Today I wrote about why you should vote for Democrats and that is not in fact an abdication of your political agency

Democrats getting more backlash for attempting redistricting in Virginia in response to completely unprecedented GOP powergrabs than Republicans have gotten for gerrymandering for decades is extremely grim shit ngl.

I don't think non-Black people understand how much Black people calculating spaces as to whether they'd be hostile to Black people.

It's the same way I think men don't understand that women navigate spaces thinking about whether or not they'd be safe

Haunted by ‘Dark Thoughts,’ Louisiana Father Kills 8 Children

If this man had murdered eight strangers the story would lead every news outlet. But because they are his children, it's "family violence," "domestic violence" -- undeserving of the same attention. Even though this violence is much more common
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/u...

Did I just argue with a joke? Part of a Bluesky educational series

Private education should be outlawed

VANITY FAIR SUBSCRIBE MENU = MEDIA How Rod Dreher's Blog Got a Little "Too Weird" for The American Conservative The right-wing commentator's columns, which were unedited and bankrolled by a single donor, will be shuttered Friday after a 12-year run. Sources say it was ultimately a diatribe on circumcision that was a bridge too far. BY CALEB ECARMA MARCH 10, 2023

But one particular reader, upon reading the last of said posts, determined the blog had simply gotten too weird, according to two sources familiar with the publication. That disgruntled reader was Howard Ahmanson Ji., the heir to a California banking fortune and the sole benefactor of Dreher's six-figure salary at TAC, which is published bv American Ideas Institute, a nonprofit. This unique funding arrangement—a single donor choosing to cover one writer's entire salary—was paired with an even more unusual editorial arrangement: Dreher was allowed to publish directly on TAC's site without any revisions or legal oversight, according to the two sources.

One can’t help but admire Rod’s entrepreneurial pluck. After his long time right wing sugar daddy in the US dropped him in 2023, he quickly found a Hungarian sugar daddy to pick up the slack. Gotta love that free market in ideas!

incredible stuff

Your regular reminder that cops don't actually justify their existence or enormous budgets by solving much crime.

Approximately 11% of all serious crimes result in an arrest, and about 2% end in a conviction.

And then there's this...

Aftermath: The Hormuz Farm Crisis Today in the newsletter: Fertilizer prices are crushing rural farmers. Also, attacks on Gulf state aluminum smelters leave America exposed.

The bigger impact in Nebraska is out in farm country, where planting season has begun and fertilizer prices are shocking the system. buff.ly/zeWZnKd

How does Trump spend his time? Corruption. Trump spends a great deal of his time, perhaps his primary focus, finding ways to milk his position for personal or familial gain, and until we learn who is profiting off inside knowledge of his market-manipulating tweets about Iran, that may extend to his erratic comments laid out here. Bunker-ballroom. He spends a lot of time planning to build things and it increasingly seems like his aides view construction as a less dangerous pursuit for the old man than almost anything else he tries. They may be right. Cons. The conman spends a lot of time pitching journalists and the WSJ describes he does this outside any intervention from his staff: “Trump would joke with Leavitt that he had talked to a reporter and made big news, but she would have to wait and see what it was.” When WSJ says he didn’t consult with aides before doing this, it glosses the extent to which an entire press corps reconstructs Trump’s abject bullshit so as to convey it as some kind of plan.

How does Trump spend his time?

Construction, Con, Corruption, and Clubs.

emptywheel.net/2026/04/20/t...

this is one of the most offensive things I've seen in years

In this Indiana diner, everyone has three questions: How's the tenderloin? Is the quarry hiring? And where do you think Rod Dreher is going to move to next?

Absolutely my biggest problem with Handmaids Tale

This Is Just To Say

I have turned off
the AI features
that were in
the update

and which
you were probably
hoping
to monetize

Fuck you
they were stupid
so unnecessary
and so annoying

You couldn't pay me to attend this shit

Workplace relief is coming for employees with period pain or hot flashes in Philly Beginning Jan. 1, the city will prohibit discrimination on the basis of menstruation, perimenopause, and menopause, and will require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for related needs.

"Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, the city will prohibit discrimination on the basis of menstruation, perimenopause, and menopause, and will require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for related needs." www.inquirer.com/business/phi...

The “Trump election signals a conservative cultural revolution” narrative was always fake, but beating it back was one of the most important things that has ever happened in American history.

We shouldn’t be growing lettuce in the desert

“It’s clear that AI companies’ initial promise to America — that first it would take their job, and eventually it might kill them — has not inspired a groundswell of public support.”

BREAKING: Federal Bill Would Put Big Oil Above the Law | Center for Climate Integrity Republicans Introduce Legislation to Give Fossil Fuel Companies Immunity from Any Laws or Lawsuits Seeking to Hold them Accountable for their Role in the Climate Crisis

Republicans know they are about to lose the House and are trying to give Big Oil its holy grail: legal immunity from any futures actions that would hold the industry responsible for the climate crisis it knowingly caused and is making worse every day.

climateintegrity.org/news/view/br...

Reminder:

Also for god’s sake if you’re going to be a poll sniffer at least take note that Trump’s atrocities have succeeded in shifting the electorate in a massively more pro-immigrant direction.

Of the Jewish senators, 7 out of 10 voted to block a sale of bulldozers to Israel.

Michael Bennet
Jon Ossoff
Bernie Sanders
Brian Schatz
Adam Schiff
Elissa Slotkin
Ron Wyden

NO: Blumenthal, Rosen, Schumer

Says a lot about the political shift happening

Beginning to think that the Trump presidential library, like TrumpCoin, or in an earlier era, his hotels, is just a useful front for processing bribes to the President.

“Reverse emails,” Jared Kushner corruption edition

He also holds no Senate-confirmed Cabinet or senior government position & employing family as White House advisers violates every norm ever, but this, too, has been erased from the headlines. After years of HUNTER BIDEN, it’s shameful.

I'll simply say again that for Shlaes to resurface in The Economist at this moment is an indicator of an ambient concern that Rooseveltian policies and politics are increasingly likely. The thing about the New Deal is, it was *immensely popular.* That's terrifying to certain people

FDR: a guy so bad at his job it has taken republicans only 60 years to try and kill everything he built and they're still only, like, half done

Interesting take. Now let's take a look at how this anti-business attitude shaped out for the United States of America from 1932 onwards

221. Chief Justice Roberts and the Clean Power Plan Remarkable reporting from the New York Times provides a peek behind the curtain of the February 2016 rulings that ushered in the modern emergency docket. And what it reveals is pretty discouraging.

one really interesting detail that vladek highlights here is that the court, in creating the shadow docket, seems to have been motivated in part by rage at the epa's ability to create facts on the ground without asking the court first--in other words, their inability to set policy directly