Not only does Trump's IRS settlement hand him a $1.8B slush fund. It also bans the agency from auditing Trump and his family, allowing him to avoid nearly $100M in penalties and get away with any future tax-dodging. He is the most corrupt president in American history.

The oil shock is coming for America ft.trib.al/YljThiS

Canadians aren't bending or breaking. If the new Gordie Howe Bridge to the US is dependent on us kissing the gangster ring in Washington, the message from Winsdor is clear. "Keep it closed" says the Windsor mayor. www.ctvnews.ca/windsor/arti...

I’m not sure why this isn’t being mentioned more, but: IRS policy for 50 years has been that the sitting president & VP get audited every year, in an effort to reassure the public they’re not corruptly abusing the office to enrich themselves.

“There was no reason to do me like that,” Tolulope Akinsulie, whose legs and wrist still bear the scars from dog bites suffered during the midnight raid, told ProPublica. He is one of more than a dozen who’ve filed claims against the government.

Ryan Nichols is the latest such person to face charges after he allegedly brandished a gun during an argument

Kash Patel went snorkeling around the sunken hull of the USS Arizona, a battleship that still houses the remains of over 900 Americans killed during Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Not even the families of those killed are allowed to do what he did. apnews.com/article/fbi-...

The machine room of Information International Inc, aka triple-I, around 1980, photo by Tom McMahon. At the opposite end of this room was the Foonly F1, a PDP-10-ish architecture. That was where triple-I's portions of TRON were rendered with TRANEW, then recorded to film on high precision recorders.

I realize the pundit class hates a problem without a solution but here we are: Trump broke it (the US deterrence over Iran). He can't fix it. NATO can't fix it. No one can fix it. We just have to figure out how to proceed given that it is broken.

A 10-year-old wrote MAGA Congresswoman Virginia Foxx for a school project. He chose to write about an electric vehicle tax credit. He thought it was good for the environment. Virginia responded by attacking him and his teacher for being propagandized. These people have power over your life.

Parallel counterfactual: Of 100+ democracies that have been set up since US Constitution in 1787, virtually none have copied US model. (Exceptions I'm aware of: Liberia, Philippines. Could be more.) It's an antiquated, flawed system. US has thrived in spite of it, not because of it.

Residents in Fayette County, Georgia noticed their water pressure was unusually low. Turns out that a data center 20 miles away had been drawing 30 million gallons of water in secret through connections the county didn't know existed. Is it any wonder why so many are opposed to data centers?

This is dead on. If the Democrats retake the House and Senate--or even just the House--it could mark the beginning of the end of a 50-year Republican project. If they can't? The GOP will spend the next 2 years destroying all remaining guardrails. Most important midterms of our lives, no question.

DEAR RESTAURANTS: Your servers are not volunteers. If you can't afford to pay them more than 2.13% of what you charge, you can't afford to run a business. Thank you!

Yes, when humans blink, their eyelids remain closed for many minutes—and they slump their heads after about five minutes of having their eyes closed. Everyone knows those are the telltale signs of "blinking."

What a freaking weirdo to stand up there and talk about teenage boys' sperm counts.

There is a well established rule that legislatures can't tinker with electoral maps too close to an election. But the Opus Dei court has now announced a corollary, which says this rule does not apply when tinkering with a map would help the GOP eliminate a majority Black district.

The stuff I write about is so nuts that I find myself quadruple-checking the facts with pen and paper. For example, in 2020 Andreessen Horowitz led a $12 million investment round in the Clubhouse app (at a $100M valuation). It had 1500 users. It reached $4 billion valuation in 2021, then...poof.

This, from Nick Kristof, is required reading www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/o...

one time i wrote a post about how AI could never replicate the human experience of writing and someone accused me of using AI to write it, like as a bit, and anyway AI is cooking all of our brains and @jasonkoebler.bsky.social says it so well here:

“…29 million gallons of unaccounted-for water. That is equivalent to 44 Olympic-size swimming pools and far exceeds the peak limit agreed to during the data center planning process.” www.politico.com/news/2026/05...

6 years ago, I wrote that John Roberts, who craves to be ranked w J Marshall (or CE Hughes or E Warren) as greatest, institutionalist, consensus-building Chief Justice.. ...would instead challenge Roger "Dred Scott" Taney as worst + most partisan-hack chief. Now, no contest. Roberts beats Taney.

Prime Minister Péter Magyar inaugural speech: "The psyche of the whole country was poisoned by politics that was artificially inciting hatred. The Hungarian state is not allowed to do anything like this ever again... This era is, once and for all, finished."

Hungary’s parliament sings “Ode to Joy” — the anthem of Europe — after Péter Magyar is sworn in as prime minister. Hungary is once again a proud member of the European Union.

Tiliqua rugosa is a species of blue-tongued skink native to Australia that has many names: Shingleback Bobtail 'Sleepy Lizard' & my favorite: Pinecone Lizard. Let's talk about the time a zookeeper's burnt lunch led to a discovery about how the sleepy lizard survives Australian wildfires.

