In the past few days, I’ve been wondering what/how/when to frame Autism Month in a post. We here have learned so much from Barry already, and I want to be respectful to him, to other autistic readers, and also to the students I’ve worked with in years past, none of whom probably read here, but they exist in this world. Anyway, it takes some thinking, for me. So, I’d like to invite autistic and/or neurodivergent readers to guest post if you are inclined; Scottie and I and Randy can put your work up, or you can even use a comment space. One thing I’ve learned from Barry is that autistic people are the best ones to address the subject because they have the actual perspective to do so. But we do want people to be aware that neurodivergent people are amongst the marginalized people to whom we want to give voice. Enjoy Barry’s post this morning!
I read LGM when I have time; haven’t been there in a couple of weeks. But here is this. I thank another friend of the blog for the link to this. It’s concise.
Graham Platner, son of wealthy parents, is cosplaying as a salt-of-the earth oyster farmer who sells his product to his mother and is running to become the Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, against Susan Collins. He was outed as having a Nazi tattoo, which he had tattooed over with a slightly less Nazi tattoo. His earlier writings and activities include slurs against women and wearing a Blackwater hat to own the libs.
He is now running ahead of Governor Janet Mills, who is an older woman but who actually has experience in government, something Platner lacks.
Why is Platner doing so well? We can look to Donald Trump for that.
All of our politics today are gender politics. Itโs very difficult to talk about that, because it permeates everything we do, leaving us fish unaware of the water. The response is frequently that no, itโs something else, maybe power. But power is gender infused too. So letโs focus on gender if only for the amusement of seeing something through a new lens.
We have multiple models in our heads of what women and men are. Mute eye candy, intellectual, blue collar are some general descriptors, but more specifically, we associate particular groups of characteristics with particular manifestations of gender. Graham Platner and Donald Trump are avatars of a particular way to be a man. I will enumerate some of them.
Men tell it like it is. This means that they can say things that are associated with this type of masculinity, like referring to women by their genitals and using slurs against other groups that are not able-bodied white men.
Men are muscular and do hard work. This means that blue-collar men are Real Menโข.
Men are strong. This is different from being muscular, but the two bleed into each other. A man can take on emotionally difficult tasks and bull his way through.
Men never apologize. From what I have read, Platner has acknowledged the tattoo and his earlier actions but has not apologized. Trump, well.
Men are by nature fit to lead. Platner has no experience in government, as was the case with Trump in 2016. But they were/are questioned very little on this issue.
Men may become violent. Platner was in the military and Blackwater, with a violent tattoo. Trump shouts, rages, and talks about violence all the time.
To my mind, this type of masculinity is disqualifying for elected office. But obviously others disagree.
Heโs a plain-talking guy you could have a beer with. Or at least a man could have a beer with. The comfort factor is enormous, and Platner and Trump give people permission to be comfortable in a particular way. Ezra Klein interviewed (gift link) one of conservatismโs intellectuals, Christopher Caldwell. Caldwell writes at the Claremont Review of Books and is one of the New York Timesโs resident conservatives.
One of the things he settles on as an aspect of Trumpism is what he calls free speech. He has felt throttled by woke and was delighted to be able to be comfortable in what he says. That banker interviewed by the Financial Times said it out loud: He can say the โrโ word and refer to womenโs bodies in conversation. Itโs what all conservatives mean by โfree speech,โ sometimes with Nazi phrases or concepts thrown in. When they say โfree speech,โ they mean whatever speech white men in charge want to use.
Those โfree speechโ advocates are given permission to speak freely by Platner and Trump.
There are other reasons people vote for men displaying this cluster of traits considered masculine. Itโs a comfortable stereotype โ much in the media and what people who donโt have close contact with blue-collar men may believe of them.
Even Rahm Emanuel feels he has to put on a muscular performance of eating his salad.
A Striking Departure:ย The number of declinations marks a striking departure not only from the Biden administration but also the first Trump term, according to the ProPublica analysis.
An Unusual Order:ย Former DOJ prosecutors said that they regularly reviewed caseloads. But none could recall an order like the one in February to review cases.
Different Priorities:ย While Elon Muskโs DOGE operatives said they were rooting out federal waste, fraud and abuse, the DOJ declined over 900 cases of federal program or procurement fraud.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
In the first days after Pam Bondi was appointed attorney general last year, the Department of Justice began shutting down pending criminal cases at a record pace.
