Perhaps she should've thought about that when she was cheerleading the crowd of neocons who are perpetrating all of this.

(probably)

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that a group of Democratic lawmakers is likely to succeed in showing that the requirement is illegal and exceeds the government's statutory authority.

A federal judge agreed on Monday to temporarily suspend the latest version of a Trump administration policy that requires members of Congress to provide a week's notice before they can visit immigration detention facilities.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington ruled that a group of Democratic lawmakers is likely to succeed in showing that the seven-day notice requirement is illegal and exceeds the government's statutory authority.

The judge said the Republican administration hasn't cited any "concrete examples of safety issues posed by congressional visits without advanced notice."

After spending taxpayers’ money, Florida governor will likely be left holding bill for $608m promised by Trump administration

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, spent $1.2m of taxpayers’ money per day to open and operate the notorious immigration jail known as Alligator Alcatraz, court records obtained by the independent investigative news website the Florida Tributary reveal.

A switch in position by Donald Trump’s administration also now looks likely to leave Florida on the hook for at least $608m spent on the harsh Everglades detention and deportation facility and other immigration jails, the outlet said. That was despite gloating by DeSantis in September that the state would be reimbursed from federal funds.

James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s former chief of staff and Florida’s unelected attorney general, admitted last week the possibility that a federal reimbursement grant the governor had insisted was locked in might not be delivered after all.

Average U.S. retail gasoline prices crossed $3 a gallon for the first time since November on Monday as the conflict in the Middle East ​worsened, setting up a key test of public approval of President Donald ‌Trump's decision to attack Iran, analysts said.

Tehran's retaliation in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes has disrupted global oil supply, as it hit production facilities in neighboring countries and ships in the Strait of Hormuz, ​a key global trade route. Oil prices have surged, with Brent crude rising ​more than 5% to nearly $77 per barrel, and fuel prices moving ⁠up in tandem with the feedstock costs.

The unidentified victim is the 9th Mexican citizen to have been killed in ICE detention since the beginning of 2025; this time in Adelanto, California.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://mexicosolidarity.com/yet-another-mexican-citizen-dies-in-ice-custody/

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

“Spanish bases are not being used for this operation,” Spain’s foreign minister said.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://truthout.org/articles/spain-denies-use-of-bases-for-us-forces-involved-in-war-on-iran/

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

TEHRAN, IRAN—As groups of families and others gathered Sunday evening at cafes around Niloofar Square—a middle-class area in eastern Tehran—after breaking their fast for Ramadan, a series of explosions struck the area, leveling several buildings and killing over 20 people, according to witnesses at the scene and later reports from local news sources.

Witnesses who spoke to Drop Site said two explosions hit the area—a smaller strike in the vicinity, followed by a larger one that devastated much of the neighborhood, a tactic known as a “double tap” strike that is used to inflict maximum casualties.

Videos of the immediate aftermath of the attack showed several individuals dead and wounded as well as massive destruction on the street outside. In Cafe Ahla, next to the square, blood and debris soaked the floors. Several patrons who had been sitting there when the attack struck could be seen dead on the floor or with their mutilated bodies still sprawled across their seats.

In b4 "actually, in the Andromeda Paradox..."

The first US service members to die in the conflict between the US and Iran were killed by a direct Iranian strike on a makeshift operations center at a civilian port in Kuwait on Sunday morning local time, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

The death toll from that event at the Shuaiba port has since risen to six, US Central Command announced on Monday afternoon, after the remains of two additional service members were recovered.

Earlier Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the strike that killed the service members hit a “tactical operation center that was fortified,” but there was “one” projectile that made it through air defenses. CNN previously reported the event was a suspected drone strike.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43783882

After spending taxpayers’ money, Florida governor will likely be left holding bill for $608m promised by Trump administration

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, spent $1.2m of taxpayers’ money per day to open and operate the notorious immigration jail known as Alligator Alcatraz, court records obtained by the independent investigative news website the Florida Tributary reveal.

A switch in position by Donald Trump’s administration also now looks likely to leave Florida on the hook for at least $608m spent on the harsh Everglades detention and deportation facility and other immigration jails, the outlet said. That was despite gloating by DeSantis in September that the state would be reimbursed from federal funds.

James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s former chief of staff and Florida’s unelected attorney general, admitted last week the possibility that a federal reimbursement grant the governor had insisted was locked in might not be delivered after all.

The Trump administration has decided to drop its prolonged court fights against four law firms with ties to Democrats, after it had sought and failed to cut out the firms’ access to the federal government as part of an apparent retribution campaign by Donald Trump.

The cases had been some of the most shocking attempts at retribution by Trump for his own past legal issues, with Trump aiming at large and well-known firms with prominent lawyers who had ties to Democratic administrations and the party.

Other firms under threat of similar Trump executive orders cut deals with the administration and changed their approach, especially by shifting the political leanings in the pro bono work they were willing to do, from liberal causes to more conservative ones.

Though the executive orders didn’t survive in court, they have widely curtailed large American law firms’ willingness to oppose the administration and represent progressive causes publicly.

Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn as he returns to the White House on March 1, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Whoops, he did it again.

We need to adjust our language for President Donald Trump’s so-called regime-change efforts. Let’s call them “regime adjustments.”

Trump was fresh off his successful regime-adjustment operation in Venezuela when he decided to double down on his newly interventionist streak. Along with Israel, Trump attacked Iran with one of the largest military operations in at least a decade. The war — and that’s what it is — came only days after a gathering in Washington of Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which includes Israel, marking, ironically, the board’s first war.

