Trump is winning the Iran negotiations
Posted By: Big Bopper, 5/2/2026 9:59:24 PM
A few weeks ago, Iran had lost every battle but was winning the war. The regime had survived, even though its putative leader and probably his son and many others had not. That’s because the Iranian regime was still raking in billions in the oil market, Moreover, they were disrupting the oil market for the rest of the world. That disruption benefited the regime doubly. It garnered a higher price for their oil, and it incentivized the world to push for America to back off. Dependably venal and dependably short-term in its outlook and dependably anti-American, the world did as instructed.
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A few weeks ago, Iran had lost every battle but was winning the war. The regime had survived, even though its putative leader and probably his son and many others had not.
That’s because the Iranian regime was still raking in billions in the oil market, Moreover, they were disrupting the oil market for the rest of the world.
That disruption benefited the regime doubly. It garnered a higher price for their oil, and it incentivized the world to push for America to back off. Dependably venal and dependably short-term in its outlook and dependably anti-American, the world did as instructed.
The 435 members of the House of Representatives represent the people of specific geographic areas. Those areas are drawn up to include equal populations.
The population of a Congressional District is currently about 762,000 people. The intent is for each citizen and 762,000 of his close friends to have a voice in Congress.
This necessarily means that Congressional Districts have vastly different geographic sizes and shapes reflecting different population concentrations. Alaska has only one Congressional District covering the entire sparsely populated state, while one of the 26 Congressional Districts in New York State is just a few square miles of densely populated Manhattan.
It’s not easy being a Democrat. It began a century and a half ago when they got caught on the wrong side of history.
Democrats supported the enslavement of human beings. Many of them actually owned enslaved human beings. They fought the bloodiest war in U.S. history to retain their right to enslave human beings.
Suffice to say that this right to enslave human beings was not one of the God-given ones mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration does not speak solemnly of the right to “life, liberty, happiness and enslaving humans.”
When one of my daughters was 12, it was time to teach her the facts of life. I took her out on the front porch to teach her how to smoke a cigar.
I didn’t intend to teach the girl any other facts of life, of course. As a dad, that wasn’t my job.
Like all cigar smokers, and especially the occasional kind, I treasured this big ritual. You light the cigar in a certain way, which isn’t as hard as they pretend – the thing is designed to burn, you know. Then you keep it lit, which isn’t hard, either – it’s not like keeping smoked salmon lit.
In Colorado, the highest posted speed limit is 75 mph. I can live with that, even though I think 85 mph might be better and perhaps just as safe.
This speed limit of 75 means that it’s against the law to go faster than that. Trust me on this, I used to be a lawyer.
But now, Colorado has announced that if you go the 75-mph speed limit in the left lane, or even if you violate the speed limit by going 85 mph, and people stack up behind you who want to go 95, then you’re violating the law by impeding traffic. And you’ll be ticketed for it.
Mothers and fathers die. For the population to remain constant, the two of them need to produce about 2.1 children on average in order to replace themselves. (The extra 0.1 is necessary to offset the deaths of children who never reach reproductive age.) This figure is called the “fertility rate.”
Recent data shows that the fertility rate in the United States is nowhere near that 2.1 figure. It has instead dropped to an all-time low of about 1.6. American woman on average give birth to only 1.6 children.
Everyone loves a party. Especially when the party makes you money. Forget that the money you’re making now is the same money you lost last month. It’s still fun.
And so, the stock market is having fun today.
And why not? America and Iran are not exactly kissin’ cousins now, but at least nobody’s civilization will end. Not today, anyway.
The stocks of the boomers are booming, oil is crashing, monster pickup sales to monster drivers will certainly become monstrous again, the Pope (who is “God’s representative on Earth,” a reader informs me) will take credit for a few days, and we’ll probably get a docu-fiction war movie
Take out one Iranian power plant per day
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Power plants are legitimate targets in war. They’re “dual purpose” infrastructure in that they serve a civilian purpose but also a military one. (The same was true of the large bridge in Tehran that we took out last week.)
That’s one reason that terrorists like Hamas position their military commands in hospitals, not power plants. It is recognized that hospitals are not legitimate targets (unless a military use is made of them) while power plants are.
America is therefore justified in disabling Iran’s power plants, as President Trump has threatened to do. It will be much tougher for Iran to launch drones and missiles without electric power.
Bill Maher’s Magical Mystery Tour
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I once saw an unidentified flying object, or “UFO.” I was a passenger on a commercial airliner on an overnight flight. I awoke in the middle of the night, looked out the window, and saw a lighted object flying near the airplane. I couldn’t identify it.
The object kept perfect pace with the airplane, as if it was shadowing us. Once in a while, it blinked, as if it was signaling us. Maybe the blinks were an extraterrestrial form of Morse Code?
In my half-awake stupor, it thrilled me to realize that we are not alone.
This war with Iran is one that had to be fought, and so we were right to fight it on our terms at a time before it became harder to win. The way Iran has lashed out at civilians everywhere, including with indiscriminate killing machines it denied having, has confirmed that.
But I recognize that there are arguments and counterarguments. Some of those are just the lame “Orange Man Bad!” or “Orange Man Good!” type, but others are more principled.
Half a century ago, American children were taught in elementary school that “representative democracy” was the highest form of government.
Part of me wondered even then, why should everyone get an equal say in things? That wasn’t how it worked in my elementary school, I observed, even as they taught that creed. The students and the janitor didn’t get the same say as the principal and the teachers.
Given Iran’s half century of cruel barbarism in the Middle East, it’s hard to understand why the Democrats seem to be rooting for them in the current war. I have two theories.
One is the obvious one. The Dems are not so much rooting for Iran, as rooting against Iran’s enemy. Bad as Iran is, its enemy is even worse in the eyes of the Dems.
Iran’s enemy, you see – or at least the Dems see – has a history of its own cruel barbarism going back to at least 1619. Iran’s enemy has engaged in genocide against native people. Iran’s enemy has wrongly oppressed workers of the world
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With $1M per body in play, some in Congress
asking if organ donors are declared dead
too quickly 16 replies
asking if organ donors are declared dead
too quickly 16 replies
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Jim Acosta. who left CNN when the network decided to move his basement-rated show to a time slot that even less people would watch, is very angry that Scott Jennings is now featured.
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Media figures are calling on CNN to fire panelist Scott Jennings —
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We were originally referred to as "baby boomers," the generation born in the immediate aftermath of World War II. From 1946 to 1964, the U.S. Census Bureau tells us that more than 76 million babies were born.
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