The first half of April 2026 gave us two weeks of Donald Trump decompensating in front of the eyes and ears of the world from his already degraded state. First there was his apocalyptic threat against Iran, set for the first Tuesday, which became a big nothing. And then there was his AI Jesus-healing-the-sick portrait, which he denied not long after the cock crowed the next day.
Now he's fighting with the Pope, who is only saying normal Pope things.
Rep. Eric Swalwell was credibly accused of sexual assault, withdrew from the California governor's race, and resigned from Congress.
During the rest of the weeks, there was some good news. The Supreme Court managed to do its job and find that birthright citizenship does, after all, exist in the U.S. Constitution. The Artemis crew completed its mission around the moon perfectly. J.D. Vance made a fool of himself several times. And Viktor Orban lost the election in Hungary!
Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed account and is in reverse chronological order, except some of the images, which I move up or down for better visual balance.
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i dunno maybe it's because i'm in Minnesota and we kicked out Al Franken for squeezing his constituents' asses and now have a woman senator who is *currently holding the senate floor to save the boundary waters*, but you got a man with baggage? you can toss the man!
Dex Anderson
BREAKING: The California Supreme Court permanently disbarred John Eastman — a key architect in President Donald Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election — delivering one of the most consequential professional penalties yet for an election denier.
Marc Elias
As someone who doesn't want children the only thing that could change my mind is if a weird guy on the internet told me I should
Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social
"A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess." –A. Philip Randolph, born on this day in 1889:
Ray E. Boomhower
I’ve given this a great deal of thought, trying to come up with the perfect joke for this moment, and this is what I have so far:
POPE LEO: our religion teaches that this war is bad
VANCE: wow, who died and made YOU head of the Catholic Church??
POPE LEO: well, you should know, you were there
Claire Willett
Losing SLACs (small liberal arts colleges) is absolutely a sign of American academia's decline and the gutting of the humanities in particular. I'm pretty sure SLACs are a uniquely American phenomenon. Most countries don't have hundreds of small, non-research-oriented colleges dedicated to teaching.
Rebecca Bodenheimer
Hey, so ICE is still kidnapping and disappearing people in the United States. Just because they got quieter about it doesn't make it okay. Abolish ICE. Chinga la Migra.
Marje, herself @minn-finn.bsky.social
AI is profoundly unpopular. A recent NBC News poll found that among 18–34 year-olds, AI's net favorability rating is –44. *Negative 44*. Those are basically serial killer numbers. It's not much better among women 18–49. (Men over 50 and upper class are the only ones who like AI, and just barely.)
Brian Merchant
Heat pumps are the most efficient heating technology ever invented. They harvest and compress pre existing heat in the air, ground or water and transport it where it is needed. That energy is all around us. And it does not have to pass through the Strait of Hormuz:
Jan Rosenow
it is a little odd how conservatives are just casually discussing if the president of the united states is the antichrist
darth™️
It’s infuriating when a woman comes forward about a man raping her in his hotel room after drinking and the response is “Why would she go to his room?” “Why would she drink with him?” This is Mike Pence logic. Women should be allowed to hang out with men without expecting they will be raped.
Kat Tenbarge
Turned on NBC. They talked about “President tipping a DoorDash driver $100.” This woman participated in GOP ads before playing other roles. There is no DoorDash deliveries to the Oval Office. Please exercise proper judgement when consuming news.
Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com
It's wild that American Republicans see millions of people attending No Kings rallies and assume, with no evidence, that they're all being paid...and then some grandma who has literally lobbied for DoorDash delivers to the White House with the *cameras rolling* and they think it's an adorable moment.
Seth Cotlar
this being the thing that crosses the line for many rightwingers is so illustrative of how they don’t really care about anything real that actually matters. their problems are all entirely fictional:
onion person @junlper.beer
Donald Trump is killing real schoolgirls in Iran and kidnapping and murdering real Americans in the streets. Interesting that the only thing he’s done that went “too far” for MAGA was an *imaginary* image. What a ridiculous world we live in.
Mrs. Betty Bowers
Trump is running an interesting experiment in how many self-identified Christian Americans have actual religious commitments and how many are just into it because it provides a means for the socially defensible expression of bigotry
Adam Serwer
Is he purposely healing Jeffrey Epstein just to push it to see how far he can go?
saint-timonious.bsky.social
He's not trying to heal Epstein, he's trying to wipe his memory.
Shifty Cow @supergoofnz.bsky.social
The Republican Party used to complain that President Obama used the pronoun "I" too much in his speeches.
Kevin M. Kruse
Since Trump has trouble distinguishing what someone in the medical profession looks like, here is a picture of a lifesaving professional:
Thomas Fortenberry
Imagine if there were OpEds in the Star Tribune about how car culture is bankrupting our society? But nope, instead the central problem facing Minneapolis apparently are the bike lanes. It's so comically stupid, you really need to be an idiot to believe these immoral grifters.
Pedestrianize it @mplsdromomania.bsky.social
Regarding yesterday’s brain dead Strib op Ed from the finance bro: If you’re bemoaning the struggle of local street life and retail and your analysis doesn’t include Amazon and online shopping; you are dumb. Your opinion is junk and should be discarded immediately with hostility. I’m not a big fan of capitalism but also it’s real and it’s fucking crazy that its own acolytes can’t seem to perceive it. Your most brain dead socialist understands The Market better than its own high priests.
