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.

No country would believe an offer of peace

Last night I went to the grand Fisher Theater to see the musical The Outsiders. I was interested because last year it won a Tony Award for Best Musical along with Best Direction of a Musical, Best Lighting in a Musical (projections on part of the scenery helped that), and Best Sound Design in a Musical, plus eight other nominations, including Best Actor and Best Featured Actor. All fine recommendations. I hadn’t read the book or seen the earlier movie or play (before the musical was created) because I thought it might be quite violent. And it is. When I, without knowing much of the story, described the show to my friend and debate partner he suggested it might be similar to West Side Story and its source material Romeo and Juliet. Turns out he was right, though there are notable differences. The story is set in Tulsa in 1967. Ponyboy is the main character. He is 14 and lives with his brothers Darrel and Sodapop. Their parents had recently died. The first song Ponyboy sings notes that he knows nobody who has moved away from Tulsa. Darrel, maybe as old as 20, was good enough in football he thought he had a chance of escaping but now feels burdened with trying to be both brother and father. Yes, there are two rival groups of teens. Ponyboy is a Greaser, kids from families whose work involves (automobile) grease. His best friends are Johnny and Two-Bit. Also prominent in the group is Dallas, the only black member and the only one to be in jail, well, county lock-up. The other group is the Socs (spelled that way in the program but pronounced “soshes”), the kids of socialites. As in WSS there are turf battles that go too far. At the drive in theater Ponyboy meets Cherry, a Socs girl. She is claimed by Bob, the leader of the Socs boys. She senses that Ponyboy is different from the other boys that strive for status. Ponyboy is reading Great Expectations by Dickens and identifies with orphaned Pip, though has a few things to say to Dickens. He can also recite a Robert Frost poem. This might be a spoiler: A big difference between WSS and this story is while Cherry and Ponyboy become friends, they do not fall in love. Even so, she’s the one recognizes the battles between the Greasers and Socs. two groups of boys that don’t know what to do with their testosterone, is a “Hopeless War.” This is an excellent show, deserving of its awards. Ponyboy, Johnny, Dallas, and all the others are shown as both good and bad, though they are caught in a bad situation (mostly based on poverty). The songs are good and touching, though I don’t remember any of them. I rate it highly perhaps for the same reasons I consider WSS a favorite musical (though Jonathan Clay, Zach Chance, and Justin Levine are not at the level of Leonard Bernstein). I do have one complaint. There is an overuse on strobe lights in key scenes. As WSS has the Rumble, there is a big fight between the two groups. They way it was staged I got lost in who was doing what to who with not clear winner until one side rejoices in their victory later. This fight takes place in a rainstorm. At first I thought the rain was projected on to the scenery, but at times the actors looked wet, as did the stage, though that was hard to tell from the front of the balcony, where I was sitting. Then the stage looked dry in the next scene. But when the show was done a large tire full of water (important for a key scene) was dumped onto the stage and a bunch of industrial blowers were brought out to presumably dry the stage. The book is by S. E. Hinton, which I was surprised to learn is Susan Eloise. The Outsiders is her first novel and she wrote it while in high school in Tulsa. Her reason for writing was that she was dissatisfied with the stories written about youth, saying in a quote in the program that teens want it real and too many books talked down to them. Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community and an independent pundit described a disturbing look into the start of the Iran war. He cautions this is not proven but certainly demands investigation and hearings under oath before Congress. A major player in this scenario is Jared Kushner, a top representative in several of his father-in-law’s attempts at diplomacy. He’s also the guy I’ve been calling the Pandemic Prince for his attempts to profit from the pandemic during the first nasty guy term. He also knows Netanyahu well. His partner is Steve Witkoff, a guy with credible evidence of having financial ties to Russia and who had just been to Israel. Here’s my summary of the scenario. Round 3 of nuclear talks between the US and Iran concluded in Geneva on February 27. The Omani foreign minister, the mediator, said a deal was within reach and Iran had fully agreed to the US demands to not make a nuclear bomb. Round 4 had been scheduled to work out the details. On the morning of February 28 members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council were in their offices. They’re the ones to make the big nuclear decisions. In their offices is where they were naturally expected to be to discuss the outline of the agreement made the day before. That expected location is where the first bombs struck. Here’s the speculation: Were the negotiations a ruse? A deliberate double-cross? Were they designed to keep Iran from expecting strikes? Were they structured to give the Council something they need to discuss in a known place so they could be targeted?

The man who briefed Kushner’s partner (Witkoff) before those talks — Netanyahu — is the same man who said on the night the bombs fell that “this coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years.” He wasn’t even remotely subdued or reluctant about the possibility of the Middle East going up in flames, perhaps even igniting World War III. He was, instead, triumphant that he finally got an American president to do something he’d been unsuccessfully pushing for decades.

If Iran was “negotiated” into a kill box, no government would ever again assume American good faith. American credibility would be damaged, long after the nasty guy and his minions leave the scene. The negotiation process would be poisoned. No country would believe an offer of peace, no matter how genuine it is.

Congress has the constitutional power and the institutional obligation to call Kushner and Witkoff before investigative committees and ask them directly: What did you know about Israeli targeting plans during the Geneva talks? When did you know it? What were you instructed to accomplish or delay? Did you communicate with Netanyahu’s government during the negotiations themselves?

We can’t assume Kushner and Witkoff are guilty. We can “demand answers, loudly, now, before the war makes the asking impossible.” Dan K of the Kos community asks an important question: Why have billionaires put “a man with no understanding of economics in charge of our economy?” To attempt an answer Dan K quoted an article Paul Krugman wrote for his Substack. Krugman wrote:

There is, however, something that is still puzzling me: To a large extent billionaires bought themselves a government friendly to their interests. Trump and company have granted many items on the tech broligarchy wish list, from tax breaks to deregulation to promotion of crypto and unregulated AI. But why the abject incompetence? Couldn’t billionaires find political allies who wouldn’t plunge the country into a potentially disastrous and historically unpopular war without considering the risks?

Krugman supplied two answers:

One is that no competent allies weren’t available. Money buys a lot of influence, but to actually take over the U.S. government requires more than money — it requires politicians who are utterly corrupt... and corruption and incompetence go hand in hand.

In the nasty guy’s first term competent people kept him from doing his worst. To prevent that from happening in his second term he surrounded himself with incompetent loyalists.

