The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Iran war are here. From the pinned item at 4:45 am ET: “Tensions continued to escalate over the Strait of Hormuz.... [Donald] Trump announced a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports along the strait after high-level negotiations with Iran broke down over the weekend, and said that other countries would join in. But on Monday, several European leaders rejected the idea, and several ships coming from Iran were able to cross the Strait of Hormuz in the hours before and after the U.S. military blockade..., including one tanker that the U.S. had sanctioned]... In Washington, Israeli and Lebanese officials were set to hold rare talks on Tuesday, as Israel’s continued bombardment of Lebanon and expanded ground operations strained a fragile cease-fire with Iran. The meeting is expected to be largely preparatory.... The sides remain far apart, with Lebanon calling for a cease-fire and Israel signaling it would continue its campaign against Hezbollah.”
David Sanger & Tyler Pager of the New York Times: “As details of Mr. Vance’s 21-hour visit to Pakistan spilled out on Monday, people familiar with the negotiations said the U.S. position was not a permanent ban on nuclear enrichment by Iran. Instead, the United States proposed a 20-year 'suspension' of all nuclear activity. That would allow the Iranians to claim they had not permanently given up their right, under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to produce their own nuclear fuel. In response, Iran renewed a proposal that it suspend nuclear activity for up to five years....The Iranians had made a very similar proposal in February during a failed set of negotiations in Geneva that convinced President Trump it was time to go to war.... So the revelation that the two sides are now arguing over the time period for suspending nuclear activity suggests that there may well be room for a deal, and there were indications on Monday that negotiators may meet again in the coming days.” The rest of the report is worth reading. ~~~
~~~ Marie: One thing that is clear: here again the Trumplodytes are trying -- and so far failing -- to put Iran in the position it was in before Trump and his diabolical gnomish sidekick Bibi went on their bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran campaign. For Old Man Trump, this was a war of whim, a war without a purpose, killing some two thousand people, costing billions directly and billions more indirectly, and costing the U.S. every last friend the country had. Trump was elected in 2016 largely on a promise of "no new, stupid wars." This is the stupidest war ever. And he thinks he was robbed when the Norwegian Nobel committee didn't give him the Peace Prize?? As Rebecca Solnit strongly implies in an essay akaWendy linked yesterday, violence is not power; it is an admission of weakness. Solnit points out numerous proofs that Trump and the men in his administration don't understand that. At all.
The New York Times Goes There. Peter Baker: “As the president threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope, even some former allies and advisers are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced, describing him as 'lunatic' and 'clearly insane.'... Never in modern times has the stability of a president been so publicly and forensically debated — and with such profound consequences. Democrats who have long challenged Mr. Trump’s psychological fitness have issued a fresh chorus of calls to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from power for disability. But it is not just a concern voiced by partisans on the left, late-night comics or mental health professionals making long-distance diagnoses. It can be heard now among retired generals, diplomats and foreign officials. And most strikingly, it can be heard now on the political right among onetime allies of the president.... Mr. Trump fired back in a long, angry social media post that did not exactly radiate calm stability.... The dissent on the right has not extended to Congress, where Republican lawmakers remain publicly loyal to the president, nor has it reached the cabinet, which would have to approve any invocation of the 25th Amendment, rendering that idea moot....
