Trump and Bibi Are Fighting

Israel and Iran exchange first strikes since April: For the last two months, the ceasefire between Israel and Iran had mostly held. Until this weekend, when it quickly unraveled. Now Iran is indicating its military campaign is over for now and that it’s ready to deescalate once again. (Who knows how true that is, of course.)

“Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel on Sunday night in retaliation for an Israeli strike near the Lebanese capital, Beirut, against its ally Hezbollah,” reports The New York Times. “The Israeli military said on Monday morning that it had launched two waves of airstrikes across Iran, including against the country’s largest petrochemical complex, prompting further Iranian missile attacks on central Israel.”

The fact that Iran started striking Israel because of Israel’s actions against Hezbollah—the terrorist group that has been firing on Israel from southern Lebanon since October 2023, in what has been termed the “Gaza Support War”—is of great significance; it shows a shift in how Iran is thinking about defense of its allies

“This is the first time in decades that a regional power has the means, capacity, and willingness to put hard power against Israeli military maneuvers or aggression against a third party,” writes Iran scholar Trita Parsi on his Substack. The full post characterizes Israel’s actions as involving “genocide,” a characterization with which I disagree, for reasons David Bernstein outlines here. But Parsi’s evaluation of the changing stakes is correct: Iran’s newfound willingness to strike Israel due to Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah signals that U.S. support of Israel may become costlier. It makes sense that President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been exchanging tense words (and that Trump has been urging Bibi to hold off on attacking Iran, allowing a little more time for diplomacy).

The magnitude of what just happened may take some time to sink in.

This is the first time Iran has struck Israel after Israel struck another country’s territory (that is, not Iran).

This means that the battle lines have been moved.

Iran’s deterrence had already been restored… pic.twitter.com/KHpNjBTh97

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) June 7, 2026

If Israel strikes southern Lebanon again, the Iranian military warned, “much harsher and more crushing actions than before will be on the way.” (But does this means it’s open season for Hezbollah, and they can just strike Israel with no consequences?) Tehran also said “it will target all oil and gas facilities linked to Israel, the US and their allies in the region if attacks on its own energy infrastructure continue” per Bloomberg and Fars, the Persian news service.

Where are the votes? Why exactly is it taking so damn long to count the votes in L.A.’s mayoral primary?

No winner has been determined yet, but Spencer Pratt—who had previously been in second place, behind incumbent mayor Karen Bass—is now trailing behind in third, after this most recent vote dump. Being third place behind Nithya Raman would mean Pratt does not advance to the primary, which would mean voters get the choice between basically two flavors of the same.

Me trying to figure out how votes get counted in LA pic.twitter.com/cXsbXNsY5C

— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) June 7, 2026

The Associated Press notes that only 80 percent of votes have been counted, so we don’t really know the full outcome yet. And The New York Times reports that “late returns have trended heavily in favor of the liberals who make up an overwhelming majority of the city’s electorate.” Plenty of people on the right have implied or outright alleged that that reflects election integrity problems:

Spencer Pratt was doing this well because he was calling out a crooked and flawed system. If this is how they think they’re going to stop him, buckle up. They’re going to unleash something much bigger.

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) June 7, 2026

No credible evidence of that has emerged. If that changes, I’ll note it.

Even though he’s a reality TV star with no governing experience, I can imagine Pratt being a breath of fresh air. “When it’s other people’s money for other people’s stuff, neither cost nor quality matters,” he said in a campaign ad, succinctly summarizing the problem with L.A.’s governance. (Also kind of a Milton Friedman point, but if any politician wants to coopt it, I’ll take it.) It’s kind of beautiful how much sheer rage he feels for the governing overlords whom he holds responsible for his home burning in the Palisades fire. It would be disappointing if Pratt didn’t get to advance, mostly because Raman doesn’t seem to present much opportunity for contrast from Bass.

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Scenes from New York: Six people were injured in a stabbing at Penn Station last night. “He was just screaming, waving his head around,” one witness told CBS of the suspect. “I’ve seen him once, but I didn’t think he was capable of doing anything.” CNN described him as possibly “unhoused.” (Their euphemism, not mine.)

It’s almost like letting crazy people take up semi-permanent residence in the subway tunnels does both them and others a disservice.

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QUICK HITS

• “For decades, oil traders, executives and analysts warned that closing the Strait of Hormuz would be a global economic catastrophe,” reports Bloomberg. “It’s now been more than three months since the waterway was effectively blocked, creating the worst supply shock in modern history. But a slew of workarounds is keeping crude oil below $100 a barrel, defying many of the industry’s grimmest forecasts for prices as high as $200. A combination of record US exports, a sharp and unexpected slowdown in Chinese demand and a steady trickle of crude still finding its way through the strait has helped absorb much of the shock from the loss of more than 10 million barrels a day of Middle Eastern supply.”
• “Local police received a call on May 27 claiming to have heard gunshots at Justice [Amy Coney] Barrett’s residence,” notes the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. “The call was a fake emergency meant to send police to swarm the home of the Justice and her family…the latest in a pattern of harassment of Justices’ families aimed at intimidation or worse.”
• Michelle Goldberg on “Why Everyone Wants Jon Ossoff to Run for President.” (Is this really what “everyone” wants? News to me.)
• Whole Foods comes to Bushwick, Brooklyn…and people flip out:

one good question to ask when people say stuff like this is: in what specific way are the ~45% of bushwick residents who make below $80k harmed by the presence of a whole foods? https://t.co/qu5boWIEv9

— just matt (@questionableway) June 7, 2026

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Source: https://reason.com/2026/06/08/trump-and-bibi-are-fighting/