Despised like nobody has ever been despised before

I have an out of town handbell event this weekend. I probably won’t post again until Wednesday. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that while the US Agency for International Development, USAID, was shuttered, some of its aid to other countries was transferred to the State Department as a method of extortion. This was revealed in a State memorandum prepared for Secretary Marco Rubio. Here are some of the ideas proposed or some of the agreements already forced on African countries. Zambia was told to give the US better access to their copper, lithium, and cobalt or the US will withhold funds for HIV treatment for 1.3 million people. Several countries were forced to give patient data in exchange for health care funding. That is so Americans can detect disease outbreaks sooner and to give US companies first chance to develop vaccines. Nigeria was told they must address the alleged persecution of Christians.

These “deals” are not really deals, as none of the countries that are being pressed into this can effectively negotiate when their health care funding needs are so dire.

Kos of Kos wrote about why opening the Strait of Hormuz will be so difficult. While the Strait is 21 miles wide at its narrowest, the actual shipping channel is only 4 miles wide. Ships must go single file with no room to maneuver. Ships, and any escorts, are easy targets – they move at a predictable pace and can be reached by missiles from shore in seconds. Iran has put mines in the Strait, but minesweepers are slow and easy targets. Planes to protect shipping would also be easy targets. The US could have some great anti-drone equipment and tactics. Ukraine has been developing it over the last four years. But the nasty guy has refused Ukrainian offers.

What’s his problem? Acknowledging Ukrainian expertise would require acknowledging that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy actually does hold some cards—a fact Trump has spent over a year denying out of sheer personal pettiness and bizarre fealty to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

In Tuesday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman writing for his Substack:

A stunning poll from Politico — just released, but taken last month — confirms what I and other observers strongly suspected: America is now widely despised, despised like nobody has ever been despised before. ... Why has America’s global reputation fallen so far, so fast? It’s not a mystery. After all, why would anyone consider America a trustworthy ally when Trump keeps insulting our neighbor and former closest ally, Canada, by insisting that it must become the 51st state and repeatedly calling its Prime Minister “governor”? Why trust us when Trump tried to bully NATO member Denmark into handing over Greenland? Beyond that, Trump’s tariffs aren’t just economically damaging. They aren’t just, as the Supreme Court finally ruled, illegal under our own laws. They are also in clear, overwhelming violation of international trade agreements solemnly signed by previous presidents. Given the way the current administration has casually ignored those agreements, why would anyone expect America to honor any future deals?

Beth Mole of Ars Technica reported on a ruling from a US District Court that blocked a lot of harm Robert Kennedy Jr. has been doing. The ruling says Kennedy illegally fired the vaccine advisors board. The replacement board, all of whom hold anti-vax views, did not go through standard vetting. So all of their changes to the vaccine guidance must be undone. In the comments exlrrp posted a meme of the nasty guy speaking, showing why we’re despised.

Then: NATO sucks! Canada sucks! UK leadership is stupid! Denmark sucks! Zelensky sucks! Now: I DEMAND these countries help us secure the Straits! They SHOULD BE HELPING! A voice in the corner: Guess he never heard, “What goes around...!

Globe Observer tweeted: “Trump calls on U.S. media to stop reporting on damage and losses caused by Iran, saying it harms the United States.” Proud Socialist responded: “This is how you know the U.S. isn’t winning the war.” Clay Bennett posted a cartoon of Uncle Sam in a War Room gazing up at the Exit door in the ceiling. Naked Pastor posted a cartoon of Jesus talking to a group of people holding Bibles:

The difference between you and me is you use scripture to determine what love means and I use love to determine what scripture means.

In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Jonathan Last of The Bulwark, appropriate with the comment above about minesweepers.

Mining the Strait of Hormuz is the single biggest danger America faced heading into any conflict with Iran. How did our commander-in-chief plan to deal with it? Six months ago the Navy decommissioned its four Avenger-class minesweepers that had been stationed in Bahrain precisely to deal with Iranian mines. It gets dumber: Those four final American minesweepers left the theater in mid-January—while war planning for the current operation must already have been underway. But wait, it gets even dumberer! Our minesweeping capability in the Gulf now relies on Littoral Combat Ships, whose abilities have never been tested in combat. Will the LCS be a suitable replacement for the Avenger-class ships? According to the Navy, um, no?

