Warmongering Putin Accused of Massive Plague Cover-Up

Vic Verbalaitis
Sun, October 4, 2026


Ramil Sitdikov / REUTERS


Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been accused of concealing an alarming pneumonic plague outbreak as nearly 200 people have been forced into quarantine.

Authorities reported on Friday that 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, a lab tech at a research facility in Siberia, had died at the Shelekhov Hospital in a suspected case of the plague, according to The Moscow Times.

She had been hospitalized with acute pneumonia symptoms on Tuesday and was placed on a ventilator, with reports saying she died two days later on Thursday.

The incident prompted Shelekhov Hospital to quarantine, soon followed by several others in the Irkutsk region, even as health authorities reassured residents everything was fine, the outlet reported. The Irkutsk Aluminum Smelter in Shelekhov also instituted a mask mandate for "preventative measures," according to its director, Artem Fominykh.

Putin visited an aviation facility in the Irkutsk region in July. / VYACHESLAV PROKOFYEV / POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Residents told local outlet People of Baikal that doctors in the region were "openly talking about the plague." A local maternity hospital blocked family from visiting birthing mothers, citing the "plague," the outlet reported.

"If [federal health officials] said everything is fine, then why are the hospitals closing for quarantine?" one resident was quoted asking.

"Unfortunately, they don't consider us human beings," another told the outlet.

Public health officials, meanwhile, have insisted the epidemiological situation in the region is "stable" and walked back their earlier statements. The federal health watchdog said Sunday that Shipilova died from a case of "pneumonia of an undetermined origin." Kremlin-controlled media deleted their earlier reporting on pneumonic plague.

On Saturday morning, the local government for the town of Baykalsk advised residents to avoid traveling to Shelekhov and other nearby towns because of a plague-related death, but the post was taken down shortly after, according to the Times.

Lake Baikal is in the Irkutsk region in southern Siberia. / Xinhua News Agency / Xinhua News Agency via Getty Ima

Igor Kobzev, the governor of the Irkutsk region, did not identify the illness as the plague and referred to it only as "a dangerous infectious disease," but shut down all public events in the region, according to the New York Post.

After meeting with Anna Popova, who leads Russia's public-health watchdog, to organize safety measures, Kobzev urged residents to remain calm.

"All identified contact persons have been placed under medical observation. As of today, the contacts show no signs of illness, and their laboratory test results are negative," he wrote on Telegram on Friday, without mentioning Shipilova's death.

People of Baikal reported that Shipilova had been exposed to the disease after she had accidentally broken a test tube containing live bacteria on Sept. 25. She first developed symptoms during a work expedition near the Russian border with Mongolia, according to the outlet.

Troops under Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps have liberated five key settlements, in a headache for Putin. / Alexander Kazakov / via REUTERS

However, Russian epidemiologist Mikhail Favorov, who now lives in the U.S., alleged that the broken test tube story is a government cover-up.

"It's laughable," Favorov said, according to the Post. "Someone working at the anti-plague Institute in Irkutsk wears a protective anti-plague suit. If you break a test tube, the likelihood of infection is actually very low. In short, it doesn't matter to the general public — they'll believe the 'dropped test tube story.'"

The 14th Century's Black Death pandemic wiped out 25 million people in Europe. / Pictures from History / Pictures From History/Universal

The plague has three main forms: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Symptoms include fever, chills, and eventual respiratory failure, but it can be treated with antibiotics if started within 24 hours of symptom onset.

Pneumonic plague is the deadliest form and the only one that can spread from person to person via airborne respiratory droplets.

Jimmy Kimmel Mocks Trump’s Promise to Help Russia Amid Siberia Plague: ‘The Gang Who Brought Polio Back’

"Sounds like the plot of one of those horror movies you can only get on Tubi," the late night host adds

Alyssa Ray
Mon, October 5, 2026 


(Photo credit: "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"/YouTube)


Jimmy Kimmel took aim at Donald Trump after the president promised to send aid to Russia amid a plague outbreak in Siberia, joking that "the gang who brought polio back is on the case."

During Monday's monologue for "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," the comedian weighed in on the situation in Siberia, which saw a 28-year-old laboratory worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute die of severe pneumonia. Dozens more are currently in quarantine.

"We took 200 members of our staff to Brooklyn. I am pleased to announce that only half of them came back with the flu," Kimmel said. "Everyone is out sick. Everybody is sick today. Although, I guess we're lucky to just have the flu."

He added: "You know, today the governor of New York declared a state disaster emergency because of a measles outbreak there. So now we've got the flu, we've got measles, we've got rabies, we've got West Nile virus, we have flea-born typhus, all on the rise. And now we are hearing that in Russia there has been at least one death from a suspected case of the plague, the pneumonic plague."

After mentioning that around 200 people are in quarantine, Kimmel said of the White House's response: "The White House says they are monitoring the situation and assessing options to figure out if there is any way they can make money off of it."

"Jimmy Kimmel Live!" editors then played footage of Trump answering questions about the supposed plague, with the president noting that "we'll help them."

"Well, everybody, they'll help [them]," Kimmel responded. "No worries. The gang who brought polio back is on the case."

"So, this outbreak, which is scary, is reported to have originated with a lab leak at the Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia," he added. "Which sounds like the plot of one of those horror movies you can only get on Tubi."

Before moving on, Kimmel sarcastically noted that he felt "glad we have a president who is a doctor and also Jesus," poking fun at Trump's past AI-generated religious memes.

For Kimmel's full monologue, watch the video above. A representative for the White House did not immediately respond to TheWrap's request for comment.

"Jimmy Kimmel Live!" airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.

 TheWrap.

Trump says US will help Russia after Siberia plague institute death

Reuters
Mon, October 5, 2026 


US President Donald Trump speaks with media before boarding Marine One as he travels to Grand Island, Nebraska, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., US, October 5, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee

WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump on Monday at the White ‌House told reporters that the United States ‌will help Russia after a laboratory worker died at ​a plague research institute in Siberia.

Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to Nebraska that the outbreak ‌is a "big problem ⁠for Russia."

A laboratory worker at a plague research institute in Siberia ⁠fell ill and died in undisclosed circumstances, prompting authorities to quarantine dozens of people.

The death ​has sparked ​public health fears ​on social media, but ‌Russian authorities said on Monday the situation was under control.

"Well, I hate to see them having it," Trump said. "It's a rough disease."

He said the US would do what it ‌could to help Russia. ​Trump has said he considers ​Russian President ​Vladimir Putin someone whom he can ‌work with despite tensions over ​Russia's war ​against Ukraine.

"We'll help," Trump said. "Anybody that has that kind of a problem, we're ​always will ‌to help."

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Trevor Hunnicutt ​and Bo Erickson; editing by Michelle ​Nichols and Caitlin Webber)

'New nightmare fuel dropped': Frenzy as MIT researcher picks apart Russia's plague story

Daniel Hampton
October 6, 2026 

RAW STORY


A view of the Medical Assistance and Rescue Centre, an infectious diseases hospital, in the town of Shelekhov in the Irkutsk region, Russia, October 5, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer

A thread from MIT biosecurity researcher Kevin Esvelt arguing that Russia's response to a suspected plague death doesn't match a routine lab accident drew a wave of reaction from prominent scientists and physicians Monday.

Russian authorities have been responding since late September to the death of a 28-year-old lab technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Nearly 200 people were placed under medical observation, according to The Moscow Times.

Esvelt wrote that the scale of the response is "inconsistent with a lab-acquired plague infection, which would have been treated with prophylactic antibiotics," citing quarantines across several hospitals, reported FSB involvement, and hazmat use. He added that Russian authorities "have surely sequenced the Irkutsk pathogen, but refuse to identify it," and said a physical lockdown implies either engineered pan-resistance or that the pathogen is not plague at all.

He also wrote that none of it means a pandemic is coming.

Russian officials have confirmed none of that. Rospotrebnadzor says the worker was diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown origin, that expanded testing found no microorganisms linked to her work, and that no accident occurred at the institute. The World Health Organization says no cause of death has been officially confirmed. RFE/RL reported there is no public evidence the lab was developing plague as a weapon, and that Russia says such facilities are defensive.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the reports were not cause for alarm, but "for focus."

Even so, Esvelt's thread sent the internet into a frenzy.

Ashish Jha, the former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, vouched for Esvelt as one of the smartest people in the world on engineered pathogens: "Kevin's tweets are worth your time."

Mathematical biologist Alex Washburne called him a "biodefense brother from another mother."

Physician Brian Goldman had a message for skeptics: "To the pooh-poohers, read this."

Journalist Annie Jacobsen, who writes on national security, simply wrote one word: "This."

Activist Drew Pavlou, who is not a scientist, went furthest, writing that there is a "disturbingly high possibility" the outbreak is an escaped pandemic weapon and calling for Russia's borders to be sealed.


And environmental justice advocate Jay C. Ford reacted, "New nightmare fuel just dropped."

‘Dangerous for Democracy’: Paramount Merger Opponents File Emergency Motion to Fight Settlement Deal

“We believe the consent decree fails to meaningfully address or mitigate the harms that will be caused by this monopoly merger.”


Demonstrators protest the proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery at Paramount Pictures Studio on September 3, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
(Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Variety via Getty Images)


Jake Johnson
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


A coalition of advocacy groups fighting the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger said Thursday that the judge overseeing the case granted their emergency motion to allow opponents of the combination to file briefs against a settlement reached earlier this week by Paramount and a dozen state attorneys general.



‘Don’t You Dare’: Alarm as State AGs Weigh Deal to Advance Paramount Megamerger

‘Massive Betrayal’: Fury at Newsom and Bonta Over Merger Deal With Paramount

“The consent decree the state AGs agreed to in a backroom deal is weak, unenforceable, and leaves workers, journalists, and consumers in the dust,” members of the anti-merger coalition said in a statement. “The settlement fails to address the grave dangers this merger poses—and no amount of spin can change that. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín’s ruling will allow the public to weigh in on this important issue and ensure the interests of those who will actually pay the price for the Ellisons’ sweetheart deal that the AGs failed to adequately represent are heard. We look forward to explaining that in further detail in our brief due at midnight tonight.”

Earlier:

Opponents of Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery filed an emergency motion in federal court on Thursday asking the judge overseeing the merger proceedings to grant them an opportunity to formally oppose a settlement deal that Paramount reached earlier this week with a coalition of state attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta.

The merger opponents’ filing asks Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the US District Court for the Northern District of California to give them “an opportunity to be heard” before she rules on the proposed consent decree between Paramount and the 12 state attorneys general—a deal that drew widespread outrage. The anti-merger coalition—which includes Free Press, the Committee for the First Amendment, the Future Film Coalition, and other groups—described the tentative deal as “dangerous for democracy.”

The coalition’s filing was submitted shortly before a court hearing that’s scheduled to begin at 2:00 pm ET. Martínez-Olguín set the hearing to “address certain outstanding questions regarding the factual and legal underpinnings of the parties’ proposed consent decree.”

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a constitutional rights litigator who serves on the steering panel for the Committee for the First Amendment, said in a statement that “we believe the consent decree fails to meaningfully address or mitigate the harms that will be caused by this monopoly merger to the entertainment industry, diverse storytelling, independent filmmaking, consumer interests, a free press, First Amendment rights, and fundamentally, democracy.”

“It does not serve to benefit anyone except the owner family of Paramount and those holding political power, who will use this corporate consolidation as a proxy force for First Amendment suppression of disfavored expression and viewpoints,” Verheyden-Hilliard added.

