The Mad King regime loves the smell of death and destruction in the morning

Dispatches from the War Fronts

 

This...is Tehran

By War Correspondent Douglas MacArthur at the Pentagon with Meta-Content Generator A.J. Liebling

After four weeks, the Mad King's decision to distract us from the evidence of his child rapes by launching a pointless war against Iran is going great.

Don't just take our word for it – ask well-lubricated regime shills like “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth:

Brash and bellicose, he sounded more like a cartoon bully than a sombre statesman. “Death and destruction from the sky all day long,” Pete Hegseth, wearing a red, white and and blue tie and pocket square, bragged to reporters at the Pentagon near Washington. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.” 

His delight in death and injury was on display on other occasions, too:

We're hunting and striking death and destruction from above. Iran's air defenses, flattened. Iran's defense industrial base, the factories, the production lines that feed their missile and drone programs, being overwhelmingly destroyed. 

He really seems to like that death and destruction bit. 

Just one more Jaeger Bomb:

But we are hunting them down methodically, ruthlessly and overwhelmingly, like no other military in the world can do, and the results speak for themselves.

To date, we've struck over 7,000 targets across Iran and its military infrastructure. That is not incremental, that is overwhelming force applied with precision.

By the way, who's them?

Speaking of precision, ol' Death and Destruction didn't have much to say about his Tomahawk missiles that killed over 165 innocent Iranian schoolgirls other than to announce an investigation that will report its findings sometime after the Rapture. 

Even the normally staid New York Times noticed something about the regime's framing of its war as an orgy of destruction:

Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Hegseth’s views are reflected in the name they have given to the Iran mission. In the past, the Pentagon has chosen names that sought to send a message to the American people and the world that the military was fighting for some higher ideal, such as “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan or “Operation Unified Protector” in Libya.

For the Iran mission, Mr. Hegseth signed off on “Epic Fury,” a name that connotes retribution and rage. 

Death and destruction from above, 1940

It's no surprise that the Mad King himself boasted that he chose the name himself. His entire life has been devoted to cruelty and sadism, from raping E. Jean Carroll in a department store to watching only the most violent portions of movies with his weirdo son Barron to boasting about beating protesters and anyone who dares to stand in his way.

But Hegseth's ranting revelry about pain and death struck a familiar note to us.  Where had we heard this before?

We asked our old friend and CBS News legend William L. Shirer.  He remembered in his Berlin Diary watching a German newsreel about the Wehrmacht's invasion of France, generally regarded as a success (unlike Pete's war):

The German commentator's enthusiasm for the destruction seemed to grow....He had a cruel, rasping voice and by the end seemed to be talking in a whirl of sadism. 'Look at the destruction,' he cried. 'This is what happens to those who oppose Germany's might!'

And is Europe soon to be ruled and dominated by such a people – by such sadism? 

W. Shirer, Berlin Diary at 384. 

Shirer, one of the creators of CBS Radio News (we'll get to that in a moment), noted that Fascism delights in inflicting cruelty against whatever they perceive to be its enemies.  Shirer associated this sadism and lack of empathy with a defect in the German character.  We know now that he was wrong about that.

Based on what we have learned since 1940, it seems that it's a defect inherent in much of humanity to be exploited by Fascist tyrants, like our Mad King, to satiate the lust of his angry followers for cruelty while distracting them from noticing that he's f****g them over and robbing them blind.

But how can you say we are living in a Fascist dictatorship when we still have a free press?

Speaking of which, pudgy Fascist fellow-traveler and billionaire fluffer Bari Weiss, installed as CBS News supremo despite the lack of any experience in journalism by the failson of a plutocratic billionaire (this is known to Republicans as “meritocracy”), announced Friday that after 100 years she was pulling the plug on CBS Radio News.

Bari doesn't need any more of his crap

This is the outfit that Shirer used to work for, alongside colleagues like Edward R. Murrow, reporting from London during the Blitz.  Men (and in those days that's what they were) like Shirer and Murrow brought home to Americans the horror of Nazism and its unrelenting wars of aggression, helping counteract Schickelgruber's propaganda and his mouthpieces like Charles Lindbergh.

