"Individuals who do not conform to the masses are made scapegoats and objects of ridicule by the masses, in order to maintain status quo and to instill into the masses their own sense of superiority." Kierkegaard

Albert Einstein #RIP (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” Albert Einstein

TAKANO: Should Trump fail a mental fitness test, would you vote to invoke the 25th amendment? RFK Jr: There hasn't been a president who is more sane-- TAKANO: Reclaiming my time. Would you invoke the 25th amendment? RFK Jr: President Trump is the most stable-- TAKANO: Apparently not

Remembering the passings of Simone de Beauvoir (April 14, 1986) and Jean-Paul Sartre (April 15, 1980). Together on earth for 51 years, for eternity in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. One moment: Sartre passing de Beauvoir a manuscript saying, "Dis-moi, chérie, si cela s'accorde avec mes pensées."

Mike Johnson was "taken aback" by the Pope commenting on war and advocating for peace, but not by Trump cosplaying as Jesus. You can't make this stuff up.

Folks look at you like you're crazy when you say we're in the midst of the worst, most unprecedented Article I constitutional crisis in American history, & then Mike Johnson has more thoughts about religion & politics.

Leonardo da Vinci 🙏 #BOTD 15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519 "There may not be in the world an example of another genius so universal, so incapable of fulfilment, so full of yearning for the infinite, so naturally refined, so far ahead of his own century and the following centuries." Hippolyte Taine, 1866

Really important story from @wired.com: The Christian Nationalists who want to destroy the American secular state are now making their presence felt www.wired.com/story/govern...

Today, Pam Bondi defied a federal subpoena to testify on the Epstein files. The DOJ says her testimony is "moot" because she was fired. This is a textbook obstruction strategy. If Bondi doesn’t face a contempt vote, Congressional oversight is officially a myth. Read more in my recent essay:

No, only an idiot could come up with THAT one

For decades, men from Milwaukee voided even the appearance of cannibalism. Jeffery Dahmer is taking a different approach.

Honoring the 120th birthday of Samuel Beckett. "Writing becomes not easier, but more difficult for me. Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness."

"A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there - even if you put them end to end, they still only add up to one, two, perhaps three seconds, snatched from eternity..." Robert Doisneau #botd 📷 Paris, 1956

“Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful. Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration.” - 1984, George Orwell

The idea that the President of the United States could publish an image of himself as the Messiah and no news outlet covers it is the biggest indictment of the American free press.

Two Weeks Ago Marco Rubio: “The people that run this country [Iran] are radical Shia clerics, these are religious fanatics.” Today Trump posts an image of himself as Jesus Christ Every accusation is a confession...🙄🙄🙄

Congratulations to the people of Hungary!! And thank you for showing the fascists how it’s done.

Trump attacks the Pope, then posts an image of himself as Jesus resurrecting what looks like Jeffrey Epstein. You cannot parody this level of depravity.

I’m gonna side with the pope on this one

A reminder for all the pearl clutching Republicans who’ve suddenly decided that sexual misconduct is a red line… Long before he was found liable of sexual abuse (which he was), your guy bragged openly about grabbing women by the pussy. And you made him president. Twice.

Trump quote for the ages: “you don’t need a backup plan.”

Einstein Visa? Or Epstein Visa?

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy

It's been nearly five hours since the president of the United States posted a graphic snuff video of a man beating a woman to death with a hammer and there's no mention of it on the New York Times, Washington Post or CNN websites.

"The downside of Trump’s reliance on sub-mediocre stooges, however, is that by installing pliant idiots as key managers of his regime, he’s ended up amplifying his own stupidity and spectacularly bad judgment." Yep. www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-stoo...

DONALD TRUMP: "Well, the war didn't go so great, but did you notice? Nobody is talking about Epstein anymore." MELANIA TRUMP: "On it!"

Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? New interviews and closely guarded documents shed light on the persistent doubts about the head of OpenAI. New Yorker article by by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

There was before Breathless (À bout de souffle), and there was after Breathless...Godard's jazzy, free-form homage to American film genres helped launch the French New Wave and made a star of its leading man... Jean-Paul Belmondo #botd

The fact that Donald Trump didn’t follow through on his threats of committing genocide doesn’t mean we should move on from the fact that he threatened to commit genocide.

“Israel supports President Trump’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks... “The two-week ceasefire does not include Lebanon” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said a ceasefire in Lebanon was an essential condition of his country's agreement with U.S. bsky.app/profile/ones...

NATO will be there. On the opposite side.

The two days that JD Vance spent in Hungary desperately trying to shore up support for Putin’s lapdog Viktor Orbán reminded me of what a pathetic, loathsome, lying, traitorous scumbag he is.

NEW: Trump accepted $37m worth of donated steel for his WH ballroom project from the Luxembourg-based company ArcelorMittal. Days later, the WH made adjustments to Trump's tariffs that could benefit ArcelorMittal.

It is fifty-three years since Pablo Picasso died, on April 8, 1973, at Mas de Notre Dame de Vie, his home in Mougins. "If ever an artist shaped an epoch, it was Picasso. He restored to art a transforming magic..." — Lawrence Gowing

And let’s be super clear: The United States LOST this war. Donald Trump LOST the war in Iran. There is no other way to describe this than as an epic own-goal loss. Anyone who tries to tell you the US didn’t lose is engaging in propaganda. Trump lost. Iran won.

Putting aside Sam Altman just continuing to emit huge lies constantly, this is an amazing example of what I mean when I talk about how GenAI is replacing *extremely low energy* digital tasks with *WAY WAY HIGHER ENERGY* replacements that *do not even work* Why TF is anyone using ChatGPT as a timer!

We lost 13 troops. Injured hundreds more. Killed thousands of Iranians, including school children. Used hundreds of millions of our tax dollars. Damaged our bases in the region and countless aircraft. Sent gas prices through the roof here and abroad. And we got what exactly?

So, Trump has agreed stop bombing Iran if they agree to open the strait that wasn’t closed until Trump started bombing Iran?

Vote every Republican out.

The warnings are getting louder about Trump trying to take over voting at the national level. Are we paying attention? Sen Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is sounding the alarm, and he’s not guessing. That committee sees things the public can’t.

"The Peace President." This madman must be removed from office. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-threat-whole-civilization-will-die-iran-war-deadline-hormuz-rcna267059

FFS. Try sanewashing this. I had to check for myself that this post is authentic. It is. Now I've returned from his Truth Social, I feel in need of a long shower.

Daniel Ellsberg #botd. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers. Awarded the 2018 Olof Palme Prize for his "profound humanism and exceptional moral courage".

The Guardian view on Trump’s apocalyptic threats: a sign not of strength, but of moral and strategic weakness www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In May 2022, when Russia threatened Ukraine's power infrastructure, the Pentagon stated: "the deliberate targeting of the civilian power grid, causing excessive collateral damage and unnecessary suffering on the civilian population is a war crime." Trump is mirroring his idol.

Trump has been missing for days and missed his usual golf weekend but “has been working nonstop in the White House and Oval Office” over the Easter weekend. On what? A ventilator? www.forbes.com/sites/conorm...

"I found out that the film critics for the Stanford Daily got free passes for all the films. So I became first an assistant critic and then the main film critic. Those free passes changed my life..." Roger Corman #botd

This heartbreaking footage of Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk preparing for tournaments amid air raid sirens and missile attacks is a stark reminder that russians shouldn't be allowed to participate in international sporting events until they stop their genocidal war and are brought to justice

In the course of just seven feature films – Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, Stalker, Nostalghia, and The Sacrifice – Andrei Tarkovsky #botd changed what cinema as an artform could achieve...