orried about violent rhetoric.

And then Jen Psaki, Jen Psaki to the ultimate crazy lady take. She said that what was really in Trump's head was not honoring the military but it was his own birthday party. And that the coincidence it was the 250th anniversary of the military, of the Army I guess, that that was a coincidence. But what was really in Trump's head was throwing himself a birthday party.

Now, is it my imagination that that's not just a bad take? I mean, that's just, that's just, you're crazy.

Anyway, and then one of the correspondents, Ali Velshi I think, he said he was surprised that unlike the Trump rallies, that this military parade did not have, and they were surprised, it did not have a lot of dark malevolent energy. What world are they living in that Trump is throwing himself a birthday party to intimidate his rivals, and he left out the dark malevolent energy this time I guess? Boy, they had to try really hard and failed.

Well, as Mollie Hemingway pointed out in a post on X, she said, whatever is ailing the Democrats, I'm pretty sure Democrat senators posting open hatred of the United States Army celebrating its 250th birthday is not going to help. So once again, Trump has baited the Democrats into taking the side of the 20 in the 80-20 issue. How many people are really anti the United States having a military?

So anyway, John Fetterman did his Fetterman thing where he bucked the common thinking of the Democrats, and you know he had an opinion that Republicans would like. He said regardless of your politics, it's appropriate to celebrate the 250 years of sacrifice, dedication, and service. So Fetterman was all in on honoring the Army.

All right. Well, let's talk about Israel and Iran. So once again, there have been missiles and rockets and bombs exchanged. Israel's taking some casualties now. Eight people killed, four children, 200 injured, 35 still missing. So that's pretty bad. And that will probably continue for some time. We don't know how long. But the back and forth is underway. So we've got a number of things to say about that topic.

Number one, I made four predictions so you can track me. So see what you think about these four predictions.

Prediction number one, this is just from me. There will be no organic popular uprising that removes Iran's leaders. Now I'm not saying there won't be a pretend popular uprising. You know, maybe some kind of organized thing that got organized by the US or Israel or something. But I just don't believe the population of Iran is in the mood to gather on the streets and do a big protest and get rid of their leaders. And the reason for that is they're under attack. And I don't think the people under attack take the side of the attacker. And it's the attackers who would like the leadership to change.

Now, I agree that it is very likely that there are a lot of Iranian citizens who also want the administration to change, but they might not have to do anything about it. They're probably saying if I just wait, it might take care of itself, if you know what I mean. So I don't think I wouldn't wait for the public in Iran to join the uprising. I think they'll sit it out.

Number two, Iran will not return to the negotiating table and give up its nuclear ambitions. But the latest says that Iran is actually asking about returning to the negotiating table. However, even if they do return to the table, I believe that they would only stall and that it would be a tactic. I do not believe they would return to the table and legitimately say, you know what, we were really wrong about this nuclear stuff. We give it all up. Let's immediately blah blah. Now the reason for that is that they are publicly asking for negotiations but what they're not saying is that they would now be willing to give up the one and only thing that was the sticking point, which was the nuclear program. If they really wanted to stop the bombing and they really planned to give up their nuclear ambitions, all they'd have to do is say, hey, let's go back to the negotiating table and we'll talk about our nuclear program. It's now in play. All they'd have to do is say it's on the table and that we could talk about it and then it would look different. But they don't say that. So I'm going to say that they will just never give up their nuclear ambitions.

Number three, I predict that Israel will not stop attacking until they've achieved everything they want. Now that leaves a little wiggle room because you and I can disagree on what it is they want. Do they want to change the regime leadership or do they want to simply destroy the current nuclear program and go home? Or do they want to destroy the missile program, ballistic missile program plus the nuclear and go home? Or do they want to destroy Iran's ability to make any kind of military action anywhere? Or do they want to control the country with puppets? So we don't know what they want, but I can tell you for sure they're not going to go home until they get it. Whatever it is they want. They do not seem in the mood to go halfway there. It's just not the halfway administration. It's sort of the if we're going to do this, we're going to do it all the way.

And number four, I believe that Israel's prediction that it would be done in two weeks is not accurate. I believe they will not be done in two weeks. I don't know if it'll take a month or two months or longer, but I don't know how they could be done. Done just seems hard.

Anyway, apparently Elon Musk has activated Starlink in Iran because they lost their internet. And I guess we're thinking that the public would be more organized against the leadership if they had the internet. But again, I'm predicting that there will not be a massive organic popular uprising. We shall see.

Apparently now Israel is saying that US involvement would be necessary to do what they need to do. Now given that I already said they're not going to be done until they get everything they want. So what is it exactly that only the American interaction could solve? Is it the bunker busting or is it much more than that? Because if they had only said there's just one thing we need, you know, we just need to bunker bust these two bunkers, then that would be limited and that we could argue whether that's a terrible idea or a great idea. But we know what it was. But apparently Israel is just saying that US involvement is necessary. So what exactly would that be?

