WHO'S WINNING THIS WAR?

 

With the American/Israeli bombing of Iran about to reach its 6th week, figuring out just how the war will end (and how its been going) has been difficult.  Although President Donald Trump formally addressed the nation about the war last Wednesday, his address was full of his usual bluster, exaggerations and contradictions; at one point he said he planned to bomb Iran "back to the stone ages where it belongs", but he also said that he was open to negotiations.  He added that the US didn't need to worry about Iran's successful  constricting of oil shipments in the Gulf of Hormuz, where 20% of the world's oil is ferried, and told our country's allies to "go get your own oil."  It should be mentioned that none of these countries were consulted about this war before it started or have showed any real support for it. But now that he's caused this problem, he expects the same allies that he has openly insulted in the past (remember that he recently gave a speech at the UN in which he told their leaders that their nations are "all going to hell") to deal with it themselves.  

Things get even more muddied when you look at today's developments, as Trump posted on his social media outlet “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH.”  So I suppose we are concerned about opening the straits now?  And, it must be pointed out, Trump's threats to bomb power plants and bridges in Iran is threatening a war crime against civilian infrastructure, not that he cares.

From Iran's point of view, they very well may be seeing themselves as not so much winning this war as surviving it, and perhaps emerging in an even stronger position afterwards: by shutting off the straits, they've sent oil and fertilizer shortages and shockwaves throughout the global economy, proving that despite their country's comparatively small size, they can have a big impact. (Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, has called this “the greatest global energy security threat in history”.) Its had a big enough impact that the US recently waived sanctions against Iranian oil to offset global shortages, which could bring billions of dollars into the nation's coffers.  And while some Iranian leaders have been killed, the theocratic government and the military forces it controls are still in power.  The recent shooting down of American planes shows how their military can still have an effect (thankfully, the pilots of those planes have been rescued).  They also may even be able to began to reconstitute their nuclear weapons program after the war ends, with the uranium ore necessary for it still in the country.

While worldwide oil shortages are hurting, one country is benefitting from it: Russia.  To offset the global oil shortage, the US has loosened sanctions on other countries buying Russian oil, which will inevitably aid in Russia's attempt to over run the Ukraine.  (German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper have all spoken out against it.). Another winner in this war is China; because China was already transitioning to renewable energy, the oil shortage didn't hit them as hard as the rest of the world.  And on top of that, many other countries, worried about not only about this oil crisis but future ones, have understandably followed China's lead.  And since China is the world leader in manufacturing renewable energy resources, China's economy has profited; as the Financial Times reports, since the war started, the stock market valuation of each of China’s three biggest battery companies has increased by roughly 20 percent.  And electric vehicle  sales have also increased across the world, with China's highly successful BYD electric vehicle company seeing a huge rise in sales.  Yes, in an absurd bit of irony, the climate change denying, fossil fuel loving Trump may have embarked on a war that exposes the world's dependence on oil to such an extent that he's pushing the world towards renewable energy. (This is the only aspect of this war that I'm glad about.)

So how do things stand for the future?  Well, Trump is considering sending in ground troops to take that uranium that Iran could use for nuclear weapons sometime in the future, which would be a very difficult and deadly operation, not to mention unpopular with the public, who are united in their opposition to boots on the ground in Iran. So I doubt that will happen.  To me, it appears that at some point he will declare victory, no matter how chaotic things are, and stop the bombing and pretend that everything went perfectly, ignoring that Iran itself may not see the war as ended, and Israel may not either.  But Trump will never admit that this war was a mistake started on whim with little planning, even though that's how history will see it.

THE DANGER OF WORKING FOR A NEEDY TODDLER PRESIDENT

 

Today the Donald Trump administration fired Attorney General Pam Bondi,  This is the second high profile firing from his administration in his second term, the first being former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.  Right away, its hard not to notice that Trump has now fired the two most prominent women in his administration and replaced both of them with white men  (Markwayne Mullin for Noem, Todd Blanche fro Bondi).  Clearly, Trump likes being surrounded by swaggering,  white men like himself; indeed, as the website Politifact pointed out,  the last time that a  Presidential cabinet has been more white and male was way back in the Reagan era.  

But I don't think that gender is the only reason for the firings, or even the main one.  Really, I think both of these women  found it impossible to meet the absurd demands of Trump.  Now while I think both of them have terrible political beliefs (and I can never forgive Noem for shooting a 14 month old dog and then bragging about in her memoir), I do have some sympathy for the position they were put in, working for a raging narcissist with godlike delusions of grandeur.