Tom Basgen, Mr. Saint Paul
Julie Kearns
Personally, I still find it bonkers that there are no Thomas Paine statues in D.C. today. (There is one sort of perpetually in the works, however.)
Chance Phillips
I think another reason many Americans Feel Bad About the Economy: There is a constant barrage of information indicating to the casual observer that people who run scams and lie and refuse to play by the rules aren't just going unpunished, they're *making way more money than you are* as a result.
Faine Greenwood
Instead of asking chatgpt, why not ask a librarian? You'll get real answers and they won't tell you to kill yourself.
Spencer Koelle
What's wild about all the folks freaking out over the expensive luxury car story is that U.S. carmakers started openly telling everyone ~10 years ago that they would stop making affordable cars and only make giant, luxury trucks and SUVs. And then, they did exactly what they said they would do. There's no mystery within the US car industry about their plans to rob and kill you. They talk about it on earnings calls!! They talk to reporters about it!!! It's **their strategy** But for some reason, American drivers aren't listening, not getting the message, and so keep stepping on the rake.
Matthew Lewis @mateosfo.bsky.social
I don't think it's well recognised how much airtime the fossil fuel industry has gotten in traditional media because they're considered "experts" on fossil fuels, and because they have formal, jargony knowledge of oil and gas, that means they *must* be unbiased and rational and neutral somehow
Ketan Joshi
I know this isn’t funny but it made me laugh…
Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social
Slightly maddening when serious news outlets drag everyone down to Trump’s level by using language like “feud” as if it’s some reality TV spat. Pope Leo delivered a moral critique of American military aggression. That is not “feuding” even if Trump responded with a deranged personal attack.
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social
Scientists triple the time we can preserve human hearts. Donated hearts usually can survive outside the body for a maximum of four hours. A team at Vanderbilt University developed a preservative fluid that could triple the time the heart can survive outside the body.
Ada Palmer
Don't blame the economic system, that's a lazy cop-out. The rich have rigged the economic system to give them all the money. That is not intrinsic to the system, that's what happens when the rich write the rules and no one else pays attention.
Dean Baker
I suspect the Pope sounds "woke" to many Christian conservatives because the US is steeped in prosperity theology, where the point of worship is to deliver health and wealth to believers. Thus, "feed the hungry" and "show mercy for the poor" sounds needlessly political and "woke."
derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social
Signs of our times:
Bob @actualbob.art
Pretty weird to watch Orban lose and concede and say "see, democracy in the US is fine if that can happen" instead of "oh shit we're worse than Hungary"
Dave Levitan
The massive Orban defeat should prompt Dems to align themselves more firmly with anti-fascist and pro-democracy forces abroad. There's a powerful link to be drawn between the celebrations in Budapest and the confrontations with ICE in Minneapolis.
Greg Sargent
holy shit Orban actually conceded
folks, they tell you they’re invincible
they tell you they’re inevitable
they tell you that you should give up and stop fighting
and absolutely none of that is true
Viktor Orban accomplished so much of what the Trump movement wants to accomplish here
he ruled for 16 years and rewrote the rules in his favor
and still, they threw him out
and you know what? they did it by voting
don’t let anyone tell you voting doesn’t matter
Micah @rincewind.run
When Trump walks out naked into the half-finished ballroom, the New York Times will call it a bold and unprecedented fashion statement
Bruce Waln
This is more than 11x the amount that Minneapolis has spent on bike infrastructure in the past decade.
Milan GDP: $250B
Mpls GDP: $350B
For
comparison, the 494 expansion from Edina to Richfield will cost $377M.
494/35W interchange: $255 million. We can have nice things. We just
choose not to:
Erik Noonan
Things bike helmets will protect you from:
- Head injuries from a slow speed fall
- Light rain
- Being blamed for not wearing a helmet if you get hit by someone driving 5,000 lbs of metal and glass
Things bike helmets won't protect you from:
- Everything else
Tara Goddard @drtaragoddard.com
Wouldn't it be cool to invest trillions of dollars into a technology that would actually make society better? Maybe we can call it “HI” — Human Intelligence. Instead of “data centers”, we could fund “schools.” Instead of *stealing* art, literature, and science, we help people *create* it. Crazy!
Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social
I'm gonna get this out of my system so I don't go insane: What Trump said about the pope is easily the most genuinely anti-Catholic thing any American politician has ever said in my entire lifetime, and if Obama or Biden had said it, there would literally be calls to disband the Democratic Party.
Sean T. Collins
I don't want Trump to apologize. I want people to recognize him for the unapologetic rabid lunatic that he is.
Patrick Chovanec
Republicans have successfully eroded the budget of the IRS since 2010. They believe in law and order for the vulnerable but not for the wealthy taxpayer. They believe in cutting taxes but not in collecting them.
Larry Ladd
alabama theater, houston, texas, 1977:
old roadside pics
It's the 7th month of the US bombing random ships in Latin American waters they claim are drug smugglers (reminder that two survivors who were rescued were repatriated, not charged), and the death toll is 150+, and it barely gets discussed.
Nicholas Slayton
Wild that Sam Altman is being sued by his sister for repeated sexual abuse and that doesn’t come up in basically every conversation about him. I get that it’s alleged but if that shit was happening to someone else I feel like that would come up, particularly if that person had a history of lying a lot.
