March 16, 2026 · 5:15 am

The past is a different country. In this case, an illusory one.

At Lawyers, Guns and Money last week, Paul Campos discusses the image below (from some point in the post-WWII pre-1960s years), which has shown up online with the following sentiment: “What did Democrats find so wrong with this version of America that they needed to completely destroy it and turn our country into the mess we live in today?”

Screenshot

This plays to the same fantasy nostalgia the Reagan era promoted (as David Halberstam wrote about in The Fifties), that the 1950s were a utopian world where a single wage-earner could afford to support the family (which is not a bad thing), Mom was a happy housewife, and everything was innocent and peaceful with none of that sixties chaos. In reality there were civil rights protests, many women (no, not all) starting to realize their lives sucked, and Alfred Kinsey’s research showing premarital sex, adultery and homosexuality were all more common than people thought. Far from being calm and complacent, the 1950s were riven by fear: gays everywhere, communists everywhere, black people refusing to know their place, women seizing too much power (Halberstam doesn’t cover all of this).

Democrats (and liberals/feminists/civil rights activists) didn’t destroy this. If anyone did it was corporate America, shifting jobs overseas (lower regulation, lower pay) and squeezing worker pay as low as possible (while CEO pay skyrockets) to keep Wall Street and the stockholders happy. We end up with a billionaire class that doesn’t give a damn about the rest of us.

And contrary to some of the comments on the post (“they did not ask for a free ride”), this couple probably did benefit from government help — federally backed mortgage, maybe the GI Bill to let the man go to college, Social Security to provide for them later. As Ira Katznelson has written, much of this was unavailable to POC, sometimes by design, sometimes because redlining would keep POC from buying a nice house in the suburbs. Private covenants also kept Jews out of some suburban neighborhoods.

What the original post calls destruction is freedom. The freedom for black families and gay couples to have a shot at this. The freedom of the wife to work if she wanted — as Stephanie Koontz’s The Strange Stirring shows, in several states a husband could legally forbid his wife to work outside the home, among other petty tyrannies. Yes, some women were happy staying home; many of them, as Jessica Valenti says, fought like hell to escape that life. As Kristin Kobes du Mez says, the positive aspects of tight 1950s communities were counterbalanced by conformity and repression, particularly of women.

I suspect for the poster Campos is commenting on, keeping women at home even if they don’t want to be is a plus. The 1950s nostalgia doesn’t envision an improved version of the decade — booming economy but with integrated suburbs, men free to be househusbands, women protected from discrimination on the job — restoring white patriarchy is part of the job. Republicans don’t want a future where drag queens, independent women and Muslims are equal citizens in this Republic.

Case in point, Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles who says Muslims don’t belong in America — pluralism is dead! A part of me thinks he has a point — sharing America with shitty bigots like Ogles obviously ain’t working out, so let’s ship him to Somalia. Sen. Tommy Tuberville is another anti-Muslim bigot who thinks NYC Mayor Zohram Mamdani is no different than the 9/11 terrorists. As Fred Clark says, rejecting pluralism will never stop with rejecting Muslims — as witness misogynist, slavery apologist preacher Douglas Wilson declaring America should ban public displays of idolatry, including Catholic display: “a parade in honor of the Virgin Mary, carrying an image of the Virgin Mary down the street, no. Right? A Eucharistic procession? Probably not.”

Or consider this: “As for the requirement that one of the coin designs celebrate the contributions of women to the great American experiment, the Mint cited the image of a Pilgrim holding the hand of, and being embraced by, her protective male partner.” — a look at how the Toddler administration overruled plans for coins celebrating Frederick Douglass and women’s suffrage in favor of whiter, more male images.

Tuberville on Mamdani.

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March 15, 2026 · 5:15 am

East and west coast, in fiction and non-fiction

First the East Coast — John A. McDermott’s THE LAST SPIRITS OF MANHATTAN is a literary novel about what the author says was a real party Alfred Hitchcock threw in the 1950s at a house owned by McDermott’s relatives. I don’t know if it’s really based-on-truth (authors fudge that stuff a lot) but I also don’t mind. I picked the book up for the historical fantasy aspect — as I write it, it’s interesting to read it — and for the cool cover (my apologies to the artist for forgetting to note the name).

