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
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.
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.
— 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.
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.”
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
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 MMAdatabases 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.
Fallows worked in the Carter White House and knows from Iran. His writing before the Iraq war was prescient — he saw what was coming. He’s not given to panic or hyperbole. So keep all that in mind as you read this:
Last week I wrote that the preceding few days had been the most wantonly self-destructive period for the United States in my lifetime, and perhaps the country’s whole history. At the whim of one man … well, you can finish that sentence on your own.
Since then, things have gotten worse.
It is simply impossible to keep up with the torrent of deceit from the administration, damage to the world economy, destruction of lives and communities and structures, disorder everywhere. Especially if, like any “normal” person, you have interests or obligations beyond staying glued to the news.
Even as I type: warfare is spreading through Lebanon; Israel says it has killed more leaders in Iran; ships and refineries are in flames; oil prices gyrate wildly, taking all economies except Russia’s along with them; and casualties mount everywhere, especially in Iran. Several million people have already been displaced. And meanwhile, nearly three weeks in, the man who by himself set this chaos in motion has not addressed the public, even once, on why he did so, and where it will lead. Not once has he gone to Congress for advice, consent, or even discussion. Nearly everything he has said, in response to shouted questions at press gaggles, has been delusional or a lie.
So my own small step toward finding order in chaos, for the moment, is to look again at the five questions and maxims I mentioned in the preceding post and see how they look now. Here we go:
1) ‘How does this end?’
As I wrote last week, “It’s the question everyone is asking, except those in control.”
This week, we’re even farther away from a plausible answer to the question.
That’s because official stories about why the US and Israel started this war keep shifting. Regime change? Imminent threat? Inspiring the oppressed Iranian public? Donald Trump’s “feeling” that the time was right? These are all different beginnings to the story, which imply different endings. It doesn’t matter that our only partner in the war, Israel, keeps offering shifting stories of its own. These range from eliminating once and for all the “existential” threat of Iranian nuclear forces, to “severing the head of the snake” of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, as Benjamin Netanyahu recently put it, with Hegseth-like grace.
And meanwhile the damage keeps spreading, in new ways, to more places, with more victims. The eternal unpredictability of warfare makes everything harder than expected, and keeps closing options that might have been there before.
Every current military leader has heard the Sun Tzu maxim that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Through history the most respected military leaders have planned carefully for combat, but viewed it as a last resort. That is in part because they know wars are so much easier to start than to end.
That is not the Trump-Hegseth way. “For 47 long years, the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran has waged a savage, one-sided war against America,” Pete Hegseth said in the heady first days of the bombing:
We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it… We will finish this on ‘America First’ conditions of President Trump’s choosing—nobody else’s.
Even as he spoke, Iranians were closing the Strait of Hormuz—their most predictable countermeasure, with ever-expanding and still unknowable effects. And the “America First conditions” for “finishing” this job will be … what, exactly? Or even what, approximately?
The closest we have come to an authentic-sounding answer was when Donald Trump said on Fox last week, “I’ll know it’s over when I feel it. When I feel it in my bones.” That quote was chilling because we know that in those few seconds he was, atypically, speaking the truth. And revealing his blindness to the other side’s role in determining when a war is over.
1A) A very stupid statement. And a very wise one.
That Trump quote will be remembered because it was so stupid. A different comment on “how this ends” should be remembered because it was so wise. It came last week from Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, now commander of US forces in Europe, who spent most of his career as an F-16 fighter pilot and instructor.
You’ll never meet a fighter pilot or an Air Force general who doesn’t believe in air power. But—admirably, and amazingly—General Grynkewich warned a Senate committee about the limits of air power in attaining nearly any of the goals the current war was supposed to achieve.
As he put it, with emphasis added:
We must be clear-eyed about what strategic bombing can and cannot do. Historical data—from the Second World War to more recent campaigns—demonstrates that bombing campaigns rarely, if ever, break the will of a population or force a government to surrender. In fact, they often harden domestic resolve and allow regimes to unify the public against a foreign ‘aggressor.’
While we are effectively destroying Iranian military infrastructure, we are not necessarily achieving the political goal of regime submission.
In simpler terms: Bombs and drones can blow things up. But on their own they have almost never “finished” wars. (“Almost” because of the horrific, complicated exception of Japan, 1945.)
The larger question of the limits of airpower spawns endless debate within the military. For the moment the point is: Trump and Hegseth exult in seeing things blow up, as in a video game, and crowing like teenagers because they’ve “won.” That is not how this story is likely to end.
Also: It is important to note over these troubled months the people who have chosen to be brave, versus those who capitulate or compromise. Let us note and remember this form of valor from General Grynkewich. I’ll return to him at the end of this post.
2) ‘In war, the moral is to the material, as three is to one.’
As noted before, this familiar quote from Napoleon refers both to the morale of troops, for reasons ranging from supplies to leadership, and to the moral aspect of their cause.
On the morale front, I keep noticing a small but significant tell. When beginning any discussion of the ongoing war, military briefers will almost always begin by acknowledging and honoring US troops in action. Especially if some of them have just been killed. It’s a solemn duty to comrades. It shows that respect flows both up and down. It’s all the more important in this “chickenhawk” era, when so many Americans “support the troops” but so few spend time in uniform.
For example, listen to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Cain, at the next regular briefing. He will begin this way, by paying respect to the troops.
Donald Trump never does this. (Except when forced to read from a script, as at State of the Union.)
Last Sunday, when asked aboard Air Force One about the six Air Force members killed in a KC-135 crash, Trump clearly heard the question. He flashed a look of annoyance, ignored it, and turned to other reporters, saying “Who else?”
Trump is visibly uncomfortable talking about or even being near people who have paid gruesome physical prices for serving the nation. Remember when he mocked John McCain for having been captured and made a prisoner of war (and then being tortured). Remember how furious he was at the Atlantic report, later confirmed, that he considered American war casualties to be “losers” or “suckers,” and that he thought it looked bad for him to be near disabled veterans. Now his administration is notably slow in releasing information about this war’s casualties.
The picture at the top of this post is of Trump at a “dignified transfer,” a ceremony at which a president’s demeanor is meant to signal the entire nation’s respect. He manages to makes it all about him.¹ No previous president has ever behaved in a remotely similar way.
Does this directly affect the morale of troops at war? Maybe not. But it’s wrong. And as casualties and disruptions go up, more and more people who are bearing the burden will notice. Parents, who have lost sons or daughters. Husbands or wives at home, while their spouses are at risk overseas.
2A) Which brings us to morals.
-No representative of the US government has yet apologized to anyone in Iran for the slaughter of some 175 school children, by a US drone. No apology could undo the damage or erase the memory. But its absence is deeply immoral. As are a president’s continued lies about the tragedy.
-While noting people who stand up and speak up for moral principles, let us recognize Ryan Clark, former defensive back with the Pittsburgh Steelers. On The Pivot podcast last week, he was asked about the White House video that used clips of him and others delivering “hard hits,” alongside film of bombs exploding in Iran.
In the three minutes below, you’ll hear more serious discussion from Clark about the morality of war, and of what 99% of Americans owe to the 1% in uniform, than you have heard from anyone in today’s administration. This video has gotten a lot of attention, but in case you haven’t seen it, it’s worth spending three minutes listening to Clark:
Here are some samples of what Ryan Clark says about dignity, respect, and demeanor, again with emphasis added.
War is not a comedy. And for these people to be risking their lives … [and] for our regime to be as unserious, as unprofessional, as laughable and as illegitimate as our leadership is right now, is embarrassing
And it tells you the difference between a public servant and a reality star. Because the reality star needs everybody to know at all times. “Oh, look at me! Look at the attention I’m garnering! We’re doing this for me.”
And the public servant stands at attention for 45 minutes in a salute. Because he understands what those soldiers who gave their lives have done for our country.
He concludes this section:
And I think we’ve lost 100% any credibility. We’ve lost all decorum. We’ve lost all integrity. We’ve lost all character. And I believe that the latest White House post, involving myself and other NFL players is absolutely disgusting and despicable.
A man of character. I think he speaks for more of us than he may realize. And certainly more than Trump or Hegseth can imagine.
3) ‘The persistence of memory.’
Two months ago, at Davos, Donald Trump was ridiculing European countries as “parasites,” whose leaders were “weak” and “stupid,” and whose countries “would not even function without the United States.” Writing off NATO as a joke. Saying that the US “had to have” Greenland, whatever a pipsqueak country like Denmark might think.
In the past week, he has demanded that these same countries support the Iran war effort—which none of them were consulted about. He wants NATO countries to pay a “protection fee” to the US Navy for operations in the Strait of Hormuz. He wants them to send ground troops to Iraq and Syria, to relieve Iran-related strain on US forces there.
The allies’ memory reaches back two full months. They have told him, in essence: Go to hell. The way Germany’s prime minister put it was, “This is not our war.”
4) What if the war comes home?
I asked that question ten days ago. The answer has become almost too obvious, and painful, to discuss. The violent episodes of the past week will almost certainly not be the last.
Remember that one of Iran’s specialties is “sleeper cells,” whose members wait, and deliver vengeance. Served cold.
