clearandpresentdanger.blog

Oooopsss!!

Kennedy is undergoing outpatient rotator cuff surgery today.

Kennedy is undergoing outpatient rotator cuff surgery today. www.medpagetoday.com/surgery/orth…

Three points I have gleaned from the bullshit coming out of the White House and the Pentagon.

First: There are far more American wounded casualties than the 140 DoD has admitted to. The number could be as high as 150. Of course if they are lying about wounded, they are almost certainly lying about killed as well. They are lying to us again as usual. No surprise there.

Second: Trump’s flunky son-in-law negotiator Kushner approached the Iranians about some sort cease fire or deescalation. They told him no (or maybe HELL NO). Why would they agree? They are winning militarily and psychologically. This will end on their terms, not Trump’s. This will become the greatest humiliation ever to befall any American President.

Three: The Iranians have announced that they are going to focus their retaliation entirely on Israel. I think for the most part Israeli air defenses have been depleted. The Israelis are doing their best to cover it up, but it looks like Iranian missiles and drones are hitting Tel Aviv and the rest of the country at will. The Israeli people aren’t stupid. They do know that Bibi is responsible for this fiasco. I would guess his and his governments days in office are numbered. Unless he makes a run for it he will be in a jail cell soon.

Trump will have to do one of two things. He will have to (1) unilaterally back down or (2) go full scorched earth on the Iranians. If he ops for alternative two, the Iranians will go full scorched earth on the entire middle east. They could essentially shut down oil production for a very extended period of time. The implications for the world economy would be nothing less than a major disaster. We are talking about a world wide super depression. We, U.S.A., will pay an extremely heavy price for electing a lunatic President.

 

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.