The hardest part of writing columns these days isn't determining what happened and why. The biggest obstacle is navigating through the blizzard of propaganda, misreporting, and absolute falsehoods being told. On the macro level, if lies were people, the Iranian regime would be China. And that's saying something, since no one can believe a word that comes out of Beijing. 

But on the individual level, at least in regards to the American midterm election cycle, with all of the contenders vying for top prevaricator, the diminutive "doc" from Detroit, Abdul El-Sayed, is the runaway winner. 

Back in 2018 when El-Sayed was running for governor of the Wolverine State, he gave this answer several times as an explanation for why his parents named him the way they did. 

In 1984, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed was born to Mohamed El-Sayed, an Egyptian political asylum seeker who held leadership positions both in the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America. Both entities were unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism suit that busted up $12 million being funneled to Hamas to kill Jews. El-Sayed's mother, Fatten Elkomy, who began working for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during her collegiate years before expanding that mission work in the United States to provide funding to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda as well as to Hamas. Why does this matter? Both parents are deeply antisemitic. 

Paula Abdul was born in 1962 as a Syrian Jew. She had her Bat Mitzvah in 2013. In 1984, she was one of the Laker girls at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, California. That was right in the middle of the Showtime era — Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, James Worthy, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott, and A.C. Green. I loved the rivalry for much of the 80s between the Lakers and the Celtics. I probably went to 50 games in my teens and 20's. I no doubt saw her dance on the sideline several times, and, like the El-Sayed family, had no clue who she was, because it wasn't until young El-Sayed was four-years-old that Paula's debut album was released, sparking her first number one hit. The chance that his Jew-hating mom and dad named him after a unknown Jewish girl is absurd. 

Over the years, he morphed the meaning of his name into being a "servant leader". That's closer, but still disingenuous. His name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, literally translates as "Servant of the Prophet Muhammad, the Master". He had to tone that down a bit for public consumption. 

Of all the lies remnants of the Iranian regime tell, the most consistent is that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. A day doesn't go by without missives, complete with AI-generated images and videos to allegedly prove their point, that tankers are hitting Iranian mines in the Strait and sinking, or that drones are striking ships at will and sinking them, too. 

CENTCOM Admiral Brad Cooper has a different story to tell, one backed up by the men and women of the United States Military and the scoreboard of oil leaving the Strait of Hormuz. 

Yes, Iran is doing its level best with what they have left to harass shipping in the Strait. But oil, refined products, and cargo are transiting every day with increasing frequency. Remember that Saudi Arabian East-West pipeline that got hit by an Iranian-backed Shia militia group in Iraq last month? Not only is the pipeline operational once again far sooner than doomers predicted, it's moving more oil than before the attack. 5.8 million barrels bypassed Hormuz yesterday alone. The Kingdom produced almost 11 million barrels a day by the beginning of the month, exporting nearly 8 million barrels of it, refining the rest for their own use. The Strait is absolutely open. It might be like the Wild West at times, and the Wells Fargo Stagecoach gets a shot taken at it now and then, but the mail is being delivered.

Iran would have you believe that American forces have retreated to more than 700 kilometers away. Except they're still close enough to do this to Iranian boats pretending to be the Iranian Navy. 

As for how the regime in Tehran is actually holding up, not taking what they're saying online at face value, let's take a look inside Iran...or in this case, under Iran. 

President Trump last week said he would not conduct kinetic operations against Iran until after the midterms. But after that, he promised, all bets are off. The regime doesn't trust him. They're holding meetings underground just in case. Why? They have no radar to warn them against American bombers on their way. And even if they did have that warning, they've got nothing on the ground in the way of air defenses to do anything about it. 

Former senior members of the regime are speaking openly that life, even for those in government, cannot be sustained at this rate much longer. 

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Another appeared on television and said the unthinkable — Iran can't do to the Americans what the regime claims it can. 

This guy was one of the regime's biggest war hawks against the U.S. Now? He wants out from under it before they're all killed. 

Puppet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a speech meant to shame ordinary Iranians for not volunteering to be cannon fodder against the Americans and Israelis, admitted that the Iranians lost 1,500 IRGC forces that worked the missile launch sites — fixed and portable, all over Iran. So when the regime boasts on X that they've retained all of their missile production and capacity, here's 1,500 reasons why you shouldn't believe them. 

At a university in Isfahan, signs claiming the regime is collapsing are going up everywhere. 

The Artesh, Iran's regular army, is increasingly unhappy with the regime. And keep in mind, they also have guns. 

For many Iranians, they're beyond depressed and fearful about what the future holds for them under this ruthless regime. But while telling the rest of the world how utterly gutted the Iranian economy is after withering economic sanctions, they have to laugh and make jokes out of it, because if they're seen complaining, they'll be captured and killed. 

Protests inside Iran are growing. Some of them are protests in the classical sense of the word, meaning non-violent. 

