clearandpresentdanger.blog

A basic distinction in the world of medical diagnosis is between subclinical and clinical versions of a disease. The concept of a disease being in a subclinical state doesn’t really have a rigorous formal definition: it’s more of an informal judgment that the disease’s symptoms aren’t yet obvious enough to produce a formal clinical diagnosis. But naturally what will count as “obvious enough” will in turn be highly context dependent. Someone whose condition is being monitored closely by their loved or at least liked ones, and is getting regular medical examinations, is going to be formally diagnosed earlier in the course of the disease than someone who isn’t getting as much attention from family and/or medical personnel.

This is particularly true of the various forms of dementia, since these tend to have slow-developing histories that can leave a person in the subclinical stage of the disease for many years, before a formal clinical diagnosis is finally made. Which brings us to this:

Recently Trump has made it increasingly obvious that he’s confusing political asylum with insane asylums:

But the one thing that I can’t do anything about is that he allowed 25 million people, many of these murderers, drug lords, criminals, people from mental institutions — they emptied their mental institutions, Tom, is that right, all over the world, not just in South America. . . .how could you have an open border, all the countries are going to be dropping their prisoners into us, and that’s exactly what happened, and mental patients and others.

Many other examples of obvious cognitive confusion/incoherence are becoming available on a practically daily basis now.

Trump has always been a liar, a bullshitter, and an all-around moron, but the signs are increasing that he may have what I’m going to call “politically subclinical dementia.” This is a form of dementia that has gotten frank enough in its symptoms that it would be clinically diagnosed but for the presence of strictly political factors, rather than as a consequence of familial denial or indifference, and the related lack of medical attention that results from those sorts of characteristically personal factors. In this case, needless to say, the political is the personal, as everyone in this country is now stuck in a relationship with a increasingly demented abuser. Of course a lot of the family are in some sort of co-dependent relationship, or are just trying to steal the inheritance.

As for the rest of us, we’re trying to figure out how to take away the car keys, except in this case the car keys are the nuclear launch codes carried around in the football.

I normally do not post weird, crazy, delusional crap here, but from time to time something pops up that is so asinine it’s just unavidable.

Like Kristi Noem’s last tweet as DHS Secretary. The one where she thanked Donald Trump for appointing her to be “the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas.” Some folks would have been upset to be fired while they were in the middle of speaking publicly about their future plans in the position. But not Kristi. She’s apparently made her peace with becoming an underling to Rubio and Hegseth.

But that’s not the funny part.

The Tweet goes on for a really long time and convinces me Twitter needs to restore character limits, even for fancy Blue Check Cabinet Secretaries—maybe especially them. Before she’s done, we learn that she has learned that the Western Hemisphere is absolutely critical for U.S. security. Kudos to her for figuring that out.

 

Noem also advises that “we have located 145,000 children. I need to know more about this. Where did she find these kids? Were they missing? Who are they? 145,000 is a lot of kids.

Maybe these are kids like Liam Ramos up in Minnesota, who her agents took into custody with his Spider-Man backpack on and his blue bunny ears hat? Maybe that’s what “located” means? That she took kids away from their schools and their friends and their families and stuck them into her people-warehouses with concentration camp-like conditions, where many kids, we read, are getting seriously ill and even requiring emergency care. Maybe “located” means traumatized for the rest of their lives? That’s definitely not the funny part.

My favorite part of the tweet is the claim that Noem “revitalized the Coast Guard.”

I’m not sure what all Kristi Noem did for the Coast Guard. I do know that she bought a new training facility for them. Oh, and as DHS Secretary, she insisted she needed more secure housing, so she booted the Commandant of the Coast Guard out of their residence and took it over for herself. It’s described as a “spacious waterfront residence” in Washington, D.C., on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. Because the Coast Guard, of course, operates on the nation’s and international waterways. As for the new training facility Noem purchased, I’m sure you can see it in your mind’s eye, a beautiful property on the water with plenty of opportunity to train sailors.

