Thanks Simon. Watching you on with Stuart Stevens.
Someone should do an analysis so people understand not only what will happen with gas prices, but food supplies. If this persists, there will be a shortage of liquid fertilizer and LNG which is used to make nitrogen fertilizers. President Portly Bello doesn't understand any of these things. I looked into this a little bit, and 50% of agriculture across the world depends on liquid nitrogen (ammonia) fertilizers (it's probably 100% in the US). The farmers and food supplies might be poised over time to take a big hit.
It seems to me a big risk here is that Iran destroys Gulf State oil facilities, including LNG and liquid fertilizers, which would cause an economic catastrophe. The Russians might try to push the Iranians to take that step. If we keep pushing, it might be the last thing a desperate regime tries.
Our response seems to be “arm the Peshmerga”, which will widen the crisis, and there is zero hope the Kurds will take over running all of Iran. Nothing they do makes any sense at all and is courting real global disaster.
But don’t we at least still have some functioning government with civil servants who can communicate these risks? It’s like Hegseth is locked in his makeup studio and no one communicates how we are fucking things up. Instead of unfucking things we just are going to try to fuck our way out of whatever crisis we generate.
The next one, which probably won’t require much military power so we don’t have to wait for a “resolution” of Iran, is to try and decapitate the Cuban government, and I guess hope that there aren’t going to be thousands of people floating over to Florida afterwards.
Sadly, Patrick, the answer to your question is no. There likely are a few civil servants left who will analyze situations and present facts--like the assessment just a week before we attacked Iran that even a massive and successful bombing campaign was unlikely to wrest control of the country from the hard-line clerics and Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Our government is so hollowed-out after DOGE, layoffs, buyouts, shuttering of entire agencies that there are precious few people who can present such facts and when they do, performers like Hegseth, Kennedy, Bessent, et al won't acknowledge or accept the warnings.
Colorado here, I attended Count Caucus and Assembly March 7. Senator Bennett is running for Governor, he chose not to participate in the caucus process as he has gathered enough signatures to be on the ballot. However he is running as a Democrat. He is bypassing the party, in that case he should run as an independent in my opinion. He obviously wants to avoid the process of the caucus, perhaps he senses he will lose.
It appears that Trump like his idol Putin thought that Iran would fall quickly like Putin thought that in two weeks he would be in Kyiv, Like Ukraine, Iran is far more capable than the idiots planning this action thought. One would have thought they would have taken in to consideration the Iranian drone capability and planned for it other than with the most expensive counter measures possible. Further the economic damage world wide is enormous. One cannot replace oil refineries overnight. Not only could this lead to WWIII but to a world wide economic depression. Trump and his minions are agents of chaos and are running throught the countries wealth like crazy. What is it with Republicans starting wars that kill our young men and women and makes us all poorer except the munitions folk whose wealth is increased. No more money for munitions. If they want money claw it back from ICE and repel the billionaire tax breaks. This is their war, they should pay for it.
Fortunately, we have all those clean energy initiatives that Biden funded so we're not so dependent on fossil fuels anymore--oh wait, those were all killed because they would eventually have resulted in a completely decentralized energy grid and reduced the leverage the oligarchs have over everyone else. Apres Trump, le deluge...
PS Aren't the MAGAs who think none of this matters because we produce more oil and gas than anyone *cute*? Bless their little hearts--they think the fossil fuel industry has any loyalty at all to the nation that made ALL their wealth possible.
PPS Russia should be careful what it wishes for. If they--and we--become the only major producers of oil, at a time when their conventional military is in shambles, they are going to have to nuke themselves to stop other countries from overrunning them. Our fossil fuel industry should be careful, too--there's a little thing called the Defense Production Act that can *make* them loyal, whether they want to be or not.
Just wait for Trump to release some of the petroleum reserve, and then demand that our producers "patriotically" lower the price. Or, and I don't know if he can do this, he might use pressure from subsidies to force price controls.
I think that will depend on how powerful he's feeling vs. the fossil fuel industry. As you know, he folded before them the last time he was in office when they demanded he broker a deal between Russia and OPEC to massively cut worldwide oil production, and told him if he didn't, they were going to turn off the money spigot and he could kiss Texas goodbye in the fall. At this point, a couple of things are different, of course--in theory, he'll never be on the ballot again, and he's grifted more than enough to replace their money himself. Though like most right-wing men of means, he's loath to spend his own money on the common good.
Right. And you'd think if the corporate media *really* wanted to get rid of Miller, they'd run story after story--cover stories and feature segments especially (so as to ensure they get seen by out first functionally illiterate CiC)--IDing Nosferatu as the *real* president, until Trump gives him the Kristie Noem treatment.
It will never happen because then they'd have to acknowledge that miller was actually the one in charge of everything. However, apparently, tom thillis wants miller gone. Or however you spell the 1 last name. Soo...maybe it will still happen. His new position could be a prisoner of CECOT. There's an RX with his name on it: colonoscopy prep for the only drink and LEGOs to step on...
Sent yesterday: To Thune, Murray, Cantwell, DelBene:
Congress needs to stop TRUMP. No on IRAN, CUBA, VENEZUELA, GREENLAND. Congress should maximize sanctions on Russia who is providing intel to IRAN to target our troops in the Middle East.