Carolyn, one of the lead protagonists in the ensemble cast, is an upperclass young woman contemplating a marriage proposal; she’s not really into him but then again, what else is she going to do with her life? Meanwhile Peter, a hustling young Manhattanite winds up hunting for a haunted house for Hitch’s party; trouble is, Manhattan’s developed and redeveloped and built up to the point old haunted houses are rare. As it turns out, Carolyn’s family have a house that looks spooky enough — it’ll do even though obviously there won’t be any real ghosts there to disturb Hitchcock, his wife Alma, Henry Fonda (then acting in Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man) and the other guests.

It’s an interesting setup but as I’ve mentioned often enough, literary fiction isn’t usually to my taste. McDermott’s literary stylings didn’t hold my interest, which is not his fault; I also found the more interesting stories (Carolyn and Peter) lost amidst the ensemble cast — I was much less interested in Henry Fonda’s tormented angst, for instance. Ultimately this didn’t work for me.

Now, the West Coast — ECOLOGY OF FEAR: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster by Mike Davis is a late 1990s jeremiad showing the utter insanity of massive multi-million dollar development in Southern California given what an insanely unstable environment it is. Earthquakes. Wild animals becoming increasingly dangerous as we move into their territory. Drought. Tornadoes. Wildfire. All of which Big Money makes worse.

Malibu homeowners, Davis says, oppose sensible firefighting measure such as controlled burns because the ash and smoke hurts their property values; nevertheless if they lose their homes they can count on the state government reimbursing them. By contrast, frequent tenement fires in LA’s poor districts leave tenants unhoused, with little support, and the fire department can’t even bother to make the required fire inspections on the rat-traps.

It’s an interesting read that branches into disaster movies set in LA (he dismisses Blade Runner as having little to do with the real city’s architecture and locations), then a closing chapter on the future that predicts the growth of exurbs and gated communities will kill the suburbs as the suburbs killed the downtown. This stuff was interesting, even if I don’t buy his conclusions, but it also left me feeling like I’d finished one of the 19th century fin de siecle prophesies of doom like the Victorian books Stephen Arata writes about. I’m curious whether much has changed in the quarter-century since the book came out, but not enough to research it.

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March 14, 2026 · 5:15 am

Love and Death: Two Movies

After reading Vera Caspary’s novel Laura last year, inevitably I wanted to rewatch the 1944 adaptation. It took me longer than I expected.

LAURA (1944) stars Dana Andrews as McPherson, a homicide detective investigating the murder of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), who got a shotgun blast to the face when she answered her door one night. Was the killer Laura’s effete Southern fiancee Shelby (Vincent Price)? Ann (Judith Anderson) who knows Shelby’s no good but wants him anyway? Perhaps Laura’s closest friend, the snide, sneering columnist Lydecker (Clifton Webb)? Complicating things, the more he learns about Laura, the more McPherson finds himself falling for a dead woman …

This is an excellent movie and I definitely prefer it to the source novel. Which is not to say it’s a perfect adaptation: we lose Laura’s strong, independent spirit and McPherson’s surprising education (he’s way smarter than he looks). Still, a terrific film. “Let me put it this way — I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbor’s children devoured by wolves.”

After the recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights I went back and rewatched the 1939 WUTHERING HEIGHTS with Laurence Olivier as a brooding, angry Heathcliffe, Merle Oberon as Cathy and David Niven as Edgar (the impeccably British supporting cast includes Flora Robson, Donald Crips, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Leo G. Carroll, Cecil Kellaway and Miles Mander). We open on a new tenant of the Grainge arriving at Wuthering Heights on a freezing winter night, meeting an aged Heathcliffe — and when the tenant mentions seeing a woman out in the snow, Heathcliffe has a meltdown. One of the servants takes it on herself to explain and we begin a flashback to when Cathy’s father brought Heathcliffe home …

My first thought was that this was more Tragic Romance where the recent movie was Doomed Obsession; then again, Heathcliffe here comes off more obsessed, particularly after Cathy’s death. Either way it works for me; I know from LeAnn’s discussion that it includes elements the new film drops (Cathy’s mean brother, for instance) though it drops others in its turn. Worth a look. “Haunt me then — haunt your murderer!”

