politics

'This should terrify every American': Trump official destroying military 'integrity'

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the end of the flu vaccine mandate for military service members, citing a need to “restore freedom.” This, as many have noted, is in direct opposition to a 1777 decision by future President George Washington, in which he ordered that all American soldiers be vaccinated against smallpox to ensure the army of the emerging United States would be healthy enough to fight the British. Hegseth has thrown that out the window, and according to renowned economist Paul Krugman, it not only diminishes U.S. military readiness, but is an act of “hypocrisy” that aims to “destroy the integrity of the professional military” and “cultify” the armed forces.

Krugman suggests a number of issues with Hegseth’s decision.

First, the self-titled “Secretary of War” — who Krugman describes as a “bloodthirsty religious fanatic” who is “more comfortable with fascism than with America’s founding principles” — is displaying clear “hypocrisy.” On one hand, Hegseth claims the inalienable right to control “your body, your faith, and your convictions,” but on the other, he has banned beards and argued that troops and generals should lose weight because “it’s a bad look.”

“But requiring that serving troops receive a vaccine that helps maintain their military effectiveness and also helps protect their comrades from infection?” writes Krugman sarcastically. “Tyranny!”

And as Krugman notes, surrendering a certain amount of personal “freedom” has always been inherent to military service in the first place. “When Americans sign up to serve the nation under arms, they agree to temporarily forego many of the freedoms of civilian life,” he writes. “They must wear uniforms, not street fashion. They must eat Army or Navy food. They must salute officers and obey orders. They must, in other words, adhere to military discipline.”

But Krugman is most concerned with what he calls Hegseth’s attempts to “cultify” the military by “creating an environment in which professional integrity, military discipline, and historical precedent are destroyed in service to the personality cult of Donald Trump.”

As Krugman explains, “Think of these directives as loyalty tests. Hegseth can indulge his faux concerns about liberty while aligning himself with the science-hating right. If you are an officer concerned about the welfare of your troops and voice your concerns, you are out. Mention that the directive against beards is nonsensical and disproportionately harms black male soldiers with a common skin condition, then you are a woke weakling and are sent packing. If you are a general in possession of critical skills and hard-won experience, but served during the Biden administration, you will be unceremoniously fired.”

Krugman concludes that “the method in Hegseth’s apparent madness is to destroy the integrity of the professional military corps through destructive and despotic behavior that drives out those…who hold to their principles. And this should terrify every American.”

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Fox News host brings receipts to Trump's optimistic Iran claims

The Trump Administration has offered numerous, sometimes confused justifications for launching war against Iran, with one of the most oft-cited being the reduction of Iranian missile and drone capabilities. But while President Donald Trump has asserted that such programs have been “decimated,” one Fox News host said the government’s public claims of success don’t align with what’s being said behind closed doors.

“In a House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing last week, the director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency warned of Iran's remaining missile and drone capabilities, which runs counter to what top Pentagon officials have told the press during televised briefings at the Pentagon,” posted Fox Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffen. She attached a quote from Lieutenant General James Adams in which he revealed that, “Despite significant degradation of Iranian military capabilities through coalition strikes in operation Epic Fury, Tehran retains thousands of missiles and one-way attack UAV's capable of threatening U.S. and partner forces throughout the region.”

Adams' admission contradicted a previous statement from Air Force General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who in early April declared, “All of these systems are gone.”

Griffen pointed out the inconsistency of these two messages over a retweet of a CBS article, in which it was revealed that Iran's military is more capable than the Trump administration is publicly acknowledging. While on Tuesday, Trump claimed, "We've taken out their navy, we've taken out their air force, we've taken out their leaders,” multiple U.S. officials told CBS that Iran has retained at least 60 percent of its navy, roughly two-thirds of its air force, and half its stockpile of ballistic missiles.

