#cadetbonespursiranwar — Public Fediverse posts

Mostly Monday Reads: The Chaos Picayune

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Well, it’s deja vu all over again. So, we have another candidate for our 21st state. Given how bluntly bothered the other so-called candidates were, I can’t see Venezuela being any more eager. Oil prices continue to rise as Cadet Bonespurs’ war on Iran runs amok. American Hero, former Astronaut, and current Senator Mark Kelly still faces a second bogus investigation, with stern words from the ever-drunk and stupid Pete Hegseth. Just another day in the democratically backsliding USA.

I guess we will take those headlines in the order they appear, however disorderly.

I guess blowing up fishing boats and regime change weren’t enough for Cadet Bonespurs. This is the headline this morning from the Washington Examiner. “Trump says he’s ‘seriously considering’ making Venezuela the 51st state.”  This story is reported by Christian Datoc. Has someone told him that they speak Spanish there?  Oh, and there are lots and lots of indigenous tribes there. The best part is that we can pay tribute to the birthplace of Simón Bolívar with a great new National Holiday! That ought to knot a lot of panties in the US Southern States.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he’s considering making Venezuela the 51st American state, months after removing former dictator Nicolas Maduro from power.

Trump spoke to Fox News on Monday, stating that he was “seriously considering” the proposition. The president has previously floated annexing Canada and Greenland.

The foreign policy of Trump’s second term, influenced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has placed a new emphasis on the United States’ role in stabilizing the Americas.

According to Fox, Trump cited Venezuela’s $40 trillion worth of oil reserves as driving the decision.

“Venezuela loves Trump,” the president added on Monday.

That’s one of those pronouncements that makes you shake your head, laugh, and cry all at the same time.  So, do you wonder exactly how he might try to do that and win a Nobel Peace Prize at the same time? This is from CNN. “US intelligence-gathering flights are surging off Cuba.”

US military intelligence-gathering flights are surging off the coast of Cuba, a CNN analysis of publicly available aviation data shows.

Since February 4, the US Navy and Air Force have conducted at least 25 such flights using manned aircraft and drones, most of them near the country’s two biggest cities, Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and some coming within 40 miles of the coast, according to FlightRadar24.

Most of the flights were by P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, which are designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, while some were by an RC-135V Rivet Joint, which specializes in signals intelligence gathering. Several MQ-4C Triton high-altitude reconnaissance drones have also been used.

The flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which puts them well within range of gathering intelligence, but for the suddenness of their appearance – prior to February, such publicly visible flights were exceedingly rare in this area – and for their timing.

There’s more on that link about what’s going on with Trump and Venezuela. There’s also an update on the Cuban situation. Still makes me wonder what all those new citizens and voters would do if that situation actually comes to fruition, which, of course, it won’t.

All a country’s leader has to do is increase the level of unpredictability of something and the price will rise.  I don’t know how many times I’ve taught this little bit of demand-and-supply theory over my career, but the headlines show it’s still a solid theory, proven by evidence. This headline is from the New York Times. “Oil Prices Rise as Prospects for U.S.-Iran Peace Deal Fizzle.”

Oil prices rose and stocks wavered a bit on Monday as investors reacted to the failure of the United States and Iran to reach a peace deal.

President Trump said on social media Sunday that Iran’s latest proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” He did not share details about what Iran had offered. Tehran has said that the two countries were working on a short-term agreement that would pause fighting for another 30 days and end Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil and gas shipping route in the Persian Gulf.

• The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose roughly 2 percent on Monday, trading at around $103 a barrel.

• West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, moved 1.5 percent higher, trading at around $97 a barrel.

• After opening a tad lower on Monday, the S&P 500 rose about 0.3 percent by midday. On Friday, the index had notched its sixth straight week of gains.

• Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, were mixed. South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI Index rose more than 4 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell less than 1 percent.

• In Europe, stocks were little changed. The Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region’s largest companies, and the DAX in Germany were flat.

So, of course, Orange Caligula comes up with a hare-brained policy. Nancy Cordes reports this for CBS NEWS. “Trump says he aims to suspend gas tax for a period of time”. Oh, great!  Let’s create a much worse Federal Debt Crisis than we have now!

President Trump said in a phone interview with CBS News Monday morning that he aims to suspend the federal gas tax “for a period of time.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” the president said. “Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.”

Gas prices have soared over 50% since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, hitting a high of over $4.52 on Sunday, according to AAA. Analysts say the prices are likely to remain high with Iran blocking access to the Strait of Hormuz.

But suspending the excise taxes — 18.4 cents per gallon on gas and 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel — requires an act of Congress, and pausing it would cost the federal government about a half billion dollars a week.

Following the president’s comments, Reublican Sen. Josh Hawley said Monday that he would introduce legislation to suspend the federal gas tax. And GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida also said she plans to introduce a bill in the House this week to suspend the federal gas tax “in light of Trump’s recent remarks.” Several Democratic lawmakers had already introduced legislation to either pause or lower it.

Revenue raised by the federal gas tax goes toward the Highway Trust Fund to construct and repair roadways, and it also pays for other transit projects.

In the interview, Mr. Trump rejected the idea of a bailout for U.S. air carriers as they contend with jet fuel costs that have more than doubled since the start of the war with Iran.

For all the defect hawking these MAGA Republicans do, they sure love themselves some senseless U.S. Pork. When policy fails, all good Trump minions go on opportunistic political attacks using the courts as a theatre. This is also from CNN. Aleena Fayez has the report. “Hegseth calls for Sen. Mark Kelly to be investigated by Pentagon for second time.” Once is never enough. Right?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday called for Sen. Mark Kelly to be investigated over comments he made about US weapon stockpiles, marking the second time the Pentagon chief has opened a review into the Democratic senator.

Hegseth slammed the retired Navy captain and former astronaut for expressing concern on CBS’ “Face the Nation” over US weapons stockpiles amid the Iran war, saying Kelly was “blabbing on TV” about a classified Pentagon briefing.

“Did he violate his oath…again? @DeptofWar legal counsel will review,” Hegseth posted on social media Sunday evening.

Kelly said earlier Sunday that following briefings by the Pentagon on munitions, including Tomahawks, ATACMS and Patriot rounds, he found it “shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines.”

“We’ve expended a lot of munitions. And that means the American people are less safe. Whether it’s a conflict in the western Pacific with China or somewhere else in the world, the munitions are depleted,” Kelly, who sits on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan.

Kelly responded to Hegseth’s post with a video of the pair at a recent Senate hearing. “We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles. That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you,” Kelly posted, adding that the “war is coming at a serious cost.”

Ryan Burke at Just Security has some interesting legal analysis. “Lessons from the Pentagon’s Empty Case Against Mark Kelly.”

Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is in disarray. Adherence to the rule of law is now, apparently, a ground for termination. The latest target in Hegseth’s continued purge was former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan. Phelan’s firing reportedly frustrated some White House officials, and it apparently came after the Navy Secretary found himself square in Hegseth’s crosshairs over his refusal to punish Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for his appearance in a video purported to be an alleged catalyst for mutiny. After a federal judge ruled against the Pentagon’s pursuit of disciplining Kelly, Secretary Hegseth reportedly ordered Phelan to ignore the order and issue punishment to the retired Navy captain anyway. These reported events are an alarming development in the ongoing saga of instability in the Pentagon that should concern every DOD employee who thinks the law is on their side.

Months ago, Hegseth moved to downgrade Kelly’s retirement rank and pay as punishment for the senator’s participation in the so-called “Seditious Six” video. The problem for the Secretary’s pursuit: there’s no there, there. This is a manufactured scandal built on hollow ground, and the harder the Department of Defense tries to sculpt it into something meaningful, the faster it crumbles.

The central claim for punishing Kelly rests on the idea that the Senator encouraged troops to reject legal orders. The most glaring problems for DOD are twofold. First, Kelly clearly referred to the ability to refuse illegal orders – a fact in the record that was apparent in the DC Circuit oral argument late last week. “He never did say those words,” Judge Cornelia Pillard, said in response to the government’s attempt to put words in Kelly’s mouth.

The second problem, ironically for DOD, is the government can’t point to any specific orders to which Kelly referred. In the hearing, the government tried to glom onto Judge Karen L. Henderson’s suggestion that Kelly, at a press conference nearly two weeks after the video was published, said “we were looking forward to try to head something off at the pass” (video and transcript of Kelly press conference). Looking forward. Head something off. And that something clearly not being deployment orders to U.S. cities – which had long ago occurred:

Let’s not forget there’s one more war of choice out there, causing the deaths of many at our cost. The Iran War was brought about by the same two assholes. This is from the New York Times. “Trump and Netanyahu Say Iran War Is Not Over. The Trump administration said last week that the war had run its course, but the U.S. president and Israel’s prime minister in interviews on Sunday did not rule out renewed combat.”

President Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in separate interviews on Sunday that the war against Iran was not over, seeming to undermine messaging from the Trump administration last week that the conflict had run its course.

The interviews further compounded confusion about a military campaign marked by shifting goals and messaging since the American-Israeli attacks on Iran began in late February.

Mr. Trump, in an interview released by the syndicated news show “Full Measure,” said Iran had been defeated militarily. Yet when asked if it was accurate to say that combat operations were “over and done,” he refuted that assessment.

“No, I didn’t say that,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Iran was “defeated, but that doesn’t mean they are done.”

Mr. Trump estimated that about 70 percent of the United States’ targets in Iran had been hit. “We could go in for two more weeks and do every single target,” he added.

Mr. Netanyahu also told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that the conflict was not over, laying out a longer list of unfinished business to address.

“There is still nuclear material, enriched uranium, that has to be taken out of Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce.”

Mr. Netanyahu added that an agreement with Iran to remove its enriched uranium would be the ideal method to ensure the country no longer has materials for a nuclear weapon. The fate of that nuclear material has been one of the key sticking points in U.S.-Iran peace talks, according to Iranian officials.

“I think it can be done physically, that’s not the problem,” Mr. Netanyahu said. He added, “If you have an agreement and you go in and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way.”

Who voted for this? Something needs to change for the better with the Midterms.  Oh, wait, there’s still all that gerrymandering and law-upending stuff happening to thwart that.  That means it’s really important to vote.  I may not be able to vote for my Congress Critter this primary in Louisiana, but I’m damn determined to go vote against every Constitutional Amendment that our governor and Republican twits put on the ballot this year. Please, whereever you are, VOTE!

