Joel Mathis

NYT is increasingly tailored to people who don't follow the news or who only Google stuff that gets their attention.

The narrative from the right is going to be "it's the Iranian people's fault we keep bombing them."

A ★★★½ review of Train Dreams (2025) There's a lot of beauty in this movie. I'm so glad I got to see it on big screen instead of streaming it on Netflix -- Thanks, Regal Cinemas! -- if only because cinema deserves to have Joel Edgerton's...

There's a lot of beauty in TRAIN DREAMS, but I have a complaint about the Netflix of it all. #filmsky boxd.it/duPmXv

I think we’ve moved past the “just declare victory and move on” stage of things.

We have the position, under President Trump’s bold global leadership, along with the Israelis, to officiate this “shotgun marriage” of necessity.

I cannot think of anything Iranians - even in opposition - would love more than Israel dictating their future governance.

Unite Iran’s opposition before it’s too late One of the great strengths of Iran’s Khamenei regime — now hereditary with Mojtaba Khamenei appointed supreme leader in his late father’s place — was the fractious nature of its opposition.

Sam Brownback nearly bankrupted Kansas.

Now he's got advice for Iran's opposition.

www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/ma...

My son about to graduate from high school today received a letter (via his old middle school) from his younger self. He read it, then tossed it in the trash.

Not a sentimental bone in his body.

I know this is a losing battle, but I feel compelled to push back against "the media isn't telling you about this thing I read in the news!" narratives.

The Washington Post We asked 1,000 Americans if U.S. strikes on Iran should continue. Here’s what they said. 3 hours ago AP News What Americans think about the war in Iran, according to recent polls 2 days ago The New York Times Unlike Past U.S. Conflicts, Iran Attack Is Opposed by Most Americans 2 days ago CNN The biggest Iran polling takeaway: Americans don’t see the point of this war 3 hours ago NPR Americans skeptical of the Iran war, poll says. And, DOJ gives guns back to felons 1 day ago Also in the news Ipsos Most Americans say President Trump has not clearly explained U.S. goals in Iran 2 days ago

Another clue that Trump's fecklessness is coming through loud and clear: Polls show Americans don't think he's explained himself very well and that the war is a bad idea.

The new New York Times tick-tock of the Trumpian miscalculations that led us here is eye-popping: “Inside the administration, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war. But they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.” That does not sound like a conflict that is going well — or likely to turn around anytime soon. (That of course is leaving aside the week’s other big story: The top figures of the administration are apparently walking around in ill-fitting shoes because they’re too embarrassed to tell Donald Trump their correct shoe size — and that Pete Hegseth so disliked how he looked in press photos briefing at the Pentagon that he’s no longer allowing photographers into his briefings — again, all signs of a smooth, well-functioning team!)

I also know the media isn't soft-peddling the confusion in Trump's war effort because of stuff like ... this paragraph in Mr. Graff's column quoting the New York Times.

The media isn't doing that.

Opinion Commentary Follow Partisanship on Iran Is Dangerous for America Trump is doing the right thing for the U.S., and we Democrats should judge the war on the merits.

The second half of that subhead sure suggests the first half is completely wrong.

Hallelujah (Live at Royal Albert Hall) - Postmodern Jukebox ft. Effie Passero YouTube video by PostmodernJukebox

You've heard this song too often. I've heard this song too often.

But Effie Passero's voice is, as always, stunning.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQy6...

Going to use AI to remake IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE as IT’S A WONDERFUL LUNCH and have Jimmy Stewart run through the streets shouting joyfully about the chicken tenders my wife just made from scratch.

It took U.S. years to lose a war in Vietnam. Trump lost one in days. | Will Bunch It's increasingly clear that Trump's war of choice in Iran has failed spectacularly. America learned nothing from past war failures.

U.S. leaders were told: "declare victory and go home" in Vietnam as early as 1966, but fought for 7 more years and thousands of pointless deaths

The Trump regime has lost an even more senseless war in Iran in just 2 weeks. The time for leaving is now

My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/iran...

