Screen shot of New York Times article entitled "Someone Has to Be Happy. Why Not Lauren Sánchez Bezos?" with a close up image of her face and hands.

Screenshot of an article about an Amazon employee dying at work and his colleagues being forced to keep working. "For more than an hour, several employees said, workers in the facility were instructed to continue fetching totes, picking items off shelves and loading them onto trucks for delivery as the man lay dead, and management figured out their next steps. News of the fatality quickly spread through the building, but workers say top managers did not call operations to an immediate halt. A week later, several workers said they still do not know what caused the man to die. Records indicate he was 46 years old."

It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times.

www.thewesternedge.media/p/everyone-i...

“Two can play at that game” is literally the Drebin quote here when he takes an innocent woman hostage to cluelessly fight the enemy

Starting in one hour!

Marx 1844 to the contrary, I suspect this is true everywhere because people identify with acts associated with greater choice (for the fortunate) & the fulfillment of needs (for those less so) than with acts associated with compulsion (wage or other) that later confers choices/ability to meet need.

This insight is entirely consistent with Marx’s arguments, in fact it gets to the foundation of his theory of subjectivity

The Blob: “We have to kneecap China because it challenges the rules-based international order.”

Trump: every week a new attack on the RBIO 100x worse than any debatable China example

Blob liberals: “Trump shouldn’t commit genocide because that will make it harder for us to kneecap China.”

Those people haven’t had much to say lately, for whatever reason. Busy with remodeling or something, I guess

I used to write the WaPo editorials on US-Africa policy, as well on as human rights and politics on the continent.

To describe hundreds of thousands of deaths on the continent as “messy” is an absolute abomination.

Trump wants to spend $1.5 trillion on the military, $260 billion more than at World War Two’s peak. US military spending, constant 2026 dollars. Line graph shows Trump’s 2027 proposal towering above the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Cold War high, and World War II high. Fiscal year 2027 proposal: $1.504 trillion (050 base discretionary + mandatory supplementing base funding). Data: OMB, DOW.

The military budget Trump proposed today is $1.5 trillion. Adjusted for inflation, that's $260 billion higher than the largest military budget on record.

It's not WWII-level military spending; it's parody-level.

www.stephensemler.com/p/trump-prop...

Opinion | Trump Has Lost Control of Events in Iran

Great article by Ali Vaez. Gift link.

In essence, Trump is now in the same position as Putin: able to cause massive damage, but unable to make the enemy give in.

He will have to make a deal, and the bitter irony is that, for all his origin story, Trump is incapable of really making a deal.

Clip available here
x.com/CFR_org/stat...

Great encapsulation of the Biden admin on China:

Recitation of pieties about how important diplomacy is to avoid conflict...

alongside a contorted definition of interests that inevitably leads to conflict.

Next Tuesday I’ll be joining this outstanding panel of China experts in Philly to discuss the US–China relationship ahead of Trump’s much-anticipated visit to Beijing.

Join us in-person or online!
web.sas.upenn.edu/future-of-us...

Why the Army Chief of Staff got fired:

"George recently asked to meet with Hegseth to discuss Hegseth's blocking of promotions for some Army officers, which seemed to focus on women and Black men, but Hegseth refused to meet or discuss his decisions, according to two additional U.S. officials."

And the longer he's stuck, the more dysfunctional he'll get. Things are gonna get real weird.

DC desperately wants third countries’ support against China, but it always fails because it doesn’t actually care about them.

The US could “compete”, but ironically only if people for whom geopolitical conflict is irrelevant or unwanted were in charge.
carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow! IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY! President DONALD J. TRUMP

War for spectacle.

Bombing for content.

The Department of State tweets a video of Secretary Marco Rubio. In the video, Rubio says: "Imagine if instead of spending billions of dollars supporting terrorists or weapons, Iran had spent that money helping the people of Iran. They would have a much different country."

FactPost News tweets a video of Donald Trump speaking at a podium. In the video he says: "We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We're fighting wars. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things."

hmm

The value of China's clean energy tech exports rose 44% in Jan-Feb 2026, to $41 bn. That's an increase of $13 bn year-on-year, equal to a third of the increase in the country's trade surplus, which reached a new record.

Iran could emerge from the war stronger and more dangerous The Islamic republic aims to set up a toll booth on the Strait of Hormuz. It may succeed

168/ Surprise of Ukraine War was everyone in the western intelligence agencies underestimating a poor country -Ukraine - strength and resolve and determination.

Same discovery being made in Iran War. Iran has far more capacity, resolve and resilience than ppl anticipated. www.ft.com/content/04f6...

Europe Is Quietly Playing a Crucial Role in the Iran War European military bases are facilitating one of the most logistically complex operations the U.S. military has been involved in for decades.

1. Germany already said the war is illegal.

2. US now threatening "complete obliteration" of Iran's energy system and, maybe, of desalination plants – i.e., war crimes.

3. Reminder: The war is conducted from Ramstein, Germany: "the nerve center of America’s operations against Iran".

What gives?

100% of the people who claim to be “defending Western civilization” think Western civilization is Christian ethnonationalism

Trump is fighting a ‘boomer war’ in Iran: a relic unpopular with anyone under 60 | Stephen Wertheim To see this war as archaic, the last squawk of the Middle East hawks, is at once maddening and hopeful

Once the fighting stops, the United States might well plunge further into Middle East conflicts. Any ceasefire is likely to remain tenuous. Having attacked Iran to crush its military capabilities and prevent progress toward a nuclear weapon, the U.S. and Israel may strike again for the same reasons.

EU officials rightly worry that the Greenland risk may actually increase after Trump’s failure in Iran, as Greenland would, militarily if not politically, be an easier win and show of force for a president seeking to recover damaged credibility 1/2

Newsom Talks Trump, 2028 — and Where He Draws the Line on Israel The California governor opens up about family, risk and the choices that could shape his political future.

Looking at the transcript does not clarify the garbled message.
www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Gavin Newsom 'absolutely' supports Trump's blockade, strangulation of Cuba YouTube video by BreakThrough News

I don’t really know what he’s trying to say here, but there is no acceptable answer except unqualified condemnation of the atrocities currently being committed against Cuba.
www.youtube.com/shorts/sjBMO...

A relative of mine in the US is worried that our family members who are doctors in Tehran are more likely to be killed due to the fact that they save people’s lives for a living.

This is the association that people now make with the US and Israel. A stain on our collective conscience.

this is what happens when you let this much wealth and power concentrate in the hands of so few people

nobody wants any of this but them and they’re the only ones who get a vote

American media would write this: "In wide-ranging press conference, President Trump wrestles with the strategic complexities of a war in the Middle East."
-- @johnpfaff.bsky.social