Trump directs officials to pay all DHS employees

Everything Trump does is either illegal, unconstitutional, or both, but this one’s particularly blatant. There goes Article 1 of the US Constitution…

Trump doesn’t have to turn over presidential records, Justice Department illegally says

The Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the “Department of War” all posted explicit & illegal Christian nationalist messages on Easter

Christian charalatanism is the official religion of US government.

Retired matador is gored to death before annual bullfight in Spain

My congratulations to the bull.

Trump’s secret police took 3-year-old from her legal immigrant father, assigned her to foster care, where she was sexually abused, and then feds tried to keep it hushed up

Oh, am I supposed to say “allegedly”? Fuck that. Nobody involved in this war of terror against immigrants deserves any whisper of the presumption of innocence they so reliably deny others.

DOJ admits ICE has engaged in illegal courthouse arrests for most of the past year

ICE abducts family and child waiting in the lobby of Ventura County Government Center

ICE refuses to allow life-saving dialysis for abducted man — unless he signs deportation papers

Canadian mother and daughter with all legal paperwork in order are illegally abducted and jailed 19 days, then released with mom wearing an ankle monitor

“They’re using the immigration system to try to silence him”: ICE arrests the head of Wisconsin’s largest Islamic group

Double amputee isn’t allowed to use prosthetics in ICE prison

ICE intentionally crash into Maryland man’s van—rushed to hospital with “significant injuries.”

Charges filed against bounty hunters who drew ‘replica firearms’ at anti-ICE protesters

Louisiana lawmakers have advanced a bill to require that state election officials send personal information on all registered voters to the federal government for further scrutiny

Idaho governor signs bill to criminalize trans people using public restrooms

Library director in Tennessee fired for refusing to move gender-themed books

Pete Hegseth allows troops to carry personal firearms on military bases

Trump: “With a little more time, we can easily open the Hormuz Strait, take the oil, & make a fortune.”

White House seeks $1.5 trillion for defense in new budget request

That’s a bit of money — $1,500-billion, or about $11,000 per American household. Won’t you please chip in?

For Easter, Trump promises war crimes

Excerpt: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Trump: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!”

The American President is so obviously out of his mind there’s no knowing what he’ll do next, but nuking Iran is certainly a possibility, and there’s nobody left in the military who’d hesitate to follow that order.

Roughly 2,000 ships are stuck in the Persian Gulf with more than 20,000 seafarers on them, according to the International Maritime Organization

Pentagon is covering up Iran war casualties

With bases under attack, US moves troops to hotels where they are shielded by civilians — that’s a war crime

AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying.

Remember the oil shocks of the ’70s? This is going to be worse. Much worse.

Firm backed by Trump sons tries to sell drone interceptors to Gulf states being attacked by Iran

Trump seeks $152 million to begin to turn Alcatraz back into a prison

This is Trump-class stupid. The walls at Alcatraz are like graham crackers. Turning the island into a prison again would require all-new water and plumbing and electricity — and all-new buildings — and of course, eliminate one of San Francisco’s most popular and worthwhile attractions, which is probably the main intent.

Trump: We can’t take care of sick people or kids because we’d rather use the money on war

No one at Waffle House remembers FEMA official who says he teleported in

Excerpt: Shastoni Burge has worked for a decade as a Waffle House server in Rome, Ga., much of it on the night shift. She said she was once punched in the face by a customer. She saw someone overdose in the bathroom. One night, a man took all the steak knives and threatened the staff with them.

But she has never seen anyone teleport to the place. “I’ve seen it all,” said Ms. Burge, 38. “But I’ve never seen that.”

Another round of massive budget cuts for US science proposed by Trump regime

CDC halts testing for rabies, smallpox, and mpox

Lost science: He studied how to transport blood to wounded Marines

Forest Service will close research stations that study wildfire risk

Enjoy this expert bird call.

Student debt burdened them, so they moved abroad and stopped paying

The student loan system is a criminal enterprise.

Big banks seeking a piece of SpaceX’s IPO must subscribe to Elon Musk’s Grok

Don’t ever tell me rich = smart. Elon Musk is dumber than my shoes.

