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Hoo boy. The stupid and evil, somehow accelerating, burn. America's so-called leader, the "Worst That Has Ever Drawn Breath," manifests ever more cognitive dissonance on steroids. Absurd, addled, vindictive, looming above "a circus of death and chaos," he commits war crimes, guts voting rights, plots devastation, abases decency, murders mercy, yet whines about mean jokes. But as America reels, Banksy, Bruce, Platner and others increasingly declare, "We are not fucking doing this anymore."
Amidst what the head of Amnesty International calls "the year of the predators," humanity itself is under attack, most notably by our ludicrous narcissist and his "casual, bewildering cruelty." Despite his foolishness, Nesrine Malik writes, "This is what evil looks like": See history's portrayals of Hitler - "the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world agog" - and Mussolini, "that funny man, that consummate buffoon." Trump's "farcical puniness," Malik notes, is "a projection onto the world, not of large intent, but of smallness and fear...The consequences of his violence are secondary to the validation that comes from inflicting it (to) erase his terror of humiliation (and) feed his sociopathic appetite for escalation." Thus can deeply silly still equal dangerous.
Daily, the large and small atrocities are both, albeit without the resonance of the label "fascist" only because he lacks the wit, intent and coherence it requires. The war in Iran veers on: "Another day, another pivot. Trump flails." It's won, not, won but not by enough, it's not a war, we made a deal, we don't want a deal, talks are going well, we don't wanna talk, Iran struck a school full of young girls, or if we did it's Obama's fault. Give me ballroom or give me death: The solution to gun violence that kills 12 children a day, wounds 32 more and has affected over 390,000 kids since Columbine - is to build one rich white guy who's never expressed any grief over any of them a gilded bunker of his own. The way to keep more people safe is to kill as many as possible, including by firing squad.
Also, Bill Maher, Hakeem Jeffries, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel are low IQ losers, James Comey tried to kill and "inflict bodily harm on" him with "aggravated beachy seashell pictures," he's so "young, vital, vibrant" he could've joined the Artemis II astronauts easy like he aced his three screening tests for dementia - "A lion, a giraffe, a bear, and a shark. Which one is the bear?" - which the Villages audience def couldn't do, ditto sketchy Harvard Law graduate Hussein Obama. America's response to his musing what we'd do if a con man moron turned up - "How do you get to be president and you're stupid?": "That would suck - we'd probably have unprovoked wars, high gas prices and all our allies would hate us," "He's so close to getting it," "The Irony Meter is dead after spontaneously combusting," and "You're a fucking moron." Also, so grotesquely weird.

Meanwhile, the Orwellian rules for what you can/can’t see/say keep spooling out, lies sold as half-truths to justify a brazen, racist, whitewashing of both present and past under the shameless moniker of content “inappropriately disparaging Americans past or living,” but always white. Among dozens of changes at our National Parks, gone are signs about the contributions of Native Americans and women, warnings about climate change "not grounded in real science," evidence of Founding Fathers owning slaves and explorers' atrocities against Native tribes. But you do get Trump's loathsome mug plastered on park passes, like on our money, buildings, passports ad nauseum. Happily, fighting back for years have been patriots like the Resistance Rangers, the Alt National Park Service and whatever genius slapped these "Sex Offender" flyers across D.C.'s parks.
Hence incrementally, far too slowly but feeding vital hope and our frayed spirits, the flip side of our grim absurdist timeline begins to emerge as Trump and his monstrous clowns flail, fail, dig their own dank holes. So many horrors should have sparked it -Gaza, ICE, USAID, the boundless greed, cruelty, stupidity. Instead, prices did it, a non-stop, staggering incompetence that saw people being screwed once too often and lied to about one too many senseless wars. Last week, Banksy registered his own anti-imperialist protest in a middle-of-the-night dropping into the heart of ceremonial London a large statue mocking such Blind Patriotism. Mirroring the classical style of surrounding monuments celebrating the British Empire's inglorious colonial past, he presents a suited man, his flag flying into his face, one foot poised to step off into his own demise. Much like, you know.

