stevenkesslar

Gas prices. And the "L" word. One of the guys I have been listening to a lot lately is Robert Pape. He predicted when the Iran War started that Trump would get caught in an escalation trap. And now he has. So Pape is now predicting Trump's base will further degrade for two reasons. And to be clear what he means by that, the swing voters - young men, Hispanics and Blacks who were fed up with Biden thanks to inflation - are already lost, Pape says. He's talking about the roughly one third of Americans who are true blue MAGA folk. Gas prices will be one thing that just keeps slicing away at Trump's support. But the other one is the "L" word: loser. Trump is spinning cartwheels with his cankles and genocide threats to avoid looking like a loser. But if he wants an agreement with Iran that will get gas prices down, he's going to have to look like a loser. So maybe the MAGA echo chamber can look past more corruption. But even the Divine Miss Graham will shit her dress when she learns Trump really is a loser! What a dumb fuck genocidal POTUS to do? Consult with Justin, maybe?

And you can't let the US government have his tax returns and he and his family fleece the world.

The new polls are devastating for Trump. I have not seen a specific poll on "gas prices". If you asked 100 people if they like higher gas prices, 100 would probably say NO. The more MAGA-oriented question would be, "Is this short term sacrifice in higher gas prices worth it so we can Make America Great Again by nuking Iranian civilization, killing tens of millions of people, disrupting the global oil infrastructure, and creating a big recession?" 😱 No doubt some loyal MAGA folks would say, "Sounds great to me." Patriot Pete would be down on his knees voraciously sucking Trump's cock while the nukes drop incinerating Iranian children. You gotta give Patriot Pete credit for even being able to find Trump's cock, really. Or maybe he just sucks on the fat ankles instead. President Trump Job Approval - Inflation As far as MOST Americans - not to mention most people on the planet - go, Trump is in big trouble. He ran for POTUS to lower prices. Only 30 % approve of the way he is handling inflation. 2 in 3 Americans disapprove. Probably many of those are Trump supporters who usually don't vote. And won't vote in 2026 because Trump actually gave us a war that caused gas prices and inflation to spike. The exact opposite of what he promised. Narcissistic piece of shit. If Democrats could win the votes of the 2 in 3 Americans that don't like how Trump is handling inflation, that would of course be a landslide. Now is the time for Democrats to be talking about how they will help Americans in the pocketbook. I'm a one trick pony. But I keep going back to those child tax credits. For tens of millions of Americans, they did basically offset the sting of inflation while it was spiking the most. For one year, child poverty was cut in half for White, Black, Asian and Hispanic working class families. That's not DEI. That's decency. At least Democrats did something. It's not the same as a factory job. But they did something that helped tens of millions of working class Americans in their pocketbook. Just bitching about how Trump sucks is fine. That will be sufficient to do well in the midterms. It will not be sufficient to govern. Which arguably is the sad lesson of the Biden/Harris Administration.

To intentionally mix stock and flying metaphors, you will have to decide. Is this a buy the dip moment? Or is this Trump just crashing? Both can be true at the same time! Speaking of which, it is possible to despise Trump, and profit off his antics. I made a lot of money buying the big dip last April when he had a tariff tantrum. And, speaking of dips: If you don't recognize him, that's Tom Lee on the left, Wall Street perma-bull. I found that graphic because it is simple. Here is Tom Lee's own version of it: Note that was from January of this year. He has been right so far. It's probably not exactly clear, but that chart is basically a composite of US stock market performance in every midterm election year since 1928. The standard vocabulary I keep hearing is midterm elections are "choppy" market years. Usually followed by a year with unusually good returns. That has nothing to do with who the POTUS is. It's the way the stock market has been. And what seems to be accepted by many Wall Street people as dogma. So in any midterm year, odds are we'll have a "crash", to use the word in the image above, going right into the elections. In a year when we are losing a war, oil prices are rising, inflation is hot, and mortgage rates are up, it's probably even more likely. So Wall Street, if this plays out, will basically be saying: "Donald Trump, you are a worthless piece of shit. You, worthless piece of shit, are losing a war that is fucking up the global economy. You, worthless piece of shit, are bringing back inflation. You, worthless stupid piece of shit, are making long rates go up. What part of being a worthless piece of shit do you not understand, you worthless piece of shit?" Granted, it's not exactly news that Trump is a worthless losing piece of shit. Except to him. But if anybody can pierce the worthless piece of shit's narcissistic armor, it may be Wall Street. Greed loves greed, and listens to it. Speaking of greed, I wouldn't mind a nice buyable dip this fall. Meanwhile, back to the airline thing. Buckle your seat belts. It may be a bumpy ride.

