Ninety percent of Americans feel the nation is in an affordability crisis—the new catch phrase for endless above-target inflation, which has become the new norm. The new norm, however, was just reported as getting wore, rising to 3.5% YoY inflation. The rise was due to the war and particularly fuel prices.

A third of Americans feel the crisis is existential now—as in they worry about whether they will continue to exist if it keeps going on like this. That might be a little over-dramatic, but it’s certainly understandable that a third would feel any lifestyle remotely matching what they have known might not continue to exist for them, and that is because more a third of all Americans say they have experienced two major unplanned lifestyle changes in the past year. Forty percent say their entire lives feel out of control.

It has not just been hard, they say; it has been “disorienting.” That, of course, is a downside effect of a year of chaos, and this second year of King Trump’s reign looks to be no less chaotic than the last.

As half the nation now struggles to pay their bills on time and half say they struggle to buy food, the skyrocketing price of energy that laid into the March PCE inflation report and that just got far worse in the past week with gasoline and diesel prices rocketing higher than many have seen in their entire lives, there is going to be little patience for weathering still higher fuel prices that are likely to arrive when summer hits. Expect patience to wear thin quickly and rage to rise as more and more people are reaching their limits.

When people feel unable to influence the things that matter most, their career, their finances, the broader sense of where the country is headed, the psychological fallout is predictable. Anxiety, helplessness, and that disquieting sense of watching your own life happen to you rather than being authored by you.

Psychologists recommend if you are feeling a level of stress that changes the person you are in ways you do not like, try to focus on the things you can change or affect. Choose some things that calm you like a walk, music, whatever works for you. Little breaks taken almost religiously can help keep the stress from piling up.

So, of course, can true religion, itself, as millions have found when simply and humbly turning toward faith in something beautiful that has stood the test of time—something bigger than oneself. I’m obviously not talking the religion of the Trump cult. I’m talking the kind of faith in something beyond oneself and certainly outside of politics—the kind of hope that has helped many people in times of trouble. It often starts small, of course, with maybe a course correction toward seeking it and finding it, perhaps in the company of others who travel alongside you. A new journey, by itself, can take ones mind off the troubles of this world—a reset.

Rather than staying stuck, a large majority (79%) said they’re planning some kind of mid-year reset, whether focused on mental health (33%), physical health (33%), or finances (25%) [or spiritual health?]. That’s not a minor footnote. It suggests that even amid widespread instability, most Americans are looking for ways to take back control where they can.

And making those changes is resulting in some return of optimism from the past year.

Existential crises tend to arrive when the gap between how life feels and how we thought it would feel becomes too wide to ignore. Right now, that gap is wide for a lot of people. But the willingness to course-correct, even in small ways, may be exactly the kind of agency that helps people find their footing again.

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Economania (national & global economic collapse plus market news)

Dow surges nearly 800 points, S&P 500 posts first close above 7,200 and best month since 2020

Without Government Spending & Trade, GDP Rose by 2.5% in Q1, Boosted by AI Investments. Debt-to-GDP Ticks up to 122.6%

US national debt tops 100% of GDP

Money Matters (monetary policy, metals, cryptos, currency wars & going cashless)

Behind Powell’s High-Stakes Decision to Stay at the Fed

This Fed Meeting Must Have Been a Hoot. Fed Holds Rates amid 4 Dissents, most since 1992: 1 Dovish, 3 Hawkish

Inflation Factors (too much money chasing too few goods due to weather, sanctions, tariffs, quarantines, etc.)

Almost 9 in 10 Americans Think the Country Is in an Affordability Crisis

Inflation spikes to 3.5 percent in March as Iran war drove prices higher

Core inflation rate hit 3.2% in March as first-quarter growth disappointed at 2%

Oil prices hit wartime peak, pushing U.S. gas costs to highest since level July 2022

Gasoline Spikes Nearly $1 Per Gallon in ONE DAY in the US Midwest

Pain at the pump is intensifying for US consumers as Iran war drags on

Wars & Rumors of War (including cyberwar, civil unrest and revolts)

Iran’s supreme leader vows to protect nuclear and missile capabilities

Trump to get briefed on potential Iran strikes before war hits key 60-day deadline

Trump said his blockade would cause Iran’s oil industry to ‘explode’ this week. Why that won’t happen

Democrat Rep. Moulton Suggests Secretary Of War Hegseth Be ‘Executed’ For War Crimes

The U.S. Military Was Losing Its Edge. After Iran, Everyone Knows It. (Overspending on bigness)

Graphic shows how Iran war is most unpopular conflict of last 76 years

Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)

House strips MAHA-hated pesticide protections from farm bill

Tucker Carlson Burns It Down, Tells Trump, ‘You Have Failed’

About 6 in 10 say they try to avoid Trump news

Deep Domination (globalism, unelected government, unconstitutional government & censorship)

Press freedom at lowest level in 25 years

A Pox Upon Us (the plagues, pandemics & health police of the 2020s)

If you let a child have just 2 hrs of screentime, he/she gets brain damage: MRI Study should shock every parent – take the screens away now

Hope for Hard Times

Doomer Humor

Share The Daily Doom

Today, gasoline prices exploded to another a new high for the year, coming in at a national average of $4.23 per gallon, which looks enviably cheap compared to where I live in the liberally taxed Northwest. Prices here are the highest I ever remember seeing. I occasionally run a tankful of premium Chevron through my Jeep because Chevron doubles the amount of their usual detergent in the premium. Yesterday, I stopped at a quarter tank of the good stuff because the price for premium was $7/gallon! “Enough!” I said. The price for regular was $6/gallon! Diesel was $8/gallon!!! (Ag. diesel, as I noted in my article about frazzled farmers yesterday, is under $7 because it doesn’t include state taxes.)

President Trump, today, decided those high prices I paid yesterday are not nearly enough. He made an announcement that shot Brent crude up (at the time of this writing to $120/barrel and US WTI up to $108. That’s the highest peak for the past year for Brent crude, bursting past anything the war has done to gasoline prices to date. In fact, you have to go back to the summer of 2022 to find a peak that beats it: (which was when Putin started his war on Ukraine.)

With the exception of the spike that hit during the first part of Putin’s invasion, this is the highest price for crude since the Great Recession, which means prices at the pump will be soaring rapidly now because the president promised even higher crude prices are here to stay for awhile as part of an extended oil crisis, and I’ll tell you how he did that.

A new of war of attrition for the entire world

The president’s promise went like this, and it might make sense in terms of breaking Iran’s back by making sure its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz hurts it more than anyone else, but it will also make sense in breaking yours because everyone pays:

Trump orders aides to prepare for extended blockade on Iran — as Tehran’s economy collapses.

To force Iran to get serious about negotiating and giving up its nuclear material, Trump is committed to a longer halt of Iran’s oil exports, the lifeblood of the Islamic regime, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move comes as experts estimate that Iran has at most 12 to 22 days of oil storage left, as Tehran has nowhere to send its crude under the blockade.

That turns this from a war of directly forced genocide that Trump had threatened to a war of attrition for the whole world. Of course, Iran may be able still to sell and transport oil by road, railroad and pipelines … unless Trump/Israel takes out all of those options, too, or already has; and the people of Iran will suffer greatly under all of this; maybe even genocidally, since oil is the central part of their modern economy.

Key to understanding the difference here between today and World War II is that we are not taking out their fuel supply routes for war; we’re taking out all of their economy by laying siege to it. We are seeking to damage civilians as much as possible, short of bombing the rest of them to bits.

The move comes as the Islamic Republic’s economy is in a death spiral.

At least one million people have lost their jobs since the start of the war, according to early estimates cited by Gholamhossein Mohammadi, an official at Iran’s Labor and Social-Affairs ministry, and reported by the WSJ.

The cost of living has also soared, with the annual inflation rate reaching an eye-watering 67% in the month through mid-April, compared to the same period last year, according to Iran’s central bank.

“Living is not affordable anymore,” Mahdi Ghodsi of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies told the outlet.

“Iran is at its weakest point.”

While Iran will struggle the most under the blockade now, even Trump says to expect this is not going to be immediate. So, all of us will struggle a lot more under scorching-hot oil prices and rising everything-else prices that go along with that as the collateral damage of an oil war.

Trump allegedly made the decision to extend the blockade after Iran proposed a three-step offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil choke point that Tehran has kept shut since the war began on Feb. 28.

Iran’s offer, however, called for the nuclear talks to be postponed, which Trump believed was proof that Tehran was not negotiating in good faith and was trying to string the US along, according to the WSJ.

And the cost of reduced production could be permanent, even after the strait opens, because what is said next for Iran is also true for other gulf nations shipping their oil out through the strait:

The regime is believed to have at most seven weeks before it’s forced to shut down oil production, a tricky process that threatens to permanently damage its abundant wells, experts previously told The Post.

Perhaps to some extent all nations around the gulf will be able to keep some oil production going by shipping via other routes, but this route is so important that it still will restrain actual oil production in all nations around the gulf, potentially forcing the shutdown of some of their wells, too.

So, it’s a war of attrition, and everyone all over the world will have to suffer it until one side of this siege gives up:

With a halt to Iran’s exports set to set gas prices soaring, the situation has boiled down to who is able to withstand more pain, with Trump confident that Iran is already on the brink, as he described the Islamic Republic on Tuesday as being in a “state of collapse.”

The question is who will chicken out first? Trump may underestimate Iran’s willingness to bear up under pain rather than give up. It is hard, on the other hand, to overestimate Trump’s willingness to chicken out and find an excuse to cover for it. That is now his modus operandi on an almost weekly basis—the art of the weave that he’s proud of.

Everyone in the world is in the fight now. Everyone is paying for it. Maybe some nations like Russia will benefit, having suffered long under US sanctions on Russian oil, now, at least, partially lifted. In the US, however, the economy will suffer far more under higher oil prices while millionaire and billionaire oil barons (and a few common folk who have made some good oil investments) will profit. Likely only the richest will profit more than their prices for everything increase.

The scale of the oil shock

It seems like only yesterday that I wrote,

The oil shock and its grip on food is going to be so much worse than most people think….

Oh yeah, it was yesterday; but I’ll bet the oil shock just got a lot worse today in the minds of many because their eyes will be opened to how these things don’t end as easily and neatly as they want to hope they will. Now that Trump has promised a longer-term closure of the strait right after fuel prices just hit their highest since the war began, the price rise could become shocking because he has largely jawboned speculative pricing down by promising the war is almost over.

An article that I ran in the headlines yesterday for paying subscribers also noted that the president’s jawboning as a way of getting prices back down is likely coming to the end of its effectiveness:

The jawboning has mostly worked. Even as the global price of oil has crept up over $100 per barrel on the futures market, it is significantly less than the $140 per barrel spot price, or what it would take to buy a barrel today.

But the president’s promises can only work for so long. Supply of oil — especially in Europe and Asia — is dwindling and a price shock is coming, said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners.

He said that when the summer driving season begins there will be another gas price shock that “hits people in the face.”

“There’s a day of reckoning coming,” he said. “It will be painful because I can tell you that the stock market’s ignoring this.”

We seem to be back to not ignoring for the moment, but maybe Trump will chicken out first. He has a reputation for doing that.

Following the headlines section below, I will continue with the reasons this will be a far worse energy crisis than we have ever seen and worse than most people are imagining.

Before I do, though, I want to add one interesting note from another article today: The very objective that Donald Trump hoped to improve with his tariffs just got worse: The US goods trade deficit widened in March as US buyers increased purchases of tariffed goods.

The U.S. trade deficit in goods widened more than expected in March as a rise in imports ‌outpaced exports, suggesting that trade was likely a drag on ‌economic growth in the first quarter.

More on that below, too.

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The oil shock and its grip on food is going to be so much worse than most people think. I got an interesting little tip at my favorite local bistro in our farm town this evening. The bartender told me one of the area dairy farmers was in and was describing how rough it’s getting due to the oil wars: One of his large tractors holds 250 gallons of diesel and it goes through all of that in a single day when he is working the cornfields to grow fodder for the cows. It now costs about $1,500 to fill those tanks at local prices for Ag diesel. $1,500 a day just for fuel!

That kind of daily high fuel pricing is hitting farmers at the same time they are being hit with skyrocketing fertilizer costs due to the war and extreme drought:

Coming into 2026, we were already in the midst of the worst farming crisis in at least 50 years. Now the war in the Middle East has caused fertilizer prices to go absolutely haywire, and a historic drought has created nightmare conditions for farmers from coast to coast. What we are witnessing is truly unprecedented. One recent survey discovered that 70 percent of U.S. farmers won’t be able to afford all of the fertilizer that they need this year.

I covered that last bit this weekend in my Deeper Dive.

So, US farmers are being clobbered by war in Iran driving up natural gas and oil prices and the war in Ukraine still driving up natural gas prices because commercial fertilizers come from natural gas. At the same time they are being smacked down by soaring lubricant prices (tractors use a lot of hydraulic oil, engine oil, transmission fluid, differential oil and grease) and by the continuing widespread drought.

The fertilizer equation is a no-brainer:

The connection is simple, agricultural fact, not speculation: reduced fertilizer application directly translates to plummeting crop yields. Modern industrial agriculture is utterly dependent on synthetic nitrogen, a product of the Haber-Bosch process which itself requires immense amounts of natural gas…. The feedstock for this process is becoming scarce and prohibitively expensive…. Half the world’s nitrogen supply is now compromised, threatening global agriculture…. This isn’t a theory; it’s chemistry and logistics.

The coming scarcity will not manifest as a gradual, manageable price increase. It will be a sudden, severe shortage hitting supermarket shelves. The system has no slack. As farmers face soaring costs for diesel and natural gas, many are reducing planting or cutting back on fertilizer application, which threatens global grain yields…. The recent failure of a critical Australian ammonia plant [used for ammonium nitrate and urea, fertilizers], exacerbating the global crisis, is just one more domino falling…. We are witnessing a cascading failure.

This crisis exposes the fatal fragility of our centralized, just-in-time food system, built for corporate efficiency but not for human resilience. It is a house of cards. As noted in studies of agricultural systems, when trade collapses and scarcity of inputs occurs, yields fall drastically…. Our entire civilization is balanced on this vulnerable, centralized point of failure. The system is designed to move commodities for profit, not to ensure communities are fed. When the just-in-time model fails, it fails completely, leaving nothing in the pipeline.

Bulk fertilizer prices have almost doubled since the Trump-Israel-Iran War began. You can see why, with fuel prices being scorching hot, those rising fertilizer costs are causing some farmers to decide to plant less and save on fuel; and what they do plant will likely be less productive while costing more per acre to grow.

Almost two-thirds of the US is in some level of drought with the next El Niño expected to arrive with extreme force earlier than usual this year.

This year’s record-warm, dry spring is pummeling Colorado farmers amid multiple threats, disrupting the state’s $9 billion agricultural sector and jeopardizing even signature crops such as Pueblo green chiles, Olathe sweet corn and Palisade peaches.

Water scarcity, due to exceptionally low mountain snow and soil-drying heat, looms foremost.

I know the Cascade Mountain Range right beside where I live definitely saw a lot less snow than normal this year, which means rivers will be running low in the summer as will wells. I know what the mountains usually look like round here this time of year, and they are showing a lot more rock than usual.

The El Niño oceanic current that drives hot weather is expected to return in May. While El Niño brings the United States its hottest weather, it can also deliver more rain in some areas because of more evaporation off the heated ocean, but that depends on how far south one is. Northern-tier farm states will likely be hotter and drier as the moister air sweeps across the south. Corn likes heat but only if there is abundant water. It’s a very thirsty plant.

The WMO [World Meteorological Organization] said in its latest monthly Global Seasonal Climate Update that sea surface temperatures are rising rapidly in the equatorial Pacific, “pointing to a likely return of El Nino conditions as early as May-July….”

Forecasts indicate a “nearly global dominance of above-normal land surface temperatures” in the next three months….

The WMO’s April Global Seasonal Climate Update said that for May to July, land surface temperatures are expected to be above normal nearly everywhere.

The signals are especially strong over southern North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, as well as Europe and Northern Africa.

The effect on precipitation doesn’t typically come until winter. So, the summer will be hotter, and this El Niño is anticipated to be a strong one, making the drought worse, but there may be reprieve in some areas in the winter as follows:

The next typical anomaly during El Niño shows up in December with heavy rain along the West Coast, especially California. The storm track becomes active just north of the El Niño warm waters. This storm track causes storminess from California to the Southeast U.S.

Then a really noticeable oddity shows up in the northern U.S., especially the Great Lakes region and Michigan. Around late December or January, milder-than-normal Pacific air streams across the northern Plains and over Michigan.

Generally speaking, a strong El Nino means warmer conditions throughout the US this spring and summer, causing the land to dry out more, requiring more irrigation, while bringing moister conditions in the south half of the US and drier conditions in the north half, albeit usually toward the end of the year for the moisture’s arrival. Temps may become 6 degrees higher than average during the coming El Niño.

There is a lot of fear mongering going on about this being a “Super El Niño,” but there actually is no such classification at the WMO, and these cycles happen all the time. We are, however, expected to experience a stronger than usual El Niño. In which case it could be problematic for all those farmers for this year, as if they didn’t have enough on their plate (leaving a lot less on everyone else’s plates).

Several articles below on oil tell you how the Energy Crisis is not going to get any better this year, even if the strait does open soon They explain why it will be worse than is being let on and will last longer:

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Money Matters (monetary policy, metals, cryptos, currency wars & going cashless)

Fed to hold interest rates as political drama overshadows policy debate

Wars & Rumors of War (including cyberwar, civil unrest and revolts)

The Reality Behind US-Iran Negotiations

Germany’s Merz says Iran is humiliating US as talks stall

Vice President Vance is worried that the U.S. is running low on weapons.

Pentagon Secretly Makes Dire Prediction About Trump’s War Chaos

—

Israel Bombs Deep Into Lebanon For First Time in 3-Week Ceasefire. Lebanon blames Hezbollah.

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The Apocalypse Goes Mainstream

Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)

What happened inside the ballroom when a gunman tried to breach Trump’s night with the press

Accused attacker at Washington media dinner is a tutor and computer engineer from California

Pressure builds to oust Wiles after Trump dinner shooting

Keystone Kash ripped for just standing there after shooting

What we know about security measures at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner

GOP senators losing confidence in Hegseth amid Pentagon turmoil

Doomer Humor

Just as tariff-caused inflation began to show up, we entered this war with Iran. The two causes of inflation will now be inextricably mixed, so it likely will not be possible to say how much of the coming inflation is due to the tariffs finally being passed through, as major businesses reported they would start doing early this year.

Last month we saw a notable uptick in reported inflation, and I noted that was certainly all due to the tariffs because the war began on the last day of the month (February) that was being reported. At the same time the Supreme Court terminated most of President Trump’s unconstitutional tariffs and paybacks to business hit by the tariffs are already being implemented, albeit with Trump threatening businesses in his typical mafia style by saying he “will remember” who seeks paybacks as well as those who do not (implying favoritism to the companies that leave the paybacks alone).

So, by court mandate, the tariff inflation is set to start fizzling just as it was starting to pass through, and that may cause businesses not to start passing their tariff costs along this year after all, especially if they are collecting the tariff payback so they don't need to. Still, Trump immediately imposed another temporary tariff of 10-15%, which is not nearly as hot as the tariffs the court cancelled, but it will still add some inflationary pressure.

Therefore, I won’t likely spend time trying to sort out how much inflation is due to tariffs, and will presume a major portion of price increases we start seeing at the consumer level will be due to the war on oil.

The absolutely certain major hits from the war are going to be soaring fuel prices, transportation costs AND FOOD INFLATION due to soaring farm costs and food scarcity that is already becoming facts on the ground (or in the ground)! The path to scarcity is already laid in and cannot be fully averted by government rescue plans, even IF such plans happen, as I’ll explain below. I’ll also explain how you always get permanently hurt by rigged cost-of-living adjustments—what the rigging is and how it permanently reduces your standard of living.

Global oil energy shocks are already arriving

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The chief of the International Energy Agency now says that the energy crisis we are facing is “the biggest energy security threat in history”—not in recent history, and not just since the OPEC crisis of the seventies and early eighties. It is already the biggest energy crisis the world has ever faced … and we are an energy-dependent world more than ever. You have not even BEGUN to feel the pain that is coming, and for most nations it will be far worse than it is going to be for the US.

This will force a huge change in how the world does energy:

“Nuclear power, will get a boost. ... Renewables will grow very strongly — solar, wind and others — [and] I expect electric cars will benefit from this,” he noted. Alternative fossil fuels could also make a comeback…. “In some countries, I expect the coal may also see a push and go back up, especially in some big countries in Asia….”

Describing the strait as one of the world’s “most critical oil transit choke points,” the IEA has warned that the closure will impact global economic growth, spur inflation and could lead to energy rationing. The agency has warned of an imminent jet fuel crunch in Europe, with some countries facing shortages within weeks.

That, of course, means summer tourism—already hit hard last year in the US when Trump’s Turf & Tariff Wars caused a huge backlash against vacationing in the US—will be a bigger fail this year.

People are inured to how bad the worst energy crisis in history is going to be because it won’t really hit until the tank farms start running dry and desperate nations start bidding up the price of oil for immediate delivery from wherever they can get it, raising everyone else’s prices by their scrabbling competition to keep their economies afloat and their people alive. I would estimate the scale of this disaster becomes evident when the summer vacationing season begins with its usual increased demand for gasoline and diesel, and we discover it’s not there in sufficient amounts to support the usual season.

So, how did we get here?

Top navy official sunk

Let’s start by looking at the joke the White House made out of the US Navy as soon as it took over the helm. Trump placed a man in charge of the biggest navy on Earth who had no experience in the military at all! John Phelan, the top civilian official running the navy, is suddenly departing without explanation from his role as Navy Secretary. I don’t need an explanation. HE HAD ZERO MILITARY EXPERIENCE, and should never have been in that position. He was hired by our Supreme Leader because …

Phelan was a major donor to Trump’s campaign and had founded the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC. According to his biography

It was payback. Donald Trump has always claimed he is a great leader, but he solely placed Phalen as his Navy Secretary as a favor for a billionaire crony who had donated big money to Trump during the campaign days. Does a great leader place people with ZERO military experience in charge of the biggest navy on earth?

Unofficially, the story goes like this;

People familiar with the dynamics at the Pentagon told the Guardian Phelan was fired. Phelan had an increasingly rocky relationship with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and other senior staff, who openly appeared to prefer Cao for the role.

The sources said Hegseth in effect blamed Phelan for not going aggressively enough against Senator Mark Kelly after appearing in a video in which the senator advised troops to ignore “illegal orders”.

So, Pentagon Pete wanted someone tougher than a man who had no military experience, nor even any civilian experience serving the military. He knew NOTHING more about the navy than the average tub potato playing with toy boats. What a disgrace of crony government to have ever placed him in that role in the first place! I don’t want to see anyone in charge of the US navy who doesn’t have, at least, 20 to 30 years experience IN THE NAVY like Phelan’s replacement has and who is well known for excellent military leadership like maybe this guy:

Another Trump loyalist is taking over as acting head of the Navy: Undersecretary Hung Cao, a 25-year Navy combat veteran who ran unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate and House in Virginia.

