| 1 | N | Thunderbolts* | Walt Disney | $74,300,608 | 4,330 | $17,159 | $74,300,608 | 1 | ||
| 2 | (1) | Sinners | Warner Bros. | $33,102,310 | -28% | 3,347 | n/c | $9,890 | $179,831,032 | 3 |
| 3 | (4) | A Minecraft Movie | Warner Bros. | $13,727,081 | -40% | 3,571 | -270 | $3,844 | $398,236,560 | 5 |
| 4 | (3) | The Accountant 2 | Amazon MGM S… | $9,494,968 | -61% | 3,610 | n/c | $2,630 | $41,177,890 | 2 |
| 5 | (5) | Until Dawn | Sony Pictures | $3,825,116 | -52% | 3,055 | n/c | $1,252 | $14,384,006 | 2 |
| 6 | (7) | The Amateur | 20th Century… | $1,919,077 | -48% | 2,135 | -925 | $899 | $37,058,757 | 4 |
| 7 | (6) | The King of Kings | Angel Studios | $1,708,881 | -59% | 2,035 | -1,140 | $840 | $57,716,308 | 4 |
| 8 | (8) | Warfare | A24 | $1,275,396 | -52% | 1,315 | -590 | $970 | $24,086,697 | 4 |
| - | N | The Surfer | Roadside Att… | $698,114 | 884 | $790 | $698,114 | 1 | ||
| - | N | Rosario | Mucho Mas Media | $513,232 | 794 | $646 | $513,232 | 1 |
Going out with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
Monday, May 5, 2025. The Chump Crime Syndicate continues its grift and corruption, pious and religious they are not, Hegseth continues to be a scandal, Senator Tammy Duckworth call him out, and much more.
Let's start with tacky. Chump and his administration love to pretend they're Christians -- well, not cult member Tulsi Gabbard, but all the rest for the most part. And some of the ladies' even take to displaying worn crosses over their clothes. Like Pam Bondi whose private life makes a mockery of the cross. They love to pretend.
Pretense is all it is.
FOX "NEWS" -- no link to trash -- reports that a horse race is being hailed by Pete Hegseth and others in the administration as an omen, a sign. Really? God's backing horse races now? It's funny kind of belief in God they pretend to express.
Pope Francis died April 21st. It hasn't even been a month ago. The People's Pope passes and idiots and sycophants start nonsense about Donald Chump should be the next pope. Senator Lindsey Graham goes all in on the nonsense on social media surprising all of us who haven't seen him so struck by a death since power bottom Joey Stefano's porn career ended with his 1994 death.
Then Chump himself took to posting an AI created photo of himself as the next pope. People are not amused.
Massimo Faggioli (LA CROIX) notes, "Most shockingly, on May 2, Trump posted an AI created photo of himself dressed as the pope – a social media post published on his own personal account and then republished by the official accounts of the White House. Cardinal Dolan and the New York State Catholic Conference openly criticized President Trump for this mockery of the church. More predictable was the silence of law-and-order Catholic politicians who support Trump in Europe." Max Martza (BBC NEWS) explains:
The image posted by Trump on Friday night features him wearing a white cassock and pointed mitre, traditionally worn by a bishop. He wears a large cross around his neck, and has his finger held up, with a solemn facial expression.
The New York State Catholic Conference, which represents bishops in New York, took to X to criticise the picture.
"There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr President," the group wrote.
"We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St Peter. Do not mock us."
Left-leaning Italian former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi also blasted Trump's post.
"This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the right-wing world enjoys clowning around," Renzi wrote in Italian on X.
Drake Bentley (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL) reports:
"I guess I find it to be an unfortunate thing," said Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey S. Grob in an interview with the Journal Sentinel May 4 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.
"In my own understanding just of what it means to be a Christian and a person of good will is to be respectful of other people's circumstances," Grob said. "The church, Catholic Church, is in a period of mourning over the death of Pope Francis, and now it's a pivotal moment, looking into the future.
"And so, it's a very serious time. And whoever it is, wants to quip and make fun, be it Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ... We've lost great respect for moments like this. And so it is what is, I guess, but it's very unfortunate."
, and CNN) note some reactions:
“Not funny, Sir,” the 66-year-old Filipino Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David wrote in a post on Facebook.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, was also critical when questioned by journalists ahead of delivering a Mass in Rome on Sunday.
