Satellite imagery of the Middle East is unusually difficult to acquire at present. Two of the largest commercial providers, Vantor and Planet, have complied with requests from the U.S. government — their biggest customer — to limit, delay or indefinitely withhold the publication of imagery of the region while the war is ongoing, making it difficult or impossible to assess Iran’s counterstrikes. Those restrictions began less than two weeks into the war.
Wednesday Reads
Posted: May 6, 2026 Filed under: just because | Tags: Donald Trump, Ebrahim Rezaei, Esmail Baghaei, Iran war negotiations, Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, Project Freedom, Strait of Hormuz, Ted Turner, Trump's ballroom 7 CommentsGood Day!!
I spent the last 3 days reading books and relaxing, and mostly avoiding watching or reading news social media. My RA pain had been pretty bad lately, and it has definitely improved as a result. I’ll have to see what happens after I engage with the news for this post, but at the moment I plan to go back on a news diet when I finish. I definitely think my health is improved by avoiding news about Trump.
Here’s what’s happening this morning:
Cable news Legend Ted Turner has died.
The New York Times (gift article): Ted Turner, Creator of CNN and the 24-Hour News Cycle, Dies at 87.
Ted Turner, the media mogul who cut a brash and vivid figure on the American scene of the late 20th century by dominating the cable television industry, creating the 24-hour news cycle with CNN, and extending his restless reach into professional sports, environmentalism and philanthropy, died on Wednesday at his home near Tallahassee, Fla. He was 87.
Phillip Evans, a spokesman for the family, confirmed the death. Mr. Turner announced in 2018 that he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder.
Ted Turner
Mr. Turner’s signature creation was CNN — the Cable News Network — which revolutionized television news in 1980 by presenting it all hours of the day and eventually inspiring other media operations to follow suit. But his portfolio of business ventures bulged with much more, and their impact on American culture was considerable.
As a spinoff of CNN, Mr. Turner created the channel CNN Headline News and CNN International. He founded the cable and satellite sports and entertainment “superstation” that became known as TBS and spawned a sister channel, TNT, both of which continue to reach millions of homes.
In 1985, he bought for $1.5 billion the MGM studio’s library of films and nine years later created the cable franchise Turner Classic Movies, or TCM. He made a similar purchase of Hanna-Barbera cartoons and, relying on them, created the Cartoon Network in 1992. And in 1996, he merged his conglomerate, Turner Broadcasting System, with Time Warner to create one of the world’s largest media companies.
Along the way, he found the time and energy to captain the winning yacht in the America’s Cup race in 1977 and to take an active role as owner of the Atlanta Braves, giving the team extended national exposure on Turner-owned television.
“I’m trying to set the all-time record for achievement by one person in one lifetime,” he told the journalist Dale Van Atta in a Reader’s Digest article in 1998. “And that puts you in pretty big company: Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Gandhi, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Washington, Roosevelt, Churchill.”
Not even his staunchest admirers placed Mr. Turner on that high a pedestal. But even a bitter rival like the media magnate Rupert Murdoch — who once had his New York Post run the headline “Is Turner Insane?” — had to concede that he was one of the most influential figures in the history of mass media.
An Atlanta-based entrepreneur, Mr. Turner took astounding risks in business, often teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and then roaring back to multiply his fortune.
Against the advice of colleagues and the conventional wisdom of his industry peers, he poured millions of dollars into pioneering ventures that combined cable and satellite broadcasts. He warred against the big television networks. He almost lost his shirt in Hollywood but emerged from these gambles and brawls as a billionaire astride a vast cable empire of news, sports and entertainment channels.
Of course the big story is still Trump’s war with Iran. It’s difficult to know what to believe about what’s going on, since Trump and Hegseth lie constantly.
CNN reports the Trump/Hegseth line: US and Iran closing in on memorandum aimed at ending war, source says.
The United States and Iran are moving closer to an agreement on a short memorandum to end the Iran war, a regional source familiar with the negotiations said, although Trump administration officials cautioned that talks had previously fallen apart at the last minute.
The White House received positive feedback from Pakistani mediators on Tuesday that the Iranians were progressing toward a compromise, two administration officials told CNN while offering some skepticism about Pakistan’s optimism.
From CentCom: Project Freedom at Strait of Hormuz
But a renewed diplomatic push has emerged in recent days, the regional source said. President Donald Trump appears to be simplifying issues in peace negotiations so moderates in the Iranian regime can come back to the negotiating table, the source added, with the aim being to tackle thornier issues later.
A one-page plan being floated internally contains provisions that have been at the heart of negotiations to end the conflict, a person familiar with the plan told CNN. The document would declare an end to the war while triggering a 30-day negotiation period on resolving sticking points, including on nuclear issues, unfreezing Iranian assets and future security in the Strait of Hormuz, the person said.
Precise details of the plan couldn’t immediately be verified, but the source familiar said it would include discussion of a moratorium on uranium enrichment for a period of longer than 10 years. A previous US proposal had set it at 20 years.
The plan also requires Iran to ship its stockpile of highly enriched uranium out of the country, but details were still being negotiated.
News of positive movement from the Pakistanis helped spur Trump on Tuesday to announce a pause of “Project Freedom” – an operation to guide stranded ships out of the strait – citing progress in negotiations with Iran, the administration officials said. The pause came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Operation Epic Fury had ended and that the administration’s full focus was on Project Freedom.
The regional source told CNN that the harder the US pushed its agenda of Project Freedom and Operation Epic Fury, the more the hardliners in Iran stood up and had a bigger voice.
The Guardian reports on Iran’s reaction: Middle East crisis live: US proposal to end war a ‘wishlist, not a reality’, warns Iranian official.
‘American wishlist, not a reality’: Iranian officials cast doubt on US proposal to end war.
Ebrahim Rezaei, the spokesperson of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, has poured cold water on the Axios report claiming the US and Iran were nearing a one-page memorandum to end the war, saying it was an “American wishlist [and] not a reality”.
Ebrahim Rezaei
In a fiery statement on X, he said: “Americans will not gain in a lost war what they failed to achieve in face-to-face negotiations. Iran has its finger on the trigger and is ready; if they do not surrender and grant the necessary concessions, or if they or their lapdogs attempt any mischief, we will respond with a harsh and regrettable response.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, also responded to the Axios report, telling the Iranian Isna news agency that the US proposal is still being reviewed by Tehran.
“Once Iran concludes its assessment, it will convey its views to the Pakistani side,” Isna reported, adding that the US demands detailed in the Axios report “included excessive and unrealistic demands that have been strongly rejected by Iranian officials in recent days”.
Isna reported that the Iranian negotiating team is solely reviewing the “termination of the war” and the nuclear issue is not currently being discussed.
That doesn’t sound like an agreement is coming soon. And Trump is issuing threats.
AP: US and Iran appear to move closer to ending their war as Trump threatens more bombing.
The United States and Iran appeared to be moving closer Wednesday to an initial agreement to end the war, as U.S. President Trump sought to pressure Tehran with threats of a new wave of bombing if a deal is not reached.
Trump posted on social media that the two-month war could soon end and that oil and natural gas shipments disrupted by the conflict could restart. But he said that depends on Iran accepting a reported agreement that the president did not detail.
“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts,” Trump wrote.
Trump made his latest comments after he suspended a short-lived U.S. effort to force open a safe passage for commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which major oil and gas supplies, fertilizer and other petroleum products passed before the war.
Iran’s effective closure of the strait has sent fuel prices skyrocketing, rattled the global economy and put enormous economic pressure on countries, including major powers such as China.
China’s foreign minister called for a comprehensive ceasefire Wednesday after meeting in Beijing with Iran’s top envoy. Wang Yi said his country was “deeply distressed” by the conflict, which began Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran.
China’s close economic and political ties to Tehran give it a unique position of influence. The Trump administration is pressing China to use that relationship to urge the Islamic Republic to open the strait.
Meanwhile it appears that the Trump administration has been trying to conceal how much damage Iran has done to U.S. bases in the Middle East region.
The Washington Post (gift article): Iran has hit far more U.S. military assets than reported, satellite images show.
Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment atU.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks,fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported.
The threat of air attacks rendered some of the U.S. bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels, and commanders moved most of the personnel from these sites out of the range of Iranian fire at the start of the war, officials have said.
Since the start of the war on Feb. 28, seven service members have died in strikes on U.S. facilities in the region — six in Kuwait and one in Saudi Arabia — and more than 400 troops have suffered injuries as of late April, the U.S. military said. While most of the wounded returned to duty within days, at least 12 suffered injuries that military officials classified as serious, according to U.S. officials who, among others, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Iranian state-affiliated news agencies, however, have from the start regularly published high-resolution satellite imagery on their social media accounts that claimed to document damage to U.S. sites.
Images of damage to Camp Buehring in Kuwait, released and annotated by Iranian state-affiliated media. Washington Post illustration.
For this examination — one of the first comprehensive public accounts of the damage to U.S. facilities in the region — The Post reviewed more than 100 high-resolution Iranian-released satellite images. The Post verified the authenticity of 109 of the those images by comparing them with lower-resolution imagery from the European Union’s satellite system, Copernicus, as well as high-resolution images from Planet where available. The Post excluded 19 Iranian images from the damage analysis because comparisons with the Copernicus imagery were inconclusive. No Iranian imagery was found to have been manipulated.
In a separate search of Planet imagery, Post reporters found 10 damaged or destroyed structures that were not documented in the imagery released by Iran. In all, The Post found 217 structures and 11 pieces of equipment that were damaged or destroyed at 15 U.S. military sites in the region.
Experts who reviewed The Post’s analysis said the damage at the sites suggested that the U.S. military had underestimated Iran’s targeting abilities, not adapted sufficiently to modern drone warfare and left some bases under-protected.
“The Iranian attacks were precise. There are no random craters indicating misses,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a retired Marine Corps colonel, who reviewed the Iranian images at The Post’s request. The Post previously revealed how Russia provided Iran with intelligence to target U.S. forces.
Read the rest and view more images using the gift link above. I wonder what it will take to repair the damage?
Here’s a bit of hopeful news from The Washington Post: Poll finds broad rejection of religion-related messages from Trump, Hegseth.
Tuesday Political Cartoons: Nixon makes me hot.
Posted: May 5, 2026 Filed under: just because 7 Comments
Hope you all are doing well, I have a few things to share before we get to the cartoons and memes.
Cartoons via Cagle:
Stay safe…
Mostly Monday Reads: Gobblefunk
Posted: May 4, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, 2024, abortion rights, US-IRAN War | Tags: @repeat1968. John Buss, “Don't gobblefunk around with words.” ― Roald Dahl, ICE, mifepristone, SCOTUS, Straight of Hormuz, The BFG., Trump's going slightly mad, US vs the Liberal World Order 3 Comments
“Meanwhile… at the Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC. Not everyone in Trumpland is impressed with the latest distraction. MAHA!”John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
There actually is some good news from the Supreme Court Today. I’m not holding my breath that it will stand, however. It’s hard to hold your breath on anything. The Straight of Hormuz is still an active battlefield, no matter what Orange Caligula tells the press. People are dying in ICE custody as ICE has not been paying for medical care for 7 months. All of our allies are moving closer to Europe and farther from us, no matter where they are in the world. We’re a shithole country. We might as well face up to it.
Just breaking: news from the Supreme Court. NBC News reports that “Supreme Court temporarily restores full access to abortion pill. “The decision means mifepristone remains available nationwide without an in-person meeting required while litigation continues.” I read this headline after taking Temple for a walk and found a bunch of stickers on the neutral ground. Of course, I picked them up, and Temple and I will be plastering them at all the local bars later today.
This seems a little karmic, doesn’t it? Lawrence Hurley and Aria Bendix have the lede.
The Supreme Court on Monday provisionally blocked a lower court decision that would have limited availability nationwide of the abortion pill mifepristone.
In two brief orders, Justice Samuel Alito, one of the court’s conservatives, said the decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would remain on hold until at least May 11. Alito issued the order because he is the justice who handles emergency issues arising from that appeals court, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The temporary pause gives the high court time to consider next steps in the case as it weighs separate emergency requests filed by drug makers Danco and GenBioPro.
The nationwide availability of mifepristone was cast into jeopardy on Friday when the appeals court granted Louisiana’s request to void Biden administration rules that allowed the drug to be administered without an in-person meeting, meaning it can in theory be mailed anywhere in the country, even in states with strict abortion bans.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of abortion rights group Planned Parenthood Action Fund, welcomed the decision.
“While mifepristone access returns to where it was on Friday morning, the whiplash and chaos that patients and providers are navigating have already had real consequences for real peoples’ lives and futures,” she said in a statement.
Anti-abortion groups have been pushing for years to reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement, alleging that taking mifepristone at home can be dangerous — despite studies that have found it to be safe and effective.
Danco makes Mifeprex, the brand name version of mifepristone, while GenBioPro makes a generic version.
Alito ordered Louisiana to file its response to the company’s request by the end of the day on Thursday.
This is the latest deadly weirdness from NBC News. Once again, we see Trump cannot be trusted, and that Hegseth is probably drunk bombing. “U.S. denies Iranian claim that it hit American warship as Trump launches mission to reopen Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. said two American-flagged commercial vessels transited the critical waterway Monday as part of the new “Project Freedom.” This story is reported by Yuliya Talmazan and Courtney Kube.
The U.S. military on Monday rejected Iranian claims to have struck an American warship trying to enter the Strait of Hormuz and said the first commercial ships had transited the critical waterway as part of President Donald Trump’s new mission to guide stranded vessels.
Meanwhile, the South Korean government confirmed earlier reports that explosion and fire had occurred on a South Korean-operated cargo ship on Monday.
Trump announced that starting Monday the U.S. military would help free ships that have been “locked up” and unable to transit the key trade route amid the maritime standoff between Tehran and Washington.
Iran signaled an aggressive response to this latest bid to break its stranglehold over the strait, which has left global shipping at an effective standstill and sent energy prices spiraling.
Tehran issued a new map and a flurry of statements that sought to reassert its control. Early Monday, it claimed to have stopped U.S. destroyers from entering the strait.
After the U.S. warships ignored several radio warnings, cruise missiles, rockets and combat drones were fired near them, army public relations said in a statement carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Iranian state media had earlier claimed that two missiles had hit a U.S. ship near the entrance to the strait, but the U.S. military denied this.
“No U.S. Navy ships have been struck. U.S. forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports,” Central Command said in a post on X.
A U.S. official also denied to NBC News that any U.S. Navy ships were prevented from accessing the strait on Monday by Iran.
It really does sound like we’re the bad guys now, doesn’t it? Washington Monthly‘s Paul Glastic has this interesting bit of analysis today. “Why the U.S.-led Liberal World Order is Only Mostly Dead.”
Even before Donald Trump launched his ill-advised war on Iran, America’s allies were already pronouncing the end of the era of U.S. leadership of the free world. “The West as we knew it no longer exists,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in April of 2025 as she tried to rally governments in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe to counter massive tariffs that Trump had recently imposed. “The old order is not coming back,” declared Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney this past January in a widely reported speech at Davos after fresh attempts by Trump to seize Greenland.
But in the wake of Trump’s cavalier attack on Iran and the global economic pain that has resulted, even some of America’s most vocal and influential champions of U.S. supremacy seem ready to throw in the towel. The neoconservative national security scholar Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution recently penned a requiem in The Atlantic for eight decades of Pax Americana:
Those days are now over and will not soon return. Nations that once bandwagoned with the United States will now remain aloof or align against it—not because they want to, but because the United States leaves them no choice, because it will neither protect them nor refrain from exploiting them. Welcome to the era of the rogue American superpower. It will be lonely and dangerous.
Such declarations of the end of the U.S.-led international order are understandable. In a sense, they are a simple recognition of what Trump writes every day in ALL CAPS in his Truth Social posts, and of what his second-term government has been doing for 16 months. Just as Trump burned through his inherited wealth in a series of failed real estate ventures in his younger years, so is he now squandering decades of accumulated U.S. power in a mad attempt to overthrow the post-war system of alliances and institutions that was the means of acquiring that power. And he still has more than two-and-a-half years left in his presidency. Who knows how much more damage he will do? There is no reason to think he will abandon his beliefs that our allies are parasites, that international institutions are for losers, and that strongmen like him and Vladimir Putin should rule their spheres without constraint.
Countries across the globe are now recognizing that their past reliance on Washington for everything from advanced weaponry to sea lane protection has made them vulnerable to a leader like Trump. Consequently, they are looking for ways to give themselves some “strategic autonomy” from the United States—by, for instance, tilting towards China, or crafting a new coalition of “middle powers,” as Carney suggested in Davos, or creating a “European NATO” in which the U.S. no longer plays a leading, or perhaps any, role.
Given the circumstances, countries are wise to pursue these new arrangements. But they are poor substitutes for the U.S.-led liberal international order that Trump is dismantling. A better strategy is to rebuild that order in some form as soon as Trump leaves office. That might seem like wishful thinking, but it is not. Rather, it is the probable course of events if (as also seems likely) a Democrat wins the White House in 2028.
According to numerous polls, Democratic voters remain staunch supporters of Ukraine, NATO, and international institutions generally. They profoundly oppose Trump’s gunboat diplomacy in Venezuela and Iran. To win the presidential primary, any Democratic candidate must adhere to these views and, if successful in the general election, follow through in office to remain popular with the base. That shouldn’t be a problem if Democrats also control both houses and support a more internationalist foreign policy. Agencies gutted by Trump, such as USAID and the State Department, could be refunded and even expanded via reconciliation, thus requiring no GOP votes.
Some Republican lawmakers, free of Trump, might also be willing to support a more traditional foreign policy approach. In April, when Trump threatened to pull out of NATO if the allies didn’t help open the Strait of Hormuz, GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there was little appetite in his caucus to support Trump in that effort. “We got an awful lot of people who think that NATO is a very critical, incredibly successful post-World War II alliance. And I think in the world today, you need allies,” Thune told reporters. Additionally, a NATO in which member states have raised their defense spending and taken increased responsibility for aiding Ukraine is an alliance that more conservative Americans can get behind without feeling like suckers.
Many supporters of traditional U.S. multilateralism fear that, because of Trump’s nationalist and extortionist policies, other countries can no longer trust us. After all, American voters elected Trump not once, but twice. That’s a fair point. But it’s also true that American voters threw Trump out of office once and, in virtually every election over the past year-plus, have signaled their unhappiness with the state of the country under his leadership. Moreover, all advanced democracies have far-right authoritarian political movements that could take over their governments. We can’t trust their voters any more than they can trust ours. We may all be fated to oscillate between liberal and illiberal governments, as Hungary has, until we address the working-class economic distress that is the root cause of the problem. As I have argued, it’s easier to do that multilaterally than separately.
These days, it’s easy to see why all of these countries have given up on us. Many of us here in the country feel that way, too. It’s so important to make sure the midterms flip the House and the Senate. If not, I may be writing future blog posts from Lima, Peru. Alison Quinn, writing for The Daily Beast, has the perfect observation. ” We’ll have to ask Dr. BB for confirmation, but I believe lack of sleep can increase the level of madness in a mentally ill person. “Truth of Trump’s Wild Sleepless Nights Exposed. LOSING HIS MIND. Joanna Coles and Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty dive into a jaw-dropping investigation revealing the president’s relentless late-night posting habits.”
A third of Donald Trump’s social media posts now come in the middle of the night when the soon-to-be 80-year-old president should be sleeping, raising urgent new concerns about his mental health as he navigates war.
Joanna Coles and Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty break down a shocking investigation that puts Trump’s late-night posting habits on stark display, revealing a disturbing pattern between those baffling posts fired off in the dead of night and the awkward moments in the Oval Office when the president has been caught appearing to doze off.
“It is an extraordinary, extraordinary piece of work. Josh Fiallo, our brilliant reporter, counted up all the times that Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in April and then he looked at when he was posting and he looked between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. and we discovered that there were only five days in April when the president did not post on Truth Social between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.,” Dougherty said on The Daily Beast Podcast.
“Eighty percent of nights when he could be sleeping, he’s posting,” he said.
While Trump’s often bizarre Truth Social posts have in many ways become a hallmark of his time in office, there was something quite different about them in the month of April: They appeared to become more frantic, disjointed, and more incendiary, as Trump’s political troubles multiplied, leading to foul-mouthed tirades and threats of war crimes that shocked even his own MAGA base and prompted some of his own allies to sound the alarm. It was no longer just Democrats questioning his fitness for office, but former advisers and much of the American public.
A Fox News poll conducted April 17-20 found that 55 percent of respondents felt Trump did not have the “mental soundness” to be an effective leader.
Well, at least the majority of us can see clearly. So that’s it for me. I got a smoker grill and intend to sit in what will become the new backyard of the kathouse and eat some very delicious food this summer. That’s mostly because I’m having the kitchen completely redone soon, so I have to cook somewhere else. It will be like a Girl Scout camp trip soon!
Please take care of yourselves, be kind to yourselves, and remember we’re always here for each other!
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
“Don’t gobblefunk around with words.” ― Roald Dahl, The BFG.
Sunday Political Cartoons: Girl Pipe
Posted: May 3, 2026 Filed under: just because 6 Comments
Well, it’s another Sunday…they seem to just pass on by rather quickly these days.
First thing:
Now a few more observations:
Cartoons via Cagle:
Take it easy today and stay safe. This is an open thread.
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: May 2, 2026 Filed under: just because | Tags: abortion pills, cat art, caturday, Civil Rights, Donald Trump, Iran War, megalomania, mifepristone, Trump insanity, U.S. troops in Germany, voting rights, voting rights bill 3 CommentsGood Day!!
Girl holding a cat, by Albert Anker, 1881
There was a lot of discouraging news yesterday, as is usually the case under Trump’s presidency. An appeals court in Louisiana temporarily limited access to abortion pills; we’re still adjusting to the Supreme Court’s voting rights decision; Trump and Hegseth are pulling 5,000 troops out of Germany for no good reason; the Iran war continues, but Trump is pretending it’s over; Trump is insane and getting worse. Here’s the latest:
Tierney Sneed at CNN: Appeals court blocks FDA rule that allows women to obtain abortion drugs by mail.
A federal appeals court temporarily reinstated a nationwide requirement that abortion pills be obtained in person, undermining access to the method of abortion that has only grown more widespread since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Friday’s ruling from the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals is a major victory in the anti-abortion movement’s war against medication abortion, which now accounts for roughly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by Louisiana last year against the US Food and Drug Administration, after President Donald Trump’s administration refused to act on calls to reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement for abortion pills through the regulatory process.
The opinion was written by Trump-appointed Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, joined by Circuit Judges Leslie Southwick and Kurt Engelhardt, who were appointed by Presidents George W. Bush and Trump, respectively.
Referring to Louisiana abortion prohibitions, they wrote that the current federal regulations create “an effective way for an out-of-state prescriber to place the drug in the hands of Louisianans in defiance of Louisiana law.”
Mifepristone manufacturer Danco Laboratories has asked the 5th Circuit to put its ruling on hold for seven days so it can appeal.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, abortion-seekers have been able to obtain mifepristone – one of the two drugs in the medication abortion regimen – through telehealth appointments. President Joe Biden’s administration finalized rules that ended the requirement that the pills be obtained through an in-person doctor’s visit in 2023, after the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe precedent protecting abortion rights nationwide with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Louisiana alleged that that regulatory maneuver was aimed at undermining the abortion ban that went into effect in the state with the reversal of Roe and says that now, hundreds of abortions are occurring every year within its borders because women are able to obtain pills via mail after telehealth visits with providers.
Read more at CNN.
Gabrielle Cannon at The Guardian: US appeals court blocks mail-order access to abortion drugs.
Access to mifepristone, the FDA-approved medication used to end pregnancy, could become severely limited following a ruling from US appeals court on Friday, which temporarily blocked the drug from being dispensed through the mail.
The decision is for now the most sweeping threat to abortion access since the supreme court rolled back abortion rights in 2022, said Kelly Baden, vice-president at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group.
“If allowed to stand, it would severely restrict access to mifepristone in every state, including those where abortion is broadly legal and where voters have acted to protect abortion rights,” she said.
The so-called “abortion pill” is part of a two-drug regimen backed by decades of evidence for its efficacy and safety, and is used in the majority of abortions in the US.
Usage has risen in recent years, especially in the aftermath of the 2022 ruling from the supreme court that overturned federal protections for a right to an abortion. In the year after that decision, the FDA formally modified its regulations to allow the drug to be prescribed online, expanding its use even in states where abortion care was being constricted.
The drug has become a key target for the anti-abortion movement, and a series of lawsuits have challenged the drug’s initial approval in 2000 and the subsequent rules making it easier to obtain.
And Trump controls the FDA.
Meanwhile, with the FDA now under Trump, the agency has opened a review of the medication. Once this analysis is completed, officials at the agency said, they will determine if changes to its regulations are warranted.
The Girl with the Cats, by Christian Kroag, 1909
Reproductive rights advocates have voiced concerns that the review could further limit mifepristone’s use, despite the evidence supporting its safety.
Developed in France in the 1980s, mifepristone is used around the world and is authorized in 96 countries. Its use is backed by roughly four decades of peer-reviewed research, according to a 2025 brief written by public health experts at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
“Anti-abortion politicians have just made it much harder for people everywhere in the country to get a medication that abortion and miscarriage patients have been safely using for more than 25 years,” Julia Kaye, a senior staff attorney for the Reproductive Freedom Project of the ACLU, said in a statement.
Some relevant commentary from Jessica Valenti at Abortion Everyday: My Favorite Abortion.
This week, U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill asked an understandably confused American University scholar to name her “favorite type of abortion.” Law professor Jessica Waters went before a House Judiciary subcommittee to talk about the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act; instead, she was questioned by a visibly pleased with himself Texas lawmaker who clearly crafted his question to be a viral social media moment.
When you see Rep. Gill’s shit-eating grin, you’ll know exactly who he is.
Since Rep. Gill is so interested in our favorite types of abortions, I thought I’d share a few of mine.
My favorite type of abortion is the one that prevents a raped ten-year-old from breaking her pelvis in childbirth.
I also like abortions that keep women from carrying dead fetuses for weeks on end, which is what happened to Marlena Stell in Rep. Gill’s home state of Texas.
My favorite abortions are the kind that stop women from going septic, or prevent 28-year-olds from losing both of their fallopian tubes.
Another favorite? The abortion that means a Texas 21-year-old won’t be forced to carry a fetus developing without a head.
I like the abortion that means a pregnant mother of five with cervical cancer doesn’t have to beg a hospital panel for chemotherapy.
I like the abortion that doesn’t force a woman to travel far from home when faced with a fatal fetal abnormality.
I really like the abortion that stops patients from having to plead for help in videos made in hospital parking lots.
My favorite types of abortions are the ones that allow women to live. Maybe if Candi Miller, or Amber Nicole Thurman, or Tierra Walker had access to abortion, they would still be here.
My favorite types of abortions are the ones that allow women to go to college.
My favorite types of abortions are the ones that let women leave abusive relationships.
My favorite kinds of abortions are the ones that mean women get to choose their own life path, to decide what is best for them, and to figure out if and when they want to start a family.
I suppose this case will ultimately end up in the Supreme Court. Who knows what they will do with it?
And of course we’re still dealing with the aftermath of the Roberts Court’s decision gutting the Voting Rights Act.
An opinion piece by Nikolas Bowie and Ruling by Ruling, the Supreme Court Is Undoing the Civil Rights Movement.
With its decision this week in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court gutted a core part of the Voting Rights Act, Congress’s landmark prohibition on voting rules that have the effect of excluding people of color from the political process. In doing so, the court has, not for the first time, claimed an authority to reject laws passed by Congress in service of equal justice and a free society.
By Susanne Clements
And it has effectively killed the Second Reconstruction, the mid-20th-century civil rights revolution. In the face of this decision, Congress must once again defend democracy from a hostile court. A plan of action already exists.
When the Supreme Court challenged the first Reconstruction 150 years ago, abolitionists and Republicans in Congress debated measures ranging from declaring certain federal laws beyond judicial reach to changing the number of justices. The partial measures they enacted saved Reconstruction — for a time. But more relevant for us today are the comprehensive reforms they proposed but never fully enacted. These reforms offer us and our representatives in Congress the tools we need now.
In the era surrounding the Civil War, opponents of slavery confronted a Supreme Court that was threatening their life’s work. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, in 1857, the court declared unconstitutional the Missouri Compromise — a congressional statute banning the spread of slavery in federal territory. A decade later, the court similarly menaced the Reconstruction laws that Congress was enacting to begin the project of multiracial democracy amid the wreckage of the former Confederacy.
But Congress did not submit to this judicial rule. Members of an ascendant Republican Party decried a court “inflated with supremacy” and declared that whenever a decision is, “in the judgment of Congress, subversive of the rights and liberties of the people,” it is the “solemn duty of Congress” to override it. In 1862, Congress and President Abraham Lincoln enacted legislation that banned slavery in places the Dred Scott decision had protected it. Congress also drafted the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, all of which advanced Congress’s goals of freedom and political equality while empowering Congress to enforce its terms by “appropriate legislation.”
When the postwar court appeared likely to challenge legislation Congress considered “appropriate” to enforce these amendments, Congress changed the size of the court. The House of Representatives then passed a bill that prohibited the court from invalidating any federal law without the concurrence of two-thirds of the justices. Representative John Bingham of Ohio, the primary author of the 14th Amendment, insisted that such a requirement was necessary to prevent a second Dred Scottdecision. Some members agreed but pushed for a unanimity rule (concurrence among all the justices) instead.In the Senate, the author of the 13th Amendment, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, proposed that Congress declare its Reconstruction Acts “political in their character, the propriety or validity of which no judicial tribunal is competent to question.” As the threat from one pending Supreme Court case became urgent, Congress enacted a narrower but decisive measure stripping the court of appellate jurisdiction over the particular challenge before it.
That strategy worked. Disciplined by Congress, the court declined to interfere with its abolition or Reconstruction Acts. As federal prosecutors and lower courts enforced these statutes, over 750,000 Black Americans voted for the first time. Black men even took seats in Congress, where they helped draft and pass the nation’s first national voting rights laws.
Use the gift link to read the rest if you’re interested.
Why on earth does Trump want U.S. troops out of Germany? Because German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hurt his feelings.
By Nelly Tsenova, Bulgarian artist
NBC News: Trump administration is pulling 5,000 troops from Germany.
The U.S. is withdrawing approximately 5,000 troops from Germany, Pentagon officials said Friday, after President Donald Trump was angered by criticism from the German chancellor over the war with Iran.
The move would include one brigade combat team as well as other forces inside Germany, the officials said. The decision does not appear to affect the U.S. military’s massive medical support bases, like Landstuhl, where thousands of troops, including those who have been injured during the war, have been taken for medical treatment.
The decision was a direct response to comments made by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, but also reflected Trump’s frustration that U.S. allies aren’t doing enough, according to a senior Pentagon official. Trump has been threatening Germany and other NATO allies over their refusal to engage in the U.S. and Israel-led war on Iran. He suggested earlier this week he might pull troops from Germany.
“The Europeans have not stepped up when America needed them,” the official said. “This cannot be a one-way street.”
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed the withdrawal figure in a statement Friday and said it would be completed over the next six months to a year.
“This decision follows a thorough review of the Department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground,” he said.
I’m pretty sure that last claim is a lie.
Mark Hertling at The Bulwark: The Last Time We Reduced Troops in Europe, a War Broke Out.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST MISTAKES of my career wasn’t something I did. It was something I failed to prevent.
I was commander of U.S. Army Europe in the early 2010s when U.S. forces were being drawn down in the European theater. I argued—forcefully, with member of Congress, the administration and the Department of Defense, and even my military commanders—that we shouldn’t do it.
In the final throes of the discussion, I pleaded to keep just one more tank brigade combat team on the continent. Those tanks, armored vehicles, and supporting forces would have signaled not to our allies but to our foe, Putin, presence and commitment. I believed then, as I do now, that removing that force created an opportunity for Russia to test the NATO alliance and to pursue its longstanding objective of expanding its influence.
I wasn’t persuasive enough. My arguments fell on deaf ears, and the brigade’s soldiers were ordered to return to the United States. Not long after, Russia seized Crimea and invaded Ukraine’s Donbas region. I won’t claim that the decisions of those who were my superiors caused that aggression—but I believe it contributed to it. I remember a warning from the then-president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, who told me plainly that if we pulled that kind of capability out of Europe, Moscow would act.
By Sylvia Anita, 1968
He was right. I still question myself as to how I could have been more persuasive.
On Friday night, when I heard that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a reduction of 5,000 U.S. troops in Europe based on what he called a “thorough review”—but more likely because of the desire of President Donald Trump’s retribution against German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for his recent comments about the war in Iran—I hear an echo of the argument from more than a decade ago. And I worry we are about to make an even bigger mistake.