My second answer is that the vast wealth of tech billionaires has made many of them unconcerned with the little people’s lives — and deeply unpatriotic.

Dan K brought up the concept of noblesse oblige, that with great wealth and power comes great responsibility. The robber barons of the US gilded age may have been nasty to workers, but they knew they had to live in the society they were making and keeping it secure was worthwhile. The current tech bros reject that understanding. They feel they can isolate themselves from the world and their wealth will provide all they need. So if they get the tax breaks and other goodies to keep making tons of money they don’t care what else the nasty guy does. Krugman again:

So if you want to understand how this country has degenerated to such a state, how we can be spending nearly $2 billion a day attacking Iran without a clear endgame in sight, while children go without healthcare, nursing homes are understaffed because their workers have been deported, home electricity bills skyrocket due to data centers, consider who benefits and who isn’t hurt. This is a billionaire’s war, waged at everyone else’s expense.

More from my backlog of pundit roundups for Kos... From Saturday a week ago, Greg Dworkin quoted Catherine Rampell of The Bulwark discussing a lot of commodities that are affected by the nasty guy’s attack on Iran and their response of closing the Strait of Hormuz. At the top of the list is oil and the petroleum products made from it. There is also liquefied natural gas, aluminum, and fertilizer, the last in demand as the northern hemisphere spring planting season begins. That will lead to higher food prices over the year. Many producers of these commodities are having to shut down because they have no place to put their output. Restarting these facilities could take up to a year. Nick Judin tweeted:

Unlike every evil, craven, idiotic decision Trump's made in office, the Iran War is finally the act he can't immediately retreat from. Every one of his catastrophic failures (DOGE, liberation day, siege of Minneapolis, regime change in Venezuela, etc.) he survived by abandoning.

Ishaan Tharoor of the New Yorker explained why the Strait of Hormuz was closed:

For the remnants of the Iranian regime—and, especially, the hard-line members of the Revolutionary Guard, who control much of the state’s weaponry—the strategy is clear. They hope to raise the stakes of the war so much that U.S. allies pressure President Donald Trump to change course. “We had no choice but to escalate and start a big fire so everyone would see,” an Iranian regime insider told the Financial Times. “When our red lines were crossed in violation of all international laws, we could no longer adhere to the rules of the game.”

Another way to put it: We may be going down, but we’re going to inflict as much pain on the rest of the world as we can in the meantime. Conspiratorial Templates tweeted:

What level of chess is it when you neglect to fill up your strategic oil reserves before starting a war that shuts down oil production worldwide, so you have to buy oil at an inflated price from your enemy who then uses those funds to back the enemy you just needlessly attacked?

Way down in the comments is a cartoon by Bishtoons. A man says:

So, you’re telling me that more than 100 children were killed in a school in Iran when it was bombed ... by two nations of the Board of Peace?

In the comments of Monday’s roundup is one by rugbymom:

What's unbelievable to me: We refer back continuously to major attacks *on* the US, from Pearl Harbor to 9/11. Yet we somehow imagine that other countries will just absorb our attacks on them, forgive and forget, and cozy up to the US. (Sure, Japan and Germany did after WWII -- but only because the US poured in relief and reconstruction money, and those countries took responsibility for their actions and their leaders were soundly punished.) Not only Iran, but the Gulf monarchies that were Trump’s most loyal allies, will never ever forget this -- and that's assuming that somehow it stops before the planet is utterly destroyed. So far, no signs of any off-ramp or stopping point, a President who is eager to pour in ground troops and/or use nuclear weapons, an Israeli President intent on genocide, and no way to stop either of them.

In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Adam Serwer of The Atlantic described an epidemic of “gullicism” – gullibility and cynicism – in America.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism that “a mixture of gullibility and cynicism is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements.” She argued that “the whole hierarchical structure of totalitarian movements, from naïve fellow-travelers to party members, elite formations, the intimate circle around the Leader, and the Leader himself, could be described in terms of a curiously varying mixture of gullibility and cynicism.” All are ruled by “the central unchanging ideological fiction of the movement.” The naive fellow travelers need to be gullible enough to believe these fictions and cynical enough to refuse correction. The inner circle need only be cynical enough to sell them.

In the comments Dr. Art Garfunky tweeted the front page of the Tehran Times (English edition) that shows portraits of all of the students killed in the Iran school that was bombed. In Wednesday’s roundup Dworkin quoted Dana Dubois of Blue Amp. My summary: Dubois is breaking up with ChatGPT because they can’t tolerate to keep paying the oligarchs that created it. Aaron Rupar tweeted a quote from Sen. Chris Murphy:

I Just came from a two hour, closed door classified briefing on the war. It just confirmed to me it's totally incoherent. We are not gonna be able to achieve any of our stated objectives ... this is a disaster of epic proportions, a 10 day debacle

In the comments Political Cartoon Gallery posted a cartoon by Matt, who is from England. A man has come back from a gas station mini-mart and tells his wife, “It’s worse than I feared. Their tins of travel mints are stuck in the Strait of Hormuz.” In Thursday’s roundup Kev quoted Perry Bacon of The New Republic on three reasons why this military action is worse than nearly all others. The important parts:

There is no clear reason for the U.S. to be attacking Iran right now. This war not only didn’t have the approval of Congress or the American public, but it happened despite explicit opposition from them. This is not a minor skirmish.

In the comments is one by Rambler797 with a link to the article:

Jonathan Lamire, Atlantic. Trump Isn’t Even Trying to Sell This War. Why sell? He got in his quick hit. Mission accomplished, right? An object lesson in why it is better to have someone with impulse control as president.

The Wolfpack posted a meme of the Republican Agenda. I’m giving just the main points. Each has a few to a lot of subpoints for implementation.

Keep ’em poor Keep ’em sick Keep ’em stupid Control the women

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary:

"We are now on day eleven of Jabba the Pizza Hutt's war on Iran. Trump said yesterday that the war could end 'very soon,' which would be encouraging had he not told us he'd end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Ironically, the war he started to distract us could be more damaging to him than the Trump-Epstein files. And that would mean he'd have to come up with another distraction from the war. And if you do need that, Mr. President, I’ve got a good one: release the unreleased Trump-Epstein files." —Jimmy Kimmel "President Trump said yesterday that, while he is spending the day at his Miami golf club, there are 'many important meetings and phone calls taking place.' Hey, man, we're totally fine if you just play golf. Every time you 'have a meeting' we have to change something on a map." —Seth Meyers

Bill also reminds us that tomorrow, March 14, is Pi Day, best celebrated at 1:59. It’s our most irrational holiday.

