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The Iranian regime had their chance, yet refused to make a deal — and now they are suffering the consequences.

Pete Hegseth, “Secretary of War,” on February 28, 2026

We've wiped out their navy — 44 ships. We've wiped out their air force, every plane. We've wiped out most of their missiles.

Donald Trump on March 19, 2026

Understanding what is happening must start with an appreciation for the obscenity of Pete Hegseth’s vandalism of the US Armed Forces, while eunuch Republicans stood a silent watch.

Below is an apt description of the religious zealot, bigot and drunk Secretary of Defense, who calls himself the “Secretary of War,” like a little boy playing army in the woods behind his house at age 8. It is offered by Randy Manner, a retired US Army major general:

The Secretary of Defense is a disgraced major that was kicked out of the DC National Guard. He has no qualifications whatsoever to be the Secretary of Defense other than his extreme loyalty to the president.

Besides being disgraced Hegseth is supremely incompetent.

Here is a report from the USS Abraham Lincoln, where morale has cratered, and US Navy sailors are being fed like ICE prisoners in a CoreCivic concentration camp.

Moldy showers. Food shortages. Sailors running out of toothpaste, deodorant and soap…

…“The morale is not good. Apparently, the ship’s doctor or therapist said they need to hit port soon or people are going to start, you know, losing their minds,” said Bonnie York, whose stepson is on the Lincoln. 

The story ends with an ominous warning:

Long workdays with few breaks can lead to accidents, said Brett Snow, a Navy veteran whose son is serving on the Lincoln. Even when a carrier is operating in peacetime, it is an extremely hazardous place to work, Snow said.  “It’s the most dangerous place in the world already, and now you’re grinding it out, day in and day out, with no breaks,” he said. “It’s an environment that’s ripe for accidents.”

When I read that line it reminded me of this long-ago Life magazine cover reporting the explosion aboard the USS Forestall, which killed 134 sailors:

Inside this issue, there is a photograph of a pilot escaping the explosion, diving off the plane.

His name was Lieutenant Commander John McCain, who would soon transfer to the USS Oriskany, where he would be shot down over North Vietnam.

Know this my friends — if John McCain were with us today the issue he would be most singularly obsessed with would be the one highlighted in this paragraph in the Washington Post:

In the first month of fighting alone, the U.S. fired off more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles and more than 1,000 Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems, The Post previously reported. The U.S. also used more than 1,300 of the Army’s tactical ballistic missiles in the initial weeks of fighting, one U.S. official told The Post. The ATACMs stockpile — a short-range missile also in demand by Ukraine — is drained to the extent that there’s basically none left, said one of the people familiar, and reported earlier this week by Reuters. The scarcity of defensive munitions has had an impact beyond the Middle East. Ukraine is running out of air defenses, and there are few options with which to replenish from Western stockpiles, leaving them exposed to Russia’s long-range attacks.

The United States has run through its weapons inventory like Pete Hegseth drained a Jack Daniel’s bottle at a Fox News Christmas party.

The man who blustered about military strikes with a reporter on a Signal chat endangering the lives of the American pilots flying into harm’s way has threatened the entire nation with his sloppiness and arrogance.

Even Trump knows this.

Again from the Washington Post:

President Donald Trump’s frustration over the Iran war boiled over at Camp David last week, where he demanded answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on why he had apparently been misled on extreme munitions shortages that now threaten to limit military options with Iran, two people familiar with the exchange told The Washington Post.

The encounter took place on the sidelines of his Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday where Trump vented at Hegseth that he thought the munitions issue “had been fixed,” according to both people familiar with the conversation, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.

Per usual, Trump has denied the accuracy of the report, while promising to hunt down the “leakers” and “traitors.”

Hegseth has simultaneously denied the details of the reporting, while blaming his subordinate for his failures like all great military commanders have always done through history. Not.

This is MAGA’s war, and it is America’s defeat.

We are aboard a ship of fools helmed by imbeciles from a bridge where the rot, indecency and corruption of a sick cause have brought ruin to the most powerful military force on Earth, which is out of weapons, food and excuses.

Trump promised peace.

He purchased defeat.

This is a moment of weakness that has been chosen.

It was Trump’s choice.

It was also his choice to surround himself with a team of imbeciles unequalled in American history.

The bill has come due.

We have lost a war to Iran and the meaning of that loss will long linger.

In fact, it will be the foundation for a war much bigger than this one.

Trump is a disaster. The only thing anyone will ever be able to say in his favor is that when he stood next to Hegseth their combined stench made it impossible to discern who was more morally putrid than the other.

Either way, they have lost a war and broke the military in 18 months. This no doubt means that soon it will be time to change the subject and fire up the landing crafts for Cuba.

There are no words.

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Governor Inslee has spent a lifetime governing, and in this conversation — part of ’s “Fighting Democrat” series — he explains why America has reached a point where competence, courage and moral clarity matter more than ever. We discuss the growing assault on democratic institutions, the politicization of disaster relief, the future of American energy policy and why the Democratic Party must once again become a national party capable of competing everywhere — not just in the places where it already wins.

