It’s Not a TACO. It’s a Surrender.

IRAN 1, TRUMP 0

William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift

Apr 08, 2026

Well, that was all pretty dumb, wasn’t it? 

Happy Wednesday.

by William Kristol

I’m old enough to remember when President Trump assured us, “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

That was a month ago.

While Iran's proxy network is severely damaged, Tehran maintains several critical reasons to negotiate

The Greek Courier
April 10, 2026

Why would Iran choose to negotiate a ceasefire or open the Strait of Hormuz while Israel CONTINUES to undermine its strategic military advantage and asymmetric warfare capabilities across Lebanon, Iraq, and the broader Middle East? 

Iran’s recent decision to engage in negotiations—culminating in the two-week ceasefire announced on April 7—appears to be a calculated response to severe military and economic pressures following 38 days of intensified conflict with Israel and the United States. Despite the substantial damage inflicted on Tehran's "Axis of Resistance" network of proxies, Iran has several compelling reasons to pursue negotiations.

Melania says her piece about Epstein – doth the lady protest too much?

The US politics sketch
Melania Trump
The first lady unleashed a barrage of denials – and put one of her husband’s biggest political liabilities back on the agenda

David Smith in Washington
Thu 9 Apr 2026 23.17 BST

When Donald Trump launched a seemingly random war against Iran, there was a whiff of suspicion of a Wag the Dog ploy to divert attention from how badly the Jeffrey Epstein scandal was going.

So when Trump’s wife, Melania, made a mysterious appearance at the White House on Thursday to put Epstein front and centre again, was it an elaborate ruse to divert attention from how badly the Iran war is going?

Iran war: US to host Israel, Lebanon peace talks

POLITICSIRAN DEUTSCHEWELLE

2 hours ago

Even as Israel has continued its attacks on Lebanon and Hezbollah has launched rockets into Israel, the US State Department reportedly said it will hold peace talks with officials from Israel and Lebanon. DW has more.

Ships remain cautious approaching Strait of Hormuz amid fragile ceasefire

2 hours ago
Tom Edgington, Joshua Cheetham, and Kayleen Devlin, 

BBC Verify
The Strait of Hormuz has become a focal point of the US-Israel war with Iran after Tehran effectively choked off one of the world's most important shipping lanes.

A two-week US-Iran ceasefire agreed on Tuesday included a condition that "safe passage" through the narrow waterway would be guaranteed. However, vessels in the area have received messages that they would be "targeted and destroyed" if they attempted to cross the strait without permission, and only a few ships have made the journey over the past two days.

The War Is Bad. The Cease-Fire Doesn’t Exist. The Future Is Awful.

IDEAS, POLITICS AND POWER

America and the World

Iran taking operational control of the Strait of Hormuz has enormous ripple effects.

by David Dayen

April 9, 2026

It took not even 24 hours for the tollbooth on the Strait of Hormuz to snap shut. Israel, whose desires to act as a saboteur and trap the United States into the war it desperately wanted us to conduct couldn’t be more obvious, spent Wednesday pounding central Beirut with airstrikes, hitting 100 targets in ten minutes, with at least 112 dead. Iran and the U.S. have very different conceptions of whether Lebanon counts as part of the nascent cease-fire. After Donald Trump confirmed that in his view Israel and Lebanon are in a “separate skirmish,” which conflicts with the view of Pakistan, the country that mediated the dispute, Iran showed its displeasure by closing the strait to oil tankers, and now the Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened military action against “aggressors in the region” (Israel) if the Lebanon attacks continue.

What Would a Fiscal Crisis Look Like?

Jan 22, 2026

The U.S. national debt is approaching record levels as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and currently stands at 100% of GDP, while interest costs are surging to new records and budget deficits remain elevated at around 6% of GDP.

Live updates: Iran media says Strait of Hormuz closed

(NewsNation) — Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli strikes on Lebanon, a move that comes less than 24 hours after an temporary ceasefire agreement that included reopening the critical passage.

At a press briefing following the news, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the closure was “completely unacceptable” but still called the ceasefire a victory.

 Stocks surge as oil plunges amid Iran ceasefire deal > 

Live Updates: White House says reports of Strait of Hormuz closure are false as Iran claims Israel violating ceasefire

By Tucker Reals, Sarah Lynch Baldwin

April 8, 2026 / 2:12 PM EDT / CBS News

What to know about the Iran war today:

• Iran is accusing Israel of violating the conditional ceasefire announced by President Trump by continuing its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iranian media outlets say Tehran is suspending tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and considering pulling out of the deal with Washington over Israel's actions.
• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Trump is aware of reports saying the strait has been closed, but said the reports "are false."
• There were new attacks on America's Persian Gulf allies early Wednesday after the ceasefire announcement, and then reports of explosions on two Iranian islands in the Gulf.
• Energy and stock markets embraced the ceasefire news, with oil still trading well above pre-war levels but dropping below $100 a barrel. Stock markets in Asia and Europe soared and U.S. futures were up significantly.