The cases included an investigation into a Virginia nursing home with a recent record of patient abuse; probes of fraud involving several New Jersey labor unions, including one opened after a top official of a national union was accused of embezzlement; and an investigation into a cryptocurrency company suspected of cheating investors.
In total, the DOJ quietly closed more than 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of President Donald Trumpโs administration, abandoning hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses as it shifted resources to pursue immigration cases, according to an analysis by ProPublica.
The bulk of these cases, which were closed without prosecution and known as declinations, had been referred to the DOJ by law enforcement agencies under prior administrations that believed a federal crime may have been committed. The DOJ routinely declines to prosecute cases for any number of reasons, including insufficient evidence or because a case is not a priority for enforcement.
But the number of declinations under Bondi marks a striking departure not only from the Biden administration but also the first Trump term, according to the ProPublica analysis, which examined two decades of DOJ data, including the first six months of Trumpโs second term. ProPublica determined the increase is not the result of inheriting a larger caseload or more referrals from law enforcement.
In February 2025 alone, which included the first weeks of Bondiโs tenure, nearly 11,000 cases were declined, the most in a month since at least 2004. The previous high was just over 6,500 cases in September 2019, during Trumpโs first administration.
Some of the cases shut down were the result of years long investigations by federal agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. For complex cases, the DOJ can take years before deciding whether to bring charges.
The shift comes as the DOJ has undergone an extraordinary overhaul under the Trump administration, with entire units shuttered, directives to abandon pursuit of certain crimes and thousands of lawyers quitting or, in some cases, being forced out of the agency.
In doing so, the DOJ is retreating from its mission to impartially uphold the rule of law, keep the country safe and protect civil rights, according to interviews with a dozen prosecutors and anย open letter from nearly 300 DOJ employeesย who have left the department under Trump. The Trump DOJ, the employees wrote, is โtaking a sledgehammerโ to long-standing work to โprotect communities and the rule of law.โ
The change in priorities was outlined in a series of memos sent to attorneys early last year. Trumpโs DOJย has saidย it is โturning a new page on white-collar and corporate enforcementโ and emphasizing the pursuit of drug cartels, illegal immigrants and institutions that promote โdivisive DEI policies.โ Trump,ย in an address last Marchย at the department, said the changes were necessary after a โsurrender to violent criminalsโ during the past administration and would result in a restoration of โfair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.โ
The department prosecuted 32,000 new immigration cases in the first six months of the administration, which was nearly triple the number under the Biden administration and a 15% increase from the first Trump term. It has pursued fewer prosecutions of nearly every other type of crime โ from drug offenses to corruption โย than new administrations in their first six months dating back to 2009.
The DOJ has also closed hundreds of cases involving alleged crimes that the administration has publicly emphasized as enforcement priorities. Even as the Trump administration unleashed Elon Muskโs Department of Government Efficiency operatives to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, the DOJ declined over 900 cases of federal program or procurement fraud. About three times as many cases of major fraud against the U.S. were declined under Trump compared with the average of similar time periods under prior administrations. And while the Trump administration has promised to โmake America safe again,โ its DOJ has declined more than 1,000 terrorism cases, also more than prior administrations.
Federal prosecutor Joseph Gerbasi had spent years in the departmentโs Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section helping build cases against major suppliers of fentanyl ingredients in India and China. After Bondi came in, he was left bewildered when his team was ordered to abandon its work.
โAll of the building blocks of what would become successful prosecutions were pulled out,โ said Gerbasi, who retired as the sectionโs acting deputy chief for policy in March 2025 after 28 years with the department.
The move had an โoverwhelming deflating effect on morale,โ he said.
After Trumpโs Inauguration, the Department of Justice Turned Down a Record Number of Cases
The first quarter of 2025, and especially February of that year, saw the department declining to prosecute cases against thousands of defendants outside of its regular six-month review process.
Source: DOJ data provided by TRACย Ken Morales/ProPublica
Barbara McQuade, who worked as a federal prosecutor in Michigan for two decades until 2017 during Republican and Democratic administrations, said it was not unusual for new administrations to come to office with a few โpet prioritiesโ โ such as a focus on violent crime or drug trafficking. But she said those changes usually involved modest adjustments in policy and that most of the decisions on what crimes to focus on were typically made at the local level by the district U.S. attorney in coordination with the FBI or other agencies.
