Democrats scored a big win last night as Virginia voters supported a redistricting plan favoring Democratic candidates. Trump’s plan to get Republican states to redistrict is coming back to bite him.
Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a Democratic redistricting plan that could allow the party to pick up as many as four new seats in the midterm elections, NBC News projects.
With 97% of the vote in, the “yes” vote on the ballot referendum held a narrow lead of 3 percentage points.
Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger
The special election is a major victory for Democrats as they seek to gain control of the narrowly divided House this fall. Democrats have now won statewide votes in California and Virginia to redraw congressional maps as part of a mid-decade redistricting arms race that began last year when President Donald Trump urged GOP-led states to alter their district lines.
Republicans had hoped they could insulate their three-seat House majority, but the result of the redistricting back and forth may end up being close to a wash.
The constitutional amendment that was on the Virginia ballot Tuesday sought to authorize the Democratic-controlled Legislature to bypass the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission and implement a new congressional map through the end of the decade.
Democrats’ proposed map is designed to leave just one solidly Republican district out of 11 in the state. Currently, Virginia is represented by six Democrats and five Republicans in the House.
After Republicans enacted new maps last year in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina, Virginia offered a rare, seat-rich prize for Democrats — who control the redistricting process in fewer states — as they sought to respond.
“Virginia just changed the trajectory of the 2026 midterms,” Virginia Democratic state House Speaker Don Scott said in a statement. “At a moment when Trump and his allies are trying to lock in power before voters have a say, Virginians stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country.”
In a statement, Gov. Abigail Spanberger said she was looking forward to campaigning with candidates to win the new newly drawn congressional seats and said she was committed to returning to the state’s bipartisan redistricting after the 2030 census.
There will likely be court challenges, but for now it’s looking good for Democrats. Now Republicans are talking about redistricting in Florida, but that may be problematic.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has said he intends to call a special session of the state Legislature to draw a new map, which could net Republicans as many as four or five seats.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
But those efforts face a big hurdle, as the Florida Constitution includes anti-gerrymandering language that prohibits redistricting with the intent to favor political parties. Changing it would require a snap popular referendum that would need to reach a 60 percent threshold — a heavy lift with time running short.
“This war is not over. Next week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is hauling the Florida legislature back into a special session to redraw maps because Republicans know they are on the verge of an epic defeat in November,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday night in a statement.
“If Florida Republicans proceed with this illegal scheme, they will only create more prime pick-up opportunities for Democrats, just as they did with Trump’s gerrymander in Texas.”
Some Republicans have also expressed concern about redistricting backfiring on the GOP in the state.
Alex Alvarado, in an analysis for the Civic Data and Research Institute, wrote Republicans could potentially go from four to seven competitive seats, but warned, “Aggressive redistricting strategies aimed at maximizing Republican seat count may paradoxically increase Republican vulnerability to adverse electoral conditions.”
That’s particularly true when political winds are blowing hard against President Trump and his party.
Yes, Trump’s poll numbers keep getting worse.
The Guardian: Trump approval slips as polls show warning signs for Republicans ahead of midterms.
A trio of political polls indicate public approval of Donald Trump’s management of the US economy, immigration and the Iran conflict is slipping, flashing warning lights for Trump-aligned Republican candidates with six months to go until the US midterm elections.
Polls by Reuters-Ipsos poll, Strength in Numbers-Verasight and AP-NORC had the president’s approval rating hovering in the mid-30s, at 36%, 35% and 33% respectively, which are near his lowest numbers.
The poll showed that Trump’s handling of the economy has fallen to 30% approval, down from 38% in March, while 72% said the country is headed in the wrong direction, a figure unchanged since February. Just 23% approve of how he is handling the cost of living, while 76% disapprove.
A Reuters-IPSOS poll published on Wednesday also found that Trump’s signature migrant deportation policies could harm Republicans in November’s congressional elections: 52% of Americans said they were less likely to support a candidate who backs Trump’s approach to deportations, significantly more than the 42% who said they were more likely to support such a candidate.
That poll also found division on the issue was greater on the issue among non-aligned voters, or independents, with 57% saying they prefer a candidate who opposes Trump’s deportations and 32% preferring candidates who support Trump on the issue.
