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.