The Scariest Thing About This War? He’s Sitting in the Oval Office.

 

Today: "The Scariest Thing About This War? He's Sitting in the Oval Office." Plus, Trump's angry tirade at media goes haywire; the hollowing out of the federal workforce; the Lost Cause gets a Tinseltown makeover; and more... The Reason Trump Isn't as Perturbed by Rising Oil Prices as You Are The president has fashioned the U.S. into a petrostate, in which all roads lead to his own enrichment. By Timothy Noah

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Podcast: Trump's Angry Tirade at Media Goes Haywire, Exposing a Dark MAGA Truth As Trump seethes over media coverage of his war, a legal writer breaks down his latest threats to punish news organizations—and why they constitute such a heinous abuse of power. Read the transcript here. The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent Epstein's New Mexico Horror House Will Finally Be Investigated Shockingly, his ranch there—where unspeakable things went on—was never so much as dusted for prints. At long last, that's going to change. By Virginia Heffernan From Breaking News: Trump Kills Republicans' Plan to Finally Fund TSA By Edith Olmsted Was Trump's Big Iran Announcement Just a Ploy at Market Manipulation? By Malcolm Ferguson ICE Agents Deployed to Airports as Trump Refuses to Fund TSA By Edith Olmsted Trump's Civil Service Cuts Are Now Putting Americans in Danger The hollowing out of the federal workforce could make it much harder to manage the conflict in Iran, as well as future crises. By Grace Segers Nonfiction Publishing, Under Threat, Is More Important Than Ever Cuts in publishing and book reviewing imperil the future of narrative nonfiction, and our understanding of the world around us. By Paul Elie

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Iran Calls B.S. as Trump Says He's Pulling a 180 on War President Trump says Iran and the United States are suddenly negotiating. By Malcolm Ferguson What the James Talarico Vegan Story Reveals About U.S. Politics Centuries ago, Thomas Paine envisioned a country free of arbitrary rule—from both monarchy and religion. Today, religious and secular dogma still curtail what can be said on the campaign trail. By Jan Dutkiewicz The Lost Cause Gets a Tinseltown Makeover Confederate iconography undergoes a rethink—and then some—at two Los Angeles museum spaces. It's a proper burial for grotesque images—but in the age of Trump, are they really dead? By Anna Venarchik The Scariest Thing About This War? He's Sitting in the Oval Office. By Michael Tomasky Iran, according to reports, has around 500 power plants. The vast majority run on natural gas, though a fairly impressive number are solar. Only one is nuclear. The country's largest plant, called Damavand, is gas powered and sits about 30 miles southeast of Tehran. If Donald Trump decides to start bombing civilian power plants, as he threatened to do over the weekend if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz tonight, it would seem likely that Damavand, which produces an output of around 2,900 megawatts (point of comparison: The largest gas-fired plant in the United States, the West County plant in Florida, has an output capacity of 3,750 MW), would be among the top targets. Bombing it to the point of taking it offline would be a pretty large undertaking (go check it out on Google Maps—nothing is obscured, hidden, or pixelated). It would leave millions of Iranian people without power. It might also be a war crime. Continue reading this article.

Trump Erupts in Fury Over His War Failures—and Exposes a Big Weakness His rage at NATO is actually an admission that he needs our allies' help—and that he wants somebody to blame as his war goes from bad to worse. By Greg Sargent Read now

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