“Trump has indicated his intention to continue fighting wars with his proposal to fund the largest military budget in U.S. history: $1,500,000,000,000 ($1.5 trillion). This would send two-thirds of next year’s federal discretionary budget to what he calls the ‘Department of War’ (which is actually more honest than the official name, the Department of Defense). $1.5 trillion would be around a 50% increase over this year’s military budget and on par in real terms with the largest military budgets during World War II. Congress and the public must reject Trump’s $1.5 trillion proposal as the joke it is. They must also resist his plans to make a ‘supplemental’ request for up to $200 billion more for the war in Iran, which is already as unpopular as U.S. conflicts in Iraq and Vietnam. Congress should be cutting the war budget by hundreds of billions of dollars rather than irresponsibly inflating it further.” (05/20/26)
“Trump returned to Washington with little to show for his visit: only two agreements on opening Chinese markets to U.S. products, and no political help in the Middle East. China did agree to buy 200 Boeing aircraft (fewer than expected), but it has failed to follow through on similar announcements in the past. The White House also claimed that China has agreed to purchase $17 billion of agricultural products, but China has not confirmed this. It did not prevent Trump from claiming that they ‘did great trade deals’ and that the meeting was ‘a great success.’ It was the optics of the meeting that demonstrated how far Trump has fallen in Chinese eyes.” (05/19/26)
“By virtue of his own actions, Trump is now left with a series of policy options that range from least bad to terrible. None of them are ideal, and all of them carry some risk. For starters, Trump could resume the war. … Yet there are no guarantees that doubling down on military force will work. … What about continuing the status quo? While this contingency would be less costly than another round of bombing or a U.S. ground invasion, it’s unclear whether it would help or hurt negotiations toward a settlement. … Striking an agreement to end the war, return the strait to open traffic and restrict Iran’s nuclear program would be the most beneficial policy for the United States with the least amount of cost attached — not quite undoing the harm from Trump’s first-term decision to scrap the nuclear deal and his second-term decision to start a war.” (05/20/26)
Source: Jake Porter’s Analysis & Investigations
by Jake Porter
“In late 2023, a quiet operation was launched to neutralize a threat to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. The target wasn’t a Democrat, but the Libertarian Party (LP). What followed was a masterclass in political co-optation. Through backroom deals, a highly unusual joint fundraising committee with Robert Kennedy Jr., and blatant internal sabotage, leadership within the Libertarian National Committee (LNC) effectively turned the party of ‘Principle’ into a subsidiary of the Trump campaign.” (05/19/26)
“President Trump is facing a moment of maximum peril in his handling of Iran — one that will shape his legacy, America’s stature and perhaps the course of history itself. We are entering the sixth week of a two-week cease-fire that was agreed to on the pre-condition that the Strait of Hormuz would be opened immediately. Yet it never opened, and Iran continues to attack our Arab allies — while it dithers and strings out talks. What gives? The prez’s big risk: Political pressure over the midterms and the buzzing of isolationists in Trump’s own camp might nudge him to take any deal that lets him declare victory, save face and bug out of Iran. This would be a catastrophic mistake, comparable almost to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich in 1938. It would burn his legacy on the bonfire of political expediency.” (05/19/26)
Source: Chris’s Substack
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
“May is National Pet Month in the United States. It is a celebration of the bond between pets and people — a testament to the immense joy that pets bring to our lives. Through the years, the deep connection that I experienced with our family pets was a source of support, companionship, visibility, and love.” (05/19/26)
“One unexpected result from last week’s China-U.S. summit was that Chinese leader Xi Jinping told President Donald Trump that he ‘would consider’ releasing the country’s most prominent Christian pastor, Ezra Jin Mingri, from detention. Whether the release happens or not, the mere fact that Mr. Xi had to respond favorably to the U.S. leader’s request confirmed an obvious point to the country’s religious faithful: The Chinese Communist Party does not control the narrative of what their persecution means. God does. Last October, when police rounded up Mr. Jin and more than 20 other pastors in a major crackdown, his Beijing Zion Church issued this statement: ‘The Church belongs to God, not to any political power’. Such conviction might help explain why, by some estimates, the number of Christians in China remains close to the party’s total membership despite decades of repression, frequently raising curiosity among many Chinese about Christianity.” (05/19/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“[I]f Smith is correct, we should have seen feudalism last longest in places poorly suited to produce export goods, well suited to produce subsistence goods. For similar reasons, we should have seen feudalism last longest in places where transport costs were high — most obviously places far from good water transport, which in the Middle Ages was typically much less costly than overland transport. The theory is, at least in principle, a testable one.” (05/19/26)
