Josh Day, Next Day!

Zohran’s First 100 Days Of Sewer Socialism Success In New York City

This is what working for the people, working for the public means. This is what representing the will of the people / public looks like. This is what is attracting the people / public voters to the democrats, yet Chuck Schumer as yet to endorse Mamdani. Why? Because the two are the opposite sides of the political coin.ย  One wants to serve and represent the people / public and the other is a corporate democrat beholden to big money donors and major lobbyist groups.ย  Same with Hakeem Jerofies who only endorsed Mamdani when on election night it became clear he would be the winner.ย  Hugs


 

Israel Has Created Hell On Earth

This is a doctor working in Gaza.ย  He describes the conditions. The Israelis are sniping World Health doctors. Israelis are moving the “yellow line” that they are claiming is the new boundary line between Israel and Palestinians.ย  They are slowly moving the line deeper ad deeper into Gaza.ย  The Israeli snipers were shooting the young boys in different areas on different days, now they are using drones to fire on young children alone with horrific results. Remember from the last clip he was saying how Israel is blocking and destroying the medical supplies and equipment. Israel is deliberately shooting and killing children.ย  They want the chaos it causes, they like the fear it promotes, and they like that no new generations of Palestinians are growing. The doctor spoke of other atrocities that Israel is inflicting daily on the Palestinians.ย  Israel is a criminal nation doing a genocide, and much of our democratic leadership is deeply in the pockets of AIPAC.ย  Notice that Hakeem Jeffries was also at the same event.ย  People here have asked why I am so anti-democratic leadership; this is one of the reasons why. They are beholden to the big money donors and lobbies doing their bidding while ignoring the desires and will of the people they are supposed to represent, not rule over.ย  Hugs

Senate Minority Leaderย Chuck Schumerย has emphasized his commitment to maintaining pro-Israel sentiments within theย Democratic Party. In recent statements,ย Schumerย articulated that his role is to ensure that the left remains supportive of Israel, a position he conveyed during an interview withย The New York Times. This assertion reflects a broader concern regarding the changing dynamics of the Democratic Party’s support for Israel and Jewish causes. Schumer’s comments have sparked discussions about the implications of this shift, particularly in light of the party’s historical alignment with pro-Israel policies. Opinion pieces have noted that Schumer views the preservation of American institutions as integral to protecting religious minorities, highlighting the intersection of Jewish identity and political advocacy.ย  https://deepnewz.com/middle-east/chuck-schumer-emphasizes-role-keeping-left-pro-israel-says-job-to-keep-the-left-f0ff217c

โ€œI have many jobs as [Senate] leader… and one is to fight for aid to Israel โ€” all the aid that Israel needs,โ€ Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.

โ€œI will continue to fight for it.,โ€ Schumer continued. โ€œWe delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, than ever, ever before.โ€

According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks whileย reportingย forย The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his โ€œbaby.โ€ย  https://www.commondreams.org/news/schumer-israel-aid

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on Sunday that one of his most important jobs as Senate minority leader is to โ€œfight for aid to Israel,โ€ as the Trump administrationโ€™s masked federal agents continue their deadly raids of the U.S. with little to no pushback from Democrats.

In remarks atย a breakfast gathering of Jewish leadersย in New York City, Schumerย said, โ€œI have many jobs as leader โ€ฆ and one is to fight for aid to Israel, all the aid that Israel needs.โ€ Part of the remarks at the โ€‹โ€‹UJA-Federation of New York gathering were posted online byย The Forward reporter Jacob Kornbluh. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) also spoke at the event.ย  https://truthout.org/articles/as-trumps-dhs-ravages-us-schumer-says-his-job-is-to-fight-for-aid-to-israel/


 

Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubaniโ€™s Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare projects.

 

The Economy

Trumpโ€™s Corruption Is Whatโ€™s Tanking the Economy

INSIDE: Eric Swalwell … Tony Gonzales … Pope Leo

David Kurtz Apr 14, 2026

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 07: U.S. President Donald Trump (L) welcomes Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban as he arrives at the White House on November 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump and Orban are holding a bilateral lunch today and are expected to discuss trade and energy. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Itโ€™s the Corruption, Stupid

In the aftermath of Viktor Orbรกnโ€™s defeat in Hungary, a typically shallow conventional wisdom has already emerged that unless President Trump gets the economy turned around, Republicans are going to have hell to pay in the 2026 and 2028 elections.

