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More madness from the surreal saga of a nuclear-armed Iran oscillating between "obliterated" and "threatening our families" so we have to obliterate it though we just agreed to help nuclear-arm the brutes behind 9/11 so go figure. Meanwhile, the Pentagon pursues a gazillion bucks and testosterone-ripped troops even as a flailing president insists the last dead troops all said "very strongly" to keep fighting right before he odiously covered up their deaths so others would. Head-spinning, soul-killing.

To date, "Emperor Commodus of Covfefe's" illegal, disatrous, dim-witted Iran "excursion," a mangling of "incursion" and global clusterfuck with no clear mission, strategy, end goal or clue, has killed over 3,500 Iranians, many of them women and children, wounded over 26,500, and razed much of that country's infrastructure, including fresh water sources. At least 18 U.S. troops have been killed, with up to 500 wounded. A quarter of the world’s oil is held hostage across two vital straits, at least 70% of Americans oppose the war, recession-level prices here loom, and rage, especially among Muslim nations, is palpable, perhaps nudged along by a brilliant Iranian social-media campaign - "ONE VENGEANCE FOR ALL" - that tied America's latest atrocity to those of the past, from Native Americans, "stolen blacks" and Vietnamese villagers to Abu Ghraib, Gaza and Epstein Island.

In the bleak wake of eight missed deadlines, 28 empty claims of a "deal," several failed ceasefires and ongoing blather of a mythical "victory" on the horizon, the war is now widely seen as militarily, politically and morally "unwinnable," and even U.S. money, always there for calamitous wars, is running low. Thus did greasy dunk-tank clown and strung-tight "warfighter" zealot Pete Hegseth appear before Congress this week to plead for a profane $67 billion more in emergency funds - part of a $1.15 trillion defense bill, a 44%, $454 billion increase - added to the $37.5 billion he's already squandered in the name of a vague "generational investment," maybe to get the Strait of Hormuz closed again? Par for the inept course, only Pete, fired from two non-profits for mishandling their finances and adroit at blaming others for bad decisions, seems surprised the money's run out.

That could be 'cause at the start of the Iran misadventure he was so busy posting braggadocious war porn, "some of the most loser shit ever," of tacky bellicose video games cut in with real carnage from Iran - war=Call of Duty - and delivering bombastic briefings to crow about annihilating the enemy "without mercy" in the name of "real warriors." Those briefings have now been quietly "replaced by a vacuum." Frantic to control a grim political narrative, he's held no briefings since May, emptied the Pentagon's press corps of everyone but right-wing hacks, restricted access in ways large and small, banned "unflattering" images of himself - oh vanity thy name is lame snowflake - and otherwise treated America's vital free press as an enemy to be subdued, defeated or at least hoodwinked in order to obscure his own lies, failures, abuses and all-round buffoonery.

By all accounts, Hogsbreath has been serving more as showboating fitness influencer than sober head of a functional military. He now presides over a largely broken Pentagon where morale is dismal, finances are strained, readiness is collapsing and care for troops, veterans and their families is at historic lows. Within the ranks, he's derided as an out-of-his-depth, D-list pretender and "fake-ass manly man" who looks like a Ken doll "stored too close to the furnace," relishes lecturing generals, and "dresses like he's on The Love Boat" - hair gel, makeup, showy pocket hanky resembling military honors - while somehow disastrously managing to kill 170 Iranian schoolgirls on the first day of a misbegotten war he still insists is "a historic, overwhelming victory." From Jeff Tiedrich: "He's what would happen if arrogance and an elevated blood-alcohol level became a real boy."

In a "beyond Strangelovian" move, that blustering boy just responded to the multiple crises of his Dept. of Deep Masculine Insecurity by posting a bonkers video from def not his makeup studio, titled "The High-T Department of War," announcing a new program to ensure troops have enough testosterone to stay "on the leading edge of lethality." He's evidently unaware any guy who declares he's "high-T" is probs not - "Real gangsta *ss people don't flex nuts"; also, that behind most war crimes is too much testosterone and a failed moral compass, today's military doesn't do much hand-to-hand combat, studies show testosterone doesn't help focus, fatigue, memory or well-being, and "High-T For Better Killing" is maybe not a great slogan. Still, the guy fixated on "the highest male standard" is calling for mandatory annual screening of those over 30; under 30, it's voluntary.

