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 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!

All Blown Up, Sir

The NYT looks into the damage, something that mostly shouldn't require this type of reporting.

Iranian attacks on nine U.S. locations across the Middle East in the two weeks since the cease-fire broke down show that the country maintains an ability to inflict damage on precise targets, despite the Trump administration’s repeated claims that Iran’s military capabilities have been diminished or destroyed.

A New York Times visual analysis of U.S. military bases and other sites found the strikes have caused damage to living quarters and working areas, drone shelters, radar systems and other structures.

One of the attacks, on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded others. A military official told The Times that nearly a dozen troops were also wounded severely enough by Iranian missile and drone attacks in Jordan and other countries this month that they were flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany for treatment.

Not that I suspect Pentagon briefings to provide immense daily detail about this stuff, but  a general overview, especially when troops are injured and killed.

An Endless Bounty

I know there are 300 "should be major scandals" things every day, which makes it difficult to pick and choose, but "the Trumpers accepted bribes to blame Taco Bell wrongly for the explosive diarrhea and now you can't eat lettuce without sitting on the toilet for 2 weeks" could be one of those things Democrats never shut up about.

People like Taco Bell!

I expect this will not work out well for Taylor Farms, as "take the hit and act responsibly" generally works better long run, but our business geniuses are not always so smart!

Morning

Whimsical Wednesday.

Happy Hour

Eventually, betting against Elon will pay off.

You Don't Have To Hand It To Her

Nothing a certain type of person loves more than imagining they've converted a conservative.

I disagree with @LauraLoomer on 1,000 things, but I admire her willingness to rethink Ukraine and go there. One of the things we pundits aren't good at is admitting when we're wrong--let alone seeking out information that contradicts our priors. She has courage to do just that. https://t.co/1mmPnIJrSW

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) July 22, 2026

Discovery

I suspect they'll find a judge to overturn this, but funny for the moment!

Donald Trump must divulge detailed financial information from his many businesses as part of his $10bn defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, a federal judge ruled during a discovery hearing on Tuesday, according to news reports.

The ruling by US magistrate judge Enjoliqué Lett could open a unique window into the hundreds of businesses owned by Trump’s family trust. It also highlights a potential drawback for Trump’s strategy of bludgeoning critical media with multibillion-dollar lawsuits.

"The president can sue anyone he wants and also the people he sues can't fight back in the normal ways" would be a likely outcome, because freedom, or something. 

SUPERTRAINS

We all know being able to get from A to B quickly is nice, but I think it is underappreciated how much fast trains are like little wormhole ships. What if you could step on a train in NYC and be in Boston in an hour, with relatively inexpensive service every 5 minutes? Suddenly, NYC and Boston are effectively "next to" each other.

This train will have a trip time from Tokyo to Osaka of 67 minutes. That's half the current (already fast) time.

At some still unfixed point in the future when the magnetically levitating Linear Chuo Shinkansen train makes its first 505km per hour journey across central Japan, it will streak through Shizuoka prefecture in a little under 64 seconds.

It has taken more than a decade of wrangling for Japan to be able to say that with confidence; it will be many more years before anyone is actually boarding the train itself and likely many more years after that before people genuinely think of central Japan as the “linear economic zone” imagined by the government that is seamlessly joined by the train.

A couple of years ago, I was somewhat "amused" to learn that this project was being held up by one obstinate governor, the governor of the 64 second Shizuoka prefecture. That's the kind of problem I generally imagine is unique to the US's fractured governance and legal system.

As for how we would pay for it, well, look up the cost of your local highway interchange upgrade project.

But How Will We Pay For That

Once you notice that the usual deficit scolds go quiet any time money is conjured for cops (broadly defined) and war, you realize you can ignore them and anyone who takes them seriously.

The war with Iran has cost the US some $37.5bn (£28bn) so far - an increase of nearly $8bn since the last estimate in May, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said.

Similarly, I don't need to be a military spending expert to know that Hegseth is lying and the real cost is already multiples of that. 

Indeed

Often the proxies in "proxy fights" are things which actually matter in and of themselves, but also highlight deep fundamental differences. What has happened with Israel and its support from the US, Europe, and most of their media and politicians, matters in and of itself, and also demonstrates a deeper rot infesting our betters.

As Coates said, "If you can't draw the line at genocide, you probably can't draw it at democracy."