Source: Mother Jones
by Alex Nguyen
“Sam Altman wants you to know that he’s just fine. Sure, his company, OpenAI, is reportedly building technology that it fears and some of his former colleagues think he’s a pathological liar, but really? It’s no big deal.” (04/09/26)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/sam-altman-ronan-farrow-open-ai-report/
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman
“Armageddon may (or may not) be on hold for a little while, so let’s talk about other issues, like the state of the economy — in particular, what’s going on with job growth, where important things are happening. Are they good things or bad? Well, it’s a bad news/good news/but the good news is really bad news situation.” (04/09/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by James R Webb
“Despite the challenges ahead for the U.S. in securing a durable peace, there is perhaps a massive potential political opportunity for President Trump to fulfill a campaign promise. A core promise that attracted independents and conservatives, and arguably was the single biggest driver of both of his electoral victories, was the removal of American troops from the Middle East. Preventing the continuation of, or yet another war with the U.S. is arguably Iran’s most meaningful demand, and perhaps the most valuable for the U.S. at the bargaining table. At this juncture, American basing across the region only serves to pressure and threaten Iran, whose existence is not and never has been an existential threat to the U.S. homeland. Further, what better way for President Trump to demonstrate victory than to publicly declare that our objectives have been met and that the troops are coming home, thus making a splash heading into midterms?” (04/09/26)
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jackie Calmes
“Amid all the alarming and unhinged comments of the president of the United States in recent days threatening Iran with genocide — remarks beyond even the usual cray-cray blather from Donald Trump — it was a statement from his spokesperson on Tuesday that really put the madness in the White House in perspective. ‘Only the President knows where things stand and what he will do,’ Karoline Leavitt said. … A mad king reigns, virtually unchecked. And as a practical matter, there is nothing under the Constitution, neither impeachment nor removal under the 25th Amendment, that can be done about him. There’s only voters’ opportunity to eject the complicit Republican majorities in the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections, to install a Democratic — and democratic — check on Trump for the remaining two years of his term.” (04/09/26)
Source: Foreign Policy
by Stephen M Walt
“The United States is still good at many things, but holding elites to account is not one of them. President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush pardoned the officials responsible for the Iran-Contra scandal, and Barack Obama declined to prosecute the men and women who had authorized the illegal use of torture. The architects of the disastrous wars in Vietnam and Iraq remained respected members of the establishment for the rest of their lives, in some cases occupying leadership posts or comfortable sinecures at prominent institutions and continuing to opine on foreign-policy matters whenever they wished. Nor were the fraudsters who brought us the 2008 financial crisis ever held to account—we just turned the page and moved on. Given that record, it isn’t so surprising that the United States tends to repeat past errors.” (04/09/26)
Source: Popular Information
by Rebecca Crosby
“In an unprecedented move, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it had filed lawsuits against several states to block their efforts to rein in prediction markets. Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois have variously sought to prevent Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com, and Robinhood from running what they claim are ‘unlicensed gambling sites that circumvent state laws.’ Several of these companies are business partners of President Trump and his family members.” (04/09/26)
Source: Liberal Currents
“Trent and Caitlin ask Greg Sargent of the New Republic what he learned from experts about the ideology that underpins Pete Hegseth’s attitude toward violence.” (04/09/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Tom Wilson
“Housing costs in New York City have reached a level that many people can no longer afford. The response has been to push for more control—limits on rent increases and expanded tenant protections. The intention is clear. However, housing markets respond to incentives, not intentions. Under Zohran Mamdani, New York City is moving further in that direction. The focus is on limiting rent increases, expanding tenant protections, and increasing the role of government in the housing market. The policy has not fully taken effect yet. Once these rules interact with rising costs, the housing market will respond to the incentives. Rent control keeps rents down, but it does not keep costs down for the landlord.” (04/09/26)
https://mises.org/power-market/why-rent-control-fails-lessons-new-york-portland
Source: Law & Liberty
by John O McGinnis
“In his piquant memoir, Streetwise, Lloyd Blankfein, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, shares an arresting anecdote about the administrative state. The SEC sued Goldman for allegedly misleading investors about the risks of mortgage-backed securities. Blankfein considered the suit meritless but settled for $550 million. ‘You can’t litigate against your regulator. It’s like a Star Trek episode: an alien controls the Enterprise’s bridge and threatens to shut off life support unless the ship surrenders.’ The dilemma for the regulated firm is that even if it wins the suit, its regulating agency has many other ways to make life unpleasant.” (04/09/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“It took not even 24 hours for the tollbooth on the Strait of Hormuz to snap shut. Israel, whose desires to act as a saboteur and trap the United States into the war it desperately wanted us to conduct couldn’t be more obvious, spent Wednesday pounding central Beirut with airstrikes, hitting 100 targets in ten minutes, with at least 112 dead. Iran and the U.S. have very different conceptions of whether Lebanon counts as part of the nascent cease-fire. After Donald Trump confirmed that in his view Israel and Lebanon are in a ‘separate skirmish,’ which conflicts with the view of Pakistan, the country that mediated the dispute, Iran showed its displeasure by closing the strait to oil tankers, and now the Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened military action against ‘aggressors in the region’ (Israel) if the Lebanon attacks continue.” (04/09/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/04/09/iran-war-cease-fire-strait-of-hormuz-oil-shipping-toll/