America, land that I love, we need to have a discussion about something, and it’s long overdue. In politics today – a maddening world of binary, polar opposites for some reason – it has become fashionable to insult your rivals in blistering fashion.  Gone are the days of bipartisanship and “team effort”.  Today, thanks to the obscene infusion fo cash into the political system, Congress has turned cutthroat, as “public servants” bicker with one another in order to remain in power and, thusly, be subject to all of the fiscal perks of working in such close proximity to lobbyists. This vitriol is contagious, of course, and now Hollywood is employing this scorched earth tactic in their insulting of Washington’s elite. Worse yet; they’re doing that thing again, where everyone they disagree with has to be the most evil person in all of history. Hollywood kicked off this week by melting down over former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation, alternatively calling for her to be jailed or attacking White House advisor Stephen Miller as a “white nationalist.” Nielsen resigned amid a surge in illegal immigration and chaos at the border. According to reports, President Trump told Stephen Miller that he is “in charge” of immigration policy. Hollywood naturally melted down, blaming both Nielsen and Miller for allegedly abusing children due to policies that separate migrant parents from their children in detention centers. Then came the clincher: https://twitter.com/mjfree/status/1115311774893510657 This “my enemy is Hitler” rhetoric is old hat.  Worse than that, it’s offensive to those who have been affected by the lasting legacy of Hitler and The Holocaust. If Hollywood wants to remake The Boy Who Cried Wolf, maybe they ought to do so on a soundstage and not from their soapboxes.

The relationship between the US and Iran hasn’t been all that stellar over the course of the last 50 or so years, and that doesn’t look to be changing any time soon. This is no surprise, given just how vitriolic and aggressive Iran has been in their condemnation of The United States.  For decades, the Islamic regime in charge of the Persian nation has been lambasting the US for any manner of things, most notably their involvement in Middle Eastern affairs. Much of this criticism has been simply written off as wild propaganda by US officials, especially after considering that high-level officials within Tehran have also been vocal about their belief that The Holocaust may have been a hoax. This week is different, however, as Iran and the US trade barbs over who are the “terrorists” among the two. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran, the highest-ranking branch of the nation’s military, issued a statement vowing to “spare no effort” in fighting the U.S. military on Tuesday, suggesting the potential of a planned attack against Washington. Like other branches of the Iranian government and military, the General Staff referred to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) as a “terrorist” group, a response to the declaration by the U.S. State Department on Monday that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would join the agency’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) for its decades of involvement in terrorist activity worldwide. The Iranian Islamic regime rapidly responded to the declaration – the first of its kind against a state actor – by reciprocally branding the U.S. military a terrorist group. Iran is certainly no fan of Donald Trump, especially after the US President nullified the sweetheart nuclear deal handed to Tehran during the Barack Obama administration.