Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth just said the following: 

"​The only thing prohibiting transit in the Straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping.  It is open for transit should Iran not do that."

Yes, really.  

And I'm sure many people might think I'm making that up or misquoting him -- and for something this insane, you'd be right to wonder -- so, here is the video:

Yesterday, there were three terrorist attacks in the U.S., including one by a man with ties to ISIS (the group Trump said in his first term he eliminated) who had been in prison and previously under FBI observation until, for whatever reason, he wasn’t.  Another was a cyberattack directly related to hackers from Iran.
 
So, it seems like maybe Trump and Kash Patel shouldn’t have fired 45 counterterrorism agents from the FBI, including a dozen whose expertise was specifically monitoring threats from Iran – just because years ago they’d been assigned to investigate Trump.  And, especially, fired only days before the administration knew it would be attacking Iran in Trump's war.  In all, over 300 national security agents have either been fired or left the FBI since Trump took office, more than 50 of them in leadership roles.
 
But that’s just my opinion, I’m not an expert on Iran.  Though at least that puts me on the same footing as Trump and Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Markwayne Mullin, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
 
In fairness, perhaps calling this “going to war” against Iran is unfair to Trump since he says it is only just an “excursion.”  Sort of like going on a family trip to Disneyland.
 
And from all appearances, Trump does seem to see it as an "excursion".  After all, he thinks he can just declare victory and that “the war is over” when he says so.  Unfortunately, wars don’t work that way – there’s always another side.  With bombs, drones, soldiers, guns.  And if you leave before they’re done fighting, they really might just continue fighting you.
 
Further, Trump and his crackerjack team of saps at the White House keep putting out infantile videos that look like video games, meant to show supposedly (I guess…) how great the “excursion” is going.  They’re montages of sports moments and movie clips and AI generated mumbo jumbo where we see, for example, a bowler making a strike, and a golfer hitting a hole-in-one, and bombs exploding and…they are all just utterly mind-numbingly childish.
 
They come across like Trump and his MAGOP enablers seem to want all of America to think that war is a video game. But of course, war is not a sports event. It's not a video game, it’s not what we see in movies where there’s a script that everyone follows. It's not an AI meme. War is deadly serious -- with emphasis on "deadly."
 
But this is what happens when unqualified incompetent, wannabe macho civilians are in charge.  Posturing, swaggering, fist-bumping.  War is serious. People die. Costs rise. Life is disrupted. And no matter how much claims he can just declare the war over, it's still going on because there's no exit strategy.  Nor goal.
 
This is also what happens when the commander-in-chief says something contradicted by everyone around him, and when asked why he’d said what he did when none of his team says it, replied – "I don't know about it."

And this what happens, too, when the commander-in-chief thinks it's just an "excursion" and a video game and he can declare victory and tell oil tankers that have stopped going through the Strait of Hormuz to just "Show some guts. There's nothing to be afraid of."  But then, there's never anything to be afraid of on an "excursion" and easy to show guts when playing a video game.  But two tankers did try to go through two nights ago and got blown up.

The International Energy Agency said the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz -- through which 20% of the world's oil is transported -- as a result of Trump's "excursion" is the "largest supply disruption in the history of global oil market"!

This is a good time to toss in a reminder that -- 1) We had a nuclear deal with Iran that Trump tore up, and 2) a few months back Trump said that we had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear arsenal.  So, none of this -- the war, the disruption of oil, the resultant rise in gas and products that rely on gas, the deaths, the accidental bombing of a girls school and its 170 deaths -- none of this was necessary.  

But at the very least, Trump and Kash Patel -- knowing they were going to attack Iran -- shouldn't have fired all those counter-terrorism agents, especially the experts on Iran.  Even if you thought it was just an "excursion."
 
Expert analyst David Rohde of MS Now said yesterday morning that Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has turned aspects of Trump's war against Iran in their favor – not that Iran is necessarily winning, he made clear, but that it was inexplicable that U.S. leadership has no answer for Iran’s action.
 
Probably because unqualified incompetent, wannabe macho civilians are in charge and act as if this war is just an "excursion" into outer space for a war battle against aliens in a video game.  And if you bomb the wrong target and hit a girls school and over 170 people die, well…you can always chug another beer, hit "redo", and circle back to try again.
 