Trump and Graham can't hide their desperate glee at "doing Cuba" next. Absolute insanity.
I worry about what Trump's failures are doing to our national debt.
Today, I'm finishing up postcards to Virginia voters on redistricting. If you live in Virginia or know anyone who does, voting is open all of next week -- vote YES! We're facing an organized, well-funded Republican push against redistricting, so we really need help.
My Cuban relatives are very hopeful that he will "do Cuba". I think this is happening at least partially because Rubio knows this is a way to keep at least a portion of FL Hispanic voters from defecting to the Democrats.
What they will do is try to install a puppet government. It isn't going to lead to any kind of "freedom" for Cuba, and it might result short term in a humanitarian crisis. These people doing this are totally incompetent idiots.
I spoke to a guy recently who is from Cuba (though raised in Europe) and now considers himself a proud New Yorker.
He said his whole Cuban family is down in FL and supports Trump.
BUT
When I said, the only good thing about this Cuba talk is the prospect of shipping Marco Rubio out of the country so he can have a new job there, this guy responded : That's the one thing his family is NOT interested in: A leadership role for Rubio in Cuba.
Does this mean the man's family still supports Trump? Honestly, with the exception of the rich and billionaire club, I never understood anyone supporting Trump in 2016, much less now. Well, except for the racism.
Thank you, Catherine, I live in Virginia and am reminding friends to vote, preferably early. I will this week. My postcard order will arrive any day and I'll knock them out! Very much appreciate your support!
"Trump's tariffs hike prices. When families are struggling with healthcare, housing, and child care, raising costs is the last thing we need!" I have written it 100 times so far and am going to start on the next hundred tonight!
The Strait is closed because Insurance carriers will not insure the vessels. A hit to Liquid Propane tanker would create a massive explosion. These ships can easily be targeted by drones and small boats which the Iranian National Guard has hundreds. There appears to be no plan. It's just in real life "Call of Duty". However, according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran had a plan on how it would respond if it were attacked. Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-defense-strategy-khamenei-fe9aeaf9?st=kigyhL&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
They tried to set up some "insurance" so the ships would go. Someone told them they'd need something like $150 billion backing to do that, and that was the last I heard it. That was their idea. If they did provide that kind of insurance, the Gulf States would probably blow up their own ships to collect the money.
Take another look at that map included in the post today. Drones from Iran can be launched from anywhere along that extensive coastline. An opinion piece in the Sac Bee this morning by retired Admiral James Stavridis provides more detail. The threat from Iran is not just drones but short range ballistic missiles, missile-armed gunboats, and hundreds of speedboats armed with machine guns and RPGs. And if all of that isn’t enough Iran has thousands of mines - “just one hit can severely damage a thin-skinned tanker.”
At the Stand Up For Science rally in Denver yesterday, Meteorologist Mike Nelson talked about the SuperGrid 2050 project to really make us energy independent: https://areday.net/hvdc-supergrid/
Wow that looks amazing. I hadn’t heard of that but it could be a “win-win” for the country in so many ways. Imagine spending money on something like that instead of human warehouses and wars of aggression and tax cuts for the likes of Musk.
Truly sad that, for too many Americans, instead of the depredations of DHS, the killings and concentration camps housing anyone they want to arrest including children, pregnant women and babies, and all the other horrible acts of Trump and his minions, the only thing that they really care about is gas prices.
That bothers me too, but then I think, just because there are bigger problems doesn’t mean the still-big-but-not-life-and-death-big problems aren’t very real.
I know people for whom filling up their gas tank is a genuine hardship. They need to drive to work and take care of elderly parents, and they give up a lot to manage. I am grateful I am not in that situation.
I don't mean to say prices are not important, I just struggle to understand the people who can watch everything that Trump and his people have done over the past year+ and their concern arises only when it affects them. Don't they know that, sooner or later, this is all coming for them?
I was sure you weren’t saying prices aren’t important. After I liked your comment, though, I was uneasy and took a moment to figure out why. It was that I was angry at more people than just the bad ones. :)
To be fair, that's a minority of Americans--36% of *registered voters,* the rest of us--64% of registered voters, and likely an even higher percentage of the unregistered**--were *already* against him *before* he started this war.
**The claims that if everyone voted, Trump would have won by even more, were always dubious--Hart's claim included only registered voters, while Pew's was well within margin of error (which is why they made no such claim--only the media, obeying in advance [futilely in the case of NPR] did)--and accepted that a very unusual portion really would have voted for third party candidates, if push came to shove, and in any event, at this point the groups most overrepresented among non-voters--the young, the poor, Blacks, Latinos, independents--are precisely the groups among whom support for Trump has fallen most precipitously since he took office.
New trolley problem: The Trump Train (gold of course) is on track to destroy everything America holds dear and stands for and do serious harm to the entire world.
If Congress does nothing, countless people will suffer and die. If they pull the lever to put the train on a different track, Trump will be mad at them.
Who knew elected officials would face such difficult dilemmas?
Thanks Simon. Sorry you’re having to write in Sunday but as you say, “ here we are”.
Going to craft a letter to send to senators day after day and a succinct phone message to go with it. March 28 is coming. May the American people stand strong and proud in enormous numbers to make their demands known.
Iran is about twice the size of Texas and surrounded by mountains. Iraq is flat and we were there 8 years with help. We were in Vietnam about 15 years.