Chris Person @papapishu.bsky.social
Any government that isn't right now accelerating plans to transition to 100% clean, renewable energy is either:
a. Incompetent
b. In the pockets of people who'd rather they didn't
c. a & b
Jason Gorman
Trump is going to brag that, unlike Pope Leo, he has a hot wife
Kevin M. Kruse
The point of the university as a concept is that it's been here for a thousand years and meant to be here another thousand. Turning education over to producing what the market needed five years ago is never going to work well.
Dr ShinyGoth @ghostingdani.bsky.social
I just listened to an extended NPR interview w an education economist about 40 years of rising college tuition and student debt, and not a single mention that 40 years ago was about the time all states cut higher education budgets, privatized tuition, in order to pay for tax cuts and prisons
Benjamin Balthaser
if you live in North America please buy at least one of these Lasko 20" box fans with a holder for a filter. Comes with a MERV 10 filter. Then get yourself a 2-pack of Filtrete 20x20x1 MERV 13 filters. It's gonna be fire season for everybody:
Cishet Billionaire @bennettelder.net
Look I understand the Catholic church has a bajillion problems, but with my whole heart: Fuck him up Leo.
dan sinker
Saw an ad for M&Ms today and honestly....if you don't know about M&Ms by now you are dumb as fuck
greg2hats @cyberbadboy.com
Asked my wife, "How do you think Philip Pullman came up with the idea for daemons?" and she stared at me so long that I thought maybe she had no memory of the His Dark Materials books until she revealed she thought I had said _Bill_ Pullman.
Emily St. James
Trump will insist he never really cared about the outcome of the Hungarian election, didn't know Orban that well, thought he would probably lose, no big deal.
Kevin M. Kruse
As we await the Hungarian election results, it’s worth remembering that Orban first rode to power using the same antisemitic Soros conspiracy theories that fuel MAGA. The US consultant who gave him the idea (Finkelstein) got his start selling Goldwater and then Reagan in the US.
Seth Cotlar
We have hollowed out our society so that a few very special boys can have as many toys as they can possibly collect and we need to stop them. Ideally, by taxing them out of existence.
Lilah Sturges
One of the amazing works of #art by the celebrated Chinese folk artist Ku Shulan known as the “Goddess of the Paper Cut":
Dianne Sherman
So far, Vance’s foreign policy record is yelling at Zelensky for not thanking Trump enough, campaigning for AfD in Germany and Orban in Hungary, getting rejected by the Pope on his invite to the US, and failing in the Iran negotiations.
Ron Filipkowski
In the popular imagination protests should occur at capitols and campuses. Maybe that made sense. Now days the protests should be on the steps of media companies.
Soiorner
Trump translator:
“People are saying” = no one has said, except me
“Believe me” = I’m about to lie
“Frankly” = brace yourself for a lie
“Two weeks” = never
“People don’t know” = I didn’t know, until they just told me
Patrick Chovanec
In large part, what we call "conservatism" is just a series of financial grifts in which people like Rufo and fake "Christian" pastors strip money out of universities (replacing critical research and other funding with money for themselves and their fake "institutes..." believers, and governments.
Joy-Ann Reid
Wish WE had come up with that one!
Urban Truth Collective
the casualness with which trump mentions nuclear weapons now is fucking insane
Marisa Kabas
A reminder that the Vietnam peace talks lasted from 1968 to 1973; the "marathon" Iran talks took place in less than a day. I think the short attention span of Trump and everyone around him is a part of our trouble.
Bill McKibben
You could try to argue that raising prices aren't inflationary, as Secretary Bessent has done. Or you could defer to economists at the Fed who note that Trump's tariffs explain >100% of CPI inflation.
Sean Casten
blessed to live in a country where the Attorney General is in charge of stock market announcements, the son in law is in charge of peace negotiations, the secretary of state is in charge of getting wasted at fights, the FBI director is in charge of getting wasted at hockey , and the VP is in charge of tweets
Shiv Ramdas @nameshiv.bsky.social
I did not expect to be jump scared by a Charles Barkley blimp during my commute:
Amy Nemmity @amy.wrestlejoy.com
Another tragedy on the roads of Marin County, with one teen killed and four more hurt in a solo crash. But sure, let's spend an entirely legislative session in Sacramento arguing about e-bikes, shall we?
Warren Wells
This administration is just a huge advertisement for why diversity, equity and inclusion are important to the function of a healthy society.
Kimberly Reese @childsplease.blacksky.app
Barack Obama sent seasoned diplomats and nuclear scientists to negotiate the Iran Deal. Donald Trump sent a few real estate bros and JD Vance. Failure was a foregone conclusion.
Andrew Weinstein
really wish we could impeach and convict trump because denying him a presidential library seems like the least we could do
Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social
It's not punishment to say that someone with power who has abused that power doesn't get to get more power. That's a consequence. Some of you are truly ridiculous.
