Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Good evening!The well attended protest in Denver this afternoon. After the rally we marched from the state capitol through the heart of downtown, looping back to finish at the capitol again. An excellent and engaged crowd!
Lately the USA resembles a flaming dumpster rolling swiftly downhill toward a chlorine trifluoride tank farm. It’s hard to keep up! Here are a couple of random items for your consideration this afternoon.
Sounds like Pete Hegseth should update his CV so he can shoot for a stretch assignment, like celebrity bingo caller at the VFW post in Radishbreth, Idaho. NPR:
The White House has begun the process of looking for a new secretary of defense, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
This comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to find himself mired in controversy. NPR has also confirmed with the same official that Hegseth shared details ahead of last month’s Yemen strikes with his wife and brother in a Signal chat on his personal phone, minutes after being updated by a senior U.S. military official.
We discussed Hegseth’s disastrous tenure this morning, and one of y’all sent chills down my spine by speculating that if Hegseth does go down, Trump might appoint someone even worse, like Q-anon loon Gen. Mike Flynn. That’s entirely plausible, and yikes!
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The DOW is down 1200-ish as I write this, more than 3%, as are S&P 500 and NASDAQ. Trump is pouring fuel on the fire by SCREAMING IN ALL CAPS at Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whom Trump appointed in his first term because Janet Yellen is short (and lacks a penis).
Disappointingly, T$LA’s share price hasn’t dropped below $220. It was hovering around $223 last I looked, having lost more than 7% of value in today’s trading. Burn, baby burn! (The stock price, I mean, in case any of Bondi’s DOJ goons are monitoring this obscure blog.)
Political and financial analysts seem to think Musk will leave the government soon. Here’s a sample of the thinking from a recent WaPo story:
The billionaire is ready to exit because he is tired of fielding what he views as a slew of nasty and unethical attacks from the political left, according to a person familiar with his thinking. He believes his departure will not diminish the power or work of DOGE, his brainchild, the person said, noting that DOGE team members are already established across scores of federal agencies.
Boo-fucking-hoo, but he’s probably right about the “power” and “work” of DOGE since his kinderchuds have exfiltrated our personal data, installed choke-points in the Treasury payment system and Musk has corruptly funneled billions in new government contracts to himself.
Some market commentators seem to believe Musk needs to head back to Tesla to fix what ails the company. In my view, Musk is the problem, not the solution. I don’t know markets, but I do know marketing, and I think the brand joined the choir invisible thanks to its owner’s deeply unpopular antics. They just don’t fully realize that yet.
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A culinary question as a cleanser following the dumpster-fire discussion: After eating loads of traditional Easter fare yesterday, we decided we’ll have homemade pizza for dinner tonight. Specifically, a grandma-style pie.
I’ve made it a time or two but haven’t settled on a particular recipe. My dough is already prepared. Any tips on toppings, specifically, the order?
Last time I made it, I blind-baked the crust a little, paved it with slices of provolone, added sauce, basil and Pecorino-Romano on top of that and drizzled it with minced garlic-infused olive oil. Suggestions welcome!
Aside from that, open thread!
Trump’s cabinet picks are uniformly terrible. We’ve got the “A1” rasslin’ lady in charge of dismantling the Department of Education and Lil’ Marco (and Musk) on track to rack up a Pol Pot-scale body count with abrupt cuts to lifesaving international aid.
There are the financial geniuses tanking the economy with Trump’s dumb tariff war and RFK Jr. (who may be an actual serial killer — I can’t shake that suspicion) decimating public health resources while presiding over a huge measles outbreak, etc. The list of horribles goes on much longer than the fortitude required to comprehensively list The Horrors.
But for sheer incompetence, can any cabinet member beat Pete Hegseth, the black-out drunk sex pest who used to provide weekend couch ballast at Fox & Friends before he got the Pentagon gig? In case you missed it, SecDef Hairgel is embroiled in a freshly reported Signalgate scandal as he (or probably his handlers) undertakes a purge that is ostensibly about ousting “leakers.”
WSJ: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth created a Signal chat with his wife, his personal lawyer and others, and posted sensitive military information into it, people familiar with the matter said Sunday, a revelation that has added to the increasing scrutiny of the novice leader.
Hegseth was already facing questions for writing flight plans and other details about a military operation ahead of U.S. strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen into a Signal chat with senior Trump administration officials. Hegseth posted nearly the same information into another chat featuring his wife and other aides that don’t require real-time knowledge of the mission, a person familiar with the chat said.
The disclosure of the Signal chat comes after an unusual number of top political appointees have either been removed from the Pentagon or resigned just in the past few weeks, some with little explanation.
The “leaker” is almost certainly Hegseth himself. He may not even know it!
A Politico report published yesterday notes that one of the ousted officials, John Ullyot, says that the Pentagon is in “total chaos” and that Hegseth likely won’t remain in his role.
“The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.”
Ullyot served as spokesman for the NSC and VA during Trump’s previous term. He’s dead wrong above — this is exactly the “leadership” Trump deserves since Trump was the one who hired the alcoholic serial abuser whose only previous “leadership” experience was running two right-wing charities into the ground.
If Ullyot was delusional enough to believe it would help his standing in MAGAworld to pretend Trump is ill-served by the incompetent creep he personally insisted on for the post, the chinless disappointment dashed that hope this morning:
“Officially exiled,” LMAO.
