Rodger Payne

i feel like if i was tasked with not starting a war and bringing back US manufacturing jobs, i could have done a better job than this

(Reuters) - U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran's leadership is still largely intact and is not at risk of collapse any time soon after nearly two weeks of relentless U.S. and Israeli bombardment, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

uk.news.yahoo.com/exclusive-us...

This is what all that macho warrior talk means in practice.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pentagon tells Congress the first week of the Iran war cost the US $11.3 billion, an AP source says.

Reaching net zero by 2050 ‘cheaper for UK than one fossil fuel crisis’ Climate change committee finds move to renewable energy would also bring health, economic and security benefits

Achieving the UK’s climate goals costs less than the economic impact of one single oil shock - climate committee finds @suspol.bsky.social @fossiltreaty.bsky.social @greenpeaceuk.bsky.social @oilchange.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Mr Smith Goes to the Harvard Institute of Politics

Freedom, amirite?

Both the U.S. administration and the Kremlin are backing Viktor Orbán in his bid for reelection in Hungary. (It would be his sixth term.) They are doing it openly and fervently. This says a great deal about our times. And what it says is: very bad news.

The Discourse has become sort of numb to the fact that the richest guy on earth and owner of a major social media platform just routinely spits out the kind of nakedly white supremacist shit that until a decade ago you rarely saw outside of places like Stormfront.

Iran's government is more hardline, its people are poorer and more isolated, the region's on fire, and the global economy feels like its about to go into shock

If you want to know why people wanted to avoid war with Iran for so long, you're finding out in real time

I’m starting to understand how one might go bankrupt running a casino.

should be pretty straightforward to work out how big a subsidy this is to oil that we're paying for

This may not be the strong threat he thinks it is.

This is premature. Go back and recall the "On to Damascus" stories from late spring and early summer 2003. Here's a good example of skepticism at the time:

www.brookings.edu/articles/aft...

And just like that we’re back to “Department of Defense”

Maybe Trump would have gained some popularity from killing Khameini if he had bothered to explain ahead of time to the public why he was starting the war. But he didn't.

First, a bit odd to be fighting a war where our main ally is Israel and the others are Muslim and imply we are fighting to stay "Christian nations under God" 🤨

This is great TV even if she's now been canceled.

PAT RYAN: 'Does the US want to be the policeman of the Middle East getting nothing but spending precious lives & trillions.' Rng a bell?

COLBY: Defer to you

R: That was Trump. How about this - 'we simply cannot afford to get enmeshed in a Middle East war'

C: Defer to you

R: That was actually you

'We don't see any reason to negotiate: Araghchi We have more comments from Iran's top diplomat. In a live interview with NBC, Abbas Aragchi said Iran is "not asking for a ceasefire". "We don't see any reason why we should negotiate with the US", he said. "When we negotiated with them twice, every time, they attacked us in the middle of negotiations." Araghchi also emphasised that Iran has not closed the Strait of Hormuz, saying "it is the ships and tankers" that have refused to cross the waterway.

Iranian Foreign Minister:

“We don’t see any reason to negotiate”

(aje.news/0avpno?updat...)

Per the FY23 NDAA, ODNI is required to submit unclassified reports to Congress and public every 6 months on the status of the Iranian nuclear program. So Gabbard should have released 2 such reports since the March threat assessment. Where are they?
www.congress.gov/bill/117th-c...

Trump Bought Netflix Debt Amid Paramount’s Fight for Warner Bros. New financial disclosures released Wednesday show that the President acquired Netflix bonds as Paramount was trying to pry WBD away from the streaming giant.

What's the right word to describe apparently corrupt trading -- when you are not merely an insider, but actually the regulator?

uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-b...

Trump argues for forever wars

Trump is now defending “forever” wars.

The linchpin of his populist-style critique of the foreign policy establishment was that it got us into “forever” wars.

Trump isn’t just defending his war with Iran. Now he is claiming that he can wage “forever” wars “very successfully.”

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

This is from the March 2025 Director of National Intelligence Annual Threat Assessment:

"We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear
weapons program he suspended in 2003."

www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/d...

I’ve spent years, decades, obsessing over the Bush Administration’s Iraq WMD lies, writing about them, debunking them.

I can think of no lie about Iraq WMDs told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al that comes even close to the enormity and absurdity of this lie from Donald Trump.

This is why we cannot have nice things.

kind of crazy that if you have enough money and don't like what you see in the media, you can just buy up every film studio, news station, and social media app and change it

Don't want to nitpick as I'm glad to see someone showing outrage and leadership. However, Tillis only requires "a response," which seems like a low bar and could generate merely symbolic answers. He didn't demand resolution.

A family tradition: Working to keep the world safe from nuclear disaster - The World from PRX Matthew Bunn recalls his father George Bunn — and their intersecting work to control the spread of nuclear weapons and material.

Just came across this decade-old interview, "The Nuclear Family," about the work my father, George Bunn, and I have both done to reduce nuclear dangers. Has a bunch of description of nuclear dangers and progress in reducing them that's still relevant today. theworld.org/stories/2016...