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.)

This is going to sound odd, but I think I'm gotten to a point where I'm starting to feel relatively comfortable about the current atrophy of the MAGA agenda, or at least considerably more comfortable than this same time last year.  Not all of the stalled developments have been well publicized, and, quite certainly, much significant damage has been done which will not be easy to repair (much of it psychological or morale-oriented). 

It's worth a brief run down: Trump's tariff policy has been effectively nixed.  They will still try, of course, but it appears to be the conventional wisdom not to take any of that seriously anymore.  Trump's legal assaults on law firms and universities have also come close to a standstill.  The latter has been effectively quashed with the DoJ admitting defeat, but there are still efforts to audit various schools' DEI, even though, again, with much more relief from the courts.  As it turns out, the slow wheels of justice, after last year's season of intimidation, have started to catch up to the rather poor legal strategies - bluffs, essentially - employed by that newly-empowered administration.  What's probably better, though no less frustrating in hindsight, is that such bluffs are starting to be called exactly that by the news media, after a year of coddling and equivocation.  And this ultimately matters, as a huge element of the post-Trump 2.0 era dispirit rested on the repeated political dogmas of the media, incapable or unwilling to any longer exercise any type of editorial ethics or principle, which capitulated to Trump's grievances while cashing their stocks out.  It's a pity that the news media has to be the moral bellwether of our moment, but it isn't insignificant that, combined with a small avalanche of political failures and public embarrassments, the coverage of Trump has become less about his vengeance and more about him being a social media clown with an Ambien problem.  Obviously this won't stop him (might even encourage a little) from making all sorts of trouble for absolutely everyone he can, and continuing to enrich his spawn of stooges through the most transparent kickback scheme since Bebe Rebozo.

Also worth a small amount of optimism is the fact that Trump's ICE/deportation policy has similarly hit a cold wall this year.  Again, the damage is done in a lot of ways, but the rebukes by the courts - so far - have been more encouraging than not.  And again, the primary discouragement was the simple fact that the courts were so inadequate to effectively deal with these blatant constitutional violations immediately.  (Even something as constitutionally literal as 'birthright citizenship' remains officially disputed due to nothing other than the sclerotic process of our legal system.)  Still, we have seen a number of high-profile dismissals across the ranks of those orchestrating these policies, from Kristi Noem to Greg Bovino.  (Unfortunately, Stephen Miller and Tom Homan remain).  While there are still ICE operations happening in certain cities, there is also a good reason why this story is not the headline-grabber it was previously.

Is the Iran War over?  Who knows?  Was it ever there to begin with?  Again, the damage, which is inflicted on our international integrity here, has been done.  The USA will need to do some hard work to regain the trust from the rest of the world for electing Trump a second time, which - cold comfort - is becoming a regret which even a number of Maga-heads are finaling starting to reckon an inkling.  But most of these MAGA folks are still too willing to brush off Trump's foibles as fodder for entertainment, or find some disingenuous way to deflect blame onto Biden/Brandon.  But hey, even Hunter Biden is sitting down with Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens (is Joe Rogan far off?) and right-wing media has taken a shine to the scumbag, unironically complimenting him for his "bravery".  Many have flirted with presidential prognostications for the runt.  So if we can't take some solace in getting two shitheads like Hunter and Tucker to find common ground (oh, like Tucker's never pointed a gun at a prostitute, Patrick Bateman-style?), then what do we have to live for, people?

Turns out that Tulsi is even too crazy for the Trump administration.  Or maybe just sane enough to be incompetent even at corruption.  Either way, it's clear that Trump intends to use his Director of National Intelligence to cause some sort of mayhem for our future elections, and these choices of semi-professional disinformation propagandists should be as telling as it is disqualifying.  We shouldn't be allowing people with this MO to access sensitive information to help them do their deception, especially when they can use the classification system as confusion and cover.  There's still plenty of new affronts to contend with - one battle after another, as they say.  But at least Trump looks like he's ready to quit any day now, and, I have to admit, his suffering makes me feel a little bitt better about having his fat ass inflicted on my life.

crumbsroom wrote:

The only thing that still concerns me is the damage that can be done to the integrity of the midterms, which if run without interference by him, should certainly tilt the House away from him (the Senate I imagine is still a pretty big stretch). But anything that might somewhat be able to contain him, is a huge win in my books, especially as Republicans in both the house and the senate seem to no longer be quite as fearful of his wrath as they once were.