Zuckerberg email to Musk while ‘DOGE’ strangled US government: “I’ve got [Meta/Facebook] teams on alert to take down content doxxing or threatening the people on your team. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”

Hershey to shift back to classic recipe for all Reese’s products after criticism

US sues Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois to stop regulation of prediction markets

Trump killed the one thing that made filing taxes easier

Excerpt: Almost every president since Ronald Reagan has said that the government should create a simple electronic system for filing federal income taxes. The necessary technology has existed for decades. Many developed nations operate such tax filing systems. In countries including Japan and the Netherlands, the government handles the paperwork and then provides most taxpayers with a statement for review and approval.

Americans, by contrast, spend an average of 13 hours and $290 to file.

Why? Because tax preparation companies and Republican lawmakers have a shared interest in torturing taxpayers. The companies want to ensure that Americans remain dependent on their services. The Republicans want people to hate paying taxes.

OkCupid faces no penalty for giving 3-million dating-app photos to facial recognition firm

Perplexity CEO says AI layoffs aren’t so bad because people hate their jobs anyways

Vertical farms tried to compete with open field farming. It isn’t going well.

Capitalism, man. New hires at minimum wage, but there’s always billions to blow on big ideas that haven’t been thought through.

Microsoft’s buggy apps reach deep space — “I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those is working,” says Artemis II commander

Using a VPN is grounds for feds to spy on you

Excerpt: Several federal agencies, including the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the Federal Trade Commission, have recommended that consumers use VPNs to protect their privacy. But following that advice may inadvertently cost Americans the very protections they’re seeking.

When racism is a crime: Brazil puts a tourist on trial for word and gesture

Excerpt: The video, recorded in January by an employee of the bar, showed Agostina Páez imitating a monkey and uttering a racist slur as she walked away.

In Brazil, the backlash was swift. Ms. Páez, a lawyer, was arrested and charged with making a racist insult, a crime under Brazilian law. Now, Ms. Páez, 29, faces a possible prison sentence of two to five years and hefty fines, in a case that has kindled fierce debate in Brazil and Argentina.

A court in Rio de Janeiro began hearing evidence last month, and will issue a verdict in the coming weeks. Ms. Páez has apologized for the gesture, but said she was provoked.

Me again: In the 1980s I would’ve said free speech is paramount, this law is unjust. In the 2020s I’m older, maybe wiser, definitely crankier, and I’d say this law and this prosecution kinda rocks.

New York Times pitchbot: Geophysicists say there is an increased risks of destructive floods and wild fires due to climate change. A guy who thinks he was teleported to a Waffle House says there’s nothing to worry about. For busy Americans, it can be hard to know who to trust.

New York Times pitchbot: Whether it’s children in liberal families watching Ms. Rachel or teenagers in conservative student groups praising Adolf Hitler, young people on both sides have embraced controversial figures.

New York Times pitchbot: If Jesus had focused more on kitchen table issues and less on unpopular outcasts like lepers and prostitutes, he might have won more support from white working-class Judeans.

Grandmother faces trial in Alabama for wearing penis costume to No Kings protest

One person dead at the scene, others hospitalized when cops chase stolen Uhaul into wreck

Florida judge uses Stand Your Ground law to clear cops who killed two innocent bystanders after firing more than 200 rounds in less than 25 seconds

Former NYPD sergeant, 3 others charged in alleged bribery, kickback scheme

4 Baltimore police officers indicted on assault, false report, false statement, misconduct charges

Washington: All responding deputies kept bodycams off when responding to boss’s drunk driving wreck, but “no evidence was found of intentional misconduct”

Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it

Excerpt: A.I. being A.I., things occasionally go haywire. Sometimes when Claude misbehaves and fails to test the code, Ebert scolds the agent: Claude, you really do have to run all the tests.

To avoid repeating these sorts of errors, Ebert has added some stern warnings to his prompt file, the list of instructions — a stern Ten Commandments — that his agents must follow before they do anything. When you behold the prompt file of a coder using A.I., you are viewing a record of the developer’s attempts to restrain the agents’ generally competent, but unpredictably deviant, actions.

New York Times drops freelance journalist who used AI to write book review

Sorry to sound like Grandpa on The Waltons, but when you’re paid to do something — write, in this case — you ought to do it.

