Annamari Pouti-Fletcher 🇨🇦

People who are brave, funny, and honest while grappling with important matters in life inspire me. Learning, teaching, growing until always. She/her.

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Here’s a fact check of some of President Trump’s claims, including a bunch of long-debunked lies, from a single softball New York Post interview released this morning.

Claim: “We're the only country in the world that has mail-in ballots.” Truth: Dozens of countries have mail-in ballots, including Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, and Switzerland.

Claim: The 2020 election was “rigged” and has “been proven to be rigged.” Truth: Not rigged, there’s no proof for Trump’s assertion more than five years later, and he lost fair and square.

Claim: Trump won “three” presidential elections. Truth: He won in 2016 and 2024, lost in 2020.

Claim: In the 2024 election, “There were areas that were just rigged…rigged against me.” Truth: Nonsense again; he won that election fair and square but lost some areas of the country fair and square.

Claim: Democrats “could not win” “if they didn’t cheat.” Truth: Democrats, like Republicans, clearly win various elections legitimately.

Claim: California mails out “38 million ballots," and while "some people get three, four, five ballots," "Republicans get, oftentimes, none.” Truth: California mails a ballot to all active registered voters, of which there are 23 million, not the “38 million” figure Trump has used repeatedly; while there are occasional errors by county elections offices and the postal service, there's no general anti-Republican bias in ballot-mailing in the state.

Claim: “I inherited the highest inflation in the history of our country…Biden had like 9, 10% inflation. And I inherited that, and we have it way down.” Truth: The inflation rate the month Trump returned to office was 3.0%, lower than the most recent rate of 3.8%; Biden-era inflation did peak at 9.1%, but that was in mid-2022, and it wasn’t close to the all-time record of 23.7%. Regardless, it had fallen substantially before Trump’s inauguration.

Claim: “We have $18 trillion being invested in the country in just 11 months.” Truth: This is a completely fictional figure. The White House’s own website says there have been $10.6 trillion in “major investment announcements” this term, and even that’s a massive exaggeration that counts vague pledges, not-even-pledges, and pledges that are about mutual trade rather than investments in the US.

Claim: Trump had gas prices at “$1.85 in Iowa” on the day he visited there in January. Truth: The Iowa average gas price that day was $2.57 per gallon, per AAA; GasBuddy found four stations in the state out of 2,036 selling for $1.97 that day, none at $1.85; the station outside the venue where he spoke was at $2.69. (Ethanol-gas blend E85 was around $1.85, but that can only be used in a small percentage of cars, and he didn’t say that was what he was talking about.)

Claim: Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was still wearing a mask “a couple of months ago.” Truth: I've found no evidence for this; the Talarico video many Republicans have mocked shows Talarico wearing a mask in 2022, not 2026.

Claim: Mitch McConnell was “losing by a lot” in the 2020 Senate election in Kentucky but then Trump endorsed him and got him elected. Truth: McConnell, running in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992, led in all but one public poll in that race, and that one exception was a poll conducted for a pro-term-limits group in which he trailed by just one point; he was always the overwhelming favorite.

Claim: The Jan. 6 attack was “nonsense” in which “the FBI said, ‘Go in. Go in.’” Truth: That was a riot perpetrated by Trump supporters, and there's no evidence the FBI ever told rioters to illegally enter the Capitol. DOJ’s inspector general found the FBI had zero undercover agents at the riot…and Trump was president at the time and had personally appointed the FBI director.

Claim: Former VP Harris “was the border czar” but “never went.” Truth: She went to the border twice as VP, and the Biden administration repeatedly emphasized she was never “border czar” but had a narrower assignment focused on the “root causes” of migration from Central America.

Claim: Under Biden, “25 million people” poured over the border. Truth: This is a further exaggeration from the wildly exaggerated “21 million” figure Trump used to use; even counting “gotaways,” it’s not even close to correct.

