Nobody wants this war (MAGA included) and nobody approved this war. Yet war it is. The Strait of Hormuz has been officially closed and that will result automatically in higher oil prices. That’s the immediate, predictable cost of the war. The other costs, mayhem and deaths in the Middle East, the potential rise of terrorism in Europe and the U.S. could be catastrophic, says Robert Reich. Read Reich’s analysis of this catastrophe, the clearest analysis available at this early hour.
The United States is now at war with Iran.
A single person — Donald J. Trump — has released the dogs of war on one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and done it without the consent of Congress or our allies, or even a clear explanation to the American people.
Four days after delivering a State of the Union address in which he boasted of ending eight wars, and spent just three minutes discussing Iran and a preference for “diplomacy,” we are now bombing, maiming, and killing.
Anyone who has doubted Trump’s intention to replace American democracy with a dictatorship should now be fully disabused.
I share your despair, sadness, and fear. Even if our president was a wise and judicious man, surrounded by thoughtful advisers with impeccable integrity and wisdom, this would be a highly dangerous move.
Trump is facing the consequences of his decision in his first term to abandon the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated with Iran by Obama and backed by France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China.
Trump walked away from that treaty because it was Obama’s — and he hates Obama because Obama negotiated safeguards against Iran enriching uranium to weapons grade. Obama also got Obamacare through Congress, addressed climate change and nuclear proliferation, and was rewarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Obama was a winner. Trump is a loser. Trump cannot stomach this.
But why should America and thousands if not millions of innocent people pay the price of Trump’s egomaniacal stupidity?
Trump claimed in June to have disarmed Iran. He claimed again in his State of the Union last Tuesday to have “obliterated” the Iranian nuclear weapons program (an assertion rejected by the International Atomic Energy Agency).
Since then, Iran has taken steps to dig out the nuclear facilities hit during those strikes and it has resumed work at some sites long known to American spy agencies.
But those same spy agencies say there’s no evidence that Iran has made active efforts to resume enriching uranium or trying to build a mechanism to detonate a bomb.
Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium remain buried after June’s strikes, making it nearly impossible for Iran to build a bomb “within days,” as Trump and his lapdogs claim.
Trump says he wants “regime change.” But unlike Venezuela, the Islamic Republic has nearly a million men under arms. Any attempt to overthrow that regime will require American troops on the ground, and almost surely inflict mass casualties on Americans and on Iranians.
Besides, Trump won a second term promising “no regime change,” and in 2024 he campaigned as “the first president in decades who started no new wars.”
Total bullshit, like all his claims. Just days ago, in Trump’s SOTU speech, Trump said Iran has refused to foreswear any nuclear weapons ambitions. Yet just hours before his address, Iran’s foreign minister reaffirmed on X that his country would “under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.” That was Tuesday. Today is Saturday and we are at war.
Distraction from Epstein.
Asscrack issued this statement on the possible death of Khamenei……
“He’s killed many, many people. Destroyed many lives. Destroyed many families, and he destroyed a country.”
Pot meet kettle rite???
If those are the criteria for elimination I’d be very concerned if I were Pot.
Considering Drumpf has literally called for Iranians to take to the streets and protest the regime while, in his own country, he denounces–and dispatches armed troops to quell–protestors, there’s definitely some major “pot meet kettle” at play.
Additional irony when you consider too that Drumpf *promised* to protect Iranian protestors by threatening Iran’s leaders if they cracked down on the protests.
I addressed that last point in an article of my own. Granted, it’s tough to trust Iran. However in the treaty Trump tore up they agreed to real, meaningful monitoring and inspections by the IAE and by all accounts, unlike Iraq didn’t try to play games. They indicated a willingness to those same terms as part of a renewed agreement. I’d ask what the hell Trump is thinking but the cold hard fact is that he doesn’t think. He’s a spoiled kid in a toy store only he’s in a job where his ‘toy store’ has items that are dangerous.
It’s not a war. It’s “combat operations” to support Israel who started it. And 47 may use it to declare a “national emergency” to prevent the midterms.
Can you elaborate on the “national emergency?” That intrigues me.
Read the laughable legal memo behind the claim that Trump can declare a national voting emergency.
Trump declares election interference national emergency?
https://www.cato.org/blog/emergency-authorities-constitutional-allocation-election-power
Don’t have to read it to know it’s laughable–not to mention unconstitutional. (I won’t bother reading the Cato Institute’s crap because, despite their claims of “non-partisan” and “not conservative or liberal,” they do seem to fall far more often on the right-wing end of the spectrum. For instance, they may claim to support LGBTQ+ rights in the broad overview, they do NOT support the idea that the government should mandate or dictate such rights. Like “no one should be discriminated against in their job because they’re LGBTQ+ BUT we don’t support the government forcing a business to employ such people or a realtor to sell a home.”)
We held a presidential election in the middle of WW2 (1944) not to mention midterm elections in 1942 (less than a year after Pearl Harbor!). We were in the middle of the “War on Terror” yet no one stopped the 2002 midterms nor the 2004 presidential elections. And we’ve been subjected to a number of major storms that caused election concerns (such as Hurricane Sandy in 2012 just a couple of weeks before that year’s election; GOPers were FALSELY claiming that Obama would “use” the storm to completely cancel the year’s general election). Hell, this country held elections DURING THE F*CKING CIVIL WAR in 1862 and 1864.
There is NO legal mechanism by which the President has the authority to stop elections. (The ONLY way that an election could possibly be canceled or delayed would be for a widescale attack ON Election Day–and I mean, a coordinated attack on almost every single voting precinct across the entire country.)
I love Molly’s take on this:
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4q4ziw4qk2hxxaxfu7jweuey/bafkreiapqqbq5fqnj5keyspd62nfy3djis7cyjqyetxlv4h6rythj6wq3e@jpeg
Who is Molly? And where does this link lead?
Reply #2:
After I saw online that the link was safe, I clicked on it. The link led to a picture of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Superimposed on the picture was the assertion, “We now know who Has [sic] the Trump sex tapes from Epstein’s home.”
I still don’t know who “Molly” is.