Thirty years ago, I chose to become an American citizen. As America marks its 250th anniversary, I’ve been reflecting on what that choice has meant—and what it means now. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
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Yes, Musk is undeniably talented. But when a single person's fortune rivals the GDP of entire nations, perhaps the question is not "How extraordinary is he?" but "What kind of world have we created?” 🥹😳🤣🤬👿
The plutocrats seem to win again. Can nothing or no one stop this terrible trend? It’s obscene surely that any human being should suddenly inherit or be worth more than $1 trillion https://t.co/CdvlXKFVvY
I’ve been thinking a lot about the extraordinary outbursts of the President of the United States against female journalists... well, actually against journalists in general and journalism. But it feels like he saves his most childlike behavior and irrational language for female reporters, calling them all kinds of names that kids in kindergarten are given times out for. It’s stunning to me to witness such behavior from any leader, any CEO, any person of influence or importance. I’ve never witnessed someone like this raging, this weekend with @meetthepress host @kwelkernbc, just last week in the Oval Office with @cnn’s @kaitlancollins, calling women stupid or piggy, telling them to “smile”, calling them darling, demeaning their credibility. Every good man should denounce this behavior. Every person should be able to stand up for their colleagues and say “No more.”
Imagine this man screaming like this at your daughter, your wife, your sister, your mother... would you stand for it? No, you wouldn’t! And neither should any of us. It’s unacceptable and undignified. Period. End of story.
Iran just called Trump’s bluff.
Its supreme leader was assassinated. Its nuclear sites were bombed. And it is winning the war that is left.
Washington walked into a trap with three locked doors. Trump cannot settle: a tentative 60-day ceasefire has stalled for a week while he demands changes Iran rejects. He cannot walk away: the strait stays shut and the bill keeps running. And the House just voted 215 to 208 to rein him in, with the Senate one vote behind.
But the door he can least afford to open is escalation, and this is the part no one is pricing. America is draining two reserves at once. It has pulled its Strategic Petroleum Reserve down 12% to 365 million barrels to hold the oil price down, and it has fired roughly 1,100 Tomahawks and 1,200 Patriots, weapons it needs years to rebuild. Both gauges fall on the same clock. Neither refills fast: the oil reserve is not projected back to pre-war levels until 2028. And Iran can see all of it.
That is why Iran will not move. A country this battered is winning the only contest left, the contest of who can afford to wait.
The screen still looks calm. Brent is back above $100. US stocks sat at record highs days ago. But that calm is bought with a draining reserve and a spent arsenal, and neither comes back for years.
Trump called the vote meaningless. The market shrugged. Iran read it as a green light.
This war is not being won on the battlefield. It is being won by whoever outlasts the other’s reserves. For the first time, that is not Washington.
BREAKING: The US House just voted 215 to 208 to end the Iran war.
The same day, Iran bombed Kuwait’s main airport and the US bombed Iran.
Both are true. The gap between them is the whole story.
The vote is historic, and misunderstood. It is the first time either chamber of Congress has passed a measure against this war since it began more than three months ago, and 4 Republicans crossed the aisle to do it. But it stops nothing. It is a concurrent resolution: it never reaches Trump’s desk, it still has to pass the Senate, its legal force is disputed, and Trump will contest it. It does not end the war. It measures how toxic the war has become.
So why did 4 Republicans break? The rebuke was aimed at Trump’s handling of the conflict and, in the reporting’s own words, the economic fallout, a war that has rattled the global economy with no end in sight. That is oil propped up by a draining reserve, fertilizer the world’s biggest importer now pays nearly double for, and the strait still shut since February. Congress just voted on the price of crude and bread. It only called it a war.
But the same afternoon, the war got bigger. Iranian drones and missiles hammered Kuwait’s main airport, killed 1 and wounded more than 60, and forced it shut. The US answered with a strike on an Iranian military site on Qeshm Island, inside the Strait of Hormuz. Israel kept hitting Lebanon, the sticking point Tehran says any deal must cover. The mediators were already cut off. Oil ticked up about 2%, Brent back near $97, while the strait stayed shut.
This is the new phase: a divergence. Abroad, the war is widening, Gulf states hit, Iran hitting back, talks frozen. At home, the will to keep paying for it is cracking for the first time. The binding constraint is sliding off the battlefield and onto the floor of Congress. Increasingly, the limit is not Iran. It is the bill.
The vote will not stop the war. But it is the first time the cost of one shut strait reached the floor of the House. The war is not ending. The willingness to keep paying for it is.
Trying not to be a grumpy old man but as the mercury rose today, I shook my head in despair: in most heatwaves I always seem to be in the f*****g hottest part of England… and it’s only May! Ugh 😩