As Our (?Former?) Allies Begin the Great "Weakened America" Isolation and Workaround

As Our (?Former?) Allies Begin the Great “Weakened America” Isolation and Workaround

As Our Clown-Car of Senior Trump Appointees Seems Addicted to Power & Failure

I mean seriously, who takes on the most popular Pope in recent memory, and backs Donald “34 felony convictions” Trump, the man who unilaterally declared a full-on war against Iran, in a religious debate? Over the Pope’s statements that God is a champion of peace over war? MAGA Republicans (are there any other kind?) are tripping all over themselves to justify Trump’s violent approach (he threatened to bomb the entire Persian civilization into the “stone ages”) against the Pope’s admonitions against a raw warrior mentality, the rantings of a recovering alcoholic ex-Army major, in favor of a humanity-embracing peace. To say this is colossally stupid seems to be so horribly obvious, that I find myself questioning why it is even up for debate. No, Sean Hannity, the Iran conflict does not remotely have the justification that American soldiers had in WWII against the hellish Nazis who slaughtered millions in death camps.

It really has gotten ugly, as the “Trump administration canceled millions of dollars in funding to Catholic Charities in Miami… The Office ‘of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)’, under the Department of Health and Human Services, has been a long-time source of funding for the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami under the unaccompanied children program. The Catholic Charities received $11 million from HHS in fiscal year 2025, according to federal spending data, but the award ended as of March 31.” USA Today, April 17th. But nothing is quite as ugly as the massive fall from grace of the entire Trump administration in the eyes of most of the rest of the world.

Apparently, I seem to stand with the majority of western nations who find Trump’s WAR baffling. We had free passage through the Strait of Hormuz before Trump’s assault, begun during peace negotiations, and today, we do not. Oh, sure there are statements to the contrary, and with Chinese intervention (which a weak US President sought), we are somewhat better off, but the Trumpian threats to bring Iran to its knees continue with barricades on Iranian ports, seizure of Iranian oil and gas tanker ships on the high seas… the financial equivalent of saturation bombing.

But the President’s mandates continue to irritate at least 30 nations, now working through the Strait of Hormuz Maritime Freedom of Navigation Initiative, to fix the damage wrought by Donald J. Trump. Needless to say, the United States was specifically excluded from this aggregation of seriously angry world leaders who, with zero consultation, faced soaring oil and gas prices resulting from the uninformed actions of America’s self-declared monarch… “The leaders of France and the U.K. gathered dozens of countries — but not the United States — on Friday [4/17] to push forward plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil route choked off by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

“The Paris meeting is part of attempts by sidelined nations to ease the impact of a conflict they didn’t start and haven’t joined, but that has sent the global economy reeling. After the war started on Feb. 28, Iran effectively shut the narrow strait though which a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes… The U.S. is not part of the planning for what has been branded the Strait of Hormuz Maritime Freedom of Navigation Initiative. In a post on X ahead of Friday’s conference, French President Emmanuel Macron said the mission to provide security for shipping through the strait would be ‘strictly defensive,’ limited to non-belligerent countries and deployed ‘when security conditions allow.’

“British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, facing political troubles at home, was greeted by Macron in the courtyard of the Elysee presidential palace on Friday [4/17] afternoon.

… Macron and Starmer have spearheaded international efforts to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran, which Starmer has accused of ‘holding the world’s economy to ransom.’ U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a retaliatory American blockade of Iranian ports has raised the economic jeopardy even higher…. ‘The unconditional and immediate reopening of the Strait is a global responsibility, and we need to act to get global energy and trade flowing freely again,’ Starmer said before the meeting.” Associated Press, April 17th.

Just to watch Trump’s cabinet appointees writhe to find a path to please an increasingly unpopular President implement his even more unpopular policies. By way of example, the Department of “Justice” has instead embraced policies protecting Trump buddies from exposure as pedophiles, as would probably be revealed by full release of the Epstein files, to a continuing losing effort to use the federal legal bureaucracy to hunt down and prosecute Trump’s growing litany of opponents. Trump pseudo-lawyer, and now disgraced Attorney General Pam Bondi, was the first major minion to go, and it sure seems that the mockery of an FBI Director, Kash Patel, is likely next to leave. Just a few apparently well-documented excerpts from The Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick, published April 17th, makes that point very clearly:

After a major Patel freakout that he had been fired because he seemed locked out of the FBI computer system (false alarm, Kash), the heavy drinking FBI director seemed most justifiably in fear for his job. Using FBI personnel and jet aircraft to ferry his country-singer girl friend around was not the worst of it. “[FBI officials] said that the problems with his conduct go well beyond what has been previously known, and include both conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences. His behavior has often alarmed officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice, even as he won support from the White House for his eager participation in Trump’s effort to turn federal law enforcement against the president’s perceived political enemies.

