WASHINGTON—In a controversial move that has outraged those critical of President Trump’s agenda, Elon Musk announced Friday that all 340 million Americans must strip and take a turn pushing the Wheel of Pain. “Pulling off your garments and crawling into the pit in order to lash yourself to the Wheel of Pain is something that Americans are just going to have to get used to,” said the billionaire senior advisor to the president, confirming that a week-long shift operating the gigantic wooden circle riddled with sharp blades and jagged glass was a necessary and important part of making the country run more efficiently. “Of course, not everyone is going to like the fact that they will be expected to push nonstop without food or water until they collapse from exhaustion and are crushed under the wheel. But the point of this is not to make everybody happy. It’s about making the tough decisions and sticking to them. Say what you will, but ultimately we’re all going to have to submit to the terrible Ring of Blood whose cleansing agony none may escape.” White House sources later confirmed that Americans in a few key leadership positions would be exempted from pushing the Wheel of Pain.

The post Musk Announces All 340 Million Americans Must Strip And Take Turn Pushing The Wheel Of Pain  appeared first on The Onion.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has published a new book, Antisemitism In America. The Onion sat down with the politician to discuss his greatest achievements, Trump’s second term, and the future of the Democratic party.

The Onion: Why did you allow the spending bill to pass?

Chuck Schumer: I finally got a 7 p.m. reservation at Carbone, and I couldn’t let the opportunity go.

The Onion: Can’t you do anything?

Schumer: I can shake this pencil between my fingers and make it look like it’s wiggling.

The Onion: What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?

Schumer: Probably achieving telepathic communication with Nancy Pelosi.

The Onion: What do you still want to accomplish?

Schumer: I don’t know exactly how it’ll happen, but I’d really like something called “The Schumer Protocol” to exist.

The Onion: Are you excited about the new generation of Democratic leaders?

Schumer: The 65-year-olds coming up have really impressed me in how quickly they fall in line.

The Onion: Are you jealous Mitch McConnell is considered the most chelonian senator, even though you also look like a turtle?

Schumer: I’m under no illusion that the American public is well-versed in herpetology.

The Onion: What’s something about you that might surprise people?

Schumer: That it’s really me sending all those text messages.

The Onion: Be honest—how do you really feel about AOC?

Schumer: Alexandria and I may not always see eye to eye on policy, but at the end of the day, I will crush her beneath my heel. 

The Onion: How do you want to leave office when the time comes?

Schumer: Gracefully by body bag.

The post The Onion’s Exclusive Interview With Chuck Schumer appeared first on The Onion.

The post Heaven Enacts Retaliatory Tariffs On U.S.-Bound Miracles appeared first on The Onion.

Today's links

• End-stage capitalism: A transitional phase between feudalism and gangsterism.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2020, 2024
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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End-stage capitalism (permalink)

Karl Marx predicted that capitalism would eventually fail, torn apart by its own contradictions. He called the bourgeoisie, who epitomized these contradictions, capitalism's "grave diggers":

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels marvel at capitalism's adaptability, its ability to reinvent itself in the face of seemingly terminal crises and emerge in a new form. For nearly two centuries, Marxists have treated capitalism as an intermediate stage between feudalism and socialism – a lengthy, but still impermanent, regime whose purpose was to produce the systems of plenty that socialism would deliver to democratic control.

But as capitalism lurched from crisis to crisis, some Marxists speculated that capitalism would give way to something even worse. In 2023, Yanis Varoufakis proposed that capitalism might end up being a transitional phase between feudalism and another kind of feudalism – technofeudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

But Trump's disastrous policies – tariffs, suspension of the rule of law, pointless military expansionism – don't serve Varoufakis's technofeudalism or any other kind of feudalism. As Hamilton Nolan writes, Trump represents a rupture of the customarily unshakable class solidarity of the wealthy. Trump's policies are not good for business. Trump is going to make America much, much poorer – and since the vast majority of American wealth is held by a tiny minority of very rich people, any program that vaporizes an appreciable fraction of American wealth will make a lot of rich people a lot poorer.

