Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Trump is poised to order attacks on Iran that would be war crimes

Unless Trump reaches a deal with Iran's leaders, he says that tomorrow, at 5 pm on April 7, Pacific time, he will order our military to destroy every power plant and bridge in Iran within four hours. That destruction, Trump says, will take Iran 100 years to repair, sending the country "back to the Stone Age." This horrific act would be a war crime. No doubt about it. I only hope that our military leaders have more sense than Trump and refuse to carry out his illegal orders. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely, since Pete Hegseth, the Defense Department Secretary, has…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Trump’s Iran speech was just as useless as I thought it would be

If you didn't see the 20 minute speech Trump gave yesterday in prime time, depriving Americans in several time zones of some actual quality television watching, congratulations. You saved yourself from 1/3 of an hour of what amounted to Trump reading from his recent Truth Social posts. I listened to the speech as I was driving home from my Tai Chi class, so I didn't waste any time on the speech. In short, Trump said nothing new, intelligent, or useful. He lied about all kinds of things (no big surprise). He didn't articulate a clear reason for why he started…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics Uncategorized

Photos and videos of 2026 Salem No Kings rally

Yesterday I attended the first No Kings rally of 2026 at the capitol mall here in Salem. Per usual, the signs were music to my Trump-hating ears. My wife got there before me, but I ran into Laurel and her sign before entering the crowd of attendees, who totaled about 5,000. Salem Mayor Julie Hoy got called out for her Trumpian MAGA love. This sign laid out the situation clearly. There was a No Kings dinosaur. And the iconic blow-up frog. Nice blend of Iran war and Epstein files. This woman was on crutches. "I run better than the government."…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues Uncategorized

“Iran’s Long Game” in Foreign Affairs shows how Iran can win the war while losing militarily

Whether or not you favor Trump's war against Iran, I highly recommend that you read a terrific March 26 article by Narges Bajoghli in Foreign Affairs, "Iran's Long Game." I liked it so much, after being able to read it as a guest, I just subscribed to Foreign Affairs -- so that gift link should enable you to read it also. In case the link doesn't work, here's a PDF link of the article. Iran’s Long Game | Foreign Affairs Bajoghli has some solid credentials. She is an anthropologist and Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins…
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Posted inDonald Trump

Trump ruins everything. He’s the biggest threat to the American people.

Russia. China. Iran. North Korea. Cuba. Drug smugglers. Illegal immigrants. National debt. Global pandemic. Inflation. Recession. Global warming. Rising energy prices. There's a lot out there to worry about these days. But nothing I've listed, or anything else, makes me more concerned than the President of the United States, Donald Trump. He's the biggest threat both to Americans and the world at large. Because Trump ruins everything. Like a cesspool King Midas, everything he touches turns to crap. I mean, everything. In his first term, there were a few exceptions. Well, actually I can only think of one: Operation Warp…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Iran war was started on a lie, say two of Trump’s top intelligence officials

Trump lies incessantly. Always has. Always will. He'll never stop lying until his last falsehood gasping breath. All of Trump's lies are despicable. But the lies Trump told about why he started a war with Iran are beyond despicable, because they've cost the lives of thousands of people so far, including thirteen American service members. Trump has thrown out a variety of reasons for the Iran war. None of them make much sense. However, his favorite reason, because it is the scariest, is that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States because Iran was close to having a…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Three disgusting things U.S. has done in Iran war

I'm no fan of Iran. I don't know anyone who is. For sure, Iran had to be prevented from building a nuclear weapon. But they were nowhere close to being able to do this. And eight months ago Trump said that the Iranian nuclear program had been obliterated by U.S. strikes, leaving them years away from being able to fashion a nuclear weapon, and about a decade away from having a ICBM capable of striking our country with a nuclear bomb. So clearly there was no imminent threat to the United States from Iran. But Trump attacked anyway, for reasons…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

In the Iran war, let’s not ignore the suffering of innocent Iranians

After three days of intense bombing of Iran by the Israeli and American military, I'm becoming increasingly worried that Iran is going to become the new Gaza: lots of civilian deaths even though those people had nothing to do with the purported reason for going to war, and large swaths of the country reduced to rubble even though destroyed areas had no military significance. I'm going to let tweets shared today by some of the people that I follow on X, formerly known as Twitter, do most of the speaking for me. The beauty of X, as with Blue Sky,…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Trump is at war with Iran. It’ll probably end badly, like everything Trump does.

Last night I was enjoying a hot bath, about to read more of an entertaining thriller novel, when I noticed that a real-life "thriller" message had appeared on my iPhone. The New York Times was reporting that Israel had attacked Iran. Soon that was followed by additional news. The United States also was attacking Iran. My wife and I weren't about to trade watching more of the new season of Bridgerton for CNN or MSNBC, but by chance Trump's address to the nation about the Iran attack was on just before we headed off to bed. We wondered why Trump…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Eight months ago Trump said the Iran nuclear program was obliterated. So how can Iran be a week away from a bomb?

Since I'm a big fan of Apple TV's terrific spy thriller, Tehran, from watching the third season of this Israeli production I know that the fanatical clerics who control Iran have been seeking a nuclear weapon. That's obvious from both the fictional plot of Tehran, and the reality of Iran's nuclear ambitions. Virtually nobody in the world wants to see the wacko Islamist fundamentalist rulers of Iran get a nuclear bomb. Back when Obama was president, a treaty was reached with Iran that prevented Iran from enriching uranium to the level needed for a bomb. Since the treaty was working…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

I just watched Trump give the longest State of the Union speech ever. I deserve a freaking medal.

