"If you want to understand how this country has degenerated to such a state, how we can be spending nearly $2 billion a day attacking Iran without a clear endgame in sight, while children go without healthcare, nursing homes are understaffed because their workers have been deported, home electricity bills skyrocket due to data centers, consider who benefits and who isn’t hurt."

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/2

"This is a billionaire’s war, waged at everyone else’s expense."

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/3

"If the road to Tehran required the sons and daughters of the billionaire & political class to march beside everyone else’s kids, would we still be there?"

~ Thom Hartmann

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/4

hartmannreport.com/p/what-if-e…

What If Every Billionaire's and Senator’s Kid Could Be Sent to Fight in Iran?

If the road to Tehran required the sons and daughters of the billionaire & political class to march beside everyone else’s kids, would we still be there?

^{Thom Hartmann (The Hartmann Report)}

"Observers have spent two weeks trying to discern the 'aims' of Trump’s war on Iran, and therefore what might constitute a victory or defeat. His every bizarre utterance about his war 'plans' — including wildly conflicting declarations that Iran has surrendered and the war must be expanded to defeat the regime — immediately move markets."

~ David R. Lurie

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/5

publicnotice.co/p/trump-excurs…

Trump’s military excursion, into an abyss

The evident fact is that the president is nuts.

^{David R. Lurie (Public Notice)}

"The evident fact, though, is that Trump is completely nuts, and that he’s 'governing' the country — and has now taken the US to war — based on his impulses alone, without even the pretense of a strategy or goal."

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/6

"He governs the country by a kind of manic coaxing which is at war with short-term memory and thrives on the ability to keep as many people fixated on the super dramatic crisis of the moment without remembering that it was preceded by an endless litany of other crises with similar branding."

~ Josh Marshall

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/7

talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/b…

Borderline Personality Trump and the Uses of Press Myopia

Every president wants favorable press coverage. Most feel a surprising level of grievance when they don’t get it. Donald Trump is singular in using the powers…

^{Josh Marshall (TPM - Talking Points Memo)}

"I suspect that Trump may realize deep down that his exercise in epic fury is nuts."

~ William Kristol

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/8

thebulwark.com/p/sing-goddess-…

Sing, Goddess, of the Fury of Trump!

The wartime president is focused on footwear.

^{William Kristol (The Bulwark)}

"In the run-up to launching this regional bloodbath, Trump’s advisers 'fully briefed and prepped' him on how Iran’s government would likely respond by acting to explode oil prices – and damage the markets and our economy – if he went ahead with the war. Trump privately downplayed those warnings. Then he did it anyway."

~ Asawin Suebsaeng

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/9

zeteo.com/p/us-intel-trump-ira…

First Draft – 💥 US Intel to Trump: Iran Isn’t Breaking

The president claims we’ve already ‘won’ in Iran, as his officials tell him we most definitely haven’t; Ohioans protest Trump; and a former ICE lawyer (!) wants to replace Rep. Ilhan Omar in Congress.

^{Asawin Suebsaeng (Zeteo)}

"In recent days, two Trump advisers and two other sources briefed on the situation tell me, US officials have delivered another dire warning to our batshit crazy president: They’ve informed Trump and his lieutenants that, based on American intel, the Iranian regime at this time isn’t breaking, isn’t ready to fold on the war or stop retaliating," (continued in /11)

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/10

(continued from /10)

"and that there are signs the war is causing significant rally-around-the-flag effects on the ground in Iran, including among some groups that hate the government in Tehran."

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/11

"And yet – you guessed it – Donald Trump is going to keep doing it anyway, even in the face of mounting casualties on all sides of the conflict, the world economy on the brink, and gas and fertilizer prices surging, and increasingly disastrous poll numbers at home for this president."

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #EconomicElites #oligarchy #oil #gas
/12

"The media continues to focus on the disruption to oil supplies, but a bigger crisis may be looming in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. For technical reasons, it is difficult to stockpile LNG. For example, Taiwan is heavily dependent on LNG to produce semiconductors; LNG accounts for about 50% of Taiwan’s energy generation. Taiwan has a 100-day oil reserve but only an 11-day LNG supply."

~ Robrt Hubbell

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #oil #gas
/13

roberthubbell.substack.com/p/g…

GOP continues DHS shutdown as adminstration reels from unanticipated consequences.

March 12, 2026

^{Robert B. Hubbell (Today's Edition Newsletter)}

"It feels to me, however, that much of the media is preoccupied with how many things the US blows up on any given day and is less focused on the intricate, interconnected, downstream effects of the war. Trump proudly boasted on Wednesday that the US is self-sufficient in oil production. That’s great, but if Taiwan can’t make chips to run our computers, TVs, cars, and precision-guided missiles, having a lot of oil may be irrelevant."

