The News You Need on Thursday, April 9th, 2026.
The news you need today from Scott Horton and Charles Kaiser. Israel decimate Lebanon in so-called ceasefire and Melania Trump is getting a new toy.
War Without End
Charles: After the world’s most terrifying public figure backed down from his latest threat to become America’s proudest war criminal, millions of decent people gave thanks to Pakistan for brokering a ceasefire in the most pointless war of our lifetimes.
Pakistan declared all the guns would go silent, including the ones in Lebanon. But as the man who drove the United States into this catastrophe in the first place, Bibi Netanyahu remained as determined as ever to keep the bombs dropping as long as he possibly can—mostly because he might finally be convicted for his many alleged crimes if he is ever forced to leave the Israeli government.
A month into this madness, 600,000 Shiites had already been evicted from their homes in Southern Lebanon, and Emperor Bibi has declared that none of them can ever go back. Another 600,000 Lebanese are also homeless. But to destroy any chance of this cease fire succeeding, at mid-morning Wednesday, the Israelis launched a hundred new bombing raids in 10 minutes, dozens of them across Beirut, far from the Southern suburbs Israel had already decimated.
The Israelis’ excuse: they are targeting Hezbollah, the armed Shiite enemy that they are fighting in the South. Because Hezbollah fighters are now all over the capital, according to Israel, no Beirut neighborhood would ever be safe from Israeli bombardment again.
That sounds like Gaza genocide redux.
As of last Sunday, 1,500 people had been killed and more than 4,800 others injured so far in the current round of war in Lebanon. Yesterday the Lebanese Ministry of Health added 182 deaths and 890 injuries to those numbers after the latest Israeli onslaught.
Bibi pretends Israel is only attacking Hezbollah “command centers” but Hwaida Saad and Abdi Latif Dahir made clear in a moving dispatch from Yahchouch Lebanon that everyone can now be collateral damage, including Pierre Mouawad and his wife, even though he was an official of a Christian political party that was fiercely opposed to Hezbollah. The Israelis still pretended they had hit a “terror target” but admitted there were reports that “several uninvolved individuals” were also “harmed” in the attack.
“What was his crime?” asked Elias Bidran, one of the mourners, who attended Mouwad’s funeral with his wife and son. “He and his family were sitting in their home when a strike came and killed them,” he added.
“This is a war on all of Lebanon,” Mr. Bidran said.
A particularly vile part of the Israeli strategy is the way it will increase ethnic and religious-sect hatred among the Lebanese. Leaders of Christian villages in the South were told before yesterday’s barrage they would be spared bombardment—but they were simultaneously warned their protective shield would disappear if the Israelis learned they had allowed any Shiite refugees to linger among them.
The growing realization that the United States was led into this ghastly war by the Israelis has already done grave new damage to the standing of the Jewish State in the United States. When people realize the Israelis are determined to torpedo even a temporary ceasefire, it can only accelerate American disgust with our erstwhile ally.
Enjoy two weeks of The Horton-Kaiser Report for free.
Trump’s Psychotic Roller Coaster Ride
Yleisradio Oy (Helsinki, Finland)
Scott: Who has benefited from Trump’s War on Iran? At this point we can identify a few unambiguous winners—Russia, China, the fossil fuels industry outside of the Gulf. And in the United States, a very tiny class of investors with loads of capital and intimate access to Donald Trump… a group that invariably knew roughly three hours ahead of his tweets announcing war measures exactly what he was going to say. There has been, thus far, remarkably little demand to know exactly who these insiders are. But economists, like Finnish finance minister Riika Purra, are quite keen to know and to better understand what, exactly, drives Trump’s often seemingly psychotic actions with respect to the market… and how governments should deal with the huge losses inflicted on the marketplace as a result.
There have been calls for state supports as the US-Israeli attack on Iran pushes up prices for food, energy, fuel and mortgage interest rates. Such support could be on the table when the cabinet meets for budget negotiations in a couple of weeks.
Purra argued that it is very difficult for the government to intervene in prices based on market pressures.
“They are defined by the daily outbursts of President [Donald] Trump, which are becoming more and more confused and crazier by the day. The situation is quite chaotic,” Purra said on Tuesday, before news of a two-week ceasefire deal with Iran.
If anything, Purra suggested the government might decide to ease the fuel distribution obligation, which stipulates that a certain proportion of the fuel supplied to petrol stations must be renewable.
“I have raised the possibilities of the distribution obligation because it has no fiscal [tax revenue] implications. On the contrary, easing the distribution obligation would increase state tax revenue,” the Finns Party leader asserted.
Melania Lays Claim to Kristi Noem’s Love Boat
The Independent
Scott: The Department of Homeland Security spent $70 million on a Boeing 727 Max 8 on the pretext that it was needed to transport out of status immigrants being deported or sent to ICE detention camps. Former DHS secretary Kristi Noem, however, selected a different outfitting of the plane: it was given a bar and a luxury bedroom, in which she and her chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski, slept as they traveled about the United States and overseas. Dubbed “the love boat,” the plane figured prominently in the scandal that got both Noem and Lewandowski fired. Now the love boat will have a new mistress, Melania Trump.
President Donald Trump has decided to hang on to the controversial $70 million luxury jet leased by former Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem until she was ousted last month, according to a report.
The plane will now be made available to first lady Melania Trump and to cabinet secretaries.
Paperwork indicated that Noem intended to purchase the Boeing 737 Max 8 – which features a queen-size bed, showers, a kitchen, four flat screen TVs, and a cocktail bar – for use in carrying out “high-profile deportations.” While it had been assumed the purchase would be abandoned following her departure, the administration has pressed ahead with it, taking responsibility for the plane away from the Department of Homeland Security and redesignating it for more general use.
Earthset
Keighley Rockcliffe: And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you, from the Moon. We will see you on the other side, said Artemis II pilot Victor Glover on April 6th at 6:44pm ET as 8.3 billion minus four people and one Earth set below the Moon’s horizon. The Orion spacecraft, Integrity, then traveled behind the Moon as part of its seven-hour lunar flyby. The crew characterized never-before-seen regions of the far side of the Moon, which is puzzlingly less volcanically active than the near side. New observations of crater peaks, floors, terraces, and rings preserved on the lunar surface will help piece together the impact history of the Solar System. Among many other surface characterizations, the crew observed one of the Moon’s best-preserved basins, the Orientale basin, and identified two new craters. As Earth rose above the Moon’s horizon and Integrity began its return home, Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch powerfully summarized humanity’s grander mission: ...we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.
Best Click Bait of the Week
New York Times
To Topple the Patriarchy, These Women Have Sex With Vegetables
Sadie Stein tells us the book is nevertheless disappointing:
Let’s start with the content warnings. “Hexes of the Deadwood Forest,” the best-selling Polish author Agnieszka Szpila’s first book to be translated into English, includes the following: adult themes, adult content, adult language, violence, suicide, sexual assault, torture, murder, genocide, bestiality, cruelty to children, sex with moss, sex with grass, sex with mushrooms, sex with lichens, sex with feathers, sex with rotten vegetables and sex with frozen dirt.
Your final warning? All this gets weirdly tedious.
Your Online Moment of Zen
Gustav Klimt
Woman with Fan