Louisiana is 33% Black and has six congressional districts. Yet in the past 149 years, they've just had 4 Black congressmen. All of whom are still alive. And that's too many for Louisiana's white Republican leaders.

Yo, anyone want to be a Bird Identification Machine Learning Software Engineer for the wonderful Cornell Lab of Ornithology, home of the Merlin app?!? It’s remote! I do not have these skills but maybe you do! #jobs jobs.hr.cornell.edu/us/en/job/WD...

In other words, this landslide tsunami was ENORMOUS. Here is a simulation, coupled with a drone video.

“.. There is no refund,” he said. “Only a handful of people are going to be able to access this, and I can almost guarantee it will not trickle down to me. It’s just maddening.” @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/1267...

Every so often I like to look at the JWST deep field images—like this one, from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. This is part of the sky known as GOODS-South. Every six-pointed feature is a star in the Milky Way. Everything else is a galaxy. And there's about 32,000 of them here.

Many liberals had long hoped for deescalation, because gerrymandering is bad. But watching Rs openly vow to seize on SCOTUS ruling to maximally gerrymander makes it clear those hopes are dead. The option of deescalation is always there, but it must be mutual. newrepublic.com/article/2098...

I think Pat Book has written the best piece questioning the wisdom of this Brandt Proposal to buy half of REAL, but I've just put up a long, rambly post of my own on the subject. It covers: • but I thought we needed a NEW arena? • why don't we know the land value? #yqrcc

Did Hegseth knowingly understate the cost of the Iran War? Yes, and he does so every day. The true price tag of the Iran war is closer to $50 bn, US officials familiar with internal assessments told CBS News, roughly double the public estimate the Pentagon cited in congressional testimony this week.

Te invitamos a la presentación de “Memoria de Buenos Aires” (Ediciones Futürock), en la Feria del Libro de Buenos Aires el próximo sábado 2 de mayo a las 18:30 h, zona Futuro. Luego estaremos firmando ejemplares. @ilustropnolvidar.bsky.social

Mark Carney: "Many of our former strengths, built on our close ties to the US, have become weaknesses. The US has changed. That's their right. And we're responding ... we're deepening our partnerships with our closest allies, including the EU, the Nordic countries, and Australia."

Here’s Trump threatening violence, calling for his political enemies’ executions, celebrating the deaths of people he didn’t like, and otherwise casually promoting political violence. There was also the small matter of Jan. 6 and subsequent pardons for violent felons.

Many of the politicians who were in that room running scared tonight have devoted much of their lives to ensuring gun violence and the fear of it is a part of every day life for the rest of us.

Didn't bend, didn't cower, didn't even feel the need to stand next to Trump grinning awkwardly like it was normal. And now he's emerged unscathed with his job and his dignity intact and his reputation even stronger than before. Huh. Seems like this could be a model for others in power.

Imagine inventing water from first principles?

I was shocked to learn in Tennessee that Nashville's single Democratic Congressman was gerrymandered out of a seat, leaving the city divided into several half-urban, half-rural constituencies and with no real representation at all. That was years ago, and I didn't hear any Republicans object.

This is what the surface of Venus looks like. (Sort of.)

The average American family paid $1,700 in tariffs last year, according to the bipartisan Congressional Joint Economic Committee. Few will ever see any of that money back. The refunds will go to companies, if doled out at all. What a joke.

Tim Cook enjoyed the benefits of policies and social acceptance that a whole generation fought to win. Then he too debased himself for trump and money. He was one of the wealthy who could have and should have stood up.

How many times in modern history has conservative political wing served itself up to be eaten by a populist autocrat?

Absolutely insane numbers on data center buildout. I haven’t vetted these by they’re about right based on memory/back of the envelope.

NEW: Growing fears of food shortages on USS Tripoli & other US ships in the Middle East. This photo is the kind of meals now being served. It was sent by a sailor to her family. Families are now trying to send food parcels to the ships. Full story 👉 www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

Not only did the sons probably call ICE on her, the day after her husband died they took their dad's cars, leaving her housebound. Then they rerouted mail, causing her to miss a visa appointment & the utilities to be turned off. Tony and Gary Ross are going to hell. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/u...

Just had a fantastic customer service experience at a DMV in North Carolina. Walk-in REAL ID license renewal in 8 minutes total, including time walking to/from my car. Sincere thanks to our local/state/federal government employees who work hard for all of us. Reject crony privatization in all forms.

a very confused Trump: "Look at Justice Ginsburg. She was not exactly a young woman. The election was taken. They had a Democrat who could've appointed a liberal justice. About two minutes after the election, she went out." (Ginsburg died in September 2020, when Trump was president.)

What do these companies have in common? -Block -Citigroup -Coinbase -CVS -Dominion Energy -Disney -Halliburton -Hasbro -HP -Kohl's -Live Nation -Palantir -Paypal -PG&E -Southwest Airlines -Tesla -United Airlines They all paid a lower effective income tax rate than you: zero.