Not a judicious use of our tax dollars and galloping debt

 Not a judicious use of our tax dollars and galloping debt

As our national debt soars to $40 trillion, one would surmise we’re borrowing against our future to lift up the Commons and our 340 million folks.

Nope, we’re squandering our tax dollars and borrowing into unsustainable debt to wage relentless war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel. Trump launched his criminal war on Iran 63 days ago, squandering nearly a billion bucks daily, tho Defense Secretary Hegseth lied that it’s less than half that.

That $60 billion plus has been a spectacular failure from the air and sea, with a land invasion ruled out as insanely impossible. All 13 US bases in its sycophantic Gulf States allies are either destroyed or badly damaged. The Gulf States view the US so unreliably they may tell Trump to pack up and go home…forever.

As wasteful as that is on US military, he’ also lavishing billions on his tag team partner Israel in this monstrous war that is inexorably crashing the world economy. The Israeli Defense Ministry announced Thursday that Uncle Sam gifted Israel with 6,500 tons of criminal war weapons within the preceding 24 hours. That brings the total military gear to Israel since the war began to 115,600 tons arriving on 403 planes and 10 ships. Israel got so much they’re using some of it to wage a Gaza like genocide on Southern Lebanon.

Trump is left with two options. Quit his criminal war to accept Iran’s sensible demands to renounce further war, end all senseless US sanctions, and get the hell out of Iran’s neighborhood. Option two is restart the bombing in the hope of collapsing the Iranian regime. All that will accomplish is strengthen he Iran’s resolve and resume their own bombing which will likely destroy the entire Gulf States oil production infrastructure. Say hello to $10 a gallon gas and much more for everything else.

All things considered Trump should choose option one. While that will destroy his presidency and consign him to everlasting infamy as a failed war criminal, it’s a bit better than destroying the world economy.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

King Charles still locked in 1950’s obsession to weaken, destroy Russia

 King Charles still locked in 1950’s obsession to weaken, destroy Russia

King Charles offered some wise advice to Congress and the American people Tuesday in his Congressional address. But he sure whiffed on the most important issue.

In a not too subtle reference to President Trump’s wildly expanding presidential powers and stifling efforts to check his authoritarian governance, Charles stated “The U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances,”

In an ominous reference to Trump’s covering up the Epstein files which mention Trump over 38,000 times, Charles alluded to Britain’s courageous, forthright example which included stripping away Prince Andrew’s royal title and duties. "In both of our countries, it is the very fact of our vibrant, diverse and free societies that gives us our collective strength, including to support victims of some of the ills that, so tragically, exist in both our societies today."

But Charles, unlike the Trump administration which sensibly bailed on the lost proxy war in Ukraine we provoked, remains all in for continuing the proxy war to weaken Russia. "Today, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people. It is needed in order to secure a truly just and lasting peace… keeping North Americans and Europeans safe from our common adversaries,"

Charles simply mirrored the entire British government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer which endlessly funds Ukraine’s inevitable collapse that the UK helped the US provoke. Britain’s economy last year grew by an anemic 1.4%. The UK has squandered 22 billion pounds on Ukraine, not “to secure a truly just and lasting peace” in Ukraine, but to guarantee Ukraine becomes a failed state.

Unlike Starmer, the British people reject such nonsense, pinning a 70% disapproval rating on Starmer and his Russophobe advisors, including King Charles. UK drivers are paying more for petrol because their government stupidly cut their purchase of cheaper Russian oil to zero with no end in sight.

Congress gave the King a standing ovation with his ‘fight the Ukraine war to the last Ukraine soldier’ pitch. But that was political theater. President Trump and his idolatrous Republican Congress have moved on from squandering our treasure on the senseless proxy war against Russia. They’re completely obsessed with squandering a billion bucks daily to lose their criminal war on Iran and crash the world economy in the process.

Instead of lecturing Congress and American people to spend billions prolonging Ukraine’s agony, King Charles should sit down with Starmer and advise him Job One is détente with Russia to end the war in Ukraine on Russia’s sensible terms.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition

In poker game with Iran’s unified, determined, winning government, Trump is playing 52 Pick-Up

In poker game with Iran’s unified, determined, winning government, Trump is playing 52 Pick-Up 

Trump loves to bleat the US is winning his criminal war on Iran. The opposite is true. Iran is holding all the cards. The US, not Iran, implemented a ceasefire because Trump’s bombing campaign was a catastrophe. It didn’t collapse the Iranian regime within 48 hours. It didn’t cough up Iran’s enriched Uranium. It didn’t destroy Iran’s missile capacity. It didn’t force Iran to beg for negotiations.

It did however, so damage America’s 13 Gulf States bases they are largely uninhabitable. It caused the worst destruction in Israel’s 78 years. It caused the US to nearly run out of defensive missiles. It closed the Strait of Hormuz, initiating a global economic crisis that will take months to resolve if the war ended today on Iran war day 60.

Trump is so discombobulated he’s making up fairy tales about Iran’s begging for negotiations to end their impending loss. He announced his negotiating team of golfing buddy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both representing Israel’s, not America's interests, were heading to Pakistan to seal America’s victory.

