"Genius" Trump Thinks He Can Lie And Bullshit His Way Out Of The Latest War He Started With Iran

Must mention first that he's under the control of Israel and its ruler, Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has spent about 20 years trying to drag the U.S. into war on Iran. He's finally succeeded.

Trump, his minions, and reactionary shouters online and in neofascist media have been pushing the Big Lie that Iran is building (or is about to build, or already has) nuclear weapons. The entirety of corporate media has effectively bolstered this lie by never pointing out that it is untrue, and by speaking of Iran's "nuclear program." That is a thoroughly dishonest fudge that misleads people into believing the Big Lie that it is a weapons program and NOT what it actually is, a uranium enrichment program. Which of course is necessary to someday HAVE  a weapons program, which Iran DOES NOT AND NEVER HAS HAD. 

But if you were REALLY worried about it, you wouldn't have killed the agreement reached by the Obama regime and Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany all on one side, and Iran on the other, which completely mothballed the enrichment of levels of concern, handed over the more highly enriched uranium, allowed for rigorous inspection, and was to be in force until 2030, allowing plenty of time for extension or a new agreement. Trump tore up that deal, and his successor, "Genocide Joe" Biden, didn't put it back. Hence Netanyahu is in charge. [1]

 Netanyahu tried vigorously to block the deal in the first place, even going to Congress at the invitation of Republicans (who controlled Congress at the time) to fulminate against it.

On February 28 Trump started his second war on Iran (the first was June 2025). This time the Iranians aren't allowing Trump to end it when HE wants. They learned from the last time, when they were successfully defeating Israel's missile defenses and should have pressed on. (I'm not on the side of the Iranian regime, let's be clear. I'm speaking objectively, what was a blunder on Iran's part that led to the current war, where Israel once again easily goaded Trump the Great Genius to attack again. As last time, this was done treacherously, in the middle of negotiations.)

So what is Trump doing now? Trying to lie and bullshit his way through, his lifelong behavioral pattern. Except now he's not some ripoff artist, incompetent casino owner, real estate hustler, TV actor, all around sleazy con man. He's president of the United States. 

Sheer idiocy that people voted for him. Criminal irresponsibility on the part of his enablers and abettors.

Trump is claiming Iran agree to most of the 15 points of his ultimatum (aka "peace plan," as the media, once again aiding and abetting Trump, is pretending it is). The ultimatum is a call for total surrender to all U.S. (i.e. Israeli) demands on Iran: completely dismantle its missile program and the factories for building them, completely surrender uranium enrichment (Iran is perfectly legal under international law to enrich uranium to a level well below weapons grade, which is 90% or higher), abandon its only allies in the world, the "terrorist" Houthis of Yemen, Hezbollah of Lebanon, and the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas. All the groups that resist murderous Israeli oppression. (It would be immoral to abandon them. Not that only morality is guiding Iranian policy. As with all nation states, morality plays little or no part in critical decisions. Or any decisions.) The other demands, all written by Israel, are equally maximalist. "Unconditional surrender," a term Trump has recently used as his goal with Iran, would be more to the point than "peace plan." Once again power establishment media aids and abets Trump's gaslighting by going along with his preposterous falsehoods.

Trump claims, absurdly, that Iran "gifted" him 8 tankers of oil. That's not trucks, that's those giant ships that carry millions of barrels of oil. The media didn't hoot at that and ridicule him. No, they acted like stenographers and dutifully repeated the claim without sarcasm, just slight doubt.  Hardly the correct response to such a whopping lie.

Trump continues to insist, OBVIOUSLY falsely, that he's in "talks" or "negotiations" with the Iranians. The Iranians, far more plausibly, deny this. After all, what happened the LAST two times they were talking with Trump's envoys? Treacherous U.S. military attacks on their homeland. So "the" media splits the difference, saying it's "unclear" what the actual situation is. Is it? How many decades of Trump publicly lying and bullshitting and conning and ripping off do you need to acknowledge reality? To tell the truth for once in your godawful existence, media propagandists?

We have the Pakistanis claiming to be mediating, acting as go-betweens for messages between the U.S. and Iran. that's plausible. But that isn't the U.S. and Iran "talking" to each other. That's indirect contact. Trump is lying when he claims to be directly negotiating with Iran. Anyway this is the guy who claims 1] Iran GAVE HIM 8 oil tankers of oil, and 2] ALREADY SURRENDERED to most of the demands in his "peace plan" ultimatum for unconditional surrender.

Iran is currently, and quite reasonably, demanding reparations for the billions of dollars (or whatever currency you want to measure it in) of damages to Iran (not to mention thousands murdered, and many more fated to get cancer thanks to Israel plowing up oil facilities unwisely located in Tehran which spread a carcinogenic plume of pollution over the city population of nearly 10 million (9.84 million -2026 estimate)- almost 10 million souls put in mortal danger by Israel.

Which means, ultimately by the U.S. Since every warplane and every bomb and every missile Israel has is a gift from the U.S. A gift, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. (I.e. by us, if you pay U.S. taxes).

Unfortunately the putative "opposition" party in the U.S., the Democrats, aren't in a good position to oppose Trump and Israel. They too are a wholly owned subsidiary of the State of Israel. They too have hated Iran since the overthrow in 1979 of the U.S.' favorite murderous tyrant, Reza Pahlavi, the "Shah" ("King") installed by the CIA on Eisenhower's orders in 1953. So what the Democrats  do is whine about "process," Trump should have CONSULTED them first, or BRIEF them. So they can feel IMPORTANT, they can feel like they MATTER, which they less and less do.

The REAL opposition party, the party that opposes U.S. imperialism and the corporate oligarchy that rules America is the Green Party. (There are other smaller parties less well organized nationally). They are rendered invisible to most Americans because "the media," the system of power establishment propaganda, is assiduously makes sure to NEVER EVER MENTION EVEN THE EXISTENCE of the Green Party.

So now we're in a slowly developing global economic crisis. In retaliation for Israel bombing its aluminum plants, Iran has struck similar facilities in the U.S. stooge nations on the Arabian peninsula. Aluminum prices are rising as a type. Michael Bloomberg Billionaire's propagandists are reporting that the World Trade Organization has become irrelevant. Trump's war has hit U.S. farmers, who are among his biggest supporters, hard, as this is just when they need to buy fertilizer, which is petroleum dependent and much of which comes from those same same Arabian peninsula nations. (As of this writing fertilizer prices are up 25%.

Well that's enough for now. Isn't it.

 1] The JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was agreed by the nations I mentions above and Iran limiting Iran's enrichment to 3.67% for 15 years, until 2030. Weapons grade is 90%+. Seems like a good deal, not a terrible, dangerous one as Netanyahu and his puppet, Trump, insisted at the tops of their lungs.

What Next For Iran?

 If the U.S. and Israel succeed in the announced goal of ousting the Islamic regime, what will happen is Iran will break up. The Kurds will seize control of a region, and the Baluchis will seize another area, and declare their own nations.

The only way that could be prevented is by a U.S. ground invasion. Otherwise there is no armed force on the ground to prevent that if the regime is destroyed.

The U.S. plan, in an idiotic echo of the Bush regime scheme to impose Ahmed Chalabi on the Iraqi people, is to make the son of the late and hated dictator Shah of Iran the new ruler of Iran. But what men with guns will back him on the ground? He will need the U.S. army (and Marines and Navy SEAL terrorists, who will want in on the murderous "action") to put and keep him in power in Iran. The Voice of America is broadcasting Son of Shah's propaganda (in Farsi) into Iran. As if anyone there is listening, or would be inspired by his guff.

Breaking Iran into pieces is most likely what Israel would like best.This would mean three smaller, weaker countries in place of Iran. Israel is fanatically intent on being the regional hegemon, with the other states and people prostrate and helpless at its feet.

But since the only armed forces in Iran are tightly aligned with the regime, it seems unlikely that the regime CAN be toppled, not without an ARMED opposition. Apparently the CIA and Mossad haven't figured out a way to smuggle large numbers of arms into Iran without getting caught, and training up Iranian civilians in their use, and organizing them into people's militias. Absent that, the U.S. will have to invade the country to oust the mullahs from power. 

As an atheist, and a human to whom human rights are important, the Iranian regime is loathsome. Just as the regimes of such U.S. allies as Saudi Arabia, a repressive, vicious theocracy, is loathsome.

