McCormick: "We were horrible in Vietnam until we did Rolling Thunder Two, then we won. As soon as we do half-measures, we lose. The faster we get this over the better. If we seize Kharg island, it could be done almost flawlessly. If we have enough firepower, it would be very easy to defend."
So now they think we won the Vietnam war? With Rolling Thunder, the 3 year long bombing campaign that resulted in absolutely nothing? It didn’t break the North Vietnamese will and ended as a strategic defeat of historic proportions. Just as Trump’s Iran debacle is going to be.
Spencer Ackerman points out the absurdity of this view. He lays out Trump’s and, more recently, Rubio’s fatuous attempts to say that the war has achieved its objectives and writes:
[I]t’s necessary to point out that Rubio has abandoned as unachievable the fantasy of regime change. And while any state would prefer to have an intact navy and its air force, Iran has just proven that its ability to project power resides in its missiles and its drones, rather than its conventional military. And seeking a “significant reduction” in anything is a tell that you know you cannot eliminate the threat from that thing, so you employ a vague term you can define as needed to save face. But most importantly, Rubio is making one gigantic elision: the state of the vital commercial waterway, open when the U.S. and Israel launched this war, now throttled by Iran, which blocks ships flagged to the U.S. coalition.
“One way or another,” after the war, Rubio hand-waved, the strait will be opened. “We’ll achieve those objectives in weeks, not months, and then we’ll be confronted with this issue of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “And it’ll be up to Iran to decide. And if they choose to try to block the strait, then they will have to face real consequences. Not just from the United States, but from regional countries, and from the world.”
It’ll be up to Iran to decide is the only accurate thing Rubio said. Here we have the foreign minister of a belligerent power—the regnant superpower, no less—insisting that if the U.S. ceases fighting with the Strait of Hormuz closed, it’s still victory by the original terms the U.S. set out, no matter how thoroughly Iran has obviated those terms. Rubio has no choice but to persist with this absurdity, since otherwise he’ll contradict Trump, the only fireable offense he could commit. Whether or not Rubio believes what he’s saying, what he’s describing is a situation in which the U.S. quits the war, leaving other combatants—the sort that never manifest and would certainly never manifest within range of Iranian missiles— to impose “real consequences” on Iran. That’s not just a lost war. That’s a humiliation.
It’s not the first time we’ve lost a war but it’s certainly the first time we didn’t even have a real reason for starting it — well, other than the president is a delusional megalomaniac who thought it would be a cakewalk and blew up the middle east instead. What a horrific decision and what a predictable outcome.
This is an excerpt of a piece by John Ganz called “The Juggler”
Everything he writes is incredible.That he also sees the Trump dynamic in this way reassures me. Trump does think he is a rare genius, a great historical figure, blessed by God, perhaps gifted with magical powers. Many of his followers obviously agree. Nothing could be more dangerous.
I highly recommend that you subscribe to Unpopular Front if you have the means. It’s inspirational.
The Justice Department is struggling to decide how to respond to President Trump’s lawsuit demanding at least $10 billion from the I.R.S., as the department’s lawyers try to resolve by a mid-April deadline the profound ethical questions the case raises, according to two people familiar with the dynamic.
In late January, Mr. Trump took the extraordinary step of suing a federal agency that he oversees, accusing the I.R.S. of not doing enough to prevent the leak of his tax returns to The New York Times in 2020. The suit immediately elicited questions about whether and how Trump administration officials would defend against a lawsuit filed by the head of the executive branch. The government has not yet responded to the case.
[…]
While former Justice Department officials see clear flaws in the president’s case, some Trump administration officials worry that assigning a lawyer to contest it would pose an unworkable conflict, given that such a person ultimately works for the president, according to the two people. Defending the case could also contradict a White House executive order that binds all government lawyers to the president’s interpretation of the law.
Another option under consideration is to try to delay the case, either by requesting more time to respond to the suit or by asking the judge to put it on hold until after Mr. Trump leaves office in 2029. Mr. Trump’s lawyers served the government with the suit on Feb. 18, giving the Justice Department 60 days to respond.