“Several officials told me that Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff. He is also known to drink to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights, six current and former officials and others familiar with Patel’s schedule told me.”

OK, why this mix of global opprobrium over the Trump-Pope religious debate, the global fury over the consequences of Trump’s WAR on oil prices and the machinations within the Trump Department of “Injustice”? The simple answer rests with the difference between a nation governed under the rule “of law” (where no one is above the law) – which once defined the United States – to one defined under rule “by law” (where one man and one party impose their “laws” on everybody else). The new USA.

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless the checks and balances inherent in the first three articles of our Constitution are restored, not only will our nation unravel as a working democracy, but our global power and influence will continue to plunge, with very serious consequences for every American.

What Now Given China’s Rapid Ascent?

What Now Given China’s Rapid Ascent?

“Blessed are the peacemakers! But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.” 

Pope Leo XIV, on April 16th in Bamenda, Cameroon.

What totally amazes me is how utterly blind and tone deaf so much of this country is, particularly Trump world, pretending that Trump’s ever-changing goals are achievable, that we had any shot to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without China’s assistance, that the worst American military leader in our history is doing a great job banging Iran into submission, that Americans totally back Trump’s huge military budget to expand and enhance existing strategies that couldn’t even force a decimated Iran to surrender and that Americans are willing to sacrifice their medical benefits, support continued tax cuts for the rich and absorb higher prices for Trump’s bizarre national goals. Further, while most of MAGA does not care about Trump’s “Pope-baiting,” independents are either angry or baffled by that Trumpian practice.

Having wasted billions and billions of dollars of our sophisticated munitions on a losing cause, somehow too many Americans still believe that China cannot match our military might… that Trump’s “bully first” approach is unstoppable. As we build massive and super-expensive aircraft carriers ($15B/each and rising fast, just for the boat without crew, aircraft or support ships), we get pummeled by simple drones, basic mines and watch China rebuild its nuclear arsenal to modern specifications, learning the lessons of war from Ukraine and Iran and building accordingly.

Back in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union had collapsed, we began to build the fastest, deepest diving super-submarines – the new Seawolf class. But they were so damned expensive, we only built three such subs before abandoning further construction in favor of the vastly less expensive Virginia class sub, a nice boat but nothing like the superior Seawolf class vessel.

We have a stronger navy, with a whole lot of bigger ships than China. They have more vessels, hardly anything comparable to our nuclear carriers, but theirs are nimble and most are more modern with some surprising new capacities. To make that point, China seems to have developed an upgraded version of our discontinued Seawolf class subs: ““An initial surprise is that the Type 095 is, despite always expected to be a larger boat, not longer than the preceding Type 093 Shang-class. In fact it may be slightly shorter. Yet it is noticeably wider, with the beam increased to around 12 meters from around 11 meters. This makes it almost the same size as the Seawolf-class.

“While there is no suggestion that it is a straight copy of the American design, there is some sense in these new dimensions; there was a hydrodynamic logic in Seawolf’s specifications. Like a whale or other marine creature there is an optimum length-to-beam ratio which optimizes drag and allows the creature to go faster, or use less energy. Counter-intuitively the shorter-fatter Seawolf has a much more efficient hull design than the later, more compromised, Virginia-class.” NavalNews.com. Oh my. And for some reason, Trump believes that Americans want a 50% increase in our “defense budget,” not remotely acknowledging the rising citizen antipathy to that.

“An effort to ramp up U.S. weapons production and build more ships, planes and drones will require a massive upfront investment, President Trump’s budget director told a House committee Wednesday [4/15]… The testimony from Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought jump-starts the White House’s push to increase defense spending to nearly $1.5 trillion in the next budget year , up from nearly $1 trillion this year, while cutting health research, heating assistance and scores of other domestic programs by about 10% overall. Such cuts do not cover mandatory spending, which includes such programs as Social Security and Medicare… ‘For the industrial base to double or triple and build more facilities, not just add shifts, it requires multiyear agreements to purchase into the future,’ Vought told lawmakers. ‘That cost has to be booked in this first year.’” Kevin Freking, writing for the April 17th Associated Press. Bark, bark!

And we still think we can force Iran to surrender with the financial equivalent of continuous bombing. “The U.S. military has widened its efforts beyond the blockade of Iran’s ports to allow its forces around the world to stop any ship tied to Tehran or those suspected of carrying supplies that could help its government, including weapons, oil, metals and electronics.

“Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, specifically pointed to operations in the Pacific, saying the U.S. would be targeting vessels that left before the blockade began this week outside the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for energy and other shipments… U.S. forces in other areas of responsibility ‘will actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran,’ he told reporters at the Pentagon.” Konstantin Toropin, Ben Finley and David Klepper writing for the April 17th Associated Press

“If the U.S. and Iran aren’t able to soon come to a deal to end the war or extend the ceasefire that expires next week, the Trump administration is setting the stage to shift its war campaign toward a more economic-focused effort aimed at choking Tehran into submission rather than relying on bombs alone… Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at a White House briefing Wednesday that the U.S. plans to ramp up economic pain on Iran, and said the new moves will be the ‘financial equivalent’ of a bombing campaign. …

“Bessent said the administration has ‘told companies, we have told countries that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure. And the Iranians should know that this is going to be the financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.’” Fatima Hussein, Aamer Madhani, Will Weissert and Seung Min Kim writing for the April 17th Associated Press.