Still leans toward being a favor to a loyalist; but he, at least, has real experience, so he passes the minimum experience bar for applying.

Of course, there has been a slew of firings among the military top brass by Pentagon Pete:

Phelan’s departure is the latest in a series of shakeups of top leadership at the Pentagon, coming just weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George. Hegseth also has fired several other top generals, admirals and defense leaders since taking office last year.

The firings began in February 2025, when Hegseth removed military leaders, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, and Gen. Jim Slife, the No. 2 leader at the Air Force. Trump also fired Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

There are probably a lot of veteran military leaders who don’t want to play with Pendragon Pete, who is merely an angry boy toy placed in charge of the most powerful military on earth. He has very little military experience—all at a low rank—but now he gets to play with all the biggest toys on earth. What fun! Other boys would be very envious of his toy box. And that’s why we have seen no clear objectives for the war in Iran that have been accomplished so far. It does not even appear the White House has any clear objectives in mind. It looks more like a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants affair:

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President Trump redefined his indefinite ceasefire today to a definite 3-5-day timeframe, if 3-5 days can be called definite. Yesterday the schedule was “until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.” Now it’s 3-5 days.

It happens that 3-5 days is also just the right timeframe for the arrival of the third US aircraft carrier to the gulf region. The USS George HW Bush will be back on the prowl within hunting distance of Iran’s shores by this weekend. So, the now more defined Schmeasefire extension may have just been a tactical retreat to get ready for the next round in the Iran bakeoff … or it may just be enough time for Trump’s indigestion from his last TACOfest to settle down so he can eat more TACO.

Iran stopped two cargo ships from skirting the bend in the Hormuz to escape the gulf today by firing upon them. At the same time, it skirted the US Navy with dozens of oil-laden ships of its own by going dark, turning off their transponders. Apparently that simple trick worked. Most were on their way to market from Iranian ports but a number of the tankers were headed into Iranian ports to reload—all the exact kind Trump said he would completely stop.

Donald Trump’s naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is unraveling after dozens of Iranian vessels secretly slipped past US surveillance, even as the regime tightened its grip on the critical oil passageway by attacking three tankers.

Approximately 34 Iranian oil tankers have slipped through the blockade, with 19 vessels exiting the Persian Gulf past Trump’s navy and another 15 ships entering from the Arabian Sea toward Iran, according to the Financial Times. Six of those tankers were smuggling Iranian crude oil totaling 10.7 million barrels, estimated to be worth approximately $910 million in revenue for the regime….

This all happened despite President Trump declaring the barricade a “tremendous success.” So much winning it is hard for the Prez to announce it all as quickly as it isn’t happening. You have to get the news in before the news comes out that it didn’t, or you’ll never have the chance to brag about it.

Definitive victory hard to find

I noted yesterday there have been no goal successes in Trump’s war with Iran. Objectives in this war have always been as clear as the definitely indefinite deadlines and indefinitely definite extensions of those deadlines. We have more on that in another article today:

An army of yes men, in thrall to Donald Trump’s shifts of temper and short attention span, is hampering any prospect of peace with Iran. And with the president’s indefinite extension of a ceasefire [now more definitely indefinite] being announced on Tuesday, a day after he threatened to resume bombing, the White House’s claims of success are running out of road, insiders say.

In the past 48 hours alone, the US president claimed that a deal was “close”, before then saying it was out of reach. Typifying the confusion, JD Vance, the vice-president, was still at the White House, after Trump said on Sunday that his deputy was heading to Pakistan for talks with Iranian negotiators….

“No one in the administration seems to know what’s going on. What the plans are. What we’re even aiming for now. It’s all just a giant clusterf... and there’s zero accountability, either,” a Trump-world source told The Telegraph.

Even Trump’s closest aides are struggling to keep pace with his updates on Truth Social, which have generated a lot of noise but no discernible diplomatic progress….

Having long passed the “four to six weeks” he said the war would take, the constant mixed messaging and exaggerated claims about a deal point to one reality: there is no clear plan.

What once looked like a calculated campaign to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb has deteriorated into daily updates with no consistency.

Part of the problem may be due to the war’s religious mandates as cast by the prophets of presidential profits:

… Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary … has framed the combat operations as divinely sanctioned, repeatedly invoking religious rhetoric removed from pragmatic tactics or war doctrine.

The president has even claimed that Hegseth does not want the war to end, telling journalists, “Pete didn’t want [the war] to be settled”, and that he was one of the first to throw support behind the initial bombing campaign.

In deed, Pentagon Pete and his Priesthood of Apocalypse have been telling soldiers that the purpose of the war is to bring on Armageddon so Jesus will return sooner. (See “The President’s Prophet and the Pentagon’s High Priest Predict ARMAGEDDON!”)

An objective like that might explain why it is hard for the Trumpkins in the White House to pin a timeframe on the war or its various deadlines because, as people often quote from the prophets, “No man shall know the day nor the hour” of Jesus’ return. There could, therefore, be a number of extensions needed along the way to keep realigning the times of the man in the Pentagon with the time of God.

The president, of course, is a skilled author of chaos.

“His posts are what are causing the chaos,” the diplomat said. “It’s good and bad but the bad has major effects. Behind every single tweet there is a reason for posting, often at the stock market.”

Many of the time changes in this war seem to have aligned much better with the timing of massive bets in the stock market, as has been reported now several times, leading to an investigation on insider trading in the White House. Trump says one thing about a deadline, and stocks trade one way. Then he makes a surprise announcement a day or two later, changing the deadline, and that sends stocks careening in the opposite direction. The one thing that has operated like clockwork is that, each time, about fifteen minutes before Trump posts his major reversal, hundreds of millions of dollars in bets are cast in favor of the market reversing, which it always does. These have been great trades for those with the privilege to make them.

Maybe that is why the war is being fought as it is. It’s great for swinging the market wildly and betting on the swings right before you know the next announcement is coming to make it swing the other way. The people with privilege are making bank on the war.

It’s not been so great for the war:

Behind the presidential podium in Cross Hall of the White House on April 1, Trump addressed the nation and told the US that its military objectives were almost complete and that the war was “very close” to being over.

Yet, 21 days later – and 52 days since the first strikes were launched – the same roadblocks remain.

(More to follow below on the biggest and least-recognized danger for oil in Trump’s on-and-off-again approach.)

On-again/off-again doesn’t work for oil

It may work for an oily president, but shutting down wells and starting them back up again doesn’t work well for oil at all. That means there is one thing here that doesn’t have time to play out, and that is the oil plays of the Persian Gulf:

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Let’s lead off with an explanation of Trump’s always erratic behavior from Trump’s own press secretary: (Sometimes even the White House just hands you a gift.)

Yes, Karoline Leavitt actually posted that on her X account. My first thought was that this announcement was awfully late in coming, but THANK GOODNESS they are finally recognizing the problem! I doubt, however, even accelerated treatments for serious mental illness, will bring the president the healing he needs in time for all of us to avoid another war.

And the gifts keep coming today:

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson apologized on Monday for campaigning for President Donald Trump, declaring that he would be “tormented” by the decision “for a long time” to come….

“You wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him. I mean, we’re implicated in this, for sure,” said Carlson to his brother on The Tucker Carlson Show. “It’s not enough to say, ‘Well I changed my mind,’ or like, ‘Oh this is bad, I’m out.’ It’s like in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.”

I nice little validation of my last “Deeper Dive into the Don”:

People caught up in the MAGA madness never admit that they are the ones who powered Trump all the way to the presidency, even as others warned them that Trump was deranged. They don’t ever admit they were wrong for accusing those who pointed out Trump’s obvious and DEEP character flaws all along the way of being the ones who were deranged….

And, yet, Carlson FINALLY DOES ADMIT IT, shortly after I wrote that.

I suppose I’m glad, regardless, that they are seeing a glint of the light, albeit long after they put the devil in power and inflated him with their adoration and voted empowerment from a blighted soul into the beast he is today. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the’ve have allowed him to have absolute power by doing nothing to restrain him at anything he tries to do.

So, Carlson, finally admits he was part of the problem. It wasn’t in “very small ways,” as he said. He was a big part of what enabled this mess:

The former Fox News host continued, “So I do think it’s like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be, and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people, and it was not intentional. That’s all I’ll say.”

Even there, Carlson doesn’t go far enough. He says it was “not intentional.” Yes, it was. We have his emails to FOX executives after Trump’s failed election telling them that Trump was the devil—a horrible person—but that they needed to present him in a positive light because that is what the huge audience FOX had worked to build up wanted (demanded!). If FOX didn’t promote Trump in every story they did about him, they would keep losing audience share. What Carlson forcefully advocated to FOX execs before they fired him was total pandering to their audience to keep the audience on board. So, it was intentional and done knowing and believing Trump was bad news! It was what Carlson could sell. It just finally became so bad that even Carlson couldn’t go along with it any further.

I concluded my statement about MAGA making the monster what he is this way:

Just wait until it gets worse, and it will until most of the rest of MAGA turn late, too, yet never thank those who tried to point out the danger all along the way.

It did get worse, and that’s why Carlson finally turned on Trump! It became almost impossible to keep pushing Trump’s lies and wars and failures to even appear to be trying to carry out his campaign promises.

And that is where we stand today, as I write this out in real time with headlines likely to change before the article is done. As Trump’s deadline for his schmeasefire comes to a close with Iran, Iran indicated again and again that it is not interested in even returning to the negotiation table because Trump always TACOs or never abides by his own word or his own “agreements.” (He tears up tariff deals as quickly as he makes them.) The talks are dead:

JD Vance remains at the White House as uncertainty surrounds whether he will depart for Pakistan, with Iran peace talks hanging in the balance less than 24 hours before the ceasefire expires.

Donald Trump claims he’s poised to resume bombing if Tehran refuses to come to the table, he told CNBC Tuesday morning.

So, tonight it could get very bad very quickly if Trump doesn’t find a way to TACO again, because he has gone back to his threats of annihilating Iran’s civilization by blowing up all their electrical generation facilities and their bridges.

Pakistan is ready to host the talks. They are planning for them to take place on Wednesday at the highest level. But the White House has been very tight-lipped about when JD Vance will be leaving Washington.

What appears to be going on is the US trying to protect itself from embarrassment.

If it is to send its team, which ends up sitting in Islamabad without Iran showing up, that would be a huge embarrassment. As a result, there now appears to be a game between the US and Iran over who is going to get on their plane first.

Pakistani officials say there are no teams of the highest-level delegations on the ground, but that support staff have been arriving over the last couple of days.

However, the big news in that story is that Iran says it has some “new cards” to play on the battlefield in the new round of war that is about to burst into the open. There is evidence that the “new cards” came from Russia and China during the opportunity afforded by the Schmeasefire. So, we are likely to see some far more powerful weapons deployed by Iran, which has now stated outright that it used the pause in the war to restock its weaponry.

Trump says the US military has used the ceasefire period to restock on equipment and is ready to resume attacks against Iran if he orders them.

“We’re loaded up,” Trump told CNBC. “We have so much ammo, so much of everything… we’ve used this to restock and they probably have done a little bit of restocking.

Actually, they did a lot!

“We’re ready to go. The military is raring to go.”

As early as this morning, Iran has refused to confirm if it will attend the meeting.

Trump has already said it is “highly unlikely” the two-week ceasefire will be extended past the deadline especially if a permanent end to the fighting can’t be hashed out.

Iran’s lead negotiator issued a chilling statement saying that the two weeks of no fighting has only helped the regime get back on its feet….

He went on to warn: “In the past two weeks, we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield.”

It is widely known that at least four military cargo jets from China, arrived in Iran during the ceasefire. It is also known that a number of ships arrived via the Caspian Sea, from Russia.

It is widely believed these planes and ships have brought new, advanced, weaponry from both China and Russia to Iran.

So there could very well be some ugly surprises for the US and Israel if fighting resumes.

Ghalibaf, who at the start of the month said the US will be dragged into a “living hell” and the Middle East will all “burn”, is known to be a loyalist of the Ayatollah.

And then it happened: Trump TACOed all over himself

That’s where we stood as I was writing this article this afternoon, hours away from the moment when Trump said it would be “highly unlikely” the two-week ceasefire would be extended. And then the news turned:

Trump extends Iran ceasefire after Pakistan talks appear to collapse as Don vows to keep up blockade

The president is still vowing to maintain a blockade on the Persian Gulf and has given no date which the pause in fighting will now end.

This time Trump seems to be struggling to come up with a reason for capsizing on his big threats, such as the usual, “Some big progress has been made, so we’re going to see where that goes. Iran really wants to make a deal.” He couldn’t run that one again because Iran didn’t even show up at the talks. Neither did JD Vance. No deal. No talks even. So, instead, we got this:

In a bombshell statement Trump said on TruthSocial: “Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.

Blah, blah, blah. In other words, “Nothing happened; we don’t even know who we’re talking to, so we are going to extend and pretend for an unknown amount of time until we figure that out. At some time we hope there will be some leaders and representatives, whoever they might be, who will come up with a unified proposal because we never actually had any agreement in writing for the Schmeasefire anyway.”

I pointed out when there was no unity as to what the ceasefire even said that the disagreements were because nothing was in writing. That is how flimsy the claims of negotiation were.

“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

What a gas bag. Iran called his bluff of a deadline for big action and was a no-show to the talks at all; Trump didn’t carry out the bluff but is waffling to find a reason to postpone indefinitely. He probably chickened out when he realized Iran used the opportunity afforded by the Schmeasefire to rearm with some much heavier-duty weaponry from Russia and China.

Trump blinked.

A US government plane due to carry envoys including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Islamabad failed to depart as scheduled, instead turning back mid-plan and heading to Washington.

Trump had earlier declared “I expect to be bombing” if talks fail before the ceasefire deadline at 1am on Thursday (8pm ET Wednesday), adding that “the military is raring to go”.

Vance had been due in Islamabad to hammer out a deal with Iran and end weeks of escalating conflict.

Despite previously signalling openness, Iran has yet to decide whether it will even come to the table.

Uh huh.

Iran didn’t even come to the table.

Extending the Ceasefire Disagreement, as I’ll now call it, with an indefinite postponement until a proposal arrives in writing is warranted, Trump says in his justification of his action, because he’s the government of Iran is severely fractured? He knew that when he first set the deadline. His boast about decapitating them to such degree that the victory had been won shows he knew they were severely fractured. Such a gas bag!

Heck, Trump didn’t even manage to get the strait opened up back up! He got NOTHING! And in exchange for nothing—no uranium, no strait, not a single promise—he’s postponing the ceasefire indefinitely so that the whole world can suffer through the strait being closed indefinitely because, it turns out, Iran’s leadership is fractured!

“Iran ultimately announced today that under these circumstances, attending the negotiations is a waste of time because the US prevents reaching any suitable agreement,” Tasnim reported.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump, during an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” said, “I don’t want to do that,” after being asked if he would extend the ceasefire to allow for peace talks to reach a deal.

While it’s great that he’s not going through with destroying millions of civilians by cutting off all power and most transport, hence all refrigeration and water and ability to move in fresh food in a scorching desert where large populations are only made possible by modern energy; he’s such a liar in the first place, and he has gotten not a single objective accomplished in this war, six weeks on. (See related article below about how the war has failed entirely at all named and hinted objectives.)

One thing the war has not failed at is creating outrageous inflation and turning a recession into a global depression, but it will take months for all of that to play out. The global economic damage is already in the bag, and we are all going to pay for this objective-free fiasco of one man’s folly for a long time. Pay very deeply.

(For the full story on the quotes above, see the highlighted article headlines below:)

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Today, we have an article by Ed Dowd sharing how he tweeted Trump was a Trojan Horse back in June of 2024:

This needs to be said now and I will be attacked. I have no proof so it’s a literal conspiracy theory but bears watching with eagle eyes.

Conjecture: If I were in the shadows and had an agenda of ushering in a reset to control the end of the current ponzi debt based fiat system with a CBDC and a surveillance state I would need to tame and bridle the populist/maga movement. I would abandon the useful idiots on the left and embrace the right and infiltrate and bribe my way to my agenda under the cover of a “win.”

If Trump ends up in office, and we observe personnel choices or actions that strip any of our liberties away under contrived circumstances, we will know then the above theory has some merit.

Clearly the current cult regime must go. But be on alert for a new cult and hidden agendas that may come to pass.

I have a personal fear that the Covid vaccine poisoning will be memory holed.

I warned about Trump being a Trojan horse almost a decade before that. In 2016, before Trump was elected, I made a similar claim but I gave a whole stack of evidence to back it up. I cannot find the original article now here on Substack, so maybe it didn’t upload over to Substack when I moved to this host, but here is a section about it that I wrote in April of 2017 that did move over.

I wrote it as Trump neared is first hundred days in his first term, with quotes from the article I had written in 2016, so you can, at least, get a taste of that earliest Trojan Horse warning before he ever served as president. You can see I started out with the same awareness, Dowd expresses, that I’d lose a lot of readers over writing the warning, even though it was their interests I was safeguarding. Here’s an excerpt of the 2017 article along with its quotes from 2016:

You Got Trumped! Winning horse in presidential race was Trojan

Back in September when he was still just Candidate Trump, I wrote an article titled “Trump: Trojan Horse for the Establishment or Mighty Mouth for Mankind?” I knew that pointing out my deep reservations about Trump would cost me readers because I write an anti-establishment blog, and Trump was the anti-establishment candidate of choice. I published the article anyway. It not only cost me readers (from which I haven’t recovered), but it also cost me websites that had been carrying my articles. Such is the pursuit of truth over popularity.

Nevertheless, I continued to write on that theme in the months that followed because I believed the warning was important and because I choose to see and describe the world as it is (as best I can) and not how I want it to be. Because I criticize any political party as readily as another, I am often seen as too conservative by liberals and too liberal by conservatives. (I don’t get the benefit of club membership that gains a writer an easy loyal following.) So be it.

Here is some of that article, which is now looking like it was spot on:

“I crave the opportunity to see an anti-establishment candidate win the election. I would exult in seeing our corrupt establishment shattered. So, while I do not like Trump the man (as it would appear he has never done anything that didn’t entirely serve his own self-interest and pompous ego), I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing him upset establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats alike. (And, yes, they are alike, so let’s just call them “the establishment” because whether they are Republican or Democrat is not relevant; both parties exist to serve the same rich people and themselves either way.)”

I’ll even acknowledge that perhaps it takes someone as brazen and blusterous as Trump in order to stand up to such a powerful assemblage of egoists as we have embedded in congress and in the president’s administration, which now rules by decree.... While I have never liked this particular publicity whore, I’d put up with his relentless boasting and forgive his audacious past if it takes that kind of brassy, risk-taking adventurer to find someone with enough spine to stand up to the intimidations of congress.... Whether or not I like him is not important unless it is leading me to see flaws that may mean Trump is not what he makes himself out to be.

From there, I pointed out such character flaws as made me believe Trump would not prove to be what he was making himself out to be. He would let his anti-establishment supporters down hard:

“Overturning a vast global establishment is the kind of battle that will take someone with unbelievable tenacity, intelligence, and courage. The opponents are rich, and you can be sure some are willing to kill to keep the status quo that is making them immensely rich….”

Unfortunately, I have seen often in life that bellicose people are usually nowhere near as brave as they sound. People like Ike, who was strong in war and humble in attitude, are usually the ones with real courage. It is not usually the most blustery people who have the deepest strength to carry through with the right thing for the right reasons, regardless of cost to themselves.

Trump is aptly named for how often he blows his own horn in order to create his own image; but his actions show he backed out of previous presidential races when it was clear they weren’t going to be an easy win after getting lots of publicity for teasing people with the possibility that he’d run. He has also backed out of many business deals when things got rough, rather than push forward to try to make things work....

It’s his latest political actions that concern me. In the few places where we have seen Trump make actual political decisions so far, his choices have been 100% pro-establishment as I pointed out in a recent article titled “Whirled Politics: Would you rather be Trumped or Pillaried?”I wished very much to see something different than what I am seeing.

The article delineated a number of tell-tale signs that indicated Trump was anything but the anti-establishment candidate he was presenting himself to be. I pointed out, for example, how the Trump horse that was being brought into the city gates was filled with neocons and the Wall Street establishment, and how I believed they would come to own Trump if they didn’t already. The Trump horse was brazenly anti-establishment on the outside, but almost total establishment on the inside.

I concluded my intro to the article with this warning:

“Be careful that you don’t believe something just because you want to believe it so badly. That is how the citizens of Troy were conquered in the Trojan war. I’d love to have an anti-establishment candidate roll in, too. Sadly, I don’t think I do.... The time to hold Trump to task is now, not after the establishment makeover turns him into their Trojan Trump card, but while they are trying so that they don’t succeed.”

And I closed the article by asking,

“Is he force or farce?”

April has demonstrated that Trump was either a Trojan horse by design or, in the very least, that his establishment makeover is nearly complete. Before he has even finished his first hundred days as president, President Trump has turned 180 degrees on almost every promise Candidate Trump made, and the couple of times Trump has tried to enact his promises, he has failed “bigly.”

We saw my warning play out throughout Trump 1.0. He failed to deliver his big campaign promises, such as …

• repealing and replacing Obamacare,

• his implied promise of locking Hillary up,

• getting Mexico to pay for a wall that he would finish in no time because building things is what he does,

• and most of all draining the swamp, as I noted again and again how everyone in the White House, other than the few he fired like Bannon, were swamp creatures from Goldman Sachs and the MIC. Trump clearly got swamped by the swamp in 1.0.

Trump 2.0 was a totally different picture where the Trump was angry at the swamp that swamped his presidency last time around; so, he came in like a wrecking ball. Still, we see him constantly displaying the very character traits that I said would be his undoing. All year long in 2025, we called it “TACO”: Trump Always Chickens Out. He endlessly made huge threats then backed out of them, said it was the art of the deal. Back then it was in the Trump Tariff Wars where he constantly reneged on his previous deals that he had once boasted about and reneged on many of his worse tariff threats whenever things got dicy in the stock market or bond market. Now we see the same thing happening in the Trump-Israel-Iran War, and clearly he is losing. Stocks markets are dumb and fall for such bluffs. The Iranians are not, and they are not falling for it at all.

So, late tomorrow we face a new deadline: Trump swore he would destroy all of Iran’s electrical generation plants and their major bridges, then chickened out, claiming Iran wanted to deal. Iran said they didn’t want to deal—take our terms or leave them. We all pretty well knew Trump was lying by claiming a big deal was in the making. We’ve seen this vanity so many times before, and Iran proved he was lying by holding to their terms and blowing up a boat or two any time he said they no longer had that capability. It was like they were toying with him to buy time to restock and relook-and-load.

So, here we are: no deal, and now Trump is back to saying he’ll destroy their civilization if they don’t capitulate tomorrow (by Tuesday evening). So, is he going to launch a far greater ground war as he has promised (having much earlier promised there would be no boots on the ground), or will he TACO again because his word on everything is worth less than Trojan horse shit.

