Trump and Netanyahu: Two Madmen Playing God
When deranged leaders invoke divine catastrophe as a political instrument, it is not only their enemies who are consumed. Unless they are stopped, we will all be victims of these two psychopaths.
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Apr 06, 2026, Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/netanyahu-trump-psychopaths-war-criminals?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=05f9359cac-Top+News+%7C+Thu.+1%2F8%2F26_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c56d0ea580-601318790
Here is Donald Trump’s Easter message to the world:
Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Donald Trump and his partner in war crimes, Benjamin Netanyahu, are jointly waging a war of murderous aggression against Iran, a nation of 90 million people. They are in the grip of three cascading pathologies. The first is personality: both are malignant narcissists. The second is the arrogance of power: men who possess the power to command nuclear annihilation and feel, in consequence, no restraint. The third, and most dangerous of all, is religious delusion: two men who believe, and are told daily by those around them, that they are messiahs doing God’s work. Each pathology exacerbates the others, so that together they put the world in unprecedented dangerThe result is a glorification of violence not seen since the Nazi leaders. The question is whether the world’s few grownups—responsible national leaders who remain committed to international law and are willing to say so—can restrain them. It will not be easy, but they must try.
Let us start with the underlying psychological disorder. Malignant narcissism is a clinical term, not an insult. The social psychologist Erich Fromm coined the phrase in 1964 to describe Adolf Hitler, as a merger of pathological grandiosity, psychopathy, paranoia, and antisocial personality into a single character structure. The malignant narcissist is not merely vain. He is structurally incapable of genuine empathy, constitutionally immune to guilt, and driven by paranoid conviction that enemies surround him and must be destroyed. Already back in 2017, psychologist John Garnter and many other professionals were warning of Trump’s malignant narcissism.
When power faces no limit, the only remaining internal check is conscience. And the psychopath has no conscience.
Several respected psychologists and psychiatrists have evaluated Trump for psychopathy using the standardized Hare Scale and have come up with scores well above the diagnostic cutoff. See, for example, here. Psychopathy is best characterized as a lack of conscience or compassion for other human beings.
Both Trump and Netanyahu fit this profile with precision. Trump’s psychopathy was on full display when US forces destroyed a civilian bridge in Tehran, of no military significance, with at least eight civilians killed and 95 or more injured. Trump did not grieve. He gloated and promised more destruction. Netanyahu’s Passover address similarly contained not one word for the dead. No pause. No shadow of doubt. Only the triumphant catalog of enemies he has destroyed.
Paranoia drives the threat that Trump and Netanyahu have manufactured. Trump’s own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in writing that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” and that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” The IAEA stated flatly there was no evidence of a bomb. Trump’s own counterterrorism official resigned in protest, writing that “we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” The paranoid does not need a real threat. He will make one up if he must, to match his feelings of exaggerated fear.
The Machiavellianism operates without shame. Trump told the world that diplomacy was always his “first preference,” while boasting in the same breath about ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran: “I was so honored to do it. I was so proud to do it.” He destroyed the diplomatic framework with his own hands, then blamed Iran for the wreckage. He then admitted, casually, that the war has no self-defense rationale: “We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have. But we’re there to help our allies.” Under the UN Charter, self-defense is the only legal basis for force. Trump has confessed that no such basis exists.
There is a particular deformation that power inflicts on certain personalities, and it is especially acute when the power in question is unbounded or seems to be so. With the command of nuclear arsenals, Trump and Netanyahu do not experience the world as others do. The availability of nuclear weapons, for these malignant narcissists, is not a burden of responsibility but an extension of their grandiose selves: I can do anything. I can level anything. Watch me. There will be no self-restraints by Netanyahu and Trump on this delusional grandiosity.
Trump and Netanyahu do not experience the world as others do.
Trump has completely internalized this sense of impunity. On April 1, he stood before the cameras and promised to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” The phrase “where they belong” is the verdict of a man who feels divinely licensed to judge the worth of 90 million people and dehumanizes them without hesitation. He has repeatedly threatened to destroy Iran’s civilian electrical infrastructure—a war crime under the laws of armed conflict, announced openly as a negotiating position, to a global audience that mostly changed the channel.
Netanyahu commands a state with an estimated 200 nuclear warheads, has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and operates under no international inspection regime. He has watched Trump wield American military power with unchecked aggression and concurs that there are no consequences. The second madness feeds the third: when power faces no limit, the only remaining internal check is conscience. And the psychopath has no conscience.
The lack of conscience is the most dangerous pathology of the three, because it is the one that removes the last possible internal brake. The strategist who wages an unjust war may eventually calculate that the costs exceed the gains and stop. The malignant narcissist who wages war for ego may eventually exhaust the ego’s demands and stop. The psychopath escalates because there are no limits.
And, if you can believe, it gets even worse. Both Trump and Netanyahu are would-be messiahs. They are self-proclaimed agents of God. For them, stopping the war on Iran would mean God was wrong. And the self-proclaimed messiah cannot be wrong, either, because the messiah and God have become, in the grandiose psyche, effectively the same.
Both Trump and Netanyahu have claimed this messianic identity explicitly. Trump has called himself “the chosen one.” Regarding the assassination attempt on Trump in 2024, he declared, “I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.” Netanyahu, in his address on the eve of Passover, did not merely invoke God. He appropriated God’s role in the Exodus narrative—enumerating ten “accomplishments” of what he calls the “War of Redemption” and naming each one a plague. The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei he named the “Plague of the Firstborn.” He then warned the world:
After the ten plagues of Egypt, I remind you that Pharaoh still tried to harm the People of Israel, and we all know how that ended.
In the Book of Exodus, that ending is the drowning of Pharaoh’s entire army. Netanyahu was threatening the annihilation of Iran, on television, in the language of holy scripture.
Surrounding each of these men is a court of flatterers and fanatics whose function is to sustain the delusion and prevent reality from entering their consciousness.
Trump’s Court: Hegseth, Huckabee, and the Christian Nationalists
Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, has turned the Pentagon into a theater of holy war. He sports a Jerusalem Cross tattoo on his chest and the words “Deus Vult,” “God Wills It,” the battle cry of the medieval Crusades, on his arm. He hosts monthly Christian worship services in the Pentagon’s auditorium. He has asked the American people to pray “every day, on bended knee” for military victory in the Middle East “in the name of Jesus Christ.” At one of these services, he prayed aloud for US troops to inflict:
Overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy … We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.
At a press briefing on the Iran war, Hegseth said the United States “negotiates with bombs.” He described Iran’s leaders as “religious fanatics” seeking nuclear capability for “some religious Armageddon,” while presiding over monthly prayer services at the Pentagon and declaring that “the providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops.” He appears to have no awareness of the mirror he is holding up. A defense secretary who prays for “overwhelming violence” in the name of Jesus, while calling his enemies religious fanatics, has defined the word “projection.”
Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel, provides the theological architecture. A Baptist minister and avid Christian Zionist, Huckabee believes the Israel-Iran conflict is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy—a necessary step toward the Rapture and the second coming of Christ. He sent Trump a message—which Trump then posted on social media—comparing the moment to Truman in 1945 and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, urging Trump to listen to “HIS voice,” meaning God.
In an interview, Huckabee was asked about the biblical land grant stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates—encompassing Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq—and whether Israel had a divine right to it all. His answer was direct: “It would be fine if they took it all.”
