Category: FUCK TRUMP

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Monday Tiedrich

Donny Convict is bugfuck nuts.

you know it, and I know it — but do you know who else knows it? all the president’s flunkies. they have to continually come up with new ways to deal with his crazypants shit on a daily basis.

here’s a perfectly normal thing that happened with our perfectly normal president.

recently, Donny was acting so erratically while military leaders were planning a rescue operation in Iran, that big strong aides with tears in their eyes had to go up to him and say, ‘sir! sir! why don’t you go play in traffic?’

I shit you not. according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Donny actually got banned from the command room.

Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful, instead updating him at meaningful moments, a senior administration official said.

that’s right: Donny’s handlers had to keep him far away from what was going on, because he was so out of control that they were afraid he would fuck everything up.

can you imagine any other president in recent memory getting eighty-sixed from the center of operations? no, you can’t. it’s practically unthinkable.

here’s how that shit went down. remember that Good Friday incident, when Iran shot down an American jet, and nobody knew what had happened to the pilots? it turns that when he was given the news, Donny shat a massive brick

It was Good Friday afternoon in a nearly empty West Wing soon after the president learned that an American jet had been shot down in Iran, with two airmen missing. Trump screamed at aides for hours.

because everyone knows that the best way to motivate your staff is to get right up into their faces and just fucking unload on them for hours on end. Donny really is the boss from hell.

am I the only one getting ‘Hitler in the bunker’ vibes from Donny’s meltdown?

oh my god, can you imagine having this colicky piss-baby screaming at you for literal hours? no amount of money in the world could be worth having the rancid fecal-breath of that malignant toad being blown in your face as you endured the latest in an infinite series of dressing-downs — not to mention all the hurled ketchup bottles one would eternally be ducking.

seriously, you couldn’t pay me enough. if it were me on the receiving end of one of Donny’s tirades, I’d be all ‘how about you go fuck yourself, Shouty Boy?’

do know why Donny completely lost his shit? because he was worried that news of a downed jet would make him look bad.

“If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump had said in March. “What a mess.”

picture it: generals with actual combat experience are trying to figure out the best way to bring pilots back from behind enemy lines, and this fucking lunatic is screaming about Jimmy Carter and the price of gas, as if an entire rescue operation was all just some big plot to inconvenience him — because Donny always has to make everything about himself.

oh, and get a load of this.

At one point he even mused he should award himself the nation’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor.

FOR WHAT? my god, everyone who had to sit there and eat Donny’s shit while he screamed at them without end, they’re the ones who deserve the Medal of Honor.

sorry, Donny — you don’t get a Medal of Honor. what you get is the Four Seasons Total Prancing About Like A Complete Unhinged Fuckface Prize.

just to remind everyone, here’s how a president is supposed to act during a critical military operation.

that was Obama, in the Situation Room while Osama bin Laden was being taken out. notice how he’s not screaming in anyone’s faces about GET THIS FUCKING THING DONE ALREADY. nor is he ranting and raving about how bad he’ll look if shit goes sideways. he’s just a calm, rational dude.

but now we’ve normalized crazy. Donny pulls this childish crap on a daily basis, making a mockery of sane governance, and everyone is all just ‘well, okay. that happened.’

here’s a fun thing for All The President’s Toadies to consider: if you can ban a president from a command room for being too much of a raging lunatic, you can 25th Amendment him from the presidency for the exact same reason.

this deranged fucking maniac is back to calling for the complete destruction of Iran’s infrastructure.

“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”

no more mister nice guy? when was Preznit Fuckwit ever a nice guy?

and oh look, now Donny’s doing his usual Sunday afternoon market manipulation, claiming out of the clear blue that he’s on the verge of another deal with Iran — and, once again, the press dutifully reports it without first bothering to ask Iran if it’s true.

spoiler alert: it’s not true.

all of this is bugfuck nuts. in the span of hours, Donny pinballs from threatening to blow everything sky high, to calmly announcing another imaginary deal.

none of this is normal — and all of it is insane.

here’s a serious question for Donny’s handlers: what’s the plan here? for everyone to just cross their fingers and hope Donny doesn’t eventually call for nukes? are they just hoping Donny somehow magically gets better?

free clue: Donny isn’t going to get better. dementia doesn’t magically cure itself overnight. neither does malignant narcissism, or delusions of grandeur, or compulsive lying, or the need to be worshiped, or any of the thousand pathologies and personality defects that Dear Leader suffers from.

he’s just going to get worse. today, it’s banning Donny from the command room. what’s Dear Leader going to need to be prevented from doing tomorrow?

so let’s go. 25th Amendment now. it’s the only rational solution to the problem of an insane chief executive.

we’ll take our chances with the furniture fucker.

happy Kash Patel is Suing The Atlantic Day to all who observe.

here’s Two-Drinks-Minimum Kash yesterday, shitfaced as usual on Maria Bartiromo’s show.

Maria Bartiromo: “the Atlantic Magazine is alleging that you have a drinking problem. what is your response this morning to this article?”

Krazee-Eyes Kash: “the results, I say, speak for themselves. if the fake news mafia isn’t hitting you personally with baseless information in Washington DC, then you’re not going you job. and it’s louder than ever, because this FBI, under President Leadership …”

Kash goes on to filibuster Bartiromo’s question for a solid two minutes without ever actually denying that any of his ahem alleged blackout-drunk escapades happened.

nice job of deflection, bro.

