Update: Orbán concedes to Magyar’s Tisza after projections show opposition winning two-thirds majority!
The peace talks collapsed in less than 24 hours. Usually negotiations of that nature go on for days, weeks, months even. Now Trump has ordered the U.S. Navy to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social, his social media site. The president also said he had instructed the Navy to interdict all ships that have paid a toll to Iran for traversing the strait, calling Tehran’s expanded control of the waterway “EXTORTION.”
Is there anyone on the planet not named Trump who thinks this is a good idea? I very much doubt it. We’ll be lucky if the moron doesn’t stumble us into World War III.
Trump has also claimed that “massive numbers” of empty tankers are heading to the U.S. to fill up on oil and gas. He seems to think this is a good thing. But reality and Trump are rarely in the same ball park, so we’ll see if anyone can actually locate these tankers in any real-world sense.
Regarding the negotiations that failed, I saw this on BlueSky yesterday.
.Witkoff and Trump have also made millions through a cryptocurrency deal with Abu Dhabi last year. I suspect Abu Dhabi has some opinions about what’s been going on in the Strait of Hormuz.
Needless to say, no sane nation would send the likes of Kushner and Witkoff to these negotiations. On top of which, the Daily Beast reported this yesterday:
Vice President JD Vance and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner appear to be pushing completely different demands in nuclear talks with Tehran, just a day before negotiations are set to resume.
Vance is insistent that Iran have zero uranium enrichment capacity, while Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff had recently floated a softer deal in which the U.S. would supply Iran with uranium for civilian use, according to Fox News. …
… Tehran has already indicated it would prefer to deal directly with Vance over Kushner and Witkoff, reflecting deep distrust after earlier talks collapsed, according to CNN.
Regarding Vance, Josh Marshall wrote this yesterday —
I’m no Trumper. I hate what they represent. But I can occasionally appreciate their approach to ritually humiliating their own. In this vein it’s sort of a nice touch that they’ve made JD Vance – who’s been leaking to basically every news outlet that will listen that he was 100% against this war and it’s totally not his fault – own it outright, wrap himself in it really in Pakistan.
Chef’s kiss as they say.
And while that was happening, Trump and his bleeping Secretary of State Marco Rubio were at some pro wrestling match in Miami. While the talks were collapsing.
This is not the way a responsible nation handles a sensitive international crisis. If I were Iran, I wouldn’t trust anything coming out of this administration, either.
Meanwhile, I’m guessing the Veep is spending his free time reading and re-reading the 25th Amendment.
Now for something completely different — I suppose I should say something about Eric Swalwell. I take it he’s pretty much toast. The sexual assault allegations against him appear to be credible, since multiple women came forward and multiple staffers have resigned from his gubernatorial campaign. if such allegations were entirely out of character I doubt the staffers would have resigned.
I remember being way underwhelmed by Swalwell during the 2019 Democratic presidential candidate debates. I gave him the “Mr. Obnoxious Award” after one debate. More recently he’s been on MSNBC quite a bit and seemed to be fighting the good fight. But it’s better this came out now than later, I suppose. I haven’t been paying much attention to the gubernatorial campaigns in California and have no idea how this will impact the election.
Vance was demanding the Iran open the Straight Up Vermouth.
Likely on behalf of Secretary of War Crimes Whiskey Pete Kegseth.
Thanks guys I needed the laugh.
The Swalwell thing reminds me of recent NC political golden boys who pulled similar stunts. If you run, you better be clean. If elected, you better stay clean. It is very disappointing to have this happen so often. Private citizen peccadilloes are one thing, but crapping in the cereal of people trying to elect your image rather than your reality is just terrible. Unless you're a Republican.
Even if tankers are coming to the US, oil is still sold on a global market and we screwed up 20% of the supply. tRunp has no idea how a market operates.
BTW, there’s a pretty good chance that Cali will elect a GOP governor, since they have that insane jungle primary and something like twenty-seven Democrats are running and splitting the vote so that the two Repubs are polling at 20% and all the various Dems are 17% or below. Just a fustercluck of epic proportions.
Yeah, I read that there are two Republicans and eight Democrats (including Swalwell) running, and with California’s system the primary is likely to choose the two Republicans to run in the general. I don’t have a feel for who has the best chance among the Dems, since several of them are state elected officials I never heard of. But somewhere there must be polls. The California Democratic party needs to lean on the four or so Dem candidates with the worst numbers to drop out.
Swalwell will still be listed on the ballot, I wonder how many "votes" he will get.
Missouri once elected a guy to the U.S. Senate three weeks after he had died in a plane crash. And that was long before the state had early voting. Anything is possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Carnahan
I think Katie Porter and Tom Steyer (a billionaire) are the two top Democrats after Swalwell. Porter did this insane run against Adam Schiff (for Senator), so who knws what will happen, in other words she's not immune from doing stupid things.
