April 28, 2026

Tyler Pager & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has told advisers he is not satisfied with Iran’s latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war, according to multiple people.... The proposal also called on the United States to end its naval blockade but would have set aside questions about what to do with Iran’s nuclear program, according to U.S. and Iranian officials familiar with details of the negotiations. Iran has repeatedly rejected American proposals to suspend its nuclear program and hand over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.” Barak Ravid of Axios outlined Iran's proposal (also linked yesterday). ~~~

    ~~~ Marie: Of course Trump "is not satisfied." Even he can see that Iran's proposal doesn't get to the status quo ante that existed on February 27 -- before Trump & Bibi started this disastrous war. As Chancellor Merz said (linked below), Iran has humiliated the U.S. (He means has humiliated Trump."

Merz Rubs Trump's Nose in It. Milena Wälde of Politico: “German Chancellor Friedrich Merz tore into Washington on Monday, warning the Trump administration is being played and “humiliated” by the regime in Tehran and lacks a clear strategy to end the conflict. Speaking during a school visit in his home region in western Germany, Merz said the U.S. had misjudged the Iranian regime and entered the war without a clear exit plan. 'The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,' Merz said, according to German Press Agency dpa. 'A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

Karoun Demirjian & Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times: “A trade group representing low-cost airlines said Monday that it was asking the Trump administration for $2.5 billion to offset some of the cost of fuel, which has surged because of the war with Iran. Jet fuel prices climbed to about $4.10 a gallon in North America at the end of last week, an increase of about 88 percent from the same time last year, according to industry data. That has led many airlines to raise ticket prices. 'Since February, jet fuel prices have increased by nearly 100 percent and are placing significant financial pressure on value airlines,' the trade group, the Association of Value Airlines, said in a statement. The group added that the $2.5 billion 'liquidity pool' it was seeking would be 'used exclusively to offset incremental fuel costs, as a necessary and targeted measure to stabilize operations and keep airfares affordable during this period of volatility.'”

The New York Times liveblog of business news is here. From the pinned item at 5:45 am ET: “Oil prices continued to climb on Tuesday, as peace talks between the United States and Iran appeared at an impasse, with negotiators deadlocked over proposals to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic and restrict Iran’s nuclear program. The price of crude oil has risen steadily over the past week, as talks have stalled during an uneasy cease-fire. Brent crude, the international benchmark, has posted gains in six of the past seven trading sessions: It remains more than 40 percent higher than it was before the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.”

The Doctor Is In. Paul Krugman has a Nobel Prize in Economics, but he is not a psychologist. However, his diagnosis-at-a-distance sounds pretty good: "How long will it take before Trump accepts the reality that he doesn’t have the cards, that in the end his Iran venture will be resolved in a way that leaves Iran stronger and America weaker than before the war? Markets are growing increasingly pessimistic.... But Trump is talking about his ballroom. This may seem weird, but it makes sense if you view it psychologically. Trump is clearly dissociating. His fragile sense of self-worth depends on constantly believing that he’s a winner while others are losers. Now he’s faced with the reality that he, more or less single-handedly, led America to humiliating strategic defeat.... Trump is coping by tuning out the war he started, focusing on a grandiose, ego-boosting project that lets him assert dominance over servile Republicans and businesses that are footing the bill." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Instead of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, let's call this the "Stunning-Krugman Effect," where Krugman is capable of figuring out a lot of things about a lot of things that fall outside his area of expertise. 

Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: “The White House is reviewing how best to protect ... Donald Trump after Saturday’s shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner raised new questions about the protocols and procedures needed to keep the nation’s leaders safe. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles plans to convene a meeting this week with leaders of the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security to discuss lessons from Saturday’s shooting and next steps to protect the president, officials said Monday.”

Devlin Barrett, et al., of the New York Times: “A California man who the authorities say ran through a security perimeter and fired a gun outside a packed black-tie gala in Washington on Saturday was charged on Monday with trying to assassinate ... [Donald] Trump. Prosecutors said the man, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, Calif., came to the nation’s capitol with the intention of carrying out a political assassination. He brought a pump-action shotgun, a .38-caliber handgun and three knives, officials said. Mr. Allen appeared briefly in federal court in Washington on Monday, wearing a neon blue jumpsuit. He did not enter a plea and is likely to remain behind bars indefinitely. A magistrate judge scheduled a detention hearing in the case for Thursday.” The Guardian's story is here.

Amy Qin & Aric Toler of the New York Times: “Federal authorities are looking into whether the man at the keyboard who used the name 'coldforce' may have been Cole Tomas Allen, who was charged Monday with trying to assassinate ... [Donald] Trump.... A review of the user’s archived posts on Bluesky, a social media platform popular among left-leaning users, shows that the account often wrote or promoted posts that took liberal positions on political issues. Most posts, which begin in late 2024, do not advocate violence and are unremarkable on the liberal forum. The user posted most frequently about the war in Ukraine, expressing frustration with the Trump administration for 'betraying' allies. Recently, the account was also writing or sharing posts about what the writer called a 'dumbass' war in Iran and the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.” 

Monica Hesse of the Washington Post: “In clips and images from multiple angles, we see [actor Cheryl Hines'] husband, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, shepherded quickly from his seat, sandwiched so tightly between several agents that the black of their tuxedos blended with RFK’s silver hair bobbing in the middle. Cheryl, in a strapless cocktail dress, was left to hobble after them in an example of what former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein deemed on X a 'new litmus for status.'... Watching this celebrity hunched down in her formalwear, picking her way across the stage in high heels behind her swaddled husband, was a jarring image because of what it signified about status, but also because of what it signified about shootings. This clip was a whole manner of things, but the strangest adjective that kept popping into my head was 'undignified.' An episode of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.'...” ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a clip. Kennedy moves on out, never turning to look for his wife, who struggles along behind the group, climbing tables in her heels. Finally, someone in Kennedy's protection unit turns around & helps Hines down from a table: ~~~  

Trump, Wife Still Unfamiliar with First Amendment. Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald “Trump and first lady Melania Trump demanded in separate social media posts on Monday that ABC pull comedian Jimmy Kimmel from its airwaves over a bit involving the White House correspondents’ dinner, delivered two days before it occurred. Mr. Kimmel, who has a long history of sparring with the president, had imagined himself as the M.C. at the dinner. 'Of course, our first lady, Melania, is here,' he said on Thursday night. Then, pretending to address her, he called her 'so beautiful' and added: 'Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.' He made cracks about Mr. Trump’s age and health.... In his social media post Monday afternoon, Mr. Trump described the comedian’s joke as 'really shocking' and 'something far beyond the pale.' He ended his post: 'Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.' The first lady had posted about Mr. Kimmel a few hours earlier. 'His monologue about my family isn’t comedy,' she wrote. 'His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.' She called Mr. Kimmel 'a coward' who 'shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.' She said he 'hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough... It is time for ABC to take a stand.'” ~~~

~~~ Emil Yahr of the Washington Post: “On Monday night, [Jimmy] Kimmel recapped the series of events [that led to the Trumps' demanding he be fired] for his audience, and noted that there was little reaction to his parody roast — which has now has more than 4 million streams on YouTube — until that morning. The 'expectant widow' line, he said, 'obviously was a joke about their age difference. And the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.'... 'It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,' Kimmel, 58, continued; the first lady turned 56 Sunday. 'It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence, in particular.'... 'By the way, I also should point out, Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say — as you are you, and as am I, as are all of us, because under the First Amendment, we have as Americans a right to free speech.' The host noted that 'this was like déjà vu for me today' seeing this story all over the news.”

Carl Hulse & Michael Gold of the New York Times: “Congressional Republicans are escalating their efforts to authorize the building of ... [Donald] Trump’s planned ballroom at the White House in the aftermath of the attack on a press gala in Washington on Saturday night that exposed security vulnerabilities. Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who chairs the Budget Committee, said on Monday that he wanted Congress to move legislation as quickly as possible to provide $400 million for construction of a secure White House ballroom that would also house national security facilities beneath it. 'We saw Saturday that America has a problem,' Mr. Graham told reporters. 'That problem is, it is very difficult to have a bunch of important people in the same place unless it is really, really secure.' Other Republicans were weighing in as well. Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado said she planned to propose legislation this week that would give the go-ahead for the project, as did Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. Senator Tim Sheehy, Republican of Montana, said he would take to the Senate floor to try to win quick unanimous approval of the ballroom construction, an effort likely to run into Democratic opposition.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The New York Times reporters do not even hint at how ridiculous the GOP arguments for a ballroom are. We'll let Lawrence O'Donnell & Garrett Graff touch on that:

     ~~~ Marie: This is a pirated copy of a big chunk of O'Donnell's show last night, so MS NOW may take it down soon. I've started the video at 17:22 minutes in, just before O'Donnell begins his interview of Graff. ~~~ 

~~~ Garrett Graff in Doomsday Scenario: "Trump’s argument [for building his ballroom and gigantic underground bunker], reinvigorated since Saturday and immediately sock-puppeted by all manner of right-wing influencers, is two-fold: First, the president needs a secure facility — unlike the Washington Hilton! — where the president can host grand gatherings, and, second, that the (re)construction of now-destroyed East Wing will enable the creation of a giant secure presidential bunker.... We can’t possibly believe or agree that the world is too dangerous for the elected leader of a democracy to ever leave his compound and that all supplicants must come to him in order to have an audience (plus Trump’s ballroom is still way smaller than the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, so it’s not like it’s an actual replacement for hotel galas.)... 

"The [original bunker] is known as the PEOC — the Presidential Emergency Operations Center — and is run by the White House Military Office. The facility has only been used a handful of times.... Historically, the bunker at the White House has always been intended to be a short-term facility for continuity purposes — it’s meant to be a place a president could spend minutes or hours, as the Secret Service and military plan and execute an evacuation to a more secure site.... The White House bunker has never been intended to be a place a president would actually run a crisis from long-term. It’s small and cramped — a place for dozens of staff, not scores or hundreds." It's worth reading the whole post. It's a public service to national sanity given to us by somebody who knows what he's talking about -- unlike the literally lamebrained president* who is promoting the grand ballroom/bunker combo.    

Jordain Carney & Katherine Tully-McManus of Politico: “... Republicans are facing multiple hurdles [in their effort to approve a ballroom & bunker mash-up], the most serious of which is that senators don’t have support to overcome a filibuster. Democrats are furious the ballroom is being built on the rubble of the East Wing that Trump bulldozed without consulting with lawmakers or planning and preservation review boards.... [Although there is talk of stuffing the ballroom/bunker approval into an immigration bill,] three Senate aides said Monday that a ballroom-related provision would not comply with the chamber’s rules for inclusion in the measure under the budget reconciliation process [under which the immigration bill is being presented].” 

Chris Geidner, the Law Dork: “Just before the end of the day on Monday, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward personally filed a deranged motion in federal court asking U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to issue a ruling in the National Trust’s case challenging  Donald Trump’s ballroom plan stating that Leon would dissolve the preliminary injunction he previously issued in the case (twice) if he had jurisdiction to do so. 'The injunction must be dissolved,' the DOJ filing declares in its conclusion — after seven pages of bombast. It was clear to anyone who looked at the filing that it — particularly the opening and conclusion — more closely resembled a Truth social post from Trump than a legal filing from the Department of Justice. It was yet another dark, embarrassing moment for DOJ — one that summed up the destruction that Trump and his sycophants have unleashed on the institution.” MB: It's sorta fund to read the parts Geidner highlights. ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Edwards & Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: “The National Trust for Historic Preservation said it would continue its legal challenge to ... Donald Trump’s planned ballroom, rejecting a Justice Department demand to drop the case because of the shooting this weekend at the White House correspondents’ dinner. The shooting was an 'awful event' but did not change the legal reality that the Constitution and federal law require Trump to get Congress’s approval for the $400 million White House ballroom project, the trust said. The nonprofit, which is authorized by Congress to protect federal buildings, pushed back sharply against the Justice Department’s contention that the lawsuit endangers the president.... Before the shooting, Congress showed little appetite to authorize the project. In the two days since, several of Trump’s congressional allies, including Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Montana), Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), have said they will seek to secure congressional approval, although Boebert suggested she didn’t believe it was legally necessary.”

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Michael Mora, writing in Wonkette, does an excellent job of taking down Dana Bash's both-siderism-on-steroids suggestion that irresponsible Democratic scolds are partly to blame for the Saturday's assassination attempt because these Democrats are so mean to Trump.  

They Went to a Garden Party. David Sanger of the New York Times: “... King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Monday evening began their weeklong celebration of the great alliance that emerged — eventually — from the American Revolution [with a garden party]. The garden in question was the sloping lawn of the British Embassy residence, where 600 or so of Washington’s famous and not so famous gathered, Pimm’s Cup in one hand and iPhone in the other, to catch a glimpse of, and maybe a word with, the royal couple. ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: “King Charles III of Britain will acknowledge on Tuesday that his country has had its differences with the United States, but he plans to tell a joint session of Congress that the 'two countries have always found ways to come together,' according to a preview of his remarks by Buckingham Palace. The king’s speech is a centerpiece of his first visit to the former colonies as Britain’s monarch. It comes at a fraught time for the relationship between the two governments, with ... [Donald] Trump mocking Prime Minister Keir Starmer for refusing to join the war in Iran. But in his speech, the king plans to say that the story of the two countries over the past 250 years has been marked by 'reconciliation and renewal,' and has produced what he will call 'one of the greatest alliances in human history.' The king and Queen Camilla began planning for their American trip months before the tensions emerged between Mr. Trump and Mr. Starmer.”

     ~~~ No word on whether or not Charles & Camilla got to admire the White House's new granite pavers.  The New York Times story goes into the beehive bit Trump showed off on his garden tour, as well as brief mention of Charles & Camilla's scheduled events later this week. Here's a photo of the new White House beehive, which I find quite cute. It reminds me of the small outbuilding I built next to a small lake. I couldn't have built a structure so close to the lake, but it was in fact a refurbishment of an old duck house that was in a dilapidated state. I had it fixed up with some old windows from a house I used to own and put up a sign labelling it, "Duckingham Palace." ~~~

New beehive.

     ~~~ Here's Duckingham Palace on a bleak November day: 

 

Craig Brown in a New York Times op-ed: “This week Charles will be smiling benignly and nodding politely, but it’s worth remembering that beneath that good humor and politesse there is a layer of steel. Courtesy can be tactical as well as virtuous.” Kind of a fun read. I made the link a gift link.

It is uncanny that everything the Trump administration does is wrong. ~~~  

~~~ Trump said he would "bomb Iran back to the Stone Ages." Instead, he is dragging the U.S. back to prehistoric times. ~~~

~~~ Maxine Joselow & Brad Plumer of the New York Times: “The Trump administration will pay energy companies hundreds of millions of dollars to abandon their plans to build two wind farms off the U.S. coast, the Interior Department said Monday, in a repeat of a tactic the government used to cancel other offshore wind leases last month. The firms will forfeit their leases in federal waters for the two wind farms, one of which would have been built off New York and New Jersey and the other off California. The government will reimburse the companies a combined $885 million, the amount they paid for the leases under the Biden administration. In exchange, the companies have pledged to invest that money in oil and gas projects, including liquefied natural gas facilities along the Gulf Coast. The deals are modeled after a similar agreement last month with the French energy giant TotalEnergies. TotalEnergies forfeited its leases for two wind projects planned off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, while committing to a range of fossil-fuel investments.” The AP's report is here. ~~~

~~~ Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: “For more than a half-century, a prestigious scientific arm of the federal government did groundbreaking research aimed at saving American lives. It studied fertility, asthma, wildfires, drinking water, climate change and myriad other health threats. In just one year, it has been almost completely dismantled. One scientist, a doctor and expert in lung health, has recently been reassigned to a finance office. Another, an epidemiologist, has been told she has a new job issuing permits to handle hazardous waste.... They are among more than 1,500 biologists, chemists and other experts at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development who have been laid off, reassigned or pressured to retire. Today, only 124 researchers remain, and this month they must decide whether to remain employed they will abandon their work and move to different parts of the agency, or the country.” The link appears to be a gift link. ~~~

~~~ The Trump EEOC Is a Joke, But It Isn't Funny. Rebecca O'Brien of the New York Times: “Field staff at the federal agency that enforces civil rights laws in the workplace say they are under intense pressure from leadership to bring in cases that fit the Trump administration’s priorities, including charges of discrimination against white men and charges of antisemitism on college campuses. That pressure has led investigators and lawyers at the agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to focus its thin resources on pursuing and fast-tracking cases that have little evidence and tenuous legal bases, according to more than a dozen current and former employees, both Republicans and Democrats. They described a deeply demoralized and fearful work force, diminished by years of attrition and a surge of resignations and retirements during the second Trump administration. Current and recently departed employees ... said the commission’s Republican chair, Andrea Lucas, had recast the agency to carry out ... [Donald] Trump’s executive orders. They said they felt compelled to speak because they were concerned about the future of the agency, where many saw their work enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws as a moral calling that has now been abandoned.” ~~~

~~~ Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: “A simple strip of treated paper that can swiftly signal whether a street drug contains deadly fentanyl or other contaminants is a common overdose prevention tool, distributed widely on college campuses and at music festivals and community clinics. The federal government has championed test strips since 2021 and has paid to supply them to states, a position the Trump administration publicly embraced as recently as July. But on Friday afternoon, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration sent a letter to state health departments and grant recipients across the country, saying that the government would no longer pay for the strips because they are 'intended for use by people using drugs.' The sudden policy reversal bewildered and alarmed administrators of programs that have routinely handed out test strips for years.... The strips can be used to test drugs ranging from crack cocaine to anti-anxiety pills.” ~~~