You can read the article above to see the many ways I enumerate how Trump had chickened out by the first 100 days of 1.0, but I’ll warn you that it did not upload well from my old platform to Substack, so it has a lot of typographical artifacts, but it is there as archival proof of where I said this was going from the very first days. Here are a few more points where, as we would put it now, Trump TACOed out in 2017, as evidence of what was to come …

• The N. Korean Missile Crisis. (Thank goodness, because he was going to blow Rocketman up, and that would have been more perilous than the present war because madman Kim Jung Un does have nukes. It was just big talk. Trump switched to talking about all the love letters Un was sending him—a love long lost now.)

• Trump filled every security and intel department with the old military top brass AND made top generals from the old realm his chiefs of staff—the second-most-powerful in the White House as gatekeeper to the Prez.

• He placed ivy-league bankers, particularly Goldman Sachs execs in charge of everything to do with finance, money and commers—total swamp creatures.

• And he gave us a wonderful vaccine with full indemnity to the drug makers should their vaccine maim or kill people due to being tested on billions at the same time. (And why wouldn’t they take outlandish risks when they have full immunity for not going slow with testing the most experimental vaccine in a century?)

The QAnon folks called me after I wrote these kinds of things and tried to convince me the swampy staffing I kept pointing out by name after name was just a brilliant ploy of “holding your friends close but your enemies closer.” Trump was rounding them all up to take them all down in one big barn fire, once he bolted the barn doors on them and got the gasoline down around the outside of the barn.

Uh, huh.

I’ve called Trump out as Trojan horse for conservatives from the very beginning, but now he is something far more dangerous. He’s a full-on megalomaniac, perfectly fitting every detail given in the psychological description of megalomania that I provided a link to … as I wrote about his mental illness over the weekend:

The Daily Doom

A DEEPER DIVE INTO THE DONALD: The King's Megalomania is Nearing its Imperial Zenith

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13 days ago · 6 likes · David Haggith

And, you know, the interesting thing about pointing out Trump’s dangerous mental health right now is … that I finally don’t get any defectors when I do because those who hoped he would upset the establishment, as I wrote about above, are seeing what a fraud he is and how insane he is. Even when he comes against the establishment in so many way, he’s still serving the billionaires, still serving the MIC with new wars to burn through weapons and fuel so we can buy a trillion dollars more, and he still doesn’t look like any of this campaign promises mean dirt to him.

As I wrote in another article back in 2017,

It seems like every week Trump has to fire a new swamp creature that he appointed! His backers excuse him with the claim that he is playing 4-D chess. He isn’t even playing 3-D marbles!

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Economania (national & global economic collapse plus market news)

Data Centers Drove Half of U.S. Power Demand Growth in 2025, IEA Says

Money Matters (monetary policy, metals, cryptos, currency wars & going cashless)

An Embarrassment of Riches for Trident, Aztec and Tiger Gold

The Trump Administration Is Manipulating Inflation Data — And Gold Knows It

Inflation Factors (too much money chasing too few goods due to weather, sanctions, tariffs, quarantines, etc.)

Kuwait Declares Force Majeure as U.S. Seizure of Iranian Ship Escalates Tensions

Oil prices jump after Iran and U.S. attack commercial ships as tensions escalate over Strait of Hormuz

‘Wright Is Wrong’: Trump Rejects Energy Secretary’s Comment That Gas Prices May Not Drop Under $3 Until 2027

Iran halts it petrochemical exports over war damage

Wars & Rumors of War (including cyberwar, civil unrest and revolts)

Trump: ‘Highly Unlikely’ US Will Extend Iran Ceasefire, ‘Lots Of Bombs Will Go Off’ If No Deal

TRUMP: “CEASEFIRE WILL **NOT** BE EXTENDED - Either A deal Tomorrow, or Fighting Resumes

IRGC: gulf of Hormuz officially closed for ALL ships

Strait of Hormuz Traffic Is at a Standstill Again

Trump Losing it Due to War Anxiety

Behind Trump’s Bravado on the Iran War

UAE asks US for a wartime financial lifeline

UAE asks US for a wartime financial lifeline as Iran conflict drags

World’s Biggest Physical Oil Trader Warns of Months of Price Volatility

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Search for 11 missing nuclear scientists escalates as top lawmakers reveal NEW ’national security’ fears

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The Killer Robots Are Coming. The Battlefield Will Never Look the Same

Trump Trade Wars & Turf Wars

Tariff refunds begin on Monday. These retailers are due big paydays

Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)

Trump Trojan Horse Theory Became Reality

Suspect dead after 8 children killed, 2 women wounded in Louisiana shooting

The king’s prophetess, Paula White-Cain

From the INSANE president of the United States

Matt Labash: The End Times Customer Service Desk

‘We’re gonna get killed’: White House in full-blown panic as economic outlook darkens

Dem Senate, Once Unthinkable, Is Real Possibility

Some sense in the young: Gen Z And Gen Alpha Are Embracing Analog Technology And Increasingly Rejecting Social Media (Maybe a little anti-social-senescence)

The Night the Government Closed the Skies Over El Paso

A Pox Upon Us (the plagues, pandemics & health police of the 2020s)

Trump’s pick to head the CDC: The Queen of Vaccine Mandates!

Off-the-Beat News & Just Plain Offbeat News

World is going ginger as human are evolving into redheads for one reason say scientists

Scientists Intrigued by Nasal Spray that Reverses Brain Aging in Mice, Say it May Work on Humans as Well

Doomer Humor

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I read some interesting observations this weekend from a former psychologist at Johns Hopkins University who said that Trump’s psychosis (beyond mere dementia) has reached a stage he describes as “magical thinking.” This is particularly dangerous when narcissism, now running reckless under dementia, reaches the level of megalomania in a person who actually has near absolute power in human terms. (Tell me Trump doesn’t fit every word of the definition provided at that link!) Reaching this level in his narcissism puts Trump in the same dangerous sphere as other supreme evil emperors, such as Nero, Caligula, and Kim Jung Un, who deified themselves, now that Trump is almost daily trying to do the same thing.

Trump CLEARLY sees himself as a global emperor as the talks incessantly about taking over Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, and Cuba and flaunts a map that shows Mexico and all of Central America as being part of a single American nation or empire) that he will bring about, and he clearly envies the adoration and worship that he sees Jesus getting from the “Christians” who are in his closest ring of support, which includes the false prophets who feed his megalomania/delusions of grandeur by telling him over and over how much like Jesus he is and how chosen by God.

His megalomania has finally become so painfully OBVIOUS that, even several of his loudest and most popular (and often obnoxious) supporters are now insisting he be “Twenty-fifthed” before he causes serious damage to the US and the world. (We’ll come to those below.) The Donald’s mad behavior has finally grown so outrageous that many of those with actual Trump Derangement Syndrome can no longer avoid seeing his derangement. (A syndrome where those who go along with the president in his deranged beliefs about his greatness accuse everyone who sees clearly that the Donald is as deranged as a mad duck is accused of being deranged for recognizing something long obvious that they simply don’t WANT to see.)

I’ll let the professor of psychology explain how the Deranged Don’s behavior has culminated in such a crisis that even his strongest supporters are finally pressed to admit Donald is one mad duck:

President Donald Trump has crossed from grandiosity into full-blown psychosis, psychologist Dr. John Gartner has warned.

Gartner, a former professor at Johns Hopkins University, told The Daily Beast Podcast that the 79-year-old president is engaged in “magical thinking….”

“It’s something that, again, we associate with psychosis. We also associate it with young children. Freud called it ‘primary process.’ It’s kind of the most primitive type of thinking, where if you imagine it, it must be true. But this is just magical thinking. Anything that occurs to him—any stray, crazy thought—is true….”

Gartner, who said a few weeks ago that Trump’s mental “deterioration” was accelerating, then mentioned several of Trump’s fanciful social media posts: his since-removed depiction of himself as Jesus Christ, his mock-up as the pope, and his Truth Social post calling himself the “acting president of Venezuela.”

“His grandiosity is so extreme that not only does he want to be the pope and Jesus and the president of Venezuela and the Mullah of Iran—he wants to be all of these things at once. He wants the world to worship him, and he wants to erect massive monuments to praise himself,” he said.

King Donald needs for the Trump ballroom to be the biggest and grandest and most powerfully situated ever. He needs the Arc de Trump to be bigger than the Arc de Triomphe and other magnificent arches celebrating historic victories so it is able to be seen all the way down the Mall from the Capitol. He can’t stand that other emperors had arches and he doesn’t; so, he’ll see to it that he does. He’s always had to put his name in huge letters on almost everything he does. He needs to sign the dollar bill and stimulus checks so his name gets the credit for as much of the money that goes into the hands of the masses as possible so he will earn their adoration with other people’s money. He starts “Trump” accounts with free money for kids so they’ll grow up feeling thankful for all he has given them. Everything he does is a huge upward spiraling circle of praise to him. And now he’s reached the level of aspiring to be worshipped as a deity … even as Jesus, but he hasn’t been able to pull that off … yet. (Or I’m wrong, and he really just wants to be a doctor dressed in ancient Roman garb who heals with orbs of light and has a halo of golden light fringing his golden hair.)

Just a little segue: Many people became interested in how the AI imagined Trump’s Jesus image, putting something in there of which, perhaps, Trump was not aware. In the light that the lines of perspective follow into the background behind Orange Jesus (or the “Great Pumpkin,” as I like to call him now that he’s totally bat-guano insane, as his biggest have supporters agreed over the past week or two) is an image of a demonic entity that stands behind him. Usually the silhouettes in the light behind a glorified person represent the entity that sent him or show what is coming along in his wake. So, think about that for fun!

Gartner then turned to some of Trump’s capital-area vanity projects [ever emperor has to have vanity projects] as further evidence, like the planned ‘Arc de Trump’ across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial and the White House ballroom that he will reportedly name after himself. Trump also put his name on the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute for Peace, and is planning on appearing on gold currency.

“The ways in which he’s been pressuring various states to rename their airports and their train stations and their tunnels after him,” Gartner continued, were signs that Trump “wants the world to worship him as a god.”

The great danger is this: When the megalomaniac is continually denied his deified status by those who most worship him (and the whole rest of the world) and sees his status denigrated even by his former supporters, as is now happening in a crescendoing chorus, and when the emperor is denied the victories in war that he has already proclaimed, he eventually will become enraged that the world is not recognizing his exalted status as God’s chosen and is even mocking his claims, and then he will become even wilder in attempts to prove his power over all—to prove his claims of greatness.

This is the man who controls nuclear-powered greatness at his fingertips, who was put in place by the majority of American voters. The world will never forgive Americans for what happens next because the majority chose him after already getting four years to test him.

Meanwhile, the political situation for Trump—bad polling on the economy and Democrats having a real chance at regaining both the House and the Senate in the midterms, for instance—makes him like a “wounded animal,” Gartner said. But that isn’t great for anyone.

Here we get to the case of concern I just made.

“A cornered, wounded animal is the most vicious and dangerous kind of animal there is, and that’s where he is right now,” he said. “So what I’m worried about is, even if we win both houses of Congress, he’s still the commander in chief, and he’s still getting off on the omnipotent destructiveness and power of blowing things up.”

But, look, this psychologist is obviously a Democrat, and the opinion of a psychologist who has never actually met with the president to diagnose him should not be given too much regard, except that in this case it makes total sense out of what we are seeing, and it even squares with the calls by MegaMAGA influencers (until they just couldn’t stand him any longer) to quickly get him out of office on the basis that he is now more obviously insane than Joe Biden ever was, even on one of his worst days of wandering and shaking hands with curtains and falling over on his bicycle.

So, let’s turn to the calls to 25 him, rather than just take the doctor’s word for it.

Two major MAGA Trump takedowns

Two of the biggest supporters to turn solidly against Trump and plead for his ouster, which I’ve recently mentioned, are Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones. They’ve blown up even more since I last brought them up.

Tucker particularly is incensed by Trump’s now obvious religious manipulations. Carlson now points to a similarity between Trump and a wannabe Jesus that I’ve briefly called attention to in the past for those who keep saying he is God’s appointed because I’ve found the connection compelling for sometime:

Tucker Carlson suggests Trump might be the ANTICHRIST after President shared AI image of himself as Jesus….

He called out a Truth Social post from Trump on Thursday showing him being embraced by Jesus, with Carlson claiming the image aligned with warnings from the Bible.

Carlson said the Bible cautions a figure like Trump could emerge in the future, described as a ‘man of lawlessness’ - or the ‘antichrist’ - who leads people against religion.

He suggested Trump matches the scripture’s description of this entity, as a ‘man who will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple proclaiming himself to be God.’

‘He will pose as God,’ Carlson continued. ‘He will mock other Gods, and put himself in their place.’

Carlson said other passages in the Bible also warn about similar ‘antichrist’ characteristics, including the ‘coming of a King who will do as he pleases.’

The Bible verse says the antichrist will ‘exalt and magnify himself above every God’, which Carlson said represented Trump’s posts ‘mocking’ Christianity.

O.K. Well, that IS sounding increasingly appropriate! As I said all of last year, for those who want to claim Trump is God’s appointed or his anointed, the question remains “appointed for what?” If they are right that he is appointed by God (and I am hardly implying he actually is), then I’ve said he must be God’s appointed wrecking ball for America (and likely the whole world.) It must be demolition time—the nearing of Judgment Day.

If he’s not the big guy, himself, because he’s a lot odler and more crippled than I though the Antichrist would be and a lot more orange, then he certainly fits the actual descriptions given.

Here was the latest deification alignment Trump posted:

Ah, the two share the halo as Jesus comforts the poor hero who has been denied his due adoration. The Donald is presented as being God’s glorious Trump card to bring victory. What a cult!

Carlson concluded in his episode that while he was previously an ardent Trump supporter, the president has driven him away with his religious social media posts about himself.

You’re awfully late in figuring it out Carlson; but, at least, you finally did and are speaking out because Trump’s lunacy has grown along its long-familiar lines toward a climax that goes further than you can go along with him, which is where I’ve said this will go.

‘To a lot of Christians, these predictions in both the Old and New Testament seem to fit what we are watching,’ he said.

‘Here is a leader who is mocking the Gods of his ancestors, mocking the God of Gods, and exalting himself above them.’

‘Could this be the antichrist?’ he questioned….

Carlson was one of Fox News’s biggest stars until his abrupt firing in 2023 and was once close to Trump, whose views he was credited with strongly influencing.

Trump, at least, seems to be auditioning for the role.

The Alex Jones feud also intensified this week.

Watching Jones’s site is disorienting because, at least when I watch it, all the videos keep trying to start themselves and play over the top of each other in a cacophony that matches the current MAGA chaos. Apparently every viewpoint Jones expresses is so important that you should listen to all of them at once!

Another oddity that isn’t really odd for Jones is that he argues against Trump’s insanity via conspiracy theories of his own, and he’s got so many of them that he just alludes to as if they are established facts, that I think the critic is as unstable as his subject. Still, the two former friends and golfing buddies, if I recall, both of whom were staunch Trump supporters (one of them—Trump—still is) are now ripping each other to shreds in video volleys.

Here is where it gets weird. The president criticized Alex Jones because Jones, he pointed out, is a bankrupt loser. Jones fired back that Trump is bankrupt loser three times over. (Actually the Trump number of bankruptcies is six time, so the president, by his owns standard is a six-time loser.) Anyway, the president goes after Alex like a schoolyard bully, and bankruptcies were, I guess, his best material for name calling that day. It was sort of like yelling. “Oh yeah, well you’re as ugly as my mother!”

According to the video below, that includes that schoolyard fight, Trump has completely killed MAGA:

The two videos presented there are a fascinating brawl. In the second one, Jones points out that Trump has lost 80% of the indepedent vote and that Republicans are going to massively lose the nest election, but Trump doesn’t care. Jones also lays out how Trump is doing the reverse of nearly everything he promised to his MAGA supporters: (No kidding. Who said that all along?)

He’s committing political suicide for our own movement, and he’s turning against all the major pillars of the movement. Blocking RFK Junior trying to get rid of all the poison shots all of a sudden…. Why?

Jones gives his reasons for Trump’s “change” based on conspiracies he believes are driving the “new Trump.” I’ll give mine based on the old Trump! I don’t need any conspiracy to explain what is happening: Trump is delusional exactly as the doctor described, so he believes he can pull off all the things he has said he will easily accomplish because he is undefeatable in his own eyes because he’s so great and powered that even God has chosen him. Trump doesn’t even see his power as coming from God. He sees God as having chosen him as an affirmation of his own greatness … the man God needed to get the job done.

Understand how the mainframe of a megalomaniac works, and you see this isn’t change to a different kind of thing; this is change along a path of continuity! Everything Trump has set his mind to, as his prophet Paula White-Cain has assured him, will be a huge success; so, in his belief, “his people” will practically worship him for it once they see the success and will deeply regret they ever doubted him. In fact, I’m sure some of his people haven’t turned from him precisely because they fear that is how it will turn out. So will many others when they see how great he is. Trump doesn’t believe he has to do what his supporters want. He is greater than they are, and they will come to revere his greatness and apologize for their failed loyalty, becoming more loyal than ever.

The sad part is they are the enablers who powered him into a psychosis this deep by excusing all his lies and failures to deliver all along and believing him through every betrayal:

• no repeal and replace of Obamacare;

• Mexico not paying for the wall at all, not even through tariffs;

• US businesses paying all import and export tariffs, not Mexico;

• the total amount of tariffs offset by price adjustments from foreign suppliers, just 6%;

• the rushed delivery of a vaccine that most of MAGA hates while trying continually to get them honor him for it as his number-one success;

• now, the starting of multiple wars; iflation showing up from the tariffs. The Epstein files buried and over redacted, especially the parts about Trump and the perps;

• catering almost entirely to his buddy billionaires;

• walking all over every law in the constitution if he decides he wants to.

On and on it went, and for most of it, they stayed with him in blind loyalty AND excused it in endless arguments! So, they taught him he can do whatever he wants (until now). As a result, Trump believes they will come around when they see his huge successes. If not, he doesn’t need them. He’s already literally said that to them.

Jone’s continues:

But this isn’t about his attack on me. It’s about the true craziness of all this. He has all these Neocon sychophants … praising him and saying how great he is…. So, here is where we are at right now, Ladies and Gentleman. We are at a crossroads, and Trump is committing political suicide…. No one who has any brain cells can deny that fact….

Jones keep saying this is “a new Trump,” but this is completely the Trump I and many other always saw, just emboldened and empowered by his supporters who didn’t care if he ruled by decree and didn’t care if he skirted laws however he could get away with, running free and becoming his own worst self. It’s the same self—same traits but now unrestrained because he’ll never face another election anyway.

This is the always arrogant Trump:

• the Trump who always said he’d like be a czar’

• the Trump who openly admired some of the ways Hitler ruled, if not Hitler’s hatred for the Jews;

• the Trump who has always berated his critics, made fun of people who he hired as being morons without ever owning the fact that he was the common denominator in hiring all of them;

• the Trump who has lied multiple times a day, claiming whatever he wants to believe;

• the Trump who has profiteered directly off the presidency since the first year of his first term in ways MAGA would never tolerate from Biden;

But now he is completely unbridled by having no shot at another election, so completely unhinged. So, he’s going to play it for all the personal power and personal gain he can while he has the opportunity. AND NO ONE IS REINING HIM IN!

He’s spent years sucking up every praise from every cabinet sycophant, as we saw when the televised parts of cabinet meetings turn into a massive round-table boot-licking session; and he’s inhaled all of that praise deep into the core of his ego as the hot air it needed to inflate. They fed the monster and this is what you get. They helped create him by accepting the endless lies, believing them, covering for them, claiming it was 4-D chess, etc.

If you think I’m being too harsh, just remember that all of my lighter criticism about Trump over the past years, when I was accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome have come so clearly true that most of his biggest followers have turned on him and are calling him crazy. Now that I’m going even further because I see this as all going to go insanely further, I suspect I’ll get some of the same kind of criticism, but watch where this goes.

It’s all going to wind up even worse than I’ve describe so far until even most of those who stand by him now will wonder how on earth he became such a monster. The answer is THEY fed the beast. They fed it until it became a monster; but guess, what, the ravenous monster that has grown so great on such praise becomes a raging monster when you stop feeding it. Feed a wild bear over and over, and see what happens to the seemingly friendly bear when you stop feeding it entirely.

When the president’s war doesn’t go how he believes it will go, and he cannot make the madness end, watch how wild he gets as Iran makes him look like a loser. When his economy completely collapses and inflation reaches 10%, and gas prices have been over $5 a gallon for a year and his supporters leave him bit by bit because they cannot afford to live anymore and turn on him as failure and a liar, watch how enraged the beast gets for not getting the worship it so craves!

And all of that is going to happen because no leading Republicans in power are even thinking about removing him from office—at least, not that they let on. They are that corrupt and power-hungry themselves. If the Republicans don’t get the balls to remove him from office on grounds of insanity because too many die-hard MAGA supporters just cannot admit they’ve been had and that Trump is the deranged one, after all their claims to the contrary, then that is where this is going.

For a guy who says this isn’t about him, Jones can’t stop himself from going back to the personal brawl:

It’s so unhinged! He’s the guy who had all these countless bankruptcies for casinos and hotels and, you know, basically these pump and dumps; but then he looks at ME that was basically shut down by a million-and-a-half dollar judgment…

Yes, Alex for propagating baldfaced lies that damaged the lives of others with ZERO evidential backing that you could present in court to support your outrageous claims.

… that was totally rigged, and now he’s siding with the people that attacked him against myself and others; so, this is the new Trump.

No, Alex, this is the Trump you loved whenever he did that to the people you hate. You just now get to see what it feels like when he does it to you because he always goes after anyone who breaks fealty with him. This is Trump being Trump when you stop feeding the bear!

Jones goes on to speculate he must have made some deal with the globalists above him, such as the Rothschilds, and that he’s sabotaging the midterms at their behest, in order to have changed like this—the usual kind completely evidence-free conspiracy claims that got Jones taken to court in the first place. He’s learned nothing!

Now, Jones does that to Trump, as Jones has always done to others, including the people connected to Sandy Hook, while he complained that Trump is doing to him what Trump has always done to others. What a convoluted, spiraling world of mutual insanity circles as those with conspiracy-laden brains turn on each other and rip each other to shreds.

I told Trump I don’t want to attack him. But we have to because it’s so crazy what he’s doing.

And you’re crazy, too, Alex! This is how these thing, founded on lies and hatred and support for deranged people so long as you think they are going against the right people and so long as you believe their lies … this is how they fall apart, and all parties turn on each other in a MegaMAGA Meltdown.

Taking the 25th

At this point, all of the following Red Hat Elites are calling for Trump’s decapitation via the 25th amendment:

Alex Jones thinks he is leading the way among the MAGA defectors; but here is what happens to those who pointed out the truth all along when they claim someone like Jones is awfully late to the party:

People caught up in the MAGA madness never admit that they are the ones who powered Trump all the way to the presidency, even as others warned them that Trump was deranged. They don’t ever admit they were wrong for accusing those who pointed out Trump’s obvious and DEEP character flaws all along the way of being the ones who were deranged. Like Trump, they always have to be right.