One huge problem. Iran won’t negotiate while Trump is continuing the war with his senseless blockade of Iranian ports…a war crime. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reminded Trump there will be no negotiations “as long as hostile actions and operational pressures by the US persist. Recent US actions, including intensified maritime restrictions against Iran, are major impediments to trust-building and diplomacy. While messages about negotiations are conveyed, the simultaneous escalation of naval blockade and operational pressure undermines the environment needed for mutual trust.”

Trump quickly pivoted, cancelling Witkoff’s and Kushner’s planned visit to Pakistani last weekend. "I said nope, you’re not making 18-hour flight to go there. We have all the cards. You’re not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.”

Trump has all the cards all right. It’s just that there on the Oval Office floor after President Pezeshkian tossed them at Trump and exclaimed “52 Pick-Up.”

Walt Zlotow Glen Ellyn Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

State Dept. spills the beans…’Bibi made Trump do it’

  

State Dept. spills the beans…’Bibi made Trump do it’

Apparently, State Dept. legal advisor Reed Rubinstein didn’t get Trump’s memo to erase Israel’s major involvement in Trump’s failed war on Iran.

It’s bad enough the war is a complete failure, accomplishing none of Trump’s objectives while precipitating global economic decline. If stopped today, it would take months to fully restore the economic calamity engulfing the world. Further delay, currently conducted by Trump desperately seeking an off ramp, spells economic catastrophe.

As horrendous as Trump’s war is, it wasn’t even his idea. Trump was simply following orders from his real boss, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On February 11, Netanyahu arrived at the White House with Mossad Director David Barnea. They encouraged if not demanded invasion. The Netanyahu-Barnea tag team argued Iran would collapse within a couple of days from a combination of assassinating Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei, massive bombing, Mossad-fomented civil unrest and ground incursions by Kurdish fighters. Not surprisingly, the opposite occurred. The Iranian people rallied around their government in as existential battel to the death. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz choking off a fifth of world oil supply and inflicted massive damage on Israel and US Gulf States bases with thousands of missiles. The Netanyahu-Barnea presentation was a blizzard of lies Trump swallowed whole in spite of Intelligence assessments to the contrary.

Trump blundered into the biggest military disaster in America’s 250 years. But he refuses to tell the truth Netanyahu made him do it because he must maintain the fiction the war is necessary to protect the Homeland from an imaginary Iranian nuke fired from an imaginary Iranian ICBM. Gifting Netanyahu with a favor to obliterate his arch enemy Iran is not in the US rulebook for allowing 13 US servicepersons killed and over 400 injured in furtherance of a lost war.

Of course anyone following the war knows the sordid truth. Under pressure Trump blatantly lied: “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran. The results of Oct. 7th, added to my lifelong opinion that IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I watch and read the FAKE NEWS Pundits and Polls in total disbelief. 90% of what they say are lies and made up stories, and the polls are rigged, much as the 2020 Presidential Election was rigged.”

But Rubenstein punctured that fiction with this public statement: “As the United States has explained in multiple letters to the UN Security Council, including most recently on March 10, the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense,”

Good grief. Trump launched a failed criminal war blowing up the world economy because he had to enable an ally rid itself of an imaginary threat. Trump forgot Diplomacy 101 which teaches Allies don’t let allies launch criminal wars, much less take the lead in that murder and mayhem.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL

Trump to America…’No dough for the Commons. I need it for my criminal wars’

Trump to America…’No dough for the Commons. I need it for my criminal wars’

President Trump has a bizarre way of demonstrating his claim of being the Peace President deserving the Nobel Peace Prize.

He spent his first term raining down tens of thousands of bombs on 7 countries posing not a whit of danger to the Homeland. He assassinated a top Iranian general in Baghdad, a monstrous war crime. He withdrew from Obama’s Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) which silenced Iran’s nuclear bomb potential and should have ended the isolation of Iran. Instead, it set the table for Trump's senseless, now failed war on Iran 8 years later that may crash the world economy if not ended soon. That is madness.

Trump’s obsession with murder and mayhem worldwide has collateral damage to every sensible domestic function of government. Trump has spent 10 years trying to demolish Obama’s Affordable Care Act, a relatively meager improvement to America’s failed health insurance system to the less fortunate. He hasn’t spent dollar one to fix it. He’s ignored our crumbling infrastructure. He’s invested zilch in green energy while the world overheats relentlessly.

But Trump sure has invested in war. His last term one National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) budget in 2021 was a massive $740 billion. His first in term two for 2026 crashed the trillion mark by $42 billion. But mimicking Al Jolson in ‘The Jazz Singer’, Trump proclaimed ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’ His 2027 NDAA sours to $1,500,000,000, a 44% increase. Combined with massive tax cuts for the billionaire class, Trump’s profligate military spending has goosed the national debt by $10 rillion in his first 6 years.

While silent about spending on the Commons to improve life for all Americans, Trump is ecstatic about his trillion and a half bucks for endless wars. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare — all these individual things They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal.”

To paraphrase first predecessor Obama, ‘Yes you can…yes you must.’

On April 7, 1967, exactly one year before he was gunned down, Rev. Martin Luther King courageously spoke out against the Vietnam War at New York's Riverside Church, ahead of a massive antiwar rally. In ‘A Time To Break the Silence’, King decried, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Under Donald Trump’s endless, senseless wars…America’s spiritual death is here.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL