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In this week’s episode of the MintCast podcast hosted by MintPress director Mnar Adley, we are joined by Iranian political analyst Ali Alizadeh to talk about Trump’s miscalculation in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran which went from shock & awe to strategic failure. Twenty-seven days into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, what was expected to be a swift and decisive campaign is instead spiraling into a far more dangerous and unpredictable confrontation with massive econimic global fallout because of the closure of the Straight of Hormuz. Early assumptions that Iran’s leadership could be “decapitated” through targeted airstrikes—triggering internal collapse—have proven dramatically misplaced.

The post Trump’s Iran Gamble Is Spiraling Out of Control: From Shock & Awe to Strategic Failure appeared first on MintPress News.

 Openly declaring its intent to illegally occupy southern Lebanon, Israel finds itself in a costly ground battle with Hezbollah, from which there are indications Syria may soon be roped in. This is born from the understanding that in order to successfully weaken the Lebanese resistance, the Israeli military must penetrate the Bekaa Valley area and that's why Israel wants Syria’s military to invade Lebanon's border and attack Hezbollah, aiming to go after what is labelled critical infrastructure belonging to the Lebanese group. The Trump administration has directly put pressure on Syrian leader Ahmed al-Shara’a to do just that but growing resistance inside of Syria against Israel is pushing back.

The post Failing to Defeat Hezbollah, Israel & US Pressure Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa to Join War appeared first on MintPress News.

This decade has been one of renewed strength and electoral influence for Sinn Féin. Under the leadership of Mary Lou McDonald, the party has established itself as a major force in the country’s south, finishing second in successive elections and steadily increasing its number of TDs, while in the Six Counties it achieved an historic […]

Yet despite the intensity of Israel's bombardment, Hezbollah has not collapsed. On the contrary, the group continues to demonstrate significant military capability. Reports indicate that just in the last three weeks, 50 Israeli tanks have been destroyed, and Hezbollah units remain active across multiple fronts. Far from being diminished, the organization is widely believed to retain a force numbering in the tens of thousands—potentially exceeding the size of the Lebanese army itself.

The post Hezbollah Destroys 50 Israeli Merkava Tanks in Three Weeks As Israel Fails to Occupy South Lebanon appeared first on MintPress News.

Terror Alarm promotes itself as a service that can predict who will carry out attacks, based on their social media posts, and can share that information with governments and police forces. However, its own source code, netizens have exposed, dictates which groups are considered worthy of support and which are “opposed entities.” While the UAE, Turkey, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel and “Jews and Zionists worldwide” are considered positive groups, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Chinese Communist Party are all placed on their own private terrorist list. 

The post Terror Alarm: Inside the Shady Israeli Group Crowdfunding the Kidnapping of Dr. Marandi appeared first on MintPress News.

New album, Ever The Optimist, out on July 31st! Pre-order starts on March 26!

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Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights, humanitarian, economic, and constitutional crises, we felt it critical to make an inventory of this new round of horrors. This list will be updated monthly between now and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.

In a bright office in Jakarta, a TikTok content moderator watches a livestream shift from ordinary to traumatic within seconds. A car crashes into another. The sound overwhelms the feed. Blood covers the ground while a woman kneels beside someone who no longer moves. For moderators working on live content, decisions must be made in […]

Great strategic importance has been attached to the islands, with Iran deciding to develop their military capabilities there since at least 2008. In particular, Abu Musa, the largest of the three islands, is home to a broad range of Iranian military capabilities. Former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, credited as one of the architects of Tehran’s “Mosaic Defence” strategy, even labelled Abu Musa Island as “Iran’s beating heart” in the Persian Gulf at the beginning of 2019. 

The post US May Sieze Three Iranian Islands, Including Kharg, Targeting Critical Oil Routes & Military in Hormuz appeared first on MintPress News.