A bit more from the Guardian article:
The president’s immigration policy was supported by 50% of the country in the weeks after his January 2025 inauguration. But according to Reuters, only 40% currently approve. After the clashes between immigration enforcement agents and protesters early in the year, resulting in two protester deaths in Minneapolis, the administration has slowed its detention of immigrants.
An NBC News decision desk poll separately found that Trump’s personal approval rating has hit a second-term low, with 37% of adults approving of Trump’s performance as president, while 63% disapprove. Among those, 50% said they disapprove strongly.
Despite some signs of fracturing in Trump’s base, the NBC poll found 83% of Republicans still give Trump a positive approval rating, down 4 points from earlier this year – and his handling of the economy was strongly approved by 52% compared to 58% previously.
But the challenges faced by Republican candidates to defend their twin majorities in Congress are stark. The poll found that one-third of Americans believe the country is on the right track while two-thirds believe it is on the wrong track.
It was almost exactly this time 20 years ago that the bottom began to fall out on George W. Bush’s approval ratings. And as Bush’s numbers in most polls fell into the 30s for the first time in late winter and early spring, the culprit was clear: the Iraq war.
History could be repeating itself with President Donald Trump in 2026. Just swap Iraq with Iran.
Three new polls released Tuesday showed Trump’s approval rating in the mid-30s: 36% in a Reuters-Ipsos poll, 35% in a Strength in Numbers-Verasight poll and 33% in an AP-NORC poll. They follow an NBC News poll over the weekend that showed Trump hitting a new low of 37%.
Over the past month now, eight of nine quality polls tracked by CNN have shown Trump in the 30s.
The only exception was a Fox News poll pegging Trump at 41%, but even that showed Trump with his worst numbers in its polls since 2017.
Read Blake’s in-depth analysis at CNN if you’re interested. You can also read Paul Krugman’s Substack today for a deep dive on how Americans view Trump’s economy: Bad Vibes and Broken Promises.
On April 7, President Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran’s “whole civilization will die tonight,” capping a week of increasingly unhinged posts about the war in Iran (in another, the president told Iran’s leaders to “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell. … Praise be to Allah!”). The posts have drawn sharp criticism from political and media figures across the political spectrum, including prominent right-wing voices who backed Trump in 2024. Tucker Carlson called the threats against Iran’s civilian infrastructure a war crime and now says he regrets helping elect Trump, while Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Theo Von, and Tim Dillon have also spoken out.
In Congress, Rep. John Larson has introduced 13 articles of impeachment against Trump, with more than 85 House members publicly backing either impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment. All of which raises the question: how much of the general public wants Trump impeached? If even his most right-wing supporters are breaking away, support among the broader public is presumably pretty high.
A new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll conducted April 10-14, 2026 finds 55% of U.S. adults say the House should vote to impeach Trump. 37% oppose, and 8% are unsure. A surprising percentage of both Republicans and Trump’s own 2024 voters say they would support impeachment if a vote were held today.
That net +18 verdict puts Trump in the neighborhood of the numbers Richard Nixon saw at the peak of the Watergate scandal in August 1974 — more on that comparison below. The toplines and crosstabs for this poll can be found on the Strength In Numbers website.l [….]
Our new poll shows that 55% of U.S. adults support the House voting to impeach Trump, while 37% oppose and 8% are unsure.
As for the president’s overall approval rating, there is a strong intensity gap in responses to our poll. Overall, 45% of all adults say they strongly support impeachment, while only 30% say they strongly oppose it. That is a 15-point intensity gap in favor of impeachment — the people who want Trump out are both more numerous and more committed than the people who want him to stay.
Read more analysis of these poll results and see charts at the link above.
Trump’s war is not going well and he is handling the failures badly. He can’t control himself from constantly posting on Truth Social, and apparently, he’s not in control f his behavior behind the scenes either.
When President Donald Trump learned that two American pilots had gone missing in Iran on Good Friday, he “screamed at aides for hours” and was then “kept out of the room” while his team was given minute-by-minute updates, according to a report.
