"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Friday, a US fighter jet was shot down in Iran with two service members on the plane. While one was recovered quickly, another one was missing on Friday and for most of Saturday. Greg Jaffe, Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper (NEW YORK TIMES) report:
An Air Force officer whose fighter jet had been shot down in Iran was rescued by U.S. Special Operations forces in a risky Saturday night mission that took commandos deep into enemy territory, said current and former U.S. officials briefed on the operation.
The rescue followed a life-or-death race between U.S. and Iranian forces that stretched over two days to reach the injured airman. As U.S. forces converged on the downed airman, a firefight erupted, a former senior military official briefed on the operation said. In the end, the United States extracted the officer in an operation that involved hundreds of special operations troops.
At least 13 US service members have been killed in the war so far with over 300 injured. Senator Tammy Baldwin raised the issue of some of the wounded who have madeit home not getting the needed care that they are supposed to be receiving:
Senator Baldwin demands action from Trump Administration, care for impacted servicemembers
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) demanded action from the Trump Administration after Wisconsin servicemembers contacted her office and reported they were not getting the care they needed for injuries they sustained in the opening days of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran.
“I have heard directly from constituents serving in our military who were injured in the war and are now experiencing delays and gaps in medical care at Ft. Hood,” wrote Senator Baldwin in a letter to Vice Adm. Darin K. Via, Director of the Defense Health Agency. “I believe that you would agree that such a delay of care is unacceptable, and I urge you to ensure that all servicemembers injured in the war with Iran receive appropriate and timely medical care—including necessary care for traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).”
In recent weeks, Senator Baldwin’s office has received reports from members of the 103rd Sustainment Command of the Army Reserve who were injured in the March 1 Iranian drone attack on their facility in Kuwait. Tragically, six members of the unit were killed in that strike and dozens more were injured. Since returning to the United States, the members of the 103rd have been at Ft. Hood where they reportedly endured days and weeks of delays to be properly evaluated for potential injuries and see medical specialists, like neurologists and behavioral health specialists. After hearing from impacted Wisconsinites, Senator Baldwin went directly to Defense Health Agency (DHA) leadership to demand these cases be reviewed and expedited.
In the letter, Senator Baldwin demanded additional action to immediately address this lapse in care and ensure this delay does not impact more returning servicemembers, including:
- Review DHA policies and procedures regarding the evaluation and diagnosis of TBIs for servicemembers returning from wars like that with Iran.
- Ensure that servicemembers diagnosed with TBIs immediately receive access to specialists, like neurologists and behavioral health specialists.
- Evaluate the procedures for determining returning servicemembers medical status to ensure that servicemembers with potential non-visible injuries like TBIs are not being placed in a lower priority status.
- Review policies and practices at Ft. Hood and across DHA to ensure reservists temporarily on active duty receive the same standard of medical care as active-duty members.
A full version of this letter is available here and below.
Dear Vice Admiral Via,
I write to you today to express serious concerns that servicemembers injured in the Administration's war with Iran may not be receiving adequate medical care and evaluations after returning from the Middle East. I have heard directly from constituents serving in our military who were injured in the war and are now experiencing delays and gaps in medical care at Ft. Hood. I believe that you would agree that such a delay of care is unacceptable, and I urge you to ensure that all servicemembers injured in the war with Iran receive appropriate and timely medical care—including necessary care for traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).
I have heard stories from members of the 103rd Sustainment Command of the Army Reserve who were injured in the March 1 Iranian drone attack on their facility in Kuwait. Tragically, six members of the unit were killed in that strike and dozens more were injured. Many of these injured servicemembers, however, could not be evacuated from Kuwait for days due to the ongoing fighting. Since returning to the United States, the members of the 103rd have been at Ft. Hood where they endured days and weeks of delays to be properly evaluated for potential injuries and see medical specialists, like neurologists and behavioral health specialists.
