Trump Threatens Elon Musk if He Backs Democratic Candidates
Photograph from May 30, 2025, of U.S. President Donald Trump (right) next to businessman Elon Musk, at a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington (United States). Photo: EFE/EPA/EFE/ Francis Chung / POOL
June 7, 2025 Hour: 5:32 pm
U.S. President Donald Trump warned tech magnate Elon Musk this Saturday, with whom he had a complete falling out on Thursday, that he will face “very serious consequences” if he decides to support Democratic candidates who oppose Republicans who vote in favor of his mega-fiscal project.
“If he does, he will have to pay the consequences (…) He will have to pay very serious consequences if he does,” Trump declared in a telephone interview with the American network NBC without elaborating on the matter.
That bill, described by Musk as “a terrible abomination,” was approved by a narrow margin and is now in process in the Senate before being submitted to a vote again in the House of Representatives.
In this sense, he added that he believes that Elon Musk’s opposition to the bill, baptized by Trump himself as “great and beautiful” – which pursues significant tax cuts – has “highlighted his strengths”: “People who were not so focused on him began to pay attention to him and saw how good he is,” Trump continued.
Likewise, the American president responded “I suppose so” when asked if his relationship with the co-founder of Tesla had ended and added that he “no” has no intention of reconciling with the richest man in the world.
“I consider (what has happened) to be a very bad thing, because it is very disrespectful. You cannot disrespect the presidency,” he added.
Regarding Musk’s accusations against him claiming that the American president appeared on the famous list of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Trump indicated: “That’s called ‘old news’, that’s been talked about for years. Even Epstein’s lawyer said I had nothing to do with it. It’s a thing of the past.”
As economy contracts, Trump-Musk war escalates
June 8, 2025 Gary Wilson
A very public and escalating feud has unfolded between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who until recently served as Trump’s head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The feud went public when Musk fiercely criticized Trump’s signature fiscal plan — the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
The public clash between Trump and Musk lays bare the deepening fractures within the ruling class. While these billionaires battle over how to manage the turmoil, their real conflict isn’t about principles — but over which faction of the oligarchy will dictate.
Behind the spectacle of personal insults and retaliatory threats lies a fundamental agreement: that workers must bear the brunt of austerity, wage cuts, and gutted social programs. The dispute is over how aggressively to push the agenda — and who stands to benefit most from it.
A symptom of systemic decay
As the ruling class fights over tax breaks, tariffs, government contracts and how much to cut social services, the real crisis — the exploitation and immiserization of the vast majority — continues unchecked. Their feud is not a break in the system, but a symptom of its decay.
Musk officially departed the Trump administration last Friday, marking the end of his role as a “special government employee” overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency that spearheaded attacks on federal workers and the dismantling of entire government departments and services.
In interviews and social media posts, Musk condemned Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which would extend tax cuts for the wealthy and further gut social programs. While Musk did not object to the tax cuts — unsurprising given his vast fortune — he criticized the bill for its excessive “pork,” meaning not deep enough cuts in social services.
Trump threatened to retaliate against Musk by canceling billions in federal contracts, which coincided with a dramatic 14% drop in Tesla’s stock, resulting in a $34 billion loss for Musk, the largest single-day loss on record. Trump also withdrew the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a Musk ally, to lead NASA — another blow to Musk’s influence over lucrative government contracts.
Economic instability fuels the feud
The dispute touches on broader economic instability.
The U.S. economy contracted more sharply than initially reported in early 2025, with economic output per person falling 0.7% as businesses stockpiled goods ahead of expected tariffs. It’s the first economic contraction (as measured by GDP per capita) since 2022, but the situation was worse than the headline numbers suggested. In plain English, this means that conditions are declining for the working class, and people are getting poorer.
Musk has also attacked Trump’s tariff policies, which threaten both his own corporate empire — deeply dependent on Chinese markets and supply chains — and the broader global operations of U.S. finance capital. The business press has focused on the surge in gold prices and the weakening U.S. dollar, developments that risk destabilizing Wall Street and the U.S.-dominated global financial system.
Ruling class infighting goes public
Since Trump launched his April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff bomb, the world financial markets crashed, the bond market panicked, and the price of gold soared, the dollar weakened, all leading to a political crisis. Additionally, a cycle of capitalist overproduction, leading to recession, is developing in the background.
Trump immediately pulled back on the tariffs, though only partially. But the internecine fight within the ruling class began then, as Trump appeared to be failing, driving the country toward economic chaos and possible collapse. That fight has now spilled into the open; it’s not just Trump and Musk. It’s only going to get worse unless there’s a mass working-class upsurge, maybe a general strike to shut them down.
... anymore. It is something else altogether. Ah, nah, still circus:
Not long after, Musk’s tension with Trump’s trade team devolved into blows, in an altercation with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said Stephen K. Bannon, the influential right-wing podcaster and longtime political adviser to Donald Trump. In mid-April, Musk and Bessent had gone into the Oval Office to make their respective cases about their preferences for acting IRS commissioner. Trump decided to support Bessent’s choice. That disagreement was first reported by the New York Times. After Bessent and Musk exited the Oval Office and began walking down the hallway, the two men started to exchange insults, Bannon said he was told, adding that Bessent brought up Musk’s claims that he would uncover more than $1 trillion in wasteful and fraudulent government spending, which Musk had not succeeded at doing. “Scott said, ‘You’re a fraud. You’re a total fraud,’” Bannon said in an interview. Musk then rammed his shoulder into Bessent’s rib cage “like a rugby player,” Bannon said, and Bessent hit him back. Multiple people stepped in to break up the scrum as the two men reached the national security adviser’s office, and Musk was shuffled out of the West Wing.
As stupid as Bessent is, he is not entirely incorrect in his description of Musk. He should have asked me (c) quoting Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. Meanwhile, our editorial staff obtained documentary of the scuffle. Don't be confused by marmots using Russian profanity. We are as confused as you are, wink, wink. (Video at link.)
Trump Militarizes California Amid Immigration Raids, Threatens Arrests of Local Officials
Trump militarizes California without state consent and threatens to arrest local leaders, while Mexico and international organizations condemn the criminalization of migration and democratic backsliding in the U.S.
The National Guard deploys troops in Los Angeles amid immigration protests Photo: @Reuters
June 9, 2025 Hour: 3:40 am
Donald Trump has escalated his crackdown on immigration with measures that not only target undocumented communities but also defy institutional boundaries. The unilateral deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles—without state approval—and public threats to arrest Democratic leaders expose a sharp authoritarian turn in Trump’s immigration policy. Meanwhile, Mexico and international organizations condemn the criminalization of migration and demand respect for human rights.
The Trump administration ordered the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles to “restore order” amid protests against ICE raids, bypassing California Governor Gavin Newsom, who denounced the move as an attempt to “sow chaos.” Since the raids began, over 150 undocumented immigrants have been detained.
These operations are backed by so-called “border czar” Tom Homan, who publicly threatened on Sunday to arrest Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass if they “overstep their authority.”
“If the governor or mayor overstep, they could face arrest,” Homan told NBC News. “Harboring or knowingly hiding an illegal immigrant is a felony. Preventing law enforcement from doing their job is a felony.”
Despite the fact that the National Guard had not yet been deployed, Trump prematurely praised their efforts on his Truth Social account, stating, “The incompetent Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass have been very slow and allowed disaster.” Official confirmation of the deployment came hours later.
Local officials swiftly condemned the federal escalation. Newsom accused the government of provoking unnecessary chaos: “The federal government is manufacturing disorder to justify escalating its response. This is not how a civilized nation behaves.”
Mayor Bass called the military mobilization “unnecessary,” noting that “the situation is peaceful in most of the city.” She added that Saturday’s protests involved fewer than 100 people and were dispersed by local police before the troops arrived.
California Senator Adam Schiff echoed concerns about federal overreach, stating, “If the Guard is needed to calm things down, the governor will request it”—highlighting how Trump bypassed democratic protocols. Senator Bernie Sanders condemned the administration’s authoritarian drift: “He conducts illegal raids, provokes a reaction, declares a state of emergency, and mobilizes troops. It is unacceptable.”
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum also spoke out against the rising repression in U.S. territory: “Raids and violence do not address the migration phenomenon,” she said directly responding to Trump’s actions.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry confirmed that consulates are providing legal assistance and support to detained nationals, coordinating with human rights organizations and migrant aid networks.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University highlighted that this marks the first time since 1965 that a U.S. president has deployed federal troops without a state governor’s consent. While the Trump administration claims the deployment is necessary to restore order, historical precedent tells a different story.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent federal troops to Alabama not to suppress dissent, but to protect civil rights demonstrators marching for racial justice—after state authorities failed to guarantee their safety. In stark contrast, Trump’s unilateral use of military force targets those opposing government overreach, bypasses state consent, and deepens fears of authoritarian escalation under the guise of immigration control.
“This is unprecedented and a clear abuse of the law,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the center’s National Security Program.
In April 2025, the UN Committee on Migrant Workers (CMT) issued a report warning about the growing militarization of migration control, expressing concern over the deployment of armed forces to manage migration and noting that such practices pose serious rights violations for migrants
Trump’s tightening grip on immigration enforcement reveals not only an offensive against immigrant communities but also a governance model that dismantles institutional checks and federalist boundaries. Unauthorized militarization, threats to arrest elected officials, and the criminalization of dissent signal a troubling democratic backslide in the United States.
As federal authority overrides local governance and dissent is met with military force, the battle for civil liberties and migrant rights in the U.S. reaches a critical crossroads—demanding vigilant international oversight and sustained grassroots resistance.
Trump Administration Violating Yet More Individual Rights in Escalation Over ICE Raid Protests in Los Angeles
Posted on June 9, 2025 by Yves Smith
We are now in the midst of what Lambert would call an overly dynamic situation, so forgive me if I omitted important information with respect to the rapidly devolving confrontation in Los Angeles between Federal forces and the National Guard versus immigrant defenders, local and state officials, Congresscritters, and witnesses. ICE has come into other blue cities as if it was ginning for a fight and it looks like it finally got one. And seems apparent that the Trump Administration is prepared to capitalize on it via using it to force through restrictions of citizen’s rights, particularly to protest, to be safe from unreasonable searches and seizures, and for immigrants, to due process.
Mind you, the protests have reached the point where the LAPD has declared downtown Los Angeles to be a “no assembly” area.1
Before we turn to what we can glean about the state of play, some key backstory. One of Trump’s very early executive orders on January 20 was to declare a national emergency at the southern border. It included tasking the heads of the Department of Defense and Homeland Security to provide a report in 90 days recommending whether to invoke the Insurrection Act. Among other things, it would allow the Administration to deploy the military against US citizens.
In the requested report, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem did not advise the use of the Insurrection Act, pointing out that border crossings had fallen markedly since Trump took office.
If you think that threat is not live now, think twice:
The immediate backstory is a bit muddy. From what I can infer, ICE sent a lot of agents to Los Angeles in what looked like a highly visible, as in provocative, show of force. One assembly point was at a Home Depot, leading to rumors that there would be Home Depot raids.2 Mind you, I have no idea why “raids” would be needed if the point was to stop casual hiring at Home Depots. Just put 2 cars with prominent ICE labels in the parking lot.
Reader raspberry jam provided this summary in comments yesterday:
I found a channel yesterday evening that was showing live footage with minimal interruptions/commentary and watched it for a few hours. There were two distinct phases of the events yesterday:
– the community reaction to the ICE raid at the Home Depot: ICE was using the Home Depot parking lot as a staging area for raids and a combination of local community angry at what they were witnessing and ICE having far too much militarized gear and not enough sense resulted in a really shocking situation where the ICE guys were doing stuff like shooting tear and chemical rounds directly at people stopped in traffic who weren’t participating in the protest. At least one person was rammed by an ICE SUV. At one point it seemed like the ICE group was cornered by the protesters for hours and LAPD/SD were refusing to go in and assist them. This is the phase where the pics/footage were taken of people lying face down on the grass (chemical round reactions because so much was being fired) and the ICE agents massed at the end of a driveway with their rifles out and firing on protesters with tear gas. The protesters, by the way, seemed extremely unorganized – lots of utterly fearless skater kids! – it absolutely was not an NGO-organized event.
– a riot a couple blocks away across a freeway bridge in Compton: after a few hours the cops began blockading/kettling the protesters into the area around the Home Depot and on the other side of the freeway (710) at the intersection of Atlantic/Alondra a riot broke out. There was also a lot of tear gas/smoke rounds fired here, or possibly fireworks being thrown by the rioters, it was pretty unclear. This looked like actual LAPD, not ICE. This is where the footage of the burning car is from. This stage seemed more like a party than a protest, car burning and gang signs at the news helicopters aside, I mean there were people standing in line at Dale’s Doughnuts watching the car burn while it was all going down.
Within an hour of the car burning I saw right wing influencer types screeching for insurrection act and shooting a hundred protesters to ‘bring order’. Later there was conflicting info about 2000 national guard members being mobilized. I don’t think 2000 NG is enough to maintain martial law in South Central. I don’t think 2000 marines are enough to do that, honestly! I think we’re going to see stuff like this all summer and beyond if they don’t dial back the ICE raids. The admin might think this is quality red meat for the base but there are a lot of unanticipated consequences they clearly haven’t thought through, like what happens when they call in 10000+ military just for LA and can’t stop the riots or protests?
Common Dreams describes incidents that led to escalation:
According to the LA Times, the Home Depot protests began peacefully until officers lobbed flash-bang grenades and pepper balls at the crowd, after which some individuals responded by throwing rocks and other objects at the ICE cars, and one person drove their vehicle toward the ICE agents.
“Many of the protesters did not appear to engage in these tactics,” the LA Times reported.
In another incident, Lindsay Toczylowski, the chief executive of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, wrote on social media that ICE agents threw a tear-gas canister at two of the center’s female attorneys after they asked the agents if they could see a warrant and observe their activities.
There are other complaints on Twitter of ICE carrying itself so as to further evade accountability:
These tweets give a sense of local reactions to the ICE operation:
('X' videos at link.)
10,000 would seem to be an underwhelming number…at least before things got out of hand:
('X' videos at link.)
Some fresh news reports before we turn to additional legal and Constitutional rights issues. From CNN’s live blog:
• On the ground: CNN witnessed police using flash-bangs and tear gas to disperse crowds, with some hitting protesters, as well as protesters setting self-driving cars on fire. Police have declared all of Downtown Los Angeles an unlawful assembly area after arresting dozens over the weekend.
• Troop deployment: About 300 National Guardsmen are on the ground after President Donald Trump deployed them to protect federal personnel and property. It’s the first time a president has called in the National Guard without a state’s request or consent in decades. Also prepared to deploy are 500 Marines.
• Trump vs Newsom: California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will sue the Trump administration over the deployment, which he and LA Mayor Karen Bass have called inflammatory.
• Why are there protests? Authorities and demonstrators are clashing for a fourth day after immigration raids in the city. Intelligence analysts believe protesters are motivated by immigration raids, deployment of the National Guard, and agitators who fit profiles of “professional rioters.”
Perhaps I have not been paying sufficient attention, but I do not recall a mainstream outlet ever before insinuating that paid agitators were fomenting violence in US protests.
From BBC’s live blog:
Vehicles have been set on fire and there have been some reports of looting
A British photographer needed surgery after being shot with a sponge bullet, while an Australian reporter was shot with a non-lethal round while reporting
The protests gave Trump an opening to follow through on his promise to use his presidential powers to clamp down on left-wing lawlessness, writes North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher
The president has already called in the National Guard – against the wishes of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom
The protests have been mainly limited to downtown LA – our correspondent Peter Bowes says things seemed quieter on Sunday night, after a violent day
One of the biggest cities in Southern California is reducing its support for ICE:
Now to legal and Constitutional matters.
Deployment of National Guard. Trump called up 2,000 but as far as I can tell, only 300 are in Los Angeles now. The Hill reported that Governor Newsom intents to file suit:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said California will sue the Trump administration on Monday over its deployment of the National Guard to quell Los Angeles protests against federal immigration raids.
In an interview Sunday evening on MSNBC, Newsom said the lawsuit would challenge Trump’s federalizing of the California National Guard without the state’s consent, a move with little precedent in U.S. history….
Asked to elaborate on the lawsuit, Newsom said that under Trump’s executive order, “it specifically notes — and under what the [Department of Defense] did — is they had to coordinate with the governor of the state. They never coordinated with the governor of the state,” he said….
Later in the interview, Newsom was asked about border czar Tom Homan’s comments indicating he would not rule out arresting Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass if they interfered in his efforts.
“Come after me, arrest me. Let’s just get it over with, tough guy, you know? I don’t give a damn. But I care about my community. I care about this community,” he continued.
It’s a certainty that any such arrest would greatly increase Newsom’s national profile and earn him macho points which he could very much use. But that payoff assumes 2028 elections.
Georgetown Law Center professor Steve Vladek took a dim view of Trump federalizing the National Guard in this manner:
President Trump’s Saturday night “memorandum” federalizing 2000 California National Guard troops is a tentative step toward abusing authorities for domestic use of the military, but a dangerous one….
The TL;DR here is that Trump has not (yet) invoked the Insurrection Act, which means that the 2000 additional troops that will soon be brought to bear will not be allowed to engage in ordinary law enforcement activities without violating a different law—the Posse Comitatus Act. All that these troops will be able to do is provide a form of force protection and other logistical support for ICE personnel.
Injury and arrest of SEIU leader; barring of Congressional oversight attempt. One high profile protestor, SEIU’s California president, David Huerta, was seriously injured in his encounter with ICE officials and had to be hospitalized and has apparently been moved into detention.
Twitter clips show that Huerta was one of several people standing in front of an ICE vehicle as it was slowly moving to get through a gate. The ICE forces threw him hard to the pavement, and his head apparently hit a curb.
