Poetic Justice
Buck Banks | Apr. 29, 2026
The current state of our national political debate is pathetic,
And politicians’ performative stunts make us crave an emetic.
But when the bullets start flying,
Both sides start denying:
Saying MY violent rhetoric is less violent than YOUR violent rhetoric.
Verbatim
“They assume my ambition is a title or a seat. My ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, elected officials come and go, single payer healthcare is forever.”
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), speaking at the University of Chicago.
“I want to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar… He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth… The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country has ever seen.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), 10 years ago today.
“We’re moving from one fire drill to the next every single week, and then half the time it feels like, why are we even here?”
— A House Republican, quoted by MS NOW, on the chaos this week in the House Republican caucus.
Numerati
3.8%
Wall Street Journal: “Consumer prices rose 3.8% in April from a year earlier, a clear impact of higher gas prices since the start of the war with Iran. … The figures, reported Tuesday by the Labor Department, surpassed the previous month’s reported increase of 3.3%. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected inflation of 3.7%.”
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56%
A survey of 1,000 Americans conducted by YouGov on behalf of NewsGuard found that 24 percent believe the foiled attack by a gunman on April 25 was not a real attempt to kill Trump, the Daily Beast Reports. When expanded to include those who believe the assassination attempt was staged or are “unsure,” the figure rises significantly to 56 percent. Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) also believe that at least one of the assassination attempts against the president—the WHCD dinner incident, the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, or the foiled attack at one of Trump’s Florida golf courses in September 2024—was staged.
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352,000
\
“About 352,000 Russian soldiers had died in the war against Ukraine through the end of 2025, according to a new estimate, underscoring the high cost that President Vladimir V. Putin is willing to bear to pursue his battlefield aims,” the New York Times reports.
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115,000
America’s employers delivered a surprising 115,000 new jobs last month despite an economic shock from the Iran war, reported the AP. Hiring beat the 65,000 jobs forecasters had expected, though it decelerated from the 185,000 jobs created in March. The unemployment rate remained at a low 4.3%, the Labor Department reported Friday.
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228
Washington Post: “Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported.”
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