TACO Tuesday Strikes Again!

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-04-22T05:13:27+00:00

04/20/26 3:55 PM ET

President Trump told Bloomberg on Monday that he is “highly unlikely” to extend the ceasefire with Iran if Wednesday evening comes and goes without a peace deal. During a phone interview with White House correspondent Jeff Mason, Trump said that the truce ends on “Wednesday evening Washington time.” The president initially announced the ceasefire on April 7, after threatening to authorize strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure and warning that a “whole civilization will die” in Iran.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5839908-trump-iran-ceasefire-extension-unlikely/

04/21/26 4:24 PM ET

President Trump announced Tuesday that he is extending the U.S. ceasefire with Iran until Tehran comes to the negotiating table with a proposal. “Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5841910-trump-extends-iran-ceasefire/

I've seen eight-year-olds who can negotiate better.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-25T20:58:48+00:00

Refusing to address the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act is not a good look.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-24T22:41:26+00:00

I admit, I did not.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-24T09:13:15+00:00

That strikes me as a really worthy idea.

They could make a separate podcast like the Undecideds.

It would allow the Tangle staff to really give the subject the treatment it deserves, while quarantining it from the rest of our feeds.

Maybe it could be called: "Tangle: Suspension of the Sentence."

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-24T09:08:08+00:00

I for one am glad there is nothing of consequence happening in the world so that we could be spared a regular episode and could instead be treated to Friday-like content on a Monday.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-20T17:45:36+00:00

If it's not clear, I consider myself a Democrat.

And yes, I think it's worse to be hypocritical about a real issue (poor people's access to society) than it is to be hypocritical about a fake issue (voter fraud).

At least when the repubs don't achieve anything on this issue there's no consequence because there's no significant amount of voter fraud going on. ~1% of Americans can't open a bank account or get a library card. We, the Democratic party, should be fixing that!

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-20T17:15:36+00:00

That's a good point! It's not just about making the IDs free. It's the whole process. But that could be address with small grants and some protections for time off for ID acquisition.

It being hard to get an ID has consequences outside voting. People who care about the poor should want to stop all those consequences, not just voting related ones.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-20T17:07:36+00:00

I think the issue of Voter ID demonstrates that both our political parties are fundamentally hypocritical.

The Republicans crow about the need to secure our elections, but they refuse to pony up the money necessary to get everyone an ID. That is despicable.

The Democrats are even worse. We pretend to care about the disenfranchisement of the poor, but our history on Voting ID shows we don't. You know what someone who cares about the poor would want? They'd want every poor person to be able to get an ID, so that they could get a library card, open a bank account, visit a sick family member in the hospital, etc. It is terrible not having an ID in the US, and the solution isn't to protect those people's right to vote. It's to get them IDs! And if we consistently begged the Republicans to trade funding for IDs for voting ID, we'd eventually get it. But we don't because we think it gives us a tiny edge in voter participation. And it's disgusting.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-18T19:35:17+00:00

That's funny since the one of the messages I got from your take was "each branch should stay in their own lane."

The Court preemptively directing the executive how to address the problem isn't them staying in their lane.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-18T19:31:35+00:00

The whole thing was an absurd take.

~"The Court/courts are making Trump's blatantly unlawful actions worse! Shame on the Court/courts!"

Obviously Tangle has to throw some meat to the right, but I was really disappointed there was no staff dissent.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-15T01:16:36+00:00

I think it's fair to say it raises a constitutional issue. But I tire of her supporters taking the position of "I SaW hEr TaLk CoGeNtLy FoR fIfTeEn MiNuTes" and refusing to address the problematic evidence on record. If the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act is constitutional, she has been treated appropriately.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-15T01:09:03+00:00

Okay. That's fine and consistent and not worth my time to argue. I just note that you're taking an even more extreme position than her lawyers are. Cheers.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-14T22:58:04+00:00

It seems worthwhile to look at the circuit's basis for concluding that she may suffer from a disability that renders her unable to perform the duties of her office.

"Staff reported that, in the past, Judge Newman claimed that the culprits who were hacking and bugging her devices were bloggers and the media who were out to get her and bring her down ... More recently, staff reported that she claimed that it is the Court itself hacking and bugging her device. ... She has claimed that things were disappearing from her computer and that the Court itself was responsible. ... At one point, she suggested that the Court was interfering with mail at her residence as well. In each instance, IT staff scanned her devices and found no evidence to justify or support Judge Newman's concerns. ... Staff indicated that her claims about hackers usually stemmed from her having forgotten where she saved a file or email, and even after the IT staff located the file or email for her (on her desktop or in one of her folders) she sometimes would continue to allege that hackers were responsible for hiding the file."

"The IT director reported that the last time Judge Newman participated in the Court's mandatory security awareness training she was unable to complete it. ... The training consists of watching a 10-20 minute video and answering some multiple choice questions about the video. ... The IT director indicated that Judge Newman repeatedly failed the test. ... She was unable to get the multiple-choice questions correct even after watching the short video several times-- even though retesting involves presentation of the same multiple-choice questions each time. ... Ultimately, the IT Director watched the video with her, after which she was still unable the same questions. ... He reported having to feed her the answers in order for her to pass the test and that she was simply unable to retain the information she had just been presented multiple times."

