Marvel and Disney+ surprised fans Wednesday by releasing a trailer for X-Men '97 Season 2.
The
show, a revival of X-Men: The Animated Series, which aired for five
seasons from 1992 to 1997, will return for a second season July 1 on
Disney+.
Season 2 opens with the X-Men, a team
of Marvel Comics superheroes, "scattered through time" following the
events of the Season 1 finale, released in May 2024.
[. . .]
Season 2 consists of nine episodes and premieres July 1 on Disney+.
Here's the trailer.
AMAZON PRIME has SPIDER-NOIR starring Nick Cage. I watched the first episode tonight and am about half way through the second episode. It's pretty interesting and really worth catching.
Thursday, May 28, 2026. Chumps strikes Iran again, his slush fund is
universally despised as is Todd Blanche, the economy remains in the
toilet, and much more.
Iran said it had
retaliated on Thursday against the United States by targeting an unnamed
American base in response to strikes in southern Iran, escalating
tensions amid negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the
war.
In recent
days, Washington and Tehran have suggested that they were close to
agreeing on a narrow agreement to allow commercial shipping to resume in
the strait. But on Wednesday, U.S. forces launched new strikes and
President Trump reiterated that he did not want the waterway to be under
Iranian control.
Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday that it had targeted a
base where the U.S. strikes originated but did not say where that was or
how it had been attacked. The guards warned that further U.S. strikes
would be met by an even “more decisive” response.
On
Thursday morning, the Kuwaiti military said that its air defenses had
intercepted hostile drones and missiles, but did not specify the origin
or extent of the attack. The United States has five military bases in Kuwait.
Hours earlier, American forces conducted strikes in southern Iran, the second round of attacks
this week. The United States knocked down four attack drones that a
U.S. official said Iran had launched over the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran said it targeted an American airbase Thursday, a response to new
U.S. attacks that it called a “blatant violation” of both the shaky
ceasefire between the two countries and international law.
The latest military exchange,
which appeared to draw in the United States’ ally of Kuwait, raised
further doubts about diplomatic efforts to end the war and reopen the
crucial Strait of Hormuz.
Hours earlier, President Donald Trump
signaled an agreement between the two sides wasn’t close, and that he
would not be rushed by either international economic pressure or the
political pressure of upcoming midterm elections.
Iran’s chokehold on the Strait
of Hormuz — which it has effectively shut off in response to the
U.S.-Israeli attack late February — has caused a global economic shock,
with prices rising for oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other essential
goods.
Trump also warned
Oman, another U.S. ally in the region, against partnering with Iran to
jointly control the Strait. “Oman will behave just like everybody else
or we’ll have to blow them up,” he said during a Cabinet meeting, before
adding, “They understand that. They’ll be fine.”
Chump is a con man, grifter and liar and he's assembled
people like him to staff the administration. Which is how we get Pete
Hegseth and others who lie about the amount of weapons. We called it
out at the start of the Iran War -- they were running out of weapons. Ben Finley (AP) reports now:
The weapons systems are Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are used to strike targets deep inside enemy territory, and Patriot and THAAD interceptors that defend against incoming missiles and drones.
“The
United States has enough munitions for any plausible scenario in the
Iran war, but the depleted inventories have created a window of
vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict,” the Center for
Strategic and International Studies said in its new report, provided to
The Associated Press. “The time needed to rebuild those inventories has
thus become a major concern.”
The
US and Israel are "burning through" their supply of Tomahawk and
interceptor missiles in their war on Iran, alarming some in the
Pentagon.
According to officials speaking to
the Washington Post, the US has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise
missiles in four weeks of its war with Iran.
Only
a few hundred of the cruise missiles are manufactured each year and
while the Pentagon does not publicly disclose its numbers, one official
told the news outlet the number of Tomahawks left in the Middle East is
“alarmingly low”.
Tomahawks can travel more
than 1,000 miles, which allows the US military to hit targets in Iran
without sending pilots into a hostile airspace.
It has only gotten worse since then.
And as Ben Finley notes in his new report, the issue is not money, the issue is the time it takes to manufacture Tomahawks.
President Donald Trump spent roughly 10 minutes of a high-stakes cabinet meeting on Wednesday — convened amid delicate negotiations to end the U.S. war with Iran
— ranting about his efforts to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting
Pool, falsely claiming predecessors wasted "hundreds of millions" on
the landmark and repeatedly comparing it to a swimming pool.
"From
1922 on, it really never worked," Trump told cabinet members, calling
the pool — which he repeatedly referred to as a "reflecting lake" — an
embarrassment. "It was filthy dirty. It was Biden."
[. . .]
Trump
claimed the project would cost "like $10,000,000, maybe $12,000,000."
But federal records show the no-bid contract awarded to Atlantic
Industrial Coatings — a Virginia firm Trump chose because it had worked
on pools at his golf club — has already climbed to $13.1 million, more
than seven times his original estimate of $1.8 million. Critics also
note that Trump's plan does not address the pool's faulty filtration
system, which has caused chronic leaks for decades.
