Category: Opinion

Source: The Bulwark
by Will Saletan

“Keeping up with Mr. ‘I Have the Best Words’ as he twists the English language.” (03/13/26)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-glossary-iran-words

Source: The Atlantic
by Philips Payson O’Brien

“When Trump went to war with Iran, he made the same assumption that Vladimir Putin had in invading Ukraine four years earlier. Each believed that his nation’s superior weaponry and military experience would crush any opposition that the target government could muster. … Initially, the air campaign achieved everything Trump could have hoped for. The U.S. and Israel quickly gained air supremacy over Iran and now have the ability to hit almost any target they choose. They succeeded in killing much of Iran’s top leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Yet ever since, the limits of Trump’s ability to control the situation have become clearer and clearer.” (03/13/26)

https://archive.is/Gg3ll

Source: The Hill
by Jonathan Turley

“In March 2021, California principal Jesus Becerra was confronted by a clear and present threat to his school. Standing before him was the culprit — a student apparently so dangerous that Becerra had to act without delay to protect the entire Viejo Elementary School in the Capistrano Unified School District. The little girl is known only as B.B. in federal filings, but her actions were so heinous that a parent alerted Becerra to take all necessary action. Beccera showed B.B. the incriminating evidence: a picture of children holding hands with the words ‘any life’ written under ‘Black Lives Matter.'” (03/14/26)

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/5783916-california-principal-threat-black-lives/

Source: New York Post
by staff

“We’d like to believe that the negative coverage of the Iran war so rampant in the media is simply more Trump Derangement Syndrome, but it’s plainly also about how the president’s firm actions expose how pathetically the same elites applauded President Barack Obama’s misbegotten Middle East policies, and not just his sad nuclear deal with Tehran. To simplify things, consider The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, the dean of elite liberal political analysis, who’s actively sneering at the joint US-Israeli effort to defang an entity that for five decades has called them ‘The Great Satan’ and ‘The Little Satan.’ … the two nations took out Tehran’s nuclear program last year, as it was weeks from producing usable weapons, and they’ve acted before it could rebuild its defenses and offensive conventional forces to shield it as it recovered that capability.” [editor’s note: Are unlimited hallucinogens a formally codified office benefit at the Post, or is their use during work hours merely tolerated? … – TLK] (03/13/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/03/13/opinion/the-despicable-disgrace-of-the-call-off-the-war-crowd/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Joseph Holmes

“This year’s Oscars give Americans few reasons to have hope for the future.” (03/13/26)

https://lawliberty.org/hollywoods-hellscape/

Source: Persuasion
by Jamie Paul

“The trans movement won the lottery. Then they lost it all.” (03/13/26)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/how-trans-activism-became-so-radical

Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko

“Kristi Noem has been the worst head of Homeland Security in the department’s 20-year history, and it really isn’t even close. Her tenure was marked by reckless abuse of power, brazen lying and disinformation, white supremacist propaganda, and shameless corruption. Prior to Noem, we had never seen a cabinet official shoot a propaganda/weird fetish video from a foreign prison known for torture and abuse. Prior to Noem, we’d …. never seen a cabinet official celebrate the illegal killing of unarmed U.S. citizens. … Trump’s nominee to replace Noem is Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a mixed-martial-arts fighter turned plumber turned politician. Mullin is probably best known for challenging a witness at an oversight hearing to a fight, jamming his fingers into the nostrils of sleeping colleagues and their spouses, and projecting so much masculinity that he requires the names of two men.” (03/13/26)

https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/questions-for-markwayne-mullin

Source: Common Dreams
by Robert C Koehler

“Boys will be boys. Just ask the president. At a gathering of Republicans a few days ago, Donald Trump talked nonchalantly about the recent sinking of an apparently unarmed Iranian frigate by the US Navy — in the Indian Ocean, more than 2,000 miles from the Persian Gulf. A total of 104 crew members were killed and 32 more were injured. The president proceeded to make this more than merely another brutal, pointless act of war. He turned it into a glaring (shocking) revelation of truth … about the American-Israeli war on Iran and, quite possibly about all wars: about war itself.” [editor’s note: “That enemy warship, headed toward the theater of operations, was ‘apparently unarmed,’ may be the dumbest claim I’ve seen from either side of the debate over this conflict – TLK] (03/14/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/no-more-playing-war

Source: The Contrarian
by Tim Dickinson

“Donald Trump’s brutal ICE detention facilities have been blasted as ‘concentration camps.’ This is a freighted term — summoning more than a century of deplorable history. But experts in the field have no hesitation in using these words to describe the network of facilities that the federal government is using to literally warehouse tens of thousands of immigrants — men, women, and even children — snatched out of their communities by masked federal agents.” (03/13/26)

https://www.contrariannews.org/p/is-trump-building-concentration-camps

Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman

“For well over a thousand years, the civil service of Imperial China, the officials who ran the empire, was principally selected from those who had successfully passed through a series of ferociously competitive exams. Passing the first level gave one the rank of licentiate, which carried with it status and the right to take the second level of exams. Passing the second (‘provincial’) provided a significant chance of eventual appointment to office as well as the opportunity to take the third level of exam (‘metropolitan’). Passing the third level was a near guarantee of official appointment. … It may have occurred to you that Imperial China is not the only society whose elite members are expected to qualify for high-status positions by studying for, and passing, exams on subjects having little or nothing to do with the positions they are qualifying for.” (03/14/26)

https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/examination-systems