Iran: Now What?
· Axios reported on Sunday that Adm Bradley Cooper, the top US military commander in the region, had told Trump the US military campaign had reached the limits of its effectiveness. There is tremendous concern within U.S. government that if the Iran war picks up precipitously, which it easily could, this strain could become even more acute. That’s why, with the U.S. at a new inflection point in the Iran standoff, officials are wrestling with how to proceed, even if they won’t reveal the specific numbers underlying this tension.
· Last week, the Pentagon quietly lowered the death toll of the war with Iran from 18 to 14. This wasn’t happy news about an initial miscount but a sketchy accounting trick. Although the Defense Department at first blamed a data issue, military sources told The New York Times that the Trump administration had removed four recently killed service members from its count “because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.”
· On Monday, the government website that tracks U.S. military casualties was updated again, this time to include the four people, but placing them in a new category: “Overseas operations casualties starting July 7th 2026” is now listed separately from Operation Epic Fury—the military code name for the Iran war. July 7 is the day that the administration restarted strikes against Iran, acknowledging that the April cease-fire had definitively failed. What’s going on here is more than an effort to merely reduce the war’s death toll: The administration is trying to hide a war and ended up hiding the deaths of American service members along the way. Instead of admitting that this is a return to the original conflict, the White House now says it’s an entirely different clash—which means that Congress won’t have any role until early September, 60 days from July 10, the day the White House delivered formal notification of the conflict.
· For more than four years, a fragile truce prevailed in Yemen, where a Saudi-led military coalition and the Iran-backed Houthi militia had fought a war that pushed the country to the brink of famine. The U.S. war with Iran happened.. Over the past few weeks, the Houthis and Saudi Arabia have rapidly spiraled into a conflict that could expand into a full-blown war.
· Speaking in the Oval Office just now, Trump reiterated his threat that the United States would hit Iran very hard. He said he was briefed on a drone attack on tankers off Egypt. “It’s a little more of the same, but it’s going to be straightening out,” Trump said. “In the meantime, we’re going to be hitting them very hard, because it’s our turn to hit them,” Trump told reporters. “They know it’s coming.” He said Washington would see if there was an agreement at some point, “but we’re going to hit them very hard”.
A sign of the times
The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections.
The bookkeeping maneuver, which was described by three people briefed on it, is the latest sign of financial duress for the Democratic National Committee and its embattled leader as money troubles threaten to undercut Democratic momentum with 100 days until the midterms.
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Gordie Howe Bridge Opens
Per the Detroit Free Press. The world’s newest international crossing, the Gordie Howe International Bridge over the Detroit River between the United States and Canada, is now open to public motorists.
One of the most appealing features of the new bridge for international commerce is its direct highway-to-highway connections. The bridge can be reached on the U.S. side via a 1.8-mile interchange on Interstate 75 between Springwells Street and Clark Avenue in Detroit. Connecting ramps lead straight from I-75 to the new U.S. Port of Entry.
On the Windsor, Ontario, side, the bridge is approached via Highway 401, the E.C. Row Expressway, and Ojibway Parkway. These major routes feed directly into the Canadian port of entry and the toll infrastructure for the crossing.
See my Video of the Day
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The Detroit Tigers are Dead
In the last week the Detroit Tigers lost three games when they were leading entering the seventh inning. They lost two to Kansas City over the weekend, but the one they lost today was the worst. In today’s game the Tigers were ahead 7-0 heading into the seventh inning of their game with Baltimore, with ace Tarik Skubal on the mound. With two outs Skubal gave up his first run on a single. Skubal had thrown less than 90 pitches, but manager, A.J. Hinch took Skubal out of the game and brought in Kyle Finnegan who allowed four more runs to score. Baltimore tied the game 7-7 in the eighth inning and went on to win in the 12th inning. Today’s game was the 18th time the Tigers lost this season when leading going into the seventh inning. The Tigers’ bullpen gets my Onion of the Day. A.J. Hinch gets a Second Onion of the Day for not allowing Skubal to finish the seventh inning. A tired Skubal is better than anyone the Hinch can bring in from the bullpen.
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Contact your Congressperson
Contact your congressman by following these easy steps This can be done in a few easy steps
Step 1: find your congressman by clicking on this link, Find Your Representative | house.gov
Step 2: Put your zip code in the proper space.
Step 3: Click the button “find your representative””
Step 4: In the new page that comes up you will see a picture of your congressman. Click on your congressman’s name under the picture.
Step 5: In the new page that comes up, Click on Contact Me at the top of the page and then click on Email me.
Step 6: Fill out the information as required.
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Quote of the Day: “It was incredible,” said Howe’s grandson, who is also named Gordie. “It just (made) me think about all of the people who have worked on this bridge . . . how happy everyone must be that this bridge has come to fruition. It’s an honour to have been the first to cross.” With his grandfather’s name attached to the new international crossing, Howe said he hopes those who travel across think about the values the hockey legend represented. “He was such a people person, and I hope that they (travelers) just feel that sense of something grounded, something very humanistic,” Howe told reporters.
Orchid of the Day: The Gordie Howe Bridge.
Onion of the Day: The Detroit Tiger bullpen for blowing three games when the Tigers were winning going into the seventh inning. Today they blue a 7-1 lead.
Second Onion of the Day: A.J. Hinch for not allowing Skubal to finish the seventh inning today when the Tigers were leading 7-1. A tired Skubal is better than anyone Hinch can bring in from the bullpen.
Question of the Day: Is the war in Iran going to expand to include other mid-eastern countries?
Lyrics of the Day: Well, there’s a young man in a T-shirt
Listen to a rockin’.rollin’ station
He’s got greasy hair and greasy smile
He says, “Lord, this must be my destination.”
Lyrics of the Day for July 22, 2026. We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel
Video of the Day: Traversing the Gordie Howe Bridge
It's crazy that the Iran war will continue while Jim Crow resurrects as promised.