Mitch's Blog logo Mitch's Blog

A private post by a friend, shared with his permission:

Another stupid fucking war in the Middle East.

Just say no. No more wars in the Middle East, ever, for any reason. Stay the hell away from that black hole. Over the course of my life the amount of blood and treasure we have poured into this black hole is staggering, and for what. What’s it good for? Absolutely nothing.

I especially resent the USA becoming Netanyahu’s bitch. Bibi has wanted to drag the USA into war with Iran for a very long time. He finally found a sucker to buy into that. A divorce from Israel cannot come soon enough. I am done with them. Israel is a liability. Get it off the national balance sheet, please. What is the USA getting out of this relationship? More wars? Hard pass.

There is nothing in the Middle East worth the bones of a single American GI, to paraphrase Bismarck.

The only regime change I am interested in is here in the USA.

Maybe this war helps that along, so there is that. Trump’s casus belli? Because fuck you, that’s why. The public was not prepped for this. It is of course a massively illegal power grab, but that is par for the course for Trump.

I very much doubt this helps the GOP in the midterms. Especially the higher oil prices.

I would have phrased the comments about Israel less harshly. As an American Jew of a certain generation I feel a strong bond to Israel, and over the course of my lifetime I have had many positive and warm interactions with Israelis — as recently as last week.

But Israel has gone to a dark place since 2023, perhaps much longer than that, and as an American I say we need to stop letting them drag us behind them.

Heather Cox Richardson: The US DEA was running an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen other people for drug trafficking, prostitution and money laundering. It started in 2010 under Obama. The task force running the investigation was dismantled under Trump.

“The basic question here is whether a bunch of rich pedophiles and Epstein accomplices are going to face any consequences for their crimes,” [Sen. Ron] Wyden said, “and Scott Bessent is doing his best to make sure they won’t. My head just about exploded when I heard Bessent say it wasn’t his department’s job to investigate these Epstein bank records…. From the beginning, my view has been that following the money is the key to identifying Epstein’s clients as well as the henchmen and banks that enabled his sex trafficking network. It’s past time for Bessent to quit running interference for pedophiles and give us the Epstein files he’s sitting on.”

Kansas and Scouting America’s anti-trans bigotry are disgraceful.

The airport background music is “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd, which I love. I remember when the only background music you heard in public was old people music, so this is a nice change.

I’m on my way to Salt Lake City, where there is winter, from home in mild San Diego. I put on my topcoat this morning, reached in my pocket, and discovered a badge from Mobile World Congress 2025, almost exactly a year ago, which shows you the last time I wore that coat.

I remember this is an annual ritual in temperate climates in October or November. You put on your coat for the first time in a half a year and discover some little time capsule from the last time you wore it — a movie ticket, a couple of dollars, a half-crumpled cigarette pack with three remaining smokes.