There’s just no understanding to be had here anymore. Fresh out. We’re fresh out of understanding folks sorry

And that's that. www.axios.com/2026/04/11/e...

Not once in this story does @politico.com mention that US factories employ ~89,000 fewer employees than a year ago. @politico.com www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

“Henceforth [Hitler] would devote all of his time to the Nazi Party, from which neither then nor later did he accept any salary.” - Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 89

$3.2 million for eight years in one of the hardest and most important jobs in the world. And Trump and his family have reportedly made more than *one thousand times* that amount off the presidency in just *one year* www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Extremely significant reporting here that suggests China does in fact see the Iran disaster as an inflection point for global balance of power and American hegemony www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/u...

Legal eagles noticed, and there’s been SOME mainstream coverage. But overall the political class has underreacted to this month’s OLC opinion, ordered up by Trump or on his behalf, declaring the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional. Things are likely being stolen and/or destroyed *right now*.

I saw these earlier. It tracks.

Can’t get over that this Swalwell allegation, with one of his former congressional staffers, took place only *two years ago* — certainly in my experience reporting on these stories, this behavior suggests a potentially extensive history www.cnn.com/2026/04/11/p...

As I was saying 18 days ago: If you don’t believe the four women who spoke to CNN about Swalwell because of the “timing,” this is how it happens. Rumors online beget tips to reporters beget weeks of vetting and legal and fact-checking. If you don’t believe, it’s because you don’t want to.

Big historical footnote: The Navy amphibious vessel recovering the Artemis crew this evening is named for John Murtha, the first Vietnam vet in Congress, who ultimately opposed the Iraq war and sought accountability for U.S. war crimes fox5sandiego.com/news/local-n...

Earlier today, @coindesk.com reported WLFI pledged 5B of its own governance tokens on a lending platform co-founded by one of its own advisors to borrow $75M in stablecoins, draining much of the pool’s liquidity & potentially leading to depositors unable to withdraw funds.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ 2/

Melania Trump called on Congress to have the woman who accused her husband of raping her as a child testify under oath in a public hearing youtu.be/vyn-_Tsl5A0?...

CBS News has a bombshell interview with a U.S. soldier who survived the deadly attack in Kuwait on the first day of the way -- he says Pete Hegseth is lying about the attack and that the base "was unprepared to provide any defense for itself." www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-wa...

Here come the oil-industry leaks. @politico.com www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

This is fantastic news

“a long time ago”?

April 5: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!” April 8, Iran closes strait again: “The president was made aware of those reports before I came to the podium, that is completely unacceptable.”

Uh did they … edit this out

Garcia also pointing out what Haberman’s reporting now makes almost comically clear, “there was no national security purpose, there was no imminent threat”

there wasn't a lot left to ruin but my brain is currently fully broken that people with power let a man hold the entire world hostage for like 9 hours with an existential threat. insane country. broken.

Either (1) a humiliating defeat, leaving America in a weaker geopolitical position and Iran a stronger one, or (2) a brief pause, as incompatible narratives and demands lead to more shooting. No matter what, it’s one of the stupidest, most unnecessary, most harmful US foreign policy choices ever.

Among the most important details of Trump's backdown: China intervened. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04...

Reupping for no reason

Can't tell you how many members of Congress who *at best* had nothing to say when I asked about the Minab girls school attack. There is a profanely cold detachment inside Capitol Hill, a mode completely unrecognizable to common human decency I wish I could properly convey to you.

The world not screeching to a halt when the US killed more than 100 little school girls on the very first day of this "liberating war" led us exactly to this moment

If Trump does this — takes a losing deal that undermines US global influence & interests and strengthens Iran, just so he doesn’t have to short-term deal with his self-inflicted mess — that would also be the work of an irrational & crazy person. This isn’t rational. It’s selfish and dangerous.

Trump is clearly lying. That doesn’t make this less bad or make him any less insane, inept, unfit etc. But he’s obviously not going to do this because it would make all his problems worse, and tonight he’ll say Iran is ready to make some great deal and he’ll claim credit because of these threats

This bad Axios report claims as uncited fact this is “the only chance to prevent a dramatic escalation in the war” despite Trump putting himself in this exact place 2 weeks ago, delaying, then—as the next paragraph says!—delaying it again today. Trump hopes he can simply scare Iran into surrendering

I used to write the WaPo editorials on US-Africa policy, as well on as human rights and politics on the continent. To describe hundreds of thousands of deaths on the continent as “messy” is an absolute abomination.

Gotta wonder if these are related — on Thursday, the U.S. told Americans to leave Iraq after Iran-backed threats; on Friday, Iran called Iraq a “brother country” and said its ships can sail through Hormuz

It’s… let’s say “disturbing” when the President of the United States sounds more messianic in his foreign policy threats than Iran’s mullahs.

"ActBlue May Have Misled Congress on Vetting Foreign Donations, Its Lawyers Warned" Reid J. Epstein and @shanegoldmacher.bsky.social for @nytimes.com

Europe should take the Strait of Hormuz with military operations. Also, the Strait of Hormuz will open up naturally when we stop military operations

Oof. www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-memb...

If you haven't read @lindseyadler.bsky.social's piece lately on becoming and staying a journalist over the past 15 years, you should

Conventional wisdom says Democrats would be wise to go after districts that have a Republican member of Congress that voted for Kamala Harris. But as Trump's approval rating slips, a better bang for the buck might be going after Rs that underperformed Trump 1/ www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Trump’s Justice Department Dropped 23,000 Criminal Investigations in Shift to Immigration

Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump gets prison sentence for possessing 'enormous child pornography collection'

My "We don't allow bets on assassinations and murder" ad campaign has people asking a lot of questions already answered by the ad campaign

The boy who cried wolf except the moral is that the villagers shouldn’t have stopped believing him

Saudi Arabia abruptly canceled two large construction contracts at one of the most ambitious projects in the world, scuttling plans to bring skiing to the desert kingdom. on.wsj.com/4dcFwjY

The administration & its enablers seem to be betting that nothing Trump says and does actually matters because the various institutions of the world depend so much on the United States that they’ll make sacrifices to fix the serious stuff before he cripples fundamental structures

Wonder how much of that extra $200 billion they’re requesting for the war is to repair the damage Iran has done to military bases

a) we’ve been bombed out of “uninhabitable” bases b) the backup is working remotely from hotels & office buildings c) that creates a ton of soft targets across the region d) it widens the circle of people who know the locations of those soft targets and increases risk www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/u...

NEW: The FBI went down to Georgia, looking for some ballots to seize. Now, in an Atlanta courtroom tomorrow morning, the government must defend a search warrant built on recycled fraud claims & glaring omissions. My primer on Fulton County’s battle for ballots: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/fult...

Veterans are completely disturbed by the White House's war memes. The people who have fought and lost loved ones in America's wars tell me they're horrified by how Trump's team has trivialized real combat and sacrifice. Full story, free to read: wapo.st/4bvzfyu

Karaoke Leavitt youtu.be/CGiXhw7ODRk

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 115 years ago tomorrow, galvanized a century's worth of workplace safety laws that are now getting shredded.

Moont Rushmore