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The Non-Victory

Compared to where we were before February 28, it's a terrible failure

Robert Reich

Trump again claims victory in Iran. He’s claimed victory before, but now he has a so-called “agreement” with Iran.

That agreement, which appears to be no more than a memo of understanding — that is, a set of principles to which Iran and the United States have agreed — stops the fighting and reopens the Strait of Hormuz but it does not deal with the issue that caused Trump to initiate the conflict: Iran’s nuclear program.

Keep that in mind as you hear various renditions of what’s been decided. Recall that the Strait of Hormuz was open before Trump began bombing Iran. 

At best, the agreement Trump is touting restores the status quo to where it was when he commenced hostilities. Remember also that Iran had agreed to limit its development of nuclear-grade materials in its treaty with the Obama administration, which Trump revoked in 2018.

So what has been accomplished? Iran now is under the control of a more extremist regime than when Trump started this war. 

Oil prices are far higher, and will take some time to return to where they were before it began (if they ever do). 

Meanwhile, Trump has caused the United States to be more dependent on fossil fuels than we were prior to his inauguration for a second time, and the high oil prices brought on by his war has enriched Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The war with Iran has cost the United States an estimated $90 billion, and that’s a conservative estimate. It has caused widespread suffering throughout the Middle East. 

It has put Israel in a more precarious situation than it was before — and much of that is due to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is not a party to, and has not approved, the agreement.

This doesn’t look like a victory. Compared to where the United States and the Middle East were on February 28, when Trump began this war, it’s a terrible failure.

Governing on rage and by impulse leads to crazy decisions

Trump’s military excursion, into an abyss

David R. Lurie

Observers have spent two weeks trying to discern the “aims” of Trump’s war on Iran, and therefore what might constitute a victory or defeat. 

His every bizarre utterance about his war “plans” — including wildly conflicting declarations that Iran has surrendered and the war must be expanded to defeat the regime — immediately move markets.

The evident fact, though, is that Trump is completely nuts, and that he’s “governing” the country — and has now taken the US to war — based on his impulses alone, without even the pretense of a strategy or goal.

It’s almost as if Trump felt that, as a would-be dictator, he had to have his own nihilistic war, just like his idol Vlad Putin. But Trump’s “excursion” against Iran is nothing like Putin’s years long “special military operation” against Ukraine — it’s actually more stupid.

Note also that Trump's mother was an
immigrant as were both of his grandparents

Putin’s goals have never been hidden or uncertain — he wants to erase the nation of Ukraine and reincorporate its territory into his neo-Russian Empire. Trump, by contrast — and characteristically — is utterly unable to articulate why he started the largest war the United States has embarked on since the years following 9/11, let alone explain what “victory” might look like.

This is hardly unusual. In fact, it’s the sine qua non of late Trumpism, in which the Strongman of Mar-a-Lago “rules” the country based on pure impulse, rather than even the most misguided of strategy.

“Governance” by impulse

It’s a frightening reality of the Trump regime that, as Trump has descended into utter incoherence and is now nothing more than an assortment of adolescent (and frequently violent) urges, the US government has been remade into a tool for the immediate satisfaction of his wants and desires no matter how absurd or nihilistic they may be.

We’ve seen this dynamic of chaos descend upon various components of our government and society over the past 14 months.

Trump is actively destroying The Moral Basis of Civilization

Civilized societies do not accept that the powerful should be able to attack the weak

Robert Reich

“We are just getting started,” Trump’s secretary of “war,” Pete Hegseth, said yesterday, adding that the attacks on Iran will escalate, with “death and destruction all day long.”

So far more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in Iran, according to human rights monitors, including 180 children, most of them schoolgirls aged 7 to 12 years old who were killed when a missile directly hit their school.

Wars can be morally justifiable if they are necessary to protect a nation’s people, but Trump has failed to make the case that this war is necessary. His allegation that Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon has been rejected by the International Atomic Energy Agency and much of the intelligence community.

As I have noted before, the moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we’d be permanently immersed in a brutish war in which only the fittest and most powerful could survive.

We are all passengers in Trump’s death cab

The nihilism of the regime is its most terrifying attribute.

David R. Lurie

Nearly 13 months into Trump’s second term, the most terrifying attribute of his regime is its utter contempt for the United States, and how blithely willing they are to destroy our nation and its people (let alone other nations).

