The truth will set you free

President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials.

  NBC

No, not Spain. Well, yes Spain, but more impactful...definitely more shocking...

Trump surprised Gulf allies by announcing “Project Freedom” on social media Sunday afternoon, the officials said, angering leadership in Saudi Arabia. In response, the Kingdom informed the U.S. it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase southeast of Riyadh or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort, the officials said.

A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace.

[...]

The source said Saudi Arabia was “very supportive of the diplomatic efforts” by Pakistan to broker a deal between Iran and the U.S. to end the war.

[...]

A Middle Eastern diplomat said the U.S. did not coordinate Project Freedom with the Omanis until after Trump made the announcement.

[...]

Trump had announced the operation over the weekend as a way to break Iran’s blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, and his top national security leaders spent much of Tuesday talking up the effort in public briefings at the Pentagon and White House, only to have the president suddenly halt the operation roughly 36 hours after it began.

The U.S. military had been lining up a number of additional ships in the Gulf for transit through the strait when the operation was stopped, a U.S. official said. U.S. Central Command had earlier announced that two U.S. flagged ships had made it through the strait as part of Project Freedom.

[...]

Military aircraft were critical to protect ships during Project Freedom, essentially providing a defensive umbrella.

[...]

Saudi Arabia and Jordan are critical for allowing aircraft to base there, Kuwait is critical for overflight, and Oman for both overflight and naval logistics.

Trump thinks he can just command the world, and the world is letting him know he's delusional.

But what did he tell us was his reason for pausing Project Freedom?

Trump said Project Freedom would be “paused for a short period of time to see whether or not” an agreement to resolve the war “can be finalized and signed.”

No mention of Saudi Arabia cockblocking him.

Whatever he says, believe the opposite

 

Bingo, y'all

 

And that's because he is an abusive person.  Everything he does to this country is abusive.

You can't scare the Pope

 Not even if you think you're god.

I didn't realize the Pope was supposed to be involved in foreign policy.

To the contrary, when asked about it, he's going to say he hasn't seen the post and move on.

UPDATE 09:33 am:

Dude, he thinks he IS Jesus.

Sure, Jan.

My doctor wears red and white flowing robes and has balls of light in his hands.  Doesn't yours?  Also, I don't see a red cross in that picture.  I do see soldiers floating up to heaven. 

Did he come up with that ridiculous lie all by himself?

UPDATE :  Like minds...

UPDATE 04/15/2026:  Bingo, y'all

And that's because he is an abusive person.  Everything he does to this country is abusive.

April 6 came early

 

So much for deadline April 6.

Cause...?...

So, who is negotiating for peace?  China and Pakistan.  Their plan includes the following:

UPDATE 03/31/2026:

Unbelievable.

Oh, I can't wait to hear this.  Well, read about it.

Lying is second nature

 

It's a secret present

 

People still buying this garbage?  Iranian leaders made a deal with Obama, and Trump threw it out.

No, Iran didn't give "us" - OR him - a present.  Not in the sense he's implying. Trump is the avatar of destruction - the Trump (tarot) tower, if you will. In the labels I put on posts to help me find something previously posted, I've been labeling him as Destroyer of Worlds. The old shit we have built up needed to be broken down, and by golly, he's doing a fantastic job of it.

When we elected George W Bush the second time, I was kind of shocked, and then I thought, well, we have to see how bad it can get before we wake up and build something better.  Obviously, it wasn't bad enough - not enough of us were woke, so to speak (no wonder MAGA hates "woke") - and then Obama came along and smoothed over some of the biggest holes, while still carrying on in essentially the same vein. So we elected ourselves a maggot and gave ourselves a viral disaster, but that still wasn't enough. We elected Joe Biden to try to put ourselves back in the Obama box, and, unsurprisingly, things continued to crumble.  Tired of the slow deterioration, I guess, we put Trump back in there to really take a wrecking ball to the world.

What we build next is up to us.  I hope we get a new pattern.  Stop electing Republicans.

UPDATE 09:07 am:  The Destroyer has assistants.

This is probably a more accurate assessment of the situation:

The threatener in chief has spoken

 

Is Bibi still alive?

UPDATE 03/23/2026:

From Zeteo newsletter:

Donald Trump initially said Iran had until Monday evening to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or he would “obliterate” power plants – an act generally considered a war crime itself. He said this morning he was postponing any strikes on Iran’s power plants for five days.

You knew he wouldn't carry it out.

He manipulates the market with his pronouncements.

From the newsletter:

In multiple scenarios, if Donald Trump were to invade and try to occupy Kharg Island for an extended period of time, American casualties would very likely be “considerable,” one of the people familiar with the matter says. Some estimates, the first two sources tell us, are easily in the dozens for an initial phase of occupation, with numbers likely to rise sharply if President Trump wished to hold the island for an extended duration.

Trump has long been fascinated with Kharg Island, which holds the bulk of Iran’s oil exports. During his Art of the Deal book tour in 1988, Trump said he would “go in and take it.”

Harrison Mann, a former US intelligence analyst, has written for Zeteo about why a Kharg Island invasion is a bad idea. He writes further for the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft blog: “For the troops unlucky enough to receive orders to take Kharg, the operation would land somewhere between a suicide mission and a self-imposed hostage crisis.”

As he explains, it’s not clear what the point of the Kharg mission would be, because securing Iran’s oil infrastructure might not necessarily create much leverage for Trump. “The opportunity to inflict a mass casualty event that could sap limited US public support for the war, or to hold entire battalions as de facto hostages, may well appear more valuable to Tehran than oil revenue,” Mann adds.

Joe Kent, Trump’s former director of counterterrorism, who just resigned over Trump’s Iran war, told the Washington Post that a Kharg invasion “would be a disaster.”

“It would essentially be giving Iran a bunch of hostages on an island that they could barrage with drones and missiles,” he said.

Trump is every blowhard rooster you've ever met. Manipulating the market into movement that enriches him personally is the reward for his bluster and bloviating. He has no sense of shame or embarrassment, so the fact that we call him TACO Trump doesn't really concern him. He just counts his coins and continues.

My eyes just rolled.

UPDATE 03/23/2026 08:32 am:

Yes, exactly.

And juice the stock market.

"I am please to report..."  "...conversations, witch will continue..."*

You can make money only when the market moves.  Up or down doesn't matter if you know it's going to happen.

*Somebody cleaned it up...

UPDATE 03/24/2026:

Only one trader?  Well, let me see....who was the one person who knew Trump was going to do what he did?  It might take me a while.

"We're way ahead of schedule"

 

Did he ever state a schedule?  

We're getting our ass kicked is what we are.

Things are falling apart for Trump.

He doesn't want war

 

I guess he just likes to name them.

Seriously, how many tweets and pressers has he used to glorify war?  If he could get an erection, you'd think he'd have one every time he gushes about obliterating and blowing up things.