An F-15 fighter jet was shot down over Iran on April 3, prompting a high-stakes rescue mission for the missing airmen. One crew member was swiftly rescued by U.S. forces after ejecting before the aircraft went down – but the second crew member spent more than 24 hours behind enemy lines before he was safely extracted.
“Trump screamed at aides for hours” after he was informed the fighter jet had been shot down and two airmen were missing, the outlet reported, citing a senior administration official. “Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis — one of the biggest international policy failures of a presidency in recent times — had been looming large in his mind,” WSJ reported.
Over the next 24 hours, Trump’s most senior aides and administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, dialed into the Situation Room to receive updates.
Trump was not included in the meeting but was kept updated “at meaningful moments” on the phone, according to the WSJ, citing a senior administration official.
“Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful,” the official told the newspaper.
Trump’s dementia is obviously getting worse, and the mainstream media won’t come out and say it. This is from Heather Cox Richardson’s report from yesterday:
Alayna Treene and Kevin Liptak of CNN reported last night that by the end of last week, negotiators for the U.S. and Iran appeared to be on the verge of hammering out an end to hostilities before the two-week ceasefire ends on Wednesday. Then Trump took to the media to crow that Iranian leaders had “agreed to everything,” including the removal of its enriched uranium, and that “Iran has agreed never to close the Strait of Hormuz again.” He promised that Iran had agreed to end its nuclear program forever and that talks “should go very quickly.” Trump declared the breakthrough was “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!” and asked why media outlets questioning the alleged deal didn’t “just say, at the right time, JOB WELL DONE, MR. PRESIDENT?”
Iranian negotiators said Trump’s claims were false and that if he didn’t remove the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, they would reclose the Strait of Hormuz they had just opened. “The Iranians didn’t appreciate [Trump] negotiating through social media and making it appear as if they had signed off on issues they hadn’t yet agreed to, and ones that aren’t popular with their people back home,” a source told Treene and Liptak.
Over the weekend, Iranians closed the strait and the U.S. fired on an Iranian vessel. On Sunday, even as two senior U.S. government officials were on television saying Vice President J.D. Vance would lead a new round of talks in Pakistan, Trump was on the phone telling reporters that he wouldn’t. On Monday, Trump told a reporter that Vance was in the air about to touch down in Pakistan just minutes before Vance’s motorcade arrived at the White House.
After Iranian officials said today they were not sure they would respond to U.S. positions or go to Pakistan for talks, Vance’s trip has been put on hold. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, complained of “contradictory messages, inconsistent behavior and unacceptable actions by the American side,” on Iran’s state media.
Trump is making everything worse with his childish impatience and his inability to stop posting nonsense and lies.
For his part, Trump blamed the Democrats for the chaos in U.S. diplomacy. “The Democrats are doing everything possible to hurt the very strong position we are in with respect to Iran,” his social media account posted yesterday. The post insisted “it will be done RIGHT, and we won’t let the Weak and Pathetic Democrats, TRAITORS ALL, who for years have been talking about the Dangers of Iran, and that something has to be done, but now, since I’m the one doing it, belittle the accomplishments of our Military and the Trump Administration. This is being perfectly executed, on the scale of Venezuela, just a bigger, more complex operation.”
As David S. Bernstein of Good Politics/Bad Politics noted, Trump’s account this morning reposted another account claiming that Iran was preparing to execute eight women, showing AI-generated images of them. Trump posted: “To the Iranian leaders who will soon be in negotiations with my representatives: I would greatly appreciate the release of these women. I am sure that they will respect the fact that you did so. Please do them no harm! Would be a great start to our negotiations!!!” As Bernstein put it: Trump urged Iran “to start peace negotiations by releasing non-existent, AI-generated women some rando posted about on X.”
He is an idiot! We can only hope to hang on until Democrats take over the House and Senate so we can impeach and remove him. Trump was on Truth Social again last night.
President Donald Trump spent the night firing off posts on his social media platform, repeatedly taking aim at both his domestic political enemies and the leaders of Iran.
The Truth Social rampage culminated in a flurry of 14 posts in less than an hour.
The meltdown came just days after it was revealed that Trump was kept out of a crisis room where they were handling the rescue of two U.S. airmen in Iran because the president had become too agitated.
“Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day,” the president wrote at 8.36 p.m, before arguing that Iran only wants the Strait closed because U.S. forces have it blockaded.
“People approached me four days ago, saying, ‘Sir, Iran wants to open up the Strait, immediately,’” Trump continued. “But if we do that, there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!”
He also ranted about non-Iran things; you can read more at The Daily Beast link. After spewing this nonsense, Trump apparently fell asleep for a few hours, and then began posting again.
Donald Trump was back on Truth Social before dawn Wednesday, hammering out four more posts in half an hour after barely six hours of sleep.
The 79-year-old president, whose nocturnal posting habits are well documented, signed off just after midnight following a 12-hour evening binge in which he spat out 19 posts—ripping into Iran, the Wall Street Journal, Democratic strategist James Carville, 81, and even the conservative-majority Supreme Court.
Picking up his tirade shortly before 6 a.m. Eastern, Trump opened with a TikTok titled “Endgame and Final Warning,” lifted from an account calling itself @devildoggae.
The clip shows U.S. historian Victor Davis Hanson delivering a solemn warning to the camera that Iran has “walked right into a noose” militarily and economically, leaving the regime with three options—go down in a blaze of glory, accept one-sided negotiations, or surrender outright—and warning that any nuclear deal is worthless unless America is willing to enforce it.
Minutes later, Trump posted a second clip captioned “Former Navy Seal Eli Crane Lights Into Mark Kelly Over His Treasonous Stunt.” The footage shows the bearded Crane, 46, an Arizona Republican and former SEAL, leaning over his microphone to grill a uniformed witness about the duty of service members to refuse unlawful orders—the very principle Kelly had invoked….
Trump then reposted two supporters who had quote-posted his own videos back at him. One, a self-described “Proud Deplorable” who writes under the handle @thewriterme and lists her interests as “America,” asked about Hanson’s screed: “What will happen next?”
Next was a post by Sami Nathaniel, a self-styled “Trump fan” posting under the handle @NathanielSami, who demanded: “Mark Kelly needs to be held accountable! LOCK HIM UP.!!!” [….]
Trump’s pre-dawn barrage suggested Iran is also still very much on the president’s mind. Before finally turning in last night, Trump had posted repeatedly about the Strait of Hormuz, claiming Tehran’s regime was “collapsing financially,” that its forces were “not getting paid,” and signing off with a self-pitying “SOS!!!”
If people who don’t use social media could see these Trump meltdowns, his polls would likely be even worse than they are now.
That’s all I have for today. I’ll post a few news links in the comment thread. Have a peaceful Wednesday.
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Just a side note, many of these videos will take you to YouTube to play them on that app…I’m giving y’all a heads up. Also if the instagram post do not embed, try reloading the page.
It makes me cry to listen to his songs, but I get so much joy from them…like his halftime performance at the Superbowl in 2007:
Prince could cover anyone and make it sound so damn good:
From lurid pranks and late-night drives, to why playing in the Revolution was like joining the marines – Prince’s friends and collaborators recount their memories of one of the music world’s most majestic and mercurial performerswww.theguardian.com/music/2026/a…
‘He couldn’t wait to show me his room full of fan mail’
Charles ‘Chazz’ Smith, cousin and original drummer in Grand Central
It seems only yesterday that we were kids and went to see Sly and the Family Stone playing at the Parade stadium, Minneapolis. We didn’t have tickets, but they tore the fence down so we ran in and ended up on the front row, with Sly looking down on us. After that, Prince said: “We’re gonna form a band, and you’re gonna be the drummer.” He had an upright piano in his basement and a TV in the wall, and we’d play TV themes such as The Man from UNCLE. Two weeks later his dad got him a guitar and the next day he came back playing Black Magic Woman by Santana, note for note. He was obsessed with being great at guitar, writing songs, playing rock, funk, ballads, everything.
‘He understood what it felt like to be a misfit’
André Cymone, childhood best friend and bandmate
It really doesn’t feel like 10 years. Sometimes it hits me harder than others. My wife and I were in Tucson recently and suddenly in an alley there was a big mural of him. It’s just so weird because I think: this is my childhood friend. We grew up eating bowls of cereal together.
