Musk's Starship Explodes in an Unintended Metaphor

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship tumbled out of control during a test flight as the world’s richest man continues to grapple with a wider professional tailspin.

Musk has almost disappeared from the spotlight following a disastrous and ineffective DOGE rollout.  After weeks of appearing alongside the president, the 53-year-old has stepped back from government amid plummeting Tesla sales and sinking popularity ratings.

The latest disappointment came when a rocket launched from its Texas facility hit a snag about 30 minutes after liftoff, after initially reaching space intact. When the spacecraft attempted to release its payload into orbit, the door would not fully open, and the vessel started to spin out of control.  Footage streamed by SpaceX showed an intense light show as the spinning ship vented its propellant.

SpaceX later confirmed on X that the ship underwent a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”-- in other words, it blew up.  SpaceX used the same hilarious terminology back in January and March when SpaceX test flights also ended in explosions.

The latest fail follows a string of stumbles across Musk’s empire. His electric car company, Tesla, has reported sales slumps in several major markets. Tesla registrations in Europe halved year-on-year last month amid political backlash over his ties to President Donald Trump and rising sales for competitors. Musk’s popularity, meanwhile, plummeted to a net favorability -13.8 percent in April.

Musk has also bashed Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which passed the House last week, putting him on a collision course with the president. Musk said in an interview with CBS, set to air Sunday, that he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”

 

 

Kesha & T-Pain - Yippee-Ki-Yay

Trump Demenetia Watch

During his first military commencement address of his second term, convicted felon Donald Trump commended the West Point cadets for their academic successes while underscoring the might of America's military. In the midst of his nearly hour-long speech to the graduates, Trump diverged into a lengthy and meandering commentary about "trophy wives," which elicited little reaction from the audience. 

While wearing a very controversial and 'disrespectful' cap, he offered some advice to the graduating class, recounting an encounter with real estate developer William Levitt at a gathering in New York. "He sold this company and he had nothing to do," he told the future military leaders. There were also concerns over the 'weary' president slurring his words.

Trump continued: "He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife. It didn't work out too well, but it doesn't –– and that doesn't work out too well, I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives doesn't work out. But it made them happy for a little while at least."

He concluded: "But he found a new wife, he sold his little boat and he got a big yacht; he had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world. He moved for a time to Monte Carlo, and he led the good life. and time went by and he got bored and 15 years later, the company that he sold to called him and they said, 'The housing business is not for us.'" Later, the Republican leader finally explained that the point of the story was to love what you do.

In addition to his "life tips," the president made promises to revitalize the military, although his administration has made moves to dismantle key diversity, edquity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and removed key military leaders.

 

British Tabloid Goes Public With Marjorie Taylor Greene's Sex Romps

The UK's DailyMail has published reports on how controversial conspiracy congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene cheated on her husband with a polyamorous tantric sex guru. Then after ending her affair with him, the mom-of-three moved on to a gym manager behind her husband's back.

But despite the tawdry flings, Taylor Greene stuck with her husband Perry as she made her unlikely rise that has turned her into the most talked-about Republican in Washington, D.C.  Neither man has denied the affairs. Craig Ivey, the tantric sex practitioner, said: 'I will not respond to anything about this,' while the other man, Justin Tway, said: 'I have no interest in talking about anything to do with that woman. Everything with her comes to no good.'

But others say the representative from Georgia's 14th Congressional District was brazen about her affairs which she carried on a decade ago while working in gyms in Alpharetta, Georgia, some 35 miles north of Atlanta.  "It wasn't a secret. Everyone who moved in her circles knew about both the affairs," said one man who worked closely with Taylor Greene.  Her boss, billionaire's grandson Jim Chambers, added: 'She socialized a lot with us. I remember one particular pool party where she was lying draped over Craig's lap drinking a beer. She was quite open about it. We all thought her marriage was falling apart."  Chambers, whose grandmother Anne Cox Chambers was the richest person in Georgia until she died last year, was the owner of the gym where Greene was a member.