With most of the Trump Show — which began in 2015 — now in the rearview mirror, and his mind and body rapidly decaying before our eyes, one might think Trump would be thinking about the “legacy” he will be leaving behind in a few years. 

Other presidents have been consumed with the idea of building institutions that survive their presidency — such as Wilson’s League of Nations, FDR’s New Deal, and LBJ’s Great Society — but Trump’s singular focus has been on tearing down the government, even as he sucks the nation dry with his corruption.

And while Trump rushes to place his name on monuments throughout DC before he leaves office, he’s given every indication he’s fine leaving behind a trail of utter and complete destruction.

In short, Donald J. Trump is a nihilist.

Over the past 13 months, Trump has waged a multi-front war on the United States. The kinetic part of that war, consisting of literal invasions of American cities, is the most open and notorious element of that assault. But the scope of it is far broader and includes schemes to make children more malnourished and sick, Americans far more insecure, and the American economy systemically weakened while our place in the world is diminished.

The war within

We are all familiar with the invasions of municipalities across the nation, including Washington DC, LA County, Chicago, and now the Twin Cities.

In each case, under the pretense of apprehending what Trumpers talismanically describe as the “worst of the worst,” phalanxes of masked, pot-bellied militiamen bearing assault rifles and chemical weapons have invaded what they perceive as “enemy territory.” It’s now clear that disruption and the creation of an atmosphere of fear and disorder is not merely a byproduct of these massive invasions, but their purpose.

In cities invaded by DHS agents, the lifeblood of society is being drained in the wholly pretensive name of ridding the nation of criminal undocumented immigrants. Children are now afraid to attend school because their classmates have been kidnapped. Restaurants are shuttering because employees are afraid to leave their homes.

Furthermore, while Trump and his cronies make vague promises of deescalation, DHS has been spending upwards of $1 billion to acquire a network of warehouses for the purpose of storing thousands upon thousands of new captives across the nation, thus indicating that the scope and frequency of the invasions will increase.

Trump’s assault on the nation’s municipalities is part and parcel of a set of economic “policies” that, in part by design and in part as a result of sheer recklessness, are undermining the foundations of America’s economic success.

This week, Trump’s “economic” advisor Peter Navarro celebrated one of the starkest negative impacts of the regime’s full-bore assault on immigration. Trumpers’ mass deportation campaign has been calculated to induce immigrants who escape the dragnet to withdraw from the workforce, and in many cases leave the country, out of fear. This will inevitably lead to a medium- and long-term loss of productivity in an economy that has long relied on younger, immigrant workers to grow at rates that other Western countries have envied.

But for Navarro, the inevitable damage to the economy due to the loss of productive immigrant workers is a good thing, because Americans should be willing to sacrifice prosperity in the cause of expelling the foreign-born. As Paul Krugman put it, “it’s not about jobs, it’s about: They want fewer brown people in America.”

This celebration of destruction and decay epitomizes the regime’s nihilism.

Trump’s blatant lawlessness will haunt America and the world for a long, long time.

From Jan. 6th to Maduro Kidnapping, the Threat Trump Poses Is Existential

Robert Reich for Inequality Media

Trump sees the world as belonging to him, Putin
and China. "Xi" refers to Xi Jinping, China's leader

Trump’s domestic and foreign policies — ranging from his attempted coup against the United States five years ago, to his incursion into Venezuela last weekend, to his current threats against Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland — undermine domestic and international law. But that’s not all.

They threaten what we mean by civilization.

The moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we’d be permanently immersed in a brutish war in which only the fittest and most powerful could survive.

This principle lies at the center of America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It’s also the core of the post- World War II international order championed by the United States, including the UN Charter — emphasizing multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

But it’s a fragile principle, easily violated by those who would exploit their power. Maintaining the principle requires that the powerful have enough integrity to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us hold them accountable if they don’t.

Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of civilization frays. If such aggression is not contained, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are more concentrated than ever before. This invites the powerful to exploit the weaker because the powerful feel omnipotent.

Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of civilization frays. If such aggression is not contained, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.

Ya think?

Rhode Island Senator Reed talks about U.S. military actions in Venezuela

Question: "When you described Maduro as a lawless president who profits from his position as President, doesn’t that also describe President Trump at this point?"

