Operational failures with deadly consequences are deepening a credibility gap and eroding political support for the war in Iran, the president and the GOP.
I'm currently envious of countries where it is possible to call snap elections and hold votes of no confidence so people can replace leaders early rather than be stuck waiting for months and years if a politician goes off the deep end.
MAYBE IF OUR FOUNDERS HAD NOT BEEN SO PEEVED WITH ENGLAND THEY WOULD HAVE CHOSEN A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM. IF THEY HAD, TRUMP WOULD BE GONE BY NOW. INSTEAD THE INCREASINGLY LAME DUCKY KEEPS WADDLING ON.
None of this is funny, but I did have to snicker when MS NOW showed a brief clip of Fox "news" performers looking absolutely baffled at how a country that has been "obliterated" is still able to kill U.S. troops. Their befuddlement looked so genuine, as if everyone on the planet hasn't already figured out that what Agent Orange says MAY not be 100% truthful.
WHEN WE FINALLY SEE THEM, YOU WILL BE PROVEN RIGHT.
LET ME ASK A SIMPLE QUESTION. IS IT REASONABLE TO THINK THAT TRUMP SPENT 14
YEARS WITH EPSTEIN AS HIS BEST BUDDY AND CONSTANT COMPANION (ALL THE WHILE SHARING, AS HE HAS ADMITTED, EPSTEIN'S FONDNESS FOR YOUNG WOMEN) WITHOUT SINKING INTO THAT SEXUAL SWAMP UP TO HIS NECK?
WHY ELSE THE NEAR FRANTIC EFFORTS TO KEEP THOSE FILES HIDDEN?
Shame on Cassidy, who has nothing to lose and Paul has always been unpredictable. I wonder what bargaining chip JD and Witkoff used to lure these two into reversing themselves. A pox on all four men.
Nah, that would be an act of generosity...a trait unheard of from this administration. SNAP, USAID anyone??? Retribution is their game, cruelty is their name.
"Anger over a disastrous war of choice is showing up in congressional votes and polling, and it could easily carry over to the ballot box in November."
It had better carry over to the ballot box. To paraphrase Senator Mark Warner on Joyce Vance's just-concluded interview with him, we need to kick Republican ass (yes, he actually said "kick ass") and do so overwhelmingly.
Let's also remember that this election isn't about Republicans and Democrats, though because of our political system those labels are plastered all over the place. It's about fascism and democracy. The Republican party of yore, my grandpa's Republican party, though conservative in varying degrees ultimately was loyal to our Constitution and our democratic system. Today's Republican party is not. It has forsaken any commitment to our fundamental values of self-governance and seeks only its perpetual and absolute power, so it can impose its economic, cultural, and social will on the entire country.
The question, then, for people who identify themselves as Republicans is something like, "Do you think debate among a wide range of views, including your own, should be how our country arrives at decisions? Or do you think your views must prevail regardless of how public decisions have been made in the past?"
The former group can (and should) vote against Republicans of today's stripe in November. We need an overwhelming majority of Democrats right now. But that's so there will be room for loyal (to the rule of law) Republicans' voices going forward into a progressive society that strives to benefit all its members. It's the latter group that must be crushed and driven back to the caves once inhabited by the likes of the John Birch Society and the KKK.