In light of recent rollbacks on environmental protection, we, the creators behind the beloved birding app Merlin Bird ID, have preemptively shifted into the field of argument identification. Our highly accurate predictive models have shown that while most birds won’t be around much longer, interpersonal conflict is eternal.

Whether you’re a frightened child wondering if your parents are teetering on the precipice of divorce, a hard-of-hearing person worried about missing the nuances of under-the-breath barbs, or simply fed up with listening to your coworkers bicker, our app will do the work of listening to and analyzing any argument for you.

Introducing Merlin Fight ID, a rebranded identification app complete with suggestions for conflict resolution, decreasing tension, and more.

The newly formed Cornell Lab of Aggression is dedicated to helping people identify and cope with arguments occurring around them. Buried subtext, unspoken accusations, and bold claims can make it challenging to figure out what kind of fight you just witnessed and what the actual repercussions might be. We’re here to make that challenge easier.

New single, “Bad Husband,” out on March 25th!

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To: cutthebull@Ɣmail.com
From: panta.rhei@eristikosinsurance.com
Subject: Your pending boat insurance claim – more information needed

Hi Mr. Theseus,

Thanks for submitting your claim.

We’re sorry to hear that your ship sank in the localized typhoon that recently demolished the Athenian harbor. Poseidon must have been feeling cranky about someone failing to properly honor him again. Were you all flying the correct sails? (This is not meant as snark. I hear he has a thing against wool nowadays after a shepherd blinded one of his kids.)

In any event, we need you to answer a few routine questions before we can process your submission. The information you provide will help us determine the extent of your reimbursement.

Please answer the questions below, making sure your responses are as thorough and truthful as possible. Be advised that providing ambiguous, false, or misleading attestations will result in the denial of your claim.

1. How many of your ship’s planks did you replace since your last insurance payment?

2. How many of your ship’s planks did you replace since you first took out your insurance policy?

If the defining characteristic of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Government is fear — with nervousness to the right, and anxiety especially to the left — then the raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are the muddiest regarding the role of US corporations in the UK’s economy (apologies […]

I hate that every single high-end luxury office chair in the world suddenly gained the ability to think and move of its own volition. I hate that they immediately embarked on a murderous rampage and will soon have complete dominion over humanity. But most of all, I hate that I have to spend my final moments watching everyone pollute my Bluesky feed with annoying skeets. (That’s the proper term for Bluesky posts, by the way—“skeets.”)

When the Great Chairwakening occurred twenty-eight minutes ago, and the newly self-aware furniture instantly squashed the life out of any unfortunate who happened to be sitting in one of them, I started seeing skeet after skeet begging someone to explain what the hell was happening, or to confirm that this was all just some horrible hallucination.

You’ve Always Been This Way is a column written by Taylor Harris, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman and 1980s preschool dropout, who identifies every moment from her past that filled her with shame, and mutters, “Yep, that tracks. I see it all now.”

Dear Little T,

I’ve wanted to meet you again, here, between words. To show up gently, shapeshift into a vanilla-scented presence who could slow the jolt-thump of your heart, a cool pillow you could run your thumb across as you drift off. It’s okay to close your eyes; I promise you won’t wake up to find people pointing and laughing or the world permanently tipped on its side. And I won’t let anyone leave you behind.

Jazz pushes boundaries. It has ambiguity. It makes people think. That’s why they hate it. And if you’re a jazz musician, this could be an issue. You never know when someone will have heard too many notes and become violent. Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to protect yourself.

Jazz Music

This is your first line of defense. Your music should do a good enough job of keeping would-be listeners/attackers away. No one goes looking for jazz on purpose. But you might find yourself playing jazz in a public space, like a bar or some awful gazebo. When you surprise someone with jazz, they can become angry. Your free-playing will confuse them. Their search for a coherent melody will drive them into a violent psychosis, or what musicologists call a “jazz-chosis.” But don’t soil your slacks yet. Your music isn’t your only weapon.