I have not seen a picket line when scabs are trying to cross, but I suspect this level of “obstruction” was no worse than that level.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters attempted to visit him and other detainees and she was impermissibly barred:
The way they slammed the door In Congresswoman Maxine Water’s face was extremely disturbing by ICE agents when she was trying to check on the conditions of the immigrants being held there.There’s a reason they don’t want any Democrats in there & it’s because it’s inhumane!
And yes, she does have the right to do so. This is a provision of Federal law that ICE has been defying. “Members of Congress possess explicit statutory authority to conduct unannounced oversight visits to facilities operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security.”
Recall that Democrat Congresscritters attempted to visit a new ICE facility, only to be blocked. The Department of Justice charged Representative LaMonica McIver with assaulting two agents. Given her height and age, I doubt she did more than shove, or get a bit forceful in trying to get them to take their hands off her. But this prosecution shows how eager this Administration is to use force and intimidation to bulldoze opponents.
Threat to bring in the Marines:
Pete Hegseth
@PeteHegseth
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The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil; a dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.
Under President Show more
It’t not just left-leaning commentators that are alarmed:
Senator Scott Wiener
@Scott_Wiener
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Hegseth is now threatening to send the Marines to LA to suppress protesters against ICE’s brutal assault on garment workers.
Just process that: Sending in the *military* to crack down on protesters.
We’re now at severe risk of martial law. That’s what they’ve wanted all along.
We’ve seen this movie before.3 But in the film version, it was the anti-authoritarians who got inside the government’s OODA loop and prevailed. We have the reverse happening here. I would not be optimistic.
____
1 I am not sure under what authority this is being done.
2 For readers outside the US, Home Depots are very large home/construction supply shops, which are used not just by home owners buying, say, tile, lumber, lighting and plumbing fixtures, but also many contractors. In many locations, they have also become places where contractors come in the morning to round up workers for day labor. Those workers reportedly consist heavily of undocumented migrants.
National Guard troops arrive in Los Angeles as anti-ICE protests intensify. Rights groups warn of authoritarian overreach and erosion of civil liberties. Photo: @elalbertomedina
Trump deploys troops to LA amid anti-ICE protests
By teleSUR Desk (Posted Jun 10, 2025)
Originally published: teleSUR English on June 8, 2025 (more by teleSUR English) |
U.S. President Donald Trump has deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles following two days of protests against immigration raids, igniting fierce backlash from California Governor Gavin Newsom. The Democrat condemned the move as “purposefully inflammatory” and accused the White House of engineering a spectacle to justify federal overreach.
“The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles—not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle,” Newsom wrote on X.
Don’t give them one.
The protests, driven by a renewed wave of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across Southern California, erupted into violent clashes on Saturday in the city of Paramount. Demonstrators confronted federal agents, prompting the use of tear gas and less-lethal rounds to disperse the crowds.
Federal Escalation Fuels OutcryThe White House justified the deployment, citing a “failure of state leadership” in containing what it called “lawless violence.” However, California officials and rights groups contend that the militarized response is a deliberate provocation targeting vulnerable communities. “The federal government is sowing chaos so they can have an excuse to escalate. That is not the way any civilized country behaves,” Newsom warned.
California is a self-declared sanctuary state, meaning local and state law enforcement agencies are legally prohibited from cooperating with federal immigration authorities unless presented with a judicial warrant. This policy has long placed the state on a collision course with Washington’s immigration agenda. In response to Saturday’s protests, Newsom said the California Highway Patrol had been mobilized to keep the peace, but clarified,
It’s not the CHP’s job to assist in federal immigration enforcement.
The flashpoint occurred in Paramount, where hundreds gathered near a Home Depot store after rumors of an immigration raid. Although ICE later denied conducting an operation at that site, officials said tensions flared when demonstrators began throwing objects at agents and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies. Sheriff Robert Luna confirmed that the crowd swelled to between 350 and 400 people and that law enforcement was forced to respond.
ICE reported conducting three raids elsewhere in Los Angeles last week, resulting in 44 administrative arrests. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a total of 118 people were detained across Southern California during the past week, including five alleged gang members and others with prior criminal records related to drug trafficking and assault.
DHS officials cited a 413% surge in assaults against immigration officers and reported that personal information of agents and their family members had been leaked online, a tactic known as doxxing. “The violent targeting of law enforcement in Los Angeles by lawless rioters is despicable,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who also criticized the LAPD for its delayed response to unrest outside a federal building on Friday night.
Rights groups, however, argue that the government’s language is designed to criminalize dissent and deflect attention from abusive immigration practices. “This is not about restoring order—it’s about sending a message,” said a spokesperson for the ACLU.
Deploying troops against immigrant communities is an authoritarian tactic, not a public safety measure.
The deployment of federal troops without a state governor’s consent is rare and controversial, evoking comparisons to Trump’s 2020 response to the George Floyd protests. Analysts warn that such moves signal a broader erosion of civil liberties and democratic norms.
“This echoes past abuses during the Civil Rights era and again in 2020, when federal agents were deployed to suppress protests across U.S. cities,” said Dr. Maya Glenn, a political science professor at UC Berkeley.
In 2024 alone, ICE conducted over 142,000 deportations, with Los Angeles ranking among the top five metro areas targeted for enforcement, according to DHS figures. As the 2026 midterm elections approach, critics say Trump’s response is a calculated effort to mobilize his political base by framing immigration as a national security threat. But in doing so, they warn, the federal government risks further destabilizing one of the most populous and diverse states in the country.
Newsom called for restraint, urging Californians to defend their rights peacefully. “Speak out peacefully,” he wrote.
Matt Stoller: Steve Bannon Calls for Nationalizing SpaceX
June 9, 2025 1 Comment
By Matt Stoller, Substack (BIG), 6/6/25
Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. If you’d like to sign up to receive issues over email, you can do so here.
I had planned to write something on the possible Google remedy, but the political world is riveted by the bitter feud that has broken out between the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and the President, Donald Trump. Though the fight feels a bit like pro-wrestling and may not last long, the insults back and forth are mean-spirited and bitter, and were accompanied with threats.
From a market power perspective, there is potential policy fallout, and that’s what interests me. Trump said he might cut Elon Musk’s government contracts, which are largely centered in his rocket company, SpaceX. That’s a big deal, because the company runs much of our space program. In the last quarter of 2023, SpaceX lifted up 90% of all pounds sent into orbit, which makes it a monopolist in launching satellites. It provides the only vehicle that astronauts have to get to and from the International Space Station.
There’s more. A big part of SpaceX is the communications satellite company Starlink, which has around two thirds of all satellites in space and has a dominant lead in its market, allowing people to get broadband internet with a small dish anywhere on the planet. Starlink is so important that it is a key geopolitical weapon. Musk has made the call to allow or disallow Ukraine from using Starlink terminals for different warfighting purposes, giving this individual sovereign-level powers.
After Trump threatened Musk today, Musk responded by saying he would use his power to jeopardize U.S. interests.
It’s not clear if he was joking, but even a joke threat makes the point. Decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft would harm the International Space Station and hinder U.S. encrypted communications, some of which flow over Musk’s network.
One result of this fight is that Steve Bannon, a close advisor to Trump, has suggested that Trump use the Defense Production Act – a legacy law from mid-century that allows the government to use civilian industrial capacity for national security purposes – to take over SpaceX. Here’s the clip.
Bannon is correct in his argument. Something like launch capacity to space, especially when it’s a monopoly, or a vital communications network like Starlink, are too important to be controlled by one guy. And it’s government funded anyway, having received $22 billion in direct Federal monies, and more every year, with immense public support in the form of permissions to launch and knowledge built on top of the public space program.
Bannon’s argument isn’t just about seizing private power. It’s true that SpaceX’s rockets that bring satellites into space are reusable and efficient, and his company has won because its technology is better than rivals such as Blue Origin and Boeing. But there’s also a real monopolization problem. Here’s the New York Times discussing the company’s tactics a year ago:
The new generation of space entrepreneurs trying to emulate Mr. Musk is sufficiently concerned about what they see as his anticompetitive tactics that some of them are now willing to take him on publicly.
Tim Ellis started Relativity Space after being inspired by Mr. Musk’s pursuit of a rocket that could carry humans to Mars. Then he heard from other industry executives that individuals with ties to SpaceX were trying to block his efforts to raise money for his own Mars project.
Jim Cantrell worked with Mr. Musk at the founding of SpaceX in 2002. When he started to build his own launch company, Phantom Space, two potential customers told his sales team they could not sign deals because SpaceX inserts provisions in its contracts to discourage customers from using rivals.
Peter Beck, an aerospace engineer from New Zealand, met in 2019 with Mr. Musk to talk about Mr. Beck’s own launch company, called Rocket Lab. Several months later, SpaceX moved to start carrying small payloads at a discounted price that Mr. Beck and other industry executives said was intended to undercut their chances of success.
“I don’t think this is an accidental monopoly,” Mr. Beck said in an interview about SpaceX and Mr. Musk. “These are business decisions that are being made.”
Rivals allege two main tactics for the launch part of the monopoly. First, SpaceX allegedly charges below cost in certain contexts to prevent competitors from getting into the market. Second, the company inserts “right of first refusal” provisions with customers, meaning that it has the right to match competitors if they make a better offer. Both of these are classic moves of an aspiring monopolist. There are likely others tactics of course, rumors that Starlink gets better pricing from SpaceX launches than other rival satellites, which is self-preferencing. And there’s the sabotaging of funding rounds, plus the need for large amounts of capital and regulatory barriers to entry.
So there is a legitimate reason that the government has to use the Defense Production Act to take over SpaceX, since Musk is threatening to sabotage vital interests over a political spat. Normally, I’d support Bannon’s argument, and also call for an antitrust investigation and action, as that should have happened long ago. But this is the Trump era, and there’s a reason that didn’t happen
Talking about key national infrastructure in the context of two enormously powerful men calling each other pedophiles on Twitter is extremely weird. We’re in an oligarchy, and nothing screams that as much as this fight. And I will make an observation about how miserable it must be to work in this administration in a political capacity, because keeping your job and/or advancing means expressing zeal for cults of personality that can change at any moment.
Musk’s politics are those of a standard Reagan libertarian – low corporate taxes, free trade with China, bad labor standards, lots of immigration – and he fits in well with the Republican establishment. But he’s both immensely wealthy, and he has a cult of personality almost as big as Trump. Before this fight, the cringe adoration for Musk among GOP officials was overwhelming. For instance, the FBI set up a task force to look at anti-Tesla vandalism, every agency investigating parts of Musk’s empire was dismantled, the FCC and Commerce Department redirected broadband subsidies to Starlink, and trade reps helped Musk’s broadband company get contracts in India, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Lesotho, using the threat of tariffs as a lever. The State Department even tried to order $400 million of electric armored cars from Tesla, before being exposed and embarrassed.
I’m not making a corruption argument, though obviously the conflicts of interest here are insane. I’m making a slightly different point. For the last three years, and then increasingly since Trump took office, every Republican official with less than a billion dollar net worth has been bending over backwards to be as obsequious as possible to Musk. When told to jump they ask how high, they self-righteously attack and ferret out anyone who had anything to do with anything that might slightly annoy Musk. It’s little stuff, like this, which I’m guessing Musk didn’t ask for but some random Trump staffer thought might get him a promotion or a positive word from the boss.
Since they don’t know what they want in terms of a governing agenda, and they aren’t getting clear direction, Trump officials are just trying to please the most powerful cult of personality they see. They are acting out of fear, a constant sense of exhaustive social climbing.
And now, everything that these people have done, all the worshipping of DOGE and Musk, all the extra subsidies they’ve tried to slip Musk’s way, is that for nothing? Have the rules changed? Will they now be criticized for what they thought they were supposed to be doing?
That’s one of the problems with oligarchy. It really is arbitrary, and it sucks for everyone, not just those victimized by the vagaries, but even for those working for the oligarchs. That is one reason the rule of law matters and why institutional integrity is useful. Being at the utter whim of powerful men who can change their mind whenever, without consequence, well, it’s a terrible way to run a country. It took us a thousand years to develop democratic systems and get us away from this kind of arbitrary and capricious behavior. Hopefully we’ll start to remember what we have before we lose it.
In the meantime, yeah, we should treat SpaceX and Starlink like the public utilities they are. And if Trump really wanted to go after Musk, he’d send the Federal Trade Commission after SpaceX to look at some of its contracts and pricing choices. But we’re a ways from that, even if an enterprising state official might be able to do it.
If Bannonism has an ideological debt in its political praxis, it is to Mao Zedong more than to René Guénon or Julius Evola.
If Bannonism has an ideological debt in its political praxis, it is to Mao Zedong more than to René Guénon or Julius Evola. And I say this without irony, drawing on previous analyses that point to the influence of Lenin, Gramsci, and Mao on the praxis of Trump strategist Steve Bannon.
From the classic Maoist perspective, all beings are shaped by their contradictions, and it is the clashes between these contradictions that drive historical processes forward. This is a metaphysics (albeit a materialist one) that recalls Nietzsche’s metaphysics of the will to power — the clash between opposing forces producing becoming. In a political sense, this conception shapes a view whereby, for a revolutionary movement to “advance” after defeating one enemy, it must intensify contradictions against another target, turning it into the new main enemy.
In doing so, one reinforces one’s own positions and bases and eliminates a force that may once have been friendly but was not fully aligned. Without this, stagnation and bureaucratization follow — which is, to some extent, also predicted in Trotsky’s theory of “permanent revolution.” There are, evidently, echoes here of Carl Schmitt’s political theory, and perhaps that is why the German jurist is so widely read in contemporary China.
Now then, the alliance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has always been a strange one.
Trump 2.0 — as is evident to all — is backed by part of the Deep State and the globalists; specifically, by the technocratic sectors of the Deep State and globalism. Both the choice of J.D. Vance as vice president and the alliance with Elon Musk and the rapprochement with Peter Thiel point in this direction. Special attention, in fact, should be given to Vance’s position as vice president given that he is a close associate of the neoreactionary Peter Thiel and of the digital surveillance megacorporation Palantir.
Despite the superficial progressive view lumping everything under the label of “far-right,” the contradictions between the positions of Trumpist-Bannonist populism and neoreactionary technoglobalism are fundamental.
Trumpism-Bannonism is against mass immigration in general due to identitarian concerns with preserving a demographic and cultural image of the U.S. crystallized in the mid-20th century. For Trumpism-Bannonism, a dumb redneck living in a trailer in the American South is “better” than an Indian immigrant with three PhDs and a 180 IQ because the former belongs to the “us” while the latter is an “other.” And that is enough.
The neoreactionary perspective (and by “neoreactionary” here we refer to the technocratic and authoritarian capitalist ideology of Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land), on the other hand, is anti-identitarian. It supports limiting the immigration of lumpen (simply because there are already enough lumpen in the U.S. to serve as “Morlocks” — precarious laborers), but favors increasing the immigration of skilled Chinese and Indian labor—even if this implies demographic replacement and the creation of an artificial “caste society” in which the “managerial” roles are held by Asian “specialists.”
Elon Musk is not strictly a neoreactionary in an ideological sense, but rather a libertarian technoglobalist whose positions align with neoreactionary views on at least a few topics. And unsurprisingly, Musk has taken precisely this stance on the issue of immigration.
And also on the issue of the economy.
For Trumpism-Bannonism, free trade ruined the U.S. by promoting deindustrialization and destroying “small town America” in the so-called “fly-over country.” Despite the rhetorical nods paid to Ronald Reagan, Trump’s rise materially represents a revolt against Reaganism. The more intellectual sectors of this camp recall Hamiltonian protectionism and its role in building U.S. power.
For technoglobalists, on the other hand, free trade is an imperative of economic efficiency. The international division of labor based on comparative advantage is an axiom. Technoglobalists are usually based in the U.S., but they run businesses all over the world. For them, planetary integration is a good thing. In this regard, one only needs to recall the intense conflict between Elon Musk and Peter Navarro, Trump’s “tariff guru.”
Here, of course, it’s necessary to point out the difference between the person Donald Trump and what we call Trumpism—that is, the grassroots movement primarily built by Steve Bannon. Trump himself oscillates between different ideological positions and is not always aligned with Trumpism per se.
Nevertheless, the conflict between Donald Trump and Elon Musk represents this opposition between “blood” and “gold.” Trump is the mass leader, endowed with real power, driven by pure instinct, in contrast to the cosmopolitan billionaire “nerd” Elon Musk.
In today’s world, due to the spread of liberal values, people have come to believe that money is power and that financial interests always override politics. Just look at the Brazilian reaction to the dispute between Elon Musk and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. For Bolsonaro supporters, it was “obvious” that Musk would be able to overcome Moraes simply because Musk is “the richest man in the world.” We now know that’s not what happened.
Money means nothing. When “the richest man in the world” in antiquity—the Roman triumvir Crassus—was defeated at the Battle of Carrhae by the Parthians, the victors seized him by the neck and poured molten gold down his throat until he died. His head was then displayed during a performance of The Bacchae by Euripides before King Orodes II. What good did it do him to be “the richest man in the world”? As sharply put in an episode of Game of Thrones, “power is power.” And raw, brute power crushes the indirect power of “influence” and “money” whenever there is no barrier to its exercise.
And, to some extent, it’s better that way. In a traditional conception of the relations between the spheres of human activity, Politics must always take precedence over Economics—especially in a democratic popular order. In this sense, in the clash between Trump and Musk, Donald represents a traditional political principle—even if he is an “outsider” who challenged part of the traditional U.S. political elite—of monocratic, vertical command, over the eunuch-like horizontality (note: quite literally here, considering most of Musk’s children were born via artificial insemination) of the peddler and trinket-seller Musk.
Trump speaks from a position of power, with the symbols of power, with an autocratic voice, protected by guns and missiles, acting on pure instinct, expressing gut-level opinions, with the authenticity of someone who knows what is necessary to preserve and expand his power. In this, he seeks to represent (at least partially) the American proletariat, the farmer, and the middle class—the “little men,” or as Hillary Clinton once said, the “deplorables,” the “rabble” who never embraced cosmopolitan nomadism. There is no comparison with the transhumanist technocrat Musk.
