Global

Just when the Democrats thought they had it clinched because of high gas prices from the “little excursion” in Iran, Trump pulls off one of the most brilliant political moves of the last 60 years: a UFC match on the White House Lawn.

It’s a double genius move, like a 1/6 in Wordle. (I’m translating UFC into Manhattan-ese.)

Think about it. First, on Agent Orange’s 80th birthday, instead of everyone talking about a guy who makes Joe Biden sound like Diogenes, we are distracted that our President is a walking coronary wrapped in a babbling Baconator, with ankles the size of the FIFA Peace Prize, who bumbles the names of the countries he wants to bomb or tariff. Instead, we are spending our time bitching about the bong-hitting masses who think Trump is cool as sh*t because he’s hosting that most patriotic of American sports: the UFC.

Coastal metrosexuals and other sissy elites hate the UFC because it stars big macho guys kicking the crap out of each other. It’s the lovechild of martial arts and threepenny opera. 

Donald Trump, who managed to evade the draft during the Vietnam War, said recently that he wanted to be a ‘wartime president.’ He was clearly thinking of brass bands, fancy uniforms, medals and snappy honor guards to compliment his continental-sized ego.

Well, he got his wish, and it’s been a disaster. He fired some of his best senior officers who would not kowtow to his amateur schemes, threw monkey wrenches into the Pentagon machinery, and used the US military to conduct illegal assassinations of foreign figures.

‘Careful what you wish for’ should have been engraved on his Oval Office desk. As the renowned general, King Pyrrhus of Epirus (ancient Albania) famously said after a series of battlefield victories against the Romans, ‘one more such victory and I am lost.’ Hence the often-used expression, ‘Pyrrhic Victory.’

Trump’s little war against Iran and Lebanon with his favorite ally amounts to a classic Pyrrhic victory. A few thousand bystanders died, missile supplies were exhausted, Iran was pounded by the US and Israel, and billions of dollars were wasted in the shootout. Iran estimates $300 billion in damages. For what?

Yikes, it’s déjà vu all over again. I got an email and then an invitation to a zoom radio broadcast. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a group I knew and had actually done some workshops with in Youngstown some years ago, had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department over voter registration. Was this the ACORN voter registration attack of 2008 once again?

The news report indicated that 125 FBI agents had swooped in on the organization taking computer hard drives and other records, visiting canvassers and others at their homes, and more as part of their broad subpoena and investigation. Without sharing details, the investigation was targeting their voter registration efforts. Other reports also underlined their opposition to efforts by the legislature to require photo identification for voters to access the polls.

This is the same, but different. 

The recent "UFC Freedom 250" spectacle hosted by Donald Trump on the White House lawn served as a disturbing stage for the erosion of public decency. During this event, fighter Josh Hokit chose to use his platform to direct a grotesque, misogynistic insult at former First Lady Michelle Obama, baselessly labeling her a man. The immediate roar of laughter and approval from the surrounding crowd was a grim reflection of a culture that has been conditioned to celebrate the dehumanization of Black women. 

​It is critical to observe the reaction—or lack thereof—from those in power. Donald Trump stood by and permitted this vitriol to define the atmosphere of a taxpayer-funded event on the South Lawn. While UFC CEO Dana White eventually condemned the remarks as "nasty and false," the silence from Donald Trump and the White House was deafening. 

BANGKOK, Thailand -- After an 11-year delay, a Bangkok court sentenced two Muslim ethnic Uyghur Chinese men to death for bombing a Hindu shrine in the heart of the capital, killing 20 people and spotlighting Thailand's complex links to China's treatment of its Uyghur minority.

The Bangkok South Criminal Court on June 11 sentenced Yusufu Mieraili and Bilal Mohammed to be executed for bombing the crowded, outdoor, streetcorner Erawan Shrine popular with Thailand's Buddhist majority and international visitors.

The court "imposed the harshest penalty available under the law, the death sentence," said one of court's four judges on June 11, announcing the verdict.

The conviction included murder and illegal possession of explosives.

Their lawyer said both men would appeal and cited allegedly harsh "treatment of the defendants during the proceedings."

China welcomed executing the two men.

"The perpetrators were utterly devoid of humanity and absolutely heinous," China's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lin Jian told a news conference in Beijing on on June 11.

Trump has taken a victory lap, announcing a tentative agreement with Iran to end the war. This declaration by Trump is way too reminiscent of George W. Bush’s appearance on a US aircraft carrier to claim victory on May 1, 2003 by announcing “Mission Accomplished” and the end to the Iraq War, which then lasted another several years. Admittedly, the details are sketchy, and even the tentative agreement won’t be signed for several days, but what has emerged looks very thin. Both sides, Iran and the US, are declaring victory, which might be face saving diplomacy, but also raises the specter from labor negotiations where a ”tentative” agreement is just that, and not a full and complete agreement on all outstanding issues, and may in fact still indicate that there is not a real “meeting of the minds” required for a complete agreement.

President Trump must get off his lazy and fat ass and demand that Netanyahu free American hostage Sama Safi. Sama, a 20‑year‑old American citizen and honors psychology student at Birzeit University, was kidnapped by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from her family’s home near Ramallah at 3 a.m. on June 2.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D‑MD) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D‑MI) are warning that her life is at risk. Sama, whose family lives in Florida, was taken without charge and transferred to Ofer Prison, then to the Moscovia interrogation center in Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.

In addition to the regular lethal American and Israeli attacks on Iran, last week alone the Israeli military killed 13 Gazans and 13 Lebanese. Gaza is now 70% Israeli occupied, contrary to what was agreed upon in the ceasefire arrangement, as is much of south Lebanon. More than 1,000 Gazans have been murdered by Israel since the temporary ceasefire was declared in October 2025. And one might add to the toll the constant aggression in south Syria, where Israel is creating an army base presence to be followed by settlers that creeps ever closer to the capital Damascus. It is an encroachment that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of war criminals intend to turn into a component of “Greater Israel” together with Gaza and Lebanon.