Hamilton Nolan wrote about this a couple days ago, enumerating all the ways that Trump – who LARPed a TV businessman – is extremely bad for business:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/divergence-from-the-interests-of

• Gutting state capacity

As Nolan writes, there are plenty on the right who don't care about the idea that public education produces the skilled workers needed to run and expand the economy, and who believe that paving half the national parks and putting a $500/day admission price on the remainder will suit them just fine. But even the most hardcore plutocrat needs a functional immigration system so they can source workers who can do the jobs Americans won't – or can't – do. You can't be a finance guy in a country with a collapsed, corrupt Treasury Department that periodically reaches into institutional bank accounts and drains them of millions in pursuit of "obscure witch-hunts":

“stupidly breaking the parts of the government that allow our financial markets to function smoothly with no apparent plan" is not “populism” any more than a bite from an alligator is a kiss

• Ending the rule of law

Anyone who claims to love "free markets" loves the rule of law. The predictability of a laws-based society is a necessary precondition for capital formation, long-term investing, and the use of contracts to coordinate business within a transparent, known set of rules.

Trump's lavish corruption – his crypto companies (which someone called "a tipjar for the Oval Office"), his sale of commutations and pardons to flagrant criminals, and his purging of Democrats within the DoJ to create space for "buffoons" who run his witch hunts – all offer good reason for investors to stay the hell out of America, and for businesses to get the hell out of the country:

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5182515-senate-democrats-complaint-ed-martin/

The spectacle of the top executives of world's most powerful multinationals openly paying bribes to Trump, while seated at Trump's own members' club, makes an eloquent case for seeking your business opportunities in another country – practically any other country:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/05/trump-dinner-mar-a-lago

Then there's Trump's interference in the Fed, "endangering financial markets for short term political gain":

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-bid-to-control-fed-puts-us-economy-at-risk-by-kenneth-rogoff-2025-01

And finally, there's his defiance of federal court orders, and his attacks on law firms that employ lawyers who had the temerity to sue him. As Nolan writes, "This is not good for business." Sure, it's grimly satisfying to think about all those rich fools who howled because Biden had the temerity to suggest modest tax hikes and improvements to labor law now having to watch as "the world’s most sophisticated corporate legal regime [is replaced] with a system in which you must grovel at his toes in a ridiculous red hat in order to get anything done."

• Military adventures

Trump is apparently going to go to war with Iran, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, and several other countries to be determined at a later date. Sure, America's military spending is higher than all the rest of the world's combined, but getting involved in several wars at once is – once again – not good for business. For one thing, he's going to kill Boeing, Lockheed, and all the other US-based arms dealers that rely on a friendly relationship with America's erstwhile allies for billions of dollars per year in business. Things are no better for the companies that do other kinds of business with the countries America is apparently on the brink of war with. This kind of "Hitlerian" program of economic growth was a failure in the previous century, and it will fail again:

Did Hitler’s wild invasions ultimate make Germany richer? No. They started a world war. And, no matter what anyone tells you, world war is not good for business.

• Tariffs

Finally, there's Trump's deranged tariff plan. As David Dayen writes for The American Propsect, these aren't really tariffs at all – they're sanctions, punishments visited upon every country in the world (even uninhabited islands!) for a bunch of imaginary crimes:

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-04-03-theyre-not-tariffs-theyre-sanctions/

Trump's tariffs make no sense as an economic policy, but they are familiar to anyone who's spent time around organized crime (like, say, Trump):

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910/

Dayen likens Trump's approach to "a mob boss moving into town and sending his thugs to every business on Main Street, roughing up the proprietors and asking for protection money so they don’t get pushed out of business." Trump's demands – such as they are – include forcing America's trading partners to do away with their privacy, food safety and antitrust laws:

https://tacd.org/wp-content/uploads/TACD-Statement-Tariffs-3-April.pdf

Even if it was worth it for other countries to dismantle their laws to enjoy continued access to US markets (it isn't), no one trusts that giving in to Trump means that he'll carry out his end of the bargain. As Brad DeLong reminds us, Trump personally negotiated the USMCA terms that Canada and Mexico have been living under since he last left office, and those are the two countries he's most pissed off at:

https://braddelong.substack.com/p/draft-mar-a-lago-discord

This isn't capitalism – it's gangsterism. It's a system that will annihilate trillions of dollars in value to put billions of dollars in the pockets of Trump and a few of his cronies – at the expense of all the other rich people.

Nolan concludes that Trump is "insane" – that his actions are irrational, disconnected from reality, impossible to understand. For Nolan, the question isn't "What is Trump trying to accomplish?" It's "how has this insane man managed to gain control of the government of the world’s richest and most powerful nation?"