Now, in truth, this rupture may complicate some aspects of Trump’s governance, especially given Musk’s influence over social media—the main battleground of Trumpism. But from Steve Bannon’s perspective, it is better for Trumpism to fall than to be co-opted and subverted by figures he considers globalists.
Neoreactionary technoglobalists represent a transhumanist and anti-traditional infiltration into the heart of Trumpist populism. And it is to be expected that Steve Bannon will eventually take the ideological confrontation to Peter Thiel, who, through Palantir, aims to build a technocratic tyranny of permanent surveillance in North America—and who is still connected to Trump, especially via J.D. Vance.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that, in recent days, Elon Musk has publicly advocated for Trump’s impeachment so that J.D. Vance could govern in his place.
Elon Musk (Left) and Donald Trump (Right). Photo: Resumen Latinoamericano/File photo.
By José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez – Jun 7, 2025
Havana, Cuba—This is the question that a responsible author asks himself every time he makes a prediction, an approximation, or dares to sketch out a scenario. It is a recurring question if one wants the next exercise to be closer to the truth, and it is essential for all work to be perfectible.
At the beginning of March, we presented a reflection entitled “The translation of a photo: Trump’s new Pentagons,” in which we drew attention to the likely influence that a group of billionaires from the so-called new technology sector would have on Donald Trump’s administration and the possible use by the new Republican team of all the wealth of information held by companies such as Apple, Amazon, Meta, and X, in accordance with their interests of domination.
At the time, we did not go beyond imagining a mutually beneficial alliance between political and economic power, without either side crossing the red line that separates their respective mandates in the prevailing social order (or disorder) in that country.
One of those companies (X, formerly Twitter) and, in particular, its chief executive, Elon Musk, had played a significant role in supporting Trump’s election campaign, both in terms of the amount of money invested (estimated at around US $400 million) and the amount of data he interacted with directly that may have influenced voters.
As is well known, Trump made a “grateful gesture” by giving Musk a leading role in the new executive branch during his first 100 days in office, heading up a structure called DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) without being subject to congressional scrutiny, which was supposedly tasked with quickly reviewing how money approved in the federal budget was being spent by each agency at that level, as well as investigating policies, regulations, and key priorities.
At the same time, Musk selflessly secured a hefty share of the federal budget for some of his companies, such as SpaceX, which would immediately benefit from large contracts related to US national defense, extra planetary conquest, and other areas.
To the surprise of many and the complicit silence of senators and congresspeople—who remain silent in order to secure their indefinite re-election—Musk and his closest collaborators enjoyed broad powers that allowed them to access sensitive information, propose the closure of institutions, and lay off thousands of state workers, without any legislative or judicial oversight.
However, what seemed like a long-term marriage enjoyed by both parties suddenly came to an unexpected end. Musk resigned from his executive duties in early June, bluntly criticizing budget legislation that Trump considered essential to his second term and began to launch strong public attacks on his former partner and president. Trump reacted by launching his own missiles after an initial silence, which some interpreted as a desire to avoid a costly counterattack from Musk ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Trump responded to only some of Musk’s arguments and did not question his claims, particularly that his contribution to the current president’s campaign had been decisive and defining.
Much of the corporate press, as always superficial and complacent, focused on the use of adjectives, the repetition of offensive messages, and listing who supported each side. But Musk went further, and on June 5, he proposed on his X profile the possibility of creating a third federal party, opened a 24-hour poll on the subject, and targeted a growing majority of US voters, the so-called independents, who are increasingly less Republican or Democrat but are increasingly deciding where the pendulum is swinging.
This action was met with mixed reactions across the political spectrum. Some linked it to Musk’s “volatile personality,” others saw it as a desperate and possibly temporary outburst by the entrepreneur, and many attributed it to his penchant for making headlines.
To add further complexity to the political environment, it should be noted that these developments came just days after an unexpected public campaign against Trump (with widespread repercussions on X) took place, which took on the main hashtag #TACOTrump and aimed to “prove” that Trump “always chickens out,” (Trump Always Chickens Out), a stance that theoretically has accompanied him since his days as a real estate entrepreneur.
Perhaps the most interesting reaction to Musk’s stance was the terrified silence of many traditional politicians. The proposal by the man with the most economic resources at his disposal in the United States and the world, who also runs one of the digital platforms with the greatest impact on the US political class, has come at a time when both the Republican and Democratic parties are facing one of the most significant existential crises in their history.
What is happening within the so-called Grand Old Party (GOP) is perhaps more evident. Trump commands hordes that have no order or concerted action. He is the leader of an amalgam of interests, where there are no group discussions or interest in reaching consensus. Neither national committees nor local structures dare to challenge the emperor’s projections, whether they involve suicidal tariffs for the US economy or multimillion-dollar spending to expel or terrorize undocumented immigrants.
On the Democratic side, the outlook is also suicidal. Added to this is the real possibility that large sectors of young progressive minded people will split from the federal organization. This leakage has already begun and can be traced to the strong presidential campaign Bernie Sanders ran in 2020 only to betray his followers by urging them at the end to support Biden. They are also still recovering from the series of strategic errors that led to their humiliating defeat in the November 2024 presidential elections. The generational change needed to bring new figures into key positions has not taken place. The Clintons, as the core, and other small groups revolving around them, are not relinquishing political power within the party and continue to be the main factor of balance (or imbalance).
These Democratic afflictions have perhaps been less discussed, but recent texts such as the book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (2025) provide enough evidence to conclude that the fate of the Democratic structure is increasingly dominated by a small group of elitist managers who are becoming increasingly detached from the party base. The terminal illness of these Democrats is evident in the fact that there are no leadership figures who can offer or simulate an alternative, either as individuals or as projects, for the midterm elections in 2026 or the presidential elections in 2028.
Musk’s brief exercise managed to gauge the opinion of more than five million people out of the nearly 40 million who read the question in just 24 hours. According to Musk himself (there is no way to verify this), 80% of those who responded were in favor of creating a third party, which he has already named the America Party. Keep in mind that X is a platform that is mainly used by executives and professionals in the United States, and a significant portion of young people who use Facebook or TikTok exclude themselves from it.
If we made a mistake in writing the article mentioned at the beginning, it was in not imagining that another figure (Musk) outside traditional political structures could take advantage so rapidly and efficiently of the fracture generated in the US system by the Trump phenomenon to attempt to seize power using old and new instruments that he masters like few others.
Perhaps we can already talk about techno-parties or techno-politicians. Extensive economic resources concentrated in the hands of those who accumulate unlimited data as a result of the use of artificial intelligence tools and who have the ability to place personalized messages on cell phones and tablets to create tastes and generate attitudes can serve as an incubator for political phenomena in the United States and other countries.
The events of recent days, whose full extent are yet to be seen but which do not appear to be reversible, could pale in comparison to what has been called Trumpism until now, and these events could turn Trump not just into an extreme on the spectrum but into a transitional factor.
Isolated data does not make trends, and without trends, it is impossible to make generalizations, but a number of variables will need to be observed in the coming days.
These include the willingness of Musk and his associates to continue the campaign, the attitude that other executives in the virtual world and their respective corporations will take, the continuing deterioration of the relationship between the proactive Trump and the executive Trump, the state of the economy, and the reactions of various sectors to his main proposals, among others.
José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez is Director of the International Policy Research Center (CIPI) in Havana, Cuba.
Making a Mountain out of a Mole Hill, Trump Sends Troops to Los Angeles, Hoping to Energize His MAGA Base
Jon Jeter 11 Jun 2025
Trump deploys Marines against LA protesters, echoing Nixon’s Kent State crackdown. But this time, he faces a broader, greatly disaffected opposition ready to fight back.
While there have mercifully been no fatalities, President Trump’s deployment of military personnel to corral Los Angeles protesters challenging his administration’s federal immigration policies invites comparisons to the May 4, 1970, clash between the Ohio National Guard and anti-war demonstrators that left four Kent State University students fatally wounded and nine others seriously injured.
Trump on Monday ordered 700 U.S. Marines to join 4,000 soldiers with California’s National Guard on the ground in Los Angeles to respond to protests against Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) arrests that turned violent over the weekend. But he did so over objections from California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats, who argued that the White House’s deployment of troops to the area was gratuitous and unnecessary to deal with violent outbursts that were minimal, isolated, and well within the state’s capacity to contain with local law-enforcement. In a post on Truth Social, Trump seemed to confirm that his decision to put boots on the ground was motivated, at least in part, by partisan politics.
“If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs, which everyone knows they can’t, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”
When the White House announced that it would send Marines into the fray, Newsom, who is widely considered a leading contender for his party’s 2028 nomination for president, wrote on the social media platform known as X:
“U.S. Marines have served honorably across multiple wars in defense of democracy. They are heroes. They shouldn't be deployed on American soil, facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President. This is un-American.”
But not really. In sending contingents of state and federal militias to Southern California, the White House is parroting President Richard Nixon’s deployment of the National Guard to Ohio to counter dissidents opposed to the Vietnam War, putatively to restore “law and order.” In explaining his position, Trump’s rhetoric is similar in both tone and language to that used by Nixon, who attributed demonstrations such as the one at Kent State to “outside agitators” and described protesters as “bums blowing up the campuses.”
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Trump said:
“These are paid insurrectionists, these are paid troublemakers; they get money.”
Additionally, Trump and Nixon share another motive in responding aggressively to protests, which is to divide the electorate—largely along racial lines—by characterizing dissent as unpatriotic and appealing to white voters’ nationalist sensibilities.
In Nixon’s case, the tactic seemed to work. Possessed of remarkable pettiness and venality even by American political standards, the 37th president of the United States was a masterful political strategist whose genius, an aide once said, was “understanding who hates who.” His obsession during his five-and-a-half years in the Oval Office was his Southern Strategy, which was designed to smash a tenuous, interracial, New Deal consensus that by 1970 had governed the country for nearly 40 years. Aping efforts by his hero, Woodrow Wilson, Nixon sought to revive a laconic race war through a wide range of domestic policies intended to pit white workers against Black and leave the party’s out-of-touch, “effete” East Coast liberal leadership holding the bag.
While there is some evidence to suggest that Nixon ordered the National Guard to open fire at Kent State, few historians would dispute that Nixon viewed the incident as a shot across the bow, discouraging whites from participating in leftist movements in which there was a reasonable chance that their blood might be spilled in the streets just like African Americans who made trouble for the ruling class. Nixon understood that unspooling the Democrats’ already shaky rainbow coalition would usher in a new Republican majority.
A Gallup Poll taken days after the shootings suggests that Kent State did indeed have a chilling effect on public attitudes: 58 percent of respondents blamed the students for the violence, and only 11 percent held the National Guard culpable in stark contrast to surveys done before the incident which showed broad support for the anti-war movement, and growing student activism that often paired young whites with their radical counterparts in the Black Power movement. Said the political prisoner and Black Panther Mumia Abu Jamal of the era:
“Revolution seemed as inevitable as tomorrow’s newspaper.”
But if Nixon’s antagonism of liberals were part of a coherent strategy that took into account the governing political ethos of the day, Trump’s ham-handed gesture in Los Angeles would seem to shine an even brighter light on his administration’s incoherence, or its complete inability to read the room.
In his 133 days in office, Trump appears intent on alienating everyone he comes into contact with, including his base of white conservatives, with his “Big, Beautiful” budget proposal that, if passed, would cut deeply into the federal health insurance program for low-income Americans, Medicaid, and the government’s food assistance voucher subsidy, known as SNAP , that tens of millions of families rely on each month for groceries.
Additionally, the U.S. Labor Department last week said that the Trump administration has cut nearly 60,000 jobs since January —more than a third of that total in May alone—combining with a chaotic plan to increase tariffs on imported goods that is sparking widespread fears of a recession when second quarter Gross Domestic Product figures are released next month.
He has excoriated in public not only Democrats like Newsom and Bass but Republicans like U.S. Senator Rand Paul and his one-time ally, Elon Musk, who is also one of the party’s biggest donors, referring to the billionaire entrepreneur as a “big-time drug addict.”
His administration has fared no better abroad. Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has voiced support for Taiwan’s secession from mainland China, which China’s President Xi Jinping has warned is a red line that the U.S. should not attempt to cross. Simultaneously, China’s riposte to the Trump administration’s tariffs is to curb global shipments of rare earth minerals that are essential to the manufacture of cars, missiles and a range of electronic products, causing Ford Motor and other companies to suspend some of their operations.
In a social media post, Trump has described Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he has long boasted of having a close relationship, as “crazy.” Simultaneously, he has said that he expects Putin’s help in negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran, which geopolitical analysts say is delusional given the close relationship between the two countries.
Concomitantly, while a majority of respondents say they approve of Trump’s aggressive deportations, his deployment of troops to Los Angeles seems to have emboldened activists as thousands of anti-ICE protesters have attended rallies in recent days across California, in Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco’s Bay Area; in other Western cities including Portland, Las Vegas, and Seattle; in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Memphis; in Midwestern cities including Oklahoma City, Louisville, Chicago, Detroit, and Columbus, Ohio and along the East Coast in Charlotte, North Carolina, Atlanta, Washington D.C., and New York. In virtually all cities, the rallies have been attended by a diverse mixture of Latinos, African Americans, whites, Middle Eastern, and Asians, comparable to the throngs of demonstrators attending protests against Israel’s 17-month siege of Gaza.
Not only do Trump’s policies appear to be hardening opposition to his administration but there is evidence that they are also thinning out the ranks of his supporters. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted between May 30 and June 2 found that 49 percent of 1,610 adults polled described themselves as "MAGA Republicans," a drop from previous months and only a modest increase from 38 percent in September 2022. Among all U.S. adults, 16 percent now embrace the MAGA label, an increase of five percentage points from 11 percent two years ago, but down from a peak of 20 percent in March.
Unlike Nixon, Trump may have misread the tea leaves. Nixon exploited racism to pit white workers against their Black coworkers in an effort to dismantle the liberal consensus that governed the U.S. during the country’s Golden Industrial Age. But Trump’s America is different than Nixon’s; it is less white, less prosperous and less patriotic after 18 months of Israel’s televised genocide in Gaza that has galvanized wide swaths of the population. It remains an open question whether Americans will watch clashes between protesters and troops in Los Angeles and side with the demonstrators or the soldiers as their grandparents did in Kent State’s aftermath.
Trump Now Owns a Genocide & Two Wars
Karl Sanchez
Jun 13, 2025
The headline tells the true tale. War #1 is against Ukraine, the Russian speakers within Ukraine, and Russia, launched in 2014 by Team Obama, escalated during Trump 1.0, escalated further by Team Biden, and continued by Trump 2.0. War #2 was just launched by the Outlaw US Empire using its Zionist proxy against Iran in what appears to be a campaign aimed at decapitating Iran’s leadership. There’s a great deal of “fog” surrounding Iran, but it’s absolutely 100% clear the Empire helped plan and execute the attacks and of course supplied the means. Iran has directly accused the Outlaw US Empire of those doings and holds Trump personally accountable for the war, an assessment I agree with. IMO, for the moment all diplomacy is now dead in West Asia. The Zionists and the Outlaw US Empire are now the equivalent to Hitler’s Germany in their violation of Internatioanl Law and are subject to the same consequences. I don’t intend to try and closely follow what transpires as there are too many on other platforms—X and Telegram—as well as substack who are already doing just that. I intend to continue my examination of geoeconomics and how it guides geopolitics while providing major updates and views from other major nations.
Would things be different if Harris had won? IMO, no. The Lust for War in Congress is well known. IMO, if Harris were POTUS and continued the same non-communication policy with Russia as Biden, then the strikes on Russia’s nuclear triad would have launched a nuclear response. And that’s the only dime worth of difference I see between Trump and Harris/Biden. I mentioned the film “On the Beach” to my wife last night, a film she’s never seen. Yes, the situation is that serious; I’d be lying to say it’s not.
Those Who Would Be King
Posted on June 14, 2025 by Yves Smith
Yves here. The US has already gone into brownshirt terrain, with Congresscritters being roughed up and even arrested for excising their statutory right to visit ICE detainees and even merely attempt to query DHS chief Kristi Noem in person. One colleague in NYC who was an organizer of the protests there described long form how people no one recognized were trying to whip up the crowd to get violent and throw objects at the police. The organizers, mainly successfully, called on the protestors to stay peaceful. So we’ll see how the planned “No King” protests against Trump’s pretenses of royalty go in terms of numbers who participate and whether they can resist provocateurs.
Keep in mind that Trump is itching to invoke the Insurrection Act, so a big but peaceful show of numbers is required. But this Administration has gone so rogue that they may deem very large gatherings opposing Trump to be tantamount to an insurrection.
By Camillo “Mac” Bica, Ph.D., an author, activist, and Professor of Philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Mac is former Marine Corps Officer, Vietnam Veteran, long time activist for peace and social justice and coordinator of Veterans For Peace Long Island. Contact him via https://www.camillobica.com. Originally published at Common Dreams
After implementing significant budget cuts across various federal programs, including eliminating some 83,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, 20,000 of which were filled by veterans, President Donald J. Trump plans to spend an estimated $45-96 million for a parade on June 14 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States Army, and concurrently his 79th birthday. With a massive display of America’s military might, this event, according to the parade’s official website,“is designed not only to showcase the Army’s modern capabilities but also to inspire a new generation to embrace the spirit of service, resilience, and leadership that defines the United States.”
Trump has yearned to immerse himself in such a display of military extravagance no matter the expense and inconvenience to the public ($16 million additional in damage to Washington’s streets, the closure of two major airports, etc.) since witnessing France’s impressive Bastille Day celebrations during his first term. Much to his dismay, however, his plans were abandoned after pushback over cost and logistics from D.C. officials and opposition from then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Not unexpectedly, the current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, never one to thwart Trump’s wishes and illusions of grandeur, enthusiastically supports the parade.
