Thursday, March 12, 2026
Interesting quote from "The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
Hi – I'm reading "The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time" by Will Durant and wanted to share this quote with you.
"If I were to ask you to name the person who has most influenced our century (the 20th century) would it be Karl Marx? Durant paused for a moment and then replied: Well, if you use the word in its largest sense,we would have to give the greatest share of influence to the technical inventors, to men like Edison. Doubtless the development of electricity has transformed the world even more than any Marxian propaganda. Then, if you think in terms of ideas, I think the influence of Darwin is still greater than the influence of Marx, but in a different field. The basic phenomenon of our time is not Communism; it’s the decline of religious belief,which has all sorts of effects on morals and even on politics because religion has been a tool of politics. But today in Europe it ceases to be a tool, it has very little influence in determining political decisions—whereas 500 years ago, the pope was superior in influence to any civil ruler on earth.
Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/0bOBnnoo
Pete Hegseth Spent Millions on Steak, Crab Legs and Lobster
https://www.newsweek.com/pete-hegseth-spent-millions-steak-crab-legs-lobster-report-11658295
The Pentagon spent millions of dollars on luxury food items, consumer electronics and other discretionary purchases in the final month of the last fiscal year, according to a new analysis by government spending watchdog Open the Books.
The report found that the Department of Defense, headed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in September 2025, the largest single‑month total ever recorded by any federal agency.
As secretary of defense, Hegseth has publicly emphasized refocusing the department on core defense priorities and military readiness. But the data from Open the Books reveals that the Pentagon’s end‑of‑year spending reflected something quite different.
Lobstergate: Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon faces backlash over $7 million lobster spree - FoxNews
https://www.foxla.com/news/pete-hegseth-pentagon-lobster-spending-93-billion
A government watchdog report reveals the Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, spent $6.9 million on lobster tails during a single month in late 2025.
The expenditure was part of a record-breaking $93.4 billion "use-it-or-lose-it" spree in September that included ribeye steaks, king crab, and luxury furniture.
Critics and lawmakers are slamming the optics of the spending, contrasting the "surf and turf" budget with the administration's public push for federal efficiency
Beyond the $6.9 million for lobster, the Pentagon spent:
$15.1 million on ribeye steaks
$2 million on Alaskan king crab
Nearly $140,000 on doughnuts
Over $124,000 on ice cream machines
High-end non-food items were also on the list, including:
$98,329 Steinway & Sons grand piano for an Air Force residence
$225 million in furniture, featuring individual chairs costing nearly $1,900
$12,540 for fruit basket stands
$5.3 million on Apple devices
Team Trump needs to start lifting the fog of the Iran war for the US public
Somewhere between the White House and the Pentagon, the nation’s leaders need to start giving the public a regular, clear, concrete sense of how Operation Epic Fury is proceeding.
Right now, regular Americans and experts “closely monitoring the situation” have good reason to feel confused.
That includes the hundreds of thousands of people with friends and loved ones doing the fighting.
Team Trump provided solid briefings in the first weekend of the war, but then dropped the ball.
Beyond the occasional in-depth presentation by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it’s as if the administration expects the public to think the occasional high gloss social-media video is enough.
Iran war complicates the economic pivot GOP badly wants to see from Trump
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/11/politics/trump-republicans-iran-war-economic-pivot
Was the conflagration a war, a reporter asked, or merely an “excursion,” as the president had just described it.
“Well, it’s both,” he explained.
“It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be, I mean for them — it’s a war. For us, it’s turned out to be easier than we thought,” he continued.
For Americans eager for clarity on where, exactly, this is headed, it wasn’t much.
And for a president looking to present his best case on a conflict that has roiled markets and polls poorly, it was a window into a difficult political moment.
And Republicans by and large support Trump’s military action, though many voices within Trump’s MAGA movement have either voiced deep skepticism or outright rejected the premise on which the conflict was launched.
Donald Trump Says ‘We Won’ Iran War
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-claims-victory-iran-war-we-won-kentucky-speech-11663426
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the war with Iran had already been decided in America's favor.
He added, “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job."
Americans are divided along party lines on U.S. military action against Iran, according to polls conducted since the war began, with most polls showing opposition is higher than support.
Trump and other administration officials have said in recent days that Iran was weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon, arguments they have used to justify renewed strikes, even as they maintain that the summer’s attacks destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Iran’s response to the Israeli and American bombardment that began nearly two weeks ago has disrupted key trade routes, constrained shipments of fuel and fertilizer from the Gulf and raised risks of air travel through one of the world’s busiest corridors. With neither side signaling a retreat, both appear determined to outlast the other.
Joe Rogan keeps highlighting Trump’s biggest liabilities
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/11/politics/joe-rogan-trump-support-epstein-iran
If there’s one figure who epitomized President Donald Trump’s ability to cobble together a winning coalition in 2024, it might have been Joe Rogan — the influential podcaster who made big news by endorsing Trump on the eve of the election after interviewing him.