“John F. Kelly, [Mr. Trump's] longest serving White House chief of staff in the first term, even bought a book by 27 ... specialists called 'The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,' in an effort to understand his boss and came to the conclusion that he was mentally ill.” (Also linked yesterday.) See RAS's commentary on this near the end of yesterday's thread. ~~~
~~~ Claire Moses of the New York Times: “Shortly after criticizing Pope Leo XIV in a lengthy social media post on Sunday..., [Donald] Trump shared an apparently A.I.-generated image depicting him as a Jesus-like figure. The image was posted on the president’s account on his social media platform, Truth Social, but had disappeared from his profile by late Monday morning. Mr. Trump told reporters outside the Oval Office soon after that he had taken down the post.... There was a swift backlash to Mr. Trump’s post across the political and ideological spectrum, including from some prominent conservatives.While speaking to reporters on Monday, [Mr.] Trump said that he would not apologize for his attacks on Pope Leo. 'I’m just responding to Pope Leo,' he said. 'There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.'” The Guardian has a report here. (Also linked yesterday.)~~~
~~~ Update. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: “The image showed ... [Donald] Trump in a white and red robe, commonly used in renderings of Jesus Christ and in Scripture prophesying his return. Bright golden light, which is used to depict divine intervention in religious imagery, radiated from Mr. Trump’s hand as he touched the forehead of a sick man. A woman observed the scene with her hands steepled in prayer. As he received two bags of a McDonald’s food delivery to the Oval Office on Monday morning, Mr. Trump told reporters that he did not catch all that religious imagery. He said he had thought the image he had posted to his Truth Social account had depicted him not as Jesus — but as a physician. 'I thought it was me as a doctor,' Mr. Trump said of the social media post, which he deleted after an outcry. 'Only the fake news could come up with that.'” (Also linked yesterday.) Politico's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: See, it was all just a perfectly reasonable misunderstanding. Is Trump (a) incredibly stupid, or (b) does he think we are? The answer is (c) Yes. ~~~
~~~ Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post reads the messages in Trump's portrait: “There is a frightening urgency in the clumsy, AI-generated image of ... Donald Trump posing as a saintly figure, perhaps Jesus himself.... In the rapid and angry response to the meme, one sensed a coalition beginning to crack, and in the message itself — unfiltered, offensive and unhinged — one sensed the instability of the man who disseminated it.... The Trump-as-healer image is overstuffed with people, or rather, The People, a homogenized assembly reduced to the basic archetypes of awe, rapture, resilience and determination. And dependence.... It flatters the president in ways that conform to his well-known insecurities, filling in his thinning hair.... If the bond between Trump and his loyal base is the fuel that has allowed him to power through controversies and chaos that would have derailed any other politician, this image suggests the reactor is growing unstable. It isn’t just that Trump has a core of messianic supporters, who recognize no lines between church and state. Now it’s clear that while Trump has fed off their fervor, he has never really understood who they are, what they believe, and where their red lines are drawn.” ~~~
of the New York Times: “Unlike his predecessor, Leo has growing support from conservative Catholics in pews across the United States. As the anniversary of his election approaches next month, he has so significantly rebuilt the Vatican’s relationship with the American Catholic right that many in Mr. Trump’s own camp rushed to the pope’s defense on Monday. Interviews with conservatives attending Mass at Catholic parishes across the country revealed significant displeasure with the president for his harsh criticism of the pope, a dynamic hard to imagine not long ago.... '[Leo is] a very disciplined, reserved person, and that makes his criticism that much harder to dismiss,' said David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University.” ~~~
~~~ J.V. Last of the Bulwark: "This is what it looks like when a man is spiraling out of control and reaching for something — anything — to get well. This is playing on tilt. In poker, when a player is on tilt he loses the ability to judge between good and bad risks. He’s so desperate that he pushes all-in not because he has the nuts, but because he thinks he has no choice. He chases cards, refuses to walk away, and turns what could just be a run of bad luck into full-on bankruptcy. That’s where Trump is right now." ~~~
~~~ Robyn Pennacchia of Wonkette puts the whole kerfuffle in context, including news about White Sox pope hats. MB: Also too, I wish everyone would stop calling Leo "the first American pope." IMO, that would be Francis, who was born in Argentina. Which would be in South America. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I often wonder how young people can get through good universities without learning much in the way of life lessons. Case in point: JayDee, who has degrees from Ohio State & Yale Law. Here he is, obviously picking the wrong horse. Not only that, he doesn't seem to have the foggiest idea of what "morality" is (I guess that should not come as a surprise): ~~~
~~~ Chris Cameron of the “Vice President JD Vance, the highest-ranking Catholic in the federal government, said in an interview on Fox News on Monday that the pope should stay out of American affairs. Mr. Vance, a convert to Catholicism who is about to publish a book detailing his turn to the faith, brushed off a backlash among Christians across the political spectrum to ... [Donald] Trump’s attacks against Pope Leo XIV. He said 'that in some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality.'” MB: Cameron, BTW, is as clueless as JayDee. He compares JayDee's defense of Trump's war to John Kennedy's famous defense of maintaining his own faith while neither requesting nor accepting “instructions on public policy from the pope.” Kennedy was explaining and defending the separation of church and state. JayDee is defending a war of whim and Trump's attack on the Pope; in the course of that defense, JayDee also attacks the Pope. Since Cameron didn't know better, his editor should have.