Kicking off his Land of Hope and Dreams American tour several weeks ago, Bruce Springsteen offered his own fiery rebuttal to "a corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless and treasonous administration," which drew roars from a huge first night crowd in Minneapolis. Equal parts celebration and call to action, The Boss insisted, "This is still America, and - shades of the Big Lebowski, "this will not stand." Summoning "the righteous power of art, music and rock and roll in dangerous times," he asked the crowd to "join with us in choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, unity over division, and peace over....(lights come up to segue into) "WAR! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!" complete with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello shredding a solo. A righteous, dynamic pair.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
In contrast, standing grotesque and slumped-shouldered in a dingy, empty corner, is the small, mad man-child who spent Monday bellowing to a weary world that Iran will be "blown off the face of the Earth" if it targets U.S. ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which his inane recklessness closed in the first place. Online, in "the most desperate shit" to ever make its demonic way from the White House, a juvenile lackey posted him saying, "Winning it" on a loop for over 60 minutes, which still didn't make it so. The text read, "Can't stop, won't stop." Please fucking do. A horrified America: "This is a real tweet from a real account about a real man who leads a real country." Kyle Kulinski, on "the war criminal of all war criminals" who makes genocidal threats and bleats about insults: “We are not fucking doing this anymore. You don't get to say shit."
Still, one Tom Wellborn says it best in, “A Eulogy for the Worst That Has Ever Drawn Breath,” subtitled “Being a Complete and Unflinching Account of the Most Loathsome Specimen Ever to Consume Resources, Occupy Space, and Insult the Patience of a Universe That Deserved So Much Better." "There are villains, and then there are monsters, and then there are creatures so cosmically, transcendently... terrible that language itself recoils," he begins. "Grammar buckles. Syntax weeps...He is this thing. He is the thing past the thing past the thing. He is the sub-basement of the human condition, the moldy crawlspace beneath that sub-basement, and the writhing centipede beneath that."
"He has no morals. Not a single one. Not even the bad morals that at least imply a moral framework: the corrupt cop who loves his dog, the mob boss who goes to church. No. He exists in a morality vacuum so total that ethicists have proposed naming it after him...A being entirely without moral content. Not evil, because evil requires intention. Simply absent of the entire apparatus...A moral negative space shaped vaguely like a man...He has no empathy....like a raisin...He is incapable of the most basic social theater that even sociopaths manage....He takes without asking. He takes everything without asking. He takes things that aren’t takeable...The principle being: I can....He is stupid in a way that is almost majestic...His stupidity (is) total. Unified....He has been wrong about everything, always, without exception..."
"He is callous the way concrete is callous: not through malice, not through choice, but through an utter material inability to register (another) person’s pain...You could show him the face of grief, and he would wonder aloud if there was parking nearby...He is vicious the way a blunt instrument is vicious: through sheer, undirected force, through the momentum of his own awfulness...He is smelted fury with no purpose, unforged, unbent, uselessly molten....(He is) a statistical outlier so extreme that evolution seems to be embarrassed by him, a glitch in the long project of civilization...And the most horrifying part...He will never know any of this. He will never know what he is." Name it, damn it, take it down. Maine's Graham Platner hopes to help do that. We wish him well.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Environmental activists are hopeful after a six-day climate summit in Colombia resulted in a coalition of more than 50 countries agreeing to start developing plans to move away from planet-heating fossil fuels. But they say action must now follow talk.
In marked contrast to the annual United Nations climate summits, which have been routinely overrun by oil and gas industry lobbyists and concluded with agreements that largely ignore the imperative to divest from fossil fuels, Shiva Gounden, the head of Greenpeace's delegation this week in Santa Marta, said the conference that concluded Wednesday "was a breath of fresh air, a real sign that the wind is finally shifting."
The 59 nations that attended the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels did not ultimately end with a binding agreement to transition away from fossil fuels within a specific timeframe, which activists say is urgently necessary as global heating rapidly approaches 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
Many of the world's biggest polluters—including the United States, China, and India, as well as petrostates like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—were also absent.
However, the summit did end with attendees, nearly half of whom are fossil fuel producers and who represent more than half of global gross domestic product, agreeing to form tangible "frameworks" for how they plan to transition away from a fossil-fueled model of capitalism that Colombian President Gustavo Petro decried as "suicidal."
Perhaps the single biggest breakthrough at the conference was France's unveiling of a national roadmap to phase out fossil fuels in the coming decades. It became the first developed nation to lay out such a plan, with the goals of removing coal from its national grid by 2027, phasing out oil by 2045, and fossil gas by 2050.
The French climate envoy, Benoit Faraco, described it not only as an obligation but an opportunity: “This process has made us realise we want to be an electro-superpower,” he said, according to The Guardian. “We want to be the electricity Saudi Arabia of Europe, selling green electrons to the UK, Ireland, Germany, and other countries.”
Many attendees also agreed that any collective movement away from fossil fuels would require addressing the debt crisis in the Global South, which many countries—especially those in Africa, where national debts have doubled in the past five years—have found themselves cranking up fossil fuel production to cope with.
While the conference concluded without any binding plan for debt forgiveness, which many delegates from developing countries had proposed, the participants agreed that poorer countries would need support to move out of debt and finance a green transition.
"Fossil fuel dependency deepens economic instability, fuels conflict, and traps countries in cycles of debt," said Bronwen Tucker, public finance lead for Oil Change International. "As long as Global South countries remain locked in this system, while Global North governments write the financial rules, public resources will continue to flow away from people and toward the systems driving crisis."
Laura Caicedo, the campaigns coordinator at Greenpeace Colombia, described the conference as "an important space to put the just energy transition on the agenda ahead of the Climate COP," which will take place in Turkey this coming November.
"There is willingness and a sense of fresh momentum that is worth celebrating," she said. "But this is only the beginning: more time is needed for this process to mature into a true platform for dialogue that can inform decision-making in this and other cooperation spaces on key energy issues."
The next conference on Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels is set to occur early next year in Tuvalu, a low-lying Pacific island nation that is at risk of becoming uninhabitable within decades due to sea-level rise.
While climate activists were heartened by the progress made in Santa Marta, Gounden said countries need to come to Tuvalu with concrete plans.
“When we get to Tuvalu, the conversation has to change," she said. "We can’t just bring more ambition; we have to bring proof of implementation."
This week's conference took place against the backdrop of the US and Israel's war in Iran, where US President Donald Trump has suggested a key goal is to "take the oil" controlled by Iran. The obstruction of oil shipments has become a critical piece of strategic and economic leverage and simultaneously inflicted chaos upon the global economy, disrupting humanitarian aid for some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.
"Amid a tense geopolitical context and worsening climate extremes," said Rodrigo Estrada, Greenpeace International's senior climate adviser, "Santa Marta helped spark a feeling of renewed energy, but delegates must now follow through to deliver action, not just words."
While the war has sent energy companies' profits soaring, the climate advocacy group 350.org estimated this week that the continued blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could cost households and businesses an additional $600 billion to $1 trillion.
"It’s never been clearer that fossil fuel phase-out is imperative for stability and peace," Tucker said. "Every step away from fossil fuels weakens the outsized power and wealth that allows the US to wage illegal wars in the name of energy dominance."
At the next conference, she added, "The richest polluting countries must show they are serious. Canada, Norway, the UK, and the EU must make real plans to accelerate their fossil fuel phaseout at home and come to the table with real economic collaboration."
Mariana Paoli, the climate policy lead for Oxfam, said the lack of action by rich countries was "disappointing" and needed to change.
"Wealthy governments have still not stepped up to provide sufficient climate financing for poorer countries, which face the brunt of the impacts of the climate crisis," she said. "Rich countries hold the historical responsibility for the climate crisis, therefore they must not only move first and faster but also provide finance at scale for others to follow them."
"A just transition," she said, "must make rich polluters pay for the crisis they have caused."
A real estate investment tycoon on Tuesday said that calls to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans were akin to "racial slurs."
As reported by The New York Times, Vornado Realty Trust CEO Steven Roth took time during his company's latest earnings call to decry calls from politicians such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fund public programs by taxing the rich.
“I must say that I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’... when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs," said Roth.
Roth took aim at Mamdani for celebrating a proposed pied-à-terre tax on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners have other primary homes, and was particularly upset that the mayor filmed a video announcing the tax outside a $238 million penthouse owned by Ken Griffin, the CEO of the hedge fund Citadel. He called the announcement “dangerous" and an “ugly, unnecessary video stunt.”
The Vornado CEO went on to say that America's wealthiest individuals deserve the nation's gratitude, not their scorn.
"The rich, whom the politicians are targeting... are the epitome of the American dream,” he said. “They are at the top of the great American economic pyramid for a reason. They should be praised and thanked."
Roth's remarks drew criticism from Douglas Farrar, former director of the Office of Public Affairs at the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden.
"A billionaire real estate CEO compared being asked to pay taxes to a racial slur, then said the top 1% should be 'praised and thanked,'" Farrar wrote in a social media post. "There was a time when the wealthy had the good sense to be quiet about it. Now they demand gratitude on earnings calls."
Activist and healthcare advocate Melanie D'Arrigo noted that Roth build developments in the city after intentionally allowing properties to sit in a state of blight for years, which "gutted Black and brown neighborhoods in exchange for billions in tax breaks."
Roth's lamentations about the treatment of the wealthy in the US came as human resources and software services company Dayforce teamed with the Living Wage Institute to release a new study showing that the percentage of Americans earning a living wage has significantly declined over the last five years, from 55.8% in 2021 to 50.7% in 2025.
The report notes that "job growth has recently slowed, and millions of workers haven’t seen a meaningful improvement in their financial situation," even as "the costs of housing, food, childcare, and other essentials are elevated, energy prices have spiked, and affordability continues to be a major issue for a significant share of the workforce."
The data in the report all came from 2025, before President Donald Trump launched his illegal war with Iran that has sent gas prices soaring above $4.50 per gallon and is threatening to unleash a global food crisis.
US consumer sentiment as measured by the University of Michigan hit a record low last month, and the university found that the effects of the Iran war were the primary drivers of Americans' economic pessimism.
Democracy defenders sounded the alarm just over three months ago, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at a Georgia election hub. They expressed concerns again after a court filing revealed late Monday that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice is demanding the names of Fulton County's 2020 election workers.
For years, the Republican president has "obsessively propagated the debunked conspiracy theory that Fulton County 'stole' the 2020 election from him. And he has made it clear that he seeks retribution against those who refuse to indulge his baseless claims," notes the county's Monday filing aimed at blocking the April 20 grand jury subpoena for election workers' personal data.
The largely Democratic county—which includes most of Atlanta—argued that it should not have to turn over workers' names, home addresses, emails, and telephone numbers due to federal overreach and First Amendment concerns, according to CBS News. It also suggested the subpoena is politically motivated and highlighted the statute of limitations for 2020 election crimes.
"After illegally seizing our election records in January, the federal government once again is attempting to misuse criminal process," Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said in a statement announcing the motion.
"This is yet another act of outrageous federal overreach designed to intimidate and to chill participation in elections. This harassment should not be allowed, so we have asked the court to act," he continued. "I will always stand up for our elections workers and for the truth. Let me be crystal clear. Fulton County will not be intimidated."
Voting rights advocates echoed the concerns noted by the filing and Pitts. Lauren Groh-Wargo, who leads Fair Fight Action, told The New York Times that election workers across the United States now face heightened threats and harassment.
"Roughly a third of election officials are threatened on the job, and more than half worry it's making it harder to hire and keep election workers," Groh-Wargo said. "They're trying to break our democracy by attacking the infrastructure, but we are fighting back hard."
Trump's DOJ is losing in Fulton County – so they've resorted to harassing election workers. In 2020, workers saw death threats due to false claims.This case was initially rejected by ATL's FBI Chief. It's built on false claims that were investigated and rejected, including by Republican officials.
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— Max Flugrath🗳️ (@maxflugrath.bsky.social) May 5, 2026 at 8:31 AM
All Voting Is Local Georgia state director Kristin Nabers stressed in a statement that "the conspiracy theories and lies that dictate White House policy have real-world consequences beyond appeasing the president's fragile ego—they are being weaponized to target the people from our communities who run our elections and ensure our votes are counted."
"This is a clear attempt to seize and hold power over our elections by sending a message that any county or state that doesn't vote in favor of the president or his preferred candidates may be subjected to a harassment campaign like that of Fulton County," she continued. "This intimidation tactic is a slap in the face to the millions of county election workers and volunteers around the country who work tirelessly to make sure our elections run smoothly."
Nabers added that "the all-out assault on Fulton County and its poll workers creates a blueprint for the administration to see what it can get away with during the midterm elections when results in key counties and states don't go its way. Election workers in Fulton County and beyond will not be intimidated by this desperate bullying."
The fight in Fulton County—where Trump and others initially faced criminal charges for their effort to overturn his 2020 loss—comes as some primary elections are underway across the country, and amid mounting concerns about what the president may try in November, particularly if the GOP-controlled Congress passes the attack on voting rights that the White House is pushing.
Michael McNulty, policy director of the group Issue One, said Tuesday that "Americans should be furious" about Trump's demands in Georgia, which "are based solely on debunked conspiracy theories from 2020 that courts and post-election audits have repeatedly rejected."
