- Trump claims a former president supports his actions in Iran; the four living former presidents all deny it;
- Many on the extreme right sound insane to the rest of us, with examples;
- Trump is pressuring the media to support his war, as authoritarians do;
- Yet another example of how Trump is only transactional, without principles;
- John Pavlovitz on how MAGA Americans will feign ignorance of the Trump administration, jut as Germans did about the NAZIs.
- A report on the health of Democracies around the world is unsurprising concerning the US;
- Anne Applebaum on how everyone but Trump understands what he’s done;
- Philip Glass’s Monsters of Grace.
Today’s story about crazy Trump.
NY Times, 16 Mar 2026: Trump Claims an Ex-President Confided His Regrets on Iran. But Who?, subtitled “The New York Times reached out to people close to President Trump’s predecessors. They disputed Mr. Trump’s claims.”
President Trump claimed on Monday that a former president told him privately that “I wish I did what you did” in attacking Iran and killing its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Mr. Trump would not identify which of the four living predecessors he was referring to.
“He said, ‘I wish I did what you did,’” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t want to get into ‘who,’ I don’t want to get him into trouble.”
All of the four living ex-presidents have denied any such conversation. Is Trump delusional? Insane? Lying by rote as he always does?
This story has been all over the media, and Facebook. One wag on Facebook suggested that 47 had a conversation with 45.
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A lot of people on the right sound insane to many of the rest of us. They are steeped in fantasy and privilege and religious zealotry, and not grounded in reality.
- JMG: Hegseth’s Pastor Calls For God To Kill James Talarico
- Friendly Atheist: Nebraska “prophet” says God needs him to have access to a private jet, subtitled “Hank Kunneman said ‘even Jesus was concerned about going to certain ports and airports'”. Airports? I don’t think so.
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Stepping out.
Salon, Sophia Tesfaye: Trump wants to punish media for his unpopular war, subtitled “The president and FCC Chair Brendan Carr are threatening journalists and broadcasters for their coverage of Iran”
This is what authoritarians do. And it’s happened before.
NY Times, Michelle Goldberg, 16 Mar 2026: Trump Is Trying to Bully America Into Supporting His War. It Won’t Work.
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Trump and his supports have no principles. They only make deals. They are purely transactional.
Via JMG, NY Times, 16 Mar 2026: U.S. Considers Withholding H.I.V. Aid Unless Zambia Expands Minerals Access, subtitled “A draft State Department memo outlines ways the Trump administration may ratchet up pressure on the African country by ending health support ‘on a massive scale.'”
That people in Zambia may die is irrelevant to them. And you see these kinds of stories almost every day.
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As I said yesterday.
The Bulwark, Andrew Egger: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, subtitled “First insult them for years. Then demand their help.”
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A while back I mentioned the title of a book that would well apply to the current situation: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
John Pavlovitz: How Will This End for MAGA Americans? The Same Way It Did for NAZI Germans: Feigned Ignorance
As horrifying and sad as it is watching the worst inhumanity of the past repeating itself in the place we call home, it does allow us to look back and get some idea as to where we’re likely headed.
For students of History, the last two years here in America have been one long experience of Déjà vu of the worst kind: a growing assemblage of governmental red flag overreach, incendiary rhetoric designed to dehumanize an entire segment of the population, a steady failure of both systems and sanity, and the mass delusion of otherwise reasonable people who gladly enabled a fragile lunatic’s sickening rise.
For those of us fortunate enough not to have had our brains rotted and our souls devoured by the decade-long death cult of an orange imbecile here in America, we’ve endeavored to understand how people around us succumbed to a hollow ruse that either intelligence or empathy should have seen through.
We’ve repeatedly beaten our heads against the wall trying (and failing) to find new ways to reach into the stupor of their blind adoration and pull them into moral clarity, none of which proved successful.
And, we’ve attempted to predict just when (if ever) they would awaken from this ten-year racist fever-dream and come to terms with the multitude of horrors they’ve co-authored with their votes and their undying allegiance.
If recent history is any indication, we’d better not hold our breath.
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This report has been anticipated.
Slate, Christopher Ingraham: They’ve Been Measuring the Health of Democracies for Years. Guess What Their New Report Says About America.
You can guess. The graphs look like this:
Once again, MAGA Americans won’t notice, or care.
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And finally, a big piece by Anne Applebaum.
The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum, 17 Mar 2026: Everyone but Trump Understands What He’s Done, subtitled “Allied leaders know that any positive gesture they make will count for nothing.”
Donald Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.
He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind—when he feels new whims and new impulses—he simply lies about whatever he said or did before.
And it goes on with the progress of the Iran war and whether something might finally be breaking in Trump. Ending:
The result: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has declared that Canada will not participate in the “offensive operations of Israel and the U.S., and it never will.” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says, “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.” The Spanish prime minister refused to let the United States use bases for the beginning of the war. The U.K. and France might send some ships to protect their own bases or allies in the Gulf, but neither will send their soldiers or sailors into offensive operations started without their assent.
This isn’t cowardice. It’s a calculation: If allied leaders thought that their sacrifice might count for something in Washington, they might choose differently. But most of them have stopped trying to find the hidden logic behind Trump’s actions, and they understand that any contribution they make will count for nothing. A few days or weeks later, Trump will not even remember that it happened.
As I’ve said before, what startles me is not that there are such people like Trump in the world, but that so many other people support such a person and don’t care or don’t notice.
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I’ve been working my way through my Philip Glass CDs, some of them that I’ve only listened to once or twice when I first bought them without really absorbing them. Here’s one, recorded in 2007, called MONSTERS OF GRACE, which is remarkable mostly for its orchestration. I’ve been listening to it repeatedly for three days. There’s no complete recording on YouTube, but here’s the second track, which provide a good sample flavor. (Except that the four vocalists, who sound very familiar from at least one earlier Glass work I can’t place, aren’t in this track.)
