Finally, Friday Reads: “The Thought of War Blows my Mind”

Posted: March 13, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked | Tags: | 5 Comments

“The dumbbeat of war echoes across the world.” @repeat1968, John Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Gotta thank  @repeat1968 for giving me this earworm today, as well as today’s Featured Funny. Today’s topics are War, Inflation, and a domestic terrorist attack on a place of worship. All these are brought to you by the letters #FARTUS. Yes, Cadet Bonespurs with his band of incompetents is doing more damage to the world and our country than most folks thought possible.

We’ve lost more U.S. service members, furthering whatever the Iran War is supposed to be about. This is from NBC News. “All 6 U.S. crew members killed after refueling plane crashes in Iraq. The crash brings the number of U.S. service personnel killed since the Iran war began Feb. 28 to 12. A 13th died of a medical issue.” Watching body counts rise is never a good thing to see constantly in the news.  We should’ve learned by now. This sad news is reported by Patrick Smith.

All six U.S. crew members have been confirmed dead after their military refueling plane crashed in Iraq while taking part in Iran war operations, the U.S. military said Friday.

U.S. Central Command said in a post on X early Friday that the KC-135 plane went down at approximately 2 p.m. ET Thursday in western Iraq, with four crew members initially confirmed dead. That statement said “rescue efforts continue.”

CNN has the headline this morning. “Trump administration underestimated Iran war’s impact on Strait of Hormuz.”  Ya think? I’m just glad that my legs, my bike, and the St. Claude Ave bus pretty much take me wherever I need to go these days. You can lessen that earworm by humming Send in the Clowns as you read about what passes as the national security advisors these days.

The Pentagon and National Security Council significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes while planning the ongoing operation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

President Donald Trump’s national security team failed to fully account for the potential consequences of what some officials have described as a worst-case scenario now facing the administration, the sources said.

While key officials from the Departments of Energy and Treasury were present for some of the official planning meetings about the operation before it started, sources said, the agency analysis and forecasts that would be integral elements of the decision-making process in past administrations were secondary considerations.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright have been key players throughout the planning and execution stages of the conflict, the sources acknowledged. But Trump’s preference of leaning on a tight circle of close advisers in his national security decision making had the effect of sidelining interagency debate over the potential economic fallout if Iran were to respond to US-Israeli strikes by closing the strait.

And now it may be weeks before the administration’s efforts to alleviate the intensifying economic fallout take hold, officials said Thursday, including high-risk naval escorts of oil tankers through the strait that the Pentagon believes are currently too dangerous to conduct. The president, meanwhile, has continued to downplay the tumult in energy markets and the danger. He told Fox News that oil tanker crews should “show some guts” and go through the strait.

The reality in the strait has left diplomatic counterparts, former US economic and energy officials and industry executives who spoke with CNN in a state of confusion and disbelief.

More than a dozen vessels have been attacked near Iran since Feb. 28

There have been at least 14 reports of attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz since war broke out between Iran and the US and Israel, according to UK Maritime Trade Operations. The incidents have effectively halted traffic through the vital oil corridor.

You may read the details at the link. Iran is warning ships in the air that it is also actively mining the area. There appears to be no solutions or discussion on this mess.  According to Cade Bone Spurs, we shouldn’t worry about it.   This is from AXIOS. “Scoop: Trump claimed in G7 call that Iran is “about to surrender”. Barak Ravid has the lede.

President Trump told G7 leaders in a virtual meeting Wednesday that Iran is “about to surrender,” according to three officials from G7 countries briefed on the contents of the call.

Why it matters: Trump is as confident about the war’s outcome in private as he is in public. But his assessment is colliding with a more complex reality on the ground.

  • The Iranian regime has shown no signs of imminent surrender or collapse — and on Day 14 of the war, is moving to gain more leverage by choking off the Strait of Hormuz.

Behind the scenes: Trump boasted about the results of Operation Epic Fury on the G7 call Wednesday morning, telling allies, “I got rid of a cancer that was threatening us all.”

  • While claiming Iran was about to surrender, he also suggested there were no officials left alive in Tehran with the power to make that decision.
  • “Nobody knows who is the leader, so there is no one that can announce surrender,” Trump said, according to two officials briefed on the call.

Trump has mocked Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei as a “lightweight,” previously telling Axios that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son would be “unacceptable” to the U.S.

  • In a message read out on state television Thursday, Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to avenge Iranian “martyrs” and open new fronts in the war “where the enemy has little experience and is highly vulnerable.”

  • Khamenei said Iran will continue to threaten the Strait of Hormuz, where attacks on tankers have already pushed oil prices above $100 a barrel and triggered fears of a global economic crisis.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of War is on the job! Not really!  He said this today.

CNBC headlined his little performance this way. “Pete Hegseth on Strait of Hormuz: ‘Don’t need to worry about it’.” 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday brushed aside concerns that the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz because of the Iran war, which has spiked oil prices, would continue being a problem for the U.S. and the world for much longer.

Iran has been “exercising sheer desperation in the Straits of Hormuz,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon press briefing.

“We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” he said.

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil on Friday morning was around $93 per barrel. A day before the war began on Feb. 28, a barrel of WTI was selling for about $67.

I bet that made you feel so much better!  I know I’m back to my original earworm now.  Economic data make it increasingly clear that the economy was slowing even before Cadet Bone Spurs started his war.  Prices were also rising. This is from the AP. “US economy expanded at sluggish 0.7% in fourth quarter, government says, downgrading first estimate.”  Let’s see if he blames Democrats and Biden.

The U.S. economy, hobbled by last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, advanced at an unexpectedly sluggish 0.7% annual rate from October through December, the Commerce Department reported Friday in a big downgrade of its initial estimate.

Growth in gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — was down sharply from 4.4% in last year’s third quarter and 3.8% in the second. And the fourth-quarter number was half the government’s first estimate of 1.4%; economists had expected the revision to go the other way — and show stronger growth.

Federal government spending and investment, clobbered by the shutdown, plunged at a 16.7% rate, hacking 1.16 percentage points off fourth-quarter growth.

For all of 2025, GDP grew 2.1%, solid but down from an initial estimate of 2.2% and from growth of 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% 2023.

The news from Michigan on the Temple domestic terrorist is beginning to shape the narrative on why it happened. This is from The Detroit News. “Temple Israel synagogue shooter’s family recently killed in air strike.”  Damn! There goes that earwig again.

A Dearborn Heights man whose relatives were recently killed in a military strike in Lebanon is the accused assailant in Thursday’s attack on the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, two sources apprised of the investigation told The Detroit News.

Ayman Ghazali, 41, a restaurant worker in Dearborn Heights, is accused of driving his truck into the synagogue just after noon Thursday and opening fire, before he was shot and killed by security, the sources said. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the details publicly.

Late Thursday night, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Ghazali was the individual who carried out the attack.

Ghazali, a native of Lebanon, was granted U.S. citizenship more than 10 years ago, under the Obama administration, according to the department. He entered the U.S. through Detroit on May 10, 2011, on an immigrant visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen, a DHS statement said. He applied for naturalization on Oct. 20, 2015, and was granted citizenship on Feb. 5, 2016.

Ghazali’s ex-wife filed for divorce in Wayne County Circuit Court in August 2024, records show. The couple had at least one child, according to court records, and a divorce was granted seven months later, in March 2025. Mohammad Ahmad Moussa, the ex-wife’s divorce lawyer, declined comment when contacted by The News on Thursday.

So, here is the headline from The Los Angeles Times, March 1.  “Israel hits Lebanon after Hezbollah attacks; in Iraq, militia targets U.S. troops.”  How literal are we here about the Eye for an Eye thing in modern times?

  • The Israeli military hit Beirut on Monday and urged people in nearly 50 villages in Lebanon to evacuate ahead of possible retaliatory strikes after Hezbollah fired into Israel.
  • In Iraq, the Shiite militia Saraya Awliya al-Dam claimed a drone attack on Monday targeting U.S. troops at the airport in Baghdad.