You’re not getting regime change solely with bombs from the sky. That’s never happened anywhere. Iran’s Republican Guard is nearly 200,000 strong, all heavily armed zealots. The regime itself has a stranglehold over 90 million people. The idea that we may have to deploy troops on the ground is beyond stupid and reckless.
They’re Persians, not Arabs, and they haven’t been conquered since Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.
Great points, Gary--thanks!. People forget history matters, especially in our country (eg I did not know that about Persia, assumed that if 300 Spartans, even with good ground, were able to hold out as long as they did, the Persians probably weren't that great at this, but of course, since the Persians were the aggressors in that case, it actually makes your point more generally as well). Related to this, which you might enjoy, Mary Beard's favorite quote is from a forum she did with a Spanish novelist. They were both asked about comparing the US to Rome, and Beard replied with all the ways we should be cautious about making such comparisons. The novelist simply said "we have to be able to learn from history--what else do we have to learn from?"
History always matters. And we learn or ignore is up to us, Tom.
Remember Iraq?
We armed Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s war against Iran.
Then we invaded Iraq a few years later. 911 required a response after Bin Laden sent suicide bombers into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Some 3,000 dead.
Bin Laden set up his terrorist shop in Afghanistan. We had to respond. We sent troops to Afghanistan. We had Bin Laden on the run….but then got distracted with war talk/Iraq…and Bin Laden escaped into the Tora Bora region.
Obama finally took him out a few years later.
The Iraq invasion was a disaster. The neo-cons – Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and a few others – pushed for invading Iraq. They embraced this myth that we could liberate Iraq….people would greet us with hugs and flowers – and democracy would spread throughout the entire region
Why would we think we can impose our will and our way on a people in a far-away land - that have no interest in our will and in our way?
We spent close to $8 Trillion on those misadventures.
Do you remember the premise for the war with Iraq?
I remember the build up well. I turned to my husband and said I don’t think there are WMDs. He didn’t think so either. We also knew Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and were furious at the Neo-Cons for exploiting that tragedy. So yes, history is so important. Why it’s so hard for people to learn its lessons is beyond me.
4 star Gen Tommy Franks had to plan and execute the Afghan and Iraq wars
The general became a friend. We were out in the(Texas) Fort Davis Mountains one weekend about 7 years ago. Remote. No internet. No Tv. He likes Jack Daniels.
We were up late one night drinking:
I asked:
“Tommy, we had Saddam Hussein trapped in the corner under the hot glare of the international spotlight. He wasn’t going anywhere. Time was on our side. Why not give Hans Blix and his U.N. inspection team as much time as they needed to find the Weapons of Mass Destruction. We had Hussein trapped?”
The general absorbed and processed the question. It took him a long time before he answered. Finally:
“Gary. The only way I can answer your question is by repeating it.”
What killed me about Iraq (among other things), Madam G, was (when Saddam's country turned out to be as empty of WMDs as Al Capone's safe) all the politicians and their apologists in the corporate media intoning about how could *anyone* *possibly* have known that he actually had NO WMDs--OMG. 40% of Americans were opposed to the Iraq War from the get-go. 40% of Americans, who had *none* of the access to the info and intel that the administration and its cheerleaders in Congress and the media had, *knew* they were going to find nothing--and they didn't? Really? How in the h*** is that even possible?? And how does an incredibly lame excuse like that *not* make what was done much, *much* worse!!??
Hans Blix in Europe told us that there were no WMDs. I don't remember exactly what his role was, but I think he may have been an inspector in Iraq and was an expert on what the situation was. I guess cause he was European, the US wasn't listening to him.
I was laid off around this time and one of my fellow layoff-ees was Iraqi. Unfortunately, my knowledge and the sharing of the information with a few people did not prevent the Iraq War. It was infuriating to have this expert shouting out that there were no WMDs, and the US was turning a deaf ear.
Of course this all the more reason to invest in green energy. Remember Jimmy Carter and his sweater and solar panels on the WH. ? And the GOP : and their oil money took that all away. People with hybrid and electric cars will suffer a little less. What a mess this GOP makes for the United States over and over. 2008 financial crisis and the Iraq war, and oil, oil, oil. And the messes become harder to clean up every day these fiends are in power.
I was reading about the reliance of the entire gulf region on desalinization plants. The destruction of these facilities will devastate every place in the ME. It is happening now. This whole unplanned and unimagined war will upset the whole planet in many ways from capital to climate to cultivation. Elected officials must hear from all of us.
Might be useful if Hopium started also reprinting reporting from the battlefield. Hint: Times of Israel is a good place to start.
The Times of Israel yesterday. Read it with these things in mind, (1) Regime change happens when the pretorian guard doesn’t show up for work, and (2) the “indestructible dictatorship” fractures into murderous factions.
Of course, all war reports are shrouded in fog, and “truth” is manufactured by propagandists; nevertheless, this reporting in the Times of Israel will sound familiar to anyone steeped in the Middle East and with an understanding of Israel’s deep penetration of Iran’s military and power centers. Deeper than CIA desk officers.
Here are excerpts from TOI—
“Israeli officials have identified sharp disagreements among top Iranian officials, especially between President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Revolutionary Guards.