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: The Chaos Picayune

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Well, it’s deja vu all over again. So, we have another candidate for our 21st state. Given how bluntly bothered the other so-called candidates were, I can’t see Venezuela being any more eager. Oil prices continue to rise as Cadet Bonespurs’ war on Iran runs amok. American Hero, former Astronaut, and current Senator Mark Kelly still faces a second bogus investigation, with stern words from the ever-drunk and stupid Pete Hegseth. Just another day in the democratically backsliding USA.

I guess we will take those headlines in the order they appear, however disorderly.

I guess blowing up fishing boats and regime change weren’t enough for Cadet Bonespurs. This is the headline this morning from the Washington Examiner. “Trump says he’s ‘seriously considering’ making Venezuela the 51st state.”  This story is reported by Christian Datoc. Has someone told him that they speak Spanish there?  Oh, and there are lots and lots of indigenous tribes there. The best part is that we can pay tribute to the birthplace of Simón Bolívar with a great new National Holiday! That ought to knot a lot of panties in the US Southern States.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he’s considering making Venezuela the 51st American state, months after removing former dictator Nicolas Maduro from power.

Trump spoke to Fox News on Monday, stating that he was “seriously considering” the proposition. The president has previously floated annexing Canada and Greenland.

The foreign policy of Trump’s second term, influenced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has placed a new emphasis on the United States’ role in stabilizing the Americas.

According to Fox, Trump cited Venezuela’s $40 trillion worth of oil reserves as driving the decision.

“Venezuela loves Trump,” the president added on Monday.

That’s one of those pronouncements that makes you shake your head, laugh, and cry all at the same time.  So, do you wonder exactly how he might try to do that and win a Nobel Peace Prize at the same time? This is from CNN. “US intelligence-gathering flights are surging off Cuba.”

US military intelligence-gathering flights are surging off the coast of Cuba, a CNN analysis of publicly available aviation data shows.

Since February 4, the US Navy and Air Force have conducted at least 25 such flights using manned aircraft and drones, most of them near the country’s two biggest cities, Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and some coming within 40 miles of the coast, according to FlightRadar24.

Most of the flights were by P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, which are designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, while some were by an RC-135V Rivet Joint, which specializes in signals intelligence gathering. Several MQ-4C Triton high-altitude reconnaissance drones have also been used.

The flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which puts them well within range of gathering intelligence, but for the suddenness of their appearance – prior to February, such publicly visible flights were exceedingly rare in this area – and for their timing.

There’s more on that link about what’s going on with Trump and Venezuela. There’s also an update on the Cuban situation. Still makes me wonder what all those new citizens and voters would do if that situation actually comes to fruition, which, of course, it won’t.

All a country’s leader has to do is increase the level of unpredictability of something and the price will rise.  I don’t know how many times I’ve taught this little bit of demand-and-supply theory over my career, but the headlines show it’s still a solid theory, proven by evidence. This headline is from the New York Times. “Oil Prices Rise as Prospects for U.S.-Iran Peace Deal Fizzle.”

Oil prices rose and stocks wavered a bit on Monday as investors reacted to the failure of the United States and Iran to reach a peace deal.

President Trump said on social media Sunday that Iran’s latest proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” He did not share details about what Iran had offered. Tehran has said that the two countries were working on a short-term agreement that would pause fighting for another 30 days and end Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil and gas shipping route in the Persian Gulf.

• The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose roughly 2 percent on Monday, trading at around $103 a barrel.

• West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, moved 1.5 percent higher, trading at around $97 a barrel.

• After opening a tad lower on Monday, the S&P 500 rose about 0.3 percent by midday. On Friday, the index had notched its sixth straight week of gains.

• Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, were mixed. South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI Index rose more than 4 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell less than 1 percent.

• In Europe, stocks were little changed. The Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region’s largest companies, and the DAX in Germany were flat.

So, of course, Orange Caligula comes up with a hare-brained policy. Nancy Cordes reports this for CBS NEWS. “Trump says he aims to suspend gas tax for a period of time”. Oh, great!  Let’s create a much worse Federal Debt Crisis than we have now!

President Trump said in a phone interview with CBS News Monday morning that he aims to suspend the federal gas tax “for a period of time.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” the president said. “Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.”

Gas prices have soared over 50% since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, hitting a high of over $4.52 on Sunday, according to AAA. Analysts say the prices are likely to remain high with Iran blocking access to the Strait of Hormuz.

But suspending the excise taxes — 18.4 cents per gallon on gas and 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel — requires an act of Congress, and pausing it would cost the federal government about a half billion dollars a week.

Following the president’s comments, Reublican Sen. Josh Hawley said Monday that he would introduce legislation to suspend the federal gas tax. And GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida also said she plans to introduce a bill in the House this week to suspend the federal gas tax “in light of Trump’s recent remarks.” Several Democratic lawmakers had already introduced legislation to either pause or lower it.

Revenue raised by the federal gas tax goes toward the Highway Trust Fund to construct and repair roadways, and it also pays for other transit projects.

In the interview, Mr. Trump rejected the idea of a bailout for U.S. air carriers as they contend with jet fuel costs that have more than doubled since the start of the war with Iran.

For all the defect hawking these MAGA Republicans do, they sure love themselves some senseless U.S. Pork. When policy fails, all good Trump minions go on opportunistic political attacks using the courts as a theatre. This is also from CNN. Aleena Fayez has the report. “Hegseth calls for Sen. Mark Kelly to be investigated by Pentagon for second time.” Once is never enough. Right?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday called for Sen. Mark Kelly to be investigated over comments he made about US weapon stockpiles, marking the second time the Pentagon chief has opened a review into the Democratic senator.

Hegseth slammed the retired Navy captain and former astronaut for expressing concern on CBS’ “Face the Nation” over US weapons stockpiles amid the Iran war, saying Kelly was “blabbing on TV” about a classified Pentagon briefing.

“Did he violate his oath…again? @DeptofWar legal counsel will review,” Hegseth posted on social media Sunday evening.

Kelly said earlier Sunday that following briefings by the Pentagon on munitions, including Tomahawks, ATACMS and Patriot rounds, he found it “shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines.”

“We’ve expended a lot of munitions. And that means the American people are less safe. Whether it’s a conflict in the western Pacific with China or somewhere else in the world, the munitions are depleted,” Kelly, who sits on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan.

Kelly responded to Hegseth’s post with a video of the pair at a recent Senate hearing. “We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles. That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you,” Kelly posted, adding that the “war is coming at a serious cost.”

Ryan Burke at Just Security has some interesting legal analysis. “Lessons from the Pentagon’s Empty Case Against Mark Kelly.”

Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is in disarray. Adherence to the rule of law is now, apparently, a ground for termination. The latest target in Hegseth’s continued purge was former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan. Phelan’s firing reportedly frustrated some White House officials, and it apparently came after the Navy Secretary found himself square in Hegseth’s crosshairs over his refusal to punish Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for his appearance in a video purported to be an alleged catalyst for mutiny. After a federal judge ruled against the Pentagon’s pursuit of disciplining Kelly, Secretary Hegseth reportedly ordered Phelan to ignore the order and issue punishment to the retired Navy captain anyway. These reported events are an alarming development in the ongoing saga of instability in the Pentagon that should concern every DOD employee who thinks the law is on their side.

Months ago, Hegseth moved to downgrade Kelly’s retirement rank and pay as punishment for the senator’s participation in the so-called “Seditious Six” video. The problem for the Secretary’s pursuit: there’s no there, there. This is a manufactured scandal built on hollow ground, and the harder the Department of Defense tries to sculpt it into something meaningful, the faster it crumbles.

The central claim for punishing Kelly rests on the idea that the Senator encouraged troops to reject legal orders. The most glaring problems for DOD are twofold. First, Kelly clearly referred to the ability to refuse illegal orders – a fact in the record that was apparent in the DC Circuit oral argument late last week. “He never did say those words,” Judge Cornelia Pillard, said in response to the government’s attempt to put words in Kelly’s mouth.

The second problem, ironically for DOD, is the government can’t point to any specific orders to which Kelly referred. In the hearing, the government tried to glom onto Judge Karen L. Henderson’s suggestion that Kelly, at a press conference nearly two weeks after the video was published, said “we were looking forward to try to head something off at the pass” (video and transcript of Kelly press conference). Looking forward. Head something off. And that something clearly not being deployment orders to U.S. cities – which had long ago occurred:

Let’s not forget there’s one more war of choice out there, causing the deaths of many at our cost. The Iran War was brought about by the same two assholes. This is from the New York Times. “Trump and Netanyahu Say Iran War Is Not Over. The Trump administration said last week that the war had run its course, but the U.S. president and Israel’s prime minister in interviews on Sunday did not rule out renewed combat.”

President Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in separate interviews on Sunday that the war against Iran was not over, seeming to undermine messaging from the Trump administration last week that the conflict had run its course.

The interviews further compounded confusion about a military campaign marked by shifting goals and messaging since the American-Israeli attacks on Iran began in late February.

Mr. Trump, in an interview released by the syndicated news show “Full Measure,” said Iran had been defeated militarily. Yet when asked if it was accurate to say that combat operations were “over and done,” he refuted that assessment.

“No, I didn’t say that,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Iran was “defeated, but that doesn’t mean they are done.”

Mr. Trump estimated that about 70 percent of the United States’ targets in Iran had been hit. “We could go in for two more weeks and do every single target,” he added.

Mr. Netanyahu also told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that the conflict was not over, laying out a longer list of unfinished business to address.

“There is still nuclear material, enriched uranium, that has to be taken out of Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce.”

Mr. Netanyahu added that an agreement with Iran to remove its enriched uranium would be the ideal method to ensure the country no longer has materials for a nuclear weapon. The fate of that nuclear material has been one of the key sticking points in U.S.-Iran peace talks, according to Iranian officials.

“I think it can be done physically, that’s not the problem,” Mr. Netanyahu said. He added, “If you have an agreement and you go in and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way.”

Who voted for this? Something needs to change for the better with the Midterms.  Oh, wait, there’s still all that gerrymandering and law-upending stuff happening to thwart that.  That means it’s really important to vote.  I may not be able to vote for my Congress Critter this primary in Louisiana, but I’m damn determined to go vote against every Constitutional Amendment that our governor and Republican twits put on the ballot this year. Please, whereever you are, VOTE!

