Minnesota Wolverine

Financial literacy educator and advocate. Help someone become smarter about money and change their life.

[Charlie Warzel @cwarzel]

Every Trump debacle follows the same 13 steps. The reflecting pool fiasco is just one of the lower stakes versions of it.
1. Devise unnecessary spectacle
2. Disregard expertise
3. Bypass normal procedures
4. Declare victory too early (bonus if done by AI-slop post)
5. Spend way more than estimated
6. Ignore the haters
7. Realize it is not going well
8. Bypass normal procedures once again
9. Allege conspiracy and sabotage
10. Redeclare victory
11. More blaming
12. Losing interest
13. Pretend it never happened, and move on to the next thing

[Minnesota Wolverine @mdh2959]

@EchoesofWarYT Losing the plot

[Brian Rosenworcel @bowl_of_worcel]

If you steal a paint chip it's 10 years in prison but take what you want from our Capitol, that's worth a pardon.

[David Frum @davidfrum]

In the old USSR, people could be arrested for photographing bridges, tunnels, etc. A repressive and paranoid regime assumed the photographers must be spies and saboteurs. Americans laughed at such petty tyranny. Nothing like that could happen in their free country! Until now.

[Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump]

What a rotten deal we made with Iran. We get nothing (except laughter at our stupidity). They get everything, including delay and big cash!

[Minnesota Wolverine @mdh2959]

@Wu_Tang_Finance Hold on there young fella!

[Dan Shapiro @DanielBShapiro]

Until the text of the US-Iran deal is signed and released, there is going to be a lot of spin on both sides. But here is my initial take.

This war was a mistake, and it needs to end. The President thought that the Iranian regime would collapse quickly, but it did not. In fact, it has been strengthened strategically by its survival against a heavy US-Israeli assault and carrying out some effective counterstrikes. Many countries in the region are now courting Iran and looking to deescalate and rebuild ties. A sign of which way the wind is blowing.

Getting the Strait of Hormuz open is the most important outcome of this MOU. Of course, the Strait was open before the war. Now we are paying to reopen it with sanctions relief. Iran has taken a theoretical point of leverage and turned it into a very real and powerful one, imposing costs across the global economy and rattling President Trump.

As for the nuclear issues, there really is no agreement, other than to negotiate over the HEU stockpile and an enrichment moratorium. Iran knows how to drag out those negotiations, and try to pocket concessions along the way. It is possible that no deal will every be reached, and very likely that if one is reached, it will be worse than what we could have achieved through diplomacy before the war.

Iran is not likely to take seriously that the US would return to war, certainly before the US midterms. So that means we will be conducting diplomacy without a credible threat of force.

If any agreement ultimately reached actually safely puts Iran's nuclear ambitions out of reach, I'll acknowledge it. It's just too early to make that judgment.

Trump is mainly focused on comparing his deal favorably to the JCPOA. But we are a long way from being able to make that comparison, and it may end up no better, or weaker than that deal.

But in some ways, Trump's deal and the JCPOA are already similar. Nothing on ballistic missiles, nothing on proxies, nothing on weakening the regime or helping the Iranian people. And plenty of sanctions relief that will strengthen the regime, and be poured into the missile program and proxy network. Honest critics of the JCPOA will not twist themselves into pretzels to defend Trump's approach.

Israelis are deeply disappointed in this outcome, but they should not be surprised. After some initial overlap of Trump's and Netanyahu's interests, there was a strong divergence. The United States needed this war to end. Netanyahu wanted to continue.

Trump's claim to include Lebanon in the ceasefire and his harsh shutting down Israeli attacks on Hezbollah is also a win for Iran. After the JCPOA was signed, Obama and Netanyahu worked together to strengthen Israel's campaign of strikes in Syria to intercept Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

So let's hope we see the removal of Iran's enriched uranium and a long-term suspension of enrichment, with full verification. But to achieve those goals, Trump's team is going to need to engage in far more sophisticated diplomacy, backed by qualified experts, than they have to date. If it is a phase one splash with no follow-up on implementation of later phases, like in Gaza, we will be much worse off after, and because of, this war.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

The most expensive taxpayer funded nap #NBAFinals

[Minnesota Wolverine @mdh2959]

@ppearlman Report back!

[Ted Lieu @tedlieu]

Dear @SecRollins: You lie. The average life cycle of a Screwworm ranges from 14 to 54 days depending on temperature and humidity.

The trump Administration has been in office over 500 days.

If you can’t accept responsibility, or even apologize for messing up, you need to resign.

[Minnesota Wolverine @mdh2959]

@Jbooty88 It’s a Buckeye fan. Who cares?

[Molly Ploofkins @Mollyploofkins]

Kimmel: "You'd think Trump would be rooting for the Spurs. It's what got him out of Vietnam."

[Not Jerome Powell @alifarhat79]

Taxpayers realizing they will pay $300 billion to reconstruct Iran after paying $70 billion to destroy it

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

This opinion is soon going to be recognized universally: Trump is the most notorious criminal in modern history. Not since Hitler has any leader of a country plundered, pillaged, and personally enriched himself so obscenely, while giving ZERO fucks to the rule of law.

[Sarrah Bellus @sarrah_bellus]

Jimmy Kimmel is a national treasure. 😂

Jimmy infiltrated the cabinet suck-up session and praises Trump's magnificent man teets.

[Jake Justice @jakecobb]

Share this video!

Until they no longer say it was antifa.

Until they no longer say it was Pelosi.

Until they no longer say it was the FBI.

Until they hold those responsible accountable for what they did and stop trying to give them our tax dollars!

[Rebecca Aguilar (on Blue Sky & LinkedIn) @RebeccaAguilar]

Everyone COPY this video, share it far and wide. Paramount Skydance billionaire baby David Ellison can’t handle that Stephen Colbert is getting millions of views . @Youtube we will cancel our subscription as we did when we dumped @paramountplus.

[Matthew Keys @MatthewKeysLive]

Paramount is apparently trying to suppress copies of "Only in Monroe" from appearing on other social platforms by filing frivolous copyright notices, even though the show was produced by a public access TV channel and doesn't use their intellectual property...