All posts tagged "foreign policy"

Trump's disastrous incompetence exposed with 5 obvious questions he never answered

Minimally competent leaders would have considered at least five obvious questions before launching the nation into war. President Donald Trump considered none of them.

1: What’s the objective?

It’s not surprising that more than half of all Americans oppose Trump’s War. From the outset, his administration has offered numerous and contradictory justifications for it.

February 28: Trump cited 47 years of grievances, a desire to destroy Iran’s missiles, and a message that the Iranian people should “seize the moment” because now was their chance to “be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country.”

But he also said that the attack was a campaign to “eliminate the imminent nuclear threat,” although he had boasted in June that the United States had already accomplished that goal.

The same day, Trump told the Washington Post, “All I want if freedom for the people.”

United Nations Ambassador Mike Walz claimed to the UN Security Council that the US was invoking the right of self-defense in response to Iran’s imminent threat.

But the next day, Pentagon officials told congressional staff members that no intelligence supported the notion that Iran was planning to attack the US first.

March 2: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told the press that the objective was retaliation for decades of Iranian behavior, destruction of their missiles, and providing an opportunity for Iranians to “take advantage of this incredible opportunity.”

But only hours later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a new justification for the war: Israel was going to attack Iran and, if that happened, Iran would then attack US interests in the region. He made it sound as if Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had maneuvered Trump into a corner.

The next day, Trump contradicted Rubio, saying: “It was my opinion that they [Iran] were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn’t do it.” Rebutting any impression that Netanyahu had manipulated him, Trump added, “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

Rubio complained that his earlier remarks had been taken out of context and the operation “had to happen anyway.”

March 6: Trump posted on social media that only “unconditional surrender” would end the war.

2: How long will it last?

March 1: Trump told the New York Times the operation could take “four to five weeks.” He didn’t mention the Pentagon’s concerns that the war could further deplete reserves that military strategists have said are critical for scenarios such as a conflict over Taiwan or Russian incursions into Europe.

March 2: Trump said that the war could go on longer than four to five weeks.

March 4: Hegseth said that the Iran war is “far from over” and has “only just begun.”

March 6: Trump told the New York Post he hadn’t ruled out putting “boots on the ground, if necessary.”

3: Who will lead Iran after its Supreme Leader is killed?

March 1: Trump told the New York Times he had “three very good choices” for who could lead Iran.

March 3: Trump admitted: “Most of the people we had in mind are dead… Now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.” Asked about the worst-case scenario for the war, Trump said, “I guess the worst case would be we do this and somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person.”

More than a dozen Middle East countries are now embroiled in Trump’s war, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

March 5: Trump told Axios, “I have to be involved in the appointment [of Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s successor], like with Delcy in Venezuela” — referring to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who remained in charge of Nicolás Maduro’s corrupt and repressive regime after the US abducted him. Trump said that Khamenei’s son — then rumored to be a leading candidate as successor — was “unacceptable to me” and “a light weight.”

The same day, he told NBC News, “We have some people who I think would do a good job.”

March 7: The Washington Post reported that a classified National Intelligence Committee study issued prior to the war found that even if the US launched a large-scale assault on Iran, it likely would not oust the Islamic republic’s entrenched military and clerical establishment.

March 9: Iran chose Khamenei’s son, a cleric expected to continue his father’s hardline policies, as the country’s Supreme Leader.

4: How would a war affect the Middle East?

Before US bombs began to fall, thousands of American citizens were in the war zone. But ahead of the strikes, the State Department didn’t issue official alerts advising Americans that the risk of travel in the region had increased.

Yael Lempert, who helped organize the evacuation of Americans in Libya in 2011, observed, “It is stunning there were no orders for authorized departure for nonessential US government employees and family members in almost all the affected diplomatic missions in the region — nor public recommendations to American citizens to depart — until days into the war.”

After attacks and counterattacks closed airspace and airports throughout the region, on Wednesday, March 4 — four days into the war — the State Department finally began evacuations by charter flight. The following day, the New York Times reported:

Until midweek, the State Department had mainly provided stranded travelers with basic information about security conditions and commercial travel options via a telephone hotline and text messages. Before Wednesday, desperate people calling the hotline got an automated message that said the US government could not help get them out of the region.

5: Could the war lead to humanitarian, economic, or geopolitical crises?

Only a week into the war, the UN humanitarian chief warned, “This is a moment of grave, grave peril.”

Iran is a country of 90 million people. US-Israel bombing has already displaced more than 100,000 of them.

Israel’s companion attack on Lebanon has displaced more than 300,000 residents.

More than a dozen countries are now embroiled in Trump’s war, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

The ripple effects span the globe as oil prices spike and Iran disrupts tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flows. During his state of the union message, Trump boasted that the price of gasoline was down to $2,00 per gallon in some states. Last week, the national average price in the US was $3.41 per gallon.

Ominously, on March 6 the Washington Post reported that Russia is providing intelligence assistance to the Iranian military attacking US targets. But Hegseth is “not concerned about that.”

Asked to rate his Iran war performance on a scale of one to 10, Trump gave himself a “15.”

Introspection rarely accompanies incompetence.

Steven J. Harper is an attorney, adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School, and author of several books, including Crossing Hoffa: A Teamster's Story and The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis. He has been a regular columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather's News and Guts, and The American Lawyer. Follow him at thelawyerbubble.com.

A murderous thug has dirt on Trump. Nothing else explains this madness

I never thought I’d see the day when an American president showed greater loyalty to a foreign adversary than to his own people, in a time of war.

But this is where we’re at with Donald John Trump and his mysterious adoration for, and apparent shrinking fear of, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. It’s one of those love affairs that continues to defy logic yet is no longer questioned.

Trump won’t say a nasty word about Russia and certainly not about Putin. What could Putin have on Trump that turned him into such an unquestioning kowtowing toady, submitting to his leader’s every whim, defending his every position?

