Tag: perpetual war

Pay Up, Shut Up, and Cheer: How Washington Gaslit America Into Netanyahu’s Forever War

The cost of diesel that hauls every loaf of bread, every pallet of medicine and every bag of fertilizer in this country just set an all-time record. The national average hit $6.44 a gallon, up 71 percent since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Gasoline sits at $4.46, at least six states are already above $5, and Californians are paying $6.11. Shipping giant CMA CGM just slapped an emergency fuel surcharge on its cargo, and the Congressional Budget Office projects the war will add half a percentage point to inflation in early 2027.

But at least Iran doesn’t have a nuke, right?

The president’s response to this infuriating perpetuation of a new forever war sure seems like that’s his stance entirely as he tells you to pay up and smile. Last week Trump said Americans are “going to have to pay some extra for gas” to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and called it “a very inexpensive price to pay.” Back in March he was blunter, declaring that anyone who objected to the price spike was a fool: “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” This is the same man who campaigned on two-dollar gas and who is still promising it will fall “below Two Dollars a gallon” once we “WIN.”

The problem is that you are being asked to pay for stopping a weapon that, according to most of the world, including Trump’s own intelligence community, Iran was not building. In March 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon” and that Khamenei had not reauthorized the program he suspended in 2003. When reporters asked Trump about that testimony, he replied, “I don’t care what she said.” Days later he bombed Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan and told the nation the sites had been “completely and totally obliterated.” This blatant lie would then set the nefarious stage for an endless conveyor belt of lies that would run for well over a year down the throats of Americans.

If the program was obliterated in June 2025, what exactly were we bombing in February 2026? Trump claimed that without the strikes Iran would have had a bomb within two weeks, while the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said there was no evidence Iran was building one. Gabbard’s own 2026 testimony stated that the intelligence community assessed Iran was not rebuilding its enrichment capability after the 2025 attacks. As he said on our podcast, the nation’s top counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, resigned rather than support a war on a country that posed “no imminent threat to our nation.”

Gabbard’s own path tells the story of how Washington swallows people whole and how that assembly line of lies fills their worlds with half-truths and deceptions designed to keep Americans in the dark. In 2019 she warned that a war with Iran would make Iraq “look like a cakewalk,” and in Congress she introduced the No More Presidential Wars Act to require congressional authorization before any attack on Iran. In 2024 she told voters that a vote for Trump was a vote to end wars. Then, after Trump publicly dismissed her, she posted that the “dishonest media” had taken her out of context and that Iran could build a weapon “within weeks to months.” Shameful indeed. When Senator Jon Ossoff asked her point blank whether the intelligence community had assessed an imminent nuclear threat, she answered that only the president can make that determination. Her spine, like that of an earthworm, as she slipped away back to Hawaii, having betrayed all those who supported her.

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At Least 150 Killed In Yemen Within Two Days Amid Indiscriminate Saudi Air Campaign

At least 150 people have been killed in Yemen since Sunday as Saudi warplanes launch indiscriminate strikes across the country and clashes continue between Ansarallah-led forces and Riyadh-backed proxies.

“The death toll from Saudi airstrikes, clashes, and artillery fire in the governorates of Taiz, Al-Jawf, Marib and Saada stands at 118,” AFP reported on 22 September, citing what it said were Ansarallah-linked military sources.

Sources close to the internationally recognized government, supported by Riyadh, say 36 of their fighters have been killed, according to AFP.

Sirens sounded in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday due to more Yemeni strikes launched in response to the kingdom’s aggression against Yemen.

Hours earlier, Saudi strikes killed several people in Yemen.

An early morning strike by the Saudi-led coalition, targeting a residential home in the city of Mokha, in Yemen’s Taiz Governorate, killed six people, including two infants and a woman.

Several others were injured. Overnight, Yemen’s retaliatory military operations triggered sirens across the kingdom.

“From Monday evening until Tuesday morning, Saudi Arabia experienced one of its most difficult nights as a state of alert and anxiety turned into a permanent and pressing condition – from Najran, Asir, Jizan, and Abha to Jeddah, Yanbu, and Al-Ula – amid the escalation of Yemeni deterrence,” Yemeni news outlet Al-Masirah TV reported.

