this case, seems to mean lighting a match in a room full of gasoline and then announcing you are open to negotiation. One day, the goal is deterrence. The next day it is regime change. Then it is letting the Iranian people handle it themselves, presumably after we destabilize the entire region on their behalf.
Congressional oversight appears to be treated like a suggestion box. Constitutional war powers are brushed aside in favor of executive impulse. The American public is told to trust the vibes.
If there is a plan, it is being kept safely hidden from both lawmakers and reality.
Nothing says “America First” quite like starting a war no one can clearly explain, in a region that has already swallowed decades of American blood and treasure.
If there ever was an example of "Wagging the Dog", this one would be it. His indifference to killing children is right in line with his indifference to the assertion, of one who experienced rape at his hands, that he rapes them. Dagens.com US reports that only 27% of Americans approved of this assault against Iran; 43% disapproved while 29% remained undecided. Trump thinks he knows the Middle East; in reality, he knows nothing of the history nor the disposition of this region's population. Although technically, Iran is not part of the "Middle East" (it is part of Persia, geographically) Muslims have a long memory as their history has well demonstrated. If anyone believes that we will somehow make "quick work" of this situation, only proves how unlearned, uneducated, and arrogant they are. I fear that we are in for a long haul, folks: economically, politically, and violently.
Walter Cronkite spins in his grave. And so do Ed Murrow and Bill Paley.
No wonder "SendBarron" is trending.
Wonder if he'd say the same if HIS kid came back under a flag?
Lady, as I've said above, I would like to see (instead of SendBarron) #BarronEnlist!! trend.
Exactly. How clueless and callous.
Thanks Frank. I hold a more sceptical view (if that’s possible); does the Trump Administration’s behaviour represent the behaviour of a declining hegemon? Maybe this is far too big an idea for the circumstances, but so much of the politics of Trump seems to simply waste the power of the US, and that c. 40% who still support him when polled seems to point to a very serious malaise in our ‘western’ society (sadly, I have to report that he has support outside of the US too). I am encouraged by the lively interest in society and in politics evident in forums like this by the way, ‘it’s not all bad’. But I wonder how much more of this ‘diversionary’, and divisive’, behaviour the US can recover from. Alliances are being wrecked around the world by the Trump Administration, and there is a limit to everyone’s tolerance. With regard, Anthony.
Today, I got to hear the other side of the argument I put out yesterday. While I dislike the sneak attack; mistrust Trump; and remain concerned about the extra-constitutional nature of the attack, there are points to consider here.
BLUF: one can only hope the ¿plan? works.
1st, Iran sponsors more terrorism, often aimed at civilians, than any other enemy state.
2nd, Iran's rhetoric poisons public discourse with an eliminsationist anti-Semitism.
3rd, hopefully, the drone-making facilities in Iran will be closed, helping a sibling democracy in Ukraine.
4th, Iran and Israël had been on cordial terms under the Shah.
5th, Iranians are cosmopolitan and more akin to Israelis in levels of education and modernism than any other people in the region.
There is merit to at least some of these points. First, I believe that one of the sought from of Operations Iraqi-&-Enduring Freedom was to empower Iran's comspolitan middle class to democratize -- as the Iraqis and Afghans would have done by example -- to throw off the shackles of religious tyranny. Second, when the Shah left Iran, Teheran had been scheduled to hold the second international women;s conference the following year.
Congress has to stop Trump with the War Powers Resolution.
And then it has to impeach, convict, and remove him from power for breaking his oath of office to uphold the Constitution.
This is not about stopping a threat to the US from Iran. There wasn't one.
This is about stopping the threats to every American from a Trump dictatorship.
It is about stopping the killing of thousands of young members of the American military in another decade-long war, with no plan for how to end it
There is no clearer impeachable offense than what Trump has just done. He should be gone in a week.
FIGHT THE RIGHT DAMN FIGHT!!!!
This is our last chance to get our democracy back.
This is our last chance to show that democracy can still work to the world.
We owe that to our children and grandchildren.
The WPR has largely proved to be toothless. No President has been impeached for a violation. Of course, there is always a first time, but if hostilities cease within the 60-day (+30 for withdrawal) window, repercussions are unlikely.
Even if Trump were impeached for a WPR violation, a conviction is almost beyond any possibility. Right now, the GOP holds the power in the Senate 53-47. It would take TWENTY GOP Senators to join ALL of the Democrats to convict on an impeachment resolution. That simply isn't going to happen.
So putting any kind of faith in impeachment is total folly. This isn't 1974 when the Senate was a more rational body. It was also controlled by the Democrats 55-45 although that still required 12 GOP Senators to join in conviction, something that, after the revelations about Watergate, actually seemed possible. Possible enough that Barry Goldwater joined other GOP Senators in telling Nixon he needed to consider the seriousness of an impeachment trial. That, along with the Supreme Court decision to require releasing the White House tapes, ultimately led to Nixon's decision to resign "to protect the nation".
There is about ZERO chance that any of those things (let alone all of them) are likely to align in 2026. The GOP controls the Senate. As noted, it would take 20 GOP Senators to jump ship and support a Democratic impeachment conviction. The GOP Senators are nowhere near as rational as the ones who existed in 1974, when the Senate was much more independent of the Executive. Now, with lapdogs like Lindsay Graham and Tom Cotton leading the way, coupled with the large majority of MAGA GOP Senators, there is virtually no chance that 20 GOP Senators would join the Democrats to convict Trump. And the Supreme Court will tread very lightly on Trump if at all, because he has at LEAST 5 solid votes there, probably six.
We can all wish it weren't so, but elections have consequences and this is the consequence of a Democratic party that acted in 2024 like it owned the castle when it was clear to many of us that we barely had a functional lease. Our disarray cost us, and the nation, dearly. We all HAVE to turn our attention solidly to the 2026 midterms because the future of our country will be decided in the next 8 short months.
