I have time for only a short comment. It’s my grandson Dylan’s tenth birthday. I understand there will be festivities involving pizza and cake.
Trump and the Senate have caved on DHS funding. The Senate voted this morning to fund the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and most of the rest of DHS, but not ICE. In other words, what the Democrats have been asking for for forty-something days. Trump also signed an executive order asking for TSA agents to be paid, but I’m not sure he can do that. Congress does that. Now it’s up to the House, but if Trump wants it, the measure will be approved, I suspect.
This week’s horrific accident at LaGuardia and the four-hour lines at airport security — which ICE agents didn’t shorten — must have had the major airlines screaming at Trump and legislators. People were probably canceling flights, or not booking them at all. Pressure from major corporations is about the only pressure that means anything to Republicans.
Regarding Iran, I understand Trump has extended his five-day deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. At this point I suspect he wants out of the war more than Iran does. The thing with authoritarian regimes is that they aren’t worried about being re-elected and can accept a lot of hurt. Trump can’t. People are pissed. U.S. military assets are being obliterated along with Iranian infrastructure. The price of oil is going through the roof. Trump has got to be hearing from a lot of the Money People that he needs to extract the U.S. from this war, asap. He needs a TACO that he can sell to what’s left of his base as a win. Good luck with that.
And did you hear that Treasury is going to start issuing paper bills with Trump’s signature on them? How tacky is that? “Adding his name to U.S. currency is Trump’s latest effort to leave his mark on the federal government in ways other presidents haven’t,” the linked article says. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that what he does can all be undone by a future administration. Unless he’s completely destroyed something, like the East Wing. I do hope he lives long enough to see his stupid ballroom demolished.
I prefer that he live long enough to see his planned ballroom scrapped and plans made for it to be replaced with a restoration of the East Wing.
Who am I kidding; the sooner he has his debilitating stroke the better.
Well before he entered politics, a graphologist (hand writing expert) read Trump's signature – it is full of sharp, destructive angles, like the blade of a power saw – and concluded it was the signature of a monster. And so it's a fitting, unconscious stamp on the currency of a nation that's firmly heading down the path of self-destruction. At least he didn't manage to get his face on the bills, although I'm sure he tried.
I hope your grandson has a wonderful party!
“It’s my grandson Dylan’s tenth birthday. I understand there will be festivities involving pizza and cake.”
You are a lucky man.
Enjoy every second of it.
She's a luck woman, but otherwise I agree wholeheartedly!
I'll just defer to the comment of the Vagabond Rambler from Australia in recommending the link below. I read the piece yesterday and again today.
What else could one say to encourage a person to read it.
Opinion | It’s Not Trump. It’s America. – The New York Times
Now there is a woman who soon will be seeking refugee status in the Russian Federation if she makes it safely out of the USA.
Various senators are probably calling Bondi or Kash Patel urging treason charges.
Because and I quote;
Truth and Treason both begin with a T. Some might confuse them.
His signature on the almighty dollar will jinx it for sure. You need no special mental power to divine that.
Remember, everything Trump touches, dies. Given the damage he's done with tariffs and the war, the dollar will be fittingly worthless with his signature on it.
It's the other way around. The Republicans don't need the Democrats to do anything about ICE and Border Patrol. Those are funded for years in the big beautiful bill. So what actually happened was that is was democrats gave into pressure and gave up any hope of enacting changes for literally nothing in return. Would the Republicans love to force Democrats to vote for ICE? Sure but they didn't need them and Democrats just gave up any remaining leverage to effect any changes in DHS policy for the next six months at a minimum.
You need to get your meds adjusted. True, Dems didn't get anything they want in the offer to fund things like the FAA and the Coast Guard, but they were never trying to hold FEMA funding hostage. They put a spotlight on ICE abuses and the minimum reforms. Let me list them in case you need a refresher. NO masks. Real warrants, signed by a real judge. Body cams, Accountability for the murders of Good and Pretti. There's been no significant slippage in the demands. I don't expect Republicans to cave. Fine! We go over the heads of Congress to the highest authority in the US – the American voter.
