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"Over the past weekend, some apologists for President Donald Trump’s recently ordered attacks on Iran argued that because Trump’s plans call for a quick strike, the attacks do not constitute a war. George Orwell is vindicated yet again."

-- Andrew Napolitano

News and Opinion

Iran Is Morally Superior To The United States

Iran is better than the United States. The United States is worse than Iran.

This is true not because Iran is especially good, but because the United States is especially evil.

Iran isn’t blanketing a major metropolis with military explosives, killing over a thousand people including hundreds of children. The United States is doing this with its partner in crime Israel.

Iran isn’t continuously bombing and invading countries around the world, toppling governments, circling the globe with hundreds of military bases, targeting civilian populations with siege warfare and brandishing nuclear weapons at its enemies in the name of securing planetary domination. Only the United States is.

The US empire is the single most murderous and tyrannical power structure on earth, by an extremely massive margin. No one else comes anywhere remotely close. Not Iran. Not anybody. Every government in the world is morally superior to the most evil government, and the most evil government is the United States.

Whenever I say this I get US empire apologists going “We’re only the ones fighting the wars and dropping the bombs because we happen to be the ones with the power to do so!”

But that’s false. The US isn’t the world’s most vicious government because it happens to be the most powerful, it’s the most powerful government because it’s the most vicious. It’s the power structure which was willing to do whatever it takes to rule the world, no matter how profoundly evil.

Genocides. Starvation sanctions. Nuclear brinkmanship. Imperialist extraction. The deliberate creation of failed states and humanitarian catastrophes. Policies designed to keep entire regions in a continuous state of division and strife. The United States and the globe-spanning empire structured around it have inflicted depravities upon our species which cry out to the heavens for vengeance. If you could truly comprehend the scale of the suffering it has created over the years, even for a second, you would never stop screaming.

Another objection I’ll encounter when I make these observations is “Well, I’d rather live in the US than Iran!”

And it says so much about the western worldview that people think this is an argument. Sure it’s probably nicer to live in the United States than Iran, especially now, and certainly ever since the US has been deliberately strangling the Iranian economy with the explicitly stated goal of making its citizenry so miserable they wage a civil war against their government.

But it’s so revealing that westerners see someone saying Iran is better than the United States and think it’s a statement about where they personally would prefer to live, because it shows how completely invisible US warmongering is in their worldview. Washington’s acts of mass military slaughter simply do not count as immoral or abusive behavior in their eyes, because they are being inflicted on foreigners overseas. So they automatically assume the comparison is asking which country would make your feelings feel nicer to live in as an individual.

The fact that the US government happens to export the majority of its abusiveness to other countries outside its own borders doesn’t make it any less murderous and tyrannical, it just means the people bearing the brunt of its savagery happen to live in other places. Their lives don’t matter any less than American lives, and only a warped, American supremacist worldview would feel otherwise.

The US government is quantifiably morally inferior to the Iranian government. It is quantifiably more tyrannical, more murderous, more destructive, and more megalomaniacal. It is the very last power structure on earth that should have any say in who leads Iran and how the Iranians ought to conduct their affairs. It is not morally qualified to be making those decisions.

Congress BACKS IRAN WAR: Massie UNLOADS, Schumer CAVES

Senate votes down resolution to prevent Trump from continuing war with Iran

Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted down an attempt to require Donald Trump receive Congress’s permission before continuing the war with Iran, batting aside concerns from Democrats that the campaign is illegal and risks plunging the United States into a prolonged conflict. The 47-53 vote on a war powers resolution introduced by Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine broke largely along party lines. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the sole Democrat to vote against the measure, while Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only member of the Republican majority to support the resolution.

The measure would have forced an end to the US air and naval campaign against Iran and require the president to go to Congress before re-entering the war. Before the vote, Democratic senator Chris Murphy said the resolution was necessary to prevent Trump from repeating in Iran the follies of previous US presidents in Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere.

The measure would have forced an end to the US air and naval campaign against Iran and require the president to go to Congress before re-entering the war. ...

