Harbinger of Midterms Tsunami: Tuesday's Primaries in Pittsburgh

The sewage pumps and the street sweepers have begun to clean up Donald Dumb's MAGA-GOP excrement and garbage from America's towns and cities.

================================================ 


Democrats sweep Pittsburgh, oust Republican incumbents in PA election
Finch Walker, USA TODAY NETWORK
Updated Wed, May 20, 2026


Democrats sweep Pittsburgh, oust Republican incumbents in PA election

Pittsburgh residents cast their votes in Pennsylvania's primary election on May 19, electing numerous incumbents and making way for several new leaders in state positions.

Democrats overwhelming took the vote, winning 26 of 27 key races in Allegheny County. Most notably, voters backed Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who will attempt to win a second term this fall, while several newcomers unseated incumbents as state representatives.

Voter turnout was relatively low, with 22.7% of Allegheny's 915,194 registered voters casting their votes, according to the county. In total, there were 207,755 ballots cast.

Here are the unofficial results in key races in Allegheny County as of May 20 morning, with 1,322 of 1,327 precincts reporting. Not every race had both a Democratic and Republican candidate.

Governor
Josh Shapiro (D, incumbent) - 151,505
Stacy Garrity (R) - 41,257

Lt. Governor
Austin Davis (D, incumbent) - 149,271
Jason Richey (R) - 37,342
John Ventre (R) - 7,600

U.S. Representative, 12th District
Summer Lee (D, incumbent) - 67,818
William Parker (D) - 15,393
James Hayes (R) - 381

U.S. Representative, 17th District
Chris Deluzio (D, incumbent) - 69,904
Jesse James Vodvarka (R) - 15,940
Tony Guy (R) - 10,772

PA Senate, District 38
Lindsey Williams (D, incumbent) - 239,547
Thomas West (R) - 11,266

PA Senate, District 42
Wayne D. Fontana (D, incumbent) - 23,888
Paul Steenkiste (D) - 9,192

PA Representative, District 19
Aerion Andrew Abney (D, incumbent) - 6,285

PA Representative, District 20
Emily Kinkead (D, incumbent) - 7,723
PA Representative, District 21
Lindsay Powell (D, incumbent) - 8,149

PA Representative, District 23
Dan Frankel (D, incumbent) - 9,766

PA Representative, District 24
La'Tasha D. Mayes (D, incumbent) - 8,860
Will Anderson (D) - 1,202PA 

Representative, District 25
Brandon J. Markosek (D, incumbent) - 6,870
Amy Noone (R) - 2,383

PA Representative, District 27
Dan Deasy (D, incumbent) - 7,163

PA Representative, District 28
Jeremy Shaffer (R, incumbent) - 4,057
Jeremy Ferderber (D) - 3,838
Robert Bertha (D) - 1,880

PA Representative, District 30
Arvind Venkat (D, incumbent) - 7,002 

PA Representative, District 32
Joe McAndrew (D, incumbent) - 8,600

PA Representative, District 33
Mandy Steele (D, incumbent) - 6,304
Mike Hammill (R) - 2,439

PA Representative, District 34
Abigail Salisbury (D, incumbent) - 10,373

PA Representative, District 35
Dan Goughnour (D, incumbent) - 6,521
Jim Edwards (R) - 1,563 

PA Representative, District 36
Jessican Benham (D, incumbent) - 6,783
Timothy McCune (R) - 1,071

PA Representative, District 38
John Inglis (D, incumbent) - 7,303

PA Representative, District 39
Dylan Altemara (D) - 3,062
Andrew Kuzma (R, incumbent) - 2,742
Kellianne Frketic (D) - 1,780 

PA Representative, District 40
Jon Lloyd (D) - 4,699
Natalie Mihalek (R, incumbent) - 2,919

PA Representative, District 42
Jen Mazzocco (D, incumbent) - 8,775

PA Representative, District 44
Hadley Haas (D) - 5,864
Valerie Gaydos (R, incumbent) - 3,424

PA Representative, District 45
Brittany Bloam (D) - 5,142
Patrick J. Catena, Jr. (D) - 2,994
James Julius (R) - 2,334

 PA Representative, District 46
Mike Crossey (D) - 1,548
Jason Ortitay (R, incumbent) - 766

Voters also selected members for the state Democrat and Republican committees, as well as hundreds of members for local committees. Full election results can be viewed on Allegheny County's website.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats win big in Pittsburgh in PA primary election 2026

Trump's Corrupt Hedging of HIS Iran War

While Trump insisted the Iran war would end ‘soon,’ an account in his name was buying millions in oil, defense, and gold
Eva Roytburg
Updated Mon, May 18, 2026


President Donald Trump speaks to the media aboard Air Force One on May 15, 2026.(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

On the morning of Monday, March 23, President Trump pulled his first “TACO” of the Iran war. After four weeks of fighting, with oil prices already up 55%, Trump had given Iran an ultimatum on Friday: Make a deal within 48 hours, or the U.S. would strike its power plants and energy infrastructure.

But on Monday morning, Trump reversed course. In an all-caps Truth Social post, he announced the U.S. and Iran had been having “very good and productive conversations” and that he would extend the deadline for a deal by five days.

Wall Street, for the first time since the war began, exhaled. Stocks rose. Brent crude plunged nearly 11%. Energy stocks—one of the few reliable winners of the conflict—sold off with oil.

The brokerage account in Trump’s name spent the day buying them. 

A first look at a president’s trading

According to the 113-page periodic transaction report released by the Office of Government Ethics on May 14, Trump’s brokerage account spent that same day buying a sweep of petroleum and gas stocks, including Phillips 66, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron, along with defense and aerospace names like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics: the companies that stood to profit if the war dragged on.

Trump’s huge trades in tech and oil

Ethics disclosures show Trump made big bets on Apple, Google and defense stocks as he discussed the Iran war and U.S. tech policy, raising fresh questions about personal profit and presidential power overlapping. Investors and voters both want to know: who benefits?

The day wasn’t an outlier. The filing, which covers January through March, shows a consistent posture through the Iran conflict: As Trump prosecuted the war and told Americans it would end “soon,” the account in his name was hedging it, buying gold, Treasuries, and cash.

A spokesperson for the Trump Organization, the family’s privately held conglomerate, told Fortune the brokerage accounts are operated by third-party financial institutions that have “sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions.” Trades, the spokesperson wrote in a statement, are executed through “automated investment processes and systems administered by those institutions,” and neither Trump, his family, nor the Trump Organization “plays any role in selecting, directing, or approving specific investments.”

Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, told Fortune that Trump’s assets are in a trust “managed by his children” and that “there are no conflicts of interest.” Asked about the apparent tension between that statement and the Trump Organization’s claim that the third-party institutions have “sole” authority over the trades, Ingle told Fortune to “defer to Trump Org.”

There is nothing inherently illegal about a sitting president holding stocks—the criminal conflict-of-interest law that binds nearly every other executive branch official exempts the president.

But for more than half a century, presidents have voluntarily steered clear of the appearance of a conflict, using blind trusts, index funds, or, in Jimmy Carter’s case, liquidation. So what’s notable here isn’t that Trump holds securities, but that the account in his name has been actively trading them.

“It’s an unusual position for a president to be in,” Richard Painter, a securities law professor at the University of Minnesota and former chief White House ethics counsel under George W. Bush, told Fortune.

Trump’s new filing appears to offer the first public look in modern presidential history at an active public-markets portfolio in a sitting president’s name. The Office of Government Ethics report documents 3,642 individual trades made through the account in the first three months of 2026—between $220 million and $750 million in volume at a pace of roughly 60 trades per day. The filing doesn’t always specify whether a given transaction is a stock, bond, or ETF.

