Donald Trump and maga cult are determined to upset the American elections; Where is Senator Susan Collins?

The most dangerous weapon for a democracy to put in control of an aspiring dictator is not necessarily the police or the military.

Echo editorial board opinion published in the Sun Sentinel, a South Florida newspaper.

It’s control over the ballot box, the source of power over everything else.

Our vulnerability is never more obvious than in President Trump’s insistence on dictating how states conduct elections and who can vote. His feverish obsession is a frontal assault on democracy. Nothing could be more important than for Congress and the courts to thwart him.

Trump is so desperate to suppress voting in the midterms that he’s blocking enactment of a critical national security bill, and he refuses to sign overwhelmingly popular bipartisan housing legislation until Congress acts on his voter suppression bill.

Denying women the right to vote

The deceptively named SAVE America Act would impose a proof of citizenship provision that would disenfranchise millions of women whose married names don’t match their birth certificates. It would also largely eliminate voting by mail — the method used by a third of all participating voters in Florida in the last statewide election.

He called off signing the housing bill as sponsors gathered to celebrate it and before a scheduled closed-door luncheon with Senate Republicans — blindsiding members of his own party. Trump is playing the foulest sort of politics with security and with the shelter needs of millions of Americans.

It takes a tyrant with an empty soul to do that.
Asserting election jurisdiction that neither the Constitution nor the Congress gives him, Trump has also signed a breathtaking executive order. Two federal judges have now pronounced it unconstitutional, the latest Thursday (Trump will appeal).

A federal voter dossier

Trump’s order also contemplates the federal government compiling its own state-by state lists of eligible voters. The database Trump would employ is error-prone and so afoul of federal privacy laws that a judge blocked its use.

It should never be the federal government’s business to manage elections, even if a trustworthy president were in office.

The original Constitution (Artcle I, Section 4) left it to states to determine how to elect federal officers. It also authorized the Congress, but not the president, “to make or alter such regulations.”

The Postal Service ploy is deservedly under attack in the courts, where Trump is zero for 10 in lawsuits demanding state voter rolls.

As for the dangeros SAVE Act, Senate Republican leaders don’t have even a majority of votes to pass it, let alone the 60 to break a filibuster.

The Senate should also pass a clean foreign intelligence bill and dare him to veto it. Either he vetoes the housing law or it becomes law in a week or so, without his signature, but the clock doesn’t start until the House sends him the bill. 

Speaker Mike Johnson could show leadership by sending it now.
The voters are watching🗳️👀

The “voter fraud” Trump harps upon exists only in his mind, and only when he or his party loses. If Democrats are so good at cheating, then why did they let Trump narrowly win crucial swing states in 2016, and 2024❓

Making it harder to vote by mail is meant to hurt Democratic candidates because their voters are more likely to cast their ballots that way.

Trump has deluded many Republicans into distrusting our elections, especially mail voting — even though he has voted by mail in Palm Beach County, as recently as March.

By denigrating the foundation of our democracy, Trump is willfully- purposefully- eroding it. Serious inquiries have turned up only vanishingly rare cases of ineligible people voting or of someone voting twice in any election.

What is a legitimate concern are the complaints, hardly from Trump alone, about seemingly interminable vote counts in some states. Prolonged uncertainty feeds conspiracy theories. That’s notably true of California, but the problem is simply that it allows up to 30 days for vote canvassing.

The appropriate remedy is to shorten that, not to make election day the deadline for returning mail ballots. That would put too much trust and power into the hands of a postal service whose legal independence Trump does not respect.

A reasonable compromise on ballots that arrive after the election would be to count them if they were postmarked in advance of election day rather than on election day itself. But that choice belongs to the states — not Trump, whose only interest is in rigging the rules for his party’s benefit.

Trump complains incessantly that if voters elect a Democratic Congress in November, it would begin investigating his administration’s mounting heap of misdeeds, blunders and corruption — as well it should.

Maine Writer P.S.- Maine Senator Susan Collins has 28 years seniority to call for impeachement of Donald John Trump because he is trampling our Constitution, but she does nothing.  

Donald John Trump is destroying American democracy. Senator Susan Collins has the seniority to do something but does nothing to stop the tyranny

To the editor of the Yakima Herald Republic newspaper in Washington State— Donald John Trump is a man ignoring the Constitution and the law. Imposing tariffs, making war with nations without the consent of Congress and alienating allies. People who are here legally are being harassed and imprisoned by Trump's ICE police.

• There's an attempt to eliminate habeas corpus (right of due process) because he claims there's an "invasion." 
• Ignoring voting rights because he would have us believe there is unproven voter fraud. 
• Hiring incompetent sycophants and firing experienced government workers and senior military leaders. 
• Gutting the USAID foreign assistance to aid in poverty and  relief from deadly infectious diseases like Ebola.

Trump wants to use taxpayers' 💲money for people who have attacked the Capitol and police and have been convicted of crimes. Over 10,000 of the best attorneys of both parties who observe their oaths have left government positions. The DOJ has become Trump's personal retribution squad. There are 22 people who are competent public servants but "enemies" of the president who he's trying to prosecute.

"Pay to Play" is compromising the government in deal after deal to benefit Trump. Building expensive ballrooms, needless arches and reflecting pools.

It will take decades to deal with the damage done to our country by Trump and his extremists. Psychiatrists and professors of law will use him as an example of incompetent leadership and a time of lawlessness in America. It is imperative to teach the younger generation — THIS IS NOT NORMAL❗

From ANNE ANNA in Yakima, Washington State

Maine Writer P.S. Where is Senator Susan Collins❓

Donald Trump and maga cult followers mush face reality: Watching Trump's dangerous detachment from reality

Echo opinion letter published in TribLive on line:

Evidence points out how Trump is detached from reality❓

As one witnesses Donald John Trump’s actions going from outrageous to complete detachment from reality, I wonder when his supporters will ever face the fact this man is beyond satisfying. I’m thankful a few federal judges are stopping or at least slowing some of the stupidity he has instigated.

