Mostly Monday Reads: Chaos Sports

“What a glorious birthday celebration on the lawn of the White House for The Grifter In Chief. The UFC event saw sweaty fighters kicking and punching each other bloody while mr. trump napped. This is what people voted for! ” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The headlines describing that mess on what used to be the White House Lawn last night are strikingly nasty. Most of us are happy with a birthday cake and a few friends to celebrate. Not Trump, he has to grift from the taxpayer and create a huge scene. Last year, it was a tank parade fitting of the North Koreans. However, without forced attendance, Trump forced attendance on our soldiers. It was also a wash-out. New Orleans was a lot more interested in the FIFA games. What did you think of Japan v the Netherlands? Wow, that was sports worth watching!

Meanwhile, this headline yesterday really lit a fuse under me. It’s from the Guardian. Aram Roston and Joseph Gedeon share the lede. “UFC to pay White House fighters in crypto issued by Trump company. Some fighters will receive bonuses in ‘stablecoins’ issued by Trump family business World Liberty Financial.” As usual, your tax dollars are dribbling their way to the Trump Crime Syndicate.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced on Friday that it will pay bonuses to fighters in a form of cryptocurrency issued by the Trump family business World Liberty Financial at the heavily publicized White House mixed martial arts event on Sunday.

The development connects the Trump family’s financial interests to the high-profile UFC competition being promoted on government property. The competition on the south White House lawn is scheduled for 14 June, Donald Trump’s birthday.

The UFC said some fighters will receive bonuses in World Liberty Financial crypto called “stablecoins”, whose value is pegged to the US dollar. World Liberty named the currency “USD1”.

World Liberty is a venture of the Trump family and the family of Steven Witkoff, Trump’s friend and special envoy to the Middle East. The company is now listed as an “official sponsor” of UFC Freedom 250, the fight scheduled for Sunday. The use of its stablecoin in the fight would appear to boost efforts to have it used more more broadly.

A White House spokesman, Davis Ingle, said there was no conflict of interest and that Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. “The Fake News’ continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read.”

The fight is not linked to Freedom 250, a separate organization promoting the 250th anniversary of the country.

World Liberty Financial, a Delaware-based cryptocurrency venture co-founded by Donald Trump and his sons in 2024 alongside the Witkoff sons, has emerged as one of the highest-profile businesses connected to the president’s family.

At one point, Trump Sr was publicly listed by the company as its “Chief Crypto Advocate”.

His financial disclosure form lists his holdings in World Liberty Financial as “over $50m”.

Reuters reported this month that the Trump family’s crypto ventures, led by WLF, have generated billions of dollars in paper gains and become one of the largest sources of wealth tied to the president and his family.

World Liberty announced the company was creating a “bonus pool” for the event the company and quoted Zach Witkoff, Steve Witkoff’s son and CEO of World Liberty Financial. “We believe this is the future of finance, and we’re excited to partner with UFC,” he said, “which has done more than any organization to modernize the business of sports”.

World Liberty was dogged by controversies surrounding its digital “governance token”, a type of crypto it sold, and is in litigation with Justin Sun, the crypto tycoon who was an early buyer of the tokens. He sued the company this year alleging it improperly froze his tokens, and World Liberty sued him for defamation.

The USD1 stablecoins are separate from the tokens and are tradable digital assets that are backed by dollar reserves. The firm has also applied for a banking license from the Office of Comptroller of the Currency.

Everything Trump does is for money and feeding the narcissistic monkey that lives where his brain should be. I’m not a big fan of The View, but check their Instagram for their basic thoughts on the matter. It zings. “There’s just no end to the grift from the Trump family.” As Pres. Trump prepares to host a UFC fight on the White House lawn.”  I suppose Trump will try to Jimmy Kimmel them.

I loved this from Tom Nicolls at The Atlantic. “Trump Celebrates While America Capitulates. The peace deal with Tehran is an Iranian victory.”  Again, he slept through a good deal of it if the reports are true, but damn, here I am putting that stupid war off again, and the utter war crimes we’re committing since Bibi is running it all. So, I’m slipping a bit of that news in also.

