HINDSIGHT - WRITE SOMETHING WORTH READING ABOUT OR DO SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT
Friday, July 04, 2025
SHAME AND COWARDICE
I’ve had trouble describing the
anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of
hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame:
To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.
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Thursday, July 03, 2025
Trump’s Team Is Lying About Iran’s WM
The only thing lower
than lying about what you accomplished in a war is hiding behind the people who
actually accomplished it.
Trump’s Team Is Lying About Iran’s WMD
He
savaged Bush for distorting intelligence and overselling the military’s initial
success in Iraq. Now Trump and his team are doing the same in Iran.
Jul 02, 2025
IN
2016, DONALD TRUMP REBUKED George W. Bush for peddling erroneous intelligence
and false assurances about the war in Iraq. He accused Bush of deliberately
misrepresenting Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, and he mocked Bush’s premature
“Mission
Accomplished” speech.
Bush
and his administration “lied,” Trump charged at a Republican presidential
debate in February 2016. “They said there were weapons of mass destruction.
There were none. And they knew there were none.”
Two
days after that debate, Trump derided the May 2003 speech in which Bush
infamously proclaimed that “major combat operations
in Iraq have ended” and “the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
Trump recalled that Bush had stood on an
“aircraft carrier saying all sorts of wonderful things, how the war was
essentially over. Guess what? Not over.”
Nine
years later, Trump is doing what he accused Bush of doing. He has launched a
preemptive military strike, this time in Iran. He has defended the strike by
misrepresenting intelligence. He has prematurely declared the mission a total
victory. And he is impugning the patriotism of anyone who challenges his lies.
ON
JUNE 21, AFTER A WEEK of war between Israel and Iran, the United States bombed
three Iranian nuclear sites. Three hours later, Trump went on TV and announced that
“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally
obliterated.” The claim was absurd—the damage couldn’t have been assessed that
quickly, and the operation hadn’t even targeted most of Iran’s enriched
uranium—but Trump repeated it on June 22, June
25, June 26, June
27, and June 29.
Trump’s
senior officials joined him in the lie. “Iran’s nuclear program is
obliterated,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on
June 25. “This was complete and total obliteration,” said Secretary
of State Marco Rubio. “There’s no doubt that it was obliterated,” said Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East
envoy, referring to Iran’s underground nuclear site at Fordo.
“Obliterate”
wasn’t just rhetoric. Trump was literally insisting that the three sites and
Iran’s whole program had been annihilated. “It was my great honor to Destroy
All Nuclear facilities & capability,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on June 24.
At the White House, he said of
Fordo: “That place is gone. . . . That place is gone.”
The
myth of total destruction was important because it underpinned Trump’s second
lie: that no further negotiations or military operations were necessary to
curtail the nuclear program. “I don't care if I have an agreement or not” with
Iran, the president told reporters at a NATO meeting on June
25. “We destroyed the nuclear,” he explained. “We blew it up. It’s blown up to
kingdom come.”
Nor
would America have to bomb Iran again. At a June 25 press conference with NATO
Secretary General Mark Rutte, a reporter asked Trump:
“If the Iranians do rebuild, would the United States strike again?” Trump
dismissed the question. “Sure,” he scoffed, “but I’m not going to have to worry
about that. It’s gone for years.”
The
basis of these assurances, Trump explained, wasn’t just the totality of the
destruction. It was that Iran, according to Trump, was so devastated,
exhausted, and demoralized that it no longer wanted to develop nuclear weapons.
“They don’t even want to think about nuclear,” he told reporters
aboard Air Force One on June 24. At the press conference with Rutte, the
president added: “I don’t think they’ll ever do it again. . . . I think they’ve
had it. The last thing they want to do is enrich.”
IN ONE
VENUE AFTER ANOTHER, reporters pressed Trump about evidence that his assurances
were false or baseless. He refused to listen. For example, after the bombing,
Iran’s foreign ministry reaffirmed that its nuclear enrichment
program would continue. But on June 25, when a reporter
asked Trump about those statements, he dismissed them. “The last thing they
want to do is enrich anything right now,” he repeated.
“No, they won’t do that.”
On
June 27, in a Fox News interview, Maria Bartiromo questioned Trump about
reports, apparently sourced to Israeli intelligence, that Iran had moved nearly 900 pounds of enriched
uranium out of Fordo before the bombing. Trump waved off that possibility.
“They didn’t move anything,” he insisted.
Two days later, when a reporter asked about Pickaxe Mountain, another of the
sites where satellite imagery suggested enriched uranium might be stored, Trump returned
to his mantra that Iran had no interest in continuing such
work: “The last thing they’re thinking about right now is enriched uranium.
They’re not thinking about it.”
Meanwhile,
the president made up stories about various damage assessments. On June 25, at
a press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Trump declared that
“the high commission of Iran just said it [Fordo] was totally demolished.” No
such commission exists, and statements from Iran’s government
have said no such thing.