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: The Chaos Picayune

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Well, it’s deja vu all over again. So, we have another candidate for our 21st state. Given how bluntly bothered the other so-called candidates were, I can’t see Venezuela being any more eager. Oil prices continue to rise as Cadet Bonespurs’ war on Iran runs amok. American Hero, former Astronaut, and current Senator Mark Kelly still faces a second bogus investigation, with stern words from the ever-drunk and stupid Pete Hegseth. Just another day in the democratically backsliding USA.

I guess we will take those headlines in the order they appear, however disorderly.

I guess blowing up fishing boats and regime change weren’t enough for Cadet Bonespurs. This is the headline this morning from the Washington Examiner. “Trump says he’s ‘seriously considering’ making Venezuela the 51st state.”  This story is reported by Christian Datoc. Has someone told him that they speak Spanish there?  Oh, and there are lots and lots of indigenous tribes there. The best part is that we can pay tribute to the birthplace of Simón Bolívar with a great new National Holiday! That ought to knot a lot of panties in the US Southern States.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he’s considering making Venezuela the 51st American state, months after removing former dictator Nicolas Maduro from power.

Trump spoke to Fox News on Monday, stating that he was “seriously considering” the proposition. The president has previously floated annexing Canada and Greenland.

The foreign policy of Trump’s second term, influenced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has placed a new emphasis on the United States’ role in stabilizing the Americas.

According to Fox, Trump cited Venezuela’s $40 trillion worth of oil reserves as driving the decision.

“Venezuela loves Trump,” the president added on Monday.

That’s one of those pronouncements that makes you shake your head, laugh, and cry all at the same time.  So, do you wonder exactly how he might try to do that and win a Nobel Peace Prize at the same time? This is from CNN. “US intelligence-gathering flights are surging off Cuba.”

US military intelligence-gathering flights are surging off the coast of Cuba, a CNN analysis of publicly available aviation data shows.

Since February 4, the US Navy and Air Force have conducted at least 25 such flights using manned aircraft and drones, most of them near the country’s two biggest cities, Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and some coming within 40 miles of the coast, according to FlightRadar24.

Most of the flights were by P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, which are designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, while some were by an RC-135V Rivet Joint, which specializes in signals intelligence gathering. Several MQ-4C Triton high-altitude reconnaissance drones have also been used.

The flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which puts them well within range of gathering intelligence, but for the suddenness of their appearance – prior to February, such publicly visible flights were exceedingly rare in this area – and for their timing.

There’s more on that link about what’s going on with Trump and Venezuela. There’s also an update on the Cuban situation. Still makes me wonder what all those new citizens and voters would do if that situation actually comes to fruition, which, of course, it won’t.

All a country’s leader has to do is increase the level of unpredictability of something and the price will rise.  I don’t know how many times I’ve taught this little bit of demand-and-supply theory over my career, but the headlines show it’s still a solid theory, proven by evidence. This headline is from the New York Times. “Oil Prices Rise as Prospects for U.S.-Iran Peace Deal Fizzle.”

Oil prices rose and stocks wavered a bit on Monday as investors reacted to the failure of the United States and Iran to reach a peace deal.

President Trump said on social media Sunday that Iran’s latest proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” He did not share details about what Iran had offered. Tehran has said that the two countries were working on a short-term agreement that would pause fighting for another 30 days and end Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil and gas shipping route in the Persian Gulf.

• The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose roughly 2 percent on Monday, trading at around $103 a barrel.

• West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, moved 1.5 percent higher, trading at around $97 a barrel.

• After opening a tad lower on Monday, the S&P 500 rose about 0.3 percent by midday. On Friday, the index had notched its sixth straight week of gains.

• Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, were mixed. South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI Index rose more than 4 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell less than 1 percent.

• In Europe, stocks were little changed. The Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region’s largest companies, and the DAX in Germany were flat.

So, of course, Orange Caligula comes up with a hare-brained policy. Nancy Cordes reports this for CBS NEWS. “Trump says he aims to suspend gas tax for a period of time”. Oh, great!  Let’s create a much worse Federal Debt Crisis than we have now!

President Trump said in a phone interview with CBS News Monday morning that he aims to suspend the federal gas tax “for a period of time.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” the president said. “Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.”

Gas prices have soared over 50% since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, hitting a high of over $4.52 on Sunday, according to AAA. Analysts say the prices are likely to remain high with Iran blocking access to the Strait of Hormuz.

But suspending the excise taxes — 18.4 cents per gallon on gas and 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel — requires an act of Congress, and pausing it would cost the federal government about a half billion dollars a week.

Following the president’s comments, Reublican Sen. Josh Hawley said Monday that he would introduce legislation to suspend the federal gas tax. And GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida also said she plans to introduce a bill in the House this week to suspend the federal gas tax “in light of Trump’s recent remarks.” Several Democratic lawmakers had already introduced legislation to either pause or lower it.

Revenue raised by the federal gas tax goes toward the Highway Trust Fund to construct and repair roadways, and it also pays for other transit projects.

In the interview, Mr. Trump rejected the idea of a bailout for U.S. air carriers as they contend with jet fuel costs that have more than doubled since the start of the war with Iran.

For all the defect hawking these MAGA Republicans do, they sure love themselves some senseless U.S. Pork. When policy fails, all good Trump minions go on opportunistic political attacks using the courts as a theatre. This is also from CNN. Aleena Fayez has the report. “Hegseth calls for Sen. Mark Kelly to be investigated by Pentagon for second time.” Once is never enough. Right?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday called for Sen. Mark Kelly to be investigated over comments he made about US weapon stockpiles, marking the second time the Pentagon chief has opened a review into the Democratic senator.

Hegseth slammed the retired Navy captain and former astronaut for expressing concern on CBS’ “Face the Nation” over US weapons stockpiles amid the Iran war, saying Kelly was “blabbing on TV” about a classified Pentagon briefing.

“Did he violate his oath…again? @DeptofWar legal counsel will review,” Hegseth posted on social media Sunday evening.

Kelly said earlier Sunday that following briefings by the Pentagon on munitions, including Tomahawks, ATACMS and Patriot rounds, he found it “shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines.”

“We’ve expended a lot of munitions. And that means the American people are less safe. Whether it’s a conflict in the western Pacific with China or somewhere else in the world, the munitions are depleted,” Kelly, who sits on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan.

Kelly responded to Hegseth’s post with a video of the pair at a recent Senate hearing. “We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles. That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you,” Kelly posted, adding that the “war is coming at a serious cost.”

Ryan Burke at Just Security has some interesting legal analysis. “Lessons from the Pentagon’s Empty Case Against Mark Kelly.”

Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is in disarray. Adherence to the rule of law is now, apparently, a ground for termination. The latest target in Hegseth’s continued purge was former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan. Phelan’s firing reportedly frustrated some White House officials, and it apparently came after the Navy Secretary found himself square in Hegseth’s crosshairs over his refusal to punish Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for his appearance in a video purported to be an alleged catalyst for mutiny. After a federal judge ruled against the Pentagon’s pursuit of disciplining Kelly, Secretary Hegseth reportedly ordered Phelan to ignore the order and issue punishment to the retired Navy captain anyway. These reported events are an alarming development in the ongoing saga of instability in the Pentagon that should concern every DOD employee who thinks the law is on their side.

Months ago, Hegseth moved to downgrade Kelly’s retirement rank and pay as punishment for the senator’s participation in the so-called “Seditious Six” video. The problem for the Secretary’s pursuit: there’s no there, there. This is a manufactured scandal built on hollow ground, and the harder the Department of Defense tries to sculpt it into something meaningful, the faster it crumbles.

The central claim for punishing Kelly rests on the idea that the Senator encouraged troops to reject legal orders. The most glaring problems for DOD are twofold. First, Kelly clearly referred to the ability to refuse illegal orders – a fact in the record that was apparent in the DC Circuit oral argument late last week. “He never did say those words,” Judge Cornelia Pillard, said in response to the government’s attempt to put words in Kelly’s mouth.

The second problem, ironically for DOD, is the government can’t point to any specific orders to which Kelly referred. In the hearing, the government tried to glom onto Judge Karen L. Henderson’s suggestion that Kelly, at a press conference nearly two weeks after the video was published, said “we were looking forward to try to head something off at the pass” (video and transcript of Kelly press conference). Looking forward. Head something off. And that something clearly not being deployment orders to U.S. cities – which had long ago occurred:

Let’s not forget there’s one more war of choice out there, causing the deaths of many at our cost. The Iran War was brought about by the same two assholes. This is from the New York Times. “Trump and Netanyahu Say Iran War Is Not Over. The Trump administration said last week that the war had run its course, but the U.S. president and Israel’s prime minister in interviews on Sunday did not rule out renewed combat.”

President Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in separate interviews on Sunday that the war against Iran was not over, seeming to undermine messaging from the Trump administration last week that the conflict had run its course.

The interviews further compounded confusion about a military campaign marked by shifting goals and messaging since the American-Israeli attacks on Iran began in late February.

Mr. Trump, in an interview released by the syndicated news show “Full Measure,” said Iran had been defeated militarily. Yet when asked if it was accurate to say that combat operations were “over and done,” he refuted that assessment.

“No, I didn’t say that,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Iran was “defeated, but that doesn’t mean they are done.”

Mr. Trump estimated that about 70 percent of the United States’ targets in Iran had been hit. “We could go in for two more weeks and do every single target,” he added.

Mr. Netanyahu also told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that the conflict was not over, laying out a longer list of unfinished business to address.

“There is still nuclear material, enriched uranium, that has to be taken out of Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce.”

Mr. Netanyahu added that an agreement with Iran to remove its enriched uranium would be the ideal method to ensure the country no longer has materials for a nuclear weapon. The fate of that nuclear material has been one of the key sticking points in U.S.-Iran peace talks, according to Iranian officials.

“I think it can be done physically, that’s not the problem,” Mr. Netanyahu said. He added, “If you have an agreement and you go in and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way.”

Who voted for this? Something needs to change for the better with the Midterms.  Oh, wait, there’s still all that gerrymandering and law-upending stuff happening to thwart that.  That means it’s really important to vote.  I may not be able to vote for my Congress Critter this primary in Louisiana, but I’m damn determined to go vote against every Constitutional Amendment that our governor and Republican twits put on the ballot this year. Please, whereever you are, VOTE!