Well, Scott Jennings happens to be over there and he issued this opinion from Israel. He said that Trump would be justified in taking out the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility. It would be a righteous decision, would it? According to who? And if he doesn't, no question in my mind that he would deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, I'm going to make another prediction. You don't get the Nobel Peace Prize by dropping a bunker buster bomb on your enemies. You know, even if you think you deserved it, that is not how you get a peace prize. Avoiding a bomb might get you a peace prize.

Anyway, apparently according to the Times of Israel, Trump recently told Netanyahu that the US would consider striking that Fordow nuclear facility, which would require some bunker busting, if it were necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Now this is in the Times of Israel. So one source. So we'll see.

Now as I saw the logic message on X from investor Bill Ackman, who's getting more involved in sort of international and national politics, and he's always interesting because he's got well-thought-out opinions. But he's got this opinion on finishing the job in terms of Israel finishing the job. And he says we should not let this opportunity pass. Israel doesn't have the equipment and armament to complete the job, but we do, and it does not require boots on the ground. So let's help them finish the job. Finish the job.

What do you think that would look like? So let me just sort of tweak your imagination. So imagine if you will that the US helps Israel destroy what's left of the nuclear facilities in Iran. Then what? Do we just leave? And then what happens? Does Iran say, oh darn it. Well, we tried to build those nuclear weapons but that didn't work out, so I guess we won't do that again. And we won't cause any trouble because it might be another war. Is that what happens? That doesn't sound like Iran, does it?

Is it finishing the job when you replace the leadership? Because if we replace it, it would look like a puppet. And if they replace it, it would probably look like more hardliners. So what exactly would look like finishing the job? Would it require dominating the country and essentially owning it forever? You know, like I said, the puppets wouldn't work and the hardliners don't work because they just reconstitute the risk to Israel. So if you can't define what finishing the job looks like, and you know maybe some people have a specific idea but it's not a generally agreed upon idea, how can you operate in that if you don't know what the end goal should look like?

So we've got a problem, which is if we don't do anything, things could eventually get worse because they'll be looking for revenge no matter how many years it takes them to reconstitute some kind of threat. And it might be a different threat, you know, maybe it's not nuclear next time. Maybe it's drones and God knows what loaded onto the drones. So it seems to me that no matter what we do, we leave them wounded and really, really mad. Don't they just come back worse than before? I don't know. So I'm looking for a better idea than the ones that are out there because to me it looks like every path leads to Iran reconstituting their threat whether it's five years from now or ten years from now. So I don't know. I don't know what finish looks like.

Israel has vowed that quote we have more surprises coming for Iran. So Fox News is reporting that apparently Iran was projected to have 8,000 ballistic missiles within two years. They apparently have 2,000. I guess the ballistic missiles are the ones that are hard to stop and carry the biggest payloads. So I'll ask the same question. If we destroyed all of their ballistic missiles and all of their nuclear facilities, how long would it take them to rebuild at least the manufacturing for more ballistic missiles? Because isn't that stuff you can slap together? I mean, not slap together, but if you already know how to make ballistic missiles, it seems to me that it would be maybe one year it would take to rebuild the manufacturing to build them again and then you make 100,000 next time. So what does it mean to finish off or finish the job anyway?

More surprises coming. We'll see what that is.

So like I said, Iran has apparently tried to reach the United States through Oman and Qatar to mediate with Washington, which suggests that we don't have any kind of direct communication with Iran, which is weird. Do we really have no direct communication or is it because all of their leadership is in a don't communicate mode because then we can find them more easily? So it might be that they have to be so careful about how they communicate that even if they could pick up the phone and just call Washington, they can't pick up the phone and just call Washington because they would get bombed within a minute and a half. So it could be that they just have to go through these weird routes just so we can't track who it is who's even giving the instructions.

So anyway, I don't think Iran is 100% serious about negotiating, but they might act like they are.

I guess the prime minister of Cyprus says Iran has asked them to convey a message to Israel. And really, that's the only way they can get to Israel is through Cyprus. I don't know. Seems like they would have some kind of an email or something. It seems at the very least they should be able to email Israel.

Trump is reinforcing on his Truth Social that the US had nothing to do with the attack. Now I don't know, do you believe that? Do you believe we had nothing to do with it? That might be our intent but it seems like we have such close military arrangements with Israel that in every case we'd have some kind of indirect support whether we intended it that way or not. Anyway, he says the US had nothing to do with the attacks in Iran tonight. If we are attacked in any way, blah blah blah, bad things will happen. So there's that.

According to a post on Visegrad 24, Israel destroyed the Shiraz electronics industry plant. That's the largest producer of radar systems in Iran. Now if Israel is targeting radar manufacturing plants in Iran, does that mean they're running out of better targets? Because that would be, you know, obviously I understand why they'd want to take down a radar manufacturing plant, but it wouldn't be on the top rung of targets, would it? Because it's not an immediate thing. Does that mean that they've already taken out all of the top level, like top priority targets? Everything that could shoot today or do radar today? It just makes you wonder, did they get everything that's a higher priority and now they're down to manufacturing plants even though I understand why they would want to target it. So that's a little hint that maybe Israel got more than we thought.

