Stack the Week

April 13 to April 17

Welcome everyone to the second installment Stack the Week, This time for April thirteenth through seventeenth.

Some of you may remember the Face the Nation Diary. Same instinct, new form. I think it’s probably best experienced if you listen to me read the audio version. Please let me know what you think — and what you like and don’t like relative to the daily Stack Stories experiment.

Narrative of the Week.

The president thanked Iran for opening a strait the US was still blocking, Gospel believers argued with the Gospels, a shoe company made bank by not selling shoes, and the man in Paris who didn’t believe he’d won a Picasso was the only person all week wrong to be suspicious.

So let’s take it day by day.

Monday, April 13

Iran War

Talks went down, the blockade went up, and the ceasefire flickered all week.

Monday started in the shadow of failed talks at ending the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran. The war felt like it was winding down — hard to prove, but one marker: the U.S. president was no longer promising to wipe out Iranian civilization as he had the week before.

Vice President JD Vance emerged from 21 hours of talks with Iranians Sunday night declaring they “chose not to accept our terms.” Iran blamed “excessive demands.” The sticking point, reporting would later suggest, was Tehran’s refusal to provide an “affirmative commitment” to permanently end its nuclear enrichment program and disagreements over continued Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz.

One thing the meeting confirmed that last week’s bombing had left uncertain: there was still an Iranian government. Or at least enough of one that it could field a roster and send representatives to Islamabad, Pakistan for talks with the Americans who had killed all their friends and colleagues.

Reuters reported that the new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei was recovering from severe facial disfigurement and serious injuries to one or both legs from the airstrike that killed his father. He attends meetings with senior officials via audio conference. His wife, father-in-law, and sister-in-law were also killed in the raid.

On Monday, President Trump said that despite round one of talks ending, negotiations might start up again. He also told reporters “they’d like to make a deal very badly.” The president has used this specific language before — most notably during the 2019 trade war with China, the 2018 lead-up to the North Korea summit, and throughout his first-term maximum pressure campaign against Tehran, when he repeatedly claimed sanctions had left Iranian leaders desperate to deal.

In negotiations, framing the other side as the desperate pursuer projects dominance — it devalues the opponent’s leverage in the eyes of the world and establishes a narrative where any eventual agreement looks like a personal victory won through sheer toughness. It also functions as a trap. If Iran is so desperate to deal, then any agreement they sign can be framed as capitulation — which makes it harder for their leadership to sell domestically, which gives them reason to walk away.

That was the dance. On the reality side of the action — which is to say, something you could actually accept as reality and not spin — President Trump announced that the U.S. The Navy would block the 21-mile-wide opening to the Strait of Hormuz. An operation that involved over 10,000 U.S. personnel and more than a dozen warships.

Blockading had previously been Iran’s job, so this was a blockade to block a blockade. What the president sought to do was shut down the Iranian toll system — the Ayatollboth — that brought money to prop up the country’s crippled economy.

Trump warned any Iranian ships approaching the blockade would be “immediately ELIMINATED.” Iran called it piracy. A retired U.S. admiral, speaking to NPR, called it an act of war — technically, he said, blockading a country’s exports meets that definition. China’s Defense Minister warned the U.S. not to interfere with Chinese vessels: “The Strait of Hormuz is open to us.” One Chinese vessel tested that notion, but Central Command said it turned it back. In a call to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, the president said prices “should be around the same” in November — and might be “a little bit higher.”

In Lebanon, an Israeli drone struck a Lebanese Red Cross center Monday, killing one paramedic. The death brought the total number of medics killed in Lebanon to at least 57 in six weeks. Israel said Hezbollah uses ambulances for weapons transport.

POTUS on Pope Action

Here ends the rational straightforward news on Monday for a moment.

Also on Monday, the President continued attacking the leader of the Catholic church, the Pope, which was merely one front in the two-front ecclesiastical struggle he fought this week.

Mr. Trump was also being sought for comment over the AI generated image he posted in which he depicted himself as Jesus Christ in white robe with a red shawl healing a patient in bed by touching the man’s forehead.

The row started when the Pope, whose church believes he is the direct successor of St. Peter declared that no reason can justify the shedding of innocent blood and that God does not bless any conflict, calling the president’s recent threats to “wipe out” Iranian civilization “truly unacceptable.”

Pretty standard stuff for a man charged with promoting the word, life and teachings of Christ, who is often referred to as the prince of peace.

The president responded Sunday by calling the Pontiff “WEAK on crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy,” later telling reporters he was “not a fan of Pope Leo.”

Monday the pope responded: “I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do…I don’t ​think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused ​in the way that some people are doing.”

Trump as Jesus

Little noticed, except perhaps in theological circles, was the president’s assertion that Pope Leo XIV was elected “because he was an American” and the Vatican thought that would be “the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”

Catholics, including the Pope and Cardinals, believe the Holy Spirit chooses the Pope. So those keeping a Trump Trinity checklist at home — the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — can put a tick mark next to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, signifying the president’s claim over that body.

As for the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity: on Monday Trump removed from his social media an AI-generated image that had appeared Sunday evening. It depicted Mr. Trump in a white robe and red shawl — reminiscent of traditional “healing of the sick” iconography — performing a miracle by touching a bedridden man’s forehead, with fighter jets and eagles soaring in the background.

Trump told reporters he thought the picture was depicting him as a doctor in the Red Cross, an organization that does not, as of press time, outfit their doctors in red cardigans with electric poultice to slather on patients in the field.

Though the president said only dishonest reporters would assume he’d portrayed himself as Jesus, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office was reportedly flooded with calls from GOP leadership and religious groups horrified by the “blasphemous” nature of the image. “I did ask him to delete it,” the Speaker said of the president.

Orbán falls.

In Hungary On Monday they were still appraising the fallout after Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán lost Sunday’s election in a landslide.