“I’ve gone through every president,” Painter said. “I don’t think we’ve had any president trade in the stock market.”

Since Lyndon Johnson pioneered the use of a presidential blind trust in 1963, every modern president has either placed their assets in a blind trust managed by independent trustees, held them in index funds and Treasuries, or, in Carter’s case, liquidated all their assets (notoriously, his peanut farm). None have actively traded individual securities while in office. Until recently.

In Trump’s first term, his assets were held in the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which controlled his business empire, and the periodic transaction reports it produced drew little attention. Through the first year of his second term, the account traded almost exclusively in municipal and corporate bonds.

But even before the stock trading began, the arrangement drew immediate backlash from federal ethics officials.

Walter Shaub, then the director of the Office of Government Ethics, called Trump’s original trust arrangement “not even halfway blind” in a January 2017 speech at the Brookings Institution. He resigned in July of that same year after clashing with Trump over the president’s refusal to divest from his businesses.

Hedging the war he was prosecuting

The accumulation began the same day the war did. The disclosure reports trades only in ranges, not exact dollar figures, with purchases falling between $50,000 and $5 million depending on the position.

Markets generally divide into two camps: the risk-on assets—U.S. stocks, growth, tech—that investors buy when they’re confident the economy will grow , and the safe havens—gold, Treasuries, cash—they retreat to when they’re not. Through the Iran war, the account moved steadily from the first camp to the second, even as Trump told Americans the conflict was nearly over.

On March 2, the first trading day of the war, the account bought Newmont, the gold miner, for $50,000 to $100,000. On March 4, the day Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, it bought the iShares US Treasury Bond ETF for $250,000 to $500,000. The next day, it bought $500,000 to $1 million of the iShares Gold Trust.

The buying continued even as Trump publicly insisted the war was under control. On March 7, he announced that Iran had “apologized and surrendered.” On March 10, the account bought a sweep of international and emerging-markets exposure: Europe, Japan, Canada, and, in its largest single move of the day, an emerging-markets ETF in the $500,000 to $1 million band.

The next day, Trump told Axios the war would end “soon” because there was “practically nothing left to target,” and that it would end “any time I want it to end.”

The next week, the account bought cash worth $1 million to $5 million. The Strait of Hormuz has still not opened as of time of writing.

=============================================

Jamie Raskin Says Trump's Gone From 'Brick And Mortar Corruption' To Something So Much Worse
Kelby Vera
Tue, May 19, 2026
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) thinks President Donald Trump has gone from old school, “brick and mortar corruption” to a type of brazen profiteering that once seemed impossible now that he’s in his second term.

Fresh after news that Trump’s Department of Justice plans to create a $1.7 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to sponsor so-called victims of political “lawfare,” Raskin told The Daily Beast there is nothing more critical than cracking down on the administration’s array of grifts during the site’s Sunday podcast.

“We’ve never seen abuse like the kind of abuse that has taken place under Donald Trump,” he said, accusing the president of using legal loopholes and a “shadow government” to help his “personal wealth skyrocket during the second term.”

Representative Jamie Raskin, here on Feb. 11, accused President Donald Trump of unprecedented levels of corruption in a new interview with the Daily Beast. Bloomberg via Getty Images

According to a March report from Forbes, Trump’s net worth has swelled by a full $1.4 billion since his January 2025 inauguration, largely from his cryptocurrency holdings.

Noting how unregulated digital assets now make it easier than ever for “corrupt foreign governments” to channel funds [to] the president, Raskin accused Trump of being at the top of “a completely lawless situation.”

According to Raskin, Trump, here at the White House on May 18, has seen his "personal wealth skyrocket" through a number of schemes going down during his second term in office. KENT NISHIMURA via Getty Images

He also urged something be done about what he described as the executive branch’s “pay-to-play pardon” schemes and called the recently created Board of Peace its own kind of hustle.

Trump-IRS settlement fund debate
 

Senators argue over who can claim from the fund, which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced as part of Trump’s IRS settlement. The deal permanently bars the IRS from pursuing old tax audits against Trump or his family, raising questions about eligibility.

Raskin was ready to admit Congress’s failure to put up guardrails during Trump’s first term “set the stage” for today, but promised that Democrats would do whatever it takes to stop the scamming as soon as they take back a majority in this November’s midterms.

Warning how Trump has made it clear he has no qualms about following norms, rules or even legal statutes, Raskin recalled how the president once said the only limit he considers when it comes to wielding power was his “own morality.”

“So you can be a judge for yourself of how much of a real limit that is,” the congressman said.

On Nation's 250th, Another Revolution Might be in the Works

 

From "America First" as his campaign slogan, the Idiot-in-Chief has now confirmed that it was never "America First". He just said that to fool his herd of MAGA morons. In effect, he now has two co-existing slogans: "Me First" and "Israel First, America Second".

Americans rebelled against the English King some 250 years ago. Now they may have to rebel against their own Dumb idiot playing King in America.

Having been prodded like a mad-cow diseased bovine into the war by war criminal Benyamin Netanyahu, he now has to ask the latter what to do. "I am lost, Bibi. What do we do? The regime in Iran did not fall in a few days as you promised me" . Should he persist or back down? He doesn't know. He's trapped. He needs the Zionist's permission to decide since it was the Zionist who "inspired" him to launch the war in the first place. The Great Moron reportedly spoke with Benyamin over the weekend to get his instructions. He doesn't trust the genius MAGA goons around him because he hired them for loyalty, not brains. 

Can he make a decision for America, not for Israel?

When Hitler invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa, his German Nazi army reached the outskirts of Moscow. The war could have ended then with a victory for the Germans. But Hitler picked up the luring scent of oil south of Moscow, in the Caucasus. He made his army take a turn south to seize the oil fields, and that decision alone reversed the course of the war. As a very cold winter set in between late summer 1942 and February 1943, the Germans were decimated and retreated after losing the Battle of Stalingrad (now Volvograd).

Donald Dumb goes to war in Iran, first to satisfy his Zionist handlers on the nuclear Iran question, but more importantly for him personally because he can steal oil and make more money. He always wants to get richer and richer. His problem is that he doesn't understand anything pertaining to the Middle East, except what the Zionists tell him on Palestine and what he hears on FUX News about a lot of oil he can steal from Iran. 

Trump's Iran war may go down in history as Trump's Stalingrad demise.

Related:

https://lebanoniznogood.blogspot.com/2026/03/iran-war-is-making-trumps-family-richer.html

https://lebanoniznogood.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-pimp-in-chief-is-now-bitching-about.html 

===============================================

Marjorie Taylor Greene Warns of ‘Political Revolution’ in America If Trump Sends U.S. Troops to Iran
Callum Sutherland
Mon, May 18, 2026 


U.S. President Donald Trump and former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. —Andrew Harnik—Getty Images

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has warned her one-time close ally President Donald Trump that putting U.S. boots on the ground in Iran could have dire consequences.

“If you send in U.S. military troops into Iran, there is going to be a political revolution in America,” said Greene. “We said no more foreign wars and we meant it. The coalition will unite and be unstoppable. I’ll make sure of it.”

She signed off her message Sunday with a plea to “end this war,” referring to the ongoing conflict as “stupid.”

Trump, who has previously declined to rule out deploying ground troops in Iran, addressed the stalled peace talks between Washington and Tehran over the weekend.

“For Iran, the clock is ticking, and they better get moving, fast, or there won’t be anything left of them. Time is of the essence,” warned Trump, amid the extended, yet increasingly fragile, U.S.-Iran cease-fire.

