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In a perhaps unprecedented dark time for America and the world, let us take solace in our indomitable Dear Stable Genius, who remains unwaveringly focused on taking care of shiny business: Gold social security cards like Elvis, a $400 million, lopsided shed/ballroom with gaudy columns but no main entrance, and of course gold toilets - which all keeps him so busy he hardly has time to threaten Iran with war crimes. What a time to be alive, barely.
In actual good news, No Kings Day 3.0 drew between 8 and 12 million people, thus hovering tantalizingly close to the 3.5% of a nation's populace historically required to overthrow an authoritarian regime. So good work, patriots. The over 3,000 protests, aka per Mike Johnson "Hate America rallies," ranged from Alaska's Utqiaġvik, the country's northernmost city (7 people) to Ele'ele, Kaua'i, the westernmost, from over 100,000 in New York City to nine stalwarts on Maine's Monhegan Island. Thousands of Trump's neighbors in Palm Beach turned out, ending with a twilight march to Mar-A-Lago, or as close as they could get.
Their signs were brutal: "Elect A Rapist, Expect To Get Fucked. How Many Deaths For the Epstein War? Worst President Since Trump. Criminals Belong Behind Bars, Free Balls for Members of Congress Who Lost Them, Trump Rapes Kids, Impeach Pedolf Shitler, Putin's Bitch, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. According to The Borowitz Report, Trump, furious about the large protests, argued they'd be much smaller if you subtract all Elon Musk's kids there because they hate him: "People are saying their number (was) much higher than 400, thousands, maybe millions. You take away Elon’s kids and almost no one was there."
There were also "half-dozens to dozens of Americans" at One King co unter-protests, reports The Fucking News, who put the number at "many-ish...Organizers say there were barely any organizers," with attendees ranging from "a tiny number of young people to a die-hard faction of dying people." In Palm Beach, one man carried a heavy sign that read, "Deport the white liberals"; masked to protect himself "against the vindictive left," he said he left soon after he was "attacked" by a woman who denied touching him; her comrades said the guy just dropped his sign "because he was too weak to carry it."
Their small numbers did face competition from "the incredible shrinking CPAC," also meeting that day in Grapevine, Texas with a turnout of "barely thousands." Once a MAGA "center of political gravity," this year's event drew neither Trumps nor presidential candidates. One possible ick factor: MC was (still) CPAC chair Matt Schlapp, who in 2024 settled a pricey sexual misconduct lawsuit from a guy working on Hershel Walker’s (LOL) Senate campaign, who charged Schlapp groped him. The event did boast Todd Chrisley, a reality TV star doing 12 years in prison for massive fraud till Trump pardoned him. Here’s his welcome.
There was also a big contingent of South Korean “stop the steal” activists and supporters of former president Yoon Suk Yeol, impeached last year and now serving life in prison for insurrection. Still, the whole thing was a bit of a slog. Organizers tried to jazz up session subjects - a panel titled "Fraud" became “Ilhan Omar ‘Family’ Values"; Mercedes Schlapp beseeched factions not to "divide from within," which is how you divide; and when Schlapp asked them, the clueless CPAC "crowdette" mistakenly, hilariously cheered the prospect of impeachment proceedings by what could be a newly-Democratic-controlled House. SAD!
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Poor deplorable MAGA. Maybe they're disheartened by Trump's well-deserved plunging approval rating, now at barely 33%. Maybe it's because their regime is such a half-assed shitshow and their people are such self-serving, hypocritical dickwads. As in: Amidst a government shutdown that's seen TSA agents (starting salary $34,454) compelled to work without pay as Congress takes a two-week recess (pay over $170,000) on the taxpayers' dime, TMZ urged readers to send in photos of vacationing pols, and here comes Lindsey Graham at Disney World, “The Most Magical Place On Earth," gaily twirling a Little Mermaid bubble wand yet. America and Megyn Kelly: WTF.
Or maybe it's because Commander-In-Chief Private Bonespurs started another forever quagmire without legal or political justification, and it turns out wars in the Middle East are hard and complex and above his pay grade - like health care! - to solve, and now with no good options he's spewing up only staggering incoherence for strategy, like hailing "great progress" in imaginary "serious discussions" while pivoting to rabidly threatening to "conclude our lovely 'stay’ in Iran" by "obliterating" their civilian infrastructure, electricity, energy and drinking water, which is a war crime. But talks are going “unbelievably well."