46-year-old Taylor Greene has become notorious since being elected to Congress. She calls herself a 'strong conservative Christian,' who planned to take her 'family values' to Washington.  But she has been slammed for her belief in conspiracies linked to the group QAnon which claims former president Donald Trump was sent by God to oust Democrats who are involved in a nationwide ring that traffics, abuses, kills and even eats children.

She has also said that the Parkland and Sandy Hook school shootings were 'false flag' operations aimed at tightening gun control, harassed Parkland survivor David Hogg on the streets and questioned whether the September 11 terrorist attacks were real.  Congress voted last week to remove her from her committee assignments due to her outrageous beliefs and actions.

Last year, Jim Chambers even tweeted out: "@mtgreenee so when you worked for me at CrossFit Alpharetta in 2012, the extramarital affairs you had with Justin and Craig, those were Jesus-approved, right?" 

 

New York Times Sued by So-called "Porn Addicted" Brazilian Tribe

Last year, the Marubo Tribe, a 2,000-member Indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon, was the subject of countless news stories around the world falsely accusing its people of becoming addicted to porn after being given Internet access. According to the Marubo, the spread of this false narrative is all The New York Times’ fault—and it’s suing.

The tribe was the subject of a 2024 story by the Times, which profiled the group’s first exposure to the Internet via Elon Musk’s Starlink, along with the technology’s benefits and challenges. For instance, the story said that while the Internet allowed the Marubo to video chat with loved ones who live far away and call for help during emergencies, it also affected the youth.  “Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet,” Tsainama Marubo, a 73-year-old woman, said. She explained that the tribe’s younger members are less interested in traditional activities, such as making jewelry out of snail shells. “They’re learning the ways of the white people.”

But the Internet also brought the tribe access to porn. The Times story says that minors were now watching porn, which had unsettled some in the tribe. It quoted Alfredo Marubo, leader of a Marubo association of villages and the biggest critic of the tribe’s new access to the Internet.  According to the Times, Alfredo Marubo said that young men were sharing mature adult content in group chats. The spreading of that type of content marked a strong contrast with the tribe’s culture, which disapproves of kissing in public.  “We’re worried young people are going to want to try it,” Alfredo Marubo said, referring to the graphic sex shown in the videos being shared.  Alfredo Marubo added that some tribal leaders had told him of young men displaying more aggressive sexual behavior.

The references to porn and sex in the story were limited to five sentences. Nowhere did the Times story call the Marubo people porn addicts or suggest it was a huge problem.  But that wasn’t the story heard round the world, though. Instead, countless media outlets ran pieces about how the Internet had caused the tribe to become addicted to porn, a claim that was untrue. TMZ ran a story with the headline, “Elon Musk’s Starlink Hookup Leaves A Remote Tribe Addicted To Porn.”

The New York Post also had a headline in the same vein: “Remote Amazon tribe finally connects to internet — only to wind up hooked on porn, social media.”   A little more than week later, the “porn addict” framing had become so widespread that the Times published a follow-up story. In the story, the outlet said that more than 100 websites worldwide had published the false claim.  “The Marubo people are not addicted to pornography. There was no hint of this in the forest, and there was no suggestion of it in The New York Times’s article,” Jack Micas, the author of the piece, wrote.

But in the eyes of the Marubo people, the damage had already been done. This week, the tribe filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, TMZ, and Yahoo News in Los Angeles Superior Court, Courthouse News reported. The suit says that TMZ and Yahoo News are also defendants because their stories amplified and misrepresented the original. The tribe is seeking $180 million from each of the media outlets.

 

Happy Memorial Day!