He's got a hell of an answer, too:

That, my friends, is the unfortunate outcome of an economic system that has so profoundly failed to enforce economic equality, and a political system that so profoundly failed to protect its democracy from the influence of capital that it allowed itself to be totally captured by extreme lunatics backed by extreme wealth.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Billionaires and Guillotines https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plutopress/billionaires-and-guillotines

• Mozilla Thunderbird Finally Takes On Gmail With New Email Service https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2025/04/01/finally-mozilla-thunderbird-takes-on-gmail-with-new-email-service/

• Site-Blocking Legislation Is Back. It’s Still a Terrible Idea https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/congress-reviving-site-blocking-and-its-just-dangerous-ever

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Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Star Wars geeks in line at Grauman’s will answer payphone calls https://web.archive.org/web/20050407062702/https://liningup.net/news/2005_04.php#000088

#20yrsago Creative Commons UK: will it flower? https://web.archive.org/web/20050424082444/http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2005/04/04/cclicenseinUK.html

#15yrsago Bruce Sterling’s State-of-the-Spime address https://vimeo.com/10256403

#15yrsago Scotland Yard ignored Murdoch paper’s royal voicemail hacks https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/apr/04/police-ignored-news-world-evidence

#15yrsago Shirky: What “people must pay for content” really means https://web.archive.org/web/20100404013927/http://shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/

#5yrsago The Pandumbic https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#receipts-r-us

#5yrsago Landlord accidentally organizes rent strike https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#bcc

#5yrsago Prescient Reagan-era text-adventures https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#steve-meretzky

#5yrsago MacGuyver mask tutorial https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#power-couple

#5yrsago Private equity looting public health in a pandemic https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets

#5yrsago Bookshop: a local, indie alternative to Amazon https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/05/25-30ml-of-sputum/#crowleys

#5yrsago Socioeconomics of coronavirus https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/05/25-30ml-of-sputum/#covid-class-war

#1yrago General Mills and cheaply bought "dietitians" co-opted the anti-diet movement https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/05/corrupt-for-cocoa-puffs/#flood-the-zone-with-shit

#1yrago Too big to care https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Bloomington: Picks and Shovels at Morgenstern, Apr 4
  https://morgensternbooks.com/event/2025-04-04/author-event-cory-doctorow

• Bloomington: Ostrom Center, Apr 4
  https://events.iu.edu/ostromworkshop/event/1843316-hls-beyond-the-web-cory-doctorow

• Pittsburgh: Picks and Shovels at White Whale Books, May 15
  https://whitewhalebookstore.com/events/20250515

• Pittsburgh: PyCon, May 16
  https://us.pycon.org/2025/schedule/

• PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

• PDX: Picks and Shovels at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
  https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

• Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell, Jul 2
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1308451968059

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• The Political Orphanage
  https://player.fm/series/the-political-orphanage/cory-doctorow-on-the-evils-of-copyright-law

• Fire the unelected social media dictators (Al Jazeera Upfront)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXa4DzhkUZ8

• Capitalists Hate Capitalism (MMT Podcast)
  https://pileusmmt.libsyn.com/195-capitalists-hate-capitalism-with-cory-doctorow

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Latest books (permalink)

• • Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

• Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• The Memex Method, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: With Great Power Came No Responsibility: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It https://craphound.com/news/2025/02/26/with-great-power-came-no-responsibility-how-enshittification-conquered-the-21st-century-and-how-we-can-overthrow-it/

---

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

ISSN: 3066-764X

A couple of years ago, I discovered something that caught my interest. I was working with frequent collaborator Anonymous in Houston on preparing a list of interesting Krogers. We decided that for no particular reason, 2023 would be “The Year of Kroger” on HHR. Every month, AIH would write a post on a Kroger he thought was interesting. While he was writing, I was taking photos, so I had to know why each Kroger was ...

The five bills that would require complete air conditioning in state prisons haven’t had a hearing yet, and the money set for the upgrades falls short of the estimated cost.

In brief: Continued wind in Houston today will finally break tomorrow as a cold front ushers in showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. There is some severe weather risk on Saturday before we slowly clear out on a much cooler Sunday, setting up a gorgeous week to come.