Turnout was the highest since the fall of communism — more than 5.9 million registered voters participated. Roughly 77–80%.

Anne Applebaum, writing in The Atlantic, argued the loss punctures the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement and Putin’s rhetoric alike — the belief that illiberal parties are destined to hold power forever because they alone speak for the “real” people.

The victor Péter Magyar, was a 45-year-old lawyer who until two years ago had been an Orbán government insider — and who, as a boy, kept a poster of Orbán on his bedroom wall.

Over 16 years, Orbán came to control, through his party, much of the judiciary, bureaucracy, and universities, and a network of oligarchic companies that controlled much of the economy. He gerrymandered electoral districts to ensure permanent majorities, purged independent judges, and neutralized the free press by funneling state advertising only to loyalist outlets. Hungary is the most corrupt country in the EU, according to Transparency International. Orbán criminalized those providing aid to asylum seekers, stripped LGBTQ+ citizens of basic legal recognition, described liberal democracy as a “virus,” and cast himself as the last defender of “European Christendom” against “Muslim invaders” and a “mixed race” Hungary.

Vice President Vance had recently visited Orbán to boost his electoral chances. That he, along with the American president and majority party would work so hard to keep Orban in power meant that the leaders of a country that once considered itself both the beacon of liberalism, and the architect of the global order that believed liberalism led to peace, were cheering for the other team. When Magyar won, Trump said nothing.

Magyar, who could take office as early as May 5, promised to break with Orbánism and fix the slowest-growing economy in Europe. Orbán had blocked EU assistance to Ukraine, worked to water down sanctions on Russia, and framed Ukraine as Europe’s principal threat. Magyar is expected to clear the way for a €90bn frozen loan to Ukraine that Orbán had been blocking for weeks.

House Ejections

Two members of Congress resigned this week under allegations of sexual misconduct — one Democrat, one Republican, which the leadership of both parties called bipartisan housecleaning and which was, more accurately, a simultaneous removal of two men who had run out of road.

Eric Swalwell fell fast. Monday he left the California governor’s race after a former staffer alleged rape and sexual assault. By Tuesday he had resigned from Congress. By Wednesday a second woman had come forward with a rape allegation. His lawyer Sara Azari became famous by offering this defense on NewsNation: “Regret is not rape. The fact that, you know, a day later, years later, or whatnot, you maybe had shame around what you did, or maybe you were in a relationship and shouldn’t have done what you did, doesn’t make it rape.”

That Swalwell’s behavior appeared to be some kind of open secret among certain Democrats left questions lingering about what kind of behavior is tolerated when political power and fortunes are at stake.

Republican Tony Gonzales resigned on Tuesday. A staffer with whom he had an extramarital affair died by suicide. The San Antonio Express-News later reported he had also solicited nude photos and a sexual relationship from a staffer during his 2020 campaign. House Republican leaders had pressured him to drop his reelection bid in March but kept him in his seat — his departure would have shrunk a GOP majority already sitting at 217. With expulsion resolutions looming from both parties and Swalwell’s exit providing cover, Gonzales filed his paperwork Tuesday.

Iran and Housing

Now, from the business of the House to the Housing business. The U.S. housing market, which analysts predicted would finally thaw in 2026, is another casualty of the war with Iran. New figures from the National Association of Realtors show home sales slumped 3.6% in March—reaching a nine-month low—as the cost of borrowing climbed with the conflict. Average 30-year fixed mortgage rates, which sat at a manageable 5.98% before the February strikes, jumped to 6.37% last week. The Fed is not able to cut rates because it’s worried about inflation from rising energy costs, so help isn’t coming from that quarter soon.

Carney in Charge

While Hungary is undergoing upheaval, Canadians are settling in. Mark Carney consolidated power. After originally being handed a minority mandate in 2025, Carney secured a formal parliamentary majority for the Liberals this week following a sweep of three key byelections Monday — an achievement made possible by a combination of electoral wins and strategic defections from rival parties.

Those defections — known as floor-crossings, five in total, from the center-left New Democratic Party and the Conservatives — are a highly unusual move in Canadian parliamentary tradition.

Donald Trump can take some credit for this development too. Carney has positioned himself as the “steady economic hand” needed to navigate the Trump administration’s protectionist trade agenda — a framing that has led some to call him a “wartime leader.” With his new majority, the Prime Minister will be able to more easily pass budgets and bills that align with his ultimate goal of making Canada less dependent on the United States

The “Trump DoorDash” Summit

The president’s approval rating on the economy– in the high 30s– is as low as it has ever been. His administration has been working to show voters their sour opinion of his stewardship is mistaken. This has mostly taken the posture of mere assertion, but Monday the hope was to draw a direct link.

“This doesn’t look staged, does it?” The president asked Monday as he greeted a DoorDash delivery woman at the door of the Oval Office. Sharon Simmons, an Arkansas-based “Dasher” with over 14,000 career deliveries, wore a red DoorDash Grandma t-shirt and handed the leader of the free world a McDonald’s bag filled with, as she said, “all your favorites.”

Simmons told reporters she saved over $11,000 thanks to the president’s “No tax on tips” policy.

The president encouraged her to say this, but it’s not correct.

The policy is an above-the-line deduction from your income that is taxed.. To save $11,000 in taxes from a tip deduction, she’d need roughly $50,000 in tips annually at the 22% bracket, or over $90,000 at 12%. Neither squares with the portrait of a dasher in a Grandma t-shirt. Later, Door Dash said that she had earned a total of $11,000 in tips, which meant iIf she’s in the 12% bracket and earns $11,000 in tips, her maximum tax relief would be around $1,300.

The display was meant to convey that Trump was for the working person, although only three percent of Americans have jobs where they receive tips. And 37 percent of tipped workers owe no federal income tax because they fall below the standard deduction, meaning the policy offers them no net gain.

Previous efforts to deliver a clear economic message have been stymied by the president’s habit of free-associating on camera until affordability is the one topic left uncovered.

The delivery was imprecise in this case as well. The interaction took a sharp turn when Trump used the appearance to pivot to the Strait of Hormuz blockade and pressed Simmons for her opinion on transgender athletes; Simmons told the President, “I’m here about no tax on tips.”

Simmons, on message! She also explained that her husband had recently completed chemotherapy, emphasizing that the flexibility of gig work and the tax savings on her tips were vital for managing his care and their mounting medical bills.

After accepting the burgers, Trump handed her a $100 bill.

Pride Flag Waves

The Trump administration reversed course Monday, agreeing to maintain the rainbow Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument after its removal in February sparked a lawsuit from LGBTQ+ and historic preservation groups. Stonewall is the Greenwich Village site where, in 1969, police raided the inn and sparked days of protests that became the foundational moment of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. The flag — the first Pride banner to fly permanently on federal land — was installed in 2022. The National Park Service took it down earlier this year under a January 21 memo restricting the agency largely to displaying the U.S., Interior Department, and POW/MIA flags. The same order prompted removals elsewhere: panels describing George Washington’s enslaved workers at Independence National Historical Park, exhibits on Indigenous history at Muir Woods, and signage at Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park, among others. The same guidance that took down the Pride flag at a civil rights monument explicitly preserved Confederate flags at sites where they provide “historical context.”

Tuesday, April 14

Iran War

On Tuesday, as the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz held, the Secretary of the Treasury re-centered the reason for the war. “I wonder what the hit to global GDP would be if a nuclear weapon hit London,” said Secretary Bessent in an interview with the BBC. “I am saying that I am less concerned about short-term forecasts, for long-term security.”

In the carousel of justifications for the war, Bessent was returning global focus to the nuclear threat — which returns to the central question: was the threat as imminent as the Treasury Secretary suggested, how real was a strike on London, and was military action the only way to remove it. There is no external evidence to support either case. They are entirely contained in the head of the president — his reading of intelligence the public cannot see, and his alone. His understanding of the evidence, and his determination that conditions meant war was the only solution.

By increasing the stakes, the Treasury Secretary justifies any action.

In 2002, National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice did something similar did something similar when she told Wolf Blitzer — on September 8, 2002, the Sunday before the Bush administration’s full public push for war — about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear capabilities: “The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

Key distinction: Bessent’s case is being made after the fact. Rice’s claims could be assessed, debate could take place, the democratic and diplomatic process — presumably — could change course.

Bessent’s claim makes for easy accounting when people ask: was the war worth it? It always will be if the balance is measured against a nuclear crater in downtown London.

The more the war continues, the further we get from ever examining that front-end question: were nukes imminent;was war the only way?. And the more it costs — in treasure, in readiness, in economic pain — the easier it becomes to argue backward. Surely the threat must have been as grave as claimed, or they wouldn’t have paid so much to meet it.

How a Blockade Works?

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said that “during the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the U.S. blockade and 6 merchant vessels complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.” By the end of 48 hours, nine ships total had turned back. It is not a total closure of the Strait but a targeted effort to stop “any and all ships” traveling specifically to or from Iranian ports.

Which raises a question worth pausing on: how does a blockade actually work? The key mechanical detail is in the NBC/Washington Post reporting: the U.S. fleet isn’t sitting at Iranian ports or in the Strait itself — it’s waiting in the Gulf of Oman. The strait is mined by Iran and too shallow and narrow to safely position warships. So the method is: surveillance aircraft and radar track ships leaving Iranian ports, the ships transit the Strait of Hormuz, and then U.S. warships in the Gulf of Oman contact them by radio and order them to turn back. No shots fired, no boarding. At least five of the nine were carrying oil. The ships are directed back to Iranian ports via the Gulf of Oman rather than back through the strait, because that’s where U.S. assets are concentrated.

And it’s not only the ships that are being blocked. The war is creating other strains, as Bloomberg tells us: LVMH Sales Disappoint as Middle East War Crimps Dior Demand. LVMH Sales Disappoint as Middle East War Crimps Dior Demand. The brand had been expecting to emerge from an extended slump. Instead, the war next door is keeping Dubai’s shoppers home.

China Supplying Iran

A single person carrying a five-foot tube can take out a plane worth millions of dollars. That’s the asymmetric logic of the MANPAD — Man-Portable Air-Defense System — which sounds like a man-purse but functions like a one-person air force. The U.S. shipped thousands to Ukraine, where they proved effective against Russian aircraft and drones.

On Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed a CNN report that Beijing is preparing to ship MANPADs to Iran, calling it “groundless smears” and warning that the leak itself was a “dangerous move” by the U.S. to undermine the fragile ceasefire.

Trump threatened a 50% tariff on all Chinese goods if the deliveries are confirmed. Analysts warn the penalty would hit American consumer prices almost immediately — turning a regional proxy battle into a direct charge on the domestic economy

Here’s how the weapon works: a sensor in the missile’s nose tracks the heat from an aircraft’s engines. The launcher emits a tone — a high-pitched growl — when it’s locked. The operator pulls the trigger, a small motor ejects the missile from the tube, the main engine ignites, and the operator drops the tube and runs. The missile finds the heat source on its own.

Stinger missiles became famous when the Afghan Mujahideen used them against the Soviets. Charlie Wilson, the congressman behind the operation, said “We never really won a set-piece battle before September 26,” their first use in 1986,” and then we never lost one afterwards.” He was given the first spent launch tube as a gift and kept it on his office wall. They brought down nearly 270 aircraft — analysts coined a term for it: “the Stinger effect.” Colin Powell later said there was “no threat more serious to aviation.”

