“Piers Morgan, in a February podcast, accused his guest, ‘trans activist’ Blossom Brown, of ‘race-baiting.’ Brown replied, ‘Black women cannot be racist to white women.’ Brown then added this inability to be racist to white women extended to Morgan: ‘How am I racist to you? I’m Black. I can’t be racist to you.’ Brown also accused Morgan of lacking ‘the intellectual capacity to understand’ this position. Ryan Clark is a black ESPN host.” (05/29/25)
“The FBI is ramping up its investigation into pipe bombs planted in Washington, D.C. on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in 2021. One top official is now suggesting that after four years, the bureau is getting close to a major break in the case. ‘I want answers on this, and I’m pretty confident that we’re closing in on some suspects,’ FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told ‘Fox & Friends’ Thursday, noting the case is a top priority. The agency renewed its focus on the unsolved case earlier this year. In January, investigators released new video footage showing the person who planted the bombs outside the headquarters of both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C.” (05/29/25)
“Last Thursday, May 22, a coalition named Veterans and Allies Fast for Gaza kicked off a 40-day fast outside the United Nations in Manhattan in protest against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Military veterans and allies pledged to fast for 40 days on only 250 calories per day, the amount recently reported as what the residents of Gaza are enduring. The fasters are demanding: Full humanitarian aid to Gaza under U.N. authority, and No more U.S. weapons to Israel. Seven people are fasting from May 22 to June 30 outside the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, where they are present from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm, Mondays to Fridays. Many others are fasting around the U.S. and beyond for as many days as they can. The fast is organized by Veterans For Peace along with over 40 cosponsoring organizations.” (05/29/25)
“Lingerie firm Victoria’s Secret has taken down its US website and says it has halted some in-store services following what it has described as ‘a security incident.’ The normal site has been replaced by a customer notice which says it is ‘working around the clock to fully restore operations.’ It says its stores — and those of its spin-off, PINK — are still open for business. The company’s UK website is unaffected. In a statement, the company detailed the action it has been taking. ‘We immediately enacted our response protocols, third-party experts are engaged, and we took down our website and some in-store services as a precaution,’ it said. It has not given any further details about the nature of the incident or confirmed when it began.” (05/29/25)
“Colorful career criminal Willie Sutton once may (or may not) have been asked why he robbed banks. ‘Because that is where the money is,’ he supposedly replied. A similar principle may explain the first foreign trip of President Donald J. Trump’s second term, which was not to a traditional U.S. ally in Europe. Rather, he set off to visit the capitals of the Gulf hydrocarbon potentates Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. In royal palaces there, he feasted and was offered hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in American companies and opportunities for the Trump Organization, too. … Strikingly missing, however, was a side trip to Israel or any evident consultations with the extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead, Israel was frozen out and blindsided by Trump’s pronouncements.” (05/29/25)
“China launched a spacecraft that promises to return samples from an asteroid near Mars and ‘yield groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity’s knowledge of the cosmos’, the country’s space agency said. The Tianwen-2 probe launched early Thursday from southern China aboard the workhorse Long March 3-B rocket. The probe will collect samples from the asteroid 2016HO3 and explore the main-belt comet 311P, which lies even farther from Earth than Mars, according to the China National Space Administration. Shan Zhongde, head of the CNSA, was quoted as saying the Tianwen-2 mission represents a ‘significant step in China’s new journey of interplanetary exploration’ and over its decade-long mission will ‘yield groundbreaking discoveries and expand humanity’s knowledge of the cosmos.’ Samples from 2016HO3 are due to be returned in about two years.” (05/29/25)
“A Russian book distributor has ordered bookshops to ‘return or destroy’ works by the Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeffery Eugenides and the British bestseller Bridget Collins, among others, in the latest case of censorship targeting the country’s literary scene. Trading House BMM sent a letter to shops this week, seen by the BBC, with a list of 37 titles that should immediately be removed from sale. The list also included texts by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami, and a number of Russian writers. The order comes amid growing Kremlin censorship since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has targeted books featuring anti-war sentiment, LGBTQ themes, and criticism of Russia’s leadership. The letter warned of ‘adverse consequences’ if books such as Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides and Murakami’s Ecstasy were not pulled from shelves as there were suspicions they ‘do not comply with Russian laws’, without providing further details.” (05/29/25)
“There is one, and probably only one, saving grace to this moment in U.S. history: Donald Trump is absolutely terrible at getting things done. Despite a Republican Party filled with sycophants and a Democratic Party that still can’t figure out how to resist him, despite a cowed media, business, and legal elite, despite the prodigious powers of the presidency, he still manages to stumble. Inattention to what the job entails has something to do with it, but really he just has a superior knack for failing. Remember this is a guy who managed to bankrupt a casino. Trump’s latest misadventure concerns his Liberation Day tariffs, which late on Wednesday were unanimously ruled illegal by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade that included a Trump nominee.” (05/29/25)
“A judge dismissed a murder charge against a Michigan police officer who struck a fleeing man with his unmarked SUV, saying his role with a federal task force gives him immunity from state prosecution. There was no evidence that state police Det. Sgt. Brian Keely ‘did no more than what was necessary and proper’ to catch a man wanted for various crimes, U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou said Wednesday. Samuel Sterling, 25, died after he was pinned against a wall at a Burger King in Kentwood in April 2024. At that time, Keely was part of a U.S. Marshal Service group that tries to catch fugitives in western Michigan. ‘Sterling was actively attempting to evade arrest, leading multiple officers on an extended chase in a populated area,’ the judge said.” (05/29/25)
“The moment that Elon Musk’s most ardent critics have been waiting for has finally arrived as he exits the Trump administration and hands over control of the Department of Government Efficiency. They will assure us that the results have been an embarrassing failure, but they could not be more wrong. Musk has forever changed how Americans look at federal spending, and that is a wonderful thing. First of all, DOGE estimates that it has saved taxpayers $160 billion. A sneering NPR claims that there is only data to prove $63 billion, but even if that is true, that’s an enormous amount of waste being cut..” [editor’s note: Now if only the actual bill(s) start including those actual cuts – SAT] (05/29/25)