Good morning, H-Town. Any day after an Astros “W” is a good day. The Astros are off today, and although the Rockets play an okay team from OKC tonight, today that W actually stands for wind.

Today

We’ll have to do some digging on how this spring has actually compared to previous springs in terms of wind when we get some time, but today is going to be no different. Wind advisories are again in effect today, and we’ll see southeast winds gusting as high as 35 mph. Oak pollen remains extremely high, and although we’re past peak now all this wind is going to keep carrying it around.

Outside of wind, expect another hot day today with temperature pushing well into the 80s and plenty of humidity. We get to track the potential for showers or a thunderstorm later this afternoon. Modeling has been trying to initiate storms near I-10 or just north before quickly lifting them northeastward. That may very well be what happens. As those storms move northeast, they’d be likely to intensify, and it’s not out of the question for a couple raucous storms to impact portions of Montgomery, Liberty, Walker, San Jacinto, or Polk Counties late today. We do not expect severe weather in the Houston Metro today. The highest severe risk remains up in far northeast Texas and Arkansas, where a moderate risk (4/5) is in place.

Saturday

After a continued breezy, warm, humid Friday night, we get to watch the potential for some strong thunderstorms on Saturday. The timing of the front hitting the area right now appears to be in the 11 AM through 4 PM window. It will enter the western parts of the area as a broken line of showers and some storms. As it crosses the Houston Metro, it will likely begin to ramp up a bit.

The Storm Prediction Center has us in a slight (level 2/5) risk for severe storms as this happens. The exact timing of the front may determine our odds of severe weather. A slower front would likely have more instability to tap into, whereas a faster front would hit earlier in the day with less instability. Generally speaking, the farther to the east you go, the better your chances of seeing severe thunderstorms. Whatever the case, we will update you Saturday morning (or possibly later today) with the latest. All severe weather hazards are on the table, including hail, damaging winds, and an isolated tornado or two. Additionally, any storm could easily dump 1 to 3 inches of rain in an hour causing some flash street flooding. Stay tuned.

Outside of storms, expect highs in the 80s again with lingering showers in the area Saturday evening.

Sunday

We will shift to a significantly cooler theme on Sunday. Some lingering clouds or even a few AM showers should give way to sunshine, but after a morning in the 50s or even upper-40s, we will limp into the lower or middle 60s for highs. It will feel awfully cool compared to how this week has been.

Next week

Bust open the windows! (responsibly, of course) It looks like Monday is going to be stellar. Morning lows in the 40s will be followed by daytime highs near 70 degrees. Tuesday? Nice; 50s to mid 70s. Wednesday? Nice; 50s to upper 70s to near 80 degrees. Thursday? Still nice! Warmer though with 80s. All we do is win, win, win no matter what next week. We’ll call that a “W” too.

#Rowen #RoninWarriors

Critics are questioning if Donald Trump's administration possibly used chatbots to calculate reciprocal tariffs announced yesterday that Trump claimed were "individualized" tariffs placed on countries that have " the largest trade deficits" with the US.

Those tariffs are due to take effect on April 9 for 60 countries, with peak rates around 50 percent. That's in addition to a baseline 10 percent tariff that all countries will be subject to starting on April 5. But while Trump expressed intent to push back on anyone supposedly taking advantage of the US, some of the countries on the reciprocal tariffs list puzzled experts and officials, who pointed out to The Guardian that Trump was, for some reason, targeting uninhabited islands, some of them exporting nothing and populated with penguins.

Some overseas officials challenged Trump's math, such as George Plant, the administrator of Norfolk Island, who told the Guardian that "there are no known exports from Norfolk Island to the United States and no tariffs or known non-tariff trade barriers on goods coming to Norfolk Island."

Read full article

Comments

The decision to strip chapters from books that had already won the approval of the state’s Republican-controlled board of education represents an escalation in how local school boards run by ideological conservatives influence what children learn.

The food bank pitched the idea to the Houston City Council’s resilience committee. It would save small farms in Houston between $1,000 and $2,000 on their annual water bills.

Jaleen Anderson, who died last year at age 29, was booked into the Harris County Jail in March 2024 on a low-level drug possession charge. He was one of thousands of pre-trial detainees who have been outsourced to other prisons because of the jail's repeated failure to comply with Texas' mandated detention officer ratio.

