Fabulous illustration!

This morning's best read:
"Under the Roberts court, it won’t be enough to rewrite the rules of the game. The umpires are the problem."

Ex-model, arrested by Aventura police and deported, causes White House stir A Brazilian brought to the U.S. on an Epstein plane at age 16 lashes out at the Trumps, saying she was betrayed by her friend Melania.

The Miami Herald takes a look at how Trump protégé and high-end model promoter Paolo Zampolli used his White House pull to have his former partner, Brazilian supermodel Amanda Ungaro, arrested and deported. A perfect snap shot of the corrupt abuse of power by men against women in the Age of Trump.

in the 1970s Hillary Clinton made a hundred grand trading cattle futures and 15 years later the news media made a decade-long scandal out of it

The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court

All right, this piece has triggered me so I have to yell a bit (though this is bluesky, so I realize I'm just preaching at the choir):

This bit right here. This is John Roberts basically admitting, explicitly, that he is dreaming up a legal doctrine out of nothing because he does not like or approve of Obama's policy:

Imagine being so rattled by a login error that you call nine people to announce your own firing. This man has the nuclear football's phone number. Sleep tight.

The FBI guy is on a paranoid bender and won’t leave his room.

The War guy quotes bible passages from Pulp Fiction.

The Health guy collects raccoon dicks.

It’s an Idiocracy on steroids.

Trump, IRS In Talks To Settle U.S. President's $10 Billion Lawsuit Trump's adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization are also plaintiffs.

Trump is reported close to a "deal" with himself under which US taxpayers would pay him $10 billion.

I served in multiple communist and authoritarian dictatorships, but I never witnessed corruption on this scale or this blatant.

It will never stop pissing me off how much trump is going to walk away from this presidency as a “real” billionaire in a way he never was before, and it is going to be solely because of the public office

The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court

That SCOTUS article is…something. I’ll be reposting some of the better comments. Here is a gift link. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

If we had a functioning Washington press corps, they would be chasing GOP Senators down the hall or in every TV interview, "Why did you think an inexperienced drunkard would make a good FBI Director, a good Sec or Defense, a good Sec of HHS?"

But that would be *wrong*.

You always have to pay attention to what is actually happening, not what Trump says is happening. Because Trump lies about everything. Too often media serves as Trump’s daily stenographer, passing along his propaganda verbatim.

Uch, my heart. The magic that voices and love and time can do!

Christian Nationalism is a Cult of Convenience

Trump’s “complicated relationship with the Bible” is a lot like my complicated relationship with Charlize Theron

The FBI Director Is MIA Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.

And here’s a gift link to the remarkable story about the FBI Director from @theatlantic.com.

www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

England fans facing hugely inflated prices to get to New Jersey's MetLife Stadium for World Cup games The cost of getting the train from New York to the venue, where the Three Lions play Panama in their final group game, will be £111 - nearly 12 times the usual fare.

Quite frankly anyone travelling to the US voluntarily gets no sympathy from me. They know what they are getting into.

news.sky.com/story/englan...

no wonder tmz is in dc
even Hollywood aint this fucked up

New York Attorney General Letitia James in court ruling BLOCKING Nexstar—Tegna merger:

“Consolidating hundreds of local TV stations under one corporate owner would mean higher prices and lower quality programming for consumers”

Trump is making America poorer, meaner, and harder to trust. Fewer people want to visit, study, invest, or build a future here.

That means fewer jobs, weaker local businesses, higher prices, and more pain for ordinary Americans, including Trump voters.

This is a classic Trumpian plan. Wreck something good, make a big mess, complain a lot, find some solution to fix the problem he created, then go around crowing that's he's the hero and everyone should praise him for it.

Gasoline costs should start to fall soon, although a full recovery to pre-war prices is expected to take months. That's assuming that shit just magically all comes up roses for Donald Trump in defiance of logic, gravity, reason and vibes.

This week, amid commemorations of Yom HaShoah, when Jews in Israel and the Diaspora pause to remember the victims of the Holocaust, the Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM monitored a significant uptick in antisemitic incidents across the globe. A total of 183 incidents were tracked, up 37% from the weekly average of 134 for 2026 so far. In London, England, two suspects were arrested following the firebombing of Finchley Reform Synagogue on Wednesday. The incident followed the recent torching of four Jewish ambulances in London's Golders Green neighborhood, as well as similar attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands since the outbreak of the Iran war.

As the Jewish people commemorated the Holocaust, acts of hatred against Jews rose 37% world-wide.

A synagogue in London was firebombed.

1/x

Screenshot of a tweet by FactPost (@factpostnews) showing an exchange where Treasury Secretary Bessent, asked why people aren't feeling better about the economy, responds that "in their heart of hearts, they feel good" and says he's unsure what people are telling pollsters. The embedded video shows Bessent speaking outdoors in front of a manicured lawn, eyes closed, in a suit and tie.

The regime is so out of touch.

MAGA Increasingly Believes Trump Assassination Attempt Was Fake President Trump’s base seems to be turning against him like never before.

“Since the attempt on his life, Trump has show [sic] no interest in investigating what really happened. He never mentions it, it’s as if it never happened, except when he tells us, he took a bullet for us.” trib.al/eLlWpIg

Powerful truth from @dennisgoris.bsky.social

May Karma Strike trump
Six weeks ago the Straits were fine

Dear President Trump:

Don’t let them give you grief about not knowing what a “corner store” is. No one knows everything. I hope this helps.

'Ukraine is becoming a global player' amid Iran war, European defense deals Ukraine is riding high on a series of deals that promise to intertwine  its wartime defense-tech industry, now known for producing drones in high demand worldwide, with European arms makers. “The gen...

Ukraine is riding high on a series of deals that promise to intertwine its wartime defense-tech industry, now known for producing drones in high demand worldwide, with European arms makers.

The baffling ecological disaster that’s killing America’s freshwater mussels Biologists are racing to save America’s freshwater mussels—the water-filtering keystone species that once filled the country’s rivers and streams—from extinction

Biologists are racing to save America’s freshwater mussels—the water-filtering keystone species that once filled the country’s rivers and streams—from extinction