President Trump has announced that the United States and Iran have reached a deal to end their war. “Congratulations to all!” he said in a posting on his Truth Social site this evening. He then headed off to oversee the garish public spectacle he’d arranged for his birthday on the South Lawn of the White House. The United States, however, has little to celebrate: Trump and his team, in record time, just lost a war to a militarily mediocre—but nonetheless extremely dangerous—adversary.

The details of the agreement remain unconfirmed, but the president, of course, is eager to spin the outcome as a victory. (Trump was in a hurry to sign the deal on his birthday; the Iranians, who now seem to be in charge of this whole business, instead said they will send someone to a meeting in Switzerland on Friday.) But even before we have the details, it is clear that Trump has failed to achieve every one of the goals he put forward for this war of choice, and now he is determined to sign, seal, and deliver America’s capitulation as quickly as possible.

If defeat seems a strong word, consider what we do know about how this war will end. Iran has suffered significant damage from U.S. and Israeli military action. But as I and others warned at the outset, killing people and bombing things do not by themselves produce victory. The reality is that the war will close with the regime in Tehran intact and in the grip of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the Strait of Hormuz will remain under the threat of Iranian attacks; Iran will continue to possess significant drone and missile stocks; the regime will maintain the capability to be a state sponsor of terror; and many sanctions will be lifted and billions of dollars in unfrozen assets will flow to Iran. In other words, the Iranians have achieved their key strategic aims—regime survival above all—while the Americans have achieved none of their own.

Indeed, the United States has perhaps done worse than gaining nothing. Iran, while temporarily weakened, is now an even more powerful political actor: The regime in Tehran stood up to a massive U.S. onslaught, survived, and then inflicted pain on various states in the Gulf as punishment for going along with Trump’s war.

The Israelis, for their part, have been left out in the cold. It is difficult to shed any tears for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who unwisely encouraged Trump to attack Iran, but he, too, is feeling the sting of humiliation. The Iranians cagily linked Netanyahu’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon to Trump’s war in the Gulf, and Trump is now angry at Netanyahu for making it harder for the United States to get out of the conflict. (When Netanyahu planned major strikes in Beirut at the beginning of June, Trump called him, swore at him, and said, “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me.”)

This entire thing is the biggest shit show I’ve seen, and given how many years we’ve dealt with Trump, that’s saying a lot. William Kristol, writing for The Bulwark, also tore a new one in Trump’s follies. “We Can Reject Trump’s Orgy of Decline.” Count me in.

I’m sad to say that Tom has it right. And I’ll mention one point in particular that seems not to be getting the attention it deserves. The memorandum of understanding to be signed Friday reportedly says that Iran will not impose tolls in the strait of Hormuz for the next sixty days. This is presumably the basis of Trump’s claim that the strait will be “toll-free.” But the government of Iran says that the strait will operate in the longer run “under Iranian arrangements.” This seems likely to be true, since Iran has established the principle that it can close the strait, has paid no price, hasn’t repudiated a right to do so in the future, and will be more interested and able to enforce its will in the months and years to come than we’ll be able to stop them.

So Iran comes out a winner. But Iran’s victory isn’t the most important outcome of Trump’s foolish war. The most important outcome is our defeat. Trump’s failure in Iran has confirmed and accelerated the broader retreat during his second term from our standing as the linchpin and guardian of an American-friendly international order. We were a great power—the greatest world power—from 1941 to 2025. Now we appear to be one power among many, even one bully among many, perhaps the preeminent one, but one without much credibility among either allies or enemies.

Our allies at the G7 meeting in France over the next couple days will have no interest in highlighting the fact of our decline, as they want to buy time to make their adjustments. But everyone with eyes to see understands what Trump has wrought. This failed war will leave us both less feared and less respected than before, and will leave the world more dangerous and its future less hopeful than before.

You can see that most independent and nontraditional media outlets have not forgotten the main story.  Wait! Has the Gray Lady returned? “Israel Counts the Ways That Netanyahu’s Iran Strategy Failed. The U.S.-Iran framework agreement appears to omit some of the most important provisions that Israel wanted.” This news analysis in today’s New York Times is provided by David M. Halbfinger and Ronen Bergman.