Sixteen months later, Rogan epitomizes Trump’s problems in holding that coalition together.
Rogan has broken with Trump on several major issues since mid-2025. And polling shows the issues he’s picked happen to be some of Trump’s biggest political liabilities – including the war with Iran, the Jeffrey Epstein files and immigration enforcement.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
After initially voicing support, Trump says he doesn’t want Kurds to enter Iran war
US President Donald Trump said Saturday he didn’t want Kurdish fighters from Iraq to join the war against Iran, after previously expressing support for the idea.
“I don’t want the Kurds to go into Iran… They’re willing to go in, but I’ve told them I don’t want them to go in… The war is complicated enough as it is… We don’t want to see the Kurds get hurt or killed,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, after attending the return of the bodies of the six American soldiers killed in the conflict with Iran.
On Thursday, Trump had said he’d welcome Kurdish involvement, saying: “I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it.” He was also reported to have discussed the possibility with Kurdish leaders.
It was not clear what brought about the change in the president’s position.
After Khamenei, What Now?
Ihttps://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/03/iran-war-khamenei-trump/686208/
Iranians want democracy. Trump wants a brief conflict. Neither seems likely.
What seems to provoke the most poetic language from Trump is the prospect of the Iranian people rising up to take power from their despotic leaders. “Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach,” he said when he announced the strikes, and on Sunday repeated his hope: “That is going to happen,” he told The Atlantic. “You are seeing that, and I think it’s gonna happen.”
But Iran currently lacks a major organized democratic opposition. And that’s the key issue, according to the pro-democracy Iranian writer and Atlantic contributor Arash Azizi. There is no credible ready alternative to the current regime.
Like yesterday, he suggested that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should surrender their weapons to the people. And when he announced the war, he said, Now is time to seize control of your destiny. What do you make of all that?
And it’s the same question about the people should take over. I mean, okay, the people should take over, but what should they do? They’re still facing more than a million people under arms who are defending the regime. There’s still a part of the population—I heard an estimate of about 20 percent; maybe it’s lower—who support the regime, and we saw some of them came out and demonstrated today, as well. So the mechanisms by which this should be done aren’t clear. And I mean, there are people outside the country who have plans. There’s the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who has described himself as a potential leader and a potential unifier.
Now, as for the president, he has said very different things over the last 24 hours. So yes, he said he had three candidates. Then he said in another interview that he had a few candidates, but they had all been killed. At some point, he said a Venezuela-style transition would be the best thing, which suggests he doesn’t really want to change the regime.
Will Iranians Rise Up? Here Are the Odds.
According to Donald Trump, Iranians have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “The hour of your freedom is at hand,” he declared, as U.S. and Israeli warplanes pounded Iranian cities and the compound of the country’s supreme leader. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations.”
The country’s population, after all, is clearly fed up with the Islamic Republic. Over the last decade, Iranians have repeatedly staged mass demonstrations against the regime. Those protests typically only go away after the government responds with horrific force. In December and January, for example, hundreds of thousands of Iranians spent weeks demonstrating — until Iranian security officials shot and killed thousands of them. But now, American and Israeli warplanes are attacking Iran’s military and security apparatus and destroying other government institutions. They have killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and many other top officials. The Trump administration seems to be betting that the Iranian people will soon take over the regime change process, resume protesting and successfully remove a greatly weakened government.
Iranians, of course, do desperately want a better future, and they have been willing to protest under very difficult conditions. For an autocracy, the country has high levels of civic engagement. It is therefore possible that Iranians will succeed where other populations haven’t. But history suggests most of the country’s people will not heed Trump’s call, and that even if they do, they will have a hard time winning.
“Never,” Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who studies air power and regime change, replied when I asked whether what Washington was doing in Iran had succeeded elsewhere. “Bombings have never led people to take to the streets and topple their leader.”“In order to save the pro-democracy protesters, you’ve got to be right there,” Pape told me. “You have to have troops on the ground.”
Iranians Say Trump’s Intervention Brought Destruction, Not Liberation
https://time.com/article/2026/03/10/iran-war-trump-us-israel-regime/
After nearly two weeks of U.S.-Isreali airstrikes, Iranians describe a country exhausted and uncertain. Bombing campaigns that targeted military sites and security infrastructure have also damaged police stations, fuel depots and power facilities.
Residents who cheered the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28 in the first wave of strikes, say they are confounded by Trump’s suggestions that the assault may end with his regime still in place.
"Trump either didn't have a clear strategy to begin with, or it was based on wrong data," said Mahmood, the CEO of an IT company in Tehran. "None of what he has done has helped the people of Iran. Our situation isn't any better.”
Despite the scale of the bombardment, the Islamic Republic’s core institutions appear to have held firm. At night, its security forces and loyalists fill the streets of major cities, first to mourn the “martyrdom” of the elder Khamenei, then to laud the appointment of his son, Mojtaba, whose ascension to Supreme Leader was announced Monday.