“Candidate Donald Trump thought that bombing Yemen was “just a failed mentality” when then-President Joe Biden did it. “It’s crazy. You can solve problems over the telephone. Instead, they start dropping bombs. I see, recently, they’re dropping bombs all over Yemen. You don’t have to do that. You can talk in such a way where they respect you and they listen to you,” Trump said in a May 2024″
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“Trump is now dropping bombs all over Yemen. Over the weekend, the U.S. military launched its first air raids on Yemen in months, hitting targets around the country and killing at least 53 people. Sources in the administration have told The New York Times that the attacks will continue for weeks”
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“Instead of calling Biden a warmonger, as he had a year ago, Trump claimed on Sunday that Biden’s “pathetically weak” policy had allowed “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism” against American shipping.”
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“Trump’s notoriously hawkish national security adviser, Mike Waltz, thinks this campaign will be different. “These were not kind of pinprick, back and forth—what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks. This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here is, one, going after the Houthi leadership, and two, holding Iran responsible,” he told ABC on Sunday.”
“The country’s air force has recommended buying the jets, but the outgoing defense minister said “the predictability of our allies” must be taken into account when making procurement decisions.”
“The U.S. halt in sending military aid to Ukraine could leave the country vulnerable to aerial attacks just as Russia is gearing up for a massive increase in drone and missile strikes.
Ukraine has a reported six MIM-104 Patriot missile batteries — used to protect some of the country’s highest priority targets. The Patriot, with a range of about 160 kilometers, is one of the few systems Ukraine operates that can hit distant targets and knock down Russian ballistic missiles like the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missile.
The pause in deliveries of U.S. weapons coincides with signs that Russia will double down on longstanding efforts to exhaust Ukraine’s remaining supplies of Patriot air-defense missiles. And with no chance of any immediate replenishment from Washington, that leaves Ukraine’s infrastructure and key cities highly exposed.
If the U.S. ends the delivery of Patriot missiles, Ukraine could potentially be supplied by other countries that have acquired the U.S. system.”
Russian victory is not inevitable. Russian territorial progress has been slow, by May 9th Russian will have lost a million soldiers killed or wounded, Russia has about a year’s worth of armored vehicles left, Russian logistics is using: civilian vans, golf buggies, and donkeys, and the Russian economy is making huge sacrifices to support the wartime economy.
Trump fires top military lawyers so they aren’t roadblocks to anything Trump wants to do. But, the lawyers are supposed to be roadblocks! They are there to help the military follow the law and the Constitution.
“contrary to what Musk claimed, tackling “waste, fraud, and abuse” cannot possibly generate enough savings to eliminate the annual budget deficit, which was nearly $2 trillion in fiscal year 2024, let alone reduce the ever-climbing national debt, which currently exceeds $36 trillion, including $29 trillion in debt held by the public.”
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“Even if Musk succeeds in curtailing “waste, fraud, and abuse,” there is only so much he can accomplish by focusing on “driving change through executive action based on existing legislation,” which is how he described his agenda last November. Any serious attempt to reduce federal borrowing will require new legislation that addresses the main drivers of federal spending, including Social Security, Medicare, and the military budget. But the platform on which Trump ran takes all those things off the table while promising pricey policies that will only exacerbate the problem that Musk decries.”