For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the war he had hoped would secure his legacy — Israel and the United States together attacking Iran — may be ending in a way that could sully it.

The framework agreement to end the war in Iran, which was announced on Sunday, omits some of the most important things Israel wanted.

The full text of the deal has not yet been released and Israel was not directly involved in the negotiations. Initial details suggest that the agreement does nothing to curb Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, or its funding of regional proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, who have attacked Israel with their own arsenals. It could help Iran bolster those proxies by easing sanctions, which would allow billions of dollars to flow into its bank accounts.

The deal’s terms when it comes to constraining Iran’s nuclear program — of greatest importance to Israel, and the greatest priority of Mr. Netanyahu’s career — remain undisclosed or still to be negotiated during the agreed 60-day cease-fire to allow for further talks. Questions remain over what will become of Iran’s stock of near-bomb-grade uranium and whether the country will be able to keep enriching nuclear fuel.

Worse still for Mr. Netanyahu, who faces re-election in a few months and is behind in the polls, President Trump, the Israeli leader’s most valuable political asset, has publicly rebuked him multiple times in recent weeks.

While Mr. Trump has praised Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, as pragmatic, he has called Mr. Netanyahu “crazy,” ungrateful and lacking in judgment.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump added “difficult” to that litany of insults, after Israel’s military — precisely as the United States was trying to close its deal with Iran — struck what it described as a Hezbollah target on the outskirts of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, in retaliation for a Hezbollah attack that wounded two Israeli soldiers.

Effectively, Mr. Netanyahu appeared to have fallen into a trap.

This MS NOW report, as discussed in The Raw Story last week, really says it all. “Iran takes startling step believing Trump is ‘legitimately mentally ill’: journalist.” Everyone with a functional brain knows he’s nuts. It’s good to see the consequences of his insanity make headlines like this.

Amid the ongoing peace talks between Washington and Tehran, Iranian negotiators have recently enlisted the help of “senior psychologists” to help them navigate what they believe to be a pressing issue involving President Donald Trump, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill claimed Friday, citing Iranian sources.

“A couple of weeks ago, the Iranian side added senior psychologists to their negotiating team to review the communications that they were going to be sending to the mediators to give to Trump,” Scahill said during an appearance on the podcast “Breaking Points.”

“They did that because the Iranians believe that Trump is legitimately mentally ill and is operating in an impaired mental state. And they didn’t say this as a joke, they didn’t say this with any lightness.”

Trump, who turns 80 on Sunday, has faced renewed questions about his physical and mental health after reportedly dozing off during cabinet meetings with growing frequency. Observers have also noted bruising on his hands, swollen ankles and a rash on his neck.

“The [Iranian sources] said ‘we recognize that we are dealing with a mentally incapacitated individual and we’ve had senior psychologists work up a psychological profile of what they think is going on with Trump’s brain, and so we started to cater our messages by running them past senior psychologists before delivering them to Trump,’” Scahill continued.

“And they said ‘we started to then see some progress’ – they almost talked about it in a clinical sense like they’re dealing with a patient.”

Public Notice‘s Noah Berlatzky puts it bluntly. “The US under Trump is a global scourge. We’re the baddies.”  Yup.

News broke yesterday that the United States and Iran have reached some sort of agreement that may or may not end President Trump’s disastrous war.

Details remained scant as this newsletter was finalized Sunday evening, but significantly, Trump wasted no time moving the goalposts on when the Strait of Hormuz will reopen.

Trump, of course, has claimed to be on the verge of a peace deal dozens of times before, only to back away when he realizes that ending the war inevitably means admitting the US lost.

It’s notable that the administration has been very leery of revealing the actual details of the agreement to the public. But it appears to involve the United Arab Emirates unlocking billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, which is especially humiliating since Republicans have raged for more than a decade about the Obama administration releasing a measly $1.7 billion in Iranian assets to secure a nuclear agreement.

To add insult to injury, it’s unclear that Iran will commit to ending its nuclear program; it has agreed to continue to talk about it over the next 60 days, but nothing more. All Trump seems to really be getting is a pinky swear that the Strait of Hormuz will open at some point in the future — which was open before the war started, and which Iran can now close again whenever it’s threatened or wants concessions.

