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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – March 29, 2026
by Tony Wikrent
Tell Your State To Pass This No-ICE-At-Our-Precincts Model Law. Now.
Josh Marshall, March 27, 2026 [Talking Points Memo]
I found a piece of model legislation published on March 9th by the Brennan Center.
War
Plans, Platforms And Projectiles — The longer-term meaning of the Iran war.
Aurelien, Mar 25, 2026
…the lack of a strategy for Iran—as opposed to a generalised aspiration to do harm when the opportunity presented itself—meant that the US was not really prepared for this war, and that the effects on US power and on its economy and its political and military system, will accordingly be a lot more severe than they might otherwise have been….
…For this reason, as for others I’ll touch on, it seems highly unlikely that there will be a “deal,” with Iran, let alone a detailed agreement. If you can’t even decide what you want, it’s hard to persuade someone to give it to you….
[TW: Worth reading to the end and their discussion of the high-tech “platform warfare” the US developed during the cold war, and which all its expensive weapons systems are oriented around, versus the “projectile warfare” which is now emerging in the context of drones and inexpensive precision guidance. It appears that the Iranians decided to orient their military to “projectile warfare” and are damn good at it.]
America is Achieving Full-Spectrum Energy Dominance — And Nobody is Paying Attention
[BettBeat Media, via Naked Capitalism 03-23-2025]
…I have said it many times, and I will say it again: the United States does not lose wars. If it did, it would stop waging them. Whether Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, or Libya — failed states are not failures of Empire. They are the victories of Empire. And Empire is on a roll.
Now the same chorus rises over Iran. Left and right, the refrain is identical: this will be a disaster, America is overreaching, Iran will be its graveyard. The same voices. The same blindness. The same century-old script….
…Medhurst argues that the United States, far from stumbling into another disastrous West Asian quagmire, is executing a calculated seizure of the planet’s energy supply — and that the wars on Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, and now Iran are not separate blunders but sequential steps toward a single goal: total energy dominance. He coins a term for the endgame: the “petro-gas dollar” or the “LNG dollar.” Let us see if the term deserves to stick….
Over 11,000 munitions in 16 Days of the Iran War: ‘Command of the Reload’ Governs Endurance
[Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies]
Kevin MacDonald, March 22, 2026 [theoccidentalobserver.net]
Leaked Document: Iran War Meets Little Brother — Info about the war is being censored — with the help of private companies
Ken Klippenstein [via Naked Capitalism 03-25-2025]
“We are at war with the Epstein people. The people eating, frying, and raping kids…”
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 03-25-2025]
Incredible quotes in the deleted Telegraph article about the Lebanese Christians supporting Hezbollah. I wonder why they didn’t want their audience to read this:“We are at war with the Epstein people. The people eating, frying, and raping kids… the worst part is they are the ones that rule the world.”
Thomas Neuburger, Mar 26, 2026 [God’s Spies]
1. Israelis may well be close to a breaking point
Listen to Lawrence Wilkerson in the following video. The first six minutes is enough, though the rest is fascinating. Wilkerson says, from information he gets privately and from pirated Israeli videos he has seen, that 1) Israel is “flat being devastated” (his emphasis), “literally being ripped apart,” and 2) their casualties could be five to ten times more than what they’ve announced.2. Israel’s air defense could be close to collapse
Former Pentagon war planner and MIT professor Ted Postol reinforces the point above. In addition, he thinks, now that Israeli air defense radar has been put out of action, Iranian drones, highly accurate, are now unstoppable, as are its armada of super-speed, high-damage missiles like the Fattah and Khorramshahr series.Because of this, “Iran is now beginning to bring the full weight of its strike capabilities to bear on Israel and the military installations in the Persian Gulf” (9:33 in the video below). He anticipates increased desperation on the part of the Israeli government….
[TW: Most observers who aren’t right wing nutters have said, regarding bombing Iran, that air campaigns have never won a war or even led to a loss of morale by those being bombed. Actually bombing stiffens resistance. I think the same will apply to Israel. In fact, because they faced extermination in the Holocaust, Israelis will probably never lose resolve. That also makes it unlikely they will be willing to accept anything less than defeat and destruction of Iran.]
