A Friday New York Times investigation headlined “Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media” gets right at the inevitable endpoint of a decade of manipulation of social media by MAGA propagandists, a welcome streamlining for a movement that once relied on sophisticated algorithm-jacking by Cambridge Analytica before the 2016 election – and the Russian troll farms that put half-assed, comically inept efforts to keeping the zone flooded with their broken English and obvious copypasta well after the Orange Degenerate did scam his way into power the first time.

Sorry, “Internet Research Agency” dipshit, but Mother Russia still needs someone to test for Ukrainian landmines along the front. Show the same patriotic zeal there as you did on The Hill.

Anyway, the Times’s article’s pretty funny when they get down to the part where they write “It’s not clear who created the AI accounts, and determining whether they are the product of a hired content farm, a foreign influence operation, an experiment or something else is difficult,” as though it actually matters when TikTok is controlled by a pro-Trump cabal, Twitter by Elon Musk who is at the very least anti-anti-Trump these days, and Facebook/Instagram by fucking wiener Mark Zuckerberg who sucks up to the Orange Allah even after Trump threatened him with prison time. The platforms themselves could be generating the ridiculously anodyne content from within for all we know.

A filing in convicted felon President Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS spotted by Lawfare’s Anna Bower says “Good cause exists to grant an extension in this matter while the Parties engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation. This limited pause will neither prejudice the Parties nor delay ultimate resolution,” which is certainly one way to write “I, the undersigned IRS counsel, will be fired by the President of the United States, acting in his official capacity, if I do not give the President of the United States, acting in his personal capacity, a $10 billion settlement whose cost will be borne by taxpayers. But we need more time to figure out which Sunday he’ll bomb Denmark at 2:00 AM EDT on so we can wire him the $10 billion at 2:07 AM.”

With the caveat that this is an internal poll from Platner’s campaign, it’s still aboslutely brutal for her as Platner leads the sitting Maine Governor in the Dem primary race to take on Susan Collins in November. “In an initial vote, Graham Platner leads Governor Janet Mills by 35 points, avoiding triggering a Ranked Choice Vote roll up and winning outright in the first round. Voters were also asked how certain they are to vote for their first choice candidate. Three-quarters of Platner voters say they are ‘very certain’ to vote for him (76 percent), which is half of the Democratic Primary electorate (49 percent). Only half (51 percent) of those who choose Mills are certain they will vote for her, just 15 pecrent of voters,” says the polling memo from the wacky Bernie-backed lib’s team.

pic.twitter.com/qY3wFwRCvg

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 17, 2026

Despite convicted felon President Trump and binge-drinking date rapist Pete Hegseth’s meltdowns about ever-surging AI giant Anthropic’s lack of servility – particularly CEO Dario Amodei’s public image as not wanting to suck Trump’s balls like the other guys – CNN reports Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has invited Amodei to meet with her to try to play nice in light of reports that the next version of Claude, dubbed “Mythos,” has Amodei staring into space, eyes watery, cigarette hanging from the mouth as he quotes from one of the darker parts of the Bhagavad Gita to describe its potential.

Seriously this thing is allegedly a Godzilla and the hype just might be kind of real given that (A) Claude is not stupid. ChatGPT is fucking stupid and confidently so. Grok’s an arrogant dick, while Gemini has a solid toolset but it’s no genius either. Claude is very, very smart. (B) Anthropic is raking in like $12 billion a month from enterprise clients and might be worth a trillion. (C) The Trump Regime is insecure enough to try to “blacklist” them simply for refusing to put Claude behind the controls of a lethal drone, for which Anthro sued and has a strong case. Altogether this is why it’s on Trump’s cancer-stricken babysitter to sit down for an adult chat while the rest of the nutcases stay away. At the very least Susie can ask Amodei to put a good word in for her if/when Mythos goes full Roko.

“The USA will get all Nuclear ‘Dust,’ created by our great B2 Bombers – No money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form. This deal is in no way subject to Lebanon, either, but the USA will, separately, work with Lebanon, and deal with the Hezboolah situation in an appropriate manner.”

“Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the USA. Enough is enough!!!” posted convicted felon President Trump on Friday morning, apparently but indirectly denying the earlier reporting from Axios that he and his minions are considering releasing $20 billion in impounded oil revenue to get the Iranians to give up their nuclear program.

