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Opinion
Trump's EPA Wants to Count Microplastics While Corporations Keep Dumping Them
Committing $144 million to study microplastics while subsidizing fossil fuels by nearly $31 billion a year is like trying to clean up an oil spill with a spoon while the tanker is still spewing.
Apr 14, 2026
At a time when the science is clear, and action is overdue, the Trump administration’s STOMP initiative—aimed at measuring and removing microplastics from the human body—is a convenient distraction that delays real action. We do not need more studies to understand microplastics in our bodies. We need policies that prevent them from getting there in the first place.
For years, scientists have warned that we are breathing, eating, and drinking plastic. Microplastics—which contain more than 4,200 chemicals known to be hazardous to human health—are in our blood, lungs, and unborn babies.
And while there’s something validating about the Trump administration finally acknowledging this problem, putting microplastics on a watch list is not protection. Instead, this declared "war on microplastics" is a gift in disguise to the industries driving the crisis.
MAHA Promised Safety, It Gave us Plastic Straws
“Make America Healthy Again” was a rallying cry: Take on the corporate polluters, clean up our food supply, eliminate toxic chemicals, and hold the chemical industry accountable. The MAHA Report acknowledged that microplastics are found in "the blood and urine of American children and pregnant women,” and promised action from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The problem is that the only real way to fix it is to stop it at the source. That means taking on the fossil fuel industry driving plastic production—an industry to which this administration has shown deep loyalty.
That was the promise. But instead, the Trump administration gave us plastic straws and put single-use plastics back in our National Parks. They slashed the EPA's budget nearly in half—the very agency responsible for the new microplastics plan—and fired more than 1,000 of its scientists. They dismantled the agencies that protect us from chemical disasters and exposure to harmful hazards, like lead. They ramped up glyphosate production and appointed chemical-industry lobbyists to leadership roles within the EPA. They’re also weakening the Toxic Substances Control Act and rolling back protections on PFAS in drinking water.
While EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claims the administration is holding itself “to the highest standards to protect the health of every American,” it continues to gut science, weaken laws, and hollow out the very institutions responsible for protecting public health—giving polluting industries a free pass to keep producing more.
Even MAHA advocates are beginning to see through the rhetoric. In a recent letter to the EPA, they urged:“The EPA must choose whether it will uphold a chemical status quo or honor the promise to make this country healthy again. The public is watching. Families are organizing. Scientists are sounding the alarm.”
$144 Million to Understand the Problem, $31 Billion to Fuel It
Microplastics don’t just randomly end up in our bodies. They come from a system designed to produce endless plastic at any cost. That system is fueled by oil, gas, and coal. Nearly 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels. Committing $144 million to study microplastics while subsidizing fossil fuels by nearly $31 billion a year is like trying to clean up an oil spill with a spoon while the tanker is still spewing.
The Trump administration has put a spotlight on a serious health crisis. The problem is that the only real way to fix it is to stop it at the source. That means taking on the fossil fuel industry driving plastic production—an industry to which this administration has shown deep loyalty. As Secretary of the US DHHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., put it on Fox News: “A lesson we were all supposed to learn in kindergarten is that you clean up after yourself. You don't force the public to do it.”
The coming months will show whether this administration is serious about action or simply delivering lip service to a disillusioned MAHA ahead of the midterms. If the administration is really committed to making Americans healthy again, it must act where it matters: Set enforceable limits on microplastics in drinking water, restore strong chemical safety laws, halt new plastic production, rebuild the EPA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and revoke the red-carpet access it has granted industry within regulatory agencies.
Above all, it could truly end the war on microplastics by backing a global plastics treaty that limits production in the first place.
Because you cannot detox a body you are still poisoning.
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Did Trump Just Light the Match for World War III?
The most important lesson of the First World War is that leaders who think they can manage escalation usually can’t.
Apr 13, 2026
Saturday’s back-to-back headlines on The Washington Post were: “‘They Have Chosen Not To Accept Our Terms,’ Vance Says” and “U.S. Intelligence Shows China Taking A More Active Role In Iran War.” They echo headlines from a century ago that reported on the early days of what quickly became World War I.
In 2021, China and Iran became military allies, signing a “broad strategic partnership encompassing economic, diplomatic, and security dimensions.” Russia signed a similar comprehensive military/security agreement with Iran in January of last year. The three countries are now military allies and formally assisting each other. Hold that thought.