But nope, that’s not it. Kristi Noem‘s new Coast Guard facility is in Birmingham, Alabama. I have family in Birmingham so I can tell you with authority that it’s landlocked. The ocean is five hours away on Mobile Bay. There are some lovely rivers and lakes in Alabama. The new training facility isn’t located on them, either.

So why put the Coast Guard here? It doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The facility Noem purchased was a small private college, Birmingham Southern, that went bankrupt about two years ago and has been vacant since May of 2024. The campus has been on the market since then.

It was Alabama Senator Katie Britt who announced that Birmingham Southern had been selected as the site for the Coast Guard’s new training center. Britt chairs the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds DHS and the Coast Guard. “This is a huge day for Birmingham, our great state, and the U.S. Coast Guard,” said Britt. “This move will save the American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars,” added Alabama’s other Senator, Tommy Tuberville.

Al.Com reported that “ the purchase price was undisclosed.” The school, which has been empty for two years, was characterized as being in Turnkey condition.

Explaining the unusual location of the facility, Master Chief Petty Officer Phillip N. Waldron said the Coast Guard had urgent need of a new facility and that the inland location wouldn’t be a problem. “That’s one of the things that I think we had to kind of get out of the mindset of, ourselves,” he said. “When we look at the whole purpose of a training center, we didn’t necessarily need it to be on the water. What we needed [for] it was to be a place that had the adequate facilities that we can train folks to be able to go do that out on the water.”

Maybe it will work out okay when new Coast Guardsmen “do that out on the water.” After all, this is the agency that spent $2.25 million to buy 25 Chevrolet Tahoes emblazoned with the ICE logo, which someone figured out after they arrived couldn’t be used by an agency that’s so concerned about publicizing its work that agents wear masks.

Semper Paratus, as the Coast Guard’s motto says. Always ready.

Noem said in a statement after the location of the facility was announced, “This next generation of heroes deserves training centers and support facilities worthy of their mission, and that is exactly what they are going to have in Alabama.”

Go get ‘em, Shield of America

This will mean something to a few people — James “Bo” Gritz died March 9 at age 87.

You can read more about this charlatan, con artist, and all-around liar here

and here

and here

I guess somewhere someone will mourn for him but not here.

 

Mullin was previously a contractor, a talk show host and a mixed martial arts fighter

Mullin is an enrolled member of the Cherokee nation. He is the first tribal citizen in the Senate since Ben Nighthorse Campbell left office in 2005.

Mullin has a background in construction and ranching. He even hosted a home improvement show on talk radio before coming to Congress.

Mullin went to college on a wrestling scholarship, but left without graduating when his dad got sick to save the family company, Mullin Plumbing.

He later earned an associates degree in construction technology – and went on to operate several businesses, including a steakhouse. He is also a former Mixed Martial Arts fighter.

He is a Trump supporter all the way — voted to overturn the 2020 election, big supporter of the Jan 6 gang of rioters.

Mullen is just another Trump MAGAt (rhymes with “maggot”).  He’s completely over his head as a Cabinet member, but, hey, this is Trump’s cabinet . . . not one of them has the brains God gave a goose.  Maybe he can keep the toilets in the DHS headquarters building working.

It has become clear that Trump had no plan in Iran other than to strike it, knock out the leaders he didn’t like, and hope the Iranian people would rise up and put in place new leaders he could deal with. It was supposed to look like what happened in Venezuela in January, when U.S. forces launched a surprise military strike that enabled them to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, leaving in his place the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who promises to work with Trump and has given him access to the country’s oil resources.

Andrew Egger of The Bulwark explains that the Trump administration didn’t bother to have a theory for why the U.S. was going to war with Iran, or to explain to the American people why such a war would be a good thing, because they didn’t think there was going to be a war, just a fast, hard strike that would enable the U.S. to put a new Iranian leader in place.

But the initial Israeli strikes killed most of the people the administration hoped would replace 86-year-old hardline ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, and yesterday Iran proclaimed as his successor Khamenei’s 56-year-old son Mojtaba Khamenei despite Trump’s statement that “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me.” Mojtaba Khamenei is thought to be even more extreme a hardliner than his father.