From NOTUS:

Six months before the Trump administration started bombing Iran, the Department of State fired its oil and gas experts. As the war in Iran stretches into its third week, and the Strait of Hormuz — through which 20% of the world’s oil supply usually flows — remains effectively closed, the U.S. government is without the resources it once had to handle such crises, former State Department employees tell NOTUS.

In the comments Jesse Duquette created a cartoon of Washington crossing the Delaware while an airport signalman guides it ashore. The caption is something the nasty guy apparently said. “Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports.” Duquette added:

Whenever I screw up, I think of the time Trump opined about Revolutionary War airports and the brave patriots who gave their lives at the Battle of Baggage Claim and I’m like “sure I’m dumb but at least I’m not, like, Trump dumb”

Steven Camley posted a cartoon of the nasty guy sitting in a rowboat in the Strait of Hormuz. A sign labels the water, “Shi-ite Creek” and a paddle labeled “NATO” is out of reach. A meme posted by exlrrp shows a way of getting ships in and out of the Persian Gulf without going through the Strait – let godzilla carry the ships across the United Arab Emirates peninsula. In today’s roundup Kev quoted Adam Serwer of The Atlantic discussing the nasty guy’s comment, after being rebuffed by NATO, that America doesn’t need anybody.

This fantasy of complete independence is a long-standing part of American culture. Thomas Jefferson, himself a relatively soft-handed gentleman farmer who left the hard labor to the people he had enslaved, extolled the virtues of the yeoman farmer. The political scientist Richard Hofstadter described this mythic figure as “the incarnation of the simple, honest, independent, healthy, happy human being.” The irony, Hofstadter noted, was that it was really rich, educated men such as Jefferson who romanticized this extremely difficult lifestyle. The typical yeoman farmer wanted to be integrated into the market so that he could sell his crops at a profit and escape his hardscrabble circumstances. That romantic “self-sufficiency” was in fact “usually forced upon him by a lack of transportation or markets, or by the necessity to save cash.” [...] Too many Americans believed that Trump’s mass deportation could occur without forcing families into hiding, cutting into businesses’ profits, or shooting people dead in the street. They believed that tariffs could replace global trade and revive the manufacturing industry, making the U.S. self-sufficient, when instead the burden has fallen on American farms and firms. They couldn’t see that when people lose their jobs, or go sick or hungry, it becomes everyone’s problem eventually. This desire to be severed from others culminates in the trad fantasy of a wife who keeps the homestead clean while her husband runs a self-sufficient ranch, the whole family secure with their MREs, AR-15, and safe full of gold collectibles when the apocalypse comes.

In the comments is another cartoon by Naked Pastor. Jesus tells a crowd:

I was never recorded and never wrote a book. So when someone says, “Jesus said this!” they should mean “Someone said Jesus said this!”

BioGeneticsGirl of the Kos community asked the community to come up with slogans for the third No Kings protest, which is in a bit more than a week (I’m sure there’s one near you). Some of what they came up with: knowdaboom: “Top 0.1%’s wealth has doubled in the last 5 years. How’s your family doing?” karmsysback: “Can’t we fast-forward to where he takes cyanide in his bunker?” Sally DeLurks: “Whatever happened to ‘No more wars?’” slowthought: “Regime Change Begins At Home” Albion1 posted a few from a local Indivisible Facebook page. One of them: “Hey, Trump, nobody paid us, we all hate you for free!” Progressive Muse suggests we borrow from Bad Bunny’s Superbowl Halftime Show, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

