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Good Morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for reading today.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) has created a new award for Donald Trump. Trump is a sucker for an award of any kind, as his parents didn’t love him enough as a child or something — who knows. Anyway:
“The president has done so much for the American people and we want to honor him, in some small way, some token of our appreciation for his leadership,” said Mike Johnson, the US House speaker. “So, tonight, we have created a new award.”
Johnson then introduced the “America First” award, made up of a golden eagle statue.
Aside from being a total weirdo who has his kid keep tabs on his porn consumption, Mike Johnson is the Gretchen Wieners to Trump’s Regina George.
The America First Award was given to Trump on Wednesday, so let’s take a look at what putting “America First” looks like, shall we?
The current national gas average is $3.98 per gallon, up from $2.98 just a month ago. The Dow was down 450 points yesterday, and it’s down over 3,500 points in the last six months. Unless you have inside information, that is. Mortgage rates have jumped up as a result of the war against Iran, as well. One global finance group expects US inflation in 2026 to skyrocket to 4.2 percent. Didn’t Trump assure us all that he’d immediately make everything more affordable?
Negotiations with Iran, to the extent they exist, are being headed up by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and appear to be going nowhere. The Strait of Hormuz, which was open to freight traffic before Trump decided to attack Iran for reasons he still can’t quite explain, is now only allowing ships through that pay a “toll” to the Iranians.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Iran appears to be setting itself up as the gatekeeper for the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important artery for oil shipments. The move could cement Tehran’s de facto chokehold over the crucial waterway and formalize its ability to keep its own oil flowing to China.
Iranian communications to the United Nations maritime authority and the experience of ships transiting the strait suggest the creation of something akin to a “toll booth.” Ships must enter Iranian waters and be vetted by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. At least two vessels have paid for passage.
Traffic through the strait has fallen by 90% since the start of the Iran war, sending global oil prices skyrocketing and inflicting alarming shortages on the Asian nations that get their oil from Persian Gulf countries via the strait.
And this is how Trump is getting his briefings on Iran:
Literally Homer and Bart watching "When Buildings Collapse."
— Julie DiCaro (@juliedicaro.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T14:58:45.171Z
American travelers are facing the longest TSA security times in history, with four-hour waits at some major airports. Meanwhile, TSA employees have missed nearly $1 billion in paychecks. And TSA workers are none too thrilled about ICE’s presence at airports, either. Here’s what a TSA officer told Curbed in a recent interview:
And despite all the celebrating about ICE finally taking off their masks, they are still wearing them when they yoink people off planes.
They said ICE was there to help TSA. Instead they’re yanking citizens off planes over their names, hiding their identities behind masks, and operating with zero warrants. This is what unchecked power looks like.
— Peggy Stuart (@peggystuart.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T21:00:37.181Z
Then there’s the US war on South America, which the news media seems to have largely forgotten about. According to one Trump official, the US brought back $100 million in gold from Venezuela. Another word for “bringing back” is “plundering natural resources.”
HOUSTON — Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Wednesday that the U.S. recently brought back $100 million of gold from Venezuela.
Burgum visited Venezuela with oil and mining executives earlier this month to meet with interim President Delcy Rodriguez.
“There hadn’t been a shipment of precious metals between Venezuela and America in over 20 years,” Burgum told energy executives at S&P Global’s CERAWeek conference in Houston.
“At the end of the two days, we were able to bring home $100 million of gold — physically, the gold,” the Interior secretary said. U.S. refiners will use the gold for commercial and consumer purposes, he said.
The U.S. captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a military raid in January, leaving the rest of the regime largely in place. The Trump administration is cooperating closely with Rodriguez, vice president under Maduro.
By the way, did you know we’ve also bombed Ecuador? While the Trump administration claimed it bombed a “narco terrorist camp,” it turns out it was a dairy farm.
But a New York Times investigation raises questions about the operation that both the United States and Ecuador spotlighted as part of a new military alliance targeting drug traffickers.
The military strike appears to have destroyed a cattle and dairy farm, not a drug trafficking compound, according to interviews with the farm’s owner, four of its workers, human rights lawyers and residents and leaders in San Martín, the remote farming village in northern Ecuador where the strike took place.
Let’s see, what else? Oh, our tax money is going to pay Michael Flynn, presumably as payment for … being a traitor?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has settled for roughly $1.2 million a lawsuit from Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump who pleaded guilty during the Republican’s first term to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a top Russian diplomat and was later pardoned.
Court papers filed Wednesday do not reveal the settlement amount, but a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose nonpublic information, confirmed the total as about $1.2 million.
And, in a story that’s flown way under the radar, the Jack Smith report found that Donald Trump held on to classified documents after he left office to further his business interests, including a document so highly classified that only six people had the clearance to see it.
Special counsel Jack Smith gathered evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump took many top secret documents that related to his worldwide business interests, and investigators considered this a likely motive for Trump concealing them at his Florida club after he left the White House, according to newly released case records.