GOP
Representative Mike Flood had yet another disastrous town hall in
Norfolk, Nebraska, on Tuesday, as his constituents drowned him out with
grievances regarding the war on Iran, the White House ballroom, Jeffrey
Epstein, and President Trump’s “anti-weaponization” slush fund.
[. . .]
The
only thing Flood seemed to fully agree with the crowd on was Trump’s
$1.8 billion slush fund—a shameless plan to direct billions of taxpayer
dollars to Trump’s supporters who felt wronged or targeted by the Biden
administration—even those who attacked Capitol Police on January 6.
“I
do not think we should be creating a fund for people that commit
physical violence against law enforcement,” he said. “The Senate is
opening an oversight effort. And we in the House have to determine
whether we do the same in the Judiciary Committee or in the Oversight
Committee. I clearly think Congress needs to have an oversight role in
this before I can sign off or support this.”
President Donald Trump’s $1.7 billion “anti-weaponization fund”
is even more disliked among voters than previously known, according to
new internal GOP polling that has circulated among prominent GOP
organizations “in recent days,” sending several Republican operatives
into an all-out panic, Zeteo reported Wednesday.
“This
could really f--- us,” a “well-connected national GOP consultant” told
Zeteo, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Why do you think
everyone’s so upset?”
[. . .]
“Far
too many Americans now view President Trump as corrupt, and that is
going to be a significant hurdle for Republicans this year at a time
when the voters want to be hearing about how you are making life easier
and cheaper for them or how you’re making the country safe – not about a
f------ ballroom,” said a former Trump administration official familiar
with the internal polling, speaking with Zeteo on the condition of
anonymity.
“This fund business just adds to
that perception. And Donald Trump isn’t the one whose name is on the
ballot this year, so he’s not going to be the one who really loses from
his decisions or rhetoric.”
Chump
shares the blame for this move with Acting Attorney General and Acting
Fool Todd Blanche. Blanche knows that Chump did not have grounds for a
lawsuit. As Dan Abrams pointed out early on in the discussion, Chump's
IRS leak took place in his first term so, when he started saying he was
going to sue this past January, the two year limit to file any kind of
lawsuit had passed. Chump got into trouble with a judge who questioned
how he could sue the government and be the one deciding on settling with
him? He was the prosecutor and the defendant. Then Chump announced he
was withdrawing his lawsuit (which would not have been allowed to go
through to begin with) and instead taking $1.776 billion for a fund that
would be overseen by people picked out by Blanche and that Chump could
fire at will who would award it to those poor January 6th
insurrectionists who had faced trials and jail time for attacking the
Capitol police and terrorizing Josh Hawley and assorted other members of
Congress. Oh, and the cherry on top, Chump and his family can never be
audited by the IRS and any ongoing audits would cease. Even the editorial board of THE NEW YORK POST is aghast, "The
Trump Justice Department settlement of the Trump IRS lawsuit looks
terrible. A blanket guarantee that the prez and his family will never
ever face an IRS audit? A $1.8 billon 'anti-weaponization fund,'
courtesy of the taxpayers, to be doled out to people who claim they were
victimized by Biden-era 'lawfare' -- with no evident need to even show
evidence?"
The
shocker is that, suddenly, congressional Republicans have taken a stand
against the madness that has infected the Justice Department (one
strain of it, at least). Democrats — and virtually every other human
with a brain and a pulse — were immediately outraged last week when the
DoJ unveiled a $1.776 billion (get it? 1776??) “anti-weaponization” fund
that would serve as a cash trough for January 6 rioters, including
those who were convicted of seditious conspiracy and assaulted police
officers, among others. Don’t fret, though. As Blanche confidently reassured CNN’s Paula Reid, “Just to be clear, people who hurt police get money all the time, okay?” (Okay, name one.)
But
outrage from the minority party in Congress mostly generates rhetoric
and headlines. It takes the party in power to actually do something. And
late last week, initial tremors from congressional Republicans swelled
into a full-blown earthquake. Republican Senate Majority Leader John
Thune tiptoed cautiously
at first toward dissent, noting that he was “not a big fan” of the fund
and that “our members have very legitimate questions” about it. One of
those members, Senator Thom Tillis, phrased it better: “I think it’s stupid on stilts.”
The situation devolved quickly for Blanche. The New York Times reported
the acting AG’s frantic effort to reassure Senate Republicans — who may
someday vote on his confirmation — went quite poorly. According to the
Times, the meeting turned into “a two-hour blowup in which dozens of
Republican senators vented their anger and concern about the president’s
fund at Mr. Blanche. They questioned its legal basis, whom it would pay
and how the process would work. And they made it clear they wanted no
part of the plan, the product of a deal struck between Mr. Trump’s
lawyers and his own administration.” Senator Ted Cruz confirmed
that Republican lawmakers were “screaming” at Blanche and that the
Trump administration’s slush fund could provoke “a full-on revolt in the
Senate.”