Asked whether he was offended by the image, Cardinal Dolan – who Trump hinted he favors for the next pope - replied, “Well, it wasn’t good.”
Similarly, Father Gerald Murray, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York who was attending the Mass at Cardinal Dolan’s church Sunday, said that Trump’s post was “silly … you don’t do that.”
Italy’s former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, condemned the image as offensive to those of Catholic faith. “This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the right-wing world enjoys clowning around,” he wrote on X.
Trump’s post caught the attention of Italy’s media. “Infantile” was the word used by Italian daily La Repubblica, accusing the president of “pathological megalomania.”
If the Chump administration has a theme song, it's "The Grift Goes On." Check out the latest on Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard from RAW STORY's Matt Laslo:
President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is open for business — on social media at least.
Gabbard has been DNI since February, yet a Raw Story review of her social media presence reveals her personal X account is still offering subscriptions at $5 a month.
But that’s not all. On Gabbard’s personal Substack, it appears anyone, anywhere, foreign or domestic, can send unlimited donations.
“That’s
not normal,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told Raw Story, while
walking to a vote in the Capitol. “It does become an interesting
conflict of interest, though, if it’s a violation of ethics rules.
”That is crazy," said Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), a former Army intelligence officer. "There's so much corruption, it's sort of like, where do you focus?"
There is no respect for religion and these are not religious people in the administration. They are greedy and they are unethical.
Don't forget to tip your server.
That appears to be the motto of the Chump administration and, by server, they mean public servants who are not allowed to take personal gifts nor to profit from their government positions. Hasn't stopped them one bit.
Trashy Garbage, as Trina long ago dubbed her, is only one member of the Chump Crime Syndicate. Carl Gibson notes another criminal scheme:
President Donald Trump is continuing to blur the lines between the federal government and his private businesses as his family rolls out its latest cryptocurrency project.
The New York Times reported that Trump's son, Eric, recently appeared at a conference in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) alongside Zach Witkoff, who is a co-founder of the Trump family's World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency company. The two announced that the government of Abu Dhabi (the capital city of the UAE) was investing $2 billion into the Binance cryptocurrency exchange — the largest crypto market by volume — using a so-called "stablecoin" (a cryptocurrency designed to have a constant value close to $1) developed by the Trump family's company.
According to the Times, that deal is likely to net the Trump family a profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Times' David Yaffe-Bellany wrote that World Liberty's work has "created conflicts of interest with no precedent in modern U.S. history" given the amount of foreign investors typically barred from making conventional political contributions chipping in large sums of money.
Justin Sun — a Chinese-born billionaire who runs the TRON cryptocurrency exchange — is a top investor in World Liberty. After Trump was elected, he bought $75 million worth of World Liberty's $WLFI coins. That purchase came after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused him of manipulating one of TRON's cryptocurrencies. The Times reported that the SEC then asked a judge to pause the investigation into Sun after Trump was reelected last year.
Quid pro quo. Tit for tat. Pay to play. Call it what you will, it's putting democracy up for sale and it's not just unethical, it's illegal. Nikki McCann Ramirez (ROLLING STONE) offers another example:
Donald Trump and his family continue to cash in on cryptocurrency from entities looking to curry influence with the president and his administration - which is simultaneously working to deregulate the industry.
At a crypto conference in the United Arab Emirates, Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff announced that the Trump family's stablecoin - World Liberty Financial's USD1 - will be the vehicle for the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX to invest $2 billion into Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange.
The announcement comes weeks after Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao claimed he had "no discussions of a Binance US deal with … well, anyone."
The transaction comes with a host of ethical baggage. For starters, World Liberty Financial (a decentralized exchange "inspired by Donald J. Trump"), is co-created and managed by Trump's family - as well as that of Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who has been functioning like a shadow secretary of State -and will now have direct financial ties to Binance, which in November 2023 pleaded guilty to financial crimes including money laundering, sanctions violations, and unlicensed operations. The exchange was slapped with heavy restrictions on operations within the U.S. On top of that, the transaction involves a foreign government with clear political interests in the United States. Much like Trump used his hotels as vehicles for foreign entities to court favor with the presidency, the signal being broadcast by World Liberty Financial is that the Trumps are open to investments.