I agree the election has to carry the day and kick ass (and not just corrupt Republicans, but corrupt old corporate MAGA Dems like Schumer and Jeffries). Do you think Trump doesn't know that? Do you think he will take the "honorable," passive position Dems are taking, and sit around and wait to see what happens? No, he will not. He will gerrymander every ounce out of at least Southern states where he has an iron grip over corrupt pols, putting MAGA up by 15 more seats; he will pass the SAVE act and disqualify hundreds of thousands of voters who have a right to vote but can't prove it by SAVE standards; he will post armed, masked, murdering ICE agents at polling places in areas that might vote blue like Georgia; he will instruct the Post Office not to deliver mail-in votes anywhere he pleases to focus (Dem-voting regions); he will have Trump goons pick up votes from neighborhood ballot boxes and throw them out; and finally--a place no one is paying the least bit of attention to--he will have satellites (who owns THEM, by the way?) interfere with modems in voting machine hardware to skew and manipulate results as they come in, to be sure Trump candidates "win by narrow (read plausible)" margins. Then all us Blue voters will be so upset, wring our hands, say how we don't understand how this could happen, and blame ourselves for not working hard enough, and blame Trump voters for not understanding how bad he is. Well, they do understand how bad he is, enough of them anyway to vote MAGA GOP out. But they have no more power over Trump's elaborate pre-election Herculean efforts to fix the elections than we do. This has all been done in full public view, and we have done nothing to combat any of it. We don't have the power, you say? If enough Dems had shouted loudly and effectively about this, we could have prevented at least some of it. And if you don't believe me about the satellite vulnerability of our otherwise integral voting machinery, read about it at Election Truth Alliance https://electiontruthalliance.org/.
I just read another addition to my list of Trump's Herculean efforts to steal the midterm elections (attributions to Politico and something called the Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #977. Apparently Putin is thinking about taking some actions in the midterms (at least, that's a sensible implication of this information):
Kash Patel...
"The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…the top cop in the United States of America, the man with the keys to every counterintelligence file the Republic owns …is reportedly getting on a plane.
Destination? Moscow. Then St. Petersburg.
His host? Russia’s FSB…the direct institutional successor to the KGB.
Read that again. The secret police. The same outfit, new letterhead.
According to Politico, the trip is penciled in for October 14 and 15. And here’s the part that should make the hair on your neck stand up:
That’s a matter of weeks before the American midterm elections.
Now. I want you to notice something…the polished news anchors won’t say out loud.
Nobody will tell you what he’s doing there.
It remains unclear whether Patel will meet Vladimir Putin or any of his senior aides. The agenda is undisclosed. A closed door. A blank calendar. The most powerful law-enforcement officer in America walking into the lion’s den…and the “itinerary” is a shrug."
In your article, when you talk about the United States, concealing the truth about the Iranian mess that the orange freak has gotten us into , we are more and more turning into the same propaganda that Russia is putting out about Ukraine -deny, delay and lie -
It’s almost impossible to tell the difference between united states and Russia—why am I not surprised
Jordan has become a preferred Iranian missile/drone target due to relocation of US military assets from their former basing in Gulf countries, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, all of which have been hit with destructive effects from swarms of drone and missiles launched by Iran since the US/Israel first attacked Iran in late February.
There isn't a better example of two belligerents grossly underestimating the retaliatory power of their intended victim, which not only has led to steady escalation of warfare, but the near-total shutdown of key US forward basing, now a firm objective of Iranian military strategy. One may ask how deep into Jordan — and Israel, parenthetically — must the Americans relocate to keep its soldiers and airmen out of harm's way. Right now, there doesn't seem to be anywhere within the battlefront on offer, and no meaningful estimates of the Iranian aerial warfare stockpile nor on Iran's targeting technology, the latter an unforeseen advantage not expected by US war planners.
Given all this, how many ways can one spell "failure", which is ineluctably the outcome of trump's war of choice, full stop.
There are so many reasons to vote for Democrats on Nov. 3rd. It's hard to pick just one fatal action for the Republican Regime. This a classic pile-on. We are not fooled, and we voters will withstand the intentional onslaught.
When one lacks any qualities of leadership and do not surround yourself with those who do, the result is bound to be failure. Add to that a total lack of character or any other positive qualities that make one at least likable or tolerable, well, there we are.
More than 200 retired generals and flag officers signed a joint open letter in 2024 warning that Donald Trump was unfit to be Commander-in-Chief. And yet Trump voters ignored the message and thought Trump would keep US out of war. Their blind faith and willful ignorance has put the lives of our troops, allies, and the world at the whims of a degenerate, dangerous fool. Congress has authority to counter the horrors of this administration but they serve no interest but their own.
