Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Q: Did you talk to Netanyahu about attacking the oil and gas fields?

TRUMP: Yeah I do. I did him, 'don't do that.' And he won't do that. pic.twitter.com/VYdPp302vr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 19, 2026

About the latest escalation:

On Tuesday a successful Iranian drone attack resulted in operations at the Shah gasfield, about 111 miles (180km) south-west of Abu Dhabi, being suspended. The site can produce 1.28bn standard cubic feet of gas a day. It supplies about 20% of the UAE’s gas supply and 5% of the world’s granulated sulphur, which is used in phosphate fertilisers.

On Wednesday an Iranian production facility for the South Pars gasfield, which it shares with Qatar, was struck. The field is the largest in the world and the biggest source of domestic energy in Iran, which sometimes struggles to produce enough electricity.

The strike, which prompted a threat from Tehran of further retaliation against energy infrastructure, was widely reported in Israeli media to have been carried out by Israel with US consent, though neither country immediately confirmed responsibility.

Although Donald Trump said the US had not been given warning of the attack, it seems highly unlikely that US intelligence would not have known about it or that two allies fighting a war together, involving joint military flight traffic control, would not both have been aware.

An Iranian attack subsequently caused “extensive damage” to Qatar’s giant Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, sending gas prices rocketing and prompting dire warnings over the global economic impact. The price of European gas jumped 35%. Qatar is one of the world’s top LNG producers, alongside the US, Australia and Russia, and Ras Laffan is the world’s largest LNG hub. Iranian drones also struck a Saudi oil refinery on the Red Sea and caused fires at two others in Kuwait.

Oops:

The strikes on so-called upstream gas production facilities by both sides of the Middle East war mark a significant escalation and could have long-term consequences.

It is the first time facilities connected to the production of fossil fuel energy have been hit, rather than sites associated more generally with the oil and gas industry.

The attack on Qatar’s hub “marks a significant escalation in the Middle East war”, Theresa Fallon, the director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies, wrote on X, adding: “The economic effect will likely be felt for years.”

Although a cessation of hostilities could result in suspended gas and oil shipments returning within months, experts say significant damage to production infrastructure could have an impact that lasts far longer.

Trump knows this is a problem because he’s been threatening to hit these sites repeatedly while always saying that he doesn’t want to do it because it will cripple the industry — which he believes he is entitled to seize for himself.

Israel says Trump knew all about it and of course he did. They’re working together. And Trump is clearly making decisions by simply saying “fuck it — go for it” because he really doesn’t know what else to do. He’s afraid of losing but he has no clue what winning looks like other than Iran waving the white flag and licking his boots.

We’d be better off if he flipped a coin since odds are he’d say no at least some of the time.

It’s a big problem:

One lesson from the 2003 invasion of Iraq was that it took much longer than expected to repair damaged energy production infrastructure. The Bush administration had promised that reconstruction would be funded by oil revenues, but even though contractors were able to access Iraqi plants and $2bn was spent on oil projects, production took more than two years to return to prewar levels.

Energy production in the Gulf has a social, political and diplomatic importance far beyond the economic top line. Social settlements where citizens live under often repressive monarchies are based on the sharing of energy wealth. It is vital to living standards and the ability to attract foreign workers.

Energy is integral to the way countries in the region interact with each other. The brief detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which survived Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, was a priority for Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, as part of his plans to diversify the Saudi economy. He assessed that tensions with Iran were a drain on resources. On the Iranian side the detente was driven by an economy slowly imploding under US-led sanctions.

Historically closer to Iran because of a shared interest in the South Pars field, Qatar’s anxiety over the attack has been palpable. The field has at times acted as a diplomatic bridge not only between Doha and Tehran but more widely.

Yeah, he’s blown things up. And if it’s repairable, which is questionable, it’s going to take a lot of time, many people are going to die, there will probably be terrorist attacks and a refugee crisis and the economy’s going to be stressed at the very least. And remember, this was for absolutely no reason. There was no imminent threat, the U.S. had set back their nuclear program (after tearing up a treaty that had been working, also for no reason) and the world, while in flux, was not in crisis. Now it is.

Thanks Trump. You’ve really made America great again.