They love the language of blood and gore

My Sunday movie was Glitter and Gold, Ice Dancing. This was released by Netflix a few days before the Winter Olympics to serve as a companion to the Ice Dancing competition. I didn’t have a chance to watch it then. It is a three episode documentary, 2:45 total length, as three top ice dancing couples prepare for their time in the Olympics. Two of the couples are: Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who had won gold medals at lesser competitions, but had not won an Olympic medal. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who had also won a lot of medals and known for a more eccentric style. Poirier said he is gay and that it affects the choices he makes when designing a program. Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Guillame Cizaron were the third couple. He had won Olympic gold in 2022 with a different partner. I don’t remember why his partner left. His new partner had lost her previous partner because he had been suspended for a sex assault accusation. That ruling was overturned and appealed, but not resolved in time to prepare for this year’s games. A year before the Games the ice dancing world was pretty confident that Chock and Bates would take gold and “Piper and Paul” would take silver. That calculus was upset when the Fournier-Beaudry and Cizaron paring was announced. In ice dancing, especially when the competitors are still in their teens, there is a lot of splitting and forming partners. There is even a website where one can fill in their stats in hopes of finding a partner. That can mean partners are from different countries, creating strange situations. An English woman was paired with a Spanish man and got a Spanish passport to qualify. That man left the sport and she paired with a German man. The German man could more easily get a Spanish passport than the English/Spanish woman could get a German passport, so they represented Spain though neither was Spanish. This was brought up because Fournier-Beaudry had to get a French passport and hope the paperwork went through before the Games. By the time a pair is Olympic quality they’ve usually been together for a decades, sometimes more than two. The French pair had to overcome a lot for being so recently paired. Ten months out the pairs create their short and long programs based on the types of things they do best and their own personal style. They choose music and work with choreographers. They talk to costume designers. They have to consider whether the programs are “Olympic enough.” Six months out they start to show their programs to judges to get feedback on what works (what pleases the judges) and what doesn’t. But each pair must decide if what the judges say conflicts with what they understand their personality to be. There are a few scenes of the woman putting on makeup before performing. Their male partners are beside them also putting on makeup. And Poirier showed how much stuff he puts in his hair so that it is as unmoving as a helmet. Then come the qualifying events in which they go to arenas around the world and perform before audiences. How well they place affects whether they get to the Olympics. Their performances may suggest whether parts of their program need to be reworked. Of course, their Olympic performances are not included in this documentary. Though I watched the competition I had forgotten how they finished and had to look it up. I finished the book The Bump, a novel by Sidney Karger. This is the story of Wyatt and Biz, a gay couple. Yes, Biz is a nickname – real name Massimo – gotten perhaps because he was a busy boy, he seemed to be bouncing off the walls (ADD?), or because as a teen he was in show business. Maybe both. They have been together about a dozen years. A baby is about to be born for them through surrogacy. But as the story opens their relationship is showing strain. So instead of flying from from their home in Brooklyn to California, where the surrogate is, they decide on a road trip. Wyatt plans for them to visit gay enclaves – Provincetown, Saugatuck, Palm Springs – before being responsible parents puts a stop to that. They get to Provincetown, but Wyatt’s mother soon calls him to come to Boston, where he begins to learn why his father left when he was a boy and his mother won’t talk about it. Saugatuck gets replaced with a visit with Biz’s huge and boisterous family near Chicago, where Biz begins to confront his fears that he won’t be a good enough father. He compares himself to his own father, who is a gem. This is an enjoyable and satisfying story. It’s a love story with a bit of maturity to it. Even so, it’s a bit of a lightweight. Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community and an independent pundit wrote that (though their cruelty was visible long before the first bombs dropped) the war with Iran demonstrates the nasty guy, the vice nasty, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, Russel Vought, Karoline Leavitt, Elon Musk, and many more have a severe case of bloodlust.

Trump, Hegseth, Vance, Miller, Leavitt, et al think this sort of thing makes them seem “macho” and “tough.” Nearly 90% of Republican voters agree with them. What it really does is reveal them as psychopaths, the very human embodiment of evil. ... This isn’t the language of leaders reluctantly using force as a last resort; it’s the rhetoric of psychopaths who see the rest of humanity as disposable, as dots in a video game, as objects whose death is entertainment, so long as their own luxury and power are secure. ... They delight in death and destruction. They love the language of blood and gore. They’re monsters.

I haven’t looked at the work of Sarah Kendzior in a while. She had been co-host of Gaslit Nation and now runs her own newsletter on Substack. A post from the end of February is a Q&A with her subscribers. A top topic is the Epstein scandal. Here are a couple excerpts from close to the top of the post.

Will the Epstein files bring accountability? SK: Yes, some — but not necessarily in the US. We’ve seen predators face arrest in other countries. In the US, we’ve seen them resign from jobs. This gives me little hope since MeToo produced more backlash than justice, and many who lost power later regained it. I do think the release has forced politicians and pundits to finally address the massive criminal conspiracy that was in the public domain for two decades. What’s revealing is that they view redacted emails by predators as more credible than consistent statements by victims. There is something very wrong with the way Americans trust criminal elites to be more reliable sources than the people they hurt. ... Will the rest of the files be released? SK: As I’ve said before, I think they were waiting to release an Epstein trove once: 1) they felt they had consolidated power 2) AI was so ubiquitous that the veracity of the evidence would be questioned. That moment is now. We have seen a lot of emails, though one period of interest — the time around 9/11 — is largely absent. We have not seen much video. I believe the most damaging information is on video. We know Epstein had rooms wired with cameras to film pedophiles assaulting victims. I will not watch that if it comes out. But it may come out, and should that happen, the assaulter will claim it’s fake. This wouldn’t have been a convincing excuse a decade ago, but it will be now due to AI. I’ve wondered if Grok posting child pornography on demand shortly before the Epstein files were released was a trial run for this tactic.