The Justice Department could also ask the judge in the Southern District of Florida presiding over the case, Kathleen M. Williams, an Obama nominee, to take other action to resolve the conflict of interest faced by the government’s attorneys, the people said. The judge could appoint an independent counsel to defend the case instead of the Justice Department, for example.
Settling the case would involve some of the president’s top aides, including one of his own former defense lawyers, approving a potentially gigantic disbursement of taxpayer dollars to Mr. Trump and his family, a possibility that is likely to provoke political blowback. Regardless, Trump administration officials expect that they will ultimately have to consult Mr. Trump himself on how the government should respond to his lawsuit, the people said.
Political blowback? Maybe. But It’s just as likely his cult will say he deserves it and we’ll all wring our hands about polarization and that will be that.
He says he will give he money to charity as if that somehow makes it ok to abuse his power to steal money from the taxpayers so he can make a point. And we can only imagine what “charity” he plans to give the money to. The ballroom? The Trump Presidential Library/hotel?
Trump: "I have a lot of powers to do things. We use the powers where appropriate. They're a little severe, and then people accuse me of being a king." pic.twitter.com/xpCPwCMGMh
President Trump on Tuesday stepped up efforts to promote his false claims of widespread voting fraud, signing an executive order of questionable constitutionality seeking to create a national list of citizens that would determine voting eligibility and restrict mail ballots
Mr. Trump acknowledged that the order, which comes as a bill he has been pushing to restrict mail voting has languished in Congress, could face legal hurdles.
“I believe it’s foolproof,” Mr. Trump said about the executive order before signing it in the Oval Office. “And maybe it’ll be tested. Maybe it won’t.”
It will be tested so it likely won’t have any impact before 2026. But Trump wants something to blame for the “stolen” election in November and this is part of it. And there’s at least a fair chance it will pass muster with the Supremes when it finally gets there, so 28 is on the menu.
[W]hile Trump may think that Democrats are voting by mail in higher numbers than Republicans, a data analysis by the New York Times found that despite Trump’s attempt to disparage the practice, Republicans made almost universal gains in mail voting during the 2024 election — including, the report notes, in “battleground states like Pennsylvania, red states like Florida and blue states like Connecticut.”
Do they really think only Democrats vote by mail? It’s ridiculous. Trump is an imbecile but the rest of them can’t all be that dumb.
Pete Hegseth’s military is becoming a bunch of undisciplined yahoos.
The helicopters were on a training mission when they stopped by Kid Rock’s house, said Maj. Jonathon Bless, public affairs officer for the 101st Airborne Division. The helicopters also flew over a “No Kings” protest against Trump in downtown Nashville, but Bless said their presence had nothing to do with the protest.
Kid Rock posted two short videos on social media Saturday. Each shows a helicopter hovering alongside his swimming pool while the entertainer claps, salutes and raises his fist in the air. One post included a caption by Kid Rock disparaging Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump critic
In the videos, Kid Rock stands next to a replica of the Statue of Liberty and a sign by the pool that reads, “The Southern White House.” His home on a hill overlooking Nashville was built to resemble the White House.
Kid Rock said he thought it was “really cool” that they stopped to hover at his house.
“If it makes their day a little brighter for their service to our country, protecting us, I think that’s a great thing,” he said.
Asked about possible repercussions for the crews, he said, “I think they’re going to be all right. My buddy’s the commander in chief.”
Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is a dark, repressive place. But Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation — the conservative think-tank that has given America, among other gifts, Project 2025 — has called it not just the “model for modern statecraft, but the model. Americans, Brits, Spaniards, Australians — everyone — can and should learn from it.”
Those words may sound odd coming from a right-wing American activist, the type who would have previously heaped contempt on anyone who suggested that a country other than the United States is the model the world should follow. But these are different times, and America’s right-wing intelligentsia has had a crush on Orbán for some time now. The question is whether the Hungarian people are as enamored as they are. For the first time in 16 years, Orbán is facing a tough reelection battle.