This is a conversation about governing in an age of chaos. It is about protecting the rule of law, lowering costs for working families, confronting corruption and building a politics rooted in confidence instead of fear. If you’re looking for a serious discussion about how America can recover its footing and meet this moment, I think you’ll find this conversation essential.

I hope you’ll listen to what Governor Inslee has to say.

NOTE: This conversation summary was generated using AI.

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David Ellison cannot be trusted.

This gilded specimen of self-delusion, preening arrogance, screeching victimization and absurdist contradictions appeared in The New York Times for the purposes of convincing someone, somewhere, that the real-life version of Jack Brown, the main character in the Richard Pryer-Jackie Gleason movie “The Toy,” is not going to take it anymore.

The final product is no doubt the sum of a tremendous team effort, but in the end, it came to naught because all of the king’s men couldn’t put the reputation of the soft-handed boy billionaire back together again

Gaggles of lawyers, incompetent public relations executives and Larry’s men passed around the draft filled with Little Larry’s lamentations, and made them ready for publication in The New York Times. It offers a rare glimpse into the mind of the boy billionaire baked by nepotism, swaddled in softness and estranged from reality.

The one person you haven’t heard from is me.

There is a reason for that. I believe that anyone who oversees a news organization — I am chief executive of Paramount, which owns CBS — shouldn’t put a finger on the scale, especially on matters involving his own company. So, when California’s attorney general, 11 other state attorneys general and, a day later, the Writers Guild of America sued to stop the deal, I stayed quiet. I quickly learned such restraint has costs. While I was silent, others were happy to write my story for me. No more.

Before reading another word it makes sense to reference this paragraph about Larry Ellison, which appeared in The New York Times just three days ago:

But his big bet on A.I. was built on an astronomical amount of debt in every imaginable form — bonds, letters of credit, asset-backed securities — available in seemingly unlimited quantities, because the more you spent building A.I. infrastructure, the more you would earn, or so the logic went. Computer theorists called it the scaling hypothesis. It held that advancements in A.I. were directly tied to the generation of unprecedented amounts of computing power to process unprecedented volumes of data. Reaching the holy grail of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., when computers match or surpass human thinking at any task, was going to require bigger data centers and a lot more of them. It all came down to capital expenditures — capex, in the lingo of the Valley. Whoever controlled the most computing power would control the A.I. economy.

Long story short. The question hanging in the air is whether the 2027 spelling of ORACLE is going to be ENRON.

There are several absurdist claims throughout the cry of David Ellison with each exceeding the other in the zero gravity world of petulant billionaires, where there may never be an exception to the proposition that the wealthier the gentleman the more forgetful they appear to be.

Here is one:

I believe that anyone who oversees a news organization — I am chief executive of Paramount, which owns CBS — shouldn’t put a finger on the scale, especially on matters involving his own company.

Yes, indeed.

Little Larry has been a great tribune of propriety in these matters.

For the record, here are the contours of his corrupt deal:

The proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger features a total foreign ownership stake of 49.5%. Approximately 38.5% of the combined company's equity would be funded by a trio of Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds: with the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund holding a 15.1% equity stake, Abu Dhabi-based funds/L’imad Holding with a 12.8% equity stake and Qatar Investment Authority with a 10.6% equity stake.

Plus, Larry Ellison provided an irrevocable $40.4 billion personal equity and financing guarantee.

Let’s put it another way. Little Larry is in business with his father, a MAGA super donor, and also the Saudis, whom Trump has decided should have a nuclear weapon — after they gave Jared $2 billion in cash for his investment fund that appears to be the down payment for Ivanka’s island off the Albanian coast.

Meanwhile, another Ellison deal partner, Qatar, the generous sheiks who gave Trump a gold gilded 747 unfit for presidential travel, while also hosting Hamas, are also part of the deal. So, don’t you ever forget that David Ellison pulled himself up by his boot straps when the going got tough as a young stunt pilot, and he’s ready to do it again — alone if necessary, at least according to the NYT version of his Horatio Alger story.

My friends, the Ellison family has made their move. In this regard, they are not unlike the predatory Trump family — a scumbag pack without equal across the 250 years of American history that stand between today and tomorrow in an hour of growing crisis, brought to you by men like David Ellison, his father Larry, and Donald Trump.

Donald has purchased his Persian quagmire with his idiocies, while the Ellisons have found their quagmire through greed.

The saddest part of David’s cry is when he compares himself to Ted Turner and Edward R Murrow.

Here is the offending passage:

Great news organizations like CNN and CBS News are here to tell it straight down the middle. That requires newsrooms that reflect the whole world, not one side of it. And it requires independence. Our journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause. These were founding principles for both CNN and CBS News, for legends like Ted Turner and Edward R. Murrow, and it is exactly that kind of independence that has always fueled the greatness of “60 Minutes.”

Truly, I don’t know what to say beyond it triggered memories of Lloyd Bentsen turning towards a hapless Dan Quayle, and slaughtering him on national television:

Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.

