War. He actually wants the visuals of things blowing up. His advancing psychoses lusts to see it. He has no plan, his minions might, but he does not. We now have a president with a severe psychological condition and advancing dementia combined with a republican congress that will not act. We are in very dangerous times.
Linn...the danger you're describing is real...and you don't need a clinical diagnosis to see the pattern.
The impulse toward spectacle...over strategy...the appetite for dominance visuals...the absence of coherent end-state planning....it's visible in the public record without ANY speculation required.
What concerns me most...as a former military man...is NOT the man at the top. It's the institutional vacuum AROUND him.
Competent people...who would normally function as guardrails...Randy George, others... are GONE.
What's left...are either true believers...or...survivors. Neither category is optimized for telling a president...what he doesn't want to hear.
And I just read that the senate republicans and Fetterman voted against it. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote with the Democrats. So many of the guardrails are gone. It is a dangerous time.
The draft is set to start in December of this year AFTER the midterms. There are petitions you can sign and bc of the timing, they may well work.
The next several months need to be filled with grassroots fundraising, anti-corporate candidates, anti-Establishment Democratic candidates, people who will take up the mantle of the working individual, to build a healthy middle class again.
To defeat the bigots, the misogynists and the fundamentalists, the KKKristian Taliban.
To build a strong, lasting civil rights movement to strengthen women and minority groups. We need to seize the narrative and SHOW how much better we are for the economy and the people.
We need to present the evidence that Democrats are better for America, because it's everywhere. As long as we get and KEEP corporate money, lobbyists and private contractors OUT of our elections.
It’s even more dangerous, I think, because Yrump has been mocked for years about his bone spurs and he seems the need to be the biggest d*ck head on the planet!!!
The human cost is the part that gets buried under the noise cycle... the service members, the families waiting by phones...the communities that will carry these losses for generations. That's not rhetoric. That's the arithmetic...of every decision made from a distance...by people who will NOT pay the price.
Reputation...once spent...doesn't come back on the same timeline it left. Allies take notes. Adversaries take notes. Markets take notes. And the people who warned about any of it get labeled the problem.
Thank you for being here...and...for saying it plainly. Readers like you are why this work matters!
Boy, I’ve been afraid to say it out loud or to put it into words, but it’s time: I SEE IT! And all my neurons are screaming: Vietnam
I’ve been rewatching Ken Burns series on Vietnam this week. The mistakes, cover ups, lives lost, lives destroyed. The carnage that spanned multiple presidencies from both parties, the history of Vietnam, the tenaciously of the Vietnamese and their resiliency……I realize there are notable differences between then and now but there are similarities one cannot brush aside.
For all the faults of the Presidents and their advisors during the years that the Vietnam War raged there is one glaring factor of difference with the Iranian War ~ Yrump and Hogsbreath…..two wannabes who are dangerously unhinged.
The Vietnam parallel has been sitting in the back of my mind as well.
Ken Burns makes it impossible to look away from. The mission creep. The optimistic projections...that kept NOT materializing. The generals...telling presidents what they wanted to hear. The public ...kept just informed enough...to support the next escalation...but never fully briefed on the ACTUAL trajectory.
The differences are real...Iran is not Vietnam geographically...culturally...or militarily.
BUT... the institutional pathology? The gap between what's being said...publicly...and... what's ACTUALLY being built on the ground? The absence of a defined end state? That's the same strain of virus.
Here's where your instinct cuts sharpest: during Vietnam...even the men making catastrophic decisions...McNamara, Rusk, Bundy...were operating from a framework of institutional seriousness. They were tragically wrong. But...they were TRYING to be right.
What we have now...yeah...it's different. You named it.
The 58,000 names on that wall...were put there by men who thought they knew what they were doing.
That's the part that should keep all of us up at night.
I see it. I feel like he will go nuclear and I also feel this will be way worse than Vietnam. All those troops that he doesnt give AF about. SMH. I have had a feeling that something big was going to happen for the last 2 days. I have had anxiety that I dont uzually have. This is the first that Ive allowed myself to look at the news all day.
I want you to know...that feeling you've been carrying the last two days? A lot of readers have written saying the same thing. You're NOT imagining it. When the SIGNALS get this loud...the BODY often picks up on it BEFORE the headlines catch up.
