What WSJ Said about Stephen Miller at 9PM on a Friday

WSJ published a curious profile of Stephen Miller at 9PM on Friday night.

Bylined by accomplished Trump-whisperer Josh Dawsey, first, and accomplished journalist Rebecca Balhaus, second, it runs over 1800-words — a considerable journalistic investment.

It tells us a number of things we already know. “Stephen Miller wanted to keep the planes in the air—and that is where they stayed,” the lede implies, but does not confirm, that Miller was the one who ordered DHS to defy Judge Boasberg’s order not to deport migrants to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act, a topic currently being contested in discovery in that lawsuit.

“He has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed,” it notes, without commenting on the typos and fabrications that permeate the orders. He’s the guy — again, we already knew this — who launched jihads against institutions that an extremist like him would view as liberal. “He has been responsible for the administration’s broadsides against universitieslaw firms and even museums.”

The article doesn’t include Miller’s native California in that particular sentence, though over 30 paragraphs later, it describes him claiming to know what is good for — what WSJ seemingly paraphrases as — California’s own “citizens,” always a loaded word when you’re discussing Stephen Miller.

Miller, who grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., said large swaths of Los Angeles were engaged in a “rebellion,” according to people present.

Los Angeles had become like Cancún, he said—it was fine to visit, but not good for its own citizens. To conclude the event, Leavitt told the crowd that Miller needed to return to his work of deportations.

WSJ’s description of his possibly unlawful role in invading his home state appears just five paragraphs after confirming he was the guy who targeted universities and law firms, linking to the WSJ story that remains the best report on Miller’s demands for more bodies, though neither of the journalists bylined on this story had a byline on the other one.

His orders to increase arrests regardless of migrants’ criminal histories set off days of protests in Los Angeles. Miller coordinated the federal government’s response, giving orders to agencies including the Pentagon, when Trump sent in the Marines and the National Guard, according to officials familiar with the matter.

And that paragraph fingering Miller for the invasion of California immediately follows a paragraph that describes that he “suggested” using the Alien Enemies Act but stops short of confirming that he’s the guy who made the declaration, even though Trump himself disclaimed doing so.

Miller, who isn’t a lawyer, is the official who first suggested using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants, which the Justice Department pursued. He also privately, then publicly, floated suspending habeas corpus, or the right for prisoners to challenge their detention in court, which the administration hasn’t tried. That prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials.

WSJ includes the observation that Miller’s call to suspend habeas corpus “prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials” and that “the administration hasn’t tried” that legal move in a different paragraph than one that claims, “There are some limits to his influence.” The paragraph that purports to describe the limits to his influence includes just one thing he didn’t get (an effort to kill the Meta antitrust case) but also includes one thing he did, at least so far (a reversal of the decision to limit deportations).

There are some limits to his influence. He was supportive of Meta’s push to settle its antitrust case, which fell flat. Trump last week signaled concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive, calling for a pause in some deportations that he has since rolled back. Trump, asked how Miller’s directives on deportations squared with his own, declined to put distance between the two of them. “We have a great understanding,” Trump said.

There are few hints as to how Miller wields power. His office is steps from the Oval Office — again, we knew that — and “some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller, effectively bypassing cabinet secretaries,” that must include Homeland Security, which would be pertinent to mention given that one of the dishiest tidbits in the whole article is that in Trump’s first term, Trump refused to give Miller a leadership role at Homeland Security. “Trump declined, according to a former administration official, telling aides he thought Miller wasn’t leader material.”

The article describes Miller’s success pushing for a travel ban in the first Administration and notes he expanded the list to twelve this time around. But it doesn’t mention that a leaked cable disclosing that Trump is considering expanding that list to 36 countries, including most of Africa, a leak that has been broadly replicated in a way that indicates real pushback.

The article alludes to “Several White House staffers” who observe that Miller always adopts the most extreme legal posture and, in the same sentence, describes that that extreme posture has led even SCOTUS to rebuke the Administration. But the only person described — quoted even! — as drawing the obvious conclusion, that Miller fucked up, is a Trump opponent. “‘I think the administration has miscalculated and overstepped,’ said Skye Perryman, who leads Democracy Forward, an organization that has repeatedly sued Trump.”