Kash says he’ll be filing his defamation suit against The Atlantic today. here we have some file footage of a definitely sober Kash, strategizing with his ace team of lawyers.

whoops! wrong footage.

and now, here’s your hero of the day: this fucking duck.

I have no idea what the duck did to deserve this, but remember: if you can 25th Amendment a duck from a store, you can 25th Amendment a lunatic from the presidency.

this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.

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All fake. Just like everything else with Cankles.

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Farce is Dear Leader’s specialty.

Karl Marx referenced Hegel in 1852, noting that great historical events appear twice: “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

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Trump Just Lost a War for America — No One’s Done That Since Nixon

From DAILY KOS:

This time we evacuate a gulf, not a country

TLDR

Trump loosed the dogs of war, screwed the pooch, and now gets to eat a dogshit sandwich. He won on day one and lost everything.  Iran’s regime literally changed — new Supreme Leader, wartime mandate, unified population — and the US is still bombing them for reasons it keeps changing. Iran’s gains include regional legitimacy, control of the straits, and a reset on a domestic crisis.  Now they can run out the clock playing victim, peacemaker, and reasonable adult while Washington circles the drain looking for an exit that doesn’t exist.

Iran is already using the perfect message frame: “The Regime Changed, But the West Hasn’t”.  This is the line that rewrites the entire conflict. The US stated objective was regime change. The Supreme Leader is dead. A new leader governs, but the bombs keep falling. Iran doesn’t need to win the argument — it just needs to keep asking the question: “What exactly are you still fighting for?”

Every day without an answer makes the war less defensible, less popular, and more expensive.

Meanwhile – if they’d STARTED the war– here’s what they’ve won:

    • Tollkeeper on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran now controls selective passage through 20% of global oil and LNG transit. Ships pass with Iranian permission. The US Navy no longer guarantees freedom of navigation.
    • Sanctions-proof oil revenue. Crude above $100/barrel, buyers desperate, sanctions architecture functionally collapsed. Iran went from struggling to sell oil to naming its price.
    • Domestic unity. The largest protests since 1979 disappeared overnight. The population that was in open revolt in January is unified behind the government by March.
    • Generational leadership renewal. Mojtaba Khamenei inherits with wartime martyr legitimacy instead of through a messy backroom succession crisis.
    • Regional military credibility. Demonstrated the ability to strike US bases across six countries and hold the entire Gulf at risk simultaneously.
    • Moral high ground. Attacked during active negotiations. Schools hit. Hospitals, research centers, and Red Crescent warehouses bombed. Iran doesn’t need propaganda — it needs cameras.
    • Coalition fracture. NATO allies — France, Spain, Italy — withdrew military support. France recognized Iranian authority over Hormuz by requesting passage. The Western alliance is splitting in real time.

Iran already has a great plan for victory terms to end the war they didn’t start; demands that age like wine, a fresh regional propaganda narrative, and simply running the clock favors them politically and militarily.

Iran’s stated terms — stop the bombing, lift sanctions, guarantee sovereignty, acknowledge the right to a peaceful nuclear program — are calibrated to sound ambitious on day one and obvious by day 60. Time itself converts Iran’s position from a wish list to common sense. They don’t need Washington to say yes today. They need the rest of the world to say “that seems fair” by summer. And the world is already moving in that direction.

Iran’s message to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain is lethally simple: “We didn’t bomb your country. We bombed the American base in your country. Remove the base, remove the problem.” That’s an offer disguised as a threat. It lands differently in Riyadh when Saudi civilians are catching shrapnel from a war they didn’t ask for, didn’t start, and don’t benefit from. Iran is telling the Gulf states they have a termite problem and the termites are American.

Every day the regime isn’t toppled, the premise of the war dies. A younger Supreme Leader with wartime legitimacy leads a unified population in a country that is battered but standing. The US has no theory of victory that survives contact with this reality. The military said “weeks.” The analysts said “months.” Iran says “forever if necessary.” Time favors the defender — always has.

Their plan is coming along just fine.  All three tracks point to the same destination: the US either negotiates on Iranian terms or just leaves. There is no middle ground that saves face for Washington.

The coalition is already fracturing — France, Spain, and Italy pulled military support. France sent a ship through Hormuz with Iranian permission, functionally recognizing Iran’s authority over the strait. NATO allies are drifting. Domestic pressure is building as gas prices climb and grocery bills follow.

Meanwhile Iran stands at the UN and says: “Our father is dead. Our schools are rubble. Our children are buried. The regime you wanted changed has changed. Why are you still bombing us?”

Nobody has a good answer. And the longer nobody has a good answer, the more Iran wins.

The Mojtaba Factor is their hole card- the ace that will win the game no matter how everything else shakes out.  This is the sleeper inside the sleeper. Mojtaba Khamenei holds two identities simultaneously and they complement perfectly.

Domestically — the martyr’s son, carrying the revolution forward under fire. Maximum legitimacy, zero succession crisis.

Internationally — the new face, unburdened by his father’s decades of confrontation. “I am not my father’s grudges. I am my nation’s future.” He can offer the world a clean slate narrative while the US is stuck explaining why it’s bombing a country led by someone it’s never dealt with before.

