Thursday, May 28, 2026. Chumps strikes Iran again, his slush fund is universally despised as is Todd Blanche, the economy remains in the toilet, and much more.
Iran said it had
retaliated on Thursday against the United States by targeting an unnamed
American base in response to strikes in southern Iran, escalating
tensions amid negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the
war.
In recent
days, Washington and Tehran have suggested that they were close to
agreeing on a narrow agreement to allow commercial shipping to resume in
the strait. But on Wednesday, U.S. forces launched new strikes and
President Trump reiterated that he did not want the waterway to be under
Iranian control.
Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday that it had targeted a
base where the U.S. strikes originated but did not say where that was or
how it had been attacked. The guards warned that further U.S. strikes
would be met by an even “more decisive” response.
On
Thursday morning, the Kuwaiti military said that its air defenses had
intercepted hostile drones and missiles, but did not specify the origin
or extent of the attack. The United States has five military bases in Kuwait.
Hours earlier, American forces conducted strikes in southern Iran, the second round of attacks
this week. The United States knocked down four attack drones that a
U.S. official said Iran had launched over the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran said it targeted an American airbase Thursday, a response to new
U.S. attacks that it called a “blatant violation” of both the shaky
ceasefire between the two countries and international law.
The latest military exchange,
which appeared to draw in the United States’ ally of Kuwait, raised
further doubts about diplomatic efforts to end the war and reopen the
crucial Strait of Hormuz.
Hours earlier, President Donald Trump
signaled an agreement between the two sides wasn’t close, and that he
would not be rushed by either international economic pressure or the
political pressure of upcoming midterm elections.
Iran’s chokehold on the Strait
of Hormuz — which it has effectively shut off in response to the
U.S.-Israeli attack late February — has caused a global economic shock,
with prices rising for oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other essential
goods.
Trump also warned
Oman, another U.S. ally in the region, against partnering with Iran to
jointly control the Strait. “Oman will behave just like everybody else
or we’ll have to blow them up,” he said during a Cabinet meeting, before
adding, “They understand that. They’ll be fine.”
Chump is a con man, grifter and liar and he's assembled
people like him to staff the administration. Which is how we get Pete
Hegseth and others who lie about the amount of weapons. We called it
out at the start of the Iran War -- they were running out of weapons. Ben Finley (AP) reports now:
The weapons systems are Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are used to strike targets deep inside enemy territory, and Patriot and THAAD interceptors that defend against incoming missiles and drones.
“The
United States has enough munitions for any plausible scenario in the
Iran war, but the depleted inventories have created a window of
vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict,” the Center for
Strategic and International Studies said in its new report, provided to
The Associated Press. “The time needed to rebuild those inventories has
thus become a major concern.”
The
US and Israel are "burning through" their supply of Tomahawk and
interceptor missiles in their war on Iran, alarming some in the
Pentagon.
According to officials speaking to
the Washington Post, the US has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise
missiles in four weeks of its war with Iran.
Only
a few hundred of the cruise missiles are manufactured each year and
while the Pentagon does not publicly disclose its numbers, one official
told the news outlet the number of Tomahawks left in the Middle East is
“alarmingly low”.
Tomahawks can travel more
than 1,000 miles, which allows the US military to hit targets in Iran
without sending pilots into a hostile airspace.
It has only gotten worse since then.
And as Ben Finley notes in his new report, the issue is not money, the issue is the time it takes to manufacture Tomahawks.
President Donald Trump spent roughly 10 minutes of a high-stakes cabinet meeting on Wednesday — convened amid delicate negotiations to end the U.S. war with Iran
— ranting about his efforts to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting
Pool, falsely claiming predecessors wasted "hundreds of millions" on
the landmark and repeatedly comparing it to a swimming pool.
"From
1922 on, it really never worked," Trump told cabinet members, calling
the pool — which he repeatedly referred to as a "reflecting lake" — an
embarrassment. "It was filthy dirty. It was Biden."
[. . .]
Trump
claimed the project would cost "like $10,000,000, maybe $12,000,000."
