Martin Holland

665 Followers
775 Following
253 Posts

Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done.(🎁) https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-war-trump-losing/687094/?gift=cg1XdqsyWjCIPVWKLR2XU8Y6QtJq7NzL2V1mvKRxsmY #IranWar #Donald #Trump #Trump

Checkmate in Iran

Washington can’t reverse or control the consequences of losing this war.

The Atlantic

When I reached a former longtime senior FBI official to ask whether he’d ever seen personally branded liquor bottles distributed by a previous FBI director, he burst out laughing.(🎁) https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/kash-patel-fbi-bourbon/687066/?gift=cg1XdqsyWjCIPVWKLR2XU4yG7xMiS14tsieBYkoH-Yw #FBI #KashPatel #Patel #Bourbon

Kash Patel’s Personalized Bourbon Stash

The FBI director has been leaving an unusual calling card.

The Atlantic

"I just want to have a big speaker and scream all over #Iran for my people: You are putting all of your eggs in the wrong basket. #Trump is not going to have your best interest. Because at the end of the day, he's a businessman. He's going to make a deal with these guys, the mullahs or whatever their name is. Actually, most of them, the clergy are now killed. But their successors will remain in power. Much more desperate. So much angrier."

https://www.porchpartynews.com/p/how-iranian-expat-yegi-rezaian-sees-the-iran-war

How Iranian expat Yegi Rezaian sees the Iran war

Rezaian and her husband spent months in an Islamic Republic prison before being freed to leave for the US. This year, she watched her adopted country bomb her native one.

Porch Party

The world has always been run by rich men. The robber barons of the Gilded Age were known for their ruthlessness in the accumulation of wealth—hiring Pinkertons to shoot striking unionists. But they directly engaged with the world around them, using their wealth and power to muscle it into its most profitable form. And although today’s billionaires are clearly manipulating society to maximize their own profit, something else is also happening—a disassociation from the reality of cause and effect, from meaning and history. These men no longer feel the need to change the world in order to succeed, because their success is guaranteed, no matter what happens to the rest of us.(🎁) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/05/billionaire-consequence-free-reality/686588/?gift=cg1XdqsyWjCIPVWKLR2XU_BZzIsQWWYuYeEZobde070 #capitalism #Bezos #JeffBezos #money

What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private Retreat

For the richest men on Earth, everything is free and nothing matters.

The Atlantic
It's not just that OrbĂĄn losing inspires hope in other competitive-autocratic countries ruled by right-wing nationalist authoritarians. It's that his loss materially changes things in those other countries, because he's been operating as a headquarters and funding source...

Speaking amid mounting international condemnation of the bill, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Volker TĂŒrk, described the law as “patently inconsistent with #Israel’s international law obligations, including in relation to the right to life”. He added that it “raises serious concerns about due process violations, is deeply discriminatory, and must be promptly repealed”.

“Its application in a discriminatory manner would constitute an additional, particularly egregious violation of international law. Its application to residents of the occupied Palestinian territory would constitute a war crime,” TĂŒrk said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/31/israel-death-penalty-law-international-criticism #Palestine

‘Discriminatory’ Israeli death penalty law would be war crime, says UN rights chief

Volker TĂŒrk says bill, which applies to Palestinians convicted of terror charges but not Jewish extremists, must be repealed

The Guardian

Nobody can later say, they didn't know đŸ‘‡đŸŒ

Tania Warner described the treatment of her and her daughter as “horrific” from the start. After being held for about five and a half hours at the checkpoint, they were sent to the first facility, where “every single person 
 was handcuffed – including children”, the mother said.

There, they slept on the floor on 2in mats and the lights were on 24 hours a day. Agents would not let Warner call a lawyer and constantly pressured her to sign documents agreeing to “self-deport”.

“They’re abusive, and their tactics are to threaten you and to be so inhospitable that you deport yourself,” Warner said. She and her family say she has made it clear they have all the correct documents to live and work in the US, but that has been ignored.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/24/canadian-mother-detention-warns-immigrants #ICE #Donald #Trump #Trump

Canadian woman held with daughter by ICE warns all immigrants to ‘lie low’

Tania Warner says she has documents showing she is in the US legally, but immigration agents were not swayed

The Guardian

đŸ”„đŸ”„đŸ”„

Die Koalition mĂ€andert zwischen Sympathie fĂŒr eine Befreiung Irans von außen und der Nostalgie nach Regeln, die einst die Welt besser machen sollten. Das Thema wird so schnell wie möglich von seiner beĂ€ngstigenden internationalen Dimension auf die kleinstmögliche innenpolitische Perspektive reduziert: die ZapfsĂ€ule. Und auch hier wird nach einer zumutungsfreien, steuerfinanzierten Lösung gesucht, damit bloß niemand wach wird und sich fragt, wieso wir eigentlich immer noch ein Problem aus dem Jahr 1979 lösen.https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/rehaugen-hagel-wolfram-weimer-debatten-deutschland-li.3451973 #Sprit #Iran #Irankrieg

Deutsche Diskussions-Kultur: Immer schön so tun, als wÀr nix

Rehaugen, TrÀnen im Theater, Kernkraft: Die deutschen Debatten demonstrieren eine Weigerung, sich an verÀnderte technische, klimatische und machtpolitische Gegebenheiten anzupassen.

SĂŒddeutsche Zeitung

Despite #Iran’s internet blackout, I regularly receive text and voice messages from within the country - people talking about life under attack. One was from a forty-something man, who sounded really low.

"I’m freaking out," he says. He describes seeing "a lot of fighter jets" and hearing "five or six explosions".

Although the war itself is in the headlines, "the people inside Iran have been forgotten", he says.

In his view, all the media talks about is what Trump has said and how Iran responded. "Even Iranians abroad are mostly either dancing and congratulating
#Israel, the US, and #Trump, or tearing each other apart," he says.

Meanwhile, inside Iran, he is seeing people "nearly break from fear" at the sound of a door slamming. "When I call someone and they don’t answer, I almost have a heart attack," he says.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ceqvwrydzpqt?post=asset%3Ae6ed32b6-47f2-4d7f-a4f7-506d1e5296e9#post #IranRevolution #IranProtests

Trump accuses Starmer of seeking to 'join wars after we've already won' and says UK aircraft carriers not needed - follow live

Meanwhile, Iran continues attacks on Gulf states as UAE officials say a Dubai resident has been killed by falling shrapnel.

BBC News

Despite #Iran’s internet blackout, I regularly receive text and voice messages from within the country - people talking about life under attack. One was from a forty-something man, who sounded really low.

"I’m freaking out," he says. He describes seeing "a lot of fighter jets" and hearing "five or six explosions".

Although the war itself is in the headlines, "the people inside Iran have been forgotten", he says.

In his view, all the media talks about is what Trump has said and how Iran responded. "Even Iranians abroad are mostly either dancing and congratulating
#Israel, the US, and #Trump, or tearing each other apart," he says.

Meanwhile, inside Iran, he is seeing people "nearly break from fear" at the sound of a door slamming. "When I call someone and they don’t answer, I almost have a heart attack," he says.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ceqvwrydzpqt?post=asset%3Ae6ed32b6-47f2-4d7f-a4f7-506d1e5296e9#post #IranRevolution #IranProtests

Trump accuses Starmer of seeking to 'join wars after we've already won' and says UK aircraft carriers not needed - follow live

Meanwhile, Iran continues attacks on Gulf states as UAE officials say a Dubai resident has been killed by falling shrapnel.

BBC News