Kevin Madden OR

Retired USAF intel officer. Amateur golfer. Wisconsinite by birth, Oregonian by choice. UMBC ‘95. Beaver Dad x2.

[Jeffrey Goldberg @JeffreyGoldberg]

Here's what J.D. Vance used to think about Donald Trump:
https://t.co/rS262ifRDl

[Chris Gloninger, CCM, CBM @ChrisGloninger]

For everyone pretending asking people to conserve power in a heat wave is "socialism": ERCOT, the grid operator in deep-red Texas, has done this 50+ times. Set it to 78, unplug what you're not using, ease off at peak. The 78° guideline goes back to the Carter administration and every grid operator in America uses it, red states included.

This isn't ideology. It's how you keep a grid from failing when demand spikes. And when a grid fails in extreme heat, people don't get "freedom" - they die. That's not hypothetical. It's what happened in Texas in 2021.

Manufacturing outrage over a routine, life-saving request tells on itself. It means you've got nothing real to say about the heat…so you're performing anger about a thermostat instead.

[Kevin Madden OR @PentaKev]

@TimGavrich Trysting Tree in Corvallis, Oregon, is on the Willamette River, not the Columbia.

[Kevin Madden OR @PentaKev]

@KVanValkenburg That Shipnuck article…wow

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

It'd be nice to have a Speaker who'd say: "And let them, we have nothing to hide, and they'll look like fools for doing it."

But what he's saying here is: They're gonna uncover a lot of stuff, and you don't want that.

[Tim Miller @Timodc]

The # of Haitians who enriched our culture more than this frigid monster is endless. New Orleans is Mobile without them. Pierre Toussaint financed St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. Basquiat's art. Blake Griffin's oops. Ralph Gilles designed the Chrysler 300. Go back to Ireland @megynkelly.

[Kevin Madden OR @PentaKev]

@eric_nehm @sam_amick Historic mistake

[Kevin Madden OR @PentaKev]

@ByRyanWood @JimOwczarski This sucks 😢

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Unless you're an brain-wormed partisan, "Iran is an evil regime," "this preventive war was stupid and should never have been launched," and "this peace deal is a US humiliation" are three perfectly true things you should be able to believe at the same time.

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

March 9: "We're now totally independent of the Middle East. We don't need their oil."

April 1: "It doesn't really affect us. We have so much oil. We have tremendous oil and gas, much more than we need."

June 17: If I didn't agree to the MOU, we "would run out of reserves at about 4 weeks...we would really run out, and there'll be a time when you wouldn't be able to get it."

[Dr. Jeffrey Lewis @ArmsControlWonk]

I say this with no partisan rancor at all: these guys just have no idea what the fuck they are doing.

[Erick Erickson @EWErickson]

Trump has surrendered to Iran. Those who kill Americans love this deal.

[Michael A. Cohen (NOT TRUMP’S FORMER FIXER) @speechboy71]

On February 28, President Trump laid out five military objectives for the US war with Iran:

- “Destroy Iran’s missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground.”
- “Annihilate Iran’s navy.”
- “Ensure that Iran’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”
- “Ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.”
- Prevent Iran from using “IEDs or roadside bombs, as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans.”

Three-and-a-half months later, the US has achieved none of these objectives.
- According to US intelligence assessments, Iran has retained roughly 70% of its prewar missile stockpile and mobile launchers. Iran’s missile and drone production infrastructure also remains largely intact.
- US intelligence also concludes that Iran’s nuclear capacity remains broadly unchanged since last summer, with Iran still needing roughly a year to build a bomb.
- While the U.S. succeeded in significantly damaging Iran’s conventional navy, it did not weaken Iran’s capacity to impose maritime costs or disrupt ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
- Iranian proxies (specifically Hezbollah) are still destabilizing the region.
- The threat from Iranian IEDs no longer exists because US troops have been out of Iraq for 15 years.

Indeed, the agreement reached this weekend with Iran only requires Tehran to reopen the Straits of Hormuz to maritime traffic ... an issue that arose solely BECAUSE of the war.

Then there are the enormous direct and indirect costs of the war.

After only three months, the war has cost the United States at least $30 billion in direct costs and the U.S. economy hundreds of billions in indirect costs.

It has killed and wounded U.S. servicemembers, damaged U.S. bases, depleted scarce munitions, raised energy prices, strained relations with partners, and left Washington scrambling to restore the status quo it disrupted. Even if there were tangible benefits to the war, the costs would more than outweigh them.

Even worse, the war empowered Iranian hard-liners, demonstrated its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and, in turn, the global economy, and, because of the depletion of America's weapons stockpiles, has made it more difficult for the US to respond to future military crises.

This is worse than a failure. It is a strategic calamity.

Read the comprehensive report that we published at the Stimson Center earlier this month on the disaster that is the Iran War.
https://t.co/9QR5cMancN

[Kevin Madden OR @PentaKev]

@TheRealPJClark Happy for you!

[Kevin Madden OR @PentaKev]

@TronCarterNLU @ShaneRyanHere Smoooth

[John Jackson @hissgoescobra]

I want to give you guys some facts about General Chappie James. He wasn’t a “DEI” hire—he was a complete badass that had to overcome MORE than any white pilot. Did 178 combat missions—that’s like 7 bomber tours on a B-17 in WWII.

His medal count? Impeccable. 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Air Medals, Two Legions of Merit, and a Defense Distinguished Service Medal. One of the original Tuskegee Airmen, the first four-star African American General.

Hegseth couldn’t sniff the level of soldiering and warrior that was in Chappie’s DNA. God bless him. And Hegseth took down his picture from a hallway like a racist little child, which is what he is.

[Barry R McCaffrey @mccaffreyr3]

A disgrace.

[Kevin Madden OR @PentaKev]

@RadioFreeTom “One way or another” doing a lot of work here

[Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien]

One thing that should be very clear now, is that every one of Trump's claims in the last two months that an agreement with Iran was close, imminent, just around the corner, and that Iran had been militarily defeated and desperate for a deal....was made up. All were lies, every one.

[Kevin Madden OR @PentaKev]

@AaronNagler It’s even late out west…