This delay in receiving adequate evaluations and care is particularly concerning because these servicemembers may be suffering from TBIs as a result of the Iranian drone strike. Despite TBIs being one of the leading injuries from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Department of Defense (DoD) has historically underdiagnosed servicemembers’ TBIs and provided them insufficient treatment for the trauma they suffered. While you and your predecessors at the Defense Health Agency (DHA) have made improving the evaluation and treatment of TBIs a top priority, the stories I am hearing out of Ft. Hood lead me to believe DoD is not doing enough.
While I appreciate DHA’s commitment to providing the members of the 103rd Sustainment Command with prompt medical care, I am concerned these issues are more widespread. Reporting indicates that TBIs are quickly emerging as the leading injury sustained by U.S. servicemembers in the war with Iran. DHA must take immediate steps to close gaps in screening and care to ensure that no servicemember with a potential TBI falls through the cracks. DoD has a responsibility to ensure that systems are in place to prevent failures seen in prior conflicts from recurring.
Therefore, I request you immediately do the following:
- Review DHA policies and procedures regarding the evaluation and diagnosis of TBIs for servicemembers returning from wars like that with Iran.
- Ensure that servicemembers diagnosed with TBIs immediately receive access to specialists, like neurologists and behavioral health specialists.
- Evaluate the procedures for determining returning servicemembers medical status to ensure that servicemembers with potential non-visible injuries like TBIs are not being placed in a lower priority status.
- Review policies and practices at Ft. Hood and across DHA to ensure reservists temporarily on active duty receive the same standard of medical care as active-duty members.
Thank you for your prompt review of these issues and your commitment to providing every servicemember high-quality medical care.
Sincerely,
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That a US senator has to note this is appalling. Chump has, as usual, used the military as a toy and has no real connection to it and no real concern for those serving.
The plane that we noted above, the one that went down Friday, was not the only one. Andre Damon (WSWS) notes:
A second aircraft, an A-10 Thunderbolt, was shot down in a separate incident the same day. The pilot ejected over Kuwaiti airspace and was rescued. Two HH-60G rescue helicopters sent to recover the F-15E’s crew were also hit by Iranian fire, injuring US personnel aboard before returning to base. In all, four American aircraft were struck in a single day—the worst losses of the five-week war.
The shoot-downs came two days after Trump addressed the nation in a prime time speech in which he threatened to destroy Iranian society. “We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” Trump said Wednesday. “We are going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.” He threatened to hit “each and every one of their electric generating plants,” and said he had not yet struck Iran’s oil only because doing so “would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding.”
“We are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly,” Trump said in the same speech. “They have no antiaircraft equipment. Their radar is 100 percent annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared on March 31: “Iran knows that, and there’s almost nothing they can militarily do about it.” Forty-eight hours later, Iran shot an American fighter jet out of the sky.
As the Intercept noted, “Neither the White House nor the Pentagon responded to requests for comment on how Iran could down an advanced US aircraft when the country supposedly no longer possesses anti-aircraft weaponry.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the shoot-down.
Alexander Ward and Michael R. Gordon (WALL STREET JOURNAL) point out:
Just 48 hours after President Trump had all but declared Tehran was militarily defeated and looking for a deal to end the war, Iran downed two American warplanes.
Trump’s repeated declarations that the war is nearly over are colliding with the gritty battlefield reality, some U.S. officials and analysts said.
Sunday, Edward Wong (NEW YORK TIMES) reported:
Power plants, desalination stations, oil wells, roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
They are the foundations of civilian life in Iran, and their destruction by American and Israeli forces would cause widespread suffering among the country’s 93 million people — and in most cases would be considered a war crime under international law.
Yet President Trump has repeatedly threatened to do exactly that, with the aim of sending Iran “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,” as he put it in a speech on Wednesday.
On Easter weekend, he wrote online that “all Hell will reign down” on the Iranians unless they met a deadline of Monday to make concessions or open up the Strait of Hormuz to ship traffic, adding, “Glory be to GOD!”
The president was emphatic about the targets in a follow-up post: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F**kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH. Praise be to Allah.”
MEIDASTOUCH NEWS' Ben notes this morning how Chump's psychotic threats increase as his timeline slows down.