It's been a providential day to consider the question, with wide but unspecific reports on Trump's closed door meeting with Senate Republicans, involving an ascertained amount of shouting, and as reports of this meeting began circulating this morning, it was augmented by the abrupt cancelation of the recent bipartisan housing bill, an impulsive decree which blindsided even White House staff who had been hyping the event right up to that point.  As with most things Trump, this latter move is both petty and ineffective (Trump did not veto the legislation, which could even prove to become the first bipartisan veto override of this second administration if he had tried) as well as coercive, as the declared strategic goal is to compel support for Trump's 'SAVE AMERICA Act', the legislation which would codify his aspirational federal takeover of election procedures from the states - the ironic counterpoint for SCOTUS currently endorsing state gerrymandering at odds with the 1968 federal Voting Rights Act.  Republicans were intent on using this bipartisan housing bill - which does include many positive developments such as the prohibition on "institutional investors" (hedge funds and private equity) from buying single-family homes, as we saw nearly 70% of such middle class real estate being acquired in LA after last year's Palisades fires - as campaign fodder going into the already dismal-looking midterms, but it seems as if Trump is countering that logic by pointing out that Republicans wouldn't need popular issues to run on if they would only grant Trump the necessary authorities to rig the elections proper.  Both of these headlines have deepened and illustrated the increasing rift among Pub lawmakers willing to take the threat of Trump very seriously.  On the other hand, this could also make the Pubs even more desperate to capitulate.

It's an interesting and not obvious question of whether the likes of Pub Senators like Thom Tillis or Don Bacon, among those who have chosen resignation for the privilege of publicly criticizing Trump, could have withstood Trump's threatened primary challenges.  Such Senate stalwarts like John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy seem to make a heavy case.  But part of me wants to believe that Tillis and Bacon may also be akin to those like the law firms and universities who immediately, preemptively even, chose to settle and coddle first rather than hold the long line on principle.  I think history will have to be the judge.
 

Jinnistan wrote:

How about a roadkill raccoon castration? Kinda America right now?

It's such a sad state of our country and culture that something as wildly ridiculous as RFK Jr. admitting to castrating roadkill raccoons just gets ignored like we're supposed to be used to this shit.


If, like so many of us libtards last year, you were worried about the Consumer Financial Protection Board being left for dead by DOGE, then it might intrigue you to learn that it is, in fact, up and running and has found a new mission - to discriminate against immigrants from the banking system, "ramping up supervision of small financial institutions that serve low-income communities and has released a rule that makes it harder for immigrants to get loans".  This Trump-branded CFPB has called such immigrant community-friendly banking the result of "thuggery", because god forbid we call them racists.

[Russell] Vought, who is also White House budget director, has said the agency was weaponized by past administrations to target small financial institutions....

“The Biden-Harris-Chopra regime was weaponized against political enemies and disfavored industries, and used novel legal theories and secret justifications to ruin lives and businesses,” said Cauley, the CFPB spokesperson, referring to former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former bureau director Rohit Chopra.

But those actions, particularly the [Community Development Financial Institutions] supervision, are confusing to consumer advocates and current staffers, given Vought’s previous claims.

“Vought has said publicly that we are going to stop targeting these ‘mom and pop type shops,’ small lenders and small financial institutions. But that just feels like the opposite of what is happening — it feels like all they care about is letting off the big corporations, and targeting small lenders,” said a staffer who recently left the agency and was granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations among staffers.

You see, "debanking" (which is already a thoroughly debunked non-issue) is only really a problem when it involves actual criminals - like the Jan. 6'ers or the felony fraudsters behind the fake elector scheme - rather than simply being used to financially disenfranchise meddlesome brown people who don't even look American to begin with.

Now the CFPB is headed by a former Capital One executive, applauded by the Consumer Banking Association (rather than actual consumer advocates), and has "dropped or settled nearly all its outstanding enforcement actions against large corporations" and removed "records of past enforcement actions against large corporations" from their website.  One anonymous CFPB employee states frankly, "There will be no supervision anymore of big financial institutions, and the agency will punch down at specific organizations".  Every accusation a secret confession.

Finally, the silver lining emerges into view.
Exact membership counts for Leaving MAGA, an organization for helping people extricate themselves from the MAGA cult, are not publicly specified, as the organization functions as a support community and nonprofit rather than a traditional dues-paying membership club. However, founder Rich Logis has reported that his group has garnered "hundreds of thousands of followers.”



 
The Palm Beach Post, March 19, 2026:
Rich Logis once helped build the MAGA movement. Now, he helps those trying to leave it.