Tag: donald trump

Trump’s Attempt To End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty

Against the odds, the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the US and Iran appears to be holding, after threats and counter-threats. It may collapse, but it has survived a first round of talks between the two sides in Switzerland over the weekend.

President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war. There must be a reckoning for our elected leaders who violate their oath of office, the Constitution, and simple common sense.

However, what is more telling is the reaction when President Trump finally took the correct move and attempted to end the war. The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war.

Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom. “You could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Not much gratitude from the Israel-first crowd, even if the war was started to benefit Israel.

And more telling even than this was the reaction of the “opposition” party in Congress, the Democrats. They attacked him harder for ending – or at least pausing – the war more than for starting the war in the first place! Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) called the MOU a “capitulation.” Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT) called the MOU an “embarrassing document.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar falsely claimed that President Trump was paying Iran $300 billion to re-open Hormuz.

This is more evidence – as if any is needed – that our foreign policy is run by the “uniparty.” When it comes to wars, there is no Republican Party nor is there a Democratic Party. There is only the “yes!” party.

Congress remains silent in the run-up to war. Congress remains silent when the President launches a war. Congress even remains silent when the war begins going badly. It is only on those rare occasions that a president takes steps to correct his mistake that Congress finds its voice.

Yes, there is plenty to criticize. After weekend talks, the US side, led by Vice President JD Vance, is celebrating as a “breakthrough” that the Strait of Hormuz is open again and that Iran has reportedly agreed to the return of UN inspectors. But the Strait was open before this war and UN inspectors were in Iran before President Trump unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA “Iran Deal” in his first term.

The only difference now is that we burned through likely several hundred billion dollars, we lost dozens of aircraft and other military equipment, and we likely lost more service members than the Pentagon is admitting.

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Gaza’s “Board of Peace” holds zero dollars despite billions pledged

In a stark revelation that underscores the paralysis of international reconstruction efforts, the World Bank-administered fund established for President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” in Gaza officially contains zero dollars. This finding comes despite approximately $17 billion in pledges from various nations, raising serious questions about the viability of the administration’s signature post-conflict initiative.

The board, personally chaired by Trump, was conceived to oversee the rebuilding of the devastated Palestinian enclave, but it remains a financial shell, stalled by legal uncertainty and disputes over transparency.

The empty vault: Where did the pledges go?

The core issue is a fundamental disconnect between promises and disbursement. A senior congressional aide confirmed that none of the pledged money has reached the Board of Peace. The Department of State has indicated there is no intention to route those funds through the board’s official channels. Instead of using the transparent, World Bank-administered account, the board has reportedly directed some donations into a private account at JPMorgan Chase.

This arrangement bypasses independent oversight and standard aid protocols, leaving donors and the public with limited visibility into how any funds are spent.

A king’s court or a UN-like agency?

The board’s unconventional structure has also drawn sharp criticism. Unlike traditional multilateral bodies, the Board of Peace is personally led by Trump, who retains final authority indefinitely. The charter requires countries to pay a one-billion-dollar fee for a permanent seat, a price tag that has deterred major European allies. Sen. Brian Schatz highlighted the tension between the State Department’s portrayal of the board as a standard UN-like agency and Trump’s characterization of it as a “king’s court.” Key powers like France and Britain have refused to pay the entry fee, leaving the board’s membership thin and its financial base weak.

No contracts, no construction: A stalled operation

The board has awarded no contracts for actual reconstruction projects, as it is not yet operating inside Gaza. The primary obstacle is Hamas’ refusal to disarm. Trump has linked all reconstruction aid to full demilitarization, creating a classic deadlock: the board cannot operate in Gaza without security, but security cannot be achieved without reconstruction funding. The Palestinian technocratic committee, formed to assume governance, remains unable to execute any work due to a total lack of funding. Even modest sums from Morocco and the UAE have been used primarily for staff salaries, not infrastructure.

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Democratic Party’s Corollary to the Donroe Doctrine

Donald Trump’s second term has precipitated a tsunami of criticism from Democrats over his foreign policy. Yet when it comes to Washington’s efforts to dominate Latin America and the Caribbean, the substantive dispute – if there is any substance remaining, once stripped of partisan bickering – is less about ends than means.

Beneath the rhetoric of inter-party conflict lies a broad bipartisan consensus in favor of promoting US hemispheric hegemony and crushing governments that resist it – with Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua at the forefront. While Democrats frequently portray Trump as reckless, they generally accept the underlying premises of economic coercion, political intervention, and regime-change pressure. Their objections mainly focus on the execution of policy rather than its legitimacy.

