What does “total obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear production facilities have in common with “very productive” talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine?
Both are boastful narratives made by Donald that don’t correspond with reality.
They exemplify incomplete defenestration, the political scenario of tossing bad actors only partially out of the window. But solving the problem of Iran and Russia depends on the bodies of the Ayatollah and Vova actually hitting the pavement. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the 29th floor or on the 9th floor. As of this writing, both despots appear suspended in mid-air, propped up by Truths of self-aggrandizing bullshit.
I am in love with the Queen of the Netherlands.
Today, Z on the NATO summit sidelines will prob chat up Donald, who will be in a foul mood because someone in the Pentagon leaked the damage assessment of Team USA’s attempt to completely destroy Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb.
Early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.” (CNN, June 25, 2025)
And spin, and spin.
Looking on the bright side, the leak reportedly came from the US Defense Intelligence Agency, the same organization that in early 2022 predicted Russia would successfuly flatten Ukraine.
Which brings me to Nicholas, whom Tulsi recently put in charge of NIC (US National Intelligence Council)1.
Nicholas is Team USA’s new Ukraine narrative expert.
[…] 4) …ignorance in Europe and elsewhere about the actually existing US is becoming more evident amid erupting disagreements over strategic issues, with the war in Ukraine as perhaps the best current example.
5) The reason for this US-Europe disconnect on Ukraine is far broader than the cataclysmic situation in Ukraine itself. For years now, political/bureaucratic/media establishments across Europe have followed the US lead on Ukraine policy as set by the (previous) Biden Administration, investing enormous political capital and propaganda in support of that policy — and perhaps even in hope that the Biden team would continue in power.
6) Consequently, any change in the Ukraine policy status quo — but particularly the dramatic change sought by the newly-reelected President Trump — is seen as a challenge to the primacy and survival of these European political establishments.
7) After years of being told by Biden that “Russia has lost,” and repeating that trope endlessly to their own electorates, there is an overwhelming temptation in Europe to explain Ukraine’s dire situation not in terms of ground truths (which were knowable but distorted and suppressed in Europe well as in the US), but rather as something nefarious, with incoherent and ludicrous accusations of alleged Trump Administration sympathies toward Nazism and subordination to Russia/Putin being cases in point.
8) In Europe this is, in some part, a consequence not only of indigenous state-corporate media landscapes designed to perpetuate the political status quo, but also decades of, let’s say, “USAID influence.”
9) Indeed the European battleground was prepared over the past decade during which US corporate media, colluding with what are now widely understood in the US as elements of an unaccountable Deep State, pushed to undermine President Trump and remove him from office in part by running misinformation operations against him. While failing to forestall Trump’s return to office, these ops succeeded in severely damaging political discourse in America and European elite perceptions of the United States.
10) So it is understandable, but nevertheless distressing, to see how local and international European media try to shape opinion about the US, too often evincing an inability and unwillingness to understand what is actually going on in an America that is not confined to or defined by blue-tinged counties along its coasts.
11) Of course, some of this European media attitude reflects the professional laziness that often seems to be a universal feature of what passes for “journalism” the world over. And these negative traits are exacerbated in good measure by the extent to which foreign media operations seem to rely directly or indirectly on the NY Times’ “narrative.”
12) Ultimately, is unsustainable. But its persistence is dangerous, and a disservice to diplomacy, international relations and even civilization itself. […]
(Nicholas Kass giving kudos to his older brother John, X, March 23, 2025)
I took a peek at Nicholas’ resume:
Intelligence gathering and analysis for living can be fun for a couple of years if it’s for recreation, but it’s a miserable lifestyle.
Gabbard installs Trump ally and ‘deep state’ critic atop intel analysis hub. Former career intelligence official Nicholas Kass is stepping in as acting chair of the NIC, which has recently been accused of politicization by both Democrats and Republicans (Politico, June 24, 2025)