A day earlier, the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) said Saudi Arabia has launched over 900 strikes on Yemen since the latest escalation began several weeks ago.

“The Saudi enemy carried out 157 airstrikes and missile attacks targeting the governorates of Al-Jawf, Taiz, Saada, and Marib, using F-15 and Typhoon warplanes that took off from the Khamis Mushait and Taif air bases, along with missile attacks launched from Najran and Jizan,” the YAF statement read.

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NATO member moves closer to lifting nuclear weapons ban

Lithuania’s parliament has backed a constitutional amendment that would lift a ban on nuclear weapons, thus bringing the NATO member a step closer to hosting them on its territory. Russia has warned the Baltic country, which borders its Kaliningrad Region, that such a move would have significant security implications.

The proposal was backed by 99 lawmakers on Tuesday, with 13 voting against and five abstaining. Two more votes are required, scheduled for October 6 and January 12, 2027. At least 94 of Lithuania’s 141 MPs must support the amendment in each vote.

The measure would remove Article 137 of the Lithuanian constitution, which prohibits weapons of mass destruction and foreign military bases on the country’s territory. Supporters argue that the provision no longer reflects Lithuania’s security needs, while opponents have raised concerns over sovereignty and called for the issue to be put to a referendum.

President Gitanas Nauseda has backed removing the restriction, while Lithuanian officials have argued that allowing nuclear weapons would strengthen deterrence against Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly rejected claims that it intends to attack NATO countries.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova last week called the proposed change “absolutely irresponsible,” accusing NATO members of pursuing provocative policies and treating Lithuania as a potential staging ground against Russia.

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Bibi: Send More Bombs

As we approach the three-year mark of the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Israel has signaled that it has every intention of continuing its massive bombing campaigns against Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and possibly other countries. And Donald Trump has signaled that he is ready to help. On September 15, the Washington Post reported a decision by the Trump administration to provide Israel with some 40,000 of the US Air Force’s massive 2,000-pound bombs, the largest such transfer to any country in many years.

Bombs Away for Zion

Specifically, the administration announced that it was prepared to “sell” to Israel a $2.8 billion package of US Air Force 2000-pound bombs, consisting of 20,000 MK-84 bombs and another 20,000 BLU-117 bombs. The two versions are similar in size, weight, and functionality. Although both models are considered “general purpose” and “dumb” bombs, they can be configured with various guidance kits into precision guided munitions, aka “smart bombs.” Presumably, Israel will use its own guidance kits which it produces domestically. The administration’s package for Israel also includes 20,000 of the USAF’s I-2000 penetrator warheads, which function as a heavy-duty bomb body for the MK-84 or the BLU-117, effectively converting the munition into a hard target penetrator or “bunker buster.”

Israel’s profligate use of massive munitions on civilian populations has drawn international criticism since the opening weeks of the Gaza conflict. According to CNN, “In the first month of its war in Gaza, Israel dropped hundreds of massive bombs, many of them capable of killing or wounding people more than 1,000 feet away…. Satellite imagery from those early days of the war reveals more than 500 impact craters over 12 meters (40 feet) in diameter, consistent with those left behind by 2,000-pound bombs. Those are four times heavier than the largest bombs the United States dropped on ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, during the war against the extremist group there. Weapons and warfare experts blame the extensive use of heavy munitions such as the 2,000-pound bomb for the soaring death toll. The population of Gaza is packed together much more tightly than almost anywhere else on earth, so the use of such heavy munitions has a profound effect.”

“The use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area as densely populated as Gaza means it will take decades for communities to recover,” said John Chappell, advocacy and legal fellow at CIVIC, a DC-based group focused on minimizing civilian harm in conflict. Such massive bombs are “normally used sparingly by Western militaries, experts say, because of their potential impact on densely populated areas like Gaza. International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate bombing.”

