The photo that perfectly sums up the Beijing summit.

No Jimmy Lai, and Trump comes back regurgitating Beijing's talking points on Taiwan. Great job, GOP China hawks!

lotta ppl sayin wild things rn

The amount of drugs you can carry on Air Force 1, get issued from the WH medical staff, and carry under diplomatic cover as a party of an official delegation all with a "Drs note" must be immense.

I apologize in advance for using a lot of statistics and technical jargon but I really wanted to emphasize that Iran retaining the majority of its munitions should not really surprise us and makes the decision to launch this entire thing in the first place that much dumber

One of the better things I've read on Turkey and Israel, with a focus on military technology as much as anything from Ryan Gingeras for @warontherocks.bsky.social warontherocks.com/ankaras-cros...

Well-written, informative, and measured article worth reading. Not doomerism, but readiness for any anti-democratic shenanigans

“For the good of society, your son will work in the trades. Oh, my son? My son will be a titan of politics and industry. For the good of society, your daughter will be a tradwife. Oh, my daughter? My daughter will host a lucrative rightwing podcast.”

It is hard to put into words how humiliating and rage-inducing this is for Iranians…

🤞🧵

Evangelical Christian leaders literally gathering around a gold statue of the president and celebrating it, all while raging against any accusation of idolatry. This is what idol worship looks like.

Over 30 people were killed by Russian strikes in a little more than a day. No reaction, no coverage, not even condemnation. Nothing. If people were blown to bits anywhere else in Europe, there would be gigantic coverage, outrage, and help. But not in Ukraine.

The aim of the war is no longer regime change. The aim of the war is now to convince people this wasn't a mistake in the first place.

Don't do this. Just don't. Sacks is a bazillionaire, and doesn't need pocket change from Russia. As Packer says in his story: "The only consistent principle of his career is a ruthless devotion to self-interest." Don't go for the weird accusations when simple ones are staring you in the face.

>Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson were all on Russian payroll >Orban loses in Hungary >Rod Dreher immediately leaves Budapest >The Daily Wire fires half their staff was all the right-wing conspiracy posting about USAID just massive fucking projection?

Sometimes I think a reason MAGA and all that sorry lot hate Ukraine so much is because Ukraine is everything they long after in an imaginary Americana. The is Dukes of Hazzard stuff.

Washington has warned European allies, including the UK, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia, to expect long delivery delays for US weapons — including Nasms and Himars — as it scrambles to replenish stockpiles depleted by the Iran war. Deliveries to Ukriane have already been delayed. w/ FT colleagues

the reason all these guys were so obsessed with destroying USAID and "the deep state" was mirroring because the Orbanist deep state was cutting their checks, no way anyone actually believes in this liberal democracy bullshit

Generational tweet that might even spawn a school of architecture.

Many people are saying. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-operatio...

I hope you all enjoy reading this review of Antony Beevor's new biography of Rasputin as much I enjoyed writing it. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/.... And buy the book!

When I’m too drunk to remember the word “ravioli.”

Imagine how much more effective this question would have been had Bash asked whether Blanche was comfortable making it possible for adjudged terrorists to rearm, including Stewart Rhodes, who dropped $10K on weapons in the wake of Jan6.

I am going to be a massive humorless asshole about woo-woo shit, no matter how seemingly harmless, for the rest of my life due to this. astrology, homeopathic medicine, etc etc it's all bullshit and it's not fucking harmless. there are people who will die due to this who would have otherwise lived.

🚨 Why So Many Knicks Fans Are Done with the Celtics Coaching Staff

If you want to get a sense of how thin the GOP's national security bench is, the 29-year-old CT official at DHS who was suspended for seeking sugar daddies was their first pick.

And this is Gemini's attempt at Richard Scarry doing Fordow.

Experimenting with OpenAI's new model. A hydrologically accurate cut-away of the Strait of Hormuz, drawn by Richard Scarry, drawing on current AIS data.

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.

Starting a mid-decade redistricting war only to end up with -1 seats is the same fine strategic genius and subtle grasp of game theory that brough us the Strait of Hormuz.

Area warlord fails to understand what the number one killer of soldiers has been in history

First: hilarious. Second: A core belief of Trump-brand conservativsm is there are and never have been difficult problems, only dumb leaders without the strength to be cruel enough to solve them. It's why they always look so baffled when pushing the "more cruelty" button doesn't seem to work.

Today's winner of the Internet. Congratulations!

Absolutely incredible. NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone. Watch with sound on.

WOW: Jodi Kantor & Adam Liptak have the memos that describe the origins of SCOTUS shadow docket - the 2016 order halting Obama’s Clean Power Plan @jodikantor.bsky.social @adamliptak.bsky.social @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

Agree with Citrinowicz that Iran has emerged stronger and the Strait of Hormuz is effectively now the “Strait of Iran,” as Trump referred to it. (Citrinowicz is former head of the Iran branch of Israeli defense intelligence and has been outspoken in opposition to the war as it has been conducted.)

Orban made grand appeals to “Christianity” and “Western Civilization,” but his “illiberal democracy” was just a scam, a way to make him and his buddies rich while subjecting Hungarians to stagnation and robbing them of their freedom. Sound familiar? (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Hard agree with rimidar on this. In fact, nothing has discredited wistful conservativism more to me than seeing people start to do it about times I lived through. Yeah the n64 was pretty dope when I was 10 years old, I guess; don't really think that should drive our immigration policy tho you loser.

My own country is destroying itself because there is literally no set of policy prescriptions that will make it 1985 again with Hulk Hogan's Rock n Wrestling on Saturday morning cartoons.

I wrote this on the parallels between Suez 1956 and Iran 2026 – and how we should not presume that leaders in the past acted in more sophisticated or dignified ways than leaders today

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

The best thing about Brexit is it sold the EU to the rest of Europe.

One to keep an eye on. "first improved variant of French/Italian SAMP/T ... is expected to be delivered to Kyiv in 2026, with up to seven [more] over two years. If Aster...production keeps up... could alleviate Kyiv’s reliance on US for long-range [AD]" www.iiss.org/online-analy...