Paramount is headed by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world and a megadonor to President Donald Trump.

If Martínez-Olguín approves the proposed consent decree and the merger is finalized, Paramount would control both CBS and CNN, as well as other major media properties such as HBO.

As part of the consent decree, Paramount committed to “News Editorial Independence Boards” for CBS and CNN comprised of five “established journalists.” Critics, including the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), have characterized the proposed editorial independence boards as “worthless” and a potential “First Amendment nightmare.”

“The solution for the Ellisons letting Donald Trump and [Federal Communications Commission Chair] Brendan Carr police journalism is not to let attorneys general and judges police journalism too,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at FPF, part of the anti-merger coalition.

“It’s to keep the government out of the newsroom, period,” Stern added. “No one seriously believes the Ellisons (or their rumored new investor Elon Musk) will do that, with or without a self-appointed sham editorial board, which is why this merger cannot proceed.”

The League of United Latin American Citizens and a group of religious leaders filed a separate motion on Thursday asking Martínez-Olguín to “defer entry of the decree” to “ensure this court has sufficient opportunity to consider the important issues raised” in the case.

“The proposed consent decree raises grave doubts whether the parties’ settlement adequately addresses the harms alleged in the plaintiff states’ complaint,” the filing reads.

Billionaire Trump Suck-Ups Owning More News Outlets Is an Existential Threat

This is critical stuff: no democracy can survive the assault of what Jefferson referred to as “an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents” when only one family or political perspective dominates the media.


Oracle co-founder, CTO, and executive chairman Larry Ellison listens as US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on February 3, 2025, in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Thom Hartmann
Sep 24, 2026

Common Dreams


A CNN insider told Variety magazine yesterday that the mood inside CNN right now is “like a funeral.” Nepo-baby David Ellison, bankrolled by his father who’s one of the richest men in the world and a major Trump suck-up and donor (and is in the Epstein Files), is on the verge of taking over the company that owns the news network.

The day-before-yesterday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a group of Democratic state attorneys general rolled over and agreed to stop trying to block the $111 billion takover of Warner Bros. Discovery, now to be almost 50% funded by rightwing dictatorships in the Middle East who’ve given billions in gifts, loans, and investments to Trump and his family.

California Governor and presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom hailed the agreement, saying it would both protect California jobs and preserve CNN’s “editorial independence.”

If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge for you in Brooklyn.

As The Lever reported yesterday, the fine print tells the entire story:

Going forward, CNN and CBS will be overseen by an “editorial independence board” composed of people hand-picked by the Ellisons and their agents. When Rupert Murdoch took over The Wall Street Journal from the Bancroft family back in 2007, he ran the same scam, as CBS News then reported:
“As part of the deal package that cemented Rupert Murdoch’s longstanding effort to acquire Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., the two sides agreed to create an editorial board that would act as a buffer between the media mogul and the newspaper…”


That worked out real well, right?

There are also squishy promises for movies and jobs that are not backed up with any meaningful enforcement mechanism, and all of Ellison’s commitments can be set aside via a force majeure clause that lets Paramount off the hook in the event of “strikes, labor disruptions, [or] economic recessions.” So, all Trump has to do is extend the Iran war another few months to crash our economy and the oligarchs are free to do what they want!

And if that doesn’t happen, there’s still the sunset clause that ends all their commitments in five years. Lee Hepner of the American Economic Liberties Project called it “a countdown to a cliff.”

These are the same billionaires who handed Trump a check for $16 million to “settle” a frivolous lawsuit against 60 Minutes, then cancelled Stephen Colbert’s show days after he referenced that as a “big fat bribe,” then reportedly offered the Trump White House up to $20 million in free “public service announcements” and installed a Trump-humping “ombudsman” at CBS News to police “bias” at the network.

The simple reality is that in every country that’s slid from democracy into strongman rule over the past half-century, the first step was capture of the media by friends of the regime.


And the FCC, run by Trump’s favorite brown-noser Brendan Carr, has blessed Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar taking a 49.5 percent equity state in the new entity that will control two of the three most important news networks in America.

Don’t expect any future analysis of Saudi involvement in 9/11, critical exploration of what Trump gave up in exchange for a $400 million 747 jet, or the billions that have gone to Kushner and the Trump boys, Uday and Qusay.

Because of momentous decisions made by presidents Reagan and Clinton, freedom of the press in America is now as much an economic issue as a political one. As I laid out in The Hidden History of Monopolies (with a foreword by Ralph Nader), when Reagan came into office 90 percent of the American media landscape was scattered among over 50 companies; now a mere five conglomerates dominate that 90 percent of the media Americans consume.

Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (and others) in 1983, leading to the “M&A Mania” of mergers and acquisitions that characterized the late 1980s and 1990s. As a result, there’s not a single major industry in America that’s not dominated by a handful of companies that generally behave like cartels, and the average American family pays an annual “monopoly tax” — in additional costs for pretty much everything — of around $5,000, according to economist Thomas Philippon.

Cell phone service that costs $15 a month in France or $12 a month in Australia bills out at an average of $61.85 per month in the United States. High-speed broadband that’s a bit over $31 a month in France or $36 in Germany (for higher speeds and better reliability than almost anywhere in the United States) averages nearly $70 per month in the US.

Similar metrics are found with pharmaceuticals, airfares, and medical costs, among dozens of other product and service categories.

But it’s most deadly to democracy when it comes to the media.

Since Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 — which eliminated most of the rules about how many outlets one family or company could own — oligarchic monopoly of the media has spread its cancerous tentacles into politics, as well, destroying the ability of government to make policy that allows free people to make their own decisions about their own lives.

As Teddy Roosevelt, the great trust buster, said:
“There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task...”


And as Adam Smith wrote, in Wealth of Nations,
“...the monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained...like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature.”