This isn’t the first time that Trump’s military claims have diverged from the facts on the ground. In early April, after declaring that the U.S. had “beaten and completely decimated Iran,” asserting that “they have no anti-aircraft equipment” and “their radar is 100 percent annihilated,” the Iranians successfully shot down two American fighter jets.

On Wednesday morning, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against the CBS article, posting that “the vast majority of Iran’s ballistic missiles, launcher vehicles, and long-range attack drones were destroyed,” “the Iranian navy was annihilated,” and that “Iran’s air forces are functionally and operationally irrelevant.”

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Republicans face ticking clock on 'political catastrophe'

Over the past year, a number of issues have angered voters, from brutal ICE tactics to the mishandling of the Epstein investigation to President Donald Trump’s beef with the Pope. But now with gas prices skyrocketing due to the unpopular war with Iran, writes Politico, “GOP campaign veterans say time is running out if the party is going to avoid a disaster at the ballot box in November.”

While the White House has done everything it can think of to bring oil prices down, costs at the pump have shot up by over a third in less than two months, with further increases forecasted even by Trump and his officials — just in time for summer road trip season.

“I would say gas prices need to come down substantially before Memorial Day weekend,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean. “That is a political catastrophe waiting to happen.”

Memorial Day is typically when fuel demands begin to soar, and with the situation in the Strait of Hormuz still anything but certain, it seems unlikely that prices will come down by Bonjean’s catastrophic deadline. While oil barrel prices are down somewhat from their recent high of $120, they are still at $93, which is roughly $30 higher than they were before the war. This has pushed national gas averages to over $4 per gallon, costing U.S. consumers over $24 billion since the conflict began.

The White House has been desperate to characterize the price hike as “short-term, temporary disruptions,” but studies have shown that a 10-cent increase in gas prices drives a 0.6 percentage point drop in presidential approval. That’s bad news for the Republicans, who already see warning signals of midterm disasters to come. It has already been widely accepted that the GOP will likely lose its majority in the House, and many conservatives have begun to worry that they could even lose the Senate as the electorate doles out punishment for high gas prices and unpopular policies.

“At a political level, if oil prices remain exorbitantly high, voters are going to blame the party in power,” said Alex Conant, a partner at Washington-based strategic communications firm and former communications director for Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “And there’s not much you can do from a comms perspective on that.”

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Trump’s strategy is to 'seek turmoil' and 'lie about everything': ex-US admiral

Two months into President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, one of the key characteristics of the conflict has been a general lack of clarity about its status. From one day to the next, and sometimes within hours, the public is told one thing, which is then quickly contradicted by emerging facts. According to a retired U.S. admiral, it is all part of Trump’s “lie about everything” strategy.

“We were told Iran's navy was sunk, their air force, destroyed,” posted former Admiral Mike Franken on Wednesday. “Their fissile material blown up. Their leadership, killed. Yet, they magically seized two tankers this morning. See Ref A. Subj: Lie About Everything.”

Franken was responding to the latest news that Iranian forces had seized two cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. This came one day after Trump announced he was extending the ceasefire at the request of Iran, which would have theoretically suspended hostilities. But in an increasingly apparent pattern, the world is left wondering whether Trump’s claim of a ceasefire was ever true in the first place.

First the White House declares that Vice President JD Vance is going to lead negotiations, which Trump immediately contradicts, maybe accurately, maybe not. Trump claims that Iran has agreed to let the U.S. extract its enriched uranium, then Tehran says it’s agreed to nothing of the sort. Shortly after the president asserts that Iranian defense capabilities have been destroyed, two American fighter jets are shot down. While he says Iran holds “no cards,” its decidedly effective closure of the Hormuz Strait has thrown the global economy into chaos while bolstering its position to extract compromise from the U.S. He declared “we won” weeks ago, yet the war still drags on.

As Franken posted in mid-April, “Every statement is a lie.”

