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One Racist Batshit Christo-Fascist Homeland Under God
In retrospect, Sunday's taxpayer-funded blasphemy fest to "rededicate" America as a Christian nation though it's not and never was looks ever more obscene amidst an unholy regime's mounting crimes and abuses. Its sectarian circus - ICE milled, vendors urged "WIVES SUBMIT," zealots screeched "We welcome Jesus!", speakers attested God is eager for the ballroom - just queasily re-shaped a 250-year-old America into the kind of country it once sought freedom from.
"Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving," a "constitutional abomination wrapped in layers of blasphemy and demagoguery," sought to proclaim America "One Nation Under God," but only a white male evangelical God; Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, commies, Jews, atheists, agnostics, black, brown, queer, Native people and even mainline Protestants need not apply. As such, it attacked what Jefferson deemed an unalienable right of conscience "which lies solely between Man & his God," defied the core constitutional tenet of separation of church and state, and "torpedoe(d) the best of American traditions - inclusivity and diversity" with, essentially, "a Jubilee of Christian Nationalism."
Its state-sponsored, right-wing fever dream marked the successful MAGA hijacking of Congress’ bipartisan, 2016 America250 commission, meant to honor the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and its core values of equality and agency before the law. Instead, Trump concocted his own Christo-fascist Freedom 250 to celebrate a racist, corporate, jingoistic narrative of America, rewriting history to create an imaginary, monolithic, jingoistic, white, male, Christian national identity that celebrates "God’s presence in our national life throughout 250 years of American history," and what is this inequality or oppression of which you speak?
Freedom 250 swiftly collected most of the $150 million appropriated by Congress, along with support from patriotic sponsors like ExxonMobil, Mastercard, Palantir, Amazon, Coinbase. Year-long festivities have included a weekly America Prays initiative; a series of Interior Department events celebrating “the triumph of the American spirit” plastered with flags, logos, Trump National Park passes; a fleet of nationwide “Freedom Trucks,” mobile museums offering right-wing takes on US history created with PragerU; a national Freedom 250 Patriot Games - Hunger Games anyone? - competition for high school athletes; a revamped Great American Farmers Market in DC with a "MAHA Monday."
On social media, meanwhile, DHS has begun declaring itself "One Homeland Under God," complete with image of church and cross and highlighted Bible verse; for April 19, it urged, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." The Washington Monument was transformed into “the world’s tallest birthday candle," with projections celebrating historic achievements by white men like Christopher Columbus and Henry Ford, with no black, Native, female people in sight. To re-enforce the white-centric narrative, organizers have also promised a Summer Surge of thousands more ICE and DHS thugs to make the nation still whiter.
Sunday's Jubilee continued the rebrand of a newly pristine, godly history, with 14 of 15 speakers Christian, arched stained-glass windows and a looming white cross all "glorifying the name of Jesus over our nation’s capital." "Our nation more than any other was shaped by the idea that faith brought freedom," said Marco Rubio in a prerecorded speech. "This is who we are." Virginia pastor Gary Hamrick concurred, but added the imaginary threat of a "spiritual war," perhaps best personified by the scary scattered signs of protesters urging, “Celebrate Democracy, Not Theocracy.” "This is a battle in our day between good and evil," he said. "Our hope is built on Jesus' blood."
Also, Jesus merch. As the faithful braved three-hour lines in the heat and prayed, arms lifted to the sky, vendors handed out "Jesus Saves" bracelets and buttons that said, “WIVES SUBMIT, HUSBANDS LOVE, CHILDREN OBEY.” There were "Thank you Jesus!" signs, a huge "Jesus Make America Godly Again" banner, $47 Freedom 250 baseball caps, t-shirts that read, "God Guns Family Freedom" and "Forever In Our Hearts, Charlie Kirk." "We welcome Jesus into this place!" declared one speaker. Another noted, "It's hard to believe it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom to stand where it needs to stand." (Jesus.)