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: Chaos Redux

“The Kings. Imagine if we had a Big Beautiful Bawlroom. I’m thinking Charles is grateful to be outdoors, just sayin’.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

This has been a bad week for our small d democracy. The Supreme Court attacked voting rights in a court case that basically decimated voting rights. Down here in Lousyana, our legislature and governor have raised the stakes. They’re delaying our election so they can gerrymander the state’s legislative district. They’ve also passed a law giving jail time to anyone smoking pot around a university campus.  Campus Potheads will likely wind up as state slaves out doing whatever local law enforcement needs doing, which has included some pretty shady things. It’s a lot like Jim Crow Redux. Is the South trying to rise again?

Then, there’s the Iran War. This has definitely reached Constitutional Crisis status.  Tess Bridgeman and Oona A. Hathaway from Just Security have this analysis. “At the 60-Day Mark, the Iran War is Triply Illegal.” Of course, should it head to SCOTUS, the right-wing justices will just make something up.

Today, May 1st, marks 60 days since President Donald Trump notified Congress that he initiated a war against Iran. The notification of Operation Epic Fury, which began two days earlier on Feb. 28, triggered the 60-day termination clock of the War Powers Resolution, a landmark statute passed by supermajorities in both congressional chambers over President Richard Nixon’s veto in an effort to reclaim Congress’s constitutional authority over decisions to wage war. Under that statute, Trump must now terminate the hostilities he began two months ago. He seems set against doing so. If he refuses, he will take a war that is already doubly illegal and turn it into a triply-illegal war.  He will also make it clear, if it was not already, that he regards the law as no constraint on his use of the U.S. military’s lethal power.

At the outset it should be made clear that President Trump’s war in Iran was illegal from the start. From the moment it began, Trump’s war with Iran violated the U.S. Constitution and the UN Charter.

First, the Constitution vests Congress, not the President, with the power to decide when the United States goes to war. The current conflict with Iran makes plain why placing this power in the peoples’ representatives, rather than the chief executive, was and remains so important. Democracy, it was thought then – and remains true now – is incompatible with the “one man decides” model in which a nation can be thrown into war on a single person’s whims. Requiring congressional authorization is not just a safeguard against potential incompetence, though that is plenty evident in the disastrous war of choice against Iran. It is also because the weighty decision to go to war should be made by the more deliberative branch of government, and the most politically accountable, that the authority to declare war resides in the list of Congress’ Article I powers, alongside a host of other powers on making, regulating, and funding war. (Of note, this war clearly crosses even the threshold the executive branch has set for itself on when it needs to turn to Congress to authorize force, though neither the Congress nor the courts have embraced the executive’s highly elastic test.)

Second, the war is a clear violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force except in legitimate self-defense against an armed attack (or imminent threat of one) or with Security Council authorization. Neither exist here. It is, put simply, a war of aggression. Other countries know this even if they have been nervous to call it out, fearing Trump’s wrath. It’s why we have so little international support–and why longstanding allies have refused even basic cooperation.

The manifest violation of the UN Charter also violates the U.S. Constitution: the president has a constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This duty applies to treaties that, under our Constitution, are the “supreme Law of the Land.” The UN Charter is clearly in this category, having earned Senate approval on an 89-2 vote.

While presidents have launched wars in violation of one or the other of these bodies of law in the past, the war in Iran stands out as a significant violation of both of these foundational laws at once. The President, in short, has claimed for himself the power to unleash the most powerful military the world has ever seen on the basis, as he famously put it, of his own morality.

Read more at the link to find out why it’s a triple threat today.  The outrage over the latest Supreme Court decision continues.  This analysis comes from Liberal Currents and is provided by Alan Elrod.  “The Supreme Court Delivers Another Victory for the Jim Crow Southernization of America. We must not forget how poorly buried the racial tyranny of the South’s past is in America’s present.”

In this context, the painful proximity of the Civil Rights Era and the Jim Crow abuses its reforms worked to end should be clear. And so the Roberts Court decision to effectively neuter Section 2 of the VRA, arguing that Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district is racially discriminatory—a ruling rooted in a view-from-nowhere, colorblind vision of race—lands as both profoundly unjust and historically illiterate. That it comes at a time when the Trump administration and wider MAGA movement are launching a frontal assault on the multicultural democracy built on the back of the reforms of the 1960s and 1970s threatens to plunge the country into a Neo-Jim Crow period of rights abuses and anti-democratic discriminations.

As Amy Howe wrote Wednesday for SCOTUSblog:

In a 36-page opinion, Alito explained that “the Constitution almost never permits the Federal Government or a State to discriminate on the basis of race.” The question before the court, he said, is “whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act should be added to our very short list of compelling interests that can justify racial discrimination.”

As a general rule, Alito wrote, Section 2 of the VRA guarantees voters, including minority voters, an opportunity to cast a vote for their preferred candidate, but that candidate’s chances of success may be affected by the choices that the state is allowed to make when drawing a redistricting map – such as the desire to protect incumbents or increase the number of seats held by a particular political party. And under the Constitution, Alito continued, a violation of Section 2 only occurs when “the circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred” – for example, when there are several possible maps that contain majority-minority districts, but the state “cannot provide a legitimate reason for rejecting all those maps.”

[…]

“In sum,” Alito concluded, “because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8. That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander, and its use would violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”

I argued last year at The Bulwark that the American South never truly took to liberal democracy, resisting the goals of both Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Era. Across the region, a culture of censorship, anti-LGBTQ policies, and draconian law enforcement and prison practices choke the dignity and pluralism that make free, diverse societies truly flourish. Under Trump and the contemporary GOP, a great national Southernization of politics appears underway. The Supreme Court’s decision this week threatens to help strengthen and accelerate this process. Consider what  Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent:

The Voting Rights Act is — or, now more accurately, was— ‘one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history.’ It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality.

Kagan is right. As a Southerner, I am acutely aware of the blood spilt in the fight for human rights and dignity for Black people in America—the blood of soldiers, of activists and protesters, and of everyday people who had the temerity to exist in a white man’s world. One of the bloodiest racial massacres in our nation’s history took place in the Arkansas Delta, around the town of Elaine. A white mob set upon Black sharecroppers, with some estimates of the death toll reaching into the hundreds.

Read about “the context” at the link. Elrod writes about his own life experiences growing up in the deep South. He also discusses the events of the time. It’s a compelling read.  Greg Sargent, writing for The New Republic, has a must-read analysis about how bereft Trump is about what the Supreme Court decision really means. “Trump Has No Clue What His Supreme Court Has Just Unleashed. The Supreme Court decision on gerrymandering points in one direction only: Come 2028, Democrats have to declare a take-no-prisoners redistricting war on the GOP.”

Now that the Supreme Court has gutted yet another piece of the Voting Rights Act, this one concerning redistricting, here’s one thing we know for sure: Democrats will have to enter into a new era of procedural total war. That might make many of them uncomfortable, but when it comes to the future of the liberal agenda, the stakes are enormous.

With Donald Trump’s active encouragement, Republicans are already seizing on the ruling—which essentially dismantled protections against racial gerrymandering—to threaten to redraw maps in the South to eliminate numerous congressional seats with Black representatives. While it’s largely too late to do so this cycle, Republicans will likely launch mid-decade redistricting in many Southern states heading into 2028, eliminating as many as 19 more Democratic seats in hopes of locking in a near-permanent GOP majority.
In substantive and legal terms, this outcome is awful—see this overview from TNR’s Matt Ford for a full rundown—but in a purely political sense, is this Armageddon for Democrats? Not necessarily. The reason? Democrats can move to redraw maps in time for the 2028 elections in states where they control the legislatures.

Which points to one big takeaway from the court ruling: State legislative races—which already attract too little attention—just got a lot more important. Many races underway now will help determine the party’s long-term prospects in the scorched-earth conflict that’s about to unfold.

According to a new analysis by Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group, Democrats could redraw anywhere from 10 to 22 additional congressional seats for the party in time for the 2028 elections if they push hard with redistricting in seven blue and swing states. The analysis—which is circulating among Democratic leadership aides and outside groups and was obtained by TNR—concludes that being aggressive could theoretically offset Republican gains, even in a maximalist GOP redistricting scenario.

“Democrats have a clear path to neutralize this GOP power grab if they want to take it,” Max Flugrath, senior communications director of Fair Fight Action, told me. “This is the ‘break glass in case of emergency’ moment for American democracy.”

The range of potential Democratic gains is so broad because so much depends on which party controls key state legislatures after the fall elections. Strikingly, even if Democrats flip zero chambers, they can redraw up to 10 additional congressional districts for the party, the analysis finds, by maximizing gerrymanders in New York, Colorado, Oregon, and Maryland, where Democrats control governorships and state legislatures.

But even more strikingly, Democrats could redraw as many as 22 additional congressional districts for the party overall if they flip legislative chambers in other states and redraw aggressively in them, the analysis finds.

All of this shouldn’t distract from other stories.  The mainstream media has definitely dropped the conversation on the Epstein files. Other stories and questions still linger.   David Lurie writes this for Public Notice. “Trump’s Reichstag fire presidency is immolating. The media personality in the White House has been exposed as a crisis actor.”

The day after an alleged gunman tried to barge into the White House Correspondents Dinner, Todd Blanche — the nation’s chief law enforcement official — appeared on national television to denounce that act of political violence.

But during the very same news conference, Blanche also signaled the president may vacate the convictions of terrorists found guilty of scheming to attack the government of the United States on behalf of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.

“They were convicted, but President Trump, as is his right and duty under our Constitution, commuted or pardoned those individuals,” Blanche said.

BASH: Do you plan to vacate convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were involved in the January 6 attack on the Capitol?

BLANCHE: That’s ongoing litigation. You’ll hear from us in the coming days. Their sentences were commuted by President Trump

BASH: You’re not ruling it out?

BLANCHE: No. We’re not ruling anything out

This perverse contradiction epitomizes the era of Late Trumpism, in which the rewriting of history and systemic abuses of power are ramping up while Trump’s political power is collapsing.

What follows is an amazing list of Trump performances likened to similar performances by Hitler. I used to shiver when anyone jumped the shark to compare someone to Hitler, but this is a truly amazing and long list of similarities. I also consider it a must-read today.  Meanwhile, American Citizens are losing access to their most basic needs. This is from the New York Times.  “Since Congress Let Obamacare Subsidies Expire, Millions Are Dropping Coverage. Americans can’t afford the higher health insurance premiums that resulted from Congress’s refusal to extend federal tax credits.” Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz have the lede.