Trump Pulls Sophmoric Stunt in Front of South African President and Ends Up Embarrassing Himself

Convicted felon Donald Trump had White House staff screen videos purporting to show instances of genocide against White residents in South Africa during his meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House.  The week prior to the visit, Elon Musk (one of the leading purveyors of false claims of “white genocide” in South Africa)  tweeted out the same clip which seemed to show graves of hundreds of slain white farmers.  In actuality the video did not show real grave sites.  It was a political demonstration staged by a right-wing South African party to highlight violence against farmers.

The political demonstration shown in the video was staged as a response to the murders of Glen and Vida Rafferty in August 2020.  It was later discovered that four men were convicted of the Raffertys’ murders,  for ambushing and killing the couple as part of an armed robbery scheme (not any effort at genocide).

Trump also lied about the reports being all published in “the last few days,” and about “people that recently got killed.”  Neither or these statements was true-- the most recent of the articles and photos shown were four months old, with the others being published over a span of five years.

In addition, facts just don’t support the claims that white South Africans are being killed en masse in order to seize their farmland.  According to South African police data, 225 people were killed on farms in South Africa from March 2020 to April 2024. One hundred and one of those victims were either current or former workers living on farms, most of whom are Black. Fifty-three of those murdered were farmers, who tend to be white.  

South Africa's President Ramaphosa, who sat quietly watching videos showing politicians calling to kill white farmers, later said: "I would like to know where this is from; this I've never seen." He then took a jab at Trump, saying: "I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you."

 

 

Half of Nobel Prize Winners Come From Rich Families

We all know that being born into a wealthy family comes with advantages: it’s easier to go to university, you have more information, better networking opportunities... and you can take more risks because you have a safety net. That’s not the only thing that matters — luck and effort also play their part (you probably know people who climbed the social ladder) — but the influence of money is undeniable.

The chart below illustrates this with an extreme case: half of Nobel laureates are children of parents belonging to the richest 5% in their birth country. This is the conclusion of research that traced the social origins of hundreds of laureates.

Shaboozey & Jelly Roll - Amen

Senile Old Man Goes on a Rant

 At 1:30 in the morning, convicted felon Donald Trump went on the following rant:

HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? …AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO??? I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter. Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment. In addition, this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds. IT’S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic “entertainers,” this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!! 

Hours later, he ranted further:

According to news reports, Beyoncé was paid $11,000,000 to walk onto a stage, quickly ENDORSE KAMALA, and walk off to loud booing for never having performed, NOT EVEN ONE SONG! Remember, the Democrats and Kamala illegally paid her millions of Dollars for doing nothing other than giving Kamala a full throated ENDORSEMENT. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL ELECTION SCAM AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL! IT IS AN ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION! BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, OPRAH, BONO AND, PERHAPS, MANY OTHERS, HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!!! 

There’s absolutely no proof that Beyoncé received anything close to $11 million. Reports suggest she may have received around $ 165,000 for production costs or logistics.  Oprah’s team has already shut down the idea that she was paid to endorse Harris, saying her company was only paid to help produce the event. 

The tirade against Springsteen follows the rocker’s take on Trump’s “treasonous” political legacy. Performing in Manchester last week, the singer said: “In my home, the America I love… is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.” 

This whole thing is more likely an attempt by Trump to shift attention away from himself, since Epstein-related court documents are back in the headlines and his name’s popping up again.

 

Trump Court Losses Are Starting to Pile Up

Following the November 2024 elections, which saw Republicans secure the White House along with a majority in both chambers of Congress, the courts have emerged as one of the main impediments to the second Trump administration's policy agenda.  The Trump administration has suffered legal defeats on a range of issues including the firing of probationary federal workers, freezing of billions in foreign aid and a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has now refused to remove a nationwide injunction imposed by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy on April 18 barring the rapid deportation of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to nations other than their own country of origin without first hearing their concerns about safety.  In its ruling, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it had "concerns" about Trump administration plans regarding deportations to a country other than an immigrant's place of citizenship and "the irreparable harm that will result from wrongful removals in this context."

