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Playing the 'War Party' Will Backfire on Democrats
The doubletalk coming from many congressional Democrats in response to President Trump's peace initiative with Iran has been a political wonder to behold.
Center Right
Reason.com
The Senate's Failure To Rein in Trump on Iran Is Part of a Long History of Congress Abdicating Its War Powers
Center Right
War making in "the power of a single man" is not what the Founders intended.
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Found 8 stories
Raw Story
'He's obviously physically unwell': Trump's facial 'drooping' singled out on MS NOW
After watching a montage of clips of Donald Trump dismissing American consumers’ economic woes, an MSNBC regular noted the president’s physical decline with a new observation.Speaking with host Jacob Soboroff, attorney George Conway claimed, “I hear a longstandingly mentally ill man, a narcissistic sociopath who is cognitively declining in his elder years, becoming increasingly disinhibited.”Continuing in that vein he added, “He is somebody who basically doesn't care about anything because, you know, he's obviously physically unwell. We don't know whether he was the person who got that Eli Lilly drug through the compassionate use exemption, and we don't know exactly what his health is — he's drooping on one side.”“Did he have a left hemisphere CVA?” Conway asked while gesturing at his own face and mistakenly calling it a "CB."“We don't know any of that, because they obviously would lie to us about any of it,” he added. “He just knows that he doesn't need to answer to anybody anymore, and that's why he's seeking to — he’s just basically doing whatever he wants.” - YouTubeyoutu.be
Far Left
Alternet.org
Exasperated South Carolina Republican mayor begs Trump to release housing bill
Unaffordable home prices are not the kind of thing billionaire President Donald Trump has had to worry about his whole life, but his voters are having a hard time with it in his economy. Locally elected Republicans are feeling more heat over the economic situation than Trump in his gold-plated Oval Office, however, and this is pressing Columbia, SC. Mayor Daniel Rickenmann to plead Trump for mercy. “I think it's terrible for the Republican Party, to be quite honest,” said Rickenmann, speaking to an MS NOW “Weekend” panel Saturday morning about the possibility of Trump vetoing a popular housing bill to force Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE Act. “… When you have Senator (Rick) Scott and Senator (Elizabeth) Warren working together, this is what this country is based on, so we're really excited. You know, look, in 10 days this bill will be law. And I don't think the President would be wise to even think about vetoing something like this. This is monumental. This is the beginning. First housing bill in 30-plus years.”Trump is facing a likely disastrous midterm election threatening to remove his protective Republican buffer in the House and Senate — which is the only thing protecting him from numerous investigations into claims of fraud and various tampering. Knowing this, Trump is determined to pass the SAVE Act, an election bill that critics say will make it harder to vote.But passing the SAVE Act means also means nuking the Senate filibuster and removing the Senate parliamentarian, which Senate GOP leaders are loathe to do. For this reason, Trump is holding all bills hostage until the Republican majority commits to passing the SAVE Act to the White House for a signature.But Trump may have other reasons behind his indifference to the Housing Bill, said MS NOW Eugene Daniels, who played footage of Trump dismissing the need for lower housing prices.“I made billions of dollars with housing. I know housing better than anybody. Maybe anywhere. It is all about the interest rate. Lower the interest rate. You can have all the housing you want. But you have to understand: I don't want to … hurt people that own houses too. These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses, they become rich. I don't want to hurt them either.”“What's interesting is several weeks ago, a month ago, he talked about how this is important,” responded Rickenmann. “This is the number one issue across America in every city. … If you're a Democratic city, Republican city, whatever, there's three and a half million units needed across this country. … We had over 1,800 [building permits issued] in our city. We're pushing everything we can. But to say that it's just interest rates is not true. And to say this isn’t monumental as also very disappointing, in my point of view.”“It is very important for us to protect the integrity of elections,” Rickenmann insisted. “But at the same time, we can't hold one bill for other. We've got to work on thousands of things together, and I don't like the impression that one bill is being held up for another. That's just not the way things need to work.”
Left
Alternet.org
Republicans 'can’t escape' their 'abusive marriage' with Trump: DC insider
Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson said he was worried that House and Senate Republicans had tied themselves so thoroughly to President Donald Trump that the president knows he can blow up their November midterms chances without Wilson told MS NOW anchor Katy Tur that Trump is the kind of personality that deliberately hurts those who show fealty because he sees their kindliness as weakness, and weakness must be abused.“I think this is a real moment where the Republicans, if they were politically smart about it, would try to get some daylight between themselves and Trump, but they are so locked in this abusive marriage with him,” said Wilson. “He is the Ike Turner of their lives. He's going to torture them and hurt them, and they can't seem to escape.”Semafor Congressional Bureau Chief Burgess Everett described Trump’s refusal to pass a popular housing bill until his GOP cohorts pass the SAVE Act — despite the bill’s inevitable doom from Democrats and a few centrist Republicans. But with the November midterms approaching fast Republicans desperately need new laws to brag about.“They need to get together to be able to say, ‘hey, voters, you can trust us with another two years in Congress,’: Everett said. But may be unlikely if Trump refuses to sign any bills until he gets his precious SAVE Act.Wilson said Republicans have only themselves to blame for the monster hounding them out of their Republican majority in November.“Donald Trump started the week in very bad shape. He went in Wednesday and blew up his already tattered relationship with the Senate, threatening to veto this bill. You could see the air going out of Republicans in the House who desperately needed anything, even a symbolic lightweight, ephemeral sort of thing to take to the voters and say ‘yeah, we looked at affordability. We're working on housing costs.’ But I think there's also a great chance that Donald Trump will get bored or restless or change his mind, or somebody will get in his ear over the weekend and he'll blow it all up again,” said Wilson.“The idea that the House is going to be somehow saved by Donald Trump, from its own worship of Donald Trump — which is what's put them in this terrible political position. I think that is a big old category error. And I don't think they see the freight train coming at them.”Tur pointed out that the American public is “speaking pretty clearly” about their own 'fealty' to Trump, with the president suffering a 30-point popularity drop in just over a year.“No president in modern times, with numbers that low doesn't end up splashing some radiation onto the members of his own caucus, of his own House and Senate,” said Wilson, “so these guys are really running up against a very steep hill.” - YouTube youtu.be
Left
New York Post
Bill Maher Presses JD Vance on Iran, ICE, and Election Denial on ‘Real Time’: “That S**t Has to Stop”
The HBO host tried to pin the VP down. It didn't exactly go as planned.
