Martini Ambassador

I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public.

I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.

1/ Here's what I can share:

Besties

Cocaine! How HST lived as long as he did is a mystery, but he sure did it to the fullest.

I give the article a 10/10 and I hope to go out as happy as some of the subjects.

Let me be clear: I’m glad Kristi Noem was fired. But we still have to abolish ICE.

It was indeed, and it left that bit behind.

Lovely JackJack thoughtfully brought me a gift while I was lounging and scrolling. That gift was a live lizard. No jumpstart gets a gal to pop out of bed faster. (Don’t worry, critter was captured and released, relatively unharmed, possibly wiser.)

Let's try this again 👋

Hi Bluesky - I'm Massachusetts' Attorney General. You might know me from suing President Trump nearly 50 times, beating Uber and Lyft in court, or being the first woman of color elected to statewide office in MA.

I officially left X today - help me find my MA people?

Genuinely the most disingenuous people on the planet. Or dumbest. Or both?

Heartbreaking

Members-only Philly cop bar has been linked to two DUIs — and a third crash kept secret, until now Anna Wakeman still questions why 7C Lounge bartenders didn’t stop serving the officer who crashed into her house and upended her life five years ago.

"The cops can drink as much as they want there...The bartenders serve them till they're blackout drunk and let them leave." Quote from a woman who was hit by a drunk-driving cop *while sitting in her living room.* This story from the @inquirer.com is a hell of a thing. share.inquirer.com/yynTQX

I feel like Dog lost a place or two in the standings by stopping a few seconds before crossing the finish line. But you really have to admire her strong sense of sportsmanship as she enthusiastically congratulates the other athletes.

😬😬😬

Wow.

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

This is so very perfect

It’s too far for me to go, but you Calif folks get in on that!

Koita-kun the octopus and Meika-chan the squid are a couple, and they’re the mascots for the Shiranuka-Kotoi roadside rest stop in Hokkaido.

ICE attacked an observer after they tailed a group of clergy on a spiritual pilgrimage.

Our digital producer @sam.vp just so happened to be with the clergy on their journey. He spoke with the observer who was attacked and others who witnessed the assault.

Full text: Charter of Trump’s Board of Peace No mention of Gaza, which bolsters ToI's reporting that US also envisions panel helping resolve other conflicts worldwide; member countries must pay $1 billion for permanent spot

I’ve been reading Trump’s "Board of Peace Charter," and despite the name, this isn’t a multilateral institution, it’s a centralised structure built entirely around the authority of one person (Trump).
www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-ch...

Blind, slow and 500 years old – or are they? How scientists are unravelling the secrets of Greenland sharks Described by one researcher as looking ‘already dead’, the enigmatic creatures are one of the least understood species on the planet

Blind, slow and 500 years old – or are they? How scientists are unravelling the secrets of Greenland sharks

DOGE worked with political group to probe voter rolls, Trump admin admits Read more here.

🚨BREAKING: Federal officials acknowledged that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees coordinated with a political advocacy group on a “voter data agreement” aimed at analyzing voter rolls in an effort to challenge election outcomes. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

The light was briefly amazing today

DHS seeking to deport two men who said fellow ICE detainee was killed The two men’s eyewitness accounts of the Jan. 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at a Texas detention camp differ from the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the incident.

The Trump admin is moving to quickly deport two men who witnessed, they say, ICE guards choke a fellow detainee to death.

The admin moved to deport men right after they spoke the Washington Post.

This is the death that the medical examiner has already ruled likely homicide.

wapo.st/4qR1T1U

Still wondering when Congress is planning on finding their spine. Or maybe they are cool with their constituents paying another legally-questionable tax because the toddler is having a tantrum. 🤷‍♀️

If there’s a better obituary for an evil cartoonist than an A.I. generated version of his character that fucks up the defining detail of its design, I can’t think of it. No notes. 👨🏻‍🍳 💋

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirem...

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

(Published June 2025)

A pigeon done in Procreate, just ‘cause. #birds #birdart #digitalart #pigeonsky

I would read the hell out of that epic tale.

A Posse of Proximate Penguins as a Prelude to a Petite Helping of Heroic History Charcot Bay residents in a place named by a intrepid explorer for another intrepid explorer

A longer read today on a bit of the “Heroic Age” of Antarctic exploration. Plus penguins.

martiniambassador.substack.com/p/a-posse-of...

The Stygian Owl He's known in some parts of the world as a "Devil Owl," but really he's just quite curious

It’s superb owl season, so I have another relevant post

open.substack.com/pub/martinia...