It was not long ago that Trump was berating Volodymyr Zelenskyy for "not having the cards" during their infamous Oval Office meeting. This time around, the shoe is on the other foot. Trump, the supposed consummate deal-maker, doesn't have the cards to play re opening the Strait of Hormuz. The irony would be delicious if not for the very real human and financial costs of his administration's recklessness.
The current administration was fairly elected by the voters of America. That tells us a great deal about the poisoned minds of tens of millions of voters who are in thrall to the malinformation industry. Yes, DJT is uniquely unqualified to lead anything, but the media illiterate voters, who apparently outnumber the rest of us, will continue vote into the presidency populists of low character. The First Amendment has been weaponized (“Flood the area with shit,” said Steve Bannon). Madison explained it clearly, “A democratic republic requires a well-informed electorate.” Malinformation is more powerful than information if it is believed by the majority.
The completely free access, without any guardrails for truth and accuracy, nor any efforts to prevent massive amounts of propaganda being spewed, all enjoyed by Murdoch's weasel news, Russian bots (behind the creation of a lot of enmity on the right directed at the left), etc., i.e. a foreign invasion accomplished through our media and left completely unchecked is how we have come to be as ignorant, hate-filled, and divided as we are. Free speech without guardrails coupled with capitalism without regulation will be the death of our nation.
I'll remind you Trump LOST the popular vote in his first election, then barely beat a candidate severely hamstrung by her own Keystone Cops political party. Yes, this nation is reaping what it has sown, but his popularity has never been overwhelming.
54% of US adults read below a 6th grade level. After the 2024 election a survey examined news consumption by voters. It found that the less news that was consumed the more likely those voters were to vote for Drumpf. A portion of them avoided consuming news. Many who chose not to vote did so because they didn’t see their circumstances improve under Dems or the GOP.
However, among Independents he’s lost a lot of ground. 46% voted for him & now about 25% support him. No one wins elections without a big chunk of the independent/unaffiliated voters. Also, signs with gas prices on them are like billboards for the affordability issue - great literacy skills & news consumption are not needed. Same for groceries which continue to climb, etc.
If only we - the good ‘ole US of A - were the only ones “paying the price” of this idiot’s blunders it would be bad enough but the rest of the world is also paying a huge price. We will never be trusted by any other country again. Never.
Letting a psychopathic convict, seditionist,pedophile continue to ruin this country is what makes my blood boil. Time to remove the entire seditionist admin!
The “Boss” of a Miami crime family is sitting in the White House using the AG of United States serving as his personal attorney. And the Republican Party is OK with this. WTF!
The price of whatever passed through the straight is not the only way this country will pay for the incredibly stupid move of putting a nazi in the White House. Life will never be 'fair' in America again unless we rid ourselves of the oligarchy that has taken hold and re-instate living by the Constitution as the norm. If not, then we become the new russia.
How about if Iran says: "Fertilizer can pass through to all countries except Israel and the US." Iran would look like humanitarian heroes since they'd alleviate a global famine started by Israel and the US...and the PR disaster for the US if it either continued - or relinquished - the blockade.
Not that the US doesn't have a PR disaster already...
Iran is trying to control the Strait by forcing ships to apply in advance to transit the Strait. Ships linked to Israel even slightly are rejected (similar to the Houthis in the Red Sea earlier). Iran also charges tolls under this scheme.
What’s really new yesterday was Trump suggesting the US itself would start charging a fee. This is contrary to international law.
I recommend the YouTube channel “What’s going on with shipping” for further information.
He brought up the idea of the US collecting tolls in April at a WH press conference. Mentioned it a few weeks ago (June?) and then landed on this “reimbursement” scheme. However, he is singing a new song. Kings and imams, his friends in the ME, called him and offered to invest biggly in the US instead. Hard to say what they really told him. DW, the German publication indicates the war & how long it lasts will determine a lot about where ME countries invest their money. The war is taking a bite out of their budgets. https://www.dw.com/en/no-more-big-spenders-iran-war-to-dent-gulf-state-investment/a-76400242
Thanks for the careful enumeration of many of the occasions on which Trump declared the Strait of Hormuz open. Each time Trump spoke, the price for a barrel of oil swung wildly. Insiders make money on the way up and the way down. Please apply your diligent and deep investigative skills to determine how much money Trump and cronies made from these price gyrations.