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March 13, 2026 · 5:21 am

Do you remember Morris, the finicky cat?

Morris was the star of a long-running series of commercials for 9 Lives catfood, emphasizing he was finicky about his food — but he loved 9 Lives! Which I was thinking of this week because Plushie seems to be in a “Morris — hold my beer!” mood.

We have to give both dogs lots of drugs for their various ailments. Trixie will eat hers on soft food; Plushie’s finicky and unpredictable. Depending on the day he may eat gabapentin on either soft food, chicken-broth concentrate or Delectable cat treats. I have no way to know which the chosen substrate will be. This adds several minutes to the process and sometimes waste the drugs. It’s frustrating. Sometimes he’ll turn the gunk down on the plate but eat it off my hand. Currently we’re randomly switching day to day — that seems to help but he still sometimes gets picky. And no, we can’t force it into his mouth the way we do Trixie when we have to. Plush Dudley’s more likely to bite and too stubborn to force easily.

So far we’ve managed to keep him doped enough for his own wellbeing. Hopefully we can keep it up.

(Plushie rolling in snow, from earlier this year)

On the plus side, no dog health disasters this week, so that’s a win. And we took care of one house problem, some foundation work that needed doing. Nothing urgent but it’s good to have it taken care of.

Now, as to writing, this was a good week. I was disorganized after spending last weekend at Ret-Con. Even so I was productive. I completed my March writing goals on Let No Man Put Asunder and on Savage Adventures, covering Doc’s adventures up through The Red Skull. I also rewrote, and I think finished my short story “Mage’s Masquerade.” I realized a while back that some of the key supporting characters weren’t developed enough for readers to tell them apart (a complaint made about a much earlier draft). I think I’ve got it fixed. I also much improved “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” by chopping about 1300 words off the end. I’ll look at both stories the last week of the month and see if I still think they’re done (the first story, maybe, the second almost certainly not).

There’s still no Local Reporter work — hopefully we’ll be back next week. However over at Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the comic-books of Earth-One. The cover above suggests they looked exactly like the ones in our world; as I detail at the link, probably not. I also post about Doctor Doom’s short-lived run as a co-star with Ka-Zar in Astonishing Tales.

Doom’s racism in that scene does not work for me.

Things will get crazier next week when I have some IRL tasks to take care of. Still, I budgeted the time for that, so hopefully it’ll still be another good week.

Art by James Bama (t), Carmine Infantino and Gene Colan (b).

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March 13, 2026 · 5:16 am

I sold some books!

Last weekend I attended Ret-Con, the local Durham specfic convention. It’s pleasantly close, maybe 6 miles up highway 54, which is nice, and I see a lot of people I know — fellow local author Samantha Bryant, Tera Fulbright of ConGregate, guest of honor Natania Barron and a few others.

I attended last year. This year, though, I had an author table.

It’s a small convention so everyone doing anything has to pass through Author’s Alley, plus my table was right in front of the dealer’s room. Plus I’m really good at bookselling — I used to do it for a day job — so any time I made eye contact with someone passing by, I asked if they’d like to buy a book. Sometimes they did.

The end result: $300 in sales. I feel quite pleased. There was a time I’d have treated this as special income and bought myself some sort of treat with a little of the money. These days it’s just income, plus my birthday’s approaching so I don’t want to buy myself anything yet. Still, the accomplishment is satisfying.

I sold copies of everything Behold the Book publishes except Atoms for Peace, which has been my best seller at other cons. Not that I mind, it’s just interesting to see the variation.

They like me. They really like me.

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March 12, 2026 · 5:15 am

“We truly do live in the New Gilded Age, where our elites simply do not give a fuck what it looks like.”

That was a quote from a recent post on Lawyers, Guns and Money, discussing how the current ruling class is not only shitty and corrupt, they enjoy flaunting it. In this case, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whose husband has been barred from the department due to sexual assault accusations, and who’s also spent government money to throw herself a birthday party.