Perhaps this is why many of the richest tech companies are investing so deeply in AI? I’ve accumulated a bunch of pundit roundups for Kos. Let’s see how many I get through in the time I have. In the roundup for Saturday at the end of February Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Sarah Fitzpatrick that included a link to an article in The Atlantic. Fitzpatrick’s comment:

At least 6 Trump Cabinet members or senior admin officials were in contact with Epstein. It’s unclear if these relationships w/ Epstein were raised in background checks or security clearances. Every agency involved declined to answer my questions.

The title and subtitle of the article:

The ‘Crazy’ Plot to Release the Epstein Files How an unlikely duo of lawmakers partnered with victims to try to hold the powerful accountable.

In the comments, a tweet (though it doesn’t show as a tweet) by Matthew Yglesias:

Trump warned me that if I voted for Kamala Harris we’d have higher prices and a government-run economy at home and new wars abroad, and I voted for Harris and that’s exactly what we got.

A cartoon posted by The Wolfpack and by John Darkow shows Musk (labeled “DOGE”) pushing an old lady in a wheelchair labeled “Social Security” towards the edge of a cliff. Musk says, “So, which one are you, Granny? Waste, Fraud, or Abuse?!” Another cartoon posted by The Wolfpack and by Daniel Boris, shows Hillary Clinton saying, “Donald Trump’s name is mentioned 38,000 times in the Epstein files, and I am the person Republicans ask to testify under oath. Makes perfect sense!” In the roundup for last Wednesday Dworkin quoted Shanaka Anslem Perera on X:

Satellite imagery shows an Iranian ballistic missile struck the AN/FPS-132 phased array radar at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. If the damage is as severe as the imagery suggests, Iran just destroyed a $1.1 billion piece of equipment that took years to build and cannot be replaced on any timeline relevant to this war. The AN/FPS-132 is not an ordinary radar. It is one of a handful of early warning sensors in the entire US global missile defence architecture. It detects ballistic missile launches at ranges exceeding 5,000 kilometres. It provides the initial tracking data that allows Patriot, THAAD, and Aegis systems to calculate intercept solutions. Without it, every other layer of missile defence in the Gulf theatre is operating with compressed reaction times and degraded situational awareness.

David Schuster of Blue Amp:

We now know that a woman came forward in 2019 alleging that, as a minor, she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Investigators did not laugh her out of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They interviewed her four times. Four. In the careful, plodding world of the FBI, that is not a courtesy; it is an acknowledgment of credibility. Agents summarized each session in the bureaucratic catechism known as an FBI 302 report. Three of those summary reports are now missing. Not delayed. Not misfiled. Missing.

In the comments is a tweet by Veterans Against Trump:

Reporter: What’s the worst case scenario that you have planned for in Iran? Trump: I don’t know of there’s a worst case... I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person., right? That could happen.

The Maine Wonk added:

Gee, I wonder why every administration for 50 years has avoided outright war with Iran and regime change. But sure, the Host of the Apprentice is the only person in history with a plan that will change everything in a matter of weeks. We live in the dumbest timeline ever.

In last Thursday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Michael Deck of Niemann Lab discussing the 3 million pages of Epstein documents with 180,000 images and 2,000 videos. Search of all that is a big problem. A solution: AI.

These types of AI-powered transparency projects have only become more important as trust in government institutions and the Trump administration’s handling of the files erodes. Last week, NPR reported that the DOJ intentionally withheld and removed documents in the Epstein Files that named Donald Trump, including an accusation by a woman that he had sexually abused her when she was a minor. [...] Since the first Epstein Files were released last year, newsrooms have been using machine learning and LLMs to parse documents and find story leads. Earlier this month, New York Times AI projects editor Dylan Freedman explained how he and his colleagues built “bespoke software applications” to help reporters search photos visually, identify document duplicates, and generate video and audio transcripts. The Times has also been using a proprietary search tool developed by its Interactive News desk to break news about the files and comb through the documents for investigative leads.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Sheneman showing the nasty guy saying:

People say my big, beautiful war has no clear objective, fake news! Since when is war profiteering not a clear objective?

Way down in the comments is a cartoon by Jesse Duquette in response to generals expecting the Iran war to usher in the End Times. It shows Jesus in a red cap talking to followers: “One day I will return but only once you bomb a bunch of kids because a pedophile told you to.” In the comments of Friday’s roundup paulpro posted a cartoon, author not mentioned. It shows two men talking, the second one in a red cap:

First: So, you’re now supporting a warmonger and pedophile protector. Second: Yeah, its’ tough to keep up with what I believe in... First: But still with Trump? Second: Sure, gas is still under $3. First: Ah... I’ve got some bad news...

