John Fugelsang: Reclaiming Jesus’ Teachings

I love this video.  John Fugelsang is a wonderful person to elaborate on the bible and he does so as a follower of Jesus, not Paul or the Old Testament.  His mother was a nun and his father was a monk and the way he describes his father wearing his robes is as the Christian jedi of Flatbush.  He explains how those using the bible to attack or bash others including the LGBTQ+ are not following Jesus that they are following Paul.  He explains clearly how Jesus brought a new covenant for the people doing away with the old one in Leviticus.  He explained how those using the bible to bash others and not feed  & clothe the stranger/ immigrant are totally against what Jesus preached.   He also mentioned how those trying to force the Old Testament of the bible in schools never want the words of Jesus hung in classrooms in public schools, they never want the sermon on the mount posted on the walls.   Those kind of people only want authoritarian laws or do and dont do pushed on kids.   Enjoy the video, I listen to him on The Daily Beans (news with swearing) friday newscast and his Sirius talk show.  Hugs

WHAT IS TRUMP DOING???

The clip is about how tRump’s cabinet is assembled to shake hands and as the royals are walking down the line shaking hands tRump just cuts in front of them blocking the King of England and stopping the Queen .  tRump then walked the rest of the line himself shaking the hands of the people who work for him.  One thing you never do is get in front of the royals inspecting troops or greeting people which tRump did to Queen Elizabeth.  tRump can not stand to have anyone come first or get more attention than he does. In his mind it is always about himself.    Hugs

 

 

Some Stuff To Read & Look At


We Lost.

When the Supreme Court dealt the final blow to the Voting Rights Act, it completed its mission to erase the tangible results of the Civil Rights Movement.

Michael Harriot Apr 30, 2026

The dictum,”once a free man, always a free man,” though founded about as deeply in law, history and reason as, that “all men are born free and equal,” … [is] unimportant and ineffectual to protect the rights of citizens of slave States.

— Judge Hamilton Gamble

On March 22, 1852, America made a slave.

America’s race-based, constitutionally enforced system that legally extracted labor and intellectual property through violence or the threat of violence existed long before the 13 English colonies staged an insurrection against their British master. Colonial law made the condition intergenerational and perpetual. The founders wrote the fugitive slave clause to ensure that people who had already been reduced to human chattel couldn’t free themselves. But the Constitution didn’t make someone a slave. (snip-MORE, and so worth the click!)






Sen. Grassley Missed The Memo-

🚨 HOT MIC: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was caught asking staff during questioning of Trump judicial nominees: “What would be wrong if they said Biden won?” Multiple people in the room heard it. GOP staffers were reportedly panicking, according to sources familiar.

[image or embed]— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) April 29, 2026 at 5:15 PM

Open Windows & Clay Jones

Moles and MAGAts

The Trump regime is protecting hate groups

Clay Jones

The Justice Department (DOJ) going after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is another case where the Trump regime is going after its enemies. An enemy of hate groups, as SPLC is, is an enemy of the Trump regime.

SPLC has now been indicted on 11 counts, but remember where those indictments of James Comey and Letitia James went, straight into the trash. Donald Trump’s DOJ couldn’t obtain an indictment against the guy who threw a sandwich at Border Patrol agents. The DOJ just dropped its bogus case against Jerome Powell.

And remember the person in charge of the Justice Department is Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, who is angling to get the job permanently, or at least until Trump’s next mood swing, and he fires the Attorney General to replace him with Greg Gutfeld.

(snip-MORE)


Bang Bang Ballroom

The very first thing Donald Trump talked about after the shooting was his stupid illegal ballroom

Clay Jones

I think the mentalist who was scheduled to host last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner should have received combat pay. Not because of an assassination attempt, but for having to roam through Donald Trump’s empty head.

I don’t believe last night’s assassination attempt was staged or fake. I do believe there was a serious assassination attempt at last night’s WHCD dinner. I don’t want to jump into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But from what we know at this point, the assassination attempt may not have been on Trump’s life, but maybe just on any cabinet member’s life that the attempted shooter could’ve found, or at least that’s how it sounds from the bits of his manifesto. I have read.

I do believe it was extremely shitty for Donald Trump to use the assassination attempt as an argument for his stupid illegal ballroom that is currently being held up by a court. 

(snip-MORE)


Melania attacks satire and the First Amendment

This opportunistic First Lady doesn’t care.

Ann Telnaes

I’m infuriated by what Melania Trump tweeted today:

As a naturalized citizen and editorial cartoonist who has seen colleagues from around the world targeted, jailed, and even murdered for creating satire, I value our First Amendment. The First Lady, who is also an immigrant, should realize the importance of free speech and a free press but she lives in an entitled world and like her husband, is trying to control the news media to silence her critics. She is undermining the foundations of a democracy and is just as miserable a human being as her husband.


