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Peter Kay explains popular lyrics:
- Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson reviews what had been known a few days ago, from leaks and odd confirmations, since largely confirmed, that James correctly characterizes as Trump’s surrender to Iran.
Ignore the spin by Trump’s MAGA supporters. This war with Iran is a failure.
From every observable angle, America has suffered a humiliating defeat:
- PZ Myers considers the Memorandum of Understanding between Trump and Iran, where it was signed (eeg), what it contains (oh my), the detail that can derail the whole thing (yikes), and concludes The war is over. We lost.
- Julian Sanchez considers the Trump surrender to Iran and wonders how Media Trumpers will explain it
Struggling to predict how even the hackiest of hacks are going to pretend this isn’t a worse outcome than the agreement Trump ripped up for no reason. I get as far as “Obama’s name isn’t on it…” and then draw a blank
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) June 18, 2026 at 8:46 AM
Maybe the Hegseth flex?
Pathetic as this sounds, I bet this is actually going to be the line
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) June 18, 2026 at 9:18 AM
Writing off the human cost?
I quaintly maintain that “will anyone be held accountable for the mass murder of children?” is not, in fact, a strange question.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) June 17, 2026 at 12:46 PM
Just attacking anyone who doesn’t pretend?
They get especially keen to associate criticism with Democrats when it’s NOT just coming from Democrats. The message being “anyone taking this view has effectively joined The Enemy.”
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) June 16, 2026 at 4:19 PM
- What Trump and Iran are calling a peace deal (Iran calls it a permanent cease fire) had been mostly secret, except what Trump and his officials claimed. It turns out mostly to be a surrender to Iran.
News Corpse takes a look at the weird boasting of Secretary Hegseth.News Corpse begins with this:
Trump's Secretary of War Crimes, Pete Hegseth, admits Obama got Iran to agree to never have nuclear weapons (which Trump denies and lies about).
Then Hegseth said the difference is Trump did it with military force (costing billions and killing thousands), while Obama did it through diplomacy.
— News Corpse (@newscorpse.bsky.social) June 14, 2026 at 11:16 AM
My own opinion parallels:
Every US assessment, and those of other countries as well, said Iran was complying with Obama accord. Up and down the supply chain. No exceptions.
No nukes, right up until Trump tore it up.
So Hegseth is boasting that Trump went to war to try to get what Obama got without going to war.
Boasting!
— burrland01.bsky.social (@burrland01.bsky.social) June 16, 2026 at 11:56 AM
- driftglass takes note of where Trump signed the surrender, and suggests where the next Democratic President should take the oath of office.
- Dave Columbo explains how Trump speakers can explain the Iran agreement that is most definitely not a Trump surrender.
- The Borowitz Report reviews the new #1 Bestseller:
the Ayatollah’s ‘Art of the Deal’:
Key to international success:
An advance excerpt from the book’s first chapter begins, “Rule #1: Only negotiate with morons.” - In Canadian satire, The Beaverton begins to understand Trump’s understanding of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, as he explains that it is normal for winners of wars to pay losers billions of dollars in reparations.
Makes sense:
You remember that Obama deal? What an awful deal that was. $400 million and he didn’t even get them to reopen the Straight. So stupid. Nobody thought about reopening the Straight until I came around, and spent $300 billion. Art of the deal, baby. - Hackwhackers has a group photo at the G7 summit as leaders mingle, most by a strange coincidence with backs to Trump as he stands in the middle, alone, isolated, ignored, forlorn, vacantly gazing into the distance.
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit has a few unkind comments as the Trump/Hegseth team keeps showing its
colorscolor.Yeah. Gotta make sure those minorities aren’t recognized for their contributions to the country. pic.twitter.com/jJZOzW59j5
— tim russ (@timruss2) June 11, 2026
Comrade Misfit has a headline:
The Most Racist Administration Since Woodrow Wilson’s Keeps On Showing Their Racism - Author and educator Amanda Nelson counts the ways just this week that Trump has been an embarrassing loser.
- Nojo is back (Yay!) with a pre-tarp photo as patriot laborers prepare to de‑Trump the Kennedy Center.
- Jason Linkins finds a new use for Trump’s Reflecting Pool makeover.
the company that did this job really specializes in made-to-order metaphors for the Trump presidency
— Jason Linkins (@dceiver.bsky.social) June 18, 2026 at 12:41 PM
- At The Onion, RFK Jr hosts a meet-and-greet with a variety of the world’s infectious diseases:
While we can’t go back in time and infect those who lived their lives without tuberculosis, we can commit, together, to making sure future generations are more fortunate.