Then, on Sunday morning, America’s resident madman Donald Trump announced on his Nazi-infested social media site that the United States Navy will illegally blockade the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow chokepoint through which twenty percent of the world’s oil used to flow every day—threatening to intercept “every vessel in International Waters” that’s paid a toll to Iran.
The US blockade of the Strait begins the hour that this article was published: 10 AM ET on Monday, April 13th.
What happens when a US destroyer orders a Chinese-flagged tanker to heave to in the Strait of Hormuz and a Chinese warship sails between them?
That means all the shipping of oil for China and drones for Russia will be intercepted by the US. We’re now blocking the war and energy supplies of nations that have nuclear weapons and whose military assets are already in the region. And it came just hours after the peace talks in Islamabad—led by three American grifters with absolutely no diplomatic experience—had predictably collapsed.
What happens next will depend entirely on whether anyone in this administration has ever seriously studied what happened the last time a similar cascade of great-power commitments, cornered leaders, and military miscalculations all converged at once.
A hundred and twelve years ago this summer, a young Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip fired two shots in Sarajevo, killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary.
What followed was a deadly catastrophe, because every major European power had spent the previous forty years putting together mutual defense treaties with other major European powers.
(In the 1908 Bosnian Crisis Austria-Hungary had annexed Bosnia, land that Serbia claimed; the Serbs were humiliated and furious. The Balkan Wars of 1912-13 left Serbia stronger and more willing to reach out to the Slavic people still living under Austria-Hungarian rule, particularly those in Bosnia, further enraging the Austria-Hungarians.)
Everybody was armed to the teeth and, frankly, paranoid about everybody else. So, when Franz Ferdinand’s assassination gave Austria-Hungary an excuse to punish it’s longtime enemy Serbia, those treaties clicked into place like the tumblers of a massive combination lock and the doors of hell swung open onto the most catastrophic war the world had, at that time, ever seen.
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Russia, bound by pan-Slavic solidarity and treaty, mobilized. Germany, allied with Austria-Hungary and seeing the Russian mobilization, declared war on Russia. The Franco-Russian alliance dragged France in.
Once the fighting started, Germany’s Schlieffen Plan required invading France through neutral Belgium, which triggered Britain’s 1839 treaty obligation to protect Belgian neutrality.
Within six weeks of two pistol shots in Sarajevo, virtually every major power in Europe was engaged in a brutal war that escalated with the inevitability and power of a landslide. The leaders who set the whole machine in motion genuinely believed they could control the escalation, but they were terribly and tragically wrong. The interlocking agreements and past hostilities simply took over, and seventeen million people died.
I’ve been thinking about Sarajevo a lot this week, because what’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz right now follows the same terrifying script, except that this time, the European, Middle Eastern, and Asian powers that are being pulled toward what could easily become World War III all have nuclear weapons.
Here’s how we got here:
Benjamin Netanyahu made six trips to the White House in the year before the war began, each time pressing Trump and his old family friend Jared Kushner with the argument that Iran was ripe for regime change, that the mullahs were one good strike away from falling, and that history was calling.
What the New York Times’ reporting now makes clear—and what Trump’s own CIA director and secretary of state reportedly called “farcical” and “bullshit” in private—is that Netanyahu had an overwhelming personal reason to want this war: he’s been fighting a fraud, bribery, and breach-of-trust criminal trial that could put him in prison if he’s convicted.
Wars are good for embattled leaders: they can generate emergency status and even pause court proceedings. And when this war started on February 28th, Netanyahu’s trial did indeed grind to a halt under Israel’s wartime court emergency rules, which had to be repeatedly extended. The trial is only now, this week, resuming. (Trump, to help his fellow authoritarian, has been publicly pressuring Israel’s president to pardon Netanyahu, telling him to do it “today” and calling him a “disgrace” for hesitating.)
So Trump (himself facing a crisis from the Epstein documents and accusations of raping a 13-year-old girl) and “Whiskey Pete” Hegseth (who simply loves war) launched a bloody confrontation in which one of the key decision-makers’ primary motivation—at least on the Israeli side—was to keep himself out of prison.