Also lol at Israel being “PROHIBITED” from bombing Lebanon. Isn’t that “weak on Hezbollah”?

“Now that the Hormuz Strait situation is over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help. I TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL. They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!” the deeply sick old man then posted.

This is why the spandex-wearing grapple-freak doesn’t go on mainstream media that much: They actually challenge him on the bullshit that he spews and pretty effectively spew it right back at him.

Remember all that shit about how giving money to Iran in exchange for complying with the terms of the nuclear deal was bad because they used that “fungible” money to fund the October 7th attacks?

“This is exactly why so many Americans and Israelis were DISGUSTED to see @JoeBiden give the Iranian regime $6 billion last month. Every dollar given to Iran funds terrorism in the Ayatollah’s quest to destroy Israel,” tweeted reptilian humanoid Rick Scott inside of three hours after news of the attack first broke that morning. Wasn’t until the next year he became “Genocide Joe” for not stopping “Bibi” from committing genocide in Gaza to get Genocide Don elected president again.

But hey, now that he’s back in power there’s no harm in handing Iran more than three times that amount as is being floated in the White House, according to Axios, who write “The US and Iran are negotiating over a three-page plan to end the war, with one element under discussion being that the US would release $20 billion in frozen Iranian funds in return for Iran giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium, according to two US officials and two additional sources briefed on the talks.”

Or maybe it was all complete horseshit in the first place and Iran never funded Hamas.

“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 by Ports and Maritime Organisation of the Islamic Rep of Iran,” tweeted Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Friday morning. Not clear why they’re saying they’re giving up their leverage over Trump or why it should be trusted, but let’s see how it goes.

“IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE. THANK YOU!” the Orange Ayatollah posted minutes later, plainly thrilled by the news.

Trump then followed up with “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 PERCENT COMPLETE. THIS PROCESS SHOULD GO VERY QUICKLY IN THAT MOST OF THE POINTS ARE ALREADY NEGOTIATED,” the second post identifying the strait correctly.

Judiciary Chair confirms House moving to expunge Trump impeachment over Ukraine phone call https://t.co/LjQiKDPcq9

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) April 17, 2026

Cops in Los Angeles on Thursday cuffed 21 year-old alt-R&B artist David “D4VD” Burke on a probable cause warrant eight months after the badly-decomposed remains of 14 year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez were discovered in the trunk of his Tesla that had been abandoned on the side of a street in the Hollywood Hills, ABC News reports on the wheels of justice turning maddeningly slowly.

Note that it said “probable cause warrant” and not an indictment, although the DA’s presenting on Monday and one would hope the case is buttoned up. Still this was freaking nuts how it was in November, two months after Hernandez’s body was found when a worker at an impound lot – the Tesla had been abandoned in July – noticed an odor from the vehicle and called the cops, that the LAPD had publicly announced that Burke was considered a suspect in the homicide. This was amid a whole shit ton of not-at-all ambiguous evidence that Burke was in a sexual relationship with the troubled teen who had last been seen by her parents three months before the car was abandoned.

Is it hard for a famous guy to flee? Maybe. Nobody seized his goddamned passport though. Nobody made sure the DA didn’t have to hire fucking Dog the Bounty Hunter to track him down in Honduras or Bahrain or stop him from crossing the DMZ and defecting to North Korea. You can call that armchair quarterbacking all you want but from this armchair it sure looked like law enforcement had their dicks in their hands while a statutory rapist and sex trafficker roamed freely for five months after he publicly reported to be under their scrutiny for gruesomely murdering a 14 year-old girl.

A former DHS official tells Axios that the Trump Regime is stuck between wanting to not piss liberals and swing voters off any more than they’re already pissed about the cruelty and brutality against illegal immigrants and MAGAmerica’s demands for maximal aggression and propaganda ops.

“There was a priority on people seeing the enforcement actions,” the former official told Axios about the aggressive tactics of 2025. “Some of the law enforcement actions you see, even if they’re hardened criminals, it can be hard optics. They can be hard to stomach when you’re seeing really physical altercations. You have the base that is demanding this action, and you need to get them out for the midterms. And if they’re not seeing it, to them, it’s not happening,” he continued.

