It has been another long, brutal week of lies, misdirection and lawlessness from Donald Trump and his political party of sycophants, who spend the majority of their time somewhere in the vicinity of their master’s wobbly knees.
Prices are soaring, our democracy is crumbling, we are seemingly at war with the world to include the Pope, and the corporate media, or whatever you want to call ‘em, still have no idea what to make of any of it.
All this is especially galling to their consumers, who are angry as hell and scared to death as we try to navigate through the most precarious time in America since the Civil War.
You don’t need guys like me to tell you we won’t survive three more years of this, but you do need guys like me to tell you it’s a pretty big, damn news story that has somehow been grossly under-reported by what passes for that media.
The President of the United States is a serial liar, who can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and why this isn’t included in every single story about him completely escapes me, it really does.
I have pounded the table about this before, and don't intend to stop now.
Our feeble press acts as if seeking comment from the White House, no matter how devoid of truth it is, is somehow practicing journalism.
As a career journalist, here is what I have to say about that: NO IT ISN’T.
If you ask a known liar a question, you better point out that he is a known liar in your coverage, and then fact-check the hell out of every bit of it.
“Trump says this, now Trump says that” is not journalism. It is lazy, dangerous, and serves only one person: the liar.
This morning while I was poking around all the likely news sites critiquing our media’s work and celebrating the good reporting when I was lucky enough to come across it, I noticed that the Strait of Hormuz seemed to be closed again.
“Huh,” I grunted sarcastically to myself.
Why just last night the guy who lies about everything told the media and us that the Strait of Hormuz was open. They even had it in 100-pt type.
Guess he was lying again.
Here’s an approximation of what my newsfeed has looked like the past few weeks, my friends:
STRAIT OF HORMUZ OPEN, TRUMP
STRAIT OF HORMUZ CLOSED, IRAN
STRAIT OF HORMUZ OPEN, TRUMP
STRAIT OF HORMUZ CLOSED, IRAN
Well it turns out it’s closed again, though the headline type was much smaller this morning.
Here is the The New York Times’ header as I type this:
Iran’s Military Says It Has Reimposed ‘Strict Control’ of Strait of Hormuz
All this would be comical if is wasn't so damn sad, so let me help everybody out here, with the hope of moving on from this journalistic stupor we are in:
The Strait of Hormuz will be open when Iran says so.
Sorry, that’s just how it is, no matter what the guy who lies approximately every other minute alleges.
And one more time for emphasis: Please, stop repeating his lies, dammit.
Here’s more truth: As long as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is intact, ships will not be able to navigate the strait safely. The IRGC is not a part of Iran’s regular navy, and has been wreaking havoc in the region for decades. Back in my Stars and Stripes days, we used to deal with them all the time.
THAT THEY ARE STILL ACTIVE IS NOT A SURPRISE.
Sorry for hollering at you there, but good grief.
I actually searched for some sound reporting on the IRGC to see what they were up to these days, and wouldn’t you know it, I ended up right back at the NYT that broke out a meaty story on the group THIS MORNING.
Again, sorry for hollering but if the NYT has reporters telling us that the Strait of Hormuz is nearly impossible to open safely, why are the managing editors and decision-makers in their newsroom parroting whatever Trump is lying about as pertains to opening it safely?
Incredible, isn’t it?
This is from the reporting on IRGC that their managing editors are apparently ignoring:
“Iranian warships sunk by U.S. and Israeli attacks litter naval harbors along the Persian Gulf coast, but what is sometimes called a “mosquito fleet” lurks in the shadows.”
That’s a great lede.
Here’s more:
It is a flotilla of small, fast, agile boats designed to harass shipping, and it forms the heart of the naval forces deployed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a force separate from Iran’s regular navy.
These boats, and especially the missiles and drones that the Guards navy can launch from them, or from camouflaged sites onshore, have been the main threat stymying shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Even more:
“The I.R.G.C. navy works more like a guerrilla force at sea,” said Saeid Golkar, an expert on the Guards and a political science professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
“It is focused on asymmetrical warfare, especially in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. “So instead of relying on big warships and classic naval battles, it depends on hit-and-run attacks.”
Finally:
The boats are often too small to appear on satellite images, and they are moored along piers within deep caves excavated along the rocky coastline, ready to be deployed in minutes, analysts said. Their arsenal poses a major threat to commercial ships in the gulf and the strait.
“It remains a disruptive force,” said Adm. Gary Roughead, a retired chief of U.S. Naval Operations. “You never quite knew what they were up to and what their intentions were.”
All this wonderful reporting was tucked inside the paper that only last night was trumpeting Trump’s lies that the strait was open.
Again, as a journalist that is maddening. As a Navy vet, I take no pride in the fact that the most powerful navy in the world is handcuffed right now to eradicate the IRGC without tremendous risk to its sailors, which is Reason No. 1 that going into Iran with absolutely no thought or planning was reckless at best and criminal at worst.
Right now the only way the strait opens is with a significant military escalation that will endanger thousands of American lives, or if Iran gets what it wants from our lying, incompetent White House.
Iran has the upper hand.
Trump’s incompetent leadership has led us headlong into this hell hole, and we are all paying for it with U.S. treasure and American lives.
The quickest way to end this nightmare, and this madman’s appalling presidency is to stop repeating his lies, and instead start holding him to account.
This nonsense has gone on long enough.
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.