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Whew. It's been a time: "Open the Fuckin' Strait," "A whole civilization will die," puerile threats, boundless botches and cover-ups, deranged lurches into ballrooms, auto-pens, Davy Crockett, and a media sanewashing it all. And when their slapstick "ceasefire" and "peace talks" imploded, our Supreme Leader was at a UFC cage match watching men batter each other bloody for fun and profit. Then he depicted himself as Jesus, with a hotel on the moon. Breaking: "The president has lost his mind."
It's a historic given that the final act of any narcissist is inevitably a descent into psychosis. Thus are we now witnessing - and struggling to survive - the mayhem of "history's dumbest madman," a toddler with a gun, a Dunning-Kruger president with a brain of moldering oatmeal as supremely confident as he is utterly ignorant, leading to dazzling insights like, "I'll know the war is over when I feel it in my bones." A criminal braggart and loathsome human being, he is above all extraordinarily stupid, giving rise to the first time in history you can post, "He's an idiot," and 90% of the world knows who you're talking about. It may also be the first time aggrieved, enraged citizens regularly say of their purported leader, "Die as soon as possible, you child-raping worthless fuck."
Today, we find ourselves mired in "the worst-run war in US history," a witless war conducted mostly by thumb by "a depraved idiot" with no plan, no map, no clue, inexorably morphed into the "Worst. Ceasefire. Ever." In his staggering stupidity, Trump has done more damage to American status, power and respect in weeks than any adversary did in decades, experts say, empowering and enriching Russia, China and Iran while endlessly, mindlessly declaring, Baghdad-Bob-like, "victory" over "obliterated" enemy forces. Abetted by a cabal of inept sycophants whose "collective incompetence is unprecedented," a demented old crook who relishes carnage has rendered America a rogue state lacking all credibility, a beleaguered world's preeminent villain and laughingstock.
In the lead-up to his illegal war, the chaos begun on Day One had already wildly escalated, blunders coming fast and lethal. He gutted measures to reduce civilian casualties, decommissioned minesweepers, fired judge advocate generals who keep military action within international law, did no planning for the economic fallout, stupefyingly ignored warnings about Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz - universally deemed by anyone who's glanced at a map or history book the key vulnerability in Middle East geopolitics. The result: A Wild West lack of accountability that on the first day saw a US strike slaughter some 175 Iranian schoolgirls, an atrocity first met with lies and denials, then silence and as yet no apology from any American representative.
We've since seen a flood of senseless, trash-talking claims, threats and whiplash deadlines that sound either like a rabid 10-year-old schoolyard bully, a pissed-off late-night text to a mob sweetheart who hasn't called back, or a ransom note in crayon: "If they don't make a deal, I am blowing up everything," "Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” "WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!", "If it goes well we'll settle, otherwise we'll keep bombing our little hearts out," "TAKE THE OIL & MAKE A FORTUNE," "48 hours before all Hell will reign (sic) down," "We will bomb Iran back into the Stone ages (sic)." They're so dumb Iran trolls him online: When he claimed (fictional) “good and productive talks," they echoed him with a smiley face and, "To the president of peace."
They, and the world, were less amused when he went full genocidal and proclaimed, "Power Plant Day and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one. Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards," with a jeering, "Praise be to Allah," and then the more bonkers, "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." Still-spineless legacy media translated that into, "Mr. Trump issued a new ultimatum." For Easter, Jonathan Larsen noted the day would be "commemorated with the traditional threatening of the war crimes (with the) ritual repetition of deadlines and horrific consequences...(The) incantation was followed (by) the miracle of the levitating oil prices. They were risen." The Strait, Iran officials asserted, "will not be opened through the ridiculous spectacle (of) the president of the United States." His name, they wrote, "will be etched in history as a supreme war criminal.”
Another deadline shuffled, the madness by "a dangerous delinquent idiot" went on. At a surreal Easter Egg Roll, he ranted about Iran's fighters beside a bewildered Easter Bunny, babbled to the assembled, equally baffled kids about Biden's auto-pen, insisted bombing was good for Iranian children, and silently stared down a reporter who asked about war crimes, stonily turning away with, "What else?" He gave a droopy, gibberish speech about America's "overwhelming victories on the battlefield,” though there haven't been any battles and "the whelmingest victory" was against a girls' school. It was rote stale lies, noted Colbert: "All the stuff you’ve heard before, delivered by a narcotized turtle” who'd disastrously "started a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle" and then walked away.