Interestingly, for whatever the reason, in hyping the parade, Trump fails to acknowledge, nor does he have similar plans to showcase, the modern capabilities and the “spirit of service, resilience, and leadership” of America’s other military branches that also celebrate their 250th Anniversary later in the year, the Navy in October and the Marine Corps in November. One may speculate that this omission may have something to do with their anniversaries not coinciding with Trump’s birthday.
Despite the optics of this parade falling on Trump’s birthday,event organizers insist that there is no connection between the two events. However, one must consider this claim in tandem with other measures that have characterized Trump’s reign of terror in the White House. His flurry of presidential orders is clearly intended to reinvent the presidency by vastly expanding his authority, powers, and the deference accorded to the Office he holds. Basically, he is attempting to reinvent the presidency as something that resembles a dictatorship rather than the democracy it has traditionally been in American history. And what better to accomplish this than a parade to celebrate the military and the weapons of war, an event befitting other megalomaniacal world leaders and dictators like Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler.
Further, given the myriad incidents of flagrant animosity and disrespect Trump has exhibited toward the military in the past, i.e., his disparaging the parents of Humayun Khan, an army captain killed during the Iraq War; his characterizing soldiers who died defending this Country as losers and suckers; his refusing to visit, while in France, the graves of American service members killed during World War I because it was raining; his not wanting to be seen with wounded veterans because “it doesn’t look good for me;” his mocking of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain for being shot down and captured during the Vietnam War; his calling the military officials with whom he had worked “some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met in my life,” etc., one can understand why many veterans (and nonveterans alike) are skeptical of the organizers claim that this parade is intended to honor soldiers and veterans and celebrate America’s Army.
Many of us who served in the military, who shed our blood and sanity for this country, certainly remember. War never goes away and is with us for the remainder of our lives. But we who know the truth about war do not celebrate its horror and tragedy. Those of us who can, labor to live with it. Tragically, as indicated by the 18 veterans who commit suicide each day, many could not.
Many march to remember, others to forget.
But for those who truly know war
and suffer its consequences,
no ceremony or parade is necessary
as the memories,
the images of war,
and the faces of our comrades wasted in battle
visit us each night in our dreams.
Nor do the ceremonies and parades
help us to put to rest
the turmoil of a life interrupted
and devastated by war,
or to forget the killing and the dying.
Such ceremonies and parades accomplish nothing,
save to allow those who make war easily
or distance themselves from its insanity and horror
to feign support and appreciation
and to relieve their collective guilt
for immoral war and crimes against humanity.
Nor do ceremonies and parades
honor, educate, inform, or lessen the burden of loss.
Rather they celebrate and perpetuate
the myth of honor and glory,
and “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”
I shall march no more—Camillo Mac Bica
This isn’t just a parade, therefore, it is a flagrant exploitation of the military for personal and political gain, something we, who fought in America’s unnecessary and immoral wars, know so well. It is an authoritarian display of power, and another means for Trump to celebrate himself and to expand his authority. It is a waste of money that could better be used to restore much needed funds for healthcare, housing, pensions, and giving our troops and their families the best care possible. Therefore, we must not remain silent. We must act, raise our voices in outrage, defy the ambitions of those who would be king, speak the truth about war, and not allow others, especially pretenders and posers, to misrepresent and mythologize that which they know nothing about.
As Trump Sets Military Against Civilians, Soldiers Have Duty to Disobey
Posted by Internationalist 360° on June 11, 2025
Marjorie Cohn
U.S. Northern Command photo of Marines training in non-lethal tactics in the Los Angeles area this week. (U.S. Northern Command /X)
Four and a half months after his inauguration, Donald Trump is exercising his authoritarian chops, targeting immigrants in the state he most despises — California.
Making good on Trump’s nativist pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security started conducting widespread raids outside workplaces in Los Angeles. They began on June 6, with no prior notification to the California governor, L.A. mayor or local law enforcement.
During these raids, ICE officers arrested people in military-style operations that instilled fear and panic in the community and terrorized immigrants.
As a result of the Trump administration’s repressive anti-immigrant actions, thousands of people of all races and backgrounds took to the streets in solidarity with their fellow Angelenos and conducted protests that have largely consisted of mass marches and rallies. Some protesters have also engaged in direct actions, such as blocking portions of the 101 freeway. A handful of protesters have vandalized corporate-owned, self-driving Waymo robotaxis to highlight their role in expanding the police surveillance state: the driverless cars are constantly recording surveillance videos that are then used by police.
Local police responded to these protests with a barrage of rubber bullets, flash bangs and chemical munitions. Then, Trump stepped in to further militarize the crisis he himself had manufactured.
Trump Federalizes the National Guard
Trump addressing a gathering outside the White House on June 4. (White House / Gabriel Kotico)
On June 7, in an illegal and unnecessary end run around California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s authority to maintain order in his state, Trump issued an edict under 10 U.S.C. section 12406 to activate National Guard units for “the enforcement of Federal law and to protect Federal property, at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations.”
“No president has ever federalized the National Guard for purposes of responding to potential future civil unrest anywhere in the country,” notes Elizabeth Goitein, senior director at the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
“Preemptive deployment is literally the opposite of deployment as a last resort. It would be a shocking abuse of power and the law.”
Trump also wrote in his edict, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” Without limiting his order to California, Trump called into service 2,000 National Guard troops for 60 days at the discretion of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“No such rebellion is underway,” The New York Times’s June 8 editorial titled “Trump Calling Troops Into Los Angeles Is the Real Emergency” said.
“As the governor’s spokesman and others have noted, Americans in cities routinely cause more property damage after their sports teams win or lose.”
Pursuant to his unlawful edict, Trump federalized California’s National Guard and deployed 2,000 guard troops to L.A., later increasing that number by another 2,000.
But Section 12406 also mandates that federalizing the state National Guard “shall be issued through the governors of the States,” and Newsom did not consent to Trump’s deployment of the state National Guard.
Donald Trump, without consulting with California’s law enforcement leaders, commandeered 2,000 of our state’s National Guard members to deploy on our streets.
Illegally, and for no reason.
This brazen abuse of power by a sitting President inflamed a combustible situation… pic.twitter.com/Xy8JHMq3cV
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 11, 2025
A president has not activated the National Guard over a governor’s objection since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson deployed the guard to protect civil rights marchers from Selma to Montgomery without the consent of Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
Demonstrators outside the White House on March 12, 1965, protesting police brutality against civil rights demonstrators days earlier in Selma, Alabama. (Warren K. Leffler, Library of Congress)
Section 12406 requires a “rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority” of the U.S. government, which has not happened. In a June 9 news release, California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote,
“Let me be clear: There is no invasion. There is no rebellion. The President is trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends. Federalizing the California National Guard is an abuse of the President’s authority under the law — and not one we take lightly. We’re asking a court to put a stop to the unlawful, unprecedented order.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta: The Trump administration is involved in an unlawful power grab that is dangerous and reckless—that threatens to inflame and provoke the tensions and to make things worse and is counterproductive. pic.twitter.com/boIfKkp4O2
— Defend America Action (@DefendUSAAction) June 10, 2025
Newsom Sues Trump, Hegseth & Defense Department
On June 9, Newsom filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Northern California against Trump, Hegseth and the Department of Defense. That same day, Trump mobilized 700 Marines from Camp Pendleton in southern California to deploy to L.A., although they have not yet hit the streets since they still don’t have standing rules for the use of force and nonlethal weapons training.
Newsom is asking a federal judge to declare the defendants’ military deployment unlawful and prohibit them from illegally sending the California National Guard and military to conduct domestic law enforcement.
“While the face of the Defendants’ orders purport to direct the deployment of the federalized National Guard members to protect federal property and federal personnel carrying out their functions, these directives are phrased in an ambiguous manner and suggest potential misuse of the federalized National Guard,” the lawsuit’s complaint states. “It is unclear what actions Secretary Hegseth will deem as ‘reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property.’”
Newsom’s suit argues that:
1. The federalization of the California National Guard deprives California of resources to protect itself and its citizens, and of critical responders in a state emergency;
2. 10 U.S.C. 12406 requires that the governor consent to federalization of the National Guard, which Newsom was not given the opportunity to do before their deployment; and
3. Trump’s unlawful order infringes on Newsom’s role as commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and violates the state’s sovereign right to control and have available its National Guard in the absence of a lawful invocation of federal power.
Top military leaders [as well as U.S. veterans on social media] have also decried Trump’s decision to federalize the National Guard and deploy the Marines in California, arguing that in addition to being illegal, it is also impractical.
“The National Guard works best when it’s under state control and can work hand in glove with its law enforcement partners at the state and local level,” Maj. Gen. David Baldwin (Ret.), the top military commander of National Guard forces in California from 2011-2022, said on the June 10 episode of PBS “News Hour.”
“So it’s a little bit heavy-handed to bring the Guard in and the Marines, especially when it’s over the objection of the governor of the state and indeed without the request from the law enforcement leaders on the ground, like Chief McDonnell and the sheriff of Los Angeles.”
James McPherson, undersecretary of the Army during the first Trump administration, stated on the same PBS broadcast, “Combat Marines are trained and exercise in just that, engaging in ground combat. They’re not trained and they do not exercise in crowd control or de-escalation or things like that.” He said he fears an escalation in Los Angeles, stating:
“And there’s going to be an escalation. There’s going to be an unfortunate incident, as there was in 1997 on the Texas border, when a similar occurrence occurred. Marines were there to provide surveillance, and they ended up shooting and killing a local teenager who was herding sheep. I think there’s going to be that escalation. And when that escalation occurs, I’m afraid the president is going to invoke the Insurrection Act, and we’re going to have uniformed service members enforcing the law upon U.S. citizens, something that just shouldn’t occur.”
Trump Itching to Invoke the Insurrection Act
The Posse Comitatus Act bars the use of the military to enforce domestic laws. The act forbids the willful use of “any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus [power of the county] or otherwise to execute the laws.” The only exceptions must be expressly authorized by the Constitution or act of Congress.
One exception to the Posse Comitatus Act is the Insurrection Act, which would allow a president to order that military forces enforce domestic law even over the objection of a state’s governor.
A president could legally invoke the Insurrection Act in three situations:
First, the president is allowed to invoke the Insurrection Act if the legislature or governor of a state asks for assistance to quell an insurrection against the government, under Section 251. In this case, however, Newsom neither asked nor consented to the use of military troops in California.
Second, the Insurrection Act can be invoked if the president decides that “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States,” render it “impracticable” to enforce U.S. or state law in the courts, under Section 252. In the current situation, there has been no allegation that federal or state law cannot be enforced.
That leaves the third instance, where “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” deprives people of a legal right, privilege, immunity or protection, that results in the denial of equal protection or “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws,” under Section 253.
Section 253 was used by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 and 1963 to send federal troops to Mississippi and Alabama to enforce the civil rights laws. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower deployed troops to desegregate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, consistent with section 253. And in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson used section 253 to protect civil rights demonstrators from police violence during the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
101st Airborne escorting the Little Rock Nine to school in September 1957. (U.S. Army, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Trump has long wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act. After the massive protests against the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020, Trump told then-Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley that he wanted to order “ten thousand troops in Washington to get control of the streets.” Esper and Milley objected, saying the situation was best handled by civil law enforcement and the D.C. National Guard. Trump called his top military leaders “losers” and reiterated his desire to send active-duty troops into Minneapolis. “Can’t you just shoot them?” Trump asked Milley. “Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis, Aug. 17, 2020. (Fibonacci Blue, Flickr,CC BY 2.0)
The mobilization of the National Guard and Marines will likely exacerbate the volatile situation in the streets of L.A. Trump said the city would have been “completely obliterated” if he had not deployed the Guard. In fact, the protests have been largely peaceful.
There is no comparison between the situation in L.A. now and that in 1992, when then-California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy federal troops to quell the uprising against anti-Black racism and police brutality following the state court acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King.
Trump already invoked the specter of “insurrection,” declaring to reporters on June 10, “I could tell you, there were certain areas of Los Angeles last night you could have called it an insurrection. It was terrible. But these are paid insurrectionists. These are paid troublemakers.”
In reality, there is no evidence that “paid troublemakers” have been involved.
Newsom Requests Immediate Restraining Order
On June 10, Newsom asked U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer to immediately grant a temporary restraining order limiting Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in L.A.
The motion urged Breyer to temporarily enjoin the defendants from deploying the Title 10 force to “enforce or aid federal agents in enforcing federal law or to take any action beyond those that are required to ensure the protection and safety of federal buildings and other real property owned or leased by the federal government and federal personnel on such property.”
Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President.
By turning the military against American citizens, he is threatening the very core of our democracy.
I’m asking the court to immediately block these unlawful actions. https://t.co/WN11SGXrld pic.twitter.com/rh1okkamhN
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) June 10, 2025
Newsom’s motion also asked the judge to temporarily enjoin the defendants from ordering or permitting the Title 10 force to execute warrants, arrests, searches, checkpoints, or cordons, or patrol communities or otherwise engage in “general law enforcement activities beyond the immediate vicinity of federal buildings or other real property owned or leased by the federal government.”
[After a hearing on Thursday, Breyer ruled that Trump must return control of the National Guard to Newsom, calling the president’s federalizing of the National Guard illegal.
“His actions were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California.”]
If Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, that would allow the Marines and National Guard to explicitly help ICE round up immigrants. Since the Marines are trained in combat, not crowd control, civilians would be more likely to get hurt, or maybe even killed.
But many service members would not take kindly to shooting civilians.
The Duty to Disobey Unlawful Orders
The Uniform Code of Military Justice requires that all military personnel obey lawful orders. A law that violates the Constitution or a federal statute (such as 10 U.S.C. section 12406, the Posse Comitatus Act, and the Insurrection Act) is an unlawful order. Both the Army Field Manual and the Nuremberg Principles enshrine a duty to disobey unlawful orders.
Trump’s deployment of military forces to L.A., and particularly an invocation of the Insurrection Act, will create a legal and ethical dilemma for service members. “Soldiers have not only a right, but a duty, to refuse illegal orders; yet the legality of those orders would be determined by courts-martial of refusers. And service members have a moral obligation not to harm the innocent; yet such harm would be inevitable if troops are used against civilians here,” Kathleen Gilberd, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild’s Military Law Task Force (MLTF), told Truthout.
The task force said in a statement that it is “opposed to the use of military forces to ‘put down’ or ‘control’ the heartfelt reactions by community members to workplace immigration raids in Los Angeles and other cities.” Moreover, it added:
“The MLTF will be developing a more comprehensive plan of action, including the use of Article 138 of the UCMJ and the Nuremberg Principles. For now, we pledge our support for members of the National Guard and the active-duty military personnel who are opposed to attacking and killing those who oppose the illegal and immoral removal of undocumented workers.”
The situation in Los Angeles is precarious as the Marines prepare to deploy and Trump continues to escalate his spurious claims and frightening threats. People are demonstrating around the country in opposition to the actions of ICE and the Trump administration. And we can expect the protests to grow in strength.
Meanwhile, the legality of Trump’s deployments will be litigated in federal court, and service members deployed to the streets of L.A. will have to decide whether to follow orders they deem unlawful or risk harming civilians.
Did Trump Really Deceive Iran With Duplicitous Diplomacy?
Andrew Korybko
Jun 14, 2025
Another way of looking at it is that Trump truly wanted a deal, which is why he was against Israel attacking Iran before his 60-day deadline was up, but he wasn’t going to stop them afterwards.
Israel’s unprecedented strikes against Iran early Friday morning were shortly followed by Israeli officials boasting that Trump deceived Iran with duplicitous diplomacy in order to catch it by surprise. This perspective was lent credence in some’s minds by Trump’s posts here and here where he reminded everyone that he threatened Iran with “something much worse than anything they know” if another nuclear deal wasn’t reached and then pointed out that Friday was day 61 of his 60-day ultimatum.
His exuberant support for Israel’s strikes after having earlier warned against them, all while his administration still claimed that the US wasn’t involved in those attacks, convinced many that the abovementioned Israeli officials were telling the truth. It therefore seemed that Trump’s rift with Bibi was indeed part of the ruse. This compelling interpretation of events would have drastic ramifications if true since Russia might then be spooked into pulling out of the Ukrainian peace process if Putin believed it.
Ukraine’s own unprecedented strikes against Russia at the start of June were themselves preceded less than a week prior by Trump warning in a post that “bad things…REALLY BAD” might soon happen to Russia if it doesn’t agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine. Although the White House denied that Trump knew about them in advance, Putin might now be doubting him more than ever before after the duplicitous diplomacy that Israeli officials just boasted about, but it’s still unclear what he thinks about all of this.
While the official Kremlin readout of Putin’s calls with Bibi and Pezeshkian later that day noted that he condemned Israel’s actions, he also reiterated Russia’s support for a political resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue and said that it’ll keep promoting de-escalation. His Foreign Ministry’s statement said pretty much the same and “call[ed] on the parties to exercise restraint”, while his top UN Representative claimed that “the British sheltered the Israeli aircraft involved in the operation at their base in Cyprus.”
From the looks of it, unless Russia is practicing its own duplicitous diplomacy, it doesn’t seem like Putin and company believe that Trump duped Iran. Rather, it appears that they share the viewpoint introduced by conservative commentator Glenn Beck and former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus, who agreed that “[it’s not] deceptive to make plans to go in on day 61.” In other words, Trump truly wanted a deal and was thus against Israel attacking Iran before day 60, but he wasn’t going to stop them afterwards.
This interpretation would account for why Bibi claimed that the original plan was pushed back from late April on the pretext of operational reasons. It could have also contributed to what might actually be a real rift between him and Trump after all if Trump feared that Bibi would strike before the timeline passed and thus ruin the deal that Trump truly wanted. Israeli officials’ boasts might thus be a psy-op to manipulate Iran into striking regional US assets so as to provoke the US’ direct involvement in the war.