The concern about escalation is legitimate. So is the concern about the troops.
The people making these decisions...are not the ones who will answer the door when the uniformed officers arrive... and that asymmetry...is the thing that ought to weigh on every one of them...FAR MORE than it does.
One thing I'd gently offer... pacing yourself with the news is not avoidance. It's survival. Check in...then step back. This story is going to unfold over weeks...not hours...and you're going to need to still be standing when it matters most.
Grateful you're here. Take care of yourself today.
He's about to make the worst mistake he has made thus fsr...and that's sayi g a lot. China has already warned him
We are isolated on the world stage. We can't fight everybody. Iran will close the Red Sea..they don't BS about such things. The world will ot stand for it. Soldiers are at risk of bring killed for no good reason. jmo.
Your read is tracking with what serious military analysts are saying privately!
China's warning wasn't rhetorical. Beijing doesn't issue public statements like that... without INTENT behind them.
You're right that Iran doesn't bluff on the waterways...they have the mines...the asymmetric capability...and...the motivation. The Red Sea threat is real...and our supply lines know it.
The isolation piece is the one that haunts me most.
We've managed to distance ourselves from the UK, Italy, France...traditional allies who would normally be in this fight beside us.
When Meloni breaks with Washington...and the Pope is defending Iran's right to peace... before we are...something has shifted STRUCTURALLY on the world stage...that won't snap back easily.
Yes...soldiers at risk for an undefined mission...with no clear end state...and a commander in chief who measures success in television visuals.
That's not JMO. That...is PATTERN RECOGNITION... from someone paying close attention.
I'm worried that this isolation from allies was what the designers of Project 2025 wanted, to keep us from fighting back effectively, so he can sell off our nation's assets to the highest bidders.
Doesn't that look like what he's doing, while we're watching the chaos everywhere?
The trained monkeys in the corporate media are reporting on the chaos instead of the financial ruin he's perpetrating.
Sky Blue...the pattern you're drawing is one serious analysts are tracking...and history does offer uncomfortable precedents for leaders who discovered that war...is the most effective interruption of domestic accountability.
Here's where I'd sharpen the argument:
You don't need the Epstein thread to make it land.
The observable FACTS... are damning enough on their own.
A president with mounting legal exposure...a Congress that won't check him...a war with no defined end state...and...midterms approaching. That alignment...alone...is worth scrutinizing...HARD.
The elections piece is the one I'd watch most carefully. Not the cancellation scenario ...that's a high bar...but the disruption scenario. Chaos...extended conflict... emergency powers framing.
That's the more likely play...and...it's ALREADY being set up.
You're asking the right questions. Keep asking them!
I have felt we are on the precipice of a major war since the original bunker buster bombings. Troop and carrier movement adds to that. The Hungary election adds another interesting dynamic to the discussion. Trump's fetish with being the best at all the things he is actually a failure at could push him to prove he is a better dictator than Viktor Orbán. He has already seriously underestimated Iran's resolve, which sounds rather Putin-Ukraine-like. Again, he may see an opportunity to be the better dictator (in his demented mind).
There is another potential dynamic. We have taken out Iran's leadership again and again. One has to think revenge has crossed their mind more than once.
War. He actually wants the visuals of things blowing up. His advancing psychoses lusts to see it. He has no plan, his minions might, but he does not. We now have a president with a severe psychological condition and advancing dementia combined with a republican congress that will not act. We are in very dangerous times.
Linn...the danger you're describing is real...and you don't need a clinical diagnosis to see the pattern.
The impulse toward spectacle...over strategy...the appetite for dominance visuals...the absence of coherent end-state planning....it's visible in the public record without ANY speculation required.
What concerns me most...as a former military man...is NOT the man at the top. It's the institutional vacuum AROUND him.
Competent people...who would normally function as guardrails...Randy George, others... are GONE.
What's left...are either true believers...or...survivors. Neither category is optimized for telling a president...what he doesn't want to hear.
-Jack
And I just read that the senate republicans and Fetterman voted against it. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote with the Democrats. So many of the guardrails are gone. It is a dangerous time.
Agree. It’s the 5 year old living in his head
Too true.
It’s the bastard’s wet dream! It’s the most pernicious son of a bitch you have ever had squatting in the White House, and Kegsbreath is all over it.😡
Agree on all points, Mo.