American history through the eyes of the Natives

The Sunday Detroit Free Press has expanded its arts coverage, which is how I learned about a play at a live theater and went out to see it Thursday evening. The play is Broke-ology or the science of being broke. It is at the Tipping Point Theatre in Northville. Alas, it finishes its run on Sunday. The story is about three black men in Kansas City. William is suffering from MS and is getting worse. His sons Ennis and Malcolm are trying to work out how to care for him. Occasionally, their mother Sonia appears, usually in William’s dreams. Ennis is older, his wife is about to have a baby, he is working at a wings restaurant, and is feeling stuck. Malcolm has just gotten his master’s degree at U Conn and his afraid of staying too long and becoming stuck in Kansas City. He has a job waiting for him at U Conn. But Ennis wants Malcolm to help with the burden of caring for their father. It’s a messy situation with no easy solution. Having little money doesn’t help. The title comes from Ennis teasing Malcolm about having a graduate degree. Ennis considers himself an expert in broke-ology and has even come up with equations for how it all works. People with parents near the end of life know these issues. That includes me. The acting by all three men was excellent. I was particularly impressed with the guy who played William who had to keep the physical symptoms, especially the tremors, of MS going through nearly all of the play. Alas, there were only three dozen people in the audience. I finished the book The Rediscovery of America, Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk. It is a history of America from the viewpoint of the Natives starting with first contact with Europeans. We’ve learned the basics in history lessons in school, but with the view that Europeans and their descendants were supposed to rule the continent and those pesky Natives should just get out of the way. So reading the story from the Native side is refreshing. For that I highly recommend the book. But it is also hard. Even with our knowledge of just high school history we know this is an endless cycle of violence and disease that killed off a great deal of the Native population, of treaties made and broken. Of course, I learned a lot. I wrote close to 3 pages of things I had learned. I can’t put all those points into this post, but I will include quite a few. I knew the Spanish had been in the Southwest. I hadn’t realized it was a full century before the Pilgrims. That contact and subjugation was mostly in the Pueblo communities in New Mexico. The reason for the violence was labor for mineral extraction, mostly silver. There was an uprising by the Pueblo Natives and there was an uneasy truce afterward. It is why the culture of that region is a mix of Native and Spanish. By the time the Pilgrims (English) arrived in 1621 there had been a lot of trading between Europeans and Natives and a lot of Native death from European disease. The Pilgrims wouldn’t have been able to move in if the Native population was at full strength. At a time when Africans were brought to America to be slaves more than 600,000 Natives were taken as slaves to England, Spain, and around the world. Pilgrims didn’t enslave – their religion said labor was good for them. But their religion also said it was the best religion and Natives should be converted. We think of the Pilgrims being concentrated around Massachusetts Bay, but there were a lot of settlements and violence against Natives along the Connecticut coast, an area sheltered by Long Island. The French came to trade, not so much to colonize. They had a presence in about 2/3 of North America – Canada, Great Lakes and down to the Ohio Valley, and west of the Mississippi. Their fiercest opponent was the Iroquois federation. The French agreed to a Great Settlement in 1701 that brought peace to the region. Thousands of tribes sent representatives. There is no coincidence that Detroit was founded that year. The English moved in on the French. The English took over a fort on an island near the entrance to the St. Lawrence River, which meant the French lost their ability to bring in goods to trade. A part of this long conflict was called the French and Indian War, but was really a French – English war. The French wanted to trade and the Natives tolerated that. The English wanted to the land to settle on, and the Natives didn’t want that. I was puzzled by one thing. The book said the French lost control of all of their North American holdings at the end of the French – Indian War. But didn’t we buy the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803? We’re used to thinking of the area west of the Appalachian Mountains as the frontier. To the Natives, this was the Interior. As settlers moved there the English tried to block the move. The English wanted peace, which many settlers saw as siding with the Natives. That was an important reason for the American Revolution. Pennsylvania created a Constitution in 1776. Most of the delegates were settlers. One important idea from it became important when the US wrote a Constitution 11 years later. That idea is that a central government is needed to subdue the Natives. That’s the reason why the Articles of Confederation didn’t work. The Constitution said nothing about the new US being able to buy land to make it part of the country. President Thomas Jefferson and to create a legal justification. He also had to justify turning the white residents into citizens. Georgia wanted the Choctaw to be removed. Congress said they were protected on their land. Then President Andrew Johnson sided with Georgia, leading to the Trail of Tears. I hadn’t known there was significant trading along the Pacific coast starting about 1760. The traders were Spanish, English, Russian, and a few others. Of course, the Natives were hit with violence and disease. And colonial extraction was at work as the traders wanted pelts, primarily otter, and fish, primarily salmon, which reduced the animal populations. I hadn’t known that before the railroads, when travel was on foot, horseback or stagecoach, a gathering of thousands of Natives meant there would be tens of thousands of horses. While much of the East was preoccupied with the approaching Civil War settlers poured into the West. Worse than all those people were the mines, which were quite good at polluting the environment. Mining camps were mostly male and mostly Anglo-Germanic, and also highly supremacist. Approaching and during the Civil War US soldiers stationed at forts in the West felt they were missing out on the important battles. They were brutal in their treatment of Natives. After the war settlers assumed they were to displace the Natives. The Senate ratified treaty after treaty, usually taking land while granting rights to Natives. Ratification didn’t include the House, which began to pass bills limiting and overturning treaties, though the Constitution does not give them that power. It meant treaties were violated and then replaced with something more advantageous to white settlers. From the Civil War to about 1910 the goal was to assimilate the Natives, which included extensive boarding schools that worked to separate the Native child from their heritage. Between 1910 and WWII assimilation efforts ended and tribes had a time of their own sovereignty. The expansionist policies of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were inspired by the US treatment of Natives. A German official said, “The native must give way” to the colonizer as Germany looked eastward. After WWII assimilation resumed, but in a different way. The US government offered to buy tribal land. But they made that offer to tribal members, not to the tribe leadership. That set up a conflict between a member and their community. Members were offered travel expenses to cities with a promise of a much better life. But an urban Native was usually as much in poverty as a reservation Native. Native self-determination efforts began in the late 19th century. They began to seriously change thinking of those in the federal government about 1970. Since then the federal government has recognized tribal sovereignty and able to tell states to keep their hands off. Many tribes do quite well with gaming, but many other tribes and their members remain in poverty. The book is 450 pages of text plus another 100 pages of notes. Blackhawk relied on growing scholarship of what Native life was like. Even with leaving much out my two pages of notes came out to two pages of full sentences and paragraphs. In the pundit roundup for Daily Kos for Friday a week ago Greg Dworkin quoted a tweet from Sam Stein:

Shot: Pentagon demanding Anthropic drop insistence that its AI model not fire weapons without some form of human sign off Chaser:

The chaser is a headline and subtitle from New Scientist:

AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases

An article in Axios adds:

"The contract language we received overnight from the Department of War made virtually no progress on preventing Claude's use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons," Anthropic said in a statement.

Dr. Catharine Young tweeted the cover of The Lancet which has this text:

The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm.