Of course there is always the subplot with any kind of, whenever Israel is involved in any kind of military action, there's a subplot about which side is targeting the more civilians. So Iran is apparently just indiscriminately targeting civilian areas. Israel is doing their usual thing which is trying hard to hit military targets and avoid civilian stuff but of course it's a war so civilians will inevitably be hurt.

And one of my questions is how accurate are Iran's missiles and drones? Can we say for sure that every time they hit an apartment building, they aimed for it? Or are they aiming for the city and they're lucky if they hit anything? Now in either case you could argue that they're targeting civilians because they're not trying to miss civilians, but it matters a little bit if they have any control. So I'm thinking the ballistic missiles probably are kind of accurate and maybe the drones are accurate but smaller payloads. So I'm kind of curious about how much they can control. In either case it's all bad and evil and it's war, but that's always a subplot. Who is worse on going after civilians?

Now Tim Walz made a provocative statement at some event. He said that maybe China will be seen as the only moral authority that would be able to talk peace with both Israel and Iran. Now of course that's red meat for the media. China being a moral authority. Now I don't think any of us believe that China is morally superior to anyone else. But it might be true that China has not tried to make Israel or Iran an enemy. Now from that point of view, if he would take out the moral part and just say from a practical perspective it might be that China might be exactly the kind of entity that because it's not an enemy of either of them, maybe they can do something productive. We'll see.

But whenever I see Tim Walz say anything positive about China, it makes me think about all the times he's visited and it makes me think I don't think that China encourages that many visits unless they're working that guy, you know, trying to turn that guy into an asset. And that doesn't mean he got flipped and he's any kind of a spy, although you never know. But I have no evidence he's a spy. But then he just slips in a little thing about China having the moral authority to handle this big problem. And it makes you wonder how much brainwashing did he get in all those many trips to China because this looks a little brainwashy. You know, like China accomplished their goal of brainwashing Tim Walz because he had enough trips over there. You know, how many trips did they do, like 30 trips with students and stuff. I don't know. Looks a little bit brainwashy.

Well, I guess Trump and Vladimir Putin had a one-hour conversation by phone on Saturday, according to Just the News. And the outcome of their one-hour conversation is that they both agree the war with Israel and Iran should end. And then Trump says he feels as I do, this war in Israel and Iran should end, to which I explained his war should also end. So apparently they wasted an hour. What was the point of that conversation? What was one of them going to say, oh we'd like that war to just keep on going? No, of course they want the Israel-Iran war to end. It doesn't, you know, there's no benefit to any of us. So that was a waste of an hour.

But I think Putin had offered to help mediate the situation. And again, I'm not going to say Putin is a moral authority. But as far as I know, Putin has a good relationship with both Israel and Iran, right? Similar to China. So maybe he can help. And Putin is talking about getting back to the negotiating table with Ukraine. I don't know if he means that. It's hard to know if he's serious about that, but he said it. So maybe we'll see.

AOC is going hard at the elders in her party and she said this recently about the older established people in the Democratic Party. She says it doesn't matter how much you work with them, they still will choose their old friends and old generation every single time. So David Hogg going after those older ones and AOC now going after the older ones. I don't think you'll see Bernie Sanders go after the older ones because he is one of the older ones. So that's a little awkward. A little bit awkward. AOC, because it does seem like Bernie is one of the old ones, but not one of the old network though. It would be outside the network.

But it doesn't look like the Democrats have a good plan to come together and beat the Republicans. It looks like they have a plan to fight with each other and maybe that will make them stronger. We'll see.

Trump is already in Canada, I believe, for the G7 where the big seven economies get together. And it's sort of awkward because he's there on the same weekend as the No Kings event and Canada has a king. So Canada wanted to get in on this No Kings thing but they realized they have a king, which is hilarious to me. So they had to change it to No Tyrants. So yeah, good luck there. So yeah, Trump's in G7. So it's also awkward because he wants to absorb Canada into the United States, but I think he's over that awkwardness.

According to Just the News, the curfews that have been put in place for LA because there was a lot of unrest with the anti-ICE protests, apparently the curfews worked. So Mayor Bass put some curfews in effect and it accomplished everything they wanted, which was less trouble at night. So what do people say when you do something that works? They always say the same thing. Why didn't you do it sooner? Now that's a kind of a fair question in this case, but if the best you have is why didn't you do it sooner? Well, I don't know. I'll take the win. You know, I hate to be the one who says why didn't you do it sooner? But here we are. Everything good could have happened sooner.

So it looks like the anti-ICE demonstrations wound down. But does that mean they'll just wind right back up again or is it like squeezing the toothpaste and now they just go later in other cities? I don't know.

So does anybody think any of these alleged anti-Trump protests are anything but theater? None of it looks real or like it would have any kind of political impact. It all looks totally artificial. I think maybe the entire purpose of it is to make other people think they're part of something important. So they'll actually vote and act and