The New York Budgets

Category: Politics

  • US Intelligence chief avoids contradicting Trump on Iran war threat claims

    US Intelligence chief avoids contradicting Trump on Iran war threat claims

    Donald Trump’s top spy chief refused to say whether Iran had posed an imminent threat to the US as the president claimed at the outset of the war.

    Director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard struggled to avoid contradicting Trump as she and other top national security officials testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday about the biggest security threats facing the country.

    Pressed repeatedly on whether the intelligence community had assessed that Iran posed “an imminent nuclear threat” ahead of the start of the US-Israel attack on February 28 — one of the administration’s main justifications for the war — Gabbard said: “It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. That is up to the president.”

    Gabbard’s testimony at the intelligence committee’s annual global threats hearing came a day after another top intelligence official resigned over what he claimed were the administration’s “unfounded” justifications for the war, further amplifying doubts about a conflict that has killed 13 American service members so far.

    In prepared opening remarks submitted to the committee ahead of her appearance, Gabbard said that Iran’s nuclear programme had been “obliterated” by US and Israeli strikes against the country’s nuclear sites last June.

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    “There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability,” she wrote in her statement.

    But she veered from her prepared remarks when she addressed the Senate panel, saying that US intelligence believed that Iran had been “trying to recover” from the “severe damage” to its nuclear infrastructure before the renewed US-Israel strikes against the country.

    When Mark Warner, the intelligence committee’s top Democrat, asked Gabbard why she had strayed from her written testimony, she responded that she had skipped the relevant section because her testimony “was running long”.

    US officials have offered contradictory justifications for the war and the status of Iran’s nuclear programme, saying that Tehran was both “weeks” away from obtaining a nuclear bomb, and that its nuclear facilities had been “obliterated” by last year’s war.

    At the start of her testimony Gabbard stressed she was presenting “the intelligence community’s assessment of the threats facing US citizens, our homeland and our interests” and not her personal views or opinions.

    A combat veteran who has long opposed US military intervention overseas, Gabbard remained silent on the conflict until Tuesday when she posted a statement on X that repeated Trump’s justification for the war, but did not say whether she supported it.

    Joe Kent, a close ally of Gabbard who was director of the National Counterterrorism Center, on Tuesday became the first senior US official to resign in protest at the war, saying that Tehran posed “no imminent threat to our nation”.

    Kent’s resignation has raised questions about Gabbard’s future in the Trump administration and splits within his Maga movement which has long been opposed to US wars of regime change.

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    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday she had no “knowledge” of whether Trump was considering firing Gabbard, but said it was “a question for him”.

    Democrats expressed frustration during the hearing with the unwillingness of Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe to answer questions about the information presented to the president ahead of his decision to go to war. FBI director Kash Patel and the leaders of the US defence and signals intelligence agencies also testified.

    Gabbard told the committee that US intelligence had “long” assessed that Iran would likely use the Strait of Hormuz as leverage in the event of a crisis.

    But both she and Ratcliffe declined to say whether they had given that assessment directly to the president ahead of the war. Gabbard did say that her agency assessed that Iran’s regime remained largely “intact” and would seek to reconstitute its military capabilities if they remained.

    Trump said this week that his administration had been surprised by Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US allies in the Middle East. There appears to have been little preparation for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil flows.

    “We’re trying to figure out if the president knew what the downside was of the Strait of Hormuz being closed, and I’m having a hard time finding out whether the White House asked, or whether there was a brief, whether the president knew,” said Democratic senator Mark Kelly.

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  • Trump Ally Warns U.S. Economy Too Weak to Withstand Iran War Shock

    Trump Ally Warns U.S. Economy Too Weak to Withstand Iran War Shock

    Donald Trump’s one-time pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics has said the US economy is too weak to handle oil at $100 per barrel as he warned of rising consumer prices triggered by the war in Iran.

    “I don’t think this is an economy that is going to be able to handle $100 a barrel for oil, it’s just not,” EJ Antoni told the Financial Times. 

    “The economy is weaker than we thought it was, and inflation is worse than we thought it was,” he added in a call on Wednesday, shortly before the Federal Reserve’s March rate-setting meeting. 

    “The lower energy prices that we saw in 2025 helped put downward pressure on prices throughout the economy. Now . . . we’re going to see higher energy prices have exactly the opposite effect and put upward pressure on prices throughout the economy.” 

    Trump picked Antoni, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s chief economist, to lead the US labour statistics agency in August, shortly after firing the former commissioner for a gloomy jobs report the president claimed was “rigged”.

    He abruptly withdrew Antoni’s nomination a month later and ultimately settled on government economist Brett Matsumoto, whose confirmation is subject to Senate approval.

    Antoni’s remarks on the health of the world’s largest economy come a day after the director of the US National Counterterrorism Center resigned in protest at the Iran war, marking the first significant defection from the Trump administration since the conflict began.

    Republicans are meanwhile growing increasingly worried that high oil prices — Brent crude jumped 5 per cent to almost $110 a barrel on Wednesday — will dent their chances in the midterm elections. Petrol prices at the pump have surged to $3.84 a gallon from $2.92 a month ago, while diesel has exceeded $5 — exerting a heavy toll on US consumers and businesses.

