Some Thoughts On Israel

You guys know that I am a political history buff….so I feel it necessary to include a bit of history from time to time….thanx for indulging me.

We will start with 1948 and Truman….

In 1948, with war raging in Palestine, Harry Truman found himself trapped.

On one side were Zionist lobbyists and the president’s domestic political advisers, who were urging him to support the establishment of a Jewish state in as much of Palestine as possible. On the other were his top foreign policy and national security officials, led by the secretary of state, George C Marshall. Their unanimous recommendation was to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, which they believed would trigger war in the Middle East and endanger the future of US relations with the Arab and Muslim world.

…

In the mid-1940s, Marshall pushed quietly but steadily against the Zionist movement’s proposals to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. He was concerned that American support would open opportunities for the Soviet Union to exploit Arab anger, put Middle Eastern oil supplies at risk in the event of a war between the Soviet Union and the United States, and require the deployment of unavailable American troops to prevent bloodshed and instability in Palestine. These were, indeed, the strongly held views of virtually all of Truman’s most important military and foreign policy advisers.

Truman was personally and deeply moved by the suffering of Jewish survivors of the Nazi “Final Solution”, but also irritated by and at times furious with the constant hectoring to which he was subjected by campaigners for recognition of a Jewish state in Palestine, including the World Zionist Organization and a host of other Jewish delegations, friends and politicians. Despite his personal exasperation, he could not ignore them. Coming in an election year that would pit him against Governor Thomas Dewey of New York, pressures from the Zionist lobby forced him into an excruciating and embarrassing position.

With Palestine engulfed by civil war, Arab states threatening to invade and the last British soldiers about to leave the country, Truman called a meeting of his top advisers on 12 May 1948. According to Marshall’s own account of the meeting, he warned Truman against adopting the policy strongly advanced by Clark Clifford, his main political adviser, to recognize the state of Israel before it was established.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/02/pro-israel-lobby-presidents

As you can see not everyone was thrilled with the idea of Israel….but things worked out in Israel’s favor.

Now fast forward to the modern day….

The US holds states responsible for their supposed actions, Asad of Syria, Chavez of Venezuela to mention only a few and yet Israel can do as they please with impunity matters not what it is…..killings Americans, devastating Gaza with death and destruction, terrorizing the West Bank, etc. etc.

Why can’t we hold Israel accountable for their actions in Gaza?

The easy answer is money and the media…..

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry released the report on June 23. Titled “The Essence of Childhood Has Been Destroyed,” it was the first to focus on crimes and violations against Palestinian children in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Vijay Prashad at CounterPunch called it an “accusation of extraordinary gravity.” In 100-pages, the investigation documents Israeli security forces’ direct killing, degrading, and inhumane treatment of Palestinian children, including sexual and gender-based violence and torture. The report also documents the destruction of schools and civilian infrastructure and amounts to a gruesome compendium of how Israel is destroying Palestinian childhood and denying the Palestinian people a future and self-determination. As the human rights lawyer Srinivasan Muralidhar, who chaired the UN commission and led the press conference that announced its findings, bluntly summarized, “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist.” This is genocide.

The UN report flatly contradicted the claims made by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace that conditions in Gaza were improving. The UN report stated that the amount of available aid is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of hungry, wounded people, living in appalling conditions, who are being squeezed into 30 percent of what was once the Gaza Strip. The UN report further noted the admission of one Israeli soldier: “It feels like a game. You can sit in some basement of a house, safe, with your helmet off, scratching your balls, half-dressed, and kill Palestinians.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/11/why-cant-we-hold-israel-accountable-for-its-genocide-in-gaza-its-the-media/

The damage done to Palestinian children is just one aspect of Israel’s conflict but there are so many more….

It is time to get this dark money out of our system…..probably not gonna happen considering how deep that well is but it should be attempted.

I Read, I Write, You Know

‘lego ergo scribo”

Onto Yemen

Yemen has been a thorn in the US presidents since GW and the US has taken upon itself to help bomb this nation back into the stone age…..GW did it, as well as Obama, Trump (first term), Biden and now looks like Donny wants to add to his bloodlust even further.

In July of 2026 Donny made it clear….

President Trump on Tuesday suggested he could restart a bombing campaign in Yemen in response to the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, enforcing a blockade on the Red Sea.

