Washington still hasn’t reopened Hormuz on its own terms. So Trump’s answer is a 100-year Venezuelan oil deal. The immediate problem is #Iran. The long-term strategy is to make Venezuela matter more. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Trump’s Folly

A war for oil, an ocean up for renaming, and what Dolly Parton knew about refusing the frame

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Major #JasonWatson spent 17 years building an #AirForce career, then decided his country was worth more than the career itself. #uspolitics #civildisobedience #kakistocracy open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

The Costume and the Oath

Major Jason Watson put seventeen years of service on the line for what he believed his country required. Donald Trump reposted his cadet uniform.

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#Nepal is a brutal reminder that #climatechange happens gradually, while structural failure happens all at once. The gradual part is where we still have choices. Monitoring is what we do while we still have agency. #uspolitics open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Gradually, Then Suddenly - Himalaya Edition

n Nepal, a glacier collapsed, a mountain moved, and the climate crisis crossed from warning into structural failure.

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Trump treats alliances like toll booths: every dependency a lever, every commitment negotiable. Canada, South Korea and Europe are starting to respond by building alternatives. #uspolitics #foreignpolicy open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

The Toll Booth Presidency - Mature Edition

Alliances were never assets to this White House. They were always just inventory.

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Trump thinks American economic power means everyone else eventually has to surrender. #Canada just sent the invoice. #uspolitics #tariffs #kakistocracy open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Kiss My Ass, Dollar for Dollar

Trump thinks interdependence is American leverage. Canada is discovering it works in both directions.

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#Climate breakdown rarely arrives at once. It erodes margins first. Record-hot oceans, Reno’s wildfire, Europe’s drought, a shrinking Danube, stressed power systems, solar’s next bottleneck and, because nature apparently has jokes, Alpha-Gal Syndrome. #uspolitics open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Gradually, Then Suddenly

What a Burning Nevada, a Dry Danube and an Allergic Tick Have in Common With Hemingway

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The Trump presidency increasingly runs on #kayfabe: maintain the storyline, punish anyone who breaks character, and treat inconvenient reality as a production problem. #uspolitics #petehegseth #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

The Kayfabe Presidency

When governing becomes a production problem, the facts, the messengers and even reality itself have to stay on script

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America’s debt just hit $40 trillion. Treasury’s bond-market intervention bought about a day of relief. #Canada is openly trying to become less dependent on us. Mohamed El-Erian explains what happens in the U.S. “doesn’t stay in the US.” #uspolitics #Tariffs open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

A Band-Aid on a Bullet Hole

America’s debt is soaring, its borrowing costs are rising, and the consequences are already spilling into the neighborhood.

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"Economic D-Day." Announced in all caps, the same week U.S. debt hit $40 trillion and its priciest borrowing costs since 2001. #uspolitics #iranwar open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Economic D-Day, Meet $40 Trillion

Trump bets he can outlast Iran as sanctions spread, Hormuz stays constricted, and America’s own borrowing costs keep climbing.

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Iran ceasefire's 60-day clock ran out. What's left is the bill. Diesel at $5.47/gal, a Canada tariff "deal" that's actually a pause, and a Texas governor holding an extradition warrant hostage over a political grievance. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritatianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

The Art of Unraveling

From Versailles to Hormuz to the Canadian border, Trump’s promised victories keep turning into invoices, deadlines and provisional arrangements.

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Oman threatened for trying to mediate. Korea's drills cut over an unrelated grudge. Kushner talking to Hamas. Same Monday, same underlying decision: institutions are optional, personal access isn't. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Tendon, Not Fat: The Sequel Nobody Asked For

A single Monday’s worth of evidence that the connective tissue holding U.S. foreign policy together keeps getting mistaken for waste.

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DHS's own surveillance file says the group they infiltrated wanted to stay peaceful. Chicago subpoenaed a fundraiser over $468. Trump's $10B #BBC suit found 285 US viewers. And Hormuz keeps billing the rest of the planet for a war of choice. #uspolitics open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Subpoenas, Lawsuits and the Lido Deck

The government investigates Trump’s political enemies, the BBC investigates Trump’s claims, and an oil shock from Hormuz finds its way into everyone else’s wallet.

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USS Abraham Lincoln, politicized intelligence, 24,500+ cyclospora cases, and a $533 million artillery factory that produced zero usable shells. Sometimes what looks like bureaucratic friction is actually the machinery that makes institutions competent. #uspolitics open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Tendon, Not Fat

What a stranded carrier, a lettuce outbreak, a burning robot, and a broken CIA have in common, and why you only find out what you cut once something breaks.

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Schrödinger’s War is apparently won, ongoing and sustainable “indefinitely” all at once. Sailors are exhausted, missile stocks need replenishing and cheap gas has become a present-tense war aim. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #iranwar #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Schrödinger's War, Six Months In

The Pentagon says the blockade can last indefinitely. A sailor asked his wife if he could last the deployment. Both statements are currently true.

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Trump’s health questions, #KarolineLeavitt’s not-quite-exit, an exhausted aircraft carrier, #ICE deaths, electric gloves, and the grave national-security menace posed by British French horns. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

More Power, Less Accountability

Trump's health raises questions, Leavitt heads for the exits, sailors aboard the Lincoln buckle under strain, and ICE eyes electric gloves.