Not. Even. Close. Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: “A federal judge on Monday tossed ... Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for reporting on a racy letter he purportedly wrote to commemorate Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles concluded that Trump came 'nowhere close' to asserting that the newspaper’s actions revealing the existence and contents of the note amounted to the 'actual malice' needed for Trump to prevail in a defamation case.... Gayles gave Trump’s team the chance to salvage the lawsuit, providing his lawyers two weeks to file a revised complaint that alleges more evidence of 'actual malice.' A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the president’s lawyers will take the judge up on that offer.... The letter was later released in a batch of files provided by the late Epstein’s estate to congressional investigators probing the disgraced financier’s sex trafficking operation.” (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times report is here.
Gays Beat Trump. We All Win. Liam Stack of the New York Times: “The federal government agreed on Monday that the rainbow Pride flag could fly at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan, in a rare instance of the Trump administration’s backing down from its nationwide attack on diversity initiatives. The administration’s order to remove the Pride flag in February from the monument, which is in Greenwich Village, drew fierce backlash from L.G.B.T.Q. people across the country and state and local elected officials in New York, who saw it as an attack on the symbolic heart of the gay rights movement. The agreement, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, settled a lawsuit by a group of nonprofits. They argued that the government had illegally targeted L.G.B.T.Q. people and violated a policy that allows the National Park Service to fly “non-agency” flags at federal sites if the flags provide historical context. It is under that policy that Confederate flags are allowed to be flown at sites managed by the Park Service, including Gettysburg National Military Park.” The link appears to be a gift link. The Advocate's report is here.
Librarians Beat Trump. We All Win. Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has reached a settlement with the American Library Association and a union of cultural workers, bringing to an end its yearlong effort to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency. The settlement, reached by the Justice Department last week, affirms that the agency will continue issuing grants and operating its programs, which provide support to institutions in every state and territory. The Trump administration reaffirmed that it had reinstated all previously canceled grants, in keeping with a separate legal ruling last year, and reversed all staff reductions. It also promised not to take any further steps to reduce the agency. Sam Helmick, the president of the American Library Association, said the threats had set off 'a chain reaction' of cuts in services and called the settlement a victory for 'every American’s freedom to read and learn.'”
Ernesto Londoño of the New York Times: “After using a battering ram to break down the door of a home in St. Paul [earlier this year], federal agents handcuffed ChongLy Scott Thao and led him outside in subzero temperatures wearing only boxer shorts and slip-on shoes. On Monday, local law enforcement officials announced that they were weighing whether federal agents should face criminal charges, including kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, over the detention of Mr. Thao on Jan. 18. John J. Choi, the elected prosecutor in Ramsey County, said that his office had formally sought information from the Department of Homeland Security about Mr. Thao’s arrest, including the names of the agents who took him into custody. It was the latest effort by Minnesota prosecutors to pursue criminal cases stemming from the immigration operation carried out by thousands of agents in Minnesota this winter, although legal experts say that any such prosecutions would face significant legal and practical obstacles.” The AP's report is here.
Heather Cox Richardson: “... it appears that CPAC was funded by a foreign government [--Orban's Hungary --] that was working closely with Vladimir Putin. In a speech today, [Peter] Magyar told reporters that the outgoing foreign minister, who has been accused of working closely with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, was shredding confidential documents. The influence of Orbán on the U.S. right wing marked a change in Republican politics.... Before Trump won the presidency in 2016, the modern-day Republican Party was well on its way to endorsing oligarchy. It had followed the usual U.S. historical pattern to that point. In the 1850s, 1890s, 1920s, and then again in the modern era, wealthy people had come around to the idea that society worked best if a few wealthy men ran everything.... When Trump was elected, the U.S. was at the place where wealth had concentrated among the top 1%.... Since taking power, Trump and Vance have followed Orbán’s model both at home and internationally.”
~~~~~~~~~~
New York. Andy Newman, et al., of the New York Times: “A protest in Manhattan on Monday against arms sales to Israel, held at the doorstep of the offices of New York’s two Democratic senators, led the police to detain about 90 people, including Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who leaked classified documents to WikiLeaks. The demonstrators blocked traffic by sitting down in the middle of Third Avenue in Midtown. The protest, organized by several groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace, was tied to an effort by Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, to halt the shipment of American weapons to Israel. 'I will be forcing a vote on legislation to block the sale of nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of bombs and bulldozers to the Israeli military,' Mr. Sanders wrote on social media Monday morning. The police said Monday night that about 90 people had been taken into custody. They did not have a breakdown of what offenses the people were charged with.”