One last thing: As I recall, he gutted some of the National Park System funding, although the parks have made more money annually than what was allocated. Recently, while researching a park visit, I found the administration imposed new fees.

Visitors from foreign countries must pay a 💲100 entry fee per person, plus ➕ ❗ 😡have a national park pass (💲15 to 💲35 per car for seven days), at 11 of the most popular national parks. 

Also, upon entry, if a foreigner is in the car all occupants must show proof of citizenship.

This is just one example of the loss of our liberty. Where does the blatant stupidity end? There is so much more to recognize here, but you all know the failures. Wake up,⏰ America❗ 

We can stop this on Nov. 3. Vote Blue❗

From Leonard Mucci in Derry Township, Pennsylvania

Donald Trump caused the reflecting pool to become toxic and the Strait of Hormuz to close: IOW Donald John Trump is a failure

New York Times review about the Trump failed Washington DC reflecting pool environmental crises, by Maxine Joselow and Donald A. Fahrenthold. 

Maine Writer preface: Let me get this❓On February 27, 2026, the Strait of Hormuz connecting the Persian Gulf (to the west) with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea (to the southeast) was open and free for international shipping.  

After Trump's illegally launched war against Iran, the shipping was shut down by Iran and the U.S. blockaded Iranian access to the Strait of Hormuz in another Trump act of war Naval Blockade.  

In other words, the attack against Iran is a complete failure and Donald Trump had to sign a surrender Memorandum of Understanding at Versailles, France for the purpose of getting Iran to negotiate about a peace deal and open the Strait of Hormuz, that had been open before his interference.  Now, Donald Trump's ego project to recreate the Washington DC reflecting pool has become a tax payer funded fiasco because too many "no bid" contractors cut corners and did not employ best practices to make the reflecting pool "USA blue". Now, the pool is half green and efforts to kill destructive algae are not working properly. In other words, the reflecting pool was beautiful, and functioning in the Washington D.C. climate and environment before Donald Trump ruined it. Meanwhile, tax payers 💲are stuck funding the failed Iranian war and for the toxic clean up in the Washington D.C. reflecting pool. 

Trump says the peeling blue coating and algae blooms that mar his $16.4 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are the fault of vandals working with “knives” in the “dark of night.”

But government documents obtained by The New York Times show that while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints, those were not directly related to the “American flag blue” coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green.

Even as the documents show workers were attempting to address deteriorating conditions, Trump administration officials were insisting publicly that the pool was pristine.

The cause of the cuts was unclear. While a June 9 report by the U.S. Park Police described the cuts as “razor blade slashes” made along a 20-foot-long stretch of the foam, the administration has yet to present evidence supporting that assertion. The documents reviewed by The Times described them as two 171-foot blade cuts but did not address how they were made.

By June 16, workers had noticed that chunks of blue sealant that covered the pool’s bottom were peeling and floating to the surface, the documents show. That sealant was separate from the foam in the pool’s expansion joints, which allow its concrete slabs to expand and contract.

The workers had also discovered that some devices installed to kill algae were not working as intended, according to the documents. And enormous algae blooms had turned portions of the pool bright green instead of dark blue.

But on June 15,  Trump was still declaring the renovation a success, telling reporters that “I’m very good at building things and constructing things.”

The Reflecting Pool is a centerpiece of Trump’s attempts to remake the capital in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday. The pool has been plagued by leaks and algae for decades; Trump boasted that he had repaired it quickly and affordably, but both problems have returned in force.

In fact the pool was drained, resealed and then refilled by June 5. Four days later, National Park Service workers discovered holes, cracks and peeling caulking in parts of the pool, along with cuts in sections of the foam, according to the documents.

Work to fix the problems may not be finished until after July 4 — a setback for Trump, who wanted the renovation to be completed before then.

On Saturday, Trump acknowledged the pool would have to be at least partially drained for more work. Then, on Tuesday, Trump said on social media that six people had been arrested, and seven others had been cited, for slashing the pool’s sealant with a “sharp knife or razors.”

“It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night,” he wrote.

Trump also told reporters on Monday, without offering evidence, that vandals had poured fertilizer into the pool to feed the algae.

Neither the Interior Department nor the White House would provide charging documents, citations or the names of anyone arrested. They did share the Park Police incident report, which said any suspect or suspects were unknown. The report also did not mention any damage to the pool’s blue sealant, nor did it describe any vandals dumping fertilizer.

Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, did not answer specific questions about the government documents but said in an email on Tuesday that the pool was “clear” and “reflecting beautifully.”

“While Trump was restoring a crown jewel of our nation’s capital, which is supported by Americans across the country, vandals were attempting to destroy, impede and delay the ongoing work,” she said.

On Tuesday, portions of the pool appeared dark blue and reflected the Washington Monument and the overcast sky. But an enormous clump of green algae remained visible in the center.

A few curiosity seekers braved the rain to stroll around the site, which has become a sightseeing draw. They were outnumbered by throngs of law enforcement officers and other personnel, including from the National Guard, Park Police and U.S. Marshals Service. The National Guard troops were stationed around the pool’s perimeter, with some huddling under trees to stay☔🌧️ dry.

The administration is setting up fencing around the site before the July 4 fireworks display for safety reasons, Ms. Martin said. But it’s going up earlier than originally planned because of what she called an “increase in vandalism by🙄 🤥leftist activists.”

