SpaceX keeps lining them up and knocking them out as it targets an early afternoon launch from Kennedy Space Center today.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying another 23 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites is aiming for 2:10 p.m. liftoff, having passed over initial opportunities, from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A with backup options until the end of the four-hour launch window at 2:42 p.m. and more on Thursday beginning at 10:16 a.m.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 90% chance for good conditions both today and Thursday.

It marks the third launch of the first-stage booster which previously flew on the Crew-8 human spaceflight and one Starlink mission. It will aim for a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic Ocean on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

This marks the 35th launch from the Space Coast with all but two coming from SpaceX.

United Launch Alliance had the other two launches, and is awaiting its third with the Crew Flight Test mission to send up astronauts on board Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner atop an Atlas V. Teams scrubbed that launch attempt on Monday night because of a valve issue on the Atlas V’s upper Centaur stage.

Teams decided to roll the Atlas V back to ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility to replace the valve and now that launch is targeting no earlier than May 17.

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I don’t like writing about Donald Trump, and I definitely don’t want to write about his damn diapers, but one of the most widely spread pieces of (probable) misinformation this week concerns the ex-president’s Pampers, so I’m going to dig in. (retch)

According to actual news sources like Sky News and MSN, along with thousands of Twitter/X accounts, Donald Trump’s fans have embraced their idol’s alleged incontinence and are walking around rallies wearing spite-diapers and merchandise that proclaims “real men wear diapers,” “Diaper Don,” and “diapers over Democrats.” But are they really doing this? For that matter, does Donald Trump wear diapers in the first place? Well, depends. (See what I did there?)

The origin story of Von Sh*tzinPantz

The first widely spread claim that that Donald Trump wears diapers was from stand-up comedian Noel Casler. Back in 2018, Casler, who says he worked on Trump’s reality show The Apprentice, claimed that Trump “would often soil himself” on the set. Was Casler telling the truth? It’s hard to say. This is not the kind of scoop that top journalists lower themselves to chasing down, so we’ll get no help there, but it’s worth noting that no one else who worked on The Apprentice, as far as I can tell, came forward to say “yes, this happened,” despite Casler’s claim that it was common knowledge on the set. On the other hand, Trump is well-known for his employee NDAs and who would want to risk crossing a powerful, litigious lunatic like Trump? On the other-other-hand, Donald Trump looks like he’s taking a dump all the time. But ultimately, Diaper Don is unconfirmed.

It is definitely true that a rumor that Trump wears diapers and shits himself is widely believed. It made its way into the official court record of Trump’s criminal trial in New York this week in the form of a tweet from Michael Cohen that refers to Trump as “Von ShitzInPantz.” So the scent is in the air, so to speak. But whether Trump fans are actually responding to the rumors by wearing diapers and shirts that read “Diaper Don” is questionable. Yeah, there are photos, and yeah, everyone I know believes it, but I’m not convinced—it’s just too perfect.

Exhibit one: the photographs

We both know the photos themselves provide no evidence—they could be posed, photoshopped, or created by AI—but their source gives us some clues. All of the photos of people wearing diaper-centric Donald Trump gear so far originated in a single place: Dispatches from Trumpland, a blog that seems to have launched in December, and purports to be a pro-Trump website.

If Dispatches is really a pro-Trump blog, it’s a lazy one. It hosts a total of five non-diaper-related posts, mainly even-handed articles covering the GOP primary. They seemed like AI writing to me, so I ran this post by three AI-writing detection services, and they all returned definite “It’s AI” results. The posts about diapers, though come back as “human.”

Unlike the boring primary articles, the diaper posts are vague on details. The first one offers no location for the photos of Trumpers in diaper gear, but mentions “a merch cart picked up by the news in Michigan,” without providing a link. (If that story exists, I can’t find it.) The second diaper post says the pictures were taken at “Trump’s latest event in rural Pennsylvania” without mentioning where or when this event happened.

All this combined strongly suggests the site is astroturf, a political smear job that only exists to spread the photos. Everything else on the site seems designed to provide a thin veneer of plausibility (as long as you don’t take 10 minutes to look into it.)

Exhibit number two: the psychology of Trump’s supporters and detractors

Another data point: If we know anything about Trump supporters, we know they’re proud of the things they do (no matter how onerous). So why don’t we have any verified Trump supporters posting diaper pictures? If anyone really believed that wearing “real men wear diapers” merch would trigger liberal tears, why isn’t your shitty uncle wearing that t-shirt right now? Trump supporters missing a chance to own libs stretches credibility past the breaking point.

It also doesn’t seem like them to embrace something seen as weakness and pin it on their pal Donny. They like Trump to be seen as strong, not a doddering old pants-shitter. Reclaiming insults is a liberal thing.

On the other side of the coin, Trumpers trying to do a “Dark Brandon” but only succeeding in making themselves look more ridiculous is exactly the kind of thing you’d send to your friend group and post on Threads with the caption, “get a load of what these assholes are up to now!” It’s just too pat. Too perfect. Too clearly playing into the biases of one group.

I respect the hustle, but seeing how the sausage is made makes me a little queasy. Sure, it’s effective propaganda, and there’s no “unfair” in democracy, so I see the political wisdom of shaming Trump supporters and providing a ton of “they write themselves” jokes for late night comedians, but the idealist in me wants to say, “Shouldn’t we be better? Do we really need to invent ridiculous things Trump supporters do?”

We may never know whether this is grassroots or astroturf

You can now buy all manner of “real men wear diapers” t-shirts at online shops like teepublic, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence they were sold before Dispatches from Trumpland’s April 11th, first-diaper-sighting post. No doubt we’ll be seeing this merchandise in the wild soon, probably from both Trump fans who believe in it and Trump haters who are doing it mockingly. And Trump-shits-himself will no doubt be a running a theme of this nightmarish election year, repeated as often as “Hillary Clinton is on death’s door!” was in 2016. Remember that one?

Seriously, this whole thing is gross

Rolling around in the mud may be necessary to win an election in 2024, but the more I think about this specific smear, the uglier it seems. Not because of Trump (fuck him) or his supporters (fuck them too) but because real men do wear diapers. Real women wear diapers. Not being able to control one’s bowels isn’t a sign of weakness and it isn’t particularly funny. It’s an indignity that isn’t fair, and happens to the great and to the terrible alike.

I understand that the finer point here is making fun of the slavish and weird devotion Trump’s fans have to their idol, but, at the risk of being a party pooper, using adult diapers as a medium of ridicule is really not fair to people who are incontinent. Ageism is as much an -ism as any other, and if you imagine using the same tactic with some other marginalized group, pointing at Trump and saying, “Ha! Von Shitshispants” is a lot less funny.

Russian authorities have revealed that an American soldier being held on a theft charge in which he allegedly caused “significant damage” will remain in pretrial detention until July 2. 

Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, who enlisted in the Army as an infantryman in 2008, and most recently, was assigned to the Eighth Army U.S. Forces Korea at Camp Humphreys in South Korea, traveled to Vladivostok, Russia “for personal reasons” prior to his arrest, the Pentagon says. 

The Pervomaisky District Court of Vladivostok said “When choosing the preventive measure in the form of detention, the court came to the conclusion that US citizen B. (Black) — under the weight of the charges — could hide from the preliminary investigation authorities and the court to avoid responsibility,” according to Reuters. 

It reportedly added that Black will be detained until July 2 for “secretly stealing the property of citizen T., causing the latter significant damage.” 

PENTAGON OFFICIALS SAY US ARMY SOLDIER DETAINED IN RUSSIA REMAINS IN PRETRIAL DETENTION FACILITY 

Gordon Black, a U.S. serviceman detained in Russia, poses for a selfie in this picture obtained from social media, in an unspecified location, released on February 2023.   (Gordon Black Via Facebook/Reuters)

Russian officials in Vladivostok said a 32-year-old woman had filed a complaint against the 34-year-old Black, Reuters also reports. 

The news agency cited the officials as saying that the pair met in South Korea before Black came to visit her in Russia, during which they became involved in an argument. She then reportedly filed a police report accusing him of stealing money and Black was taken into custody at a hotel. 

“On April 10, Black out-processed from Eighth Army and signed out on permanent change of station, to leave en route to Texas,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Tuesday. “However, instead of returning to the U.S., Black flew from Korea through China, and then to Vladivostok, Russia, for personal reasons.” 

The Army opened an administrative investigation to determine the facts and circumstances around his travel, Singh noted, and part of the investigation will involve looking into consequences for his actions. 

“But, official or any leave to Russia is strictly prohibited, and that’s pursuant to the DoD [Department of Defense] foreign clearance guide, which, of course, is also informed by the State Department guidelines,” Singh said, adding that she believed the status was set to Category Four, which does not allow travel to Russia. 

FORMER ARMY SOLDIER CONVICTED OF MURDERING PREGNANT SOLDIER ON GERMANY BASE IN 2001 

A photo of U.S. Army soldier Gordon Black sending a holiday message from Iraq in 2009. (U.S. DoD)

On Tuesday, Black’s mother, Melody Jones, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” (GMA) that she believed her son was “set up” by the woman, described as his girlfriend. 

She told “GMA” her son met a Russian woman when she was tending bar near his Army base in South Korea, and she was later deported back to Russia. 

“I knew something was going to happen,” Jones told “GMA.” “I felt like he was being set up by her.” 

Jones described her son’s relationship with the Russian woman as “volatile,” and even suspected she might be a spy. She said she told her son not to travel to Russia when he was supposed to be returning home to the U.S. while on leave. 

The Russian port city of Vladivostok, where American soldier Staff Sgt. Gordon Black was detained last Thursday. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)

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Black deployed to Iraq from Oct. 2009 through Sept. 2010, and to Afghanistan from June 2013 until March 2014, Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith also said.  

Fox News’ Greg Wehner, Pilar Arias and The Associated Press contributed to this report.