A recent #Trump signature on one of his executive orders. I can kind of decode “Donald” in the first name but how the second section of scrawl says “Trump” is a stretch.

Good question.

A still from an IPhone video taken by an Artemis 2 astronaut as they orbited the Moon looking back at the Earth. I guess it’s authentic. But, these days, how would we really know? Generative #AI has forever broken that visual cultural link between a bedrock reality & the image. #photography

Well … a debacle. The USA is a laughing stock globally. Held in contempt. Sadly, Trump is symptom not cause of that very long term US malaise.

OPINION If I were a parent or relative of a #USA military member, I would be wracked with anxiety & distrust with #Trump as commander-in-chief. Erratic. Capricious. Constantly lying. A buffoon strategically & diplomatically. No, those soldiers are clearly not in “good hands”. #Iran #Israel #fascism

JD Vance to lead US delegation in Pakistan if Iran agrees to talks US vice-president to travel to Islamabad with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as deadline for current ceasefire looms

“ @jd-vance-1.bsky.social is expected to fly to Islamabad at the head of a #USA diplomatic delegation on Tuesday if #Iran agrees to further talks in the Pakistani capital”. What could possibly go wrong? Is this simply Kabuki? Performative? #Trump #fascism #Israel www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

For those #USA journalists at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, as they sit in cosy complicity, how do they frame in their minds, the guest of honour, #Trump, is a felon, adjudicated sexual assaulter, accused pedophile? To what is their allegiance? #Democracy? Their companies? #fascism #ethics

Kash Patel sues the Atlantic over article alleging excessive drinking Magazine has stood behind the story, which was written by veteran national security reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick

“ #KashPatel has followed through on a threat to sue @theatlantic.com & the author of a story the magazine published that included allegations of ‘excessive drinking’ as well as ‘conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences’”. #defamation #Trump #journalism www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

As we remain fixated on the buffoon strategic & diplomatic pinballing of the Mad King, #Trump, in his war of choice debacle against #Iran, the fascist, corrupt, brutal expansionist #Netanyahu regime in #Israel is the most patent threat to world peace. They have (“secret)” nuclear weapons. #fascism

The interview by @fergusonnews.bsky.social of PM @albomp.bsky.social on 730 was, by his design & technique, an anodyne cop out. He projected a kind of complacent complicity with the corrupt, fascist #Trump regime. How long in real world terms can that continue? #AUKUS? The #USA “alliance”? #fascism

Trump’s presidency is what evil looks like: absurd, frightening, cruel | Nesrine Malik Commentators have said that the US president’s clownishness and lack of ideology somehow make him less dangerous. They’re wrong, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

OPINION @nesrinemalik.bsky.social “What is so bewildering about the cruelty is how it has been allowed to pass, its casualness. #Trump hovers above the circus of death & chaos.” Trump is symptom not cause of the deep rooted #USA malaise. And a grand #journalism fail? #fascism
www.theguardian.com

#USA

#Trump

Just one dimension of the profound and long term American malaise. They may (partially) recover from this Trump era. But he is symptom not cause.

. @donlemonofficial.bsky.social is right isn’t he? At this point in #Trump 2.0, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has become emblematic of the craven cosiness between much of #USA #media & the corrupt #Trump regime. A grand failure of US public interest #journalism. Complicit enablers? #fascism

Illiberalism Is Not Inevitable If Viktor Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too.

OPINION @anneapplebaum.bsky.social “the defeat of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, required not just an ordinary election campaign or new messaging but rather the construction of a broad, diverse, patriotic grassroots social movement.” #Trump www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

OPINION @markgkenny.bsky.social #Trump war of choice against #Iran descends further into the debacle depths. The Huckster’s self infatuated strategic & diplomatic buffoonery knows no bounds? The meta narrative remains the #USA midterm elections. Will they happen? Will Trump “skewer” them? #fascism

A Plonker’s got to plonk? #Israel #genocide

#Iran

#Trump

#ICE (SS) #Trump #ruleoflaw

Trump says US delegation will travel to Islamabad on Monday, Iran declines talks Iran is not currently planning to attend the next round of talks with the US, which has announced that it would send a team of negotiators to Pakistan on Monday, Iranian state television reported on…

“ #Iran is not planning to participate in new peace talks with the ​ #USA, its state news agency reported on Sunday, hours after US President #Trump had said he was sending envoys to Pakistan for talks & would strike Iran unless it accepted his terms.” Strategic, diplomatic buffoon. flip.it/JgQ-U5

The insider trading suspicions looming over Trump's presidency The BBC has found a pattern of spikes in trades ahead of public announcements by the US president.

“Throughout #USA President Donald Trump's second term in office, traders have been betting millions of dollars just before he makes major announcements.” As with so much #Trump #corruption, executed in plain sight? That’s The Huckster’s key “trick”. flip.it/MNr_4T

Suspect dead after 8 children killed, 2 women wounded in Louisiana shooting The suspect, who was the father of seven of the children, was killed after a vehicle chase, police said. The slain children were 18 months to 12 years old.

It never ends in the gunned up #USA? The grandest failure of #democracy on the planet? All because of a deeply ingrained sense of righteous violence in that fractured republic & a cockamamie legal distortion of the 2nd Amendment. #guns flip.it/vmIvZy

Don’t call me a teal: independent Michelle Milthorpe carves a fresh path as she takes on One Nation in Farrer byelection Milthorpe – a teacher and advocate for child sexual assault survivors – says city MPs have little understanding of challenges facing the regions

The Farrer contest. BTW the “Teal” label to describe some community independents was always false, confected lazily by the #media in an attempt to catch up with realities on the ground. The colour some candidates used was never “teal”. And many colours were used. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Francis Gooding · Rocket Science for Monkeys: Sounds before Words So far as we know, true symbolic language is unique to the human species. The question of how we alone came to be...

REVIEW “There is no idea more fundamental to the modern conception of language than what Saussure called ‘the arbitrariness of the sign’.” #linguistics #history www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Why AI Needs A Sense Of Smell | NOEMA Scent is a vital component of human intelligence. But in our quest to advance artificial intelligence, nobody seems to care about it.

“The reality is that very little progress has been made toward giving #AI a sense of smell because pretty much nobody working in AI cares.”
www.noemamag.com/why-ai-needs...

Opinion | The Warmongers Are Getting History All Wrong

OPINION “The #Trump administration’s relentless bullying ignores a central lesson from classical antiquity: Athens’s shift from benevolent hegemony to malevolent empire paved its road to ruin.” 250th anniversary of the emergence of the #USA may presage its decline? www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/o...

Intemperate Trump brings chaos and confusion to Iran talks US president’s unreliable style sows diplomatic confusion but leaves Tehran clear on strategic value of strait of Hormuz

#Trump “decision to send #USA officials to Islamabad for further talks on Monday with Iran just 24 hours after #Iran once again closed the strait of Hormuz will signal to Tehran that the strategic waterway remains a bargaining asset beyond parallel.” A debacle. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

The “Ersatz Era”? We are already now immersed in “plausible simulacra” And it is but the beginning of the generative #AI evolution. What on earth do we tell our children and grandchildren about this insidious, pervasive destruction of our cultures & human #creativity? #dystopia x.com/peterrneuman...