So, I think the world’s pretty fucked up right now, we are doing a lot of that, and I just am going to stop at this now and hope Congress starts fighting this with some integrity and grit.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: War is Hell

Posted: March 9, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: "Der Fuehrer's Face", #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, Iran, Israel/Iran War | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments

“The Pieces President” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The one thing holding inflation prices down in this country was the price of oil.  It peaked in 2023 and began a decline until Orange Caligula launched a full-on attack on Iran and disrupted traffic in the Straight of Hormuz.  Such is the result of a madman’s insane policy choices based on revenge, power-grabbing, and greed. It’s like giving a toddler the driving wheel and letting him take you down from a very tall mountain.

It’s not like I didn’t warn everyone to clear out of the stock market and hunker down about a year ago. It’s also just going to get worse. I fortunately cleared out the last of one of my 403(b)s last week to use it to improve the house before it gets any more expensive. I managed to lose only a bit of it, and I’m glad to know the check got cut before the worst hit so far. I can’t promise you that it’s going to get any better either.  We’re worse than a Banana Republic. We’ve gone back to something akin to the dark ages with plagues of measles and armed thugs wandering the streets, looking to harm and jail workers and poor people. We can’t even put a bunch of pedophiles in suits into the justice system. What good is our Constitution for if money means you can ignore it

I’m going to start with AXIOS because they always get straight to the point. This analysis is by Neil Irwin, and this absolutely stunning chart provides some visuals. That line covering the first few months of 2026 screams outlier with a discernible reason. To the moon and beyond!  It’s also obvious that none of it was Joe Biden’s fault, given the dates accompanying the data points.  Okay, I’ll step down from the professor’s podium. I’ll just say economics students will be studying this for as long as universities stand.

In the first week of the American and Israeli attack on Iran, the economic ripples were looking pretty minimal. But as Week 2 begins, the risks to the global economy are growing much more serious.

The big picture: You can’t decapitate the leadership of a country of 90 million people, with expansive military and intelligence capabilities, in the heart of some of the world’s most economically important supply chains, without a huge cost.

  • The hours and days and weeks ahead are all about quantifying that cost.

Zoom in: Oil skyrocketed 25% overnight, to just under $120 a barrel, fueling worries that higher energy costs will stoke inflation and curb spending by U.S. consumers. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index plunged more than 5%.

  • That’s the highest oil price since about four years ago, when energy prices surged due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
  • Patrick De Haan — a widely cited gas price expert and an analyst for GasBuddy — estimates there’s an 80% chance the national average gas price will hit $4 per gallon in the next month.

The latest: As of 5am ET, a barrel of the global crude oil benchmark was going for about $107 on futures markets, up 15% from Friday and 47% from 10 days ago, before the Iran attack. Brent crude prices approached $120 overnight before receding on reports of coordinated global action to release oil reserves.

  • The oil price rise is poised to translate into a rapid increase in the cost of retail gasoline, which was already up about 51 cents per gallon before the weekend run-up in oil prices.

The risk of a broader economic slump is rising with the disruption to oil supplies. S&P 500 futures are down 1.3% overnight, setting Wall Street up for its third consecutive day of losses.

  • Japan’s Nikkei index was down 5.2% and South Korea’s KOSPI down 6%, reflecting those economies’ more direct dependence on Middle Eastern oil now at risk of a protracted blockade.

Of note: The odds of a U.S. recession this year spiked to 38% in overnight trading on Polymarket, from 24% at the start of the month.

State of play: Iran is seeking to block the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf with the rest of the world, and is threatening to attack ships that seek to pass through.

  • The war has already caused the largest oil disruption in history, taking out roughly 20% of the world’s supply, according to Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy and a former George W. Bush energy adviser.
  • That’s double the previous record set during the Suez Crisis in the 1950s, which disrupted just under 10% of global supply.
  • The weekend also brought apparently successful Iranian attacks on desalination plants in the Gulf region that are critical for drinking water.
  • President Trump has raised the possibility of U.S. ground forces in Iran.

More at the link. CNBC shows the data with more analysis. “Oil prices topped $100 per barrel on record supply disruption, but are off session highs.” We’ll see if that lasts until the markets close this afternoon.

Shortly after oil blasted past $100 at the open of trading Sunday evening, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that a gain in “short term oil prices” was a “very small price to pay” for destroying Iran’s nuclear threat.

“Only fools would think differently!” Trump added.

Gulf Arab states are cutting production because they are running out of storage space, as crude piles up with nowhere to go due to the closure of the Strait. Tankers are unwilling transit the narrow waterway because they are worried Iran will attack them.

The closure of the Strait has triggered the biggest oil supply disruption history, according to an analysis by consulting firm Rapidan Energy. About 20% of the world’s oil consumption is exported through the Strait.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman warned Monday that oil tankers “must be very careful.”

“As long as the situation is insecure, I think all tankers, all maritime navigation, must be very careful,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told CNBC in an interview.

Kuwait, the fifth-biggest producer in OPEC, announced precautionary cuts Saturday to its oil production and refinery output due to “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. did not detail the size of the cuts.

Output in Iraq, the second-biggest OPEC producer, has effectively collapsed. Production from its three main southern oilfields has fallen 70% to 1.3 million barrels per day, three industry officials told Reuters on Sunday. Those fields produced 4.3 million bpd before Iran war.

And the United Arab Emirates, the third-biggest producer in OPEC, said Saturday that it is “carefully managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements.” The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., or ADNOC, said its onshore operations are continuing normally.

The war showed little signs of easing despite Trump’s claim it was “already won.” Iran named Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, as its new supreme leader, according to reports. The U.S. and Israel killed Khamenei in the opening days of the war.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that traffic through the Strait will resume after the U.S. has destroyed Iran’s ability to threaten tankers.

It’s really odd to think that I started my career as an economist during the OPEC maneuvers and I’m winding down my career as one with the US maneuvers.  Frankly, I think China is sitting pretty right now. They’ve been doing a lot with alternative energy and have the entire Pacific Region — including many Latin American Countries with oil — undoubtedly rooting for them right now.

Alex Harring at CNBC analyzes the market activity. This is fresh off the ticker today. “Stocks pare losses as oil falls back below $100; Dow is down 300 points: Live updates.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell to start the week as U.S. oil topped $100 a barrel, raising concerns about a stagflationary environment for the U.S. economy of rising inflation and slowing growth.

The 30-stock index fell 293 points, or 0.6%, and is coming off its biggest weekly slide in nearly a year. The S&P 500 lost 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.2%. That signifies a meaningful turnaround for the three indexes, as the Dow was down nearly 900 points, or 1.9%, at its low of the day, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were each lower by around 1.5%.

The broader market was helped off its lows by a rise in semiconductor stocks, however. Broadcom jumped more than 3%, while Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices gained almost 2% each. Nvidia climbed more than 1%.

West Texas Intermediate crude broke above $100 per barrel in overnight trading to hit more than $119, its first time above the $100 level since 2022, when investors were reacting to the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was last up 6% at around $96 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude added 7% to $99 a barrel. U.S. oil prices began the year below $60 a barrel.

Oil futures jumped after major Middle East producers slashed their output due to the continued closure of the key Strait of Hormuz passageway. Kuwait announced cuts but did not say by how much, while Iraq has reportedly seen its production fall 70%.

Oil prices later came off their highest levels of the session and stocks rose from their lows following a Financial Times report that G7 officials were considering tapping their strategic reserves. But the publication also reported coordinated release was not ready yet, helping to send major indexes lower.

The Cboe Volatility index — Wall Street’s fear gauge measuring investors seeking protection in the options market — topped 30 for the first time since the market’s tariff driven sell-off in April 2025. It was last above 27.