Pope and JD Vance

There was another round of Pope action Tuesday. The Vice President, whose book about his conversion to Catholicism titled “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith” is out in June, said: “In the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”

“Vance Says the Pope Should Be More Careful When Talking About Theology” read the NYT headline, which made the whole thing sound ridiculous — but the question it did raise: upon what authority does the Vice President find support to tell the Pope what to do?

The debate was about staying in your lane. The Pope is doing his job — articulating a moral framework against killing. The president is doing his — prosecuting a war and marginalizing critics. Where things get messy is when one side veers into the other lane.

In this case the warriors claimed that Jesus was on their side. The Pope, cruising exactly at the speed limit in the religious lane, said: well, now that you’re over here, you’ve got it wrong. Jesus doesn’t take sides.

It was here that JD Vance merged into traffic.

In the promotional material for his book, Vice President Vance says: “I’m a Christian, and I became a Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ’s teachings are true.” If we use that to illuminate what the Pope actually said with respect to the Iran war — “God does not bless any conflict; to cry out to the world that whoever is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, never stands on the side of those who yesterday wielded the sword and today drop bombs” — the position becomes hard to escape. The Pope is just quoting the man whose teachings Vance says he follows.

One way people check themselves is by maintaining standards — moral standards, institutional standards, standards of belief. Those standards have changed in the Republican Party to accommodate Donald Trump, whose personal behavior, ongoing conduct, and policy positions directly contradict longstanding commitments. If accommodations must be made, when do they stop? What prevents supporters from endorsing whatever comes next?

Religion is one of the forces that can create genuine barriers to self-interested action. That is, arguably, why it exists.

So when a politician who has made his faith a public credential turns around and tells the head of that faith to stay in his lane, it is not just an argument about theology. It is a signal about what religion is being used for — and what it is no longer being asked to do.

Lebanon Ceasefire talks

Israel and Lebanon met in Washington on Tuesday for diplomatic talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in Lebanon. The Lebanese ambassador to the United States met her Israeli counterpart for talks hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. These were the first direct talks between the countries in more than thirty years

IMF Downgrade

The International Monetary Fund said the economic outlook has “abruptly darkened” because of the war. The Washington-based lender of last resort, which monitors the stability of the global financial system and provides emergency loans to struggling nations, downgraded its global growth forecast for 2026 to 3.1 percent, down from a pre-war projection of 3.4 percent. Even if the guns go quiet tomorrow, a lot of the damage has been done: the initial shock has already triggered a massive spike in energy costs, disrupted critical shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, and created a climate of uncertainty that has caused businesses to pull back — delaying hiring, shelving expansion, and waiting to see what comes next.

An additional example of damage already being done - according to a Farm Bureau survey earlier this week, nearly six in 10 farmers reported worsening finances, reflecting rising fertilizer and fuel costs during spring planting resulting from the conflict in the Middle East.

Producer Price Index

Wholesale inflation surged to a three-year high in March as higher prices for energy affected the component parts of finished goods. The Bureau of Labor Statistics– which tracks the Producer Price Index to identify costs businesses pay before goods reach consumers to signal where future retail prices are headed– reported that it hit an annual rate of 4%. While a 15.7% spike in gasoline prices drove nearly half of the monthly increase, the monthly rise of 0.5% was actually lower than the 1.1% economists had feared. This tamer-than-expected result was largely a matter of timing: the data was collected on March 10 — just two weeks after the initial strikes — meaning the full weight of the subsequent blockade and the resulting $100-a-barrel oil prices had not yet been captured.

We’re still waiting to see if the tariff shoe will drop. For now, businesses are absorbing tariff and shipping costs rather than passing them on to consumers — eating the higher prices to keep goods moving. They can afford to do this because they stocked up on imported goods before the tariffs took effect, buying non taxed materials ahead in bulk and warehousing the inventory. Once those stockpiles run out, they face a choice: raise prices, or keep eating the import taxes. To be determined.

Proud Boys

While Donald Trump proposes a 250-foot arch for Washington and a 90,000 square-foot White House ballroom, he is erasing less visible American monuments — like the rule of law.

The Justice Department moved Tuesday to dismiss the seditious conspiracy convictions — won at trial — of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members who led the January 6 attack on the Capitol. These are the most serious charges to emerge from one of the largest federal investigations in American history.

Trump pardoned over 1,000 January 6 defendants on his first day back in office. He spared 14, commuting their sentences instead. Trump later pardoned one outright. Another had his conviction dismissed earlier this year. The remaining 12 — eight Oath Keepers, four Proud Boys — are now the subject of Tuesday’s motion. If a judge approves, the seditious conspiracy charges disappear entirely.

What gets erased isn’t just the convictions. It’s the legal finding, established at trial, that these men conspired to stop the peaceful transfer of power by force. That’s the sentence the Justice Department is now asking a court to strike from the record.

META AI Version of Zuckerberg

Meta is building an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg to interact with employees in his place — trained on his mannerisms, tone, public statements, and current thinking on company strategy. The goal, per the FT, is to make staff “feel more connected to the founder.” Zuckerberg is personally involved in training and testing his own replica.

We here at Stack the Week are working on a similar project in the hopes that we might create a more human product than interaction with our founder will allow.

Wednesday, April 15

Iran War

Wednesday felt like a war holding its breath. The ceasefire hit its midway point, the blockade had not caused an incident, and President Trump seemed anxious to get a deal. Iran showed no particular indication it was moving toward one — CNN reported that Iran was quietly clearing buried missile launchers from underground tunnels during the ceasefire. Thousands of additional troops were headed to the Middle East, set to arrive at the end of the month — which military analysts read as a buildup timed to coincide with the ceasefire’s expiration on April 22.

A new Quinnipiac poll found that 65% of voters blame the president “a lot” or “some” for the recent spike in gas prices. Trump’s overall job approval remains at 38%; his approval on the economy has matched an all-time low of 38%. Sixty-four percent of voters deemed the president’s threat that “a whole civilization will die tonight” unacceptable, and 65% oppose the bombing of Iranian civilian infrastructure — a distinction voters appear to be drawing clearly.

