Finally Friday Reads: Chaos Today

“Someone has to point this out. The opening of the Obama Presidential Center is an experience and immersion of joy, hope, love, and pride; the 250th anniversary of our founding could have been celebrated.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers! 

Cadet Bonespurs, the worst negotiator ever, has basically given away the U.S. and its wealth. He’s trying to make his Iran War debacle look like something other than a costly disaster that took the lives of our soldiers and innocent Iranian people. I’m going to let Bill Kristol and the rest of the conservative gang at The Bulwark sum this up.

Thanks to their operational control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran was able to get away with murder in setting the terms of further peace talks with the United States—and now they’re pushing for even more. The first round of scheduled peace talks under the new memorandum of understanding were supposed to begin in Switzerland today, but Iran abruptly called them off yesterday, citing the intensifying conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which they deemed a violation of the MOU’s terms. This morning (eastern time) the Republican Guard Corps Navy—which Trump claims doesn’t exist—once again closed the strait. The message was clear: If you want to negotiate, you’d better figure out how to get Israel in line.

“Trump just can’t stand that President Obama is in the spotlight with the opening of his Presidential Library.” @repeat1968, John Buss

I’m also going to use the next headline there this morning to wish you a happy, long Juneteenth weekend! “Celebrate Juneteenth. Annoy MAGA.”  Well, don’t do it completely to just ignore them. Let’s be reminded of how many black Americans were once considered property and treated as such. We still have a long way to go to get rid of this burdensome legacy and the racism that still plagues us today, but at least, at many points in the country’s history, we were capable of doing the right thing.

Today is Juneteenth, a holiday long celebrated, especially by black Americans, to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. In 2021, Congress, recognizing that the end of slavery was an event worthy of formal recognition by the whole nation, established it as a federal holiday for all Americans. The holiday’s name refers to June 19, 1865, the day when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 ordering the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

In the midst of this year’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the commemoration of Juneteenth can have special resonance. But not for the Trump administration, which, so far as I can tell, has not deigned to acknowledge the holiday this year. When I searched the White House website this morning for “Juneteenth,” I got back no results found. Nor does there seem to be any presidential proclamation this year in honor of its observance.

The one time the Trump administration seems to have taken notice of Juneteenth was in December of last year, when the administration removed Juneteenth (and MLK Day) from the National Park Service’s list of free-admission days, replacing it with June 14, Flag Day—which is not an official federal holiday. But it is President Trump’s birthday, and that is the holiday he wishes all of us to celebrate, as he celebrated it Sunday with the cage match on the White House lawn.

One understands why Trumpists choose to neglect Juneteenth. After all, Trump’s vice president claimed earlier this week at a campaign event in New York that “they’ve become anti-white in the Democratic party.” If you’re appealing to those who think one of our two major parties is “anti-white,” if you’re trying to convince Americans that anti-whiteness is a great problem, if you’re the party that wants to foster and exploit white grievance, then you have little interest in calling attention to a holiday that is a reminder of the terrible injustices caused by fantasies of white supremacy.

That last sentence hits home. And I say no more going high when they go low. Call it out for what it is.

Meanwhile, Iran’s ally Russia has amped up its rhetoric against Ukraine. “Russia threatens escalation after Ukraine hits Moscow with largest-ever drone attack.” This story comes from CNBC. It’s written by Sam Meredith.

Russia has pledged to carry out frequent and “massive group strikes” against Ukraine shortly after Kyiv launched a barrage of drones on Moscow, triggering a huge explosion in one of the Russian capital’s key oil refineries.

Ukrainian forces conducted a large-scale attack against Moscow on Wednesday evening and Thursday, heavily targeting a major oil refinery located on the south-eastern outskirts of the city.

Nearly 200 drones were reportedly used in the attack, marking Ukraine’s biggest-ever air raid on Russia’s capital. Authorities said 16 people had been injured, while four Moscow airports temporarily grounded flights.