That’s one of just a few direct quotes in the 1800-word piece (the others are from Trump, from Karoline Leavitt, and from Miller himself). Indeed, everything about this article couches where it comes from. It chooses not to list how many Republicans contributed to the story. In some cases, passive constructions like, “have been described by administration officials,” obscures whether WSJ learned what it reports directly from those administration officials, or heard them second-hand.

A different article might have noted that if Miller really is issuing some of these orders, such as to deploy Marines to invade Los Angeles, it means entire operations are wildly unconstitutional. He’s not the President. Only the President can invoke the Alien Enemies Act or usurp California’s National Guard, even if Miller typed up the error-riddled Executive Orders that effected the commands. Amid Trump’s squawks about a Joe Biden autopen scandal, even Trump has confessed he doesn’t understand what he has signed.

A different article might have described how Miller used Trump’s vulnerability in the wake of being shot at to make racism the central plank of the campaign and now the Administration (though it does describe how Miller overrode Tony Fabrizio’s advice to do so).

A different article might have called Miller something besides an “immigration hawk.”

This is not that article, however.

This is an article published by a Murdoch rag at 9PM on a Friday night — the sweet spot where you publish news someone wants to bury — recording some uncertain number of Republicans who, in the face of declining poll numbers on immigration (but even in an article that described “concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive,” saying nothing about the damage Miller’s jihad is doing to the economy, much less that entire states are on the verge of losing their harvests) have ever so delicately started to blame Miller: for the court losses, for the backlash, for the unsolicited calls likened to, “a grandmother who wouldn’t stop talking and said his calls were akin to listening to a podcast.”

The first real break in the cowered omertà about Stephen Miller’s role and plans was that Washington Examiner piece fleshing out Axios’ scoop about Miller’s demands for 3,000 bodies a day, which was followed by NBC, then the aforementioned superb WSJ story. Right wingers want to talk about Stephen Miller’s responsibility for the chaos (and economic destruction) in California and elsewhere. And while there have been far more useful profiles explaining how he accrued power and where his pathologies come from, this profile of hushed complaints seems like something else. A test to see whether opposition to Miller can succeed.

It may even be something more. NYT reports that, even as it scored several court victories, Harvard sought a meeting to negotiate detente with the Trump White House, one about which both Linda McMahon and Trump have been more optimistic than Harvard. NYT doesn’t mention that Trump needs a deal with higher ed, in part, because Trump needs a deal with China, and protection for Chinese students would be part of any deal.

Meanwhile, we’re 11 days short of DOJ’s deadline to appeal the first order reversing Miller’s attack on law firms, and there’s no sign yet they will appeal. That effort only succeeded in driving key lawyers away from firms that buckled to Trump.

And yesterday, again, Trump hinted that he’s struggling to find some way out of the damage Miller’s immigration jihad has done.

Miller’s jihads have, increasingly, created problems to solve. Which may explain why wary sources are happy to unpack old stories about how Trump once recognized Miller is not leader material.

I’m not complaining that WSJ dedicated 1800-words to describing the centrality of Stephen Miller to the biggest abuses of the Trump second term (and many of the first). It is of acute import to understand how the man’s pathologies endanger the country and the world.

I’m simply observing that this profile, published at 9PM on a Friday night, says as much in how it is told as in anything that it tells.

Share this entry
86 replies
  1. Ginevra diBenci says:

    I wouldn’t give Trump credit for sensing Miller’s (profound, seething) shortcomings with that “not leader material” quote. He almost certainly meant “not TV material” when he said it; then Miller proceeded to get himself on TV every chance he could, attracting his own cult and proving Trump wrong.

    Trump has shielded his own corruption and venality with Stephen Miller’s bloodlust. They use each other: Miller butters up the Chief to get his brutal orders enacted, the Chief disclaims responsibility for the ugliness by saying “

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      OOPS! (cont)

      the Chief says “I didn’t sign it–I don’t remember it!”

      And so we get renditions to foreign prisons, for the profit of sleazy dictators, as if human lives counted for nothing more than “vermin.” The world according to Miller, enacted by Trump.

      • Palli Davis Holubar says:

        trump is not ordering, devising, or evaluating any WH policy, let alone deciding or writing EOs. He is signing other people’s wishes, wants & wet dreams. Other than the new Perkins restaurant flags & gold kitsch knick-knacks, nothing coming out of the executive branch should be immune from criminal liability. As soon as Hegseth is booted out of his Pentagon makeup room, should he be charged criminal & civil courts. And the others in turn. A tribunal [incl. trump & henchmen behind a glass box like Eichmann] must challenge the SCOTUS immunity decision through the actions of trump regime “movers & shakers”.
        [Sorry, Rayne for mis-using too many of my actual names]

  2. shredgar says:

    “…Trump has confessed he doesn’t understand what he has signed.”

    This. This quote needs more visibility because it speaks the truth. Donald is the figurehead. Miller the wormtongue calling the shots. A bureaucratic entrepreneur, like Dick Cheney played Bush, but with a criminal disregard for the US constitution.

    • HCGorman says:

      Assuming you are suggesting that Cheney bush were following the constitution I will just point out that cheney(bush) also tried to do away with habeas corpus with the detainee treatment act in 2005/06. The trump clowns are following much the same playbook learned from these earlier war criminals.

      • wa_rickf says:

        “…The trump clowns are following much the same playbook learned from these earlier war criminals…”

        …and why not follow the same playbook? None of the Rs of Iran-Contra players ever paid a price – they were all pardoned.

        The party of true criminality…erm “Law and Order” never pays a price.

        Criminal Convictions by Administration (Executive Branch) Past 50 Years:
        
Nixon – 10

        Ford – 1

        Carter – 0

        Reagan – 7
        
H.W. Bush – 1

        Clinton – 2
        
W. Bush – 8

        Obama – 0

        Trump – 1
        Biden – 0
        TOTAL:

        Republicans = 28
        
Democrats = 2

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes

    • Ciel babe says:

      Unfortunately calling this out is unlikely to have an impact as it’s just more BS and thus entraps those trying to engage w/ it & covers them in verbal poo. The clap back is “I’m so important and busy, I can’t possibly remember all the details” blah blah blah. I agree w/ the flaws in the WSJ article – at the same time, shining light on the active pathologies of people like SMiller will, I think, ultimately have more impact than attempting to call out the (super obvious and enraging) BS.

  3. Harry Eagar says:

    I swing between thinking of Miller as Piers Gaveston as imagined by Christopher Marlowe and Oilcan Harry as imagined by Terrytoons.

    Checking the files of my defunct blog, I see I have been predicting an Afternoon Tea of the Long Knives since sometime before Jan. 27, 2017. But I could not then have imagined it would be such a leisurely affair. I underestimated the EU (Eunuch Quotient) of the Republican Party.

  4. Peterr says:

    8pm on a Friday night makes this sound like the reporters wanted to do a big piece on Miller and the editors/owners did not want anything like that at all. Rather than spike the piece completely (and become the story themselves – see Bezos and the departure of multiple Pulitzer-winning staffers), they put it out with the trash.

    I also wonder about the whole “different article” stuff above. As written, this sounds like a puff piece or beat sweetener (not to gain more access to Miller, mind you, but to the unnamed Republicans), but it also makes me wonder if some of the things that Marcy speculates would have been good to include here got hit by the editor’s red pen. “Too speculative . . . Not supported by sources . . .” Substance is gutted, and what’s left is ready to go out with the trash.

  5. painedumonde says:

    The state of affairs could only have been brought by cooperation and teamwork, this is elementary. From the bull on the street to the terminal in Miller’s office, it is a collective operation.

    Offloading blame to select bad actors is camouflage. Maybe this might be the Journal’s first overt finger pointing, albeit in the darkness of 2100 hours, to scuttle into blamelessness for its own action.

    [Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username and EMAIL ADDRESS each time you comment so that community members get to know you. Your email address contains a “3” instead of “iii” and uses a different domain triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited to reflect your established email address. We don’t care if the email addressed used is valid or works, only that you use the same one each time you comment. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username/email does not match. /~Rayne]

    • Rayne says:

      Of course there’s a coordinated effort — with Lara Trump at the helm of the RNC, there’s an economic incentive for the GOP to remain in lockstep and that’s just one pinch point.

      But the Murdochs have also paid an incredible price for their support of Trump’s brazen lies — specifically his false claims the 2020 election was stolen — having settled out of court with Dominion for roughly 3/4 of a billion and the Smartmatic suit still winding its way through court.

      Perhaps the Murdochs have learned there’s a limit to the lies they can push and brands like Wall Street Journal may lose substantive value if it can’t call out Trump’s bullshit.

      • Matt___B says:

        Lara Trump ceased to be RNC chair on 1/17/25. She was succeeded by Michael Whatley, who was Lara’s “co-chair” (“minder”?) since 2024.

        • Rayne says:

          Whatley, from North Carolina, which just happens to be Lara Trump’s home state where she was considered as a possible candidate to replace Richard Burr. That Whatley, the same one who was in the thick of the 2020 election lies.

          Definitely not a minder, more a trusted soldato.

        • Spencer Dawkins says:

          Actually to Rayne … I was not familiar with the word “Soldat”, so clicked on the link, which took me to a Wikipedia disambiguation page that gives the translation (in a bunch of languages) as “soldier”, and the first link on that page was for “Soldat (horse)”.

          I’m not sure which kind of Soldat you intended to point to, but that possible meaning is perfect in every way! :-)

      • Gacyclist says:

        The upcoming smartmatic case is looking to be just as bad or worse than dominion..I hope smartmatic doesn’t take the payout and goes to trial.

  6. NohRef23 says:

    Actually the piece is prominently featured on the front page of WSJ‘s weekend print edition. So they semi-buried it online but flaunted it in the paper, which stays on sale for 2 days. Approach/Avoidance!

      • Mooserites says:

        Miller has nothing to worry about. After all, he can always blame antisemitism for the negative articles.

        • Rayne says:

          Which rightwing outlet is going to run articles about that claim?

          If any Murdoch affiliate gets tasked they now have a counterpoint, ex. “Miller said XYZ was antisemitic. The White House staffer had recently been profiled in WSJ and [insert counter].”

          The more I think about this, the more I think Miller pissed off the Murdochs directly, not indirectly via shitty policy. If he presses too hard he and his spouse are going to end up repeated blind items on Page Six using the ugliest photos of Miller obtainable.

        • Wild Bill 99 says:

          An antisemitism cry from Miller would be interesting, considering he looks and acts as if he would be perfectly at home in a brown shirt and jackboots.

    • Peterr says:

      The weekend dead tree edition of the WSJ is not the Big Deal that is like the Sunday NYT or WaPo. The Journal is targets the M-F business crowd, and the weekend is by far their less-important edition. The fact that it goes to bed on Friday evening and runs without change (obviously) through Sunday night tells you it is not a big deal to them. Staying on sale for two days is merely staying until stale.

      When the NYT or WaPo prints something that went out with the trash on Friday, they could (if they wanted) hit it again on Saturday and Sunday. In the WSJ, it goes out with the trash on Friday and simply rots there until Monday’s edition comes out.

    • Harry Eagar says:

      The Journal is an odd duck in that it does not have a Sunday issue, which is where papers usually display their scalps.

      I am not sure what issue the Journal would consider its premier day. Saturday offers a chance to compete for the Sunday gabfests. Late Friday online followed by Saturday in print might be as good a placement for catching eyeballs as any other.

  7. zscoreUSA says:

    How is it possible that the WSJ wrote an article last night, amid the backdrop of Israel, Iran, and pending US involvement, print the following paragraph, and leave out Iran of the list of items?

    Miller’s portfolio covers almost every issue Trump is interested in. In recent months, he talked to CEOs about a coming tariff announcement; joined a meeting between Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Trump about the company’s antitrust case; and met with other tech companies on artificial intelligence.

    Miller really covers every issue except for Iran and Israel? He just exits the room when that comes up? How does that work logistically?

    • Rayne says:

      Or Miller knows he’s permitted to continue as Wormtongue provided he sticks to his remit — he can manage everything that isn’t Iran and Israel.

      • zscoreUSA says:

        Maybe I’m alone being puzzled that the president’s top advisor, even if domestic, is on top of everything except the most pressing facing the president. Which is an issue that is at the heart of the MAGA civil war.

        I have this passage stuck in my head:

        Another 46 minutes elapse before SM — added after JD was wailing about the Europeans — comments. He offers an interpretation of what Trump said: a green light on the operation, he opines, but the US would harass Egypt and Europe after the fact to extort a payback.

        Eleven minutes later, Hegseth — the guy to whom JD appealed on this issue — agreed with SM’s interpretation of the President’s intent.

        That settled it. As I noted, SM’s — presumed to be Stephen Miller, Trump’s top domestic policy advisor — interpretation of the President’s intent is the sole backup in this now public document that the President authorized the strike at all: “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light.”

        And the next thing we know… the DOD is flattening the apartment of someone’s girlfriend.

        Source: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/26/stephen-millers-presumed-babysitting-of-jd-vances-european-animosity-and-war-crimes/

  8. Rayne says:

    This dump zone piece on Miller casts a different light another recent piece of news. Reporting on that piece had a different spin depending on the outlet and their ideology:

    Vance made a brief trip to Montana to speak to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, AP sources say
    By Michelle Price, Associated Press / Updated 7:10 PM EDT, June 11, 2025
    https://apnews.com/article/jd-vance-montana-visits-rupert-lachlan-murdoch-d4f040113968ea5d702061cac6129ee4

    Vance Secretly Flies for Audience With Trump-Baiting Rupert Murdoch
    By Josephine Harvey, The Daily Beast / Updated Jun. 12 2025 7:06AM EDT
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/jd-vance-calls-in-on-rupert-murdoch-despite-his-papers-flaying-trump/

    Vance’s visit to Montana included meeting with Murdochs
    By Jenny Goldsberry, Washington Examiner / June 12, 2025 8:54 am

    ADDER: just a coincidence I’m sure – DOJ-Bozeman has had a cybersecurity problem even while Vance was in Montana.
    https://mstdn.social/@masek@infosec.exchange/114721620967961047

    • Rayne says:

      While it’s offensive to rational people that one might be judged on their looks, the majority of a political party are driven by more primitive responses, a key one being disgust.

      If Miller were to run for office, he’d lose because he’d evoke disgust in the voters whose votes he wants. Trump gives voice to that. Our problem is that Trump isn’t disgusted by Miller, or finds him more useful than disgusting.

      • wa_rickf says:

        @Rayne June 21, 2025 at 1:09 pm

        I think your sentence written as “….Trump isn’t disgusted by Miller, BUT finds him more useful than disgusting” – would be closer to the truth.

        The sentence written in this way would better match Trump’s perpetual mean girl-trolling.

  9. Doctor Biobrain says:

    My only question about Miller is if he believed he could Shock & Awe his way to conquering America or if he knew he’d get pushback so he could escalate. My guess is Shock & Awe, which worked on the dummy conformists who don’t closely follow politics and assumed the Trump Admin were good faith actors because both sides are the same and the Trump Is Fascist thing was hyperbolic rhetoric. I doubt anyone who capitulated to Trump knew what they were really agreeing to. They thought they were dealing with the federal government, not the Mob.

    Miller strikes me as one of those guys who thinks every move is the killer blow that will finally force his enemies to submit because only his side knows that you should fight bullies. They could have come in friendly to methodically take total control of America over time, but that ain’t Miller’s style. He wants to be One Punch Man and lacks the intelligence for strategic planning. He’s going to do the most obvious thing as soon as possible and the only thing saving him is that federal courts are slow and give natural deference to the president.

    DOGE failed for the same reason. If all they wanted was our data, firing regulators, and other nefarious activities, the last thing they should have done was to loudly torch the place and set up a website to announce their fake savings so everyone could target them. As it turns out, secret plans and an addiction to negative attention aren’t a good mix. Who knew?

