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Whiplash in Iran Negotiations
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Iran’s president resigned. No, he didn’t. Iran leaves negotiations. Now they are back. Iran fires drones, but the ceasefire is still on. Every five minutes, the story changes. Washington Post: Iran said Monday that it was breaking off talks with the Trump administration to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz following an escalation of Israeli military action in Lebanon and renewed airstrikes around the Persian Gulf. President Donald Trump, however, insisted that negotiations were ongoing. “Talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote Monday in a social media post. An Iranian official briefed on the talks told The Washington Post that negotiations were suspended because of Israel’s intensifying military attacks in Lebanon. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. ( Washington Post). By the time you read this, the story may be different.
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Whiplash in Lebanon Policies
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Iran says the key issue in its decision to stop negotiations is Israel’s progress in its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. They demanded a ceasefire, and Trump may have delivered at least a partial one, to the displeasure of Bibi Netanyahu. Reuters: Lebanon on Monday announced a partial ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, in what would amount to a limited de-escalation of a conflict that has killed thousands of people and inflamed the broader war with Iran. According to Lebanon’s embassy in Washington, the agreement, which would not end the conflict in that country, calls for Israel to refrain from strikes on Beirut and its suburbs controlled by Hezbollah, while the Iran-aligned group would halt its attacks on Israel. U.S. President Donald Trump, who first announced the agreement, said Hezbollah, through intermediaries, had pledged not to attack Israel. No U.S. president has ever spoken with Hezbollah, with or without intermediaries. The group is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. Trump also said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to pull back any troops preparing to attack Lebanon. After Trump’s announcement, Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations in southern Lebanon, where ground forces are pushing toward the Zaharani River, their deepest incursion in Lebanon in 25 years. ( Reuters.) Netanyahu’s coalition may fall apart if the ceasefire is implemented completely, but the pressure Trump reportedly put on him was, shall we say, intense. Axios: President Trump lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon in an expletive-laden call on Monday, two U.S. officials and a third source briefed on the call told Axios. Why it matters: Earlier on Monday, Iran threatened to abandon the negotiations with the U.S. over Israel’s actions in Lebanon. On the call, Trump called Netanyahu “crazy” and accused him of ingratitude, according to two of the sources. He also put the brakes on Israel’s plan to strike Beirut. ( Axios.)
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California Primaries Are Tomorrow, and Democrats Aren’t Voting as Much as Usual
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Right now, the California governor’s race in the jungle primary appears too close to call, and Democrat turnout is a bit lower than normal. CalMatters: The latest polls suggest it’s a three-way competition for the top-two spots in the California governor’s race, and a big reason that we don’t have a clear sense of who’s ahead is that many Democratic voters are waiting until the last minute to choose a candidate. In roughly 24 hours, voters across the state will finish deciding whose names will appear on the November ballot to lead California for the next four years. Three nonpartisan polls released last week showed Democrat Xavier Becerra ahead, with Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer neck-and-neck for the second spot. Millions have already submitted their ballots before Election Day, but like previous gubernatorial primary elections, turnout has been relatively low compared to general elections: As of Sunday, only 15.10% of all ballots have been submitted, according to the voter data firm Political Data Inc. That’s a similar rate during the June 2022 primary, when 14.53% of ballots were returned three days before Election Day. The 0.57 percentage point difference may not sound like much, but dig a bit deeper and the data reveals that Democratic voters are turning in their ballots slower than they did in 2022: 15% of Democratic ballots have been returned to date, compared to 17% four years ago. Meanwhile, a higher percentage of Republicans have returned their ballots, with 19% of GOP ballots submitted compared to 17% in 2022. ( CalMatters.) What’s really at stake is whether the top two candidates are both Democrats, or whether Republican Steve Hilton will face Xavier Becerra or Tom Steyer in November.