Gosh! That's a tough one. Even for a smart ass like me. So I consulted with one of the best American leaders ever. But I guess you have to give credit to Trump. They did get fooled again.

What makes you think that? 😉

Has anyone else noticed how great it is when America Is Great Again? You can feel it in the air. Not a day passes when some socialist Canadian doesn't call me and say, "How do I get out of my shit hole? Can't Canada be the 51st US state?" Nope, bitch! You had your chance. That said, I'll make a small exception for the two hockey dudes from Heated Rivalry. But back to serious matters. When America Is Great, you can see the spattered legs and brain matter of dead US soldiers all over Iranian fields. God Bless America! When America Is Great, you can smell the burning flesh of Iranian school girls. It makes me want to sing the National Anthem! It is only when we let Weak Extremist Black Obama Type Americans rule that Bad Things happen. Like Evil Iranian Theocrats Hanging Gay People. (Did I mention that when America Is Great, Gays can be Treasury Secretary? Sorry, Sis!) When America Is Weak, Bad Things can happen at home, too. Like allowing Weak Extremist Obama Supporting Black House Members to win US House seats in the South. Ugh! We have to get Extremist Black Democrats out and Strong White Republicans in! And therein lies the problem. Seems like as Great As Universal Lord And King Donald Trump is, and as much as he has Made America Greater Than Ever!, we still have a small problem Robert Kagan: "Full-Scale Invasion" Only Way To Open Strait Of Hormuz And Overthrow Islamic Republic This dude is saying we have three choices. We can invade Iran and have a bloody land war, which Americans won't tolerate. Or we can nuke Iran. Kagan doesn't even mention that option. Since I guess he's too much of a pussy to advocate righteously killing millions of Iranian kids. Or we can let Iran run the Strait Of Hormuz in one form or another, and end up worse than when we started. Now I know what you are thinking. This must be some Socialist Canadian. Or some Extremist AOC Type Loser who needs to go back to the shit hole she came from. But, no. This is Robert Kagan, neocon who a few decades ago fiercely advocated for the US to invade Iraq to spread democracy. Given how well that worked, you would think he would be shouting that we need to do it again. But in Iran this time. Nope. He's saying Americans are pussies and they won't. Poor neocon! This is the kind of noble bullying he has advocated his whole life. And it turns out it just doesn't work out well, in practice. But just this time. Well, actually. It didn't really work well in Iraq, either. But who could have seen that coming? I guess that leaves option three. Give Gay Hanging Iranian Theocrats more power than before. Kagan says this makes Iran more powerful than a nuclear weapon would. Who could have seen that coming? Personally, I think these people are all pussies. We should deport all the Extremist Black House members and weak neocons who wouldn't recognize American Greatness if it slapped them in the face. Send them to Montreal or Toronto or some other Socialist shit hole. Then nuke the fuckers. After we have a Nice Big Glow we can let Alberta be our 51st state. After all, Ontario has all The Gays and Alberta has all The Oil. That's a pretty easy choice! Isn't it just awesome when America Is Great Again!