Millions of Americans appear to be dropping Obamacare coverage in the months since Congress failed to extend the generous subsidies that had become a defining feature of the Affordable Care Act.

Initial sign-ups had already fallen by about 1.2 million people. But insurance companies, state officials and industry analysts are reporting that many more have lost Obamacare coverage now that people are facing long-term higher costs. The federal government has yet to report current enrollment data.

Many insurers and analysts are estimating overall declines of about 20 percent, dropping to around 19 million from the 24 million who were covered under the A.C.A. last year. Other indications suggest there could be even larger potential losses by the end of the year, a deep retrenchment for Obamacare coverage and a reversal of significant gains in the last several years.

The rising cost of health care has shown up as a top concern among Americans in several public opinion polls. Premiums are rising for Americans who get insurance through work, too, as health care costs have been increasing nationwide. Out-of-pocket costs are growing too, as plans with high deductibles have become popular.

Though health care has faded somewhat as a priority for the Republican-controlled Congress since lawmakers hit a stalemate over the subsidies at the end of 2025, it is likely to figure prominently in the midterm elections this year.

One analysis, by Wakely Consulting Group, a firm with access to detailed insurance industry data, estimates that coverage in the marketplaces will drop by as much as 26 percent this year compared with last year’s average enrollment.

In Georgia, where coverage had nearly tripled since Congress first authorized the extra financial help in 2021, state data show enrollment has fallen by more than a third, according to information obtained by the news organizations The Current GA and The Georgia Recorder.

The Georgia state insurance department did not respond to a request for comment.

Some Blue Cross plans lost 20 to 30 percent of customers this year. And many people are switching to plans with lower premiums but much higher out-of-pocket costs, said David Merritt, a spokesman for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. “We are waiting on official data like everyone else,” he said.

The insurers and state officials said early retirees with middle-class incomes, who faced the largest increases in premiums, appeared to be among the hardest hit. In some markets, the cost of insurance for this group rose by $1,000 a month or more.

Meanwhile, the horrid state of Nebraska, where I had lived before escaping to New Orleans, literally wants poor people to work themselves to death, one way or another. Here’s a headline from The Hill. “Nebraska faces challenges as first state to impose Medicaid work requirements under GOP bill.”

Nebraska on Friday is set to become the first state to impose Medicaid work requirements under the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, racing ahead of the national deadline by eight months.

Nebraska’s experience will be a key test for Republicans who have been championing work requirements, as it could be an indicator of what the rest of the country will face when the policy takes effect nationwide.

The only two states that have enacted similar rules — Arkansas and Georgia — found they did not increase employment, caused tens of thousands of people to lose coverage and cost the states millions of dollars.

In Nebraska, Medicaid advocates and health policy experts fear similar coverage losses as people get buried under a blizzard of red tape. The law’s implementation timeline was already compressed, and they said Nebraska’s decision to rush ahead will be disastrous.

For instance, the state just this week released hundreds of pages with key details about who will qualify for a “medically frail” exemption.

“Unfortunately, when we have a rush job, we usually see bad results, and this is shaping up to be the case,” said Sarah Maresh, the program director for health care access at the nonprofit Nebraska Appleseed.

Work requirements have been a priority for President Trump and congressional Republicans since his first term.

The GOP’s tax and spending megabill used work requirements to partially pay for its nearly $3 trillion price tag. The Congressional Budget Office estimated nearly 5 million people will lose their Medicaid over the next decade as a result, including many who are already working.

GOP officials argue work requirements are needed to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program, and they will only target the “able-bodied” people who should be working but choose not to.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) has said he wants to promote self-sufficiency.

“It’s a key piece of giving the discipline for our families to be successful. It’s a key piece of self-worth. It’s a key piece of mental health and stability,” Pillen said in December when he announced the state would implement the requirements early.

All of this must be offset at the polls, even with the shenanigans set off by SCOTUS and the Republicans in Congress.  Heather Cox Richardson highlights polling numbers in her SubStack today.

Today G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers noted that Trump has hit a new low in overall job performance and in his handling of the economy, at -22.2 and -40.3, respectively. Those numbers reflect the percentage of people who approve of his handling of an issue minus those who disapprove. Indeed, Morris noted that Trump’s approval rating on the economy is so low it “literally broke the scale of this graph on my data portal.”

On Tuesday, Morris explained in Strength in Numbers that while Republicans have lately been arguing that they simply need to get people to show up to win the midterms, turnout is not their problem. Their real problem is that voters don’t like what Trump is doing.

An obvious symbol of Trump’s presidency is his unilateral decision to tear down the East Wing of the White House and replace it with a giant ballroom. A new Washington Post–ABC News–Ipsos poll released today shows that Americans oppose the ballroom by a margin of about two to one. Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose it, while only 28% support it. Of those who oppose it, 47% oppose it strongly.

Dan Diamond and Scott Clement of the Washington Post note that people don’t like Trump’s proposed triumphal arch, either—52% opposed versus 21% in favor—or the idea of Trump’s signature on paper money. Sixty-eight percent of Americans oppose that plan, while only 12% support it. Even Republicans oppose it 40% to 28%.

And then there is Trump’s war on Iran. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that only 34% of Americans approve of the strikes on Iran, while 61% oppose them. Gas prices continue to rise, with Brent crude futures today briefly topping $114 a barrel—the highest price since June 2022, shortly after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine. Senator Angus King (I-ME) noted on CNN today that these higher prices are currently costing American consumers about $700 million a day.

On his Substack today, economist Paul Krugman noted that the acronym “TACO,” for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” has been replaced by “NACHO”: “Not A Chance Hormuz Opens.” Krugman explains that Iran is unlikely to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passed before Israel and the U.S. began airstrikes against Iran on February 28, 2026, until “the economic damage from its closure becomes much more severe.”

She has more good news, so we can end it here, and you may go read it all!

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T8Vy_PSawo?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&listType=playlist&list=RD1T8Vy_PSawo&w=590&h=332]

Finally Friday Reads: Clusterfucks r US

“The bottom line of everything this administration does.” John Buss, @repeat1969

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Once again, there’s no news fit to report, but I’m going to take a stab at it. The headlines run the gamut. There are headlines that make you want to laugh, like “Melania Trump says she was not associated with Jeffrey Epstein.” Headlines that make you want to cry, like “Consumer prices rose 3.3% in March, as energy prices spiked due to Iran conflict.”  Headlines to make you angry, like “Pete Hegseth’s holy war: the militant Christian theology animating the US attack on Iran.” There are also headlines that make you feel quite unsurprised, like “Calls to Impeach Trump Collide With Reluctant Democratic Leadership.” Once again, it’s a week that leaves us all worse off.

So, let’s start with Melania Dearest, who insists she had no ties to Jeffrey Epstein, even though she was not under oath to tell the truth, you have to wonder if a Congressional Committee will ask for a repeat performance.. William Kristol, writing at The Bulwark, suggests she threw hubby under the bus. “What Melania Didn’t Say.”

Standing behind a podium bearing the presidential seal, speaking at the White House Cross Hall where so many presidents have addressed weighty matters of state, and where her husband last week spoke to the nation about Iran, the first lady read a six-minute statement about her and Jeffrey Epstein.

Melania’s focus was on . . . Melania. She began, “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.” Her purpose, she said, was to defend “my reputation,” to clear “my good name.” (Emphasis mine.)

And so she asserted that “I have never been friends with Epstein” and that “I . . . was never on Epstein’s plane.” She also claimed that “My email reply to [Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine] Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.1 My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note.”

Left unsaid, but not unimplied, was that none of these claims could be made about her husband. He was a pal of Epstein’s. He was on Epstein’s plane. His relationship with Epstein, as exemplified for example in his contribution to Epstein’s birthday book, was more than “casual” or “trivial.”

Melania also chose to express concern for Epstein’s victims, something her husband has conspicuously not done.

And she went on to say that

Now is the time for Congress to act. Epstein was not alone. Several prominent male executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized. Of course, this doesn’t amount to guilt, but we still must work openly and transparently to uncover the truth.

So the Epstein investigation is not, as her husband has asserted, a “hoax.” Nor is it yet time, as her husband has said, to move on. The truth hasn’t yet been uncovered, and we need to uncover it. And if doing so leads more “prominent male executives” to resign, so be it. One wonders: Could Melania have one prominent male chief executive in mind?

Melania chose not to include in her statement any assertion of her husband’s innocence of complicity in the Epstein affair.

Melania is perhaps not a deep thinker, but she’s no fool. Since immigrating to the United States three decades ago, Melania Knauss has done well for herself. She’s shown that she has a shrewd sense of how to operate in her adopted country. She’s risen to the top, while mostly avoiding being directly engulfed in all the scandals that have raged around her.

There is surely a lot of evidence suggesting she knew him well. But, with the Iran War being waged like a lethal version of mud wrestling, let’s see if the due diligence will be done by the press. This topic really skates on Slut Slamming, but it’s hard to cover earnestly. Emptywheel has an interesting story on the mostly out-of-view First Lady. “Melania’s Immigration Witness, Paolo Zampolli, Asked to Get His Baby Mama Deported.”  I wonder if she’s worthy of any Congressional questions.

The biggest denial may be this one:

I met my husband by chance at the [sic] New York City party in 1998. This initial encounter with my husband is documented in a detailed [sic] in my book, Melania.

The entire stunt seemed like a response to Michael Wolff. After all, when Melania listed the people who’ve had to retract claims — James Carville, The Daily Beast, and Harper Collins, in conjunction with a biography of the Andrew formerly known as Prince — she did not mention Wolff (or Hunter Biden), whom she has been threatening to sue for some time, with whom she has been stuck in litigation for months.

She has threatened Wolff in the past, who has made claims about how she met Trump, whether Epstein had fucked Melania before Donald did, and whether Donald and Melania first fucked on his plane. But thus far that litigation remains pending, and she didn’t mention him (or Hunter Biden, whom she also threatened to sue) in this appearance.

Wolff has many recordings about what Epstein told Wolff, whether Epstein’s claims were true or not.

But I’m more interested in another detail.

Melania cites her own book for the definitive account of how she met Donald (she has done this in past lawsuits).

Why would she do that? She has a witness to some of this: Paolo Zampolli, the agent who imported her on the same Einstein visa scam as Epstein used for his victims.

