European carmakers lose premium brand status in China Chinese manufacturers have a leg up in terms of technology, and experts say European rivals are too far behind to catch up.

European carmakers lose premium brand status in China

www.semafor.com/article/04/2...

The Texas legislature rammed through a gerrymandering bill at the request of Trump.

Virginia actually voted in favor of redistricting to counterbalance what Texas and other Republican-controlled states have done.

Yet only one is considered a "power grab."

Oligarch-owned media in a nutshell.

More Chinese College Graduates Head to Technical Schools Amid Job Shortage

Yicai: "An increasing number of Chinese college graduates are enrolling in technical schools to boost their job prospects. China continues to produce record numbers of college graduates, some 12.2 million last year and possibly 12.7 million this year."
www.yicaiglobal.com/news/more-ch...

How one disappointing order uncovered a massive ‘ghost cake’ delivery scandal in China | CNN Business A customer’s complaint about a disappointing cake kicked off a massive investigation that uncovered thousands of “ghost” food vendors in China, resulting in staggering fines for some the country’s lar...

A customer’s complaint about a disappointing cake kicked off a massive investigation that uncovered thousands of “ghost” food vendors in China, resulting in staggering fines for some of the largest firms and highlighting the pitfalls of cutthroat price competition www.cnn.com/2026/04/21/b...

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.

Reports indicate Elon Musk controls a secretive network of over 90 companies and entities so he can hide how he spends his money.

No wonder he wanted the Trump admin to “look into” the Corporate Transparency Act, which would have regulated those companies.

No one will ever trust us again. In time of crisis, we will have no one who to whom we can turn, no one who will stand by our side. Day-in and day-out this administration betrays our allies and enables our enemies. It is perverse and nauseating.

This is an administration in free-fall.

I would submit that a gerrymander by politicians saying fuck the voters and one by voters saying fuck the politicians are two wholly different animals

Thirteen U.S. troops died trying to get these people to safety — Afghan interpreters, soldiers, and the families of our service members. Veterans spent sleepless nights during the chaotic withdrawal fighting to keep them alive. Now our own government is going to abandon them.

Purging all the women while Hegseth, Patel, Lutnik and RFK remain

Texas gerrymandering backfires big time.

From Stuxnet to Operation Epic Fury: The China-Iran Intelligence Nexus - Domino Theory Between 2010 and 2012, the CIA’s spy network in China experienced one of the worst intelligence breaches in modern history, leading Beijing to reportedly execute more than 30 U.S. sources. While the e...

Senior research associate @emiledirks.bsky.social spoke with Domino Theory about Xi Jinping’s view of national security in light of U.S. and Israeli cyber operations in Iran: dominotheory.com/from-stuxnet...

Epstein pal Dershowitz joins Epstein pal Trump’s party.

Congratulations, Virginia! Republicans are trying to tilt the midterm elections in their favor, but they haven’t done it yet. Thanks for showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back.

So much false equivalence in media on gerrymandering in Texas vs California & Virginia. California and Virginia maps approved by the voters. That's a huge difference not enough people pointing out

[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “For Novice and Expert: Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑊𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝐾𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝐴𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎 (𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑊𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝐴𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝐴𝑠𝑘)” by Susan Blumberg-Kason 茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “For Novice and Expert: Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s Everything You Wanted to Know About China (But Were Afraid to Ask)” by Susan Blum…

Delighted to have two reviews of my very short new book, come out in Cha: chajournal.com/2026/04/20/e... (review by Jennifer Eagleton, a versatile & thoughtful Hong Kong-based writer) & chajournal.com/2026/04/20/a... (a review by Susan Blumberg-Kason, a versatile & thoughtful Chicago-based writer)

Tung season is currently bringing its white, green and blue colour palette to the hills of northern Taiwan. These photos are from Daqiong Trail in Taoyuan — a popular spot with blossom chasers. If you’ve got these trees in your neck of the woods, I’d love to see pictures.

Multiple oil spills are visible from space after Iranian and US-Israeli strikes hit oil facilities and ships in the region, with experts warning of an impending environmental catastrophe. https://cnn.it/3Ovxzwk

Outsourcing Influence

I wrote about China’s expanding social media monitoring and manipulation industry: the firms building and deploying bot networks for party-state actors and expanding into Western platforms. You can read the piece here: www.gmfus.org/news/outsour...

A few points about the industry🧵

China's rare-earth magnet exports fall 1.6% in March China's exports of rare-earth magnets in March slipped 1.6% from ​a year earlier but climbed ‌10.5% month-on-month, customs data showed on Monday.

China's rare-earth magnet exports fall 1.6% in March reut.rs/4dWV6k7

Head of federal law enforcement stages authoritarian crackdown on political enemies in attempt to appease Trump because he's afraid the journalistic exposé of his uncontrolled alcoholism is putting his job in jeopardy

Kazakhstan sentences 19 for protest against repression in China's Xinjiang region A Kazakh court has convicted 19 Kazakh activists after a protest against Beijing’s crackdown in China’s far-western Xinjiang region last year, in what advocates call an extraordinary move by the Kazak...

AP: Kazakhstan sentences 19 for protest against repression in China’s Xinjiang region – ‘The Kazakh government opened criminal investigations targeting the protesters after receiving a diplomatic note from the Chinese consulate in Almaty’

Yale Report Finds Colleges Deserve Blame for Higher Education’s Problems

The national media is eating up this report as justification for perpetuating the lie that universities themselves - as opposed to decades of attacks from the far right authoritarian party - are responsible for eroding trust in higher education. You can almost hear them salivating at the chance.

Just to go back to basics:

I once worked on a (winning) presidential campaign.

Something too obvious for anyone to mention was: "Don't get into a fight with the Pope over who knows more about Jesus."

These people are morons.

Taiwan overtook the UK in stock market value — making it the world's seventh largest — as tech firms regained favor. Read more: bloom.bg/4cKUSeK

📷️: An Rong Xu/Bloomberg

Trump’s Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate

“Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer in Mr. Trump’s first term, told the journalist Jim Acosta that the president is ‘a man who is clearly insane’ and that his recent string of belligerent, middle-of-the-night social media posts ‘highlights the level of his insanity.’”

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/u...

Forest Service Facebook post 04/13/2026: The conversation around the U.S. Forest Service is growing, and it's an important one. Our recent reorganization is focused on strengthening how we deliver on our mission and maximizing the value of every tax-payer dollar. We announced common-sense changes to move capacity out from behind desks and into the forests, grasslands, and communities where the work really happens. This will help ensure our employees on the ground are better supported and that our leadership stay connected to day-to-day realities. Ultimately, this is about adjustments we need to make to take better care of our national forests and improve service delivery to you and other visitors. With this renewed focus, it's worth taking a look at what's already being accomplished and what comes next. Thank you for being part of this ongoing conversation and for your support of the Forest Service mission.

Hard to imagine a USFS employee is writing this crap on the Forest Service’s Facebook page.

More likely a staffer of Michael “Buzz” Boren (Boren buzzed USFS trail crews with a helicopter).

An actual USFS employee would not insult peers like this.

“…where the work really happens” 🙄

Most prescient, clear/eyed work of writing I’ve read on reorg.

Read it.

Then act.

“Call your senators. Call your representative. Not next week or later. Now.

Tell them this is not a reorganization — it’s the destruction of a federal agency by executive fiat and that Congress must intervene.”

Trade War White House to avoid “massive confrontation," wants rare earths resolution, and plans to set up Board of Trade to manage relationship, when Trump meets Xi.

𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳-𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘛𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳 open.substack.com/pub/dexter/p...