01/30/26
Good morning! It’s Friday, January 30th.
National Croissant Day
Oh my god… a buttery croissant and a nice cup of tea?? In pajamas??
I… think I really need this Friday to be Friday.
And now, the news.
Iran
-via NY Times
Starting in Iran where, now that the president has learned the word “armada,” he is threatening Iran with a “massive Armada.”
He also said he could mount an attack “with speed and violence.”
How can Iran stop this from happening?
Make a deal.
Just… make a deal.
What kind of deal? Can’t say. It’s a secret. She goes to another school.
Although US and European officials say that in talks, there have been three demands put to the country: permanently end the enrichment of all uranium and dispose of all current stockpiles, limit the range and number of ballistic missiles, and end all support for proxy groups in the Middle East - including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis operate in Yemen.
A pretty strong list, I’d say.
Now, you may recall, however, that a few weeks ago, Trump was very upset about the country’s reaction to the protests that were happening. Iranians took to the streets to protest the government, and, in reaction, the government has killed at least 3,117, but the number is probably more like 20,000 according to human rights groups.
In two weeks.
20,000.
Trump, ever the fan of free speech, especially when it comes to speaking out against the government, threatened strong military action in response. To protect the protestors.
“Let them say what they want about the government,” he said. “Free speech is the backbone of a democracy!” he cried, as a single tear fell down his cheek. Wiping away his makeup to reveal totally normal-looking skin…
But that was weeks ago… Trump hasn’t said anything about the protestors that he vowed that he, alone, could save. Nor is anything about the protestors in the deal that US and European officials are talking about.
Huh.
It sounds like, in addition to the Armada, Trump has been presented with many options for action against Iran, including carrying out raids inside of Iran.
Classic Mr. No Wars, threatening war and boots on the ground in Iran.
Literally on Wednesday, the man whose biggest grudge in the world right now (besides every other grudge he has which are all also his biggest grudges. He has… so many grudges) is that he doesn’t have a Nobel Peace Prize, took to his ironically titled Truth Social to say:
"As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn't, and there was 'Operation Midnight Hammer,' a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don't make that happen again. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
So… that’s where things stand. Just something to be aware of.
ICE Update
In fairly obvious news but hey at least there’s proof… a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Kristi Noem exceeded her authority when she ended the temporary protected status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans here in America.
Now, this really doesn’t do anything until after the Supreme Court takes a look at the case in October, but it does add to the case against her.
The case being – hey… is she about to be fired for how terribly she’s acting and the way all of her ICE agents keep murdering people in the streets?
It also helps a different literal case, as a federal judge in Washington is likely to rule any day now on whether to pause the termination of the temporary protected status designation for Haiti, while a separate court case challenging the status proceeds. So it’s possible that this ruling may influence that one.
We’ll see.
Meanwhile, over in Minnesota, Tom Homan, the White House border tsar held a press conference has vowed to uphold the current immigration enforcement operation (yuck!) but says he wants "common sense cooperation that allows us to draw down on the number of people we have here.” (what does that mean?)
"We are not surrendering our mission at all. We're just doing it smarter.” (uh oh!)
I gotta be honest, that to me sounds like… well first of all, that can’t be hard. We’re not talking about the best and the brightest leading this mission, so doing anything smarter isn’t that hard. But your mission is white nationalism, so doing it smarter is chilling.
Homan says the federal authorities will leave with the state and local authorities begin to cooperate.
The beatings will end when morale improves.
Homan didn’t really explain what changes he’d be making.
So I think overall this is just a good reminder that just because Trump put a new face in charge there, it doesn’t mean he suddenly was like “oh I changed my mind and don’t want to do white nationalism.”
He thinks he can fool us.
We need to stay more vigilant than ever.
And speaking of – the democrats struck a deal with the White House to prevent a partial shutdown, by separating a vote on homeland security funding at large from a vote on funding DHS. The vote on DHS funding will take place in two weeks.
I wonder what our country will look like in two weeks.
Trump Sues IRS
-via ABC News
And finally… hey, you know how people love to get into public service to be of service to the public? Well what if I told you that some people, not everyone, but some people… actually do it for the money?
On Thursday, Donald Trump, as well as Eric Trump, Donnie Jr, and the Trump Organization, sued the IRS and Treasury Department, accusing the agency of failing in their “duty to safeguard and protect Plaintiffs’ confidential tax returns and related tax return information from such unauthorized inspection and public disclosure.”
Hey boys, didn’t your dumb dad hire an absolute bottom-feeder creep (who, as a reminder, did a nazi salute very publicly) to start DOGE and it actually leaked a bunch of data as well as put everyone’s info on an insecure cloud?
They say the release of the Trump family tax returns, which every other president has released since the 1976 (in reaction to President Nixon, but he seems pretty tame now, considering he wasn’t even impeached. He just quit. Trump’s been impeached twice. I could name two more crimes he could be impeached for right now if anyone cared to do anything)… anyway, the suit says the release of the tax returns caused: “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”
Lol yeah because it turns out you guys are poors.
Well, no. But it turns out you guys lied about how much money you had.
By the way, they’re suing for $10 billion.
I’ll say it again, because it’s nuts… the president is suing his own IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion.
This thing’s not going to go anywhere, for a lot of reasons, but one of them is this… baby boys, these tax returns are not the first, nor will they be the last, thing to have caused you public embarrassment. Your life is a walking embarrassment. To you. To us. To our country.
Anyway… that’s a thing that happened.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of… croissants. All carbs really.
Eat the carbs! Who cares!
But more than a carb. More than all the carbs. Because you are also worth it… I’m proud of you.