The value of “victory” keeps going down while the price keeps going up

According to the WSJ: “For weeks, President Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory in the Iran war should Tehran fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even floating the idea privately to senior aides that he’s willing to walk away without a nuclear deal, U.S. officials said.

“But that scaled-back objective became more difficult when Iran insisted Saturday on its highest price yet for permitting the free flow of traffic in the waterway, seeking billions of dollars in U.S. payments, the removal of American troops from the region and an end of the U.S. naval blockade, among other things.

“This rapid chain of events suggests Trump’s options for walking away from the conflict have again narrowed.”

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Game of the week

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Grim conditions are a feature, not a bug

They encourage immigrants to waive their legal rights and agree to “self-deport.” They also warm the empty space in Stephen Miller’s chest where normal human beings have a heart.

Immigration officials denied the allegations, but Reps. Joaquin Castro and Veronica Escobar said they?ve come across numerous problematic examples.

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Poem of the day

On the Russian Persecution of the Jews
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

O son of man, by lying tongues adored,
      By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod
       carnage deep as ever Christian trod
Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred
And incense from the trembling tyrant’s horde,
      Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod,
      Most murderous even of all that call thee God,
Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord;
Face loved of little children long ago,
      Head hated of the priests and rulers then,
            If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine
            Run ravening as the Gadarean swine,
Say, was not this thy Passion, to foreknow
      In death’s worst hour the works of Christian men?

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Poem of the day

The Maldive Shark
by Herman Melville (1819-1891)

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat—
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.

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