Now
Blanche finds himself in a tricky spot. He can’t stand behind the slush
fund and still realistically hope to be confirmed by the Senate as
attorney general, should he be nominated. Republicans hold a 53-47 edge,
but already at least four Republican senators are on record against the
fund in its current iteration. So Blanche will either have to stick
with the scheme and sacrifice his own shot at the top job — unlikely,
given that he has already shown he’ll do whatever it takes to advance —
or have to back off. Whether that means modifying the plan or abandoning
it altogether, it’s increasingly unlikely the slush fund will become
reality as presently constituted.
Liz Oyer, former pardon attorney at the Justice Department, called it
a criminal conspiracy. Former deputy U.S. solicitor general Philip
Allen Lacovara wrote that it looks like “a classic example of a
‘collusive settlement,'” which is “a species of fraud” that “[m]ost
typically … involve[s] self-interested deals in which a person with
insurance agrees to settle a bogus claim or commits to an unreasonable
payment in the home of foisting the costs on an insurance company.”
And
as Anna Bower and Eric Columbus of Lawfare noted, if payouts are made
to Trump-aligned individuals and companies, including people pardoned
for crimes associated with the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,
it could violate the Antideficiency Act, which makes “a federal crime
to ‘knowingly and willfully‘ spend money not appropriated by Congress.”
Second,
although Trump is operating as if he is above the law, there is room
for future courts to find liability for “creative crimes” he commits
while in the White House. In giving Trump criminal immunity for official
acts in July of 2024, the Supreme Court made clear that former
presidents can still be prosecuted for crimes involving unofficial acts.
This could theoretically cover even actions taken by Trump to minimize
his personal tax liability.
During Trump’s first term, even the friendly majority on the Supreme Court refused to protect his personal accounting firm
from having to turn over his tax returns to a number of congressional
committees. In 2022, it refused to block a lower court ruling that Trump
must disclose his tax returns and other financial records to the House
Ways and Means Committee.
Those decisions
signal a potential willingness on the part of five justices to recognize
a sliver of accountability for presidents even after their disastrous
criminal immunity decision in Trump v. U.S.
Third,
Trump’s self-serving deal for IRS immunity might not hold up in the
long run. The real question right now is not whether Trump has the
constitutional authority to grant himself tax immunity and extend it to
his sons and his business (he doesn’t), but whether voters will one day
elect an administration willing to bring cases ostensibly covered by the
addendum. If that happens, Trump’s defense team would undoubtedly seek
to have them thrown out under the terms of the addendum. In response,
the government would argue that the addendum should be given no weight
because Trump had no legal authority to grant himself such immunity in
the first place. The whole thing is bogus, so any attempt to use it as a
valid legal defense is bogus, too.
Blanche is infamous for saying "I love you, sir"
to Chump. Kiss up or latent behavior -- who knows? But it's not the
behavior of an Attorney General. And, sadly, that's no longer one of
the big problems facing Blanche. Colin Kalmbacher (LAW & CRIME) reports:
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche is now the subject of a bar complaint filed with authorities in New York, according to a nonprofit government watchdog that is requesting an investigation.
"Blanche's
conduct potentially violated numerous Rules of Professional Conduct,"
the complaint reads. "Blanche's conduct in connection with the Abrego
Garcia matter is a serious abuse of public office, undermines the
integrity of the Department of Justice, and erodes public confidence in
the legal profession and in the fair administration of justice."
Earlier this month,
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr., a Barack Obama appointee,
determined the evidence before the court "sadly reflects an abuse of
prosecuting power." The court went on to dismiss the indictment –
finding the prosecution vindictive and selective.
"The Court does not reach its conclusion lightly," Crenshaw wrote in the memorandum opinion.
"The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego's successful
lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the Government would not
have brought this prosecution."
Back to Chump's war of choice. Senator Tammy Baldwin notes the impact this war is having on farmers:
WISCONSIN – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) visited
two farms in Janesville and Sharon to hear from Wisconsin farmers about
how President Trump’s war of choice in Iran is jacking up the cost of
fertilizer and fuel and hurting their operations. Senator Baldwin
visited Rebout Farms in Janesville, Wisconsin, which raises 4,200 acres
of corn, soybeans and wheat in Rock County, and Frontier Farms in
Sharon, Wisconsin, which specializes in soybeans, corn, and winter
wheat.
“Wisconsin farmers work hard to produce world-class products that
feed the world and power our rural economies. On top of Donald Trump’s
reckless trade war that shut off places to sell their products and
jacked up costs, Wisconsin’s farmers are now paying record high costs
for diesel and fertilizer in the middle of spring planting because of
this illegal war in Iran,” said Senator Baldwin.
“Today, I visited two Wisconsin farms to understand how Donald Trump’s
war of choice has created even more headwinds for Wisconsin farmers.
This much is clear: this war needs to end.”
