A War Run by Incompetence is Scary

Of all the actions by President Trump which have aggravated or scared me, and there have been some that have not, the attack on Iran is a monumental scare in comparison to any of his others.  It is obvious that there was no basic understanding of the consequences of such action.  Now, simply because of their proximity to Iran, countries that had nothing to do with the attack are suffering both infrastructural and human loses because of U.S. actions.  Consequentially, they have been forced to protect themselves and been drawn into a retaliatory conflict which they had no decision in.

The reasons for the Iran attack are also unclear. First, it was to free its people from the oppression of the Iranian regime, next it switched to destroying Iran’s nuclear capability, then to the excuse that Trump, and I quote, “had a feeling” that Iran was on verge of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the U.S. (Weapons of Mass Destruction?), and finally to the reason that Israel was about to attack Iran on its own and we knew that the U.S. would also be blamed for this attack and retaliated against by Iran..  So, we had to strike first for protection.

However, because the person in charge is a former businessman, surrounding himself with individuals whose major qualification for their jobs is unconditional loyalty as opposed to competence and prior experience, there existed a complete vacuum of the understanding of the political and religious intertwining which exist among the nations of the Middle East and the havoc that would result if not expertly understood and considered.

Simply put, there was no strategy. One clear example was the fact that just like the Biden withdrawal fiasco from Afghanistan, there was no plan to deal with those Americans and foreigners in Iran at the time of the attack. They were stuck there with a no plan to get them out.  Consequently, their lives were placed at risk.

Additionally, anyone with an understanding of Middle East geography would have secured the Strait of Hormuz located next to Iran before the attack to ensure that the 20% of the world’s oil supply that ships through there would not be disrupted.  Iran has virtually closed that waterway.  But than again why would we expect that strategy to occur since our Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is a former Fox News celebrity who has surrounded himself with loyalists verses experts.

Furthermore, regarding the nuclear threat of Iran, according to U.S. Intelligence Agency info there was no indication that Iran was planning to attack the U.S. or had the capability to do so.  But then again Trump had “a feeling” about it, so I guess that’s reason enough to attack.  Also let’s not forget that last June the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities and according to President Trump "completely and totally obliterated" Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities, describing the operation as a "spectacular military success.” 

However, the sadist part about this entire fiasco is the notion that this U.S intervention will eventually lead to the overthrow of  the present Iran oligarchy and free its people from oppression.  Realistically this isn’t going to pan out the way the Iranian people think because after Israel, the U.S., and the other nations drawn into this conflict/war are finished bombing Iran there will be nothing left of its infrastructure or habitable land. It will be just like what Gaza is now, complete devastation and rubble.

And those U.S. citizens of Iranian descent who celebrated the U.S. attack aren’t the ones living daily in a country now being destroyed by bombs and having to face the reality about how they will survive once the bombing stops and they are now trapped in the rubble of a completely decimated country. 

So, in the U.S., while we complain about the increase in the price of gasoline as a consequence of this ill-conceived aggressive act (war), that pales in comparison to the suffering of the Iranian people watching their infrastructures, cities, towns, villages and loved ones wiped off the face of the earth, and those in other counties suffering the destructions of a war they were drawn into. One they didn’t want or start.

But then again, as our president said, those are “the realities of war.”  And while President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, will eventually be able to brag about their tremendous success in winning this war, in reality, there will be no winners at all.

Trump Cares Little About Our Health-It's All About the Money

As some of you may have gleaned, I am not a big fan of our current president. However, while I do like some of President Trump’s policies, for the most part I find his environmental policies which include relaxing the pollution standards for waterways and air along with the cancellation of one of the largest federal court cases against the Denka Performance Elastomer Company in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" over chloroprene emissions, bordering on insane.  Additionally, adding to this insanity was his recent executive order relaxing the amount of mercury and other toxins emitted from coal burning power plants which are known to harm brain development in young children and lead to heart attacks and lung diseases in adults.

However, last week Trump even out did himself in failing to protect the health of U.S. citizens when by executive order he prioritized the U.S. production of the herbicide glyphosate and reduced the liabilities for companies producing this product.

In case you don’t know what glyphosate is it is the main ingredient in Roundup, and there are numerous studies supporting its link to cancer. The company, Monsanto, originally sold Roundup but was bought and merge with the German chemical producer Bayer in 2018 for $63 billion.

Despite the acquisition Bayer has struggled with thousands of lawsuits alleging Roundup's main ingredient, glyphosate, causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  In addition to previous settlements, in 2025, a Georgia jury awarded $2.1 billion in a case highlighting the continued risks. And, in fact, as recently as February, 2026, a new proposed class action settlement of $7.25 billion will address some 65,000 pending lawsuits with the funds to be paid over 21 years.  This latest settlement has led Bayer to consider taking Roundup off the public market completely.

However, what further underscores President Trump’s ill-conceived dangerous decision is the fact that as early as 2018, Germany, the home of Bayer, banned the use of glyphosate in public spaces, and implemented a total ban of its use at the beginning of 2019.

Sadly, in spite of all these factual warning signs, President Trump saw fit to use the Defense Production Act to justify this latest move, claiming it is in the interest of national security.  The justification is, and I quote, it allows U.S. farmers to "efficiently and cost effectively produce food and livestock feed."

Ironically, it seems to me that the biggest threat to our national security is the herbicide itself since it is presently killing U.S. citizens.

Sometimes with the present folks in charge, it is the stuff that flies under the radar and doesn’t make headline news that are the biggest threats to ‘Making American Great Again.’  And if some of these executive orders seem counter-productive to what is best for the U.S., just follow the money trail, because that's always the bottom line with these folks.

N. O. Catholic Church Leaders are Joyful

I am sure the Archdiocese of New Orleans is extremely happy with the settlement terms of the child abuse case.  While monetary awards will never compensate these individuals for the suffering they endured from these church predators, the monetary amount these victims will receive, after attorney fees are deducted, pales in comparison to the horrific acts they endured.

But the real tragedy of the settlement is that no higher ups in the Catholic Church were prosecuted or sent to jail, including New Orleans Archbishop Aymond.  These higher ups knew about these church pedophiles and simply ignored the complaints, or just repeatedly transferred these individuals to different locations.  They all served as an accessory to the crimes by covering them by whatever means deemed necessary.

All these priests reported to a supervisor and these folks were ultimately responsible for their actions and needed to deal with them.

While I am sure it is important for these abused individuals to finally find some closure to this long, drawn-out case, in reality, it is the Catholic Church who got a sweet deal.

The Bugs Know It All

Well hurricane season is over and we escaped without even one entering the gulf from the Atlantic Ocean.  To many this came as an unexpected surprise given the number of hurricanes predicted to form by national forecast organizations.  However, I was not worried as the season progressed because I relied on an old New Orleans’ wives tail to predict the chances of a serious hurricane forming in the gulf, namely, lovebugs.

Years ago, when I first moved to New Orleans, I was told by an elderly New Orleans native that the amount of lovebugs, those small nasty black bugs that collect all over the front of your car from mid-August through September, indicted the number of storms that would enter the gulf and turn into hurricanes.

And guess what, these creatures seem to be more accurate than our local weather forecasters.  For example, last year many lovebugs, and 8 storms in the gulf, and this year very, very few lovebugs and no hurricanes actually entered the gulf.  This was noteworthy because it was the first time since 2015 that no hurricanes made landfall in the U.S., and the first time since 2019 that no major hurricanes impacted Florida.

So, there you have it.  Apparently those messy lovebugs know all about hurricanes and could teach a thing or two to our local weather gurus