Zampolli not only remains in the Trump circle, but he flew to Hungary to do errands for Russia with JD Vance this week.

…

Epstein survivors had plenty to say about the performance. This is from The Guardian. Shrai Popat has the story. “Survivors of Epstein’s abuse accuse Melania Trump of ‘shifting burden’ onto victims, Outrage from survivors follows first lady’s statement calling on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse.”

More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have accused Melania Trump of “shifting the burden” onto them after she called on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse.

“Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have already shown extraordinary courage by coming forward, filing reports, and giving testimony,” said a group of 13 people and the brother and sister of the late Virginia Giuffre, who was one of the most vocal Epstein accusers, in a statement. “Asking more of them now is a deflection of responsibility not justice.”

Their response came after the first lady delivered a surprise statement in which she said denied that she ever had a relationship with Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. She also said that she was not a victim of Epstein, had no knowledge of his crimes, and said that the late convicted sex offender did not introduce her to her husband, Donald Trump.

“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” she said, adding that “numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been calculating [sic] on social media for years now”.

It remains unclear what specific accusations prompted her remarks. Her senior adviser, Marc Beckman, told Reuters that she “spoke out now because enough is enough. The lies must stop”.

During her statement, the first lady also urged Congress to hold public hearings and take sworn testimony from survivors of Epstein’s crimes.

In their statement on Thursday evening, the group of Epstein survivors said the first lady “is now shifting the burden onto survivors under politicized conditions that protect those with power: the Department of Justice, law enforcement, prosecutors, and the Trump administration, which has still not fully complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act”.

“It also diverts attention from Pam Bondi, who must answer for withheld files and the exposure of survivors’ identities,” they said. “Those failures continue to put lives at risk while shielding enablers.”

“Survivors have done their part,” the statement concluded. “Now it’s time for those in power to do theirs.”

It appears that the majority of the country is suffering under the impact of the Iran War. CNBC’s Jeff Cox has this headline. “Consumer sentiment hits record low, inflation fears rise amid Iran war.”

Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in April as fears mounted over rising energy prices and the broader impact of the Iran war, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday.

The university’s headline index of consumer sentiment tumbled to 47.6, down 10.7% from the March survey to its lowest on record. Current conditions and expectations indexes also saw double-digit monthly declines.

The drop in sentiment coincided with a sharp spike in inflation expectations, with respondents seeing prices up 4.8% in a year from now, a full percentage point rise from the March reading to its highest since August 2025. The one-year outlook in April 2025 was 6.5% following President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement.

Survey comments “show that many consumers blame the Iran conflict for unfavorable changes to the economy,” said the survey’s director, Joanne Hsu.

However, Hsu also noted that most of the interviews were completed before the April 7 ceasefire. The survey, then, primarily reflects conditions from March.

“Economic expectations will likely improve after consumers gain confidence that the supply disruptions stemming from the Iran conflict have ended and gas prices have moderated,” she said.

There’s no good news coming out of the Iran War. This is Heath Cox Richard’s take on her Substack today.

The ceasefire President Donald J. Trump announced Tuesday night fell apart almost immediately. Israel complained that it hadn’t been consulted, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israel did not accept an end to its bombardment of southern Lebanon as a way to dislodge Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. Steven Scheer of Reuters noted today that Israel has been under a state of emergency that halted the work of the judicial system, but with the end of the war, Netanyahu’s trial for corruption is scheduled to begin again on Saturday.

Iran has been permitting certain ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but responded to Israel’s continued bombing by closing the strait again.

Vice President J.D. Vance said there was a “legitimate misunderstanding” about whether the ceasefire included Lebanon. “We never made that promise,” he said. But in fact, Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, who posted the terms of the ceasefire on Tuesday, noted that the agreement did include a ceasefire in Lebanon. He tagged Vance in the post.

As more information about the achievement of the ceasefire became known, it reflected poorly on Trump. Humza Jilani, Abigail Hauslohner, and Demetri Sevastopulo of the Financial Times reported yesterday that while Trump claimed Iran was begging for a deal to end hostilities, it was actually the Trump administration that was pushing Pakistan to broker a deal with Iran. Tyler Pager and Katie Rogers of the New York Times reported that the White House was helping to craft Sharif’s social media statements, suggesting Trump “was actively looking for a way out of the crisis” as his own imposed deadline drew closer on Tuesday evening.

Although Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claims the U.S. has had a “historic and overwhelming victory” that achieved “every single objective,” David S. Cloud of the Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday that Iran saw the ceasefire as a “triumph” because it had survived a 38-day barrage from the United States and Israel and because it had gained control over the Strait of Hormuz, inflicting deep damage on the U.S. economy. Iran claimed the U.S. had suffered “an undeniable, historic, and crushing defeat.” Iran’s new leadership is even more anti-Western than the previous leadership, killed in the early days of the U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Yesterday the president posted his own interpretation of the terms of the agreement, but they were aspirational and asked for Iran to agree to terms that were less advantageous for the U.S. than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that President Barack Obama negotiated in 2015 and Trump tore up in 2018.

The actual terms of the ceasefire agreement were murky. On Wednesday, Iran released its version of the points of the agreement; the White House said those points weren’t the basis for the ceasefire.

Also yesterday, Trump suggested the U.S. was considering joining the Iranians in demanding tolls for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. “We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It’s a way of securing it,” he told journalist Jonathan Karl. But today Trump posted: “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait—They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!” Hours later, he added: “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!”

I’d like to think I have the vocabulary to describe how I feel about all these idiotic, powerplay antics, but I really don’t. We are clearly dealing with people who don’t have a clue and don’t care to understand our democratic republic. This article from The Guardian blew me away. “Pete Hegseth’s holy war: the militant Christian theology animating the US attack on Iran.”  This article deserves a full read from us.  We should never forget Hegseth’s weird diatribe.

Nine months and six days before a Tomahawk missile tore through the gaily decorated classrooms of the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran, ripping apart the bodies of schoolchildren, teachers, and parents, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s personal pastor delivered a sermon at the Pentagon.

“There’s a temptation to think that you’re actually in control and responsible for final outcomes, especially for those who issue the commands and do the aiming and the shooting,” preached Brooks Potteiger, Hegseth’s closest spiritual adviser, at the first of what have become monthly Christian worship services at the Department of Defense. “But you are not ultimately in charge of the world.”

Citing a verse from Matthew 10, Potteiger told the gathered leaders of the US military: “If our Lord is sovereign even over the sparrow’s fallings, you can be assured that he is sovereign over everything else that falls in this world, including Tomahawk and Minuteman missiles …

“Jesus has the final say over all of it.”

The available evidence and a preliminary investigation by the US military all suggest that the US was responsible for the 28 February school bombing that killed more than 175 people, most of them children, but neither Donald Trump nor Hegseth has taken any responsibility, nor have they expressed any remorse.

Instead, Hegseth has persisted in framing the war in Iran, which reached a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday after six weeks of fighting, as divinely sanctioned, repeatedly invoking “God’s almighty providence” and expressing surety that God is on the side of the US military. Amid boasts about the US’s superior firepower and theatrical disdain for “stupid rules of engagement”, the defense secretary has promised to give “no quarter” to the “barbaric savages” of the Iranian regime and called on the American people to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ”.

Hegseth’s distinct combination of piety and bloodlust was most prominently on display at the 25 March worship service at the Pentagon, the first since the war in Iran began, when he prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”. The prayer was so shocking that it appears to have provoked a direct rebuke from Pope Leo, who preached on Palm Sunday that God ignores the prayers of those whose “hands are full of blood” from making war.

Hegseth will hardly mind harsh words from the head of the Catholic church, however. The 45-year-old US army veteran and former Fox News host is a member of an obscure, deeply Calvinist wing of evangelical Christianity – John Calvin broke from the Catholic church during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation – that rejects the pope’s authority and is rooted in a belief in predestination.

“They believe that nothing happens that isn’t in God’s will,” said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, who researches this branch of Reformed Christianity. “They believe that God directs everything that happens.”

Even a bomb falling on an elementary school full of children?

I really just want to cry.

Have a good and peaceful weekend.  Try not to give up hope.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uaiT_zerks?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=590&h=332]

Finally Friday Reads: Clusterfucks r US

“The bottom line of everything this administration does.” John Buss, @repeat1969

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Once again, there’s no news fit to report, but I’m going to take a stab at it. The headlines run the gamut. There are headlines that make you want to laugh, like “Melania Trump says she was not associated with Jeffrey Epstein.” Headlines that make you want to cry, like “Consumer prices rose 3.3% in March, as energy prices spiked due to Iran conflict.”  Headlines to make you angry, like “Pete Hegseth’s holy war: the militant Christian theology animating the US attack on Iran.” There are also headlines that make you feel quite unsurprised, like “Calls to Impeach Trump Collide With Reluctant Democratic Leadership.” Once again, it’s a week that leaves us all worse off.

So, let’s start with Melania Dearest, who insists she had no ties to Jeffrey Epstein, even though she was not under oath to tell the truth, you have to wonder if a Congressional Committee will ask for a repeat performance.. William Kristol, writing at The Bulwark, suggests she threw hubby under the bus. “What Melania Didn’t Say.”

Standing behind a podium bearing the presidential seal, speaking at the White House Cross Hall where so many presidents have addressed weighty matters of state, and where her husband last week spoke to the nation about Iran, the first lady read a six-minute statement about her and Jeffrey Epstein.

Melania’s focus was on . . . Melania. She began, “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.” Her purpose, she said, was to defend “my reputation,” to clear “my good name.” (Emphasis mine.)

And so she asserted that “I have never been friends with Epstein” and that “I . . . was never on Epstein’s plane.” She also claimed that “My email reply to [Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine] Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.1 My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note.”

Left unsaid, but not unimplied, was that none of these claims could be made about her husband. He was a pal of Epstein’s. He was on Epstein’s plane. His relationship with Epstein, as exemplified for example in his contribution to Epstein’s birthday book, was more than “casual” or “trivial.”

Melania also chose to express concern for Epstein’s victims, something her husband has conspicuously not done.

And she went on to say that

Now is the time for Congress to act. Epstein was not alone. Several prominent male executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized. Of course, this doesn’t amount to guilt, but we still must work openly and transparently to uncover the truth.