One-third?of the world’s fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and since the attacks on the shipping lane, prices have gone up?25%. Diesel prices have?also?jumped?75%?in the last?three?months, dramatically increasing?farmers’?costs?to?operate?their machinery.?Senator Baldwin has?repeatedly forced votes?in
the Senate to end Trump’s war in Iran that is hurting Wisconsin
farmers, families, and servicemembers. Senator Baldwin also leads bipartisan legislation
that would provide American producers with more accurate information on
prices for fertilizer and fertilizer products in response to
longstanding concerns over rising input costs.
As Americans confront a surge in prices at the pump, another inflation wave is headed for the grocery store.
A combination of factors including bad weather, tariffs and a dwindling
cattle herd are already pushing up grocery prices at an above-average
pace. In April, they rose by the most in nearly four years, and
economists say the impact of the Iran war and a potential El Niño
weather pattern will only add to pressures into 2027.
The hit to US household finances from higher
grocery bills is set to intensify just ahead of the November midterm
elections, amplifying affordability as a defining issue. And to a
greater extent than the surge in gas prices, the slower-moving food
shock will be difficult to reverse quickly because the size of autumn
harvests is determined by planting decisions made in the spring.
“It’s
going to be a challenging year,” said Ricky Volpe, an agribusiness
professor at California Polytechnic State University who previously
worked at the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.
“Food is going to become less affordable, and consumers should be
prepared for it.”
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
“If we overhaul our tax code and tax AI, we can use that money to build a country that works for everyone.”
“The American people deserve to share in the success of this technology.”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) published an op-ed in TIME making the case that any solution to the problems posed by AI must include taxing AI and investing in people.
Specifically, the senator calls for overhauling the rigged tax code,
including by taxing the wealthy and making corporations pay their fair
share, to ensure the economic gains from AI benefit all Americans. The
senator also calls for a new tax on AI companies that would tax the
energy usage of data centers powering AI.
Americans are hanging on by their fingernails in an economy that
funnels wealth to the ultra-rich and leaves crumbs for working people.
AI threatens to supercharge this divide: tech executives have warned that AI could lead to “a level of wealth concentration that will break society” and create a “permanent underclass.”
I refuse to accept that future. Building an economy that works for
all of us will require multiple policy responses. But it starts by
acknowledging: it’s time to tax AI and invest in people.
AI holds tremendous promise. At the same time, Americans are rightly concerned that AI could further rig our economy. The technology is creating dozens of tech billionaires, while companies are laying off workers in the name of AI. Meanwhile, AI data centers are jacking up utility bills; for families living near large data centers, electricity costs have skyrocketed by as much as 267%
over the past five years. It’s no surprise that Americans are showing
up at town meetings to protest data centers and communities across the
country are fighting for data center moratoriums.
Big Tech CEOs say this is only the beginning, predicting that AI will soon automate
most white-collar tasks. Yes, some of this may be hyperbole. But there
is no denying that AI is already changing the labor market. And because
health care is often tied to a job, an AI wave could cost a family more
than a lost paycheck. Even those whose jobs and insurance remain intact
could be hit: experts warn that the hype around AI is fueling a financial bubble that threatens another economic crash.
Policymakers undoubtedly need to regulate AI and protect against its
worst-case harms, like cyber attacks, which could impact our financial system and national security.
We must also tackle the problem of AI’s accelerating demand for energy
and ensure that families’ utility bills don’t skyrocket. And we need
greater scrutiny of the murky world of private credit that finances a big chunk of AI deals so they don’t topple our economy.
But any response to a looming AI crisis must also tackle our rigged tax code.
Taxing AI is one way we make sure the winnings from AI benefit all
Americans, rather than channeling them only to the wealthy few. If
millions of people lose their jobs to AI, we’ll need the funds to
deliver universal health care so those workers are not bankrupted by a
visit to the doctor. If AI transforms the future of work, we'll need to
invest in free education and apprenticeships and a new jobs guarantee so
that all Americans have good-paying work. And while workers get back on
their feet, we’ll need the revenue to bolster unemployment insurance to
keep families afloat. The only way we can get there is by overhauling
our tax code.
We can start by making corporations pay their fair share. Right now,
companies pay payroll taxes for their workers but get tax breaks for
investing in technology—effectively, a tax penalty for hiring human
beings and a tax break for buying equipment. In an AI world, that means
our tax code is incentivizing corporations to fire people and replace
them with AI. That’s wrong. We need to level the playing field by
raising taxes on corporations and capital gains and closing corporate
loopholes. One way to tackle those loopholes? Strengthen the minimum tax
for billionaire corporations, which I helped pass into law.
But there’s more. Some of the wealthiest individuals in America get
away with paying lower tax rates than a Boston public school teacher
because our system taxes income but not wealth. AI billionaires are
running the same playbook: get rich off massive stock valuations and
avoid paying the taxes that would be owed if those funds were earned as
salary. If it wasn’t clear before, there’s no question in a world of AI:
we need a wealth tax. Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman shouldn’t pay lower tax
rates than the workers they fire.
