Category: War and Peace

By Theodoric Meyer and  Mariana Alfaro / Washington Post / June 3, 2026

The House passed a resolution Wednesday to block President Donald Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran, ratcheting up pressure on the administration to find a way to end the unpopular war.

The 215-208 vote marked the first time that such a measure has cleared the House or Senate on a final vote since the start of the conflict more than three months ago. The Senate advanced a similar resolution last month on a procedural vote, reflecting growing impatience with a war Congress hasn’t authorized.

The effort faces sizable hurdles, however, before Congress could force Trump to end hostilities.

In the House, four Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie (Kentucky), Tom Barrett (Michigan), Warren Davidson (Ohio) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania) — joined Democrats in voting to force Trump to end the war.

USS F-1 Submarine Sank in 1917 After Collision During Training Exercise, 19 Crew Members Lost

By Pia Gray / Futura / May 12, 2026

A research expedition off the coast of San Diego has captured the most detailed imagery ever recorded of the USS F-1 submarine. The World War I vessel sank in 1917 following a surface collision during a training exercise, taking 19 crew members down with it. Operating 1,300 feet below the surface, researchers used advanced deep submergence technology to document the site with precision, providing a clear window into a century old naval tragedy.
Locating the relic

The USS F-1 has occupied the seafloor west of Point Loma since its sudden sinking eight days before Christmas. While a Navy submersible initially spotted the rough location of the wreckage in 1972 during an unrelated search, a close-up survey remained impossible for decades due to the extreme depth. A joint expedition by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the US Navy finally resolved the mystery by deploying deep sea submersibles directly to the site.

Today, Monday, May 25th, — Memorial Day –, the San Diego Veterans For Peace set up its “Hometown Arlington West Memorial” on the front lawn of the USS Midway Museum, 910 N. Harbor Drive, near the corner of Broadway, in downtown San Diego.

Chapter veterans from all military services will be honoring our 288 fallen brothers and sisters from Southern California who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with special memorial markers. The public is asked to stop by, read their names, honor the ultimate sacrifice made by these local fallen men and women, and to reflect on the overall costs of these two wars and wars going on now in Iran, Ukraine and elsewhere. Fom 7 AM to 4 PM.

4 Republicans — Including Bill Cassidy — Joined Democrats Led by Tim Kaine in Voting to Enforce War Powers Resolution

By Theodoric Meyer / Washington Post / May 19, 2026

The Senate voted Tuesday to advance a resolution to block President Donald Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran, defying the White House nearly three months into an unpopular war.

Four Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul (Kentucky), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Bill Cassidy (Louisiana) — joined Democrats in voting to discharge a war powers resolution from committee, the first step toward forcing Trump to end a war that Congress never authorized. Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) was the lone Democrat to vote no.

The 50-47 procedural vote was a breakthrough for Democrats, but the measure still faces considerable hurdles before it could force Trump to end the war.

Are you confused as I am about whether we’re still at war with Iran?

For me to even ask the question displays a lot about this particular moment. Are we at war still, after over 2 months of war? Who knows? I wish somebody would please tell us, to get us out of this confusion.

We have good reasons for our confusion. The Trump White House, Trump himself, and his cabinet secretaries all are saying different things. We aren’t at war, we are at war, it’s an “excursion,” a “blip”, it’s an operation, not war.

Yet, for good times, try this.

Supposedly, the White House and Iran are looking at an agreement spelled out in a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war and set a framework for more detailed nuclear negotiations. On this news, the DOW shot up.

Then also Trump put Project Freedom on pause last night,

JW August reports:

No ICE! No War! “Hands Off Our Vote” was one of the themes running through Friday’s ‘May Day Strong’ event at Chicano Park.  Billionaires were not welcome, nor were Democrats or Republicans. The park, long a gathering place for protests, was again a staging area for emotional speeches and pleas followed by a march to City College.

The speeches echoed the language and themes on the organizers and their website

It was all about pocketbook issues and the creation of the ‘Real Affordability Agenda’.  “A promise of a good life for everyone back in reach” said one speaker, “if workers will unite”. Supporting a goal of “making billionaires and corporations pay what they owe” says the website, repeated by the protest speakers as well as multiple signs and tee shirts with an anti-capitalist theme.

One of the dozen events happening in San Diego County today, May Day, is in Chicano Park.

Our on-the-spot photog JW August took these.

May 1st Friday May Day – Together We Stand, hundreds of thousands of people will march, rally, and take action at more than 3,000 events around the country — in more than a dozen events in San Diego County;

By Jordan Atwood / Nation of Change / April 30, 2026

A deadline written in the aftermath of Vietnam to prevent presidents from waging open-ended wars without congressional approval is colliding with President Donald Trump’s military campaign in Iran, raising the prospect of a constitutional test over whether Congress can still restrain unilateral war-making. On May 1, the 60-day limit established under the War Powers Resolution expires for military operations Trump initiated without formal authorization from lawmakers. Under the 1973 law, hostilities undertaken without congressional approval are supposed to end unless Congress authorizes the conflict or the president invokes a narrow extension tied to “unavoidable military necessity.”

That legal deadline has transformed what began as a fight over the Iran campaign itself into a broader struggle over presidential power, congressional authority, and whether statutory checks on war-making still have force.

By Rev. Michael J. Christensen

Don’t be naïve: what’s being sold right now in renewed negotiations with Iran— and in the wider conflicts touching Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine— is not really peace. It’s a deal.

Cap uranium enrichment at a negotiated threshold. Reopen inspections. In exchange, ease sanctions, unfreeze assets, lower the temperature. Declare a breakthrough. Claim victory.

We’ve seen this script before. It’s essentially a reboot— an updated version of the same nuclear framework under President Biden, repackaged for a new political moment.

To be sure, deals like this can slow a crisis. They can buy time. They may even avert immediate catastrophe.

But they don’t reach the deeper fractures driving the conflict in the first place—generational wounds, historical grievances, cycles of injustice and retaliation.
The biblical prophet Jeremiah would call it out for what it is:

“They have treated the wound of my people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”

Call it peace lite.

War Powers Act Has 60-Day Limit

By Erwin Chemerinsky / The New York Times RSN / April 27, 2026

President Trump’s war with Iran is almost certainly illegal: Congress hasn’t declared war or authorized it by statute, and it wasn’t precipitated by an imminent attack or a national emergency. If the war continues through Friday without congressional approval, it will clearly be illegal, having passed the 60-day threshold and the 48-hour notice period that the president is given, under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, to conduct this kind of military operation.

[Please see original for all and any links]

Whether you support or oppose this war — or, as Mr. Trump has called it, this “excursion” — time will be up. And it is the obligation of the federal courts to say so.

The resolution, often called the War Powers Act, was adopted during the Vietnam War. It applies when American troops are engaged in hostilities or in situations in which hostilities are impending — such as during this war with Iran.

Despite Mr. Trump’s saying, on Thursday, “Don’t rush me” regarding the war’s timeline, the act requires that the president withdraw our military from participation in hostilities after 60 days unless Congress has declared war,