The text of the agreement is now public, you can find it here.
In plain English:
- Iran gets blockade relief, oil-sale waivers, access to frozen assets, and a possible $300bn reconstruction package;
- The US gets a halt to hostilities, reopening of Hormuz, a 60-day negotiation window, and at least a commitment to down-blend highly enriched uranium under IAEA supervision. The hard details are deliberately deferred to the final deal.
It other words Obama’s deal that he ripped up, but with a far bigger bill and a lot of lost lives – it was all utterly pointless …
So this now is where we are …
- Link to article here
- Quote: Trump said that if the U.S. does not sign a final nuclear agreement with Iran, the United States might assume the role of “the guardian of the Middle East” in return for 20 percent of the region’s revenues.
- Yea, you read that correctly, Trump is still threatening allies with an extortion racket.
Even Wikipedia characterizes Trump’s war as an “Iranian victory” …
As for his “Peace is signed in our Times” on Thursday, on Friday the Strait of Hormuz was stalled because Israel was fucking it all up by continuing to bomb Lebanon, so the follow-up peace talks were also stalled.
The most immediate problem is this – Israel was left out of the talks and says it is not party to the deal. But Iran has made an end to fighting in Lebanon a condition for the wider deal, while Israel says it must retain freedom to act against Hezbollah. Ugh!
Hormuz is another big pressure valve – If it reopens safely, oil prices fall, inflation pressure eases, and Trump can claim a win. If it remains risky or Iran tries to control/tax traffic, the whole deal becomes unstable again.
So what happens next?
The most likely is an ugly, partial de-escalation. That’s because both sides have incentives to avoid going back to full conflict. It would be gradual oil/shipping recovery, but repeated “ceasefire violations” in Lebanon and Gaza.
As for the 60-day talks, they will probably drag on and be extended.
The big risk is that what is going on in Lebanon will blow it all up.
So is it “peace in our times”?
Well …
As always, it is the political cartoonists who tell you the real story …
Dave Whamond – Played like a violin
Nick Anderson – Mystery Box
Dave Whamond – Total and unconditional surrender
Pedro X Molina – #USA The sheer amount of money, energy, and lives wasted on futile attempts to fix something without actually fixing it should give us all pause for deep reflection.
Matt Davies – Art of the Deal
Clay Jones – What is Donald Trump hiding? #Trump #Iran #MemorandumOfUnderstanding #MOU #IranDeal
Clay Jones – Trump says taxpayers won’t have to pay for the $300 billion Iran deal, but didn’t he say the same thing about his ballroom? #Trump #Iran #IranDeal #WhiteHouseBallroom #WhiteHouseUFCFights
… and as a quick reminder, literally everything he touches turns to shit …
Let’s move on now to the other big news item of the week.
Trump’s new National Algae Collection Tub
It is oh so symbolic that the guy who claimed he would drain the swamp ended up building one, both metaphorically and also literally.
It really is a total shit show …
This is what happens when you have fired all the scientists …
So did the peroxide have an impact?
Well yes, but not on the algae.
Maybe the scientific and engineering geniuses hired by the Stable-Genius-in-Chief should have Googled “Does hydrogen peroxide remove paint?” before pouring gallons of it into a freshly-painted shallow pond.
Hint: Yes it will …
… but hey, you don’t need a hint, because we all got a real-time illustration of that …
This is what happens when you engage people who just do not know what the hell they are doing.
Why did they get picked?
Apparently the firm had done swimming-pool work at one of Trump’s Virginia golf properties.
This pool is becoming a perfect shit-show analogy for his entire administration.
As a bit of additional insight, in addition to the contract to paint the bottom, and will cost $14 million there was also a separate $1.7 million contract to do the water filtration. I can perhaps paint you completely unsurprised to learn that the contract for that went to a sleazy Trump donor with a history of bribery and illegal loans …
So now what?
He came out with this …
… and so stuff like this now happens …
The truth is obvious. He is actually right, it was vandalized. (Spoiler: he did it).
This however perhaps sums it all up rather well…
Meanwhile, the political cartoonists have been truly inspired.
Ann Telnaes – Trump’s algae filled, one bid contract Reflecting Pool
Clay Jones – Instead of draining the swamp, Donald Trump literally refilled it for $14.2 million. #Trump #RFKJr #ReflectingPool #DrainTheSwamp
Nick Anderson – The Reflecting Pool
Real or Satire?
Is this real or is it satire?
As an indicator of the age we now live in, I had to go check, because honestly, with these guys even something as crazy as this is distinctly very possible.
The answer is that it is satire.
As for some actual grift from the past week, let’s go there now.
Grifter-In-Chief
Corruption on a truly epic scale
Gavin Newsom (D) announced that he and his wife are being investigated by the Department of Justice (DOJ) …
Corrupt Fossil fuel donors are getting what they paid for with their donations …
He truly is Gifted … at turning everything to Shit – The Italian example from the last week
… and of course his actions have consequences …
Epstein
Political cartoonist Dennis Goris had a quick reminder …
Multiple layers of Lunacy and utter incompetence
Yet another “Oh, that’s what that was for moment” dawns …
- We can most probably anticipate that 400 million of that enormous emergency funding will be handed over in “emergency no bid contracts“ to Trumps pals who have absolutely ZERO experience in pest management or agriculture.
He screwed up his attempt to sue the BBC …
Yep …
Clay Jones – Trump loves inflation. What else does he love? #Trump #ILoveInflation #Inflation #MAGA #IranDeal
July 4th Plans
As for the big day, via various outlets we learned this …
Ann Telnaes – Trump announces a Fourth of July “Trump Rally”
Elections
We are faced with a constant flow of shit like this that is designed to manipulate …
OK, this warrants a bit of a debunk.
There are voters who turn up at the wrong precinct, have registration/address problems, or cast provisional ballots that later get rejected. That is election administration messiness, not proof of “thousands and thousands” of illegal votes being counted.
Her key dodge is: “because you can’t prove it.” That is conspiracy logic. Evidence against the claim becomes evidence for the claim. By that standard, I also have “thousands and thousands” of invisible dragons voting absentee in Ohio, and Democrats deny it only because they can’t prove my garage isn’t full of them.
So what does the actual evidence tell us?
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s 2024 EAVS is the official national survey of how federal elections are administered; it tracks voting methods, provisional ballots, registration, polling places, and related election data. It is built precisely to measure these things, not wave them away.
MIT Election Lab explains that provisional ballots exist for exactly these situations: when a voter’s eligibility, address, precinct, or registration status has to be checked after voting. If the voter is not eligible in that precinct/jurisdiction, the ballot is not counted. Wrong-precinct provisional ballots are often rejected; where they are counted, states generally count only races the voter was actually eligible to vote in.
Even the Heritage Foundation’s own election-fraud database, which is very obviously not a left-wing operation, describes itself as only a “sampling” of proven cases, not evidence of mass fraud, and its featured cases are scattered examples: absentee-ballot fraud, false registration, duplicate voting, etc., not proof that illegal voting “happens all the time” at decisive scale. Brennan’s assessment of that database found that claims based on it were “grossly exaggerated” and that the cases amounted to a tiny fraction of votes cast.
The AP reviewed potential fraud cases in the six 2020 battleground states Trump disputed. They found fewer than 475 potential cases out of 25.5 million presidential ballots — very obviously nowhere near enough to affect the outcome.
So the most accurate truth is this; Some people make voting mistakes; some ballots are challenged or rejected; but actual proven voter fraud is extremely rare. Rep Tenney is trying to launder ordinary administrative edge-cases into a spooky mass-fraud narrative, then adding “you can’t prove it”.
This is what happens when you elect fanatical Trump sycophants and liars like Rep. Claudia Tenney, you end up with a torrent of total BS designed to manipulate.
Here is a handy chart to help you wade through all her claims when you ask yourself if any of what she claims is true?
MAGA Christian Cranks
The nuttier right-wing religious fanatics within the MAGA cult are as always doing their thing, and so here are this week’s samples.
Let’s open this week’s subsection with what is perhaps the lest surprising bit of news. Trump cultist MAGA Pastor/GOP congressional candidate Jackson Lahmeyer caught sending inappropriate texts to a woman who is not his wife. Lahmeyer initially admits to “crossing a boundary line through text messaging.”
- Link to media story is here. (Sorry, paywalled). If you want details, then Hemant also wrote about it with lots of juicy detail on his substack here.
- When Lahmeyer’s wife found out, she accused the other woman of being a whore.
- The reported messages allegedly included Lahmeyer professing love, inviting her to a hotel room, and discussing a late-night Mar-a-Lago/strip club episode. (I have so many questions about some of that other stuff as well, it is not exactly normal Pastor stuff, but let’s park that for now)
- This “Family Values” pastor also founded Pastors for Trump, so I guess being caught like this really is on brand for a “Trump” pastor.
- He was up for a primary election this past week … but … dropped out at the last moment when this all went public.
- Chief’s Kiss to all this: Trump had endorsed this MAGA pastor Jackson Lahmeyer’s bid for Congress multiple times, declaring “HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”. (Caps-lock via Trump, not me)
- Bonus: Later in the week he confessed, that yes he did not simply send a few texts, they also exchanged bodily fluids via full sex. Then he deleted (X) his social media (FB) accounts. It has clearly not been a good week for this “Family Values” pastor. As for what comes next, oh come now you know how this works by now. He will pop in in about 6 months claiming Jesus has forgiven him and that he is really “Born Again” for real this time, and so his followers will forget all about this.
Pastor Dale Partridge says that “it’s valid to start questioning” the Holocaust.
- The Holocaust is one of the most documented crimes in human history: Nazi records, survivor testimony, photographs, camps, mass graves, confessions, trials, and the ruins of the machinery itself.
- Pretending this is suddenly up for “questions” is not scepticism, it is historical cosplay for people who think moral courage means winking at fascism while holding a Bible.
- Partridge wants to present himself as a defender of truth, but this is what happens when authoritarian theology marries internet brain rot: you start “just asking questions” about genocide and somehow still think you are the righteous one in the room.
- Brian Sauvé’s moral compass is apparently one of those novelty compasses from a pirate gift shop: it spins wildly past “Nazi books,” “pro-white publishing,” and “racial supremacy propaganda,” then suddenly locks onto tarot cards and suddenly it is “Fetch the smelling salts“
- This is Christian Nationalism encapsulated: It’s a movement that can tolerate pro-Nazi material but panics over tarot because bigotry is just fine as long as the beliefs align – if thy don’t, then all bets are off.
Eric Metaxas is very upset about a new portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama: “What president sits like that? It’s totally unpresidential. And why is Michelle so big?”
- It really is very telling when you consider the things that he gives a free pass, and the things that upset him.
- Examples of things Metaxas has never been bothered about and considers to be “presidential“: Trump posting an AI image of himself as Jesus; Trump’s Access Hollywood comments; Trump’s election-denial crusade; The post-January 6th moral sewage system; An illegal war, etc…
North Dakota state Rep. Nico Rio says that hating Muslims “is absolutely the right thing to do.”
- This latest insight fits a pattern. Rios has already been condemned by Republican leaders over an antisemitic post, and previously faced calls to resign after police bodycam footage captured him making abusive, discriminatory remarks during his DUI arrest.
- Saying hatred of all Muslims, roughly 2 billion humans, is “absolutely the right thing to do” is not courage, patriotism, or faith; it is bargain-bin authoritarian bigotry.
- Apparently Dale Partridge has discovered the cruel oppression of … (*checking notes*) … renting a room like every other start-up church, community group, yoga class, and birthday magician in America.
- This is Christian nationalism in its purest toddler form: “The government is tyranny when it helps poor people, immigrants, public schools, libraries, or anyone I don’t like, but it is God’s ordained servant when it buys my church some land.”
Lance Wallnau worries that the GOP will lose the Hispanic vote in red states because they are afraid they’re going to be “sucked up” in ICE raids whereas Hispanics in blue states are “protected by the demonic forces of the Democrat safety zones.”
- Well gosh, apparently support for mass-deportation politics costs you the votes of the people being targeted, who could have possibly seen that “plot twist”.
- Meanwhile, politicians in Blue states who don’t support mass-deportation politics but instead practise the actual teachings of Jesus by welcoming the stranger are apparently demonic.
- What a total shit show of a fog machine: scare people, blame demons when they notice, then wonder why they are not buying the product.
Todd Starnes is willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt regarding the Iran peace agreement: “He has never given me any reason not to trust him. And the reality is [that] if this is a bad deal, he’s gonna get impeached in January.”
- “He has never given me any reason not to trust him: Apparently the 37 felonies, being convicted of sexual assault, the utter incompetence of all he does, the constant and blatant corruption, and much much more, has never been a problem for Starnes.
- But he does have a point, because I honestly don’t see why a pointless, illegal, and totally failed war would ever make any difference to this cult devotee if none of that other stuff bothered him.
Joshua Haymes calls for non-Christian worship to be banned in America: “Nobody has a human right to worship demons publicly.”
- … and yet he continues to worship the demon-in-chief.
- What he perhaps fails to grasp is how dangerous this stance truly is. Once government can ban “false worship,” it can also decide his church is false the moment a bully with a different variation of belief grabs the gavel.