The Trump Supreme Court has also now rejected the Trump administration's request to resume swift deportations of Venezuelan nationals using the Alien Enemies Act, which the president invoked in March aimed at suspected Tren de Aragua gang members.  The president and conservative commentators have expressed fury over these rulings, raising the prospect of a wider confrontation between Trump and elements of the judiciary.

 

 

Antisocial Networking

Surgeon General Tripping It Out

Convicted felon Donald Trump’s new pick for surgeon general wrote in a recent book that people should consider using unproven psychedelic drugs as therapy and in a newsletter suggested her use of mushrooms helped her find a romantic partner.

Dr. Casey Means’ recommendation to consider guided psilocybin-assisted therapy is notable because psilocybin is illegal under federal law. It’s listed as a Schedule 1 drug, defined as a substance “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Oregon and Colorado have legalized psychedelic therapy, though several cities in Oregon have since banned it.

The surgeon general’s job is to provide Americans with the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce their risk of illness and injury. Means refers to psychedelics in her book as “plant medicine.” She describes how she took mushrooms for the first time around Jan. 1, 2021, after she was inspired by “an internal voice that whispered: it’s time to prepare.” 

In a newsletter she published in October, Means said she had also used psychedelics to help her make “space to find love at 35.” She wrote that she “did plant medicine experiences with trusted guides” to become ready for partnership, punctuating the line with a mushroom emoji.  Gives new meaning to the term "baby boomer" I guess! 

 

Geogia Law Cruelly Forces Dead Woman to Carry Fetus to Term

A pregnant woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead after a medical emergency has been on life support for three months to let the fetus grow enough to be delivered, a move her family says a hospital told them was required under the state’s strict anti-abortion law.

With her due date still more than three months away, it could be one of the longest such pregnancies. Her family is upset that Georgia’s law that restricts abortion once cardiac activity is detected doesn’t allow relatives to have a say in whether a pregnant woman is kept on life support.  Georgia’s so-called “heartbeat law” is among the restrictive abortion statutes that have been put in place in many conservative states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago.

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, was declared brain-dead — meaning she is legally dead — in February.  Smith had intense headaches more than three months ago and went to Atlanta’s Northside Hospital, where she received medication and was released. The next morning, her boyfriend woke to her gasping for air and called 911. Emory University Hospital determined she had blood clots in her brain and she was declared brain-dead.

Supreme Court Justice Expresses Dismay When Faced with the Results of His Own Ruling

Without any hint of irony,  Chief Justice John Roberts has described the rule of law as “endangered” and warned against “trashing the justices,” but in a public speech, he didn’t point fingers directly at President Donald Trump or his allies for publicly excoriating judges who’ve ruled against aspects of Trump’s agenda.

“The notion that rule of law governs is the basic proposition,” Roberts said during an appearance at Georgetown Law. “Certainly as a matter of theory, but also as a matter of practice, we need to stop and reflect every now and then how rare that is, certainly rare throughout history, and rare in the world today.”

As many legal experts express grave concern about Trump’s attacks on law firms and with several federal judges advancing inquiries into whether the administration is refusing to comply with court orders, Roberts took a longer-term view Monday. He blamed schools for shortchanging civics education and leaving students with little understanding of the structure of U.S. government or the role of the courts.

“That’s really too bad,” the chief justice told graduating students at the law school. “We’re developing a situation where a whole group of young people is growing up having no real sense about how our system of justice works.”

Yet, just last summer Roberts authored a consequential and controversial court decision that gave convicted felon Donald Trump substantial immunity from prosecution on charges of election subversion and mishandling of classified documents.  Neither of those acts were conducted as part of his official duties, but Roberts gave Trump a "hall pass" anyway-- and now he is shocked at how Trump's second term is unfolding.  This is your legacy, John Roberts-- shut up and sit down.

