‘Make The Right Choices’: Fallen Soldier’s Advice Should Guide Trump’s War In Iran

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. . .[M]essaging on the war has been disjointed, conflicting, and confusing, with administration officials citing different priorities and objectives. Is the endgame regime change? Is it knocking out Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the threat that we “totally obliterated” last summer?

Are we doing this to sate the unquenchable blood lust of the neocon warmongers? To further fatten the wallets of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about so long ago?


Whatever the plan is, it must keep in mind the service members in and moving toward harm’s way. As of late Wednesday, there are six flag-draped caskets heading back from a war with many aims.

How many more families will have to hear the death knell of the doorbell like the Coadys? At the very least, they and their fellow Americans should know what it is we’re fighting for.

Sgt. Declan Coady, the Eagle Scout and cybersecurity major at Des Moines’ Drake University, the young man his mom described as “so kind and so amazing,” has given the last full measure of devotion and his future to the exigencies of war.

As a pre-teen in 2017, Coady offered some advice on his Facebook page that all of us, particularly the war planners, should take to heart: “The world is always changing my friends be prepared for your future and make the right choices.” (Read more from “‘Make The Right Choices’: Fallen Soldier’s Advice Should Guide Trump’s War In Iran” HERE)

Mike Lee Unveils National Constitutional Carry Bill to Override ‘Hostile’ State Gun Laws

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Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is pushing nationwide constitutional carry for firearms, a move that would eliminate concealed carry permits, fees and criminal penalties for people who want to carry a firearm in public.

Lee’s National Constitutional Carry Act, first obtained by Fox News Digital, would eliminate several hurdles Americans face with concealed carry across the country.

“The Founders established a national right to keep and bear arms, not to ask for permission from hostile local officials or risk imprisonment for crossing the wrong state line,” Lee said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“Many states already protect the right to carry without a permit, and it’s time to reaffirm this right for all law-abiding Americans,” he continued. “The National Constitutional Carry Act will establish nationwide permitless carry to keep America safe and her people free.”

Currently, 29 states allow some form of constitutional carry, meaning residents can carry a concealed firearm without a permit. (Read more from “Mike Lee Unveils National Constitutional Carry Bill to Override ‘Hostile’ State Gun Laws” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

The Two Moments at Kristi Noem’s Congressional Hearings That Got Her Fired as Secretary of Homeland Security

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Fired Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem sealed her fate with two answers at a pair of disastrous congressional hearings

Noem, who is the first cabinet secretary ousted during the second Trump administration, faced pointed questions from committee members on a range of thorny matters, from a recent DHS ad campaign with a Hollywood blockbuster budget to whether she’s sleeping with top aide Corey Lewandowski.

After answering the questions in a way that reportedly left President Trump “mad as a murder hornet,” she was out of a job less than 24 hours later

On Tuesday, GOP Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy grilled Noem over a massive taxpayer-funded ad campaign where she heavily featured herself during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“How do you square that with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently?” the senator asked.

Noem replied, “Sir, the president tasked me with getting the message out to the country and to other countries with putting commercials out that if they were in the country illegally, that they needed to leave.” (Read more from “The Two Moments at Kristi Noem’s Congressional Hearings That Got Her Fired as Secretary of Homeland Security” HERE)

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Republican Shames Every Colleague who Rejected her Sex Misconduct Resolution

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An enraged Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) took to X on Wednesday to name and shame the vast majority of members of Congress.

Her post was an alphabetical list of all 357 members who voted to reject her resolution to require public disclosure of every complaint that a member engaged in sexual harassment or an illicit affair with a staffer.

Mace, herself a survivor of sexual assault, had greater luck with her other motion this week, to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi over the failure to fully release the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case files as required by law. (Read more from “Republican Shames Every Colleague who Rejected her Sex Misconduct Resolution” HERE)

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SCOTUS Backs Trump: Votes 9:0 to Curb Migrants’ Asylum Claims

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The Supreme Court has unanimously decided to handcuff liberal judges who want to help the growing number of migrants who lose their asylum pleas at the Justice Department.

“The unanimous decision in Urias–Orellana v. Bondi is a win for the Trump Administration in maintaining a high burden to overturn [the Justice Department’s] immigration courts in asylum cases,” said lawyer Jonathan Turley.

The decision means that millions of migrants will face even tougher pressure to leave the United States, especially after they are arrested by ICE.

The win is one of many gains by President Donald Trump’s deputies as they try to accelerate the number of self-deportations and ICE deportations. For example, in December, 38 percent of the migrants detained by ICE chose to go home rather than file lawsuits to stay in the United States.

The court decision in Urias-Orellana v. Bondi was written by the court’s most left-wing judge, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Read more from “SCOTUS Backs Trump: Votes 9:0 to Curb Migrants’ Asylum Claims” HERE)

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Senate Debate On Iran War Turns Into Senile Men Shouting At Sky

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The Senate sort of debated a war powers resolution on Wednesday that might have eventually stopped the war in Iran, although the resulting vote was only on a motion to bring the resolution to the floor. That vote failed, leaving the Trump administration with what amounts to implied congressional permission to continue. As Rand Paul noted, speaking as the only Republican who supported the measure, “This essentially is the vote whether to go to war or not.”

But the Senate wasn’t debating the war, or debating Trump: It was debating against its own history, poorly and without noticing, in a mostly incoherent series of self-negating rhetorical maneuvers. Taken as a whole, the Senate doesn’t seem to have known what it was debating at all.

