It is crazy with all of the lies the political left told about Trump, and now they get to say, “See.  We told you all along that he was a nutcase.”  The problem is that they still made up a bunch of stuff and mostly opposed him for the wrong reasons.

There were very few people who were saying that Russiagate was a hoax, that many of Trump’s enemies are horrible people, and that Trump is still a nutcase.  Those people can brag about being right.

Trump was not this much of a nutcase in his first term (2017 to 2020).  He certainly had many issues and did some bad things, but he looks comparably sane back then compared to now.

Trump has become completely unhinged.  He has surrounded himself with the worst people imaginable while pushing away any kind of constructive criticism meant to help him and help the country.

He went from calling for world peace to kidnapping the president and his wife of Venezuela, to threatening to take Greenland by military force, to now an all-out war against Iran.

Almost nobody in this world is happy about the war started in Iran and the greater Middle East.  The war hawks like Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin are happy.  Netanyahu is happy, or at least he was when the attacks first began.  Perhaps the people living in Greenland are happy because it takes the heat off of them.

Aside from that, it is just catastrophe everywhere.  Trump made his bed, and now he gets to lay in it.

The Roller Coaster of Trump’s Mind

Trump said last summer that they obliterated Iran’s nuclear capacity.  Then, in early 2026, all of a sudden, Iran is two weeks away from getting a nuclear weapon.  How many times has Iran been just weeks away from getting a nuclear weapon over the last 25 years?

Trump said a few days ago that the war (or whatever they are calling it) is winding down.  Then, a day later, he issues an ultimatum for Iran that they better open up the Strait of Hormuz or the U.S. would attack Iran’s power plants.  Is this winding things down?

Iranian officials are now openly mocking Trump.  They don’t have much to lose at this point since they are being targeted and constantly bombed anyway.  They told Trump to go ahead and attack their power facilities and they would target Israel’s infrastructure along with major energy plants in countries in the Middle East that host U.S. military bases.  This could include attacking water desalination facilities that provide water for many millions of people.

Then Trump backed down again saying that he was making great progress in talks with Iran and that he wouldn’t follow through yet on his previous threat of attacking Iranian energy plants.

Iranian officials are again mocking Trump.  They are openly saying that there are no discussions.  I think most people believe the Iranian officials.  Trump had no way out of his original threat except to make up a lie.  He didn’t want to look weak, so he just lied about it.

While Iran is suffering the most death and destruction, they are essentially winning the war.  Trump is a very damaged man.  This is also a very dangerous situation given that he is a complete narcissist and may have some early form of dementia.

Where Does This End?

The markets were celebrating today, but we shouldn’t assume this thing is winding down, even if Trump is looking for an off ramp.  Iran has been violently attacked at least twice now while in the middle of negotiations. It might even be three times if you count Trump’s first term.  The worst thing Trump did in his first term as president was tear up the Iran deal and then kill Qasem Soleimani, who was actually trying to negotiate a peace deal in Iraq when he was assassinated.

Who would possibly want to sit down and negotiate with Trump and his thugs at this point?  Fool me once, shame on you.  I don’t think there is a “Fool me four times” saying.  Iranian officials would have to be insane to sit down and negotiate at this point.  Their negotiation with Trump should be, “Remove all military bases from the Middle East and stop sending money and weapons to Israel.  Then, and only then, maybe we’ll think about stopping our missiles.”

It is hard living in a war zone, to say the least.  It is hard to judge.  But I just don’t think Iran is coming to the negotiating table any time soon, even if Trump is looking for an off ramp.

Trump made this mess.  He wasn’t forced to do this by Israel.  He could have just said “no”.  We all have free will.  Maybe they are blackmailing him.  But that is still Trump’s choice to be blackmailed.  If they are threatening his family, then just resign.

There are no excuses left for Trump.  He is a war criminal.  He didn’t have to do this.  He doesn’t have to hand over money and weapons to Israel.  He doesn’t have to go to war on behalf of Israel and his war hawk advisors at home.  But he did, and now he gets to go down as one of the worst presidents of all time, and that is saying a lot.