In which, as smart and informed people have known, its absolute folly to let a dementia-addled fassicst asshat attempt foreign policy via whim, limited knowledge and social media.
He is a big fat liar and we keep letting him spew his lies without consequence to him, only everyone else. He slips out like an eel, and we pay the price. BUT someone is getting rich. Someone is making money off of higher oil and gas prices. Someone is protecting him to protect themselves. And Witckoff, Kushner, Corporal Judy Vance and little marco rubio are the four dwarfs. Can't anybody get anything right?
Trump is so used to powers and institutions folding like cheap tents in a stiff breeze in the face of his threats and bluster that he waved away any concerns that Iran might not acquiesce to his will and the might of the US military brought to bear. Now it's a mess for the entire world and we are not getting out of this without admitting defeat either tacitly or actually or doing the unthinkable. We are ALL going to pay for trump's blunders for years to come. ETTD.
No such admission will come until Trump is no longer head of our government. Even then Trump will not be admitting that HE made a mistake. I'm sure that, in his mind, it wasn't a mistake. The people who reacted badly to the "perfect" thing he did are to blame for their bad reaction. He'll blame a scapegoat (likely Hegseth).
He needs to just leave. Say he won, and just pull all the ships and jets and armaments out of service, bring the sailors and flyers home and lie his way out of ignominy. There are enough MAGAe to believe him, to convince him that he is all great and powerful and executed the greatest military incursion in the history of mankind, but most of us will know better. Certainly history will.
There’s still hundreds of ships trapped in the Gulf. They’ve been there since the start of the Iran “excursion.” The US has been shepherding them out gradually but there’s many still there.
Maybe if we are well and truly out of there and Iran feels relatively safe from our bombing, the trapped ships will get passage, maybe have to pay a fee, but they will at least get out, onto their long ago destinations. The world hates us now; we have caused so much chaos and harm. Best that we staunch the bleeding, leave and let the world's economies try to stabilize. We are running out of armaments; maybe that will finally cause trump to cry "uncle" and call it a win.
Strategically, considering the long term geo-political and economic damage, this will be in the top three (if not the top) all time military blunders, including the lead up to WW2. When did the US decide diplomacy was no longer a part of international relations - only act like a bully and use the military?
The "straight talk" is simple... the more he is told he will loose the midterms the more he escalates all of his departments to charge more and more democrats of felonies or make the war even worse... what is the unknown is how far will he go to stop the midterms because having the war reingnited has not won him any maga votes... in fact everything he's trying is turning more and more magas away... could someone please stop this ? put their foot down and say enough...one "man" is doing all this .... is there not one "human or a group of humans" to stop this?
Yup. It’s the midterms for sure & why DHS announced that “non-urgent” ICE traffic stops are on hold. Maine is a key state for the Senate. TX is not a cakewalk for the GOP either.
Thank you for creating a one stop list of the real estate mob boss posing as Presidents greatest lie. We all know, thanks to the Princess Bride, that the greatest military blunder is to get involved in a land war in Asia, but the second greatest will be this mess, and that’s no fairytale. But how (big shoulder shrug) could the most stable genius have possibly known this would happened? I mean it’s not like we have 50 years of intelligence and military analysis of the most well funded and well oiled war machine to give guidance in these matters, right?!?! To quote another fabulous movie, this one centered around love and Shakespeare, It’s a mystery!
Strange, there are readily available people who can help prevent your stupidly blundering into no win situations like this. If I remember correctly, they're called "experts," aren't they?
Those experts are people who are capable of making suggestions based on their careful research of the nature of the people and situations involved as well as using their natural empathy and awareness of human nature, and the nature of various cultures around the world, to predict how people will react to whatever you do, then drawing logical conclusions based on that evidence while considering the resources (military or otherwise) available for you to use in whatever action you decided to take.
Trump, of course, operating not out of facts, research and the expertise so freely available to him, but permanently stuck at the operating level of a preschool playroom bully (likely because of some trauma inflicted on him at that age), wants what he wants, wants it now, and refuses to accept anything else regardless of what the experts say. He has filled his regime with similarly traumatized, stuck in preschool, childhood, or adolescent immaturity individuals, all of whom need to feel powerful because they're still reacting to their own earlier traumas.