~~~ Cruelty Must Be the Point. Eli Hager of ProPublica: "... Donald Trump’s administration is poised to penalize [disabled] people ... simply for living in the same home as their families, according to four federal officials, internal emails and a federal regulatory listing. The administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — about $330 a month in Burton’s case — or ending their support altogether.... [The new rule] would slash benefits or end support for as many as 400,000 Supplemental Security Income recipients with Down syndrome, dementia and other disabilities....

"The effort to cut SSI for families who also rely on food stamps..., or SNAP, was initiated by top White House and Department of Government Efficiency officials last year.... It marks a second attempt by the Trump administration to quietly but dramatically downsize disability benefit programs overseen by the Social Security Administration, despite those programs’ strict eligibility standards and minimal instances of fraud. White House Budget Director Russell Vought and Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano abandoned a different proposed regulation involving disability payments last year after ProPublica and other news outlets reported on the harm that the plan would cause to hundreds of thousands of largely blue-collar workers in red states."

~~~ Seriously, the Trumplodytes must get out of bed every day asking themselves, "What really stupid, counterproductive thing can I do today? Because own the libs." Or something. 

W. A. Lawrence on Substack: "The last time Republican leadership earned its salary, Richard Nixon was president. The signatures on every law that keeps your family alive are Democratic." Lawrence has the receipts. Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) MB: The explicit questions she asks support Democrats, but the implicit question behind all of these questions is "What have Republicans done for you?" Unfortunately, Republicans have answers to that. Their answers are false. but a lot of Republicans are good liars. So when they boast about how much Trump's 2017 Tax Cut & Jobs Act helped you out, many people will acknowledge the "reform." Some may vaguely remember their taxes went down a little bit one year. Or some may recall hearing how Reaganomics slashed taxes even more. Maybe a few will be grateful to Trump because he said -- falsely, of course -- “We now are paying the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs.” The Democrats' electoral problem remains a messaging problem. Democrats have to figure out not just how to highlight what they have done for ordinary Americans -- and Bernie Sanders will say "not enough" -- they have to find simple, memorable slogans to argue, as Lawrence does in places, that Republicans have fought the interests of the ordinary person all the way.

~~~ Tracey Tully of the New York Times: “Representative Thomas Kean Jr., a New Jersey Republican who has not cast a vote in the House in nearly two months, said on Monday that he expected to make a full recovery from what he called a 'personal medical issue,' but offered no additional details about his health or when he might return to Congress.... Mr. Kean, who is running for re-election in one of the country’s most competitive House races.... Even fellow Republican lawmakers have said that they had been given no information about Mr. Kean’s health condition, which has taken him away from Congress at a critical moment.... Friends in New Jersey who have long known Mr. Kean and his father, a popular former governor with the same name, said they had been similarly left in the dark about the medical issue.” ~~~ 

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Florida Redistricting. Patricia Mazzei & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: “Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida proposed a redraw of the state’s congressional districts on Monday that could give Republicans as many as four new seats, an aggressive gambit that could also set the party up for some losses in the November midterms. The map appears to eliminate two Democratic-held districts in South Florida, a third in the Tampa area and a fourth in the Orlando area, leaving Democrats with perhaps only four of the state’s 28 congressional seats. There are currently seven Florida Democrats in Congress; an eighth, former Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, resigned last week after being charged with embezzlement. Florida, which does not hold primary elections until August, is the last state aiming to redraw congressional maps ahead of the midterms. A Supreme Court decision expected soon on a key provision of the Voting Rights Act could provide opportunities for other states to do so, but with many holding primaries in the next month or two, time is running out.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Akhilleus heard yesterday that sub rosa people are saying that Sam Alito is writing the opinion on the Voting Rights Act case, which -- if true -- would mean that racist gerrymandering is just fine. 

Virginia Redistricting. Gary Robertson & David Lieb of the AP: “Virginia Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned whether the state’s Democratic-led legislature complied with constitutional requirements when it sent a congressional redistricting plan to voters, in a case that carries high stakes for the balance of power in the U.S. House. The new districts, which could net Democrats four additional seats, won narrow voter approval last week. But a Republican legal challenge contends the General Assembly violated procedural rules by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week’s statewide vote meaningless.” (Also linked yesterday.)