This is the crux of my argument in this piece: Let's not play dumb about the real intent behind Trump/MAGA bullying Dems to accept the ballroom, which is to get them to symbolically submit to dictatorial rule by getting them to genuflect before Trump's building of a Caesar-like monument to himself.

It's probably the most consequential and crippling change in US politics in a half-century and basically nobody said shit about it. Everyone, including establishment Dems and the mainstream media, just shrugged. Oh well I guess that's how things are now. No more legislating.

Meanwhile the California grid now boasts the equivalent of 12 nuclear power plants worth of batteries -- the total cost of which was, I suspect, less than a single nuclear plant.

Walking in a straight line is hard.

Barney Frank: Don't make the most controversial stuff into litmus tests This guy:

When President Obama was running for office in 2008, his call to service inspired me to work at the VA to help veterans. I often ask Trump supporters what he’s done to inspire them to be better, and I can’t ever get an answer.

A deranged shooter racing through a hotel to shoot the President is a real wake-up call … on the need for g̵u̵n̵ ̵c̵o̵n̵t̵r̵o̵l̵ a gigantic ballroom. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Good news: “After years of growth fueled by the war, Russia’s economy contracted by 1.8 percent in the first two months of the year, compared with the same period in 2025.” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/24/w...

Let’s hope none of these geniuses start telling NASA how math works.

Of course I agree.

Stop buying the claim that Trump is obsessed with 2020; we already have eyewitnesses who say he knows he lost. What he *is* obsessed with is (a) the narrative of 2020, and *far* more importantly (b) how that election can be leveraged to steal 2026 and 2028 and end our democracy.

Orban became to the far-right what Fidel Castro had once been to the far-left: a beau ideal. He pioneered the attacks on immigrants & globalist elites that have become standard populist fare.He attracted gullible fellow travelers such as Tucker Carlson to extol his supposed successes. bit.ly/4mr52EH

Orban showing more class and more respect for democracy than Trump did in 2020.

😬

He's also made more threats in the last year and a half than he did in his first four year term.

Why does Vance care whether Orban wins? Because if he loses, it will challenge the MAGA belief that history flows in only one direction from @theunpopulist.net open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...

The mistake we made in Vietnam when we thought if we just hit the enemy hard enough, he will surrender. Same mistake was made by Saddam Hussein in 1980 when he invaded Iran on the assumption, they were weak. Can’t we learn from history question

How much is Trump getting paid to make campaign ads for the Democrats?

Given that a large number of Trump pardon recipients turn out to be repeat offenders, maybe Congress should pass a law providing for enhanced penalties for anyone who gets a pardon and commits a subsequent crime.

Excursion = Quagmire

puff puff pass the penicillin

“The former official said he doesn't think Trump is playing ‘the sort of three-dimensional chess people ascribe to decisions like this. More often than not he's just eating the pieces.’"

A baffling interview. She directly misstates the Constitution more than once - suggesting a pre-high school civics grasp on the matters at hand - then shifts after being pressed into a more sophisticated defense of the president bypassing Congress.

Donald Trump wears lifts. Markwayne Mullin stands on a platform. We've turned the keys of the kingdom over to men overcompensating for their insecurities.

In WhatsApp conversations leaked to the Miami Herald, participants used variations of the n-word more than 400 times, regularly described women as “whores,” used slurs to talk about Jewish and gay people and mused about Hitler’s politics.

American Gestapo

The US is now wasting $4 million Patriot missiles on $20,000 Iranian drones. "Stupid is as stupid does." If the US had a professional president, he would ask Ukraine for technical assistance with cheap drone interceptors, but the US has Trump who instead insults Zelensky.

This flew under the radar, but Trump's DOJ has abandoned its legal assault on the law firms that courageously refused to bend the knee to him. This should serve as a reminder for the firms that sucked up to Trump: appeasing a tyrant will get you nowhere.

Nothing to worry about, just crazy people handling an erratic authoritarian president a blueprint for an unconstitutional power grab to try to take over the American election system

“The court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the US in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt—again & again & again—to force the US govt. to comply with court orders” *210* violations of court orders in MN alone according to Reagan-appointed judge x.com/rparloff/sta...

Thank you, @jkbjournalist.bsky.social

American Gestapo

The rapid Stormfront-ification of Fox News and GOP media in general reveals the extent to which "palingenetic right wing ultra-nationalist populism" (i.e., fascism) has been the telos toward which much of the "American conservative movement" has been oriented since the 1940s.

The Trump administration this week delivers a 1-2 punch to science. This is the triumph of irrationality and conspiracy mongering.

damn, what did this cost, about 10 minutes of Trump's grifting? It really was a great collection of data.

The last time he started talking like this, his allies minimized the risks and we ended up with January 6. This time we must take him literally and seriously. These comments are a five-alarm fire for democracy. In a functioning republic, he would be impeached and removed from office today.

Pretty incredible the Nobel committee didn't give Trump the Peace Prize.

They are kidnapping people off the streets, work & from their homes. They are leaving behind bullet ridden cars & telling people they don’t need warrants, they are attacking people they have no right to approach in their cars, and they’re arresting journalists. This is America

When you look at Noem, RFK Jr, Hegseth, Bovino, Bessent, it's pretty striking. Trump picked an entire cabinet whose only qualification is to be able to tell outlandish lies with a straight face.

Nice try, but we remember who put these vaccine deniers in positions of power… and who, once they proved utterly unfaithful to their promises, are still keeping them there.

Pick. A. Side. If you turn away from what's happening and have ANY political power, you've made your choice. You're supporting the killing and kidnapping of innocent people. And people around the US -- and the world -- are bearing witness.

It is like a knife in my heart when I see what these thugs are doing to decent and loving people. He was trying to help a woman who had been violently pushed to the ground. And paid for that with his life, murdered by violent and vicious criminals masquerading as law-enforcement.

Good. Take these racist a**holes to court and make them defend this.

Holy fucking wow.

Trump said he was going after the worst of the worst. Instead he gave them a badge and a gun and signed them up for ICE.

Emanuel: We are not going to invade Greenland, and you shouldn’t pay full price for something Denmark would give you for free. They want a closer relationship. This is, again, a glaring example of why Donald Trump’s companies all went bankrupt—because he’s a rotten businessman.

The #NuclearTrade 💵

I have been wondering, myself if pundits were right in thinking that when Trump referred to the psychological importance of owning Greenland, he was referring to his own psychology. Well, he was!