The special prosecutor also had evidence indicating that after leaving office Trump had shown a classified map to passengers on a private plane, including his future chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and took at least one document that was so secret that only six people had authority to review it, according to a memo reviewed by MS NOW and cited by the House Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
Oh, and Trump is trying to outlaw mail-in ballots, despite dropping his in the mail earlier this week. He gets to do that because he’s President of the United States, according to him.
JUST NOW — Trump was asked about voting by mail himself despite calling it “cheating” He says there are exceptions when you’re away or on a business trip 🤔 (P.S. he was in Florida at the time)
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T16:13:08.944Z
And the DOJ still hasn’t released all the Epstein files.
Don’t worry, though! Donald Trump is laser-focused on the things that really matter, like putting his signature on US currency and building a tacky Gatsby-esque ballroom onto the White House.
All this “winning” is exhausting. Are we great again yet?
In other news: the IOC ignores science, bans trans women from competing in the Olympics; Elon Musk’s lawsuit against advertisers gets tossed; JD Vance is worried about “nuclear suicide vests;” and The High Note.
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The IOC continues its race against FIFA to the bottom
To date, only one trans woman has ever competed in the Olympics. Her name is Laurel Hubbard, she’s a weightlifter from New Zealand, and she took part in the Tokyo Summer Games in 2021. Of course, having been assigned a male gender at birth, Hubbard must have wiped the floor with her fellow competitors, right? After all, she must have been bigger and stronger than the other women competing.
Wrong. Hubbad DNFed the competition, failing to complete any of her snatches in the opening round. She was eliminated from the competition.
Despite the noticeable lack of trans women taking part in the Olympics, much less taking medals away from cis women, the IOC has taken it upon itself to ban trans women from future games. The IOC loves to talk about the “science” of banning trans women, but fails to acknowledge the studies that show trans women don’t have the massive advantage in sports that conservatives like to claim.
Rather than sharing the IOC’s bigoted and ignorant statement, I’m going to ask you to read this piece by Reo Eveleth, which actually does take things like “evidence” and “science” into account.
And in fact, World Athletics has been asked to provide specific evidence that "DSD athletes" do have an advantage over non-DSD athletes. In 2014, an Indian runner named Dutee Chand was excluded from competition because she allegedly had too much testosterone. Chand took World Athletics to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, arguing that the governing body didn't have any evidence that the women they were excluding from competition actually had an advantage. The court agreed and instructed World Athletics that they had to actually provide evidence that this specific population of athletes had an advantage over others.
Not only that, but the judges ruled that World Athletics had to prove that this was a substantial advantage, not a sliver of a percent. Because there are all kinds of differences that can give an athlete a leg up — mutations that can give someone a much higher blood oxygen level; genetic profiles that increase fast twitch muscles. And that's not even getting into advantages around access to resources, money, facilities, and training teams.
In conclusion, leave trans people alone.
Judge tosses Elon Musk’s lawsuit over mean advertisers
Remember when Elon Musk decided he was going to sue advertisers who left X after he turned it into a cesspool of Nazis and incels? Well, turns out upsetting Elon Musk is not an actionable claim.
On Thursday, Elon Musk lost his lawsuit alleging that advertisers violated antitrust law by colluding on an ad boycott after he took over Twitter, gutted content moderation teams, and disbanded the Trust and Safety Council.
In her opinion, US District Judge Jane Boyle wrote that the lawsuit was dismissed because Musk failed to state a claim. His arguments that advertisers acted against their own best interests by avoiding advertising on his platform, now called X, did not plead facts showing that consumers were harmed. Without consumer harm, there can be no antitrust violation, the judge wrote, deeming the ad boycott perfectly legal.
“The very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not state an antitrust claim, and the Court therefore has no qualm dismissing with prejudice,” Boyle said. At one point, she emphasized, “the question underlying antitrust injury is whether consumers—not competitors—have been harmed.”
Bahahaha! How enjoyable. Best news all week.
JD Vance is concerned about “nuclear suicide vests”
I don’t even know where to start with this, so I’ll just show you this:
JD Vance claims Iran was going to use Nuclear Suicide Vests and kill tens of thousands of people that's why they had to attack. Why have they let these morons run the USA?
— BladeoftheSun (@bladeofthes.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T18:50:44.350Z
Dude … what?
Earlier this week, I posted a 2025 US intelligence report that found Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program, much less “nuclear suicide vests,” which I don’t believe anyone has.
That aside, anyone could wear a suicide vest. Some yahoo militia member from Michigan could do it. Some anti-abortion zealot could blow up a clinic. Robert De Niro could RKO Trump in the middle of 5the Avenue. Stevie Nicks could become our surgeon general. All of those things are more likely than an Iranian somehow developing a “nuclear suicide vest,” bringing it into the country, and using it. Goddammit, I’m sick of how stupid these people are.
The High Note
Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.
This is for everyone heading out to No Kings on Saturday. Take some water, wear your sunscreen, and be safe.
Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Follow Julie on Bluesky and Instagram so she can get another book contract. Tips? [email protected].
