When Tekashi 6ix9ine, the rapper and former gang member, finished serving a three-month sentence at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, he left carrying a peculiar souvenir. He showed it off to two friends who were waiting outside the jail to collect him: it was a homemade SpongeBob SquarePants figurine with a jagged series of lines—not unlike a heartbeat monitor, or a mountain range—scribbled on it. This was, 6ix9ine explained, the autograph of Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela. The signature was also dated, in Spanish, “2.º Abril.” “Look, one of one,” 6ix9ine said, holding up the SpongeBob, which, he later explained, another inmate had meticulously crafted, folding six hundred pieces of paper and sewing them together, over the course of two weeks. “Maduro signed it,” he said, proudly, before adding, “Venezuela forever.”

well *that* is a lede www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

I cannot tell you how many policy conversations I’ve been privy to where the central dilemma is “we need to incentivize private actors to do something, but for unclear reasons they cannot be permitted to earn any sort of profit by doing it.“

PENTAGON ERASES WOUNDED U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAN WAR CASUALTY LIST: "DEFINITION OF A COVER-UP" The U.S. government altered its tally of American casualties - inexplicably scrubbing 15 wounded-in-action troops from the count. Nick Turse April 222026, 10:50 a.m. Share

The Pentagon has launched a cover-up of the casualty count in the Iran War, The Intercept reports.

15 casualties are now not included and at least one reported death Major Sorffly Davius is missing from the official tally.

The system tracking casualties may be omitting hundreds of injuries.

Some folks are limited by walking no further than the nearest place to sit. I was in this boat briefly after a surgery.

Benches weren’t considered with our local active transportation plan, and our municipality claims to be out of space for memorial benches.

Push for more benches.

FBI Finally Admits It Investigated Cato—Is It Still? Cato will be flagging for the relevant congressional committees this baseless Bureau surveillance and investigative activity targeting the Institute and its employees as yet another example of why Exe...

FBI confirms it spied on, investigated @cato.org . Piece live now: www.cato.org/blog/fbi-fin...

cc: @radleybalko.bsky.social @adamkeiper.com @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com @blanksslate.bsky.social @attackerman.bsky.social @dell.bsky.social @steve.czmyt.com @heidikitrosser.bsky.social

Donald Trump dodged the draft to fight in Vietnam but he's sure he would've done a better job.

This kind of arrogance is exactly how America keeps getting stuck in long, bloody wars.

We need real leadership and a plan and a goal to end this war in Iran, and he has none of it.

Map of local temperature trends from GISTEMP from 1970-2025. It's warming faster over land than the ocean, more in the North than in the South, and most of all in the Arctic. Red covers the regions that have warmed more than 2ºC - which is basically all NH extratropical land areas. Sorry.

Happy Earth Day!

New poll: 55% support impeaching Trump Support for impeachment rivals levels during Donald Trump's first presidency, when he was impeached twice, and for impeaching Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal

"A new poll conducted April 10-14 finds 55% of U.S. adults say the House should vote to impeach Trump. 37% oppose, 8% are unsure. A surprising percentage of both Republicans and Trump’s own 2024 voters say they would support impeachment if a vote were held today."
open.substack.com/pub/gelliott...

Testing finds toxic metals where Tesla discharges wastewater The drainage district that commissioned the testing has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the company, which says it is in compliance with all requirements for its state wastewater discharge permit.

I’m shocked. www.texastribune.org/2026/04/21/t...

Want to End the Gerrymandering Wars? Embrace Proportional Representation Trump has triggered a particularly fierce round, but the logic of war is inherent in a winner-take-all system

Apropos of Virginia today.

A group of Ecuadorian fishermen survived a US drone strike, were detained at gunpoint, hooded, phones wiped, ship blown up, disappeared to El Salvador, then released without charge.

“They knew we were fishermen. Even the Salvadorian authorities said things had been handled very badly.”

Trials. From top to bottom, the whole chain, from the White House to those pressing the button.

Starting a mid-decade redistricting war only to end up with -1 seats is the same fine strategic genius and subtle grasp of game theory that brough us the Strait of Hormuz.

I just learned about the "Divergabout" a mythical beats that is half Diverging Diamond, half Roundabout, and I honestly think that the North American road engineering profession is unredeemable.

Klan government

This is shameful

The safe systems approach in Vision Zero recognizes enforcement has a role to play in curbing traffic fatalities. Now Rochester needs YOU to share what would make an automated safety camera program equitable, fair & effective at curbing unlawful driving. List of chances to participate in next post:

Kevin Warsh just lost me. He argues he's going to be an independent Fed Chair, but refuses to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election. If you can't state simple facts when you're in the political spotlight, you aren't independent. You're a coward.

Hmmm, I don't know, are we *sure* the solution isn't paying 500 cops to stand around playing Candy Crush on their phones?

Globe showing the Atlantic Ocean with arrows depicting the AMOC circulation: warm surface currents (pink/red) flowing northward from the tropics toward the Arctic, and cold deep return currents (blue/purple) flowing southward. The background shows sea surface temperature trends, with a prominent blue cold patch, the "cold blob", south of Greenland, contrasting with warming (orange/red) across the rest of the ocean.

1/ There's a system of ocean currents in the Atlantic that shapes Europe's #climate, drives monsoons, and keeps sea levels stable along the US coast.

In the last 5 years, the scientific evidence that it could collapse has shifted dramatically.

Most people have no idea. 🧵

The first panel shows a crow with the title "How to live a good life". The second panel shows a crow cawing at itself in the mirror with the subheading "Make friends". The next panel says "Explore" and shows a crow looking into a commercial waste bin. The next says "Try new things" with a crow eating something vile. The next one says "Be curious" and shows the crow grabbing a hissing cat's tail". The final frame says "Get a hobby" and shows the crow looking closely at a book of matches.

How To Live A Good Life #oldknees

Blue 2, by Joan Miró, 1961

horseshoe theory is real. leftists almost got kat abughazaleh elected into congress and now it comes out that her boyfriend owns infowars…

Salute to a real American hero.

Articles about Jared Kushner's diplomatic role with Iran that mention Kushner has received billions from the Saudi government (2/28-4/19):

NYT: 5 of 58
WashPost: 1 of 43
WSJ: 0 of 40
AP: 0 of 26
CNN Wire: 0 of 18
NY Post: 0 of 17
Chicago Tribune: 0 of 4
LA Times: 0 of 4
Boston Globe: 0 of 2

Now that the Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to refund companies what they paid in tariffs, yet there are still tariffs in place, what's the plan? Consumers continue to fork money over to corporations who will later get another refund?

This should be a much bigger story.

The Trump administration is about to hand TotalEnergies, a French oil company, nearly $1 billion of your money to cancel its American offshore wind projects. And they are pulling the cash from an account they are not allowed to use this way.🧵

a Trump post that says "has anybody looked at how badly the country of spain is doing. Their financial numbers, despite contributing almost nothing to NATO and their military defense, are absolutely horrendous. Sad to watch!!!"

stupid Trump tweet for many reasons but one of which is that Spain had higher GDP growth than the US over the last year (3% vs 2%)

Orca with speech bubble saying “Apartments are fine actually”