Trump somehow trusts the word of a murderous, deceitful thug, an international pariah, over any nonpartisan body in his own country.

The suspicion is that whatever Putin has on Trump is very, very bad. Epstein-related, maybe. It has to be something serious, because it’s not as if Trump is the kind of guy who just turns and grovels in the presence of any old brute.

I don’t buy the argument that it’s about respect, or fanboy support, even as Trump regularly calls Putin “strong,” “smart,” and “a genius.” No, this feels much more like persistent menace.

But not only is Trump’s behavior surrounding Putin pathetic and maddening: it’s grown increasingly dangerous.

This has become clear now that credible reports have surfaced about how Russia is sharing intelligence with Iran, to help it target U.S. military personnel and assets in the Middle East, providing locations of warships and aircraft.

It isn’t that this is a surprise. Far from it. Russia is perhaps Iran’s strongest ally. Putin’s aides acknowledge they are on Iran’s side. It makes sense Russia would be doing all it can to help Iran vanquish its enemy.

No, the only part that doesn’t easily compute is the reaction of the Trump administration. Instead of even pretending to be concerned by the news it has soft-peddled it, as if having been told that the countries are merely sharing opinions on their soccer teams.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to this news with a shrug and the head-scratching words, “It does not really matter.”

What? It “does not really matter” that an enemy is feeding intel to a nation you are fighting, and the chief executive of the United States continues to treat that enemy’s leader like a treasured pal?

She later expounded, “It clearly is not making any difference with respect to the military operation in Iran, because we are completely decimating them.”

Here's the reality: The thing that actually does not really matter is how well America may or may not be doing in the war with Iran. That isn’t the point. The point is that Russia is doing this, and this administration is continuing to treat it as an ally.

Of course, any flippant retort must be seen in light of the reality that Trump is and has always been Putin’s bitch. Everyone associated has gotten the memo and understands that Dear Leader will tolerate no dissing of Vladimir even if he is putting our troops directly in harm’s way.

It’s even worse than that, actually. Since Trump (via the U.S. Treasury) issued a temporary waiver this month, allowing India to purchase embargoed Russian crude oil and petroleum products, the president is helping line Russia's pockets with money it can use to help gather information that will lead to endangering our troops.

In effect, Trump is paying Russia to help Iran attack the U.S.

Let that sink in.

There’s a word for this: treason.

How much more evidence do people need that for whatever reason Trump cares more about Russia than he does the nation he serves as president? This isn’t hyperbole. It’s right there to see.

You have to imagine Russia might not be restricting its intel to the Middle East. It could be feeding Iran info on where we might be vulnerable to a 9/11-style attack.

If that happens, I doubt the Trump response would be, “Doesn’t matter. It’s war, and innocent people are going to get hurt. If it weren’t Russia, it would have been somebody else.”

But here is what Trump actually said about Russia over the weekend, onboard Air Force One: “If you take a look at what’s happened in Iran in the last week, if they’re getting information, it’s not helping that much.”

Again, this is essentially a confirmation that reports of Russian assistance to Iran may be accurate. Everyone associated with Trump, including Trump, understands that this read on the situation is senseless, but saying anything even remotely negative about Russia and Putin is out of bounds.

As usual, what Trump cares about most is taking care of Trump. During Saturday’s dignified transfer returning the remains of six U.S. soldiers killed in the conflict with Iran, he wore a white USA baseball cap, on sale for $55 in his campaign store.

If you’re Trump, there is no such thing as demonstrating class or even the thinnest volume of compassion for people who die for their country. Unless, of course, the country in question is Russia.

Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.

Here's how the Iran war is becoming very dangerous indeed

By Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin.

The conflict in the Middle East continues, and is showing no sign of letting up. Israeli and US warplanes have continued to strike targets inside Iran, which has prompted retaliatory attacks throughout the region. An American submarine has also sunk an Iranian navy ship off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing at least 80 people, while Nato defences intercepted a missile heading towards Turkey.

US officials, who initially envisioned the conflict in Iran lasting four to five weeks, are now warning it may go on far longer. “We are accelerating, not decelerating,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on March 4, adding that “more bombers and more fighters are arriving just today”. We asked Middle East expert Scott Lucas how dangerous the situation has become.

You’ve called this ‘uncontained war’. What do you mean by that?

Once the Iranian regime retaliated, hours after initial US-Israel airstrikes that it was later revealed killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this was no longer just an American-Israeli war on Iran. Tehran, which had refrained from retaliation beyond Israel in the 12-day war in 2025, was taking this across the region.

This was a war in the Gulf states, where Iran fired not only on American bases but also industrial areas, ports and tankers. This was a war in Lebanon, where Israel responded to Hezbollah rocket fire with airstrikes and an expansion of its occupation in the south of the country. This was the possibility of war spreading to Iraq, where the US military and CIA may be supporting Iranian Kurds for a cross-border incursion.

It is now possibly also a war beyond the Middle East. A drone attacked the UK’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus and an Iranian missile has been intercepted flying towards Turkey. Drones have struck an airport and school in Azerbaijan. Iran has denied responsibility but the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, has put his armed forces on high readiness.

How dangerous a moment is this?

War is always dangerous, of course, but this conflict is compounded by the shattering of any international “rules of the game”. The US and Israel have blatantly violated international law. They have assassinated the head of another country and his senior officials.

The United Nations can condemn the strikes, but this will be easily disregarded by Israel and the US. Donald Trump has historically taken little notice of UN criticism, and said in January that his power is limited only by his “own morality”. European countries can call for deescalation, but almost all have now prioritized working with the US on the defense of positions threatened by the Iranians.

China is maintaining a cautious position and Russia will be grateful that attention is being taken away from its invasion of Ukraine. If the Iranian regime does not surrender, there does not appear to be anyone or anything capable of checking the US and Israeli attacks — and thus the retaliatory shocks across the region and beyond.

