@msmmwelch

31 Followers
91 Following
282 Posts
Pentagon Seeks Additional $200 Billion to Fund Iran War

The request, which the White House has not yet submitted to Congress, is already encountering some resistance.

The New York Times

In case you’re unfamiliar with our decades of interference in #Iran, I wrote up a primer on it and the #history for Dame Magazine. When Hegseth says that Iran’s been at war with us for decades, he’s got it totally backwards. At the end of the day, that’s us.

https://www.damemagazine.com/2026/03/02/americas-long-war-on-iran-history/

America’s Long War on Iran Didn’t Start This Weekend - Dame Magazine

From the 1953 CIA-backed coup to Trump’s latest strikes, America’s attempts to reshape Iran have fueled instability, sanctions, and endless escalation.

Dame Magazine -

I had a lot of fun writing this. MAGA’s economic incompetence isn’t just incompetence; there’s active malice in it because immiseration is the point, not the side effect. They want to reinforce class and hierarchy; they want to be rich people in a poor country because that will make them feel more powerful. We don’t have to treat their arguments in good faith or meet them in the middle.

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-pain-is-the-plan/

The Pain Is the Plan

MAGA is actively seeking to immiserate the country in order to cement their power over the rest of us.

Liberal Currents

My latest for Dame on the way that the Trump Administration uses crises (including deliberately inflicted crises) as a way to govern. It greases the wheels of authoritarianism, corruption, and the breakdown of the state all at once.

https://www.damemagazine.com/2026/02/11/trump-permanent-crisis-permanent-power/

The Politics of Permanent Disaster - Dame Magazine

By flooding the system with constant crisis, the Trump administration sidelines Congress, exhausts the public, and concentrates executive power.

Dame Magazine -
Americans Are Paying the Bill for Tariffs, Despite Trump’s Claims

Research from the New York Fed confirms that U.S. companies and consumers are bearing tariff costs, despite the president’s assertions otherwise.

The New York Times

History to know this #PresidentsDay weekend:

Ona Judge escaped enslavement from George and Martha Washington in 1796, fleeing the President’s House in Philadelphia for freedom.

Now the National Park Service has removed an exhibit telling her story.

https://theconversation.com/martha-washingtons-enslaved-maid-ona-judge-made-a-daring-escape-to-freedom-but-the-national-park-service-has-erased-her-story-from-philadelphia-exhibit-274394

Martha Washington’s enslaved maid Ona Judge made a daring escape to freedom – but the National Park Service has erased her story from Philadelphia exhibit

Ona Judge was one of 9 people George Washington owned when he lived in the President’s House in Philadelphia.

The Conversation
N.Y.C. Officials Reinstate Pride Flag at Stonewall After Federal Removal

Hundreds of people attended a rally on Thursday to re-raise the flag, setting up a defiant response to the Trump administration’s assault on diversity initiatives.

The New York Times
To Stay in Her Home, She Let In an A.I. Robot

At 85, Jan Worrell lived alone on a remote corner of the Washington coast. Could ElliQ become her companion?

The New York Times
Just like with Brazil arresting their insurrectionists rather than re-electing them, other countries are holding their Epstein-tied politicians accountable far better than we do. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Again and again, I see the notion that humanity is committing "collective suicide" because we are not acting on #ClimateChange and other forms environmental destruction.

I do not accept this thesis. This is not suicide, it is murder - perpetrated by the oligarchs of this world and others who want the #FossilFuel economy going for their own profit.

And they have invested _massive_ amounts of money into propaganda to keep this system running. Not just by funding climate change denial - but also by promoting the concept of the individual "carbon footprint". Essentially, they have socialized the risks and privatized the profits, tricking us into believing that _we_ are to blame for not doing enough as individual persons, rather than _them_ for creating and perpetrating the system.

This is part of the "personal responsibility" ideology pushed by those who already own most of the world, but still want more. If _we_ as individuals share in the blame for _their_ decisions, even though _they_ gain all the benefits from them and we do not, then that means we would have to fight _ourselves_ to save the world - rather than the true villains of this story.

So let's put the accountability where it belongs, okay?