Pete Hegseth,on video, was typically unshy about praising Jesus. He dubiously zeroed in on The Prayer at Valley Forge, a 1975 painting by Arnold Friberg of George Washington praying in the snow widely deemed a romanticized legend, not fact. Historians argue Washington was a deist and freemason who rarely mentioned God or Jesus, whose favorite Biblical quote - "But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid" - symbolizes peace, safety, religious freedom, and who always prayed standing. Still, Hegseth ran with it: Washington "did not lose faith," and "let us pray as he did...without ceasing...on bended knee, for our Lord and savior Jesus Christ."
Trump took an even more sketchy approach: He went golfing and sent in a slurry, pre-taped Bible reading recycled from the last fake Christian event three weeks ago. Then, moments after it aired, the self-described peace president went on a frenzied, genocidal social media spree, posting on his crappy app over 30 times in two hours. He threatened Iran: "The Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them." He posted bizarre, AI, warmongering images: Manning a spacecraft, firing away with massive explosions and mushroom clouds, personally arresting an alien, a real one. Say what? Praise Jesus.
Still, spineless, smarmy, unholy Mike Johnson was the worst. Having already whined about "naysayers" who view Christian Nationalism as "a derogatory term," he gave a long hollow prayer about his task to "bring us straight to the Lord, whose mighty hand has been upon our (freest and most benevolent) nation since the very beginning." But now "sinister ideologies sow confusion among our people," attacking our history as "one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure." So "grant us the moral clarity to rise above partisan differences," says the guy who keeps shutting down Congress to block Dem policies. Finally, unconscionably, he prayed for “mercy upon our land.”
Mercy. He seeks mercy.
Mercy for the hundreds of people in the Congo and elsewhere dying of an Ebola outbreak after Trump gutted USAID and its dedicated outbreak response team because it helped people who aren't white, thus triggering what could be over 14 million preventable deaths by 2030?
Mercy for those killed at San Diego's biggest mosque amidst a Trump-fuelled rising tide of Islamophobia? Mercy for those ripped off or otherwise betrayed in a rabid mob by a $1.8 billion slush fund, or "pardon on steroids," in the "most brazen act of presidential corruption this century."
Mercy for the estimated 145,000 U.S. citizen brown children who had a parent detained by ICE and are now scattered across the country, or the 22,000 who lost both parents? Mercy for the woman, a domestic violence victim, detained and deported whom ICE is now blaming for the murder of her own child by her ex-partner?
Mercy for the 21-year-old Honduran with no criminal record just arrested and detained by ICE outside a New York immigration court less than 24 hours after a federal judge's ruling such arrests are illegal, because, as one ICE thug responded when shown the ruling, "We don't care"?
Mercy for 18-year-old, Chicago-born, Mexico-raised Kevin González, being treated in Chicago for metastatic stage-four colon cancer when his health began failing? His parents in Mexico sought emergency visas to travel to the US to say their final goodbyes; when DHS denied them, citing “previous unlawful entries into the US," in desperation they tried to cross the border without permission and were detained by ICE in Arizona. Kevin pleaded in vain for their release; ultimately, he checked himself out of the hospital and flew to his grandmother's home in Mexico to be with family at the end. Finally, in Kevin's last hours, a judge in Arizona ordered their release. They arrived at his bedside on the afternoon of May 9. His sobbing mom called him, “Chiquito," "little one”; his father knelt by his son's bed, asking for forgiveness if he ever let him down. Kevin died the next day.
Mercy? Does Mike Johnson want mercy for Kevin and his parents?
Fuck Mike Johnson and all his fucking odious cohort. Fuck their prayers, and their Jesus, and their cruelty, and their fucking despicable hypocrisy, which knows no bounds. What would Jesus do? Not this, any of it.
May 21, 2026
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Fuel Prices Have Spiked More in ‘Energy Independent’ US Than in Nations That Have Moved Away From Oil and Gas
Average gas prices in the United States are quickly climbing toward $5 per gallon this week as US President Donald Trump's war with Iran shows little sign of resolution.
Where average prices were about $2.98 the day before the war's launch, they had shot up to $4.48 as of Tuesday, according to AAA's gas price tracker, as Iran's restriction of ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz has squeezed global oil shipping and the shipping of other fuel sources like liquefied natural gas (LNG), causing global price hikes.