The Trump administration awarded two no-bid contracts for the Reflecting Pool renovations, bypassing the legally required process of seeking competitive bids because of what it called an urgent need to complete the project for events around the nation’s 250th birthday.

The first 💲14.7 million contract went to a Virginia-based company called Atlantic Industrial Coatings to spread the sealant in the “American flag blue” shade across the pool’s concrete slabs. The second 💲1.7 million contract went to Ohio-based Greenwater Services to install devices called nanobubblers, which infuse the water with ozone to kill algae and bacteria.

On June 15, workers discovered that one or two of the four temporary nanobubblers weren’t working at any given time because of problems with generators, and that the water was turning green. By the next day, officials had noticed blue coating peeling, as well.

Representatives for Atlantic Industrial Coatings and Greenwater Services, also known as Green Water Solutions, did not respond to requests for comment.

Though Trump claimed vandals dumped fertilizer in the pool, his administration refilled it with D.C. municipal water, which is treated with phosphate to keep lead from leaching out of old pipes. But phosphate also provides nutrients for algae, as do droppings from ducks swimming in the pool.

In a post on its website on Sunday, Atlantic Industrial Coatings said that “a very small part of the massive 7-acre project” would require repairs. The company added that it would do the work under warranty.

Anthony Flett, the chief executive of U.S. Coating Specialists, a Florida-based company that specializes in waterproofing coatings, reviewed the documents at the request of The Times. He wouldn’t dismiss vandalism, but said it appeared that the sealant may be peeling off because not enough material was applied.

“I don’t want to totally blame the vandalism,” he said. “If they put more material down, maybe none of this would be an issue.”

“There’s people in the pool industry whose whole life is polyurea, and they should have been called in,” Mr. Flett said. “They should have been there to watch over the project to make sure that these failures weren’t prevalent. I think it was just done too hastily.”

The coating was made by a California-based company called Rhino Linings. Pierre Gagnon, the president and chief executive of Rhino Linings, said in an email that the peeling appeared to be “limited to isolated areas” of the pool.

Algae has bloomed frequently in the pool for decades. Its shallow, stagnant water becomes a petri dish for the aquatic organisms in the summer sun.

Experts said the algae didn’t threaten public health because the water is not intended for swimming or drinking. But, they cautioned, if left unchecked, the blooms could give rise to cyanobacteria, which could be highly toxic to any ducks, dogs or other animals that drink the water.

“Just because it’s green algae this week doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to be cyanobacteria tomorrow,” said Ashley Bair, a senior research developer at Usalco, a company that makes coagulants and other water-treatment chemicals.

Ms. Bair, who spoke to The Times from a gathering of water-treatment experts in Washington, added that the Reflecting Pool was the talk of the conference.

Donald John Trump surrendered to Iran and maga cult knows he is incompetent including Senator Susan Collins

Trump’s Iran deal looks like surrender

Echo editorial board published in the Boston Globe

Donald John Trump's new (former President Obama) agreement with Iran bears striking similarities to the Obama-era accord he famously abandoned.

The reviews of Donald John Trump’s MOU surrender deal with Iran are in, and they aren’t pretty.

On the right, the National Review said Doanld Trump committed the United States to “humiliations,” while The Wall Street Journal editorial board called the deal a “retreat.” 

On the left, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser under former president Joe Biden, said the deal indicated that “the United States basically lost this war.”

From the center right, Andrew Sullivan called it “surrender.” 

And this from the center left, economics blogger Noah Smith described the deal as a Katrina moment when even many of Trump’s defenders “will be forced to admit, in private if not in public, that the man and his administration are grossly, pathetically incompetent.”

If very few across the political spectrum can see value in the deal, the reason should be patently clear: It is a hollow promise, a deal to make a deal that is sounding suspiciously like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA), the Iran nuclear pact negotiated by then-President Barack Obama in 2015, that Trump tore up in 2018.

The new surrender document, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) calls on Iran to dilute, or “downblend,” ❓-whaaa- its enriched uranium under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency. So did the JCPOA (which also called for removing some of that uranium to other countries). In the MOU, Iran “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” 

But Iran has always maintained that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.

Details for a final deal will be negotiated in the coming two months — an absurdly short time frame for incredibly complex issues. In the meantime, the United States will release billions of dollars of frozen Iranian assets. The United States pledges to lift all sanctions if and when a final deal is signed. 

Oddly, all this must be endorsed by the United Nations, a body Trump has long mocked as useless. And by unfreezing Iranian assets before a final nuclear deal is struck, Trump is effectively agreeing to pay Iran to return things to the way they were before February 28, 2026.

Nowhere does the surrender MOU address Iran’s mass manufacturing of ballistic missiles and weaponized drones, or its subsidizing of military proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis in Yemen. Iran pledges to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping — but the MOU seems to leave open the possibility that in 60 days Iran can start taxing tankers to transit the waterway, something it was not doing before.

So, in many ways, Trump’s deal will return the Persian Gulf to the status quo ante — only arguably worse, because Iran now understands that the mighty US military cannot prevent it from strangling the world’s economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows.

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, admittedly no friend of Trump’s, summed it up fairly when he wrote on X: “Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”

Cassidy’s assessment touches on the cost of this underwhelming settlement. The approximately 15-week campaign left 13 American service members and more than 3,500 Iranians dead. It cost the US military more than $32 billion and nearly drained the nation’s storehouse of missile and drone interceptors.

