All guns, no butter

Our president appears to be losing his mind. Losing his filters for sure. In addition to his profanity ("Open the fuckin' straight you crazy bastards!") I heard him again today proclaim, "I won (the 2024 election) in a landslide!" No you didn't you lying pathetic pig. 

Trump got barely over 31% of eligible voters. Harris got just under 31%, and 36% of eligible voters didn't even vote. 

Or, let's talk about those who actually voted. Trump got 49.8% and Harris got 48.3%. Where exactly is this landslide, you lying sack of shit? So many reporters have had the opportunity to push back on that simple-to-refute claim, and yet.....crickets. A massive failure of journalism. Everyone is scared of Trump and his "MAGA death-threat chorus." Oh, but, but, Trump might support a primary opponent to beat me in the next election. Let's see, lose your seat or lose your 250-year-old democracy. Tough choice. 

Never have I ever seen a Congress so cowed. And on the other hand, we must find out which Congresscritters actually support everything Trump is doing. They might belong in jail along with Trump. And his own cabinet is afraid to speak any truth to the president. Not a good situation.

More for Coercion, Less for Care

Reading Trump’s proposed budget as a statement of federal purpose.

TEAM COFFMAN CHRONICLE

On April 3, 2026, the Trump administration released its proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2027. On its surface, it reads like any other budget: numbers, cuts, increases, and a long list of programs reshaped or eliminated.

Taken as a whole, however, it is something more revealing. It is a statement about what this administration believes the federal government is for.

This is not primarily a budget built around making life more livable. It is not centered on reducing household strain, expanding opportunity, or strengthening the everyday foundations of American life. Instead, it suggests a federal government meant first to project force, police borders, and enforce order.

Read in buckets, the worldview becomes clear

Budgets are often presented as sprawling documents that resist easy interpretation. Line-by-line summaries can obscure more than they reveal. When grouped into a handful of functional buckets, however, the underlying philosophy comes into focus.

Viewed this way, the proposed budget consistently shifts resources toward force and enforcement, while pulling them away from care, prevention, opportunity, and stability.

More for force and enforcement

The most visible feature of the proposal is its scale. The administration is requesting roughly $1.5 trillion in total defense resources, a dramatic increase from already historic levels. That increase is paired with continued emphasis on immigration enforcement, including funding for border control, detention capacity, and deportation infrastructure.

Taken together, these priorities define the areas where the administration wants the federal government to grow.

Military spending projects power outward. Immigration enforcement projects control inward. One is about global dominance and deterrence. The other is about territorial control and internal order. In this budget, both are treated as central functions of the state.

This is not a case of shrinking government across the board. It is a case of selectively expanding the parts of government that can command, surveil, detain, deport, and fight.

Less for care and basic needs

The contrast becomes sharper when looking at what is being reduced or eliminated.

The budget proposes cuts or eliminations affecting programs that help households manage the basic conditions of life: heating and cooling assistance through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), community development funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), fair housing initiatives, and worker protection agencies, among others.

These are not abstract bureaucratic functions. They are among the mechanisms through which the federal government reduces the day-to-day instability that many Americans experience. They help people keep the heat on, stay housed, navigate unsafe working conditions, and maintain some degree of economic footing.

A family that cannot afford rent, utilities, or basic stability is not secure in any meaningful sense. Yet this budget treats those forms of insecurity as secondary.

When the government expands its coercive capacities while shrinking its caregiving capacities, people begin to wonder whether they are being treated more as subjects to manage than as citizens to support.

Less for knowledge, prevention, and resilience

The proposed cuts are not limited to direct support programs. They extend to the government’s ability to understand and prevent problems before they become crises.

The budget calls for significant reductions to institutions such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds medical research; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which supports weather forecasting and climate science; and NASA's science programs. It also reduces funding for certain disaster preparedness and response grants administered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

These functions are often less visible than direct aid, yet they are central to a modern state’s capacity. They help prevent disease, anticipate extreme weather, respond to disasters, and expand scientific knowledge that underpins long-term economic and public health gains.

A government can invest in preventing suffering, or it can pay for the consequences later. This budget leans toward the latter.

It appears more comfortable funding response by force than prevention through knowledge, science, and public capacity.

Less for opportunity and mobility

Another set of cuts affects programs designed to help people move forward rather than simply get by.

Funding for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), which include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other institutions that serve large numbers of underrepresented students, is reduced by eliminating certain targeted programs. 

Workforce development efforts such as Job Corps are eliminated. Support for small business development and rural economic initiatives is also reduced.

These programs represent the federal government’s role in expanding opportunity: helping people gain skills, start businesses, and build economic independence.

Removing or shrinking them does not just reduce support in the present. It narrows the pathways available for upward mobility in the future.

A government that cuts ladders while expanding enforcement is making a statement about who it expects to succeed on their own, and who it is willing to leave behind.

Less for aid and non-military stability

The same pattern extends beyond U.S. borders.

The budget reduces humanitarian assistance and broader international aid programs that are often used to stabilize fragile regions, respond to crises, and prevent conditions that can lead to conflict or forced migration.

There is a long-standing tension in foreign policy between coercive power and preventive investment. Military capability can contain a crisis once it has begun. Aid, diplomacy, and development can sometimes prevent that crisis from emerging in the first place.

This budget tilts heavily toward the former.

You cannot coerce another nation into legitimacy or stability. Durable peace and governance have to be built internally, often with external support. Reducing that support while expanding military capacity suggests a preference for managing crises rather than preventing them.

Weapons can freeze a conflict. They rarely heal the conditions that produced it.

What this budget says government is for

Taken together, these buckets point to a coherent view of federal power.

This budget places its greatest emphasis on force, deterrence, border control, and enforcement. It assigns less priority to making daily life more stable, expanding opportunity, strengthening public health, or investing in long-term resilience.

It does not imagine the citizen primarily as someone whose life should be made more secure through public investment. Instead, it more often frames the role of government as protecting the citizen through strength or regulating behavior through enforcement, while leaving many aspects of daily life to states, markets, families, and private institutions.

This is not a vision of a minimal state. It is a vision of a selective state, one that is strongest where it can coerce.

Not a departure, but a trajectory

This proposal does not appear out of nowhere. It reflects patterns that have been visible throughout the administration’s first year.

The emphasis on immigration enforcement, the framing of certain domestic programs as ideological targets, and the preference for hard power over social investment have all been consistent themes. The budget consolidates those priorities into a single document.

In that sense, it is less a pivot than a culmination.

The accountability question

There is also a question of stewardship that sits beneath the numbers.

We have written previously about the Pentagon’s repeated failure to pass a full department-wide financial audit. That history matters here, even if it is not the focus of this piece. The administration is asking for a historic increase in defense spending from a department that has not yet met a basic standard of financial accountability.

See that reporting here:

Note: Articles roll into the archive over time. Become a paid subscriber to full access to our full catalog.

The Pentagon’s $93 Billion September

MARIE RIVERTON

·

MAR 12

Read full story

The Pentagon’s Blank Check, and the People Paying the Price

MARIE RIVERTON

·

MAY 1, 2025

Read full story

That context does not resolve the debate, yet it raises the threshold for justification. In any other industry, such a failure to address basic accountability would preclude any increase without sustained improvement.

What is the point of federal power?

Budgets force choices. They reveal what a government is willing to prioritize when it cannot do everything.

This one makes those priorities unusually clear.

It strengthens the parts of government that project force and enforce order. It weakens or reduces the parts that help make life more stable, more affordable, and more navigable for ordinary people.

A nation is not defended only by weapons. It is defended by sustaining a way of life worth living.

If the federal government is not using its discretionary power first to make that life more livable, then the question this budget leaves behind is a simple one: What, exactly, does this administration think the federal government is for?

Viewing this proposed budget, the answer is clearly enforcement, not quality of life.

Original.

Iran President

With all the insane, contradictory blather coming from the American president lately, I thought it would be interesting to re-read what Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian recently had to say in a letter addressed to the people of the United States. 

Comparing the writings of these two men, I can only shake my head in shame and embarrassment at where the US is right now, and what Trump has done to our credibility.  