I never knew Edward R. Murrow or Ted Turner, but I have written and spoken about them. David Ellison is no Murrow, and no Ted Turner.

By the way, here are what some journalists and media executives have said happened to the ethics of their craft when David Ellison and Bari Weiss brought their show to the Tiffany network:

She [Bari Weiss] was brought in to kill it [“60 Minutes”], and she’s been doing exactly that.

Scott Pelley, former “60 Minutes” correspondent

It’s utterly depressing. Somebody who has zero experience in television news or even hard news for that matter … but with a clearly defined political agenda. It’s hard to see this as anything more than an attempt to bend the knee completely.

CBS news executive

Ellison installed a committed partisan w ZERO experience at CBS News. Results? Abysmal. Then she eviscerates its flagship program. He STILL backs her to run CNN... And he expects acceptance as 'trusted steward?'

Bill Carter, The New York Times media reporter and author

I will not linger on the internal mechanics of the dust-up at CBS that led to our CECOT story being pulled, but we have to be honest about what it represents.

It wasn’t an isolated editorial argument. In my view, it was the result of a more aggressive contagion: the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear. It’s hard to watch.

Sharyn Alfonsi, former “60 Minutes” correspondent

The entirety of David Ellison’s merger is a corrupt transaction. It was made dirty in the original payment of tribute to Trump in the settlement of a spectacularly frivolous law suit with Donald Trump by Shari Redstone. It was as close to an open air bribe as a person can get this side of Saudi Arabia.

All of it is a disgrace. The reality of this moment is that the Ellisons are in trouble.

All of the kings horses and highly paid advisors have decided that David — if we get to know him a bit better — is a sympathetic and trusted figure.

He’s strong.

He’s defiant.

They have decided to tell David that he can talk himself out of his hole.

Here’s the deal.

He’s not to be trusted.

His agenda is not yours. He cares little for his country, your future, and none for your kids.

He is the son of an amoral predator who is at the end of his rope.

Don’t believe a word this man says.

Only a fool would.

Listen to Donald. He’s telling the truth about David Ellison, and so is Pete Hegseth:

The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.

Pete Hegseth, “Secretary of War”

I think CNN should be sold because the people that are running CNN right now are either corrupt or incompetent.

Donald Trump

“Fighting Democrat” series is back, and former Washington State Governor Jay Inslee is not holding back — he's calling out Donald Trump for deliberately targeting blue states with grant cuts and using federal funding as a political weapon. The governor will join me live at 1 pm ET to explain why Trump's policies aren't just hurting blue states — they're hurting everyone. Gas is back to more than $4 a gallon, while oil companies rake in massive profits and it's all because of Trump's war of choice. The message is loud and clear: Donald Trump does not care. Don't miss this conversation.

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If you haven’t been before — or it’s been a while — I highly recommend that you come.

With Donald Trump’s constant bashing of our great neighbor to the north — not to mention the impacts of his outrageous policies on our most important ally — what better way to support our friends than traveling to one of the most spectacular destinations in North America?

Here’s just a snapshot of what you’ll discover:

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Not so long ago, if there had been a report issued by Dick Durbin the senior senator from Illinois as a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee detailing the abuse of women and children by a private prison contractor working for ICE — the likes of that which was just released — it would have shocked the conscience of the nation and dominated television news coverage.

Of course, America has changed quickly.

These days, the revelations of psychological torture and abject cruelty detailed in such a report will hardly cause a whisper.

Before beginning, I’d like to lay out where I am coming from on this issue.

I believe with my full heart and soul that no matter what, when a vulnerable child sees someone wearing a uniform with an American flag on their shoulder, they should know they are safe.

Period.

CoreCivic is a private prison company, and a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In fact, one of its board members is Thurgood Marshall Jr.

Think about that.

The son of the man who argued Brown v. Board of Education, and was the first Black man to sit on the United States Supreme Court of the United States, is a board member of a company in the concentration camp business.

From the report:

Psychological Harm to Children

The psychological toll of detention on children was evident from Committee staff’s

conversations with multiple families.

• One mother described how her nine-year-old began wetting the bed at night—a habit that developed during the family’s detention at Dilley.

• A child described a recurring nightmare that developed at Dilley in which a person

  chased her, and she attempted to leave, but the gates were closed.

• Another family stated their children were unable to sleep in part because of constant bright lighting in the rooms.

• A mother stated that her 14-year-old child has nightmares about being kidnapped.

C. Top-Down Culture of Cruelty

Families and women detained at Dilley described to Committee staff examples of the demeaning, dismissive, and abusive behavior by Dilley staff, including medical personnel.

Interviews with the detainees suggest that this cruelty was not only condoned but encouraged, and treating families and children with basic respect, dignity, and kindness was discouraged.

Families described how Dilley staff mocked and ridiculed them for making routine inquiries.

• One parent reported that guards who are perceived as “too nice” are scolded by

  supervisors and told to be harsher. A guard told the parent: “You only have three rights here: drink, sleep, eat.”