Rethinking our tax code must also include going to the source: that
means taxing AI companies directly, which can start with taxing AI data
centers. The majority of AI data centers are controlled or operated
by trillion-dollar companies. By imposing a reasonable excise tax on
the energy used by data centers, families could recoup some of the gains
of AI, while America continues to stay competitive in the AI race. A
well-designed tax would focus on the companies that can afford it and
scale with AI’s impact: the bigger the data center, the more they pay.
We can't be afraid to consider even bigger and bolder proposals to
tax AI too, including ideas that sound radical today but may quickly
become common sense. Because here’s what I see clearly: if we overhaul
our tax code and tax AI, we can use that money to build a country that
works for everyone. A country where health care is treated as a human
right, where every American is guaranteed a good job, and where
education isn’t a privilege reserved for the wealthy. That’s what I
believe taxing AI promises.
AI was trained on human creativity and intelligence, AI was funded in
part by federal investments in scientific research, and AI is powered
by data centers that are built on American land and use our shared
electric grid. The American people deserve to share in the success of
this technology. And I’m willing to work with anyone to get it done.
Kym Whitley is remembering how she took her first steps in the entertainment world.
The
Next Friday actress, 64, appeared on the We Sound Crazy podcast, where
she opened up about how she went from being a girl from Cleveland,
figuring herself out, to ending up in the 227 studio audience and
unknowingly launching her career.
Whitley
explained that she'd make friends with security guards who could get her
into events. From there, she'd work the room and see who she could
meet, crediting her "wild spirit" for allowing her to do so without
fear. "I came out to L.A. and I was like, 'Okay, what's next? Oh,
there's a show, 227, and they say I look like her. I'm going over
there,' " she recalled.
"I got in, because I'm
gonna get in. I look at it today and I'm like, 'You've got to have a
ticket. You've got to get to know somebody.' I'm in the audience, by
myself, sitting there, watching the show," the actress continued.
Whitley
recalled the audience warm-up person working the audience when Simone
Sheffield raised her hand to ask him a question. "She said, 'I want to
know if that girl right there is Jackée's sister,' " she said.
"This
is what I'm talking about, God. This had nothing to do with me," she
continued, sharing that the warm-up person asked her to stand up. As she
stood up and introduced herself as Kym Whitley from Cleveland, Marla
Gibbs noticed her from the floor of the set.
"Marla Gibbs says to somebody, 'Go get that girl and bring her back here.' It sounds crazy!" Whitley said.
Whitley
was briefly concerned she was in trouble for sneaking in, but instead,
Gibbs wanted to get to know her. She told Gibbs she was an actress
despite not having landed any roles at that time. "She said, 'Listen, we
have something coming up and we're going to need you,' " the actress
said.
This fast-tracked Whitley's
move to L.A., where she was contacted for an episode of the show where
Harry had a twin sister. Because Whitley wasn't in the union yet, she
couldn't step in to play her twin, but she was able to be a body double.
Barbra Streisand is reflecting on the years-long battle to bring one of her most personal films to life.
During
a pre-taped message played at the closing ceremony of the 79th Cannes
Film Festival on Saturday, May 23, the legendary entertainer, 84,
revealed that studios repeatedly rejected her passion project, 1983’s
Yentl, before she finally got the chance to direct and star in the movie
herself.
“I had stories I wanted to tell, like
Yentl, about a 19th century Jewish woman who had to masquerade as a man
to get an education,” Streisand said. “But I was a woman, which was an
obstacle to people — and even worse, I was an actress who wanted to
direct, so every studio turned me down.”
“For 15 years the project was on the verge of collapsing,” she continued. “But I had to make this movie.”
Streisand
was accepting Cannes' prestigious Honorary Palme d’Or at the event,
which was broadcast live from the Palais des Festivals stage.
Isabelle
Huppert accepted the honor on behalf of Streisand, who couldn't make
the ceremony in person because she's recovering from an ongoing knee
injury.
In her speech, the world-renowned actress,
director, producer, screenwriter, singer and songwriter reflected on her
journey to filmmaking.
“It is with a sense of
pride and deep humility that I’m honored to join the company of past
Honorary Palme d’Or recipients whose work has long inspired me,”
Streisand previously said in a statement announcing the honor. “In these
challenging times, movies have the ability to open our hearts and minds
to stories that reflect our shared humanity, and to perspectives that
remind us of both our fragility and our resilience.”
YENTL
is a great film. But I think THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES is as well. I
think there was so much ill will and anger at Barbra for doing a light
film and not the one about AIDS that a lot of people were wanting her to
make that THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES was not appreciated. YENTL is very
personal and passionate but THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES has its strengths
as well. And every performance is perfect -- that's Jeff Bridges,
that's Brenda Vaccaro, that's Lauren Bacall, that's George Segal. that's
Elle Macpherson, that's Austin Pendleton, that's Pierce Brosnan,
that's Mimi Rogers. The film is really strong, really funny and really
moving.
Wednesday, May 27, 2026. Chump continues to destroy the economy while
his administration continues to lie about it, he wants to impose NDAs on
all federal workers, and much more.
That's Ben breaking down the latest on Iran this morning for MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.
For reasons that have never been altogether clear, Donald Trump has repeatedly boasted
that he’s successfully lowered the price of groceries. American
consumers know better, and their perceptions are bolstered by real-world
data. The Hill reported
last week, “Federal inflation data confirms what you may have been
feeling already: Groceries are getting more expensive. Unfortunately,
things may be about to get a whole lot worse, economists are warning.”
A few days later, a national CNN poll found that 61% of Americans said they’ve had to cut back on groceries due to price concerns.
A
simple grocery-store habit is getting fresh attention online: buying
soon-to-expire food at a discount and freezing it before it goes bad.
For
budget-conscious shoppers, the appeal is straightforward. The strategy
can turn markdown meat, deli items, and prepared foods into meals that
cost a fraction of full price.
In a recent post
on Reddit's r/Frugal forum, one shopper said they make "a lap around
the grocery store" to look for foods nearing their sell-by date and
stock up when markdowns are steep.
Memorial
Day is supposed to feel like a victory lap into summer: gas tank full,
cooler packed, suitcase in the trunk. This year, it feels like sticker
shock. A snapshot circulated by Ed Elson, host of the Prof G Markets
podcast, on X on May 25, lined up seven everyday inflation categories against last year's holiday weekend and the numbers landed with a thud.
The
headline movers: gas up 28%, flights up 21%, coffee up 18%, beef up
16%, hot dogs up 11%, hotels up 4%. The surprise sitting atop the pile
is tomatoes. A pound of tomatoes costs 40% more than it did last
Memorial Day, the largest single move in the data set and a number
that's gotten very little airtime so far.
Texas
BBQ joints are getting smoked by skyrocketing beef prices, with some
saying the iconic Texas brisket boom could be headed for a painful bust —
forcing owners to consider raising prices, changing menus or even
shutting down.
“This is as bad as it gets,”
Houston pitmaster Russell Roegels told The Washington Post.
(1)“Everybody’s at risk these days. You’re one bad week from closing.”
Roegels,
owner of Roegels Barbecue Co., says in the past year, the wholesale
price he pays for brisket has shot up by 28% to $5.56 per pound. He
recently raised his menu prices for brisket by 6% to $35 per pound, but
fears that could drive customers away.
And he’s
not the only one who is worried. The meat-price crisis has already
pushed several Texas barbecue spots out of business, including Brett’s
BBQ Shop, Kirby’s BBQ, Sabar BBQ and Wright on Taco & BBQ.
To explain the dilemma of setting menu prices in the current economic climate, Isaac MacDougal points to limes.
“A couple months ago, a case of limes was $50,” said MacDougal, founder of Cocktail Mary
and co-owner of Supper Club Cocktail Lounge. Now, because of drought
and supply chain kinks, it’s over $100. He figures when you factor in
the labor cost to squeeze big batches, “the lime juice in a cocktail is
more expensive, a lot of time, than the spirit that goes into it.”
But
soaring food costs are just one piece of the puzzle for restaurant and
bar owners struggling to keep their menu prices in check. Since the
pandemic, they’ve been at the mercy of upsurges to practically all of
their costs, including labor, rent, utilities, taxes, insurance, swipe
fees and packaging.
Since Trump regained office in January 2025, food inflation has increased 3.16%.
Trump ran on a platform to “defeat inflation,” but, as food prices climbed, he said affordability was a “con job.”
Part of the reason for higher food prices is the war Trump started with Iran, which predictably closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil shipping route. The war has led to high gas prices across the country, and food prices have followed suit.
Recently, Trump was asked whether “Americans’ financial situations”
affected his decision-making when it came to ending the war in Iran, according to NBC News.
“Not even a little bit,” Trump replied.
Trump said the “only thing that matters” is stopping Iran from having
a nuclear weapon. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,”
he added. “I don’t think about anybody.”
As
Americans grapple with rising prices at gas pumps and grocery stores,
President Donald Trump's top economic adviser has framed elevated
consumer spending as a sign of the country’s resilience.
During
an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday, Director of the National
Economic Council Kevin Hassett doubled down on his upbeat view of the
economy, arguing that the knock-on effects of the Iran war are only a
“temporary circumstance.”
“While people have been
spending more money at gas stations, they’ve been spending more money on
everything else, which means that they’re still very, very optimistic
about the state of the economy, and they should be,” Hassett told Maria
Bartiromo, while grinning outside the White House.
What
a moron. What an idiot. Kevin Hassett is a fool if he thinks the
American people are stupid enough to fall for that. They've been
"spending more money on everything else" because "everything else" is
also soaring. Ruth Igielnik (NEW YORK TIMES) reported Saturday:
Concern
about rising prices has reached a fever pitch as Americans sit down to
Memorial Day barbecues across the country. A majority of Democrats,
Republicans and independents said that they had changed their purchases
from grocery stores to stay within budget in the last several months,
according to polling from CNN.