The NYT quotes the right-wing commentator Rod Dreher, who decamped to Hungary to work for an Orbรกn-funded think tank, as explaining the election result thusly: โ€œWhen all boats arenโ€™t rising, everybody looks at whoโ€™s on the yacht. In terms of MAGA, populism is great, but if you canโ€™t deliver on the economy, none of it is going to matter.โ€

That is abundantly true and yet terribly misleading because the economic mess weโ€™re in is entirely of Trumpโ€™s own doing. Heโ€™s not the usual American president held hostage to the vagaries and cycles of an economy largely beyond his control.

In historic fashion, Trump has torpedoed key pillars of the global economy by launching unprecedented trade wars and an unjustified elective war in the Middle East that has bottled up world oil supplies to such an extent that it threatens a recession. At home, he has dramatically throttled back the economic engine of immigration, targeted Americaโ€™s world leading universities, and decimated its vibrant scientific and biomedical research base.

Except for the racist assault on immigrants, all of these moves are not driven by ideological imperatives but by corrupt impulses. The economic damage Trump has done was crafted purposely to create opportunities for self-enrichment for him and his allies. It generates its own currency which can be used to perpetuate his political power. What he dispenses he can take away.

The AP sums up the Trump family kleptocracy succinctly:

The family real estate business is undergoing the fastest overseas expansion since its founding a century ago, each deal potentially shaping everything from tariffs to military aid.

Led by Eric, and his brother, Donald Jr., the family business has expanded into cryptocurrencies with ventures that brought in billions of dollars but raised questions about whether some big investors received favorable treatment in return.

The brothers have also joined or invested in a number of companies that aim to do business with the government their father runs. Last month, they struck a deal giving them stakes worth millions in an armed drone maker seeking contracts with the Pentagon and with Gulf states under attack by Iran and dependent on the U.S. military led by their father.

It always sounds a bit earnest to deplore corruption, but one of the practical reasons for eschewing corruption is because at best it acts like an invisible tax on economic growth. At worst, it corrodes the economic engine to the point that it doesnโ€™t properly function any longer. Before Trump, the United States was a world leader in combatting corporate and political corruption abroad for the unapologetically realpolitik reason that American companies could win on a level playing field. Under Trump II, the DOJ has explicitly stopped enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and weโ€™re now in a grubby race to the bottom.

Any notion that Trump can get the economy โ€œback on trackโ€ or dampen the economic shockwaves he has unleashed ignores the substance of what heโ€™s done. Not only are Trumpโ€™s second term attacks on economic growth hard to reverse, let alone quickly, theyโ€™re deeply wired into who he is and what heโ€™s about.

The Economic Warning Signs

  • The Middle East conflict isย causingย oil scarcity and rising prices that are contributing to significant โ€œdemand destructionโ€ which could lead to the steepest drop-off in demand for oil since the COVID slowdown, the International Energy Agency is forecasting in itsย latest outlook.
  • The International Monetary Fundย warnsย that the Middle East conflict will slow economic growth, fuel inflation and raises the possibility of a global recession.

Latest on the Middle East Conflict โ€ฆ

  • Israeli and Lebanese officialsย gatheredย in D.C. for rare direct talks โ€” the first in a decade โ€” as the Netanyahu government has seized on the wider conflict to advance Israelโ€™s position on the ground in Lebanon.
  • Bitter irony alert: Talks between Iran and Trump administration are complicated by โ€œthe risk that any agreement that emerges may resemble the 2015 nuclear accordโ€ that Trump abrogated in his first term, theย NYT reports.
  • House Republicans have again abdicated their oversight roles byย pushing offย until at least May testimony originally scheduled for next week from senior Pentagon officials on the war in Iran.

Latest on the Middle East Conflict โ€ฆ

  • Israeli and Lebanese officialsย gatheredย in D.C. for rare direct talks โ€” the first in a decade โ€” as the Netanyahu government has seized on the wider conflict to advance Israelโ€™s position on the ground in Lebanon.
  • Bitter irony alert: Talks between Iran and Trump administration are complicated by โ€œthe risk that any agreement that emerges may resemble the 2015 nuclear accordโ€ that Trump abrogated in his first term, theย NYT reports.
  • House Republicans have again abdicated their oversight roles byย pushing offย until at least May testimony originally scheduled for next week from senior Pentagon officials on the war in Iran.