And this is no small project by billionaires who explicitly distrust democracy and want complete control over America and her people. I’ve seen how this works up-close and personal when a Republican billionaire came after a media business I helped start.

In 2003, Louise and I had sold our last business and were retired in Vermont; that Thanksgiving, we drove to Michigan to visit my family for the holidays and all the way there I kept tuning across the radio dial looking for an intelligent conversation to occupy my mind while driving. In city after city, all I could find was Sean Hannity.

The outcome of that trip was my writing the initial business plan for Air America Radio and starting the radio show I’m still hosting 23 years later as a “proof of concept.” We were leasing stations from Clear Channel and reached over 90 percent of America; many credited Obama’s 2008 victory to our being on the air.

So, of course, billionaire Mitt Romney — with an eye to running for president in 2012 — had his company Bain Capital buy up all of the Clear Channel radio stations and, one at a time, take us off the air until we didn’t have enough of a signal to make money selling advertising. The network died in 2010 (and Romney lost).

The people who own the media pipes, in other words, get to decide what flows through them.

Remember when Uber was offering rides for half the price of taxis, until they’d put so many of the taxi companies out of business? Or Walmart offering goods at little to no margin just to drive local competitors out of business? Monopolists and wannabe monopolists understand exactly how this works.

While Rupert Murdoch reportedly lost an average of $80 to $90 million a year for about five years before Fox News turned a profit, he never viewed that as a loss: it was an investment. Economists Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan later did the math and found that Fox News succeeded in shifting 3 to 8 percent of its audience toward the Republican Party, which in Florida alone in the 2000 election was worth more than 10,000 votes for George W. Bush in a state he carried by fewer than 600.

Had there been no Fox “News,” in other words, there would have been no war in Iraq or Afghanistan, and thousands of Americans and millions of Iraqis and Afghans would still be alive. And there would have been no Bush tax cuts, so our national debt would be nowhere near so bad. And Al Gore would have done something about the environment.

This is critical stuff: no democracy can survive the assault of what Jefferson referred to as “an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents” when only one family or political perspective dominates the media.

Franklin D. Roosevelt — the Bernie Sanders of his day — saw all of this coming. On April 29, 1938, in his Message to Congress on the Concentration of Economic Power, he told the country what fascism actually is:
“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”


FDR understood that when a monopolized industry gets big enough, its main rival then becomes the government itself because only the government has enough remaining power to break it up. Adam Smith made the same point in Wealth of Nations in 1776, writing that the East India Company and its allies had, “like an overgrown standing army,” become “formidable to the government” and could “intimidate the legislature.”

The simple reality is that in every country that’s slid from democracy into strongman rule over the past half-century, the first step was capture of the media by friends of the regime.

— Four days after Vladimir Putin was inaugurated in May, 2000, ICE-like masked agents raided the offices of Media-Most, the company that owned Russia’s largest independent national TV network (NTV). They threw its owner, Vladimir Gusinsky, in prison on fraud charges and confiscated his stake in Gazprom, then took over the network with the deal finalized in April of 2001. That same year Boris Berezovsky was forced to sell his share of the ORT network to Roman Abramovich, a fellow oligarch but one who’d pledged his total loyalty to Putin. Within a few years, every national channel in Russia was in the hands of the state or a Putin-friendly billionaire, and still are.

— Viktor Orbán’s people were slightly more sophisticated in 2018, having his oligarch buddies buy up media properties after he sued dissenters into bankruptcy by claiming libel. By the following year, the media monitor Mérték estimated that 77.8 percent of Hungary’s news media was directly or indirectly controlled by Orbán’s party, which is why when Péter Magyar successfully ran against Orbán he had to visit virtually every city and town in the country to get around the media blackout on his candidacy.

— In Egypt, el-Sisi was less elegant in his approach to the media. He had his version of the FBI — the General Intelligence Service — use a front company called Eagle Capital to buy up virtually every TV network, radio station, and newspaper in the country. Reporters Without Borders found that a dozen once-powerful media owners were pushed to sell to intelligence-linked companies, while the handful of businessmen who backed Sisi got to keep theirs. The spy agency’s media group now owns the ON, CBC, Al-Hayah, and DMC networks, and those Egyptian journalists who dared criticize the regime all went to prison.

— Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines used regulatory power the same way Trump lickspittle Brendan Carr’s FCC does. The country’s largest newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, was forced to sell to a billionaire Duterte ally under threat of imprisonment for breaking “media rules.” Duterte’s rightwing buddies in Congress then refused to renew the broadcast franchise of ABS-CBN, the nation’s biggest network, which had made the mistake of exposing the extrajudicial killings of his so-called drug war. Eleven thousand people lost their jobs, and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa’s little opposition newspaper The Rappler was ordered shut.

Almost without exception, this is the process autocrats use to destroy democracies, as documented brilliantly by people like Timothy Snyder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat.

First the strongman’s friends acquire the newsrooms, then the coverage softens, then the elections start experiencing “anomalies,” and by the time most people notice, there’s nobody left on the air to expose the oligarchs and fascists.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1786:
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”


So, here we are. Bonta and Newsom have caved, and only the attorneys general of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Minnesota tried to hold out. You may want to call your own state attorney general and ask where they were on this case; you should be able to easily find their number with a quick internet search.

We should also contact our members of Congress (202-224-3121) and demand hearings on the FCC’s corrupt behavior, restoration of our anti-trust laws, and a return to the media ownership limits that Clinton blew up in 1996.