Iran’s victory has been a disaster for the US. The shuttering of the strait has pushed gas and fertilizer prices into the stratosphere and inflation hit a three-year high this month. US credibility globally has been shredded.

But the worst effects of Trump’s viciously erratic foreign policy have been born by those subjected to it overseas. Americans are, like everyone, mostly focused on their own worries — worries which now include a seemingly endless fascist assault on our liberty and lives. But the bloodiest and most painful costs of fascism are inflicted on the fascist’s neighbors, and when you’re talking about a global power like the US, “neighbors” here means “everyone on earth.”

Authoritarians disregard the voices and needs of their own people, but they are even less constrained when they deal with people that are not their own. If you want to see what Trump would like to do at home, you have only to look to the misery he has unleashed in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Africa. It’s a bleak and terrifying picture.

I’d just like to remind you that a really great holiday is coming up to celebrate on Friday. It’s National Garfield the Cat Give Your Cat Lasagna Day! I’m sure Dinah and Kristal will be up for it! Today, the furbabies are headed to the vet, so they’ll deserve something for today’s jaunt. I’ll likely be drinking wine as soon after student time as possible. We’ll have our own little mixed martial arts dog and cat still soon.

Meanwhile, if you really want to know how low these assholes can go, check the headline on UFC Fighter Joe Hokit (who now makes me really regret that I even know his name). Via ABC NEWS 3340,  if you can stomach it: “UFC fighter says ‘Michelle Obama is a man’ after winning White House match.”  A real man fight should include taking it in the balls, not degrading women.

And you noticed that I managed to slip in an Iran War post rather than giving more than a nod to Orange Caligula’s short reach for a birthday event. BTW, the next country-wide No Kings protest held yesterday was a doozy! The Guardian coverage showed where all the big stars showed up for a real songfest! “No Kings event set for 14 June, as Trump celebrates birthday with White House UFC bout. A Night to Build Community will feature concert with Bette Midler, Patti Smith and Rufus Wainwright streaming nationwide.”

The No Kings movement has announced a nationwide event on 14 June, directly counter-programming Donald Trump’s 80th birthday celebrations and a Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bout on the south lawn of the White House.

The centerpiece is a 90-minute concert at New York’s Town Hall featuring entertainer Bette Midler, songwriter Patti Smith, actor Jane Fonda, musician Rufus Wainwright and commentator Joy Reid – streaming free nationwide, while local groups host watch parties across the country. The event is co-presented by the Committee for the First Amendment, a coalition of artists and cultural figures, and frames the US’s 250th anniversary as a moment of democratic reckoning.

The plans put two very different visions for the occasion in direct competition.

The US president is billing UFC Freedom 250 as a historic national celebration: a star-spangled octagon arena on the south lawn of the White House, with 4,000 ticketed guests, and a fan festival on the Ellipse expected to draw up to 100,000 people. The weigh-ins are reportedly set to take place at the Lincoln Memorial.

Trump has claimed that demand for tickets, for an event which will feature a title fight between the lightweight champion Ilia Topuria and the interim champion Justin Gaethje, has been unlike anything he has seen. The White House spokesperson Davis Ingle called it “one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history”.

No Kings, meanwhile, announced a concert, billed as A Night to Build Community, after a string of major mobilizations.

“We can let strongman politics and corruption define the moment,” it said in a statement. “Or we can make the story of America about people coming together – across race, background, identity, belief and community – to defend our rights and build a future rooted in people power.”

I’ll take Bette Midler singing any day over sweaty, dumb men punching the fuck out of each other. It’s not a real sport unless they can kick each other in the balls, and in that case, I nominate Trump and his MAGA Republicans for the first few rounds.   Let’s see if Pete Hegseth can take a direct hit to the balls and if someone can find Trump’s dick.

Meanwhile, can we bulldoze all that shit he did to the White House now and put him in a nice home somewhere in upstate Transylvania? Even CBS News can report this headline. “Trump’s changes to history at national parks must be undone, judge rules.” Let’s just erase his name and face wherever they appear, and restore the Rose Garden, the Reflecting Pool, and the Front Lawn.  Oh, and fuck that damn ballroom.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?