At least many do; but I suppose I’m glad, regardless, that they are seeing a glint of the light, albeit long after they put the devil in power and inflated him with their adoration and voted empowerment from a blighted soul into the beast he is today. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the’ve have allowed him to have absolute power by doing nothing to restrain him at anything he tries to do.

Just wait until it gets worse, and it will until most of the rest of MAGA turn late, too, yet never thank those who tried to point out the danger all along the way. Instead, Jones, attacks Ruby for being mean to him, when she points out the truth about how hard he tried for years to excuse all of Trumps worse traits and even claim they were 4D strengths as she tried all along the way to show him otherwise on his own show.

Conservative commentator Candace Owens wrote on X: ‘The 25th amendment needs to be invoked. He is a genocidal lunatic. Our Congress and military need to intervene. We are beyond madness.’ Owens had previously been a vocal Trump supporter throughout his first and second terms, making her rebuke one of the more striking defections of the week.

Former GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—long considered one of Trump’s most ardent congressional allies—posted: ‘25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilisation. This is evil and madness.’

Former homeland security official Miles Taylor wrote on X that people who helped elect Trump were now warning he is ‘demented’, naming Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, Candace Owens, Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Dan Bilzerian, a prominent Trump backer on social media, posted that Trump ‘is an extreme narcissist, he’s going to nuke Iran because his ego can’t handle that he’s losing the war and his lies will be exposed. 25th amendment.’

Former GOP Representative Joe Walsh posted: ‘His Easter morning post. And just 2 days ago, one of his religious advisers compared him to Jesus Christ. He will forever be a stain on this country. And the world. 25th Amendment. Now.’

Former GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger posted: ‘This is absolutely insane and 25th amendment grounds in and of itself.’

The combined list of Republicans calling for the 25th:

• Candace Owens — conservative commentator

• Marjorie Taylor Greene — former GOP Representative

• Alex Jones — right-wing media figure

• Joe Walsh — former GOP Representative

• Adam Kinzinger — former GOP Representative

• Ty Cobb — former White House counsel under Trump

• Scott McConnell — founding editor of The American Conservative magazine

• Dan Bilzerian — social media personality and former Trump backer

• Miles Taylor — former Department of Homeland Security official

Conspiracy hell

MAGA was raised on a constant diet of conspiracy theories. Some, of course, were true. That’s why I share them sometimes when I think they provide credible evidence. Many have been based on leaps of logic that connect the dots but with no evidence to support why the dots should connect that way. Instead, the mere fact that you can connect them that certain way and create a certain picture is all the evidence you need—just a credible theory.

So, it is no surprise that MAGA is now melting down by every party throwing new conspiracies about each other at each other, mostly based on things inferred based on things that look suspicious—the kind of “evidence” the infamous Sidney Powell Kraken case was built on, which Trump’s Supreme Court immediately threw out as garbaged based on mere grounds for suspicion. What some people don’t get is that “grounds for suspicion” are not court-worthy evidence. “Ground for suspicion” are the things that tell you where to start looking to try to find solid evidence. This is the stuff faulty conspiracy theories are mostly made of: This looks suspiciously like this.

One area where we see that kind of unravelling suddenly exploding is in the Trump assassination attempt. As former MAGA members turn on their Liar-in-Chief they’re having to reinvent his godlike quasi resurrection where Jesus miraculously spared him from an assassins bullet. I personally don’t doubt he was actually shot because it is the most straightforward of all the stories. Not hard to believe that some dumb kid would do that and got that far when you have the likes of Kash “Klown” Patel running the FBI!

In recent weeks, criticism of President Donald Trump from within his own support base has reached a fever pitch. Amid that backlash, a new conspiracy theory has taken hold online. Some of Trump’s biggest supporters are now claiming, without evidence, that the 2024 assassination attempt against him was staged. The theory marks a sharp shift from earlier reactions that framed his survival as almost divine. Now, parts of the MAGA movement are questioning whether the incident itself was real.

My point is not what version of the story is true—whether a kid acted on his own and got himself killed or whether Trump faked his own assassination as a publicity stunt or any other view. My point is just how quickly the former MAGAites who built up from QAnon conspiracies about reptilian Clintons eating babies in a pizzeria are now applying the same art against Trump. They, too, are turning on the one who betrayed them by doing the same thing to him they did to those who were his original enemies when they helped get Trump into office.

A whirlwind of lies is throwing MAGA all over the place. In the mix there may be some truths, too; but this is how lies upon lies and delusions upon delusions fall apart in madness everywhere.

And here is how insane it is:

As Trump’s hold over his base has waned, some prominent voices have begun promoting claims that the attack was staged. Comedian Tim Dillon said on his show, “I think that maybe it was staged,” suggesting Trump should admit it was done “to show people how important it was to vote for me.”

You can read the story linked below to see the variety of new conspiracies that are becoming the new facts of MAGA, all of them contradicting each other, as they compete to ascend.

Think I’m wrong about the explosion of insanity as the champion, himself explodes? Probably better wait until the end of the year to come back here and comment on how it never went as badly as I said it would go from here because the mad king will grow madder still as his flock turns against their own self-appointed messiah, who may also be God’s wrecking ball for the world, as I’ve claimed all along.

Wait to tell me how wrong I was until after it clearly turns out that he wasn’t a wrecking ball. If not God’s, then his own wrecking ball. How fitting already is his destruction of the East Wing of the White House, as I said it would be on the day the wrecking ball was swinging. Trump will demolish the world before he ever admits he was wrong about all of his imperial madness, and he’ll get there before MAGA melts down far enough to finally gain the numbers necessary to stop him.

That’s where this ends.

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A busy day at my real job today and not a lot of time to write or gather headlines. May be the same over the next two days.

I think the main thing that surfaces in the headlines is how many more people are seriouslyconcerned about President Trump’s mental health after this bizarre weekend of failed negotiations, following genocidal threats, Trump scolding the pope, etc. Democrats have finally gotten up the nerve to start an official congressional investigation into his mental health in preparation for calling for the 25th amendment, though they don’t have the power to make that happen.

The New York Times referred to the weekend as “Donald Trump’s most unhinged 48 hours as president in 11 bizarre moments”:

• Pointing to how he took on the pope, as I pointed out yesterday, alienating Catholics, whose vote his party needs this fall;

• acting like all the “you’re just like Jesus” talk has saturated his ego to the point of his running the idea of the flagpole to see how it flies;

• trying to walk it back with a lie when it didn’t fly at all, claiming he was just interested in being a doctor, as if a doctor uses glowing hands, wears clerical robes, and as if Trump ever had any interest in the healing arts; some diehard MAGAites believed it as if it seemed reasonable Trump was fantasizing about being a doctor because of how much he clearly likes to heal people while bombing them or ripping the handicapped as “losers;”

• such an obvious lie, but they were ready, as always, to swallow it whole. To try to sell the bizarre lie, he dug in deeper, claiming there was red-cross worker in the image. There was nothing that looked related to the Red Cross. He denyied it being Jesus for the third time, at which point presumably a cock crowed

As the Dems always did this same kind of covering with Joe Biden’s obvious dementia, the MAGA people repeatedly come up with any excuse for Trump’s obvious dementia. However, as with Joe Biden, the longer you drag out his reign with excuses, the more certain a day will come when his disasters become so bad that even his supporters can’t support the lies any longer. Then they will ask like the Dem’s did on debate night, “When did this happen?” It will register as a question that was so obvious to so many.

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Inflation Factors (too much money chasing too few goods due to weather, sanctions, tariffs, quarantines, etc.)

Australia’s petrol stations start running dry as energy crisis turns existential

Wars & Rumors of War (including cyberwar, civil unrest and revolts)

China defies Trump’s blockade of Strait of Hormuz

China-bound tanker turns back at Hormuz amid US blockade; Beijing warns ‘do not interfere in our affairs’

Digital Dominance (AI threats, transhumanism, hacks & cyberattacks, etc.)

Huge Group of Experts Warns Meta That Its Pervert Glasses Will Enable Terrible Crimes

Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)

Donald Trump’s most unhinged 48 hours as president in 11 bizarre moments

Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate

House Democrats File Bill to Form 25th Amendment Commission to Assess Trump’s Mental Fitness

Psychological Research Finds Trump Supporters Are Not Doing Well

Woman says Democrat Eric Swalwell drugged, raped and choked her: ‘I thought I died’

Calamity, Catastrophe & Climate Craziness

Deadly super typhoon charges toward US territory in just hours with 173mph winds and blackout threat

Off-the-Beat News & Just Plain Offbeat News

Satellites Spent Nine Years Watching Earth’s Lights: What They Found Was Chaos

Doomer Humor

More humor:

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Having gone into considerable depth about the huge inflation crisis that is emerging rapidly in my weekend Deeper Dive (which will be worse than we experienced in the 70s and 80s), I’m going to give just a brief but impactful summary of the numerous ways in which Trump’s War re-escalated just over the weekend while I was writing the Deeper Dive.

We approached the weekend on Friday with VP Vance’s big semi-summit peace talks under the Schmeasefire agreement without any agreement, which Trump had offered as an escape boat from his threats of immediate genocide in Iran. Vance left the meeting, saying “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement.” Iran said it didn’t want a ceasefire, but Netanyahu tore a page out of the Trump playbook and claimed “Iran is begging for a deal now!” Apparently not, since they didn’t accept a single term.

Since Israel’s contribution to the ceasefire was to pummel Lebanon harder than ever before, Iran responded during negotiations by bombing a Saudi pipeline that serves as an alternative route for Saudi oil by transporting the oil over to the Red Sea, rather than out of Persian Gulf ports. That eliminated another 10% of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity, taking yet more oil out of play for an extended time.

Overall oil production from OPEC nations has fallen 27%. That’s production. Shipments, of course, have fallen much worse, but shipments can be restored more quickly than production if they are merely being threatened or just a handful of ships are sunk to scare all others from moving. So, that represents the longer-term damage at this point in the war if the war were to end today.

But it didn’t end today. When Iran walked away from the deal, Trump noted he is restocking all US military ships in the region with bigger and better weapons to get ready for phase two and was already moving mine-sweeping ships into the strait to start clearing it for transit. Iran immediately sent a stern warning to the ships that they would destroyed if they didn’t turn around, so they turned around.

Trump then announced he would be setting up a blockade of his own to assure no ship moved through the strait going to or from Iranian ports so that Iran stops benefiting from the much higher prices the president has secured for Iran for its own oil and to make sure it is unsuccessful at charging its ~$2,000,000 toll per ship. So, now both sides are trying to grind each other down in a war of attrition.

Trump lied, as has become daily practice, by making a big public fake-news claim that other parties were going to join him in supporting the blockade with their ships. The other parties of former allies immediately responded in their new customary style and told him there was not a chance: “Don’t drag us into this.”

Mr. Trump’s proposed blockade “makes no sense,” Spain’s defense minister, Margarita Robles, said in a television interview. “Since this war started, nothing makes sense,” she added. “This is another episode in the downward spiral the world has been dragged into….”

She also said, in another article,

Trump and Netanyahu “want to impose rules on the international community, which is illogical.”

“I’ll save you the waiting period: Iran is not going to capitulate,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel who studies Iran and its proxies. “This regime believes that the damage that will be sustained by this act will be bigger for the U.S. and the international economy than for Iran.”

One of the funnier moments in the now constant parade of Trump lies was that he warned Iran that none of their navy ships had better attack US navy ships carrying out the blockade.

“If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It is quick and brutal.”

Apparently the president’s dementia caused him to already forget that over the weekend he announced that Iran’s navy had been completely eliminated. Not a single ship was left. I guess Iran has some very fast ship builders.

Of course, a move like this escalates things, so Iran immediately raised Trump’s bet and threatened that it will order its pals around the block, the Houthis, to blockade the strait going into the Red Sea, which will completely close off the Suez Canal again, blocking all merchant traffic and not just oil.

The Bab al-Mandeb [the Gate of Tears] — a narrow chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden — carries roughly 12% of global oil shipments and serves as a vital trade corridor between Asia and Europe, making it a strategic target for escalation that could further strain global energy markets.

The oil market, seeming to already have had it brains batted out by so much Trump jawboning, responded by lowering prices because, yeah, that makes sense. Only the day before, it had escalated prices way up.

Trump then presented himself to the world as Orange Jesus via an AI image of himself dressed like Jesus, using miraculous energy from his hands to compassionately heal the sick (even as he kills thousands). I suspect our wounded soldiers and Iran’s did not feel the healing energy. But the sheer arrogance of Trump’s act immediately brought accusation of “blasphemy” from his MAGA supporters, so he quickly took the posted image back down.

I’m thinking the Don’s hubris has notched up a little too far with his now familiar claim of being God’s anointed clearly rising to the level of meaning anointed like Jesus to be the miracle messiah. His prophets of profit have Fed his head with this stuff, and his narcissistic ego has readily accepted it as revealed truth about him. Suddenly, the memes about Trump being the Antichrist are hitting a little too close to home.

As the last Trump to sound off before Armageddon, the president also criticized his competition for religious prominence in these end times by denigrating Pope Leo as a “weak man” of little talent, apparently, running a failing Vatican. (O.K., Trump actually stopped himself short of using his standard refrain that whatever operation his critic is running is a failing enterprise; but he gave the pope several swift kicks in the chops.)

Turkey, meanwhile, got angry with bonehead Bibi over his escalated attacks on Lebanon and criticized him as the “Hitler of our time.” More significantly, Turkey’s leader threatened to enter the war against Israel.

Iran, meanwhile, was not cowed by Trump’s threat of sinking its already completely obliterated navy and said it will use its ghost ships to bring US ships to a similar end at the bottom of Davy Jones’ Locker. That’s when the US ships that were in the strait turned fantail and ran away from the non-existent threat of the completely sunken navy. (Non-existent given that the truthful Trump also said Iran’s air force was entirely taken out and all their radar destroyed.) It’s amazing how they can scare the “greatest military ever” with nothing.

Here is a photo of Iran’s non-existent “fast-attack ships” that the president said he will sink if they attack the US:

The ships under the IRGC’s control are still largely operational and capable of policing the key water route President Trump has vowed to reopen, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The IRGC’s navy is vast, small, and speedy, allowing the attack vessels to evade satellite detection and hide in underground pens along the rocky coast of the 20-mile-wide strait, said Chris Long, a former British navy official in the Persian Gulf.

“It will be a long time before the US can take all those out,” Long told the WSJ.

…the Islamic Republic has pivoted to an asymmetrical navy, with the IRGC tasked with policing the Strait of Hormuz while Iran’s conventional navy patrols other waterways in the Gulf.

Well, that’s pretty good naval survival then, if it will take “a long time” to take out what is left.

I’m not doubting the greatness of the US military or putting it down in anyway, just the lying clown that runs it who believes he is as anointed by God as Jesus, who also added a “Praise God” to his latest attack threats again and probably an “Alahu Akbar,” as is his new practice. After all, one prominent theory about the Antichrist is that he is supposed to be the leader of multiple religions, so being bilingual in your God praises is essential for the role.

We also have intel now that …

China may have shipped missiles to Iran, and Beijing is allowing some companies to sell Tehran supplies that can be used in military production, American officials said.

So, it might not be just the US that promises bigger weapons and more of them when Phase Two begins. Stay tuned tomorrow when I’m sure everything changes again, even as nothing goes the way the president says;

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Economania (national & global economic collapse plus market news)

Half Of US Data Centers Scheduled To Start In 2026, Will Be Canceled Or Delayed

Money Matters (monetary policy, metals, cryptos, currency wars & going cashless)

US Dollar is losing purchasing power at a historic pace.

Inflation Factors (too much money chasing too few goods due to weather, sanctions, tariffs, quarantines, etc.)

Trump Signals High Gas Prices Through November Midterms

Middle East oil production plunges due to Iran war, OPEC data shows

Strike on Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline has knocked out ~700,000 barrels per day—about 10% of its capacity

From coffee to home prices, costs are up everywhere

The Fertilizer Crisis That Will Hit Your Grocery Bill

Australia’s Last Oil Tanker Just Arrived: Major Bank Warns Aussies Will Run Out Of Fuel In 10 Days

US Property Taxes Rose 3 Percent On Average In 2025, Outpacing Inflation

Wars & Rumors of War (including cyberwar, civil unrest and revolts)

Video of Vance on Iran: “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement”

US military says it will blockade Iranian ports after ceasefire talks ended without agreement

Trump says U.S. will blockade Strait of Hormuz after Iran peace talks fail

Iran Blockade Sets Up a Test of Which Side Can Endure More Pain

Gate of Tears’ at risk: Iran threatens major new global chokepoint if US moves on Hormuz

Trump Said Other Countries Would Help Blockade Iran. So Far, There Are No Takers.

US Allies Loudly Reject Trump’s Scheme To Blockade Hormuz: ‘Not Getting Dragged In’

Trump warns Iran ‘attack ships’ to stay away. (But he said they have no navy left!)

U.S. warships entered the Strait of Hormuz, but Iran claims it turned them away.

Trump says he’s loading the ships with new ammo if Iran fails to comply in talks: ‘We’re loading up the ships…. We’re going to find out in about 24 hours.’

Israeli military ‘preparing for new Iran conflict’ as Middle East war fears explode

Turkey brands Netanyahu ‘Hitler of our time’ as Erdogan threatens to invade Israel

Iran threatens to attack US Navy ships entering Strait of Hormuz after first American vessels moved through channel

U.S. Intelligence Shows China Taking a More Active Role in Iran War

U.S. Releasing $6 Billion In “Frozen” Iran Assets

Iran war puts many in US on high alert, but synagogue attack shows prevention’s limits

Digital Dominance (AI threats, transhumanism, hacks & cyberattacks, etc.)

Bessent, Powell warned bank CEOs about Anthropic model risks, sources say

Powell, Bessent discussed Anthropic’s Mythos AI cyber threat with major U.S. banks

The ‘Vulnpocalypse’: Why experts fear AI could tip the scales toward hackers

Rubino: Is OpenAI the First Domino?

Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)

The MegaMAGA Meltdown Continues:

Donald Trump posts himself as Jesus, attacks Pope Leo: ‘Straight-up ANTICHRIST energy’

Trump’s Promises Were Big. The Delivery Wasn’t.

Trump ‘limps’ down stairs with ‘swollen ankles’ as health fears soar - ‘Clearly not well’

Opinion: There Can Only Be One Reason for Melania Talking Epstein. It’s Not Good

Melania Trump’s surprise Epstein statement prompts bafflement

The Sphinx Thinks It Stinks

MTG: The final phone call I had with Trump on the Epstein issue, he told me his friends would get hurt.

Alex Jones Debates Going TOTAL Scorched Earth On President Trump

To Fill Air Traffic Controller Shortage, F.A.A. Turns to Gamers

Pete Hegseth’s Gospel of Carnage

Calamity, Catastrophe & Climate Craziness

Hawaii hasn’t seen storms this bad in 1,000 years. What’s behind it?

Off-the-Beat News & Just Plain Offbeat News

Mental health worsens after medicalized gender transitions, three-decade youth study finds

Doomer Humor

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The MAGA meltdown burned even more intensity today, flaming up right after I wrote the “MegaMAGA Truth” section in yesterday’s article, laying out how the majority of common people on Truth Social turned against Trump after he made his genocidal threats of ending Iranian civilization. He didn’t threaten to nuke Iran, but just to use conventional weapons, given that he only spoke of targeted strikes on all their bridges and power plants while Israel took out their railroads. Those surgical strikes all over the nation, by themselves, would leave life in a major desert city nearly impossible for the millions of people living in Iran’s cities.

While I saw one pro-Trump diehard thundering against those who have turned by claiming how ridiculous they are to think Trump would ever nuke Iran, I never heard anyone make that claim against him. I certainly didn’t. So, that’s a red herring. It was not the charge leveled against Trump by his supporters. The targeted nature of the specified strikes he mentioned made it clear nuking was never the plan.

Complete evaporation, even of hydro projects, is never necessary to take them completely out of service. You don’t have to blow up the enormously thick concrete dam with a tactical nuke, wiping out the cities below the dam in a flood. Just blow up the powerhouse that the dam feeds and wipe out the generators and transmission lines. It will take a few years to rebuild because you don’t buy such generators off the shelf. In the meantime, deaths will soar, even among those Iranian people Trump said he wanted to help because they wanted to rebel against their government to experience freedom.

Some Trump diehards, it appears, will never give up making excuses to keep believing he’s a wartime genius, making false claims against his recent MAGA detractors by claiming people thought he was going to nuke Iran; whereas, he is supposedly just making a tactical retreat to regroup for a greater on-the-ground offensive. Even if that were the case, most MAGA supporters would be enraged by that.

What I also see now, just a day after writing that article, is Trump raging against the same former MAGA supporters that I mentioned in the article who turned against him. Trump flamed them in a social post overnight in all-out rage. This was shocking to them, but not to anyone else because this is how Trump always acts toward his critics. They, having only recently become critics, were stunned to experience it happening to them since they were only pleading for him to change course. While that is not even the biggest part of today’s story, it is where today’s story begins:

Trump Unleashes Fiery Truth Social Tirade Against Former MAGA Allies Over Iran Policy…

President Donald Trump delivered a nearly 500-word explosive rant on Truth Social, directly attacking prominent conservative voices who have criticized his administration’s military actions against Iran. The lengthy post targeted Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, labeling them as having “low IQs,” “stupid people,” “nut jobs,” and “troublemakers.”

Deepening Divisions in the MAGA Coalition

Figures like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly actively supported Trump’s 2024 campaign, yet they have since voiced strong opposition to the Iran engagement, arguing it has been overly influenced by Israeli interests and has diverted attention from domestic priorities. Alex Jones and Candace Owens have similarly used their large platforms to push back against escalation….

Trump’s willingness to publicly turn on once-close allies signals a no-holds-barred strategy to defend his agenda amid an already turbulent period.

Here is my list of former Trump major MAGA influencers from Thursday:

It’s time to join the many former ultra-Trump supporters on Truth Social—and even the major celebrity supporters like Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes, MTG, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly and others—who admit they feel swindled and get on the right side of history!

And here was Trump’s incendiary tirade against them for jumping ship:

I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the Number One State Sponsor of Terror, to have a Nuclear Weapon — Because they have one thing in common, Low IQs. They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too! Look at their past, look at their record. They don’t have what it takes, and they never did! They’ve all been thrown off Television, lost their Shows, and aren’t even invited on TV because nobody cares about them, they’re NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS, and will say anything necessary for some “free” and cheap publicity. Now they think they get some “clicks” because they have Third Rate Podcasts, but nobody’s talking about them, and their views are the opposite of MAGA — Or I wouldn’t have won the Presidential Election in a LANDSLIDE….

Breaking in for just a moment: The problem is that Trump now has views that are the opposite of what he promised to MAGA, though it was always clear to many of us that he was a fraud and would never be what he claimed he would be. Also, these people, who lended their persuasion to him, are a huge part of why he won. Nevertheless, they’ve turned against him now because they’ve finally discovered who Trump is—though they protect themselves by claiming Trump changed, even though fundamentally did not.