He is both continuity and change at the same time, and that is an extraordinarily powerful position for a wartime leader.

Iran’s only way to lose is overreach. If they escalate Hormuz to a permanent closure, the multinational naval coalition forms. If Mojtaba sounds like his father, the new-face narrative dies. If retaliatory strikes kill too many Gulf civilians, the whisper campaign collapses.

Restraint is the weapon now. Discipline is the strategy. And so far, they’re executing.

Iran didn’t win the war in the way wars are supposed to be won. They won it the way the weaker party always wins — by surviving, by making the stronger party’s victory impossible to define, and by being more patient than the country that attacked them.  What’s more, Trump’s incompetence handed them a veritable cornucopia of fringe benefits to offset all the physical damage.  Damage that can be repaired, from a moral high ground.

The regime changed. The West hasn’t. And that’s the ballgame.  Enjoy your sandwich, Mr. Trump.

**UPDATED**

hormuz_v3_kos.jpg
Iran has been doing quite well selling high priced oil since the war started

Trump Tax on oil-he’s sharing the sandwich

April 4, 2026

Going forward we all get a new Trump Tax on oil.  The price of oil just got permanently more expensive. Not temporarily. Not until the war ends. Permanently. There are three layers to this, and they stack. Every one of them lands at the gas pump. And none of them are coming back down.

Layer 1: The Strait Is Now a Proven Kill Zone

Before February 28, insuring a tanker to transit the Strait of Hormuz cost about 0.125% of the ship’s value. This fraction of a penny on every barrel was background noise.

Today it costs 5%. That’s a forty-fold increase. For a $100 million VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier), that’s $5 million per transit — up from $125,000. Bloomberg reported premiums surged to roughly five times the level seen in the earliest days of the war, and an even larger multiple of pre-conflict rates. Lloyd’s Joint War Committee redesignated the entire Arabian Gulf as a conflict zone. Major insurers — Gard, Skuld, NorthStandard, the London P&I Club — cancelled existing war risk policies entirely and offered replacements at roughly sixty times pre-crisis rates.

And here’s the thing about insurance: it has a memory. A long one.

After the 1980s Tanker War, premiums in the Gulf never fully returned to pre-war levels. After the Red Sea crisis in 2024-25, Houthi attacks drove war risk premiums up 500% — and they stayed elevated even after the ceasefire. Insurance companies are not in the business of forgetting that ships got hit. Twenty-one confirmed attacks on merchant vessels. Mines laid in the strait. Tankers burning. A crew member killed. That actuarial data is now permanently in the model.

Even if peace breaks out tomorrow, even if the strait reopens fully, the insurance industry now prices Hormuz as a proven combat zone. Premiums will come down from 5%, sure. But they will never return to 0.125%. The floor just moved. Analysts estimate a permanent geopolitical risk premium of $8 to $14 per barrel — baked in, forever, on every barrel that transits the strait. Twenty percent of the world’s oil.

That’s Layer 1. It’s already here. It’s not going away.

Layer 2: The Tollbooth

Iran now controls selective passage through the Strait of Hormuz. France sent a ship through — with Iranian permission. Iran’s ghost fleet transits freely while everyone else asks for clearance off Qeshm Island. The US Navy, the most powerful maritime force in human history, is not guaranteeing freedom of navigation. Iran is granting it.

If this holds — and every week it holds makes it harder to reverse — Iran becomes the tollbooth operator on 20% of global oil. The country that was sanctioned into near-bankruptcy six months ago now sits at the cash register of the world’s most important energy corridor.

What does a toll look like? It doesn’t have to be a line item on an invoice. It can be preferential pricing for allies. Delayed clearance for unfriendly flags. “Administrative fees” for transit documentation. Selective enforcement of “safety inspections.” Iran doesn’t need to call it a toll. It just needs to control the clock on every ship that passes through.

Conservative estimates put even a modest transit regime at $1 to $3 per barrel. On 15 million barrels a day, that’s $15 to $45 million daily flowing to Tehran. That’s $5 to $16 billion a year — roughly what Iran was earning from all oil exports before the war.

That’s Layer 2. It stacks on top of Layer 1.

Layer 3: The Reparations

Iran’s schools are rubble. Over 600 education centers hit. Hospitals damaged. Bridges destroyed. Thousands of civilians dead. The infrastructure bill for rebuilding is going to be enormous — and Iran is going to want someone to pay for it.

Not the United States. Washington doesn’t pay reparations. Never has, probably never will.

But Iran doesn’t need Washington to write a check. It needs the strait.

If Iran embeds reconstruction costs into its transit regime — call it a “waterway maintenance surcharge,” call it a “regional stability contribution,” call it whatever makes the diplomats comfortable — that’s a third layer on every barrel. And unlike a negotiated settlement that gets paid once, a transit surcharge collects forever. It’s an annuity funded by the global economy.

Even a modest reparations layer — $1 to $2 per barrel — generates $5 to $11 billion per year. Enough to rebuild schools. Enough to fund a new military. Enough to make the war profitable in the long run.

That’s Layer 3. It stacks on top of Layers 1 and 2.

What It Means at the Pump

Let’s add it up.