On
Truth Social, Trump announced, “Israel just stated that the
Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED!” But Israel’s actual assessments, quoted in a
White House fact sheet, made no such boast. Officially,
the Israel Atomic Energy Commission said Israeli and American strikes had “set
back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.” Unofficially,
Israeli officials told reporters that the extent of damage at the three
targeted sites was unknown.
As
Trump spewed his fictions and embellishments, he blithely contradicted himself.
In the press conference with Rutte, he said of Fordo: “Iran went down to the
site afterwards. They said it’s so devastated. . . . Two Iranians went down to
see it, and they called back, and they said, ‘This place is gone.’” But two
minutes later, Trump mentioned that “nobody can get in to see” the facility’s
underground chambers, because “the tunnels are totally collapsed.”
In his
interview with Bartiromo, Trump said Iran wouldn’t have moved enriched uranium
out of Fordo before the bombing, because it hadn’t expected the site to be
attacked. “Nobody thought we’d go after that site, because everybody said that
site is impenetrable,” he explained. But seconds later—apparently forgetting or
not caring that he had just brushed off the idea of Iranian preparations—he
claimed that vehicles spotted at Fordo in the days before the strike were there
“to seal up the entrance” with concrete.
Trump
also alluded to unspecified intelligence that supposedly vindicated his boasts.
At the NATO meeting, he said of Fordo: “We’ve collected additional
intelligence. We’ve also spoken to people [who] have seen the site. And the
site is obliterated.” He posted the same statement, again without
evidence, on Truth Social. The next day, at a White House event, he asserted that
“the target has now been proven to be obliterated, just as we said.”
TRUMP
IS LYING. A week and a half after the bombing, he has offered no such proof.
Instead, his flunkies have issued empty statements claiming, with zero
discernible evidence, that “new intelligence” or “credible intelligence” backs him up. The
charlatan who accused Bush of politicizing intelligence and lying about weapons
of mass destruction is politicizing intelligence and lying about weapons of
mass destruction.
But
that’s not the worst of it. The worst part is that Trump, like Bush, is
suggesting that anyone who disputes the president’s statements about a war is
sabotaging America’s armed forces.
In
2005, as the Iraq war soured and the purported Iraqi nukes failed to turn up,
Democrats accused Bush of having manipulated intelligence to justify the
war. Bush responded by challenging his opponents’ patriotism. Their accusations
of manipulation “send the wrong signal to our troops,” the president warned. “As our troops fight a ruthless enemy
determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected
leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them.”
Vice
President Dick Cheney joined Bush in this flag-waving counterattack. “American
soldiers and Marines are out there every day in dangerous conditions,” he fumed, while “back home, a few opportunists
are suggesting they were sent into battle for a lie.” One could argue, said Cheney—pretending not to endorse
this argument himself—that the “untruthful charges against the
commander-in-chief have an insidious effect on the war effort.”
Trump,
having rebuked Bush and Cheney, is now copying their tactic of hiding behind
the troops. At the NATO meeting, he called journalists “scum”
for reporting, accurately, that according to a
preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment, the damage from the Iran strike
was limited. He accused the press of “hurting” the
mission’s pilots by “trying to minimize the attack.” And he said CNN’s Natasha
Bertrand, one of the first reporters to reveal the assessment, “should be FIRED” for denying the truth—“TOTAL
OBLITERATION!”—and for “attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making
them look bad.”
Hegseth
went further. At a Pentagon briefing, he lambasted journalists
for challenging Trump’s tale of obliteration. “You, the press corps . . . It’s
like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump,” the defense
secretary raged. He accused reporters of trying “to
cause doubt and manipulate the mind, the public mind, over whether or not our
brave pilots were successful. . . . You’re undermining the success of
incredible B-2 pilots.”
Spare
us the sanctimony. These lectures about undermining America’s warriors aren’t
patriotic. They’re cynical and dishonest. The only thing lower than lying about
what you accomplished in a war is hiding behind the people who actually
accomplished it.
ERIK WEMPLE
Paramount betrays ‘60 Minutes’ and the rest of us
Parent
company caves to baseless suit by Donald Trump.
July 2, 2025 at 5:06
p.m. EDTToday at 5:06 p.m. EDT
On Nov. 3, a top lawyer for CBS News wrote to a lawyer
representing Donald Trump in a baseless suit against CBS News. “We urge your
client to voluntarily dismiss the complaint for the reasons set out below and,
should he refuse to do so,” wrote the CBS News lawyer, “we reserve the right to
seek sanctions and damages against him.”
Bravo!
On Tuesday night came the news that Paramount had agreed to pay $16 million to settle
the suit, which stemmed from a “60 Minutes” interview with then-vice president
and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The money, which covers the
president’s legal fees and costs, will go to his future presidential library.
What happened between disputation and capitulation? Way too
much, that’s what.
Paramount, the parent company of CBS News and “60 Minutes,”
is working on a merger with Hollywood studio Skydance, a transaction that
requires the approval of the Trump administration’s Federal Communications
Commission. A view had taken root at Paramount that the case could thwart
merger approval, though there were concerns that paying too much would
expose officers to bribery allegations. Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Massachusetts) has already called for an investigation into “whether or not
any anti-bribery laws were broken.”