I have made the same argument about needing 20 Republican Senators to override a Trump veto many times in the past because it is so hard to achieve for any legislation and for conviction on impeachment.
But this is something where there is, at least, some MAGA types who believed Trump when he said no more foreign wars, and explicitly promised not to go to war with Iran. MTG and that faction are pissed, as are a lot of the podcasters in the MAGAsphere. Americans know this is a distraction from the Epstein files and Republicans can read polling data.
The WPR needs to be passed because it is the right thing to do, Then Trump will veto it, as he did in Trump 1.0 for the Yemen war powers resolution in December 2018. It lays the groundwork for impeachment after the midterms.
There are already coffins coming back to Dover AFB. Then every Republican will have to vote on overriding the veto ahead of the midterms. Pictures of Trump either at Dover or missing, should appear in a lot of ads ahead of the midterms. So should Stop the War rallies with millions of people across America.
If the House can impeach Trump on proof of him being a pedophile as well as a trafficker and money launderer, and the Senate fails to impeach because the Republican Senators that are up for reelection didn't vote to impeach, it is going to look really bad for their reelection campaigns.
The prize needs to be a majority in the House and the Senate to block anything Trump tries to do after 2026.
GJ, compared to the necessity of his impeachment, blocking anything Trump tries would be the second-place prize or quite frankly, the booby prize. Being mindful of what Jon Rosen has said, your option may be the only option left to us. I don't like it; hopefully, the midterms will provide much needed relief.
Simple majorities lets you control the legislation that gets to the floor so nothing Trump propsoes would pass.. But two thirds in both houses are needed to enact legislation, because Trump will veto anything the Dems propose. Just out of spite and to not givr “the libs” a win. So what if there are some Republicans who support a bill in a Dem majority chamber, They are RINOs . He would rather collapse the house of cards on top of them to get his retribution,
I do not disagree at all with your assessment here Georgia. We are in a "stand-off" that is likely to continue until the 2028 election since removing Trump is a highly speculative goal (and likely to fail) and as you note, he would rather bring the house of cards down on everyone than to have to negotiate in good faith.
But that IS our system, like it or not. Hopefully, in the future we might be able to make some modifications to make it more sane, but for now, this is where we are.
Fight. No matter the odds. Never give up. Never. You don’t fell a tree with one swing of the axe. Put that undercut in there. What if Jon’s delay is too little too late? Heighten the stakes for every Republican coward. Let them feel the undercut. Let them anticipate the backcut.
Yep. The back cut. Make it fall where we want it to fall. this is the work before us.
And a WPR vote will also tag Israel First Democrats. They didn’t protect us from this horror.
As I believe I noted, the WPR is largely toothless and has not dissuaded any President to date.
There is a really good analysis about why Congress can't seem to fix any of this here.
https://onedominoaway.com/uselessness-of-congress/
Basically the checks and balances envisioned by Madison and the other founders have been overridden by the rise of partisanship, and geographic expansion, not to mention the furtherance of personal ambition over the protection of institutional integrity. Even after we change the makeup of our congress, serious institutional obstacles will remain.
So what do we DO about it? Impeachment and veto overrides are nearly impossible, and constitutional amendments are even harder. So we nibble around the edges. Even a statute to outlaw Citizens United will be difficult because it will need 60 Senate votes and there are plenty of Democratic senators sucking off the corporate donor teat just like Republicans.
It's quite a corner we have painted ourselves into.
Thank you for summing the folly of the WPR so well. You are absolutely correct and realistic.
I certainly wouldn’t try to clean up the corrals during these cold months. IDE just give up and keep feeding them all winter and let the shit stack up. When it gets deep enough they’ll be able to just step over the fences as if they weren’t even there.
Well said Jon.
It is incumbent upon us and the decent people in Congress to establish a position. And make every effort to push that position. The backlash against this war could be enormous. The House and the Senate could be in Democratic hands soon.
Regardless. When criminals attempt to enter your home and you have any strength left in your body, do you just roll over and say it is inevitable? That your family should suffer because you are outnumbered?
Was it inevitable that Trumpstein be elected twice? Of course not. He got where he is because of apathy, detachment and a sense of non involvement. And a lame sales pitch that too many people gobbled up. Many of them are now - NOT HAPPY.
Saying that impeachment or a WPR are toothless is surrender. The Fascists are counting on it. We need to stand up and stand for something.
True, a WPR has been ineffective in the past. And effective impeachment - not yet. But we never thought we would be led by a demented monster. That's a first. We never thought that the Epstein scandal would encompass and reveal an enormous ring of money laundering and influence that is still only being partially revealed. Keep an eye on Sen Wydens investigation of JP Morgan Chase. Remember, Al Capone wasn't imprisoned for murder. It was tax evasion. Follow the money!
There is a revolution brewing. Let's all do what we can to be a part of overthrowing the Oligarchy.
You and Jon are practical and offer fact based reasoning. But history is filled with incidents where the unexpected led to the unexpected. Let's all campaign for something new.
Yes, Bill! Agree something new definitely needed! What I don't understand re WPR and Military is, proven existence of a direct threat to U.S. by a foreign power. It seems, this is not essential in soooo many conflicts in which U.S. engaged. How about a change here??? Instead of Reacting by Attacking, how about a change here??? Instead of 3 out of 4 people objecting, how about declaring that the 1/4 not objecting need to accept their responsibility for supporting a draft-dodging, convicted felon, pedophile and rapist. RESIST!!!
No matter how high the odds against us, it is always better to fight than to surrender.
He got reelected/bought by money.