New intelligence reports circulated Wednesday suggesting that Iran has relocated key centrifuge components to deep-bore tunnels in the Zagros Mountains. On Tuesday, the Israeli Defense Minister said the total removal of enriched uranium from Iran is now a “threshold condition” for any permanent peace deal.

The Financial Times reported Wednesday that Iran secretly acquired a Chinese spy satellite that gave the Islamic Republic a powerful new capability to target U.S. military bases across the Middle East.

Three consecutive targeted strikes killed four Lebanese rescue workers and wounded six others — just one day after the historic Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington. The attacks hit the first group of medics responding to wounded civilians, a second group trying to help the first, and a third group rushing to aid both. Since the Israel-Hezbollah war began March 2, at least 91 Lebanese medical workers have been killed. The overall death toll in Lebanon reached 2,167.

Senate War Powers Vote

For the fourth time this year, the Senate voted Wednesday not to end the war. The measure failed 47-52, with Rand Paul the lone Republican voting to invoke the War Powers Act, and John Fetterman the lone Democrat voting against it. Jim Justice, Republican of West Virginia, didn’t vote. The tally was identical to the March 24 vote.

The resolutions are largely symbolic — Trump could veto any that passed — but the harder test is approaching on a fixed schedule. Under the War Powers Act, the president must terminate military operations after 60 days unless Congress has voted to authorize the use of force. That deadline arrives around May 1. Congress can end the war, approve it, or watch the administration proceed in defiance of the statute.

Arriving at roughly the same moment will be the war funding request — a supplemental spending bill to pay for the conflict on top of the regular defense budget. The Pentagon originally asked for $200 billion — a non-starter even with Trump’s own party. Fiscal conservatives led by Rand Paul and members of the Freedom Caucus balked at adding that sum to the deficit without equivalent spending cuts, arguing that even a necessary conflict shouldn’t be a blank check. A second faction was wary of the number’s implications: $200 billion doesn’t signal a surgical campaign, it signals a multi-year ground engagement — the kind of open-ended commitment that haunted the supplemental funding bills for Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration has since trimmed the ask to between $80 and $100 billion.

The request still hasn’t been formally sent to Congress. When it is, Sen. Jim Lankford called it “the big vote” — because unlike the War Powers resolutions, the power of the purse is one Congress actually holds. Approving the supplemental would mean voting to finance a war that was never formally authorized. Rejecting it would mean deciding to starve it.

“It takes money to kill bad guys,” Hegseth said when the $200 billion figure surfaced last month.

Mike Johnson and Pope Leo

On Wednesday, Speaker Johnson said he was “taken a little bit aback” by Pope Leo’s suggestion that God doesn’t hear the prayers of those who wage war. “It’s a very well-settled matter of Christian theology,” Johnson said. “There’s something called the just war doctrine.”

The Pope wasn’t making an argument about whether this war meets the criteria for justification. He’s making a theological argument that God doesn’t take sides in human violence. Render unto Caesar means the state has its domain — it doesn’t mean God endorses what Caesar does in it. Leo is not saying war is wrong by the standards of international law. He’s saying don’t recruit Jesus into it.

Johnson appears to be invoking just war doctrine as if it were a checklist — fill out the criteria, get the blessing, proceed with the incendiary devices. That’s precisely what just war doctrine isn’t. Augustine developed it as a set of questions designed to create moral friction — to make violence harder to justify, not easier. The criteria aren’t a green light. They’re a gauntlet. A serious just war thinker doesn’t say “we’ve met the criteria.” He asks: have we, really? At what cost? Are we sure? What happens next?

It’s a set of constraints meant to limit violence, to make Christians reluctant warriors rather than enthusiastic ones, and to hold them morally accountable for every life taken even in a justifiable cause. Augustine didn’t think war was good. He thought it was sometimes unavoidable in a fallen world — and that the framework existed to ensure it was never comfortable.

The traditional criteria for a just war are just cause, right intention, proper authority, last resort, probability of success, and proportionality. The Iran war has challenges on at least three: whether diplomatic exhaustion preceded military action, whether the stated objectives are achievable, and whether threatening to destroy “a whole civilization” falls within any definition of proportionality.

Pope Leo XIV belongs to the Order of Saint Augustine — the same religious order Augustine himself founded — this means he didn’t just study Augustine’s theology, he took vows to live by it.

Augustine wrote the framework. Johnson, a Baptist, cited Augustine to correct him.

Stock Market Happy.

The stock market showed signs Wednesday that it is betting the war is almost over — Trump said so, and the ceasefire signals were convincing enough to push the S&P and Nasdaq to record highs. But oil stayed near $100 a barrel, which means the energy market isn’t so sure. On the other hand, Energy stocks fell because if the war ends, the price spike ends. Tech rose because cheap energy and a stable world are good for growth. The two are moving in opposite directions because they’re pricing in different outcomes.

JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon warned that inflation may not be fully under control, calling it the “skunk at the party,” and flagged that an energy shock could force rates higher again.

Mortgage applications dropped another 5% on Wednesday as the 30-year fixed rate officially touched 7.02% at several major lenders. This is the first time rates have crossed the 7% threshold in 2026, driven directly by the fear of people who lend money in the bond market that energy prices will stay high, raising overall prices, and therefore making every dollar they lend worth less when they get it back.

The Commerce Department released preliminary March data Wednesday showing a 1.2% decline in retail sales. It turns out that when gas prices spike, people stop buying clothes and electronics.