We met in junior high, talked about music and wound up jamming. Then Prince turned up on my mother’s doorstep and lived with us for seven years. His parents had split up and so had mine. He didn’t talk much – you could put Prince in a headlock and you’d maybe squeeze three words out of him – but nobody understood me as an individual like he did. We realised that our fathers had played in the same band and wanted to blow them out of the water. We were brothers in the truest sense; it was a beautiful friendship and we pushed each other. Everything was a competition: music, dancing, basketball, girls. We started the band Grand Central in the cellar. Because we were in Minneapolis we’d listen to stuff from the west coast and the east coast – funk, rock, pop, jazz, avant garde – and kinda filtered it into a unique amalgamation. I played with him until after the Dirty Mind tour, by which point he’d found his own lane, which he did exquisitely.
He understood what it felt like to be a misfit and wanted to speak to misfits around the world: straight, gay, Black, white, Puerto Rican, whatever. He had more than his share of female relationships but was bold enough to think outside the box in ways most artists wouldn’t touch because they felt it would challenge their masculinity. So he’d write songs such as If I Was Your Girlfriend. He’d say to me: “I don’t want to specify whether I’m talking to a girl or a man. I want people to wonder. To create a mystery.” He wanted people to join his philosophical army and feel like they had an artist who spoke to them.
Please read the whole article at the Guardian…some good memories there.
A decade after his death, Prince’s legacy continues to shape MinneapolisTen years after his death, a new generation is discovering Prince’s impact through the classroom, culture and community memory.mndaily.com/arts-enterta…
Image by Dilan Parekh The 100-foot mural of Prince overlooking First Avenue in Minneapolis, on April 15, 2026. For fans of Prince, Minneapolis, the artist’s hometown, is an essential destination. Above, a mural of Prince, painted in 2022 by the street artist Hiero Veiga, in downtown Minneapolis.Credit…Caroline Yang for The New York Times
In Minneapolis, Following Prince’s ‘Purple Trail’This year is the 10th anniversary of the artist’s death. We made a pilgrimage to the city where he lived and worked.www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/t…
A big celebration is planned in Minneapolis in June:
Prince Celebration 2026, marking the 10th anniversary of the Purple One’s passing, will descend upon Paisley Park and the heart of downtown Minneapolis from June 3 through June 7…rollingout.com/2026/04/15/p…
I will post a few more songs before I end with something new.
Yesterday, the Prince estate released a new song:
On the eve of the 10th anniversary of his passing, the Prince Estate just released an unreleased Prince track called "With This Tear" along with a video. #prince #withthistear im-musicmagazine.com/f/prince-est…
Nearly a decade after his death, new music from Prince is still emerging from the vault, and the latest is arriving with purpose. Out today via NPG Records in partnership with Legacy Recordings, “With This Tear” is a previously unreleased studio recording dating back to November 1991. Written, produced and entirely performed by Prince at his Minnesota studio Paisley Park, the track has been newly mixed and mastered by longtime collaborator Chris James.
Shortly after recording it, Prince passed “With This Tear” to Céline Dion, who released her own version in 1992. This newly unveiled original offers a direct window into his early-’90s creative period, when the aritst was particularly unfiltered and self-contained. Sonically, it trades the sweeping, adult-contemporary grandeur of Dion’s take for a sparse, piano-led arrangement with soft synth textures and subtle orchestration. The accompanying video underscores that intimacy, pairing the track with a montage of archival photos and performance footage spanning Prince’s life and career.
And with that, I close this open thread. Stay safe everyone.
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Today is Caturday, and I wish I still had a cat to keep me company and reduce my stress level. At least I have my happy memories of cats who lived with me over the years.
The biggest news today is about the latest developments in Trump’s disastrous war on Iran. Iran has already closed the Strait of Hormuz again because of Trump’s blockade.
CAIRO (AP) — The standoff over the Strait of Hormuz escalated again Saturday as Iran reversed its reopening of the crucial waterway and fired on ships attempting to pass, in retaliation after the United States pressed ahead with its blockade of Iranian ports.