So the Epstein investigation is not, as her husband has asserted, a “hoax.” Nor is it yet time, as her husband has said, to move on. The truth hasn’t yet been uncovered, and we need to uncover it. And if doing so leads more “prominent male executives” to resign, so be it. One wonders: Could Melania have one prominent male chief executive in mind?

Melania chose not to include in her statement any assertion of her husband’s innocence of complicity in the Epstein affair.

Melania is perhaps not a deep thinker, but she’s no fool. Since immigrating to the United States three decades ago, Melania Knauss has done well for herself. She’s shown that she has a shrewd sense of how to operate in her adopted country. She’s risen to the top, while mostly avoiding being directly engulfed in all the scandals that have raged around her.

There is surely a lot of evidence suggesting she knew him well. But, with the Iran War being waged like a lethal version of mud wrestling, let’s see if the due diligence will be done by the press. This topic really skates on Slut Slamming, but it’s hard to cover earnestly. Emptywheel has an interesting story on the mostly out-of-view First Lady. “Melania’s Immigration Witness, Paolo Zampolli, Asked to Get His Baby Mama Deported.”  I wonder if she’s worthy of any Congressional questions.

The biggest denial may be this one:

I met my husband by chance at the [sic] New York City party in 1998. This initial encounter with my husband is documented in a detailed [sic] in my book, Melania.

The entire stunt seemed like a response to Michael Wolff. After all, when Melania listed the people who’ve had to retract claims — James Carville, The Daily Beast, and Harper Collins, in conjunction with a biography of the Andrew formerly known as Prince — she did not mention Wolff (or Hunter Biden), whom she has been threatening to sue for some time, with whom she has been stuck in litigation for months.

She has threatened Wolff in the past, who has made claims about how she met Trump, whether Epstein had fucked Melania before Donald did, and whether Donald and Melania first fucked on his plane. But thus far that litigation remains pending, and she didn’t mention him (or Hunter Biden, whom she also threatened to sue) in this appearance.

Wolff has many recordings about what Epstein told Wolff, whether Epstein’s claims were true or not.

But I’m more interested in another detail.

Melania cites her own book for the definitive account of how she met Donald (she has done this in past lawsuits).

Why would she do that? She has a witness to some of this: Paolo Zampolli, the agent who imported her on the same Einstein visa scam as Epstein used for his victims.

Zampolli not only remains in the Trump circle, but he flew to Hungary to do errands for Russia with JD Vance this week.

…

Epstein survivors had plenty to say about the performance. This is from The Guardian. Shrai Popat has the story. “Survivors of Epstein’s abuse accuse Melania Trump of ‘shifting burden’ onto victims, Outrage from survivors follows first lady’s statement calling on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse.”

More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have accused Melania Trump of “shifting the burden” onto them after she called on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse.

“Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have already shown extraordinary courage by coming forward, filing reports, and giving testimony,” said a group of 13 people and the brother and sister of the late Virginia Giuffre, who was one of the most vocal Epstein accusers, in a statement. “Asking more of them now is a deflection of responsibility not justice.”

Their response came after the first lady delivered a surprise statement in which she said denied that she ever had a relationship with Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. She also said that she was not a victim of Epstein, had no knowledge of his crimes, and said that the late convicted sex offender did not introduce her to her husband, Donald Trump.

“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” she said, adding that “numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been calculating [sic] on social media for years now”.

It remains unclear what specific accusations prompted her remarks. Her senior adviser, Marc Beckman, told Reuters that she “spoke out now because enough is enough. The lies must stop”.

During her statement, the first lady also urged Congress to hold public hearings and take sworn testimony from survivors of Epstein’s crimes.

In their statement on Thursday evening, the group of Epstein survivors said the first lady “is now shifting the burden onto survivors under politicized conditions that protect those with power: the Department of Justice, law enforcement, prosecutors, and the Trump administration, which has still not fully complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act”.

“It also diverts attention from Pam Bondi, who must answer for withheld files and the exposure of survivors’ identities,” they said. “Those failures continue to put lives at risk while shielding enablers.”

“Survivors have done their part,” the statement concluded. “Now it’s time for those in power to do theirs.”

It appears that the majority of the country is suffering under the impact of the Iran War. CNBC’s Jeff Cox has this headline. “Consumer sentiment hits record low, inflation fears rise amid Iran war.”

Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in April as fears mounted over rising energy prices and the broader impact of the Iran war, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday.

The university’s headline index of consumer sentiment tumbled to 47.6, down 10.7% from the March survey to its lowest on record. Current conditions and expectations indexes also saw double-digit monthly declines.

The drop in sentiment coincided with a sharp spike in inflation expectations, with respondents seeing prices up 4.8% in a year from now, a full percentage point rise from the March reading to its highest since August 2025. The one-year outlook in April 2025 was 6.5% following President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement.

Survey comments “show that many consumers blame the Iran conflict for unfavorable changes to the economy,” said the survey’s director, Joanne Hsu.

However, Hsu also noted that most of the interviews were completed before the April 7 ceasefire. The survey, then, primarily reflects conditions from March.

“Economic expectations will likely improve after consumers gain confidence that the supply disruptions stemming from the Iran conflict have ended and gas prices have moderated,” she said.

There’s no good news coming out of the Iran War. This is Heath Cox Richard’s take on her Substack today.

The ceasefire President Donald J. Trump announced Tuesday night fell apart almost immediately. Israel complained that it hadn’t been consulted, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israel did not accept an end to its bombardment of southern Lebanon as a way to dislodge Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. Steven Scheer of Reuters noted today that Israel has been under a state of emergency that halted the work of the judicial system, but with the end of the war, Netanyahu’s trial for corruption is scheduled to begin again on Saturday.

Iran has been permitting certain ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but responded to Israel’s continued bombing by closing the strait again.

Vice President J.D. Vance said there was a “legitimate misunderstanding” about whether the ceasefire included Lebanon. “We never made that promise,” he said. But in fact, Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, who posted the terms of the ceasefire on Tuesday, noted that the agreement did include a ceasefire in Lebanon. He tagged Vance in the post.

As more information about the achievement of the ceasefire became known, it reflected poorly on Trump. Humza Jilani, Abigail Hauslohner, and Demetri Sevastopulo of the Financial Times reported yesterday that while Trump claimed Iran was begging for a deal to end hostilities, it was actually the Trump administration that was pushing Pakistan to broker a deal with Iran. Tyler Pager and Katie Rogers of the New York Times reported that the White House was helping to craft Sharif’s social media statements, suggesting Trump “was actively looking for a way out of the crisis” as his own imposed deadline drew closer on Tuesday evening.

Although Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claims the U.S. has had a “historic and overwhelming victory” that achieved “every single objective,” David S. Cloud of the Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday that Iran saw the ceasefire as a “triumph” because it had survived a 38-day barrage from the United States and Israel and because it had gained control over the Strait of Hormuz, inflicting deep damage on the U.S. economy. Iran claimed the U.S. had suffered “an undeniable, historic, and crushing defeat.” Iran’s new leadership is even more anti-Western than the previous leadership, killed in the early days of the U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Yesterday the president posted his own interpretation of the terms of the agreement, but they were aspirational and asked for Iran to agree to terms that were less advantageous for the U.S. than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that President Barack Obama negotiated in 2015 and Trump tore up in 2018.

The actual terms of the ceasefire agreement were murky. On Wednesday, Iran released its version of the points of the agreement; the White House said those points weren’t the basis for the ceasefire.

Also yesterday, Trump suggested the U.S. was considering joining the Iranians in demanding tolls for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. “We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It’s a way of securing it,” he told journalist Jonathan Karl. But today Trump posted: “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait—They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!” Hours later, he added: “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!”

I’d like to think I have the vocabulary to describe how I feel about all these idiotic, powerplay antics, but I really don’t. We are clearly dealing with people who don’t have a clue and don’t care to understand our democratic republic. This article from The Guardian blew me away. “Pete Hegseth’s holy war: the militant Christian theology animating the US attack on Iran.”  This article deserves a full read from us.  We should never forget Hegseth’s weird diatribe.

Nine months and six days before a Tomahawk missile tore through the gaily decorated classrooms of the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran, ripping apart the bodies of schoolchildren, teachers, and parents, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s personal pastor delivered a sermon at the Pentagon.

“There’s a temptation to think that you’re actually in control and responsible for final outcomes, especially for those who issue the commands and do the aiming and the shooting,” preached Brooks Potteiger, Hegseth’s closest spiritual adviser, at the first of what have become monthly Christian worship services at the Department of Defense. “But you are not ultimately in charge of the world.”

Citing a verse from Matthew 10, Potteiger told the gathered leaders of the US military: “If our Lord is sovereign even over the sparrow’s fallings, you can be assured that he is sovereign over everything else that falls in this world, including Tomahawk and Minuteman missiles …

“Jesus has the final say over all of it.”

The available evidence and a preliminary investigation by the US military all suggest that the US was responsible for the 28 February school bombing that killed more than 175 people, most of them children, but neither Donald Trump nor Hegseth has taken any responsibility, nor have they expressed any remorse.

Instead, Hegseth has persisted in framing the war in Iran, which reached a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday after six weeks of fighting, as divinely sanctioned, repeatedly invoking “God’s almighty providence” and expressing surety that God is on the side of the US military. Amid boasts about the US’s superior firepower and theatrical disdain for “stupid rules of engagement”, the defense secretary has promised to give “no quarter” to the “barbaric savages” of the Iranian regime and called on the American people to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ”.

Hegseth’s distinct combination of piety and bloodlust was most prominently on display at the 25 March worship service at the Pentagon, the first since the war in Iran began, when he prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”. The prayer was so shocking that it appears to have provoked a direct rebuke from Pope Leo, who preached on Palm Sunday that God ignores the prayers of those whose “hands are full of blood” from making war.

Hegseth will hardly mind harsh words from the head of the Catholic church, however. The 45-year-old US army veteran and former Fox News host is a member of an obscure, deeply Calvinist wing of evangelical Christianity – John Calvin broke from the Catholic church during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation – that rejects the pope’s authority and is rooted in a belief in predestination.

“They believe that nothing happens that isn’t in God’s will,” said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, who researches this branch of Reformed Christianity. “They believe that God directs everything that happens.”

Even a bomb falling on an elementary school full of children?

I really just want to cry.