Anyway, his true passion is turning every crass, stupid thing he or Elvis can think of fake gold like the Oval bordello and even Social Security cards, and slathering his repulsive name on structures, coins, currency, and building trashy, illegal monuments to himself like an obscene, unapproved, un-permitted, $400 million ballroom twice the size of the White House, because, "They’ve always wanted a ballroom," except now it's suddenly, "essentially a shed for what goes under it," a massive military complex, presumably a bunker where, as merciful history would have it, he'll finally free us of him, "and we're doing it very well."
He's so ballroom-enraptured that on Air Force One he just pulled out a swath of drawings to show reporters, explaining, "I thought I’d do this now because it’s easier. I’m so busy...fighting wars and other things." Quick mindless pivot to "hand-carved, beautiful, Corinthian columns" - "Corinthian wut" - he's also reportedly re-imagining for the White House facade, a change deemed "at odds with universally held historic preservation standards." Same, experts say of "barely scrutinized" ballroom plans, "riddled with design flaws" - disproportionate, pillars block windows, grand staircase to nowhere. WH lackey on "the best builder in the world": "The American people can rest well knowing this project is in his hands.” We feel better already.

And then there's his new gold toilet, mounted on a 10-foot throne near the Lincoln Memorial. The new masterwork of Secret Handshake (Best Friends Forever), it celebrates the renovation of the White House Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, all in gold, and "what this President has actually accomplished." The toilet's plaque reads, “In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict, and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln Bathroom....This, his crowning achievement, is a bold reminder that (he) isn’t just a businessman, he’s taking care of business. It stands as a tribute to an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem, and painted it gold.”

Hawaii was inundated by its worst flooding in 20 years over the weekend, in another reminder of how the climate crisis disrupts the lives of ordinary people by increasing the likelihood and frequency of extreme weather events.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green on Tuesday formally requested federal aid for a series of storms this month that he said could cost the state more than $1 billion in debris clearing and repairs to homes, roads, and infrastructure.
“These storms have impacted every county in our state and stretched our emergency response capabilities,” Green said in a statement.
Hawaii's waterlogged woes began on March 10 with the first in a series of winter Pacific rainstorms known as Kona lows. The initial storm caused upwards of $400 million in damages, including to Maui's Kula Hospital, and left the ground saturated when another storm rolled in beginning March 19, leading to what Green told Hawaii News Now was “the largest flood that we’ve had in Hawaii in 20 years."
“Should the residents just consider it an act of God and open up their checkbooks whenever this happens when the record is clear about who knew what and when they knew it?”
This second storm inundated Oahu's North Shore on Friday night, necessitating more than 230 rescues and placing 5,500 people under an evacuation order at one point, according to The Associated Press. The storm damaged hundreds of homes as well as schools, airports, and highways. All told, the two storms dumped a total of four feet of rain on parts of Oahu and Maui, Green said, as CBS reported.
"We lost everything," Oahu resident Melanie Lee told CBS News after visiting her flood-damaged home on Monday. "My children's pictures. Just real sentimental stuff. Now it's like, now where we go from here?"
The agricultural sector was also hard hit, with farmers on Oahu, Maui, Molokai, and the Big Island reporting over $10.5 million in damages, according to Honolulu Civil Beat.
Yet Friday's storm was not the end. On Monday, another downpour brought flash flooding to southern Oahu, as rain fell at a rate for 2-4 inches per hour, shocking even meteorologists.
“When you think it’s over, it’s not quite over,” National Weather Service forecaster Cole Evans told AP on Tuesday.
Oahu Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Molly Pierce told AP: “Most of us have not seen something that just keeps going like this... We feel like we keep getting punched down. But we’ll keep getting back up.”
Experts agree that the climate emergency is making extreme rainfall events on the islands wetter and more common.
As Honolulu Today reported:
The intense flooding in Hawaii highlights the growing threat of extreme weather events driven by climate change. The frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall have increased in the islands, leading to devastating impacts on infrastructure, homes, and communities.
Retired University of Hawaii professor Tom Giambelluca, who now supervises weather monitoring towers, told Honolulu Civil Beat that scientists have observed Hawaii's weather getting dryer generally, while storms tend to drop more rain that causes more flooding.
“It’s not like we never had extremes before. You know, something like this could have happened with no warming, probably,” Giambelluca said. “But these kinds of events seem to be getting more frequent.”
US Rep. Jill Takuda (D-Hawaii) told Maui Now: “We are accustomed to saying, ‘Well, this was a 100-year flood,’ right?... Well, 100-plus-year floods are happening every few years. We literally have to throw away the book in terms of the way we used to look at weather patterns in Hawaii.”
The flooding is also an example of how the impacts of climate disasters can build on each other. Some of the rains fell on Lahaina in Maui, where soil is less absorbent due to scarring from 2023's deadly climate-fueled wildfires.
“We think about evacuation routes when it comes to a fire,” Maui resident Kaliko Storer told Maui Now. “And now we say, when are we going to really sit down and talk about these (flood) controls?”
The connection between the burning of fossil fuels and the uptick in extreme weather events is reigniting the debate about who should pay for the damages from storms like those that swamped Hawaii this month.
State lawmakers are working to pass legislation that would allow insurers to recoup some storm costs from oil and gas companies directly, as Honolulu Civil Beat reported Tuesday.
"This is the third generational rain event we’ve had in the last four weeks,” state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole (D-24) said. Referring to reporting that large fossil fuels companies have known for decades about the climate-heating impacts of their products and chose to lie to the public instead of act, he added, “Should the residents just consider it an act of God and open up their checkbooks whenever this happens when the record is clear about who knew what and when they knew it?”
Hawaii is also one of several states that has sued Big Oil for climate damages.
Even as oil prices climb due to the US and Israeli war on Iran, Emily Atkin of Heated argued that disasters like Hawaii's prove that the cost is still deflated.
"This is what the true price of oil looks like: Hawaiians wading through their flooded homes while the state scrambles to find a billion dollars for cleanup," she wrote.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has declared artificial intelligence "a threat to everything the American people hold dear" in a Thursday editorial published by the Wall Street Journal.
Sanders (I-Vt.) began his piece by citing recent polls showing Americans are deeply apprehensive about the impact that AI will have on the economy and their lives, and he said that this feeling was entirely justified given what the people who currently control the technology aim to do with it.
"At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, people recognize the AI revolution is being led by some of the wealthiest people in this country," Sanders argued. "Billionaires like [Tesla CEO] Elon Musk, [Amazon founder] Jeff Bezos, [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg, and [Oracle co-founder] Larry Ellison are investing enormous sums in AI and robotics not to improve life for working families but to expand their own wealth and power."
He then cited quotes from Musk and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates explaining how AI will eliminate the need for human labor and asked, "If machines can perform most economically valuable work better than humans can, how do people earn a living and support their families?"
Sanders said that the consequences of the widespread adoption of AI aren't just economic, but social as well.
"How can we rush forward when AI is already reshaping how we as human beings relate to one another?" he asked. "According to a recent poll by Common Sense Media, 72% of US teenagers say they have used AI companions, and more than half do so regularly. What does it mean for young people to form 'friendships' with AI while becoming lonelier and more isolated from other human beings?"
Sanders said the US Congress needs to step to the plate to regulate AI—and that Big Tech's massive campaign spending is intimidating too many lawmakers from speaking out.
"The AI industry has already spent more than $185 million to make sure government does nothing to protect the American people," Sanders said. "We can’t allow a handful of billionaires, eager to increase their wealth and power, to rush forward with a technology that will fundamentally transform humanity without democratic input or accountability."
Sanders has been one of the leading voices in Congress demanding the government due more to rein in AI, and last month he and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced a bill that would impose a nationwide moratorium on AI data center construction "until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment."
Sanders last month also demanded that Amazon's Bezos testify publicly before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee about his plans to replace human workers with AI-powered robots, arguing that "we need to understand what will happen to these workers... Will they simply be thrown out on the street in order to make Mr. Bezos even richer?"
In the conclusion to his WSJ op-ed, Sanders called for "the future of AI" to be "decided by the American people."
Rep. Jamie Raskin is demanding answers in the US Department of Justice's decision to fork over more than $1 million to Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's disgraced former national security adviser.