Trump’s comments came after Ansar Allah announced a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, which came a week after the Saudis bombed Yemen’s Sanaa airport to prevent the landing of a plane carrying a Yemeni delegation from Iran to enforce its long-standing blockade on the country that was eased under a 2022 ceasefire deal but never fully lifted.

his part, Trump downplayed the blockade, claiming it hasn’t started yet. “So far, it hasn’t happened, might happen, but we take care of things,” Trump told reporters while meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the Oval Office.

“If something like that happens, we take care of it. You know, we’ve done that with the Houthis before, and we haven’t heard from them in a while since we did what we did originally,” he added.

Trump launched a bombing campaign in Yemen on March 15, 2025, a few days after Ansar Allah announced it was renewing its blockade of Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea in response to Israel violating the January 2025 Gaza ceasefire deal by imposing a full blockade on the Palestinian territory.

The US bombing campaign lasted about a month and a half and involved major civilian casualties, including the bombing of the Ras Issa Fuel Port in Hodeidah, which killed 84 people, all civilians, according to the monitoring group Airwars. A few days after the strike, the US bombed a migrant detention facility in Saada, killing 68 African migrants.

(antiwar.com)

I rehash this because he has started yet another use of US military force…..

he Pentagon has quietly tallied a deadly civilian cost for a short, intense US campaign in Yemen. A new Defense Department review says three American strikes in April 2025 killed 153 civilians and wounded nearly 250 others, the Trump administration’s first public acknowledgment of large-scale noncombatant casualties since returning to office, reports the Washington Post. Two of the incidents—an April 17 strike on Ras Isa Port that killed 80 people and injured 171, and an April 28 attack that killed 68 people in Yemen’s northwest, including migrants held in a detention site—are among the deadliest US strikes since 2001, rights advocates say.

The 50-day operation, launched after Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, followed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s move to dismantle a Pentagon office devoted to reducing civilian harm. The review, required by Congress and not yet released publicly, comes as the AP reports that concerns are rising “over civilian casualties during military campaigns.” The report says none of the three Yemen cases warranted condolence payments, a conclusion some experts call premature. Fifteen other Yemen incidents remain under review, even as the number of civilian-harm investigators has been cut by more than 90%. Human rights groups have labeled the Yemen attacks possible war crimes and also question the Pentagon’s assertion that US operations against drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere have produced no civilian casualties.

The US does not care about civilian deaths as long as they can flex that anemic muscle they call ‘force’…..

It is time for the lazy pricks in Congress to step forward and do something, anything no matter what as long as they try to stop the civilian deaths.

This is getting out of hand…..DO SOMETHING!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Want To Get Involved?

Note: This is my last post of the day for it is 7 am and my chemo starts at 8 and as I have said in the past afterwards I am in no mood….I will try to answer replies as best I can.

We have at our disposal several ways to get involved in the government…we can write letters, send emails, call our Reps ans sign petitions….

This is a petition to try and force the government to be honest with the voters….

 

https://usafacts.org/data-we-depend-on/

 

If you would like feel that you are involved in  some sort of change then by all means sign this petition.

Personal note:  I like the idea of having my desires known to the government…..I am not sure that they will pay attention to no matter type of communication you choose.

It has been my experience that the ones involved ignore these attempts of people to try and help instigate change.

Personally, I do believe they give a shit what we thing or what we want. (Just my opinion).

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

This Is A Scary Thought

Under normal circumstances if anything were to happen to the president then the VP would step in to keep the government moving…..in that case logically Vance would graduate to the “big chair’.

But there are some think Donny would take a different route….a it is a scary scenario….

As questions continue to swirl around Donald Trump’s health, political analyst David Rothkopf believes the president is preparing to shift power to one of his most loyal sycophants.

Appearing on The Daily Beast Podcast, Rothkopf argued that one of the president’s most trusted aides—not Vice President JD Vance—could take charge of the White House if Trump can no longer handle the job; he identified that person as Stephen Miller.

“This is an 80-year-old guy who is obviously not physically or mentally healthy or up to the job he’s got,” the political analyst told host Joanna Coles. “Trump’s schedule is so micromanaged these days, and he does a couple of hours a day, he doesn’t appear on TV, he does fewer of these open press things than he used to do, and it’s because people are sort of easing him away.”

“This happened with Biden, by the way, where they just sort of don’t put you center stage. And it does raise a question, which is: If he declines further, if he is less capable of handling the job, who’s going to handle it for him?” he added.

