Having not really completed anything meaningful with Venezuela, other than having tasted blood and developing fondness for it, and having gotten us into an endless war with Iran we're losing, King Donny the Mad is about to launch a war against Cuba, starting with a claim that Raul Castro, age 94, must be brought to justice over a US civilian aircraft that was shot down by the Cubans in 1996.
Oh horse poop.
Some in Demented Donnie's administration have been drooling over a chance to attack Cuba since the easily manipulated narcissist illegitimately moved back into the Oval Office. Military action against Cuba has been a desire of displaced Cubans and their descendants in the US since 1959. If the US attacked the island and removed the government, Lil' Marco would claim it as a victory attributable to him, one way or another, in the 2028 Presidential campaign he's clearly running in.
That's part of the problem. Influential "Republicans" (there are no real Republicans left anymore) like Marco and the Robot Ted Cruz would do anything for a Cuba Libre other than actually live in Cuba.
Of course, with this administrations lust for territorial acquisition, as desire expressed by some imperialist Republicans going into the Spanish American War, the annexation of Cuba with the goal of making it a state, would be the more likely goal in the short term. If Trump, or Marco, pulled that off, the irony would be that it would be solidly Democratic and admitting Puerto Rico as a state would happen immediately thereafter.
Probably the only thing that's really been holding this up has been the commitment of forces to Iran, where Iran is deploying Muhammed Ali's old "rope a dope" strategy and refusing to surrender even though King Donny assures us he won and the war is over. Actually defeating Iran will require a ground invasion that even Donny, who can choke down killing schoolgirls, can't seem to muster up the will for and which the American public doesn't want. The war itself has already achieved a level of unpopularity matched by that of the Vietnam War after Tet.
But, the thought is, this will go better. . . or at least Cuban Americans will like the result.
The threats against Castro started a couple of days ago. Within the last twenty four hours China, which Trump went to and acted like a orphaned puppy, has warned the US to knock it off.
May 22, 2026
The future of Cuba belongs to the people of Cuba is terms of how they're governed, what the system looks like and so forth, but the national security threat, that's 100% something we're going to focus on because that's about America.
Marco Rubio.
What crap.
Cuba has been a Communist country since 1959 when Fidel Castro overthrow the authoritarian government there (it wasn't obvious he was Communist at first).
They have not attacked us since then.
We have, however, effectively attacked them, landing Cuban contras there in 1961.
Rubio knows this, however. His parents were immigrants from Cuba who came over before the 1959 revolution, and who actually planned on returning to the country before the Communist nature of the revolution became apparent.
And that's part of the problem here. Cuban Americans are never going back to Cuba, but they imagine Cuba Libre with the same zeal as Irish Americans imagined a Republican Ireland. In the latter case, that unthinking zeal helped contribute to decades of strife in Ireland, and here it's contributed to decades of misery in Cuba.
Efforts to force a political change in Cuba should have ceased in 1961 when John F. Kennedy withdrew air support for the Cuban contras. There was no good reason at all other than anger not to normalize economic relations with Cuba at least by the early 1980s. That's what we should do now.
Ho Chi Minh wouldn't recognize Communism in Vietnam today and, if transported from wherever his soul went to, he's be convinced that South Vietnam had won the war and reformed itself. If we weren't keeping Cuba on the trophy shelf of failures, the same would be true for Cuba.
But we live in a dangerous age. Donald Trump is desperately searching for something for Americans to remember him by (and we certainly have plenty to recall right now). Marco Rubio has the misplaced child of immigrants probable loyalty to an imaginary paradise or imaginary would be paradise.
We're cruising right back into Havana's harbor where every American military adventure to date has been a disaster.
Donald Trump, and perhaps more significantly Marco Rubio, are threatening Cuba again.
Trump is threatening, again, to invade the country, on the Navy's way back from Iran. The Navy would not appear to be coming back from the Persian Gulf anytime soon, really.
Rubio, however, specifically called for Cubans to align themselves with CIA operatives.
And the 2028 Presidential Season has begun. Erika Kirk of Turning Point USA has endorsed J. D. Vance.
And yes, it's way, way, early.
But perhaps its not surprising. Trump's mentally departing the stage and chance are good that he'll be out of office in the next few months, Vance is probably looking towards his future right now. His best chances for that position, of course, would be if Trump is escorted out of the building babbling about being the greatest and sent to a gilded retirement home.
But if that doesn't occur, the knives will be coming out before 2028. Marco Rubio will not have sat through four years of soul corrupting dementia not to take a run at the White House. No doubt others are in the wings.
One who may be in the wings, if I'm wrong on his being too demented to carry on in any fashion, is Donald Trump. Everyone keeps noting that he's constitutionally barred but he has no regard for the law in the first place and his threads to run need to be taken seriously.
On Vance, he's a true NatCon, although a recent convert to the philosophy, and his being backed by Turning Point means something, assuming that Turning Point doesn't fly apart or become highly diminished (which I think it will). It's hard to know exactly what's going on, but it might be suspected that it's probable that Kirk's coming out now has the backing of other significant NatCon figures, who know that they need to put their man in power now (Trump really isn't their man, but their tool). A figure like Rubio would turn the clock back.
And so the race is on.
December 22, 2025
It wasn't until listening to the weekend shows that I learned that Marco Rubio has endorsed Vance as well.
That's really interesting, and frankly surprising.