Spreading hope:
- Tommy Christopher brings us Morning Joe co-hosts reacting to new revelations of what had been top‑secret meetings by Trump officials in the situation room, talking about how to cover up child rape stories and how to crush protests by citizens demonstrating against ICE abuses.
Joe Scarborough:
Maybe it’s just the lawyer in me, but excerpts from this book are reading whether you look at Todd Blanche trying to cover up one of the biggest pedophile rings in the history of America, or you have the vice president and Stephen Miller talking about suspending habeas corpus and the Insurrection Act.Jonathan Lemire:
Yeah, ugly, as you say, illegal, and deeply un-American!
I mean, this is extraordinary, both of these revelations in this new piece. I mean as The Times writes about the Insurrection Act debate, that Vance says it needs to invoke the Insurrection Act to crush the unrest of Minnesota. - Historians won’t forget, of course. But history as commonly understood after high school, does not include failed Presidents.
Brian Beutler points out that, as Americans suffer continuing Trump damage over the long term, future Presidents (initially Democratic) will be blamed – unless Trump is now held publicly accountable in every humiliating way possible:
from his impulsive war with, and subsequent surrender to, Iran to his failure to rename the Kennedy Center after himself, with every Reflection Pool embarrassment in between.
But the world Trump is trying to build is one where the writers of those books have to lie about the 2020 election, and where schools and parks and public buildings bear his name even in parts of the country where he was most reviled.
We have to aim for something like the opposite, where even dead-enders know that their loyalties are embarrassing. - Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the breakdown state by state. The good news for Republicans is more people approve of Trump than disapprove. How about that!?
The bad news is that’s true in only 14 states.
The other 36? Not so much.
- CalicoJack in The Psy of Life examines 4 massive, deep psychological and neurological studies that seem to indicate that conservatives are waging war on human reality.
Do our better angels come to us naturally?
- Legal expert Imani Gandy suggests that the case for abortion rights was lost in the Supreme Court in part because Roe v Wade had been argued, decided, and eventually wrongly overturned as a privacy rights case.
The data was, and is, available to argue abortion as a public right to health issue.
- Democrat James Talarico seems to have Republicans scrambling in Texas.
Ted Cruz doubting Talarico’s masculinity fell flat. Cancun anyone?
To be fair, Ted Cruz was not escaping the Texas crisis where constituents were freezing to death.
He was just acceding to demands of his 10 & 12 year old daughters.And AOC from NY was in Texas working & fundraising to get power and heat to those freezing.
So everything was in her capable hands.
— burrland01.bsky.social (@burrland01.bsky.social) June 10, 2026 at 11:47 PM
Accusing the unmarried candidate of occasionally dating beautiful women went nowhere.
tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has the latest. A completely fake, AI generated, video of Talarico in a dress, pushing school age children to change their sex, singing to the tune My favorite Things.
tengrain notes:
Republicans got nothing, if this is their best. - It seemed improbable at first.
At The Moderate Voice Editor Joe Gandelman explains the resurgent popularity of Hunter Biden. It seems not to be in spite of his past, but, in part, because of it.
It is largely redemption.
America loves a comeback. Meet Hunter BidenHe has critics:
He takes an unusual approach – honesty:
What has surprised many is Hunter Biden’s social media presence isn’t built on denial or image-polishing. He speaks with remarkable candor about addiction, often using humor at his own expense while reminding followers that addiction nearly destroyed his life. He argues that recovery is indeed possible. In an era where public figures often hide their failures, his willingness to discuss his addiction openly may be one reason so many people find him relatable. - Maybe it’s a little different from whataboutism when the what is about your specific attackers.
In Scotties Playtime, Maine candidate Graham Platner goes all Harper Valley PTA on those going after his past.
- Dave Dubya observes the White House UFC gender based verbal attack on Michelle Obama and the limp reaction from UFC management. He contrasts that with the horror over Graham Platner’s tattoo.
A Marine who got a tattoo matching Platner’s told Zeteo in June 2026 that he and Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner did not deliberately choose Nazi symbols, stating “We just got matching skull-and-crossbones tattoos that we thought looked cool.”
He has since covered it.
To all the pearl-clutching voters who think Platner is a Nazi because he got a skull and crossbones tattoo as a drunk 23 year-old, I politely ask, “What makes him a Nazi?
Did he praise Hitler? Does he hate Jews and Blacks? Does he praise the Criminal President and his J6 thugs? Does he hate liberals? Is he a racist? Does he want non-violent people and minorities in concentration camps? Is he even pro-ICE?Personal note: Perhaps it is a sign of my own educational deprivation when it comes to history. I am multiples in age from the years of Graham Platner when he got that tat. Until a couple weeks ago, I wouldn’t have recognized its connection to the Nazis.
- In Rural Missouri, Jess Piper comes from a high school whose motto, reflecting the area, was hillbilly pride runs deep. She explains that the term white trash, as used by those with whom she grew up, had a specific meaning:
Some of the folks I mentioned could be white trash, but the term is not a default for rural or poor or mountain folk. White trash can be used demonstrably for any white person, regardless of region or income, who acts with rudeness and a lack of civilization and couth.
She applies the term to a specific recent event, and a set of incidents, that despoiled the beauty and honor associated with the White House.
The fact that fistfights broke out in the crowd is no surprise, and even less surprising was a statement by a UFC fighter calling Michelle Obama a man.
It is a disgusting conspiracy thrown about by racist, knuckle-dragging, white trash troglodytes…
White trash behavior can come from any socioeconomic spectrum — Donald Trump and his ilk are the embodiment of white trash. They are wealthy, but they display the uncivilized and immoral lawlessness of the term. The stigma of a lower-status, lower-wage person aptly defines the most powerful man in the country and his genre of rich folk…trash.
The term has always been used to target poor and rural people, but what it actually describes is behavior. Trump’s behavior. - North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz is appalled as, it turns out, is most of America at the UFC Trump event and the verbal assault by Josh Hokit against Michelle Obama. John suggests the fragile masculinity of much of America is not personified by the professionally obtuse Hokit.
The urgent crisis of MAGA masculinity isn’t revealed by a performative clown like Josh Hokit; it’s revealed in the guys who are defending him in comment sections right now. It’s revealed in the dudes who laugh off his abject filth as a supposed “joke” that the oversensitive Left can’t take. It’s revealed in men who spend their days echoing his verbal diarrhea around their wives, girlfriends and children.
The toxic manosphere may be headlined by guys like Trump, Rogan, and Hokit, but it’s the massive undercard of tens of millions of perpetually enraged, emotionally unsteady, podcast-addled disciples that should alarm the rest of us. It isn’t just the poisoned minds of the guys at the top that are cause for alarm, but the trickle-down ignorance that has reached our families, friends, co-workers, classmates, church friends, and neighbors
- In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson finds parallels in each of two sets of current events.
The Knicks in New York, quoting Mayor Zohran Mamdani:
The Knicks did not just win for New York City. They won like New York City. What is New York, if not your back up against the wall? A dream that feels just out of reach. A rent payment you don’t know how you’ll ever make.The opening of the Obama Presidential Library, quoting Michelle Obama:
She said she hoped the center would remind people “of the power of choice. And the steady work of change. The arduous, unglamorous march up that mountain, one foot after another, day after day, generation after generation. But I…also hope you fully absorb the elation of achieving something together. You know, that feeling when you clear the tree line and see a vista that takes your breath away. A feeling that can never be erased.”AND
Trump’s surrender to Iran:
In the U.S., President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance are trying hard to sell the administration’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran, which Trump signed yesterday at the Palace of Versailles in a scene that recalled Germany’s surrender after World War I. Trump is posting in all caps on social media that the deal is a triumph and that those who disagree with it “are either jealous, bad people, or stupid.”Putin’s continuing humiliation:
Overnight, Ukraine launched its biggest attack on Moscow, the capital of Russia, since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine’s waves of drone strikes on a major Moscow oil refinery have shrouded the city in flames and black smoke.The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.
- Right Wing Watch brings us Christian Nationalist preacher Todd Friel with a message that the Obama Presidential Library, like Obama himself, is an insult to God because it, and he, represent a challenge to God’s ordering of reality.
To be fair, the good pastor does seem to accurately represent the prevailing view of Trump’s Republican Party toward America’s first Black President:
It shouts,
“I hate this America. I hate tradition and I reject God’s ordering of reality.”
The new Barack Obama center continues to proclaim America needs to be fundamentally changed, torn down, and discarded.
And you can take God with it!
And that is why Barack Obama’s new building, besides being just an atrocious eyesore, is downright diabolical. Just like the fellow who designed it. - The Propaganda Professor shares an especially bad meme of the week: how many among those of us in the faith believe God celebrates pride this way:
And we begin with a reminder, especially for Pride Month, that there’s nothing that pleases a loving God more than torturing people for all eternity just for being who they are. - Infidel753 warns of an unexpected source of censorship: hosting platforms themselves.
