Ah, Well, Nevertheless

It seems Elon deleted this post.

I suppose "next year" can technically mean "by the end ot 2026" in this context, but...

No worries, we'll be sure to print up Elon's next nonsense.

Everything He Ever Wanted

High level government jobs are attractive to serial killers. Lindsey Graham was one.

The extraordinary exchange was captured by the documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who was granted extensive access to Graham since 2023. It provides an unvarnished look at Graham’s yearslong quest to topple the Iranian regime and the ways in which he persuaded Trump to strike, at times pushing for even more aggressive action than Netanyahu was prepared to take.

WSJ’s Josh Dawsey reviewed the documentary footage, filmed before Graham’s death. Here is what he learned. Photo: Caroline Gutman for WSJ

“Look what we’ve done here. I almost cried,” he tells the crew, laughing loudly just after U.S. strikes on Iran began in February. “How long have we been pushing this?”

He then tells the crew that Trump was equally happy about the war. “I talked to Trump this morning, he’s jacked, he said, ‘best thing I have ever done.’ He loves blowing stuff up.”

He was always funny and friendly to me, personally, in the Senate, so who is to say if he was good or bad?

Running On Empty

It's all above my pay grade, but I was surprise the missile interceptors lasted this long.

President Trump has set aside, at least for now, plans to sharply escalate the American military assault against Iran, with particular concern that intensifying the war could dangerously drain the Pentagon’s already diminished stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East.

The threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that have made a return to major combat operations a hugely risky endeavor, administration officials say. Mr. Trump and his top aides are also uneasy about the prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the alienation of key Gulf allies who are vulnerable to Iranian attack, a global economic crunch, and growing energy and refugee crises.

Ah so inventories are *low* low. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. military commanders have been picking and choosing which Iranian missiles and explosive-packed drones to intercept and are allowing some attacks through their defenses, amid an effort to preserve the Pentagon’s diminishing supply of weapons that block projectiles from reaching their targets, two senior U.S. officials told NBC News.

 

Morning

Sunday funday.

Saturday Evening

I got nothin'

Afternoon

Weekending

Fo Fari

For years ageing white current and former Timesmen would form into dipshist Voltron on twitter any time someone criticized Bari.

Morning

Slacker Saturday

Happy Hour

Get happy

What Are We Going To Talk About This Week?

Same thing we talk about every week, whatever conservatives want us to talk about it.

I am as guilty as anyone - not that I matter much - but I do wish that if people on The Left wish to discuss the new film version of The Odyssey, they would do so in their own terms, instead of as a response to Elon Musk.

That's just an example, but it applies to everything almost every week.  Try driving the conversation, instead of having it be an ongoing response to whatever nonsense conservatives have puked up this week.

Sure Republicans are in charge of government so to some extent you have to respond to that, but you don't have to respond to whatever is oozing out of conservative social media that day.

Especially if, for example, you have a New York Times column.

Presidenting

How everything works with President Deals.

Two sets of American and Saudi flags were placed on stage and on the table where Energy Secretary Chris Wright was seated. A large screen beamed in his Saudi counterpart from Riyadh. After months of delay, the arrangement was finally signed.

The Saudis had won much of their wish list for the deal.

But as quickly as it was announced, it seemed to fall apart. Thursday morning, Trump said in a social media post that the deal was subject to a new condition: Saudi Arabia would have to join the Abraham Accords, an initiative dating back to Trump’s first administration that led to several Arab countries normalizing their diplomatic stance toward Israel. Trump also denied that the agreement would allow uranium enrichment.

The president, according to a source familiar with the matter, was already angry over the unveiling of the deal, which Wright had not told Trump he would be announcing.

Trump’s frustration was then exacerbated, sources told CNN, after a flurry of criticism from experts and conservative media outlets. This included skeptical coverage on his preferred channel, Fox News, and on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal that questioned why the deal was made absent a normalization agreement — something both outlets pointedly noted President Joe Biden had been seeking.

Every left wing shitposter since the start of Trump II: You can't make any deals with President Deals because he never thinks he is bound by them (this hardly took a genius to observe).

Numerous world leaders and corporate/university presidents: but he will make a deal with us! 

The Kids Today

Amazing stuff at the paper of record.

The nice thing about being Gen X is we got this treatment for 3 years max and then everyone forgot we existed.

A Story In 4 Parts

This is how you do journalism.

Check the dates if the point isn't obvious.

(ht brent is a sewer socialist)

"Personal Toll"

Taboos are never iron laws, of course, but the world's superpower loudly and repeatedly rejecting them both in theory and in practice does have consequences.

The war has taken a personal toll on the president and some of his senior advisers. Some top aides have been advised by intelligence agencies that the Iranians are seeking to kill them and have been told to stop taking car services, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Arguably pulling a "Venezeula" is a more moral course of action (not that it is moral) than bombings and ground invasions which kill or remove everybody but the leaders, but you can understand why self-interested world leaders have tended to take that option off the table.   

It's Tariff Week, Again

He'll never stop fucking that chicken.

The Trump administration will impose new tariffs just after midnight ET Friday on dozens of countries over alleged forced-labor violations, according to a notice in the Federal Register.

The duties, set between 10% and 12.5%, will effectively replace President Donald Trump’s temporary 10% global tariffs, which are set to expire at the same time as the new ones take effect.

The forthcoming tariffs will apply to 60 trade partners and cover 99.4% of U.S. trade, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a fact sheet Thursday afternoon. The office separately told CNBC that it could not provide an estimate of how much revenue the new tariffs will generate.

Morning

Get your morning on.

Happy Hour

Get happy.

At Least The War Is Over

Iran needs to make a deal with President Deals, the man who always keeps his word, quickly.

President Trump told Axios on Thursday that he's seriously considering restarting major combat operations in Iran — including strikes that would be bigger than the ones carried out during Operation Epic Fury.

Operation Pete Hegseth Does Have A Big Penis So Stop Laughing might happen! 

President Deals

Trump announced a deal with Saudi Arabia, letting them enrich uranium without requiring anything much in return, and then 12 hours later added recognition of Israel to the "deal."

I am starting to think there is no point in making deals with President Deals.

Coyote Moment

Not quite there, but we can hope!