THE WAR ROOM: President Trump declared yesterday in the Oval Office that he’s giving Iran one “last chance before decapitation.”
   “This is a last chance,” Trump said. “This is the last chance for them to sign a good document,” and that, “I want to give them every last chance before decapitation.” 
  Trump has previously delivered at least a dozen unfulfilled ultimatums.
  Earlier on social media Trump was whining that Iran won’t play fair. He posted on his Truth Social that; “Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous! They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman.’” 
  Trump complained that Iran claims they will control the Strait of Hormuz then beat his American chest saying the strait;  “Is already completely controlled by the United States Navy and our ‘Blockade’ or, as some say, ‘The United States Wall of Steel!’ Nothing gets through to Iran, unless we want it to, and nothing will get through, unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished.”
  Trump seems to think that social media posts will force Iran to surrender when bombs have not.
 
THE WOODSHED: Washington’s US Attorney Jeanine Pirro was taken to the White House woodshed yesterday for dropping vandalism charges involving the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.
  Trump, who insists that damage at the reflecting pool was vandalism, not poor workmanship, said Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella” when she dropped felony vandalism charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn. Present at the meeting was Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose staff may have provided false information supporting the criminal charges. 
  For the moment, anyway, Pirro was not fired and didn’t resign. But the meeting demonstrates how Trump presides over the Justice Department.
 
BANK ON IT: Filings in a lawsuit brought by the Trump family businesses reveal that  Capital One bank closed 385 accounts tied to the Trump Organization, Eric Trump, and a collection of affiliated businesses because the bank suspected they were being used for money laundering.
  Capital One shut down the accounts in mid-2021 and the Trump companies sued, claiming that the action was taken for political reasons after the January 6th insurrection.  “Capital One, along with other major banks, de-banked President Trump, his family, and his businesses for blatantly political reasons,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said.
  The bank in subsequent legal filing says it never gave reasons at the time, citing a law that says they don’t have to.
 
IN TRANSITION: The military has been quietly kicking out trans gender service members in private separation hearings in which outsiders are not allowed, sometimes not even the soldier in question, and there is no public record, The NY Times reports.
  The Times reports on a lawyer representing those soldiers who is 0 for 28 in her attempts to keep her clients in uniform. Having stellar services records doesn’t help.
  The trans soldiers are banned from attending their own hearing if they refuse to dress or cut their hair in accordance with their birth sex. 

INFINITE SCROLL: 
— Two lame duck Republican holdouts said they will vote for acting attorney general Todd Blanche to have permanent appointment after he agreed on paper to kill the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that was part of President Trump’s legal settlement with the IRS. Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina said in a joint statement that they “look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon.”
— As many as four million Americans are no longer receiving food aid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or just “food stamps,” following cuts passed by congressional Republicans in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
  The White House had claimed the program was “bloated.”
 
— After the release of historically low job performance polls, President Trump claimed without citing the polls or the numbers that his “real” numbers are great.
  Trump wrote, “My REAL Polling Numbers, not those made up by the Fake News Media, are the best they have ever been, and why wouldn’t they be with the biggest tax cuts and employment numbers EVER, the biggest outside Investment in America in World history, a totally secure Border, a giant Victory in Venezuela, the Denuclearization of Iran, unparalleled respect and success throughout the World, and much more? Don’t believe the Radical Left’s Fake Poll numbers.”
  He also posted a meme of himself, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln sitting at a desk signing a document with quill pens.
 
— Trump posted that he won the Bedminster Golf Club tournament over the weekend. He tends to win at golf clubs he owns.
 
THE CLASSICS: Literature nerds and movie lovers are abuzz over the panning given to the epic “The Odyssey” by British scholar Emily Wilson, who published a popular translation of Homer’s poem in 2017.
  Wilson wrote; “It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours.” She said, “It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
 
THE SPIN RACK:  Authorities in Spokane County, Washington arrested a 37-year-old man they suspect of starting one of three fires that forced more than 65,000 people to evacuate. — Two people died in Michigan in the outbreak of cyclosporiasis, more commonly described as “explosive diarrhea.” 
 
BELOW THE FOLD:  Investment firm Goldman Sachs is building an 800,000 square foot facility in Texas that would employ 5,000 money laborers in a bet that New York’s Wall Street will move south to become “Y’all Street.”