No, I haven't yet broached the subject on our newly inaugurated Iran War.  I honestly don't think there's much to add to the obvious.

So I'll simply amplify what has been made even more terrifying with a couple of new items today.  Even on the heels of our Venezuelan adventure, where we have the very questionable legal act of kidnapping a leader of a sovereign foreign nation and declaring control of their government and resources.  That's bad, right?  But this goes well beyond the moronic 'Donroe Doctrine' where we have, however ill-conceived, a notion of hemispheric influence.  But to straight up assassinate a leader of a sovereign foreign country - one who was about to step down (the Council of Experts that was bombed alongside the Ayatollah were in the process of counting ballots for his successor) - on the other side of the globe is an entirely different matter altogether.  This is no longer some backroom CIA shit, it's right out in the open.  It's meant to intimidate.

But the more terrifying part is that now Trump is quite openly declaring that he alone should have the power to name the next leader of Iran. not only being involved in the decision but suggesting a veto option, which is buttressed by his side observation that "everyone that wants to be a leader ends up dead", a remarkably potent point from a man who just ordered the deaths of those same leaders.  This is not longer about hemispheric influence, however noxious that idea already was, but now about Trump claiming, under explicit threat of violence, to have the authority to remove and install any leader whatsoever in the world, under the most meager justification of national security.  Make no mistake about what this display of power was meant to convey to the world.

And as if anyone needed the point to be made more bluntly, we always have the conveniently tactless Stephen Miller, who took this message one step further by declaring that 'America First' was no longer a slogan of foreign policy isolationism but an assertion of American supremacy and authority over any and all foreign nations: "'America First’ means America will be the greatest, most unquestioned, unmatched power in the world".  More tellingly for this transactional administration, Miller also notes that 'America First' is a vow "not to surrender the world’s resources" and "lanes of commerce".  Funny, I wasn't aware that the resources and commerce of "the world" were ours to surrender.  

The time for bullshitting is over.  We need to start seeing some real full-throated pushback from any and all remaining sane leaders, political and cultural or military, to seize this moment and call this out for what it is before it's too late.  This is no longer a partisan game.  Maybe 'No Drama' Obama still feels beholden to the formality of a former president withholding public criticism of their successors, but "norms" do not qualify in these abjectly abnormal times.  

The good news, I guess, is that Trump looks increasingly willing to cut the losses on his Iranian "excursion".  He's bullshitting about how we did everything we were supposed to do.

The bad news is the long-term global disruption that all of this created.  But Trump is also demanding for other nations to clean up the mess, especially Hormuz, and, hey, good luck with that.  

But at least Russia got some sanction relief on their oil out of all this, so even stevens?  Oh, wait, Iran is now offering drones to bomb Ukraine too?  I wonder who's in charge here?

Back to the strong suck stuff.

Pete Hegseth.  Industrial suck.

His quote this week on the potential for Iranian ceasefire negotiations needs to be amplified for emphasis, to duly warrant the historical infamy it deserves and represents: "War is negotiation by other means".  This philosophy might have been more useful information to give their voters back in 2024.  Or maybe the Senate before they confirmed his Dapper Dan ass.  Anyway, I guess it's official that we've unilaterally changed the post-war peacetime norm that diplomacy is a tool of preventing armed conflict, because now armed conflict has become an acceptable tool of diplomacy.

Interestingly, Trump is content to play cute with the term, saying that he prefers not to use the "war" word (even though he has and continues to many times), and even acknowledging ("eeewps") that technically he does need Congressional approval to officially start a war.  But it's good enough that he has enough subservient Congresspeople to prevent resolutions to cut off funding for his wars, much less impeachment proceedings over these blatant constitutional (and international) crimes.

But Pete Hegseth is a Christian man.  Not a religious man necessarily, certainly not a moral man.  He wears his Christianity like a kilt, a tribal insignia with which to shield his lust for conquest and domination.  Recently, we could see this deficit of Christian ethics in a prayer which he held at the Pentagon, where he invoked his vengeful God to serve violence on "those who deserve no mercy".  Well, in strictly Christian terms, who would that be?  In Jesus Christ's own terms everyone is worthy of mercy, most especially sinners, and most especially "those who know not what they do".  Even the vengeful Old Testament says that the Lord's mercy is endless (Lam. 3:22).  Or more specifically, Jesus says "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy" (Matt. 5:7).  Are you merciful, Pete Hegseth?  Did those 160 Iranian school girls deserve mercy?  Is that why you disgracefully lied about killing them and have yet to confess your sin and seek forgiveness?  More importantly, "Mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).  And who is to judge?  Could Hegseth's judgment of who is and is not worthy of mercy place him in an openly anti-Christian posture?  Does he even give a shit?  Do your think he's bothered to read that goddamn book?  Best not crack that spine, all the stronger to use for its blunt force trauma.

I mentioned Pete Hegseth's church-of-choice in a separate thread, a denomination founded by pastor Doug Wilson called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.  JD Vance also has ties with this church through his association with a group of Wilson proteges who call themselves "TheoBros".  Doug Wilson's views are worth reiterating:

Maher has been conspicuously unconcerned with our own Pete Hegseth inviting a Christian Nationalist pastor, who believes that women should not have the right to vote and that slavery was approved by the Bible, to give a speech/prayer at the Pentagon where Hegseth's team has taken to framing these strikes on Iran in blatantly religious terms.

Could Hegseth be reflecting his pastor's views on women and minorities by specifically blocking their promotions at the Pentagon this week?  Could such views have anything to do with the wider anti-DEI efforts in the Trump administration, from DOGE* to the US' refusal to cosign even a non-legally binding UN recognition of the crimes of chattel slavery?

(* I want to add a postscript about how depressing it is that I have to rely on a People magazine article here.  After a three page Google search, this was the only print article about the contents of these DOGE deposition videos released earlier this month.  All of the normal mainstream news articles are about the judge ordering the videos released and allowing them to remain online, but virtually nothing about what's on these videos.  There are numerous Youtube videos available showing clips and commenting on them.  Again, like so so so many things - our Social Security data? - this seems like a story which our mainstream news needs to make viral because they have the power to do so if they bothered to give the story the effort and energy.  This is a more important story than, say, anything John Fetterman has to say, although, I'll be damned, nary a day goes by without seeing headlines about what Fetterman has to say, as if that Frankencunt has one thought worth sputtering.)