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CFTC Must Reject Dangerous Election Gambling Proposal
Public Citizen submits forceful comment as deadline approaches
Today, Public Citizen submitted a comment to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) forcefully opposing betting startup Kalshi’s proposal to coordinate large-scale gambling on U.S. election outcomes. The CFTC issued a request for comment on the case late last month, with a deadline of July 24, 2023.
In their comment on behalf of Public Citizen, government ethics expert Craig Holman, Ph.D. and Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert outline the ways in which election gambling presents a threat to the integrity of our democracy — which include eroding public trust in our electoral system and further incentivizing wealthy special interests to spend massive amounts of money to tip the scales in a direction that benefits them.
“Sanctioning gambling on U.S. election outcomes would effectively turn our electoral system into a financial game for the rich and powerful, undermining the will of voters,” said Craig Holman, Ph.D., a government ethics expert with Public Citizen. “To safeguard the integrity of our democracy, the CFTC must immediately reject Kalshi’s proposal and reaffirm that election gambling is not permitted by the federal government.”
Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen added, “Trust in our elections and faith in government is already at an all-time low. Layering in gambling on our elections will take our democracy in precisely the wrong direction. The CFTC must do the right thing and reject this request.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Watch: Trump Admits 'We Shouldn't Have Been in Iran'
The president also simultaneously claimed to have left Iran's military alone and destroyed its navy and air force.
May 31, 2026
President Donald Trump said Saturday during an interview with his daughter-in-law that the US should not have waged war on Iran, while making contradictory claims about destroying Iran's military and leaving it alone.
“You look at what happened with Iraq. We did so bad. It was such a foolish thing what we did. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place, by the way,” Trump told Lara Trump, who hosts Fox News' "My View."
“We shouldn’t have been in Iran, but Iran has the capability," he said, referring to the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
Former US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last year that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and [the late] Supreme Leader Khamanei had not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” US intelligence agencies have repeatedly come to the same conclusion since the George W. Bush administration.
Trump claimed that without US bombing, Iran "would have a nuclear weapon right now and will be a whole different story."
“If we didn’t hit them with B-2 bombers, nine months ago, they would have a nuclear weapon right now," he said.
"Their military, we've sort of left it alone because we think that their military is somewhat moderate," Trump said right after saying that "their navy is gone, 100%," and "their air force is gone, 100%."
The president also claimed that he will negotiate a "great" end to the war with Iran, or "we'll just go back and finish it off militarily."
"We're close to a very good deal," he said.
You saw Venezuela," Trump said, referring to the country the US bombed and invaded in January to abduct President Nicolás Maduro and bring him to the United States to face dubious narco-terrorism charges.
At least 3,468 people have been killed in US-Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28, according to Iran’s Ministry of Health, including 496 women and 376 children.
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As Most Acts Bail, Trump Floats Replacing Freedom 250 Shows With 'Number One Attraction Anywhere'—Himself
Trump called himself "the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime," and "the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT)!"
May 31, 2026
As an increasing number of artists cancel their scheduled performances at the "Great American State Fair" created by the Trump administration to celebrate the US semiquincentennial, President Donald Trump on Saturday called for scrapping the concerts and replacing them with a rally headlined by himself.
"We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain," Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. "Cancel it, just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN, actually, far greater than it ever was before!"
"I understand Artists are getting 'the yips' having to do with their performance on Wednesday," the president said in an earlier Truth post on Saturday, "so I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate 'Artists,' and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!"
"I don’t want so-called 'Artists' that get paid far too much money, who aren’t happy," he wrote. "So, by copy of this TRUTH, I am ordering my Representatives to look at the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally on Wednesday, Washington, DC, same time, same location. Only Great Patriots invited—It will be a Wild and Beautiful Celebration of America!"
Artists who have bailed on the concerts, also known as the Freedom 250 shows, include Young MC, The Commodores, Morris Day and The Time, Bret Michaels, and Martina McBride. Some of the musicians said they were misled about the partisan nature of the event.
“I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event, but that turned out to be misleading,” McBride—a four-time winner of the Country Music Association female artist of the year award—wrote in an Instagram post. “I asked lots of questions and was assured this was a nonpartisan event that was meant to celebrate ALL 50 states.”
Remaining in the lineup as of Saturday are Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida, while C+C Music Factory and Milli Vanilli have given mixed signals.
The cancellations are a major embarrassment for Trump. Prior to the cancellations, the event was already being mocked for what the Daily Beast's Cameron Adams described as a “lack of A-list musical talent."
Comedian Bill Maher was among those mocking Trump for the Freedom 250 disaster.
“That’s got to hurt a lot when you can’t close the deal with Milli Vanilli," Maher said Friday on his Real Time show on HBO.
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'Now More Than 200 Trump Summary Executions' as US Bombs Another Boat
One legal expert said the grim milestone raises the question of whether the US is committing a "crime against humanity."
May 31, 2026
The US military on Friday bombed another boat it claimed was smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing three more people in what experts say is an illegal campaign whose death toll has now topped 200.
US Southern Command said in a statement that "Joint Task Force Southern Spear," the nine-month campaign ordered by President Donald Trump, "conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations."
"Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," SOUTHCOM added, providing no evidence to support its claim. "Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed. SOUTHCOM is unwavering in its commitment to applying total systemic friction on the cartels."
Friday's strike brought the number of people killed during Southern Spear to 202 in at least 60 strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
The Trump administration has tried to justify the strikes by claiming that the US is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. Many legal experts disagree.
Former longtime Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth wrote on X: "Now more than 200 Trump summary executions—blatant murders."
"Legal experts agree: The Trump-ordered strikes on suspected drug boats are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians—even suspected criminals—who do not pose an imminent threat of violence," Roth said in a separate post.
Just Security editor-in-chief and New York University School of Law professor Ryan Goodman said that the "overwhelming consensus of experts, myself included, assess these to be murder because no armed conflict" is occurring, adding that they would be a "war crime if it were armed conflict."
Goodman said that, with 200 people killed, the strikes raise the question of whether the US is committing a "crime against humanity."
The boat strikes were fraught from the start. In the first known attack, US forces killed nine people in an initial strike and then two men clinging to the boat’s wreckage in a follow-up bombing.
The bombings have drawn widespread condemnation, including from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who accused the US of "murder," and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was abducted during a US invasion in January and imprisoned in the United States on dubious narco-terrorism charges.
Regional leaders and relatives of survivors say that at least some of the victims of the US bombings were fishermen with no ties to narco-trafficking. In January, relatives of two Trinidadian fishers killed in the strikes filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit in Massachusetts.
The bombings have terrorized fishing communities along the Caribbean and Pacific coasts to the point where many people have given up the only means they had of supporting their families.
Congressional war powers resolutions aimed at reining in Trump’s ability to extrajudicially execute alleged drug traffickers in or near Venezuela failed to pass the Senate last October and the House in December.
“Not only are these killings illegal, they are immoral. People of good conscience cannot allow this to continue, yet Congress has so far failed to halt, or even slow down, this lethal and unlawful campaign," Amnesty International USA national director for government relations Amanda Klasing said in a statement Wednesday.
"Lawmakers must do everything in their power to halt this campaign and hold everyone responsible accountable for their role in these extrajudicial killings,” she added.
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