Hungarians will go to the polls on April 12, and if the elections are fair and uncorrupted, it appears Orbán and his Hungarian Civil Union Party, known as Fidesz, will lose. Current polling averages show his chief rival, Péter Magyar of the Respect and Freedom Party, more commonly referred to as Tisza, with a healthy 15-point lead that has held for most of the past year. But in Hungary, which has been defined as an “electoral autocracy,” a manipulated electoral map coupled with Orbán’s years of corruption mean there is no guarantee that Magyar can pull off a victory, even with a commanding lead. Still, it’s the best chance in years to unseat the prime minister, as the widespread discontent has caused several other parties with smaller constituencies to step back in an effort to consolidate the anti-government vote behind Magyar and Tisza.
By any objective measure, Orbán is a demonstrable failure as a government leader. His overwhelming corruption, anti-democratic practices and cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin — even as Russia threatens all of Europe with its aggressive war in Ukraine — has made Hungary increasingly isolated from the European Union, with which the country does almost all its business. The E.U. has frozen aid to Hungary for the past several years, and the economy is in bad shape, contracting 0.8% in 2023 and growing by only 0.5% over the two following years. People are feeling the pinch, and they might be finally realizing just what a disaster his tenure has been.
But that doesn’t mean Orbán doesn’t have friends. Virtually every right-wing extremist in the world counts him as an inspiration, starting with his good pal Putin, who supplies almost all of Hungary’s energy needs, and China’s Xi Jinping, who counts Hungary as its closest E.U. ally. Nearly every far-right leader in Europe — France’s Marine LePen, Germany’s Alice Weidel, Spain’s Santiago Abascal, Poland Karol Nawrocki and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders — has made appearances in support of Orbán. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his endorsement, as did the chainsaw-wielding leader Javier Milei of Argentina.
Donald Trump, who has long looked to Orbán as a role model, has also provided his “complete and total” endorsement, and has dispatched Secretary of State Marco Rubio to offer promises of financial support — the same gambit that many observers think made the difference in Milei’s win a few months ago.
Donald Trump, who has long looked to Orbán as a role model, has also provided his “complete and total” endorsement, and has dispatched Secretary of State Marco Rubio to offer promises of financial support — the same gambit that many observers think made the difference in Milei’s win a few months ago. Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to visit Hungary and lend his support to Orbán just four to five days before the election.
The Hungarian prime minister is revered by authoritarians everywhere, and because he has been such a path-breaking autocrat demonstrating the new soft fascism, his impending loss seems to be making them nervous. They must be wondering what it could mean for them. After all, Orbán’s anti-democratic policies were intended in part to not only prevent a defeat from happening, but also to keep people from ever wanting it to happen.
For all of his failures at actual governance, Orbán boasts quite a list of autocratic accomplishments. He perverted the rule of law and institutions through constitutional changes and the appointment of cronies to previously nonpartisan positions. He took over private media outlets and obliterated the state media’s independence. He marginalized academia and non-governmental organizations. He ran an intimidating culture war, attacking and ostracizing the LGBTQ community, pushed so-called Christian values and rewrote history. But mostly Orbán has simply been monumentally corrupt, pressuring every sector of the economy for the benefit of his cronies.
Magyar has made the corruption and cronyism of Orbán’s so-called “mafia state” a focal point of his campaign, and most observers point to that decision to explain why he has gained and maintained so much traction in the polls. He has also pledged to rebuild public services with the return of frozen E.U. funds. As a former member of Fidesz, Magyar is a conservative politician in his own right; he left the party over a major scandal that implicated Orbán in a pardon linked to a cover-up of child abuse in a state-run children’s home. But he’s not tainted with the prime minister’s venality, and that’s the key.
Orbán, on the other hand, is simply running a massive smear campaign against Magyar. But the usual fear tactics don’t appear to be working. That failure has left Orbán to try a new strategy, according to the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, in what “may be the world’s first post-reality campaign.”
Fidesz is spending a fortune using social media, posters, artificial intelligence and even foreign help in convincing people that Ukraine is about to invade Hungary. The notion is ridiculous; as we know, Ukraine is a bit busy at the moment trying to fend off the Russians, who are trying to take over their country. No matter, Applebaum writes, calling on the world to “pay attention, because this may be the future of electoral politics: Multiple politicians from several countries are shoveling propaganda at an electorate in order to build terror of an enemy that doesn’t exist at all.”
