Somehting to Know from Yesterday

This should have gone on out late on 27 April, but things got too busy and I was really tired.   It's pretty good on Trump's desperation.

Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com>	Apr 28, 2026, 10:37 PM (17 hours ago)
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	Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more April 28, 2026 Heather Cox Richardson Apr 29   READ IN APP   There is a frenzied feeling to the news coming from the White House these days. Yesterday, the administration tried to blame Democrats and the media for the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, when Secret Service agents apprehended a man carrying a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives on the floor above the room where the dinner was taking place. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called opponents of Trump a “left-wing cult of hatred against POTUS and all of those who support him” and blamed the “entire Democrat party” for the event. Shots were fired during that incident, although not in the room where Trump, cabinet members, or the press were seated, but there is a good chance it was actually not Cole Tomas Allen, the intruder, who fired them. Yesterday the Department of Justice charged Allen with attempting to assassinate the president. At his press conference hours after the event, Trump insisted the trouble proved the need for his proposed ballroom. On Sunday morning, the Department of Justice (DOJ) demanded that the National Trust for Historic Preservation drop its lawsuit against Trump’s plans, saying the “lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and his staff at grave risk.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation rejected the demand yesterday, saying that while the event was “awful,” it did not change the fact that Trump must follow the law and get congressional approval for the ballroom. Yesterday Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and others jumped in front of the cameras to present a bill to appropriate $400 million of taxpayer money to build the ballroom. Republican loyalists in the House have also called for public funding of a ballroom. Late last night, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche filed a motion to dissolve the court’s preliminary injunction stopping the construction of the ballroom (although the court did not stop the construction of the bunker underneath the proposed addition). The motion begins: “‘The National Trust for Historic Preservation’ is a beautiful name, but even their name is FAKE because when they add the words ‘in the United States’ to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it makes it sound like a Governmental Agency, which it is not.” It goes on from there, insisting for seven pages that the lack of a ballroom endangers Trump. Chris Geidner of LawDork called the motion “deranged.” The administration’s focus on the ballroom seems to echo Trump’s insistence after his first inauguration that the crowd at that inauguration was bigger than that at President Barack Obama’s. Anyone could see that was a lie, but Trump and his administration officials clung to it. Forcing supporters to accept a lie as reality is a key tool of authoritarians, making it harder for them to reject the next lie, and so on. The claim that Democrats are calling for violence, when in fact it has been Trump calling for executing those he believes are his enemies, follows that pattern exactly. But there is at least one other story behind the administration’s insistence on building Trump’s ballroom: the man desperately needs a win. His war in Iran has settled into a humiliating stalemate in which Iranian leaders appear to be calling the shots. Speaking to German students on Monday, German chancellor Frederich Merz said that the U.S. clearly has no strategic plan and that the “entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.” Gas prices are at their highest level in four years, with the average U.S. price for a gallon of regular at $4.18. Economist Paul Krugman noted in his Substack today that the world is currently using oil that it had in storage, but when that runs out, prices will rise enough to get rid of the demand for about 11 or more million barrels of oil a day. Krugman illustrated his article with a picture of an egg in a vise. On Saturday, April 25, Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, Mosheh Gains, and Natasha Lebedeva of NBC News reported that the damage Iran inflicted on American military bases, radar systems, aircraft, warehouses, and infrastructure in the Gulf region was far worse than the administration has told the public and will cost up to $5 billion to repair. On Sunday, Democratic senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts responded to reports from survivors that the U.S. military post in Kuwait where six service members died and at least 20 more were injured was unprotected. One of the injured soldiers told CBS News that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement that a drone “squeaked through” was false. “I want people to know the unit…was unprepared to provide any defense for itself,” the service member said. “It was not a fortified position.” The senators asked Hegseth to explain by May 11 why the post did not have protection against drones and who was responsible for that lack. Yesterday Missy Ryan, Vivian Salama, Michael Scherer, and Nancy A. Youssef of The Atlantic published a piece that echoed others by indicating that Vice President J.D. Vance is distancing himself from the Iran debacle, in this case by questioning whether Hegseth