Tag: donald trump

Iran ‘Fully Prepared’ To Resume War, We Don’t Trust Trump: Iran FM

The two big weekend Iran war developments are 1) President Trump has rejected Tehran’s seven day ceasefire roadmap proposal, and reportedly plans to resume bombing Iran – likely after the November midterm elections; 2) the Iranian government announced Sunday its forces have targeted 19 ships in the Strait of Hormuz over the past two nights, per Fars News Agency.

The Fars report indicated the Iranians hit 12 vessels Friday night and 7 more Saturday – though Western sources have been slow to report or confirm this, and the Pentagon has not initially commented.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has meanwhile once again emphasized in the wake of Trump’s rejection of the latest proposal that on the one hand Tehran stands ‘ready’ for renewed fighting and won’t back down – and on the other has not yet abandoned diplomacy.

“We are fully prepared for the war to be resumed. We stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war,” Araghchi told NBC News Meet the Press on Sunday.

He was specifically asked about the Friday Wall Street Journal report which strongly suggested Trump is ready to resume bombing the Islamic Republic after the midterms.

But Araghchi offered the key caveat and opening: “At the same time, we stand ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose,“ he said.

The top Iranian diplomat further make clear his country is not backing off its initial conditions to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz:

Our proposal is very clear. We are ready to open the strait if certain things are done by the U.S. And these certain things are not new, have not come from the space. These are our rights, that we want to be respected. First of all, we want to end this war of aggression. They started this war eight months ago with the hope that in two, three days, you know, they can win the war. It’s now eight months. And we want it to be ended. We want our money, our assets, which are illegally frozen, to be released. We want, you know, to be able to sell our oil. So we want certain things that the U.S. has already committed itself to in the previous, you know, deals.

The main conditions can be summarized as the end of the war on all fronts, the release of frozen assets and the end of the naval blockade.

The NBC show host tried to hold Araghchi down on Iran’s insistence that its funds be unfrozen and returned – which is proving a tall ask from a White House which has unleashed its ‘Economic D-Day’ campaign seeking to totally isolate Iran.

The interview transcript is quite illustrative of the main impasse:

KRISTEN WELKER: But Mr. Foreign Minister, the ambassador’s point was the United States is not going to unfreeze assets on the front end. It’s not going to lift sanctions on the front end. Is it possible to negotiate a new peace plan at this juncture? Or has diplomacy failed?

FOREIGN MINISTER ABBAS ARAGHCHI: Well, why aren’t they ready to release our money? It is our own money. It is not, you know, any other’s money.

KRISTEN WELKER: Because they want to see some actionable items from Iran, like opening the Strait of Hormuz, before they do that. Has diplomacy failed, Mr. Foreign Minister?

FOREIGN MINISTER ABBAS ARAGHCHI: Well, there is always hope for diplomacy. But to be honest with you, we have no reason to come back to diplomacy and engage with this administration once again, because of how they’ve behaved in the past two years. You know, in 2025 they offered negotiations…

And so clearly the situation is back to square one in terms of the stalemate that’s been on from the beginning, and has persisted for seven months, as Washington finds itself in yet another quagmire in the Middle East.

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‘Every Taxpayer… Should Be Outraged’: Anger Spreads Over ‘Illegal’ US-Funded Pro-Trump Ad

Outrage mounted Friday over a taxpayer-funded television advertisement glorifying President Donald Trump, with critics describing the 30-second spot as self-aggrandizing propaganda and questioning whether the administration violated federal law restricting the use of public money for partisan communications.

The ad—which aired this week on outlets including Fox News, Newsmax, and CBS—features a dizzying montage of Trump at rallies, White House events, sporting events, and alongside military personnel, captioned, “AMERICA WILL NEVER BE A COMMUNIST COUNTRY.”

The refrain of R&B singer JMSN’s “Love Me” plays over the rapid-fire images. The spot concludes with a voiceover from Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White praising Trump as “the toughest, most resilient person that I’ve ever met.”

At the bottom of the screen, an alarming disclosure appears, reading, “Paid for by the US government.”