Sudan in its Fourth Year of War

Sudan entered its fourth year of civil war this week. The United Nations calls it the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis — an “atrocities laboratory” where weaponized sexual violence and ethnic cleansing have become commonplace. At least 400,000 people are dead. Two out of three Sudanese — 34 million people — need outside assistance to survive. Eight hundred thousand face severe acute malnutrition, the kind that kills. Fourteen million have been driven from their farmland, leaving much of the population of 50 million surviving on one meal a day or less. At a malnutrition center in Port Sudan, the number of children arriving each week has doubled since the war began. The center has 16 beds. It sees 60 children a week. Several share a mattress.

The war in Iran is making it worse. The spike in fuel and fertilizer prices has pushed food out of reach for a population already starving. A donor conference in Berlin pledged $1.53 billion in aid Wednesday. Officials say it doesn’t matter — no amount of money stabilizes a country where gold-funded militias are still fighting.

Denise Brown, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan: “Please don’t call this a forgotten crisis. I’m referring to this as an abandoned crisis.”

Judicial Firings

The ongoing clash between executive and judicial branches took another turn Wednesday. On Monday, Trump fired the two immigration judges who blocked the deportations of student activists Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi. Unlike federal judges in the independent judicial branch, immigration judges are part of the Justice Department and can be hired or dismissed by the attorney general.

In a rare show of defiance from the right, three Republican-appointed judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — long considered the most conservative in the federal system — issued a joint statement Wednesday expressing “deep concern” and characterizing the dismissals as direct “interference with judicial independence.” The American Bar Association labeled the firings an “unprecedented assault on the separation of powers.”

If a judge knows that ruling against the administration results in immediate termination, the bench ceases to be a check and becomes a department of the executive. By Wednesday, the legal community had begun to frame this not as a policy dispute over deportations, but as a stress test for judicial independence itself — and whether the courts can remain a separate branch of government.

Visit to the Fed

The week’s most jarring separation of powers visual occurred Tuesday at the Federal Reserve’s headquarters. Prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office made an unannounced visit to the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation site, reportedly attempting to “check on progress.” After questioning construction workers, Pirro’s deputies were blocked from the site and referred to the Fed’s legal team.

The investigation focuses on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s 2025 testimony regarding the project’s costs which the president says was fraudulent. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has already characterized the Justice Department’s subpoenas related to the case as “pretextual” — suggesting the criminal probe is a thinly veiled attempt to pressure Powell into resigning or bend the Fed’s interest-rate policy to suit the president. The job site visit tested a new tactic: using the DOJ’s investigative power not just in court, but physically, to intimidate an institution the law is designed to keep independent.

The Fed’s outside counsel, Robert Hur– the former special counsel who looked into Joe Biden’s treatment of classified materials– objected in writing: “It is not appropriate for you to try to circumvent” the court’s finding that the probe is pretextual. Trump has threatened to fire Powell if he remains on the board after his chair term expires May 15.

Italy and Israel

Italy suspended its military cooperation agreement with Israel this week after Israeli forces fired on a convoy of Italian UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, damaging an armored vehicle. No one was hurt, but Italy summoned the Israeli ambassador and Prime Minister Meloni called it “irresponsible and unacceptable.” The peacekeepers are part of UNIFIL — a UN force stationed in southern Lebanon since 1978 to keep the peace between Israel and Hezbollah. Italy has roughly 1,200 soldiers there.

Trump responded by attacking Meloni : “I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong.” His complaint wasn’t about Israel — it was that Italy had refused to join the U.S. in its attacks on Iran. Meloni, once one of Trump’s closest European allies, is now being publicly rebuked by him for not going to war.

Turkey school shootings

A 14-year-old student killed 9 people — 8 students and a teacher — and wounded 13 others at a middle school in Kahramanmaraş on Wednesday, using five guns and seven magazines he brought in his backpack, believed to belong to his father, a former police officer. It is the deadliest school shooting in Turkish history, occurring 28 hours after another shooting in Siverek that injured 16. School shootings are rare in Turkey, which has strict gun laws requiring licensing, registration, and mental and criminal background checks.

Live Nation/Ticketmaster

A Manhattan jury found Live Nation and Ticketmaster liable Wednesday for operating an illegal monopoly, using its ownership of amphitheaters to coerce artists into using its own promotion services and blocking independent competitors from the market. Internal messages proved damaging: one executive referred to customers as “so stupid” and boasted about “robbing them blind, baby.” Recorded calls showed CEO Michael Rapino threatening the Barclays Center in Brooklyn — use Ticketmaster, or Live Nation stops routing major artists to your venue.

The trial took a remarkable detour in March when the Trump administration’s DOJ attempted to settle mid-trial for $280 million and the divestiture of 13 amphitheaters — negotiated in private, without the court’s knowledge. Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia rejected it as a “drop in the bucket” and continued the litigation without the federal government. The judge, reportedly furious, let them proceed. They won.

The jury found Ticketmaster overcharged fans by an average of $1.72 per ticket over four years — which sounds small until you multiply it across hundreds of millions of transactions. The judge can levy financial penalties or force a breakup reversing the 2010 Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger.

Allbirds and AI

Allbirds — the company that built an empire on “sustainable wool sneakers” — officially became NewBird AI.

Allbirds didn’t pivot to AI. It died as a shoe company, kept the stock ticker, and started a completely different business. Two weeks ago it sold the actual Allbirds brand — the name, the wool, the whole sustainability story — for $39 million. The shoes you see in stores have nothing to do with the company trading on the stock market. That company is now called NewBird AI, and it plans to buy Nvidia chips and rent them out to businesses that can’t get computing power from Amazon or Microsoft. They also quietly asked shareholders to remove environmental conservation from their corporate charter, because running massive energy-hungry data centers is the opposite of their founding mission. The stock jumped 700% in a day — not because anyone thinks a failed shoe company knows anything about artificial intelligence, but because “AI” is currently the only sector where the up button still works. It is the Ship of Theseus: replace the product, the mission, the leadership, and the name, keep the ticker. Wall Street doesn’t care whether it’s the same company. It cares that the price went up.