And the threat the war posed for the global economy was enormous. The sharp reduction in tanker traffic through the strait caused possibly the biggest disruption in oil supply in history, driving the price to above 💲120 a barrel and forcing countries to dip deeply into their reserves.

Before the first US and Israel bombs fell on Iran, gas in the United States was selling on average for less than $3 per gallon at the pump. By early June, the average nationwide price had risen to more than $4 a gallon. All told, according to Moody’s Analytics, the war cost the United States a total of $132 billion in both military spending and higher consumer costs — nearly $1,000 per American household.

Amid the disruptions in oil, natural gas, and fertilizer supplies, the World Bank lowered its forecast for global economic growth to 2.5 percent — the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic.

No wonder Trump told reporters in Europe after signing the surrender MOU that he was worried that the war was about to trigger a global economic downturn rivaling the Great Depression of 1929 — an outcome that would have made him look as bad as Herbert Hoover. “I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have ​happened,” the president said.

It was boldly honest of the president to admit that he was so worried about his image for history. But surely the Iranians were pleased to hear that their ability to create global economic havoc has become their superpower against this superpower.

Sending the country into war is a president’s most somber and significant power, and Trump, true to form, has used it rashly in this war. It took a primary loss against a Trump-supported rival for Cassidy to speak honestly about the emperor’s new clothes. Might this be the moment when other Republican members of Congress remove the veil from their eyes and rein in his recklessness before he overreaches again❓

One could be forgiven for not betting on that possibility. But there are midterm elections this fall, and chances are higher that voters will use their ballots to hold the Donald Trump accountable. Trump pledged in 2024, to end military missions overseas and to focus American resources on America’s working people. This war did neither.

Donald John Trump's blundering, costly, and pointless use of the American military has damaged the US economy and its international standing — and it should be beyond the pale for anyone who truly puts America first.

Maine Writer post script- Senator Susan Collins where are you❓

Donald Trump cannot fool all of the people all of the time: Donald John Trump signed an Iran surrender MOU at Versailles

Failure of Iran war reveals Trump’s inability to deal with America’s security needs.  Echo opinion published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Trudy Rubin.

Scary❗😱 Donald Trump's ego-based foreign policy is making the U.S. more vulnerable to our enemies at home and overseas.

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” That maxim is often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but it’s occasionally credited to the great American circus showman P.T. Barnum. It has special relevance when applied to Donald Trump, who has outdone Barnum in self-promotion.

Donald John Trump has had astonishing success in fooling some of the people all the time, from his foundational lie that the 2020, election was stolen through his daily blast of falsehoods about everything from the economy to the financing of his ballroom.

Yet, with his blatant efforts to bamboozle all the people about his Iran deal, Trump may have finally reached the point where most Americans realize he is (and always has been..."bone spurs"...) a fraud.

For starters, Trump’s claim that he has reached a “Great Deal [that] will bring Peace and Security to the whole Region” is flat out fraudulent. The Iran war has laid bare the incompetence of a U.S. leader who assumes that force alone produces victory.

The U.S. and Israel may have destroyed much of Iran’s military, but Tehran has denied them a geopolitical win, which all the world’s leaders (except for Trump) recognize.

And most Americans will soon see this for themselves.

Until the U.S. joined Israel in the February attack on Iran, Tehran’s religious and military leaders had never tried to close the Strait of Hormuz for fear of arousing American wrath. But after Trump openly called for regime change, they had nothing to lose.

Despite its military losses, Iran proved (as has Ukraine) that a smaller country using unconventional means (drones, mines, a willingness to absorb pain) can hold off a superpower.

Moreover, Tehran is still insisting it will charge ships fees for transiting the strait after the 60-day ceasefire extension expires, contrary to Trump’s claim that the strait will be “toll free.” And the world knows that, if pushed, Tehran can close the strait again.

Trump now looks like a chump.

Trump alienated Mideast allies, including Gulf states, which took the brunt of Iran’s military revenge. He encouraged America’s adversaries, including Russia and China, by revealing his lack of any long-term strategy.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping had only to watch as the U.S. military squandered huge numbers of precious missiles against Iranian drones, leaving them in such short supply that the U.S. military is exposed in the Indo-Pacific.

Moscow can only toast Trump’s blindness, as the U.S. cancels promised sales of mid- and long-range missiles to Europe for defense against Russia and to pass on to Ukraine. 

This horribly bad decision left Ukrainians defenseless against Russia’s rain of cruise missiles on civilians — and on a thousand-year center of Orthodox Christianity, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery and its golden-domed Dormition Cathedral.

Not a word of protest by Trump or MAGA’s white Christian nationalists who admire Putin’s religiosity. Instead, POTUS has bizarrely praised Putin’s help with Iran. Could he possibly be referring to Moscow’s sharing of intelligence on U.S. targets with Tehran❓

Donald John Trump signed the surrender MOU with Iran on June 17, 2026, at the Palace of Versailles in France, the same place where Germany surrendered after World War One.

But, never mind. Let’s get to the surrender MOU document Trump signed electronically* on Sunday. It was not a peace deal. Rather, it was a so-called Memorandum of Understanding — “about a page and half … a very general document,” according to Vice President JD Vance.

Contrary to Trump’s grandiose claims, this memorandum kicks all the main questions about dismantling Iran’s nuclear program down the road to future negotiations over the next 60 days.

By keeping the document secret at least until Friday, the president is relentlessly trying to frame his defeat as an astounding victory in hopes this will shape the thinking of the cult MAGA faithful.

From Trump’s own words, however, and those of his henchmen, it’s already clear he has abandoned most of the stated goals of this war.

Let’s look at what we already know.

1. There will be no regime change, as POTUS called for on the opening day of the war, urging the Iranians to rise up. Trump now bizarrely calls Iran’s new leadership pragmatists in a New York Times interview, labeling them “smarter” and more “rational” than those who were assassinated. Yet the Revolutionary Guard’s military commanders now running the show are more hardline and more confident about defying the U.S. president.

2. As so far revealed, the negotiating framework to end Iran’s nuclear program sounds no better than President Barack Obama’s 2015, agreement. POTUS bragged in the Times that the agreement would ensure Iran “cannot develop or purchase a nuclear weapon.” But Tehran has asserted for decades that it would not do so and made the same pledge on the first page of Obama’s deal, known as the JCPOA.

Trump Always Chickens Out

Although Trump promised to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program entirely, he appears to have backtracked significantly, (a.k.a. "TACO Trump) now saying that Iran “can never go beyond a certain amount” of enrichment that could be used for military purposes. Again, this echoes the JCPOA, which limited enrichment to 3.67%, an amount that can be used in power reactors, but not for a bomb.

As for how long Iran would have to limit enrichment, Trump hinted that he might settle for a 15-year suspension, which is the same time limit the JCPOA required❗ (But in a contradiction, he said the limit would be “forever,” although there is no sign Tehran would agree to this.)

If POTUS hadn’t pulled out of the JCPOA in 2015, the 15 years would have extended until 2030, and Iran would now have no highly enriched uranium.

The flaw in the JCPOA was the 15-year sunset, after which Iran could have restarted enrichment, but Trump seems headed toward a similar limitation.

As for the 11.5 tons of enriched uranium Iran produced since Trump junked the JCPOA — including a half ton of nearly bomb-grade nuclear fuel — the president has talked about reducing its purity level (known as downblending), possibly inside Iran. A far cry from previous demands for removing it entirely.

In the Obama deal, 97% of Iran’s stockpile was removed outside the country to Russia. No sign that Trump’s deal will do as well.

Moreover, the joint Israel/U.S. 12-day war against Iran in 2025 had buried Iran’s enriched uranium, and as Trump has recently admitted, U.S. satellites could see if the Iranians tried to remove it. Negotiations in February, mediated by Oman, were reportedly headed toward a better deal than Trump will ever achieve, if he achieves any deal at all.

Trump killed those talks by starting his choice to wage an illegal war.

So, if you parse Trump’s own admissions, there was no need for his four-month war, which has cost America 13 dead and hundreds of billions of dollars — not to mention 3,000 Iranian dead and severe damage to the global economy.

Yet the outpouring of Trump lies this week designed to disguise his failure roll on.

While the president insists that Iran will get no economic benefits until a deal is concluded, it appears that Tehran will be able to immediately restart exporting oil during negotiations. And there are reports that other Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates or Qatar may release Iranian funds held in their banks immediately, enabling Iran to benefit economically before any nuclear deal.


Moreover, a future Trump deal doesn’t cover an end to Iran’s missile buildup, or the end of support for proxies, sins for which Trump never stops excoriating President Obama. Also, Israel and Hezbollah aren’t party to the deal and are likely to keep fighting.

When the details of Trump’s non-deal are revealed, he will try to paper over his failure with more prevarications. But as Barnum noted, “you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

*Donald John Trump signed the surrender MOU at Versailles on June 17, 2026.  

Donald Trump will destroy the American constitution for the purpose of preventing voters from taking back our democracy

Americans must rise up to protect our democracy against Trumpzism

Echo opinion letter:  Philadelphia Inquirer editorial about Donald Trump’s losses in the courts and elsewhere correctly described as historic the mounting damage caused by his cult of corruption, incompetence, and cruelty. In fact, The Inquirer also pointed out that Trump is never more dangerous than when he is losing. That said, I don’t think you went far enough by calling on readers to hold Trump and his GOP enablers accountable by voting in the midterms. What makes you think Trump will accept the November results if he is not completely successful in suppressing the vote? Here’s a more effective action plan: Impeach Trump for treason and remove him from office before he subverts the next election. Treason is specifically defined among the constitutional grounds for impeachment, and treason is what Trump has committed repeatedly.

Donald Trump instigated an attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, and indiscriminately pardoned hundreds of the criminal attackers. 

More recently Donald Trump even pardoned the former criminal president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted by a jury of conspiring to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into our country. These acts — giving aid comfort to the enemies of the United States — meet the definition of treason. Notably, Trump has ordered the summary execution of hundreds of noncombatants suspected of lesser crimes.

Americans must follow the Constitution and hold the wrongdoer-in-chief accountable, so we will be able to vote — and have our votes count.

From Peter Pinnola, in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania

Americans cannot keep up with Donald Trump's destructive campaign against American democracy: Let's review MAGA cult behaviors

Trump cult MAGA’s Foundational Lie

Echo essay by Jeffrey Goldberg published The Atlantic

Trump's evil cult movement claims to stand with the police. Trump’s decision to pardon the cop-beaters of January 6 exposed his movement for what it is.  By Jeffrey Goldberg

At 1:42 a.m. on December 19, 2020, Donald Trump—disturbed, humiliated, livid—posted the following message on Twitter: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020, Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

In California, David Nicholas Dempsey, a 33-year-old man-child with multiple felony convictions and a profound cult affection for the president, answered the call. On January 6, wearing a tactical vest and an American-flag gaiter, Dempsey came to the Capitol. Shortly before he assaulted several police officers, he shared his perspectives in an interview given while standing near a gallows. The gallows had been erected as a reminder to Vice President Mike Pence to do, in Trump’s words, “the right thing.”