Will Sommer at The Bulwark:

THE FACTION OF MAGA PERSONALITIES angry about Donald Trump’s war with Iran now has a martyr, and he’s one of their own.

The resignation of National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent this week—and the ensuing Trump administration attacks on him—have lent a new prestige to Iran-war critics like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Kent cited his disagreement with the war as the reason for his resignation (along with some wink-wink antisemitism about the war’s origins, too). In doing so, he gave likeminded allies a vessel onto which they could attach their own grievances.

He also did something those allies had been unable to do to this point: put real pressure on figures within the administration to make difficult calculations about their own political careers. If Kent could resign over the war—they might be asked in the not-too-distant future—why couldn’t they, too?

Here’s one reason:

The FBI has opened a leak investigation into a top former intelligence official who resigned Tuesday in protest over the war in Iran.

The investigation into former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent is focused on allegations that he improperly shared classified information, four people with direct knowledge of the investigation told Semafor.

In his resignation letter, Kent wrote that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation” and accused President Donald Trump of starting the war because of “pressure from Israel.”

They say he’s been under investigation for months. Ok.

So far the MAGAs and most of the Republicans are sticking with Dear Leader. But Sommer thinks this is going to be significant and I think he’s right. Kent’s a hero to the Tucker Carlson and Candace Owen crowd which may not be a big deal while Trump is still in charge but it could be very important as this war drags on and the presidential election looms. As Sommer points out:

JOE KENT’S DECISION TO QUIT will hasten and heighten the showdown between Donald Trump and his right-wing critics. In a way, this current moment has echoes of Democratic factionalism in the runup to the Iraq War, or the grassroots conservative revolt to the George W. Bush administration’s push for a legal pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

In each case, a vocal group of activists in the party was unhappy with the pursuits of the party’s leadership. But the leadership went ahead anyway, wrongly convinced they knew better than the neophytes which way the political winds were blowing.

In a few years, the Iran war will probably be unpopular on the right, read through the same anti-Israel lens through which they came to see the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

For anyone in the administration with political ambitions who might believe this is where things are heading—and who might want to get there more quickly—Kent has raised the stakes for what it will take to do so convincingly: a loud resignation. JD Vance and Marco Rubio will likely be stuck on the wrong side of that debate in 2028. But Kent and Carlson won’t be.

I wrote something similar in this piece last week. At this point I’m going to guess the 2028 nominee is going to be a Republican governor who can say he had no fingerprints on any of this mess.

Stay tuned.

I just don’t know what to say. These people would rather have endless wars, massive refugee crises, starvation and environmental disaster than use alternative energy.

We’re well on our way to their future. And we have very little time to reverse course.

Say what you will about Donald Trump: While he may have only ever had a handful of ideas, he’s been consistent about espousing them for more than half a century. Take, for instance, his view that America’s allies are a bunch of freeloaders who should be paying the U.S. protection money for defending them. The way he’s always seen it, the collective security umbrella that has existed since World War II is nothing more than a business arrangement that should be turning America a profit. 

In 1987 he even took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to make his case. He said, “It’s time for us to end our vast deficits by making Japan, and others who can afford it, pay. Our world protection is worth hundreds of billions of dollars to these countries, and their stake in their protection is far greater than ours.”

Trump even had a specific example of an ally being ungrateful to the U.S., which is interesting in light of current events in the Middle East. “Saudi Arabia, a country whose very existence is in the hands of the United States, last week refused to allow us to use their mine sweepers (which are, sadly, far more advanced than ours) to police the Gulf. The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help.”

Titled “There’s nothing wrong with American Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone won’t cure,” the ad was the first articulation of what Trump’s eventual America First slogan, which he pilfered from an earlier generation of the far-right and has never acknowledged, actually meant. 

Nearly 40 years later, that theft has led people into misunderstanding what Trump was talking about. 

Many of those World War II conservatives had a not-so-subtle crush on a certain German führer. They were isolationists, determined to keep the U.S. out of what they considered Europe’s war. 

That’s never been Trump’s goal, and he’s never really said it was. Sure, he campaigned against the “forever wars” of his predecessors — mainly because opposing anything they did was the only way he knew how to talk about foreign policy — and he donned the populist, xenophobic hat to malign immigrants and foreign nations alike. 