- Haymes isn’t defending Christianity here; he’s begging Caesar for a permission slip to persecute people.
- History is filled with rivers of blood that are sourced by a fanatical desire to impose the “right” belief and ban all other variations. It never ever worked out well.
About that the cage fight held on the lawn of the White House last Sunday … yes, as predicted, lots of cheering from these guys for that …
- Todd Starnes declares that the cage fight held on the lawn of the White House was “one of the most patriotic things I have ever seen in my life.“
- Tim Barton proclaims that criticism of the event highlights the disparity between “people that love America, that love God and people that don’t like America and reject God”: “That was on full display this weekend.”
- Rick Green gushes that the event was “red, white and blue nirvana.”
- Then a bit later in the week Tim Barton adds further thoughts when he argues that while it might seem unbecoming to host a cage fight on the White House lawn, it was okay for President Donald Trump to do so because the event was “pro-America” and “so many of the fighters were very pro-faith”: “When you have an event that is encouraging patriotism and faith, I’m gonna generally be supportive of that event.”
- etc…
Beck’s Thoughts on the Cage Fight is the winner
- Beck spent years clutching pearls so hard they needed medical attention, only to discover that presidential dignity is perfectly intact as long as the octagon has enough flags, flyovers, and Trump lighting.
- Becks’ rule is simple: if Obama speaks to young people online, civilisation weeps; if Trump hosts Bloodsport at the people’s house, it is a shining city on a hill — now with corporate logos and a concussion protocol.
It’s SPLC Open Season
Public Advocate president Eugene Delguadio is seeking to gather a million signatures “demanding the revoking of the SPLC tax status”: “This fraud group has violated all standards of decency as they seek harm to me, my family, and hundreds of friends and supporters in the pro-Family movement without apology.”
- Delgaudio’s pitch is basically: “How dare the SPLC accuse my grossly bigoted anti-LGBTQ operation of being indecent merely because of the things we say, do, publish, fundraise on, and put in mailers?” (Example: Public Advocate has long been identified by the SPLC as an anti-LGBTQ hate group. Why? Well, how about when the SPLC previously represented a gay couple after Public Advocate used their engagement photo in anti-gay campaign material to spread their bigotry)
- This “they seek harm to me and my family” routine is rich: the man runs a grievance factory that has spent years attacking other people’s families, then collapses onto the fainting couch the moment watchdogs point at the smoke coming out of the bigotry machine.
- “revoke the SPLC’s tax status” is not a magic spell activated by one million angry clipboard signatures. It is the classic persecution cosplay of the religious right: mistake accountability for oppression, call criticism “fraud,” and demand the state punish the people who noticed.
- “Pro-family,” as usual, means “my family is sacred; yours is campaign material.”
Even More Political Cartoons from the past week
As always, there are many excellent cartoons.
Adam Zyglis – When will we wake up? #AI
Matt Wuerker – Hegsethian Warfare
Daniel Boris – The Art of Surrender.
Clay Jones – It’s going to take a lot more than hydrogen peroxide to clean up this deal. #Trump #reflectingPool #Algae #Irandeal #MemorandumOfUnderstanding
He really is very very Stupid
Finally
NYC’s Joyous Knicks Victory Celebration vs. Trump’s Joyless White House UFC Fight | The Daily Show
3,502,576 views 16 Jun 2026 #DailyShow#JonStewart#Trump
Trump signs a deal with Iran that lands him back at square one, Fox News uses New York’s city-wide Knicks celebrations as an excuse to smear Mayor Mamdani, and Jon Stewart dives into what Republicans stand to gain by pitting the Knicks’ NBA championship against Trump’s UFC fight at the White House. #DailyShow#JonStewart#Knicks#Trump#ufc
- 0:00 TDS Welcome from Jon Stewart
- 0:41: Donald Trump Teases Movement in Iran Negotiations
- 3:35: The New York Knicks Won the NBA Finals
- 4:25: A TDS Staffer Caught Celebrating the Knicks
- 5:40: NYC Celebrates the Knicks Win
- 9:10: Jon Stewart Attended a Knicks Watch Party
- 10:55: Jon Shouts Out the NY Sanitation Department
- 12:02: NY Knicks Celebrations Were Joyful Chaos
- 14:40: UFC Fight Night at the White House
- 17:25: Paramount+ Airing the UFC Fight
- 19:00: The Hypocrisy of the UFC Fight Messaging