Stewart and Colbert examine No Kings and Iran War

I return to more topical and timely posting today by sharing two monologues, beginning with Jon Stewart's No Kings Rallies Can’t Stop CPAC's Trump Glazing & Iran War Hits One Month | The Daily Show.

Happy one-monthiversary of the Iran war! With the Strait of Hormuz still closed, Jon Stewart examines how global shortages are hitting everything from grain to helium to pickleballs. Meanwhile, Americans flood the streets for the No Kings protests while CPAC throws Trump his own Yassss Kings rally. Plus, the U.S. finally has a detailed explanation of the president's objectives and exit strategy... for the White House ballroom.

As much as the war coverage's angle annoys Stewart, I understand why the U.S. news media is framing the economic disruption of the war through loss of luxuries. As I repeated most recently in Silly and serious closer looks at Trump taking over the Kennedy Center, "the surest way to get Americans to act is to mess with their entertainm­ent. As I first wrote in 2011, 'America is quite clear about its screwed up priorities­.'" While Stewart and Colbert are turning the war into comedy, disruptions to supply chains will deprive many of their treats. They won't like that but it will get Americans' attention.

Trump switching from the Iran War to the East Wing ballroom reminds me of what I wrote in Closer looks at Iran from Stewart, Colbert, Meyers, and Kimmel.

"I don't get bored." Oh, then why is he talking about ballrooms and drapes? Because he's been doing that since Surviving at the Top, the sequel to The Art of the Deal.

In a Yahoo News essay, Leerhsen describes the Trump he worked with from 1988 to 1990 as mostly "bored out of his mind," a "failing real estate developer who had little idea of what he was doing and less interest in doing it once he'd held the all-important press conference."

Trump was making huge, outrageously leveraged, financially ruinous deals, but day-to-day, he spent "surprisingly large" amounts of time "looking at fabric swatches," Leerhsen writes. "Indeed, flipping through fabric swatches seemed at times to be his main occupation," and "some days he would do it for hours," probably because fabric swatches "were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn't."

Leerhsen elaborated Thursday evening on CNN. "At this time, like, things were really going to hell in his business," but "in the center of that was this quiet office where he was going through fabric swatches most of the day, and in the middle of all this Sturm und Drang, he was oblivious to it," he told Erin Burnett.

Nearly 40 years later, he hasn't changed, except to get older and more set in his ways

.Now we know he's like that with pens.

Stephen Colbert made light of the same subjects last night in Millions March Against Trump’s War & Deportations | Trump's Improv War | Global Helium Crisis.

Over eight million people marched in the third "No Kings" protest, President Trump appears to be making up his Iran war strategy on-the-fly, and the war is causing global economic pain and shortages of resources like helium.

I attended the local No Kings and I'm glad to have been part of the largest protest since the first Earth Day — eight million people! Here's to the next one having ten million.

The contradictory announcements for the war remind me of something else I wrote early this month.

Twenty-five years ago, one of my reactions to 9-11 was to look at Bush the Younger's administration and be reassured that at least these people, particularly Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell, knew how to fight a war, no matter what my other opinions were of them. It took me two years, after it became obvious they were botching the occupation of Iraq, to figure out that they didn't really have a plan for an occupied Iraq beyond shock doctrine. I have no such illusions about Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump and Pete Hegseth; it's obvious from the get-go that they don't have a plan at all beyond being so intimidating that Iran just backs down. That's not happening. Once again, the voices Trump listens to, both inside and outside his head, are not reliable sources.

What about the ballroom? That's right here in Trump Reveals New Ballroom Photos.

President Trump reacted quickly after The New York Times criticized the architectural plans for his White House ballroom.

HA! I wish it would have those features!

That's a wrap for today's post and March's blogging. Stay tuned for April Fools Day!