Trump’s fraudulent character was always obvious to anyone without Trump Derangement Syndrome, which causes those who have it to think that everyone who is against Trump is insane. What we are seeing is major supporters waking up to realize the man is not what he claimed but still thinking they could not have been duped; so, clearly he has changed. He has only changed in becoming more obvious about what he always was as his dementia brings his worse traits into the foreground of his personality.

Trump continues:

MAGA agrees with me, and just gave CNN a 100% Approval Rating of “TRUMP,” not Hand Flailing Fools like Tucker Carlson, who couldn’t even finish College, he was a broken man when he got fired from Fox, and he’s never been the same — Perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist! Or Megyn Kelly, who nastily asked me the now famous, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” question, or “Crazy” Candace Owens, who accuses the Highly Respected First Lady of France of being a man, when she is not, and will hopefully win lots of money in the ongoing lawsuit. Actually, to me, the First Lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace, in fact, it’s not even close! Or Bankrupt Alex Jones, who says some of the dumbest things, and lost his entire fortune, as he should have, for his horrendous attack on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, ridiculously claiming it was a hoax. These so-called “pundits” are LOSERS, and they always will be! Now Fake News CNN, The Failing New York Times, and all of the other Radical Left “News” Organizations, are “hailing” them, and giving them “positive” press for the first time in their lives. They’re not “MAGA,” they’re losers, just trying to latch on to MAGA. As President, I could get them on my side anytime I want to, but when they call, I don’t return their calls because I’m too busy on World and Country Affairs and, after a few times, they go “nasty,” just like Marjorie “Traitor” Brown, but I no longer care about that stuff, I only care about doing right for our Country. MAGA is about WINNING and STRENGTH in not allowing Iran to have Nuclear Weapons. MAGA is about MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and these people have no idea how to do that, BUT I DO, because THE UNITED STATES IS NOW THE “HOTTEST” COUNTRY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD! President DONALD J. TRUMP

These are actually the very people who got him elected because they have enormous audiences, compared to a podink critic like me. Some, like Tuckered Carlson, did originally pander to their audience, as Trump claims; however it was by doing story after story in favor of Trump while Carlson wrote in emails to FOX executives that Trump was the devil they needed to serve in order to keep from losing their audience. So, yes, Carlson was a pathetic shill, looking for cheap clicks, but that was when he was supporting Trump to keep his FOX audience, while ripping him open behind his back. Now he’s finally quit shilling for Trump.

If you push for a fraud—a total Trojan horse, as I called Trump back around 2019 just before the start of his first term—you’re eventually going to get burned, and that is what is happening to the former sycophants who defended every vile thing Trump did and every lie he spoke from “pussy grabbing” to claiming Mexico would pay for the wall, which it never did, to failing to repeal and replace Obamacare even when Republicans ran congress, to claiming tariffs don’t cause inflation, which leaped into a roaring inferno as soon as he was out of office after 1.0 (because there is always a long lag as I have always explained), accelerated, of course, by Trump’s Covid lockdowns, to claiming he was not accused of anything in the Epstein Files, etc. etc. with his administrations obvious attempts to cover his endless deceits.

No, what Trump was has been obvious for a long time for those not in denial. Often his supporters had to resort to claiming he was playing 44DDD chess in order to try to justify to themselves why nothing he did looked like what he had promised. He was just being very clever with his enemies. Hearing those excuses come out at me when I criticized his flip-flops, was always a mind-boggling experience of observing how far people will go to delude themselves into believing they were not hornswoggled.

Now they are waking up, at last, from their sleep in the poppy fields and finding their senses, and they have, at least, finally turned against the tyrant who lied to them all those years (with far more lies than the few headliners I just listed above) like addicts turn against those who spray Narcon up their noses to save their lives. This is classically how a camp built on deception unravels, turning on itself and its leader as the people wake up from the opiated Kool-Aid they have been drinking.

But that is just the START of today’s story. The interesting part is how Trump’s vehement and ready attack against his biggest supporters the second they call him to responsibly stick by his campaign promise to end wars and not start wars has today turned more major supporters against him today. The entire movement is going up in brushfires all over the desert now now because each of them has dared to try to get a serial liar and robust narcissist to hold to what he promised, and it isn’t working. It never does with Trump’s kind. He attacks them, instead of changing course.

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“It may be time to put grandpa up in a home”

That was Candace Owens’ response to Trump’s takedown of her. Here is an encapsulation of the other heated responses that came out this morning, now that major MAGA supporters have awakened to see what Trump really is. And why have they awakened? Because his dementia has brought his worst traits—always present as they were—to the forefront:

• “President Trump has gone mad [long in being realized, but glad you go there] as he wages war against Iran, a broken campaign promise,” Greene, whom Trump had referred to as “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown,” wrote on X.

• Jones declared that Trump had attacked “all original MAGA supporters” and that “whatever’s happened to him has totally changed the man he once was.” [But later Jones, at last, finally had the decency to admit the obvious truth, which is commendable because most don’t go this far:] “Are people that said I defended him too long, are they right? Yeah, it looks like they are,” he added in a video. Jones later wrote on X, “I have made it very clear that I no longer support Trump and I’m very thankful to him for making it clear that I have nothing to do with him. The new Trump is a rotting husk of the old Trump.”

Actually, what has really happened is that the nice veneer—the husk— has withered and fallen off under the sun’s heat, and the always-rotten core beneath it, which some of us kept faithfully pointing out for years, can finally no longer be excused or explained away with lame 44DDD solutions.

And Tuckered responded by capitalizing on the outfall:

I’m not sure why Carlson thinks his 17.5-million MAGA viewers would be willing to buy and wear those caps, but I guess that is his assessment, since it was his “verified” post:

Wether or not they decide to enrich Carlson by now wearing the dunce caps he is proffering, the best part in this rapid awakening that the Trump-Iran War has brought about is this—the awakening of even more major supporters after they saw how Trump tore into their colleagues for saying the very things they have been thinking as they have watched the “Peace President” start more wars in one year than any president in US history:

• “THAT DOES IT. I AM DONE. THIS WAS THE LAST STRAW. I’M SO ANGRY,” right-wing podcaster Tim Pool wrote on X.

• MAGA firebrand Owen Shroyer said the MAGA rebels “need to do a panel response to today’s Trump post ASAP…. No attacks, just policy & results. It’ll get 100m views & force the administration to admit defeat on policy & results or perhaps generate results that we voted for,” Shroyer posted. [As Jesus said, you can’t put new wine in and old wineskin. Trump is an old wineskin; it’s not going to work.]

• And, again, the takedown on Truth Social over Trump’s screed from everyday supporters was huge just like the one I reported on Thursday, such as … “So we can only listen to Mark Levin for news?… These people helped get you elected. You are actively alienating your base every day. This is sad.” Another Truth Social user commented, “They didn’t leave MAGA, MAGA left them. MAGA left me too, so sad to see. You had so much potential, Trump. Voted for you all three times, and I feel so betrayed.”

Trump as a narcissist who has now risen to megalomaniac status believes he doesn’t need his base. In fact, all the praise they showered on him—especially by his cult of religious prophets—has convinced him he never needed them because God has chosen him. That is why I have occasionally covered that far-out group of religious Orange-Jesus zealots.

The countermovement

The MAGA movement is rapidly disintegrating into flames because its corrupt leader is falling apart right before their eyes like a reptilian alien shedding its skin, exposing his always-rotten inner creature. They are just horrified at seeing what was always there as the outer shell gets shed to reveal the truth about what they have been supporting.

In fact, the movement away from MAGA has become a movement of its own in need of a rapidly growing support group to handle the pain of waking up from a long delusion … because it IS painful:

MAGA exodus support group soars as Trump devotees walk away: ‘One lie too many’

Deaths at the hands of federal immigration enforcement agents.

Skyrocketing gas prices.

The slashing of federal jobs.

A “war of choice in Iran.”

Former loyal supporters of President Donald Trump and adherents to his Make America Great Again movement recently chose to hang up their red hats for these exact reasons, said Rich Logis, whose Leaving MAGA nonprofit and support community is growing, bringing in “record-high” fundraising and seeing “more who are having doubts than ever before.”

“Right now, in MAGA, one of the reasons I think there are more people who are having doubts and are confused and are questioning their belief system is because the president has very clearly not kept a lot of his promises,” Logis told Raw Story.

I have tried to help by pointing that out for years, but to no avail. I have certainly learned there is no benifit to oneself for just shining a bright and relentless light on the truth behind the man and his plans. However, I’m certainly glad to see change is happening, even if for reasons having nothing at all to do with me.

“There’s still a lot of fealty to Trump within the MAGA community, but I think most people in MAGA have a red line, and when that line of demarcation is reached, when there’s one lie too many, when there’s one betrayal too many, it makes them start to wonder if Trump is lying about one issue, is he lying about other issues?”

The answer is and always was, “Yes, of course, he is.”

It took his recent move beyond the pale in threatening an act of brutal genocide against the PEOPLE of Iran to finally become a line too far for his red-hat supporters. His threatened wars against friendly neighbor Canada and adjacent non-hostile Greenland, whether by political, economic or military means (all threatened) should have been the last bridge to cross near the start of his second term. Then the Epstain deFiles with all the redactions and lies about Trump’s involvement with Epstein and the pretty girls finally became that line for some. The Venezuela oil war as a distraction from Epstein became another fine black, oily line for a few more; but the all-out move to launch World War III in Iran finally crossed a Bridge at ReMAGAn too far.

One Betrayal Too Many: Why I Left MAGA is the title of Logis’s new memoir that details his journey from a MAGA podcaster, fundraiser and pundit to the founder of the nonprofit….

“Many in MAGA, deep down, know that Trump is a dishonest person, and I think deep down, they know that something is amiss in the country,” Logis said.

“Many in MAGA are looking around, and they might be telling themselves that everything is OK, but I think that that’s more of a denial response….”

Logis wrote the book to “humanize the odyssey and the journey that I went on, and show people in MAGA that it is, in fact, possible to leave and that we don’t have to keep living this life based on lies and falsehoods and conspiracy theories.

Look, I don’t care how Trump supporters wake up or who wakes them up, even this guy with a book to sell. What I DO care about immensely is that they DO wake up, and I am glad to see that finally happening all across the nation before the man—who IF he has been appointed by God as his White House prophetess claims, is more likely God’s wrecking ball for America—finishes the job.

Frankly, I think the wreckage is already a done deal, and we’ll see that play out in economic conflict and global conflict in the months ahead. I’ll show how it is already becoming evident in this weekend’s Deeper Dive; but in the very least, don’t follow him into the night. Even if hundreds of thousands more MAGA men and women realize TODAY that Trump is closer to the Antichrist than he ever was to the actual Christ, he still has three more years in power. Even by the time he can be removed from office, the destruction will be severe.

I’ll be candid here: My view is that Trump likely IS God’s appointed one to judge America, but I also believe God judges by letting human evil finally have its way and reach a climax where it burns up in its own conflagration. I’ve long agreed with the saying “Evil contains the seeds of its own destruction.” No one can stop God’s plan IF it is to now let humans destroy civilization under their own evil; I just want to pull as many people out of the fire as possible. I think truth always has the center place with God, and God is always merciful to any who truly see the light. So, get out from under Trump’s deranged spell while you still can … if I have any readers left who are still under his spell.

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Now here is a closing family photo of the MAGA media leaders who have finally seen a little bit the light, at least a glint of it, to where they have turned against Trump, including Jones who, at least, finally admits he ran with his support far too long. Go ahead and be inspired by them, even if not by me. Just do yourself a favor and get out of the darkness if you are among those still trapped in it like these guys were:

The family photo is still missing former Mar-a-Lago socialite, Nick Fuentes picture, but he always was the black sheep of the family.

The more honest anyone is about having been duped by Trump, the more the true light will shine within them. Repentance is healing to heart that has been swallowed into the darkness.

“It was intoxicating to be in a community of like-minded people where in that community you feel very seen and heard,” Logis said.

“MAGA was exhilarating and enthralling, until it wasn’t, and when I left, I came to realize that I had essentially been addicted to rage.”

I’ve never been a like-minded person. That is my curse, I guess, as living outside the camp doesn’t exactly gather an audience. Now those who were in MAGA as big supporters, will have bigger audiences than I dream of, even if they lose half their audience by getting out. MAGA is looking like a burning Jinga game at this point. Stick by stick, the tower is closer and closer to toppling into its own flames. Don’t be one under the rubble.

Members of the Leaving MAGA community include people who have embraced Christian nationalism, became swept up in conspiracies, lost friends and marriages and committed crimes in Trump’s name.

But Logis said there are so many more who have “quietly left” with “a lot of quiet quitting happening.”

“There are many in the MAGA community who are privately having doubts, and they’re wondering if this is a movement that they can continue to support,” he said.

Some MAGA community members are experiencing “cognitive dissonance” when their beliefs conflict with the “rhetoric of the president,” Logis said.

While Logis said MAGA will continue even after Trump leaves office, the MAGA movement continues to weaken and presents an opportunity to reach people before they gravitate toward “the next iteration of right-wing politics.”

After spending years supporting Trump, Logis has come to view MAGA as “an extremist group because adherents are encouraged to dehumanize, vilify and demonize those with whom we disagree.”

Each day Logis now posts on social media “‘today’s a stellar day to leave MAGA’ because it is possible to walk away from the extremism and walk away from an identity that’s shaped by lies.”

Please get out now because the movement is reaching that incendiary stage where it is burning its own members:

The Bulwark

MAGA Influencers Are Salivating Over Jailing Each Other

THE WORLD OF MAGA INFLUENCERS is growing more divided over Donald Trump’s war with Iran. But so far, those influencers largely aren’t blaming the president for their divisions…

Read more

22 days ago · 623 likes · 111 comments · Will Sommer

Forget about turning to follow former MAGA members who have turned, especially those who still think they were on the right side and that it is Trump who has changed. He has one changed by expanding along his worst contours until recognition of what he truly is has become inescapable.

As the article above reports, the whole MAGA mess is now sliding into that feeding frenzy stage where everyone is burning everyone else. Just get out of the whole mess completely: Turn to the actual Christ for help and to learn completely different ways than hatred and violence. There IS another path, and it is not the path of those prophets of profits who surround Donald Trump in endless over-glorified adulation, stoking his maniacal narcissism to a raging inferno.

Here is more on the insane Trump cult that presents him as Orange Jesus (some big-time Christian leaders, no less) from the perspective of others who are true believers:

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Here are a few additional headlines to consider today as I turn now to writing my weekend Deeper Dive about how deeply America’s economy has already been burned after a year of Donald Trump: (That article, for paying subscribers only, will lay out numerous reports that show the true decline that was already in place before the Iran war even began.)

President Trump Calls Out Iran

Trump’s Ceasefire Was A HUGE Lie To Hide Military Buildup

Do You Support Israel’s Plan To Nuke Iran?

Iran Partially Opens Strait Of Hormuz, But Admits To Placing Naval Mines

With Iran Setting Limits, Strait of Hormuz Remains Thorny Politically

Trump vows ‘complete decimation’ in ceasefire warning to Tehran

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Apparently the reason there is so much confusion over Trump’s Schmeasefire is that no written agreement signed by all parties exists! Iran is operating off any one of three lists of its own demands, believing (or claiming to believe) that one of those is what the Trump Administration agreed to. Team Trump is operating off of the list of its demands, claiming that was what was agreed to. Israel is operating off wanton desire to exploit the void. JD Vance, Trump’s key negotiator with Iran now, is operating on the basis that this is all just a simple misunderstanding between mortal enemies.

One might have reasonably thought that, on a matter as important as whether or not an entire civilization gets wiped off the face of the earth forever, as the Peace Prez threatened on his way to the Nobel late one night, a signed agreement of mutual understanding might have been a good idea!

Apparently, what we are witnessing is the art of the no-deal deal, which is deployed if you need to rapidly retreat from a bellicose bluff of destroying your enemy in four hours … after they called your bluff. It is used so that both parties can say they almost totally agree to a total non-agreement, telling EVERYONE there is very little daylight now between their positions (but only because they are both working off different pages and agreeing only to their own page).

What the Schmeasefire deal gives to the Don is this: If he now steps back into war because the deal is broken (all over the place), he can step in without reissuing the bombastic and deranged threat of total annihilation, which would include destroying the lives of those millions of Iranian citizens he said were ready to revolt against the ayatollahs and the 1,000,000 Christians who live on a razor’s edge inside Iran. He can now try to let that vain threat fade into the next news cycle and later claim he never said it.

One would think the president hammered out his original bluff while drinking too much Smirnoff late at night, holding a gold-plated telephone in hand, after a hard day of reviewing the latest plans for his new East Wing billionaire party bunker. Smirnoff, though the prez doesn’t drink, is the kind of liquor that inspires a good Schmeasefire.

So far, the no-deal deal has been shredding faster than … well, it cannot be shredded because it apparently does not exist on any signed paper. So, let’s just say, neither Israel nor Iran have been honoring the oral assumptions. The president, meanwhile, seems happy to take a break in order to down a few more tacos and diet colas. The war actually accelerated on Israel’s end in what some are describing with the most common word in the English language these days—an apocalypse in Lebanon (though holocaust* would be the correct word). Iran responded by reclosing the strait within hours of decreeing it partially open for limited extortion traffic and by bombing more oil pipelines, etc.

* I don’t think it is any stretch at all to say that destroying all of Iran’s electricity and all of its major bridges could have easily resulted in civilian genocide equal in scale to Hitler’s holocaust of the Jews. Tehran is no longer an Oasis with a few Arab tents. You cannot keep a modern city of millions alive in a desert at this time of year without electricity and without most of their arterial roads. How do you keep enough food in the country without refrigeration and without roads to move new food into the city? How do you get emergency water in when lack of electricity shuts down all the plumbing and lack of roads and railroads limits the ability to transport in such massive quantities? How do you breathe inside of modern high-rises that trap in the desert heat (some with windows that do not open) without HVAC?

The world that could have been

The cussing, diaper-wetting, sole destroyer of NATO continues to rage against the treaty organization that the US & Friends founded, which could have been strong-armed by a noble American president of a truly peaceful mindset into a purely defensive alliance, as originally, intended by sharpening its language to clarify that NATO will desist forever from starting anymore preemptive wars, even against terrorists (meaning without an initial attack by the terrorists), putting NATO back in its original WWII box. He or she could have enforced what I’ll call the Eisenhower Doctrine, though it was more of a warning, against the MIC.

A president of strong, noble character, could have also petitioned congress, while the president’s party held the majority and the president held the party, to terminate its wide-open approval of presidential war powers over every vague terrorist threat and to take back into congress’s own hands the solely-held constitutional obligation to be the entity that declares wars; thus pressing Democrats to join in removing those powers from their future presidents’ hands, too, while fulfilling his or her vows of being the Peace President.

A true Peace President of a conservative, constitutional mold could have also demanded congress revoke the vast expansion of intelligence gathering on Americans under George Bush the Second’s misnamed “Patriot Act” that turned out be what many of us constitutionally minded folk feared—something totally open to the FISA abuses under which the Don, himself, claims he was persecuted with illegal “lawfare,” especially during the Orwellian days of Joe Biden. But all of that would be to expect the Donald to virtuously honor his campaign promises, which was never going to happen.

The world that is

Instead, the deranged, self-appointed emperor of the new Greenland-North-and-Central-America+Venezuela-hemispherical-conglomeration-project said the pause created by the Schmeasefire opens room for his generals (he likes to call them that) to start preparing for a “new conquest!” In that context, the wannabe world conqueror then proceeded to talk again about taking over Greenland. Apparently, the mad, baby-boy king is tired of Iran’s uncooperative war, so he wants to move on to a new game with other friends who will play by his rules and let him win better.

As Trumpty Dumpty made overtures from his padded play pen for retreating to some of his earlier grand visions for making America great again, such as conquering Canada, the baby king also proclaimed his unilaterally recognized victory over Iran to be a “beautiful thing” because apparently the version of the Schmeasefire he is working off of says that he will get fifty percent of the new revenue from the Hormuz Toll, a joint financial agreement of which the mullahs claim they have no knowledge.

Expressly to make certain that sharing not happen, the Iranian leadership is collecting the toll in Bitcoin with something like fifteen-second transaction windows as a way to make sure that instantaneous US sanctions will not likely be able to snarf any of the extortion money away from them, a common practice for which the dollar remains wide open. This is, of course, also a new move to terminate the petrodollar.

No, I’m not making up Trump’s glee over joint ownership of the new tolling authority to create additional comedy. It writes itself. Well, TheRump writes it for me:

Trump welcomed the idea on Wednesday, telling ABC: ‘We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It’s a way of securing it—also securing it from lots of other people.

‘It’s a beautiful thing.’

By “we” he means he and his team. It might be beautiful for the United States … if the US winds up on the take with Iran. Not for any other nation or people. As another unwritten agreement, it is also unclear whether the US government will share fifty percent of the extortion funds or whether that share will go strait to Trump, Inc. Perhaps Trump’s team of star negotiators will even switch the form of crypto being used to $Trump to make the president happy. Well, that will only happen in his Pepsi-pounding dreams because Iran is never going to agree to shared custody of the globally extorted funds in international waters. That’s its racket.

All of this baloney goes to underscore the list of many reasons I laid out yesterday for paying subscribers as to why and how this ceasefire is likely to deteriorate into madness. It seems that is already happening with talk of shared international extortion.

MegaMAGA Truth

Another encouraging and interesting article today shows how even Trump’s own Truth Social is suddenly coalescing against him. Over forty-thousand posts raged against the president within twenty-four hours of his insane claim that he would end Persian civilization as we have known it for thousands of years. (More posts than the number of years Iran’s nearly ten-millennia-old civilization has been around.) Apparently, there are still thousands of people among conservatives who have a heart and soul. On a website that is almost entirely made up of people who have been head-over-heels infatuated with Donald Trump …

More than half of those responding to Mr. Trump’s warning on Tuesday morning that Iran’s “whole civilization will die,” were deeply critical of his comments.

Here is a smattering of representative comments:

• An account named President Trump 100%, wrote that Mr. Trump had demonstrated a “lust for blood.”

• Trump loving conservative wrote that such threats would destroy the president’s legacy. “I’m honestly heartbroken,” the user added.

• In response to Trump’s “Praise be to Allah.” Trumpwillsaveus2024 wrote “Even if it was a joke, you’re actually so immature it’s sad and I voted for you twice, and stick up for you all day long on Facebook.”

• Peace, who says she is “MAGA, not Republican…. Christian trying to do God’s will,” wrote, “I don’t support prez yahoo or this kind of talk. It’s Easter. What’s wrong with you? I voted x3 for you. WTH is wrong with you.”

• MagnumForce44 said, “While I have been a staunch supporter of you, and voted for you all three times, I take exception to the vulgar language and the potential damage to the innocent Iranians who were asking for regime change.”

