Hello and greetings from the Genesee Valley of Western New York. Welcome to Tuesday, June 2, 2026. Today is American Indian Citizenship Day, National Rotisserie Chicken Day, National Rocky Road Day, National Leave the Office Early Day, and International Volkswagen Bus Day.
1835: P. T. Barnum & his circus begin first tour of United States.
1851: First U.S. alcohol prohibition law enacted in Maine, followed by the Rum Riot in Portland of 1855.
1862: Robert E. Lee takes command of the Confederate armies of North Virginia during the American Civil War.
1863: Harriet Tubman leads Union guerrillas into Maryland, freeing slaves.
1875: Alexander Graham Bell makes first sound transmission
1896: Italian engineer and inventor Guglielmo Marconi applies for the first-ever patent for a system of wireless telegraphy in the United Kingdom.
1903: First patent for adrenaline (epinephrine) granted to Japanese-American chemist Jokichi Takamine.
1924: President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act (also known as the Snyder Act), declaring all Native Americans to be American citizens.
1928: Kraft, building on the original 1918 design, rolls out Velveeta cheese.
1933: FDR authorizes the first swimming pool built inside the White House. It’s now the press room.
1953: Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey.
1958: Alan Freed joins WABC (NYC) radio.
1962: Ray Charles’ cover of Don Gibson’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You” from his influential crossover album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music hits #1 on Billboard
1967: Capitol Records releases The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the U.S.
1975: RCA releases David Bowie’s single “Fame” in the U.S.; the song, which features a cameo appearance by John Lennon, becomes Bowie’s first No. 1 hit.
1989: 10,000 Chinese soldiers are blocked by 100,000 citizens in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, protecting students demonstrating for democracy
Birthdays today include: Marquis de Sade, French philosopher and writer (Justine) and from whom the words “sadism” and “sadist” are derived; Edward Elgar, English composer (Coronation Ode, Pomp and Circumstance); Johnny Weissmuller, actor (Tarzan, Jungle Jim) and swimmer (Olympic gold medalist); Pete Conrad, Navy pilot and NASA astronaut (Gemini 5, Gemini 11, Apollo 12, Skylab 2); Jimmy Jones, singer-songwriter (“Handy Man”); Earl Young, session and touring drummer, considered the father of the disco beat (The Trammps; MFSB); Charlie Watts, rock and jazz drummer (Rolling Stones, 1963-2021); Stacy Keach, American actor (Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Up In Smoke); William Guest, American soul singer (Gladys Knight & the Pips); Antone “Chubby” Tavares, American R&B singer (Tavares – “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel“); Marvin Hamlisch, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards winner and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and conductor (The Sting; A Chorus Line); Jerry Mathers, actor (Leave It To Beaver); and Wayne Brady, actor and comedian (Whose Line Is It Anyway?).
If today’s your day also, have a great day!
* * *
Victor Davis Hanson this morning at American Greatness:
The Trump administration has bent over backward to negotiate an end to Iran’s grand plans to develop nuclear weapons—before the June 2025 bombing, afterward, and again during the follow-up diplomacy of spring 2026.
However…
Yet Iran is unlikely ever to abandon its pursuit of the bomb voluntarily. With nuclear weapons, Tehran hopes to become the de facto hegemon of the Middle East. Only then could it effectively coerce or deter both Israel and the wealthy Arab Gulf states. And that is the charitable view, one that excludes the possibility of a messianic Shiite theocracy believing that eliminating the “one-bomb” state of Israel would forever ensure the Shiite minority permanent preeminence in the pantheon of Islamic jihadists.
After three months of intermittent war, we are now better acquainted with Iran’s intentions and the realities of the conflict.
The Iranian regime has never viewed “negotiations” as a path leading to an ultimate “deal.” At best, the regime’s supposedly “elected” government plays good cop, while the bad cop theocratic henchmen periodically violate whatever understandings have been reached. Accordingly, talks remain perpetually fluid, punctuated by delays, pauses, and renewed demands. The regime’s art of “dealing” is not aimed at resolution but at gaining strategic advantage by postponing any military effort that leads to their demise. The regime’s mere survival is broadcast as victory, whatever the damage to the country.
Mmm. This leads me to a conclusion a number of you are not going to like.