You can watch the debate-shaped thing here, in an eight-hour video that doesn’t contain eight hours of war powers discussion. During speeches about the war, senators shouted and spoke of the need for urgency, invoking all of the usual language about the judgment of history. Between speeches, they took long pauses, and senators popped in with speeches on hockey, Netflix, healthcare, tax cuts, and housing shortages in Pennsylvania.

Somewhere around the middle, Colorado Democrat John Hickenlooper got in a campaign speech that mentioned the war while hitting all the major talking points of the day: job growth, rent, child care. Here’s a senator’s urgent contribution to a debate about a war powers resolution, with bombs currently falling: “According to Moody’s, the top 10% of U.S. households now account for nearly half of all spending. That means on paper the economy may look relatively good, but only for half of Americans. Half of Americans at the top. And while working families struggle to get by, the president has given an extra boost to the powerful and well-connected.” Hickenlooper’s office proudly posted a transcript, if you want to see it for yourself. You can feel how deeply he cares about stopping the war.

If you don’t have a habit of torturing yourself by watching legislative debate, you might have found yourself surprised by the coupling of a frequent recourse to rhetoric about urgency with an unmistakable lack of actual urgency. This is normal. It would take the United States Senate nine hours to evacuate a burning tour bus. They give viewers the sense of being the audience for bingo night at a convalescent home. (Read more from “Senate Debate On Iran War Turns Into Senile Men Shouting At Sky” HERE)

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Congress Votes to Summon Attorney General Bondi in Epstein Case

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A congressional committee has voted to summon US Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify about the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The motion to subpoena Bondi was introduced by Nancy Mace, a Republican lawmaker, who accused the justice department of a “cover-up”. . .

“The Epstein case is one of the greatest cover-ups in American history. His global sex trafficking network is larger than what is being revealed,” Mace wrote on social media. . . 

On Wednesday, five Republicans, including Mace, and Representatives Lauren Boebert, Tim Burchett, Michael Cloud and Scott Perry, joined Democrats on the House Oversight committee to vote in favour of the subpoena or legal summons.

“Three million documents have been released, and we still don’t have the full truth,” Mace wrote. “Videos are missing. Audio is missing. Logs are missing. There are millions more documents out there.” (Read more from “Congress Votes to Summon Attorney General Bondi in Epstein Case” HERE)

Kristi Noem Confronted About Rumored Fling Playing White Knight While Husband Looks On

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Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem was confronted on Wednesday about her top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, reportedly firing a pilot on her behalf as rumors of an alleged affair continued to circulate.

Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin confronted Noem during the House Judiciary Committee’s “Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security” hearing about a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that alleged Lewandowski fired a Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind on a government jet. Noem’s husband, Bryon, sat quietly while Raskin mentioned Lewandowski, with whom she is rumored to have had an extramarital relationship.

“Apparently, when your special blanket, your blankie was left on one of the government jets and not transported over the new one, your special government employee, Corey Lewandowski, chivalrously stepped forward to fire the pilot mid-air. A 2003 Coast Guard graduate and distinguished U.S. Coast Guard Commander in Air Station, Washington D.C.,” Raskin said. “But then he had to be rehired immediately because there was no one else who could fly the two of you on the rest of the journey back home.”

Reports of an alleged extramarital relationship between Noem and Lewandowski have long circulated in political circles, which caused President Donald Trump to reject Lewandowski’s request to become Noem’s chief of staff, The WSJ reported. Trump reportedly knew about the relationship and repeatedly brought it up to associates.

A reporter asked Trump about the alleged relationship on Air Force One in February; Trump responded by saying he had no knowledge of the rumors and would “find out about it.” (Read more from “Kristi Noem Confronted About Rumored Fling Playing White Knight While Husband Looks On” HERE)

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Only One Republican Backs Failed Attempt To Restrict Trump’s Iran Military Action

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The Senate voted down legislation Wednesday aimed at blocking President Donald Trump from taking military action against Iran without congressional approval.

Lawmakers in the upper chamber voted 52 to 48, giving Trump the greenlight to continue his strikes on Iran without worrying about Congress. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a cosponsor of the legislation, was the only Republican to vote with nearly every Democrat aiming to curb the president’s authority to use military force without first consulting Congress.

“They’ve [Iran has] been saying they’re one week away from a nuclear weapon, I think, since 1996,” Paul told reporters Wednesday. “The other thing is, ‘Oh no, we’re really been at war for 40 years, and now we’re just ending the war.’ I mean, most of the arguments don’t seem to hold water.”

Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman also broke with his party and sided with Republicans, even going as far as to commend Trump for taking out the oppressive regime.

“So for me, why can’t we just say, ‘look, this is a good thing the way we are,’” Fetterman said Wednesday. “And now, what’s the end game? Well, the end game is for more real peace, rather than just putting out tweets and statements saying we can never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. When someone does something about that to make that happen, you know, I think we should just [be] country over party.” (Read more from “Only One Republican Backs Failed Attempt To Restrict Trump’s Iran Military Action” HERE)

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Ex-Marine Dragged Out of Hearing After Anti-Iran War Protest

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A man was violently dragged out of a Capitol Hill hearing on Wednesday, March 4, by police and a Republican Senator after interrupting the proceedings to protest the war in Iran.

Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana said he assisted officers in physically ejecting “an unhinged protester” from the Armed Services hearing.

The protester, Brian McGinnis, describes himself as a Marine veteran and is running as a Green Party candidate in North Carolina’s Senate race.

In another video posted online, McGinnis can be heard yelling: “America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel.”

This footage shows members of the Capitol Police attempting to remove McGinnis from the hearing room. McGinnis appeared to struggle with officers near the doorway when Sheehy stepped in.

(Read more from “Ex-Marine Dragged Out of Hearing After Anti-Iran War Protest” HERE)