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Let me know if this story rings a bell: Once upon a time, a Republican president abused his power to send America to war. He told fairy tales of weapons of mass destruction. Of a regime that was on the brink of murdering millions. That America HAD to intervene or else. That the war would be quick and easy. That we would topple the evil regime and make the world safer for democracy.

Yeah, Trump isn’t smart enough to be an original warmonger, so he just dusted off W. Bush’s playbook and we’re doing this again.

Bush’s war turned into the worst military blunder in American history. While the American death toll was in the thousands, the civilian death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan was in the millions, topping the previous worst military blunder America was involved in (Vietnam, of course). Because of Bush, the GOP, and the collaborators in the legacy press, we were at war for twenty years. We accomplished nothing except shattering the lives of hundreds of thousands of American troops and laying waste to entire regions of the Middle East.

Oh, and we stripped America of many of its civil liberties under the guise of “supporting the wartime president.”

Beware the Wartime President and his magic Constitution-canceling powers

When Bush invaded Afghanistan and fabricated the reasons to invade Iraq, two things happened:

1. The right quickly embraced toxic patriotism™ - You were either “with us or the terrorists.” There would be no questioning of the wartime president. That was tantamount to treason. Why do you hate America, you commie terrorist baby-killer?!?!?!
   

   Oh look, we’re already there. It’s been less than 24 hours.

   

2. The legacy press became the propaganda arm of the regime - This was the early days of Fox News. They didn’t have the influence they do now. The legacy press still had enormous sway on public opinion and they used that sway to bludgeon dissent. It was absolutely fucking disgraceful and they have yet to apologize. Why should they? It was ratings gold for them and that’s all that ever matters, right?
   
   We’ve been sprinting down that road for the last decade. The legacy press has been a whore for Trump since he waddled down that escalator in 2015. It’s only going to get worse going forward. He’s “presidential” now, you see. He’s “meeting the moment.” He’s “stepping up as a leader.” I promise you, you will see these phrases in the in the New York Fucking times soon enough. Try not to vomit.

It was a glorious time for the Republican Party. They had unlimited freedom to do terrible things to the country, all in the name of “the war on terror.” Spy on Americans? Great! Torture and murder suspects at CIA black sites? Fuck yeah! Cut taxes for the rich? Sure! Why not?! Gut EPA regulations? Ummmm…what does that have to do with the war on terror? Shut the fuck up, terrorist-sympathizer!

This went on for years. The Bush regime was lawless and ran rampant. Questions were shouted down as “unpatriotic.” Didn’t you know we were at war?! And the legacy press was fully complicit. They didn’t speak truth to power. They shielded it from accountability.

Did you know the Opinionated Ogre has a weekly podcast? It’s true! New episodes every Thursday! Catch the latest episode here:

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This, coincidentally, is when the liberal blogosphere was born. Since the press refused to do its job, regular people decided to do it themselves. I wasn’t a part of that wave. I came later in 2009-2010. But the press raged at all of those early writers for daring to ask the questions they wouldn’t. It was only when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan went so badly that the regime couldn’t hide the disastrous results from the public anymore that the press suddenly rediscovered some form of journalistic integrity.

The rats fled the sinking ship. As if we wouldn’t notice the stench of wet fur and collaboration.

But here we are again. Another corrupt buffoon. Another illegal war based on lies. Did you know Iran is just weeks away from building a nuclear bomb? Iran has been THIS CLOSE to building a nuke since…1992. Tulsi Gabbard said Iran wasn’t building a nuke at all until Trump ordered a war to wash the taste of his limp dick military birthday parade out his mouth. Now?

Weird. Almost like she was lying then, lying now, or massively incompetent. So many choices!

Now that the regime has gone full neo-con, the party and base will follow because war is patriotic! Fox News is on full wartime footing already. The warhawks in the GOP are strutting around praising the Dear Leader. The legacy press will fall in line and slam anyone who dares to question the illegality of it all.

War is good for ratings. And ratings are the only things that matter. Praise be Trump, the goose that delivers the golden eggs.

So what comes next? Trump is a creature of television and everything his regime does is made for TV. If the color-coded terror alerts don’t make a return, I’ll be shocked. Either way, expect a constant stream of “possible terror threats” directed at big cities. I guess we’ll have to station troops in all of them. Damn shame. Maybe we’ll have to make protests illegal, just for now. It’s an “emergency,” don’t you know? America is at war! And during wartime under a wartime president, things are different.

So much for those massive anti-Trump rallies. Dissent is soooo fucking un-American. My god, our troops are under attack overseas and you’re protesting back at home?!