Cont:
And now the rumors are circulating, probably correctly, that Ted Cruz will be running.
Moreover. . . .
The NatCon nerve center and author of Project 2025 starts to come unglued as the Trump Administration does:
I've always thought Roberts' organization would maneuver to put Vance in power in 2026 and shove aside the Pine Tree flag folks, who don't have the intellectual capacity to run a government. The risk has always been that they'd hold the hand they were dealt too long.
They may have.
And Pence, who didn't look like a good candidate before, is starting to with some folks.
September 23, 2026
Christie with President Zelensky
Chris Christie has made what is effectively an announcement that he's running for the Presidency in 2028.
Christie is a solid and real conservative and is not only seeking to obtain the Oval Office, but to stage a counter insurgency against the populist MAGAs. This is a good time to do so, as the MAGA's are abandoning ship pretty rapidly as the bloom is off the Trump Stenchweed for everyone except the most diehard loyalist, many of whom are in the ignorant category. The MAGA's are floundering around like fish in the deck with the two presumed 2028 candidates for the Trump thrown, Marco Rubio and J. D. Vance having real trouble dealing with a legacy they both want to take and to avoid.
Christie was a Trump supporter after his first run for office in 2016 and was part of the Trump transition team. He got COVID 19 at a White House event, which shows how late he remained on Trump's team, sort of. It would seem that his loyalty was always somewhat cynical, as he never played that much of a role and his views don't dovetail with Trump's. Christie definitively broke with Trump on election night 2020 when he adamantly maintained that the election was not stolen and he's pulled away from him ever since. He's a frequent guest on the This Week panel where he's been a very vocal opponent of Trump's, while still being a conservative.
Christie's announcement brought out tons of criticism, some of it from people like me who have always opposed Trump. I understand that, but I feel it's unwarranted as Christie never compromised his own views and stood for them when the time came. His support for Trump was likely self serving, as is J. D. Vance's and Marco Rubio's. He's a real Republican, a real conservative, and in my view is a very good candidate. It's early, of course, but in this environment, positioning himself early, before the November 2026 election, would appear to be a good strategy.
I will note that the immediate opposition to Christie in some quarters is interesting. As noted, I get those who are disgruntled as he supported Trump in the first administration. But a lot of people just keep saying "he's fat".
Yeah, he is. So was Taft. So was Cleveland. So is Trump.
It's weird to think being fat would be a reason not to vote for a person, while being a serial polygamist isn't.
We should mention the Democrats as well.
No Democrat has announced or even gone as far as Christie with an announcement of intent to announce. That's likely a wise strategy as announcing in advance of the November election will give absolutely desperate Republicans something to focus on. An interesting development has happened, however, in that Gavin Newsom has been clearly testing the waters but came out saying he would not run if Kamala Harris does. Presenting a united front against the GOP is a good strategy, to be sure, but in 2028 the Democrats will not face Trump and the need to be united early may not really be there. Moreover, Harris is a terrible candidate. Harris would fit the mold, however, of Democrats re-running failed candidates.
September 25, 2026
Prior Pritzker logo.
JB Pritzker, who Trump likes to insult for being fat, even though Trump is fat, has effectively thrown his hat in the ring as well as of yesterday.
Pritzker is 80 lbs lighter than he was this time last year.
An interesting thing here is that we now have two ex Governor's from east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason Dixon line running for the GOP ticket. It's over two years until the 2028 election, but it's still noteworthy as this could very much reflect a shift in the GOP. Donald Trump is a New Yorker, of course, but he's basically from the State of Television. The last Republican President who was a true East Coaster was George H. W. Bush of Maine.
September 29, 2028
Robert Reich reports that Rahm Emanuel is thinking of running on the Democratic ticket.
I don't know that much about Emanuel, but I do know that the Democratic Party can blaze a way to defeat like no other. Given a chance to simply walk into the White House, and right now it's looking like they have one, they'll mess it up by picking a candidate that's unelectable.
Let's be perfectly frank about 2024. Donald Trump won in no small part as the Democrats picked two completely lousy candidates.
Joe Biden was obviously suffering from mental decline and allowed to run until it simply couldn't be ignored. Then they went to the next worse option, Harris.
I warned at the time that Harris was a bad choice, at which time I urged that they pick Tammy Duckworth.
Nope, Kamala Harris with her high pitched whiny voice and completely unworkable personality.
Uff.
There's plenty of rumors afoot that Harris is going to run again, which his repeating the mistake the Democrats made with Hillary Clinton. People didn't like Clinton, at all. The Democrats kept acting like her failures weren't her failures.
There's a serious risk that the Democrats do that again, and figure, sure she lost to Joe Biden in the primary, and sure she lost to a demented septuagenarian in the Presidential election, but, by golly, that means nothing.
Which of course has nothing to do with Emanuel. . . or maybe it does.
Emanuel is from the Clinton and Biden administrations. It's really clear that a lot of people are really trying to put distance between the past and the present and are disgusted with politicians in general who symbolize the past. About the only Democrat of old who could win now would be Barack Obama, and he can't run (although if the GOP finds some illegal way to run Trump. . . ). The Democrats need to move forward.
They also need to ditch the Baby Boomers like the stenchy worn out gym shorts they've become. There ought to be an age limit on anyone running in 2028. I'd put the cap at being born in 1965, which is the upper year for Generation Jones. If the Boomers haven't gotten things right by now, they're not going to.