The central role of sanctions in projecting imperial coercive power

Under Democratic administrations, the US forged and institutionalized what may be its most effective instrument of hegemony. Coercive economic measures, commonly called “sanctions,” were first deployed by Franklin D. Roosevelt against Mexico in the 1930s. They were used by Dwight D. Eisenhower to pressure Guatemala in 1954 and then – most drastically – against Cuba by both Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy in 1960. Today, one-third of the world’s nations are under US sanctions.

Sanctions – a form of collective punishment – are held by legal experts to be contrary to international law. Paradoxically, not only does Washington disregard international law in imposing sanctions, but the US then behaves as if they are applying the law when, for example, they pirate a ship delivering humanitarian supplies to a sanctioned country.

Use of sanctions has accelerated because successive administrations have seen their unique advantages. Compared with “forever wars,” they are more easily justified to US voters as cost-free and as not imperiling US lives. If sanctions are the precursor to military intervention – as in Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989 and, of course, Venezuela in 2026 – the interventions have usually been limited, with few US casualties.

Yet sanctions are very potent: between 2010 and 2021, they caused around 560,000 deaths globally each year – more than five times the number of people killed annually in direct armed combat.

While sanctions are made more palatable by being described as “targeted” at governments or individuals seen as undesirable by Washington, in practice the “targeting” is deliberately far wider. Sanctions do most damage to the poorest sectors of societies – the sectors most likely to support progressive governments. The barely veiled message is that only by withdrawing this support will such communities be able to prosper and avoid the threat of even greater US intervention.

The frequent description of sanctions as “targeted” carries another implication – that they are intended to have a precise and conclusive effect. However, while sanctions cause severe economic damage, there is little evidence that they achieve intended regime change. Even so, sanctions on countries which refuse to change are maintained and – very frequently – intensified. Democrats are as guilty of this folly as Republicans.

Indeed, US sanctions have imperial utility through their “demonstration effect”: attempting to cripple progressive alternatives to the neoliberal world order. Recently subjected to draconian sanctions, Cuban President Díaz-Canel proclaimed: “Cuba is not a failed state; Cuba is a besieged state.” Still, infant mortality in Cuba is lower than among African Americans.

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FBI reveals details in new affidavit about alleged terror plot to attack UFC 250 event

he FBI released an affidavit Tuesday regarding a foiled alleged terror plot on Sunday’s Ultimate Fighting Championship 250 event at the White House, which perpetrators were allegedly planning to attack with explosive-laden drones and snipers.

At least five people have been arrested, and agents are working to identify as many as 18 others who appear to be involved in the planning on encrypted chats communicating with the alleged plotters, officials said.

The affidavit identified three of the five apprehended suspects, including 19-year-old Tycen Proper, who was arrested in Ohio and charged with attempted murder and several firearms violations after he allegedly admitted to helping plan the attack.

FBI task force officer Christopher Betts said in the court document that Proper’s mother reported her son’s unusual behavior to police in Ohio last week, highlighting his recent purchases of firearms and conversations with random people online.

Proper also allegedly made “concerning statements,” including “making sympathetic comments about Adolf Hitler and posting anti-Semitic comments on Facebook,” according to NBC News.

The suspect allegedly told investigators that his group was supposed to stage a protest on the north side of the White House, and while he was not planning to shoot anyone, people in his group were allegedly intent on violence. 

“While the demonstration was taking place, the group would fly small, unmanned aircraft (i.e. drones) laden with unspecified explosive devices which would detonate over the north side of the UFC arena,” the affidavit said. “When the unmanned aircraft detonated, the intent was to force the crowd attending the UFC event and high-value targets (HVTs) to evacuate to the south.”

Proper also claimed that the reason behind the planned attack was to allegedly jump-start a revolution because “members of the group believed that the United States needed to be torn down so that it could be rebuilt.”

Another suspect was arrested in Missouri and identified as 32-year-old Daniel Eskridge, who was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, in connection with a plan to attack the event.

Eskridge allegedly told members of the group in messages that he was preparing a “safe house” in Missouri and was building a “bunker” under the floorboards of his shed. He intended to attack members of Congress and the power grid.

“The messages included maps with pins to locate positions of attack, as well as planned routes of escape following the execution of the group’s plan,” the affidavit said. “Once the details were settled among other members of the group, Eskridge stated, ‘I’m liking it, now if we can keep it all coordinated it should work.’”

A third man was identified as Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, who was also arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States.

Alvarez allegedly posted detailed location and logistical information related to the plan, including locations in the area for drone launch points and sniper positions.

Officials seized weapons and ammo from each of the suspects’ homes, along with tactical vests and a multi-cam gun belt with a medical kit from Eskridge’s home.

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Trump says oil reserves would run out in 4 weeks without Iran deal, risking ‘bedlam’

President Trump said Wednesday that oil reserves could have run out in four weeks if the Strait of Hormuz were not opened.

“We run out of reserves at about four weeks,” Trump said in France while at the Group of Seven summit, discussing the recent memorandum of understanding with Iran. “You know, there are reserves all over the world, and we would really run out, and there’ll be a time when you wouldn’t be able to get it.”

He said it would be “bedlam” if the oil ran out.

“What this does is it allows the ships to go,” he said of the Iran deal. “If we keep bombing, those ships won’t be going.”

It’s not entirely clear whether Trump was referring to U.S. or global oil inventories. The White House declined to elaborate, referring The Hill back to Trump’s original remarks.

In recent weeks, the International Energy Agency (IEA), an organization of oil consuming countries, has warned of declining oil reserves.

IEA head Fatih Birol said last month that oil reserve releases were helping to keep up the market supply, but he warned the reserves “are not endless.”

He indicated at the time that because of the war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz, only a few weeks of commercial inventories were remaining. 

The IEA also warned in May that oil demand would exceed supply this year.

At the start of the war, both the U.S. and other IEA countries announced they would release oil from their strategic reserves, putting 400 million additional barrels onto the market.

As part of the announcement, the Trump administration said it would release 172 million barrels from its strategic reserve. The releases were set to occur over a 120-day period.

At the time, the U.S. strategic reserve comprised about 415 million barrels of oil, meaning the release of an additional 172 million would eventually bring the reserve down to about 243 million unless barrels were added or subtracted for other reasons.

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Handwritten Epstein Notes Found, Confirm He Wanted to Hurt Trump as Badly as Possible, Wasn’t Friend at All

This isn’t the kind of news liberals generally see fit to print.

The New York Times Magazine this week published a mammoth look at the last days of life for sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, apparently aimed at establishing firmly whether the official finding that Epstein committed suicide actually holds water

On that front, the effort is a failure, but the notoriously liberal publication did manage to cement one fact — and it’s not the kind of fact its liberal readership craves when it comes to President Donald Trump.

Since Trump’s return to the White House in 2025, political opponents who spent four years forgetting that Epstein ever existed have suddenly morphed into Torquemada-level fanatics about the affairs of the late, unlamented Epstein.

As usual for the left, the goal has nothing to do with the truth — Epstein’s associates were overwhelmingly leftish (even if you leave Bill Clinton out of it), and his political contributions all leaned decidedly in the Democratic direction.

The aim of the left instead is to try to link Epstein and his evil to Trump in any way imaginable — to make it appear the two men were friends and that Trump is somehow tainted with Epstein’s crimes. But the magazine report does exactly the opposite.

In fact, Trump’s name comes up only five times in the report’s nearly 150 paragraphs, twice as a means of establishing another person’s identity (former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, former Trump Attorney General Robert Barr), and three times in phrases that make it clear Epstein was anything but a friend of the man who’s now in the Oval Office.

In one paragraph describing the methodology behind the mammoth report, the article stated:

“We obtained about a dozen pages of other notes handwritten by Epstein in jail that were also previously unseen — including some in which he tried and failed to come up with significant information he might have on Donald Trump to offer to prosecutors,” the report stated. (Emphasis added.)

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‘Slash the Pentagon Act’ Would Cap Trump’s Military Budget To Fund Healthcare, Education, and More

Democratic US Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts took aim Monday at President Donald Trump’s illegal war of choice on Iran and request for a record $1.5 trillion in total military-related spending authorization by introducing legislation that would cap the Pentagon budget at half that amount.

Markey introduced the Slash the Pentagon Act at a Capitol Hill press conference that took place “as Americans struggle to pay for healthcare, rent, electricity, groceries, and gas, while Trump has spent over $100 billion on his expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary war with Iran.”

“Instead of funding Medicaid and education or investing in veterans’ care, Republicans want to pad the pockets of gold-plated defense contractors with billions more dollars for weapons and wars we do not need,” Markey said at the press conference.

“Just before SpaceX’s IPO made Elon Musk a trillionaire, Trump gave SpaceX billions in contracts for his expensive and ineffective ‘Golden Dome’ system,” Markey continued. “Coincidence? No, corruption.”

