Wait wait. So this happened last night at the same hotel where Reagan got shot? That's a bit weird; did the scriptwriters run out of material for this season of the presidency already?

this chart was life altering to me

Graffito of the Week, no. 036: YCARS; CSX train, Harpers Ferry, 2016. Given gas prices now, this is a question we ask more and more every day, though I supposed we could also be phonetic and ask "Icarus?" #GotW

Gift link to this absolutely devastating story

Just thinking about two of my favorite British crime films, Croupier and Get Carter, and it turns out they were both directed by Mike Hodges.

Very free speech, much viewpoint diversity. These people will go down in history as the clowns and bigots they are. The problem is how many of the rest of us they will ruin on their way down.

You know what's "rife with fraud" perpetrated on the public? This guy. Inherited one of the most famous names in American politics, and turned it all to shit. Unfortunately he gets to make terrible health decisions for the rest of us.

It must have been simply astounding to see the Shinkansen run into your city or streak across the fields for the first time in 1964. It's still breathtaking today. Here just pulling into Hiroshima Station. #新幹線 #japan #urbanlandscape

Leo, backed by Francis as a diplomat, is being incredibly daring within the constraints of diplomacy. Increasingly he is like an acrobat in a small space. It is remarkable to watch, and more so because he couldn't do it if he didn't stand on political bedrock. Francis set this up.

Bank of Erath Erath, LA

🧵 The arguments behind landmark Supreme Court rulings have never been freely available… until now. More than 125,000 #SCOTUS records & briefs (1830–2019) are now open on the Internet Archive. Full announcement ⤵️ blog.archive.org/2026/04/20/u... @wolflawlibrary.bsky.social

The midterm gerrymandering war and the Iran war alike show Trump's inability to imagine that the people he's picking fights with have any agency, any ability to respond. He loves his "you don't have the cards" metaphor but he's amazingly terrible at actually thinking about whether they do.

So the extortionately priced tickets aren't selling, and they're cryptically releasing more in tranches to catch up. I love the World Cup but I'm not biting for this shitshow, despite living 10 miles from a stadium. If prices drop to $100 a seat, I'll take a look. www.inquirer.com/soccer/fifa-...

IIRC, two thirds of the soldiers who died in the Civil War died of disease, not wounds. Anyone who actually prioritized warfighting and lethality and all those things Hegseth goes on about would mandate vaccines, since it’s hard to be a lethal warrior when you’re dead (or even seriously ill.)

In the same manifesto, Palantir's owners argued that we need a national military draft, that soft power is over, and that we were too hard on Germany and Japan after World War II. I don't think that company should be allowed to exist anymore.

There’s Trump-style corruption, which is all bullshit, bluster, bags of cash, and him daring you to stop him. And then there’s corruption of the John Roberts kind. It’s just as deliberate and destructive, but quieter, more genteel, like a cancer that grows in your bones rather than on your face.

US women deciding to come out for the second half and take this game over. Rose Lavelle! Naomi Girma!

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.

This is insane. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

It's Nero's Domus Aurea.

My child over here trying to convince me that the reason they didn't eat a vegetable at school today was because there was a pureed artichoke sauce poured over the green beans. And I'm like, "No, that did not happen. No school cafeteria in the US has ever made that dish."

A beautiful piece. Or maybe the story of Mary Kay & Anna just has echoes of how, a little more than a year ago, I held my father's hand & tried in my useless way to comfort him as he slipped from this world. Anyway, spend a few minutes with it; you'll be glad you did. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/u...

This piece encapsulates the whole debate in just a few carefully chosen words. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/o...

From your lips to the voters' ears....

The World We Have Lost: Buick Roadmaster.

When you add it all up, the collapse in immigration looks like this: a decline of roughly 50K for illegal (even including the people arrested and not released) and a decline of about 132K for legal. Over 70% of the cut in immigration has come from LEGAL immigration.

NEW—I got an exclusive excerpt from a USAID whistleblower's new book that made me gasp multiple times. It details Trump's dismantling of the humanitarian aid agency & his team/DOGE's shocking ignorance to public health. 'Into the Wood Chipper' by Nicholas Enrich is out tomorrow. Read excerpt here:

HR Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters - all were landmarks of my childhood. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/a...

For Asha Bhosle. Que descanse con el ritmo. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/w... www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM7H...

On this AI version of Zuckerberg for Meta employees: It sounds a simulacrum of a simulacrum of a person. It's simulacra all the way down. I wonder if now we'll get to see what happens when the training data are already robot-produced.

Viktor Orban to be the next editor of WaPo.

A defeat like this will change European politics. A few thoughts. 1. Running vs. EU has costs - publics aren't anti-EU and EU can hold back funding. Being an obstructionist jerk in Brussels has tangible political downsides. This strengthens the leverage of the EU and deters obstructionists. 1/

So wait, did the opposition party just win a supermajority in Hungary's elections? This Guardian article says 138 seats, which is more than 2/3. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Arrive: Moon Leave: Moon

I am speaking, of course, of this delight.

My take? Put it in the Louvre

This might be one of my favorites from Artemis II. A cinematic alignment of the Moon and Earth, each cradled within the warmth of sunbeams. Taken from behind the Moon on April 6th. flic.kr/p/2s6BABn

Cops fractured his skull for standing by in peaceful protest. And people in power claimed he assaulted the cops. No hell greater for those who smeared him. RIP.

Trump was elected to wipe the trauma of the first black president from American history, a task which included scrapping the nuclear deal that had the US in a much better strategic position than before this needless, unconstitutional war of choice against Iran

Maybe we could call it, uh, I don't know... a carbon... tax?

OH. MY. GOD. THIS IS THE EARTHSET PHOTO FROM ARTEMIS II. IM SPEECHLESS.

The Trump administration has DROPPED its appeal in Rhode Island v. Trump, meaning that the victory for the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the case STANDS. Let's celebrate the win and then work like hell to restore IMLS funding in 2027: bookriot.com/rhode-island...

Bayern looking pretty good this afternoon. They open a well deserved lead.

That Maggie Haberman piece in the NYT on how the decision to attack Iran unfolded has a really, really strong "JD Vance is my source" vibe. It seems designed to make him look loyal but wise and restrained.

More drama in the sad saga of World Cafe Live mismanagement. This is perhaps the best venue to see a show in Philadelphia, and it's going down the tubes. It's a real loss for musicians, fans, and workers. www.inquirer.com/entertainmen...

This is just a tremendous thread. At some point, I would welcome insight from Collin Dueck about how the GOP foreign policy machine got here (especially after comments by congressman today about the necessity of boots on the ground) from there.

Depluralize a movie. One Day of the Condor.

You learn something every day. And today I learned how to fillet skate wings.

It's time to call it. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-strate...