Online, amidst a war, he's ceaselessly spewed batshit claptrap: He raged at Somali Americans, wondered if Jasmine Crockett is related to Davy Crockett, trashed Bill Maher and "dried-up old prune" Springsteen (LOL), obsessed over his ballroom and Hitler-esque arch. He said "we can’t take care of daycare" or Medicaid/ Medicare "little scams" because we need more war; speaking of, he posted a bizarre, pre-Bonespurs photo of himself in military garb. He danced, partied as tankers burned, danced again: "Young man, there's no need to feel down!" Letting his homicidal freak flag fly, he fundraised off images of dead soldiers - him in his fucking baseball cap - and lied their families urged the war on. One non-fan: "He has the empathy of a serial killer."
He's also brazenly saber-rattled - the US military can do "whatever it wants in the world" - and blasphemed - God supports the war because He/She "wants to see people taken care of." Umm. Add the "heretical Christianist gibberish" of bombastic ghoul Drunk Pete - who's giddily celebrated “death and destruction from the sky," urged war-crimey "no quarter" against enemies, and prayed for "overwhelming violence against those who deserve no mercy" - and even devoutly apolitical church leaders have protested, "There are no new crusades. If God is present in this war, He is among those who are dying." Noted Pope Leo, "Jesus, King of Peace, does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood.’"
Following in a long, grim American tradition, the regime's hands may prove more bloody than we know. Despite an "investigation" into the massacre of Iranian schoolgirls, there's been no accountability and many deem it unlikely there will ever be. Meanwhile, multiple reports suggest a series of cover-ups by officials seeking to hide the deadly cost of a catastrophic war nobody wants. A new report accuses military leaders of a "casualty cover-up," charging they're issuing “low-ball and outdated figures" of U.S. casualties of up to 750 Americans killed or wounded. Unsurprisingly, the chest-thumping, out-of-his-depth, lying- his-way-out-of-sexual-assault-charges Drunktank Pete is often at the center of reported deceptions, with angry soldiers themselves calling them out.
Survivors have disputed his account of a deadly March 1 Iranian drone attack in Kuwait that killed six U.S. soldiers and wounded dozens, with almost 40 hospitalized. Soldiers describe a grisly scene with many head wounds, perforated eardrums and shrapnel hits to abdomens and limbs; The Great Empathizer infamously shrugged off the carnage with, "That's the way it is." Hegseth claimed the drone was a "squirter," an anomaly that "squeaked through" a well-fortified operations center. But survivors call bullshit, saying they were left "unprepared to provide any defense." "Calling it a squirter is a falsehood," said one, citing "a bunch of little tin buildings” unprotected from the sky, in "a deeply unsafe area" not just within range of Iran's missiles but a known potential target. On the degree of fortification, he said, "I would put it in the 'none' category."
A new WaPo story also disputes Hegseth claims about Iran's losses that fail to line up with intel and reality. Despite his persistent boasts that Tehran's military might has been "decimated" by U.S. forces' "complete control of Iranian skies" in now-"uncontested airspace,“ experts say Iran still has over half its missile launchers and thousands of medium- and short-range ballistic weapons that can be repaired or pulled from underground facilities. They also say his focus on the number of Iran's missile launches is "a dumb metric" that ignores what matters: Not their volume, but their precision, or "hit rates," which are increasing as their strategy evolves. In another nod to his cluelessness, they note the downing of an F-15 and subsequent rescue of its airman - itself a suspected cover-up of a failed mission - is "what happens when you have air superiority but not air supremacy."
Finally, many have suggested a cover-up of possible sabotage on the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, the Navy’s $13 billion crown jewel, which has morphed into a sort of McHale's Navy "Voyage of the Damned" for a war-weary crew of about 4,500 sailors stuck in a record-breaking 11th month of deployment. "It’s on fire. It’s heading to Greece. And the toilets don’t work," runs one succinct summary of its series of mishaps, from the breakdown of over 600 toilets - also suspected as sabotage - to a laundry-room fire that raged for 30 hours, caused far greater damage than initially reported, and left some 600 sailors sleeping on floors and tables before the ship limped to Greece for repairs. The Navy is now investigating whether the fire was deliberately set,
Between lies, blunders, mutinies against mindless wars and an addled Commander Bonespurs who doesn't know how batteries work, some WH officials have reportedly "raised concerns" - thanks legacy media - if lackeys are "explaining the evolving complexity of the conflict" to him. Seriously? The guy claims he invented the word "groceries," thinks migrants come from insane asylums, and gets his daily info from a two-minute video of "stuff blowing up" (which has never ended a war, except in Hiroshima) so what are the odds? This weekend, he again displayed his strategic acumen by railing against a (female) reporter who asked about the Strait. "We win, no matter what," he snapped. "We've defeated their military, it's all at the bottom of the sea (with sharks!), their leaders are dead. With all that, lets see what happens. But from my standpoint, I don't care."