ICE is not popular. That's why they are not wearing masks in airports. The idea of an ICE surge lasted for two days – Trump isn't pretending he can fix airport waits with the Gestapo. He's promising to circumvent the budget to get TSA paid. Trump, not the Democrats, was getting the blame for the shutdown and the inconvenience. THEY caved, and they are still trying to preserve the fascist police force that ICE and Border Patrol are. Get it? Republicans in Congress are getting married to policies and police that persuadable voters (Independents) increasingly view as lawless and repressive. (Hat tip to the Twin Cities) The people led and bled and Dems in Congress are following.
Update: The House failed to pass a bill that would have funded services under DHS – without funding ICE and CBP. Democrats were willing to vote 'Yes' – Republicans balked. Whose fault is the airport crisis?
It's all about the November elections. SAVE is on hold for two weeks and can't pass in the Senate unless the GOP invokes the nuclear option. They won't because that opens the door for a Democratic majority to invoke the same rule to, say, add four judges to the USSC. when they have the majority, Everything affects November. Gas prices, inflation, police brutality, unemployment, Iran, Israel, Cuba, Epstein… Are any of these going to be wins for the GOP in the next six months?
You are confused. The issue was that DHS was left out of the budget bill that passed a few weeks ago because the Dems refused to fund ICE without some major changes in how they operated. And for the past four or five weeks they've been telling the Republicans that they'd sign off on funding the rest of DHS, including the TSA, just not ICE. Republicans said nope; it's all or nothing. But this morning Senate Republicans put forth a bill that funded DHS except for ICE, which is what the Dems have been asking for. It's true ICE is funded through the big ugly bill — which was a reconciliation bill the Dems couldn't have stopped — but that money isn't infinite. And the House Republicans rejected the Senate bill and insisted ICE be funded in the budget. But it's not over. And I don't see where you think the Senate Dems "caved."
And back to the big ugly bill — every Democratic senator plus three Republicans voted against it, but since it was a reconciliation bill they couldn't use filibuster/cloture rules to keep it from being put to a vote in the full senate. So it passed by one vote. And when Dems have been in the majority they've used the reconciliation rules to get stuff passed without the Republicans. Being in the minority limits what a party can do.
One Vengeance for All is a chilling propaganda video purportedly released by Iran. In a short minute, it covers every perceived crime by this country, from what happened to the Native Americans to Epstein Island to the slaughter of children at that elementary school at the war's beginning. The music is haunting, as victims look up to the sky, and a short caption explains each scene.
A number of psychics have seen Iran doing some kind of retaliation involving New York City. Karma is coming, folks. These were the wrong people to mess with.
Mew York City overwhelmingly hates Trump — New Yorkers know him too well — and just elected a Muslim mayor. I understand the mayor follows a Shia tradition, and Iran is majority Shia. I question whether NYC would be Iran's target.
All of those things are dwarfed by Wall St – probably the financial capital of the world, pretty overwhelmingly pro-Trump.
In the video, as the Statue of Liberty is falling into the sea, falling with it are stone tablets with what looks to me like Hebrew characters inscribed upon them. And so there's this whole angle of Jewish financial power as well.
I don't think NYC will be obliterated, but Mamdani and the City's anti-Trump sentiment are nothing compared to the financial and political power it wields around the world. That's what the rest of the world actually experiences.
I'm not sure Wall Street is as much pro Trump as it is pro-whatever will goose the profits. Trump hasn't been all that good for profits, and I'm sure at least some Wall Street people realize that. If the price of oil continues to go up they'll all turn on him eventually.
I also very much question whether Wall Street really is a primary reason fundamentalist Muslims resent the West. There's all kinds of historical, geopolitical, and cultural issues that set them off, also.
Pretty sure Iran has the sense to avoid attacking the USA directly; they know that this would be the quickest way to get US population behind Israel's war on them.