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Colombian Leftists Cry Foul as Right-Wing Candidate Wins First-Round Vote for President
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As reported yesterday, the right-leaning candidate finished first in the Colombian presidential primary. Today the leftists united to cry foul. Associated Press: Tough-on-crime outsider Aberaldo de la Espriella took the lead in Colombia’s presidential race in the first round of voting Sunday night, setting up a runoff with Iván Cepeda, an ally of Colombia’s outgoing President Gustavo Petro who questioned the results of the election. With no candidate taking an outright majority of the vote, the election will head to a second round in June. But Cepeda and Petro sowed doubt in the results of the first round, claiming without evidence that hundreds of thousands of votes were manipulated and that foreign actors manipulated the results of the election. Cepeda said he was waiting for electoral authorities to scrutinize the results before accepting the election. “Only when the vote-counting commissions have fully clarified what happened will we comment on tonight’s results,” Cepeda said, though he acknowledged the vote was likely going to a second round. ( Associated Press.) When leftists lose, they always cry foul. Ask Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams about that.
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Canada’s Globe and Mail Admits it “Dropped the Ball” on Mass Graves Hoax
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For several years, Canadians have been told that mass graves had been found at Catholic boarding schools for Indigenous Canadians. The reality, though, is none were ever found. Finally, Canada’s Globe and Mail apologized for promoting what turned out to be a hoax. Globe and Mail: The fact of the crimes committed against Indigenous children at residential schools over many decades does not automatically validate claims that hundreds of students were dumped into unmarked graves in Kamloops and other residential schools. That is an extraordinary assertion, one that requires proof. That should have been the starting point for the media in May, 2021, when the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation first issued a press release announcing the “confirmation of the remains of 215 children of the Kamloops Indian Residential School” through the use of ground-penetrating radar that identified subterranean anomalies. The media, including The Globe and Mail, did not initially scrutinize, much less challenge, that assertion. The initial headlines and stories in the media simply stated as fact that the remains of 215 children had been found… The lesson of 2021 should be: assertions about residential schools should be listened to carefully, and then, just as carefully, held up to scrutiny. ( Globe and Mail.) Unfortunately, “denialism” is still treated as a human rights offense in Canada.
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Bodycam Footage in Horrific Slaying of Henry Nowak, Boy Who UK Police Let Die Because His Killer Accused Him of Racism
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The horrific case of Henry Nowak, whom the police let die as they handcuffed him, is just as bad as we all thought. After months of hiding the evidence, the police finally released the body cam footage of the police who mocked Nowak as he lay dying, chatting with his murderer as he did. David Strom: A young university student was walking home from a night at the pub—he was not intoxicated—recording himself when he came across a Sikh man holding a sword. Within seconds, he was stabbed, and within minutes, he was dead. In the intervening time, the police showed up, and his killer told them that the victim, Henry Nokak, said racist things. Novak was bleeding out, but the police handcuffed him and didn’t give him aid until he collapsed. All it took was the accusation of racism for the police to put the bleeding man in handcuffs and take a statement from the killer about how evil he was. ( Hot Air.) Damien Slash: Imagine feeling the life leaving your body as you beg for help, your murderer standing over you chatting casually with the police as they handcuff you, at the whim of the murderer’s lies. All whilst making sarcastic comments about your cries for help. ( X) Bodycam footage: ( X).
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60 Minutes Correspondent Scott Pelley Accuses Bari Weiss of ‘Murdering’ Show
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Bari Weiss was brought into CBS News to right a sinking ship, and the crew doesn’t like that she is doing so. The Guardian: Scott Pelley, a veteran 60 Minutes correspondent, called out CBS News management in a heated meeting on Monday morning, attacking the network’s decision on Thursday to fire the show’s executive producer, executive editor, and two fellow correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, as part of a broader overhaul of the show, sources tell the Guardian. During a meeting of the show’s staff and Nick Bilton, its newly appointed executive producer, along with the CBS News managing editor Charles Forelle, Pelley took direct aim at Bari Weiss, the network’s controversial editor-in-chief. “She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” Pelley said, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.” Forelle accused Pelley of being rude, and Pelley countered by saying that the network had been rude by the way it treated Tanya Simon, the show’s executive producer who was fired on Thursday. Bilton conveyed to Pelley that he would not be “intimidated” by his remarks. 60 Minutes staff who were present for the meeting showed strong support for Pelley, giving him a standing ovation, sources said. ( The Guardian.) Leftists don’t take too kindly to being held accountable. Weiss, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care.
