Steve

Hard work

[🇺🇸 Kyle Bass 🇹🇼 @Jkylebass]

Jeff, you know I love you as a person and a friend, but your motivated reasoning in this article falls flat with me and with America 🇺🇸.

Here is my response to your piece:

The Iran War Was Not a Defeat — It Was a Reckoning

Your piece on Trump’s “defeat” in Iran is a masterclass in motivated reasoning dressed up as geopolitical analysis. Let’s deal in facts.

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against the Iranian regime, targeting its nuclear facilities, military infrastructure, and leadership…following a determination that diplomacy had been exhausted and a nuclear-armed Iran posed an unacceptable threat to the world. What followed was not a defeat. It was the systematic dismantling of the most destabilizing terror regime in the Middle East.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei…Iran’s iron-fisted ruler since 1989, the architect of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis…was killed in strikes on Tehran. Senior advisers and military leadership were eliminated alongside him. The man who spent four decades exporting terrorism across the region is gone. You somehow forgot to lead with that.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed severe damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities that will take over a decade to rebuild. A U.S. naval blockade choked off Iran’s oil exports. Ambassador Mike Waltz confirmed Iran’s currency was in free fall and its foreign reserves were near zero. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the collapse of the Iranian currency the strategy’s “grand culmination.” This is what economic obliteration looks like.

The U.S. Navy sank over thirty Iranian ships. Iran’s capacity to mine or close the Strait of Hormuz…the threat that has hung over the global economy for decades…has been shattered.

Your piece wrings its hands over the MOU’s imperfections. But consider what the agreement actually reflects: a theocratic regime that once strutted across the Middle East through its terror proxies now sitting at a table in Versailles, reaffirming it will not pursue nuclear weapons, agreeing to open the Strait of Hormuz, and accepting a 60-day framework for further nuclear talks…after its navy was sunk, its Supreme Leader killed, its air defenses shredded, and its economy reduced to rubble. That’s not capitulation by America. That’s the posture of a beaten adversary buying time. While I don’t believe the IRGC will ever give up their highly-enriched uranium, this has been a decisive victory to date.

Now…about proportionality and concern for human life. You cluck solemnly over 3,375 Iranian casualties across the entire conflict. Chicago recorded 416 murders in 2025 alone with nearly 2,800 people shot in a single year in a single American city. A typical violent summer weekend in Democrat-run Chicago produces more American bloodshed than the entire Iran war cost in U.S. lives. Where is the Time cover story on that? Where are the Sonnenfeld op-eds demanding accountability from the Democrat officials who have presided over that carnage for decades?

You invoke Roy Cohn and the Marx Brothers to paint Trump as a con man declaring false victories. But the real sleight of hand is yours…treating the elimination of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, the destruction of its nuclear timetable, and the cratering of its economy as a loss, because the terms of surrender weren’t worded to your satisfaction.

The Iran war has removed a knife that had been held to the throat of the Middle East for forty years. That’s not nothing. That’s the whole thing.

[@jason @Jason]

Disgraziad!

[Victor Davis Hanson @VDHanson]

Notes In Absentia

I want again to thank everyone for the wonderful expressions of concern and reassurance that I have received from listeners and readers.

In response to inquiries, and some quite detailed questions and advice, here is a brief update concerning my current temporary absence.

As I wrote, the removal of a cancerous lung mucinous adenoma carcinoma along with the lower right lung lobe roughly a month ago was successful.

But a post-op aneurism /bleed soon developed. That required a quick second reentry operation into the lung to stop the hemorrhaging—adding considerable time under anesthesia and requiring about 5 blood transfusions.

As a result, over the last 30 days, I developed low red blood counts, fatigue, and bouts of arterial fibrillation. All that has sort of slowed my recovery.

This type of nonsmoker’s lung cancer has a rare genetic/mutation profile. And it seems to recur about 40 percent of the time in the general lung area—even when as in my case the removed and biopsied lymph nodes, along with adjacent vascular/pleural samples, were all negative. And the pre-op PET scan show no signs of malignancy outside the lower right lung lobe.

Chemotherapy and immunotherapy are said to be not particularly effective against this rare sort of tumor mutation. But they can offer a 5-10% edge in stopping recurrence. So I’ll do a cost-benefit analysis, depending on how quickly I regain energy, to determine whether to start the preventative drug regimens.

The bottom line is that I’m hoping to come back as soon as possible. But I don’t know exactly when I'll be back to near normal. In the meantime, I hope to post things now and then on days when I feel better.

Sincerely—and again thanks to everyone!

Victor Davis Hanson

[Gunther Eagleman™ @GuntherEagleman]

Did you know that if our GOP wanted the fraud to stop, they would stop funding it...

They are in on it too.

[Bishop Robert Barron @BishopBarron]

As we wrestle in my home state of Minnesota with the fact of deep corruption in the political and economic orders, I want to draw attention to the “social justice” dimension of this problem. Catholic social teaching has a good deal to say about official corruption, insisting that it undermines confidence in our leaders, compromises the integrity of the institutions of government, and subverts the rule of law. But even more importantly, it deeply harms the poor, stealing resources from them, increasing inequality, and blocking essential services such as health and education. And if the widespread fraud in Minnesota is also present in a number of other states, we are dealing with a massive violation of human rights and a heinous attack upon the poor and needy. This should not be a matter of partisan politics. Rather, wherever this corruption exists, it should be fought and those responsible for it brought to justice.

[Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 @alexbruesewitz]

Five years ago today, on January 6, 2021, millions of patriotic Americans converged peacefully in Washington, D.C., to challenge the blatant fraud of a rigged and stolen election, and to stand in solidarity as President Trump addressed the nation.