On this, the Democrats also need to get Bernie Sanders to shut up. Nothing says Gerontocracy like having a million year old man running around as the voice of "progressivism"
Duckworth, fwiw, would be a good candidate. Amy Klobuchar would as well.
Basically, if you were born before 1965, or had a position in a prior administration, stay out.
Pritzker, I'd note, makes that cutoff.
So does Republican Chris Christie.
October 5, 2026
Rahm Emmanuel was on Meet the Press this weekend. He's clearly running, and frankly he sounded perfectly reasonable. I was impressed.
To all of this, the media and digital dimensions are adding new and decisive elements. Communication networks, fragmented information environments and algorithms that reward conflict can magnify polarization and resentment, increase propaganda and make shared discernment more difficult. Thus, war is not only fought, but also culturally conditioned through simplistic narratives, a friend-or-foe mentality, disinformation and fear. When historical memory fades and the ethical principles that protect civilians and the most vulnerable are weakened, it becomes easier to justify violence as necessary, inevitable or even “sanitized.” It is in this context that humanity is slipping into a violent culture of power, where peace no longer appears as a responsibility to be taken on, but as a fragile interval between conflicts. Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the “just war” theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated. [182] Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness. The use of force, violence and weapons reflects a relational poverty that always has disastrous consequences for civilian populations.
Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas.
When first released, almost all of the attention given to Magnifica Humanitas was on his discussion of Artificial Intelligence, but then somebody noticed is comments on the Just War Theory, and now people are freaking out. Conservative Catholic pundits have already come out with the "Pope is wrong" commentary, and even an Anglican journal came out with an article to the same effect.
He isn't wrong.
And this isn't really new.
First of all, the Just War Theory was always that, a theory. It's not doctrine, and in some quarters its never been accepted. Moreover, since World War Two the Church has really made significant modifications to what can be considered a "just war".
So, what did Pope Leo really say here.
First, what's the Just War Theory hold?
Well, let's look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It states:
So, presently, those are the criteria set out in the Catechism. Will this be changed? I suspect it will be modified. And frankly, based on prior statements by the last three Popes, the Catechism does not support the view that the Pontiffs have been stating. The thing that they've repeatedly stated is that war is only justifiable for defensive purposes. Hence the comment; "Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the “just war” theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated."
So, with this in mind, what we might suppose (although I'm treading on dangerous grounds here as I'm not a theologian) is that the Church would modify the material set out above to read:
A country may legitimately act in self defense when:
(1) The damage inflicted by an attacking aggressor must be lasting, grave, and certain.
(2) All other means of putting an end to it must have shown to be impractical or ineffective.
(3) There must be serious prospects of success.
(4) The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated (the principle of proportionality).
Is that a big change in what the Popes have been saying? Not really.
But does it effect some sort of a change? Well, yes. A clarifying one, in my view.
What I think the Pope's statement makes clear that the moral laxity in interpreting the Just War theory is not justified. It never has been, but all too often those citing it go on to hold that whatever war they're speaking of is kind of sort of justified by the theory. That should not have been the case, and it needs to come to an end.
It's needed to come to an end for a long time.
There's no way that, for example, the US and Israeli war upon Iran is a just war. No way. At least from the U.S. prospective, it's an illegal war as it defies the requirements of the U.S. Constitution for Congress to declare war, making it immoral to a certain extent from the onset. But the criteria required for a just war even as the CCC states it cannot be met. The first criteria alone, that Iran was inflicting damage upon the United States in a way that is lasting, grave, and certain, was never met. The repeated baloney that "they've been attacking us for 47 years" didn't come close to meeting this criteria. Yes, Iran is a sponsor of terrorism. Terrorism, however, is an act of the weak and is largely ineffectual. Launching a massive offensive against Iran was not justified by the fact that Iran acts immorally.
Indeed, on that score, the war does not meet, in my view, the requirements of the forth criteria. And it never met the requirements of the second criteria either.
A war launched to change the regime, which was an earlier excuse for the war, was certainly not justified.
And it turns out that the third criteria cannot be met either. The war has actually made the regime more hard line. The only chance for success would require a massive ground invasion of the country, which is certainly not proportional to the hoped for outcome.
What Pope Leo has clarified is something that other Popes have said, to some degree, and which follows the history of the discussion on the death penalty. Pope St. John Paul the Great made statements to the effect that the death penalty could not be justified in the modern world. The following two Popes amplified that. Catholic conservatives have still refused to accept that, but that's completely correct. In the modern world, the criteria which would allow for the imposition of the death penalty simply to not exist.
And with Pope Leo's statements, it seems fairly clear that the criteria for launching an offensive war never exist either. That's been somewhat presumed all the way back to the 1940s, but now its clear.
And, it should also be clear, this is not a mere academic discussion.
War is killing people and breaking things. There's no two ways about it. Killing people intentionally is gravely evil, except in self defense. Supporting killing people except in self defense is likewise gravely illegal. The same Catholic beliefs that hold that murder is immoral, that abortion is immoral, lead directly to war and the death penalty being immoral. You cannot, no matter how much you might want to stretch it, supporting abortion if you are a Catholic, and frankly at this point, you cannot support immoral wars.
It was Pope St. John Paul, I think, who instructed that Catholic lawyers should not represent people in divorces. Judges can still preside over them however. Which brings us to this next point.
