“The Trump administration has been cracking down on a handful of Iranian residents who have ties to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and have even allegedly been involved in gun-running while living lavish lifestyles in LA. That may leave the impression that this community might not support attempts to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, California’s Persian community is overwhelmingly opposed to the regime. A survey done recently by the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans found that barely 3% of Iranian-Americans favor the current regime, while an additional 8% would welcome a reformed Islamic Republic.” (05/04/26)
“Cornell University’s president has blasted a group of radical students for hurling abuse and holding him hostage in his own car following an Israel-Palestine debate series at the Ivy League school. The group of rabble-rousers filmed themselves swarming Michael Kotlikoff and trailing him to his vehicle as he was trying to leave the event at the Ithaca, New York, campus last Thursday. Kotlikoff accused the group — who he said have become notorious for spewing verbal and online abuse toward Cornell staffers in the past – of surrounding his car, banging on the windows and blocking him from leaving. The school prez spoke out after the students posted footage on social media of Kotlikoff apparently backing into the group amid the parking lot chaos.” (05/05/26)
Source: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
by Julie Hollar
“If you haven’t heard the argument that civilization is about to collapse because women aren’t having enough babies, you haven’t been consuming much media. ‘The Birth-Rate Crisis Isn’t as Bad as You’ve Heard — It’s Worse,’ announced The Atlantic (6/30/25). Business Insider (8/21/25) ran a piece titled ‘America’s Great People Shortage,’ which opened, ‘America is about to tumble off the edge of a massive demographic cliff.’ And NPR’s Brian Mann warned on PBS (4/10/26) that, as a result of the birth rate decline, ‘many people say’ that the US soon ‘will be unrecognizable.’ It’s repeatedly in the news in part because it’s a priority of the ‘pronatalist’ right, which has prominent backers in the Trump administration.” (05/05/26)
“France’s public sector broadcasters have been lambasted by a parliamentary committee of enquiry, which recommends closing several channels and cutting their budget by a total of €1bn (£863m). The committee, which held six months of at times acrimonious hearings, levelled charges of left-wing bias at state-owned France Télévisions and Radio France, as well as gross financial waste. But the findings were immediately dismissed as politically-motivated and impractical by industry insiders, who said that the committee’s rapporteur, Charles Alloncle, has a far-right agenda to prepare state TV and radio for privatisation. Criticism has also come from the prime minister and the head of the committee. Alloncle, 32, is an MP for the small Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party, an ally of Marine Le Pen’s populist-right National Rally (RN).” (05/05/26)
“The man just won’t leave the stage. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced last week that he’s going to remain on the Federal Reserve Board until 2028, even as he, by law, surrenders his chairmanship. The announcement came even after President Donald Trump agreed to drop his unwise lawsuit against Powell for funding a $2 billion new Taj Mahal building down the street from the White House. Powell will be the first Fed chair to stay on the Fed’s Board of Directors in 50 years. This isn’t the way it’s done. It’s bad form. Only once did he come within spitting distance of his inflation target. February 2021 was the only month in his whole tenure when inflation hit the range of 1.8 percent to 2.2 percent. He’s retiring with a batting average of .011.” (05/05/26)
“As civil rights advocates protest, Republican lawmakers in several Southern states are seizing on the opportunity afforded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to redraw congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections. The latest state to jump on the redistricting bandwagon is Tennessee, where a special legislative session is to begin Tuesday, a day after a similar session kicked off in Alabama. In Louisiana, lawmakers also are making plans for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state’s current map. The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second [b]lack-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act.” (05/05/26)
“More than two dozen Democratic lawmakers in the US House of Representatives are urging the Trump administration to break its official silence on Israel’s nuclear weapons program, whose existence is almost universally acknowledged even as its origins and status remain shrouded in secrecy. In a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, the group of House Democrats led by Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas wrote that ‘Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be fully informed about the nuclear balance in the Middle East, the risk of escalation by any party to this conflict, and the administration’s planning and contingencies for such scenarios,’ particularly as it wages war on Iran in partnership with the Israeli government.” (05/05/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Martin Burns & Mary Liz Burns
“At a campaign-like rally at The Villages, a retirement community near Orlando, Florida, President Donald Trump continued his campaign of deception about his record on Social Security. As he has many times in the last several months, Trump falsely claimed that his ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ eliminated taxes. This time however Trump took his campaign of deception to a higher level. The background for Trump included the words ‘Golden Age for Your Golden Years’ and ‘No Tax on Social Security’. Unfortunately, many in the mainstream media simply ignore Trump’s continued falsehoods on Social Security. Let’s look at the facts. The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ did not eliminate taxes on Social Security. Indeed, the legislative process, ‘reconciliation,’ which the Republicans used to pass the legislation, prohibits these types of changes in Social Security.” (05/05/26)
“No one ever quite knows the nature of the aftermath of any war in the Middle East. The current effort to disarm and neuter the Iranian theocracy is no exception. But contrary to European and American left-wing consensus, the ripples of the Iran war are already remaking the postwar world as we knew it, and in ways that are all bad. For more than half a century, OPEC has terrorized the industrial world with threats of oil shortages and sky-high prices, with members often agreeing to cut back to 70–80 percent of their capacities. But recently, the hard-pressed United Arab Emirates announced — at a time of high oil prices — that it was leaving the cartel and freelancing.” (05/05/26)
“FBI Director Kash Patel said he found the agency’s ‘burn bag’ room full of sensitive documents tied to the ‘Russiagate’ investigation, but nobody was able to get inside at first — in fact, the room wasn’t on the building map at all. Patel appeared on Tuesday’s episode of ‘Hang Out with Sean Hannity’ and referenced a previous discussion on the podcast in which former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino talked about the same room. More than one ‘burn bag’, which is ‘a large paper bag that you use to destroy and literally shred and burn classified information’, was found inside this secret room ‘locked away in FBI headquarters,’ Patel said. ‘They weren’t burned, but the room was also off the map. It wasn’t on our blueprint, and nobody had access to it.'” (05/05/26)