Rothkopf said Miller taking charge like that wouldn’t be unprecedented, explaining that similar situations occurred during the Reagan and Nixon administrations.

“We have had multiple times in our history—after Eisenhower’s heart attacks, when FDR was in his declining health at the end of his term, when Woodrow Wilson was bedridden after a stroke—where other people did the job of president,” he continued.

“And I’ve got to tell you, you look at Donald Trump, you look at the bruises, you look at his behavior, you look at his age, you look at his family history, and we could be heading for one of these periods where somebody other than Trump is actually, behind the scenes, the acting president.”

Though Vice President JD Vance would become president if Trump were to resign or die in office, Rothkopf said that’s not exactly how it works in the White House.

“Power flows from the president, from the people closest to the president, from the people who control his schedule, from the people who send out his statements,” he explained, saying that Vance is not involved in any of that.

(yahoo.com)

Is it possible that the cue ball fascist could get the power if anything were to happen to our beloved leader?

This is something to think about…..Miller carves the power and he would be a horrible choice IMO.

Anyone have any thoughts about this?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

It’s Good To Be A SCOTUS Associate

We all have seen the reports about the underhanded money making of our Supreme Court judges and now a new one has come up….this one is about conserv judge Alito…..

The supreme court justice Samuel Alito gained up to $2.9m from his fossil fuel interests between 2005 and 2024, a new review of financial disclosures shows.

The analysis from the non-profit advocacy group and judicial watchdog Court Accountability, shared exclusively with the Guardian, found that even at the lowest range of estimates, Alito gained almost $400,000 from his oil and gas interests since being tapped for the high court by George W Bush in 2005.

The findings come as the supreme court prepares to take up a case in which the oil companies Suncor Energy and Exxon asked the justices to find that federal law prevents subnational governments from filing lawsuits against fossil fuel producers for the climate-warming effects of their products.

The supreme court said this month it will hear oral arguments in the case on 5 October, the opening day of its new term. The Trump administration, which is siding with the oil companies, has asked for 10 minutes of argument time. Court Accountability and other groups have called for a Senate committee to investigate Alito, the sole supreme court justice with holdings in energy companies, and said he should recuse himself.

He and the court rejected those calls.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/11/samuel-alito-oil-gas-assets-supreme-court-analysis

And he sits on the highest court in the nation and makes judgements on any legal actions brought against oil companies….this puts him up there with the corruption of Thomas.

SCOTUS is getting more corruptible by the session….and in doing so is destroying most modern laws….

When rationalizing its alarming injection of politics into legal decision, conservatives on the John Roberts Supreme Court are dumping years of legal analysis and precedent in favor of historical arguments. In essence, legal theory appears to be taking back seat to what law in America used to look like, says Florida International University philosophy Associate Professor Eric Scarffe.

They’re using history, said Scarffe, to do what judicial philosophy long has not: remove judgment from judging.

“Rather than promoting judicial restraint, … key cases reveal how the ‘history and tradition test’ has been weaponized to enable one of the most radical revisions to this nation’s constitutional order since the New Deal,” argued Scarffe. “It has been used not only to overturn previous decisions and precedent, but also to fundamentally shift the way the Court engages in judicial review.”

Courts traditionally weigh interests, assess evidence, and openly confront competing constitutional values. But cases like the Wolford v. Lopez, which the court used to strike down Hawaii’s restrictions on carrying firearms on private property that is open to the public, the court made a decision based entirely upon whether a sufficiently similar restriction existed at some point during the nation’s founding.

https://www.alternet.org/roberts-court-reform-politicized/

The judges now are nothing more than political hacks and do not deserve the positions they have been given…

It is beyond time for some massive Supreme Court reforms and changes.

Or we continue to have these hacks destroy the Constitution one ruling at as time.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Drop All Pretense

Any FYI series on what to expect from MAGA bullshitters.

I post this story because it is part of series on the lies spread by the idiots in MAGA to try and sway the less intelligent to vote against any progress.

The New York Post is one of these outlets that spreads disinformation constantly…..

 

https://nypost.com/2026/08/10/opinion/fresh-proof-that-democratic-socialists-will-act-like-communists-once-elected/

 

Getting rid of the Electoral College is not destroying the Constitution….it is just good common sense…..the rest of the accusations are painted with a broad brush that is more propaganda than facts.

