Renewed clashes come as diplomats to join next round of U.S.-Iran peace talks.
Strait Closed Again
The Wall Street Journal reports Iran Closes Strait of Hormuz as Fighting Flares Again in Lebanon
Iranian security officials said they had closed the Strait of Hormuz, citing what they said was the U.S. failure to stop the fighting in Lebanon as required under the agreement signed earlier this week by President Trump.
The announcement by Iran’s joint military command came as clashes between Israel and Hezbollah flared again in Lebanon on Saturday, just hours after the two sides agreed to a renewed ceasefire. It undid for now the main achievement of the deal, which was to set the stage for reopening a waterway vital to world energy markets.
Even before Iran’s announcement, however, the recovery of traffic through the strait had been halting. Iran had imposed new procedures, including a demand that ships register to cross two days in advance, and wary shipowners were monitoring the still-uncertain environment in the waterway.
The flare-up in fighting comes as the U.S. and Iran work to get their next round of peace talks back on track. Iran said Saturday its delegation would attend talks in Switzerland after postponing plans to travel Friday, a hiccup that followed an earlier round of heavy Israeli strikes carried out in retaliation for a Hezbollah drone attack that killed four Israeli soldiers.
The Foreign Ministry of Pakistan, a mediator in the negotiations, said representatives of the U.S. and Iran would meet Sunday in Switzerland for what it called technical-level talks.
Israel and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that acts independently of Lebanon’s government, agreed to a renewed ceasefire that took effect at 4 p.m. local time Friday. But on Saturday, Lebanese state media reported a new round of Israeli attacks including around the southern city of Nabatieh.
The Israeli military carried out the attacks after Hezbollah fired more than 50 times at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, a military official said.
Lebanese health officials said seven people were killed in the strikes. They said 83 people had been killed and 141 wounded in the earlier attacks, in which Israel said it killed dozens of militants.
Saturday’s strikes extended the fallout of what had been one of the most serious escalations in Lebanon since a ceasefire was reached in April. The fighting had never stopped for long despite the truce, as Israel continued to hold territory in southern Lebanon and the two sides repeatedly clashed.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance then criticized Israel in tough terms for what they called excessive use of force.
The president softened his tone Friday, telling reporters that Israel and the U.S. fought well together and praising Netanyahu.
“We’ve had a great relationship with Israel, we were very formidable,” Trump said. “And Bibi Netanyahu is a warrior prime minister, and he should be acknowledged as that.”
Inconsistent Message
Trump provides an inconsistent message. Israel is sure to notice and did.
Until Trump tells Israel in no uncertain terms that it will neither defend Israel nor give Israel any weapons or military support, Israel will not cease and desist in Lebanon.
Yet, it is hard to bind third parties to deals they did not sign.
Separately, Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah need their own deal, independent of Iran’s deal with Trump. However, that’s the last thing Netanyahu wants.
The only realistic way to force that setup is for the US to threaten to halt all aid and protection of Israel, then hope Netanyahu loses the next election to more moderate forces.
Israel Elections
Legislative elections are scheduled to be held in Israel by October 27, 2026 to elect the 120 members of the twenty-sixth Knesset.
However, the elections could be held earlier, as 106 members of the twenty-fifth Knesset have supported a bill proposing earlier elections.
I hope Netanyahu is outed, then thrown into prison where he belongs for war crimes. But that’s not why he may finally end up in prison.
Netanyahu currently faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust according to Honest Reporting.
The problem is No Israeli prime minister has ever been indicted while in office much less stand trial.
Talks Still On
Meanwhile, the talks are still ongoing despite this flareup.
That’s a good sign. And pressuring Trump is a good move by Iran.
Also see my post yesterday Ceasefire Broken but Back On, Vance-Iran Meeting Called Off, Now What?
The agreement did not even last a day. It’s fundamentally flawed.
The fundamentally flawed deal is to the advantage of Iran, and Iran is using that advantage well.
Israel is not a third party.
Israel is a 100% owned and controlled subsidiary of the US.
Israel has no independent existence.
Israel’s parasitical control over US nervous system is by US collusion.
Israel’s actions (and US proxies generally) are as far from US agency as your hands commit actions with no involvement by your self.