    Economic data collected before the US and Israel launched their attack on Iran has done little to ease those concerns. 

    US GDP in the fourth quarter of 2025 was last week revised to 0.7 per cent from an initial estimate of 1.4 per cent, while data released on Wednesday showed US wholesale prices rose at a faster clip than expected in February, even before the war began. The US economy last month shed 92,000 jobs, in a sharp slide that eroded most of January’s gains.

    Antoni highlighted “a lack of job growth” in the US, some of which he attributed to last year’s cuts to the federal workforce, and renewed his attacks on the BLS, which he likened to “a random number generator” in a post on X last May.

    “You need a complete and total top-down review of everything from the data collection to the data processing and even the data dissemination, because there have been a few issues with leaks,” he said. In January, Trump posted some of December’s US jobs figures hours before their official release. 

    Antoni refused to be drawn on how Trump told him he was no longer his pick to lead the BLS, saying he would “rather keep those conversations confidential”.

  • US judge blocks DOJ subpoenas to federal reserve, citing ‘Thin’ evidence in Powell probe

    US judge blocks DOJ subpoenas to federal reserve, citing ‘Thin’ evidence in Powell probe

    A US judge has blocked subpoenas issued by Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to the Federal Reserve, in a major blow to prosecutors’ criminal investigation into chair Jay Powell and a victory for the central bank.

    James Boasberg, a US federal judge in the District of Columbia, wrote in an opinion unsealed on Friday that prosecutors were using their probe into renovations of the Fed’s headquarters to force Powell to “knuckle under” and bend to Trump’s relentless calls to slash borrowing costs.

    “There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the president or to resign and make way for a Fed chair who will,” Boasberg wrote.

    The judge said the Trump administration had “produced essentially zero evidence” to suspect Powell of a crime, adding: “Its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the court can only conclude that they are pretextual.”

    Boasberg’s ruling will stymie the criminal investigation into Powell related to cost overruns on the Fed’s $2.5bn headquarters renovation project.

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    Global central bankers and lawmakers, including some members of Trump’s Republican Party, have expressed grave concern over the investigation, which they view as an unprecedented attempt at eroding the independence of the world’s most important central bank.

    Powell in January called the move an “unprecedented action” from the DoJ, saying it was an attempt to rein in the Fed’s independence.

    Trump has relentlessly criticised Powell of being a “moron” and a “stubborn mule” for declining to sharply reduce rates. Trump has also sought to sack Fed governor Lisa Cook, in a move that was blocked by a lower court judge and later argued before the US Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in the coming months.

    Jeanine Pirro takes aim at the ruling by James Boasberg on Friday. (Reuters)
    Jeanine Pirro takes aim at the ruling by James Boasberg on Friday. (Reuters)

    The president has denied any involvement in the DoJ probe, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. The Fed declined to comment.

    In a fiery press conference shortly after the opinion was published, Jeanine Pirro, US attorney for the District of Columbia, tore into Boasberg, who she described as an “activist judge”. Pirro vowed to appeal against the ruling, which she said had “neutered the grand jury’s ability to investigate crime.”

    “Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve,” Pirro said. “That is wrong, and it is without legal authority.”

    The DoJ investigation, which was launched in January, has already had far-reaching consequences for Trump, prompting Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina to hold up the process to confirm Powell’s successor. Tillis has said he will block any Trump appointee to the Fed until the DoJ probe into Powell is “resolved”.

    Trump in late January nominated former Fed governor Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell as chair when his term ends in May. Warsh needs to be confirmed by the Senate in order to take up his post.

    Tillis on Friday said Boasberg’s ruling confirmed “just how weak and frivolous” the criminal investigation into Powell was, adding: “It is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence.

    “We all know how this is going to end,” Tillis said, adding Pirro’s office should “save itself further embarrassment and move on”.

  • Live Nation Reaches Tentative Antitrust Settlement With U.S. Justice Department as States

    Live Nation Reaches Tentative Antitrust Settlement With U.S. Justice Department as States

    Live Nation reached a tentative settlement with the US Justice Department on Monday in the federal antitrust case brought against the entertainment giant.

    The settlement, which still requires the approval of District Judge Arun Subramanian, comes just days after the antitrust trial began in New York.

    The case was initiated under then-president Joe Biden, with prosecutors accusing Live Nation — which owns Ticketmaster — a monopolist that controlled virtually all live entertainment in the United States.

    The settlement requires Live Nation to open up the ticketing platform to competitors and to allow other promoters to stage events at certain Live Nation venues, a senior Justice Department official said.

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    Live Nation will divest up to 13 amphitheaters and pay $280 million in damages to the nearly 40 states that were parties to the antitrust lawsuit against the California-based company, the official said.

    The increased competition should result in ticket prices coming down, the official said.

    Live Nation shares surged nearly six percent on the New York Stock Exchange following the announcement.

    New York and a number of other states declined to join the settlement and said Monday that their litigation against Live Nation would continue.

    “For years, Live Nation has made enormous profits by exploiting its illegal monopoly and raising costs for shows,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said.

    “The settlement recently announced with the US Department of Justice fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case, and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers,” James said in a statement.

    “We will keep fighting this case without the federal government so that we can secure justice for all those harmed by Live Nation’s monopoly.”

    A spokesperson for the New York attorney general, a Democrat, said prosecutors would file a motion with the court seeking a mistrial and file a new case against Live Nation brought solely by the states.

    The Justice Department official said talks with a number of the states were ongoing and was hopeful some of them will eventually sign off on the settlement.

    Live Nation is a behemoth in its industry: in 2025 it organized more than 55,000 events worldwide, drawing 159 million attendees.

    Beyond promotion, it holds stakes in 460 venues and, since 2010, has controlled Ticketmaster, the world’s leading ticket seller.

    The Justice Department had accused Live Nation of abusing its dominant position to pressure artists and venues into signing with it, stifle competition, and impose excessive fees on fans.

    The Trump administration’s decision to press forward with the case against Live Nation had surprised many observers, who had interpreted the recent resignation of Justice Department competition chief Gail Slater as a sign the case would be dropped.

    Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren condemned the settlement in a post on X.

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    “Donald Trump just betrayed every fan who’s been exploited by Ticketmaster,” Warren said. “This fine is less than one percent of Live Nation’s revenue last year. We need to break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation.”

    John Kwoka, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, said the settlement appeared “inadequate.”

    “It does not deal with the fact that Ticketmaster is still an integrated company that has incentives that remain pretty much intact to disadvantage competitors,” Kwoka said.

    “This is a minor accomplishment in the face of what the Justice Department laid out as a course of business,” he said.

  • Trump Blames Iran for Deadly Strike on Girls’ School

    Trump Blames Iran for Deadly Strike on Girls’ School

    President Donald Trump openly accused Iran of carrying out the Feb. 28 airstrike that destroyed the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab and killed at least 175 civilians — the vast majority of them young girls aged 7 to 12 — even though U.S. military investigators have already concluded it is “likely” that American forces were responsible.

    The president’s remarks represent a sharp pivot from the White House’s earlier insistence that “the United States does not target civilians.” They came just hours after Trump attended the solemn dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base for six U.S. servicemembers killed in an Iranian drone attack during the opening weekend of the war — a moment of national mourning that the president immediately used to deflect blame onto the very country his administration and Israel have been bombing for nine straight days.

    “In my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump told reporters. “They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.”

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    Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News host turned Pentagon chief who has repeatedly pushed for aggressive escalation against Tehran, doubled down on the claim. “The only side that targets civilians is Iran,” Hegseth declared, while acknowledging that a U.S. investigation remains ongoing.

    The coordinated attempt to pin the atrocity on Tehran comes as multiple American outlets report the opposite. Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the probe, revealed that military investigators believe U.S. forces almost certainly carried out the strike. The school sits in southern Iran — the exact zone where the U.S. Navy’s Abraham Lincoln strike group and American aircraft have focused their attacks since Feb. 28, while Israeli forces concentrated on northern targets.

    During a March 4 Pentagon briefing, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine used a laser pointer on a map to highlight U.S. operations along Iran’s southern coast and into the Arabian Gulf, explicitly noting the Abraham Lincoln’s role in “attriting naval capability” in that sector. An independent analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies confirmed the geographic division of labor: U.S. strikes in the south and center, Israeli strikes in the north.

    Iranian officials, including UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, have consistently blamed the United States and Israel for the bombing. The Iranian news agency IRNA reported that 175 people died, including dozens of girls between the ages of 7 and 12. Images of the mass funeral — small white coffins draped in Iranian flags passed hand-to-hand through grieving crowds — aired on state television and shocked viewers worldwide.

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    Despite the mounting evidence, the White House has clung to denial. Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly responded to the Reuters reporting by calling it “irresponsible and false,” insisting “there are no conclusions at this time” and repeating the mantra that “unlike the terrorist Iranian regime, the United States does not target civilians.” The Pentagon has offered only the blandest of statements: “We are aware of reports concerning civilian harm… and are looking into them,” said Capt. Tim Hawkins of U.S. Central Command.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when asked directly, referred all questions to the Pentagon and insisted the U.S. would never deliberately target a school. Hegseth himself, appearing before cameras on Wednesday, offered the same scripted line: “We, of course, never target civilian targets. But we’re taking a look.”

    The pattern is now familiar. From the moment the first bombs fell, the Trump administration and its Israeli partners have insisted this is a “precision” campaign against military targets only. Yet the first major civilian catastrophe of the war — a girls’ elementary school reduced to rubble on day one — has forced repeated rhetorical contortions. First came blanket denials. Then came the quiet internal assessment that U.S. munitions were probably responsible. Now comes the public blame-shifting onto Iran itself.

    The United Nations human rights office has demanded a full investigation, stating bluntly that “the onus is on the forces that carried out the attack.” Deliberately or recklessly striking a school is considered a potential war crime under international humanitarian law. If American responsibility is confirmed — as investigators already privately believe — it would rank among the deadliest single incidents of civilian casualties in decades of U.S. military operations in the Middle East.

    This satellite photo shows the area of a school and base of Iran's IRGC in Minab, Iran, on Wednesday. (PBC/AP)
    This satellite photo shows the area of a school and base of Iran’s IRGC in Minab, Iran, on Wednesday. (PBC/AP)

    The timing of Trump’s accusation is particularly cynical. He delivered it immediately after honoring American dead, as if the deaths of U.S. troops somehow justified rewriting the facts about Iranian children. Hegseth, who has spent months on cable news cheerleading for maximum force against Iran, now finds himself in the awkward position of simultaneously running the investigation and publicly exonerating the U.S. before it is complete.

    This is not the first time the administration has moved the goalposts. Trump began the war promising a quick, clean operation to “clean out” Iran’s leadership. When that failed, he demanded “unconditional surrender.” When civilian casualties mounted, the White House blamed Iran’s own inaccuracy. Now, facing credible evidence of a catastrophic U.S. mistake, the president and his war secretary are simply pointing the finger at the enemy — classic projection from an administration that has shown zero tolerance for accountability since day one.

    The Iranian regime is brutal and repressive; no serious observer disputes that. But the American people were told this war would be surgical, professional, and morally superior to the enemy. Instead, nine days in, we have a girls’ school in ruins, 175 small bodies in flag-draped coffins, and the president of the United States blaming the victims’ own government for a strike American investigators believe their own forces carried out.

    The investigation continues. But the White House’s public messaging has already rendered its verdict — and it is one that insults both the facts and the families mourning in Minab. As the bombs keep falling and the body count rises, the pattern is becoming impossible to ignore: when precision fails, this administration’s response is not reflection or restraint, but deflection and denial.

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    Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-U.S. strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, on Saturday. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News/AP)

    Trump Blames Iran for Deadly Strike on Girls’ School

    Iranian authorities claim the strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary in Minab killed 175 people and severely damaged the school. Despite an ongoing investigation, Donald Trump said Iran bears responsibility for the attack.

  • Trump Mourns with Families at Dover as 6 Soldiers Killed in Iran War Return Home

    Trump Mourns with Families at Dover as 6 Soldiers Killed in Iran War Return Home

    President Donald Trump on Saturday joined grieving families at Dover Air Force Base at the dignified transfer for the six U.S. soldiers killed in the war in the Middle East.

    The dignified transfer, a ritual that returns the remains of U.S. service members killed in action, is considered one of the most somber duties of any commander in chief. During his first term, Trump said bearing witness to the transfer was “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.

    Trump, speaking at a summit of Latin American leaders in Miami before his trip to Delaware, said the fallen service members were heroes “coming home in a different manner than they thought they’d be coming home.” He said it was “a very sad situation” and he pledged to keep American war deaths “to a minimum.”

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    Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance were present for the transfer, as were their spouses. A host of top administration officials were in attendance, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who wrote in a social media post Friday of “an unbreakable spirit to honor their memory and the resolve they embodied”; Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.

    Also present for the solemn event were governors and senators from Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Florida.

    Those killed in action were Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa; Capt. Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; and Sgt. Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa, who was posthumously promoted from specialist.

    As is protocol, Trump — wearing a blue suit, red tie and a white USA hat — did not speak during the transfer. The president saluted as each flag-draped transfer case was carried from the military aircraft to awaiting transfer vehicles, which would take them to a mortuary facility to prepare them for their final resting place. The families were largely silent as they observed the ritual, which lasted about a half hour.

    The six members of the Army Reserve, who were killed by a drone strike at a command center in Kuwait, were all from the 103rd Sustainment Command based in Des Moines, Iowa, which provides food, fuel, water and ammunition, transport equipment and supplies. They died just one day after the U.S. and Israel launched its military campaign against Iran.

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    “These soldiers engaged in the most noble mission: protecting their fellow Americans and keeping our homeland secure,” Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran, said earlier this week after the six were identified. “Our nation owes them an incredible debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.”

    During the ritual, transfer cases draped with the American flag and holding the remains of the fallen soldiers are carried from the military aircraft that transported them to an awaiting vehicle to take them to the mortuary facility at the base. There, the service members are prepared for their final resting place.

    Amor’s husband, Joey Amor, said earlier this week that she had been scheduled to return home to him and their two children within days.

    “You don’t go to Kuwait thinking something’s going to happen, and for her to be one of the first – it hurts,” Joey Amor said.

    O’Brien had served in the Army Reserve for nearly 15 years, according to his LinkedIn account, and his aunt said in a post on Facebook that O’Brien “was the sweetest blue-eyed, blonde farm kid you’d ever know. He is so missed already.”

    Marzan’s sister described him in a Facebook post as a “strong leader” and loving husband, father and brother.

    A combination image of undated photos shows U.S. Army Reserve Captain Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida, U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska, U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, and U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa, who were killed March 1, 2026, at the Port of Shuaiba, Kuwait during a drone attack. (U.S. Army Reserve/Handout via Reuters)
    A combination image of undated photos shows U.S. Army Reserve Captain Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida, U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska, U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, and U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa, who were killed March 1, 2026, at the Port of Shuaiba, Kuwait during a drone attack. (U.S. Army Reserve/Handout via Reuters)

    “My baby brother, you are loved and I will hold onto all our memories and cherish them always in my heart,” Elizabeth Marzan wrote.

    Coady was among the youngest people in his class, trained to troubleshoot military computer systems, but he impressed his instructors, his father, Andrew Coady, told The Associated Press.

    “He trained hard, he worked hard, his physical fitness was important to him. He loved being a soldier,” Coady said. “He was also one of the most kindest people you would ever meet, and he would do anything and everything for anyone.”

    Khork’s family described him as “the life of the party” who was known for his “infectious spirit” and “generous heart” and who had wanted to serve in the military since childhood.

    “That commitment helped shape the course of his life and reflected the deep sense of duty that was always at the core of who he was,” according to a statement from his mother, Donna Burhans, his father, James Khork, and his stepmother, Stacey Khork.

    Tietjens, who came from a military family, previously served alongside his father in Kuwait. When he returned home in February 2010, he reunited with his overjoyed wife in a local church’s gym.

    Tietjens’ cousin Kaylyn Golike asked for prayers, especially for Tietjens’ 12-year-old son, wife and parents, as they navigate “unimaginable loss.”

    Trump most recently traveled to Dover in December to honor two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter who were killed in an ambush attack in the Syrian desert. He attended dignified transfers several times during his first term, including for a Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan and for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.

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  • ‘Regime Change by Jazz Improvisation’

    ‘Regime Change by Jazz Improvisation’

    Smoke from an oil refinery rises over residential buildings in southern Tehran after Israeli airstrikes. (Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA)
    Smoke from an oil refinery rises over residential buildings in southern Tehran after Israeli airstrikes. (Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA)

    “Regime change by jazz improvisation.” Karim Sadjadpour’s phrase is not just clever — it is damning. It perfectly exposes the reckless, contradictory, and fundamentally dishonest mess that Donald Trump’s White House has unleashed on Iran and, by extension, on the entire world.

    This is not foreign policy. This is a saxophone solo played by a president who campaigned on “America First” but has instead delivered “Israel First” on steroids, orchestrated by the same neoconservative warmongers, AIPAC donors, and Zionist ideologues who have hijacked U.S. strategy for decades.

    Let’s be brutally honest about what is happening. Trump began the war with a midnight Truth Social post urging Iranians to rise up and overthrow their government, apparently convinced the Islamic Republic would collapse in 48 hours. When it didn’t, he pivoted within days — floating deals with regime insiders, praising the 2019 Venezuela operation (two arrests, no real change) as “perfect,” and letting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elbridge Colby insist this was not a regime-change war, merely a limited strike to “degrade” Iranian forces.

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    Then came the latest improvisation: Trump personally reaching out to Kurdish leaders in Iran and Iraq, dangling U.S. support if they help topple Tehran and redraw borders. By Friday he was demanding “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and promising to “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!)” — a slogan so transparently written for his Israeli-American billionaire patron Miriam Adelson that even his own supporters are laughing through gritted teeth.

    This is not leadership. This is chaos in service of a foreign agenda.

    The real danger, however, lies in the widening gap between Washington’s stated interests and Tel Aviv’s actual objectives. For Benjamin Netanyahu, this is the culmination of a 40-year Zionist dream: the total destruction of the Islamic Republic. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Israeli strikes have been surgical and merciless — decapitating leadership, bombing command centers, even hitting police facilities — methodically dismantling the regime’s repressive machinery. Netanyahu is also finishing off Hezbollah “root and branch.” Chaos in Iran and Lebanon? Acceptable collateral damage. A Syrian-style civil war next door would actually strengthen Israel’s position by eliminating any coherent Arab or Persian state capable of resisting Greater Israel ideology. History is clear: the Syrian civil war improved Israel’s security precisely because it removed a unified adversary. Netanyahu is betting the same outcome will work in Tehran.

    For the United States, this is catastrophic. Iran is a nation of 90 million with deep ethnic fault lines — Kurds, Armenians, Azerbaijanis — who have coexisted peacefully under central authority. Remove that authority and, as the Balkans and post-2003 Iraq proved, people retreat to tribe and sect. Fueling the fire is Iran’s massive armed apparatus: nearly 200,000 Revolutionary Guards, hundreds of thousands of Basij militiamen, and 400,000 regular troops. Many will simply melt away and re-emerge as insurgents, exactly as Saddam’s army did. Libya, 14 years after Gaddafi, still has no single authority. Iraq remains a fractured mess. Destroying a state is child’s play for modern air power; rebuilding one — or even preventing total collapse — has never been America’s strong suit.

    Yet Trump, captured by the same AIPAC-driven machine and neocon zombies (Lindsey Graham practically glowed on cable news), keeps lurching toward Netanyahu’s endgame. Iraqi Kurds are now caught in a deadly three-way squeeze, as Axios reported in devastating detail. Iranian Kurds are pressing them to open borders and join the fight. Tehran has issued its first direct threat: allow cross-border attacks or “Zionist regime elements” through your territory and every facility in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq will be hit “on a massive scale” — 200 Shahed drones would be enough, given the Kurds’ lack of air defenses. Israeli operatives are far more aggressive in pushing Iranian Kurdish militias than the Americans, who seem content with “Regime Lite — Venezuela Plus.” Kurdish officials are staying neutral, remembering every previous American betrayal. One told Axios: “We have trust issues from the past and we don’t want to get involved. Who is going to defend us if the Iranian regime ends up surviving this?”

    Meanwhile, America’s actual allies are in open disbelief as the Pentagon reroutes weapons shipments to feed this Zionist adventure. European officials, still rebuilding after Ukraine, fear they will be left naked against Russia. Asian partners watch China and North Korea taking notes on U.S. ammunition burn rates. Even Gulf states wonder where their promised air defenses went.

    As one northern European official put it anonymously: “The munitions that have been and will be fired are the ones that everybody needs to acquire in large numbers.” Production cannot be magicked overnight. A Patriot missile is not a Tesla. The EU is already rewriting rules to favor European arms makers. Poland is buying South Korean tanks. The old “America as giant Walmart” illusion is dead, and the transatlantic defense relationship is fracturing — all so Israel can pursue its maximalist fantasy.

    And the propaganda? Vintage neocon script. First it was “not even a war.” Then “a short war, nothing like Iraq.” Then “not regime change.” Now Trump himself tells TIME magazine he is open to ground troops, has “no time limits,” and wants a “Western-friendly government” — the exact phrase used when the CIA overthrew Iran’s elected leader in 1953 and installed the Shah.

    He even bragged to CNN that he doesn’t care about Iranian democracy — just leaders who “treat the United States and Israel well.” This is the same model that produced the 1979 revolution and decades of blowback. Trump’s own words confirm it: unconditional surrender or endless war, with him personally vetting Iran’s next leaders. The “MIGA” acronym practically writes itself.

    Americans are already paying the price — higher gas prices, diverted defense budgets, and the looming threat of more domestic retaliation. A horrific shooting in Austin, Texas, last week was explicitly linked by investigators to rage over U.S. strikes on Iran. Yet the same crowd that cheered Iraq (Condoleezza Rice resurrected on Fox News) now insists this time will be different.

    It won’t.

    Washington still has a narrow window to salvage something: a disarmed, defanged Iran that no longer threatens the region. Qatar stands ready, as always, to mediate. But that requires telling Netanyahu and his AIPAC enablers “enough.” It requires rejecting Greater Israel ideology and the neocon fantasy that America can endlessly remake the Middle East in Israel’s image.

    Time is running out. Ethnic tensions are rising. The Revolutionary Guard is preparing for prolonged resistance. Drones are already hitting Gulf infrastructure. The spillover — refugees, oil shocks, new terror networks — will not stop at the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf.

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  • Judge Voids VOA Layoffs, Rules Kari Lake Unlawfully Ran US Media Agency

    Judge Voids VOA Layoffs, Rules Kari Lake Unlawfully Ran US Media Agency

    A federal judge on Saturday voided layoffs at Voice of America (VOA) while also ruling that the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) acting CEO, Kari Lake, unlawfully ran the independent federal agency.

    U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., Judge Royce Lamberth wrote that Lake oversaw the media agency in violation of the Constitution’s appointments clause and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

    Lamberth’s ruling comes after VOA’s White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara filed the lawsuit last year.

    President Trump nominated Lake to be senior adviser to acting CEO Victor Morales in February 2025. Morales designated Lake “to perform the functions and responsibilities specified” to 19 out of the 22 duties that the CEO assigns,” Lamberth wrote. By July, she was made acting CEO and “exercised control over the agency during the period relevant to the motions.”

    Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, ruled that Lake’s actions after becoming acting CEO, including eliminating USAGM staff in August, are void. Morales’s actions for Lake to perform were also invalidated.

    “The Court finds that these expansive delegations were an unlawful effort to transform Lake into the CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media in all but name,” Lamberth wrote.

    He noted that if Lake’s designation was “proper,” it “would require the Court to find that the President can fill a first assistantship at any time during a vacancy in a Senate-confirmed office … .”

    Widakuswara and fellow plaintiffs Kate Neeper and Jessica Jerreat said they feel “vindicated and [are] deeply grateful.”

    “The judge’s ruling that Kari Lake’s actions shall have no force or effect is a powerful step toward undoing the damage she has inflicted on this American institution that we love,” they said in a statement to Politico. “Even as we work through what this ruling means for colleagues harmed by her actions, it brings renewed hope and momentum to the next phase of our fight: restoring VOA’s global operations and ensuring we continue to produce journalism, not propaganda.”

    Lake said she disagreed “strongly” with Lamberth’s ruling and will appeal it.

    “The American people gave President Trump a mandate to cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste, and restore accountability to government,” Lake said in a statement obtained by The Washington Post. “An activist judge is trying to stand in the way of those efforts at USAGM.”

    Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 to gut the agency. Lake last summer defended the layoffs before a federal judge blocked them in December.

    “Sometimes a lean, mean, team makes it easier to get things done,” she said of scaling down the staff by more than 500 employees.

    The Saturday ruling comes one day after Ahmad Batebi, a prominent Iranian dissident, human rights activist and VOA journalist, was fired over efforts to limit coverage of Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.