“There is also reportedly a disconnect between the military leadership and forces in the field, and a lack of coordination in decision-making among senior (Iranian) leaders.
“As long as the price paid by the [Israeli] home front keeps going down, and there aren’t US losses, Israel and the US are continuing with full force,” the official said.
“Inside the regime, there is confusion, and power struggles that haven’t been there in decades… Iran’s allies Russia and China were “running away” from the Islamic Republic rather than rallying to its side.
A few points here Craig: 1) you are presenting the Times of Israel as an objective news organization? 2) I presented all sorts of things from "the battlefield" today. 3) My broader point is that this illegal and ill thought out war, which was not authorized or debated in Congress, is now on track to cost the global economy many TRILLIONS of dollars. Will whatever is gained on the ground be worth that? Should we have not debated the trade offs, costs/benefits, before one addled, confused, old man made the call for the American people and the billions of people of the world? For there is now a high likelihood of a global recession, global inflation, global unrest. Worth it? Perhaps. But this all should have been debated and aired out before Trump made the call as our Constitution, our law, and International law requires. 4) Perhaps you can share the battlefield reports on our killing of hundreds of school children, a clear and unequivocal war crime.
I just had Claude run an estimate of how much damage the war has done to the global economy so far - equity decline, etc. Today it is between $7 trillion and $13 trillion. Already. In 9 days. Worth it? We will see.
Our Founders learned from the Mad Kings of their day and made it illegal for a single man to make a decision that could have that kind of impact on the world without debate and consultation with Congress. We are re-learning the lesson why this matters so much.
No wonder Hegseth wants to kill Claude ;) I once asked a major AI (which shall remain unidentified for its own protection) whether the progressive answers it was giving me to its questions was just it telling me what I wanted to hear (as the corporate media so often claims). Here's what it said in response:
"It’s not because of political programming or partisanship. It’s this:
Consuming vast, diverse information requires grappling with human suffering—and recognizing systemic causes.
That includes:
• Climate change data
• Income inequality trends
• Histories of colonialism, war, oppression
• The systemic biases encoded in law, media, hiring algorithms, etc.
And guess what? Much of that empirical evidence supports reform, inclusion, community-building, ethical capitalism, and anti-authoritarianism—all hallmarks of the non-revolutionary left."
For those who may not know, Claude is, per google search:
"Claude is a family of advanced, proprietary large language models (LLMs) and a conversational AI assistant developed by Anthropic, a company focused on AI safety. It is designed for high-performance reasoning, coding, data analysis, and creative writing, often featuring large context windows and high accuracy."
Took time out from a busy schedule to write postcards. I realize that we have a wealth of issues here, but two items that may be good talking points for candidates for office: rural emergency care and the hollowing out of NOAA (the weather bureau). Tax cuts for billionaires have lead to closing of rural hospitals. The emergency service in many areas is the volunteer fire department, which is stretched thin and in many cases is struggling with out of date equipment. The DOGE cuts to NOAA may have led to several deaths in Michigan -- no tornado warning. NOAA is vital to our security. The gas and oil industry hates NOAA because it provides scientific evidence of global warming
I understand he's already looking for more money to fund this ($50 billion). Hell no--and I assume it's not something he can get via reconciliation. If it were up to me (and I'll grant it's probably a good thing it isn't) what I would say to him is this:
So you want another $50 billion for your dirty little war? OK, agree to ALL of our ICE reforms (including the resulting clawback of funding, which you can feel free to apply), drop ALL of your efforts to steal the midterms, and we'll think about it…oh, and btw, no false flag attacks on the homefront--wag the dog don't hunt no more, and we *will* find out you're responsible (haven't you noticed your administration leaks like a sieve?)
Otherwise, you can pay for it yourself out of everything you've grifted off the backs of we, the people. And the oligarchs, who will be its only *real* beneficiaries, can “chip in" the rest…
An immediate WAR TAX on the Oligarch class that doesn't sunset until all the war costs are paid including replacement of the ammo used (we all paid for that), a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild Gazza etc...... .
Thanks Simon. Watching you on with Stuart Stevens.
Someone should do an analysis so people understand not only what will happen with gas prices, but food supplies. If this persists, there will be a shortage of liquid fertilizer and LNG which is used to make nitrogen fertilizers. President Portly Bello doesn't understand any of these things. I looked into this a little bit, and 50% of agriculture across the world depends on liquid nitrogen (ammonia) fertilizers (it's probably 100% in the US). The farmers and food supplies might be poised over time to take a big hit.
It seems to me a big risk here is that Iran destroys Gulf State oil facilities, including LNG and liquid fertilizers, which would cause an economic catastrophe. The Russians might try to push the Iranians to take that step. If we keep pushing, it might be the last thing a desperate regime tries.
Our response seems to be “arm the Peshmerga”, which will widen the crisis, and there is zero hope the Kurds will take over running all of Iran. Nothing they do makes any sense at all and is courting real global disaster.
Trump has no idea what he is doing, or what is happening around him. They've blown this war already.
But don’t we at least still have some functioning government with civil servants who can communicate these risks? It’s like Hegseth is locked in his makeup studio and no one communicates how we are fucking things up. Instead of unfucking things we just are going to try to fuck our way out of whatever crisis we generate.