The entire purpose of the State Department, the Department of Defense, the CIA, the FBI and the NSA is to provide a very well informed set of experts with the fingers on the pulse of what's happening around the world, and in our nation, that any President and Cabinet Secretaries can use to spot where trouble is occurring and what might be done to address that trouble (if anything).
But rather than drawing on all the factual information and knowledge available to them, Trump and his Cabinet Secretaries fired most of the people who knew what was really going on and ignored the rest of their departments. They told the actual experts to whom they should have been listening that their department would now operate according to the ignorant whims of a Cabinet Secretary who was still trying to respond to some earlier trauma which had nothing to do with the current situation, all with the aim of allowing Trump to "throw his weight around," like that preschool playroom bully who demanded all the toys and a constant supply of new toys and threw a tantrum any time he didn't get his wish (all while using and 80-year-old adult body and fading mind).
It would be a major lift, but they could still turn to the experts who really know what's going on, and switch to using experienced negotiators and diplomats in seeking solutions (rather than the idiots Trump has been using, each of whom has his own personal agenda), and bring this entire thing to an end, likely on terms much less favorable to the US than was Obama's agreement which Trump tore up because he could make a much better "deal," which, of course, he couldn't because he's NEVER been the one to make the deals. Those were his underlings.
There is no possible deal, at this point, that doesn't make Trump look like the loser he's always been (just look at how badly he's been conned by the contractor on the whole wading pool situation). This war will go on as long as Trump is President, though the Trump crime family will continue to make massive profits off insider trading deals as Trump announces that the deal is finished, the strait is open, then reverses that (again, and again, and again).
It was not long ago that Trump was berating Volodymyr Zelenskyy for "not having the cards" during their infamous Oval Office meeting. This time around, the shoe is on the other foot. Trump, the supposed consummate deal-maker, doesn't have the cards to play re opening the Strait of Hormuz. The irony would be delicious if not for the very real human and financial costs of his administration's recklessness.
"The irony would be delicious if not for the very real human and financial costs of his administration's recklessness."
Yep. It's always someone else's money with this cheese flavored MF. This time it's the whole damn world's money!
The current administration was fairly elected by the voters of America. That tells us a great deal about the poisoned minds of tens of millions of voters who are in thrall to the malinformation industry. Yes, DJT is uniquely unqualified to lead anything, but the media illiterate voters, who apparently outnumber the rest of us, will continue vote into the presidency populists of low character. The First Amendment has been weaponized (“Flood the area with shit,” said Steve Bannon). Madison explained it clearly, “A democratic republic requires a well-informed electorate.” Malinformation is more powerful than information if it is believed by the majority.
The completely free access, without any guardrails for truth and accuracy, nor any efforts to prevent massive amounts of propaganda being spewed, all enjoyed by Murdoch's weasel news, Russian bots (behind the creation of a lot of enmity on the right directed at the left), etc., i.e. a foreign invasion accomplished through our media and left completely unchecked is how we have come to be as ignorant, hate-filled, and divided as we are. Free speech without guardrails coupled with capitalism without regulation will be the death of our nation.
But was it?
"But was it?" What, Bela?
I'll remind you Trump LOST the popular vote in his first election, then barely beat a candidate severely hamstrung by her own Keystone Cops political party. Yes, this nation is reaping what it has sown, but his popularity has never been overwhelming.
54% of US adults read below a 6th grade level. After the 2024 election a survey examined news consumption by voters. It found that the less news that was consumed the more likely those voters were to vote for Drumpf. A portion of them avoided consuming news. Many who chose not to vote did so because they didn’t see their circumstances improve under Dems or the GOP.
However, among Independents he’s lost a lot of ground. 46% voted for him & now about 25% support him. No one wins elections without a big chunk of the independent/unaffiliated voters. Also, signs with gas prices on them are like billboards for the affordability issue - great literacy skills & news consumption are not needed. Same for groceries which continue to climb, etc.
If only we - the good ‘ole US of A - were the only ones “paying the price” of this idiot’s blunders it would be bad enough but the rest of the world is also paying a huge price. We will never be trusted by any other country again. Never.
Letting a psychopathic convict, seditionist,pedophile continue to ruin this country is what makes my blood boil. Time to remove the entire seditionist admin!
The “Boss” of a Miami crime family is sitting in the White House using the AG of United States serving as his personal attorney. And the Republican Party is OK with this. WTF!