Catholic politicians can clearly not support immoral wars. When people like Chuck Gray and Megan Degenfelder come around seeking votes, as they are Catholic, their position on this war should be asked of. If they support it, as Trump supports it, they're willing to condemn their souls to Hell for their ambitions, or at least risk that. Those Catholics in the Trump administration supporting the war, and we don't really know who they are (we know that Vance wasn't in support of it) are doing the same, to a larger degree. The military raid on Venezuela that occurred earlier likewise presents the same problem. Any invasion of Cuba, which it seems likely we will do, poses the same situation.
But beyond that, can Catholic servicemen morally serve in these wars?
I'm sure opinions will vary, but I don't think they can.
And that is a real change. And given that war involves death, that's a change for the good.
Reporter: How long are you willing to wait for a response from Iran?
Trump: Don’t rush me. We were in Vietnam for 18 years.
From a press conference yesterday.
I must ask who is "we"? Trump wasn't in Vietnam for 18 years. . 18 months, or shoot,. 18 hours.
No Trump has served in any U.S. war. . . ever. While there are reasons that explain it, Trump's grandfather was regarded as a draft evader in his native Germany and had to leave as a result, upon returning home after having made his initial fortune in lodging and prostitution.
Well, at last, it appears this historical stain can be addressed.
The White House posted this as a pin for "no pannicans". People who really trust in Trump.
And who could trust more in the demented octogenarian than members of the Trump family itself. This must be the Designated Insignia for a 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, a la Spanish American War, unit for Trump's new forever wars.
Oh, just imagine the glory. Don Jr. and Barron can be the first off the Blackhawk in Iran, or Cuba, and finally be under fire. Sure, some of them may get blown away, just like Quentin Roosevelt in World War One, but they will have given their lives for the thing that matters most to Donald Trump, that being Donald Trump.
Not that an entire unit can be filled up with just Trumps. There's a lot of them, but not that many. Just like the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, recruiting can occur quickly and the unit can be filled up with rich swells and MAGAs. Elon Musk missed his mandatory military service in his native South Africa. . .well here's his chance. Name appear on the Epstein lists. . .well here's the chance to blot that out. Maybe even the prince formerly known as Andrew can join.
And Bebos. . . there's a spot for you!
And of course all the smaller MAGAs can go. No reason single men like Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner can't show their undying love of the leader. And some with military experience can finally prove their mettle in the new Trumpian world. After all, Theodore Roosevelt left his position in the Department of the Navy to fight in Cuba. . . there's no reason that J.D. Vance can't resume his military career. And Marco Rubio might get his chance to lead a charge up San Juan Hill.
And triumphal arch will at last serve a purpose. The dead bodies of the Trump Riders can be dumped into the hollow core of the monstrosity. A fitting purpose for it.
News reports this morning hold that Trump is considering canning Pam Bondi for her poor handling, if that's what she's doing, of the Epstein matter, which just won't go away.
The weird thing is that if you hang out with kiddy diddlers, brag about checking out teenage models at a pageant in the buff, talk about grabbing, well you know, people start to think you might be a kiddy diddler.
Weird, eh?
Anyhow, Trumps thinking of canning Bondi, and putting Lee Zeldin in her place. Zeldin is another Trump lawyer. He's currently the head of the EPA.
If Bondi departs, she'll be the second major Trump admin sycophant to be canned, Noem being the first, so both cannings will have been of women. A big difference, however, will be that Bondi is downright dangerous. If Trump turns on Bondi, she'll turn on him. Trump's advisors know that, but may be too afraid to tell him, and he's likely to dense to grasp that.
Noem, who turned out to be loathsome as the head of Homeland Security, won't be turning on Trump. . . yet. She's wait for him to be out of office, then she will. But she's been back in the news due to her husband showing up in photos cross dressing and wearing big fake boobs.
Frankly, Noem, and her husband are to be pitied for this, not condemned. But it does raise the interesting topic of hypocrisy in the Trump Administration. The administration is thick with Christian Nationalism and "conservative values", but Noem was widely rumored to he engaged in an extramarital affair with another Trump official, even carting him around on expensive junkets. and now it turns out that her husband had what I'd regard as a sexually centered mental illness, one which he apparently didn't adequately attempt to conceal, and perhaps didn't attempt to conceal at all. Trump himself is a serial polygamist and there are at least credible indicators that he may have fished in the shallow end of the pond, if not worse. Bondi didn't acknowledged abused women after ranting at Congress. Miller sounds like Himmler most of the time he speaks but is Jewish.
Perhaps we shouldn't be all that surprised. The Nazis were sort of the same way. There were affairs and of course one legendary homosexual scandal.
Since the war with Iran started J. D. Vance has been hard to find He's not out cheerleading the war like the nervous sounding Bessant or the administration like the "I took my family to Epstein Island but all I got was this T-shirt and I know absolutely nothing" Lutnick. Vance is widely believed to have leaked his opposition to the war right as it started.
Another nearly silent, but not quite silent, Administration figure is Marco Rubio, who may be the one administration figure who doesn't do the "Oh Donald, may I kiss your ass" routing at cabinet meetings. He hasn't been able to completely avoid the topic, but he's been pretty quiet Indeed, Rubio tends to be remarkably quiet and when he shows up he tends to look really uncomfortable. There's reason to believe that Rubio is the main backer on the administration's near invasion of Cuba and now that Trump is looking like a military dumbass, there's a real chance that Trump's ardor for military adventure may be over For that matter, while the current military has been very damaged by Trump, there are likely still enough real officers in the military to protest against start ing a second war when the current one isn't finished, and it's going to be at least a year, if not years, before that occurs. Marco may have lost his campaign slogan for 2028 of Viva Cuba Libre "I did that".