In the comments Eastsidebill posted a list he got from a friend. The list of 100 entries is things the nasty guy has done. They’re mostly in alphabetical order. Here’s just some of it:

1. $25M judgment 2. “Do us a favor” 3. “Find 11,780” 4. 34 felonies 5. Atlantic City Bankruptcies 6. Bible sales 7. Big Lies 8. Birtherism 9. Black tenants 10. Branded Bibles 11. Cabinet corruption 12. Casino fines 13. Census meddling 14. Central Park Five 15. CFPB neutered 16. Charity fraud 17. Civil fraud 18. Classified files 19. Coin schemes 20. Comey firing

Wars are a tool of undermining and undoing democracies

Brother and I had a nice visit. We also had a great lunch with Sister, two Nieces, and Cousin. Sunday evening Brother and I watched a great handbell concert recorded that afternoon. If you want to see what handbells can do this is a wonderful place to start. The performers are 150 of the best handbell musicians around. The event is Distinctly Bronze East 2026 and the concert is here through the end of March. In the handbell world, since the bells are made of bronze, something described as bronze is top level, not like Olympic third place. After Brother arrived midday Friday we didn’t listen to much news. We were a bit surprised Saturday morning on hearing that Israel and the US had bombed Iran. Had we missed something on Friday? No we hadn’t. The start of the war happened overnight. In early afternoon on Saturday Meteor Blades, staff emeritus of Daily Kos reported what we knew of the attack at that time. The post begins with an update with the original story below. Between that and all the other news sources reporting on the war I don’t have anything to add here. News Corpse of the Kos community posted late Saturday commenting on a tweet from the nasty guy that quotes other sources that say the reason why he started the war was because, “Iran tried to interfere in the 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump.” News Corpse notes that there is no evidence of this allegation. Missing from the nasty guy’s tweet is a discussion of the evidence that Russia did interfere in the 2020 election. Midday on Monday Oliver Willis of Kos reported the nasty guy spent the weekend talking to various news organizations, including some he accused of “fake news,” and seemed to tell each of them a different reason why he issued the orders for the attack. Late Monday afternoon Emily Singer of Kos wrote:

The right-wing pundits who usually defend President Donald Trump's most idiotic moves are not pleased with his decision to start an open-ended war with Iran. They’re issuing surprisingly forceful statements condemning the Trump administration's inability to state a clear rationale for getting into yet another Middle East conflict.

Singer quoted far right pundit Matt Walsh, who wrote on X:

So far we’ve heard that although we killed the whole Iranian regime, this was not a regime change war. And although we obliterated their nuclear program, we had to do this because of their nuclear program. And although Iran was not planning any attacks on the US, they also might have been, depending on who you ask. And although we are not fighting this war to free the Iranian people, they are now free, or might be, depending on who seizes power, and we have no idea who that will be. The messaging on this thing is, to put it mildly, confused.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted a press release by Maine Sen. Angus King (independent) who a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He has questions, listed in the release:

1) Why hasn’t President Trump made the case to the American people (and to their representatives in Congress) for such a major commitment of American forces, which could include troops on the ground? 2) Why now? All reports were that negotiations with regard to Iran’s nuclear program were proceeding positively this week with the possibility of a long sought-after diplomatic solution, and there is no indication that new malign actions by the regime were imminent. 3) What, if any, is the plan for an endgame now that the goal has moved from elimination of Iran’s nuclear capacity to regime change? 4) What is the legal and Constitutional authority for this extraordinary action? The Constitution explicitly places the power (and the responsibility) for taking our country into war in the peoples’ representatives in Congress for a reason—the commitment to war is much too important to rest in the hands of one person.

Dan K of the Kos community reported:

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reports that it is getting a big increase in complaints from troops who are being told that Trump’s attack on Iran is the opening round of the End Times war: MRFF Inundated with Complaints of Gleeful Commanders Telling Troops Iran War is “Part of God’s Divine Plan” to Usher in the Return of Jesus Christ.

Dan K quoted from the MRFF article:

“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be “afraid” as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” — MRFF active duty NCO client, writing on behalf of themself and 15 other unit members MRFF has received over 200 calls from more than 50 military installations across all the services since Saturday reporting similar disturbing pronouncements from their Christian zealot commanders. [emphases in original]

Dan K said this idea would not have entered the nasty guy’s head because he would not have known or understood the meaning. But even before Pete Hegseth was sworn in as Secretary of Defense he was known as a religious warrior. A couple links to Hegseth’s statements are provided. Dan K concludes, “Anyone still want to bet this ends well?” Lisa Needham of Kos reported on Tuesday the nasty guy and the State Department have asked Americans, between a half and full million of them, to evacuate from 14 Middle East countries. But the State Department has provided no help in doing so and since the airspace has closed there are no commercial flights. This is in contrast to France, Belgium, and Britain along with the European Union using charter and military flights to get their citizens out. In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted David French of the New York Times:

Here’s the bottom line: Trump should have gotten congressional approval for striking Iran, or he should not have struck at all. And because he did not obtain congressional approval, he’s diminishing America’s chances for ultimate success and increasing the chances that we make the same mistakes we — and other powerful nations — have made before.

Tom Nichols and Shashank Joshi tweeted that the most abused words since the attack started have been “preemptive” and “imminent.” Will Bunch tweeted a link to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. In the tweet Bunch wrote:

No wonder Trump went to war with Iran in the dead of night, with the Capitol empty, most Americans soundly asleep This war is illegal. Full stop. The worst abuse of presidential power in American history aims to cement a dictatorship on U.S. soil.

The title and subtitle of the article:

A mad king’s illegal war on Iran is a cry for regime change ... in Washington. Democracy really did die in darkness as Donald Trump’s unconstitutional war in Iran stamps America as a dictatorship.

Timothy Snyder in his Substack:

From the United States, the most plausible angle of view is domestic politics, not foreign policy. Wars are a tool of undermining and undoing democracies. Given that we have multiple examples of this from both modern and ancient democracy, and given the behavior of Trump and his allies in general, this must be an interpretive method for these attacks. The relationship between foreign war and domestic authoritarianism can take two basic forms: 1) we must all rally because there is a war and everyone who oppose the war is a traitor; 2) we must hold elections under specific conditions favorable to the party in power. This is utterly predictable and should be easy to halt and indeed to reverse.

Jon Ralston quoted and provided a link to an article in the Nevada Independent:

“This is chutzpah taken to a new level, gaslighting done better than Charles Boyer could have executed: Persuade people that elections are compromised so you can compromise elections.” Trump and his enablers are laying the groundwork to muck around in the Nov. election.

In the comments is a cartoon by Toonerman showing Jiminy Cricket talking to Pinocchio, who is looking at articles about what the nasty guy has said.

No Pinoch... it’s still wrong to lie. It always will be, even if you are the president, or a powerful pol, or a religious leader, or a trusted “news network.” Lying corrupts the most important aspect of being human; the ability to make free and rational choices, and by lying, you’re trying to rob others of their freedom to choose rationally. Lying chips away at trust. Liars are losers.

In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect who noted Bush II decapitated the Iraqi regime by forcing out Saddam Hussein. The nasty guy seems to have done the same thing in Iran.