Picasso Win

In America, a lottery ticket wins you buckets of cash. In Paris, where everything is a little more cultured, a raffle ticket wins you a Picasso. A Paris software salesman named Ari Hodara bought one for €100 last weekend and won a 1941 gouache called “Tête de Femme,” valued at more than $1 million, drawn at Christie’s. When the organizer called to tell him, he thought it was a phishing scam. It wasn’t. Picassos have sold for $179 million. He paid $117. The Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, which organized the raffle, raised €12 million from ticket sales. Everyone won.

Dolly Beats the World.

Dolly Parton is a winner. She beat every world leader in a University of Massachusetts poll that asked 1,000 Americans what they thought of more than 20 global figures. Dolly Parton won with a net favorability of 65%. Barack Obama was second at 14%. In a poll that included every living American president, the only ones with positive net favorability were Parton, Obama, and George W. Bush. Trump came in at -18%, one point ahead of Biden. Taylor Swift, the only other musician in the poll, scored 3%.

Thursday, April 16

Iran War

On Thursday, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire.

The U.S. military said Thursday it had turned back 13 ships since launching its blockade of Iranian ports. Defense Secretary Hegseth warned Iran “we’re watching you” and said the U.S. was “locked and loaded” for renewed combat if Tehran didn’t agree to a peace deal.

“We have a very good relationship with Iran right now,” Donald Trump told reporters Thursday, suggesting talks toward an end to hostilities are continuing.

At least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran since the U.S. and Israel began strikes in February, according to IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster

Airlines are facing higher costs, and Airports Council International Europe has warned of the risk of a “systemic jet fuel shortage” if traffic through the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t normalize by the end of month.

More Pope

Late Thursday, the president told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he wasn’t angry with the Pope. He also said to ABC’s Rachel Scott: “I’m all about the Gospel. I’m about it as much as anybody can be.”

U.S. Net Crude Exporter

Reuters reported The US nearly turned into a net crude exporter last week for the first time since World War II. U.S. crude exports hit 5.2 million barrels a day as refineries in Asia and Europe, cut off from Middle Eastern supply by the Strait of Hormuz blockade, turned to American oil to keep their economies running. The last time the U.S. exported more than it imported consistently was 1943, when it was fueling the Allied war effort.

The math driving it is simple. International crude is trading nearly $21 higher per barrel than American crude, because there is almost no physical oil available in Europe or Asia at any price. So American oil gets loaded onto tankers and shipped across oceans while the U.S. simultaneously imports heavy crude from Canada and Mexico to keep its own refineries running — because American refineries are built for the thick oil we get from our neighbors, not the light crude we actually produce. We are exporting our best oil to the world while buying someone else’s to run our own gas stations.

There is a ceiling. Analysts say the U.S. can’t move much more than 6 million barrels a day out of the Gulf Coast — not enough pipelines, not enough tankers. The world needs more than America can physically deliver.

Russian attack on Ukraine

Russia unleashed its deadliest attack so far this year on Ukraine overnight Thursday — 659 drones and 44 missiles fired in waves at five cities simultaneously, designed to saturate air defenses across the country at once rather than concentrate on a single target. At least 18 people were killed, including a child, and 118 wounded. Ukraine intercepted 667 of the 703 projectiles — a 95% success rate that still left 32 getting through to dense residential neighborhoods in Kyiv and Odessa.

The math of modern missile warfare: even a nearly perfect defense is catastrophic at sufficient volume.

The timing was not accidental. The 32-hour Orthodox Easter ceasefire had just collapsed.

The strike is one of the most concentrated aerial assaults since the invasion began.

Europe is watching how the new Prime Minister in Hungary will change dynamics to support Ukraine. Peter Magyar is expected to stop blocking the €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine and the transit of NATO hardware through Hungarian territory. Maygar’s tone is already clearly in support of Ukraine, telling a crowd on Monday: “Ukraine is the victim of this war. Everyone knows that. No one should tell Ukraine under what conditions it must enter peace or sign a peace treaty. We cannot ask any country to give up its territory. If they do, they would be considered traitors.” In NATO, Hungary is moving from being a “troublemaker” to a “follower of the consensus,” which allows the alliance to plan long-term support for Ukraine without the constant threat of a Budapest-led derailment. This is particularly important as Europe figures out how to maintain its security with the United States stepping back.

Utah and Measles Cases

Nearly 600 people, mostly children, have been infected in a measles outbreak that began along the Utah-Arizona border last summer and has now spread into the broader population — not, as in past outbreaks, through an isolated religious community, but through ordinary Utah families. A third of those diagnosed have ended up in emergency rooms, mostly for severe dehydration. Forty-nine have been hospitalized. Utah allows parents to opt out of school vaccine requirements for personal or religious reasons; in the last school year, 11 percent of kindergartners were unvaccinated or undocumented — up from 7 percent before Covid. Measles needs 95 percent vaccination coverage to stop spreading. Utah doesn’t have it.

Dr. Trahern Jones, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Salt Lake City, described the situation: “It’s kind of like if you were a firefighter trying to put out a house fire, and somebody is standing on the hose trying to have a philosophical debate with you about whether water is good or not.”

That debate had a scheduled venue Thursday. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before Congress for his first budget hearing, where Democrats pressed him on vaccine-preventable diseases, proposed cuts of nearly $16 billion — 12.5% — to HHS, and the death of an unvaccinated child during last year’s Texas measles outbreak. Asked directly whether the measles vaccine could have saved that child’s life, Kennedy said: “It’s possible — certainly.” When a Democratic congressman said “kids have died because measles is running rampant under your watch,” Kennedy accused Democrats of being “the ones that gave us the chronic disease epidemic.”

In the hearing, Kennedy also said that the president’s threat to “end Iranian civilization,” was actually “a message of love and compassion to the Iranian people.”