Low Energy Trump

Donald Trump can fall asleep anywhere

Clay Jones

Donald Trump has been falling asleep during meetings lately. He’s fallen asleep during cabinet meetings, and here at the 26-minute mark, you can see that he falls asleep twice during a meeting about healthcare last week.

Tell me that he’s not falling asleep and instead is doing some deep thinking or is meditating. Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

Yesterday, I told you that I do not believe the assassination attempt was fake or staged. It’s not that I don’t believe the goons and the Trump regime would try that. It’s because I don’t believe these idiots could pull it off.

I hate this would-be assassin. First, he ruined my Saturday night. I had planned to clock out and go through at least a couple of the movies on my Netflix watchlist. Instead, I watched CNN all evening. Yeah, I’m a news buff, but I think it’s important to turn off sometimes, which I try to do on Saturdays and Sundays. I mean, I start the mornings with news programs and maybe through the middle of the day. But by late afternoon, I just want to turn all that shit off and not think about politics and, most importantly, not think about Donald Trump. This would-be assassin took my Saturday away from me. (snip-MORE)

Some Toons: Clay Jones, Open Windows

The WH Correspondents’ Dinner

Unethical and tone deaf

Ann Telnaes

Never a good idea for journalists to become chummy with politicians and people in power but this year particularly, it’s allowing an autocrat to continue his attack against the free press.


Tucker Treason

Tucker’s breaking MAGAt hearts

Clay Jones

Right-wing commentator, white nationalist, Vladimir Putin fan, former Fox News host, and former bowtie aficionado, Tucker Carlson, is now sorry that he helped elect Donald Trump to the presidency.

Tucker, who was often at Trump’s side during the presidential campaign in 2024 and who was a huge lobbyist to get JD Vance on the ticket, now says he will long be “tormented” for helping Donald Trump get to the White House and start a war with Iran.

Tucker is just one of several right-wing goons who have gone from being full-fledged MAGAts to personal enemies of Donald Trump. They include not just Tucker, but Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, and Candace Owens. (snip-MORE)


Prediction Markets

Are you betting on a Crystal ball?

Clay Jones

I was surprised a year or so ago when I learned that people were betting on professional wrestling. As you are probably aware, professional wrestling matches are pre-determined, as in, they are fake. I guess the only thing that prevents a writer of the matches from cleaning up is that the stakes are very low.

When I was a kid, my mother told me that people could not bet on who shot JR from the TV show Dallas because one of the writers could go to Vegas and place a large wager on it. That would have been insider trading. That’s not allowed, right?

Yesterday, a U.S. Army special forces soldier involved in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela was charged with using classified information to bet on events related to the mission. The soldier made more than $400,000 by betting on the prediction markets that the capture would happen. (snip-MORE)

A Morning Read:

Congressional Republicans, You Are Running out of Time

Tick-tock motherfuckers!

Ali Davis Apr 24, 2026

Ali Davis invited us to reprint this post from The Camelopard. As always, we said yes.

Hello, Goopers!

Wow, things are getting wild, huh? Did you ever think, during all those long years when you boosted him and covered for him, that the Trump Train would be plowing through so many guardrails? Rumor has it — or at least a Gateway Pundit writer has it — he tried to use nukes last Saturday!

I would write something about you being the last hope and your duty to your country, but that’s clearly no incentive, so here’s something that will hit.

You have a very small window to act before your name is on the Bad Guys list forever.

You must remove Trump before a) he goes undeniably off the rails or dies or b) another country’s investigation turns up his full involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and child sex trafficking. If you don’t, you, personally, go down in history as a willing toady to evil. Your name and your failure to act will be preserved forever. Family members will change their last names or claim no relation. Corporations will find hiring you too big a risk. No more political career, no cushy lobbying job, no lucrative TV punditry. Just burned relationships and strangers asking why the hell you didn’t stop it when you had the chance, right before they spit on you.

You see how Tucker is scrambling to position himself as A Guy Who Sees the Light and Wants to Stop Trump? Do you think he had a deep change of heart, or do you think he noticed the way the wind is blowing and is doing everything he could to save his own ass and future? You should study those instincts.

Tucker knows that he will need to be able to point, however ludicrously, however tenuously, to how he saw that Trump was dangerous and spoke up.

You need to do more than that. You must remove Trump from office before his own body removes him or you go on the Forever Trumpers list.

If you don’t have real moral fortitude, try to develop the sense and eyes that God gave a potato and read a few polls while you’re at it. Trump is losing, so you need to act like him one more time: Switch to the winning team and pretend you were always wearing that jersey.

Do it fast if you ever want to keep seeing your grandchildren after they’re old enough to understand this moment in history and what you failed to do.

Oh, there’s no evidence that Mr. Trump ever —

Look into your soul and be real for a moment. At best — at best — he knew exactly what Epstein was up to and winked at it. The birthday card. The famous quote where he said “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” The constantly changing stories about when and why Epstein was removed (was he?) from Mar-a-Lago.