But ask AIPAC and their take is THEY own the USA.
The late Bobby Fischer was always five chess moves ahead. He knew. Everyone else is just now starting to figure it out.
Parasite’s must be careful that they do not kill their host.
In this case Israel should be careful that it does not destroy the United States, because without us? Israel would be annihilated for its decades of war crimes.
The world would be a more peaceful place without Israel’s constant aggression, land grabs and genocide.
Excellent point. This is what differentiates parasites from cancer. Parasites are intelligent enough to let the host survive. Cancer is mindlessly greedy and ultimately kills the host, traditionally accelerated with a little help from the “health” industry with its safe and effective poison programs.
Israel is forced to defend itself against the Iranian Regime and its proxy terrorist warriors.
I understand this reality might not be understandable to a simple-minded dirt worker.
I think you are being unfair to dirt workers. Some of them certainly are a bit stupid, but none of them are quite the sorts of appalling suck-ups and fakes that you find in huge numbers in universities. You can’t fake when you’re shoveling dirt.
This is good news
Aren’t ceasefires for suckers? The US will use all efforts to keep from giving Iran all but the barest minimum to keep oil trickling through Hormuz.
Everything they, including JD Vance, say in contradiction to the assertion Iranians are inhuman “animals” who deserve to have their civilization destroyed is a lie.There is no peace here only Neither war nor Peace. [Trotsky declared this policy, meaning Russia would cease fighting but refuse to formally sign a humiliating peace treaty. It has since entered the lexicon as a descriptor for a state of chronic, unresolved tension.]
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
― Plato
Perhaps Trumps family will make enough on this weekends grift trade to buy Donald “Epstein’s Island” for fathers day?
“Yet, it is hard to bind third parties to deals they did not sign.”
“The only realistic way to force that setup is for the US to threaten to halt all aid and protection of Israel…”
You are right. But since the Swamp is ruled by the Zionists (95% of Congressmen are on the take and have a dedicated Israeli handler; much of the DeepState is either Zionist or wedded to forever war), it would be impossible for US taxpayers to quit forking over the billions–as much as we’d like to.
“Our democracy” is such bovine scatology. We know the right thing to do to achieve peace, but it cannot be done. War criminal Bibi owns us.
The Zionist- influenced Swamp will go the way of the Boomers.
Younger gens not so interested in Fed government, except for a few basic services (SS, Medicare, good interstates & parks).
Will become a looser federation, like Canada.
That’s an optimistic view. The Zionists spend Brobdingnagian amounts of money (some of it recycled US taxpayer money) on propaganda and infiltration. Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA was taken over immediately by Zionists after his assassination and immediately changed to rah, rah Israel–the opposite of what it had been. Trump interfered with the TikTok sale to make sure it ended up in the hands of Zionists. Every Protestant preacher with a congregation of 50 is feted in Israel. They know where their bread is buttered.
Nor are their methods confined to propaganda.
One can only hope the truth about the genocide, etc. will penetrate the world via fringe media.
good article
In their arrogance, Trump and Netanyahu defied their predecessors in all the worst ways, and now they court a profound defeat when, not long ago, a meaningful victory, however partial, was well within their grasp.
free link https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/opinion/israel-america-iran-trump-vance.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rlA.hMdW.BpRPvAwCr0ud&smid=url-share
NETANYAHU ORDERS CEASEFIRE IN LEBANON!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJZCVDyfH90
You have the solution now what will it take to implement it? Maybe Trump should be rigging elections in Israel instead of the U.S.
In the meantime, here’s a 🔅🔅2-star Mishelin award for being one of few bloggers with a functioning brain and insights into solving problems with real solutions.
I guess oil prices might become explosive on Monday or sometime during the week. Who’s ready to profit?
Do worry, Trump & Walrus will find a way to make things even worse.™
The US Government is lost. The executive branch is led by an insane POTUS and the remainder just follow him no matter how crazy. The Congress is useless and bows to the executive jettisoning all their responsibility and power. The judicial branch, the SCOTUS and DOJ are nothing more than an extension of MAGA and the sickness of the executive.
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson famously stated that governments are instituted to secure unalienable rights and derive their just powers from the “consent of the governed”. Because of this, he wrote that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, “it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”
I say that time has arrived, China is leading and showing the way.
Oh God. Don’t you know anything about the Government of China?
Actually I know little about the Chinese government. I do see the results of their rule. You should look for yourself, compare and decide which is better as neither is perfect.
I do know what it is like to live in the USA as I was born here, served in the military during Vietnam and have obeyed the laws and paid taxes without complaint. I know what we have been and are returning to is a society that serves the privileged only and the trickle down most of us feel is not rain.
Friend, I’m probably a bit younger than you, because I was in the last ballot for conscription to the Viet Nam War in Australia. I was very grateful that my birthday didn’t come up.
When you say you see the results of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule, do you just mean the last twenty or thirty years? Remember that everything the Chinese do is copied from the West. They were silly enough to believe in Communism, which is a Western cult, actually a version of Christianity: it excises all the magic stories of Christianity, but keeps the moral code, which more sophisticated Christians don’t try to enforce, because they know from bitter experience that it is unworkable.
As I understand it, the Chinese authorities, after murdering millions of the their compatriots and starving millions more, eventually worked out that there was something wrong with this Western doctrine. One friend of mine (now dead) had a story about Chou En-lai being tutored on what a price system is and how it works, by a visiting scholar from the Austrian school of economics. Be that as it may, the Chinese have now adopted the same Keynesian ideas that are gradually killing the West. They aren’t destructive as quickly as Marxist ideas, but they are still very bad news in the long run.
It is Keynesian (inflationary) economics that is causing that society-serving-the-privileged that you have noticed. I could go on, because that is a pretty bare-bones explanation. It all goes back to intellectual dishonesty. I don’t say that the people who adopted this swindling system in the 1930s were completely wrong, because the alternative might have been a flat-out Communist takeover of the whole civilized world, but lies do have consequences. “What a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.”
here you go: art-bin.com/art/omaotoc.html
How Modern China Officially Views MaoThe CCP’s official assessment, first articulated under Deng Xiaoping, is often summarized as Mao being “70 percent correct and 30 percent wrong.” This allows the party to honor Mao’s role in founding modern China while acknowledging major policy failures.
As a result, contemporary China is neither fully Maoist nor fully capitalist. It combines:
Many observers describe modern China as a hybrid system that preserves Mao’s political legacy while largely abandoning his economic model.
In short, Mao’s greatest lasting impact on contemporary China is not collective farming or permanent revolution, but the creation of a strong centralized state under the CCP, which continues to shape Chinese politics, society, and national identity today.
Fuck off with AI summaries as comments for once
Now that you mention it, it does sound like that. However, the first comment, that I replied to, did sound authentic.
It reminds me a bit of a teacher, sixty years ago, earnestly telling me that the capitalist and Communist systems were moving closer together. He was a wishful thinker.
Luckily for the West, I think the idea that China’s present setup is stable and will lead to strength is also wishful thinking. Maybe that is what you can expect to get from artificial intelligence.
EVERYONE, CONTROL YOUR SYCOPHANTS!!
It is like every alliance cannot contain its members~ The US cannot contain Israel’s (over the top) aggression. The GCC cannot control Iran. And so on down the food chains. Alliances and control are fracturing due to competing, and unaligned, interests.
Trump drove the US into a cesspool of toxic unaligned and uncontrollable interests.
The drawbridges go up, everybody demands above-premium prices to trade (or to not block trade), the pressure rises at certain chokepoints, and if it is not relieved, the guns come out in all directions. We lived through this twice in the 1900s, and one would think we might learn at least a little bit. But no.
And one of the heaviest legacies of those earlier wars, for good reasons at the time, lives on as a mindset in Israel.
You seem to think Iran’s neighbors are (or were) allies of Iran–they are not
They work together on some issues, but there are big differences (see Shia/Sunni)
🤣🤣🤣
IF Hezbollah stopped bombing northern Israel, the Israel politicians and IDF would leave them alone. Plain and simple.
But too simple for your puny mind.
There is probably a bit of capitulators remorse on the part of the Trump regime so a good move by Iran to keep the pressure ratcheted up. Israel continues to be a rogue nation in all this. Maybe sanctions would help.
if Trump is to be believed and there is only 4 weeks of oil left the world should be nervous as it will take time to get the oil into the system.
I love how Trump blurts things out. There is incredible content for November political ads. Luckily for him, his supporters have a cognitive “off” switch that operates automatically, so it doesn’t matter what one blatantly shows them.
I hate to say this, but if Iran continues on with these talks while Lebanon gets attacked we shouldn’t think it’s just Trump who is desperate for a deal.
Also I’m of the belief that you could cut Israel off but at this point the threat of Iran is too great (in the eyes of Israel) for it to matter. This situation has transcended logic and beats on a more ancient and mostly forgotten part of the human brain in which modernity demands its suppression; revenge.
Thus in my opinion it be the last thing we’d want president Trump to do, abandon Israel. I do suggest that if he’s willing to give concessions to Iran to stop he should apply the same logic to Israel.
Taking away leaves a vacuum, giving something allows choice. And if there’s one thing that’s being communicated right now is that Israel will act on its sovereignty and free will to choose. Leaving a vacuum where resentment, fear, and revenge sits only means more war.
That said given the statements from current Israeli leaders giving carrots to Israel probably wont work.
The devil will get his due one way or another.
What if Israel stops giving to the USA? Too many think that the US gives to Israel and Israel gives nothing to the US. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Additionally, the money the US gives to Israel is basically a bribe for our MIC, as it is (I believed) required to be spent on weapons manufactured by our own MIC.
It’s sad how many post BS but have no idea what they are actually posting about. The majority of you are like drunks arguing in a bar!
Here’s some chatGPT education:
So the only thing that is real has provided the United States is more means to kill people. There’s no other social or scientific or economic benefit that they have provided.
Got it. Israel is really good at killing and we need to benefit from that why?
No, the query was what military technology the US got from Israel. Do you know how to submit a prompt to an AI? Then go ask your favorite one any question you would like.
There is mu8ch more that the US has gained from Israel, outside of the military. If people were honest, they would acknowledge this.
Tick, tock
It’s a fatally flawed agreement
The behavior of a non-signatory is written as a condition of satisfying the agreement.
Not sure how the dummies (dumbies?) from DC wouldn’t see this–can NYC real-estate “geniuses” be this stupid? I guess, yes.
The clock of energy consequences still ticks down
What further concessions will Iran squeeze from the US to shake this poison pill?
Tick, tock
“Not sure how the dummies (dumbies?) from DC wouldn’t see this–can NYC real-estate “geniuses” be this stupid? I guess, yes.”
Never doubt that things are part of a plan.
That happened at Versailles, 1919. All kinds of people weren’t at the table. We know how that went.
At least they got a decade or so of peace
Happens all the time. Belgium bitched that they did not get enough at Versailles in 1919. The italians complained that britain and france reneged on their promises of 1915.
The british and french shrugged and said “here’s the way it’s gonna be….”
off topic but important:
Washington Now Spends $2 for Every $1 it Taxes
While the double spend comment is only for May 2026, the trend is higher deficits that are exacerbated by this foolish war. There are some informative charts in the article.
It also mentions we have been in this situation before, namely after WW2, but to be complete the author should have mentioned the deficits after WW1 and the Spanish Flu pandemic: both were ameliorated via massive spending cuts that led to serious growth.
oh I dont know maybe we should start taxing billionaires
TrumpCo are NuttyYahoo’s boeeahitches. Just Like Brain-Dead BidenCo.
epstein files
It was and is a long shot for the USA. Off on the wrong foot from the start. And very expensive to bring under the control it should have always had as an operation. I figure the odds be 50:50 (Frank Z.).
Israel delenda est.
It is easy to gravitate towards that conclusion. Zionists emerged from their WWII victimhood with the view that ONLY Jewish lives matter and anyone else may be killed freely on the slightest suspicion. They exhibit a racial superiority complex that precludes ever using the Golden Rule in dealing with other races.
But a more peaceful road to peace ironically would flow from Iran actually having a nuclear weapon.
What has been done can not be undone. As Bill said, some things once subject to guessing are now explicit. Iran has long told us what their goals are = “Death to the Little Satan, Death to the Great Satan” and they have escalated the war and fighting against us. It will go on until we are defeated or Iran’s government is gone.
