"I remember walking out of that luncheon feeling like I had glimpsed something important. The beating heart of the GOP no longer cared about principles or policy. There was a nihilist wing in control that scared me; they were happy to let it all burn."

he president is demanding government stakes in U.S. companies and cuts of their revenue. Experts see some similarities to state-managed capitalism in other parts of the world.

'..only modern president who refused to concede a certified election defeat now proclaims his authority over election rules nationwide... Having tried his best once to undermine our constitutional system, Trump is the last American..who should be entrusted to supervise the integrity of the vote.'

It's amazing it's come to this! "The case could determine whether immigration agents can rely on factors including a person's "apparent ethnicity" or speaking Spanish, as part of the "reasonable suspicion" standard that permits immigration stops."

America’s democratic system depends on the public’s understanding that law is bigger than politics. But now, Trump is sending a clear message that he is willing to go after his enemies and undermine that system.

Trump softened America up for the ICE Gestapo by constantly saying migrants are dangerous criminals who don't lead ordinary lives. So why is ICE raiding neighborhood restaurants & immigration courts instead of drug dens & dog fights? (BTW militarization of domestic law enforcement is abhorrent.)

NEW REPORT: Artificial Power, our 2025 Landscape Report, is out. Today’s AI isn’t just being used by us, it’s being used on us. We urgently need to reclaim public power over the future trajectory of AI. Another path is possible. Read the report: ainowinstitute.org/2025-landscape

Trump’s advisers have given up trying to restrict his phone use. His personal cellphone has become, Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer write, “the most pivotal technological device in the federal government, directly linking Trump to the outside world.” https://theatln.tc/mWgdUKd0

"Venturini’s exquisite prose and her boldness in diving deep into the consciousness of a troubled, outcast young girl, one who defiantly chooses her own uncompromising way in the world, makes this a novel well worth reading." — @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social‬ lareviewofbooks.org/article/open...

Didn't get to this over the weekend...will listen later tonight Timothy Snyder, a leading historian of authoritarianism, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, joins Scott to discuss the threats to American democracy, echoes of 1930s fascism, and what still gives him hope.

Anyone paying attention knows we have slid into autocracy, fully enabled by lawmakers in Congress, selected to represent us but failing to do so. Further, Felon45's attacks on judges and lawyers who defend his opponents is the ultimate sign that it's over...

There's so many different things he's done ...it's tough to keep track! Cut, Baby, Cut — a new report reveals the (almost) impossible task facing the US Dept. of Agriculture & Dept. of Interior as it looks to deliver on Trump's promise to deliver timber self-sufficiency.

!! International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has lost access to his email, and his bank accounts have been frozen. ICC's staffers have been told that if they travel to the US they risk arrest.. hurdles for court staff since Trump slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, in Feb.

“This isn’t Trump just being Trump. The Trump coin scam is the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close.”

After the busy weekend of trade negotiations in Geneva, Li Chenggang, a Chinese official, replied with a wry smile and an old saying: “Good food is never too late.” Trump administration gave China a strangely good tariff deal: for the next 90 days, at least.

While US economic model is of artificial scarcity, China has a model of abundance. Abundance is a supply side model, where there is sufficient goods for everyone at affordable prices. In China that means enough, not only for everyone at home, but for everyone in the world.

In Crypto Rush Aftermath by Georgian filmmaker Salomé Jashi, residents of Akhalkalaki in the Caucasus nation of Georgia recount how a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme ‘spread faster than COVID’ through their town, leaving big losses – and a few scattered winners – in its wake.

Stories and literature: Our narrative prison The three-act ‘hero’s journey’ has long been the most prominent kind of story. What other tales are there to tell? ...essay by Eliane Glaser #ToReadLater

Video (5min): A stunning visualisation explores the intricate circulatory system of our oceans aeon.co/videos/a-stu...

Moon Marbles ! A mantle-rocking asteroid impact could have made curious glass beads on the surface..

Ai Could Help Humans Understand Animals But are animal dictionaries enough to demystify the animal mind?

Claw print fossils discovered in Australia hint that the ancestors of reptiles, mammals, and birds evolved around 40 million years earlier than previously thought.

Is the fault of whale strandings partially in the stars? Note: Gray whales migrate through a 10,000-mile route spanning the Pacific coasts of Central and North America

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) who was a German abbess, healer, poet, composer and polymath, wrote Spiritus Sanctus Vivificans (O virtue of wisdom). ...a sound as similar to a Gregorian chant.