Wall Street Journal national security reporter Alex Ward reported today that according to current and former U.S. officials, “President Trump has told aides he would back the killing of new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei if he proves unwilling to cede to U.S. demands, such as ending Iran’s nuclear development.”

This morning, Joe Wallace, Summer Said, Rebecca Feng, and Georgi Kantchev of the Wall Street Journal wrote an article titled “The Long-Feared Persian Gulf Oil Squeeze Is Upon Us,” warning that the stoppage of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has set off “the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s and [is] threatening the global economy.” Ships move not only oil but also fertilizer used for crops around the globe through that strait.

On March 3, Trump offered government insurance for shipping and floated the possibility of Navy escorts for ships in the strait, but that has not been enough to restore voyages. So this morning, on the Fox News Channel, Brian Kilmeade, who cheered on Trump’s attack on Iran from the television studio, told the captains of oil tankers they must simply conquer their fear and start up. “If you want to diminish the Iranian threat, if you want to make sure this ends up with complete Iran capitulation,” he said, “show some guts and go through that Strait, and do it.”

The spreading war in the Middle East threatens the ties between the region and the U.S. that Trump has pushed since taking office. As Eliot Brown, Georgi Kantchev, and Lauren Thomas of the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, the richest countries in the Persian Gulf last year tried to strengthen ties with Trump by pledging billions of dollars of investment into the U.S. Now they are having second thoughts. A prominent Dubai businessman posted at Trump on social media: “Who gave you the authority to drag our region into a war?” Trump had placed the Gulf states “at the heart of a danger they did not choose,” he wrote.

On Saturday, Vivienne Walt of the New York Times warned that such investments have gone both ways, with U.S. tech giants like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Oracle investing in large-scale facilities across the Middle East with an eye to making the region a global center for AI. Now they are questioning the security of such investments.

Aaron Katersky and Josh Margolin of ABC News reported today that shortly after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28, the U.S. intercepted encrypted messages suggesting that Iran has activated covert operatives, or “sleeper assets,” in other countries. When Eric Cortellessa of Time magazine asked Trump if Americans should worry about attacks at home, Trump answered: “I guess. But I think they’re worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”

Under increasing pressure over the Epstein files, the Department of Justice (DOJ) today released some of the missing documents concerning an allegation from an Epstein survivor that Trump raped her when she was thirteen or fourteen. The so-called 302 report released today concerns four separate FBI interviews with the woman. (FD-302 is the form used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide an official record of summarized interviews.) The DOJ’s initial document drop included only the interview in which she talked about her abuse at Epstein’s hands; the other interviews discuss Trump. Some of the files related to that accusation and those interviews are still missing.

The White House has responded to the pressure on Trump by posting an image of what appears to be a pilot in an aircraft under the caption “PATRIOTS ARE IN CONTROL.” The Steady State, a group made up of former national security officials, explains that in Q-Anon circles, that phrase “refers to the long-standing belief that Trump and a hidden network inside government were secretly running things the entire time.”

Trump has become so desperate to force Republicans in Congress to limit voting before the 2026 midterms that yesterday morning he took to social media to threaten them. He said that unless the Senate weakens the filibuster to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act over the objections of Democrats, “I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION—GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY—ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!”

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) responded: “The SAVE Act is Jim Crow 2.0. It would disenfranchise tens of millions of people. If Trump is saying he won’t sign any bills until the SAVE Act is passed, then so be it: there will be total gridlock in the Senate. Senate Democrats will not help pass the SAVE Act under any circumstances.”

Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SC) does not have the votes even to make up a majority in favor of the act, let alone the 60 he would need to overcome a filibuster, and has said he will not change the filibuster to try to pass the measure.

Brian Finucane noted today in Just Security that Congress, especially the Senate, could cause other problems for Trump. Although it has so far declined to reclaim its power to rein in his military adventures, it could still do so through the power of the purse. The administration appears to be planning to ask for more money to fund the war in Iran. Congress could refuse that money or could place restrictions on it by passing laws establishing such restrictions, although Trump could veto such measures and it would take a supermajority in each chamber of Congress to override his veto.