Right
Washington Examiner
Iran launches drone assault on Bahrain and a ship is hit in Strait of Hormuz as ceasefire frays
Bahrain said that Iran launched a drone attack against the Gulf country and a ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, after the United States carried out retaliatory attacks targeting Tehran for violating a 60-day ceasefire. The development signals further challenges for the memorandum of understanding that Washington and Tehran signed last week. The […]
Center Right
New York Post
US Air Force pilot struck by Iran was also shot down by friendly fire 1 month prior in Kuwait
A US Air Force pilot survived being shot down twice during the Iran War -- first by friendly fire from a Kuwaiti jet, then by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.
Right
Axios
Scoop: Powerful Anthropic model, Fable 5, on track to return soon
The Trump administration is close to allowing Anthropic to restore access to its powerful Fable 5 model, which has been offline for 15 days because of security fears by the government, a source close to the situation tells Axios.Insiders expect the administration's limits on Fable 5 could be lifted as soon as this coming week, the source said. A second source said conversations are expected to continue over the weekend, and Anthropic expects to restore Fable access soon.Why it matters: For developers and even non-technical early adopters, Fable 5's blackout was unprecedented and deeply jarring — a top-tier model, already in users' hands, pulled offline due to government intervention.The big picture: The progress toward liberating Fable 5 marks a thaw in a bitter four-month standoff between the administration and Anthropic.In another sign of de-escalation, the Commerce Department on Friday allowed Anthropic to restore access to Mythos 5, the company's strongest cybersecurity model, for a limited number of trusted users. Mythos 5 has guardrails to deter its use in cyberattacks or biological terror, and has never been freely available.Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a Friday afternoon letter to Anthropic, first reported by Semafor, that the company "has worked with the U.S. government to address risks associated with" Mythos 5 and Fable 5. "These efforts," he continued, "have yielded significant progress. In addition, Anthropic has committed to work with the U.S. government on protocols and standards and releases."Fable 5's return is being eagerly awaited by users, who quickly fell in love with the model's deep thinking and quick, sophisticated coding. Developers were wowed by the leap in capability. Every new model, especially open-source ones, is being measured against Fable 5.The Pentagon and National Security Agency still have to give Fable 5 the green light, so the outcome remains unpredictable. But other government agencies have determined Fable 5 can safely return to the wild.Behind the scenes: I'm told that both Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have helped defuse the fight between the administration and Anthropic. Anthropic "has worked positively with the government," one administration source told Axios. That's quite a change from the furious statement by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designating Anthropic a "Supply-Chain Risk to National Security," after he and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei couldn't agree on how the Pentagon can use Claude.Zoom in: Anthropic had billed it as the most capable model ever released to the public. The "Vibe Check" newsletter from Every, a media and software company, called it "the best coding model in the world" before it was pulled, just three days after launch.In early testing highlighted by Anthropic, the payments company Stripe used Fable 5 to overhaul a 50-million-line codebase in a single day — a job that would have taken its engineers more than two months by hand.When access vanished on June 12, developers found automated work frozen mid-task, and companies raced to swap in rivals, including cheaper Chinese models.The intrigue: Anthropic originally made Fable 5 available at no extra cost on several paid Claude subscription plans through June 22, giving users a short window to test its power before access vanished.It's not yet clear whether Anthropic subscribers will get back the free run of Fable they were promised — or whether it returns locked behind additional fees or identity checks.What we're watching: Both Anthropic and OpenAI are pushing the administration to codify a process for reviewing new models, as envisioned by President Trump in a June 2 executive order that set up a framework for voluntary government vetting of the most powerful new AI models.The companies don't like the current case-by-case approach.When Anthropic suspended access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 back on June 12, the company called for "a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts," and said the administration's decision to restrict those two models "does not adhere to those principles."When OpenAI was allowed to begin a limited preview of GPT‑5.6 on Friday, the company said in a blog post: "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default. It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them."Axios' Sam Sabin contributed reporting.Go deeper: Commerce Department greenlights limited return of Anthropic's Mythos.
Center Left