And please share this piece and hartmannreport.com with anyone who still thinks it can’t happen here. It has already happened everywhere else that’s seen their democracy disintegrate, and the first thing to go into oligarchic hands was always the news.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print.
Full Bio >

‘Massive Betrayal’: Fury at Newsom and Bonta Over Merger Deal With Paramount

“Today, billionaires have yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta speak during a press conference in Sacramento, California, United States on October 28, 2025.
(Photo by Tayfun Cokun/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Sep 21, 2026
C0MMON DREAMS


A coalition of state attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta reportedly reached a deal on Monday to let Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery proceed, an outcome that press freedom advocates and antitrust campaigners condemned as a disaster for journalism, entertainment industry workers, and American democracy.

The deal, which is set to be formally announced later Monday, will pave the way for the creation of one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, helmed by the son of a billionaire megadonor to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

If the merger is finalized, the resulting media behemoth would control nearly 30% of both wide-release theatrical film distribution and basic cable channel licensing in the US. The combination would also put CNN under Ellison’s control, heightening press freedom concerns that have intensified since Paramount’s takeover of CBS.

“The AGs’ capitulation marks a new low.”

“Today, billionaires have yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top,” Alvaro Bedoya, senior adviser at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement. “As a result, a billionaire media conglomerate closely allied with the president will soon own one of its closest rivals, including some of the nation’s most critical news outlets. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund will co-own those outlets, too.”

Bedoya criticized Bonta and California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who privately pushed the state attorney general’s office to settle the lawsuit out of court. Xavier Becerra, the frontrunner to succeed Newsom, also called for a settlement, citing Paramount’s threat to leave California if its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. was blocked.

“People want champions who are not afraid of rich bullies. Newsom, Becerra, and Bonta did not meet that mark,” said Bedoya. “The people who work in the film and TV industry and the small businesses who support it will suffer as a result. And so will everyone who values dissent in our democracy.”

Jessica González, co-CEO of the advocacy group Free Press, also denounced Bonta for reneging on “his promise to enforce the law and protect consumers and workers.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people called on our state AGs to stand up to the Ellisons, who have engaged in a campaign of corruption and extortion to pave the way for this unlawful merger. We can no longer rely on the federal government to enforce the law and protect regular people. That much is clear. But the AGs’ capitulation marks a new low. It’s a sad day for all of us who have been opposing this merger because it will cut jobs and raise prices, all as it consolidates the media even more to enable authoritarians.”

Actor Mark Ruffalo, an outspoken opponent of the merger who was subjected to what critics called a corporate “smear campaign” because of his stance, trained his ire on California’s governor in response to news of the settlement.

“Gavin Newsom hands huge win to Trump and his billionaire cronies,” Ruffalo wrote on social media.

The trial was scheduled to begin in March of next year. In its original lawsuit against the proposed merger—filed shortly after the Trump Justice Department dropped its investigation of the proposed purchase—the coalition of 12 attorneys general warned the deal would “combine two of Hollywood’s five major film distributors and two of the five major basic cable channel owners, extinguishing competition between Paramount and Warner Bros. and inflicting substantial harm on movie theaters, basic cable distributors and, ultimately, audiences nationwide.”

The settlement deal reached Monday also reportedly includes the lawsuit filed by the Writers Guild of America, which represents TV screenwriters and others in the entertainment industry.

Bloomberg reported that the attorneys general of New York, Connecticut, and other states that had pushed back during settlement talks were able to secure “independent editorial boards for CBS and CNN as part of the deal”—though it’s unclear how such boards would function.

“The terms are said to include a financial penalty if the company fails to make good on a promise to distribute 30 films per year in theaters,” Bloomberg added.



The Los Angeles Times noted that Paramount’s purchase of Warner Bros. “will be heavily leveraged.”

“The company’s bankers have lined up nearly $80 billion in debt to finance the merger. [Paramount CEO David] Ellison’s father, billionaire Larry Ellison, late last year agreed to backstop the $47-billion in equity needed to complete the acquisition. Royal families from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi have agreed to chip in $24 billion for an equity stake by assuming some of Ellison’s financial commitments.”

González of Free Press warned Monday that “consolidating the media in the hands of friendly oligarchs is right out of the authoritarian playbook.”

“What’s exceedingly clear is that our laws and our political system are not strong enough to resist the pressure and manipulation of corrupt billionaires,” said González. “We need to strengthen democratic systems of government, including getting money out of politics, and pass laws that break up big media conglomerates. We need to ensure that a few billionaires can’t drown out the masses to dictate bad policy.”

‘Outrageous’: Sanders Slams FCC for Approving Saudi and UAE Ownership of Paramount-Warner Bros.

“We don’t need Middle East dictators to control American media.”

Brendan Carr, commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, speaks at the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee oversight hearing in the US Capitol Building on December 17, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Sep 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday joined a growing chorus of critics angered by the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of foreign investment in the company that would be created if Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery are allowed to merge.

Led by Chair Brendan Carr, an appointee of President Donald Trump, the FCC on Thursday approved Paramount’s petition to allow foreign investors to hold over 25% of ownership. The commission concluded it would be in the “public interest” to greenlight a plan for 49.5% foreign ownership, including 38.5% from investment funds based in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“Trump’s FCC just approved Trump pal David Ellison’s deal to allow Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE to own nearly 50% of a merged Paramount-Warner Bros,” Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media Friday, referring to Paramount’s chair and CEO—and the son of billionaire Republican megadonor Larry Ellison.

The merged company would include CBS, CNN, HBO, the Discovery Channel, BET, Fandango, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount, PlutoTV, Showtime, TBS, The CW, TNT, Warner Bros., and more, the senator noted. He added: “Outrageous: We don’t need Middle East dictators to control American media.”

Anna Gomez, the sole Democratic commissioner, was similarly critical: “The FCC just let some of the most repressive governments in the world indirectly control nearly all of a combined Paramount-Warner Bros. An investment this large in one of America’s biggest media companies doesn’t just buy equity, it secures influence over what gets said and made.”

