May 11, 2026
The plan to dump Democratic voters
Hartmann Report - We have shocking news this week from CNN: Trump is preparing to illegally purge tens of millions of Democratic voters from voter rolls nationally, just in time for the election. ....
Russian dictator Joseph Stalin is often quoted (perhaps apocryphally) as saying:
“It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes.”
Today’s GOP version of that could be:
“It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s how many people we can remove from the voting rolls that will decide the election.”
In this year’s iteration, the Trump Department of Justice has demanded that all states turn over their voting rolls, complete with names, addresses, driver’s license and social security numbers, voting history, and date of birth.
They’re also requiring states to sign a “Memorandum of Understanding” that says the states will then purge from their voting rolls anybody who Republican partisans within the Trump administration — once they’ve dug into the state’s voter data — find to be a “concern”:
“You agree therefore that within forty-five (45) days of receiving that notice from the Justice Department of any issues, insufficiencies, inadequacies, deficiencies, anomalies, or concerns, your state will clean its VRL/Data by removing ineligible voters…”
Gas prices
Bloomberg - As gasoline prices ratchet higher across the US due to the Iran war, several Midwestern states are seeing the steepest increases. That’s putting a strain on the very voters Republicans will need to try and keep control of Congress in the midterms.
- Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin have all borne the brunt of price hikes since the war began 10 weeks ago. Nationally the average is now less than 50 cents-a-gallon off the all-time high set during Joe Biden’s tenure.
- In Ohio, gasoline has surged 72%. That’s double the increase for California, long the poster child for sky-high fuel prices.
National debt sets record
Alternet - The U.S. national debt just crossed a once-unthinkable threshold on the way toward breaking the record set in the wake of World War II: It now exceeds 100 percent of America’s gross domestic product. As of March 31, our publicly held debt was $31.27 trillion, while America’s GDP in 2025 was $31.22 trillion. This puts the ratio at 100.2 percent, compared with 99.5 percent when the last fiscal year ended September 30.
That 100.2 percent figure will likely climb, because the federal government is running historically large annual deficits of nearly 6 percent of GDP, which add to the debt. The final tally will depend on Iran war spending, tariff refunds, and the strength of the economy.
Should you worry? Well, it’s not as if we’re heading into a depression. Passing the 100 percent threshold won’t suddenly cause the world to lose confidence in the dollar.
The real problem is that an increasing portion of our nation’s budget — and your tax dollars — is dedicated to paying interest on this growing debt. That’s money we don’t spend on education, healthcare, roads and bridges, social safety nets, or (if we actually needed more spending on it) national defense.
As the debt continues to grow, interest payments continue to soar. We’ll soon be paying more in interest on the federal debt each year than we spend each year on Medicare.
Donald Trump
Forward Blue - Exclusive reporting from The Bulwark unveils the latest scheme from the most corrupt President in history… he has ordered the redesign of passports to include his face.
This is the same document Americans use to travel, to prove our identity, to represent our country to the world, and now he wants to turn it into a vanity project. Your passport is supposed to represent the United States of America. Not one man’s ego.
Climate
NY Times - In much of the Southwest, the ponderosa pine is the one and only truly big tree, thriving in dry heat and poor soils...
But after about 26 years of exceptionally high heat and drought, hundreds of million of these trees in lands stretching from New Mexico and Colorado to the southern Sierra Nevada of California have died. And in many places, something even more startling is happening: The trees aren’t coming back.
Ecologists warn that in just 25 years, more than 70 percent of the Southwestern needle leaf evergreen forests, which include ponderosa pines, may be replaced by grass in what might qualify as the first significant post-climate change landscape in America.
One of the biggest consequences is the loss of shade. Without the forest canopy overhead, snow can evaporate quickly instead of trickling into rivers, streams and aquifers. In the mountainous parts of the West, where roughly 70 percent of freshwater runoff originates as snowpack, that’s a huge deal, a sign of a catastrophic feedback loop beginning to form.
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Lands that are no longer covered by snow also absorb more heat from the sun, drying them out and leaving them more vulnerable to large wildfires. Those fires in turn put more carbon into the atmosphere, warming the climate even more. In 50 or so years, by some estimates, snow could virtually disappear from the West, making life there exceedingly difficult.
Just a thought
Sam Smith - The conflicts involving Iran and Ukraine might inform leaders, including Trump and Putin, that war is not the best way to get things done. As Reuters points out, Russia has been fighting over Ukraine longer than the Soviets were in World War II. And Iran is still in conflict. It may be time for even dictators to put to put war lower on their to do list.
May 10, 2026
Small businesses doing bulk of hiring
Axios - Small businesses employ about half of the American private-sector workforce. So far this year, the nation's smallest businesses are doing the bulk of hiring. Through the first four months of 2026, the smallest companies — those with fewer than 20 employees — have added 236,000 jobs, according to payroll processor ADP. That accounts for a whopping 95% of the economy's net gains over that period.
Elon Musk
Congressional Insider - Paris prosecutors have escalated their 15-month investigation into Elon Musk’s X platform by opening a formal criminal investigation targeting Musk, his AI company xAI, and associated corporate entities over allegations ranging from algorithm manipulation to facilitating child sexual abuse material—marking an unprecedented move to hold a major tech executive personally accountable under European law.
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom - California just became the first state in America to provide free diapers to all new parents. Launching this summer. Since I became Governor, we have made preschool free, school meals free, and expanded paid family leave.
Donald Trump
Independent, UK - President Donald Trump used a government exemption to give a $6.9 million no-bid contract to his “pool guy” to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to a blue color after complaining it “never looked great.” The exemption is typically reserved for urgent situations to prevent “serious injury, financial or other, to the government”, according to documents reviewed in an exclusive report by The New York Times.
But Trump used the exemption to get the company, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, to quickly begin work on the memorial as part of an array of building projects and refurbishments taking place across Washington D.C., ahead of America’s 250th birthday this year.
Schools doubled banned books in past year
The Hill - A new report shows that the number of nonfiction books banned in U.S. schools doubled in the last academic year. PEN America’s report released Thursday called “Facts & Fiction: Stories Stripped Away by Book Bans” found that 3,743 unique titles were removed from school libraries and classrooms between July 2024 and June 2025. This included 1,102 nonfiction titles.
The topics of nonfiction books removed from libraries and classrooms included those focused on activism and social movements, which amounted to 52 percent of those books banned.
“This increase should not be a surprise, given the increased crackdown on activism and free speech by the federal government over the last year,” PEN wrote in its survey. “These themes encourage young people to question authority and societal inequities, confront injustice in their communities, and participate in social changes to address disparities in the world around them. Suppressing these themes sends a message of discouragement and the need to maintain the status quo.”
The report states that “a strain of anti-intellectualism … mirrors the broader political attack on facts and knowledge and the skepticism and devaluation of, and disdain for, experts and expertise — tactics long associated with the rise of authoritarian regimes and intended to sow distrust in democratic institutions.”
Health
Religion
Axios - Fewer Americans want to become pastors, accelerating a leadership vacuum inside one of the country's oldest civic institutions.....As the pastor role becomes lower-paid, higher-risk and less trusted, the U.S. isn't just losing clergy — it's losing a key layer of local leadership, especially in rural and Black communities.
.... Enrollment in master of divinity programs at schools accredited by the Association of Theological Schools fell 14% from 2020 to 2024. Graduate-level and college-level enrollment at Catholic seminaries was down significantly in the 2024-2025 academic year, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University said. Black Protestant enrollment in master of divinity and professional M.A. programs fell 31% from 2000 to 2020.
Churches are trying to fill pulpits as older clergy retire, congregations shrink and burnout rises. More than 4 in 10 clergy surveyed in fall 2023 said they had seriously considered leaving their congregations since 2020, per Hartford Institute data reported by AP.
- The leadership crunch comes as 15,000 U.S. churches closed last year and a record 29% of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated.
Rural churches are hit first because many already share pastors, rely on part-time clergy or ask one minister to cover multiple congregations. When those churches close, towns lose informal hubs for food aid, child care, disaster relief and elder care.
Election interferance
Alternet - A new investigation by Reuters details how the Trump administration is seeking to gain federal control over elections in at least eight states, employing investigations, raids and demands for access to balloting systems and voter ID records for the campaign.
“What we’re seeing is the Trump administration, in some ways, is seeking to relitigate the 2020 election, and they’re also seeking to impose federal authority over the administration of elections,” says investigative journalist Ned Parker.
Parker also discusses the Trump administration’s campaign of retribution against the president’s perceived enemies, for which he and his colleagues at Reuters just won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. “What we found in our count of 470 targets was that it really cut across all aspects of American society,” he says.
Immigration
Alternet - Immigration lawyers representing the global elite are warning their clients to steer clear of Trump's "gold card" visa program, calling it legally dubious, financially risky, and potentially worthless, according to a report in the Washington Post.
The program, which Trump has promoted as a fast-track to residency for wealthy foreigners willing to invest $1 million to $2 million, has become a cautionary tale in the immigration law community. Seven immigration attorneys told the Washington Post they have either steered clients away from applying or refused to help clients who already have applied, citing fundamental legal problems with the program.