The FOMC released its latest statement on monetary policy.  The Fed will maintain its target interest rate between 3.5% and 3.75%.  This was widely expected.

Last year, the Fed used tariffs as an excuse not to be too aggressive in lowering interest rates.  Now they are using the price of oil as an excuse because it may cause higher prices.

Perhaps Jerome Powell and the Fed should stop using these excuses and just say that they don’t want to lower interest rates more because consumer price inflation is still coming in higher than their supposed 2% target.

Do Higher Oil Prices Cause Inflation?

This is part of the problem of this switch in definition of inflation.  Inflation used to mean an increase in the supply of money.  The central bankers and defenders of economic intervention changed the definition of inflation to higher prices.  Higher prices is actually one of the results of monetary inflation.

Now they can get away with just saying that higher oil prices cause inflation.  This is not necessarily correct in either sense.  Higher oil prices do not directly cause an increase in monetary inflation.  Only the Fed and the commercial banks using fractional reserve lending can cause monetary inflation.

Higher oil prices do not even necessarily cause higher consumer price inflation.  It will increase the cost of energy.  It may increase the cost of food and other items that require significant transportation.

This impacts the average person and reduces their living standards because most people need to buy food and gasoline for their car.  This also means they have less money to spend elsewhere.

This could reduce people’s savings in the short term.  But the bulk of the difference will likely be reduced expenditures elsewhere.

Now that you are paying more for food and gas, you might decide to eat out less.  You might decide to not buy that new sweater.  Maybe you will decide to forgo the kitchen remodel.

Therefore, prices in other sectors should actually fall where there is reduced demand.  This is assuming that there isn’t new money entering the system.

And therefore, it can be argued that rising oil prices is not a reason for the Fed to be concerned about inflation.  There are other reasons they should be concerned, but that revolves around government spending and the central bank’s own policies.

War is Inflationary

War is harmful in almost every way possible.  The worst thing is the death.  The next worst thing is the massive destruction of property, particularly buildings where people live and do business.

Maybe one could argue that it isn’t a loss if a government facility is destroyed, but even here, it would be better to just sell it off to the highest bidder.  Plus, governments will probably just spend money to rebuild.

War is really absurd when you see different sides just shooting missiles at each other.  It is just causing death and destruction with seemingly no benefit.  Of course, the main blame goes towards those who started lobbing the missiles without a morally valid reason.

If all of that isn’t bad enough, we get the cultural and economic rot on top of it.  The U.S. government is in debt to the tune of almost $40 trillion.  Spending a few billion dollars extra every single day on an unnecessary and immoral war is the icing on the nightmare cake.

The government can’t even come close to paying for its spending with tax collections alone.  It relies heavily on debt and monetary inflation.  That is the only way this war against Iran will paid for.  It will be even more debt and more inflation than we already have.

While the price of gold has pulled back a little from its all-time high, it is hard to imagine that it won’t be hitting new all-time highs again soon, unless we go into a severe recession.  Even then, it’s not so clear.

On top of the increased spending and monetary inflation, the U.S. dollar could be in for some more trouble. Trump completely underestimated the Iranian response to the attacks, and then he had to start begging other countries to help open the oil shipping lanes.  The other countries either didn’t give a response or said “no”.  They don’t want to be pulled into this mess any more.

Trump is truly doing his best to isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world.  The rest of the world is tired of being bullied.  They don’t want to fight a military war with the U.S., but they can fight an economic war.  That means stopping the use of dollars in world trade.  They are realizing that they are better off avoiding the use of dollars when possible.

This will also be inflationary as excess dollars return to the U.S.  It will increase the price of gold in terms of U.S. dollars.

When Will the War End?

Trump can declare victory all he wants.  He can even stop bombing Iran.  But that doesn’t mean Iran has to stop throwing missiles at Israel and its Gulf neighbors.  It doesn’t mean that Iran has to open the shipping lanes for oil.  Iran can only do so much fighting against the U.S. militarily.