    • Layer 1 (insurance): $8 to $14 per barrel, permanent
    • Layer 2 (tollbooth): $1 to $3 per barrel, if Iran holds the strait
    • Layer 3 (reparations): $1 to $2 per barrel, if Iran collects

Total: $10 to $19 per barrel in new, permanent costs on every barrel that passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Every $10 increase in crude translates to roughly 24 cents per gallon at the pump. So we’re looking at 25 to 45 cents per gallon — baked in, structural, not going away when the war ends, not going away when the headlines fade, not going away ever.

On a 15-gallon fill-up, that’s $3.75 to $6.75 extra. Every time. For the rest of your driving life.

And that’s the optimistic scenario — the one where the war ends soon, the strait reopens, and things go back to “normal.” The new normal. The normal where the world’s most important energy chokepoint has been proven vulnerable, where insurance companies never forget, and where Iran learned that controlling four miles of water is worth more than any nuclear program ever was.

Let’s call it what it is — a Trump Tax on oil.  One the entire globe will be enjoying for many years to come.

Trump will be sharing that sandwich with the rest of us, long after he’s gone. The only question now is how big a bite you have to take every time you fill the tank.

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Cinematic Epistemology

From Greg Fallis:

It’s pretty clear that the main actors in the war against Iran are operating under a system of cinematic epistemology. I’m talking about Comrade President Trump, the Secretary of What Used to be the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and the entirety of Comrade Trump’s Cabinet of Nazgûl.

Cinematic epistemology is a term coined by Julian Sanchez. Basically, epistemology is the study of how we know what we know–how we achieve an understanding of how the world works. Cinematic epistemology is an understanding of the world grounded in movies. It’s naive, of course. Love in real life doesn’t work out the way it does in a rom-com. Criminal investigations aren’t done they way they’re depicted in television cop shows. Wars aren’t fought and won they way they are in action films.

But that’s exactly how Trump and Hegseth viewed their assault on Iran. Send in the Air Force, bomb the absolute shit out of a bunch of targets, let Hegseth make a few movie speeches accompanied by manly hand gestures, let Trump threaten our enemies and mock our allies, intimidate the nation into submission. Surely, once our allies saw our overwhelming military might, they’d wish they’d been a part of the war. Surely, once Iran saw they were up against a vastly superior military force, they’d quickly give in. TrumpCo knew it would take longer than a movie screening, but in their minds the outcome was pretty much guaranteed. Punch Iran in the face, take the fight out of them, roll credits.

It didn’t help that it largely did work like that in Venezuela. That quick, limited, precise military operation only solidified their cinematic world view. Trump, on Fox News, even said, “I watched it literally like I was watching a television show. If you would’ve seen the speed, the violence…it was an amazing thing.” But Iran isn’t Venezuela. Everybody knew Iran would hit back. Well, everybody but the folks encouraging Trump to attack Iran.

Iran, predictably, did hit back. They hit everybody in the region who’d who’d cooperated with the US. Trump and his people were surprised. “They weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East,” Trump said. “Nobody expected that. We were shocked.” He went on to say, “Nobody, nobody, no, no, no. No, the greatest experts—nobody thought they were going to hit.”

The actual experts, of course, knew Iran would hit back. Actual experts assumed Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. The actual experts understood the international scope of a shooting war involving Iran. The actual experts realized a war in Iran could/would lead to a global energy crisis that could/would result in fuel and food shortages in the US and possibly a global recession.

The problem with actual experts is that the Trump administration got rid of them.

TrumpCo, of course, doesn’t know what to do now. Hegseth apparently wants to keep bombing, hoping somehow that just a few more bombs will make all the difference. Trump is bored with the movie; it’s lasting too long and he’s not enjoying the plot; he’d like to just leave the theater. He’s bored with the movie and furious that he bought a ticket to begin with. He’s pissed and desperate and is flailing about wildly.

My biggest fear right now is that Trump, out of spite or because he has a child’s self-control, will decide to set fire to the theater.

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Tuesday Tiedrich

Preznit Fuckwit continues to wage Schrödinger’s Don’t-You-Dare-Call-It-A-War on Iran.

we’re winning! we’ve almost won! we’re wrapping this thing up! we’ve already won, and that’s why we’re sending five thousand more troops to the region! we’re talking to the new regime! we think we’re talking to the new regime! we don’t know who we’re talking to! the Strait of Hormuz is already open! we demand Iran open the Strait immediately! who gives a shit about the Strait, we don’t need it! our allies are helping us! why won’t our allies help us? fuck you, we don’t need any allies to win this thing! besides, we’ve already won, again!

it’s exhausting to try to track it all — but the one consistent aspect throughout all this incoherence remains Donny’s love of doing war crimes.

I mean, how else can you explain this?

The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched.” This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.” Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

that was our fucked-in-the-head president, awake and colicky at 7:26 yesterday morning, shitting out yet another not-tweet full of contradictory nonsense.

first he brags about how super-awesome the negotiations are going with his new Iranian besties, and then he cranks the belligerence dial all the way to eleven, threatening to bomb the shit out of Iran if they don’t give him everything he wants, pronto.

look at what Donny threatens to ‘obliterate’ — the ‘Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants).’

fun true fact: there’s a term for the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure. it’s called committing war crimes — because all that shit violates international law.