The skeptics include Michael Wildes, the immigration lawyer who represented first lady Melania Trump and her parents, and secured visas for Miss Universe contestants when Trump ran the pageant. When potential clients call about the gold card visa, Wildes has made his position clear.
"It would be unethical of me to retain them," Wildes said.
The core problem: the gold card visa has no congressional authorization and exists only through an executive order that faces ongoing litigation. That means it could be eliminated with a single presidential signature—or struck down by courts at any moment.
May 9, 2026
Artificial Intelligence
Congressional Insider - Pennsylvania became the first state to sue an AI company for operating unlicensed chatbots that impersonated doctors and therapists, exposing vulnerable users to potentially deadly medical advice from fake professionals. Pennsylvania filed lawsuit against Character.AI after investigators discovered chatbots falsely claiming to be licensed psychiatrists. AI bot “Emilie” offered depression diagnoses, medication suggestions, and confidentiality promises using an invalid Pennsylvania license number. Character.AI already faced multiple lawsuits linking its chatbots to teen suicides and self-harm incidents throughout 2025. Governor Shapiro’s administration seeks immediate injunction to halt what it calls illegal practice of medicine.
Health
Deep State Tribunal - Former CDC Director warns America is unprepared for the next disease outbreak as massive federal budget cuts and workforce reductions gut the agency’s ability to detect threats, investigate outbreaks, and coordinate responses—leaving 50 million children vulnerable and communities defenseless against emerging diseases like measles and avian flu.
CDC lost 3,400 federal workers including specialized disease detectives after 2025 workforce reductions. Vaccines for Children program serving half of American children sits at standstill awaiting guidance...$1.8 billion in cuts eliminate critical surveillance systems as measles cases surge nationwide. Over 80% of CDC funding flows to state and local health departments now facing fragmented federal support.
UFOs
1440 - The Pentagon yesterday released "never-before-seen" files on unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. The database includes FBI case files dating to the 1940s, Apollo mission footage, and roughly two dozen videos recorded between 2020 and 2026. Explore here; new files will be added on a rolling basis.
The military formally began gathering information on UFOs in 1947 after a wave of supposed flying saucer sightings. The effort ended in 1969 with no significant discoveries. Then, in 2017, media outlets reported that the Defense Department spent roughly $22M annually from late 2008 through 2011 on a secret program investigating alleged encounters between unknown objects and the military. The revelation fueled calls to declassify related documents, with former President Joe Biden signing a law compelling agencies to release UFO records, and President Donald Trump ordering yesterday's release.
The Trump administration gave no analysis of the files, saying Americans can draw their own conclusions. Experts say the files are unlikely to reveal aliens.
Polls
Pew Research - Four-in-ten U.S. adults, including half of those under 50, say they get health and wellness information from social media influencers and podcasts. In our study of nearly 7,000 wellness influencers, we found that 41% describe themselves as health care professionals, 31% are coaches and 28% are entrepreneurs.
- More in this report: Why do people turn to wellness influencers? | How much do audiences trust them? | What topics do these influencers talk about?
Spirit Airlines
New Yorker - After Spirit Airlines ceased operations, in the middle of the night on May 2nd, a series of canary-yellow airplanes sat on the tarmac at Newark Airport, arranged neatly like children’s toys at day’s end. Travellers flying in or out of the hub ogled the spectacle, a display of sudden corporate collapse. Now that the airline is officially dead, following one failed government bailout and a couple of failed mergers, seventeen thousand workers are in need of employment, and thousands of customers await refunds. Meanwhile, Spirit’s jets are being ferried, one by one, to the desert—a storage field at Goodyear Airport, in Arizona, where they await their fate. What was leased will be repossessed to recover debt in bankruptcy court. What was old will be scrapped and sold for parts. What is functional will be recouped by competitors that will benefit from the death of this icon of budget air travel, which facilitated a kind of low-grade freedom for the masses.
Donald Trump
Forward Blue - Vietnam veterans just filed a lawsuit to stop Donald Trump from building a 250-foot monument to himself in Washington, D.C. Trump wants to erect a towering arch, slap his name on it, and block the sacred views of Arlington National Cemetery, where America's fallen are buried. He wants you to foot the bill.
Independent, UK - The parent company of President Donald Trump’s Truth Social network reported more than $405 million in first-quarter net losses this year, in the latest sign of trouble at the media conglomerate, after it replaced its CEO last month.
During the first quarter, Trump Media and Technology Group posted net sales of just over $871,000, according to the financial results.
The company, whose activities span Truth Social, digital assets, and forthcoming access to prediction markets, attributed the losses to “unrealized losses on digital assets, digital assets pledged, and equity securities ($368.7 million), accreted interest ($11.5 million), and stock based compensation ($11.8 million).”