"Targeting these heroic election workers does nothing to strengthen our democracy—it puts ordinary public servants at risk in an attempt to erode trust in elections," he warned. “The Trump administration's goal is to make Americans feel distrust and cynicism about the election process. While the administration is framing its actions using the 2020 elections, it is proceeding with this year's midterms in mind."
As McNulty detailed, Trump's "election takeover playbook" includes:
"If this playbook is left unchecked, the Trump administration will continue to abuse its power and attempt to meddle in elections like authoritarian leaders in other countries," he said. "Congress must stop this."
"It should use oversight and funding authority to halt the executive branch from weaponizing federal power against the heroes who run our elections," McNulty argued. "Members of Congress swore an oath to the Constitution when they agreed to serve, and now is a test of whether they are willing to live up to that oath and protect the American people."
Some members of Congress joined voting rights advocates in speaking out against the subpoena this week. Sharing the Times report on social media Tuesday, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) declared that "Trump's attacks on our free and fair elections won't stop."
The US Department of Homeland Security is officially closing its watchdog for immigrant detention abuse, even as reports of excessive force, deadly neglect, and other maltreatment by agency personnel soar under the Trump administration.
Citing an internal email, Huffpost's Dave Jamieson reported Monday that DHS is shutting down its Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO), which was established by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2020 as part the massive federal spending package known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act.
Jamieson added that the communication said that OIDO "is in the process of removing all its public signage and ending its inspection," and that the agency's website was down.
The email attributed OIDO's closure to a lack of federal funding in the Homeland Security appropriations package that ended the recent 76-day shutdown affecting the agency.
Largely pushed through by congressional Democrats, OIDO was designed to be independent from both US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection. The office was given the power to receive detainee complaints, investigate alleged abuse or misconduct, inspect detention facilities, and report systemic problems to DHS leaders and Congress.
OIDO emerged amid widespread abuse of detained migrants during the first Trump administration, including deaths in custody, family separation, overcrowding, and other mistreatment.
Since returning to office for a second term, Trump has overseen the dismantling of the agency, arguing that it hinders immigration enforcement. The administration's effort to dilute OIDO's power have triggered legal action arguing that, since it was created by Congress, the agency cannot be abolished without congressional consent.
DHS detainees—especially those ICE lockups—report abuses including inadequate or delayed medical care; physical attacks and excessive force; sexual abuse and harassment; solitary confinement misuse; overcrowded and unsanitary conditions; intimidation and retaliation following complaints; abuse of pregnant women and children; denial of access to lawyers; denial of family contact; and denial of food, water, hygiene, or medication.
Last year was the deadliest in ICE detention in about two decades, with more than 30 deaths reported in custody. So far this year, at least 18 more detainees had reportedly died in ICE custody.
18 people have died in ICE detention this year—and the administration is illegally "closing" OIDO, the office that is supposed to monitor detention conditions and help detained people needing medical care or suffering abuse.Its portal, myoido.dhs.gov, is offline.
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— Adam Isacson (@adamisacson.com) May 4, 2026 at 3:19 PM
OIDO isn't the only DHS watchdog under attack by the Trump administration. The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) and Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman have also been targeted.
One former CRCL employee who was placed on administrative leave due to funding cuts said in a recent court filing that the agency is unable to conduct “meaningful investigations” into alleged civil rights and civil liberties violations committed by its personnel. As an example, they noted the accusations of excessive force by the ICE agent who fatally shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good last year.
“In my experience, investigations into systemic issues like these required significant staff resources, which CRCL no longer has to devote to these important issues of civil rights and civil liberties,” the official told Federal News Network earlier this year. “Nor does CRCL have the resources to conduct multidisciplinary onsite investigations at detention facilities, the need for which is greater than it has ever been as both the number of detention facilities and number of people detained has skyrocketed."
Peace advocates joined Cuba's top foreign relations official on Wednesday in accusing US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of blatantly lying about the existence of a blockade on oil exports to Cuba, which Rubio denied at a press briefing on Tuesday.
Anti-war group CodePink pointed to comments made by the US chargé d'affairs to Cuba, Mike Hammer, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 29 threatening other countries with tariffs if they provided the communist country with oil and accusing the Cuban government of harboring terrorists—a claim officials have vehemently denied.
"Now there's going to be a real blockade," said the diplomat at the time. "Nothing is getting in. No more oil is coming."