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Is No Deal With Iran Better Than a Bad Deal?
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Dan McLaughlin is pessimistic about Trump’s ability to get a good deal from Iran’s regime, and suggests a better alternative in his view: no deal at all. National Review: Much of the Iran war discourse of the past several weeks has been about whether or not we are close to a deal with Iran and what that deal might or should look like. But that’s the wrong question. What we should be asking is whether we get more out of having an agreement than not having one. There are good reasons to doubt that we would. To start with, of course, it would help if we had a clear idea of what we’re fighting for in the first place. As I’ve argued from the outset, given that we already bombed Iran in mid-2025, a significant escalation to target the regime itself made sense only if we actually aimed to bring the regime down. Which is something we should want. The regime, not its armaments, is the real weapon of mass destruction, and it always was. It will be at war with us as long as it exists, no matter what tools it has to pursue that war. It will be a weapon in the hands of China and Russia, too. By contrast, while we prefer to avoid nuclear proliferation, a less radically anti-American regime would be far less of a threat even with more weapons. It’s now clear that we are not removing the Iranian regime — at least, not directly or before we have ended the war. If the regime is overthrown, it might be due in part to this war, but it will have to be done from within, and it could be months or years before that happens…. none of this is going to look much like a win for Donald Trump in domestic politics. But inking an agreement that reeks of the Obama JCPOA would be especially humiliating. Deciding to end the war entirely on our own terms, having done extensive damage to the Iranian regime’s armaments and senior leadership, may not be a very satisfying ending, but at least it is a power move that would not show us meekly submitting to terms. ( National Review.)
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Trump Dropping Weaponization Fund
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Axios reports that Trump has decided to drop his Weaponization Fund that was supposed to support victims of Joe Biden’s lawfare campaign. It garnered criticism from both sides of the aisle. Axios: The Trump administration plans to drop its controversial $1.8 billion “weaponization” fund the president sought to compensate alleged victims of prosecutorial misconduct under the Biden administration, two senior administration officials told Axios. “It’s dead for now,” one of the sources said. Why it matters: Bashed as a political slush fund that could be tapped by those convicted in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Trump’s proposal has drawn bipartisan pushback in the GOP-led House and Senate. Zoom in: The plan for the fund came about as part of a settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump and his business had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his 2019 and 2020 tax returns by a former contractor. Last month, they reached a settlement in which Trump dropped the lawsuit in exchange for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for government abuse claims for his administration to use with virtually no oversight. The settlement also included broad immunity for Trump from IRS audits. The plan was widely criticized on Capitol Hill, drawing backlash even from some Republicans loyal to the president. House Speaker Mike Johnson planned to raise the issue of the fund in a White House meeting with Trump, two sources said. ( Axios.)
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Former NYT Columnist Paul Krugman Calls for ‘DeMAGAfication’ of America, Mirroring Post-War Germany’s Purging of Nazis
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Paul Krugman seriously argued that after Trump leaves office MAGA should face a total ban from holding political power, as happened to Nazis in postwar Germany. Krugman: We need to, obviously, we need to, um, defang Trump as much as possible and make sure that neither he nor anybody who follows in his footsteps has power after the next two elections. Uh, but beyond that, we really need to do a thorough purging of the United States. We need a, a deMAGAfication, and that is… You know, I’m not going over the top by using a word that’s very similar to the denazification, uh, that we pursued successfully after World War II in Germany. ( Paul Krugman.) As usual for the left, “saving democracy” means outlawing or shutting up your political opponents.
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