• Parents and children described staff intentionally eating candy, pizza, donuts, and cookies in front of the children, who are prohibited from having any treats.

• One child described a guard slowly eating a lollipop in front of detained children “on purpose” to make them “feel bad.”

• Multiple families reported that guards entered rooms without knocking, including while residents were changing.

• Families described night guards intentionally stomping loudly through the unit, waking children, and then laughing in the hallway.

• One parent asked a nurse whether their allergy medication — which causes drowsiness — could be administered at night rather than during the day. The nurse responded that “this isn’t your home” and ignored the request.

• The same family reported being told by staff that they “don’t have rights as migrants.”• Families described children being yelled at for eating in the wrong location or for ordinary play.

D. Poor Quality Food and Water and Expensive Commissary Items

Multiple families described to Committee staff inedible food and being forced to purchase edible food and potable water.

• One family reported finding worms and a fingernail in their food. Several families said their children refused to eat facility meals entirely.

• One parent stated their six-year-old child had only eaten bread and mayonnaise for 14 days, refusing the unfamiliar food he was offered.

• A family from Peru, detained for 13 days, reported their children experienced upset stomachs and sleep disruption. Because the children could not tolerate the facility food, the parents were forced to regularly purchase packaged instant noodles from the commissary to ensure they ate.

• Detained families and women also raised concerns with Committee staff about water quality, describing the tap water as tasting terrible and being undrinkable. Families purchased water from the commissary instead and stated that, at one point, a case of 24 water bottles cost $30.00. Multiple individuals identified the high cost of commissary items—including water, additional food, and medical supplies—as a significant and ongoing financial burden.

E. Lack of Educational Opportunities for Detained Children

Under current family detention standards, children are required to receive one-hour of instruction in core subjects such as science, social studies, math, and English Language Arts.

Committee staff documented no evidence that the facility was meeting these basic education standards.

• Middle-school- and high-school-age children uniformly stated they were not receiving an education at Dilley.

• Elementary- and high-school-age children stated that they do not regularly attend the “school” at Dilley because age-appropriate educational materials are not available.

• One 16-year-old described the education offered at Dilley as “drawing in coloring

  books,” which was not appropriate for students his age.

• Several children also described their academic progress prior to detention. One 14-year-old had been enrolled in honors courses and an Advanced Placement class. Another mother said her children were “stars” in school before detention, where they now no longer regularly attend

  ---

What are the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s Trump anthem again?

“I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.”

This report is appalling.

It is a national disgrace, and it cannot be ignored.

This evil must be brought to heel.

There is no compromise possible with it.

It is unacceptable, and it is un-American.

It cannot be tolerated, which is why I have written about the urgent moral necessity of winning these political campaign in November that will determine if the abuse of children in America by the government continues.

I urge you to read this report.

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It is a story of mass death, subjugation, epic suffering, and ultimately, freedom.

The winds of war are blowing through Europe again. They can always be felt in Poland.

Poland remembers what happened, and it is never far away.

Three years ago, I wrote that every American should know the name of Polish prime minister Donald Tusk. As reported in El País in March 2024, he said something that should be heard by all of us:

Donald Tusk, 66, has an image of his childhood etched in his memory. It is a photograph that was in his family home in Sopot, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, next to his hometown: a beach full of smiling, happy people.

The snapshot was taken on August 31, 1939.

“A dozen hours later, five kilometers away, the Second World War began,” he remembers.

The Polish prime minister warns that Europe is once again “in a pre-war era” and must get ready to defend itself.

“What is most worrying now is that literally any scenario is possible.

We have not had a situation like this since 1945. I know it sounds devastating, especially to people of the younger generation, but we have to mentally get used to a new era. We are in a pre-war era. I don’t exaggerate. This is becoming more and more apparent every day.”

I have written a few times about John F. Kennedy, and referenced the fantastic first volume of Frederick Logevall’s biography that opens with 22-year-old John Kennedy looking down on a Berlin street from a balcony at the Hotel Adlon.

“JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917 - 1956” recounts a 22-year-old Harvard senior processing the relentless propaganda that warned of imminent Polish aggression against the Reich. Logevall paints a vivid picture of John Kennedy looking at a mosaic of Nazi uniforms. They were olive, green, black, brown, blue, while the future president wondered if another August would yield to world war.

What we are witnessing in this moment — and the questions it raises — are not new, and our unease is not novel.

When 80 million people were dead around the world six years later Robert Jackson, an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, a former US attorney general and solicitor general, rose before an international tribunal. He delivered the following words at the closing argument, as the chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial:

It is common to think of our own time as standing at the apex of civilization, from which the deficiencies of preceding ages may patronizingly be viewed in the light of what is assumed to be "progress." The reality is that in the long perspective of history the present century will not hold an admirable position, unless its second half is to redeem its first.

These two-score years in the twentieth century will be recorded in the book of years as one of the most bloody in all annals. Two World Wars have left a legacy of dead which number more than all the armies engaged in any way that made ancient or medieval history.