The price of whatever passed through the straight is not the only way this country will pay for the incredibly stupid move of putting a nazi in the White House. Life will never be 'fair' in America again unless we rid ourselves of the oligarchy that has taken hold and re-instate living by the Constitution as the norm. If not, then we become the new russia.
I've said this before:
How about if Iran says: "Fertilizer can pass through to all countries except Israel and the US." Iran would look like humanitarian heroes since they'd alleviate a global famine started by Israel and the US...and the PR disaster for the US if it either continued - or relinquished - the blockade.
Not that the US doesn't have a PR disaster already...
And (probably) just to distract from Epstein...
Iran is trying to control the Strait by forcing ships to apply in advance to transit the Strait. Ships linked to Israel even slightly are rejected (similar to the Houthis in the Red Sea earlier). Iran also charges tolls under this scheme.
What’s really new yesterday was Trump suggesting the US itself would start charging a fee. This is contrary to international law.
I recommend the YouTube channel “What’s going on with shipping” for further information.
He brought up the idea of the US collecting tolls in April at a WH press conference. Mentioned it a few weeks ago (June?) and then landed on this “reimbursement” scheme. However, he is singing a new song. Kings and imams, his friends in the ME, called him and offered to invest biggly in the US instead. Hard to say what they really told him. DW, the German publication indicates the war & how long it lasts will determine a lot about where ME countries invest their money. The war is taking a bite out of their budgets. https://www.dw.com/en/no-more-big-spenders-iran-war-to-dent-gulf-state-investment/a-76400242
Yes, I remember him talking about tolls earlier. Something about joint control and splitting the tolls with Iran. He’s nuts.
Also yes, he’s now abandoned the toll idea completely. thx for the link, I’ll check it out.
Thanks for the careful enumeration of many of the occasions on which Trump declared the Strait of Hormuz open. Each time Trump spoke, the price for a barrel of oil swung wildly. Insiders make money on the way up and the way down. Please apply your diligent and deep investigative skills to determine how much money Trump and cronies made from these price gyrations.
In which, as smart and informed people have known, its absolute folly to let a dementia-addled fassicst asshat attempt foreign policy via whim, limited knowledge and social media.
He is a big fat liar and we keep letting him spew his lies without consequence to him, only everyone else. He slips out like an eel, and we pay the price. BUT someone is getting rich. Someone is making money off of higher oil and gas prices. Someone is protecting him to protect themselves. And Witckoff, Kushner, Corporal Judy Vance and little marco rubio are the four dwarfs. Can't anybody get anything right?
25th Amendment Now.
Republicans in Congress refuse to stop him from starting wars, wasting taxpayer money, and enriching himself, his families, and his cronies.
Trump is so used to powers and institutions folding like cheap tents in a stiff breeze in the face of his threats and bluster that he waved away any concerns that Iran might not acquiesce to his will and the might of the US military brought to bear. Now it's a mess for the entire world and we are not getting out of this without admitting defeat either tacitly or actually or doing the unthinkable. We are ALL going to pay for trump's blunders for years to come. ETTD.
No such admission will come until Trump is no longer head of our government. Even then Trump will not be admitting that HE made a mistake. I'm sure that, in his mind, it wasn't a mistake. The people who reacted badly to the "perfect" thing he did are to blame for their bad reaction. He'll blame a scapegoat (likely Hegseth).
“Back in the day”, Lindsey Graham had it right when he said, “Trump is a jackass.”
He needs to just leave. Say he won, and just pull all the ships and jets and armaments out of service, bring the sailors and flyers home and lie his way out of ignominy. There are enough MAGAe to believe him, to convince him that he is all great and powerful and executed the greatest military incursion in the history of mankind, but most of us will know better. Certainly history will.
There’s still hundreds of ships trapped in the Gulf. They’ve been there since the start of the Iran “excursion.” The US has been shepherding them out gradually but there’s many still there.
Maybe if we are well and truly out of there and Iran feels relatively safe from our bombing, the trapped ships will get passage, maybe have to pay a fee, but they will at least get out, onto their long ago destinations. The world hates us now; we have caused so much chaos and harm. Best that we staunch the bleeding, leave and let the world's economies try to stabilize. We are running out of armaments; maybe that will finally cause trump to cry "uncle" and call it a win.
