Hunter Biden benefiting from Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” would be a slap in the face

Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine

“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)

https://nypost.com/2026/05/20/opinion/miranda-devine-hunter-biden-benefiting-from-trumps-noble-anti-weaponization-fund-would-be-a-slap-in-the-face/

Steve Trinward

Turkey: Court removes head of main opposition party

Source: ABC News

“A Turkish court on Thursday issued a ruling that effectively removed the head of the country’s main opposition party by annulling a 2023 congress that elected him. The move deals a serious blow to the beleaguered Republican People’s Party, or CHP, as it struggles under waves of legal cases targeting its members and elected officials. An appeals court in Turkey’s capital Ankara declared the CHP congress that picked Ozgur Ozel as chairman to be null, ordering that he should be replaced by his predecessor Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Last year, a lower court ruled against claims of irregularities and misconduct surrounding Ozel’s election but Thursday’s decision overturned the original verdict.” (05/21/26)

https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/turkish-court-rules-remove-head-main-opposition-party-133192160

Thomas L. Knapp

Does It Matter Who Wins the AI Race?

Source: Gideon’s Substack
by Noah Millman

“[T]he American frontier A.I. companies aren’t betting everything on A.G.I. even if it looks like they are. The value of dominating A.I. and getting your models embedded everywhere is enormous even if they are just a ‘normal’ revolutionary technology. The winner doesn’t necessarily take all, but it can take a lot. They aren’t betting everything on A.G.I.—but America might be, in the sense that, if we focus exclusively on giving these companies what they want, their wins might not translate readily into American “wins” in the economic and geopolitical contest with China.” (05/21/26)

https://gideons.substack.com/p/does-it-matter-who-wins-the-ai-race

Thomas L. Knapp

MN: “Quality Learing Center” raked in $215k federal payout; senator demands receipts

Source: New York Post

“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)

https://nypost.com/2026/05/21/us-news/minnesotas-quality-learing-center-raked-in-215k-federal-payout-senator-demands-receipts/

Steve Trinward

Obama’s strong terms curbed Iran. Trump struggles to secure even a weak deal

Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jackie Calmes

“The president, along with his Republican cheerleaders, counts his first-term abrogation of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as a signature achievement. This week, yet again, he falsely claimed that had he not done so, Iran would have a nuclear weapon. In fact, his action in 2018 taking the United States out of the multinational deal subsequently led to Iran’s rebuilding of its nuclear program, the emboldening of the Iranian hard-liners now in power and the Middle East morass in which the United States is now mired. That quagmire has left Trump seeming desperate for a deal — almost certainly a worse deal than the one Obama struck.” (05/21/26)

https://archive.is/G0t1K

Thomas L. Knapp

When Trump Targets the Media, the World’s Autocrats Are Taking Notes

Source: Common Dreams
by Scott Griffen

“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)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-targets-media

Steve Trinward