Well, we know that gas prices are rising, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, oil tankers are stacking up before the strait, bombs are falling on Tehran, Tel Aviv, and all kinds of nearby countries, and honestly, I don’t know what’s happening or what’s going to happen, because my country is being run by a senile madman. Also, the media aren’t helping. For instance, here’s a report from Bloomberg that says that Trump is adamant and is going to keep the pressure on.
A senior Arabian Gulf official warned that it would ultimately only be the sustained rise in oil prices that would force Trump to stop fighting and claim victory, leaving regional allies to deal with the residual threat from a wounded and angry Iran.
For the moment, Trump is vowing to continue the campaign, claiming he’s not ready for a deal — though Iran is. Officials in Tehran remain convinced they can outlast the mercurial US leader, but the damage is mounting.
He shouldn’t have started this war in the first place, but OK, he’s taking a position. A stupid position, but let’s deal with it. Except this is the very next paragraph:
Trump pivoted sharply over the weekend to calling for other countries to join the fray to reopen the strait — a possibility seen in those capitals as ranging from questionable to fanciful. From his Florida golf course, Trump sent a string of mixed messages on social media, calling for support in a war he’s said repeatedly he’s won, and for help in a strait his administration has insisted remains open. He claimed Saturday that Iran wanted a deal, which Iran dismissed.
So now he’s begging for aid from his “allies” to reopen the strait while simultaneously claiming that he has “won” his “war”, if that’s what they’re calling it now. What’s obvious is that Trump done fucked up, has delusions of grandeur, and is going to continue to screw up the world. Now he’s talking about “taking” Cuba.
He can do whatever he wants, and the institutions of the United States, the Supreme Court and Congress, will do nothing to oppose him…while 30% of the country is also cheerleading for his insanely destructive assault on responsible leadership.
We’re the most dangerous country in the world. This is not going to end well, and we’ll deserve it.
“Come join me in this lovely Iranian tarpit!” bellowed the big orange pig. “No, no, no!” replied the other animals. Pottery store rules apply. You broke it, you own it. Hegseth fired the generals who knew what they were doing. The state department fired a lot of their experts on Iran. Expect Iranian economic warfare for the upcoming 2026 off year elections.
cheerfulcharlie @#1 — Just maybe if they…and you can’t put this all on Dumpster…create a dire enough situation they will find reason to suspend the mid-term elections, and thus preserve their slim majority in Congress and continue to stonewall on the real crisis here: The Files. Not only is Dumpster in them doing who knows what but so are a lot of other very rich Big Daddies, and they’ll do anything to hang onto power. Plus The Files may have something on Dumpster Daddy, or others, that could really send them to jail. Not just child rape…that’s nothing…but actual deaths or even murders.
Of course, one sneaker here is New Mexico which is starting to investigate Zorro Ranch. Maybe they won’t find any skeletons in the closet or buried on the grounds. Maybe.
I read that Schumer is proposing reading from The Files during the filibuster on the “Save America” bill, which is pure Orwellian doublespeak.
JD may have to rethink his Catholic conversion given that the Pope blasted them for using God’s name to justify their stupid killing spree as a get out of jail card. But then he might loose his wife who is presumably a devout Catholic. How did she hook up with that jerk? O well, a jerk can always get another wife, and he’ll still have a couch.
Bye-bye America it was nice knowing you until the Tangerine Tyrant flushed you down his golden toilet.
Jimmy Kimmel: “Napoleon Bonaspur ”
Trump Brags About Killing, Attacks “Late Night Morons” and Iran War Coverage & Jimmy Recaps Oscars
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=fXGz7x6Ex84
“Jon Stewart Invites Panel of Trumps to Debate Iran War” | The Daily Show
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=a2aYd-XHzsI
Stephen Colbert:
Trump: I’ll Bomb Iran “Just For Fun” | Hegseth Wants A Patriotic Press | Dig We Must ?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=EegiHAKC8qM
Wonder how the Abandon Biden/ Harris klowns are feeling now.. those that haven’t already been deported or jailed by the guy they helped make POTUS by undermining and failing to fully support & unite behind Kamala Harris – who was the ONLY real alternative to Trump – when it mattered and the USA’s fall to fascism could’ve been stopped.
Under a POTUS Kamala Harris the USA would NOT have launched this war.
There’s zero legitimate doubt about that.
Oh and, yeah, Gaza would’ve been far better off under her rather than him too. Not great still, sure, but certianly not Trump’s Gaza with Trump’s “Bored of Peace” in charge fulfiulling Kushner’s & Netanyahu’s wet dreams. Once again, good job klowns! Some of us did try so fucking much to warn you. Yeah, still so pissed at what the world lost adn what could have been if some supposedly, self-proclaimed left-wing “progressive” people actually thought and acted better thrather than demanding fucking unicorns.
DJT still has the cognitive skills to keep up a constant stream of words that mimics normalcy, but the informational content is decreasing.
Above all, he has the planning horizon of a goldfish.
He does not consider how adversaries will respond. This became obvious when he ordered Greg Abbot to gerrymander Texas.
Tragically, the war and the Hormuz strait makes it even more obvious. Every serious military adviser must have opposed it but he never takes advice, as many other narcissists in positions of power.
What’s obvious is that Trump done fucked up, has delusions of grandeur, and is going to continue to screw up the world.
Using his own logical fallacies Trump lives in his own fantasy world. You can call it what you want, unreality or nightmare, but what he really wants is for the rest of the humans on the planet to capitulate and live in his distorted reality with him.
BTW, he is putting strain on the US military. China and Russia are secretly happy and want this charade to continue grinding down the US military. He does not listen to his generals or take advice from anyone with knowledge of how to conduct military activity. He has zero intelligence when it comes to strategic warfare. This is exactly how he has managed all his businesses, and we know how that turned out.
stuffin @ #9 — Not surprising. He’s a complete idiot desperately trying to stay out of debt and/or jail. He also doesn’t understand oil…needless to say. I don’t either, but from what I’ve read there’s a reason the US imports so much oil even though we produce a lot of it having to do with the quality of oil produced in the US versus other parts of the world, plus what the refineries are set up to work with.
Or maybe he does know that, but he’s just bullshitting to Keep America Stupid.
Does that 30% also include liberals who hates Trump but got turned by the war in Iran & wants him to continues?
Historical note:
Mad King Ludwig was FAR less crazy than Trump, with better architectural achievements.
Meme seen on fb :
Author unknown.
Imagine if we’d already phased out fossil fuels so oil supplies mattered so very much less.. If only..
One of far too many “IF only’s..” Sigh.
The enironomental cosequences of thsi war willbe with us for atleast decades -probly centuries of course.
The footage of the rivers of fire with blazing oil running through gutters, the blackness of the daytime sky, the oily, acidic, black rain in Tehran t’other day or week or so ago..
Why would anyone in Iran be willing to “deal” with America ever again? You had a deal, but you tore it up and bombed them anyway. Now they were in talks with you again and were willing to make big concessions, but right before the deal went through, Bibi convinced you to instead bomb them all again.
I think that absolutely everyone in the world knows by now, what a deal with America is worth.
@12. Snarki, child of Loki : Yeah – you could even say the same about Caligula and Nero… They were at leats on a par..
The USA has gone from Republic to Empire and straight to Caligula skipping their equivalent of Augustus whoever that might’ve been..
Hell, Caligula at least went to war which Trump never did.. even if Caligula was just a kid in a warzone at first
Oh plus :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula#Early_life
The first seven onths of Caliguila’s reign were apparenty pretty good and admirable. Whch obvs never true of Trump.
So yeah, Far Worse & More Genocides Don ain’t as bad as Caligula – he’s actually worse.
Yeah, I keep seeing that Trump is going to try to cancel the midterm elections.
I believe them.
I’m sure he will.
This is after all, the guy that lost his second election and tried to overthrow the US government on January 6, 2020 to stay in power.
A war in the Middle East isn’t that big a deal though. Not for the USA which has been fighting wars in the Middle East for the last 30 years.
We had much bigger wars with the US Civil War, World War I, and World War II and..we still had elections.
Wars aren’t the best excuse for canceling elections in the USA.
We’ve been at war for most of my life and I was born in the 1950s.
@ 10 robro – Or maybe he does know that, but he’s just bullshitting to Keep America Stupid.
First part no, second part yes.
Snarki @ 12
I like the design of those castles. He also built a canal to link the Rhine with Donau. Just by that act of foresight he became better than DJT.
.
When Bismarck made Bavaria join Prussia, the state unfortunately came under the rule of a Trump-style narcissist : Willem II.
I am so angry and It’s not a wish for schadenfreude, but, with congress a dead dog, the magat-in-chief murdering thousands and his little magats ignoring court orders, I now hope what is left of the economy here collapses. That seems to be the only thing that will stop this Death Spiral.
I challenge anyone to come up with a better, quicker, more complete solution to this catastrophe.
One of our friends, whose wife is Iranian, just learned most of her family has been murdered by naziyahoo and the magat-in-chief.
I am glad that most of europe has told this ahole to pound sand up his ass when it comes to his begging and threatening to try to get them to bail him out of his own cesspool.
Top Trump security official quits, says Iran posed no threat
Trump makes claim about Venezuela becoming 51st state
As Reginald Selkirk pointed out in @23, it’s a constant gish gallop of delusions that he is throwing against the wall to make sure no one can pin him down. I imagine even Dan Dale the fact checker is bewildered. More than ever: ETTD!
This whole world is getting surreal in a nightmare sense.
@20 shermanj I now hope what is left of the economy here collapses. That seems to be the only thing that will stop this Death Spiral. I challenge anyone to come up with a better, quicker, more complete solution to this catastrophe.
I am in agreement, been saying from the beginning, until something most terrible happens we will be stuck in Trump’s fantasy. My concern with your scenario is, when it happens, Trump will still be in charge, and his further actions will make things worse (unrepairable), or take decades instead of years to correct. We need the Trump fearing Republican Congress people to stand up, something I thought should have happened already. Not real confident that it will happen.
@19 birgerjohansson
First, his name was Wilhelm II. Second (heh), 17 years passed between Bavaria being incorporated into the German Empire and the coronation of Wilhelm II
Just one more nail in the coffin and then I’ll run like hell and not bother you anymore today:
Scrolling down in article: https://digbysblog.net/2026/03/17/for-whom-the-gas-pump-tolls/
WTF: we see the sociopath hassett say the economy is OK, consumers being hurt is the last of our concerns :
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar.com
Hassett: “If the war were to be extended, it wouldn’t really disrupt the US economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we’d have to think about what we’d have to do about that, but that’s really the last of our concerns right now.”
Yeah, the system’s burning to the ground either way. My concern is mostly about who’s going to be doing the rebuilding and making sure it’s not our current crop of politicians and billionaires. Today’s chaos is their legacy.
@7
Oh, do fuck off, StevoR. We all remember how you were a cheerleader for the war in Iran, how you wished for it so hard it was all you would ever talk about, until you started getting banned from several blogs because of your hate.
Look around you. It’s the war in Iran you’ve always wanted. It’s going about as disastrously as we all told you it would. I trust your advice on what to do now about as much as I trust your phony change of heart when you claimed you switched political sides, but really you were shamed into keeping quiet about your genocidal desires w.r.t. Iran.
Odd how Trump asked the UN, an organization he said was useless and less powerful combined than the US, for help. Especially since he repeatedly claimed credit for his so-called Board of Peace, which he stated was better than the UN, yet the supposedly better organization is never mentioned when Trump is calling for international assistance.
Yeah an idiot, but present company excluded I do remember that he won the pop vote by 5 Megavotes: a good % of Americans thought “this is fine”. We’ll see in November but I frankly do not expect much change, an electorate that accepts Alzheimer Don as a candidate is too far gone I fear.
Also, hey please do not use Ludwig, Caligula and Nero as comparisons. Ludwig was very disturbed but had good artistic taste, if a bit flowery (his swan boat was the bomb). Caligula at least started well, probably got lala a bit later and he also had good taste (see the “floating temples” on the lake of Nemi). Nero also started well and his Domus Aurea was fantastic, no ballroom builder he (plus, do not underestimate the effects of damnatio memoriae on both).
Yeah, the American electorate is dumb but not that dumb.
Trump didn’t even get 50% of the vote.
Trump won by 2.3 megavotes, not 5.
Trump versus Kamala Harris
Popular vote 77,302,580[2] 75,017,613[2]
Percentage 49.8%[2] 48.3%[2]
Trump says presidents ‘should not have learning disabilities’ as he mocks Newsom’s dyslexia
Covfefe
Presidents should not think Belgium is a city.
Presidents should remember the slogan ‘drill, baby, drill’ and not change it to digging.
He won the popular vote.
He easily surpassed the number of states needed for the electoral college.
There is no question, Americans chose Trump. It looks like a small percentage have regrets about that, but if a new election were held tomorrow, I would bet that only a few states would actually flip. Yes, enough to change the result, but realistically, it’s not like there is a mass of civil disobedience in the US, or that his base has abandoned him. There have been a couple of days of protest, but no sustained public pressure. When Trump is gone, will the next right wing populist in line get in? My guess is yes, he will. Maybe 4 years of rudderless Democrats first.
From the outside, it sure looks like the vast majority of Americans are giving this a great big ‘meh.’ It’s not just about your current president. It’s about the USA as a whole.
@32 raven & 36canadiansteve: I hope hope hope that’s he’s going to be lamed and thrown aside, the tide may be turning even among the MAGAts:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-iran-maga-carrie-prejean-boller-b2939998.html
but yes, he’s a symptom of a deeper malaise in the USA, that’s not going to disappear when he carks it (BTW here in Europe we have plenty of idiots on a similar bender, Americans are not alone in this).
Raven
Yeah, about that. Turnout was just 64%. A 50/50 split would be 32% each, so both Harris and trump received less votes each than the 36% of eligible voters that didn’t at all.
Now we don’t know how many whose non-vote was due to disenfranchisement, but even if that number was 50% of the more than 78,000,000 non-voters, you are still left with a large majority for whom it was ‘trump is my man’, ‘Harris is not a man’, and ‘I can’t tell them apart so I don’t care’. To my eye yes, the US electorate is comprised of dumb fucks by a clear majority.
@ ^ Nick Wrathall : Yes – willfully ignorant, clearly misogynist and those fuckwits like the Trump helping troll “beholder” and former commenter here “Vicar” who either don’t understand the horribly binary nature of USA politics or just don’t care and thus insisted on demanding a non-existent unicorn perfect candidate or voting for third parties that literally cannot win and thus only act as spoilers helping Trump becoz the USA has one of the world’s worst and least democratic supposedly democratic political systems around.
Clearly too many Ameicans failed the most basic test of ethics, civics and knowing how their own political system actually works in their failure to support and vote for her to stop him in the last – and final – USA election.
[meta]
StevoR, not what Nick is on about.
(Your obsessiveness is evident; you are past the point of diminishing returns on your hammering)
I reckon the point being made is like this one:
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s35.html
@29. The Trump supporting troll “beholder”
Shooting the messenger is one thing. Trying to do so and missing and shooting your own feet as you have done there is quite another.
Fixed it for you. Past tense emphasised because that’s the relevant point. I’ve changed my views over time based on evidence and logic and thought. As many people do.
You, it seems have not, altho’ that’s always an option open to you. Why not?
Seeing how bad the Iran war is – something I warned you about along with so many other consequences of a Trump victory – seeing this Trumpian world you made, with a blatantly criminal, sociopathic, literally fascist (as Kamala warned us all) regime ruling the USoA, you can see that Kamala Harris was correct and those who warned you about undermining and attacking the ONLY real alternative to Trump were correct.
Do you now regret your years of trying to hurt Kamala and the Democratic party which has resulted -as you were warned and as predicted – in the burning shitshow dumpster fire we now live in thanks in part to you and the whole anti-Democrat unicornist mob?
Serious question, again, which I‘m sure you won’t answer becoz you are a coward as well as dishonest & have form here in running away from tough questions before but do YOU now regret what you did, regret your past views and have YOU changed your mind about that based on the reality as I did years ago?
Do you, Trump helping troll – & very probably an actual Trump supporter here dishonestly pretending to be a “progressive” as I laid out and asked you about with no reply back in January* – now have any awareness and remorse about what you did?
Oh and your attempt to change topics and total failure to address the substance of my argument and the reality stated in my #7 is obvs noted as well.
PS. Never actually been a cheerleader in my life. ;-)
.* See here – comment #41 :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/01/16/too-soon-too-accurate/comment-page-1/#comment-2290463
@ 39 StevoR
Obviously, to any rational person, number one on that list would be Kamala Harris.
But Stevo remains in denial, and quite possibly will to the end of his days.
I mean, imagine literally being incapable of grasping the idea that it is not up to voters to vote for anything, no matter how shit – but up to political parties to NOT BE SHIT.
This simple concept is utterly beyond Stevo.
If I punch you in the nose, Stevo. It’s not your fault for not moving your nose. You get that right? It’s exactly the same. Harris being so intent on genocide she literally could not bring herself to condemn it, or offer any attractive alternative to literally the worst candidate for president in the history of the United States is not voters fault. Imagine being so shit you couldn’t beat Donald fucking Trump! Beggars the imagination.
(I’m pretty sure if were possible PZ could have put Blue the Tarantula up against Trump and won by a landslide.)
Silentbob @ 44.
If you think vast numbers of the US electorate didn’t vote for Harris because they give a shit about Gaza, you give them credit for intellectual and moral honesty that I don’t think is warranted.
That you think the type-specimen of shittest human being ever, trump (who hates the US so much he convinced millions that their own country is a shithole), is less shitty than Harris shows you literally don’t know shit and you should really learn what shit actually is. At least then you might know not to put your finger in it before you pick your nose.
I’m absolutely sure you’re either a liar or an idiot. And the two possibilities are by no means exclusive.
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/mar/19/us-iran-war-cost
↓
More than 3,000 people are believed to have been killed across Iran so far, and the Pentagon says more than 15,000 targets in the country have been hit in the first two weeks. A girls’ school in the south-eastern Iranian city of Minab lies in rubble, with about 175 children and teachers killed in a strike that the US is believed to have carried out. The strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea passage turned chokepoint for the Gulf’s oil and the world, is effectively closed.
And the bill, according to analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is growing by roughly half a billion dollars every day.
A week after American and Israeli forces began their assault on Iran, and its repressive leadership, Pentagon officials told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that the cost of the war had already exceeded $11.3bn in its first six days.
But that figure is only part of the story: sources familiar with the content of the briefing told the Guardian the estimate appeared largely limited to munitions expenditures and not the full cost of the opening days of the conflict, which could include forces deployed to the region, medical expenses, and the replacement of military aircraft lost in combat.
By day six, CSIS put the cumulative cost at $12.7bn. Today, it is likely to have exceeded $18bn – and the meter is still running.
[charts at source]
# 29 beholder
This is 100% true by the way. I’ve said it before, full marks to Stevo for taking criticism on board and changing his stance – I don’t know what else we could ask.
But you can see how it would stick in people’s craws that the guy who used to blithly cheer for “bombing back to the stone age” Muslims countries is now claiming people who didn’t vote for Trump are somehow responsible for Trump bombing Iran.
Like, seriously Stevo. Pull your fucking head in.
beholder may well reside in what is a totally safe Democrat or Republican area where a vote for Stein was a perfectly legitimate protest vote. I and many others have no problem with that stance.
What StevoR is correctly pointing out is that the admirable yet misdirected activism of beholder and others against Harris specifically helped to damage the chances of the only truly viable opposition, at that time, to the shit-for-brains current POTUS that some, including you Silentbob, think is less shitty than Harris would be.
This is more proof that you need to familiarise yourself with shit. Lucky for you the world is presently being exposed to a lot of trump-shit for you to sample, thanks in large measure to people who could only vote for, on advice from people like beholder and others, a fucking unicorn.
I agree that StevoR would do well to tone it down a bit but I have no beef with their obvious point.
@49. Silentbob : See my previous reply to you (#28) here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/12/this-is-what-it-feels-like-to-be-a-rogue-state/comment-page-1/#comment-2295855
Oh and as for me supposedly:
Nope. What I’m saying is that people like the bad faith Trumpist troll here “beholder” worked for years to make sure Trump defeated Kamala and teh Repugs defeated the Democratic party and should be held responsible for that and have that remembered about them.
Third party spoiler voter klowns DID effectively vote for Trump in practice.
Just as you always remember & never stop reminding me of words I said decades ago which I’ve apologised for and now deeply regret. I was wrong then. Theyar ewrong then -they continue to be wrong now and continue to refuse to accept that, apologise and change their views and behaviours accordingly.
They- Trumpist troll beholder who yOU always defend for what reason exactly now – notably continue to undermine the ONLY opposition party to the Repugs in the USoA’s shitty two party system.