    • wa_rickf says:

      Miller’s m.o. is to shock and awe. My evidence? The multi pronged assault on our constitution and norms. Miller planned this vindictive assault on our country for four years while Trump was being indicted 87 times.

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      Miller is in fact a planner. He has been at this for a very long time, backed by patient mentors willing to play the longest game to get their desired goal. That he seems to be jumping the gun now reflects the overwhelming sense of urgency behind the MAGA power grab. Do not forget the bulwark of Project 2025, churning along under Russ Vought’s aegis, complementing Miller’s project with its erosion of norms and agencies.

      DOGE served as a distraction from these efforts, allowing them to get well off the ground while we howled at Elon. I fear that attacking Iran will also serve (as intended) to distract us from the ongoing evisceration of American decency and strength. Miller may not have been visibly in the Situation Room with the big kids but he is an Israel hawk who knows a useful gambit when he sees one. I’m sure he backed this too.

  10. observiter says:

    I don’t think Miller is smart enough to have thought of all this (the breadth and depth of it). For whatever the reason, he’s been attracted to and involved with the far-right since he was young, and I am sure this interest was noticed early on.

    To me, it has the look and smell of a group of old, powerful, rigid, anger-centric white men who have been around in the background, working on this for decades. Miller with his own “issues” is a useful henchman tool to easily pull-in to their cabal, manipulate and mold.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Stephen Miller has been misunderestimated his whole life. That’s why he’s the No. 2 guy in the White House.

    • wa_rickf says:

      Miller is the epitome of the freaks, geeks, and weirdos that make-up the majority of MAGAt / America First sychophants.

      • Mooserites says:

        I’ve said it before about Miller, but I’ll say it again: all too often, that’s just the way the matzoh crumbles; into a half-baked cracker.

      • Harry Eagar says:

        It is remarkable — and I think diagnostic — how the freaks, geeks and weirdos theme mirrors earlier fascist regimes. My interpretation is that Americans know little of quotidian life in Nazi Germany but associate it with unspeakable horrors. In reality, it was a freak show, and Mussolini’s Italy was even more so.

        That, to me, helps explain why so many middlin’ ‘Murricans do not take trump’s threat to democracy seriously. Until very recently, we have not been presented with insistent examples of street thuggery. It is hard to imagine that anything very serious is happening when you live in Buffoonistan.

  11. earlofhuntingdon says:

    When Stephen Miller leaves Trump, he will need somewhere to park him. Harvard would seem out of the question. The ask would nix any deal. Directing the Heritage Foundation seems possible, but Russ Vought might object. Perhaps he’ll assume the Bari Weiss Chair in Jewish Studies at Columbia, to which he would bring an outsider’s perspective. /s

  12. RitaRita says:

    Miller is Trump’s remora. Miller’s power derives from Trump. He won’t voluntarily leave Trump.

    I can only imagine the animosities among that gang of amoral power trippers, each of them waiting for one of the others to fall out of favor with Trump.

    Assuming Miller isn’t booted out by Trump, when Trump leaves the WH, Miller will find some well paying conservative sinecure. I don’t see Vance or whoever Trump’s successor is keeping Trump’s man around.

    • Matt___B says:

      He’s busy giving his opinions about the current Israel-Iran conflict (i.e. regime change baby) on Steve Bannon’s podcast (this is only from 4 days ago):

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGl_CcoUqAg

      (NOTE: I didn’t watch, but Bannon supposedly is anti-foreign-war, so I don’t know if they stay friendly with each other, agree to disagree, or actually argue. Some brave soul should watch this and report back)

      • soundgood2 says:

        Just wondering who Trump might replace Whiskey Pete with when he eventually has to dump him. I am surprised Flynn doesn’t appear to be involved in the administration. Is he smart enough to realize being attached to Trump is never a good long term position?

        • Matt___B says:

          He had to fire Flynn the first time around. Since he’s pardoned all the J6ers, maybe he’s willing to give Flynn another chance at a cabinet position? Kind of like an “inner-circle” pardon?