Prisonculture
While reading the news from Budapest, take a moment to look at this photo of Hungarian-American Bela Lugosi at an antifascist rally in Los Angeles during the war:
Will @willcrain2.bsky.social
All I'm saying is we should be able to find people who aren't rapists or sex pests or don't have Nazi tattoos to represent us in Congress I do not think I'm asking for the world here
Coach Finstock
It's gotten lost amidst everything else, but a sitting Vice President traveling overseas to speak at a campaign rally for a flailing authoritarian leader is such a massive violation of both norms and democratic values
Seth Masket @smotus.bsky.social
Apropos of nothing, just something I think about a lot: During the worst pandemic in a century, lots of people told a bunch of outrageous lies that caused much, much more death. It was one of the more grotesque moral crimes I've ever witnessed and zero (0) of those involved faced any consequences.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
sick of these catholic converts showing up and saying "well I have a different interpretation of the scripture" no you don't. that's protestantism and a heresy. don't like it there's the (incredibly beautiful and heavily ornamented with precious metals) door. do you want "Catholicism but american" we invented that, it's called Episcopalianism and it's even more woke. all the priests are lesbians. good luck
donoteat
French perspective:
Steve Brooks
On this day in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson authorized overt racial segregation in federal employment. Federal endorsement of Jim Crow policies was a significant blow to Black civil rights.
Equal Justice Initiative
I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses
John Scalzi
Vance’s actual position on the war is clear: Whatever helps me become president is what I believe in.
Mark Jacob
RFK Jr. is not killing mRNA technology, he's just killing the research here. China is moving full-speed ahead with it
Dean Baker
Jim Holland (American Artist, born 1955). "Green Room," 2011. Oil on canvas:
fravery.bsky.social
Some people grow bitter as they get old and their world shrinks around them. Some grow wiser. They are not generally the same people.
Politics and Health
something that wrinkles my brain every time I remember it is the fact that total eclipses are only possible on earth because the moon and sun appear to be the same size in our sky, due to the insanely, astronomically unlikely fluke that the moon is 400x smaller than the sun but 400x closer to us.
The Author, Séamas O'Reilly
The gravest threat to the national security of the United States is the White House.
Peter Norton
Artemis II was overshadowed by other bad things in the news but what it accomplished was frankly amazing. We are capable of incredible and unprecedented things. I’m in awe at how far we safely sent humans into space.
Aaron Rupar
It can't be said often enough, so I'll say it again: Solar and batteries can power the world! It's cheaper than gas (esp. at today's prices) and a lot more reliable. By 2030, solar and batteries could supply 90% of electricity to 80% of the world's population for < €80/MWh (including backup). It's obvious now that solar and batteries are going to be the cheapest, most reliable, and least volatile way to expand a power grid. Increasing dependence on fossil gas generation now—as many governments are contemplating—would be a terrible mistake, both economically and geopolitically.
Chris Nelder
Of all of the post-splashdown photos from the Artemis II mission, this is my favorite. It captures the best of who we are, the best of who we can be:
Leah McElrath
Is the fact that the Iran war wasn’t congressionally authorized something we no longer talk about? Seems like the reporting/discussion now just assumes that Trump can just do whatever he wants wrt the use of force
Asha Rangappa
i firmly believe that kennedy wants preventable diseases to rip through american communities since, in his warped mind, those who survive without vaccines will have proven themselves “healthy.”
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
EVERY DAMN DAY we have to deal with a whole bunch of putting some man's "value to society" over our basic humanity. EVERY DAY. "But he'll be a good president." Find someone else. "But he's a good comedian." So will someone else be. "But he catches footballs good." FUCK OFF WITH THAT.
JC @conductress.bsky.social
Never gonna shut up about how TEXTILES are what bring astronauts home safely from the moon.
Lyndall
Every single one of the astronauts who went to the moon and back on Artemis II was educated at a public school. Thinking of the teachers who poured into Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen tonight. You helped send a kid to the moon!
Chanea Bond @heymrsbond.com
Is that a winged… Statue of Liberty? What is she triumphing over? Logic? Democracy? The people of DC?
Yonah Freemark
Is there really someone (besides DJT) who would look at this and say 'I feel more American'?
Bill McKibben
MAGA: “Why are the people I spent that last decade insulting not standing right there to catch me when I fall flat on my face?”
Patrick Chovanec
French government announces it will ban installations of gas heating in new building construction by the end of this year, as part of the country’s effort to wean itself off fossil fuels.
Yonah Freemark
Joe Rogan spent the entire election cycle campaigning for the far-right candidate, now he says he wants a "logical centrist government". Bro, Kamala Harris WAS the centrist, which you would have seen if you weren't a racist piece of shit who went out of your way to ratfuck her comms team.
Chad Loder
the minute women start making up something like 40% of a workforce, men flee it. This is why college is now seen as "feminine", simply because men don't like being a minority in the room. There is no way to fix this without tackling misogyny.
Wanda Walker
Normalize this instead of Share the Road:
Gravel Influencer
Has a news personality ever asked somebody how they think the markets will react to the latest atrocity and been told, after a shocked silence, that they're a fucking ghoul and it's hideous to even think about stonks when kids are getting blown to pieces? I wish that would happen from time to time.
Chris Dwan @somershade.bsky.social
In memory of Phil Ochs — singer-songwriter, anti-war activist, father, true patriot — who took his life fifty years ago today.
Billy Bragg
Antarctic humpback whales have recovered to nearly pre-whaling levels. Humpbacks have been the fastest to rebound since commercial whaling was banned in 1986, with multiple groups of more than 100 whales recorded near the South Orkney Islands.