Chloe Qisha - 21st Century Cool Girl

Loony Loomer Bites the Hand that Fed Her

MAGA activist Laura "Loony" Loomer criticized convicted felon Donald Trump over reports that his administration plans to accept a luxury jet from the government of Qatar, calling the move “a stain” on his presidency. Loomer, a longtime Trump loyalist with growing influence within the administration, posted a series of statements on X condemning the acceptance of the $400 million Boeing jet from the country, which she described as a “gift from jihadists in suits.”

She said on social media:  It’s going to be hard for the admin to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and obliterate Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah when Qatar funds the Muslim Brotherhood, harbors HAMAS, and the U.S. just accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar. It’s very disappointing. It’s also worth noting that President Trump just signed an executive order on April 23, 2025 requiring US educational institutions to disclose the source of their funding.

Loomer concluded, “This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true. And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump. I’m so disappointed.”

 

Have a Nice Day!

Today's Episode in the Blondie Bondi Amateur Hour

Days before she announced “thousands of videos” of evidence in the Jeffrey Epstein case, Attorney General Pam "Blondie" Bondi was secretly recorded sharing the information with a woman at a restaurant pretending to be a nanny. The woman turned out to be wearing a hidden camera for O’Keefe Media Group, the latest venture of MAGA provocateur James O’Keefe. 

O’Keefe shared a 15-second clip of the video Thursday showing Bondi eating brunch in a restaurant. A woman who had just approached her asks, “Do you know when the Epstein files are going to get released?” “Um, we hope soon,” Bondi answers. “The FBI has been on them.”

“OK, any dates?” the woman presses as Bondi tries to ignore her and keep eating.  “No, you know what it is, though? There are tens and thousands of videos and it’s all with little kids. So, they have to go through every one [of them],” Bondi says. 

O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, has been accused for years of publishing videos that are deceptively edited to misrepresent their subjects. In 2023 he was forced out of the company he founded and sued for allegedly bullying staff and misusing funds. Around the same time, he was also the subject of a criminal investigation. 

Nine days after O’Keefe says the recording was made, Bondi finally told reporters about the videos for the first time.  O’Keefe claims Bondi made the announcement after his team reached out to her on May 1 revealing the hidden camera recording and asking why the American people had never been made aware of the videos. “Does this show that a government apparatus is still working behind the scenes to protect powerful people involved in the scandal?” O’Keefe said during his segment revealing the secret recording.

 

Bill Gates Goes Nuclear on Elon Musk

Microsoft founder Bill Gates didn’t mince words in his evaluation of Elon Musk's role in government, fuming that “the world’s richest man” was “killing the world’s poorest children.”  Speaking with the The Financial Times, Gates expressed his disgust with Musk’s role in shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” said Gates, who told the Times that he’d “love for him [Musk] to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut” American aid that had been going to a hospital in Mozambique.

This isn’t the first time that Gates criticized Musk, both over his attacks on USAID and his embrace of right-wing European politicians.  “USAID plays a super important role… it’s work that saves millions of lives and helps strengthen relationships for the United States,” Gates told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in February. “The basic idea that we should review almost every department and that if you were really smart about using technology or updating the goals, you could save 10% here, 10% there—which adds up to a lot—I don’t think that’s a mistake. But going in very quickly and saying that all these people run a criminal organization—that’s not quite as subtle as you’d hope to see.”

“It’s really insane that he [Musk] can destabilise the political situations in countries,” continued the billionaire. “I think in the U.S. foreigners aren’t allowed to give money; other countries maybe should adopt safeguards to make sure super-rich foreigners aren’t distorting their elections.”

 

Karl Rove Takes Trump to Task, Setting Off the Orange Man

Convicted felon Donald Trump ripped into Republican strategist Karl Rove after the former White House aide offered some hard truths about the Trump administration’s unforced errors.  In an unvarnished interview on Fox News, Rove attacked the president as “Mr. Scrooge,” whose economic approval was plummeting while he mishandled the rollout of tariffs and misled the public about their real impact on prices.