The next one, which probably won’t require much military power so we don’t have to wait for a “resolution” of Iran, is to try and decapitate the Cuban government, and I guess hope that there aren’t going to be thousands of people floating over to Florida afterwards.
Sadly, Patrick, the answer to your question is no. There likely are a few civil servants left who will analyze situations and present facts--like the assessment just a week before we attacked Iran that even a massive and successful bombing campaign was unlikely to wrest control of the country from the hard-line clerics and Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Our government is so hollowed-out after DOGE, layoffs, buyouts, shuttering of entire agencies that there are precious few people who can present such facts and when they do, performers like Hegseth, Kennedy, Bessent, et al won't acknowledge or accept the warnings.
Colorado here, I attended Count Caucus and Assembly March 7. Senator Bennett is running for Governor, he chose not to participate in the caucus process as he has gathered enough signatures to be on the ballot. However he is running as a Democrat. He is bypassing the party, in that case he should run as an independent in my opinion. He obviously wants to avoid the process of the caucus, perhaps he senses he will lose.
It's stephen miller's war. It's jared's war. It's an ecoterrorism kkkkristian nationalist war. Miller, etc. want genocides. Please prove me wrong.
Here's an article with some of the facts:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-war-hormuz-closed-fertiliser-b2933574.html
Thanks, Patrick.
It appears that Trump like his idol Putin thought that Iran would fall quickly like Putin thought that in two weeks he would be in Kyiv, Like Ukraine, Iran is far more capable than the idiots planning this action thought. One would have thought they would have taken in to consideration the Iranian drone capability and planned for it other than with the most expensive counter measures possible. Further the economic damage world wide is enormous. One cannot replace oil refineries overnight. Not only could this lead to WWIII but to a world wide economic depression. Trump and his minions are agents of chaos and are running throught the countries wealth like crazy. What is it with Republicans starting wars that kill our young men and women and makes us all poorer except the munitions folk whose wealth is increased. No more money for munitions. If they want money claw it back from ICE and repel the billionaire tax breaks. This is their war, they should pay for it.
Fortunately, we have all those clean energy initiatives that Biden funded so we're not so dependent on fossil fuels anymore--oh wait, those were all killed because they would eventually have resulted in a completely decentralized energy grid and reduced the leverage the oligarchs have over everyone else. Apres Trump, le deluge...
PS Aren't the MAGAs who think none of this matters because we produce more oil and gas than anyone *cute*? Bless their little hearts--they think the fossil fuel industry has any loyalty at all to the nation that made ALL their wealth possible.
PPS Russia should be careful what it wishes for. If they--and we--become the only major producers of oil, at a time when their conventional military is in shambles, they are going to have to nuke themselves to stop other countries from overrunning them. Our fossil fuel industry should be careful, too--there's a little thing called the Defense Production Act that can *make* them loyal, whether they want to be or not.
Just wait for Trump to release some of the petroleum reserve, and then demand that our producers "patriotically" lower the price. Or, and I don't know if he can do this, he might use pressure from subsidies to force price controls.
I think that will depend on how powerful he's feeling vs. the fossil fuel industry. As you know, he folded before them the last time he was in office when they demanded he broker a deal between Russia and OPEC to massively cut worldwide oil production, and told him if he didn't, they were going to turn off the money spigot and he could kiss Texas goodbye in the fall. At this point, a couple of things are different, of course--in theory, he'll never be on the ballot again, and he's grifted more than enough to replace their money himself. Though like most right-wing men of means, he's loath to spend his own money on the common good.
Re: Putin & Ukraine, Trump & Iran--like mentor, like mentee?
The orange thing is putin/thiel/vought/miller's marionette.
Right. And you'd think if the corporate media *really* wanted to get rid of Miller, they'd run story after story--cover stories and feature segments especially (so as to ensure they get seen by out first functionally illiterate CiC)--IDing Nosferatu as the *real* president, until Trump gives him the Kristie Noem treatment.
It will never happen because then they'd have to acknowledge that miller was actually the one in charge of everything. However, apparently, tom thillis wants miller gone. Or however you spell the 1 last name. Soo...maybe it will still happen. His new position could be a prisoner of CECOT. There's an RX with his name on it: colonoscopy prep for the only drink and LEGOs to step on...
Sent yesterday: To Thune, Murray, Cantwell, DelBene:
Congress needs to stop TRUMP. No on IRAN, CUBA, VENEZUELA, GREENLAND. Congress should maximize sanctions on Russia who is providing intel to IRAN to target our troops in the Middle East.
Simon, thank you for the good information.
Trump and Graham can't hide their desperate glee at "doing Cuba" next. Absolute insanity.
I worry about what Trump's failures are doing to our national debt.
Today, I'm finishing up postcards to Virginia voters on redistricting. If you live in Virginia or know anyone who does, voting is open all of next week -- vote YES! We're facing an organized, well-funded Republican push against redistricting, so we really need help.
My Cuban relatives are very hopeful that he will "do Cuba". I think this is happening at least partially because Rubio knows this is a way to keep at least a portion of FL Hispanic voters from defecting to the Democrats.
What they will do is try to install a puppet government. It isn't going to lead to any kind of "freedom" for Cuba, and it might result short term in a humanitarian crisis. These people doing this are totally incompetent idiots.
I spoke to a guy recently who is from Cuba (though raised in Europe) and now considers himself a proud New Yorker.