California. Somebody writing an opinion piece on Bloomberg, cited by Carl Quintanilla of CNBC, cited by digby: "Of all the prevailing media narratives around Gavin Newsom, the one that is most conspicuous by its absence is how under its two-term governor California became the top performing economy not just among its 49 siblings but also any developed nation...." digby sez: "Americans vote on personality, looks and charisma not accomplishment and a lot of people just don’t like Newsom. (Is it the hair???) But he has been a good governor of a huge and often ungovernable state. I just think it’s good to point that out once in a while before we decide which candidate we’d like to have a beer with." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm perfectly willing to stipulate that I might be wrong, but Newsom is one of those pols I don't trust. So was Eric Swalwell. I'm not saying I'm insightful about this; I'm not. And maybe I'm being unfair, something I try to avoid. But sincerity is an element of public service that matters to me, and I don't think either of these guys is sincere.
California. Jill Cowan of the New York Times: “Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman from the San Francisco Bay Area, said on Monday that he was resigning from the House after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staff member and engaged in misconduct with other women. The accusations, published in articles by The San Francisco Chronicle and CNN, prompted rescinded endorsements, a criminal investigation and, now, his exit from politics. Mr. Swalwell has denied the accusations.” This is an update of a story linked yesterday. The NBC News story, also updated, is here. ~~~
~~~ Melanie Mason & Jeremy White of Politico: “The broad contours of Swalwell’s alleged behavior, if not the specifics, did not come as a surprise to many working in and around politics, especially in Washington. The 45-year-old cable news darling and Trump antagonist had developed a reputation for unsavory and sometimes unwanted behavior toward women. Those warnings were shared in whisper networks but rarely traveled outside the circle of political insiders. That is, until Swalwell sought a promotion to lead the nation’s most populous state and a pair of content creators worked to spill that open secret into public view. His breakneck undoing is a testament to the striking power of a new media ecosystem in which influencers with huge audiences can not only publicize politicians, but control the political conversation.” An interesting tale. ~~~
~~~ Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: “Representative Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican accused of a coercive sexual relationship with a staff member who later killed herself, announced that he would resign from Congress amid growing bipartisan outcry from House members. Mr. Gonzales, a third-term congressman whose border district stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, was embroiled in a bitter primary fight when text messages became public that documented his pursuit of a female staff member. He announced last month that he was withdrawing from the race.” Politico's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) The NBC News story is here. ~~~
~~~ As Rachel Maddow remarked last night, after the allegations against Swalwell became public, it took Democrats only a couple of days to drum him out of his race for governor and his seat in Congress. Republicans, on the other hand, were willing to put up with Gonzales' alleged but well-documented abuses until it looked as if they would have to vote on expelling Swalwell, thus more-or-less compelling a vote on Gonzales. Indeed, Republicans are veritable supplicants to a man who -- before being elected president* the first time -- was caught on tape boasting about abusing women all the time.
~~~~~~~~~~
Canada. Ian Austen of the New York Times: “After months of backroom political intrigue, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada on Monday gained a majority in the House of Commons after special parliamentary elections, solidifying the Liberal Party’s hold on power. Since late last year, five members of opposition parties have joined the Liberals, one as recently as last week, bringing Mr. Carney within a single vote of the 172 needed for a majority. CBC News projected on Monday night that Liberal candidates won all three elections, giving Mr. Carney a majority.” This is an update of a story linked yesterday.
Hungary. Amelia Nierenberg & Lili Rutai of the New York Times: “... when news came that [Primi Minister Vikto] Orban had lost [the national elections Sunday] — decisively — he delivered a swift concession speech. And Hungarians erupted in celebration. 'A huge sense of relief and joy has taken over public life,' Romeo Toth, a butcher and cook, wrote in a social media message. 'Now,' he added, 'we finally have democracy.' Mr. Toth joined a crowd Sunday night on the banks of the Danube River, across from the stately Parliament Building. Many people held burning torches, shimmering orange on the dark water.”