But let's remember how we got here. President Dwight David Eisenhower ordered a CIA coup in 1953 that destroyed democracy in Irao. The following year he ordered the same in Guatemala. In both nations the result was about a quarter million murders by the regimes. Iran had a revolution in 1979 which brought the current theocratic tyranny to power. Guatemala is still a death squad, fascist state, but with fewer death squad murders than in the past.The U.S. finds indigenous fascist forces and oligarchs to use to create its preferred fascist states.

Israel assassinated the Ayatollah, Khamenei, on the idiotic premise that this would cause the collapse of the regime. The mullahs are not dependent on him. He was 86 anyway. The regime didn't collapse when Khomeini, the first Ayatollah who took power in 1979, died. Just as the Israeli government wouldn't collapse if Netanyahu got his just desserts and was assassinated, or the U.S. government collapse if Trump was eliminated. Israel's and the U.S.' behavior drag the world down into a more barbarous state. Of course both these nations have horrible histories of many crimes, but one hopes for progress, not regression. 

One more thing: Trump is pretending he wants to free the Iranian people. Of course that is bullshit. He is a self-centered narcissist who could give a rat's ass about the Iranians. Here's a hint to how much the U.S. cares about Iranians: either the U.S. or Israel bombed a girls' school during the during the current aggression- on the very first day. They slaughtered 153 people (according to the Iranian foreign ministry). Not a peep in U.S. media, and whichever nation did it, it's accomplice in naked aggression didn't condemn it or even say don't do that sort of thing again.

The U.S. doesn't care about the Iranian people any more than it did in 1953. And Israel wants to break Iran into pieces. It wants all other nations in the Middle East to be as weak as possible, so it can be a regional hegemon until the end of time.

A demented fantasy every bit as psychotic as the Third Reich's was. 

The Political And Ethical Degeneration Of The U.S.- From Nixon To Trump

 Nixon had to resign or face certain conviction in the Senate after impeachment, just because the burglars he sent to tap the phones in the D.C headquarters of the Democratic National Committee got caught. Senator Barry Goldwater, a reactionary as close to a fascist as one can get without being one, personally delivered the news to Nixon in the White House that the jig was up, if he didn't resign, impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate (requiring 67 votes, which would include Republican Senators) was certain.

But Nixon's crimes look like mere peccadilloes compared to Trump's.

Trump sent a violent mob to invade the Capitol to prevent the certification of Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, as winner of the 2020 presidential election. He refused for several hours to call off the mob, ignoring the entreaties of Congresspeople telephoning him and of his daughter Ivanka in the White House. When, hours later, he realized his coup attempt had failed, he finally messages the mob to depart, which they instantly did- proving he controlled them.

He was recorded on a phone call to the state of Georgia's Secretary of State telling him to "find" votes for him to change the result in Georgia. He initiated scheme to have fake Electoral College Electors cast votes for him.

Yet the Senate acquitted him after he was impeached in the House, and a combination of feckless and dilatory prosecution efforts by Trump's successor Biden and his wan Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who was denied a Supreme Court seat by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (who refused to allow nomination hearings to take place for the last 11 months of Obama's term in office, an unprecedented, outrageous political power move which the Democrats insipidly accepted) and interference with the prosecution by Republican judges, especially those on the Supreme Court, which effectively immunized Trump for his seditious coup.

So one guy is basically ousted by his own party for tapping some phones, while the other guy can openly foment a coup, and furthermore delegitimize U.S. "democracy" and undermine its elections by loudly braying, year after year, that he actually won an election he lost and that the election was "stolen" from him. Stolen in Republican-controlled states too! And no consequences for him.

This is an arc of political and ethical degeneration of a nation and its political system.

Trump As Netanyahu's Ventriloquist Dummy

Trump posted online this morning: "We [sic] now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran." A gloat over Israel's latest aggression against Iran. Presumably it's been Israel and Israel alone that has been bombing Iran and murdering top officials and nuclear scientists for almost a week now. Trump also says he wants a "total end" to Iran's nuclear program. (It's not a bomb program, it's a uranium enrichment program which creates fuel for nuclear power reactors. That's not an opinion, that's a fact according to U.S. intelligence and Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence/assassination agency.) Trump went on to boast about how great U.S. military weaponry and technology is. (Yes, with it, Israel and the U.S. can murder and destroy with impunity. Terrific. Lord Acton had a famous aphorism: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The corruption is both political and moral. The consequences are terrible for humanity.)

Trump has gone from resisting Netanyahu's demand that the U.S. join in a war on Iran, to threatening to murder the Ayatollah, Iran's Supreme Leader, and seems ready to bomb Iran's main uranium enrichment side under a mountain. Trump already sent B-2 bombers to the area for the purpose. 

Israel has been waging undeclared war on Iran for five days as of today. This has included murdering top Iranian government and military officials, with threats to murder the top ruler, the Ayatollah. 

A reporter asked Netanyahu if murdering the Ayatollah would escalate the "conflict." Netanyahu bellowed that "It would END the conflict!" How he figures that, I have no idea. It's typical Netanyahu supremacist bluster.

Israel has been drunk on its regional military supremacy for decades now. 

People seem to automatically, unconsciously even, have a simplistic attitude of Good Guys/Bad Guys, and one side has to be one, the other side the other, and whatever the "Good Guys" do to the "Bad Guys" is a good thing, including murdering them, because after all, they're "terrorists" and terrorists aren't humans, so it's a good thing to just kill them.

Of course this is mindless. Both Iran and Israel are loathsome political entities. I'm talking about their governments. But Israel is far worse because Israel has been committing the worst crime under international law and in terms of normal human morality, namely genocide, for over a year and a half now. (However, since 1948, Israel has been committing a lower grade genocidal campaign against the Palestinian Arabs, namely an attempt to deny and erase their identity as a people, which does constitute genocide under the international legal definition of genocide. Just as the Chinese regime is doing to the Uyghurs under its rule, brainwashing them in forced labor/torture camps and physically forcing them to renounce their culture, beliefs, dress, and family ties to make them into imitation Han Chinese. The Israelis of course have never sought to twist the Palestinian Arabs into Jews, but to banish them and kill large numbers of them, starting in 1948.

Trump cheaply and cynically evokes World War II, demanding "unconditional surrender" from Iran, and implicitly and not very subtly threatening the life of the Ayatollah by saying "we know where you are." 

Western propaganda ("news coverage") consistently omits the key fact that Iran does NOT have a nuclear bomb or warhead program, allowing people to be duped into believing it does.

Also NEVER pointed out, the key fact that if Iran HAD nuclear weapons, it wouldn't dare USE them against Israel, since Israel has hundreds of deliverable nuclear weapons, and the U.S. has thousands, some of which it would use on Iran if Israel for some reason didn't totally annihilate Iran itself if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

The whole thing about the imaginary Iranian nuclear weapons is to make sure there is never even a possible challenge to Israeli regional military supremacy. 

                                                                 A cruel demagogue, and also a sad, pathetic man.

 

 

U.S. Stock Market Traders Easily Manipulated By Crude Grifter Trump

We hear a lot of chatter about how Trump's mad tariff war on the entire world has wiped out wealth that was stored in the stock markets.  But what I haven't noticed is media attention to how easily Trump causes sharp daily rallies in stocks with a mere feint, a head fake of a comment implying some fabulous resolution to the tariff war he's started with the rest of the world that's going to happen. (When? Don't ask.) Starting with announcing a 90 day "pause" in imposing tariffs (excluding, crucially, China), having his Treasury Secretary, Scott "The Stock Market Whisperer" Bessent play Good Cop and periodically claim that "talks" are imminent, or maybe happening, or going to happen, or "a lot" of countries have "called" (always refusing to answer the question, "How many countries have called?"), and Trump making various vague statements that stock speculators for some strange reason find reassuring, like crying babies being shushed by having a pacifier stuck in their mouths, Trump and his accomplices have shown themselves able to cause sharp stock market rallies repeatedly over the past month. The low point for U.S. stocks was on April 8th, but since then the S&P 500 is up over 8% midday today, and the Nasdaq is up 10%, over 1,500 points. So for just over two weeks stocks have basically been in an uptrend, with ever sharper up days. 

Bessent was at it again today, opining that both U.S. tariffs on China and vice versa had to come down before talks could begin. (Notice the U.S., that is Trump, hasn't actually LOWERED the tariffs to facilitate talks. I guess they want China, which has lower tariffs (125%) on U.S. goods versus the 145% imposed on China by Trump, to go first. 

Here's an example of what a bamboozler Trump is, and how utterly STUPID U.S. financial markets are- that is, the people trading stocks all day, every day, are.