• “Mr. President you are losing me as a supporter with this kind of behavior. I have supported you for so long and I am just to my point where I am ready to wash my hands of supporting you. I have been put through a lot of garbage for supporting you since 2016.”

Going “through a lot of garbage for supporting” Trump is what anyone can expect to get when they give their fealty to an easily recognized narcissist who boasts more than any human in history and who has the stinking morals of a blustering, bodypart-grabbing, locker-talking, accused rapist of underaged women, serial-marriage, deal-breaking, serial bankruptcy, snake-oil salesman for president. It is not like there were only a few warning signs!

But now the revotes are coming in fast and furious:

Only a quarter to the comments on the ultra-Trump site were supportive, which is now the lowest show of support for Trump ever on Truth Social, exceeding any same-sized period during the MAGA outrage over Team Trump’s handling under AG Blondi of the Epstain Defiles.

I know many GOOD people—friends and family with kind hearts—who supported Trump out of vain hopes that he would bust up the evil deep state in this nation and end the imperial wars that have overrun the past 40 years. A great goal, but it was an illusion. I never believed it—not from the man born with a millionaire’s golden spoon in a mouth so big it could swallow Manhattan; but I fellowship with and care about those who did. It is time for everyone to wake up and realize the hard truth that Trump is nothing but a self-serving megalomaniac like Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar.

It’s time to join the many former ultra-Trump supporters on Truth Social—and even the major celebrity supporters like Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes, MTG, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly and others—who admit they feel swindled and get on the right side of history! A president who threatens to annihilate a nation in what sounded for all the world like drunken-rage posting—a nation that has not attacked our nation—who exhibits as many signs of dementia as Joe Biden-His-Time needs to be removed from office before he destroys what little is left the world and of the United States’ reputation and credibility and of any hope of peaceful living during the remainder of our lifetimes.

It is time to make clear there is no ignoring the danger of demented kings when they violate so many major campaign promises in such enormously destructive and deranged ways. Unless you just want to burn it all down, it is way past time to take this conquering clown off the world stage.

Here is a video that strongly declares the madness of King Trump & Baby Netanyahu and the absolute illegality of their war on Iran, especially if Trump follows through on his genocidal threats, should you need any additional convincing that this is INSANITY. It also lays out how Trump is the deranged climax of decades of US imperial policy by both parties:

(Lots of headlines about the king’s madness and his fake victory and flailing ceasefire follow below for paying subscribers as well as an extra-dose of political humor since mockery from the world and anger from Trump supporters are all the rage today.)

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Fortunately, Trump caved in and did not commit an act of extreme genocide by exterminating Persian civilization as he cussed and swore and bloviated and bellowed and raged that he would do in the name of Allah and to the Glory of God! His war hit the brakes hard and shut down in a whimper … for now.

No one is surprised that the TACO King retreated again. He talks big then falls back. I said it was a strong possibility when I wrote about his war:

• “Of course, Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO Trump), so I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds some last-minute argument for why he’s not going to follow through with his newly amplified threats, but for now he has intensified them even above his expletive-laden rants of Easter weekend.”

• “Think this is just a bluff by Trump? Maybe. He does the TACO dance a lot….”

Unfortunately, for all the suffering, death, destruction, and cost, the war accomplished nothing for the US. It weakened the US substantially in terms of drawing down its already diminished weapon stockpiles. It seriously damaged the entire global economy, and it diminished the United States’ reputation in regard to how its allies view it as a reliable friend and how its enemies view it as a blustery nation that cannot even overthrow the Iranian regime.

Trump did not win a single one of the various desired accomplishments he flashed on and off over the past five weeks as possible objectives. Let’s take a look:

Dire straits

Trump’s main claim right now, having said only a few days ago he couldn’t care less, is that he won the opening of the Strait of Hormuz! What an empty windbag that boast is! Does he actually think we have already forgotten that the strait was open before the war ever started. Or did he just forget that in a moment of Old-Timers Disease? In fact, the Strait of Hormuz was a LOT more open than it is now under the ceasefire. That’s quite an accomplishment—to win the end of the trouble you caused by starting the war!

Here’s what Trump’s War won in the strait: Iran forced him to promise that Iran will have full official control of the strait. All ships going through the strait will be governed by Iran’s decision to let them pass, including US ships, and all ships (except maybe Iran’s friends and certainly its own ships) will pay a $2-million toll for passage. Whew! What a win!

Not only does the toll help cover Iran’s costs of rebuilding and rearming for years to come, but it assures that Iranian oil will sell at a premium of $2,000,000 per tanker because Iranian shippers don’t have to pay the toll. They can just raise their prices to match up to all the competition that will have to include the toll in the price of the oil they are shipping. So, the ceasefire, if it holds, is a major win for Iran financially in terms of oil.

If the deal closes as it currently stands, Iran also wins the end of all sanctions on the nation. So it will be free to trade unlimited oil (albeit to whatever extent its facilities can still function). Tromp-all-over-them, on the other hand, did not manage to get them to give anything they didn’t want to give. (They are delighted to open the strait if it nets them a work-free $2-million in tribute with each passing ship! That’s an easy $200-million dollars per day! Or more! That is a bonanza of a win for Iran … at every other nation’s expense!)

The disarming nuclear agreement

Trump won the right to talk for two weeks about getting Iran to hand over all of its 60%-enriched uranium. For now, they retain all that they had, which is enough to make several bombs. It is likely mostly buried inside collapsed bunkers, so it will take time and significant precautions to dig it out. There is some talk of the US already helping them dig it up. If that’s true, I’m sure the US will seize it, but that remains to be seen. It’s not a victory yet.

It is not clear whether all of Iran’s nuclear-enrichment facilities have been destroyed either. In fact, the ceasefire agreement as it stands, says Iran will be promised the right to continue to enrich uranium! Iran won a pause to rearm and reposition for two weeks before the war resumes, which the war most likely will do if Iran continues to insist it is not giving up its uranium. Unless Trump has completely given up on his biggest objective of all.

Iran attacks

Iran has won a guarantee, should the ceasefire terms pass on to an eventual truce, that the US and Israel will never attack it again! The US has promised to retreat entirely by removing all of its combat troops out the region! The deal, as it stands, represents a total retreat for the US! Does that mean, since it will have no combat troops to man bases that it will also terminate all of its bases? This is a total sucker deal for a president who was obviously desperate to find a way to back out of his enormous bluffs.

Iran, on the other hand, has not had to guarantee it will not attack either the US or Israel. However, it stands to reason that if either side attacks, the other side will fight back. Guarantees not to initiate attacks are only as good as those making them, and those parties would appear to be void of any substance, at best, with all three parties—Netanyahu, Trump and whoever is in charge in Iran not the least bit trustworthy.

It seems Trump has never made a deal he wasn’t willing to break. He broke all of the original Trump1.0 tariff deals he original boasted about. He also broke most of his 2.0 deals when he decided he wanted to hit countries hard with more tariffs to punish them for something else that came up like not helping in one of his new wars. I have never seen a man whose word means less.

The ceasefire terms promise a permanent end to war between the parties now involved. Trump wins nothing there because Iran was not threatening the US with war, though it often threatened Israel. It did threaten the US with actual terrorist attacks; so, if the deal holds, presumably any future terrorist attacks planned by Iran will be terminated. However, we do not know that Iran had any specific attacks planned; so, it is impossible to declare a win there. Iran may only be agreeing not to do something it had no further intention of doing unless the US attacked it.

The US and Israel agree to end all future attacks on Iran’s allies as well. It’s impossible to believe Israel will honor that as it continues to attack Lebanon today.

Regime change changed day by day

At first, Trump clearly spoke about regime change, creating the impression that that was what this war was fundamentally about. As it became clear that he and Netanyahu decapitated the regime, only to have its younger head sprout up in place of the withered old head, Trump began to lie and claim he never said he wanted regime change. It wouldn’t be hard to stack up plenty of videos where he talked about it like it was a major goal; and we all know that, if true regime change had happened, we’d hear endless boasting about it from Trump as one of the primary objectives he was seeking.

Now the Iranian leaders he has ended up with are said by many to be more hardline than the iteration of this same regime that existed before the war. Son is harder than his father. And by surviving such intense attacks from its two worse enemies simultaneously, the regime is hugely strengthened in the eyes of Iran’s people and of many in the Middle East.

They have shown they are a force to be reckoned with. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has demonstrated he can make a lot of noise and smoke and rain down enormous destruction, but he cannot accomplish much positive change in the world by doing all of that—maybe not any positive change since the new iteration of the same old regime is more enraged at him (and the WHOLE US) than the old one was and has reason to believe it can survive by fighting hard. Most likely, they are now hardened into wanting a nuclear bomb more than ever.

Trumpian-sized losses outside the deal

The war has resulted in sanctions on Russian oil being removed for the time being. It has taken US attention off of Ukraine and seriously damaged US ability to endlessly supply Ukraine with weapons. Putin’s ability to end his Ukraine war with a better deal for Russia is somewhat strengthened.

Putin is delighted over Trump’s destruction of NATO as the best sugar plum he could have ever hoped for. It is practically a fantasy for him, many years incoming. He sees the US as weaker than he did before because it failed to gain any clear objective. It revealed Trump is not the bargain-master he said because this deal looks like Trump actually retreated and won nothing, other than a lot of chaotic destruction in Iran. US allies are likely to strengthen alliances elsewhere with no trust left at all in Donald Trump.

The people of Iran did not unite to overthrow their government. They united around their government. Hundreds of thousands or Iranian citizens even risked their lives to ring their electrical plants with lines of human shields. The citizens likely see their brave ayatollahs as having stood up to Trump victoriously and their proud nation as having survived, although badly beaten up. The survived the worst that Trump could throw at them (apparently) with conventional weapons.

Trump’s war leaves the US weakened in the eyes of its enemies (and friends).

The ceasefire in Iran has reinforced views among both adversaries and the NATO alliance that President Donald Trump’s campaign against the Tehran regime marks a strategic setback, bolstering China and Russia while squandering American strengths, according to people familiar with the thinking across capitals in Europe and the Middle East….

“Although Iran has suffered huge physical damage and much loss of life, it emerges strategically stronger,” former UK National Security Adviser Peter Ricketts said. “The regime has survived. It has shown the massive leverage control of Hormuz gives them….”

“It’s certainly not a victory in that the United States has nowhere achieved any of its military objectives,” Long Island University Director of International Relations Dalia Fahmy told Bloomberg TV. “Actually, the war has cost the United States much more than anticipated.”

Everyone has seen that Trump DID NOT force Iran to capitulate to any of his demands. (Yes, he got them to reopen the strait, but it was more open before the war, so the war did not accomplish that.) While Team Trump is doing all they can to claim this was a great victory for Trump most of the world will easily see that there is no victory to be seen at all. There is not one single way in which the US has benefited from the war—a way in which it is greater now than it was before; but there are many ways in which it loses. Team Trump looks like a gaggle of fools for even trying to make that argument, but I suppose it will work for the last remaining die-hard Trumpettes.

Trump has managed to convince many of his own strongest MAGA supporters to drop their support. He has even managed to convince them that Trump Derangement Syndrome is something happening to the Trump, though Carlson, Fuentes, Jones, MTG, and Kelly are far from admitting they were deranged for so adamantly and fully supporting such a fraud and a clown in the first place. (Especially Carlson who told Fox execs that Trump was the devil but they needed to play nice with him, anyway, or they would lose huge audience share—total pandering to the audience.)

Calls for Trump’s impeachment are likely to gain traction as well as calls for his removal under the 25th amendment. Even Alex Jones, Tuckered Carlson, and MTG are now openly demanding he be 25ed! The likelihood of Republicans losing even more ground in the elections is greater because none of those in congress seriously stood up to take him down, which increases the likelihood that Dems will gain control and will impeach him (again).

After this unconstitutional war, he may find less support among Republicans in the Senate, though that is unlikely because they have proven—just as the Dems always do—that it is party over country every time, even when a deranged president threatens in a totally unconstitutional war to wipe out millions of civilians in a nation by shutting off all their electrical power and their escape routes for emigration as refugees in a desert where large-scale modern cities are utterly dependent on electricity for survival.

I’m sure most of the world is convinced Trump is a truly dangerous lunatic after his cussing statements in the name of Allah that he would destroy Persian civilization if they didn’t open the strait and after the way he bashed former US allies around for not helping him with a war that he started against their wishes. I’m sure they will not be too favorably impressed with the entire United States any more for having thrown the enormous financial destruction upon them that the aftermath of this war will certainly bring in the months ahead, let alone the risks of WWIII.

The worst part is that Trump actually looked more and more deranged as the war went on, adding credence to the arguments in the press that he is now on the steep downgrade of frontal-lobe dementia, a form of mental deterioration that makes people highly erratic and ill-tempered.

No one is likely to trust dealing with this lunatic anymore. Trump is turning the US into a true pariah state in international opinion. All other nations see is an aged, ranting, hobbling, baby man in diapers, more desperate than ever to prove his power over them.

The US certainly will not be able to paint itself anymore as a benign hegemon that they are willing to put up with because it guarantees some of them some security. It now guarantees them endless insecurity and economic chaos. The East will strengthen ties with each other. The West was glued together by US resolve to stand by the West, its military, and its financial support, but the glue has failed entirely.

The Iran campaign has been a “serious setback” for Trump, said Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University’s Center for American Studies in Shanghai who previously advised the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “When he comes to Beijing now, he’ll be frustrated and will realize that China will have to play an even larger role,” said Wu, who spoke before the ceasefire was announced.

Officials cited mockery of Trump in Russian and Chinese state media as evidence of how his handling of the war will likely be perceived by the regimes in those countries. The TACO meme — that “Trump Always Chickens Out” — is not just an amusing political attack by his domestic opponents but now a geopolitical conclusion of America’s enemies, one said.

Trump’s endless lies on parade were destroyed endlessly. Every time he said Iran’s navy or its airforce or anything else was “decimated, destroyed” or “obliterated,” never able to harm our military again, their navy sank another ship or their air defenses downed more US planes.

Now Iran can easily move equipment in from their Eastern allies without need to worry about being fired upon in order to replenish for the next battle. Iran flipped from having its nuclear program, according to Trump, “obliterated for years to come” last summer to being able to have a bomb within two weeks at the start of this war, and finally back to claims they have been obliterated again.

I don’t know how you obliterate something twice in less than a year; but Trump clearly says anything he wants to and believes his base will lap it up. That undue power to deceive and influence has now become badly damaged among his supporters. It was already weakened by all his Epstein delays, illegal redactions, and revelations that he was accused of sexually using young girls. Now his reputation among supporters is worse.

Trump has learned the hard lesson that not all regime-change wars are as easy as knocking out Venezuela’s Maduro. He thought Iran would be a 3-4 week pushover to help assure him next years’ Nobel Peace Prize, which he only pretends not to covet, but would place on his desk if he ever actually won it. After five weeks, he got nothing!

Israel has been damaged worse than by any war in its history. We haven’t seen all of the destruction inside Israel yet, as it entirely censored press coverage, though some leaked through; but early indications are that the destruction was severe, and some in the Israeli government are livid over it. They certainly were not able to declare another 6-day war with a miraculous victory, which calls into question their vain belief that God will enable them to take the Promised Land by whatever means they deploy. The image of endless miraculous victories assured by God, no matter how they act or whether they are even faithful to God, is now a badly dented helmet.

(I know God loves them as he loves all people, but I certainly don’t think he loves everything they do. Half of the Bible seems to be about how badly they appear in God’s eyes and about his willingness to let them suffer judgment when they run too far off the rails and from the behavior he demands of them.)

Regardless of the ceasefire, massive damage to oil facilities will take many months or even a few years to repair, so the shortages and high prices will return after the oil that is already backed up in the gulf is shipped and the ability to load any more oil is reduced by all the damage—assuming reports of damage are true, as both sides have reason to overstate the damage they have done and understate the damage done to them or their allies.

It will take a few weeks, maybe even until summer, for the dust of war to settle enough to know what kind of a lasting oil crisis we are really going to have; but I am certain all of us will be paying higher prices for everything for the next few years. You’ll get to pay for the war every day because oil is in everything, directly or indirectly! While speculators cause huge spikes up and down in their greed and their fear, supply and demand will determine a strong upward trend in the price of oil, as you iron out the spikes caused by daily jolts of euphoria over the ceasefire followed by fear over whether it will hold with each new event that happens.

(The continuation of today’s editorial, covering the significant caveats that could easily cause the fragile ceasefire to fail before its two-week deadline is reached and all the articles the editorial is based on plus other articles continue below for paying subscribers. On top of that, I’ll point out with a few headlines how it is already BADLY FAILING.)

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Caveats to the agreement that could cause it to fail quickly and how it is already falling apart …

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As you can see, with each series of articles against Trump, paid subscriptions drop. I put out a plea and number of brave souls jump in to try to backfill the hole, but not enough to make up for the loss; so the overall trend remains down. Then the next time I have to get critical on Trump I take another deep slide, and then a few more jump in to boost things partially back up. However, I have continued the battle all year, regardless of how it impacts my finances.

I am very thankful to those who have jumped in to become paying subscribers at each of those times, including today—especially Zahra and Steven Sethna, whom I have enjoyed working with a lot in interviews on their own Substack channel. Very nice people to talk with and interesting. They left a kind note today as well:

You can use this link to find Collapse Life.

I am also thankful to those supporters who have stayed with me for years, never flinching. You are the backbone of this site.

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Now on to the extra headlines to track the big events of this afternoon:

North Korea threatens to launch a nuclear attack on Tel Aviv and Washington if the US opens the “gates of hell” in Iran.

Iran Missile Command Gives Strike Orders, Removing ALL Targeting Restrictions

“We will strike infrastructure in a manner that will deprive the United States and regional countries of oil and gas resources for years to come. Orders have been transmitted to local missile bases, and operations will begin immediately.”

ELECTRONIC SLEEPER CELLS: Iran launches huge cyberattacks against US as ‘critical infrastructure’ hit

Democrats call to invoke 25th Amendment. Republicans refuse to join.

Trump’s gone too far: What Invoking the 25th Entails

Physical oil prices hit record highs near $150 a barrel as Hormuz crisis worsens

Iran calls for ‘human chains’ around its power plants before US deadline

Trump branded ‘delusional’ as major train warning issued in Iran

US tells all Americans in Bahrain to “shelter in place” until further notice

Pakistan Prime Minister Offers Last Ditch Olive Branch Plan, Hours Before Trump’s ‘Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight’ Deadline

JD Vance doubles down on Trump’s new post threatening “a whole civilization will die tonight”

Petrochemical Supply Shock Begins Idling Asian Factories

Live Updates

Rand Paul on the Unconstitutionality of this War

Chaos at Massachusetts hospital as it faces emergency straight out of The Pitt

US Markets Remain Stupid and Greedy:

Oil little changed after Trump makes ominous threat against Iran ahead of deadline to open Strait of Hormuz

Just listen to the naive rationale used: “No one – including Iran – benefits from a permanent closure there, he said.” Is he really dumb enough to think closing the strait requires Iran to launch missiles and drones at its own ships??? Iran will allow all Iranian tankers to ship Iranian oil even if the strait remains closed. Iran will benefit greatly from the vastly higher price for its oil as the ONLY oil that ships out. Iran’s ships will also know where all the mines are. Sometimes seemingly smart analysts are really dumb.

S&P 500 ekes out a gain Tuesday, rebounding as traders hope for last-minute Iran deal

Stellar 3Y Auction: 2nd Most Foreign Buyers On Record, Highest Stop Through Since Feb 2025

I’m going to publish the headlines early today because they are so massively important. Of course, Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO Trump), so I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds some last-minute argument for why he’s not going to follow through with his newly amplified threats, but for now he has intensified them even above his expletive-laden rants of Easter weekend.

He now says that, if Iran does not open the strait, which he just said a couple of days ago he doesn’t even care about anymore, by this evening, ITS CIVILIZATION WILL CEASE TO EXIST! He says he will bomb every major bridge and every electrical power plant in the nation in a four-hour period tonight! Here was his post on Truth Social:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?

We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!

Iran responded (I paraphrase), “No ceasefire, and, if you do that, we’ll do the same thing to all the nations around us that are allied with Israel and the US.” (You can read it in the headlines below.)

Think this is just a bluff by Trump? Maybe. He does the TACO dance a lot, BUT consider this: Israel just told all the Iranian people to stay away from their railroads today, and then it started bombing railroad stations! Israel is targeting civilian infrastructure today to make travel in and out of Iran much more difficult so they cannot escape what is about to rain down upon them even as refugees.

Now, think of what this means. Israel appears to be taking out railroads. Trump says he will take out all the bridges. Iran is a modern society just like ours with high-rises that depend on HVAC just to survive inside them. That is not just for cooling, but to get enough airflow to breathe. Without electricity, many buildings in this desert climate will become unlivable. Elevators won’t function to get people up 20-50 stories to their apartments. There will be no refrigeration. Water stops moving through all the pipes all over the nation. Bridges and railroads are taken out all over the nation. That means food cannot be moved in; neither can water. How long can you survive in a desert without water? With mass-transit being wiped out and major bridges, it now becomes almost impossible to escape the cities. Million of civilians will die. Mass genocide on a scale that would put Hitler to shame! From the US. From Israel!

Unless, of course, TACO. But you cannot bet on TACO, especially from a man who either is insane or wants to convince his enemy that he’s insane so they fear him. Unless we are going to bank the entire world on TACO or insanity, his cabinet members and VP need to exercise the 25th Amendment TODAY! Even his former supporters are begging for that action TODAY! Because, after today, it becomes too late … unless TACO. You gonna bet the world on a TACO?

Maybe former pro-Trumper Tuckered Carlson can get through to rational conservatives and the remaining irrational MAGA members, who still support Trump even after their best voices have left him, what I cannot and have not succeeded in conveying to any more than a minuscule handful of readers here since many in MAGA have listened to Carlson for a long time.

I never thought Carlson would be waging the arguments I’ve been waging since Trump entered politics and I called him a Trojan horse for conservatives. But, in this video he even goes after Trump’s high priestess of the White House, Paula White-Cain, whom I came out strongly against in my weekend Deeper Dive: “The President’s Prophet and the Pentagon’s High Priest Predict ARMAGEDDON!” Here is a strong attack from a former Trumper for the first 20-30 minutes of the video:

If you thought my Armageddon title was too strong this last weekend, look at what things have ratcheted up to in the two days since! Yet, my reward for that warning about the cult driving Trump and the US military intentionally and outspokenly toward Armageddon was just that I lost two more paying subscribers. (Maybe that was why, maybe not. They didn’t say.) If you want to keep a spotlight shining into this darkness, I could certainly use some replacement supporters because taking this stand has cost me ever time! (But I promised you I would not stop, even if it cost me everything I make on this tiny publication.)

Meanwhile, look also at the inflation that is now piling in below in the headlines, but especially look at the war headlines. You better hope this is just another insane TACO move because, IF IT IS NOT, you will be living in a vastly different world tomorrow morning because of these kooks unless the 25th Amendment happens tonight! Even at home, your inflation WILL GO THROUGH THE STINKING ROOF!