Let's look at Noem: she was seen as the point person ICE's crackdown on undocumented immigrants in this country, and like a good soldier she not only had people deported, she even posted a video of herself standing in front of  Venezuelans  who been deported to a brutal prison in El Salvador, displaying the kind of racist stereotyping of undocumented immigrants that Trump has been pushing for the last ten years.  But when the ICE crackdown brought out protests in Minnesota that lead to the killing of two American citizens, suddenly the American public's views on ICE cratered.  Even though all that Noem was doing was what Trump wanted, he couldn't possibly blame the plummeting popularity of his policies on himself; he needed to find someone else to take the fall, and Noem fit the bill perfectly.  It didn't help that while testifying in front of congress she claimed that Trump himself had signed off on her spending millions of tax dollars on an ad campaign promoting her leadership of Homeland Security, but he later said he had done no such thing.  Clearly Trump was mad that she had made ads promoting herself that drew attention to herself instead of him, and no one in his administration can ever be allowed to pull attention away from him.  Her fate was sealed.

And then there's Bondi: her first big mistake was her handling of the Epstein files, which she first tried to delay, then she released information that had already been seen, and then finally she released most of the files.  The  files have been a problem for Trump almost all through his second term, and the problem for Bondi is that the American public wanted the files released and Trump didn't because he is mentioned literally tens of thousands of times in them.  Making things even worse, we now know that one part of the files that was not released included charges made in 2019 by a woman who claimed that Trump raped her at Epstein's estate when she was underage.  Even if Trump is not guilty of that crime, it is clear that he and Epstein were friends for years and there is a good chance that Trump at the very least was aware that Epstein was trafficking underage girls.  Trump wanted Bondi to somehow make these uncomfortable facts go away, but obviously he has no one to blame but himself.  Another thing that has angered him is that Bondi as Attorney General,  has been incapable of bringing criminal charges against his political enemies, but it wasn't for lack of trying.  In the past year she has tried to indict people on Trump's enemy list like James Comey and Leticia James, but the problem is that none of the indictments have been able to stick, with juries and judges knocking them down as being obviously politically motivated.  Even though Bondi recently testified in congress about her handling of the Epstein files and spent most of the time yelling about how wonderful Trump is, it wasn't enough to keep her job.

It's clear that both of these women were just doing what Trump wanted and were punished when reality kept them from succeeding.  Of course, both of them should have known what they were in for; Trump is infamous for outrageous demands and expects total loyalty always (in his first term he fired so many people that 24 different people cycled through  15 cabinet positions).   Yes, its impossible to meet the demands of someone so needy and demanding as Trump,  and the world, like Noem and Bondi, is all the worse for having to deal with him.

"WAR IS NOT A MOVIE"

 We are only two weeks into President Donald Trump's bombing war in Iran, and already things are looking black: while taking out much of Iran's missiles and killing its leader  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei           happened quickly, the remaining Iranian leaders have effectively gone after America's finances by mining and choking off  oil shipments in the Straits of Hormuz, which has severely hurt the world's supply of oil, causing fuel prices to skyrocket all around the world.  The fact that we now know that Trump and his administration were warned of this possibility and went ahead with the bombing anyway is a testament to just how incompetent his reign has been.

But I want to focus on another part of this new war: how it's being sold to the American public.  Specifically, on how the White House has posted on its official social media outlet truly disgusting videos that combine scenes from movies like John Wick and Deadpool and sporting events with real examples of bombings taking place in Iran.  While almost any war has leaders attempting to dehumanize their enemies as a way to inspire their country,  the Trump administration is the first I can think of to actually equate real bombings killing real people as something out of a movie, complete with a hyped up, fist pounding soundtrack.  Now Trump himself may not be making these posts, but it shows the macho, testosterone drenched mentally that surrounds him.  And these videos aren't just coming from some right wing media types, these posts have been put up on the White House's official site.  The  effect of these posts is clear: they're are not just justifying the bombings, they're supposed to pump up the viewer and make war look like an exciting adventure (or an "excursion", as Trump has horrifically characterized it). 