It took a lot of strength and determination. I wanted to give up numerous times. But I persevered -- watching every damn minute of what turned out to be the longest State of the Union speech in our nation's history, 1 hour and 47 minutes. That broke the previous record, also set by Trump, which I think was 1 hour and 39 minutes. So I deserve a medal, especially since I was forced to sit through countless (almost) lies by Trump, along with his usual insults directed at Democrats like me. Commentators had been wondering which Trump would show up…
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Posted in2026 election Donald Trump National politics

Tariff decision by Supreme Court could have helped GOP in midterms, but Trump is doubling down on tariff tax

When I checked my iPhone for the latest news upon waking this morning, my mood instantly brightened. Yay! The Supreme Court has ruled that most of Trump's tariffs were illegal. And not by a narrow 5-4 margin, by a 6-3 margin, so three Trump-appointed justices ruled against him. Up until now the Supreme Court has mostly been allowing Trump to pursue his authoritarian dreams with minimal pushback. But this was a big rejection of unfettered presidential power. Even three conservative Supreme Court justices realized that the Constitution gives Congress the power of taxation, and tariffs are a tax paid by…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Trump administration is blatantly lying about the murder of Alex Pretti by federal agents

Lies, lies, and more lies. We're all accustomed to being subjected to this by Trump and his cronies. They hate truth. They love lies. But when they lie about the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal agents, this is especially despicable, because those lies attack the honor of a wonderful man who did absolutely nothing to deserve being shot ten times. Pretti's parents are appropriately outraged. In "The Trump Administration is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act," the New York Times editorial board describes some of the lies being spread by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Trump wants to own Greenland for amazingly stupid reasons

When it comes to Trump demanding that the United States own Greenland, trying to figure out why our Authoritarian-in-Chief is so obsessed with this reminds me of Carrie's evidence wall in Homeland -- where Claire Danes' bipolar CIA agent character would pin oodles of photos, clippings, post-it notes, and such, sometimes connected with strings, in an attempt to figure out who lay behind a terrorist plot. Fortunately, Trump isn't nearly as sophisticated as the evildoers in Homeland. While it can be really tough to figure out what Trump will do, because he changes his mind so often he doesn't even…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics

Trump Injustice Department wants to investigate Renee Good’s widow rather than the ICE goon who killed Good

This would be unbelievable in any other presidential administration, Republican or Democrat: threatening to conduct a criminal investigation into the grieving widow of a person killed by a federal agent under highly questionable circumstances, rather than investigating whether that killing was justified. But Trump has destroyed so many norms and precedents that have previously guided the federal government to do the right thing for the citizens of the United States, it isn't surprising that when it comes to the tragic killing of Renee Good, which plenty of evidence shows was unnecessary, the Trump administration would be doing the absolute wrong…
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Posted inDonald Trump National politics Uncategorized

ICE just murdered a woman for no reason. Trump and Noem are lying about the killing.

Today the always-cruel Trump administration outdid themselves by murdering a 37 year old Minneapolis woman whose "crime," if you can even call it that, was using her car to block a road being used by a convoy of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents. The killing was captured on video, thankfully, because otherwise Trump and Noem (she's the head of Homeland Security) might have gotten away with their absurd claim that the woman, Renee Nicole Good, was a domestic terrorist who tried to kill ICE agents by running them over with her car. A Politico story describes who Good actually…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Today Trump claims to be running Venezuela. Tomorrow it could be Greenland. His idiocy knows no bounds.

It's beyond embarrassing to have a president of the United States behave with less maturity than a three year old. But here we are, stuck with Toddler Trump in the Oval Office for the foreseeable future. Trump loves to play with his military toys. He was positively gleeful after our competent armed forces abducted Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, last weekend. But like I said in my previous post, there's plenty of reasons to believe that after this initial tactical success, in the long run Trump's Venezuelan caper will go badly. Well, also in the short run. Because it's…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Ten reasons Trump’s Venezuela caper will go badly

I'm tempted to say that Trump just did the unthinkable. But when it comes to all things Trumpian, thinking usually is the farthest thing from the Donald's mind. So for our Authoritarian-in-Chief, nothing is unthinkable, because everything is just whim, primal urges with no coherent thoughts. I'm confident that attacking Venezuela so American special forces could abduct President Nicolas Maduro and his wife is going to turn out badly. The main reason I say this is simple: whatever Trump does almost always turns out badly. So the odds are strongly in my favor. Trump's tariffs have turned out badly. Trump's…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues

Putin lies while Russian attacks on residential buildings cause Ukrainian civilians to die

There are many sins against humanity that Donald Trump can never be forgiven. One sin, among many, is Trump so often siding with Putin, Russia's dictator, against Zelenskyy, Ukraine's democratically-elected president. Trump simply has no moral center, no values to guide him other than what seems best for Donald Trump. He couldn't care less about Ukraine defending itself against the unprovoked invasion by Russia in February 2022. Biden didn't do enough to help Ukraine either, but at least his heart was in the right place, and Biden successfully advocated for Congressional support in the form of weapons and financial assistance.…
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Posted inDonald Trump International issues National politics

Here’s the 60 Minutes video about torture of migrants in El Salvador prison the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see

Yesterday the CBS program, 60 Minutes, was scheduled to include a story about CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador that the Trump administration has been sending Venezuelan migrants to -- falsely claiming that all of them were violent criminals. As NPR reported in "CBS news chief Bari Weiss pulls '60 Minutes' story, sparking outcry," the story was kept off the air at the last moment even though it had been thoroughly reviewed and approved by CBS. Just a day and a half before it was set to be broadcast, new CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled a planned 60…
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