The $100 oil level was seen by many on Wall Street as a breaking point for the economy unless the war is resolved quickly and prices retreat. Trump posted Sunday evening that a gain in “short term oil prices” was a “very small price to pay” for destroying Iran’s nuclear threat.

Trump donors are feeling this immediately. Trump voters will shortly see the impact on their budgets and gas prices. I can’t say I feel sorry for any of them, but there’s not a person who won’t feel this one way or another. The Bulwark’s Andrew Egger examines Trump’s seeming confusion over his War.

What did the White House think it was getting into in Iran? A strike against Iran’s oppressive and fanatical regime, sure. A display of America’s awesome military might, definitely. But it’s become increasingly, painfully clear: They didn’t think there was going to be a war.

The Trump administration developed no real theory of the objectives of the Iran war, because they didn’t think there was going to be a war. Instead, the administration has backfilled a dizzying array of post-hoc goals for the strikes against Iran. Judd Legum counts seventeen different rationales offered by many different officials, from the president’s “feeling, based on fact” that Iran was about to strike the United Statesto a desire to free the Iranian people to a need to destroy a nuclear program the White House had claimed was already “obliterated.”

The Trump administration made no effort to get the American people on board with war, because they didn’t think there was going to be a war. A majority of the public is already opposed to war with Iran, and what support the war does have seems to be based on the questionable assumption that the conflict will be shortly resolved: 44 percent of Americans support the strikes so far, but only 12 percentwould be in favor of sending U.S. ground troops into the country. But the White House has made no broad effort to convince the public on a bipartisan basis that they should be prepared for a long-haul conflict.

They didn’t think there was going to be a war, and so the White House seemingly gave no thought to what the economic ramifications of war would be. After several days of strikes on Iran, President Trump seemed suddenly to realize last week that the ongoing conflict was going to be terrible for energy prices. He tried to slap a band-aid on the problem by announcing risk insurance and military escorts for all oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, but it wasn’t enough: Suddenly, oil prices went through the roof, and the White House was scrambling to contain the damage—rushing to reassure consumers that the price hikes would be temporary and even waiving some sanctions on Russian oil to try to ease pressures on global supply. “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A, and World, Safety and Peace,” Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

They didn’t think there was going to be a war, and so the president assumed he’d be in charge of picking Iran’s next political leadership. This plan, admittedly, hit an unexpected snag early on: The initial round of strikes that took out Iran’s top leaders also killed a number of lower-ranking regime figures that the White House had identified as pragmatists who might be willing to negotiate. “The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump said a day after the strikes began. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they’re all dead. Second or third place is dead.” Still, Trump made it clear he expected to be involved in picking Iran’s next supreme leader, and absolutely ruled out Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain ayatollah: “They are wasting their time . . . Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me.” But this morning, Iran went ahead and proclaimed Mojtaba Khamenei their next supreme leader anyway.

Somehow, the president seems to remain so confident Iran will be buttoned up in no time that he’s already openly licking his chops over the next triumphant blitzkrieg. “Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way,” Trump told CNN Friday. “I’m going to put Marco over there and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one right now.”

Judd LeGum at Popular Information specifies not the unknowables of the attack, but the rationale and plans for the future, which are blowing in the wind. “9 days in, the most basic question about the Iran war remains unanswered. In just over a week, Trump and top administration officials have given at least 17 different responses about why the war began.” Yup. We still don’t know why they did this.

On February 28, President Trump announced that “the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.” The war has claimed the lives of more than 1500 people, including about 1300 Iranians, dozens in neighboring countries, and six U.S. troops. The Pentagon has estimated the conflict is costing U.S. taxpayers about $1 billion per day — and that figure may be too low.

And yet, nine days into the war, Trump and his administration have failed to clearly answer the most fundamental question: Why did the war begin?

Instead, the Trump administration has offered a bewildering series of shifting, contradictory, and factually incorrect answers. In just over a week, Trump and top administration officials have given at least 17 different responses about why the war began:

A brief description of each of those 17 responses is given in the article. You may read it at this fully gifted link. The New York Times reports on information from Iran’s new Supreme Leader.  “Live Updates: Oil Price Surge Rattles Markets; Iran’s Choice of Leader Signals Defiance. Stocks fell on fears of the Iran war’s effects on energy prices. Top clerics selected Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader, despite President Trump’s warning that he was “unacceptable.”

U.S. stocks fell at the start of trading on Monday, after markets in Asia and Europe tumbled, as a spike in oil prices reflected global fears of a prolonged U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Meanwhile, Iran projected defiance by naming a son of its slain supreme leader as his successor.

Oil prices briefly surged early Monday to almost $120 per barrel, their highest level since the Covid pandemic, as President Trump’s plans for the next steps in the war, let alone its endgame, remained unclear and Iran showed no sign of bowing to his demand for unconditional surrender.

It still looks like the start of World War 3 to me. From the same link above.

Eleven countries have asked Ukraine for security support to help counter Shahed drones, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He said in a social media post that the requests have come from countries neighboring Iran, European nations and the United States — and that some “have already been met with concrete decisions and specific support.”

He did not provide further details, though Zelensky earlier told The New York Times that Ukraine sent interceptor drones and a team of experts to protect U.S. military bases in Jordan.

“There is clear interest in Ukraine’s experience in protecting lives, relevant interceptors, electronic warfare systems, and training,” Zelensky added in his post on social media. “Ukraine is ready to respond positively to requests from those who help us protect the lives of Ukrainians and the independence of Ukraine.

This headline is one that worries me. It’s from the Times of Israel. “Trump to Times of Israel: It’ll be a ‘mutual’ decision with Netanyahu regarding when Iran war ends. US president, in phone interview, clarifies that he’ll make final call to end operation ‘at right time’; says he and PM ‘worked together’ against Islamic Republic: ‘We’ve destroyed a country that would have destroyed Israel’.”

US President Donald Trump told The Times of Israel on Sunday that a decision on when to end the war with Iran will be a “mutual” one that he’ll make together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump also asserted in the brief telephone interview that the Islamic Republic would have destroyed Israel if he and Netanyahu had not been around. “Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it… We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.”

The US president was asked whether he alone would decide when the war with Iran ends or if Netanyahu would also have a say.

“I think it’s mutual… a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account,” he responded, indicating that while Netanyahu will have input, the US president will have the final say.

Asked whether Israel could continue the war against Iran even after the US decides to halt its strikes, Trump declined to entertain the theoretical possibility before adding: “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”

So, it’s still two megalomaniacs avoiding prison sentences running the show.  Don’t you feel much better now?

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Rest in Peace, Country Joe! 

 

Finally Friday Reads: Perpetual Fresh Hells

Posted: March 6, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, just because, kakistocracy, Kristi Noem, MAGA Assholes, Trump's Wars | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments

“Meanwhile, in the newly acquired Homeland Security luxury jet’s bedroom…” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

There’s so much news to cover today that I don’t even know where to start. We’ve got information that we’re the ones who struck the elementary school in Iran, killing all those little girls. We’ve also found out that the Russians are helping Iran target us. This sure feels like the start of World War 3. Additionally, the job picture is bleak as stats show that jobs are being eliminated. Finally, don’t start celebrating Kristi Noem’s demise quite yet. She’s headed to another job, and her replacement is a bimbo with some odd kink. Orange Caligula and his Incompetence Legion continue to wreck everything. Steven Miller must be thrilled.

So, how goes the war? My bad, wars. We’ve got yet another frontline in another country as of 2 days ago. We’re now staging attacks in Ecuador. This is from Time Magazine. “Why Is the U.S. Launching Military Operations in Ecuador?”  This analysis and reporting is by Chantelle Lee.

The United States and Ecuador announced this week that they’ve begun a joint military operation to combat narcoterrorism in the South American country.

The U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), which oversees the nation’s military activity in Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a press release on Tuesday that Ecuadorian and American military forces had started operations that day “against Designated Terrorist Organizations in Ecuador.”