This all becomes even more despicable when you consider the recent tragedy that occurred in which a girl's elementary school in Iran was wrongly targeted and bombed, killing 175 of them. All reports are saying that the bombing was carried out by the US. It was one of the worst killing of civilians in recent American military history.  Putting it bluntly, what kind of mentality can post videos that make the war look like a big action movie or video game after the accidental killing of innocent children?  Has America really sunk so low under Trump that we can only briefly  pause to recognize the killing of children before getting back to watching more "war is fun" propaganda postings?  Is it unreasonable to expect that our government should take every military action, no matter how necessary, with all the seriousness and gravity that war requires?  It used to be, but not with Trump and his cronies.  While I certainly was no supporter of George W Bush's Iraq invasion, at least his administration spoke about the war seriously. 

Although the accidental killings of civilians is a tragedy of pretty much every war, the casual way that Trump and his administration have shrugged off this utter tragedy is shocking.  When Trump first decided to get into politics ten years ago, I almost immediately pegged him as a narcissistic psychopath,  incapable of caring about anyone other than himself.   Certainly the posting of these videos and Trump's general attitude about the war seem to prove me right.  Or, as Ben Stiller, the star of Tropic Thunder, one of the movies used in these posts, who asked it be removed, put it, "War is not a movie."

NOW IT'S A WAR

 

In what can only be called a complete refutation of the "US First" platform that he ran on in both 2016 and 2024, President Donald Trump, in a joint move with the Israeli government,  has gone all in on war against the country of Iran.  While he has bombed the country before in the past (most recently, he bombed their nuclear facilities back in June), this time he has gone beyond simply hitting a few targets.  The US bombings have targeted several cities in the country, while Trump has said that he wants not just a cessation of the country's alleged nuclear weapon ambitions, but also regime change.  He has openly admitted that Iran's inevitable counterattacks could result in American military casualties, something that hasn't happened since 2021.  Will the bombing be followed up with ground troops being sent in, much like what happened in George W Bush's ultimately disastrous Iraq war?  Trump hasn't  discussed that yet.   

Now, it must be said that the theocratic Iranian government has been brutally running the country with an iron hand since the late 70's, mistreating women and anyone that's LGBT.  And the people of the country are sick of it, with protests erupting around the country as its sanction ridden economy has crumbled.  Sadly, the government's response to those protests was to crush them, with thousands of Iranian citizens being killed or wounded.

But it is one thing to admit that the current government of Iran is terrible and a whole other to say that the American government should risk the lives of American troops to overthrow it.  Iran, after all, is a country around the size of California with a population of 90 million people.  It might be easy to remove the mullahs running the country, but bringing stability and a superior, democratic system may prove much harder.  It certainly did in Iraq.

Speaking of that war, it must be mentioned that, even though I opposed it, the Bush administration did their utmost to sell the invasion to both the American people and the world.  Trump has done virtually nothing to sell what is now a war to either the American populace or the world at large , with only a few vague, false references about the threat of Iran building nuclear weapons that could reach the US, something that analysts think couldn't be possible for years.  And Trump has completely ignored getting any kind of congressional approval for what is, I must emphasize again,  now a flat out war, even though it is only congress that is supposed to declare war.  But the Republicans in congress have just spent the last year allowing Trump to run roughshod over their constitutional powers, so its no surprise that he expects no pushback from congress over this latest attack.

So, why has Trump now gotten us into what may turn out to be the very kind of "stupid war" that he ran on avoiding?  Part of the reason may lie in his connection with Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, whom he has supported whole heartedly, and who has been gunning for some kind of overthrow of Iran for years now.  I think another reason is that Trump, now thinking about his legacy, wants to be remembered as the president that took out a regime that has been a thorn in the side of American and its allies ever since it first began.  But many of those allies may not take Trump's aggression positively, seeing as they also stand to face blowback from Iran, while our global rivals like Russia and China may very well take Iran's side in the conflict, leading to outright global tensions.  I really don't think that Trump has thought out this war carefully, and, because he's surrounded himself with sycophants, he hasn't had to.  And while the possibility of this whole conflict ending well, with a democratic Iran put in place with relative peace and a minimum of American casualties is possible, right now I fear the worst.  I hope I'm wrong.

THE SUPREME COURT JUST DID TRUMP A FAVOR

Just a few days ago, in a stinging rebuke, the US Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump's use of tariffs against other countries was unconstitutional.  While this wasn't the first time that this conservative court overruled Trump (they recently allowed a lower court decision to stand that prevented him from sending  National Guard troops to Illinois, making him back away from that terrible policy), this was the most impactful, given that Trump has built his the entire economic policy of his second term around tariffs, either by imposing them or just threatening to.