Steve Ahlquist 

United States Senator Jack Reed started his press conference with a plea to Rhode Islanders to give blood:

Senator Reed: We’re here at the Rhode Island Blood Center, and it’s National Blood Donor Month, so I want to urge all Rhode Islanders to come and donate blood. I also want to thank Rhode Island, because in the wake of the Brown tragedy, there was an incredible outpouring of individual Rhode Islanders giving blood to help those who were injured. It demonstrates Rhode Island’s community vitality. The officials here told me we have a higher donation rate than most places in the country, and that contributes to Rhode Island. So let me salute everyone who donates and the wonderful people here at the Rhode Island Blood Center.

Turning to Venezuela

Senator Reed: First, you have to commend the incredible courage and skill of the men and women of the armed forces who conducted a well-conceived and courageously executed operation. There’s no question about that. You also have to recognize, and no one should have any illusions, that Nicolás Maduro was a despicable figure. He had been governing Venezuela without regard for the law and liberties. He probably was also profiting directly and indirectly from some of the drug dealers, so there’s nothing admirable about the gentleman that I could find. But we need to understand what this means on a larger scale.

It was very clear, when President Trump spoke Saturday, that in his mind, this wasn’t about drugs. To many American families who have suffered through drugs, that’s a very important topic, and they’re very concerned about drugs. Trump indicated that he is essentially taking over a government, regime change, taking over the country, taking their natural resources, oil principally, for the benefit of the big oil companies that are going in right now. This whole campaign, which started with attacks on small vessels bearing cocaine, which also has legal issues, has transformed and now been revealed to be Trump’s desire to not only take over a country, which is illegal, but to extract its precious resources. That’s not appropriate. It’s not legal either - under international or United States law.

It sets a very dangerous precedent for people like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who can now ask, “Why are they complaining about my attack in Ukraine? They do it themselves.”

The Chinese, I’m sure, are very interested in what’s happening in Venezuela because they have their eyes on Taiwan. We’re looking at a situation that is upending the international order established after World War II, following significant suffering by Americans and their victory in the war. We created an international order with a primary rule: you cannot use force against another sovereign nation. That’s Article 24 of the U.N. Charter, and that article was totally ignored.

In domestic law, Congress has the authority to declare war. This looks very much like a war-like effort, and Congress was not consulted. Congress has not been informed of many operational details. In fact, under the law, the Secretary of Defense, Peter Hegseth, is required to issue us execute orders (ex-ords) for all these operations: all the boat strikes and everything else. He’s refused to do that, even though it’s the law.

You have an administration that repeatedly defies the law, destabilizes international relations, and whose efforts will lead to a very complicated situation. You have the President, on one hand, saying he’s going to occupy Venezuela. You have Secretary of State Marco Rubio trying to walk it back, saying, “Oh no, we’re going to cooperate with them.”

We’ve seen this story before. There was a great military triumph in Iraq under George W. Bush. Twenty years later, we were still trying to extricate ourselves from what turned out to be a major geopolitical mistake that cost the lives of many service members. We have to be conscious of that now.

For weeks now, I’ve been telling everyone in the administration, the real question is, “What are you going to do when you win? Mr. President, what are you going to do? Are you going to occupy? Are you going to cooperate? Are you going to send troops in again, as he threatened last Saturday?” We’re in a very precarious situation, one that demonstrates the Trump Administration’s disregard not only for international law but also for the laws of the United States. It’s now time for Congress to step up and make sure that what is done in the future is both legal and in the best interest of the United States - not just for a weekend of headlines, but for the future of the country.

Who’s the Last Person in the World to Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

The person who’s been waging illegal wars

Robert Reich

Trump recently had his name engraved on the U.S. Institute of Peace — now renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.” The White House confirmed the renaming, calling it “a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”

Actually, it’s a reminder of what a strong malignant narcissist can accomplish when untethered from reality.

Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the world football league, awarded Trump the first (and likely last) annual FIFA Peace Prize — along with a hagiographic video of Trump and “peace.”

What FIFA has to do with peace is anyone’s guess, but Infantino is evidently trying to curry favor with Trump. (Infantino, by the way, oversaw the 2020 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, defending and minimizing Qatar’s miserable human rights record. He also played a key role in selecting Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, notwithstanding the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.)