‘No on-site doctor’: Dental student died in ICU overseen by remote ‘tele-health’ physician who pronounced him dead on a video screen, lawsuit says

Father and son incinerated after ‘self-driving’ Tesla suddenly slammed into tree, lawsuit says

Netflix, Meta, and IBM speakers: AI will make anyone a 10x programmer, but with 10x the cleanup

“Cognitive surrender” leads AI users to abandon logical thinking, research finds

Microsoft says Copilot is for entertainment purposes only, not serious use — firm pushing AI hard to consumers and businesses tells users not to rely on it for important advice

Target has a warning if you use Google’s AI to shop

Excerpt: The new terms and conditions say that if a customer authorizes an AI shopping agent to act on their behalf, those purchases and transactions would be “considered transactions authorized by you.”

In other words, the customer would still have to pay, even if, let’s say, the bot ordered the wrong item. The policy also notes that Target does not guarantee that third-party AI tools “will act exactly as you intend in all circumstances.”

‘Harrowing’: Cyclone Narelle leaves graveyard of turtles, dolphins and seabirds in Western Australia

‘On a whole other level’: rapid snow melt-off in American west stuns scientists

Record high ocean temperatures off southern California raise fears of prolonged marine heatwave

Florida pastor faces child porn charges, exchanging images online

Idaho pastor gets 17 years on child porn charges

Hegseth holds Protestant-only religious service at Pentagon

Hegseth says US troops are fighting for Jesus. The Pope disagrees.

Minnesota pastor accused of sexually abusing child under 13 years old

South Carolina pastor arrested on molestation charges in Louisiana, where he used to work

Hitler’s edifice complex

Excerpt: He wanted it big. He wanted lots of gold, lots of marble. He wanted visitors awestruck by his architectural expansion of the country’s symbolic seat of power. “They should sense the strength and grandeur of the German Reich as they walk from the entrance to the reception hall,” Adolf Hitler told his chief architect, Albert Speer, outlining his plans for an extension to the old Reich chancellery, at Wilhelmstrasse 77 in Berlin.

The new annex, connected to the chancellery by a marble corridor hung with crystal chandeliers, was part of Hitler’s ambitious plans to align the Berlin cityscape with his vision for the future of the country. Hitler wanted a Triumphbogen, a triumphal arch, twice the size of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. He wanted an “Avenue of Splendor” for military parades. “The Champs-Élysées is a hundred meters wide,” Hitler told Speer. “We will make our avenue twenty meters wider.” A planned Volkshalle was to accommodate 180,000. The Eiffel Tower could fit beneath its cupola. This “Hall of the People” was to be topped by the largest swastika on Earth. Berlin itself was to be rechristened as Weltstadt Germania, “Capital of the World.”

Speer embellished these extravagantly outsized “Hitler branded designs”—Entwürfe Hitlerscher Prägung—with fascistic flourishes: bundled reeds, or fasces; spread-winged eagles; and enormous twisted crosses. In 1938, when André François Poncet, the French ambassador to Berlin, visited Hitler at the Berghof, the Nazi leader’s Alpine retreat outside Berchtesgaden, he was led through a “gallery of Roman pillars” to an “immense glassed-in rotunda” with a dramatic view that gave one the impression of being suspended in the air. “Was this edifice the work of a normal mind,” François-Poncet wondered in his memoirs, “or of one tormented by megalomania and haunted by visions of domination?”

Another perspective on Democrats and Republicans

Excerpt: I get poorer and poorer no matter who runs the show. I don’t give a shit about the cultural stuff, LOL! I don’t find it remotely difficult to not be bothered by other orientations. Immigrants don’t bother me. I like the Palestinian who changes my oil. He does a better job and is faster and cheaper than these fucking chain oil change shops. I like the Asians at the Chinese place I go get my foreign food from. We got Mexicans who cut the grass at our council flat. They do fine. White folk don’t want those jobs. I’m tired of all the white folk complaining about jobs they don’t even want. SHUT UP, ALREADY!

Justice Alito was secretly hospitalized last month

Damn the secrecy — cheating us all of a chance to hope for Alito’s death.