Unfortunately, this peaceful assembly was sabotaged by insidious operatives, many of whom we now know were undercover agents from corrupt intelligence agencies. These plants infiltrated the crowd to ignite chaos, deliberately framing President Trump and the MAGA movement as villains. In the midst of this orchestrated mayhem, Capitol Police even callously gunned down an unarmed, peaceful protester, Ashli Babbitt, a brazen act of murder that demands justice.

The corporate media and Democrats wasted no time unleashing a coordinated barrage of lies: "Donald Trump incited an insurrection," "MAGA supporters are domestic terrorists," "This dwarfs 9/11 in horror." Shamefully, even so-called Republicans like Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Cheney parroted these venomous narratives, betraying their own party and the American people.

Yet, every genuine MAGA leader, including President Trump himself, unequivocally denounced the violence. We sought only a fair debate in Congress on the election's rampant irregularities, irrefutable evidence of theft that we knew to be true. But the engineered disorder derailed that rightful process, silencing the voice of the people.

What followed January 6th marked one of the most tyrannical eras in American history. Big Tech overlords, in lockstep, banished the sitting President from their platforms and purged tens of thousands of law-abiding patriots. Democrats unleashed ruthless manhunts, targeting thousands who had merely walked peacefully through the Capitol, including decorated veterans and elderly grandmothers battling cancer. Then, Biden's regime escalated the witch hunt, subpoenaing and scheming to imprison President Trump and his inner circle. These were the tactics of a third-world dictatorship, not a free republic.

I know this nightmare firsthand: Just days after my 24th birthday, I was slapped with a subpoena, and Biden's FBI agents pounded on my door. They drained me of tens of thousands in legal fees, all for the "crime" of standing with President Trump. I was but one among hundreds ensnared in this web of political persecution.

But the resilient spirit of America prevailed. The people pierced through the Left's propaganda and the media's deceit, rejecting the January 6th fairy tale outright. They rallied behind President Trump and all of us who were targeted, delivering a resounding victory in November of 2024.

I am profoundly grateful that President Trump has pardoned those wrongfully imprisoned for that fateful day. Now, it's time for investigations into the stolen 2020 election and the cabal of corrupt actors who perpetrated the January 6th hoax!

[Steve @stevehood63]

@OwenGregorian @grok summarize in plain language

[Gad Saad @GadSaad]

Cultures are not equal. Cultures are not interchangeable. All cultures do not mix as well with other cultures. Cultures possess unique values and beliefs that are perfectly antithetical to those of other cultures. These blatantly obvious facts are rejected by the parasitic idea of cultural relativism and parasitic suicidal empathy. If the West does not wake up soon and implement drastic auto-corrective measures, it will ensure a dark future for our descendants. Wake up.

[Sean Fitzgerald (Actual Justice Warrior) @IamSean90]

Weird how Austin Metcalf's father was asked to leave the press conference but managed to not stab anyone in the heart

[Catturd ™ @catturd2]

My patience is wearing thin when it comes to arresting government thieves, Jeffrey Epstein’s rape island pedos, the thieves who have stolen trillions that doge has exposed, the traitors who setup Trump, the network who tried to assassinate Trump, the child traffickers, the traitors who stole the election in 2020,
The Covid demons who lied about everything and killed millions. Our swatters, the hundreds of Congress members who are getting rich through insider trading. And on and on and on … I trust Trump and team - but we must have accountability- if this doesn’t happen with hundreds, possibly thousands of arrests of these traitors- nothing changes.

[Steve @stevehood63]

@musk_news13 👍🏻

[Steve @stevehood63]

@catturd2 Aunt Lidea vibes 😳

[Daniel S. Loeb @DanielSLoeb1]

Truth 💣 dropped by @DavidSacks

[Viva Frei @thevivafrei]

George Bush killed 500,000 innocent Iraqis based on a lie.

Obama illegally ran weapons to Mexican cartels, and assassinated an American citizen.

Bill Clinton bombed a medical facility in Sudan.

Joe Biden allegedly molested his daughter, and credibly sexually assaulted Tara Reid.

But Trump is the first American president to be criminally convicted based on alleged misclassification of an otherwise lawful payment.

It’s not just that the criminals are in charge; They are rubbing their criminality in the face of their victims.

[Catturd ™ @catturd2]

Dear worthless House Republicans ...

Stop Tweeting and start Subpoenaing !!!

[Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays]

I finally figured out what's wrong with "everything."

It's a system problem. The introduction of Trump into the system(s) broke almost everything, and in multiple ways.

The fake news created a White Supremacist hysteria, which led to the Fine People Hoax and the George Floyd Hoax, which led to massive DEI, which led to massive systemic incompetence in all of our systems at once.

Add wokeness and cancelation and we can't discuss the issue, much less fix it. That's a system problem. The corrective mechanism (free speech) has been removed.

On top of that, the Trump experience has made it clear all of our government systems are corrupt. They probably always were, but as long as we didn't notice, things limped along okay.

Now we notice.

Now we don't accept "the science" we know is corrupt. We don't accept the omnibus bills we know are corrupt. We don't accept the foreign wars that look sketchy. We don't accept elections we can't fully audit. We don't trust the news, for good reason. We don't trust our intel services to not be agents of one party. And we see the justice departments weaponized.

While all that happened Soros found a way to take control of all American systems via funding of non-government entities and integrating them into the American systems.

But at the head of the snake is the fake news and fake science. There is no correcting mechanism.

The X platform is the only counterforce, and that's why the crooks are trying to take it out, and Musk at the same time.

[respawnedtargaryen @respawnedtarga1]

Hes right without having to take shots at transgenders 😭

[Catturd ™ @catturd2]

The GOP always betrays their voters.

Every. Damn. Time.