  • Trump’s Iran Intervention Sends US Gas Prices Climbing Toward Record Highs

    Trump’s Iran Intervention Sends US Gas Prices Climbing Toward Record Highs

    American businesses and families are staring down the barrel of another self-inflicted energy crisis, this one entirely of President Donald Trump’s making. Just weeks into his second term, the former real-estate developer turned wartime president has plunged the United States into a costly military showdown with Iran — and the bill is already landing squarely at the gas pump, on airline tickets, and in the supply chains that keep corporate America humming.

    The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline across the United States jumped 34 cents in the past week alone to $3.32 on Friday, according to AAA data. Diesel prices have climbed even faster. Industry analysts warn the upward spiral has only just begun. When oil first spiked after Trump ordered strikes on Iran last week, many on Wall Street assumed cooler heads — or at least economic reality — would prevail and force a swift diplomatic off-ramp. That assumption now looks painfully naïve.






    Oil prices are climbing
    Price per barrel of Brent Crude
    $65 $70 $75 $80 $90 08 Feb. 15 22 01 March $92.67
    Source: S&P Market Intelligence and Oilprice.com
    DAVID DANYEL / THE NEW YORK BUDGETS

    Instead, U.S. and Israeli strikes continue, Iranian drones are hitting energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and hundreds of oil tankers sit idle in the Persian Gulf, too terrified to run the gauntlet of the Strait of Hormuz. The result? A textbook supply shock that is hammering businesses large and small.

    Qatar’s energy minister, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, delivered the latest gut punch in an interview with the Financial Times on Friday. He warned that without an immediate de-escalation, Persian Gulf producers will be forced to halt output “within days,” sending global oil prices toward $150 a barrel — more than double pre-war levels. That would push U.S. pump prices back to the $5-a-gallon peaks last seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    “If the Trump administration does not do something to restore confidence in ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, these prices are going to keep heading up,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “I don’t wake up too many mornings and get the chills when I look at the morning oil price numbers. It’s starting to feel like 2022 all over again.”

    The pain is already rippling far beyond the neighborhood Exxon station. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told investors at an industry conference Friday that jet-fuel costs are climbing so fast that airfares will have to follow — and quickly. Shipping rates are rising in tandem. Travis Maderia, co-founder of New York-based LobsterBoys, which exports live Maine lobsters to restaurants worldwide, put it bluntly: “Transportation is a big part of our business. When airline prices go up, the cost of sending lobsters overseas can be dramatically impacted.”

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    Oil derivatives are embedded in everything from plastic packaging and semiconductor chemicals to industrial gases. BloombergNEF natural resources research chief David Doherty notes that Iran’s cheap drone attacks have made defending scattered energy infrastructure far harder than in past Middle East conflicts. “It is harder to protect oil infrastructure,” he said. “Defending the same breadth of space has become much more difficult than it was in the past.”

    Even Trump’s attempts to calm markets have fallen flat. On Truth Social he doubled down: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a 30-day waiver allowing India to keep buying Russian oil and floated “unsanctioning” more Russian barrels on Fox News. The president also offered political risk insurance to tanker companies and hinted at U.S. Navy escorts through the Strait.

    Market research firm Macquarie told clients the same day that those promises look hollow: escort vessels are “often unavailable due to other military priorities such as missile intercepts or striking Iran.” The firm warned of “an extremely large oil price move” within weeks if the Hormuz chokepoint stays blocked.

    Restarting shuttered Gulf production won’t be simple either. Vidya Mani, visiting supply-chain scholar at Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business, explained: “It is not as simple as flipping a switch back on. You have to get drilling operations going again. You have to get workers back in.

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    When there is a conflict like this, workers leave and the number that come back in may not be as many as you need.” She and other analysts now see $150 oil as a realistic near-term scenario — levels last touched in July 2008.

    Alex Jacquez, policy chief at the progressive-leaning but economically focused Groundwork Collaborative (and a former Biden White House energy adviser), captured the growing frustration on Wall Street: “The markets are starting to realize there may be no off-ramp here. There was this thinking that if oil prices start to soar that Trump would back down in Iran. But that is not the way things are aligning. The president has shown no appetite for changing course.”

    For an administration that campaigned on “lower prices” and “pro-business” policies, the optics are disastrous. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll last month found most Americans already view health care, cars, and housing as unaffordable.

    Republicans made lowering the cost of living the centerpiece of their midterm strategy. Now Trump’s foreign policy gamble is delivering the opposite — and doing so at the worst possible moment for corporate balance sheets and consumer wallets.

    The irony is thick. In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, energy markets were disrupted by an external aggressor. This time, as Jacquez noted, “we didn’t choose to do this ourselves” — yet the economic damage looks disturbingly familiar.

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  • US-Israeli Attacks on Iran Kill Over 1,300 Civilians, Including Women and Children, Tehran Tells UN

    US-Israeli Attacks on Iran Kill Over 1,300 Civilians, Including Women and Children, Tehran Tells UN

    United Nations in New York, Iran’s ambassador has laid bare the horrifying human cost of the ongoing US-Israeli war of aggression against the Islamic Republic — a conflict driven by the same neoconservative warmongers and Zionist hardliners who have long dictated Washington’s disastrous foreign policy.

