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This evening's music features family r&b group The Valentinos. Enjoy!

"H. L. Mencken famously said that 'every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.' By now, however, I am no longer ashamed, because I do not identify with the government under which I live. Rather, I view it as a criminal organization that without provocation has chosen to make war on my just rights-not only mine, of course, but everyone's. Although this vile enterprise is my problem, because it robs and bullies me relentlessly and without mercy, it is not my responsibility: the nail is not the hammer."

-- Robert Higgs

News and Opinion

US Calls Iranian Retaliatory Strikes “Unprovoked”

US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz used the word “unprovoked” to describe Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US military bases in the region, which is just plain hilarious.

“Indiscriminate and unprovoked attacks by the Iranian regime today against our regional partners — Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, and others — reinforce exactly why such actions are necessary,” Waltz told the UN.

Only the United States could bomb a country, kill its leader, massacre its children, declare the intention to destroy its military and topple its government, and then call that country’s retaliation against US military bases “unprovoked”.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi went on NBC News
to discuss the war and was actually asked by co-anchor Laura Jarrett how Iran can justify striking US military bases in the region.

“Why is attacking US military bases abroad justified?” Jarrett asked after Araghchi said that Iran will not seek long-range missiles capable of striking the United States.

“Because they are attacking us!” Araghchi replied with a chuckle. “They are US military installations, facilities, bases who are attacking us. We are under attack. Why don’t you, you know, recognize this fact?”

“This is obvious,” Araghchi said. “This is a very simple fact, and I’m sure that people would understand that.”

It must be such a surreal experience to be a serious diplomat appearing on a foreign news show to speak to professional newscasters, and suddenly finding yourself having to explain to fully grown adults that your nation is fighting the US military because the US military attacked your nation.

The western press are a fucking joke.

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Is Trump’s War Beyond Control?

US-Israel war on Iran dramatically expands across Middle East

The war in the Middle East triggered by the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran expanded dramatically on Monday, with casualties and destruction reported across at least nine countries, including major strikes on Tehran. Israeli and US warplanes launched a fresh wave of strikes across Iran, where the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) said more than 500 people had been killed since the conflict began.

Israel also launched an intense wave of attacks into Lebanon after Hezbollah struck at northern Israel in retaliation for the Israeli strike on Saturday that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian attacks were reported on oil infrastructure and other targets across a 1,200-mile swathe of the region – with damage inflicted from the Gulf of Oman, where a bomb-carrying drone boat exploded against an oil tanker, to Cyprus, targeting a British military base.

There were loud blasts in Dubai and Samha in the United Arab Emirates, and in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Saudi Arabia shut its biggest refinery after drone strikes caused a fire there, one of a number of oil installations that became targets. In the first strike to reach US allies in Europe, a drone hit Britain’s Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus overnight. Britain and Cyprus said the damage was limited and there were no casualties.

The US president, Donald Trump, repeated his calls for Iranians to rise up and overthrow their leaders, and said the air campaign could last weeks, telling CNN the “big wave” of attacks was yet to come. “We’re knocking the crap out of them … The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon,” Trump told the network.

Iran’s elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said on Sunday a leadership council comprised of himself, the judiciary head and a member of the powerful guardian council had temporarily assumed the duties of the supreme leader. In a post on X on Monday, Ali Larijani, the powerful head of Tehran’s supreme national security council, said Iran would not negotiate with Trump, who had “delusional ambitions” and was now worried about US casualties. “Iran, unlike the United States, has prepared itself for a long war,” he posted.

ESCALATION OUT OF CONTROL As US Embassies BURN

Trump says Iran war to last four to five weeks but could go ‘far longer’

Donald Trump has laid out four goals in Iran and said the US campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks but could “go far longer than that”. On Monday, the US president offered his most extensive comments yet about the war, going beyond two video messages and a series of brief phone interviews with reporters that offered sometimes conflicting objectives.

But Trump undercut the gravity of his remarks by abruptly pivoting to tout his plans for a new White House ballroom, boasting that it would be the “most beautiful ballroom in the world”, coming in “under budget” and “ahead of schedule” for “$400m or less”. ...

He said the objectives of the war included destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilating their navy and stopping from them from having a nuclear weapon. Trump said a third objective was a longstanding US goal, to prevent Iran from supporting militant groups elsewhere in the region. ... Trump continued: “We’re already substantially ahead of our time projections, but whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes, we will always and we have from right from the beginning.