Some more examples, not only of corruption but stupidity —

The DOJ’s lawyers keep getting slapped with state-level misconduct charges. Pam Bondi’s solution isn’t to make them act ethically, it’s to ban such charges so her department can investigate (yeah, right).

“Just days before the United States launched a major military operation in Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen agents and staff members from a counter intelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran. They were ousted for a simple reason: Each was involved in the investigation of President Donald Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.” Well, no way that could backfire, is there?

I don’t think assigning a 22 year old with no counterterrorism experience to lead Homeland Security’s counter-terrorism hub will work out well either. Of course all that really matters to the current administration is blind loyalty to President Toddler.

“According to MRFF President Mikey Weinstein, service members report “unrestricted euphoria” among segments of the chain of command portraying the assault on Iran as biblically sanctioned and tied to end-times prophecy in the Book of Revelation. One NCO wrote that such rhetoric is eroding morale and violating constitutional oaths, particularly for troops in Ready-Support status who could be deployed at any moment.”

“the Mahmoud opinion was the low-water water mark for the ways this court plans to use religious freedom to wash away any protections and policies that might be opposed by religious parents.” — another example of the Supreme Court’s Republicans being partisan hacks.

SCOTUS striking down the Toddler’s tariffs “is actually an indictment of the Court. These tariffs have been in effect for almost a year. They have upended whole sectors of the U.S. and global economies. The fact that a president can illegally exercise such powers for so long and with such great consequences for almost a year means we’re not living in a functional constitutional system. If the Constitution allows untrammeled and dictatorial powers for almost one year, massive dictator mulligans, then there is no Constitution.”

Can you imagine if Clinton or Harris were president and they started talking about interior decorating during a press conference on the war?

“Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) threatened Tuesday to use aggressive procedural measures to bring Senate work to a standstill if Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem fails to respond to his offices’ inquiries about an immigration crackdown in Charlotte, North Carolina.” — I’m pleased Tillis has finally grown a spine now that he’s retiring. After ten years of toadying to the Toddler, it’s also too little too late.

The Toddler is now talking about conquering Cuba as well.

Conspiracy theorist and bullshit artist Chris Rufo is shocked that so many people have gone down the conspiracy-theory hole — OMG, some of them are anti-semitic and anti-Republican!

“why are these people so utterly obsessive about constantly expanding their already uncountable wealth up until the very last day of their wretched lives?

“In a video posted online last week, two detectives with the Miami Beach Police Department were filmed questioning Raquel Pacheco, a former candidate for statewide office and longtime resident of the seaside resort city, over a post she made criticizing what she said was Mayor Steven Meiner’s hypocrisy around Israel and Palestine.”

“It’s remarkable that Nuzzi (according to multiple reviewers) seems to think even now that her having an affair with a subject she was covering and whose political goals she was working to advance without disclosure in subsequent profiles and who she was running ratfucking operations on behalf of represents merely “private” misconduct, like she had an affair with some random person she met on a dating app. It’s even more remarkable that she thought it was plausible that it would remain private. And her belief that Kennedy would just fade away would be the most remarkable and damning thing if she probably wasn’t lying about that.”

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March 11, 2026 · 5:17 am

Is this a weakness or a foundation? Or both?

I am now 26,000 words into this draft of Impossible Takes a Little Longer. I’m wondering if I’m doing it right.

This draft is a big improvement because I relocated it to 1983 and that was definitely right. A lot of the worldbuilding makes much more sense if things happen in the 1980s — the Stardians and Un-Things occupying part of Dallas will play out better if they’ve only been there twenty years. Also the changes to the timeline are more manageable if I shave 40 years off them. They’re also closer to the real timeline which makes them more interesting — when it was set in the present, everything was far more unrecognizable. And I can make better use of pop culture references, such as the 1980s comic book Thriller (almost nobody remembers it, but it has a role to play).

Looking at the first 26,000 words, however, I’m thinking about a critique someone in my writing group made about the previous draft. The early chapters spend a lot of time on KC’s social relationships and unless that pays off down the road, it’s too much.

It does pay off. What happens to Skeeter Powell and Sarah Wyzbecki is vitally important, and I need to establish them as KC’s friends before the crazy stuff happens. And some of the discussion sets up themes that will play off later — violence, compassion, doing the right thing, empowering others, etc.