In the midst of Trump’s tanking numbers on all the issues that used to be Republicans’ strength—the economy, immigration, national security—Trump spoke today to Republican members of the House at their annual policy retreat at Trump’s property in Doral, Florida.

The Republican majority is now so thin that Johnson can afford to lose just a single vote on the House floor, and as of this morning, that seat seemed to be in jeopardy with Representative Tony Gonzales (R-TX) facing calls to resign after admitting to an affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide.

This afternoon, Representative Kevin Kiley of California announced he was leaving the Republican Party to become an Independent. When California redistricted the state to counter Texas’s redistricting, Kiley’s district became much more competitive. Kiley says that going forward, he will “have to consider” every bill “on its own merits.”

This afternoon, Weijia Jiang of CBS reported: “NEW—In a phone interview, President Trump told me the war could be over soon: ‘I think the war is very complete, pretty much. They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no Air Force.’ He added that the U.S. is ‘very far’ ahead of his initial 4–5 week estimated time frame. Asked about Iran’s new Supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who Trump has openly criticized, he said, ‘I have no message for him. None, whatsoever.’ Trump said he has someone in mind to replace Khamenei, but he did not elaborate. As for the Strait of Hormuz, Trump noted that ships are moving through now, but he is ‘thinking about taking it over.’ Trump warned Iran, ‘They’ve shot everything they have to shoot, and they better not try anything cute or it’s going to be the end of that country.’”

The price of oil had spiked overnight up to its highest level since global trade surged in 2022 after the Covid-19 lockdowns, peaking briefly at over $100 a barrel. News that the Group of Seven advanced economies (G7) is willing to consider releasing strategic oil reserves if necessary brought it down from its highs. A dropping stock market reflected the spike in oil prices. Those drops moderated after news about the possible release of strategic oil reserves, and the news that Trump considers the war ending meant the market ended up higher by the end of the day than it had begun.

But once the market had closed, Trump changed his tune, telling House Republicans, “We have won in many ways, but not enough. We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all.” When asked at a later news conference if the war would be over this week, Mr. Trump said, “No.”

This evening, Trump’s account posted: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again—Death, Fire, and Fury will reign [sic] upon them—But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen! This is a gift from the United States of America to China, and all of those Nations that heavily use the Hormuz Strait. Hopefully, it is a gesture that will be greatly appreciated.”

Aaron Rupar of Public Notice commented: “Trump is completely flailing. He didn’t anticipate the economic blowback and now he’s trying to undo the past 10 days and contain the damage.”

As part of its apparent war on what the administration calls “narco-terrorists” in Latin America, U.S. Southern Command announced yesterday that it has struck another small vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing another six men.

It’s become pretty clear that Trump believed the Iranian regime would yield, quickly. He has persistently talked about the Venezuelan model – decapitation, cooperative regime, steal the oil, immense self-enrichment, affirmation of him as God Emperor. Easy peasy. Chop-chop.

It’s clear very little planning or thought went into what would happen if the Iranian regime fought back, the war dragged on, and global oil, gas, fertilizer, and chemical products that come from the region just stopped coming.

The arrogance of the God Emperor, and his Crusader Defense Secretary, to believe that if they bellowed, and bombed, all would be good comes despite our long failed history in the region, universal warnings from scholars and experts, and Trump’s own intelligence agency warning that a heavy bombing campaign would not be sufficient for the Iranian regime to fall.

Here’s new reporting from the Washington Post, Intel report warns large-scale war ‘unlikely’ to oust Iran’s regime (gift link):

A classified report by the National Intelligence Council found that even a large-scale assault on Iran launched by the United States would be unlikely to oust the Islamic republic’s entrenched military and clerical establishment, a sobering assessment as the Trump administration raises the specter of an extended military campaign that officials say has “only just begun.”

The findings, confirmed to The Washington Post by three people familiar with the report’s contents, raise doubts about President Donald Trump’s declared plan to “clean out” Iran’s leadership structure and install a ruler of his choosing.