Neither, apparently, do the whip-smart, deeply knowledgeable "negotiators" - a corrupt slumlord, clueless golf bro and creep who fucks couches - who just went to Pakistan for "peace talks." Less than shockingly, they gave up in under 24 hours and fled home empty-handed. According to Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the Ugly Americans "derailed" the talks with "maximalist demands and shifting goalposts" just as the two sides were "inches away" from an agreement. "Zero lessons learned," Araghchi wrote. "Good will begets good will. Enmity begets enmity.” Profoundly weirdly - and aptly for this timeline - at the same moment J.D. was announcing their failure, Trump, slathered in clown makeup, was entering Miami's Kaseya Center to watch two men beat up each other, or pretend to, in a UFC cage match.
With Kid Rock blaring and accompanied by assorted bottom-feeders - UFC's Dana White, rapper Vanilla Ice, a few of his evil spawn and a hammered-looking, dead-eyed Marco Rubio who bafflingly skipped seeking peace, which is kinda his job, for this - Trump strutted into his last MAGA chud safe space, a symptom of the decline of Western civilization and a tacky haven for people who get off on watching other people get hurt. Last year, Trump was loudly cheered here; this year, he was cheered and booed, not a good sign for his shot at the UFC Peace Prize. Amidst our many crises, people mulled why Rubio was there. One sage: "He makes Trump look tall." Others: "This ain’t a cabinet. It’s a junk drawer," "This is not serious leadership. It’s amateur hour,” and "What a circus."
Trump, a fat, clumsy, longtime manosphere wannabe, watched the fighting intensely from ringside, occasionally dodging blood and spit, oblivious to the madness of attending a fucking cage match as the world burns. Ever-dazzled by celebrity, he went gaga for Brazil’s Paulo Costa when the fighter came over to shake his teeny, rotting hand. “You’re a beautiful guy," Trump crooned. "You could be a model, you look so good.” Filmmaker Jeremy Newberger: “This montage of dueling events" - UFC vs. war and peace - "would be the denouement of The Godfather Part VII: Corleone Nights, a straight to video release by a second cousin of Francis Ford Coppola’s tax attorney." We are adrift in a dumpster-fire idiocracy, wading through Trump's opus, I Really Don't Care, Do U?
The next day, he announced a blockade to block the blockade that’s blocking the Strait of Hormuz that wasn’t blocked before he caused it to be. "Any Iranian who fires at us, will be BLOWN TO HELL!" he bellowed. "We are fully 'LOCKED AND LOADED.'" He went on Fox, babbling about the Gulf of Trump and stunning into wide-eyed silence Maria Bartiromo when she asked if he thought gas prices would be lower by the midterms. "I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be," he yammered. "It could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher." Online, he (again) trashed Pope Leo, who's "weak on crime," for being against war. Rep. Ted Lieu, who earlier reminded the military not to obey illegal orders, added, "If you receive an illegal order to attack the Vatican, you will also disobey that order."
In a social media frenzy, he rage-posted 12 times through Sunday night. He posted an AI image of a Trump Hotel on the moon. Then he posted an image of himself cosplaying as Jesus healing a sick man, who if things weren't weird enough many thought looked like Epstein. Cue flags, eagles, jets, angels, widespread outrage even from MAGA world - most charged "blasphemy," not insanity - who maybe should've seen this coming? Taken aback by the uproar, he sputtered it "had to do with red cross as a red cross worker," but took it down. Still, America's eyes hurt. The consensus: "This man is not well." And, said John Brennan, "The 25th Amendment was written with Donald Trump in mind.” Aaron Rupar sent out the image as a plea. "I'm not sure it has broken through to the general public that the president is a megalomaniac crazy person," he wrote. "Hopefully posts like this help." Or not.


Amid mounting calls for the removal of US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, the EPA chief on Thursday announced proposed changes to coal ash rules, which critics blasted as another gift to polluters at the expense of public health.
Officially called coal combustion residuals (CCR), "coal ash—the toxic byproduct of burning coal—contains hazardous pollutants, including arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, lead, radium, and selenium, which are linked to serious health harms such as cancer, heart disease, and brain damage, among other lasting impacts," noted the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Specifically, as The Associated Press reported, the EPA "proposed easing standards for monitoring and protecting groundwater near some coal ash sites, rolling back rules forcing the cleanup of entire coal properties instead of just places where ash was dumped. The revisions would also make it easier to reuse coal ash for other purposes."
While Zeldin claimed the "commonsense changes to the CCR regulations reflect EPA's commitment to restoring American energy dominance, strengthening cooperative federalism, and accommodating unique circumstances at certain CCR facilities," Environmental Protection Network's Marc Boom responded that "letting companies avoid cleaning up waste sites that may be leaching toxic metals into groundwater and nearby waterways, while weakening protections and accountability, is not common sense."