You may also be right that it will be this quasi-Independent force. Roosevelt was a Republican, mostly. But he did form the Bull Moose Party, aka the Progressive Party. And it was a springboard for a lot of progressive ideas that played out for decades to come, in reaction to out of control capitalism. I think we are stuck - both Democrats as a party and the US as a nation - for as long as we have these red states like Iowa and Montana and North Dakota that reflexively elect Republicans only these days. Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, is someone I sent money to for several cycles. In 2018, he won. In 2024, he lost. He allegedly texted someone and said the party brand was like "poison" to him in Montana. Duh! Tester slams Democrats, voices support for potential independent in Senate race I agree with Tester. We have two strong Independent candidates running this cycle who are kinda sorta Democrats, in Montana and Nebraska. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Democrats could win in those states as moderate Democrats. Such a time could exist again in the not too distant future, after Trump's mess ends. The thing I liked about people like Jon Tester and Heidi Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill (recent moderate Democrats who won and then lost in Montana, North Dakota, and Missouri) is that they mostly kept their mouths shut and played as team players, knowing that the AOC/Bernie end of the party was a drag on them. We need both to win. And that is clearer then ever. Had we had those three Senators in the US Senate in 2022 we could have had permanent child tax credits. That would have cut working class child poverty in half for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. That is better than $1 billion ballrooms if Democrats want to win power and keep it for a while. Like AMLO did in Mexico by focusing on people's pocketbooks and keeping the college-educated woke crowd at bay. Disclaimer: I am part of the college-educated woke crowd, but I recognize that I am NOT a majority. My actual woke college professor was named Paul Wellstone. And he ended a long Democratic drought in Minnesota in 1990 by being the woke college professor who rode economic populism to the US Senate. Tim Walz was an acolyte of progressive training school Wellstone Action. The formula works! Then we have money whores like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. I might be arguing against myself by saying i want moderate Democrats, but not Manchin and Sinema. They are moderates. But they are also pocket sucking money whores who suck up lobbyist money. And they were never really good team players. Even though they claimed to be. At least with Sinema it worked out well. We got rid of that pocket sucking money whore and replaced her with Ruben Gallego, who is a team player and will fight for progressive stuff. Talarcio kind of falls in that category in Texas. He is running as a Democrat. But he is branding himself as young and fresh and independent. If any of these three can win, either as a Democrat or an Independent, I think that's good news. Maybe people are getting sick of the craziness. One reason I like Gavin Newsom is he can and will tell people on the left - like me - to go fuck ourselves. He has a good enough radar for the center that he can maintain popularity while appeasing the left on some things. Maybe Kamala Harris or others can do that. But Newsom has proven it in California. So my hope is by 2028 someone like Newsom or Harris gets elected POTUS. And can also get a stable Senate majority, which in theory could include some "red state" Independents. I think Carney is proving adept at the same thing in Canada. Then again, maybe it's time for a Bull Moose Party again!

And the answer is: in 2018 and 2020, America had had enough of Trump. Kinda. Sort of. I decided a while back there basically are two Americas. We now know pretty much for a fact that up to 40 % of America will eat Trump's shit for breakfast. For many of them - like one of my nieces and one of my nephews - they are Trump voters for whom times have never been better. My niece is buying a condo in Florida. My nephew texted me to say how wonderful it is that NVDA has gone through the roof. Another nephew, who despises Trump, just become a multi-millionaire on a bet on SOXL (semiconductors) that paid off very well. So we live in a K-shaped economy. For many Trump voters, and for many upscale Democrats, times have never been better. But that's not most Americans. The rich love tax cuts and ballrooms. Who cares if we spend $1 billion on a ballroom while gas prices soar? These are all signs of the times. Trump won again in 2024 with less than 50 % of the vote. He won for two reasons: high prices, and open borders. He did do slightly better than he did in 2016, when he lost the electoral college. I do blame this on Democrats as much as Trump. Biden was old and tired. And even if he was not old and tired, I never got the feeling that he or Harris could tell working class America how they would fight for them every fucking day. Biden was no FDR, even though he wanted to be. We'll see how Kamala does in 2028, if she runs. The polls say she is leading. If Democrats want a fighter, I think it is just as likely they will pick Newsom. That is the role he is auditioning for. He was on the cutting edge of same sex marriage as Mayor of SF when I lived there. And I think he has been a competent relatively progressive Governor of one of the largest economies in the world in a time of COVID crisis. Whoever Democrats nominate, they have to be able to explain how they will fight like hell for the working class in a way Harris simply could not in 2024. Maybe the third time will be the charm for her. I'm hoping. Or maybe Mayor Pete or somebody else will emerge. Emotionally, I already feel like America is lost. When the President of the United States is brazenly threatening to end a civilization and burn millions of Iranian children to death, how can America claim to be a shining city on a hill? We are a corrupt moral cesspool right now. And the billionaires, starting with Trump and his family and friends, are building ballrooms and grabbing every fucking penny they can. They deserve it! I can't tell you when this will end. But I'm pretty sure it won't end well. The better question for me is: what Democrat can clean up this disgraceful and harmful mess when it collapses? But for now, Trump wants gold statues of himself, ballrooms, and parties!

I don't disagree that it would be better if NO billionaire ran for office. But that's really not the way it has ever worked in the US. We started out with the following criteria: 1) be White, 2) be male, 3) be rich, 4) own slaves. Not all the Founding Fathers met that description. Just 12 US Presidents owned slaves. 🤔 But you all get the point. Lucky for us, we at least get to have a Republican President and SCOTUS that wants to disempower Blacks and take their representatives away. 😱 I am tempted to vote for single Mom Katie Porter. But given the polling, I feel like it would actually be a vote for Village People Republican Guy Chad Bianco. He's polling third, behind Hilton and Steyer. Becerra is fourth, according to Real Clear Politics. Porter is #5 and in the single digits. She was in the lead early on. So she seems like a lost cause at this point.