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Smotrich, for his part, posted on social media: “I ♥ Huckabee.” Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee, whose organization Christians United for Israel has been a major driver of US evangelical support for Israel’s wars, looked at the Iran war and said simply: “Prophetically, we’re right on cue.” Franklin Graham, at a White House Easter prayer service, fed Trump’s messianic delusions: “Today the Iranians, the wicked regime of this government, wants to kill every Jew and destroy them with an atomic fire. But you have raised up President Trump. You’ve raised him up for such a time as this. And Father, we pray that you’ll give him victory.”
Netanyahu’s Court: Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and the Messianic Settlers
On the Israeli side, the inner court is composed of two figures whose radicalism is so extreme that they were considered political pariahs until Netanyahu used their votes to stay in power. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the National Security Minister, is an admirer of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was designated a terrorist organization. Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, draws his ideology from Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, who taught that Israel’s 1967 military victory was divinely mandated and that the settlement of Palestinian territory is the will of God. Together, they hold 20 seats in Netanyahu’s 67-seat coalition. They do not merely advise the prime minister, they share in his messianic beliefs and vision.
Ben-Gvir has used his control of the Israeli police to enable settler paramilitaries operating against Palestinians in the West Bank. He has consistently blocked ceasefire negotiations and has openly claimed credit for delaying them. He pushed for Jewish ritual rights on the Temple Mount in defiance of a status quo maintained for decades, a move Israeli security officials warned would lead directly to bloodshed. In August 2023 he declared: “My right, and my wife’s and my children’s right to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria, is more important than the right to movement for Arabs.” The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Spain have all sanctioned him for inciting violence, yet the United States, under Marco Rubio, defended Ben-Gvir and criticized those sanctions.
Smotrich is the more methodical of the two: less theatrical and more dangerous. He has systematically transferred civilian governance of the West Bank from the Israeli military to his own ministry, channeling hundreds of millions of shekels to settler infrastructure while Palestinian Authority budgets are deliberately strangled. He has directed his office to formulate “an operational plan for applying sovereignty” over the West Bank. During the Iran war, he called for Israel to annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, declaring that the war “needs to end with a different reality entirely.” Smotrich’s ideology draws on Kook’s teaching that the settlement enterprise is not political but sacred—a divine obligation that must be completed regardless of international law, Palestinian rights, or the opinion of the world. The 1967 borders, in this theology, are not a temporary military reality. They are God’s unfinished business.
The world’s grownups must try to stop the madness.
Neither Ben-Gvir nor Smotrich was anything more than a fringe extremist before Netanyahu legitimized them by bringing them into government and his inner court. He gave them power over Israeli society, and they gave him the religious-nationalist firepower to call his wars a divine mission.
Into this landscape of holy war, one voice has spoken with world-saving grace and clarity. Pope Leo XIV has consistently called for an end to the violence. During a Holy Thursday Mass in Rome, he addressed the arrogance of power:
We tend to consider ourselves powerful when we dominate, victorious when we destroy our equals, great when we are feared. God has given us an example — not of how to dominate, but of how to liberate; not of how to destroy life, but of how to give it.
On Palm Sunday, the pope was again direct, saying that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” Hegseth followed up by holding another worship service at the Pentagon, where he again prayed for “overwhelming violence” in Christ’s name.
Professor John Mearsheimer has stated precisely that the crimes now being committed by Trump and Netanyahu are the same crimes for which the Nazi leadership was hanged at Nuremberg: aggressive war, annexation of foreign territory, deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, and collective punishment. This is not rhetorical excess. These are legal categories. The Nuremberg Tribunal called the crime of aggression the “supreme international crime”—the one that “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”—because it is the crime that makes all the other crimes possible. These men have confessed to it, publicly, in speeches carried by international broadcasters.
The institutional mechanisms that exist to prevent exactly this kind of catastrophe, including the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court, the non-proliferation regime, and the laws of armed conflict, are being actively subverted by the United States.
And yet the world’s grownups must try to stop the madness. The multilateral effort in Islamabad, including the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, working alongside the China-Pakistan five-point peace initiative, is an important start. It should be joined by the full weight of the BRICS nations, the UN General Assembly, and every state that wishes to live in a world governed by rules rather than by the delusions of two malignant narcissists.
When deranged leaders invoke divine catastrophe as a political instrument, it is not only their enemies who are consumed. We will all be the victims of Netanyahu’s plagues and Trump’s bombing of Iran to the stone ages, unless other leaders place limits on these two madmen.
US negotiator in 2015 Iran nuclear deal says Donald Trump ‘delusional’ on nuclear and regime change.
By Paul Johnson, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-03/us-negotiator-in-iran-nuclear-deal-says-trump-delusional/106527524
In short:
Donald Trump’s claims about regime change and Iran’s nuclear threat have been called into question.
Former US special envoy to Iran Robert Malley described Mr Trump’s address to the nation this week as “delusional”.
He raised concerns the US would be committing war crimes if it followed through on Mr Trump’s threats.
US President Donald Trump is “delusional” and “seeking to deceive his audience” when it comes to what he claims is the success of the Iran war.
Those are the words of Robert Malley, who in 2015, under the Obama administration, was one of the lead negotiators on the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan.
When Mr Trump addressed the United States on Thursday with a speech full of bluster and bravado, he made claims of dismantling a regime, destroying Iran’s alleged nuclear capabilities and ruining the Islamic Republic’s navy and air force.
Mr Trump also blamed the previous Biden administration for leaving the United States “dead and crippled”.
Mr Malley, who served under Mr Biden as special envoy for Iran, spoke to 7.30 in the wake of Mr Trump’s comments on the war — a war that, despite being successful in killing previous supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several regime leaders, has caused global economic pain.
That pain has been caused by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) choking the shipping, particularly of oil, through the Strait of Hormuz.
The war was started under the premise of what Mr Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was an imminent nuclear threat posed by Iran.
Where are ceasefire talks up to?
On Thursday, the US president said the deal that Mr Malley worked on under Barack Obama was a “disaster”.
Mr Malley told 7.30 the remarks made by the president about the Iranian nuclear threat were not true, especially in light of Mr Trump’s 2025 declaration that the US had decimated Iran’s nuclear capabilities through a series of strikes in June that year.
“There is simply no truth to that,” Mr Malley told 7.30.
“It’s extraordinary how he’s now saying that after he claimed that he’d obliterated Iran’s nuclear program less than a year ago.
“He’s now saying that they still were at the doorstep of acquiring a nuclear weapon, which he claims they would’ve used immediately.
“There’s not a single fragment of that claim that is accurate.”
Malley questions regime change
He also rubbished Mr Trump’s repeated claims that the war in Iran had resulted in regime change, something Australia’s own prime minister, Anthony Albanese, would not do on 7.30 on Monday night.
The regime change Mr Trump is claiming to have enacted is replacing former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with his son, Mojtaba Khamenei.
The change may also lead to an increased role for the IRGC.
Mr Malley said, if anything, this might now be a more hardline Iranian regime that has a renewed reason for prejudice against the US.
“Nobody sees any truth in that,” Mr Malley said when asked about Mr Trump’s assertions about regime change in Tehran.
“Much of the prior Iranian leadership has been killed, but the people who are now in power are, if anything, more radical, more hardline, more determined to confront the United States.”
“The notion that this is a more … rational, more pragmatic regime … this is just him projecting to try to justify the fact that his war was a success and, whenever it ends, to be able to say that he achieved sort of, as a side benefit, a regime change that he claims he was never seeking.
“Every word in that statement of his is just delusional and seeking to deceive his audience.”
Concerns about war crimes
Among the major parts of Mr Trump’s speech were further threats against Iran.