And remember that staff, budgets, and attention within both Kash Patel’s FBI and Kristi Noem’s DHS have been shifted away from counter-terrorism, and toward immigration control. Remember that yesterday’s news was dominated by the extremist MAGA die-hard Joe Kent walking away, in protest, from the nation’s top counter-terrorism job. Many such positions in the FBI and DHS now sit vacant. Remember that today’s news is dominated by the prospect of the former Mixed Martial Arts fighter, and current trash-talking Senator, Markwayne Mullen replacing Kristi Noem as head of DHS. We’ll get to him, that agency, and its problems in another dispatch.
This is not the lineup you’d want to defend a country against a long-game strategy from Iran.
5) Command presence.
I mentioned last week that the bottomlessly ignorant and destructive US attack on Iran defied every written-in-blood lesson by US and other forces, through the long history of combat.
Lessons about strategy versus tactics. About impulse versus deliberation. About imagining the view from the opponent’s perspective. About being strong, versus showing off.
I ended that section with a contrast between two Secretaries of Defense: George C. Marshall, a genuine hero for his country and the world, and Pete Hegseth, an embarrassment at every level.
Let me close the section this time with another contrast. It begins with a return to Alexus Grynkewich, the Air Force general who warned Senators about the hole that US bombs were digging for the US itself, in Iran.
Here is General Grynkewich, as he testified to the Senate Armed Services committee. Take another few seconds to study his face.
[I changed out the picture due to copyright]
To me, this is the look of a person who has seen things, and thought about them, and has listened and read and learned. It is the look of a serious person, aware of the life-and-death differences his decisions can make. For me, this is the bearing of a leader, who recognizes his duty to those who have put trust in him.
If you can stand it, compare this look with any expression you’ve seen on the face of Pete Hegseth. Or Kash Patel. Or Markwayne Mullen. Or Donald Trump.
Here we are, three weeks in.
From the sound of the hearing this morning with Patel, Gabbard and Ratcliffe I’m afraid I have little hope that it’s going to get any better very soon.
Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic sketches a thumbail profile of the sitting U.S. president. Somewhere this exists as a psychological assessment in criminal investigation file:
Donald Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.
He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind—when he feels new whims and new impulses—he simply lies about whatever he said or did before.
On the fallout just from Trump’s Greenland threats last year:
In Copenhagen a few weeks ago, I was shown a Danish app that tells users which products are American, so that they know not to buy them. At the time it was the most popular app in the country.
Donald Trump has no friends. Donald Trump doesn’t know how to be a friend, and never learned. Friends don’t threaten and insult their friends. Friends don’t demand tribute. Trump does:
He raised tariffs on Switzerland because he didn’t like the Swiss president, then lowered them after a Swiss business delegation brought him presents, including a gold bar and a Rolex watch.
Now Trump needs a bailout in Iran, one that can’t be bought with tax cuts, gold bars or Rolex watches. No one is coming to help. Go figure.
CNN: “79% drop ⬇️ in the favorable view of 🇺🇸 from 24 countries asked… Very little support abroad for Trump’s war on Iran…” pic.twitter.com/6akHIDVSwl
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has declared that Canada will not participate in the “offensive operations of Israel and the U.S., and it never will.” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says, “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.” The Spanish prime minister refused to let the United States use bases for the beginning of the war. The U.K. and France might send some ships to protect their own bases or allies in the Gulf, but neither will send their soldiers or sailors into offensive operations started without their assent.
This isn’t cowardice. It’s a calculation: If allied leaders thought that their sacrifice might count for something in Washington, they might choose differently. But most of them have stopped trying to find the hidden logic behind Trump’s actions, and they understand that any contribution they make will count for nothing. A few days or weeks later, Trump will not even remember that it happened.
The Madman of Mar-a-Lago is melting down faster than Dorothy’s witch.
“Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID!” Donald Trump exploded last night on Truth Social after allies rebuffed Trump’s demand for a multinational naval force to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
And you little dogs, too, Trump raged, naming names.
“Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, 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!” Because no one knows more about winning wars (or starting them) that Donald John Trump.
Recall from his first term how reluctant psychologists were to diagnose the man-child Americans put into the Oval Office. Wouldn’t be prudent, or professional, they averred. And now? The rest of the world doesn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Trump’s latest tantrum comes amidst the widening conflict in the Middle East that he launched against Iran with Israel on Feb. 28. Iran responded by attacking vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, effectively “bringing oil shipments from large parts of the Gulf to a halt and triggering sharp rises in the global price of oil.” With midterm elections approaching rapidly.
Via The Guardian.
