Beltway Insider: Trump/Iran War Miscalculation, U.F.O Files Released, Hantavirus Outbreak, Ted Turner Dies

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Category: Beltway Insider

Published on Saturday, 09 May 2026 16:36

Written by Janet Walker

President Trump announced again this week the promising message that the war in Iran is nearing an end, when media reports Iran's oil supply will not be effected and the dictatorial regime could withstand a boycott for months.

The President's job approval rating, according to The New York Times for the period ending May 9, 2026, of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President remained consistent at 38% and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as president remained consistent at 58%. A slight 3% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated weekly.

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Trump's Miscalculation on Iranian War

The Trump White House has, from the initiation of the war with Iran, miscalculated the Iranian regimes determination, especially in the modern social sharing world, to control the Strait of Hormuz, and with that effectively cut of the world's oil supply forcing the United States, and more importantly the dominance of Donald Trump to recognize the government's supremacy in the region.  

Other than Iran, no nation in the world believes this violate and unpredictable nation should possess the elements necessary to develop nuclear weapons. The war, which began on February 28, has unfortunately highlighted to the American people, the Trump Administrations inability to effectively use the most highly sophisticated weapons efficiently.

On February 28, the first day of Operation Epic Fury, a drone strike slammed into a school. "At least 175 people, most of them likely children, were killed in a strike on a girls' elementary school in southern Iran, health officials and Iranian state media said. The strike was a targeting mistake by the U.S. military, according to U.S. officials familiar with a military investigation," The New York Times reported.

Even as the Hegseth led Defense Department postured the school was in fact a storehouse for drones and other weaponry, those embellishments have since been exposed.

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As of March 9, 2026, the president announced the Defense Department, led by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had struck over 5,000 targets in Iran during the initial 10 days of an ongoing conflict. Trump claimed these strikes severely degraded Iran's military capabilities, targeting missile production and naval assets while claiming to spare some key sites for potential future action.

The continued escalation across Iran, forced them to do what they always do when they are squeezed by foreign nations; attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway vital to the world's oil supply. This move alone brought the cost of Operation Epic Fury into the homes and living rooms of Americans, as it drove gasoline prices to record highs.

The red, white and blue banner the president had hoped to ride on in November to secure an easy republican majority is eroding. As the nation moves into Memorial Day, another 13 U.S. Military have died and more than 380 injured and Operation Epic Fury continues.

Iran has continued to target the Strait of Hormuz and hold the world economies hostage, and even as the Administration's messaging proffers a cease fire, an end, and other cessation of hostilities, to date, no deal has been made, and no deal is on the table.

It is simply another miscalculation by the Trump Administration.

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UFO Files Release

UAP, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UFO's, unidentified flying objects, which have long held fascination with the American public and the global community, and since The War of The Worlds aired on radio, in 1938, creating public hysteria, U.F.O's have captivated both intellectuals and creatives with the possibility that somewhere "out there" a civilization actually does exist.

For the government to release this level of secret and classified information into this UAP program that has been repeatedly funded by members of congress, and investigated by high ranking military officials, has all the earmarks of a fake pass.

"Former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, took to social media to deride the release, calling it "'look at the shiny object' propaganda" while the administration waged foreign wars. "Unless they roll out live aliens and test demo UFOs or actually admit what we know this really is then I have way better things to do on this Friday," she wrote," The New York Times reported.

While many believe that this release marks a level of transparency, and our elected leaders are actually allowing citizens to see behind the closed door sessions into the inner workings of classified projects, the truth is that the release of this information is the bait to satisfy citizens especially in an election year.

Unpacking the release of the information, which one has to realize, was given a make-over to dull the potential of public hysteria. For more than eighty-eight years, UFOs have been related to the Orson Welles 1938 radio broadcast, and the subsequent and frequent portrayals in films and books since, so the name UFO had to be shelved and a more palatable name, with no public stigma needed to be created for the program, for multiple reasons, the most important is so there would be no public hysteria surrounding the release of what could represent another lifeform.

What the release and the makeover of this widespread public hysteria inducing information actually accomplishes is to alert the citizen who understands the government and the fake pass, and this tantalizing information only shows that a much deeper, more polarizing scandal is afoot in Washington.

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Hantavirus Outbreak

Fears over the possibility that a recent cruise ship outbreak of hantavirus would lead to a global pandemic are widely overblown, and may simply represent Covid PTSD, according the World Health Organization.

"Covid PTSD is real, and I understand why people are connecting this situation to what happened in 2020," said Dr. Céline Gounder, a physician and clinical associate professor of medicine and infectious diseases at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. "Surface level, it feels like the same story all over again. But it's not," The Wall Street Journal reported.

The outbreak aboard the MV Hondius, which is not a typical cruise ship in that it primarily serves passengers who are booking excursions for the study of wildlife or delicate ecosystems. With that the MV Hondius had a manifest of 61 crew and 88 passengers when it set sail from Argentina.

While the origin of the outbreak fairly certain, the concern is that exposure to the other passengers and crew, and subsequently any person that have had contact with since the time of exposure and disembarking from the ship. About two dozens passengers disembarked on a island stop in the South Atlantic Ocean and returned to countries around the world presenting an effort by medical personal to find the individuals and have them tested. Airborne threat of infection is practically zero, as usually the hantavirus is spread through intimate contact.