I wouldn’t hazard a guess what’s next.
Great summary. The only thing that might better the situation is the one thing that will never happen: Trump’s admission that he made a mistake.
That is a certainty.
Strategically, considering the long term geo-political and economic damage, this will be in the top three (if not the top) all time military blunders, including the lead up to WW2. When did the US decide diplomacy was no longer a part of international relations - only act like a bully and use the military?
The "straight talk" is simple... the more he is told he will loose the midterms the more he escalates all of his departments to charge more and more democrats of felonies or make the war even worse... what is the unknown is how far will he go to stop the midterms because having the war reingnited has not won him any maga votes... in fact everything he's trying is turning more and more magas away... could someone please stop this ? put their foot down and say enough...one "man" is doing all this .... is there not one "human or a group of humans" to stop this?
Right. He’s focused on the midterms now.
Yup. It’s the midterms for sure & why DHS announced that “non-urgent” ICE traffic stops are on hold. Maine is a key state for the Senate. TX is not a cakewalk for the GOP either.
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/14/nx-s1-5893456/ice-vehicle-biddeford-houston
Thank you for creating a one stop list of the real estate mob boss posing as Presidents greatest lie. We all know, thanks to the Princess Bride, that the greatest military blunder is to get involved in a land war in Asia, but the second greatest will be this mess, and that’s no fairytale. But how (big shoulder shrug) could the most stable genius have possibly known this would happened? I mean it’s not like we have 50 years of intelligence and military analysis of the most well funded and well oiled war machine to give guidance in these matters, right?!?! To quote another fabulous movie, this one centered around love and Shakespeare, It’s a mystery!
Can any body answer a simple question: 20% of what?
I think it refers to 20% of the value of the cargo being shipped.
Well, I know what 20% of nothing is.
Strange, there are readily available people who can help prevent your stupidly blundering into no win situations like this. If I remember correctly, they're called "experts," aren't they?
Those experts are people who are capable of making suggestions based on their careful research of the nature of the people and situations involved as well as using their natural empathy and awareness of human nature, and the nature of various cultures around the world, to predict how people will react to whatever you do, then drawing logical conclusions based on that evidence while considering the resources (military or otherwise) available for you to use in whatever action you decided to take.
Trump, of course, operating not out of facts, research and the expertise so freely available to him, but permanently stuck at the operating level of a preschool playroom bully (likely because of some trauma inflicted on him at that age), wants what he wants, wants it now, and refuses to accept anything else regardless of what the experts say. He has filled his regime with similarly traumatized, stuck in preschool, childhood, or adolescent immaturity individuals, all of whom need to feel powerful because they're still reacting to their own earlier traumas.
The entire purpose of the State Department, the Department of Defense, the CIA, the FBI and the NSA is to provide a very well informed set of experts with the fingers on the pulse of what's happening around the world, and in our nation, that any President and Cabinet Secretaries can use to spot where trouble is occurring and what might be done to address that trouble (if anything).
But rather than drawing on all the factual information and knowledge available to them, Trump and his Cabinet Secretaries fired most of the people who knew what was really going on and ignored the rest of their departments. They told the actual experts to whom they should have been listening that their department would now operate according to the ignorant whims of a Cabinet Secretary who was still trying to respond to some earlier trauma which had nothing to do with the current situation, all with the aim of allowing Trump to "throw his weight around," like that preschool playroom bully who demanded all the toys and a constant supply of new toys and threw a tantrum any time he didn't get his wish (all while using and 80-year-old adult body and fading mind).
It would be a major lift, but they could still turn to the experts who really know what's going on, and switch to using experienced negotiators and diplomats in seeking solutions (rather than the idiots Trump has been using, each of whom has his own personal agenda), and bring this entire thing to an end, likely on terms much less favorable to the US than was Obama's agreement which Trump tore up because he could make a much better "deal," which, of course, he couldn't because he's NEVER been the one to make the deals. Those were his underlings.
There is no possible deal, at this point, that doesn't make Trump look like the loser he's always been (just look at how badly he's been conned by the contractor on the whole wading pool situation). This war will go on as long as Trump is President, though the Trump crime family will continue to make massive profits off insider trading deals as Trump announces that the deal is finished, the strait is open, then reverses that (again, and again, and again).