“That’s why I called for this new and novel issue to go to a full commission vote given what’s at stake,” she noted. “Instead, the FCC snuck this ruling out as a staff-level decision, with no public vote and no accountability for a call of this magnitude.”



Welcoming Gomez’s comments, Michael Sozan pointed to his and Andrew Miller’s June article for the Center for American Progress highlighting that “the three Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes have deep financial relationships with Trump and his family, and... long records of human rights abuses and engage in media censorship.”

“These autocracies could leverage Paramount’s news outlets and other media properties to advance their own interests at the expense of the United States’ national security and foundational rights, including press freedoms,” the pair warned. “Given these factors, these foreign ownership levels are another reason why regulators must rigorously review this merger and take all lawful actions to block it.”

As the Los Angeles Times reported:
Several groups, including the 1st Amendment nonprofit Free Press, asked the FCC to consider additional safeguards to shield the news organizations—CNN and CBS—from foreign control. One suggestion was to spin off CBS and CNN into a subsidiary that would be wholly owned by Americans.

Paramount and the FCC were dismissive, arguing “the concerns raised in the record... are speculative and unsupported,” according to the FCC ruling.



While a Paramount spokesperson welcomed the FCC’s decision not to block the plan—and pointed out that “when the proposed transaction with Warner Bros. Discovery closes, the Ellison family and RedBird will collectively hold the largest equity stake in the combined company and 100% of the voting shares, with no other equity participant having any governance rights”—fresh outrage mounted over the already widely criticized $111 billion merger.

Lee Hepner, an antitrust lawyer and senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, addressed the questions: “But it’s just indirect equity interests, right? What about the condition that the Saudis, UAE, and Qatar cannot interfere with or even comment on any decisions related to content?”

As he explained: “The only way that firewall is conceivably enforceable is if the FCC assigns an independent monitor to sit in on every meeting, taps every burner phone, and is invited to every Signal chat between any representative of Paramount and its new financial backers. The point is not that that should happen, but that this condition is patently unenforceable. Which is all to say, the FCC just approved the sale of a crown jewel of the entertainment and media industry to foreign interests that relish in exercising economic, political, and regional military leverage over the United States. All based on a pinky promise.”

“The reality is that ownership alone, even of nonvoting, indirect equity interests, creates its own financial leverage and influence,” he warned. “To the extent Paramount’s new owners are prohibited from exercising influence, it’s patently paradoxical. Paramount won’t approve anything that risks losing half of its financial backing, including criticizing a regime that not too long ago ordered the execution of a Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, who became an international figurehead for politically persecuted journalists.”

“Does anyone think CBS’ new leadership has the will, much less fortitude, to prioritize truth over financial ruin?” he added. “If this all sounds like a total mess, that’s because it is. And it only becomes doubly worse if Paramount acquires Warner Bros.-Discovery.”



Due to legal pushback from state attorneys general and unions, the merger—which some opponents have condemned as an “existential” threat—is on hold until the outcome of a trial scheduled to begin in March.

War, What Is It Good For?

Absolutely Everything (As Far as Washington Is Concerned)

by Tom Engelhardt | Sep 18, 2026 

Reprinted with permission from Tom Engelhardt’s Substack: 

I was almost six years old when the Korean War began and Korea was a mere 7,000 or so miles from Washington, D.C. I’m now 82 years old and my country is at war with Iran, whose capital, Tehran, is — phew! — only about 6,300 miles from Washington, D.C. What a relief!

By the time I’m 110, there’s a dim possibility that, should that be a pattern (and don’t forget Vietnam, a mere 9,000 miles from Washington; Afghanistan, a mere 7,000 miles away; or Iraq, a mere 6,000-odd miles offshore of the United States, all of which suggest that distance has indeed been a significant — and significantly unnerving — part of American imperial warmaking since 1945), the U.S. might be warring with a country merely 5,000-odd miles from our capital. And by the time I’m 126, the war of that moment might, for all I know, be right next door. (Of course, if Donald Trump, who would then be 124 years old, is still president, it might even be in Canada, “our cherished Fifty First State.”)

I should, in truth, be more used to my country’s distant wars by now. After all, I can still remember my opposition to the Vietnam War, a moment when I actually took to the streets and turned in my draft card in public protest — yes, back then, the military wasn’t an all-volunteer outfit — and also learned how to be a draft counselor to help potential draftees like me, who were against that all too literal war from hell.

Almost 60 years later, I find it strange that my country is once again fighting a distant war for reasons that, at best, make no sense whatsoever to me, and at worst are simply horrific and repetitive beyond belief. It’s a war that, as the New York Times reported, was essentially sold to the president by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a “near-certain victory” against a weak Iranian regime that would prove incapable (no question about it!) of blockading the Strait of Hormuz, could do little harm to America’s allies in the Middle East, and “could foster the conditions for the Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime.”

Yes, it’s true that my country may indeed have been the most imperial — in the sense of influencing so much of the world — country in history with a truly global reach. Of course, there were also the other two great powers of the last half century. There was the Soviet Union — now, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which, to give him credit of an unnerving sort, is at least fighting his nightmarish war against Ukraine right at or near its own border rather than in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. And then there is China, which has so far proven itself a remarkable imperial force by having but a single military base anywhere else on the planet — unlike the 750 American ones scattered around the globe — and not fighting a war anywhere other than not particularly successfully against Vietnam in 1979 and border skirmishes with India in 2020 and 2021 (which, historically speaking on this planet of ours, is almost the imperial equivalent of pacifism).

No such luck for the United States of Donald J. Trump, of course. “Our” latest president has continued a tradition now more than 75 years old of launching distant wars that simply never succeed. Never.