“Them worthless fucking shitholes like fucking Jerry Nadler, fucking Pelosi, Clapper, Comey, fucking all those pieces of garbage, you know, Obama, all these dudes, Clinton, fuck all these pieces of shit,” Dempsey said. “They don’t need a jail cell. They need to hang from these motherfuckers while everybody videotapes it and fucking spreads it on YouTube.”

Dempsey was not an organizer of the siege, but he was one of its most energetic participants. He assaulted Metropolitan Police Detective Phuson Nguyen with pepper spray. Nguyen was certain in that moment that he was “going to die,” he later testified. Dempsey assaulted another police officer with a metal crutch, cracking his protective shield and cutting his head. Dempsey, who was heard yelling “Fuck you, bitch-ass cops!,” assaulted other officers with broken pieces of furniture, crutches, and a flagpole. Prosecutors would later argue that “Dempsey’s violence reached such extremes that, at one point, he attacked a fellow rioter who was trying to disarm him.” All told, more than 140 police officers were injured in the riot, many seriously.

I attended the January 6 rally on the Ellipse, at which Trump told his supporters, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” 

Then I walked with the crowd to the Capitol. One woman, a QAnon adherent dressed in a cat costume, told me, “We’re going to stop the steal. If Pence isn’t going to stop it, we have to.”

What I remember very well about that day was my own failure of imagination. I did not, to my knowledge, see Dempsey—he had positioned himself at the vanguard of the assault, and I had stayed near the White House to listen to Trump—but I did come across at least a dozen or more protesters dressed in similar tactical gear or wearing body armor, many of them carrying flex-cuffs. I particularly remember those plastic cuffs, but I understood them only as a performance of zealous commitment. Later we would learn that these men—some of whom were Proud Boys—believed that they would actually be arresting members of Congress in defense of the Constitution. I interviewed one of them. “It’s all in the Bible,” he said. “Everything is predicted. Donald Trump is in the Bible.” Grifters could not exist, of course, without a population primed to be grifted.

After the riot, Dempsey returned to California, where he was eventually arrested. In early 2024, he pleaded guilty to two felony counts of assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Six months later, in the summer of 2024, Trump, who would come to describe the January 6 insurrection as a “day of love,” said that, if reelected, he would pardon rioters, but only “if they’re innocent.” Dempsey was not innocent, but on January 20, 2025, shortly after being inaugurated, Trump pardoned him and roughly 1,500 others charged with or convicted of offenses related to the Capitol insurrection. (Fourteen people, mainly senior figures in the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys movements, saw their sentences commuted but did not receive pardons.)

Of the 1,500 or so offenders who received pardons, roughly 600 had been charged with assaulting or obstructing police officers, and 170 had been accused of using deadly weapons in the siege. Among those pardoned were Peter Schwartz, who had received a 14-year sentence for throwing a chair at police officers and repeatedly attacking them with pepper spray; Daniel Joseph Rodriguez, who was sentenced to 12.5 years for conspiracy and assaulting an officer with a stun gun (he sent a text message to a friend, “Tazzzzed the fuck out of the blue”); and Andrew Taake, who received a six-year sentence for attacking officers with bear spray and a metal whip.

A day after the pardons were announced, Trump said in a press conference, “I am a friend of police, more than any president who’s been in office.” He went on to describe the rioters. “These were people that actually love our country, so we thought a pardon would be appropriate.”

Trump had something else to say during that first press conference of his new term: “I think we’re going to do things that people will be shocked at.” This would turn out to be true, but unfortunately, shock does not last. Here is the emblematic inner struggle of our age: to preserve the ability to be shocked. “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!” Dostoyevsky wrote. A blessing that is also a curse.

I understand that a review—even a short and partial review—of the past year might seem dismally repetitive. But, repetition ensures that we remember, and perhaps even experience shock anew.

So, in brief: Trump dismantled America’s foreign-aid infrastructure and gutted a program, built by an earlier Republican president, that saved the lives of Africans infected with HIV; he has encouraged the United States military to commit war crimes; he has instituted radical cuts to U.S. science and medical funding and abetted a crusade against vaccines; he has appointed conspiracists, alcoholics, and idiots to key positions in his administration; he has destroyed the independence of the Justice Department; he has waged pitiless war on prosecutors, FBI agents, and others who previously investigated him, his family, and his friends; he has cast near-fatal doubt on America’s willingness to fulfill its treaty obligations to its democratic allies; he has applauded Vladimir Putin for his barbarism and castigated Ukraine for its unwillingness to commit suicide; he has led racist attacks on various groups of immigrants; he has employed unusually cruel tactics in pursuit of undocumented immigrants, most of whom have committed only one crime—illegally seeking refuge in a country that they believed represented the dream of a better life. Those are some of the actions Trump has taken. Here are a few of the things he has said since returning to office: He has referred to immigrants as “garbage”; he has called a female reporter “piggy” and other reporters “ugly,” “stupid,” “terrible,” and “nasty”; he has suggested that the murder of a Saudi journalist by his country’s government was justified; he has labeled a sitting governor “seriously retarded”; he has blamed the murder of Rob Reiner on the director’s anti-Trump politics; he has called the Democrats

Yet, even when weighed against this stunning record of degeneracy, the pardoning by Trump of his cop-beating foot soldiers represents the lowest moment of this presidency so far, because it was an act not only of naked despotism but also of outlandish hypocrisy. 

By pardoning these convicted criminals, he exposed a foundational lie of MAGA ideology: that it stands with the police and as a guarantor of law and order. The truth is exactly the opposite.

The power to pardon is a vestige of America’s pre-independence past. It is an unchecked monarchical power, an awesome power, and therefore it should be bestowed only on leaders blessed with self-restraint, civic-mindedness, and, most important, basic decency.