That said, it still feels like I’m taking too long to get to the meat of the story, the looming threat. It’s out there and KC has already had a couple of intense battles but the sense of menace I want isn’t there. I’m also thinking of the feedback I got on Southern Discomfort a couple of years back: that an urban fantasy needs urgency and tension from the start whereas I’m writing at the pace of epic fantasy, where the build can be slower.

Then again, it may be that I have enough action and menace, it’s just that there’s two chapters in a row that are heavily talky or not focusing on the main threat. If I were in the middle of Chapter Three or Four I wouldn’t feel the same. Perhaps I need some tension in the middle? Which could mean rearranging events, or simply making KC’s reaction more intense.

Not a fatal flaw, I think, but definitely a problem to be aware of as I keep going.

Cover by Trevor von Eeden, all rights to image remain with current holder.

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March 10, 2026 · 12:30 pm

Rules of war are not handcuffs on our troops. And toxic masculinity is not how we win wars.

SecDef — oh, sorry, SecWar — Pete Hegseth has made it clear that in his eyes rules of war are for sissies and wimps.

“Hegseth appears to argue that the US military should ignore the Geneva conventions and any international laws governing the conduct of war, and instead “unleash them” to become a “ruthless”, “uncompromising” and “overwhelmingly lethal” force geared to “winning our wars according to our own rules.'” Because if we fight fair, what happens when the other side doesn’t, huh? Maybe if we were as brutal and ruthless as our enemy, they’d learn better fast!”

This is bullshit on multiple levels. I’ll get to why it’s bullshit in a second. First though, I want to look at what’s behind it: toxic masculinity, the belief that men are brutal, violent creatures and indeed should be brutal, violent creatures

It’s not an attitude unique to Hegseth. Lots of right-wingers grumble that the militry accepting trans Americans and women and working to treat minorities and women fairly is too woke. As noted at the link, there’s not the slightest evidence we’re less effective in war, even though Sen. Ted Cruz whines that having a woman raised by two gay parents in the Army reduces the military to “pansies” — how can soldiers like that possibly compete with the savage brutes of Putin’s utterly masculine Russian military?

Ukraine, of course, proved that the Russian man-beasts were somewhat less than invincible. While boots on the ground are essential to hold territory, battles in the age of drone warfare are no longer about brute strength or which side has the most testosterone. However, as Paul Waldman puts it, “in a world where most men are unable to demonstrate that their upper-body strength justifies their superior social status, some are desperate to defend a physical hierarchy wherever it can be found.”

That ties in with toxic masculinity, an obsession of religious conservatives such as Hegseth (they’re for it, in case you were wondering). As Dr. Nerdlove puts it, toxic masculinity is the belief men are inherently, innately violent, sexually aggressive (rape is natural! [no, it isn’t]) and supposed to be dominant. Worse, “everything is about the performance rather than the reality. Even expressions of theoretical selflessness – the idea of “a real man provides”, for example – are at their core aimed at maintaining their masculine credentials rather than caring for the wellbeing of one’s spouse and family.”

Who judges your performance? Other men, as Celeste Davis points out (and Nerdlove too). Men police masculinity and judge other men for coming up too short — not tough enough, not brave enough, didn’t laugh at the rape joke, like whatever’s considered “girly.” It’s a paradox: this kind of manhood is supposed to embody toughness and strength but in the face of male criticism you’re expected to cave instantly.

Pete Hegseth, despite having served, seems to embody this performative aspect, spouting about how those Iraqis better be scared we are in total control of what happens, “we are punching them when they’re down,” and sure, bad things are going to happen to American troops but it’s war, it’s hell! You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few human eggs, amiright?

Now, as to the bullshit. Hegseth obviously wants a war that conforms to his toxic masculine priors, where savage American brutes are unleashed to do their worst to the Iranians. Calling for America to reject the Geneva Convention and hand-wave any rules of engagement — yeah, he’s one tough mother alpha male!