Sorry, Sis. But on this one I beg to differ. I want Genocide POTUS and The Genocide Jew to burn in hell forever, chained to Yasser Arafat. The Genocide Jew and Arafat would make a lovely couple. Trump, Netanyahu, and Arafat are three of the worst leaders in my lifetime. All three are or were corrupt. Which is small ball. The bigger issue is that all three used mass violence to stay in power. The thing that makes Trump and The Genocide Jew different is they openly support genocide. By that standard, Arafat was only a garden variety terrorist. But the best is yet to come. Having been rebuked by the world and the Pope for threatening to nuke Iran and end a civilization in genocide, Trump says, "Fuck that shit." Now he's just being cute in how he states his depraved and evil impulses. By the standard of many organized religions, including Christianity and Judaism, Genocide POTUS and The Genocide Jew deserve to burn in hell forever. Trump’s remark fuels nuclear speculation We've all heard of some religion that talked about "an eye for an eye." Who said that? 😉 The Genocide Jew had the brilliant idea of mass murder of Iranian leaders. Now Iran's leader is saying, "Fuck that shit. We ain't giving up on nukes." Iran now has control of the Strait Of Hormuz, which they did not before the wat. How is this winning? So Trump, the victim of his own sick impulses. threatens to nuke them instead. This is not leadership. This is not even bad politics. This is evil. We now return you to your regularly scheduled $1,000,000,000 ballroom. Maybe the rich can watch millions of Iranian kids burn to death at a gala dinner! How glowing and festive!

Here's an informative article about this issue. This article and another one on AI sealed the deal. I'll vote for Steyer. More than anything else, he is a voice for left of center economic populism that can win. Becerra seems like an underwhelming government bureaucrat, if Politico is right. Steyer is very much a sign of the times we life in. You can say a scion of wealth should not be Guv. Then again, FDR was much more a scion of wealth than Steyer. Steyer made his wealth, whereas FDR inherited it. Few Democrats hate FDR or the New Deal because he was very rich. Tom Steyer vows to cut electricity bills by 25%, but experts say the details fall short I'll say something bad and something good about Steyer. The bad thing is, as the article spells out, it's almost certainly an exaggeration to say anyone could cut electrics rates by 25 %. So Steyer is practicing Trumpian politics. He's being a populist and saying he's going to focus on prices that hurt people's pocketbooks. And lower them. That's how Trump won in 2024. He ran against Bidenflation. The good thing is, as the article spells out, this is 100 % consistent with Steyer's rich man economic populism. I know more than I want about electric dereg. I spent four years of my life on it, and won hugely. "Dereg" in California and Oregon in the 1990's was all about catering to investor-owned utilities and companies like Enron, that are now known as some of the biggest corporate villains ever. Steyer is saying the opposite. He's saying these electric companies are screwing rate payers. And he wants them to cut their prices. It gets very policy wonky about wildfires. Which is a huge driver of higher rates in California. You could generalize that to "climate change" and saying similar things are happening in Florida thanks to flooding, not fires. Steyer is probably right that utilities are choosing the most expensive way to upgrade wires to prevent forest fires. Again, it gets very policy wonky. But he's putting himself on the side of people pissed about higher electric rates and saying, "Let's do something about it." It's an exaggeration to say Steyer is anti-AI. But he sounds kind of anti-AI. And I love it. I have watched lots of long form videos with experts on AI, most of whom worked in the industry. It is very scary. There is the ultimate doomsday scenario that the machines will be way smarter than us and ultimately decide humans are pests. Which, by the way, leaders of the AI industry are publicly saying could happen. But before we get to that, we have kids being told to kill themselves by AI. And at least the potential for massive white collar unemployment as workers are displaced. Did I mention massive increases in electric rates for power-hungry data centers that DO NOT create jobs. They create wealth for billionaire AI investors. And yes, it will all be wonderful. And when AI agents replace us we can all spend our free time being Michelangelo or designing space ships to Mars. What pro-AI investors are saying is such total bullshit. This is the same investment class who told us two decades ago not to worry our pretty little heads about working class factory job loss, which was just a lefty fearmongering myth. And then we lost 6 million factory jobs. And then Trump won in 2016 running against "Clinton/NAFTA". Again, this is very much a sign of the times. But Steyer stands for something. And it is something I like. I like Katie Porter more. But the polls are very clear. She's gradually going down, and Steyer is going up. It may not be fair, since Steyer is rich and can buy all the ads he wants. But this is as new to American politics as FDR and The New Deal. I want more of that. We need it. Especially after billionaire Trump, who is in it for himself and his family and friends. Rant over.