Columns of black smoke were seen billowing from Gazprom’s Moscow Refinery on Thursday, a facility that has been targeted by Ukrainian forces multiple times in recent weeks.

“It is no coincidence that the president announced some time ago, after yet another Kyiv terrorist attack, that we will now conduct massive group strikes on a regular basis against targets whose condition directly affects the combat readiness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Kazan on Thursday, according to Interfax.

Ukrainian forces have repeatedly targeted Russia’s oil infrastructure, seeking to cut Moscow’s energy revenues and try to force President Vladimir Putin into bringing an end to the four-year war.

The New York Times has a big story today about the institutional racism being put back into place in the military by drunk, rapey Pete Hegseth. We have to stop going backward. “Secret Vetting and Blocked Promotions: Inside Hegseth’s War on Diversity. A Black admiral fixed one of the Navy’s worst messes. Mr. Hegseth blocked his promotion anyway.”  Greg Jaffe and Kate Kelly share the lede.

The Navy’s top leadership believed that Rear Adm. Stephen D. Barnett was by far the best choice to lead the command that oversees the Navy’s bases at home and abroad.

He had more experience than the other candidates and had successfully managed the aftermath of one of the Navy’s biggest messes, a fuel spill that contaminated an aquifer on a base in Hawaii, sickening thousands.

The final decision this spring fell to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

To many in the Navy, Admiral Barnett’s promotion seemed like a foregone conclusion.

The officer, however, had a big strike against him. Like other Black military leaders, he had been encouraged by his superiors to help the Navy recruit and retain minority officers, who remain significantly underrepresented in the force. His years-old remarks on the importance of diversity had been flagged in a secret vetting process designed to weed out senior leaders whom Mr. Hegseth and his team pegged as a problem.

Instead of Admiral Barnett, Mr. Hegseth selected a white officer who was the Navy leadership’s third choice.

So far this year, Mr. Hegseth has blocked the promotions of at least 40 senior officers to general and admiral ranks. About half of those are women or members of minority groups.

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

Politico‘s Alexander Burns believes he’s found “The Most Surprising Miscalculation of Trump’s Second Term. He has underestimated the power of patriotic sentiment in countries besides the United States.” Well, I was hoping that more Americans found their patriotic sentiment–including those representing this country–, but that was just a dream, it seems.

When Donald Trump won a new term in the White House, Danielle Smith joined the parade of foreign leaders visiting Mar-a-Lago to honor the president-elect. The populist premier of Alberta, Smith enjoyed lively relationships across the American right, even hosting Tucker Carlson in Western Canada in 2024.

Yet when I asked Smith last fall, at a policy summit in Toronto, how she’d feel about Trump potentially intervening in Alberta’s fragile politics, her MAGA stripes vanished.

“I don’t want any foreign influence in our politics here,” Smith told me.

Admiring Trump from afar is one thing. But sovereignty is sovereignty, and borders are borders.

Trump used to understand that.

A decade ago, Trump waged his first-ever political campaign as a nationalist crusader, demanding harder borders and more muscular American sovereignty. When the United Kingdom held its 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union — the 10-year anniversary is in a few days — Trump cheered it on and crowned himself “Mr. Brexit.”

In his second term, Trump’s grasp of nationalist politics has slipped. He has underestimated the power of patriotism and national pride in countries other than his own.

This serial miscalculation has undermined Trump’s trade wars and military adventures, aggravated the cost-of-living crisis, weakened the Republican Party and battered Trump’s bonds with the global right.

It began even before Trump’s inauguration in 2025, with his campaign of bullying against Canada.

Back to Iran for a bit.

This is also from CNBC. “U.S.-Iran accord hits early snag after Swiss talks fail to proceed as planned.” This is reported by Justina Lee and Sam Meredith. They’re certainly a pair of busy reporters this week.

News that the U.S. and Iran had reached an interim deal may have brought some initial relief to markets, but fresh uncertainty emerged on Friday after planned follow-up talks in Switzerland were called off, underscoring the challenges of turning the agreement into a lasting peace settlement.