Mish spoke an understatement = “Separately, Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah need their own deal, independent of Iran’s deal with Trump. However, that’s the last thing Netanyahu wants.” We know that whoever leads Hezbollah and whoever leads Iran don’t want it either.
Mish also wrote “I hope Netanyahu is outed, then thrown into prison where he belongs for war crimes.” That should be expanded by a few sentences of what acts he has committed that violate the laws of war. Likewise it isn’t hard to find leftists who think that Donald Trump, GW Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and more should be thrown in prison for violating Nuremberg charges, firstmost the 2nd charge = Crimes Against Peace. Leftists were strongly disappointed that B. Obama had not pursued charges against Bush and company.
Netanyahu and the Israeli military have purposely targeted civilian facilities and infrastructure in order to sow terror in the population in both Gaza and Lebanon. Those are war crimes.
With the final goal of making areas uninhabitable and permanently expelling the populations.
How about Bush, Clinton, Obama and Trump be placed in irons and delivered over bodily to Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, etc., there to face whatever the locals choose to give them.
throw em all in prison in this order
Trump, Netanyahu, Cheney, Hillary, a mass of neocons, Obama
But who would be left on the news channels to preach against “isolationism”? (A term usually uttered as a sneer by our overlords) /sarc
If you start thinking that all your prominent politicians should be thrown into prison, it suggests that there is something seriously wrong with your system. I keep explaining why, but no one is interested. Government is always and necessarily an alliance between soldiers, who live by force, and priests, who live by deception. The priests are able to dominate a democracy because they are too smart for us. (They have whole departments at universities dedicated to studying how to put things over on ordinary people.)
I think we need a period of rule by the soldiers again. It might not be pleasant, but it might save Western civilization.
We have a system where money controls government. We need to change to a system where government controls money. We need a government that is actually for the people not corporations and only the elite. What we have is moving closer to the rule of a king than rule by the people.
When you say that money controls government, you leave out the fact that governments create money. I take it you mean that, in your view, people who have money control government. If so, they do so by using what I call the soldiers and the priests. The priests in the media and schools control what we are allowed to think, and cripple the minds of children. The priests on the judicial bench attempt to provide cover for the whole system of corruption and impudence.
I think people who have money are too unco-ordinated, have too many conflicting interests, to control government. We are controlled through our gullibility and our fear. The priests impose on our gullibility and the soldiers impose on our fear.
I don’t mean to say that there is some big conspiracy in which some senior witch-doctors decide what teachers are to put over on children, or what media people are to put over on their viewers, readers, and listeners. It is more subtle that that. I’m sure teachers mostly believe their own nonsense. Media people are probably shrewder on the whole, and they do have a sense of humor. Judges are probably the least excusable: they should know what they are doing.
I’m no leftist. I have always voted Republican or libertarian. I’ve come to the conclusion that the architects of the Iraq war, who launched it under false premises, that resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths, should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Netanyahu/Katz/many other Israel politicians should see the same fate for their crimes in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and supporting the pogroms in the West Bank.
And another round of insider trading ensues, skimming a few billion more into their pockets. I was sitting around thinking about what could they all have been promised to act with such negligence, obtuseness, and general seeming stupidity? A deal with the devil? eternal life? Nope. Insider trading tips. These folks are hoping to set themselves above the ravel. Make enough money to become a part of the no affiliation jet setting class. Their office, their lies, none of it will matter let alone whether they are elected again, if they can become rich of insider trading tips.
It occurred to me this morning that AI has got to be the greatest source of insider trading opportunities ever to be invented.
Such a mess. But proves the F-U is always sitting just beneath the surface and will come out rapidly when one leasts expects it OR when one absolutely forces it. A lot of cards are laying face-up on the table that weren’t before. Some hands aren’t as strong as thought, others survived and thrived far more than advertised and still others were shown to be disadventageous to players not even in the hand. I suspect there are more cards yet to be flipped.
https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/39401
Now WE toll the straits! Bravo dear leader! Bravo!
He has absolutely no idea what’s going on.
His approval was just a little too high, that’s all.