โWe would revise those about every five years, not having anything to do with any administration, just because it made sense,โ she said.
A DOJ spokesperson, in an emailed response to questions about the spike in declinations, said that in โan effort to clean, remediate, and validate data in U.S. Attorneysโ case management system,โ the department reviewed all pending criminal matters opened prior to the 2023 fiscal year, which included updating the status of closed cases. โThis Department of Justice remains committed to investigating and prosecuting all types of crime to keep the American people safe, and the number of declinations is a direct result of our efforts to run the agency in a more efficient manner.โ
The agency did not respond to questions about the types of cases declined.
The spike of declined cases began in February 2025 when the department ordered prosecutors to review every open case launched prior to October 2022 and determine whether to close it. Such a review would typically take months, according to one attorney tasked with reviewing cases. A memo, which was described to ProPublica reporters, ordered the review to be completed within 10 days.
Former DOJ prosecutors told ProPublica that they typically reviewed caseloads every six months with supervisors and that closing out languishing cases wouldnโt ordinarily be cause for concern. They said the February directive, however, was unusual. None could recall a similar order.
The directive came as higher-ups in the department had begun making frequent demands for data about specific types of cases and charging decisions, such as the outcome of fentanyl cases, according to former prosecutor Michael Gordon. Gordon, who helped prosecute Jan. 6 cases before moving to white-collar crime prosecutions, said the โfire drillsโ from officials in Washington became so regular that he grew used to the forlorn look on his supervisorโs face when he showed up at Gordonโs door, apologetically delivering yet another frantic request.
โIt was either โgive us stats we can use to make ourselves look goodโ or โgive us the stats to show how bad things are in this area,โโ Gordon said. โIt was never productive fact-finding.โ
Though Gordon didnโt see the memo, he remembered getting the request to review all cases that had been open for more than two years and report back on their status, entering into a master spreadsheet basic information about any that he wanted to keep pursuing.
โThe office was pushing us to close everything by a certain date so that when they had to report up to D.C. they had a low number of open cases,โ he said. โYou really had to go to bat to keep open a case that was more than two years old.โ
Gordon said he was fired by the DOJ last June. He has filed a lawsuit alleging his termination was politically motivated. The department did not respond to questions about Gordonโs comments or his lawsuit. The governmentย filed a motionย to dismiss the case late last year, arguing that the federal court did not have jurisdiction over the matter. The court has not yet ruled on that motion, and the case is still pending.
Investigations into individuals or corporations declined for prosecution are generally not reported to courts and usually only disclosed in summary form by the DOJ in annual reports. To conduct its analysis, ProPublica obtained declination data from the DOJ and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a center that obtains data through Freedom of Information Act requests.
The DOJ Declined a Slew of Cases Shortly After Pam Bondi Was Confirmed as Attorney General
Nearly 11,000 criminal cases were declined during her first month in office.
Source: DOJ data provided by TRACย Ken Morales/ProPublica
Here are some of the areas most impacted by the spike in declinations.
Drugs
As president, Trump has spoken frequently about the โscourgeโ of drugs coming into the country. At the same time, the Justice Department has declined to prosecute nearly 5,000 cases of federal drug law violations, including trafficking and money laundering. The number of declinations were 45% higher than the average of the prior three new administrations.
Gerbasi, the counternarcotics prosecutor, declined to comment on specific cases that might have been declined in his office. But, he said, once Bondi was appointed, the priority in the office became building cases against Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan group that the Trump administration has labeled a foreign terrorist organization.
โTren de Aragua was not anywhere close to the scale or impact of the cartels we were focused on,โ Gerbasi said. โBut we were told to generate those cases.โ
He said his office had to scramble to fly people to investigate local gangs in small towns that were reportedly affiliated with Tren de Aragua. โThey never would have merited a full-scale federal investigation,โ he said.
โIt told me that decisions were going to be based on political appearances and not based on the merits of where investigative resources should be placed.โ
The DOJ declined to comment on Gerbasiโs remarks.
Trumpโs DOJ Has Rejected Far More Cases Than Previous Administrations Across a Wide Range of Categories
Many of the dropped cases were in programs the DOJ has claimed were priorities.