Only traitors protest the United States while the troops are under attack!!! Fucking dirty hippie scumbags! You’re probably a secret ISIS agent or something…

And god forbid there actually IS an attack on American soil? Every Muslim community will be torn to shreds the same way Latino communities are being invaded right now.

Thank god we stopped Holocaust Harris from getting into office, though, right? Bet that protest vote as Gaza burns and you’re rounded up here by Trump’s Gestapo is going to make American Muslims feel soooo much better. No one ever thinks the leopards are going to eat THEIR face!

But it won’t stop at Muslim communities. Why would it? Best to round up anyone who speaks out just in case they’re a terrorist, too. And grab some judges who rule against the regime just to be safe. They might be in on the plot against America. And throw a bunch of Democrats in the camps while you’re at it. Better safe than sorry.

Beware the Wartime President.

Funny how quick and easy regime change can turn into forever wars and emergencies never end. How easily the legacy press meant to defend democracy becomes a mouthpiece for fascism. How smoothly law and order become lawless chaos.

I promise you, Stephen Miller is jerking off into an American flag right now, waiting for the first explosion on American soil. And if one doesn’t happen soon enough, he’ll have one of his agents plant one. There is a zero percent chance the regime will not seize upon this war that isn’t a war but actually is to declare a far-reaching emergency. They didn’t stumble into a 9/11 but Netanyahu gave them the next best thing. The press will be the regime’s most reliable ally as they hunt for the excitement of war reporting. So what if dissent is criminalized again? How is that important? Cha-ching, baby! Circulation is up!

I’d love to be wrong. I want to wake up every day and be the wrongest person in the world. It vexes me deeply that this continues not to be the case. When I tell you that this war is going to drag on and Trump will use the November off-year elections as a dry run for seizing control of the midterms under the guise of “national security,” I really REALLY want to be wrong. I want to look back in January and say, “Wow, I fucked up that call! WHEW! Thank god! Happy day! I suck at predicting things!”

But since I keep not being wrong about how malignant and evil this regime is, we need to push even harder when they tell us that we are at war and it’s our patriotic duty to support the president.

The fuck it is.

First, he’s not the president. Trump is a rapist, a convicted felon, a traitor, and an insurrectionist who stole this election and he belongs in jail. The only support Trump will get from me is a hangman’s noose when he’s executed by the state.

Second, the people screaming the loudest about supporting a wartime president spent eight years spitting in Obama’s face. While we were still at war. What they mean is “Republican presidents get unconditional support during wartime because we’re fascists.” To which I say, “Eat shit and die.”

Third, we already did this once. A lot of people were cowed into submission and look where that got us. Do you honestly think we’re going to let you fucking do it again? BWAHAHAHAHAHAH! Bitch, you must be on some premium drugs. I know ketmaine is supposed to be some good shit, but you HAVE to lay off of it.

Trot out that toxic patriotism. I fucking dare you. Try to tell us we can’t protest the wartime president. See how that works out for you. Call us un-American. I REALLY want to have that conversation with you, you fascist fuck.

For the rest of you, those of you not quite as militant as I am or willing to punch a Nazi in the face, beware the wartime president. Trump was already grabbing power like it was an underage girl on Epstein Island. The regime is going to lose what little restraint it had left, and it will be up to us to protect this country from the mad king and his fellow rabid animals.

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The Blue Wave has begun and the fascist fucks are scared. There are 133 days until it hits Virginia and Pennsylvania. If I were a billionaire fascist loser, I’d think REALLY hard about getting out of the way.

If there is one thing we have learned about Donald Trump over the last 10 years – for New Yorkers, over the last 50 – it is that you cannot believe anything he says.

Anything.

If he said he was going to give Iran a chance to come back to the negotiating table and he would mull things over for two weeks, the Iran attack was going to happen in two days. If he called Saturday’s bombing Iran “a spectacular military success,” it was something less than that. If he said Iran’s nuclear sites were “obliterated,” they weren’t. If he said Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon has been ended, it hasn’t.

Trump toyed around with whether or not he was going to order the attack, telling reporters on the White House lawn on Wednesday, “I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

That was a lie, but it wasn’t a lie lie. It was a strategic feint. Any leader who is planning an attack on an enemy is going to try to seem like it’s either not going to happen, or the planning is in an early stage, when actually it is almost complete. That was the case with Iran.

