Ben Anderson

Politically homeless. | @SCBlitz. Thoughts on Steelers, Pens, Life. Gym rat. Only person in Portland w/o a tattoo. I 🚫 all burners. Send hate mail to @SteelDad

[Ben Anderson @BenAnderson58]

Pts 1, 2 & 4 created a 20 pt swing
Can't spot a team 20 pts in a Super Bowl & go on to win
#SBXL #Seahawks #Steelers

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

WOW -- Trump crashes out and cuts his interview with Welker short as she presses him on his lack of evidence for claiming elections are rigged

"You're either crooked or you're stupid. Let's call it quits. Because I've had enough. Thank you darling," he tells her."

"I traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview," she pleads.

[The Atlantic @TheAtlantic]

A January 6 rioter now has a top-secret clearance in the Pentagon. It’s the latest example of a dangerous trend in the Trump administration, Will Gottsegen argues in The Atlantic Daily. https://t.co/GyJezdH0eu

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Top-secret clearance requires vetting for insider threats. One standard red flag: hostility to the US government. Another: foreign military interest.

Irizarry entered the Capitol through a window with a metal pole. Was convicted. Pardoned. Allegedly texted about joining Russia's military if America's wouldn't have him. Now works in Pentagon counterterrorism with top-secret clearance.

The vetting process produced this result because the vetting process is now loyalty. The clearance follows from the pardon. The pardon followed from January 6th. The circle is complete.

[Dobber @DobberHockey]

Any leagues still have outstanding fantasy punishments? 😂

This guy finished 10th and had to go trick-or-treating in June until he got 10 pieces of candy. 🍬

That’s commitment to league rules.

#FantasyHockey #CommissionerLife

[Paul Graham @paulg]

This is an actual page on the White House web site. It reads like something written about a third world dictator. So embarrassing. I have not seen any branch of the federal government sink this low in my lifetime.

[GOP Ls @GOP__Ls]

🚨 Republican candidate Tommy Tuberville committed voter fraud by voting in Florida while living in Alabama.

Many legal scholars now claim he is not eligible to run for governor of Alabama.

[Murray Rothbard @MurraySuggests]

The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed eight times, has apparently closed the Strait of Hormuz again, because the United States, for the seventh time, won the war that wasn’t a war, so now the United States has to open the Strait of Hormuz that was already open before the not-war began.

The not-war began because Iran had uranium that was totally, completely, beautifully obliterated, so they can’t build the nuclear bomb they weren’t building, which is why the United States had to start the not-war it definitely didn’t start.

Now the United States, which has nuclear weapons, is threatening to use nuclear weapons to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons are far too dangerous for countries with nuclear weapons to allow other countries to have.

If the United States saw the United States doing what the United States does in other countries, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Reporter: On the new promenade you announced yesterday—where is the funding going to come from?

Trump: It’s not a lot of money. We have a lot of sources of funding. We won't have to go back to Congress

[W Smith Ω 🧢 @WesSmith123]

President of the United States of America. 🇺🇸

Midday: Thursday, June 4, 2026.

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

Just imagine the reaction if Biden said this

[The Intellectualist @highbrow_nobrow]

When the Deputy Attorney General says it’s not a crime to party with Epstein, he is technically correct—and exposing how low the standard for American presidents has sunk. https://t.co/0lzxm6Ma6M

[David Pyne 🇺🇸 @AmericaFirstCon]

Israel controls 331 out of 435 seats in the US House of Representatives as part of its Israel First Uniparty. That's why they are voting to merge America's and Israel's defense industries and military technological base in the 2027 NDAA. They want us to keep fighting Israel's wars in perpetuity instead of using our arned forces to defend the US.

[Brett Erickson @BrettErickson28]

Iran's Frozen Assets... why have they consistently been such a key issue throughout the entirety of the US/Iran negotiations? Why are they so focused on this one key point, and why is the Trump Administration so vehemently opposed to releasing them?

