On Friday, we got one confusing message from our president.

“I don’t want to do a ceasefire. You know you don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side,” he told journalists at the White House.

However, later on Friday night, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the US was considering “winding down” military operations in Iran. “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran,” he wrote.

The reports that Washington is considering plans to occupy or blockade Kharg Island come despite earlier suggestions by Trump that he was not leaning towards putting “boots on the ground”.

I approve of the “winding down” idea, and in fact favor apologizing, offering reparations, and skedaddling out of the region. Unfortunately, those two words mean something different to the lunatic who started this whole mess.

Donald Trump said he was considering “winding down” military operations in the Middle East even as the US is reportedly sending three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional marines to the region.

Sending in more assault ships and marines doesn’t sound much like a “winding down.” That sounds more like escalating and threatening greater engagement. Especially since he has now delivered an ultimatum.

Donald Trump has given Iran 48 hours to reopen the strait of Hormuz to shipping or face the destruction of its energy infrastructure, as Tehran launched its most destructive attack yet on Israel.

The ultimatum, made just a day after the US president said he was considering “winding down” military operations after three weeks of war, came as the key oil passage remained effectively closed and thousands more US Marines headed to the Middle East.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants – “starting with the biggest one first” – if Tehran did not fully reopen the strait within 48 hours, or 23:44 GMT on Monday according to the time of his post.

I think the “winding down” comment was nothing but TACO’s instincts coming to the fore — I suspect he’s sweating over the fact that a disastrous decision is coming back to bite him in the butt, and he’d like to chicken out if he could find a way to save face while doing so. I doubt that Iran will give him a way, and so…get ready for a half-assed, stupidly managed attack on Kharg Island that will leave a lot of American soldiers dead. He’s just going to vacillate for a bit before committing to an even bigger blunder.

Breaking news: TRUMP ALWAYS CHICKENS OUT.

I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WITCH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD.

So what’s happening with all the assault ships and marines heading to the Strait of Hormuz? It sounds now like he’s calling the whole thing off.

Good.

I’m a child of the 1950s, and I grew up with those stupid duck-and-cover drills and a general feeling of fear. The threat was that a foreign power might decide to shut down the US for their advantage, and the fear would escalate with the amount of sabre-rattling we’d hear from elsewhere. We were also concerned about the Strangelove scenario — what if a madman got control of our nuclear arsenal?

Now we have the new nightmare: what if we had a conventional war with all sides shouting hatred AND a madman with a finger on the button? That’s where we’re at now: our president has staked his already massive ego on achieving a quick, easy victory over Iran, which isn’t going to happen. He’s gone from claiming that there will be a quick surgical strike to we’ve already won the war to begging for $200 billion to continue the war. The polls are plummeting, the public is finding him unpopular, and we know how much his ego hinges on his poll numbers. As the war worsens, as the oil stops flowing, as we eventually decide to back off because we can’t afford to continue, someone is going to be looking for a quick fix. And if that someone is remarkably stupid, launching a few tactical nukes will look increasingly attractive.

First Dog on the Moon

I’ve been checking out my desk. There’s room under there, I’d fit.

Robert Mueller has died. It’s not that I have strong feelings about this guy, but I was pleased to see that Donald Trump did have strong feelings.

Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Remember this! When the old orange dotard finally dies, he has nicely set an example of the appropriate response. “Donald J. Trump just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!” It’s perfect!

Also, please don’t send my son there.

Tom the Dancing Bug

The artist left out one important excuse: Don is a stupid dumb-dumb with anger and ego issues who threw the country into war for no good reason.

I’m reading his assessment of the Iran War to date (you should too, depressing as it is), and feeling the same despair I think he is. This is a massive clusterfuck with no good outcome, but Marcus makes a prediction anyway.

Prediction: the US won’t lose. Because the Iranians don’t have the logistics or means to reach us. We’ll declare victory and head home for a ticker-tape parade, etc. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv will get as flattened as Gaza. I’m not sure how I feel about that, so I have been employing a trick I have used for years, which is simply not to feel. My, how interesting. Israel finally managed to talk the US into attacking Iran for them, and it’s the most incompetent thing anyone has ever seen. That’s the problem with hiring stupid people. The US won’t lose, Iran won’t lose, but Israel is fucked – unless they can convince the US to help pay for their repairs. Which is so absurd, I ought to expect it. The economic impact of repairing the damage Israel has suffered is incalculable. In a rational world, this would actually be the end of Israel because most of the population would fuck off back to Poland, Ukraine, Germany, and Russia where they came from, “Well that didn’t work.” To me, this is one of the crazy things about politics: in a semi-rational world, that would actually be a possibility: 95% of Israel ups and quits, and the remainder go “time we learn to negotiate, huh?” The Israelis have thoroughly imploded their own myth that their government is tough and savvy. That might be good for them to realize.