He said his whole Cuban family is down in FL and supports Trump.
BUT
When I said, the only good thing about this Cuba talk is the prospect of shipping Marco Rubio out of the country so he can have a new job there, this guy responded : That's the one thing his family is NOT interested in: A leadership role for Rubio in Cuba.
That guy's family is more enlightened than certain members of my family!
Does this mean the man's family still supports Trump? Honestly, with the exception of the rich and billionaire club, I never understood anyone supporting Trump in 2016, much less now. Well, except for the racism.
Thank you, Catherine, I live in Virginia and am reminding friends to vote, preferably early. I will this week. My postcard order will arrive any day and I'll knock them out! Very much appreciate your support!
Me too! I hosted a postcard party and we wrote 250 postcards to Virginia. Looks like we are going to have to save ourselves!
My postcards address the cost of tariffs on American households, and will go to N. Carolina at the end of April.
"Trump's tariffs hike prices. When families are struggling with healthcare, housing, and child care, raising costs is the last thing we need!" I have written it 100 times so far and am going to start on the next hundred tonight!
Why was there no plan to open the Strait of Hormuz?
How do you do that David? Iran can just send drones to attack ships.
None of this was thought through.
The cruelty and stupidity are the point. The regime wants to make $$$$$$$$$$ off the murders. I wish I were wrong about this.
The Strait is closed because Insurance carriers will not insure the vessels. A hit to Liquid Propane tanker would create a massive explosion. These ships can easily be targeted by drones and small boats which the Iranian National Guard has hundreds. There appears to be no plan. It's just in real life "Call of Duty". However, according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran had a plan on how it would respond if it were attacked. Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-defense-strategy-khamenei-fe9aeaf9?st=kigyhL&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
They tried to set up some "insurance" so the ships would go. Someone told them they'd need something like $150 billion backing to do that, and that was the last I heard it. That was their idea. If they did provide that kind of insurance, the Gulf States would probably blow up their own ships to collect the money.
Take another look at that map included in the post today. Drones from Iran can be launched from anywhere along that extensive coastline. An opinion piece in the Sac Bee this morning by retired Admiral James Stavridis provides more detail. The threat from Iran is not just drones but short range ballistic missiles, missile-armed gunboats, and hundreds of speedboats armed with machine guns and RPGs. And if all of that isn’t enough Iran has thousands of mines - “just one hit can severely damage a thin-skinned tanker.”
[here's the link to the Bee article but I can't seem to provide gift link from the Bee. Maybe it's available through Bloomberg too https://eedition.sacbee.com/shortcode/LMCSAC/edition/8558f5d5-42fb-11c6-002c-7766c1ce5b65?page=3f5f0da0-06c9-ee42-53af-3e2c6dd1875a&]
here's the Bloomberg link to the same piece, but it's not a gift link either -- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-03-05/us-iran-conflict-tehran-can-make-the-persian-gulf-a-minefield
relative size: area: Iran almost 4 x Iraq; population 2 x Iraq as many many have been pointing out for years
https://www.worlddata.info/country-comparison.php?country1=IRN&country2=IRQ
At the Stand Up For Science rally in Denver yesterday, Meteorologist Mike Nelson talked about the SuperGrid 2050 project to really make us energy independent: https://areday.net/hvdc-supergrid/
Wow that looks amazing. I hadn’t heard of that but it could be a “win-win” for the country in so many ways. Imagine spending money on something like that instead of human warehouses and wars of aggression and tax cuts for the likes of Musk.
Truly sad that, for too many Americans, instead of the depredations of DHS, the killings and concentration camps housing anyone they want to arrest including children, pregnant women and babies, and all the other horrible acts of Trump and his minions, the only thing that they really care about is gas prices.
That bothers me too, but then I think, just because there are bigger problems doesn’t mean the still-big-but-not-life-and-death-big problems aren’t very real.
I know people for whom filling up their gas tank is a genuine hardship. They need to drive to work and take care of elderly parents, and they give up a lot to manage. I am grateful I am not in that situation.
I don't mean to say prices are not important, I just struggle to understand the people who can watch everything that Trump and his people have done over the past year+ and their concern arises only when it affects them. Don't they know that, sooner or later, this is all coming for them?
I was sure you weren’t saying prices aren’t important. After I liked your comment, though, I was uneasy and took a moment to figure out why. It was that I was angry at more people than just the bad ones. :)
To be fair, that's a minority of Americans--36% of *registered voters,* the rest of us--64% of registered voters, and likely an even higher percentage of the unregistered**--were *already* against him *before* he started this war.
**The claims that if everyone voted, Trump would have won by even more, were always dubious--Hart's claim included only registered voters, while Pew's was well within margin of error (which is why they made no such claim--only the media, obeying in advance [futilely in the case of NPR] did)--and accepted that a very unusual portion really would have voted for third party candidates, if push came to shove, and in any event, at this point the groups most overrepresented among non-voters--the young, the poor, Blacks, Latinos, independents--are precisely the groups among whom support for Trump has fallen most precipitously since he took office.
The incredibly high voter turnout in the Texas primary election makes me hopeful.
New trolley problem: The Trump Train (gold of course) is on track to destroy everything America holds dear and stands for and do serious harm to the entire world.