We have been watching indecency triumph in the public sphere on and off for more than 10 years now, since the moment Trump insulted John McCain’s war record. For reasons that are quite possibly too unbearable to contemplate, a large group of American voters was not repulsed by such slander—they were actually aroused by it—and our politics have not been the same. Much has been said, including by me, about Trump’s narcissism, his autocratic inclinations, his disconnection from reality, but not nearly enough has been said about his fundamental indecency, the characteristic that undergirds everything he says and does.

In an important essay, Andrew Sullivan noted this past fall that Trump’s indecency is comprehensive in style and substance. “It is one thing to be a realist in foreign policy, to accept the morally ambiguous in an immoral world; it is simply indecent to treat a country, Ukraine, invaded by another, Russia, as the actual aggressor and force it to accept a settlement on the invader’s terms,” Sullivan wrote. 

“It is one thing to find and arrest illegal immigrants; it is indecent to mock and ridicule them, and send them with no due process to a foreign gulag where torture is routine. It is one thing to enforce immigration laws; it is another to use masked, anonymous men to do it. It is one thing to cut foreign aid; it is simply indecent to do so abruptly and irrationally so that tens of thousands of children will needlessly die. We have slowly adjusted to this entirely new culture from the top, perhaps in the hope that it will somehow be sated soon—but then new indecencies happen.”

The subject of Trump’s indecency came up in a conversation I had with Barack Obama in 2017. I asked him to name the most norm-defying act of his successor to date. Somewhat to my surprise, Obama mentioned Trump’s speech at the Boy Scouts’ National Jamboree earlier that year. This appearance has been largely forgotten, but it was a festival of indecency. 

At one point, Trump told the scouts about a wealthy friend of his who, he suggested, did unmentionable things on his yacht.

Obama, a model of dignified presidential behavior (just like nearly all of his predecessors, Democratic and Republican), understood viscerally the importance of self-restraint and adherence to long-established norms. Which is why he was so troubled by Trump’s decadent performance. “You can stand in front of tens of thousands of teenage boys and encourage them to be good citizens and be helpful to their mothers,” Obama said, “or you can go Lord of the Flies. He went Lord of the Flies.”

We are in a long Lord of the Flies moment, led by a man who, to borrow from Psalm 10, possesses a mouth “full of cursing and deceit and fraud.” For many people—government scientists seeking cures for diseases; FBI agents investigating corruption and terrorism; military leaders trying to preserve respect for the rules of warfare; and, in particular, police officers who were brutalized by Trump’s army of deluded followers—these days can seem infernal. Trump’s term is one-quarter over; a piece of advice often attributed to Churchill has it best: When you’re going through hell, keep going.

Donald Trump forced to sign a memorandum of surrender with Iran because Iranians will forever control the Strait of Hormuz

New York Times analysis by Neil MacFarquhar

What Changed After Almost Four Months of War❓ Analysts Say Not Much.

A painting of Iran’s first two supreme leaders in Tehran, this month. The second, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed at the start of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran this year. Credit...Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

Neither the war nor the agreement terminated the main threats emanating from Iran, many analysts said.

In igniting a war against Iran  on February 28, 2016, Donald Trump billed the U.S. campaign as an unprecedented step toward transforming the Middle East and terminating the threat from what he called a “wicked, radical dictatorship.”

Roughly 100 days later, as the United States and Iran have reached a somewhat vague memorandum of understanding (MOU) - a.k.a. "surrender", to end the war, skeptics are expressing bafflement over what exactly was transformed.

Neither the war nor the agreement ended what U.S. and Israeli officials regard as the main threats emanating from Iran. 

Although Iran's nuclear program was apparently heavily damaged, it was not eliminated — its fate punted 🏈🦶 to future negotiation.
Moreover, the same goes for Iran's ballistic missiles, which the deal does not address. Iran’s authoritarian regime endured, albeit with new leaders. Its proxies remain a threat to the region. Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon, persisted in attacking each other.

By Saturday, even the most significant immediate result of the deal — Iran’s reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump had identified as essential — seemed at risk. 

Iran’s military said it was closing the waterway again, because the United States had failed to stop the fighting in Lebanon. The U.S. military contested that, saying the strait remained open as the agreement stipulated.

“This is not a document the United States agreed to because the war demonstrated a new U.S. military superiority,” said Caitlin Talmadge, a professor at M.I.T. who specializes in Persian Gulf security issues. “I think it’s a document that has resulted from the fact that the United States bit off more than it could chew and doesn’t want to escalate.”

That’s a worthy goal, she said. “But it really raises the question of what was achieved here, especially in comparison to the original Iran nuclear deal, negotiated by President Barack Obama.”

For its part, the Islamic Republic is set to receive potentially substantial financial rewards. (HELLO? Like 💲300 billion❗) That is one substantive change, although certainly not one in the United States’ favor. (Ugh....ya'think❓😕😒)

For Tehran, weathering the blistering assaults from the United States and Israel, and demonstrating the ability to retaliate and inflict damage, constituted a victory for them. 

Indeed, aside from the Trump administration, the people crowing most about what transpired were core members of Iran’s regime.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and a lead negotiator, hailed a revelation that Iran had taken from the war: that it could exert leverage by controlling the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial transit point for one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

“This was a potential capacity that had never been activated,” Mr. Ghalibaf said in an interview Wednesday with IRIB, the Iran state broadcaster. “But our enemies — God created them fools 🃏 🤡— turned that potential into reality.”

Although the memorandum allows for free passage of ships for two months, Tehran has threatened to implement transit fees for services, a system that did not exist before the war.