In particular, Mr Trump said the US assault would step up over the next few weeks.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” Mr Trump said.
“We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”
Mr Malley, a seasoned diplomat, said that rhetoric was very concerning and should not be normalised.
“Just listening to him, [it is disturbing] how normalised it’s become to have a president threaten to commit war crimes, which is what bringing Iran back to the Stone Age would be, on behalf of an unlawful war,” he told 7.30.
“He seems to be driven by this notion that if the US has the capability to do something militarily, it can do it and it will do it if he thinks that Iran is not capitulating or is not responding to his every demand.
“I think we should pause a bit and think the most powerful man on Earth has just threatened to destroy not a government, not military sites, but a country on behalf of a war that he still is not able to justify.”
Mr Trump has also been struggling to justify the economic cost.
The US has unleashed billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry in what some have said is a war for oil but it has not been able to free up the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr Malley says for Iran, despite its major losses, that will be a key takeaway.
“The one thing that the gift, if you will, that this war has offered Iran, which is they’ve discovered that if they want, they have this mastery of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
“They always had it implicitly in a latent form. Now they have it physically, practically, and you don’t need that much to be able to discourage ships or discourage insurance companies from insuring anyone who wants to go through the strait without Iranian consent.”
The Warmongers Will Never Admit They Were Wrong And Will Never Learn From Their Mistakes
Cait;in Johnstone, 20 Mar 26, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/WhctKLcDqcPgHJwXCXxhJgcDpJZFXpkgKlZRLMBbTfNgLndgLLjFjSMrWXffFBwHrWcdXkb
| Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has a tweet that’s got me absolutely fuming right now.“In 2018–2019, I made the case for regime change in Iran as often as I could. Voices in Trump’s orbit often cited Iran’s capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz as a reason against regime change. Trump has been fully aware this is a possibility, and yet did not prepare,” Bolton posted. |
Can you believe this shit? Dude’s like “Hey, Trump should have known this war would be hard because people tried to warn him not to listen to me!”
Motherfucker THIS WAS YOUR WAR. You were THE “bomb Iran” guy! You made it your entire personality for DECADES. Over the years I’ve used your name God knows how many times whenever I needed an example of a Beltway swamp monster who’s got a throbbing hard-on for war with Iran. Now you’ve finally got it and it’s going exactly as badly as everyone said it would, and you’re like “Yeah well he should’ve known better, people tried to warn him about the Strait of Hormuz”? Fuck you.
These professional warmongers never, ever learn from their errors. Many years after the Iraq invasion turned out to be a disaster, John Bolton was still out there telling the media he believed it was a “resounding success,” conceding only “mistakes that were made subsequently” to the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
They never admit they were wrong. They never admit that their war was a bad idea. They only ever acknowledge that it didn’t happen in exactly the way they imagined it happening in their minds. They live in this fantasy world where all their war agendas would unfold beautifully so long as they could personally control every molecule of matter involved in how it happens, completely ignoring that this is impossible and any war is always going to have an unfathomable number of moving parts you can’t control.
In their eyes the wars are never wrong, they’re only ever executed incorrectly. US military interventionism can never fail, it can only be failed.
Bolton doesn’t even seem to have any idea what Trump could have done differently to stop Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz. I listened to an NPR interview the other day where he slammed Trump for not having “done the planning in advance” to prevent the Iranian blockade, but he never at any time outlined what Trump could have done to accomplish this. He just said there was “a huge hole in the planning” and that “they apparently didn’t take as seriously as they should have the potential to mine the Strait of Hormuz,” without ever saying what they could have done.
These are the kinds of minds they have spearheading the US empire’s wars.
All the worst people are getting exactly what they want, and it turns out they don’t even want it, like Elon Musk tweeting “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about” last month. They’re getting everything they asked for and it’s making everyone miserable, and it’s not even making THEM happy.
The imperial status quo elevates the worst among us. The least wise. The least insightful. The least compassionate. The least deserving. The least qualified.
We need drastic revolutionary change, and we need it now.e doesn’t know. He himself, Mister Iran War, had no plan for how to carry out this war without disastrous consequences for the US and its allies. He’s spent his entire blood-soaked career pushing for a war he never had any idea how to actually carry out.
According to Pete Hegseth “They are toast”
The language matters. “They are toast” is not the language of statesmanship. It is the language of certainty – the kind that precedes catastrophic miscalculation.
We have seen this before. We know how it ends.
5 March 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, https://theaimn.net/they-are-toast/
“They are toast”: A Critical Analysis of Pete Hegseth’s Press Conference and the Dangerous Rhetoric of Endless War
Introduction: The Performance
On 4 March 2026, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood at a Pentagon podium and delivered what can only be described as a performance. Flanked by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth spoke for nearly an hour about Operation Epic Fury – the ongoing US-Israeli military campaign against Iran.
His language was not the measured cadence of a statesman. It was the swagger of a cable news host, which he once was. It was the bravado of someone who believes that confidence can substitute for clarity, and that bravado can replace strategy.
“I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Epic Fury – America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy,” he declared.
“They are toast – and they know it,” he said of Iran’s leadership.
“We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly how it should be.”
This article examines Hegseth’s statements against the available evidence. It contrasts the rhetoric with reality. And it asks the question that no one at that press conference thought to ask: what happens next?
What Hegseth Actually Said
The full transcript of Hegseth’s remarks reveals a pattern of escalation framed as inevitability.
The “Toast” Declaration
“They are toast and they know it. Or at least, soon enough, they will know it.”
This was not a one-off line. Hegseth returned to it repeatedly, framing the conflict as a foregone conclusion. “The Iranian air force is no more. The Iranian navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. Combat ineffective, decimated, destroyed, defeated – pick your adjective. It is no more.”
The Control of Airspace
“We will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defence industrial base of the Iranian military.”
Hegseth claimed the U.S. and Israel would have “uncontested airspace and complete control” of Iranian skies within days.
The Torpedo Claim
In a particularly dramatic moment, Hegseth announced that a U.S. submarine had sunk an Iranian warship named the Soleimani – a vessel named after the Iranian general killed by U.S. drone strike in 2020.
“An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo, quiet death – the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.”
He added: “Looks like POTUS got him twice.”
The Assassination Claim
Hegseth also revealed that U.S. forces had killed an Iranian official allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate President Trump.
“The leader of the unit who attempted to assassinate President Trump has been hunted down and killed. Iran tried to kill President Trump and President Trump got the last laugh.”
He acknowledged that this was not the focus of the operation, and that Trump never raised it as a priority. But “I ensured, and others ensured, that those who were responsible for that were eventually part of the target list.”
The “Not Endless” Promise
In a brief moment that seemed designed to preempt criticism, Hegseth insisted: “This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president.”
He promised “no nation-building quagmires, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars.”
The Reality Check
Hegseth’s rhetoric is forceful. But force is not the same as truth.
The Contradiction on Endings
Hegseth declared the war “not endless” while simultaneously refusing to define any endpoint. Asked about the timeline, he deflected:
“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks.”
Gen. Caine was more direct: “We expect to take additional losses.”
This is the classic language of wars that become endless. There is no exit strategy because there is no defined objective beyond “destroy” and “defeat” – terms that are infinitely elastic.
The Casualty Count
While Hegseth boasted of American dominance, the human cost continued to mount:
- 787 confirmed dead in Iran, with 1,009 emergency teams deployed
- Six U.S. service members killed in action
- Three U.S. fighter jets shot down by Kuwaiti air defences in an “apparent friendly fire incident“
- 87 bodies recovered by Sri Lanka’s navy from the sunken Iranian warship
Hegseth’s “they are toast” rhetoric obscures the reality that toast cuts both ways.