is providing Trump accurate information about the war. An article in The Hill by Alexander Bolton said Republican senators are losing confidence in Hegseth as he hollows out the ranks of senior military officers. The Republican-dominated Congress is not helping Trump look competent. The short-term extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) expires on April 30. The House of Representatives was also scheduled to address the farm bill, a multiyear bill addressing farm and nutrition policies. Finally, the House is long overdue in funding the Department of Homeland Security, which has now been operating without appropriations for more than 70 days. The Senate unanimously passed a measure to fund most of DHS on March 27, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has yet to take it up. Republican infighting kept a rules package that would advance the measures bottled up in committee yesterday, but this evening the Rules Committee advanced the three measures out of committee. As Emily Brooks of The Hill noted, it’s not clear the necessary rule will pass the House, which has to happen before the measures themselves can come to a vote. Johnson can afford to lose only two Republican votes on the rule, and already members are expressing reservations about voting yes. And so, Trump and his loyalists are trying desperately to demonstrate their dominance. Just today, Benjamin Parker of The Bulwark reported that the State Department is finalizing plans to put an image of Trump’s face in U.S. passports that are issued from the Washington, D.C., Passport Agency. They are already minting a $1 coin with his face on it, issuing a gold commemorative coin with his face on it, and putting Trump’s face on national park passes. Also today, the Pentagon asked Congress to change the name of the Defense Department to the “Department of War,” making formal the change administration officials informally made last year. This change, accentuating Trump and Hegseth’s focus on a “warrior ethos” instead of the defensive alliances the U.S. has enjoyed since World War II, will cost taxpayers $52 million. Trump has also ramped up his attacks on those he perceives to be enemies. Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it is reviewing ABC’s licenses after late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about First Lady Melania Trump last Thursday. Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, who, as Daniel Arkin of NBC News notes, frequently attacks media organizations, chairs the FCC. The administration has also gone after former FBI director James Comey again. A federal grand jury in North Carolina has indicted him for making a threat “to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States, in that he publicly posted a photograph on the internet social media site Instagram which depicted seashells arranged in a pattern making out ‘86 47’, which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.” That is, Comey’s posting a picture of seashells on a beach arranged in the pattern of 86 47—in slang, 86 means to get rid of something, and Trump is the 47th president—was a threat against Trump’s life. The grand jury also issued a warrant for Comey’s arrest. Comey has been a thorn in Trump’s side since the beginning of his first term, when Comey refused to drop the FBI investigation into the ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian operatives. Trump fired him. Then, in September 2025 under then–attorney general Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice charged Comey with lying to Congress, but a judge dismissed the case, saying that Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor who brought it, had been appointed illegally. Now, Acting Attorney General Blanche appears to be currying favor with Trump by going after Comey again. In July 2025, Trump also fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, from her job as assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Maurene Comey specializes in prosecuting white-collar crime and corruption. She led cases against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Comey moved to private practice but sued over her firing. The Department of Justice tried to get the case moved from court to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which has come under the sway of the Department of Justice itself, but today a judge kept the case in court, saying it was not a routine firing. “Maurene Comey was, by all accounts, an exemplary Assistant United States Attorney. In her nearly ten years working at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, she was assigned some of the country’s highest profile cases, and she consistently received the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike,” the judge said. Flailing on multiple fronts, Trump is so desperate to demonstrate dominance that this afternoon, at about 3:30, the official social media account of the White House posted a picture of Trump and King Charles, who is in the U.S. on a state visit, with the caption “TWO KINGS.” James Comey had his own answer to Trump’s aspirations to authoritarianism: “Well, they’re back,” he said in a video today. “This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago. And this won’t be the end of it. But nothing has changed with me. I’m still innocent. I’m still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go. “But,” he added, “it’s really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country. This is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be. And the good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values. Keep the faith.” —

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Juan Matute

R.B.R.

C.C.R.C.

Something to Know - 28 April

So, where are we today?   It's the same old stuff, rehashed with new nuances, but still the same old stuff.    Clear evidence shows Trump did not know what he was getting into when he decided to play war with Iran.  He apparently figured out that he and Hegseth could bomb and blow up things, and the other side would capitulate and give in.   That did not happen, what he did do was commit war crimes, act without consulting allies, and proceed without Congressional approval. Now he is in a truly unpopular position; his poll numbers are sick and Republicans seem to be losing special elections right and left.    Trump wants out.   He wants to act as the general contractor for his ballroom project, supervise the mall's reflecting pond, and get his name plastered on any federal building.   He wants to check in on a war, but he can never leave.  He's stuck in the Hotel California curse.  What he has really done is upset the global economy and he and his inept cronies do not know the first thing about negotiations or the the strength of holding firm with allies.   He blasts away, and now he is running low on all resources a president needs to survive.

Geddry’s Newsletter a Publication of nGenium <marygeddry@substack.com>	7:44 AM (21 minutes ago)
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	Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Geddry's Newsletter Special Relationship, Terms and Conditions Apply King Charles comes to Washington as Epstein shadows, Iran blowback, and billionaire politics expose who really gets protected. Mary Geddry Apr 28   READ IN APP   Good morning! Let’s start with the pageantry. Britain sent in the soft power cavalry, with King Charles and Queen Camilla arriving at the White House to soothe what remains of the “special relationship,” currently held together with diplomatic duct tape and polite denial. Trump and Melania rolled out the red carpet, and in a moment that perfectly captured the state of things, Trump was seen personally pointing out the floor marks so the King would know where to stand for the cameras. Staff usually handle that sort of choreography invisibly, but Trump, being Trump, couldn’t resist directing the scene himself. Two and a half centuries after the American Revolution, the President of the United States was staging-managing a British monarch for a photo op. The visit, of course, is less about tradition than damage control. Trump has spent the past few weeks berating allies over Iran, threatening tariffs over Britain’s digital services tax, and dismissing British military contributions as “toys.” So naturally, the fix is tea with the royals, a beehive tour, a 21-gun salute, and a Congressional address from Charles, because nothing says “healthy alliance” like asking the King to mop up after elected officials. There is an awkward shadow hanging over all the pageantry, and it is not subtle. The Epstein scandal has followed the royal visit across the Atlantic, dragging with it the monarchy’s own unresolved questions about elite accountability. Charles is pointedly not meeting with Epstein’s victims during the trip, citing ongoing investigations at home, a decision that has landed poorly with people still waiting for answers. Andrew’s entanglement with Epstein is no longer just a family embarrassment. It is a live legal and political problem, one that makes the pomp feel less dignified and a lot more performative. Then, in a moment of exquisitely bad timing for Buckingham Palace, Britain’s own ambassador to Washington managed to blow a hole through the premise of the visit. In leaked remarks, Sir Christian Turner dismissed the phrase “special relationship” as “quite nostalgic,” “backwards-looking,” and burdened with “a lot of baggage,” before adding the line that surely made every royal aide reach for the emergency teapot: “I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States, and that is probably Israel.” Which is awkward, given that King Charles is in Washington right now trying to perform the old relationship back into existence with a garden party and a cannon salute. Turner did try to cushion the blow, noting that U.S.–UK ties remain “so strong” and “intertwined” on defense and security. But the message was clear enough: whatever the “special relationship” used to mean, it is not what it used to be, and everyone in the room knows it. Just to make sure the leak had something for every crisis desk, Turner also called it “extraordinary” that the Epstein scandal has “brought down” senior figures in Britain while in the United States “it really hasn’t touched anybody,” pointing to what he politely described as “different levels of accountability in our systems.” So while Trump is out on the lawn pointing the King toward his carpet marks, the British ambassador is quietly reminding anyone listening that the real hierarchy of influence in Washington may lie somewhere else entirely. Which brings us to the allies. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, not exactly a bomb-throwing radical, has now openly said what European leaders used to whisper: that the United States went into the Iran war “without any strategy at all,” and that Iran’s leadership is “humiliating” Washington. He added the part every adult in the room already knew: “You don’t just have to get in, you have to get out again.” Iran, despite losing much of its conventional naval capability, has turned the Strait of Hormuz into a problem the United States can’t easily solve. It turns out you don’t need an aircraft carrier to disrupt global trade. You need speedboats, mines, drones, and just enough chaos that insurers and shipping companies decide capitalism can maybe take the scenic route. Iran’s so-called “mosquito fleet” has made reopening the strait far harder than closing it, and that asymmetry is now the defining feature of the conflict: America brought the hammer, and Iran brought the swarm. Negotiations look less like diplomacy and more like performance art with a catering budget. Iran has floated a proposal to ease the Hormuz crisis in exchange for ending the war and lifting the U.S. blockade, while effectively shoving the nuclear issue into the “we’ll circle back” pile. Washington’s response has been… less than coherent. Trump abruptly canceled a planned negotiating trip by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, declaring, “We have all the cards, they have none,” and adding that Iran “can call us anytime they want.” He also said he wasn’t sending envoys on “18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing,” which is certainly one way to describe diplomacy when you’ve already turned foreign policy into a hostage note. Iran is insisting talks cannot move forward unless the U.S. lifts the blockade, while the Revolutionary Guards are openly framing control of the Strait as “the definitive strategy of Islamic Iran.” So the two sides are now performing the same ritual in different costumes: Tehran says no talks without relief, Trump says no relief without surrender, and everyone else gets to watch oil prices, shipping lanes, and global nerves do interpretive dance. Russia is hovering just offstage, eager to be seen as a player without actually owning the consequences. Iran’s foreign minister is making stops in Moscow, Pakistan, and Oman, trying to widen the negotiating field, while Putin offers support just vague enough to preserve flexibility. It’s a delicate balance: help Iran enough to gain leverage, but not enough to inherit its problems. Through all of this, the markets are doing what markets do best: telling the truth. Oil is back above $110 a barrel, bond yields are rising, and inflation fears are creeping back into the conversation. Translation: whatever the politicians are saying, traders don’t believe this ends cleanly. In a move that should set off alarm bells far beyond the energy sector, the United Arab Emirates announced this morning it will leave OPEC next month. OPEC, the cartel that has spent decades trying to manage global oil supply. The reason? Abu Dhabi is tired of Saudi-led quotas limiting its ability to pump and wants to ramp up production just as the world scrambles for energy. The war in Iran isn’t just disrupting supply; it’s breaking the machinery designed to stabilize it. When one of the cartel’s major producers decides it would rather go solo in the middle of a geopolitical crisis, it tells you everything you need to know about how coordinated the “global order” currently is. Even as Iran demonstrates tactical resilience, there’s another side to the story. Inside the country, the pressure is building. Oil exports have collapsed under the U.S. blockade, crude is piling up in storage, and Iran is now resorting to using derelict tanks, improvised facilities, and even rail shipments to China to keep the system from seizing up. Production may have to be cut significantly if storage fills. Iran can disrupt the global economy, but it can’t sell its own oil. Elsewhere, the pattern of “rules for thee, not for me” continues. Ukraine is now facing a diplomatic clash with Israel after another Russian vessel carrying grain linked to occupied Ukrainian territory was allowed into Haifa. Kyiv says the Abinsk carried nearly 44,000 tons of wheat allegedly taken from occupied Ukrainian territories, and Ukrainian officials had reportedly warned Israel before the ship docked. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha put it plainly: Russia’s “illegal export of stolen Ukrainian agricultural products is part of Russia’s broader war effort,” and “such illegal trade with stolen goods must not be allowed.” That would be irritating enough on its own, but the hypocrisy lands harder because Ukraine has been careful, sometimes painfully careful, in its public support for Israel. After October 7, Zelensky condemned Hamas and said “Israel’s right to self-defense is unquestionable,” even as Ukraine was already fighting for its own survival and pleading for the same kind of security support Israel receives almost reflexively from Washington. What did Kyiv get back? Not much. Israel has condemned Russia’s invasion and provided limited assistance, including humanitarian aid and an aerial warning system, but it has repeatedly avoided sending weapons, largely because it does not