What Iran can do even more effective is to fight the U.S. economically.  And that is exactly what they are doing.  They are causing significant pain for the American consumer.  The average American was already feeling the pinch by their standards.

Remember in 2022 when you went to the gas pump with high prices?  Sometimes there would be a sticker with Biden’s picture saying “I did that.”  Now you could do the exact same thing with Trump’s picture.  Any adult with a functioning brain can realize that they are paying significantly more at the gas pump because Trump chose to bomb Iran.  There is little question of the correlation here.

Maybe some idiots will say it is worth it because we are getting the terrorists.  There are a lot of slogans being repeated from 2003.  But for the majority of Americans, they can understand that this was a war of choice, and it directly led to higher gas prices at the pump.  If they don’t get upset at over 100 school girls being murdered in Iran, they might at least get upset that it costs 35% more to fill up their car.

This could get a lot worse before it gets better.  Iran didn’t want this war.  Despite the problems there, it is a beautiful country with many kind people.  They don’t want this.  They have been left little choice but to fight back after being attacked multiple times by Israel and the U.S.

There is little motivation for Iranian officials to negotiate.  The last two times they tried to negotiate, they were attacked while in the middle of negotiations.  Why would anyone want to try to negotiate with Trump’s crew at this point?

This is why it might take a while for the conflict to end.  There is the potential for the price of oil to go much higher from here.  The one thing that is almost guaranteed is that there will be even more monetary inflation down the line.

• Trump keeps acting like he wants to negotiate his way out of this war.  It is kind of difficult when you killed the Ayatollah and many top Iranian officials, along with the people who you thought might be good replacements.
• Trump is not just evil in what he has done.  He has also shown just how stupid he can be.  He completely underestimated the Iranian response and how difficult it would be to stop the conflict once it began.
• Why doesn’t the government report on the damage done to U.S. air bases?  Is it because they have been flattened by Iranian missiles?
• You have to wonder if Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and other countries are questioning their relationship with the U.S.
• The Trump administration was supposedly negotiating with Iran in 2025 when Israel bombed Iran.  The U.S. joined in shortly after that.  The “negotiations” were happening again this last time when both the U.S. and Israel struck Iran.  If you were Xi or Putin, would you really want to talk to Trump or anyone else with the U.S. government at this point?  It seems like Trump’s idea of negotiations is “we’ll just pull a sneak attack and bomb you in the middle of negotiations.”
• We have no idea how much this will impact the flow of oil.  Maybe a global depression will help offset the rising cost of oil.
• The Ayatollah that was killed promised that Iran would never seek nuclear weapons.  Now his son has replaced him after having most of his family killed.  Do you think he might just be a bit more radicalized than his father?  How many people wouldn’t want revenge?
• When the U.S. attacked Iraq, Saddam and company lobbed a few scud missiles toward Israel.  They could do a little bit of damage.  They were not accurate.  Iran is a whole new ballgame.  The Iranian missiles are far more high-tech and powerful.  They also seem to be quite accurate at times.
• Tom Woods has had a saying for a long time now: “No matter who you vote for, you always get John McCain.”  I am seeing variations of that appear a lot these days.  Sometimes the people saying it don’t even know where it came from.
• I have commented before that, with the MAGA/ America First crowd, we are not going back to the Republican Party of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  I was completely wrong there.  It is astounding how many “MAGA” people are supporting Trump’s war against Iran, along with all of his other bombings, invasions, and threatened invasions.
• The good news is that a majority of people are against this war.  While the hardcore MAGA bots have mostly stayed with Trump, there is a decent sized group who voted for Trump who don’t like what he’s doing now.  Not everybody who voted for Trump identifies as MAGA.  There were probably at least 10 million people who voted for Trump because they hated Biden and wanted to repudiate his administration.  (Kamala Harris said in her campaign that she wouldn’t have done anything different from Biden.)
• The U.S. empire weakens by the day.  But like a wounded animal, it is very dangerous when fighting for its life.
• I saw the warning signs of the Trump administration in March 2025.  They started arresting/ kidnapping legal immigrants for being critical of the state of Israel.  This is not what most people had in mind when Trump talked about cracking down on immigration.  If the feds will arrest people for speech critical of Israel, it is a really bad sign for what’s to come.  I don’t think this got enough attention at the time.
• There are a lot of people on the left whom I find I agree with these days in their criticisms of Trump.  Of course, they still get things wrong in what they say, and I don’t trust them for anything.  They were still wrong and/or lying about Russiagate, Trump telling people to drink bleach, etc.  Just because Trump is evil, it doesn’t make the leftists right on everything they say against Trump.  It also doesn’t make everything wrong that Trump does.  The left will use anything against Trump.  It just so happens that starting a massive war and turning the entire Middle East into chaos is an easy issue to win for the left.
• JD Vance is finished.  There is almost no way he becomes president unless Trump dies in office or is impeached and removed as president.
• Ask your MAGA/ Republican friends the following: What if Kamala Harris were president and started a war against Iran the exact same way that Trump has done and with the same results?  Would you support her on this effort?

