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.
As Jesus walks the Way of the Cross, we place ourselves behind him, following in his footsteps. As we walk with him, we contemplate his passion for the sake of humanity, his broken heart, and his life as a gift of love.
We turn our gaze to Jesus, who reveals himself as King of Peace, even as war looms around him. He remains steadfast in meekness, while others are stirring up violence. He offers himself to embrace humanity, even as others raise swords and clubs. He is the light of the world, though darkness is about to engulf the earth. He came to bring life, even as plans unfold to condemn him to death.
King of Peace. Jesus’ desire is to bring the world into the Father’s arms, tearing down every barrier that separates us from God and from our neighbor, for “He is our peace” (Eph 2:14).
King of Peace. Jesus enters into Jerusalem not upon a horse, but upon a donkey, fulfilling the ancient prophecy that calls for rejoicing at the arrival of the Messiah: “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations” (Zech 9:9–10).
King of Peace. When one of his disciples drew his sword to defend him and struck the high priest’s servant, Jesus immediately stopped him, saying: “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52).
King of Peace. While he was burdened with our sufferings and pierced for our sins, Jesus “did not open his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent” (Is 53:7). He did not arm himself, or defend himself, or fight any war. He revealed the gentle face of God, who always rejects violence. Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, embracing every cross borne in every time and place throughout human history.
Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood” (Is 1:15).
our gaze upon him who was crucified for us, we can see a crucified humanity. In his wounds, we see the hurts of so many women and men today. In his last cry to the Father, we hear the weeping of those who are crushed, who have no hope, who are sick and who are alone. Above all, we hear the painful groans of all those who are oppressed by violence and are victims of war.
Christ, King of Peace, cries out again from his cross: God is love! Have mercy! Lay down your weapons! Remember that you are brothers and sisters!
In the words of the Servant of God, Bishop Tonino Bello, I would like to entrust this cry to Mary Most Holy, who stands beneath the cross of her Son and weeps also at the feet of those who are crucified today:
“Holy Mary, woman of the third day, grant us the certainty that, in spite of all, death will no longer hold sway over us; that the injustices of peoples are numbered; that the flashes of war are fading into the twilight; that the sufferings of the poor are breathing their last. And grant, finally, that the tears of all the victims of violence and pain will soon be dried up like frost beneath the spring sun” (Maria, donna dei nostri giorni).
Pope Leo XIV, Palm Sunday homily.
Christians need to hear this. More than that, those who claim to be Christian, like Pete Hegseth, but belong to some diluted form of Christianity, need to hear it. Hegseth has tattooed himself with the symbols of a Faith that would have found him to be abhorrent at the time of their origin, which which recoil from them now.
Wars change everything.
Maybe one thing it will change in the human heart in people who listen to the likes of Franklin Graham and Paula White, when they should be listening to the full deposit of the Faith
Emiliano Zapata led a group of armed men in commandeering a police station in Villa de Ayala. They then enlisted 100 townsmen in their revolutionary army.
The Mayor of Jerusalem, Raghib al-Nashashibi, and 150 prominent Arabs in Palestine sent a cable to the Turkish parliament, urging the Ottoman nation to stop further sales of land in Palestine to Jewish immigrants.
A prominent Palestinian figure, he would figure in successive regimes, and his second wife would be Jewish, and from France.
Perhaps love conquered all.
He died at age 71 in 1951.
A common sight in cities at one time:
Cleveland Mounted Police. Note the cut of the great coats.
Gun camera footage from a P-51 strafing Japanese civilian fishermen during World War Two, a gravely immoral act. We've conveniently forgotten how much of this sort of thing happened during World War Two, but a lot did. Allied fighters routinely strafed German farmers during the war, and I have heard of one account of an Italian farmer being killed by being strafed. This isn't warfare, it's flat out murder.*
III. SAFEGUARDING PEACE
Avoiding war
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
there must be serious prospects of success;
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Section 2309, Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; . . .
The American war against Iran is not a just war. It's not a legal one, either.
