All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The longer the war in Iran churns on, the President Trump’s frustration grows. On Tuesday, Trump was lambasting Washington’s European allies on Truth Social for sitting on their hands and refusing to lift a finger to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf chokepoint through which around 20 percent of the world’s crude oil
Freddy Gray is joined by Jacob Heilbrunn, Americano regular and editor of the National Interest. They discuss the Strait of Hormuz, rising energy prices and whether the US can extricate itself from a conflict it may not be able to win – and whether we’re watching the end of Trumpism.
We don’t know what the end of the Chagos affair will be, but it is rapidly spinning into farce. The latest brickbat is an immensely awkward judgment delivered today by Justice Lewis KC, Chief Justice of the British Indian Ocean Territory (as well as the Falklands and the British Antarctic Territory). The judgment finds that
Easter is almost here – and Canada’s Liberal government has chosen this sacred season to display its utter contempt for Christianity. It is currently forcing through the outrageous Bill C-9, which could make it a hate crime to quote from sections of the Bible. The Liberal government has laid the foundations for religious persecutions More than 40
Sometimes it’s a wonder Israel can stand with all the self-inflicted gunshot wounds in its feet. Israeli police placed their country in the eye of a diplomatic and religious storm by accosting their most senior Catholic clergymen as they made their way to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Religious gatherings have been
Over the last 24 hours, President Trump has come up with a bewildering series of “solutions” to the global oil crisis triggered by his war with Iran. He might seize all of the country’s oil wells. He may send the marines in to capture its main exporting hub, Kharg Island. He has threatened to bomb
As Trump contemplates a ground operation in Iran, he will be reckoning with the ghosts of previous western “excursions” in the region, as he recently labeled this war. History suggests three endgames for his intervention in Iran are plausible. First, a hasty deal on terms that aggrandize and empower Iran, creating an American equivalent to
The Secretary of War is the face of America’s campaign against Iran. “War is hell, and always will be,” Pete Hegseth said recently. He is relentlessly focused on lethality, and decimating the Iranian military. His critics correctly point out that this isn’t strategic thinking, this is a strategy of tactics. Hegseth’s metrics of success appear
As the Islamist regime in Iran attacks Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Bahrain and Kuwait with drones and missiles, some in the west are quietly happy to see the Gulf’s skyscrapers lose their shine. “Dubai has no culture or history,” say the armchair critics. When it comes to measures of wealth preservation, attracting millionaires, rule of law, social safety, artificial intelligence adaptation and combating
Denmark is, by almost any measure, an extraordinary success. A nation of six million that has produced Novo Nordisk, Maersk, Vestas and Lego. Its GDP per capita is comfortably ahead of Sweden and Finland. Greater Copenhagen (including Swedish Lund and Malmö) is ranked among Europe’s top innovation clusters. Danish film culture – Bier, Vinterberg, the
Since the launch of Operations Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury, Israeli and US strikes have thinned out Tehran’s political, military and security elite with a series of decapitation strikes. As the Trump administration seeks to explore diplomacy with the remnants of the Iranian regime, a core group of hardened men remain. The new Supreme Leader
“See you in Valhalla” is how Kash Patel said farewell to Charlie Kirk. Unfortunately, it now seems that Patel’s own sanctum has now been breached. Iran-aligned hackers have broken into the FBI director’s personal email inbox and released the contents online. What did they leak? The un-redacted Epstein files? The truth behind the Kennedy assassination?
