On A Bender

this is what a federal government completely controlled by Republicans looks like

This is propaganda. Rome, Berlin, and Paris have a 0% chance of being struck by Iran. Why? Because Italy, Germany, and France did not start an unprovoked war against Iran. It's honestly as simple as that

An Israeli security establishment source tells me: “I’d approach this cautiously, with a grain of salt. It’s early Monday morning in the U.S., the start of the trading week. Markets opened higher, largely as expected following the weekend reports on the negotiations and the latest statement by Donald Trump. That said, I wouldn’t view this move as a final step. We saw a similar pattern last week. Oil prices have also declined, supporting the positive sentiment in the short term. For now, it appears he has bought a few more days roughly into week four, until the Marines arrive and complete their initial deployment and organization phase. The Iranians are already denying it”

Israeli officials also accusing Trump of just trying to manipulate oil/stock markets

Musk said no heating for museum because… staying warm is DEI?

Witkoff’s counter part in these talks is Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Araghchi has had the most deal-oriented tone of all Iranian officials during the entire war, looking for off-ramps. But even his office says these talks *DIDN’T* happen. The President is lying to the American people to brazenly manipulate markets, and to send American servicemembers to their death for someone else’s war. And there is going to be no accountability from a spineless Congress, even when faced with an obvious lie!

So when you are in a long line at rhe airport this week, just remember that you're there because of Donald J. Trump.

a. Trump isn't announcing a pause on strikes. He's saying he's postponing a possible war crime - strikes on Iran's civilian energy infrastructure. b. Also, this isn't a message to Iran. It's a panicky message to the markets: "No war escalation until markets close on Friday".

T-bone collision leaves pilot and co-pilot dead. The air traffic controller on duty was stretched across multiple roles, handling both airplanes and helicopters, with some reportedly working 10+ hour days under relentless conditions. This is what happens when systems are pushed past their limits. Republicans own this. cnn.com/us/live-news/l…

DEVELOPING: A ground stop was in place on Monday morning at Newark Liberty International Airport, where an air traffic control tower was evacuated due to reports of smoke, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. abcnews.link/nCzUm76

What if the placement of ICE in the airports is really a dry run for the use of ICE on election day? I have a feeling putting them in airports is not the big story. America, pay attention to this NOW!!!

any democratic senator reliably winning their blue state by double digits does not need to do this shit

$UAL CEO: "The reality is, jet fuel prices have more than doubled in the last three weeks. If prices stayed at this level, it would mean an extra $11B in annual expense just for jet fuel. For perspective, in United’s best year ever, we made less than $5B"

Gen Alpha will talk about millennials flying for vacations the same way that millennials talk about boomers buying cheap homes

Yeah… Iran seems unaware of Trump’s “talks”

Stuck in another country. No customs at LAX. Cryptic messages to the flight crew. No Hotels. Flight cancelled. I would be spiraling. 😳😬😩

Sounds like the LaGuardia ATC had one guy working ground AND tower. That’s insane. Of all places, not there!

insane that we tolerate living in a society where you can go see one dentist and he's like "ya u have 13 cavities, will be $4000 to fix them all" then see another and he's like "that guy was full of shit and trying to scam you, you're fine" ???

George Lucas traded $350,000 in directing salary for something Fox executives thought was worthless: the right to sell Star Wars toys. It was 1976. Over 40 studios had already passed on his script, including Disney. Fox only greenlit the project because they wanted Lucas for other films. Nobody at the studio expected to make money on a space opera with no stars, so when Lucas offered to cut his directing fee from $500,000 to $150,000 in exchange for merchandising and sequel rights, Fox said yes on the spot. Movie merchandise was a dead business. Fox had lost money on Doctor Dolittle lunchboxes a decade earlier. They thought they were getting the better deal. Lucas couldn’t even find a toy company that wanted in. Kenner, a division of cereal company General Foods, finally bought the licensing for a flat $100,000. Then Star Wars opened. Between 1977 and 1978, Kenner sold $100 million worth of toys off that $100,000 investment. They couldn’t make enough for Christmas ’77, so they sold empty boxes with IOUs inside, promising to mail the action figures later. Parents paid real money for cardboard and a promise. Nobody around the production saw any of this coming. Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan, privately called the script “fairy-tale rubbish.” But he was shrewd enough to negotiate 2.25% of royalties instead of a flat fee. About 20 minutes of total screen time earned his estate somewhere between $50 million and $100 million. Lucas himself was so convinced the film would flop that he offered Spielberg a bet while visiting the Close Encounters set: swap 2.5% of each other’s profits. Spielberg took it. That handshake has paid him around $40 million. And then the money started compounding. Lucas poured his Star Wars profits into ILM, the effects house he’d built for the film. When its computer graphics division got too expensive to maintain, he sold it to Steve Jobs in 1986 for $10 million. Jobs renamed it Pixar. Disney bought Pixar twenty years later for $7.4 billion. Then in 2012, Disney came back for the rest, buying Lucasfilm itself for $4.05 billion. Total franchise revenue today sits around $46.7 billion, over $20 billion from merchandise alone. The filmmaker 40 studios passed on is now worth $5.3 billion according to Forbes. Fifty years ago today, cameras rolled on a desert in Tunisia. The $350,000 pay cut that made it all possible might be the best trade in business history.

Every day Europe refuses to join the trap Israel, Russia, and the US set for them in the middle east, is another day Russia gets closer to losing the war and Israel to being held accountable. Under no circumstance should Europe enter this war, hold the line no matter what.