Trump knew. He at least knew.

Now factor in the purchase of a teen beauty pageant and the founding of a model management company, two perfect ways to move underage girls across international lines. His own on-air brag that he liked to burst into the changing rooms of teenage pageant contestants. The time he speculated on his dating prospects with a child on an escalator.

We may never know everything, but we will know more. You can be one of the heroes who bravely stood up to stop Trump, or you can be one of the craven sleazebags who went all out to shield an aspiring dictator and bunch of wealthy child molesters. Every moment you don’t choose the first one will itself be a black mark against your name, so you might want to hurry up and flip a coin or something.

But I’m being blackmailed.

I have news for you: There has never been a better time to get out from under being blackmailed. The crimes in the Epstein Files are so heinous that even Swalwell and Gonzales’s horrifying conduct barely made a blip. Make your peace with your family, take some responsibility, and hope that whatever the regime has on you isn’t as hilarious as what someone had on Kristy Noem’s husband.

Need a little more incentive? Not that I am diagnosing anyone, but people who become disinhibited as a part of their cognitive decline have an increasing tendency to just … blurt things out. Do you want to have a nice, preplanned statement to the press about respecting your privacy during this challenging time, or do you want the most personal thing you can imagine barfed out randomly during an official statement on the soybean trade?

I will also mention that people with some types of dementia have a tendency to fill in memory gaps with invented details. Do you really want to explain to the nation that yes, the thing about the carnival is overall true, just not the part about the plate spinner and the Tilt-a-Whirl?

Besides, if enough of you move quickly and work together, you might just get off scot-free.

Surely you’ve heard the broad hints about Congressional Republicans being physically threatened.

I have news for you, Sparky: We are all being physically threatened. A man who has never in his life experienced a consequence has access to nuclear weapons and is eager to use them.

Move quickly. Get your family somewhere safe, choose a Democrat as a point person — do not trust your fellow Republicans, you know full well how craven they can be — and let the opposition party count up the votes. Move together, publicly report the threats, and save yourself by bravely impeaching the sumbitch.

But what if no one believes us? What if reporting gets us ridiculed or puts us more at risk?

Well, now you know what it’s like to be a victim of a powerful serial sex offender. Please use that perspective wisely in the future if you have any shreds of a political career left.

For real though — a lot of Trump’s power comes from the perception that he is powerful. Puncture that and the whole thing deflates.

You want to save your own tail? Help the Democrats start prosecuting him and his cronies immediately after impeachment. No professional courtesy, no putting this all behind us so we can move forward, no honoring the frantic pardons of a rogue President. Everything comes out and everyone gets real consequences. Seize and freeze assets, put Trump’s thugs and cronies on the no-fly list, and start the trials. Nobody squeaks by, not even the very wealthy ones.

Once you find some rudimentary bits of calcium spinning around your spinal nerve, you may even discover that you like using them in the service of something good.

But you must act immediately.

Trump is spinning out and trying to take the world with him. You can help put a stop to it, or you can forever be on the list of people who had the power but were too evil or craven to do anything about it.

You can choose the story that other people will tell about you.

But you’d better make it quick. (snip)

Republican FCC Reviews TV Ratings System In Regard To Trans/Non-Binary Characters & Content

Trump’s FCC Targets Parental Rating System Over Transgender TV Characters

The FCC is seeking comment on whether the TV Parental Guidelines rating system needs to be changed to penalize shows for transgender or nonbinary content.

Erin Reed Apr 22, 2026

Today, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the FCC would be seeking comment on whether the TV Parental Guidelines rating system needs to be changed to address shows with transgender or nonbinary characters. The public notice, which Carr posted on twitter this morning, seeks to weaponize the TV ratings system to restrict shows that include such characters—asking whether programs that contain “the discussion or promotion of gender identity themes” should “be rated differently or contain relevant descriptions.” Though the FCC’s direct authority over the TV ratings system is limited—the system is voluntary and industry-run, and streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+ can maintain their own standards—the FCC retains enormous coercive power over broadcast networks and their parent companies, many of which also operate streaming platforms. The move comes after a series of attacks on network television weaponizing the FCC for political purposes, including Carr’s threats to revoke broadcast licenses over news coverage of the Iran war and his targeting of ABC over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. It appears to be an attempt to extend “Don’t Say Gay”-style policies—which have restricted discussion of LGBTQ+ people in classrooms across red states—to national television ratings.