Still think I’ve been too rough on the president or his self-appointed prophets of profits? Tune in tomorrow morning if the maniac isn’t just bluffing about mass genocide with conventional weapons, and you’ll see where tolerating and defending a narcissistic megalomaniac gets you.

“Trump threatens four-hour obliteration of Iran on Tuesday night with every bridge and power plant destroyed” That’s the headline of headlines. (All available for all readers, even the ones who offer no support, because EVERYONE needs to read this.)

BETTER HOPE IT IS A BLUFF BECAUSE IRAN DIDN’T BACK DOWN! It already said, “No way! We’ll do everything to you that you do to us.” Better hope Trump is kidding.

Your world will never be the same; neither will mine because a move like this will up the amperage in Iran to an electrifying war in the Middle East even if the power goes off, resulting in the deaths of millions … IF the maniac does what he says. If he doesn’t, Iran may act preemptively anyway because he is almost forcing them to by telling them their entire civilization will cease to exist tonight. Their military requires electricity and may be much less functional even with backup generators if it waits for his attack to happen first. They may even interpret his existential threat as a nuclear threat. If they take him at his word that they will cease to exist as a civilization, now that they have flat-out rejected his demands, then they will act while they can. The possibility of preemptive Iranian action against civilian infrastructure all over the Middle East is another risk Trump just created with his words.

Is someone who takes these big gambles the kind of screwball you want running the US military—the biggest military in history? Then you had better hope the military does as some generals got fired for already and refuses to obey orders from the president and Hegseth! That is the constitutional crisis we enter tonight if Trump carries through and gives the command he has promised.

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Economania (national & global economic collapse plus market news)

Stocks fall as ceasefire hopes fade ahead of Trump’s Iran deadline

Real-Estate Rubble (housing, commercial & global real-estate bubble trouble)

San Francisco house prices hit record $2.15 million on AI boom

Zohran Mamdani and the business exodus? New York’s office real estate market is up under new mayor

Iran war upends spring housing market. Here’s what real estate agents are seeing

Inflation Factors (too much money chasing too few goods due to weather, sanctions, tariffs, quarantines, etc.)

U.S. crude oil rises 4% to almost $117/bbl for WTI as Trump makes ominous threat against Iran ahead of deadline

Lubricant Industry Insider Writes of Serious Shortages Coming to US in April

“The Everything Meltdown”: Global Supply Chains Are Collapsing And Most People Cannot Even Imagine The Pain That Is Coming

Highest Ever Gas Prices Recorded in California

Doritos at $7 a bag ended up costing PepsiCo billions

Used car prices rise to highest point since summer 2023

Delta raises checked bag fees $10 amid jet fuel price surge, joining other carriers

Wars & Rumors of War (including cyberwar, civil unrest and revolts)

Trump threatens four-hour obliteration of Iran on Tuesday night with every bridge and power plant destroyed

Trump says ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight’ if Iran does not make a deal

Trump warns a ‘whole civilization will die tonight’ if a deal with Iran isn’t reached

Trump’s openly ‘genocidal’ threat ignites global panic: ‘Military needs to revolt’

Iran vows ‘devastating and widespread’ retaliations if Trump follows through with fresh strikes

Every “Deal” is Dead. The Deadlines are Set. Iran told the world to Go F Itself

Iran Telling People “Evacuate” entire countries in Middle East

Trump’s openly ‘genocidal’ threat ignites global panic: ‘Military needs to revolt’

Possible activation of Sleeper Cells across the globe!!

Political World Stunned by Trump’s Threat to Kill All of Iran in Latest Truth Social Post: ‘Evil and Madness’

Israel Warns Trump Against Ceasefire Deal With Iran

Iran War Update - Last 12 Hours

Israel Warns Iranians “Do Not Travel by Train Today” UPDATE: 7:19 AM EDT - Bombings begin

America Last: War Abroad, Tyranny at Home—and the Theft of a Nation

—

Explosion & fire near Panama Canal entrance sparks scrutiny. Shipping routes stay on edge

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Russian TV colonel issues 10-day nuclear warning for Ukraine – ‘The time has come’

Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)

Alex Jones Calls for Trump’s Removal: ‘How Do We 25th Amendment His Ass?’

MAGA shop closes down after sales dip with owner blaming Trump’s Iran war

Two powerful headlines came out right after I wrote my weekend Deeper Dive about the apocalyptic cult driving the presidents war from within the White House and the Pentagon: “The President’s Prophet and the Pentagon’s High Priest Predict ARMAGEDDON!”

One of the articles was titled “TRUMP INVOKES HOLY WAR” as the top headline in large print and all in caps on Drudge. The full headline of the article on the publisher’s page was “Donald Trump invokes holy war as he gives final Easter Monday ultimatum to Iran.” The other article title was “Trump tells Iran: Open the f---ing strait you crazy b----rds!” The two headlines hit me like they were the exclamation point on the article I wrote over the weekend.

The first story quotes the president as saying,

Donald Trump has invoked a holy war in a furious final Easter Monday ultimatum to Iran:…

“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. [sic] Glory be to GOD! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Sounds like the apocalyptic religious fervor behind this war that I wrote about, straight from the mouth of the president. Extraordinary even for Trump. This kind of religiously laden statement is certainly not what we are accustomed to hearing from US presidents, who have always tried to make sure, when fighting in the Middle East, that their statements carry no content that would sound like their war is religiously based, lest that incite jihad in the Arab world, uniting Muslims in the fight. The guys in the White House and the Pentagon seem to be wanting to incite jihad by repeatedly emphasizing the religious basis for their present war, which they started.

The US starting the war makes it a defensive war for Iran, which is essential for declaring jihad under Arab understanding of jihad. It’s like NATO, a defensive agreement, but with a religious basis that says Muslim nations must join each other in defending their religion if attacked. By framing the war in apocalyptic religious terms the US is encouraging Arabs and Persians and other Muslims to understand the war as an attack on Islam, which makes jihad, in their view, all the more appropriate.

US presidents have typically bent over backwards to make clear that the wars they are raining down on the Middle East have nothing to do with Islam to avoid heightening those possible interpretations of the war, a “holy war” being very thing that could turn this into full-scale World War III.

The other article says,

Donald Trump has threatened to strike more of Iran’s critical infrastructure if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened tomorrow in an expletive-laden social media post.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one... Open the f---ing Strait, you crazy b-----rds, or you’ll be living in hell – just watch! Praise be to Allah,” he said in on Truth Social.

That’s throwing it in their face by using a phrase that sounds awfully close to their “Allahu Akbar,” often shouted just before some horrific act of terrorist violence in their name for God

Have we ever been in more directly apocalyptic times?

Tariff it!

Americans are already going to pay big.

The US war continues to put West Texas Intermediate crude in the rare “backwardization” where it is priced above Brent Crude (European oil from the North Sea). That is a huge windfall from war for US industry and some US billionaires, but a massive tax for US citizens to pay. It’s a win for the Military Industrial Complex … or, at least, one major part of it. For most of us, it just means desperately higher prices for everything that oil goes into.

That is, unless Trump does what Trump says he loves to do and puts an export tax on US oil. WTI is now selling at a 30-40% premium, which puts the price up for domestic users of America’s own oil because it is an open, competitive market. So, producers will sell to the best price. The real purpose of export tariffs is found in exactly this situation, which is to reduce external sales so that a nation’s people (or government) have enough of the nation’s own product.

Since the sellers of US oil are profiting exorbitantly from a war that taxpayers are entirely paying for, the US government should put an export tax on that oil for 30-40%, taking that wartime windfall and putting it in the government’s coffers to help offset the taxpayers cost for the war. The oil producers didn’t do anything exceptional to realize these enormous gains from war, which is why they lobby for war.

Take the entire benefit away, then maybe that component of the MIC will stop lobbying for war. Use the windfall to pay for the war in cash and to drive down fuel prices for US taxpayers by removing the incentive to sell all US oil to foreign buyers for higher profits. Under such a tariff, US oil producers can either sell to foreign buyers for the same profit they get from US buyers because they have to reduce their price to offset the tariff, with the government pocketing the full difference between what the oil producer charges and what the foreign buyers has to pay, or they can sell to US buyers for the same amount of money they are getting under that tariffed situation from foreign buyers.

How the cost of this war will endure

Even with an export tariff, the war tax US consumers are now paying on oil will continue for a long time. As Reagan’s budget planner (very familiar with the oil-based stagflation of the 70’s under the OPEC embargo) says, “This is not your grandfather’s stagflation.” In fact, I’m inclined to believe that another article in the headlines section today is right in claiming that oil prices will NEVER return to what they were before the war.

“I don’t think we’re going back to the pre-war prices for the foreseeable future,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and among the first economists to predict the 2008 financial crisis, speaking with Politico for its report Monday. “Certainly won’t be this year, won’t even be next year. Might not be ever.”

The difference between now and back then, as both writers point out, and as I also said last week, is that oil was shut off with a simple decree back then, so it could be turned back on when the Arab objective was met with another OPEC decree. This time, however, the ability to transport oil from well to sea is being destroyed, and the ability to refine crude oil into products is being destroyed. The only thing that can be turned back on overnight by decree is opening up the Strait of Hormuz, but it will take years to fully repair destroyed infrastructure in that arena to where the oil supply lines that have been taken out can start moving again.

As Stockman says,

We are going to get a globe-shaking economic conflagration erupting from the void that was the Persian Gulf commodity fountain. That includes between 20% and 50% of all the basic commodities that drive global GDP, including crude oil, LPGs, LNG, ammonia, urea, sulfur, helium, and sundry more.

Stockman points out a different but equally valid reason the crisis Trump has created will not be like the OPEC Oil Crisis. The high inflation was not as painful because America had just experienced thirty years of a roaring economy back then. So, when the economy was taken way down by the limited supply of oil and the high costs of oil, American spending power was still generally running at a slightly positive grade. We, on the other hand, begin with an economy that had already fallen essentially to zero real GDP growth after Trump’s first tariff-enthusiastic year.

(That happened because IMPORT tariffs, which were Trump’s entire focus, make everything more expensive for US consumers and companies because most of what we buy is imported, and most of the rest of what we buy is filled with imported parts or resources. EXPORT tariffs, in a case like this, merely reduce exorbitant extra profits that come from price premiums for US companies on foreign sales. The companies still sell the oil at the premium price, but the government skims off all the premium in taxes to the company because the government created that exorbitant pricing opportunity for them with its war; they didn’t earn it. The companies will still make the same profit they made during non-war times from selling to foreign entities, but they don’t get to keep the premium above that; but for US customers, prices get held down because they are not bid up by more desperate foreign buyers and the oil company doesn’t have to pay the tariff on sales to domestic buyers, so they make the same amount at the old price. All of that helps offset what taxpayers would also be on the hook for with this war.)

Stockman points out that, prior to the seventies, US incomes had long been rising at more than 3% per year, while inflation had long been less than that. So, consumers were more able to absorb the much higher inflation that came along in the seventies because their incomes had for a couple of decades been pushed up in buying power. While they lost buying power during the OPEC crisis, they were still ahead of where they had been years before. It wasn’t fun or good, but it was endurable because they had somewhat of a cushion.

Now, however, US consumers are being hit after coming out of years of inflation that have already seriously eroded their buying power—inflation that was still higher than anything they had seen for many years prior to Covid and inflation that was already rising again. They are already drained and reliant on credit for everyday expenses, and credit is already defaulting at a much higher rate than it had been pre-Trump.

Total public and private debt back in the seventies was a TINY fraction of what it is today in the US; so there was a lot more capacity to weather through by using increased debt as a tool. During the seventies total national and private debt went from 147% of GDP to 162%.

BUT …

Debt outstanding now totals nearly $108 trillion and weighs in at 343% of national income (GDP). That is to say, as we head into the next stagflationary era, the US economy will be carrying two turns of extra debt relative to income than was the case in 1970.

In an already depleted state, consumers will now be getting hit by huge cost increases from this war with elevated prices that the other article says are not going away:

“I don’t think we’re going back to the pre-war prices for the foreseeable future,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and among the first economists to predict the 2008 financial crisis, speaking with Politico for its report Monday. “Certainly won’t be this year, won’t even be next year. Might not be ever….”

In an apparent effort to address concerns over rising prices, Trump has said gas prices would “come tumbling down” as soon as the United States pulls out of Iran, as would inflation – a claim Zandi rejected out of hand…. [Naive or outright lying.]

Even if the conflict were to be resolved soon, business leaders fear that any market improvements would be delayed by months.

“The die is being cast for the rest of the year for what’s going to happen in the markets,” said Jim Fitterling, the CEO of Dow Inc., speaking at the CERAWeek conference in Houston recently, as reported…. “It’s like the unwind we saw on supply chains during COVID. You could be in the 250- to 275-day range. This is not going to be an instantaneous rewind.”

OPEC didn’t break things. Maybe people, but not things. This war has broken a lot of things, as wars do, but this war, unlike all previous wars, has focused particularly intensively on breaking OILY things. So, oil prices will remain very high for as long as it takes to manufacture and install these things out in the field.

Moreover, the prospect of resolving all of this by saving the collapsing economy with a Trumpian attack on interest rates to reduce the cost of all that debt is now unlikely to work as the president thinks. As I just wrote to a reader who asked me about this …

I don’t think rates will go lower…. I think Big Beautiful Bill will demand higher rates. Rapidly expanding war spending … will add huge additions of debt to what BBB already created. All that debt is going to demand higher rates of interest. Soaring inflation from oil-based cost increases … for the next 2-3 years will also demand higher interest as bond rates are highly inflation-sensitive.

With all of that, I don’t think it will matter much what the Fed does, unless it does QE beyond what we’ve ever seen because there is just too much new debt to keep hosing up, plus the compounding interest on all of that to be financed with each new issue of debt.

I think the failing economy will also lower the nation’s credit ratings, and, at the same time, demand more debt spending in order to save the economy. With all of that, I think it more likely the system will blow up from overload than that it will pave the way to lower interest just because it desperately needs lower interest….

In short, I think the bond vigilantes will demand higher interest in spite of what the president wants or what the Fed might do if it were inclined to give the president what he wants.

Or, as David Stockman put it,

But after February 28th and Trump’s initiation of a war in the Persian Gulf that can’t be won and which will send the global economy into a tailspin like nothing seen since the mid-1970s, we are truly off to the stagflationary races.

Energy and fuel costs have already soared. Most importantly, the workhorse hydrocarbon of the US economy—diesel fuels used by the nation’s massive fleet of trucks, rail, and farm tractors—is already above its 2022 level at $5.40 per gallon and still climbing. [Now $6.19 where I live!]

Likewise, on the very eve of the planting season fertilizer costs have already doubled, meaning that application rates will be cut back, yields will fall, and food prices will be soaring by the 4th of July when the USDA crop condition reports pretty much forecast the fall production levels.

And, of course, no one took into account that the natural gas processing plants of Qatar were fastened at the hip to the semiconductor plants in South Korea and Taiwan and from there to the entire manufacturing sector of the world. All of this through the life line of helium gas extracted from natural processing plants.

In short, these soaring commodity prices are going to push the inflation indices higher, even as industrial output contracts owing to rising costs and limited availability. Labor markets are frozen as much as they were in the depth of lockdowns from April 2020, while new home sales are evaporating.

That’s stagflation by any other name, but this time the Fed will not be in a position to do much about either inflation or recessionary pressures.

Neither, with $40-trillion of national debt, can the Fed fight this inflation by raising interest rates. That would sink the US government, not to mention what it would do to the much larger amounts of private debt. Nor dare the government add to that debt mountain in order to stimulate the economy because that, too, would push interest rates higher in order to find buyers for the extra debt.

So, dream on Trump. The damage is done. Your inflation is here to stay! Fait accompli!

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(Note: If you missed my weekend Deeper Dive because you were doing wonderful things during Easter (good on you), I think you may want to read about the apocalyptic cult steering and empowering this president. The full exposé is available to all readers this time: “The President’s Prophet and the Pentagon’s High Priest Predict ARMAGEDDON!”)

Economania (national & global economic collapse plus market news)

S&P 500 rises as investors await possible Iran and U.S. ceasefire

Trump’s Iran ultimatum and signals of a possible deal keep investors on tenterhooks

Money Matters (monetary policy, metals, cryptos, currency wars & going cashless)

BEWARE: All that glisters: Maga influencers promote gold but investors feel short-changed

Bank of France sells its 129-tonne US gold reserve, then buys it back in Europe for tidy $15 billion profit

U.S. Moves to Secure Venezuela’s Gold as Influence Deepens After Intervention

Inflation Factors (too much money chasing too few goods due to weather, sanctions, tariffs, quarantines, etc.)

U.S.-Iran war ‘tax’ begins to hit American businesses and consumers

U.S. Oil Premiums Hit Record High as World Scrambles for Crude

Saudi Arabia charges record premium for its oil

Oil prices rise as market weighs Trump threats, Iran war ceasefire proposal

‘Pre-war prices’ for oil might never return – despite Trump’s contrary claims

Stockman Warns This Is Not Your Grandfather’s Stagflation

Wars & Rumors of War (including cyberwar, civil unrest and revolts)

Donald Trump invokes holy war as he gives final Easter Monday ultimatum to Iran

Trump tells Iran: Open the f---ing strait you crazy b----rds!

Qatar’s LNG Exports Still Frozen as Two Tankers U-Turn at Hormuz

As Trump’s Deadline Looms, Tehran Floats Proposal to End War

US special forces rescue second missing F15 airman from Iran in ‘one of the most daring operations in history’, says Trump

‘WE GOT HIM’ Gunfire exchanged in daring special ops raid as US rescues downed pilot in Iran – but is forced to blow up own planes

What happened yesterday in Iran

Inside the Pentagon, fears of a disrupted war effort after Army chief’s ouster

Iranian drone attack sparks fire at Shuwaikh Oil Complex in Kuwait

ABC’s Jon Karl Interview with Trump

—

China reserves offshore airspace for 40 days, raising aviation/military questions

Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)

MAGA Christians turn on ‘insane’ Trump and call for 25th Amendment after ‘evil’ Easter message

Is he Playing Mad: Trump’s strategy with Iran is the ‘Madman Theory’, an international law expert explains

Or is he just mad: Top Doctor Sounds Alarm on Trump, 79, Over ‘Dementia Signs’

10 Years Ago, Trump Promised To Eliminate the National Debt. Instead, It Has Doubled.

Suspicious Oil Bets Before Trump’s Iran Announcement Under Scrutiny

David Ellison says 70% of Americans are centrist. Surveys tell a different story

The Strange Case Of Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’

Uproar in Germany over law requiring men get military approval for long stays abroad

Deep Domination (globalism, unelected government, unconstitutional government & censorship)

“Paying Income Taxes is the Greatest SCAM in American History!” Fmr. IRS Special Agent Reveals

Calamity, Catastrophe & Climate Craziness

Strongest El Niño in a century? What this rare phenomenon could bring.

Off-the-Beat News & Just Plain Offbeat News

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Asks War Secretary Hegseth To Release 46 US Gov’t Secret UFO Videos

Satellite mirror plans could disrupt sleep and ecosystems worldwide, scientists say

Doomer Humor

This may start off sounding like an Easter religious piece, but it’s not. It’s just that Trump’s presidentially appointed prophet evoked Easter this week to boost the president and his war, so I think even readers who normally have no interest in Easter will be interested in this revelation of the religious cult that originally empowered Donald Trump to the White House (both times) and that now nurtures and drives his zeal on a daily basis for the present war with Iran.

When I say “cult,” I’m not being derogatory, I am using the word according its actual definition:

A religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.

No leader is more powerful in the world today or more authoritarian than Donald Trump, who does everything now by decree and who is also certainly charismatic with his huge love for large public rallies and for creating daily drama in the media whenever he can, and big shows that are always centered on himself.

While there is no doubt that Trump alone rules MAGA, he is bizarrely guided by his high priestess of the White House, Paula White‑Cain, who is a self-declared prophetess, regularly claiming she speaks for God. White-Cain merits attention because she holds an actual office in the White House, putting her in influence at the top seat of global government, and Trump seriously listens to her spiritual counsel and basks in her frequent flowing praise at a level of adoration and is empowered by the large audience she has captured.

During the present Holy Week, White-Cain presented a disturbing reason for all of us to take a serious look at her position in the White House and at her prophecies when she stirred up considerable backlash by speaking at an Easter lunch at the White House on Holy Wednesday, comparing the persecutions and “betrayals” endured by Donald Trump to those of Jesus Christ.

While she did not say (nor appear to believe) that Donald Trump is the second coming of Jesus Christ (a common denominator of a number of fringe cults over past decades), she has called the White House “holy ground” and also said that “to say no to President Trump would be saying no to God”—not because she is claiming Trump IS God but because she believes he is divinely directed by God as one appointed by God to carry out what she and other self-proclaimed prophets in this movement claim are God’s divine mandates.

These imperial mandates are apocalyptic in nature, and the Dominion Theology they are based on is the theology that drove the crusades, the inquisitions, and other religious wars—the belief that Christians are to rule a global empire as Christ’s stand-ins until he returns. It has long been the most dangerous belief on earth because people have never handled that power well. Her comparison of Trump to Christ with words Trump clearly basked in as he stood behind her hit such a level of obscenity that her brief speech raised religious rebuffs all over the world.

What I want to call attention to is how her words this week reveal a seriously dangerous cultic core of MAGA. Not only has this group, which is the heart of MAGA, ensconced White-Cain, a televangelist and leader in the charismatic movement, in an office in the White House; but it has infused the Pentagon top brass with an actual outspoken drive to bring on Armageddon in order to facilitate the return of Jesus Christ! I mean “outspoken” in the sense that numerous military leaders have been reported during the Iran War as actually using Armageddon as a call to arms against Iran. We’re going to look at both White-Cain and the Pentagon’s new High Priest Hegseth’s apocalyptic crusade, and note that they are the ones deploying the terminology of apocalypse.

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This week’s prophecy by Paula White-Cain

White-Cain’s official title is Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office. (You can read more about her in the following article beyond just the part I present below from her brief talk.)

That is why I say I am not using the word “cult” in the pejorative way it has often been used when we hear people talking about all of MAGA as being the “Trump cult.” This core group really is a cult with an office in the White House. Her words this week reveal how truly twisted around the person of Donald Trump as their charismatic leader—like ivy around a great tree—this religious core MAGA group is: (I use the word “core” because, while she leads a following that has been the heart of MAGA since its inception, empowering Trump with millions of Christian voters, I realize she does not speak for all of MAGA any more than for all Christians. Far from it.)

Here is what she said on Holy Wednesday in anticipation of Easter:

With the president standing behind her, and to whom she turned to address personally, White-Cain said: “Jesus taught so many lessons through his death, burial and resurrection. He showed us great leadership, great transformation, requires great sacrifice.

“And Mr President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life.

“You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our lord and savior showed us,” she said.

“But it didn’t end there for him, and it didn’t end there for you,” she said.

“God always had a plan: On the third day, he rose, he defeated evil, he conquered death, hell and the grave. And because he rose, we all know that we can rise. And sir, because of his resurrection, you rose up,” she added.

