NEW: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken steps to block or delay promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military, some of whom are seen as having been targeted because of their race, gender or perceived affiliation with Biden administration policies or officials, according to nine U.S. officials familiar with the process. https://t.co/KUvNlQcNV4
DAVID ROHDE: “Iran offered to give away ALL of its ENRICHED URANIUM during the recent peace talks. Hours later the U.S. started dropping bombs.”
Everything we’re being told by the Trump admin is a lie. He’s single-handedly destroying the United States.
BOMBSHELL: CNN's Christiane Amanpour confirms Washington had a real chance for peace, but threw it away to adopt Israel's psychotic "mowing the lawn" strategy. The Trump Administration intentionally chose endless bombing over diplomacy.
Trump is seeking to pay for his new $1.5 trillion military budget by cutting the following:
$510 million - Grants for farmers and agricultural research
$82 million - Loans for rural small businesses (Fully eliminated)
$61 million - Support for farmers and food markets (Fully eliminated)
$240 million - School meals and food education for children abroad (Fully eliminated)
$659 million - Community building grants
$47 million - Support for minority-owned businesses (Fully eliminated)
$449 million - Economic development grants for communities
$1.6 billion - Weather forecasting, fisheries, and coastal protection (NOAA)
$993 million - Scientific research and technology standards
$150 million - Support for American exports and trade
$2.2 billion - Broadband and internet access programs
$8.5 billion - Funding for public schools
$1.5 billion - Vocational training and adult education (Fully eliminated)
$2.7 billion - College access and higher education support
$15.2 billion - Roads, bridges, and infrastructure projects
$1.1 billion - Home energy efficiency and clean energy programs (Fully eliminated)
$1.1 billion - Scientific research funding
$386 million - Environmental cleanup programs
$150 million - Cutting-edge clean energy research
$4 billion - Help paying home heating and cooling bills for low-income families (Fully eliminated)
$768 million - Refugee resettlement assistance
$819 million - Care and shelter for migrant children
$775 million - Local anti-poverty programs (Fully eliminated)
$5 billion - Public health programs, mental health services, and disease prevention
$5 billion - Medical research (NIH)
$129 million - Healthcare quality and safety research
$356 million - Emergency preparedness and disaster response
$1.3 billion - FEMA community disaster preparedness grants
$707 million - Cybersecurity protection for critical infrastructure
$52 million - Airport and transportation security
$40 million - Protection against chemical and biological weapons threats
$53 million - Funding for homeland security operations
$3.3 billion - Community development block grants for local neighborhoods (Fully eliminated)
$1.3 billion - Affordable housing construction grants (Fully eliminated)
$393 million - Programs to reduce homelessness
$529 million - Housing assistance for people living with HIV/AIDS (Fully eliminated)
$489 million - Housing and services for Native American communities
$50 million - Grants to help communities build more housing (Fully eliminated)
$60 million - Enforcement of fair housing and anti-discrimination laws
$58 million - Homebuyer and renter counseling services (Fully eliminated)
$45 million - Renewable energy development programs (Fully eliminated)
$1.7 billion - Grants for local law enforcement and public safety
$20 million - Civil rights mediation and legal access programs (Fully eliminated)
$1.6 billion - Job training for at-risk youth (Fully eliminated)
$395 million - Jobs program for low-income seniors (Fully eliminated)
$234 million - Worker safety and labor protection programs
$101 million - Enforcement of equal pay and workplace anti-discrimination laws
$46 million - Programs to combat child labor and forced labor abroad
$2 billion - International humanitarian aid
$1.2 billion - Food aid for hungry families abroad (Fully eliminated)
$4.3 billion - Global health and disease prevention programs
$2.7 billion - Funding for the United Nations and international partnerships
$642 million - International economic and treasury programs
$315 million - Democracy and anti-corruption programs abroad
$486 million - Grants for public transit projects
$4.2 billion - Electric vehicle charging infrastructure
$372 million - Airline service for rural and small communities
$145 million - Grants for sustainable and equitable infrastructure
$204 million - Loans and investment for underserved communities
$1.4 billion - IRS taxpayer services and enforcement
$100 million - Air pollution monitoring and reduction programs (Fully eliminated)
$1 billion - EPA grants to states for environmental protection
$2.5 billion - Clean drinking water and wastewater infrastructure funds
$90 million - Grants to reduce diesel pollution (Fully eliminated)
$3.4 billion - NASA space and earth science research
$297 million - NASA technology innovation programs
$1.1 billion - International Space Station operations
$143 million - STEM education programs
$309 million - Small business development and entrepreneurship programs
$170 million - Small Business Administration operations
$158 million - Loans for small businesses
@mjfree@Forbes It's never enough when wealthy and powerful people want something like oil. They'll just have poor people led by brainwashed fools fight and die for them. Meanwhile their kids are kept safe and groomed to take their place.
@shanaka86 We know why they were replaced. So MAGA loyalists could be put in their place. People who will be more than willing to do whatever supreme leader trump wants. To hell with that pesky constitution.
Army Chief of Staff fired: THIS IS VERY BIG.
Firing the Army Chief now, and replacing him with a loyalist, is preparation for orders the previous leadership might have slow-walked or resisted.
When you fire a service chief mid-war with no stated cause, the real reason is almost certainly doctrinal disagreement — how the war is being fought. It should be noted that the US started bombing Iranian civilian infrastructure today (Iran's largest bridge).
A career infantry officer like George, who ran the Army's transformation initiative, would have serious institutional opinions about the feasibility and cost of a ground operation in Iran. If he was pushing back — even through internal channels — that's exactly the kind of friction Hegseth would remove.
The likely replacement is Gen. Christopher LaNeve, formerly Hegseth's own military aide — meaning Hegseth is installing a loyalist at the top of the Army during active combat operations against Iran.
Hegseth has now fired over a dozen senior military officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. C.Q. Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife, and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.
Bottom line: This is escalatory.
The civilian leadership is systematically removing any institutional brake on military options — this is what the entire purge has been building toward. The George ouster happening simultaneously with Trump's "stone ages" speech is not coincidence. Expect the next two weeks to be the most kinetically intense phase of the war so far.
Absolute bombshell on Fox News. An expert National Security Analyst confirms the Trump administration is completely purging the Pentagon. Pete Hegseth has fired over a dozen top generals, including the heads of the Navy and Air Force, right in the middle of a massive war.
This is the funniest clip you'll see all day.
Scott Jennings tries to use a military analyst to fact check me... and the analyst ends up backing me up on everything.
WHOOPS!
The White House accidentally uploaded this speech — and quickly took it down. Maybe that’s because Trump compares himself to Jesus, fantasizes about being king, and admits there’s no money for childcare and health care because of war.
BREAKING - OUTRAGE in AMERICA: White House takes down video after Trump says, 'Don't send any money for daycare. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country, we have 50 states, we're fighting wars. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things." WATCH
🚨Trump today:
“We can’t take care of daycare. We’re a big country. We’re fighting wars. It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things.”
The United States has spent:
$21 billion on the Iran war in 30 days.
$100 million on Trump’s golf tab this term.
$200 billion requested for Pentagon weapons.
$8 trillion on wars since September 11th.
But daycare is not possible.
Medicare is not possible.
Medicaid — which covers 72 million Americans including children, seniors, and people with disabilities — is not possible.