As CNN reported last month, the DOJ agreed to pay Flynn $1.25 million to settle a malicious prosecution lawsuit related to his 2017 guilty plea for lying to the FBI during its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
A DOJ spokesperson told CNN that the Flynn settlement was "an important step in redressing that historic injustice," which began when Trump-appointed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein selected Robert Mueller, a longtime Republican who was chosen as FBI director by former President George W. Bush, to serve as special counsel in the Russia probe.
In a letter sent to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Monday, Raskin (D-Md.) demanded documents and information related to the DOJ's decision to give Flynn a payout.
"The American people are watching this department squander their tax dollars, handing over giant sums to the president's friends for claims that multiple federal judges have rejected as having no legal merit," Raskin wrote. "The American people deserve a full accounting of why our tax dollars are being used that way."
Raskin noted that Flynn had affirmed his guilty plea multiple times under oath, and that Flynn's effort to sue the DOJ for $50 million was shot down by a federal judge, who dismissed the case completely. The judge found Flynn had "completely failed to establish the elements of such a claim and stopp[ed] just short of sanctioning him for bringing frivolous arguments before the court."
Raskin said that Flynn rushed to refile his complaint against the DOJ after Trump's victory in the 2024 election, at which point the DOJ "entirely reversed its position" by agreeing to pay the former national security adviser $1.25 million in a case that had already been dismissed.
The Maryland Democrat then warned that Flynn's case could be just the first in a long number of efforts by Trump allies to bilk US taxpayers.
"The Flynn settlement is an ominous test case," he wrote, "as the president and his political allies are all lining up for their free-government-money payouts. The president himself has demanded $230 million from this department... and has sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a staggering $10 billion—a figure around two-thirds the size of the IRS’s total annual budget."
Raskin also pointed to lawsuits filed by multiple Trump supporters who violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, including five leaders of the Proud Boys who were convicted on seditious conspiracy charges and are now demanding $100 million.
"The Flynn settlement," Raskin contended, "offers a road map for this epically corrupt President to keep paying out his political underlings and private militiamen with taxpayer money."
The University of Washington has removed a professor from his role as director of its Middle East Center after he criticized the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and condemned Zionism, the settler-colonial movement for Jewish hegemony in Palestine.
Aria Fani, who will remain an associate professor at UW’s Jackson School of International Studies, told The Seattle Times on Friday that new interim widirector Daniel Hoffman told him last week he was fired from his leadership role at the Middle East Center.
Fani, who was born and raised in Iran and came to the US when he was 18 years old, said he was hired for his research on Iran. However, he told the Times that he now feels "profoundly hurt and betrayed" by his removal.
"There’s a chilling effect on not just my academic freedom, but that of my colleagues; anyone who dares to speak out against the war and against aggression," he said.
In a separate interview Friday with My Northwest, Fani said he was removed "for improper use" of the center's listserv, an email application.
"I sent out two memos about this atrocious war on Iran in which I offered historical analysis that’s lacking in the media,” Fani said. “I was told that my email made ‘certain constituents feel attacked.’ By certain constituents, I assume the university means Zionists who would like to keep bombing every Middle Eastern country and continue dehumanizing their people.”
Last July Fani told the The Daily UW, a student newspaper, that President Donald Trump's militaristic foreign policy—he's bombed 10 countries, more than any other US leader—is not making the world safer.
“If you tell the dozens of children that were killed in Israeli bombardment... in Iran, or the families of the nuclear scientists who were just wiped out, I hardly imagine they would say that the world is a more peaceful place," he said amid the first round of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
Since then, many more Iranian children have been killed by US and Israeli bombing, including more than 100 students who were among around 175 people massacred in the February 28 US cruise missile strike on a girls' school in Minab.
“The [only] peace this secures is for weapons manufacturers, for oil companies, for drone companies," Fani said in an implicit rebuke of Trump's claim to be the "president of peace."
"It secures peace for them, fills their pockets with money, and makes them fully invincible," he added. "It’s creating a class of people that are living [on] an alternate planet."
Fani was a close friend and defender of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish-American UW grad and International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was fatally shot in 2024 while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Witnesses said Israeli occupation forces deliberately shot Eygi in the head.