Today, Trump at about 11:20 am East Coast time, spewed a spray of empty blather about how great everything is going to be, how rich America is going to be, how "happy" everyone in the WORLD is going to be. Stuff he says year after year, just shilling as this grifter con man always does. But here's the key tell, to use a poker term:

Trump: "We are going to have a fair deal with China."

Reporter manages to inject a question into the Trumpian stream of consciousness rave: "Are you talking to them actively?"

Trump: "Actively? Everything is active." And he keeps talking, but not about China or negotiations or anything at all, just his usual repetitive upbeat con man blather. Notice how he evaded the question. The tell is that he dodged the question. He didn't say "Yes, we are talking to the Chinese." 

The U.S. isn't even in negotiations with China while exorbitant tariffs remain in place. (145% tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese imports, 125% ones China imposed in retaliation on U.S. imports to China.) Plus, Trump still won't stop lying and claiming that the tariffs will be paid by Chinese companies. That's not how tariffs work. Tariffs are paid at the point of entry to a country, paid by the importer. That is, whatever comes from China will be 145% more expensive for the U.S. importing company.

But the people who trade stocks apparently don't understand any of this. They are pushing stocks up hard today, as they also did yesterday. Another "reason" is not just what is misinterpreted as a softening of Trump's position on tariffs, or progress (!) in non-existent negotiations, but the fact that Trump changed his tune on Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, who he had been publicly attacking for days because Powell isn't lowering interest rates. (Another Trump distortion of reality- the chairman of the Fed cannot raise and lower interest rates on his own. That requires a vote by the Fed Open Market committee, on which the chairman has only one vote.) Trump had been publicly threatening to "fire" Powell, which he does not have the legal authority to do, but as we have seen, Trump has been doing many illegal things since January 20 when he became president again, or rather dictator as he prefers, including firing officials illegally. Seeing that the stock and bond markets were upset, Trump stopped calling Powell a "loser" (the worst epithet there is in Trump's mind, a product of his pathological upbringing by his sick father, Fred)  and said he wasn't going to "fire" Powell after all. Or rather, he merely said he has no "plan" to fire Powell. Like he ever needs a "plan" for his arbitrary and vengeful acts. 

Yet for some reason, this typical Trump capricious (and meaningless, if you parse it like I just did) change of rhetoric completely reassured the financial speculators, and the stock market especially has been off to the races in an oingoing so-called "relief rally." (As of noon, the rally is off the highs but still up 2% to 3% in the major averages, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq..The DOW is a mere 30 stocks, so it is silly to use it as a weather vane.)

Given the relentless bias to drive stocks always higher, and the mindless chauvinistic optimism of American financial speculators, one must always assume that pushing U.S. stocks down is as hard as pushing an inflated ball underwater. It will always forcefully push upwards. The 1929-1940 stock market drought must be seen as an anomaly in the modern era. (The completely unregulated 19th century cannot be used for comparison. In that century, there was an economic panic or crisis or depression about every decade.)

                           "What, you BELIEVED that??"

Trump Threatens Again To Seize Greenland From NATO "Ally" Denmark

In his daily stream-of-consciousness rant today, King Trump threatened to send more U.S. troops to Greenland, obviously to affect an occupation of that sovereign Danish territory. And again, he insisted the U.S. needs to annex Greenland for U.S. "national security."  [1]

He also still says Canada would be "beautiful" as the 51th state of the U.S.

So the U.S. is threatening two members of the U.S.-created and bosses NATO military alliance with hostile seizures, in the case of Canada the complete extinction of that nation.

Yet media propagandists still refer to Canada and Denmark as U.S. "allies." Allies do not threaten allies territory, sovereignty, and continued existence as nations.

The assembled poodles pretending to be journalists meekly pretended all this is normal and reasonable.
Let me remind you, the U.S. has since World War II maintained military bases on Greenland. Denmark has been most cooperative about this. Also Greenland is inhabited by a civilian population. Of course what they might want doesn't figure in Trump's dictatorial mind.

Let me remind you, the U.S. has since World War II maintained military bases on Greenland. Denmark has been most cooperative about this. Also Greenland is inhabited by a civilian population. Of course what they might want doesn't figure in Trump's dictatorial mind.

It's about time the European lapdogs who run those countries stop pretending the U.S. is their ally and protector. Yet instead, they are racing to assure Trump that they will meet his outrageous demand that they spend the equivalent of 5% of their gross national products (their economies) on "defense." Which actually means buying weapons from U.S. weapons manufacturers. NATO requires "standardization" of weapons, which means for the expensive stuff, largely U.S. ones.

The U.S. doesn't spend 5% of GDP on the military (well, maybe if you count Veterans Affairs, part of NASA, the 2/3rds of the Department of Energy's budget that is for nuclear warhead assembly, disassembly, and research, and more here and there, it might approach 3%), nor should it. NO nation should mindlessly base its military budgets on a percentage of GDP. Instead it should evaluate potential threats, determine the military forces and equipment needed to deal with the threats and their costs, and appropriate the right amount of money. But to my knowledge, NOT A SINGLE POLITICIANS OR MEDIA JABBERER HAS EVER POINTED OUT THIS OBVIOUS FACT OR CHALLENGED THE % DEMANDS!! 

Just how mindlessly conformist are these elite jackasses?

Very conformist, apparently.

Trump can wave the "national security" magical wand to justify anything because that is EXACTLY how that phrase has been used for decades to justify U.S. aggression, U.S. repression inside and outside the U.S., and various U.S. crimes, AND the secrecy used to suppress awareness of these crimes from the American people. A good chunk of those people would support the crimes anyway, contrary to the delusions of leftists who think that if "the people only knew" the truth they would rise up in righteous anger blah blah. The fact that there are always large numbers of reactionaries, national chauvinists- aka "patriots"- racists, and fascists eludes leftists and is the reason that their favorite slogan, "The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated" is fatuous and dangerously misleading. The people are rarely united. The only times they are are during some wars.

"National Security" is NEVER DEFINED by those throwing it around. It really means U.S. POWER. Pure and simple, that is the real meaning. Whether talking about global domination, or suppression of domestic dissidents, that is what they do behind the veil of "national security." And only those with "security clearances," that is, those deemed to have the correct ideological mindset, get to know the details of the dirty crimes being committed behind the veil of "national security."

        He whom the Gods would make King, they first make mad. (Or maybe just drunk on power.)

1] Referring to Greenland, Mad King Trump said "We really need it for national security. Maybe we'll send more and more soldiers. What do you think of that Pete?" [Talking to Peter Hegseth, the alcoholic rapist Trump and the GOP Senators made Secretary of Defense. I did not hear an audible response from Hegseth.]

 

Trump To Ukraine- Your Rare Earth Minerals Or Your Life

On February 28, 2025, Career Extortionist Donald John Trump got unexpected resistance from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump had summoned Zelensky to the White House to sign an agreement to hand over to the U.S. (presumably U.S. corporations in favor with Trump) half the revenues from Ukraine's natural resources- the minerals, oil, natural gas. In return for- basically nothing. No guarantee of military aid, intelligence aid, nothing. Just a typical Trump move, vague rhetoric, nothing enforceable. Nothing Trump has any intention of enforcing. [1]

Trump's shakedown attempt failed, so far. Zelensky was describing his view of the history of the war with Russia. Trump didn't want to hear it. He laid into Zelensky, saying he doesn't have "the cards," meaning he's playing with a weak hand, while Trump held the, well, trump card of U.S. war support. (Recall that Trump in his previous go at being president, briefly delayed delivering military supplies to Ukraine in a clumsy effort to get information on the corrupt Biden family doings in Ukraine, which pro-Democratic Party media dismissed as "dirt" without mentioning the outrageous, openly corrupt deal that Biden son Hunter got from Ukrainian gas company Burisma- a seat on the corporate board for $50,000 a MONTH, for several years. That's a multi-million dollar not very well disguised bribe to the Biden family. Incredibly dishonest hiding of the facts by Democratic Party politicians and their media allies. Oh, and Trump was actually impeached by the Democrats for that delay. Needless to say, the Republicans, who have memories as long as their party symbol, the elephant, never forgot or forgave.)

In yesterday's meeting, Trump rebuked Zelensky for being "very disrespectful," and "you're not being thankful, and that's not a nice thing." (Trump always accuses people who stand up to him of being "not nice," and worse.) Trump's vice president, the slippery opportunist J.D. Vance, jumped on Zelensky, with an accusatory rhetorical question, "have you said thank you once," and then revealed a festering grudge, denouncing Zelensky for "campaigning for the opposition" (that is, Biden) last October. (Of course "campaigning for" is a matter of interpretation. Don't trust Vance's.)