No half-century ever witnessed slaughter on such a scale, such cruelties and inhumanities, such wholesale deportations of peoples into slavery, such annihilations of minorities.

The terror of Torquemada pales before the Nazi Inquisition. These deeds are the overshadowing historical facts by which generations to come will remember this decade.

If we cannot eliminate the causes and prevent the repetition of these barbaric events, it is not an irresponsible prophecy to say that this twentieth century may yet succeed in bringing the doom of civilization.

Incredibly, the amnesia has settled over much of the free world, while hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors and veterans of the Second World War are still alive, at the twilight of long human life spans. The greatest event in human history that shattered the world seems to have been forgotten.

Its lessons and warnings have been dismissed.

Donald Trump surrounded himself with fools and self-interested hacks, and they have begun a world war.

The elections in 93 days are the most important in American history because, unless a check is imposed on Trump, we will suffer pain like no generation of Americans has felt in an extremely long time.

We are living at the edge of a catastrophe that was chosen by the American people.

We will rue the day, and we are all out of time.

This is the list of belligerent nations in two combining theaters of war:

• United States of America

• Israel

• Iran

• Saudi Arabia

• United Arab Emirates

• Kuwait

• Bahrain

• Yemen

• Lebanon

• Iraq

• United Kingdom

• Turkey

• Ukraine

• Russia

• China

• North Korea

• With at least a dozen non-state actors involved, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis

• NATO hovering on the periphery, with Russian incursions now routine over Poland, Romania and the Baltics

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My human siblings think I look like a potato in this photo. What do you think?

If you’re looking to catch up on what you may have missed this past week in US politics, here’s just some of what my dad covered…

The written word…

The spoken word…

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When I turned my phone back on and saw the following headline in “The Daily Beast,” I was mid-sip with a mouthful of coffee in a hotel lobby, surrounded by family and strangers. What happened next was a projectile spewing, thankfully hitting no one worthy of comparison to Mount Etna erupting. It was involuntary and could not be contained.

At some level, I had no idea what was happening as my physical response to the words was faster than my ability to fully comprehend them. I thought I might be having a stroke as I was consumed by laughter and anger, hopelessness and dismay all at once.

I called my friend , and asked if he had seen the news about the Maine US Senate race.

He had not.

Then he looked.

What he said next were words I will long remember:

“You’re saying the Democrats replaced the prep school oysterman with a Nazi tattoo on his chest with a cousin f*cker.”

They did,” I said. “They did.”

Then we talked about when Susan Collins might perform her third miracle.

This morning, Greg Sargent, one of the great political journalists of this rotten era, who writes for the outstanding wrote this:

Last month, an ICE agent gunned down a 25-year-old immigrant father outside his house in Biddeford, Maine. The shooting was a horror. His three-year-old daughter was seen crying after the killing. The victim has been widely described as a good man. The shooting spawned outpourings of protest in the state.

Yet Senator Susan Collins, who recently voted to give ICE $70 billion in funding with zero reforms, is now trying to mitigate the issue as a liability or even turn it in her favor. And I fear this is something that Democrats — who almost certainly must defeat Collins to win the Senate — have to take seriously.

Then there is this analysis by Sargent:

To be fair, Maine Democrats are pushing back hard on Collins’ ploy.

Collins’s support handed ICE $70 billion with no guardrails,” the campaign of Democratic challenger Troy Jackson told me in a statement. “If she wants credit for a bodycam headline this week, she can start by explaining why she voted to fund ICE with a blank check and zero accountability attached.”

What’s more, Democrats assure me they take seriously the need to prevent Collins from turning the tables on ICE in any way. They say Collins is already in deep trouble on inflation and health care, issues that will drive the race.

What don’t Democrats understand about American politics in 2026?

It is shocking.

The world is on fire.

America is at war.

The economy is cratering.

The AI bubble is reaching its Hindenburg era.

Soon, the American people will sip from a most bitter cup. The indifference and folly of the second gilded age are coming to a ruinous close.

American politics exists downstream from the headwaters of American culture. The greatest threat facing America is the American people are staring down a fascist menace with nothing between them and us because of the weakness, stupidity and incompetence of a few dozen people, who make millions every year losing campaigns, but are close to the feeble Chuck Schumer.

There is no excuse for this.

None, and I’m sick and tired of it.

We are losing the country because we are defended politically from Washington, DC, by an opposition party, the Democratic Party, that has abandoned its greatness for the embrace of a dogma of loserdom, steeped in the traditions of appeasement, anchored in the self-interest of a small group of career politicians and their retainers, who are outmatched in this moment by their MAGA foes in every way.

It is pathetic.

It seems important to recognize that some may object to these points emotionally and even grow angry that they dare be said out loud. It is not a new experience for me. Here is what I first wrote about Joe Biden in 2022:

I continued to criticize him until he dropped out. My criticisms of Joe Biden were NOT well-received, to say the least.

Here is the greatest achievement of the Democratic Party between 2015 and 2026. The institution figured out how to lose two out of three elections to the most prolific liar since Hitler and Goebbels last breathed because the American people believed he was the more forthright, honest and authentic candidate in two out of three races.

It is simply incredible.

Even now, the Democratic Party is viewed as the more extreme of the two parties in the United States, which beggars belief in an era in which the corruption of Donald Trump is fueling a sprint into a third world war.

James Carville has noted too many Americans think of the Democratic Party as the extreme party. The revelation in Maine won’t help as Troy Jackson is destroyed by the Republican Party political machine as if he was a tuna swimming off of Cape Cod in white shark season.

In an interview yesterday, Carville said:

My hope and my prayers, any Democrat out there thinking run for president, you have something to offer? For God’s sake run, run for office because we’re not getting – we got nothing but problems. Democrats are getting stupid talking points about a war that’s gone on for 5,000 years and not likely to get solved between now and election day.

I think the state of the country is even more perilous than you even let it on to be.

Democratic leaders in Washington, to Greg Sargent’s post, emphatically take none of this seriously because if they did they would not have nominated a man to replace Graham Platner who had come in third place in a Democratic primary, who has two kids with his cousin.

Not for nothing, the American people broadly view the Democratic Party as excessively judgmental about everything.

Trust me on this, Mainers are going to judge Troy Jackson, and that’s too bad because this was a winnable seat, but won’t be.

Susan Collins is either supernaturally lucky, or has supernatural powers.

Either way, Chuck Schumer’s Senate committee is entirely responsible for setting this chain of events in motion with their grasping for an 80-year-old to run against Collins in a year in which people are fed up and begging for change.

My friends, we are in the storm.

Can you see that? Do you understand that?

Please, I beg of you, have expectations.

There is so much better out there than what we currently have.

A few days ago I interviewed Kentucky Governor .

Watch the interview and judge it for yourself:

What a breath of fresh air, and more importantly, he’s a winner.

A winner.

We cannot save America by losing.

We are shackled to defeat by the crew of a ship of fools that is better known as the ‘SS Schumer.’ It is a ship that even God cannot stop from sinking.

Across the country, including in Montana, the Democratic Party has found its way to freak show candidates who are a threat to American democracy because they represent fuel for MAGA victories that, absent them, would disappear.

It is pathetic, tragic and shameful.

Are you sick of it?

I am.

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I was stuck, unable to take the boat back across to Toronto.

I waited.

A few hours later the wind died down, and my friend and I cruised back across a flat lake that held no traces of having been at a raging boil.

I thought about the juxtaposition of the calm and smooth waters against the chaos of the waves.

I appreciated that it is not so different in the affairs of a person’s life, that of a nation, or even the whole of mankind.

Franklin Roosevelt saw something coming in 1936. He said this:

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

We too have a rendezvous with destiny — whether we like it or not. The waves will not be abating anytime soon.

The calm waters will come again, but they lie too far over the horizon to be of use in the same way the memory of calmer times matters little in the storm.

Donald Trump and a few hundred people, which include some of the most powerful media executives, law firms, technology companies, CEOs, senators, governors and members of Congress, and other powerful interests engaged in a level of greed, corruption, and lawlessness that is unprecedented across 250 years of American history.

They became enthralled to the most malicious imbecile in our history to ever hold political power in America — a man who is a deviant, a criminal, a thug, a moron and a gold-plated fool. In doing so, they helped set the world on fire.

The world is on fire.

Donald Trump has lost control of the events he set in motion.

The bill is coming due.

Soon, the AI bubble will explode, and take out north of $15 trillion in American wealth.

The war in Iran is metastasizing into World War III.

All of it — every bit of it — lays at the feet of Donald Trump, who is the architect, chief designer and project manager of American ruination and a global war coming into early bloom.

These are very dangerous days. There will be no calm seas for many years.

Buckle up.

We, too, have a rendezvous with destiny. That shouldn’t be taken as a good thing.

A great time of testing lies ahead.

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I also joined to talk about the scandal, and much more! Hope you’ll take a listen to our conversation too:

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A Russian drone left this crater in Poland.

It is estimated that 30,000 North Koreans are preparing to fight in Ukraine.

The Chinese are arming the Iranians.

The Americans are arming the Taiwanese.

Saudi Arabia is bombing Iran, and Donald Trump thinks they should have a nuclear bomb.

Trump is also threatening to invade Cuba.

My questions for the day are:

Why is Trump being so unusually modest about his achievements?

Shouldn’t Trump’s war have a name?

How about WWIII?

It is in its early days.

I wrote this piece in January 2024 — which includes earlier essays from 2023 — and wanted to re-share it based on where we stand today.

World War III: a sequel we don’t want to see

In October, I made the point that the coming election will be decided by events that haven’t yet occurred, in a contest between two men around whom there is nothing new to learn.

Such an event transpired at the corner of Jordan and Syria at an American military base known as Tower 22. Three American were killed in action, and more than 30 were wounded in an attack by Iranian-controlled forces.