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #oil #gas
/14

"Military analysts say reopening the Strait of Hormuz could require a ground operation to seize Iran’s coastline along the strategic waterway, a move that would significantly escalate the conflict and could lead to higher casualties for U.S. and allied forces, according to the Wall Street Journal."

~ Aaron Parnas

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #oil #gas #StraitOfHormuz
/15

aaronparnas.substack.com/p/new…

"In his first public remarks as Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei called for national unity and said that all US bases in the region should close or face attacks.

The strait of Hormuz will remain closed in order to pressure Iran’s enemies, Khamenei said."

~ The Guardian

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #oil #gas #StraitOfHormuz #Khamenei
/16

theguardian.com/world/live/202…

"Yesterday, after Reuters reporter Phil Stewart reported that as many as 150 U.S. troops had been wounded so far in the Iran conflict, the Pentagon publicly revised its estimate of fewer than a dozen U.S. service members wounded upward to about 140. The wounds include brain trauma, shrapnel wounds, and burns. Seven service members have died."

~ Heather Cox Richardson

#Trump #Iran #war #death #casualties #destruction
/17

heathercoxrichardson.substack.…

March 11, 2026

In a brief call with Barak Ravid of Axios today, President Donald J.

^{Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American)}

"It would be great if we could replace that regime. The problem with that as a military mission is that it's just very unlikely to work. It's never worked in the past, and we've tried this repeatedly, & we've tried it in different ways with a full-on occupation invasion like in Iraq, or just bombing like in Libya, or arming the opposition in Syria, or international coalition in Afghanistan, there are all sorts of ways."

~ Philip H. Gordon

#Trump #Iran #RegimeChange
/18

contrariannews.org/p/forced-re…

"The problem is you remove the regime, however bad, and then you just create a political vacuum. ...So the problem is the impossibility of the mission rather than the value of the mission if we could do it."

#Trump #Iran #RegimeChange
/19

"For nearly two weeks, the US said it wasn’t responsible [for the killing of Iranian schoolchildren in Minab]. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that it was 'done by Iran' and called Tomahawk missiles 'very generic.' Defense Secretary Hegseth said the US 'never targets civilians.' The White House said anyone claiming otherwise was being 'irresponsible and false.'”

~ Rudy Martinez

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #Minab #school #TomahawkMissile #children #lies
/20

chicanoinparis.com/p/the-rest-…

The Rest of the World Report | Day 12 Update — Evening Edition

Quick one tonight. I'll be back in the morning with a full rundown.

^{Rudy Martinez (A Chicano In Paris)}

"Today, that story collapsed.

Reuters, NPR, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and the New York Times all independently confirmed the same preliminary finding from an internal US military investigation: a US Tomahawk struck the school, likely because the Pentagon was using outdated targeting data."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #Minab #school #TomahawkMissile #children #lies #disinformation
/21

"The killing of a reported 168 people, primarily schoolgirls, in the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab in Iran has shaken to its very core the conscience of the world.

The attack, carried out nearly two weeks ago when classes were under way, reduced the school building to rubble."

~ Gordon Brown

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #Minab #school #TomahawkMissile #children
/22

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Children killed, a school turned into a graveyard: even in wartime, we can’t accept this

There are rules and world leaders must insist they be honoured in practice and in spirit. After this atrocity in Iran, a more effective tribunal for crimes against children is essential, says former prime minister Gordon Brown

^{Gordon Brown (The Guardian)}

"Parents who had sent their daughters to school discovered minutes later that classrooms had become mass graves. ...

On Monday, a BBC investigation produced evidence of multiple US Tomahawk missiles fired and landing in the vicinity of the school, hitting, they believe, the school itself, as well as a medical clinic reportedly belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #Minab #school #TomahawkMissile #children
/23

"The BBC found no evidence of a separate Iranian-fired missile landing at the site. Despite this, Trump doubled down, saying: 'Numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us.'”

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #Minab #school #TomahawkMissile #children
/24

"Gaza really more than anything … feels like a preview to what we're seeing now in Iran. And it demonstrated the preference by that government, that regime under Bibi Netanyahu, for just cruelty, the preference for cruelty over restraint in the way that it wages war in order to demoralize the population that they're fighting and demoralize them into being too devastated and too morally devastated to fight back."

~ Joy-Ann Reid

#Trump #Netanyahu #Iran #Gaza
/25

joyannreid.com/p/regime-lies-o…

"That also does seem to be the plan for Bibi the Butcher and Donald the Dumb in their war on Iran. ... The US and Israel are now jointly conducting a war that is already being, it is already triggering the same kind of disgust that the genocide in Gaza did."

#Trump #Netanyahu #Iran #Gaza
/26

"Cardinal Robert W McElroy, the archbishop of Washington DC, has said that the US-Israeli war with Iran is 'not morally legitimate', going further than the pope has done in his more moderate appeals for an end to the war."

