The Worst People At The Worst Time

Leadership is just fucking awful.

HOUSE MINORITY LEADER Hakeem Jeffries was asked Monday whether Democrats should continue to advocate for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and the other men wrongly shipped to El Salvador, by making the trip to the country to put a spotlight on the issue.

“Our reaction is that Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president in modern American history,” Jeffries responded.

But while Jeffries may be publicly agnostic on El Salvador trips like the one Reps. Robert Garcia, Yassamin Ansari, Maxwell Frost, and Maxine Dexter recently took, privately he sees the trips as having run their course. Two Democratic aides and a lawmaker who spoke to The Bulwark said that the minority leader has discouraged further excursions to the country even as pressure mounts within the party to turn up the heat on Trump for sending 238 men to a notorious prison system known for human rights abuses.

“They want to let the El Salvador stuff slow down,” a senior House staffer said.

I'm starting to entertain conspiracy theories about just why they're so fucking horrible, because it defies all sense. As for this:

Weird they didn’t pushback on the central thrust of the piece and we communicated on other parts of the story 👇🏽

Here it is https://t.co/PzSGjtUP3i https://t.co/gSyQBBKoID

— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) April 30, 2025

I've seen this on stories before: where more important members of Congress use friendly journalists to undermine media outlets that are reporting on things that are unfavorable to them.

Bulwark journoo Carrasquillo could be full of shit here (I have no idea), but how can NYT reporter Karni be 100% confident of that? "My sources dispute..." is fine. But asserting it with such confidence! Shitting on a notional colleague like that! Amazing shit.

Note her reporting doesn't even really contradict! 

Lunch

Busy with some stuff this afternoon, so light blogging.

Checks Out

I don't know if she is this stupid or just believes her audience is, but generally I think we do have a problem with people having no clue about things like "what is the population of the United States" or "how many miles is New York from Los Angeles."

I don't expect most people to know these things with any precision, but at least they should know the answer to the latter is closer to 3000 than 300,000, for example.

Some Good News

For a change.

A federal judge in Vermont ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University who was detained by the Trump administration on 14 April.

Mahdawi walked out of immigration detention on Wednesday afternoon, greeting supporters and thanking them for their support.

A bad day for Columbia trustees.

Rest In Piss

In the good old days, Salon, which established its niche being "liberal" because it published *defenses of Bill Clinton*, was desperate not to be marginalized as a  "liberal" publication, so it published unhinged racist stuff from David Horowitz. 

Crazy Davey participated in the forums a bit, and was even more unhinged (likely drunk) there.

Salon would respond to reader complaints with the usual nonsense about publishing a broad range of ideas.

Trumpcession

Negative (-.3%) first quarter growth.

Morning

Humpday

Tuesday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

Get happy.

Everything Is Horrible

A daily rollercoaster ride from "it's worse than you thought" to "ok a judge slapped it down" to "ok they are mostly ignoring the judge" to "maybe they're obeying the judge" to "oh shit they did a new worse than you thought thing."

I am not the protagonist of this story, but especially with Elon's inclusion in season 2, it is hard not to think it is being written just to torment me.

I Thought There Were 200

We are saved!

America's Worst Humans

ICE agents.

Lunch

Eat

And What Would That Explanation Be

I suppose that in the age of Trump they do lack some high octane Frank Luntz bullshit, but of course Politico pretends not to understand that.

Behind closed doors, some Republicans are irked that their leaders are not doing enough explaining: One Republican with direct knowledge of the matter told POLITICO “there’s frustration for not laying out the rationale behind Medicaid cuts.”

"Fuck you, the rich want more money and they want you to die impoverished, you leeches" does need a bit of a glow up.

Can't Make A Dumb Joke Anymore

FIVE MINUTES LATER

White House says Amazon's decision to desplay tariff-based price increases on products is a "a hostile and political act by Amazon," who they accuse of working with "a Chinese propaganda arm."

[image or embed]

— Nikki McCann Ramírez (@nikkimcr.bsky.social) April 29, 2025 at 2:01 PM

ONE HOUR LATER

Amazon statement: “The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products. This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties.”

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) April 29, 2025

Oh, Canada

At least other countries benefit from Trump's election.

Shortly after 22:00 EDT (03:00 BST), Canada's public broadcaster CBC News projected that Mark Carney's Liberal Party was on its way to win enough seats in the House of Commons to form a government.

The conservative candidate lost his seat, which is funny.

Morning

Again

Monday Night

Rock on

You Take It On Faith, You Take It To The Heart

 

And Who Is That

I'm not sure if Trump really thinks his name is on the ballot in Canada or if he's helpfully informing Canadians that a vote for Poilievre is actually a vote to be governed by Trump.