Donald Trump was never a pacifist nor an isolationist. In fact he is the opposite — a domineering strongman who seeks to bully everyone around him into compliance.

But Donald Trump was never a pacifist nor an isolationist. In fact he is the opposite — a domineering strongman who seeks to bully everyone around him into compliance. Many of his followers doubtless find that his most appealing quality, but the rest of the world is no longer amused. 

The president’s demeaning of America’s allies is nothing new. Throughout his first term, he denigrated NATO while cozying up to adversaries, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, as if they were long-lost brothers. 

But since his return to the White House, Trump has really pushed the envelope, treating countries except Russia, Israel and wealthy Middle Eastern nations like vassal states. He began by disrespecting Mexico and Canada, our closest neighbors, so crudely that the rift he created may be permanent. He unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and demanded the media go along with it. Then he repeatedly demeaned Canada as America’s “51st state” and has referred to the prime minister as “governor.” These insults add up to a display of dominance based on nothing more than a desire to humiliate America’s friends, and all just to preen for his cultish following. 

Since his early January raid on Venezuela and capture of the nation’s president and first lady, Trump has strutted the world stage, insulting everyone in sight, often purely for sport. He set his sights on Greenland, apparently at the behest of a cosmetics heir pal. By mid-January he had pushed things to the point that it looked likely he would send in troops to conquer the island nation, despite the fact that it’s a dominion of Denmark, one of America’s closest allies. His crude move left Europe reeling, and it brought home the fact that Trump’s virtual abandonment of Ukraine to Russia was a preview of what he was prepared to do if Putin expanded his war into Europe itself: nothing. With all Trump’s Greenland talk, some had to wonder if he wouldn’t actively take Russia’s side. 

The threats reached a fever pitch just as global political and business elites gathered in Davos for their annual meet-and-greet. Trump gave a horrific speech in which he did back off any plans to use military force to take the “piece of ice,” but what followed was so ugly and vulgar that it appeared to be the final straw for America’s friends and allies. (Among his claims was that the U.S. has “never gotten anything” from NATO — despite being the only member of the alliance to invoke Article 5, requesting and getting “collective defence” after 9/11 — that America was paying for “virtually 100%” of the organization and that the U.S. “gave

Something had shifted over those few days, a shift most eloquently expressed in Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s keynote address. “Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order,” he began, “the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” 

Carney correctly acknowledged that the old world order was over and that the hegemons, especially the United States — although he didn’t name it — were setting out new rules for themselves to benefit.

Carney correctly acknowledged that the old world order was over and that the hegemons, especially the United States — although he didn’t name it — were setting out new rules for themselves to benefit. He called for the world’s “middle powers” to work together to forge a new path away from the coercion and dominance of America. Carney’s speech was lauded around the world, and in many quarters here in the U.S., for its clarity and insight. 

The rupture is real. Driven by delusions of grandeur and megalomania, Trump has entrenched the United States into a war in the Middle East.

Trump’s war of choice against Iran, launched in partnership with Israel and without any semblance of an imminent threat, was the fulfillment of a nearly 50-year-old right-wing wish fantasy. It goes against international law and common sense. Massive numbers of Iranians are being killed or displaced — a precursor to a major refugee crisis. The global oil market is being held hostage, and an already fragile world economy is hanging in the balance. Assuming that Iran would cry uncle on the first day and come crawling to him waving a white flag, Trump is stuck and doesn’t know what to do now that he’s belatedly realized that the famously dispersed Iranian opposition has no plans of its own.

Trump has demanded that NATO countries, as well as China, Japan, South Korea and Australia, “come in and protect their own territory, because it is their territory.” They have all declined in no uncertain terms. 

Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius bluntly said, “This is not our war; we did not start it.” French president Emmanuel Macron stated, “We are not party to the conflict and therefore France will never take part in operations to open or liberate the Strait of Hormuz in the current context.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that his country will not be drawn into a “wider war.” Japan and Australia have both given thumbs down.