“The operations are a powerful example of the commitment of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the scourge of narco-terrorism,” Southcom said in the press release. “Together, we are taking decisive action to confront narco-terrorists who have long inflicted terror, violence, and corruption on citizens throughout the hemisphere.”

Southcom also shared on X a short video in which a helicopter can be seen taking flight and picking up service members. The command didn’t explain what the video was depicting, though, or how it was tied to the operation in Ecuador.

Officials have so far shared little information about the military operation. But here’s what we do know.

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said in a post on X this week that the country will be conducting “joint operations with our regional allies, including the United States” in March. He didn’t provide any details about the scale of the operation or the intended targets.

“The security of Ecuadorians is our priority, and we will fight to achieve peace in every corner of the country,” he said in his post. “To achieve that peace, we must act forcefully against criminals, wherever they may be. The pursuit of justice and national dignity will never be persecution, but rather a promise that we will keep to Ecuadorians.”

The Trump Administration hasn’t publicly shared how the U.S. military is involved in the operation in Ecuador. But one American official, speaking to the New York Timeson the condition of anonymity, said that, in the months leading up to this week’s announcement, U.S. Special Forces have been assisting Ecuadorian soldiers in preparing for raids. American service members, the official told the Times, have been deployed to support the Ecuadorian military with the operation, which is reportedly targeting drug facilities led by violent gangs. U.S. troops, though, will not be directly involved in the operation, the official told the Times.

Dalia Dassa Kaye, reporting for Foreign Affairs, has this analysis. “The Mirage of a New Middle East. War With Iran Won’t Reshape the Region the Way America Wants.”

Eager to show that he can do what no American leader has done before, President Donald Trump has chosen conflict over diplomacy and gone to war with Iran. The Islamic Republic, knowing that this fight is existential, retaliated quickly with deadly missile and drone attacks on Israel, U.S. bases in the Middle East, and targets in Gulf states and beyond. This is now a regional war with global impact, disrupting oil and financial markets, supply chains, maritime commerce, and air travel. Threats to Americans and the death toll in Iran mount by the hour. These growing risks were predictable long before the war became reality, which might help explain why no previous president took the United States down this perilous path.

How this war will end remains uncertain. But when it does, the United States will have to face what comes next. To the extent that the Trump administration has considered plans for “the day after,” it seems to have made a series of overly optimistic assumptions about how the war might reshape Iran and the Middle East. For one, the Trump administration has insisted—including in Trump’s social media post on February 28 announcing the war—that a relentless degradation of Iranian leadership and military capabilities would weaken the regime enough that the Iranian people could rise up and “take over the government.” Even if that doesn’t happen, the administration’s logic goes, Iran would be defanged and so preoccupied with internal problems that it could no longer pose a threat to the region or American interests. Taking the current Iranian regime out of the equation, Washington assumes, would remove one of the largest sources of regional instability and usher in a new Middle East more to the United States’ liking.

But the outcome of this war will likely fall far short of these rosy expectations. After the bombing ends, Iran and the region could look worse, or at least not better, than they did before the war. The fighting could create a power vacuum in Tehran, sour U.S. allies on their partnerships with Washington, and produce ripple effects on conflicts elsewhere in the world, all without removing sources of regional strife that have nothing to do with the regime in Iran. The risks increase the longer the war goes on, so Congress and U.S. allies must press for a cease-fire now if there is to be any hope of mitigating these day-after dangers.

More analysis of the likely deadly results over time, which include the rise of terrorism once more, can be found at the link. Eric Cortellessa has more analysis about “Trump’s War” at Time Magazine.

In short, if Trump campaigned as a President of peace, he has governed as the opposite. Now he has drawn the U.S. into the kind of conflict he long pledged to avoid. Having ousted the tyrannical ruler of Iran’s theocracy, he has committed the U.S. anew to regime change in the Middle East, telling TIME he intends to play a role in shaping the next government of a regional powerhouse home to some 90 million people. “One of the things I’m going to be asking for is the ability to work with them on choosing a new leader,” he says. “I’m not going through this to end up with another Khamenei. I want to be involved in the selection. They can select, but we have to make sure it’s somebody that’s reasonable to the United States.”

It’s impossible to know how all this will unfold. There was little sympathy internationally for the Ayatollah, who reigned over a brutal Islamist regime; throughout Tehran and across the Iranian diaspora, crowds have rejoiced in the streets upon hearing the news of his demise. To some, Trump’s attacks are historic in the best sense, eliminating an avowed adversary who sought to destroy the U.S. and whom Washington has long viewed as the head of the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.

But the gambit carries extraordinary risks—for Trump’s presidency, for Iran’s fragile political future, for regional stability, and for the safety of Americans at home and abroad. The gravest decision a President can make is whether to send American troops into harm’s way. Trump, who once defined himself in opposition to foreign entanglements, has pivoted with astonishing alacrity toward open-ended confrontation across multiple theaters.

In his interview with TIME, Trump says his goals are to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat once and for all, to dismantle its ballistic-missile program, and to install a Western-friendly government. “We have to be able to deal with sane and rational people,” he says. Yet Trump launched a war before making a case to the country or to Congress, and his Administration has offered unclear—and at times contradictory—explanations of the mission’s objectives. The most unnerving possibility is that Operation Epic Fury is not the culmination of his shift toward a war presidency, but rather the beginning of a new chapter.

The path to war with Iran was paved by a pair of meetings, one year apart, with Benjamin Netanyahu.

As usual, Trump is easily manipulated by his counterparts with selfish and bad intentions.

On Feb. 4, 2025, the Israeli Prime Minister visited the White House for the first time since Trump’s return to power. Seated at a long table in the Cabinet Room, Netanyahu began with a bracing reminder, according to U.S. and Israeli officials present at the meeting: Iran, he noted, had plotted to assassinate Trump during the 2024 campaign. Law-­enforcement officials disclosed that they had disrupted what they described as two Iranian plots to kill Trump. (Tehran denied the allegations.) Trump has long fused geopolitics with grievance, and Iran’s clerical leadership occupied a singular place on his list of adversaries. When TIME asked him in a November 2024 interview about the prospect of war with Iran, Trump did not dismiss it. “Anything can happen,” he said.

Sensing an opening, Netanyahu walked through a slide deck. It showed stockpiles of highly enriched uranium climbing, centrifuges spinning faster, inspectors reporting gaps. Ever since Trump withdrew from President Barack Obama’s nuclear accord in 2018, Tehran had incrementally expanded its enrichment program, moving closer to breakout capacity. By the time Trump was inaugurated a second time, ­international inspectors assessed that Iran possessed enough weapons-grade uranium to place it mere weeks from assembling a bomb. “Look, Donald,” Netanyahu said, leaning in, “this has to be tackled, because they’re racing forward.” He paused, locking eyes with the President. “You can’t have a nuclear Iran on your watch.”

I wanted to mention the economy signalling a meltdown. This is from Jeff Cox writing for CNBC. “Economy:  U.S. payrolls unexpectedly fell by 92,000 in February; unemployment rate rises to 4.4%.”

  • Nonfarm payrolls in February fell by 92,000, compared with the estimate for 50,000 and below the downwardly revised January total of 126,000. It was the third time in five months that the economy lost jobs.

  • Health care, the primary growth driver in payrolls, saw a loss of 28,000, due largely to a strike at Kaiser Permanente that sidelined more than 30,000 workers in Hawaii and California.

  • Wages rose more than expected. Average hourly earnings increased 0.4% for the month and 3.8% from a year ago, both 0.1 percentage point above forecast.

I want to mention a few things about this. Generally, this would indicate that the Fed’s Board of Governors may loosen interest rates.  However, we’re still on the high end of the inflation rate target, considering that wages rose by more than expected, the Fed may be reluctant to move on that.  Wars generally stimulate an economy but that remains to be seen on the various military advantages Trump has undertaken. There is still concern about the supply inventory needed to support the war. Moving to a wartime economy can create shortages in the consumer sector. International markets are already pricing in oil shortages.

As usual, I am ever the economist. I’m just weirded out about all the Kristi Noem and her likely replacement news. These people are all bimbos and freaks. Noem’s replacement, Senator Markwayne Mullin, appears to have a really odd kink. This is from MEDIAite. It’s a headline from 2023. “Markwayne Mullin Reportedly Fingered Nostrils of Colleagues and Their Spouses During Visit to Israel.”  I certainly want the committee hearing to ask about this, but I really don’t want to hear the details.

I do want to know more about Noem’s new job, however. This is from The Hill. WTH is the Shield of the Americans anyway? Ashleigh Fields has this headline. “What we know about Noem’s new ‘Shield of the Americas’ role.”

While the soon-to-be former secretary will no longer head up immigration and other national security agencies under DHS, her work for “Shield of the Americas” will hit on similar topics, including immigrants in the country illegally, transnational trafficking and border crossings.

Here’s what we know about the role: What is ‘Shield of the Americas’?

The regional coalition of countries in Latin America will work together on ideology and policy initiatives that help secure the Western Hemisphere, according to the White House.

The Shield of the Americas will be guided in part by the president’s foreign policy initiatives dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine,” fashioned after the Monroe Doctrine. The administration has described the doctrine as enlisting “established friends” in the Western Hemisphere to pursue U.S. aims and expanding ties by “cultivating and strengthening new partners.”

Since Trump returned to office last year, he directed the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” announced plans to “take back” the Panama Canal, and pushed efforts to acquire Greenland and make Canada the 51st state.

A summit making the Shield of the Americas official is set to take place this weekend in Miami, and it may largely focus on counterterrorism measures in the region as a group of Latin American leaders assemble on American soil.

Noem will work with foreign leaders in both North and South America. The Trump administration has maintained a heavy interest in connecting with Latin American leaders to combat human smuggling, drug trafficking and undocumented immigration.

Thirteen heads of Latin American countries are expected to be present at the Miami summit this weekend. Some notable names, according to the White House, include: Argentine President Javier Milei, Chilean President-elect José Antonio Kast, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele Ortez and Honduran President Nasry “Tito” Asfura.

NPR has the go-to list on “What you need to know about Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Trump’s new pick to lead DHS.”

Anyway, he has a background in construction. He’s from Oklahoma. Evidently, he and Rand Paul don’t get along, and since Paul is the head of the committee that will approve his appointment, it should be interesting.

So, that’s enough weird Trump news for the day. I need to return to doing something more worthwhile, like the laundry and dishes.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: War and Pieces

Posted: March 2, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: #We are so Fucked, Anti-War, Corruption and Criminal Insanity, Crimes against Children, Follow the Money, Middle East War Israel Iran United States | Tags: , , , , | 7 Comments

“Pete Hegseth’s Department of War days ago shot down one of Kristi Noem’s border protection drones, while the USS Gerald R. Ford is experiencing a massive toilet failure on deployment. What else could go wrong?…” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

We’ve been dutifully following the release and blowback from the Epstein Files here. If Orange Caligula wanted center stage back and the headlines to shift from that, he certainly is accomplishing his goal.  He now has dead school children, dead American troops, and attacks on numerous American Assets and countries in the Middle East on his nasty orange hands. We’re in there for real now, just like we were with the last bumbling Republican idiot in that office. I thought we’d learned our lessons on regime change back then.

The questions now are what’s next and what’s the actual goal here?  Then how the hell do we get out with the least amount of carnage and destruction? Unfortunately, the folks who started this have no clue. Planning and follow-through are not their strong points. It’s one big show to distract from other failures. Let’s review the headlines this morning and hope there are some adults somewhere in the State Department and the aptly-named Department of War.

This Reuters headline sums up the idiocy that we’re being spoonfed minute by minute. Two old fascist codgers with scandals and lawsuits just teamed up to create a needless slaughter fest and economic disaster. “Pentagon tells Congress no sign that Iran was going to attack the US first, sources say. This is reported by  Phil Stewart and Humeyra Pamuk.

Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff on Sunday that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack U.S. forces first, two people familiar with the matter said.

The United States and Israel launched their most ambitious attacks on Iran in decades on Saturday, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sinking Iranian warships and hitting more than 1,000 targets so far, officials say.

But Sunday’s remarks to Congress appeared to undercut one of the key arguments for the war made by senior administration officials.

They told reporters the day before that President Donald Trump decided to launch the attacks in part because of indicators that Iranians might strike U.S. forces in the Middle East “perhaps preemptively.

“Trump, one of the officials said, was not going to “sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks.

All this was happening while Trump was at a big donor fundraising gala in Florida, utilizing a small hut with curtains as the War Room. This is from CNN.  “Hunkered at Mar-a-Lago, Trump makes his club a makeshift Situation Room.”  I guess an easel is the latest technology they have down there at Mar-a-Lago.

As gala-goers in gowns and tuxedos were dancing the night away inside Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom Friday evening, a very different scene was unfolding on the other side of the rambling estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Out the gilded doors, past layers of security and behind a set of black curtains, the country’s top national security officials were convening in anticipation of a long night.

The CIA director, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense had all slipped in earlier, unseen by the crowd sipping cocktails by the pool. So had the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose map of the Middle East showing the locations of American assets — along with Iranian targets — was set up on an easel.

By the time President Donald Trump touched down, the space was running as a makeshift Situation Room from which he would oversee the start of a sustained attack on Iran.

First, though, the ballroom summoned.

“Have a good time, everybody,” Trump called out to the black-tie crowd gathered for a charity gala after briefly jerking his arms around to his anthem, “God Bless the USA.”

“I gotta go to work.”

Behind the black curtains, photos released by the White House showed Trump, tieless and wearing a white hat emblazoned with “USA,” watching the unfolding action, which would include the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Raw Story‘s Robert Davis delves deeper into the prior TV News reports that the U.S. has a weapons shortage from already from all the prior attacks made on targets by the Trump Regime. “US troops in Iran racing against the clock before running out of ammo: report.”  There is absolutely nothing this regime knows about planning, strategy, and follow-through. I bet the generals that Trump ousted last year are beside themselves with worry and rage.

U.S. troops in Iran are staring down a difficult situation in the wake of strikes that killed Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a new report.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that U.S. troops are racing to destroy Iran’s ballistic and nuclear missile facilities before they run out of interceptors to defend from Iranian retaliatory strikes. The exact size of the military’s ammunition base is classified, but analysts and former officials who spoke to The Journal said the stockpile has been diminished after repeated conflicts in the region.

At the same time, military troops are working to fend off a series of retaliatory strikes from the Iranians. U.S. Central Command said on Saturday that they mounted a “largely successful defense against hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks,” according to the report.

“One of the challenges is you can deplete these really quickly,” Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told The Journal. “We’re using them faster than we can replace them.”

Troops are also running low on sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and aircraft-launched weapons following the operation last year to take out Yemen-based Houthi militants, according to the report.

“Eventually it boils down to numbers,” Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told The Journal. “How many interceptors will we have versus how many launchers will they be able to field and fire.”

Axios follows up on the number of attacks and results Orange Caligula has chalked up during his Regime of Terror. Zachary Basu reports this story. “Trump’s lethal presidency.”

No president in the modern era has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump.

  • He’s attacked seven nations, three of which — Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela — had never been targeted by U.S. military strikes. He authorized more individual air strikes in 2025 than President Biden did in four years.

Why it matters: Trump explicitly ran as the anti-war candidate. The White House argues he still is — that he always exhausts diplomacy before acting, and that projecting overwhelming force is itself a path to lasting peace.