Is it Obama? Partly, but that's NOT the key issue that I see here.

Based on the most recent statements from Khamenei's senior advisor and IRGC official Mohsen Rezaee today, he told CNN that this was the key sticking point... still.

And yes, the "Obama pallets of cash" certainly is playing a role with the Trump Administration. The amount of backlash and embarrassment President Trump would face after spending the past decade ridiculing President Obama for delivering "pallets of cash" to Iran would obviously be a tough situation for Trump optically.

But this isn't the key issue as to why it is SO untenable for the Trump Administration to agree to releasing ~$12B of frozen Iranian assets in order to reach an agreement on the Memorandum of Understanding.

However, let's first examine this from the Iranian point of view, so that we can better understand the decision making from Washington.

For the Iranian regime, they are increasingly confident in their current positioning in this war. The leadership has become far more cemented, the public perception inside of Iran has swung favorably for the Iranian regime, and most importantly... they believe that they are winning the Battle of the Blockades.

There is very little validity to an argument that the United States has viable options to defeat Iran militarily at this point. At least not to the point in which the regime will be toppled, or to which they will make significant changes to their negotiating position. If Trump did? He would've employed them over the past 51 days of the Dueling Blockades.

But in the Battle of the Blockades, Iran LIKELY is going to be able to outlast the United States and the global economy.

Here is the more important aspect though... regardless of whether YOU believe Iran will win the Battle of the Blockades... IRAN believes that they will. And that's the key part to understand.

Iran believes they will win the Battle of the Blockades.

Inside the Strait of Hormuz lie ~1,600 vessels. And these aren't your daddy's speed boat. These are vessels that, in many instances, are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Many hold on board hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cargo. Captain. Crew. This is SIGNIFICANT leverage for the Iranians.

Spare me your moral and ethical argument saying "how dare Iran hold these vessels hostage!". The reality is... they ARE, and this obviously has negotiating VALUE.

But even more than this, the cargoes that are on board these vessels would provide significant relief to the global economy. With the Strait of Hormuz closed, roughly 13M barrels of oil per day are being taken offline. Throughout the entirety of this conflict, that amounts to ~1.1B barrels of oil. A significant portion of the global LNG? Offline. 20% of the global fertilizer? Not reaching the market at a critical time for crops. Plastics? Medical supplies? Offline.

Because Iran believes that they can withstand the economic warfare campaign of the United States, releasing these vessels and their cargoes, both of which would lessen their available leverage in negotiations with United States, Iran would obviously need to be compensated in some manner in order for this to be logical and justifiable to do.

Obviously.

And the demand that they are making? The release of $12B of Iranian frozen assets, primarily held in Qatar and Iraq.

Now... for the Trump Administration, this seems like a very reasonable request. Right? Of course, there is the optical issue of Trump lambasting the Obama Administration for delivering cash to Iran, and this would be significantly more than Obama gave Iran. That's a challenge, but for the the spin doctor DJT... he likely could navigate this successfully.

No. The KEY reason as to why the Trump Administration is SO opposed to releasing this $12B is because it will close off their only avenue that still exists to achieve the core objective of this war. Regime change.

And I know, I know, "nooo Brett! Obviously the real goal was to wipe out their Air Force!". Cmon. Regime change obviously was the goal here. The Trump Administration doesn't trust Iran to turn over all of their highly enriched Uranium. They don't trust them to not squirrel away some of their Plutonium. Dismantle their missile program? They'd keep production in secret. Stop funding proxies? Get real.

The only objective that TRULY matters for the United States is regime change..

There are no viable military solutions to topple the regime in Iran. They survived more than a month of a historic bombing campaign from the US and Israel. The US has zero public support to put boots on the ground, and the time it would take to move the necessary troops and equipment into theater is not remotely viable. Operation Freedom 2.0? You mean trying the thing that was so stupid, we scrapped it after 48 hours?