“We elected him for a variety of reasons that were important: inflation, the border, DEI, the military, respect for America,” Rove said Sunday during an interview with Fox News. “[But] things like tweeting out a picture of you as the pope is deeply offensive to a great many people.” 

Rove also criticized Trump’s handling of the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland dad who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison. Despite admitting the error, the Trump administration has refused to bring Abrego Garcia home and has claimed he’s a member of the criminal gang MS-13 without providing any evidence in court.  “This guy from Maryland—I don’t know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy, I don’t know if he’s a gang member not. The fact is, bring him back to the United States. Lay out the facts in a court of law, and get it done,” Rove said.

“I don’t need to have Karl Rove of Fox News to tell me what to do,” Trump shot back in a late-night post on Truth Social. “The guy’s a total Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything!”  The remarks came just days after Rove, who served as President George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff and was an adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, warned Trump was “in very bad shape” on the economy.  “It’s inflation—the president is saying gas is $1.90. I just filled up my tank. It ain’t $1.90,” he said. “We do not have inflation tamped down to 2 percent, and we run the risk of having a jump up—at least in a one-time way—if these tariffs are put in place.”

He also blasted the president for his “offhand remarks” on tariffs and joined liberals in saying the comments sounded like they came straight from the mouth of the cold-hearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol. During a Cabinet meeting last week, Trump addressed warnings from the CEOs of retail giants that prices would spike and shelves would remain empty if the president didn’t de-escalate his trade war with China.

“Somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are gonna be open,’” Trump told reporters during the Cabinet meeting. “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more.”

“It sounds like Mr. Scrooge,” Rove said. “The ordinary American is like, ‘Wait a minute, I thought you were on my side. I didn’t think you were on the side of saying I need to do with less. You’ve got plenty of money, [but] I’ve got to make mine stretch as far as I can?"

 

No Kidding, Man!

BigXthaPlug & Bailey Zimmerman - All The Way

Kash Patel is Said to Spend More Time Partying Than Going to Work

Former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi levied a wild accusation about Kash Patel, claiming that the current FBI boss spends more time out clubbing than he does at work.  "Reportedly, he's been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building," Figliuzzi said on Friday's episode of MSNBC's Morning Joe. 

Figliuzzi was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI after serving as a special agent for 25 years.  He's now a columnist and contributor for NBC News and MSNBC, frequently critiquing of the Trump administration.  He told MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire that his connections at the FBI revealed the chaos under Patel, including his party animal persona. 

Trump Proves to Be Campaign Poison Overseas

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was returned to power in an election Saturday, the latest left-leaning leader to achieve a comeback victory as President Trump roils global markets and upends international affairs.  Albanese’s Labor Party was projected to win at least 87 seats in the nation’s House of Representatives, defeating the conservative bloc of the Liberal and National parties, which was projected to win at least 40, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The result was a decisive win for Albanese, whose party expanded its majority in the 150-seat chamber. Before the vote, polls showed Albanese leading, but not by much.  “Our government will choose the Australian way, because we are proud of who we are,” Albanese told a cheering crowd at Labor headquarters. “We do not need to beg or borrow or copy from anywhere else.”

The election is the latest snapshot of how voters are reacting to a shifting world order as President Trump targets countries with tariffs, pivots toward Russia and uses harsh rhetoric about Washington’s traditional allies. Polls show voters in Australia, Canada, and the U.K. view Washington more unfavorably since Trump took office.

Earlier this week, Canadians gave the left-leaning Liberal Party a fourth term in office, even though the party was trailing badly in the polls at the start of the year. Canadians embraced the tough-talking approach of Prime Minister Mark Carney, a former central banker, while shying away from the conservative candidate, Pierre Poilievre, who was viewed as being too similar to Trump.

A similar dynamic has played out in Australia. Albanese was down in the polls at the start of the year, but as the election grew closer, the polls flipped.  Albanese and his main conservative opponent, Peter Dutton, also sparred frequently over who could best negotiate with Trump. 

