'Shoot and Kill'
Plus: California fails to unmask ICE agents, the illogic of medical-only marijuana rescheduling, driverless cars in D.C., and more...
Shoot and Kill. The U.S.-Iran conflict is evolving from a hot war of dueling air strikes to a nautical stalemate with lots of piracy and saber (cutlass?) rattling.
The two-week ceasefire between the two countries that was supposed to expire Wednesday has since morphed into an indefinite pause in direct hostilities. Neither side is actively bombing the other at the moment. But face-to-face negotiations have not restarted either.
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In lieu of directly shooting at each other, the U.S. and Iran have taken to harassing shipping in the region. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of War posted footage of Marines boarding a tanker in the Indian Ocean, claiming it was shipping Iranian oil.
Overnight, U.S. forces carried out a maritime interdiction and right-of-visit boarding of the sanctioned stateless vessel M/T Majestic X transporting oil from Iran, in the Indian Ocean within the INDOPACOM area of responsibility.
We will continue global maritime enforcement to… pic.twitter.com/SWF6Jt9Ci4
— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) April 23, 2026
U.S. Central Command claims to have redirected 33 ships during its blockade of Iranian coastal waters.
Iran also released footage on Thursday showing a swarm of small boats seizing two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran's use of a swarm of small, fast boats to seize two container ships near the Strait of Hormuz could undermine suggestions that US forces have disabled its naval threat and reveals the challenges facing reopening the oil export route https://t.co/uqyZNLjzU4 pic.twitter.com/CjD9x4dhmi
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 23, 2026
Iran also reportedly attacked a third ship but did not capture it.
In response, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that he'd ordered the U.S. Navy "to shoot and kill any boat, small boats" because they may be laying mines in the strait. The president told reporters on Thursday that he was in no rush to end the war and would hold out for the best deal.
California's doomed mask ban. Masked federal agents roaming America's streets are most libertarians' nightmare. But a recent ruling from a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals makes clear that states can't do much to make the secret police show their faces.
Earlier this week, a unanimous three-judge panel issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the state from enforcing its No Vigilantes Act, which requires nonuniformed police, both state and federal, to display identification.
While not all state regulations that touch on federal activity are per se unconstitutional, the U.S Constitution's "Supremacy Clause does bar direct state regulation of the federal government," wrote Judge Mark Bennett in the panel's opinion. "And that is precisely what the No Vigilantes Act does."
That law was passed in September 2025 in response to the Trump administration's very public deployment of masked federal immigration enforcement agents to California's cities. A related law, the No Secret Police Act, passed at the same time forbade federal agents from covering their faces in public.
In December 2025, the Trump administration sued to block enforcement of both laws on the argument that the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause forbade states from regulating the on-the-job conduct of federal agents.
In a February ruling, District Court Judge Christina Snyder partially sided with the Trump administration by blocking enforcement of the No Secret Police Act's mask ban, while allowing the No Vigilantes Act's identification requirement to go into effect.
Snyder ruled that the mask ban, which only applied to federal agents and not state police, was unreasonably discriminatory. She reasoned that the state's identification mandate, which applies to both state and federal agents, was not discriminatory and did not impede federal agents' ability to do their jobs.
Bennett wrote in his opinion that the minimal impact of the state's identification mandate was beside the point. "If a state law directly regulates the conduct of the United States, it is void irrespective of whether the regulated activities are essential to federal functions or operations, and irrespective of the degree to which the state law interferes with federal functions or operations," reads his opinion.
In response to Snyder's ruling, California lawmakers introduced a new mask ban that would apply to federal and state police. Under Bennet's ruling, that amendment wouldn't save the law.
A puzzling marijuana rescheduling. People are advised not to look a gift horse in the mouth, particularly if that gift horse is a Republican presidential administration lessening regulation on marijuana.
Nevertheless, the order Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed yesterday to reschedule state-legal medical marijuana from Schedule I (the federal government's most restrictive classification for controlled substances) to Schedule III presents some "legal and scientific puzzles," writes Reason's Jacob Sullum.
Blanche's order moves only state-legal medical marijuana into Schedule III, while leaving all recreational marijuana as Schedule I.
But as Sullum notes, "cannabis products that patients use for symptom relief are pharmacologically identical to cannabis products purchased by recreational consumers. Since the criteria for classifying drugs under the CSA [Controlled Substances Act] hinge on medical utility and abuse potential, it is not clear how the distinction drawn by Blanche can be justified within that scheme."
The practical effects of yesterday's rescheduling order are limited. It does not legalize medical marijuana, which would require subsequent Food and Drug Administration approval of specific cannabis products. Its main upshot is allowing state-legal medical cannabis businesses to deduct business expenses from their taxes and federally funded researchers to more easily gain access to marijuana.
Even so, this modest regulatory liberalization is too much for some hardcore drug warriors.
Hear Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) on X call the rescheduling "a step in the wrong direction."
Marijuana today is much more potent than just ten or twenty years ago, leading to increased psychosis, anti-social behavior, and fatal car crashes. Arkansans don't want more dangerous drugs obtained more easily. A change to marijuana's drug classification is a step in the wrong…
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) April 23, 2026
Cry more.
Scenes from D.C.: District residents can already see camera-studded Waymo's traveling on city streets, albeit with a human driver at the wheel and no passengers in the back seat. Soon, the nation's capital might get to experience the real thing.
Council member Charles Allen has unveiled a new bill that would legalize self-driving services, while requiring the companies to subsidize human drivers.
Passenger service in self-driving cars like Waymo may be closer in D.C. @charlesallen has a bill to legalize Waymo and other self-driving services, with requirements that service be offered all over the city, data sharing, and a fund to help ride-share drivers who lose jobs. pic.twitter.com/ja7ws9ezBv
— Martin Austermuhle (@maustermuhle) April 23, 2026
In a recent deep dive on crashes involving Waymos, Understanding AI reporters Timothy Lee and Kai Williams find that almost all these accidents are the result of human drivers' mistakes. The most common traffic hazard Waymos create is stopping where they shouldn't, they report.
QUICK LINKS
- House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.) is grilled by kid reporters who want to know why everyone hates Democrats. It's cute, but it's no Dianne Feinstein telling child climate change activists to stop being so stupid. RIP.
- Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce, or about 8,000 jobs.
- A new episode of Freed Up, cohosted by yours truly and Robby Soave, is out. Come for the political analysis, stay for the persistent Bane impressions.
On Freed Up, @robbysoave and @christianbrits cover the DOJ's allegations involving the SPLC, Hasan Piker's rhetoric on violence, and the good news for marijuana rescheduling. https://t.co/K01E88Mpor
— reason (@reason) April 23, 2026
- Richard Hanania has an interesting, critical review of Dominion, a 2019 book by British historian and The Rest Is History cohost Tom Holland.
- A Manhattan judge blocks Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration from moving a homeless shelter to the East Village.
- The latest FISA reauthorization bill text released by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.) leaves privacy advocates unimpressed.
- Markets in everything.
BREAKING: DOJ announces it has arrested a US Special Forces soldier who took part in the raid that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro after the soldier allegedly pocketed $400,000 by betting more than $30,000 on Maduro's removal on Polymarket.
Name: GANNON KEN VAN DYKE
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 23, 2026
