“In his stumbling explanation of the muddled autopsy report on the 2024 election debacle, Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin uttered two pieces of wisdom that regrettably, neither he nor the party has heeded: ‘The Democratic brand is in trouble and needs repair’ and ‘I agree with folks who have said we have to learn from the past to win the future.’ Had they followed that advice, they would have seen how history tells a neglected and important story. It begins when Bill Clinton was handed the keys to the White House by a group of largely Southern officials who formed the New Democrats with the mission of putting a Southern, pro-business candidate in the White House. With its pointed references to Reagan speeches and policies, Clinton’s Second Inaugural signaled a devil’s bargain that ended a century of Democratic Party policies.” (05/28/26)
“The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for a [b]lack death row inmate from Mississippi who claims there was racial bias in the makeup of the jury that convicted him. By a 5-4 vote, the justices sided with Terry Pitchford, who was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner. ‘In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down,’ Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court. Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices joined with Kavanaugh. There were 11 white jurors and one [b]lack juror in a trial with similarities to that of another [b]lack man on Mississippi’s death row, whose conviction the high court overturned seven years ago.” (05/28/26)
“Joe Biden’s elaborate game of hide-and-seek over his suspected theft of highly classified government documents may finally be coming to an end. The Department of Justice announced, ‘Ready or not, here I come!’ So, the former president scampered to a federal court on Tuesday, begging for protection to prevent the public release of audio recordings and transcripts in which he is known to have incriminated himself. Asking a judge to effectively cover up evidence of crimes — whether charged or not — is a fanciful proposition. The recordings were obtained lawfully in 2023 by then-special counsel Robert Hur. Hence, Biden can no longer legitimately claim a Fourth Amendment privacy interest in them. Once they entered the public and prosecutorial domain, they were stripped of privacy protections.” (05/27/26)
“For nearly two centuries after France abolished slavery, the colonial-era law that classified humans as property has remained quietly on the books. On Thursday, the lower house of parliament voted to wipe it from French law. The National Assembly voted 254-0 — a rare show of unanimity — to adopt a bill repealing Code Noir, or Black Code, the 1685 decree King Louis XIV signed to govern slaves across France’s colonies. The law turned human beings into chattel, allowing them to be worked, beaten, sold, raped and murdered. And the realization that France never formally did away with it left many aghast.” (05/28/26)
“The European Union has imposed a €200m ($232m; £173m) fine on Chinese-owned online retailer Temu for having illegal products such as dangerous baby toys and faulty chargers for sale on its platform. The European Commission said the company had ‘failed to diligently identify, analyse and assess the systemic risks’ of the products and the harm they could cause to consumers. Temu has been under investigation since October 2024 over whether it has been meeting its obligations as a designated Very Large Online Platform under EU law. The online retailer said it disagreed with the decision and deemed the fine disproportionate, and was now considering available options.” (05/28/26)
“Donald Trump’s America is a scary place in significant part thanks to an unholy alliance of MAGA devotees who don’t believe in science and see intellectuals as public enemy number one, and a gaggle of Silicon Valley militarists who think that they’re the smartest people in the room, if not the universe. Add in White Christian nationalists who abuse religious precepts to sow hatred and division and you have the foundations of the political base that elected Donald Trump (twice!). And worse yet, those groupings are likely to be with us long after our current president has gone off to that great cheeseburger stand in the sky.” (05/28/26)
“Sean Donovan has rented his childhood home in San Francisco on Airbnb for years. Tech workers in town for conferences, and families coming for graduations are common customers, but last month he had a new guest: a robot that he said left a mess. Donovan alleges that a San Francisco startup booked his home on Airbnb last month ‘under false pretenses’ to conduct tests on the ‘robotic prototype,’ and left the place in shambles, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in San Francisco County Superior Court. He’s seeking more than $12,000 for a laundry list of damages from the Bot Company, (identified in court records as ‘Botco’) for personal property damage and unauthorized entry into a locked closet. Donovan told SFGATE that he and his partner had never put more hours into fixing the house after an Airbnb rental.” (05/27/26)
“On the morning of May 18, 2026, on the granite steps of Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building, three chic women arranged themselves like starlets at Cannes. The heels. The practiced hip-thrust. Weight cocked to one side, chin down, eyes up. With enough mascara between them to repaint Gracie Mansion. But the most revealing part, the part that showed the most skin, was the laminated press credential blessed by the office of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. It certified they were card-carrying members of the working press. Only they were not here to cover a criminal. Luigi’s Angels, or as they call themselves, more affectionately, the Mangionistas, were there to worship a charismatic idol and to defend his violence.” (05/28/26)
“Anti-mafia investigators in Italy have seized cash, companies and other assets worth more than €200m (£175m) in an operation they say targeted the network of notorious late Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro. The funds, described as ‘huge amounts of capital’ by the financial police in Palermo, are said to be proceeds from over four decades of drugs trafficking linked to the presumed former head of the Cosa Nostra group. Announcing their results in Sicily on Thursday, investigators released a video showing masked police officers, some in riot gear, barging down doors and scaling walls to raid a series of vast luxury villas surrounded by palm tree-lined lawns. Messina Denaro spent three decades on the run until his arrest in 2023 as he left a clinic where he was being treated for cancer. He died in custody soon after.” (05/28/26)
“The United States has indicted Cuba’s former president Raúl Castro on murder charges, deployed a carrier strike group to the Caribbean, and issued explicit threats of military intervention. Is the US moving toward another regime change operation in the Western Hemisphere? The rhetoric coming out of Washington suggests very much so. Cuba looks set to see a repeat of the Venezuelan playbook. President Donald Trump has said he will be “the one” to finally act on Cuba. The message from Washington is clear. Cuba is next. Latin America is empire’s favorite backyard, where the United States has consistently moved to remove governments that pursue independent foreign and economic policies not in line with American interests.” (05/28/26)