That sounds about right. As we have so many times before, we’ll devastate a country and pretend we’ve won a great victory. It’s an interesting idea that maybe, finally, Israel has bit off far more than it can chew. We’re also sending in 2000 marines — I’m not sure what they can do against a population of 93 million riled up people with AK47s and missiles, but that sounded familiar, too.

I’ve read all the Flashman novels. They’re sitting on a bookshelf in my living room right now. In case you’re unfamiliar, they’re comedic historical novels about the rise of the British empire, centered on a character who is a bully and a self-serving poltroon who serves in all the major 19th century conflicts in Asia, Africa, North America, and even has a few escapades in Europe. He’s always a hair’s breadth from total disaster, but manages to pull through at the last moment, often at the cost of thousands of lives, including those of his fellow British soldiers.

Marcus is not a Flashman-like figure, but he does remind me sometimes of George McDonald Fraser, the author of the series, who is sitting back describing the horrors of these wars with some detachment. One of the themes of the books is the devastating incompetence of the British leadership, who can rescue their reputations by sending in masses of young men who will be ruined and wrecked by the experience, but can be praised by the generals as Heroes of the British Empire, who themselves escape scot-free and go home to their manors to sip brandy and tell war stories.

Pete Hegseth is setting up a few thousand noble sacrifices. You won’t be able to criticize him without besmirching the memory of the gallant marines who gave their all for their country, he thinks.

Marcus has also written a letter he would like to slip into the mailboxes of his neighbors who previously festooned their homes with Trump signs, since mysteriously taken down because they’re all chickenshits. It’s a good letter, honest and forthright, but I’d urge him not to post it. It sounds like a death threat to all Trump supporters. I agree with it — they’re all traitors and are responsible for everything our country might once have stood for — but this is not the time. They still have too much power. We need to tear down the right-wing establishment, and then we can bring their lackeys to a terrible justice.

Or more likely, like Flashman, they’re going to end up rich and praised, telling stories about grand victories that will be resolved by another century of idiocy.

The US has depleted its Middle East defense systems to the point where they are stripping Asian defense systems, particularly in South Korea.

South Korean media has reported several flights of U.S. military transport aircraft at Osan Air Base since the Iran conflict started, noting that the C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster planes that were seen are used to typically carry Patriot systems and THAAD anti-ballistic missile systems.

The U.S. move to deploy Patriot defense systems in South Korea to the Middle East comes against the backdrop of reports that air defense systems used by Gulf nations were running “dangerously low” on interceptors to defend against Iranian drone and missile strikes.

IISS’ Kim said that U.S. missile supplies are already under significant strain, given that Iran continues to retaliate and the conflict is likely to be a prolonged one.

Interesting and worrisome. Then I realized, though, that I have an inside source that could give me fresh, juicy information. My son is a major in the signal corps, which handles all this tech and logistics stuff, and he’s stationed in Korea. They’re also in the middle of a huge joint exercise in the Pacific called Freedom Shield 26, in which he’s putting in long days coordinating various aspects of the exercise. He’d know about any strains and shifts in the conduct of the drill, and I know him well, and he even called me on my birthday. The perfect opportunity to get breaking news!

So I asked him about it. He stonewalled me about it. Me! His own father! He wouldn’t reveal a single tiny secret, not even as a birthday present.

Maybe it’s because he sounded really tired and overworked, and because he was calling at 4am Korean time just before he started another long day, but I couldn’t get him to crack. I also didn’t try very hard, since if true, I imagine having big chunks of the military infrastructure yanked out from under one of the guys in charge of deploying said infrastructure in the middle of a multi-national exercise is a bit of a headache.

He’s a good boy. Don’t bother trying to extract info from him.

Trust me, I know that correlation is not causation, but damn, that is one sharp coincidence.

This corrupt Supreme Court has a lot to answer for. That graph comes from Paul Krugman

Amid the bloody shambles, one big question is, who put The Gang That Couldn’t Think Straight in power? In an immediate sense, Trump was put over the top by low-information voters — defined by G. Elliott Morris as voters who don’t know which party controls Congress. But the groundwork for the MAGA takeover was laid well before by the Roberts Supreme Court and by right-wing billionaires that the court enabled.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Billionaires Gone Wild, the extraordinary influence acquired by a tiny group of ultra-wealthy men. I shared this chart on campaign contributions, based on estimates from Americans for Tax Fairness.

That data explains a lot about the current state of the nation.

So if you want to understand how this country has degenerated to such a state, how we can be spending nearly $2 billion a day attacking Iran without a clear endgame in sight, while children go without healthcare, nursing homes are understaffed because their workers have been deported, home electricity bills skyrocket due to data centers, consider who benefits and who isn’t hurt.

This is a billionaire’s war, waged at everyone else’s expense.

How many billionaires, or even millionaires, are actually serving in the military right now or are even luxuriating in a hotel somewhere near where the missiles might fall? How many will be materially hurt by a rise in gas prices, the destruction of reliable information sources, the lack of availability of vaccines or healthy food?

If you can’t tell who the winners and losers are, you’re one of the losers.