Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Chump's run off all the US' long term allies, the generals are telling Chump to wrap up the war on Iran, another person dies in Homeland Security detention, Bank of America announces a settlement with some of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and much more.
President
Trump on Monday disparaged U.S. allies that he said had relied too long
— and too expensively — on American defense, as several of those
countries have declined to meet his call to send warships to escort
merchant vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf.
“We
don’t need anybody; we’re the strongest nation in the world,” Mr. Trump
said. He suggested his request for assistance in reopening the Strait
of Hormuz instead amounted to a loyalty test of America’s allies. “I’m
almost doing it in some cases not because we need them but because I
want to find out how they react,” he said.
He
went from pleading on Saturday to lying on Sunday and early Monday
about how he had lined some up to admitting that no one wants to help.
And now he says he never wanted them, just "want to find out how they
react"? Sure Baby Chumps.
He
treated them like garbage -- and we noted it here -- and some people
said, "Oh, don't focus on it. It's just Chump. We have to focus on
this or that." No, when he insults the long term allies of the US, it
is news and we will note it here and we did note it. It did matter.
And we pointed out that he might need them. A year later and he does.
And they're not eager to make nice with someone who spat on them over
and over -- nor should they be. When he's out of the White House, the
next president can make clear that the US is a friend to other nations.
Until then, we need to accept that Chump has made it very difficult for
our allies to reach out and help us at this point in time.
This mess was created by Chump and was completely predictable.
The
threat was a continuation of Mr. Trump’s bullying style of diplomacy.
During trade negotiations last year, the president repeatedly berated
leaders who complained about his tariffs. More recently, he lashed out
at Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, essentially accusing him of
caution and cowardice. Upon hearing that Mr. Starmer was considering
sending naval ships to the Middle East, he mocked the prime minister.
“That’s
OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer,” Mr. Trump
wrote on social media on March 7. “We don’t need people that join Wars
after we’ve already won!”
For Mr. Trump’s
counterparts around the world, the tricky part of the diplomatic dance
is how to react to the president’s whims while meeting the needs of
their own countries. Mr. Starmer has arguably been the European leader
most eager to please Mr. Trump. And yet, on Monday, he vowed at a news conference that his country “will not be drawn into the wider war” with Iran.
American
oil executives delivered a bleak message to Trump officials in recent
days: The energy crisis the Iran war has unleashed is likely to get
worse.
In a series of White House meetings
Wednesday and recent conversations with Energy Secretary Chris Wright
and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the CEOs of Exxon Mobil, Chevron and
ConocoPhillips warned that the disruption to energy flows out of the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway would continue to create volatility in global energy markets, according to people familiar with the matter.
In
response to questions from the officials, Exxon CEO Darren Woods said
that oil prices could rise past current elevated levels if speculators
unexpectedly bid up prices and that markets could see a supply crunch of
refined products. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth and ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan
Lance also conveyed their concerns about the scale of the disruption,
these people said.
President Trump didn’t
attend the Wednesday meetings. U.S. oil prices have climbed from $87 a
barrel that day to $99 a barrel Friday.
Ouch. More and more observers are noting how this illegal war that Chump and Netanyahu chose to start is a disaster. Simon Marks (THE I PAPER) points out:
As Donald Trump’s war on Iran enters its third full week, the US leader has been hoisted with his own petard.
With
no sense of history and no interest in learning about it, Trump was
always doomed eventually to repeat it. By choosing to join the Israelis
in wading into Iran without any fact-based reason, and without any plan
either for exiting troops, or for the day after their withdrawal, his
ludicrously named Operation Epic Fury can already be considered
“Operation Epic Fail”.
In reality, Pentagon chiefs
should probably have named it “Operation 52-Card Pickup”, for that is
exactly what it has turned out to be: a hope-for-the-best chucking of
all the Middle East cards into the air. Having started with a possible
American war crime against innocents in a girls’ school, it now runs the
risk of dragging the country into the kind of “forever conflict” that
Trump promised voters he would, at all costs, avoid.
The
weekend witnessed more of the nonsense that is already the daily
hallmark of this administration’s wartime demeanour: that everything is
going according to plan, coupled with continuing assertions about
America’s military prowess.
Despite its furious
attacks against the growing media reports that reveal the panicked
reality taking place behind the scenes in the White House, the truth
will always out.
