Newt Gingrich and the party of ideas

Newt Gingrich — I regret that these two words are not followed by “has died,” so sorry to get peoples’ hopes up, especially since I’ve got a feeling that Erik’s obit is going to be thermonuclear — has some fresh ideas about what to do about the whole Strait of Hormuz kerfuffle, although strictly speaking they don’t appear to be original:

Instead of fighting over a 21-mile-wide bottleneck forever, we cut a new channel through friendly territory. A dozen thermonuclear detonations and you’ve got a waterway wider than the Panama Canal, deeper than the Suez, and safe from Iranian attacks.

Readers added context some potentially sobering context:

**This proposal originates from a satirical article published the same day, presented as a humorous open letter with a disclaimer that its views “do not necessarily represent those of anyone with brain cells.” No such nuclear-excavated canal exists.** chinatalk.media/p/its-time

This is the kind of negativity that Donald Trump’s spiritual guide Norman Vincent Peale considered fundamentally un-American.

If you nuke it they will come.

Meanwhile Trump is perplexed that after more than a year of trashing every alliance the USA formerly enjoyed, by the on and off imposition of wildly arbitrary tariffs, bellicose posturing about invading friendly nations because Trump likes real estate, and generally being a gigantic fucking asshole even by his unspeakably vile standards, nobody is responding to his demands that his unfathomable stupidity be bailed out by all the people he’s utterly alienated. Except for maybe Keir Starmer, who is apparently angling for the heretofore unreachable achievement of a 0% approval rating.