And while Trump has touted America’s supposed “energy independence” as an ace in the hole, achieved by ratcheting up fossil fuel production while canceling solar and wind power projects, data shows that the US has been hit harder by the price shocks than any other major economy in the world, with those that have embraced renewable energy being especially resilient.
Although the US leads the world in oil production by a large margin, data from JP Morgan Commodities research, analyzed Friday by MarketWatch, showed that between February 23 and April 27, the US experienced about a 42% increase in gas prices, the fifth-highest in the world.
"The spike in US gasoline prices over the past two months has outpaced everywhere except Southeast Asia, the region most dependent on oil from the Persian Gulf," explained Yahoo Finance geopolitics reporter Jake Conley.
Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader and managing director at CIBC Private Wealth, explained to MarketWatch last week that while increased fuel production gives the US a "buffer," oil is a global market and "it doesn’t operate in a vacuum." She said, "Global tightness and domestic bottlenecks still show up in gasoline prices."
Meanwhile, some of the countries that have best survived the price hikes include France and Spain, which derive large shares of their power from nuclear energy and renewables, respectively.
Craig Hanson and Jessica Isaacs, a pair of researchers at the World Resources Institute, explained last month that while a mix of factors is at play, countries less reliant on fossil fuels generally "find themselves in a better position to withstand the current crisis."
"Every country has homegrown access to at least two clean energy resources—the sun shines, and the wind blows just about everywhere at some point," they said. "The same cannot be said of oil and gas, where production is concentrated in a small number of countries and exposed to geopolitical disruption."
"Renewable resources like wind, solar, and geothermal have zero fuel costs, and the fuel cost of nuclear power is quite low. Again, the same cannot be said of fossil fuels, which have costs set by volatile global markets," they added. "These two advantages are why some of the world’s clean energy frontrunners are faring better than other countries amidst the Iranian energy crisis."
As Reuters reported in late April, the contrast between Europe's biggest gas guzzlers and green energy adopters is particularly stark.
While Albania has kept energy prices in check and even lowered them compared to last year by using its large system of hydroelectric dams, which supply much of its power, countries like Germany and Italy, which still rely heavily on gas, have seen electricity prices spike.
Hanson and Isaacs noted that while clean energy investments have helped soften the blow of global price shocks, the effects are not the same across the board. While price hikes for the electricity used to power factories, homes, and cars have been blunted by the availability of alternative energy sources, others, like heat—which are more reliant on natural gas—have still been affected.
Still, though, they said the crisis has shown that in addition to environmental sustainability, "clean energy systems’ greatest benefits today might actually be price stability and domestic energy resilience."
While Trump has continued his efforts to choke off any federal investment in renewable energy and double down on oil and gas production, other nations have taken the war’s price hikes as a sign to further accelerate their transition away from fossil fuels.
Germany and several other European Union members, for example, have announced expedited timelines to expand offshore wind and solar investments, explicitly citing the volatility in oil markets caused by the war.
Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the energy price shocks showed that "the only real energy independence from the Middle East is renewables."
May 05, 2026
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In Leaked Audio, Zuckerberg Tells Meta Workers He's Been Using Them to Train AI Ahead of Mass Layoffs
Meta employees reported Wednesday that in the company's offices on the day mass layoffs hit thousands of their colleagues, fliers were taped to walls urging workers to sign a petition in support of stopping the company's new artificial intelligence data tracking program—which CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted late last month as a way for its new AI models to "learn from watching really smart people do things."
A day before about 8,000 Meta employees began receiving emails notifying them that they were being laid off—a process that began in Singapore at 4:00 am local time Wednesday and continued in European and US offices in their respective time zones—the labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union shared a leaked audio file in which Zuckerberg was heard explaining how the AI training program worked.
"The average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks," said Zuckerberg. "So if we're trying to teach the models coding, for example, then having people internally build tools or solve tasks that help teach the model how to code, we think is going to dramatically increase our model's coding ability faster than what others in the industry have the capability to do, who don't have thousands and thousands of extremely strong engineers at their company."
LEAKED AUDIO: In an all-hands meeting on April 30, Mark Zuckerberg tells employees that he's training AI on them ahead of mass layoffs.
"The AI models learn from watching really smart people do things... The average intelligence of the people who are at this company is… pic.twitter.com/lt9eeJ3cwh
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 19, 2026
He assured the company's 78,000 employees that "no human is looking at or watching what people are doing on their computers... None of the data is being used for looking at what people are doing or surveillance or performance tracking or anything like that. It's purely just that we are using this to feed a very large amount of content into the AI model so that way it can learn how smart people use computers to accomplish tasks."
Zuckerberg explained how the employees have been used to train the model that could potentially replace many of them days after Meta announced it was planning to lay off about 10% of its workforce as the company invests heavily in AI, spending $125 billion to $145 billion on the technology—more than double what it spent last year.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that employees "revolted" when they learned about the AI tracking program, and expressed fears that they had unknowingly been training a model that would ultimately replace them.
An engineering manager asked on the company's internal communication platform how workers can opt out of having their computer activity monitored to train the AI model, only to be told by chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, "There is no option to opt out on your corporate laptop."
Another employee told Bosworth, “Your callousness to the concerns of your own employees is concerning."
On Monday, The New York Times reported, employees learned that in addition to the layoffs, another 7,000 workers will be reassigned to help develop AI tools.
About 2,000 employees began working this month on a new Applied AI and Engineering team, which is set to use the data gathered by the AI tracking program Zuckerberg described to build AI tools. Those who volunteered to join the group would not be included in this week's layoffs, the Times reported.
"Every company is training AI on their employees," said Chen Avnery, an independent adviser on AI governance and data platforms. "Meta just said it out loud. The question stopped being, 'Will AI replace you?' a year ago. Now it's whether you're building the agents or generating their training data."
More than 1,000 people in the company have signed the petition calling to halt the AI data program, according to the newspaper.
Software engineer Mack Ward urged his colleagues to sign on earlier this month, telling them in an internal post that "AI is a freight train, but the future is not a foregone conclusion."
"It’s not too late to pump the brakes and consider how we, society, want to go about this,” Ward said. “Speaking up is never easy, but ‘easy’ isn’t what you were hired to do.”
May 20, 2026
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Trump Officials Pushed Plan to Ban Half of US Voting Machines in Unprecedented Election Meddling Bid
A group of Trump administration officials last year pushed a plan to ban half of voting machines currently used in the US based on disproven conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen by former President Joe Biden.
According to a Friday report from Reuters, Trump adviser Kurt Olsen asked the US Department of Commerce to declare components of machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems to be national security risks.
Reuters' sources said that Olsen's idea came as part of a brainstorming session "about how the federal government could take control over elections from US states, an idea publicly aired by Trump."
Some officials at the Commerce Department began exploring legal justifications that could be used to ban half of all voting machines, but the effort ended because "Olsen and other administration staffers working with him failed to provide evidence to justify such a move," Reuters reported.
In place of the Dominion voting machines, Olsen pushed a scheme to force all affected states to hand count ballots, a process that some election experts say would be both more time consuming and prone to error.
Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer science professor, told Reuters that "changing to hand counting would be chaotic,” adding that "it might facilitate cheating.”
Olsen, a former Trump campaign lawyer who tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was hired by the White House last year to investigate that very same election, which Trump lost to Biden by 4.5 percentage points in the popular vote and by 74 votes in the US electoral college.
The report on the election machine-banning effort comes as Trump has pushed an unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering scheme, which has resulted in an electoral map that elections analyst G. Elliot Morris projects could result in Republicans maintaining control of the US House of Representatives while losing the nationwide popular vote by three points.
Democrats have accused the president of pushing to rig the 2026 midterm elections.
The president also issued an executive order that places new restrictions on mail-in voting, which the president has falsely claimed was used by Democrats to steal the 2020 election from him.
Additionally, Trump and allies such as right-wing podcaster Steve Bannin have suggested deploying federal immigration agents to polling places in November, a move that critics contend would be an unprecedented and unconstitutional federal voter intimidation campaign.
May 22, 2026
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Labor Unions Worldwide Applaud ICJ Ruling Affirming Workers' Right to Strike
Labor leaders around the world cheered Thursday's landmark World Court ruling affirming that the right to strike is protected under international law.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ruled 10-4 in an advisory opinion—meaning it's not legally binding—that “the right to strike of workers and their organizations is protected” under the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention of 1948, also known as International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 87.