In response, Trump has had so many tantrums it would be impossible to list them all. Suffice to say that he’s not handling this well. He has persisted in insulting the leaders of these countries for failing to bail him out of his jam, writing long screeds on social media that rail against their alleged perfidy. Concluding one on Tuesday, he wailed, “speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

His America First chickens, first unleashed all those years ago in that ad, have finally come home to roost. It’s now America alone — and he did that all by his lonesome.

No one, that’s who

Federal judges have grown tired of the antics of Donald Trump’s Department of Justice under A.G. Pam Bondi. And yet the illegal antics continue. We’ll get to why in a minute.

Judge Zahid N. Quraishi on Monday ejected from his courtroom a prosecutor from the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, the New York Times reported:

Judge Quraishi grew frustrated with the office’s head of appeals, Mark Coyne, who had not formally disclosed that he would appear, and fiercely interrogated a more junior prosecutor about whether the former interim U.S. attorney, Alina Habba, still had some role in operating the office.

Judge Quraishi eventually threw Mr. Coyne out.

The judge then ordered the three leaders of the New Jersey office, who last week were found to be occupying their positions unlawfully, to appear to testify about their office’s leadership structure. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed the unconventional three-person leadership team in December after Ms. Habba was disqualified. The leaders are Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio.

It gets worse.

Last week, the judge who disqualified Ms. Habba, Matthew W. Brann, found that the office’s three-person leadership team was unlawful. He wrote that President Trump’s reliance on illegal maneuvers to appoint New Jersey’s top prosecutors might mean that “scores of dangerous criminals” could have cases dismissed or convictions reversed, because the law would be in their favor.

Quraishi dressed down the prosecution team for its agreeing to a lower sentence for a man accused of child pornography involving prepubescent children and bestiality.

The DOJ’s credibility is in the toilet.

But you knew that. What caught my attention as an exchange about that Wednesday afternoon during the second hour of “Deadline: White House.” Sarah Fitzpatrick of The Atlantic speaks to why Bondi’s DOJ and the trained lawyers in it continue to flaut the law despite their seeking a vocation based in it.

People are frightened, Fitzpatrick explains. A source told her that when people are under pressure, that is when character reveals itself. This is an administration determined to inflict retribution, public retribution, on anyone who gets sideways with Trump. It’s not simply a matter of professional consequences. With Trump’s inflamed MAGA base, Trump’s ire comes with the real threat of physical harm.

“Once safety gets engaged in the human brain,” Fitzpatrick reflects, “regardless of how educated, regardless of how well you know the law, that is a major factor that can override [better judgement].”

Or, Fitzpatrick doesn’t loop back to say, reveal someone’s true character.

The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol this morning, considers whether anyone inside his administration will tell Trump just how badly his war with Iran is going. Likely, anyone so bold would be immediately removed from the Oval Office.

Kristol presents a menu of disasters in the making, none of which any Trump adviser will tell him. (Fitzpatrick explained why above.) He writes:

Instead of receiving intelligence briefings, President Trump is watching Fox. And what he heard last night was his most influential aide, Stephen Miller, telling Laura Ingraham that “President Trump has calculated through every permutation and every degree of strategy,” and that we are en route to “an overwhelming victory.”

And so, as we find ourselves in an increasingly dangerous hole of our own making, we will keep on digging.

Trump’s justification of the Iran war is evolving from Iranian nukes, to control of oil and gas supplies. pic.twitter.com/ZUtcT5LSAL

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) March 19, 2026

As always, there is no bottom. And as usual, no one in Congress in either party will march into the Oval Office and demand that grandpa hand over his car keys.

Wyden accuses Trump DOJ of ongoing Epstein coverup

Jason Leopold at Bloomberg reports on the ongoing Department of Justice coverup of a DEA investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and others involving drug trafficking, money laundering, and prostitution:

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is blocking the Drug Enforcement Administration from releasing an unredacted document from the Jeffrey Epstein files about an investigation involving drug trafficking and money laundering, according to a letter Democratic Senator Ron Wyden sent to Blanche on Tuesday.

The document, a 69-page target profile prepared for the DEA by the Department of Justice’s now-defunct Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, was released in January along with millions of pages of other documents from the Epstein files. Although heavily redacted, it showed that the DEA and the Task Forces, known as OCDETF, investigated Epstein, 12 other people and two businesses in 2015.