The House of Representatives will on Thursday vote on a war powers resolution introduced by Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna, but it faces similarly dim odds. The chamber’s Republican leaders oppose the resolution, with Speaker Mike Johnson warning it would be “dangerous” to suddenly halt US participation in hostilities that remain ongoing.

Larry Johnson: Ground Troops, False Flags & Weapons Shortages

US submarine sinks Iranian warship as conflict spreads beyond Middle East

A torpedo fired by a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the south coast of Sri Lanka as the Trump administration followed through on its threats to destroy Tehran’s military and political leadership. At least 87 Iranian sailors were killed in the attack on the Iris Dena on Wednesday. The frigate was sailing in international waters as it returned from a naval exercise organised by India in the Bay of Bengal. The torpedo strike prompted questions from former US officials about whether Washington’s aim of eliminating all of Iran’s military breached international law.

The incident came as the US-Israeli air assault on Iran continued for a fifth day, with Washington officials warning that strikes would soon hit targets “deeper” in Iran. US forces also targeted pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that it would continue missile and drone strikes on targets throughout the Middle East. ...

[The torpedo strike] is in fact one of only a few instances of a submarine sinking a ship since the second world war, and a rare example of an attack on a foreign warship not taking part in open hostilities. According to Sri Lanka’s foreign affairs minister, Vijitha Herath, coastguards received a distress call from the Iris Dena at 5.08am on Wednesday. Crew members described the incident as an explosion. “By 6am we dispatched a naval vessel and by 7am the second naval vessel,” Herath said. He said Sri Lanka had an obligation to respond to the call for help because it was a signatory to the international convention on maritime search and rescue.

Sri Lankan officials said they had saved 32 people from the ship, which was believed to be carrying 180 crew. Emergency responders retrieved 87 bodies from the water. Navy spokesperson Buddhika Sampath said rescue boats arrived at the site of the attack to find that the Iranian frigate had already sunk, leaving just an oil slick.

CIA Caught In Iran Invasion PSYOP

Israel strikes Tehran and Beirut as Iran vows ‘complete destruction’ in region

Israel has carried out a wave of airstrikes on Iranian security targets and Hezbollah in Beirut as Tehran threatened the “complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure”, as the rapidly escalating war entered its fifth day and reached as far as the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka.

The Israeli military said it had hit buildings in Iran belonging to the Basij, the volunteer police arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and buildings belonging to internal security forces. Police stations and IRGC headquarters in the Kurdish regions of north-western Iran were also razed by strikes, Kurdish media reported.

Iran’s security structures have been instrumental in putting down protest movements in the past, and the US has urged Iranians to overthrow the country’s government. Washington has also reportedly been exploring the possibility of using Kurdish separatist groups to invade parts of Iran and establish a safe zone in the predominantly Kurdish groups in the north-west.

The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Wednesday signalled a longer time frame for the conflict than has previously been floated by the Trump administration, saying it could last eight weeks but that the US has the munitions and the equipment to beat Iran in a war of attrition. “You can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three,” he said. “Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo.”

It came as the IRGC said it would continue to hit US allies across the region. “The continued mischief and deception by the United States in the region will come at the cost of the complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure,” it said in a statement to state media.

Iran War: 'It is so much worse than you thought'

Israel flagged Hezbollah threat before launching air attacks, leaked memo shows

An internal US assessment indicates that Israeli officials had doubts that the Lebanese state could disarm Hezbollah even before Israel launched an aerial campaign against the group on Monday. The leaked embassy cable shows that on the eve of the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Israeli officials had told Washington that Hezbollah was reconstituting its military capabilities faster than the Lebanese armed forces could degrade them. It said neither Beirut nor Damascus could be trusted to contain the threat on Israel’s northern borders.

The 27 February cable, seen by the Guardian, was sent to Washington a day before Israel and the US launched their aerial campaign against Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and prompting Tehran to launch retaliatory strikes across the region. Three days after the US cable was sent, Israel launched the first of a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah-dominated areas in southern Beirut.