Like I said it’s bullshit. We do not have to be as ruthless/cruel/barbaric as the enemy to beat them. The Union beat the Confederacy without embracing slavery. We defeated the Axis without imposing a final solution. We won the Cold War without adopting a Soviet-style dictatorship. Conversely we lost in Iraq even though we used torture. The idea we have to sink to the enemy’s level does not hold up, nor does victory go to the most savage or cruel. It’s the military equivalent of the myth that respecting people’s constitutional rights would be a suicide pact.

On top of which, being cruel and savage is a bad thing. This isn’t a modern “woke” idea — Christians have been debating what constitutes just wars and legitimate tactics for centuries. In the words of the 1863 Army regulations, “Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral human beings, responsible to one another and to God.” Doing evil — murdering fishermen because just maybe possibly they’re transporting drugs — does not become justified because you’re now in the military. Or because you’re the Secretary of War or the Commander in Chief.

As Military.com puts it, “no competent military runs ‘no ROE,’ because U.S. forces remain bound by domestic orders and the law of armed conflict, including concepts such as distinction and proportionality. The Department of Defense Law of War Manual lays out those rules as operational obligations, not optional preferences.” As the article notes, rules can become cumbersome and overly lawyered but they give guidelines for what to do and not do. No torture (at least that was the rule before W decided to embrace “harsh interrogation” in his presidency). No executing helpless prisoners. No massacring civilians as happened in Vietnam (and of course, the butchering of Venezuelan fishing boats).

This isn’t purely about being noble: not being a brute is in our interest too. The enemy are more likely to surrender if we treat prisoners fairly. Civilian casualties “can create tactical blowback, degrade intelligence access, and strengthen enemy recruiting,” in the words of Military.com. Having rules of engagement that treat the enemy as humans is often a pragmatic strategy. Well, if your primary goal is winning rather than proving how masculine you are by terrorizing and crushing your enemy.

I think we know which way Hegseth and the Toddler of the United States prefer to go. The wrong one.

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March 10, 2026 · 5:15 am

Two by Earle Bergey

First this paperback cover. “A century ahead of her sex” refers to the adversaries being homo superior, I believe.

Second, this one, which the source credited to Bergey. Those are some comical looking aliens, aren’t they?

For more Bergey covers, click here.

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March 9, 2026 · 5:09 am

War should not be a stage for Hegseth and the Toddler president to strut upon

Pete Hegseth: “We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Actually the purpose of rules of engagement and rules of war is indeed to shackle the combatants: no bombing hospitals, no torturing of prisoners, no blowing up schools. Hegseth, having had a more distinguished career at Fox News than in the military, seems to feel there’s not enough toxic masculinity in observing such nitpicking. And that his duty as SecDef is to act tough for the camera.

I’m also bothered by that bit about how the authority was “granted personally.” As if the Necrotic Toddler he servers were King Donald (as he so wishes to be) and Hegseth were his vassal, giving orders to armed knights. What Hegseth does, he does as an official of the United States government, as does his boss. It isn’t “personal” in a sense. But as Paul Campos says at the link above, it’s striking “how many top Nazis and MAGATS share the same basic social profile, i.e., lifelong catastrophic fuckup who failed upward under conditions ripe for such people to ascend to positions for which they were farcically unqualified.” And yes, the Toddler is one of those.

Let’s step back in time. If you’re too young to remember the 2003 Gulf War, the occupation of Iraq that followed was a massive drain on our military preparedness, got lots of soldiers killed (and many, may more Iraqis), and accomplished nothing other than removing Saddam. Based on a threat of WMDs that never existed. Despite which the press were happy to gush about W as a great, great war leader — oh, how we Americans love it when our president has a swagger! He’ll destroy our enemies with the same relentlessness with which he clears brush off his Texas farmland — yes, one reporter wrote that (the media often presented W, a child of wealth and a Yale graduate, as a plain-spoken Texas farmer).

One difference is that in 2003, Democrats solidly supported W’s war. Not this time, though Republicans are all in (and so are a handful of Democrats). As the Constitution requires Congress to declare war, Republicans are declaring it can’t be a war, therefore the Toddler is in charge. The administartion’s rationale for doing it without consulting Congress is equally dubious.