The Building of Fortress Iran — “Iran was a chew toy the Russians and British tussled over”
Thomas Neuburger, Mar 23, 2026 [God’s Spies]
Forewarned: this is culture war stuff. So, if you trigger easily: don’t read this. Then again, you’ll be missing out on some excellent counterintuitive culture war rabble-rousing.
I guess I ought to declare right here and now before I get trounced for being an out of touch GenXer neobigot. So, say it with me, loud and clear: I’m for every human on this planet being treated with the innate dignity they possess and deserve and that they not be denied the rights their ancestors fought so hard for. Rights are not entitlements, they are earned. And much of humanity has, in the past, earned them and passed them down. They should not be denied to anyone.
Now that my virtue signaling is out of the way I can move on to some cultural war criticism.
First, why must a gay man be portrayed as simpering and overly sensitive? Why does this portrayal as queens persist in pretty much all visual media? And FFS, folks, don’t get all sensitive, I’m going somewhere awesome with this.
Why not portray a gay man very much in touch with his masculinity? Need a few historical examples of powerful, masculine gay men that changed the world?
Easy-peasy. First, Alexander the Great and his lover Hephastion. If you disagree, because Iskander has to be a man’s man, well, fuck off. It’s historically inaccurate to believe otherwise. Seriously, the Greeks buggered each other left and right and all were married. Then there is the Prussian King, Frederick the Great, who out maneuvered the armies of Maria “Always Weeping, always Annexing” Theresa of Austria at almost every turn? Both men were as gay as Freddy Mercury, and both were indomitable warriors and strategic geniuses par excellence.
So, when Starfleet Academy wrote in a gay Klingon, I confess, my interest was piqued. The Kurtzman era franchise had a chance to change in a new powerfully positive way. But, the show-runners took the easier, softer way.
For real, they just turned down the wrong alleyway.
See, fiction has rules. You create species or characters and portray them a certain ways; they have to obey their own rules of internal logic. That way the reader or viewer knows what to expect. When a character or species acts contrary to canon, the reader and the viewer are not only confused but lose interest. So, what happened with the gay Klingon?
Let’s discuss Klingons in general first, okay?
Klingons, in case you don’t know, are fierce warriors, poets, singers and deeply, deeply romantic. Klingons are the antithesis of brooding self-actualized pansies, looking for closure or healing. They love killing almost as much as they love dying. “It is a good day to die,” is their constant refrain. And bloodwine? They make the Russians look like pikers when it comes to imbibing alcohol. So, would it not make sense that a gay Klingon ought to have been written in character? To write a gay Klingon any other way than as an awesome bad-ass killing, drinking and fucking machine is to fundamentally misunderstand Klingons and their crucial role in the Star Trek canon.
Let’s take Worf, from TNG and Deep Space 9, as an example. If Worf wanted to fuck another male Klingon, Worf’s idea of foreplay would have been sparring with bat’leths, followed by bending his paramour over a barrel of blood wine, blowing his load, screaming a blood-curdling Klingon scream and then a blood-wine toast, ending with a little spooning and a love poem.
You know I am right.
A gay Klingon could have been immortal. A gay Klingon had the potential to be Star Trek’s equivalent of a honey badger: he don’t give a fuck. A gay Klingon Dahar master? Dip me in a vat of melted cellophane!
Kurtzman and crew had the chance to create an immortal, utterly amazing Klingon in the mold of Alexander the Great or Frederick of Prussia. Instead they opted to tick off the wokester checklist with an absolutely pathetic, weepy, whingy, sniveling crybaby of a Klingon
What a waste.
The Kurtzman iteration of Star Trek has been nothing but failure after failure to understand what Star Trek was. It was never, ever true to Gene Roddenberry’s vision.
The franchise needs a fifteen year rest.
I’ll be ready for a do over in my late sixties. Get it fucking right next time.
Courtest my alma mater Morgan Stanley, we have this graphic that perfectly depicts what the AI-Ponzi scheme looks like and just how incestuous it truly is:
Is any other comment necessary?