Is there a risk that Nato will be drawn in?

Nato is already drawn in. Once Iran went beyond the Middle East to threaten Cyprus and Turkey, then the bloc had to take action. However, while Nato forces downed the missile heading towards Turkish airspace, the alliance is not yet discussing invoking Article 5 (the agreement that an attack on one Nato member is considered an attack on all).

The alliance has also become involved in the conflict verbally to ensure the Trump camp does not abandon Ukrainian and European security at a sensitive point in talks to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, already known for calling Trump “daddy”, has given fulsome praise to the war even as some Nato members like Spain condemn it.

In a recent interview with a German television channel, Rutte said: “It’s really important what the US is doing here, together with Israel, because it is taking out, degrading the capacity of Iran to get its hands on nuclear capability.”

Where are the Gulf states in this? What happened to Qatar’s attempts to mediate?

The Gulf states are likely to be happy that Iran’s supreme leader and others in his circle have been assassinated. For decades, Khamenei had pursued a strategy of expanding Iran’s influence across the Middle East — directly threatening Gulf monarchies. However, they are loathe to see regime change, fearing the disorder and instability that marked Iraq after the 2003 US invasion.

They have been trying to pull back the Trump administration — an initiative by Qatar to persuade Trump into finding an off-ramp is notable — but they have to do so quietly. Open opposition to the US president risks even more serious disruption of the political and economic situation, with no guarantee that a triggered Trump will listen.

There is a further complication because of division among the Gulf states. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait put some of the blame for the rising hostilities in the Middle East on the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, for their policy of normalising relations with Israel. They claim this has emboldened the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

So far, the quiet push for deescalation does not appear to have succeeded. Without naming Qatar or another Gulf partner, Trump said on March 3 there will be no talks with Tehran.

The US and Israel are reportedly arming Kurdish groups. How could that change things?

With Plan A for regime surrender not succeeding so far, the Trump camp has had to consider what to do next. More bombing and an incursion by ground forces are two options, as is supporting an insurrection by Iranian Kurds.

It appears the US president and his senior advisers (along with their Israeli allies) may opt for the Kurdish option. According to reports, Trump has in recent days called Kurdish minority leaders to offer them “extensive US air cover” and other backing if they enter the conflict.

But the Iranian regime will undoubtedly unleash its military against the insurgents, throwing the west of the country into further turmoil. And it will have a justification to rally Iranians around the nation, despite the mass protests that were crushed in January.

Even if the US can support the insurgency in splitting off part of Iran, what happens to the rest of the country? What does Plan B offer other than instability and fragmentation that could parallel post-2003 Iraq?

This does not bring an assurance that the regime’s retaliation will be halted soon. Meanwhile, the US military is facing a shortage of interceptors which — if Iran’s firepower has not been expended — maintains the threat facing the Gulf states.

Scott Lucas joined University College Dublin in 2022 as Professor of International Politics, having been on the staff of the University of Birmingham since 1989. He began his career as a specialist in US and British foreign policy, but his research interests now also cover current international affairs — especially North Africa, the Middle East, and Iran – New Media, and Intelligence Services. A professional journalist since 1979, Professor Lucas is the founder and editor of EA WorldView, a leading website in daily news and analysis of Iran, Turkey, Syria, and the wider Middle East, as well as US foreign policy.

Trump is about to get a brutal history lesson

On Monday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth held a press briefing to justify the war in Iran. Praising Donald Trump’s lawlessness, he said, “America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history … No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win.”

Aside from such dangerous hubris befitting a 12-year-old boy, the most shocking aspect of Trump bombing Iran without Constitutional or Congressional authority is that the administration’s “planning” does not seem to match or even appreciate the risks involved.

Many security analysts agree with Sen. Mark Kelly (R-AZ) and Trump that Iran should never be allowed to have nuclear weapons, because no state that exports jihadist martyrdom should have nuclear weapons.

But the precarity of attacking a nation allegedly only one week away from nuclear capacity demands precision and sober objectives, not saber-rattling or changing rationales tweeted at two in the morning. The Trump administration’s lax and lawless messaging suggests either chilling indifference, lack of discipline, or rogue intentions, all dangerous characteristics in the context of nuclear weapons.

Trump has not offered clear political or military objectives, nor explained how the use of force, at this time, is in our best national interest. Instead, Trump’s rationale for war keeps shifting, from immediate national security threats, to humanitarian concerns, to regime change, suggesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played Trump to do what no other president was reckless enough to do in service to Israel’s interests, not our own.

Even the laudable goal of eliminating Iran’s nuclear capacity becomes suspect in light of Trump’s worldwide victory tour last June, declaring that airstrikes then had “totally eradicated” Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

On June 25, 2025, the White House released an official statement titled “Iran's Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News.” Either Trump was lying then or he is lying now. It’s never smart to trust liars on matters of life and death.

Anti-American sentiment

Human rights organizations reported that tens of thousands of Iranian civilians were executed in January for protesting their repressive governance under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is now dead. Other than an estimated 15 percent of Iranians who support the Islamic Republic theocracy, no one will miss him, least of all families of people he tortured and slaughtered.

But for everyone involved, in the absence of a clear strategy, purpose, method, or plan for what comes next, the only reliable predictor of outcome is the recent past.

This is not the first time the U.S. has gone to war in the Middle East, seeking regime change. We’ve tried it multiple times, and in every case we have learned that the initial success of ousting a leader is not followed by the establishment of a long-term, stable, or Western-friendly alternative.

Instead, just the opposite happens. When we create a power vacuum, someone even more dangerous, more radical, and more antagonistic rises to power. In fact, Khamenei came to power as a direct result of the last time the US sought regime change in Iran.