Shoshone Lake fire. 1974. Ed and I jumped that fire late one afternoon. Small fire, we lined it and set up a silk cargo chute to keep the mosquitos off. Early the next morning about 2 am a grizzly found us. He stalked the tent round for hrs. In fact he wore a trench path around that old wwII cargo chute. Now old Ed he was a snore factory. Every time he cut loose that damn bear came back. That bear was hungry but was reticent to plunge through that silk barrier. I kept dropping pine needles in Ed’s mouth every time he opened it to snore. That seemed to be proactive. About 4 am Ed got enough beauty rest and woke up spitting pine needles. I didn’t confess. When he stepped out into the grey dawn he noticed the bear’s trench and accosted me for not waking him up earlier. Knowing Ed I figured he would jump up with his Pulaski and the bear would attack and I told him so. We gathered our gear into 120 lb packs and headed down the hill towards a trail that would bring us to Old Faithful as we were in Yellowstone where there were always grizzlies dining on unwary hikers. Once we hit the trail that damn bear caught up with us and was closing rapidly. We shed packs clutched our pulaskis and walked away fast. We got tired of full on retreat and agreed we had enough. As we finally faced that bear he stood. Unfortunately bear spray wasn’t invented yet, and we were fresh out of fusees, our normal bear defense. As he closed a ranger on horseback with pack mules for our gear rounded the bend. He sized it up fast and sent four rounds over that bear’s head. Good thing he empeached that son-of-a-bitch.
Ok how about the international criminal court then? He and Benjamin have both committed war crimes.
The US has not been a subscriber to the ICC, at least since the days of the prison torture in Iraq. That’s why Putin could come to AK and rol
If only the ICC had that kind of power. They seem to be pretty de-fanged.
Just a dream I guess.
I agree with you ... BUT even if the War Powers Resolution were to pass, he would ignore it. None of this is going to happen. He is not going to be impeached unless we (meaning the Dems) take over the House. We are very close. .
As far as I can see, Dems are still going with a “We ain’t Trump so vote for us” strategy again. They still are playing catch-up with the flood of crazy. That being the case, they need the receipts on what crazy the Repubs voted yes on. Just to remind Repubs of all there is ober the last 13 months and going forward.
Yeah but 2/3 of the Senate?
This is all in the hands of the Republicans who serve in Congress. Those of us here every day knew exactly what kind of man T is and with Project 2025 what the goals of his cronies were. We heard about it, we read about it, we watched him for years even before he ran for office and won. They are all bootlickers. They are the ones I put the responsibility with the most. They could start an end to this nonsense tomorrow. Your response should be sent to every Congressmen and Senator in the country.
Congress, in effect, is the GOP who, en mass, refuse to stop it. Worse, the balance of power between the President, Congress and the Judiciary is apparently based on trust; the teeth — the underlying Constitutional law — is circumvented by the law's delay combined with a Congress and Judiciary loyal to the president. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is thereby, at least temporarily, eviscerated.
You can be sure that Susan Collins would claim, with a straight face, that impeachment of Trump is enough to teach him a lesson and conviction is not necessary, he will be a good boy from now on.
Thomas, you read my mind. I think about that ALL the time whenever I hear her name! I hope that she gets voted out!
(As the self appointed WalMart greeter of this forum, WELCOME! Whether HCR is new to you, or you've been reading "free" for a long time, our strength is in numbers. Times are hard for many folks, and I admire anyone who supports her voice of truth. Thanks for that! This forum gives me hope.)
As I have been saying, this entire spectacle has been a WAG THE DOG moment for tRump. He desperately needed a diversion from his real problem, him being a huge part of the EPSTEIN FILES and this was it. Sadly, it seems to have worked beautifully for him. Today, there has been NO mention of his more pressing personal issues, only reporting and, in many cases, support for this “war.”
I was watching MORNING JOE this morning and was kind of disappointed in Joe and his entire crew. They seemed to have focused their attention on the Iran attacks and how successful they seemingly were. In fact, Joe, himself a former Reagan Republican, seemed to be waxing poetically about his hero, Reagan and how, in a sense, he would have appreciated this. And, Hell, maybe he would. The demented behavior, name calling words, reckless behavior, and most of all, perverted past of this “President” had been forgotten.
There has been very little mention of the FACT that, according to our CONSTITUTION, a president is to notify and get approval from CONGRESS in order to wage war. This was not, in any way, done. What to make of all of this? Frankly, I’m not sure but it sure does worry me that, maybe, just maybe, the FLIM MAN, that tRump most definitely is just might be pulling the wool over our country’s eyes once more. PLEASE, SAY IT AIN’T SO???
We also owe to those our military have killed on the ground in Iran and to the military members who have been sent through propaganda and lies. No threat was imminent before we struck. This administration has lied so prodigiously, only the weak minded have become prone to it.
Republicans. So there is little hope.
If only…
There is a parallel between approving public executions of innocent American citizens in Minnesota and saying it's just a necessary price for more American troops to be slaughtered and seriously wounded for the crap shoot that attacking Iran with only air strikes and clearly no other plan can destroy its evil regime. As Dr. Richardson suggests with the "#sendBarron," it's easy when you are amoral and you don't have any of your own skin in the game. But again, ignore Trump. This is only happening because Republicans in Congress believe in dictatorship. Keep the heat on the Republican Party.
Back in the Pandemic, I recall some prominent Republicans suggesting that old people had lived long enough, and should brave the virus to corporate sales from dipping. Other people are just animate objects, if not prey, in the mind of malignant narcissists.
Now the young are expendable as well. Except for the billionaires
You heard that right JL. Pissed me off too. Stuffed suits rule.
And the Pentagon are a bunch of old, past retirement age, but the pay is good as their pension plans keep going up are just not only a drain on our tax dollars but also a bunch of warmongers that is needed to keep themselves relevant.