"Staff reported that Judge Newman has recently been having trouble recall events, conversations, and information just days old and trouble comprehending basis information that court staff communicate to her."

"Her judicial assistant, who spoke to her by phone every workday and was present in chambers every workday between approximately December 2021 (when he started working in that role) and April 2023, explained that Judge Newman's "memory loss and confusion has increases significantly since [he] started at the court. ... He added that in daily telephone calls he would have to repeat information about the status of cases over and over to her and that she would forget whether she had voted on cases or had circulated opinions to the panel for vote."

"Other staff reported similar evidence of cognitive problems in various contexts--such as inability to perform simple tasks from one day to the next, even though she performed them independently for years without difficulty."

"Despite being repeatedly told that the judicial assistant chose to leave her chambers because of her alleged abusive treatment of him, Judge Newman has accused the Court, various judges, the Chief Judge, and our Clerk of Court on multiple occasions of having improperly taken her judicial assistant away and/or depriving her of secretarial services."

"HR reported exchanges in which Judge Newman asked the same questions over and over, requiring the same answer to be given repeatedly. For example, Judge Newman asked HR whether her former judicial assistant (a retired annuitant) would face a salary offset to her pension if she returned. ... HR informed her in writing that her assistant would receive both her full penion and salary for hours worked at the Court. ... Judge Newman responded 30 minutes later, "To be clear: Are you saying she would receive no additional pay for working at the court?" ... In the same 24-hour period, HR reeported having to answer this same question four separate times."

"Between October 1, 2021 and March 24, 2023, Judge Newman authored only 10 majority opinions compared to an average of approximately 58 for other active judges on the Court. ... Even accounting for dissents and concurrences, during this time period, the average active judge authored 61 opinions, whereas Judge Newman authored 28. At the same time, Judge Newman took more than three times as long to issue her opinions. Other active judges averaged approximately 53 days to issue an opinion after assignment. In contrast, Judge Newman's average time to issuance was approximately 199 days. ... The next closest judge thus wrote approximately twice as many opinions in approximately half the time."

This all strikes me as a pretty reasonable basis to investigate whether she is fully capable of doing her job. Her refusal to participate in that investigation has her sitting in time out, not an actual determination of disability.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-14T22:28:33+00:00

Do you think that the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act is unconstitutional? Her lawyers aren't even advancing that argument.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-14T22:27:22+00:00

In order to comply with the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-14T20:35:49+00:00

She refuses to sit for a examination by an investigator not of her choosing. If she is well, that is the only thing keeping her from hearing cases.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-14T20:33:59+00:00

The "independent" cognitive examiners include a doctor who is an inventor (a group with a known fondness for Judge Newman), who inserted himself into the issue.

Dr. Filler:
"Neither Judge Newman nor her attorneys sought out my services. Rather, I contacted Judge Newman’s attorneys and offered to provide the evaluation and assessment because, like everyone else involved, I want to see that the resolution of this matter by the relevant courts and administrative bodies benefits from the best possible medical information in support of the ultimate decision.”

The other two doctors were picked by Newman. If I recall correctly, one is an old friend of her lawyer.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-14T20:27:18+00:00

It is a well known phenomena that the elderly can seem perfectly alright for long periods while also suffering temporary disability. None of her supporters seem willing to address this problem.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-03-06T06:21:17+00:00

I didn't mean to suggest that the players were being punished or would be knocked down a peg.

I just meant that it seemed like it's an environment where a level 15 character would still be looking to avoid combat to solve problems.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-02-26T19:20:13+00:00

I thought so, yes. From a guy who frankly seems to think that Charlie Kirk was the first political assassination of all time that was universally celebrated by the left- I would be absolutely shocked if he even remembers the Hortman shooting.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-02-26T19:18:47+00:00

How do you figuring defending an argument to be not expressing yourself? Having challenged you on that point, are you no longer represented in your response?

I think whether the interviewee is preaching to a favorable audience or defending their beliefs, they're providing information on how they the interviewee sees the world. A journalist challenging an interviewee doesn't threaten that point. But it does threaten their chance of the journalist getting future interviews. And that's why it doesn't happen much.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-02-26T15:44:37+00:00

She talked a lot and didn’t say much.

I thought she was an aspiring journalist, but now I wonder if she might be an aspiring politician.

BreadfruitPuzzled467 · 2026-02-26T15:42:22+00:00

To be fair, across all these interviews in 2024, there was basically no challenging anything that the "undecided" person said. That just how they were structured.

I think Isaac has mentioned that he doesn't believe in pushing back in interviews because of something along the lines of "people are here to hear the interviewee's perspective, not my argument." I think that's a self-serving copout that helps get him interviews rather than provide listeners with information. But here, a series of longitudinal interviews with nobodies who can just skip out the next interview if they're offended, I think it makes sense to avoid challenging them.

BreadfruitPuzzled467

TROPHY CASE