The President later posted an image of a U.S flag overlaying a map of the Middle East, with multiple arrows from neighboring countries all pointing to Iran.

This isn’t the first time Greene has criticized Trump for engaging in a conflict overseas after he campaigned on a promise to avoid dragging the U.S. into foreign wars, instead focusing on home prosperity.

Greene publicly split from Trump last year, accusing him of failing to stay true to his America first campaign initiative. The pair also differed on matters such as the affordability crisis and the handling of the Epstein files. She resigned from Congress amid the upset.

The former Congresswoman joins other high-profile conservatives—such as Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Candace Owens—who were once proudly part of the MAGA coalition, but have been critical of the Iran war, of which there is no clear end in sight.

An official second round of peace negotiations have yet to take place in Islamabad, Pakistan, as Washington and Tehran remain split on key issues such as Iran’s nuclear capabilities and naval navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Last week, Trump said the cease-fire with Iran was on “massive life support” after he rejected Tehran’s response to a U.S. peace proposal, labeling it “a piece of garbage” and “totally unacceptable.”

Little progress has been made since. Proposals fall flat as strikes reported in the Gulf region, risking resumption of hostilities

“We want to make a deal. They are not where we want them to be,” Trump said of Iran in an interview published Sunday. “They will have to get there or they will be hit badly, and they don't want that.”

Trump reportedly spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend about the war and, according to Axios, is set to meet with his own top national security team Tuesday to discuss military options.

Citing Pakistani sources, Reuters reported Monday morning that Pakistan had shared with the U.S. a revised proposal from Iran to ​end the war.

TIME has been unable to independently verify the report and has reached out to the White House for comment.

According to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, Tehran had previously expressed five demands to be fulfilled in order for negotiations to continue. They wanted a permanent end to the conflict (including in Lebanon), sanctions on Iran to be lifted, the unfreezing of Iranian assets, compensation for war damages, and recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.

“The major roadblock is still the question of Iran's nuclear program, and in particular, whether they will be allowed to continue enriching uranium,” Jonathan Morten, director of the International Public Policy Programme at University College London, tells TIME.

Alongside disagreements over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Strait of Hormuz is another key issue.

“We have the question of to what extent, or whether Iran will continue to regulate or control shipping in and out of the Strait of Hormuz,” says Morten. “There are several possible levels of agreement. One is that they find a way to agree about the status of the Strait of Hormuz, but not on the larger nuclear issue. So far, Trump hasn't been willing to do that.”

Reported strikes in the Gulf region are further complicating matters and fueling geopolitical tensions.

The United Arab Emirate’s defense ministry reported three drones entering Emirate airspace on Sunday, two of which were successfully intercepted.

“The third struck an electrical generator outside the inner perimeter of the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the Al Dhafra Region,” the ministry said.

In Saudi Arabia, three drones “coming from Iraqi airspace” were intercepted and struck down, according to the country's defense ministry.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, alongside other Gulf allies of the U.S., were targeted by Iranian drones in the initial weeks of the conflict. The stability of the region is paramount to any lasting pathway to a permanent end to the war.
Trump's approval rating plummets in U.S. amid the fallout of Iran war

Trump’s approval rating has dipped to 37%, according to a poll published by the New York Times on Monday.

The Times/Siena poll also found that 64% of Americans think Trump’s move to go to war with Iran was the wrong decision.

Many Americans are feeling the economic impact of the war in the Middle East.

Due to the effective blockage in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passage through which around a fifth of global oil production flows, energy prices have risen significantly.

The national price average for one gallon of gasoline now sits at $4.51 according to the American Automobile Association, up from $2.98 per gallon just before the conflict began.

American consumers are also feeling the pinch when doing their weekly shops.

Grocery store bills rose 0.7% in April—the biggest one-month jump in grocery prices in nearly four years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)—and 2.9% over the past year. Fresh fruits and vegetables drove the largest increase among food products, soaring 6.1% in April from a year earlier.

The Trump Administration’s hardline tariff policies and the Iran war have both taken a toll.

When asked last week to what extent he factored in Americans’ financial situation when considering a deal, Trump said: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”

But the economic impact of the war could prove damaging for the Republican Party at the midterms in November, experts tells TIME.

Morten predicts that Democrats will focus heavily on the economic strain during their own campaigning efforts.

“Their calculation is that [Trump] is more vulnerable on issues around inflation, the cost of living, high gas prices, and the way those things seem to be linked directly to the conflict in Iran,” he says.

“Republicans who are standing for election this year, particularly in the House, are very, very concerned about this issue of Iran and its impact.”

Geoff Duncan's Metamorphosis: Another Fetterman? or Manchin?

Georgia Democrats: Beware the Trojan Horses like Republican Geoff Duncan who has underwent political surgery and is now a trans-politician, saying he is now a Democrat as he runs for Governor. 

But people don't really change. If he is elected as a Democrat, this chameleon will be labeled a Democrat but will likely act exclusively as a Republican, the party of NO that operates strictly by puting sticks in the wheels of change-minded Democrats. Just like Joe Manchin and John Fetterman are doing in the Senate. Duncan is in essence infiltrating the Democrat Party and will undermine it from within. 

The reason Duncan is doing this is because he knows the Republicans will be trounced in November and his selfish interest makes running as a pro-Trump republican very risky to his career. 

Don't trust these GOP snakes. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is one of those Republican snake chameleons whose digusting slob appearance with a hooded sweater suggests he is an elitist Republican rightwinger disguised as a common man. Once inside the Democrat caucus, Fetterman began undermining it by curtailing whatever majority Democrats were counting on against Donald Dumb who is working his ass off with other moron republicans on cheating by redistricting and gerrymandering.

The battle is on. Don't let Duncan do a favor for Donald Dumb while hiding as a converted sinner. 

Georgia Republican is undergoing surgery to change his political gender from GOP to Democrat. He wants to be Georgia’s next Democratic governor.


Former Republican Geoff Duncan is running as a Democrat candidate for governor of the State of Georgia. Duncan is a former Repubican lieutenant governor of Georgia who underwent a metamorphic surgery to Democrat, apparently because he doesn't like Donald Dumb. 

Duncan revealed his selfish reasons for his conversion. He told The Guardian. “It’s not fun to have to defend Donald Trump.” So he bails out of the MAGA herd and is preaching selfless love for farmers. “These farmers in these legislative districts have absolutely got a knife in the back from Trump,” he added of rural Georgia. “A lot of them voted for Trump … yet now, they might lose their farms because of these stupid tariffs that nobody can explain.” Why can't Duncan stay a Republican, faithful to his principles as a conservative, and fight Trump from within the party? Because he's a coward who is more interested in winning a seat in the Senate than anything else. Changing camps is a sneaky way to ensure he gets his seat, but how do we know he will uphold Democratic principles and ideals? My bet is he won't, and if Georgia Democrats are dumb enough to vote for him to reward his treason, they shouldn't be surprised when he starts caving in to Trump.

Duncan was a standard-issue suburban Republican serving as lieutenant governor until the 2020 election, when he rejected President Donald Trump’s claims about fraud. He should be given credit for standing up to he Great Moron. But, as said earlier, people's deep convictions don't change. He has converted ONLY to get elected. Just like Trump himself, he'll do anything to get into office, but when inside his skin will soon change colors back to the GOP-MAGA.

“The Republican Party has sailed their ship over the horizon, it’s gone. There will be nothing left when Donald Trump’s done with it,” Duncan reportedly said. “Some of his minions may try to hold the pieces together. I think that’s a foregone conclusion.”

Democrats are holding their primary in Georgia today May 19.