Another 59 percent of Americans said they had cut back on extras and entertainment.
More
than three quarters of Americans, including 55 percent of Republicans,
said President Trump’s policies had increased the cost of living in
their community.
Survey after survey has found
that Americans are feeling growing financial uncertainty. Nearly half of
all voters gave the economy the lowest rating, “poor,” in the latest New York Times/Siena poll, up 11 percentage points since January.
And economic confidence has hit a four-year low, according to Gallup.
Kevin Hassett better accept the reality that the American people are not buying the lies that he is selling.
A growing number of CEOs suspect a market crash is imminent but have been “scared”
to say so publicly out of fear of retaliation from President Donald
Trump, and on Tuesday, one security expert warned that such a crash may
not only be imminent, but “permanent.”
“If
nothing is done about the current situation, Trump’s looming recession
could blow a deep hole in the economy,” warned former Homeland Security
senior official Miles Taylor in an analysis published Tuesday on his
Substack. “So deep that – if it happens before we’re ready – many folks
may never be able to crawl back out. That’s because two explosions could
hit the U.S. economy at the same time.”
Chump
doesn't care about the average American. He cares about building his
ballroom and he cares about creating his slush fund.
He
cares about his slush fund, he just doesn't care about the average
American. He's too busy figuring out ways to enrich his own pocket to
actually focus on the needs of the American people.
“The
GOP is in a silent state of panic.” That’s what a former 2016 and 2020
top Trump presidential campaign official told me this morning. And you
don’t need a Princeton PhD in political science to understand why. The
president's political position as of late May 2026 is the worst of his
career, and the people inside his own party who track these numbers
professionally have stopped pretending otherwise.
These are not soft margins driven by sampling noise.
The
Reuters/Ipsos, Marist, AP-NORC, and YouGov surveys are independently
arriving at the same picture from different methodological positions,
which is the polling pattern that tends to precede a genuine political
crisis rather than the kind of temporary slump that recovers within a
news cycle or two.
The
American people get it Chump is corrupt and focused on enriching
himself. Everything he does is about bringing in funds to himself. Michael Luciano (MEDIAITE) notes:
“Trump
brought the NVIDIA CEO on his trip to China to lobby Xi Jinping to buy
advanced AI chips, even though it would create a U.S. national security
threat,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tweeted on Friday, referring to
the president’s trip to China, where he was accompanied by Jensen Huang
and other U.S. business executives, as well as Eric Trump, who has
business ties to the Chinese Communist Party. “It turns out Trump also
bought millions in NVIDIA’s stock.”
Eric Trump
responded to the post by saying all family assets are in a blind trust
and are “in broad market indexes,” as opposed to individual stocks:
All
of our assets are invested in a blind trust by the largest financial
institutions in broad market indexes. To suggest that individual stocks
are being bought or sold, at the discretion of any member of the Trump
family, would be a lie and blatantly false. Using a silly example, if
you buy the “Schwab 1000,” you will get some exposure to Nvidia – as
well as a 1,000 other U.S. companies large- and mid-cap stocks. It’s
completely disingenuous to represent anything to the contrary. Please be
better than this…
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) responded by linking to the disclosure signed by Donald Trump himself.
“Outright
lies,” Beyer said. “Trump’s assets aren’t in a blind trust, and he
bought and sold individual Nvidia stock in 15 separate transactions
totaling millions of dollars. That’s what Trump’s financial disclosure –
which has his signature – says. See for yourself.”
The
disclosure, which is 113 pages long, shows 2,345 purchases, mostly of
individual stocks, and 1,296 sales, mostly of individual stocks.
According to Fortune,
Donald Trump is the first president since at least Lyndon Johnson to
trade individual securities. Since Johnson, every president has placed
their assets in a blind trust managed by independent trustees. Trump
claimed during his first term that his assets were kept in such an
arrangement, but Fortune noted that Walter Shaub, the head of the Office
of Government Ethics, resigned in July 2017 and concluded that the
blind trust was “not even halfway blind.”
Chump
is a con man and a liar. And both count on silence to get away with
their actions. It's for that reason that Chump is now attempting to gag
the federal workforce. Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) reports:
Donald Trump’s administration is proposing a government-wide mandate to require all federal workers to sign non-disclosure agreements to prevent the spread of “confidential government information” to journalists.
Tuesday’s
draft notice of the proposal would require new and existing workers to
sign an agreement to “safeguard” a broad range of government information
from reaching the public after a series of high-profile “leaks” to news
organizations.
The document
broadly defines “confidential government information” to include a vast
amount of information, documents and communications beyond typical
classified and unclassified labels.
No.
No, you piece of garbage, Chump. You're not going to do that to our
federal workforce. You're not going to hide from sunshine laws. You
are human garbage and you will remain in the sewer but you're not going
to drag our government down with you. Brianna Tucker (HUFFINGTON POST) adds that the big exposures came from Chump's own people like Pete Hegseth::
The
controversial form is a stark contrast to the way confidential
information has been handled within the Trump administration, from
contractors to cabinet officials.
