for an idea of how big a deal this is, my mom was in great shape when she got diagnosed and she lasted less than sixty days. six years is insane.

We live in a country where the two most dynamic, charismatic, eloquent politicians of this century have the first names Barack and Zohran. This is what bothers the white supremacists so much.

Yeah - time and again people have merely asked the court to maintain the status quo while the court decides the merits of an issue. And the court has decided time and again that the greater damage would not be to allow Trump to dismantle your government before they rule on its illegality. It’s nuts

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:

The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court

If you are as infuriated as you read this as I am, know that Congress not only has the power to fix the abuse of the Shadow Docket but also that the legislation is already drafted. We just need to get it to the floor. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

+ Pointing out again that you can read “the book” on authoritarian personalities yourself, for free, at theauthoritarians.org

Clip from article: … contractors and marketing companies that now specialize in developing and dispatching A.I. avatars in bulk for increasingly low prices. The emergence of the A.I.-generated political avatars, researchers said, suggests a sweeping effort to hook conservative voters, a demographic primed by the president and his circle to accept memes, influencers, deepfakes and other digitally packaged messaging. Neither The Times nor the researchers it consulted found any similar left-leaning networks. “People gearing up for the midterms should expect that they might see some of this content on their accounts, that it might be crafted to be particularly engaging or exciting to them,” said Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, a co-director of GRAIL.

It’s the same now with the AI Trump boosters (see clip) - the fake shit only works with conservatives.

That’s because authoritarians don’t care if claims that validate their biases are true or not. When asked about sharing slop they typically say, “I know it’s probably fake, but I liked it.”

Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media

I always think about the Macedonian teens who made millions in 2016 posting fake news memes lauding Trump (“Pope endorses Trump” was one) - when NYT tracked them down and asked why they weren’t posting HRC-boosting memes, they said, “We tried that, it didn’t work”… (gift link)

Last annual visit I requested an MMR titer, not the vaccine, and I was good for measles + rubella but not mumps. So this year I’ll get the MMR.

Heads up to my Gen X + early Millennial peeps - show this plot to your PCP and you can probably get yourself an MMR booster, if you haven’t been (re)vaccinated since childhood.

The plot to enslave America

April 17, 2026
Cumulative measles cases reported in the United States by year
Johns Hopkins
{publichealth.jhu.edu/ivac/resources/us-measle...

The only president or major party candidate in half a century not to disclose his tax returns—who fought for years, at taxpayer expense, to keep them private, and lost—now wants the IRS to MORE THAN DOUBLE HIS NET WORTH at taxpayer expense as a part of the systematic pillaging he calls a presidency.

Iran declares Strait of Hormuz completely open to commercial ships during Israel-Lebanon ceasefire

An apt illustration of the bind Trump has gotten the US into. The global economy is now subject fighting between Israel and hezbollah. Iran didn’t know quite how easy this wld be until Trump forced them to try. www.cnbc.com/2026/04/17/i...

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.

Thank god for the Asian markets

In a non car-brained world, the fact that elite cyclists are regularly hit, and often killed, by drivers should lead some of the victim blaming people out there to question what they're saying. You can do everything right and still die.

This story is crazy! The Jim Dolan had a Knicks fan obsessively monitored at games just because she was trans.

The Yale report on trust in higher education has some good recommendations for reforms in many areas that I hope Yale and other schools implement.

But its diagnosis is oddly silent about what I suspect is the most important force driving the decline in trust in higher education: political attack.

thanks again joe manchin!

So at the risk of maybe overreading this and making an educated guess, I think I can guess what specifically Wyden is talking about.

I think it's about use of AI (LLMs) by FBI to surveil American communications without a warrant

🚨FISA VOTE TONIGHT! 🚨 While you are sleeping, Republicans plan to jam a bill through the House tonight allowing the Admin to spy and collect data for the next FIVE YEARS.

No warrants REQUIRED. No real assurances a shady AG, FBI, or DNI director will follow the law. I am a NO!

everything about DOGE was fucking wildly illegal and everyone involved in it should spend time in prison and have their assets seized

A tweet from Representative Thomas Massie that reads: I just viewed 2 Top Secret FISA docs. 1) FISA Court opinion that raises serious concerns about FBI implementation of FISA 702. 2) letter by Senator Wyden describing a secret government interpretation of FISA law. The Constitution requires I vote No on FISA 702 reauthorization.

I sent a classified letter to House and Senate colleagues about a secret interpretation of surveillance law that every American should be concerned about.

Representative Massie is right. The Constitution requires EVERY member to vote against a clean reauthorization.

Scurvy, measles, oil crisis, stagflation… is there any oldie but goodie they DON’T plan to bring back

A headline reads: "Senate Votes to Allow Mining Near Minnesota Wilderness." Aerial view of a frozen, blue lake. Brown trees are in the background. Photo by Tim Gruber for The New York Times.

The Senate voted on Thursday to allow mining upstream from Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, one of the largest and most visited expanses of federally protected lakes and forests in the U.S. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/c...

A photo of a tray with three sections empty. One has chopped carrot in it. The other has what can only be described as a posit of brown dog vomit and an insole liner of a sneaker (or a used panty liner from the mid 1700s). The kind of meal that would have you happily tossing yourself overboard.

NEW: Growing fears of food shortages on USS Tripoli & other US ships in the Middle East.

This photo is the kind of meals now being served. It was sent by a sailor to her family.

Families are now trying to send food parcels to the ships.

Full story 👉 www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

Dumped by Trump The Riley Gaines side story from this week is just the latest reminder of how casually the president tosses aside allies.

"This is something I wish MAGA influencers would pause and sit with for a moment. If you are a social media star in the right-wing constellation, this is your life now. Really, it is what your life has always been."

Outstanding to see @hennepin.bsky.social file charges against two ICE officers.

This is for a gun-pointing road rage incident, not the killings of either Good or Pretti, but this is also a case where supremacy clause immunity is much harder to invoke.

It's a really good start.

Sounds like a pretty solid endorsement to me!