One wonders how different things would be if the Western powers had not overthrown the  democratically-elected Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953. No coup, no Shah, no 1979 revolution? No American hostages held for 444 days? No Ronald Reagan as president?

FULL LETTER BELOW:

"To the people of the United States of America, and to all those who, amid a flood of distortions and manufactured narratives, continue to seek the truth and aspire to a better life:

Iran—by this very name, character, and identity—is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in human history. Despite its historical and geographical advantages at various times, Iran has never, in its modern history, chosen the path of aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination. Even after enduring occupation, invasion, and sustained pressure from global powers—and despite possessing military superiority over many of its neighbors—Iran has never initiated a war. Yet it has resolutely and bravely repelled those who have attacked it.

The Iranian people harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighboring countries. Even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures throughout their proud history, Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern. This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective consciousness—not a temporary political stance.

For this reason, portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts. Such a perception is the product of political and economic whims of the powerful—the need to manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets. In such an environment, if a threat does not exist, it is invented.

Within this same framework, the United States has concentrated the largest number of its forces, bases, and military capabilities around Iran—a country that, at least since the founding of the United States, has never initiated a war. Recent American aggressions launched from these very bases have demonstrated how threatening such a military presence truly is. Naturally, no country confronted with such conditions would forgo strengthening its defensive capabilities. What Iran has done—and continues to do—is a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defense, and by no means an initiation of war or aggression.

Relations between Iran and the United States were not originally hostile, and early interactions between the Iranian and American people were not marred with hostility or tension. The turning point, however, was the 1953 coup d’état—an illegal American intervention aimed at preventing the nationalization of Iran’s own resources. That coup disrupted Iran’s democratic process, reinstated dictatorship, and sowed deep distrust among Iranians toward U.S. policies.

This distrust deepened further with America’s support for the Shah’s regime, its backing of Saddam Hussein during the imposed war of the 1980s, the imposition of the longest and most comprehensive sanctions in modern history, and ultimately, unprovoked military aggression—twice, in the midst of negotiations—against Iran.

Yet all these pressures have failed to weaken Iran. On the contrary, the country has grown stronger in many areas: literacy rates have tripled—from roughly 30% before the Islamic Revolution to over 90% today; higher education has expanded dramatically; significant advances have been achieved in modern technology; healthcare services have improved; and infrastructure has developed at a pace and scale incomparable to the past. These are measurable, observable realities that stand independent of fabricated narratives.

At the same time, the destructive and inhumane impact of sanctions, war, and aggression on the lives of the resilient Iranian people must not be underestimated. The continuation of military aggression and recent bombings profoundly affect people’s lives, attitudes, and perspectives. This reflects a fundamental human truth: when war inflicts irreparable harm on lives, homes, cities, and futures, people will not remain indifferent toward those responsible.

This raises a fundamental question: Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war? Was there any objective threat from Iran to justify such behavior? Does the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country “back to the stone ages” serve any purpose other than further damaging the United States’ global standing?

Iran pursued negotiations, reached an agreement, and fulfilled all its commitments. The decision to withdraw from that agreement, escalate toward confrontation, and launch two acts of aggression in the midst of negotiations were destructive choices made by the U.S. government—choices that served the delusions of a foreign aggressor.

Attacking Iran’s vital infrastructure—including energy and industrial facilities—directly targets the Iranian people. Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran’s borders. They generate instability, increase human and economic costs, and perpetuate cycles of tension, planting seeds of resentment that will endure for years. This is not a demonstration of strength; it is a sign of strategic bewilderment and an inability to achieve a sustainable solution.

Is it not also the case that America has entered this aggression as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime? Is it not true that Israel, by manufacturing an Iranian threat, seeks to divert global attention away from its crimes toward the Palestinians? Is it not evident that Israel now aims to fight Iran to the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer dollar—shifting the burden of its delusions onto Iran, the region, and the United States itself in pursuit of illegitimate interests?

Is “America First” truly among the priorities of the U.S. government today?