~~~ Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic: “... if Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too. Applebaum outlines how Péter Magyar's party won even though Orbán and his party control the government and most of the media.” Thanks to akaWendy for this gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)
21 comments:
Marie wrote: “One thing that is clear: here again the Trumplodytes are trying -- and so far failing -- to put Iran in the position it was in before Trump and his diabolical gnomish sidekick Bibi went on their bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran campaign.”
Quite. And diabolical is not in any way too harsh a description of the Mad Genocider who has become addicted to murder.
Fatty and his frighteningly incompetent stooges are also locked into a belief that they are negotiating with Iran as if his war of whim ended as a decisive and total victory over a country that has surrendered unconditionally.
Trump LOST his war. Based on every metric of complete victory, he lost. Full stop. And this isn’t like a boxing match where one side can win on points even without a knockout. All Iran needed to do was survive, and by controlling the Strait of Hormuz and maintaining the ability to continue striking its enemies (and let’s face it, Neighboring nations friendly to the Fat Hitler are exactly that for Iran) they have achieved a sort of victory.
At the negotiation table, they are demanding to be treated not like whipped dogs, but equals in what is now basically a kind of stalemate. Why should they hand Fatty something he was unable to achieve militarily.
Once again, Trump believes that he deserves a “win” even though he couldn’t wrest one even with help from the diabolical Netanyahu.
It’s not that he doesn’t understand this, which he doesn’t. More importantly, he’s too stupid to see it and equally too stupid to figure a way out.
Chicken
"China Tells the US to Stay Out as Beijing Vows to Keep Sending Ships Through the Strait of Hormuz"
Costs
"Trump’s federal workforce changes cost the economy more than $165.6B, analysis finds
The Partnership for Public Service report includes the costs of the deferred resignation program, severance pay for laid-off civil servants and federal employees who were on paid administrative leave while their firings were challenged in court."
Didn't Listen
Incompetence
"Whistleblower says Trump officials thought USAID did 'just abortions,' asked for 'Barney-style' slides before gutting agency, per new book
Read an exclusive excerpt from Nicholas Enrich's "Into the Wood Chipper""
Protests
"New York Times and WSJ editors continue to trivialize massive pro-democracy demonstrations. Analysis of "No Kings 3" front pages. Local editors continue to shine."
"Trump killed Direct File, a free tax reporting option that IRS had built.
This tax season, American taxpayers will spend billions of hours and hundreds of billions of dollars — not to pay their taxes, but to report them to the government. In addition to tariff- and war-induced inflation, they can also thank President Trump for allowing this time tax to grow."
Newsom's character and judgment? I can't get past the fact that he married Kimberly Guilfoyle. I mean, love is blind, but ... sheeeesh!
RAS,
Re: the general "meh" take by corporate media on the gigantic No Kings rallies.
A week or so ago, I compared the astroturf Tea Party to No Kings. The Tea Party was started with money from billionaires like the Kochs who had a lot to gain by firing up the mob to get their taxes reduced. The insurance giants got interested when they realized they could mobilize the mob to end the ACA and force Americans back to highway robbery health insurance rates. The Tea Party was covered like it was WWIII, like it was the biggest story in the country, and that coverage continued for YEARS.
The largest Tea Party rally was held on April 15, 2009. It took place in a reported 750 cities and involved over 300,000 Tea Partiers.
No Kings? 3,300 locations and 9 million Americans.
Guess which one got wall to wall coverage? Guess which one was booted to the funny papers after 12 hours?
Corporate media, more and more, slithers up next to the power and doesn't want to make any unnecessary waves, otherwise, they'll be sued by the Fat Fascist. Also, they don't want to seem in any way liberal, although No Kings is primarily about that: NO KINGS, and not solely the province of liberal ideology. If it's "liberal" to protest against authoritarianism and it's the fat despot who demands he be treated like a king, then so be it. But the corporate media wants to keep that off the front page as much as possible. If, however, some new version of the astroturf Tea Party were to reemerge, it would once again be provided with enormous coverage and gushing profiles of the Real 'Muricans it supposedly represents.
Boys, this is my church!
Shady Vance, when not canoodling with comfy couches, sniffs that the Catholic Church should mind its business and stick to morality. As Ken pointed out yesterday, I guess that means that as a Fat Hitler testicle cozy, Shady has no truck with morality, and in his understanding, morality has no place in MAGA politics. I guess we already knew that.