The general response to this very cool plan was...mixed. Many noted the discrepancy between his strident insistence on freedom from governments making our medical decisions - hence ending a decades-old flu vaccine mandate (until an outbreak led to its quiet reversal) and gender-affirming health care, which is why a judge may overturn it - and his railing against beards, fat troops, high-ranking women and people of color. Women decried flaky policy decisions inspired by "the far corners of the manosphere" or the ravings of RFK Jr.; some suggested he replace salutes with chest bumps and "Sir" with "Bro"; others wondered who'll be screening Pete "for being a dick." Above all, especially after this week's hearing, a broad consensus has emerged that no amount of testosterone pumped into his body will render him even remotely qualified for his job.

Confronted with lawmakers questioning yet more money for a debacle, Pete blustered, stuttered, sneered, fear-mongered about radical Islamists "coming for our families" with nuclear weapons "to hold us at issue (sic)." He thundered Jack Reed - West Point, Harvard, veteran, professor - should respect "the historic nature of what (Trump's) undertaking"; Reed snapped, "He should be praised for starting a war without authority?" He shrieked at Jon Ossoff for calmly citing the countless times he's lied "Iran’s military had been, quote, destroyed." When Gary Peters cited those lies, contradictions, and the 30 times he's declared what's clearly "a complete failure" an "overwhelming victory," Pete screeched the word failure "smears the sacrifice of the troops" (sic) and "shame on you." He didn't use it about the troops, Peters retorted, but their leaders: "You, sir, are the failure. You don't have a strategy."

Finally Hegseth, the model avatar for a regime that never accepts responsibility for anything, laid the blame for a Pentagon famed for funding atrocities abroad with little to no accountability seeking $1.5 trillion more in blood money on...Biden and his “gross negligence.” Gross, indeed: “You cannot inherit a war you started.” Dems balked at an obscene price tag that dwarfs even the Iran debacle, noting it includes $800 million for the National Guard to keep pointlessly patrolling D.C, over $1bn to patrol the southern border which is DHS’ job, $900 million to illegally bomb more boats in the Caribbean etc. Also quietly stuck in there was the vile Save America Act (more sic) to further restrict voting, and the random horror of a move to establish a joint US-Israel tech initiative so we can further integrate our military with Israel's universally admired genocidal regime. Still, it passed, barely.

Defense bills tend to easily win broad bipartisan support; this one was so insane the House barely squeezed through a $1.15 trillion version with the help of six craven Dems, including Maine's fucking Jared Golden. In better news, they also passed a second, largely symbolic but heartening resolution to end the war, with four Repubs joining them. In the Senate, the measure was blocked, 47-49, by fucking John Fetterman. Also this week, the US made a deal to help the Saudis - of hacksaws and 9/11 - set up a civilian nuclear program, despite MAGA terror of Nukes For Muslims! (see war in Iran, whose painstakingly careful deal Trump tore up). Despite longtime threats of a nuclear race in the Middle East, Trump says they have to join the "very respected" Abraham Accords with Israel and sign a hollow "safeguards agreement" with a pinky promise of "no enrichment of material!" So no worries.

Still, some are worried, also enraged. The folks at I Fucking Love Australia were already some pissed at Admiral USS Bigly and his 271 Republicans, "you spineless, belly-crawling, yellow-bellied fucking grubs" and "geography-proof fucking muppets who can't count past their own indictments," not one of whom will stand up to a doddering "windbag at the arse end of his miserable sex-offending, pedo-loving, decomposing life" as a fifth of the world's oil remains bottled up behind Hormuz, just like "HIS OWN JOINT CHIEFS WARNED HIM," using small words and a hand puppet. With Australia down to 29 days of vital diesel in reserve, they fume, "You lot couldn't poll your collective vertebrae and build a fucking prawn...Do your job." And that was before this week's Houthi attack, by "a militia in sandals," on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea for breaching their naval blockade.

The bold move by a ragtag militia from the Middle East's poorest country, armed with "cheap hardware from a rusty shed - drones, hand-me-down missiles and a Telegram account" - prompted the sages at IFLA to offer a cogent, useful backstory on just what's going down in a volatile, "centuries-deep cauldron of grievance" into which "waddles Napoleon Blownapart, fresh from a Bibi slideshow in the Situation Room, convinced he can win a regional war with vibes and a Sharpie." They begin by citing the Saudis' "one genuinely clever move of the war": When Hormuz shut down, they were ramming up to 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, far more than usual, through the critical Asia/Europe escape hatch of Bab Al Mandeb's east-west pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea. Now, "The Houthis just bricked it the fuck up - they welded the back door of the global oil market shut."

Pundits call Yemen's Houthis Iran "proxies,” but "they've got their own grievances, which tell you where this war is headed." IFLA "follows the thread all the way back, since apparently nobody in the White House owns a ball of string." To Houthis and hundreds of millions more, "This is now a defensive war against an attack on Muslim nations," and "you cannot drone-strike a conviction." See Vietnam, Afghanistan, ISIS etc. Not inside that tent: Saudi Arabia, who "picked the wrong side of (their) religion," watched Gaza flattened and only checked their wealth fund balance; now the Houthis "declared them fair game, and no one is holding (a) vigil for them." Righteous bottom line: "Why is the region on fire? Israel. Occupation, annexation, settlements, the slow-motion theft (that) manufactures resistance. Hamas and Hezbollah didn’t fall out of the sky. Dispossession built them, brick by bloody brick."

Trump, ever a brilliant strategist, "surveyed that flawless 0-4 record of American wars of choice, a historical record so grim you could read it by Braille, and thought, you know what this list needs? Iran, plus a bonus round against mountain fighters in Yemen who've never once lost." He thought the Houthis no longer wanted to fight; now, he's "disappointed" and will have to "crank up the rhetoric with his 76th ultimatum." Back on "planet fucken consequences," oil prices spiked to over $100 a barrel amidst market chaos, and "the dumbest cunt that ever fumbled the world’s most dangerous military operation just opened the gates of Hell with his own two tiny clay-colored hands." Or, more accurately, the Gate of Tears, what Bab el-Mandeb means in Arabic. "The old sailors named it for the ships it drowned," notes IFLA. "Turns out it was just waiting all these centuries for a presidency worthy of the title."

Still, he blunders on. The same day he again boasted his war has *only* killed 18 U.S. troops - there's a chart! - vs. "hundreds of thousands" - actually 58,220, none him - in Vietnam, he went to Dover for the dignified transfer of four Americans just killed in an Iran attack at a Jordan airbase. He told reporters he was en route to "honor great heroes, actually." Then, in a "next-level ghastly" move, he put his own vile words in their young dead mouths to claim, "All of them said, very strongly, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon." Appalled responses: "Did they have tears in their eyes? Did they ask why we need to destroy their nuclear program when we've already done it five times? Vastly more plausible: They said 'What the fuck are we doing here?' or 'What the fuck is wrong with you?' and, Can any journalist ask him to name two of the fallen soldiers? Or hell, name two of his kids?"

We can name them: Sgt. Michael Swinton 30, of North Carolina, father to two kids 4 and 6, First Lt. Tyler Feehan, 25, of Hawaii, weeks away from earning his MBA, Sgt Angel Rampersad, 28, of New York, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Texas. Hours after the ceremony - where the guy who never bothered to know their names gazed blankly, blue suit gaudy among black suits and bowed heads - he went to a MAGA rally at a Georgia high school where he sweated and babbled: "We had transgender for everybody, ravaging through our cities," "We don't need the Hormuz Street in our skirmish...They're not ready to make a deal. They'll be ready soon," "We'll pass the great healthcare plan. It's called Our Great Healthcare Plan," "The communists want to blow up Mt. Rushmore" (boos), "I fought Ossoff before (boos) and we won...He reminds me of Pinky Herman."

The newly dead, wholly unreal suckers and losers to a narcissist incarnate, were clearly far from what passes for the remains of his mind. That obliviousness reflects what former Sec. of Defense and CIA director Leon Panetta charges is a "deliberate effort to withhold information from the American people, a shameful approach to sharing the responsibility we all have (in) a war." Speaking of a New York Times report the Pentagon suppressed news of dozens of military injuries - which the regime called “baseless and malicious” but anyway they're not "strictly required" to publicize them - Panetta said officials are in essence "challenging the press to find what’s really happening, and they will." "They can dodge, bob and weave," he said of a long, base tradition in American politics, "but my experience is that no matter how much you try to hide it, in the end, the truth comes out.”

The truth, says James Talarico: "We are closing schools and hospitals in this country so we can bomb schools and hospitals in other countries" - and working hard to hide it. The latest proof, again from the Times in a rare, welcome burst of journalism: The Pentagon's Casualty Analysis website just lowered the number of troop deaths from 18 to 14, with the last four names just brought home scrubbed from the list. Their garbled explications range from deaths coming after Trump's April ceasefire mean no war/no deaths to "site errors due to a temporary data disruption and anomalies being resolved." That was days ago; they're still missing. Michael Swinton's widow Jamiah, asked if she has any details on the disappeared names, tearfully responds, “Nobody has reached out. I kind of don’t have words for that.” We don't either. "They died serving our country," wrote Bill Kristol. "They should be honored, not erased." In sorrowful fact, we'd have to say they died for little besides a sick con man's sleazy lies. For that we are truly sorry. Remember who to blame.

The "anomalies": Feehan, Gonzales, Swinton, RampersadPhotos from U.S. Army