In 1983 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock clocked in at 3 minutes to midnight. America was in the middle of one of the most dangerous five year periods of the Cold War. Detente was dead. Able Archer exercises occurred that November. KAL-Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviets on September 1, 1983. And a newly assertive America under Reagan got busy stationing 103 Pershing II Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles in West Germany to counter hitherto deployed Soviet SS-20 Saber IRBMs. Dialogue between the two superpowers came to an icy halt.
In the middle of this complex realpolitik the Nuclear Freeze Movement in the US gained steam, throwing their support behind Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro’s nod to run against the Gipper in 1984 and the American millitary buildup continued at a frenetic pace.
Meanwhile, back on the farm, so to speak, something earth-shattering (at least to me) was fixing to be broadcast on November 20, 1983 on ABC: The Day After. An American media attempt to depict the aftermath of a full-on thermonuclear exchange between the USSR and the USA.
Jason Robards-who I always confused with George Peppard of A-Team fame—was the central character. A small town doctor out of his depth treating increasingly desperate radiation-sick patients from all over. I recall one scene, a kind of town meeting, where one woman, wearing a white dress, bled from between her legs, obviously from a critical lack of feminine hygeine producuts. And I recall someone needed to travel to the Bay Area, which once he arrived saw that it was totally obliterated.
I was horrified. My Mom was genuinely worried about me. That film represented my political baptism by fire. Henceforward, I watched the nightly national news like a child obsessed. I followed the course of the Cold War with interest and obvious worry that one Sunday morning—I don’t know why it was always a Sunday—I’d be vaporized along with my little sister and Mom. As I grew older I matured. I viewed the nightly national news with a bit more sophistication. I began reading the national news rags. Remember Time and Newsweek? I devoured them. I recall vividly Cori Aquino’s Revolution in the Philippines and Ortega’s ouster by Violetta Chamorro in Nicararagua. But I never, ever forgot the lessons of The Day After:
Risk peaks when one feels absolutely certain and safe. This is when calamity strikes.
Risk feels at its greatest after calamity passes and one feels chastened.
~attributed to Jesse Livermore
Anyone have a clue where the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock rests today?
89 seconds to midnight. Arms control be damned. ‘Murican don’t give a shit.
The entire arms control regime brought into life by Reagan and Gorbachev, extended by Bush and Baker, followed by the sage, bipartisan Nunn-Lugar Act and Clinton’s negotiating of the START Treaty have all been cast aside. First, by George W. Bush’s hamfisted and stupid abrogation of the arms control regime’s lynchpin: the 1972 ABM Treaty. Followed by Trump letting the INF lapse. And finally, this February, once again, irresponsibly letting the START Treaty lapse.
With the War in Iran not going well, China has taken to using proxies to warn Israel of the cost of using nuclear weapons against Iran:
“the moment Israel uses a nuclear warhead against any country, it will be considered the number one enemy of humanity, it will be the demise of Israel as a state, as a regime, as a country.”
Explicit but utilizing an indirect conduit, as one would expect of the Chinese.
Not to be deterred, American policy-makers lauched their own trial balloon in favor of an Israeli first-strike.
Yes, people, we’re that close.
But here’s the absolute shit-kicker, as we say down here in South Texas: the depiction of the aftermath of global thermonuclear war in The Day After is weak compared to the UK film on the same subject, dated 1984, called Threads.
American movies require a happy ending. Always. And The Day After offers up a milquetoast version of positive.
Not so Threads. And for that fact alone, Threads, horrifying in the extreme—mind you, I watched it as an adult—is the more realistic film, and its depiction of the civilization ending effects of thermonuclear warfare will leave you chilled to the bone. Threads is a much more effective admonitory tale of the very real risks we’re shopping off as I type.
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – March 22, 2026
by Tony Wikrent
War
Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, 20/03/2026 [defenddemocracy.press]
In the following paper, we will present the reasons why a nuclear war in the Middle East is now quite possible, the deterrent intervention of China which interrupted a period of dangerous tolerance of Israel by the great powers, and the relationship between what is happening in West Asia and what is happening around Ukraine and the American continent, particularly in Cuba….