The DEA-OCDETF defunded and shuttered last year, Bloomberg News reports “centered on the procurement of Eastern European prostitutes for high-profile clients and the illicit funding and distribution of so-called club drugs, including ecstasy, methamphetamines and ketamine, a drug known to facilitate date rape.” The redacted targets include “Epstein’s brother, accountants, attorneys and European women who worked as his assistants or fashion models, according to the people familiar with the case.”

The redacted Epstein files document is here. Blanche pushed back on FKA Twitter (of course) that an unredacted copy is available to members of Congress, but only “in our reading room.” That’s not what Wyden demanded.

Sex, Drugs, And No Rock And Roll?

“It appears Epstein was involved in criminal activity that went way beyond pedophilia and sex trafficking, which makes it even more outrageous that Pam Bondi is sitting on several million unreleased files.” Wyden told CBS News in February.

Wyden’s review of the documents suggets “Epstein was likely pumping his victims, including underage girls, with incapacitating drugs to facilitate abuse.” His letter in full reads (emphasis added):

Dear Deputy Attorney General Blanche:

It has come to my attention that you are preventing the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) from producing an unredacted copy of a report I requested regarding drug trafficking and money laundering by Jeffrey Epstein and several associates. By withholding this unclassified document from the U.S. Congress, you are covering up for pedophiles and obstructing my investigation into the financing of Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking organization.

For years now, I have been conducting an investigation into the so-called “tax planning” conducted by Epstein to finance his criminal sex trafficking organization. As part of this investigation, I am following the money and examining the extent to which Epstein was able to utilize the U.S. financial system to make thousands of suspicious wire transfers and cash withdrawals for the apparent purpose of trafficking women and girls.

As you are aware, on February 25th I requested an unredacted copy of a memorandum prepared in 2015 by the Director of the DEA’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) related to Operation “Chain Reaction.” Operation “Chain Reaction” was a major investigation by the DEA’s elite OCDETF task force into drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering by Epstein’s criminal organization.

As you are also aware, the fact that Epstein was under investigation by OCDETF is a serious matter. OCDETF, which the Trump Administration recently dismantled, was a premier task force set up to identify, disrupt and dismantle major organized crime and drug trafficking operations. OCDETF worked with partners across federal agencies to conduct sophisticated investigations into transnational organized crime and money laundering. OCDETF frequently targeted dangerous drug cartels, the Russian mafia and violent gangs moving fentanyl and weapons across international borders.

According to the heavily redacted version of this 69 page memorandum, which was recently unsealed by the U.S. Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) in response to the passage of Epstein Files Transparency Act (“EFTA”), Epstein and 14 other individuals and entities were being investigated for their involvement in “illegitimate wire transfers” which were “tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York City.” Public reports also indicate that Operation “Chain Reaction” found reason to believe that Epstein was involved in illicit funding and distribution of so-called club drugs, including ecstasy, ketamine and methamphetamines. Ketamine is often used to facilitate date rape by being slipped into beverages unbeknownst to victims of sexual assault.

It is my understanding that shortly after I requested an unredacted copy of this OCDETF memorandum, DOJ stepped in to prevent DEA from complying with my request. According to a confidential tip received by my staff, DEA Administrator Terry Cole was ready to provide an unredacted copy of the memorandum, but you stepped in to prevent him from doing so. My staff inquired with the DEA about the status of the production of this document and the DEA responded by directing questions to your office.

Your alleged interference in this matter is highly disturbing, not just because it continues the DOJ’s long-running obstruction of my investigation, but also because of your bizarrely favorable treatment of Ghislaine Maxwell, one of Epstein’s closest criminal associates. I should not have to explain the significance of the fact that Epstein was a target of an OCDETF task force investigation. It suggests the government had ample evidence indicating he was engaged in large scale drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy and that Epstein was likely pumping his victims, including underage girls, with incapacitating drugs to facilitate abuse. I am at a loss to understand why you are blocking further investigation of this matter.

The excessive redactions of this memorandum related to “Chain Reaction” go well beyond the intent of the EFTA, which allows for redactions to protect the identity of victims, not members of a criminal sex trafficking organization. Additionally, the document is clearly marked as “unclassified” at the top of every single page. There is absolutely no reason to withhold an unredacted version of this document from the U.S. Congress.