South Africa Gunfire

A magistrate court gave South African opposition politician Julius Malema a five-year prison sentence for firing a rifle in the air at a rally. This may have been a decision based on mere gun possession and not that firing guns in the air is a dangerous thing to do. I couldn’t tell from the ruling. But I’ve always wondered about footage of people celebrating by firing their rifles up in the air and wondered what happens to the bullets? They come down. They can hurt people. A landmark study done in the 90s of celebratory gunfire in Los Angeles found that those hit by falling bullets faced a nearly 33% mortality rate, a figure over five times higher than the 6% rate for typical shooting victims. This extreme lethality is driven by physics: because the bullets descend from the sky, they strike the head in the vast majority of cases, and even at terminal velocity, they retain more than enough speed to penetrate the human skull.

Artemis II Crew Homecoming

The four astronauts of the Artemis II mission — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — gave their first major interviews Thursday. What came through was less a mission debrief than a collective attempt to translate the untranslatable. Glover described the moment a set of parachutes broke away and the capsule went into free fall: “If you dove off a skyscraper backwards, that’s what it felt like for five seconds.” Koch said that even after returning to Earth she was convinced she was still floating and had to talk herself out of it — and that when the hatch opened, she simply screamed. “It was just pure elation,” she said, “and just a visceral, emotional reaction to not only being home, but people there coming to us and bringing us out — just unspeakable joy.” Wiseman, asked whether the crew could have handled a longer mission, was matter-of-fact: “We would have gone another three months. If we were going to Mars, we would have been just fine on that spacecraft.” On all the medical testing waiting for them on the ground, he offered the cleaner formulation: “We are data.” But it was Glover who reached for something harder to measure — describing the moment on the Navy recovery ship when he sought out the chaplain, a man he’d never met. “I am not really a religious person,” he said, “but there was no other avenue for me to explain anything or to experience anything.” When he saw the cross on the chaplain’s collar, he broke down. “It’s very hard,” he said, “to fully grasp what we just went through.”

Friday April 17

Iran War

The Strait of Hormuz reopened to commercial shipping Friday, though Iran said ships must follow a “coordinated route” running close to its coast, just one way in which the terms remain unclear under the new agreement.

Trump initially celebrated Iran’s announcement with a social media post — misnaming the waterway “the Strait of Iran” — before clarifying that the U.S. naval blockade remains in “full force and effect” until a “transaction with Iran is 100% complete.” He specifically cited Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and a three-page memorandum of understanding currently being negotiated in Islamabad. Shipping analysts warn that Iranian mines laid in late March continue to deter some captains despite the ceasefire. The U.S. Navy has begun mine-clearing operations in a strait that typically handles more than 100 vessel crossings per day.

Markets treated the reopening as one of the most dramatic relief rallies in recent memory. Brent Crude dropped $12.87 — nearly 13% — to $86.52 a barrel. The Dow surged as much as 1,139 points. The S&P 500 rose 1.2%, its third straight week of gains and its longest such streak since October 2025.

House Spying Legislation.

Section 702 of FISA allows the government to spy on foreigners abroad without a warrant. However, if an American—like you—communicates with one of those foreign targets, your emails, texts, and phone records are “incidentally” sucked into a massive NSA database. Once that data is in the system, federal agencies like the FBI can search it using your name, email, or phone number without ever asking a judge for a warrant.

This loophole sparked a floor-fight in Congress this week. While the administration and Speaker Johnson pushed for a “clean” extension to keep the surveillance power intact during the war, an unlikely alliance of MAGA Republicans and progressive Democrats blocked the move. They worried that without a new warrant requirement—which would force the government to show a judge probable cause of a crime before searching an American’s data—the FBI would continue to use the database to bypass the Fourth Amendment and target citizens at will. This stalemate forced a frantic, 10-day stopgap just to keep the program from expiring while the two sides fight over whether the government should have to knock before entering your digital life.

Buying Starts At Home.

Tesla Cybertrucks are very popular with the company that makes Tesla Cybertrucks.

SpaceX alone accounted for 1,279 Cybertrucks — more than 18% of the 7,071 registered in the U.S. during the fourth quarter, according to S&P Global Mobility data provided to Bloomberg. Other Musk ventures, including xAI, Boring Co., and Neuralink, acquired another 60. Strip those out and fourth-quarter Cybertruck registrations fall 51%. Nearly one in five Cybertrucks registered during the period moved from one part of Musk’s empire to another — purchases likely exceeding $100 million in value, which have continued into this year. Consumer demand for the pickup, only two years into its commercial life, is faltering. Possible reasons include Musk’s political polarization, the car’s reputation for shoddy workmanship or that it looks like a matchbox car, which is to say a matchbox with wheels on it.

The trucks are selling. They’re just not selling to the public.

Not Your Fault

A woman who fell down a flight of stairs and injured herself after she drank at least 14 shots of tequila in just over eight hours on a Carnival cruise has been awarded $300,000 in damages by a federal jury in Miami. The woman, Diana Sanders, a nurse from Vacaville, Calif., sued Carnival in 2024. Sanders’ team argued that bartenders on her cruise had been negligent for continuing to serve her shots even though she was visibly intoxicated. Unlike a local dive bar where drinks are paid for in cash, cruise ships track every single transaction via the passenger’s “Sail & Sign” card. The timestamp of all the shots showed a pace of nearly two shots per hour for eight hours straight, arguing that any trained bartender should have cut her off hours before the fall. Sanders had asked for $250,000 in damages, but was awarded $300,000 on Friday, the result of a finding which allocated 60 percent of the responsibility to the cruise line and 40 percent to Sanders herself.

A lawsuit against gravity, the concept of consequences, and the general principle that actions produce outcomes may still be pending.

Thank you so much, all of you, for reading this far or listening to this week’s offering. If you’ve gotten this far you are a sturdy and worthy citizen.