  • The death of three U.S. service members in the first 24 hours of Trump’s Iran strikes is putting that argument to its most brutal test.
  • “Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is,” Trump said in a video statement Sunday. “But we’ll do everything possible where that won’t be the case,” he added, vowing to “avenge their deaths.”

The big picture: Trump’s strikes are historically distinctive not just in number but in kind.

  • President Bush’s post-9/11 campaigns and President Obama’s drone wars were massive in scale — but concentrated in inherited or congressionally authorized theaters.
  • Alongside traditional counterterrorism efforts, Trump has opened new fronts — a Christmas Day strike in Nigeria, drug boats sunk in the Caribbean, Nicolás Maduro snatched from Caracas.
  • His preferred model is consistent: no boots on the ground, no lengthy entanglements, overwhelming force applied quickly and framed as essential to defending American interests.

He’s like a walking stereotype for all the complaints every country has ever had about us. We are truly Ugly Americans. Judd Legum follows the money at Popular Information. As we’ve learned, that’s the central role of getting to this level of destruction and lunacy. We used to call it the military industrial complex, abetted by bribed politicians. “The money behind the new Iran War.”

In private calls over the last several weeks, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) reportedly urged President Trump to attack Iran. Iran is a top regional rival of Saudi Arabia, and MBS had become concerned about Iran’s growing military capabilities.

The lobbying campaign achieved success on Saturday, when Trump announced he had begun “major combat operations in Iran.” Trump launched a war even though U.S. intelligence assessed that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. In June 2025, Trump publicly declared that more limited strikes “completely obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability.”

MBS’s influence with Trump has grown as the Saudi government has invested billions in projects that personally enrich Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Despite the glaring conflicts-of-interest, Trump installed Kushner as a top negotiator with Iranian officials. Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff participated in a mediation session with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva on Thursday, billed as a last-ditch effort to avoid war.

The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the largest investor in Jared Kushner’s private equity fund, Affinity Partners. PIF invested $2 billion in Affinity Partners in 2021, even though the PIF committee that screens investments recommended rejecting Kushner’s proposal, citing “inexperience” and “excessive” fees. The committee’s recommendation was overruled by MBS, who heads PIF’s Board of Directors.

PIF pays Kushner 1.25% of its investment, or $25 million, annually. The Senate Finance Committee estimates that Kushner will be paid $137 million in management fees from PIF by August 2026. Further, in September 2025, PIF, Affinity Partners, and others jointly acquired Electronic Arts, the publisher of iconic video games like The Sims and Madden NFL, for $55 billion. The deal, which is the largest leveraged buyout in history, will likely be very lucrative for Kushner.

After raising billions for the Saudis and other foreign governments, Kushner dismissed concerns about conflicts of interest, pledging he would not be involved in Trump’s second term. In February 2024, Axios’ Dan Primack asked Kushner whether his business relationship with foreign governments would make it “very difficult… to do any sort of foreign policy work” moving forward. “I’m an investor now,” Kushner replied. “I served in government, and I think my track record is pretty impeccable. Now I’m a private investor.”

Yet, after Trump took office, Kushner resumed his central role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. In an October 2025 interview on 60 Minutes, Kushner argued that financial conflicts made him and Witkoff more effective. “What people call conflicts of interests, Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships that we have throughout the world,” Kushner said.

CNN reported that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE lobbied Trump to strike Iran. Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE has significant financial ties to Kushner and Trump.

The UAE is another major backer of Affinity Partners, directly investing about $200 million with Kushner’s firm. Additional money came via Lunate, a supposedly private Abu Dhabi investment firm that is financed by government money and tied to the UAE’s sovereign wealth funds.

Witkoff is the co-founder of the crypto firm World Liberty Financial (WLF) and retains an 8-figure stake in the company. Trump and his family also own significant pieces of the company. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security advisor and head of the country’s largest sovereign wealth fund, purchased 49% of WLF days before Trump’s inauguration. Of the $250 million paid up front by the UAE, $187 million was directed to Trump family entities and $31 million to the Witkoff family. In May 2025, MGX, a company controlled by Tahnoon, purchased $2 billion of crypto tokens from WLF.

Following the conclusion of the mediation on Thursday, Kushner and Witkoff “ominously issued no statement,” and the pair was reportedly “disappointed“ by the Iranian negotiating position. After presumably being debriefed by Kushner, Trump said, “we’re not thrilled with the way they’re negotiating.” According to Trump, it would be “wonderful” if the Iranians “negotiated in … good faith and conscience but they are not getting there so far.”

The new Iran War comes weeks after PIF financed a $7 billion development deal in Saudi Arabia with the Trump Organization. Under the agreement, Dar Global, a developer with close ties to the Saudi government, will build a “Trump-branded hotel and golf course,” along with “500 mansions, priced between $6.7 million and $24 million.” The project is part of Diriyah, a $63 billion development funded entirely by PIF.

Only Trump could make Nixon look good. You can read a lot more about the money trail at the links above. Meanwhile, “fog of war” actions look pretty bleak for as many mistakes are being investigated.  The Hill reports that “Kuwait mistakenly’ shoots down 3 US F-15s: Pentagon.” Tara Sutter reports the story.

Kuwait “mistakenly” shot down three U.S. F-15 fighter jets on Sunday after strikes were launched against Iran one day earlier, according to U.S. Central Command (Centcom).

Centcom said in a statement that the fighter jets were downed in Kuwait shortly after 11 p.m. EST Sunday.

The jets “were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses,” according to the statement.

The six service members who were on board the jets “ejected safely,” Centcom added, and are “in stable condition.”

“Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defense forces and their support in this ongoing operation. The cause of the incident is under investigation. Additional information will be released as it becomes available,” its statement said.

Here’s another example of bad planning and big lies from Politico.  “Pentagon offers no evidence to support claim it attacked Iran in defense. The Trump administration’s effort to construct a case for war after shots started flying has few historical parallels.”  Again, there really was no case for this regionwide war we have created with Israel.

The Trump administration is making the case that it ordered expansive, deadly strikes to stop an imminent threat from Tehran, but is providing no evidence Iran had such plans.

The White House, amid the largest military buildup in the region in decades, has yet to explain to the public or to Congress what Iranian threat prompted the massive attacks that have upended the region and could draw the U.S. into another Middle East war.

The administration first tested out its justification more than 12 hours after the U.S. began bombarding Iran with missiles, drones and long-range artillery. A senior Trump administration official told reporters Saturday that the U.S. had determined American troops would have suffered far more casualties by waiting for an impending Iranian strike. In the same briefing, two other officials said the president ordered the strikes after he determined Iran would not agree to stop uranium enrichment altogether.

But the administration’s efforts to construct a case for war only after the shots have started flying has few historical parallels. The Pentagon has held no briefings nearly 36 hours after the U.S. military strikes, bucking a practice of doing so after attacks that goes back to the Vietnam War. And unlike past presidents embarking on major military campaigns, Trump made little effort to drum up support from Congress, U.S. allies or the American people. The administration did not try to convince the Senate to authorize the war, as President George W. Bush did in Iraq, or plead to the United Nations, as George H.W. Bush did to build a coalition against Saddam Hussein’s attack on Kuwait.

“Whatever imminent threat they’re posing was likely in reaction to our unprecedented military buildup in the region,” said Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). “This is an example of the president deciding what he wanted to do, and then making his administration go and find whatever argument they could make to justify it.”

The administration briefed some Hill staffers Sunday on the operation. But officials did not present clear evidence the Iranians were preparing an imminent attack on U.S. troops, said two people who attended. They, like others in this report, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe will give an Iran briefing to House members on Tuesday, according to four people with direct knowledge of the meeting. They will also meet with senators, according to two people familiar with the plans.

This gives the idea of ‘going off half-cocked’ an entirely new meaning. This was basically an impulsive decision that will cost us plenty. But as we can see, some folks will make lots of money from the death and destruction. We are also far beyond flintlocks with hammers.