As Trump has destroyed any competitive hope for US carmakers, he sure as hell has boosted China’s competitive edge. “The U.S. is the world’s top oil producer and has pushed liquefied natural gas. The American approach — summed up by Trump as ‘drill, baby, drill’ — favors fossil fuels over renewables… Markets were witnessing a ‘bifurcation’ before the war, [energy expert Sam] Reynolds said, with the superpowers pushing very different energy futures, leaving other countries with complex choices on which approach to back…

“The Iran war is driving demand for technology from China, whose exports of solar panels, batteries and electric cars had already hit a record of almost $22.3 billion in December. That was up about 47% from the year before, with much going to Southeast Asia and Europe, according to the think tank Ember… Investment in renewable power and battery storage — designed to save energy when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing — is expected to increase in nations heavily dependent on energy imports, including European countries, according to the credit rating firm Fitch Ratings.” Chan Ho-him, Aniruddha Ghosal and Anton L. Delgado, writing for the Associated Press, April 17th.

We are relying on conspiracy theories, fabricated statistics and false narratives to convince ourselves that continuing archaic strategies and bully tactics will keep the United States as the top dog in global influence, military power and economic dominance… even as the rest of the world is doing everything it can to prevent that toxic hegemony.

I’m Peter Dekom, and like it or not, China is in the adjacent passing lane, already accelerating into the top spot.

As Republicans Battle with God, "Destruction of a Civilization", No End Game & Soaring Prices

 

As Republicans Battle with “God,” “Destruction of a Civilization,” No End Game & Soaring Prices

The United States also seems terrified of competition & how to explain toxic Trump practices alienating so many

April 15, 2026

In addition to their utter puzzlement at Trump’s self-defeating direct attacks on a very popular Pope Leo XIVth, “Few Republican lawmakers said anything publicly about President Donald Trump’s startling social media post last week warning Iran that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight,’ but privately, in a large text chat, a group of them read his threat with alarm.

“The chat is among members of Congress’ ‘Main Street Caucus,’ a group of almost 100 GOP lawmakers. One Republican lawmaker questioned how the remarks were helpful to those having to defend Trump’s costly war with Iran and complained that the president’s rhetoric isn’t doing the party any favors, according to three House Republicans with direct knowledge of the exchange. Multiple members then chimed in to echo similar concerns.” NBC New, April 15th.

These Republican members of Congress aren’t stupid; they know Trump is eroding their chances at the midterms. However, they are caught in a trap. If they challenge Trump – effectively, do their jobs as members of a theoretically independent branch of government – the MAGA Trump cult, even as their numbers are falling slightly, will punish any GOP member of Congress who questions anything Trump says or does… by killing that congressperson in the next primary. That the policies embraced by Trump may be barriers to winning in the subsequent general election doesn’t move the MAGA needle one whit.

What’s worse, Trump’s actions, combined with the medical catastrophe of RFK, Jr’s war against vaccines as infections rise and Trump’s obvious inability to face the ravages of climate change, are making Russia rich (feeing their coffers to battle Ukraine as oil prices rise) and rapidly moving China to the become the global “king of the hill.” “President Donald Trump’s decades-long ambition to dismantle the Iranian regime has culminated in a six-week conflict that critics warn is exposing American fragility rather than projecting strength. As the war transitions into negotiations largely brokered by Beijing, the United States finds its global authority and the dollar’s supremacy under unprecedented strain.

“The offensive, fueled by a ‘hard sell’ from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was intended to kneecap Tehran before it could threaten the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, the administration’s miscalculation has triggered what historians call a ‘Suez moment’—referencing the 1956 crisis that effectively ended Britain’s era as a global superpower.” Thomas Smith writing for the April 15th Better America. But then, Trump doesn’t read history books.

We’ve moved from a government that has, until now, measured governmental success in terms of embracing global values that have reflected policies and directions redefining how the rest of the world can benefit from following this template. Instead, the Trump era has shifted American policies to a simple dollars-and-cents metric of success, more reflective of the era of colonialism and slavery, as opposed to a global system of mutual dependence… ending the system that led to our 20th century ascendance to the top of the global influence and economic food chain. The more Trump has insisted on setting the global rules, the more the loss of alliances, the greater the pushback and the more China has benefited from that arrogance.

The allegory of this erosion of American power can easily be observed in Trump’s inane support of the fading value of fossil fuel globally, resulting in a massive technology shift favoring China, while minimizing the value of the entire American automotive sector. We’re actually fighting another oil war! As Jack Ewing, writing for the March 3rd NY Times points out: “[US auto] industry veterans say they can’t remember a time when the biggest carmakers faced as much uncertainty as they do now. They have been whipsawed by tariffs. Chinese carmakers are breathing down their necks around the world. Self-driving taxi companies like Waymo are changing the very nature of transportation. Software has replaced horsepower as a key selling point. Sales are flat almost everywhere, and profits are declining.

“How U.S. carmakers cope with this pivotal moment will determine whether they survive as global players or slide into irrelevance, becoming niche manufacturers of pickups and sport utility vehicles that only Americans buy… The early indications are not promising. Many established U.S. and European carmakers have been stumped by electric vehicles at seemingly every turn. First, Tesla’s meteoric rise caught them unawares. They responded by investing in new factories but are now pulling back after the U.S. government repealed tax credits and other subsidies for those cars.”

Not only are Chinese EV cars vastly cheaper, often with enhanced luxury, but they are usually far more technologically advanced… their new batteries often having double the range and far more AI elements than their American counterparts… and they face almost no competition from old world American fossil fuel-driven cars… as oil prices soar from the American failure in Iran. And trust me, after China moves in to solve this American-made “Iran War” problem (behind the scenes or directly), we will fall more than a mere notch to their ascension, eclipsing American power with Trump’s total assistance. Does the new America truly hate competition that much?

So why is April 15th featured in red above? Tax day or something much more? To me, it will soon become apparent that it was the day that Donald Trump accepted that he was unable to extricate the United States from a completely unnecessary war declared by him (alone) without Congress or any allied support – after the world’s most powerful military led by a recovering alcoholic Christian nationalist zealot who never made it past the rank of major, facing serious retention/recruitment issues, was brought to its knees by cheap drones from an asymmetrical enemy after massive bombing destruction – and a nation less than a third our size… decimated our economy. It was the day that Donald Trump had to enlist China (in a private call with China’s President Xi) to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz… an admission that the United States was no longer the number one superpower on Earth. The rise of China to the top became undeniable.

I’m Peter Dekom, and by our accepting Trump’s new bully-driven, under-analyzed colonial expansionist monetary metrics of success, we have cleared the way for China to assume the top position of global economic power and influence.

God is on [Insert Name of Aggressor Nation’s] Side

God is on [Insert Name of Aggressor Nation’s] Side

“Happy Easter — He is Risen indeed!... From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed. Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life.” 

Excerpt from an Easter email from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to approximately 100,000 USDA employees

“Using government resources to promote one religion contradicts what I learned about how America was founded on separation of church and state. Even though many of my coworkers were also celebrating Passover, the email didn’t address any other religious traditions.” 

One USDA employee mirroring the reactions of many others

The embrace of white Christian Nationalism as an official Trump policy objective began with the text of Project 2025, a zealous pursuit by senior White House advisor, ultra-rightwing Stephen Miller. “Donald Trump’s establishment of the newly-minted White House Faith Office and ‘anti-Christian bias’ task force isn’t merely another gesture to his evangelical base — it’s the methodical implementation of Project 2025’s radical blueprint for installing Christian Nationalist governance throughout the federal bureaucracy. The strategy, emerging with crystalline clarity, reveals how a sophisticated network of religious nationalists has positioned itself to transform executive power and infuse one particular version of religious dogma into American life.

“At the nexus of this transformation stands televangelist Paula White-Cain, newly appointed senior advisor to Trump’s Faith Office and current chair of the Center for American Values at the America First Policy Institute, a cousin to Project 2025 and a similar far-right, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-woman think tank with several other Trump appointees among its ranks.” Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, February 12, 2025. Indeed, White-Cain likened Donald Trump to Jesus Christ, drawing strong pushback from legitimate mainstream American pastors. Yet Iran’s theocracy, claiming victory against the “Great Satan” (the United States) in recent days, firmly announced that God is completely on their side of Trump’s War.

No one has been as religiously zealous as recovering alcoholic, WAR Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose messages to the troops is constantly repeating how a Christian God has anointed the US military as Crusader saviors of Christianity as our primary underlying value. Members of other faiths are not mentioned, often completely ignored, made to feel they are now fighting a religious war for someone else’s view of God. To Zealot Pete, the Constitution does not exist, and the Supreme Court decision, that he cannot unilaterally exclude members of the press from the Pentagon for refusing to agree to report only Pentagon official releases, can be subject to a workaround. Having touted our victory in Iran, assured the President of our complete victory, Hegseth is second only to DNI head, Tulsi Gabbard, as the next cabinet officer to be discharged.

As a complete repudiation of diplomatic protocol, it seems that the Ambassador to the US from the Vatican was summoned to the Pentagon to face criticism of Pope Leo XIVth, who has spoken out against the Trump administration on a number of occasions since he took on the role last year, including over the Iran war in recent weeks. “According to the report, also backed up by independent reporter Christopher Hale, who writes the Letters from Leo Substack, a closed-door meeting between Vatican and Pentagon officials took place in January.

“U.S. officials were reported to have lectured the Catholic Church representatives, with one official reaching for a 14th century weapon and invoking the Avignon Papacy—a period of time when the French monarchy used military force to bend the Bishop of Rome to its wishes… U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday [4/8] he would look into reports that senior Pentagon officials lectured the Vatican‘s ambassador, leading to the cancellation of a planned visit by Pope Leo XIV.” Newsweek, April 8th. Vance’s standing within the Catholic Church is on very thin ice, bordering on formal excommunication, given his support of Trump’s and Secretary of Defense/War, Pete Hegseth’s, constant references to “God’s” absolute support of Trump’s WAR against Iran.

“The meek shall inherit the Earth” has been replaced with “only the strong are blessed by God,” and the woke (“meek”) are disposable. Even as prices everywhere are soaring due to the failing WAR against Iran, inflation resuming, Trump proposes higher WAR taxes, cutting social services like Medicare, SNAP, Medicare and Social Security even further, and spending money (either from corrupt donors seeking Trump favors or directly from taxpayers) on his rising collection of Golden Calves, from his party-room extension on the White House to the proposed 250 foot golden arch (pictured above), on the Potomac as Trump’s paean to America’s 250th anniversary this coming July 4th.

This rise of Christian nationalism is everywhere red Republicans have been elected to high office. Texas, the poster-state for “Christianity is America’s only true faith” and damned the First Amendment, is at it again, as LZ Ganderson, writing for the April 10th Los Angeles Times, observes: “We had so much going on this week, with the new season of ‘Euphoria’ coming out and the president threatening to wipe out a 2,600-year-old civilization, that it’s easy to miss things like the latest attempt by conservatives to reshape the U.S. into a theocracy. Not satisfied with shoehorning Bible stories into its English curriculum and the push to display the Ten Commandments in public classrooms, the Texas Board of Education is now considering adding Bible verses to the required reading list for students.

“For one of the country’s largest providers of public education to consider requiring students to read Bible verses feels like a grenade being hurled at the wall separating church and state. However, when you factor in similar challenges from other red states such as Louisiana, which also wants to display the Ten Commandments in public classrooms, or Oklahoma, whose attempt to use public funds to create a religious online charter school was blocked by the Supreme Court last spring, it’s clear state officials in red states have launched a full-on coordinated attack. Which means the collection of warm and fuzzy scriptures being considered in Texas is likely just a Trojan horse to either bring in more extreme theology next or force another visit to this conservative Supreme Court. And recall, it was the court’s ruling on an antiabortion law out of Texas in 2021 that set the stage for overturning Roe vs. Wade the following year.

“Now, in a country in which more than 60% of people identify as Christian, there may be a temptation to view the Ten Commandments in public schools as innocuous. Most of the content is uncontroversial: Murdering and stealing are bad; lying and cheating are things one should not do. However, how does a state government reconcile displaying ‘you shall have no other gods before me’ in a democracy in which a third of citizens may have another god or no god at all?... And why place public school teachers, many of whom are not Christians themselves, in a position in which they may have to explain that religion’s doctrine?” Especially when the current administration seems to interpret the New Testament in a manner that seems to repudiate the most basic teachings of Christ himself. I think Thomas Jefferson and James Madison got it right when they clearly separated Church and state.

I’m Peter Dekom, and instead of reconfiguring the Bible as an instrumentality of a state that embraces violence as a routine solution, perhaps the MAGA (what’s left of it) “Ministry of Propaganda” needs to leave religion to God and bona fide worshippers, and not highly biased politicians!

"Military Moron" or "Stable Genius" – America’s Iran Report Card to Date

“Military Moron” or “Stable Genius” – America’s Iran Report Card to Date

Each of the United States and Iran claim victory; which side is more credible?

Democratic Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, noting that we are much worse off than we were before Trump’s unilaterally declared WAR, opts for the former descriptor. Trump, noting that we have kneecapped Iran’s main military assets, claims the latter (which he has repeatedly used to label himself). Hard to imagine Trump’s threat to annihilate Persian civilization (back to the “stone ages”) while simultaneously making a White House appearance with the Easter

Bunny. Assuming we are in a ceasefire that holds – a huge assumption – let’s look at the facts:

The United States: Allies supporting Trump’s WAR: Israel and perhaps Persian Gulf nations (e.g., oil producers like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, Kuwait that must use the Strait of Hormuz to export oil) which have been attacked by Iran as supporters of regional US military installations. While NATO (a defensive and not an offensive pact) allies are willing to chip in to stabilize the Gulf region once there is peace, some NATO allies have refused to allow the US to use their airspace or local US bases to launch attacks on Iran. No Western allies have offered direct involvement in what is uniformly viewed as Trump’s WAR. Trump relied almost entirely on highly biased Israeli intelligence, ignoring his own US intelligence assessments, in deciding to join Israel in an all-out WAR on Iran.