But federal records show the no-bid contract awarded to Atlantic
Industrial Coatings — a Virginia firm Trump chose because it had worked
on pools at his golf club — has already climbed to $13.1 million, more
than seven times his original estimate of $1.8 million. Critics also
note that Trump's plan does not address the pool's faulty filtration
system, which has caused chronic leaks for decades.
GOP
Representative Mike Flood had yet another disastrous town hall in
Norfolk, Nebraska, on Tuesday, as his constituents drowned him out with
grievances regarding the war on Iran, the White House ballroom, Jeffrey
Epstein, and President Trump’s “anti-weaponization” slush fund.
[. . .]
The
only thing Flood seemed to fully agree with the crowd on was Trump’s
$1.8 billion slush fund—a shameless plan to direct billions of taxpayer
dollars to Trump’s supporters who felt wronged or targeted by the Biden
administration—even those who attacked Capitol Police on January 6.
“I
do not think we should be creating a fund for people that commit
physical violence against law enforcement,” he said. “The Senate is
opening an oversight effort. And we in the House have to determine
whether we do the same in the Judiciary Committee or in the Oversight
Committee. I clearly think Congress needs to have an oversight role in
this before I can sign off or support this.”
President Donald Trump’s $1.7 billion “anti-weaponization fund”
is even more disliked among voters than previously known, according to
new internal GOP polling that has circulated among prominent GOP
organizations “in recent days,” sending several Republican operatives
into an all-out panic, Zeteo reported Wednesday.
“This
could really f--- us,” a “well-connected national GOP consultant” told
Zeteo, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Why do you think
everyone’s so upset?”
[. . .]
“Far
too many Americans now view President Trump as corrupt, and that is
going to be a significant hurdle for Republicans this year at a time
when the voters want to be hearing about how you are making life easier
and cheaper for them or how you’re making the country safe – not about a
f------ ballroom,” said a former Trump administration official familiar
with the internal polling, speaking with Zeteo on the condition of
anonymity.
“This fund business just adds to
that perception. And Donald Trump isn’t the one whose name is on the
ballot this year, so he’s not going to be the one who really loses from
his decisions or rhetoric.”
Chump
shares the blame for this move with Acting Attorney General and Acting
Fool Todd Blanche. Blanche knows that Chump did not have grounds for a
lawsuit. As Dan Abrams pointed out early on in the discussion, Chump's
IRS leak took place in his first term so, when he started saying he was
going to sue this past January, the two year limit to file any kind of
lawsuit had passed. Chump got into trouble with a judge who questioned
how he could sue the government and be the one deciding on settling with
him? He was the prosecutor and the defendant. Then Chump announced he
was withdrawing his lawsuit (which would not have been allowed to go
through to begin with) and instead taking $1.776 billion for a fund that
would be overseen by people picked out by Blanche and that Chump could
fire at will who would award it to those poor January 6th
insurrectionists who had faced trials and jail time for attacking the
Capitol police and terrorizing Josh Hawley and assorted other members of
Congress. Oh, and the cherry on top, Chump and his family can never be
audited by the IRS and any ongoing audits would cease. Even the editorial board of THE NEW YORK POST is aghast, "The
Trump Justice Department settlement of the Trump IRS lawsuit looks
terrible. A blanket guarantee that the prez and his family will never
ever face an IRS audit? A $1.8 billon 'anti-weaponization fund,'
courtesy of the taxpayers, to be doled out to people who claim they were
victimized by Biden-era 'lawfare' -- with no evident need to even show
evidence?"
The
shocker is that, suddenly, congressional Republicans have taken a stand
against the madness that has infected the Justice Department (one
strain of it, at least). Democrats — and virtually every other human
with a brain and a pulse — were immediately outraged last week when the
DoJ unveiled a $1.776 billion (get it? 1776??) “anti-weaponization” fund
that would serve as a cash trough for January 6 rioters, including
those who were convicted of seditious conspiracy and assaulted police
officers, among others. Don’t fret, though. As Blanche confidently reassured CNN’s Paula Reid, “Just to be clear, people who hurt police get money all the time, okay?” (Okay, name one.)