Chump and his cabinet are betraying the country to line their own pockets. This is far worse than The Teapot Dome Scandal. It is The Chump Criminal Syndicate. Josh Meyer (USA TODAY) notes:
Just two of the cryptocurrency investments owned by Trump-affiliated entities have made at least $300 million in trading fees alone on sales of his meme coin and other digital currency since January, according to ethics watchdogs, Democratic lawmakers, crypto analysts and other experts.
Greater potential profits lie in the Trump entities’ stake in the value of the meme coin and their other Trump-themed crypto investments, these analysts and other experts say.
Last week, another of the Trump family's crypto ventures, World Liberty Financial, announced that one of its digital coins is being used by an Abu Dhabi investment firm for a $2 billion investment in cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Democratic lawmakers and crypto analysts said the deal was a conflict of interest that could earn World Liberty at least $27 million per year.
Meanwhile, Trump's administration has loosened regulation of the cryptocurrency industry and dismantled a Justice Department unit targeting crypto fraud.
Crypto isn’t Trump's only source of funds since returning to office. The president profits from real estate, his Truth Social platform and a range of branded merchandise, experts say.
[. . .]
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told USA TODAY he’s launching an investigation into Trump’s profits as president.
Robert Reich takes on the corruption of the Chump Criminal Syndicate and the media's lackadaisical manner of portraying it:
Words matter. When the media points out Trump’s “potential conflicts of interest,” as it has in recent days when describing Trump’s growing crypto enterprise, it doesn’t come close to telling the public what’s really going on — unprecedented paybacks and self-dealing by the president of the United States, using his office to make billions.
The correct word is corruption.
Trump holds a private dinner at the White House for major speculators who purchase his new cryptocurrency, earning him and his allies $900,000 in trading fees in just under two days. One senator calls this “the most brazenly corrupt thing a president has ever done.”
He’s doing other things as brazen if not more brazenly corrupt.
He collects a cut of sales from a cryptocurrency marketed with his likeness.
He promotes Teslas on the White House driveway on behalf of a multibillionaire who spent a quarter of a billion backing him during the 2024 election.
He posts news-making announcements on Truth Social, the company in which he and his family own a significant stake. Truth Social thereby becomes the world’s semi-official means of knowing Trump’s thinking and policies.
Moving on to natural disaster and failure Pete Hegseth who, for no rational reason, remains the Secretary of Defense. At least for now. Yasmeen Hamadeh (DAILY BEAST) notes:
The Pentagon inspector general has reportedly expanded an investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal. Citing a congressional aide and a source familiar with the inquiry, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins plans to widen his investigation to include a second Signal chat Hegseth made that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. Stebbins initially announced the launch of the investigation last month, and stated it would examine a Signal group chat Hegseth and other top officials were a part of. That chat became public after then-National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. The inquiry will now include a probe into the second group chat as well, and could pose trouble for Hegseth—who has repeatedly denied ever using the app to send classified information.
When not applying his make up in his new taxpayer funded beauty salon, Hegseth can be found snorting fantasies while insisting they're reality. At the Council on Foreign Relations, Noël James and Diya Mehta note:
On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced an end to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Program. In a post on X, Hegseth wrongfully attributed the program to Biden, saying “WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops,” and is a distraction “pushed by feminists and left-wing activists.” In fact, President Trump signed the first WPS Act into law in 2017. WPS promotes the participation of women in peace and security efforts, which has been shown to improve outcomes, including the durability of peace agreements. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who championed the WPS Act in Congress, criticized the Secretary’s decision, saying it was short-sighted and unlawful. “WPS is law; the Secretary cannot unilaterally terminate the program Congress passed because he doesn’t understand how the inclusion and participation of women in mediation and negotiation make a measurable difference in preventing, mitigating and resolving violent conflicts and keeping America safe.” Experts worry that eliminating the WPS program will also impact the military's ability to recruit and retain a capable and prepared force.
Remember, Pete Hegseth had a woman say he assaulted her. Pete rushed to pay her off, remember. And claims he was innocent. But would not waive the NDA the woman signed as part of the settlement so that the woman could testify during his Senate confirmation hearing.
When you remember that, you understand what propmted him to make such a stupid and idiotic move. This is an attack on people assaulted, an attempt to silence them. Kelsey Baker (BUSINESS INSIDER) notes:
Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Kate Germano, author of the book "Fight Like a Girl," told BI that "it seems that those who are at the bottom of the pecking order will be the most adversely impacted by the [latest] change — especially women and people of color."