It remains to be seen if Swalwell will drop out. I am hopeful that despite the jungle primary, people will be so disgusted with the Republicans, and the Democrats will have just enough discipline to keep California blue.
WTF is it with major political candidates being sexual predators? No, not all, but a disproportionately high ratio. Much as I'd like to blame it all on republicans, Democrats have too many, and IMO, without statistics, way more in politics than the norm .
On the main topic, it's Deja Vu' all over again.
Well, come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
Got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam (Change to Iran)
Put down your books and pick up a gun
We're going to have a whole lot of fun
County Joe McDonald – Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag
Like the Vietnam war, it's a 'jam' – a trap, with no good way to get out. Bibi and MBS reportedly want Trump fully committed with ground troops and every GI fatality cementing us further to paying the price in blood and treasure for a war that only benefits them. (For those too young to remember, the hundreds, then thousands, of dead and maimed US GIs who died in 'Nam was a prime excuse for escalation.)
The death toll in 'Nam, with no end in sight, eventually got too high. Even Trump seems to understand that he will never shake the legacy of wasted lives if he invades. So Trump invokes a half-measure, closing the Staight to everyone because Iran did not accept Trump's terms. (Closing the Staight is the only weapon Iran has. It has tipped the Western world into a (likely) recession.) We've hit the military targets we know about, but it seems likely they have military assets we don't know about. A clue is that Iran shot down two US aircraft and hit a couple of helos after the initial strikes that 'obliterated' Iraq's defenses. Some speculated that the operation was an attempt to seize nuclear material and they scrambled to get out when the magnitude of the failure became clear.
The USN reportedly ran a couple of Guided Missile Destroyers through the Hormuz to clear mines. That's not a task they are designed for. Usually, they provide defense for a Carrier Group. They have a lot of teeth and superb threat detection. IMO, the Pentagon determined they could defend themselves if attacked. When the US declares the Honuz mine-free and safe, it will be complete fiction. It may be that King Donnie wants to claim that he has opened the Straight, he is bringing the fleet home. It's anybody's problem but his to KEEP it open.
I wasn't invited, but my guess is that the demand that Iran give up nuclear ambitions was also a demand to surrender any weapons-grade material. The stuff we got our butts kicked trying to grab. And I think Iraq suggested they'd discuss it if the US takes back the nuclear missiles we gave Israel without Congressional approval and in violation of International treaties. (We always skip past the fact that Israel just became a nuclear power without ever buying a single centrifuge or buying unrefined uranium. I'm not in favor of Iran being in the nuclear bomb club, but I don't trust Bibi as far as I can throw him. So if we are having a nuclear disarmament discussion, let' include Israel.
Orban lost big, even conceding without a court fight. Looks like the newbie will have a supermajority in their Congress. A lot about him we do not know, but Trump hates him, so that's a good sign.
Doug – curious about your picture of Israel's acquisition of nukes. My understanding is that their nuke program was at least somewhat independent, though they had help (from France, intentionally, and from US, unintentionally!). Kennedy tried to get US inspectors into Dimona (fueling allegations that Mossad killed JFK!), but LBJ was much more lenient (he helped cover up the Liberty incident, too).
I've never heard anything about any other country just giving Israel completed nukes; have you?
I stand corrected. I repeated something I read withhout checking
I live 500km from salt water so my grasp of naval affairs is not intuitive but at the moment the US "Armada" is stationed reported to be stationed about 1,000 to 1,300km from the Iranian coast. If ships move in much closer the Iranians are going to start throwing anti–ship missiles at them. Something like an Arleigh Burke destroyer can probably defend itself but it may be difficult to seize a VLCC tanker while dodging missiles. And, at the moment, the nearest place to reload missiles seems to be Diego Garcia which is 3,200km or more from station.
And as was mentioned on another blog:
According to the U.S. Naval Institute, a modern destroyer such as an ARLEIGH BURKE Class ship burns 200 gallons per hour of distillate, which is basically furnace oil, per Gas Turbine Generator, of which it has four, regardless of plant configuration or vessel speed, both of which affect fuel consumption.
Suddenly the logistics are looking interesting.
It occurs to me that China is a major consumer of Iranian oil and China has the world's largest navy. I wonder what happens if China follows Russia's new approach and sends naval escorts with its Iranian oil shipments?
Apparently India has just started importing natural gas from Iran. India is desperate for gas as almost all cooking is done with gas. The US capturing Indian gas is not going to make for warm fuzzy feelings towards the USA.
It occurs to me that China is a major consumer of Iranian oil and China has the world's largest navy. I wonder what happens if China follows Russia's new approach and sends naval escorts with its Iranian oil shipments?
