“Is One O’Clock OK?”

Trump “obliterates” himself

Today has been full of fascist theatrics, a never-ending parade of people who hate Donald Trump, worship Donald Trump, and hate Donald Trump but pretend to worship Donald Trump. It’s a mind-warping exercise to parse it all and try to come out sane. Nevertheless, I will give it a go.

Trump spent the day at NATO, whose Secretary General Mark Rutte has an obsequious demeanor towards Trump, but something tells me that’s not quite what it seems. Trump posted what appears to be a private text message from Rutte to Truth Social. It’s… something.

Apparent text message from Mark Rutte to Donald Trump

The Secretary General of NATO is an extremely serious position, tasked with protecting Europe, the United States and other member nations from military attack—billions of lives. This is not a serious text message. This is from someone who has numerous assets available to him, including experts in psychological warfare. This text message was an individually designed psyop that Trump revealed by taking it at face value and posting it to show how dominant he is.

But Trump has this all wrong of course. This was not a personally written message at all. This was NATO playing the same game everyone else in the world is, and asking the same questions.

How do you get into the head of Donald Trump? How do you get what you want and make him think he won?

NATO and Rutte’s answer was a strong one, and it was craftily written so it wouldn’t be a disaster if it was publicized. Money. You make Trump feel like he made the best deal of all time, you make him believe it was all his idea, and you convince him you’re going to let him be the star. Throw in some ALL CAPS, a “Mr. President,” and bob’s-your-uncle, you have a new best friend on Air Force One.

While NATO itself appeared to be making inroads into the head of America’s wobbly dictator, it was not just Mark Rutte that was drilling into his orange noggin. In the Middle East, apparently, Bibi Netanyahu called in all his chips at once.

Trump posted an absolute eruption of performative adoration for Bibi Netanyahu, who has been yanking Trump’s chain for a really long time, including convincing Trump to rip up the JCPOA in 2018, essentially creating the current “crisis” with Iran.

What If We Could Agree On One Thing?

So I cannot help but imagine that Bibi must have reminded Trump that he has the “Epstein Files”—or something. This is just not normal, even for Trump.

Truth begging Israel to pardon Netanyahu, Bibi

Apparently Bibi’s extension for skipping out on his corruption trials in Israel are up and he has a court date on Monday, so Trump is begging for Netanyahu to be pardoned as a “Great Hero”—something that as far as I can tell has no chance of happening.

At the same time, the obscure Israeli Atomic Energy Commission came out with an assessment that (kind of) bolstered Donald Trump’s repeated, false assertion that Iran’s nuclear sites had been “obliterated” by the embarrassingly named “Operation Midnight Hammer.” Honestly, the quid pro quo could not be any clearer.

Regardless, as published by the normally Trump-friendly New York Post, apparently all of the nuclear material had been carried away before the bombing by a caravan of trucks at Fordo. The material for ten nukes only weighs 900 kilograms.

Professional sycophant Steve Witkoff gave away the game by admitting that Trump is now dropping sanctions on Iran which allows China to buy oil from the terrorist regime that Trump just claimed was mere months from a nuclear weapon.

“He’s got this uncanny ability to take the temperature of how people are feeling… I think this was a signal to the Chinese that we want to work with you.”

But Trump continued to make things worse for himself by getting on the microphone and telling the story of how he, or someone he knew, had approved the time that Iran was going to fire 14 missiles at a US air base.

“14 missiles were shot at us the other day. And they were very nice. They gave us a warning. They said we're going to shoot them. Is one o'clock okay? They said it's fine. And everybody was emptied off the base. So they couldn't get hurt except for the gunners. They call ‘em the gunners. And out of 14 high end missiles that were shot at the base in Qatar, all 14 as you know were shot down by our equipment.“

Whether you want to believe this story or not, the fact that any Commander-In-Chief would admit to authorizing an attack on his own troops should be a screaming hair-on-fire scandal. Nevertheless, we have become too numb for even this to break through.

But Bibi Netanyahu is not the only person putting serious pressure on Trump. In Washington DC, there were a few magnificent moments as various members of the Trump regime strutted for an audience of one in the Senate Finance Committee, including Kari Lake who went full Jonestown by holding up a picture of Dear Leader to justify destroying the Voice of America.

Kari Lake, Emil Bove, Roy Cohn

But perhaps the wildest moment came when Senator Adam Schiff grilled a nominee to be federal judge, former Trump defense lawyer Emil Bove, who bears a striking resemblance to former Trump defense lawyer Roy Cohn, about reports that Bove told prosecutors at DOJ to say “Fuck You” to the courts. I added a meter to keep track of how many times Schiff said it.

Before he was Donald’s lawyer, Roy Cohn worked for Donald’s father Fred, and for Joseph McCarthy, who weaponized the investigative power of the Senate to go after political opponents as “communists”. Well, lo and behold, here comes Donald Trump today to smear the presumptive Democratic nominee to be Mayor of New York City, the electric Democratic socialist candidate, Zohrani Mamdani, as a “Communist Lunatic.”

Mamdani’s rise is an extraordinary sign, and as far as I’m concerned, a very good one. His victory puts the lie to the idea that we must be timid about the people we support or put forward as candidates for office. The defeat of Andrew Cuomo, a neoliberal establishment hack with abuser issues, is just as welcome.

But perhaps the biggest wild card today came from the most dangerous adversary. “Putin’s Brain” Aleksandr Dugin, once a loud and proud supporter of Trump and MAGA, has fallen decidedly out of love. On Russian state media, an AI-generated version of Dugin declares that by targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, Donald Trump started WWIII—and opened a “Pandora’s Box” for the use of nuclear weapons.

Donald Trump did not “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear program, but he is currently on the road to either obliterating himself, or the planet, whichever comes first.

---

If you are able to help me continue my work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. It really means a lot. Thank you!

Here are a few benefits to upgrading:

• Live Zoom call each Sunday

• Substack Live AMA every week, video posted for paid subscribers

• Ability to comment and access all content

• Wonderful, supportive community

• Helping independent journalism fill in the gaps for our failing media

Thank you for reading and sharing my work. Grateful for your support.

If you’d like to help me with expenses, here is my DonorBox. 💙

If you’d like to help with my legal fees: stopmikeflynn.com.

My podcast is @radicalizedpod & YouTube — Livestream is Thursdays at 4PM PT.

Bluesky 🦋: jim-stewartson

Threads: jimstewartson

Tiktok: @jimstewartson