I write often about what might happen next in an unfolding story that has gone on for more than seven years. The United States and the world have been transformed during the first decades of the 21st century. It is clear that the American-led global order that emerged from the ruin of World War II, and prevailed during the long twilight struggle of the Cold War, is coming undone. Deterrence is failing. Ambitious dictators are feeling emboldened in a new era in which they assess America as weak, decaying and indifferent. The American people are deeply divided. The American government is epically dysfunctional. The western alliance is filled with armies that are poorly equipped, trained, and absolutely unprepared to fight. Don’t take my word for it. The comments below are incredible and come from a British general, as reported in The Guardian last Wednesday:

General Sir Patrick Sanders said that the UK needed to broadly follow Stockholm’s example and take “preparatory steps to enable placing our societies on a war footing”. Such action was “not merely desirable, but essential.”

The foundations for “national mobilisation” could not be confined to countries neighbouring or close to Russia, and as a result ordinary people in the UK would be forced to join the UK’s 74,110 full-time regular army to see off an active threat to mainland Europe.

He said: “We will not be immune and as the prewar generation we must similarly prepare – and that is a whole-of-nation undertaking. Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars; citizen armies win them.”

Sometimes it is helpful for me to look back a few months to see whether what I have written has held up against the reality of events. I try not to think about what I write as predictions, which are little more than dressed-up guesses. I try to make projections about what is coming on the basis of what has happened, and where the consequences will fall. More than anything else, I think the broad detachment in our culture between the concept of consequences following actions is what has changed more than anything else. Truly, if I was a CNN host my most frequently asked question and follow up to the overwhelming majority of senators, congressmen and women, governors, military officers, cabinet members, CEOs, journalists and anyone else would be this — preceded by a long, awkward, pregnant pause:

“What did you think was going to happen?”

Here is what I published on October 7, 2023, prior to learning about the Hamas attack on Israeli children, babies, grandparents, women and young people:

Will we stop the madness?

October is settling in. The leaves are exploding in color along the Wasatch Back in Utah, the mornings are dark and cold before yielding to a warm, crisp autumn day. There is only one tumultuous year standing between today and the end stage of the presidential campaign. It will pass quickly.

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Here is what I wrote the following day, October 8, 2023:

The wolf at the door

Yesterday, I wrote that something terrible was coming — and it was. Of course, I was talking about the growing American crisis that is swirling, growling and menacing our freedom. Over and over again, I have warned about the cost and inevitable consequences of chaos and division in American society. I have warned about the danger posed by the insanity th…

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One hundred and fourteen days have passed since the attack. CNN’s Peter Bergen describes the current situation as follows:

The burgeoning regional conflict now involves 10 countries: Jordan, Iran, Israel, Syria, Pakistan, the US, the UK; Iran’s proxies in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen; and four major terrorist groups: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and ISIS.

Will this lead to World War III? I don’t know. I just know that for the first time in more than 50 years a plausible scenario for its beginning is at hand. These are dangerous days. There has been an explosion of loose talk in Washington, DC, by people who have demanded America strike back without a strategy, plan or any clue what happens next. In other words, they wish to follow the 21st century American practice of shoot first and plan later. Escalation will have consequences just as appeasing Iranian aggression will. There are two reasons countries start wars: (i) they believe they can succeed, or (ii) they think that the price is worth it.

American policy over the last 20 years has turned Iran into the dominant power in the Middle East. We shouldn’t be surprised to see them flex their muscle. It would be a welcome surprise if this nation exercised restraint and good judgement at the edge of an abyss, which we will enter largely alone.

Pay attention to events. What is unfolding matters a great deal. This isn’t an international version of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership fight. This is life and death.

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Governor Beshear joined me for a conversation about leadership, accountability and the obligations that come with public office at a moment when the American people are demanding answers about Mitch McConnell’s prolonged absence from public life. Public office is a public trust, and there can be no ambiguity about whether those entrusted with power are capable of exercising it.

We discussed what governing with integrity looks like, why elected leaders must serve every citizen rather than every faction, and how reckless foreign policy and self-inflicted economic damage are hurting working Americans. Governor Beshear made the case that Democratic governors are showing the country what competent leadership looks like through results, not slogans, while arguing the party must once again compete everywhere in America — not just where it is comfortable. Above all, the conversation was a reminder that before we are Republicans or Democrats, we are Americans, and the country’s future depends on leaders who remember that simple truth.

NOTE: This conversation summary was generated using AI.

The search is on for Mitch…

Today, is pounding the pavement in Washington, DC, asking for help in the search for the Kentucky Governor. If you have any information about his whereabouts, please keep it to yourself. He would.

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Lindsey Graham remains dead this morning, as Mitch McConnell remains missing.

With regard to whether McConnell is with us still matters little because he has been against us all for long enough to have mattered, as he desecrated what was once the greatest deliberative body in the world.