However, the tribunal also declared that its finding "does not entail any determination on the precise content, scope, or conditions for the exercise of that right."
The case originated with a 2023 request by the ILO Governing Body amid disagreement among the agency's three constituencies—governments, workers, and employers—over the right to strike.
"For decades, this issue has generated one of the deepest disputes within the ILO's tripartite structure... creating a deadlock over the interpretation of international labor standards," explained Kenyan labor law expert Ayaga Max Liambilah.
"Workers and trade unions argued that the right to organize becomes ineffective without the ability to strike, viewing strikes as essential tools for collective bargaining and protection of workers' interests," he said. "Employers' organizations, particularly the International Organization of Employers (IOE), maintained that Convention 87 does not expressly include a right to strike and that reading it into the convention creates obligations never explicitly negotiated by states."
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) representative Paapa Danquah told the court during proceedings that “strike action has been our vital tool... to improve labor conditions and to defend our human dignities."
IOE secretary general Roberto Suárez Santos countered that Convention 87 does not explicitly address the right to strike. After the court's decision, he underscored that the tribunal did not rule on the "precise content, scope, or conditions for the exercise of that right.”
Unions and workers around the world welcomed the ICJ decision.
“We thank the World Court for this advisory opinion," said ITUC secretary general Luc Triangle, whose organization represents more than 200 million workers in over 160 countries. "The court has confirmed that international law supports the long-standing understanding shared not only by unions, but across large parts of the ILO system for decades."
“This is an important moment for legal certainty, for social justice, and for the credibility of the international labor standards system," he added.
Sonny Matula, president of Federation of Free Workers—a Filipino labor organization—"joyfully and warmly" welcomed the ruling.
"In the Philippines, this is not a foreign concept," he said. "Article XIII, Section 3 of the Constitution expressly recognizes the rights of workers to self-organization, collective bargaining, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law."
"The strike is labor's last voice when dialogue has failed," Matula added. "Without the right to strike, we can say that freedom of association is like a silent campaign, unheard."
Christy Hoffman, general secretary of the Union Network International (UNI) Global Union, said in a statement that “as any trade unionist will tell you, there is no right to organize without the right to strike!"
"The two are inseparable foundations of any functional and fair industrial relations system," Hoffman asserted. "Congratulations to the many advocates who argued the point so brilliantly before the ICJ, and to the ITUC for its steadfast commitment to this case."
The Federation of Somali Trade Unions (FESTU) issued a statement applauding the ICJ ruling, which it said "represents a major victory for workers, trade unions, and social justice across the world."
"It reaffirms with legal certainty that the right to strike is inseparable from freedom of association and constitutes a fundamental pillar of democratic labor relations, collective bargaining, and the protection of workers’ dignity, rights, and interests," FESTU continued.
"The court’s opinion has reinforced the legitimacy of the ILO supervisory mechanisms and restored clarity on a matter that for years had been the subject of intense international debate and institutional disagreement," the federation added. "This is a defining moment in the history of the global trade union movement and a major achievement for multilateralism, social justice, and international law."
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO—the largest US labor federation—said that "this decision affirms decades of judicial precedent and what workers around the world know: There is no right to organize and bargain collectively without the right to strike."
"When workers are barred from taking collective action on the job, they cannot defend their rights and demand the workplace conditions and contracts they are owed," she continued. "The freedom to join a union becomes an empty formality."
"At a moment when workers’ organizations face sustained attacks around the world, this opinion reaffirms that the freedom to withhold one's labor is not a privilege granted by the powerful, but a fundamental human right grounded in international law," Shuler added. "The AFL-CIO commends the International Trade Union Confederation and its legal team for their efforts in this result."
May 22, 2026
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Mask or No Mask? Retired Navy Admiral's Fox News Interview Puts Focus on Pro-War Propagandist
"Are we going to pretend dude isn't wearing a mask?"
Retired US Navy Vice Admiral Robert Harward appeared on the Fox News show "America's Newsroom" with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino earlier this week to defend US President Donald Trump's war in Iran, but clips of the interview have now gone viral—sparking wild conspiracy theories and people desperate for an explanation—as it looks like Harward was wearing a high-quality silicon or latex mask the entire time.