Trump’s demand is not about military help, retired three-star general and former commander of the French Foreign Legion, Michel Yakovleff, told LCI on Tuesday. “It’s that he wants to share the political risk… not the military risk.” Trump wants Europe to buy discount tickets for the Titanic after it’s already hit the iceberg, Yakovleff said.
The New York Times reports that Trump is not “afraid” of sending in U.S. troops into Iran:
Mr. Trump has faced mounting criticism over the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, now in its third week, from allies and even members of his own administration. On Tuesday morning, Joe Kent, the president’s national counterterrorism director, resigned in protest, writing in a letter to the president that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Mr. Trump tried to downplay the idea that Israel had influenced his decision to attack Iran, calling Israel “a partner” and asserting, “I was against Iran long before I even thought about Israel being against Iran.”
Etc., etc.
Mr. Trump is currently considering two actions that would almost certainly require ground action by American or Israeli forces: Taking over Kharg Island, where Iran loads most of the oil it produces onto tankers, and the underground site at Isfahan where it stores most of its 970 pounds of near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel.
Mr. Trump told reporters that he was unconcerned that such moves could commit U.S. forces to a Vietnam-like boondoggle in Iran.
“I’m really not afraid of that,” he told reporters. “I’m really not afraid of anything.”
Except for losing control of Congress next January. And what comes after that. Trump shot off his mouth and U.S. missiles, and now doesn’t know what to do next. Iran is not Venezuela.
Where is any leadership from Congress? The supposed adults in the room we hear about from pundits? Trump was never sane to start. He has always been a bundle of personality disorders “like nobody’s ever seen,” in his own parlance. His niece, Mary Trump, herself a psychologist, warned us, and warned us again, that her uncle was not just unbalanced but lacking any scruples or morals. He’s only grown worse with advancing age and with accountability for past crimes stalking him. That much is crystal clear. What will it take for members of his cabinet or members of Congress from both major parties to shout “enough” and see to his removal before more people die for Trump’s sins?
Robert Reich this morning, noting that “Trump is alone,” explained our plight to the rest of the planet:
It’s important that you, the citizens of other democracies, know that the vast majority of us — the people of the United States — are embarrassed and offended by the oaf who now occupies the highest office in the United States.
He does not speak for us. He is not making decisions based on our welfare, let alone the well-being of the rest of you. Please don’t confuse him for us.
We are trying our best to resist him, contain him, protest against him, and remove him from office as quickly as we possibly can.
Except “we” does not include the people Americans elected to office.
Last night I had to assure a new friend in Canada, “Only some of us are insane down here.”
UPDATE:
On the Strait of Hormuz we've gone from:
1. Don't need help 2. We need help 3. Why aren't folks helping? 4. Helps on the way 5. Not telling you who is helping 6. Helps not actually on the way but we don't need it anyway 7. We may just abandon it and leave it to everyone else pic.twitter.com/CKXC8KqWGu
We’re in the midst of a rapidly developing quagmire in Iran. We’ve done Venezuela and are now laying siege to Cuba and will be taking it over soon. (Trump says it will be a great honor to do it.) We did an action in Ecuador just the other day that was barely mentioned.
A top Pentagon official told lawmakers Tuesday that existing military operations targeting Latin American drug cartels are “just the beginning” — and left open the possibility of deploying ground forces even as lethal boat strikes against alleged smugglers continue indefinitely.
The comments from Joseph Humire, acting assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing raised immediate concerns from congressional Democrats who said the efforts appear to be another “forever war” without clear goals or a stated end date.
It’s the latest example of the administration doubling down on aggressive foreign policy interventions without clarifying what victory might look like, despite President Donald Trump’s past campaign pledges to avoid embroiling America in more overseas conflicts. And it raises the prospect that the nation’s armed forces could be further strained amid a massive air war over Iran.
Democrats on Tuesday also questioned military leaders’ assertions that the six-month effort to sink smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific has made a meaningful impact on illegal drugs entering American borders, and whether it follows proper rules of engagement for enemy combatants or amounts to war crimes.
“We could shoot suspected criminals dead on the street here in America, and it may be a deterrent to crime, but that doesn’t make it legal,” said Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.).
But Humire insisted the open-ended missions — dubbed Operation Southern Spear — are “saving American lives” and compliment President Donald Trump’s other border security mandates.
“Interdiction is necessary, but insufficient,” he said. “Deterrence has a signaling effect on narco-terrorists, and raises the risks with their movements.”
By “deterrence” he means using the U.S. military to patrol the world killing anyone who looks at them sideways. We know he wants Greenland and Canada and God knows what else, so no one is safe.
He is starting a world war — or more precisely a war against the world.