It’s hard to imagine what success, even by Trump’s loose standards, will actually look like in Iran.

Unlike Venezuela, though, this time it’s hard to imagine what success, even by Trump’s loose standards, will actually look like — if there can be any measure of success at all.

In a somewhat rambling video message posted on Truth Social announcing the new Iran war, Trump offered no evidence as to why a preemptive or preventative attack was necessary at this time. Iran, after all, was in the middle of negotiations with the U.S. over its nuclear program, with negotiations set to continue the following week and, according to insiders, making solid progress. Unlike the U.S., Iran had made no moves that could be interpreted as aggressive or preparatory for initiating military action against either Israel or the U.S.

No Reasoning, No Goals

Instead of articulating any reasoning or goals for his strikes, Trump declared a decapitation strategy and exhorted the people of Iran to rise up and “take control” of the government: DIY regime change.

[

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Israel Is Cynically Capitalizing on the Iranian Protests for Its Own Ends](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/05/iran-protests-israel-netanyahu/)

He demanded that the security services and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “lay down” their arms and join the people — presumably the same people they had been brutally cracking down on only a month ago. There were no instructions on how the people were supposed to “take control” or who might be the leader to guide them. Nor did Trump give instructions to the security forces on how exactly they were supposed to lay down their arms and join the people. Hand over their arms to whom? Or did he have in mind a depot that would be set up somewhere IRGC personnel could drop off their AK-47s and assorted other weaponry?

Reza Pahlavi, the former shah’s son, pretender to the throne, and the most visible and possibly popular among opposition leaders, also exhorted his fellow Iranians to rise up at this opportunity to change the regime — in his own favor, of course.

It has been telling, however, that neither the U.S. nor even Israel — Pahlavi’s most ardent booster — have been promoting him as the replacement for the regime that they’re in the process of decapitating.

There has been no plan, at least none apparent or even hinted at, to have Pahlavi brought to Tehran in the hope that millions will, like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s arrival from Paris in 1979, greet him at the airport and escort him to a palace.

The clearest endorsement Pahlavi has won to lead Iran was a probing interview on “60 Minutes” on the second day of the war — best understood as an expression of Bari Weiss and David Ellison’s hope for an Israeli-backed regime in Iran, not as a vouch of support from the Trump administration.

[

Read Our Complete Coverage

Targeting Iran](/collections/targeting-iran/)

Assassination Building

In the first moments of the first day of the war, Israel was able to — reportedly with intelligence assistance from the CIA — assassinate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his daughter and grandson, and a number of senior military commanders, including the powerful secretary of Iran’s newly established Defense Council, Ali Shamkhani. The top regime figures had gathered to meet in the morning in an aboveground building in the leader’s complex, assuming any threat against them would appear only under the cover of darkness.

Confirmation from the government of the assassination of the head of state — a shocking development in the 47-year history of the Islamic republic — resulted in both nationwide mourning by supporters of the ayatollah and simultaneous celebration by those who held him responsible for the deaths of thousands of citizens in the early January crackdown on massive protests across the country.

What came next, though, was not the people “taking control” of the government. Instead, there was a rather ordinary constitutional move: A council of three was formed the next day that took over the duties of the supreme leader until a new one could be elected by the Assembly of Experts, the body that oversees succession.

[

Related

Fool Me Twice: The Case for War With Iran Is Even Thinner Than It Was for Iraq](https://theintercept.com/2026/02/28/us-attack-iran-iraq-war/)

Then on the second day of the war, with bombs falling on Tehran, Trump announced that “they” — presumably the council — “want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them.”

Hoping for an Iranian Delcy Rodríguez? Our “Whoops, he did it again” moment.

So, it wasn’t regime change the U.S. was after, as Trump claimed when launching his war, but regime adjustment. Perhaps the deaths of three U.S. service members in Iraq — by any measure, their blood on the hands of the person who ordered a war of choice — gave him pause and inspiration to find an alternative to continuing the violence.

Willy-Nilly War

What is increasingly apparent is that a war was launched, almost willy-nilly, with no actual, achievable objective. Trump, whose cellphone number it seems most journalists in Washington have, admitted to Jonathan Karl of ABC News in a phone call on Sunday that he didn’t know what came next for Iran.

“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump reportedly told Karl. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”

In other words, Trump doesn’t even have a Delcy Rodríguez in waiting.

[

Related

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The war with revolving goals entered a third and more violent day for the very Iranian people who were supposed to take over from the regime and become friends with Israel and the United States. Bombing in Tehran took on an indiscriminate flavor, with buildings, a hospital, and other infrastructure unrelated to the military being struck, according to videos and witnesses, including my own cousin who managed to leave me a voice message on WhatsApp despite the internet cuts.

With the death of at least three U.S. service members, hundreds of Iranian schoolgirls, and dozens of other innocent Iranians; with destruction across the Persian Gulf countries; with the loss of so far three U.S. fighter jets costing Americans anywhere between $250 and 300 million; and with the billions of dollars being otherwise spent on the war, the “Keystone Cops” flavor the war has taken on would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

We can’t predict how the war will end. It is certain, however, to end with unnecessary death and destruction, and misery and trauma for survivors.

The only other certainty it seems, is that no matter the war’s result nor how incompetently it is carried out, the man who started it will declare that he has brought about peace with a glorious victory.

The post The Regime Change President Who Won’t (or Can’t) Actually Change Any Regimes appeared first on The Intercept.

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