The majority of the wooden elephants will be on display in The Commons area in Hermann Park, with a few others scattered throughout the area. The elephants are for sale, with proceeds from the art installation going toward non-governmental organizations that promote human-wildlife coexistence. 

The 37-page report released by the mail service on March 20 detailed several mail thefts at the three postal stations around Houston. It found issues with the safeguarding of universal keys used to access collection boxes and managers' failure to perform annual safety inspections.

The Texas Election Code requires the governor to call a special election to fill a vacant office. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, allowed two key deadlines to pass that prevented the solidly Democratic seat from being on the May 3 ballot.

As Texas lawmakers advance a proposal to create a voucher-like program, a Rice University study found that 46% of Houston-area residents have some level of opposition. Forty-one percent of respondents showed some support for a voucher program, while 13% said they did not know about it or had no opinion on the matter. 

The four other measles cases reported in the Houston area this year have been tied to international travel and not the ongoing outbreak in West Texas, where more than 400 cases and one death have been reported.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Especially early in your career, it’s common to think that they way your workplace does things is normal — and then you move somewhere near and discover that having a goat shrine isn’t normal at all. This can also happen if you stay at one job for a long time, or if you move to a new field. We don’t always know that what we’re surrounded by isn’t normal — until something makes us realize that it’s not.

Today’s “ask the readers” is a suggestion from a reader, who requests stories of “expressions, traditions, methods that you thought were universal but which you learned were actually just a weird thing your old workplace did. Bonus points if you learned this in a manner you are still embarrassed about to this day.”

RAFAH, GAZA—Responding to reports that 15 rescue workers in Gaza were killed execution style and buried in a mass grave, Israel claimed this week that the slain Palestinians did not properly identify themselves as human. “Unfortunately, upon their encounter with IDF soldiers, these Palestinians provided no documentation indicating they were sentient beings entitled to basic rights,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who stated that even after reviewing the situation, his government couldn’t find any credentials to support assertions that the team of Palestinian paramedics and emergency responders possessed a shared humanity. “This group was given ample opportunity to communicate to our forces that they were people endowed with inherent dignity who should not be gunned down on sight, but they failed to do so. How else were we to know they weren’t subhuman scum that needed to be wiped off the face of the earth?” Israeli officials went on to clarify that when it came to Palestinians identifying themselves as conscious beings deserving of respect, crying and begging for one’s life did not count as sufficient verification.

The post Israel Claims Slain Palestinian Rescue Workers Didn’t Properly Identify Selves As Human Beings appeared first on The Onion.

The post Inside Elon Musk’s Texas Compound appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Saying that Americans should anticipate certain lifestyle changes as a result of his newly announced tariffs, President Donald Trump informed the nation Thursday that they better start liking those little canned wieners. “Hope you aren’t too attached to whatever fancy crap you eat now, because those little wiener dogs in the cans are coming back on the menu in a big way,” said Trump, adding that if Americans didn’t already have a good, long fork for fishing wieners out of the can, they were “sure as hell” going to need one soon. “You’re gonna eat ’em cold, and you’re gonna like ’em cold. Every meal. Don’t even think about trying to gussy them up with pickle relish. The only way you make it through these next few years is filling every shelf in your pantry with little canned wieners and knocking back the leftover hot dog water with a smile on your face. Buckle up, America. You live in ‘the wiener times’ now.” At press time, millions of Americans reportedly realized they could no longer afford the canned wieners.

The post Trump Informs Nation They Better Start Liking Those Little Canned Wieners appeared first on The Onion.

The post CNBC Hosts Sit In Stunned Silence For 19th Consecutive Hour appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Seeking to reassure the public after his latest tariffs sent both U.S. and international markets into free fall, President Donald Trump calmly reminded the nation Thursday that desire is the root of all suffering. “My fellow Americans, remember that attachment to worldly things stands at the very foundation of the illusions that lead us to experience deep anguish,” said the commander-in-chief, who reportedly sat in a full lotus position on the Oval Office floor as he noted that to base one’s contentment on access to affordable food, cars, electronics, shoes, clothing, furniture, or various other imports was to make one’s existence as fickle as the stock market itself. “You tell yourself, ‘I want eggs,’ but explain to me what this ‘I’ is that you speak of? Can you point to it? Of course not. ‘I’ is a prison you’ve built for yourself. So long as you live within the ‘I,’ you live in a perpetual dream. Only when we dissolve this ‘I’ can we extinguish all of the terrible clinging and instead start living authentically in the realm of awakened life.” At press time, Trump had concluded by noting that it was thus that his Liberation Day tariffs were the path to freeing oneself from the karmic wheel of samsara.

The post Trump Calmly Reminds Nation That Desire The Root Of All Suffering appeared first on The Onion.

“If you ask nicely, maybe he’ll let you use the credit card this weekend too!” The Beaverton Weekly Report is making fun of the news once again. Luke and the Panel (Ian MacIntyre, Clare Blackwood and Megan MacKay) talk about the Conservatives’ lack of election strategy, Pierre Poilievre’s not at all creepy biological clock comments […]

The post Poilievre to boost numbers with women by encouraging them to ask their husbands if they can vote for him appeared first on The Beaverton.

WASHINGTON D.C. – Using a fresh browser tab on a secure device, sources confirm that US President Donald Trump has, for the first time in his life, done a google search to find out what the word “Tariff” means. Reports indicate the search began around 10:20 AM this morning, following worldwide reports of confusion and […]

The post Trump googles “tariff” for first time appeared first on The Beaverton.

OTTAWA – With less than a month to go until the federal election, candidates for the Conservative Party of Canada have been shocked and dismayed to learn that the things they post and share on public-facing social media platforms are indeed visible to the public. “I assume X is basically a diary, and that’s why […]

The post Dropped Conservative candidates horrified to realize other people can see their social media posts appeared first on The Beaverton.

Hey!

Oh my god, I’m so glad I found you. I was starting to get worried. The game is about to start, and there’s no way I could even begin to pay attention until I found the one. The one other person of color at this hockey game, that is. You see, it’s a rule that we have to find each other before the puck drops. We have to make intense eye contact but share no words. We have to assure each other with a look that says “You’re not alone” and “Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.” Because when someone shouts something alarmingly racist during the national anthem, we have to be able to find each with wide eyes that say “What the actual fuck is going on?”

During the first intermission, we should meet by the bathroom near section 112 to check in on each other. Maybe we can even grab a giant pretzel. Silently, of course. That’s the key to this relationship. No words, all eyes.

It’s a shame, because I would love to know how you ended up here. Is it anything like my story? Was it an attempt to find a new hobby in your thirties that didn’t involve leaving your couch? A deep depression that made watching shows like Love Island and Survivor impossible? Were you as bored of Deuxmoi as I was and decided you’d rather hear hockey gossip? Or was it the endless TikToks about hot hockey players that made you finally look into what the fuss was all about?

Maybe you just started a job at a company where your boss proudly announced the end of DEI, and you felt the need to become an expert in the whitest activity imaginable. If that’s the case, I’m so sorry. Because the whitest activity imaginable is rowing. But hockey is a pretty close second or third, so maybe it will still work out in your favor.

More likely, judging by your lack of team paraphernalia, you got dragged here by your friends and don’t know a single thing about hockey. In which case, I wish I could tell you about some of my favorite parts. For example, when a player breaks a rule that involves physically hurting someone, they’ll get put in the penalty box, or what I like to call “hockey jail.” Hockey is the one sport where a white man will get put in jail for breaking a rule. It might only be for two to five minutes, but hey, that’s longer than Ted Kennedy got.

It’s funny, isn’t it? Willingly putting yourself in this potentially hostile environment because you simply must watch grown men slam each other into the boards up close.

We better hurry, the next period is about to start. I really do hope you enjoy the game. And who knows, maybe I’ll see you at the next one. Just remember the rule, and you’ll be fine. But if something goes wrong, find me in the crowd and blink twice. I’ll drop my Dippin’ Dots and come to your rescue.

See you on the ice,
Sahar

President Trump has announced a sweeping plan of tariffs against dozens of nations, including the Antarctic Heard and McDonald Islands, which are uninhabited by humans but very much inhabited by penguins. The fake liberal media criticized this as a mistake, but Trump’s tariffs are actually a brilliant long-term strategy to help America win the war against birds.

Birds have taken advantage of America’s generosity for too long. Every year, millions of illegal and undocumented birds cross the border into American airspace. These birds come here to commit criminal acts (e.g., pooping on Teslas) and to take our jobs (e.g., pooping on Teslas). There are even reports that some birds fly in violent gangs called “murders,” probably to support Hamas.

Every day, good Americans face the dangerous threat of birds. Birds are not the cute, harmless animals depicted in the mainstream media. Birds have sharp beaks that can poke American eyes, talons that can stab American hearts, and feathers that can tickle American noses and cause American sneezes.

The war against birds is long overdue. This is especially true on the trade front. Since Trump came into office, American families have been suffering through the rising costs of consumer goods, including the price of eggs. You know who makes eggs? Birds! Trump is fighting for our rights by getting to the very source of the problem.

Trump’s tariffs against the penguins will revitalize the American economy. The Heard and McDonald Islands have exploited our nation’s economy for decades. Now, instead of paying exorbitantly high prices for penguin-made products, American consumers will revitalize the American ice and freshly vomited fish industries.

Now, some may say that birds are not our enemies and, in fact, could be considered our longtime allies. After all, what about the role of carrier pigeons in helping us fight fascism in World War II? Others may say that birds are not our enemies, but have been our victims—caged, killed, forced to labor, detained against their will, trafficked across state lines, deprived of legal representation. We’ve taken their lands, stolen their children, and destroyed the environmental factors they need to survive. Blah, blah, blah. These arguments are woke and DEI, and the United States has never betrayed its allies or victimized any populations ever.

The good news is President Trump and his administration are setting us on the right path in the War Against Birds. Under the leadership of Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the bird flu no longer exists (or, at least, no research or vaccines for it exist anymore). Elon Musk’s DOGE has defunded national parks, well-known to be crime-ridden hellholes where birds congregate to plan anti-American activities. And the administration’s strong push to eliminate DEI will ensure that no birds will ever again get the unfair advantages (wings, hollow bones) that have literally elevated them above everyday Americans.

Fortunately for the American people, the president’s tariffs are hitting important enemies, like birds, and not important friends, like Russia. Sure, Trump’s indiscriminate tariffs were calculated based on essentially no logical basis and will likely cause trillions in economic loss for America. And, sure, the average consumer will bear the brunt of it, and we may very well be on the edge of the next Great Depression. But remember that birds are the enemy, Trump is always right, and anything bad that might happen will be Joe Biden’s fault.

Now, the president’s plan is brilliant, of course, but it isn’t perfect. We need to push harder. Tax all birds, not just penguins. Place a 25 percent tariff on all avian exports. Support mammalian manufacturing. Disband the Audubon Society.

Then, once victorious, we commence the war against reptiles.

“A stunned world reckons with economic fallout from Trump’s tariffs. Not even America’s closest trading partners were spared by a policy broadside that spooked investors and left policymakers scrambling to formulate responses.” — New York Times

My fellow Americans,

For far too long, we have been held captive, prisoners of an unfair and unjust system—one that would see us access goods and services beyond the wildest imaginations of most developing nations. No longer! At long last, we have been liberated from being able to afford anything.

For many years, we have struggled to right this ship, to bring our spending and employment to heel. We have chipped away at our economy, bit by bit, but somehow we have continued to suffer under a global hierarchy in which we are both the wealthiest and most influential country in the world. A terrible fate to suffer, indeed.

Fear not, my friends, for those days are over. We are finally free from the shackles of capitalism. I mean, to be clear: it’s still capitalism. We’re just making sure that basically none of you benefit from it anymore. You. Are. Welcome.

This was not an easy battle. It came at a price—a price you’ll all be paying, based on a random assortment of numbers we pulled from thin air. We accomplished this great feat the way we always have: by just making it all up.

Our people have all fought valiantly, and we have won. Now you shall enjoy the spoils of our victory, which will cost about twice as much as any previous spoils. One day, we will all look back on this period and remember it as the beginning of the end of the best days of our lives.

Smile, countrymen, for a time of great surplus is finally and firmly out of sight, and a time of great agony is upon us!

No longer shall we exchange our economy of ideas and innovation for labor and goods.

No longer shall we bend the knee to other nations by being the nation other nations look up to.

No longer shall we be bound by the straitjacket of prosperity.

From now on, we are the envy of no one. Does that not feel righteous? Does that not fill you with purpose? You are all now unencumbered by things like “long-term market stability” and “jobs.” You are finally, totally free. (Nothing else is free, though. It’s all very expensive now.)

Congratulations, we did it.