Global
The nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran pose two of the most persistent and consequential proliferation challenges facing the United States in the post–Cold War era. Yet while both countries have defied Washington’s preferences, the American response has been strikingly different. With North Korea, the United States has relied on deterrence and containment, accepting a tense but manageable standoff. With Iran, U.S. policy has oscillated between diplomacy, crippling economic sanctions, covert cyber sabotage, and, most recently, direct military strikes. The drumbeat of war with Iran now dominates the headlines once again, raising urgent questions about the strategic logic—and the political pressures—behind Washington’s approach.
These divergent approaches reflect systematic differences in nuclear status, alliance pressures—particularly the influential role of Israel in shaping U.S. policy—regional security dynamics, domestic political constraints, and the geostrategic centrality of the Middle East.
The USA is in a non-war to free Iranian women, like we done here for our Handmaids and of course for the schoolgirls over there, RIP. Let’s review the history of such domination porn through the centuries. People Who Love Deportation don’t love the deportation centers being in their neighborhood. No dog in that race. Meanwhile the Trumpagogue wants his name on every airport, theater, and pair of shoe coverings at airport security. Makes sense. You gotta have a legacy.
Of the five films up for an international Oscar, Sirat is by far the most unsettling.
I say that without fear of contradiction, even though I have yet to see most of its competitors. Watching Spain’s nominee is simply the kind of nerve-wracking experience that few films can match.
French-born director/co-writer Oliver Laxe begins his tale as a massive rave is getting underway in the middle of the Moroccan desert. After arriving in trucks and other weather-beaten vehicles, hardcore enthusiasts begin dancing ecstatically to bass-heavy beats that echo against rocky canyon walls.
It’s into this scene that a middle-aged Spaniard named Luis (Sergi Lopez) arrives with his young son, Esteban (Bruno Nunez Arjona). Passing out fliers with pictures of his grown daughter, Luis explains that she’s disappeared to join the raver lifestyle, and he thinks she might be here.
As it turns out, no one has seen her, but Luis learns she could be at an upcoming rave happening far to the south in Mauritania. Then comes an unexpected complication followed by a fateful decision.
Dr. Bob Fitrakis and Dan-o Dougan bring us some incredible covers of Leonard Cohen songs.
Listen live at 11pm Fridays, March 6 and 13 streaming at wgrn.org or on the radio at 91.9FM
and
Mondays at 2pm streaming March 9 and 16 at wcrsfm.org or on the radio at 92.7 or 98.3FM
Why did President Trump launch a war against Iran? Two reasons.
First, electoral polls indicated a dramatic victory for anti-Trump Democrats in this fall’s Congressional elections. This would put a welcome end to Trump’s campaign to establish one-man rule in the United States. Losing the Senate and/or House would open Trump up to a host of criminal accusations.
The huge attack on Iran was designed to distract attention from the still festering Jeffrey Epstein scandal that might bring Trump down. The attack on Venezuela was a dress rehearsal.
Second reason: Trump and his Maga Republicans are joined at the hip to Israel
and its powerful American financial supporters. They helped buy the quiescence of Congress, including $100 billion from the Adelson family of Israel. Israel’s far right has long been pushing Trump and his Republicans to launch a war against Iran, the bête noire of Israel.
GREEP Zoom #258 opens with a report from HEDY TRIPP on the ICE attacks in MN.
She’s followed by JONATHAN KENT’s report on Sunday’s demonstration for freedom at the Whipple Center in Minneapolis.
We hear MYLA RESON’s report on the tragic de facto murder of the Rohinga refugee Neuril Amin Hashem Raham in Buffalo.
From the great HEATHER BOOTH we hear inspirational calls to organized actions moving from “protest to power” through the Battleground Alliance and “Know Your Neighbor.”
We’re also joined by the legendary writer/activist FRANCIS FOX PIVEN.
And by LA-based SUSIE SHANNON, hero of the homeless throughout America.
And MAYOR HEIDI of Waldport, Oregon, reinstate & now facing recall from the MAGA right.
From MIKE HERSH we hear kudos for our great guests and his powerhouse role at PDA.
From DR. RUTH STRAUSS we’re warned about Trump using troops to crush the 2026 election.
Congressional candidate HARTZELL GRAY gets us energized to protect our democracy.
Election Protection expert RAY LUTZ warns about Trump confiscating ballots & much more, urging incremental backups for all ballots.
If reports are true that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is arming Kurdish forces in Iraq as part of efforts to destabilize Iran, history is about to repeat itself—yet again. For over a century, the Kurds, the largest stateless people on earth, have been manipulated as instruments of foreign powers, promised support when useful, abandoned when convenient. The pattern is brutal, predictable, and morally indefensible: Kurdish lives and ambitions sacrificed at the altar of imperial strategy.
The story is old. After World War I, the Treaty of Sèvres envisioned a Kurdish state in eastern Anatolia. Within a few short years, that promise was shredded. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk rose, the Treaty of Lausanne erased Kurdish independence from the map, and the Kurds were scattered among Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. Western powers, concerned with “regional stability,” placed diplomatic convenience above Kurdish self-determination—and the pattern was set.
The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 contains statutory language that restructures federal authority. It expands federal preemption, narrows state and local governance, limits judicial oversight, and concentrates decision making inside federal agencies, which increases the risk of regulatory agency capture and weakens the distributed safeguards that protect farmers, public health, and national resilience.
From pesticide liability shields that restrict state tort authority, to clauses that prohibit counties from regulating pesticide use, to interstate livestock provisions that override state production standards, this bill centralizes authority in Washington in ways that favor large industrial actors while increasing farm level risk, weakening health protections, and externalizing long term environmental and medical costs onto taxpayers, driving higher public expenditures and deeper structural debt.