Claim: Democrats are so dumb that “we had 11,888 murderers, most of whom committed more than one murder, allowed into our country.” Truth: The federal data it appears Trump is referring to is about people who entered the US over the course of multiple decades, *including during Trump’s own first administration.*

Claim: Under Biden, countries emptied their jail populations into the US – “the whole jail was emptied into our country.” Trump and his team have never substantiated this claim even though he’s made it for years, and experts on global prison policy and on the countries he has previously identified as the supposed culprits have told me they’ve seen no evidence for it.

More details: https://t.co/NtFk7PUfwN

[Annamari Pouti-Fletcher 🇨🇦 @originalapf]

@kaitlancollins I think it is such a power move that your very existence gets under his skin. We know that the chronic rambling and petty insults only reveal him as weak and incompetent.

[Sesame Street @sesamestreet]

Happy #PrideMonth from Sesame Street! Join us in celebrating and uplifting the LGBTQIA+ members of our community. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

[Annamari Pouti-Fletcher 🇨🇦 @originalapf]

@SunCaren80991 @atrupar @TomWellborn3 The cheese 🧀 has slipped off the cracker!

[Joseph Allen @j_g_allen]

“Investigations of COVID-19 case clusters repeatedly fail to assess the role of building ventilation systems in disease transmission.

In this report, the task force provides three examples of cluster investigations to illustrate the shortcomings and potential implications of failing to collect this information.”

https://t.co/HGv1puOLda

[Tina Yazdani @TinaYazdani]

NEW: Most classroom teachers are unable to adequately support students with special education needs, according to a new AG report.

The report also raises concerns about rising EA absences, and students sent home when schools couldn't meet their needs. https://t.co/OxGhFeqxYX

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Trump April 23: I contacted people "that have worked for me in the past, doing swimming pools," and one gave me a great price on the Reflecting Pool project

Trump May 4: "I have some very good contractors," asked three of them to "do me a favor fellas" and go look at the Reflecting Pool, and the best one gave me a great price

Trump today: The Reflecting Pool contract "went to a contractor I did not know, and have never used before"

[Annamari Pouti-Fletcher 🇨🇦 @originalapf]

@Acyn Time for another “cognitive” test? 🚩

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I have three monitors on my desk. The left one shows the order book. The middle one shows Truth Social. The right one shows the investigation queue.

On April 21st, the left screen moved first.

I am a Senior Surveillance Analyst at a commodities exchange. I have held this position for nineteen years. My job is to monitor trading activity for suspicious patterns and generate compliance reports. I am employee of the quarter. I have a mug.

At 19:54 GMT on April 21st, someone placed 4,260 sell orders on Brent crude futures. They did this during post-settlement. The window after the market closes when daily volume is typically in the dozens. Sometimes single digits. Sometimes I watch the screen and nothing happens for forty minutes and I think about whether my daughter is happy.

On April 21st, someone placed $430 million in directional bets in 120 seconds during that window. One hundred and twenty seconds. I timed it on my watch because the system clock rounds to the nearest minute and I have found, in nineteen years, that precision matters to no one but me.

At 20:10 GMT, the President posted on Truth Social that he was extending the Iran ceasefire.

Brent dropped from $100.91 to $96.83.

I flagged the trade. I flag a lot of trades. I want to tell you what happens to my flags.

My flags go into a system called TRACE. Trade Review and Compliance Evaluation. I did not name it. The system generates a report. The report goes to a committee. The committee has a name I am not allowed to share but I can tell you it meets quarterly and the conference room has a credenza with bottled water that is sparkling because someone once put still water in the room and a managing director sent an email about it that was longer than most of my surveillance reports.

The committee reviews my flags. The committee has reviewed all of my flags. Here is the complete record of actions taken on my flags in 2026:

Reviewed.

That's it. "Reviewed" is a status. In compliance, a status is the absence of an action that has been given a name so it looks like one.

Let me show you my flags.

March 9th. Someone bet millions on oil falling at 18:29 GMT. Forty-seven minutes later, a CBS reporter posted that the President said the Iran war was "very complete, pretty much." Oil dropped 25%. Forty-seven minutes. I flagged it.

March 23rd. Someone sold 5,100 lots of Brent and WTI crude futures between 10:49 and 10:50 GMT. Fourteen minutes later, the President posted on Truth Social about a "COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION" to hostilities. Oil dropped 11%. Over 13,000 contracts traded in sixty seconds after the post. Fourteen minutes. I flagged it.

April 7th. Someone established a $950 million short position in oil futures at 19:45 GMT. Three hours later, the President declared a two-week ceasefire. Nine hundred and fifty million dollars. I flagged it.

April 17th. Someone placed $760 million in bearish bets twenty minutes before Iran's foreign minister confirmed the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Seven hundred and sixty million. I flagged it.

April 21st. The $430 million. Fifteen minutes. I flagged it.

That is $2.1 billion in directional oil bets in April alone. Every one of them landed on the correct side of a presidential announcement. Every one of them was placed in a window so narrow you could measure it in bathroom breaks. I flagged every single one.

The CFTC chair told a Congressional committee that his organization has "zero tolerance" for fraud and insider trading. I wrote that quote on a Post-it note and stuck it to my right monitor. The one that shows the investigation queue. The investigation queue has not moved since March.

Zero tolerance. Zero staff. Zero budget. Zero prosecutions under the STOCK Act since it was signed in 2012.

Fourteen years. The law has existed for fourteen years and has been enforced zero times. In compliance, we call that a compliance rate of one hundred percent. No cases filed means no cases lost. You cannot fail an audit you never conduct. We call that excellence.

Last month the White House sent an internal email to staff. I was not on the distribution list but I have read reporting on it and I need you to sit with what I am about to say. The email instructed White House staff not to use insider information to place bets on prediction markets.

The White House had to send a memo telling its own employees not to insider-trade.

I want you to read that sentence again. Not because the instruction was unclear. Because the instruction was necessary. Because someone in the building looked at the same pattern I have been flagging for months on my three monitors and decided the appropriate response was an email.

The President's son sits on the advisory board of Kalshi. He is an investor in Polymarket. Both are prediction markets. Both saw accounts created days before U.S. military action.

One account. I cannot stop thinking about this account. It was called "Burdensome-Mix." It was created in December. On January 2nd, it placed $32,500 on Venezuela's president being removed from power. On January 3rd, Maduro was seized by U.S. special forces. Burdensome-Mix collected $436,000. Then it changed its username. Then it disappeared.

One account is a coincidence. But there were six.

Six accounts were created on Polymarket in February. All bet on U.S. strikes on Iran by the 28th. When the President confirmed the strikes, the six accounts collected $1.2 million between them. Five of the six never placed another bet. The sixth went on to correctly predict the ceasefire date and made another $163,000.

My surveillance system logged all of this. My system logs everything. My system does not have opinions and neither do I. I generate reports. The reports go to committees. The committees meet quarterly. Between meetings, the windows get shorter and the bets get larger.

March 9th: 47 minutes. March 23rd: 14 minutes. April 17th: 20 minutes. April 21st: 15 minutes.

The window is compressing. In March, you had time to make coffee between the trade and the announcement. By April, you had time to send a text. By summer, at this rate, the trade and the announcement will be the same event.

The spokesman said any implication that administration officials are engaged in insider trading is "baseless and irresponsible reporting."

Then the White House sent the email again.

I have been in compliance for nineteen years. I have seen insider trading run out of strip mall offices by men who could not spell "derivative." I have seen pump-and-dump schemes coordinated over WhatsApp by people who used their real names. I have seen a man try to manipulate soybean futures from a Panera Bread.

I have never seen $2.1 billion in perfectly timed trades across five presidential announcements in a single month go uninvestigated.

But I have also never seen a compliance system work this beautifully. Every trade flagged. Every report filed. Every committee briefed. Every quarterly meeting attended. Bottled water: sparkling. Minutes: distributed.

Zero prosecutions.

As long as the flags go up and the cases don't, my performance review says I am meeting expectations.

I am meeting expectations. The system is meeting expectations. The $2.1 billion is meeting expectations. The fourteen-year-old law with zero prosecutions is meeting expectations.

The left screen moves. The middle screen moves. The right screen stays perfectly, immaculately still.

In my field, we call this price discovery.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

LUTNICK: It is outrageous that Canada will not put US spirits on the shelf. It is insulting and disrespectful to America

SHAHEEN: They won't do it because of the insults from this president and comments like yours

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

PM Carney on the Americans calling the alcohol ban an irritant: "You know what's an irritant? 50% tariffs on steel. 50% tariffs on aluminum. 25% tariffs on automobiles. All the tariffs on forest products. Those are more than irritants, those are violations of our trade deal."

[Stephen King @StephenKing]

Release the unredacted unexpurgated Epstein Files.
Surely there must be one copy out there that the Justice Department hasn't shredded.

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

The White House is completely silent as BBC confirms a consistent pattern of massive financial spikes occurring just minutes before Donald Trump makes market moving announcements. The administration is facing severe allegations of illegally profiteering off inside knowledge.

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

Trump said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz situation was "over." It very obviously wasn't.

Trump said Friday that Iran agreed "to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.” The next day, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again.

Trump said yesterday that Vance isn't going to Pakistan for the talks. Officials quickly said Vance is going to Pakistan for the talks.

Trump said this morning that Vance had left and would be there tonight Islamabad time. Officials quickly said Vance is actually leaving tomorrow.

Trump said Iran has no military anymore and that "everything's gone." Iran continues to have a military with destructive capabilities.

Trump said the pope issued a statement saying Iran can have a nuclear weapon. That never happened.  

Trump said nobody expected Iran to retaliate against Gulf countries. That was widely expected.

Trump said the only planes the US has really lost in the war have been to friendly fire. He said this at the same event at which he had spoken at length about what happened after Iran shot down a US plane.

Story on the president's ever-growing number of false claims on big and small
matters related to the war – and his triumphant claims about supposed Iranian concessions that we just can't assume are based in reality: https://t.co/cmbHv302aR

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

I am deeply saddened by the recent escalation of attacks against Ukraine, which continue to afflict civilians. I express my solidarity with those who are suffering and assure all the Ukrainian people of my prayers. I renew my appeal for weapons to fall silent and for the path of dialogue to be pursued.

[DH @d0j0h]

Ford’s mobbed-up buddies are making twice the salary of the directors they usurped in the name of “fiscal restraint.” This province is cooked. #ONpoli #ONTed

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Let us reject the logic of violence and war, and embrace peace founded on love and justice—an unarmed peace, not based on fear, threats or weapons. This peace is disarming, because it is capable of resolving conflicts, opening hearts, and generating trust, empathy, and hope. I strongly reiterate: The world thirsts for #Peace! Enough of war and all the pain it causes through death, destruction, and exile! #ApostolicJourney #Cameroon

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

NASA wasn’t “closed” before Trump. The US doesn’t pay NATO anywhere close to “trillions of dollars” or “hundreds of billions of dollars a year.” Trump hasn’t built anywhere close to “over 1,000 miles of wall.” Trump hasn’t “ended eight wars.” It’s not true that “nobody” else has ended a war. Trump didn’t achieve “no tax on Social Security.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg died weeks before a presidential election, not right after one. Senator Thom Tillis is still a senator.

And more. Quick fact check of some of Trump’s many false claims on Fox this morning:

https://t.co/RKmgICu3Tc

[Kimiko Shibata 🦋 @ESL_fairy]

Education is not a business.

Schools are not factories.

Our children are not widgets to be churned out.

Do better, @fordnation.

#OntEd

[Kimiko Shibata 🦋 @ESL_fairy]

What you need to know about the “Putting Student Achievement First Act” (#OntEd):

Ontario’s new education law makes big structural changes… but not the changes parents and educators have actually been asking for.