“The British government is offering cheaper chocolate and discounted entry to theme parks as it seeks to ease a cost-of-living squeeze and win back voters. Treasury chief Rachel Reeves on Thursday announced modest handouts to help alleviate rising costs sparked by the Iran war, including a reduction in import tax on cookies, chocolate and about 100 other supermarket products. U.K. inflation fell to 2.8% in April, down from 3.3% in March, but is expected to spike again on the back of higher prices for fuel, heating gas and electricity. To ease the impact, the government has postponed a planned increase in fuel duty and given truckers a yearlong reprieve from road tax to help offset soaring gasoline prices due to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil transit route. But Reeves did not commit to broader support for household heating bills.” (05/21/26)
“It’s not just crackpot antisemite podcaster Candace Owens who is giving Hunter Biden uncritical attention so he can rewrite history. Inexplicably, top Trump administration officials are also validating the former crackhead first son’s outrageous lie that he was prosecuted only because he was Joe Biden’s son. It’s not clear why Acting AG Todd Blanche and VP JD Vance cited Hunter this week as their exemplar of bipartisan largesse to defend the new $1.7 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ for victims of lawfare, but it was a terrible idea. It’s so terrible, you could be forgiven for wondering if it was dreamed up by deep-staters intent on denying justice to the real victims of the Biden administration’s lawfare.” [editor’s note: Wow, what a day — Miranda Devine, like Derek Hunter, got something right! But the whole “weaponization fund” idea is stupid and evil, regardless of whether Biden fils gets a cut – TLK] (05/20/26)
“Fraudsters behind the notorious ‘Quality Learing Center’ day care facility in Minnesota raked in nearly a quarter of a million dollars worth of pandemic-era loans from the Small Business Administration, according to a senator’s investigation. That day care center, which had a misspelled name and a near-empty parking lot when YouTuber Nick Shirley stopped by for his viral video last year, became the poster child of the fraud scandal that rocked Minnesota. The facility, which shuttered in January, had garnered some $1.9 million from Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program last year and some $10 million in state funding since 2019. But a probe by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) found that it had also received federal assistance from the Small Business Administration back in April and May 2020 during the first Trump administration.” (05/21/26)
“Only a day after President Donald Trump spoke of unity following a gunman’s abhorrent attempt to kill him and members of his administration at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, the president quickly returned to his regularly scheduled programming of berating members of the press that ask him unwanted questions. In a ’60 Minutes’ interview with CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell taped and aired the day following the assassination attempt, Trump repeated many of his now-tired insults about the press, referring to the media in general as ‘horrible people’, and calling O’Donnell a ‘disgrace’ who should be ‘ashamed’ of herself for raising excerpts of the alleged gunman’s manifesto in a question to the president. At this point, understandably, many of us have simply begun to tune out Trump’s now-frequent diatribes against the press.” (05/21/26)
“China has called on the US to stop using ‘coercion’ and ‘threats’ against its ally Cuba, after Washington indicted former leader Raúl Castro on murder charges. An American court has accused the 94-year-old former president of conspiracy to kill US nationals over the 1996 downing of two planes, an incident which killed four people and fuelled diplomatic tensions between Washington and the Caribbean island. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to exert pressure on Cuba and has openly discussed toppling its communist regime. On Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said the US should ‘stop threatening force at every turn,’ and that Beijing ‘firmly supports Cuba.'” (05/21/26)
“Republicans spent the last four years convincing voters they understood the stakes at the southern border as they fought to return to power. They promised to restore law and order, fund immigration enforcement and end Washington’s habit of turning procedure into an excuse for national decline. But today’s reconciliation fight is exposing an uncomfortable truth: the clock is ticking, and the GOP still must prove it can convert a clear electoral mandate into governing power. The immediate fight is whether Senate Republicans can deliver their reconciliation package, which includes critical funding for ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and the broader infrastructure for enforcement. Even with control of Washington and a public mandate to restore law and order, the path is narrow.” (05/21/26)
“It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young Indians are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, set up its website and social media accounts on Saturday. By Thursday, its Instagram page had amassed more than 15 million followers, far surpassing the 8.8 million followers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party on the platform.” (05/21/26)
“Sen. John Kennedy [R-LA] railed against California’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, which is facing scrutiny from the Trump administration over fraud allegations, as Kennedy highlighted reports during a Tuesday hearing that the state covers exorcisms and other faith-based healing practices. Medi-Cal’s spending practices have faced growing scrutiny as California’s Medicaid spending has more than doubled since 2019, rising from roughly $100.7 billion to a projected $222 billion in 2026. Just last week, the Trump administration suspended $1.4 billion in federal funding for California home health and hospice programs after Vice President J.D. Vance’s anti-fraud task force identified an estimated $600 million in suspected fraud within the state’s Medicaid system. Kennedy alleged during his line of questioning to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that taxpayer dollars were being used to cover the cost of exorcisms, a religious practice most commonly associated with the Catholic Church, and other indigenous spiritual practices.” (05/21/26)
“After the Supreme Court gutted voting rights in Louisiana v. Callais, it was all over but the shouting. This week in South Carolina, state lawmakers are proceeding with the Great Erasure of African American voters without the legal hindrances of the Voting Rights Act, that now timeworn relic of the late Great Society. Their goal? To create a congressional dream team of seven GOP House members by zeroing out Rep. James Clyburn, a longtimer with 33 years in Congress, and the only Black Democrat to represent South Carolina in the House in state history. Indeed, Clyburn is the ninth Black person to represent the state in Congress; the first eight were all Republicans elected during Reconstruction in the late 19th century, before Jim Crow ended Black voting in the South, and when the parties had opposite views on civil rights compared to today.” (05/21/26)
“I know, a lot of people are very excited about the primary defeat of U.S. Republican Thomas Massie (KY-4). I’m just not one of them. Not because I liked him, I honestly couldn’t care less about any politician and found him particularly annoying on quite a few issues, but because his defeat won’t make a single bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. No individual politician, especially in Congress, will. They are all temporary and don’t deserve your loyalty, ideas and ideals do. Massie was a reliable vote on most things for Republicans, but he started to get high on his own supply – seduced by the media coverage of his obsession with Jeffrey Epstein and the idea that there is a network of pervert monsters out there somewhere that he could help put away.” [editor’s note: He’s right that one congresscritter is unlikely to make a difference. And it’s so unusual for Derek Hunter to be right about ANYTHING that I considered it worth noting – TLK] (05/21/26)