I was just thinking about how things that made sense a decade or two ago, and still do in my mind, are now wildly out of sync with Trump era bloodthirsty partisanship. Schwarzenegger championed the jungle primary. And it won on the ballot in 2010 with 53 % of the vote. Both political parties opposed it. The idea made sense if you view politics the way leaders like Arnie - who I deeply admire - did. Moderation is good. Compromise is good. Bipartisanship is good. So I think the idea was that instead of having highly partisan primaries where the most extreme elements of both parties nominate very partisan people, the jungle primary elects people who move to the middle. This all belongs in a world where we don't have partisan gerrymandering. It belongs in a world where Maine elects moderate Republicans, and North Dakota elects moderate Democrats. There was just an article in Politico about how former Massachusetts Guv Mitt Romney hosted a political fundraiser in Utah for Susan Collins. And how they are part of a dying breed of Senators of both parties who tend to want to meet in the middle. The article pointed out how most of these Senators retired or were voted out. Republican Cassidy is a doomed man, probably. So is Susan Collins, maybe. All those Indiana Republicans who pushed back against Trump on gerrymandering just lost. Times have changed. What is clearly very popular today is balls to the wall partisanship. And I'm there. I was part of the 53 % that was for "meet in the middle" primaries in 2010. And this year I was part of the much bigger majority that basically said, "Fuck that shit. Trump is an animal. And we'll fight the son of a bitch every way we can." Barely related thought. At some point I decided it may have been better for America and the world if Mitt Romney won in 2012. It would have been sad at the time. Particularly because Obama was our first African American leader. Several Black intellectuals wrote at the time that America was less racist for not only having elected Obama, but also for having re-elected him - warts and all. That said, we paid a price, as we always we do in politics when we get what we want. The GOP clearly said "fuck that shit" about Romney-style bipartisanship. No more Mr. Nice Guy. They found the most partisan asshole they could find: Donald Trump, aka King Graft. He thrives at divide and conquer. Especially if he can lie, rape, and steal. I think the better angels lost. I was most active in politics in my 20's and 30's. And despite being a liberal Democrat who worked on and won some very progressive things that no one thought we could win, it worked precisely because there were Republicans who would compromise. I miss that world.

I guess you really liked my song. Wanna hear it again? JD Vance JD Vance Every morning you greet me Sycophant Yes man brand I don't want you to lead me. Hillbilly lies told so he can rise He thinks he's so clever. JD Vance JD Vance Hope you will lead me never. Problem is if we could get rid of Trump, we'd have the hillbilly sycophant instead. I suppose if there were some barbarian country that had a policy of assassinating all the leaders of another country, that would solve the problem. And maybe kill some women and children, too. Anyone close to The Genocide Jew? Even Gay hating Iranian theocrats won't pull that kind of shit. But The Genocide Jew will.

There's a word for that: democracy. It's frustrating as hell for me. But I know plenty of people who felt the same way when Obama, or Biden, was POTUS. The difference is that, as you state, especially Trump 2.0 is Graft, Incorporated. That's why that Lincoln Project ad worked so well. The 2024 ad should have been, "Kamala is for us/them. I'm for me." The Trump-appointed SCOTUS just helped and made it a little easier for Team Trump to ignore the voters they don't care about. Meaning Black voters. I send money every month to a list of Dems who might win Senate seats. But Republicans are obviously doing everything they can to use their minority status and power to hold on to the House. Finally, it helps that Trump learned from Roy Cohn. He does what every great American POTUS should do: try to relentlessly ignore and break the law, and then lie and somehow get away with it. Speaking of legacy, how many people love the legacy of Roy Cohn? Trump will forever be the twice failed POTUS many Americans despise for being a raping lying narcissistic piece of shit, who a majority of Americans never voted for. And are disgusted with. Some legacy. Piece of shit! Piece of shir! Piece of shit! I think what Democrats can do is simply try to not fuck up and be ready to replace the steaming greedy raping pile of shit when 50.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 % of Americans wake up to the fact that the failing raping piece of shit is destroying us. And the world, it appears. We need a competent clean up crew who actually cares about America and the world. Not just as something they want to own and rule. In the meantime, less than 50 % of voting Americans delivered the steaming pile of shit. Some of whom are family members I love. I'm sure people around the world feel the same way, who probably also have family members and friends in the US that are frustrated. So we are stuck with it. Unless Iran returns the kindnesses and takes out The Genocide Jew and King Graft. Although since what The Genocide Jew and King Graft excel at is killing Palestinian and Iranian girls, and then lying about it, maybe Iran will avoid the kind of kindness The Genocide Jew and King Graft have manifested. May they burn in hell forever.