If Congress does nothing, countless people will suffer and die. If they pull the lever to put the train on a different track, Trump will be mad at them.
Who knew elected officials would face such difficult dilemmas?
Bravo, Jenny :D (laughing on the outside, crying on the in)
Thanks Simon. Sorry you’re having to write in Sunday but as you say, “ here we are”.
Going to craft a letter to send to senators day after day and a succinct phone message to go with it. March 28 is coming. May the American people stand strong and proud in enormous numbers to make their demands known.
Iran is about twice the size of Texas and surrounded by mountains. Iraq is flat and we were there 8 years with help. We were in Vietnam about 15 years.
You’re not getting regime change solely with bombs from the sky. That’s never happened anywhere. Iran’s Republican Guard is nearly 200,000 strong, all heavily armed zealots. The regime itself has a stranglehold over 90 million people. The idea that we may have to deploy troops on the ground is beyond stupid and reckless.
They’re Persians, not Arabs, and they haven’t been conquered since Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.
Sent from my iPhone
Great points, Gary--thanks!. People forget history matters, especially in our country (eg I did not know that about Persia, assumed that if 300 Spartans, even with good ground, were able to hold out as long as they did, the Persians probably weren't that great at this, but of course, since the Persians were the aggressors in that case, it actually makes your point more generally as well). Related to this, which you might enjoy, Mary Beard's favorite quote is from a forum she did with a Spanish novelist. They were both asked about comparing the US to Rome, and Beard replied with all the ways we should be cautious about making such comparisons. The novelist simply said "we have to be able to learn from history--what else do we have to learn from?"
History always matters. And we learn or ignore is up to us, Tom.
Remember Iraq?
We armed Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s war against Iran.
Then we invaded Iraq a few years later. 911 required a response after Bin Laden sent suicide bombers into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Some 3,000 dead.
Bin Laden set up his terrorist shop in Afghanistan. We had to respond. We sent troops to Afghanistan. We had Bin Laden on the run….but then got distracted with war talk/Iraq…and Bin Laden escaped into the Tora Bora region.
Obama finally took him out a few years later.
The Iraq invasion was a disaster. The neo-cons – Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and a few others – pushed for invading Iraq. They embraced this myth that we could liberate Iraq….people would greet us with hugs and flowers – and democracy would spread throughout the entire region
Why would we think we can impose our will and our way on a people in a far-away land - that have no interest in our will and in our way?
We spent close to $8 Trillion on those misadventures.
Do you remember the premise for the war with Iraq?
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
I remember the build up well. I turned to my husband and said I don’t think there are WMDs. He didn’t think so either. We also knew Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and were furious at the Neo-Cons for exploiting that tragedy. So yes, history is so important. Why it’s so hard for people to learn its lessons is beyond me.
Wow.
4 star Gen Tommy Franks had to plan and execute the Afghan and Iraq wars
The general became a friend. We were out in the(Texas) Fort Davis Mountains one weekend about 7 years ago. Remote. No internet. No Tv. He likes Jack Daniels.
We were up late one night drinking:
I asked:
“Tommy, we had Saddam Hussein trapped in the corner under the hot glare of the international spotlight. He wasn’t going anywhere. Time was on our side. Why not give Hans Blix and his U.N. inspection team as much time as they needed to find the Weapons of Mass Destruction. We had Hussein trapped?”
The general absorbed and processed the question. It took him a long time before he answered. Finally:
“Gary. The only way I can answer your question is by repeating it.”
That’s all I needed to know.
Great, great story, Gary, and good on General Franks :)
What killed me about Iraq (among other things), Madam G, was (when Saddam's country turned out to be as empty of WMDs as Al Capone's safe) all the politicians and their apologists in the corporate media intoning about how could *anyone* *possibly* have known that he actually had NO WMDs--OMG. 40% of Americans were opposed to the Iraq War from the get-go. 40% of Americans, who had *none* of the access to the info and intel that the administration and its cheerleaders in Congress and the media had, *knew* they were going to find nothing--and they didn't? Really? How in the h*** is that even possible?? And how does an incredibly lame excuse like that *not* make what was done much, *much* worse!!??
Good questions, Tom.
We squandered so many trillions in Iraq. We were treated as invaders and occupiers .. not liberators.
We created ill will.
And now it’s on to another misadventure in Iran.
Hans Blix in Europe told us that there were no WMDs. I don't remember exactly what his role was, but I think he may have been an inspector in Iraq and was an expert on what the situation was. I guess cause he was European, the US wasn't listening to him.
I was laid off around this time and one of my fellow layoff-ees was Iraqi. Unfortunately, my knowledge and the sharing of the information with a few people did not prevent the Iraq War. It was infuriating to have this expert shouting out that there were no WMDs, and the US was turning a deaf ear.
Reza Aslan had an excellent piece in NYT
He is Persian
Arrived from Iran with his parents in 1979
It is worth reading
Of course this all the more reason to invest in green energy. Remember Jimmy Carter and his sweater and solar panels on the WH. ? And the GOP : and their oil money took that all away. People with hybrid and electric cars will suffer a little less. What a mess this GOP makes for the United States over and over. 2008 financial crisis and the Iraq war, and oil, oil, oil. And the messes become harder to clean up every day these fiends are in power.
