Midnight Hammer: Tabs, Mon., June 23, 2025
News roundup and things to read and watch!
How was your weekend?
Bone Spurs did Operation Midnight Hammer on three sites in Iran, then Iran thanked him with tears in their eyes and world peace was declared forever. Then Dear Leader parachuted onto an aircraft carrier and unfurled a “Mission Accompished” banner, and he got the Nobel Peace Prize. Ho ho ho, kidding! Though it really was called Operation Midnight Hammer, because you know Pete Hegseth wrote that in a spiral notebook he’s been keeping since middle school of his favorite war names, along with sketches of edgy white supremacist tattoos and doodles of bombs and skulls. (CBS)
But as it turns out, Operation Midnight Hammer did not completely obliterate Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and now that 60-percent-enriched uranium is missing. And pretty much the entire world other than Israel, GOP hawks and the faction of Trump cultists who have been praying for the rapture think it was a big fucking mistake; even Marjorie Taylor Greene hollered that we should have bombed Mexico instead. Tricked ya, MAGA! Don’t worry, they’re all falling in line. But what will Iran will do next, and what will Trump do? The Washington Post reports Stable Genius himself was not clear that he wanted to bomb Iran until minutes before he actually did. And hours after Vance, Hegseth and Rubio all got out and said the US didn’t want regime change, Trump made liars of them and TruthSocialed he wants exactly that. “It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” (Washington Post)
Putin sidekick Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that "a number of countries" are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear weapons now, and the Iranian foreign minister says he is traveling ASAP to Moscow to meet with Putin, fucking great. (UPI/ WSJ)
Want a quick explainer of Iranian history and how the CIA helped make the Iranian regime what it is today by overthrowing their democratically-elected prime minister in a 1953 coup? Take it away, Rick Steves.
Back to the present, Iran’s parliament has voted to close the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil and gas travels through, and Marco Rubio is begging China to talk to the Ayatollah and ask him not to do it. Five-D chess! (Reuters)
Putin also took the Iran-drama opportunity to declare “all of Ukraine is ours,” and threaten to nuke what-would-be-himself if Ukraine uses a dirty bomb, and to bomb Ukraine some more. (SkyNews)
Peak Republican audacity: Rep. Kat Cammack, co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, had a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy in her home state of Florida, where abortion is banned after six weeks. Doctors would not treat her, and she frantically tried to call Governor DeSantis for help, but he did not pick up the phone. Cammack survived after doctors eventually did give her methotrexate to expel the fetus, and she blames this harrowing near-death experience on Democrats. And is pregnant again. (Wall Street Journal gift link)
More of this: in San Diego last week, ICE agents scattered and cases were put on hold when Bishop-elect Michael Pham and a delegation of local clergy made a visit to immigration court. And the Bishop told reporters a guilt-ridden government lawyer approached him in the can: “He introduced himself to me. He feels conflicted with the situation. He knows his morals and his values.” (Times of San Diego)
ICE raids continue, decimating communities, brutalizing anyone who gets in their way, and making people in Southern California scared to leave the house. Meanwhile of those 4,946 National Guard troops in California, less than 20 percent have been deployed, and the rest are sleeping on cots and sitting around Los Alamitos, instead of doing fire-prevention work or looking for drugs at the border. Heck of a job, Hegseth. (Guardian / SF Chronicle)
An OOF long-form story from Alexander Sammon at Slate: “American Siberia: Donald Trump is enacting his darkest agenda in the backyard of a small Louisiana town. Absolutely no one there wants to talk about it.” The “it” is the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, in the Trump-loving town of Jena, where 250 of the 4,000 locals help the GEO Group private prison company black hole thousands of people in deadly conditions. (Slate)
In other private-prison news, CoreCivic Corp. got a no-bid contract to open a 1,000-something bed facility in Leavenworth, KS, on the site of a formerly closed run-down hell-hole. (AP)
The Senate is reportedly going to strip out one of the more bonkers parts of the Big Billionaire Boner Bill, the provision that would have charged anyone a bond if they wanted to sue the government. So that’s good. (HuffPost)
Pardoned January 6 rioter Kyle Colton argued in court that his pardon from Trump should also include his charges for receiving child sexual abuse material. Fine people! (Court Listener)
The Onion took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling out spineless Congress with part of an editorial, titled, “Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice,” and also stuck a print-copy edition of their paper in every congressperson’s box. Other headlines: “Entitled Child Expects To Eat Lunch Every Day,” “Congress Passes Blank Bill For Trump To Write Whatever Law He Wants,” and “Think Tank Called ‘The Himmler Institute’ Assures Nation This All Legal.” (The Handbasket / The Onion)
Archaeologists are exploring the remains of the Williamsburg Bray School in Williamsburg, which educated enslaved and free Black children in the 1760s, before Virginia banned education for enslaved people. (Washington Post)
Activists are vowing to disrupt the Jeff Bezos / Lauren Sánchez multi-island nuptial events this week around Venice, meanwhile New York Magazine has a flattering, fluffy re-cap of the Bezchez love affair, and how Sanchez gave Bezos his celebrity glow-up, gag. (WSJ gift link / New York Magazine)
Dear Leader gave TikTok another 90-day reprieve from a ban, so we may still unwind on our off hours watching a guy in Texas who’s living like it’s the 1920s, and soothing clips from Vincent Price’s cooking show. Mm, Derby cheese dip. (AP)
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“I would stand with any woman—Republican or Democrat—and fight for them to be able to get care in a situation where they are experiencing a miscarriage and an ectopic” pregnancy, [Rep. Kat Commack] said.
Not at the VA, though, where they can just let you die if you're a Democrat.