The Lincoln Project always has the best ads. But the sad part about "Had Enough" is they ran great ads in 2020 and 2024. You would think the answer to "Had Enough" would have been sufficient to keep Trump out in 2024. Oh well. Inflation helped him in 2024, and now it will kill him.

I'm underwhelmed. I agree with what my Beloved Sister In Cock says about Katie Porter. I have always been a fan of hers. That said, she does have issues. And the biggest one is that, at this point, she is essentially a spoiler. If it were not a jungle primary I would probably vote for her anyway. But I'd rather vote for someone who looks like they can get into what will likely be a two man race. And that seems to be Becerra or Steyer against Hilton. Becerra has long been off my radar. Politico just made him sound incompetent. Oops! I don't really know what to make of that. It seems like, unlike our MAGA friends, Democrats are looking for a Joe Biden mainstream type who can just get the job done. And who doesn't require rolling the dice. But this seems like it requires rolling the dice. So it is probably Steyer for me. Although I don't like the billionaire thing, either. Agreed! Oregon thanks California, though. Enron did buy Portland General Electric in the late 90's. And they did try to use that as a springboard for another scammy dereg effort. I spent three years of my life building two statewide coalitions of leftie and environmental groups. And the state law we spent several years winning was one of the biggest organizing victories of my life. We stopped deregulation and created permanent state rate bases for renewables and low-income energy assistance. It was one of the nice things about Oregon when its progressive heyday was just starting. Enron (and dereg) did not go into the shitter until 2000. But by 1999 you could smell the stench. It was easy to fight Texas fat cats in Oregon. The other piece of good news is we get Gavin Newsom as a competent and popular ex-Guv who may prove to be a good and electable Presidential candidate. We'll see.

So ................. basically you are arguing that America is a backward self destructive Trumpian shit hole ????? How rude! I'd never say such a thing about Canada! 😉

So this is a morbid post. But if Dana Bash wants to talk about political violence, great. We should be talking about that, and how despicable it is. Number of Donald Trumps killed: Zero Jews killed by Hamas on Oct. 7: 1200, almost all civilians Number of Palestinians killed in Gaza War: 72,000, or about 4 % of the Gaza Palestinian population, about half of whom were women and children Number of Jews killed in World War Two: 6 million, about two thirds of Europe's Jewish population and one-third of the global Jewish population Number of Americans killed in Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor: 2500. About 400,000 Americans died in World War II, almost all military. Number of Japanese killed in US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 250,000, using high estimates. 2.5 million to 3 million Japanese died during World War Two, about 2 million of whom were military, reducing Japan's population by about 3 % by war's end. Number of Russians killed during World War II: 27 million, the vast majority of whom were civilians. Over 10 % of the population died, reducing it from 197 million to 170 million. Number of Iranians Trump threatened to kill: 93 million, 100 % of the population of a civilization he threatened to end. War is hell. It's debatable whether killing 4 % of Gaza's population is genocide. John Mearsheimer calls it ethnic cleansing. It is insulting that many Jews, and the defenders of these policies, repeat the tired lie that Israel bends over backwards to not harm innocent Palestinians. In my mind that's as true as saying Hamas tried hard not to kill Jewish civilians. What Donald Trump has threatened to do wins the prize for the worst genocidal act ever threatened. I am sure he is not the first leader to make such a threat. But he is for sure the first US President with nukes to do so. He literally threatened to do something even Hitler didn't do. What a fucking monster. And I'm supposed to feel sorry for him? Ha ha ha.

