THE WAR ROOM: President Trump announced that Israel agreed to a 10-day truce with Lebanon, shutting down for now … maybe … the less-covered yet deadly front in the Middle East war. About 2,000 people have been killed in recent weeks in Israel’s fight against Hezbollah militants.

  Hezbollah, backed by Iran, acknowledged the temporary truce but did not say if they would abide by it. Iran has listed a ceasefire with Hezbollah as one of its conditions for peace with the US and Israel.

  Displaced residents were reported to be celebrating and returning home.

  Trump has said repeatedly that he is dealing with a more reasonable Iranian leadership than those who have been killed. He told reporters yesterday, “We have a lot of agreement with Iran and I think something’s going to happen very positive.”

WAR OF WORDS: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth opened a press conference yesterday with a bombastic speech of warning to Iran and a comparison of the American press to the biblical pharisees who criticized and doubted the works of Jesus.

  Hegseth appeared to reveal accidentally that Iran still has weapons that you are “digging out of bombed out and devastated facilities.”

  “We are locked and loaded on your critical dual use infrastructure, on your remaining power generation and on your energy industry,” Hegseth threatened. “We’d rather not have to do it, but we’re ready to go at the command of our President and at the push of a button.”

  He said … yet again … that the Iranian military is destroyed and can’t control the vital Strait of Hormuz without explaining why the US Navy is patrolling the Strait of Hormuz to prevent Iran from controlling it. 

  Hegseth attacked the press for not being a cheerleader for something he described as almost a holy war. “I just can’t help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage, you cannot resist peddling, despite the historic and important success of this effort and our troops.,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard to figure out which side some of you are actually on. It’s incredibly unpatriotic.”

  The defense secretary compared “the legacy Trump-hating press” to the Jesus-doubting pharisees “who scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative.” He called for “the hardened hearts of our press” to “open your eyes to the goodness, the historic success of our troops, of our president in this historic moment.”

 What Hegseth appears to want is a press that praises rather than questions what the military and the government are doing in the name of the American public. What the press has been asking is why, if the US has accomplished “an incredible battlefield victory” as Hegseth said, Iran has not surrendered, given up control of the Strait of Hormuz, and handed over its enriched uranium. 

INFINITE SCROLL: 

—  A federal judge in Washington ruled for the second time that aboveground construction on President Trump’s grand White House ballroom must stop until Congress approves the project, saying the President was attempting to get around the previous order by claiming the ballroom and its safety features are critical for national security.

  Judge Richard Leon said, “National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity.” 

  Trump posted, “A Trump Hating Judge, for the first time in History, wants Congress to pay Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for a Glorious Ballroom, instead of accepting Donations from Great American Companies and Citizens.”

— The Senate voted 50-49 yesterday to allow copper and nickel mining about five miles away from  Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, one of the largest and most visited expanses of federally protected lakes and forests in the US. Opponents had said mining would damage the area’s lakes and rivers.

— The Trump-appointed Commission of Fine Arts gave its preliminary approval to President Trump’s arch of triumph … the arc d’Trump … that he wants to build in Washington. The  vice chairman suggested eliminating the golden statues of eagles and an angel at the top. 

THE SPIN RACK: Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat, shot and killed his wife Cerina at home in Annandale Thursday night before killing himself while their teenage children were at home. He was 47 and she was 49. The couple was reported to be going through a nasty divorce while still living in the same home. — A woman who claimed Carnival Cruise bartenders were to blame for serving her 15 shots of alcohol before she fell and hurt herself has been awarded $300,000 in damages by a jury. — The Singer d4vd has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found last year in his Tesla abandoned in the Hollywood Hills. Celeste Rivas Hernandez was 13 when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles. — Utah has become the epicenter for measles in the US with 600 reported cases.

BELOW THE FOLD: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at one of his Pentagon prayer meetings delivered a Biblical prayer for rescue teams in the field, known as “Sandies.”

  He prayed in part; “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy One, when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

  It seemed familiar. Very familiar. That’s not because it was from the Bible. It was adapted from the fictitious prayer Samuel L. Jackson delivered in the 1994 movie “Pulp Fiction”  just before he and John Travolta gun down two men: “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.”

  Jackson delivered it better.

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