The Intelligence Gap
Perhaps most troubling: in closed-door briefings with congressional staff, Pentagon officials acknowledged that there was no intelligence indicating Iran was preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against U.S. forces before the American and Israeli attacks.
This directly contradicts the administration’s public justification that the operation was necessary to eliminate “imminent threats.”
The Constitutional Question
Congress has not authorised this war. The Senate is set to vote on a War Powers resolution that would limit Trump’s authority to conduct additional strikes – the first formal attempt by Congress to weigh in on a campaign launched without its approval.
Senator Tim Kaine’s words are worth remembering: “I pray so hard for my colleagues to exercise the judgment that this is not the right time for more war.”
The Regional Spread
Hegseth presented the conflict as contained. In reality:
- Iran and Hezbollah launched coordinated missile attacks on Israel
- UAE air defences intercepted three ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones
- Qatar shot down 10 drones and two cruise missiles
- Strait of Hormuz – through which 20% of global oil passes – is now under Iranian threat
This is not a contained operation. This is a regional conflagration.
The Language Problem
The Tone
Even Hegseth’s supporters might wince at the language. A forum commenter captured the sentiment:
“The tone of these White House press conferences and the rhetoric within them is incredible. If you didn’t know you’d assume they were the rabid dictatorship in this scenario.”
Another wrote:
“Listening to Hegseth on the ITV news. Putting it mildly, he is not very statesmanlike. Phrases like ‘they are toast’ etc. It should be embarrassing, but he is (as ITV has just said) gleeful.”
This is not diplomacy. It is theatre.
The Iraq Echo
Hegseth repeatedly invoked the Iraq war as a contrast – “this is not Iraq” – while using language that eerily echoes the early days of that conflict. The promise of “no nation-building” sounds remarkably like the assurances that preceded two decades of exactly that.
When Hegseth says “this is not endless,” one recalls the similar assurances made about Afghanistan, about Iraq, about every war that was supposed to be quick and clean and never was.
The Assassination Framing
The claim about killing the Iranian official involved in the Trump assassination plot is particularly striking. Hegseth acknowledged it was never a priority, never raised by the president, yet it became part of the target list.
This suggests mission creep before the mission has even fully begun.
What Iran Says
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian responded with words that stand in stark contrast to Hegseth’s bravado:
“We tried, with your help, to avoid war through diplomacy, but the American-Zionist military attack left us no choice but to defend ourselves. We respect your sovereignty and still believe peace in the region must be ensured by the countries of the region.”
This is the language of a nation that understands it cannot win a conventional war but can make it costly enough that the other side eventually tires.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi was more pointed:
“Time is not of the essence. We will do whatever necessary to protect our sovereignty and our people – no matter what.”
The Unanswered Questions
Hegseth’s press conference raised more questions than it answered:
- What is the definition of victory? If the goal is to destroy Iran’s missile program and navy, what happens when those are rebuilt – as they inevitably will be?
- What is the exit strategy? There is none articulated. “Not endless” is not a plan.
- Who governs Iran after Khamenei? Trump admitted that potential successors were killed in the strikes. What fills the vacuum?
- What about the 115,000 Australians still stranded in the region? The first repatriation flight has landed, but most remain.
- Why no congressional authorisation? The Constitution requires it. The administration has ignored it.
The Forum Wisdom
Sometimes the most insightful analysis comes not from experts but from ordinary people watching the same press conferences we watch.
Victoria wildlife guide
“The tone of these White House press conferences and the rhetoric within them is incredible. If you didn’t know you’d assume they were the rabid dictatorship in this scenario.”
“Lads, it’s bone spurs.”
The last comment is a reference to Trump’s Vietnam-era deferments. It’s a reminder that those who send others to war rarely feel its weight themselves.
What This Means for Us
The language matters. “They are toast” is not the language of statesmanship. It is the language of certainty – the kind that precedes catastrophic miscalculation.
We have seen this before. We know how it ends.
But we also know something else: we are not helpless. We watch. We document. We prepare. We protect our own.
Sources………………………………………
Is Zelensky still the most reckless, dangerous leader in the world?
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL , 24 Jan 26
Every day Ukraine sinks deeper into shattered rump state status. Every day brings more death, lost territory and degraded living conditions with no hope of prevailing against Russia.
Yet, instead of settling on Russia’s terms to end the war, end more casualties, end more lost land, Ukraine President Zelensky keeps shuttling between Europe and the US begging for weaponry to take the war deep into Russia.
The US has already bailed on investing in Ukraine’s lost cause. Europe is edging closer to bailing as well even as they continue the lie that a Ukraine victory is critical to keeping Russia from marching westward into NATO countries. They know the war is lost but cannot publicly admit that truth. In addition, without the US, they don’t have sufficient military resources to have any meaningful impact on the outcome.
Near four years into Ukraine’s demise, Zelensky may simply be delusional that Ukraine can prevail in expelling Russia from lost territories. It’s more likely he’s simply taking orders from his ultra-nationalist Kyiv handlers to keep demanding weaponry to continue Ukraine’s lost cause.
Zelensky’s recklessness was epitomized by his refusal to conclude the Istanbul Agreement with Russia in April 2022 that would have ended the 2 month conflict with a minimum of casualties, no lost territory and economy intact. All Zelensky had to do was give up NATO membership, guarantee Ukraine neutrality between Europe and Russia, and grant regional autonomy to the Russian cultured Ukrainians in Donbas being brutalized by Kyiv for 8 long years.
But instead of statesmanship, Zelensky chose recklessness, acquiescing in US, UK demands to keep the war going till Russia was defeated with US, NATO weaponry. But even with over $200 billion in such aid, Ukraine is nearing collapse, running out of soldiers that its western backers will never replace. $200 billion yes, but not one drop of western blood.
Zelensky’s recklessness in destroying Ukraine is exceeded by his dangerousness, putting the world at risk of nuclear war every day now for nearly 4 years. Every NATO bomb, tank, missile, gun given to Zelensky to attack Russia continues the threat of nuclear war between Russia and NATO. This was most irresponsibly demonstrated in 2022 when an errant Ukraine missile landed in Poland killing two Polish citizens. Zelensky immediately claimed it was a Russian missile which could have triggered a direct Article 5 NATO response against Russia. Tho the US quickly refuted Zelensky’s false claim, Zelensky has never wavered from demanding long range NATO weapons to attack deep into Russia, a prescription for all out NATO, Russia war that could go nuclear.
Continuing Ukraine’s inevitable collapse while keeping the whole world hostage to the possibility of nuclear war makes Volodymyr Zelensky the most reckless and dangerous leader in the world.
One excavator, 10,000 bodies, a sea of rubble: inside Gaza’s effort to retrieve and bury its dead
Under the relative calm of a ceasefire, Civil Defense crews in Gaza are undertaking the monumental feat of recovering thousands of bodies still trapped under the rubble.
By Tareq S. Hajjaj December 25, 2025 https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/one-excavator-10000-bodies-a-sea-of-rubble-inside-gazas-effort-to-retrieve-and-bury-its-dead/
Fatima Salem waits outside anxiously, as rescue crews dig through the rubble of her family’s home in Gaza City on December 15th. With bated breath, she clings to the hope that all 60 of her family members – brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren – who were buried under the rubble after an Israeli airstrike targeted their building, will be rescued.