Remember this is FYI not an endorsement of the lies.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Donny Pulls A Switch-A-Roo

US intelligence was given a tip that Iran was planning to assassinate Donny and he was to go to Turkey for a NATO summit….the Secret Service came up with the bright idea of using a dodge to keep him safe…..

Donald Trump secretly swapped planes as he left a Nato summit in Turkey last month, as part of an elaborate ruse in response to a possible Iranian threat, US media report.

The US president boarded Air Force One in view of television cameras before being transported to a military aircraft with the help of a catering truck, according to the Washington Post. Journalists and some White House staff on board did not know he had been smuggled out.

Officials told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that the US had detected a credible Iranian threat to fire a missile at the plane. The White House has not confirmed the secret switch.

Trump had earlier said he was Iran’s “number one target” during the summit in Ankara.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-used-catering-truck-air-force-one-decoy-evade-iran-threat-report

Now some are calling the ‘hot’ tip about the assassination as a fake report…..

Turkish officials suspect that an Israeli intelligence report about an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump at the NATO summit in Ankara last month was a ruse designed to derail diplomacy between the US and Iran, Middle East Eye reported on Tuesday.

The Washington Post first reported on Monday that the US thought there was a credible enough threat against Trump that he secretly swapped planes when he departed Turkey. The president flew into Ankara on a new version of Air Force One donated by Qatar, but made a public show of departing on the older Air Force One, saying he was doing so for “old time’s sake.”

According to the Post report, after boarding the older Air Force One, Trump was then moved to a third plane, an Air Force C-32A, via a catering truck. Some White House staffers and reporters on the older Air Force One thought President Trump was also onboard as they flew to the UK, making them unwitting decoys.

Missing from the Post report was where the intelligence about a plot against Trump came from. According to Middle East Eye and also a report from The Wall Street Journal, it came from Israel, which aligns with reports from the time.

Sources told MEE that the Israeli intelligence report warned that Iranian covert forces could target Air Force One at the airport in Ankara using shoulder-fired rockets, known as MANPADS, from just one kilometer away. Due to the alleged threat, the Secret Service moved the departure point from Ankara Airport to Esenboga Airport and wanted to switch from the new Air Force One to the old one.

The report said Turkish officials believe that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu devised the plot to make it appear that Israel was protecting Trump, further derail diplomacy between the US and Iran, and also strain relations between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom the US president repeatedly praised during the summit. Israel has strongly opposed the idea of the US selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, something Trump has said he’s strongly considering.

Another source, described as an Ankara insider, told MEE that it was ironic that the Secret Service’s decision to move Trump has been leaked just one month after it happened. “I guess they need heroes for an attack that never happened and, most likely, was never planned,” the insider said.

(antiwar.com)

After years of watching the Israeli government I tend to agree with Turkey….this does sound like a load of crap for Israel wants Donny to keep up his attacks on Iran and they will do anything to preserve the attacks now that they finally got a president dumb enough to believe their lies.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

How About A Rational View?

This post is about capitalism vs socialism….

We Americans seem to be deathly afraid of the term socialism….why?

Well basically because of the 50s Red Scare and it has just kept growing from those days.

Awhile back I wrote a post….

Who’s Afraid Of The “S” Word

With that firmly in your mind there is a very good piece written by Nick Licata….

While Wikipedia identifies two dozen different kinds of socialism, two primary approaches support its goal of upholding a society’s welfare. One approach is to realistically regulate the marketplace to ensure it provides everyone in society with their basic needs, allowing them to lead a satisfactory life. The other is pursuing the ideal communal society without a marketplace that forces competition for obtaining basic needs.

Capitalism’s active practice is maintaining a marketplace to exchange goods, services, and access to them through a price system. Money has the greatest exchangeability value because it allows for the acquisition of various types of resources, one of the most critical being political power. However, exchanges can be made through a barter system, in which tangible items, including human labor, can be directly exchanged between seller and buyer. This was the dominant system before the advent of written history.

Capitalism’s belief system is limited to preserving the marketplace because it results in greater accumulation of resources that can be used for many purposes. There is no aspiration to create a new society; rather, it is to protect the current market-based one. It is a continuation of Adam Smith’s philosophy, as presented in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which appeared just as the Industrial Age was dawning in the late 1700s. He believed that individuals pursuing their self-interest in the marketplace would benefit society through increased productivity and wealth.

Socialism as a practice can be seen as a popular response to the marketplace system that replaced the barter system.  It aimed to regulate the marketplace so that no concentration of material or social advantages occurred to the extent that it disrupted a community’s cohesion.
Socialism, as a pronounced belief system challenging the marketplace, emerged in the 19th century, when the term “socialist” was introduced. It was first used to describe the effort to create cooperative businesses and communities as an alternative to capitalism’s marketplace economy.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/31/a-rational-view-of-capitalism-vs-socialism-in-america-and-history/

If one is afraid of socialism then fix capitalism…..

Everywhere I look, I see people expressing alarm about the popularity of socialism. It polls in the mid-to-high 30s, and considerably higher among younger people. Older people, who have a living memory of the various socialist regimes that once dotted the planet, which at best didn’t deliver prosperity to their people and at worst threw them in jail by the thousands, can’t understand how this could be and seem to want to talk endlessly about it.

I, however, marvel at the other consistent result of all these polls, which these people don’t seem nearly as interested in talking about. I refer to the ratings Americans give to capitalism. They’re terrible. A big Gallup poll from last fall is representative. Socialism won the approval of 39 percent, while capitalism’s positive number was 54 percent.

That is pathetic—barely half the country! In the country that invented modern capitalism and where it is worshipped by the elite class! And you know what? It’s entirely deserved. In fact, it deserves to be a little worse (as it is among Democrats). The kind of capitalism we’ve been practicing in this country over the last 40-plus years is cruel, corrupt, and a perversion of what humane capitalism ought to be. The people who are so freaked out about socialism ought to realize that the only way they’re going to arrest its rise is to change capitalism for the better.

From the founding of the country until the stock market crash of 1929, the general belief was that government should be small and markets should not be regulated. Some people say it worked pretty well until 1929, but in fact, that isn’t true. It worked well enough to perpetuate itself, because if capitalism is anything it’s elastic and dynamic, but that’s about it.

https://newrepublic.com/article/214122/fear-socialism-try-fix-capitalism

Unfortunately to fully understand is to say that critical thinking needs to be foremost in one’s mind….but sadly those days are gone….that is why I try to give my reader as much information as I can without too much thought.

It is a complex subject that needs more study than one can receive here but at least it is a start.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Putting Children At Risk

This group leading the country has already but our children at risk by depriving them of the food that some need to survive and now he, Donny and RJK,Jr, want the children to expose themselves to debilitating diseases….

President Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits. The order advocates separating the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different shots administered in separate appointments, and directs the nation’s health department to improve vaccine research, according to a White House fact sheet on the order. Separate measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines for children are not currently available in the United States, and vaccines are already extensively researched, the AP reports.

Speaking about the order at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump repeatedly suggested the number or timing of vaccines could play a role in rising rates of autism spectrum disorder, even as scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link. He also touted several changes to the childhood vaccine schedule that his health department has already attempted, but that have been blocked by a federal judge. He said his administration would no longer recommend COVID-19, flu, and hepatitis B vaccinations for children.

  • Trump said he wants to find out “what’s going on with autism,” Mediaite reports. “It’s many, many times what it used to be years ago, and it gets progressively worse, and we’ve had progressively more and more vaccines,” he said, adding, “Very simply, large amounts of vaccine—large amounts—like vats of vaccine are currently pumped into your child’s body.”
  • The renewed focus on vaccines marks a departure from his administration’s recent efforts to emphasize less controversial health policies related to healthy eating, drug price negotiations and medical fraud crackdowns ahead of November’s midterm elections, the AP reports.
  • Public health experts have raised concerns that spacing out shots as Trump suggests can lead to an increased risk that children become infected with a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. Childhood vaccines—and how and when to give them in combination—go through rigorous studies, and safety tracking continues for years as the shots are used.
  • “I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong,” Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said on X. “The President does not have the expertise to make these changes.” Vaccines, Cassidy said, are effective, “overwhelmingly safe,” and do not cause autism. “Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots,” he said. “It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe. Parents should listen to their child’s pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order. This is so wrong.”
  • Even as the order calls for revised vaccine recommendations, states, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. The order advises states with school vaccine mandates to consider updating their laws to reflect the administration’s preferred schedule, the fact sheet said. Many states have already said that they no longer follow federal guidance and instead rely on recommendations from groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Washington Post reports.
  • Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist before he entered politics, set out to overhaul immunization guidance in the first year of Trump’s term. He fired an entire 17-member vaccine advisory committee, installing replacements who made far more restrictive recommendations that have since been halted by a federal judge. He also personally directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying any new evidence to support the change.
  • Scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded that there is no link between childhood vaccines and autism. On Monday, Kennedy repeated his assertion that he believes an unknown environmental factor is to blame for rising autism diagnoses and said that his department will deliver research findings “as soon as they are ready.”

If this goes forth stand back and watch the problems that he creates…..think Whooping cough and measles, and you cannot see this as a good thing.

Children in the crosshairs.

I read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Shift In Strategy?

For months now the conflict with Iran has been on again and off again….someone needs to make up their mind and pick a course preferably a peaceful one…..so once again Donny may have shift in tactics?

President Trump appears to be shifting into a new strategy with Iran for the time being, one that emphasizes economic pain over military strikes. “We are low-keying it,” Trump tells Axios. “We are only semi-negotiating with them,” he said, asserting that Iran is buckling under inflation, lack of cash, and a US-led naval blockade. With oil prices back under $80, Trump said Americans are feeling less strain and likened the standoff to “a chess game.” (Has he even looked at a gas pump?)

The immediate flashpoint is the partially closed Strait of Hormuz. A US-Iran-Oman deal to reopen it, granting Tehran some new authority over shipping, has stalled as Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief unveiled tougher conditions, including sanctions relief and compensation. The president’s new posture comes amid widespread reports that the US is running short of key weapons, which the White House denies. Still, Bloomberg reports that Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg asked defense companies to “accelerate” munitions production days after Trump called him about the issue. One US official tells the outlet it will take years to replenish the stocks.

I guess a shortage of missiles can have that effect on the on-going conflict.

Iran has issued a list of demands….

Iran issued a broad, new set of demands to the US on Saturday for the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a senior security official, laid out the conditions including an end to the US naval blockade and sanctions, withdrawal of American forces around Iran, payment of war reparations, release of frozen assets, and a halt to attacks on Iran’s regional allies. The list complicates ongoing talks between Iran and Oman over how to manage the strait, which Iran largely shut down after the US and Israel began their attacks in February, the New York Times reports.

The strait will not open until the US “corrects its behavior,” the statement said, per the AP. White House officials did not immediately comment. The strait runs between Iran and Oman; Iran’s foreign minister said it’s close to a deal with Oman on a temporary shipping route but insists any reopening hinges on US compliance with a June cease-fire memorandum that the two sides interpret differently. Traffic through the strait has fallen from about 130 ships a day to just over a dozen, per the Times.

Of course could not stand by and let Iran grab the headlines.

Iran has called for reparations from the US and not to be outdone Donny thinks Iran should pay to the US…..(seriously?)

resident Trump is trying to flip Iran’s push for war reparations back on Tehran. In a Truth Social post Monday, the president said he’s told his negotiators to demand compensation from Iran for Americans killed or injured in attacks linked to Tehran, calling Iran’s own reparations demand “an interesting idea” to copy. He cited deaths from roadside bombs, “many conflicts,” and even the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole—an attack attributed to al-Qaeda, not Iran, the Independent reports. The government blames Iran-backed militants for the deaths of more than 600 US troops in Iraq and the bombing that killed 241 US military personnel in Beirut in 1983, reports the AP.

  • In a follow-up post, Trump said, “Also, with respect to the Iran negotiations, Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!  (they did not killed themselves….Israel is the aggressor)
  • Trump also said Tehran should pay compensation to the “hundreds of thousands of innocent protestors that Iran has killed over the last 50 years, not to mention the 52,000 that have been killed in the last five months.” The Independent notes that it’s not clear where Trump got the 52,000 number. US and Israeli estimates of war deaths so far are a little over 6,000. The Times of Israel notes that it’s also not clear how significant Trump’s announcement is, “given that negotiations with Iran are said to have hit a dead end.” On Sunday, Trump said the US is “low-keying it” and only “semi-negotiating.” (should the US pay reparations to it’s innocent protesters?)
  • Over the weekend, a senior Iranian official laid out six conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including lifting sanctions, ending US military operations in the region, and paying compensation for “imposed wars.” An interim ceasefire framework expires in just over a week, with no clear path to an extension.

I apologize for I feel I must be blunt….Donny could f*ck up a wet dream.

This so-called ‘diplomacy’ that he and Little Marco and Pistol Pete play at is laughable if it were not so f*cking sad.

I weep for the diplomatic corps of this country.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”