The report, completed about a week before the United States and Israel initiated the war on Feb. 28, outlined succession scenarios stemming from either a narrowly tailored campaign against Iran’s leaders or a broader assault against its leadership and government institutions, the people familiar with its findings said. In both cases, the intelligence concluded that Iran’s clerical and military establishment would respond to the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by following protocols designed to preserve continuity of power, these people said.

The prospect of Iran’s fragmented opposition taking control of the country was described as “unlikely,” said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a classified report.

So here we are. And we now entering a very dangerous place.

First, the price shocks to the US and global economy are going to be significant. Here’s gas prices today – up 50 cents in just the last few days.

Petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan wrote this on Twitter today:

National average price of gasoline creeping higher at $3.469/gal this morning, up 52.8c/gal from a week ago while diesel has hit $4.583/gal, up 84.3c/gal from a week ago. Americans today will spend nearly $200 million more on gasoline than just 7 days ago.

Perspective: The national average gas price from Jan 2021–Jan 2025 was $3.461/gal on average. Today it’s $3.469/gal. Not apples-to-apples (four years vs. one day), but helpful context beyond the peak seen in 2022.

Prices for food and goods transported domestically or internationally are going to rise now, everywhere in the world, due to this new Gulf War. Airline travel is going to get much more expensive too.

 

All of these prices shocks will come to an American economy where growth had already significantly slowed, where jobs were already being lost, where inflation was already rising again, and where our fiscal condition has already deteriorated due to Trump’s reckless tax cuts and the eventual ending of his illegal tariffs. These new prices shocks are going to make all these trends worse, dramatically weakening our country and wrecking havoc on the economic lives of the American people.

So, of course, given all this, there is tremendous pressure on Trump to end the war. Ending the war can come in two forms. Declaring victory, and heading home. Or dramatic escalation, further pain, to get the regime to yield. Trump has chosen the latter – dramatic escalation. In the last 24 hours the US-Israeli campaign has begun attacking the energy infrastructure in Iran – as Putin has done in Ukraine – endangering the health of tens of millions of Iranians.

Here’s a report from a CNN correspondent from Tehran a few hours ago:

Here is a new report from CNN, just released a few minutes ago:

Iran of course has responded to this escalation by launching attacks against US and Gulf state targets throughout the region. Here’s the Iranian Foreign Minister:

For reference here is a map of the region so you get a sense of how vulnerable the Gulf states are, and our bases too:

As we discussed on Friday, I think it is imperative that Democrats attempt to speak with one loud voice now about this increasingly dangerous moment. Here’s the near term agenda I think Democrats should adopt for all future negotiations with the Trump regime and their Republican allies:

Make Clear We Support Ukraine and Europe, Not Russia – Russia is helping Iran attack America, Ukraine is coming to defend us. There can be no more corrupt and dangerous Trumpian appeasement of Putin, particularly as the tide may be turning against Russia in Ukraine.

Democrats should revive the bi-partisan Russian sanctions bill in the Senate, and introduce an aid package for Ukraine to re-direct our focus to the war that is far more geopolitically important to America than our new Gulf War.

Work To End This New Gulf War, And Trump’s Global Imperial Ambitions – Put America back on the side of rule of law and democracy, here and everywhere, and end this illegal, and unnecessary, war that is now threatening the global and US economies.

Roll Back The New, Illegal Tariffs – To help ease rising inflation Trump must be forced to roll back his new, illegal and destructive tariffs. The Dem AGs have already filed a new law suit. We should be forcing votes once again in Congress and fight this reckless policy.

Rescind The Trump Tax Cuts, Take Back The Extra ICE Funding – With the $2.4t in tariff revenue Trump was planning on getting from his tariffs (over 10 years) eventually disappearing, and our fiscal condition in the US worsening, we cannot afford the Trump tax cuts and extra ICE funding. Both policies, at the core of the big ugly bill, should be reversed.

Make The US A Clean Energy Superpower, Fight For True Energy Independence, And Lower Energy Prices For The American People – This war is a reminder that committing America to the transition from fossil fuels to cheaper, safer, cleaner renewable energy is not just an economic and climate necessity it is a geopolitical one too. Paul Krugman has a terrific piece on this today well worth your time.

