| second: Canada and Iran Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel [go to link]
Canada and Iran are making life very difficult for Republicans ahead of the midterms. In the stop-start Iran war, spikes in already skyrocketing energy prices are intended to damage GOP chances in the upcoming midterms. Canadian officials aren’t being coy about it: The retaliatory tariffs imposed Tuesday against the United States were deliberately chosen to hurt vulnerable Republicans before the midterm elections. |
| second: Donald Trump’s War (the war of choice against Iran that he launched on February 28, 2026) might be one of the most consequential wars in US history. If the last few days are any indication, what this war has done is greatly accelerate American decline and failure. It has done this by severely degrading the position of the USA in the Middle East—and through that to the Pacific—and at the same time exposed the weakness and rot at the core of the US military. [go to link] |
| second: 3) Trump could not help but make the election about himself, demanding that Americans vote not based on their assessment of the Republicans who are actually running, but on their loyalty to him, personally. Democrats could not have asked for a better closer for the evening. |
| second: 2) The mindlessness of the whole thing was reminiscent of what the comedian Steve Martin captured with a revealing prank he used to pull on his audiences in the late 1970s—the Non-Conformist Oath. They would repeat his vows to be different and unique, without knowing where he was going with the bit. Then Martin would shout: “I promise not to repeat things other people say!” The crowd would start to chant back, of course, and then dissolve into laughter. Trump, too, asked his crowd to repeat his words without knowing what was coming. Unlike Martin’s audiences, the GOP attendees did not seem to get that it’s creepy to uncritically repeat whatever someone else tells you to say. [go to link] |
| second: 1) Trump was struck by the possibility that his own people wouldn’t vote. He stopped and demanded they follow him in a pledge. “I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States,” he began, as the audience repeated his words, “that loves us so much he can’t even breathe…” [go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: Don't eat beef then, pussy. Shut up. |
| second: So, a Brazilian meat billionaire got access to Trump because he’s friends with Melania?
And his company gave $5 million to Trump’s inauguration?
And he was jailed in Brazil for bribing politicians?
And a day after the two met, Trump announced plans to allow millions of pounds of frozen beef trimmings into the country?
Do we have that all right?
Something here doesn’t smell right, and it’s not just the mystery meat. [go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: What ain't cool. Use your big boy words, Ubu. |
| THG: OK, that ain't cool
|
| 6ixStringJack: Loser. |
| 6ixStringJack: Loser. |
| second: President Donald Trump’s biographer Michael Wolff claims “there is nobody anywhere in Washington or across the defense industry who doesn’t believe Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has to go.”
“They all believe that he’s a menace, an incalculable danger, an existential threat,” reports Wolff. “Daily leaks about his blunders, stupidity, malfeasance, and weird conduct — his wife has moved into the Pentagon as his effective second-in-command — have become part of a growing rear-guard rebellion to get him out.” [go to link] If the USA had won the Iran War, Hegseth won't be in trouble. But he and Trump lost the war with their incompetence. Perhaps Hegseth can soon return to his old job at FOX News? |
| second: Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao reportedly admitted that the Iranian military “blew the hell” out of the U.S. naval base in Bahrain—a shocking claim that contradicts the Trump administration’s narrative of total destruction of Iran’s attack capabilities.
Cao’s Thursday comment to a reporter at the conservative outlet The Epoch Times is perhaps the most vivid, sober analysis of the situation from an individual of his ranking. [go to link] |
| second: 6ixStringJack wrote: “Joe Biden promised $1,400 checks . . .” 6ix, may I suggest you kill yourself? You don’t remember anything like it happened and only death will terminate your deep confusion about the fundamentally simple difference between Trump offering a bribe it you vote for him versus checks to keep the USA from going into a recession.
Understanding the COVID-19 Direct Payments
Congress and the IRS distributed three separate rounds of economic impact payments during the pandemic [go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: Joe Biden promised $1,400 checks right before the 2020 election. and then paid it out to the dollar after he "won". You didn't have a problem with that. |
| second: President Donald Trump promised a $5,000 check for U.S. voters if Republicans win both the House and the Senate in the midterm election.
Such a payout could cost more than $1.2 trillion and BREAK FEDERAL LAW. But Trump doesn't care that just offering to pay for votes with government money is illegal. [go to link] Under U.S. federal law, offering or making a payment to induce someone to vote, withhold their vote, or vote for or against a candidate is a criminal offense, punishable by a fine, up to one year in prison, or both. A willful violation can carry up to two years’ imprisonment. Who thinks the Republicans in Congress will force Trump to obey the law? Not me! |
| second: Ex-mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani publicly told Zohran Mamdani that it is “inappropriate” for Zohran to go to the 9/11 memorial. On the next day, Mamdani released 170,000+ pages of documents exposing that Giuliani’s administration lied to the public, because they knew about the toxic air after 9/11, all to get people back to work. A total of 2,974 people died in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, while the number of deaths from subsequent 9/11-related illnesses, toxic air, and dust exposure has risen into the thousands and continues to grow. As of September 2026, 453 FDNY members have died from World Trade Center-related illnesses, officially surpassing the 343 firefighters who died on the day of the attacks. [go to link] |
| second: How Could Iran Happen? An Autopsy.
The president’s war on the “deep state” led directly to his debacle in the Middle East.
None of this was inevitable. It is what happens when a government fires its air traffic controllers and expects the planes to land themselves.
[go to link]
Indeed, this failure was secured in Washington, the inevitable outcome of Trump’s 19-month campaign against the city’s own institutions and workforce. Trump gutted the National Security Council (NSC), purged the Defense Department’s military leadership, and politicized intelligence, all while Congress failed to assert its authority. In place of qualified staff, Trump relied on outside advisors, relatives, and self-appointed internet activists whose lists of “enemies within” reached his desk, while intelligence assessments did not. |
| 6ixStringJack: Ted was always a stupid name for you. You're always going to be a regular Ted Bundy, but that's just a basic bitch nickname. I think you've leveled up, Ubu... |
6ixStringJack: "Nice find SECOND!!! Arf! Arf!!!!"  |