Last year,
cabinet officials accidentally texted the top editor of The Atlantic
about active military strike plans on an app the Pentagon had just
warned was being targeted by Russia.
Federal
investigations and court filings earlier this year also revealed that
DOGE operatives improperly accessed, shared, and stored sensitive
personal data while working inside federal agencies.
It's
a tactic Trump has deployed for years. During his first term, he became
the first president to require private sector-style NDAs from White
House staff — senior aides and interns alike. Legal scholars at Cornell
Law School called those agreements likely unconstitutional.
His
most famous NDA battle came with former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman,
who refused to sign a post-departure NDA tied to a $15,000-a-month
campaign job offer — an agreement that would have barred her from
disclosing details of her White House tenure. She wrote a tell-all book
instead. An arbitrator later ruled the NDA "invalid" and its terms
"vague and unenforceable."
Legal experts have
long warned that the government cannot impose NDAs on federal employees
for unclassified information, no matter how sensitive or embarrassing.
Critics warn that the sweeping language in the new proposal could be
weaponized to suppress whistleblowers and shield government misconduct
from public scrutiny.
The public has 30 days to comment on the proposed rule before it can be finalized.
Adam Lynch informs on the social media reaction to Chump's latest nonsense:
Social
media critics whaled on the proposal, with the Freedom of the Press
Foundation calling it “not just absurd, it’s unnecessary and dangerously
secretive.”
“This policy would kneecap
whistleblower protections, undermine the First Amendment, and wrongly
inhibit the public’s right to know,” the association added on Bluesky.
Washington D.C. attorney Bradley Moss also blasted the proposal on Bluesky:
“Federal employees operate under an array of statutory, regulatory and
policy restrictions on the unauthorized disclosure of unclassified
information. The only reason to add this NDA would be to undercut lawful
… disclosures to the media that SCOTUS approved.”
Former
U.S. diplomat William Gill pointed out on X that “This obviously begs
the question, what are they trying to hide now? Federal employees are
barred from unauthorized disclosures of classified information but
they’re also covered by whistleblower protections regarding waste, fraud
and abuse. That’s the likely area being targeted.”
Chump
is an anchor around the necks of the GOP going into the midterms and
he's not their only problem. Their own mouths are getting them into
trouble as well. For example, Troy Matthews (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) reports:
Republican
Senator Jon Husted voted for Trump's One Big Beautiful Budget bill
which threw half-a-million people off of Medicaid in his state of Ohio,
then he said those who lost their healthcare access didn't deserve to be
on the program in the first place. He later reiterated his support for
kicking people off their healthcare by saying on a radio interview, "I
love doing that kind of stuff."
[. . .]
“Jon
Husted is once again saying the quiet part out loud, claiming the half a
million Ohioans he’s kicking off their health care are not people who
deserve health care coverage," Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Tony
Wen said in a statement. "Jon Husted could not be more out of touch with
the people of Ohio, and they will vote him out in November.”
Husted
was appointed by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine to fill the Senate seat
vacated in 2025 by JD Vance. He is running to be elected U.S. Senator
from Ohio in his right in November.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Ron Wyden's office:
Washington, D.C. — U.S.
Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., voted against advancing the 2027 Intelligence
Authorization Act out of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he
announced today.
“The bill is a dramatic retreat for congressional oversight,
at precisely the moment when scrutiny of Intelligence Community
activities is needed most,” Wyden said. “This bill
would deny the U.S. Senate any opportunity to scrutinize and vet key
Intelligence Community leaders. It also omits critical, bipartisan
whistleblower protections that have been included in the
Committee-reported bill for years. The Committee’s retreat from its
long-standing bipartisan approach to whistleblower protection
legislation is especially troubling during an administration that
commits so many abuses.”
Wyden highlighted multiple troubling provisions in the bill:
Eliminates Senate confirmation for the general counsels of the CIA
and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. At a time of
rampant lawbreaking by the Trump Administration, it is especially
troubling that the only Intelligence Community general counsels
currently subject to Senate confirmation - the people responsible for
offering legal advice on secret, potentially controversial intelligence
activities - would be appointed without any congressional or public
input or scrutiny.
Eliminates Senate confirmation for the Director of the National
Counterterrorism Center at a time in which the Center is expanding its
activities into the realm of domestic law enforcement, particularly
through the NCTC Intelligence Fusion Center, in a manner that poses a
real danger to Americans’ rights.
Eliminates Senate confirmation for the Director of the National
Counterintelligence and Security Center, even as the bill puts the
Director in charge of a new Intelligence Community Counterintelligence
Office in the Department of Commerce, a wrongheaded and unnecessary
expansion of the Intelligence Community.
The bill also excludes a critically important provision that was
included in last year’s bill that stated that, if a company wants to be
an Intelligence Community contractor, it can’t also be a data broker
selling the location data of intelligence officers.