But
outrage from the minority party in Congress mostly generates rhetoric
and headlines. It takes the party in power to actually do something. And
late last week, initial tremors from congressional Republicans swelled
into a full-blown earthquake. Republican Senate Majority Leader John
Thune tiptoed cautiously
at first toward dissent, noting that he was “not a big fan” of the fund
and that “our members have very legitimate questions” about it. One of
those members, Senator Thom Tillis, phrased it better: “I think it’s stupid on stilts.”
The situation devolved quickly for Blanche. The New York Times reported
the acting AG’s frantic effort to reassure Senate Republicans — who may
someday vote on his confirmation — went quite poorly. According to the
Times, the meeting turned into “a two-hour blowup in which dozens of
Republican senators vented their anger and concern about the president’s
fund at Mr. Blanche. They questioned its legal basis, whom it would pay
and how the process would work. And they made it clear they wanted no
part of the plan, the product of a deal struck between Mr. Trump’s
lawyers and his own administration.” Senator Ted Cruz confirmed
that Republican lawmakers were “screaming” at Blanche and that the
Trump administration’s slush fund could provoke “a full-on revolt in the
Senate.”
Now
Blanche finds himself in a tricky spot. He can’t stand behind the slush
fund and still realistically hope to be confirmed by the Senate as
attorney general, should he be nominated. Republicans hold a 53-47 edge,
but already at least four Republican senators are on record against the
fund in its current iteration. So Blanche will either have to stick
with the scheme and sacrifice his own shot at the top job — unlikely,
given that he has already shown he’ll do whatever it takes to advance —
or have to back off. Whether that means modifying the plan or abandoning
it altogether, it’s increasingly unlikely the slush fund will become
reality as presently constituted.
Liz Oyer, former pardon attorney at the Justice Department, called it
a criminal conspiracy. Former deputy U.S. solicitor general Philip
Allen Lacovara wrote that it looks like “a classic example of a
‘collusive settlement,'” which is “a species of fraud” that “[m]ost
typically … involve[s] self-interested deals in which a person with
insurance agrees to settle a bogus claim or commits to an unreasonable
payment in the home of foisting the costs on an insurance company.”
And
as Anna Bower and Eric Columbus of Lawfare noted, if payouts are made
to Trump-aligned individuals and companies, including people pardoned
for crimes associated with the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,
it could violate the Antideficiency Act, which makes “a federal crime
to ‘knowingly and willfully‘ spend money not appropriated by Congress.”
Second,
although Trump is operating as if he is above the law, there is room
for future courts to find liability for “creative crimes” he commits
while in the White House. In giving Trump criminal immunity for official
acts in July of 2024, the Supreme Court made clear that former
presidents can still be prosecuted for crimes involving unofficial acts.
This could theoretically cover even actions taken by Trump to minimize
his personal tax liability.
During Trump’s first term, even the friendly majority on the Supreme Court refused to protect his personal accounting firm
from having to turn over his tax returns to a number of congressional
committees. In 2022, it refused to block a lower court ruling that Trump
must disclose his tax returns and other financial records to the House
Ways and Means Committee.
Those decisions
signal a potential willingness on the part of five justices to recognize
a sliver of accountability for presidents even after their disastrous
criminal immunity decision in Trump v. U.S.
Third,
Trump’s self-serving deal for IRS immunity might not hold up in the
long run. The real question right now is not whether Trump has the
constitutional authority to grant himself tax immunity and extend it to
his sons and his business (he doesn’t), but whether voters will one day
elect an administration willing to bring cases ostensibly covered by the
addendum. If that happens, Trump’s defense team would undoubtedly seek
to have them thrown out under the terms of the addendum. In response,
the government would argue that the addendum should be given no weight
because Trump had no legal authority to grant himself such immunity in
the first place. The whole thing is bogus, so any attempt to use it as a
valid legal defense is bogus, too.