Both Trump’s absurd renaming of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the equally absurd FIFA award are parts of Trump’s campaign to get the Nobel Peace Prize — something he has coveted since Barack Obama was awarded it in 2009 (anything Obama got credited with, Trump wants to discredit or match).

Russia’s Most Dangerous Weapon is Donald Trump’s Mind

How did the United States Come to Back a Vicious Dictator against All Its Allies?

Dr. Bandy X. Lee

The disintegration of Donald Trump’s mind—now obvious for everyone to see—is metaphorical of the disintegration of our society. Unfitness means that there is no one in charge of the government; there is no one home. Rather, the appearance of someone being home makes him a prime target for nefarious forces to do their mischief.

I warned in The Psychology of Trump Contagion, published before the 2024 presidential election:

Sometimes the greatest threat to national security is someone who can be leveraged and compromised—so as to parrot our enemies’ propaganda, to destroy American democracy from within, and to assist their rise in global dominance.

One of these enemies is Vladimir Putin. Russian forces launched 704 total missiles and drones against Ukraine overnight on December 5 to 6, 2025, heavily targeting railway and energy infrastructure in this proxy U.S.-Russia war. The goal is to freeze our fellow pro-democracy Europeans, so as to force them into submission as winter approaches.

So, how did the U.S. come to aid and comfort a hostile opponent bent on reestablishing the Soviet Union? Astute political commentator Thom Hartmann makes a critical observation from the Epstein emails:

The child victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes are apparently not the only ones who’ve paid the price for Donald Trump’s long relationship with that notorious pedophile.

Epstein’s “partying” with Trump has apparently also led to thousands of civilian deaths abroad, the collapse of America’s credibility around the world, and a serious threat to the future of democracy in Europe….

In Epstein’s emails, he boasts of offering to advise Russia’s senior-most officials about how to manipulate Trump: “I think you might suggest to putin that [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] lavrov can get insight on [Trump by] talking to me…”

Consider Trump’s secretive and beta-submissive behavior toward Vladimir Putin, especially in Helsinki when he trashed our intelligence agencies and sucked up to Putin, and more recently with his red carpet in Alaska, and it’s impossible to ignore what this newest Epstein revelation implies.

If Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine is a direct or indirect result of things Trump did with Epstein, it’s naked treachery. Consider the pattern:… the Russian military targets … are not accidents of war. They’re the deliberate targeting of civilians, children, doctors, classrooms, apartment buildings, homes, and hospitals….

And all of this—the horror of what’s happening in plain sight that’s the clear result of Trump’s repeated and pathetic kowtowing to Putin—appears, from the Epstein emails, that it may be getting so much worse over the past 10 months because Putin took Epstein’s advice and threatened Donald Trump with exposure.

We still don’t know what was said in that room in Helsinki because Trump covered it up, making sure we’d never know. He ordered his American interpreter to move away from his private conversation with Putin, and afterward seized and destroyed her notes.

Similarly and more recently, in Alaska, Trump dismissed his aides and rode with Putin privately in his car where they engaged in another lengthy, secretive conversation.

That’s the behavior of a man with something to hide, who’s terrified by some horrible secret….

Trump issues new official National Security Strategy that is Russia-friendly and anti-Europe

Russia applauds new strategy saying it is in line with Kremlin goals

Brad Reed

BBC headline

The Trump administration on Thursday released its official National Security Strategy, and many critics noted that it was loaded with rhetoric frequently used by white nationalists.

Some of the most inflammatory rhetoric in the document is aimed at US-allied European countries that supposedly face “the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure” within the next 20 years.

In particular, the document accuses the European Union of enacting policies “that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

The document goes on to claim that “should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” while emphasizing that US policy is to help “Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

Putin's puppet sells out Ukraine

With humor and candor, Hillary tells Providence audience her views on truth and democracy

At Brown, Hillary Clinton reflects on her career, encourages the pursuit of truth and diplomacy

Brown University

Looking back on her five-decade career in public service, Hillary Rodham Clinton can count numerous accomplishments and successes from her tenure as U.S. secretary of state, first lady, U.S. senator and other roles as a leader and advocate.

But what would she do differently? Without hesitation, she said it would be the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“Obviously, I’d win,” Clinton declared to a packed house in Brown’s Pizzitola Sports Center during the University’s 104th Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs on Thursday, Oct. 30. 