The professor also called Zionism—some of whose founders acknowledged the colonial nature of their endeavor—a "cancerous" ideology.
Fani noted that his removal from his position at the Middle East Center coincided with a recent town hall-style meeting attended by UW President Robert Jones and right-wing media personality Ari Hoffman. According to Fani, Hoffman "specifically asked Jones" about the professor's leadership at the center.
“All we can do is try to remind people of their responsibilities as members of the university community,” Jones said at meeting. “Not trying to tell them that they can’t have a discussion about Palestine or about Israel, but let’s be clear that those discussions need to be had in a way that doesn’t perpetuate an environment where people feel unsafe.”
According to its website, UW's Middle East Center seeks "to strengthen an understanding of the Middle East in all sectors of American society through training and research at the University of Washington, as well as through delivery of outreach programming across the nation."
Fani is one of dozens of US academics who have been fired, had their contracts terminated, lost job offers, or faced other punitive repercussions for advocating Palestinian rights or opposing Israeli policies and practices.
Earlier this week, Shirin Saeidi, who headed the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, was terminated for social media posts deemed supportive of Iran's government, despite the fact that the school's Faculty Committee on Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure ruled unanimously in February that she should return to her position.
Late last month, Texas State University philosophy professor Idris Robinson sued school officials after he was fired for what he says was his 2024 off-campus lecture in North Carolina titled “Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance."
Israel's conduct in Gaza is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
The ICJ found in 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid.
Pope Leo, the first American to be named the head of the worldwide Catholic Church, has spoken out against President Donald Trump's policies frequently this year as the US has invaded Venezuela and Iran and threatened Cuba's 10 million people with an oil blockade that has crippled the island's economy and healthcare system—and according to new reports, his criticism has followed a warning from a Pentagon official who demanded the Vatican take the "side" of the White House in foreign disputes.
The Free Press originally reported this week that after the pope's "State of the World" address on January 9, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby called Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's US diplomatic representative, to Washington.
Colby told Pierre that the US "has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world."
"The Catholic Church had better take its side," he said, according to The Free Press.
Another Pentagon official alluded to the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy ordered an attack on Pope Boniface VIII and forced seven successive popes to relocate from Rome to Avignon in France.
According to Christopher Hale of the Substack blog Letters From Leo, who independently confirmed the meeting had taken place, Vatican officials took the remarks about the Avignon papacy as "a threat to use military force against the Holy See."
"Bringing up the Avignon papacy as a threat is truly insane," said progressive organizer Jonathan Cohn.
The pope is unlikely to visit the US during Trump's presidency as a result of the meeting, Hale reported. Pope Leo rejected an invitation to the White House for the United States' 250th anniversary celebration on July 4, and is reportedly planning to visit the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean that day, where thousands of North African immigrants have arrived as they attempt to reach Europe.
The pope, reported Hale, "is too deliberate a man to have chosen that date by accident."
The Pentagon meeting took place days after Pope Leo angered the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, by lamenting the fact that "a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies.”
In the speech that enraged Pete Hegseth and top Pentagon officials, Pope Leo XIV said: “A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”
“War is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.
“The… pic.twitter.com/q76XtqxNXU
— Christopher Hale (@ChristopherHale) April 8, 2026
He made the comments days after the US invaded Venezuela, killing dozens of people and abducting President Nicolás Maduro, and as the US continued its boat bombing campaign that began last year in Latin America.
Since then, the pope has made numerous statements in recent weeks as the US joined Israel in bombing Iran and Trump issued increasingly bellicose threats to attack the country's population of 93 million people.
He said on Tuesday, hours before a two-week ceasefire was reached between the US, Iran, and Israel, that Trump's threat to wipe out the "whole civilization" of Iran was "truly unacceptable."
"There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety," said Pope Leo. “Let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way.”
He also appeared to reject a call from Hegseth last month when the defense secretary asked Americans to pray for US troops in Iran "in the name of Jesus Christ."
"Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war," said the Pope in his homily on Palm Sunday days later. "He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: 'Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.'"
The New Republic reported that prior to the January meeting Pierre was called to, there were no public records of meetings between the Vatican and Pentagon officials, "let alone an instance in which the world power suggested that it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity."