"EPA's top priority should be protecting people's health, not sacrificing it for corporate expediency," argued Boom, senior director of public affairs at the group, which is made up of former agency staff. "EPA may call these safeguards 'impractical,' but anyone living downstream of coal ash sites holding thousands of tons of waste knows that requiring cleanup and monitoring is a necessary and basic standard."
NRDC senior attorney Becky Hammer called the pending rollback just "the latest in a long, long, line of Trump administration giveaways to fossil fuels industries," which have also included repealing EPA rules that targeted chemical pollution from coal-fired power plants, declaring a national energy emergency, and scrapping the 2009 "endangerment finding" that underpins all federal climate regulations.
Other advocacy organizations were similarly critical of Thursday's announcement. Daniel Estrin, Waterkeeper Alliance's general counsel and legal director, pointed out that "coal ash is contaminating water at nearly every active and retired coal plant in the US."
"By gutting these safeguards, EPA is abandoning its duty to protect impacted communities by allowing preventable contamination of our rivers, lakes, streams, and groundwater," he said. "The longer the coal industry is allowed to delay closing and cleaning up its toxic waste sites, the more difficult and costly it becomes to fix the damage. By failing to enforce the law, EPA is letting polluters continue harming people and wildlife without accountability."
Like Estrin and Hammer, Earthjustice senior counsel Lisa Evans framed that proposal as "yet another handout to the coal power industry at the expense of our health, water, and wallets," and warned of the dangers of delaying closure and cleanup. She said that "ultimately, if this rule is finalized, human health will suffer, and taxpayers will be left with the cost of cleaning up their rivers and drinking water."
Although "the Trump administration just took a sledgehammer to the health protections in place for toxic coal pollution," Evans added, "Earthjustice has successfully defended these safeguards in court and will do so again."
Nick Torrey, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has secured commitments to clean up over 270 million tons of coal ash in US communities, similarly said that "doing the bidding of industrial polluters instead of protecting ordinary families and clean water is shameful, but we are ready to keep fighting against coal ash pollution."
"Letting coal-burning utilities set the agenda has been a disaster for communities across the South, resulting in coal ash spills and hundreds of families forced to live on bottled water for years under the threat of coal ash pollution," Torrey highlighted. "The Trump administration and coal ash polluters want to take us back to the bad old days of arsenic, lead, and mercury from coal ash contaminating our water."
In addition to facing a flurry of lawsuits over policies prioritizing the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry—whose campaign cash helped President Donald Trump return to the White House last year—the administration has recently been hit with demands to remove Zeldin from more than 160 advocacy groups and nearly 300 health experts.
"This EPA's actions to put polluters first, at the expense of our health, are dangerous and will be deadly," states the health experts' open letter, organized and released Thursday by the Climate Action Campaign. "Administrator Zeldin has abandoned his sworn duty and must be held accountable for his agenda."
The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that the US-Israeli war on Iran could slow global economic growth, stoke inflation, and increase the possibility of a worldwide recession and energy crisis.
The illegal war of choice on Iran being waged by US President Donald Trump and the government of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already had wide-ranging negative impacts on the global economy, from soaring fuel prices caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to supply chain disruptions and financial market volatility.
However, a major global economic crisis has thus far been averted. That could soon change.
"Despite major trade disruptions and policy uncertainty, last year ended on an upbeat note," International Monetary Fund director of research Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas wrote in an analysis of the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook report. "The private sector adapted to a changing business environment, while powerful offsets came from lower US tariffs than originally announced, some fiscal support, and favorable financial conditions coupled with strong productivity gains and a tech boom."
"Despite some downside risks, the momentum was expected to carry over into 2026, lifting the pre-conflict global growth forecast to 3.4%," Gourinchas continued. "War in the Middle East has halted this momentum. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz and serious damage to critical facilities in a region central to global hydrocarbon supply raise the prospect of a major energy crisis should hostilities continue."
The IMF said that even if the war ends quickly, lasting damage to the world's economy will still happen.
According to the IMF report:
Under the assumption of a limited conflict, global growth is projected at 3.1% in 2026 and 3.2% in 2027, below recent outcomes and well under pre-pandemic averages. Global inflation is expected to tick up in 2026 and resume its decline in 2027. Pressures are concentrated in emerging market and developing economies, especially commodity importers with preexisting vulnerabilities. Risks are decisively on the downside. A prolonged conflict, deeper geopolitical fragmentation, disappointment over [artificial intelligence]-driven productivity, or renewed trade tensions could weaken growth and unsettle markets. High public debt and eroded policy buffers add vulnerability. Policies should foster adaptability, enhance credibility, and reinforce international cooperation.