“I should caveat that — I’d win the electoral college,” she quipped, eliciting a burst of cheers as she nodded to having won the popular vote.

Presidential politics, tales from the world of diplomacy, and U.S.-international relations were among the topics that Clinton discussed in a wide-ranging conversation with Brown University President Christina H. Paxson. 

Clinton was the latest among dozens of leaders and diplomats to participate in the 60-year-old Ogden Lecture series, which has hosted everyone from His Holiness the Dalai Lama to New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger to heads of state including Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand), Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Union) and Theresa May (U.K.). 

Clinton’s visit was co-presented by Brown 2026, an initiative to observe the U.S. semiquincentennial and the role of research universities in advancing democratic societies, and by the University’s Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs, which celebrated its launch during a public event at Brown on Oct. 25.

Trump’s use of National Guard troops on American streets is bad enough. This could be worse.

Present and former military alarmed at Trump's misuse of National Guard and federal troops

By Joan Johnson-Freese, Rhode Island Current

I saw some of my former Naval War College colleagues at the recent No Kings rally in Providence. Given that National Guard troops and protestors had clashed in Los Angeles at an earlier June rally protesting ICE raids, we wondered whether we would see National Guard troops as we marched, where they would be from, and their mission? 

We didn’t. That doesn’t mean, however, that there is no need for concern about the future.

The National Guard is unique to the U.S. military given it is under the authority of both state governors and the federal government and has both a domestic and federal mission. 

Governors can call up the National Guard to help when states have a crisis, either a natural disaster or a human-made one. Federal authorities can call on the National Guard for overseas deployment and to enforce federal law. 

President Dwight Eisenhower used both federalized National Guard units and regular U.S. Army units to enforce desegregation laws in Arkansas in 1957. But using military troops to intimidate citizens and support partisan politics, especially by bringing National Guard units from other states has never been, and should never be, part of its mission.

But that’s what is happening now.

A host of Democratic U.S. senators, led by Dick Durbin of Illinois, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and 25 others has called for an inquiry into the Trump administration’s recent domestic deployment of active-duty and National Guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee. 

In an Oct. 17 letter to the Defense Department’s Inspector General, the senators challenge the legality of the domestic troop deployment and charge that it undermines military readiness and politicizes the nation’s military. 

Ostensibly, the troops have been sent to cities “overrun” with crime. Yet data shows that has not been the case. Troops have been sent to largely Democratic-run cities in Democratic-led states. 

The case for political theater being the real reason behind the deployment certainly was strengthened when largely Republican Mississippi sent troops to Washington D.C., even though crime in Mississippi cities like Jackson is higher than in D.C. Additionally, there is an even more dangerous purpose to the troop presence  — that of normalizing the idea of troops on the streets, a key facet of authoritarian rule.

There are fundamental differences in training and mission between military troops and civilian law enforcement, with troop presence raising the potential for escalation and excessive force, and the erosion of both civil liberties and military readiness.

The art of the deal

Donald Trump, master deal-maker

Trump wants to eliminate mail-in voting even though that's how HE votes

Flurry of false claims and advice from his master Vlad trigger King Donald's rant on voting

Jon Queally for Common Dreams

Guaranteed: Trump's got a vanity plate

In his latest full-frontal assault on democratic access and voting rights, Donald Trump August 18 said he will lead an effort to ban both mail-in ballots and voting machines for next year's mid-term elections—a vow met with immediate rebuke from progressive critics.

"I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly 'Inaccurate,' Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election," Trump wrote in a social media post infested with lies and falsehoods.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Trump falsely claimed that no other country in the world uses mail-in voting—a blatant lie, according to International IDEA, which monitors democratic trends worldwide, at least 34 nations allow for in-country postal voting of some kind. The group notes that over 100 countries allow out-of-country postal voting for citizens living or stationed overseas during an election.

Trump has repeated his false claim—over and over again—that he won the 2020 election, which he actually lost, in part due to fraud related to mail-in ballots, though the lie has been debunked ad nauseam. 

He also fails to note that mail-in ballots were very much in use nationwide in 2024, with an estimated 30% of voters casting a mail-in ballot as opposed to in-person during the election in which Trump returned to the White House and Republicans took back the US Senate and retained the US House of Representatives.

Around and around

MAGA!

Contrast and comparison