You would think, of course, that there might be some extremely modest learning curve when it came to such conflicts, but if so, you would think wrong. Logical as that might appear, it’s proven to be anything but the reality of our world. And after so many failed wars globally, that’s once again our reality in relation to Iran, despite the fact that “our” president in his first term in office offered this description of himself: “They said: ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

And curiously enough, with the exception of an ongoing conflict in Syria, he stuck to his… oh, sorry, but it is the phrase… guns then. No such luck recently, of course. And Iran is turning into a disaster first class, while the harm to that country is, as with all such wars (remember the millions killed in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), or at least should be considered, unbearable. And mind you, while “our” president was turning our world into an ever greater mess at home and abroad, he was still planning to extend his renaming frenzy from the Gulf of Mexico (oh, sorry, the Gulf of America) and Lake Ontario (oh, sorry, again, Lake America) to the Strait of Hormuz, which he was hoping, believe it or not, could be renamed the “Trump Strait.” As he wrote at his Truth Social account, “Now that we have it under U.S.A. control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT??? Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Imagine that, will you — not that the Strait of Whatever You Want to Call It was, in fact, faintly under American control.

And for what acts might it be renamed? Well, just as I was writing this piece, for instance, accounts appeared indicating that a missile launched by my country reportedly killed at least four people, including a four-year-old child, and wounded another 68 at a wedding — yes, a wedding! — in Iran.

Oh, and let me at least add that, right here at home, one American was finally brought to justice for his acts — in this case, U.S. Air Force Major Jason Watson, who had stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and called for the impeachment of President Trump. As he told CNN, “Not only is [Trump] a failure as president, he is flagrantly violating the Constitution, breaking the law, engaged in rampant corruption, and is killing Americans. And that is unacceptable to me.”

And as it turns out, it’s also unacceptable to the Iranians. Since, despite what Benjamin Netanyahu assured “my” president about, they have indeed been capable both of attacking American allies and a whole string of American military bases in the Middle East with missiles and drones, while indeed largely shutting down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and so driving up oil prices strikingly on a global level.

There are so many things that are truly needed on this overheating planet of ours, how deeply sad (not to say genuinely pathetic) that the best thing the president of the United States and his advisors could find to do this year was launch a war halfway around the world that would kill all too many people, ruin worlds (and weddings), pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and waste enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars thousands of miles from home at a moment when all too many people in this very country still need so much.

Why is it, I wonder, that American presidents of seemingly any stripe simply can’t stop launching distant, disastrous wars with our tax dollars? In some sense, I simply don’t understand. How can there be no learning curve whatsoever when it comes to American wars abroad since 1945? How thick-headed do you truly have to be not to notice an overwhelming pattern of lack of success (not to say outright failure)? It’s so obvious that there should be no way it wouldn’t be a front-and-center phenomenon no one could miss or ignore?

No such luck, of course.

[I’ve recently been recommending other authors’ books at this spot above my Substack pieces. Today, let me recommend a book I only recently reread by an author I’ve known remarkably well all these years. His name is Tom Engelhardt and, back in the early 1990s, he wrote a book he called The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation, which he updated in 2007 (a mere 19 years ago). And I have to tell you that I think it still reads remarkably well and remains sadly apt for our grim Trumpian moment and the war in… no, not Vietnam anymore, of course, but Iran. In fact, I’m not alone when it comes to such an opinion. In July, historian David W. Blight had an op-ed in the New York Times in which he wrote, “The journalist and editor Tom Engelhardt, in his book ‘The End of Victory Culture,’ showed how in the 1950s and ‘60s, across popular culture, ‘triumphalism was in the American grain.’ With children’s toys, cartoons and popular magazines, and especially at the movies, ‘the pleasures of victory culture’ were ‘an act of faith.’ All of us who grew up in this overweening Cold War culture of the 1950s, including and especially Mr. Trump, remember this well, with wildly different lessons.”

And let me add a note about something else entirely: I want all the readers who have “liked” one of my recent Substack pieces to know that I do indeed get a notice of your “liking” it and am always deeply pleased. Unfortunately, this old man just can’t take the time to respond to those reactions, but I wanted you to be aware that I take in every single one of them and they make me feel great! Tom]

Tom Engelhardt created and ran the website TomDispatch.com for nearly 25 years. He was also a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, “The End of Victory Culture.”

Trump Threatens to Rename Strait of Hormuz for Himself as War Pushes Diesel Prices Toward Record High

One petroleum industry analyst now projects potential record-breaking prices for diesel fuel by Labor Day.



US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with travel industry executives in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 2, 2026.
(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Brad Reed
Sep 02, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


More than six months after starting an illegal war with Iran, President Donald Trump is now threatening to rename the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure at the start of the conflict led to a global spike in energy prices.

In a Wednesday social media post, Trump falsely claimed that the strait is “under USA control” and then mused on whether to “change the name... to TRUMP STRAIT???”

“Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before!” the president added. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

In reality—despite Trump’s previous threats to declare the vital commercial waterway a US territory—the US does not have control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply travels.

Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday that Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait authority has added eleven more ships to its list of more than 50 vessels that are banned from traveling in the strait.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday also claimed that two oil tankers that were traversing the strait caught fire after striking sea mines, according to Al Jazeera.

The price of Brent crude petroleum rose once again during Wednesday trading, climbing up over $95 per barrel. Data released Wednesday by the American Automobile Association (AAA) showed that the price of gas in the US has risen to $4.12 per gallon, while the price of diesel fuel has risen to $5.69 per gallon.

While most Americans deal with the price of gasoline on a daily basis, the price of diesel fuel might have an even larger impact on the overall economy given that diesel is used to power the vehicles that ship consumer goods in the US.

In a Wednesday social media post, petroleum industry analyst Patrick De Haan wrote that diesel prices are rising so quickly that “we could even break the all-time diesel record ($5.819/gal) by Labor Day.”

Last month, Trump responded to collapsed trade talks with Canada by renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” Much like the illegal war with Iran, Trump’s trade war with Canada is raising prices on goods paid for by US consumers.