“It’s time to put people before the Pentagon and make major cuts to Trump’s bloated and wasteful defense spending,” the senator added. “We should invest in our hospitals, schools, affordable housing, and the real security American families need right now – not expensive wars and weapons that make us less safe.”

Markey’s bill comes just days after the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 18-9 to advance the $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027, and the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee approved the Fiscal Year 2027 Defense Appropriations Bill during a closed-door markup. The House bill provides $1.072 trillion for the Pentagon and other military-related activities, a $234 billion increase from this year’s enacted level.

The Trump administration’s broader national security proposal requests nearly $1.5 trillion in total defense-related spending for 2027, which includes $350 billion in supplemental funding for munitions production, shipbuilding, missile defense, drones, artificial intelligence, and other long-term military programs.

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Trump Turns the Tables, Says He Will Not Approve FISA Extension Without Save America Act – Pulte Will Remain as Acting DNI Until US Attorney Pick is Approved

President Trump checkmated the Democrats and RINOs early on Wednesday morning, announcing that the Senate hearing on Jay Clayton to serve as Director of National Intelligence will be canceled, and that Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte will remain in place to serve as acting DNI. 

This comes amid the ongoing debate over FISA Section 702, which the Intelligence Community uses for warrantless surveillance on national security threats– as well as innocent Americans.

“The Republicans agreed with Dumocrats to remove very fair, and talented, William Pulte, from serving as Acting DNI in return for getting FISA approved by the Dumocrats,’ Trump said in a statement this morning.

“However, the Republicans moved so fast with the hearings of the Great Jay Clayton, current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, that Pulte would be gone before the Dumocrats would vote on FISA. Now, the Dumocrats are saying they will vote against FISA — So, the Republicans wound up having fulfilled their commitment, but Dumocrats broke the Deal.”

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US Official Says Striking Iran Was Intended to “Maintain The Ceasefire”

Shortly after midnight, the United States struck Iran’s southern port city of Bandar Abbas, which is home to a naval base. A US official described the actions as “measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire.”

In addition to the strikes, the US official told media outlets that American forces shot down four Iranian kamikaze drones that “posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz” and had also struck a ground control station in Bandar Abbas that “was about to launch a fifth drone.”

Previously, there had been reports of the US striking Iranian naval vessels with fighter jets. The US called these attacks “self-defense,” while Iran called them a ceasefire violation.

The IRGC later released a statement saying it targeted a US base involved in the earlier strike on a site near Bandar Abbas Airport. “The aggressor bears full responsibility for the consequences,” the statement said, putting the blame on the US.

The current ceasefire has held since April 8th, as the US and Iran continue negotiations to end the war.

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Trump Moves to Expand Weapons Manufacturing, Strengthen National Defense

Following months of escalating tensions with Iran, President Donald Trump is pushing to boost domestic weapons manufacturing, invoking emergency powers as his administration eyes billions in new military spending from Congress.

A memo went public on Tuesday showing that Trump actually signed the order back on June 11. It activates the Defense Production Act—a relic of the Cold War that lets the government cut through red tape, jump to the front of the line for manufacturing, and fix supply chain bottlenecks.

“I hereby find that conditions exist which may pose a direct threat to the national defense or its preparedness programs,” Trump wrote. “In particular, systemic constraints in the munitions industrial base, including limited production capacity, fragile supply chains, long-lead dependencies, and related production bottlenecks, may impair the ability of the United States to produce, sustain, and expand the availability of munitions, missiles, and equipment required for the national defense.”

The move comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lobbies lawmakers to approve roughly $350 billion in additional Pentagon funding. Administration officials argue the money is needed to restore weapons inventories and strengthen military readiness after extensive operations tied to the conflict with Iran.

Following meetings with Hegseth on Capitol Hill, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said the discussions centered largely on defense procurement and ensuring the military has the resources necessary to acquire critical weapons systems. The Defense Production Act grants presidents broad authority during national emergencies, including the ability to require companies to give priority to government contracts. The law has previously been used during national crises ranging from natural disasters to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The administration is also preparing a formal request for supplemental defense funding, though questions remain about whether Congress will approve the full amount sought by the White House.

Some Republicans have expressed support for boosting military spending, while others want more information about the long-term costs associated with operations involving Iran. Democrats, meanwhile, have indicated they are unlikely to support a major funding package without additional briefings from administration officials and greater clarity regarding U.S. objectives in the region.

“As long as we are at war with Iran, I will not allow a supplemental to serve as the de facto authorization for the war. And I’ve been debating this with Republican colleagues,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said.

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