I hate that we’ve normalized this shit, so let me once again point out how completely crazypants it is for a world leader to threaten a sovereign nation and promise to commit war crimes via a post on social media. no other country on the planet does this. America is now a rogue state, and an international embarrassment.

awesome job, Donny. take a victory lap.

apparently Wall Street only read the first sentence of Donny’s not-tweet, because following its posting, the stock market reacted in the most Wall Street way possible.

“Dow rises 400 points after Trump says U.S. in ‘serious’ talks to end operation in Iran:”

seriously, Wall Street? how many times are you going to fall for this shit? once again, Donny farts out some deliberate lie about how well his Iranian debacle is going, and once again, Wall Street is all ‘this time I’m going to kick that football a fucking mile!’

of course there’s a simple explanation for Donny’s ever-shifting narrative about how well his don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war is going: he’s stark barking bugfuck, and he hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s doing.

Plastered Pete Kegstand convinced Donny that his warfighting warfigherswould warfight the shit out of Iran, and that the whole thing would be over in fifteen minutes. when that didn’t happen, there was no plan B to turn to — because these high-on-their-own-supply shitwits always act first and think never.

and now, all Dear Leader can do is panic, flail, issue threats, and try to lie his way out of it by farting out one barely-credible fairy tale after another.

it’s Schrödinger’s War. it’s going however Donny wants you to believe it’s going.

isn’t this bloodthirsty bobble-head supposed to be some sort of uber-Christian? what kind of example is she setting for her children?

Karoline thinks it’s super fucking hilarious that the Ayatollah done got blowed up real good right in the middle of negotiations, because Donny got impatient — which, if that’s not an outright war crime, is at least war-crime-adjacent.

let’s watch NBC’s Garrett Haake commit one of the finest journalisms we’ve seen in a long time, as he asks Karoliar to explain why Donny is threatening to blow civilian shit up real good.

Garrett Haake: “under international law, striking civilian infrastructure like that is generally prohibited. why is the president threatening what would amount to potentially a war crime with the US military? how you do square that with the administration repeatedly saying that the US does not target civilians?”

excellent question — one that gets an evasive non-answer answer.

Karoline Leavitt: “look, the president has made it quite clear to the Iranian regime at this moment in time, as evidenced by the statement that you just read, that their best move is to make a deal, or else the United States armed forces has capabilities beyond their wildest imagination, and the president is not afraid to use them.”

Haake: “war crimes?”

Leavitt: “that’s not what I said, Garrett. and you’re saying the word ‘potential’ for a reason, ’cause I’m sure some experts are telling you that in your ear, to try to ask me that question. of course this administration and the armed forces will always act within the confines of the law, but with respect to achieving the full objectives of the operation.”

but Haake won’t take bullshit for an answer and delivers the coup de grace.

Haake: “which of those objectives would destroying a desalination plant most help?”

check and fucking mate. Brave Sir Karoline has no answer to that, so she just runs away and calls on a different reporter.

Leavitt: “Haley, go ahead.”

meanwhile, there is one war that Donny’s definitely winning: the war on competence. look at the chyron on this screen grab from CNN — it’s a big bowl of what in the actual fuck.

US questions whether it’s dealing with the right Iranian officials.”

how do you not know that? how do you fuck that up?

are these clownsticks just dialing random Tehran phone numbers and hoping for the best?

who does Donny imagine he’s been talking to, when he tweets out “The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME”? is anyone from this ‘reasonable’ regime in the room with us right now?

apparently not.

U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. is negotiating with Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, in an interview with the New York Post published Monday.

The former Revolutionary Guard commander was previously floated as Washington’s negotiating partner, but has denied Iran is talking to the U.S. and said Pakistan-facilitated discussions were merely a cover for American troop deployments.

you don’t even know who to believe anymore, because everyone involved in this catastrophe totally fucking sucks.

and then there’s this.

“President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.”

oh great. now that Donny’s clownfucked the world into simultaneous energy and economic crises, he’s going to knock the board over and walk away.

anyone with a half a brain could have seen this coming a mile away.

the failing failure who failed at running a real estate empire and failed at running casinos and failed at running an airline and failed at running a magazine and failed at running a football team and failed at selling steaks and failed at selling water and failed at fighting a pandemic and failed at not getting convicted on 34 counts of business fraud has now failed at waging his don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war on Iran.

and, as always, Donny is going to leave a huge fucking mess for someone else to clean up after.

not my problem!

hey, but at least Piss-Drunk Pete is having the time of his life.

 

I witnessed lethality. I met a junior airman as the sun was going down and a chill was setting on the tarmac, who, when asked what they needed, she simply looked up at me with a sly smile on her face and said, more bombs, sir, and bigger bombs. we will happily oblige her.”

‘I witnessed lethality’ — who talks like this, other than some insecure adolescent boy who never matured into an adult?

fuck all the way off, you blood-spattered maniac. eat skateboard.

this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.

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What’s Going On

As Trump continues to flail in the aftermath of his disastrous handling of the economy, the Epstein files, and now a new war in the Middle East, he took to Truth Social with a pretty unhinged threat:

If Democrats don’t agree to his demands, he’s going to send ICE agents into airports to handle security and start making arrests.

So if airport security already feels chaotic right now, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Here’s What They’re Doing

Democrats have put forward multiple standalone bills to fund TSA (and FEMA and the Coast Guard), which Republicans have blocked six times as of March 20.

They want DHS fully funded: no concessions, no conditions, no accountability. Now, Democrats are absolutely open to funding the department, but with some basic guardrails: no masks, ICE agents must identify themselves, requiring judicial warrants to enter private property, and stay away from polling places.

You know, baseline following the law. All of which is completely reasonable. Republicans keep rejecting this anyway. So, instead of funding TSA and ending this immediately, they’re making the conscious decision to hold up funding and use the chaos as leverage.

Why it Matters Right Now

This workaround isn’t going to fix the problem. Sending untrained ICE agents in to triage long security lines packed with travelers on edge is not setting them up for success. Now we have ICE playing the role of TSA at US airports. Moving on from their previous role as “law enforcement” in American cities. We all saw how that went. What could possibly go wrong this time?

Spin vs. Reality

They’re saying: Democrats are causing the chaos at airports.
What’s actually happening: Republicans are blocking standalone TSA funding and tying it to unrelated DHS demands.

They’re saying: This is about making airports “safe again.”
What’s actually happening: They’re proposing to replace TSA agents with ICE agents, who aren’t trained to perform security screenings (let alone anything else).

They’re saying: Democrats won’t negotiate.
What’s actually happening: Democrats agreed to fund DHS with basic guardrails. Democrats put forth multiple clean bills to fund TSA. Republicans rejected all of it.

Who Loses

It’s the travelers stuck in endless security lines at the peak of Spring Break travel. It’s exhausted TSA agents forced to work without pay, doing double duty as more and more employees, understandably, call out of work. It’s the airlines forced to hold flights, leading to a domino effect that will cause delays across the country. And it’s travelers coming into the country whose first interaction will now be with the same trigger-happy losers whose actions have scared off tourists and now threaten the upcoming World Cup. (Which the already decimated tourism industry is counting on for a much needed boost.)

In the DHS funding standoff, TSA is the main pain point. It’s the one arm of the department that most regular people interact with most often. As the wait times at security get longer, and lines snake out onto the sidewalk, it’s regular Americans who are feeling the pain here.

The Pattern Here

We have the complete breakdown of an apolitical agency that performs a basic function for everyone. And we have one party using America’s headache for leverage.

The Republicans are once again holding American’s basic needs hostage in order to extract some completely unrealistic concessions from Democrats. Before it was healthcare, this time it’s the TSA (and FEMA, and the Coast Guard, so you’d better hope there’s no natural disasters or maritime… “excursions” before this is over.) How will they inconvenience us next for political gain?

Bottom Line

This could all be over tomorrow. Congress could fund TSA, agents would get their paychecks and return to work. Delays would disappear. Democrats want to do it. It’s Republicans who refuse to offer a single compromise.

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Tuesday Tiedrich

tell me, is it a bad thing when the president of the United States clownfucks his way into an unprovoked, unnecessary and illegal don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war on Iran, kills over a hundred schoolgirls, destabilizes the entire Middle East, gets the Strait of Hormuz shut down, creates a global energy and financial crisis, and then, realizing he’s shit the bed royally, tries to lie his way out of it?

lucky us, we’re right in the middle of finding out.

yesterday morning, President Piss-Baby declared that a five-day ceasefire was now in effect, because he’d been having some great peace talks with Iran, very strong, very powerful peace talks, peace talks like few thought possible — maybe the greatest peace talks of all time.

the most important thing you need to know about Donny’s all caps crazypants blithering is that it’s pure, unadulterated horse shit. it’s a fever-swamp hallucination — and very little of it is true.

first of all, Iran mocked the shit out of the very idea that peace talks are happening, throwing Donny’s favorite phrase back in his face.

“No negotiations have been held with the US, and fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,” wrote MB Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker.

here’s another clue that Donny doesn’t even have the framework of a concept of a sketch of an outline for a proposal of an almost-a-plan for peace talks: when reporters pressed him for details, he just started pulling numbers out of his flatulent ass.

Kaitlan Collins: “you said there’s many points of agreement with Iran right now.”

Donny: “many.”

Collins: “can you give us a few?”

Donny: “like, many. like, fifteen points. fifteen points.”

Collins: “that Iran said yes to?”

Donny: “well, they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon. that’s number one. number one, two and three. they will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Collins: “they’ve said yes to that?”

Donny: “they agreed to that.”

oh, so Donny is claiming that Iran has agreed to the same deal they’d previously signed with Obama — the one that Donny ripped up eight years ago, because he was jealous of a black man’s accomplishments. awesome.

I love how Donny goes from ‘many’ to ‘fifteen’ as he struggles to come up with a plausible story. and ‘no nuclear weapons’ isn’t just the first point — it’s also the second. no, wait, it’s the third point as well. yeah, that’s the ticket.

watching Dear Leader try improvise numbers on the spot is like watching a chimpanzee play with a live hand grenade. you know it’s going to end badly, but you can’t look away.

I guess Donny used ‘fifteen’ because ‘fifty-seven’ was already taken.

hen, when pressed to name names, Preznit Fuckwit started bullshitting in real-time.

reporter: “who is Steve Witkoff speaking with in Iran?”