Seyed M. Marandi: Iran's Military Strategy & U.S. Miscalculations

US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel’s plan to launch attack, Rubio says

Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict. The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend.

Rubio; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and joint chiefs of staff, chair Dan Caine; spoke to the lawmakers behind closed doors in the Capitol ahead of a vote expected later this week in the House of Representatives on a war powers resolution that presents an unlikely opportunity to force Trump to end hostilities against Iran. “It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone – the United States or Israel or anyone – they were going to respond, and respond against the United States,” Rubio told reporters at the Capitol.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

Reactions to the administration’s explanation for entering the war split along party lines, with Republicans rushing to defend Trump’s gambit while Democrats condemned what they view as an unnecessary conflict with unclear goals. “This is Trump’s war. This is a war of choice. He has no strategy, he has no endgame,” the Senate’s Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer said before going into the briefing. ...

The House is expected to later this week consider a war powers resolution that, if enacted, force Trump to end hostilities against Iran. It faces a high bar to passage. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and rarely cross Trump in significant numbers. Even if Congress were to approve the resolution, Trump could veto it, and Congress could override that only with a two-thirds majority vote.

Scott Ritter : How’s the War Going, Mr. President?

Maritime insurers cancel war risk cover in Gulf as Iran conflict disrupts shipping

Leading maritime insurers have cancelled war risk cover for vessels operating in the Gulf as the escalating Iran conflict disrupted shipping and sent some freight costs surging. At least 150 vessels including oil and liquefied natural gas tankers have dropped anchor in the strait of Hormuz and surrounding waters, and at least three tankers were damaged and one seafarer killed over the weekend.

The vital shipping route, through which about 20% of the world’s oil supplies and 20% of seaborne gas tankers pass, is effectively closed after the US and Israel began intense airstrikes on Iran on Saturday. Several leading mutual marine insurers, including Norway’s Gard and Skuld, the UK’s NorthStandard and the London P&I Club, and the New York-based American Club, said they were cancelling war risk cover for ships operating in the region.

This is likely to further dissuade shipowners from traversing the Gulf. The insurers said war risk cover – which typically covers shipowners for costs and damages resulting from war, terrorism and piracy – would be cancelled in Iranian waters, as well as the Gulf and adjacent waters, with effect from 5 March. Marcus Baker, the global head of marine at Marsh, said several other insurance markets, including Lloyd’s of London, had issued notices of cancellation, to give insurers time to look at the heightened risks in the Middle East and assess their rates.

The cost of transporting goods jumped, as shipping was rerouted and oil prices rose sharply on Monday.

Spain denies US permission to use jointly operated bases to attack Iran

Spain has denied the US permission to use jointly operated military bases on its territory to attack Iran as Madrid stepped up its criticism of the “unjustified and dangerous military intervention”.

Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has explicitly condemned the US and Israel’s “unilateral military action” against Iran, warning that it is contributing to “a more hostile and uncertain international order”. The rebukes have been reinforced by his government’s refusal to allow the US to use bases in Rota and Morón for the continuing strikes against Iran.

José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said on Monday that while the government wanted “democracy, freedom and fundamental rights for the Iranian people”, it would on no account allow its bases to be used in the ongoing military action. “I want to be very clear and very plain,” he told Telecinco. “The bases are not being used – nor will they be used – for anything that is not in the agreement [with the US], nor for anything that isn’t covered by the UN charter.”

The defence minister, Margarita Robles, was similarly emphatic, saying neither of the bases had been used in the US military operation. “There is a deal with the US over these bases, but our understanding of the deal is that operations have to comply with international legal frameworks and that there has to be international support for them,” she told reporters.

Maps compiled by the flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed that 15 US aircraft have left Rota and Morón since the US and Israel began their attacks over the weekend. At least seven of the planes were shown to have landed at Ramstein airbase in Germany.

LtCOL. : Karen Kwiatkowski : Did Fear of Epstein Fuel the War?

At Least 52 Killed, Including Hezbollah Intel Chief, In Israeli Attacks on Beirut and Southern Lebanon

Israel continued to pound Lebanon overnight Sunday and into Monday, with multiple attacks targeting the capital city of Beirut, particularly the Shi’ite suburb of Dahiyeh. The Lebanese Health Ministry reports that at least 52 people have been killed and 154 wounded in the strikes.