Anyhoo, every single Democrat (and Dem-caucusing independent) in the Senate voted against Hegseth, and I think the wisdom of that decision will reverberate through the ages. For what it’s worth, Repubs Murkowski, Collins and McConnell also found Hegseth a bridge too far.
But for my money, the best comment on the latest l’affaire Hegseth belongs to Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), quoted in the NYT:
What she said.
This morning, Trump’s serial liar press secretary (whose name I can’t be arsed to remember) said Trump “absolutely has confidence” in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.” He’s going down, y’all.
Open thread.
The Singularity of Stupid (Open Thread)Post + Comments (243)
With apologies to WaterGirl for stepping on the On The Road thread, some breaking news: The Vatican is reporting that Pope Francis died early this morning. He was 88.
From the BBC:
From the moment of his election, Francis indicated he would do things differently. He received his cardinals informally and standing – rather than seated on the papal throne.
On 13 March 2013, Pope Francis emerged on the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square.
Clad simply in white, he bore a new name which paid homage to St Francis of Assisi, the 13th Century preacher and animal lover.
He was determined to favour humility over pomp and grandeur. He shunned the papal limousine and insisted on sharing the bus taking other cardinals home.
The new Pope set a moral mission for the 1.2 billion-strong flock. “Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor,” he remarked.
Francis was a ground-breaker on a number of representational fronts: the first non-European pope in about 1,300 years; the first from the Americas or the Southern Hemisphere, and the first ever pope who was a Jesuit, a controversial and frequently suppressed religious order within the Catholic priesthood. He tried to be a ground-breaker on other fronts: he tried to drag the focus of the church back toward compassion for the poor and marginalized; he tried to heal rifts between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches; he demonstrated greater tolerance for LGBTQ+ people than other popes had done. He also disappointed: he seems to have accepted the framing that Russia was “provoked” into attacking Ukraine, he declared that contraception destroys families; he failed to take any kind of meaningful action to root out or punish clergy who abuse children.
He’d been in the news the past few days due to his reception of our Vice President, JD Vance. At the last minute, Francis decided not to attend a scheduled audience with Vance, instead sending Cardinal Pietro Paroline to give him a “lecture on compassion,” which was probably about as useful as giving a lecture on gardening techniques to a slug. (Vance and Francis met briefly and informally yesterday.) Vance represents a rising vanguard of right-wing “celebrity” converts to Catholicism: people who want not just the bells, smells, and Latin, but a full about-face on everything Francis tried to promote. This effort, as reported by Kathryn Joyce last autumn in Vanity Fair, had faltered in recent years:
In mid-2021, when conservative members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) tried to pass a measure denying communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians—effectively excommunicating Biden—the Vatican blocked their plans. Pope Francis began speaking more openly, and derisively, about his American critics, calling them rigid, reactionary, backward, suicidal. He issued new restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass, the dominant form of liturgy before the mid-1960s Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) introduced various modernizing reforms. And the Church hierarchy neutralized some of the loudest voices of clerical dissent. The Wisconsin priest behind a viral video claiming Catholic Democrats would go to hell was removed from his church. Another priest, who’d once delivered a pro-Trump speech with an aborted fetus on his altar, was defrocked. Leading Pope Francis opponent Cardinal Raymond Burke was stripped of his monthly stipend and lavish Vatican City apartment. Strickland, who’d begun claiming that the pope supported an “attack on the sacred,” lost his diocese. In July, the Vatican excommunicated Viganò for fomenting schism by refusing to recognize the authority of the pope and Vatican II.
None of this endeared the pope to his critics or ended the division.
Now these revanchist freaks have an opportunity to install their own reactionary pope, an even more cartoonish version of the conservative cardinal played so memorably by Sergio Castellitto (and his vape pen) in last year’s Conclave. Francis’s pontificate represented a tentative step forward for an institution that still retains incredible power to shape world events as well as the family lives, consciences, and political attitudes of millions of believers. I hope the College of Cardinals will surprise us, but it’s not a very robust hope.
Open thread.
Monday Morning Open Thread: Pope Francis Dies at 88Post + Comments (167)
I’ve got nothing for you tonight except the reminder to take time to recharge, refresh, and find the good in the world. There still is lots out there.
Open thread
Overnight Open Thread: Take Time For YourselfPost + Comments (36)
(Image by NEIVANMADE)
At 9;15 PM EDT/4:15 AM local time in Ukraine, air raid alerts for drone swarms are up for all of eastern Ukraine and Kyiv Oblast.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin refused to extend the “Easter ceasefire”.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) April 20, 2025 at 11:43 AM
We noticed!!
The Center for Countering Disinformation reports that Russia deliberately staged a provocation in Donetsk to falsely accuse Ukraine of violating the “Easter truce.”
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) April 20, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Russian drones are approaching Kharkiv right now ‼️
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) April 20, 2025 at 8:37 PM
I think we’ve found the real war on Christianity:
President of Ukraine reported that during the full-scale war, russian occupiers have killed or tortured 67 Ukrainian priests, pastors, and monks.
640 religious sites, predominantly Christian, have been destroyed.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) April 20, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Here is President Zelenskyy’s Easter address. Video below, English translation after the jump.
War for Ukraine Day 1,151: Another Early Morning Russian Drone Swarm AttackPost + Comments (10)
This is my second favorite thing about Easter – getting to listen to this again, as I do every year, and getting to laugh as if it were the first time.
This being Balloon Juice, I imagine there will be speculation about my favorite Easter thing.
All Hail the Time of the Bunny! (with credit to Tony Jay for All Hail the Time of the Bunny)