Rubio and Vance are somewhat unique in the Trump orbit as they're both real Catholics. Press Secretary Leavitt is apparently as well, although it sure doesn't show as she's a full time liar.
Rubio, when he speaks, tends to be pretending to be angry while saying Trump didn't say what he said, but what I'm going to say, even though Trump didn't say that camp.
Vance has come out with a book on his conversation to Catholicism which is a big off ramp from the Trump Administration and its Paul Whites and Franklin Grahams. It's a pretty clear signal that he's separating himself from the Evangelical far right fanatics and is beginning the process of separating himself from Trump. The book is likely to draw criticism but it's a really smart move, as he's essentially getting up from the Paul White Bee Dance table and walking over to the adults and sitting down with the sane and sober. He's going for the National Review/First Things crowd, not the NASCAR Country Pop gang. By the time 2028 rolls around, the folks who were admiring Franklin Graham's letters to Trump will have forgotten all about them, for the most, part, with some being on to new wives and affairs but assured that as they were once saved, they'll aways be.
Rubio likely knows this is what Vance is doing and he's going to have to do something himself What isn't clear The value of being a failed President's Secretary of State hasn't really been there since Kissinger managed to find it had one. Trump is looking worse as a President, indeed worse as a mammal, every day. My guess is that if Trump isn't removed via the 25th Amendment, he'll find he forgot to let the cat out prior to November and will leave the administration.
When he leaves he can do what Bondi will do, if fired, and what Vance can't do, while Vice President, that being writing a tell all book. Bondi's will be a bombshell, which is why Trump should not fire her if he's smart. Bondi's "I Know Where all the Bodies are Buried and Who All the Teenage Concubines Were" tell all will be something else. Rubio's "I Tried To Stop Trump From Being A Dumbass" book will be less salacious, but interesting Vance won't have a chance to write something like that before 2028.
I still think my theory is more likely, but its interesting that I'm not the only one who is traveling this line of thought.
Uncle Mike, as he makes clear, believes that the plan is to wait until next year at which time the illegitimate occupant of the Oval Office, billionaire insurrectionist Donald Trump, will be impeached and removed from office, there by installing Vance as President. It's an interesting theory.
The problem with it, I think, is that it requires the cooperation of a fair number of Republican Senators to go along with it. I don't think they have the guts. Senators like Wyoming's John Barrasso have proven so spineless that he's being examined by the Washington D.C. zoo for a place in the invertebrate display. To be fair, they fear their voters, and in some areas, like Wyoming, the MAGA delusion is so deep that a lot of its adherents will carry it to the gave where they'll have to ask questions about why they supported an illegal war launched by an immoral serial polygamist while the environment went to pot. Barrasso will be right there with them, saying "they made me do it so I could keep my job".
Anyhow, I don't think enough Republican Senators will go along, unless the Senate GOP starts to hemorrhage pretty severely this November, in which case their save their job instincts will start to kick in.
My theory, which I've held here for a long time, is a bit more sinister.
I've thought since before the election that the plan was to let Trump slip into increasingly worse dementia and then remove him just before the November election via the 25th Amendment. That's nearly win/win for Vance. It might cause a huge sigh of relief amongst independents who are refugee Republicans and the two or three Republicans who aren't MAGA, saving some of the election. It also might give cover to candidates like Chuck Gray whose platform is that they love Trump so much, they want to be his adoring handmaiden. If he's gone, they can go to the cabinet, pull out the bottle of Old Crow, put on the Boomtown Rats single I Never Loved Eva Braun, and start acting like sentient mammals.
If it doesn't save the election, Vance can still be President for two years and start pulling the "I'm not responsible for this particular stupid Don idea" while also blaming the Democrats for everything else. Shoot, as the war against Iran will still be going on by then, he can declare victory and declare himself a hero, even if we haven't won by then, and we won't have.
Anyway you look at it, getting into office before Trump's term ends is Vance's only hope. People don't like him. The stench of Trump will attach too much for him to win on his own merits, and those merits, if you want to call them that, are not MAGA, they're NatCon.
The problem at this point is that while allowing Trump to get wackier and wackier serves their interests, we get deeper into bat shit crazy weird territory every day. As it is, we're at war now, it would seem, as Bibi thought this was his chance and Bibi, Putin, and rich people, some of whom are in the Epstein files, are the only people Trump listens to. We are in an area in which there are, now, hardly any limits, thanks to the Supreme Court. If Bibi tells Donny nuking Tehran is okay, there's no guarantee an addled Trump wouldn't do it, although we can still hope that there's backchannel conversations in the DoD about how far they let this go before they just start saying no.
Presumably, if Donny comes in and says, "hey guys, I'm going to put the ball room here and it will be fun to have a march through a triumphal arch after I nuke Tehran, let's do that today so we can fight North Korean next week and put on a cabaret in Havanna!" the cabinet will still say no, but again, the problem is that the people in this administration, with a hand of exceptions, might actually be too far gone themselves. Markwayne Mullin? For goodness sake, he needs to be sent back to 6th grade and be reminded you don't wear your hat indoors, not given a job with the administration. Steve Miller? Yikes.