What the US has accomplished, noting that before the WAR, oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz moved through that waterway, unimpeded: Since, the few ships that have passed through that navigation chokepoint have been Iranian vessels and those of approved Iranian allies? As of this writing the Strait is closed, and Iran refuses to share control over passage with the US. The US has so far been unable to open the Strait against Iran’s complete control.

The question as to whether Lebanon was part of the ceasefire is hotly contested as Israel continues to pound that neighboring country without mercy.

The price of oil and gas has skyrocketed globally, and the destruction wreaked by the US and Israel suggest longer-term high prices on those commodities, with no immediate relief no matter what happens. The trickle-down effect has also embraced the cost of shipping and travel accordingly.

As the US continues to maintain that they won this combat because Iran’s mainstream military has been decimated into subservient helplessness. Yet even without a traditional air force or navy, US military assets are still at risk to Iran’s cache of missiles and mines as well as its ample supply of asymmetrical weapons of choice: drones. As the US touts its overall tactical triumphs, it seems to have failed in achieving any of its constantly changing meaningful goals.

Iran: Allies: Iraq (the fellow Shiite neighbor), Iran’s regional surrogates (like Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, etc.), China (which seems to be providing Iran with satellite intelligence), Russia (having no difficulty sending cheap drones to Tehran) and joyously selling its oil freely to finance its invasion of Ukraine, with allied intermediaries like Oman and Pakistan helping to communicate with the United States. Russia may be the biggest winner of Trump’s failed initiatives.

The only “regime change” I have seen is a move of the same “death to America” theocracy from hardline leadership to ultra-hardline leadership. With the elder Khamenei dead, his son-successor does not have the clout to assume the control he probably hoped for, putting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the top of Iranian governance. Resuming executions of arrested civilian protestors and having no problem spraying bullets into the few Iranians still willing to protest, suggests that an unarmed public has no chance to topple their repressive government. Message: killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure will never move us to yield or surrender, because God is on our side. Huh, that’s Hegseth’s line. Don’t believe us? Then why can a “destroyed nation,” as Trump calls it, shoot down American jets and still totally control the Strait of Hormuz, wreaking total havoc on the global oil market?

While Iran will never convince the US to pay reparations for the damage we caused, the exceptionally high and rising value of Iranian oil plus the probable ability for Tehran to charge ships seven figure tolls to pass the Strait, are still gifts to Iran. And as much as big-mouthed Pete “Still Searching for Competence” Hegseth continues to state US forces can get control over remaining stores of fissionable material at any time, that nuclear ingredient is still under Iranian control.

Strange that the only metrics that impact American citizens directly are those that hit our pocketbooks, our international power and influence and our ability to use the international marketplace to our advantage as we always did… until… Under those parameters, our grade to date is an F, while Iran merits a C+ just for surviving and remaining in control. Will JD Vance be able to generate some benefits in his direct negotiations with Iran under the aegis of Pakistani mediators? Trump and his family negotiators haven’t made any difference, Netanyahu has only made matters worse, so who knows? But, as Julia Ioffe, writing for the April 9th Puck.com, notes: “After six weeks of bellicosity in Iran, the Islamic Republic is richer, more entrenched, and newly in control of the Strait of Hormuz.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and a cultural and historical illiterate, who loves to shoot from the hip and trust autocrats he likes over his own experts, is no match for the obstacles Trump must overcome to undo his mess.

Weeding Out Competence

                                   The New Republican Party

Weeding Out Competence

The King of Grift, Election Fraud, Damaging Loyalty, Inconsistency and the Great Filterer of Competence out of Government

Trump’s WAR: The average price of gasoline at the pump is $4/gallon, Brent crude – the global benchmark for oil – topped $115 a barrel on March 31st (up roughly 60 percent since the war began on Feb. 28, a surge that some oil majors have turned into bumper profits at consumers’ expense), the stock market is unstable but seriously down, the price of most everything is dramatically up (from basic plastics used in manufacturing, fertilizer, oil and gas, airfares, everything that is shipped), the job picture is abysmal (particularly for young job-seekers), talks of recession are rising fast, climate change is cooking or flooding us all over the nation, new Epstein files are pouring out, almost 9 million people showed up at the March 28th “No Kings” protests, more people are dying in ICE custody, over 350 thousand federal employees have been fired with no cost savings, Iran is firmly in control of the Strait of Hormuz (a squeeze that impacts 20% of global oil supplies), Trump’s request that Congress fork over another $200 billion for the WAR (which has cost roughly one billion dollars/day so far) is falling on deaf ears, his approval levels seem to be sinking faster than the Titanic (especially over immigration and the WAR), Republicans are campaigning for another tax cut (forgetting that the Big Beautiful tax cut impacted US healthcare like a nuclear bomb), Trump has resurrected his 2020 election fraud investigation demands with full GOP support, his political appointees are decimating Constitutional rights with rampant new conspiracy theories and an effort, led by the most incompetent Secretary of Defense/War we have ever had, to convert our military and our country into a white Christian nationalist America… free and clear of Christian values… and this paragraph is just too damned long (it could go on for pages), so let me just say, Trump completely misinterpreted the 2024 election results into cruelty, greed, incompetence, failure and global isolation. Once Netanyahu had pulled enough strings, all of these failed policies belong 100% to Donald John Trump, whose second term has been the most disastrous in our history.