Pope Leo has a different idea. In fact, any philosopher who takes a dive into the concept of morality does as well. Politicians make moral judgments every day whether they see it that way or not. If you're dealing with other human beings, then there's no getting around the fact that you are making moral judgments.
Fatty and Vance tell Pope Leo to stick to his church, meaning, stay up in the pulpit, preach on Sundays and do your little bits of business but don't utter a word about their high crimes and misdemeanors, and do not, under any circumstances, think you're gonna be criticizing their immoral, amoral, unethical, and thoroughly inhumane policies and actions.
I included a clip from the film "On the Waterfront" in which a priest (played by Karl Malden--maybe his best role) gets involved with dockworkers and their troubles with a union run by mobsters and murderers. After a man who was ready to testify about mob activities on the docks is murdered, the priest shows up on the cargo ship, He is assaulted by mobsters who tell him to "Go back to your church, Father!" His reply, pointing to the body of the murdered man: "Boys, THIS is my church".
Vance and Fat Hitler are the mobsters telling the Pope to mind his own business and go back to his church.
Fromt the Pope's point of view, when human beings are being killed unnecessarily in a war of whim, THAT is his business.
But the Pope clearly doesn't understand that Fatty IS Jesus.
Guess he needs to keep up with the MAGA meme of the day.
Thinking about morality and politics, I was remembering a classic thought experiment by the philosopher and teacher John Rawls. In his book "Theory of Justice" (a great read, btw), Rawls develops his idea of the Veil of Ignorance.
Say you’re putting together a society and you’re deciding on the rules by which everyone lives. The only truly fair and just way to do this is to have no idea what your place in that society will be, in other words, you are behind the veil of ignorance. So, you might think it’s perfectly okay to own slaves, but how would you feel if the wheel spins round and your place in that society comes up “Slave”? Would you maybe think about changing your mind about how that society was structured?
How would Trump or Stephen Miller feel if they were the ones who had to live as immigrants being hunted and beaten and tortured and perhaps murdered by ICE agents? How would Supreme Court decisions differ if the justices who always choose authoritarianism, white supremacy, and misogyny woke up one morning and found that they were now a poor black girl in Texas?
There's plenty of ignorance in the Fat Hitler Reich. Just not the useful kind.
Thinking about costs, how about we get a better idea of how much Fat Hitler's War of Stoopid is really costing us. Yesterday, the radio program On Point, coming from WBUR in Boston, covered exactly this, the true cost of war..
At one point they played a speech I had never heard before. It's known as the Chance for Peace speech, given by President Eisenhower in 1953. In it, he outlines not just how much a bomber costs, but what we lose by building a single one.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people."
This is not to suggest that we build no bombers or destroyers, but to make clear that the cost of war is not simply measured in bullets and bombs. Fatty's war is costing the US taxpayers $2 billion a day. A Tomahawk missile costs between $2 and $4 million. We've fired hundreds. How much does it cost us to keep all those Marines on high alert in the Middle East? But also what is the cost of lost productivity, of healthcare for wounded vets?
Fatty is now saying we can't pay for daycare because he needs more money to pay for his war. He says we cannot now pay for daycare or other "little scams" like Medicare and Medicaid. He really did call these Medicare, Medicaid, and daycare scams.
During the Decider's War of Choice, he and Rumsfeld predicted it would cost no more than $40 billion. It ended up costing more than $3 TRILLION. And when a budget analyst, Larry Lindsey, predicted it would cost a lot more than what Bush and Rumsfeld said, he was fired.
Hmmm...didn't Fatty recently fire a budget analyst for daring to challenge his fantasy numbers with real world statistics?
Who knows how much this fat fuck will blow on this stupid and needless war. But as always, we'll be picking up the check.
It looks like the woman delivering Door Dash McDonald's to Trump has been identified as Sharon Simmons, and she is a ringer - a GOP operative. What a shock!
https://x.com/_KellyIJust/status/2043864902150799794?s=20
Victoria,
Yeah, shocker, right? Another Fat Hitler scam. And amazingly, they even had a makeup artist on hand to do a touch up before the photo op of this incredibly spontaneous event. Regular guy Fatty, getting Door Dash to deliver his cardiac burgers. Just forget all about that pesky war and how he attacks the pope. He’s just good ol’ Donnie and that lady just happened to love being able to thank him for being the best prez evah!