Michael D. Shear (NEW YORK TIMES) notes the impact Chump's constantly changing and constantly conflicting statements are having on the entire planet:
The world is on edge.
One minute, President Trump says the war in Iran is nearly over. The next he says it will continue for weeks. He brags that Iran has been “eviscerated,” but then vows that the fighting will go on. A huge bombardment, he says, might begin in five days, or 10 days, or on Tuesday at precisely 8 p.m. Eastern.
If the president means what he says, the world could be about 24 hours from a devastating escalation in the war. But like the producer of a television cliffhanger, Mr. Trump seems determined to keep everyone off balance.
On that, at least, he is succeeding.
In capitals around the world, presidents and prime ministers have spent almost six weeks seeking a way to prevent the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran from spiraling out of control. Diplomats from more than 40 countries gathered for a video call on Thursday that concluded with few concrete proposals. Leaders across Europe, Asia and beyond are exasperated, angry and more than a little spooked about what could be around the corner.
Chump hid out on Saturday (leading to false rumors that he'd been checked in Walter Reed) and on Sunday. This allowed him to avoid speaking about his request for the next defense budget which he wants increased by approximately 42% to $1.5 trillion further called his previous insistence to be opposed to never-ending wars into question. In his speech on Wednesday night, he got wrong Iran's capabilities, yes, but he also was wrong the federal government when he said in the speech that the US government cannot afford to fund child care or Medicaid or Medicare because the government must focus on military spending.
Senator Alex Padilla's office has issued the following on Chump's budget plan
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement after President Trump announced his official Fiscal Year 2027 budget request:
“Donald Trump has raised the cost of housing, groceries, and health care, taken our country into war, and now he’s asking families to foot the bill for his disastrous agenda.
“With his proposed budget, Trump is asking Congress to cut critical programs that millions of Americans depend on: health care for veterans, scientific and medical research, education for children across the country, housing assistance, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Notably, he wants to cut Election Security Grants and decimate the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which would put our elections infrastructure at risk.
“Meanwhile, his unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget proposal — a 50 percent increase from last year — is so large that some Pentagon officials worry they won’t know what to do with it.
“Congress must reject this budget and fight for one that reflects our values, not the whims of Donald Trump.”
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Trump proposes slashing domestic investments while increasing defense spending by half a trillion dollars more
ICYMI: Trump on Wednesday: “It’s not possible for us to take of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare … We have to take care of one thing: military protection.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, Senator Patty Murray, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on the release of President Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget request, which proposes increasing defense spending by roughly half a trillion dollars while slashing and even defunding key domestic programs that American families count on every day.
“The vision President Trump has outlined for America in his budget is bleak and unacceptable. President Trump wants to slash medical research to fund costly foreign wars. It doesn’t get more backward than that, and the only responsible thing to do with a budget this morally bankrupt is to toss it in the trash.
“After passing the largest cuts to health care in American history, all to fund billionaire tax breaks and give ICE more money than most militaries, President Trump now wants Congress to defund dozens of programs that help students so that he can send other people’s kids to fight a war with no justification. And after sending prices skyrocketing with his stupid tariffs and reckless war, President Trump is now proposing to eliminate programs that help families afford the basics—like LIHEAP.
“This week, President Trump said that our country cannot afford to help families with child care or health care—but his own budget proves what a ridiculous farce that is. Imagine how many families we could help if, instead of giving the Pentagon more money than they can even figure out what to do with, we cut people’s heating bills in half and made child care affordable for every family in America.
“Our national defense budget should not be dictated by a president who is sending servicemembers into harm’s way in reckless foreign wars—and who woke up one day and decided to send his aides scrambling to figure out how on earth they could spend half a trillion dollars more, which the Pentagon can’t possibly spend responsibly. Donald Trump might be happy to spend more money on bombs in the Middle East than on families here in America—but I am not.