Blanche is infamous for saying "I love you, sir"
to Chump. Kiss up or latent behavior -- who knows? But it's not the
behavior of an Attorney General. And, sadly, that's no longer one of
the big problems facing Blanche. Colin Kalmbacher (LAW & CRIME) reports:
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche is now the subject of a bar complaint filed with authorities in New York, according to a nonprofit government watchdog that is requesting an investigation.
"Blanche's
conduct potentially violated numerous Rules of Professional Conduct,"
the complaint reads. "Blanche's conduct in connection with the Abrego
Garcia matter is a serious abuse of public office, undermines the
integrity of the Department of Justice, and erodes public confidence in
the legal profession and in the fair administration of justice."
Earlier this month,
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr., a Barack Obama appointee,
determined the evidence before the court "sadly reflects an abuse of
prosecuting power." The court went on to dismiss the indictment –
finding the prosecution vindictive and selective.
"The Court does not reach its conclusion lightly," Crenshaw wrote in the memorandum opinion.
"The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego's successful
lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the Government would not
have brought this prosecution."
Back to Chump's war of choice. Senator Tammy Baldwin notes the impact this war is having on farmers:
WISCONSIN – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) visited
two farms in Janesville and Sharon to hear from Wisconsin farmers about
how President Trump’s war of choice in Iran is jacking up the cost of
fertilizer and fuel and hurting their operations. Senator Baldwin
visited Rebout Farms in Janesville, Wisconsin, which raises 4,200 acres
of corn, soybeans and wheat in Rock County, and Frontier Farms in
Sharon, Wisconsin, which specializes in soybeans, corn, and winter
wheat.
“Wisconsin farmers work hard to produce world-class products that
feed the world and power our rural economies. On top of Donald Trump’s
reckless trade war that shut off places to sell their products and
jacked up costs, Wisconsin’s farmers are now paying record high costs
for diesel and fertilizer in the middle of spring planting because of
this illegal war in Iran,” said Senator Baldwin.
“Today, I visited two Wisconsin farms to understand how Donald Trump’s
war of choice has created even more headwinds for Wisconsin farmers.
This much is clear: this war needs to end.”
One-third?of the world’s fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and since the attacks on the shipping lane, prices have gone up?25%. Diesel prices have?also?jumped?75%?in the last?three?months, dramatically increasing?farmers’?costs?to?operate?their machinery.?Senator Baldwin has?repeatedly forced votes?in
the Senate to end Trump’s war in Iran that is hurting Wisconsin
farmers, families, and servicemembers. Senator Baldwin also leads bipartisan legislation
that would provide American producers with more accurate information on
prices for fertilizer and fertilizer products in response to
longstanding concerns over rising input costs.
As Americans confront a surge in prices at the pump, another inflation wave is headed for the grocery store.
A combination of factors including bad weather, tariffs and a dwindling
cattle herd are already pushing up grocery prices at an above-average
pace. In April, they rose by the most in nearly four years, and
economists say the impact of the Iran war and a potential El NiƱo
weather pattern will only add to pressures into 2027.
The hit to US household finances from higher
grocery bills is set to intensify just ahead of the November midterm
elections, amplifying affordability as a defining issue. And to a
greater extent than the surge in gas prices, the slower-moving food
shock will be difficult to reverse quickly because the size of autumn
harvests is determined by planting decisions made in the spring.
“It’s
going to be a challenging year,” said Ricky Volpe, an agribusiness
professor at California Polytechnic State University who previously
worked at the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.
“Food is going to become less affordable, and consumers should be
prepared for it.”
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
“If we overhaul our tax code and tax AI, we can use that money to build a country that works for everyone.”
“The American people deserve to share in the success of this technology.”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) published an op-ed in TIME making the case that any solution to the problems posed by AI must include taxing AI and investing in people.
Specifically, the senator calls for overhauling the rigged tax code,
including by taxing the wealthy and making corporations pay their fair
share, to ensure the economic gains from AI benefit all Americans. The
senator also calls for a new tax on AI companies that would tax the
energy usage of data centers powering AI.
Americans are hanging on by their fingernails in an economy that
funnels wealth to the ultra-rich and leaves crumbs for working people.