I invite you to look beyond the machinery of misinformation—an integral part of this aggression—and instead speak with those who have visited Iran. Observe the many accomplished Iranian immigrants—educated in Iran—who now teach and conduct research at the world’s most prestigious universities, or contribute to the most advanced technology firms in the West. Do these realities align with the distortions you are being told about Iran and its people?

Today, the world stands at a crossroads. Continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before. The choice between confrontation and engagement is both real and consequential; its outcome will shape the future for generations to come. Throughout its millennia of proud history, Iran has outlasted many aggressors. All that remains of them are tarnished names in history, while Iran endures—resilient, dignified, and proud."

You can find this letter in multiple locations.

No Kings 3

I confess that we did not attend any of the No Kings 3 protests last weekend, but we were greatly encouraged to see the massive turnout in so many cities across this country, and even around the world. The world is going to party like we've never seen before (to borrow a phrase) when this orange maggot finally bites the dust. As one sign said, "Blood Clot, Do Your Thing!"

Dan Rather had a few things to say about the No Kings protests.

Millions Say No To “King” Trump

And his long list of democracy-destroying transgressions

Dan Rather and Team Steady

March 30, 2026

Saturday saw many Americans — 8 million strong — gathering to protest what they believe is a would-be king and to acknowledge a shared animosity toward what Donald Trump is doing to America.

Why is the “No Kings” movement growing? Because the instances of illegality and autocratic rule by the Trump regime are expanding exponentially. The president’s White House delegates and other Republicans labeled the movement as “hate America” rallies. Whether you agree with those in the movement or not, the contrary is true.

Those who marched Saturday love this country deeply and are angry, even mortified, at what we’ve lost.

The peaceful protests were motivated by what the participants describe as unbridled frustration with the dangerous and draconian policies of Donald Trump. But their feelings are tempered by what the protesters see as an enormous community of like-minded Americans who have simply had enough.

On the heels of so many Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, it is a good time to remember that this is not just about the price of gasoline or unaccountable immigration police.

What follows is a brief compilation and reminder of what is motivating the widespread movement: the havoc wrought as democratic institutions and norms are destroyed by the president and his enablers in the Republican Party.

An Unwanted, Poorly Planned, and Increasingly Unpopular War

As the Iran war heads into its fifth week, the Pentagon is providing only scant information about what the American military is doing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reaction to reporting he doesn’t like is to cancel all press conferences.

But reporters are managing to report. The Washington Post writes that the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of U.S. combat operations on the ground in Iran. More than 50,000 American troops are now in the Middle East. Iran has an army of more than half a million soldiers.

Axios is reporting that congressional Republicans are considering cuts to health care to pay for the war, which costs more than a billion dollars a day. That move coupled with surging gasoline prices — the national average is almost $4 a gallon — doesn’t help to endear beleaguered Republicans to their constituents.

Turning His Back on Those Who Elected Him

The president and his administration don’t seem to grasp the mounting anger and alarm among millions of American voters, many of whom delivered Trump back to the White House. For this erroneously labeled “populist,” policy after policy has hurt rather than helped the middle class, while enriching the growing billionaire class.

Trump’s big summer spending bill cut taxes for those billionaires while raising taxes for a good portion of everyday Americans. It added trillions to the deficit and ballooned the national debt.

Those billionaire tax cuts were supposed to be offset by money collected by Trump’s sweeping tariffs. However, the tariffs were never going to be enough to balance the projected $4.7 trillion increase to the deficit over 10 years. And the Supreme Court determined the tariffs were illegal. Trump is now refusing to refund the $175 billion collected by the Treasury Department.

Trump allowed the enhanced Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) subsidies to expire at the end of 2025, causing premiums to skyrocket and pushing more than 2 million people off of the health insurance rolls, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

When Trump was running for office, he promised to deport dangerous immigrants, “the worst of the worst,” and many Americans supported that policy promise. But that is not what is happening.

Masked federal agents killed two Americans and have snatched hundreds of thousands of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, off the street and from their homes, without due process. According to the federal government’s own statistics, only about 25% of detainees have criminal convictions, yet many have been shipped to inhumane detention centers in the U.S. and notorious prisons in foreign countries. Trump’s ICE agents have separated thousands of infants and children from their parents.