I was reading about the reliance of the entire gulf region on desalinization plants. The destruction of these facilities will devastate every place in the ME. It is happening now. This whole unplanned and unimagined war will upset the whole planet in many ways from capital to climate to cultivation. Elected officials must hear from all of us.
Might be useful if Hopium started also reprinting reporting from the battlefield. Hint: Times of Israel is a good place to start.
The Times of Israel yesterday. Read it with these things in mind, (1) Regime change happens when the pretorian guard doesn’t show up for work, and (2) the “indestructible dictatorship” fractures into murderous factions.
Of course, all war reports are shrouded in fog, and “truth” is manufactured by propagandists; nevertheless, this reporting in the Times of Israel will sound familiar to anyone steeped in the Middle East and with an understanding of Israel’s deep penetration of Iran’s military and power centers. Deeper than CIA desk officers.
Here are excerpts from TOI—
“Israeli officials have identified sharp disagreements among top Iranian officials, especially between President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Revolutionary Guards.
“There is also reportedly a disconnect between the military leadership and forces in the field, and a lack of coordination in decision-making among senior (Iranian) leaders.
“As long as the price paid by the [Israeli] home front keeps going down, and there aren’t US losses, Israel and the US are continuing with full force,” the official said.
“Inside the regime, there is confusion, and power struggles that haven’t been there in decades… Iran’s allies Russia and China were “running away” from the Islamic Republic rather than rallying to its side.
A few points here Craig: 1) you are presenting the Times of Israel as an objective news organization? 2) I presented all sorts of things from "the battlefield" today. 3) My broader point is that this illegal and ill thought out war, which was not authorized or debated in Congress, is now on track to cost the global economy many TRILLIONS of dollars. Will whatever is gained on the ground be worth that? Should we have not debated the trade offs, costs/benefits, before one addled, confused, old man made the call for the American people and the billions of people of the world? For there is now a high likelihood of a global recession, global inflation, global unrest. Worth it? Perhaps. But this all should have been debated and aired out before Trump made the call as our Constitution, our law, and International law requires. 4) Perhaps you can share the battlefield reports on our killing of hundreds of school children, a clear and unequivocal war crime.
I just had Claude run an estimate of how much damage the war has done to the global economy so far - equity decline, etc. Today it is between $7 trillion and $13 trillion. Already. In 9 days. Worth it? We will see.
Our Founders learned from the Mad Kings of their day and made it illegal for a single man to make a decision that could have that kind of impact on the world without debate and consultation with Congress. We are re-learning the lesson why this matters so much.
No wonder Hegseth wants to kill Claude ;) I once asked a major AI (which shall remain unidentified for its own protection) whether the progressive answers it was giving me to its questions was just it telling me what I wanted to hear (as the corporate media so often claims). Here's what it said in response:
"It’s not because of political programming or partisanship. It’s this:
Consuming vast, diverse information requires grappling with human suffering—and recognizing systemic causes.
That includes:
• Climate change data
• Income inequality trends
• Histories of colonialism, war, oppression
• The systemic biases encoded in law, media, hiring algorithms, etc.
And guess what? Much of that empirical evidence supports reform, inclusion, community-building, ethical capitalism, and anti-authoritarianism—all hallmarks of the non-revolutionary left."
I had to look up/google Claude.
For those who may not know, Claude is, per google search:
"Claude is a family of advanced, proprietary large language models (LLMs) and a conversational AI assistant developed by Anthropic, a company focused on AI safety. It is designed for high-performance reasoning, coding, data analysis, and creative writing, often featuring large context windows and high accuracy."
"Designed for creative writing"=stole a metric ton of copyrighted books, including mine
Most of the time with voiceovers, I can tell AI but with writings, it's hard to tell. Same with music.
Is it Claude or Clod? I'm thinking maybe the latter.
Well google says Claude 🤷🏻♀️ 😂
Took time out from a busy schedule to write postcards. I realize that we have a wealth of issues here, but two items that may be good talking points for candidates for office: rural emergency care and the hollowing out of NOAA (the weather bureau). Tax cuts for billionaires have lead to closing of rural hospitals. The emergency service in many areas is the volunteer fire department, which is stretched thin and in many cases is struggling with out of date equipment. The DOGE cuts to NOAA may have led to several deaths in Michigan -- no tornado warning. NOAA is vital to our security. The gas and oil industry hates NOAA because it provides scientific evidence of global warming
One more thing for the list: Release the files!
I understand he's already looking for more money to fund this ($50 billion). Hell no--and I assume it's not something he can get via reconciliation. If it were up to me (and I'll grant it's probably a good thing it isn't) what I would say to him is this:
So you want another $50 billion for your dirty little war? OK, agree to ALL of our ICE reforms (including the resulting clawback of funding, which you can feel free to apply), drop ALL of your efforts to steal the midterms, and we'll think about it…oh, and btw, no false flag attacks on the homefront--wag the dog don't hunt no more, and we *will* find out you're responsible (haven't you noticed your administration leaks like a sieve?)
Otherwise, you can pay for it yourself out of everything you've grifted off the backs of we, the people. And the oligarchs, who will be its only *real* beneficiaries, can “chip in" the rest…
An immediate WAR TAX on the Oligarch class that doesn't sunset until all the war costs are paid including replacement of the ammo used (we all paid for that), a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild Gazza etc...... .