But this was not a typical rescue operation, and Fatima was not waiting for signs of life. She knew everyone was dead. That’s because the airstrike on her family’s home happened almost exactly two years ago, on December 19, 2023, just two months into the genocide.
The 60 members of the Salem family are some of an estimated 10,000 Palestinians whose bodies remain trapped under the extensive rubble across the Gaza Strip. Due to two years of active Israeli bombardment, the targeting and killing of civil defense crews, and the lack of heavy duty machinery required to excavate the tons of concrete rubble, rescue missions in Gaza have been largely stalled.
But on December 15, the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced the start of a long recovery process of bodies that have remained under the rubble for two years. The operations are focused only on the areas in the Gaza Strip not actively being occupied by the Israeli military, which accounts for roughly half of the territory.
The first rescue mission was for the Salem family in Gaza City.
“Here I lost every person dear to me; they are the closest people to me—my brothers and sisters and their families. I lost everyone in this place,” Fatima Salem cried. When she heard about the rescue mission, she rushed to the scene of the destroyed building, where the souls of her relatives had remained trapped for two years.
She said that her family was targeted on December 19, 2023, after they fled from northern Gaza to Gaza City due to the intensification of shelling and fighting in their residential area. They found refuge in a building whose residents had evacuated, and gathered there with their children and families. No one who was in the building at the time of the bombing survived.
“I want to see them, to embrace them, to bid them farewell,” she said as she stood before rows of bones and skulls wrapped in white plastic shrouds, laid out on the ground in front of her. Some have been identified by their present surviving relatives, while others have not yet been identified.
Omar Suleiman, a member of the forensic department at the Civil Defense, was working at the scene of the Salem family. He described a painstaking process of trying to identify and record the identities of the deceased, saying that crews are documenting descriptions of the condition of the bodies in terms of form, height, and the level of decomposition they have reached, along with preserving a DNA sample when possible.
According to videos published by the Civil Defense on its Telegram channel, what is recovered from the remains of the martyrs is sometimes only bones, not always complete skulls, but rather bones from the chest and the feet, making identification a difficult matter.
According to Suleiman, the level of decomposition in the bodies was very high, which made it difficult for families to identify them. The lack of tools and technology for advanced DNA testing has also made the identification process more difficult. He said that crews were working “with very limited tools and under difficult and exhausting conditions.”
Civil Defense crews say they recovered all the bodies from the building, all belonging to the martyrs of the Salem family, in addition to 17 more bodies buried in the vicinity around the building. After two years, Fatima Salem was finally able to bid farewell.
Thousands of bodies, limited resources
In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on December 20, recovery operations began in areas of the city, starting with the martyrs of the Abu Hilal family. They were killed on August 13, 2025.
Huda Abu Hilal, in her 20s, was the sole survivor of a strike that targeted her family’s home on August 13, 2025. Though she was inside the building at the time, just before the airstrike, Huda’s mom had asked her to go downstairs for something. At that moment, the home was bombed, and everyone except Huda was killed.
“All my family was killed except me—my mother and father, my sisters, and their children—all of them were martyred,” she told Mondoweiss, adding that because her neighborhood remained under an evacuation order after the bombing, crews were not able to access her home to rescue her family.
At the site, Samah Hamad, head of the forensic department of the Civil Defense, described the challenge ahead for crews.
He said that in Khan Younis alone, there are 75 destroyed buildings with hundreds of bodies buried under the rubble that need to be recovered. Many of the buildings, he said, are located in the area behind the ‘yellow line’ that are inaccessible to Palestinian crews. But even in the areas that they can access, the rescue mission is slow moving.
Hamad notes that the slowdown in these operations is due to the fact that all crews in the Gaza Strip are working with very limited equipment, as only one large excavator is being used in multiple cities and areas in the Strip.
For the past two months since the ceasefire was announced, Huda said she would pass by the rubble of the home often, even if just to recite a prayer for her family still trapped beneath the rubble, hoping that they would be rescued soon.
“Now I can honor my martyred family by burying them, and we can move them to graves and make visiting them a habit,” Huda said.
Marco Rubio: From ‘Perfect Little Puppet’ to Most Dangerous Man Alive
Few in 2016 would have predicted Rubio’s rise to become arguably the most powerful man in Trump’s cabinet. The Floridian was once one of Trump’s fiercest critics, describing him as a fraud when the two were battling for the Republican Presidential nomination.
December 2nd, 2024, Alan McLeod, https://www.mintpressnews.com/marco-rubio-perfect-little-puppet-most-dangerous-man-alive/288757/
With the appointment of Marco Rubio to the post of Secretary of State, the Trump administration has elevated one of the most pro-war extremists ever to serve in the cabinet of the United States of America.In this article, MintPress highlights Rubio’s history as one of the most reliable warmongering voices in Washington, an individual who has led or supported many of America’s most aggressive foreign policy decisions, including military interventions, coups, and sanctions.
Sanctioning China, The World
Of all the situations to trigger a global nuclear war, a confrontation with Beijing appears among the most likely. The U.S. has constructed a network of over 300 military bases encircling China – another nuclear-armed state. Rubio is doing more than almost anyone to make that doomsday scenario an eventuality. He has made clear that he supports Taiwanese independence, breaking more than a half-century of official U.S. policy in the process. His “Taiwan Peace Through Strength Act” promotes direct military collaboration between the U.S. and Taiwan and calls for increased arms spending on the island.
Rubio was also one of the faces of the 2014 Hong Kong protest movement, a U.S.-backed attempt to wrest the island city from Chinese influence. He invited the movement’s leaders to Washington, D.C., and attempted to introduce legislation to force the United States into supporting Hong Kong’s independence.
At home, he has led the clampdown on Chinese businesses such as Huawei and has spearheaded a movement to uncover and stamp out China’s supposed undue influence over American media and educational institutions.
Unsurprisingly, then, the former Florida senator also supports a trade war and sanctions against China and, indeed, much of the world, including Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Iran.
Unilateral sanctions, of course, are illegal under international law. However, Rubio believes the United States can and should use its economic might to crush countries resisting Washington’s dictates. The waning power of the dollar as the global reserve currency, though, makes this increasingly difficult. As Rubio lamented on Fox News last year, Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, signed a comprehensive trade agreement with China whereby goods and services would be paid for in local currencies rather than the dollar:
They’re creating a secondary economy in the world, totally independent of the United States. We won’t have to talk sanctions in five years, because there will be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar, that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”
Genocide Denier
Rubio has strongly supported Israel in its campaign against its neighbors. “Israel takes extraordinary steps to avoid civilian losses,” he said during a solidarity visit to Tel Aviv earlier this year, adding that the problem is that its enemies “don’t value human life.”
“Israel has consistently sought peace with the Palestinians… Israelis rightfully living in their historic homeland are not the impediment to peace; the Palestinians are,” he wrote in a letter to his predecessor, Antony Blinken.
When asked by activists from peace group CODEPINK whether he supports an end to Israeli atrocities, he answered in the negative, stating, “On the contrary. I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals.”
Narco Rubio
Hailing from the notoriously conservative Cuban-American community in Florida, Latin American policy has always been among Rubio’s chief interests. Described as the unofficial “Secretary of State for Latin America” during Trump’s term, he will undoubtedly hold enormous influence over U.S. policy in the region in the years to come. This is bad news for the people of Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela, all of whom have watched as Rubio supported coup attempts against their countries. In 2019, for example, he went as far as directly tweeting images of the capture, death and bloody assassination of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at Nicolás Maduro during an ongoing U.S.-backed coup against the Venezuelan president.
Rubio has always favored a more aggressive, punitive approach to Cuba. Last year, for example, he introduced legislation to ensure that Cuba would remain on the U.S. State Sponsor of Terrorism List, offering no evidence of the island’s supposed support for such groups.
A right-wing conservative Christian, Rubio has also made well known his contempt for much less radical Latin American leaders, such as Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Brazil’s Lula da Silva. On the other hand, he has openly embraced far-right presidents, like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro (in power between 2019 and 2023) and Argentina’s Javier Milei.
Rubio has attempted to link Maduro with the organized drug trade, insisting, with little evidence, that the Venezuelan leader is a narcotics kingpin. On this issue, he appears to be living in a glasshouse; his own brother-in-law is a cocaine drug lord. Orlando Cicilia spent 12 years in a Florida prison for crimes related to the smuggling and distribution of cocaine. Rubio enjoys a very close relationship with Cicilia and, after the latter’s release from prison, used his political position to pressure a Florida regulator to grant him a real estate license. Across much of Latin America, the new Secretary of State is known as “Narco Rubio.”
Neocon Warmonger
A consummate Washington insider, Rubio cheerled the U.S. action in Libya that led to Gaddafi’s execution and the country being turned into a failed state replete with open-air slave markets. He also supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, condemning Biden for his pullout from Kabul in 2021. In addition, he helped Saudi Arabia in its genocide against Yemen while expressing outrage over alleged Houthi human rights abuses, minuscule in comparison with the Saudi-led, U.S.-backed genocide.
Studies by Brown University have shown that America’s post-9/11 wars have killed at least 4.5 million people and displaced at least 37 million more. One of the most shocking stories arising from the Global War on Terror is the torture camp at Guantánamo Bay. By the mid-2010s, the facility was causing such negative publicity for the U.S. that the Obama administration was reportedly considering shutting it down. Rubio, however, was enthusiastic in his support for the center, promising to reopen it if elected president.
He also supported the dramatic expansion of the surveillance state into American life, voting to continue the practice of collecting vast amounts of data on ordinary American citizens, and has effectively argued that First Amendment protections should not be applied to anti-Israel campus protestors.
Sheldon Adelson’s “Perfect Little Puppet”
Few in 2016 would have predicted Rubio’s rise to become arguably the most powerful man in Trump’s cabinet. The Floridian was once one of Trump’s fiercest critics, describing him as a fraud when the two were battling for the Republican Presidential nomination. “I think it is time to unmask [Trump] for what he is,” he said during a campaign speech in Oklahoma City, adding:
He’s trying to take over the conservative movement even though he’s not a conservative, but more importantly, he’s a con. I mean, he’s a conman who is taking advantage of people’s fears and anxieties about the future, portraying himself as some sort of strong guy. He’s not a strong guy.”
Trump was, if anything, even more scathing towards Rubio, stating that “[Pro-Israel billioniare] Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!”
One of Adelson’s key issues is stopping the rise of clean, renewable energy, and in that, he found an ally in Rubio, who consistently denied the reality of man-made climate change, stating that there was “no scientific evidence” to back up the theory. Funded by big money donations from the oil and gas industries, he even voted against legislation protecting low-lying cities such as Miami from severe weather events.
Since their public spat, Trump has clearly buried the hatchet with both Rubio and Adelson. The latter’s widow, Miriam, contributed a gigantic $100 million to Trump’s recent presidential run, becoming his biggest donor in the process. Clearly, then, both Trump and Rubio are willing to make major concessions in the pursuit of power. However, given Rubio’s track record, his appointment as Secretary of State does not bode well for either America or the rest of the world.
Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams
He once said he was a genius. Now he wants to immortalise himself.
28 November 2025 John Lord, https://theaimn.net/he-once-said-he-was-a-genius-now-he-wants-to-immortalise-himself/
The only man I can think of who could rightfully claim the title of genius is Leonardo da Vince. Now you might dispute that, and you may be right. I don’t recall any research I have done into his persona, in which he refers to himself as a genius, but Donald Trump does.
In many countries that have dictatorial leaders, to satisfy their narcissistic desires, they erect large portraits of themselves on buildings for the populace to stare at. Some stare and worship, while others stare in terror.
In a striking announcement last week, it was reported that Donald J. Trump has instructed the U.S. Treasury to create a distinctive $1 coin adorned with his likeness on both sides. This bold initiative aims to celebrate America’s 250th birthday and to pay tribute to the presidency itself, as Treasury officials noted. The coin promises to be a unique memento, capturing a moment in time while intertwining the legacy of a nation with the persona of its leader.
So, is he placing himself on the same footing as other fascist dictators, who, when in power, like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Marcos built monuments to glorify themselves so they’d be exalted in history?
In the meantime, the “Washington Commanders,” a prominent National League football team rooted in the heart of Washington, D.C., have received a rather audacious request from none other than Donald Trump himself: to adorn their brand-new stadium with his image, an impressive $3.7 billion marvel of modern engineering, with his name. Yes, engraved on the façade of every entry.
What the President wants, the President gets, and it likely will come to fruition, ensuring his legacy is forever linked to an edifice or token.
In another audacious endeavour to secure his place in the tapestry of history. Yes, he dreams of his name forever etched on lustrous coins, expertly engraved into the majestic façades of towering edifices, and artistically inscribed upon the enduring marble walls of the White House. He longs to elevate his stature in ways that resonate through the ages, yearning to revel in a luminescent glow of adoration that transcends the confines of time itself.
He now envisions the much-debated and extravagant $300 million ballroom that Trump is erecting at the White House to be officially named “The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom.” Senior officials within the administration propose that this audacious title is destined to become a prominent symbol linked to the ambitious project, forever etched into the legacy of one of the nation’s most opulent spaces.
Trump is burning to have his name immortalised on anything he can get his name on. So much flattery for a man of so little altruistic understanding.
Only fascist dictators seek to build monuments to glorify their names on teacups and granite to be exalted by the essence of time.
If he is seeking to immortalise himself, then it should be for his character, his aplomb, his decency. Presidents do not usually seek to immortalise themselves with false claims of excellence.
Democracies have a unique way of honouring their heroes – only after their passing and only when the public advocates for such tributes. Donald Trump undeniably merits a place in our collective memory, but not for any noble or virtuous deeds; I struggle to recall even one.
Instead, he should be etched into our history for the numerous acts of offensiveness that have marked his tenure. Imagine a comprehensive list of his missteps plastered across the façades of every government building in the nation—not as a celebration, but as a stark reminder. It is our solemn obligation to ensure that he is remembered not as a champion but as a cautionary figure—a stark warning of the threats he has posed and will continue to pose to the very foundations of American democracy.
Suppose Trump is to be inscribed in the annals of history. In that case, it should be seen as a figure marked by the numerous atrocities against the United States – a betrayal of its cherished Constitution, a violation of its legal framework, and ultimately, an affront to its people.
In a shocking display of unfounded claims, he asserted to the American populace that a monumental election had been “stolen” from him. This incendiary rhetoric ignited a frenzy among his loyal supporters, culminating in an audacious coup attempt that included assembling false electors under duress and intimidating state officials. The harrowing insurrection that followed saw a violent clash at the U.S. Capitol, leaving a tragic toll of five lives lost and 174 police officers injured — a dark Day etched in the nation’s memory.