New attacks on the strait, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil normally passes, threatened to deepen the global energy crisis and push the countries into renewed conflict as the war entered its eighth week.
A fragile ceasefire is due to run out by Wednesday. Iran said it had received new proposals from the United States, and Pakistani mediators were working to arrange another round of direct negotiations.
Iran’s joint military command said “control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state … under strict management and control of the armed forces.” It warned it would continue to block transits while the U.S. blockade remained in effect.
Revolutionary Guard gunboats opened fire on a tanker and an unknown projectile hit a container vessel, damaging some containers, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. India’s foreign ministry said it summoned Iran’s ambassador over the “serious incident” of firing on two India-flagged merchant ships, especially after Iran earlier let several India-bound ships through.
For Iran, the strait’s closure — imposed after the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28 during talks over Tehran’s nuclear program — is perhaps its most powerful weapon, threatening the world economy and inflicting political pain on President Donald Trump. For the United States, the blockade keeps up pressure and could strangle Iran’s already weakened economy.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, issued defiant remarks on Saturday, saying the navy stands “ready to inflict bitter defeats on its enemies.” He has not been seen in public since being elevated to the post following his father’s death in Israel’s opening barrage.
Trump is obviously desperate to get out of the mess he made. He’s been spreading optimistic lies about the progress toward peace, but wishful thinking is not going to solve his problems.
President Trump went on a media tear on Friday, granting interviews and unleashing a flurry of social media posts that framed peace talks with Iran as all but complete.
After an announcement by Iran’s foreign minister that the Strait of Hormuz had been reopened, Mr. Trump made a series of optimistic posts on his social media platform, Truth Social. He also spoke to several news outlets, asserting that Tehran had agreed to many demands and predicting a quick resolution to the conflict.
Iranian officials did not confirm most of Mr. Trump’s claims and disputed several of them. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator and the speaker of its Parliament, said on social media Friday evening that Mr. Trump made several false claims.
“The president of the United States made seven claims in one hour, all of which are false,” said Gen. Ghalibaf, a military and political influential figure in Iran leading negotiations. “They did not win the war with these lies, they will certainly not get any where in negotiations either.”
Trump’s fantastic claims:
Mr. Trump said on Friday that Iran, with the help of the United States, was removing all of the mines it laid in the Strait of Hormuz last month. He also claimed that the “Hormuz Strait situation is over” and “Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.”
Iran has made no such commitment, and its foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, had only gone so far as to announce that the vital oil route would be open “for the remaining period of cease-fire” for ships that adhered to a route “coordinated” by Iran. Later, the ministry’s spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said the strait remained under Iran’s supervision….
Mr. Trump also claimed in a phone interview with CBS that Iran had “agreed to everything,” including working with the United States to remove its enriched uranium. But in comments made to Iranian state media later that day, Mr. Baghaei said that Tehran had rejected the option of transferring its enriched uranium stockpile abroad.
On Friday, Mr. Trump told AFP that there were “no sticking points” left for a peace deal with Iran. The White House has not confirmed any details of a plan. In a brief phone interview with Axios, Mr. Trump said he expected a deal “in the next day or two.”
Trump is insane and no one in the mainstream media wants to say so.
Analysis of the situation by Patrick Wintour at The Guardian: Trump and Tehran’s series of mismanaged posts stall progress towards peace.
A set of mismanaged and premature media announcements by Donald Trump and Tehran has led to the collapse of progress towards a peace settlement between Iran and the US.
The chain of events started when the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on X on Friday soon after the markets opened in the US.
“In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon the passage of all commercial vessels through the strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire [Lebanon ceasefire] on the coordinated route as already announced by the Ports and Maritime Organisation of the Islamic Rep of Iran.”
His announcement knocked $12 off the price of a barrel of oil and was welcomed by Pakistan, whose officials had been in Tehran for three days trying to find a way to address Iranian preconditions for holding talks with the U.S.
Araghchi’s post was potentially poorly framed or incomplete, and led to a big backlash, which was made worse by the fall in oil prices, and the news being welcomed and overinterpreted by Trump, who thanked Iran for opening the strait and agreeing to export its stockpile of uranium to the US….