Regime change efforts

Americans now slave to algorithms may have forgotten that we were responsible for putting the Islamic Revolution in motion. In 1953, the CIA and British intelligence organized a coup to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who was democratically elected, because he nationalized the Iranian oil industry. (Sound familiar?)

After the overthrow, the U.S. reinstated Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who implemented such increasingly autocratic rule that the Iranians began to hate both him and the U.S., for putting him in power. Hatred of the Shah led to intense anti-American sentiment. The 1979 Islamic Revolution to get rid of the Shah ended with a new Islamic Republic empowering Ayatollah Khomeini and his extremist, stone-women-to-death-for-showing-their-hair clerics. We are now bombing Iran to topple the regime we caused.

History suggests we are also repeating mistakes from other Middle East interventions:

Iraq: In 2003, the US invaded Iraq under the color of a claim that it was developing weapons of mass destruction. The invasion removed Saddam Hussein, which lead to a power vacuum, sectarian violence and the rise of extremist groups like ISIS. More than 20 years later, Iraq remains destabilized.
Afghanistan: Following 9/11, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power. After a 20-year occupation and US-led efforts at nation-building, the Taliban returned to power in 2021, after Joe Biden withdrew U.S. forces.
Libya: In 2011, a U.S.-led NATO intervention was meant to protect civilians by removing Muammar al-Qaddafi. As in Iran today, there was no post-regime plan, which left a power vacuum and transformed Libya into a failed state of widespread misery, a current training ground for militant extremists.
Syria: Also in 2011, the U.S. provided aid and military assistance to opposition groups in the Syrian Civil War with the stated objective of pressuring Bashar al-Assad to leave office. He remained in control of much of the country until 2024, even using chemical agents against his own citizens.

The results are clear and consistent: toppling Middle East authoritarians has, in every case, led to the emergence of even more radicalized factions, resulting in more danger and unintended national security consequences for America.

In just over a year, while seeking praise as a “peacemaker,” Trump has authorized military action in seven nations. In Iran, we are once again ignoring history, this time under an administration that can’t seem to comprehend laws, norms, or nuance.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the Substack, The Haake Take.

Trump's minions just revealed what they really think about dead American soldiers

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spent his confirmation hearings promising senators he’d stop drinking. Based on his news conference about the Iran war on Wednesday, that might not be such a great idea.

Reporting on dead American soldiers, Hegseth suggested, is becoming the “narrative.” The public, he said, should “cut through the noise” and focus on the mission.

The “noise,” in this case, is six American lives.

On Sunday, an Iranian drone struck a U.S. facility in Kuwait. The victims were Army reservists assigned to a logistics command. Their names, ranks, and ages:

Sgt. Declan Coady, 20
Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39
Capt. Cody Khork, 35
Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42
Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien, 45
CW3 Robert Marzan, 54.

Hegseth’s complaint was that their deaths were dominating coverage of the war. During Wednesday’s White House briefing, when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins read Hegseth’s words back to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Leavitt didn’t flinch.

“The press does only want to make the president look bad,” she said. “That’s a fact.”

To this administration, a dead sergeant from West Des Moines is not a tragedy. He’s a political liability. News reporting on his demise is evidence of bias.

Consider the source. According to a sworn affidavit submitted to the Senate under penalty of perjury by a former sister-in-law, Hegseth once had to be carried out of a Minneapolis strip club by his own brother — drunk, in uniform, during a National Guard drill weekend. Wearing a uniform while intoxicated is a violation of military law.

NBC News also reported that 10 current and former Fox News colleagues said they had to “babysit” Hegseth before appearances because he smelled of alcohol. And a whistleblower complaint from his tenure at the veterans nonprofit Concerned Veterans for America described multiple occasions when he had to be removed from events after drinking to incapacitation.

It is some new pinnacle of irony that a man who required his own “babysitters” at Fox News is now lecturing the press on professional conduct and what is worthy of the front page. It would be more defensible had his diatribe been attributable to an altered state.

But this is a very recent discovery. Travel back to January 2024. Three American soldiers were killed in a drone attack in Jordan while Joe Biden was president. Republicans didn’t tell reporters to ignore the story. They blasted it across every microphone they could find.

Donald Trump called the deaths “the consequence of Joe Biden’s weakness.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) demanded “devastating retaliation.” No one complained the coverage was unfair to the commander in chief.

Go back to August 2021. After the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate in Kabul, Republicans spent years invoking those 13 deaths. They held hearings. They issued subpoenas. They put Gold Star families on stage at the Republican National Convention. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the loss of life was grounds for impeachment.

The political rule seemed simple: When American troops die, the president must answer for it.

That rule apparently changed on Inauguration Day.

Trump launched a war with Iran that already has American casualties and, by his own admission, will produce more.

“Sadly, there will likely be more, before it ends,” Trump said Sunday. “That’s the way it is.”

For the White House, that may be a strategic reality. For the family of Nicole Amor — a Minnesota mother of two who was days away from returning home — it is not simply “the way it is.” It is the destruction of their world.

The American press has reported every U.S. combat death for decades, under Republicans and Democrats alike. Those stories are not a partisan narrative. They are the public record of war.

The six names this week are Declan, Nicole, Cody, Noah, Jeffrey and Robert. Reporting them is not an attempt to make a president look bad, no matter how much Trump’s shameless sycophants whine.

It’s journalism.

Click here to subscribe to Ray Hartmann's Soapbox

Did Trump's son-in-law use diplomacy to lure Iranian leaders into a death trap?

Jared Kushner grew up sleeping in Benjamin Netanyahu’s bed.

That isn’t a metaphor or hyperbole. Netanyahu, during his visits to New York over the decades, was close enough to the Kushner family that, as the New York Times reported, he slept in Jared’s childhood bedroom. Jared Kushner didn’t grow up watching Netanyahu on the news the way the rest of us did. He grew up knowing the man as something close to a family institution.