For people like Laura Loomer, Peace with Iran is not an Option

The Greek Courier

March 8, 2026

The US is going to learn the hard way that Trump's victory ceasefire is nothing to write home about, his White House influencer believes

Laura Loomer, a conservative influencer in the White House, echoed a common sentiment among critics of the negotiations, namely, that appeasement could embolden adversaries, and expressed significant disappointment over the recent temporary ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran, which was announced by Donald Trump. Loomer heavily criticized the diplomatic negotiations, arguing that they undermined American interests. She also deepened the divide within the GOP between those who oppose the war and those who support it.

Relive Artemis 2's epic moon flyby with these amazing photos

Earthset, captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT on April 6, 2026, during the Artemis 2 crew’s flyby of the moon. (Image credit: NASA)

News
By Mike Wall 

Published 14 hours ago
We haven't seen imagery like this in more than half a century

The Artemis 2 astronauts' photography skills were up to the epic task. The spaceflyers — NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — flew around the far side of the moon on Monday (April 6), something no humans had done since NASA's Apollo 17 mission back in 1972.

‘A wow moment’: Democrats make big gains in key battlegrounds

They notched a landslide victory in Wisconsin and cut into the GOP’s margins in Georgia’s reddest House district.

By ANDREW HOWARD 

04/08/2026

Democrats just had one of their best election nights since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Again.

US and Iran agree to two-week truce after Trump pulls back on threats

Copyright Vahid Salemi/AP Photo 

By Emma De Ruiter

Published on 08/04/2026 - 5:22 GMT+2•Updated 8:07

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Trump said he was holding off on his threatened attacks on Iranian bridges and power plants, as the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire late on Tuesday, barely an hour before US President Donald Trump's deadline for Iran to capitulate was set to expire.

Trump pulled back on earlier apocalyptic threats that a "whole civilisation will die” if Tehran failed to reach a deal, holding off on attacks on Iranian bridges and power plants, a war crime against sites that are primarily of civilian usage.

The Last Temptation of Trump at the End of a Failed War

ARGUMENT: UNITED STATES, IRAN

The president has backed himself into a corner where making a deal with Iran risks appearing, in his eyes, like a humiliating failure
Hussein Banai 
Associate professor of international studies at Indiana University, Bloomington

April 7, 2026

Could the 25th Amendment be invoked against Trump? Here's how it works

By Louis Jacobson and Amy Sherman, PolitiFact

Apr 6, 2026 

This article originally appeared on PolitiFact.

President Donald Trump's profanity-laced Easter Sunday social media post threatening to bomb civilian infrastructure in Iran led some Democratic lawmakers to call for his removal via the 25th Amendment.

Live Updates: Trump says "whole civilization will die tonight" as strikes on Iran ramp up ahead of his deadline

By Tucker Reals

Updated on: April 7, 2026 / 11:22 AM EDT 

CBS News

What to know about the Iran war today:

• The Iranian regime called on young people to form human chains around the country's power plants as President Trump warns "a whole civilization will die" in Iran if the country's theocratic regime doesn't make a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by his 8 p.m. Eastern deadline.
• U.S. and Israeli strikes escalated even ahead of Mr. Trump's deadline, with Israel acknowledging attacks on Iranian railways and bridges and the U.S. launching fresh strikes on the oil export hub of Kharg Island. At least 18 civilians were killed by the strikes in one province alone Tuesday, according to an Iranian official.
• Mr. Trump has indicated he will not give Iran more time to make a deal, but he said Monday he believes the regime is negotiating "in good faith," and he called a set of proposals Tehran sent in response to his administration's 15-point peace proposal a "significant step."

Capitalism Had a Beginning and Will Someday End

JACOBIN
04.01.2026

Interview with Sven Beckert

Historian Sven Beckert on where the capitalist system came from, what keeps it alive, and what it would take to bring it down.

Interview by Loren Balhorn

Will Operation Epic Fury Affect the Midterm Elections?

COUNCIL on FOREIGN RELATIONS
An unpopular war with Iran will put more political pressure on Republican congressional candidates the longer it persists.

Published April 3, 2026

By James M. Lindsay

Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy