These are tenuous times, warranting a brief unscheduled post.

I’m writing this around dinner hour on a Tuesday, two days after Easter. As the country woke up on the morning of Easter Sunday, the following unbelievable social media post from President Trump was in the news:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Yesterday he set 8pm Eastern Time today as the deadline for Iran to comply, although this afternoon there has been talk that Pakistan is attempting to broker a two-week extension. Today Trump reiterated that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” in the absence of a deal.

Assuming he goes through with it, rather than giving us another TACO Tuesday, we would appear to be talking about something on the spectrum of war crimes (attacking civilian infrastructure) to wholesale genocide, possibly with the use of tactical nukes sprinkled in. Fun times.

Congress remains out of session. There have been calls today from dozens of prominent Democrats that the Cabinet needs to invoke the 25th Amendment. But not just Democrats: former Trump-aligned types such as ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Anthony Scaramucci, Candace Owens have talked about the 25th Amendment today.

Speaking of MTG, today is the runoff by-election for her old seat between a Trump-endorsed Republican and a Democrat, the two survivors from a recent jungle by-election. Collectively the Republicans outpolled the Democracts 60-40 in the jungle, but it will be interesting to see what happens today. The Democratic candidate, Shawn Harris, is a Black retired general who lost 64-36 to MTG in 2024.