drone maker backed by President Donald Trump's two oldest sons is trying to sell to Gulf countries while they are under attack by Iran and dependent on the U.S. military led by their father. www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

via @laserwars.net, the Pentagon wants to double its R&D budget for lasers and other "directed energy weapons" www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

I tend to get dogpiled every time I say this but: as someone *who likes bluesky and benefits from being here* we have a problem. The network is shrinking, not growing. It's shrinking a lot: only about 1.1m people a day even like a post. This time last year it was 1.6m.

And a $1.5 trillion defense department!

The Pentagon's budget is so big and so arcane, no one can figure out how to audit it. The Trump administration wants to supersize it anyway, to $1.5 trillion. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/u...

Trump admin proposed a 23% cut in NASA's budget, right as its new Moon mission kicks off. Science programs would be hit especially hard -- almost cut in half. spacenews.com/white-house-...

Trump's FY27 spending proposal would CISA's budget by $707m. The White House describes it as refocusing CISA on core infrastructure protection work. It says the agency under Biden had "poor management" and was too focused on "censorship" and self-promotion. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

HOW IS JACK WHITE STILL THIS GOOD?!?!? www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Ps...

NEW: Trump aides gutted offices that aimed to counter anti-American disinformation by foreign powers. Now the US finds itself embattled in an info war with Iran, Russia and China. The State Dept. tells diplomats to use X and work with Pentagon psyops teams. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/b...

Bondi was supposed to be deposed by Congress in less than two weeks. And we all know how her previous trips to the Hill went.

Aw, it feels like just yesterday that all the industry trades were breathlessly telling us that this slop was inevitably going to be the next big thing.

We first unmasked (or not—Donahue never actually covers his face) two CBP agents in November at great personal risk as two reporters who have been repeatedly targeted by the feds, including with assaults and arrest. Since then, more and more outlets have felt comfortable naming agents:

I am not handing it to anyone but yes It can and prob definitely will get worse than Attorney General Pam Bondi

So Trump's personal defense lawyer is, for now, AG. Cool, cool. All good. Totally normal and shit.

The genesis of this investigation (w/@regret.bsky.social, @timmarchman.bsky.social , @couts.bsky.social, @hudsongiles.bsky.social & @samspengler.bsky.social) was the winged insignia worn by Greg Bovino & several camouflaged Border Patrol agents thruout At Large, Midway Blitz & Metro Surge - BORTAC

See what happens when the Dow isn't 50,000 any more?!?! www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/u...

See what happens when the Dow isn't 50,000 any more?!?! www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/u...

Feels like COVID circa mid-2020. Time is a flat, very dumb circle.

A major admission from the new NASA chief, who previously *promised* to beat China back to the Moon: the United States may well lose the new space race. “They may be early,” Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator. “And recent history suggests we might be late.” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/w...

"One agent is married to a TV news anchor who reports on the Border Patrol. Another, who also engaged in a gun battle with a school shooter in Uvalde, Texas, has posted in an online gun forum with thread titles like 'Whipping Haitians.'" amazing work by @awinston.bsky.social + Maddy Varner

A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in US history. www.wired.com/story/border...

Fingers. Crossed.

using graduation of US Marines as an opportunity to harvest some of their relatives for deportation

uh, Daily Mail has an absolutely wild story about Kristi Noem's husband that he essentially confirmed to them in a phone call www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

"Israel" doesn't start with a J.

Happy 113th to my grandfather, who knew how to work a blazer

Man with his dog flees from bombs in Tehran. (Photo by Pooria Hatami)

Credit is Jill Connelly/AP

A remarkable photo from #NoKings in DTLA from Connor Sheets of @latimes.com www.latimes.com/california/l...

Paris

You know an outlet has The Juice when reporters of @ejdickson.bsky.social's caliber are signing up. @wired.com just went from strong to stronger.

This is zuck one month after going on Rogan podcast claiming he would never takedown content based on government requests ever again

- @andrewperez.bsky.social and I have a scoop in this morning’s @zeteo.com First Draft: the “gay ayatollah” thing was made up and spread by trump advisers in and outside the government. There is no credible intel on it; it’s a pysop, per trumpy sources in position to know zeteo.com/p/gay-ayatol...

What you’ve seen on your phone cannot prepare you for the nightmarish reality.

I’ve been a journalist for 27 years. I’ve reported major stories about mass surveillance, torture, war, the military-industrial complex, police black sites, etc. But this is the most important story I’ve ever had the horror/honor to work on. For it is a story about the current phase of a genocide.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, top Dem on the House appropriations panel, says DHS is *choosing* not to pay TSA workers while paying its other employees. She says: 85% of ICE + CBP are being paid 75% of Secret Service 0% of TSA workers "The Department made that decision," DeLauro says on the House floor.

What would happen if this thing I completely made up killed people?

Paris recommendations? Just realized it's my first time in 17 years.

Brave piece in the LA Times from David Myers and Joshua Goetz, who research antisemitism as part of the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate. “We can’t ignore the real prospect that Israel’s actions have led to violent antisemitic attacks and could lead to more.” www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

NASA is canceling one of the oddest, most unwieldy parts of its lunar mission -- a mini space station orbiting around the Moon -- in favor of a full-on Moon base. spacenews.bluelena.io/index.php?ac...

Wait a minute. I was told unequivocally that this was the future of film.

Wild. Rubio actually went through with it. www.notus.org/courts/marco...

We had an oil glut going into the year. That's over, no matter what, there's hundreds of millions of barrels that are missing, forming an "air pocket" in the market. It's hard to imagine oil getting below $75 and it could go as high as $150 or beyond heatmap.news/energy/energ...

"Even if the strait were to reopen tomorrow, it would leave an 'air pocket' in the oil market, a Morgan Stanley analyst wrote in a note to clients, referring to oil that will never come to market... That would keep prices high through the 2nd & 3rd quarters of the year." heatmap.news/energy/energ...

Whoa whoa whoa. WSJ reports that Trump *personally* pushed the Justice Department to settle its antitrust case with Live Nation. Several sources for my NYT column speculated this was the case. The Journal says it's a fact. www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

This is an Onion headline

So the plan is to attack Iran's oil fields ... and, at the same time, lift sanctions on Iran's oil?!?! What is going on here? www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

I didn't realize this -- that the Reaper drone, the signature weapon of the post-9/11 wars -- is likely seeing its last conflict. "The Air Force placed its final order for Reapers in 2020 and manufacturer General Atomics closed the production line last year after building 575 of the drones."