I could embellish the above with snippets of relevancy. Like the fact that the thousand pounds of enriched uranium somewhere in “obliterated” Iran is still one or two levels below weapons grade. Or as Carlo Versano, Newsweek's Director of Politics and Culture reports on March 31st, Trump isn’t remotely as powerful as he claims to be: “Trump, of course, has never been a popular president, and his power derives not from broad-based public approval but by the vice grip he holds on his party. And that hasn't loosened all that much. Republican voters are more or less with the POTUS on the war. But the bottom has fallen out among independents, who have broken with him completely on virtually every issue now. And when they go, it's tough getting them back.” His terrified and sycophantic Republican members of Congress are marching lemming-like off the midterm election cliff, going out of their way to embrace Trump’s unpopular policies, fearing Trump’s “primarying” them off the ticket, a reality with eroding effectiveness, if they don’t follow orders. Trump’s efforts to cull Democratic voters by the Save America Act is failing too.

We’re in this WAR because (pick one): Iran was about to attack American assets, we were giving ordinary Iranians (unarmed and under constant malevolent state surveillance) the opportunity to overthrow their theocracy, our attacks would foment regime change, we needed to safeguard ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz needed to be a free-passage international waterway, we needed to defang Iran’s hold over regional surrogates, we would jointly (with ??? Iran ??? other) control Iran’s oil and gas assets, we could “take” their oil, we would confiscate all refined nuclear material and finalize the denuclearization of that nation, we would remove all sophisticated weapons (particularly missiles and nukes), Israel asked us to join them and to refuse would be antisemitic, it would be an easy, short-lived mission that would turn the tide in our favor with our overwhelming firepower.

Pete “I’m blind to cultural and political variables, I’m a Christian crusader and I completely do not understand the power of indigenous sustained asymmetrical armed resistance against my powerful Christian military force” Hegseth confirmed “victory” by the number of bombs and missiles dropped as well as the degree in perceived inflicted damage. That Iran could attack forces 2,500 miles away, could take out any tankers attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without Tehran’s blessing and maintained complete control of the Strait did not matter to that incompetent “leader.”

Yet, “President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.” Wall Street Journal, March 31st. As I have stated repeatedly, there is no reasonable likelihood of Iran’s surrender or acceptance of US demands anytime soon (if ever). They can replace leaders by the dozen, no matter how many we kill off. Our best interests in the region – a reasonable level of peace and stability in the region – bear no resemblance to the Israeli goal of obliterating Iran and its ability to do anything militarily ever again.

When Trump first breached his desire to join Israel in a massive follow-up military campaign against Iran, “It was at that moment, before an operation, that prior defense secretaries would typically stress to the president that there were potential downsides to such a move. In the case of Iran strikes, those would include the likely economic fallout should Tehran retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz and the limits of a military air campaign when it comes to destroying the country’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium or in fomenting regime change.

“But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth not only validated the president’s idea to move forward, he also downplayed the inherent risks of the conflict spiraling out of control, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Nobody in the room during that critical meeting emphasized the potential risks of starting the war.” CNN's Zachary Cohen and Kristen Holmes writing on March 31st. I think that this fool-Defense/War Secretary actually believes we won… and won big. Instead, he led his boss down the road to political failure, and all the meaningful signs of genuine military victory were non-existent.

I’m Peter Dekom, and notwithstanding all the blame the President may seek or charge against others, this entire Iran debacle is 100% Donald Trump’s War, all by his lonesome self (sorry Lindsey, you have lost all of any political capital you may ever have had anyway).

The New Class-Based American Plutocracy

       According to WalletHub's Analysis

The New Class-Based American Plutocracy

Middle and lower classes haven’t got a prayer of fair and equitable political or economic influence

“I can’t think of one person in a relationship that I would want for myself… I’ve done it before and prefer focusing on me and my own needs.” 

The ready explanation of one woman deciding permanently against marriage.