Planning for the attack had been going on for weeks, and Tehran knew it. They probably started moving the centrifuges necessary to enrich uranium, and the uranium they had already enriched, away from their three nuclear weapons development sites when Trump was elected last November. By the time he started bellowing that he would “never” allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon, their nuclear material was safe somewhere else.

Trump tells so many lies every day, we only half listen to him. We have gotten used to tucking his lies away in mental rabbit holes so we can get ready for his next bunch of whoppers. But you want to know who has been recording every syllable that comes out of his mouth? The Iranians. They have spent years slowly accumulating enough partially enriched uranium that they have been within a year, or even within months according to some intelligence estimates, of being able to produce a bomb. Do you think they were going to let all that work go to waste just because the Americans were stupid enough to put the international clown, Donald Trump, back in the White House? Not a chance in hell. They were ready. They’ve been ready for months.

With Donald Trump, nothing is ever as it seems. Why does he tell so many lies? Is it because he can’t help himself, that it’s pathological? Not even close. He tells lies to keep his opponents guessing, out of step, off their game.

Even the war he just started with Iran is a lie, in that it has another purpose. I read somewhere over the last few days that all wars are started as much for domestic reasons as for their stated foreign policy goals. Why did George Bush start his war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Did he really believe that Iran had its own secret nuclear weapons program, or that they had developed a stockpile of WMD, weapons of mass destruction? No. He needed a war, and Afghanistan was not enough, so he ginned one up against Saddam.

Domestically, Trump is not in trouble, but he’s not in great shape. He can’t get interest rates down. He hasn’t whipped inflation. His Big Beautiful Bill is in trouble. His attempt to use Elon Musk and his DOGE-niks to conquer the budget deficit and save trillions in spending was an abject failure, with recent stories saying the whole thing is going to end up costing more than it saved. And his big plan to get tariffs to solve everything has failed miserably. All the stories about tariffs now lead with how Chinese President Xi Jinping has played him like a violin. He can’t even get his big ICE roundup of undocumented immigrants up to speed. There were reports early this month about Trump’s immigration hatchet man, Stephen Miller, “yelling” at Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, ordering them to triple their arrests.

Trump’s war against Iran isn’t just about preventing them from developing a nuclear weapon. Like everything else, the war is about Donald Trump. He was going to drop that gigantic Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb from the moment he learned it existed. He needed that bombing campaign the way he needs golf courses and Diet Cokes and well-done steaks. He needed the White House appearance last night backed up by his war puppies, Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio. He needed his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon this morning giving out the numbers – 125 aircraft, 24 Tomahawks, seven B-2 bombers, 14 bunker busters – complete with map headlined with the mission moniker – this is so perfect, it’s all Trump – “Operation Midnight Hammer.”

You know what he’s doing, because he’s done it so many times before: Hey, look over here! Not only a big shiny object, a big shiny BOMB…which he puts in ALL CAPS every time he uses the word.

Because why? Because Donald Trump. The whole thing was Donald Trump all the time, all the way, from beginning to end. And it’s going to stay Donald Trump. You want to know why? Because now will come the analysis that the attack wasn’t as successful as he said, and he’ll be able to attack anyone who questions his genius. He’s already started, going after the lone Republican, Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who strayed off the reservation today by claiming that the attack was unconstitutional. Trump started up a new SuperPAC to back anybody who wants to run against the poor guy. And woe be unto anyone who questions Trump’s assertion that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are done for. He’ll be able to throw around the T-word, “traitor,” if you dare point out inconvenient facts like reports that there was no measurable radiation produced from the bombing of the three nuclear sites. Not even a roentgen, according to the IAEA, was emitted from the destruction done to the Iranian nuclear facilities.

But Trump’s war puppy at the Pentagon was jubilant: "Iran's nuclear ambitions have been obliterated," Hegseth crowed at an 8 a.m. press conference at the Pentagon this morning. "The operation President Trump planned was bold and it was brilliant."

There could be good reasons for the peculiar lack of radiation from the damage done to three nuclear weapons sites. Maybe at Fordo, where satellite photos show six craters that look like someone stabbed the earth with an ice pick, the bombs went off so deep and caused such a collapse underground that they sealed off all the radiation. Maybe the same thing happened at Natanz, where another neat hole has appeared in the middle of an open field surrounded by a curving two-lane road.

We won’t know until the Pentagon does its BDA, battle damage assessment, and maybe not even after that, because which Iranian official is going to allow anyone onto any of the top-secret sites to check out the holes and maybe put a Geiger-counter on the gray dust?

Which is exactly the way Trump likes it. Who is going to question his chest-pounding assertions about his “brilliant” attack that has “obliterated” Iran’s dream of nuclear weapons?