Lawless Boat Strike Death Toll: 170

The U.S. attacked an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific on Monday, bringing the campaignโ€™s overall death toll to at least 170. In announcing the attack, the U.S. Southern Command introduced new Orwellian language: โ€œApplying total systemic friction on the cartels.โ€

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is waging a pressure campaign against the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to squash a potential investigation into the boat strike campaign, The Intercept reports.

Must Read

TPMโ€™s Josh Kovensky reports from Frisco, Texas, the countryโ€™s fastest growing city and a haven for South Asian immigrants, which far-right activists are seizing on as โ€œproofโ€ of the Great Replacement Theory.

Thread of the Day

Trump has cut legal immigration more than illegal immigration, as I predicted. While illegal entries have fallen, they continued a prior trend, falling more before he came back. Meanwhile, Trump has drastically cut legal entries, reversing the prior upward trend. http://www.cato.org/blog/trump-h…

David J. Bier (@davidjbier.bsky.social) 2026-04-13T19:05:32.235Z

IMPORTANT

Local authorities in St. Paul, Minnesota have launched a criminal investigation into the notorious ICE detention in January of Hmong American ChongLy โ€œScottโ€ Thao. Theyโ€™re investigating the warrantless raid on an American citizenโ€™s home as a potential kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment.

Quote of the Day

Cheryl Kelley in The Hill:

American law is built on a simple rule: The government cannot get around legal limits by creating a new structure to do the same thing another way. The Posse Comitatus Act reflects that rule. It exists to prevent the federal government from using a large, armed force for general policing inside the U.S. But by tripling ICEโ€™s size, giving it $75 billion in multi-year funding insulated from normal oversight, and deploying it far beyond immigration enforcement โ€” from neighborhood operations to general airport security โ€” the administration has achieved in practice what those restrictions were designed to prevent.

Swalwell and Gonzales Both Resign

In a rapid-fire combo of scandal-fueled resignations, Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Tony Gonzales (R-TX) both announced last evening that they would resign their seats โ€” though neither gave a date certain for their departures. Depending on the exact timing, the resignations should be a wash and not effect majority control of the House.

Two Big Wins

  • In the lawsuit over the removal of the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, the Trump administration has reversed course andย confirmedย in a new filing that it will reinstate the flag and not remove it again.
  • The American Library Association and a union of cultural workers have reached a settlement in their lawsuit against the Trump administration thatย savesย the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, the NYT reports: โ€œThe Trump administration reaffirmed that it had reinstated all previously canceled grants, in keeping with a separate legal ruling last year, and reversed all staff reductions. It also promised not to take any further steps to reduce the agency.โ€

Good Read

Wired: Government Workers Say Theyโ€™re Getting Inundated With Religion

Pope Making Everyone Look Dumb

The senior senator from Ohio:

Bernie Moreno on Trumpโ€™s comments about the Pope: โ€œI was incensed to watch the Pope's comments. I think what the Pope is doing is a disgrace.โ€โ€œIt's a shame that the Pope has made the Catholic Church political. Thank God my momโ€™s not alive to watch that.โ€

Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) 2026-04-13T21:35:06.715Z

Unintentional Edginess From CSPAN

i feel bad for our country but this is tremendous content

derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social) 2026-04-14T01:35:43.012Z

(snip)

Some News From Bilderberg

Secretive Bilderberg group just met โ€“ but who knows what global elite said?

Charlie Skelton

This yearโ€™s conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, but itโ€™s a mystery why the press fails to talk about it

The 72nd meeting of the Bilderberg group, the elite and secretive policy conference that is the longtime subject of endless conspiracy theories, was held at the weekend in Washington DC. A security cordon went up around the opulent Salamander hotel for the notoriously media-shy summit, which was packed as ever with prime ministers, military leaders, tech billionaires and the heads of giant investment companies.

Bilderberg, which since the 1950s has been the intellectual engine room of Nato, took place this year at a time of immense crisis and uncertainty for the alliance. In recent weeks, with Trump threatening at every turn to withdraw from the โ€œpaper tigerโ€ of Nato, the โ€œTrans-Atlantic Defence-Industrial Relationshipโ€ (as itโ€™s called on the agenda) has reached a strained breaking point.

The head of Nato and Bilderberg regular Mark Rutte arrived at the conference fresh from a โ€œvery frankโ€ conversation at the White House. But away from Trumpโ€™s bluster, and for all his rhetoric about abandoning Nato, there were no signs that the Americans are withdrawing from Bilderberg. Far from it โ€“ the Americans were there in force.

Wall Street titans, including the CEOs of KKR and Lazard, and the heads of huge corporations like Pfizer, met behind closed doors with a delegation of senior politicians close to the president. Big business lobbying in private is Bilderbergโ€™s speciality, and this secretive mix of the private and public sectors fits perfectly with Trumpโ€™s brand of crony-capitalism.

Trumpโ€™s trusted secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, was attending, alongside his favourite trade guru, Robert Lighthizer. They were joined by Trumpโ€™s economic ally Jason Smith, the chair of the influential House ways and means committee, and his secretary of the army, Dan Driscoll, known as Trumpโ€™s โ€œdrone guyโ€.

It was no surprise with the conflict in Iran dominating the global news cycle that this yearโ€™s conference had a wartime flavour: with the โ€œFuture of Warfareโ€ on the agenda, and a participant list including the four-star admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command. From the private sector there was a healthy contingent of military contractors and drone manufacturers, led by the Bilderberg insider Eric Schmidt, whoโ€™s the former head of Google and a keen evangelist for drone warfare.

Earlier this year, Schmidt told the FT that โ€œfuture wars are going to be defined by unmanned weaponsโ€, with โ€œswarms of drones operated remotely and increasingly automated with AI targetingโ€. Thriving in this rich overlap between drones and AI are companies like Anduril Industries, whose co-founder and CEO, Brian Schimpf, is attending the Washington conference, alongside his collaborator in Trumpโ€™s โ€œGolden Domeโ€ project, Palantirโ€™s CEO, Alex Karp.

Karp is close to fellow billionaire tech-bro Peter Thiel, whose name, remarkably, is absent from this yearโ€™s participant list. Thiel has been a member of the groupโ€™s steering committee since 2008, and it was unheard of for him to miss a Bilderberg. Thielโ€™s reach runs deep into the Trump administration, and his influence within Bilderberg has also been growing through the years. Through the American Friends of Bilderberg Inc, he largely funds the lavish Washington-based meetings, alongside fellow steering committee member and billionaire Schmidt.

Thiel operates in the powerful liminal area between big finance and big intelligence โ€“ most notably, he set up Palantir with the help of funding from the CIA. This shady intersection was the birthplace of Bilderberg, and is baked into its history: the group was set up by British and American intelligence, and thereโ€™s always a handful of spy chiefs at the conference. This year, three intelligence directors were present, including the head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli. It is a fascinating backstage world which Thiel will now miss along with the strategising, the talent spotting and the big ideological discussions on โ€œChinaโ€ and โ€œthe westโ€.

It was no small thing for the arch-networker Thiel to skip Bilderberg. After all, Bilderberg is all about the chance to stay three steps ahead with all that lovely, off-the-books access to policymakers such as breakfast with the president of Finland, tea with the head of the IMF, and cocktails with the King of Holland.

Quite why the press fails so spectacularly to talk about Bilderberg, such a major annual summit with so many senior politicians present, is an enduring mystery. This yearโ€™s conference had plenty of newsworthy aspects, not least the presence of Vivian Motzfeldt, the former Greenlandic foreign minister and ex-speaker of the Inatsisartut (Greenlandโ€™s parliament).

Motzfeldt was the first Greenlander to appear at Bilderberg, and her presence was a clear signal to the Trump administration that Greenland has powerful allies within the Trans-Atlantic partnership. Motzfeldt no doubt contributed to the session on โ€œArctic Securityโ€, and might even have been moved to quote the final sentence of Trumpโ€™s recent anti-NATO vent: โ€œREMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!โ€

But as there was no press oversight for this conference, it is something that we will probably never know.

Some News From The Poor People’s Campaign:



Please join us on Tuesday, April 14 at 8:30AM ET for an emergency press conference convened by Bishop William J. Barber, II, DMin, President & Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, 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.

Bishop Barber will respond to President Trumpโ€™s widely circulated AIโ€‘generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ, recent statements from Franklin Graham, and the Popeโ€™s global call for renewed moral commitment to the poor and to pluralist democracy.

Bishop Barber will address the theological and democratic dangers of these developments and call faith leaders nationwide to resist the misuse of religion to sanctify policy violence and division.

You can watch the press conference on the Repairers of the Breach website here: https://breachrepairers.org/get-involved/live/

Will They Do It?

Something to keep track of.