Kind of a big deal! www.usni.org/magazines/pr...

Ukraine basically neutralized the Russian navy with drones and I have been honestly wondering if that’s a shoe that could drop in the Persian Gulf.

Politico Ernst pushes spending cuts for another party-line policy package 3 hours ago By Meredith Lee Hill The Hill GOP mulls reconciliation push in hunt for midterm win 4 hours ago By Jared Gans Reuters Unity is elusive for House Republicans on key election-year affordability bill 21 hours ago By David Morgan New York Magazine GOP Crusade Against ‘Fraud’ Just Means Big Safety-Net Cuts 23 hours ago By Ed Kilgore See more headlines & perspectives Americans' health care costs chevron_right Axios What Americans sacrifice due to high health costs 11 hours ago By Adriel Bettelheim Gallup News One-Third of Americans Cut Back to Cover Healthcare Expenses 12 hours ago By Ellyn Maese NBC News Americans ration medicine and postpone retirement to afford health care, polls find 7 hours ago By Berkeley Lovelace Jr. & Berkeley Lovelace Reuters One-third of Americans cut back on other expenses to cover healthcare in 2025, survey shows

America spending a billion or more a day to bomb Iran and damage the global economy.

Meanwhile...

(Raises hand) I know.

It's me: The guy who ate an apple while working and now has a sticky keyboard/trackpad.

When did Jay Baruchel's little brother become NASA administrator?

Here's how I processed it: I heard Bam was near 70 points, I turned on the game and cackled every single time a career 16-points-per-game player came closer to hitting and surpassing the Kobe mark. It was like Linsanity, only for about 20 minutes.

How Hegseth Came to See Moral Purpose in War as Weakness

NY Times piece on Hegseth's evolving views of "moral purpose" of war oddly doesn't mention his religious beliefs at all www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/u...). He's reading Bible to justify war (publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/hegseth-sh...), which seems like a vision of morality to me.

76 Kansas & Missouri law enforcement agencies arrest people for ICE under Trump 1 in 5 Kansas and Missouri residents live in a city or county where local law enforcement partners with ICE.

This is actually a smaller number than I would have expected: www.kansascity.com/news/local/a...

Marking this one for the “almost surely be over by the end of the month” prediction from Stephens. That is Elon-at-the-start-of-pandemic stupid. Even the Kosovo war took two and a half months, and that was against a much smaller, weaker opponent.

Right! I screamed.

Bret Stephens: I’m flabbergasted by the relentless pessimism I’m seeing in much of the commentariat. We are less than two weeks into a war that will almost surely be over by the end of the month, and already there are predictions that it’s “another Iraq.” American casualties, heartbreaking as they are, have been minor for a conflict of this scale. Iran’s ability to threaten its neighbors diminishes by the day: We’ve seen this in the sharp decline in its ballistic missile and drone attacks. I have to assume that before this war is over, we will find a way to remove Iran’s remaining stores of highly enriched uranium, which greatly enhances global security over the long term. And Iran’s leaders, for all their swagger, now know they are not immune from reprisal, which will make them think a lot more carefully as they plot their retaliation. We may not see regime change now, but this regime is likely to become a zombie state before the next, all-but-inevitable, popular uprising.

Bret Stephens is gonna Bret Stephens, but it's still breathtaking sometimes. "We may not see regime change now, but this regime is likely to become a zombie state before the next, all-but-inevitable, popular uprising." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/o...

Things To Do in Denver When You're Still Dead

Once you start a war, the logic of forever war gets out of hand pretty quickly.

Trump ally Ed Martin could lose Missouri law license for misconduct in DC | Opinion “Eagle Ed,” former Missouri GOP chair and prominent 2020 election denier, is under fire for threatening Georgetown over diversity programs. From Toriano Porter:

My colleague Toriano Porter on how Ed Martin's ethics troubles could follow him home to Missouri. www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-...