David Holtzman

I’m 95% done with dinner I just have to decide what I’m eating, how I’m cooking it, and what store I want to shop at

HOLY CRAP Trump actually accomplished a miracle. Here is what he got out of Iran: - Reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium by about 98% - Limit uranium enrichment to 3.67% purity (far below weapons-grade) - Cut the number of installed centrifuges by roughly two-thirds - Only enrich uranium at one declared site (Natanz) - Stop enrichment activities at Fordow and convert it into a research facility - Redesign the Arak heavy-water reactor so it could not easily produce weapons-grade plutonium - Ship out or dilute excess enriched uranium Allow extensive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Permit continuous monitoring of nuclear facilities and supply chains - Accept “snap” inspections under expanded monitoring rules - Avoid building new heavy-water reactors for years - Stay within strict limits on uranium stockpile size and centrifuge development for set periods ranging from 10–25 years Ooops, sorry! That was the JCPOA that Obama signed with Iran, only to have him tear it up, kill 140 kids, get hundreds of Americans injured, 13 killed, and gas prices to surge 50%.

June 1, 1933: The "Fund of German Trade and Industry" is created, a huge slush fund administered by Martin Bormann in the Führer's name. The regime used the funds to compensate SA Stormtroopers who committed street violence, subsize the SS, and enrich Nazi party officials.

Read @EggerDC on the utter foulness of the Trump IRS settlement fund. Truly the type of rank corruption we have not really witnessed before. Plundering at its finest

A Maryland tax scofflaw owing thousands of $. Paid off last month. District 39 voters prioritize personal integrity in their leaders. You are the progressive Robin Ficker. A serial candidate with serious ethics problems. @BaltimoreBanner

Your level of comfort & privilege is found in your $1 million+ home in Germantown. And there is a HOA lien for unpaid assessments. How can you lecture anyone about privilege?

@MsDrakeWest Hey Destiny a pro tip from a MD District 39 voter. Don't use a telephone number from DC 202 area code when texting me about how you want to make my life better in Montgomery County. Probably plays better in DC.

@chelsea_janes Today would have been Willie Mays' 95th birthday. The Say Hey Kid played a number of years in New York with the baseball Giants. He ended his storied career with the Mets. How do today's players remember him?

The MAGA crowd in Washington has decided that since Europeans don’t sufficiently appreciate Trump, the American bases on the continent must go. This is the strategic reasoning of a man who burns down his own kitchen. American bases in Europe were never a favour. They are the logistical spine of every war the United States fights east of Gibraltar. Ramstein moves the cargo, Aviano launches the jets, Rota services the ships. Without them the Pentagon does not project power into the Middle East. It projects PowerPoint. The fantasy assumes the alternative is aircraft carriers gliding majestically into the Persian Gulf. That era is ending. A modern carrier is a thirteen-billion-dollar trophy that can be reduced to scrap by a couple of hundred cheap missiles fired from the Iranian coast. China noticed. The other fantasy is that America simply fights from home. Picture the alternative: twenty thousand transatlantic sorties shuttling spare parts, munitions, fuel bladders, mechanics and replacement pilots from Norfolk and Dover to wherever the war happens to be. A C-17 burns through roughly 35,000 dollars of fuel every hour it flies, and the round trip from the American east coast to the Gulf is the better part of a day. Multiply that by every bolt, every missile, every spare engine. The war becomes a sustained airborne traffic jam with the bill arriving by the second. So you need land, specifically land near the war. Modern combat aircraft are not Spitfires you fuel up and send off with a wave. An F-35 demands an entire Walmart of spare parts, a small city of technicians, climate-controlled hangars and a supply chain stretching halfway round the planet. Drones need operators, networks, satellites and a steady diet of components no carrier can store. Modern war arrives by container ship and lives in a warehouse. Close the bases, and Washington loses the warehouses. Lose the warehouses, and the next confrontation with Iran is either fought by phone or fought from Kansas with a flight schedule that bankrupts the Treasury before the first missile lands. MAGA thinks shutting Ramstein punishes Europe. It punishes America. Europe will be inconvenienced. America will be unarmed. And so, after a thousand insults, a thousand sneers, a thousand late-night posts about freeloading allies, Europe is quietly drafting the politest letter in diplomatic history. It thanks America for its service. It wishes the troops a safe journey home. It suggests, with great warmth, that Washington might now turn its attention to its neighbours in Latin America, where a fading superpower can busy itself with whatever a fading superpower busies itself with. Spain had its century. Britain had its empire. The Soviets had their parades. Each ended the same way: as a shadow of itself, with the historians left to argue, volume after volume, about precisely when the rot set in and why nobody noticed in time. America is welcome to join them on the shelf.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ If you like what you read, please follow Gandalv on Substack: @gandalv" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@gandalv

Page 8647 Jan 31 2025 Federal Register is publication of the #Trump Crypto EO. govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR… Are we to read into this a Deep State plot? @dojphofficial has jumped down the rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland asserting arranging seashells in the sand is a threat.

Next thing you know #doj and #fbi will investigate Americans who play the numbers 8647 in the daily #win4 lottery.

It's a disgrace when @SecWar mess serves lobster and steak. Warfighters on extended deployment get short rations. And no care packages from home. @ChrisVanHollen @AlsobrooksForMD @MarkWarner

@Milbank @NOTUSreports Welcome back @Milbank. While you have been missed, your essay adroitly points out that you have not missed a thing. Can you please convince @IgnatiusPost to join you?

My column in The Star begins in June, but in this @NOTUSreports essay I look back on my 10 months in exile from politics and ask: What did I miss? Donald Trump is still governing with the same signature blend of bluster, grift, bumbling and authoritarian aspirations. But if the president hasn’t fundamentally evolved over the last 10 months, we have. The biggest difference between now and then is that the country and the world are no longer cowering and no longer as susceptible to his flimflam. notus.org/perspectives/i…

Right.

Donald Trump thought he could score cheap political points by calling Bill LeRoy an “insult to Jesus” because the veteran catcher and captain of the Savannah Bananas is “beyond woke” and believes that God does not discriminate on the basis of gender. Standing in front of a roaring, sold-out Banana Ball crowd, LeRoy didn’t just clap back — he delivered a powerful, no-nonsense response that shook the stadium. “The president of the United States just said that I insulted Jesus,” LeRoy began, gripping the mic with calm intensity. “You want to know what’s a real insult to Jesus? Turning your back on people who need help while giving more to those who already have everything.” “You know what insults Jesus?” he continued, gesturing toward the crowd. “Separating families, shutting doors on those in need, and forgetting what ‘love thy neighbor’ actually means. That’s not the message I stand for — and it’s not the message this team stands for.” “You know what insults Jesus? Preaching values while ignoring compassion. Talking about faith while practicing division. That’s not faith — that’s politics dressed up as religion.” “I’m not a perfect Christian,” he said, a small smile crossing his face. “There’s only been one perfect man, and I’m not him. I’m just a catcher who believes in treating people right.” “Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves… So why do we keep choosing hate, division, and fear instead?”

I guess rigorous science and real medicine still matter. If only this breakthrough had occurred before my Dad died of pancreatic cancer, a horrible disease. Support research and ignore kooks, some of whom are now in high office.

@kmorit @bresreports @Newsday First Pataki budget proposed big cuts. I joked that parks would install coin boxes on barbecue grills. Vendo-Grill. You almost got me fired.

@HITPrivacy @bresreports @Newsday Oh my. I’m sure it was a good joke.

Nothing is off the record. If my mom makes a dumb joke, that’s fair game

@bresreports @kmorit @Newsday PS I still consider @kmorit a friend.

@bresreports 30+ years ago I was a young legislative staffer. I made what I thought was a joke to @kmorit about funding for NYS parks. The next day it was in @Newsday. Lesson learned.