Thank you, Jay, for laying out the pattern in such a simple and convincing way. Although I knew about most of those facts, it is so helpful to see them as a pattern.
The MoU ended because the United States had ship "go dark" and sneak through an area of the Strait NOT APPROVED in the MoU. The US broke the agreement, not Iran. Iran had attacked NO ONE when the US and Israel attacked it. THEY don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons because then it can DEFEND itself and they can't come over and beat the s*** out of Iran whenever they want. Iran has no interest in attacking anyone but they have every right to defend their sovereignty. And for that, self defence, people call them terrorists.
I agree with you that Iran has a right to defend their sovereignty. But I also know that they have been training and funding terrorists for years. The Houthis and Hezbollah come to mind, as well as Hamas. From what I can tell, that is why people call Iran terrorists.
And do you know where groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah derive from? From people (example, the Palestinians) who have been so downtrodden that they rise up in protest and self-defence. And for this, they are called terrorists. If Hamas or another group forms in response to the ATROCITIES committed in Gaza, they will be called terrorists. Submit to the oppression of wealthy colonialism or you are a terrorist. These groups derived from oppression.
Although the past two years have been awful, I have learned SO MUCH to go back and look at the history of people who are denounced as terrorists. Suddenly, you understand. What choice do they have. Look at Gaza--all the countries on Earth with a military, and no one NO ONE came to protect those people. Appalling. And they have the nerve to call ANYONE terrorists? Pretti and Good were called terrorists. (I have a feeling I'm one too, oh lordy.)
I have Jewish heritage that was involved with the start of Israel, but despite understanding what the Jew have always been going through, I feel very badly for the people of Gaza. I've been part of a conversation recently where someone was saying that the Palestinians have always been about destroying the Jews. I'm willing to bet that a lot of that hatred came from being oppressed. I am not an activist, but I'll bet that because of how I vote, I would also be considered a terrorist…
This is a serious question, Susan: how do you know that Iran has been training and funding terrorists for years? If your only sources are the US and Israeli governments and media, I would suggest they're not reliable. Netanyahu has been pressuring the US for decades (yes, decades) to invade Iran. He has his own motives, and they are not altruistic.
D Epp, my sources have been news reporting on MSNBC/MSNOW. I know that our government and Israeli government are not reliable. I have distrusted Netanyahu for years. I'm curious what you consider to be better sources.
I honestly have no idea, Susan, because if Iran has not been doing those things, no one is reporting that, right? I'm not actively seeking out that info, and truth be told, I don't follow broadcast media, or watch TV at all. I just wondered where the news on Iran was coming from.
Israel is more likely to bomb the hell out of Iran when it's defenceless. Ukraine is a good example of why Iran should not give up its nuclear capability. Ukraine was persuaded by Russia to give up its nukes and turn them over to Russia. We all know what happened next.
I was pleased when Iran pointed that out to the US. "Give up your nukes, WE'LL protect you!" Yeah right. Our entire government is too stupid and self-absorbed to realize how intelligent the leaders of Iran are. And from what I can see, they are also all mentally sound.
Trump said he was out for revenge, getting even for past slights. Posting AI pocs of him self flying a jet spreading his fertilizer on hus enemies, then another showing him bombing the world.
I'm currently envious of countries where it is possible to call snap elections and hold votes of no confidence so people can replace leaders early rather than be stuck waiting for months and years if a politician goes off the deep end.
MAYBE IF OUR FOUNDERS HAD NOT BEEN SO PEEVED WITH ENGLAND THEY WOULD HAVE CHOSEN A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM. IF THEY HAD, TRUMP WOULD BE GONE BY NOW. INSTEAD THE INCREASINGLY LAME DUCKY KEEPS WADDLING ON.
None of this is funny, but I did have to snicker when MS NOW showed a brief clip of Fox "news" performers looking absolutely baffled at how a country that has been "obliterated" is still able to kill U.S. troops. Their befuddlement looked so genuine, as if everyone on the planet hasn't already figured out that what Agent Orange says MAY not be 100% truthful.