These statements, and most likely the information it possesses, provoked an unofficial but very harsh statement from Beijing. This is the first time a major power has interrupted the unprecedented tolerance enjoyed by Israel and its lobbies, a tolerance that has now led humanity to the brink of the abyss.
…Specifically, Victor Gao, vice-president of the Chinese Institute for China and Globalization, when asked what the two nuclear powers, Russia and China, would do if Israel used nuclear weapons, he stated to the American The Cradle, that “the moment Israel uses a nuclear warhead against any country, it will be considered the number one enemy of humanity, it will be the demise of Israel as a state, as a regime, as a country.” He simultaneously warned Prime Minister Netanyahu, the government of Israel, and its armed forces that they will be considered enemies of humanity and responsible for whatever happens, in an indirect but clear reference to the Nuremberg trials that judged the Nazi leaders. Mr. Gao made it clear that what he says does not concern condemnatory statements but an advance notice of actions. He congratulated Mr. Trump on his statement that Israel will not use nuclear weapons and expressed the wish that he acts effectively in this direction.
Mr. Gao adds that any use of nuclear weapons by Israel will lead to an explosive proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and their use would result in hundreds of millions of deaths and the transformation of the entire region into an uninhabitable zone.
Mr. Gao makes also a reference to the Epstein archives.
The Chinese warning has been phrased in a… Chinese way. Mr. Gao is the head of a small party allied with the Communist Party and holds no government position, so the responsibility for his statement cannot be directly attributed to the Chinese leadership or the CCP. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that it constitutes an unofficial but authoritative expression of the Chinese position on the matter. And to leave us in no doubt on the issue, the Chinese Academy distributed this specific excerpt of Gao’s statements under the characteristic title “What would China do if Israel dropped a nuclear weapon?”….
IDF threatens ‘elimination’ for Russian leaders who ‘wish Israel ill’
Wyatt Reed, Mar 19, 2026 [defenddemocracy.press]
Israel’s veiled threat to Moscow came just after Russian media warned traffic cameras in Moscow were vulnerable to the same exploits that Israel reportedly used to monitor Ayatollah Khamenei’s residence before assassinating him.
Peter Kuznick and Ivana Nikolić Hughes, March 13, 2026 [defenddemocracy.press]
…It would be the ultimate expression of Trump’s unbounded power for him to break the one remaining international taboo – which, despite far too many close calls, has persisted for more than 80 years – detonating a nuclear weapon. There are many indications that, despite the U.S. and Israel’s ability to bomb Iran at will, this war may not be going well for them. But that need not be the pretext for using a nuclear weapon. In Trump’s mind, the more unprovoked, outrageous, and unnecessary something is, the better. Given his fragile ego and rapidly deteriorating mental powers – going off on bizarre rants about poisonous snakes in Peru or the White House drapes – the more unhinged he is, the more he thinks it demonstrates his dominance.
Since the end of the Cold War, many people who pay attention have worried about an accidental or a miscalculated stumble into nuclear war. But with Trump breaking every taboo domestically and internationally, demonstrating that he is above the law and can do as he pleases at every turn, the ultimate taboo waiting to be broken is the nuclear one….
[TW: I wonder if there will be a mass resignation of military officers as Trump stumbles aver closer to using nuclear weapons. But they would lose their pensions. So, probably secret approaches to some (anti)Republican Senators and Congressmen begging for Congress to do something? And if Trump does issue orders to use nuclear weapons, would military officers refuse? Might they even demand Trump be arrested? Trump and Hegseth have pissed all over the Code of Conduct numerous times — Hegseth this past week, by declaring “no quarter” toward Iran, explicitly violated violated the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996, and the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual. The commander in chief and the top civilian official at the Department of Defense should also be subject to the Code.]
Remember the Titan: The Fragility of Trump’s Golden Egg
Jim Stewartson, Mar 18, 2026 [MindWar]
…While I hesitate to bring up the dreaded notion of bipartisanship, the best way to try to prevent the explosive scenario, to try and contain the criticality when it happens, is for the political system to present a combined show of force that draws a red line before it happens.
If he’s not given a sandbox to play in, Trump will take the entire playground.
For example, if the Democrats and 20 GOP Senators could find a way to agree publicly that if Trump engages in a preemptive nuclear strike for any reason without consulting Congress, he will be impeached and removed immediately. Even if he was not considering such a strike, just the statement would make clear to him that he is not, in fact, omnipotent….
The South Pars Pulse: Why the ‘Energy War’ is Actually a Thermodynamic Singularity
[The Ultimate Avatar of Balance, via Naked Capitalism 03-19-2025]
…By treating the destruction of the world’s largest natural gas reservoir merely as a ‘supply chain disruption’, the geopolitical establishment is exhibiting a fatal, terminal blindness. We are no longer dealing with economics; we are dealing with physics.
The strike on South Pars is not an ‘energy war’. It is an unmodelled Thermodynamic Pulse that threatens to liquidate the biological carrying capacity of the entire Persian Gulf.
The Methane Blind Spot
South Pars/North Dome holds an estimated 1,800 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. When upstream infrastructure of this magnitude is ruptured, the result is not just fire and smoke (particulate matter), which the environmental NGOs are currently monitoring. The far greater threat is uncontained venting of raw methane (CH4).Methane possesses a Global Warming Potential (GWP) roughly 80 times that of CO2 over a 20-year horizon. However, in the immediate aftermath of a massive, concentrated release, the ‘horizon’ is not 20 years. It is measured in weeks….
Trump says he’s ‘not afraid’ of Vietnam-style ground combat in Iran
[Daily Mail, via Naked Capitalism 03-18-2025]
…Speaking from the Oval Office alongside Ireland’s Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, the President fielded many questions about the Iran war.
‘Are you afraid that if you put boots on the ground in Iran, it could be another Vietnam?’ one reporter asked.
‘No,’ Trump shot back, adding, ‘I’m not afraid of anything.’
The Geopolitical Consequences of Defeat
[Policy Tensor, via Naked Capitalism 03-16-2025]
…The only way in which the United States can evade outright defeat is by suppressing and degrading Iran’s ability to hold gulf assets at high levels of risk and keep Hormuz closed.1 If the US cannot, through either the direct application of force or indirectly through military coercion, accomplish this strategic objective, the outcome will be indistinguishable from strategic defeat, even if the war ends in a ceasefire, for then Iran would’ve demonstrated for all to see that the United States does not, in fact, have the military means to impose its will on the gulf.
This means that the dynamics of the interdiction campaign are decisive.
If the interdiction campaign rapidly degrades Iran’s ability to attack gulf assets, that would still not guarantee victory, however. For victory requires the further success of countermining operations if the Iranians mine the gulf, as they have reportedly started doing. Countermining operations are not a solved military problem either. At the very least, they will also take many months. What is clear is that, a successful prosecution of the interdiction campaign to conclusion is a necessary condition for effective countermining operations….
Burning the Lifeboats to Keep the Lights On
[The Ultimate Avatar of Balance, via Naked Capitalism 03-16-2025]
… something important needs saying: the US’s totally aimless campaign of wanton and indiscriminate destruction in Iran is definitionally tantamount to terrorism. An operation requires a stated strategic objective to qualify as a “war” or military action of some sort, legitimate or not. Trump’s clumsy bomb-fest—during which he proudly boasts he can “bomb” certain Iranian targets “for fun”—does not fit that description, and as such definitionally qualifies as a campaign of terrorism against a sovereign state and its civilian population. Let’s not even mention what the US is currently doing to Cuba, with the blockade having collapsed the nation’s entire electric grid as of yesterday.
The closest the US has come to stated goals in this debacle in fact align with definitional terrorism: the US wants to create economic hardship and infrastructural pain in the country which would spur the populace into overthrowing “the regime”….
Things Go Haywire as Israeli Escalation Throws Iran Conflict into Dangerous New Phase
[Simplicius, via Naked Capitalism 03-19-2025]
Things really hit the fan earlier today after Iran’s largest natural gas field, the South Pars, was struck by Israel. This field reportedly accounts for 75% of Iran’s natural gas production and 80-85% of its electric grid….