Let’s drop any pretense of generosity: The Islamic Republic will never scrap its nuclear ambitions. Not under pressure, not under sanctions, not under any conditions anyone dreams up in a Geneva conference room. Forty-seven years of broken agreements speak for themselves. It has torched every deal it’s ever touched, and nothing suggests this crowd intends to start honoring its commitments now.
That leaves one option on the table: regime change. Stop dancing around it and start planning for it.
Will the region back such a move? Almost certainly.
Oman, Kuwait, the UAE, the Saudis, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Israel won’t exactly be lighting candles in mourning over the Islamic Republic’s demise. Nor China nor Russia. The neighborhood has wanted this problem solved for decades. The only hand-wringing comes from the usual suspects — Democrats stateside and their RINO fellow travelers. Thomas Massie, soon to be a private citizen with more time to vote “present” on his couch, is the poster child.
So imagine, for the sake of discussion, that we actually do it. We gut the Islamic Republic root and branch — the civilian government, the IRGC, the entire fetid apparatus. Gone.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth that follows: Whatever government rises from those ashes will have to play hardball with the hardliners from day one. No soft landings, no reconciliation tours. Someone will need to keep the true believers in their box — and that job won’t be pretty. It’s the same situation the Shah was trying to contain when Jimmy Carter decided it was in our interests to abandon him.
Hanson seems to be working along the same lines:
The regime believes its own advantage lies in the long term and beyond the battlefield itself. For nearly half a century, this wicked regime has survived through propaganda, bloodcurdling threats, slaughtering civilians at home and abroad, terrorist proxies and clients, and mastery of both global politics and the internal politics of its adversaries, especially in the U.S. and Europe.
Its strategy is also to feign detachment from reality and appear capable of doing anything to anyone anywhere at any time. Iran’s leaders are like the crazy assailant on the subway who feels he can do anything he wishes, since most people either fear his antics or don’t wish to stoop to his level to stop him.
[…]
All threats, ultimatums, and vows are also not credible. They are designed to bluff or mislead opponents into miscalculations. The more left-leaning American presidents, whether Clinton, Obama, or Biden, reached out to dialogue and normalize with Iran, the more the Iranians loathed these presidents for being weak.
They view Europe and the U.S. not as nations, but as various successive governments and administrations that, to various degrees, can be manipulated. And they have utter contempt for perceived Western appeasement. Magnanimity they interpret as weakness to be exploited, never as kindness to be reciprocated.
All of which leaves us with only one only option: to remove the current government. The new government, whatever shape it assumes, is going to need to be nastier than the factions it is trying to overcome. It’s a violent area, having been steeped in violence for generations. Alas, much as I dislike the idea, it’s the only way to deal with the problems there long-term.
This goes directly to a point Lisa Daftari at Fox News made last April:
Washington cannot afford to treat diplomacy as an end in itself. An agreement that is not backed by real enforcement, credible military deterrence and a clear understanding of who holds power in Tehran will not hold.
Washington has to stop pretending this regime can be “managed” with better communiqués and slightly tougher clauses. The problem is not the wording of the deal. The problem is the nature of the regime that signs it.
That means regime change is the only viable option. Getting that job done will mean some bloodshed. Sorry, that’s the reality. Although I’ll point out that there’ll be bloodshed if the current regime remains, too, at least for a while. The shortest path to peace, therefore, remains removing the current regime.
Removing the current regime, in its turn, will allow the left here in the U.S. to complain that Trump has let loose some murderous psychopaths. They’d say that regardless of any other factor, of course, because they feel it gives them a political advantage. The argument is nullified on its face, however, given the number of dead at the hands of the current regime. That’s a factor the left never seems to include in its arguments.
We need to face the fact that the place has been soaked in blood for generations now, and getting things under control there, and particularly removing the Nuclear option, is going to require more of it, and often in methods we don’t like.
We’ve spent years and lives trying to run away from that solution. But sometimes, avoiding a punch hurts worse than actually taking one. This is one such situation.
The only viable way to get out of the remaining rounds of Whack-A-Mole is to completely remove the Iranian regime. It’s time for us to set our minds to that.
Thought of the Day: Silence is Golden. Duct tape is silver.
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Take care today, because I’m hoping you’ll be here tomorrow — and I’m not the only one.
Exclusively for our VIPs: Big Boy’s Coming, Part One
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