Trump's Iran War Inflation Forging Ahead

The Fed's May Inflation Forecast is not looking good for Wall Street

Acrimonious Moron Donald Trump has been harassing Fed Chair Jerome Powell over interest rates. I asked AI, "Why does Trump want lower interest rates?" and its answer is:

"Trump wants lower interest rates to reduce the cost of borrowing for the federal government, which would help manage the large national debt and potentially save taxpayers money. He believes that lower rates could stimulate economic growth and benefit his own financial interests as well."

Then, there is an unprecedented level of division within the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) -- the 12-person body responsible for setting U.S. monetary policy.

But the Dow Jones, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq Composite have all reached new heights. The question is: Can they stay there, following concerns about rising inflation? Or is this a bubble that's about to burst, like it did in 1999-2000 with the Internet dot.com and biotech boom? 

For a while, Powell blamed elevated inflation on Trump's tariffs. But now the focus in on the disaster the Iran war is having on inflation. Shortly after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran last February 28, the Strait of Hormuz became water-proof (no pun intended) to maritime commercial transport. Some 20% of total worldwide demand for oil (20 million barrels of petroleum liquids per day) came to halt. Experts say it is the largest energy supply disruption in history.

Crude oil prices started soaring and gas prices were rising at the pump at their fastest pace in 30 years.

According to experts, the inflationary impacts on businesses often lag behind the bad news. But when the soaring cost of energy hits production and transportation and the cost of these is factored in, inflation rages even more further.

Before the Iran war, U.S. inflation was at 2.4%. Then within a month or two, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported inflation of 3.3% in March and 3.8% in April). Inflation had jumped to a three-year high, i.e. higher than much maligned Joe Biden was blamed for. Donald Dumb-caused inflation has surpassed Joe Biden's. 

Now, inflation for May is estimated at 4.18%, and the quarterly annualized Consumer Price Index is pacing a 6.89% increase for the second quarter!

When 2026 began, Wall Street and investors had been factoring in several rate cuts for 2026-2027. Lower lending rates were expected to fuel the artificial intelligence data center build-out and prop up a historically expensive stock market. The only time the S&P 500's Shiller Price-to-Earnings Ratio has been higher over the last 155 years was in the lead-up to the bursting of the dot-com bubble.

The inflationary spike from the Iran war has effectively removed any chance of rate cuts in 2026, and perhaps beyond. It may even coerce the FOMC to raise rates if prices continue trending higher.

Further complicating matters is the ascension of new Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh. Warsh's previous time on the FOMC (Feb. 24, 2006 – March 31, 2011) shows he favored higher interest rates to suppress inflation. Warsh will also be tasked with overseeing a fractured FOMC. If dissenting opinions persist, the nation's central bank could lose some of its hard-earned credibility.

The Fed's latest inflation update is nothing short of nightmare fuel for the stock market.

[The Backbone of this article is from MotleyFool's https://www.fool.com/] 

Rudderless Trump Chaos on Iran war and Everything Else

 

Donald Dumb blowing off all the hot air from his brain 

Republicans and MAGA morons raised hell on Obama when he spoke of a "red line" on Syria's Assad use of chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war, but never acted when Assad crossed that red line.

Trump makes similar threats and imposes red lines a dozen times a day, then backs down and never acts on them. But MAGA and the Republicans find the threats of the deranged senile moron who leads them cute.

=================================================


Trump’s tough-talk foreign policy is hitting a wall with Iran as it grips Strait of Hormuz
MATTHEW LEE and FARNOUSH AMIRI
Updated Tue, May 19, 2026


President Donald Trump walks down the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)(AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez) [MAGA morons know he loves America because he wears a Made-in-China USA hat!]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has considered himself an effective dealmaker above all else, but he appears to have hit a wall with Iran as his tough talk, threats and even military action have not moved Tehran from its long-established positions.

With shifting goals that make it difficult to judge the status of the U.S. effort, Trump and his top aides have insisted the United States has already won the war and that Iran is ready to reach an agreement in the wake of escalating U.S. threats during a tenuous ceasefire.

But Trump once again backed down, saying Monday that he had put plans for an imminent resumption of attacks on hold at the request of Gulf Arab states because “serious negotiations are now taking place, and that, in their opinion, as Great Leaders and Allies, a Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond.”

Although he said he had called off strikes planned for Tuesday, Trump kept up the bravado, saying he told military leaders “to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached.” Trump has repeatedly set deadlines for Tehran and then backed off.

Despite growing internal unrest, a crippled economy and the deaths of many of its leaders, there is no evidence Iran is set to meet Trump's demands — many of which it has long rejected. In fact, it has dug in. That has left Trump’s stated top objectives unrealized: Iran has yet to agree to abandon its nuclear program or its ballistic missile development, or cease support for its proxies in the region, including those in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

The White House on Monday defended the president's approach, saying, “Trump's preference is always peace and diplomacy” but he will only accept a deal that puts America first. “President Trump holds all the cards and wisely keeps all options on the table to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon,” spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Iran has leverage with the Strait of Hormuz

Crucially, Iran still has a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping lane for global oil supplies, even as the U.S. military has enforced its own blockade on Iranian ports. The wild shifts in the global energy market that followed have raised gasoline prices, hurting U.S. consumers and causing potential problems for Trump's Republican Party ahead of congressional midterm elections in November.

Trump's playbook of turning up the pressure — economically and militarily — to bend foreign governments to his will is not playing out in Iran as it has in Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere. Oil blockades have squeezed those two countries and the Trump administration quickly ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, but they do not hold a bargaining chip as effective as Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz.

With the Iran war driving up costs for Americans, Trump’s approval rating on the economy has slumped, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted last month, with even Republicans showing less faith in his leadership.

For all of Trump’s rhetoric, Iran has been unwilling to accept limitations on any of its policies that amount to more than what it conceded during the negotiations for a nuclear deal with world powers during the Obama administration. Trump called it the “worst ever” agreement negotiated by the U.S. and pulled out of it in his first term in 2018.

Since a fragile truce in the war went into effect last month, Trump has lashed out over the slow pace of negotiations to reach a permanent deal.

“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” Trump posted on social media Sunday shortly after a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Iranian response was quick. “Our armed forces’ fingers are on the trigger, while diplomacy is also continuing,” Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said on state television.
Neither side sees defeat, expert says

Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group who has watched years of fruitless diplomacy between Washington and Tehran, said the longtime adversaries do not see themselves as being defeated by the latest conflict.

“Since the ceasefire took effect, both Washington and Tehran seem to be working on the assumption that time acts in their favor: Each believes that the blockade and counter-blockade in the Strait of Hormuz raises the costs for the other side, while giving a reprieve to prepare for a potential resumption of hostilities,” Vaez said.

Despite the impact of America's economic pressure campaign, Iranian officials have not reached the pain threshold “to the point of accepting what it perceives as capitulatory demands,” he said.

David Schenker, a former assistant secretary of state for the Middle East in Trump’s first administration who is currently at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described the current situation as “a stalemate.”

He said Trump likely has “misgivings” about returning to full-on military conflict, especially because of Gulf Arab anxieties about Iranian retaliation and the volatility in the energy markets, with its political implications in the U.S.

Rich Goldberg, an Iran hawk and former National Security Council official in both of Trump’s administrations who is now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, insisted that Trump is still operating from a position of strength, including with the Strait of Hormuz.

Goldberg, who has a special interest in American energy dominance, said that while reopening the strait would ease the “pain at the pump” felt by many Americans, it was not critical.

“The short-term pain at the pump is distracting people from U.S. overall energy dominance,” he said. “This is not a permanent crisis.”

Add Anti-Islamism to the American Catalog of Xenophobic Hatreds

Remember when dumb Americans were acting psychotic in the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s and 1960s? Remember the movie "The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming"??

