Iran

Washington Post -   As President Donald Trump renews his threats to bomb “the entire country” of Iran, he is offering a new justification for the costly five-week conflict with no clear end in sight: God himself wants the United States to do it.

Trump said Monday that he believed God supports the United States’ actions in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, a widening conflict that has killed thousands in the Middle East, wounded many more and left 13 U.S. service members dead.

“I do, because God is good,” Trump said in response to a Washington Post reporter’s question during a White House news briefing. “And God wants to see people taken care of.”

Book banning in Iowa

Yahoo -  A federal appeals court decision on Monday cleared the way for enforcement of a state law that bans Iowa’s public schools from offering certain books and forms of instruction related to gender and sexual orientation.

Senate File 496, which was signed into law in 2023, included several provisions related to public schools, gender identity and sexuality. In two separate lawsuits, the American Civil Liberties Union, an LGBTQ advocacy groups and a coalition of publishers took the state to court over the issue, arguing that some elements of the law violated individuals’ constitutional rights.

In 2025, a federal judge imposed a set of parallel, temporary injunctions that effectively blocked enforcement of those provisions while the two cases are being litigated.

In two separate decisions issued Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated those injunctions and remanded both cases back to district court where the underlying challenges as to the law’s legality can proceed toward trial.

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Polls

Trump has a CNN approval rating of 49%

Banning kids from social media may not be a good idea

Study Finds -  A new Science analysis argues that blanket social media bans and broad surveillance rules for kids often fail to make them safer.

The big reason is trust: when children feel watched or shut out, they may hide problems instead of asking adults for help.

The authors point to four better bets: trust-building, easy reporting tools, real-time on-device supports, and digital safety education woven into daily life.

The paper also stresses a bigger shift in mindset: children should be treated as partners in digital safety, not just as passive people to control.

How Trump walks  these days

Trump timeline on Iran

Occupy Democrats

 -  Mar 3: "We won the war."

Mar 7: "We defeated Iran."

Mar 9: "We must attack Iran."

Mar 9: "The war is ending almost completely, and very beautifully."

Mar 11: “You never like to say too ?early you won. We won. In ?the first hour it was over.” 

Mar 12: "We did win, but we haven't won completely yet."

Mar 13: "We won the war."

Mar 14: "Please help us."

Mar 15: "If you don't help us, I will certainly remember it."

Mar 16: "Actually, we don't need any help at all."

Mar 16: "I was just testing to see who's listening to me."

Mar 16: "If NATO doesn't help, they will suffer something very bad."

Mar 17: "We neither need nor want NATO's help."

Mar 17: "I don't need Congressional approval to withdraw from NATO."

Mar 18: "Our allies must cooperate in reopening the Strait of Hormuz."

Mar 19: "US allies need to get a grip - step up and help open the Strait of Hormuz."

Mar 20: "NATO are cowards."

Mar 21: "The Strait of Hormuz must be protected by the countries that use it. We don't use it, we don't need to open it."

Mar 22: "This is the last time. I will give Iran 48 hours. Open the strait"

Mar 22: "Iran is Dead"

Mar 23: "We had very good and productive talks with Iran."

Mar 24: "We’re making progress."

Mar 25: “They gave us a present and the present arrived today. And it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. I’m not going to tell you what that present is, but it was a very significant prize.”

Mar 26: "Make a deal, or we’ll just keep blowing them away."

Mar 27: "We don’t have to be there for NATO."

Mar 28: No major quote

Mar 29: Claimed talks were progressing

Mar 30: "Open the Strait of Hormuz immediately, or face devastating consequences."

Mar 31: Claimed a deal was "very close" and that Iran would "do the right thing"

Apr 1: "We’ll see what happens very soon."

Apr 2: Repeated that a deal was likely, while warning of continued strikes if not

Apr 3: "Something big is going to happen."

Apr 4: Said Iran must comply "immediately" or face further consequences.

Apr 5: "Open the f*ckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah."

Gavin Newsom

Gavin Newsom Press Office - California GDP surged 40% (to more than $4 trillion) — accounting for more than 14% of US output, since  Gavin Newsom took office in January 2019.  China expanded 32%, Germany increased 16%

Retirement isn's what it used to be

Noah Sheidlower, MSN -   Fewer people are simply working 40 years, stepping away as Social Security kicks in, and then riding out their golden years. Over the last two years, I've interviewed more than 200 people who are still working past 80, and dozens more who retired in their 30s and 40s. Collectively, their stories lay bare how the traditional retirement path has withered away for millions of Americans.

As I reported in my "80 Over 80" series, 4.2% of the 80+ population still works, up from 3% in 2010, based on an analysis of Census data. The 75+ workforce is the fastest-growing of all demographics, while roughly one in five Americans 65+ works, double the rate in the 1980s. On the younger end, the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement has gained momentum as financial education moves into the mainstream. A 2023 survey of over 2,000 respondents conducted by The Harris Poll found that a quarter wanted to retire before turning 50, though the number who actually pull it off is much lower.

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Trump's budget

How the 25th Amendment works

Independent, UK  The 25th Amendment establishes procedures for replacing the president or vice president in cases of death, removal, resignation, or incapacitation.

Section 1 specifies that the vice president assumes the presidency if the president is removed from office, dies, or resigns.

Section 4 allows the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare the president unable to discharge their duties, making the vice president the acting president. Section 4 has never been used. If the President declares their ability to resume office, but the vice president and cabinet dispute this, Congress must then decide the issue.

The first use of the 25th Amendment occurred in 1973 when President Richard Nixon nominated Congressman Gerald R. Ford to fill the vacancy left by Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation. In less than a year, the 25th Amendment was used again when Vice President Ford became President after Nixon resigned.

Numbers don't back talk of religious revival

Alternet -    Christian conservatives, including but not limited to supporters of President Donald Trump, like to claim that there is a Christian revival occurring right now in America, but The New York Times’ Lauren Jackson pointed out Sunday that the truth is much more complicated.

“Anecdotes don’t make a national trend,” Jackson wrote. “And experts have urged caution: ‘These stories are a very small drop in a very large ocean, whose currents have for decades been taking people away from religion,’ said David Campbell, a political scientist at Notre Dame who researches secularization. ‘For us to call this a true revival, we would need to see a level of conversion that we have never seen in the history of the United States.’ And Pew Research refuted claims of a Gen Z revival, writing that there is ‘no clear evidence that this kind of nationwide religious resurgence is underway.’

Jackson observed that people have stopped leaving churches altogether, and the pausing of this symptom of secularization is “a big deal. It upends decades of assumptions that the U.S. was on an inevitable march toward godlessness.” At the same time, “that doesn’t mean a revival is underway, that suddenly the country is rushing back to the pews. Religious change doesn’t happen that quickly.”

Federal judge halts White House effort to collect university data on applicants’ race

The Guardian -   A federal judge on Friday halted efforts by the Trump administration to collect data that proves higher education institutions aren’t considering race in admissions.

The ruling from the US district court judge F Dennis Saylor IV in Boston granting the preliminary injunction follows a lawsuit filed earlier this month by a coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general. It will only apply to public universities in plaintiffs’ states.

The federal judge said the federal government likely has the authority to collect the data, but the demand was rolled out to universities in a “rushed and chaotic” manner.

“The 120-day deadline imposed by the president led directly to the failure of [the National Center for Education Statistics] to engage meaningfully with the institutions during the notice-and-comment process to address the multitude of problems presented by the new requirements,” Saylor wrote.

Bowling alone updated

Nationhood Lab - In 1995, Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam wrote an research article called "Bowling Alone," which demonstrated that American's stock of social capital -- the fabric of a community's trust and cooperation - had declined dramatically since the 1950s. Social scientists and civic activists have been focused on the problem -- which has contributed to everything from deaths of despair to the rise of Trumpist ethnonationalism -- ever since. We've long suspected there are substantial differences in social capital across the U.S. regions, and this spring we confirmed that it is indeed the case.

Using a county-level social capital index, we calculated the scores for each of the American Nations model's regional cultures and found dramatic gaps between the "communitarian regions" of the Northeast and West Coast and the two regions founded by the Spanish Empire. (Southern regions generally lay in between.) ... People in some places may be bowling alone, but in others they may still have some people joining them.

Money

Axios - The wartime spike in gas and oil prices will likely push food prices even higher in the coming weeks, Axios Markets' Emily Peck reports.

• The war is just the latest stress on food inflation — on top of tariffs, rising electricity prices and an immigration crackdown that has driven up labor costs.

The immediate shock on the grocery shelf comes via higher costs of transportation — getting food from warehouses and farms to the store.

"Fucking" becoming more normal

The Hill  - “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F---in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday. 

Sam Smith - I scan hundreds of online news stories every day and one of the things that fascinates me is that the work fuck is being used more and more frequently. It seems to have gained at least semi-respectability. Not the word Trump  but fuck. 

Voting rights

Maine Morning Star -   President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail ballots faced a fresh challenge on Friday, as a coalition of Democratic states filed a lawsuit seeking to block an order that experts say is an extraordinary attempt by the president to assert authority over elections.

More than 20 states — led by California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington — and the District of Columbia sued in federal court in Massachusetts. They argue the order violates the Constitution, which gives states the responsibility to run elections and allows Congress, not the president unilaterally, the power to override state regulations...

Congress

Alternet -   Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) appears ready to make his move to take over as Speaker of the House after Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) is expected to make his move after the GOP loses control of Congress. NOTUS reported Monday that Republican lawmakers believe Jordan is preparing to take over and that he's raising and donating large sums of campaign cash to incumbents.

Iran

NPR - Lebanon's government says Israel has killed at least 54 medics since the war with Iran began. Some human rights groups say first responders are being targeted — something that Israel denies. 

The Guardian -   The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that the strikes near Iran’s Bushehr atomic power plant “pose a very real danger to nuclear safety and must stop”.

The nuclear plant, which is located in the south of the country and equipped with a 1,000-megawatt reactor, has been targeted four times since the US-Israeli war on Iran began.

Rafael Grossi, director of the IAEA, said that any strikes around the area “could cause a severe radiological accident with harmful consequences for people and the environment in Iran and beyond.”

He added that one strike hit just 75 metres (246 feet) from the plant perimeter. “A nuclear facility and surrounding areas should never be struck,” he said.

Teaching in the Trump times

"How do I describe this troubled world of ours — the grave crossroads we straddle, the mighty stakes of our decisions — in a manner both truthful and gentle? How do I gird my students for the uncertainties and obstacles ahead while equipping them with an ample store of hope? I’ve been on the faculty at Duke University for five years now, and this past one has been the most challenging and the strangest by far.” — Frank Bruni  More

Donald Trump

The Guardian -  District court judges nationwide have been increasingly issuing strong rulings challenging the legality of many of Donald Trump’s policies and executive power grabs, blocking key ones at least temporarily, and sparking angry responses from the president, former judges and prosecutors say.

Since the start of Trump’s second term, lower court federal judges have written sharply critical opinions about his legally dubious policies on immigration, tariffs, Department of Justice (DoJ) prosecutions of political foes and more.

The impact of the court rulings by these judges has been sizable, slowing or halting some of the president’s most extreme policies and prompting Trump and Maga allies to respond with vindictive attacks that have helped to fuel some threats against several judges.

New Republic -   A frustrated Donald Trump is mulling more personnel changes, Politico reports, potentially targeting his Commerce and Labor secretaries. As one official confides: “He’s very angry and he’s going to be moving people.” The Politico piece depicts unnerved aides parsing his fury like tea leaves and disconcertedly leaking to reporters about who’s on “thin ice.” Crucially, Trump is mulling changes that would make him look better on the economy—where a new poll is absolutely brutal—and in hopes of getting them through before a midterm loss makes them harder. Indeed, Time reports that his advisers cautiously delivered bad news to him about internal polling showing that his midterm problems have gotten worse due to the war. 

Pentagon wants $200 billion more

MSN -  The Trump administration is preparing to ask Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars in funding to pay for its military campaign against Iran, setting the stage for a high-stakes fight on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers in both parties have been leery of an extended overseas conflict.

The Pentagon has asked the White House to seek an additional $200 billion to cover operations, according to a senior administration official. The money would go toward flying thousands of combat missions over Iran, as well as replenishing munitions that have been used in nearly three weeks of fighting in the Middle East.

The size of the expected request comes as Trump administration officials have refused to put a timeline on the war.

“It takes money to kill bad guys,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday. “So we are going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we are properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future.”

Hegseth said the amount of money could change, but didn’t dispute that the Pentagon was seeking around $200 billion, a figure reported earlier by the Washington Post. “As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move,” he said.

Not letting the news ruin our lives

Sam Smith - I majored in anthropology back in the 1950s and also became news director of Harvard's student run radio station, WHRB. Thanks in no small part to my academic major, my approach towards journalism did not depend on only the most prominent individuals and institutions but also included ways in which the habits, gatherings, actions and views of ordinary citizens, too often ignored by major media, were newsworthy as well. 

I learned back then that civilization was not the sole property of the famous and the powerful but also included the thoughts and habits of plain people.  

In the 1960s I started a paper on Washington's Capitol Hill, the neighborhood next to a great white building that provided its name. During the 1968 riots following Martin Luther King's death, one of the hardest hit areas was right near this headquarter of Congress. In other words, some of the most powerful in the world worked near some of the weakest. 

Things have changed a lot since then but the gap between the strong and the weak has grown, thanks in no small part to the rise of television and the Internet, both of which have added power to the powerful and lessened our involvement, for example, in our communities and neighbors. 

Our obsession with Trump and his ability to abuse it is thanks, in part, to the common lengthy use of TV and computers.  Even someone like me, bothered by all this, still types away and goes after Trump because it seems the best use of my time. 

Yet I also moved to a small town in Maine nearly two decades ago because Washington seemed working less and less well. And that's helped a lot. My Maine town shows that a real America is still alive. 

Further,  I think much more about real people than those I can only watch on a screen. I feel like I live in two worlds -one I only see and one I actually live with. 

Lately, another personal experience has revived itself in my mind: the more than four decades that I played in bands. And it was not my solos that recovered these thoughts. On the contrary, it was that most of the time, as I played the piano, I was backing up someone else. The fact that, in a band, one's dominant time is spent helping others is seldom discussed yet is what really makes a tune sound good. Even if you are called a star much of the time you're a helper. 

Another thing about playing music is that it is a metaphor for another way in which life really works, namely that you do your thing and then move on to something else. I have come to the conclusion that life is like playing a gigs or acting on stage.  You play your part, then you go home and in a short time you have a new one coming up. 

There are millions of us who are wiser or kinder or more sensible than those running our country.  But we can't let our world be defined by television or the Internet. We need to get back to building an America we can love and be proud of. And we must treat other real Americans as our leaders.

A rabbi on Israel

Rabbi Yakoov Shapiro: 

-No Jew owes allegiance to Israel over their own country

- Judaism is a faith not a political loyalty contract

- Israel does NOT represent all Jews

Saying every Jew must prioritize Israel over their own nation?

That’s not just wrong. It’s dangerous.

And yes, pushing that idea can itself fuel antisemitism.

Faith is not nationalism.

Judaism is not owned by any state.

Committing Hight Reason - Yaakov Shapiro is a scholar of Judaism, an international speaker, author, and a pulpit rabbi for over 30 years, now emeritus. He has attained an enviable place in the arena of anti-Zionist public intellectuals, having constructed a unique oeuvre on the ideology of Zionism and its hostile relationship toward Judaism

A psychologist describes Trump 

List of Trump Officials Born to Immigrant Parents

 

Jet fuel costs skyrocket

The Hill -   An international jet fuel shortage is driving up airfares and triggering thousands of flight cancellations as airlines grapple with rising costs. Analysts warn the crisis could deepen in the coming weeks, with the war in Iran showing little sign of easing and jet fuel prices continuing to climb.

Since before the war began, the price of jet fuel in the U.S. has surged by 95 percent — from $2.50 per gallon on Feb. 27 to $4.88 on April 2, according to the Argus U.S. Jet Fuel Index, published by Airlines for America. That puts the price per barrel at nearly $205.

Airlines have already begun taking steps to offset higher costs, reducing flight schedules and quietly raising fares.

TSA

Independence Journal -   White House proposes $52 million TSA budget cut and privatization following shutdown-induced airport meltdowns with 10%+ worker absences and 500+ resignations.

Airports using private screeners under existing TSA program avoided chaos entirely during funding crisis, demonstrating shutdown-proof alternative model

Proposal mandates small airports adopt private screening while expanding proven partnership program that reported efficiency gains and lower employee turnover

Labor unions and former TSA officials oppose plan as profit-driven threat to security, though private contractors operated under identical federal standards since 2004

Word

Via Robert Hubbell 

Artificial Intelligence

The Guardian - Pupils using artificial intelligence are losing their capacity for critical thinking, according to a survey of secondary school teachers in England.

Two-thirds said they had observed the decline among children who they also said no longer felt the need to spell because of voice-to-text technology.

“Students are losing core skills – thinking, creativity, writing, even how to have a conversation,” one teacher told the National Education Union poll.

“AI is destroying what ‘learning’ – problem-solving, critical thinking and collaborative effort – is,” said another. A third anonymous contributor added: “Children no longer feel the need to spell as voice-to-text replaces knowledge.”

The government has called for a digital revolution involving AI in schools, and in January announced plans to develop AI tutoring tools to provide one-to-one learning support for up to 450,000 disadvantaged pupils.

....Of the 9,000 state school teachers polled by the NEU, which is holding its conference in Brighton, 49% said they opposed the government’s plan for AI tutors, with just 14% in agreement.

Arts Journal -   This was a week AI stopped being a hypothetical for culture industries and started leaving fingerprints everywhere. The New York Times fired a freelance critic who used AI to write a book review. Hachette pulled a novel for suspected AI authorship — publishing’s first real scandal on this front — and the industry has no idea what to do next. Meanwhile, HarperCollins signed a multi-year deal with an AI animation studio, and Netflix acquired Ben Affleck’s AI production company, which promises to cut below-the-line costs by 20%. ...

Alongside this, the fights over who controls cultural institutions kept intensifying. The Smithsonian’s board sits with empty seats as the White House stalls appointments. A Tennessee library director was fired for refusing to pull books. And a Moscow court sentenced a German artist to prison — for art made in Germany.

Constitution

Time -   The Republican governors of Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Utah have all recently signed their states’ own versions of the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote in all 50 states that Trump has made his top legislative priority. 

In several other states, measures to add additional language into their constitutions explicitly prohibiting non-citizens from voting are on the ballot in the November midterms. And in still more, efforts to get amendments of that kind on the ballot are underway and state legislators are weighing bills to introduce proof of citizenship requirements or otherwise restrict voting access.