So, with no realistic military avenues to victory, the economic warfare campaign is the only option that exists that has ANY possible chance at success. This primarily consists of the blockade, but also the sanctions targeting under Operation Economic Fury.

Has Iran REALLY lost "$500M/day"? No. That's ridiculous. Iran has been able to sell some of their ~160M barrels of oil that exists outside the perimeter of the US blockade line when it was implemented on April 13th. How much oil does Iran still outside the blockade line? 72M barrels. They're also exporting 250,000 barrels per day via trucking routes into Pakistan, and rail lines into China. Speaking of China... They're still importing ~1.1M barrels per day from Iran. Just from this alone, we can estimate that Iran is selling... let's call it 1.4M barrels per day of oil. At ~$90 per barrel, that equates to $126M/day.

In all reality, in the BEST case, Iran is losing... $300M/day throughout the blockade. The blockade has been in effect for 51 days as of 6/5. How much does this equate to? $15.3B

Do you see the problem here? We have spend 51 days trying to economically suffocate Iran to the point that they either make major concessions at the negotiating table, or more optimistically, are toppled from internal uprisings.

BUT... If the United States hands over this $12B? The only hope that the United States had to achieve a TRUE victory in the War in Iran? That's gone. Forever. Iran will receive $12B up front, unwind all the economic damage that they have incurred, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, be able to sell their own oil, and the economic warfare campaign is dead forever.

Military options? Gone. Economic warfare options? Gone.

Any hope of Trump preserving his legacy as a President?
Gone.

This is why the frozen assets are so important for both Iran and the United States. Not because Trump can't take the optically hit of being "no better than Obama", but because this will guarantee complete and total failure from the United States in the War in Iran.

Despite it being inevitable, this is a reality that Trump simply refuses to accept.

And the world pays the price.

[Brett Erickson @BrettErickson28]

Donald Trump needs to find a solution to end the Iran War, but now, he's facing an entirely new situation:

He's going to lose Fox News.

When this war ends, inevitably, Democrats will flock to CNN and MSNOW to rip Trump to shreds. Of course they will, they would have done that regardless of how successful the war was.

Independents will take that the airwaves to criticize why we launched this war to begin with. Was this to the benefit of the United States? What did we truly accomplish that couldn't have been achieved without war?

That's fine. President Trump has never much cared about the opinions of Democrats and Independents. As long as he has his MAGA base, he's fine.

And so far, this has mostly held true. "News" networks like Fox News and Newsmax have repeatedly brought on guests that continue to push the false narrative that the United States is winning. Everything is going great, never better! The viewership numbers of Fox News in particular, show the tale of the tape.

Amongst cable news segments, Fox News holds... 12 out of the 12 most watched segments, and 14 of the top 15.

CRAZY! But it's true. As long as President Trump can keep his Fox News base... an overwhelming amount of American's will be hearing from the Ministry of Propaganda, and eat up every word. And this has been the playbook of Trump throughout his first and second term, and why he has repeatedly turned to Fox News to be a mouthpiece for the Administration's propaganda.

But now, he faces an existential crisis to his reputation and perception.

Two key groups, the Israeli Lobby and the Iran Hawks, are set to flock to Fox and claw Trump to shreds.

We saw this just two weeks ago when initial terms for a potential Memorandum of Understanding were even RUMORED. Your Lindsey Graham's, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Mark Levin's, Marc Thiessen's, Hudson Institute's... they IMMEDIATELY began to turn on Donald Trump.

Fox News? FILLED with hatred and animosity towards Trump. And many people, myself included, thought that this played a key role in the negotiations between the United States and Iran falling apart in the past few days.

For the Iran Hawks and Israeli Lobby, this is everything to them. Their entire lives... entire careers... everything they stand for was built on convincing a President to be stupid enough to launch this war of choice, and now? They have Trump in a headlock.

Any reasonable person would understand that, in order to reach a Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran, concessions will need to be made from the US side. Obviously. Iran has been strangling the global economy, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed for more than three months now, and Washington is losing the Battle of the Blockades. OF COURSE concessions will need to be made to Iran in order to end this conflict. This is common sense from the President who campaigned on his common sense.

But he can't.

In order for Iran to be FAIRLY compensated for temporarily reopening the Strait of Hormuz under an MOU, frozen assets will need to be released. Whether that is $6B, $12B, or $24B... obviously, Iran will need to be compensated in order to logically release some of their significant leverage.

In order for a final peace deal to be negotiated, OBVIOUSLY Iran will need to receive significant sanctions relief. They received secondary sanctions relief under the JCPOA, and now they are in a far better position than they were when they were negotiating for that.

But Trump can't afford to make a concession to Iran. He can't afford to give them a DIME after spending the past decade publicly humiliating Obama for doing so. Any concession, no matter how small, will be perceived as a complete and total failure by the Iran Hawks and Israeli Lobby.

As long as the current Iranian Regime is still in power? These groups will view the War as a complete and total failure...

And they WILL sprint to Fox News, to Newsmax, to Breitbart if anyone even listens to them anymore, to SCREAM about how much of a failure Donald J. Trump is.

CNN and MSNOW? Obviously every Democrat will be shouting from the rooftops that Trump's legacy as a President is over.

NewsNation? The only center-leaning news outlet of any appreciable scale? They'll be hearing much of the same.

But for the first time in Trump's Presidency, he'll be getting lambasted on his pride and joy, Fox News.

In order for the War in Iran to end. In order for the global economy to even have a hope of surviving this without a major economic recession. Donald Trump needs to accept that his legacy as a President is over. That his "allies" in the Israeli Lobby and Iran Hawks are set to tear him apart on Fox News.

But this is inevitable.

And Donald Trump needs to accept this reality. Fast.

[GOP Ls @GOP__Ls]

🚨 Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was caught attempting to sell a Senate seat.

Trump gave him a full pardon.

[Team Ossoff @TeamOssoff]

Ossoff: Last September, the President of Kazakhstan calls Donald Trump and says he wants to grant tungsten mining rights to an American company. And the very next month, Eric and Don Jr. get a stake in the American company pursuing the mining deal.

Six days later, six days after Prince Eric and Prince Don get their stake, Kazakhstan announces this company will get, “The largest known undeveloped tungsten resource in the world.” A few more weeks go by, and then the U.S. government, run by their father, sets aside 1.6 billion of your tax dollars to fund and finance their mining project. In Kazakhstan.

All this while you pay more for gas, for groceries, for health care, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: Iran says negotiations have now fallen apart completely, seizing all messaging channels with the US following new US strikes on commercial vessels in southern Iran and the ongoing Israeli military's invasion of southern Lebanon, per Fars.

Iran also says talks were already fully deadlocked over the US refusing to release $24 billion in frozen funds without nuclear concessions in return. Iran is also rejecting Al Arabiya's claim today that Iran agreed to transfer part of its enriched uranium to a third country, calling it "incorrect" with nuclear discussions being "fundamentally not on the current negotiation agenda."

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Acting AG Todd Blanche says he's working to install "roadblocks" to prevent Democrats from prosecuting Trump and his associates in the future

[NFL Researcher @NFL_Researcher]

Most career scrimmage yards per game in NFL history (minimum 75 games)…

1. Jim Brown – 125.5 (HOF)
2. Barry Sanders – 118.9 (HOF)
3. Christian McCaffrey – 115.9
4. Terrell Davis – 113.9 (HOF)
5. Walter Payton – 111.9 (HOF)
6. Arian Foster – 110.9
7. Marshall Faulk – 108.8 (HOF)
8. LaDainian Tomlinson – 108.6 (HOF)
9. Jonathan Taylor – 107.9
10. Clinton Portis – 105.7

[Ben Anderson @BenAnderson58]

@SharpFootball By cap hit or AAV?