Apparently India has just started importing natural gas from Iran. India is desperate for gas as almost all cooking is done with gas. The US capturing Indian gas is not going to make for warm fuzzy feelings towards the USA.
"What will China do?' is the zillion dollar question. China has a special deal with Iran, buying its oil "off-market" from them using yuan or crypto.
It would not suprise me that in Trump's mind this is really about starting a war with China. Trump the Destroyer.
My apologies for the double post.
The news of Hungary makes me hungry for some of that here.
From a famous film: "I'll have what she's having."
MS Now reports mutant photo of Trump as Jesus was quickly taken down. No credit was taken or apology given as of this time.
My sympathy to anyone who saw it. Truly traumatic image that can never be unseen.
Jimmy Kimmel remarked that the guy Trump/Jesus was healing looked an awful lot like Jeffrey Epstein.
Today I feel like we're living inside a new chapter of Joseph Heller's book Catch 22.
POTUS and his lap-dog administration have put us in a place where our day to day experience is kind of like the movie Groundhog Day: It feels like we are doomed spend each day going forward caught in the same process of watching our insane leaders trying to get their butts out of a colossal self-inflicted mess by announcing some new thing that they're going to try, but that new thing is both stupid and has no chance of solving the problem have created, and therefor it is insane.
In this, my interpretation of today's reality under the inspiration of Catch 22: The man in charge belongs in a strait jacket. But the constitutional processes which should be able to deal with this won't work because the leader has surrounded himself a cabinet of mostly deluded incompetents who will never invoke the 25th; (Why would they? To do so would be capitulating to the bed-wetting liberals.) and that same leader's movement has, over the past 40 years, has made sure that close to 50% of the legislators are deluded incompetents who will never use the impeachment power.
Today the POTUS doubles down on his flame war with the Pope. And his brilliant next move in the war that he's already one, supposedly, is to put a blockade around the Iranians' blockade.
And I'm left with a completely clear and logical thought: The leader of Iran, a regime that I think is detestable and evil… that leader, the new Ayatollah, each and every day sounds like the adult in the room compared to our POTUS. I do NOT want that to be the case, but that is the reality that I'm presented with. I am a loyal American, 100% supporter of our Constitutional Republic, and always will be; so I live inside the novel Catch 22 every day now. (For those unfamiliar, that novel is a description of the life of USAF pilots in WWII Italy, and the essence of the narrative is that every aspect of life for every character in the book is insane. Nobody can make sense of anything because everything is insane.)
Stalwell and Gonzalez both resigned over accusations of sexual misconduct. The net effect on the House is zero as they cancel out, but the damage to the integrity of the body of political leaders grows. I'm convinced that Trump is a pedophile but the size of the club he's a member of concerns me as much as the willingness of the justice system to condone it.
The news is teasing new truce talks. I suspect Iran is willing to talk a lot, but concede very little. Time is on their side. Trump may think he can starve Iran like Cuba. I am not sure the public has the patience for the months of military effort. And the rest of the world is finding this damned inconvenient. We could find ourselves on the receiving end of boycotts and sanctions if we don't butt out of the Mideast.
I'm damn curious if Trump has any perception that he's flirting with war crimes that will make him a prisoner of MirALago til he dies. The Hague pulled down the former president of the PI when he was travelling. He's in lockup awaiting trial. I think he knows that he'd be shunned by the world if he goes back to implicit threats of a nuclear strike. But Iran is ignoring his bluster and bluff and threats are all he's got. There is the law – Trump has to go to Congress for authorization soon. How eager will republicans be to rubber-stamp an unpopular war that they will have to defend in the next election.
To be clear, Iran is a radical theocratic autocracy. Furthermore, the government of Iran uses the theocratic aspect of that to justify it's continuous and dedicated efforts to eradicate not just the government but also the people of Israel. So, to me, Iran is NOT the good guys.
I don't approve of everything that Israel has done over the decades either, so there's that. But I don't want to get sidetracked from the situation in the present and its impact on the global economy and the future of human civilization.
Iran did not start this war; Israel (and the USA) did. This doesn't make Iran "the Good Guys", but it *does* make Israel (and us) the Bad Guys.
Pathetic, sacrilegious, crazy, beyond disturbed, the talking heads are saying. I have not seen or want to see the mutant photo. I did see Trump wrap himself in a large American flag. I want to un-see it, but I cannot. The image will haunt me until I find an alien with a mind eraser. No chance of that fiction becoming reality.
Trump is a living, breathing, way too real episode of the Twilight Zone. Where is the remote???
And don't try to tell me the alien ate it.
The alien ate it
New Republic headline:
Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Victor Orbán Was Paying CPAC