After “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens in April
announced his resignation, correspondent Scott Pelley said on air, “Our parent
company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration
must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of
our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that
honest journalism requires.”
Honest journalism requires noting that Paramount’s leaders
will never, ever hear the end of this abject decision. Nor should they. Much
has been made in the recent past about attacks on the First Amendment, whether
it’s the administration’s expulsion of the Associated Press from the White
House press pool because it won’t swallow “Gulf of America” (a dispute
that’s tied up in the courts); the targeting of
student protesters for their speech; attacks on lawyers for their past work; or
any number of actions seeking to snuff diversity language from the handbooks of
corporate America.
Yet the First Amendment withers, too, when it’s not called
into action under trying circumstances. That’s the sin of Paramount. Though
lawyers for CBS News cited First Amendment protections in court filings,
Paramount caved prematurely and completely, leaving the impression that our
legal protections may not have been equal to the task. Is it possible to malign
the First Amendment itself?
“Look, companies often settle litigation to avoid the high
and somewhat unpredictable cost of legal defense, the risk of an adverse
judgment that could result in significant financial as well as reputational
damage, and the disruption to business operations that prolonged legal battles
can cause,” said Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “A
settlement offers a negotiated resolution that allows companies to focus on
their core objectives, rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction.”
Aside from the details above, there are other important
considerations in Trump et al v. CBS Broadcasting Inc. et al.
Trump’s complaint sought relief over a “60 Minutes” interview with Harris by
correspondent Bill Whitaker, in which he asked Harris about the crisis in the
Middle East. Harris gave an extended answer, a longer part of which CBS News
broadcast on “Face the Nation” and a shorter part of which it broadcast on “60
Minutes.” The version on “Face the Nation” was a Harris “word salad,” argues
the complaint, which insists that viewers were “deceived and misled by the
astonishing contrast between the two versions” of Harris’ reply. Instead of
suing CBS News for defamation — a common approach for parties aggrieved by
media reports — Trump sued under a Texas consumer-protection statute and
a federal statute governing false advertising —
and he chose a venue perceived to be favorable to his chances in Amarillo,
Texas.
In published reports, legal eagle after legal eagle has
called the suit frivolous, though they’ve often been too polite. The Washington
Post’s decency standards bar me from properly characterizing its worthlessness.
Context is required to understand just what Paramount
executives have done here.
Three cases:
·
CNN in January settled a
defamation case with Zachary Young, a security contractor who assisted
companies in evacuating their personnel from Afghanistan. The settlement
followed an adverse jury verdict that reflected some sloppy work and hostile
behind-the-scenes communications at CNN.
·
ABC News settled a Trump
defamation claim stemming from a segment in which anchor George Stephanopoulos
articulated a technically inaccurate description of a civil jury finding
against Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case.
·
Fox News famously paid
out $787.5 million to resolve a suit by Dominion Voting Systems. The network’s
airwaves carried commentary implicating the company in a scheme to steal the
2020 election from Trump.
See? You settle when you screw up.
CBS News did not screw up, however. The
settlement doesn’t include an apology, and that’s because there is nothing to
apologize for. Its actions under attack in the Trump suit are the subject of
great reverence from the First Amendment. In the 1974 case Miami Herald
Pub. Co. v. Tornillo, for instance, the Supreme Court considered a spat in
which the Herald had declined to publish pushback by a politician to critical
editorials — in violation of a Florida law requiring newspapers to offer space
for such rebuttals. The high court knocked down the law because of its
intrusion into the “function of editors in choosing what material goes into a
newspaper and in deciding on the size and content of the paper and the
treatment of public issues and officials.”
That very function — the one that happens many times a day
at newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, networks, social media accounts,
newsletters, whatever — is what Paramount failed to stick up for. It doesn’t
deserve the likes of “60 Minutes.”
Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Trump Met With Congress And Didn't Know What Was In BBB
Declining Trump Met With Congress And Didn't Know What Was In BBB
Trump hosted supposed moderate House Republicans trying to convince them to support his tax cuts for the rich, but multiple people said that the president appeared not to know what's in the bill.
The fact that there is a very different standard for Donald Trump than there has been for other presidents became evident once again, as Trump met with House Republican moderates in the Oval Office to try to get them to support his BBB tax cuts for the rich.
There was just one problem.
According to NOTUS, Trump didn’t seem to have a grasp on what was in his own bill:
Trump hosted a meeting with some moderates and some members of the Main Street Caucus on Wednesday, where he listened to concerns and touted the wins in the legislation, two sources told NOTUS.
But Trump still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp about what his signature legislative achievement does. According to three sources with direct knowledge of the comments, the president told Republicans at this meeting that there are three things Congress shouldn’t touch if they want to win elections: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
“But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one member responded to Trump, according to the three sources.
The supposed Republican closer and dealmaker doesn’t seem to know what is in the bill that he is trying to convince House Republicans to put their careers on the line to support.
Tuesday, July 01, 2025
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