Trump’s lies, experts have suggested, likely have a few different inspirations. First, the president’s basic lack of understanding about what is happening from one moment to the next — he simply doesn’t know what’s going on. Second, he’s sometimes attempting to direct a desirable Iranian response, though seemingly without much effect. Third, he’s trying to pacify American concerns about the unpopular war. And finally, he’s hoping to manipulate the market.

As many have noted, Trump tends to make statements about the war that could affect stocks negatively or positively, according to when the markets open or close. At the same time, there have been rampant accusations of insider trading via prediction markets as betters have made over $1 billion placing wagers that are suspiciously timed just prior to Trump making consequential statements about the war.

“This administration is a giant 'pump and dump' scheme to gather riches from market manipulations,” said Franken. “They seek turmoil, and it's a daily occurrence.”

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'Definition of a cover-up': Officials say Trump White House is lying about Iran casualties

As of Wednesday, official figures released by the Department of Defense on casualties in Iran place the number of American service members wounded and killed at 411. But according to a new report from the Intercept, that number “erases” 15 wounded from the count, amounting to the very “definition of a cover-up.”

On the first day of the ceasefire, the Pentagon listed American casualties at 385, and though fighting was theoretically suspended, that gradually climbed to 428 by Monday. But the following day, that number dropped to 413 without explanation. The Pentagon has maintained that number since then, though a DOD count places it two lower.

When asked about the discrepancy, two Pentagon officials were unable to account for the change, with one claiming, “As soon as the duty officer comes back to their desk,” an explanation would be provided. But “a day, and multiple follow-ups, later, The Intercept has yet to receive an explanation of why 15 wounded personnel were scrubbed from the War Department’s casualty rolls.”

One U.S. official was blunt about their assessment of what they called a “casualty cover-up.”

“These numbers, it is obvious, are important. That they don’t want the public to have them says something,” said the official. “That’s the definition of a cover-up.”

According to two sources who worked with the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, which is used to count casualties, it is unusual to see “lag between a casualty occurring in the field and its inclusion in the system.”

“We got it very quickly. We could report the number of casualties very fast,” Joan Crenshaw, who worked on DCAS during the war on terror said, explaining that the data was refreshed on a daily basis.

The Department of Defense and relevant administration officials have refused to address “hard questions about undercounts of dead and wounded personnel, the slow-walking of statistics, faulty accounting measures, and arcane casualty-counting procedures.” Aside from the erased wounded, The Intercept also asserts that the casualty numbers provided by the government “offer a distorted image of the conflict” as the DCAS tally doesn’t include “non-hostile injuries,” such as the over 200 sailors treated for smoke inhalation and lacerations due to a fire aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford on March 12, as well as other injuries.

“That should have been entered into DCAS,” said Crenshaw. “My concern is why that piece is now missing.”

A second source who also worked on DCAS and spoke on the condition of anonymity expressed similar concerns, wondering what the Pentagon “had to hide.”

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Top historian says 'the wheels are coming off the MAGA bus'

It’s been a chaotic week for President Donald Trump. One minute, CNN is reporting that negotiators between the U.S. and Iran seem on the verge of reaching a deal. Then in the next, Trump takes to social media to declare Tehran has “agreed to everything,” including to “never to close the Strait of Hormuz again.” Iranian officials then denied Trump’s claims, and promptly resumed attacks on ships in the strait.

According to renowned historian Heather Cox Richardson, this is evidence that Trump’s “vulnerability” is reaching new heights.

“There is the unmistakable feeling that the wheels are coming off the MAGA bus,” wrote Richardson. She cites plenty of examples of this beyond Trump’s bungling in Iran, but the war provides no shortage of evidence in itself. His exceptionally confused approach to negotiating is proof enough. Beyond the frequent daylight between the facts on the ground and Trump’s repeated assertions of a done deal, Richardson shared a particularly embarrassing detail regarding the negotiations.