-Jack
And the draft begins soon. . .
Wasn’t 2A set up for just this type of scenario?
I fear you might be right.
The draft is set to start in December of this year AFTER the midterms. There are petitions you can sign and bc of the timing, they may well work.
The next several months need to be filled with grassroots fundraising, anti-corporate candidates, anti-Establishment Democratic candidates, people who will take up the mantle of the working individual, to build a healthy middle class again.
To defeat the bigots, the misogynists and the fundamentalists, the KKKristian Taliban.
To build a strong, lasting civil rights movement to strengthen women and minority groups. We need to seize the narrative and SHOW how much better we are for the economy and the people.
We need to present the evidence that Democrats are better for America, because it's everywhere. As long as we get and KEEP corporate money, lobbyists and private contractors OUT of our elections.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWPUV6ejcZu/?igsh=MTEydmR4ZGVyYmd3Nw==
The video I wanted to embed is at the link above.
It’s even more dangerous, I think, because Yrump has been mocked for years about his bone spurs and he seems the need to be the biggest d*ck head on the planet!!!
I agree 💯!
What I see is enormous tragedy for service members, their families, and our country. Our reputation is ruined. Our economy is in free fall.
Linda...you're seeing it clearly.
The human cost is the part that gets buried under the noise cycle... the service members, the families waiting by phones...the communities that will carry these losses for generations. That's not rhetoric. That's the arithmetic...of every decision made from a distance...by people who will NOT pay the price.
Reputation...once spent...doesn't come back on the same timeline it left. Allies take notes. Adversaries take notes. Markets take notes. And the people who warned about any of it get labeled the problem.
Thank you for being here...and...for saying it plainly. Readers like you are why this work matters!
#HoldFast
-Jack
Let’s get Barron signed up.
Boy, I’ve been afraid to say it out loud or to put it into words, but it’s time: I SEE IT! And all my neurons are screaming: Vietnam
I’ve been rewatching Ken Burns series on Vietnam this week. The mistakes, cover ups, lives lost, lives destroyed. The carnage that spanned multiple presidencies from both parties, the history of Vietnam, the tenaciously of the Vietnamese and their resiliency……I realize there are notable differences between then and now but there are similarities one cannot brush aside.
For all the faults of the Presidents and their advisors during the years that the Vietnam War raged there is one glaring factor of difference with the Iranian War ~ Yrump and Hogsbreath…..two wannabes who are dangerously unhinged.
Diana...you said it. I'm glad you did.
The Vietnam parallel has been sitting in the back of my mind as well.
Ken Burns makes it impossible to look away from. The mission creep. The optimistic projections...that kept NOT materializing. The generals...telling presidents what they wanted to hear. The public ...kept just informed enough...to support the next escalation...but never fully briefed on the ACTUAL trajectory.
The differences are real...Iran is not Vietnam geographically...culturally...or militarily.
BUT... the institutional pathology? The gap between what's being said...publicly...and... what's ACTUALLY being built on the ground? The absence of a defined end state? That's the same strain of virus.
Here's where your instinct cuts sharpest: during Vietnam...even the men making catastrophic decisions...McNamara, Rusk, Bundy...were operating from a framework of institutional seriousness. They were tragically wrong. But...they were TRYING to be right.
What we have now...yeah...it's different. You named it.
The 58,000 names on that wall...were put there by men who thought they knew what they were doing.
That's the part that should keep all of us up at night.
#HoldFast
-Jack
It makes my heart cry.
I see it. I feel like he will go nuclear and I also feel this will be way worse than Vietnam. All those troops that he doesnt give AF about. SMH. I have had a feeling that something big was going to happen for the last 2 days. I have had anxiety that I dont uzually have. This is the first that Ive allowed myself to look at the news all day.
Shelly...I hear you.
I want you to know...that feeling you've been carrying the last two days? A lot of readers have written saying the same thing. You're NOT imagining it. When the SIGNALS get this loud...the BODY often picks up on it BEFORE the headlines catch up.
The concern about escalation is legitimate. So is the concern about the troops.
The people making these decisions...are not the ones who will answer the door when the uniformed officers arrive... and that asymmetry...is the thing that ought to weigh on every one of them...FAR MORE than it does.