Facing the Crooked of Hormuz

During the Reign (Rain?) of Donald Trump

by Tom Engelhardt | Sep 1, 2026 |

Reprinted with permission from Tom Engelhardt’s Substack: 

I was born on July 20, 1944, in the midst of World War II. My father had just returned from Burma where he had been operations officer for the 1st Air Commandos in the China-India-Burma Theater. I, of course, remember nothing about that war – except that my father (on extremely rare occasions) would barely mention what he had gone through but would sometimes take me to World War II movies like The Caine Mutiny and Merrill’s Marauders at local movie theaters.

In a country that has never stopped fighting wars, however, that’s certainly the last one that any American could truly be proud of, the global defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

In fact, we’re talking about a country that, between 2001 and 2024, spent an estimated $21 trillion on its military, which, it turns out, was equal to the military spending of the next 18 – yes, 18! – countries combined (if you can even believe it). And in those years, of course, like the 55 preceding ones, the United States managed to never – no, never – actually win a significant war (or, in truth, even come close). In short, Donald Trump’s present disastrous war with Iran is anything but out of the ordinary when it comes to American military power destroying all too much, but sooner or later finding itself in a remarkably dead-end situation (with an emphasis on dead, of course).

Just imagine for a moment that you had been asked in 2001 to invest $21 trillion taxpayer dollars in a military that would fight wars across the planet without a success in sight after World War II (other than perhaps the invasion of the helpless Caribbean Island of Grenada in 1983). It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about the Korean War of 1950, the nightmarish Vietnam War that engulfed the 1960s and early 1970s, the Afghan and Iraq wars of this country’s calamitous War on Terror early in this century, or more recently Donald Trump’s wars, which have proven to be one disaster after another, from Somalia to Iran at this very moment.

And that should be considered strange indeed. I doubt there’s another example in history of a great imperial power that, for a significant part of its rise (and potential fall) simply couldn’t win a war.

It certainly gives that old song “War (What Is It Good For?)” with the response “absolutely nothing” new meaning. Of course, if you happen to be Donald Trump and you’re the president who simply can’t win a war (which certainly leaves you in good company among American presidents of the last 80 years or so), then the least you can do, when it comes to Iran, is declare that the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of global oil and even more natural gas used to pass and which was closed down by the Iranians in response to his warring acts (distinctly harming the global economy), is now actually U.S. property, or, to be specific, a potential “territory of the United States.” (Phew, that was exhausting!)

And hard as it might be to believe, he really did say that recently. How logical, right? After all, it’s only perhaps 6,500 miles or so from Washington, D.C. So, what could possibly make more sense?

Of course, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi responded that, whatever Trump might think, the Strait “cannot be seized with a tweet, nor with an aircraft carrier, nor by issuing an order, nor through an election speech.” He added, “This strait will only be opened and closed under Iran’s command, and as long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and stop indulging in delusions, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade.”

Defeat Donald Trump? In what world could that possibly happen? How delusional could the Iranians be about our distinctly delusional president?

Oh, but in case you think that’s just so much enemy blather, the fact is that, in the ongoing war with Iran, the U.S. has already lost about one quarter of its crucial Reaper Drones, valued at $30 to $50 million each (or more than $1.3 billion worth of them), mainly around – yes, of course! – the Strait of Hormuz. And many of them have been taken down by Iranian drones valued at $20,000 to $50,000 each.

And while losing so many of its drones, the Trump administration has also been losing other things as well, including its previous insistence that a complete Iranian surrender was the order of the day. No longer, it seems. Now, all that it appears Donald Trump wants (whatever he’s said) is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the free flow of oil and natural gas globally. In other words, what he now yearns for is essentially a return to the very situation that existed six months ago just before he launched his disastrous war.

Or as Vice President J.D. Vance put it recently, all the Trump administration now wants is to ensure “that the Gulf countries continue to send oil and gas to the world economy so that we have energy price stability,” and, of course, to ensure as well that the Iranians won’t ever have a nuclear weapon. No matter that, as far as anyone knows, they are not faintly close to having, no less possibly even trying to develop such a weapon.

On the other hand, the Iranians are now threatening to continue the state of war with the U.S. until the end of Trump’s second term in office in 2028 (and his approval ratings are, of course, already plunging to new lows). As a senior adviser to the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard put it, “One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost… We have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security.”

And let’s not forget that, lest you think Donald Trump has learned anything from all of this, he has only recently been threatening to “bomb the shit out of” long-time American ally Oman, if it “gets in the way” of his Iranian plans – and what, I ask you, could possibly go wrong with that? (I can’t even imagine.)

Of course, we’re talking about the rule (or do I mean reign – or perhaps I actually mean rain, or even thunderstorms or tornados?) of Donald Trump, a president for whom, according to a recent poll, only 29% of potential voters in the coming midterm elections approve of how he’s handling the situation with Iran.

And yet, sad to say, what’s new? Not much, it seems. After all, Trump, who may indeed be unique in so many ways, is proving anything but unique as president of the greatest power on planet Earth (in certain ways, perhaps the greatest in history) when it comes to making war all too miserably, even disastrously. In fact, give him a certain amount of credit. After all, despite what anyone, including him, might have learned from American history since 1945, he decided to go to war with Iran anyway in 2026. It evidently mattered not at all to him that the most obvious and self-evident fact about American warmaking since 1945 is that defeat (or minimally nothing faintly approaching victory) would essentially be guaranteed. And yet, he still managed to launch another disastrous all-American war on this distinctly embattled planet of ours.

At the very least, the Iranians should consider renaming the Strait of Hormuz, the Crooked of Donald Trump, and let me just hope that I’ll never have to take one of my grandchildren to a movie about his disastrous war.

Tom Engelhardt created and ran the website TomDispatch.com for nearly 25 years. He was also a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, “The End of Victory Culture.”