That'll show em.

Yeah, I think one of the most incredible things about the pope-off is that when previous popes have done similar things, it had to go through a translation barrier, but no nuance and no shade is lost when the American pope is being bitchy [complimentary]

I know elections are expensive, but we'd be better off as a society if less money went toward elections and more went toward any number of other things.

Again, this is 100 years ago Klan shit nearly word for word.

53 Days: How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy

I mentioned this book in a previous post but it deserves its own thing: Timothy Ryback’s 53 Days: How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy will hit shelves in September. A must-read for me. [bookshop.org]

the basic theory of DOGE was that if powerful people said it was fine it didn’t matter what the law said.

I think proving that theory wrong is worth significant effort

"Another agent fired pepper balls into the crowd, hitting [@propublica.org reporter AC Thompson] three times. One shot struck him above the right eye...One of them shot pepper spray from a car window, hitting FRONTLINE’s director Gabrielle Schonder and Tim Grucza, who was sprayed in the face."

Teaching about #MayDay shouldn’t get you on Fox News it should be celebrated. May Day is American history and Chicago History specifically. “On May 1, 1886, 80,000 workers marched up Michigan Avenue in Chicago…”
Learn your history-The Haymarket Affair
www.illinoislaborhistory.org/the-haymarke...

Newsrooms should not block the Internet Archive. Any public service publisher should not block the Internet Archive. If anything, we should all be directly supporting the Internet Archive.

This is a great retelling with good links to the present day. Wish I'd heard more about it from my grandfather when I was a kid.

a map from 1918 showing the interurban network sprawling across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio

One side obsession from my research into the 1920s is the extensive network of ELECTRIC trains that used to connect cities and towns across the central Midwest called the Interurban. We had this more than a hundred years ago. The things we had and the things we lost.

The Strait of Hormuz is open but only if you can get past the Sphinx

Trump claims on Iranian concessions trigger questions, rejections in Tehran

Trump claims on Iranian concessions trigger questions, rejections in Tehran https://aje.news/06fk5x

Wow. This is the FBI Director.

Several officials say Kash Patel’s drinking has been a recurring concern across the government.

At the FBI, it’s called reasonable suspicion. That’s enough to trigger testing or administrative action. So what are we waiting for?
🧵

Sooooo…

More ships in the Strait of Hormuz have been turning around.

And a couple have reported being fired upon.

It’s almost like Donald Trump lied bigly yesterday about the strait being open.

Iran Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh: The U.S. is trying to sabotage the path of the diplomatic effort through this diplomatic circus that they are adopting…Trump talks too much. He says contradictory things within the same statement

More than 38,000 women and girls were killed in Gaza between October 2023 and December 2025 – UN Women | UN Women – Headquarters Six months after the ceasefire, and as regional developments shift global attention, UN Women warns that women and girls in Gaza remain at critical risk.

Israel killed an average of at least 47 girls and women per day in Gaza.

A new analysis published by the United Nations shows that more than 38,000 girls and women were killed in between October 2023 and December 2025.

Trump Rage at Pope Darkens as Ex-Allies Warn of Worsening Mental State As Trump’s own ex-supporters start sounding the alarm about his mental state, a former top Trump official explains why the president’s madness is now badly messing with ordinary Americans’ everyday li...

"The leader of the free world is off his rocker...he’s going to continue to decline...I foresee slash-and-burn in a way we’ve probably never seen before."

On the pod, former national security official Olivia Troye details what she personally witnessed. Alarming:
newrepublic.com/article/2091...

Trump's polling is terrible and getting worse His second term is already an unambiguous failure.

New in PN: Trump's polling is terrible and getting worse

"As for the Jesus imagery he posted on Truth Social & then deleted? Well, new polling asked Americans about it, & about 60% disliked it (including 49% strongly). At this point, even Jesus would have a hard time resurrecting Trump’s numbers."

BREAKING: Senate Republicans blocked my War Powers Resolution that would have ended Trump's unnecessary, unjustified war against Iran.

These cowards have had four chances to stop this chaos in the Middle East.

And they put Trump's ego before America.

Every damn time.

BERNIE: “The time is long overdue for members of Congress to listen to the American people and end US military aid to the extremist Netanyahu government.”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

For years, L.L. Bean stayed silent on politics. You changed that. You contacted them at first they responded with “we don’t engage in politics.” You pushed back anyway and it worked.

This is what people power looks like. We’re proud of every single one of you. Thank you. 🙏

Tehran 'striving' to compel US and Israel to establish permanent ceasefire in all conflict zones, Iranian speaker says

Tehran 'striving' to compel US and Israel to establish permanent ceasefire in all conflict zones, Iranian speaker says https://aje.news/s385mk

Fairhope protester acquitted of charges after inflatable costume arrest during anti-Trump rally Renea Gamble, 62, was cleared of all charges Wednesday after her arrest at a "No Kings" protest drew national attention and raised First Amendment questions.

Great news: Renea Gamble has been cleared of all criminal charges for the costume she wore to a No Kings protest.

You may remember that Renea was arrested in October after dressing up as a “dick-tator.”

Renea’s message after her win in court: “As Alabamians, we dare to defend our rights.”

3D-Printed Homes, an Abandoned $590,000 Deposit, the FBI: What Really Happened in This Small Town? Two men promised a $1.1 million 3D printer could fix Cairo, Illinois’ housing crisis. More than a year later, the one duplex it printed still isn’t finished. And the more we asked questions, the weird...

NEW: Two men promised a $1.1 million 3D printer could fix this town’s housing crisis.

To this day, the one duplex it printed still isn’t finished. A $590,000 deposit for the printer was forfeited. And the more we asked questions, the weirder things got.

w/ @capitolnewsil.bsky.social

Vulcan, a rare-earth magnetics firm backed by Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital, lands a record $620M conditional loan from the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital in a $1.4B bid to curb China’s magnet grip.
theintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/pentagons-...

Here are the 7 senate democrats who voted to continue sending bombs to Netanyahu.

Richard Blumenthal (CT)

Chris Coons (DE)

Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)

John Fetterman (PA)

Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)

Jackie Rosen (NV)

Chuck Schumer (NY)

I don’t want to hear Pete Hegseth’s religious pontificating to justify this war or to put the brakes on criticism.

He sounds unhinged.

A lunatic Fox News host stands at the lectern at the Pentagon spewing half-assed insults at the press which sound like he prompted ChatGPT to write a speech in the tone of a stupid, spoilt child. Next to him is a General simultaneously embarrassed by what he’s hearing but also lacking the courage and public duty to take a stand against it. Complicit war criminals, all of them.

NEW: Pete Hegseth has used the Pentagon war briefing to attack the press again.

In a week of endless religious fanaticism, Hegseth just compared journalists to the Pharisees who attacked Jesus.

The US is being run by a collective cult of religious fundamentalists.

Government by mental illness.