Source: TRAC, DOJ
Note: โOtherโ primarily includes government regulatory offenses and theft. Comparison to average of past administrations only includes the first six months after a presidential administration change: Obama (2009), Trump (2017) and Biden (2021)ย Ken Morales/ProPublica
National Security
Under Bondi, the DOJ declined more than 1,300 cases involving terrorism and national security, nearly twice what was typical at the start of the most recent new administrations. While domestic terrorism was the hardest-hit program, just over 300 cases involving charges of providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations were also dropped.
The DOJ program handling matters relating to national internal security โ which considers cases of alleged spy activity and the security of classified information โ saw over 200 declinations, which is four times as many as typical in the first six months of a new administration. Some of the cases related to serving as an unregistered foreign agent, a chargeย Bondi ordered prosecutors to stop pursuingย unless they involved โconduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.โ
Jimmy Gurulรฉ, a former federal prosecutor and George W. Bush appointee to the U.S. Treasury Department who investigated the financing of terrorism, said the decline in terrorism cases was troubling.
โThe Trump DOJ has been used as a political weapon,โ he said. โItโs a question of prioritizing resources. Are they going to be used for national security threats or to prosecute his political enemies and critics?โ The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment on Gurulรฉโs remarks.
Labor
The DOJ shut down over 60 union corruption and labor racketeering cases, 2.5 times the number in Trumpโs first term. Nearly half of the cases turned down for those offenses were out of the New Jersey U.S. attorneyโs office, which in the past has aggressively pursued alleged union corruption. All were noted as declined for insufficient evidence.
Most of those cases had been opened by Grady OโMalley, an assistant U.S. attorney who oversaw several prosecutions of union corruption while working in the New Jersey office over four decades. He retired in 2023 and was disturbed to learn from former colleagues that the office was shutting down the open union probes.
A Trump supporter, OโMalley said that while he doesnโt blame the president, he worries the decision to drop so many cases could embolden unions that he and his colleagues spent years working to hold accountable. โNo one is assigned to do labor union cases, and the unions have every reason to believe no one is looking.โ
The New Jersey U.S. attorneyโs office said it had no comment on the declination of labor cases.
White-Collar Crime
The Trump administration has pledged to root outย โrampantโ fraudย in federal benefit programs like food stamps and welfare. The controversial surging of federal agents to Minnesota in January began as a stated crackdown on noncitizens allegedly ripping off nutrition and child care programs.
The DOJ, however, shut down more than 900 cases of federal program or procurement fraud in the first six months of the administration, including one targeting a mortgage lender accused by several state regulators of defrauding the Federal Housing Administration. The case was dropped due to โprioritization of federal resources and interests.โ The U.S. attorneyโs office for the Northern District of Alabama, which declined the case, did not reply to a request for comment. The number of fraud cases closed was about double that in the same time period of the Biden and first Trump administrations.
The agency also closed over 100 health care fraud cases as a result of โprioritization of resources and interestsโ even though the Trump administration has said it is making this area of enforcementย a priority.
Among other cases the DOJ determined werenโt a priority: the probe into the Virginia nursing home accused of abuse, as well as investigations in Tennessee into fraud at a national hospital chain and one of the largest Medicaid managed care companies.
The Western District of Virginia U.S. attorneyโs office, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the nursing home case. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee said the office does not comment on investigations that do not result in public charges.
The DOJโs Antitrust Division, which focuses on preventing big businesses from creating harmful monopolies, also declined an unusually high number of cases in Trumpโs second term. More than 40 cases were dropped within the first six months of Bondiโs tenure. Thatโs more than double the number declined in the same time period by the prior three new administrations.
Despite the declinations, the department said it charged slightly more people with fraud in 2025 compared with the final year of the Biden administration, and those cases alleged larger financial losses.
Promises Kept
The DOJ under Bondi has also rapidly pursued many of the priorities laid out in Trumpโs early executive orders and her own โfirst dayโ directives to staff.