Well, smoke and mirrors and backrooms. Marco probably is angling for the Presidency himself and doesn't want to be too tarred with Trump feces. There are probably others still.
By June or July we'll know if I was right.
A good clue I might be is that since the war with Iran started, Vance is hard to find.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Matthew, Chapter 24.
You have to make sure you know why you are going to war and then use decisive force to end it as soon as possible.
Colin Powell,
March 3, 2026
United States and Israel v. Iran
The war continues on, obviously, with the Administration struggling to explain what its about, why now, and why it can omit Congress from its constitutional duty.
It's expanded into a regional war, so far all aircraft and missiles. Included in the exchanges are those between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon.
It's become perfunctory to note that the Iranian government is horrible, which it is. It murders and rapes its own citizens in the name of an extreme variant of Shi'a Islam. But, there are a lot of horrible governments in the world. North Korea and Russia's are two such examples, Afghanistan's is another, and Trump of course cut a deal with them allowing them to return to power.
The Iranians were going to have a nuclear weapon, it has been claimed, soon, with soon being a bit of a moving target. A nuclear armed Iran would be frightening and that's the best argument for this offensive war, which would make it a preemptive defensive war. Even that argument, however, seems very poorly developed.
Marco Rubio gave the justification that, if another nation (Israel) attacked Iran, they'd attack us back, and that was an imminent threat. He claimed Iran was going to be attacked.
That basically would amount to handing the power to declare war for the United States over to Israel.
It just seems that, in reality, an aged demented Trump looking for some sort of legacy was talked into it by the Neoconservatives and Apocalyptic Evangelist in his circle of influencers, with perhaps, probably, Israel itself playing a role in that. Of all those goals, the Neocon one would be the least disturbing, which is not to say that it would not be disturbing.
One disturbing thing about that is that NPR, in its Politics podcast, ventured the opinion, not put this way, that Trump is basically drunk on power and will keep toppling governments as long as he's successful in doing so. If that's the case, we can predict that Cuba will be next as its a pet project of Marco Rubio.
The US has lost some aircraft to friendly fire, which in the age of cell phone video, makes for interesting video.
There's footage of this F-15 being shot down over Kuwait, which was a friendly fire incident.
I actually didn't know the F-15 was still in use by the US, but this very late model has only been in service since 2021.
An interesting thing on this video, other than its a female pilot (she was lucky, as she nearly went down in the sea) is that the video shows the airplane to be an F-15, which means the Air Force, and not just the Navy, is flying some of these missions.
The U.S. death toll is up to five.
Afghanistan v. Pakistan
Hardly noticed in all the general war exploding in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan are fighting.
Cont:
United States and Israel v. Iran
Reports have revealed that at more than 30 military installations, U.S. commanders told troops the war on Iran is a Christian war in support of its being launched. One NCO reported that their commander told them today that the U.S. war is to bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ.
I know that this was going to occur, and at least one Evangelical pastor in the U.S. has said essentially the same thing. This, I'd note, how Mike Huckabee sees the world.
So now we're at least partially in an American Evangelical Christian holy war against Shia Islam. It'll be a shock to Evangelicals, but they're a tiny percentage of the globe's Christians, and the percentage of them that hold such Millennialist views is even smaller. This is going to hurt us all, however.
It's also being reported that J.D. Vance encouraged Trump to go "all in", for lack of a better word. I'm not sure of his thinking, but he might be approaching this with a Clausewitzian view of how to wage the war, although that will require ground troops in the end. From a military prospective, that argument has merit to it. What it lacks here is legality.
March 4, 2026
United States and Israel v. Iran
A Republican official attempted to justify the war on Iran with the figure that 700 Americans had been killed by Iran in the past 47 years.
Over 800 Iranians have now been killed by the US and Israel in the past five days.
The US sank an Iranian frigate off of Sri Lanka yesterday. The attacking ship was a submarine.
Sinking enemy ships in wartime is legitimate. . . but this isn't a declared war.
United States in Ecuador
And we're now fighting somebody, just designated "terrorists", in Ecuador.
March 4, 2026, cont.
United States and Israel v. Iran
A Turkish missile was shot down over NATO ally Turkey and the Iranians launched a drone strike on an RAF base on Cyprus.
Without it apparently being obvious, both sides of this war are now lead or heavily influenced by competing apocalyptic visions. The US, by the theologically thin and ignorant New Apostolic Reformation Puritans and the Iranians by the Shia theocrats. Both want the wider war that they envision.
March 5, 2026
United States and Israel v. Iran
The Senate did vote on a war powers resolution that would have limited King Donny's ability to wage war. It failed.
This is being somewhat hailed as a King Donny victory, but it isn't. Actually, no matter how you regard the war, the fact that the vote occurred is a good thing as it somewhat, albeit very imperfectly, legitimizes the war. There has been some sort of vote, in other words, although less than that which is required.
The vote was largely on party lines.