On Saturday, Trump showed himself to
be an increasingly naked emperor. In one social media post,
contradictory claims that Iran’s military capacity had already been
“destroyed 100 per cent” sat right alongside a warning that the regime
still finds it “easy to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a
close-range missile somewhere”. A non sequitur for the ages.
On MEIDASTOUCH NEWS this morning, Ben notes that the generals are telling Chump to wrap it up but Chump's ignoring them.
The
war in Iran may be thousands of miles away, but its economic impact
could soon show up much closer to home – at the grocery store. While
rising oil prices are already pushing gas prices higher, experts warn
food prices could be next.
President Donald
Trump has said he expects the war to wrap up by the end of the month,
but economists say if the conflict drags on longer, grocery prices could
start to climb.
"If we're
talking just a few weeks, very likely you're not going to see this show
up in your grocery receipts," Dr. David Ortega, an agricultural
economist and professor at Michigan State University, told Fortune. "But
if we're talking a month or more, a few months, then it's a different
story."
That warning comes as food prices in the U.S. have already risen 29.4% between March 2020 and December 2025, outpacing increases for the broader market, according to Forbes.
Yes, he is an idiot and, yes, he is a liar. But his increased dementia just make it more obvious.
For
years, the agricultural sector has faced a tight labor market as
farmworkers age and fewer new immigrants and younger Americans are
willing to toil in the fields. Top Trump administration officials vowed
that mass deportations would help, leading to “higher wages with better benefits” and a “100 percent American work force.”
But
the administration has quietly acknowledged in recent months that its
immigration raids and crackdown on the border have aggravated the issue.
So it has instead turned to an alternative source, making it cheaper
for farmers to hire immigrant farmworkers on temporary visas.
Many
farmers have celebrated those changes, made to an increasingly popular
visa program known as H-2A, noting the difficulty in hiring American
workers and tough economic conditions for the industry. But immigration
hawks and labor unions alike are opposed, arguing the move will only
increase the share of foreign workers and hurt native workers and
suppress their wages.
The simmering debate
underscores how some of the administration’s top goals of reducing
immigration, keeping food prices low and helping American workers may
inevitably conflict. The competing interests at play also show the
spillover effects of Mr. Trump’s hard-line approach to legal and illegal
immigration.
So he needs the labor
now. And yet it's the labor that suffers under Chump who allows them to
be paid less and allows things like 'lodging' to be counted as payment
now. Let's stay with immigration but move over to Homeland Security. Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports:
The
Justice Department will receive a recommendation Monday to investigate
whether recently ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem perjured
herself in the congressional testimony that already cost her job.
Sen.
Dick Durbin (D-IL), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary
Committee and Rep. Jamie Raski (D-MD), the ranking member of the House
Judiciary Committee, will submit the recommendation to Attorney General
Pam Bondi asking the DOJ to look into whether Noem knowingly made false
statements two weeks ago before their congressional panels, reported
journalist Scott MacFarlane on his Substack page.
"The
recommendation for a criminal investigation will cite at least four
statements made by Noem, including her responses to questions about a
controversial, taxpayer-funded $220 million ad campaign, which
prominently featured Noem," MacFarlane reported. "The proposal ... will
also recommend a probe of Noem’s statements about the conditions of U.S.
immigrant detention facilities, the Trump Administration’s detention of
U.S. citizens and the Department of Homeland Security’s alleged
defiance of federal court orders."
Shortly before he removed her from her post, Trump told Reuters that he “never knew” of the plans for the $220 million ad, contracts for which were funneled to allies of Noem.
“These
two statements are clearly inconsistent; one of them has to be false,”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on
each panel, wrote in the letter.
It goes on to hammer Noem for claims that the contracts were awarded through the proper channels.
“She flatly misrepresented that the contract had been subject to a competitive bid,” the lawmakers wrote.
“New
public reporting, however, indicates that those statements may have
been false. It has been reported that not only did the Secretary
‘handpick’ four companies for the ad campaign, but procurement records
show the ‘ad work was awarded using ‘other than full and open
competition,’ and the four companies were politically connected to Noem
and her allies.”
Will
Pam Bondi do her job? If not, maybe she can be fired like Kristi Noem
before her? Kristi's roll dog Gregory Bovino is rolling out the door. Tom Latchem (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:
Gregory
Bovino, the most notorious face of Donald Trump’s immigration
crackdown, is set to retire—weeks after the president sent him packing
following the death of two American citizens.
Bovino,
55, the Border Patrol chief patrol agent and self-styled
“commander-at-large” who became one of the most polarizing figures of
the administration’s hardline deportation push, broke the news to
Breitbart, announcing he would leave the agency at the end of March
after a career of nearly 30 years.
The Daily Beast has followed Bovino relentlessly since he first burst onto the national scene, tracking him across courtrooms, city streets, and Las Vegas bars.
While
the news cycle has largely moved on from the horrific violence in
Minneapolis that dominated our screens early this year, the danger has
not disappeared. Our nation’s children still live in fear of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents abducting classmates, parents and
teachers on schoolhouse grounds. Some kids are too afraid to leave the
house, and others can’t focus on their schoolwork, sick with anxiety
about whether their family will be there to greet them when they get
home.
We all remember
the image of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, abducted alongside his father
when they arrived home one day, the boy still wearing his Spiderman
backpack and favorite bunny ear hat. Unfortunately, Liam’s story is far
from unique. Thousands of children have been abducted and incarcerated
in squalid detention centers without a clue as to what their or their
families’ futures hold. Their absence is a constant reminder to their
classmates, friends, and neighbors that their communities’ children are
still in danger. What happens to our communities when our public spaces
aren’t safe, our neighborhoods aren’t safe, and now we know our schools
aren’t safe either?
Safe spaces should be safe
for everyone. That’s why we, along with our partners at Innovation Law
Lab, National Education Association, and the American Federation of
Teachers filed an emergency motion in our federal lawsuit, PCUN v. Noem
last month to demand an immediate end to ICE violence in places like
schools and hospitals. These so-called sensitive locations used to be
off-limits to ICE’s brutal tactics, keeping our sacred community spaces
safe for all our neighbors. But now, nowhere is free from danger. We’re
seeking reinstatement of these protections.
While
the situation in Minneapolis prompted our emergency motion, the
declarations we received from people across the country proved that the
problem is a whole lot bigger. In our legal filing, we shared the stories of 60 educators and healthcare providers representing 18 states.
We heard the same fears and anxieties from people from Alaska to Ohio
to Maryland. It didn’t matter if it was a “red” or a “blue” state; or if
the stories came from cities or rural communities — ICE violence is
impacting every corner of the United States.
An
Afghan man who served alongside US special forces and fled his native
country after its takeover by the Taliban died over the weekend shortly
after being detained by immigration authorities, according to his family
and an advocacy group.
Mohammad Nazeer
Paktyawal died on Saturday, less than a day after he was detained by
Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside of his Dallas-area
apartment. His family said the 41-year-old father of six had no known
health conditions and had been seeking asylum since his arrival to the
US in August 2021. The Department of Homeland Security said his
humanitarian parole expired last August.
[. . .]
Paktyawal’s death marks the 12th of a detainee in ICE custody this year.
It
has prompted widespread grief in the close-knit Afghan diaspora
community in Texas, where many of the more than 190,000 Afghans who fled
to the US after the country’s government collapsed in August 2021
settled, said Rahmanullah Zazy, a leader in the Dallas-area Afghan
community who knew Paktyawal and his family.
Mohommad
Nazeer Paktyawal, 41, served as an Afghan special forces soldier from
2005 and worked alongside U.S. Army Special Forces for more than a
decade before he was evacuated by the U.S. and resettled while he sought
asylum, according to the AfghanEvac nonprofit.
Having
moved to America to start a new life with his family, he had been
preparing to drive his children to school on Friday, March 13, when
agents in unmarked vehicles surrounded him and detained him.
Within 24 hours, he was dead.
In
a statement, his family said, “We still cannot understand how this
happened. He was only 41 years old and was a strong and healthy man.
Kristia, Gregory and Tricia may be gone but the lies at the heart of Homeland Security remain. Latchman notes, "ICE
released a statement Sunday describing Paktyawal as a 'criminal illegal
alien' that made no mention of his history helping U.S. troops in
Afghanistan. The statement began with a breakdown of what the agency
described as Paktyawal’s 'known criminal history' before getting to the
circumstances of his death." He had no criminal history. AfghanEvac president Shawn VanDiver spoke with THE INDEPENDENT's Josh Marcus:
“This
is the problem with DHS when you can’t trust a thing they say,”
VanDiver said. “They lie to us every day. Chances are, the first thing
they tell us is going to be a lie.”
He alleged
Paktyawal and other Afghans have been singled out because of their
heritage to keep up with President Donald Trump’s goal of unprecedented
deportations.
VanDiver said he’s been tracking
“thousands” of cases where Afghans were able to successfully legally
challenge their arrests using habeas corpus requests and be released
from detention, a sign they were taken in on flimsy grounds.
Meanwhile
Markwayne Markwayne remains the person set to replace Kristi Noem as
Secretary of Homeland Security provided he can get the votes in the
Senate. Kate Plummer (NEWSWEEK) reports:
Senator
Markwayne Mullin from Oklahoma has been encouraged to divest from
certain stocks in his portfolio over conflict of interest concerns that
could arise because of the Republican’s new role as secretary of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Last
week, President Donald Trump nominated Mullin, who has been a senator
from Oklahoma since 2023, to replace Kristi Noem, after she became the
first Cabinet secretary to be fired from Trump’s second administration. Mullin is expected to assume the post on March 31, pending Senate confirmation.
Under
18 U.S. Code § 208, a federal conflict of interest statute, members of
the executive branch of the U.S. cannot participate in matters including
stock holdings where they have a direct financial interest. There is no
suggestion Mullin is in breach of this statute.
Ahead
of Mullin’s confirmation, ethics experts have raised concerns after a
Newsweek analysis found Mullin has purchased at least $305,009 worth of
stock in companies that could intersect with his role at DHS.
Richard
Painter, a chief ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush,
told Newsweek: “He should probably divest from all of these stocks as
there is too great a risk that they will be impacted by his work at
DHS.”
Dua Lipa has hit
out at the discourse and media coverage around the Epstein files, saying
that it is “doing such a disservice to all the victims”.
The ‘Radical Optimism’
pop star brought up the late billionaire and convicted sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein on the latest episode of her book club podcast, Service 95. She was speaking to author Roxane Gay about her book Bad Feminist.
Lipa discussed what she believed to be a lack of consideration for
the victims named in the Epstein files, as many of these were underage.
“The way that the crimes have been reported, and the language that’s
been used, has been doing such a disservice to all the victims,” she
said.
“I keep thinking about all the stories that talk about the underage
girls and the sex parties, rather than writing about the victims that
were children who were trafficked.”
Lipa continued: “It’s putting everything under some kind of veil to
protect – I don’t know who, [maybe] the reader – or trying to mask what
is happening.”
This morning, NPR posted a discussion on the beauty industries relationship with Epstein.
Also this morning, Australia's A CURRENT AFFAIR speaks with Epstein survivor Marina Lacerda who was only 14 when Epstein began assaulting her.
The posters cover walls across Washington DC. Donald Trump’s war in
Iran is not “Operation Epic Fury”, its official name, but it is
“Operation Epstein Fury”.
Another sign shows a picture of an
American serviceman killed in the conflict, standing in front of the
Stars and Stripes. “Cody Khork did not have to die fighting Iran for the
Epstein class”, it reads.
Four days before the bombing of Iran on
Feb 28, a report revealed that the Department of Justice (DoJ) removed
more than 50 pages of interviews about Mr Trump from the files,
including one victim who claimed the now president abused her when she was a child decades ago.
Was it a coincidence that Mr Trump decided to bomb Iran when the Epstein files threatened to expose him?
It
sounds like pure conspiracy theory, but the idea that Mr Trump began
the war — hitting Tehran from the skies — to distract from Epstein has
also circulated among respected pillars of American society: from
Republicans to Democrats, and influential podcasters.
[. . .]
A recent poll for Zeteo, a Left-wing website, and other outlets found
that 52 per cent of people in the US believe the president attacked
Iran because of the headlines about Epstein.
It found that 81 per
cent of Democrats thought the war was a deliberate distraction, compared
with 52 per cent of independent voters and 26 per cent of Republicans.
CNN
reporter Kyung Lah provided an exclusive interview with architect and
interior designer Robert Couturier, who was hired by convicted
sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to work on his infamous island. CNN
reports Couturier backed out of the project after a few months and then
alerted the FBI of what Epstein had requested he build.
“There's
no mistaking,” Couturier told Lah. “You don't put women on bunk beds.
