This is at least the second time Trump has picked himself when asked who he would like to be reborn as. It's an example of of what a psychiatrist might call "extreme self-congruence". I believe that's fancy talk for "self-centered sombitch"

The more accounts come out of the WH, the more it seems apparent that Trump really did think he could decapitate the Iranian leadership and the remaining regime members would promptly surrender. Did he not think one of his predecessors might have given this a whirl if it was so straightforward?

He doesn't want to revoke licenses or even cnill the networks' entirely inoffensive coverage of this baffling conflict. He just wants something with which to slake to Trump's instatiable plenipotentiary demands.

I have seen very few movies this year so I can't really judge the oscars, but one of the movies I did see was Sinners, and its portrayal of the Jim Crow economy is the film's driving force, even more than its supernatural elements www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

I know the suggestion that he did it for a poll bump is the abhorrent aspect of this. But it's also pretty disturbing that anyone would model a successful political or military strategy on President George W Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Do you know what's most upsetting? Americans are such lovely, generous, outgoing people. I've been shown so much kindness and courtesy by Americans on my travels through that country. To see them represented to the world by this criminal, amoral cretin just makes me want to shout into a cushion.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Luc Besson movie. And his new adaptation of "Dracula" in which he clumsily steals from Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 version, inexplicably relocates the action to Paris and introduces a shoot out between soldiers and gargoyles, has not changed that assessment.

The WH insists it anticipated the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. If that's so, the administration either has a plan to deal with it or does not object to it being closed. And since the administration clearly DOES object to the Strait being closed, it must have a plan to reopen it, right? Right?

If either Kemi Badenoch or Nigel Farage was Prime Minister, the UK would be embroiled in this conflict. That's not conjecture or inference. Both have explicitly stated said they would have joined the US/Israeli attack.

I have an absolute right to a free five star Caribbean vacation. I just need flight and hotel operators to accept this. And President Trump just needs a completely different SCOTUS decision. We're basically in the same situation.

President Trump's position, AIUI, is not just that its allies should join a war without apparent purpose, but that they should do so with zero notice and no consultation or joint planning. Moreover, a failure to do so will see them punished via the dissolution of NATO. What a fucking douchebag.

Use nuclear weapons to blast a canal to bypass the Strait of Hormuz: What can possibly go wrong?

President Trump's Air Force One press conference answers: Your Cut-Out-And-Keep Guide: 1. I don't know/I haven't seen that. 2. You're a terrible reporter 3. I won the 2020 election.

Israel has killed 700 Lebanese citizens, including one hundred children, since embarking on war with Iran. Iran. Not Lebanon. Lebanon is just the side hustle for Netanyahu. It's psychotic.

Well that's handy, because we don't want in. I guess everyone's happy.

btw, you know we're all heading to the point when re-opening the Strait of Hormuz becomes Trump's moment to declare victory, right? It's classic Trump: 1. Cause chaos 2. Intervene to attenuate chaos 3. Claim credit for ending chaos.

The vast majority of those at the top of MAGA are spending most of their time and effort trying to answer this question, mostly to their own personal advantage.

We live in a manichean world of polarizing dividing lines, but it's genuinely troubling to me how many progressives are glazing the Iranian regime for producing Epstein memes. Iran is led by butchers and psychopaths. There is no universe in which these people are our friends.

Minority opinion, but I have a measure of sympathy for those DOGE bros. They're barely adults and some asshat big shot has dangled what looks like a mega opportunity to do work that will turbo charge their careers and/or prominence. These kids were used. And now they've been hung out to dry.

This week's massive presidency-ending scandal that has already vanished without trace. As an aside, it is genuinely hard to find bona fide skull-measuring scientific racists nowadays. They usually hide behind incohate notions of culture.

And there was me thinking that pay isn't a "perk" so much as the entire reason why people work.

Can we just have a list of J6ers who AREN'T perverts or pedophiles? It's bound to be a more manageable list.

Google Gemini says it will be by far the biggest construction project in history, costing "many hundreds of billions of dolllars". Spoil all my fun, why don't you?

My solution to the Strait of Hormuz problem: make a canal through the top of the UAE. You're welcome.

The war will be over when I feel it in my bone spurs. #PutinPuppet

Like all self-respecting Englishmen I regard if as my patriotic duty never to be impressed by anything France does or has. But I do like La Marseillaise. That's a proper national anthem.

This is becoming tiresome.

AOC v MTG in 2028? It could happen.

True Fact: Bram Stoker chose "Dracula" as his eponymous antagonist because he read that the name was Wallachian for"devil". In fact, the translation is "son of the dragon".

One week ago. 🤡

It wasn't a "Military Academy"—it was a reform school. And that isn't an army uniform—it's a costume from a community theater production of "The Nutcracker."

One could interpret the purpose of bombing Iran as a bid to drive up oil prices and help Putin out of his fiscal hole.

If anyone inside or outside America (including quite possibly the President) had any idea *why* the US is bombing Iran we might understand and tolerate the consequences. But we don't. So in the absence of a conceivable upside this just looks like all downside.

Is the Strait of Hormuz open? Is there a means to get it open soon? is it OK if is stays closed? If the answers to all of these questions is "no" then the US either a) didn't anticipate this closure b) anticipatd it but can't remedy it; or c) doesn't mind closure. None seem ideal tbh.

I richly enjoy beholding the absolute car crash that is Kari Lake's career. Ran for AZ Governor and lost. Ran for Senate and lost. Tried to gut NPR and VOA and got voided. Then fired. I swear if someone would only sue her, she'd lose all legal right to call herself Kari Lake.

Why don't you try this in a neighborhood where soldiers - at your instruction - were rounding up and executing entire families a few weeks ago? Maybe you could join the new Supreme Leader for a walkabout? Ali Larijani is a psychopath. Just because he's fighting Trump does not make him an ally.

In an alternative and more sane universe this was the moment Donald Trump's political career ended.

Just the Sec. of Defense begging Iran to take its only real card off the table and let America win. I'm sure the new Supreme Leader, fresh from burying his father, wife and child killed by America, wil be only too keen to play fair. These people are absolutely clueless.

Tho he referred to the New Testament, spoke French and misquoted Gill Scott-Heron in his first five minutes back on screen, which makes him extraordinarily well-read for a 32nd century alien.

Actually. It's absolutely magnificent.

I once bag-carried for a CEO. His company was taken over and he was given a multi-million pay-off. "What am I going to do with myself now?" he asked rhetorically. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and scream "GO SIT ON A BEACH!" He popped up at another troubled company 6 months later.

The one immutable rule of the kleptocracy is that no hoard of money is ever enough. Jared Kushner is already a billionaire. He could stop working today, dedicate his life to Middle East peace and still live out his days in extraordinary luxury. Instead, he treats war as a business opportunity.

Talking about the Holocaust is woke. How so? You got me. I can't even adequately summarize how this person arrived at that conclusion. It's a good thing he was only in charge of [checks notes] getting rid of all DEI funding.

The think about going on telly and denying observable reality is not only that you have to shrug off the inevitable derision. It's also that you essentially surrender your self-respect.

And now if you'll excuse me. It's wine o'clock.

The more inept the Trump cabinet member, the more aggressively they refuse scrutiny. Pam Bondi raged at members of the House Judiiciary Committee for not talking about the stock market's performance. Pete Hegseth spends most of his press conferences attacking the media.