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Did Trump Just Reignite the Iran War?
Donald Trump bombed Iran. He declared victory. He called it a ceasefire. And this morning that ceasefire lies in smoking ruins on the docks of Fujairah. Iran fired four cruise missiles at the United Arab Emirates overnight. Three were intercepted. A drone slammed into a key oil facility, sparking a fire and wounding three Indian workers. Two cargo ships are burning off the UAE coast. Four missile alerts sent residents of Dubai and Abu Dhabi scrambling for shelter. Commercial planes turned around midair.
Why now? Because Trump launched something he’s calling Project Freedom, sending US Navy destroyers to escort merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said that’s a violation of the ceasefire. Iran’s military command warned foreign warships to coordinate or face force. The US Navy sank six Iranian small boats. Iran fired cruise missiles at our destroyers. We’re back to square one.
This is what happens when a president shoots first and thinks later. Trump promised peace. He delivered a powder keg. He bombed Iran’s nuclear sites and told America the job was done. It wasn’t done. He brokered a ceasefire and spiked the football. The ceasefire is rubble. Oil prices are spiking. Global shipping is in chaos. American sailors are now staring down Iranian missiles in the Persian Gulf. And the man who told voters he’d end forever wars just lit the match on the next one. This is the price of a foreign policy run by ego instead of strategy. Working Americans will pay it at the gas pump and maybe at the funeral home.
Will Europe Save Democracy Without Us?
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney walked into the European Political Community summit in Armenia yesterday and said what every American needs to hear. “We don’t think we’re destined to submit to a more brutal world,” Carney told the leaders gathered. He’s the first non-European leader ever invited to address the body. And his message was blunt. The international rules-based order will be rebuilt, he said, but it’ll be rebuilt out of Europe. Free Republic
Translation? America under Trump can’t be trusted to lead the free world anymore. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer agreed, saying alliances aren’t where they need to be. Trump just announced he’s pulling more than 5,000 American troops out of Germany. Carney’s pitching a coalition of middle powers to fill the vacuum. The torch of free world leadership is being passed. And we’re not the ones holding it.
Is Trump Buying John Fetterman’s Soul?
Politico reports that Donald Trump has personally offered Senator John Fetterman his “total and complete endorsement” plus what they’re calling a financial windfall if he switches to the Republican Party. A handful of GOP senators are quietly working him over. Fetterman’s been hanging out in the Republican cloakroom during votes. His approval with Pennsylvania Democrats has cratered 108 points since 2023. He’s the only Senate Democrat who voted against curbing Trump’s Iran war powers. mediaite
Why does this matter? Because Republicans see a midterm bloodbath coming. If Democrats flip four Senate seats this November, Fetterman becomes the 51st vote that keeps John Thune as majority leader and decides who fills any Supreme Court vacancy. Fetterman says he’s staying a Democrat. But he’s not slamming the door. The man who flipped a red seat for the people may be about to flip himself for the powerful.
Are Republicans Purging Voters Right Up to Election Day?
For thirty years a federal law has banned mass voter roll purges in the ninety days before an election. Now Trump’s Justice Department is testing whether they can do them anyway. CNN reports the DOJ is grabbing voter registration files from nearly every state and running them through a federal immigration database called SAVE. The problem? It generates false positives.
Idaho ran the system and flagged 760 supposed non-citizens. After investigation, only about three dozen were referred to law enforcement. The rest were American citizens. Now imagine that scaled to fifty states, days before an election, with eligible voters getting purge letters and no time to fight back. Trump claims foreigners are flooding the rolls. Studies show non-citizen voting is vanishingly rare. This isn’t election integrity. It’s voter suppression dressed up in a badge. And the courts may not stop it before November.
Are Trump’s Tariff Refunds Stiffing Small Business?
The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s IEEPA tariffs in February. The federal government owes 166 billion dollars back. But here’s the catch. Refunds go only to importers who paid Customs directly. That’s about 330,000 companies. Eight percent of them, the biggest ones, paid 72 percent of all the tariffs, and they’re first in line for an average four and a half million dollar refund.
The other 300,000 small importers? Many can’t even log into the federal portal. Customs has rejected over a third of all filed claims for technical errors. Meanwhile millions of American consumers and small retailers who paid those tariffs in the form of higher prices get absolutely nothing. Treasury keeps whatever isn’t claimed. So the working family who paid 300 dollars more for a washing machine eats that cost forever. Trump promised to put America first. He just put Wall Street first and stuck Main Street with the bill.
Can New Orleans Outrun the Rising Gulf?
Scientists at Tulane and the University of Alabama published a sobering study this morning in Nature Sustainability. New Orleans, they say, has passed the point of no return. The Gulf of Mexico will surround the city before the end of this century. Levees and pumps can’t save it. The shoreline could migrate sixty miles inland. Louisiana loses a football-field of land every 100 minutes.
Co-author Jesse Keenan calls New Orleans “in a terminal state” and says we have to start thinking about palliative care for a city of 360,000 people. Three quarters of coastal wetlands could vanish. Sea levels could rise as much as 23 feet. The authors urge a managed retreat starting now. Climate change isn’t coming. It’s here. And one of America’s great cities, the birthplace of jazz, is being slowly handed over to the sea. Newser
And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, May 4th, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