Right now, the catalog of white american hatreds is adding new items to its inventory. The inaugural item was anti-judaism, falsely known as antisemitism, whereby for centuries the domestic enemy were the Jews, a custom that dumb peasant immigrants to America brought with them from England and the rest of Europe.

Over the past couple of years, the enemy in the US was Palestine and the Palestinian people, victims of Zionist colonial barbarity in occupied Palestine. The Zionist narrative exaggerated the Palestinians' criminality by reducing their resistance to Zionist occupation to just hateful terrorism that has no context. The Zionists also equated Jew with Zionist with Israeli, so speaking against Israel's colonial Zionist barbarity became anti-Jewish antisemitism.

Now, we're officialy listing anti-Islamism as the latest addition to the fine spectrum of nativist white American xenophobic hatreds. Down in the ultra-moronic state of Texas, where "biblical laws" are superseding the country's constitution and laws, there is a large scale islamophobic campaign driven by paranoia only imbeciles and ignorant people are capable of. In Texas, they are using the non-existent threat of Muslim Sharia Law to impose its exact Christian version of barbaric religious beliefs, namely Christian Sharia Law known as "Biblical Law". The level of dumbness in Texas is beyond reason and ridicule.

In the US, hell is raised when innocent Jews are attacked on account of what the Zionist criminals are doing in Palestine. But when innocent Muslims are attacked on account of a supposed fiction that Muslims seek to seize power in the US, barely anyone notices or speaks about it. Why? I am sorry to refer to a consipracy: Zionists have confiscated the narrative and the media for so long that Americans don't even know they have been brainwashed into suspending their reason and believing like dummies all the drivel rubbish Zionists feed them in movies, books, documentaries, exhibitions, and the summum of Bronze Age barbarity, the torah-old testament garbage. 

I am no fan of religion. All religions disgust me because they all demand "faith", i.e. they compel you to suspend your reason, to stop thinking rationally, in order to make you believe garbage that cannot stand the test of reason. But objectivity and fair play compel me to maintain an equal distance from all of them. Hence, being anti-Muslim doesn't make me pro-Jewish, and vice versa, just as being anti-communist does not necessarily make me a capitalist. So, if I am to mourn the death of innocent Jews in a terrorist attack, I must also mourn the death of innocent Muslims in a similar terrorist attack, and that is regardless of who carries the attack and for whatever reason they might justify it. 
==============================================

San Diego mosque shooting: 5 dead, including 2 suspects, in attack being investigated as a hate crime, police say

"This is a house of worship. It's not a battlefield," the mosque's imam said as he called on Americans to spread a "culture of love and tolerance and sympathy."

Mike Bebernes, Reporter
Mon, May 18, 2026

Three victims were killed in a shooting at a San Diego mosque on Monday. The two suspects behind the attack were also killed, authorities said.

Police responded to a report of an active shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego shortly before noon local time and found three deceased victims outside, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said during a news conference early Monday afternoon.

In a second press conference Monday evening, Wahl explained that authorities had received a report of a “runaway juvenile” from the mother of one of the suspects earlier that morning. After learning that some of the mother’s weapons had gone missing and that her son and a companion were dressed in camo when they were last seen, police began to believe there was a “bigger threat picture” facing the area, Wahl said.

Police were searching several locations for the suspect, including a school and a local mall, when they received the call about the shooting at the mosque.

At around the same time as police arrived at the Islamic center, there were reports of more gunfire a few blocks away, where it’s believed the fleeing suspects fired shots at a landscaper. Officers were then called to a nearby location where a vehicle was found in the middle of the street. The suspects, two male teenagers aged 17 and 18, were found inside the car, dead from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds, Wahl said.

One of the victims was a security guard at the Islamic center, who authorities credited with preventing the attackers from breaching the inside of the building.

“It’s fair to say his actions were heroic and undoubtedly he saved lives today,” Wahl said.

The identities of the victims and the suspects have not been made public.

The attack is being actively investigated as a hate crime. Wahl said police have found “hate rhetoric” connected to at least one of the suspects, but that no specific threat was made against the mosque before the shooting.

The Islamic Center is the largest mosque in San Diego County, according to its website. Its mission is to "serve the religious needs of the San Diego Muslim population and work with the larger community to serve the less fortunate, to educate, and to better our nation." It is also the site of a school for children from pre-K to 3rd grade. Children were present at the time of the incident, but none were hurt, police said.

Local and state leaders have condemned the attack.

“This is a house of worship. It’s not a battlefield,” Taha Hassane, the imam at the Islamic Center, said Monday afternoon. “Let’s do our best to spread the culture of love and tolerance and sympathy for the sake of this nation, for the sake of the future generation.”

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria shared a message for the city’s Muslim community in the wake of the attack.

“I want to assure our Muslim community that we will do everything it takes to make sure that you can feel safe in this city, and no resource will be spared. And making sure that our religious institutions and locations are protected in this sensitive time," he said. “But to reassert, as I always will: Hate has no place in the city of San Diego.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for solidarity against hate in a post on social media.

“Worshippers anywhere should not have to fear for their lives,” he wrote. “Hate has no place in California, and we will not tolerate acts of terror or intimidation against communities of faith.”

 

Coward Pimp Trump Goes TACO on Iran. Blames Arab Gulf Girls

Suddenly, the CLOCK STOPPED TICKING and TIME WAS NO LONGER OF THE ESSENCE. Thank you for your attention to this DJT garbage.

 

Every time he goes TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), he assigns his cowardly retreat to other factors, people and countries. It's never his own reason because the jackass never takes responsibility. This way, he thinks he is fooling his dumb MAGA herd and the world by presenting himself as a good-hearted warmongerer: I would like to wipe Iran off the face of the earth (to prove his testicular barbarity) but I have to cancel this decision in deference to my Arab Gulf Girls who are shrieking, hyperventilating, and otherwise distressing as they swirl around in panic in their ample robes, thinking they might have missed their periods and fearing for their tacky gold and crystal sand towers. 

 

The MAGA herd, or whatever is left of them, might still believe his lies. But the rest of America and the world now understand this idiot as a spineless coward who cares only about his own selfish interests, i.e. money.

 

Remember that Trump's pronoucements on the Iran War are his standard operating procedure to make money off the instability he creates and the threat to the lives of ordinary people. This is his way of manipulating the markets to make money. When he threatens war (usually toward the end of the week), stock prices collapse, signaling to his brokers, his family and billionaire goons to buy low. The Monday or Tuesdsay after (usually early in the week), he backs down, softens his threats and appears optimistic about ending the war: Stock prices soar, and his brokers, his family and billionaire goons then sell high, skimming the profits off.

Meanwhile, Iran is playing the jackass too. The ayatollahs know that Trump is desperate to end the war before the midterms in November, and they are leading him on with dilatory negotiations to push him against the wall and force him to either back down or attack: Either way, he loses.
================================================


Trump says he's called off Iran strike planned for Tuesday at request of Gulf allies
MICHELLE L. PRICE
Updated Mon, May 18, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he is holding off on a military strike on Iran planned for Tuesday because “serious negotiations” are underway to end the war.

“There seems to be a very good chance that they can work something out. If we can do that without bombing the hell out of them, I’d be very happy,” Trump said at the White House on Monday evening, after first making the announcement in a social media post.

Trump said he had planned “a very major attack” but put it off — “for a little while, hopefully, maybe forever." He said America’s allies in the Gulf asked him to wait for two to three days because they feel they are close to a deal with Iran.

Trump has been threatening for weeks that the ceasefire reached in mid-April could end if Iran did not make a deal, with shifting parameters for striking such an agreement. Over the weekend he warned, “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them.”

