“Surrey Police says it is investigating two separate allegations of ‘non-recent child sexual abuse’ following the US release of the files related to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The force says that one relates to locations in Surrey and Berkshire in the mid 1990s to 2000. The other relates to the mid to late 1980s in west Surrey. No arrests have been made, it added. In a statement, police said it took ‘all reports of sexual offending seriously and will work to identify any reasonable lines of enquiry to verify information or establish corroborating evidence.’ In February, Surrey Police said it was seeking information on an allegation of human trafficking and sexual assault dating back to the mid-1990s. It said it has become aware of a redacted report which alleged ‘non-recent human trafficking and sexual assaults on a minor in Virginia Water, Surrey between 1994-1996.'” (05/19/26)
“Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is appearing on Capitol Hill for his first congressional testimony since taking the reins at the Justice Department, as the agency faces intense scrutiny over its plans to create a $1.776 billion fund to pay allies of President Donald Trump who believe they were targeted politically. … Republicans pressed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about violent crime, drug enforcement and other conventional Justice Department topics. But for the most part, they’re steering clear of the Justice Department’s creation of a new $1.776 fund created to compensate allies of President Trump who say they’ve been mistreated by the criminal justice system and Democrats. That’s in contrast to their Democratic counterparts, who routinely pressed Blanche on the fund.” (05/19/26)
“Still concentrated in Southern states that ban abortion, Black women disproportionately rely on telehealth, which the Supreme Court has allowed — provisionally — to continue.” (05/19/26)
“U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow advanced to a runoff in Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary Saturday, capitalizing on the power of President Donald Trump’s endorsement in another attempt to purge his party of people he views as disloyal. State Treasurer John Fleming came in second to join her in the next round of voting. Trump supported Letlow over incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the few Republican senators who voted to convict him during his second impeachment trial over the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cassidy, a doctor, has also clashed with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy, though he provided crucial support to help Kennedy get confirmed.” (05/16/26)
“For American executives who spot fraud and financial misconduct among workers and then quickly report it, the U.S. Justice Department has a refreshing message: Your alertness to right-doing can bring a reward – in mercy. Federal prosecutors were recently handed expanded powers to be lenient toward companies that voluntarily report wrongdoing by individual employees in a ‘timely’ manner, make amends to those wronged, and shape up internal rules – hotlines, audits, etc. – to expose white-collar crime. The accused individuals are then prosecuted, not the company, preventing a hefty fine or forfeiture. Shareholders and employees also benefit from the avoidance of some kinds of negative fallout, such as bankruptcy. Yet the biggest result so far, according to Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York – which includes Wall Street – has been faster and greater detection of fraud.” (05/15/26)
“Caitlin and Tim discuss AI, Israel’s threat to sue the New York Times, militarized robots, and the ethics of watching porn. Caitlin paints Sam Altman.” (05/16/26)
“It’s great that the FBI is probing former CIA Director John Brennan’s role in the Russiagate conspiracy, but the country needs a lot more than criminal investigations and prosecutions to fully air the truth about the 2016 plot to smear Donald Trump as a pawn of Vladimir Putin. The probe turns on Brennan’s apparent perjury in congressional testimony about one part of his role, namely the fact that in 2016 he ensured that the ‘Steele dossier’ would be part of an Intelligence Community Assessment that claimed to find real Trump-Russia collusion. … The dossier, you’ll recall, was a farrago of fiction (including the ‘pee tape’ lie) about Trump’s alleged connections to Russia; the Clinton campaign paid British ex-spook Christopher Steele to fabricate it as a weapon against Trump during the 2016 campaign.” [editor’s note: The Clinton campaign was Steele’s second client for the “dossier” material. The first client was a Republican news site – TLK] (05/16/26)
“The US military has been carrying out extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Pacific over the past nine months with impunity. On May 8, the US military struck another boat in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor. US Southern Command claimed ‘the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes’ and ‘was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.’ According to The Intercept, there have now been 58 such boat strikes since September that have killed at least 193 people. As with the May 8 attack, the names and nationalities of most of these victims remain unknown. The Trump administration has accused civilian boats of transporting narcotics to the US and says its killing ‘narco-terrorists.’ But the Pentagon has provided no evidence for these claims or any indication that the people killed posed an imminent threat” (05/16/26)
“A Hamas official has confirmed to the BBC that Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, commander of the group’s armed wing, was killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on Friday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that Haddad had been ‘responsible for the murder, kidnapping and injury of thousands of Israeli civilians and IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers’. Israel described him as ‘one of the architects of the October 7 massacre.’ The strike is the latest launched by Israel on Gaza despite a ceasefire with Hamas. Three eyewitnesses told the BBC that a residential building known as Al-Mu’taz was struck by three missiles launched simultaneously from two separate directions, before a fleeing car was hit. The air strike, targeting the apartment block in the centre of Gaza City, sparked a large fire.” (05/16/26)
“As we celebrate America at 250, there is a part of our founding in the Constitution (Article II, Section 1, Clause 2), about which some on the left gnash their teeth — the Electoral College. For example, a few days ago, a former Biden administration official asked publicly, ‘What if we selected our President by letting the person who got the most votes take the office, instead of the Electoral College?’ … Meanwhile, many blue states, including just recently Virginia, have signed on to a compact to try and effectively nullify the Electoral College.” [editor’s note: To make the EC relevant to today, they only need to follow the lead of Maine and Nebraska, and DECENTRALIZE it – SAT] (05/16/26)