One really has to see it to believe it, especially in an age of deep fakes and other online misinformation. However, as people pulled recordings from their own devices and verified that the circulating clip of the broadcast had not been doctored, the questions only deepened.
WTF pic.twitter.com/LUjli4de6U
— Mr. Sausage (@MrSausageGet) May 21, 2026
"What in the Jim Carey have I just been looking at?" asked one social media user in response to a clip highlighting the appearance of what looks like the seam of a mask at Harward's neckline.
Harward is a regular guest on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, using his status as a former Navy SEAL to add credibility to his hawkish views on foreign policy.
Here is the full 10-minute and unedited segment that includes Harward as it was posted to YouTube by Fox News:
- YouTube www.youtube.com
With so many images and previous clips of him available, online sleuths were providing side-by-side comparisons to make the case for the mask theory—even as they poked fun at the absurdity of the situation.
Meanwhile, skeptics like Adam Keiper, editor of The Bulwark, insisted that what appeared to be a mask was actually just an optical illusion caused by the particular lighting in the Fox News production setup.
"Dying of laughter seeing so many [online commenters] taking seriously the notion that this Fox News guest was wearing 'a very realistic face mask'—because they see his neck and they apparently have no idea how lighting and shadows work," said Keiper.
"I laughed too," said one respondent to Keiper's post. "Then I watched the actual Fox clip. Either they manipulated the clip before uploading, or he had neck surgery. I try hard not to fall for conspiracies and vet everything I can. But something strange is going on here."
"It's just a shadow!" Keiper exclaimed as others remained unconvinced.
Following original publication of this story, a Fox News Media spokesperson reached out to offer the network's explanation of what happened.
"Vice Admiral Robert Harward appeared on FOX News Channel earlier this week via a remote, mobile camera operated by an outside vendor," the spokesperson said. "During the interview, lighting conditions in the van contrasted with the vice admiral’s jacket, which caused a shadow to appear on his neck."
May 22, 2026
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Report Exposes How Trump Administration Has 'Mowed Down' Regulators Overseeing Prediction Markets
The Trump administration last week sued Minnesota after it passed a law banning prediction markets from operating in the state.
May 24, 2026
A Sunday report in The New York Times revealed how the Trump administration is using a key government agency to shut down any efforts to regulate online betting markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket.
According to the Times, the administration has stacked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with industry insiders who have systematically "mowed down" staffers at the agency who have expressed interest in providing oversight on prediction markets.
Among other things, the report documented how multiple officials at CTFC have been put on leave simply for asking questions about the betting markets' ties to members of President Donald Trump's family or for having past experience enforcing regulations related to cryptocurrencies.
What's more, the Times found that even being an industry insider isn't enough to guarantee good standing in the agency. Brian Quintenz, who was tapped by Trump to lead CTFC last year, saw his nomination withdrawn after he drew the ire of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss for refusing to support their cryptocurrency exchange's complaint against the agency.
Revelations about industry insiders rolling over regulators at CTFC come as the Trump administration is fighting any attempts by states to regulate prediction markets.
As explained in a Thursday report from CNBC, the Trump administration is "fighting a multi-front battle to stop the state actions and assert its regulatory authority," with CTFC arguing that it is "the only entity that can regulate" betting platforms.
16 different states are engaged in legal proceedings against the platforms, and Minnesota last week passed a law to ban them outright, which immediately drew a lawsuit from the administration.
The new Minnesota law, which is scheduled to take effect in August, bans prediction markets "from hosting, creating or advertising in the state," according to ABC News.
In an interview with ABC, Minnesota state Rep. Emma Greenman (D-63B) said she authored the legislation because she has grown increasingly concerned about young people in the state seeing their finances drained from placing online bets.
"We're seeing studies come out that say [the companies] are targeting 18- to 21-year-olds," said Greenman, "and we are seeing gambling starting younger and younger."
CFTC Chair Michael Selig last month warned states against trying to regulate prediction markets, which he said would "circumvent the clear directive of Congress."
"Our message to Wisconsin is the same as to New York, Arizona, and others," said Selig. "If you interfere with the operation of federal law in regulating financial markets, we will sue you."
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GOP Hawks Alarmed as Trump Mulls Deal to End His Illegal Iran War
"Nothing was accomplished by Operation Epic Fury except putting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz," said one critic of the war.
May 24, 2026
President Donald Trump revealed on Saturday that he is mulling a deal that would end his illegal war with Iran, and some hawks within the Republican Party are expressing alarm.
According to a Sunday report in The New York Times, many details of the agreement to end the war remain murky, with the fate of Iran's enriched uranium up in the air. US and Iranian officials have also given contradictory messages about the proposed deal's contents, suggesting there is much work still to be done before any agreement is finalized.
Regardless, three hawkish GOP senators on Saturday raised major concerns about the contents of the deal, warning against accepting any agreement that will leave Iran in a stronger position than before Trump illegally launched a war against it without any authorization from Congress in late February.
"If it is perceived in the region that a deal with Iran allows the regime to survive and become more powerful over time, we will have poured gasoline on the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq," wrote Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who lobbied Trump to attack Iran repeatedly before the start of the war. "A deal that is perceived to allow Iran to survive and possess the ability to control the [Strait of Hormuz] in the future will put Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Shia militias in Iraq on steroids.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another longtime Iran hawk, said he was "deeply concerned" about what he's been hearing about the deal and expressed particular worry about Iran getting relief from US sanctions while still maintaining the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
"If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime—still run by Islamists who chant 'death to America'—now receiving billions of dollars," Cruz wrote, "being able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake."
Sen. Roger Wicker (D-Miss.) was even blunter in his condemnation of the reported agreement.
"The rumored 60-day ceasefire—with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith—would be a disaster," Wicker wrote. "Everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!"
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser for President Barack Obama, challenged Wicker's claims that Trump's illegal war had achieved anything of value.
"Nothing was accomplished by Operation Epic Fury," Rhodes wrote, "except putting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz."
Rhodes' criticism was echoed by Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who wrote that "everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury is already for naught."
Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, accused the Iran hawks of being delusional for thinking further bombing would force Iran to capitulate.
"DC's Iran hawks got two wars, nearly every conceivable sanction designation, a blockade, threw a wrench in global economy," Vaez wrote, "and will still claim that just a little more pressure and a touch more bombing will magically yield the concessions they still won't be satisfied with."
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Platner Says His Anti-Private Equity Ad Targeting Red Sox Owners Was 'Taken Down' During Game Broadcast
"Private equity is destroying our favorite baseball team, stripping them for parts," Democratic US Senate candidate Platner said in an ad that aired on the New England Sports Network.
May 23, 2026
Maine Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner on Saturday said that a campaign ad that aired during a Boston Red Sox game was "taken down" after it took aim at the team's ownership.
The ad in question features Platner discussing the role that private equity firms play in the US economy, including sports teams.
"Private equity is destroying our favorite baseball team, stripping them for parts," Platner says at the start of the ad. "Private equity is buying up our homes, our sports, and our lives. I will reverse the private equity curse."
Private equity is taking our homes. It's taking our hospitals. It's taking beloved local businesses and stripping them for parts.
And now private equity is running the Red Sox into the ground.
Our new ad ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/w7LapElpdA
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 22, 2026
Platner concludes the ad by saying that he approves this message "because I miss Mookie Betts," the star player whom the Red Sox traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020 in a deal that was widely decried by local fans as a salary dump.
According to Platner, his campaign began airing the ad Friday on the New England Sports Network (NESN), the cable TV station owned partially by Fenway Sports Group, the conglomerate that owns the Red Sox.
However, he said that "midway through the game the ad was taken down" by NESN, after which the Red Sox proceeded to blow a 4-0 lead, losing to the Minnesota Twins by a final score of 8-6.
Platner, an oyster farmer and upstart candidate who has never before held political office, became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for the 2026 US Senate race in Maine last month after his top rival, Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills, dropped out of the race.
In recent weeks, Platner has pivoted to challenging incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has held the seat since 1996 and is now running for her sixth term in office.
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