Ada Palmer
The Trump administration says they are keeping Kristi Noem’s $70 million jet, outfitted with a queen-sized bed and cocktail bar, for Melania Trump to use.
Brian Tyler Cohen
It is mindboggling that, in the face of climate change, increasing traffic, gas prices, and *everything else*, the California legislature's highest transportation priority this session is limiting the use of e-bikes. Genuinely a real possibility of the CA e-bike industry being regulated out of existence.
Warren Wells
dj's bar, dickinson, north dakota, 1987:
old roadside pics
The big winners in the Iran war: The U.S. "defense" industry and the politicians they keep in their pockets.
Mark Jacob
A commenter notes that "Trump managed to be both Hitler and Chamberlain in the same negotiation. An unprecedented feat."
Aaron Rupar
Just wanted to remind folks, especially the GOP and the FDD, that Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal didn’t give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz or allow it to keep 60% enriched uranium. It sent $1.7 billion to Iran versus the tens of billions Iran will now make from tolls.
Mehdi Hasan
The time between fossil fuel crises is just going to keep shrinking, until there's no discrete single "crisis" - just one unbroken prolonged state of global suffering due to fossil fuel unreliability. The best time to ditch fossil fuels was 30 years ago. The second best time is now
Ketan Joshi
putting aside its obvious propaganda, trump's posts and comments need to be reported and understood not as policy but as detached-from-reality lies about the gamble he predictably lost. there’s no legit ‘claim of victory’ but only a distraction from failure and incompetence.
David Kaye
Ryo Takemasa:
Cool Bike Art
Obama kept saying either we do the nuclear deal or else war and sorry, credit where credit due; A-plus analysis
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social
Presenting the reopening the Strait of Hormuz as a victory is like the Greeks failing to take Troy but celebrating the safe return of their wooden horse
Henry Mance
Will the media treat Trump starting a war for no reason, wasting a bunch of lives, money and military equipment ending in strategic defeat like they did Biden ending a 20 year war that was going nowhere? (Lmao no, they absolutely will not)
tmbhmltn.bsky.social
America should be labeled a pariah state for what it pulled yesterday and I'm not joking. Like I'm talking trade sanctions. Tourist Entry denials. This is a rogue nation with no regard for international stability or human life.
Zane Schacht – Voice Goblin @voicesbyzane.bsky.social
Gracie12 @gracienlucy.bsky.social
The horror of sitting across from a Trump voter is the realization that they do not believe in universal human rights. Simple as. They believe in a tiered, racist and patriarchal system of humanity, and they're voting to ensure they remain at the top of it.
Chad Loder
i think we should start a petition to permanently ban pete hegeseth from the minnesota state fair. it feels like that’s how you excommunicate a minnesotan. sweet martha signs the order. fairchild throws you to the curb.
ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com
Underrated possible outcome is that Trump just walks away like he did with the Houthis last year and Israel and Iran just shoot at each other for another 6 months.
James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social
So the Strait of Hormuz, previously free, is now behind a paywall? ART OF THE DEAL!
Frank Conniff
it cant be said enough that all tech smart guys and billionaires thought this guy would be great and now the world economy is fucked we're like a week from gas rationing and their guy is threatening nukes.
Jason Concepcion @netw3rk.bsky.social
Sorry. No room for bike lanes:
Qagggy!
Remember when Iranian protesters were being leveraged to manufacture consent for this war? Now, Trump calls all Iranians "animals" and says he will bomb the country "into the Stone Age."
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social
the guys walking around in shoes that don’t fit are not gonna do a 25th Amendment
Claire Willett
just to be clear, everyone, when 8 pm EDT [Tuesday, April 7] comes and goes, regardless of what does or does not happen, the president still threatened genocide and war crimes and we should still impeach, arrest, and try him
madeline odent @oldenoughtosay.com
Cash for Clunkers but make it gas cars and gas appliances.
Isak Kvam
"What can Democrats do?" When the South Korean president attempted to declare martial law, South Korean lawmakers literally fought through tanks and military forces and climbed fences to get into their Parliament building to stop him. So, you know, that.
Sheryl Weikal @leftistlawyer.com
You can't separate anti-immigrant and anti-trans politics from what is happening with Iran. When MAGA picked transphobia and nativism as its organizing principle, it selected for the capacity to treat entire categories of people as civilizational threats whose elimination is an act of self-defense.
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net
Festoon of shells, 1656. Proving for all time that still-life painting can be hilarious. By Jan van Kessel of Antwerp, born on this day, 1626:
Dr. Peter Paul Rubens
The fact that nobody seriously believes there is an institution in this country that will check the president — that we’re all just sitting here hoping that he gets distracted and fails to follow through on his genocidal threats — is the most damning indictment of our political system I’ve seen yet.
Molly Coleman
“He didn’t literally mean he would wipe out an entire civilization.” Then he shouldn’t have fucking said it. He’s the President of the United States. He has sole launch authority over the world’s most sophisticated nuclear arsenal, and words mean things.
Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social
Man i really wish democrats would spend every day talking about how republicans are chickenshit cowards and lapdogs for doing whatever Trump wants. Because someday they’re going to gaslight the public about all this
Wes Burdine
I just feel that I wasted all that classroom time teaching Federalist 51 like it mattered. “This is like the owner’s manual of the Constitution,” I said. That’s my bad, students. Turns out that’s on me.