This is an issue that most people just don’t think about much.  When they do think about it, it isn’t deep.

Unfortunately, many Americans view war as something of a video game.  More people are starting to understand that there is a cost to war, but they tend not to oppose war on purely moral grounds.

With the U.S. and Israeli governments starting a war with Iran (not just in Iran), there have been at least 6 U.S. soldiers who have died.  This gets a lot of attention.  Part of it is that it hits close to home.

If there is an event that kills 10 people in your city, it is going to get a lot of attention, and rightly so.  If a similar event happened in Thailand or Nigeria, you probably wouldn’t hear anything about it.  And to be sure, there is nothing wrong with that.

But when it is our own government initiating violence, every death counts.  They are making a big deal about the release of the names of the 6 U.S. soldiers.  Maybe the news should read off the names of all of the little girls who were murdered in Iran.

Pacifism and Non-Aggression

I am not a pacifist.  I believe in non-aggression.  I don’t think people should initiate violence.  It gets more complicated if someone steals property without using actual violence.

I believe that people have a right to defend themselves, including the use of violence.  If an innocent person is being attacked, then that person is justified in using violence to repel the attacker.

I believe that the use of violence really should be the last resort.  Even in the case of theft (which can be argued is violence, in a sense), there are oftentimes remedies that don’t require violence.

If someone has stolen money and refuses to give it back, there are ways that society can impose penalties and even provide some restitution for the victim.  The bank can take the thief’s assets.  The grocery store can prevent the thief from shopping there.  And if the thief is harmed by someone else, maybe he doesn’t get justice either.

Still, I am not necessarily against the use of some force in cases of theft.  Theft in itself is aggression.

War and Non-Aggression

The problem comes with war.  By nature, war is aggressive, even if responding to an attack.

Iran is demonstrating this dilemma now.  The U.S. and Israeli states are guilty of murder and war crimes.  It is completely inexcusable to attack another country that was not aggressing against others (in spite of media lies).  The only people who could lay claim to being aggressed against by the Iranian government is the Iranian people.

The moral question I have is in the response.  Iran has been firing hundreds of missiles into Israel and surrounding countries that have U.S. military bases.  It seems justified to fire missiles into military bases, but even here, there is not perfect accuracy.  Plus, when some of those missiles get shot down, they can fall on innocent parties.

The people living in or visiting the U.A.E. or Qatar don’t deserve to die.  Even the people living in Israel don’t deserve to die unless they were part of the specific group committing aggression.

This is the problem with war.  You can’t just defend yourself against the aggressors.  When you try to defend yourself, you are also going to kill innocent people in most cases.

This is an issue I struggle with.  If I were in Iran, I would probably be telling my government to fire missiles to cause pain to other people.  Even if you can’t kill the monster, you can give him a bloody nose.

The only other choice for Iranian officials was to literally do nothing and take it.  This just emboldens the “leaders” in the U.S. and Israel, and Israel would probably take over Iran, just as they are trying to take over parts of Lebanon right now.

There is an argument to be made that there would be even more death and destruction if Iran did nothing. Sometimes the bully needs to be punched back.  The problem is that punching back in this case means killing innocent people.

So, I don’t know if Iranian officials are “justified” in doing this.  It is certainly understandable what they are doing.  When you corner a wounded animal, they will eventually fight back even if they are the weaker one.

What I do know is that the U.S. and Israeli officials who initiated this war are murderers.  There was no legitimate justification to attack the people of Iran.

Donald Trump made the decision to strike Iran.  Sure, he does whatever Benjamin Netanyahu tells him to do, but he doesn’t have to.  That is his decision.  It is also Trump’s decision to cozy up to the likes of Mark Levin and Lindsey Graham and follow them over a cliff by enacting their war hawk agenda.

These people were never-Trumpers at one time because they didn’t like how Trump said that Bush lied us into war with Iraq.  They didn’t like Trump because he talked about trying to bring peace and putting America First.

Well, it turns out Trump was a complete liar when he talked about peace.  These neoconservatives also realized that all they have to do is constantly butter up Trump.  Just tell him how great he is and how much more wonderful he will be if he drops bombs on other countries.  It has worked brilliantly from their perspective.

Trump, the supposed peace candidate, is now doing the bidding of Netanyahu and the war hawks.  All they had to do was play on his ego and extreme narcissism.

No More Excuses

There are always excuses for Trump floating around.

• He had to do this so that he can achieve important policies in other areas.
• He is playing 4D chess.
• He is doing this to expose the deep state.
• He is doing this because the establishment is blackmailing him.
• He is better than Kamala would have been.

I have never been one for making excuses for politicians, although I was probably mildly guilty of excusing Trump at times.  If Trump bragged about how this is the greatest economy ever, I just chalked it up to Trump exaggerating and being over the top.

In 2015, when Trump came on the political scene, I didn’t like him much from a political standpoint.  Many years before that, he advocated for a wealth tax on rich people.  I recognized early on that he was a bit of socialist.

When I saw how much the establishment hated his guts in 2015 and 2016, I grew a bit of a soft spot for Trump, in spite of his many flaws.  Even though I didn’t vote for him in 2016, I was kind of cheering for him.  He seemed to change a good chunk of the Republican Party from just 4 or 8 years before when most of the major players were still defending Bush and the Iraq War.

I never place much hope in politicians in general, and it wasn’t much different here.  Still, even in 2024 leading up to the election, Trump seemed to have a bunch of decent people rallying around him.  This included Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tucker Carlson.  If ever there was a chance for peace, however small, this seemed to be it.

So, I very hesitatingly voted for Trump in 2024, even though I knew he had many flaws.  I knew his tariffs would be a disaster, and I also knew that he wasn’t exactly a non-interventionist on foreign policy.  But he at least seemed to be less interventionist, and maybe there really would be a chance for greater peace.

It was not to be.  I already saw the major warning signs and shift in his administration in March 2025.  It has been all downhill from there, and there are no excuses left to make for the man.

Trump is a War Criminal

The Epstein files have made a lot of news lately, and rightly so.  They read like a novel.  Someone could have written a book about this stuff 10 years ago and people would have said it was too unrealistic.

Some people will say that other items in the news are a distraction from the Epstein files.  Some people will say that the Epstein files are a distraction from other things (aside from Pam Bondi saying that we should be talking about the Dow hitting 50,000).

I think the Epstein files are very important for multiple reasons.  On a broader scale, they show the blackmail that was taking place.  They also show just how sick some human beings can be, including people in positions of high status and power.

While the Epstein files are very important, there is a lot of speculation within them.  We are left wondering what is true and what’s not true in many cases.

There are other things where we don’t need to speculate.  In fact, Trump and others openly brag about them.

The Trump administration was blowing up boats off the coast of Venezuela.  There was no proof that these people were smuggling drugs, even though that still wouldn’t justify killing them.  Trump was ordering the murder of these people.  Some of them were probably just boaters or fishermen.

Trump has bombed 7 countries in his first year back in office.  Now he has restarted a war with Iran, which has already killed many people just in the first two days.