But according to Bari and her paymasters, we don't need journalism like that anymore, because, um, she says so.

After all, who listens to radio except millions of people driving every day and millions more attached to their phones?

To be fair, we had already lost CBS News, along with The Washington Post.  And if Bari's mouth-breathing nepo baby boss succeeds in taking over CNN, they'll be gone too.

But don't worry – we'll be able to get our news direct from the Secretary of Peace, uh, War.  Hope you enjoy tales of death and destruction, because you'll be paying the bills for it for generations.

And that's the way it is.

The Mad King and his war against the Jews

 

By Hebraic Affairs Editor A. Cahan with Spy Detroit Bureau Chief Betty McGlown in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

It could have been so much worse.  A deranged anti-semite tried to drive a truck full of explosives into Temple Israel, one of the largest synagogues in Detroit or for that matter anywhere.  Thanks to the heroic efforts of well-trained security guards, he was foiled and eventually killed himself.  The hundred plus children on the campus were safe.

There's no doubt that these are very scary times for American Jews.  Attacks on their houses of worship, ever since the Tree of Life attack in Pittsburgh that killed 11 back in 2018, have become a part of American Jewish life.  And it's taking a toll on them, or, to be more candid, us.

According to The New York Times,

Jewish institutions now spend $765 million annually on security, according to an estimate last year by the Jewish Federations of North America. A typical Jewish organization spends 14 percent of its annual budget on security, the organization estimates.

The president and chief executive of the Jewish Federations, Eric Fingerhut, called this a “Jewish tax” in a recent speech calling for increased federal funding for security, among other measures. 

$765,000,000 is a lot of money that could otherwise go for Jewish stuff, like education, religion, or tikkun olam.  But the toll isn't just financial:

“I think the Jewish community had just about had it,” Rabbi Steven Abraham, who leads Beth El Synagogue, a Conservative congregation in Omaha, Neb., said on Thursday afternoon. “There’s a level of PTSD with the heightened awareness.” 

Is there anything that can done to help American Jews feel safer? Don't worry – we'll get to that.

First, we'll sample some of the reaction, other than generalized fear, grief, and anxiety.

The usual neocon suspects aren't wasting any time weaponizing these synagogue attacks against their usual suspects, which includes anyone, including any Jew, who doesn't buy into their neocon Likud fantasies.

David “Axis of Evil” Frum argued in The Atlantic (natch) that the Michigan attack shows that antisemitic violence has now become “mainstream,” whatever that means.  And therefore of course all sentient Jews owe Bibi Netanyahu their blind support, no many how many civilian lives he destroys for no adequate reason.

The idea that American Jews are floating in a leaky lifeboat in a vast and unfathomable sea of antisemitism is central to their fantasy.  Unfortunately for ol' Axis of Evil, it turns out that the terrorist responsible for the Michigan attack was not just another mainstream antisemite.  

Rather he had a very specific grudge.  His brothers and the brother's children had just been killed in a no-doubt very discriminating attack on supposed Hezbollah positions in Southern Lebanon.  The brothers may have in fact been members of Hezbollah.  No word on the sympathies of his kids. 

Now the Israeli bombing doesn't justify antisemitic violence against synagogues.  But the particular grudge this perpetrator had suggests that antisemitism is not some vast ineffable phenomenon.  This terrorist had a very particular motive and grudge.  There's no reasonable basis to connect his deranged reaction to his loss to every or indeed any Muslim or ethnic minority in the United States or to cite it as an example of how antisemitic violence has become the norm.

Unfortunately that doesn't mean that American Jews can ignore the possibility of violent attacks on their houses of worship.

These kind of threats seem like something that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security should be concerned about and willing to assist Jewish organizations in preparing for.

Not in the Mad King's America.