Trump and his team didn’t deny those claims, probably because Israel’s unprecedented strikes were so successful (though perhaps they would have denied them if they weren’t), but they also didn’t confirm them for escalation-control purposes. Ultimately, there’s no way of knowing whether Trump really did deceive Iran with duplicitous diplomacy, but it’s significant that Russia hasn’t signaled that it agrees with this explanation and is instead calling for mutual restraint and reaffirming the importance of diplomacy.
Does TACO Have Predictive Value? Pressures on Trump With Respect to Joining Israel in its Iran War
Posted on June 16, 2025 by Yves Smith
As readers who have been following Israel’s attack on Iran and Iran’s response so far have likely worked out, things are not working out according to Israel’s plan, save perhaps the getting the US involved part. We’ll give some more detail below, but Iran appears to now be able to interdict most Israeli strikes, save ones from inside Iran, which Simplicius claims are mainly from Iran’s dissident group MEK, with Israeli assistance. By contrast, many and perhaps most Iran missile strikes on Israel seem to be getting through. Keep in mind, Iran is not even using its best kit, since it is mainly using older missiles to get Israel to deplete its defense stocks.
Pretty much everyone discussing what Trump might do next throws up their hands as a result of his apparent belief that radical inconsistency is a source of power, plus his tendency to say what is expedient, no matter how fantastical.1 But even by Trump standards, he’s gone into extreme self-contradiction over a very short time frame, as Larry Johnson recounts.
Trump is now making hedged statements, that it’s possible that the US will enter the conflict. His actions say that even more so. Johnson flagged this sighting: (Image at link.)
Since making sense of where Trump is going from what he is saying is futile, is it possible to make informed guesses of what Trump will do based on the TACO? Remember, the reason Trump chickens out is that he’s taken a course of action that depends on raw force to get done, with no apparent planing, much the less consideration of whether it could produce the desired outcome (such as tariffs magically brining back US manufacturing). But he is often met with superior power, witness China deploying its control of “raw earths” that the US, particularly its military, keenly needs, and so so backs off.
But we also must note that Trump has not yet shown that he can make orderly retreats. He often keeps probing his opponents and trying end runs. This refusal to make a graceful reversal when faced with serious and likely insurmountable obstacles looks to be ego driven, as opposed to based on assessment of whether continued arm-wrestling will work.
So we’ll recap the war situation as best we can infer it and then turn to the various pressures on Trump for and against war with Iran. Yes, Trump may attempt some half-pregnant finesse but it is hard to think he could take that very far.
A big caveat: the actual trajectory of the conflict matters less than one might think in terms of Trump’s decision on whether to join Israel in the war. . Even though “reality” will eventually prevail, that oddly matters little in this momentous decision. If the true the state of the war mattered, we would have pulled plug on Project Ukraine no later than its failed super duper counteroffensive, nearly 24 months ago. Similarly, the fact that Iran already demonstrated that it could overwhelm Israel air defense and hit high-value, well-protected targets accurately, as in Iran possesses escalation dominance ex Israeli nukes, seems not to have mattered in this calculation.
At best, the Israelis and US, like the US and EU with their “shock and awe” Russia sanctions, seem to have convinced themselves they could deliver a crippling blow to Iran with their initial salvo and induce a regime overthrow. So far, there is no evidence that Israel has a plan B beyond getting the US committed. If Israel does not back off, it is looking at a protracted conflict, which does not remotely favor them.
Apparent State of the Conflict
Even Western sources are confirming that the war situation has developed not necessarily to Israel’s advantage. Notice the top of this account by Daniel Davis, showing how many Iran incoming volleys are landing. Davis, even though generally pretty good, is sometimes too reliant on US contacts, which results in him often being slow to recognize that negative reports about US opponents often are greatly exaggerated; here some of his statements, like Iran’s air defenses having been destroyed, are incorrect.
More corroboration:
Glenn Diesen
@Glenn_Diesen
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Iran's retaliatory strikes are more powerful than expected
- Why is there a tendency in the West to underestimate opponents? Iran's "regime" would collapse, Russia could easily be defeated and their economy is weak, China cannot innovate, etc.
- These assumptions are not the Show more
Even OilPrice is confirming that Israel’s Haifa Oil Refinery Damaged in Missile Strike. However, as Alexander Mercouris reiterated in his talk yesterday, oil and gas facilities are both very study and also large sites, so isolated attacks won’t do irreparable damage. It takes a sustained campaign to achieve that. Consistent with that, even Bloomberg is pointing out that the much-ballyhooed (and impressively explosive) strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field has yet to achieve much:
Israel temporarily knocked out a natural gas processing facility linked to the giant South Pars field, Iran’s biggest, in an attack on Saturday, and targeted fuel storage tanks during strikes as part of its campaign against Tehran’s nuclear program.
Simplicius in a June 15 post similarly showed the impact on to Iranian missile sites nuclear facilities to be minor:
Take Tabriz facility for instance, one or two small buildings were ‘damaged’:
Natanz—a gigantic facility, as can clearly be seen—saw a few power transformers and a substation receive slight to moderate damage:
If you took Fathers’ Day off from the news, you may have missed independent media corrections of the early claims that Israel had destroyed Iran’s air defenses. Later reports indicated that the air defense system was hit by a cyber attack, not a physical attack. Israel had reportedly believed that the network would be down for days, giving Israel plenty of time to blow up critical targets. But the Iranians apparently got their system back to more or less normal operation in ~ 10 hours.
And significant number of the hits Israel did make in Iran were on decoys:
Sprinter Observer
@SprinterObserve
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Answer: yes.
The Israeli regime carried out air strikes against what it believed to be Iranian ballistic missile systems and radar installations. However, most of the targets were decoys. Note that there were no subsequent Show more
Sputnik
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Jun 15, 2025
@SputnikInt
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Replying to @SputnikInt IRANIAN DECOYS FOOLED ISRAELIS
"Notice how no secondary explosions were observed upon impact," tweeted Tehran University’s Mohammad Marandi, sharing footage of apparent Israeli strikes on false missile and radar sites.
"Most of the targets are decoys".
There does not yet seem to be independent confirmation of the claim that Iran shot down three F-35s and even captured a pilot. But from the US vantage, even one F-35 lost is too many. They are very expensive, fragile fake stealth bombers that we’ve conned many of our allies to buy. They are so electronics-laden that all that buzz makes them detectable. A military porn colleague reports we’ve never flown them over territory with as much as a S-200 system, not Syria, Iraq, or Ukraine.
Update 8:00 AM EDT:
The Forces on Trump: To Whom Will He Chicken Out?
Simplicius presents a measured take of what Trump’s options, but this presumes sanity, something we have not seen much in evidence in Trump’s trade war or with Project Ukraine:
It all depends on Trump’s decision—but if he chooses not to enter the war, then Israel’s strikes will peter out after a few days, and both sides will likely seek de-escalation, with both declaring ‘major victory’ to their respective home audiences. Israel will fabulate a series of objectives that were ‘completed’, and that will be that. Afterwards Israel’s domestic situation will deteriorate rapidly as no one will be convinced that Israel ‘won’ anything, or did any serious damage to Iran.
But if the US enters, then either all hell can break loose and Iran fulfills its promise to close the Straits of Hormuz, potentially sending the world into an economic tailspin, or—to appease his Israeli handlers—Trump flashes a ‘devastating’ show strike then declares the Iranian nuclear sites as “obliterated” and immediately pulls out to begin a new de-escalation regime with Iran.
I have it as 70/30 chance that saner heads prevail in the US with Trump electing to not enter the war, and things go the way of the first option, but we’ll see how it develops.
There is reason to see 70/30 as optimistic.
Let’s look at the forces operation for versus against the US joining Israel in a more or less undeniable way (there is also the question of what Iran does if the US gets more actively involved that intel and weapons and little green men and tries to pretend otherwise, but we’ll put that aside for now).
Pressures on Trump to join Israel. Most of these are obvious, and there are overlaps among these groups, but to recap:
The Israel lobby
Big Zionist donors, starting with Miriam Adelman
Warmongering Congresscritters (note that their belligerence exists independent of Israel, which if anything makes them more dogged)
Hawkish talking heads, such as Mark Levin and Sean Hannity
The military-industrial complex
The CIA, which is joined at the hip with Mossad
Media reports that Iran is hurting, which implies that entering the war would not be that big a risk. Nothing like being hoist on your own propaganda:
Pressures to find a face-saving escape:
Mr. Market. Mr. Market, here either the stock or oil market, could push Trump into a fast retreat. Recall that Treasury bond upheaval led Trump to a big walkback on his “Liberation Day” tariffs.
However, so far, investors are bizarrely unconcerned, so until they start voting with their feet, they will not serve as a check on the war juggernaut. For instance, from Nigel Green of deVere, in their latest e-mail titled “Markets ‘dangerously complacent’ amid Iran-Israel tension”:
The world is watching a direct confrontation between two major regional powers, and yet markets are treating it as background noise.
This isn’t resilience, it’s a mispricing of risk. Investors are leaning into a narrative that no longer fits the facts.
Even though oil prices have already jumped, they too do not seem to be adequately pricing in risk. Remember that Trump is very keen to keep energy prices down, so oil about $90 a barrel or even $80 would register with him. Yet despite the worried-seeming headline, the Bloomberg piece Oil Traders Brace for Turmoil as Iran Crisis Imperils Supply, includes some awfully cheery assumptions:
Despite US sanctions, Iran remains the third-biggest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries…. it’s unclear whether the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries could offset a severe and prolonged outage in Iran, which pumps around 3.4 million barrels a day.
The attempt alone could put the energy infrastructure of the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates into the cross-hairs. After Riyadh backed Trump’s earlier crackdown on Tehran during his first term, its critical oil-processing installation at Abqaiq was blown up by the Houthis in 2019…
Fears over the Strait of Hormuz are probably excessive too, [Vandana] Hari [founder of Singapore-based energy consultancy Vanda Insights] added. Such an extreme step would cut off Iran’s own export route and alienate its biggest customer, China.
“Iran has never actually blocked the channel despite many threats to do so down the years and I don’t expect it will do so now,” she said.
Lordie. First, Iran has not faced this level of threat since its 1980s wor with Iraq, so simple extrapolations seem dubious. Second, if the US were to or threatens to enter, Iran could quite reasonably point out to a pissy China that if it were to this war, dream if much of its oil would continue to go to China.
Third, Lloyds’ list, which knows a thing or two about maritime risks, disagrees:
Any conflict between Israel and Iran would likely render the Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping, BIMCO’s chief safety and security officer Jakob Larsen said….
Any clash between the two “would be of the greatest concern to shipping in the Middle East Gulf and adjacent waters”, Larsen said.
“While the most likely scenario might not directly impact shipping, any attack will have a certain potential to escalate and impact shipping, as well as implicate military forces of other countries operating in the area, including the US.
“A full-blown armed conflict between Israel/the US and Iran would most certainly effectively close the Strait of Hormuz at least for a period of time and drive up oil prices.”
Security sources have pointed out that there is currently no direct threat to shipping, but in a region where situations can escalate extremely quickly, mariners are being urged to exercise caution when transiting though the Middle East Gulf and surrounding waters.
One wonders what it would take in the way of threat display by Iran to get insurers to refuse to insure tankers in the Gulf. Could it do something less than an actual closure (say by mining or having ships bristling with weapons at the Strait) to scare insurers enough so as to have them do the dirty work?
The Pentagon. Under Biden, the Pentagon often opposes State (and one assumes the spooks too) on various escalatory measures in Ukraine and prevailed some of the time. The Pentagon would be acutely away of the US materiel shortage, particularly of Patriot missile, and the F-35 weaknesses in combat.
China hawks. They have been lobbying to an end to Project Ukraine to save firepower for China. They will feel the same way about burning up weapons over Iran.
MAGA. Voter views normally are irrelevant, but Trump is vulnerable. His approval ratings have been on a downward slope and are still at a low level for a President so early in his time in office. Importantly, the Republicans have only a one-seat majority in the House. MAGA, as in young pro-Trump young men, were critical to his victory. In many key states, they went door to door to persuade men of all colors to support Trump.
There’s been some unhappiness among the former Trump faithful about being on the receiving end of DOGE spending cuts, particularly among vets. But that does not being to compare to the ire over Trump repudiating his anti-war promises. We’ve seen on Twitter and heard even from readers how many Trump 2024 supporters will abandon the Republicans if he goes to war with Iran. Mind you, they don’t have to vote Democrat or independent. They just need to stay home in large enough numbers.
The Daily Mail confirms:
To win re-election last November, Trump had to build a coalition of powerful allies across media, politics, and business.
Now, some of his most vocal public backers are distancing themselves from some of the president’s biggest moves, including right-wing media mogul Tucker Carlson…
In a Friday newsletter post for his own media outlet – The Tucker Carlson Network – Carlson and his team wrote ‘This Could Be the Final Newsletter Before All-Out War.’
‘On Thursday, Iran’s president threatened to ‘destroy’ any country that eliminates his government’s nuclear facilities,’ TCN wrote….
Trump’s winning November coalition also heavily featured populist conservatives, may of whom consider Steve Bannon – a former Breitbart editor and a chief White House strategist from Trump’s first term – to be their ringleader.
Bannon, who also has built his own media empire around his War Room podcast, noted during a Friday episode of the show that he believed the Israeli government was attempting trying to pull America into a war with Iran, saying they ‘want us to go on offense’ against Tehran….
The intra-MAGA split on foreign policy appears to be far-reaching, even extending as far at the leadership at the Pentagon itself.
Semafor reports that the nation’s top military officials have competing visions about how involved America should be with Israel.
Gulf regimes [update as ot 9:00 AM]. I neglected to include this important group. Despite voicing disapproval of the Israel attack on Iran, Professor Seyed Marandi has repeatedly stressed that these “family dictatorships” are supporting the US, for instance, by allowing the US to use their bases. If the US attacks Iran, they are on the menu. See here starting at 13:50.
Israel’s low tolerance for pain. Even if this video (view here) is very much cherry-picked as far as damage to Tel Aviv is concerned, Israelis are not at all used to being on the receiving end of what they dish out over the region. They have a glass jaw:
And while waiting to see what Trump will do, remember: the US has no treaty with Israel.
Update: 8:00 AM EDT: We have featured some tweets in comments that claimed that Pakistan was prepared to take aggressive action to support Iran if necessary. While the specific claim in one about Pakistan air support seems to be an open question, this would seem to confirm the general thesis:
SIMPLICIUS Ѱ
@simpatico771
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Follow I didn't believe this story when it surfaced yesterday, but Iranian National Security Council member Mohsen Rezaee apparently confirms that Pakistan told Iran it would NUKE Israel if Israel dropped a nuke on
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1 For instance, the normally fabulously cool Chas Freeman went way outside his normal register on the subject of Trump. From a recent Dialogue Works:
I have to say I think his modus operandi, his customary approach to things uh is bullying and nobody has really called his bluff. We’re seeing in the United States what I now what I would call a pre-revolutionary situation. That is to say the popular dissatisfaction is so widespread, anger at the administration’s abuses of its authority is so intense, the concern about the the rule of law disappearing is so large the unhappiness with the malignant narcissism and megalomania of the president is enormous. Saturday, tomorrow we will have a parade in Washington as I mentioned and there will be hundreds of demonstrations against the kind of extravagance and glorification of a personality cult that it was that it’s intended to evoke. So I think Americans domestically have some of the same questions that foreign leaders do: how do you deal with this man, how do you deal with his administration?
We’ve just seen in California in Los Angeles Christine Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, conduct a press conference in which the United States senator attempted to ask a question and was muscled out of the room and handcuffed and dragged off by her security people. This is an abuse that we’ve never seen we’ve never seen anything like this in the United States.
So I think a lot of people are wondering what it is that we have achieved by with this administration and whether we can in fact tolerate it. You know it’s not just the enemies of the United States who are perplexed. Vladimir Putin you know must be wondering well well you know what can I do with this man. As you said you know he claims he knew nothing about the Ukrainian attack and yet clearly the American involvement in that had to be considerable if only through the intelligence agencies. How can he, how can he trust Mr Trump? …
I noticed that um actually the recent negotiation with the Chinese on tariffs, sanctions and export controls was very inconclusive. Essentially it’s comically vague. There’s nothing uh very specific in it. The Chinese have agreed to issue export licenses to selected buyers for rare earths for on a six-month license basis. So clearly they don’t trust the Trump administration to keep its word. And they’re holding their leverage in reserve.
We have a problem uh you know with the Chinese. You on the one hand we ask, well, “Please sell us rare earths,” a main purpose of which is to build weapons to kill the Chinese. You know you could understand why they might not be enthusiastic about that.
So I think there is a general crisis of confidence and credibility for the Trump administration when it’s not just abroad it’s at home as well
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he is open to Russian President Vladimir Putin serving as a mediator in the Israel-Iran conflict. In an hour-long phone call the previous day, the two leaders focused on the Middle East crisis. “Yeah, I would be open to it. He is ready. He called me about it,” Trump responded to ABC News’ Rachel Scott, when asked about Putin’s potential role in brokering peace. “We had a long talk about it. We talked about this more than his situation. This is something I believe is going to get resolved,” Trump added.
No, Donny, this is not a quid-pro-quo and if you are trying to convince Russia that in exchange she should allow the US, who is at war (through NATO proxy) with Russia, any "mediation" between Moscow and whatever will be left of 404--I have a bridge to sell you. In related news, Iran continues to demonstrate military and technological incompetence of NATO (Israel is a ME iteration of NATO), while you lost all credibility by greenlighting Israel's attack on Iran, while heralding to the whole world how much you are for peace.
I am on record, will repeat again--the US lost the arms race(c). For the nation which made military fairy tales a central piece of its national mythology it is a bitter and painful recognition that now Iran will be doing, on a smaller scale what Russia is doing on a much larger one--yes, Al Capone's approach that with the kind word and a gun, one can get much further than with kind word alone. And combined West better start shaking in its boots now because on Monday Iranian Parliament may decide to really close the Strait of Hormuz, and we all know what it means. In latest updates, however, a truckload of Israeli strikes landed on the ... fake targets Iran placed all over the country--plenty of videos of Israelis attacking empty trailer. But yes, they are good at propaganda. If there is a firm confirmation of THAAD leaving the chat, which not only I believe but anticipate, that will merely confirm my old-standing thesis that NATO's AD is for the wars between 1960 and 1980, not for 2025. (Video at link.)