 

At 8:50 yesterday morning, President Donald J. Trump posted on social media: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. ‘MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).’ Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

As Alex Leary and Vera Bergengruen of the Wall Street Journal observed, the demand for unconditional surrender was quite a shift from Trump’s original promise to the people of Iran that the future is “yours to take,” or even his early claim that he was hoping to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities. Trump’s shift highlighted that there appears to have been very little planning for what would happen after U.S. and Israeli bombs began to rain on Iran.

Leary and Bergengruen noted that Trump was bouncing ideas for the next stage of the assault off journalists even as ships stopped passing through the Strait of Hormuz, American citizens were stranded in the Middle East, the war spread to countries throughout the region, and U.S. military personnel died.

When reporters asked about what Trump meant by unconditional surrender, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt seemed to say that unconditional surrender meant whatever Trump decides it does whenever he decides what the goals of Operation Epic Fury are. She said: “What the president means is that when he as commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has [sic] been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender whether they say it themselves or not.”

Like other administration figures, Leavitt suggested that the violence itself was the point, saying: “Frankly, they don’t have a lot of people to say that for them because the United States and the state of Israel have completely wiped out more than fifty leaders of the former terrorist regime including the supreme leader himself.”

President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s enemies “must take their dream of the Iranian people’s unconditional surrender to their graves,” but he did apologize to neighboring countries for the strikes against U.S. military bases in their lands. He said Iran would suspend those strikes unless those states themselves launched attacks on Iran.

At 6:11 this morning, Trump posted on social media: “Iran, which is being beat to Hell, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless U.S. and Israeli attack. They were looking to take over and rule the Middle East. It is the first time that Iran has ever lost, in thousands of years, to surrounding Middle Eastern Countries. They have said, ‘Thank you President Trump.’ I have said, ‘You’re welcome!’ Iran is no longer the ‘Bully of the Middle East,’ they are, instead, ‘THE LOSER OF THE MIDDLE EAST,’ and will be for many decades until they surrender or, more likely, completely collapse! Today Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Zach Everson of Public Citizen recalled a quotation from William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, summing up Adolf Hitler’s view: “We must always demand so much that we can never be satisfied.”

Today, on Air Force One, when asked “what unconditional surrender looks like to you,” Trump answered: “Where they cry uncle or when they can’t fight any longer and there’s nobody around to cry uncle. That could happen too…. If they surrender or if there is nobody around to surrender but they’re rendered useless in terms of military.”

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned representatives from sixteen Latin American and Caribbean countries that if they don’t adopt more aggressive strategies against drug cartels, the Trump administration will do it for them. Hegseth urged the countries to remain “Christian nations, under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders,” and not be led astray by “radical narco-communism, anarcho-tyranny…and uncontrolled mass migration.”

Tiago Rogero of The Guardian reported that Latin American countries resisted the framing of Hegseth’s speech. The title of his article used the word “dismay.”

In Miami today, Trump and his advisors convened a “Shield of the Americas” summit with twelve of Latin America’s Trump-aligned leaders. At the meeting, Trump called for an “anti-cartel coalition” that would use military might to crush drug cartels. Former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem told the group: “Now that America is secure, and our borders are secure, we want to focus on our neighbors and help our neighbors with their borders and the challenges they have.”

Trump suggested that Cuba was next on his list of countries to topple. “We’re looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” Trump said. “They have no money, they have no oil, they have a bad philosophy and bad regime.” “Cuba is in its last moments of life as it was, but it will have a great new life,” he said.

In Need to Know, David Rothkopf today called out the madness of the fact world trade and global security is being shattered by a single man. “Not since Adolf Hitler blew his brains out in a bunker beneath the garden of the German Reich Chancellery on April 30, 1945, have the lives of so many people around the world been so buffeted by the psychosis of a single man.”