Stand in Arlington when you make your pitch for war

My Sunday “movie” was the Oscar ceremony. It was sufficiently entertaining – Conan O’Brien did a decent job and there was some good banter by the presenters. But there were only two performances of the nominated songs and I haven’t watched and don’t intend to watch most of the films nominated for Best Picture, especially Sinners and One Battle After Another, both of which got several awards (I did see and enjoy Hamnet and pleased Jessie Buckley won Best Actress). I did enjoy seeing Koreans take the Best Song, though I pay little attention to K-Pop. In all, a decent evening. Jessica Kutz, in an article for The 19th posted on Daily Kos, discussed several ways women are pushing the movie industry to be more sustainable. Sheila Morovati is pushing the studios to modify scripts to promote sustainable behaviors, such as having characters carrying reusable water bottles, taking reusable bags into a store, having characters walk or carpool instead of drive alone, have characters eat a vegan meal, or just put a vegan restaurant in the background. Morovati has worked through Universal to do such things as use hybrid and electric vehicles to transport cast and crew (and show EVs on screen) and donate materials, such as wood and costume fabric, when shooting is done. Allison Begalman started the Hollywood Climate Summit to help the industry learn how to be part of the climate crisis solution. The inaugural program took place online and attracted 15,000 people. The summit is now a place where climate people and entertainment people can mix. One result is a Grey’s Anatomy episode that demonstrated how extreme heat could strain a hospital. Idea placement has worked before, such s Mothers Against Drunk Driving getting shows to feature designated drivers, which was credited with reducing traffic fatalities in the 1990s. Hillary Cohen was shocked at the food waste at some shows, so created an organization to take unused food to organizations that help people facing food insecurity. Last year they moved 140,000 of food. She has added picking up things like furniture and kitchen appliances bought for commercial shoots but not needed after two or three days. The war in Iran rages on. Hannah Allam, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, reported on the civilian casualties of the war, especially the bombing of the elementary school in Minab where the death toll has passed 165. And...

[Air Force combat veteran Wes J.] Bryant, a former special operations targeting specialist, said he couldn’t help but think of what-ifs as he monitored fallout from the Feb. 28 attack. Just over a year ago, he had been a senior adviser in an ambitious new Defense Department program aimed at reducing civilian harm during operations. Finally, Bryant said, the military was getting serious about reforms. He worked out of a newly opened Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, where his supervisor was a veteran strike-team targeter who had served as a United Nations war crimes investigator. Today, that momentum is gone. Bryant was forced out of government in cuts last spring. The civilian protection mission was dissolved as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made “lethality” a top priority. And the world has witnessed a tragedy in Minab that, if U.S. responsibility is confirmed, would be the most civilians killed by the military in a single attack in decades.

Threadreader has a thread by Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on four current crises: First, The nasty guy believed Iran would not close the Strait of Hormuz, stopping the flow of oil, though Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told him the closure was possible. Second, a conventional war might destroy all of Iran’s missiles, but this is a drone war and there is no way to destroy all of those. The drones are quite effective. Third, Iranian proxies are attacking Israel. This has prompted Israel to attack Lebanon. An attack on Syria could cause it to explode again. Four, the nasty guy has no endgame. Escalate and there will be thousands of dead Americans. Declare victory and go home and the Iranian hardliners simply rebuild. NPR host Mary Louise Kelly spoke to NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez. The nasty guy has been calling on other countries to help the US to open the Strait of Hormuz and get oil flowing again. They are declining to assist, giving a blend of reasons: It’s not their war. It is a dangerous mission. The nasty guy didn’t consult with them before he started the war. European leaders are concentrating on the war in Ukraine. And he has been insulting them regularly. Back in the 1980s the US did escort ships out through the Strait of Hormuz. But warfare is different now, mostly because of drones. Escort ships just become another target. Also, 20 US ships would need a long time to escort the more than 1,000 ships in the Gulf. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted ABC News:

Oil is a leading cause of modern-day war—with between one-quarter and one-half of interstate wars between 1973 and 2007 linked to oil, an analysis published in the journal International Security said.

I don’t know why the report stopped at 2007. A lot of wars since then have also been over oil. More of the quote:

The war with Iran, and the disruption to energy markets caused by the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, should trigger nations to a swifter exit from fossil fuel dependence, Simon ⁠Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told Reuters in an interview on Monday. "If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, ​breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time," Stiell said.

In last Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer discussing the North Vietnamese taking over Saigon, ending a war that had caused 58,000 American troop deaths.

The legendary then-NBC newsman David Brinkley wrote a commentary on what had just happened, and then went with a camera crew to the rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery where so many of the war dead were buried. “When some future politician, for some reason, feels the need to drag this country into a war, he might come out to Arlington and stand right over there somewhere to make his announcement and to tell what he has in mind,” Brinkley said. “If he can attract public support speaking from a place like this, then his reasons for starting a new war would have to be good ones.”

The nasty guy didn’t bother with public support. For my friend and debate partner is a little bit from Quanta magazine. Georg Cantor is famous for an 1874 paper discussing different sizes of infinity. It seems in the year before Cantor had corresponded with Richard Dedekind who had helped Cantor understand infinity. So did Cantor plagiarize Dedekind? In the comments is a cartoon by Drew Sheneman showing a military ops room where a soldier tells a superior, “We tried recruiting ICE agents to fight in Iran but all 20,000 came down with a wicked case of sudden onset bone spurs.” Another reason I heard is that Iran shoots back. A cartoon by Clay Bennett shows a man filling up his gas tank and glancing at the sign by the street that says, “Prices Don’t Ask.” In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted a tweet by First Squawk:

TRUMP SAYS ON IRANIAN SLEEPER CELLS: THERE COULD BE MORE THAN 1,700

Jon Aguiar responded:

We spent the last 9 months raiding Home Depot parking lots instead of arresting anyone from the massive network of Iranian terrorist cells?

Daniel Dale of CNN discussed a Republican release of an AI deepfake of Texas Democratic candidate for Senate James Talarico that is quite good.

The use of AI deepfakes in campaign advertising raises a host of ethical questions. It has also prompted some bipartisan calls for federal legislation or regulation on the practice, though those ideas have also faced pushback on First Amendment grounds.

An article on Reuters reported that Pope Leo has been calling for an end to the violence in Iran and also saying Christians who start wars should go to confession. Leo didn’t name anyone, but several in the nasty guy’s administration, including the vice nasty and Sec. of State Marco Rubio, are Catholic. In the comments is a cartoon by Toonerman:

Sen. Lindsey Graham: “I go back to South Carolina, I’m askin’ them to sen their sons and daughters to the Mideast.” Make Trump Proud! A woman: Or, Lindsey, why don’t you and the rest of the Washington War Pigs go and fight your own damn war.

The Wolfpack posted a meme showing a lion, elephant, giraffe, zebra, and two green skin aliens watching planes shoot missiles at buildings. One of the aliens says, “Humans are really stupid.” In the comments of Monday’s roundup exlrrp posted a tweet by BBC Breaking News:

US President Donald Trump urges UK and other nations to send ships to help secure key Strait of Hormuz oil trade route

Jamie Carroll of Canada responded:

The owner of the largest Navy in the history of the world would like sailors from other countries to die in a war he started without consulting anyone. Pass, thanks.

A story that’s been going around and getting a lot of lampooning is of the nasty guy giving many of the men of his administration a pair of his favorite Florsheim shoes – without asking for shoe size. Rubio has been seen wearing shoes too big for him because none of them men want to displease the nasty guy by not wearing his gift. In among the created images spoofing Rubio’s shoes and clothes is one posted by exlrrp. It is an AI generated meme of Rubio steering a pirate ship that looks like a shoe. The caption says, “Breaking News. Captain Marco Littlefoot volunteers to lead oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Convoys instructed to maintain heel-to-toe formation.” Emily Singer of Kos reported on Monday that the nasty guy is realizing the Iran war won’t be the quick venture he had assumed and is now lashing out. This post has details of his request to NATO for assistance and being rebuffed. There are also details of the nasty guy’s attempts to silence any media that doesn’t report on the war in glowing terms. Perhaps media companies learned from extensive reporting of Bush II lies for invading Iraq? Now many outlets are reporting the nasty guy’s miscalculations.

We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse

A week ago Thursday Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that it seems like the US joined Ecuador in a military operation against terrorist organizations there. This seems to be at the invitation of their President Daniel Noboa. I mention this because Needham included this:

In 2025, Trump managed to bomb seven countries: Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Yemen, and Somalia.

That’s in thirteen months. No, he’s not one to get a peace prize. A week ago Friday (when the Iran war was a week old) Meteor Blades, Kos staff emeritus, discussed the nasty guy’s claim that Iran would have a nuclear weapon in two weeks, that their attack on the US would be “imminent.” Blades first discussed how likely the nasty guy’s claim of a bomb being ready in that short of time. Possibly in a “few” weeks, but not likely. There is also a big difference between could have a bomb ready and actively considering using it against the US or any other country. The nasty guy tends to say “two weeks” when he wants us to think he’s about to do something but will likely never actually do it. This phrase could easily be applied to what he thinks Iranians are doing. Blades reviewed the likely intentional confusion of of preemtive and preventive, saying one while using the definition of the other. Both have specific meanings in international law and the UN Charter. Preemptive means an attack is going to happen quite soon, it will be overwhelming, and leave no time for deliberation. This is classified as self-defense. A preventive attack is an attempt to eliminate a potential threat, before the foe becomes stronger. It is based on prediction rather than proof, so is considered aggression. Any country can accuse any other of a future threat. Bush II in Iraq was preventive. It had a bad outcome. Even worse, what it was trying to prevent didn’t exist.

And here we are with the Trump regime engaged in a global free-for-all. The Iran war is also preventive, illegal under a U.N. Charter that in no way will be enforced. The worst part of this? Unless very different leaders come to power in Iran, keeping that country from getting nukes may not even have been prevented. Iran shouldn’t build a nuke. But then the world should follow the advice of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, each of whom proposed or at least suggested at one time or another eliminating all nuclear weapons. ... Instead, today as you read this, the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom are currently spending trillions of dollars to upgrade and expand their nuclear arsenals.

On the same day Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to help locate U.S. assets like warships and aircrafts. The revelation follows years of cozy relations between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Washington Post reported Friday that multiple officials have confirmed that Iran is receiving Russian intelligence, with one official describing the effort as “pretty comprehensive.” ... Meanwhile, Russia’s involvement in the war follows years of Trump catering to Putin. Instead of an adversarial relationship with Russia, Trump has sought to curry favor with the nation, repeatedly asserting that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified and that Ukraine was to blame. He even made a point of humiliating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting at the White House last year.

This past Wednesday Emily Singer of Kos reported the nasty guy claimed the Iran war would end soon because there is “practically nothing left to target.” He added that he could end it whenever he wanted. Yeah, that last bit sounds like an addict. Singer takes this in a different direction:

Trump's ridiculous claim that he can simply decide when the war against Iran will stop is patently absurd. Iran is not a rational actor. It doesn't care about the suffering of its people, nor about preserving the nonexistent relationships it has with other western nations. So long as it has munitions and the ability to cripple the global economy by choking off the Strait of Hormuz—a waterway critical to the global oil supply—it has no incentives to stop. Indeed, Iran has every incentive to continue, as the war could spark a global recession and damage Trump politically—which Iranian leaders are surely taking great pleasure from. Iran has said in no uncertain terms that it has no plans to stop its hostilities.

The nasty guy probably made that claim because he realizes this “excursion” is getting away from him. G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers charted the public response, the presidential approval rating, to military adventures from WWII. Roosevelt got a small bump for WWII, partly because his approval rating was already high. Entry into the war also had a 97% approval rating. Bush I got a big increase in approval for the Persian Gulf War to liberate Kuwait. Bush II got a big boost after the 9/11 attack and another boost at the start of the Afghanistan War a few months later. He also got a boost from the Iraq War. The nasty guy didn’t get a bump in public approval (or hasn’t yet – some of the earlier wars didn’t produce a bump for a couple months). Morris went looking at political science literature political approval and came up with five conditions needed to get a meaningful increase. They are: A big sudden shock, such as Pearl Harbor or the seizure of American hostages in Iran in 1979. Bipartisan consensus or at least no criticism from the opposition. Unified media coverage. The action is perceived to be legitimate. The public is willing to rally around the president. And in this Iran war... There was no sudden shock Democrats condemn the attack. There has been plenty of coverage of the war, but also coverage of the opposition and protests. Also, the media are highly fragmented. The nasty guy didn’t seek Congressional approval and 59% of Americans say he should have. The public isn’t willing to rally – his approval was already quite low. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, has a quote from Molly Ivins every Thursday. This one is from February 2024 and discusses Bush II and the Iraq war. He also wanted to invade Iraq because the threat was “imminent.” Then this:

Perhaps the administration thought peaceniks could be ignored, but you will recall that this was a war opposed by an extraordinary number of generals. Among them, Anthony Zinni, who has extensive experience in the Middle East, who said, "We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started." After listening to Paul Wolfowitz at a conference, Zinni said, "In other words, we are going to go to war over another intelligence failure." Give that man the Cassandra Award for being right in depressing circumstances.