Frankly, I'm more worried about the possibility of false flag attacks here. See Craig Murray's comments on the supposed attack by "Iranian backed terrorists" on a few ambulances in London:
The London Ambulances Attack: Of Course It Was A False Flag – Craig Murray
"Sleeper cells" is what one psychic has been saying.
"You break it, you own it…" is true regardless of which war of aggression we're talking about, and it doesn't need to be restated for every aggressive military operation we launch.
This administration owns the US involvement in this mess, and it's the administration alone, because they didn't bother to sell the public on it and they didn't bother to get approval from congress. It's ALL on the administration.
And the mess is going to be bad, and it's going to last a long time, even if this administration withdraws our military from the theater of war, because the bad consequences have already been set in motion (ie. the economic impact, worldwide, hasn't yet reached its peak). And if the US military withdraws (claiming "victory") the mess will continue, because fish-rail isn't going to stop until it has "gazza-ed" all of eye-rahn's proxy groups in the region and de-nazified eye-rahn. The US president is just a passenger on this fiasco flight. The war will not end until the countries of the middle east all want it to end. Not in our control. So we are stuck with the consequences, just like the rest of the globe.
At this point I suspect he [Trump] wants out of the war more than Iran does.
I don’t think Iran is in a great hurry to get out of the war. Oh I’m sure they want the war to end as soon as possible but they have the advantage at the moment and it looks like Trump and and entourage are getting desperate.
They seem to have planned this war on a paper napkin over lunch based mostly on not very good Mossad intelligence while resolutely ignoring any input from US military or intelligence.
On the other hand Iran probably started preparing for a war with the USA about the day the USA invaded Iraq and have been polishing and refining their plans ever since.
I am having a problem finding clean relatively official lists of US and Iranian demands but it looks like the US demands are simply a restatement of the ones before the start of the war. If anyone thinks Iran is giving up its ballistic missiles they are as delusional as Trump and his cartel.
Iran wants to get the USA out of West Asia or at least the Gulf, recognized control of the Strait of Hormuz, that is de jure as well as de facto control, among other things. War compensation is going to be sticky.
However in the last 24–48 hours we have seen some interesting developments. Anwar Allah (the Houthis) have attacked Israel and probably will be interdicting shipping in the Red Sea almost immediately. Maybe attacking Saudi Arabia or the UAE?
Iraq has more or less declared war on the USA by green-lighting the PMU’s to attack US forces in Iraq and it seems anybody else they want who are threatening Iraq or Iran. At the moment, it looks like the Green Zone and at least one other US base are under siege. The Victoria airbase outside of Baghdad has been evacuated as, reportedly, has been one near Erbil. Iraq has been trying to get rid of US occupation forces for years.
Yes, Trump wants out of the war more than Iran does.
Peace Talks may be interesting since the USA seems to think "Negotiation == "Attack".
You're giving them too much credit. I doubt there was any strategic planning at all. I haven't seen any evidence Trump or Hegseth know what strategy is
The most catastrophic omission is that of an exit strategy. We have the most military power, if you rate our power to blow shit up. They have the economic power – they can shut down commerce through the Homuz Straight. I'm not sure if anyone has shown Trump this map.
https://graphics.france24.com/map-middle-east-sunnis-shiites/
A week ago, I expected that cash flow would dictate the policies and change in policies of the oil-producing nations. After a month, if what I read is true, SA, Kuwiat, UAE, and Qatar seem to be in favor of a US ground war. IMO, we can't break the hold on the Straight overnight. Put boots on the ground and we're in an oil-induced global recession for the rest of the year. The November elections will be a rout of the GOP.
I'm a vet. Much as I hate Trump, I don't want to pay for a win with the blood of US GIs in a pointless war for religious dominance by the Sunnis. The question is: will Trump commit the US to a ground war that recent history says we can not win? If Trump chickens out, how does the war end? Because Iran is pissed and they can still keep the Staight closed until the Shiite nations accept terms less to their liking than conditions were before the start of the war. Which means we're in a global recession until at least the end of the year.
Anybody want to explain to me how I'm wrong? I'm all ears.