          Flynn also a hardcore Christian nationalist – like Mike Huckabee. By that logic, he could appoint Flynn as Ambassador to the as-yet-unbuilt Gaza Resort. (/s)

        • wa_rickf says:

          Mike Hucksterbee has the sadz these days. He had to close the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem due to those pesky Iranian missiles being sent over the border.

          What if the second coming happens during this time? Where is Mike gonna host Jesus?

    • Matt___B says:

      Nobody knows whether a bunker-buster was dropped on Fordo or something more lightweight. If BB and if a significant amount of enriched uranium was stored there and if the bombing was “successful”, does that mean widespread radiation leakage in the area is sure to follow ??

      • Rugger_9 says:

        I don’t think we even have the intel on how deep the centrifuges are stored, and 60 meters is the bunker buster limit. The Iranians are not stupid, and Convict-1 / Krasnov / TACO’s tearing up the JCPOA gave them their excuse to mimic the DPRK and become untouchable with their own bomb. I doubt there will be any long-term effect and FWIW, the mullahs can just buy one from Pakistan or KJU anyhow.

        If the Iranians mine the Straits of Hormuz, that will have nasty economic effects even though the US doesn’t get much oil from the Gulf. We know they know how, it was one of the things were made crystal clear while we were escorting Kuwaiti tankers, and FWIW the USN also waxed two Iranian frigates and an oil platform storage base in 1987 for minelaying. If the mines are laid, it will be hard to get them all.

    • xyxyxyxy says:

      Really old news: Pakistan nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize, praising ‘stellar statemanship’

  13. Matt Foley says:

    Trump dropped bombs on Iran. Won’t be long until the MAGAs like MTG abandon their deeply held anti-war pro-life America First values to lead cheers for their cult leader.

  14. Rugger_9 says:

    The bombing choice by Convict-1 / Krasnov / TACO is also a good time to look at the cui bono principle. It is likely that oil prices will go up especially if the Strait is mined. So, the Gulf states will not be able to reliably ship. Other OPEC members will, and FWIW, the Russians whose economy is almost 100% oil based now will really profit. I don’t have the answers in my hands, but have no doubt there are experts looking at this very thing. Since Russia benefits, it looks like another ‘solid’ for Vlad to me, in order to keep the Ukraine war going.

    Cui bono = who benefits?

  15. wa_rickf says:

    Was Whiskey Pete giving a mission play-by-play on Signal in real-time?

    Trump spilled to Hannity the details of the mission and Hannity dutifully relayed to viewers. Trump stated six bunker busters dropped on Fordow.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      The Air Force claims B-2s can carry two bunker buster bombs. That’s at least three for one target and two to four for the other two. Trump used at least a third of the AF’s fleet of B-2s for one operation, plus supporting aircraft. Reports are that US submarines fired at least 30 Tomahawk missiles as well, targets unknown.

  16. Mooserites says:

    Trump did nothing to prepare the country for this. Will Trump send the DOJ after war protesters?

    • Rugger_9 says:

      If I were cynical, that swatting of the hornet nest was another reason to bomb. The WH knows that someone will have something to say about it, which gives Miller and Jackboot Barbie an excuse to give weapons free ROE to their thugs. Calling it a reason gives their claim a legitimacy it doesn’t warrant.

      ROE = Rules of engagement defined for any operation. Weapons free means shoot on sight, weapons tight means no use unless shot at.

  17. P J Evans says:

    The Felon Guy is quoted as saying “I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due”. He has no fcking clue why this is bad.

    • Ciel babe says:

      That kind of non decision decision making is great for Felon Guy, and all abusers, as it keeps everyone on their toes / off balance / unable to move forward as don’t know what decision will be / your fav phrase here. I strongly suspect he has a deep understanding of why this decision making works [for him], and even why specifically bombing Iran works [for him] (feels good, removes negative emotions, makes Vlad happy, makes Bibi happy, strongman vibes, now can swat (or SWAT) away Qs on other “lesser” topics as inconsequential in comparison to this awesomeness…).

Comments are closed.