Increasingly, Americans feel abandoned by society and are learning to make it on their own. I have long maintained that the standard metrics of the well-being of our nation are heavily skewed to measure averages and data that give excessive weight to those with extreme wealth or income. If you have nine people each making $100K/year and one making $10M/year, the average annual earnings of that cohort is $1,090,000. That reality reveals the serious flaw in the averaging effect of Gross Domestic Product, a number used by nations everywhere as their metric of relative national success. Likewise, federal statistics reveal how US stock ownership is allocated: The top 10% of Americans hold 93% of all stocks, the highest level ever recorded. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of Americans hold just 1% of all stocks. This spread has been roughly the same for years. Yet our media dwells heavily on these two metrics, as if they mattered for most of us.

There are pundits who suggest that the only reason TACO Trump (“Trump always chickens out”) announced a last-minute ceasefire with Iran on April 7th (“destruction of the Persian civilization day”) is that the stock market was severely plunging, looking for a turnaround sign. The volatile stock market seems to rise and fall at even the slightest news about Trumps unilaterally declared WAR on Iran. But those market changes really only impact the rich, yet Trump watches that metric like a hawk. In fact, the mega-wealthy make fortunes as oil prices soar, as the demand for replacement munitions as the WAR eats up our stockpiles of weapon systems and underlying arms, and as government contractors are pressed for more.

When you combine the double-whammy of Trump’s WAR – as he demands that Congress add 50% to last year defense budget while cutting Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP and Social Security to the bone to accommodate his military ambitions – and the invasion of artificial intelligence into the American workplace, it is clear that our entire economic, political and even our social structure is being forever transformed without the consent of most of the nation. The basic lesson: unless you are very rich, you do not matter in this reconfigured United States. There’s no question that in Trump-world, money buys previously unheard-of political influence and privileged economic access. The Trump family even seems to brag about their billion-dollar growth since the Donald became President.

Trump’s WAR has further moved that bar of American homeownership from the economic reality of most of us. Between tariffs increasing the cost of building materials to the rapidly rising interest rates directly attributable to a WARtime economy, Americans are finding themselves struggling to pay for ordinary consumables, with fuel prices leading the way, and much less likely to seek a home of their own. Add AI disruption to the mix, and millions of lower middle level and clerical jobs are clearly at risk. The April 7th Realtor.com reveals a short “think-piece” memo from OpenAI, which underscores the obvious: “As AI becomes more productive, it could leave behind ordinary households who are more exposed to job loss, weaker safety nets, and higher utility costs—but it doesn’t have to be that way, according to a new memo from OpenAI… In the 13-page report, Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First, the company warns that AI could wind up ‘controlled by, and benefiting only a few,’ unless governments act fast to spread the gains more broadly…

“Housing is especially exposed to this shift through the link between job security and demand, the public funding that supports housing assistance and other safety-net programs, and the rising cost of essentials like energy. OpenAI’s answer is striking: Taxes tied to automated labor, a public wealth fund that could distribute returns directly to citizens, and rules meant to keep households from subsidizing AI infrastructure… At the core of the housing market's exposure is the connection between job security, income, and housing demand.”

The impact of this WAR/AI double-whammy is pernicious, to say the least, as former Obama economic advisor, Jennifer M Harris (writing for the April 8th NY Times) warns: “Inequality is such a fact of American life that it’s easy to shrug off. But we are in uncharted terrain. The amassed wealth of today’s tech titans makes the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts look quaint. Over the past two years, 19 households have added $1.8 trillion to their coffers, the economist Gabriel Zucman told me — roughly the size of the economy of Australia.

“Into this fragile state enters artificial intelligence. It threatens to make a bad situation much worse… Left on its current course, A.I. could deliver a bleak picture: lower- and middle-income jobs automated away, with top earners remaining unscathed. Income shifting from middle-wage workers doing the bulk of the labor toward those wealthy enough to bankroll the technology. Growth headwinds. Worsening affordability. So, too, a federal government less able to respond, thanks to a shrinking tax base…For any society in which this much wealth gets concentrated in so few hands, and is then so easily parlayed into political clout, the question becomes one not just of economics but of basic civic standing. At some point soon, we are no longer sharing in self-government.”

As stunning negative as this trending data clearly is, we may be missing some very interesting trends, even as our indigenous population is shrinking due to record low birthrates, as faith in our system has fallen so low that even the desire for young Americans to get married is vaporizing: “As of 2023, the last data available from Pew Research Center, there were about 111 million single adults ages 18 and up in the United States. That was a sizable increase from 70 million in 1990… There is now consensus among researchers that after years of a steady decline in marriage rates the institution has lost its luster for many… ‘I used to say we didn’t know if marriage was being delayed or foregone,’ said Richard Fry, a social and demographic trends researcher at Pew. ‘I think the evidence is pretty clear now. It’s not just that adults are delaying marriage.’ Increasingly, he said, they are dismissing it.” Tammy LaGorce, writing for the March 29th NY Times.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there is a very good reason why Americans continue to fall farther down on the annual international happiness index.