Why has Trump launched a war against Iran on a whim, attacked other countries, and upended world trade, Rothkopf asked. “Because he’s insane. Because he’s venal. Because he’s a malignant narcissist. Because he’s a sociopath. Because he has a fragile ego. Because those around him exacerbate and play to those traits to advance their own interests. Because CEOs and investors do likewise to fill their coffers. Because to some people, whether he is insane or malevolent or repugnant or not matters less than whether his actions will feather their nests, increase their power.

“Because they, the billionaires…play their games and the consequences for the little people down below, the consequences for us, hardly matter a whit.”

On Thursday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called attention to another factor in play. In a speech to the Senate, Whitehouse noted that throughout his second term, Trump has advanced policies that help Russia, pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine, easing sanctions on Russia, and pushing a peace deal favorable to Russia. Last summer, he welcomed Putin to American soil, and administration officials have parroted Russian propaganda. Russian state media gloated when Trump “installed Russia apologist Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence,” and Attorney General Pam Bondi upon taking office stopped the anti-kleptocracy work that had targeted Russian oligarchs.

Trump’s new national security policy threw traditional U.S. allies overboard and favored policies that Russian government officials praised as “largely consistent” with their own.

“If Trump were purposefully doing Russia’s bidding,” Whitehouse said, “it is hard to see what he would be doing differently. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world. Russia is a weak, corrupt regime. My old friend Senator John McCain used to say that Russia is a gas station, run by gangsters, with an army. It doesn’t make sense that the President of the United States, who insists—insists—on being dominant in essentially every relationship, is so submissive to one person and that one person is Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin.”

Whitehouse suggested that the answer “could…have something to do with Trump’s close friendship with the deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.” He noted that the Epstein files, riddled as they are with references to Trump, are also riddled with references to Russian girls and women, Russian operatives, and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Whitehouse spoke about how many of Epstein’s victims believed he was recording them, and how there were hidden cameras installed throughout his homes. He quoted Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who wrote: “He explicitly talked about using me and what I’d been forced to do with certain men as a form of blackmail, so these men would owe him favors.”

Whitehouse suggested the possibility that Epstein might have been working with Russian operatives, but emphasized that we don’t know. “Epstein was an inveterate liar and a criminal who often sought to exaggerate his power and influence, and the Epstein files need to be viewed through that lens,” he said. “What we do know is that a significant number of powerful men—our current President, some of his cabinet secretaries, tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others—were very mixed up with Epstein at different times. And Epstein seems to have been very mixed up with Russia.”

“We also know that there is a cover-up afoot at the Department of Justice,” he continued, where officials are “trying to shield Trump from something in the Epstein files.”

“One of the great forces that Washington runs on is normalcy bias,” he said, but he suggested looking past that bias to note that “we have links with Russia, girls from Russia, money from Russia, people from Russia, deals and transactions with Russia, contacts with people with Russian intelligence, news reports exploring contacts with Russia, and an official investigation from the government of Poland into an Epstein-Russia connection.”

Yesterday Noah Robertson, Ellen Nakashima, and Warren P. Strobel of the Washington Post reported that Russia is providing Iran with the information it needs to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East, including aircraft and ships.

During a roundtable on college sports, Peter Doocy of the Fox News Channel asked Trump about that report, saying: “It sounds like the Russians are helping Iran target and attack Americans now.” Trump responded: “I have a lot of respect for you. You’ve always been very nice to me. What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time. We’re talking about something else.

This is a genuine Dept of Defense press release announced on March7.  (NOT Dept of War — there is no such thing.)

 

A “believed to be casualty?”  WTF????  

Got that – the “believed to be death” and well, we think the dead guy could be this CWO3.

Has the family been advised? What is the Survivor Assistance Officer supposed to tell the family?  Maybe the SAO could say something like:  “Well, we got this dead guy and we think he may be your husband but we’ll let you know after we figure it out.”

 

Trump went to Dover AFB today to greet the remains of six Americans killed in his useless, unnecessary war in Iran.  At such an occasion, civilians remove their headgear, military keep their headgear on.

If I had worn a baseball cap to a funeral, my grandfather would have snatched my head bald and told me to go wait in the car.  When I was growing up in Mississippi we referred to people like Trump as “white trash.”