Name ▼
State
Party
Vote
Angela Alsobrooks
Maryland
D
yes
Tammy Baldwin
Wisconsin
D
yes
Jim Banks
Indiana
R
no
John Barrasso
Wyoming
R
no
Michael Bennet
Colorado
D
yes
Marsha Blackburn
Tennessee
R
no
Richard Blumenthal
Connecticut
D
yes
Lisa Blunt Rochester
Delaware
D
yes
Cory Booker
New Jersey
D
yes
John Boozman
Arkansas
R
no
Katie Britt
Alabama
R
no
Ted Budd
North Carolina
R
no
Maria Cantwell
Washington
D
yes
Shelley Capito
West Virginia
R
no
Bill Cassidy
Louisiana
R
no
Susan Collins
Maine
R
no
Christopher Coons
Delaware
D
yes
John Cornyn
Texas
R
no
Catherine Cortez Masto
Nevada
D
yes
Tom Cotton
Arkansas
R
no
Kevin Cramer
North Dakota
R
no
Michael Crapo
Idaho
R
no
Ted Cruz
Texas
R
no
John Curtis
Utah
R
no
Steve Daines
Montana
R
no
Tammy Duckworth
Illinois
D
yes
Richard Durbin
Illinois
D
yes
Joni Ernst
Iowa
R
no
John Fetterman
Pennsylvania
D
no
Deb Fischer
Nebraska
R
no
Ruben Gallego
Arizona
D
yes
Kirsten Gillibrand
New York
D
yes
Lindsey Graham
South Carolina
R
no
Charles Grassley
Iowa
R
no
Bill Hagerty
Tennessee
R
no
Margaret Hassan
New Hampshire
D
yes
Joshua Hawley
Missouri
R
no
Martin Heinrich
New Mexico
D
yes
John Hickenlooper
Colorado
D
yes
Mazie Hirono
Hawaii
D
yes
John Hoeven
North Dakota
R
no
Jon Husted
Ohio
R
no
Cindy Hyde-Smith
Mississippi
R
no
Ron Johnson
Wisconsin
R
no
Jim Justice
West Virginia
R
no
Timothy Kaine
Virginia
D
yes
Mark Kelly
Arizona
D
yes
John Kennedy
Louisiana
R
no
Andy Kim
New Jersey
D
yes
Angus King
Maine
I
yes
Amy Klobuchar
Minnesota
D
yes
James Lankford
Oklahoma
R
no
Mike Lee
Utah
R
no
Ben Luján
New Mexico
D
yes
Cynthia Lummis
Wyoming
R
no
Edward Markey
Massachusetts
D
yes
Roger Marshall
Kansas
R
no
Mitch McConnell
Kentucky
R
no
Dave McCormick
Pennsylvania
R
no
Jeff Merkley
Oregon
D
yes
Ashley Moody
Florida
R
no
Jerry Moran
Kansas
R
no
Bernie Moreno
Ohio
R
no
Markwayne Mullin
Oklahoma
R
no
Lisa Murkowski
Alaska
R
no
Christopher Murphy
Connecticut
D
yes
Patty Murray
Washington
D
yes
Jon Ossoff
Georgia
D
yes
Alejandro Padilla
California
D
yes
Rand Paul
Kentucky
R
yes
Gary Peters
Michigan
D
yes
John Reed
Rhode Island
D
yes
Pete Ricketts
Nebraska
R
no
James Risch
Idaho
R
no
Jacky Rosen
Nevada
D
yes
Mike Rounds
South Dakota
R
no
Bernard Sanders
Vermont
I
yes
Brian Schatz
Hawaii
D
yes
Adam Schiff
California
D
yes
Eric Schmitt
Missouri
R
no
Charles Schumer
New York
D
yes
Rick Scott
Florida
R
no
Tim Scott
South Carolina
R
no
Jeanne Shaheen
New Hampshire
D
yes
Tim Sheehy
Montana
R
no
Elissa Slotkin
Michigan
D
yes
Tina Smith
Minnesota
D
yes
Dan Sullivan
Alaska
R
no
John Thune
South Dakota
R
no
Thom Tillis
North Carolina
R
no
Tommy Tuberville
Alabama
R
no
Chris Van Hollen
Maryland
D
yes
Mark Warner
Virginia
D
yes
Raphael Warnock
Georgia
D
yes
Elizabeth Warren
Massachusetts
D
yes
Peter Welch
Vermont
D
yes
Sheldon Whitehouse
Rhode Island
D
yes
Roger Wicker
Mississippi
R
no
Ron Wyden
Oregon
D
yes
Todd Young
Indiana
R
no
Now the Republican Party owns this war.
The Administration is already in violation of the War Powers Act as it didn't give proper notice for the war. It would appear that under the act it's ability to wage war legally will expire in about 90 days. Trump appears to be just dumb enough to believe that everything will certainly be okay in that period of time, which is far from guaranteed.
European wags are calling the war, which some idiot named Operation Epic Fury, Operation Epstein Fury.
cont:
The United States and a Gulf state are now seeking to purchase drone interceptors from Ukraine.
Rather ironic, really.
Trump has called on the Kurds in Iran to revolt.
That's a really problematic call to arms. The U.S. has a history of doing this with the Kurds and then not fully supporting them when the rise up. Right now, there's a rump Kurdish state in Syria, and a Kurdish population in Iraq, that would like to form a bonafide state. If the Kurds achieved a measure of autonomy in Iran, it'd be hard not to grant them full statehood.
That's fine, in my view, but it won't be fine in Turkey's view, which creates all sorts of problems.
cont:
The House also rejected a War Powers resolution to halt the war against Iran. The vote was 212 to 219.