Trump bellowed at Zelensky that he was losing the war, and using the fact that the Ukrainian military is dependent on U.S. weapons and ordnance, armaments that Europe cannot manufacture as leverage, his ranting made clear that Ukraine had no choice but to give in to Trump's extortion.

Or so Trump thought, and evidently had previously calculated.

Zelensky didn't back down, however, so he was effectively thrown out of the White House in front of the assembled media. The schedule joint lunch didn't happen.

Conveniently on hand outside the White House to verbally excoriate Zelensky was Trump's number one Senate stooge, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He rabidly attacked Zelensky, and insisted Zelensky would have to go unless he changed his attitude. (Graham often thinks he has the right to choose the heads of other nations' governments, a consistent imperialist impulse.) Among the things Trump's barking dog Graham said about Zelensky was "The way he confronted the President was over the top." All Zelensky did was try to talk back to Trump, a major offense when dealing with an Emperor-King.

 

Meanwhile USAID had cut off an infrastructure program in Ukraine, all USAID programs having been cancelled by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the reactionary Florida Cuban Trump plucked from the Senate for a cabinet post, and Elon Musk and the fake "Department" Trump created, DOGE, for "Department Of Government Efficiency." A deceptive name for what should be called Artificial Department Of Government Dismantling Or Destruction, ADOGOD.

After leaving the meeting where he was dressed down by Trump and Vance, Zelensky posted Thank-Yous to Trump, America, and the American people, on Trump hitman Elon Musk's propaganda site, X (formerly Twitter). Zelensky has thanked the U.S. and Europe innumerable times during the war.

On Ukraine, Trump is right that it cannot win the war. However the way he wants to end it mirrors what he did in Afghanistan, when he negotiated with the Taliban, cutting the Afghan government completely out of the process, and leaving it to his successor, Biden, to pull the rug out from under the client regime that depended on the U.S. for its survival. That regime collapsed as soon as the U.S. hastily retreated, or "cut and ran," an oft-used expression in U.S. discourse by war mongers but was strangely absent in the Afghan case, when it perfectly applied in a very literal sense. The result of handing over that country to the medieval and deranged Taliban has been awful for the Afghan people, and especially horrendous for Afghan women, who are now banned from employment and education and virtually imprisoned as housework and breeding slaves in their homes. 

But Trump cannot totally cut the Ukrainian government out of the picture as it is much stronger than the Afghan regime and unlike that regime, has the support of its population which supports the war effort except in the eastern portions of the country, which seceded after the U.S. coup and was bombed and shelled by the Kyiv regime, which waged war on it, Russia supporting the secessionists. Europe also support Kyiv, although it will not be able to manufacture weapons and ordnance of the type and in the quantities the U.S. has been supplying. Hence Trump's arm-twisting of the Ukrainians.

Unfortunately the U.S. put Ukraine in this difficult position. Just a few days after the Russian invasion in February 2022, Putin initiated negotiations with Zelensky about an agreement to end the war, which at that point Russia's thrust to Kyiv was grinding to a halt. The U.S. immediately stopped that. British prime minister at the time Boris "Bojo The Clown" Johnson" immediately rushed to Kyiv to pull Zelensky away from the negotiation path. The talks with Russia were promising. 

Then Ukraine went on  to achieve victories in the war. In the fall of 2022 Ukraine was at its high point of military success. This isn't mere hindsight. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest U.S. military officer,  general Mark Milley, said at that time that it wouldn't get better for Ukraine and this was the time to seek an end to the war. [2]

However, then-president Joe Biden was always an aggressive war monger in Ukraine for years. He rejected that option. So he doomed Ukraine to ultimate defeat. (As Obama's vice president, he pushed for weapons to be sent to Ukraine, but Obama demurred, opting for just training missions.)

There are larger ways in which the U.S. painted Ukraine into this corner. There was the U.S.-instigated fascist led coup of 2014, ordered by Obama, with high U.S. officials on the ground in Kyiv agitating, most notoriously Victoria Nuland of the State Department, and people like (now dead) U.S. Senator and rabid militarist John McCain.

And then there's the original sin. President George "Bush The Younger" Bush in 2008 strong-armed NATO, over objections from Germany and France, into declaring that Georgia and Ukraine would be brought into NATO. Russia immediately howled that this was intolerable. (The German chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, says she knew this would never fly with Russia, but being a U.S. lapdog, as are all bourgeois European "leaders," she went along with the U.S. diktat.)

Most of the U.S. imperialist elite, being drunk on its power as usual, thought they could just shove it down Russia's throat, just as they had shoved down two earlier NATO expansions after the collapse of the Soviet Union down Russia's throat, betraying a promise made to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last, ill-fated head of the U.S.S.R., that NATO would not expand "one inch to the east" in return for the Soviets not to stand in the way of the absorption of East Germany by West Germany. (So-called "reunification," although by that time East Germany was a very different country from West Germany, just as Austria is different from Germany, regardless of the fact that all speak German. Hell, the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and a bunch of other places all speak English. They're far from identical places.) William "Bill" Clinton expanded NATO in 1999, followed by another expansion by Bush and the notorious declaration at that 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, NATO having already planted its flag that far east. NATO was created as an anti-Soviet military alliance by the U.S., with the obligation on the U.S. to go to war with the U.S.S.R. if that nation attacked any NATO member.

Why is bringing Ukraine into NATO a red line for Russia? Because the U.S. could put nuclear ballistic missiles in that country, as it has nuclear weapons all over Europe, which could annihilate the Russian government and key targets in a few minutes. No one enjoys having a loaded gun pointed at one's head, even if the person holding the gun purrs that it's strictly for self-defense! That is a form of coercive leverage. Moreover, imagine if China overthrew the government of Canada and Mexico, and brought one of those countries into an anti-U.S. military bloc. The U.S. wouldn't wait 8 years to invade, as Russia did after the 2014 U.S. coup. It would invade in 8 days!

UK prime minister tried to make up for the Trump gang's brutal treatment of Zelensky the next day, March 1st, warmly welcoming him with a crowd to provide cheers. The U.S. move to abandon Ukraine also go the backs up of people in Ukraine.

The fact is, in various ways, Trump is effectively forcing Europe to move towards independence from the U.S., finally, 80 year after the end of World War II in 1945. Not that that's Trump's intent, just a positive byproduct of his hostile and economically destructive actions. (Did someone say, "Tariffs"?) So while the Democratic Party and the U.S. imperialist elite are aghast at Trump's baseball bat whacks at the U.S. alliance system, which the U.S. has totally dominated, I think it's about time that system broke down. I'm an anti-imperialist, you see. Because all empires are in fact criminal enterprises that use violence, the threat of violence, and various forms of coercion to subjugate other peoples and economically exploit them and their resources, often to extreme degrees. Empires are not "glorious," contrary to their propagandists, including many so-called historians.
=========================================================================
CODA AND FOOTNOTE 

In a sense, Trump's bullying of Ukraine is far from unique in U.S. imperialist history. It's just a throwback to 19th century type imperialism, which was cruder than what we've come to expect, at least in appearance. We did have the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by George Bush, and thousands of assassinations (including of Americans, some in the U.S.) by Barack "The Drone Assassin" Obama.

But with Trump, you have a person who is a bully, with the power of the most powerful position on earth. That is not a happy combination. Oh, and he's currently using that power to deconstruct pieces of the U.S. government, including the IRS. That alone with make the Federal deficit worse. The pretend deficit hawks of the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) are onboard with that. The Trump-Musk regime has already fired several thousand IRS employees, including some in enforcement.

Every dollar spent on the IRS brings in more than a dollar in revenue. Every dollar spent auditing the rich brings in $6 in revenue. Those audits are now being virtually eliminated.

This is just greedy rich people cutting their taxes. While doing this, they and the lying corporate media pretend that the deficit is caused by Social Security and Medicare. That is one gigantic BIG LIE. Social Security and Medicare run annual SURPLUSES. Yes, by 2035 Social Security is expected to take in less in payroll tax contributions than it pays out. So it will make up the difference by tapping into its gigantic multi-trillion dollar trust fund. Big deal. That is not "bankruptcy," as demagogic politicians and dishonest media propagandists call it. And here's an easy fix: remove the cap on income subject to FICA tax so people who make millions a year in income (even a billion in some cases!) pay the tax on their full income. Right now poor people pay FICA starting on the first dollar of wages. (Unlike the income tax, there is no standard deduction under FICA.)

