Unattended Baggage, episode 338
Source: Unattended Baggage
“Which button will YOU press?” (04/25/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-338-which-button-will-you
Cole Allen manifesto: “Friendly Federal Assassin” wanted to kill Trump officials
Source: Lynnwood Times
“In a manifesto attributed to Cole Allen, the 31-year-old suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting, he identifies as a ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ who had a ‘real opportunity’ [to] kill ‘Administration officials.’ Allen remains in federal custody. ‘What my representatives do reflects on me,’ Allen allegedly wrote in a manifesto released by the New York Post on Sunday. ‘And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.’ Allen, of Torrance, California, was arrested at the scene Saturday night after he allegedly charged a Secret Service checkpoint at the Washington Hilton, armed with a shotgun, handgun and knives.” (04/26/26)
Note to Those So Inclined: Please Stop Trying to Kill Donald Trump
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“I’m no pacifist. I fully support violence in immediate self-defense of one’s own life or the lives of innocent others, and you won’t find me shedding any tears for those who, having overseen and ordered non-defensive violence, eventually pay the ultimate price for their misdeeds. BUT! When considering an attempt to kill someone, even if the target arguably deserves to die, the likely consequences of one’s own actions are worth considering. If Donald Trump — or any other president — dies at the hands of an assassin, two such consequences follow as night follows day. First, that president becomes a martyr. His party and/or movement become stronger, not weaker. … Second, the regime that president led opportunistically uses the assassination to expand its police and surveillance powers, and clamp down on dissent. Especially the varieties of dissent associated with the assassin’s persona.” (04/26/26)
Palestine: Abbas loyalists sweep elections, including some seats in Gaza
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas won most races in Palestinian municipal elections, election officials said, in a vote that for the first time in nearly two decades included a city in the besieged Gaza Strip. … Saturday’s ballot marked the first elections of any kind in Gaza since 2006, and the first Palestinian polls since Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory began in October 2023. The vote in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah was a largely symbolic ‘pilot’ election, Palestinian Authority officials said, intended to show that Gaza was an inseparable part of a future [sic] Palestinian state. Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007, did not formally nominate candidates in Gaza and boycotted the race in the occupied West Bank, where Fatah’s victory was widely expected.” (04/26/26)
Yes, The Right Has an Omnicause
Source: Persuasion
by Virginia Karnstein
“I first encountered the term ‘omnicause’ in a 2024 article by Hadley Freeman. As Freeman puts it, ‘The Omnicause is, simply, every cause you must care about if you’re A Good Progressive rolled into one, because everything in the world is connected.’ Thus, ‘trans rights are connected to Palestinian rights are connected to environmental concerns, and any self-respecting progressive who cares about one has to care about the other two … According to The Omnicause, they’re all magically connected. It’s the fatberg of causes, and the fat gluing them all together is Western narcissism.’ Freeman defines the omnicause as specifically a progressive thing. I disagree. The right — and I have my own personal experience to back this up — is more than capable of having an omnicause, and what we saw from President Trump’s awkward interaction with DoorDash Grandma was an assumption that the MAGA fatberg would hold strong.” (04/24/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/yes-the-right-has-an-omnicause
VA: Supreme Court considers whether to block voter-approved US House gerrymander
Source: Associated Press
“The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in a Republican challenge to the redrawn congressional map that was approved by voters last week and could net Democrats four additional U.S. House seats. The case contends that the Democratic-led General Assembly violated procedural requirements by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week’s statewide vote meaningless.” (04/27/26)
Trump lived by the conspiracy theory — now he pays the price
Source: The Hill
by Matt Lewis
“A truism of life — right up there with ‘don’t read the comments’ — is that what goes around comes around. Put another way, if you live by the sword, you will eventually die by the sword. For more than a decade, these maxims didn’t seem to apply to President Trump — a man who once strongly suggested that Barack Obama had not been born in America, that the 2020 election was stolen, and that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating dogs and cats, just to name a few of his whoppers. … Trump is finally discovering what it’s like to be on the losing end of a conspiracy theory. Trump’s failure to release Epstein files was probably the inflection point. But more recently, the conspiratorial thinking about Trump has metastasized.” (04/24/26)
At least 16 dead in strikes across Ukraine and Russia on Chernobyl anniversary
Source: CBS News
“Strikes across Ukraine, Russian-occupied territory and Russia killed at least 16 people, authorities said, as the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster prompted fresh warnings about the risks posed by attacks near the plant during Russia’s more than four-year invasion of its neighbor. The death toll from Russian drone and missile strikes on the city of Dnipro rose to nine, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said Sunday. One man was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on the port city of Sevastopol, in [formerly Ukrainian, now Russian] Crimea, Moscow-installed authorities said Sunday.” (04/26/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russian-attacks-chernobyl-anniversary/
The Power of Wealth
Source: Liberalism.org
by Matt Zwolinski
“In every political system, wealthy and powerful people will try to write the rules to favor themselves. Liberal democracies should use a range of policy tools to resist elite capture.” (04/24/26)
Breaking Up “Big Medicine” Won’t Fix What Washington Broke
Source: Town Hall
by Sally C Pipes
“Washington is gearing up to crack down on ‘Big Medicine,’ with populist Sens. Elizabeth Warren [D-MA] and Josh Hawley, [R-MO] leading the charge. Over the past decade, America’s healthcare system has become increasingly consolidated, leaving patients with higher prices, fewer choices, and more bureaucratic frustration. But before lawmakers swing a scythe through the healthcare sector, they should ask how it became so consolidated in the first place. Insurance and hospital behemoths didn’t emerge by accident. They’re the predictable result of federal health policy — especially the Affordable Care Act — which has made size a prerequisite for survival. Obamacare’s rules have made it far harder for smaller insurers and independent healthcare providers to compete — while giving larger firms a decisive advantage. The law’s many mandates increase costs, complexity, and financial risk, all of which are easier to absorb at scale.” (04/25/26)