The Wheelchair Failed the Screen Test. The Rest of the Shitshow Continues.

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The week in international affairs, unfortunately. Satire and commentary; imagined dialogue is fictional.

Good news: the United States has cancelled its execution livestream.

Civilisation survives another week, albeit face-down behind a petrol station.

Trump scrapped the broadcast after widespread opposition. The firing-squad execution remains scheduled. The ethical breakthrough was therefore roughly equivalent to a restaurant withdrawing its open-kitchen concept because customers could see the rats. Reporting: Reuters.

And then there was the wheelchair.

Reports described advisers worrying about the optics of shooting a wheelchair user. Reporting: The Independent.

Imagine the production meeting.

“Sir, we’ve tested the execution with three focus groups. Strong engagement among men who photograph themselves wearing sunglasses inside pickup trucks. Unfortunately, the wheelchair is hurting us with suburban women.”

“Can we crop it?”

The administration apparently needed a communications department to discover what most people could have explained without opening PowerPoint: a government organising a watch party for a killing has wandered considerably beyond “tough on crime” and into Caligula Has a Ring Light.

Pete Hegseth must be devastated. All that effort turning the Pentagon into a basement podcast, and someone cancelled the season finale.

Meanwhile, Ohio supplied the live violence.

At Trump’s Youngstown rally, a woman wearing a “Release the Epstein Files” shirt was punched and assaulted before security intervened. Trump supplied remarks about her weight and an unsupported claim that she was a paid protester. Reporting: PEOPLE.

The crowd chanted “USA!” during the confrontation. Reporting: Fox News.

Nothing says confidence in your political movement quite like treating a cotton T-shirt as an existential threat.

Release the files?

Certainly, madam. First, please complete our customer-feedback process, which involves being punched while the president reviews your body mass index.

The man whose public image resembles a sofa attempting to escape its upholstery apparently felt this was an appropriate moment for nutritional counselling.

You might expect a president to find something useful to say when a confrontation turns violent.

Instead, America got the commentary track from a school bully who has spent eighty years being told his father will pay for it.

Across the Atlantic, Putin continued bombing Ukraine while Trump complained about Zelenskyy, including his decision to resume strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. Trump said he found him harder to deal with than Putin. Reporting: Associated Press.

Well, yes.

The burglar is generally delighted with the burglary. It is the unreasonable homeowner who keeps shouting about the missing television.

Trump’s peace process increasingly resembles a hostage negotiation conducted by someone who has already promised the kidnapper a discount on diesel.

“Volodymyr, have you considered being less invaded? You’re making Vladimir uncomfortable.”

Somewhere, a Nobel Peace Prize nomination form is quietly setting itself on fire.

Europe, meanwhile, is left contemplating the practical consequences of an American president who approaches alliances with the emotional consistency of a toddler denied a second pudding.

Perhaps NATO should stop issuing communiqués and try a sticker chart.

No rewarding the aggressor today! Excellent work! Choose a dinosaur.

Back home, even Fox is warning of trouble: its House forecast favours Democrats, while its opinion pages discuss a potential Republican wipeout. Fox News forecast; Mark Halperin’s opinion column.

When the house cheerleaders start measuring the windows for emergency exits, things are getting awkward.

Naturally, the election has not happened yet. Voters retain the opportunity to surprise everyone, including themselves.

But I picture the Truth Social drafts folder already containing two documents:

WE WON: THE GREATEST ELECTION IN HUMAN HISTORY.

WE LOST: THE BALLOTS WERE PRINTED BY COMMUNIST BADGERS.

Why wait for evidence when you can prepare the tantrum in advance?

Elsewhere, the world continued producing emergencies that cannot be resolved by shouting at a woman’s T-shirt.

In Yemen, the government said an attack on the presidential palace complex in Aden killed five people. The Saudi-led coalition also reported widespread Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure. Reporting: Reuters.

Another front. Another escalation. Another briefing in which somebody says “strategic objectives” while somebody else searches the rubble.

The geopolitical class does love a complicated diagram. Particularly when the little arrows conceal the people underneath.

And in Afghanistan, the World Food Program warned that around 19 million people could face acute hunger in the coming months. Funding shortages mean it says six out of seven acutely malnourished women and children seeking treatment are being turned away. Reporting: Associated Press.

We possess extraordinary technological capabilities.

We can deliver weapons across continents, generate a thousand fake photographs before breakfast and arrange global distribution for a presidential brain fart.

Feeding a child still requires someone to justify the expenditure.

Perhaps the children should submit a proposal.

Include projected returns. Mention innovation. Promise a fucking data centre.

And somewhere beneath the smoke machine, the Epstein files remain the question on the T-shirt.

A demand for transparency should produce documents and answers. Apparently, it can also produce a punch in the face and a presidential review of your waistline.

Release the files. Protect survivors’ identities. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. A name in a document is not proof of a crime—but political connections must never become a witness-protection programme for the powerful.

And Congress? Do your fucking job.

Investigate this administration. Put witnesses under oath. Establish what happened, who authorised it and who benefited. Where the evidence establishes impeachable conduct, bring the articles and vote to remove.

Yes, impeachment. Accountability should not require a favourable focus group or permission from the man being investigated.

The presidency is a public office. Treating it like a personal protection racket should come with an exit interview.

Release the files. Demand accountability. And stop making the woman in the T-shirt do more oversight than Congress.

That was the week.

An execution lost its broadcast slot. A protester received violence and a presidential weight assessment. Ukraine was invited to be more considerate of its invader. Fox began checking the lifeboats.

The wheelchair failed the screen test.

The rest of the shitshow has been renewed.