And that man, who has said publicly that he has “yearned” to destroy Iran’s military and political leadership “for 40 years,” is the same man whose government may have been coordinating directly with Kushner in the days before the most consequential American military action since the invasion of Iraq or the Vietnam War.

We need to ask the question that official Washington is too timid, too compromised, or too captured by the moment’s war fever to ask: “Was Jared Kushner sitting across from Iranian negotiators in good faith? Or was he trying to get the Iranian leadership to meet together so Netanyahu could kill them all in one single decapitating strike?”

Here’s what we know. The third round of nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran wrapped up in Geneva on Feb. 26th and 27th. The Omani foreign minister, who’d been mediating the talks for months, told CBS News on the eve of the bombing that a deal was “within our reach” and that Iran had fully given in to American demands and agreed it would never produce nuclear material for a bomb, or an ICBM capable of striking the United States.

A fourth round had already been scheduled for Vienna the following week to work through the technical details following final discussions in Tehran. The Iranian foreign minister told reporters his team was ready to stay and keep talking for as long as it took.

And then, less than 48 hours after those talks in Switzerland concluded, the bombs began to fall.

On the morning of Feb. 28th, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council was gathered together in their offices for meetings. That body, the one that manages Iran’s nuclear dossier and makes the regime’s most consequential decisions, is exactly where you would expect the Iranian leadership to be sitting after a round of talks with America that their own foreign minister was calling “historic.”

They were almost certainly deliberating whether to accept or reject Kushner's American proposal. And according to the Wall Street Journal, American and Israeli intelligence had verified that senior Iranian leaders would be gathered at three locations that could be struck simultaneously. How they knew that is, as the Journal carefully noted, still unknown.

In other words, Iran’s entire decision-making apparatus was assembled in one place most likely because they were in the middle of an active negotiation with Jared Kushner. The talks had created a predictable, intelligenceable window.

Diplomats who were part of the earlier rounds of talks now tell reporters that the Iranian side has come to believe they’d been misled, and that Tehran now views the Witkoff-Kushner negotiations as, in their words, “a ruse designed to keep Iran from expecting and preparing for the surprise strikes.”

That’s not the assessment of Iranian state media spinning a narrative after a military defeat; it’s the conclusion of people who were in the room, speaking to American journalists, on the record.

Now layer on top of that what we know about who Witkoff was meeting with in the days before they sat down with the Iranians. He flew to Israel and was briefed directly by Netanyahu and senior Israeli defense officials and then, with Kushner, flew to Oman and Geneva and sat across the table from the Iranian negotiators.

The man who briefed Kushner’s partner (Witkoff) before those talks — Netanyahu — is the same man who said on the night the bombs fell that “this coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years.” He wasn’t even remotely subdued or reluctant about the possibility of the Middle East going up in flames, perhaps even igniting World War III. He was, instead, triumphant that he finally got an American president to do something he’d been unsuccessfully pushing for decades.

We also know that the Trump regime’s explanations for why the attacks happened when they did have collapsed into open contradiction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially told reporters the US struck because Israel was going to attack anyway and Iran would have retaliated against American forces. Trump then went on television and flipped the scenario upside-down, saying he might’ve “forced Israel’s hand.”

The two most senior officials in the administration told two diametrically opposite stories within 48 hours of each other, and neither story explains why the diplomacy that the Omani mediator called substantively successful — that essentially got America everything we said we wanted — was abandoned without the final round.

None of this proves that Kushner was running a deliberate double-cross operation designed to concentrate Iranian leadership in a killable location. What it does prove, though, is that the question is entirely legitimate and demands an answer under oath.

This is not the first time in American history that such a question has had to be asked, or that it damaged America’s reputation on the world stage. In October of 1972, Henry Kissinger stood before the cameras and told the world that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam. The Paris negotiations, he assured everyone, were on the verge of ending the war.

But it was a lie: two months later, Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II, the most intensive bombing campaign of the entire war, dropping more tonnage on North Vietnam in twelve days than had been dropped in all of 1969 and 1970 combined.

The Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973 on terms that serious historians have long argued were not meaningfully different from what had been on the table long before the bombing. Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize for those negotiations. His North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, however, refused to accept his share of the prize, saying that peace had not actually been achieved and the Vietnamese had been deceived because the negotiations were a sham. And he was right: the war dragged on for two more years and was ended by Jerry Ford with the fall of Saigon.

The question that has haunted the world since those 1973 negotiations is the same question hanging over Kushner’s Geneva talks today: were the talks ever meant to succeed on their own terms, or were they simply a setup to destroy the Iranian leadership even if they gave us everything we wanted?

There’s also the Ronald Reagan precedent. His campaign was credibly accused of running a back-channel to Iran to delay the release of American hostages held in Tehran so that Jimmy Carter couldn’t get a pre-election boost from securing their freedom. It took decades for anything close to a full picture to emerge, but now we know that the Reagan campaign successfully committed that treason just to get him into the White House in 1980.

We don’t have decades this time. A war is under way and Americans are already dying. The leadership of a modern, developed country of ninety million people has been decapitated. And every foreign ministry on Earth is watching and drawing conclusions about whether they’ll ever again trust American diplomacy.

If the Iranians were right that they were “negotiated” into a kill box, no government facing an existential American ultimatum will ever be able to assume our good faith again.

The damage this administration is doing to American credibility isn’t abstract or temporary: when a country uses the negotiating table as a targeting opportunity, it poisons the well for every administration that comes after it.

North Korea is watching. Iran’s neighbors are watching. China is watching. The next time an American president sends an envoy somewhere with a genuine offer of peace, why would anyone believe it? Le Duc Tho knew the answer to that question when Kissinger betrayed his Vietnamese negotiating partners in 1973. The world is apparently relearning it now.