    At least 1,332 Iranian civilians, including women and children, have been slaughtered in relentless US-Israeli airstrikes, with thousands more wounded, Iran’s UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani told reporters Friday. The figures, verified by the Iranian Red Crescent Society, expose the true face of this illegal offensive: not “precision strikes” on military targets, as the aggressors cynically claim, but a deliberate campaign of terror against innocent civilians.

    “Over 180 children across the country have been killed and more than 20 schools have been damaged,” Iravani stated, his voice steady but laced with outrage. Thirteen healthcare facilities have been hit, while civilian sports and recreational centers in Tehran and elsewhere were deliberately bombed on Thursday — killing more than 18 female athletes and injuring around 100 others. “Their intention is clear: to terrorize civilians, massacre innocent people, and cause maximum destruction and suffering.”

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    These are not collateral damage. These are war crimes and crimes against humanity, the ambassador declared, accusing the US and Israel of recognizing “no red line in committing their crimes.” Densely populated residential areas, critical infrastructure, and everyday civilian life have been targeted with impunity. Claims by Washington and Tel Aviv that they are hitting only military sites? Baseless propaganda, Iravani said flatly.

    Fresh strikes pounded Tehran again overnight, sending the civilian death toll climbing to 1,332 even as Iran’s leadership vows never to surrender its sovereignty. This is the grim reality of Donald Trump’s return to power — a Republican administration once again dragging the world into endless Middle East bloodshed at the behest of its neoconservative advisers and the powerful pro-Israel lobby.

    Trump, fresh off demanding Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” has gone even further, insisting that any new Supreme Leader must be “acceptable” to him personally. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated on the very first day of this US-Israeli blitz. Trump told Reuters he must have a direct say in Iran’s internal succession — a breathtaking violation of the UN Charter’s principle of non-interference in sovereign states’ affairs.

    Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations, Amir-Saeid Iravani attends a United Nations Security Council meeting, after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, at U.N. headquarters in New York City, U.S. February 28, 2026. REUTERS/Heather Khalifa
    Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Amir-Saeid Iravani attends a United Nations Security Council meeting, after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, at U.N. headquarters in New York City, U.S. February 28, 2026. REUTERS/Heather Khalifa

    Iravani called it exactly what it is: “a clear violation of the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of states enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.” He added: “The selection of Iran’s leadership will take place strictly in accordance with our constitutional procedures and solely by the will of the Iranian people without any foreign interference.” Hours later, Iran’s president signaled the first hints of mediation from unnamed countries — a desperate diplomatic off-ramp after Trump’s reckless escalation.

    Even US officials are quietly admitting the blood on their hands. Two American sources told Reuters that investigators believe US forces were likely responsible for a devastating strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children last Saturday — though a final conclusion is still pending. This comes as the US Central Command boasts of striking over 3,000 targets in Iran and destroying 43 Iranian warships since the offensive began on February 28.

    Yet the hypocrisy is staggering. While Iran insists its retaliatory strikes target only military objectives — and is even investigating stray hits on neighboring states that may have been caused by US interception systems — Washington and its Zionist allies paint themselves as the victims.

    The same neocons who cheered the Iraq disaster, the Libya catastrophe, and endless Israeli occupations are now engineering regime change in Tehran, with full backing from AIPAC and its network of influential donors who have spent decades shaping US policy to prioritize Israeli interests above American ones.

    Iran’s deputy foreign minister has already warned Europe: join this criminal enterprise and you become “legitimate targets.” The Strait of Hormuz remains open for now, but Tehran has made clear it will strike any US or Israeli vessels attempting passage.

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered condolences to his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian and, according to US sources, is providing intelligence on American military positions — while the Kremlin reports a surge in demand for Russian energy as the war disrupts global oil flows.

    The fallout is spreading. Qatar intercepted nine of ten Iranian drones targeting it Friday. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reported similar interceptions and debris. Kuwait has begun cutting oil production due to storage shortages. Missiles and drones have hit facilities in Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, and the UAE, killing civilians across the Gulf. Even Lebanon has seen over 120 dead in related Israeli strikes.

    This is not defense. This is naked imperialism — Zionist expansionism backed by Republican hawks and the same AIPAC-driven machinery that has funneled billions in unconditional US aid to Israel while American infrastructure crumbles at home. Trump’s neoconservative cabal never learned the lessons of Afghanistan or Iraq; they simply recycled the script with bigger bombs and bolder lies.

    Iran, for its part, has made its position crystal clear. “Iran does not seek war,” Iravani stressed, “but Iran will never surrender its sovereignty and will take all necessary measures to defend our people, our territory, and our independence.” Its response, he said, is “lawful, necessary, and proportionate” under Article 51 of the UN Charter — targeting only the military machinery of the aggressors.

    Iravani called on all UN member states to condemn this aggression and the war crimes it entails. “The Security Council must act now, firmly, clearly, and without delay,” he urged — before the body count climbs higher and the region descends into full-scale catastrophe.

    As fresh explosions echo through Tehran’s streets and the civilian toll surpasses 1,300, one thing is undeniable: this US-Israeli offensive is not about security. It is about dominance, regime change, and the same failed ideology that has cost millions of lives across the Middle East.