Such are the limits of government decapitations. They are not a form of regime change. Absent the ability of the populace to take the power that should be theirs, decapitations may just be a form of upward mobility for the regime’s surviving elites, now that there are unfilled slots above them.

Vanda Felbab-Brown of The Brookings Institution wrote:

In the first days of airstrikes, the United States and Israel killed the ayatollah as well as several top leaders of the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), adding to those killed in July 2025 during the joint attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But the Iranian regime is vast, with sprawling religious authority, layers of officers across various armed branches and militias, and widespread control of the country’s economic assets. Even if the United States and Israel continue mowing down newly-replaced leaders for weeks, the IRGC and various armed forces and their economic assets will not just melt away, even if they eventually fracture. [...] The Trump administration broke a cruel, brutal, and dangerous regime with little clarity, planning, readiness, and accountability for how to foster a new, desirable replacement system.

Sophia Tesfaye of Salon:

The president did not deliver a traditional address to the American people on network television, instead posting a hastily-edited eight-minute video statement to Truth Social. Israel assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of an adversarial state. American service members are dead — and the president has acknowledged there will likely be more to come. Iranian missiles are flying, hitting Israel and U.S. military outposts and interests throughout the Middle East. And the best the American people receive is a 3 a.m. Truth Social announcement delivered in a MAGA hat. No senior administration officials have appeared on the flagship public affairs programs that, for all their flaws, have long served as a forum for democratic accountability. Instead of structured briefings, Trump spent the weekend personally calling journalists — more than a dozen of them — fielding one or two questions at a time from the comfort of Mar-a-Lago. He spoke with reporters from The Atlantic, the Washington Post, Axios, the New York Times, ABC News and other media outlets, offering a scattershot array of justifications and timelines. To one outlet, the aim is “freedom for the people” of Iran. To another, perhaps this can end “in two or three days” with a deal. To a third, it might take “four to five weeks,” and he has “three very good choices” to take control in Tehran — until, in another conversation, he suggests those choices are dead. [...] Donald Trump’s war on the media has paid off. When the president bypasses traditional forums, it feels like just another norm shattered in an endless stream of shattered norms. When he declines to brief the public in a sustained way, it barely registers. When contradictions pile up, they are chalked up to style rather than substance. In the end, however, the punditry did not need to be coerced into cheerleading. It just needed, as it always has, the opportunity.

The Editorial Board of The New York Times wrote about four law firms that were attacked by the nasty guy and sued him rather than submit. Courts have already struck down the executive orders that attempted to punish them. And now the nasty guy’s administration has accepted defeat.

Nine other firms folded and struck deals intended to mollify the president. The deals included promises to perform millions of dollars of pro bono work on behalf of Trump-friendly clients. These nine firms all failed a high-stakes character test. Their leaders faced a choice between submitting to a bully and doing the right thing. The firms are not household names to most Americans, but it is worth listing them here. We hope that clients looking for fearless attorneys and law students deciding where to work will remember which elite firms were unwilling to fight back. Meekness is not a quality most people seek in a lawyer.

In the comments is a tweet by Saul Staniforth:

Pete Hegseth: "If you kill Americans.. anywhere on earth we will hunt you down without apology & without hesitation and we will kill you" Unless the American is killed by Israelis in the occupied West Bank, in which case we'll do nothing while we continue arming your killers.

John Karalis added:

*Offer not valid in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Commenter kurious quoted an article from Raw Story about military commanders saying the Iran attack will bring about the End Times. Here’s a bit of the quote:

"Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100 percent accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology," MRFF president Mikey Weinstein added.

Babylonbros posted a cartoon showing two people arguing:

One: Let’s go Trump!! Taking care of Israel and taking out Iran! Two: I’m writing that down! One: Okay. Two: Sign it, please! One: Okay. Two: Now date it! One: Okay. – Why? Two: I’m going to show it to you the minute yo blame the price of gas on Democrats!

AMusingFool responded to the comments, “Maybe this war will turn out fine.”

Just want to flag this line. There’s no such thing as a war turning out fine. Might end up as a geopolitical win, but that requires ignoring a s***-ton of terrible stuff in the middle.

Raging Pencils posted a cartoon showing a discussion between a teacher and student Billy:

Teacher: Billy, can you tell us the three branches of government? Billy: Sure! Reality TV, Fox News, and the Heritage Foundation. Teacher: Not quite, Billy. Try again. Billy: How about the extortionists, the lap-dogs, and the jaundiced? Teacher: Now Billy... Billy: Malfeasance, incompetence and sadism? Quisling day-care, the confederate short-bus, and pay-for-play due process? Teacher: Uhhhh... Billy: Child-f***ers, conservative enablers, and racists royalists! Am I getting warmer? Teacher, with head on desk, “Hot. Red hot.”

Nasty, rude, divisive, and as always, full of lies

Brother comes for a visit tomorrow. I probably won’t post again until the middle of next week. The nasty guy gave his State of the Union speech Tuesday night. Of course, I didn’t watch or listen. He set the record for the longest of such speeches, another reason not to listen. Daily Kos has several articles about the speech. Go find them there or at your favorite news source if you really need more information. I’ll stick to just three articles. The first is by Kos of Kos. His major point is Republicans really need to have something to run on for the November midterm election. And the nasty guy very much did not give them that. Kos took a few paragraphs to highlight why the nasty guy’s approval rating is so low – voters definitely do not agree that now is “the golden age of America,” the phrase the nasty guy used to open his marathon speech.

But Trump didn’t just fail to connect with voters’ economic anxiety. He was nasty, rude, divisive, and as always, full of lies. At a time when the nation is still basking in the warm sportsmanship of American athletes at the Olympic Games in Italy, Trump lashed out at his perceived enemies, taking repeated and nasty shots at the Democrats, blue states and cities, and various ethnic groups. ... If anything, Trump’s overall message was, “The country has never been better, but WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!”

