“A series of new polls show that the American public is overwhelmingly opposed to President Trump’s war on Iran. … Americans’ sentiment about Trump’s attack now lines up with where they were before the war, as a series of polling from a variety of firms leading up to the U.S. attack found them to be against getting into another Middle East conflict. But these latest numbers are also quite significant, especially when compared with polling released just days after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Back then, a whopping 72% of Americans supported then-President Bush’s war on Iraq.” (03/02/26)
“What makes this moment so dangerous is not simply the risk of escalation with Iran. It’s the continued erosion of the process that is supposed to restrain exactly this kind of decision-making. The administration has offered shifting justifications for the strikes — imminent threats that weren’t imminent, a nuclear program that was supposedly destroyed less than a year ago, deterrence rationales retrofitted after the fact — while bypassing Congress entirely. That is not how the Constitution envisions the country entering hostilities, nor is it how public consent for war is built or sustained. If this conflict widens, if American casualties mount, or if ground troops are ultimately deployed, the question won’t just be whether the strikes were strategically wise. It will be whether the United States drifted into war without ever deciding, collectively, that war was necessary.” (03/02/26)
“Regime change on the cheap — by covert action, military coup, air power, or short ground war — has tempted almost every American president since World War II. No wonder: It offers to solve a difficult foreign problem with little cost to Americans. We remember the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as prolonged, bloody, ultimately futile attempts to remake recalcitrant foreign countries as democracies. But President George W. Bush intended both wars to be brief and low cost—regime change with a small footprint. … Iran, with its deep history, its educated and relatively homogeneous population, and its unbreakable freedom movement, has always seemed a better bet for political transformation than Afghanistan or Iraq. But if recent decades have taught anything, it’s that the absence of tyranny is not freedom but chaos; that war is a likelier agent of disintegration than of renewal; that America knows how to destroy regimes but not remake societies.” (03/02/26)
“Three years ago, Donald Trump referred to himself as ‘the candidate who delivers peace.’ This weekend, his administration bombed Iran. While it may seem unusual, the historical record suggests otherwise, clearly demonstrating that Trump follows a long line of American politicians who spent a lot of time talking about being against wars only to wage them once elected president.” (03/02/26)
“Since 1992, a series of presidents representing both parties have run for office vowing to be peacemakers and to avoid their predecessors’ excesses and mistakes, yet once in office they cannot resist the urge to blow stuff up in faraway lands. Once again, we must ask ourselves the question: Is the United States addicted to war? Until Trump’s second term, one might explain this pattern by examining the hubristic mindset of the bipartisan foreign-policy ‘Blob,’ which saw military force as a useful tool for advancing a global liberal order. But that explanation has trouble explaining Trump’s actions during his second term. Trump still loathes the establishment (aka, the ‘deep state’), blames it for the failures of his first term, has gutted the national security bureaucracy, and appointed a lot of loyal lackeys who will do his bidding to key positions. This latest war can’t be blamed on the Blob.” (03/02/26)
“The once debatable notion that we live in a democratic republic, governed by the Constitution of the United States, has been definitively debunked by the bombing of Tehran. We do not. Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress holds the exclusive power to formally declare war, ‘ensuring this decision rests with elected representatives rather than a single executive.’ Or so Google’s Artificial Intelligence agent tells me with a straight face. … by all means, let us celebrate the semiquincentennial of our independence by glorying in the irrelevance of the Constitution. If you want to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, don’t pretend that antique parchment has much influence on this administration, the Congress, or the courts.” (03/02/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“President Trump’s decision to wage a war of aggression on Iran appears to make no sense at all, especially when considers the array of alternating and shifting reasons that Trump has given to justify his decision to launch this war. … However, there is a another possible explanation as to why Trump and the Pentagon have decided to launch their all-out war of aggression against Iran — a possible explanation that the mainstream press is loathe to consider — one that, interestingly, involves an active partner in this war of aggression — Israel.” (03/02/26)
“The U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging conducted a hearing on February 26 to investigate why the FDA is holding up the approval of desperately needed new drugs for those with rare diseases. Many of the people suffering with these ailments are children with short life expectancies. Those with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), which is progressive muscular deterioration, end up in a wheelchair at about age 11-12, and die in their 20s. Angelina Olivera, the mother of a 14-year-old son who has DMD, who also watched her brothers die at ages 20 and 22 of the disease, told me there is only one promising new treatment for DMD but the FDA won’t approve it for her son Ryu. A study was conducted on 1,200 patients using Elevidys from Sarepta Therapeutics and revealed promising results. The gene therapy slowed disease progression by 70-73 percent compared to untreated children.” (03/02/26)
“Sen. Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, chairs and is the face of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP). A physician, Cassidy has been a vocal advocate of vaccines and even ran a vaccination campaign in his home state. ‘After seeing patients die from vaccine preventable diseases,’ Cassidy said in a speech, ‘I dedicated much of my time to vaccine research and immunization programs. … Put simply, vaccines save lives.’ He also cast a key vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a fervent anti-vaccine advocate, as HHS secretary last year. It’s not like Cassidy can claim ignorance of Kennedy’s track record. Cassidy and every other Republican who voted for Kennedy had all the information they needed to see that he would be a disaster for public health in the United States, from his decades-long crusade against vaccines to his history of fevered conspiracism.” (03/02/6)
“Amid the unfolding chaos in Mexico following the death of cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera, the Mexican government has worked to hit the cartels where it hurts, including seizing weapons. In a recent press conference, Mexican Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla announced that some 18,000 weapons have been seized since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office in October 2024. Of those weapons, nearly 78 percent originated in the United States. In a separate talk, Sheinbaum addressed an even more shocking datapoint — much of the ammunition recovered in Mexico was designed for use by the U.S. military.” (03/02/26)