Cuba's primary source of fuel had been cut off earlier in January after the US invaded Venezuela, killed dozens of Venezuelans and Cubans while abducting President Nicolás Maduro, and took control of the country's oil supply.
However, on Tuesday Rubio claimed that Venezuela had freely decided to no longer supply Cuba with "free oil"—an apparent reference to a barter system agreed to by the two countries.
"This is a lie," said CodePink in response to Rubio's comments.
Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez added that Rubio had "simply chosen to lie" about the Trump administration's policy, contradicting both Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"In four months, only one fuel tanker has arrived in Cuba. All our suppliers are intimidated and threatened in violation of free trade rules and freedom of navigation," said Rodríguez.
He also pointed to Trump's new executive order, signed last Friday, which imposed new sanctions on Cuba's energy, finance, and security sectors and threatened to further isolate Cuba from international finance systems by authorizing sanctions on foreign banks that conduct major transactions with designated Cuban entities.
"The secretary knows very well the damage and suffering that the criminal oil siege he himself proposed to his president is causing the Cuban people today," said Rodríguez.
In late March, Leavitt said that an oil tanker from Russia had been permitted by Trump to reach Cuba for "humanitarian reasons," but denied there had been any policy change regarding allowing international fuel shipments to be sent to the island.
Decisions about shipments “are being made on a case-by-case basis,” said Leavitt at the time. "There has not been a formal change in sanction policy.”
Since Trump ramped up the blockade in January—intensifying a sanctions policy that the US has imposed on Cuba for more than six decades—nearly 100,000 Cubans, including about 11,000 children, have been left waiting for surgeries as the fuel shortage has led to rationing and frequent blackouts that have impacted the healthcare system. Healthcare workers have reported shortages of syringes, antibiotics, and IV supplies.
The Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) also found last month that Trump's tightened sanctions and policies regarding Cuba, starting in his first term, have contributed to an “unprecedented increase” in the country's infant mortality rate, which soared 148% from 2018-25.
“It is clear that the increase in sanctions is responsible for this huge increase in infant deaths,” said Alex Main, director of international policy at CEPR, on Wednesday. “The oil blockade has been especially inhumane, disrupting the operation of ventilators, inhalers, and other crucial medical equipment and crippling emergency transportation. More than 80% of Cuba’s electricity is based on oil and oil products.”
US lawmakers who visited the island in April denounced the oil blockade as "cruel collective punishment" that has caused a water shortage, forced businesses and schools to shut down, and left cancer patients without lifesaving medications.
"Rubio is willfully lying" about the blockade, said Mexico City-based journalist José Luis Granados Ceja.
At Tuesday's press conference, after denying the blockade exists, Rubio pivoted to the Trump administration's position that Cuba's "economic model doesn't work" and blamed the country—whose healthcare system and literacy rates are frequently ranked higher than those of the US—for the crisis it's facing.
"Incompetent communists run that country. They don’t know how to fix it," said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. "So it’s an unacceptable status quo, and we’ll be addressing it."
While joining Israel in waging war on Iran in recent months, the Trump administration has repeatedly suggested it hopes to take military action against Cuba.
Last Friday, the president said the US military "will be taking [Cuba] over almost immediately."
On Wednesday, CEPR and YouGov released a new poll that found 64% of Americans oppose a US military takeover of Cuba.
"This should make President Trump think twice about another ‘war of choice,’” said Mark Weisbrot, senior economist and co-director of CEPR. “Almost all of the experts on Cuba would laugh at the idea that Cuba presents a security threat to the United States. And the war against Iran has already cost Trump and his party significant support.”
"Although the FCC has the authority to ensure broadcasters operate in the public interest, it cannot serve as President Trump’s roving censor."
A group of Senate Democrats on Thursday told Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr to back off his threats to strip Disney-owned TV network ABC of its broadcast licenses.
In a letter addressed to Carr, the Democrats took Carr to task for ordering Disney to file early license renewals for eight ABC stations shortly after President Donald Trump demanded that the network fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
Kimmel earned Trump's ire when he jokingly likened first lady Melania Trump to an "expectant widow" days before a gunman stormed into the White House Correspondents' Dinner in an alleged attempt to assassinate the president.
The senators called Carr's order an "extraordinary abuse of power" and "the latest and most extreme step in your use of the FCC’s licensing authority as a cudgel against broadcasters whose editorial choices displease the president."
