THE WAR ROOM: After Iranian representatives declined to appear at peace talks in Pakistan, President Trump for a second time extended his deadline to once again loose the dogs of war if Iran does not reach an agreement. His current delay is indefinite.

  And despite the ceasefire, Iranian gunboats fired upon and seized two cargo ships in the area of the Strait of Hormuz.

  Trump has been threatening to bomb power plants and bridges, many of which would clearly be civilian targets that much of the world would see as a war crime if they are destroyed. Trump said he extended the deadline on a request from Pakistan “Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so.”

  The other possibility is that Iran is challenging Trump to live up to his draconian threats and the President is enraged about the reporting on it. “An IDIOT on The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, named Elliot Kaufman, just wrote an Op Ed entitled, ‘The Iranians Take Trump for a Sucker,’” he railed on his Truth Social before ranting again about having destroyed the Iranian military.

  In another post he palavered: “Never allow the Traitor Democrats like Low IQ person Hakeem Jeffries, or Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, or the totally corrupt Fake News Media such as the phony and decaying Wall Street Journal, the Failing New York Times (Subscriptions way down!), or dying “60 Minutes,” to demean or criticize Operation Midnight Hammer, which totally obliterated the Nuclear Dust locations to the point where bloodthirsty Iran has been unable to get to it, or dig it out.”

PARTY LINES: Virginia voters approved a new congressional district map that could give the state a guaranteed four additional Democrats in the House. The new map could eliminate four of the state’s five Republican seats.

  This is the latest shot in a gerrymandering war started when President Trump pressured Texas to redraw its district lines to favor Republicans. What followed is a spate of redistricting in several states controlled by either party, including California, that doesn’t do much to change the balance in Washington.

  What might bring a radical change would be if the Supreme Court strikes down a provision in the Voting Rights Act that bans gerrymandering based on race.

RESIGNED TO IT: In a wave of Washington firings and resignations, Florida Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned yesterday just half an hour before she was to appear before the Ethics Committee amid accusations that she funneled nearly $6 million in FEMA money to a personal business, her campaign, and ultimately such luxuries as a diamond ring.

  Cherfilus-McCormick said she resigned after “careful reflection and prayer,” but keep in mind she’s also under criminal indictment. 

INFINITE SCROLL: 

— The Justice Department brought an indictment yesterday against the Southern Poverty Law Center, accusing the civil rights organization of using millions of dollars’ in donor money to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information.

  The Justice Department accuses the SPLC of defrauding donors by using their money to fund the extremism it claimed to be fighting with an effort to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups.

  Acting Attorney Gen. Todd Blanche said, “The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.” 

  The SPLC said they shared with law enforcement the information they developed in their now-defunct informant program. “When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” said the SPLC’s CEO, Bryan Fair. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”

— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that he eliminated the requirement for all members of the military to get an annual flu shot, calling the policy an “absurd, overreaching” mandate that “weakens our warfighting capabilities.” The requirementt has been in place for decades to keep the troops healthy and on duty.

  The uber-religious Hegseth appears to have moved into that gray area of vaccine skepticism and religious rejection of vaccines. He said in his video address to the military that, “Your body, your faith, and your convictions are not negotiable.”

— Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine “skeptic,” told the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday that he will not commit to supporting the vaccine recommendations of President Trump’s nominee to be head of the Centers for Disease Control. The nominee, Dr. Erica Schwartz, has publicly supported immunizations.

— A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a series of decisions aimed at stopping development of wind and solar energy. President Trump has been trying to kill alternative energies while promoting oil, gas, and the burning of what he calls “beautiful clean coal.”

THE SPIN RACK: Texas can enforce its law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. The Supreme Court ruled back in 1980 that public school displays of the Ten Commandments are unconstitutional. — Nearly half of children in the US are breathing dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.

BELOW THE FOLD:  Right wing talker Tucker Carlson, who appeared at Donald Trump’s side during the 2024 campaign, is saying he’s remorseful and “tormented” by his role helping Trump get re-elected.

  Carlson has broken with Trump in particular over the Iran war. “It’s a moment to wrestle with our own consciences,” he said on his podcast. “We’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people.”

  Trump posted on his social media, “Tucker is a Low IQ person — Always easy to beat, and highly overrated.”

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