And 44 days later, the man who should be in the defendant’s chair is instead flying into southern Lebanon to pose with troops (his popularity is now sky-high in Israel because of the war) while the United States Navy blockades one of the most consequential waterways on the planet.
Yesterday, Trump posted to his failing social media site a declaration that may end up being seen, in retrospect, much like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. He proclaimed that the Navy will begin “BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz” and will “seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran.”
That last sentence is the one that could rock the planet, because, as the independent National Security Desk analysis makes clear, Trump’s phrase “every vessel in International Waters” is a global directive. It means the US Navy now officially claims the legal right to board, search, and seize foreign ships anywhere on the world’s oceans as well as the ships of any nation trying to pass through the Strait.
Under international maritime law, that’s called “piracy.” And here’s the other parallel to the tensions between Austria-Hungary and Serbia back in the day: roughly 80 percent of China’s oil imports that transit the Strait—that Trump just said he will “blockade”—are Chinese-owned or Chinese-connected vessels.
— China already has a Type 055 cruiser, a Type 052D destroyer, and a massive surveillance ship sitting right there in the region, in the Gulf of Oman.
— Chinese satellites have been providing real-time targeting intelligence to Iran throughout this war.
— Russia has been running electronic warfare systems that, according to pre-war assessments, degrade American radar and communications by as much as 80 percent.
— Iran’s military has been successful in killing over a dozen American troops and wounding hundreds — and downing multiple US military aircraft — because of targeting information Putin’s reportedly been giving them.
These are active military contributions to the Iranian war effort right now.
So what happens when a US destroyer orders a Chinese-flagged tanker to heave to in the Strait of Hormuz and a Chinese warship sails between them? Trump has to choose between backing down—and watching the blockade collapse—or firing on the naval vessel of a country with roughly 400 nuclear warheads.
And this isn’t a purely hypothetical scenario. China and its leader Xi Jinping have made it abundantly clear that maintaining an uninterrupted energy supply through the Strait is one of its core national interests; it won’t simply steam away.
On the Russian side, Vladimir Putin is also not a man who responds with moderation to being cornered. And he’s already in deep trouble in his own country, as well as on his back foot in Ukraine.
The Atlantic Council and RAND have both documented that Putin’s domestic position is more stressed than at any point since his brutal and criminal Ukraine invasion began. Russia today faces runaway military spending consuming eight percent of GDP, skyrocketing inflation, fuel shortages, and a society that polls show has grown deeply tired of the war in Ukraine.
Analysts at the Royal United Services Institute have concluded that Putin literally cannot afford to be seen accepting strategic defeat, because the entire justification of his authoritarian model rests on his promise to “restore Russian greatness” (Make Russia Great Again). If he fails, he may not survive. Not just politically, but physically; Russia has a long, ancient history of dealing harshly with failed leaders.
Thus, a cornered, domestically vulnerable Putin with 6,000 nuclear weapons who is already actively helping Iran kill Americans isn’t a guy who backs down gracefully. He’s a leader who escalates.
And to compound things, yesterday one of the most important parts of the worldwide autocratic network Putin’s been building for decades (including his support for Trump’s election and re-election) collapsed.
In Hungary, where Viktor Orbán has spent 16 years building the model of “illiberal democracy” that Trump, Vance, and the Heritage Foundation have openly cited as their template, voters turned out in the highest numbers since the fall of communism—a stunning 78 percent—and handed a decisive victory to opposition leader Péter Magyar and his Tisza party.
In 1914, it took six weeks until the dogs of all-out-war were fully unleashed. This time, we’re already 43 days in, and we have destroyers parked in a mined strait that China needs to stay alive economically and Russia would love to see humiliate the United States and Europe.
Vice President Vance was just there last week, rallying with Orbán, promising Trump’s “economic might” to help out Hungary (which is suffering under years of corruption and looting by Orbán’s oligarch buddies) if Fidesz held on. Today, that ally is soon to be gone (Magyar takes over in May). The worldwide autocrat network, which is now largely led by Putin, Trump, Orbán, and Netanyahu, is beginning to fracture at its European edge.
When great powers are simultaneously cornered along with a smaller ally, when their leaders face domestic crises that demand the appearance of strength, when interlocking military commitments are already active and drawing them toward conflict, that’s when the world has historically stumbled into catastrophes that nobody wanted and nobody planned.
In 1914, it took six weeks until the dogs of all-out-war were fully unleashed. This time, we’re already 43 days in, and we have destroyers parked in a mined strait that China needs to stay alive economically and Russia would love to see humiliate the United States and Europe.
Louise and I have traveled the world extensively; I’ve stood in the World War I cemeteries of France and Belgium, with row after row of white crosses stretching to the horizon, and been stunned by the fact that every one of those young men died in a war that the people who started it genuinely believed they could control.
The lesson of WWI is that leaders who think they can manage escalation usually can’t.
The time to speak up is right now, before the tumblers click into place. Call your senators and representative (you can reach them through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121) and tell them to support the Democrats’ War Powers Resolution that could stop Trump from going even farther down this treacherous, deadly, possibly-planet-destroying road.
Congress must reassert its constitutional war-making authority: under our Constitution, no president gets to blockade an international waterway with a social media post, and the American people didn’t vote for a nuclear confrontation with China and Russia over Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial. Trump must be impeached now.
And make sure you’re registered to vote and that everyone you know is registered, because the November 2026 midterms are the most direct democratic check we still have on where this is all heading. Check your registration at Vote.gov.
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The Erosion of Moral Leadership: Trump’s War With Iran
A nation that persists in waging illegal war and pirating resources for profit, risks becoming a pariah in the international community, and its soldiers who blindly follow orders without critical analysis, war criminals.
Apr 13, 2026
President Donald J. Trump’s current intervention in Iran is not without precedent. It echoes events many Iranians remember well. While Trump and, likely, many Americans may be clueless about the violent history of American-Iranian relations, most Iranians are acutely aware of America’s involvement in the 1953 coup that ousted their democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Following the coup, Iran became a client state of the United States, exploited for its oil, and governed by the Western puppet, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose leadership was marked by oppression and ruthlessness. As a consequence, America’s intervention and the Shah’s corrupt, repressive regime fueled the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the pro-Western monarchy and established the anti-Western, theocratic Islamic Republic—the same government President Trump now seeks to overthrow through military action.
Further, despite claims of supporting freedom and democracy in the region, the US provided military intelligence and chemical weapons targeting data to Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s invasion and subsequent bloody eight-year war against Iran. Recently, under President Donald Trump, US and Israeli attacks have resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,500 Iranian civilians, including 175 children killed when a US Tomahawk missile struck a school in Minab.
This legacy of violence perpetrated against the Iranian people over the past 80 years reveals the treachery and hypocrisy of which the United States is capable. While promoting itself as a champion of freedom and democracy, it has repeatedly undermined democratic ideals and governments for its own economic and strategic gain.
Promises Made, Not Kept
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump criticized the “forever wars” of previous administrations and promised the American people that when elected, he would end foreign entanglements, prioritize domestic issues such as housing affordability, public safety and trust, economic relief, etc. According to his administration’s National Security Strategy, which emphasized non-interventionism, “the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.” Despite these promises, in less than two years of his second term, Trump has intervened militarily at least seven times—in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, Venezuela, and has threatened military action in Cuba, Columbia, and Greenland. These are hardly the actions of someone who has proclaimed himself the “Peace President.”
President Trump has yet to provide Congress, and more importantly the American people, with a clear and coherent rationale for his war with Iran.
In so doing, he has ignored both the Constitution, which grants only to Congress the authority to declare war, and the United Nations Charter, which requires member states to settle disputes peacefully, and to use violence only as a last resort, either in self-defense or with UN Security Council authorization. According to Chapter II, paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter to which the United States and Israel are signatory, “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”
When called to task by historical allies for waging illegal war and ignoring the obligation to fight rightly—most notably the dictates of International law—rather than to explain and clarify America’s actions, Trump’s “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth criticized and demeaned our allies by characterizing their legitimate concerns as “wringing their hands and clutching their pearls.” Instead of acknowledging the gravity of these violations of law, Hegseth boasted about the precision and lethality of the slaughter, viewing the large-scale killing of Iranians as something of which to be proud and dismissing restrictions on warfighting—rules of engagement—as “stupid” and as an impediment to achieving victory. At the same time, Trump was demanding NATO Allies come to his aid in reopening the Straits of Hormuz.