While this will go back in sixty days or so, this effectively amounts to Congressional authorization, although again, imperfectly.
Two Republicans voted to halt the war. Four Democrats voted in favor of it.
March 6, 2026
United States and Israel v. Iran
It's increasingly clear that the U.S. is responsible for the strike on a school that killed over 100 young girls. Apparently the structure was once used by the Iranian military, but has not been for some time.
Meanwhile:
The pastors told Trump that the love of money was the root of all evil and that he needs to repent for his deeply immoral life. . . oh wait, that didn't happen.
God will not be mocked
Galatians 6:7.
Sen. John Barrasso, who is mostly seen now days standing behind John Thune with a serious look on his face, dutifully spouted the "we've been at war for 47 years" line in the last couple of days, as if anyone cares what his opinion is on anything. Everyone knows that if Trump came out later this week and said that we're killing school girls as we hate pistachios, Barrasso would repeat that.
Time asked King Donny about whether Americans should be worried about attacks in the U.S.. His reply:
I guess…We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.
Frankly, if Americans die, unless their names is Trump, Trump doesn't appear to care. But why would anyone think he would care?
On this, Iran had decades to insert sleeper cells into the U.S., and they don't have to be staffed by Iranian nationals. That doesn't mean, however that they did. Some nations that we assumed had done that in the past, like Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, didn't.
It's always been assumed, and probably correctly, that the Soviet Union did.
Iran? If they didn't, I can't imagine why they did not, but they may not have.
What is sure right now is that they haven't struck. That doesn't mean they won't. Using sleeper agents is usually reserved for what basically amounts to total war, and its risky. Right now, all Iran really has to do is hang on until August or so, by which time if it hasn't surrendered, disgusted Americans will use the war against the GOP for being Trump toadies. That appears likely to happen anyhow. Use of agents might serve to simply make Americans mad, which could change that.
Strikes against economic targets, however, are another matter. There's not an oil refinery in the US that a terrorist can't damage somehow and that would not only be potentially hugely disrupting, but it would require the domestic deployment of troops and drive up the price of oil like crazy. It might also not so much anger, as opposed to scare, Americans.
What average Americans have to worry about is rogue individuals. In a country in which its so easy to acquire arms, we're very open to attacks like that which happened recently in Austin, or in Australia. The Trump regime would react to that by cutting into the 2nd Amendment.
Will that occur? Well it already has. But even at that, it didn't happen during the Vietnam War, which might be the most comparable to what we're enduring right now.
Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't be worried.
But don't worry too much. Donny, who lamented how many young men were being killed in the Russo Ukrainian War at one time, isn't concerned. If you die, well, that's just one of those things.
The Washington Post reports that Russia is providing Iran targeting information.
Cont:
King Donny has demanded an "unconditional surrender" by Iran, thereby completely removing any incentive the Islamic Republic has to enter into any sort of arrangement with the US whatsoever.
Generally, demand for unconditional surrenders are monumentally stupid and rarely work. Such a demand in part caused the Third Reich and Imperial Japan to fight beyond the point at which political forces in both countries would have ended those wars, and they (if we consider them to be two different wars) beyond the point at which they otherwise would have. Even at that, Japan's surrender actually turned out to have conditions imposed by Japan.
An unconditional surrender here would completely turn Iran's fate, and that of its Islamic regime, over to the United States. Why wouldn't they just fight on? This likely serves to strengthen the unpopular government.
It also puts the US military in a situation in which a ground invasion of Iran is practically mandatory. Staging that will be difficult as the US is unlikely to gain the cooperation of Iraq or Turkey in that, and of course thanks to Donny's brilliant first term diplomacy, Afghanistan as a staging area it not an option. Therefore it would appear a large scale maritime landing would be required.
Cont:
Well, the admiration is already trying to walk that back:
When he as commander in chief determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the US and the goals of Operation Epic Fury have been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional.
Leavitt.
March 8, 2026
United States and Israel v. Iran
No end in sight.
Kurdish sources have apparently indicated that the US asked for them to take action against Iran, but they don't trust Trump so they declined.
United States v. Cuba
The administration is giving every indication that it intends to take unauthorized military action against Cuba next.
March 9, 2026
United States and Israel v. Iran
Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the killed Supreme Leader, is the new Supreme Leader. So the attacks did not effect regime change whatsoever, so far.
The United States lifted a sanction on Indian oil allowing that country to receive it, in light of rising prices, thereby giving Russian an economic benefit in the war.
March 10, 2026
United States and Israel v. Iran
At least commentator holds Iran's new Supreme Leader is more extreme than his father.
Cont:
I had a very good call with President Putin. We talked about Ukraine which is the never ending fight…It was a positive call on that subject
We obviously talked about the Middle East. He wants to be helpful…We had a very good talk, and he wants to be very constructive.
Trump.
At this point, even if you are the MAGAist MAGA of the MAGA, to not believe that the relationship between Donald Trump and Putin isn't weird, it's a willful decision. The Russians are giving Iran intelligence against us and our reaction is to lift sanctions on their oil.
And Putin wants to be helpful. Yeah, right.
Cont:
Nobody seems to notice, but acts of terrorism against the U.S. have spread into New York and Canada.
March 11, 2026
United States and Israel v. Iran
Headline from the Casper Star Tribune:
US, IRAN DIG IN
Which in Iran's case at least, was obviously going to occur. Our President didn't realize that, as he's an idiot.