Synagogues seeking grants to protect Jews from antisemitic terror from the DHS have been told that DHS will provide the money only if the synagogue's members betray every Jewish value and embrace the Mad King's bigotry, hatred, and racism:

Beginning in 2025, the Department of Homeland Security attached sweeping ideological conditions to new security grants. Recipients of new awards must cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and must also agree not to “operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology.” They additionally must not run any aid program which “benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”

When asked to clarify what those conditions mean in practice — whether a synagogue that declares itself a sanctuary for refugees would be disqualified, or whether a congregation offering programming for Jews of color or LGBTQ+ Jews would run afoul of the anti-DEI clause — the federal government’s answer has been months of contradictory guidance and confusion. 

As a result synagogues are having to tax their own members so they don't betray fundamental Jewish values:  

 Closer to home:

 

$200,000 is real money, even for a large temple in affluent Newton, Mass.  But if DHS is going to condition protecting Jews from terror on surrendering Jewish values, what choice did it have?

The imposition of this Sophie's Choice on synagogues by the hateful demented Mad King regime and its stooges (who until last week were spending DHS money, not on protecting Jews, but on Mile-High Club membership drives on government jets with private bedrooms) deserves condemnation from everyone.

We'll let you know whether the reactionary gasbags who inveigh against antisemitism as a way to smear anyone who doesn't agree with their Likud values like Frum, Bretbug, or even apostate Jew St. David Brooks, speak out against this evil.

In the meantime, we'll be preparing for Passover when Jews sit around a big table, eat inedible crap like ground up fish in aspic, and read from one of their well-known texts, the Haggadah, CCAR ed. at 56:

When a stranger resides with you in your land,you shall not wrong him....You shall love him as yourself for you were strangers in the Lad of Egypt.

Because American Jews hold fast to these timeless truths, the Mad King's regime is putting them in mortal jeopardy.

If you're looking for examples of antisemitism to condemn, you could start there, Bretbug.

Your Republican government inaction [Surely, in action? - Ed.]

  Dispatches from the War Fronts

 

By State Department Correspondent Varian Fry with Spy Archivist Aula Minerva

WASHINGTON, DC. - Hundreds of thousands of Americans remain trapped in Middle East war zones such as the Gulf States and Israel unable to return home. In response to their plight, the State Department has – warned them to get the hell out of Dodge, but provided no useful assistance to rescue them:

 

 

How did we get here, and those hapless souls get marooned there?

As usual, the answer boils down to one word: Republicans.

To understand why, we have to do what Republicans hate: learn some history.

One might think that we would all agree that the State Department, charged with protecting Americans overseas, would do something to help.

But that kind of thinking is just an example of what Republicans have told us for over 40 years is a fallacy.

St. Ronald of Bitburg was venerated for incessantly proclaiming 

As terrifying as “Good luck, buddy, you're on your own?”

The lie that government can't, won't, and shouldn't help Americans who need such help was regarded by generations of Republicans as a foundational pearl of wisdom.  E.J. Dionne wrote years ago that contempt for government and what it does has animated Republicans ever since.

Then we get to January 20, 2025, when, to the amazement of future generations of historians, if there are any, Americans entrusted their government to a corrupt demented insurrectionist.

In turn, that depraved drug-addled lout turned over management of the government to an equally depraved and crazy drug-addled Nazi-saluting plutocrat.

Remember what happened next?

Ketamine Leon turned loose his untrained unschooled incels across the government, destroying entire agencies, like USAID, in violation of law, and decimating staff in many of them, including – the State Department, which has lost at least 20% of its career staff. 

They were replaced by unqualified, inept, and compromised real-estate finaglers, with predictable results, according to Columbia Professor Elizabeth Saunders: 

The carnage at the State Department, leaving aside USAID and the hundreds of thousands who died due to the illegal cut off of USAID assistance, was terrible.  At least 1,300 civil and foreign service employees were chucked out.  Another 1,700 experienced professionals, seeing Ketamine Leon's fork coming for their jugular veins, took the DOGE buyout offer.