~ Anna Betts

#Trump #Iran #war #morality #CardinalMcElroy
/27

theguardian.com/us-news/2026/m…

Washington cardinal says US war on Iran ‘not morally legitimate’

Robert McElroy goes further than pope has done and says conflict fails ‘criterion of right intention’

^{Anna Betts (The Guardian)}

"In an interview with the Catholic Standard this week, McElroy said: 'The criterion of just cause is not met because our country was not responding to an existing or imminent and objectively verifiable attack by Iran.'”

#Trump #Iran #war #morality #CardinalMcElroy
/28

"In the fantasy of the far right, the United States and Israel are making history and saving civilization. British commentator Melanie Phillips sees the war as 'the likely birth of a new world order pivoted around that alliance between America and Israel.'”

~ Ruth Ben-Ghiat

#Trump #Hegseth #Netanyahu #Iran #Israel #war #HolyWar #ChristianNationalism #zionism
/29

lucid.substack.com/p/who-benef…

Who Benefits from the U.S.-Israel War on Iran?

The war will eventually backfire on Trump and Netanyahu, while Putin profits

^{Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Lucid)}

"By bombing Iran, America has 'recovered its position as leader of the free world' while Israel 'has rediscovered its biblical warrior identity and has become the regional superpower in the Middle East.'

In support of this new order, messianic Orthodox and secular nationalist Israeli ideologies meet with Christian nationalist views. ...

There is one party that will benefit from the war: Russia."

#Trump #Hegseth #Netanyahu #Iran #Israel #war #HolyWar #ChristianNationalism #zionism #Putin
/30

PRRI president Robert P. Jones talks with Wajahat Ali about how we are all "now reaping the consequences of the unwillingness of our senators to recognize the dangers of Hegseth’s Christian nationalism."

Wajahat starts by pointing out how the powers that be want to shut up discussion of white Christian nationalism.

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #WhiteChristianNationalism
/31

redeemingdemocracy.net/p/hegse…

The two leading religion reporters at New York Times refuse even to use the term "Christian nationalism." Lots of establishment Democrats want to ignore the religious and racial roots of Trump's support and to suppress this discussion.

Wajahat says:

"Robbie, you know that you and I get backlash. So like, no, no, don't say Christian nationalism, say religious nationalism."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #WhiteChristianNationalism
/32

" Within Democratic circles, mainstream circles, corporate media circles, they are averse to using the word white Christian nationalism because, number one, they don't want to piss off Christians. And number two, they don't want to piss off white. I say, no, no, no. The data says that this is a white Christian nationalist problem."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #WhiteChristianNationalism
/33

Robbie replies:

"Well, you know, I do tend to use those words all together, right? White Christian nationalism, because that really is the only way to understand what it is in our context, right? Now, there is religious nationalism in other parts of the world, but in America—our issue is white Christian nationalism."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #WhiteChristianNationalism
/34

Then Robbie adds:

"The big, beautiful bill, let's just make sure everybody remembers, has got money already in it for like $50,000 plus beds at internment camps that they're already trying to open all over the country, probably one coming to an abandoned warehouse near you."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #ICE #immigrants #EthnicCleansing #ConcentrationCamps
/35

"And this is the America that we're living in, that we literally are having internment camps. And we've polled on this. And what we're finding is that, again, it's a majority of Republicans and a super majority of white evangelical Christians who actually, even when we say to them, internment camps," (continued in /37)

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #ICE #immigrants #EthnicCleansing #ConcentrationCamps
/36

(continued from /36)

"Do you support internment camps for undocumented immigrants where they should be rounded up until they can be deported? Even when we put that language into a question, we've got a majority of Republicans [and white evangelicals] now saying, yeah, I'm down with that."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #ICE #immigrants #EthnicCleansing #ConcentrationCamps
/37

"Trump and Hegseth seem to be in love with what they think of as their Big Boy Toys. Supreme excellence in their minds seems to be blowing things up better than anyone else can blow things up. We can blow up more things than anyone else. We can blow things into smaller pieces than anyone else can. We can blow up things from a greater distance than anyone else can."

~ Peterr

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #PerformativeMasculinity #violence #arrogance #hubris
/38

emptywheel.net/2026/03/12/grea…

Great Tactics Mean Nothing if You Have No Strategy - emptywheel

Take it from Clausewitz or Sun Tzu or even Jesus of Nazareth: strategy matters. Too bad for all of us that Trump and Hegseth don't get this.

^{Peterr (emptywheel)}

"Screw negotiations. Screw soft power like USAID and VOA. Screw partnering with allies. What matters most to them is making the biggest booms. ...

If you can’t answer 'What is my ultimate goal?' and estimate the cost of achieving it, then all the big booms are useless if not counterproductive."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #PerformativeMasculinity #violence #arrogance #hubris
/39

Simon Rosenberg gathers newspaper headlines today.

#Trump #Iran #war #economy #oil #gas
/40

hopiumchronicles.com/p/trump-i…