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)
“Recently, I had the opportunity to stand in a friend’s kitchen eating pupusas, the Salvadoran national food, while listening to an update on conditions in Central America from Cristosal’s Noah Bullock. Cristosal is a key Central American human rights organization engaged in legal advocacy, forensic investigation, and amplifying the voices of people who are experiencing — and resisting — repression in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Noah offered considerable detail on the conditions in those countries, but his basic message for us living so far away was simple: No matter how dark the road gets, we keep on walking. We know the sun will rise again. So, while most of the world (and the media) is all too reasonably focused on the ever-evolving, increasingly disastrous conflicts in Iran and Lebanon, I found myself instead thinking about the countries to our south.” (05/05/26)
“Europe and the United States have more important things to do than waste time on tariff threats, French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced higher duties on European vehicles. Trump said on Friday that he would increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union this week to 25%, a move that could further harm the global economy as it reels from war in the Middle East. ‘Especially in the geopolitical period we are experiencing, allies like the United States of America and the European Union have much better things to do than to stir up threats of destabilization,’ Macron told reporters in Armenia. ‘For our businesses, our households, our populations, we should rather send a message of stability and confidence.’ He added that he hoped ‘reason will prevail soon.'” (05/05/26)
“For a war that was formally ‘ended’ by the president, there is still sure a lot of shooting going on. Specifically, the United Arab Emirates claimed that it intercepted Iranian missile and drone attacks on Monday, though at least one strike hit the Fujairah oil hub, which had been flowing through a pipeline to the southeast of the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military says it’s aiding stranded tankers through the strait, though satellite imagery doesn’t show those movements. A South Korean vessel in the strait does appear to have been struck, and other reports indicate that two U.S.-flagged merchant ships made it out. I don’t think a lot of shipowners will risk the journey given the events in the region. Only an actual resolution to the crisis will alleviate the stress on the global economy, and that’s not coming anytime soon, for reasons we here at Aftermath have expressed.” (05/05/26)
“In the week-plus since the latest attempt on President Trump’s life, many on the Right and in the political Center are, at long last, waking up to the possibility that the political opposition today is not entirely normal. It’s not unprecedented either, but it’s far from what we have come to expect in the so-called ‘civilized’ world. As the polymath and public intellectual Eric Weinstein put it on Twitter/X, ‘These aren’t deranged liberals. They are normalized revolutionaries.’ By now, the story of how these revolutionaries came to be normalized is well-worn.” (05/04/26)
“Unlike every other TomDispatch piece, this one won’t be broken up with section titles for a simple reason. It’s all about Donald J. Trump and when it comes to him, in this strange world of ours, no one ever really gets a break. In that context, here’s my advice to you: Don’t get old. For years, I managed not to do so, but unfortunately that’s all over now and I’m increasingly an old man. In fact, I’m not quite two years older than Donald J. Trump.” (05/03/26)
“Picture yourself at the kitchen table on a Saturday morning, coffee getting cold, sorting through the mail. Among the usual suspects (credit card statements, HOA notices, something from the DMV that is probably not good news), you find a bill you did not ask for. The federal government has quietly added a line item to your household tab: $18,000 a year. No vote. No debate. Just arithmetic catching up with decades of bipartisan borrowing without consequences. That is precisely what the Brookings Institution’s 2026 fiscal chart book shows is required to keep the debt-to-GDP ratio capped at its current level through 2036. Budget fellow Jessica Riedl calculates that stabilization demands an extra $2.6 trillion in annual revenue by that year. Spread across approximately 144 million American households, the arithmetic is brutal: roughly $18,000 per household, per year.” (05/04/26)
“Some lawmakers have grown so alarmed by the Trump administration’s actions in Latin America that they are beginning to accuse the administration of gangsterism. Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA) saw the possibility of gangsterism at the start of the second Trump administration when he warned that the United States could ‘join the ranks of gangster nations,’ but there is a growing sense in Congress that the day has arrived. At a congressional hearing last month, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) asserted that the Trump administration is exploiting the US military to take Latin American resources for US corporations. Castro seemingly channeled the anti-war critiques of Smedley Butler, the US military hero of the early 20th century, who condemned war as a racket and lamented his exploitation as a racketeer for capitalism.” (05/04/26)
