Hello and welcome to Background Briefing available 24-7 at Background Briefing.

I'm Ian Masters and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news. We'll begin with an update on the blockade of the Persian Gulf

amid reports that negotiations with Iran might resume soon,

tempered by threats from the Revolutionary Guard Corps,

that they will blow up Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Qatari, oil and gas facilities

if Iranian ports are blocked.

Joining us to discuss a possible sign of progress with a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon

that Iran has made a precondition for a deal with the U.S. is Dr. Paul Pella, the Director of

Graduate Studies at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University.

He had a 28-year career in the US intelligence community, in which his last position was National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia,

and is the author of Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy, negotiating peace, war termination as a bargaining

process, and why America misunderstands the world. We will discuss his article at Responsible

Statecraft. What if Israel just won't stop? Then on this tax day, when the working and middle

class pay their taxes while, thanks to

Trump and the Republicans, the richest Americans and the billionaires get tax breaks.

We'll speak with Megan Snyder, the communications director for tax the greedy billionaires.

We'll discuss her article, at other words, we need to tax the corporations cashing in on the Iran war.

Then, finally, in spite of the withdrawal of the scandal-plagued Eric Swarwell from the race,

we are left with a ridiculous number of delusional Democrats vying to become the next governor of California,

crowding out the field to the point a fringe MAGA Republican could become the next

governor of the most democratic state in the Union. We will speak with Harold Meyerson,

one of the nation's best-known progressive columnist and editor-at-large of the American Prospect.

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