The Heritage Foundation’s tech policy team has endorsed European-style age verification laws for social media, likening them to alcohol and tobacco age restrictions. This is a comparison worth taking seriously – just not in the way Heritage intends. Walk into a bar, and a bouncer checks your ID. In about 15 seconds, you’re inside. That’s
Granted, I was not the most obvious person to appreciate the installation of Sarah Mullally in Canterbury, even though I think her a splendid Christian pastor and indeed, an exemplary Christian. Her kind, homely face radiates charity and good will; the simplicity of her speech speaks of sincerity. But as a bolshie Catholic, it’s not
Will America’s ground invasion of Iran begin in the early hours of tomorrow? Everybody knows, by now, that Trump likes to initiate action late on Fridays, after the markets close. And late last night, the so-called Pentagon Pizza Watch channel – which monitors late-night food orders from the Pentagon for evidence that something big is
On April 4, NATO will be 77 years old. The chance that America will be counted among the celebrants when the birthday celebrations roll around is somewhere between nil and zero. President Trump had long predicted that if America needed help, NATO would not come to its aid, even though, as he sees it, the
Last month, Ana Kasparian, executive producer of the progressive YouTube channel The Young Turks (6.5 million subs), tweeted out “Hey, bitch, the goyim are waking the fuck up. Deal with it.” Ana, like many other chronically online leftists, has been making increasingly obsessive anti-Israel content since October 7. So obsessive, in fact, that it led Jillian Michaels,
Donald Trump likes to use the phrase “go big or go home” to describe his political strategy. It looks as though the US President is about to stress test its efficacy as he weighs dispatching another 10,000 troops to the Middle East, a move that would further embroil him in the widely unpopular war in
Every drone Ukraine fires at a Russian oil terminal is meant to defund Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Right now, each one may be doing the opposite. Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil export infrastructure are intended to starve Moscow of the budget revenues that fund its war machine. The logic is straightforward: disrupt exports, reduce revenues,
The White House X account has won notoriety as a coven of young memesters scandalizing the nation. There have been meme images of leading Democrats decked out in sombreros, and clips featuring footage of Iranian military hardware being blown up interspersed with WiiSports. Now the antics have been taken a step further. There is currently widespread talk
In the aftermath of the bitterly contested 2000 US presidential election, Bill Clinton famously commented: “the American people have spoken; but it’s going to take a little while to determine exactly what they said.” That election ultimately took over a month plus a Supreme Court decision to finalize and remains hotly debated to this day. Pity
“I don’t want this state that I love to become the country I left,” Steve Hilton tells the lunch meeting of Southern California Republican Women. Knives and forks rattle on porcelain as the perfectly coiffured ladies down cutlery to clap. Remarkably, Hilton, director of strategy under former British prime minister David Cameron, has topped virtually
Giorgia Meloni has suffered the first significant defeat of her three-and-a-half-year premiership. The Italians have roundly rejected her plans to reform Italy’s sclerotic judicial system – even though those plans were in the election manifesto that persuaded so many of them to vote for her. It is unlikely now that any Italian government will attempt
When the war against Iran started, President Trump could have justifiably felt confident that the price of oil could be controlled from the White House. America, after all, is the biggest oil producer in the world. It has the most refining capacity, and, separately, it has by far the world’s strongest military. And yet, over
While most Cold War cultural battlegrounds have long been paved over or turned into a theme park, Cuba has retained a place in the hearts and minds of the West’s luxury leftists. Beautiful weather, sandy beaches, famous cigars and, of course, a long-standing enmity with the US have all ensured the country remains perhaps the
Israel’s current war on two fronts shows few signs of wrapping up soon. In Lebanon, the indications are that the IDF is looking to establish an expanded buffer zone north of the border, with the intention of holding it for as long as the government in Beirut fails to fulfill its pledge to disarm Hezbollah.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) once wrote that “the man who feels himself drawn to philosophy must himself seek out its immortal teachers in the quiet sanctuary of their works.” That’s easier said than done: philosophical classics have a terrible reputation outside ivory towers – as big, boring, difficult books, filled with obtuse theorizing about irrelevant problems, their covers featuring ghastly
Is there a plausible legal basis for going to war with Iran? Senate Democrats say no, and late yesterday forced a vote on a war powers resolution to bring the hostilities to a halt. It failed along largely partisan lines, 53-47, but Democrats say they intend to bring it up again, citing widening public disapproval
It’s not uncommon to see camouflage on the high street in Belgium. It is a peculiarly Belgian reflex: when the state feels the strain, it reaches for the army. This week, the federal government has done so once more. Soldiers have been deployed to bolster security around Jewish sites and neighborhoods in Brussels and Antwerp,
33 min listen
Steven Crowder, host of Louder with Crowder, joins Freddy to discuss the warring factions in the podcast world, worsened since Charlie Kirk’s assassination; the global left-wing alliance promoting communism in Cuba, whether Trump was wrong to attack Iran and why the Mark Carney kowtowed to China.
Mark Twain famously wrote that “rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated”, and similar rumors have proliferated about King Charles’s state visit to the United States not taking place as a direct result of the ongoing conflict in Iran. Dubiously-informed sources have suggested either that Charles himself is so personally offended by the outbreak
Denials, contradictions, inflammatory statements and exaggerations have for years characterized the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump. It is therefore difficult to determine who, this time, is closer to the truth in the dispute that has developed between the two countries regarding attacks on Iran’s energy facilities. Israel’s political and military
When a synagogue is firebombed or a Jewish school is targeted in Europe, the instinct is to reach for a familiar explanation: the rising tide of anti-Semitism, the radicalized lone wolf, the unhinged fringe. That explanation is no longer adequate. What is unfolding now in the UK and across Europe is not a spontaneous eruption
Are congressional Republicans absolutely determined to forfeit this November’s midterm elections? It sure looks that way. The GOP would hardly be acting any differently if it were secretly run by its enemies. The election-security provisions of the SAVE Act enjoy overwhelming popular support. According to CBS/YouGov polling, requiring photo ID to vote is literally an