Donny: “a top— a top person. don’t forget, we wiped out the leadership, phase one, phase two and largely phase three. but we’re dealing with the man who I believe is— the— most respected and the leader, uh, it’s a little tough. they’ve wiped out— we’ve wiped out everybody.”

reporter: “the Supreme Leader?”

Donny: “no, not the Supreme Leader. we don’t— well nobody’s ever— nobody heard of the second Supreme Leader, the son. nobody— we have not heard from the son. every once in a while you’ll see a statement made but we haven’t had— we don’t know if he’s living. but the people that seem to be running it, and they seem that based on— really fact, because things they’ve said have taken place. I don’t want him to be killed. okay? I don’t want him to be killed.”

I’m sorry, what the fuck? Donny doesn’t want to identify the ‘top person’ he’s been talking to, because they’ll end up being killed? by who? his own government? how does that even make sense?

but Donny will swear up and down that this ‘top person’ really does exist. you don’t know him, though. he lives up in Canada.

and did you catch who Donny’s point-man is in these talks? oh great, Stevie Shitkoff is involved — and not just Shitkoff, but Donny’s over-leveraged and under-qualified son-in-law Jared Kushner as well.

with the Moron Twins on the case, what could possibly go wrong?

as always, to get the real deal on what these dumbfucks have been up to, we have to turn to the indispensable Heather Cox Richardson.

Barak Ravid of Axios later reported that Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—both freelancers who have financial ties to the Middle East—rather than the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, have sent messages to the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, through Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, where intermediaries are trying to set up a call between U.S. and Iranian negotiators. Ghalibaf is a close associate of Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.

so wait — these two numbskulls have been messaging complete randos, hoping and waiting to hear back from someone, anyone? and Donny’s conflated that into ‘good and productive conversations’ with a ‘top person’?

holy fucking shit.

it cannot be overstated just how fucking stupid this all is.

no one could have predicted that a don’t-yo-dare-call-it-a-war that was cooked up by fuckwits and executed from the dining of one of Donny’s vermin-infested golf motels would go so badly.

and now that shit has gone spectacularly sideways, as the markets crater and the price of a barrel of crude goes fuckity-zoom, Donny has no choice but to find a way to TACO out of it, declare victory, and brag that he meant to do that.

dear sweet lord, it’s all so fucking bone-crushingly moronic — and none of it was necessary.

“No negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”

no fucking shit that Donny was manipulating the markets by announcing his imaginary peace talks when he did — because just look at what happened right before and right after the announcement.

person or persons unknown made a fucking killing in the market — and the only way they could have pulled this off was by having insider knowledge of what was Donny was about to announce.

the market-rigging was so blatant that even financial reporters had no choice but to sit up and take notice.

At around 6:50 a.m. in New York, S&P 500 e-Mini futures trading on the CME recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume, breaking from an otherwise subdued premarket backdrop. With thin liquidity typical of early trading hours, the sudden burst stood out as one of the largest volume moments of the session up to that point.

it’s really too bad that Congress isn’t alive to see this, because this is exactly the kind of shit they should be investigating.

it’s just one more instance of naked corruption to be thrown atop the giant shitpile of corruption that goes on every day in Dear Leader’s White House. everything these goniffs do is engineered to shovel more money into the pockets of Donny, his family, and his cronies.

how much moolah did Preznit Fuckwit make off his own conveniently-timed announcement of his fictitious peace talks?

will we ever find out?

here’s the other batshit thing Donny did yesterday: he visited Graceland, Elvis Presley’s Memphis mansion — and while he was there, he asked the one burning question that I’m sure has been on all of our minds.

“could I have taken Elvis in a fight?”

what a fucking lunatic. who even thinks like this?

I know exactly what’s going on with Donny’s desire to whale the tar out of the King of Rock and Roll. it’s pure jealousy on his part — because there was one president who really did get to meet Elvis: Richard Nixon.

I shit you not.

On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley paid a visit to President Richard M. Nixon at the White House in Washington, D.C. The meeting was initiated by Presley, who wrote Nixon a six-page letter requesting a visit with the President and suggesting that he be made a “Federal Agent-at-Large” in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

oh, and while he was there in the Oval Office, Elvis gave Tricky Dick a gun — as will happen when everyone in the story is a certified weirdo.

how fucking hilarious is it that Elvis wanted to be a ‘Federal Agent-at-Large’ in charge of ‘dangerous drugs’? that’s like making Donny a Federal Agent In Charge of Not Bankrupting Casinos.

hanging on the wall in the White House gallery is a photo of Nixon and Elvis shaking hands. Donny probably walks past that photo every day — and I’m sure it kills him that Nixon got to meet Elvis, and he never will.

hey, you know who else got to walk past that photo?

yes, we get it, Jeff. you got invited to the Biden White House. stop showing off.

this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.

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Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

A Message to the Would-Be King…

We see that you’ve declared yet another war this week.

This time, you haven’t viciously attacked some distant nation whose people you’ve bombed without cause, as a reckless and deadly act of distraction.

This time, you haven’t launched a violent campaign against brown-skinned human beings, whose dehumanization you’ve trafficked in for over a decade.