Really, this ruling was hardly a difficult one for the court to make, when you think about it. Trump has claimed that he has the power to impose any tariffs for any amount on any country under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).  But that act states that there must be "unusual and extraordinary" threats to U.S. national security, foreign policy, or the economy.  In other words, there had to be some kind of economic emergency for him to claim this power, and the economy, if anything, was quite strong when he took office.  It didn't help his case that Trump set tariffs and then lowered or ended them in the same day, or that he once admitted that he raised the tariffs on Switzerland because their President "rubbed him the wrong way"!  As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion: “The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it.”  Sounds right to me.

Besides, Trump's tariffs have not done what he claimed they would do, which is create manufacturing jobs; in fact, the country lost over 100,000 manufacturing jobs last year.  No wonder that recent polls have 60% of the American public opposing them, thinking that they will bring higher prices.  Even some congressional Republicans have lauded this ruling, with Representative Kevin Kiley of California saying “Checks and balances are the foundation of American government.” 

Not surprisingly, Trump has lashed out the court, not only attacking the judges by name but even saying that were "an embarrassment" to their families".  But the reality is, Trump's wild changes to his tariffs plans only brought uncertainty to both the American and global economic markets, with countries having no idea what Trump would do next, causing them to cut deals with more reliable trading partners.  While Trump will never admit it, this ruling will end his chaotic whims and bring some sanity to global markets.

Or will it?  Already Trump has claimed new tariff powers, saying that Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows him  to address "large and serious balance-of-payments deficits" with a one time imposition of tariffs.  Immediately he called for a 10% tariff on all incoming goods, and then a day later raised to 15%, showing the exact kind of erratic behavior that caused the court to rule against him in the first place.  But these new tariffs have limits, specifically, they expire in 150 days, so most countries will be able to wait him out.

Hopefully, when the tariffs wear off, Trump and his toddler like attention span will have moved onto something else. Or perhaps he will negotiate new tariffs with congress, which is something I'm not necessarily opposed to.  The problem here isn't tariffs, which, when applied correctly, can boost American interests in trade deals, the problem is having tariffs imposed by a crazed aspiring dictator like Trump goes against both the country's interest and the world's.  If Trump could ever admit that he was wrong about anything, he should accept this ruling and forget about imposing tariffs without congress.  In the long run, this ruling will help the economy, and him.

MAGA MAY REJECT JD VANCE

 

As the vice president for President Donald Trump's second term, JD Vance has done the usual thing that people do in that position: play cheerleader to the president, giving interviews and speeches that promote the administration's policies.  While there was a time in Vance's political career when he was openly critical of Trump (he even once mused that Donald Trump could be America's Hitler), his lust for power has lead him, like so many members of the Republican party, to fawning praise of every presidential statement and action.  The party has, of course, taken notice, and after he gave a good debate performance in the vice presidential debate last year, most Republicans saw him as the logical choice to run in 2028 (assuming that Trump doesn't find some way to stay in office!).

But to a certain segment of the MAGA movement, there is a problem with Vance's ascension, and it's for the worst possible reason: his wife, Usha Vance.  Why they might have a problem with her leads to what is the single most driving force  of the entire MAGA movement: fear of white erasure in the US.  Of all of the issues that Trump has latched to over the years, none has hit as hard with his base as this one.  For example, recently Jeremy Carl, President Trump’s nominee to lead the State Department’s outreach to international organizations, was asked at his confirmation hearing about a book he wrote in 2024 called “The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart.”  He was also asked about various anti Semitic comments he has made in the past, saying “I made some comments in interviews about minimizing the effect of the Holocaust that were absolutely wrong.  And I’m not going to sit here and defend them.”  The fact that a man with such an obvious and hateful past of bigotry could possibly be appointed by the Trump administration shows just how much the current Republican party has become enthralled with the so called "Great Replacement Theory, which states that elite leaders in Western countries want to replace white people (usually at the behest of Jews)  with non white immigrants.

Just read social media posts and interviews with Trump's most passionate base, and you will hear one white person after another ranting about "illegals" and saying that they all have to be thrown out.  To the MAGA loyalists, the Great Replacement Theory isn't a theory, it's a matter of faith.