“Lindsey’s Game” is the name of the documentary that was being filmed by British filmmaker Alex Holder, who was given extraordinary access to Lindsey Graham. He thus became witness to a necrotizing rot in the American republic at a hinge of history.

Holder has documented the actions of one of the most frivolous, deranged, easily manipulated, psychologically needy, and morally reprehensible men of a supremely rotten era. He has taken us into the room where war is manufactured out of ego and fear, and where human beings are pawns in a game.

Holder appeared on CNN with Kaitlin Collins last night to share more extraordinary footage, which I have predicted will have a seismic impact on American politics when it lands because, in a very real sense, it is like Spielberg’s imagined “Disclosure Day.”

Lindsey was sloppy, careless, arrogant and unrestrained after years of the MAGA narcotic flowing freely in his veins. He recorded everyone without ever mentioning it to them.

It has left an extraordinary record. I don’t have to see another clip to know exactly what it will reveal. In fact, I didn’t need to see the first one before I wrote this on Monday:

Holder said this about Lindsey Graham to Kaitlin Collins:

The respect that I think he got from other leaders was fascinating. The calls he would get from other senators and other leaders around the world to help them on their various issues was really quite unbelievable to capture and to see.

These people didn’t respect Lindsey Graham. He was their mark. He may have been the most easily manipulated senator in US history, a downscale hee haw ‘Manchurian Candidate,’ who operated at high noon as a puppet for any hand of any leader he could find.

He was precisely what I said he was in Rolling Stone many years ago:

People try to analyze Lindsey through the prism of the manifest inconsistencies that exist between things that he used to believe and what he’s doing now. The way to understand him is to look at what’s consistent. And essentially what he is in American politics is what, in the aquatic world, would be a pilot fish: a smaller fish that hovers about a larger predator, like a shark, living off of its detritus. That’s Lindsey. And when he swam around the McCain shark, broadly viewed as a virtuous and good shark, Lindsey took on the patina of virtue. But wherever the apex shark is, you find the Lindsey fish hovering about, and Trump’s the newest shark in the sea. Lindsey has a real draw to power — but he’s found it unattainable on his own merits.

Yet, in the end he evolved into something more. The evidence of what that was was on plain display across the clips played by Kaitlin Collins.

No one is calling what “that” is by its name.

No one is saying what needs to be said out loud.

Lindsey Graham, the United States senator from South Carolina, was effectively a foreign agent, the Jonathan Pollard of the US Senate, which made him utterly faithless to his constitutional duty and oath.

Lindsey Graham was Benjamin Netanyahu’s errand boy. The people of South Carolina took a back seat to a foreign nation that Lindsey Graham served above the interests of his own because he was needy enough to be manipulated to do so.

He is the most contemptible and pathetic human being I have ever physically met in my life.

What a shameful man.

Perhaps it would be best today to close with this reminder from George Washington about foreign entanglements:

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.

Oh, one last thing.

Lindsey Graham said Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are “the Roosevelt and Churchill” of this age. What an obscenity coming from an unmatched quisling of the era like Graham, a shallow warmonger and the Swiss Army knife of useful idiots, now gone, but not forgotten by all those powerful foreign interests that warmed their hand on the puppet’s back.

’s ‘Fighting Democrat’ series returns with Kentucky Governor as Mitch McConnell's disappearance becomes a full-blown crisis of accountability. The 84-year-old senator hasn't been seen in public in weeks, his own party is demanding answers, and Kentuckians are left in the dark. Live at 12 pm ET, Governor Beshear joins me to talk about what McConnell's vanishing act means for the people he's supposed to represent, and what it really means to govern for everyone in his state: Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. Don't miss this conversation!

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For those who missed it, Brian has written an important book, “The Day After,” which I highly recommend, but its real subject isn’t Donald Trump. It’s power. More specifically, it’s the refusal of too many Democrats to understand what power is for.

For too long, Democrats have responded to authoritarianism with process, commissions, and endless deference to institutions that their opponents have been systematically dismantling. While Republicans seized power, Democrats too often acted as custodians of norms that no longer existed. That failure carried consequences. The corruption that went unpunished after Trump’s first administration didn’t disappear. It metastasized. When those who abuse power face no meaningful accountability, they return emboldened, convinced there’s no price to pay.

If Democrats are entrusted with power again, they can’t simply promise a return to normal. America needs a government that solves problems, delivers results, and restores public confidence in democratic institutions. It will also require a broad coalition. Democracies are built by majorities, not ideological purity tests. Progress has always depended on imperfect allies united by a common purpose.

The first hours of a new administration — not the first 100 days — will define whether it succeeds. Executive authority must be exercised immediately to restore integrity, dismantle corruption, and reverse abuses of government power. History rarely grants second chances, and when it does, they belong to leaders prepared to act.

The challenge before the Democratic Party is larger than defeating Donald Trump. It’s proving that democratic government can still deliver competence, accountability, and hope. Elections are only the beginning. Governing is the test. And power, when entrusted by the American people, exists for one reason alone: to be used in defense of the republic.

NOTE: This conversation summary was generated using AI.

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