That is why it doesn't matter how many Patriots or even THAADs the US will move to Israel. So far, not a single successful exoatmospheric intercept by Israelis--you can be sure they say they did, but then again, they also say that they have functional and effective AD--but then again, nothing is more entertaining than some moron journo coming up with pseudo-military platitudes. I will abstain from comments on the parade in D.C. I want to say one thing, though--while much of the US Army history is exaggerated, if not simply made up, it is still an important Army with respectable WW II history and its own share of heroism, dedication and, once, strategic brilliance. It didn't deserve to be humiliated at DJT's "parade", but it is too late now. Donny, one cannot buy class and I am telling this to you, not the US Army.
Sylvia Demarest: So much for being “the President of Peace” – Trump expands a budding World War 3 to the Middle East
June 16, 2025
By Sylvia Demarest, Substack, 6/15/25
Sylvia Demarest is a retired trial lawyer and a writer.
Introduction:
The current war should not be seen as solely an Israeli operation. This war was in the planning stage well before Trump was elected. It has the full support of the US military-industrial-intelligence complex, the corporate media, and the entire political class-both Republican and Democrat. It would have happened even if Kamala Harris had been elected president. Trump was elected on a promise to end these wars. He either lied to the American people or has been overpowered by an alliance of money and power. In any case, he failed, and Israel has initiated this war. The NATO alliance is also on board along with the intelligence agencies of all the aligned countries. The one group that does not support this war is the public, including the American people, but the people have no voice.
Over the last several years Iran’s system of deterrence was gradually degraded. Syria fell to Islamic extremists, Israel systematically destroyed Syria’s weapons, the pager operation did serious damage to Hezbollah, Nasrallah was assassinated, Beirut was bombed, parts of Lebanon and Syria were occupied, and Israel emerged, seemingly predominate.
The one remaining obstacle to Israeli hegemony was Iran. Operation Rising Lion was not initiated to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability; Israel does not have the capacity to do that. The operation was launched to cause a total state collapse in Iran. The goal was to fracture Iran so the country could easily be dominated and conquered.
This seems to have been the plan. The first phase involved the elimination of the top military and IRGC leaders, and nuclear scientists, while unleashing havoc on the public–this phase is complete. Because Iran had not retaliated against previous provocations, it was believed that this operation would not result in significant Iranian retaliation. If Iran had not retaliated, the next phase would target and assassinate the top political leadership. Next, proxy forces would be unleashed, paid and armed by the CIA and Mossad to kill Iranians and cause a civil war. Iran would be defanged and balkanized, ethnic divisions would be stirred up, proxies forces would be organized and funded by the Gulf states, Mossad, and the CIA. Proxy death squads would roam Iran, causing death and mass destruction–just like what happened in Libya and Syria.
But Iran retaliated. The fog of war is thick, and information has been tightly controlled, but Israel appears to be getting pounded by round after round of Iranian missiles. If this continues, it will exhaust Israel’s ability to defend against these missiles. Israeli defense and infrastructure will be destroyed. Instead of initiating a civil war, even the moderate Iranians who hated the Mullah’s, are now shouting “death to Israel.” Israel has panicked. This is an increasingly dangerous situation. We should be on guard for a “false flag” operation designed to implicate Iran and force the US and NATO to formally enter this war on Israel’s behalf. Iran’s response must be finely balanced. Israel must be severely punished, but not so severely as to force a nuclear response.
There are unverified reports that Pakistan and North Korea, two states with nuclear weapons, have threatened to respond should Israel attack Iran with nuclear weapons. Also, a 3rd cargo plane from China has landed in Iran. China gets oil from Iran and may have delivered anti-aircraft systems. Finally, John Mearsheimer says that the only way for Iran to protect herself from attack is to immediately get a nuclear weapon. Many other countries may feel compelled to do the same. This is a dangerous mess. Brought to the world by militarism, Zionism, out of control Jewish Nationalist Supremacy, and its fellow travelers in the US, and NATO.
What happened to Iran in phase 1
After 25 years of open hostility towards Iran, the United States, via the Trump Administration, gave Israel the green light to conduct an illegal decapitation strike against Iran. In an attack on Friday the 13th, which closely resembled Ukrainian Operation Spider Web’s attempt to destroy Russia’s strategic bombers, Israel conducted a sneak attack and regime change operation against Iran called “Operation Rising Lion”. As with Operation Spider Web, preparations for the operation began during the Biden Administration. As with the Ukrainian operation, Operation Rising Lion used drones smuggled into Iran (or assembled at a secret drone base) to assassinate over two dozen Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists. The drones, apparently operated by Israeli commando’s, or local assets, assassinated military leaders and scientists either as they met in an underground bunker, or as they slept in their apartments, along with their families and children. Israel also used a cyber-attack to “permanently disable” Iran’s aircraft defenses–but Iran fixed and rebooted the system within 10 hours. It was believed that operation Rising Lion would result in an uprising by the Iranian people and the overthrow the Iranian government. This has not happened so far. It was also believed that the Iranian government would not, or could not, retaliate against Israel. This proved to be incorrect.
Every US president is a puppet for the national security state and Donald J. Trump has proven to be no exception.
After the unbridled warmongering militarism of the Biden Administration, Trump’s promises of peace presented a welcomed change. But Trump’s words were just a façade. Like every other President, Trump caved to Zionist money and deep state power. The American people voted for peace, and, yet again, got war instead.
This video is probably a deep fake–but I like the message. Vladimir Putin doesn’t mince words. “No US president truly holds power. And now, even Donald Trump, once the loudmouth promising peace, shows his true colors by backing attacks on Iran. Just another puppet controlled by the Deep State, serving the machine while pretending to lead.”
The attacks on Russia and on Iran appear to have been coordinated.
On June 1st Ukraine attacked Russian strategic bombers. On June 13th Israel attacked Iran.“There is evidence of coordination between the attack on Iran and the attacks on Russia. Israeli strikes killed Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of the Iranian army’s general staff; Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; and David Sheikhian, commander of the IRGC’s air defense. Many other senior military leaders were also killed. This situation is analogous to the terrorist attacks by SBU agents against Russian army commanders. On December 17, 2024, Ukrainian terrorists assassinated Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces.”
“Among the prominent Iranian scientists killed today were Dr. Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, Dr. Ahmad Reza Zolfaghari, Dr. Abdolhamid Minuchehr, Dr. Amir Hosein Fekhi, and Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi. Ukrainian intelligence has engaged in the similar assassination of Russian scientists and engineers. Since 2022, Daniil Mikheev, a coordinator of new unmanned systems for the Ministry of Defense; Konstantin Ogarkov, an employee of a defense research institute in Voronezh; and Igor Kolesnikov, an engineer at a design bureau in the Tula region, have been killed.”
“Sergei Potapov, a cybersecurity specialist in defense from Nizhny Novgorod, was killed. Valery Smirnov, one of the leaders of programs for the radio-electronic protection of strategic facilities, was assassinated. In January 2024, Ukrainian saboteurs blew up a car carrying officers from the electronic intelligence headquarters in the Bryansk region. On the night of April 17-18, 2025, Evgeny Rytnikov, the head of the design bureau of the Bryansk Electromechanical Plant, the developer of the electronic warfare complexes series “Krasukha,” died.”
Iran was bombed on the 61st day after the start of “negotiations” –just as Trump’s “ultimatum” implied–despite ongoing negotiations.
President Trump’s statements after the fact can be seen as an admission of his own level of complicity in the attacks.
“Two months ago, I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to “make a deal.” They should have done it! Today (June 13th) is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”
Yet the American people and the Iranians were led to believe that Iran’s nuclear program was still being “negotiated”?
Meanwhile, the US was quick with the denials–but as they say–“thou doth protest too much”? U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly issued this statement: “Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran,” Rubio said in a statement. “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense.” He also cautioned: “do not attack US forces.”
How big is Iran and Israel? Look at the difference in size and population, do you really think Israel would act without US approval and the expectation of US support?
How big is Iran? Iran is 2.4 times larger than the state of Texas. Iran spans 636,372 square miles. Iran has a population of 90 million people. Iran is very mountainous. Iranians are also highly educated, and Iran produces exceptional engineers. Iran has weapons the US has not been able to develop–such as hypersonic missiles. There are several videos showing hypersonic missiles hitting Israel.
How big is Israel? Israel is approximately the size of the Dallas/Ft Worth area of Texas. Israel consists of 8,019 square miles. Israel has a population of approximately 9.5 million people. Israel is relatively flat. If Iran decides to destroy Israel, Iran has the capacity to do so. Iran could also destroy every US base in the Middle East and shut the Straits of Hormuz. The idiocy and group think behind starting this war is unsurpassed. We are truly ruled by fools.
The set up for war with Iran
1–IAEA expresses concerns that Iran not fully cooperating. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warns that inspectors have been unable to determine whether Iran’s nuclear program was “exclusively peaceful” as per the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal from which the United States subsequently withdrew. This led to the passage of a resolution on the 12th by the IAEA’s board of governors highlighting serious and growing concerns since at least 2019 that Iran had failed to cooperate fully with the UN agency’s inspectors. Iran claims she recently acquired evidence that the IAEA was providing Israel with the names of Iranian scientists. These scientists were then assassinated. Note: This is the same pretext used for the Iraq war.
2–Canada and the United Kingdom express concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Again, setting up a pretext for war.
3–Negotiations are scheduled for Sunday June 15th between the US and Iran.Negotiations have since been cancelled.
4–President Trump and Ambassador Huckabee deny that an attack is imminent US President Donald Trump said Thursday that an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites “could very well happen” but advised against it, saying the possibility of a deal was “fairly close” if Tehran compromises on its atomic ambitions in ongoing talks with the US. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in an interview yesterday that Israel was unlikely to attack Iran without a green light from Washington.
5–Americans have been told Iran wanted a nuclear weapon for 30 years. Americans have been told for 30 years that Iran was months or weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. Once Iran is bombed, based on this propaganda, most people will say-“oh Iran was weeks away from getting a nuke.”
6–Iran is the last of the 7 countries scheduled for regime change after 911. Former US General and NATO Commander Wesley Clark revealed the US empire made plans to overthrow the governments of 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran. Iran is the only country left to be destroyed. This is the cycle of war since 911. US blood and treasure has been used to destroy Israel’s enemies.
The Trump Administration held a meeting at Camp David on June 7th to discuss Iran and Gaza. Tulsi Gabbard did not attend.
The meeting was disclosed to Axios by “two US officials and another source with knowledge.” Present was President Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, CIA Head Radcliff, Chief of Staff Wiles, and certain generals and admirals. Perhaps, “the boys” did not want to have to listen to a contrary voice?
Tulsi Gabbard recently visited Hiroshima and posted a video warning about the risk of a nuclear war.
The US and Israel worked together to deceive Iran and the American people.
If this is shown to be true, it means the American people were fed months of lies and propaganda about a “breach” between President Trump and Israeli PM Netanyahu. This includes press reports about why President Trump did not visit Israel during a recent trip to the Middle East. It now seems more probable that, rather than being estranged, US and Israel were cooperating on plans to bomb both Iran and Russia.
Recent reporting as well as statements by President Trump on Friday the 13th, reveal that the US and Israel practiced deceptive diplomacy, as Israeli and American officials worked together to convince Iran that nuclear negotiations were progressing. Instead, an elaborate Israel attack on Iran was being planned. Tehran was given a false sense of security, and, as a result was ill-prepared for its defense.
The progression of events indicates that this was a closely coordinated operation and that the “peace talks” were used to give Israel the opportunity for maximum surprise to achieve maximum damage” to Iran.
Here’s what President Trump posted three hours before the Military Solution was unleashed: “We remain committed to a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue. My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran. They could be a great country but first they must give up hopes of obtaining a nuclear weapon.” “Disinformation” is a chronically overused term, but this fits the bill
In this operation, Israel also assassinated Ali Shamkhani, a key negotiator in the US-Iran nuclear talks and who was a top aide to Supreme Leader Khamenei.
Here’s what the president said after the Israeli attack on Iran.
US President Donald Trump described Israel’s strikes on Iran as “excellent” on Friday and warned that there is “a lot more to come” unless Tehran agrees to a nuclear deal. He made the remarks in a phone call with ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl.
Though the US initially sought to distance itself from the attack, Trump has now told Iran: ‘There is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end.’
He said in a post to Truth Social: ‘I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done.
‘I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come – And they know how to use it.”
‘Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!”
It is likely that the US knew and approved of the strike–UK, France and Germany may have also been involved.
Axios has reported that Tel Aviv was given “a clear US green light” to start bombing, according to two unnamed Israeli officials. The previously widely reported ‘split’ and spat between Trump and Netanyahu was a public ruse. Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that Trump and his aides were only pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public — and didn’t express opposition in private. “We had a clear U.S. green light,” one claimed
It is difficult to believe that Israel would and could have attacked at this scale without US knowledge and green light–including de-conflicting with CENTCOM. Trump may have calculated this will soften Iran’s position, but just as he was wrong that maximum pressure will bring Iran to the table, he will be proven wrong that Israeli attack could give him a diplomatic win. He may end up getting the war that he and the MAGA base have said they don’t want.
Even the pizza indicator shows US was up to something as orders for pizza for the pentagon skyrocketed as the attack on Iran drew near.
Trump’s statements after the fact are an admission of his own level of complicity in the attacks.
This implies that a US president used official peace negotiations with a foreign country to convince both the leaders of that country, and the American people, that he was working for peace when in fact he was preparing for war. If this is true, this means the negotiations with Iran, and perhaps with Russia, were a ruse. Witkoff, like most of the Trump Administration, may have been acting as an agent of Israel and Netanyahu. This has serious implications for US security and calls for a complete re-examination of US policy towards Israel. There are now calls for the US to end our alliance with Israel.
Has “escalation dominance” now passed into the hands of the Iranians?
Iron Dome, THAD, and the rest appear to be a total bust. Despite efforts to control information, videos are showing hit after hit in Israel by Iran. The propaganda narrative of Iranian collapse is coming apart as Iran fires wave after wave of missiles at Israeli military assets. Iran now seems to be using mobile launchers, which Russia also has, to avoid detection. Iran is a huge country–good luck finding them. The US capacity to produce anti-aircraft and missile systems is limited. US can only manufacture 50-75 THAAD and 60-84 SM-3 interceptors per year!
Meanwhile, Iran’s True Promise 3.0 continues to target Israel’s military and energy infrastructure. Israel hit Iran’s energy infrastructure fist, including refineries, opening the door to retaliation. How much damage was done is unknown. Meanwhile, Iran responded to the Israeli attack with great force. Iran’s Fattah-1 hypersonic missiles, made quite a dazzling impact all over Tel Aviv and northern Israel. It is almost unreal to watch. Isreal’s oil refinery in Haifa was targeted. It produces 65% of Israel’s fuel needs. The Weizmann Institute for Science was targeted, along with many other important sites.
There are new reports that Israel is resorting to using car bombs against Iranian civilians. This may indicate that the drones Israel snuck in have been exhausted. Iran has been busy rounding up Israeli assets and closing Israeli infrastructure in Iran. The use of car bombs against Iranian civilians may result in Iran using EMAD missiles against military targets in Tel Aviv.
Here’s Simplicius: “Furthermore, it was also shown that most of Israel’s strike footage against Iranian ground assets turned out to be decoys, as none of the MRBMs were seen to ignite at all after massive ordnance landed on top of them. “
“Likewise, claims of ‘Israeli air superiority’ were a sloppy concoction stitched together from footage of low-flying IAI Heron drones briefly circling over Tehran for PR photos—likely before being shot down, as clips emerged of some ‘large aircraft’ Iran claimed were destroyed F-35s, but which were probably drones. Also, claims of Israeli ‘infiltration’ success and ‘secret bases’ appeared to be more exaggerated psyop fodder as it turned out Israelis were operating out of secret Azerbaijan bases, launching drones and various other objects at Iran from every direction.”
The assassinations, the cyber-attack, and the initial bombings have not damaged Iran’s nuclear capability. The hope that an initial Iranian over reaction would force the US to intervene has yet to occur–meanwhile, important Israeli assets are getting hit hard.
Who war gamed this war?
President Trump is now faced with a choice. So far, he still has a small shred of “deniability” about this and the Russian attack. If he relents and authorizes and attack on Iran, he will destroy what’s left of his presidency.
Here’s Simplicius again: “Now Trump stands poised on the knife’s edge of one of his most historically critical decisions–whether to betray the mandate of the American people and consign his second term and dwindling legacy to the trash heap of history, or to pull back on the strings of Miriam Adelson and other doners and show a spine in standing up for the real “America First” version he promised to all. As of this writing, there are reports of urgent meetings in the Pentagon surrounding precisely the issue of Israel’s request for the US to officially enter the war to “finish off Iran.””
As with most wars, lies and propaganda resulted in group think and created confirmation bias in the United States, NATO, and Israel, about Iran. This resulted a narrative that Iran was weak and would fall, leading to this sneak attack. Now operation Rising Lion is poised on the edge of failure. What will the US and NATO do in response? Our future may depend on the answer.
John F. Kennedy is credited with saying victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. Defeat has serious implications. Israel cannot survive a war of attrition. Israel will put everything on the line to force the United States military to intervene. The prospect for an Israel nuclear strike against Iran can also not be discounted.
People of good will should condemn assassinations, sneak attacks, and decapitation strikes. This is warmongering savagery. June 13th could be Iran’s Pearl Harbor and Iran could react as the US did in 1942. Iran’s capacity should not be underrated.
The fog of war means we have very little confirmed information about this war.