AI threatens to supercharge this divide: tech executives have warned that AI could lead to “a level of wealth concentration that will break society” and create a “permanent underclass.”
I refuse to accept that future. Building an economy that works for
all of us will require multiple policy responses. But it starts by
acknowledging: it’s time to tax AI and invest in people.
AI holds tremendous promise. At the same time, Americans are rightly concerned that AI could further rig our economy. The technology is creating dozens of tech billionaires, while companies are laying off workers in the name of AI. Meanwhile, AI data centers are jacking up utility bills; for families living near large data centers, electricity costs have skyrocketed by as much as 267%
over the past five years. It’s no surprise that Americans are showing
up at town meetings to protest data centers and communities across the
country are fighting for data center moratoriums.
Big Tech CEOs say this is only the beginning, predicting that AI will soon automate
most white-collar tasks. Yes, some of this may be hyperbole. But there
is no denying that AI is already changing the labor market. And because
health care is often tied to a job, an AI wave could cost a family more
than a lost paycheck. Even those whose jobs and insurance remain intact
could be hit: experts warn that the hype around AI is fueling a financial bubble that threatens another economic crash.
Policymakers undoubtedly need to regulate AI and protect against its
worst-case harms, like cyber attacks, which could impact our financial system and national security.
We must also tackle the problem of AI’s accelerating demand for energy
and ensure that families’ utility bills don’t skyrocket. And we need
greater scrutiny of the murky world of private credit that finances a big chunk of AI deals so they don’t topple our economy.
But any response to a looming AI crisis must also tackle our rigged tax code.
Taxing AI is one way we make sure the winnings from AI benefit all
Americans, rather than channeling them only to the wealthy few. If
millions of people lose their jobs to AI, we’ll need the funds to
deliver universal health care so those workers are not bankrupted by a
visit to the doctor. If AI transforms the future of work, we'll need to
invest in free education and apprenticeships and a new jobs guarantee so
that all Americans have good-paying work. And while workers get back on
their feet, we’ll need the revenue to bolster unemployment insurance to
keep families afloat. The only way we can get there is by overhauling
our tax code.
We can start by making corporations pay their fair share. Right now,
companies pay payroll taxes for their workers but get tax breaks for
investing in technology—effectively, a tax penalty for hiring human
beings and a tax break for buying equipment. In an AI world, that means
our tax code is incentivizing corporations to fire people and replace
them with AI. That’s wrong. We need to level the playing field by
raising taxes on corporations and capital gains and closing corporate
loopholes. One way to tackle those loopholes? Strengthen the minimum tax
for billionaire corporations, which I helped pass into law.
But there’s more. Some of the wealthiest individuals in America get
away with paying lower tax rates than a Boston public school teacher
because our system taxes income but not wealth. AI billionaires are
running the same playbook: get rich off massive stock valuations and
avoid paying the taxes that would be owed if those funds were earned as
salary. If it wasn’t clear before, there’s no question in a world of AI:
we need a wealth tax. Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman shouldn’t pay lower tax
rates than the workers they fire.
Rethinking our tax code must also include going to the source: that
means taxing AI companies directly, which can start with taxing AI data
centers. The majority of AI data centers are controlled or operated
by trillion-dollar companies. By imposing a reasonable excise tax on
the energy used by data centers, families could recoup some of the gains
of AI, while America continues to stay competitive in the AI race. A
well-designed tax would focus on the companies that can afford it and
scale with AI’s impact: the bigger the data center, the more they pay.
We can't be afraid to consider even bigger and bolder proposals to
tax AI too, including ideas that sound radical today but may quickly
become common sense. Because here’s what I see clearly: if we overhaul
our tax code and tax AI, we can use that money to build a country that
works for everyone. A country where health care is treated as a human
right, where every American is guaranteed a good job, and where
education isn’t a privilege reserved for the wealthy. That’s what I
believe taxing AI promises.
AI was trained on human creativity and intelligence, AI was funded in
part by federal investments in scientific research, and AI is powered
by data centers that are built on American land and use our shared
electric grid. The American people deserve to share in the success of
this technology. And I’m willing to work with anyone to get it done.
