Blood is on someone’s hands. Scores of schoolgirls, other civilians, 6 American military members killed. More likely to come. It’s so very cold.

Oh well, The Donald says– from the luxurious comfort of Mar a Lago, adorned with another stupid hat. Such are the consequences of war, whether it’s declared or just foisted on a population.

War is war, something at which humans have always excelled, but the saddest of commentaries on our species. And in the current case, it may very well serve the additional purpose of an excuse for postponing the mid-term elections.

How long will hostilities last—a week, four or five weeks, months, years? How about for as long as Trump needs them to last? He’s been talking about starting a war with Iran since Barack Obama was President, saying he would be surprised if Obama wasn’t desperate enough to create such a distraction.

Obama most likely never gave it a thought, but Trump has brought it to fruition, because he’s a soulless animal, a vessel of darkness from which no light escapes. It has always been difficult to comprehend the emptiness, the desperation, the depravity, yet we’ve been living with their consequences for more than ten years now.

Of course, it’s not just Donald. There are many others around him for whom starting a war in a hotbed like the Middle East is just what the doctor ordered. Slick-haired Petey boy is having the time of his life playing Secretary of War– ooh….

Trouble is, their twisted logic may lead to a scenario that spirals out of control.

No! Really? In a quiet little hamlet like the Middle East?

Meanwhile, at home, the cost of living rises, and untenable choices become the order of the day. And POTUS couldn’t give less of a shit.

To listen to Senators and House members when they’re interviewed, I’ve come to believe that very few of them actually have a handle on any given situation. Most repeat and parrot other opinions and talking points and do their best to make themselves sound like they’re in the loop and informed. But there is often a tell that indicates they’re just well-versed in media speak.

There are exceptions—Jamie Raskin and Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, maybe Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Jasmine Crockett, and Adam Schiff when he’s not engaged in tortured attempts at being cutting edge and culturally hip.

Most Republicans are lap dogs, still fully on the Trump bandwagon. Any rumors of cracks in the Trump façade are frustratingly overblown, though one might be forgiven for daring to hope that, lately, there’s reason for optimism– that the train might be heading for derailment.

It’s frustrating to think that, more often than not, interviewees on the news shows are either not as informed as we’d like to believe, or they’re measuring their words and being careful not to give anything away or piss someone off.

And stop prefacing your comments by starting off with “Look…”

To listen to John Bolton, Donald Trump is smarter than many give him credit for. I’ve always found Bolton to be refreshing, somehow, despite his hawkish views, if only because he speaks eloquently and plainly, and maybe isn’t afraid to call ‘em as he sees ‘em without being a blindly loyal coattail kind of guy.

Still, I wish he wasn’t so ready to give Trump so much credit. That’s a hard pill to swallow. He’s making it sound like Trump was fully aware of the stakes in attacking Iran and that there was no influence from Bibi Netanyahu, but that seems a bit pie-in-the-sky to me.

Trump is a narcissist—he lives for compliments and consequently opens himself to manipulation from career politicians and hardened operators like Netanyahu and Putin and the rest of the rogues’ gallery.

I know the folks at MS Now and other left-leaning news outlets are alarmed by what’s happening in the aftermath of the attacks on Tehran and elsewhere in Iran, but in Bolton’s opinion, Trump is doing just fine and will somehow handle this potential planetary conflagration. I don’t share his confidence, and neither should anyone else.

Trump is way out of his league, and what’s been initiated in Iran may make the Iraq debacle look like child’s play.

The latest, already-cliched phrase is “war of choice.” Trump is hoping we’re so consumed by this that we forget about the Epstein files and everything else clamoring for a piece of him.

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We really are suckers for appearances. Surface attractiveness, skin-deep beauty. Our national symbol is a bald eagle—majestic and intimidating, but by nature just a deadly scavenger.

We elect people with “charisma,” people with the gift of gab who are physically attractive even as they are deficient in character, and often devoid of traits needed for meeting the challenges of competent leadership.

We fixate on fame and fortune– Hollywood notables who need almost constant ego feeding, who ride the wave of visibility and get paid megabucks for immersing themselves in a role and memorizing lines and playing make-believe; musical “artists” who become commercial successes while lacking substance or any real talent, and titans of industry who love their lifestyles and pedal influence merely by virtue of having a ton of money to throw around.

We spend too much time wallowing in the shallows.

We must try to find the words, even though Donald Trump and the misfit toys around him have tried to dull our senses and flood the zone and exhaust us with the constant drama and misdirection. This nightmare of an administration has upped the ante now, with the assassination of the Ayatollah and attack on Iranian targets.

It is not easy to settle for the obvious calculus—that this is, unbelievably, still all about the Epstein files. But Trump has been caught in lies so often that maybe we’ve learned to maintain our focus on what makes the most sense: the man is desperate and deprived, and he would most definitely encourage this vast military build-up and put Americans in harm’s way simply in order to divert attention from the domestic rat’s nest he appears to be consumed by.

And, as Rachel Maddow suggested last night, he pre-emptively has paved the way for who-knows-what sort of measures to ensure that the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election are tampered with—because, you know, Iran was involved in attempts to tamper with the 2020 and 2024 elections and we must guard against such eventualities going forward…

With this outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, Trump and Hegseth and the rest have perhaps unleashed the latest unwinnable 20-year war, or worse– because it gave Hegseth a chance to live into his self-proclaimed moniker– Secretary of War– and it provided yet more false praise and cover for Trump, who, as it turns out, is nothing more than putty in the hands of people like Miller and Vought and Putin and Netanyahu.

All the home improvement shows have one characteristic in common: the Reveal, and snippets of Before and After. I think this is what makes any project worth doing. Seeing transformation, change for the better.

I get a dose of this even when I mow the lawn, get the dishes done, or do laundry. There’s great satisfaction in developing a plan, no matter how modest, and then committing and following through.