Iran is a world sponsor of terrorism that has sponsored terroristic acts for decades. Most of those acts of terror were against other sovereign states, not the US, but some can logically be argued to be directed at the us. That's almost certainly not what the war is about.
Much more likely, Trump is a pathetic doddering senile fool who has spent a life of utter pointlessness. His wealth is inherited and founded originally on a grandfather who engaged in providing prostitutes to Alaska miners, a gravely evil act. His father did nothing like that, but the family wealth was used to build more wealth, and Trump in his adult years, after not serving his country (a family tradition to some extent) went on to make and lose fortunes doing that.
Real estate development is, from an agrarian and distributism prospective like that I maintain, a fairly dubious occupation in and of itself. Not clearly immoral, but frankly I have real trouble with some of it. Be that as it may, I particularly have trouble with the sort of behavior that Trump exhibited in that questionable occupation. I wouldn't admire the Wharton graduate for that reason alone. But the way he has spent his wealth is abominable. He's a serial polygamist and its getting very difficult to say "there's no evidence" that he didn't sexually fish in the shallow end of the pond.
There's more credible evidence that he's a kiddy diddler, which I'm not affirmatively saying there is, than that he's a Christian. There's not one single outwardly Christian act that I can think of that he's committed. What he is, is a shallow opportunist, and he's used desperate Christians to advance his career.
Knowing that the grave is looming up on him, and with his mind slipping away from him at a rapid rate, Trump has spent much of his second, illegitimate, occupation of the White House trying to build monuments to himself. He wants a ball room as he's a rich product of the 60s and 70s when things like that mattered to somebody. They don't anymore, and it'll either never be built, or ripped down. He wants a triumphal arch, which is simply absurd.
And he wants to be remembered as a great hero, adding to the US landmass, or at least defeating a supposed major enemy.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a scary man in his own right, but not a demented fool, saw that he could play the demented fool in the White House. Netanyahu, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, sees the Trump dotage as a time to "address all family business". Seeing a dolt he could play, like Putin has, he's coaxed Trump into a war for Israel's own purposes. This is, the way Netanyahu sees it, Israel's last best hope to destroy the radical Islamist regime in Tehran. Israel can't do it on its own, and no future US administration will support doing it. Israel is not held in that high of regard in much of the world for a variety of reasons, and never has been. Nobody else is going to play the willing muscled fool for Netanyahu. If Netanyahu is Corleone, Trump is Luca Brasi, a brutish dolt who is willing to act as an enforcer.
Trump entered this war thinking it would be a two or three day exercise. He'd bomb Iran and the Iranian people would give up. Or, maybe, Iranians theocrats would act like American property owners and cut him a deal. Well, say what you like about Shiite theocrats, but they're a lot less shallow than American businessmen. They hold to an existential, and unlike Trump it's not all about money and women.
Oh oh.
So they didn't give up and they aren't going to give up. They've fought back by striking economic targets and U.S. military installations around the Middle East (and now as far away as Diego Garcia). And they've closed the Straits of Hormuz.
By closing the Straits, they've also demonstrated that the US is, in fact, not as powerful as it pretends it is. We can't open them and we've been begging for help. Nobody else is willing to get into an endless war for Israel, and therefore that help isn't coming. In order to open them we will have to engage in a ground invasion.
Trump is trying desperately to avoid that, for a variety of reasons. One thing is that he's probably been told it will be a bloody mess. Body bags will be coming home to "Red" cities all around the country. People already don't support the war and they definitely will not when Johnny or Mary come home to be buried in Riverton Wyoming, or Billings Montana, having died for Bibi Netanyahu.
And then there's this:
There's not going to be a draft, but the satiric suggestions that he serve are not wholly ingenuine. Right now, the US is getting into one war after another. Franklin Roosevelt's children served, so did TR's. Why not Trump's?
Because Trumps don't serve the country, they take from it. That's why.
In his desperation to end the war, Trump is now threatening to bomb Iranian power facilities if they do not open the Straits of Hormuz. He broadcast this on social media, which is idiotic It also won't work. The Allied bombing campaigns against Germany did not work in World War Two. They didn't work, save for the Atomic bomb, against Japan, either. Nor did they work against North Vietnam. They won't work here. Instead, civilians will be killed and whatever support for a new regime replacing this one in Iran exists, will evaporate.