I honestly do NOT believe this is true. Pentagon generals have a very tough line to walk as their command-in-chief is the President and disobeying orders is a VERY serious thing to consider, and can be a crime. If a commander-in-chief told the generals to go commit murder on the streets of New York, they would resist (as they have in limiting the actions that the military have been permitted to take in Trump's domestic agenda). But if the command-in-chief declares a war in a foreign country, the generals need a REALLY SERIOUS ASSESSMENT before they can reach the conclusion that such orders are illegal and therefore subject to being disobeyed. And that is why this action in Iran is so much more obvious to me than some of the actions Trump attempted in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and Minneapolis. THIS action he CAN justify because its within his power to order the military to take action.
Maybe that needs to be changed, reevaluated in the future, but for now, he has that power. It should be limited in terms of time and scope but so far, he really hasn't violated (in Iran) the "rules" that have been followed by previous President. Its outrageous to us because we evaluate it in terms of all the horrible things he has done, but as a single solitary military action, I dont see any way the generals could refuse to follow his orders here.
There has been no credible evidence Iran was /is an imminent threat. Only Congress can declare war. Netanyahu convinced Trump he was striking a pinata, not stepping on the biggest hornets nest in the mid-east. With all the civilian deaths in Iran now, there'll be decades of young Shite martyrs willing to continue the work of the Ayatollah. The brutal mliitary police remain in place. They will just become even more brutal. Trump is stupid.
As always, it is appropriate to repeat, the moniker "only Congress can declare war" is a very misleading statement. Congress is the only body of government that can issue a declaration of war, that is correct. But bringing troops into a battle does NOT require declaring war, as has been proven that we have done so since 1941 (the last time Congress OFFICIALLY declared a war) over a dozen times, in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other countries. The President is the Commander-in-chief and has tremendous power to use the country's military without a declaration of war. The current "war" in Iran is not declared, but none of Trump's "wars" have been declared and as always, nothing at all has been done about that so why would anyone think this time would be different?
Yes, it's a hard decision. It's so much easier just to go along with a demented autocrat - the targets are just a bunch of brown-skinned people on the other side of the planet, after all. We're only throwing massive bombs and missiles at them, no boots on the ground (yet, anyway) so what's the downside? Sure, we'll have some casualties, but nothing major that can't be explained away.
The idea that Congress can put a halt to this is ludicrous. Why should a war powers resolution have any more effect than the Constitution, which has been reduced to meaningless pieces of paper by the Orange Menace and his henchmen in the Grand Order of Pedophiles.
Thank you James you are so much better at this than I am. I find Rosen as pushing for mass extinction.
What The F??? ***I*** am pushing for mass extinction? In what sane world do you have the chutzpah to suggest such an outlandish notion? Where have I ever said anything like that? Please PLEASE quote me if you can find any evidence that I believe we should permit such an atrocious idea. I am pushing to sane political steps under our Constitution to fix this awful mess. That means focusing on the things that CAN solve the problem, not wasting time on things that can't or won't.
Everything you have said is true. And as always, well explained.
But it is never an impossibility that Congress could decide to reassert its power as a coequal branch of government. For too long, American presidents of both parties have assumed "king" like authority to conduct war on other nations.
This could be changed. We should demand it. History is filled with reactions to overreach and domination.
There was no immediate threat from Iran.
The vast majority of Americans did not want another war.
Most people think this bombing is a distraction from the Trump Files.
The president ignored the people. Congress represents the people.
He will pay a price. If the people demand it.
So, again. I call on all of us to demand accountability. Demand that our representatives ACT. Time to overthrow the Epstein Class.
Congress at this time is in the majority made up of butt kissing cowards and follows the wishes of our traitor-in-chief.
Yes, it is NOT an impossibility that Congress could reassert its power. But as Phoenix notes in another comment, the current Congress is highly unlikely to do that. Which is why I think all efforts MUST be devoted to fixing THAT problem and not tilting at windmills hoping for an impeachment conviction that simply isn't going to happen.
Jon, I often disagree with you, but not this time. To me, the parallel to "W's" Iraq war is obvious.
I have often opined that George W. Bush was the "crash test dummy" for the long-planned Republican strategy of putting a weak-minded, malleable ignoramus in the White House.
"W" got us into the Iraq war on evidence that turned out to be flimsy and/or false. Nobody was calling for the generals to disobey his orders at that time because he was within his rights to launch the military action. At least he had a response to the 9/11 attacks to justify his actions. Donald has nothing of the sort.
Totally agree with your assessment. This is clearly ONE of the LEAST justifiable uses of force of any President in modern times. But in the end, objection to that is (under our current laws and Constitution) a purely political act and that is why I emphasize focusing on the upcoming elections because that is the most effective way to force a change.
" But if the command-in-chief declares a war in a foreign country,..." That's the starting point. War declared by the C-in-C and not by Congress is unlawfully declared, i.e. unlawful. He then found yet another emergency to bolster his authority, the Iranians would have a nuclear bomb in a week. Several intelligence sources rebutted this lie. We faced no imminent threat to our security that might have, might have justified his declaration of war without Congress. The military used to be known for honor and courage. I don't seem much of that it today's military.
Good catch... my words were written late at night and were not as precise as I typically try to make them. You are correct that a C-in-C has no more right to "declare war" in a foreign country as here in the US, but he DOES have the right to USE the military to commit troops into battle in foreign countries WITHOUT an explicit declaration of war as Presidents have done over a dozen times since the last declaration of war (December 7, 1941). No declarations of war were ever issued for Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Panama, Kosovo and many more. So I apologize for that misunderstanding and misstatement.
And as C-in-C, the military commanders are REQUIRED to obey his orders UNLESS those orders are "unlawful". Attacking another country is borderline, but we have done it in the past (many times as noted above) and we have never declared it to be illegal. Democrats have gone along with this just as often as Republicans (remember LBJ and Vietnam?). This is why his orders to put the military into action INSIDE the US was clearly a violation of law. Using the military in foreign difficulties is much more likely to be considered legal, at least for brief moments in time (and remember Vietnam went on for almost 10 years under both Democratic and GOP Presidents!)
You're right that there is precedent for presidents to be given deference on foreign affairs decisions. And we've given presidents like LBJ a pass on questionable attacks on countries without a declaration of war, Jon. I don't think that the current president has articulated any emergency that would justify waging war without a declaration approved by Congress. I admit I'm basing my opinion largely on the fact that I do not consider this president at all honest or trustworthy. He claimed that Iran would imminently have nuclear weapons to attack us. Intelligence sources have denied this. And today Rubio talks about Iran's having short-range missiles; these could not reach the US. P47 has a record of acting in his own self-interest rather than for the common good. I guess in days or weeks to come a decision will be made by Congress that we'll all need to live with, for better or for worse.
I am not sure you're completely right about this bombing of Iran as being within the rules, but I agree that it is certainly a deep grey area, and needs to be changed.
Hey "within the rules" is one of those things that requires SOMEONE to make the decision! We practically bombed North Vietnam into oblivion in the 60s and early 70s and despite LOTS of protest, it didn't stop until they beat us plain and simple. Rules in war are pretty flexible. Try to kill others without getting killed yourself. Essentially legalized murder. And it depends on whose ox is getting gored, too. As well as who is leading the charge. Vietnam played out BETTER than this current atrocity precisely because the leader at the time was fairly well thought of by the ones mostly likely to protest it (Democrats) at least for a long while.
No Jon. Why do you always cower to authority? Your logic is like a sponge here. Trump can issue as many illegal diatribes as he wants to. Given. Illegal diatribes must be condemned on the spot. Fuck the consequences. Tell me please about your last real time combat assault in which you were ordered to blow up a school full of fucking children. Your logic makes him imperial. Do you think he is a fucking authority when breaking the law? When do you slap him in jail? Before he kills again? Oh pardon me that would be you killing again. I forget you must follow his orders. So in other words those who used the following orders defense at Nuremberg should not have been hanged. You have the duty, not the right, to flat refuse illegal orders. You realize you would have hanged at Nuremberg! This cut and dried bullshit is not cut and dried. No one, not even God.
No matter how many times you tell a lie it is still a lie and that is on the test to gain access to the military academies.
You are clearly not a very good study of history. I love it that so many people point to Nuremberg at the killers who we executed. How many? We tried 199 people at Nuremberg and executed 37. Literally TENS of THOUSANDS more Germans who executed people in concentration camps, machine gunner people into ditches, etc., were simply set free or ignored. They killed millions of Jews and others in concentration camps. Yet we only executed 37. So, no, I probably would NEVER have been "hanged at Nuremberg". At least the odds would have been in my favor.
But that completely ignores the fact that I am NOT trying to justify what we are doing or what Trump is doing. I am trying to make sure we take actions that are LIKELY to create change.
So you can rail on about my excuses or avoidance, but trust me my comments are not to excuse OR avoid. They are to FOCUS on things that are possible as opposed to wasting time on things that are IMPOSSIBLE.
Remember when G. W. Bush and his cabal essentially said there was no need for a plan to establish the rule of law and good governance in Iraq, because the Iraqi people would spontaneously opt for democracy and free-market capitalism after Sadam was removed?
I do.
This is much worse.
Nowhere near as simple as Iraq. I hate to compare the two. Iraq has never recovered. This now is far worse.
Actually, they didn’t say that. There were plans for rule of law and governance in Iraq — worth hundreds of millions in DOD contracts and the like. Rumsfeld spent a great deal of time and resources trying to manage the “known unknowns” and the “unknown unknowns.”
He was remarkably unsuccessful because the templates they were using didn’t have much to do with Iraq (or the United States for that matter). Condoleeza Rice would periodically issue vapid statements about the ease of “nation-building” based on the postwar experiences of Germany and Japan — two largely cohesive, highly-disciplined, mono-ethnic societies long before war and militarism undid them.
Iraq looked nothing like Germany or Japan of course. De-Baathification in Iraq simply served as the single most powerful growth medium for ISIS — perhaps even stronger and deadlier than Al Qaeda. About 150 US soldiers were killed, with 1,000 wounded in the twin 2004 battles to retake Fallujah. Iraqi governments after Saddam barely managed to hold on as pro-Shia, pro-Iranian influence grew rapidly.
All this in spite of ‘great’ minds thinking and planning and imagining they knew exactly what would happen and made policy accordingly. The best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley…
Now fast forward to today. Not 10 minutes of “planning” or thought has come anywhere near the vapid emperor and his brain-dead, lazy, sycophantic Cabinet of wormtongues. That was the lesson THEY took from the great failures of the American foray into Iraq. “What, me worry?” — MAD Magazine’s famous envoy and dodo-head, Alfred E. Neumann.
This is so much worse — orders of magnitude worse — precisely because they *haven’t engaged in the slightest thinking about ‘what comes next.’ Every syllable uttered by our greedy, shit-and-fake-gold-for-brains emperor demonstrates that.
Glad I’m not the only one who remembers Iraq…
Iraq Without a Plan | Brookings https://share.google/YpIL7IMoc3kNB4R19
A lot of "situating the appreciation" going on. It's outcome is most usually disastrous.
I remember it too. Removing, and then hanging, Saddam left a power vacuum. A civil war with American troops, allied coalition forces and private military contractor mercenaries as occupying forces of such an unmanageable quagmire in Iraq that we finally left them to fend for themselves. Iraq is still not a stable country and there probably would not be an ISIS if the U.S. had not invaded.
ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), or Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist militant organization and unrecognized quasi-state founded in April 2013.
"How many deaths will it take till we know
That too many people have died?"
---Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind"
Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. Could we call this murder? He wasn’t in hiding. He was just working in his office.
On 3 January 2026, US forces captured Venezuela’s President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores; they were transported to the US and charged with drug trafficking. Could we call this kidnapping?
When will countries start retaliating and do the same thing to trump and his cronies?
I think it becomes clearer by the day that we in the West are ruled by a racket - Trump is the highest mafia boss, the other Western governments are just his underlings.
I wouldn’t say other “Western” nations are his underlings. Not all, but at least some, are pushing back and going their own way without the good ole US of A. I think this is the beginning of a long term global realignment. When our country’s government finally wakes up from this bender, the hangover will be severe and the rebuilding of trust and restoration of our reputation will take decades. The USA doesn't do humility very well, nor does it really know how to apologize for bad behavior. But we are going to have to learn quickly because that will be our new reality.
Understanding hurt.
That’s the missing key.
Vladimir Nabokov explores how the symptoms of hurt emerge mid-way in “Lolita,” after the main character/narrator – a middle-aged man – since a year earlier has been raping, traveling with, glorifying in his 14/15-year-old girlfriend.
The trouble for the girl – all girls in her situation – is unfinished cerebral growth. The brain’s synapses do not make their full set of connections till about age 25. No one in one’s teens can see anywhere near full context even of one’s own life.
David Cay Johnston, talking with Mark Thompson yesterday, mentioned his surprise as a reporter in the early days of the Catholic church’s scandals of its many priests raping children. Many mothers he interviewed knew about it. Normalized it.
This shocked him, but at the time few understood how the symptoms of hurt delay appearing till typically one, two, or three years later. Nabokov knew of this delay. But mainstream America for the sake of honoring status quo authorities chose its massive culture of denial. Hurt’s symptoms would yet lie latent, appear willy-nilly, then face the culture’s massive silence.
That silence, paralysis, still reigns, as the emerging Epstein evidence shows of the entire Republican party still supporting the would-be dictator, Russian money launderer, sex criminal, war criminal in the White House.
(Addendum: a quote from part of Heather's today, " . . . tickets for the dinner dance were $1 million apiece. The optics of Trump partying with his rich cronies while American soldiers died . . ..")
To clarify, it is the forebrain that continues development into the early and mid-20s. The forebrain is the seat of judgment and decision-making. This is why we look back on some of our own behavior in our teens and wonder, "how was I SO stupid?" For abused children (sexually or otherwise), they tend to feel guilt and shame, blaming themselves for the abuse because the forebrain is not adequately able to sort out WHO is actually to blame for the abuse. Thus, survivors often carry their "secret" to the grave, or only bring it out much later as development take its course. Therapy helps. PTSD is a complicating factor for many.
Thank you, Signe.
For a great movie on young people (in this case successfully) learning to deal with challenges, do you happen to know the 2017 "Wonder"?
For too many of the Trump-&-Epstein world, the bar for dealing with that was impossibly high, given the massive corruption, the total human emptiness of so many rich-&-high-placed.
I haven't seen that; will check it out. For the righ-&-high-placed I turn to Jamie Johnson's documentary, *Born Rich.* It gives amazing insight into the lives of young people born into unimaginable wealth and opportunity. Troubling, yet clarifying.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/3/1/2370585/-Republicans-stoop-lower-than-ever-to-protect-flimsy-House-majority#comment_92794129
I knew the basics, J L, of this Gonzales creep.
I did not know the extent of the perfidy among his fellow Republicans so totally covering for his homicidal, unconscionable human lowness.
Retaining power is all that matters.
At long last, NO decency. None. Few if any of us are saints, but OMG. Most of these creeps claim to be "Christian", but that's long been cloak for its antithesis. Trading power for one's "soul" is the classic "devil's bargain".
Hey what's that sound?
I read some time ago, yet something that seems to be left out if the whole epstein conversation, and that is the name of epstein's plane. Wasn't it called " The Lolita Express"? Time to start calling the plane by it's name.
They are ready with the shame and guilt when the brain matures. The cruelty is the point.
We are governed by imbeciles.
No, Karen. We are governed by traitors to our constitution and the population of our nation.
Who are imbeciles!
I would say you're ruled by racketeers.
Yes, we are. But we share the appellation because we were also imbeciles in electing him. Even if you voted for Harris, we all share the common responsibility of this massive failure in electoral politics.
Well, the chickens (more like wolves) have come to roost in the hen house.
No, I worked my butt off talking to potential voters in 6 States, writing postcards, and ran down my savings drastically. I worked the polls too the last several years. I refuse now to accept responsibility for the utter corruption or stupidity of a majority of American voters. I gave up my hobby to try to prevent this. All this was absolutely predictable. I am beyond apoplectic.
I agree Marie. There are millions of Americans that trusted Trump when he said that he would lower prices on day 1, end the Ukraine War in 24 hours with a phone call and never start a war. Of course, he lied about dozens of other things as well that the idiots believed. Many of the people you connected with chose to believe a fat, stupid, cruel, lying, narcissistic murdering pedophile over a brilliant experienced kind woman.
Apparently, you really can't fix stupid.
Me too, just as important
As a nation, we all must shoulder the responsibility. But that's a bit hard to do, when there is no mechanism for stopping the sheer madness of which so many were victims (and still are). So those of us who worked hard to convince others of his complete unfitness for office were stymied. Let us not forget those who didn't even bother to vote.
Ya can't fix stupid.
I wonder how much voter suppression played into the Harris loss. A lot would be my guess. These criminals are good at what they corrupt.
I significantly discount the accusations of voter suppression. I would MUCH more likely think that sexism played a greater part in the calamitous loss in 2024, coupled with the Democrats' horrific ability to do politics in a sensible way. It is much easier to believe that WE caused our own problems than to think that outsiders managed to influence enough people in our party to not vote. The latter would suggest that our party's voters might be as stupid as the GOP's voters and I don't believe that. We were our own worst enemy in 2024 and it cost us the election. Hopefully (assuming we don't lose the entire republic before that) we are smarter in 2026 and 2028.