Those annual Social Security trust fund surpluses are spent by the government on other activities to reduce the annual deficit. Treasury bonds are placed in the trust fund in return. Of course those bonds then have to be paid off eventually, with interest, with other Federal revenue- income taxes, fees, tariffs, asset seizures ("forfeitures"), whatever.

This years-long attack on Social Security as the cause of deficits indicates that the rich oligarchs won't be satisfied until their taxes are set at zero, and they get even more hundreds of billions in government welfare than they already do every year. (Notice "welfare" is a dirty word in the U.S., and is only applied to the pittances grudgingly allotted to the very poor, mostly women with children, who are painted as undeserving parasites.)

Alright, this went off on some tangents, but they are connected and important to be aware of. I share my knowledge for free.

1] Speaking of Trump extortion, he recently extorted $15 million from the cowards running Disney Corporation, which owns ABC, a major pillar of the corporate propaganda system. ABC paid Trump to settle a completely meritless suit Trump brought for "libel," because on-air host George Stephanopoulos (a former Clinton regime figure) said Trump had committed rape. In the civil suit that one of Trump's rape victim's brought and won against Trump, the jury found that a sexual assault occurred, which the judge said was tantamount to rape. So this was an eminently defensible case for ABC. 

This is on the cowardly corporate execs. Or maybe cowardly misses the point. Disney, like all giant corporations, needs the goodwill of the Federal government to avoid friction in its obsessive drive for maximum profits lest that government throw sand in the corporate gears. Many regulations affect corporations. And these large corporations are rapacious in buying other corporations- which the U.S. Department of Justice can oppose by filing anti-trust suits to block the intended mergers. As in fact the Trump DOJ is doing right now to stop Hewlett-Packard Enterprises from buying Juniper Networks.

I guess the execs at those companies forgot to bribe Trump with campaign donations and/or gifts to his "Inauguration Fund." Or maybe Trump just didn't notice what the DOJ is doing. The Biden regime DOJ started objecting to the proposed merger in November 2024, a full 10 months after the merger was announced in January 2024, with an anticipated completion date in a year. Seems like a long time to wait to raise an objection. But the DOJ didn't file suit in court until January 30 of 2025, the eleventh day of Trump's latest term as president. Idiosyncratic for Trump, who makes a point of doing the opposite of whatever his Democratic predecessors did.

2] "U.S. scrambles to reassure Ukraine after Milley comments on negotiations," Politico, Nov. 14, 2022, for example.
 

 

 

 

 

Ignore The Fake Election Cliffhanger Bullshit- The Republicans Will Still Rule The House Of Representatives

As of this writing, the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) has won 215 House districts, the Democrats 206. That leaves 14 districts where the votes are still being counted. There are 435 House seats. 218 constitutes a majority. So the Republicans just need to win just 3 of the remaining 14 districts to retain their control of the House.

This is over.
 
Given that the Republican Party now is a cult with a Leader, Trump, who has virtually total domination of the party, the U.S. government as of January will be in Trump's hands. The Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Republican Judiciary. Even when he was out of office, that Judiciary bent over backwards to shield him from prosecution for his crimes. His hand-picked Federal District Judge, the lawless Aileen Cannon, had control over the criminal case arising from his theft of a large quantity of classified documents. This criminal judge delayed the case for years, then suddenly this year dismissed the charges on the spurious grounds that the special prosecutor was illegally appointed. (A completely ridiculous assertion with no basis in law or precedent.) This meant that there would be no trial (assuming the prosecutor got the charges reinstated in the Trump-aligned judiciary). Federal Judges at the Appeals Court level and the Supreme Court dragged their feet on ruling on appeals (spurious ones by Trump's lawyers, meritorious ones by special prosecutor Jack Smith) and threw up roadblock after roadblock to bringing the criminal Trump to justice.

The Republican Supreme Court even issued a gratuitous and shocking ruling, out of the blue, that presidents are IMMUNE FROM PROSECUTION for ANYTHING they do in office "in their official capacity." A meaningless qualifier, since all presidents always claim that everything they do is part of their official duties.

Some people, both establishment types and some aspiring to be establishment types, not unreasonably fretted that a president could order a Navy SEAL team to murder a political opponent and be immune. But that sort of thing already happens. It just happens to people that "respectable" bourgeois types don't care about. Trump sent a U.S. Marshall's death squad to murder Michael Reinoehl, an Antifa activist who shot and killed a fascist stormtrooper type. [1]

 
And under Obama the government murdered journalist Michael Hastings in California and Black Lives Matter commentator Sandra Bland in Texas. Obama ordered weekly murders of "terrorists," and we are supposed to believe all were overseas. Many were by no reasonable definition "terrorists." such as farmers, peasants, and children.

Obama gifted Trump and all future presidents with the power to imprison American citizens in the Guantanamo Bay torture center or any secret site without charges and with no legal recourse. He did this by attaching a new legal authority to the "Defense" budget one year. Some leading dissidents brought a lawsuit, which they won in a Federal district court. The Obama regime filed an "emergency" appeal the same or next day and got the Federal Appellate court in New York  City to throw out the case entirely, claiming the dissidents didn't have "standing," - because they hadn't yet been rendered to a secret torture center! (Of course once they are, they'll be helpless to communicate with the outside world. How's THAT for a Catch-22?)

Obama fatuously reassured the public not to worry about this new anti-human law, because HE wasn't going to use it. What about future presidents, asshole? What a loathsome jackass. 

1]  Trump was very briefly asked about this assassination by a reporter, and Trump said something like "You had to do it," kill Reinoehl. That answer was considered the end of the matter by the murderous corporate propaganda system.

Will Netanyahu Bomb Iran's Oil Facilities To Help His Ally Trump Retake The U.S. Presidency?

  He may well. He's ruthless enough. This is a man who exterminates babies. How would that help Trump? It would cause a sharp (temporary) rise in oil prices, which in turn raises gasoline prices. And Americans hate nothing more than paying more for gasoline. They would hold the Biden-Harris regime responsible. Trump would loudly scapegoat the Democratic regime for his own benefit in the presidential election less than a month away.

Americans are stupid people who think the president of the U.S. controls the economy and controls the prices of products. And Trump has harped on blaming the Biden regime for inflation. The Democrats have been lame in reaction. Instead of refuting that nonsense, they squirm under the barrage of false accusations and point to this or that they did to lower the price of this or that (such as the handful of medical drugs that Medicare is now allowed to negotiate the prices they pay for).

Kamala Harris made it worse by promising to lower grocery prices- something the president has no power to do. The U.S. isn't a socialist nation. The Government cannot dictate the prices that eggs or milk sell for at retail, for example. By doing this, Harris tacitly agreed with Trump that presidents have such power, and by implication the Biden regime is responsible for inflation.

Inflation has various causes, and inflation of particular products can be effected by all kinds of events- a shortfall in crop yield, a disease that wipes out chickens, and so on. These are not under the control of the White House. Maybe sometime a politician might want to tutor the moronic American public about this- if the totalitarian corporate media will let them, that is.

There's an irony here, in that Biden has been 100% behind Israel's genocide in Gaza, pogrom in the West Bank, and terrorism campaign against Lebanon. But he supposedly fulminates against Netanyahu in private, to his own staff. That's enough to make Netanyahu favor Trump. And when he was president, Trump couldn't have been more Zionist. The fact that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner is a fanatical Zionist, and Trump's daughter Ivanka converted to Orthodox Judaism to be allowed to marry Jared, can't hurt. Oh by the way, when Jared was a boy, Netanyahu used to stay at the Jared family home in New Jersey! So with those kind of tight personal connections, it would be surprising if Binyamin Netanyahu DIDN'T favor Trump!

And by the way, Israel has a long and complex record of interfering in U.S. politics and U.S. elections. The details take a book to describe. Just trust me on this, and do your own research if you want to learn more. 

Tough Guy!

Pompeo's Hitlerian Demands On Iran

In the wake of the brazen U.S. assassination of Iran's leading general, Qassem Soleimani, a hero of the Iraq-Iran war and head of the so-called Qods Force, by a missile strike from a drone attack on an international airport located in a sovereign nation and putative U.S. ally (the client state of Iraq, conquered and subjugated on the orders of U.S. emperor George W. Bush in 2003), now is a good time to review the outstanding U.S. demands against Iran. [U.S. media are spelling it Qassem, the BBC and Wikipedia, have Qasem.]

Trump's handpicked Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has a list of 12 outstanding demands against Iran. These are preconditions to the U.S. deigning to even TALK to Iran about the U.S. ceasing its relentless economic warfare against that country. This warfare is euphemistically called "economic sanctions." In fact they are total warfare, barring Iran from the international banking system (a system controlled by the U.S.- with the rest of the world's nations supinely acceding to this financial hegemony by the U.S.), and including the publicly stated goal of preventing Iran from selling ANY oil whatsoever outside its borders. Again, the other 200 or so allegedly sovereign nations of the world, including large, powerful ones like China, have all knuckled under to U.S. diktat and ceased buying oil from Iran, at least openly. If this isn't global domination, I don't know what is.

Under the "principle" that it is criminal to go against U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. government ordered Canada to arrest a top executive of China's premiere high tech company, Huawei, for violating U.S. anti-Iran sanctions- i.e. not participating in the U.S. economic war on Iran.  Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer and the daughter of the company boss, was tracked by the U.S. global secret police surveillance system as she flew to Canada, where she was held at the airport, her luggage "searched" for 3 hours without explanation, and then was arrested on a U.S. extradition "request." (Really an order. Canada is a virtual satrapy of the U.S.) Her alleged "crime" is violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. You see, if the U.S. decides to wage economic warfare against another country, it demands that all the other nations in the world participate in that war. In other words, the U.S. dictates foreign policy for all other nations. And lacking political or moral integrity, those nations make themselves U.S. lackeys and obey. Because they refuse to resist U.S. power, even though collectively they obviously could do so. (Even in some cases individually, as China could.)

Oh, and the U.S. applies its laws not just within its own borders, but over the entire planet earth. That's how Meng Wanzhou could be "guilty" of breaking U.S. law while OUTSIDE the U.S.

Meng has been held in Canada for over a year as Canada is the rope in a tug of war between China and the U.S. Canada allowed her out of jail but confined to Canada after China retaliated against Canada by jailing a couple of Canadian citizens. (Labeled "hostages" by the U.S. propaganda system.)

I should mention so as not to be misunderstood: I am NOT a supporter of the Iranian theocracy. As a lifelong atheist, democrat, and pro-human rights person, I have no truck with that regime. But contrary to its self-deluding propaganda, the U.S. is the opposite of a paragon of virtue. It is one of history's most aggressive empires which has committed innumerable atrocities and crimes against humanity through its history, starting with its foundational principles, genocide and slavery.  Moreover this is not about taking sides. As always, I strive for the objectivity that is sorely lacking in most public commentary, most people's minds, and certainly in propaganda.

I call these demands "Hitlerian" because of their extremism, and because the target of the demands would find them virtually impossible to accept. Hitler made such demands with a deliberate goal of having an excuse for war when his demands were rejected. Trump claims not to want war with Iran, but he has surrounded himself with a coterie of imperialist fanatics who DO want war with Iran, such as the recently-cashiered John Bolton. It's been reported that Trump ordered the assassination of Soleimani

Here now are the Trump-Pompeo Demands On Iran. To call them "sweeping" is a gross understatement. Notice that eleven of the twelve begin with the words "Iran must." "Must" is a demand word.

In perpetuity! I guess that means until the end of time.

I'll just note in passing that the U.S. has thousands of nuclear weapons, and Israel has hundreds. Also even the CIA concluded that Iran was NOT trying to build nuclear weapons. However I believe they wanted to have the option to create them if they felt it necessary at some future point. Otherwise it makes no sense to incur the huge expense of money and energy to building underground facilities deep under mountains to prevent Israel from blowing them up (as Israel blew up atomic reactors in Iraq and Syria) with thousands of centrifuges, just to enrich uranium which it could easily purchase from Russia, for example.

By the way, Iran only ever enriched to 20%. allowed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). For bomb-making purposes, uranium has to be enriched to 90% or more. Under the agreement Iran on one side and the Obama regime, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and China on the other, Iran turned over virtually all its enriched uranium, mothballed its centrifuges used for enrichment, and agreed to intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Trump tore up the agreement and reimposed sanctions, with the avowed aimed of strangling the Iranian economy to force Iran to make a new deal with Trump. (Imperialist thugs like John Bolton and perhaps Michael Pompeo also wanted the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the regime in response to this foreign attack on their country and their lives. It's a strategy the U.S. is also using against Venezuela, making people's lives miserable to destabilize an unwanted government, has used against Cuba since 1959, that Nixon used against Chile from 1970-73 when he ordered CIA director Richard Helms to "make the economy scream," and in other places at other times.)

Even though Iran is entitled under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 

                                       Treaty to enrich uranium to the 20% level, as I mentioned.

Meaning U.S. spies will gain access to every single military base, command and control center, etc. 

Just as they did during the UN inspection regime inside Iraq after the first Gulf War of 1991. 

We know this from a leading member of that team, former U.S. Marine Major Scott Ritter.

Iran isn't allowed to have missiles. Just its enemies can: Israel, Saudi Arabia, 

and the U.S.A. That's reasonable. Why wouldn't Iran agree to THAT?

Including all enemy spies. Because some of those prisoners certainly are. Meanwhile the U.S. will continue to imprison

 Iranians for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran, "espionage," and whatever, and keep those now in prison locked up.

Because anyone who resists Israeli oppression is a "terrorist." Iran must surrender the region to Israeli hegemony. And of course the U.S. is free to continue aiding Israel in every possible way, as an accomplice to the oppression of the Palestinians and the periodic destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure. And the U.S. can support any actual terrorists it likes, such as the anti-Iranian MEK. And Israel can keep assassinating Iran's nuclear scientists, if it so chooses.

That actually would be a good thing. Those militias have in the past few months slaughtered hundreds of protesters against the corrupt and venal Iraqi "government," and wounded thousands. They have also "disappeared" some, U.S.-death-squad style.
Now if only the U.S. would respect Iraq's sovereignty. After murdering Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and eight others right in the Baghdad, Iraq, airport, the Iraqi legislature voted to kick out the thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq, and Trump himself responded with contempt. There's also a couple of hundred other nations whose sovereignty the U.S. regularly tramples.

The Houthi tribesmen overthrew the very weak "government" of Yemen starting in 2014. The Saudis decided this internal Yemeni power struggle was their business, and picked the overthrown president as their choice to rule Yemen. So for years, to place their chosen puppet back in his seat,w the U.S. and Saudi Arabia (and the UAE until very recently) have waged a relentless war against Yemen, committing war crimes on a daily basis, bombing mosques, hospitals, schools, apartment blocks, and so on, instituting a naval blockade, causing a massive cholera epidemic, and a famine. The Obama regime participated in this criminal enterprise, not only selling all the bombs and missiles used to attack Yemen- the Saudis and Emiratis already owned the U.S.-made warplanes they needed, and the U.S. trains their pilots- but even providing targeting information and having U.S. Air Force aerial tankers refuel the Saudis planes on their attack missions. Obama sold tens of billions of arms to the Saudis, and Trump tried to outdo Obama in evil with more arms sales. "Great" Britain, with a hunger for blood money, has also sold significant quantities of weapons to the Saudi "royals" for their war on Yemen.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. Thus we see the ubiquitous pattern of the U.S. waging class warfare on a global scale against the world's poor.

 Yemeni enemy of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia gets what he has coming.

The UN has determined that a Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from hunger or disease 

caused by the Saudi-U.S.-UK-UAE war on Yemen. They probably deserve it.
They might grow up to be "terrorists."

By bombing this schoolbus, the valiant Saudi allies of the U.S. took out 40 terrorist school children, along with eleven adults (who by definition were terrorists because U.S. bombs killed them). The Saudis couldn't have done it without the U.S. Thank you, Obama Trump U.S. Congress!

Multiply this by one million or so, and you have the history of the U.S. Now do you understand why it is undeniable that the U.S. Government is a criminal enterprise? It is only because your mind is marinated in a sea of propaganda that you don't see it, feel it, know it.

Now let's return to those oh-so-reasonable and justified demands that Pompeo-Trump have pending against Iran:

This demand is actually morally sound. Iran is helping the vile Assad dictatorship crush the rebellion of the Syrian people by wholesale slaughter, systematic bombing of medical facilities, torture and atrocities on a massive scale. Of course it isn't morality that motivates this demand, nor concern for the Syrian people, but motives needn't be pure for an action or demand to be a good thing.