The Democrats charged that the order "appears to penalize Disney for refusing to capitulate to Trump’s demands to fire Kimmel and to send a message to other broadcasters: Modify your speech to favor Trump or face the FCC’s wrath," while noting that the order was the first time in over 50 years that the commission had called on a broadcaster to apply for early renewal.
The day before the order to Disney, the FCC sent a similar order to a small station license holder called Bridge News.
Carr's order to Disney was also part of a broad pattern of Trump administration assaults on the free press, including calls to fire Kimmel last year after the comedian said Trump and his political allies were trying “to score political points" after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"Although the FCC has the authority to ensure broadcasters operate in the public interest," they wrote, "it cannot serve as President Trump’s roving censor, threatening to revoke licenses against broadcasters whose editorial content—including a comedian’s jokes—displeases the president."
The Democrats concluded their letter by asking Carr to provide information about the timing and process by which the FCC decided to send Disney its early renewal order, including whether any FCC staff had communicated with the White House about the order before it was issued.
The letter was signed by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Maria Cantwell (D-NM), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Elizabethe Warren (D-Mass.).
"Breaking news: Members of Congress meet with ambassadors of other countries every day. That’s literally our right and responsibility," said the congresswoman.
Two days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted that "there's no oil blockade on Cuba," appearing to deny that President Donald Trump issued an executive order threatening countries with tariffs if they provide energy to the island, Republican members of Congress accused a progressive lawmaker of "treasonous behavior" for her efforts to alleviate the crisis unfolding in Cuba due to its US-caused fuel shortage.
Rep. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) appeared on Fox News Thursday morning to suggest Jayapal (D-Wash.) violated the US Constitution by participating in talks with foreign ambassadors about efforts to send oil to Cuba.
"Treason is outlined right there in our Constitution, you can't give aid or comfort to enemies," said Moody. "This is astounding."
Sen. Ashley Moody on Rep. Jayapal saying she's working on helping Cuba get oil: "Treason is outlined right there in our Constitution. You can't give aid or comfort to enemies ... that's communism 101" pic.twitter.com/xYJhYGD3a1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 7, 2026
Moody continued with what appeared to be a diatribe linking Jayapal to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has frequently been accused by the GOP of being a "communist" and has unveiled a plan to open a network of city-run grocery stores to compete with corporations: "Look at what they're espousing around the nation by cracking down on businesses, government-run businesses, pushing people out of these areas. Making people rely on government. That's communism 101."
She then accused Jayapal of "meeting with cartel members," an apparent reference to the congresswoman's comments at an event on Monday, when she said she had been "in conversations with the ambassadors from Mexico and some other places, and I know other countries in Latin America are trying to figure out how to get oil [to Cuba]."
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is reportedly highly influential in President Donald Trump's White House, also called for Jayapal's arrest, prompting the lawmaker to issue a reminder of the regular duties of members of Congress.
"Breaking news: Members of Congress meet with ambassadors of other countries every day. That’s literally our right and responsibility," said Jayapal.
The executive order Trump signed in January alleges that Cuba harbors terrorists and poses a threat to the security of the US, a claim that Cuban officials and experts have decried as baseless. The president has suggested he could take military action against Cuba numerous times, and last Friday he announced expanded sanctions impacting Cuba's finance, energy, and security sectors, citing "national security threats posed by the communist Cuban regime."
At the event on Monday, Jayapal noted that the White House itself has coordinated the arrival of a Russian oil tanker in Cuba after it began imposing the new policy.
"Since January, only one Russian tanker of oil has made it to Cuba," said Jayapal. "In fact, it landed just a couple of days before I landed, and one tanker has enough oil basically for 10 to 14 days of Cuba’s oil needs—so it’s a very limited amount of time."
La congresista estadounidense, Pramila Jayapal, convocó una sesión informativa con el fin de examinar la crisis humanitaria que atraviesa Cuba, a partir de lo observado durante la visita que realizó recientemente a la isla con una delegación del Congreso.
Jayapal ha estado… pic.twitter.com/eh6YNUv81F
— Tere Felipe (@_TereFelipe_) May 7, 2026
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) also appeared on Fox News to accuse Jayapal of treason, while Rep. Clay Fuller (R-Ga.) said her discussions with the ambassador of Mexico—a close US ally—were "deeply un-American" and a "clear violation of the Logan Act," which prohibits US citizens from taking party in negotiations with foreign governments that are in disputes with the US.