These are in provinces all over Iran. There are also protests of another sort growing in western, northern, and eastern Iranian provinces. To the west, out of fear that the Kurds are becoming too big a threat, the IRGC began attacking them with one-way drones, inflicting damage. The Kurds, however, are reportedly resisting, may have some flying toys of their own, and are fighting back in the mountains. 

Up north, another IRGC cleric was killed by what's being called "a bladed weapon". 

That's three in about a month's period of time. And in the southeast, the Baluchistan tribes are escalating, with a mounting body count of IRGC in their wake. 

Nioh is a monarchist. She wants Reza Pahlavi to return to Tehran and rule as the Persian king, so she's not happy about bits of the country splintering off to different factions. She's torn, however, because chaos and dead IRGC around the edges of the country could easily spread to the interior, presenting Iranians with an opportunity to topple the regime. 

This was one of the leaders of the women's garb police. It appears that locals had enough with hijab/burqa cops. 

While Iran continues to deteriorate, its only remaining ally in the region, the Houthis in Yemen, have their hands full of Yemeni armed forces, Saudi Arabian air strikes, and a growing coalition against them that may soon include not just Pakistan and Turkey, but also Syria and Egypt. 

Fighting in Yemen was pretty intense from the north to the south this past week, and continues today. Even the Red Sea Coast, which has largely been reclaimed from Houthi control, still saw a lot of mop up operations to root out remnant Houthi terrorists. 

This chap was one of the faces you saw from Bab al-Mandab in September when the Houthis blitzed the coast and took Mokha and the airport. You won't see him anywhere, because he was killed after fleeing the coast up into the hills of Taiz this past weekend. 

The Giant Brigades have demonstrated for months that you underestimate them to your own peril. 

Up in the north, in the desert terrain of Mariz, Yemeni and Saudi forces kept up their whack-a-Houthi campaign relentlessly. 

The carnage is pretty extensive all over Yemen. The Houthis are gradually losing the war of attrition, with over 700 killed, including several senior officers, in just three days last week. 

But even with a large loss of fighters, Houthis still have missile and drone capabilities, and enough fighters high on khat to keep going. Last week, in the Yemen back-up capital of Aden on the southern coast, the presidential palace compound was struck. 

And Yemen has lost one of its biggest heroes. 

The most intense fighting, however, remains in the high country of Taiz. The third-biggest city in Yemen is the gateway to the Red Sea coast, and envelops the biggest supply line to Aden in the south. The Houthis desperately want to capture and hold that high ground and cut off government forces. The second they blow something up and take a hill, they play mind games with the population that Taiz has fallen. Except the locals, aiding and assisting Yemeni coalition forces, keep reclaiming the same ground after killing Houthis that just took it that morning. This back and forth has been rinsed and repeated for a couple weeks. 

Locals in Taiz are an active participant in this war against the Houthis. And even when things look bleak, like 20 of them getting captured, they vow to continue fighting. 

The shelling is constant in the mountains. 

The word through Taiz is that Houthis are infiltrating the region inside trucks carrying drinking water. So naturally, every water truck is being inspected going in or out of the city. 

In another significant development, a sizeable group of Houthi drone operators, oftentimes flying Iranian-made drones, was captured. 

How was this possible? Partly because the Yemeni coalition has a new RV. 

When the drone operator can no longer control the drone, and can't detonate the explosives which it is carrying, that makes the drone operator very vulnerable. This year alone, warfare with the advancement of drones continues to evolve in real time as countermeasures including lasers and jamming equipment are brought to bear. 

But even with the tech and counter-tech being deployed in a pretty backwards country, my favorite image of the week goes to this tribesman near Lahj on the southern road to Aden. Look at the trophies he is carrying around. And all it took to hoist them was whacking eight Houthis.  

If he lives to see the end of this war, just imagine the stories he'll tell. 

The pressure in the region is increasing. The regime in Tehran has trouble wherever it looks, and sees the calendar rapidly approaching the first Wednesday of November, the day after the U.S. midterm election, without much of a way to stop an unfettered Donald Trump. The Houthis believe all they have to do is keep fighting to the last Taiz resident, and they'll survive this thing, not realizing that every week the war  continues, another Arab state agrees to send reinforcements in both men and equipment. 

And as for President Trump, very quietly, the military buildup has begun once more. Aerial refueling assets, along with another carrier and a couple amphibious landing groups, are positioning in a more forward deployed posture. 

Trump said he'd wait until after the midterms, but then he was going to end this once and for all. As weak as the regime is right now, it might not take a lot, but if kinetic action is ordered, it will take more than just 'mowing the grass' along the southern coastline of Iran. 

Arab countries in the Middle East appear to have decided the only to get to the other side of this conflict with Iran and end the lies, terrorism, and propaganda is to fight through it and win. After the midterms, that very well may also be the President's conclusion.