"...when there is no mechanism for stopping the sheer madness of which so many were victims." On point here James. We have a Constitution which is miraculous in many ways, but highly flawed in others. As a nation, we have a responsibility to try to fix those problems as often and as soon as possible. We obviously have not fixed the ones here that permit Trump to act in such an outrageous manner, and we need to do that as soon as possible. But if at all possible we need to continue to act in concert with the Constitution, regardless of its flaws, because otherwise we just become another anarchic or despot-ruled society, and despots aren't any good no matter WHICH side of the political spectrum they come from.
James, when I read a comment that attacks people who don't vote, I always assume that the commenter is someone who enjoys voting in a district that hasn't been gerrymandered into oblivion. In addition to voters who've been silenced by gerrymandering, others live in states with populations that have been poorly educated for generations, to the degree that the overwhelming majority can't discern shit from shinola.
Rather than attacking voters who don't participate, we should be attacking the systems that demoralize and disenfranchise voters who say, "Why bother? What's the point?"
Even in the somewhat politically active state I live in, our voter turnout is, to put it mildly, miserably disappointing. So, sorry, but I won't give a pass to those who won't get off their ass and pay attention and vote. Nope. Because they're the same ones who bitch about the result. And I've had it with those folks. No pass for gerrymandering or not being educated: those are lame excuses. Enough. This democracy is supposed to be 'participatory'. You don't want to participate, or won't put out the effort, then, to borrow a line from Jack McCoy in an episode of Law&Order: "sit down and shut up."
We are governed by corrupt individuals who were elected by an uninformed, uneducated and vulnerable group of imbeciles.
I think that the individuals are multifaceted. Uninformed only because they get their "information" from manipulative sources that tickle their amygdalae and feed them propaganda; I'd prefer the "mis/disinformed" moniker. I will agree on your imbeciles since they believed that H. Clinton had a sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor. WTAF?????
Anybody who believed anything spewed by Alex Jones qualifies as an imbecile. I was shocked that he was not mocked back into the Stone Age.
It really is not a good practice to underestimate one's opponents or enemies. These people are dangerous.
True, and yes, they are dangerous, because they profit at our expense.
And bought
We are far too often governed by narcissists.
Amen.
I used to say that Trump is “the boy giving a book report who hasn’t read the book”. I now believe Trump is “the boy trying to write an essay who does not know how to write”. He has concepts of a plan, but can’t even express what the concept is. Reminds me of his “concept of a healthcare system”. He’s a mad man and belongs in a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane!
You're giving him more credit than he deserves. I don't think it occurs to him to have a plan other than "get more money" or "get more attention."
Hell, he can't even change his diaper. You're talking about concepts that every other President has achieved by age 12.
Criminal is the operative word. Most insane people are not so dangerous.
“Trump seems unclear about the end game of the conflict he has started.”
He has no effing idea. That is much too complex a thought process for him even back when he still possessed all his mental faculties, such as they were.
I believe Trump is being manipulated by Netanyahu, Arabs who oppose Iran, and the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein. There’s a big question about how Putin fits in, and how he takes advantage. The military resources being expended on Iran should really be being sent to the Ukrainians. They love freedom too.
He’s being “managed” chiefly by the Gulf states and the Saudis after they’ve bribed him to the tune of billions. This is what THEY wanted. This is what they’ve spent bucketloads of cash to get.
100% correct.
Salud!
🗽
That’s how you get Donald Trump to do anything, including selling out his country.
Don’t forget how he and his family and friends are massively profiting financially from this deed.
That’s how you get Donald Trump to do anything, including selling out his country.
“The Ellisons' pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery is driven not by acquiring assets, but by the strategic desire to gain control over and neuter CNN's editorial standing. For this coalition, neutralizing CNN is more valuable than gaining Paramount or Warner Bros., representing the final step in a rapid transformation of the American information infrastructure into an aligned political tool. (Read more on the situation in The Atlantic's analysis, The Atlantic.)”
➡️ We Should All Be Freaking Out About CNN
"If you live in a coastal city, CNN probably feels like a relic. But it remains one of the most powerful news brands on the planet. It plays in airports in every country, in hotel rooms from Dubai to Bangkok, in the break room of a factory in Youngstown, Ohio. It has reporters on the ground in Gaza, in Kyiv, in courtrooms and disaster zones across every continent. That is not a declining cable asset. That is the last global news infrastructure the United States has. And here is something those of us in independent media need to be honest about: CNN sits at the top of the journalism funnel. When creators break stories, that information almost always originated with a journalist who filed a FOIA request or sat through eight hours of congressional testimony. They are the headwaters. We are downstream. If editorial decisions at the top start being made for political reasons, it affects what stories exist in the first place. You cannot build what CNN has from scratch. You can only acquire it. Or destroy it.”
The Drey Dossier | FEB 25 2026 | Substack
https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/we-should-all-be-freaking-out-about?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
Yes, CNN is everywhere, all over the world. It's also a pale shadow of the reporting wizard it once was. They used to have, at least, a leg up on breaking news but that's no longer the case. I too mourn the loss of our independent news sources. CNN will be less independent, but in terms of quality reporting, will it really be a lot worse than it already is?
So some of us have started watching BBC, France 24 (in English, and Al Jazeera.
Your comment is irrelevant. What matters is dominance of mainstream news, and this deal is a disaster for that.
Mainstream news is already the disaster. It's enabling and complicity with this president is the disaster, and if the remaining MSM outlets devour each other, good riddance.
Yes, indeed. Just look at CBS, and the show on Sunday Morning about chump’s “fights” planned for the 250th. Made me puke on Mar 1.
'“The presumption created by the surrounding evidence is that this war could very well be about (1) subverting US democracy, (2) enriching the president, or both. These are presumptions, not proof — but they provide the solid lines of inquiry as we learn more about the war.”
