Global
We’re seeing more US airstrikes on Iran, joint US-Saudi strikes in Iraq, surging military escalations between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and Israeli drone strikes in Lebanon, all just in the last couple of days. The middle east is becoming more and more of a powder keg, and it all could have been so easily avoided.
Trump inherited a perfectly functional Iran nuclear deal in his first term and ceasefires between Yemen and Saudi Arabia and between Israel and Hezbollah in his second term. He had the possibility of peace in the middle east handed to him on a golden platter, and he actively torched it.
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Long before Zohran Mamdani won the race to become New York City's first Muslim mayor and its first Asian American mayor, President Trump accused him of being a "communist" and of "living illegally" in the United States. Shortly afterward, many in the MAGA movement joined the attacks on Mamdani, targeting him, in my view, largely because he is Muslim. That did not surprise me.
What did surprise me was Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joining the chorus of critics by claiming that Zohran Mamdani is not a Democrat. He most certainly is. Claiming otherwise is the worst possible thing to say, and Fetterman's statement was, in my view, a bald-faced lie.
Once again, this month, the Pennsylvania senator joined critics in attacking New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for saying he would seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he entered New York, citing the International Criminal Court's warrant accusing Netanyahu of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Fetterman called Mamdani a "clown" for raising the idea and said the mayor should focus instead on fixing New York City's potholes.
The ongoing destruction of the government by the government goes unnoticed by some whose priority is the destruction of immigrant families. The government’s other priority is making sure, by defunding pregnancy counseling, that teens are chaste till marriage, which should occur immediately. Of course it’s also important to cut people off food stamps so they’ll get a third job. So little time! Busy giving public land away to data centers to make money stealing water. Have pity on the poor tech bro!
As the political landscape heats up across Ohio and nationwide, establishment pundits love to talk in terms of millions of dollars, media markets, and strategic campaign leverage. In a recent analysis regarding potential shifts in the U.S. House, political observers noted that unless a challenger can attract significant funding—some estimating upwards of $2 million for heavy advertising—any talk of flipping certain seats amounts to little more than "lip exercises." Yet while consultants obsess over fundraising thresholds and television ad buys, a much deeper moral and institutional failure continues to plague our political system. We must look past the superficial metrics of campaigns and examine the glaring double standards maintained by the Republican Party across every level of government. Let us be entirely clear about where priorities lie.
Congressman Rand Paul brought Dr. Fauci to testify before Congress, in which Dr. Fauci responding by taking the 5th amendment over 100 times. Social media erupted with those supporting Dr. Fauci vs his critics.
On social media, Fauci's congressional testimony reignited many of the same criticisms that had circulated throughout the pandemic. Among his critics, three issues dominated the discussion:
His continued defense of the view that COVID-19 most likely originated in the Wuhan seafood market rather than from a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Currently both the FBI and CIA acknowledge that the lab leak is more likely.
His unwavering support for broad vaccination campaigns and masking policies. Critics argued that these recommendations were presented with too much certainty despite evolving scientific evidence and changing public health guidance.
The words 'killed', 'injured', 'maimed', and the like often lose a great part of their meaning when they are repeated so relentlessly.
Take, for example, a headline like: "13 Palestinians Killed in Gaza, Others Wounded." Though many of us can still feel a deep sense of sadness over such a tragedy, the news itself becomes less shocking over time.
According to figures produced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israel has killed and wounded a total of over 250,000 Palestinians since the start of the genocide in 2023.
The tally is updated daily because the killing never stops.
On July 23, six Palestinians were killed in Gaza. A day earlier, 13 were killed, and the day before that, nine others were killed, and so on.
I watched the late night yucksters like Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers get a bunch of cheap guffaws out of Trump’s supposedly inept attempt at comedy at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But Trump’s performance was at a level that took him a step above comic geniuses, beyond even Andy Kaufman and Lenny Bruce.
Throughout the evening, President Donald Trump mangled one lame-ass joke after another. The audience of not-too-clever journalists didn’t get it, while Trump was enjoying every minute of it, holding them captive, as he assaulted them with deliberately unfunny jokes he pretended he hadn’t seen before. The performance was dragged out with what-the-hell-is-he-talking-about bitching and complaining.
Every time a joke face-planted, he would comment on it, “Who the hell wrote this?…Is this funny? … Who the hell would think this is funny?,” even pretending he doesn’t get his own punch lines.
This is known as a meta-performance, the highest level of conceptual humor.