The White House dismissed criticism of the ad—which aired ahead of November’s midterm elections—by calling the spot a “public service announcement” intended to remind Americans “to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending.”

However, on Friday, US Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Jack Reed (D-RI), along with Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), excoriated the clip.

“This is the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America, and it is an egregious and utterly illegal misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars,” the four senior congressional appropriators said in a joint statement.

“The law is not complicated,” the lawmakers added. “You cannot use taxpayer dollars for political advertisements.”

Federal appropriations law—including the funding bill Trump signed earlier this year—prohibits the use of government funds for unauthorized “publicity or propaganda purposes,” while the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has interpreted the prohibition to encompass communications whose obvious purpose is “self-aggrandizement” or “puffery,” as well as “purely partisan” communications.

The consumer advocacy watchdog group Public Citizen on Friday filed a complaint with the GAO alleging the ad “violates laws prohibiting the use of government resources for propaganda, the Hatch Act, and other related laws.”

“Whether or not President Trump was personally involved in the ad, it was conceived, produced, and distributed by Trump’s White House staff,” Public Citizen said.

US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Friday on social media that “every taxpayer, no matter your party, should be outraged by this.”

“Your money is being used to fund campaign ads for Trump,” the senator added. “It’s totally, completely [illegal]. He’s stealing your money for his campaign.”

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Federal appeals court orders Trump admin to release Los Angeles homeless funds

federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the Department of Housing and Urban Development to release federal funding that has already been allocated to homeless service organizations in Los Angeles but was not distributed. 

The court order was in response to the Trump administration’s attempt to oversee how homeless service organizations in Los Angeles can seek millions of dollars in federal funding, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angles Homeless Services Authority was seeking up to $239 million on behalf of dozens of organizations, but HUD suspended LAHSA in June, citing a record of mismanagement, and directed the groups to apply directly through the federal government.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday largely upheld a district court ruling in a 2-1 split, which restored LAHSA as the applicant for the organizations.

The court determined that HUD “chose to suspend LAHSA at a time when it would leave the Los Angeles region particularly vulnerable” with ill effects on “vulnerable populations, critical programs and ongoing services.” 

“It is likely that its plan is unworkable and, at this late stage, extremely difficult if not virtually impossible to implement,” the decision added.

The new deadline for LAHSA to apply for HUD funding is Oct. 14. The original deadline was the end of August.

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Why Even A Temporary Diesel Export Ban Is A Bad Idea

Energy analysts spent much of the past week laying out all the reasons why a presidential ban on exports of diesel fuel is a no good, terrible, very bad idea. As the Institute for Energy Research detailed on Thursday, such a ban would not only fail to lower diesel pump prices for any appreciable amount of time, it would also inevitably result in higher gasoline prices and supply shortages as refiners are forced to cut back runs because they have no outlet for the diesel volumes currently being exported to the global market. 

Late in the week, we saw the emergence of an alternative proposal from politicians and industry critics: A temporary ban of “only” 90 days. This, they claim, would have the benefit of helping Republican candidates in their mid-term election campaigns while also allowing refiners to see a clear light at the end of the tunnel.

As a siren song it all sounds lovely. But in the real world, it’s also nonsense.

Whether we like it or not, capital does not care if some farmers in Iowa, Nebraska and Texas might go under because diesel prices are too high. Capital does care about two hard factors: The anticipated rate of return on its investment, and the consistent application of U.S. laws and regulations. 

A 90-day pause might as well be a permanent ban where capital deployment is concerned. It would send the signal to investors that the government, even in a Republican presidency, might step in at any time to do major damage to your rates of return. 

Former President Joe Biden’s killing of the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office in 2021 did enormous harm to that second key factor. Biden and his autopen cancelled that long-term multi-billion-dollar project which was already under construction without siting a single violation of U.S. law or regulation. The developer — Trans-Canada, now TC Energy — had moved forward with its federal permits fully secured with the faith that no future administration would intervene to cancel the billions of dollars it had already invested by January 20, 2021. 

A Trump intervention into diesel markets would do similar harm. Perhaps even more given that it would send the signal to investors that they now cannot have faith in the consistent application of the law even in a Republican administration. 

The current crisis shines a spotlight on the folly inherent in half a century of federal regulations that have made it near-impossible to build new refineries in the United States. America needs additional refining capacity and fast to be able to restore the country’s level of energy security to pre-Iran Conflict levels. 

But here’s the thing: These are multi-billion-dollar projects which take years, often decades to execute. Convincing investors to consider pouring billions of capital dollars into such projects requires their confidence that U.S. law will be applied fairly and consistently across multiple presidents of both political parties. Biden’s Keystone XL cancellation made doing that much harder. 

Sure, there is a new greenfield refinery under construction at the Port of Brownsville, Texas today— but that project benefits from a big injection of capital by India’s Reliance Industries. A big question remains whether American investors will have the confidence to step up and invest in the series of new refining operations needed to keep more of America’s domestic production at home. 

Any ban on exports for any length of time implemented for transparently political reasons would almost certainly answer that question in the negative. America cannot afford for that to happen.

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Stop Mad King Donald’s Iran War: An Open Letter to Members of the US Congress

Dear Members of Congress,

In truly deranged remarks to world leaders at the UN, Donald Trump declared that “I have a big decision to make,” whether to negotiate a deal with Iran or instead to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and drive Iran “into hell with no chance of survival.”

He posed it as his personal choice. The fact that the American people are dead set against Trump’s war means nothing. And as for the voters, he added that he gives “absolutely no credence” to the coming midterm elections in deciding on his actions and on Iran’s fate.

Nothing binds this President. He is not bound by law, the Constitution, the UN Charter, or public opinion at home and abroad. When asked at the start of the year whether he has any limits on his power, he said “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Trump opened his speech with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, hailing America’s freedom. The fact is that Trump’s authoritarianism far outdoes that of King George III, against whom the colonies rebelled. Among the founders’ indictments of Mad King George was that “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.” Yet our own mad king has decided that the survival of a whole civilization is in his hands alone.

Trump is emboldened in his contempt for Congress because the Republican members of Congress have abdicated their constitutional responsibilities, terrified of their own president, and forsaking their constituents for campaign lucre from AIPAC and the military-industrial complex.

The Constitution is unambiguous regarding Congress’s responsibility. Article I, Section 8 assigns Congress, not the President, the sole power to declare war. That is not a choice or an option. The Constitution doesn’t say that Congress can play dead and let the President declare war. The Framers made this choice deliberately, because they were explicitly rejecting the power of a king to take the nation to war.

In Federalist 69, Hamilton assured the public that the President’s war powers would be far less than the British monarch’s. Madison stated the principle plainly in a letter to Jefferson in 1798: “The constitution supposes, what the History of all Govts demonstrates, that the Ex. is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.”

The founders’ careful design has been overturned because of the unconstitutional subservience of the Republican members of Congress to Trump and to the military-industrial-digital complex. And yes, under Democratic presidents, most Democratic members of Congress also looked the other way when those presidents chose to go to war.

The war with Iran is Trump’s folly but Congress’s disgrace for not stopping it. It is a war without a purpose that has created mass suffering in Iran, tens of billions of dollars of direct outlays, and staggering damage to American military bases in eight countries of the Middle East. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent world and American prices soaring for oil, gas, fertilizers, and more. And the world has duly noted that Iran can hold its own against US aggression, albeit at great sacrifice to the people of Iran and the region.

America’s much vaunted AI battlefield has been exposed in the most horrifying way. On the first day of the war, an American missile struck the girls’ elementary school there, killing more than 150 people, most of them girls aged seven to twelve, and the military’s own inquiry reportedly found that over-reliance on artificial intelligence contributed to the targeting. Trump blamed “Iran or somebody else,” and seven months later the administration has offered no findings, no apology and no compensation to the families.

The President’s threat to annihilate a member state of the United Nations, delivered from the General Assembly podium, disgraced Trump in front of the world. It also violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits even the threat of force against another state. Nearly all the world stands aghast.

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Trump asked China’s president if he wants to buy US arms, ambassador says

The U.S. ambassador to China says President Donald Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping if he wanted to buy weapons from the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has justified the pending U.S. arms sale to Taiwan to Chinese President Xi Jinping by downplaying it as just one of many sales Washington makes around the world — even asking Xi if he’d be in the market for U.S. arms, Trump’s ambassador to China said on Sunday.

David Perdue said Trump raised the prospect of the arms sales from the U.S. to its ascendant geopolitical rival, an unlikely offer that if consummated would upend generations of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan and potentially expose U.S. technology to a potential foe. Perdue, speaking to Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” days after Trump hosted Xi for a state visit in Washington, didn’t specify when the offer was made.

Bream had cited concerns from Republican and Democratic lawmakers over delayed aid packages and weapons orders to Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy, to defend itself from China’s threat to invade the island. Bream asked if the U.S. is denying Taiwan to appease the Chinese president, who visited Trump last week.

Perdue pushed back on the suggestion, stating that Trump “is as strong on Taiwan as I’ve ever seen anybody” and has sold it plenty of weapons. Perdue also said Trump and Xi continue to talk about future U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

“But President Trump continues to say, ‘Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,’” Perdue said. “He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some, at one point.”

The U.S. is bound by its own laws to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. While not recognizing Taiwan as a country, the U.S. is the island’s strongest informal backer and arms provider. But multiple U.S. leaders have left ambiguous whether they would commit military force to defend the U.S. ally should China invade.

China has pressed Washington to halt the arms sales, most prominently during a previous summit in May between Trump and Xi in Beijing. After that meeting, the United States paused the sale of a record-breaking $14 billion package — and Trump described arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

In their private talks at the White House last week, Xi pressed Trump to oppose Taiwan independence, according to Chinese state media.

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The Stage Is Set, The Fuse Is Lit, And 3 Global Conflicts Are On The Brink Of Detonation

We are facing one of the most dangerous chapters in human history. For years, I have been warning about 3 global conflicts which would collectively make up World War III. Unfortunately, the stage has now been set for a polycrisis of epic proportions. The war with Iran threatens to greatly escalate, the continuous bombardment of Kyiv has NATO on high alert, and China has decided to literally surround Taiwan with large numbers of ships. Tensions are running sky high, and events in Europe, the Middle East and Asia could all spiral out of control at any moment.

Last night, fighting in the Middle East erupted once again.

The U.S. conducted airstrikes on Iranian military targets on Larak Island, and in response the Iranians fired off at least 8 ballistic missiles…

It appears that the Iranian response really angered President Trump.

On Truth Social, he posted a message in which is declared Iran to be “DEAD” and “a Failed Nation”…

Later on Monday, we learned that Trump had told Trey Yingst of Fox News that the U.S. will “hit them hard” in response to the Iranian ballistic missile attack…

That would seem to indicate that a large wave of airstrikes is coming tonight.

We shall wait and see what happens.

On the other side, the Iranians are warning that their response to any new U.S. airstrikes will be “dozens of times greater”…

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Trump Ends Joe Biden’s Electric Vehicle Mandate, Says Reduced Waste Will Lower Price of Cars

President Trump took to Truth Social tonight and announced that he is approving new fuel economy standards which will effectively terminate Joe Biden’s electric vehicle mandate.

According to Trump, this move will reduce waste and lower the cost of cars for American families. It’s also great news for the auto manufacturers.

All of this is great news.

Townhall reports:

President Donald Trump says that he has approved new fuel economy standards that should cut the costs of the vehicle market.

“BIG DAY FOR AMERICAN AUTO WORKERS AND CAR BUYERS! I have just approved new Fuel Economy Standards that TERMINATE Sleepy Joe Biden and Pete Boot-EDGE-EDGE’s ridiculous EV Mandate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The Dumocrats cost our Great Auto Manufacturers $Billions, forced Americans into cars they never wanted, and wasted Billions on Chargers that were never built.”

The new standards terminate the EPA’s electric vehicle mandate.

“These new Standards will take the waste out of ⁠building cars in America. That means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful, and safe car,” Trump wrote. “Far better than the Environmental Monsters that we were building heretofore. Every Manufacturer, from General Motors to Ford to Stellantis, has called me wanting to build here, and now they can!”

The final rule isn’t available yet. Under former President Joe Biden, the EPA had ordered about 67 percent of new light-duty and medium-duty vehicle sales to be electric by 2032.

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Cuba In Crosshairs: US Army Reportedly Checks Troop Availability As Trump Says Communist Regime “Will Fail”

President Trump told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that the failed communist island nation of Cuba would see freedom, as the U.S. has not been shy about its intentions to kick the communist regime out of Havana. The U.S. has employed gunboat diplomacy through an oil blockade this year, as the failed state has seen its economy collapse even further.

“My administration is also seeking a fundamental change in the situation in Cuba, where the communist regime is under great pressure, the biggest pressure they’ve ever been under. It’s an absolutely failed state; it’s failing like never before, and it will fall,” Trump said in his speech at UNGA.

With Trump’s UNGA comments in mind, CBS News reports that it has reviewed an internal Army memo assessing the availability of military police, medical teams, and logistics units for possible use under Southern Command within 90 to 120 days.

The memo does not mention Cuba, identify troop numbers, or specify an operation. It also contains no indication that units have received deployment orders so far.

Here’s more color from the report:

The document reviewed by CBS News says Army Reserve headquarters is seeking feedback from subordinate commands on the possible availability of six types of formations that would fall under the authority of U.S. Southern Command. The units would “possibly [be] needed in 90-120 days,” according to the message, which directs commands to provide feedback to Army Reserve headquarters by Sept. 25. 

Among the units is a combat sustainment support battalion that specializes in coordinating logistics such as transportation, maintenance, fuel and supply needs, along with an engineer battalion. The document also seeks an expeditionary sustainment command that would oversee logistics across a theater of operations. 

The document generated last week also calls for a medical brigade to command and coordinate medical units, as well as a forward resuscitative and surgical detachment to provide emergency surgery and trauma care closer to U.S. forces. Finally, the document seeks a military police brigade — these units typically oversee military police forces responsible for security, detention and other law enforcement missions. 

In July, CBS reported that military planners had examined an air assault involving thousands of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division. Another report by Politico in August suggested that the U.S. intelligence community had “sent spies and assets” to Cuba. Specifically, the outlet reported that the CIA had increased its presence on the island, which sits about 90 miles south of Florida.

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U.S. Amb. to China: ‘Don’t Know’ When Taiwan Military Sale Will Happen, ‘Trump Has a Schedule of His Own’

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said that “we don’t know” when the sale of $14 billion in military hardware for Taiwan that is on President Donald Trump’s desk will be signed, “President Trump has a schedule of his own.” And there hasn’t been any change to U.S. policy on Taiwan.

Co-host Bill Hemmer asked, “Did anything change with regard to the U.S. position on Taiwan in these meetings?”

Perdue answered, “Absolutely not. In Busan, it didn’t even come up. In May, President Xi brought it up. President Trump listened actively. And, in this meeting, it came up briefly. But let me be very clear, President Trump, since he was inaugurated, has not changed the position on the United States’ One China Policy. We fully support the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Communiqués, and the Six Assurances. President Trump, again, echoed that position of the United States federal government. We have not changed our position on Taiwan, we don’t support independence, but we really don’t support coercion, either.”

Hemmer then asked, “There is a $14 billion military hardware sale that is on his desk and has been there for some time that has not yet been signed that would go directly to helping Taipei defend itself. When will that be signed?”

Perdue responded, “Well, we don’t know. President Trump has a schedule of his own. And he has already sold 50% more arms to Taiwan than any other president since 1979. So, he’s already demonstrated that support. But, again, our position is, we want peace in the strait, we want a peaceful resolution. This is between the people of Taiwan and the people of China.”

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