This Moment

 After doing his crime boss glare at the Supreme Court, Chaos reportedly "discussed" with Attorney General Pam Bondi her imminent firing on the ride back.  It wouldn't be surprising if it was announced a little more quickly than planned--something had to take the next day headlines away from that evening's so-called presidential address and its disastrous effect on the major markets, that also sent oil prices straight up. 

That's not supposed to be the response or the purpose of such messages to the nation, the heirs of FDR's fireside chats on the radio and historic Oval Office television addresses, such as JFK's explanation of Soviet missiles discovered in Cuba, and the US policy response.  It's a rally round the flag moment of unity and seriousness if there ever is going to be one. 

 That's clearly not what happened as a result of Boss Chaos' desultory old news speech on the bombing of Iran, which continues.  And the polls on this horrible warfare in the Middle East are shouting that acceptance of it is likely never going to happen.

As for Bondi, one of her photo portraits at the department formerly known as Justice was quickly trashed by an employee.  Can't wait to see what happens to all the Boss Chaos statues.  I really can't wait.

Meanwhile, her replacement (supposedly temporary) is the Chaos lawyer who sweet talked Epstein partner and imprisoned sex offender G. Maxwell and broke incarceration rules to transfer her to a cushy new lockup. His brief will no doubt be to shield the public from any files incriminating Boss Chaos and his family, while trumping up charges for retribution--the crimes generally being defying Boss Chaos, and/or defending reality.    

But the obscene and obscenely wasteful and expensive fires from the skies continue in Iran and elsewhere in the region.  From the beginning this warfare has been indistinguishable from wanton destruction and intentional murder.  It will forever be a massive stain on the United States of America.  

A case can be made that what we're seeing now is partly a predictable result of 9-11 and the US response, by throwing out the ethical standards that at least somewhat distinguished us. To fight terrorism we started down the road of becoming terrorists.  Now we've reached an apotheosis. Iran may sponsor terrorism, but we are behaving as a terrorist state, though with extremely expensive missiles and bombs.  That partially describes the ongoing campaign of murder and destruction, with not even a strategic excuse.  

How far we've gone down the numbed road of thoughtless violence might be measured by the fact that the ongoing list of reasons being given for why this warfare is so destructive (and self-destructive) seldom includes that it is a moral catastrophe.

Of course it is also due to the particular stupidity, criminal greed, racism and viciousness of Boss Chaos and his minions.  But the world will no longer let us displace all the blame. Some reporter or pundit commented this week that in 2017 or so, Europeans and residents of other non-US countries expressed sympathy for the American public--they were the victims of a new president so much worse than most imagined.  But then American voters elected him again in 2024, and now there's no more sympathy out there.  We own him.  

A lot of us didn't vote for him and were horrified at the outcome, but collectively we're going to be held responsible. We own the casual statement that we're going to bomb them--an entire country-- back to the Stone Age because they deserve it.  We own the prayers for maximum death, and the kill them for Jesus of psycho Crusader Hegseth.  

With a new budget that vastly inflates military spending and cuts already severely weakened domestic services and safety nets, Boss Chaos is doubling down on becoming a Hitler wannabe on the international as well as national stage. Resisting this future now becomes another necessary task.

 While we work on surviving this moment, Americans will have to deal with the shame of it, for a long time to come.

Boots Up Yours

 As bad as things are right now, they may be about to get catastrophically worse and very quickly.  

The overwhelming winner for cliche of the moment is "boots on the ground."  That is apparently a military term adopted by pols pushing the Iraq war, as a heroic-sounding alternative to the term that became toxic during Vietnam: ground troops.  

However you say it, deploying soldiers and war machines onto foreign soil is a huge commitment, and a huge risk.  People understand this, if only because of the "forever wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's probably why the deploying of American ground troops in Iran has very little public support.  A Fox poll registers 12%, and a UMass poll out on Monday gives it an 8% approval.  That's eight per cent of those polled.  

A popular and trusted President might eventually overcome even that nearly impossibly low number, but we don't have one of those.  Approval for Boss Chaos in today's poll is 33%.  That's his MAGA minimum.  About two thirds of those polled disapprove, most of them strongly.

Nevertheless, some 50,000 US troops are in the Middle East, with reports of more to arrive.  Observers point out that while Boss Chaos is wildly inconsistent in his statements, he usually has used forces that he gathered.  Let's hope the numbers are deceptive--that a big deal has been made about those sent there, though the total number is not a lot more than are usually in the region.

But if this is a real preparing for deployment moment, a few statistics, courtesy of Lawrence O'Donnell, suggest what awaits:

Against a force of 50 to even 75 thousand US troops, Iran has 600,000 under arms.

The entire complement of the American armed forces currently numbers 450,000, including the mechanics, the cooks and the paper pushers.   

In World War II, it took a total commitment by the US, the Soviet Union, the UK and other Allies, with millions of soldiers for four years to defeat Nazi Germany.  Germany at the time had a population of about 70 million. Iran currently has a population of around 90 million.

Only an unhinged leader would take this fateful step.  And military leaders who surely know better would have to agree.  O'Donnell is one who doesn't believe it will happen.  And by Tuesday evening, signs were again pointing to a retreat, with Boss Chaos scheduling a national address on Wednesday evening--which is, of course, April Fool's Day.

A participant in Saturday's No Kings march in Manhattan was a 2024 Chaos voter and self-proclaimed MAGA guy from the Republican stronghold of Staten Island.  He described the current situation as "moving farther from peace and closer to catastrophe."  

The US has already set fire to hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money in one month of air attacks. Thanks to resulting huge spikes in oil prices and sudden disruptions of other vital resources, we're facing the distinct possibility of long-lasting global economic catastrophe and the certainty of economic pain for months if not years in the US--even without the devastating addition of a ground war in Iran.

Once begun, it conceivably could get so bad so quickly for this ignorant, incompetent and blustering executive that the exploitable worries about nuclear weapons could become reality.  But they won't be Iranian nuclear weapons exploding.

No Kings.3

 

Greenville, South Carolina.

NO KINGS 3 brought together protestors in at least 3300 places--large, small and in-between--and perhaps most importantly, in every congressional district in the US there was at least one protest.

Minneapolis

Initial estimates suggest that at least 8 million people participated.  It was the largest cumulative protest on one day in American history.

Seacoast, New Hampshire

The emphasis seemed to be on de-centralization: that is, more protests in more places, rather than epic gatherings in big places.  For instance, here on the North Coast, the previous No Kings demos have been in Eureka, CA.  This time there were also events in Trinidad (to the north, where there were more protestors than the town's population) and Garberville (to the south) and probably elsewhere between--though Eureka still gathered several thousand people, likely the largest so far. 

There were epic gatherings as well, and sometimes quite close together: Minneapolis and St. Paul, the largest protests in the state's history; Denver and Boulder, Colorado, just 30 miles apart; 200,000 in Boston, while there were more than 160 protests in other locations in the Commonwealth. 

According to reporting by Rachel Maddow, the trend this time was for more protests in red states in places they hadn't been before, and much larger protests even in dark red places than before.  Missoula, Montana had two to three times the numbers as the last No Kings.

Virginia

Again this time, mostly peaceful.  There were some arrests in Los Angeles, but in Eureka, the only police activity was finding a lost dog.  Mission accomplished.

Oklahoma

Pittsburgh, PA

2 from Eureka, CA