"By definition, you can only commit treason in regards to a country against which the United States has declared formal war (you know, that power the Constitution gave to Congress, not the President)," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council.
Ryan Grim, co-founder of Drop Site News, recalled the comments of Rubio—the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime proponent of regime change in the country—at his press conference Tuesday.
"Wait, Rubio said there is no blockade," said Grim. "How can it be a problem to get oil to Cuba if there is no blockade?"
"Symbolic opposition doesn't reopen hospitals. Weak condemnations don't bring back Roe v. Wade," the Democratic challenger thundered in a new broadside against Maine's five-term Republican senator.
US Senate hopeful Graham Platner called out the "performative politics" of his Republican opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, in a campaign ad released Thursday.
"Susan Collins' charade is over," Platner said in a recent Portland speech featured in the minute-long ad which calls the Maine incumbent—a self-styled "moderate"—out for what he describes as "symbolic opposition" to President Donald Trump while co-signing his agenda.
Despite frequent public statements of opposition to the president, according to a tracker by VoteHub, Collins voted in alignment with Trump nearly 95% of the time in 2025.
While criticizing Trump's threat to wipe out all of Iranian civilization as "incendiary language," Collins has on multiple occasions voted against war powers resolutions that would give Congress a check on the president's warmaking authority. (Though she did recently break with Trump by voting to advance another failed measure to remove US forces after a 60-day deadline in late April—making her one of only two Republicans to do so.)
Previously, while expressing concerns about the "harmful impact" of massive Medicaid cuts in last summer's Republican budget legislation and ultimately voting against the final bill, Collins played a critical role in its passage by casting a decisive vote that allowed the legislation to clear a procedural
In 2022, when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Collins warned the ruling would lead to “extreme abortion bans,” but ultimately voted against a bill that could have codified abortion rights into law while refusing to help lift the filibuster to pass her own bill.
"We don't care that you pretend to be remorseful at the start of a new forever war that you chose to let happen," Platner thundered from the podium in the new ad, which will air digitally and on TV across Maine. "We don't care that you are 'concerned' while we go broke as you sell us out to the president and to the Epstein class," referring to the wealthy allies of the late billionaire sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Platner said these elites "are engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in this nation's history."
"Symbolic opposition doesn't reopen hospitals. Weak condemnations don't bring back Roe v. Wade. And selling out working-class voters who've delivered mandate for change after mandate for change is not forgivable," he continued. "A performative politics that enables the destruction of our way of life is disqualifying."
After Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills suspended her floundering campaign last week, Platner, a 41-year-old former Marine-turned-oyster farmer, is on track to easily win the nomination to take on the five-term incumbent Collins in a race that could decide the Senate’s balance of power in November.
Platner’s campaign, which has unapologetically deployed the rhetoric of class war and centered on proposals like Medicare for All, a tax on extreme wealth, and an end to foreign wars, has been described as rewriting the conventional wisdom of what sort of Democrat can be viable in a purple state like Maine.
Though Mills had the backing of the Democratic Party establishment, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), polls have consistently shown that Platner’s message has resonated much more with the state’s Democratic voters. It appears to be resonating with general election voters as well.
According to a poll by Echelon Insights in early April, before Mills dropped out, Platner was leading Collins by a six-point margin of 51-45%, while Mills led by just two points.
But Platner will face a challenge to maintain this lead, as the Pine Tree Results PAC—an outfit supporting Collins with funding from wealthy tech and Wall Street barons—has more than $11.5 million on hand to pepper him with attacks in the coming months, according to Politico.
Platner has rejected super PAC donations, but has dominated with small donors, raising around $4 million from about 88,000 individual contributors in the first quarter of 2026, though he has just about $2.7 million left after his protracted battle with Mills.
During the same quarter, Collins raised just over $300,000 from individual donors of under $200, according to Federal Election Commission filings—less than 15% of her total fundraising haul.
In an email, the Platner campaign said it hoped the new ad would help it make "the case for change in Maine" as Collins "sells Mainers out to corporate lobbyists."
Ryan Grim, the editor and co-founder of Drop Site News, remarked on social media that with this ad, Platner was taking a much harsher tone towards Collins than previous Democratic opponents have.
"Platner hits the Epstein class in his first ad," he said. "Treating Collins with kid gloves hasn’t worked before. Platner is taking them off."