What officials do know is that a Dutch couple were exposed to the hantavirus, which is normally found in the feces, urine, or salvia of rodents, pre-boarding during a nature excursion. The couple, and a third person, a German citizen have died. The 24 Americans exposed were removed from the ship and quarantined at a military University hospital in Nebraska. Seven returned home and have submitted to monitoring in place and have not shown any signs of the hantavirus.

"I want to be unequivocal here. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic," said Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic management at the WHO, speaking at a press conference on Thursday. "This is not COVID. This is not influenza. It spreads very, very differently," NPR.com reported.

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Coronavirus Total

At the order of the President of the United States, the U.S. no longer recognizes the value of The World Health Organization. The CDC has recommended every person from age six months, including senior citizens should receive at least one shot of an updated COVID-19 vaccine, annually.  The death toll from Covid-19 has dramatically decreased, as has transmission of the virus. Even as confirmed new cases continue each week, fewer are dying from each new variants.

For the 7 days ending May 9, 2026, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases reported by the World Health Organization increased by 3,181 to 779,204,977. The total worldwide death toll did not increase over the past seven days and remains at 7,114,356 deaths. The United States has stopped providing Covid data to the World Health Organization. (Data updated April 12, 2026, from the World Health Organization).

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Ted Turner, Media Pioneer, Dies

Ted Turner, the media pioneer who created the 24 hours news cycle concept and turned the public's insatiable thirst for news into a billion dollar business, died this week in his home in Tallassee, Florida, He was 87.

Turner, for many is known only for building one of the largest independent cable networks, was also a conservationist owning more than 2million protected acres of land through the United States, and in Argentina, a serial entrepreneur who bought his local sports teams to play exclusively on his networks, and a serial adulterer. 

While his business acumen is widely revered and his list of frontier breaking successes, he brazenly spoke of his infidelities and many relationships even as he remained married.

"But he was also a playboy, even through his three marriages and well into his 70s. His paramours had countless stories and grudges about his brazen infidelity, but he somehow still managed to remain friends with many of them — perhaps a testament to his famed charm," The New York Times reported.

Raised during the time when parental rights included physical abuse and abused as a child, Turner also explained in his many biographies that he was diagnosed with Bi-polar, a mental health condition that consists of personality swings, from high-highs to low-lows. Hyper sexuality is also a benchmark of bio-polar and would account for his insatiable need for other women, even while he had relationships with many of the world's most beautiful and accomplished women.

In addition to physical abuse, Turner also suffered bullying, disparagement, ridicule and mental abuse from his father. After his father's death by suicide, Turner took over the family business, a mediocre outdoor advertising business in Atlanta, and slowly, with a feracious, almost insatiable, intensity, he began building his empire.

Turner did more than just battle against his own demons, he found against the establishment, the media establishment traditionally headquartered in New York City, Turner kept his growing cable network in Atlanta, and slowly transformed this southern city into a thriving media and business mecca.

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In addition to changing the news consumption landscape forever, Turner's CNN was accused of "aiding and abetting" the enemy by Persian Gulf War General Norman Schwarzkopf, who identified, "the media" as his biggest challenge, noting that constant, live television made the war difficult to manage compared to previous conflicts and even went as far to note that D-Day invasion, if the 24 hour news cycle existed in June 1941, would not have occurred. Turner's CNN saw huge ratings during the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial, the 1986 Challenger Explosion, and the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Throughout his life, he was driven by an aggressive need to destroy the predictive words and determinations imposed on him from his childhood and set out to champion every endeavor. As an avid sailor, he won the America's Cup, the most prestigious award in sailing, his Atlanta Braves, once considered where National Baseball League players go to end their careers, under Turner's ownership, finally won a World Series, in 1995.

"In 1984, having landed on Forbes magazine's list of the richest people in America, Mr. Turner was speaking to Georgetown University undergraduates when he held aloft a copy of Success magazine with his picture on the cover. His voice, according to biographer Porter Bibb, trailed off into an eerie whisper, and his eyes searched somewhere above the crowd. "Is this enough?" he asked. "Is this enough for you, Dad?,'" The Washington Post reported.

Ted Turner is survived by his five children.

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For more information on President Donald Trump: Whitehouse.gov.

Sources: Various © Articles covered by Copyright protection.

Janet Walker is the publisher, founder, and sole owner of Haute-Lifestyle.com. A graduate of New York University, she has been covering international news through the Beltway Insider, a weekly review of the nation's top stories, for more than a decade.  A general beat writer/reporter and entertainment/film critic, she is also an accomplished news/investigative news/crime reporter and submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration "Cops Conspire to Deep Six Sex Assaults" in the Breaking News Category and was persuaded to withdraw the submission. Ms. Walker has completed five award-winning screenplays "The Six Sides of Truth," "The Assassins of Fifth Avenue," "The Wednesday Killer," "The Manhattan Project," and the sci-fi thriller "Project 13: The Last Day." She has also published "Unholy Alliances: A True Crime Story," a non-fiction narrative, "Days, Times, Seasons, and Events: A Collection of Poetry & Prose," and "Songs of Freedom: A Collection of Biblical Teachings," which can be purchased here. She is a member of the Authors Guild, the Los Angeles Press Club, the National Writers Union, and a member of the International Federation of Journalists.