The smears are so crude they make Trump’s team look tame by comparison. They include the AI slop of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy snorting cocaine and counting money while sitting on a golden toilet, and a fake Magyar saying that Hungarian factories should be turned over to foreigners. Even stranger, a SpongeBob-type character accuses Magyar “wip[ing] up cocaine with me after he accidentally sneezed and it all fell to the floor.” (Cocaine must be a particular bête noire in Hungary.)
All this smacks of desperation, something we’re starting to get a whiff of here in the United States, as Trump and his supporters are pushing mightily to suppress voting rights through the SAVE Act and posting footage of the Iran war combined with violent video game clips. We haven’t yet reached the cocaine-on-the-toilet stage, but I’d guess it’s coming.
Viktor Orbán may yet be able to hold it together for another term, but the writing is on the wall. A defeat on April 12 would be seen as a loss for all the right-wing tyrants and various despots around the world who have been inspired by his “model state” and strongman tactics. This includes Donald Trump, whose new world order was largely inspired by the Hungarian prime minister.
“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader,” the president said on March 8, 2024, as Orbán visited Mar-a-Lago. “He’s fantastic… He’s a non-controversial figure because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it. Right? He’s the boss.”
From undermining America’s democratic institutions and the rule of law to spreading disinformation about and cracking down on immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ people and the media, Trump has attempted to emulate Orbán’s success — and he has succeeded to varying degrees.
Hungary is a cautionary tale for Americans under Trump. Let’s hope that April 12 will prove to be a day of reckoning.
Tuesday was not a good one for Donald Trump’s attempts to remake the United States to better suit his “tastes.”
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued a stop order on construction of Trump’s gilded, oversized, $400 million ballroom on the site of the Easy Wing he demolished without approval earlier this year (CNN):
“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Judge Richard Leon wrote.
Note the excalamation mark.
Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said he was delaying implementation of his ruling for two weeks to allow the government to appeal. But he warned that “any above-ground construction over the next fourteen days that is not in compliance” with his ruling “is at risk of being taken down depending on the outcome of this case.”
The Trump administration immediately told the judge it will appeal.
Trump claims to have secured private funds for the construction. Will he defy the court and move ahead anyway?
The crux of the issue, Leon concluded in his decision, was that Trump had not received approval from lawmakers to undertake the bold construction project, which he said was required by federal law.
“(U)nless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” he wrote, adding that the good news” is that Trump and Congress can work to authorize the project.
Another exclamation mark.
Trump declared on Truth Social that the National Trust for Historic Preservation (the plaintiffs) are “a Radical Left Group of Lunatics.” In a separate screed, Trump announced that he and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum “are working on fixing the absolutely filthy Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.” He blamed Joe Biden for not knowing “what ‘CLEAN’ or proper maintenance is.”
Amidst all of his complaining, nonstop grifting, and pursuing plans for a massive triumphal arch in D.C. and a presidential library/hotel in Miami, where does Trump find time to impose new tariffs and prosecute a war with Iran?
But I digress.
In a second Trump loss, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss moved to permanently block Trump’s defunding of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service (Associated Press):
The operational impact of U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss’ decision was not immediately clear — both because it will likely be appealed and because too much damage to the public-broadcasting system has already been done, both by the president and Congress.
Moss ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order to cease funding for NPR and PBS is unlawful and unenforceable. The judge said the First Amendment right to free speech “does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type.”
As the saying goes, it’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission. Trump does neither. He and his advisers count on the courts moving slowly while they move fast and break things they dislike while defacing others belonging to all of us. His M.O. is to dare people to stop him.
“It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch,” wrote Moss, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Moss’ decision is “a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law.”
That would be the law Trump neither respects nor follows.
In one, indirect “win” for Trump this week, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy directed at “correcting” the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ persons (NBC News):
The 8-1 decision in favor of therapist Kaley Chiles on her claim brought under the Constitution’s First Amendment is likely to have national implications — more than 20 states have similar laws. It could also have an impact on other forms of medical treatment that involve speech.
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that “the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
Colorado’s law “does not just ban physical interventions,” Gorsuch wrote. It also “censors speech based on viewpoint.”