Which brings us to Usha Vance.  She has mostly stayed out of making political statements while her husband has been a loyal Trump lapdog, but her mere presence may become a problem for her husband.  She was born in the US to immigrant Indian parents and has had a distinguished career as a lawyer.  But none of that will matter to the MAGA base, what will is the fact that she is both an Indian and a Hindu, the first second lady to be that ethnicity and religion. Already, the loathsome right wing influencer Nick Fuentes has verbally assaulted Vance and Usha, calling him a "race traitor" for marrying her and saying that he is now starting  a "Never Vance" movement.  It would be easy to dismiss a Holocaust denying misogynist like Fuentes, but, sadly, the man now has some sway in the MAGA movement, shown when the more mainstream influencer Tucker Carlson had him on his show recently for a painfully friendly interview.

While I like to think that most Americans won't care that our next first lady may be a Hindu, to get to the White House, Vance will first have to survive the Republican primary process, and with registered GOP voters it probably will be an issue.  While Vance has been a loyalist on the immigration issue as vice president (recently, when Trump went on a bigoted,  anti Somali immigrant tirade, Vance banged on a table in approval, like a hateful little drummer boy), that may not matter when the MAGA faithful see his wife as the embodiment of everything they hate.  It all comes down to a simple question: will the modern, hateful Republican party support a presidential candidate who's wife isn't a white Christian?

PART OF A PATTERN

 

As most Americans already now know, President Donald Trump recently posted on his social media account a picture portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys.  Although the White House at first tried to blow off the anger over this brazenly bigoted  image (which Republican South Carolina Senator Tim Scott called "...the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House") by saying it was just part of a Lion King internet meme, the post was eventually taken down.  Trump, as usual, refused to apologize for posting this image, saying it was the fault of an unnamed staffer.

While it's good to at least see the image taken down, this hardly should have been a surprise given the history of bigoted statements and actions Trump has taken over the years.  Way back in the early 70's, Trump and his father Fred were fined by the Nixon administration for refusing to rent their properties to Black people.  Years later, in 1990, he took out a full page ad slamming the 5 teenage boys (none of whom were white) who confessed to raping a woman in Central Park, New York.  He even called for them to get the death penalty.  When the five were later exonerated and released from prison, he refused to apologize.  And, of course, his main entrance into politics came when he was still a TV star and he decided to latch on to the so called birther theory, repeatedly saying without an ounce of proof that then president Barack Obama was not a legitimate president.  In his first term, he infamously said that there were "wonderful people on both sides" about a white supremacist rally and again refused to take it back.  And then in the 2024 campaign he latched onto an offensive stereotypical  lie about Haitian immigrants in Ohio, saying that they were eating dogs and cats. 

More recently, on December third, Trump went on what can only be called a bigoted, xenophobic rant about Somali immigrants,  saying "we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”  and added some cruel insults about Somali immigrant and House member  Ilhan Omar, a frequent target of his hatred.  Race, and again, hatred of Somali immigrants,  was the main  factor in his decision to send ICE to the city of Minneapolis; that decision came in the wake of an investigation into possible government fraud that was in progress in which 98 people, mostly Somali immigrants, were charged.  Latching onto this investigation, Trump has had ICE specifically go after the Somali population in that city, even though, according to the Minnesota Reformer, over 90% of the Somali immigrants there are American citizens.  

And Trump has continued his hateful tirades against Somalis; recently, while speaking on Dan Bongino's podcast, he said that "...we’ve got to get them out...Ninety-two percent don’t work."  In actuality, according to the 2024 Census Bureau, only 28% of Somali immigrants are not working, but when has Trump ever let the truth stop him from building a hateful head of steam?

Really, racism matched with xenophobia  has been the keystone for the entire Trump era of the past ten years, as he opened his presidential campaign in 2016 saying that Mexican immigrants were "...bringing drugs, bringing crime, they're rapists...",  and  pledged to deport every undocumented immigrant in the country, stating offensive lies all the while.  And as if there was any more need to see just how bigoted Trump's entire movement has been, look to the only group of immigrants that he has welcomed to the country with open arms: white South Africans that he claims are fleeing persecution in their country, even though there is no evidence of such persecution.  (In an utterly cringe inducing moment, last year Trump berated South Africa  President Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House meeting, forcing him to look at what he claimed was evidence of white South Africans being targeted, even though that evidence was later proven as false according by  the BBC News and other outlets).  

Given all this history of hatred from Trump, is his latest example really such a surprise?  If the video had been an isolated incident, one that he apologized for,  it wouldn't matter as much, but it's really just part of a pattern of behavior that goes back decades.  And, sadly, his bigotry and xenophobia is seen as good not bad by the Republican faithful.  It's what they want in a leader.