Tariq al-Sawah
illegal life sentence at Guantanamo

Roy Harriger
Christian minister

Mary Beth Hurt
actress, The World According to Garp

Suki Lahav
rock’n’roller, E Street Band

Stephen Lewis
gave a damn

Walt Maddox
rock’n’roller, The Marcels

Christopher North
rock’n’roller, Ambrosia

Laurie Webb
actor, Doctor Who

Nothing will meaningfully improve
until billionaires fear for their lives.

4/6/2026

Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer. Tip ‘o the hat to the Anderson Valley Advertiser,Daily Grail,Fat Magic,Jemin Na CPA,Joe My God,Slackville,Voenix Rising,Welcome Scum,What Not’s, Jamie Zawinski,and anywhere else I’ve stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.

Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Joey Jo Jo & John the Basket emeritus, Jeff Meyer, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn’t always shitty.

News always and only from reliable sources, and I decide what’s reliable — no right-wing bullshit, no Substack because fuck Nazis, and no RawStory, Newsweek, or other clickbait sites. Written news is preferred; video links will be rare, and damned near never to videos where a reporter or podcaster simply reads a script or does improv — that’s show biz, not news.

If you can’t access an article linked here, due to a paywall, forced registration for spam, or any website’s anti-reading layout, simply let me know and I’ll reply with the article’s complete text.

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It’s different BARTing to Berkeley to sell fish, instead of just rolling out of bed and walking to Telegraph. Different, not better.

And for the first time today, I worked next to Jasper. It wouldn’t have been my 101st choice, but the only other openings were in illegal spaces, and word on the street was that there’d be enforcement this weekend.

So Jasper was my next-booth neighbor and potty-break watchmate, and we were fairly friendly all day. We even spoke a few civil sentences. I still hate him, though, like Picard hates the Borg.

When the day was done, and I BARTed back to the Mission. I’m extremely not wild about the long commute and biting BART fare.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

It’s my tradition, when I’m new in a neighborhood, to give the area a long, lazy walk. So tonight, once I’d climbed up the stairs and dropped my backpack at the hotel, I came back down the stairs and toured my corner of the Mission.

Needles appear now and then along the curb, because junkies are litterbugs, but it’s not a wasteland here. We have doughnut shops and cafes, several bodegas, a coffee shop that looks OK, and the corner bookstore has a cat that sleeps around Shakespeare, same as I do. No boarded-up storefronts.

Lots of Hispanics, pierced people, and youth maybe up to no good but not in a bad way.
There are also a few yuppie-type stores, so the threat of gentrification looms and maybe this neighborhood will be gone in ten years. I’m fat, though, and never exercise, so I’ll probably be gone by then, too.

For those thinking of dying in San Francisco, there’s a funeral parlor conveniently located on the next block. Also near enough to visit is the block where I’d lived with Pike and Terry. I walked that street, looked up at the window that had once been mine, but didn’t buzz the bell, because they don’t live there any more. How do I know? There are nice-looking curtains and potted plants in what used to be our front window, and neither Pike nor Terry were ever potted plant people.

My two maybe favorite places in the city, the Roxie theater and the Sincere Cafe, are close enough I’ll be a regular again — starting tonight.

It wasn’t on the agenda, but walking close enough to see the cafe’s neon sign, I had to eat dinner there. Feels like a year since my last visit, but the restaurant’s only waiter, Ken, recognized me, and asked if I wanted the Number 1.

That was always my usual order, and of course that’s what I ordered again. It was great, still lots of food for not much money, a combination I like. Ken talked about baseball but not so much as to be a bother, and I tipped him well. The meal felt more like home, honestly, than the hotel does yet.

The hotel is getting there, though. When I walked into my room after dinner at the Sincere, a good-sized roach scurried under the bed. I thought about giving chase and splatter, but that would’ve meant lifting the mattress and frame, and I was too tired, so that one got away.

When I went for a drink of water, two large roaches were in the sink, and I squirted them with Lysol, the only thing toxic nearby, then watched them die. I’m serving them a buffet, I suppose, with sandwich bits that fall between the sheets or onto the floor when I’m eating, leaving butter on the plastic knife in the wash basin, or dropping empty but unlidded yogurt containers in the trash.