want to anger Moscow and risk its freedom of action in Syria. Zelensky eventually said the quiet part out loud: “Israel made a mistake,” adding that he believed Israeli leaders were “afraid of Putin.” Now Ukraine gets to watch Israel, a country with enormous leverage in Washington, deep regional military reach, and a long-standing ability to demand solidarity from allies, shrug as allegedly looted Ukrainian grain rolls through Haifa. It is a small shipment in the scale of the war, but a big symbol: even friends can develop very selective eyesight when the cargo is profitable, the paperwork is convenient, and Russia is the one cashing the check. Wall Street banks are once again loading up on U.S. Treasuries, with holdings hitting levels not seen since before the 2008 crisis, thanks to Trump-era deregulation. On paper, this looks stabilizing, banks stepping back into a market that has increasingly relied on hedge funds and high-frequency traders. In reality, it’s more complicated. Banks are participating, but they’re not obligated to act as backstops, and the structure of the market has fundamentally changed. The plumbing is being rewired, but we won’t know how it holds up until something breaks. Legal analyst Katie Phang has filed a federal lawsuit against Trump’s acting Attorney General, accusing the DOJ of failing to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. According to the complaint, documents have been withheld, heavily redacted, and, in a particularly impressive feat, victims’ identifying information has been exposed while alleged perpetrators remain conveniently unnamed. Phang is asking for a special master to review the materials, which is legal shorthand for “someone who is not currently involved in this mess.” Whether the lawsuit succeeds is almost beside the point. The point is that the story the administration hoped would quietly disappear is doing the opposite. Finally, zooming out, we arrive at the day’s unifying theme. If you were wondering who’s actually running things these days, the answer appears to be: a rotating cast of billionaires with grievances. Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and one of the architects of the modern internet, is now pouring tens of millions into fighting a proposed wealth tax while reportedly relocating to avoid it. Elon Musk is in court trying to reshape the future of artificial intelligence through a lawsuit that reads like a custody battle between tech oligarchs. Trump is hosting literal royalty while governing like a man who thinks “strategy” is something you say after the fact. On Friday, workers, students, parents, immigrants, educators, union members, and exhausted citizens with functioning moral compasses are expected to take action across the country under the banner of May Day Strong. The demand is simple enough to fit on a protest sign and apparently still too complicated for billionaires to understand: workers over billionaires. Organizers are calling for “No Work. No School. No Shopping,” with as many as 3,000 actions expected nationwide. Rallies, marches, teach-ins, walkouts, and economic-blackout actions are planned in all 50 states, a reminder that authoritarianism does not just arrive with troops in the streets. Sometimes it arrives as a budget cut, a deportation raid, a union-busting campaign, a school closure, a tariff tantrum, or another war sold as strength by men who will never pay the price. The message from May Day is not subtle, and thank God for that. Tax the rich. Defend public schools. Protect immigrant families. Stop ICE. Stop the wars. Expand democracy, not corporate power. After months of Trump governing like a wrecking ball with a press office, May Day is shaping up as a national refusal to keep pretending any of this is normal. The point of a shutdown is to show who actually keeps the country running. It is not the billionaires, the courtiers, the crypto grifters, or the golf-cart Caesars pointing kings at their carpet marks. It has always been workers. On May Day, an actual weekday, no polite weekend rally, they intend to remind everyone.

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Juan Matute

R.B.R.

C.C.R.C.

Something to Laugh About 27 April

The aftermath of stories related to the Whitehouse Correspondents' Dinner fill the news coverage.   It is only fitting that Trump wants ro revert to an old method of handling those on death row.   There seems to be a backlog convicts that he wants to be rid of, so he wants Firing Squads.   In fact, he probably figures out that he can make a lot of money by staging them at the end of his Marftial Arts UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship programs)

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Trump’s BRUTAL CRAZY Iran War Brain Cartoons! 100+ Political Cartoons We have a brilliant to slideshow video slideshow podcast called Trump’s BRUTAL CRAZY Iran War BRAIN Cartoons! Don’t miss it on YouTube!  Here are some great Trump War Brain cartoons from three of our great Canadian Cagle Cartoonists! Michael DeAdder   Graham MacKay        Dale Cummings #5. Dave Whamond    –

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Juan Matute
R.B.R.
C.C.R.C.