Within minutes, Tasnim, a news agency close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, described Araghchi’s post as either wrong or incomplete. It said the post was “published without the necessary and sufficient explanations, created various ambiguities regarding the conditions for passage, details and mechanisms of passage, and led to a great deal of criticism”….
The renewed impasse led to Trump threatening to restart bombing next week after the ceasefire between the two sides expires on Wednesday. It also sets up another potentially dangerous confrontation in the strait, which has so far avoided a direct naval confrontation between the US and Iran.
Iran also insisted it told mediators it was unwilling to restart talks with the US in Islamabad on Monday, as had been widely rumoured, because the demands by the US were excessive….
Trump’s desperation for the war to end has seen him trying to speed through a process that he does not fully control, and which requires agreement from Tehran. Iran is still convinced that the strait remains its winning card and that time is on its side, so there is no rush for Iran to return to the talks.
Read the entire analysis at the Guardian. It’s an interesting piece.
Shipping companies are facing confusion and uncertainty about the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway through which a significant share of the world’s energy flows, as they assess mixed messages from officials in Iran and the United States.
But even if the strait fully opens soon — on Saturday, Iran’s military said it would reimpose “strict” control over traffic — it will take weeks for substantial amounts of Persian Gulf oil and gas to reach buyers around the world.
And it will be much longer before companies repair the damage that has been inflicted on one of the world’s most important energy-producing regions.
It is likely to be a long time before a gallon of gasoline costs less than $3 a gallon, as it did before the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Shortages of certain products like jet fuel and natural gas may also persist in some countries for weeks or longer.
“We don’t expect oil prices — and therefore pump prices — to go back to prewar levels,” said Arjun Murti, a partner at Veriten, an energy research and investment firm based in Houston.
Think of the Strait of Hormuz, which sits between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, as a valve. It must be open for energy to flow. But whether shipping companies reposition tankers and producers turn wells back on will depend heavily on whether they believe that the détente between Iran and the United States and Israel is durable.
Spencer Dale, who until recently served as the chief economist of the London-based oil company BP, said that producers who have been forced to turn off their oil and gas wells will be reluctant to restart them “until people have confidence that you have a lasting agreement.”
In other news, Trump’s FBI director is apparently an out-of-control, heavy-duty alcoholic who poses a serious national security risk for the country. Sarah Fitzpatrick broke the story late yesterday at The Atlantic (gift link): The FBI Director Is MIA.
On Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log into an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”
Patel oversees an agency that employs roughly 38,000 people, including many who are trained to investigate and verify information that can be presented under oath in a court of law. News of his emotional outburst ricocheted through the bureau, prompting chatter among officials and, in some corners of the building, expressions of relief. The White House fielded calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI.
It turned out that the answer was still Patel. He had not been fired. The access problem, two people familiar with the matter said, appears to have been a technical error, and it was quickly resolved. “It was all ultimately bullshit,” one FBI official told me.
But Patel, according to multiple current officials, as well as former officials who have stayed close to him, is deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy. He has good reasons to think so—including some having to do with what witnesses described to me as bouts of excessive drinking. My colleague Ashley Parker and I reported earlier this month that Patel was among the officials expected to be fired after Attorney General Pam Bondi’s ouster, on April 2. “We’re all just waiting for the word” that Patel is officially out of the top job, an FBI official told me this week, and a former official told my colleague Jonathan Lemire that Patel was “rightly paranoid.” Senior members of the Trump administration are already discussing who might replace him, according to an administration official and two people close to the White House who were familiar with the conversations.
A bit more:
The IT-lockout episode is emblematic of Patel’s tumultuous tenure as director of the FBI: He is erratic, suspicious of others, and prone to jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence, according to the more than two dozen people I interviewed about Patel’s conduct, including current and former FBI officials, staff at law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, hospitality-industry workers, members of Congress, political operatives, lobbyists, and former advisers. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and private conversations, they described Patel’s tenure as a management failure and his personal behavior as a national-security vulnerability.
They said that the problems with his conduct go well beyond what has been previously known, and include both conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences. His behavior has often alarmed officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice, even as he won support from the White House for his eager participation in Trump’s effort to turn federal law enforcement against the president’s perceived political enemies.