The layoffs included 100 employees in Consular Affairs, the office charged with serving Americans overseas, 84 in Administration, and 89 in the staff Secretariat, which mobilizes, staffs, and manages crisis response. 

So when the Mad King let loose the dogs of war, trapping at least 500,000 Americans in the sights of Iranian missiles and drones, the consequences, according to Popular Information, were as expected:  

Due to the intensity of combat in the Middle East, other countries not directly involved in the conflict quickly began evacuating their citizens from the region. The Italian government has facilitated the evacuation of 2,500 Italians on commercial flights. The Czech Republic sent multiple flights to evacuate people stranded in the area. Several other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Greece, had organized flights scheduled for Wednesday, Reuters reported.

“It says, ‘You're on your own!’ ”

Americans in the area are in danger of being targeted, but the State Department did not advise citizens to leave the region before the strikes began.

Before the 2003 Iraq War, in contrast, the State Department advised citizens to prepare to evacuate weeks in advance and ordered a final evacuation days before fighting began.

This year, Americans in 14 countries were not advised to evacuate until three days after the Trump administration began major combat operations in Iran. By that time, much of the region’s airspace and most airports had closed.

According to the BBC, between “500,000 and one million US nationals are estimated to be living in the Middle East.”

The State Department told Americans to use “available commercial transportation“ to evacuate. On Tuesday, when Americans called a phone number publicized by the State Department, they received an automated message: “Please do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation. At this time, there are currently no United States evacuation points.”...

An American businessman who has been stranded in the UAE told NOTUS that when he reached a live operator, he was told to sign up online for State Department security alerts but was not offered any other help. Several news outlets spoke to stranded Americans who described feeling “trapped” and “helpless.”...

Meanwhile, U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East announced that they were shutting down or unable to help stranded Americans. On Tuesday, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem posted on X that it was not able “at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel.” The embassy noted that Americans in Israel may be able to take ground transportation to Egypt and depart from Cairo’s airport, where flights have not been interrupted. However, the embassy’s post said that “the U.S. government cannot guarantee your safety” if Americans took this option.

Similarly, the U.S. embassy in Qatar told Americans they “should not rely on the US government for assisted departure or evacuation” and should “take advantage of commercial transportation options.” Other U.S. embassies, including those in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon, told Americans they could not offer assistance. Some also closed and cancelled appointments....

When asked on Tuesday why there was no evacuation plan for Americans in the area, President Trump argued that it was “because it happened all very quickly,” adding, “I thought we were going to have a situation where we were gonna be attacked.”

....Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) called on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “promptly appear before Congress and explain to the American people how they so poorly planned for the protection and evacuation of Americans.” When asked by Roll Call about the lack of Marines trained in evacuations in the armada around Iran, Republican Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) said, “We may be asking about that soon.”  

Take your time, Roger.  No rush.

State Department Ops Center, post-DOGE

Of course the Mad King's mouthpieces denied that the insane DOGE-inspired cuts crippled the rescue effort, claiming that no overseas positions have been cut.  But the organization of a mass evacuation happens in the Operations Center in Main State, where teams of experienced professionals, who've been through the drill before, coordinate across the government the procurement, dispatch, and protection of evacuation flights, as well as sending individual implementation plans to each post.  

That didn't happen, in part because those people are gone and in part because the Mad King's insane decision-making process, which basically involves him watching Fox News and then deciding it's time to stage a spectacle of cruelty and destruction, short-circuits the former institutions like the National Security Council, who are there to make sure that obvious sequelae of war, like taking care of half a million Americans in harm's way, are considered and addressed. 

By gutting the NSC and putting the same thirsty coat-holder who serves as Secretary of State in charge of it, the Mad King has ensured that effective planning and governance cannot occur.

St. Ronald of Bitburg, who reveled in his destruction of America's air traffic control system on his watch, would have been so proud now that Republicans have instituted a government whose functionaries can proudly state, “I'm from the government and I'm here to shag my staff on taxpayer-funded airplanes.”