Have a good and peaceful weekend.  Try not to give up hope.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uaiT_zerks?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=590&h=332]

Finally Friday Reads: Breaking Crazy

“One thing really stands out about trump’s latest Cabinet Love Fest, which can only be interpreted one way, he actually said something factual!” John Buss. @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

You don’t need to be a mental health expert to realize that something is very wrong with Orange Caligula’s brain. As usual, I didn’t watch or listen to his displays of dementia, narcissism, and stupidity because it’s its own form of torture. But I did see some cuts and takes on various social media outlets. I think it’s important to see just exactly how far his deterioration has gone and how that’s impacting policies that are extremely damaging for our country and the world.

The Guardian’s Andrew Feinberg reports the debacle this way. “‘Could only happen to Trump’: President hijacks Cabinet meeting to cry about lawsuits over his radical DC plans. President launches into extended stemwinder of grievances ranging from lawsuits over the Kennedy Center to the Justice Department’s failure to bring sham charges against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.”

President Donald Trump spent roughly 15 minutes of a cabinet meeting on Thursday complaining about a historic preservation group’s efforts to block him from shutting down the Kennedy Center for a purported preservation and grousing about the Justice Department being unable to prosecute the chairman of the Federal Reserve over their renovation.

The president was in the middle of a long soliloquy about fixing up the Washington, DC-based arts center — which was built in honor of assassinated President John F. Kennedy — when he began to claim the controversial renovation would be “under budget, ahead of schedule” and unfavorably compared the project to the long-running rehab of the nearly century-old Federal Reserve headquarters.

He quickly pivoted to airing a related grievance about the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a congressionally chartered nonprofit that has filed multiple lawsuits against his administration to block the construction of his planned White House ballroom after he ordered the historic East Wing reduced to rubble last fall.

“Everything I do, I get sued. Under budget, ahead of schedule, I get sued over a ballroom that’s going to be the most beautiful ballroom in the country … we get sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. They don’t know what they’re doing,” he said.

He also complained that he’d separately been facing litigation over the Kennedy Center project and suggested the lawsuit was only attributable to the center’s board — made up of loyalists he appointed after taking office and sacking the previous leadership — adding his name to the name of the organization.

“Then I just found out we got sued by that group and another group … I guess on the fixing up of again, I’ll use the old name Kennedy Center — it’s going to be beautiful when you add the name Trump,” he said.

“But we got sued, and all I’m doing is fixing it up. We’re fixing broken marble. We’re putting on a roof because it leaks like a sieve. We’re fixing steel that’s broken. Same building, same exact building we’re fixing. It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be so beautiful and safe … but think of it. I get sued because I’m fixing up the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re going to make it gorgeous and safe. We’re fixing new windows, do this, but just all fix up. I got sued by preservationists.”

“This could only happen to Trump,” he added.

The president eventually pivoted back to attacking the Federal Reserve renovation and the central bank’s chairman, Jerome Powell, with whom he has spent years feuding over Powell’s failure to keep interest rates low to help Republicans’ electoral prospects.

This PBS News headline shows the lies Trump’s spreading on the Iran War. “WATCH: Trump says in Cabinet meeting he doesn’t ‘know if we’re willing’ to make a deal with Iran.”

President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that Iran is “begging” to make a deal.

Watch in our video player above.

The president, speaking at the start of a Thursday Cabinet meeting, said he wanted to “set the record straight” that he isn’t the one pushing for a deal.

WATCH: Iran rejects Trump’s ceasefire terms and issues own demands as war continues

“They’re begging to make a deal, not me,” Trump said.

Iranian officials have denied that they’re negotiating with the U.S. as the war continues in its fourth week. Trump insisted they are.

“Anybody would know they’re talking,” he said. “They’re not fools, they’re very smart actually in a certain way. And they’re great negotiators. I say they’re lousy fighters but they’re great negotiators.”

What kind of crazy does it take to negotiate with this kind of language?  Lousy fighters?  Read more about the meeting at the link. People Magazine reports an incident that sounds like the sounds like the strawberry incident in The Caine Mutiny. “Trump Rambles About Sharpie Pens for 5 Straight Minutes During High-Level Cabinet Meeting amid Iran War. The president said he was sharing “a business story” near the end of his lengthy tangent.”

Donald Trump embarked on an unrelated and rambling story about Sharpie pens during a Cabinet meeting this week.

On Thursday, March 26, the 79-year-old president met with members of his Cabinet, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. During the meeting, they discussed topics ranging from the war in Iran to his decision to vote by mail in a recent Florida special election in his home district of Palm Beach.

At one point, Trump broke into a story about his use of Sharpie-brand pens while discussing renovations that are ongoing at the Federal Reserve. He blasted the project as being unnecessarily expensive, saying that he could have done it for much less and that “it would be better” than the current project.

After blaming “incompetent people” in the government for “a lot of problems” currently affecting the United States, he picked up a Sharpie on the table and started his story.

“See this pen right here? This pen is an interesting example. It’s the same thing. So, this pen is very inexpensive, but it writes well. I like it. But I can’t have the pen the way it was. You know what it is; I don’t want to give too much publicity, but they do treat me well. Sharpie,” he said.

Trump said that when he came to the White House they had “$1,000 pens” [of a different brand] and that he’d often give them away to as many as 30 or 40 people while signing autographs.

“They were $1,000 a piece. Beautiful pen. Ballpoint. Thousand. It was gold, silver, gorgeous. But I’m handing them out to kids that don’t even know what they … ‘What’s this, mommy?’ These kids, they’re getting a pen for $1,000. They have no idea what it is,” he said, adding that he felt “guilty” that he wasn’t saving the government money.

On top of being expensive, the pens “had another problem,” he said. “They didn’t write well. So I take it out, and I sign and there’s no ink. And I’ve got all you people [the assembled press] looking, and you’re saying, ‘There must be something wrong with Trump.’ And I’m signing and there’s no ink the pen and it costs $1,000.”

Irritated by what he implied was government waste, he said that he reached out to Sharpie and said he’d “like to use your pen, but I can’t have a gray thing with a big ‘S’ on it.’ “

Meanwhile, what does it say when you’re base want’s you impeached?

CPAC speaker: How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings?Crowd: *cheers*CPAC speaker: No. That was the wrong answer. Let me try it again…

— Headquarters (@headquartersnews.bsky.social) 2026-03-27T15:54:35.229Z

Lisa Needham, writing for Public Notice, asks this great question. “What do you do when you can’t trust the government? The haze of contradictions and confusion is a feature, not a bug.”

We’re a month into President Donald Trump’s increasingly disastrous Iran war, and we have no idea what’s really going on.

In part, that’s because Trump is now nothing but a creature of pure id surrounded by enablers, running the country like an enormous out-of-control toddler. But it’s also because the administration is not at all interested in providing the American people with objective, reliable information.

That erasure of truth leaves us unmoored.

Trump’s increasing instability was always going to lead to chaotic, contradictory statements about the war, blurting out whatever ideas have taken hold in the nest of spiders inside his head.

TRUMP: "This war has been won"TRUMP MINUTES LATER: "People don't like me using the word 'war,' so I won't"ALSO TRUMP DURING SAME EVENT: "They call it a war. I call it a military operation"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-03-24T19:45:51.459Z

These constant reversals about what he plans to do next aren’t always random or delusional, but the sheer volume of Trumpian proclamations that seem divorced from reality does a terrific job of obscuring when something is deliberate.

That was the case at least until earlier this week, when Trump decided to use the Iran war to engage in a little light market manipulation. Well, some pretty hefty market manipulation, actually.

Heather Cox Richardson has some even more damning evidence at her SubStack.

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Singapore’s minister for foreign affairs, Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, put in bald language the change in the world order instigated by President Donald J. Trump.

“For 80 years,” Balakrishnan explained, “the US was the underwriter for a system of globalisation based on UN Charter principles, multilateralism, territorial integrity, sovereign equality.” That system “heralded an unprecedented and unique period of global prosperity and peace. Of course there were exceptions. And of course, the Cold War was still in effect for at least half of the last 80 years. But generally, for those of us who were non-communists, who ran open economies, who provided first world infrastructure, together with a hardworking disciplined people, we had unprecedented opportunities.

“The story of Singapore, with a per capita GDP of 500 US dollars in 1965. Now, [it is] somewhere between 80,000 to 90,000 US dollars. It would not have happened if it had not been for this unprecedented period, basically Pax Americana and then turbocharged by the reform and opening of China for decades. It has been unprecedented. It has been great for many of us. In fact, I will say, for all of us, if you look back 80 years.

“But now, whether you like it or not, objectively, this period has ended…. Basically, the underwriter of this world order has now become a revisionist power, and some people would even say a disruptor. But the larger point is that the erosion of norms, processes, and institutions that underpinned a remarkable period of peace and prosperity; that foundation has gone.”

In its place, as scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder said to me in a YouTube conversation yesterday, Trump is aligning himself with international oligarchs like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), and China’s Xi Jinping. Because of his position as the president of the United States of America, this means he is aligning the United States of America with this oligarchical axis as well, abandoning the country’s democratic principles and traditional allies.

Our foreign policy was never pristine.  All you have to do is look at the CIA during the post World War 2 years to see adventurism in South America, Africa, and Southeastern Asia to see that.  However, we did assert some global leadership that created some stability, peace, and trade agreements. Now, all bets are off with us under Trump.

The craziness just continues and the disruption to what once was a mostly functioning democratic republic is obvious. How about this bit of narcissim?  This is from today’s New York Times. “Trump’s Signature Is Set to Be Added to America’s Currency. President Trump is poised to be the first sitting president to have his signature appear on the U.S. dollar.”

Or just another story coming about some asshole cabinet member.  This one from the head of the “Department of War.”  It’s also from the New York Times. “Hegseth Strikes Two Black and Two Female Officers From Promotion List, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s highly unusual decision to remove officers from a one-star promotion list has spurred allegations of racial and gender bias.”

They’re rewriting the script on every value this country has held.

Well, I’m off to the long, wretched task of reworking my mortgage just so I can fix somethings on my house. As a person who has been a banker on all kinds of levels from the FED to a communithy bank I can tell you that I have never seen such a mess. I’m certain I have all this AI shit to thank for it. The documentation requirements are just unbelievable.

I hope your weekend goes well and that you can manage to stay above the news and the national fray.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Sweet Goddesses, I miss performaning this song in the Quarter. I need to go back to gigging.  Anything’s better than teaching Economics in this damn environment.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97hwNY3ni10?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=590&h=332]