In order to assist my investigation into this matter, I demand that you immediately authorize the release of this document. Now is not the time to cover up for Epstein and his network of criminal pedophiles and enablers.

Accordingly, please provide a fully unredacted copy of the May 18, 2015 memorandum prepared by the Director of the OCDETF Fusion center (OFC-TP-15-12392, SODOFC-15-12392, identified as EFTA00173953 in the DOJ’s digital Epstein files library).

Sincerely,

Ron Wyden

U.S. Senator

So much criming you’ll get tired of criming

Wyden’s colleague, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, is having similar issues with DOJ stonewallling, Leopold reports:

Separately on Monday, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the ranking member of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel and Cole, the DEA administrator. In the letter, Whitehouse requested records and details about another OCDETF operation that surfaced in the Epstein files that was also cited in Bloomberg’s reporting.

That operation, known as Trip Knot, was launched by OCDETF and the FBI a few months before Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking, according to the people familiar with the case. It was a money laundering and human and drug trafficking investigation tied to Russian organized crime that was linked back to FBI and DEA probes in 2017 and 2018. Epstein’s name surfaced repeatedly in that case as well, the people said.

Heather Cox Richardson stayed up late to write about the DOJ coverup. She notes that it echoes a September 2019 letter from then-Rep. Adam Schiff of California to Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. It involved the coverup of the whistleblower complaint about the Trump’s “perfect” call with newly elected Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky that led to his first impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Schiff was the impeachmwent manager for Trump’s Senate trial.

Richardson concludes:

But Republican senators stood behind Trump. They acquitted him of abuse of power, by a vote of 48 for conviction to 52 for acquittal. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah crossed the aisle to vote with the Democratic minority. Senate Republicans were unanimous in their vote to acquit Trump of obstruction of Congress.

And here we are.

Richardson means here we are again.

The most entertaining two minutes I've watched today. pic.twitter.com/5Yzm2rcaO9

— Community Notes & Violations (@CNviolations) March 17, 2026

I’m sure that most Trump voters would probably watch that and think it’s perfectly reasonable that he says he’s an expert in everything. They believe it. He is their Dear Leader. But I have to believe that a fair number would see that and be shaken because they haven’t fully grokked what a phony braggart he really is.

Bragging and whining, it’s what he does. But you have to see a compilation like that to truly understand just how bad it really is.

This story about Cesar Chavez is very difficult to read. But is it surprising? No. The more I hear about powerful men the more I realize that this is just par for the course.

Ana Murguia remembers the day the man she had regarded as a hero called her house and summoned her to see him. She walked along a dirt trail, entered the rundown building, passed his secretary and stepped into his office.

He locked the door, as he always did when he called her, and told her how lonely he had been. He brought her onto the yoga mat that he often used in his office for meditation, kissed her and pulled her pants down. “Don’t tell anyone,” he told her afterward. “They’d get jealous.”

The man, Cesar Chavez, one of the most revered figures in the Latino civil rights movement, was 45. She was 13. Ms. Murguia said she was summoned for sexual encounters with him dozens of times over the next four years.

Here’s a gift link. It’s a heartbreaking story on so many levels.

Meanwhile, here’s a real icon:

March 18, 2026

Today, civil rights leader Dolores Huerta issued the following statement:

“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.

I have encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times’ multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.

As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.

I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret. Both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies. I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to develop a deep relationship with these children, who are now close to my other children, their siblings. But even then, no one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago.

I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights and I wasn’t going to let Cesar or anyone else get in the way. I channeled everything I had into advocating on behalf of millions of farmworkers and others who were suffering and deserved equal rights.

I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.

I am telling my story because the New York Times has indicated that I was not the only one — there were others. Women are coming forward, sharing that they were sexually abused and assaulted by Cesar when they were girls and teenagers.

The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.

The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual. Cesar’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever.

I will continue my commitments to workers, as well as my commitment to women’s rights, to make sure we have a voice and that our communities are treated with dignity and given the equity that they have so long been denied.

I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here.”

She’s the true hero of the movement.

Markwayne Mullin is a liar and a fabulist. He said this a couple of weeks ago:

“War is ugly. It smells bad. If anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war that’s happening around you, and taste it, and feel it in your nostrils and hear it, it’s something you will never forget.”

Markwayne has never been to war. He’s never even been in the military. When asked about it he says as a Senator he was sent on classified missions which he can’t talk about.

This is what he said today in his confirmation hearing:

MARKWAYNE MULLIN: That was an official trip that was classified

PETERS: Where was that trip?

MULLIN: I just said it's classified, sir

PETERS: So where did you 'smell war'?

MULLIN: I just said — it's classified pic.twitter.com/njg3SAdBM0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 18, 2026

TPM reports:

Mullin’s recent comments about his experiences with war prompted a round of fact checking, including a definitive piece from Poynter which noted the remark “could have been a reference” to an incident in 2021 when Mullin, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives at the time, attempted to enter Afghanistan to perform a rescue mission amid the American military’s chaotic departure from the country. Based on his own statements about the trip, Mullin never actually made it on the ground. His office did not respond to Poynter’s questions about what “special assignments” he was involved in.

If you thought Tommy Tuberville was a brain dead clown, get ready for Markwayne. Stephen Miller could have a duller tool.

By the way, his claims of being a UFC fighting champion are also … overblown:

Mullin’s biography on the site touts him as “a former Mixed Martial Arts fighter with a professional record of 5-0” and a “fighter for America First.” Mullin’s site also touts the fact he “was inducted into the Oklahoma Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016.” His biography on that organization’s website largely cites his political and business achievements while noting that a “recurring shoulder injury” ensured he only “wrestled briefly at Missouri Valley College” after practicing the sport in high school. 

Along with featuring his identity as a “fighter” in campaign materials, in 2023, Mullin brought his pugilism to the Senate floor when he stood and challenged a union leader to a fight during a hearing. The exchange prompted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to urge the two men to sit down. 

Mullin does indeed have a record in the ring. Multiple MMA databases identify Mullin as having an undefeated 3-0 record. TPM asked Mullin’s office and the White House if they could provide a source for his claim of a 5-0 record. They did not immediately respond to that request. 

On March 12, Mullin’s MMA career was the subject of scrutiny on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, produced by The Athletic. The show’s host, award winning sports reporter Pablo Torre, and his guests, comedian Wyatt Cenac and political commentator Tim Miller, took note of the discrepancy in Mullin’s record. 

[…]

The show also delved into the details of Mullin’s three documented victories. One came in 2006 against a man named Bobby “Huggie Bear” Kelley, who, at the time was 18 years old. Mullin was 29 years old…

Mullin’s two other documented professional victories came in 2007 against a man named Clinton Bonds.  According to MMA databases, Bonds’ record includes just one win and 11 losses. While TPM was unable to reach Bonds for comment, we did find footage of him participating in a boxing match from around the time he battled Mullin. The video shows Bonds losing while eating a slew of punches and falling to the ground repeatedly. 

All of Mullin’s documented MMA bouts came in 2006 and 2007 in the XTreme Fighting League, an Oklahoma-based promotion that often featured amateur fighters making their professional debut. The years when Mullin fought were also a time when MMA was far less competitive and popular than it is today. On the podcast, Miller questioned the quality of Mullin’s competitions. 

“He’s 3-0 in what appears to me to be like a semipro MMA league. … It’s based in Tulsa,” Miller said. “It kind of feels like somebody playing in the company softball league, winning three championships, and then running for the Senate, and being like, ‘I am the first senator who was a softball champion.’”

Such a perfect Trumper: dumb, dishonest and delusional.

They would actually be fine with that because the Iranians aren’t at war with them and will open the strait if the U.S pulls out. In fact, the French are gathering a “coalition of the willing” to do just that. It’s one of the main reasons no other country is getting involved in Trump’s bullshit war!

The complication here is Israel. Trump still has to answer to Bibi (and Vlad) and who knows if they’re on board with any of this?

Trump is melting down minute by minute now, wailing and rending his garments over the fact that he can’t bully everyone into doing what he wants. It’s astonishing.