I really am at a place where I just can’t deal with this anymore. There’s far too much at stake, and there will be blowback for all of us. If they can bomb a girls’ school and not really talk about it, where the fuck are we?  This is from the New York Times. “Strike on Girls’ School Kills at Least 175, Iranian State Media Says. Videos and images verified by The New York Times showed that at least half of the school was destroyed. It was not immediately clear why the school was hit, or which country’s forces had fired at it.”

At least 175 people, most of them likely children, were killed in a strike on a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran on Saturday, health officials and Iranian state media said.

The search for survivors in the rubble of the Shajarah Tayyebeh school in the southern town of Minab ended Sunday, according to Mohammad Radmehr, the governor of Minab, Iranian state media reported. It appeared to be the deadliest attack in the ongoing American-Israeli bombing campaign.

Several videos and images verified by The New York Times showed that at least half of the two-story school was destroyed in the explosion. Emergency workers with the Red Crescent could be seen alongside families desperately combing through the rubble, which was littered with schoolbooks and book bags covered in blood and ashes. Portions of the building jutted out from the rubble, with bits of colorful murals visible on what were once the walls of the school. Desks were piled with debris.

In other verified videos, rescue workers retrieved a severed arm from the rubble. Victims were laid out in body bags at the scene, where throngs of people were gathered among ambulances and rescue workers.

“The Minab school incident has no comparison with any other incident,” said Pirhossein Kolivand, the head of Iran’s Red Crescent, in a video posted on social media on Sunday.

“Even in Gaza,” he added, there had not been such a high number of students killed simultaneously, calling the attack “a unique and bitter incident.”

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: He Said, She Said

Posted: February 27, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: 2026 Elections, Epstein Files | Tags: , , , , , | 14 Comments

“It might happen sooner.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s one of those days where I really wonder if I should actually get up, even though today Temple and I beat the garbage collectors to the street for a walk. We usually manage to shadow the postman. I saw a question on C-SPAN’s Facebook page that’s really worth asking. “Are you better off financially today than a year ago?” The answer for everyone I know is absolutely no. Our democracy and ability to get justice are getting worse by the minute, also.

So, yesterday, Hillary Clinton testified in a closed session about her complete lack of a relationship with Epstein, which she framed as a basic waste of everyone’s time and money. She stated that, to her knowledge, she’d never even met the guy, then told them to ask Bill. Meanwhile, we’re getting more calls for an investigation into Trump’s obvious associations. This headline from Bill Sher writing at the Washington Monthly says it all. “It’s Time for the Media to Press Trump on Allegations of Abusing a Minor. The president should be scrutinized with the same intensity as others in the Epstein Files.”

I was skeptical that the Jeffrey Epstein files would implicate President Donald Trump in illegal sexual abuse of a minor. It’s not that one cannot imagine Trump being untoward; on the contrary, a jury found him to be liable for sexual abuse. But Trump committing sex crimes against underage girls seemed dubious.

Yet inconclusive but tantalizing evidence exists in a 21-slide presentation, apparently created last summer by two joint Federal Bureau of Investigation-New York Police Department task forces, summarizing four “Jeffrey Epstein Investigations.”

A “Timeline” slide of developments in the case, from July 24, 2006, to July 22, 2025, spanning the initial Epstein investigation through Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction and appeal, indicates that the presentation was created after that date. To put it in context, the allegations against Trump appear to come from a single witness and don’t include physical evidence, such as notes or texts.

One slide titled “Prominent Names” dishes allegations against several famous people and leads with two regarding Trump:

1. [REDACTED] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out. (date range 1983-1985, [REDACTED] would have been 13- 15)

2. [REDACTED] remember Epstein introduced her to Trump saying “This is a good one, huh” and Trump responded “Yes”. (date range roughly 1984, [REDACTED] would have been 14)

An email thread from July 24, 2025, circulating in the FBI’s New York field office, appears to include a draft of the “Prominent Names” slide text. The Trump text, which has a typo, is identical to what is in a slightly different, probably draft, slideshow.

When the latest Epstein files were released on January 30, the allegations against Trump immediately drew attention. For example, that same day, the progressive MeidasTouch Network posted the email thread on X and CNN’s Jake Tapper, among others, highlighted an email thread covering August 6 and 7, 2025, about “NTOC Names,” which refers to tips collected by the National Threat Operations Center, the bureau’s hub for receiving and vetting public tips regarding federal crimes. The thread includes Epstein-related tips and, in some cases, how federal authorities responded. One emailer notes that in one document, some rows have “yellow highlighting … for the salacious piece,” which appears to refer to the “Prominent Names” slide. (An emailer in July asks for “a sentence or two” for each of the names with “salacious statements.”)

Several tips mention that federal authorities were unable to follow up with the tipsters or verify their stories; those items were not on the “Prominent Names” slide. But one entry on Trump tracks what’s in the slide:

[REDACTED] reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in NJ. The friend told [REDACTED] that she was approximately 13-14 years old when this occurred, and the friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex. The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting President Trump. The friend said she was also abused by Epstein.

The table’s “Response” column notes, “Spoke with caller who identified [REDACTED] as friend. Lead was sent to Washington Office to conduct interview.”

Some media outlets, including The Mirror, The Telegraph, The Daily Beast, and Mediaite, covered the allegation. But most reporters elided the bit-penis-hit-in-the-face allegation in favor of vague references to multiple unsubstantiated claims while the Justice Department sought to inoculate the president by stating, “Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump.” The media’s attention gravitated to other famous names mentioned in the Epstein files, regardless of whether the files contained evidence of sexual misconduct. Several prominent figures have since resigned from their positions due to their associations with Epstein.

Then, starting on February 15,  Roger Sollenberger, the independent journalist, pieced together information indicating that the FBI interviewed the accuser four times in 2019. Sollenberger suggests this means that the FBI found her “credible.” Furthermore, records of three of those interviews were not in the Epstein Files release. He also found a “Jane Doe 4” in a lawsuit against Epstein with similar biographical details, making similar allegations against an unnamed Epstein friend. Jane Doe 4 was deemed ineligible for the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, but the suit nonetheless appears to have led to a settlement for her from Epstein.

Bolstering the case that the FBI found the accuser credible, Nina Burleigh and Katie Chenoweth, the independent journalists, noted that, uniquely, her redacted name is routinely followed by the phrase, “PROTECT SOURCE,” which is “typically used for high-risk informants such as mafia rats.”

There is so much more to this story that I hope you take the time to read it all. The Guardian also has more information on the claim. “Epstein files contain explicit but unsubstantiated claim that Trump abused minor. Department of Justice did not release FBI memos when it uploaded millions of pages of files beginning in December.”

Three memos that describe four interviews conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2019 contain explicit but unsubstantiated claims that Donald Trump sexually abused a woman when she was a minor in the early 1980s with the assistance of Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Guardian review of those documents.

The Department of Justice did not release those records when it uploaded millions of pages of files related to Epstein beginning in December. The existence of the missing documents was first reported by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger and subsequently confirmed by NPR, causing outrage in Washington and sparking an investigation from congressional Democrats.

The Guardian obtained the missing FBI Form 302 reports, which memorialize 25 pages of agents’ notes from the four interviews conducted in the summer and fall of 2019. The notes describe how the woman came forward to tell agents she recognized Epstein from a photo sent by a childhood friend. Only the first session, in which she did not name Trump, made it into the public release. The Guardian has chosen not to publish the woman’s name.

All we know about the Hillary Testimony comes from Clinton herself. This is from the New York Times and reported by Annie Karni. “In Tense Deposition, Hillary Clinton Denies Knowing Epstein or His Crimes. After resisting testifying for months, the former secretary of state entered the session defiant and grew irate after a Republican leaked a photo from inside the room.”

In a lengthy opening statement her aides distributed in advance, Mrs. Clinton accused House Republicans of using her as a prop in “partisan political theater” and excoriated their investigation as “designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors.”