In a recent Christian Worship Service at the Pentagon, Hegseth echoed Mark Twain’s The War Prayer, his searing anti-war lament on how religious and patriotic fever blinds people to the cruelty and insanity of war. Clearly misunderstanding Twain’s intent, Hegseth’s prayer was a literal invocation for violence calling for divine wrath against America’s enemies and portraying his war as righteous and necessary:
...Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness... Break the teeth of the ungodly. By the blast of your anger, let the evil perish. Let their bulls go down to slaughter for their day has come, the time of their punishment. Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind.
It is repulsive, how Trump, Hegseth, and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when recounting the plan of battle, clearly relish describing and emphasizing the KILLING of Iranians and celebrating the violence. Even many war-hardened combat veterans understood that the killing of those deemed the enemy was not something of which to be proud, choosing instead to use euphemisms—“wasting,” “capping,” hosing,” smoking,” etc.—to describe their taking of human life on the battlefield.
As American coffins began returning from the war and were being transferred to a waiting vehicle, Trump violated the “dignity” of the ceremony and again showed his disrespect and contempt for fallen soldiers and their family members by failing to remove his hat and later using a photo of the event in a fundraising email. Perhaps anticipating future fundraising opportunities, Trump prognosticated a warning that the numbers of killed and wounded Americans will increase as death and injury is inevitable in war.
Lessons Learned from War
As a veteran of the American War in Vietnam, I have firsthand knowledge of the realities of war and do not require President Donald Trump, who used his family’s wealth and influence to escape military service, to explain it to me. I know its effects on participant’s bodies, minds, and souls; I’ve lived it and spent a lifetime laboring to understand and to heal from the experience.
I learned that war is abhorrent and should never be entered into lightly. Certainly not as a “wag the dog” distraction from domestic controversies or crimes that Trump may wish to conceal. I learned that there is no glory in war. That war is unwarranted and should be waged only if it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the alleged enemy poses a real and imminent existential threat, and then only as a last resort, and after all diplomatic avenues for the peaceful resolution of differences have been fully explored and exhausted.
Whether Trump’s war with Iran satisfies the criteria for a just war (jus ad bellum) is highly doubtful even among Trump’s inner circle. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress in March that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and the late Supreme Leader Khamenei did not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Though I had admired Gabbard’s adamant opposition to unnecessary war when she sought the Democratic nomination for president during the 2020 election cycle, I am disappointed that she lacked the courage of her convictions, changing her position after criticism and intimidation by Trump, claiming, though not very convincingly, that her testimony had been taken out of context by a dishonest media. Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, agreed with Gabbard’s initial assessment and became the first senior Trump Administration official to resign in protest over the Iran war. In a letter to Trump posted on X, Kent wrote: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby."
Before any military action is undertaken—prior to the dropping of the first bomb or the firing of the first bullet—the commander in chief is obligated to present a clear and compelling justification for war. This process requires formally seeking authorization from Congress in accordance with the Constitution, as only Congress is granted the power to declare war. Furthermore, it is essential that the president request debate and approval from the United Nation’s Security Council, thereby ensuring that the United States’ actions are aligned with International Law and global standards for conflict resolution.
Additionally, before initiating any military action, the president has the responsibility to fully inform the American people about the reasons for the conflict, the precise nature of the threat, and the objectives to be achieved through military engagement. Such transparency is vital to establishing the legitimacy of the war and maintaining the trust of both Congress and the American people.
Further, if the president believes war to be so important and necessary to warrant the inevitable cost in lives, sanity, and resources, then its risks and burdens should be borne by ALL who benefit—not merely by those less fortunate who lack the wealth and influence he enjoyed to avoid “service,” nor solely by other people’s children instead of his own. Wars tend to appear less "necessary" and become less frequent when politicians and those who advocate for war have blood in the game. According to a study conducted by scholars at Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown, politicians and supporters whose children are of military age are less inclined to support war and vote for hawkish policies were their children subject to conscription and required to fight.
America at a Crossroads
A comprehensive report published by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) institute at Sweden's University of Gothenburg has documented a significant decline in the quality of democracy in the United States during President Trump’s tenure. According to this report, several alarming trends have emerged, including the growing concentration of power within the Executive Branch, persistent violations of both domestic and international laws, intentional efforts to bypass Congress, and direct assaults on free speech and the media.
