President Donald Trump's escalating military campaign against Iran is achieving the “opposite” of its intended effect, according to a senior U.S. official cited in a New York Times report Saturday.“The official said the strikes have the opposite effect of what is intended, keeping Iran cohesive and allowing Iranian leaders to focus attention on an external threat,” the Times’ report reads.The assessment came after insiders leaked details to the Times about a Friday meeting between Trump and his top advisers and Cabinet members, where officials weighed whether or not to escalate the war further. According to the Times, few, if any, in Trump's inner circle believed intensifying the bombing campaign was wise.A separate senior official who was briefed on the discussion expressed doubts that resuming major combat operations would push Iran back to the table at all.The “private deliberations” focused on what officials warned was the Pentagon’s “shrinking inventory of Patriot interceptors and other air defenses,” the Times reported.“Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has cautioned privately that resuming major combat operations against Iran was doable but that it would dangerously deplete interceptors available to the military’s Central Command, which is responsible for operations in the Middle East, the officials said,” the Times’ report reads.Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a congressional committee that Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran had cost taxpayers $37.5 billion so far.The internal skepticism adds to a growing list of signs that the administration's approach to Iran isn't producing the results Trump has publicly promised, even as the financial and human costs of the conflict continue to climb.
Maine Democrats on Saturday overwhelmingly nominated Troy Jackson, a former state Senate president and logger by trade, as their party’s nominee to challenge longtime Republican incumbent Susan Collins in November’s high-stakes US Senate election.“Well, thank you, Maine,” Jackson, 58, said after securing the votes of 566 of 571 delegates during Saturday’s special Democratic convention at Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. “Today we turn the page, today this becomes a general election campaign, and today we win the work of defeating Susan Collins in November.”“For nearly 30 years, Collins has told Maine that she is ‘concerned’,” Jackson said, referring to the 73-year-old incumbent’s go-to word when President Donald Trump and Republicans attack rights and justice. “She was concerned while she rubber-stamped Trump’s Medicaid cuts and gutted our healthcare.”“She’s concerned when she cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy,” he continued. “Concerned when she confirmed justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. And really tragically, she was concerned when she gave [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] billions to terrorize our neighbors and murder people in the streets with no accountability.”“But concern does not lower the costs of groceries or gas,” Jackson said. “Concern does not keep our monitoring wards of rural hospitals like down in Lincoln County open. Concern does not restore all the rights that she’s taken away. Maine does not need another six years of concern. We need someone with courage. We need a fighter, and we need a senator who remembers exactly who sent them to Washington.”“So if you’ve ever been ignored, underestimated, pushed around, or told that you have to wait your turn while the rich cut the line, I’m asking you to stand with us in this campaign,” he continued. “If you believe in your heart that healthcare is a right, stand with us. And if you believe that workers deserve power, stand with us. And if you believe our freedoms are worth defending, stand with us.”“And if you believe that Maine deserves a senator who will fight like hell for working-class people, well, stand with us,” Jackson added. “We have a party to unite, we have a movement to build, and we have a senator to defeat.”Jackson’s improbably rapid rise followed former Democratic nominee Graham Platner’s withdrawal from the race earlier this month amid allegations of sexual assault and abusive behavior. Supporters of Platner’s progressive platform warned at the time that they would not back a replacement candidate who did not share the same pro-worker, anti-war agenda.While Collins spokeswoman Blake Kernen called Jackson a “low-energy version” of Platner, Maine Democrats decided the fifth-generation lumberjack fit the bill.“The working class has been left behind and forgotten about,” Shelly Mountain, a former Aroostook County Democratic Committee chairwoman and Jackson delegate at the convention, told NBC News. “He is definitely working class and always—has always—been a champion for the working class.”Progressive politicians, advocacy groups, and labor organizations cheered Jackson’s nomination, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) saying that “he’s ready to fight for working people and flip this seat.”International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) president Brian Bryant said Saturday that “Troy Jackson knows firsthand what it means to work hard for a living and fight for a better future for working families.”“Throughout his career, he has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with union members and working people, never backing down from a challenge when workers’ rights were on the line,” he added. “He represents the strength of a people-powered movement focused on fairness, opportunity, and economic justice. Troy has our full support as he heads to the general election.”