One thing I'd gently offer... pacing yourself with the news is not avoidance. It's survival. Check in...then step back. This story is going to unfold over weeks...not hours...and you're going to need to still be standing when it matters most.
Grateful you're here. Take care of yourself today.
#HoldFast
-Jack
Thank you. I just check in once a day now. I will remain standing. Its too important not to be
He's about to make the worst mistake he has made thus fsr...and that's sayi g a lot. China has already warned him
We are isolated on the world stage. We can't fight everybody. Iran will close the Red Sea..they don't BS about such things. The world will ot stand for it. Soldiers are at risk of bring killed for no good reason. jmo.
Sher'...not just your opinion.
Your read is tracking with what serious military analysts are saying privately!
China's warning wasn't rhetorical. Beijing doesn't issue public statements like that... without INTENT behind them.
You're right that Iran doesn't bluff on the waterways...they have the mines...the asymmetric capability...and...the motivation. The Red Sea threat is real...and our supply lines know it.
The isolation piece is the one that haunts me most.
We've managed to distance ourselves from the UK, Italy, France...traditional allies who would normally be in this fight beside us.
When Meloni breaks with Washington...and the Pope is defending Iran's right to peace... before we are...something has shifted STRUCTURALLY on the world stage...that won't snap back easily.
Yes...soldiers at risk for an undefined mission...with no clear end state...and a commander in chief who measures success in television visuals.
That's not JMO. That...is PATTERN RECOGNITION... from someone paying close attention.
#HoldFast
-Jack
Thank you Jack. It's bone chilling. ✌️
Good eye, Sher’.
I'm worried that this isolation from allies was what the designers of Project 2025 wanted, to keep us from fighting back effectively, so he can sell off our nation's assets to the highest bidders.
Doesn't that look like what he's doing, while we're watching the chaos everywhere?
The trained monkeys in the corporate media are reporting on the chaos instead of the financial ruin he's perpetrating.
war (i see it)
putin and netanyahu STARTED and PERPETUATED a WAR to stay IN POWER and OUT of PRISON!!
trump IS doing the SAME THING NOW with his TRUMP-EPSTEIN WAR in Iran!
trump NEEDS a WAR to STOP ELECTIONS!!
Sky Blue...the pattern you're drawing is one serious analysts are tracking...and history does offer uncomfortable precedents for leaders who discovered that war...is the most effective interruption of domestic accountability.
Here's where I'd sharpen the argument:
You don't need the Epstein thread to make it land.
The observable FACTS... are damning enough on their own.
A president with mounting legal exposure...a Congress that won't check him...a war with no defined end state...and...midterms approaching. That alignment...alone...is worth scrutinizing...HARD.
The elections piece is the one I'd watch most carefully. Not the cancellation scenario ...that's a high bar...but the disruption scenario. Chaos...extended conflict... emergency powers framing.
That's the more likely play...and...it's ALREADY being set up.
You're asking the right questions. Keep asking them!
#HoldFast
-Jack
thanks both! love this intelligent community ☺️
Epstein, midterms interruption
ABSOLUTELY, Paul!
All out ground war and our soldiers are just fodder. The chicken hawks are strutting themselves.
The “chicken hawks” indeed!!
I see it. Theater. Ill-advised action. Backtracking. Magical thinking from the R's. Gaslighting the rest of us.
I see it. Escalation.
WAR
I see it, and sincerely wish I didn't.
Carnage
Timebomb
War. He wants to see things blow up. It’s the 5 year old living in his brain. And no adult to stop him
At some level, he knows he’s dying. Why not blow things up and watch the “fun”? Like he watched the J6 riot.
So true!
I have felt we are on the precipice of a major war since the original bunker buster bombings. Troop and carrier movement adds to that. The Hungary election adds another interesting dynamic to the discussion. Trump's fetish with being the best at all the things he is actually a failure at could push him to prove he is a better dictator than Viktor Orbán. He has already seriously underestimated Iran's resolve, which sounds rather Putin-Ukraine-like. Again, he may see an opportunity to be the better dictator (in his demented mind).
There is another potential dynamic. We have taken out Iran's leadership again and again. One has to think revenge has crossed their mind more than once.
Yep I see it too. Thx for the heads up.