Well, the Russkis, for one. Former Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, got on his Telegram account this morning and announced that other countries are "ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads." He didn’t go into any details, but presumably that would mean Russia and its new war-buddy North Korea.

And then there is this possibility that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere, so I’ll just put it out there right now: What if Iran has already succeeded in producing a nuclear weapon? They haven’t let the IAEA near their nuclear facilities for a while, so what if Iran cranked up its 60 percent uranium to “weapons grade” 90 percent, and they went ahead and made one? And having made it, then squirrelled it away far from where they knew the U.S. would come a-bombing-when-they-come.

While we’re at it, let’s throw in this hideous tidbit. What if the Ayatollah, at age 86, is sufficiently infirm and hidden away that some Republican Guard maniac up and decides, hey, let’s lob our nuke at Jerusalem and see what happens?

Every military expert who can get himself or herself on the TeeVee has been yapping about how easy wars are to start, but goodness me, how hard they are to end. Well, I’m not on the TeeVee, but I’ll agree with the experts on that one.

But I haven’t heard many of them talking about what wars have this extra added little tendency to produce every time you start one:

Unforeseen consequences.

Get ready, because we are in for a few, and they come from a place where Donald Trump, no student of history he, has ever spent much time.

Donald Trump will be learning that it’s a brand new thing to lie yourself out of inconvenient facts like dead American bodies.

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A Tragic Loss Sparks a Call for Ethical Leadership and Democratic Renewal

The recent assassination of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, is a dark escalation of political decline in America. 

At their home in Champlin, State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot. 

My heart goes out to their loved ones. State legislators are not often known. Their work is unglamorous and under-appreciated. But these are the people upon whose leadership the inner workings of democracy rests.  I cannot but sit here bewildered and ask: what is going on in our country? 

This targeted assassination is a heinous crime. Our differences, however vast, are not resolved with murder. And I worry that in our hyper politicized context, the repression of efforts to include, diversify, and invite differences of opinion, will only engender more acts of violence and fear-mongering. 

As a Minnesotan graduate student of global affairs, I don’t like party politics any more than the next person. But I do care about ethical leadership. Which is why it matters so much when public servants like Hortman and Hoffman are punished for their service. They were striving for better and compromising where needed. And I keep wondering at levels of governance more ostentatious, where is the leadership?  

When I look back at the past six months, this is what I see: University censorship silencing critical thought. Defunded science endangering public health. Political opposition being harassed and arrested. And fickle tariffs corroding 80 years of diplomacy.  For my generation, it will be the task of our lifetimes to build back trust an entire world over.

In D.C., one must look no further than the streets to see dangerous slippage towards tyranny. This weekend, 45 million taxpayer dollars paraded 120 army vehicles through downtown. No other countries tout such military opulence that is not just for tradition (France) except authoritarian Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.      

One can be a pragmatist when it comes to matters of national security and still discern formidable defense from arrogant bravado. There are a hundred other ways we can and should celebrate our servicewomen and men. Besides, true power does not need to brag: it is known. In my faith’s tradition, the most powerful man of all was also the humblest servant. 

I sat down to write my Senators, but heck, they are already fighting for Minnesota. I ended up writing to America instead. To me and to you. We are “the People.” We are the change. 

So.

I am not pivoting. 

I am not leaving.

I came to Washington to understand the power structures that enable, cause, and prevent injustice. Moreover, I came to learn how to maneuver those power structures towards justice. 

I am right where I intend to be. 

And all around me, young people, starting with 125 classmates at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, are reintroducing compassion, competence and hope into a next generation of public leadership. I hope more will join us.  

Only a recommitment as such can pay tribute to the spirit of service that the Hortmans and Hoffmans gave to our democracy. 

“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.

The post Political Violence: The Hortman Assassination and the Fight for Democratic Values appeared first on DCReport.org.

As the day after opened, the only point of agreement around the world was that Donald Trump had ordered stealth B2 bomber strikes against Iran’s three nuclear weapons plants, including the fortified, underground facility at Fordo.

Donald Trump had declared war on Iran, ordering the bombing inside another country, an attempt to shield Israel and the world from a nuclear-armed state that has sponsored terrorism.

There was disagreement about whether the strikes were as effective as Trump claimed, about whether they were legal since Trump did not even bother to brief Congress, never mind ask for a vote for war, and whether there is more conflict to come. Iran launched missiles at Israeli neighborhoods, killing 16.