Congress has the constitutional power and the institutional obligation to call Kushner and Witkoff before investigative committees and ask them directly: What did you know about Israeli targeting plans during the Geneva talks? When did you know it? What were you instructed to accomplish or delay? Did you communicate with Netanyahu’s government during the negotiations themselves?

The man at the center of this diplomacy grew up treating Benjamin Netanyahu like a member of the family. That’s not a reason to assume guilt, but it sure as hell is a reason to demand answers, loudly, now, before the war makes the asking impossible.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

'Whining' Republicans secretly trash Trump's Iran war behind his back: lawmaker

WASHINGTON — Republicans are happy to criticize President Donald Trump’s war on Iran behind closed doors but “willing to give up congressional power” when given chances to actually rein him in, a prominent Democrat charged, shortly before the House of Representatives rejected a bipartisan attempt to assert its constitutional powers.

“There is an incredible sense in the Congress in the last year that so many Republicans have been willing to give up congressional power,” Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) told Raw Story at the Capitol.

Republicans, Balint said, “all tell you behind closed doors a whole variety of things they don't like about what's happening.

“If you pick your head up and all of a sudden your power is gone, don't whine about it because you gave it away.”

‘I’m not stupid’

Under Article One of the U.S. Constitution — and the 1973 War Powers Resolution — only Congress can declare war.

In reality, presidents have long ignored such strictures.

Balint was speaking shortly before the House considered a war powers resolution that would have forced the Trump administration to pause strikes on Iran.

“I'm not stupid,” Balint, a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, said.

“I can count. I don't think we're going to have the votes, but I think in every opportunity we have to assert our Article I powers, we have to keep doing these actions that show that we understand that every time we don't stand up to [Trump], legislative powers are slipping away.”

Another Democrat, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), said such votes were important, to “get people on the record.”

The record for the ensuing vote showed the resolution was rejected 219-212, with Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Warren Davidson (R-OH) voting yes, while four Democrats voted no.

Massie co-sponsored the resolution with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), his partner in pressuring the Trump administration over the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his links to powerful figures, prominently including the president himself.

Davidson, a former military officer, is usually a loyal supporter of the Republican line.

On the floor of the House, he said, “Make no mistake, Iran is an enemy of the United States. As our military engages them, they do so justly. Unfortunately, they are not yet doing so constitutionally.

“For some, this debate will be about whether we should even be fighting in Iran. For me, the debate is more fundamental: is the president of the United States, regardless of the person holding the office, empowered to do whatever he wants?

“That’s not what our constitution says.”

‘Whatever it takes to win’

Amid continued confusion over Trump’s aims in attacking Iran — currently by air and at sea and at the cost of six American lives and more than 1,000 Iranians killed — it was reported on Thursday that strikes could extend until September.

Raw Story asked one senior Republican if that bothered him.

“Not worried at all,”Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) replied “Trump knows what he’s doing.”

Raw Story pressed: Was Norman really saying he would be okay with such a lengthy campaign, with all its attendant dangers for wider conflict through the Middle East and the world?

“Whatever it takes to win,” Norman said.

'Spiraling out of control'

Balint considered another pressing issue: Republicans’ reluctance to even say Trump has taken America to war, despite the president’s own use of the word.

“You can't call it a ‘military action,’ that it has a very short timeline, when this is the chatter,” Balint said, of the reports of a possible September end date.

“We knew that it's spiraling out of control … and again, like, where's the opposition within his own party?”

The 3 words a Trump commander just used that should keep you up at night

There is so much chaotic news coming out of this White House that it’s tough to focus on the urgency of any single story.

But nothing jolted me quite like this week’s Iran War revelation that a combat unit commander urged noncommissioned officers to motivate U.S. troops by telling them Donald Trump had been “anointed by Jesus,” and that the conflict was “all part of God’s divine plan” to bring about Armageddon and Biblical End Times.

I’d assumed the other guys were the fundamentalists here.

Thankfully, the above disclosure sparked hundreds of complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) — a group I hadn’t known existed.

Extremist Christian rhetoric is utterly incompatible with any sound judgment, much less strategic conduct of warfare. It is the precise opposite. It’s how you get kamikaze combatants eager to die for the cause and send body counts soaring. It’s how you generate fighters operating out of crazed zealotry rather than tactical reason.

It's also how you destroy any semblance of a chance for a diplomatic solution. To religion-driven radicals fighting a war framed as a defense of God’s will, negotiation itself can feel like a betrayal of the cause.

If you’re fighting for sacred dominance — for “My god is cooler than your god” belief — anything less than complete annihilation of the infidel enemy is unthinkable. You don’t attempt to converse with evil itself.

If you’re talking about Armageddon and the End Times, you’re referring to termination of the world, as cited in the Book of Revelation, and a renewed Creation while welcoming the return of Christ.

Let me add here that while I accept and appreciate everyone’s religious freedom and work hard to disparage none of it, even though it’s not my thing, I’m not terribly keen on this whole planet destruction deal. That kind of infringes on my right to continue living on earth. So, I have to push back.

Here is what I believe with all of my heart and soul: you can fight people and do battle with their beliefs and principles but you can’t effectively go to war against (or with) a spirit. It gets tricky when you start using dogma to inspire. That whole separation of church and state idea comes into play, and those who defend the division are branded as antagonists.

I’ve long believed that more monstrous behavior and immorality has been perpetrated in the name of religion than any other factor, since the dawn of time.

What’s undeniable is that a religious war is much tougher — if not outright impossible — to limit. You can use it to justify any and all atrocities, because if the war effort is framed as a holy mission, the opponent is reduced to being less than human.

How do you fight people who are attaching their virtue to the return of an immortal being, of God’s purported chosen son?

You don’t.

In this clash, the adversary isn’t merely on the other side of a theological divide but fully dehumanized. In that scenario, restraint and understanding collapse. Rivals become demonic. All bets are off.

