Dismantling Voice of America was one of the most devastating things I’ve witnessed. VOA wasn’t propaganda, it was proof that free press could criticize its own leaders and still survive. And now we’re throwing away one of our greatest tools of freedom.

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

No previous American president, in any era, of any party, would have tolerated a drunken, erratic, absent FBI chief
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

We are spending billions to keep our entire navy in the Strait to fecklessly fail to open a waterway that wasn’t closed until Trump’s pointless war of choice closed it.

He’s just burning your tax money.

How is “pressure” changing their government’s behavior. If the son is even more hardline than the father our government killed, seems things are even worse for Iranian citizens.

[Tsunami Warning) A tsunami warning has been issued. Evacuate immediately. Issued at 4:55 PM on the 20th Affected areas: Central Hokkaido Pacific Coast, Iwate Prefecture

AFP: 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck northern Japan Monday, Japan's Meteorological Agency (JMA) said, issuing a tsunami warning for waves up to three metres (10 feet)

Yeah, I’m back. 😉

For me, a little forgetting would be welcome 🫩

Equal On Paper As with "massive resistance" to Brown v. Board, Republicans today argue for a legal landscape where rights exist on paper but cannot be enforced.

“At the beginning of April, the conservative-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court put the final nail in the coffin of equitable education funding in the state.” www.liberalcurrents.com/equal-on-pap...

a man wearing a mask says tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk ALT: a man wearing a mask says tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk

You two

Braddock my fanny

But you must always have them on hand along with ginger ale and noodle soup

Hegseth Borrows Violent Prayer from ‘Pulp Fiction’ to Bless Iran War at April Pentagon Worship Service For the second month in a row, Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself “secretary of war,” read a violent prayer — that echoes a scene in the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction — during a worship ser...

what’s funny about this is that tarantino wrote this “ezekiel 25:17“ for the film. it isn‘t actually in the bible. publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/hegseth-bo...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette finds buyer to keep newspaper open Owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said they have found a buyer who had agreed to keep the newspaper open, less than a month before it was due to shut down.

The Post-Gazette dates its ancestry to 1786, the first newspaper to open west of the Allegheny Mountains, and its closure would have left Pittsburgh as the nation's largest community without a city-based paper. https://to.pbs.org/4tdB0a7

Primary Schedule for the year. We've gone past a couple of these already. Look for your state and plan accordingly.

I will pin this for 2026.

Cartoon by Robert Ariail | Andrews McMeel

The Parable of the President Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo XIV reveals that to him, religion is primarily about power, not morality.

What feels like a weekly social-media crashout from the president of the United States usually starts some time on Sunday and continues into the early hours of the next morning. www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

Politics is a well-paying job

It's over. Peter Magyar will be Hungary's new Prime Minister. Viktor Orban has appeared to concede.

A Malian said, “We were wiping the water up [into our eyes].”

Seems similar to what does kill you makes you stronger. Like public health says, doesn’t work that way with vaccines. I guess not with fascistic moves too

Red Zone A humiliated Trump is at his most dangerous

“The strongman image he’s desperately been trying to cultivate all his life has collapsed. And that is why we’re now all in a dangerous situation.”

This seems dangerous to point out but if it’s always true, guess we’re okay

Oof. Those characters are always scheming.

Is it up to 40%?

This is my fear, too.

What is not being done is any recourse to the one document that provides for situations where a president needs prompt removal from office: the constitution of the United States. The checks and balances are already there, ready to be used. But they are ignored, as if these provisions did not exist. The United States may as well not have a written constitution. For what is now happening is not because of any inherent strength of the presidency in the United States political system. It is happening because the legislative and judicial branches are letting it happen. The constitutional tools are there to fix this, but those who can use these tools are refusing to use them. And the international legal order offers no constraint. Although it is important in principle to recognise that what Trump is threatening is in breach of international laws, nobody expects these laws to make any practical difference. There will be no sanctions on Trump or the United States for the threat to destroy an entire civilisation. Many world leaders also are just waiting for the problem to somehow go away.

Why President Trump’s threat of genocide matters

He may avoid immediate constitutional and legal sanctions, but this threat should not be forgotten

New by me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

India withdraws bid to host COP33 climate talks The government gave only a brief explanation for its change of heart on the climate summit, saying it had reviewed its commitments for 2028

India has withdrawn its offer to host the COP33 climate summit in two years time www.climatechangenews.com/2026/04/08/i...

That’s what I heard

“We propose to put it into the power of every man, woman, and child, black or white, rich or poor, when his rights are invaded, to raise his hand toward the flag, and say, I am an American citizen. Why should it not be so, now that all are free?”