THE WAR ROOM: No one ever won a war with just aerial bombing so Donald Trump is trying to do it by bragging.

  After striking Iran once again, President Trump said aboard Air Force One that, “I say we hit them 20 to one every time they hit us, we’re gonna hit them 20. And we did it last night and we did a little something today.”

  “We attacked Kharg Island last night,” Trump said, referring to Iran’s vital oil terminal. “I said don’t touch the oil because maybe we’ll take over Kharg Island.”

  Taking Kharg Island would require a bloody ground assault.

  Asked if the US is returning to full scale conflict Trump said, “I don’t know, we’d win it very quickly.” That would be the war he claimed to have won on the opening night and many times since.

  Trump posted multiple pictures of explosions in Iran and wrote on his Truth Social that, “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!”

  Analysis from The Institute for the Study of War says that, “Iran’s behavior after the latest US strikes indicates that the Iranian regime values control over the strait more than avoiding renewed escalation with the United States, and that, “The present pattern of US strikes does not appear to be changing Iran’s calculus on controlling the Strait of Hormuz.” 

  Trump said Iran wants to make a deal “so badly.”

END OF THE TRAIL:  Maine oyster fisherman Graham Platner yesterday ended his upstart campaign as a Democrat running for Congress claiming “the corporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury, and executioner” following a claim by a former girlfriend that he had raped her.

  In a video message Platner said the rape accusation and previous complaints that he had mistreated other women were politically motivated. He said, “This was the last week to try to get me off of the ballot and that’s why this is occurring.”

  Entirely new to politics, Platner had become a populist threat to knock out Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins. The Democrats must now scramble to find a candidate who can do as well, or better.

 INFINITE SCROLL: 

— A federal judge yesterday ordered the $5 million award exacted from Donald Trump to be released to writer E. Jean Carroll. The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s appeal as well as a last-minute request to get them to reconsider.

  The money has been held by the court since a Manhattan jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. The jury also found that Trump defamed Carroll by calling her allegations against him “a Hoax and a lie” on social media. 

— After insulting allies during the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump told the press that “They said, ‘Sir, we love you.’ These are grown people saying that. Isn’t that nice?”

— President Trump and his party at the request of the Secret Service returned from Turkey yesterday on the old Air Force One, not the new jet given to him by Qatar, now nicknamed by critics “Qatar One.” The move raises questions as to whether the new jet has all the necessary security equipment.

  White House communications director  Steven Cheung said that “the new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff.”  The Secret Service didn’t think so.

— As they did after fatal shootings in Minneapolis, federal authorities have blocked the locals from taking part in the investigation of the ICE killing of a Mexican immigrant in Houston.

— A federal appeals court shot down a renewed demand by President Trump to have his name put back on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named for the assassinated president. Trump has argued that the Kennedy Center’s bylaws require it to return contributions unless his name is put back on the facade.

FLIGHT RISK: A flight instructor in Argentina opened the plane’s door, told his 22-year-old student, “You know what you have to do,” then jumped out leaving her to land the airplane herself. Colleagues said they have no idea why the instructor, Leandro Andrés Bertazzo, jumped to his death.

THE OBIT PAGE: Bonnie Tyler, the Welsh singer who belted out the No. 1 hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” one of the pop anthems of the 1980s, died yesterday at a hospital in Portugal following emergency intestinal surgery. She was 75.

THE SPIN RACK: Taco Bell restaurants in several states are pulling fresh produce ingredients from the menu because a fast-growing parasite outbreak. A notice says they’ve stopped selling “Lettuce, Cilantro Onion, Pico de Gallo and Guacamole.” — A new study says gray wolves re-introduced to California are eating more livestock than natural prey. A professor at UC Davis says the success of the wolves has been because of the availability of cattle. 

BELOW THE FOLD: A Brazilian court sentenced a couple to 50 days in prison on charges of “intellectual neglect” homeschooling their two daughters without a state-approved curriculum.
  A São Paulo criminal court ruled that the couple failed to include instruction on “gender and sex education” and “tolerance and diversity” in the curriculum for their daughters, aged 15 and 11, and for failing to integrate their children into Brazilian culture.