Two recent instances:
It appears there may be an outbreak of censorship on Blogspot at the moment. In the last couple of weeks two political blogs have been removed, apparently by the platform, without reasons being given. One of the two bloggers is appealing the removal, the other has apparently given up on the process and is looking into other options.Infidel takes precautions and urges others to do the same:
I’ve also been going back systematically through older posts and saving the more valuable ones in a format which, I hope, would make it fairly easy to re-create them on another platform. I’m doing the same with the substantive current posts. I’d advise anyone who has a political blog to take similar precautions.My inexpert observation:
There are hosts that are inexpensive to the point of having only nominal cost.
Do at least a few minutes of research for complaints. For example: A past host saw a hacking event from Moscow as nothing more than a marketing opportunity.
I now use Dreamhost. There are other reputable possibilities.
One additional note: Infidel has been a good mentor on security. - In Happiness Between Tails da-AL goes to humor with guest author Stevie Turner who relates the let’s worry no matter what part of parenthood.
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil provides ten links to the pungent details as RFK Jr gets the entire Trump cabinet to conform to a sauerkraut diet.
My comment? I got nothin.
- Dave Barry prepares for Father’s Day with a heartfelt story involving a tradition of soccer, war bonnets, and flatulence.
- In Georgia baseball, The Savanna Bananas demonstrate the Humphrey Bogart dictum: Confusion to the Enemy:
- @whiskeywhistle98 is someone with whom I do not wish to argue.
- SilverAppleQueen has window blinds and cats behind a lot of them.
6 responses to “Week of Iran, Promises, Payments, UFC,
Trump/Kennedy Center, Green Reflecting PoolMemorandum of Understanding Future Plans to Understand, G7 Blues, Situation Room Situation, State of 14 States, Platner, Obama Library, Hunter Hunts”
Thanks as always for including me.
The core of Obama’s JCPOA was comprehensive regular inspections of Iran’s nuclear program to ensure that the regime was complying. As far as I can tell, Trump’s surrender deal doesn’t include anything like that. It’s irrelevant what the regime “agrees to” if there is no enforcement mechanism.
Hegseth puts his faith in the regime’s fear of US military power, but Trump has already demonstrated that he won’t press home an attack to the point of actually finishing off the regime or even allow Israel to do so, because he gets frightened of rising gas prices or something equally silly. If we had managed World War II like this, some version of the Nazis and the Shinto imperialists would probably still be in power in Germany and Japan to this day.
Israel was never even consulted about this “deal” and cannot be considered bound by it. Trump’s position is that Israel should just sit there and do nothing when it’s attacked, to avoid messing up his surrender and getting the conflict back in the headlines. Israel is not going to go along with that.
Iran can’t be trusted. Trump can’t be trusted. Netanyahu can’t be trusted.
So here we are.
BTW paying 30% more for gas and food isn’t so “silly” for me and countless other Americans.
It’s Israel’s war. It’s now Trump’s war. He was played by Netanyahu.
To those who say, “Finish the job” or “finish off the regime”, please enlighten me how that can happen without tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead, including children?
Iran is now totally justified in having a nuke for deterrence against American and Israeli aggression. Anyone would do the same if they could. Ukraine is paying dearly for surrendering their nukes. Iran notices things like that.
Israel can take care of itself. “Greater Israel” is the imperialist goal of their radical Right, and they want to take Lebanon first. I certainly do not want to pay for it. Time to declare our independence from Zionism.
Most Americans have no idea of the IDF cruelties inflicted upon Palestinians, or the homes and land taken by them. They are worse than ICE.
Maybe it’s time to first finish off our criminal regime that also kills protestors before we go out and “save the world”?
I hate to say it but I’d trust Iran before I’d trust Trump. If I had to make a choice.
That whiskeywhistle98 quote is from The Birdcage. And now my impulsive decision to watch it last night has born fruit.
It’s from a scene where the transcendent Nathan Lane is rehearsing a new bit with an unenthusiastic partner.
Seriously, I didn’t remember how great Nathen Lane was – and he wasn’t alone in that.
Also – that sauerkraut and grass fed beef diet that RFK Jr is getting the entire cabinet to lie about eating to keep him out of their faces… I have on, um, authority that “grass fed beef” includes literally all beef since the definition is ‘beef from cattle that have eaten grass at any time in their lives’, in other words, all beef.
Hah.
(the authority I reference is an opinionated youtube poster -with receipts – Chris Newman, who is often hilarious if you don’t mind a bit of crude.
Thank you again for linking Scottie’s Playtime, Burr! And for a great week-round-up.