If I was a neater guy — fewer crumbs, wash the dishes pronto, careful with trash, etc — I’d probably have fewer roaches, but I’m not, so soon there’ll be more roaches, and more and more…

And I gotta say, I’m happy here.

Pathetic Life
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Haven’t had a shower since (lemme think…) Sunday morning, and I’m beginning to have a scent about me, so after ascertaining that the hotel has running water, I grabbed a towel and a bar of soap and trudged to the shower down the hall.

There’s water, but no hot water.

Silly me, thinking of a shower at 8AM, when early risers have already showered the tank to empty. I’m not stinky enough to endure a cold shower, so my odor will continue.

I’ll need to shower earlier here, when there’s still hot water in the tank. I’m an insomniac anyway, almost always wide awake for at least an hour between short bouts of sleep, so my shower-time will be whenever I’m awake in the dead of night.

It’s all a part of getting to know the new digs, and it won’t be a big inconvenience.

♦ ♦ ♦  

BARTed to Berkeley for a day of selling fish. The work part of the day was dull, but it was sunny out, so Telegraph Ave was a parade of beautiful women in t-shirts, short shorts, and summer dresses. I worked near Jacque, and he reminded me that I’m invited to his place, for more of I, Claudius any night I want.

And I do kinda want. I want more of Masterpiece Theatre, and more of his wife’s good cooking, and if Jacque comes with the deal that’s OK. But not until I’m a little more settled and finished unpacking, please.

Though I didn’t say it, I do wonder what’s up with this guy Jacque. Why is he in such a rush to be my buddy? I live alone, work alone, I’m never outgoing, and he and I haven’t had any scintillating conversations really, not on the Ave and not at his house when I’ve been there, twice. I don’t dislike him, but he’s not best-buddy material.

And it’s barely been a week and a half since the last time I was at his place, but this is the second time he’s asked when’s the next time. I don’t know, man. The next time is whenever the next time is, but if you want to be my friend, don’t start by being a nag.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Back home… (It still feels weird calling the hotel ‘home’. No place is home until you stop thinking, hey, I live here.)

Anyway, back home I was preparing four peanut butter & fake cheese sandwiches, when I heard the shouting. There’ve been a few liquor- and testosterone-fueled arguments down the hall, but this wasn’t another. This was protest-hollering, coming from the street, so I pantsed-up and went to the fire escape to see what was the ruckus.

One of the things I love about San Francisco is that you don’t have to go to political rallies. They come to you.

Like, the day those four LA cops were found not guilty in the beating of Rodney King, I didn’t have to wonder how to get involved in a protest. It came right down Mission Street outside my window, and what-the-hell-I-wasn’t-doing-anything so I joined in, not knowing it would evolve into a riot. That was a wild night.

And then a few days later, when the police chief suspended the Bill of Rights, I didn’t have to call a hotline to find out where to rally. It’s San Francisco, and more specifically it’s the Mission, so I just waited for the noise to come, and then laced up my shoes and walked and shouted.

Tonight, standing on the fire escape, I saw hundreds of angry people four stories below. One of them was shouting slogans into a battery-powered bullhorn, but she must’ve bought it at Radio Shack, because only the cadence came through, never the words. A few banners said things like, “Stop racist police attacks,” so they were presumably pissed about those four cops caught on camera a few days ago, beating some people after a chase.

“Police beatings” is a redundancy, like “ATM machine.” Beatings is what police do. That, and getting away with it.

I’m strongly opposed to the beatings and the police, but I’m eating dinner here. And more urgently, there are lots of cops out the window, watching the protesters, and you know how that’s going to end. When the march begins winding down and the crowd breaks up, cops will corner some of the protesters and baton their heads to mush, and then arrest them for assaulting an officer.

Protesting is your American right, and hooray for that, but cops love beating up protesters. Nobody talks about it but it happens, reliably, and it’s guaranteed at protests against police brutality.

Nothing but respect for the marchers, but I’m not up for it tonight. If I put my sandwiches down for later the bread will get hard to chew, and I’m enjoying the zine I’m reading right now, and there’s hot water at the tap so I’m gonna take that long-postponed shower.

Pathetic Life
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