Just gonna leave this here for the foreseeable future.

You don’t help “rebuild” nations you go to war with unless they unconditionally surrender. Otherwise, you’re just enriching the very regime you didn’t defeat. A $300B “reconstruction fund” for Iran, even if they supposedly comply for a few years to get the money, is bad news.

In which, briefly, @FukuyamaFrancis pours a Niagara of cold water on Trump's Iran deal. A slate of points to be considered. substack.com/home/post/p-202…

President Trump's investment accounts traded between $212 million and $695 million in stocks and other securities in the first three months of the year — an unprecedented sum for a sitting president. cbsn.ws/4eqg612

"America lost the war...We will exit the war with none of those goals achieved, and in order to end the war, America had to submit to a host of Iranian conditions. We lost and there is no reasonable way to hide this fact." open.substack.com/pub/thebul…

"The US secretly approved a financial and maritime arrangement between #Qatar and #Iran, under which billions of dollars were paid to Tehran in exchange for free passage for Qatari tankers and ships through the Strait of Hormuz, three diplomatic officials now confirm." "The secret US approval, which the sources said was granted about a month ago, dovetailed with Doha's interest in opening a direct channel of communication with Tehran, which began to tighten after the ceasefire. Qatar, fearing a renewed Iranian attack on its facilities after one of its gas installations was attacked during the war, sought to buy security quiet." "Some of the payments were disguised as fees for tankers passing through Hormuz, and a broad credit line of up to $1 billion was also opened for the purchase of goods through Qatar." israelhayom.com/2026/06/15/t…

Why is no one talking about the catastrophic failure of senior US military? The political failure is on Trump - no doubt whatsoever But the actual military plan was absolutely incompetent,failing to achieve any war aims and losing the Strait of Hormuz- that's on his Generals!

The Iran deal is an American surrender and you don't have to believe the White House spin, considering they won't even release the document they claim they already signed. x.com/i/broadcasts/1qJVmmWPa…

At this point, Trump has been played by pretty much every country in the Middle East, from Israel and Saudi to the UAE and Qatar, and now by Iran itself. He’s like a Baby Huey in a world of grownups. He makes Jimmy Carter look like a canny master of geopolitical maneuvering.

CBS: Trump made 3,642 stock trades between Jan. 6 and March 30, a pace of about 63 per trading day. Explore the trades here. cbsnews.com/projects/2026/tr…

"You are going to find yourselves required to be sentinels at the bacchanal. You are going to find yourselves required to stand guard at the Lucullan feast..." -- Tom Wolfe, at West Point in 1987, anticipating the use of the military at the WH last night open.substack.com/pub/thebul…

New @nberpubs: "Dollar Erosion: Understanding the Loss of Reserve Currency Status" nber.org/papers/w35328#fromr… "Standard parameters imply a 90 basis points rise, leading to an aggregate wealth loss of roughly one year of U.S. GDP." 😯

So gross.

The constant celebration of Trump's energy is weird and factually dubious, but also just the wrong metric. We need presidents with good judgement, vision, and prudence. We children of the 80s recall Reagan napped, Carter worked nonstop and scheduled the White House tennis courts.

Monsters. Barbarians. The civilized world should unite against Putin's Russia, for the sake of Ukraine and us all.

An ugly, ugly side of America, put front and center. America is befouled. Our decline has been steep and grotesque.

The Trump presidency is a national embarrassment. One might think it better than alternative paths, but it remains an embarrassment, a debasement, a cheapening, and a dishonoring of the office and the country.

Please listen to Ms Applebaum

Applebaum: What binds Russia, China, Iran and North Korea is not religion or ideology. China is communist, Russia nationalist, Iran theocratic. What binds them is fear of liberal language: rights, rule of law, separation of powers and independent courts. 1/

Working in conservative politics, I was always grateful to my mentors and, in turn, I gave all I could to support interns, etc. It makes me deeply sad to see how many of those young folks I tried to support embrace power over principle, climbing over human relationships.

I've heard of hawks and doves. What do we call people who start wars without forethought and then so desperately want peace that they settle on humiliating terms?