When asked about the meeting on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance—a Catholic convert—at first claimed not to know who the Vatican's US representative was, before saying the reported was "uncorroborated."
BREAKING: JD Vance initially says he doesn't know who Cardinal Christophe Pierre is — until recently Pope Leo XIV’s ambassador to the United States — then, once reminded, declines to comment on the Pentagon's January meeting with the cardinal or on the ”bitter lecture” Under… pic.twitter.com/Qknnuh0wxv
— Christopher Hale (@ChristopherHale) April 8, 2026
The Defense Department also denied The Free Press' account of the meeting, saying the characterization was "highly exaggerated and distorted.”
Writer Pedro Gonzalez noted that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed strategies to "take down" the late Pope Frances with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to files on Epstein that were released by the Department of Justice.
"It is for this and other reasons that people take seriously the report about the Trump-Vance administration threatening Pope Leo to bend the knee or else," said Gonzalez. "These people are insane. Their hunger for power is bottomless. Moral resistance will be met with intimidation and threats, whether it’s in America or in Rome."
One observer called Sara Eisen's Iran War remarks a "glorious time capsule of this broken moment we are in."
CNBC anchor Sara Eisen was dragged on social media this week for on-air comments asking whether US President Donald Trump's threat to destroy Iran's civilization is good for investors.
As the US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and the Iranian military's closure of the Strait of Hormuz—through which around 20% of the world's oil is shipped—fueled volatility in global markets, Trump issued an ultimatum to Tehran: reach an agreement to reopen the vital waterway by Tuesday night, or “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again."
While much of the world recoiled in horror at Trump's explicitly genocidal threat, Eisen, who co-hosts the cable business news network's "Squawk on the Street" program, opted for a different angle.
“This deadline that President Trump has set, 8:00 pm, has threatened to destroy a civilization. How does an investor process that?" she asked Tuesday. "Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?”
Reactions ranged from incredulity to outrage.
Journalist and writer Charlie Warzel called Eisen's remarks a "glorious time capsule of this broken moment we are in."
David Sirota—whose Oscar-nominated 2021 satirical comedy Don't Look Up skewers vapid TV hosts who filter the existential threat of an imminent comet impacting Earth through a profit-driven lens—asked, "What stage of corporate media is this?"
(Video by YouTube)
Eisen's comments are part of a societal landscape in which the price of a gallon of gasoline is a bigger concern for Americans than the US-Israeli slaughter of hundreds of Iranian children.
Numerous news and analysis articles lauded the profit potential of the Iran war. So have some Republican politicians.
“When this regime goes down, we’re gonna have a new Mideast,” US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News last month. “We’re gonna make a ton of money."
Big Oil—which invested $445 million in electing Trump and other Republicans in 2024—and fossil fuel executives are doing just that, cashing in on the war with record-setting stock sales.
"Passover, our festival of liberation, compels us to ensure that our city’s funds do not underwrite the Israeli government carrying out genocide," said an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace.
More than 500 New Yorkers gathered for an "emergency Passover Seder" outside the office of New York City comptroller Mark Levine on Wednesday, where they called for him to divest the city's pension fund from bonds tied to Israel.
The city's former comptroller, Brad Lander, chose not to renew the nearly $40 million worth of investments in 2023. But in January, Levine reversed course, announcing plans to resume investment in the bonds, describing them as sound assets.
After Israel helped pressure the US to launch a war against Iran and began a new invasion of Lebanon—campaigns that have collectively killed more than 3,000 people—the city's chief fiscal officer is facing renewed pressure to stop what Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) described as a "plan to fund Israeli bombs with city pensions."i
Protesters with the group stood outside the comptroller's office holding signs reading "Apartheid is chametz" and "Genocide is a bad investment."
"Passover, our festival of liberation, compels us to ensure that our city’s funds do not underwrite the Israeli government carrying out genocide in Gaza, enabling rampant settler violence in the West Bank, bombing Iran, and destroying entire villages in Southern Lebanon," said Jay Saper, an activist with JVP who works as a children's teacher and Yiddish translator. "Comptroller Levine’s plan goes against the will of New Yorkers who do not want our city's money to be used to fund genocide and war."