As a consequence of this undermining of the foundational principles of American democracy, the United States has experienced a dramatic drop in its democracy ranking, falling from 20th to 51st place among 179 nations. This decline reflects not only the internal challenges facing American governance but also the broader implications for the nation’s standing as a global model of democratic values.
Trump is not, nor has he ever been, a soldier. Nor does he embody the qualities of a president.
This deterioration of democratic principles has not gone unnoticed. Across the nation, tens of thousands have taken to the streets during events such as the No Kings Days demonstrations voicing their outrage over President Trump’s policies and ongoing wars. In addition, protesters feel the urgency to “take back America,” and to resist the weakening of political rights, civil liberties, the rapid decline toward authoritarian rule, and reaffirming the rule of law as set forth in the Constitution, the framework of government that countless Americans, including those who wore the uniform, took an oath to defend. The message is clear: America is not a monarchy, and President Trump is not a king, despite his apparent desire for the mantle.
President Trump has yet to provide Congress, and more importantly the American people, with a clear and coherent rationale for his war with Iran. There has been no substantive explanation of why it is in America’s interest to sacrifice American lives and to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the conflict—resources that could better be used on domestic programs such as affordable housing, adequate healthcare, and other social programs. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimate the cost of the war in Iran has already surpassed $38 Billion with the White House now seeking supplemental appropriations that would provide more than $200 billion in additional funding.
In recent public statements and posts on Truth Social, which are often marked by bellicose and vulgar rhetoric, Trump avoids calling the attack on Iran a “war.” Instead, he refers to it as a “military operation” in an apparent attempt to circumvent the constitutional requirement for congressional approval for acts of war, as if merely changing the terminology grants him unchecked, monarchical power to kill and to destroy at will.
Conclusion
America stands at a pivotal juncture in our nation's history, a time of great economic and social upheaval. Though the illusion of America’s greatness and beneficence persists, by surrounding himself with spineless, incompetent sycophants and enablers who do his bidding without question, Trump has abandoned principled leadership. As a result, America under Trump has lost its moral compass and forfeited any moral standing or leadership it may have had in the world. Further, by waging illegal wars, threatening war crimes such as the total destruction of the Iranian civilization, seizing millions of gallons of Venezuelan oil, and planning to do the same in Iran (to the victor belongs the spoils), he has denigrated the nobility of the profession of arms and transformed our military into a well-equipped and highly trained band of brigands, marauders, and war criminals.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s attack on Iran without regard for International Law failed to make the Middle East, Israel, the United States, and the world safer. In fact, it probably had the opposite effect. This attack has increased the likelihood of nuclear proliferation by convincing leaders of nonnuclear nations that possessing nuclear weapons is necessary to deter attacks from powerful nuclear states. Interestingly, Israel agrees. Unlike Iran, Israel, while neither confirming nor denying its nuclear arsenal, is widely believed to have some 90 nuclear weapons with enough fissile material to produce hundreds more. Again, unlike Iran, Israel is not signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor does it allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, despite numerous demands that it bring all its nuclear facilities under the oversight and safeguards of the IAEA, arguing that maintaining a nuclear deterrence is vital for survival in a hostile region.
Perhaps it is not too late to restore this nation’s integrity, moral character, and sanity. To do so, we must continue building a viable opposition, foster a groundswell of resistance to a political leadership that sees war, violence, tariffs, and intimidation as a tool of governance and a substitute for the hard work of diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of differences.
Until rational and principled leadership prevails, Trump must be prohibited from initiating policy, especially from sending our military into harm’s way to fight in wars he clearly does not understand, care about, or, as in the past, lacks the courage to participate in himself. A nation that persists in waging illegal war and pirating resources for profit, risks becoming a pariah in the international community, and its soldiers who blindly follow orders without critical analysis, war criminals. War is not a game.
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity," said Dwight D. Eisenhower.
...And Trump is not, nor has he ever been, a soldier. Nor does he embody the qualities of a president. Perhaps we should take him at his word and know him by his actions, that he is first and foremost a businessman and war is a convenient tool for increasing his personal wealth and a manifestation of his malignant narcissism.
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Crushing Defeat for Hungary's Orban Puts Europe's Far-Right on Its Heals
The results are a rebuke of US President Donald Trump and a reflection of his waning prestige abroad.