The obvious issue here is that we have a Secretary of “War,” the execrable Pete Hegseth, who is a rabid evangelical Christian and raging alcoholic who has no understanding of limits. He proudly integrates faith into his identity, not to mention his government job. His relationship with Jesus Christ is personal. The man has a Jerusalem Cross tattooed on his chest.

Again, it wouldn’t matter what Hegseth’s beliefs were if they didn’t so profoundly impinge on the rest of us. He’s far more devoted to his concept of God than he is to the human population. He opens Pentagon events by giving “all glory to God,” which is so far over the line for a public servant that it leaves one speechless.

Hegseth appears to truly believe that any war he fights is about eternal destiny and maintains that God commands his actions. But of course, in this perception, “God” is simply what Hegseth calls his thoughts. He couldn’t go out and mow down 30 people with an AR-15 and justify it by saying, “God told me to do it” … though some have tried.

It’s simply a fact that when God enters into the military conversation, nothing anyone else insists upon can diverge from such pious certainty. Excessive brutality becomes almost inevitable because purported faith rationalizes your basest instincts and rages.

To bring it back to our soldiers being told they’re carrying out “God’s divine plan,” the biggest problem is that it plants the idea in their heads that rules of combat no longer exist, and the spiritual ends justify any means.

You can defend dishonorable conduct because you’re backed by a deeper calling that invites martyrdom, deepening conviction further. Volatility is guaranteed to ratchet up.

Referring to Armageddon with such lustful excitement is the kind of bombast that inspires thoughts of nuclear options. It has no business being used to motivate our fighting forces.

Once we cross that line of fanaticism, there’s really no turning back.

Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.

These spineless cowards must act before Trump's madness spirals out of control

NATO is now involved. It has shot down an Iranian missile heading into Turkish airspace. Turkey is a NATO member housing a major U.S. military base where the U.S. has nuclear weapons, including B-61 thermonuclear bombs. NATO’s Article 5 says an attack on one member of the alliance is considered an attack on all.

The United Kingdom has granted the U.S. access to its military bases for strikes on Iran. France is building a coalition to protect commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal. The Netherlands is weighing France’s request to help secure these shipping routes. The White House says Spain will cooperate with the U.S. military (Spain disputes this). Greece is sending planes and warships to its neighbor Cyprus. Lebanon is ordering a mass evacuation in the country’s south.

Meanwhile, Russia, which has a strategic partnership treaty with Iran, is accusing the U.S. of using an “imaginary threat” from Iran as a pretext for overthrowing its constitutional order. Putin calls the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei a “cynical violation of all norms of human morals and the international law.”

Russia, Iran, and Venezuela are the world’s top producers of heavy crude oil that’s exported to dozens of nations to be processed by their refineries. This means that, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed and much of Iran’s oil-producing capacity under attack, China — which had been the largest buyer of Iranian oil — will almost surely become more dependent on Russian oil, drawing the two superpowers closer.

Iran reports that more than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli and American strikes. So far, 11 people have died in Israel as Iran has fired back. Six U.S. service members have been killed. We don’t have reports on the numbers injured.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war is rapidly escalating into a global conflict.

What about you and me and every other American? Who is representing our interests? Let me remind you, the U.S. Congress has not declared war, even though Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution expressly grants this power to Congress — not to the president.

It is part of what are known as “Enumerated Powers” — powers reserved to Congress, to the people’s representatives. Only Congress is authorized to “declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.”

So why are we at the precipice of World War III? What is our reason for committing so many troops at such great cost and risk? What is America’s interest?

Trump isn’t saying, except to talk in vague generalities about Iran’s nuclear capacities — which experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency and in our own intelligence community say have been grossly exaggerated by Trump.

Where are the progressive voices warning of how a war like this can so easily escalate out of control? Where are the historians telling us how other such calamities have begun? Where are voices explaining all the domestic needs we are sacrificing to finance the U.S. military machine?

I’m no isolationist. I believe America has responsibilities around the world. But I’m not even hearing much from the “America First” gang on the right reminding Trump’s MAGA base that the war he is pulling us into violates a basic tenet of why he was elected.

Trump has launched a war in the Middle East that is already killing and wounding large numbers of men, women, and children. But he’s done it without our consent, without a plan, without a strategy, and without any clear idea about where it leads or how it ends.

***

On Wednesday afternoon, Senate Republicans voted to block a measure from advancing that would limit Trump’s power to continue waging war against Iran without congressional authorization, turning back an effort by Democrats to insist that Congress weigh in on a sweeping and open-ended military campaign.

The 53-to-47 vote against taking up the measure was largely along party lines. (Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted with Republicans against the measure, while GOP Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was the sole Republican who voted with Democrats in favor if it.)

Today’s vote was just the latest in a series of failed war powers resolution efforts in both the House and Senate as Democrats have tried, but repeatedly failed, to rein in Trump’s ability to act without consulting with Congress.

It is still important to call on your members of Congress to use their power to put a stop to this deadly war. Contact them now at: (202) 224-3121.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump bombed Iran and left America vulnerable to retaliation. That's no accident

History doesn’t repeat, as Mark Twain allegedly said, but it sure does seem to rhyme. And right now, the rhyme between the first year of the George W. Bush presidency and the first year of Donald Trump’s second term is staring us in the face and it’s getting scary.

After “Poppy” George H.W. Bush finished his 1991 “little war” against Iraq, he left American troops stationed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Those soldiers on what Osama bin Laden considered sacred Muslim soil — the home to Mecca — became his primary grievance against America.

He said so publicly, raving at the New York Times and anyone else who’d listen. American men were drinking alcohol and looking at pornography and thus defiling Saudi holy land, he said, and American women were showing their bare arms and driving cars in a country where such things are absolutely forbidden. When Bin Laden declared war on us, he meant it as part of a religious and moral crusade.