“You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” she said.

She added: “You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files,” noting that not a single Republican had attended a closed-door session last week in Ohio to depose Leslie Wexner, the retail billionaire and prolific G.O.P. donor who helped Mr. Epstein build his wealth.

In a day’s worth of questioning that she later called “repetitive” and unproductive, Mrs. Clinton told the committee that she did not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein and “never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices.”

“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein,” she told reporters after the session had ended. “It’s on the record numerous times.”

The deposition briefly went off the rails when, as Republicans questioned her, Mr. Johnson’s post of the photograph showing Mrs. Clinton’s testifying while wearing a weary expression prompted an eruption in the room. Her lawyers vociferously objected and called for journalists to be allowed inside to document the proceedings. House Democrats noted that Republicans had refused to grant the Clintons’ request for a public hearing.

“We are sitting through an incredibly unserious clown show of a deposition,” Representative Yassamin Ansari, Democrat of Arizona, said, claiming Republicans were “more concerned with getting their photo op” than with holding anyone accountable.

This is from the Washington Examiner.  It’s reported by David Zimmermann. “Clinton says she was asked about UFOs and Pizzagate at ‘unusual’ Epstein deposition.”

After exiting her deposition on Thursday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested some members of Congress were more concerned with UFOs and Pizzagate instead of Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell in their questions.

The high-profile witness called the House oversight committee deposition “quite unusual” as it concluded.

“I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate, one of the most vile bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet, that was serving as the basis of a member’s questions to me,” Clinton said in Chappaqua, New York, where the closed-door deposition hearing was held.

It’s unclear why Clinton was questioned on extraterrestrial life, as UFOs have nothing to do with the late convicted sex offender’s crimes. Last week, President Donald Trump said he would start declassifying government files related to the existence of aliens.

The Pizzagate conspiracy theory refers to a child sex ring linked to members of the Democratic Party, and it went viral during the 2016 presidential election cycle when Clinton was running against Trump for president. At one point, a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., named Comet Ping Pong was caught up in the right-wing conspiracy theory.

Clinton did not name the member who asked the unusual questions, nor whether the lawmaker was a Republican or a Democrat.

The hearing was disrupted earlier when Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) shared a photo of Clinton with conservative commentator Benny Johnson, who then posted the image on social media. As a result of the stunt, the hearing was paused for about 30 minutes. Closed-door hearings forbid unauthorized photography as it could violate House rules and confidentiality agreements.

Clinton denied she ever met Epstein and claimed to never have “any connection or communication” with the convicted sex offender, although she admitted knowing Maxwell “casually as an acquaintance.”

She criticized the GOP-led committee’s decision to reject her and her husband’s bid for public hearings.

“It was disappointing that they refused to hold a public hearing, so I wouldn’t have to be out here characterizing it for you. You could have seen it for yourself,” she told reporters. “We had asked for that. We think it would have been better for the committee and its efforts to gather whatever information they are seeking.”

The former Cabinet secretary also slammed oversight committee Republicans for skipping the recent deposition of former Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner, whom the FBI labeled a co-conspirator of Epstein. Chairman James Comer (R-KY) did not attend that deposition due to an already scheduled medical procedure.

Despite her criticisms, Clinton noted the “best exchange” came toward the end of the hearing, when Comer asked a “series of significant questions” related to the investigation’s focus.

Since I’ve already mentioned polls, I think I’ll share the results of an interesting one analyzed by G. Elliott Morris in his Substack, Strength in Numbers. “New poll: Democrats’ real problem isn’t being too liberal — it’s being seen as too weak. Americans, including swing voters, see the Republican Party as 20 points more extreme than Democrats — and the Democrats as weak and ineffective. So why would the *Democrats* moderate?”

In our February poll, we asked voters whether each of 10 adjectives describes the Democratic and Republican parties. Each person was asked to rank how well each word — such as “extreme”, “elitist”, “tough”, and “weak” — described both parties on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 indicating the word described the party very well.

The Republican Party’s defining traits in voters’ minds are extreme (60% agree), elitist (57%), tough, (56%) and cruel (51%). The percentage of Americans agreeing with descriptions of positive traits is comparatively smaller: just 41% say the party is competent, 41% say principled, and only 31% — less than a third — say the GOP can be considered empathetic.

The average American sees Democrats in a much different light. The top descriptors of the party are empathetic (54%) and principled (49%). Comparatively few people think of it as “tough” (31%), and nearly half the country calls the Democrats weak (48%) and ineffective (47%). Democrats’ competence rating is 46% — five points higher than the GOP’s — but it’s the weakness and ineffectiveness labels that dominate voters’ impressions and national discourse about the party.

The chart above is ordered by the gap between the percentage of Americans who say each descriptor applies to each party — and these gaps are revealing. Democrats lead on empathetic by 23 points (54% versus 31%) and on principled by 8 (49% versus 41%). The GOP leads on exactly one positive trait: toughness (56% versus 31%). That’s it.

Being seen as tough is an advantage in a politics where voters want parties to deliver for them no matter what, but it’s likely not worth being called cruel and elitist. In our poll, Democrats lead the Republicans on the U.S. House generic ballot by 10 percentage points among registered voters. At least in the short term, that’s a worthwhile trade.

But the Democrats’ weakness problem stands out as a particularly strong signal of intra-party dissatisfaction. When we look at how each party’s own identifiers rate their own party, the weakness gap for the Democrats really jumps out. Just 53% of Democrats call their party tough, compared to 80% of Republicans. And 31% of Democrats say their own party is weak — almost three times the 13% of Republicans who say the same about theirs.

On most traits, partisans rate their own party similarly. Democrats and Republicans are within a few points of each other on being competent, principled, and cynical. But on toughness and weakness, Democrats are far more self-critical. That matters electorally: a party whose own base doubts its strength will struggle to turn out its base. And in an era of close elections, that is not a loss a party can afford.

Those results were not much of a surprise to me. Today, it’s Bill Clinton’s turn to testify in the Epstein Investigation. NBC News has live updates on its website. “Trump administration live updates: Bill Clinton testifies in House Jeffrey Epstein probe. Clinton is the first sitting or former president to testify before members of Congress in more than 40 years.” This is reported by Rebecca Shabad.

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said this morning that Democrats have “real questions that deserve serious answers from former President Clinton” during his closed-door deposition in Chappaqua today.

“We have said from day one that Democrats want to talk to anyone, whether they are a Republican or a Democrat, no matter how powerful they are, whatever position that they’ve been in,” Garcia told reporters ahead of the deposition.

Garcia said that they don’t want to see another “sideshow” today like what happened during Hillary Clinton’s deposition yesterday, in which he said Republicans asked her about UFOs and conspiracy theories.

Because “Republicans have now set a new precedent, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify,” Democrats are again demanding that Trump testify before their panel about his relationship with Epstein, Garcia said.

Trump appears in the Epstein files “almost more than anybody else,” Garcia said.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and authorities have not accused him of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

They’re also reporting that lots of Diet Cokes have been brought into the building for the former President. I guess we’ll see what happens.

That’s about all I’m good for today. The entire Epstein show is getting old.  I do have a local source from WDSU, the news station I watch here in New Orleans.  At least a few of these sick, powerful pedophiles are feeling a bit of justice.  “Here’s who has faced fallout from the Epstein files. Since Congress and the Department of Justice released the Epstein files, several high-profile people have been burned by past links to convicted sex-offender.” Please note the word several. I guess that’s a start though.

Several individuals in government, private companies and universities have faced fallout over alleged links to convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The Get the Facts Data Team has created a timeline of reports on individuals who have faced professional or reputational consequences or legal action since Epstein’s arrest in 2019.

Among those who faced professional or reputational consequences were CEOs who resigned or sold their companies, faculty who were suspended and public figures who issued apologies.

You may read the list and the ‘consequences’ at the link.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

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