Trump administration agrees to return rainbow Pride flag to New Yorkโ€™s Stonewall monument

Byย ย JENNIFER PELTZย andย MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK (AP) โ€” The Trump administration said Monday it will resume flying a rainbow Pride flag on a federal flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, reversing course two months after removing the banner from the first national monument commemorating LGBTQ+ history.

The government revealed the decision in court papers as it agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by advocacy and historic preservation groups who had sought to block the Feb. 9 removal. A judge approved the deal.

The Interior Department and National Park Service โ€œhave confirmed their intention to maintain a Pride flag at Stonewall,โ€ lawyers for the government and the groups wrote in a joint court filing.

The flag โ€” one of several Pride banners at the 7.7-acre (3.1-hectare) park โ€” wonโ€™t be removed, except for โ€œmaintenance or other practical purposes,โ€ the filing said. (snip-details of position and measurements of the Pride flag)

https://apnews.com/article/stonewall-rainbow-flag-trump-lgbtq-historic-preservation-ac4ab59d3251476139700db6687828ca

Hrmphh. Nobody Ever Listens To Us.

Feminists began raising the alarm about the manosphere decades ago โ€“ and we were ignored

Laurie Penny

We were told we couldnโ€™t take a joke, and that social media isnโ€™t real life. Now the misogyny of early chatrooms and Gamergate has reached the White House

Harrison Sullivan, known as HSTikkyTokky, in Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere.ย Photograph: Netflix/PA

Why has it taken so long for us to treat misogyny as a political problem? The modern manosphere has been metastasising for many years โ€“ and for years, mainstream culture has responded with a helpless shrug. There was nothing unusual about men hurting women, even if the technology was new.

In the early aughts, angry and alienated men began indulging in recreational misogyny online, bombarding women and girls in the public eye with threats, insults, harassment, hacking, and hideous โ€œrevenge pornโ€. Strange as it may now sound, though, โ€œthe internetโ€ was still seen as separate from โ€œreal lifeโ€.

That, at least, was what I was told the first time I went to the police about the death threats I was receiving as a young columnist. Nothing could be done, because what happened on social media wasnโ€™t real and didnโ€™t count. If I didnโ€™t like it I should get offline, and presumably continue my work via rotary phone and fax. Those of us who were early targets of what would become the manosphere did not have the luxury of ignoring the issue. For us, it was easy to see that this was something new and serious, easy to understand how the tactics used against us might be deployed elsewhere โ€“ and how quickly matters could escalate.

Which is what happened in 2014. In May of that year, the terrorist Elliot Rodger killed six people and brought global attention to โ€œincelsโ€ โ€“ young men radicalised by sexual resentment.

Three months later came Gamergate, a global orgy of online harassment targeting women in the video game industry. It all started when up-and-coming game creator Zoe Quinn was attacked by a bitter ex-boyfriend in a book-length tirade of sexual and professional jealousy. The non-scandal became a lightning rod for tens of thousands of gamers furious that women were intruding on a medium that was meant to be their personal power fantasy.

On anonymous forums like 4chan, men coordinated an extraordinary campaign of abuse dressed up as concern for โ€œjournalistic ethicsโ€. Quinn and other creators were driven from their homes, but the firestorm was already out of control. Over the next few years, as โ€œincelsโ€ continued to carry out acts of mass murder, every entertainment industry, from comics and publishing to film and TV, was besieged by obsessive trolls casting themselves as brave rebels against illiberal โ€œsocial justice warriorsโ€. The more they got away with it, the more they treated it like a game.

Gamergate brought together the disparate strands of what we now call the manosphere: the grifting pickup-artists, the Christian nationalists, the bitter โ€œincelsโ€ and the furious fans triggered into mass social vandalism whenever they heard a story they werenโ€™t the hero of. This slurry of half-formed fixations congealed into a coherent ideology of aggrieved entitlement, with its own language โ€“ โ€œescaping the matrixโ€, โ€œtaking the red pillโ€ โ€“ and their own logic of heroic victimhood in the face of womenโ€™s sexual power. The rage and alienation of men abandoned by post-crash capitalism was channelled towards a common cause โ€“ one ripe for co-option by the worst possible actors.