The president has repeatedly set deadlines for Tehran and then backed off. But he’s also previously indicated he would hold off on military action to allow talks to continue — only to turn around and launch strikes. That’s what happened at the war’s outset, when he ordered strikes in late February shortly after indicating he would let talks play out.

Trump said the current pause for negotiations was a “very positive development," while acknowledging there were times in the past when a deal seemed close but nothing came of it. “But this is a little bit different,” he said.

Trump credits Gulf allies

The president, who had not previously disclosed that he was planning a strike for Tuesday, did not offer details about the planned attack but said in his social media post he had instructed the U.S. military “to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached.”

Trump said he was calling off the attack at the request of allies in the Middle East, including the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran and allied Shiite militias in Iraq have launched drone attacks targeting the Gulf Arab states in the war. The United Arab Emirates has recently accused Iran of launching drone and missile attacks despite the ceasefire. On Sunday, a drone strike sparked a fire on the edge of the UAE's sole nuclear power plant in what authorities called an “unprovoked terrorist attack” while not assigning blame.

Trump in recent days has also spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Chinese President Xi Jinping about the Iran war.
 

Oil prices affected

Trump’s post quickly caused a fall in the price of oil, which had been rising on the prospect of a prolonged standoff that would keep the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed.

Minutes before the president’s announcement, petroleum futures had been trading at $108.83 a barrel. His word about negotiations almost instantly shaved more than $2 off the price, but it crept up again and ended on Monday at $107.25 a barrel.

Shortly after Trump’s post, Iranian state TV called it a “retreat” based on “fear” in its broadcast ticker and on its X account.

It reported earlier that defense systems were activated late Monday on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. It added the situation was “under control” there, the largest Iranian island in the Persian Gulf, home to about 150,000 people and a water desalination plant.

Major sticking points remain

Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the shipment of oil, gas, fertilizer and other petroleum products. The U.S. is blockading Iranian ports and has redirected 85 commercial vessels from mid-April through Monday, U.S. Central Command said in a social media post.

Earlier Monday, Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the immediate concern of the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran was keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, but Iran’s nuclear program remained a central issue.

Speaking during a joint news conference with his German counterpart in Berlin, Fidan said much of Iran’s enriched uranium that could potentially be used for a nuclear weapon was buried under collapsed tunnels following attacks in June that the U.S. launched with Israel. The U.S. has said it is closely monitoring any movements around the stockpile.

“At present, there isn’t a situation that poses a real threat," Fidan said. “But for this to continue, the parties must reach and conclude a nuclear negotiation among themselves.”

The Turkish minister said he believes Iran is not opposed in principle to complying with nuclear conditions, but added: “the question is what will be given in return, in what order, and under what conditions.”

With talks at a standstill last week, Iran's foreign minister said Friday that a lack of trust was the biggest impediment to negotiations.

Iran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, was said to have included some nuclear concessions in its latest proposal to end the war. But Trump dismissed the proposal as “garbage."
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Darlene Superville in Washington, Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

================================================

RELATED:
 

Trump Insiders Face Wild Allegations After ‘Insane Pattern’ Spotted

Harry Thompson

Mon, May 18, 2026

Nine gambling accounts have won in excess of $2.4 million across more than 80 bets on action taken by the U.S. military, raising questions about insider trading.

The White House wrote to staff in March, reminding them that insider trading is a federal offense after a flurry of bets on major incidents, including the U.S. capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, who was taken to the U.S. to face narco terrorism and drug trafficking charges.

Now, a new analysis from data company Bubblemaps found that bets from nine anonymous accounts had a 98 percent win rate, staking on key moments in the war with Iran, including the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, when a ceasefire would be called, and when the bombardment would first begin.

 

People have made money on the timing of Maduro's capture. / XNY/Star Max / GC Images

“This might be the most insane pattern we have found on Polymarket so far,” Bubblemaps co-founder and CEO Nicolas Vaiman told 60 Minutes. “Luck alone cannot explain those numbers.”

Polymarket enables people to place bets on a broad range of real-world future outcomes, from wars to the weather, but it has raised concerns that officials could be using non-public information to gain an advantage.

In a statement to 60 Minutes, Polymarket said, “When our systems identify suspicious activity, we act—including through referrals to law enforcement and cooperation with investigations. The statement added that “insider trading is not welcome on Polymarket, and those who attempt it will be identified.”

In the March email, obtained by CBS, the White House told staff that “Recent press reports have raised concerns about government officials using nonpublic government information to place wagers on online prediction markets, such as Kalshi or Polymarket.”

It added that it is a “criminal offense for anyone to use nonpublic information to buy or sell these contracts,” adding that “government ethics regulations prohibit the use of nonpublic information for the private benefit of an employee or any other third party.”

“All White House employees are reminded that the misuse of nonpublic information by government employees for financial benefit is a very serious offense and will not be tolerated.”

Bubblemap’s head of investigations, granted anonymity to go only by the name Deebs, said that many people are involved in planning and executing a military operation, and that privileged information can leak to friends and family.

“And that means that there are, consequently, a lot of potential insiders,” said Deebs.

Previous bets with curious timing have also been placed on oil prices, which have fluctuated extensively due to the conflicts in Venezuela and Iran.

One incident saw an anonymous user called “Magamyman” earn more than $553,000 following Khamenei’s death.

Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke was indicted in April for allegedly using a VPN to place a bet on the capture of Maduro. He pleaded not guilty to allegations from the Justice Department that he made $400,000 after staking around $34,000.

Among Polymarket’s investors is President Donald Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who uses his venture capital firm, 1789 Capital.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates insider trading and fraud in the U.S. “This is a new kind of insider trading,” former employee Rob Schwartz, now a partner at law firm Morgan Lewis, told 60 Minutes.

In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said, “All federal employees are subject to government ethics guidelines that prohibit the use of nonpublic information for financial benefit. However, any implication that administration officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting.”

MAGA Cheers US Troop Removal from Poland and Germany...

... but nag that Spain doesn't let US military use its territory for warmongering purposes.

Vendido Cuban Marco Rubio has fire coming out of his big ears for lying to his Hispanic and Latino consitutency that has been exclusively targeted by Donald Dumb's xenophobic policies. 

Donkey-eared "Little Marco": Make up your mind. Are the Europeans your allies or your enemies? You and that other drunkard imbecile Pete Hegseth cannot insult them one day and demand that they help you in your hour of dire need the next day.

The dumb MAGA administration is terrified at breaking down NATO. It threatens its NATO allies at exiting the alliance in the belief that it can scare the Europeans into submission. A US withdrawal from NATO is intended by the dumb Rubio and Donald Dumb as a way to wave the Putin scarecrow at them. It is sooooo stupid.

NATO is a defense organization that kicks into action when one of its members is threatened by an enemy. It is not a Mafia organization in which the boss makes the decision and the mafiosis blindly execute. But this is what the cretinous Mafioso-in-Chief and his minions like Rubio believe. The way NATO operates is, when one member is threatened, to consult and agree BEFORE undertaking any act of war. 

=========================================


Marco Rubio Questions NATO's Utility, Says 'What Is The Purpose Of The Alliance?' After Spain Blocks Base Access
Mohd Haider
Sun, May 17, 2026 


Marco Rubio Questions NATO's Utility, Says 'What Is The Purpose Of The Alliance?' After Spain Blocks Base Access

Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised pointed questions on Thursday about NATO’s strategic utility to the United States, citing Spain’s denial of Washington’s access to its bases during recent military operations against Iran.