“Because he was victorious, you are victorious. And I believe that the Lord said to tell you this: because of his victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hands to,” she said, finishing to applause.

The president responded by smiling and said “thank you”.

This is the kind of crowning glory any narcissistic megalomaniac would crave to feed his tiny walnut of an ego that seeks to expand its withered center into a larger-than-life projection of what he wants to believe he is. Her words don’t quite deify Trump, but they come awfully close by saying that anything he does (most particularly right now in the war against Iran, which was her context) will be made victorious by God because Trump has suffered just like Jesus did. At other times, she has told the president and all those gathered at her meetings that Trump is God’s “anointed.”

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The Priest of the Pentagon

That is a big word in Christianity, because “anointed” is what the Greek word cristos (Christ) means. It is the root word of “Christianity.” Jesus is God’s anointed. It is also what the Hebrew word “Messiah” means. It is also used in the Old Testament for major biblical leaders appointed by God, such as King David, who was anointed with oil by the prophet Samuel to become Israel’s most famous king.

It has become a particularly big word in Trump’s inner religious circle since the Iran war began, because another story blew up in the news and commentary in a huge way this week, which the Pentagon refuses to either deny or confirm—one that Snopes.com said it also could neither confirm nor prove false. I wouldn’t share it, since it sounds too sensational to be true, except that the original reporter has strong credentials, and the organization he got his information from is a large Christian organization that is speaking out against the way these particular Christians (in name, at least) are infusing the Pentagon.

The organization also has strong bonafides, having won or been nominated for numerous awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, which is to say it is not some wild conspiracy site or tabloid publisher of fake news. It is a Christian non-profit that works with soldiers, which is deeply concerned about what has now been reported to the organization about Christian nationalism and apocalyptic fervor by more than 200 of its members, spanning 50 military installations! Giving serious consideration to the story, several members of congress have also called for an investigation into the story. So, it has become major news.

The story runs generally like this summary:

Military commanders told troops Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to start the apocalypse in Iran, according to over 200 complaints. Since Saturday, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been flooded with complaints from service members in every branch of the armed forces.

By Tuesday, the number exceeded 200 complaints spanning more than 50 military installations. The through line is the same every time: commanding officers are telling troops this war is biblically ordained and the bloodshed is necessary to fulfill Christian prophecy.

I’ve been keeping an eye on this apocalyptic stuff for some time here at The Daily Doom because I have been more than certain it is going to start filling the mainstream news in many ways. With these present stories we see that apocalyptic fervor has become an energizing force in a conflict that is already very close to being World War III in that this war now involves and centers on numerous Middle Eastern nations just as the past two world wars did.

If the 200 reports are true, this isn’t just some harmless apocalyptic cult holed up in the hills of Idaho. It is the guiding philosophy of numerous commanders in today’s Pentagon—a philosophy and level of indoctrination aimed at giving spiritual empowerment (fervor) to the slaughtering of lives and property in the most dangerous world war in nearly a century:

One noncommissioned officer reported that during a combat readiness briefing, their commander told the room everything happening in Iran was part of God’s divine plan, complete with citations from the Book of Revelation.

So, we have a very significantly sized group of core MAGA people with offices in the White House and the Pentagon who believe Trump is anointed by God to take the USA into war with Iran in order to hasten the return of Jesus Christ by deploying the strength of the entire US military to drive their agenda. They are empowered by belief that they speak for God, and Paula White-Cain is one of the main leaders of this movement that has taken over the White House, even though she certainly does not speak for most of Christianity, and I’ll leave you to decide for yourself if she speaks for God, as I do not claim to know God’s thoughts on the matter.

The commander reportedly had a grin on his face while delivering the message. The complaint was filed on behalf of 15 troops. Eleven of them are Christian. This is not about offended atheists. These are believers who know the difference between faith and apocalyptic war propaganda.

It is an ideology that is equal in potency but opposite in military position to the ideology that drives the mullahs of Iran:

MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein said commanders are not just invoking prophecy but are actively excited about how violent the conflict needs to become to align with end-times theology. Military leaders are reportedly thrilled at the prospect of maximum bloodshed because they think it brings Jesus back.

This didn’t come from nowhere. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched monthly Christian worship services at the Pentagon last summer and recently invited Doug Wilson, a Christian nationalist pastor who opposes women’s right to vote, to lead one.

At a recent convention, Hegseth declared that advancing the administration’s agenda is “not political” but “biblical.”

Weinstein warned that when Christian nationalism infiltrates the institution that controls nuclear weapons and armed drones, it is an immediate threat to global security.

Two hundred service members risked their careers to sound this alarm. The question is whether anyone with the power to act is listening.

Jonathon Larson, who broke this story on Substack, was an executive producer at MSNBC who helped create Up w/ Chris Hayes and previously was a senior producer on Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann. So, this is mainstream now.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation currently posts several stories on this subject that it has sourced to a variety of publications. It is an organization that has been fighting against religious extremism in the United States military for two decades with members across all services.

As confirmation of the story’s credibility, you can see even congress is taking it seriously: “Lawmakers Want DOD, Hegseth Investigated for Biblical ‘Armageddon’ Claims.”

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The obscenity of the insanity

While some commentators are calling Paula White-Cain’s words sacrilege or blasphemy, I will restrict myself to calling them obscenity. Others are welcome to take them to the next religious level if they want. To support my assessment of her words, I want to compare her claims that Trump’s “betrayal” or persecution matches up to Jesus’ betrayal and persecution against the basic things we know about Jesus. It is a fitting subject from this time running from Maundy Thursday when Jesus was arrested after celebrating passover with his disciples through Good Friday when he was killed and now moving on to the day when he was resurrected. White-Cain alluded to all of that. The comparison will readily show what a twisted cult this is.

Trump is persecuted or betrayed, if you will go with her position for argument sake, right now because he is forcing the whole world into a globally destructive war. It is global because all the world will pay the economic price of a war that is already joined by many nations. Jesus, on the other hand, refused war throughout his life, even though the Jews of his time expected a Messiah that would kick Rome’s iron-clad butt out of Israel. Jesus cautioned his disciples that “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” Jesus rebuked his disciple Peter when Peter drew a sword and cut off the ear of a Roman soldier who was arresting Jesus on the Thursday evening before his crucifixion. Jesus, then, picked up the ear and put it back on the stricken soldier and healed him. Jesus refused to “fight, fight, fight,” as Trump roared after his own ear was stricken. Instead of even fighting in his own defense, Jesus bore his own instrument of death passively up the hill where Rome crucified him upon the insistence of Jewish Temple leadership. Jesus taught that “the meek shall inherit the Earth,” not the strong or the violent. Jesus refused to seek a political kingdom, telling his Roman interrogator that his kingdom was not of this Earth. All of this is diametrically the opposite of Hegseth’s Christian Nationalism and to all of these claims that God has anointed Trump to start a war that will bring the return of Jesus. The two men could not be more opposite in that respect.

Trump is persecuted because he is, from what I have seen, the most arrogant human being who has ever lived. He is certainly more arrogant than any I have ever observed or even read about in history. People naturally hate someone who has to plaster his name all over the world, take credit for everything that seems big or important, deny blame or blame someone else for anything that goes wrong. He is, in the very least, right up there for arrogance with the Caesars of Rome. Jesus, on Maundy Thursday, before the big Passover dinner, washed all of his disciples feet as an object lesson in how they were to be humble. He told them that the greatest among them had to act like the least in service to others. He constantly preached and exhibited humility—never even calling himself the Messiah, but leaving that determination to others. He did say things about being the Son of God, sent from heaven. Clearly that would be supremely arrogant unless, of course, it is simply true. I’ll let others be the judge of that.

Unlike any known narcissist, however, Jesus lived humbly, associating with the poor and the weak—all the people Trump calls losers. Trump makes fun of people with handicaps, even if they lost their legs in a war or were imprisoned for years like John McCain. Jesus, on the other hand, healed them and called them friends. Jesus chose his cabinet and the rest of the people he surrounded himself with from the poor and the average, not from the billionaires or those who could bring him millions of votes, as Paula White-Cain did. He often told people not to even tell others about the miracles he performed. Trump boasts daily about things he never even did, claiming hyuge success every time! Can you imagine Trump EVER doing or saying any of those things that Jesus did and said? Can you imagine him washing the feet of his cabinet members to teach them humility??? The two men are moral opposites.

Trump is persecuted because he is hostile toward anyone who is even slightly against him. He is always revengeful. Jesus taught against revenge, telling his disciples to turn the other cheek if struck, telling them to always do to others as they would like others to do to them, telling them to love their enemies and pray for them, not prey upon them; and if someone stole their overcoat, they were to give the thief their sport coat, too (in modern terms). Again, the polar opposite of Donald Trump.

Trump is the antithesis of Christ. We have a word for that—the Antichrist. I am not saying he is THE Antichrist, but the Bible teaches there will be “many antichrists,” many who are the antithesis of Christ or who are opposed to Christ. Trump may not be opposed to Christ, but he is certainly the antithesis of Christ. Everything Christ taught would disturb Trump to the core of his being if he were required to live like that! It would take a miraculous transformation of his soul before we’d ever see Trump do anything like what Jesus did.

Trump is obsessed with wealth and especially gold. Jesus paid no attention to those things at all. He lived a modest life, maybe even a life of poverty.

In other words, Trump is “betrayed” and “crucified” because he is a horrible person toward others because his instinct is always to serve himself, whereas Christ taught his disciples to devote their lives to the service of others. Trump, I fully believe, would destroy the United States and even the world in order to save himself from death or in order to glorify himself. Jesus died in order to save the world. Does it get any more clear than that?

Everything about Trump sounds a lot more like the nemesis of Jesus mentioned a fair amount in the New Testament—the other guy who is often presented with orangish skin and horns. In the very least, he sounds like a wannabe Caesar, and Jesus never aspired to become Caesar. In fact, the story says that, when the guy pictured with horns offered Jesus the entire earth as a kingdom, Jesus turned it down.

Trump is persecuted because he is Trump, not because he is good.

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A true and present danger

Trump’s near deification by these core MAGA followers has become more than a bizarre curiosity. It has become an extreme danger because it is now guiding and fueling the Pentagon’s fervor that is driving a massive war against a highly armed and fierce nation that is also driven by its own apocalyptic, religious fervor—a war that could go nuclear and that is certainly destroying the entire global economy because of its critical location, dependent as the world is upon oil.

On top of that, people who believe God will give them the victory don’t back down even if it looks like they are losing, and Iran has already said it won’t back down, even if President Trump does. Overnight that economic danger doubled as the Houthis joined the war this past week, tasked by Iran to stop all merchant shipping along the other side of Saudi Arabia through the Suez Canal. And we have already seen how effective they are at doing that.

Apocalyptic fervor is guiding these people to start Armageddon, and interestingly (at least to me) that has been the way I saw Armageddon as eventually coming on since I wrote End-Time Prophecies of the Bible for Putnam. Suddenly, that is a fitting subject for this time running from Maundy Thursday when Jesus was arrested after celebrating passover with his disciples through Good Friday when he was killed and now moving on to the day when he rose from the dead because White-Cain alluded to all of that. Here is what I wrote back in 1999:

God is going to allow the perfect enticement … so that all the evil armies of the world will gather in one place for their own destruction….

And the Antichrist walks right into the trap…. It is not just the kings of the East who gather, but all the kings of all the world. God allows evil to gather its forces as his agent for its own destruction…. influences are allowed to turn the entire world against Israel in order to gather all the armies of all the nations to a place called “Armageddon.”

I don’t think the Iran War is likely to match up to the described Battle of Armageddon even though it is shaping up something like the descriptions that go with that prophecy for the Middle East and Israel, but it certainly looks like this war will set the stage in the Middle East in chaos and conflict for such a final holocaust. Here, though, is the important point I want to make about Armageddon and the way these prophecies are, in my opinion, misread to energize an intense level of violent aggression aimed at bringing the end on. I think the totality of these prophecies works more like I describe below than like a mandate to go create this war:

In the great Day of the Lord, God will shake down the nations…. He will sift the people of earth to remove all evil from the earth. He will end earth’s imperial governments. And it will be the sword of brother against brother that accomplishes this. God, however, does not force good upon the world. Jesus did not come as a man of peace, only to return as a man of war—untrue to all that he taught. Evil people will brandish their own swords (and cannons and missiles and germ warfare) against each other in earth’s final holocaust.

There is, in fact, a prophecy that gives a stern warning to those who push to bring on the end times so that they may see them, which I’ve mentioned before:

Woe to you who long
for the day of the Lord!
Why do you long for the day of the Lord?
That day will be darkness, not light.
It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
Will not the day of the Lord be darkness,not light—
pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? (Amos 5:18-20)

Those who recklessly push headlong for Armageddon to bring on the end times support themselves with verses that talk about Jesus arriving on a great white horse and slaying the nations of the earth with “a sharp sword” that comes out of his mouth. However, a sound reading of scripture shows that the “sword of truth” is always used to mean God’s word, and what proceeds from the mouth, but words. In Jesus’ case, words of truth. The prophecies seem to me to be saying, “Jesus’ words of truth will slay his enemies.” His words are the sharp sword, dividing the world with hard-edged truth. That is how he worked when he was here, according to these same writings, so it is consistent that it would be how he would work at the time when those writings predict he will return. The truth doesn’t bend to the will of mankind. It is what it is.

Those who are inclined to war, however, will be driven by these very same prophecies to slay each other. I’ve long believed they will hear in these words what they want to hear. (Just as I often write the stock market hears what it wants to hear in Trump’s words.) They will see what, in their minds, justifies their own hell-bent natural inclinations toward violent seizure of power for themselves. They will reveal their own evil by their actions, and God in those days will not restrain such human evil but will let it play out fully.

(My purpose is not to convince you of the truth of the prophecies, but to show how there are two completely opposing ways to understand how they work, and that people will understand them based on how their hearts are conditioned to be like Jesus in truth and goodness, love and kindness, humility and service to others, especially the oppressed, or conditioned toward the self-serving opposite of all those things.)

Evil contains the seeds of its own destruction, and I see these prophecies as saying God steers history as one steers a horse with reins, not by making events happen or forcing people in certain directions, but by simply applying restraint on one side or the other to steer the course of history. At some point in time, God will end his restraint against human evil and let evil people “have their head” and run wild, as they say with horses; so that, following their own evil inclinations and their own lies, they will rampage into destroying each other.

Thus, I had also written,

Armageddon, itself, represents judgment of evil in the presence of Christ … as the evil people who remain alive turn on each other and destroy each other….

If earth is ever to enjoy goodness and peace and prosperity for all, it cannot happen as long as evil people remain in the world. Evil destroys peace and prosperity because it lusts after power and is full of greed.

There is a pattern in the Old Testament where God says he will judge nations, and then what actually happens is one evil empire stomps out another and God says that was his judgement, even though it was entirely done by humans against other humans. That is an example of how God works by simply not restraining the evil in people that wants to be expressed or allowing to rise forces that entice that evil to express itself, and so one empire sweeps over another empire with its own destruction; but it is human beings following their own will that bring the evil about. And I think that is what Armageddon really describes—a time of unbridled destruction of the empires of this world in a great holocaust that the empires bring on each other because of their imperial madness.

The Hegseths of this world may be the very type to bring this about, reading the Bible as a justification for their own inclinations toward violence and demonstrations of their own power. And God just finally LETS IT HAPPEN! While Trump likely doesn’t do much Bible reading, people like Paula White-Cain and Pete Hegseth present him with a misguided belief system that is widely believed and is ripe for bringing about the changes he wants to see for his own benefit. Trump once said, if he ever ran for president it would as a Republican because they are easy to influence or manipulate. (His claim. Don’t blame me.)

Armageddon is about destruction and salvation. Over and over, the Jewish prophets foresaw a day when God would strike evil from the earth. Almost always they used images of fire. In John’s Apocalypse, the horseman rides with fire in his eyes. The plagues that have preceded him brought fire to the earth from the sky. In spite of the great conflagration, the hearts of the survivors grow harder and colder toward God. In the final battle, they have gathered of their own accord into Israel to destroy the people of God. Therefore, the salvation of God’s people has to mean destruction of these relentless enemies. The seven bowls of wrath [talked about in Revelation as the very worst natural holocaust on earth] have revealed that the enemies will not simply walk away or reform.

God will not forget the people of his first covenant, and the battle of Armageddon is where any Jews who have not recognized their messiah will meet him.

In New Testament prophecy that event is the return of Jesus Christ, meaning Jesus “the anointed.”

The nations will all see the salvation of the people of Israel because they have all gathered to destroy Israel. They shall not prevail. They have a surprise coming. Israel is not as helpless as they think.

(And, again, my purpose in laying out all of this here is to explain the extremely pertinent belief system that is now working from the top of the Pentagon down, according to those 200+ reports by troops in 50 different military installations … and to show how it is the individual’s own power-driven nature that causes them to interpret all of these prophecies as justifying the making of war and violence because there is an alternative way of looking at all of these prophecies if one approaches them understanding how Jesus was described above when compared to Trump.)

However, the prophecies also describe Armageddon as a time when an unbelieving Israel is made completely desperate without a friend around them, having turned all nations against them because that is what happens when you keep trying to grasp the great promise, the brass ring, the Promised Land by your own military effort while rejecting its promised prince. It is that time when they will have to become reconciled with their own past, and only at that time will the Prince of Peace return to help them.

Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and will testify against thee. I am God, even thy God…. And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will delver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Psalm 50:7,15)

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. (Zechariah 12: 10-11)

So, it is ROUGH time for Jews. You see, even in Old Testament Jewish prophecies the battle in the valley of Megiddo (har Megiddo/“Armageddon” in Greek and English) is mentioned. Christian prophecies say that the one they pierced and shall mourn over is their Messiah, and their Messiah is Jesus, the “only begotten son of God” pierced in the side on the cross by Romans at their behest on Good Friday. It is when they face this reality about the event that changed their future for two-thousand years in a hopeless battle their Zionist pursuit of the Promised Land has brought upon themselves in the Valley of Armageddon that Jesus returns.

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The Hegseths in this world want to make that happen, and maybe that IS how it happens with misinterpretation of the prophecies bringing about the prophecies’ own fulfillment, but it is the Hegseths’ very ill-informed acting out of their own violence based on how their own nature inclines them to misinterpret these prophecies, which they do to bring the end on quickly in their own times, that brings the great war about … and consumes those who stay to that course.

Finally, I wrote in End-Time Prophecies of the Bible,

Armageddon is world war. World War III (or IV or V) amounts to all the nations of the world—or what remains of them after the Great Tribulation [a period of extreme natural calamities]—attacking Israel. But those who try to remove Jerusalem from the face of the earth will find themselves removed, though they outnumber the Jews a thousand to one.

And that is where we get to the crux of how Armageddon comes about:

The holocaust described could be nuclear or celestial [like an asteroid or comet impact] or germs engineered by evil people to devour human flesh in a minute; or it could be supernatural. One thing is certain: It is complete.

So, is God like the angry Thor, who throws down lightning bolts from heaven? Does peace and truth fail so that even the Messiah must use war to prevail? If Jesus was a man of peace, does he not betray his own truth by resorting in the end to the same tactics used by all the empires he is supposed to overcome? What happened to the Messiah who told his disciples to lay down the sword? Is Christ’s truth in the end not sufficient for victory? Were all the previous empires right?

For those who believe truth and goodness prevail by their own virtue, this is a deeply disturbing scene, but take a second look at the Apocalypse. The white horse and the rider who gallop into Armageddon are most likely just as symbolic as they were at the beginning of the Apocalypse. The sword from the rider’s mouth may still be the sword of truth. There is no sign of actual blades being used. The evil leaders are captured and overthrown but not struck, and then all the people of the earth are killed by the sword that comes out of the mouth of the rider. The sword of truth alone shall slay the wicked.

We see that in the Old Testament prophecies, too:

… and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. (from Isaiah 11:4)

Some lust for adrenaline of a violent end, but they are the ones who will create the violent end, which is why Amos said “Woe” to those who want the end to come quickly.

The passage certainly seems to say that the judgment that strikes the wicked comes from the mouth of the one John [in a later time] calls “the Word.” It comes from the breath, which is the words that he speaks. The militaristic images of the Apocalypse are merely to emphasize the conquering power of truth. Without those images the truth seems too feeble to overturn the powers of this world. (End Time Prophecies of the Bible)

That, of course, is exactly why warmongers like Pete Hegseth believe they must bring the end about by their own militaristic strength. It is inconceivable to them that it can happen without the mighty militaries placed under their control. To think that such an immense military like the one the US has has been placed entirely under the control of a child—a man with very little military experience and an immature understanding of the Bible that focuses on his own sense of his own powerfulness! Yet, that kind of appointment, whether by Trump or by God releasing the reins, is exactly what can bring about the holocaust that ends the world … or that would if the Prince of Peace did not intervene at the last moment.

Remember also that whenever God spoke [in the Old Testament] about judging a nation for its wrong [even Israel]—whenever he said he would come against them like a flood—the flood was the army of another evil empire.

Empire is always the climax stage of human evil.

God spoke as though Babylon were his agent against Jerusalem and the Medes were his agent against Babylon. Fish swallowed fish. Evil consumed evil.

Zechariah said “that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor….” Evil ambition rushes in to fill the power vacuum when the beast at the top is captured [regime change], and anarchy breaks out in the ranks of the evil. Because everyone wants to be the leader, each man turns against the other, as Zechariah proclaimed. The melting of their faces like hot wax may quite literally be the effect of the kings of earth turning their own nuclear arsenals upon each other as they vie for the top position in the empire…. God calls this a plague from himself because, like all plagues, he has allowed it—even foreseen it. The self-destruction of evil is an immutable pattern of nature, a safety feature God built into the original design. That which goes wrong, self-destructs.

In other words, evil, in its chaos, contains the seeds of its own destruction.

And then the meek shall inherit the Earth … like this:

Hearing this truth [of their eternal death to come], as well as the truth of their own evil in the presence of the Messiah’s undeniable glory and all his saints revealed in their glory, will destroy the foundations of every belief the wicked have ever had. They will be devoured with terror…. Kingdom against kingdom is complete world anarchy…. Already hot for blood [and gathered at Armageddon], they will fight what they are able to fight (each other) in the face of what they cannot fight [the truth about the destinies they have laid for themselves]. They will slaughter each other like sharks in a feeding frenzy. In the end, evil contains the spark that ignites its own cremation!

Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants; and none of them that trust him shall be desolate. (Psalm 34:21,22)

The wicked shall be slain by their own evil, and the meek, who merely trust in the humble, loving and peaceful Christ and stay out of the final imperial battle, shall inherit the earth that remains.

The purpose of letting evil rise to its own destruction is to clear the way for paradise!

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For further reading on the apocalyptic fervor that has entered the Pentagon:

Stephen Leeb, PhD > Turbulent Times Investor

Anointed for Armageddon? Inside the Christian Nationalist Crusade

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a month ago · 12 likes · Stephen Leeb, PhD and Megan Davis