Ending Protections Americans Expect

The unabashed pro-corporation president has eviscerated decades-old environmental protections, rolling back climate change regulations, weakening clear air and drinking water standards, and expanding oil and natural gas drilling.

As measles outbreaks continue to rise around the country, he has allowed his secretary of health and human services to dismantle long-standing, science-backed vaccine policies. This includes reducing the number of recommended shots for infants and children from 17 to 11.

The U.S., once considered the leader in biomedical research, has been sidelined. Billions of dollars in funding for research for everything from childhood cancer to dementia to HIV was slashed.

Trump has eliminated or weakened investigative offices throughout the federal government, which has allowed the president and members of his government to act with impunity. Not even the fox is guarding the henhouse.

Within the first week of his second term, Trump removed 17 inspectors general from federal agencies, leaving many vacancies and filling others with sycophants. He also purged the investigative offices at the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Self-Aggrandizement and Personal Enrichment

Trump treats the presidency like a vanity project. He is putting his name and/or face on everything from Soviet-esque banners draping government buildings in Washington to gold coins and newly minted bills. This change breaks a 165-year tradition of only the treasury secretary’s and U.S. treasurer’s signatures on paper currency.

Without congressional approval he added his name to the Kennedy Center and U.S. Institute of Peace. He is building a monstrosity of a ballroom, which he has said he will name after himself, tearing down part of the White House to make room for it.

He has brazenly enriched himself and his family with his crypto-currency schemes, including private dinners at the White House for the biggest investors. Many of those investors are reportedly foreign nationals looking to curry regulatory and financial favor.

He accepted a $400-million jet from the Qatari government as the Trump Organization entered into a deal to build a luxury resort in Qatar. He started what he has dubbed an alternative to the United Nations, called the Board of Peace. He populated it with leaders from countries with some of the world’s worst human rights records, all while charging them $1 billion each to join. No one knows exactly where that money has gone.

He is abusing his pardon power left and right. Numerous media outlets have reported a pay-to-play scheme in which people looking for pardons “donate” to Trump. He has pardoned some of the worst criminals. These include the former president of Honduras, who was convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S. and having ties with powerful Mexican drug cartels. This on top of pardoning every January 6 rioter charged or convicted.

Last Monday, just before markets opened, Trump posted on social media that peace talks with Iran were going well. It turns out those talks were a fabrication. According to the Financial Times, 6,000 oil-trading contracts, worth more than $500 million, changed hands just before that post, making a number of unknown investors a lot of money.

Because he has defanged the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigative arm, we will likely never know who made those trades and if they were tipped off ahead of time.

Beating Up The Constitution

The Trump administration has waged a holistic assault on the Constitution. The First Amendment — freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly — has been routinely trampled. The Fourth, which protects from unreasonable search and seizure, and the Fifth, which guarantees due process and the equal protections of the 14th, are being disregarded.

The emoluments clause, which bars government officials from accepting payments and gifts from foreign governments, is clearly unenforced. Trump completely ignores the separation of powers provisions, which are supposed to limit what the executive branch can do. He has expanded his role, encroaching on Congress, funding things he wants and killing funding for things he doesn’t.

Before Trump took office even a single example from this list could have (and has) toppled a president. It strikes many people as astounding that, after all this, he still occupies the White House. Since beginning his second term, his approval ratings have gone in one direction: down. And he is finally getting a little pushback from some members of his party, though clearly not enough to stop his worst whims and inclinations.

This is no doubt an incomplete list. But it is plenty long enough to get millions of Americans to spend their Saturday letting what they see as a thin-skinned, wannabe king know just how reviled he is.

Please consider supporting my team’s efforts to protect our democracy through the power of independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber. It’s one of the best deals on Substack. I thank you for your support!

Original. 

April Fool

Any American voter who voted for Trump and still defends him is just an idiot. It's that simple. Maybe some of them are in some way benefitting financially under Trump, and so their future is tied to his, so they still want him to "succeed" so that they can continue to profit. I suppose that is possible, for a very few. If you're already a criminal, or a religious charlatan, you might be able to cozy up to Trump and get a place at the trough. Other than that, you're an idiot.