Trump in February 2025 issued an executive order pausing new investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits citizens and companies from bribing foreign entities to advance their business interests. The order asked the attorney general to review and โtake appropriate actionโ on any existing probes to โpreserve Presidential foreign policy prerogatives.โ
In the first six months, Bondiโs DOJ shut down 25 such cases, which is more than the combined number dropped by the prior three new administrations over the same time period. One of the cases declined for prosecution involved a major car manufacturer, which had reported possible anti-bribery violations to federal investigators involving a foreign subsidiary. The DOJ declined the case for prosecution last June, citing the โprioritization of federal resources and interests.โ
On her first day, Bondiย ordered a reviewย of criminal prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act, which prohibits people from illegally blocking access to abortion clinics and places of worship. The department dropped as many cases under the act in its first six months as the past three new administrations combined, over the same time frame. Bondiโs order focused on โnon-violent protest activity,โ although at least one of the closed cases was being investigated as a violent crime. The DOJ has since charged protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and journalists in Minneapolis under the FACE Act. The defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty.
The agency closed three times the number of cases alleging environmental crimes as the Biden administration did and one-and-a-half times as many as compared with Trumpโs first term. The declinations came as the DOJ reassigned and cut prosecutors working on environmental cases. One-fifth of all of the dropped environmental protection cases were shut down for โprioritization of federal resources and interests.โ
I got up at 3 am this morning and was able to respond to almost all the comments.ย That gave me a few minutes while I ate some apple oatmeal for breakfast to read some news from Joe My God that he posted yesterday.ย Here they are in no particular order. Hugs
Yes it would make me want to sign up to work grueling hours and possibly die for a country that wants to use my graduation to arrest and deport my family members. Great move.ย Hugs.
I wonder what makes a person so hateful, bigoted, and racist.ย How much do you fear not being in a super majority and why? Do they worry that the new majority will treat them the way they treated the minorities when they were the majority? Hugs
More racism.ย This program they are now stopping claiming it is DEI and woke is because the first program illegally excluded black people in an attempt to be racist.ย Hugs
I was not sure whether to put this under corruption or racism.ย But as they are clearly using race, skin color, and language/accents to stop and detain people, racism won the toss.ย Hugs
OK more bigotry if not racism.ย The joy these people get from forcing kids to be cis or straight rather than let people just express themselves as they are is something I don’t understand. Seriously, why the need to go against all the medical science, medical studies that show conversion therapy to not only not work but to be very harmful to those who experiance it.ย ย It is torture and child abuse.ย Kids who are forced into it, who have to suffer through conversion therapy are much more likely to try to commit suicide.ย For what goal, to please their god?ย Their god created the trans / gay person as trans or gay.
The Army felt it was important enough breach of regulations and rules along with a waste of taxpayer money to suspend and investigate those involved.ย ย Pete Kegseth our Fox host wannabe big time war general secretary of defense over ruled their decision and undermined their authority because it looked cool.ย He is acting like a 10 year old boy playing army with his toys.ย Kegseth also illegally removed 4 officers from being promoted to flag rank.ย Two because they were female and two because they were black.ย The rest he wanted to be promoted were white men of course. Hugs
More illegal actions by the wannabe dictator and his administration who believe anything tRump mumbles is the law of the land and they do not have to follow any rule or law.ย Hugs
tRump illegally deciding that his administration can decide who gets to vote and how voting is done.ย All by his decree.ย The dear leader has spoken.ย Hugs
More crime? Why am I surprised that people that rioted and attacked the US Capitol, breaking in and causing mass damage might not respect the laws?ย In that act they assaulted police, staff, and tried to kill congress members.ย Hugs
But it’s important info, nauseating though it is. Also, click on through to the story, as everything I copy on their page to paste here turns into the title, with “Read more at:” and the link. So, my apologies, but this is a thing that we need to know.
Rev. Barber: We have to start teaching people that when we talk about politics, there is not an aspect of your lifeโfrom your birth to your deathโthat is not impacted.
When we look at theย midterm elections,ย we have to start with the basics. We are electing every member of the United States House of Representatives and one-third of the United States Senate. In most places, we are electing their entire state general assemblies, and many are electing governors, attorney generals, and so forth. We are electing the very people who impact every aspect of our lives. These elections determine whether we will have people in office who want to ensure everyone has health care or who want to take health care away; whether we want people in office who will vote to make sure everyone is paid a living wage versus just giving more money to corporations; whether they will care about poor and low-wage voters and the resources for people to afford a basic life, or whether all they will care about is giving more wealth to the already wealthy. That is whatโs on the line.
Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor Peopleโs Campaign speaks at the Poor Peopleโs Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival Rally at the US Supreme Court on October 27, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Repairers Of The Breach)
What is at stake is whether or not you have a Congress that will demand that the President, whoever that President is, cannot just act unilaterally, but must get congressional approval for war; whether or not we have a budget; whether or not TSA agents are paid; whether or not government employees are paid; whether or not we have a Congress that will stand up and not just be a rubber stamp to what an authoritarian President wants to do or will just โgo along to get along.โ
We have to start teaching people that when we talk about politics, there is not an aspect of your lifeโfrom your birth to your deathโthat is not impacted. Youโre not officially recognized without a birth certificate, which is the result of a political decision. You canโt guarantee your Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security without political decisions. Even as you die, people must understand that politics is not just about personality; itโs about people being put in place and the kinds of policies and vision they will enact.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, is a Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He serves as President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor Peopleโs Campaign
Mason Whiteside of Carrollton poses for a photo in front of the Oak Lawn United Methodist Church, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Dallas.Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer
It was already dark when Mason Whiteside finished his workday at a Deep Ellum brewery. By the time he was done cleaning and closing up, it was nearing midnight, but there was another job to do.
Whiteside, 25, called a Waymo to take him to Oak Lawn, where heโd lugged a backpack full of chalk and spray paint: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.
โDoes anyone want to color with me?โ Whiteside asked as people walked by.
No one stopped. He didnโt need them to.
Over the course of three and a half hours, Whiteside alone repainted more than a dozen crosswalks, what he considered a vibrant act of defiance less than 24 hours after the city began stripping the roads of their color. Dallas is among several Texas cities complying with a state directive to remove โpolitical ideologiesโ from public roadways.
โI wasnโt hurting anybody,โ Whiteside, who is queer, toldย The Dallas Morning Newsย Tuesday. โI didnโt damage anything. I literally just put back the same things that had been there.โ (snip-a bit MORE; click the title)
Off the coast of Sierra Leone, the actor and model are fighting against tourists traps with their own vision: a tropical โeco-cityโ of the future.
Sherbro Island, a tropical outpost of farmers and fishermen nestled in the crook of Sierra Leoneโs arcing Atlantic coastline, is about the size of Chicago, but its population of 40,000 wouldnโt even fill Wrigley Field. Electrical power and wireless internet are scarce. Fishermen canโt refrigerate their catches long enough to sell them on the mainland, and farmers often lack the expertise and equipment to harvest much more than they need to survive. But Sherbro Island has some enviable resources, including miles of unblemished beaches and lagoons, as well as an abundance of replenishable fresh water.
One other invaluable asset: the support of Golden Globeโwinning British actor Idris Elba and his wife, Canadian model Sabrina Elba. The couple see an opportunity there to marry ecological sustainability with economic growth in a way they hope can be a template for development projects across Africaโand perhaps help rewrite a whole continentโs narrative. Idrisโs father is from Sierra Leone, Sabrinaโs mother is from Somalia, and growing up, Sabrina says, โthere were particular stigmas attached with being African.โ She remembers seeing ads that seemed to show abject people waiting for a handout. โWe wanted to see Africa represented the way that we knew it to be,โ she says. โWe wanted to change the storytelling.โ
Her husbandโknown for the baritone potency he brings to prestige TV dramas like Luther and The Wire, along with films like last yearโs critically acclaimed thriller A House of Dynamiteโfirst heard about Sherbro Island years ago. A close family friend had tried to convince him it could become a world-class holiday destination. โAt that juncture, I was just like, Oh, OK, that sounds interesting,โ says Idris, 53, who co-owns a wine bar in Londonโs Kingโs Cross neighborhood. โLike, maybe Iโll build a nightclub, maybe build some tourism.โ He made a mental note to visit someday.
He got the opportunity in 2019, while he and Sabrina, now 37, were inย Sierra Leoneย touring small family farms as part of their ambassadorial roles with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It was during that trip, Idris says, that he had something of an epiphany. Heโd been venturing into philanthropy as his celebrity grew: supporting childhood education and hunger-relief programs in Africa, as well as campaigning on behalf of at-risk youths in the United Kingdom (work for which he was recently knighted). But on that trip, the Elbas saw an opportunity to build something more enduring and meaningful than a fancy vacation spotโand โto reframe the conversation,โ Sabrina says, โ[from] one of aid to one of investment.โ (snip-a little more on the page; click through on the title, please)
(Clay Jones writes commentary with his comics; click through on the title to read this one)
(My ophthalmologist referred me to this site one time, because I always have a dog. It’s a hoot most of the time on its own, but recalling that an ophthalmologist subscribes makes it kinda funnier!)