And much like the Iraq war, bigots such as Laura Loomer are now declaring its time to round up American Muslims. Because …? Apparently she’s fine with Nazi tactics when they’re not directed at Jews such as herself.

The Toddler and Hegseth almost make W look like he was a competent war leader — and he was emphatically not a competent war leader. The stated reasons for rushing to war are completely inconsistent when they’re not incoherent — Iran was weeks from having a nuke (despite the Toddler declaring last year that we’d annihilated Iran’s nuclear facilities)! Israel was going to attack, Iran would have retaliated against us, therefore there was an imminent threat! It’s regime change! It’s not regime change! The toddler wants unconditional surrender! It’s because we’ve been at war with Iran for 47 years!

This has become the right-wing catchphrase of the day. It’s a lie. We’ve been hostile, but not at war. And fixating on Iran seizing our embassy 47 years ago as the start of things that we overthrew their democratically elected government and installed the Shah as our puppet dictator more than a decade earlier.

Karoline “Axis Sally” Leavitt is faux-outraged that the press a)mention the war dead on the front page and b)quote Hegseth accurately. Why can’t they say how wonderful her boss is? She does that constantly, but she’s lying. While I realize the press secretary is supposed to stick up for their employer, that’s no excuse: Leavitt didn’t have to take the job and become a lying fascist toady.

Hegseth is similarly whining that sure, “tragic things happen” but the press should be reporting how awesome his leadership is, not mentioning dead American soldiers on the front page (and he’s definitely not mentioning allegations an Iranian warship we torpedoed may have been unarmed, and we knew it).! He’s also an idiot when he claims “the terms of this war will be set by us at every step” — no, they won’t be. The Iranians have a say too. Hell, the Toddler and “Whisky Pete” can’t even decide whether this is a quick decisive strike and possibly being in Iran or bombing them, for months or years. “But many reports suggest that the United States doesn’t have enough left in its weapons stockpiles to continue the current pace of action for more than a few days without dangerously weakening the military’s ability to counter other threats, such as a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan.” A Kuwaiti fighter shot down three American F-15s in error; those aren’t cheap either. Our Navy may not be able to provide the Toddler’s promised merchant vessel protection.

It’s going to hit our economy hard. By interfering with the oil flow, the Toddler’s making the case for renewable energy — solar power can’t be cut off in a time of war.

We’re talking spending billions to make the Toddler and his SecWar feel like they’re real men. There’s lots we could do with that money. As usual Republicans only care about the budget when they object to doing stuff that helps people (W left office after racking up record red ink too). And no, the press are not making the Toddler and Hegseth look bad — they’re self-owning.

“The White House has helped MAGA influencers escape the Middle East on a private jet while more than a million ordinary Americans are still trapped with no way out.” Paul Krugman: “U.S. officials have urged all Americans in the region to leave, but they did so after almost all flights had been canceled. Only now are they saying that they’re going to arrange flights on military aircraft and charter flights — an airlift that will have to be immense given that there are surely tens of thousands of Americans currently stranded. Did I mention that Trump and co. clearly went to war without a plan?”

As for regime change: “Asked who he would like to take over Iran, Mr. Trump gave a strikingly blunt answer. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he said. “Now we have another group, they may be dead also, based on reports. “So you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.”” However he’s asserted it should be his decision who takes the reins.

A few final notes:

How about betting markets on the war’s outcome? Their spokespeople insist they don’t do bad stuff like bet on the deaths of the enemy leaders but “it’s just that the company would rather let you bet on the deaths and suffering of civilians rather than dictators and presidents. Betting that Khamenei would stay in power is an explicit bet that he would be allowed to continue silencing dissent and killing those who oppose him; betting that he would be deposed is an explicit bet on what has already become a very deadly, illegal regional war.

The Toddler, who’s been in shit fits because South Korea and Brazil arrested their presidents for crimes, wants a pardon for Netanhayu. Here’s a counter-argument for ending our close relationship with Israel.

The reports of Christian military officers proclaiming this is the start of Armageddon may be inaccurate. Though plenty of right-wing preachers outside the military make a similar claim.

Russia’s providing Iran with intelligence about our operations. The Toddler doesn’t care.

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