The IMF said that "the shock’s ultimate magnitude will depend on the conflict’s duration and scale—and how quickly energy production and shipment normalize once hostilities end," and that effects will vary by location.
"Countries will feel the impact differently," Gourinchas wrote. "As in past commodity-price surges, importers are highly exposed. Low-income and developing economies—especially those with vulnerabilities and limited buffers—are likely to be hit hardest. Gulf energy exporters will face economic fallout from damaged infrastructure, production disruptions, export constraints, and weaker tourism and business activity. Remittances will fall in countries that supply migrant workers to the region."
Eric LeCompte, executive director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network and a United Nations finance expert, called the new IMF forecast "extremely concerning for the global economy," lamenting that "the most dire impacts of our economic situation will be felt by the poor and the vulnerable."
The new report comes as the IMF's annual Spring Meetings are underway in Washington, DC.
“World leaders coming to Washington are receiving a very dark picture of the global economy,” said LeCompte. “The war is causing greater poverty and increases in our fuel and food costs."
Other groups have also warned of the adverse economic effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Ben May, Bridget Payne, and Paul Moroz of Oxford Economics recently published a report warning that a longer war in Iran "could tip the global economy into recession."
In such a situation, "the Gulf states suffer most acutely—GDP down over 8% in 2026—before rebounding sharply as production recovers," they wrote. "Advanced Asian economies, which are especially reliant on Gulf oil, take a heavy blow from energy import cost surges and supply chain disruption."
"Europe faces a painful squeeze on gas and electricity," the trio added. "The US fares somewhat better given its domestic energy production, but an equity market decline of nearly 20% weighs heavily on consumer spending."
Some US-based organizations have focused on the war's domestic economic impacts.
Dean Baker, a senior fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research, published an analysis earlier this month asserting that "making enemies makes us poorer."
"Secretary of Defense (or War) Pete Hegseth seems to be having a really great time killing people in Iran, but his live action video games come at a big cost—not just in lives, but in budget dollars," Baker wrote. "To be clear, the main reason to oppose this pointless war is its impact on the people of Iran and elsewhere in the region. But it also has a huge economic cost that is seriously underappreciated."
"In addition to reducing our security and jeopardizing the well-being of people around the world, Donald Trump’s belligerence will cost us a huge amount of money," he said. Focusing on US military spending, Baker noted that "Trump wants the country to spend 5% of GDP, or $1.5 trillion a year, on the military. This comes to $12,000 per household."
Trump and his Republican Party are seeking to offset some of their record military spending with devastating cuts to social programs upon which tens of millions of Americans rely. Already reeling from the biggest cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending in those programs' histories, Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2027 contains $73 billion in total reductions in nondefense spending.
"It is striking to see that Congress might be willing to quickly cough up this money," said Baker, referring to military funding, "when it has refused far smaller sums that could have made a huge difference in the lives of tens of millions of people."
Four Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled legislation aimed at ending what they described as President Donald Trump's "plunder" of US taxpayers.
The Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act—cosponsored by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Dave Min (D-Calif.)—was crafted in response to Trump's effort to get the federal Internal Revenue Service to hand him a $10 billion settlement for the 2020 leak of his tax records and his demand that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) pay him $230 million over its past criminal investigations of him.
Among other things, the bill would bar both the president and the vice president, as well as their immediate family members, from collecting settlement payments from the federal government while in office.
The proposed legislation would also prohibit both the president and the vice president from filing administrative claims for damages while in office, and would only allow presidents and vice presidents to "collect compensatory damages awarded by a federal court if the court appoints an independent counsel to represent the agency and makes all proceedings public."
The bill allows former presidents and vice presidents to collect damages from the federal government, but only if the agency being sued "appoints career expert staff to lead the agency’s review or adjudication of any administrative claim brought by the former president/VP, and no official appointed by any president/VP is involved in handling the claim."
Additionally, any settlement made to a former president or vice president must be made public within seven days.
Warren said that the legislation was necessary to stop Trump from "trying to snatch up billions of taxpayer dollars to line his own pockets and settle personal scores."
Raskin accused Trump of exploiting the power of his office to "loot billions of dollars from American taxpayers," an operation that he described as the "ongoing scandal of this ruthlessly corrupt administration."
"The ‘Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act’ will prevent the president from pursuing the emerging MAGA grift of suing the government as a ‘plaintiff’ on bogus grounds," Raskin added, "and then settling the suit as ‘defendant’ for big bucks, a collusive settlement scam they recently executed with the disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who waltzed off with more than a million dollars for a bogus claim already dismissed by a federal court."