Until you find out the other side is real and will attack back.
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Here's another "Popcorn in Bed" videos hosted by a young Canadian-American woman named Cassie, watching and commenting on a classic movie for the first time.  I decided to check out her watching "Apollo 13" for the first time since it seemed perfect for the since - because she loves, loves happy endings and she's always so emotional when things go wrong, and everything goes wrong on the voyage.  But what turned out to make this particular even better is that not only is she watching the movie for the first time…she acknowledges not knowing anything about the Apollos 13 mission!  (And admits to feeling "so stupid" that she doesn't.)  So, for most of the movie, she's on the edge of her seat, an emotional wreck.  And it's absolutely fascinating seeing not just the movie, but the story through her eyes.  At the beginning, she says "I hope nothing goes wrong," and all you can do is laugh and think, "Buckle up your seatbelt.
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​Every once in a while, I note how a long while back I said there is so much hell that Trump puts out each day – almost by the hour – that it’s easy to become inundated by writing about it all, and so I claim that I’m going to try to write more “short” pieces.  And I do try, but too often fail.
 
But I’m going to try again today.
 
I have a friend who I periodically have to talk off the ledge.  Happily, he's aggressively aware that Democrats are poised to do great in the Mid-Terms, but also is continually (and understandably) deeply concerned that – because of that – Trump knows he'll have to win another way.  And so wary – rightly – about how Democrats will fight the massive efforts manipulate the election landscape.  As he wrote me the other day, he doesn’t know what forms of fascist intimidation are being hatched.  And so Democratic war rooms will have to be creative.  On the good side, he’s involved with a union group, preparing for contingencies, including if Trump sends troops and has arrests made as part of an executive order.  But he still keeps getting concerned about how you confront “the unknown and unprecedented and unthinkable.”
 
What I wrote back was --
 
I don’t know how you fight that either.  But – I will say this, and I have absolutely no idea at all if it’s right or wrong.  But I strongly believe it:

1.  What did masses of Democrats say about the election in 2024?  “I would crawl on glass to vote.”  I believe that Trump and MAGOPs will try a lot of serious, dangerous things.  And it will infuriate people, utterly outrage them.  And those infuriated people will crawl on glass to vote.
 
2.  Trump has dementia, and it’s degenerative.  And all the serious, dangerous things that he and MAGOPs want to try will be damaging to the country, but it will be damaging to himself and his party, as well.  And the more they try, it will build most people to a red-hot fury, even more determined to crawl on glass to vote.  (Not just Democrats but Trump only has 25% approval among Independents.)
 
3.  There are absolutely many serious, dangerous things that Trump and MAGOPs want to try.  But just because he and they want to try them doesn’t mean they will be able to – or that they will even, in fact, try.
 
4.  Democrats and Independents know all this.  If my friend knows this, if I know this, then the Democrats and Independents at the top and those running fight-back organizations absolutely know all this.  And they are all preparing.  For everything.  And ready to crawl on glass.
 
As I said, I have absolutely no idea if it’s right or wrong.  But I strongly believe it.  And thus far, Democrats have picked up an average of 16 points in every Special Election since Trump took office.  And each No Kings Rally has grown to seven million people the last time.  So, saying this about how others understand it all and are furious and pushing back is not a guess.  We’ve seen it in reality.

I will add that I never try to convince anyone to not be concerned.  It is concerning. It's deeply important to be aware and very concerned. That's what makes you wary and prepare to push back. But just as important is that concern not turn to fear which can make people frozen to inaction.

And that's why, since we've seen the push-back in reality, there’s no reason to think that the fury and pushing back will dissipate.  Especially since Trump has dementia, which is degenerative, and he will worsen.  Building the fury to push back even more.

This is a sweet video about a woman who raised three baby squirrels who were left alone, and several years later, when she finally released them to the wild, one felt so close to her that she built her nest on the property.  But even more to the point, the squirrel would even ​occasionally drop her own babies off with the woman to babysit them when needed.

Your reminder that -- according to House MAGOPs who voted on March 11, 2025 in order to keep from having to end the false “national emergency” that Trump wanted so he could declare emergency tariffs -- today, March 11, 2026, one year later, is still (officially) in the House, March 11, 2025.
 
Really!!

At least it you don't have to re-set the date on your watch today.
 
Here's the story.
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