A Democratic Senate hopeful on Saturday shredded Robert F. Kennedy Jr. like the lettuce Americans are now afraid to eat. U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI) tore into the scandal-plagued Health and Human Services secretary as the nation faced a Cyclospora parasite outbreak — linked to contaminated shredded iceberg lettuce — under his watch. "The last time I checked, the guy who's running Health and Human Services for this country works out in jeans," El-Sayed quipped. "Meanwhile here in Michigan we're trying to dodge lettuce." El-Sayed was met with cheers and roars of laughter — the reference to Kennedy was met with boos. This is not the first time Kennedy has been mocked for his strange gym habit of working out in denim. A Vogue contributor tried it and decided the HHS secretary was "insane." "All I felt was sticky and desperate for a clean pair of sweatpants," Emma Specter wrote in February. "My experiment in RFK Jr.-style jeans-clad exercise wasn’t the worst thing I could have experienced by following his lead (I could have a rubella rash or, at the very least, a nasty case of E. coli contracted from frozen bear patties right now). Nevertheless, it… wasn’t great."Nor was this the first ribbing Kennedy faced this weekend. On Friday, President Donald Trump took aim at his Health secretary in front of a room of journalists at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. "I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire very delicious beef tenderloin," Trump said. Then he pointed to Kennedy and said, "[He] personally ran over the cow in his car."This was likely a reference to Kennedy's habit of collecting road kill for strange purposes — among them a bear cub crime scene frame-up in Central Park. These odd quirks of Kennedy's prompted El-Sayed to tell his crowd of supporters in Michigan, "I think we might be able to use a public health Senator right about now."
New York City's municipal bond prices continue to decline as Mayor Zohran Mamdani doubles down on his Marxist Third-Worldism, every minute of every day, it seems.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board published an op-ed on Friday ripping President Trump’s latest “obsession” with tariffs that “despite their political unpopularity and economic harm.” The administration announced its newest slate of policies that are replacing the lapsing Section 122 tariffs with Section 301. The editors said Trump “doesn’t seem to care about the…
Stephen Miller's recent argument that physical beauty reveals moral character hasn't gone quite according to plan. Miller raised eyebrows Saturday after telling attendees of a State Department high-level diplomatic meeting that he noticed a common trait among "leftwing terrorists."“You look at these violent antifa demonstrations and you see any photograph of those who were assembled — to be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person,” he said. “Not one looks normal. They’re all deformed in some way — in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism.”These comments stunned MSNOW analyst Luke Russert because Miller seemed to be suggesting the moral high-ground was his. Miller famously orchestrated President Donald Trump's first-term immigration policy that put children in cages and faced backlash when leaked emails showed he distributed white nationalist content replete with racist theory based on debunked science. So Russert was surprised when Miller "tried to claim the religious high ground" — and again relied on looks to do it. “The leftist looks at what is beautiful and what is good and what is natural and is filled with envy and hatred,” Miller said. “The leftist looks at a perfect family with the perfect life and a perfect job and perfect kids that go to church every Sunday and is filled with a feeling of inadequacy and jealousy."Russert admitted he was unpersuaded by Miller's argument that Democrats were jealous of his beauty — admittedly on religious grounds. "His suggestion that people’s physical appearance reveals their moral character runs contrary to themes repeated throughout the Bible," Russert wrote. "Jesus says, 'Stop judging by appearances, but judge justly.'"Yet it is worth noting that Miller was carping on a topic his snarkier critics often use to attack him: physical appearance. When Miller in May lobbed an anti-trans insult at state Rep. James Talarico (D-TX), currently running to replace replace John Cornyn in the Senate, the Democratic Party didn't take it lying down. "The Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate," Miller said of Talarico, who is not transgendered. Replied the Democratic Party, "Shut up you ugly f---."
President Donald Trump's White House Correspondents' Dinner speech drew sharp criticism from CNN pundits immediately after it finished.On Friday night, Trump delivered his first speech as president at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and it took just over an hour. Shortly after it wrapped, CNN pundits tore into it, with conservatives even having trouble defending it."It just wasn't funny at all," political commentator Van Jones said. "It just wasn't funny. It was mean and small, but you could be mean and small and funny. This was mean and small and not funny."CNN anchor Laura Coates said that Trump "shot himself in the foot" by missing an opportunity to speak to people. Jones agreed, saying, "He didn't talk about any American besides himself and his enemies" when he could have talked about people at home "and maybe make fun of their enemies."Former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said that "even from a performance standpoint" and compared to previous presidents, "he bombed. He objectively bombed." She also pointed out "missed opportunities."Conservative CNN pundit Scott Jennings noted that Trump started the speech by denouncing political violence and ended it by saying he respected journalists and people in their profession."Now the middle of it is going to be controversial because some of the jokes landed and some of the jokes didn't," Jennings said, noting he liked Trump's jab at RFK Jr. during the speech. "Some of the jokes veered off into very, sort of, ornery insults, and that's not going to land for many audiences."Jones made a joke of his own about Trump's speech, saying, "It was just bomb after bomb after bomb. It's like, we're not Iran. We're the American people. Quit bombing."