Separately, a writer for the Concord Monitor has described the catastrophic effects of a MK-84 2000-pound bomb being dropped on a crowded residential area such as Gaza: “The detonation will create an instantaneous fireball that will lash out at temperatures exceeding 8,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The explosion will carve a crater 50 feet wide and 35 feet deep and hurl 10,000 pounds of rock and dirt debris at supersonic speed. The lethal radius will be a quarter-mile wide and will kill all the people within that area. But the destruction will not stop there. The bomb will rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wider blast radius. The blast waves will be felt up to half a mile away, rupturing lungs and tearing off limbs. A single bomb will destroy entire city blocks.”

Israel regularly boasts about the professionalism of its military and likes to call the IDF the “most moral army in the world.” Its record in action tells a vastly different story. One curious decision by the IDF that apparently has never been challenged by the US is why it has opted for 2000-pound bombs against “soft” civilian targets, when 250-pound, 500-pound and 1000-pound munitions, which are readily available from the US, are far cheaper and cause far less collateral damage. Could it be that Israel’s real goal is simply genocide, a charge that it has claimed is unfounded

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U.S. To Establish Two New Military Bases In Greenland — Narsarsuaq And Mestersvig Sites Agreed At UNGA

The United States is set to establish two new military bases in Greenland under a trilateral agreement with Denmark and Greenland expected to be signed Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

Washington intends to reopen Narsarsuaq, the site of the former Bluie West One installation that operated through the 1950s, as well as establish a new presence at Mestersvig on Greenland’s remote east coast. The Mestersvig site currently serves as a forward outpost for the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish special forces unit conducting Arctic reconnaissance.

The two new locations will supplement Pituffik Space Base — formerly Thule Air Base — which has served as the sole remaining American installation in Greenland since the Cold War drawdown. At its Cold War peak, the United States maintained 17 military installations across Greenland and stationed more than 10,000 personnel there. The planned expansion represents a measured but significant return to that posture.

Three sources familiar with the negotiations confirmed the agreement’s provisions, while noting that details remained subject to final adjustment until the document is formally signed. A White House spokesperson declined to discuss specifics, reiterating only that the deal would “secure and defend the security of Greenland and the United States.”

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Ukraine Interfering in US Elections

Ukraine has dark-money PACS targeting anyone they view as against perpetual war. They are now targeting Anna Paulina Luna since she voted against the Russia Sanctions bill. Just like Israel, which interferes so in our elections and poured a ton of money to defeat Massie, Ukraine is doing that to Luna.

Quite frankly, I am sick of this foreign interference to keep fleecing America to fund their endless wars. Luna voted against the Russian sanctions bill that made no sense when you are trying to cut a peace deal. It did give Trump power over tariffs. The Democrats wanted the sanctions so the Republicans stuffed in the tariffs. That was the compromise.

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Israeli-Ukrainian Man on Jewish Pilgrimage to Uman Is Captured by Kiev’s Man-Catchers and Forcibly Conscripted into the Army

From a religious pilgrimage directly to the front.

We have been reporting here on TGP on the absolute tragedy that is the forced conscription in Ukraine (also called ‘busification’).

Every day, new videos arise of man-catchers forcibly drafting men to fight and die for the Kiev regime.

Unlike in the early days of the war, when people lined up to fight, now no one is up to be sent to Volodymyr Zelensky’s meat grinder.

Those who haven’t fled Ukraine either live hidden inside their homes or else risk being caught and sent to the front lines.

Yesterday, it arose that a 49-year-old Hassidic Jew from Betar Illit, a father of six, was captured at the Ukraine-Romania border crossing.

The man was returning to Israel after a pilgrimage to spend Rosh Hashanah in the city of Uman, but was snatched and drafted into the Ukrainian army.

The Jerusalem Post reported:

“Jonathan Karlinsky Mashak from Jerusalem, a 49-year-old married ba’al teshuva who studies at a yeshiva, was born in Ukraine and immigrated to Israel about 14 years ago.

He was traveling on a bus operated by the ‘Derech Tzadikim’ company and was carrying an Israeli passport stating that he was born in the Soviet Union. However, according to a friend who was traveling with him on the bus, border officials identified him as also being a Ukrainian citizen after hearing him speak Ukrainian.”

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Bessent Says Rates Will Drop When Iran War Ends, Defends Trump On Media Ban And AI Policy

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was a guest on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning and covered a lot of ground including the interest rates, the China trade talks, AI accountability and the President’s decision to ban the White House press corps of MS NOW, CNN and Politico.

Bessent, in an interview that aired Monday morning on CNBC’s Squawk Box, shrugged off last week’s decision by the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates to 3.75% to 4% — its first rate hike since February 2023. “Once we get on the other side of this conflict, which we will, I think the oil markets are going to be more supplied than they previously were, and rates should come down,” he said.

Right now the 10-year note is yielding at 5% plus or minus on the treasuries. That’s up 100 basis points since the war with Iran began in late February. He admitted that the Treasury Department’s $5 billion plus buyback of 10- and 20-year notes on September 10 did nothing to bring down the yields on long-term bonds in the aftermath of the announcement. However, he said they would have gone up even more without the announcement.

“Since President Trump has come in, the U.S. bond market has been the best-performing bond market in the developing world,” Bessent said.

The official also spoke at length about his 12-hour meeting on Sunday with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng ahead of the Trump-Xi summit at the White House later this week. He outlined a safety framework for AI with He and established a channel to deal with any future incidents — whether caused by “uncontrollable agents,” nonstate cyber attackers, or even bioweapons. He also spoke about the November 10 expiration of the U.S.-China trade truce and how Iran’s biggest trading partner is China.

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Bessent Declares All Iran Airlines To Be ‘Shut Down Around The World’ Wednesday

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared on Monday that by Wednesday Sept. 23, “all the Iranian airlines will be shut down around the world.“

“If they land, you cannot provide them with fuel, you cannot provide them with landing services, you cannot sell them tickets, or you will be knocked out of the dollar system,” he described.

The new warning and ‘promise’ was issued after the US earlier this month imposed sanctions on “all remaining Iranian airlines” which had yet to face such penalties – thus Bessent’s new declaration is that these entities are about to collapse under the weight of Washington actions, which now is to include secondary targeting.

The Treasury Department has also lately targeted Iranian companies and industries supporting Iran’s aviation sector.

Some 27 airlines have already been sanctioned – also most recently the major Mahan Air has faced expanded sanctions (after first being targeted by Washington all the way back in 2011).

The Treasury has famed all of this as part of efforts to deny the Iranian government the ability to move “weapons, personnel, and illicit cargo”.

Bessent stated to CNBC that all Iranian airlines will be shut down globally on Sept. 23 – given that any fuel, landing, and ticket providers involved with the companies risk dollar-system exclusion.

Ironically, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and his delegation is expected to fly into New York City just the day prior, on Tuesday – to attend the UN General Assembly. He is set to give a formal address to the UN body on Wednesday.

This will provide rare opportunity for potential White House diplomacy to take place on the sidelines, which could happen as early as Tuesday.

As for the heavily sanctioned aviation industry, in recent years the Islamic Republic has suffered some significant aerial disasters, which included the May 19, 2024 death of President Ebrahim Raisi. His military helicopter went down in a rugged, mountainous area of northwestern Iran.

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Powerful Explosion Rocks Aleppo Ammo Depot In Latest Mystery Blast

A terrifying blast erupted outside the major northern Syrian city of Aleppo overnight, which caused area residents to evacuate their homes, and with sustained explosions visible for miles around.

The explosion happened at an army base in an outlying town, injuring at least four people, after which a series of blasts persisted, which unleashed shrapnel across the area.

State media outlet SANA later cited Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management which indicated an ammunition depot was detonated.

Amid local evacuations, emergency crews were on “high alert… due to the continued explosions” – after being initially unable to get close given persisting and follow-on explosions.

An eyewitness in Aleppo’s Hamdaniyeh neighborhood told AFP of a “huge explosion” and that people in the area could see “large flames in the distance”.

Typically the first fear that Syrians have is that they are once again under attack by Israeli fighter jets, given this is a scenario which has played out literally hundreds of times over the past several years of conflict. There have been no initial statements describing what caused the disaster.

But several munitions and military warehouse accidents have occurred under the new Jolani government of late.

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