A Marine officer who has led investigations told BI the new memo seems "part and parcel with their effort to weaken participation of underrepresented groups."
Yesterday, Donald Chump insisted on NBC's MEET THE PRESS that Hegseth's job was "safe." That's generally code for "I'm about to kill the bastard" when it comes to Chump. Senator Tammy Duckworth was also on a Sunday morning show yesterday, CBS' FACE THE NATION.
From the transcript:
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're joined now by Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth.
Good to have you here in person.
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-Illinois): Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Senator, I know you did vote to confirm Secretary Rubio. Do you have confidence that he can juggle all four of the jobs that he now has for an indefinite period of time?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: No. There's no way he can do that and do it well, especially since there's such incompetence over at DOD with Pete Hegseth being secretary of defense, and just the hollowing out of the top leadership.
There's no way he can carry all that entire load on his own. And so I do think that they need to find a new secretary of defense. They need to find a new NSA – head of NSA as quickly as possible.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, at this point, we heard from the chief of staff that she believes all the Cabinet secretaries will serve a full year. What makes you think that Secretary Hegseth could actually be dismissed?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, I think he should be dismissed.
Whether or not President Trump's going to dismiss him is a whole different conversation. He should never have been nominated in the first place. He is the most untrained, inadequate secretary of defense in our nation's history. And look at what he's done at the Pentagon. It's in turmoil.
He lost his top staffers within a matter of days. He's now put classified information an unclassified chain, and he's put on our nation's national security at risk.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He says no war plans, wasn't classified, but it was sensitive information. That's part of this ongoing inspector general probe, as I understand it, into his conduct.
Do you have any timeline, any sense of how seriously that's being taken and when the results will be seen?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: We don't have a timeline. It is very serious.
Let me make it clear what he did. He put into an unclassified Signal chain that the aircraft are going to be over a certain point in space at a certain point in time. That's classified information. Any basic person getting through military training knows that is classified information.
And he did it on a separate chain with his wife and family members.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you, because you sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, along with Armed Services…
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Armed Services, yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: … what you think is going to happen to Mike Waltz, who is now being pushed out of the NSA role and into this job as ambassador to the United Nations. That's arguably a pretty important post.
Senate Intel Vice Chairman Mark Warner says it's going to be a brutal hearing. What do you want to know from him? And are you open to confirming him into the job?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: It will be a brutal hearing. He's not qualified for the job, just by nature of the fact that he participated in the Signal chain.
In fact, I think everybody on that Signal chain needs to be fired, because not a single one of them spoke up and said, hey, this is inappropriate. We should be in a secure channel.
And, by the way, what's really interesting was that there was not a single uniformed personnel on that Signal chain, which was very clear that it was purposefully done to keep the military personnel with the experience off of that Signal chat.
Now, Mike Waltz is doing what we call, he is failing up, right? He is failing in his job and getting promoted to be ambassador. That's not what our nation needs at the United Nations.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mike Waltz served this country in a uniform as a Green Beret. He was a lawmaker. You think he is incompetent, and you're not open to voting for him at all?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I'm not open to voting for him, no, because he – because he's already demonstrated he's incapable of doing the most basic thing, which is handling classified information.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about funding for defense because I know you have said, in particular, the Navy needs more money and more financial support right now.
The Republican chair of Appropriations and the Republican chair of Armed Services both saw the White House's budget when it was released on Friday…
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: … and said it freezes military spending at Biden era levels, which they argue amounts to a reduction.
Can you work together with your Republican allies to increase defense spending?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, one of the places where there has been bipartisanship has been the Armed Services Committee. That has been something that I have been very proud to be a part of.
Now, whether or not my Republican colleagues continue to be co-conspirators and collaborators with this administration in basically gutting the United States government is up to them. Right now, their plans are going to require laying off hundreds – at least 100,000 civilian workers at the Pentagon.
It's going to, in the words of Chairman Wicker, basically – I'm going to paraphrase him – cut defense capabilities to the bone, I think is how he put it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes, he did.
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: We need to make sure – the Navy needs more ships. We need more – and the Merchant Mariners need more boats, more ships. We need to make major investments in our sixth-generation fighter fleet. We need to make major investments in training pilots.