Tuesday’s execution in Florida WILL NOT take place as scheduled but the warrant remains open until noon on April 7.
Our Twitter post:ย WHAT IF WE GOT IT WRONG? Florida’s own DNA expert says further DNA testing is warranted. #JamesDuckett’s 3/31 execution by #Florida is stayed BUT he may still be killed by April 7. He has always claimed innocence.
Jeff Tiedrich uses blue language. It’s easily ignored if you don’t care for blue language; this is some great coverage of yesterday.Also, Bluesky posts don’t embed easily on WP, so really, this is better on the page. Just click on the link directly below. It’s also mostly here, but you’ll have to click on the Bluesky posts to see the excellent photos; they didn’t embed.
over eight million of us gathered peacefully coast to coast, to rise up as one and convey a singular message: fuck you, you fucking fuck โ youโre not our king.
wait, did I say coast to coast? no, it was the entire world telling Donny Convict to fuck straight off.
(just click the link to see the post on Bluesky. How it works, I guess. -A)
HAPPENING NOW: A HUGE crowd has gathered in London, England for a protest against the far right in coordination with the No Kings day protests in the US
In 1789, furious protesters stormed the Bastille in Paris. This marks the start of the French Revolution that put an end to the highly corrupt, rotten regime of aristocrats and the ultra rich. Yesterday, thousands joined a #NoKings protest at the Bastille.
โIโm so proud of you. you chased out of this state pure evil. you chased them out. you chased out the fun-size fascist Greg Bovino. you chased out that evil Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem is so evil, Iโm starting to think that that dog took his own life. just couldnโt take it. โis this my future? I need to get out. Iโm taking the goat with me.โโ
while millions of people were protesting the fucked-up reign of Mad King Donny, CPAC couldnโt even fill one small room. look at this clownfuckingly pathetic display.
itโs as if Sad Trombone became a real political party.
great optics, you guys. bravo. ten out of ten โ no notes.
fuck those fucking fucks. letโs go out with a bang. here are some of the best protest signs from around the country.
(Just go see it all. You’ll be sorry if you don’t!)Snip
and finally, once again, our unknown poet laureate from Ellsworth, Maine.
as for Sundowning Grandpa Bugfuck, he was unusually silent โ and nowhere to be seen. there were none of his usual protest-day batshit meltdowns on the feed of his crappy app. he couldnโt even be bothered to post AI slop of himself shitting on protesters, as he did last October.
he just spent the day holed up in Motel-a-Lago. according to his official schedule, the lazy fuck didnโt even bother to cheat at golf.
Iโve got a news flash for you, Donny: America is sick of you. aside from your brain-dead cultists who are too fucking stupid to understand whatโs going on, nobody voted for this shit.
nobody voted for the historic and stately East Wing to be demolished so that you can replace it with some vulgar Epstein Dance Hallโข โ and speaking of your dead pedo bestie, nobody voted for the continuing cover-up of a massive pedophile ring.
nobody voted for off-the-charts corruption and greed.
nobody voted for masked ICE thugs teargassing children, and murdering anyone who looks at them funny. nobody voted for innocent immigrants to be disappeared off the streets and shipped off to far-away slave-labor gulags.
nobody voted for the price of everything continuing to skyrocket โ especially when you promised bring all that shit down on Day One.
nobody voted for our allies to be insulted and ignored, or for Ukraine to be thrown to the wolves, or for Greenland to be perpetually harassed, or for Venezuela to become a vassal state.
and nobody voted for an unwinnable clusterfuck of a donโt-you-dare-call-it-a-war in Iran โ certainly not one that shut down the Strait of Hormuz, destabilized the entire Middle East, and sent the price crude through the roof.
guess what, Donny: youโre such a loathsome piece of shit that over eight million people took to the streets yesterday to deliver this singular message: fuck you, you fucking fuck โ youโre not our king, and you never will be.
Scottie's Playtime 