This time, you haven’t brought relentless trauma to survivors of the predators and rapists, among whose numbers you find yourself.

This time, you haven’t marshaled a savage offensive on the electoral process, or trans kids, or women’s rights, or environmental protections alone.

No, this time, you’ve declared war on all of us: the Radical Left.

You see, we know it isn’t merely a political party that you’re threatened by, trying to silence, consumed with hatred for, and seeking to eradicate—it’s the American people.

It’s those of us who stand in your way; those whose knees refuse to bow and whose mouths will not regurgitate the curated praise of sycophants and cult members that you bathe your eggshell ego in.

It’s students of history who know a failing, flailing wannabe dictator in a death spiral when they see one, and who have no interest in kissing the ring, shutting our mouths, or quietly complying.

It’s people of conscience who’ve courageously served, fought, bled, and died for this nation to defeat fascism on foreign shores, and who damn well aren’t going to allow it to thrive here.

It’s generations of activists and allies who decades ago braved water cannons, beatings, and arrests so that every human being could be afforded the dignity they deserve, and that you would deny them.

It’s people of true and abiding faith who refuse to allow you to make a mockery of a God you have never sought, a Jesus you have contempt for, and a religion you drape yourself in to cover your wickedness.

It’s human beings of every pigmentation, orientation, nation of origin, religious tradition, and political affiliation who will not allow a Temu authoritarian to write the epitaph for our 250-year republic.

We are all the Radical Left.

And you, you teetering, jittery lame duck, dollar store despot, have declared war on all decent, law-abiding people here, and we’re to tell you that you cannot win.

You are the enemy of the people, of We The People,” the fierce, unwieldy multitude whose presence here is your greatest remaining obstacle.

And so we declare war on you.

You’ll see us gather by the millions this weekend, filling city streets, highway overpasses, city parks, parking lots, and neighborhood sidewalks, declaring our collective opposition. We will stand together as a defiant army of sustained resistance, unlike anything this nation has ever witnessed.

But rest assured, we’ll be there well after the sun sets on that day.

We will be in our neighborhoods, outnumbering the masked monsters you deploy to terrorize and brutalize.

We will be in our communities, feeding, clothing, and caring for one another, protecting the most vulnerable whom you so gladly prey upon.

We’ll be organizing in our communities to support candidates, monitor the polls, and protect people whose voices you are working so hard to silence.

We’ll be relentlessly hounding the compromised lawmakers and public servants who would discard their oaths and abdicate their responsibilities just to please you.

We’ll be everywhere your cultic disciples show up to let them know that they are part of a miserable minority that will not prevail.

And believe us when we tell you that we will defeat you and we will outlast you.

When you leave the office or this planet, whichever comes first, we will be here to rebuild what you have broken, to heal all that you have injured, to tear your name from every place you have defiled with it, and to course-correct from the greatest collective error in our nation’s history.

And so today, we, the Radical Left, raise a defiant middle finger, we spit on the ground in front of you, we defy your will, and we piss on your crown.

The King is already dead.

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What An Asshole

From Palmer Report:

Robert Mueller passed away yesterday. Unfortunately for him he’ll be best remembered for leading a historically crucial investigation into how Donald Trump and Russia stole the 2016 presidential election, only for his investigation to ultimately go nowhere. But before that, Mueller was a strong FBI Director, and before that he was a decorated Vietnam combat veteran. You can easily criticize his work later in life, but you’d be hard pressed to criticize his character or his patriotism. And if you were stupid enough to do such a thing on the day Mueller died, you’d make yourself look unbelievably bad.

That’s why, when someone sent a supposed screenshot yesterday of Donald Trump responding to Robert Mueller’s passing with “Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” I initially assumed it was a fake. But then I went to Trump’s Truth Social site, and sure enough, he actually posted that. Trump actually said “I’m glad he’s dead.” In those exact words. In public. While sitting in the White House. Which he recently partially bulldozed.

If it’s starting to feel like there are no words to describe Trump’s behavior these days, that’s because there really are no words. Except maybe one: asshole. Yes, it’s crude. It’s an easy cheap shot. But how else can one possibly describe the manner in which Trump is now behaving? Yes, he has severe dementia. Yes, he’s increasingly angry at the world because he appears to be near death himself. And yes, he’s a corrupt and evil person who’s done more damage than anyone in American history. But Trump is also something on top of all that. He’s an asshole. Here’s the thing though.

What we’re seeing over the past month or two seems to be new territory even for Trump. When another decorated Vietnam combat veteran John McCain passed away several years ago, Trump initially refused to lower the White House flag to half mast. And when the great Rob Reiner was murdered a few months back, Trump suggested Reiner was to blame for his own death. These were hideous, spiteful, tasteless reactions to the deaths of broadly respected people. But at the time, Trump didn’t go so far as to say “I’m glad John McCain is dead” or “I’m glad Rob Reiner is dead.”

This is a whole new level of disgustingness from an individual who already long ago firmly established himself as one of the most disgusting people in history. As Donald Trump’s cognitive problems and physical health continue to bring him closer to his end, his behavior has become more distasteful than ever. It’s not going to get better. Perhaps deep down Trump knows that when he himself succumbs to his failing health before too much longer, billions of people are indeed going to say “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” And they’ll have more than earned the right to say it.