The cable indicated that Israel doubted Syria’s new leaders could control their own security forces and was “gravely” alarmed by Turkish military entrenchment in Syria, which it warned could create a strategic threat to Israel’s north. It also claimed that Turkish officials had “repeatedly incited against Israel in Syria” even while Israeli and Turkish national security officials maintained “de-confliction” agreements. The cable said this suggested Ankara was pursuing a dual track – managing relations with Tel Aviv privately while positioning itself militarily in Syria at Israel’s expense.

The cable was intended as a background briefing for the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, before a trip to Israel that was later cancelled. It was written under the auspices of the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Trump’s War: What Washington Doesn’t See

US may not have capacity to take down full barrage of Iranian drones, officials warn

Top military officials told lawmakers in a closed door briefing on Tuesday that they may not be able to shoot down every Iranian drone being launched against US military installations and assets in retaliatory attacks, according to two people familiar with the matter. The officials, led by the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, said Iran has been deploying thousands of one-way attack drones and while they have capacity to take down the vast majority but not all of the barrage.

As a result, the officials said in a classified briefing for lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the US was focused on destroying the launch sites for the drones and conventional missiles as quickly as possible. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

In retaliation against US strikes, Iran has been launching its low-cost, one-way attack Shahed drones. By flying low and slow, the drones are seen to be better able to evade conventional air defenses than ballistic missiles. A senior administration official said Iran’s apparent drone strategy – to get the US to sacrifice its most sophisticated Patriot and Thaad interceptors – was misguided and unsuccessful because the US has been downing the drones with several different measures.

Still, top Democrats in Congress have expressed concerns the US has been burning through interceptors to defend against ballistic missiles launched by Iran. Caine acknowledged that concern, a person familiar with the matter said, even as he expressed confidence in stockpile levels in public. “We have sufficient precision munitions for the task at hand, both on the offense and defense,” Caine said at a news conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday morning, although he offered no details or specifics.

The high rate of fire has been expensive. In the first days of the war, the US spent about $2bn per day, although that figure has dropped to closer to $1bn and is expected to fall further as the conflict continues, according to a person familiar with a preliminary defense department analysis.

Max Blumenthal : Gaza-like Horror in Tehran

Pete Hegseth says US is ‘investigating’ deadly strike on girls’ school in Iran

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, offered few details and was evasive when asked about the deadly strike on a girls’ school in Iran, saying only that the US was “investigating” the incident. Iranian officials say the attack, which happened on Saturday, killed at least 165 students.

“All I can say is we’re investigating that,” Hegseth said when asked about the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab. “We, of course, never target civilian targets, but we’re taking a look and investigating that.” The school was struck on the first day of US and Israeli attacks on Iran. In addition to the many killed, Iranian state media also reported that 96 others were injured, many of them students attending classes at the Shajareh Tayyebeh school.

On Tuesday, the United Nations human rights office called on what it described as “the forces behind a deadly attack on a girls’ school in Iran” to conduct an investigation and provide information about the incident, though it did not identify who it believed was responsible.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, had previously raised the matter with Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, in a letter dated 1 March, describing the attack as “unjustifiable” and “criminal”.

The UN committee on the rights of the child said in a statement that “the committee is alarmed by reports of strikes on civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, which have injured and traumatised children, and claimed many young lives”. Children must be protected from war, the committee added.

Iran attrition war. LNG supply crunch

Sam Altman admits OpenAI can’t control Pentagon’s use of AI

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, told employees on Tuesday that his company does not control how the Pentagon uses their artificial intelligence products in military operations. Altman’s claims on OpenAI’s lack of input come amid increased scrutiny of how the military uses AI in war and ethics concerns from AI workers over how their technology will be deployed. “You do not get to make operational decisions,” Altman told employees, according to reports by Bloomberg and CNBC. “So maybe you think the Iran strike was good and the Venezuela invasion was bad. You don’t get to weigh in on that,” Altman reportedly said. ...

Anthropic, OpenAI’s rival and maker of the Claude chatbot, last week refused a deal with the Pentagon over concerns its model could be used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, declared the company a “supply-chain risk” as a result. ... On the same day that Hegseth vowed punitive measures against Anthropic, the Pentagon also announced a deal with OpenAI that was seemingly intended to replace the use of Claude in military applications. The timing of the deal and concerns that OpenAI had agreed to cross ethical lines that Anthropic refused led to both public and internal employee backlash against OpenAI. ...

Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, lambasted Altman as “mendacious” in a memo to employees on Wednesday and accused Altman of giving “dictator-style praise to Trump” , the Information reported. “We’ve actually held our red lines with integrity rather than colluding with them to produce ‘safety theater’ for the benefit of employees (which, I absolutely swear to you, is what literally everyone at [the Pentagon], Palantir, our political consultants, etc, assumed was the problem we were trying to solve),” Amodei reportedly wrote.

Half of Americans back abolishing ICE amid Trump crackdown, poll finds

Half of Americans support the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, a new poll has found, as opposition to Donald Trump’s aggressive federal immigration crackdown continues to grow. The analysis by YouGov revealed that exactly 50% of respondents “strongly or somewhat” want to see the agency dismantled, a 5% rise from a January poll taken between the deaths in Minnesota of US citizen protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration officers.

Only 39% said they opposed abolishing ICE, a significant drop from January when those for and against were evenly split at 45%. The latest poll is the first time that the number of Americans calling for scrapping the agency, a frequent demand of leftwing Democrats, has reached 50%, YouGov said. It mirrors an NBC poll last month that showed 49% disapproval of Trump’s handling of border security and immigration, traditionally a vote winner from his Republican base.

The revelation comes amid an ongoing partial government shutdown over funding of the homeland security department responsible for implementing the Trump administration’s often violent detention and deportation policies.

It also follows a rocky appearance before Congress on Tuesday by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who came under fire from representatives on both sides of the House. She was challenged on her handling of immigration matters, and the fatal shootings during anti-immigration enforcement protests in Minneapolis of Good, on 7 January by an ICE agent, and Pretti 17 days later by officers from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Noem refused to retract her statements calling the two unarmed protesters “domestic terrorists”, despite presenting no evidence to support the assertion.

Epstein-linked Leon Black waged bid to ‘silence’ law firm and accusers, suit says

A law firm that represented multiple women who accused former Jeffrey Epstein associate Leon Black of sexual misconduct alleged in a Manhattan civil suit on Monday that the powerful financier deployed “multiple frivolous and malicious lawsuits” as retaliation for representing these accusers. Wigdor LLP claimed Black, who co-founded and formerly chaired Apollo Global Management, tried “to use his billions to buy his own form of justice” and “to weaponize the civil justice system to silence and destroy those who seek to hold him to account for alleged sexual assault”. Black has emphatically denied all wrongdoing. ...

Wigdor’s suit against Black, filed in New York county supreme court, cites recently disclosed Epstein investigative files that appear to show Epstein plotting with the powerful Wall Street lawyer Brad Karp to try to arrange Black accuser Guzel Ganieva’s deportation. While Epstein and Karp’s discussions did not result in deportation, these 2015 emails also reveal discussions about coordinated surveillance on Ganieva and whether she could be jailed. Epstein on 29 July 2015 wrote to Karp: “Is it possible for your contacts to 1 get her current visa status ? 2. Is there a way for us to file something that would revoke a tourist visa?” Several hours later, Karp responded: “Both good ideas; will work on this.”

These messages indicated that the woman was bothering an Epstein associate with the name “Leon”. Epstein said on 16 August 2015: “can you tell me for certain that if leon decides enough is enough, ( she has not responded to an email from him that says i am checking on you). that you and lorin can have her arrested.!! fed extortion, high bail. . maybe deportation?” While Lorin’s surname is not mentioned in these documents, a lawyer with the name Lorin Reisner, who went to the white-shoe firm Paul Weiss approximately a year before these Epstein-Karp exchanges, had previously led the Manhattan federal prosecutor office’s criminal section. Karp suggested in an email that “Lorin’s” connections might move the needle in regards to Ganieva. “I’ll check again with lorin, but my strong belief is that the answer is yes. Especially with the referral coming from the most recent head of the sdny usao,” Karp said on 16 August 2015.