Dutton, a former police officer and defense minister, seesawed between embracing policies with a Trump-like flair and distancing himself from Trump-style rhetoric. He backtracked or clarified proposals to end working from home and slash the government workforce, two initiatives that have been supported by Trump at home.  Later in the campaign, Dutton leaned into culture-war issues, and said he opposed indigenous land acknowledgments at annual ceremonies meant to honor Australia’s war dead. He also unveiled plans to further boost Australia’s military spending, aligning himself with Trump’s demand that U.S. allies to spend more on their militaries.  But the strategy backfired in a country where Trump is very unpopular. Dutton even lost his own parliamentary seat to the Labor candidate.

 

Trump Continues His Weaponization of the Government in Pursuit of Petty Grievances

Chris Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during President Trump's first term, has had his membership in the Global Entry traveler program revoked, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Thursday.

The move comes after convicted felon Donald Trump issued a memorandum last month that targeted Krebs for defending the integrity of the 2020 election, which the president has continued to baselessly claim was rigged against him. The directive instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to suspend security clearances held by Krebs and people working at entities associated with him, including at the cybersecurity company where he worked.

Watch Out-- China is Kicking Butt in Robotics

In recent weeks, many in the U.S. have been wondering if this century will be China’s. Podcaster Derek Thompson put it well: “Some people are still stuck in a mode of thinking about China as being a place that just makes things of little value and significance. But 'Made in China' means something different now."

China builds more than any other country; it produces 20 times more cement and 13 times more steel than the United States. The Asian giant is leading in key technologies for the future: it manufactures 66% of the world’s electric vehicles, 75% of batteries, and 90% of solar panels. And it is at the forefront of robotics.

New installations of industrial robots in 2022 (thousands) Source: International Federation of Robotics

 

In 2012, China installed around 25,000 industrial robots per year, on par with Germany, Japan, and the United States. What about 10 years later? Now China installs 10 times more robots than any of those countries individually. The leap is spectacular. 

Trump's Meme Coin is Blantant Corruption, Pure and Simple

Democratic Senators. Adam Schiff of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have called for an ethics probe to investigate an upcoming dinner between President Donald Trump and top investors in his meme coin, $TRUMP.  In a letter to Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who serves as acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, Schiff and Warren expressed concerns about clear conflicts of interest.

“This latest action raises grave ethics and legal concerns. Including the severe risk that President Trump and other officials may be engaging in ‘pay to play’ corruption by selling presidential access to individuals or entities, to include foreign nationals and corporate actors with vested interests in federal action, while personally enriching the President and his family,” the letter states.

Following the April 23 announcement of the dinner, which is set for May 22 at the Trump National Golf Club, the meme coin’s value increased by more than 50%, netting insiders $900,000 in trading fees in just two days.  Warren and Schiff’s letter is the latest effort by Democrats to expose what many experts believe is a transparent pay-to-play scheme being perpetrated by Trump within the shady world of cryptocurrency. 

Proof That Vaccines and COVID Restrictions Work

Flus return every year. But one type seems to have become extinct. According to WHO data, not a single case of Yamagata influenza B has been confirmed since the spring of 2020.

The Yamagata flu was common every season. The graph above shows its annual peaks in China and the total Northern hemisphere, with thousands of cases identified in 2018 and 2019. But in 2020, it vanished. The most likely explanation is that COVID-19 measures — masking, social distancing, travel restrictions — slowed its spread from person to person, so the strain failed to spread and eventually disappeared.

This is extraordinary proof that it is possible to suppress a virus globally. Various organizations, including the WHO, the European Medicine Agency (EMA), and the Centers of Disease Control (CDC), recommend eliminating this strain from flu vaccines, which would make room for other, more relevant variants, and make them more effective.

Jonas Brothers - Love Me to Heaven

Well That's One Way to Look at Things