I say give him his gilded bunker and let Patriot Pete and gross old Larry Kudlow suck his cock all day. Kudlow is on Fox publicly calling for America to bomb the shit out of Iran so that it leads to mass starvation. So then they revolt against the "despicable" leaders starving them. What an immoral despicable piece of shit. Let's starve the Iranians we are trying to help so that unarmed starving people revolt against theocrats with guns while bombs are dropping on them. Brilliant! Is this piece of shit more evil than he is stupid? Or more stupid than he is evil? Put him in the fucking gilded bunker with Trump and let them think they are all beloved geniuses. Yes, they all deserve to be assassinated. Yes, The Genocide Jew and our genocidal POTUS are literally asking for that by embracing the idea of assassinating leaders and ending civilizations they don't like. Trump is saying this guy who wanted to assassinate him is "anti-Christian." How about the idea of ending a civilization? Is that maybe a bit anti-Christian? Maybe we should consult with the Pope. If American Jew Dana Bash wants to hold people accountable for murderous and genocidal rhetoric and actions, why isn't she setting her hair on fire about the Genocide Jew? Am I anti-Semitic for agreeing with the growing number of Jewish Israeli organizations saying the Genocide Jew has a policy of genocide that keeps getting him elected in a democratic country? Am I anti-American for saying Trump is a genocidal monster and complete fucking narcissistic moron who started a war most Americans did not ask for and don't want that is making America look like shit? And rising the price of gas and food? While we call for the mass starvation of people we want to help? Give him his fucking ballroom What a horrible piece of shit. My hope is that if the worst part of the American psyche is exposed all over the world for years, maybe the people who voted for this shit and now are having their noses rubbed in the shit they unleashed will learn enough not to do it again. At least not during our lifetimes.

I'll add this to my rant: David Brooks: The World Is Telling The U.S. Your Days As A Superpower Are Over, Trump Should Get The Hell Out Of Iran I realize we are talking about an attempted assassination attempt, not the Iran War. But I am sticking with the idea that the worst leaders in Iran probably hope that Trump is NOT assassinated. They need an asshole likes Trump. Everything I see suggests that Trump is helping the worst, most hardline leaders in Iran consolidate control. He is not even trying to organize the broad but disorganized opposition. There is no question the theocrats are paying a very heavy price for who they are and what they do. But what they have proven is they can survive - so far. And people are not talking about how Trump is destroying Iran. They are talking about how Iran is destroying Trump, and possibly the US. The Iraq War did end America's unipolar moment. In part because even Americans like me concluded if America is going to do shit like this, it does not deserve the job title. Brooks is right of center. But he is hardly the heart and soul of MAGA. Yet as he notes, more and more of the intellectual heavyweights of MAGA America are abandoning ship over this. It's a big stretch to say this ends America's status as a superpower, But unlike in Iraq we have not been able to topple a regime. Which actually was part of the stated goal. To the extent Trump even tried to explain his bizarre and erratic thinking, even many of his own supporters are publicly saying, "What the fuck?" Everyone who didn't support him before this war started now has one more unneeded reason to pray somebody kills him. So Trump can rant all he wants about his ballroom. I don't think the worst hardliners in Iran want him dead. I think they'd loved to have him is his ballroom, looking like the rich demented corrupt lying pig he is. And threatening to nuke a civilization. He is helping them gain control of Iran, and their extremist vision of Iran. And make America look like a global stupid piece of shit. Trump is destroying the global economy, and defense-oriented coalitions that generations of good leaders in both political parties worked hard to build. His obsession with his ballroom and his arch not only prove he is a narcissistic piece of shit. They also suggest he is an increasingly old and demented narcissistic piece of shit, who is leading America to ruin. For all the hits they are taking, the hardliners in Iran must be loving having a fool like this to play. Let's just stipulate you are correct, Sis, and this was staged. My point is: IT AIN'T FUCKING WORKING. It just further confirms what a bizarre and addled brain this piece of shit POTUS has. We have every reason to fear a global recession. And not insignificant reasons to fear a nuclear war. And this senile piece of shit is ranting about a ballroom? Even his own supporters are increasingly alarmed and disgusted with his behavior. And his lack of a brain and a strategy.

So here's my list of three things that make no fucking sense about this. I'm not taking a position on whether this was fake or not. I'm saying regardless of that, it is just a clear sign of what is so fucked up about the time we are living in. 1. If this was fake, what was the motive for doing so? Because as that video of this guy who thinks it was fake proved, it has not changed a fucking thing. Lots of people in America and the world are no doubt thinking, "Too bad Trump wasn't assassinated. The world would be a better place." 2. If this was fake, somehow that was supposed to move the ball forward on his ballroom? Huh? It makes no sense. With the Butler assassination you can at least build a theory that a fake attempt to kill Trump got him sympathy and an almost superhuman aura. It did have that effect for some. Arguably, that day in Butler was when he won the election. Especially compared to feeble Biden, who was his opponent in that moment. But now he needed an assassination attempt to get his ballroom built? I actually hope they build the ballroom and the arch. I am pretty sure this moment in the US will go down in history very badly. We think of FDR and we think of the New Deal and Social Security and winning World War II. In the future we will think of Trump and a ballroom and an arch and national humiliation and losing a war in Iran and ugly and bad things. Iran is not going well now. And like Iraq and Afghanistan it will not end well. 3. What this does do is further confirm we are now living in an age of assassinations and political violence again. And it is now the official policy of The Genocide Jew, and to some extent Trump, to say if we don't like the leaders of another country we will assassinate them. Or destroy the country itself. The Genocide Jew himself came to power because one of Israel's best leaders, who wanted peace, was assassinated. If Iran really wants Trump's brains splattered over the floor, they will probably be able to do so. That's what this proved. Somebody killed JFK. Somebody almost killed Reagan. If Iran really wants to kill Trump, he is a dead piece of shit. And he is almost begging them to do it.

Don't they always have to have someone to blame? It's a reason Trump may want to stay barricaded in his ballroom after 2028. There's probably a good chance a Democrat will succeed him. And when they start detailing all the grifting that is occurring it will make Trump Media look small ball.

I know I shouldn't reveal client secrets. But here goes. I actually have to role play this with Patriot Pete when he pays me to be my submissive. I tie him up, whip his pretty tattoos, and dress up like an Ayatollah and rant at him in unintelligible ways that is supposed to be Farsi. Then as I fuck him I chant, "Whose your Daddy? Whose your Daddy? Donald's your Daddy, isn't he?" Works every time. Makes Patriot Pete cum. Better that than alcoholism. I'm always happy to do the dirty work, Sis.

Rant incoming. I found that interview so depressing. It's a brief interview. But you don't have to watch it to get my point. Most of the interviews I watch - and i watch lots of them - are of critics of Trump and the bombing. So they are talking about why it's going badly. And how this is empowering Iran's theocrats in ways that will hurt American interests. This includes people like John Bolton. Who would love to see regime change in Iran. And would be even harder ass than Trump to achieve it. Even the presumably independent business-oriented experts on CNBC say it's now just a given that the Iranian regime Trump said he wanted to change will forever more have a level of influence over the Strait of Hormuz and the global flow of oil they never had before. Recession, anyone? Robert Pape goes a lot further and says Trump is turning Iran into a regional hegemon and fourth global power. Who will ally with China and Russia against America and the West. Although increasingly "Western" nations don't even want to associate themselves with what Trump's America wants or values. They're all saying, "Let's go talk to China." Walid Phares is a Lebanese-American conservative who was a paid consultant on Romney's 2012 campaign and Trump's 2016 campaign. What's depressing about the interview to me is he keeps bringing it back to one thing: the Iranian people. As Bolton will say, they are the ones who don't like this regime. And they are the ones who smart conservatives say we should have spent huge amounts of time and resources with, to lay the groundwork for change. If we had any hope of seriously making things better for the Iranian people. Which is not what Donald Trump gives a shit about. He keeps saying, "We should take the oil." Phares is less blunt than Bolton. But he's saying the same thing, in my mind. Instead of that, we have Donald Trump's impulses. So the strategy to work with Iran's opposition or people is to get the brilliant idea of threatening to nuke them all. Or blow up their power plants so they can starve to death. Or so the theocrats retaliate by blowing up infrastructure all over the region so that Muslim people can't live there anymore. This is what it is about today. Pape argues that even the pro-democracy movement will be on the side of the regime now, simply because they don't want to get nuked or starve to death. It's truly remarkable that Donald Trump has somehow managed to make George W. Bush and Dick Cheney look like master war strategists. 😱 And I think Mark Halperin got under my skin more than anything. I truly respect him as one of a small group of very smart and well connected people who try very hard to look at it both ways. But in this context, he basically gets to be the Ugly American. Weeks after a war was started that we are losing, or at least that is empowering the theocrats in Iran we all despise, he asks what we can do to arm and train Iran's people. Which of course even George W. Bush would have been planning to do months ago. Halperin often comes off as a Trump lackey these days. A good and honest journalist who wasn't just trying to operate in Donald Trump's good graces might have asked, "Isn't it too late for organizing the opposition? Isn't that precisely why Donald Trump really fucked this up badly?" I'm glad Trump didn't even think of that, given his narcissism and lack of impulse control. I'm pretty sure the generals told every other POTUS, including Bush and Trump 1.0, that if we try this it's just going to end very badly. Including for the people of Iran. So now what has to be delicately managed is how Trump can gracefully lose while he brags about winning. If we are all lucky. I hope Trump burns in hell forever. He has unleashed hell on Iran, America, and the world. He is a stupid, evil, and dangerous man. And listening to smart people like these guys, who want to understand Trump and support him, just reinforces this to me.