Karp stepped down from his top role at Paul Weiss earlier this year after his correspondence with Epstein surfaced. ... Wigdor claims Black’s lawsuits violate New York state’s anti-Slapp (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law, which is designed to protect individuals and organizations from frivolous lawsuits. The complaint states that of the three lawsuits Black filed against the firm, two were dismissed and one is still pending.

Pam Bondi subpoenaed by US House in Jeffrey Epstein investigation

Five Republicans on the House oversight committee joined with Democrats to subpoena the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, as part of the ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

The House oversight committee voted 24-19 to approve a motion introduced by Republican representative Nancy Mace to compel Bondi to testify. In addition to Mace, Republican representatives Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Michael Cloud of Texas, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania voted for the motion.

The motion comes amid growing criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle of the Department of Justice’s failures regarding the Epstein files, including accidentally releasing the names of survivors and redacting, without explanation, the names of people who may have committed crimes.

Global sea levels have been underestimated due to poor modelling

Sea levels around the world have been underestimated due to inaccurate modelling, with research suggesting ocean levels are far higher than previously understood. The finding could significantly affect assessments of the future impacts of global heating and the effects on coastal settlements.

Globally, the research found ocean levels are an average of 30cm higher than previously believed, but in some areas of the global south, including south-east Asia and the Indo-Pacific, they may be 100-150cm higher than previously thought.

The latest research, published in Nature, combined the analysis of 385 pieces of peer-reviewed scientific literature released between 2009 and 2025 with calculations of the difference between the commonly assumed and actual measured coastal sea levels.

The new calculations reveal that following a relative sea level rise of 1 metre, it is estimated that 37% more coastal areas will fall below sea level, affecting up to 132 million individuals.

“If sea level is higher for your particular island or coastal city than was previously assumed, the impacts from sea level rise will happen sooner than projected before,” said [study author Dr Philip] Minderhoud.

Syngenta says it will stop making pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease

Syngenta, maker of a controversial pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease, said on Tuesday that it would stop making its paraquat weed killer by the end of June.

The announcement comes as the company is facing several thousand lawsuits brought by people in the US who allege they developed Parkinson’s disease due to their exposure to Syngenta’s paraquat products

The company did not mention the litigation in its announcement. The announcement cites “significant competition” from generic producers of paraquat and a “less than 1 percent” contribution to the company’s global sales as reasons for exiting the paraquat business.

Asked if the decision was due to the litigation, the company said it was a commercial decision and that it was not making further comments.

Also of Interest

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

Donald Trump’s Unjust and Unconstitutional War

Hegseth Brags of ‘Death and Destruction’ as US and Israeli Airstrikes Massacre Over 1,000 Civilians in Iran

Iran War: More on Why US/Israel Success Impossible as Israel and US Operations Take More Hits, Trump Proposes Unhinged Strait of Hormuz Escort Scheme, Western Media Misinforming Public

DAY 4 RECAP: ATTACK ON IRAN

Trump administration waging illegal war on Iran, experts say

Washington’s criminal war on Iran rapidly expanding throughout the Middle East and drawing in imperialist powers

White House Expected To Ask Congress for Extra $50 Billion for Iran War

War On Iran – Hormuz Escorts, Kurds, Time-frame

Israel Gives ‘Mass Expulsion Order’ to Civilians as It Invades Southern Lebanon

Eleven Killed as Israel Pounds Christian-Majority Area of Beirut

Blackout in Cuba leaves millions without power amid US oil chokehold

AI & New Social Media Rules Are Strangling Independent Sites

Hezbollah Goes For Israel Defence Core, Attacks Iron Dome Headquarters, Missile Base

Lindsey Graham: Iran is "HOLY WAR!" to Remake Middle East

A Little Night Music

Tommy Tucker - Long Tall Shorty

Tommy Tucker - Alimony

Tommy Tucker - It Hurts Me Too

Tommy Tucker - Mo' Shorty

Tommy Trucker - Walkin' The Dog

Tommy Trucker - Hard Luck Blues

Tommy Trucker - Don't Want 'Cha

Tommy Tucker - Drunk

Tommy Tucker - Hi-Heel Sneakers