“When you have NATO partners denying you the use of those bases — when the primary reason why NATO is good for America is now being denied to us by Spain — then what’s the purpose of the alliance?” Rubio said aboard Air Force One, en route to Beijing.

SECRETARY RUBIO: One of the reasons I supported NATO is because it gave us basing rights in Europe.

So when NATO partners like Spain deny us use of these bases, the primary reason for why NATO is good for America, then what is the purpose of the alliance? pic.twitter.com/ufJxRHkbeY

— Department of State (@StateDept) May 14, 2026

Rubio, a longtime Senate NATO supporter, said basing rights were his primary justification for backing the alliance. He singled out Portugal, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria as cooperative partners, while calling Spain’s posture “atrocious.”

A Two-Tier Alliance?

“It starts becoming a ‘they’re allies when they want to be’ kind of thing,” Rubio said.

He went further, questioning the fundamental premise of U.S. membership. "What is the purpose of being in an alliance whose benefit to us is these basing rights if, in a time of conflict like the one we've had with Iran, they can deny us the use of those bases? Only to protect them but not to further our national interest? This is a very legitimate question that we need to address."

SECRETARY RUBIO: Are we in NATO only to protect them and not to further our national interest? This is a very legitimate question that we need to address. pic.twitter.com/2IaRe1Dyy8

— Department of State (@StateDept) May 14, 2026

Donald Dumb Prefers Golf to Celebrating America's 250th B'day

"LOCK HIM UP" IN THE ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE

A representative of how most Americans feel about the Great Moron. This protester "greeted" the Great Moron as his motorcade took him to Trump National Golf Club on Sunday to play golf instead of joining in the celebrations of the country's 250th birthday. / Elizabeth Frantz/REUTERS. Her placard says, "47, corrupt, unhinged, failure, unamerican, traitor, disgrace" How true!

============================================== 

 

Trump Snubs His Big Faith Event to Go Golfing
Erkki Forster
Sun, May 17, 2026

President Donald Trump skipped his own White House-backed event “rededicating” the nation to God to spend the day at his preferred place of worship: the golf course.

As thousands flocked to the National Mall on Sunday for a Trump-backed rally highlighting “the Church’s role in history and civic life” in honor of America’s 250th, the president’s motorcade rolled out of the capital towards the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.

The president has played golf for 106 of his first 483 days back in office, or roughly 21.9 percent of his presidency, according to Did Trump Golf Today. / Mike Stobe / Getty Images

Meanwhile, Trump, 79, fired off a decidedly unholy and chilling Truth Social message once again threatening to wipe out Iran.

“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” he wrote. “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! President DJT.”

Trump, who said in 2020 that he considers himself a non-denominational Christian, appears not to have attended a single church service since his January 21, 2025, visit to the Washington National Cathedral in the final event of his second inauguration.

He has instead made a habit of spending many Sundays on the fairways of his golf clubs. According to "Did Trump Golf Today", the president has played golf for 106 of his first 483 days back in office, or roughly 21.9 percent of his presidency.

Donald Trump threatened Iran again. / Truth Social/Screenshot / Truth Social

Trump did spare a passing thought for the White House’s nine-hour faith rally, which organizers say is intended to “prepare for the nation’s 250th birthday with Scripture, testimony, prayer, and rededication of our country as One Nation to God.”

“I HOPE EVERYBODY AT REDEDICATE 250 IS HAVING A GOOD TIME,” Trump wrote hours before he posted his threat to Iran. “IF THERE IS ANYTHING I CAN DO TO HELP, JUST HAVE OUR BEAUTIFUL, BOTH INSIDE AND OUT, RACHAEL C.D., GIVE ME A CALL. I’M BACK FROM CHINA!!! President DJT.”

The president’s bizarre post bypassed any mention of faith or prayer in favor of commenting on the appearance of Rachel Campos-Duffy, 54, wife of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, 54, and co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend.

Campos-Duffy, whose name Trump misspelled in the post, was covering the “Rededicate 250” event live on 'Fox & Friends'. / Elizabeth Frantz / REUTERS

Trump was scheduled to appear in a video message at the event, along with other Trump officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

After arriving at his golf club just before 1 p.m., the commander-in-chief left at 4:22 p.m., according to White House press pool dispatches.

Trump was photographed as he arrived back to the White House following his golf outing on Sunday. / Elizabeth Frantz/REUTERS

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump previously snubbed the holiest day on the Christian calendar, skipping Easter Service last month to take an odd motorcade tour of D.C. Naturally, his Easter morning travels also took him to Trump National Golf Club.

On the same day, the warmongering president issued a profanity-laced post against Iran in which he praised Allah.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” he raged. “Open the F—n’ Strait, you crazy b—--ds, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!” “Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP."

That prompted former Trump devotee Marjorie Taylor Greene to declare, “Our President is not a Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------- 

[Too late MTG. You should have known better like many remorseful MAGA morons. You've seen the Great Moron in action for the past 15 years and yet you defended him when his mob attacked Congress and tried to topple the government in January 2021. You defended him against any impeachement by Congress for his crimes and his treason with Putin. You defended him despite his crimes against women. I assume you were not a Christian either back then, but now you claim to be one. I can't believe you. Was Judas a traitor or a disciple?]

Trump in Panic Mode: NO DEAL with Iran Before Midterms

Trump's posts on Iran increasingly display impatience on the Moron's part at his inability to subdue Iran into a deal. The Great Moron is phrasing his threats in a way that places the onus on the Iranians to come to a deal fast, when in reality it is his own sense of panic at watching the war spill over into the midterms in November.

The Great American Moron issued what appears to be a fresh warning to Iran on Sunday, saying it had to move quickly towards a peace deal or "there won't be anything left of them". Donald Dumb thought, based on his Moron whisperer, the War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu who poked his ass with a cattle prod into the war, that the regime in Tehran would collapse within a few days of the February 28 launch of the war. 

But rabid extremists like the Zionist Netanyahu don't rationalize their policies; their psychotic brains act with impulse and recklessness because they, i.e. Benyamin himself, face prison time for corruption in Israel and for war crimes at the Hague, as soon as the war ends. The Zionist war-criminal prime minister - named by his own people the Crime Minister -  has no interest in a deal, let alone in peace. Israel itself is such an anomalous entity that can only function as a war machine. Peace is always against the interests of colonial invaders and genociders because it puts an end to their atavistic desire for more land grabs, savage conquests, unfettered barbarity and more crimes. Israel is condemned to live on a constant war footing, trying to defend the indefensible, namely the rape of its Palestine victim. Imagine yourself in the Palestinian shoes of the raped victim: What wouldn't you do to seek revenge, retribution or punishment? I cannot fathom one moment that the Palestinians would accept any peace with Israel that does not restitute all their rights to them as the indigenous original owners of the land. But Israel is, again, a colonial outsider whose sole raison d'etre is to kill and deny Palestine as a way to assert its own identity and artificial birth.

Back to the Great Moron: Netanyahu threw him in the cauldron and neither one of Laurel and Hardy seems to be able to get out. Donald Dumb has struggled to first clearly articulate his objectives in the war, and that is because he has none. He was pushed into it. That is why when his posts seem to make sense he boils his objectives down to only one, which is the Zionist top objective: No nuclear power for Iran. How to do that? No one knows. Iran is neither Afghanistan nor Iraq. Invading Iran with 500,000 US troops to take the country is virtually impossible for a number of reasons. Iran is a huge territory with a topography similar to Afghanistan with high mountains and difficult terrain that is very suitable to a guerilla warfare that could cost the US thousands of lives, something Donald Dumb would never do 6 months before the midterm elections. Then Iraq and Afghanistan were failed wars in which the Americans perhaps won militarily first, but then ultimately lost both militarily and politically. 