Several officials told me that Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff. He is also known to drink to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights, six current and former officials and others familiar with Patel’s schedule told me.
On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated, according to information supplied to Justice Department and White House officials. A request for “breaching equipment”—normally used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings—was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request.
Use the gift link if you’d like to read the whole article.
Trump is on the verge of a settlement with the IRS that would pay him a lot of taxpayer money. Can that possibly be legal?
Attorneys for President Donald Trump and the Internal Revenue Service told a federal court Friday that they’re in talks aimed at resolving a $10 billion lawsuit over leaked tax records tied to the president, his adult sons and his company.
In a joint filing, the parties requested a 90-day pause on proceedings in the case while they “engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation.”
Trump sued the IRS and Treasury Department this year alleging the tax-collecting agency failed to take the necessary steps to prevent the unauthorized release of his tax documents by a government contractor who shared them with news outlets. The contractor, Charles Littlejohn, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2024 to five years in prison.
Littlejohn admitted in court that he also stole the tax records of thousands of other wealthy people in 2019 and 2020, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk….
The lawsuit, which stated that Trump was suing in his personal capacity and not as president, also named two of Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization as plaintiffs. The complaint alleged “reputational and financial harm” as well as “public embarrassment” from the leak, which led to The New York Times reporting that Trump had paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.
Democratic lawmakers this week introduced a bill that aims to ban the president, vice president and their families from collecting lawsuit settlement payments from the government.
One of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said the bill “will close the loopholes that enable this apparent corruption and ban Trump — and all future Presidents and Vice Presidents — from abusing their power and stealing Americans’ hard-earned money.
After spending days attacking the Pope and posting AI generated pictures of himself as Jesus and being hugged by Jesus, Trump is planning to participate in a Bible reading.
President Donald Trump is making a dramatic show of religiosity just days after he posted an image on social media that many Christians found offensive.
A recording of Trump reading a verse from the Old Testament will be released next week as part of a celebration of the Bible, organizers of the event said Friday.
The president’s reading, which has already been recorded, will be part of an 84-hour public presentation at the Museum of the Bible in Washington that will feature nearly 500 readers cycling through scripture from Genesis to Revelation over eight days.
Trump’s roughly two-and-a-half-minute reading, which is slated to air Tuesday, comes after he angered many Christians with a social media post that appeared to depict him as Jesus and publicly quarreled with Pope Leo.
Bunni Pounds, the founder of Christians Engaged and an organizer of the Bible event, welcomed the president’s participation and declined to weigh in on the controversies — though she noted that the president’s reading might be relevant.
“It’s a scripture about repentance,” Pounds said. “None of us are perfect.”
The president’s reading, Second Chronicles 7:14, is among the most frequently invoked verses in American public religious life, calling on believers to “humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face… and turn from their wicked ways.”
The White House on Friday released a statement tying the initiative to the broader sweep of American history, emphasizing what it described as the Bible’s “indelible” role in shaping the nation’s identity. The statement nods to figures like John Winthrop and Abraham Lincoln, and frames the reading as part of a larger commemoration of 250 years of the Bible’s influence in America.
Mr. Trump recorded his segment of the reading from the Oval Office, organizers said. He read a passage from the Old Testament book of II Chronicles that has become a touchstone for many of his Christian supporters, who interpret it as a call to national repentance and subsequent blessing.
The central verse in II Chronicles 7 reads: “If My people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
“It’s been a hallmark of the religious right to cite this particular passage,” said Matthew D. Taylor, a visiting scholar at the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University.
Biblical scholars emphasize that the passage concerns the writer’s understanding of a particular covenant between God and the ancient Israelites. The books of Chronicles cover centuries of Jewish history, including the reigns of Kings David and Solomon.
In recent decades, the verse has become the subject of songs, prayers and sermons that interpret it as a promise with direct political implications for the contemporary United States. For example, at the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, the founder of a group called Cowboys for Trump prayed the passage through a bullhorn over the crowd, which chanted “Fight for Trump!” in response.
I just don’t know what to day about that.
That’s all I have for you today. I hope everyone is having a nice, peaceful weekend.
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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