When I read about this war I think, man, those Epstein files must really be bad!
WHEN WE FINALLY SEE THEM, YOU WILL BE PROVEN RIGHT.
LET ME ASK A SIMPLE QUESTION. IS IT REASONABLE TO THINK THAT TRUMP SPENT 14
YEARS WITH EPSTEIN AS HIS BEST BUDDY AND CONSTANT COMPANION (ALL THE WHILE SHARING, AS HE HAS ADMITTED, EPSTEIN'S FONDNESS FOR YOUNG WOMEN) WITHOUT SINKING INTO THAT SEXUAL SWAMP UP TO HIS NECK?
WHY ELSE THE NEAR FRANTIC EFFORTS TO KEEP THOSE FILES HIDDEN?
Trump has probably been paid to hide them!
Yes they are with all his appointees, bank and tech billionaires in them.
https://www.justice.gov/epstein
Shame on Cassidy, who has nothing to lose and Paul has always been unpredictable. I wonder what bargaining chip JD and Witkoff used to lure these two into reversing themselves. A pox on all four men.
He offered them jobs after they leave.
As though he would ever keep that promise! These people learn nothing from past behavior.
Nah, that would be an act of generosity...a trait unheard of from this administration. SNAP, USAID anyone??? Retribution is their game, cruelty is their name.
"Anger over a disastrous war of choice is showing up in congressional votes and polling, and it could easily carry over to the ballot box in November."
It had better carry over to the ballot box. To paraphrase Senator Mark Warner on Joyce Vance's just-concluded interview with him, we need to kick Republican ass (yes, he actually said "kick ass") and do so overwhelmingly.
Let's also remember that this election isn't about Republicans and Democrats, though because of our political system those labels are plastered all over the place. It's about fascism and democracy. The Republican party of yore, my grandpa's Republican party, though conservative in varying degrees ultimately was loyal to our Constitution and our democratic system. Today's Republican party is not. It has forsaken any commitment to our fundamental values of self-governance and seeks only its perpetual and absolute power, so it can impose its economic, cultural, and social will on the entire country.
The question, then, for people who identify themselves as Republicans is something like, "Do you think debate among a wide range of views, including your own, should be how our country arrives at decisions? Or do you think your views must prevail regardless of how public decisions have been made in the past?"
The former group can (and should) vote against Republicans of today's stripe in November. We need an overwhelming majority of Democrats right now. But that's so there will be room for loyal (to the rule of law) Republicans' voices going forward into a progressive society that strives to benefit all its members. It's the latter group that must be crushed and driven back to the caves once inhabited by the likes of the John Birch Society and the KKK.
I agree the election has to carry the day and kick ass (and not just corrupt Republicans, but corrupt old corporate MAGA Dems like Schumer and Jeffries). Do you think Trump doesn't know that? Do you think he will take the "honorable," passive position Dems are taking, and sit around and wait to see what happens? No, he will not. He will gerrymander every ounce out of at least Southern states where he has an iron grip over corrupt pols, putting MAGA up by 15 more seats; he will pass the SAVE act and disqualify hundreds of thousands of voters who have a right to vote but can't prove it by SAVE standards; he will post armed, masked, murdering ICE agents at polling places in areas that might vote blue like Georgia; he will instruct the Post Office not to deliver mail-in votes anywhere he pleases to focus (Dem-voting regions); he will have Trump goons pick up votes from neighborhood ballot boxes and throw them out; and finally--a place no one is paying the least bit of attention to--he will have satellites (who owns THEM, by the way?) interfere with modems in voting machine hardware to skew and manipulate results as they come in, to be sure Trump candidates "win by narrow (read plausible)" margins. Then all us Blue voters will be so upset, wring our hands, say how we don't understand how this could happen, and blame ourselves for not working hard enough, and blame Trump voters for not understanding how bad he is. Well, they do understand how bad he is, enough of them anyway to vote MAGA GOP out. But they have no more power over Trump's elaborate pre-election Herculean efforts to fix the elections than we do. This has all been done in full public view, and we have done nothing to combat any of it. We don't have the power, you say? If enough Dems had shouted loudly and effectively about this, we could have prevented at least some of it. And if you don't believe me about the satellite vulnerability of our otherwise integral voting machinery, read about it at Election Truth Alliance https://electiontruthalliance.org/.