I'm sorry. Everybody knew what was happening on that island. Even his
staff people worked for him.”
When Couturier first noted all the puzzling bunk beds he asked who they were for.
“There
were bunk beds and I said to him, I said, ‘oh my god, are you expecting
grandchildren?’ And he said, ‘no, these are for my — these are for the
girls.”
Lah reports a former staffer said the
main home had “many pictures of young girls, some topless, looking about
15 to 16 years old” in room after room of the island home.
According
to CNN, files show “visible signs of something off,” including Epstein
in his kitchen chasing girls or young women, which his staff noticed. A
former chef, said Lah, claimed every hour Epstein would take a girl down
to his master bedroom then order his maid to clean up. Another staffer
worried about Epstein’s guests.
Bank
of America settled a proposed class-action lawsuit from Jeffrey Epstein
accusers who alleged the bank facilitated the now-dead pedophile's
sex-trafficking operation, court records show.
Lawyers
for the bank and a group of Epstein accusers told the judge overseeing
the case during a pretrial conference last week that they "reached a
settlement in principle," according to a Monday update to the case's
docket.
The terms of the settlement were not made public.
US
District Judge Jed Rakoff, who is overseeing the case, gave a March 27
deadline for the parties to file public documents laying out the
settlement's terms, and an April 2 hearing to decide whether to approve
them.
"The
women entrapped and abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
started a monumental reckoning with their brave voices and
fearlessness," Sigrid McCawley, an attorney at Boies Schiller Flexner
representing the Epstein accusers, said in a comment. "The road to
justice for these women has been long and trying. Today's resolution of
the case against Bank of America is one more step on the road to much
deserved justice."
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren:
“I am concerned that Grok’s
apparent lack of adequate guardrails could pose serious risks to the
safety of U.S. military personnel and to the cybersecurity of classified
systems.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Ranking
Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee,
pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on the Department of Defense
(DoD) granting Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot Grok access to classified
security systems — reportedly ignoring concerns raised by multiple
federal agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA) and the
General Services Administration (GSA).
“Were Grok to leak government information, this could reveal
sensitive military plans, U.S. intelligence efforts, and potentially put
service members in danger,” wrote Senator Warren.
Last month, the Pentagon signed an agreement with xAI granting Grok
access to confidential military security systems. Numerous reports have
found Grok to pose serious safety concerns, including data bias and
manipulation, generating offensive and illegal content, and leaking
private chat conversations on the Internet.
Grok reportedly has given users advice on how to commit murders and
terrorist attacks, generated antisemitic content, and created child
sexual abuse material. According to recent reports, the National
Security Agency “conducted a classified review… [and] determined Grok
had particular security concerns that other models…didn’t.”
Multiple reports have indicated that xAI may not have imposed
adequate safeguards for Grok. DoD’s Chief of Responsible AI reportedly
stepped down after circulating internal memos warning about Grok’s
safety issues and receiving little to no attention on the matter, and
other analysts have raised concerns that “xAI didn’t have the kind of
reputation or track record that typically leads to lucrative government
contracts.”
But it is still unclear what assurances or documentation xAI has
provided to the Department of Defense about Grok’s security safeguards,
data-handling practices, or safety controls — and whether DoD evaluated
those assurances before reportedly allowing Grok access to classified
systems.
“I am concerned that Grok’s apparent lack of adequate guardrails
could pose serious risks to the safety of U.S. military personnel and to
the cybersecurity of classified systems, especially if Grok is given
sensitive military information and access to operational systems,” wrote Senator Warren. “I
write to request that you immediately provide information on how DoD
plans to mitigate these potential national security risks.”
Senator Warren pushed DoD to provide Congress with a copy of the
agreement reached between the Department and xAI; copies of all
communications with xAI regarding said agreement; clarification of what
safeguards are in place to guard against classified data leaks and
cyberattacks; and whether the DoD required Grok to mitigate the security
and safety concerns by March 30, 2026.
In September, after a high-profile incident where Grok created antisemitic and other offensive content, Senator Warren raised concerns
about DoD’s decision to award Musk’s xAI a contract worth up to $200
million to use Grok. At the time, Senator Warren also raised concerns
about xAI’s access to sensitive government data and sounded the alarm on
the fact that the contract may be another example of Musk improperly
benefitting from his time in government.