“Years ago, Congress passed a law that empowers parents to decide the types of TV programs that are appropriate for their kids by standing up a TV show ratings system. But recently, parents have raised concerns with the industry’s approach—including with ratings creep. Specifically, they argue that New York & Hollywood programmers are promoting controversial issues in kids programming without providing any transparency or disclosures to parents. This undermines the whole point of the law and the ratings system parents rely on. The FCC is now seeking comment on whether the industry’s approach provides parents with the types of information and disclosures relevant to them today,” Carr wrote on twitter. However, the actual document posted alongside his statement tells a more specific story—it primarily centers on gender identity. (snip-MORE on the page)

The Cuts Are Permanent, Virtual Services Are Not-

April 22, 2026

House Agriculture Bill Underfunds WIC, Cuts Fruit and Vegetable Benefit, and Fails to Make Virtual Services Permanent

The fiscal year 2027 Agriculture appropriations bill released this morning by the House Agriculture appropriations subcommittee chair Andy Harris underfunds WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) and cuts the WIC fruit and vegetable benefit for more than 5 million new and expecting parents and young children; this benefit was targeted for cuts in the President’s recent budget proposal as well. For the second year in a row, House Republican appropriators are jeopardizing access to WIC and seeking to take away fruits and vegetables from families with low incomes, making it harder for young children to access essential nutrients during a critical developmental window.The proposed cut would take away over $141 million in fruit and vegetable benefits from nearly 5.4 million toddlers, preschoolers, and pregnant and postpartum WIC participants.

We estimate the proposed cut would take away over $141 million in fruit and vegetable benefits from nearly 5.4 million toddlers, preschoolers, and pregnant and postpartum WIC participants. The table below provides estimates of how many people in each state, territory, and Indian Tribal Organizations would have their benefits cut in 2027 under the House subcommittee’s bill. The table also provides estimates of how much less in benefits families with low incomes will have available to spend at local grocery stores.

In addition, the bill cuts WIC funding by $200 million compared to the fiscal year 2026 law. That would risk forcing the program to turn away eligible families for the first time in three decades, especially if food costs rise or participation grows more than expected. Tariffs and the impact of the war in the Middle East could cause spikes in food costs, which are sensitive to oil prices. In addition, unprecedented cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in last year’s harmful Republican megabill and a soft labor market that isn’t generating many jobs make participation harder to predict than usual.

The Republican majority’s bill also fails to make virtual service options, including phone appointments, available permanently. These flexibilities have helped modernize the program and are especially helpful to families who have difficulty traveling to WIC clinics, such as working parents and families in rural areas. Research suggests virtual services make it easier for eligible families to access WIC and one study estimates they have increased participation by 11 percent. These services have been in place for several years and are not only well received by participants, but WIC agency staff report that they save time.

Unless Congress acts, however, the waivers allowing these critical flexibilities will expire as soon as September 30, 2026, requiring families with very young children to take time off work, pull children out of daycare or preschool, and find transportation to WIC clinics for their appointments, often four or more times per year. House and Senate bills to permanently provide virtual services have bipartisan support, but House appropriators failed to address this urgent issue.

Policymakers should reject the House bill and invest in the health of our youngest children and their parents by adhering to the long-standing bipartisan commitment to provide enough WIC funding to serve all eligible applicants without benefit cuts and by making virtual service options permanent.

* Estimates for each tribal organization available upon request.
Note: Figures are rounded to the nearest 1,000 and do not sum to totals due to rounding.
Source: CBPP analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service WIC administrative data for fiscal year 2025, last updated March 13, 2026

Open Windows & Clay Jones

Yes!

Virginia votes tomorrow

Clay Jones

Republicans are upset because tomorrow, they could lose at their own game.

After Texas redistricted in the middle of the decade to give Republicans more congressional seats, which Donald Trump demanded, Virginia decided to add more blue seats. This upset Republicans because, dammit, they invented this game.

Now, the same groups that want to add more red seats in Texas are spending big money to argue against adding more blue seats in Virginia. The commercials have been wild, with some of them warning that Richmond Democrats are engaged in a “power grab.” Some of the ads warn that this disenfranchises Black voters. Others state that if you vote, yes, that means more “illegals” will invade the state to commit crimes. It’s getting nasty, but Republicans don’t know how to win any other way. They use this information, and they cheat. (snip-MORE)


Kash Patel sues The Atlantic for defamation

F.B.I. director is seeking $250 million in damages

Ann Telnaes

Under the influence and unqualified.


The Book of Sam

I have been waiting since 2006 to get this movie quote into a cartoon.

Clay Jones

Last week in Cameroon (in case you are a Republican, that is a nation on the continent of Africa), Pope Leo quoted a Bible verse, which was, “Jesus told us, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic, or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.’” And then, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, while claiming that God is on his side to wage war, quoted a fake Bible verse at a prayer breakfast.

The verse was inspired by Ezekiel 25:17 and comes from one of my favorite movies, Pulp Fiction. It was delivered brilliantly and forcefully by one of my favorite actors, Samuel L. Jackson. (snip-MORE, also deliberate and forceful!)