I just read another addition to my list of Trump's Herculean efforts to steal the midterm elections (attributions to Politico and something called the Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #977. Apparently Putin is thinking about taking some actions in the midterms (at least, that's a sensible implication of this information):
Kash Patel...
"The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…the top cop in the United States of America, the man with the keys to every counterintelligence file the Republic owns …is reportedly getting on a plane.
Destination? Moscow. Then St. Petersburg.
His host? Russia’s FSB…the direct institutional successor to the KGB.
Read that again. The secret police. The same outfit, new letterhead.
According to Politico, the trip is penciled in for October 14 and 15. And here’s the part that should make the hair on your neck stand up:
That’s a matter of weeks before the American midterm elections.
Now. I want you to notice something…the polished news anchors won’t say out loud.
Nobody will tell you what he’s doing there.
It remains unclear whether Patel will meet Vladimir Putin or any of his senior aides. The agenda is undisclosed. A closed door. A blank calendar. The most powerful law-enforcement officer in America walking into the lion’s den…and the “itinerary” is a shrug."
In your article, when you talk about the United States, concealing the truth about the Iranian mess that the orange freak has gotten us into , we are more and more turning into the same propaganda that Russia is putting out about Ukraine -deny, delay and lie -
It’s almost impossible to tell the difference between united states and Russia—why am I not surprised
Even our media. They have Pravda which means “Truth.” We have Truth Social, which is anything but.
Jordan has become a preferred Iranian missile/drone target due to relocation of US military assets from their former basing in Gulf countries, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, all of which have been hit with destructive effects from swarms of drone and missiles launched by Iran since the US/Israel first attacked Iran in late February.
There isn't a better example of two belligerents grossly underestimating the retaliatory power of their intended victim, which not only has led to steady escalation of warfare, but the near-total shutdown of key US forward basing, now a firm objective of Iranian military strategy. One may ask how deep into Jordan — and Israel, parenthetically — must the Americans relocate to keep its soldiers and airmen out of harm's way. Right now, there doesn't seem to be anywhere within the battlefront on offer, and no meaningful estimates of the Iranian aerial warfare stockpile nor on Iran's targeting technology, the latter an unforeseen advantage not expected by US war planners.
Given all this, how many ways can one spell "failure", which is ineluctably the outcome of trump's war of choice, full stop.
The definition of failure includes Trump and his entire regime.
He has an out-if congress would pass the war resolution and force him to stop this carnage. He’d even have someone to blame.
Indeed
Good try, no cigar, Melanie. No way in hell Trump would ever be forced to admit a mistake. His modus operandi is to double down, not to self-correct.
TRAINED BY ROY COHN.
WANT TO UNDERSTAND TRUMP?
STUDY COHN.
Exactly!
There are so many reasons to vote for Democrats on Nov. 3rd. It's hard to pick just one fatal action for the Republican Regime. This a classic pile-on. We are not fooled, and we voters will withstand the intentional onslaught.
When one lacks any qualities of leadership and do not surround yourself with those who do, the result is bound to be failure. Add to that a total lack of character or any other positive qualities that make one at least likable or tolerable, well, there we are.
It is fortunate that the fascists are also fools
WITH MID THIRTIES APPROVAL. SINKING WEEKLY.
Everybody keeps saying that, but it’s been in the mid 30s since he took office again, or at least this whole year!
More than 200 retired generals and flag officers signed a joint open letter in 2024 warning that Donald Trump was unfit to be Commander-in-Chief. And yet Trump voters ignored the message and thought Trump would keep US out of war. Their blind faith and willful ignorance has put the lives of our troops, allies, and the world at the whims of a degenerate, dangerous fool. Congress has authority to counter the horrors of this administration but they serve no interest but their own.