We are short pilots. And yet the cuts that they're proposing in order to fund a vanity project like the Golden Dome does not help make America more secure on a global scale. And it certainly doesn't keep us the leader of the free world.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about one of the programs that is at least nominally being eliminated. Secretary Hegseth posted on social media he's ending the Women, Peace, and Security program.
Hegseth said: "It's a divisive social justice initiative from feminists, a distraction from war fighting."
But when we checked how the now-chairman of the Joint Chiefs described it, General Caine, he said he used the program in the field after an assault to send in female members to speak with women and children to better understand human terrain.
So, if the military establishment says it's useful and the secretary of defense says it's not and it's a distraction, what happens? And can lawmakers like yourself actually rescue this program?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: We can if my Republicans will stop rolling over for this president. We can actually rescue this program. The program is clearly important. It's supported by every combatant commander. It's a program that came about – by the way, Marco Rubio was one of the leaders of this. But…
(LAUGHTER)
MARGARET BRENNAN: He was. And Kristi Noem as a lawmaker supported it.
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: And Kristi Noem as a lawmaker supported the program.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And President Trump signed it into law.
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: And he signed it into law.
This shows how incompetent Hegseth is, that in his slash-and-burn efforts at the Pentagon, he basically slash and burned something without realizing that this was actually a Trump era law and this was led by his colleagues. And now he can't back out of it.
This came out of really some of the lessons we learned in Afghanistan when we had the Marine Corps Lionesses, which were teams of all women Marines, tough, tough fighters, who would go in and talk to the women in the villages and would get intelligence that no one else could.
(CROSSTALK)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because the women wouldn't talk to the men.
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Because women wouldn't talk to the men.
And so this is a vital program that keeps our military stronger and also makes it more lethal, because we can find where our enemies are and go after them.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Hegseth said he will implement the minimum required of - - what does that mean? Do you know?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I don't know. But he's the minimum of a defense secretary, so it's not surprising that he would go to the lowest levels.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about what's happening within your party.
Your fellow Midwesterner Michigan Senator Elisha Slot kin said Democrats are messaging in a way that doesn't resonate outside of blue coastal areas. She was focusing in on Bernie Sanders' use of the term oligarchy. She said, use plain language. Talk about kings, that we oppose them.
Do you agree with her that there is at minimum a messaging problem, if there isn't something more within your party right now?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, I have long said that we should be listening to Midwest Democrats a lot more. Those of us from the center of the country represent states like Illinois. We're 102 counties; 96 are red and six are blue.
You don't get elected in the Midwest without being able to talk to everyday voters in red counties about the issues that they worry about. Do – be able to talk about agricultural issues. Our farmers are just being battered by the Trump administration right now. The tariffs are hurting them with the products they're trying to sell. The inputs that they're trying to import in order to plan and grow their crops are being priced out of range.
The steel that John Deere uses to make the tractors are also pricing those – that equipment out of range. I do think that the Democratic Party should be listening to the Industrial Midwest more.
Where ever Hegseth prances, blurry borders follow. Take his attorney. Daniel Lippman and Josh Gerstein (POLITICO) explain:
Tim Parlatore is a personal attorney and top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. At the same time, he’s suing the Navy and defending private clients against the U.S. government.
Parlatore, who represented Donald Trump in a criminal case two years ago and rejoined the Navy Reserve in March to aid Hegseth, was recently tapped to coordinate the leak investigation that led to chaos at the Pentagon. The probe was publicly tied to the firings of top advisers and preceded further revelations that Hegseth was careless with classified information. Parlatore was also reportedly in the Signal group with Hegseth’s wife and brother in which the Defense secretary shared details of a strike on Yemen.
But despite Parlatore’s deep involvement at the Pentagon, he is pursuing litigation against the Navy. A review of federal court records shows Parlatore listed as an attorney on 11 cases — though a few appear to be dormant and not all involve the U.S. government. Often his clients are retired military personnel.
The business of Washington is built on government officials leaving their jobs to trade access for private clients and using their connections to achieve client goals. While Parlatore insists his arrangement is above board, it’s highly unusual for a sitting top adviser for a Cabinet secretary to be working in the government while at the same time representing clients suing the government, or working for clients as they fight off the feds.
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