Flynn settled with the DOJ last month in a case in which he accused the government of "improperly and politically" targeting him, after he was charged with making false statements to the FBI in 2017.
The Democrats' bill has earned the endorsements of government watchdogs Democracy Defenders Action, Common Cause, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).
Debra Perlin, vice president of policy at CREW, praised the bill for establishing "common sense guardrails to protect against corrupt payouts to the president and the vice president during their terms in office and after they depart."
"Since returning to office, Donald Trump keeps finding troubling new ways to enrich himself at the taxpayers' expense," Perlin noted. "The president’s lawsuit against the IRS for $10 billion is emblematic of a pattern of self-dealing and corruption that appears pervasive in his administration."
Prosecutors in Minnesota are investigating whether some of the most infamous images of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities earlier this year actually captured a kidnapping, when US citizen ChongLy "Scott" Thao was filmed being taken from his home by federal agents in freezing temperatures, wearing only his underwear with a blanket wrapped around him.
Ramsey Country Attorney John Choi, whose jurisdiction covers Saint Paul, where Thao was arrested in January, said at a press conference Monday that he has requested information from the Department of Homeland Security about the man's arrest.
"There are many facts we don't know yet, but there's one that we do know. And that is that Mr. Thao is and has been an American citizen. There's not a dispute over that," Sheriff Bob Fletcher said at the press conference.
The officials said they are investigating whether the agents could face criminal charges for kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived without a warrant at the home Thao shares with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson on January 18 and forced their way in, brandishing their guns at the family as they handcuffed Thao.
They did not allow Thao's daughter-in-law to get proof of his citizenship. The 56-year-old has been a US citizen for decades after his mother fled Laos in the 1970s.
“We believe there was no legitimate legal reason for the federal agents to enter that home, it was not supported by probable cause,” said Choi.
Without giving him a chance to get dressed, the agents then hauled Thao out of his home into the 14°F temperatures as his neighbors yelled and blew whistles at the officers, demanding his release.
ICE arrest of US CITIZEN probed as kidnapping
ChongLy ‘Scott’ Thao seized Jan 18 — agents smash down door, drag him out at gunpoint in underwear
'Potential case of kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment' — officials pic.twitter.com/alsaq46bAz
— RT (@RT_com) April 14, 2026
They drove him around for nearly an hour before arriving at a remote area and demanding that he get out of the car and show his ID—which he hadn't been allowed to bring. They determined he was a US citizen with no criminal record and drove him back home.
Fletcher said federal agents switched the license plates of the vehicle used during the arrest, violating Minnesota law and leaving authorities with no knowledge of the identities of the officers who arrested Thao.
"There's no dispute that he was taken out of his house, forcibly taken out of his home, and driven around," said Fletcher at the press conference. "Is that good law enforcement, to take an American citizen out of their home and drive them around aimlessly, trying to determine what they can tell them?'"
One observer said the officials "are finally starting to call the terror ICE is inflicting on communities what it actually is: kidnapping."
"If regular people did this, they’d be in prison," they said. "So why aren’t the agents?"
In keeping with the Trump administration's response to widespread condemnation of its immigration crackdown and the conduct of its federal agents, DHS told The New York Times that Choi's investigation into the arrest was “a political stunt to demonize ICE law enforcement.”
The agency has claimed the officers were looking for two convicted sex offenders, one of whom has reportedly been in state prison since 2024.
Choi said Monday that there is no evidence the federal agents had a judicial warrant to enter Thao's home. The arrest took place days before a whistleblower group reported on an ICE memo which claimed that according to the DHS Office of the General Counsel, "the US Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants" in order to enter a home to make an arrest.
Legal experts have said the memo directly contradicts the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
As Republicans and several Democrats in the US Senate gave the go-ahead for the US to send more bombs and military equipment to Israel for its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon on Wednesday, the Trump administration was continuing what it claims is an effort to rid Latin American countries of drug traffickers—killing three people aboard a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean in the US military's third boat bombing in three days.
The US Southern Command posted a video on social media of the bombing, which it said targeted a boat that was "transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations."
As with the 50 previous attacks on boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, the military did not publicize any evidence that the boat was carrying drugs or that its passengers were "narco-terrorists."
A small number of the at least 177 victims of the Trump administration's boat bombings have been identified. The Associated Press reported in November that Robert Sánchez, who was killed in the Caribbean, was a 42-year-old fisherman who made $100 per month and had started helping cocaine traffickers navigate the sea due to economic pressures. Juan Carlos Fuentes was an out-of-work bus driver who also worked as a "drug runner" to make ends meet.
The families of at least two victims have filed legal complaints over the killings of their family members, saying they were fishermen.
Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America has compared the boat bombings, assuming they have targeted people involved in the drug trade at all, to "straight-up massacring 16-year-old drug dealers on US street corners.”
On Wednesday, Isacson noted that while Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have defended the boat bombings as attacks that will protect Americans from the flow of drugs like cocaine and fentanyl into the US—with the president informing Congress that the White House views the country as being in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels—data from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows little evidence that the strikes are stopping drugs from reaching the US.
"CBP's seizures of fentanyl at the US-Mexico border had been declining, often sharply, since mid-2023. But since early 2025, the declines stopped," said Isacson. "Halfway into fiscal 2026, seizures are almost exactly half of 2025's full-year total: a flat trendline."
Following Wednesday's bombing, at least 14 people have been killed in boat strikes in five days.
Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group emphasized Wednesday night that "despite the administration’s rhetoric and bogus legal theories, the supposed armed conflict with 'narco-terrorists' appears to be entirely make-believe."
Under international law, drug trafficking is treated as a crime, with US law enforcement agencies in the past intercepting boats suspected of smuggling drugs and arresting those on board. A coalition of rights organizations sued the Trump administration in December, demanding documentation of the White House's legal justification for the boat bombings and arguing that for any organization to be considered part of "armed conflict" with the US, it must be an "organized armed group" that is engaged in "protracted armed violence" with the country.
"Murder," said Finucane, "is the general term for premeditated killing outside of armed conflict."
Meanwhile, Israel responded to Trump's purported prohibition of Israeli attacks on Lebanon by attacking the country.c
Iran said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened to international shipping following an Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement, prompting thanks from President Donald Trump—who then said the US naval blockade on Iranian ports will continue.
"In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire, on the coordinated route as already announced," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.
Trump first thanked Iran in a post on his Truth Social network. However, about 20 minutes later, the president posted again on the site, writing:
THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IS COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS AND FULL PASSAGE, BUT THE NAVAL BLOCKADE WILL REMAIN IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT AS IT PERTAINS TO IRAN, ONLY, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE. THIS PROCESS SHOULD GO VERY QUICKLY IN THAT MOST OF THE POINTS ARE ALREADY NEGOTIATED.
The US, Iran, and Israel agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 7 after Trump threatened to genocide against Iran, saying that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if there was no deal that day. Officials on all sides clarified that the truce did not signal the end of the ongoing war.
Friday's announcements followed the implementation of a tentative 10-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, where nearly 50 days of Israeli bombardment has killed or wounded thousands of Lebanese, including hundreds of children, and displaced more than a million others.
It is unclear how Hezbollah, which did not take part in ceasefire negotiations, will respond. The Lebanon-based militant group has retaliated for Israel's genocide in Gaza and attacks on Lebanon with rocket and drone strikes on Israel, and the Lebanese government is largely unable to stop Hezbollah from further attacks if it decides to launch them.
Thousands of Iranians have also been killed or wounded by US and Israeli bombing since February 28, the day the war was launched. That was also the day that a US cruise missile strike on a girls' school in Minab killed 168 people, mostly children.
About half an hour after Trump's Friday post confirming the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the president took to Truth Social again, this time announcing that "the USA will, separately, work with Lebanon, and deal with the Hezboolah [sic] situation in an appropriate manner. Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!"
Lebanese and Israeli media reported that, minutes after Trump's purported prohibition, Israel subsequently launched a drone strike targeting a motorcycle between the southern Lebanese towns of Kounine and Beit Yahoun, killing one person. The terms of Thursday's ceasefire do allow Israel to conduct "defensive" strikes against “planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks.”
"We must avoid this collapse at all costs," said a leading current researcher, who warned that "the stability of the entire planet" is at stake.
The global climate crisis is causing a critical Atlantic Ocean current system to weaken much sooner than previously predicted, according to a study published on Thursday. If it stops, scientists say it could pose catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is one of the most important current systems in the world for maintaining the delicate balance of the global climate. It helps to keep colder regions like Europe and the Arctic mild by moving warm water northward and pushes large amounts of carbon deep into the ocean, keeping it out of the atmosphere.
Scientists have feared AMOC's decline for some time. Previous studies have shown it to be at its weakest point in 1,600 years. But research published this month suggests that a collapse may come much sooner than anticipated.
One study, published Thursday in the journal Science Advances, used climate models and current data to predict the decline in the coming decades.
Researchers found that the system is on course to slow by more than 50% by the end of the century and could pass a significant tipping point by mid-century, at which point its decline would become irreversible.
"We found that the AMOC is declining faster than predicted by the average of all climate models," said lead researcher Valentin Portmann, of the Inria Research Center of Bordeaux South-West. "This means we are closer to a tipping point than previously thought.”