I wonder if Trump slept well last night knowing that he is directly responsible for the murder of many innocent people, including many children.  Trump has blood on his hands.  He is a murderer.  Not only should he not be president, he should be in jail.

I don’t have to speculate on what Trump did or didn’t do with Epstein.  I already know he is a murderer and war criminal.  If he is a pedophile too, it doesn’t add much at this point.

The Iran Lies

I have watched videos of people visiting Iran from several years ago.  I saw one video where the guy was welcomed with open arms by the Iranian people.  They knew he was American.  Most of the people there don’t hate Americans.  They distinguish between the American government and the American people. Unfortunately, most Americans aren’t as good at making this distinction with foreigners.

We are getting recycled lies from the Iraq War in 2003 for Iran today.  They are the same variations of lies.

• We have to liberate the Iranian people.
• The Iranians want to bring death to America.
• We can’t let them develop nuclear weapons or they will use them against the United States.
• Iran is the number one state sponsor of terror.

Do you know who the biggest sponsors of terrorism are today?  It is the governments of the U.S. and Israel.  Just look at the blatant killing of tens of thousands of people in Gaza.  Just look at what is happening in Iran now.

Of course, the U.S. and Israel (with U.S. funding and weapons) have the capability to bring down a reign of terror.  It’s not to say it might not be as bad or worse from some other countries if they had the means to do so.  But just based on what is actually happening, it is the U.S. and Israel that are bringing the most violence to the world right now.

The U.S. is a great place to live in many ways, and the American people in general are decent people.  This is why the war hawks have to spread lies when going to war.  They depend on the good heartedness and naivety of the American people.

Most politicians selling war do not come out and say that we are attacking another country so that we can kill a whole bunch of children and dominate the world and make the weapons companies rich (although sometimes they let those last parts slip out).  They sell war by appealing to the goodness of the American people.  They say we need to help liberate people and bring safety to us.

If You Hate the Democrats Now…

Some MAGA people think that if you criticize Trump, then you are a Democrat.  They live in this binary world of one side or the other.

Even if you live in your own Trump world and think it is ok that he is murdering children in Iran, why would you be cheering this on?  If you hate the Democrats that much, Trump couldn’t be doing a finer job for that party right now.

The Democrats were beaten.  Biden was a complete disaster.  Many people hate him for his tyrannical COVID policies, including me.  The Democrats were exposed.  They showed that they care more about transgenders competing in women’s sports and using any bathroom of their choice than they do about the American people.  They were highly unpopular in almost every way by a majority of people.

Now Trump has handed them a gift.  Trump has worked his hardest to try to vindicate all of the leftists out there with TDS.  They said Trump would be a dictator.  They said he was a bully.  They said he would act like Hitler.  They said he would try to take over the world.  Again, Trump is trying everything in his power to prove them correct.

The Democrats are still not popular.  A majority of people can’t stand the Democrats.  But when the midterm elections come in November 2026, the Democrats are going to wipe the floor with the Republicans.  They will also be seeking revenge.

Enough people who tacitly supported Trump and the Republicans will stay home.  Most of them won’t vote Democrat, but they won’t vote Republican either.  I know, and know of, several people who voted for Trump who are disgusted with what he is doing now.

The Democrats are going to take majorities in both the House and Senate.  They will probably impeach Trump, but it is questionable whether they will have the votes to actually remove him from office.

Again, Trump should be in jail for mass murder.  He should absolutely be impeached at this point for his many crimes.  But most of the Democrats voting for his impeachment will be total hypocrites.  They wouldn’t have voted to impeach Biden for the same things.

When we fall under Democratic tyranny next, you can blame all of the Republicans and MAGA who are still supporting Trump now instead of repudiating him.

Free Will

Trump had a choice to make.  He chose the evil path instead of the good path.  Even if he is being blackmailed, he could have resigned or just taken the consequences of the blackmail.

Trump is a total disgrace.  The Democrats constantly told lies to try to hurt Trump.  You don’t need to make stuff up about Trump now.  Just listen to what he brags about.  That is enough to tell you he is evil.

Every decent person should be opposing what Trump is doing to Iran right now.