Justice Department moves to toss seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys
No protections for gay or trans people, black people, or women, but more protections for Oath Keepers and Proud Boys…
Mississippi reveals its full history for America’s anniversary year, a contrast to federal efforts
‘Everything is gone’: Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon
AND NOW THE NEWS #598
WEDNESDAY,
APRIL 15, 2026
Election denial movement has been merged into the federal government
Excerpt: These new officials could influence how Trump reacts to the upcoming midterms as polling shows Republicans are approaching what could be a significant electoral loss, with the president’s approval rating nearing record lows, and public concern growing about the weak economy, the administration’s mass deportation effort and the war on Iran. Seemingly in preparation to head off such a blow, Trump has stepped up his efforts to “nationalize” the 2026 elections, saying that Republicans need “to take over” the midterms. Democrats who monitored Trump’s attempts to block his 2020 loss have begun to question whether he will allow a “blue wave,” particularly if it flips control of a House of Representatives that impeached him twice in his first term.
US Secret Police abduct Florida college student with wallet full of valid immigration documents
Excerpt: The ICE agent drove A.G. to the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations office on Delegates Drive in south Orlando, where they replaced his handcuffs with shackles.
He was interviewed and quizzed on his own history, as well as his family’s and his girlfriend’s. They asked him about the worst crime he’d seen committed since he’d been in the U.S., and how the notorious Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua operated, which puzzled him since he’s never had any connection. They had him remove his clothes to check for tattoos that they could trace to gang lineage.
He said he was in shock as he sat in a room with other detainees for most of the day.
“I have my work permit, I have my social security number, I pay my taxes, I go to college, I work, I don’t have a criminal record. I’ve never been pulled over, because I drive like an old man,” he said. “I was doing everything right.”
But after several hours, a Department of Homeland Security investigator told him he was being detained and sent to the Krome North Service Processing Center immigration facility in Miami-Dade County. He arrived around midnight.
It’s important for states and local authorities to prosecute, because Trump can’t pardon criminals for state crimes.
ICE moved prisoners out of an overcrowded Mesa facility before congressional oversight visit
California man shot by ICE is arrested by FBI and charged with ‘assault’
Excerpt: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially accused Hernandez of being a gang member wanted in connection to a murder, but his attorney has strongly denied those claims, and the justice department did not repeat those allegations in its complaint and press release on Tuesday.
… Patrick Kolasinski, Hernandez’s attorney, said Tuesday it was notable that after a weeklong investigation, the FBI did not speak with the key witnesses, including the agent who is the alleged victim.
ICE brutally abducts elderly protester—ambulance called to scene
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Docs show DHS lied about raid on Illinois apartments
Smell of feces, vomit fills crowded ICE facility, detainee’s wife says
Inside ICE jails, medical misdiagnoses and delays prove deadly
ICE abducts 2 doctors serving underserved Texas region
Man shot by ICE agents was stripped naked and abandoned without medical care, his lawyer says
Excerpt: After the shooting, federal immigration agents cut all of Hernández’s clothes off, took pictures of him, then left him handcuffed sitting naked on the side of the road without providing medical care, according to Kolasinski.
At least one eyewitness has come forward to support Hernández’s claim about how the incident first unfolded.
Death of Vietnamese immigrant in Indiana facility is latest ICE abductee fatality
Trump administration seeks medical records from federal workers and retirees
DOJ fires attorneys who prosecuted anti-abortion protesters who illegally blocked access to clinics
Federal workers can’t escape religious messages from their bosses: ‘This has never happened before’
Excerpt: On Easter Sunday, Department of Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins sent an agency-wide email with the subject line “He has risen!” It described the life of Jesus as “greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.”
Speaking to Wired, a department employee labeled the email “grotesque,” adding that such conduct would be unacceptable even for military chaplains.
Trump’s Acting A.G. says he won’t release even one more Trump-Epstein file
Excerpt: “No, we have released everything,” Blanche replied. “So listen, we reviewed six million pieces of paper. What we released with anything that’s associated with the Epstein file. So we are not sitting on a single piece of paper.”
Trump attacks Pope Leo as too liberal and ‘weak on crime’
Vance says the Pope should be more careful when talking about theology
Vance says he converted to Catholicism in 2019, when he was 35. The Pope, I’m pretty sure, has been Catholic all his life.
Amid quarrel with pope, Trump strips Miami charity of funding to house migrant kids
On principle, of course, the government should not be funding any aspect of anything any religion does, even charities. But this is merely more Trump retaliation.
Now that IRS is helping ICE, US could be out billions as undocumented immigrants stop filing taxes
Treasury Sec Bessent says climate change is a belief of the “elite”
Trump deletes post with AI image of himself as Jesus-like figure after outcry
It amuses me to see what Trump insanity gets through to people who aren’t overtly political. This one got through to several acquaintances.
Bill Gov. DeSantis’ desk would rename State Road 80 for Donald Trump
Fun fact: This particular stretch of State Road 80, called Southern Boulevard, leads directly to Mar-a-Lago.
Another pardoned 1/6/2021 insurrectionist guilty on child porn charges
Trump admin lawyer applies to be law school dean, suggests it might help investigations go away
Virginia Governor ends tax breaks for Confederate groups
Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams is granted Albanian citizenship
Why the ‘Nazi tattoo guy’ is winning in Maine
Graham Platner sounds like a genuine leftist we should root for, but has a history that’s complicated, including a Nazi-curious tattoo. I’m about as far from Maine as you can get without leaving the continental U S of A, so my take on Platner is: I’ll trust Mainers who see him up close and personal.
Irish man scales an American C-130 with a hatchet and puts it out of commission
Demonstrators throw sex toys at police during anti-ICE protest in downtown Los Angeles
Sam Altman’s home targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested
Google News is surfacing Polymarket betting pages alongside traditional news sources
Ad companies settle with FTC over claims of harm to conservative sites
In our UpsideDown America, it’s collusion and censorship when ad companies warn their customers about sites publishing misinformation, where perhaps advertisers wouldn’t want their ads to run.
In what universe did this take place?
What kind of question is that to even ask in a headline?
Trump endorses Palantir, causing its stock to soar
Trump family deal spree could open door for future presidents to profit from office
Excerpt: “I don’t think there’s any line right now between policy decisions and political calculations and the interest of the Trump family,” said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University.
The bizarre connection between Iran negotiations and Trump’s crypto firm
Google, Priceline, and a company called Guest Reservations work together to swindle travelers
SantaCon leader ran his own $1 million con game
50 uncirculated 2025 US pennies for just $9.95 plus shipping
It’s the beginning of the end for Tapatio hot sauce
State Department tells human rights watchdog to ignore Trump’s extrajudicial killings
Excerpt: The United States is waging a pressure campaign against the leading inter-American human rights watchdog to squash a potential investigation into illegal U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
After a recent meeting of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the State Department pushed the organization to shift its focus to other issues instead of the monthslong campaign of extrajudicial killings by the U.S. military.
Though the president of the IACHR disputes that the U.S. is pressuring his organization, the State Department responded to questions about the meeting with a statement urging the commission to move onto other matters. A past IACHR president said the organization may fear the “wrath” of the United States, which is the largest financial contributor to the commission’s parent organization, if it launches an investigation.
U.S. lawmakers and experts say an investigation by the IACHR could be an important mechanism to hold the Trump administration accountable for the lethal strikes. Scores of civilians have been killed in the campaign, which has seen families of victims petition the IACHR and sue the U.S. government, accusing it of wrongful death and extrajudicial killings.
Handcuffed, 90 pounds, face-first on concrete: black teenage girl is suing the San Bernardino Police
Fired Colorado cop sentenced to 17 years in prison for sexual assault of child while on duty
For allegedly speeding, Indiana police chase driver into fatal wreck
New York correction officer found guilty of manslaughter in prison beating death of Messiah Nantwi
Houston votes to limit collaboration with ICE, but Houston Police Dept ignores the law
Excerpt: Despite Houston City Council voting to limit police officers’ cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents this week, the department’s prior rules remain in force, according to a late Thursday email from police leadership.
Officers for now should follow a directive Chief Noe Diaz sent out following a press conference last month that requires police to give ICE agents 30 minutes to reach the scene for a noncriminal administrative warrant, according to a department-wide email obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
Amazon asshat Andy Jassy defends spending $200 billion in AI push
Excerpt: Other tech titans like Microsoft and Meta have also ramped up their spending projections recently. Microsoft spent more than $88 billion in its 2025 fiscal year, which ended in June, and is on track to spend far more in 2026. Through the first half of its 2026 fiscal year, Microsoft’s capital expenditures totaled $72.4 billion as it increased spending on high-tech computer chips. Meta is expected to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion this year on its AI-related efforts.
Me again: Give me a happy ending just once, Lord. Give me the weakening and collapse of all these shitty corporations.
Scientists invented a fake disease, and AI told people it was real
Excerpt: The condition doesn’t appear in the standard medical literature — because it doesn’t exist. It’s the invention of a team led by Almira Osmanovic Thunström, a medical researcher at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who dreamt up the skin condition and then uploaded two fake studies about it to a preprint server in early 2024. Osmanovic Thunström carried out this unusual experiment to test whether large language models (LLMs) would swallow the misinformation and then spit it out as reputable health advice. “I wanted to see if I can create a medical condition that did not exist in the database,” she says.
For its next act, Allbirds makes an unlikely pivot from shoes to AI
We’re using so much AI that computing firepower is running out
Mutually Automated Destruction: the escalating global AI arms race
Meta builds AI version of Mark Zuckerberg to interact with staff
Tech company launches AI Jesus you can talk to for $2 a minute
Gray whales are dying in San Francisco Bay at an alarming rate – this isn’t normal
Seven countries now generate 100% of their electricity from renewable energy
Universe expected to decay in 10⁷⁸ years, much sooner than previously thought
Mario Adorf
actor, The Tin Drum
Bob Hall
won the Boston Marathon in a wheelchair
Björgvin Halldórsson
rock’n’roller, “Bestu jólalög Björgvins”
Harry Kim
rock’n’roller, Phenix Horns & Earth, Wind and Fire
Sid Krofft
gave us H.R. Pufnstuf
Angela Pleasence
actress, Doctor Who
Nothing will meaningfully improve
until billionaires fear for their lives.
4/15/2026
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.
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