I WOULD LIKE TO SEE the Department of Defense’s “thorough review.” Because I was part of a similar one conducted over a decade ago. I helped plan and later execute the last major transformation of U.S. Army forces in Europe—one that took that force from 90,000 troops to about 34,000 between 2004 and 2012.That wasn’t a decision made quickly or casually. It took years of analysis, coordination, and constant negotiation across governments, services, and commands. It required aligning troop movements with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan to avoid tearing apart families and units. It involved extensive consultation with host nations such as Germany and Italy, where political, legal, and economic considerations were as important as military considerations. It required detailed planning for base closures, infrastructure consolidation, and a plan for a strategic long-term presence on the continent. It also took unique action to ensure families of those forces were treated well as we hurried their return to the United States in massive waves of base and housing closures. The planning and the execution were phased deliberately, executed carefully, and constantly reassessed. Those are the kinds of procedures and actions that constitute a real, “thorough review.” I don’t believe for a second that there was anything like that kind of process before the withdrawal announcement made yesterday evening.
This decision does not bear the hallmarks of a plan that resulted from careful thought, deliberation, consultation, and diplomacy. It reflects a misunderstanding of what U.S. forces in Europe are and what they do to contribute to the security of both the United States and our European allies.
Read the rest at the Bulwark link.
The Iran war isn’t over, but Trump is trying to pretend it is. He claims he has already won it. He’s created mess and doesn’t know how to clean it up. He is truly insane and he controls our nuclear arsenal.
The Washington Post: Trump says Iran conflict is ‘terminated’ as he hits congressional deadline.
President Donald Trump claimed in a letter to Congress on Friday that hostilities with Iran have “terminated” as he reached a legal deadline that requires military operations to halt unless lawmakers authorize force.
Trump’s claim came as the United States continues to enforce a naval blockade of Iran and as he declined to rule out additional strikes on the country.
Country Girl and her Kitten, Charles Lansdelle
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires presidents to remove U.S. forces from any conflict that Congress has not authorized within 60 days of the White House notifying Congress of hostilities — a deadline that Trump hit on Friday.
Trump wrote in his letter to lawmakers Friday that the conflict has been effectively over since the United States and Iran agreed last month to a ceasefire.
“There has been no exchange of fire between United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026,” Trump wrote in the letter, obtained by The Washington Post. “The hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated.”
The president’s argument echoed what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Trump also suggested Friday that he believes the requirement to withdraw U.S. forces within 60 days is unconstitutional.
“Most people consider it totally unconstitutional,” Trump told reporters. “Also, we had a ceasefire, so that gives you additional time.”
Democrats immediately pushed back. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) described Trump’s argument in a post on X as “bullshit.”
“President Trump declaring the war with Iran ‘terminated’ doesn’t reflect the reality that tens of thousands of U.S. service members in the region are still in harm’s way, that the Administration continually threatens to escalate hostilities or that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and prices are skyrocketing at home,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. “President Trump entered this war without a strategy and without legal authorization and today’s announcement doesn’t change either fact.”
Meanwhile:
CNN Live Updates: Iran says renewed conflict possible after Trump rejects latest peace proposal.
Here’s the latest
— Shaky peace: A senior Iranian military official has said renewed conflict with the US is possible after President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s latest peace proposal. On Friday, Trump said the US may be “better off” if no deal is reached, after stating he was unsatisfied with Tehran’s offer….
— Sanction threat: The US has warned shipping companies they could face sanctions if they pay tolls to Iran to safely use the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, analysts say the impact of the waterway’s closure on the economy will deepen in the coming weeks.
— In Lebanon: Israel’s military warned residents in southern Lebanon to evacuate amid a fragile ceasefire. Several people were killed in Israeli strikes Friday.
— A senior Iranian military official has said renewed conflict with the US is “possible” after President Donald Trump rejected the latest peace proposal from Tehran. The nations are currently observing a ceasefire.
On Friday, Trump said the US may be “better off” if no deal is reached.
Meanwhile, official Iranian outlets restated an uncompromising position on navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
I’m going to end with some recent examples of Trump’s insanity.
Josh Marcus at The Independent: Trump is calling himself ‘the most powerful person to ever live’ in private conversations, allies say.
President Donald Trump, a former reality TV star known for his taste in all-gold everything, has never been one for modesty, but the Republican has in recent days begun speaking about himself as a figure of all-time historical power, according to allies.
“He’s been talking recently about how he is the most powerful person to ever live,” a Trump confidant told The Atlantic. “He wants to be remembered as the one who did things that other people couldn’t do, because of his sheer power and force of will.”
“He is unburdened by political concerns and is able to do what is truly right rather than what is in his best political interests,” an administration official added in an interview with the magazine. “Hence the decision to strike Iran.”
Unlike any U.S. leader in recent history, President Trump has pushed the boundaries of what is legal within the U.S., while making massive unilateral gambles on the world stage: threatening a U.S. takeover of allied Greenland, kidnapping the leader of Venezuela, and launching a war with Iran.
Country Girl and her Kitten, Charles Lansdelle
Unreal. The man is a megalomaniac. He’s also demonstrating that by trying to put his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to airports, National Park passes, passports, and even dollar bills.
Trump has begun holding campaign rallies again. Yesterday he gave an unhinged speech at the Villages in Florida. Dan Diamond at The Washington Post: Trump returns to public events, delivering profane speech.
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