Switzerland’s foreign ministry said U.S.-Iran talks scheduled to take place at Bürgenstock on Friday would not proceed as planned.

The White House also said that Vice President JD Vance was no longer traveling to Switzerland, citing unresolved logistical issues surrounding the negotiations.

“The plans for the upcoming technical talks have not been finalized, and the U.S. delegation has been prepared to depart at the first available opportunity,” a White House spokesperson said.

“But the logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable.”

The developments came a day after President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at developing a permanent peace deal to end the months-long conflict.

Under the 14-point MOU, both sides agreed to extend the ceasefire, including in Lebanon, and reopen the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz.

The Financial Times, however, reported that Friday’s talks were abruptly called off due to Israel launching a wave of deadly air strikes against Lebanon, citing three people familiar with the matter.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 18 people were killed in the south of the country following a series of Israeli strikes overnight. Israel said four of its soldiers were also killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a social media post Friday morning that he instructed the Israel Defense Forces to strike Hezbollah “with full force” in response to a “heinous attack” by the Iran-backed group.

Hours later, a U.S. official told CNBC that the two groups agreed to a ceasefire from 4 p.m. local time, or 9 a.m. ET.

Oil prices turned lower after the ceasefire was reported.

It sure looks like we have a lot of leaders of major countries completely out of their league. And back to Iran. This is from Reuters.  “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards set up covert Iraqi cells to attack Gulf neighbors, sources say.”  It’s the same old, same old since the 1970s if you ask me.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has set up secretive new cells in Iraq to carry out attacks on Gulf countries that host American forces, bypassing established militia networks to avoid detection, eight Iraqi sources told Reuters.

Three or four cells, each comprising about 10 elite Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim fighters, launched at least ​seven drone attacks from desert locations near the southern cities of Basra and Samawa against sites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between April 20 and May 17, three of the sources said.

A number of their members were drawn ‌from Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of hardline Shi’ite factions with thousands of fighters. But the new groups operate outside its command structure, reporting directly to the IRGC, according to the sources, who include two Iraqi military officials, another security official and five local militia commanders.

The establishment of the new Iraqi cells, which has not previously been reported, reflects a shift in IRGC tactics aimed at preserving Iran’s ability to project force across the region at a time when its armed proxy groups are greatly diminished and its own military and economic resources are depleted, the five militia commanders said.

Feeling safer now? Me neither. Trump’s polls continue to fall on the Iraq war. As you can see from The Bulwark articles, the trad war hawks are not happy about the situation.  Maybe we all need to start building bunkers. This is from the AP. “What Americans think about Trump’s handling of Iran, according to a new AP-NORC poll.”

Most Americans continue to disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling Iran, while his overall presidential approval holds steady, according to a new AP-NORC poll that was conducted as he suggested a deal with Iran had been reached.

The poll points to just how unpopular the war, which began Feb. 28, has been with Americans even as the Republican president turned abruptly from threatening Iran to reopening negotiations. Support for his handling of the war remains lopsidedly partisan. About two-thirds, 65%, of U.S. adults disapprove of how Trump is handling issues with Iran. But while the vast majority of Democrats and independents view Trump’s actions negatively, only 28% of Republicans are unhappy.

Americans’ views on how the president is handling Iran are roughly in line with his overall job approval, which stands at 37%, unchanged from an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in May.

The new survey was conducted June 11-17, just after Trump called off threats to escalate the war with Iran. The poll was fielded as Trump announced a deal with Iran and authorized an end to the U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, concluding just before the deal was signed Wednesday.

Well, at least we can fire up some grills, even though most of us will not be eating steaks or meat. I like the Juneteenth holiday and its proximity to Independence Day. The addition of Pride month fortifies the display.  This shows that eventually we can include everyone who should be included. Unfortunately, Orange Caligula and his band of fascist, racist haters just never give up.  We have to vote them out.

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