Levine took office in January after Lander left the post to challenge Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman for his seat representing New York's 10th congressional district.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been a vocal opponent of using any city funds to support Israel. But while he has publicly pushed back against the decision to resume purchasing Israeli bonds, he lacks the power, as mayor, to personally overrule it.
"I don’t think we should purchase Israel bonds,” Mamdani said in January. “We don’t purchase bonds for any other sovereign nation’s debt, and the comptroller has also made his position clear, and I continue to stand by mine.”
Though Levine has expressed strong support for Israel, saying he has "very deep personal ties" to the country, the attendees at Wednesday's Seder said the money spent on Israeli bonds could be better used to help New Yorkers.
"New Yorkers deserve to have their city funds in bonds that prioritize financial stability, accountability, and the long-term security for city workers," said New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. "They should invest in life and the livelihoods of our communities, not the complete opposite. We cannot go backward to something financially unstable and, more importantly, morally bankrupt."
Last year's JVP Seder was held to call for the release of Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who was imprisoned by immigration agents and threatened with deportation by the Trump administration for activism on campus against Israel's genocide in Gaza. More than 100 JVP activists were arrested after occupying Trump Tower in Manhattan to demand his freedom last spring.
This year, Khalil—released from detention after a judge's order last June—was in attendance at the Seder.
“Just as you prayed for my freedom last year, today let us all pray together that by next Seder the Israeli genocide will have ended,” said Khalil.
(Video by Jewish Voice for Peace)
The Seder comes amid a public reckoning for Israel, including among many American Jews. A Pew Research poll released on Tuesday found that an unprecedented 60% of American adults view Israel negatively, compared to just 37% who view it positively.
A majority of American Jews have expressed disapproval of the war launched by President Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Iran. Meanwhile, a poll last year found that around 4 in 10 American Jews believed Israel's actions in Gaza constituted genocide.
Rabbi Abby Stein of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinic Council said the hundreds of Jewish people in attendance on Wednesday were “reclaiming our beautiful, ancient liberation holiday from those who would weaponize it, and Judaism itself, as tools of colonialism and supremacy—ideas that have been historically, and are, the opposite of what Judaism is and should be."
Trump has shown he "is utterly helpless to fix the disaster he personally caused," and is now "trying to blame others for his own incompetence," said one critic.
Hours after President Donald Trump pitched an angry tantrum at US allies, he reportedly demanded that they draw up plans to help fix the geopolitical and economic disaster he caused by launching his illegal war with Iran.
In a Wednesday night social media post, Trump posted an all-caps tirade against members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who refused to commit forces to fight in a war he started without their approval or even consultation.
"NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN," Trump wrote. "REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!"
As Trump was attacking longtime allies, he was simultaneously demanding their help.
According to a Thursday report from Bloomberg, the US has been seeking "specific commitments from European allies on their pledge to help secure the Strait of Hormuz after the fighting in Iran stops," going so far as to request that they "present concrete plans to ensure navigation through the waterway within days."
Trump last month tried strong-arming allies into sending their navies into the strait to help secure safe passage of commercial vessels, but all of them refused.
Even as Trump is berating allies, he still hasn't achieved the primary goal of the ceasefire he announced on Tuesday: The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has kept shut down since the start of the war more than a month ago.
As Bloomberg reported on Thursday, ship traffic through the strait has "remained blocked," being "limited to a handful of Iran-linked ships, another sign that a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran has yet to improve flows through the world’s key energy chokepoint."
As the strait has remained shut, the price of Brent crude petroleum futures, which initially crashed upon news of the ceasefire deal, have been slowly climbing back up to the $100 mark.
Given Trump's failure to achieve even the most basic tenet of his own ceasefire deal, many critics questioned why US allies should commit to helping him clean up his own disaster.
Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor at Sky News, noted that "neither a military escort nor military force can reopen the Strait short of a full scale occupation of southern Iran and even then insurgents could keep it closed with the threat of action."
Journalist Marcy Wheeler observed that Trump's demands show he "is utterly helpless to fix the disaster he personally caused," and is now "trying to blame others for his own incompetence."
Economist Dean Baker encouraged US allies to remain completely defiant of the president.
"The European countries should specifically commit to pay the toll Iran is requesting," Baker wrote.
HuffPost White House correspondent SV Dáte summarized Trump's geopolitical strategy as follows: "I broke it, someone else can fix it."