“Last year, I said I’d rip up President Trump’s budget and make sure Congress wrote a new one instead—that’s exactly what we did and will do again. The American people want their tax dollars going toward investments that help everyone and make life more affordable—the basics like utilities and child care. Those are the investments I am going to fight for. Trump wants to build a ballroom—I want to build more affordable housing, and only one of us sits on the Appropriations Committee.”
President Trump’s budget proposes slashing domestic investments by $73 billion while massively increasing the defense budget by roughly half a trillion dollars more (through both annual appropriations and reconciliation) in order to achieve an unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget that dwarfs all other non-defense discretionary (NDD) spending. This sum does not include a separate supplemental funding request expected for the Iran war.
- President Trump arbitrarily announced on Truth Social in early January that he wanted a $1.5 trillion defense budget—and sent his aides scrambling to produce a request that met his topline.
- Trump’s budget seeks to dramatically cut back on domestic investments as American families struggle to make ends meet with higher costs, and as there are already immense strains on the non-defense budget, which has been roughly flat for three successive fiscal years, while defense spending has continued to grow. Non-defense programs will be further strained with the expiration at the end of fiscal year 2026 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which has supported key non-defense priorities with tens of billions of dollars in funding each year.
President Trump’s budget proposes a $404 million cut in funding for the Hanford nuclear clean-up site—and proposes eliminating contingency funding for the Office of River Protection’s High Level Waste (HLW) facility.
On President Trump’s proposed budget for Hanford, Senator Murray said:
“Hanford is the largest nuclear cleanup site in our country, and it is not only dangerous, but costs more in the long run to cut corners on nuclear waste cleanup. Trump’s proposed budget is a slap in the face to the Tri-Cities, threatening the Hanford cleanup mission and the community with this absurd budget request. This proposal is completely unacceptable. I’ll be doing everything I can to set this president straight on the importance of the Hanford cleanup—and if he still doesn’t get it, I’m going to make sure Congress funds it anyway. The federal government has a moral and legal obligation here—and as long as I help lead the appropriations committee, Congress is going to meet that obligation.”
More toplines on President Trump’s budget request will be distributed later today and made available HERE.
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A U.S. Army staff sergeant and his wife arrived at his base in Louisiana last week, expecting to begin their life together as newlyweds.
The couple checked in at the visitor center, identification in hand, ready to complete the steps that would allow her to move into his home on the base.
Within hours, that plan had unraveled.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered the base and detained his wife, an undocumented Honduran immigrant who was brought to the U.S. as a toddler. By nightfall, she was in a detention facility with hundreds of women facing deportation as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The detention came just days after Annie Ramos, 22, a college student with no criminal record, and Matthew Blank, 23, celebrated their marriage with family and friends. Sergeant Blank, who enlisted more than five years ago, is assigned to a brigade at Fort Polk, La. that is set to begin training at the end of the month for deployment.
Almost immediately after an immigration agent shot and wounded a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis this winter, the federal government cast the injured man as an attempted murderer and the agent as the victim of a brutal beating.
That version of events began unraveling when prosecutors dropped felony charges against the injured man, Julio C. Sosa-Celis, and one of his housemates, Alfredo A. Aljorna, who had fled from immigration agents.
Yet video footage of the shooting, newly obtained by The New York Times, raises questions about why it took weeks for the government’s case to fall apart.
The video contradicts the agent’s claim that three assailants had beaten him with a shovel and broom for roughly three minutes before he opened fire. Instead, the confrontation depicted in the video lasts about 12 seconds and shows two men struggling with the agent. It shows no sustained attack with a shovel.
The federal government had access to that video within hours of the shooting on Jan. 14, the Minneapolis police chief said. Yet prosecutors did not watch the footage, an official said, until nearly three weeks after they filed charges against the two men.
“Bare due diligence would have shown that the agents were lying,” Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said in a recent interview, shortly after he watched the video for the first time.
The shooting was a rare instance in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration ultimately acknowledged a serious lapse. The agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons, said after the charges were dropped that two agents had appeared to have lied under oath about the events, adding that they had been placed on leave and could end up facing criminal charges.
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