James Longhurst
I have made another incredible parental literary discovery:
Mrs. Detective Pikajew, Esq. @clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social
Armageddon is terrible, but our only other option was diversity trainings at work.
Kashana
same Overton Window-shattering tactic he’s always used: Even if worst doesn’t happen tonight - rhetorically he’s opened up possibility of the unimaginable, making lesser (but still horrible) actions seem moderate by comparison… all increasing likelihood that one day the worst really will happen
Christopher Mathias @letsgomathias.bsky.social
I think not enough people understand that the pushback against renewables and EV's is money. Without getting too in the weeds: renewables cannot ever be as profitable as oil and gas. EV's don't make as much money as gas guzzlers. That's it. That's all you really need to know.
Kendra Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com
The media told us, based on the amount of coverage they devoted to it, that the number one military-related issue of the 2024 campaign was whether Tim Walz retiring from the National Guard after 21 years was too soon or not.
mtsw
I’ve come to the sad conclusion that the relative low level of antisemitism in my life up till now has been a blip caused by the existence of living Holocaust survivors. And as the last Holocaust survivors die, and it fades from living memory, the base normal level of antisemitism returns.
Naomi Alderman
Haunted food. My mum spiralised a carrot, and the result is like a cross between Thomas the Tank Engine, Pinocchio, and John Carpenter's The Thing:
Richard Littler
"Donald Trump must be removed from office" is the correct response to all of this. They have to remove him from office and send him to The Hague, literally as fast as they can
Anjali Dayal
This is a supervillain monlogue. I will never understand how anyone can watch this man say things like “a whole civilization will die tonight” and fail to recognize evil when they see it.
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social
American journalism is so comprehensively unequal to this moment that it beggars belief
Ted McCormick
Rep. Andy Kim: Three weeks of the war in Iran could have funded vision, hearing, and dental coverage for every senior in America on Medicare. I mean, it just gives you a sense of the trade-off.
Acyn
Rare image of a stork delivering a baby!
Aunt Hagatha
Reminder that any billionaire could, at any time, establish a fund that supported a dozen local news outlets in perpetuity, and it would amount to a rounding error on their fortunes, and they just don't do it.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
During this incredible, unifying moment of inspiring international cooperation and spectacular technological achievement, I would really appreciate it if the US president would stop threatening to murder an entire country with bombs.
Katie Mack @astrokatie.com
So the old system wasn't good, it was just stable. It maintained a shared picture of reality, but that picture reflected some people's experience far more than others. That exclusion created legitimate grievance long before social media existed.
Eliot Higgins
The right, y'all. War crimes, sex crimes, aggression, entitlement. Take what you want, when you want, because the weak deserve it. Shake, stir, repeat:
Michael Feola @feolski.bsky.social
we understand the right as male. when it's predatory, we justify it the same way we do male predators
Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social
Transportation politics is about dragging people kicking and screaming into change that results fairly quickly in a widespread consensus that we can't imagine going back to the way it was before.
Wedge LIVE!™
Rules and norms about war crimes are a global public good. If you or anyone in your family is between 16 and 60, male, and walks, you have a direct personal interest in it not being legitimate for them to be assinated for walking within any undeclared 3km radius around any combatant. The limitations on violence established after World War II were not brought by pacifists or peaceniks but by literal old soldiers. They knew. They had seen.
Ben Phillips @benphillips76.bsky.social
I know we are pre-grieving the world’s future, but perhaps one thing we could look forward to is a time we never have to hear or see the words “I love working with brands” ever again.
mollypeonies
I'm glad we got our guy back from a place he shouldn't have been in the first place, but it should be noted we lost SEVEN aircraft in the rescue effort.
Robert Moffitt @justplainbob.bsky.social
truly the image that defines congress in our time:
Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social
this feels like time for one of my periodic rants about how Judaism gets some stuff wrong - like all religions - but one of the things we are REALLY GOOD ON is the nature of forgiveness. which is to say: first, unless they have come to you with sincere repentance, you don't have to forgive anyone! there is no moral or spiritual benefit to you just up-and-forgiving. in fact, in Jewish culture if you unilaterally forgive, you have derailed a vital process which the community needs to go through together in order to process wrongdoing and create communal cohesion again. the process of 'forgiveness' BEGINS with the wrong-doer who has to come to the person or people they harmed and sincerely ask to be forgiven. but in fact it begins long before that with the wrong-doer conducting a challenging process of self-reflection and commitment to change
Naomi Alderman
Tricia McLaughlin, as DHS spokesperson, justified the deportation of an Army veteran because he was a "repeat offender" who had bounced a check and broken something. Meanwhile, her husband got a $220 million federal contract under incredibly suspicious circumstances. I bet it was his first offense.
Kevin M. Kruse
More ethanol. More corn. More fertilizer. More nitrate in your water. Policymakers keep pushing for more, more, more, but don't have the courage to make ag actually address its vast pollution problem. So they'll ask for more of your money to fund failed voluntary conservation.
Robert Hirschfeld
Rabbit scissors, 1980s:
Present & Correct
If your pastor is an agent of the government, you aren’t worshipping Jesus Christ, you are worshipping Empire. Happy Easter
Bill Emory @oldmanemory.bsky.social
Every single day Trump acts out in a way that would get you banned from Dave & Busters and the media types up things like “Trump challenges limits of executive theory.”
Grudgie the Whale
NEW: Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff’s net worth increased 15%—to $2.3B—in the past year, largely due to World Liberty Financial. That’s the crypto venture his family co-owns with the Trumps and a firm backed by UAE’s national security adviser.
Zach Everson
The corruption is staggering.
Patrick Chovanec
I mean, you don't really need a translator:
Tom Nichols @radiofreetom.bsky.social
US:
1 month ago: "90% of Iranian missile launchers are destroyed!"
2 weeks ago: 70% of Iranian missile launchers are destroyed!"
Today: "Half Iranian missile launchers destroyed!"
At this rate the US is building Iranian missile launchers for Iran within two weeks.
@heresy.bsky.social
Actually we should just give citizenship to every undocumented person in the United States who wants it. Walking over an imaginary line isn't some great moral atrocity. Making people live in the shadows as a permanent underclass absolutely IS.
Sheryl Weikal @leftistlawyer.com
Why do we live in such a childish, stupid country? A country that wastes its money on useless billion dollar aircraft carriers, when it could be spending those tax dollars to actually help its citizens like sane countries:
Mrs. Betty Bowers
The obscenity of a budget that cuts the forest service to fund the re-opening of Alcatraz as a prison.
Philip Gourevitch
The last 24 hours marked the highest number of U.S. aircraft shot down in a single day since Vietnam. Trump did that.
Krassensteins
Propaganda has brainwashed some of the public to think fossils are good and wind/solar are bad, but fortunately, reality and physics win, as new wind and solar are dominating in the U.S. and worldwide.
Mark Z. Jacobson
Frank is appalled and would like humans to please get their shit together:
@gabimccauley.bsky.social
we should put whoever makes broccoli rubber bands in charge of more stuff. "the center cannot hold"?? have u tried using a broccoli rubber band?
Nate's Myth @natesmith.dev
What I don't get about American consumer psychology is that people seem extraordinarily price-insensitive about vehicle purchases and the implicit costs of commuting but hyper-sensitive about gas prices and groceries.
Stephen Judkins
If Democrats living in cities actually supported transit and gave up their cars, the political equation would be different. Love of cars and fossil fuels is one of the few areas of bi-partisan consensus.
Pedestrianize it @mplsdromomania.bsky.social
Both Polymarket and kalshi reached out to pay me to put their ads in my newsletters in the last month. Told both to fuck off, obviously. But I bring it up because it seems like the only way to make $ right now is to work for some entity destroying society in a race to the bottom. It fucking sucks.
Molly Knight
On This Day in 1815, Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted: the most powerful in human recorded history. As well as killing 71,000, it led to Europe's "Year Without Summer", climate refugees, and the creation of Shelley's Frankenstein...
The Public Domain Review
if you invented public libraries today, every opinion page in the country would be arguing for means tested subsidized Amazon Prime memberships
jesse @jesseltaylor.bsky.social
what if we recalibrated the world's largest economy so that it aimed only to benefit weapons manufacturers, surveillance companies, private prisons, and scam artists
Evan Berry @ecothought.bsky.social
The Trump budget would cut LIHEAP entirely and "instead support low-income individuals through lower energy prices." National average heating oil price is currently $5.54 per gallon, the second-highest level in history.
Chris Ingraham
Another one of those what-if-it-happened-in-another-country moments: The president is suing the government for $100 million dollars for searching his home for the classified documents he stole, and the attorney who represented him on those charges is currently leading the Justice Department.
Radley Balko
I have been saving this one as a special Flowers On Friday treat because it is 1st bloom after planting 2 years ago and it took my breath away. It almost looks like Itoh peony coloring but it’s a single perfect Hellebore flower:
City Mouse Garden
Aside from the corruption in the Nixon Administration being nothing compared to the massive graft underway, the Nixon Administration was largely competent.
R. Eric VanNewkirk @sotsogm.bsky.social
All but three (!) of the 1,651 refugees admitted into the United States in the three most recent months we have data are white South Africans. For comparison, in 2024, the U.S. admitted 100,060 refugees. It's an explicit white supremacist project.
Alex Ip
Trump is committing war crimes in Iran and is threatening more and worse ones. His entire war strategy at this point is war crimes. A functional Congress would be far down the road of impeachment and removal.
Aaron Rupar
And there it is:
Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social
one of my strongest and clearest takeaways from spending all of Lent knee-deep in ICE death reporting is that Camp East Montana should be razed to the ground and every single person who built it, worked there or approved their decisions deserves criminal charges. it is beyond what I imagined.
Claire Willett
every single one of these fired losers will sycophantically praise trump on the way out and as soon as he dies will claim they were fired for being the only person in the room to dare to stand up to him
darth™️
Hegseth firmly believes that wars cannot be won without war crimes.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
What if everyone skipped the part about being excited or thrilled and just announced it?
Chris Steller
Cover, erasers catalog. Weldon Roberts Rubber Co. Newark, New Jersey, c. 1961. Image: Catalog Collections via archive.org:
Gary Hornseth
I for one cannot believe the Trump administration keeps fucking over its high-profile female appointees, it’s almost like aligning yourself with people who hate you based on your identity will ultimately backfire? Can’t be right
Rachel Cohen @cohen489.bsky.social
It’s a small thing, but are noem and bondi going to be forced to leave the public housing they stole from the taxpayers?
Jim Manley
Noem gave the Coast Guard Commandant THREE HOURS to clear out. Do we really not have an answer to this question yet?
David Waldman @kagrox.bsky.social
Puerto Ricans were set to receive $1 billion worth of solar+battery systems under a program established by the Biden administration — desperately needed on an island with a run-down grid, battered by severe weather. Trump axed it. Only 6,000 of 40,000 planned systems were installed. I can promise you that no matter how closely you are paying attention, you are missing huge swaths of damage Trump is doing to the country & to vulnerable people. There's almost no way to fit it all in your head.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
An enduring classic:
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
"Among young American men, the strongest predictor of support for the tradwife lifestyle was not gallantry but hostility towards women." Apparently this is not what researchers "expected". Which makes one wonder: had these researchers thought about it for 30 seconds?
Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social
Even if Trump loses at the Supreme Court, I promise you that opposition to birthright citizenship is already mandatory for any future Trump judicial nominees. The conservative legal movement never treats a decision it dislikes as "settled." It just waits for another shot.
Jay Willis
I feel like the dismantling of the forest service is beyond ominous because the population of the US is far beyond what it was when it was established and without regulation, I fear wholesale stripping.
SeasonalPun @pixelfish.bsky.social
The vast majority of Americans are birthright citizens. Unless you naturalized or were born abroad to an American parent, you are a citizen because of the 14th Amendment. There is nothing constitutionally distinct about Americans born here to non-Americans. We are all literally equal citizens.
Mark Joseph Stern
The central organizing principle behind the Trump administration is white supremacy. The corruption just made it worth Trump's while.
Matt Ortega
NO ICE.
ICE OUT.
DEFUND ICE:
Terre-Strial
it’s nice to see a rocket go up to space that isn’t directly associated with some horrible billionaire piglet
Faine Greenwood
~22% of Minnesotan adult men have a DWI:
- 4.4M adults in Minnesota and 1 in 7 (14%) have a DWI, totaling 628k drivers
- 40% are repeat offenders per the MN BCA.
- 80% of DWI arrests are men per the FBI.
- 18k arrests with 4000+ alcohols related crashes and 100+ deaths per year.
Maplehood United
Who called them AI enthusiasts when Bot Licker was right there...
Gen Un-Seasoned @gensibayan.bsky.social
When I was living in Russia, I of course could never fully understand the cynicism and contempt people had for their leadership. But I witnessed it, and talked with people about it, and felt it at an angle as I lived among them, and holy shit is it all rushing back to me right now.
Catherine Partsch Conlan @catconlan.net
stinker cut-rate gas sign, boise, idaho, 1980:
old roadside pics
Since Liberation Day, a year ago today:
* US foreign direct investment is lower
* US factories employ 89,000 fewer people
* US goods trade deficit is UP 2%
Carl Quintanilla
Both of Marco Rubio’s parents were born in Cuba. Marco Rubio was born in Miami in 1971, before they became US citizens. He is a US citizen because he was born in the US under birthright citizenship.
Hoodlum @nothoodlum.bsky.social
Reminder to next democratic government: take all of SpaceX’s federal contracts and give the money back to NASA.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social
Literally my entire life has been a series of Republicans committing crimes and then Democrats declining to do anything about it once they're back in power:
Barry Lyga
Using rockets to go to space is way cooler than using them to kill hundreds of schoolgirls
Bob Collins @mylittlebloggie.bsky.social
Bloomberg summarizes how the markets reacted to tonight’s speech: “Stocks dropped and oil rose as President Donald Trump said the US will hit Iran extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.”
David Gura
Is it a good sign that the White House commandeered prime time on the networks to broadcast what was essentially an unconvincing proof-of-life video?
Kevin M. Kruse
It's insane that the polls of "key issues" don't include fear of a collapse into autocracy, because I'm sure that'd be in the top three
Colin Woodard
If the stakes weren't so high and the human toll wasn't so awful, it would be genuinely very funny how little of a shit Trump gives about any part of his job that isn't renovations or rigging elections. The most obviously checked out dude in history.
Chris Hayes
JD Vance's upcoming book on his conversion to Catholicism uses a Methodist church on the cover:
FactPost
It would be really cool if we could celebrate our country turning 250 and sending humans back to the Moon without like also living under fascism. Kind of a distraction!
Wes Burdine
If I put the wrong date on a document at work by accident I could be a third of the way to fired, meanwhile freaks can just knowingly lie in SCOTUS and keep going. Just, as a society, how the fuck is this not causing a fundamental collapse
Jonathan @jginsburg.bsky.social
I do think that those lawyers and law professors who tried to fabricate a historical or legal case against birthright citizenship should be socially and professionally ostracized for their shocking cynicism and intellectual dishonesty as well as for their bald hostility to pluralist American values.
Moira Donegan
“When mayors in other cities ask me how Copenhagen afforded to invest in its cycling networks, I ask them how on earth they have been able to afford highway projects. We invested in bike lanes because that was the cheapest option.”
Brent Toderian
I liked Ur-Fascism better when I was reading it from a place of some social distance, not gonna lie.
dkhunter