The American people should not forget that, after his re-election, he wielded the power of pardon to absolve 1,600 individuals who had been convicted for their roles in the Capitol attack, alongside 77 others who had conspired with him in this unprecedented attempt to subvert democracy. In a brazen act of defiance, he dared to label these individuals “patriots,” transforming the narrative of insurrection into a misguided celebration.
If that alone doesn’t suffice, he must also be etched in history as the President who boldly overstepped the boundaries of Congress, seizing power that was never meant to be his. He trampled on the fundamental rights of individuals, denying them the due process guaranteed by law. He orchestrated a campaign against his political adversaries, prosecuting them with fervency. He callously disregarded international norms, carrying out extrajudicial killings of those he branded as enemy combatants. He dispatched military forces into American cities, defying the urgent pleas of mayors and governors alike. And in a shocking display of corruption, he openly accepted bribes.
Whether cast in shimmering gold or lustrous silver, or carved from the finest marble and granite, the American people must never permit the truth of Trump’s misdemeanours to fade into obscurity behind hollow tributes to his legacy. Once he has departed from the stage of history, a striking monument should rise, a powerful testament to remind future generations of the treachery he embodied and the complicity of those officials who stood by him. This monument should stand as a stark reminder, echoing the lessons of the past, ensuring that the shadows of dishonesty do not cloud the nation’s narrative.
Inscribed on the façade of a stark, industrial edifice crafted from iron and cement would be a sombre chronicle of assaults on democracy, detailing the sinister manoeuvres of a leader and naming all those complicit in his transgressions.
Above the entrance, bold and unyielding, words would speak of “Trump’s Treason,” a chilling reminder of a fraught chapter in history. This striking structure should rise on the hallowed grounds of the White House lawn, where the elegant Trump ballroom is being built, which will replace a wing of the white house, that was much admired and captivated visitors with its grandeur. Facing Pennsylvania Avenue, the building will deliberately invite families exploring the nation’s capital to commemorate America’s 500th anniversary to witness the clout of the dictator. This imposing ballroom, a monument in Trump’s name only, will serve as a stark reminder of a dark epoch, ensuring his catastrophic legacy is etched in collective memory for generations to come.
Even his peace plans for the current world trouble spots are calculated to exert maximum pressure on the Nobel Peace Prize committee.
My thought for the Day
The Office of the American President was once viewed by its people as an office of prestige and importance. Trump has reduced it to one of ridicule and contempt.
We should never have agreed to AUKUS
Albanese may come to regret his meeting with Trump, the deal and the endorsement by Trump. He may have underestimated the risk in kissing the ring of the Confidence Man.
but now he was a man of compromise, the politician who has exchanged principles for politics.
Australia should have put AUKUS on hold to let the people decide whether it should proceed. After all, we will pay for AUKUS, and we pay the salaries of the representatives of the people
By Kim Sawyer | 27 October 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/we-should-never-have-agreed-to-aukus,20307
Australia is paying for America’s submarines, striking a deal with a President we still have to fact-check. Dr Kim Sawyer reports.
HE IS THE MASTER showman. He knows where to position the actors, where to position the cameras, where to position the lights. He knows how to spray on his make-up and the make-up of others. Every press conference, every Cabinet meeting is the reality show of the showman.
U.S. President Donald Trump is the puppet master pulling the strings of the apprentices. He knows how to play them. Maggie Haberman’s The Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and The Breaking of America tells of the actor who conned the world.
“Young Donald Trump had been an athlete as a teenager, and he aspired to a career in Hollywood. He ultimately fulfilled his father’s desire for a successor in the family business in real estate. But what the son really always wanted was to be a star.”
The reality show The Apprentice made him a star. The Apprentice was his apprenticeship. Trump knows who is willing to be conned; he knows their price or how to determine their price. He thinks he knows the price of everything and everyone, but really knows the value of nothing. He is the confidence man.
Trump is the confidence man of fiction best understood by reading Ibsen’s Master Builder or by viewing the 1958 episode ‘The End of the World’ of the CBS series Trackdown that featured a character who wanted to build a wall, and who had all the confidence of the confidence man. Sound familiar? The fictitious character was called Trump. He was finally exposed as a fraud. The fictitious Trump was finally arrested.
The meeting of Trump and Albanese was his latest reality show, the Master and the Apprentice. The Master got what we wanted. He got the deference he craved. He got the deal he wanted. The Apprentice got what he wanted. He got the endorsement of power of the Confidence Man.
The art of the deal.
Perforce, the deal is a con. Turnbull and Keating understand. Morrison and Albanese do not. We should never have agreed to AUKUS. It’s not just the cost of $368 billion over 30 years that includes $123bn as a contingency for the risk of a cost blowout. The risks are everywhere.
We have already paid more than $3 billion, the premium for a very uncertain insurance policy. As Turnbull has noted, the submarines are currently being produced at a rate of 1.1 per year.
“They need to get to two by 2028 to be able to meet their own requirements, and to 2.33 to meet their own, plus Australia’s. And they have not been able to lift production rates despite expenditure of over $10 billion over the last six or seven years. So, they’ve got a real problem.”
We’ve got a bigger problem.
Governments are like portfolio managers. The government needs to understand diversification, that you do not put all your eggs in a basket of submarines. The defence budget is so tied up in submarines, we don’t have room to invest in emerging defence technologies, in patrol boats, frigates or the amphibious landing craft we need for immediate problems like evacuations. The budget is being skewed towards submarines that will not be supplied until the early 2030s, away from writing off the $70 billion of student debt that three million young Australians face. The cost of the deal.
We have become so inured to the lies of the conman, we have to fact-check everything he says. When Trump said he had been to Australia, I thought it was another porky, but no, he had visited Australia, not as the President but as a spruiker to the National Achievement Congress in 2011. The conman spruiked the message of the grifter as to how to get everyone else to pay his debts. It wasn’t Trump’s first visit to the antipodes. In August 1993, Trump visited Auckland as part of a consortium bidding for a casino operator’s licence. At the time, Trump was mired in debt. The bid was unsuccessful.
Truth and falsity are transactional for Trump. He has always used the mantra. “If you say something often enough, it becomes true.” Interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald in 2011, Trump criticised Obama’s job plan as doomed and unlikely to have any impact. At the time, the unemployment rate was nine per cent, at the end of Obama’s term, unemployment was 4.9 per cent. Trump was always anti-Obama. Trump was always false.
The other leading actor in the show that we watched last Monday was our own Prime Minister. Albanese had a lot to thank Trump for; perhaps that’s why he had wanted so much to meet him. The polls in February 2025 had the coalition leading 51–49, and then the Trump-Dutton factor came into play. Dutton was Albo’s trump card. No wonder he wanted the selfie with Trump. He invited Trump to visit, perhaps to spruik why Australia is paying for America’s submarines.
Albanese wore a lot of make-up to the meeting. The real Albo shared his confidences in private, perhaps with the other actor who sat opposite Trump, the Ambassador who Trump did not like. Albanese may come to regret his meeting with Trump, the deal and the endorsement by Trump. He may have underestimated the risk in kissing the ring of the Confidence Man.
The risk was everywhere to be seen. Two days before, 7 million joined the No Kings’ protests. Thirty years ago, when Albo was a man of principle, he may have joined those same protests, but now he was a man of compromise, the politician who has exchanged principles for politics.
On the day that Albo met Trump in the Whitehouse, the East Room was being demolished. In 1984, on a tour of the Whitehouse, we were asked to stand still, as the President appeared. Reagan had just left the East Room, where he had given a speech, where Carter, Obama, and FDR gave speeches. The East Room was built by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902.
