04/21/25

Good morning! It’s Monday, April 21st.

Big Word Day.

Here is fun little fact for ya – while the longest word in the English dictionary pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a word so long that I truly got bored of reading it like a third of the way through), the longest word in the English language is the extended version of the word “titin” and has 189,819 letters which honestly… if it can be boiled down to five letters, I feel like the other 189,814 letters are just for show. (Actually it’s that long because titin is the largest protein in the human body and the name is made up of the 244 proteins it contains.)

That’s actually three fun facts in one! In a free podcast!

A steal at twice the price if you ask me.

And now, the news.

Florida State Shooting

-via CNN

We start how we start in America – with two people killed and at least six people injured after 20-year-old Pheonix Ikner opened fire at Florida State University on Thursday.

As the shots rang out, some students hid in the school’s library... the same library where students hid in 2014, when three students were injured, including one who was paralyzed, during another mass shooting.

Ikner is the son of a local sheriff’s deputy and, in the day’s since the shooting, students have come forward to talk about his extreme political beliefs. Including describing Rosa Parks as being “in the wrong,” joking aout the deaths of minorities, defending the use of Nazi symbols, and disparaging Black Lives Matter and pro-Palestine protests.

He is currently in the hospital, where he will remain until he can be transferred to a detention facility.

This is the state’s sixth mass shooting this year.

In the Oval Office on Thursday, the President said he had been briefed and had this to say: “I’ve been briefed on the Florida State University, Tallahassee, active shooting. I guess it’s an active shooter, fully briefed as to where we are right now. It’s a shame. Horrible thing, horrible that things like this take place, and we’ll have more to say about it later.”

Deportations in America

-via NBC News, NY Times, Washington Post, and AP News

And of course, continuing on with the story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Over the weekend, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen flew to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia. You know what I can’t stop thinking about? Before I get on with the rest of the story, I can’t stop thinking about how this prison, this torture chamber is so terrible that it’s very likely that the first time this man understood that half of this country is fighting for his release, that is wrongful kidnapping has set off a five-alarm fire for those of us who believe in the rule of law. He was taken, and taken out of this country, and it’s possible he didn’t even know his family knew where he was until Senator Van Hollen showed up.

And that just… really bums me out.

So Sen. Van Hollen showed up to the prison last week and said he was denied entry on Thursday afternoon. He held a news conference saying as much. But then, by Thursday evening, though it is unclear how the meeting was arranged, where it happened, or what will happen now, we do know at least that Abrego Garcia has met with Sen. Van Hollen.

More democrats have offered to fly to El Salvador as well, as part of a pressure campaign to get this man, who was sent there on an administrative error, home. When asked if he believed that he was entitled to due process, one of those tricky core tenants of the Constitution, Trump said “I have to refer, again, to the lawyers. I have to do what they ask me to do.”

My dude, your besties at the Supreme Court have already told you to bring him home. You are actively ignoring a Supreme Court ruling.

And while we can’t take our eyes off of what’s happening with Abrego Garcia, we also can’t take our eyes off of the other hundreds of Venezuelans who were taken from the United States and disappeared to El Salvador.

As a reminder – none of these men have been charged. None of these men have had access to a lawyer. They were just scooped up because they are Venezuelan. An act that is not only morally egregious, it is also legally, uh… you know…. Legally no.

A judge told the administration not to deport these men and if there were flights in the air, those flights needed to be turned around. But just like with the Supreme Court with Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration also ignored that judge’s ruling.

Those men are still in jail in El Salvador.

Of course, that’s not enough for this administration that has a goal of deporting a million people a year. On Friday it appeared they were preparing to send another group of Venezuelans to El Salvador from a jail in Texas.

However, on Saturday the Supreme Court blocked the administration from removing anyone else under the Alien Enemies Act, which is a rarely used wartime law.

In an unsigned order (emergency orders are typically unsigned), the court ruled, “The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court.”

The only two who didn’t sign on were, you guessed it… Historical Badman Justice Thomas and Justice Aleako. Gotta stay on brand, ya know? Even when the brand is working your entire life to achieve the highest possible position in your career and then turning around and using that power to screw over every single person that isn’t you or your flag loving wife.

Aleako did give his own dissent but it kind of makes me question if the guy actually did go to law school. “Literally in the middle of the night, the court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order, and without providing any explanation for its order.”

“Legally questionable”? My guy that are scooping up Venezuelans, only because they are Venezuelan, and sending them to a whole other country without due process. That’s legally questionable.

And don’t start your dissent with “literally.” It makes you sound lame. Well, more lame.

Another Signal Attack

-via NY Times

And speaking of lame… there is another Signal story! Signal is that app where you can have somewhat protected conversations with, say, a source for an article you’re writing. But it’s not 100% leak-proof. People can, for example, take screenshots. A fact we all learned last month, when the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic revealed that he’d been put onto a Signal group chat about the Yemen strikes with people like Pete Hegseth and JD Vance.

And among the many things said in that group chat, none of them were, “hey, it’s kind of weird we’re using this app. Especially when the technology, and also laws, exist for us to have conversations about national security in actual secure places.” So obviously we knew more Signal chats were coming.

But we didn’t know they’d be this dumb.

Pete Hegseth!

Come on, I said dumb and you knew this dude was going to be a part of it.

Pete Hegseth had a second Signal group chat about Yemen that day. This time it was between the parties involved included his wife and brother. And the info? The info was similar! Flight schedules of the F/A-18 Hornets that were going to target Houthis in Yemen! Wildly sensitive information.

This group is called “Defense | Team Huddle” NERD!

This is breaking as I record this so we’ll know more later. I hope there are screenshots because I know these absolute dorks were texting some real lame stuff and I gotta know about it.

I gotta!

I’m sorry, but if we have to live through this awful time in our country’s history, if we have to spend our limited free time finding ways to save our democracy, we deserve to at least, at the very least, see some embarrassing texts that we can make fun of.

Happy Easter

-via Rolling Stone

And finally, I’m recording this on Easter, so let me read you Trump’s easter message. This is a message, a real message, from the President of the United States:

“Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country. Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten! Sleepy Joe Biden purposefully allowed Millions of CRIMINALS to enter our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, through an Open Borders Policy that will go down in history as the single most calamitous act ever perpetrated upon America. He was, by far, our WORST and most Incompetent President, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing -- But to him, and to the person that ran and manipulated the Auto Pen (perhaps our REAL President!), and to all of the people who CHEATED in the 2020 Presidential Election in order to get this highly destructive Moron Elected, I wish you, with great love, sincerity, and affection, a very Happy Easter!!!”

Yikes.

Imagine being like… imagine all of those thoughts being in your head. First bummer. Then typing it. Then thinking… yeah, that’s perfect. Let me post it. And then… and then posting it. And not deleting it.

Imagine the mind that doesn’t delete it.

Woof.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of… big words. Little ones too. Words in general.

But more than words, because you are also ever-changing and also sometimes full of whimsy… I’m proud of you.