The heart of the memorandum is that Iran will abandon hostility toward the United States and its regional allies, a pillar of the revolution, in exchange for sweeping, if sometimes gradual, economic benefits. They include the lifting of the American naval blockade, a 💲300 billion❗ reconstruction fund to be created by the Gulf Arab states (as if...🙄 duh...like, believe it when we 👀see it), the release of billions of dollar💲 in frozen assets and an end to all American sanctions.

The deal’s ambition, as Vice President JD Vance portrayed it to reporters, went so far as the transformation of Iran’s hostile relations with the United States and much of the region since its 1979, revolution.

“People say the Iranians will never change their behavior. Well, maybe that’s true and if so, they don’t get any of the benefits of the bargain,” said Vance. “But, isn’t it worth trying❓”

Experts on the region are skeptical. Middle Eastern wars tend to breed more radicalization, not less, said Karim Haggag, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “The reality is that the region in the aftermath of this conflict will be much more insecure,” he said.

Here is a look at how the memorandum left various countries:

The United States

Vance said the agreement maintained U.S. leverage over Iran and that it could turn financial rewards on and off like a spigot. Many experts were doubtful.

It’s true that Trump broke the American taboo against invading Iran, but in doing so analysts said that he squandered the most powerful tool that Washington had maintained since the Islamic Revolution: the threat of force. The United States used it, and didn’t achieve its goals — a lesson Iran is sure to internalize, analysts said.

In the initial, 12-day war last June, for example, the U.S. military managed to cast a shadow over the long-term viability of Iran’s nuclear program by dispatching long-range bombers to bury nuclear facilities under a mountain of rubble, said Ms. Talmadge of M.I.T.

The more recent war had the opposite effect, she added, since Trump backed off further escalation. “I think the U.S. in some ways undermined the leverage that it had,” Ms. Talmadge said.

At the same time, Iranian attacks on U.S. military bases in the region caused extensive damage, undermining another facet of American leverage, she said, by puncturing the sense that they were inviolable.

And the memorandum has a further stipulation: that unspecified American forces should withdraw from the “proximity” of Iran within 30 days.

“When did we ever negotiate with the Iranians about our force deployments going forward❓” asked Robert S. Ford, a former American ambassador in the region.

Iran

The war wrought widespread devastation, with a reported death toll of 1,700 civilians. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed along with dozens of senior military commanders, and its air defenses proved porous. Reconstructing military and industrial infrastructure will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Inflation is skyrocketing, and high unemployment could fuel public unrest.

But, the government’s tenacity served to “reinvigorate Iran’s perception of its own security,” said Afshon Ostovar, author of “Wars of Ambition: The United States, Iran, and the Struggle for the Middle East.”

The idea that it will trade its hostility toward the United States and its allies for improved prosperity is a gamble, since it had almost always chosen confrontation previously, analysts said.

Israel

Israel entered the war convinced that it would defang Iran for at least a generation.

Instead, Isreal found itself sidelined by its ally, the United States, in an agreement that ignored its goals, and worse, limited its freedom to attack in Lebanon. Trump has also repeatedly disparaged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, revealing rare disunity in American-Israeli relations at a fraught moment, with Israeli elections approaching.

From an Israeli standpoint, the memorandum is a catastrophe. “It is a collapse of all the strategy that we had regarding Iran,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israeli intelligence officer who specializes in Iran.

Lebanon

Lebanon is considered by analysts to be the soft underbelly of the memorandum. Hezbollah*alienated many of its mostly Shiite Muslim supporters by dragging the country into two devastating wars — one in support of Hamas in Gaza and the other when Israel attacked Iran. The violence has left thousands of people dead, including almost 4,000 civilians this year, according to the health ministry.

Lack of financial support from Iran for reconstruction augmented public anger. But Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is working assiduously to restore Hezbollah’s military capacity,💥😔😟 analysts said, and some of the money💰 promised to Tehran for reconstruction could flow to the militia. That gives Hezbollah incentive to respect the agreement.

Both Trump and Vance acknowledged that some violence in Lebanon is likely to continue, but it is not clear how much it would take to trigger a strong American intervention.

The Gulf

The six Arab Gulf states hoped in vain to remain bystanders in the longstanding duel between Israel and Iran. Instead, Iran’s closure of the strait and attacks on their oil infrastructure brought economic turmoil.

Although American interceptors prevented the worst damage, the war has forced Gulf states to rethink their dependence on the United States for security.

Now, there is talk of a “golden bridge” to Iran: mutual investments that were impossible under sanctions. “We can benefit from one another, intertwine interests, to make the cost of returning to war higher,” said Bader Al-Saif, a historian at Kuwait University. “If I have an Iranian plant in Kuwait City, they’re going to think twice before hitting us, right❓”

Overall, though, the memorandum itself was widely seen as encompassing minimal concrete change.

“I’m skeptical that much progress will be made on the nuclear issue now that the U.S. has removed the main leverage that it has,” said Paul Salem, a Middle East analyst, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “So in a way, this deal is a bit of a nothing burger at the end of this very long and devastating war.”

Shirin Hakim contributed reporting.

Neil MacFarquhar has been a New York Times reporter since 1995, writing about a range of topics from war to politics to the arts, both internationally and in the United States.

Maine Writer post script opinion about Hezbollah- this home grown terrorist organization will never go away and Israel is the organization's perennial enemy. Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party with an active paramilitary wing. It has been banned by the Lebanese government since March 2026, amid Israel's war on Lebanon. Nevertheless, Iran continues to support the group's ongoing military campaign against Israel. Hezbollah fights Israel primarily to advance its foundational ideology to destroy the Israeli state.