Among the slain, according to the Israeli military, was Hussein Makled, who they identified as the head of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters. They said he was responsible for providing Hezbollah with information about Israel and the Israeli military.

The IDF further claimed to have hit at least 70 Hezbollah “weapon depots and rocket launching sites” across Lebanon, and has issued evacuation warnings against multiple parts of Lebanon which they intended to attack. All told, Israel launched some 221 strikes since Monday morning.

Rights Group Leads Push for UN to Declare US-Israeli Assault on Iran ‘War of Aggression’

A leading human rights group on Monday urged the United Nations General Assembly to declare the unprovoked US-Israeli assault on Iran—which has already killed more than 500 people in just three days, including many children—a “war of aggression.”

In a letter sent to the permanent missions of all UN member states in New York City, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) “called on governments to formally request an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly to declare the assault a war of aggression in violation of the UN Charter and to demand the immediate cessation of all hostilities.”

“The [UN] Security Council is unable to make that determination because the United States, as a permanent member and a party to the conflict, will veto any resolution,” DAWN explained. “The General Assembly should act in its place.”

DAWN’s call came as the death toll from three days of US-Israeli bombardment of cities, towns, and sites throughout Iran rose to at least 555, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. Multiple massacres—including a bombing of a girls’ school in Minab that officials said killed at least 180 people, many of them students—have been reported.

“The United States has initiated a war of aggression, which UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 defines as ‘a crime against international peace’ and which the Nuremberg Tribunal—established by the United States itself—called ‘the supreme international crime,’” the group noted.

Scott Horton: US Commanders Pushing END TIMES IDEOLOGY To Rally Troops

‘We’ll run out of food this week’: Israel’s Iran war brings new Gaza siege

Israel closed all crossings into Gaza indefinitely when it attacked Iran, imposing a siege that has already pushed up food prices and threatens to plunge 2 million people into a new hunger crisis. After more than two years of war, and with Israeli forces in control of about 60% of the territory, almost all of Gaza’s food must be brought in.

Humanitarian groups feeding much of the population say the supplies they had on Saturday, when the war began, will only last a few more days. “If [the borders] stay closed, World Central Kitchen will run out of food this week,” said the organisation’s founder and chief, José Andrés, in a post on social media. “We are cooking 1m hot meals every day. We need food deliveries every single day.”

One international food security expert said there was just a week’s supply of fresh food in Gaza.

Community bakeries that supply some of the most vulnerable people have only enough flour for about 10 days of bread, and there are about two weeks’ supply of aid parcels.

France to increase nuclear arsenal

France will increase the size of its nuclear arsenal for the first time in decades and significantly intensify nuclear weapons cooperation with eight European allies including the UK as part of a “major” strengthening of its deterrence doctrine, Emmanuel Macron has said.

Amid growing concern among European leaders about wavering US commitments to help defend the continent, the French president said on Monday that Paris could deploy nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets to partner countries such as Germany and Poland.

But there would be no sharing of decision-making on the use of the country’s nuclear weapons, he said, with the “ultimate decision” the responsibility of the French president and “the definition of [France’s] vital interests” also remaining “sovereign”.

In a speech delivered from the Île Longue nuclear submarine base in Brittany, Macron said a “period of geopolitical upheaval, fraught with risk” meant France, the EU’s only nuclear power, must strengthen its deterrent “in the face of multiple threats”.

An upgrade of the country’s arsenal was “essential”, Macron said, adding that he had decided to order an increase. France’s estimated 290 nuclear warheads, a number that has not changed since 1992, constitute the world’s fourth largest nuclear arsenal, after Russia, the US and China.

Florida man pays $608 million to kiss Trump's ass.

Ron DeSantis spent $1.2m per day to open and operate ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, spent $1.2m of taxpayers’ money per day to open and operate the notorious immigration jail known as Alligator Alcatraz, court records obtained by the independent investigative news website the Florida Tributary reveal.

A switch in position by Donald Trump’s administration also now looks likely to leave Florida on the hook for at least $608m spent on the harsh Everglades detention and deportation facility and other immigration jails, the outlet said. That was despite gloating by DeSantis in September that the state would be reimbursed from federal funds.

James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s former chief of staff and Florida’s unelected attorney general, admitted last week the possibility that a federal reimbursement grant the governor had insisted was locked in might not be delivered after all.

“[Florida] took the risk (and still does) that federal funding will not materialize,” Uthmeier and fellow defendants conceded in a court filing in a lawsuit brought by Friends of the Everglades and a number of other environmental and civil rights groups. “Promised funds are still only ‘likely’.”

The admission essentially confirms that the DeSantis administration took at face value verbal assurances from the federal government that it would pay the state back, a position the justice department appeared to reverse in its own court filing last month. The department indicated its lawyers had reviewed grant program rules for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and determined that it could disallow some or all of the grant request made by the Florida department of emergency management (Fdem) that operates “Alligator Alcatraz”.

Republican Ryan Zinke to step down as US congressman

Ryan Zinke, a Montana Republican who served as interior secretary during Donald Trump’s first administration, said he would not seek re-election to a fifth term in the US House, citing health concerns. The decision gives Democrats an outside chance to pick up a House seat in a state that has veered to the right politically over the past decade.

Zinke, a former Navy Seal, said in a letter to constituents that he had undergone multiple surgeries in recent years and faced more medical procedures from injuries sustained during his time in the military. He said his condition, which he did not specify, was not life-threatening but required considerable time for recovery.

Several Democrats already had lined up hoping to challenge Zinke in the November election, including former gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse and union organizer Sam Forstag.

During his time at the interior department, Zinke worked to advance Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda and increase oil and gas extraction from government lands.

Supreme court hands Republicans win over preserving New York City voting district

The supreme court on Monday sided with Republicans in ruling that the boundaries of the only GOP-held congressional district in New York City do not need to be redrawn for the 2026 elections, despite a court ruling that the district is unfair to Black and Hispanic residents.

Over the dissent of the court’s three liberal justices, the conservative majority halted the state court ruling that had ordered New York’s redistricting commission to redraw the district held by Nicole Malliotakis that covers Staten Island and a small piece of Brooklyn. The outcome is a victory for Republicans in a national tug-of-war over redistricting that could determine control of the closely divided House of Representatives. Republicans currently hold a razor-thin majority.

New York Republicans and the Trump administration had sought the high court’s intervention. Qualifying for congressional elections in New York began last week.

A judge had ruled that the district was drawn in a way that dilutes the power of its Black and Hispanic voters and had ordered the state’s independent redistricting commission to complete a new map.

The court did not explain its rationale, as is typical in emergency appeals. But Justice Samuel Alito wrote the judge’s ruling under New York’s constitution amounted to “unadorned racial discrimination” in violation of the US constitution.

North Dakota judge finalizes $345m judgment against Greenpeace in pipeline case

A North Dakota judge on Friday finalized a $345m judgment against Greenpeace in a lawsuit pursued by pipeline company Energy Transfer (ET.N) over the environmental group’s role in protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The final judgment by judge James Gion was in line with a decision he issued in October, in which he slashed by almost half a damages award of about $667m that a jury had awarded Energy Transfer in March.

Greenpeace in a statement said it would seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision to the North Dakota supreme court, calling the lawsuit “a blatant attempt to silence free speech”.

“Speaking out against corporations that cause environmental harm should never be deemed unlawful,” Marco Simons, interim general counsel at Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Fund, said in a statement.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Chris Hedges: Hiding ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’

U.S.-China And The Four Week Time-frame For The War On Iran

Commentary On The Iran War, March 2, 2026

Iran War Widens as Iran Attacks Saudi Oil Infrastructure, Israel and Hezbollah Exchange Strikes

Patrick Lawrence: Germany Learns From the IDF

ChatGPT Subscribers Vow Mass Cancellations After Pentagon Deal

Space Force can finally start ‘orbital warfare’ maneuvers with new satellite

‘Cuba’s Next,’ Says Lindsey Graham as Illegal Trump-Israel War on Iran Kills Hundreds

‘The digital colonization of flyover states’: how datacenters are tearing small-town America apart

A Little Night Music

The Valentinos - It's All Over Now

The Valentinos - Lookin' For A Love

The Valentinos - Darling Come On Home

The Valentinos - Yield Not To Temptation

The Valentinos - Everybody Wants To Fall In Love

The Valentinos - Sweeter Than The Day Before

The Valentinos - Tired Of Being Nobody

The Valentinos - Put Me Down Easy

The Valentinos – Baby, Lots Of Luck

The Valentinos - I Found a True Love

Valentinos - Let's Get Together