Complete military censorship is now in effect in Israel, yet videos still are being posted. What is true and what is false about this war is unknown. Remember, we will see far more coverage of strikes in Iran than in Israel in our media.
It is no longer possible for Israeli jets to operate out of Israel; they are apparently operating out of a British military base in Cypress. How long can these jets, F-35’s that require a huge amount of maintenance, continue to operate? There are many more unknowns than knowns in this war. As with the proxy war against Russia, the west can help Israel but if Iran strikes anywhere outside of Isreal, it will open the door for other countries to join the war.
It is fair to say, we are now past the preliminary stages of World War 3.
The only hope is for ordinary people to put aside their differences and to unite against militarism, neoliberalism, and neoconservatism–in support serious financial and structural reforms. The alternative is a future of war, wealth concentration, poverty, destruction, and depravation.
Mainstream media ignore Trump’s planned Office of Remigration, a term for ethnic cleansing
Originally published: Mainstream media ignore Trump’s planned Office of Remigration, a term for ethnic cleansing on June 11, 2025 by John Knefel (more by Mainstream media ignore Trump’s planned Office of Remigration, a term for ethnic cleansing) (Posted Jun 16, 2025)
Mainstream media outlets almost entirely ignored news that the Trump administration is reportedly reorganizing the State Department to include a new “Office of Remigration.” “Remigration” is a term long used by far-right extremists to describe ethnic cleansing.
The news broke on May 29, when Axios, Wired, and The Handbasket reported on the massive restructuring operation, including the planned creation of the new Office of Remigration. All three outlets provided accurate context for the term “remigration.”
Axios wrote that “liberal and moderate critics in Europe say ‘remigration’ has historically been used as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.”
Wired wrote that “remigration” is a policy “with the goal of creating white ethnostates in Western countries.”
The Handbasket’s subheadline informed readers that the “concept of remigration has explicitly neo-Nazi roots and has been popularized in Europe.”
CNN also reported on the reorganization effort on May 29, including the new Office of Remigration, but provided no context about the term’s history. Reuters reported on the reorganization, but its coverage didn’t include the term “remigration.”
Some outlets that followed up on the initial reporting conveyed the extremist history behind the new office’s name, including Mother Jones, HuffPost, and Truthout.
But the vast majority of legacy media outlets ignored the news.
MSNBC and Fox News failed to cover the new “remigration” office, and CNN made just a brief mention of the reporting on May 29. ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press each failed to cover the new office as well. Additionally, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal all failed to cover the new office in both their print and online versions, while USA Today published an online article explaining the historical use of the word by the far-right.
This isn’t the first time that legacy media has largely ignored President Donald Trump’s interest in so-called remigration. In September 2024, Trump posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he pledged to “return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration).”
A Media Matters study from the time found “national news media largely failed to cover Trump’s social media post calling to implement ‘remigration.’”
Many legacy media fail to understand stakes of new “Office of Remigration”
Remigration has become a signature issue and term among far-right activists and political parties in Europe, and has been adopted by Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) and Austria’s Freedom party (FPÖ). The term was popularized by far-right Austrian anti-immigration activist Martin Sellner, who, according to a profile in The Washington Post, “argues that each race would be happier in its own geographic corner.” In January, Sellner said he was “very happy” that Trump used the term “remigration” during the campaign.The Guardian reported that the term appeared to be appropriated from academia by the far-right in France “about a decade ago.” Anti-migrant extremists spread the term alongside their attempts to mainstream the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which holds that political and financial elites–often coded as Jewish–were secretly plotting to bring millions of people from poor, nonwhite countries to the United States and Western Europe.
According to Axios, the new Office of Remigration will be part of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and will serve as a “hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking.”
Wired, citing a notification sent to Congress describing the reorganization, reported that the office “‘will also actively facilitate the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status,’ which is a key aim of remigration ideology.”
Wired further notes that Trump’s restrictionist immigration agenda already closely mirrors a three-prong template laid out by Sellner. In Sellner’s first step, the goal is “stopping the invasion,” a term Trump uses regularly to describe immigration patterns, including to justify invoking an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
The second step involves deporting immigrants who entered the country with authorization “but are an economical, criminal or cultural burden,” similar to Trump’s moves to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
The third step seeks to discriminate against citizens who are “non assimilated” by targeting “parallel societies with economic and cultural pressure.” Trump’s deportation operations have ensnared U.S. citizens, and he has proposed sending citizens to an El Salvadoran prison rife with human rights abuses. Sellner’s overall goal is to coerce nonwhite citizens to flee the country to allow “the wounds of multiculturalism to heal.”
From extremists whose goal is to create a white ethnostate to Trump administration policy
The reportedly planned new Office of Remigration is the latest and perhaps most explicit move yet from the second Trump administration to pursue a white nationalist immigration policy. In just over four months, Trump has aggressively pursued his goal of deporting 1 million or more immigrants per month, moved to reinstate and expand the Muslim ban from his first term, and resettled 59 white Afrikaners while otherwise effectively closing the United States off to all other refugees, in addition to attempting to revoke TPS.Trump has now deployed active-duty Marines and the National Guard to respond to pro-immigrant protests in Los Angeles. It’s the first time the guard has been called up against a state’s wishes since 1965.
Mainstream coverage is all the more important as MAGA media figures escalate their xenophobic rhetoric. For instance:
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has advocated for suspending the writ of habeas corpus to accelerate mass deportations.
Over a five-week period, Fox News attacked due process for noncitizens at least 77 times.
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote that it’s “time to ban third world immigration, legal or illegal” and that the United States needed “a net-zero immigration moratorium with a ban on all third worlders.”
MAGA media influencer Jack Posobiec repeated Kirk’s message that it’s “time to ban third world immigration, legal or illegal” in his own post.
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh made a similar comment on his podcast, arguing, “The president should use his authority to immediately terminate all migration from the Third World.”
White nationalist Nick Fuentes celebrated that Kirk and Walsh had adopted his xenophobic posture toward immigrants. “Here we are in 2025, both of them say no more nonwhites, no more third-worlders, deport them all,” Fuentes said.
U.S. immigration policy has long been a tool for maintaining structures of white supremacy, but Trump isn’t simply pushing on an open door. He’s adopting a suite of policies championed by extremists, in some cases whose goal is to create a white ethnostate. Legacy media outlets that are unable to see why a proposed Office of Remigration is newsworthy have failed to convey the stakes and scope of Trump’s immigration agenda.
Update (6/13/25): In a June 12 post to Truth Social, Trump declared “remigration” as the official policy of his administration.
Methodology
Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evenings News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press as well as all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for any of the terms “Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration,” “PRM,” or “Office of Remigration” or any variations of any of the terms “remigration,” “resettle,” or “refugee” from May 29, 2025, when news broke that the U.S. State Department intends to create an “Office of Remigration” within the department’s Office of Population, Refugees, and Migration, through 10 a.m. ET June 11, 2025.We also searched print articles in the Factiva database from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post for the same terms from May 29, 2025, through 10 a.m. ET June 11, 2025.
We timed segments, which we defined as instances when the U.S. State Department’s intention to create an “Office of Remigration” within the department’s Office of Population, Refugees, and Migration was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the new remigration office. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the new remigration office with one another.
We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the new remigration office without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the new remigration office scheduled to air later in the broadcast.
We rounded all times to the nearest minute.
Finally, we included print news articles, which we defined as instances when the new remigration office was mentioned in the headline or lead paragraphs of the text. We included editorial and op-eds but not letters to the editor.
... it is all correct, fine and dandy--and I am not being sarcastic--you are right on all points, except for WW II, of course, but it is a feature, not a bug in the US ...
But let me remind you something:
The first duty of the art of politics with respect to strategy is to formulate the political goal of a war. Any goal should be strictly coordinated with the resources available to achieve it. The political goal should be appropriate to one’s war-waging capabilities. To meet this requirement, a politician must have a correct conception of the relations of friendly to hostile forces, which requires extremely mature and profound judgment; a knowledge of the history, politics and statistics of both hostile states; and a certain amount of competence in basic military matters. The final statement of the goal would be made by the politician after an appropriate exchange of views with strategists, and it should help rather than hinder strategic decisions.
Trump is a showman who possesses zero qualities required of statesman, none of what is listed by Svechin as a minimum requirement, and as a result--no matter what is said, we are in the presence of a man-child afflicted by God-complex and utterly illiterate in military affairs and warfare,
as is the case for the West's militaries on the so called "professional" level. There ARE NO strategists in the US on any level even remotely approaching levers of power and influence. The faces of American "strategists" are illiterate Keane, Kellogg or Petraeus. Carlson and Bannon better understand that and not agonize over a downright moron who finally adorned the White House. At least Biden had an excuse--he was a (barely) walking corpse. This is a process of unbecoming of a whole country which is nothing but Israel's slap-bitch. Support your local Christian Zionist, they wish you well, America.
Who Really Decides What “America First” Means?
Andrew Korybko
Jun 17, 2025
The base and those top influencers who channel their interests (and at times add their own insight) arguably define MAGA, but Trump is the only one with the power to implement it at scale, and he now believes that he knows better than them.
Trump recently told The Atlantic that “considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that. For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace.” This was in response to vehement opposition within MAGA over a possible hot war with Iran.
His remarks preceded Tucker Carlson telling Steve Bannon, both of whom have enormous influence over MAGA, that such a war would “see the end of the American Empire” and Trump’s presidency. That prompted Trump to respond as follows on social media: “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!’” Quite clearly, MAGA is now divided over who exactly decides what “America First” means: Trump or top influencers who channel his base’s interests.
Trump’s most zealous supporters believe that every MAGA member should “trust the plan”, as QAnon infamously urged, and insist that their political hero knows better than they do due to his access to the world’s most classified information. By contrast, their critics – who also deeply respect Trump and are grateful that he’s back in the White House – believe that he was manipulated by anti-MAGA forces during his first term, thus explaining their worries about him possibly being manipulated yet again.
Regardless of whether or not the US gets involved in a possible hot war with Iran, which is what Netanyahu is very clearly lobbying for and might have expected given reports that Israel can’t destroy Iran’s nuclear program without American bunker-buster bombs, MAGA is now divided from within. Each faction believes that the other is disloyal to the movement in their own way by correspondingly doubting its figurehead and blindly going along with everything that he says.
While Trump formally leads MAGA, he only coined the movement’s name and popularized its platforms that far predated his first campaign, which is why the Tucker-Bannon camp of “dissidents” and “purists” have no qualms about challenging and even condemning him for deviating from these positions. At the same time, his most zealous supporters argue that current realities sometimes require “pragmatism”, “flexibility”, and even “compromises” on these same positions in pursuit of the “greater MAGA good”.
Trump is convinced (whether rightly per Israeli intelligence’s assessment or wrongly per US intelligence’s own) that Iran really is secretly trying to build nukes, which if true could greatly limit the US’ freedom of action in West Asia and thus – as he sees it – undermine his envisaged MAGA goals. The Tucker-Bannon camp disagrees and is concerned not only about the costs of a hot war with Iran, but also that this is what would undermine MAGA’s true (understood as domestic-centric) goals, not a possibly nuclear Iran.
The real divide within MAGA isn’t over Iran, but over who decides what “America First” means, with Iran being the catalyst for bringing this long-simmering debate to the forefront. The base and those top influencers who channel their interests (and at times add their own insight) arguably define MAGA, but Trump is the only one with the power to implement it at scale, and he now believes that he knows better than them. This zero-sum divide risks irreconcilably splitting the movement if one of them doesn’t relent.
Trump doesn't care if Iran is bent on producing nukes or not. Trump is bent on humiliating Iran, hurting them, and has been all along. This is not statecraft, it is personal vindictiveness and he doesn't really care much who disagrees, even Steve Bannon.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
... and the confirmation is in. When clown moves into palace, he does not become a king, the palace becomes a circus.
US President Donald Trump has said he believes that Iran was “very close” to obtaining a nuclear weapon, contrary to the assessment of his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. In late March, Gabbard said that the US intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” When asked about the stance of his spy chief by journalists on Tuesday, Trump replied: “I do not care what she said.” “I think they [Iran] were very close to having them,” the president stressed, referring to nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons and doomsday cultism are poor bedfellows.
Caitlin Johnstone
June 18, 2025
President Trump has shared a text message that was sent to him by Mike Huckabee, the deranged Christian Zionist who serves as the current US ambassador to Israel, and it is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen in my life.
The text reads as follows:
“Mr President,
God spared you in Butler, PA to be the most consequential President in a century — maybe ever. The decisions on your shoulders I would not want to be made by anyone else.
You have many voices speaking to you Sir, but there is only ONE voice that matters. HIS voice.
I am your appointed servant in this land and am available for you but I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts.
No President in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945. I don’t reach out to persuade you. Only to encourage you.
I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or ANYONE else’s.
You sent me to Israel to be your eyes, ears and voice and to make sure our flag flies above our embassy. My job is to be the last one to leave.
I will not abandon this post. Our flag will NOT come down! You did not seek this moment. This moment sought YOU!
It is my honor to serve you!
Mike Huckabee”
There are so many weird, creepy things about this message. The intensity. The religious fanaticism. The groveling, self-debasing obsequiousness, clearly designed to appeal to Trump’s enormous ego. But by far the most disturbing part was the reference to Truman in 1945 — a nod to the last and only time a national leader used nuclear weapons against an enemy state.
Trump claims to have experienced a religious transformation after surviving an assassination attempt last year. Nuclear weapons and doomsday cultism are poor bedfellows. I really hope this is just some bizarre madman diplomacy and not an accurate reflection of something that is actually occurring inside the president’s mind as he pushes toward direct confrontation with Iran.
❖
The US and Israel don’t oppose Iran getting nukes because they fear a nuclear attack by irrational tyrants, nor because they worry about Iran giving nukes to terrorist factions. They oppose Iran getting nukes because then all their regime change agendas go right out the window.
This isn’t actually about nukes. It’s about toppling Tehran so that the US and Israel can dominate the middle east. It’s about regional hegemony and geostrategic control, and nothing else.
They’d be pushing for regime change in Iran whether they believed Iran was seeking a nuke or not.
❖
How fucking stupid do you have to believe the lies about Iran? It’s just a much dumber, much more obvious version of the Iraq war narratives, pushed by a much dumber, much more obvious US president. With the benefit of having watched it all happen before.
At least with the Iraq invasion Bush had a year and a half of soaring approval where he got to posture as the Good Guy protecting Americans from the Bad Guys. This time it’s been a year and a half of the US backing history’s first live-streamed genocide, with Israel essentially telling the world “WE’RE HITLER, WE’RE THE NEW NAZIS, WE KILL KIDS” for 20 months, and now they’re getting ready to say that THIS is what US soldiers need to go fight and die for?
Come ON people. It’s the same movie. They barely even changed the name, they just switched the Q to an N. There is no excuse for failing to see what’s happening here.
❖
A new Economist/YouGov poll found that only 16 percent of Americans currently support a US war with Iran. Most Americans oppose such a war, including a majority of Trump supporters.
People advocating regime change interventionism in Iran are arguing that the US needs to ignore the will of its own electorate in the name of spreading democracy.
❖
There are no anti-war Trump supporters; if you’re still supporting Trump, you’re not anti-war. There are no anti-war Republicans; if you’re still a member of the Republican Party, you’re not anti-war. If you got scammed by Trump’s anti-war schtick that’s one thing, but it’s another thing entirely if you’re still buying into the scam after being taken by the hand and carefully shown that it’s a scam in excruciating detail throughout Trump’s second term.
If you supported Trump because you thought he was anti-war, the time is now to completely wash your hands of him and firmly take your stand against him. If you stood with the Republicans because you thought they were less warmongering than the Democrats, it’s time to leave the party and join the actual anti-war movement. If you’re not willing to do either of these things, it’s time to stop pretending you don’t love war.
❖
I don’t feel the same disdain toward people who got scammed by Trump’s fake antiwar schtick that I see others expressing. I understand it, but I don’t feel it. We live in an information ecosystem teeming with propaganda and deception, and people are going to get confused.
There’s no shame in being deceived. There IS shame in deceiving. There IS shame in continuing to support a warmonger after you discover that you were deceived about him. But BEING deceived in and of itself is no crime. That’s why the perpetrator goes to jail in fraud cases and not the victims.
Mark Twain said “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled,” and it’s SO true. As social animals, humans are so dominated by the need to conform to our tribal loyalties that we’ve got psychological barriers to admitting that our tribe/faction got things wrong. And as social animals, shame is a powerful driving force in our psychological lives, because we’re afraid of being seen as deficient by other humans.
But it’s irrational for us to view those who are deceived as deficient, and it’s irrational to feel shame about having gotten something wrong. I’ve gotten lots of things wrong over the years. I’m sure there are some things I’m still getting wrong. Being willing to see you got it wrong is the essential first step to getting it right. Always being open to the possibility that you could be wrong is necessary to forming a truth-based relationship with reality.
If you were duped by the MAGA scam, that’s okay. Just take what you learned and start working on re-orienting yourself toward truth. You know what’s false, so now you can start working on finding out what’s true. And you can start constructing a new worldview accordingly.
The Economic Consequences of the Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment
Posted on June 18, 2025 by Yves Smith
Yves here. Most of you will recognize the headline’s nod to the book that propelled John Maynard Keynes to fame, his The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Keynes, who had been an advisor to the UK Treasury team participating Versailles Conference, which was negotiating what amounted to the detailed terms that would be imposed on Germany after World War I. Keynes had had to return to England while the talks were on due to a bout of bad health, and decided to resign because it was clear to him the the settlement would be unduly punitive. His book, which presciently argued that the attempt to impose a Carthaginian peace would backfire, became a best seller.
Note also that this is a heavyweight group of authors that is iproviding an overview to an e-book with contributions from 50 experts. But even this high-level recap seems a bit cautious. It seems loath to clearly say that Trump”s not-well-thought-out fight to prevent or delay the inevitable shift to a multi-polar order is making the transition more painful, and potentially much more bloody, than it need be.
You can download the e-book here.
By Gary Gensler, Professor of the Practice, Global Economics and Management, and Professor of the Practice, Finance, Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Simon Johnson, Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, Head of the Global Economics and Management Group and Faculty Chair of the Sloan Fellows Programme at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ugo Panizza, Vice President at Centre for Economic Policy Research, Professor of Economics and Pictet Chair at Geneva Graduate Institute; and Beatrice Weder di Mauro,President at Centre for Economic Policy Research, President, Professor of Global Economics, Climate and Nature Finance at Geneva Graduate Institute (iheid), Visiting Professor at Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society INSEAD. Originally published at VoxEU
The world is adjusting to President Trump’s second ‘first hundred days’ in office. This column introduces a new CEPR eBook in which over 50 experts explore how the new administration’s policies are reshaping the US economy and sending ripples across the global economic order. While the assessment is preliminary, in part due to the great uncertainties inherent to President Trump’s style of policy development, collectively the contributions suggest that the policies of the new administration are likely to weigh negatively on both the US and global economy in the short and long term.
In a remarkable turn of history, the world is adjusting to President Trump’s second ‘first hundred days’ in office.
In a new CEPR eBook, The Economic Consequences of the Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment,we assembled over 50 experts to explore how the new administration’s policies are reshaping the US economy and sending ripples across the global economic order (Gensler et al. 2025). This assessment is preliminary given the usual uncertainties of such endeavours, but more importantly, given the great uncertainties inherent to President Trump’s style of policy development. Our goal is to offer this initial assessment and then update it later this year as developments unfold further.
The emerging picture, though, is cause for concern.
While sweeping tariffs, sharp breaks in global alliances, and risks to the rule of law may have garnered the most attention, there has been a flurry of other activity affecting the economy. This has included significant policy shifts on immigration, deportations, birthright citizenship, downsizing government, as well as cuts in science funding, foreign aid, and academic support. Dramatic changes to health programmes and tax policies are working their way through Congress and the administration. The declining US fiscal picture, challenges to international alliances, tariff wars, questions of Federal Reserve independence, and deregulatory financial sector policies also have raised concerns about the sustainability of the global dollar-based system.
Though the US and global capital markets have shown resilience to date, early indicators point to economic turbulence ahead. Investment, inflation, and supply chain risks all have increased. Businesses, financial parties, foreign countries, and the public naturally are assessing what this all means for their economic futures.
The US also is retreating from its historic role in supplying key global public goods – on trade, national security, rule of law, basic research, and the dollar – that have underpinned both domestic and international prosperity for decades. Though the full impact of declining US leadership may take time to unfold – as institutions and economies adjust to a less stable international order – such deep policy shifts are likely to have negative consequences over the medium to longer term.
The new administration has occasionally softened controversial policies in reaction to equity or bond market reactions, such as in April when it delayed reciprocal tariffs for 90 days. The market recovery since then, however, does not necessarily indicate smooth sailing on the horizon.
To the extent that the administration interprets current financial markets as a green light, such interpretation may encourage policies that undermine long-run growth. Over time, the cumulative effect may be a profound weakening of both US economic dynamism and the global system it once led.
The Second ‘First Hundred Days’
Much has changed since President Trump’s first ‘first hundred days’ in 2017. The world has experienced the COVID pandemic, supply chain shocks, wars in Ukraine and Israel, inflation returning to the fore and advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI. Over those years, though, the US’s dominant economic role has remained relatively consistent.
President Trump’s second administration also has seen important shifts in comparison to his first administration.
First, while there has been heightened policy uncertainty in both administrations, the sheer number and dramatic nature of the policy shifts of the current administration, coupled with its unpredictability, has significantly deepened the uncertainty. By mid-May 2025, President Trump had signed over four times more Executive Orders than he had in the same period in 2017, surpassing even President Franklin Roosevelt’s famed ‘first hundred days’. Further, policy reversals have occurred within days, courts are flooded with litigation challenging new measures, and financial markets are reacting to an unpredictable and reactive governance style.
Second, the President’s penchant for risk, high-stakes negotiation, and public confrontation has become central to his governance style. This includes economic brinkmanship with allies and adversaries alike, signalling a departure from the cautious multilateralism of past administrations. President Trump and his team also came into office this administration with more experience and determination than eight years ago.
Third, the current administration repeatedly is testing presidential boundaries and traditional limits on executive power, including pressing constitutional debates around unitary executive theory, which asserts total presidential control over federal agencies. Possibly most consequential has been the use of authorities not only to affect policy outcomes, but also to influence businesses, academic institutions, law firms, the media, civil society, US states, and foreign leaders. On 12 May 2025, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts described the rule of law as “endangered”.
Economic Transformation in the United States
Given all these policy and governing shifts, US business and financial investment may decline. Consumer confidence already has declined, and forecasts of a 2025 recession have grown more likely. Inflation expectations have diverged: model-based projections remain around 3%, but consumer expectations have surged above 7%.
Since the beginning of the administration, due to tariffs – a form of taxes – Americans effectively have seen one of the most significant tax increases in more than a generation. Even factoring in the pause to certain tariffs (including for China), tariffs are up to an average of about 10%, from about 2.3% at the end of the Biden administration. Further, though marketed as a defence of middle-class jobs and manufacturing, tariffs are unlikely to yield the promised benefits in terms of employment and tax revenues.
The outlook for science, immigration, and rural policy is equally troubling. In each case, the administration’s early moves suggest long-term costs to innovation, productivity, and community resilience.
Fiscal policy adds yet another layer of stress. President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, if enacted, will further widen the US structural fiscal imbalance and unsustainable debt trajectory. On 16 May, Moody’s followed the other major agencies in downgrading the US sovereign credit rating below AAA.
Economic Transformation Around the Globe
For the past eight decades, the US has supplied essential international public goods, not by altruism, but by enlightened self-interest. The post-Cold War world was further defined by the triumph of democracy, the expansion of globalisation, and the consolidation of a rules-based international order anchored in multilateral institutions, open markets, and US leadership.
While the second Trump administration did not originate fractures in this system, it is accelerating and deepening them, including with policies that amount to attacks on the global multilateral order itself.
For instance, the US’s stark unilateral tariffs undermine the principle of non-discrimination, a foundational norm of the WTO and once a pillar of US trade leadership, thereby undermining a core tenet of multilateralism and rules-based global commerce.
In stepping back from its traditional role in providing global public goods, the administration is undermining collective capacity to manage transnational risks and leaving the global commons increasingly exposed.
While this has unsettled most countries, it also is prompting strategic recalibration across advanced economies, particularly in Europe. The war in Ukraine, coupled with President Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO and impose sweeping tariffs, has left Europe increasingly exposed, both economically and strategically.
The EU, the world’s second-largest economy, has internal weaknesses. As Draghi (2024) and Letta (2024) have argued, Europe is operating below potential with a substantial productivity gap. Europe’s most effective response is to complete its internal market. Lowering intra-EU barriers will enhance economic performance and increase Europe’s geopolitical weight. Paradoxically, if Europe can find the political will, US policies may provide the impetus needed to accelerate EU integration and unlock long-delayed potential. President Trump’s policies make European strategic autonomy essential.
The US’s new policies are forcing Europe to confront its fragmented defence architecture as well. A credible response will require increased common defence spending, faster procurement cycles, and greater alignment with partners. If executed well, such an effort also might catalyse a technological transformation, particularly in strategic sectors like advanced digital infrastructure and AI.
Elsewhere around the globe, China remains the primary interest of President Trump’s trade policies, and one of the few countries to respond with substantial retaliatory tariffs. China is highly competitive in many high-tech sectors and has real economic leverage, as recently demonstrated by China’s restrictions on exports of rare earth minerals and magnets. It faces, however, mounting structural stresses: high debt, surging youth unemployment, and a fragile real estate sector. Mitigating US tariff shocks would require China to shift toward consumption-led growth.
As daunting as US-Canada relations have been, they may have led to a shift in Canada’s political landscape: the Liberal Party gained greater traction under its new leader, Mark Carney. In Japan, it may provide impetus to enact long-overdue agricultural reforms.
Latin America, due to its geographic and economic proximity to the US, is especially exposed to Washington’s trade agenda. Mexico is particularly vulnerable. As the top US trading partner and a linchpin of the North American auto industry, it holds the second-largest bilateral trade surplus with the US. Any tightening of trade conditions is likely to dampen Mexico’s growth.
Beyond trade, deep cuts to foreign aid threaten far-reaching consequences in low-income economies. Proposed reductions in assistance could result in more than 500,000 additional deaths each year, primarily due to increased mortality from diseases like HIV and malaria.
Concluding Assessment
The overall economic picture painted by our assembled experts is troubling. Disruption of the global economic system the US helped build and lead may accelerate the world’s transition toward a more uncertain multipolar economic order. Collectively, The Economic Consequences of the Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment suggests that the policies of the new Administration are likely to weigh negatively on both the US and global economy in the short and long term.
WATCH: Anti-Trump Movement is Personal
June 17, 2025
The “No Kings” movement is based as much on personal hatred of the man Donald Trump as it is against his immigration policies, unlike the migration protests Consortium News covered in Scotland last year. CN was also in L.A. on Saturday filming the “No Kings” rally too. Joe Lauria reports.
By Joe Lauria
in Los Angeles
Special to Consortium News
In contrast to what I saw at a pro versus anti-immigrant face-off in Glasgow, Scotland last September that I covered for Consortium News, on Saturday I spotted a lone protestor with a Palestinian flag in Los Angeles at a pro-migrant rally and one demonstrator who carried a poster that read: “Fuck I.C.E., Free Palestine.”
In Glasgow, a majority of the thousand or so protestors who opposed the anti-immigrant crowd wore keffiyehs and held placards denouncing Israel’s genocide.
That could very well be because there is a much larger Arab immigrant population in northern England and southern Scotland than in southern California. That could also explain the huge number of Mexican flags in Los Angeles instead.
In Los Angeles. (Joe Lauria)
But there was something else going on in L.A. that I did not see in Glasgow. And that was a personalized hatred for a political leader. The hatred in Glasgow was directed at the other camp in the war over immigration, and not at any politician. But in Los Angeles, Trump was the main target. There was no counter demonstration.
One speaker at the L.A. rally even called Trump a “Russian asset.” Besides the fact that Russiagate has been thoroughly debunked, what has that got to do with his immigration policy?
I saw at least two Donald Trumps hanged in effigy. Roars went up in the crowd when a man hanging out of an upper story of his apartment building in downtown Los Angeles held aloft an dummy of Trump hanging from his feet. He spun a noisemaker around to get the crowd’s attention.
Hanging Trump in L.A. (Joe Lauria)
No doubt Trump has made longstanding problems worse, like sending in the U.S. Marines and commandeering the California National Guard despite Posse Comitatus to arrest protestors. (It has been the LAPD that has attacked the protestors.)
He is also scapegoating immigrants by calling them rapists and murders who have “invaded” the United States, and he’s advocating for the crime against humanity of ethnically cleansing Gaza.
But Joe Biden began the U.S. complicity with Israel’s genocide and previous presidents have not always been kind to undocumented immigrants nor found a solution.
The kind of thinking which says that if we just got rid of Trump everything would be great is naive and politically illiterate. Much broader systemic change is clearly needed rather than the removal of just one leader, as bad as Trump is.
This is, of course, supposing Trump doesn’t get us all killed by sending the U.S. directly into the war against Iran, though Biden made a pretty good go at getting us all killed by firing U.S. long-range missiles into Russia using a third country.
Lest anyone think I’m giving Trump a pass or am some kind of closet MAGA supporter, please check out my recent interview with a Turkish webcaster. After watching our video report from Los Angeles above, check out our coverage of Glasgow here:
A very good point, when you tell people that Trump is just a symptom of the disease they say "yeah" and change the subject.If he wasn't such an egomaniac who requires 24/7 screen time most wouldn't be bothered. Perhaps the bosses are making lemonade out of lemons and setting him up to be Capital's judas goat.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Douglas Macgregor begins to play a favorite game of Russian peasants since the time of Czars. The game goes like this: Oh, the Czar is good, but boyars who surround him are bad, if we could only tell Czar the truth. That's the game.
Trump IS listening to the right people too, and what he does after that we know, just ask Tulsi Gabbard. This is who Trump is--a primitive showman, a man-child with God-complex who IS in complete agreement with those American three-four stars, who themselves are military amateurs. No number of "right" people screaming the truth into Trump's ears 24/7 will change anything. That's who this guy is. It is over for the US. Per US military--we saw what it is in the last 38 months--it is pathetic. The Czar is a moron, not just boyars.
The U.S. Constitution is in the hands of those who ignore it, writes Andrew P. Napolitano. The consequences are deaths of innocents and the undermining of constitutional norms.
Members of the U.S. military listening to President Donald Trump deliver remarks at Fort Bragg, N.C., on June 10 during a commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. (White House /Daniel Torok)
By Andrew P. Napolitano
Has the United States become what President Donald Trump recently condemned? Can the president fight any war he wishes?
Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged?
These questions should be central to a debate over the U.S. involvement in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran. Sadly, there has been no great debate. The mainstream media are mouthing what the C.I.A. is telling them, and only a few websites and podcasts are challenging the government’s reckless, immoral, illegal and unconstitutional wars.
Here is the backstory.
All power in the federal government comes from the Constitution and from no other source. Congress is restrained by the Constitution and by treaties to which the U.S. is a party.
Congress cannot legally declare war on Russia, Gaza or Iran since there are no militarily grounded reasons for doing so. Russia poses no threat to American national security, persons or property; nor do Gaza or Iran. Moreover, the U.S. has no treaty with Ukraine or Israel that triggers an American military obligation.
Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war on a nation or group. The last time it did so was to initiate American involvement in World War II. But Congress has given away limited authority to presidents and permitted them to fight undeclared wars — such as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and President George W. Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Congress has not only not declared war on Russia or Gaza or Iran; it has not authorized the use of American forces in those countries. Yet, it has given the president a blank check and authorized him to spend it on military equipment for Ukraine and Israel however he sees fit.
Trump in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 13. (White House /Daniel Torok)
Trump came into office promising to end America’s forever wars. Instead, the United States continues to fund a war his predecessor entered into in Ukraine, the goal of which was to eliminate Russian troops from Ukraine and Crimea and Russian President Vladimir Putin from office. None of these objectives is realistically attainable.
In Gaza, the Israeli goal has been to remove by death or force all Palestinians from their ancestral land. That goal, which is morally reprehensible and militarily unfeasible, has produced more than 55,000 civilian deaths — none of this to the benefit of the U.S.
In Iran, the president lulled the Iranians into believing that the U.S. was seriously negotiating with them, while U.S. intelligence assets planned and helped execute the Israeli attacks on Tehran last week, some of which murdered the negotiators.
Does Iran, which U.S. and Israeli intelligence have concluded has no nuclear weapons as Israel does, pose the slightest threat to U.S. national security? It does not.
Parts of Tehran under Israel’s opening attack at dawn on June 13. (Mehr News Agency/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
We don’t know how many American intelligence officers are in Ukraine, Gaza or Iran. But we know that they are there. During Trump’s first term in office, the C.I.A. built 20 facilities for its officers and agents across Ukraine.
We also know that they are involved in hostilities, since much of the U.S. hardware used against Russia and Gaza and in defense of Israel requires American know-how to operate and maintain.
Are American intelligence officers killing Russian soldiers, Gazan civilians and Iranian officials? The White House prefers not to answer, yet none of this has been authorized by Congress.
Now back to the Constitution.
Defensive, Proportional & Reasonable War-Making
The War Powers Resolution, which requires presidential notification to Congress of the use of American military force, is unconstitutional because it consists of Congress giving away one of its core functions — declaring war.
The Supreme Court has characterized delegating away core functions as violative of the separation of powers, and thus unconstitutional.
Moreover, that statute only applies to the military. It does not constrain or require reporting of the use of intelligence personnel to fight wars.
Nevertheless, Trump has not informed Congress of his intentions to use American troops violently. Yet, he has used the Navy, the Air Force and the C.I.A. to attack civilians in Yemen — a war crime — and he has soldiers out of uniform in Ukraine, so as to perpetuate the Biden-era deception that American boots are not there on the ground.
Don’t be surprised if Trump gives War Powers Act notice secretly to the Gang of Eight. That’s the Congress within the Congress. It consists of the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate with which the president legally shares secrets.
Just as Congress cannot delegate away its war-making powers to the president, it cannot delegate them away to the Gang of Eight. The concept of the Gang of Eight is antithetical to democratic values. Informing them of whatever violence the president is up to is done under an oath of secrecy.
What kind of democracy operates and kills in secret?
The various treaties to which the U.S. is a party limit its war-making to that which is defensive, proportional and reasonable. So, if a foreign power is about to strike — like on 9/11, while the government slept — the president can strike first in order to protect the U.S.
Beyond an imminent attack, the basis for war must be real, the adversary’s anti-U.S. military behavior must be grave and imminent, the objective of war must be clear and attainable, and the means must be proportionate to the threat.
Have Russia, Gaza or Iran seriously threatened any grave acts against the U.S.? They have not.
Last month, in Saudi Arabia, Trump condemned the neocons’ forever wars and Western military intervention in the Middle East. We now know he didn’t mean what he said. We have reposed the Constitution for safekeeping into the hands of those who ignore it.
The consequences are deaths of innocents and the undermining of constitutional norms. And the U.S. continues to be what Trump verbally condemned.
(Can't believe I'm posting 'Da Judge', I remember when he was the go-to legal guy for Bill O'Rielly on that crap tabloid show.)
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Meanwhile. We know that Trump's adjectives vernacular is limited to there words: good, beautiful and wonderful. But what the fuck is the deal with this "two weeks" shit? It is always "two weeks" in Trump's universe. Can anyone explain to him that the time has other measures, like 10 days, three weeks, one month and even half-a-year? But what do I know ...
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