Good morning and welcome to Wednesday, April 22, 2026. Today, you may recall that it is Earth Day, the day 56 years ago, that we were told we had ten years to save the planet, a warning we’ve seen issued at least a dozen times since. Maybe if we raised taxes? It’s also “In God We Trust” Day, April Showers Day, Girl Scout Leader Day, and National Jelly Bean Day. (Oh, wonderful. We’re celebrating my shape.)
1601: First expedition of the English East India Company to the Spice Islands of the Moluccas departs Torbay.
1793: President George Washington attends the opening of Ricketts’s, the first circus in the U.S.
1838: English steamship Sirius docks in New York City after crossing the Atlantic, providing the first transatlantic steam passenger service.
1897: New York City Jewish newspaper Forward begins publishing (it’s still active).
1914: Babe Ruth’s first professional game.
1915: New York Yankees don pinstripes & hat-in-the-ring logo for the first time.
1940: Rear Admiral Joseph Taussig testifies before the U.S. Senate Naval Affairs Committee that war with Japan is inevitable.
1944: Fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at their Salzburg conference.
1945: Battle of Berlin: Upon being informed that a planned counter-attack never happened, Adolf Hitler flies into a rage, denounces the German Army, and concedes that World War II is lost.
1952: First atomic explosion shown on network news from the Nevada Test Site.
1964: World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, N.Y., opens.
1986: Consumer Price Index drops .04% for the second month in a row.
1991: Johnny Carson announces he will retire from The Tonight Show the following year.
Birthdays today include: Immanuel Kant, German philosopher; Vladimir Lenin, Russian Marxist Revolutionary and Soviet Leader; Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-American novelist; Robert Oppenheimer, American theoretical physicist known as the father of the atomic bomb; Eddie Albert, American actor; Bettie Page, American pinup model; Glen Campbell, American Grammy Award-winning country-pop singer and actor; Jack Nicholson, American actor; Mel Carter, American pop singer; Peter Frampton, British rock guitarist and vocalist; Paul Carrack, English rock singer; and Ryan Stiles, American comedian.
Today’s your day? Good. A reason to celebrate!!
* * *
Most of you who read my piece from yesterday will not be surprised to see this piece from Efrat Lachter at Fox Digital:
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of the Iranian armed forces, has blocked President Masoud Pezeshkian’s presidential appointments and erected what sources described as a security cordon around Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, a report published Tuesday by Iran International said.
The IRGC effectively has assumed control over key state functions, the report claimed.
“It was always a matter of when, not if, the IRGC was going to step forward even more than it has in the last three decades,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.
Pezeshkian has reached a “complete political deadlock” as tensions between his administration and the military leadership deepen.
By this and other reports I’m seeing, it looks like the IRGC is winning the civil war — for now. Ahmad Vahidi runs the IRGC, and by all accounts, he’s a true believer in every ugly sense of that phrase: a radical hardliner who makes the rest of the rabid dogs in that organization look moderate and a power-hungry critter, at that.
At the centre of this shift is Vahidi, a founding member of the IRGC and former Quds Force commander, who has emerged as one of the most influential figures in Iran’s leadership. Elevated after his predecessor was killed early in the conflict, Vahidi is seen by analysts as representing the most hardline faction within the establishment. His influence extends beyond military operations into strategic decision-making, including ceasefire terms and escalation policies.
He has played a key role in developing Iran’s network of allied militias across West Asia, which form a central pillar of Tehran’s regional strategy. Vahidi also remains under sanctions from the US, the European Union and Canada over alleged links to terrorism and nuclear activities.
The Media Line goes further, saying in part:
Vahidi has been linked by analysts and Western governments to several major attacks, including the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 US service members, the 1996 Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, and a 2008 attack on the US Embassy in Yemen. Argentine authorities have also tied him to the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, and to the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy there.
Vahidi is executing this power grab, dressing it up as a routine procedure. That’s the audacious part. In 47 years, the Islamic Republic has never once not been at war, so ask the obvious question: What exactly are the criteria for handing control back to civilian authority? What does Vahidi’s IRGC consider a sufficient peace to justify returning power to President Masoud Pezeshkian?
Nobody inside Iran is answering that question, or even asking it. Which tells you everything. For his part, President Donald Trump is supposedly awaiting a proposal from Iran for a peace deal, but even assuming a sincere effort, I doubt any proposal offered by the civilian government there will be accepted by the IRGC.
Based on what we know of Vahidi, the only way to eliminate that block to peace is to arrange a one-on-one meeting with a bunker buster in his office. Which, the way things are going, seems the most likely outcome, anyway. His record certainly deserves all that.
For our thought for the day, and given our topic today, I lean once again on Bishop Fulton Sheen: “Our Blessed Lord never said, ‘Blessed are the peaceful.’ But he did say, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Peace must be made. It must be won in a battle. Good Friday was not the day of appeasement. Therefore, Easter was not a day of false peace.”
Take care of those around you today. But don’t forget to take care of yourself, while you’re at it. See you tomorrow.
Commentary, and hard-hitting analysis are becoming rare these days. It’s what I bring here. There’s also honest reporting to be had here at PJ Media. Indeed, you get them here as you get them nowhere else. That’s why it’s important to become a PJ Media VIP member. Not only do you support the reporters and writers who support YOU, but you also get 60% off the regular price by going to this link and using the promo code FIGHT.