Everything he does or says is a lie. But I guess he’ll get a 15 minute special on Fox and the MAGAts will swoon.
Con man Don, at it again.
He even joked about the set up to the press as they were promoting his propaganda.
"“This doesn’t look staged,” joked the president, who used the delivery to promote his “no tax on tips” initiative with the filing deadline for most Americans two days away.
When asked if Simmons got a good tip, the president reached into his pocket, pulled out the Benjamin and handed it to her. “Yes,” she replied. Simmons, sporting a red t-shirt reading “DoorDash Grandma” told the president his delivery order contained “your favorites.”"
Cognitive Assessment Exam
Obvious
"America's wealth gap is growing, and Trump's policies are making it bigger
President Donald Trump has cut programs helping lower-income households while advancing policies benefiting the wealthy and corporations."
So here's the Idolator in Chief directing everyone to worship him as a god, attacking the Catholic Pope, throwing shade on the Muslim faith (along with murdering thousands of them, just in case they missed his "Kill your civilization" memo), and pretty much insulting any other religion he runs across (or over).
Surely there must be SOMEONE of true faith, hope, humility, love, and decency in his inner circle he can turn to for spiritual advice.
Right?
"Paula White-Cain:
She left her first husband, dumped the second one after cheating on him, then married a member of the rock band Journey, broke into the band’s bank account & embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars after committing fraud and running a Ponzi scheme. Now she’ll lead the White House Faith Office"
A grifter like you rarely see...even in the Fat Hilter Reich, and man, that's saying something. "I'm not asking for anything, but if you just empty your bank account and send it all to me...."
And don't miss this scheming sleaze bag "talking in voices". It sounds like James Brown after a sex change and a night of coke and booze.
T'his is the person who Fatty has hanging around for "spiritual" advice.
Be not surprised, oh thou of little faith. They grifteth for Jesus.
RAS,
I know one person who would fail that cognitive exam. And a lot others as well: tests for decency and basic humanity, tests for math, science, fourth grade English, geography, intro economics, and history. We'll skip advanced subjects like basic logic and biology. How about good taste? Um...never mind. He's a waddling, hulking mass of FAIL.
Hey kids, in case you didn't know it or aren't tied in to some woo-woo network of mopes and cretins, Diet Coke kills cancer cells. So sez the Orange Monster.
During a podcast or Youtube thingie with Eight-ball Junior, Dr. Oz revealed that his boss, Fat Hitler, informed him that he drank heavily processed sodas because they kill cancer cells. How does he know? I mean, he's not exactly Empirical Science Guy. But he spends SO much time on golf courses, and he's probably peed enough Diet Coke onto the grass that he found out that the stuff he drinks by the gallon actually does kill plant life. Just the stuff you want in your body, Nonetheless, he uses this observation as proof that soda must also kill cancer cells, ergo, he must be insulated against any cancer, another reason to imbibe heavily.
Of course, "...research suggests that high consumption of artificially sweetened drinks is associated with higher risks of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular issues" so there's that. Unfortunately, none of that has been much help so far.
Nonetheless, in the course of their "discussion", they both seemed to arrive at the conclusion that Fatty was a genius in every known area of mankind, including his cancer cure.
Everything he does, no matter how stupid is considered evidence of his godlike nature.
Surprised?
Aquinas Vance lectures the Pope on theology.
The couch assaulter, who has been a Catholic for all of six or seven years, is wagging his finger at the Pope, who has been a Catholic priest longer than that insufferable twit has been alive, Vancesplaining that the Pope is no expert in theology, at least not like he is.
The absolute fucking gall of these people. Vance sez there is a thousand year tradition of the "Just War Theory". Who came up with that idea? Is this a god idea?
Per Wikipedia:
"The just war theory (Latin: bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics that aims to ensure that a war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. It has been studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policymakers. The criteria are split into two groups: jus ad bellum ("right to go to war") and jus in bello ("right conduct in war").
So...fucknuts, is Fat Hitler's war of whim morally justifiable? Is threatening genocide the "right conduct in war"?
These shitheads should make sure their asses are on solid ground before attacking everyone they hate and anyone who dares to stand up to them.
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