On Tuesday, the president reposted an AI-generated image claiming that Iran was going to execute eight women, saying, “To the Iranian leaders who will soon be in negotiations with my representatives: I would greatly appreciate the release of these women. I am sure that they will respect the fact that you did so. Please do them no harm! Would be a great start to our negotiations!!!” While it is true that Iran has been executing protesters, this particular post was a fabrication, and as David S. Bernstein of Good Politics/Bad Politics noted, Trump urged Iran “to start peace negotiations by releasing non-existent, AI-generated women some rando posted about on X.”

The list of Trump’s mistakes goes on, and as Richardson suggests, it’s unsurprising that Americans hate his handling of the situation, with a new poll showing that just 35 percent approve of his performance — a historic low. At the same time, 72 percent disapprove of his handling of rising prices, and 50 percent say they would vote Democrat in a generic ballot, versus 43 percent who would vote Republican.

With backlash impending at the ballot box, says Richardson, “Administration officials’ approach to the midterm elections seems to be to continue to sow distrust of elections.” Embattled FBI Director Kash Patel said on Sunday that arrests were coming in relation to Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, which he claims was stolen. At the same time, Trump officials are demanding voter records from districts where Trump lost.

What’s more, Trump is starting (and losing) fights with the Pope, posting AI-generated photos of himself as Jesus, and delivered a reading of 2 Chronicles 7:11–22 from the Oval Office: “The same verse was read by Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin at the January 6, 2021, insurrection, and is associated with white evangelicals’ belief God sent Trump to heal America.” And on top of all that, Trump’s deportation agenda is receiving pushback in the courts, a handful of Congressional Republicans have stymied his legislative efforts by voting against them, and a nationwide redistricting battle (which was launched by the GOP in the first place) has just netted Democrats more seats in the House due to a referendum that passed in Virginia.

According to Richardson, all of these are signs of Trump's “vulnerability” —and that MAGA could implode in the November midterms.

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Top historian says Trump is committing 'superpower suicide'

Over the course of President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States and the entire world have been thrust into chaos by the administration’s erratic actions. While many have speculated about what pushed the U.S. to elect its highly disruptive leader, renowned historian Timothy Snyder has a theory: it’s an attempt at “superpower suicide.”

“I’ve been thinking about how best to characterize what the United States is doing to itself on the scale of the world,” said Snyder on his Substack, “and I think ‘superpower suicide’ is probably the best term.”

There are a handful of points that drove him to this conclusion.

“To be a superpower, you have to be a power, and to be a power, you have to be a state,” he explained. “And I think the way we’re being governed now is inconsistent with statehood. The way we’re being governed now — or rather ruled — seems to have to do with the enrichment and the wealth of the president himself and the people immediately around him. It seems to involve the cult of an individual and his eternal power rather than the continuity of institutions that belong to everyone.”

That brought him to matters of succession, or the lack thereof, and the future in general.

“By calling into question past and future elections,” said Snyder, “the President of the United States is undermining…the principle of succession, which is fundamental to being a superpower” — the idea that a country will continue beyond its present leadership. What’s more, Snyder claimed that Trump lacks a coherent ideology to carry forward, saying, “What is the future of this country? I don’t think the people in power are able to give any of that a name. There is no idea of the future. There’s just day-to-day enrichment.” On top of that, the U.S. is “pursuing policies that are inconsistent with there being a future.” He explained that global powers rise and fall based on their energy policy, and Trump’s decision to double down on oil and gas while ceding green energy development to China simultaneously cedes the future to Chinese leadership.

On that note, Snyder argued that “a superpower would be able to deal with its adversaries, and we seem completely unable to do so.” Over the course of the past year, Trump has declared and quickly lost a trade war with China, then a war with Iran, and a consequence of both has been the enrichment of Russia. At the same time, Trump has made it clear that he’s not only uninterested in collaborating with allies, but happy to shred essential alliances.

Finally, Snyder suggested that “a superpower of the future…would be caring about education and science, which is what we’re not doing.” To the contrary, under Trump, the U.S. is decimating its K-12 and university systems. Science has become politicized, while students and researchers from abroad are now looking elsewhere to bring their smarts and expertise.

All of this, concluded Snyder, comes down to an act of "superpower suicide." But he didn’t end on an entirely dire note.

“To make things a little bit more hopeful,” said Snyder, it’s an “attempted suicide, because none of this has to happen. It could all be changed. But that would depend on the choices we make.”

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Critical state election becomes a GOP 'triangular firing squad' over MAGA 'headwinds'

With just a month left until Georgia holds its three-way Republican Senate primary, the election has erupted into a full-on “triangular firing squad,” says Punchbowl News, with all three candidates doing their best to knock their opponents out of the race. They’re struggling to replace incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who not only leads in polls against all three GOP candidates, but has far outraised his challengers, boasting a massive $31 million war chest.

So far, President Donald Trump hasn’t endorsed any of the candidates, but the two current leaders — Representatives Mike Collins (R-GA) and Buddy Carter (R-GA) — are campaigning under the MAGA banner. They’re up against football coach Derek Dooley, an ally of Governor Brian Kemp, who has a notoriously strained relationship with Trump. If none of the candidates reach a 50 percent threshold in the primary, it will force a costly runoff election, which Republicans fear would reduce their bankroll for fighting against Ossoff in the midterm general election. Hoping to avoid this, the three GOP prospects are doing their best to jab each other out of the race.

“Look, if Mike Collins is our candidate, we lose. If Derek Dooley is our candidate, we lose,” Carter told Punchbowl News, failing to mention that he and Collins are polling against Ossoff within one percent of each other, with Dooley close behind.

“Our candidate can’t be sitting there having to defend either a long voting record or a House Ethics charge or a divisive social media,” said Dooley, taking a stab at his opponents’ MAGA identities. “You got to have a candidate who not only can energize and mobilize the Republican voters — the Trump voters — but connects with voters that don’t always vote Republican.”

Dooley has raised his concerns about a MAGA candidate due to a widespread belief that Ossoff — who is viewed as a strongly centrist politician who appeals to the working class — can only be defeated by someone who isn’t so far to the right. Currently Collins, the most conservative candidate, is leading in primary polls. This has some Republicans worried.

“If the most conservative person comes out of the primary, there’s the worst matchup in the general, particularly in a year where we have headwinds,” said Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), referring to the headwinds driven by Trump’s increasingly unpopular presidency. “If you cut that image, then you’re necessarily going to alienate unaffiliated soccer moms and whoever else may be trending away from us anyway.”

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Republicans accused of 'the largest government cover-up in modern history'

Over the past year, Democratic lawmakers and even a few of their Republican colleagues have struggled to use what legal tools were available to them to get to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. But lately, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee has reduced their options, leveraging a tactic that some say amounts to “the largest government cover-up in modern history.”

During typical House Oversight Committee hearings, members of Congress can make motions and call for votes to subpoena individuals in any matter regardless of what a particular hearing happens to be on. For months now, representatives from both parties with an interest in the Epstein case have taken advantage of this to push for subpoenas for high-profile figures who may have relevant information, which is how a vote was held to force the release of the Epstein files in the first place.

But now, according to Politico, Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) has begun holding “roundtables” rather than hearings, which don’t permit representatives to make motions unrelated to the business at hand. As a result, Republicans “are avoiding the only forum where Democrats can force votes, demand documents, and hold the majority accountable.”

This situation has “frustrated” Democratic representatives dedicated to investigating the Epstein case, says Robert Garcia (D-CA), who explained, “We have important investigative work, and they want to do this right as we are in the middle of this single, largest government cover-up in the modern history of the Congress.”

Republicans have noticed the change too.

“It’s no secret why we are not doing a formal hearing today,” said Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI) during a recent roundtable on mental health. “We’d like this hearing to be solely focused on the issue before you, and there is some concern that — both parties are guilty of this — that they make motions in the middle of the hearing and try to bring up unrelated topics.”

