It Was on Your Table Every Morning Growing Up. It’s Dying Before Our Eyes. No One Wants to Face It. The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.

When I covered Trump's tariffs, I discovered that orange crops have cratered in FL.

This explains all the reasons--disease, climate change, overspraying, finance--why.

slate.com/business/202...

I have an inkling he understands & the systematic murder is the goal.

Letters From the Edge: When Courts Become Collaborators: How Trump Judges Are Killing Press Freedom Two Trump-appointed judges just argued that the First Amendment stops where the president’s irritation begins.

I wrote "The Long Game" in 2025 when people thought the Rosneft/CITGO story was a conspiracy theory. Rosneft just announced a 73% collapse in net income. I'd like to collect my receipts now. Buckle up.

FBI Director says arrests ‘coming soon’ on 2020 rigged election conspiracy FBI Director Kash Patel: "We have the information that backs President Trump's claim.”

We all need to watch this carefully. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Then Maduro got grabbed in January 2026. CITGO valued at $11-13 BILLION got sold to Paul Singer's Elliott Management for $5.9 billion in a fire sale. A Trump megadonor. Buying Venezuela's crown jewel at roughly half its value.

@fruitcakeda.bsky.social

"She’s been a court interpreter for over 20 years, the only one licensed in Texas for Hindi, Punjabi, or Urdu. Her language skills are requested nationwide..."

"One of her children recently enlisted in the military...

www.texasobserver.org/immigration-...

A diagram showing the VDA framework and the Arc of Democracy. At the top, three icons label the essential elements of democracy: Verification (tick), Deliberation (speech bubble), and Accountability (magnifying glass). Arrows descend from each through three horizontal bands representing the arc: Substantial (truth tested, voices included, power constrained), Performative (forms remain but substance is weak, rituals without consequence), and Simulated (appearance maintained but functions inverted: propaganda as verification, polarisation as deliberation, scapegoating as accountability). A vertical arrow on the left marks the arc's direction: improvements, decline, collapse. A column on the right maps counterpublics onto the same three states: functional counterpublics act in a substantial way, hollow counterpublics in a performative way, disordered counterpublics in a simulated way. The bands shift from grey through pink to red as democracy moves toward simulation.

I've set out the framework I'm using here in an earlier thread, on VDA, the Arc of Democracy, and the moral-epistemic stacks idea, what follows applies that framework to the Palantir document directly. skywriter.blue/@eliothiggin...

Peter Thiel's Palantir presents its blue print for a totalitarian surveillance state dominated by Peter Thiel and a handful of his chosen bros. Any country looking at a contract with Thiel needs to study this document very carefully to know what it's dealing with. techrepublicbook.com

Palantir’s vision is the philosophy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt dressed up in jeans and a hoodie.

It is fundamentally anti-humanist, presents permanent conflict as inevitable, and seeks to build a technocratic power structure without even the minimal constraints of democracy.

'Heartbreaking': Backlash in red state as Trump kills farming program over DEI concerns HARLINGEN — For more than a decade, Diana Padilla has been teaching Texans in the Rio Grande Valley how to farm.For four hours on Sundays, she and her husband, Saul Padilla, would help their student f...

Trump HATES independent farmers.

Trump particularly hates TEXAS FARMERS.

Texas farmers who vote for ANY Republican are slitting their own throats.

www.rawstory.com/trump-farmer...

Trump's DOJ just asked for probation for someone who committed three identity thefts.

These smart women discussing their culture/religion doesn't allow divorce, Gee wiz, wonder who decided that was the MOST important thing? Is it, men, cus they get 2 CHEAT, ABUSE-knowing they wont ever b held accountable. Oppression masquerading as religion & culture

Republicans Vote To Destroy Boundary Waters In Giveaway To China’s AI The most popular Wilderness in the country will become a dumping ground for sulfuric acid

This is an excellent read.
The Repukes are giving away the natural beauty of the BWCA to a Chilean billionaire whose company is notorious for contaminating the land.

All the bodies of water in the BWCA watershed are connected. When one gets contaminated. They all get contaminated.

#BWCA

The Epstein files: Rights experts demand accountability, call for probe into trafficking allegations UN independent human rights experts called on Thursday for justice and accountability for young women and girls who were trafficked systematically as part of allegations contained in the so-called Eps...

UN Human Rights said yesterday the Epstein files show evidence that may meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity. Sexual slavery. Torture. Trafficking across international borders for decades. "No one is too wealthy or too powerful to be above the law." Trump said it's time to move on.

@fruitcakeda.bsky.social
It just doesn't make me feel better

What this historic snow drought will mean for the summer A historic March heat wave effectively erased a month of winter, triggering a massive snow drought from the southwest U.S. up to parts of British Columbia. CBC's Johanna Wagstaffe looks at what this m...

SW BC is headed for catastrophic drought this summer. Vancouver? You better start building desalination plants as you won't be able to rely on snow-fed rivers in our hothouse planet future. Continuing to burn (and export) fossil fuels just makes it worse. #ClimateDisaster
www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

Exclusive: DOGE cuts prompt scramble to feed troops at remote US base The remote Army base is responsible for shooting down nuclear missiles targeting the United States.

Large parts of the business of keeping the US military fed were privatised to civilian contractors.

And then last year DOGE started making cuts in those civilian contractors.

eu.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

@fruitcakeda.bsky.social
Floods

@fruitcakeda.bsky.social

🎯🎯🎯
They’ve turned democracy into a stock ticker where every post, every policy reversal ... is a chance for someone ... to get richer ... While we’re distracted by the chaos... Project 2025 is marching forward, unchecked.

This is more than political theater, it’s a hostile takeover...

West Virginia dad dies waiting for $50,000 cancer treatment his insurer ruled 'not medically necessary' The vast majority of patients who require prior authorization from their insurer face delays, which can result in permanent disability or even death.

"health insurance" companies don't actually provide care, and in some instances, expedite death.

universal heath care NOW!

www.yahoo.com/finance/sect...

They didn't just pardon them.
They're erasing the convictions entirely.
Not...you're guilty but forgiven.
But...the guilty verdicts never should have happened.
There's a difference.
And it matters enormously for what comes next.
www.jackhopkinsnow.com

Tarrio and Rhodes threatened to flip on Trump. Just like Ghislaine.

Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro Clear Proud Boy and Oath Keeper Terrorists to Rearm - emptywheel Jeanine Pirro and Todd Blanche have asked to wipe away the terrorist, sedition, and other convictions of the Proud Boy and Oath Keeper leaders, clearly branding the GOP as the party of terrorism.

Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro Clear Proud Boy and Oath Keeper Terrorists to Rearm

emptywheel.net/2026/04/15/t...

The (not so) hidden costs of increasing USDA crop insurance subsidies As USDA is cutting programs that support sustainability and market access for smaller farmers, the Department has made a series of changes to crop insurance subsidies mostly benefiting large commodity...

NEW: A series of changes to USDA crop insurance subsidies will cost the public an estimated additional $38.1 billion over ten years, mostly benefiting large commodity farms, and funneling billions directly to insurers. www.iatp.org/costs-increa...

Public health and infection control leadership summed up in four images. Krever Commission 1997; SARS Commission 2006, which cited Krever; the UK COVID Inquiry last month, conspicuously NOT citing the SARS Commission indicating IPC / PH managed to bury it; and total excess deaths from the pandemic.