I’m finding no record that the White House made comment.
Trump held a pre-hearing whine-a-thon over birthright citizenship on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments this morning (10 a.m. ET) in a case testing whether Donald Trump’s reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause means what it say or not. Trump, in his mind the nation’s foremost constitutional scholar, argues that the provision should exclude anyone born to undocumented immigrants or noncitizens temporarily present on U.S. soil. CNN is providing live updates.
A ruling in favor of the Trump administration could redefine what it means to be an American. It could also have sweeping practical consequences, stripping citizenship from more than an estimated 200,000 babies born in the United States each year to undocumented immigrants.
The executive order, which was blocked by lower courts and has never gone into effect, would only affect babies born in the future. Opponents say a decision to uphold it would create chaos and uncertainty for newborns and their parents, and cast doubt over the status of millions of people who have already benefited from birthright citizenship.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he was considering attending the oral arguments today. He would be the first president in history to do so, the Times reports. Presumably, he thinks his holding a glare-a-thon during oral arguments will keep conservative justices in line. If he can keep his eyes open for it.
"This was about the babies of slaves" — Trump says he's going to the Supreme Court for the birthright citizenship arguments pic.twitter.com/MzGuGDvr2n
Then again, Trump said he would walk down the CAPITOL with his Jan. 6 mob and did not.
After suggesting he might attend the hearing in November when the court heard arguments on whether he could use emergency powers to levy tariffs on goods from any country he pleases, Trump backed out. He lost that case in a 6-3 decision. He’ll think better of it again this morning.
The question before the court on Wednesday involves the meaning of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War. The amendment reversed one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious decisions, the ruling in the 1857 Dred Scott case, which had denied citizenship to Black Americans.
The key provision of the amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That language was mirrored by Congress in a 1952 law, and has been understood in court rulings and executive actions for more than a hundred years to guarantee birthright citizenship.
In a key precedent, the Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that Wong Kim Ark, a man of Chinese ancestry born in San Francisco to noncitizen parents, was a U.S. citizen.
In their brief to the court, plaintiffs argue that the 14th Amendment’s language “drew on and reaffirmed a centuries-old, common-law tradition of citizenship by virtue of birth, rather than parentage.” Trump disagrees. Strongly, of course.
A decision is expected by the end of June or early July. If past is precedent, it could be the last decision the court issues this session.
It’s a universal truth they don’t teach in seminary or in epistemology: There’s never money enough for helping people, but always enough for killing them. War is like Jell-O that way.
Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement.
Why it matters: New efforts to rein in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to election-year attacks that they’re cutting health care to pay for an unpopular war.
Driving the news: Top House Republicans are looking at health care offsets addressing fraud in federal programs, as they did during last year’s debate over the budget law that made deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending and imposed first-time work requirements.
Also, wind and solar are unreliable sources of energy. Solar, when it’s dark. Wind, when it doesn’t blow. Just ask any Republican (who’s never heard of battereies).
But if you want an inexhaustible source of on-demand federal funding for a war that’s not a war (it’s an “excursion”), your Republican go-to is waste, fraud and abuse.
Just ask House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.): “There’s other items we’re looking at right now, especially in the areas of fraud and waste and abuse that we’re working through with our members.”
Donald Trump blew off concerns that fallout (not the real thing) from his war against Iran might cause some short-term pain for Americans at the gas pump. Trump allies in Congress who lack the fortitude to demand that Trump seek congressional approval for his not-a-war are ready to jump through hoops to find him money for it. They’re not shy about asking 300,000 Americans to share gas-users’ pain.
House Budget Committee chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) is reviving an idea that was considered last year to fund Affordable Care Act payments known as cost-sharing reductions.
The Congressional Budget Office previously found the move would lower overall benchmark ACA premiums by 11% but result in 300,000 more uninsured people.
It would cut the subsidy amount that some enrollees receive, thereby increasing out-of-pocket premium costs, while saving the government over $30 billion.
Arrington said in the House, “there is a boatload of waste and fraud.” Enough to power a war, apparently. But unless you’re MAGA, don’t be sucker enough to believe waste, fraud, and abuse can power your home. Unless Dear Leader tells you it can.