Last month that cueball head Deputy White House Chief of Staff James Blair told House Republicans gathered for a “retreat” in Florida that “mass deportations” is no longer a plus to be hyping to non-MAGA voters and to cut it from their pitch. Now here’s the other side, where someone plugged in is acknowledging that it’s also a negative to non-MAGA voters who demand to see DHS tweeting videos of people getting the shit beaten out of them and little girls with autism being held hostage by ICE agents to get their parents to surrender. But the regime is in triage mode and have made the calculus that the cost of disappointing their most loyal cultists is lower than that of activating those who do not think a five year-old boy wearing a Spider-man backpack should be thrown in the gulag.

Likely anticipating a shit ton of congressional subpoenas by this time next year and presumably just sick of the job overall, Acting ICE director Todd Lyons will call it quits in June, Reuters reports on another failure of competent and moral leadership in the Trump Maladministration.

Meanwhile the former Acting FEMA chief Cameron Hamilton, who was fired last year for congressional testimony that was deemed too pro-FEMA and too anti-being forced to take a polygraph by Kristi Noem, is being considered for a nomination as the actual Senate-confirmed director, the New York Times reports. It’s not clear if Hamilton is pro or anti-teleportation.

“Who’s dumber, Tucker Carlson or Joe Kent? It’s very interesting! I met Joe Kent at Dover Air Force Base, along with numerous others who had lost their loved ones in War. I said hello to all of the families. Kent, horribly, lost his wife. Her casket was being brought to Dover, along with the rest, although he married again, quite quickly, in my opinion. In any event, a number of years later, I noticed the same person was running for Congress in Washington State, and lost. I then noticed a couple of years later, he was running again, and lost. While I didn’t know him other than our brief Dover encounter, but feeling sorry for him after the two Election losses, I told my people, ‘Hire him for the White House. Give him a job, make him feel good, he lost his wife and two Elections.'”

“They did so and, while I rarely saw him, I certainly didn’t expect disloyalty, but that’s what I got. He was really a SLEAZEBAG, and some would say, on top of it all, A LEAKER! I don’t know whether or not that was true, but next time, NO MORE MR NICE GUY! Kent is a LOSER, just like Tucker, Candace, Megyn, and the rest of them are LOSERS – You’re born that way, LOW IQ, and there’s not a damn thing they’re going to be able to do about it!” posted Mr Not Nice Guy on a long flight to Nevada.

Neckbearded Vice President JD Vance’s recent string of failures he was set up for by his abusive master – to reach a peace deal with Iran and putting shitbag now-former Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban over the finish line – have led Donald to begin asking allies how they would “rank” the couch-fucker, CNN reports on yet another thing Mike Pence could’ve, and maybe did, warn Jaydee about.

“The White House doesn’t have a Ballroom (No Taxpayer Money!), which Presidents have desperately wanted and desired for over 150 years, but a Trump Hating, Washington, DC District Court Judge, a man who has gone out of his way to undermine National Security, and to make sure that this Great Gift to America gets delayed, or doesn’t get built, is attempting to prevent future Presidents and World Leaders from having a safe and secure large scale Meeting Place, or Ballroom, one with 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 – which all means that no future President, living in the White House without this Ballroom, can ever be Safe and Secure at Events, Future Inaugurations, or Global Summits. This Magnificent Space will allow them to carry out vital duties as Leader of our Nation.”

“Furthermore, the Ballroom, which is being constructed on budget and ahead of schedule, is needed now. Almost all material necessary for its construction is being built and/or on its way to the site, ready for installation and erection. Much of it has already been paid for, costing Hundreds of Millions of Dollars. If somebody, especially one with no standing, had a complaint – Why wasn’t it filed many months earlier, long before Construction was started? The Public Record was open for all to see. Everybody knew that it was planned, and going to be built. This highly political Judge, and his illegal overreach, is out of control, and costing our Nation greatly. This is a mockery to our Court System!”

“The Ballroom is deeply important to our National Security, and no Judge can be allowed to stop this Historic and Militarily Imperative Project” posted convicted felon President Trump on Thursday, very emphatically showing just where his most important governing priorities lie. His ballroom.

You will not be surprised to learn that Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk was informed by the US Secret Service that there was no threat to her on the University of Georgia’s campus on during the Tuesday event she was to host with neckbeareded Vice President JD Vance but she still ghosted anyway, CBS News reports, adding that she’s not expected to appear at an upcoming series of rallies by her late husband’s organization either. Big W for Candace Owens in this round. Again.