At this point, Donald Dumb is stuck. He cannot back down because that would annihilate him politically back home, and he has no interest either in escalating the war to the point where he would have to put troops in the ground or, as some are suggesting, pull a 1945 Truman and use the nuclear bomb to subdue the Iranians.

Rigth now, Trump CANNOT break the impasse in which he is wallowing, threatening one day and making overtures the next. He is unable to make any progress toward ending a war with minimal gains, a war that has rattled his allies, the Arab Gulf Girls who are shaking in their robes and the Europeans and others who do not want any association with a demented senile imbecile. Not to mention the economic disasters that the war is having on the domestic front: energy prices climbing; inflation soaring, grocery prices escalating...

So the Moron is resorting to maintain this acrobatic exercise of maybe-war maybe-deal. And time is not on his side. Hence, his nighttime ranting posts are looking increasingly like he is panicking and freaking out. He's like an enraged cat in a cage. Here is one of his latest posts from last night:

"For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won't be anything left of them," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!"

Indeed, if time is of the essence it is primarily FOR HIM, not for the Iranians. They have very little to lose while he has everything to lose. Remember that with the dumb idiot, his outward pronouncements and accusations are admissions and confessions of his own failure vis-a-vis his perceived enemies and opponents.

 

Anti-Palestine Hollywood McCarthyist MAGA Blacklists

The clock of history turns regularly in the US. Between bouts of real social and political progress, the dumb American Republicans periodically carry out witch hunts against hypothetical enemies they invent to assert their control over an equally dumb American population. 

Between the late 1930s and the 1950s, the enemy to be burned at the stake were hidden "Communists" who were suspected of scheming with the Soviets to corrupt the fantastic eden on earth of the "American Way of Life" with communist ideas. In 1954, Senator Joe McCarthy House Un-Amerian Activities Committee held televised hearings - which were Catholic Inquisition-like witch hunt interrogations - in which those deposed were accused of being, or associating with, communist infiltrators. To keep their jobs and avoid being blacklisted by Hollywood, the media and other major institutions, they were asked to snitch on associates and friends. Many lives were ruined during this moron-Republican-instigated dark period of US history. You should watch Woody Allen's "The Front" movie to get a glimpse of what it was like to be blacklisted in the US at the time. 

Those targeted by this rabid chronic idiocy of the extreme right were authors, actors, screenwriters and artists whose freedom of speech, opinion, and conscience were seen by the chroncially dumb Republicans as dangerous to America. 

Nowadays, the communists are no longer the enemy. They new enemy is Palestine which is reeling under a relentless genocide and ethnic cleansing by the Zionist friends of the Republican morons. The objective here is so stiffle any opinion that stands against the Zionist barbarity in Palestine. The 2020s version of McCarthyism's ugliness is in the current MAGA-GOP-Republican war against speaking out against the Zionist rape of Palestine. Anyone who challenges the barbarity of the Zionists in occupied Palestine is deemed to be a pro-Palestinian "terrorist". The absurd formula is simple: If you speak for freedom and justice in Palestine, you are a violent terrorist and an antisemite. 

Right now, there is a blacklist of authors, journalists, academics, screenwriters, actors etablished by Trump's MAGA to destroy the lives of those who dissent from the dogma of the Zionist Right, which says that Palestine must be killed, silenced, eradicated and erased from daily discourse and the annals of history, because it exposes the atrocity of the colonial Israeli Zionist narrative. By definition, the very existence of a Palestine (the historic millennial entity) negates the artificially-created Zionist Israel. Trump has attacked, harassed and theatened universities, professors, researchers, students, actors and others who constitute the intellectual bastion of freedom in America if they dare speak against the rape and genocide of Palestine by the violent ultra-religious barbarian Zionists.

MAGA is the new McCarthyism, and Hollywood is again divided betwen those targeted (those who speak out) and the cowardly accomplices (those who cave in and bend like cowards without a conscience just to keep their jobs).

MAGA is totalitarian. It claims to work for freedom but in reality it aims to stiffle freedom and dissent. The general strategy is to accuse your perceived enemy of your own filth, the now common "every accusation is a confession" that Trump has established as the modus operandi of the Radical Right. Those who accuse you of being anti-Israel are themselves deeply antisemitic. Those who accuse you of canceling others are canceling others. Those who accuse you of being "woke" and DEI are themselves intolerant racists aiming to cause prejudice and practice discrimination against all those who are NOT White Anglo-Saxon Christian Supremacist Protestant.

The Zionist narrative has succeeded in killing Palestine in the minds of the American public over much of the past several decades through Hollywood movies, documentaries, books, press publications, museums,.... by portraying the Zionist rapist of Palestine as the victim of his own Palestinian victim. But a younger generation of Americans and westerners, indeed young people all around the world, have now access to the facts and the archives thanks to the democratization of information. The Zionist monopoly over the information is gone. And when you give reasonable people the facts, they make their own free judgment. And that terrifies the Zionists and their MAGA-GOP poodles.

=========================================== 


Javier Bardem Says Tide Is Turning on Hollywood Speaking Up for Palestine: Those Making Blacklists ‘Will Be the Ones Suffering the Consequences’
Ellise Shafer and Matt Donnelly
Sun, May 17, 2026



Javier Bardem thinks the tide is turning in terms of speaking up for Palestine in Hollywood, telling a Cannes Film Festival press conference on Sunday that “everyone is beginning to realize … this is unacceptable.”

The Oscar-winning Spanish actor, who is at Cannes with his latest film “The Beloved,” was asked immediately if he has any fear of suffering consequences in his career for denouncing the war in Gaza. Bardem has been one of the most outspoken actors on the topic, taking the opportunity at the Oscars to say “Free Palestine” while presenting the award for best international feature film.

“The fear does exist, granted, but one has to do things even if you feel a bit scared or afraid,” he said. “You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror, look at yourself in the eyes and that was my case. My mother taught me to be the way I am. There is no plan B. This entails consequences, which I am fully ready to shoulder.”

Bardem noted that he “can’t corroborate” that there is an actual blacklist, and has actually continued to receive many offers all over the world which makes him believe that “things are changing.”

“Everyone is beginning to realize — thanks to the younger generation who is more aware of situations we’re experiencing quite directly on our phones and on other screens — this is unacceptable. It cannot be justified. And there can be no reason, no explanation for this genocide,” he said. “Therefore, I think what is happening is quite the contrary. I believe that those who are drawing up the so-called blacklists will actually be exposed, and they will be the ones suffering the so-called consequences, at least on a public and social level. And this is a major change.”

Asked later in the conference for his thoughts on democracy, Bardem also hit out at the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger. “I believe that there is an increasing monopoly in the world of information, that’s one of the problems that we note given Paramount and Warner Bros. and their merger, for example,” he said. “In terms of information, who is actually going to control all of this, what we’re listening, what we’re seeing? So I think that is very clear and is growing in importance with tech and social networks and rapid, summed-up messages which are very populist. They indeed have an impact on the young generation. That concerns me no end. We have to ensure the younger generation continues to think, apply reason, they need to understand, to compare, to check information. if they don’t it’s very dangerous, indeed.”

Bardem told Variety in a recent cover story that he’s “always felt that I have microphones and recorders recording my voice, and I have the right to denounce what I think is wrong.” Though there’s been chatter about celebrities who speak up about Gaza being put on a blacklist, the actor said he’s felt as much support as backlash.

“Some people will put you on a blacklist. I cannot tell you if that’s true or not — I don’t have the facts,” he said. “What I do have the facts about are the new people that are calling you because they want you in their project. That makes me feel that the narrative that they’ve been using for so long is changing.”