"Say you have seen something. You have seen an ordinary bit of what is real, the infinite fabric of time that eternity shoots through, and time's soft-skinned people working and dying under slowly shifting stars. Then what?" - Annie Dillard essay, This is the life

Poem: Uncertainty Principle at Dawn Catherine Barnett, in her 3rd book of poetry, Human Hours (2018)

The 2025 Pulitzer Prizes were announced Monday afternoon. Percival Everett won the award for fiction for his novel James, a powerful re-imagination of Huckleberry Finn.

“She would tell me stories about her own childhood…She described the life there—how the girls slept in little beds that stood in two rows and how they went walking in two straight lines, all dressed alike. She was happier there than at home.”

“They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have 5.”

"What did the earth teach the trees? How to speak to the sky." -Pablo Neruda

“The administration is no longer pretending that it is standing up for Jewish students,” Rose Horowitch writes. “The project has been revealed for what it is: an effort to punish liberal institutions for the crime of being liberal.”

"Trump is more effective than the Covid virus at creating chaos" Quotable quote from Justin Wolfers is a professor of public policy & economics at the Univ. of Michigan and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution & the Peterson Institute for International Economics and host of the podcast 👇

#Music: "wash away from the soul the dust of everyday life" Colombia & Venezuela are neighbors with deep cultural ties despite different political histories. Colombia rock bands Bomba Estereo from and Rawayana, of Venezuela, have a newly released collaborative album called “Astropical.”

when you think about it rfk jr. is the pinnacle of the american dream because in what other country can an ex-heroin addict who didn’t go to medical school and gets his science from 4chan become the authority on public health

This is Linda Martin. A few years ago, the FBI seized her life savings: $40,200. The kicker: She was never charged with a crime—and the government couldn’t tell her why it took her money. Martin is far from the first. But she is trying to make sure she is the last. A thread.

This is petty. The FBI has reassigned several agents simply for being photographed kneeling in solidarity with racial justice protesters in D.C. during the 2020 demonstrations after George Floyd’s murder.

April 28, 2025: Migrants are making SOS signs out of their bodies so drones can see them at our country's concentration camps.

When kooks reign: Once-fringe movement claims having more babies is the only way to save the US -- pushing ideas like genetic engineering, limiting access to contraceptives, .believes ..plot to replace white populations with nonwhite immigrants... about who gets to reproduce, under what terms..

Reshaping American lives ...project 2025... to listen later, or maybe not as I do not know how to deal with these changes. People wonder how Hitler got away with all that he did. Some day people will wonder about 2025-2030 also... how our lives got upended by vile people and we just stood by...

They think we are all stupid. “If you don’t look at the stuff Trump is doing to the economy, he’s doing a great job.." Navarro, Trump's chief trade adviser, said on CNBC that if the negative effect of the surge in imports because of Trump's tariffs is removed, "you have three percent growth."

As a nation we have become immune to miseries our govt inflicts on civilians around the world: Since March 2025, Hegseth, Trump, Vance started not caring about bombing civilians mercilessly. Over 300 civilians killed so far - poor African migrants in camps, many women and children...

Learn to live with less. Trump: China "made a trillion dollars with Biden selling us stuff. Much of it we don't need. Somebody said, 'oh, the shelves are gonna be open.' Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more."

They take us for fools. Or maybe they are just plain stupid incompetent people. Or both! AG Pam Bondi claims Trump has saved 2/3rds of Americans from dying: "3400 kilos of fentanyl. In the last 100 days. Which saved -- Are you ready for this, media? -- 258 Million lives." (Video at the link)

States’ rights was once a bedrock of the Republican Party. But in an autocracy there are no states’ rights.

Jensen Huang provided nearly all of the picks and shovels for the AI gold rush. James Surowiecki on how the Nvidia CEO became the new king of tech:

"Even knowing that for every successful immigrant there were others with equal moral claims who suffocated in vans, drowned in the ocean, or were turned back to die in the Holocaust, we willingly made ourselves complicit in the system of exclusion that divided 'legals' from 'illegals.'"

“The leopard gazes at the caravan.” A poem by Randall Jarrell.

Today in ther ARB: Christopher Talker reviews “Portraits of a Mother” by Shusaku Endo tr from Japanese by Van C Gessel @yalepress.bsky.social @yalebooks.bsky.social asianreviewofbooks.com/portraits-of...