Apr 13, 2026
After holding power for 16 years, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party suffered a crushing defeat in Sunday’s parliamentary election.
The Tisza party is on course for a two-thirds super-majority in the incoming parliament, with its leader Peter Magyar as the new prime minister. With more than 80% of the votes counted, Tisza has won 137 of the 199 seats in a voter turnout of more than 77% — a record for post-communist Hungary.
This result vindicates the polls that consistently showed Tisza with a strong lead among voters. The margin of victory clearly swept away the pro-incumbent electoral reforms that Fidesz had enacted to make such a resounding defeat improbable and to potentially keep Orbán in office.
A setback for Europe's populist nationalists
As dean and standard bearer of the populist right in Europe, Viktor Orbán’s defeat sets back prospects for coming contests in France, Poland, and elsewhere between populist right and mainstream parties.
It is also arguably a rebuke of President Donald Trump and a reflection of his waning prestige, even among conservative nationalist constituencies in Europe. The visit by Vice President JD Vance last week in support of Orbán seems to have had no impact on the clear dissatisfaction of much of the electorate and the anti-incumbent landslide.
Moreover, populist nationalist leaders such as France’s Marine Le Pen and Germany’s Alice Weidel have opposed the US war against Iran, a clear indication that their former close alignment with the Trump Administration has become a potential liability.
Bread and butter triumphs
Orbán’s early concession was unexpected and could point to some relaxation in the polarized atmosphere of the bitterly contested campaign. Orban said “the responsibility and opportunity to govern “were not given to us,” but pledged to his voters “never to give up.”
Orbán staked his campaign on foreign and security policy, attempting to portray Magyar as a creature of the allegedly hostile EU leadership, above all Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and as someone risking Hungary’s security by pandering to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. Magyar was accused of having conspired with Ukraine in closing off Hungary’s supply of Russian oil.
Magyar’s strategy was to avoid confrontation directly on these issues, and instead to focus his critique of Orbán on the popular themes of corruption, cronyism, and a weak economy. This has proven to be even more effective than the opinion polls had predicted in producing a decisive rebuke of Orbán’s leadership.
Magyar promised better relations with the EU, and it is likely that the EU will quickly unblock some, if not all, of the several billion euros withheld from Hungary because of failure to comply with EU standards on human rights, press freedoms and democratic governance.
However, Magyar did not promise to reverse Orbán’s opposition to arming or funding Ukraine. He did agree to gradually reduce Hungary’s reliance on Russian oil delivered by the Druzhba pipeline and Russian gas delivered by pipeline through Turkey. While Magyar can be expected quickly to reverse Orbán’s opposition to the disbursement of the €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine, it is not clear whether Magyar will acquiesce in the permanent elimination of Hungary’s oil supply through the Druzhba pipeline.
Magyar has also given no indication that he will support Ukraine’s early accession to the EU.
Even so, his campaign apparently struck a sympathetic chord among voters who deplored Orbán’s friendly stance toward Russia. This may be the sole clear advantage of Magyar’s campaign against Orbán in the strategic or diplomatic field.
What happens next?
A former senior diplomat and official of Fidesz, Magyar was able to attract votes from Hungary’s liberal, urban, and younger voters without differing very markedly from Orbán on many issues of substance. He made the election about Orbán’s probity and competence and not about Orbán’s conservative nationalist worldview.
In fact, Magyar was a member of Fidesz until 2024 when he left to build Tisza, which is part of the center-right European People’s Party grouping in the European Parliament, occupying the place formerly held by Fidesz.
After a deeply acrimonious campaign, the fact that Orbán conceded his defeat earlier than expected means that risks to social peace and security are not as great as might have been feared in the case of a closer race. However, in claiming to have “liberated” the country from Orbán’s rule, Magyar hints at prosecutions of Fidesz officials, possibly to include Orbán himself.
With a commanding majority in the parliament, Magyar plans to launch a major overhaul of the institutions, laws, and norms that have supported Orbán’s rule. The challenges from Fidesz loyalists entrenched in positions outside of parliament may place obstacles in his way. It is far from clear that Orbán will fade into retirement or obscurity, since he has pledged to make the most of Fidesz’s new role as principal parliamentary opposition to Magyar and Tisza.
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