A major driver of its slowdown has been the rapid melting of Greenland's freshwater ice sheet into the Atlantic, which has diluted denser saltwater, making it harder to transfer northward.
He explained: “The more rapidly Greenland melts, the more freshwater floods the North Atlantic. This disrupts the sinking process, effectively applying the brakes to the entire system.”
This research followed another study published last week by scientists at the University of Miami, which found that AMOC has been weakening at four latitudes in the Atlantic.
Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, a leading AMOC researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who was not involved in either study, called it "an important and deeply concerning result" that "confirms that the ‘pessimistic’ climate models—those projecting a severe weakening of the AMOC by 2100—are the most accurate."
"The most dramatic and drastic climate changes we see in the last 100,000 years of Earth history have been when the AMOC switched to a different state," Rahmstorf explained.
A shutdown of the current system poses what Canadian climate activist and marine conservationist Paul Watson described as a "domino effect of climatic upheavals."
Scientists have projected that temperatures in northern Europe could plummet dramatically, with winters in London sometimes reaching below -20°C (-4°F) and those in Norway reaching -48°C (-54°F). It also threatens to dramatically shorten growing seasons, putting food security in peril for hundreds of millions of people.
Tropical storms in the North Atlantic would also become more severe. As the current slows, sea levels are expected to rise, and the greater temperature difference between cooling Europe and the warming tropics can fuel more intense hurricanes and increase the risk of flooding in major coastal cities.
"We must avoid this collapse at all costs," Rahmstorf said. "The stakes are too high; this isn’t just about Europe’s climate, but the stability of the entire planet."
Such a dramatic change in the flow of global heat could scramble temperature and rainfall patterns worldwide, putting some areas at greater risk of drought and disrupting the monsoon season that fuels agriculture in many regions.
It also risks becoming self-perpetuating, as the large amounts of carbon released from the ocean could further accelerate AMOC's collapse. Research published last week found that carbon emissions from the Southern Ocean alone could increase global temperature by about 0.2°C.
"The science is clear: The AMOC is teetering on the edge of collapse, and the window to act is closing," Watson said. "Yet global leaders remain paralyzed by short-term politics and denial."
The conclusion of the most recent United Nations climate summit, COP30, has been described as woefully insufficient to address the mounting climate emergency. The roadmap for action released by the host nation, Brazil, excluded any mention of the phrase "fossil fuels" after the conference was overrun by industry lobbyists.
"The time for half-measures is over," Watson said. "The choices we make in the next decade will determine whether future generations inherit a manageable climate or a world plunged into chaos."
After brushing off Americans' concerns about high gas prices, the president posted a message on social media discussing the latest plans for his luxury ballroom.
President Donald Trump on Thursday brushed off Americans' concerns about paying $4 per gallon of gas, telling a group of reporters that this price is "not very high."
While speaking with journalists on the White House lawn, Trump was asked by a reported from ABC News how long Americans should expect to be dealing with high gas prices, which have soared since the president launched an unconstitutional war of choice with Iran more than six weeks ago.
"They're not very high," Trump said. "If you look at what they were supposed to be to get rid of a nuclear weapon, with the danger that entails, so the gas prices have come down very much over the last three or four days."
Q: How much longer will American continue to see these high gas prices?
TRUMP: Well, they're not very high
Q: $4 a gallon still
TRUMP: That's what ABC says, but the stock market is up. Everything is doing really well. pic.twitter.com/yIxHXKqXII
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 16, 2026
In fact, Trump-appointed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said under oath during congressional testimony that Iran's uranium enrichment program was "obliterated" by US airstrikes last year, and that there had been no effort by the Iranians no effor to rebuild their enrichment capability since.
Additionally, gas prices have not come down "very much" over the last four days. According to AAA, gas prices in the US currently average $4.09 per gallon, a slight decrease from the $4.16 they averaged the week prior.
After the reporter informed Trump that gas was still over $4 a gallon, he replied, "Well, that's what ABC says, but the fact is, if you look at the stock market, it's up. Everything's doing really well."
Shortly after Trump shrugged off concerns about high gas prices, he posted a message on Truth Social discussing the security features he wants to see in the luxury ballroom he's been planning to build on White House grounds.
Among other things, Trump said he wanted the ballroom to have "Bomb Shelters, a State of the Art Hospital and Medical Facilities, Protective Partitioning, Top Secret Military Installations, Structures, and Equipment, Protective Missile Resistant Steel, Columns, Roofs, and Beams, Drone Proof Ceilings and Roofs, Military Grade Venting, and Bullet, Ballistic, and Blast Proof Glass."