<![CDATA[Donald Trump]]><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]><![CDATA[Fox News]]><![CDATA[Iran]]><![CDATA[Operation Epic Fury]]>Featured

Monday’s Final Word – HotAir

admin
April 20, 2026
0Points
0
0
Monday's Final Word – HotAir

I hear her heart is beating, loud as thunder, I saw these tabs crashing down …





Ed: “So you’re not gonna answer that question?” Apparently not. I’m just stunned that someone from a media organization held a Democrat to account for a scandal involving another Democrat. That’s worth a mention just for the novelty. Hobbs clearly wasn’t prepared for it, either. 

===

Donald Trump on Truth Social: I’m winning a War, BY A LOT, things are going very well, our Military has been amazing and, if you read the Fake News, like The Failing New York Times, the absolutely horrendous and disgusting Wall Street Journal, or the now almost defunct, fortunately, Washington Post, you would actually think we are losing the War. The enemy is confused, because they get these same Media “reports,” and yet they realize their Navy has been completely wiped out, their Air Force has gone onto darker runways, they have no Anti Missile or Anti Airplane Equipment, their former leaders are mostly gone (This has been, in addition to everything else, Regime Change!), and perhaps, most important of all, THE BLOCKADE, which we will not take off until there is a “DEAL,” is absolutely destroying Iran. They are losing $500 Million Dollars a day, an unsustainable number, even in the short run. The Anti-America Fake News Media is rooting for Iran to win, but it’s not going to happen, because I’m in charge! Just like these unpatriotic people used every ounce of their limited strength to fight me in the Election, they continue to do so with Iran. The result will be the same — It already is! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Ed: Trump understands leverage, and he knows that the blockade is a low-cost way to collapse the regime unless they agree to his terms. At the moment, the US Navy is working to sweep the mines Iran dropped and is preparing to force open the Strait of Hormuz. However, the Iranians have made the strait a lot less relevant and will force everyone to ship oil through other ports in the long run. He doesn’t need to lift the blockade to get the Iranians to negotiate; the Iranians have to start negotiating to end the blockade. 





===

Ed: Says the side that keeps firing on commercial ships from their own export partners, shoots missiles at its non-combatant neighbors, and oh by the way, has spent 47 years funding and directing terror networks. Either show up and negotiate in good faith, or get back what you’ve been dishing out for decades. 

===

Fox News: As President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to decide whether to extend a two-week ceasefire between the countries approaches, attention is increasingly turning not to Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, but to a shadowy Revolutionary Guard commander with a long record of terror, repression and hardline ideology.

Ahmad Vahidi, recently elevated to the top of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite paramilitary force within Iran’s military, is emerging as one of the most powerful men in Iran and, according to analysts, one of the key figures likely deciding whether Tehran resumes fighting or continues talks.

“By any standard, Vahidi is considered a radical even within the regime’s hardline elite, and his rise is a warning that Tehran’s war machine now calls the shots,” Lisa Daftari, foreign policy analyst and journalist, told Fox News Digital.

“Putting someone with such a bloody and murderous record at the top of the Revolutionary Guard Corps confirms that the regime is not moderating under pressure. On the contrary,” Daftari added, “it is doubling down on men whose careers are built on hostage‑taking, assassinations, and domestic repression. By any standard, Vahidi is considered a radical even within the regime’s hardline elite, and his rise is a warning that Tehran’s war machine now calls the shots.”





Ed: Vahidi is an Islamist thug who probably would never have gotten to the top of the food chain before the war. He can keep doubling down, but when the money runs out and the oil wells have to be capped, there are plenty of thugs within the regime that want power and might be willing to trade with the US to get it. Not to mention millions of Iranians who want to put an end to the mullahcracy and the military junta using Nepo Babytollah as a sock puppet. 

===

Ed: Game playing continues. Vance is going out there anyway, and they all knew it. This is a cave because the Iranians have no other choice. 

===

Bishop Robert Barron on X/Twitter: There is a way past the absurd and deeply divisive “war” between the President and the Pope, which has been enthusiastically ginned up by the press. And it is indicated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2309 to be precise. After laying out the various criteria for determining a just war—proportionality, last resort, declaration by a competent authority, reasonable hope of success, etc.—the Catechism points out that “the evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.” The assumption is that the just war principles function, to use the technical term, as heuristic devices, designed to guide the practical decision-making of those civil authorities who have to adjudicate matters of war and peace.

The role of the Church, therefore, is to call for peace and to urge that any conflict be strictly circumscribed by the moral constraints of the just war criteria. But it is not the role of the Church to evaluate whether a particular war is just or unjust. That appraisal belongs to the civil authorities, who, one presumes, have requisite knowledge of conditions on the ground.





Ed: Worth reading in full, by a bishop I deeply respect. I would argue that the pontiff’s language inflamed this debate by essentially precluding the possibility that this war does fit within the Just War Doctrine by dispensing with it entirely. Perhaps wiser heads are beginning to prevail at the Holy See. 

===

Niall Ferguson at The Free Press: Here is the puzzle. Every expert on commodity markets knows that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a very big and very bad deal. To quote energy expert Rory Johnston, “Over the first month of the crisis alone, the global system lost more than 200 million barrels of oil. April’s losses will be equivalent to the entirety of the IEA’s [International Energy Agency] record coordinated SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] release.”

By any measure, this is the biggest disruption to the global oil market we have ever seen, bigger than the shocks of the 1970s. And something equally big is happening to the global supply of urea, a crucial ingredient of modern fertilizers. Prices have soared. And don’t forget the hit to sulfur, crucial to many industrial processes, and helium, essential for semiconductor manufacture. The shock is already palpable in many developing economies.

Yet the world’s financial markets, and especially the U.S. stock markets, appear not to have registered this. At its low point, on March 26, the Dow Jones index was down 6.2 percent compared with February 27, the day before Operation Epic Fury began. The S&P 500 was down 5.8 percent and the Nasdaq 5.6 percent. At Friday’s close, however, all three markets were up 1 percent (Dow), 3.6 percent (S&P), and 7.9 percent (Nasdaq). According to one analyst, the last 10 days rank in the 99.7 percent percentile of all 10-day returns in stock market history. Sure, oil prices are higher, but Brent crude on Friday was just 25 percent above its prewar price.





How are we to make sense of this? Since the war began, I have written essays warning of 1) the danger that the conflict goes global, 2) the risk of recession if the conflict is protracted, and 3) the nightmare that this is the American version of the 1956 Suez Crisis. Either Wall Street has canceled all its subscriptions to The Free Press, or I am missing something.

===

Ed: She’s running for office one state too far south. 

===

Fox News: Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister running in a battleground House district in November’s midterm election, participated in the wedding of a satanist couple in 2006 while serving as an intern pastor in a West Virginia parish.

Nearly two decades later, she delivered remarks for the Des Moines Storytellers Project, where she reflected that the marriage of two satanists in the church offered a “spiritual lesson” about love.





“He asked me to pick the Scriptures,” Trone Garriott said on stage in 2023, referring to the senior pastor. “Irritated, I flipped through the Bible. Should I pick something with Satan in it to make them feel more at home?” 

Ed: Oh, Sarah, you had more options than that. You could have preached the Gospel and tried to convert this couple rather than pander to their satanism. Why become a Christian minister otherwise? It makes one wonder why Trione Garriott wants to be a member of Congress now, too. 

===

Ed: I wanted to write about this earlier, but I don’t think I could put it better or more succinctly than Redsteeze. If you’re not going to enforce gun laws, don’t be surprised when they don’t prevent these kinds of tragedies. 

===

Decision Desk HQ: Polls largely agree that the race is competitive. Three surveys have put the Yes side ahead by 4-to-5 percentage points, while one survey found close to an even divide among likely voters. Surveys also agree that this vote is going to mostly break down along party lines, with Democrats strongly supportive and Republicans overwhelmingly opposed.

Yet even as the polls suggest this race could be close, the Yes side has enjoyed a huge advantage in ad spending and fundraising. As of April 16, AdImpact reported that the Yes campaign had spent $50.5 million on advertising, compared with just $19.6 million by the No side.

More Democrats are casting votes early than Republicans, but the overall party breakdown is a somewhat redder than early votes cast in last November’s gubernatorial election. If Election Day turnout is strong and independents break solidly against the amendment, No will likely win.

Ed: We’ll be covering this election with live results tomorrow evening. The fact that this is still close in polling is somewhat amazing, because the Left has poured over $60 million into this fight. Let’s see whether the Right can run a robust GOTV effort in Virginia tomorrow. DDHQ will be our partner tomorrow too, as usual. 





===

Ed: In the primary, anyway. Don’t expect that to last in the general election once it comes down to a Democrat and Hilton. But it’s still pretty satisfying now, nonetheless. 

===


Editor’s note: If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight. If you’re digging these Final Word posts and want to join the conversation in the comments — and support independent platforms — why not join our VIP Membership program? Choose VIP to support Hot Air and access our premium content, VIP Gold to extend your access to all Townhall Media platforms and participate in this show, or VIP Platinum to get access to even more content and discounts on merchandise. Use the promo code FIGHT to join or to upgrade your existing membership level today, and get 60% off!





Source link

admin

Related Posts

1 of 2,397
Copyright © 2026 nationalconservativemovement - .
Copyright © 2026 nationalconservativemovement - .