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#Iran adapts. #Ukraine finds the pressure points. Hormuz stays choked. Oil and inflation start dictating strategy. And staff and reporters become unwitting decoys aboard Air Force One. #uspolitics open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Reality Sends Invoices

Iran, Ukraine and the growing gap between American power as advertised and the costs Washington is actually willing to bear.

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Trump’s secret-flight smoke machine, Pentagon advisers with defense-investment ties, the Greenland Energy story worth watching #uspolitics #authoritarianism #kakistocracy open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Smoke, Mirrors and Greenland

Air Force One subterfuge, Pentagon conflicts, an Arctic oil venture worth watching, and a farewell to Jackie.

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Trump: "we're only semi-negotiating" with Iran, which is broke, over a strait that requires dark-fleet tankers and a small naval bureaucracy to function. #uspolitics #reflectingpool #iranwar open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

The Strait and the Pool

Washington is "semi-negotiating" a global chokepoint while the president relitigates a paint job

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Trump expected #Iran to lose. Five months later, Tehran is naming its price #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritarianism #petehegseth open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Maximum Lethality, Minimum Control

Hormuz, Hegseth, and Netanyahu all arrive at the same lesson this week: declaring victory isn't the same as winning it.

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Trump’s Friday: beautiful coal, Intel billions, “another hit” on Iran, MAGA angry at everyone except him. Behind the comedy: his advisers admit a war at a dead end and a Strait of Hormuz that may never return to normal. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Also: He Wanted the Gold

Trump’s Friday was funny until you noticed the war, the arithmetic, and the growing sense that his words no longer describe reality.

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A military mom asked the only question that matters: "What are we completing?" Power ≠ control. #uspolitics #iranwar #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

What Are We Completing?

A military mother's question about her son on the USS Abraham Lincoln turns out to be the question of this whole moment

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#StephenMiller’s attack on #birthrightcitizenship takes the old “anchor baby” canard, launders it as “birth tourism,” and routes a constitutional rewrite through visa enforcement. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #immigration #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Legitimacy, Laundered

Stephen Miller’s latest attack on birthright citizenship takes the old “anchor baby” canard, dresses it in administrative language, and calls a constitutional rewrite visa enforcement.

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#Trump can invent a claim in seconds; checking it can take an afternoon. My latest, looks at the golden age, the fake general and the coming flood of claims no newsroom can verify in real time. #uspolitics #iranwar #elections2026 open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Statistical Taxidermy

A golden age, a fake general, and the coming flood of claims no newsroom can verify in real time

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Trump is now eight approval points above Nixon at the end of Watergate. His war is raising gas prices, his tariffs are raising everything else, and every new “peace deal” moves markets but doesn't produce peace. #uspolitics #iranwar #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Eight Points From Nixon

Trump's approval rating is now closer to a resignation speech than a victory lap, and the war, the tariffs, and the polls all explain why.

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Trump announces talks Iran says don’t exist. A Trump ally condemns offshoring, then sends Ohio jobs to China. RFK Jr. rewrites the pandemic to absolve the man who was president. Revisionist history is political preparation for next disaster. #uspolitics #iranwar open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

The Story vs the History

Trump invents a diplomatic breakthrough, his billionaire ally sends Ohio jobs to China, and RFK Jr. rewrites the pandemic to absolve the man who was president.

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The #ReflectingPool shows what Trump does when the facts catch up with him. #Iran forces us to ask how many missiles may be launched before they do. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Locked, Loaded and Untethered

The Reflecting Pool shows how Trump handles correction. The Iran war shows why his mental fitness is now a national-security concern.

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Trump explained his strategy at Camp David: “We just want to win.” #Iran is simultaneously “obliterated” and dangerous enough to bomb again. Negotiations make him angry. Missile attacks become “bing, bing, bing.” #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

The Lull Was Only The Prelude

Camp David gave Trump a historic backdrop, a captive Cabinet and an hour of television. What it didn't give him was a strategy.

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Trump voters in rural Oregon supported him by landslide margins. But when wildfire assistance was requested, Washington saw only a blue state. #uspolitics #FEMA #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

The Blue-State Penalty Box

When Washington punishes Oregon, even the counties that voted for Trump are trapped inside.

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The #Fauci hearing offered no new insight into #Covid’s origins because origins was never the goal. The goal was scapegoating. #uspolitics #kakistocracy #authoritarianism open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Absent a Policy, Politicians Manufacture Enemies

Rand Paul’s Fauci hearing showed what happens when the Roy Cohn playbook substitutes accusation for evidence, and governing for spectacle.

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Trump promises Iran a “beating” while assuring us the talks will continue. Oil is near $90, Saudi Arabia is bombing Iraq, Iran is firing toward Jordan, and Gulf governments are building around Washington’s chaos. #uspolitics #kakistocracy open.substack.com/pub/marygedd...

Schrödinger's War, Continued

Nobody can agree who struck first, what "excellent" meant behind closed doors, or whether the ammunition is really running out, and everyone's planning as if the confusion is permanent.

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