“The powerful Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah said in a statement on Tuesday that it will release American journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped from a Baghdad street corner last week. The group said its decision came ‘in appreciation of the patriotic stances of the outgoing Prime Minister’ Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, without giving more details. It added that ‘this initiative will not be repeated in future.’ Kataib Hezbollah had not previously acknowledged that it was the one responsible for Kittleson’s abduction, although both U.S. and Iraqi officials had pointed fingers at the group. U.S. officials had previously alleged the group was responsible for abducting freelance journalist Shelly Kittleson from a Baghdad street corner on March 31. The Iraqi government has not publicly named the group responsible, and the militia has not claimed the kidnapping.” (04/07/26)
“As an American political writer on the left, it is quite unusual to see one’s advice being followed. During Barack Obama’s presidency, I argued repeatedly that Democrats badly botched the response to the Great Recession. Thanks in part to backroom maneuverings from then-head of the National Economic Council Larry Summers, the stimulus package of 2009 was roughly half as big as it needed to be. As a result, unemployment was still 10 percent on Election Day 2010—a big reason why Democrats lost 63 seats in the House and six in the Senate, relinquishing full control of Congress that never returned for the duration of Obama’s presidency. Fast-forward to 2021, and much to my surprise, ol’ Joe Biden and congressional Democrats did exactly what I and other critics recommended. With the economy still coming out of a very severe recession from the pandemic, Biden met the challenge with a $1.9 trillion stimulus.” (04/07/26)
“Iran on Monday delivered a 10-point proposal to end the war with the United States and Israel, according to Iranian state media. … Two senior Iranian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said the proposal included a guarantee that Iran would not be attacked again, an end to Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the lifting of all sanctions. In return, Iran would lift its de facto blockade of the key shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran would also impose a fee of roughly $2 million per ship that it would split with Oman, which sits across the strait. Iran would use its share of the proceeds to reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by American and Israeli attacks, rather than demand direct compensation, according to the plan.” (04/07/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“At this point if you’re in the US military you have a moral obligation to start refusing orders. Desert. Become a conscientious objector. Ideally, get everyone together and launch a full-scale military coup. We’re in ‘Mad King’ territory. Someone’s gotta do what needs to be done. Promoters of this war told the world it was about liberating the Iranian people from tyranny to bring them freedom and democracy. Now that they got their war it’s about bombing them ‘back to the Stone Age,’ stealing their oil, and blowing up their bridges and power plants. The only people dumber than Americans who bought into Trump’s ‘ending the wars’ shtick are the Iranians who believed the United States was going to bring freedom to their country.” (04/06/26)
“On March 13th, buried in the New York Times’s coverage of the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict was a headline that would have been easy to miss amid the din of war coverage: ‘As El Niño Simmers, Scientists Warn of Weather Extremes Starting in Late Summer.’ Many readers may not even have noticed it, but that article noted that scientists at the Climate Prediction Center, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had raised their estimate for an El Niño event this summer from 60% to about 80%. Admittedly, in this strange world of ours, that hardly seemed like an earth-shattering revelation. But if you had read the piece more closely, your alarm bells should instantly have gone off.” (04/05/26)
“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens) is now opposed to funding defensive shields that could save the lives of innocent civilians — if they are Israelis. Seems like she’s trying to win back the endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of America that spurned her in 2024 for not hating the Jewish state enough. Or maybe she’s just showing her true colors. Her re-hardened anti-Israel position comes even though she isn’t facing any significant opposition in her re-election campaign, which raises and spends so much money it’s more like a good-sized business than a scrappy Bronx-Queens political operation; she doesn’t need the DSA’s endorsement. But she got her fellow antisemitic socialists mad at her because she abstained from voting to deny funding for Israel’s strictly defensive Iron Dome project, which protects Israelis — Jewish and Arab — from the tens of thousands of missiles that have been lobbed from Iran’s regional terror proxies.” (04/06/26)
“Donald Trump and his partner in war crimes, Benjamin Netanyahu, are jointly waging a war of murderous aggression against Iran, a nation of 90 million people. They are in the grip of three cascading pathologies. The first is personality: both are malignant narcissists. The second is the arrogance of power: men who possess the power to command nuclear annihilation and feel, in consequence, no restraint. The third, and most dangerous of all, is religious delusion: two men who believe, and are told daily by those around them, that they are messiahs doing God’s work. Each pathology exacerbates the others, so that together they put the world in unprecedented danger.” (04/06/26)
“Pam Bondi was fired last week because she deserved to be. I know she’s popular among some, but she was not popular with President Donald Trump, and that’s all that really mattered. The leadership in the Justice Department, including the FBI, has been horrible and feckless. Now that she’s gone, someone has to say that former Attorney General Bondi deserved to lose her job.” (04/06/26)
“The Democratic Republic of Congo has agreed to accept migrants deported from the US who are not themselves Congolese under a deal effective from this month, officials said. The Ministry of Communication said a temporary reception system had been set up, while facilities to accommodate arrivals had been selected in the capital, Kinshasa. ‘Logistical and technical support’ will be provided by the US, the statement on Sunday said, adding that the Congolese government would bear no financial cost for the scheme. The government did not say how many deportees they would accept. The US has already sent deportees to several other countries in Africa as part of Washington’s crackdown on immigration. Amid concerns that migrants could be returned to their home countries – where some fear persecution – Congolese officials said no such transfers are being planned.” (04/06/26)
“After being ambushed by privacy activists outside a town hall in southern Connecticut last week, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke at length about the urgency of extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the warrantless spying program he has been actively lobbying Democratic colleagues to support without reforms. The 702 program is set to expire on April 20. Himes assured protestors that ‘anything I said today, you can sort of check if you want’. In a press release Friday, organizers with QuitGPT and a number of Connecticut-based advocacy groups held him to it: ‘Unfortunately, Himes repeated several false and misleading statements about FISA, the data broker loophole, and AI surveillance.’ Their comments came just hours after a separate virtual town hall last Friday where Himes ‘repeated many of the same statements’ about Section 702.” (04/06/26)