What Trump is doing is criminal. The US is killing people for. . . what?
The whole war is criminal from the first place, from a US prospective. We're using military force to kill people with no declaration of war. And now we propose to engage in a tit for tat campaign of economic retribution against them as we can't beat them. We haven't been able to articulate a single reason for the war, other than Iran cannot be allowed to have the same thing that Israel, the United States, France, Russia, North Korea, the United Kingdom, Indian, Pakistan, and South Africa have. . . an atomic bomb.
There is some logic to that, of course. An Iran with an atomic bomb would be scary, just like North Korea with an atomic bomb is scary. But given our ill thought out military adventure here, we are actually making this situation worse. North Korea, it might be noted, is improving missile capabilities, and why wouldn't they. If North Korea has not determined an absolute need to be able to hit the continental United States due to Donald Trump, it'd be amazing. And if Iran, which has its nuclear material yet, has not concluded that it has an absolute need to complete a nuclear project, that would be amazing.
But it's clear that Trump never thought this out. He went, we're told, with his gut, which is nearly always wrong.
So, here we are in this long winded thread.
And here's to the point. Supporting immorality, is immoral. Everyone engages in "remote cooperation with evil", which you can not do much about. Using illegal drugs is illegal, but paying the pizza guy when you know he's going to use some of that cash for illegal drugs isn't.
Here, we now have an interesting situation.
We are in an illegal war and doing immoral acts. The Republicans in Washington are mostly sitting around on their ass doing nothing about it. They're afraid. They're not paid nor elected to be afriad.
And all over the country the MAGA element of the GOP just lies down like the 13 year old girls at Epstein Island and gives into whatever Trump wants.
It's immoral.
For years and years Christians, particularly those of my faith, voted for Republicans in spite of reluctance because we opposed abortion and the Democratic Party supported it. Even as late as the last election I heard Catholics with severe doubts about Trump say they were voting for him for that reason.
Abortion is a grave moral evil. Engaging in an illegal war and targeting civilian targets is a grave moral evil.
I'm not saying vote for the Democrats without thinking, but I am saying that supporting this Administration and the Republican Party at this point is supporting moral evil. When John Barrasso and Harriet Hageman come around backing the war, they're backing a moral evil. When Chuck Gray declares his undying love for Trump and promises to be the most loyal of his political concubines, he's expressing a love of a moral evil.
Most Germans during the Nazi era did nothing. Most Republicans aren't going to either. In future years, they'll be looked at with utter disgust.
Christians believe that they'll have to account for their sins in the next world. I very much doubt that bothers Donald Trump as he's stupid and ignorant, which is sort of a defense, and I very much question if he has any belief in God at all. For that matter, while I have only the incidents to raise the question, I doubt the beliefs of many in Congress who claim they have one. For those of us who do believe, and frankly a person who doesn't has simply blinded themselves to reality, it's all too easy to believe that our self interest must be moral. Protestant churches have, for instance, by and large completely given up on being concerned about sexual morality for the most part.
God will not be mocked. Christians who declare Trump to be a "Godly Man" are willfully blinding themselves or outright lying. None of us are around here all that long. The "why did you support the murder of my children" question is coming up, and the "well, I supported Trump", or "well, the Iranians were baddies", or "well, the Iranians were Muslims" line is not likely to be a sufficient excuse for being complicit in murder.
Footnotes
*This may seem like a strange point to start in this thread, but wars routinely devolve, even when they fit the just war criteria, into flat out murder and the US has not been exempt from this. Arguably the cleanest war the US ever fought was World War One, with the Korean War being relatively clean. World War Two may be recalled as a uniformly just war, but the bombing campaigns against urban Japan and the use of nuclear weapons was outright not. And the tolerance of what is depicted above, which was very widespread, was not.
The U.S. Army made the first successful out of atmosphere rocket launch by the U.S.
The rocket, a Bumper-WAC was a two staged rocked based on the German V-2.
Transjordan and the UK signed the Treaty of London giving Transjordan its independence with the UK retaining military bases in the country.
Cardinal Clemens von Galen, the great Catholic German cleric, died at age 68 from appendicitis. He had only been made a cardinal the prior month. He had been a fearless opponent of the Nazis. To some degree, it's hard not to put him in the category of men who died shortly after World War Two after having struggled so mightily during it.
Von Galen is sort of a model of our own time. He was very German but loyal to higher things. He came from German nobility but served the Church, and he wasn't afraid to confront the barbarity of the Nazi regime.
This is the mindset of people who have put us into a war in the Middle East.
I'm sure I know a lot of Catholics, particularly locally, who voted for Trump. Most of them were in the category of people who oppose abortion, as I do, and who oppose the gender bizarreness that the Democratic Party seemed to embrace.
I'm not at all certain that a lot of those people would vote for Trump again. Particularly Hispanics, who nationwide have dumped Trump like a hot rock, and for good reason.
But I know a very few, and I do mean very few, coreligious who are MAGA. I can think of one, anyhow. Indeed, as we are coreligious, I think he just assumes I must hold the same views he does, or he did have that view, and is occasionally surprised to his distress. When the war in Gaza drug on he was surprised that I didn't have unyielding support for it. He later came to me a bit distressed as his sons weren't for it either, and I again noted, I agreed with them.
He's been pretty silent on the current war. My guess would be, although I don't know, that he's all for it.
Since before Trump was elected this go around I've sounded the alarm bells that Catholics would come to regret supporting Trump, as there's a strong Calvinist element that basically hates us.
Calvinism is pretty much dead everywhere, save for the United States, which reflects the unique religious history of the United States. Americans indeed are often amazingly ignorant on the topic of religion, including American Catholics. A lot of American protestants don suit and tie, or nice dresses, and "go to church" every Sunday sincerely believing that their assemblies resemble those of the Apostolic Age, not realizing that those gathering for Mass or Divine Liturgy are actually reflective of that. They largely can't be blamed, as they don't know what they don't know, although some protestant ministers should quite frankly know better. Having said that, many protestant ministers have in fact "swam the Tiber" in recent years.
Then you have guys like Doug Wilson. . . and Pete Hegseth . . . and Mike Huckabee.
After John F. Kennedy sold us out in order to win the Oval Office, most Protestant denominations got used to us and we got used to them. For that matter, the turmoil of the 60s and 70s, caused a lot of Catholics to become pretty weak in the observance and knowledge of their faith. Protestant denominations began to go along with the culture to a large degree, even in some of the hardcore fundamentalist branches of Protestantism. Big debates have happened, for example over the extent to which various Protestant denominations tolerate homosexuality at ever level, while almost all of them have completely given up paying any attention to what Christianity actually holds regarding sex in general. Unmarried couples, for example, will "go to church" every Sunday, completely comfortable that God is okay with whatever they're doing.
A tiny, and it is tiny, group of really fundamentalist Protestants, however, holds really radical views on a whole set of topics that would surprise Catholics, including on Catholicism itself. Some of them really hate us.
That element has the ear of the White House. A group of American Protestants who believe that the United States has a special divinely ordained role actually has a degree of power right now, and amongst the things they believe is that they can force the Hand of God and bring about the Second Coming soon. A war with Iran is part of that in their view.
Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and most other Christians believe nothing of the sort. But then you don't find any of the group I've named acting like Paula White and declaring that Donald Trump has a divine mission, and you don't find any of them claiming to be playing the role of Moses in modern times, like Mike Johnson.
To weak Christians nor non Christians, what's going on with Paul White, Doug Wilson and Pete Hegseth reflects Christianity. It doesn't. The Apostolic Christians whose symbols and phrases Pete Hegseth has had tattooed on his body would have regarded him as a heretic.
These are dangerous times for Apostolic Christians. It's time to let people know that this isn't us. Associating with the radical New Apostolic Reformation people in this administration is a serious error, and will hurt us in the end. Indeed, they'll hurt us when they can.
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.