Heather is it possible that the billions the Saudis and Qatar have poured into Kushner’s business and the Trump boys businesses were ways to pay Trump to use thr US military to attack Iran???
Exactly, Fox with cred…
If I were president of the US, I would be begging both God in heaven and the parents of the 150 children executed in the primary school to forgive our atrocity.
If you were President the killing never would have happened in the first place!
Thanks for more details on our new Trump escapade-- a war on Iran that is insane, unnecessary and illegal. Congress must be called back immediately to impeach Trump for his abuse of office and numerous illegal and unconstitutional acts. And three dead Americans to date as the blood thirsty president assures more to come. So it goes.
The Epstein files reveal a lot about Trump and his friends love of blood. It’s gruesome.
Kristin, you have only to listen to the gruesome details that made up so much of the State of the Union speech to see how much he enjoys focusing on gore and suffering. No one with any empathy would have belabored the pain of the victims, especially with parents in the audience.
Please, PLEASE, stop focusing on impeachment. It is a waste of breath and energy. At this point, it is even doubtful that the House could raise the votes for an impeachment resolution (requiring a majority of Congresscritters to vote in favor). And even if they did, the possibility of an actual conviction are literally ZERO. It takes 2/3s of the Senate to convict and the GOP holds a 53-47 majority. That means that TWENTY (count 'em 20!) GOP Senators have to join the Democrats to convict.
NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN. Not in my lifetime, not in yours.
"Trump"eting this over and over just deflects from what is REALLY needed which is a full-scale effort to guarantee that the Trump and his henchfolks don't screw up the 2026 midterm elections in a variety of nefarious ways, and at the same time, keep bringing light on the Epstein files in the hopes that enough Americans will get sick enough of him to finally bring him down. The latter is NOT guaranteed to happen, but it has MORE chance of happening than a conviction in an impeachment trial.
The latter is just a cosmic waste of time and energy in a publicity charade.
You're right that it's not about impeachment. But you seem to be seeing the future as cast in yesterday's stone. The mid-terms are coming. Congressional majorities can change, and vulnerable Representatives and Senators may wake up and see the writing on the wall. Or get blown away because they fail to see it. :)
You apparently misread or misunderstood my comments. You stated pretty much the same thing I was stating. I am ALL ABOUT focusing on the upcoming elections so that we create our own "regime change" here in the US. I am less convinced that GOP Congresscritters will "wake up" any time soon, but we can take over the majorities in both House and Senate. Just wanted to clear that up, we pretty much agree on what can AND should happen.
I do not believe it effective telling this community to “forget” any offensive or action to stop this reckless administration. Regardless of the results of an impeachment, launching any step to rid the threat to our nation’s democracy is worth its time and intention. Grassroot movement seeks legal action and the rule of law parallel to their objection. Calling for impeachment is part of the protest visible amongst the American people right now.
Salud!
🗽
You certainly have the right to feel how you wish, and I clearly disagree.
ANY step is a pretty wide field "to rid the threat to our nation's democracy". So would you support assassination? That comes within the range of "any step", no?
My point isn't to suppress people's right to protest. I am ALL in favor of protests, but using the political process of impeachment is a huge waste (IMHO) of precious resources which can be much more effectively focused on more likely ways to create better outcomes. Its just like medicine. A doctor can do lots of things that MIGHT heal you, but they focus on the ones that have the best chance.
Impeachment has NO chance (to remove the President) so it is effectively pure political theater. That, IMHO, is a waste of time and resources when there are so many more important avenues to pursue.
I agree with you. It has always been about the midterms!
Another attack on a sovereign country. The good news is bad people died. The bad news is hundreds of good people did and will join them. The chance of Iran attacking the US was essentially zero but Israel was worried and President Trump is not rational. Halt the bombing, stop the war, and change the leadership in whichever country you choose. Our troops deserve support but they really need to think about that unlawful order bit. Especially the top generals. Using our logic they should be bombed out of existence. If a bad leader who supports killing demonstrators should be destroyed we may have a problem. Contact your representatives. Vote Blue.
I'm uncomfortable with the judgment that comes with "bad people died" being "good news." For reasons I don't understand, although some Iranians rejoice in the death of those "bad" people, apparently millions of Iranians loved the "bad people", particularly their Ayatollah. Millions in the US love a man I consider "bad" -- DJT. But I don't want to be a hater. I am struggling with this.
I sure understand that internal conflict. I do not see how killing someone* is ever "good" news. Ever.
*Intentionally causing the death of another human can be justified, but it is never "good" news. I have been a member of law enforcement peer support formally since 1994 and informally (before there was knowledge of critical incident peer support) since 1988. I have worked with and talked with people who, under extreme threat, killed someone in defense of self or others. In none of these cases was it EVER an easy thing, even when completely justifiable. I've talked with a few military veterans from Vietnam to GWOT who had killed people in combat. It is NEVER an easy thing for them, either.
I'm reminded of a line from Holly Near: "Why do we kill people, who are killing people, to show that killing people is wrong".
Nice reply, Ally. Good on you. Signe’s point is apt: ‘the madness of war’, where we depart from decency. Regards, Anthony
No logic in our response to killing. Do it better, more efficiently
How "bad" could 118 dead school girls be? They're written off as collateral damage. This is just sickening.
The hundreds of good people who died is on us. We also tolerate murder on the high seas and in our city streets.
You are not alone in your struggle.
So much conflict over calling evil evil.
The killing is bad of course and rejoicing in death is unfortunate and not appropriate for everyone. The death of a tyrant or someone actively harming you or others is often good news. So be it.
There is a mentally incompetent madman in charge of the country and the bunch of cowards in Congress, the Cabinet, and the Supreme Court are too in love with their precious stock market earnings to do anything about it. How are you going to cash in your shares when the US is glowing with radiation, eh? REMOVE TRUMP NOW!
Since when did everything become a "deal"? Rhetorical question.