Apparently, there was no heritage overlay, at least for Trump. Betty Ford reflected on its significance. “If the West Wing is the mind of the nation, then the East Wing is the heart.” Confirmation that Trump is heartless.
Australia should have put AUKUS on hold to let the people decide whether it should proceed. After all, we will pay for AUKUS, and we pay the salaries of the representatives of the people. However, most will never get to see the submarines, not like the HECS debt on their tax bill. Australia has been too subservient, too sycophantic, too risk-averse in our dealings with Trump. There is a cost to being risk-averse just as there is a cost to being a risk-taker.
The Democrats paid the price for not dealing with Trump as they should have dealt with him. Dealing with Trump is like dealing with the devil; you must deal on your terms, not his terms. He is a convicted felon, a fraudster, a showman, the confidence man who became President.
The No Kings protests showed the divergence between the people and the institutions, between those who will not defer to Trump and those who will defer to him; between right and wrong. History may rewrite some of the story, but not the story of the Master and the Apprentice.
Donald Trump’s battle for relevance
10 October 2025 John Lord, https://theaimn.net/donald-trumps-battle-for-relevance/
Nothing exemplifies Donald Trump’s towering ego more vividly than his relentless pursuit of international media attention. Like a moth drawn to a flame, he flies from one controversy to another, each serving as a platform to elevate his self-image or distract from a previous scandal. In his world, the gravity of any situation is secondary to the spotlight it can shine on him. This insatiable hunger for validation requires constant nourishment, creating an atmosphere where his ego demands regular worship. His fervent ambition for a Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps in a bid to rival President Obama’s controversial accolade, stands as yet another testament to his overinflated sense of self-importance.
In the midst of the extensive character scrutiny surrounding Trump, one crucial aspect may have been overshadowed by the noise. Despite the mountains of documented negative assessments that follow him like a shadow, they often seem to fall on deaf ears, dismissed and overlooked in the larger conversation. Amid all the character analysis of Trump, the critical point may have been overlooked. That being the case, all the negative analysis he generates is never taken seriously.
During the harrowing Charlie Kirk Memorial service, a gathering meant for remembrance and solace, the atmosphere was thick with sorrow. Yet, in this sea of grief, his wife stood as a beacon of grace, her voice rising above the despair to remind everyone of the light amidst the darkness. It becomes painfully jarring to juxtapose this poignant display of compassion with Trump’s vehement declarations of vengeance with hate in his heart and his outpourings of acrimony. Such stark contrasts are particularly unsettling, coming from someone who openly professes to be a Christian man, leaving one to ponder the true essence of faith amidst such tumult.
His grandstanding endeavour to foster peace between Russia and Ukraine was merely a spectacle, a classic case of ego triumphing over genuine substance. For Trump, there was an air of inevitability in his efforts that hinted at a self-assured proclamation of, “I did my best.” At the same time, for Putin, it seemed to convey a dismissive sentiment of not being interested in peace.” In this intricate dance of pride and prejudice.
Both leaders’ egos found a comforting balm, even as the prospects for true diplomacy crumbled beneath them. Then, during the Epstein controversy, he decides to have FBI Director James Comey indicted by a grand jury, just days after Trump demanded the Department of Justice prosecute him “now” and fired the prosecutor who refused to bring the case.
I wanted to bring to the attention of readers of The AIMN the latest developments in how Donald Trump is changing the face of the American nation as we once knew it. My sources of information come from various emails and publications I receive, which makes it impossible to always create a link.
Let’s continue to address the troubling actions taken by the Trump administration towards esteemed institutions like Harvard and Columbia, which have had their government funding revoked unless they conform to specific ideological standards regarding their educational content.
For years, Donald Trump has relentlessly pursued what he terms the “liberal bias” infecting the media landscape, casting journalists as the “enemy within” and striving to undermine their credibility. His fervent crusade against what he perceives as unfair reporting has triggered a series of aggressive assaults on public broadcasting, resulting in devastating funding cuts that have crippled institutions like PBS, NPR, and the Voice of America.
Furthermore, Trump has applied intense pressure on the Federal Communications Commission, effectively derailing a vital deal involving CBS’s parent company, Paramount, until CBS agrees to purge any programming that offers dissenting viewpoints, including the sharp and incisive commentary delivered by Stephen Colbert on his late-night show. This ongoing barrage raises urgent and troubling concerns about the erosion of fundamental principles in a free press and the vital independence of journalism. It poses a significant threat to the very fabric of the American media landscape, casting a shadow over the integrity of public discourse itself.
Robert Reich is always an astute observer:
“We are in the midst of the worst public tragedy of my lifetime – the despoiling and destruction of America. The destruction is now extending beyond American democracy to encompass the American economy, science, learning, and culture. People ask me, in outrage or despair, “How and why is this happening?”
Then, in a striking announcement, the White House declared that Rudy Giuliani, who is currently recuperating in a hospital following a harrowing car accident, will be bestowed with the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom. This decision has sparked outrage, as Giuliani is widely regarded as a disbarred, disgraced figure – a man whose actions have overshadowed democratic principles in service of Trump’s ambitions. The situation is nothing short of disheartening.
We are all familiar with Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is how he responded to a judge’s decision that they were illegal. “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America,” he continued. “At the start of this Labor Day weekend, we should all remember that TARIFFS are the best tool to help our Workers, and support Companies that produce great MADE IN AMERICA products.”
I’m old enough to remember when American politics was divided between those who wanted less government (they were called “conservatives,” or the Right) and those who wanted more social safety nets (called “progressives,” or the Left).
It’s hard to find Right or left these days. Instead, we have something no one has ever seen in America — a personal takeover of nearly all the institutions of government and, increasingly, the private sector, by a would-be dictator. I have recently read that large-scale pictures of Trump are appearing on government and privately owned buildings.
He is on the way to occupying Democratic-led cities with the Army, National Guard, and ICE – in what appears to be a dress rehearsal for the 2026 midterms.
He is passionately imploring Republican-led states to embark on a cunning and deliberate campaign of super-gerrymandering, a strategic manoeuvre designed to intricately reshape electoral districts. This calculated effort aims to carve out advantageous boundaries that will secure power and influence for years to come, manipulating the very fabric of political representation to gain more congressional seats for his party. This manoeuvre aims to fortify Republican dominance in the House as the pivotal 2026 midterm elections draw near.
At the same time, he is working to stifle dissent from influential institutions like universities, museums, law firms, and the media. His approach includes targeting outspoken critics, such as Adam Schiff and John Bolton, for prosecution, creating a chilling atmosphere that seeks to silence opposition and consolidate power. Just what we should title this man, who has no redeeming features, is up in the air. For the time being, I will settle for “Dictator.”
But that’s hardly all of it. There is much more. End Part One.
My thought for the day
Occasionally, it may seem that governing is solely concerned with addressing problems as they arise. But occasionally, an exceptional leader emerges with loftier ideals and a vision for a better tomorrow.
In a surprising turn of events, the Democrats have initiated a ground-breaking investigation into a staggering claim regarding Donald Trump. Midas Touch host Ben Meiselas brings to light the explosive assertion that Trump may have misappropriated an astounding $17 trillion, a figure he reportedly generated but which mysteriously vanished from the Treasury Department’s records. With no trace of this massive sum and Congress left in the dark, questions loom large: where has this money gone? It’s a remarkable narrative that raises eyebrows – can it really be true?
Where is the 17 trillion? Dems Launch an investigation…
Believe it or not?
Part two next week.
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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