Donald Trump started a war — or joined the war that Israel had started — without a plan for what happens today or tomorrow or next year. Beyond the president’s rah-rah three-minute speech last night, we have no idea what the goals are aside from destruction of nuclear facilities. Trump made it sound as if Iran could now return to a negotiating table as if not much has happened.

Iran had promised retaliation, but then it seems to be running out of missiles. Some in Iran tried to say damage was not extensive, which lacks credibility, Remarkable reporting from inside Iran, meanwhile, shows that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, is hiding in a bunker and is issuing vocal commands to avoid surveillance. The ayatollah has designated military, government and clerical successors should he be killed.
We do know that Trump sidelined advisers who had to carry out war from the decision, apparently allowing only information from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sway him — amid lots of commentary from Israel that Netanyahu is extending conflicts in Gaza and Iran as much for domestic political survival as for its national security.

Trump somehow expects that war means dropping a few big bombs and walking away without retaliation or commitment of ground forces.

There were no immediate reports of rising atomic contamination, just a lot of belligerent talk based on gut rather than information.

Where’s the Persuasion?

The fact is that Trump went to war without trying to persuade Americans about why or towards what goal. There was no explanation of timing or expectations, or even an acknowledgement that negotiations had proved a failure.  In the absence of what Trump called “total capitulation” by Iran, there was only aerial war.

The best explanation television commentators could provide was that recent circumstances diluting the effectiveness of Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi proxy groups, and Iran’s own military defenses, Israel and Trump could move now to deliver bombs that could end any Iranian nuclear threat.  It’s hardly the high moral ground.
Rather than address any of the million issues arising from what happens on the day after U.S. bombs hit that Iranian mountain shielding nuclear fuel purification, Trump seems most worried about his ever-present image of himself — both as a successful commander-in-chief whose very word should be feared, and as a peacemaker.

On the day he sent bombs to Iran, he was promoting his own Nobel Peace Prize nomination, pushing for notice for a role in desecrating a war between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and taking credit for India and Pakistan standing down over Kashmir.
Somehow, Trump still insists that Iran’s supreme leader will bow down to him, another octogenarian, despite protestations that it will never happen.
We have seen how much a political prop that Trump views the military by deploying thousands to the streets of Los Angeles where protest weapons mostly are words and spray can paint with some bottle throwing and carries. Trump’s conclusion is to double down and threaten more U.S. troops on the streets of other cities.
Iran’s retaliation, when it comes, will not be a couple of car fires. Trump is playing with real American lives in what many scenarios suggest could be a quickly spreading conflict across the Middle East and the globe.

The only good news here is that Iran lacks global support, despite its close relations with Russia and China, who were seizing on Trump’s deployment of bombers.

The political right in this country and abroad were signaling that Trump did the world a favor by ending Iran’s nuclear weapons hope, but that view seems short-sighted and self-serving.

Now starts the wait to define tomorrow, led by a president whose ego drives decisions.

“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.

The post No Plan, No Vote: Trump’s War with Iran Raises Global Alarm appeared first on DCReport.org.

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Another watershed week in American history. The largest protest against a president ever matched with the most expensive flop of a birthday party in history on top of the worst outbreak of domestic terrorism since January 6th. And that was just fucking Saturday!

There’s a lot to catch up on but come join me in a good belly laugh at Trump’s rage as America held a giant party without him while he sat in DC and scowled, abandoned and unloved.

Monday: If you only read the New York Fucking Times, you’d think the protests weren’t that big and Trump’s wankfest was a huge success. We call that “propaganda.”

Tuesday: Republicans did a terrible thing so naturally we have to blame…Democrats?

Wednesday: If it works for you, great! But have you considered that other people might have different needs?

Thursday: In a week of not great news, at least we had this.

Friday: No one is this gullible for this long. That means they’re lying to us about who the GOP really is.

5 Things I Found Interesting This Week

1. How Many Radicalized Christian Nationalists Have Kill Lists? - It's probably more than you think... by Andra Watkins at For Such a Time as This

2. Trump’s Horrific Politicization Of The VA - this is a monstrous act of hate and naked discrimination by Mark Mansour at America’s Fractured Politics

3. DHS Is SUPER Offended That You Think ICE Is Being Racist - Don't believe your lying eyes! by Shannon Argueta at Shannon’s Substack

4. The ABA Declares War - Trump tried to first “kill all the lawyers.” Now the lawyers have hit back. by Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo

5. Why the Senate Majority May Run Through Ohio - Husted, We Have a Problem by David Pepper at Pepperspectives