Thank you, Jay, for laying out the pattern in such a simple and convincing way. Although I knew about most of those facts, it is so helpful to see them as a pattern.
The MoU ended because the United States had ship "go dark" and sneak through an area of the Strait NOT APPROVED in the MoU. The US broke the agreement, not Iran. Iran had attacked NO ONE when the US and Israel attacked it. THEY don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons because then it can DEFEND itself and they can't come over and beat the s*** out of Iran whenever they want. Iran has no interest in attacking anyone but they have every right to defend their sovereignty. And for that, self defence, people call them terrorists.
I agree with you that Iran has a right to defend their sovereignty. But I also know that they have been training and funding terrorists for years. The Houthis and Hezbollah come to mind, as well as Hamas. From what I can tell, that is why people call Iran terrorists.
And do you know where groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah derive from? From people (example, the Palestinians) who have been so downtrodden that they rise up in protest and self-defence. And for this, they are called terrorists. If Hamas or another group forms in response to the ATROCITIES committed in Gaza, they will be called terrorists. Submit to the oppression of wealthy colonialism or you are a terrorist. These groups derived from oppression.
I agree with you. And that's why "Dumocrats" are being called terrorists by trump, since we won't bend the knee or kiss the ass.
Although the past two years have been awful, I have learned SO MUCH to go back and look at the history of people who are denounced as terrorists. Suddenly, you understand. What choice do they have. Look at Gaza--all the countries on Earth with a military, and no one NO ONE came to protect those people. Appalling. And they have the nerve to call ANYONE terrorists? Pretti and Good were called terrorists. (I have a feeling I'm one too, oh lordy.)
I have Jewish heritage that was involved with the start of Israel, but despite understanding what the Jew have always been going through, I feel very badly for the people of Gaza. I've been part of a conversation recently where someone was saying that the Palestinians have always been about destroying the Jews. I'm willing to bet that a lot of that hatred came from being oppressed. I am not an activist, but I'll bet that because of how I vote, I would also be considered a terrorist…
This is a serious question, Susan: how do you know that Iran has been training and funding terrorists for years? If your only sources are the US and Israeli governments and media, I would suggest they're not reliable. Netanyahu has been pressuring the US for decades (yes, decades) to invade Iran. He has his own motives, and they are not altruistic.
D Epp, my sources have been news reporting on MSNBC/MSNOW. I know that our government and Israeli government are not reliable. I have distrusted Netanyahu for years. I'm curious what you consider to be better sources.
I honestly have no idea, Susan, because if Iran has not been doing those things, no one is reporting that, right? I'm not actively seeking out that info, and truth be told, I don't follow broadcast media, or watch TV at all. I just wondered where the news on Iran was coming from.
Israel is more likely to bomb the hell out of Iran when it's defenceless. Ukraine is a good example of why Iran should not give up its nuclear capability. Ukraine was persuaded by Russia to give up its nukes and turn them over to Russia. We all know what happened next.
I was pleased when Iran pointed that out to the US. "Give up your nukes, WE'LL protect you!" Yeah right. Our entire government is too stupid and self-absorbed to realize how intelligent the leaders of Iran are. And from what I can see, they are also all mentally sound.
Trump said he was out for revenge, getting even for past slights. Posting AI pocs of him self flying a jet spreading his fertilizer on hus enemies, then another showing him bombing the world.
He's a demented maniac and needs to be removed.
TRUMP IS LEADING THE WAY FOR AMERICA, INTO AN EVER DEEPER AND MORE DISASTROUS HOLE.
DOES ANYONE NEED TO BE REMINDEDTHAT - TRUMP STARTED IT ALL, LED ON BY NETANYAHU
PULLING ON THE RING IN HIS NOSE?
sO GLAD I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN CONGRESSPERSON SEEKING REELECTION IN NOVEMBER.
TIME TO START LOOKING FOR A SMALL FARM TO BUY?