That war came home on September 11, 2001, and it arrived at a miraculously convenient moment for an otherwise hapless George W. Bush. The new president had taken office under a cloud of illegitimacy after five Republicans on the Supreme Court, two of them appointed by his own father, stopped the Florida recount — that would have handed the election to Al Gore — and thus gave Bush the presidency.

Millions of Americans believed the 2000 election had been stolen, between Jeb Bush purging 90,000 Black voters from the Florida rolls just before the election, and the five Republicans on the Court handing Bush the Oval Office. His approval ratings were mediocre at best, he had no mandate, and he struggled to find any sort of an agenda beyond more tax cuts for billionaires that could excite the public.

Then the towers fell, and overnight Bush became the most popular president in the history of modern polling: his approval rating hit 90 percent. The man who’d been floundering became, overnight, a “wartime president,” which was exactly what he’d wanted all along.

Back in 1999, Bush told his ghostwriter Mickey Herskowitz that if he ever got the presidency, what he really needed was a war:

“One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander in chief ... My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it.”

Bin Laden’s 9/11 attack on the US gave Bush his “chance to invade,” his war capital. He spent it to invade Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, and to drive an even larger tax cut for billionaires than originally anticipated.

Exposed by the Downing Street Memos, his administration had fabricated intelligence, ginned up fake connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and lied about weapons of mass destruction. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of his lies, but Bush got his “successful presidency.”

Now look at Trump.

His poll numbers right now are worse than Bush’s were in the summer of 2001; worse in many regards than any president in polling history. His approval ratings on literally every topic — from immigration to ICE to taxes to inflation to healthcare, etc., etc. — are underwater and sinking.

Further, there are allegations that the FBI is sitting on evidence related to claims Trump raped at least one and possibly two 13-year-old girls. His family is openly monetizing the presidency, with his nepo sons and son-in-law cutting real estate deals and cryptocurrency schemes with the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE while Trump pushes — against the advice of our intelligence agencies — to send advanced AI chips to those same countries.

The corruption is so brazen it barely qualifies as corruption anymore. Trump and his lickspittles have pulled off what was previously unimaginable: the reinvention of government as a machine to generate profit for the ruling family — much like Saddam Hussein had done in Iraq and Vladimir Putin has done in Russia — all right out in plain sight.

Meanwhile, Trump’s ICE agents are terrorizing communities across the country, beating and intimidating American citizens, deporting legal residents without due process, and violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments so routinely that constitutional scholars have stopped being shocked and started being terrified. Reports of ICE-related deaths of American citizens like Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis are piling up as the Trump regime refuses to cooperate in state-level murder investigations.

On top of all these crises, the electoral landscape for November is looking catastrophic for Republicans. Trump and the GOP are staring down a potential wipeout in the 2026 midterms, which is why red-state legislatures are gerrymandering with abandon, why Trump is floating proposals to nationalize elections, ban mail-in voting, and station ICE agents outside polling places in minority neighborhoods.

These are not the actions of a confident political party that believes it’s doing what’s best for average Americans. They are, instead, the actions of people who know they’re on the verge of losing power and facing accountability, and are therefore willing to destroy our very democracy to hold onto power.

So, Trump desperately needed something to change the subject. And right on cue, he launched an unprovoked military attack on Iran, apparently at the urging of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has his own desperate need to remain in power to keep himself out of prison for his own bribery and corruption scandals.

The bombing of Iran gave Trump a few days of wall-to-wall war coverage, pushing every other scandal (including Epstein) below the fold. It was a classic wag-the-dog maneuver, but so far it’s worked well enough to dominate the news cycle.

But here is where the rhyme with 2001 turns frighteningly dark.

Kash Patel, Trump’s FBI director, has fired or reassigned almost the entire FBI team responsible for tracking Iranian threats inside the United States. The specialists who spent years building intelligence networks to monitor Iranian-linked operatives on American soil have been purged from the agency, fired unceremoniously.

At the same time, Trump has let funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapse, leaving critical counterterrorism functions in limbo as Republicans in Congress refuse — at his insistence — to act. He’s systematically dismantled the very apparatus that exists to prevent a terrorist attack on the continental US or our assets around the world.

Ask yourself why. Why would a president who just bombed Iran simultaneously gut the very intelligence infrastructure built by previous administrations to detect and prevent Iranian retaliation? Why would you poke a hornet’s nest and then fire the guy with the EpiPen?

Unless you wanted to get stung.

The logic is almost too ugly to contemplate, but it tracks perfectly with recent history. Bush needed 9/11 and got it, and it saved his presidency. Trump needs something equally dramatic to reset his collapsing political fortunes.

A spectacular Iranian-sponsored attack on American soil, or even a major domestic attack by a radicalized actor inspired by the chaos Trump himself has created, would instantly transform him into a Bush-like “wartime president.”

It would push the bribery, the rapes, the constitutional violations, the ICE killings, and the election rigging off the front page overnight. It would give him emergency powers he has already shown he’s more than willing to abuse. It would give Republicans a reason to “rally around the flag” and postpone the reckoning that November 2026 currently promises.

This is not some wacky conspiracy theory: it’s simply pattern recognition. When a president provokes a hostile nation, then fires the people whose job it is to protect us from that nation’s retaliation, the conclusion is either staggering incompetence or something far more sinister.

We can’t afford to wait and find out which one it is.

Call your senators and your representative today. Call them tomorrow. Call them every day until they act. Demand that Trump’s attack on Iran stop before it spirals into a full-scale war nobody voted for.

Demand that the FBI immediately reinstate its Iranian threat-monitoring teams. Demand that DHS be fully funded and its counter-terrorism mission restored, with ICE being forced to start obeying the law and the Constitution.

And demand that Congress exercise its constitutional authority over war and peace before Trump drags us deeper into a conflict designed to serve no one’s interests but his own and Bibi Netanyahu’s. The phone number for the Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

Use it. Our safety, our democracy, and our future depend on it.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.