In the case of Committee Democrats (with the support of a few Republicans), that has meant subpoenaing the likes of former Attorney General Pam Bondi, while Republicans have forced the depositions of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Now with hearings being replaced by roundtables, however, such subpoenas have become less frequent and likely.

Even some Republicans are expressing criticism at the change. Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), for example, said, “I am a fan of committees that like to do the motions to subpoena.”

“They want to neuter the Oversight Committee,” said Garcia. “Give me a break.”

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Clarence Thomas is either 'delusional' or a 'Republican hack': analysis

On Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a speech at the University of Texas, Austin, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In it, he took the opportunity to offer a lengthy attack on progressive politics that was widely criticized, with New York Times political analyst Jamelle Bouie calling the Justice’s assertions “nonsense.”

According to Thomas, “Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from the government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.”

“It’s nonsense,” said Bouie in response, characterizing Thomas as a “strange, bizarre, misanthropic man with a wide array of frankly lunatic beliefs,” while noting that he is “one of the most powerful people in the country as the longest serving Justice on the Supreme Court.”

As Bouie clarified, Thomas was suggesting that progressives believe human rights come from the government, which amounts to a rejection of the Declaration of Independence and has caused much of the social fracturing we see today. As a consequence, asserts Thomas, those on the political Left are to blame for the world as it is.

We should not, said Bouie, take Thomas’s arguments seriously.

“This idea that progressives or liberals or left of center Americans are the ones who are directly assaulting the Declaration of Independence, who have rejected the idea that all men are created equal, who insist that you only have rights if the government gives them to you,” explained Bouie, “Not only is that not an accurate description of what leftists in the United States believe — it is an accurate descript of Thomas’s own ideological allies.”

As Bouie pointed out, Thomas “loves” Trump, Vance, and MAGA, “and core to the MAGA project is a rejection of the Declaration of Independence. It’s a rejection of the idea that all Americans exist on a plane of equality, or ought to. Key MAGA politicians and thinkers routinely make arguments for the natural existence of hierarchies or natural aristocracy and the idea that some people belong and that others can be excluded or dominated because they don’t. Clarence Thomas is literally describing the views of the people he has empowered as a justice.”

This forced Bouie to two possible conclusions.

“So either he is kind of delusional about the people he has surrounded himself with,” said Bouie, “or he is ultimately a Republican hack.”

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Republicans are 'gonna get killed' in midterms: White House insider

Now in its eighth week, President Donald Trump is increasingly responding to pressure to wrap up his “little excursion” in Iran, with the clearest sign that he’s feeling that urgency being his own insistence that he is “under no pressure whatsoever.” But as the world grapples with the stark economic consequences of the war, including skyrocketing gas prices, Republicans are coming to terms with the “inconvenient truth” that there’s little they can do to avoid the electoral fallout at the November midterms.

While Trump and his allies have scrambled for ways to manipulate gas prices or at least distract from the increase, repeatedly suggesting that the cost hike is only temporary, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has let it slip that it “could be next year” before numbers creep back down at the pump. He and even Trump have now admitted that prices could climb “a little bit higher” before November, and Republicans are starting to face the fact that they’re going to pay for it at the polls.

Trump has attempted to shift the blame, to little effect. Polling shows that 65 percent of Americans fault the president for spiking gas prices, including a whopping 73 percent of independents.

“The rhetoric around this stuff matters way less than the reality,” a White House source told Politico. “It either will be or it won’t be. If we don’t see the $3 gallon of gas, we’re gonna get killed.”

Currently holding slim majorities in both houses of Congress, the GOP has much to lose in the midterms. It's already projected that they will lose their majority in the House, but as backlash against the war, economy, and Trump's unpopular policies grows, it is also looking increasingly possible that the Democrats will take back the Senate as well.

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