Throughout the mid-aughts, mainstream media continued to underestimate the manosphere. The fringes of the right did not make the same mistake. Gamergate was the proving ground for some of the central propagandists of the new โ€œalt-rightโ€. Steve Bannon, the political svengali and co-founder of Breitbart News, saw the potential in this cohort of cranks. He went on to run Donald Trumpโ€™s first presidential campaign, helping to deliver that key demographic to a president who personified everything the new cult of male supremacy most admired, as he crowed about sexual violence and held the notionally free world hostage to his every emotional spasm.

In hindsight, it is startling that all of this was normalised for so long. It was apparently inconceivable that violence against women could constitute a crisis โ€“ unless, of course, the violence was blamed on immigrants or on transgender people, at which point womenโ€™s safety suddenly shot to the top of the political agenda. When feminists and others in the infected eye of the storm tried to raise the alarm, we were told we were exaggerating for attention, or that we couldnโ€™t take a joke. Under the posturing, cartoon frogs and memespeak, these were lost young men who deserved patience and understanding, and if we didnโ€™t offer it we were heartless, humourless killjoys.

Identical arguments were used to dismiss the rise of Maga until it was far too late. The playbook tested out on feminists and on Black, queer and female creators in the mid-aughts was replicated in far-right movements across the global north โ€“ as was the response of muted both-sidesism. Then as now, politicians, pundits and industry leaders officially disapproved of the worst excesses of the manosphere, but declined to take an explicit stand, terrified that any display of moral integrity would alienate their base.

As the 2010s turned into the 2020s and the manosphere continued to expandfunnelling its recruits towards ever more extreme, explicitly racist ideas, it became fashionable to cast โ€œsocial justice warriorsโ€ as the pressing danger to human freedom. Politicians and public figures seemed far more concerned about the #MeToo movement, which seemed proof positive that feminists had gone too far โ€“ and deserved, perhaps, to be punished for it. After the third or fourth time a documentary crew came to interview me about all the death threats, I realised that they didnโ€™t want to help โ€“ they wanted to watch.

Lots of people did. After Gamergate, bigotry became a growth industry for enterprising young lads unburdened by conscience. As a journalist, I interviewed many young far-right men who admitted that what they really wanted was to be influencers and film-makers. For clicks and views they courted controversy and flirted with the far right โ€“ but it didnโ€™t take long for the relationship to get serious. As Kurt Vonnegut writes in his anti-fascist masterpiece Mother Night, โ€œwe are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to beโ€.

Today, nobody is pretending that this is a joke any more. Trump, in his deranged dotage, is openly courting the manosphere, and the young men of gen Z are veering towards the far right en masse. Thereโ€™s a clear line from the social vandalism of Gamergate to the mega-grifting male supremacists, scamming their followers with the promise of a reality where women and girls are non-player characters, to be defeated, exploited or traded for tokens in a brutal marketplace of human value. Many young men have lived their entire lives in the shadow of this weaponised misogyny โ€“ and so have young women. And that sinister ideology is still gnawing at the heart of power.

A few weeks ago, in a break from encouraging his deranged president to take over Greenland, White House adviser Stephen Miller found time to post a tweet on X that appears to be mocking the new Star Trek series for being too diverse. Elon Musk emerged from his fug of racial conspiracy theories and transphobia to agree. This is embarrassing, and not just because any half-literate nerd knows that Star Trek has been woke since 1966. Because even after turning the world into their personal thunder dome, the representatives of aggrieved white male power are still unsatisfied, still demanding we cater to their every petty whim. They will continue to do so until the rest of us, at last, refuse to tolerate their nonsense.

  • Laurie Penny is a journalist, author and screenwriter. They write the substackย Force of Culture

Trump Admin Fires Top US Army General In The Middle Of A War

Ron flew to Texas on Saturday.ย  We used Uber to take him.ย  He is driving his sister back here.ย  They should be here tomorrow.ย  I need a few days of rest then I will start replying to comments and bogging again.ย  Hugs

Heather โ€˜Digbyโ€™ Parton joins the program to recap the weekโ€™s news. Check out Digbyโ€™s work at Salon as well as her blog Hullabaloo. Topics include the American right-wingโ€™s desperation to keep Victor Orban in power in Hungary, Trump firing all the women around him, Iran and more.

Doctor Reports from Gaza | Dr. Tarek Loubani | TMR

Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian emergency room physician who has been volunteering in Palestine joins the program from Gaza for a harrowing interview. If you can, please support Dr. Loubaniโ€™s Glia Project, a medical solidarity organization that empowers low-resource communities to build sustainable, locally-drive healthcare project.