THIS WEEK'S EPISODE:

Episode #1047: Cartoon Villain
First Broadcast: 3/9/26
In the late evening and early morning hours of February 28 going into March 1, 2026, Israel and the United States launched coordinated missile and air attacks against Iran, striking over 1000 targets in an operation that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called "Epic Fury," and which several government officials justfied with various rationales, the chief ones being that Saudi Arabia and Israel were in favor of it, Trump thought Iran was about to have a nuclear weapon (despite having previously claimed that he had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear weapons program), and that since the U.S. knew Iran would retaliate if attacked first, and Israel was going to attack Iran regardless of what the U.S. did (fulfilling a 40-year-old dream of Israeli Prmime Minister Netanyahu's, apparently), then the U.S. decided to attack Iran first before Iran could retaliate. It's as dumb as it sounds, and when I say the U.S. decided to do this, I really mean President Trump decided to do this, because Congress received no notification about American plans for this attack (even though Lockheed Martin apparently did), and Congress certainly didn't give any kind of authorization for it, let alone a declaration of war, which--reminder--only Congress can give, which makes this entire war illegal, I think. Maybe that's why so many Republicans are trying to avoid calling this a war? As part of his justifcation for his actions, Trump cited the events of 1979, when Iranians kidnapped dozens of Americans from the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held them hostage for 444 days; but, if we're going down that route, why not mention how, in 1953, the U.S. and the U.K. engineered a coup d'état against Iran's Prime Minister Mossadegh, who was trying to nationalize Iran's oil industry, and consolidated power with the Shah, Reza Pahlavi, who, according to Amnesty International, created one of the most repressive governments in the Middle East with respect to human rights? Ironically, the Shah's son is now being seriously promoted by some war proponents as a possible leader of a post-war Iran--assuming the war ever ends in the first place. In the meantime, the U.S. appears to be waging an indiscriminate campaign of violence against the entire country of Iran, claiming the "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Khameini, a whole slate of Trump-approved successors, and almost 200 elementary school students among its victims, which isn't surprising considering that Pete Hegseth has vowed to not be constrained by any "stupid rules of engagement." Iran has since retaliated by attacking American facilities in several other nearby countries--again, unsurprising, unless you're the President of the United States, who didn't think Iran would attack Arab countries, for some reason. Trump says this war could last for 4 or 5 weeks, or even "far longer," which seems to directly contradict his decade-long tirade against the "stupid endless wars" the U.S. fought in the past. Maybe that's why so many of his "MAGA" supporters see this war as a stab in the back and a betrayal of his so-called "America First" policies? Maybe that's also why this war only had the support of 21% of Americans at the outset, which is a far cry from the levels of support seen at the beginnings of the Gulf War in 1991 (83%), the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 (92%), and the Iraq War in 2003 (73%), making this possibly the least popular war of the last 40 years? At any rate, it doesn't take a psychic to predict that this situation is only going to get worse in many ways for everyone involved, so let's do what we can to end it now, the sooner the better. I hope I don't have more to say about it in the next episode, but that's probably asking for too much, isn't it?

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So, what is Free New York anyway? The simple answer is that it's a this neat little public access TV show on Manhattan Neighborhood Network which I co-produce with the tremendous help of my camerawoman/editor/everything else, Kim. The complicated answer is that it's a project of mine to broadcast opinions and events which don't always appear within "the mainstream media" (like The New York Times, the major networks, local radio, etc.), and so far I think it's been working.

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last updated March 8, 2026
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