This one sure is ironic. When the Taliban fanatics ruled Afghanistan, they murdered a group of Iranian diplomats. The Taliban were only in power at all thanks to the U.S.-Pakistani-Saudi buildup of the most medieval, reactionary forces in Afghanistan to bleed the Soviets. The Soviets were lured into invading by President Jimmy Carter's sinister righthand man, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Pole with a tremendous lifelong hatred of Russians. Years later Brzezinski made a slip and boasted to a French newspaper about how he suckered the Soviets into invading. Just a few months before the 1979 invasion, Brzezinski, the head of the U.S. National Security Council, which coordinates the operations of the U.S. military, the State Department, the Treasury Department, the CIA and other "intelligence agencies," had nothing more important to do than to fly into Afghanistan, a desolate backwater. Hmmm!  [1]

When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Iran actually helped the U.S. cause. Then emperor George W. Bush fabricated an "Axis of Evil" in an infamous speech, pretending that Iran, Iraq (then still ruled by Saddam Hussein, who invaded Iran with U.S. connivance, used chemical weapons against Iranian troops, caused hundreds of thousands of Iranian casualties and war invalids, and hated by Iran), and North Korea (sic!) were in a World War II-style alliance like the fascist Axis powers Nazi Germany, Italy, and Imperial Japan. Crude and mendacious propaganda, it put Iran on notice that it was an Official Enemy of the U.S.

Now that the U.S. has embedded itself in Afghanistan, and wages constant attacks on Iran, it wouldn't surprise me if Iran's attitude towards the Taliban has changed. But if the U.S. wants to look for nations to blame for propping up the Taliban, I'd suggest they start with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

But the U.S., under whatever president, is apparently too dishonest, too greedy, and  too morally cowardly, to do that.

 Presumably including domestic ops inside Iran. Hey, I have a suggestion: end the operations of U.S. "Special Forces" inside the scores of countries they currently operate in!

This one reeks to high heaven with the stench of hypocrisy. 

Israel regularly bombs Iranian targets inside Syria with impunity. It has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists inside Iran. Saudi Arabia treats Iran as the Devil Incarnate. The U.S. of course has been effectively at war with Iran since the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-imposed dictator the "Shah" (King). The Iranian "threat" consists of its growing influence in the region, which the U.S. and its partners find objectionable.

It's interesting that the demand here is for Iran to end its "threats" against shipping, NOT attacks against shipping. Previously the U.S. made a big stink about the simultaneous attacks on both a Norwegian and a Japanese oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, which the U.S. government and corporate media parrots shrilly blamed on Iran. It has been definitively proven that Iran DIDN'T commit those attacks, which were probably U.S. operations. [2]
Finally cyber attacks. I have no idea what specifically Pompeo is referring to, if anything.  He and Trump- indeed U.S. apparatchiks and politicians generally- often spout baseless rhetoric. Certainly Iran's cyber capabilities are a tiny fraction of the U.S.' And it must be exasperatingly galling for the U.S. to make such a charge, given the relentless U.S. cyber attacks on Iran, including the unleashing of the Stuxnet malware (and others) which targeted Iran's nuclear centrifuges for destruction. (Obama was really proud of that one.)

Again, as usual in the demented world of U.S. political ideology, reality is stood on its head. This is not a defense of Iran. It is looking at the objective facts, nothing more.

Pompeo is a political creation of the greedy, thieving, reactionary billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David. (One of them just died. Hopefully the other one will follow him to the grave soon.) They got Pompeo elected to the U.S. Congress from Kansas, the Kochs' base. Pompeo is a former army officer and rabid, violent imperialist who went on television to call for the execution of Edward Snowden, whose "crime" was revealing the fact that the NSA conducts a program of total surveillance over the entire U.S. population. See "Pompeo wants to execute Snowden." 

1]  For Brzezinski's malign role in creating today's Afghanistan, see "The Brzezinski Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur (1998)," in which he incriminates himself, English translation on the website of the University of Arizona. For the full article from which it was drawn from International Politics, see "Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Retrospect." Also see "Brzezinski Vision to Lure Soviets into ‘Afghan Trap’ Is Orlando’s Nightmare," June 17, 2016.

Ice water ran in the veins of the late "Dr." Brzezinski. He sneers that the fate of the Afghan people has no more weight than the death of a fly compared to the great benefit of weakening the Soviet Union. Of course the Afghans didn't get a vote on that. So much for U.S. devotion to "democracy" and "human rights."

2]  See "Dishonest U.S. Media Lying U.S. Into Another War of Aggression" for the proof.  

Graphics used in this essay by RT network.

Pavlovian Dog Stock Speculators Push Stocks Higher Every Time Trump Lies About Rosy Outlook In His Trade War With China

It happened again today. Just how stupid ARE these people? It ALWAYS turns out to be false when Trump makes a positive assertion about the fraught trade negotiations (more accurately trade conflict).

This idiotic gullibility should put paid to the egotistical conceit that rich people are smarter than anyone else.

My bullshit is PERFECT for fooling rich ninnies!

Saudis Slaughtering Yemenis for 5 Years? Big YAWN. Yemenis retaliate against Saudi oil field? TIME TO FREAK OUT!!!

The political elites of the "Western world" (the U.S.-bossed capitalist bloc) and their propagandists have hit one of their disgusting low points of moral depravity and dishonesty in the aftermath of a successful attack on the main Saudi petroleum processing facility by Houthi tribe militia in Yemen, who claimed responsibility for the attack by drones. This has temporarily knocked out half of Saudi Arabia's crude oil processing capacity. The Saudis currently sell 5.7 million barrels of oil a day (although they have capacity to sell considerably more) in a world market whose daily oil consumption is 100 million barrels. Currently the U.S. and Russia are the top two exporters.

According to the propaganda campaign launched in the immediate aftermath of the attack by the Western media, politicians, and government officials, the attack wasn't an attack on Saudi Arabia, retaliation for five years of war crimes against the people of Yemen. No, it's "an attack on the world's energy supply." That's even more hyperbolic and hysterical than the other phrase the world's capitalist propagandists are ALL using, "the world's oil supply." You'd think the whole world was a communist society and we all own the oil in Saudi Arabia. Last time I checked, it's the Saudi "royal" family that owns it. (They call themselves a "government" of course.) All the world's capitalist media immediately fell into line behind Trump's Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, parroting this line. [1]

The effect of this terminology is to paint the Houthis, who are at a huge military disadvantage to the U.S.-backed Saudis attacking Yemen for the past five years, as the enemies of all humanity. It's "our" energy supply viciously attacked by "Iranian-backed" Houthis, Iran being a Demon Nation ever since 1979, when the U.S.-installed dictator of Iran, the so-called "Shah" ("King") was overthrown. Overthrowing a U.S. dictator is like spitting in the eye of America. How DARE you!

Far from an attack on "the world," on all of us, the Houthis unintentionally did the world, did all humanity, a FAVOR. Burning fossil fuels is causing a disaster by raising the temperature of our home planet! And if there's fear of an oil "shortage," TRUMP could alleviate that by the stroke of a pen by allowing two of the world's largest oil-producing countries, IRAN and VENEZUELA, to SELL THEIR OIL! (Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, NOT Saudi Arabia.) So this "crisis" is totally BOGUS. (The excited elite chattering about it died down in only 2 days. And all they cared about was money.)

Pompeo, a loathsome political creature created by the political machine of the malign billionaire Koch brothers of Kansas; a neo-fascist slug who has publicly called for the execution of Edward Snowden; immediately blamed the attack on Iran. This was predictable. If someone threw a brick through Pompeo's window, he'd blame Iran.

Pompeo is the guy who, after the vile Saudi tyrant, "Crown Prince" Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was butchered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, dismembered like an animal in an abattoir, and his body parts smuggled out, immediately ran to Riyadh to conspire with Salman about how to get Salman out of the jam he'd created for himself. (The Trump regime didn't even make Salman come to then!) Ever since, Trump and Pompeo have done their best to obfuscate Salman's obvious guilt.

Here they are, just after the shit hit the fan from the Khashoggi murder:

Pompeo and Salman. Salman and Pompeo. I love you Bro! -I love you too!

The attack on the petroleum facility occurred over the weekend, when the markets on which parasitic speculators set the price of oil by their trading of futures and options contracts are closed. But 24 hours a day, bid and ask prices are still posted. Before markets opened on Monday, futures indicated a 20% rise in the two benchmark oil prices, the Brent crude oil price and the West Texas Intermediary oil price. (Typically Brent trades higher than Texas.) But when trading actually began, the prices were up only 8%. Later in the day they hovered 10% higher. But that is still LOWER than the price was in late 2018. Finally oil closed up 15% on the day. And in any event, oil has languished between $50 and $60 a barrel for several years, after its crash from about $120, a crash deliberately engineered by Saudi Arabia, ostensibly aimed at putting U.S. shale oil producers out of business (which it didn't do) but really aimed at inflicting severe economic damage on Russia and Venezuela (which it DID do, especially Venezuela). Both those nations are heavily dependent on oil exports, and both have been targets of ongoing attack by the U.S. for years now. [2]

Needless to say, the U.S. and the Saudi "royal' family frequently engage in nefarious conspiracies together, one of the most notorious being the destruction of the World Trade Center twin towers on September 11, 2001, under the guise of an Al-Qaeda aerial attack with hijacked planes. [3]

Pompeo, Trump, the Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and U.S. corporate media propagandists are not exactly the most reliable folks in matters involving Iran. Remember the last time the U.S., Pompeo, Trump, the "leaders" of both parties and any political hack who could get on TV, and the entire U.S. corporate propaganda system asserted as fact that Iran committed an "attack"? It was the damage inflicted on a Japanese and a Norwegian tanker. Even though that was definitely refuted, they still pretend it's true. [4]

These are people who are totally untrustworthy, with zero credibility. But probably Iran at least supplied the weapons. And who knows? Maybe even launched the attack themselves. But Pompeo had no proof of that in the immediate aftermath- or the U.S. military would have surely provided it.

The true context for this, the 5 year long war against the people of Yemen by Saudi Arabia, which would not be possible without U.S. support, from both the Obama and Trump regimes, is totally ignored. That is what is fundamentally dishonest about the media "coverage," which thus must be seen as propaganda, not news.

The numerous atrocities of the Saudis, using their U.S. weaponry, have been virtually ignored by Western, and especially U.S. media. (Britain, that awful relic of an evil empire, is also a major arms supplier to the Saudis.) Without U.S. weaponry, and U.S. targeting information, and even U.S. refueling craft for Saudi jets, which Obama provided, the Saudi war on Yemen would not be possible. The Saudis have slaughtered tens of thousands of Yemenis directly. They have created famine conditions for millions of Yemenis. (The UN's aid organizations have repeatedly avowed this.) They have blockaded Yemen, starving the populace, making medicines unavailable. (Bombing hospitals and clinics doesn't help either.) The world's largest cholera epidemic has been created in Yemen by the Saudis. (And their Western imperialist enablers.) (For more on the background of the current situation in Yemen, see footnote [5] below.)

None of this is to endorse the Houthis. But clearly the Yemenis should have to sort out their rivalries amongst themselves. As for Iran being the instigator, in fact it was the former longtime dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who formed a temporary alliance with the Houthis and egged them on to rebel. Iran saw an opportunity, or wanted to stop the Saudis installing the ruler the Houthis had just overthrown back in power as a Saudi client/puppet.

 

 A picture is worth a thousand words, especially words citing statistics. "Six milion Jews died in the Holocaust has nowhere near the emotional impact of a photo of skeletal concentration camp inmates, standing behind barbed wire, or a pile of their desiccated corpses. So here are three photos from Yemen in place of 3,000 words:

This Yemeni child was starved to death by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. 

 

 

 Here's another of the countless thousands of children murdered by the 

U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Reminiscent of Nazi concentration camp victims.

 

Sometimes it's more satisfying to kill children quickly, instead of having to wait for them to die slow, agonizing deaths that take months. This school bus was bombed by the Saudis, flying the jets the U.S. happily sold them (Obama and Trump both), dropping those fabulously accurate U.S. precision bombs. 51 died, 40 of them schoolchildren. That was in August, 2018. Still waiting for some war crime indictments.

It is an illustration of the utterly cynical and callous nature of "global politics" or "international relations" or "statesmanship" (the preferred term of the mass murderer Henry Kissinger) that causing so much human suffering isn't given a second thought in the pursuit of greater power by those who rule.

The U.S. (and other) media have spent the past five years of Saudi atrocities barely mentioning any of it. They've also done a bang-up job keeping the American public ignorant of the U.S. role in providing the essential tools of mass murder. But the U.S. is constantly victimizing poor people all over the planet. This fits the pattern of U.S. global class warfare. The U.S. has also directly killed civilians in Yemen, both by aerial bombings and in raids by "special" forces.

When I say that U.S. elites are immoral and despicable, that is something they themselves prove to be true every day.


"The" media is already pushing the Saudis' line that the drone strike came from Iraq or Iran, not Yemen. And maybe it was missiles, they're saying. Oh, and the drone parts are Iranian. (Probably are, as Iran has been helping the Houthis.)

Trump immediately expectorated some tough-guy bluster, declaring the U.S. "locked and loaded," and only waiting word from Saudi Arabia to confirm Iran did it to presumably pull the trigger. The same Saudi Arabia that has been trying for years (along with Israel) to goad the U.S. into starting a war on Iran. Gee. I wonder what the Saudis are gonna determine happened!

Thank heavens he fired John Bolton!

 The "Crown Prince" that swallowed the Superpower.

1] A day later, The Invisible Man, the nitwit former Texas Governor whom Trump picked to be Secretary of Energy, belatedly got in on the act, putting in his two cents which immediately sank to the bottom of the media pool without a trace. Said Rick Perry: "Make no mistake about it. This was a deliberate attack on the global economy, and the energy market." This is the same guy who campaigned for the presidency on a platform promising to abolish the cabinet Department he now heads. 

Actually, Tex, I think it was an attack on the Saudi Arabian regime.

2] Stocks on Monday, the first trading day after the attack, declined modestly.  The  S & P 500 index (500 major public companies) declined 0.3%, the Nasdaq (several thousand companies) declined about a quarter of one percent, and the Dow Industrial Average (a mere 30 stocks) fell about one-half percent. The following day, Tuesday, September 17, oil actually FELL $3. Wholesale gasoline is up 20 cents, 1-3 cents at the pump. Word is the Saudis will have the bombed site back up and running in two weeks.

3]  It would take too long to go into all that here. To start to educate yourself, watch some of the videos put out by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of over 3,000 architects and engineers who have debunked the nonsense that the towers fell because airplanes crashed into them. Oh, and Number 7 WTC fell straight down in the afternoon. All were the result of controlled demolitions, as you will learn.

4]  In brief, the U.S. claimed Iran planted mines on the sides of the ships. The crew of the Japanese tanker said there WERE no mines, but that flying objects hit their ship. The Japanese Foreign Minister was IN TEHRAN at the time of the attack, meeting with the Ayatollah, trying to help Iran. The U.S. government and the global bourgeois propaganda system would have us believe that Iran was determined to sabotage its OWN DIPLOMACY designed to try and relieve the garrote around Iran's neck that is strangling its economy.All the details, with news videos substantiating the facts, are at "Dishonest U.S. Media Lying U.S. Into Another War of Aggression," June 20, 2019. 

5]  Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. A country without a real government, it was ruled for 33 years by a dictator/warlord with the title of "president," Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh was happy to play footsie with the Bush and Obama regimes in their "war on terror," pretending that U.S. drone missile assassinations were the work of his military. He also took the opportunity to have political rivals eliminated by U.S. drone strike by telling the U.S. they were "terrorists" and giving them location information. One such attack even made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, which is how I know about this practice of Saleh's. But that changed nothing.

But Saleh came under increasing domestic pressure- which in Yemen means armed resistance, the only thing that counts in Yemen- and the U.S. thought it was time to replace him before he was overthrown. Saleh resisted, but was eventually squeezed out. In November 2011, Saleh signed an agreement to leave power- then reneged on it. Eventually he was forced out in 2012. His successor as "president," Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, one of Saleh's erstwhile cronies,  took over the various rackets that take the place of an actual government in Yemen. In January 2015 the Houthi tribe rebelled, forcing Hadi to flee by shelling his palace. The Saudis decided they wanted Hadi to rule Yemen as their puppet or client, and commenced a war against the Houthis, heavily targeting civilian targets such as apartment buildings, hospitals, mosques, wedding parties, and so on. As of a couple of years ago, retired U.S. army colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the top aide to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in the Bush II regime, asserted that 5,000 of 15,000 Saudi aerial bombings were of civilian targets.  Meanwhile Hadi sits in Riyadh, content to watch "his" people being slaughtered, the country destroyed, waiting to be reinstalled as "president" of Yemen by his Saudi puppet masters.