Year: 2026

We Lost the War

Buck Banks

“So the world’s greatest military power went to war with a poor, medievalist theocracy. It was an incredibly uneven match … Yet Iran won. The Iranian regime has emerged far stronger than it was before, controlling the Strait of Hormuz and having demonstrated its ability to inflict damage on both its neighbors and the world economy. The U.S. has emerged far weaker, having demonstrated the limitations of its military technology, its strategic ineptitude and, when push comes to shove, its cowardice. … We’ve also destroyed our moral credibility: Trump may have TACOed at the last minute, but he threatened to commit gigantic war crimes — and for all practical purposes our political and civil institutions gave him permission to do so.”

— Paul Krugman

Trump Is Underwater in 134 Republican-Held Districts

Buck Banks

135

G. Elliot Morris: “New estimates I’ve produced show that Trump’s approval rating is below 50% among registered voters in 135 Republican-held congressional seats — 104 in the House and 31 in the Senate. … And his approval is below 45% in jurisdictions represented by 44 Republican members of Congress — 34 in the House and 10 in the Senate.”

Meet You on the Far Side of the Moon

Pensito Editors


252,756

— That’s how many miles the Artemis II astronauts were from Earth last night. It’s a big number. New York Times writer Evan Gorelick offers a few points of comparison.

  • Wiener dogs: If you took 22-inch dachshunds and laid them nose to tail, you’d need a very cooperative pack of almost 728 million dogs to cover the distance. It would be tough: There are only around 900 million dogs, of any breed, in existence.
  • Walking a dog: If you took one of the dachshunds on a brisk 3-mile-per-hour walk, you’d need to walk for more than 84,000 hours to get there. That translates to nearly 10 years of continuous walking. (If the dog let out a celebratory bark upon arrival, and if sound could travel through space, it would reach Earth around 14 days later.)
  • Eating hot dogs: You’d need a chain of 2.37 billion Nathan’s Famous hot dogs to cover the distance. If the competitive eater Joey Chestnut shoveled them down at his record-breaking pace of 76 dogs every 10 minutes, he’d need to eat nonstop for almost 594 years to devour the entire chain. (His monstrous meal would top 700 billion calories.)

    • Christie: Republicans in Congress Are ‘Lemmings’

    Buck Banks

    “I think anyone that follows politics can tell there are no principles left in my party. Even for people who agree with some of the stuff the president is doing, if you are honest with yourself, you know it is not based on principle. He wakes up every morning and tries to figure out, what is the best thing for him to do in his self interest that day. But the real lack of principle is on display every day in the House and Senate. These people have become lemmings.”

    — Former Gov. Chris Christie (R), in an appearance at Harvard.