As for Iran, Trump and his gang of idiots have fucked it up every which way they can, while scamming, grifting, and committing multiple war crimes. "War crimes are for pussies!" I can hear Pete Hegseth saying in his usual derisive tone. Indecisive leadership, contradicting what you said yesterday with more bullshit today. Just floundering around like a fish out of water. It's embarrassing. U.S. credibility is totally shot, thanks to this criminal cretin. I just hope we can recoup the monies that Trump and his amoral family have stolen from we the people.

The Psychology of Military Incompetence

How the Iran War was lost

PAUL KRUGMAN MAR 31

So the world’s greatest military power went to war against a fourth rate nation whose military budget would be rounding error in our defense spending. And it appears that we lost. 

Hi, Paul Krugman with a late night, well, evening update, which I don’t usually do, but I wanted to get this in before who knows what happens in the news tomorrow. 

It’s Tuesday. It’s the day that the stock market rallied enormously, that the futures price of oil dropped precipitously, all on the happy news that the United States, at least based on Trump’s Truth Social, appears to be surrendering. Trump put up a Truth Social post saying that, you know, we don’t need to open the Strait of Hormuz. If the Europeans think they need it, they should go ahead and do it. And it’s up to them. And this is pretty amazing. 

Of course, the idea that it only matters to the Europeans, that it doesn’t matter to us, is all wrong. And that will be a subject of a Substack post shortly. But it is pretty much a confession. Although it’s framed as we won, now let somebody else do the cleanup, the reality is it’s effectively a confession that, well, we lost. We can’t do this.

How the hell did we manage to do this? I mean, the objective reality is that this was never going to be... Maybe it wasn’t even going to be doable. There were reasons why we didn’t go to war with Iran, particularly why we didn’t go to war in a way that basically became an existential threat for the regime so that they have no compunction about creating lots of damage because the alternative result is annihilation for them personally. But everybody who thought about it even for a couple of minutes, anyone who knew anything, particularly anyone who’d been paying attention to four years of war in Ukraine … we know something about what modern war looks like and about the inability of countries that have conventional superior forces to avoid major damage from drones and missiles. So this was completely, unbelievably stupid. 

How did we get there? Well, there was a very good article by Tobin Harshaw in Bloomberg, and mostly I’m just riffing off what he wrote, but I think that it deserves wider circulation. He resurrected a book I had forgotten about, a 1976 book by Norman Dixon called The Psychology of Military Incompetence. It was very British oriented, but the lessons apply; Dixon looked at the great military disasters of British history. 

You might think there were many reasons why really bad decisions were made, but he actually said there was a kind of consistent pattern. That what happened was that you had military leaders, or people making military decisions, who for the most part shared two things. First, they believed, they had this atavistic, anachronistic belief that warfare is all about muscles and not about minds. which hasn’t been true for a very long time. And second, he argued that they are just generally anti-intellectual, anti-education. 

So in some sense, it’s all about muscles and don’t give me all of these smarty-pants intellectuals who are telling me about why I’m doing it wrong. It’s an uncannily accurate portrait of Pete Hegseth, down to even seemingly minor details. Muscular Christianity is among the defining symptoms of the bad British military leaders that Dixon analyzed. So this is what happened.

This is not about specific bad judgments. It’s not, in a way, about the specifics of the case. It is that we were led into war by people who exemplified in the classic way how really bad military decisions are made. And it all comes down to believing in brute force and toughness and muscles — muscles in the age of drone warfare! — and hate intellectuals, hate learning. 

What really gets me is that in a war where the deciding factor is having some intellectual understanding of what you’re doing, that a theocratic regime in Iran, which basically wants to bring back the Middle Ages, mostly got it right.

And the world’s leading haven of scientific thought, or we were at least until the current administration, got it completely wrong. It’s humiliating. It’s awful. And, you know, we will all be paying the price for this incredible defeat for probably for the rest of our lives.