In the second article Lisa Needham of Kos noted the nasty guy did not mention Minneapolis and his “success” in removing the “worst of the worst.” Could it be because the effort was so massively unpopular? He did mention Minnesota, as in accusing massive fraud by Somali-Americans in child care subsidies for low income families. Of course, he used numbers ridiculously high. I heard about this in the morning news with NPR host A Martínez talking to reporter Matt Sepic. It again left me puzzled. When Republicans accuse federal programs of fraud they move to stop the funding, not to offer help in combating the fraud. In this case Gov. Tim Walz says they are already working to minimize the fraud. But they are having difficulty because most of the experts in combating fraud in the FBI have left in protest over the nasty guy’s actions after the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In the last article I’ll bother with, Oliver Willis of Kos discussed the sanewashing perpetrated by mainstream media. They excused his behavior by saying he “put on a show” and had a “showman’s theatricality.” His blatant lies were described as a “reframe.” The low approval rating showed voters were merely “dissatisfied.” Republicans were said to be “breathing a sigh of relief” – well, they did praise the speech. Willis described the speech, saying, “When he wasn’t lying he was being racist.”

Since 2015, the mainstream press has worked overtime to present an image of Trump that doesn’t match up with reality. They simply omit his worst offenses or summarize his statements and actions without providing context to their audiences. When he makes disastrous mistakes, they are morphed into mere “blunders” and at moments like the State of the Union this drive to clean up after Trump goes into overdrive. Fortunately, this strategy isn’t really working among the public at large.

Needham looked at the Supreme Court decision that overturned some of the nasty guy’s tariffs. The whole thing was 170 pages, though the actual ruling was rather short, no more than 44 pages. It was the side commentary and dissents that added to the page count. Needham described those extra pages. Kavanaugh took 62 pages to show how smart he is, to flatter the nasty guy, and to offer a guide on how to keep tariffs going after the rest of the justices called them unconstitutional. Gorsuch, though in the majority, wrote a concurrence that “is pure whine and snarl, lashing out at everyone for not being as amazing and smart as he is. For 46 pages.” Part of it was complaining that Congress needs to “get off their butts” as Needham paraphrased it. Odd, coming from a guy who has been giving the nasty guy all he wants so that Congress isn’t necessary. Thomas, in a brief 18 pages, explained how the nasty guy could institute tariffs without Congress. That was some mangling of definitions so Congress could give away its power. “That’s horrifying, ahistorical, and too weird even for Alito.” Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that we know the FBI and Justice Department haven’t released all the Epstein files. We know that through reporting by NPR and confirmed by MS Now. We know it because one witness, who accused the nasty guy of sexual assault when she was 15 or younger, was reportedly interviewed by the FBI four times in 2019. However, only one of those interviews appears in the files that have been released. No surprise that the one that was released doesn’t mention the nasty guy. Einenkel provided a link to the NPR story, which is here. The audio is 3 minutes (I didn’t listen), though the associated article appears to be much longer. From the article:

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have already been investigating this allegation against the president and will now open a parallel investigation into the DOJ's decision not to release these particular documents. ... In a Feb. 14 letter to members of Congress first reported by Politico, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche insist that no records were withheld or redacted "on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary."

Kos of Kos discussed the latest from the Make America Healthy Again movement headed by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr. They want support from the full Republican Party and to do that MAHA Action president Tony Lyons is trying to find the right message to turn “a toxic brew of wellness culture and institutional distrust” into an actual winnable coalition. So far they seem to relying on polls built on...

That’s “message testing.” You write a paragraph that makes your side sound like common sense and the opponent sound reckless, strip away party labels and governing records, and then treat the results like a revelation. ... If MAHA was truly a transformative political force, Republicans wouldn’t need to tiptoe around its core message—they’d be running on it. Instead, the memo urges nuance and careful phrasing, because they know the raw version doesn’t sell. Ultimately, the things MAHA claims to champion—safer drugs, healthier food, fewer environmental toxins—aren’t partisan tenets. This is generic stuff everyone cares about. The real divide shows up when it comes to science, regulation, and who actually confronts industry power in the real world.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Jennifer Weiss-Wolff of The Contrarian. The quote is long so here’s my summary: When pregnant children are apprehended by immigration enforcement they are being sent to a facility in San Benito, Texas. Pregnant children were likely raped and likely have sexually transmitted diseases that make pregnancy dangerous. At San Benito they are less likely to get the care they need. Why San Benito? According to the Project 2025 playbook it is because Texas has banned abortion. Here’s another summary of a quote by Timothy Snyder writing in his “Thinking About…” Substack. “Fascism demands a chosen enemy, and victims.” But, the current attack on immigrants has produced stasis, not the jump from “competitive authoritarianism” to outright fascism. It has also produced sustained protest. So the nasty guy needs more:

To complete the fascist transition, Trump has to give the country a war it does not want, and win it, and transform the society. He has brought us to the doorstep of a major war with Iran: but in the State of the Union, speaking about war preparations, he was looking around hopelessly and waving his hands. He is happy to talk about war with Iran, and hope somehow that others will deliver it. But he cannot do it himself. Americans do not want such a war. But that is not exactly Trump’s problem. Germans did not want a war with Poland in 1939, either. But Hitler fought one anyway, and won it quickly. Trump’s problem is that he does not know how to fight a war. And he flounders.

Snyder says the nasty guy must win that war. Snyder also says he doesn’t know how to fight one. That suggests if he does start one he’s likely to lose. I guess that’s a blessing? In the comments kurious linked to two news articles about the corruption in the nasty guy administration. One is from Bloomberg, the other from Daily News. Then he has a quote box, though doesn’t say which article he is quoting. Perhaps both. The box does list the corruption and crimes and some of them have links to sources. Murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti, slandered them, and allowed their killers to go free. Violated the rights of citizens and non-citizens. Killed dozens on the high seas. Released the hundreds of Jan. 6 felons. Threatened to seize Greenland, a NATO ally. Called for the execution of members of Congress for telling military personnel of their duty to disobey illegal orders. Repeatedly violated court orders. Shaken down large universities.

Viewing the Trump administration as a massive crime syndicate allows us to be clear-eyed about what is coming down the road, and to plan accordingly. To take the most urgent example, there ought to be no question as to whether Trump will try to steal the midterm elections. Of course he will try to steal them. Criminals gonna crime. It is every patriotic American’s duty to oppose the coming effort to nullify the will of the voters.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, listed the winners of the Minnesota Department of Transportation contest to name its snowplows. Some of this year’s winning names:

Oh, for Sleet’s Sake Flurrious George K Pop Blizzard Hunter. O Brother, Where Art Plow? Minne-Snow-ta