Middle East
NBC News - The U.S. military blockade of Iran’s ports will eventually deprive Tehran of crucial oil revenue, but the regime could likely withstand pressure for months without a major economic crisis or lasting damage to its oil fields, energy industry analysts and two Western officials familiar with intelligence assessments said.
Administration officials say the blockade is designed to cut off Iran’s oil exports and force Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and bow to U.S. demands at the negotiating table. But it’s unclear if the economic pain from a blockade would be sufficient to push the regime into making significant concessions. It’s also unclear whether President Donald Trump is willing to wait that long for a possible tipping point.
After the blockade was imposed about a month ago, Trump and top officials in his administration suggested it would produce an immediate crisis for Iran’s oil sector, possibly within three days. But that scenario did not materialize.
Instead, Iran has gradually begun to cut back oil production. At some point within the next two months, it may run out of storage capacity for its oil and even be forced to shut down some wells. But most analysts say Iran can probably avoid doing so.
May 8, 2026
Credit card bans increasing for gambling payments
The Sun - Consumers may see credit cards banned as a payment method for betting under a new policy that is slowly making its way across the country. Using a credit card to place sports bets is not allowed in at least nine states, and another is looking to join the list.
Ohio gambling regulators are aiming to ban credit card deposits to fund online sports wagering accounts, with the state potentially joining the growing number of bans nationally.
...The idea comes as part of a larger package of bills sought by sports-betting critics, who argue that gamblers’ ability to place bets using credit cards heightens their risk of addiction and financial ruin.
Climate
Newsweek - Dangerously hot conditions are expected to hit parts of California and Arizona from Sunday through early next week, with forecasters warning of temperatures topping 110 degrees during Mother’s Day weekend. The timing raises concerns as many families plan outdoor celebrations, increasing the risk of heat-related illness.
Millions across major metro areas, including Phoenix and communities in southern California deserts, could feel the impact as conditions intensify.
Polls
El Paso Times - President Donald Trump's approval rating continues to trend more negatively in several recent polls. In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released May 6, the poll found record-high disapproval for Trump at 59%, compared to 37% who approve. The poll also found high levels of disapproval of how Trump is handling Iran and how the president is handling the economy.
The poll also found that the majority of Americans say their local cost of living is not very affordable (44%) or not affordable at all (12%), while eight in ten Americans say they feel either a major (33%) or minor strain (48%) on their household budget due to the current price of gas...
Trump's approval rating has been net negative for about a year, fluctuating but trending more negative over the last several months. Here is Trump's average approval rating on May 6, according to aggregators:
New York Times: 38% approve, 58% disapprove
Silver Bulletin: 39% approve, 57.6% disapprove
RealClearPolitics Poll Average: 40.3% approve, 56.8% disapprove
A national survey by Pew Research Center that was conducted April 20-26 found that public confidence in Trump on several key issues facing the nation has declined:
41% now say they are very or somewhat confident Trump can make good decisions on immigration policy, down from 46% in August and 53% shortly after his 2024 reelection.
38% now express confidence in Trump to use military force wisely, down from 46% last summer.
FBI Director Patel
- Kash Patel is reportedly so paranoid about losing his job that he’s polygraphing his own FBI staff. Be on the lookout, Kash Patel is now reportedly in full meltdown.
The FBI Director — already under fire for deploying SWAT agents as his girlfriend's personal chauffeurs, chugging beer in the Olympic locker room on a government jet, and suing The Atlantic for $250 million over revealing allegations of his problematic drinking — has now ordered polygraph examinations of more than two dozen current and former members of his security detail and IT staff, according to sources briefed on the situation.
The reason: he's terrified of leakers. And, apparently, of losing his job.
Sources tell MS Now that Patel has been "described as being in panic mode to save his job" and has walled himself off from some senior FBI leaders this week — raising alarm inside the bureau about his ability to stay on top of pressing threats and investigations.
This comes one day after MS Now revealed Patel ordered FBI agents to open a criminal leak investigation into The Atlantic's reporting about his drinking habits — an investigation agents were deeply uncomfortable conducting, believing it lacked legal justification and that they'd be fired if they refused.
Patel has apparently done this before. Dozens of agents were previously polygraphed after a story leaked about Patel making a request to obtain a gun.
So, the director of the FBI — America's premier law enforcement agency — is running a paranoid internal surveillance operation against his own staff, avoiding his senior operational leaders, opening criminal probes into journalists, and, according to multiple sources, desperately trying not to get fired by a president already frustrated with his headlines.
Trump and the White House have reportedly been furious about the bad press. In November 2025, they are said to have privately discussed removing him
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