New York Post
You need to steal 300 gold bars before the CIA even checks your resumé?
How can anyone trust the CIA to get anything right after this?
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The Tyee | BC's home for today's news, analysis and updates
BC’s Family Doctor Crisis Gets Even Worse
Far Left
Despite measures, almost one in four people lack access to primary care.
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Raw Story
Here's what created Trump — and why we'll keep getting more of him
Friends,It’s impossible to understand American politics without also understanding the American economy (and vice versa). Politics and economics may be different disciplines but they’re two sides of the same coin.This came home to me again when I saw Thursday’s report on the U.S. gross domestic product.Numbers can be pretty boring but bear with me. Worker compensation—wages and benefits — grew 0.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026. Corporate profits grew 2.7 percent.When you adjust for inflation, hourly wages have risen 3 percent since the end of 2019. Corporate profits have risen 50 percent.Worker’s share of the nation’s income has now dropped to the lowest it’s been since records began in 1947. Profits’ share is the highest since 1950.Most people who depend on wages for a living are struggling, while a small minority at the top who own most shares of stock and private equity — that is, people who rely on capital gains — have never had it as good.The trend toward lower wages and higher profits began in the 1980s, increased in the 2000s, picked up speed after the pandemic, and is about to explode as Artificial Intelligence takes over.In coming months three companies centered on AI will go public — Space X, OpenAI, and Anthropic — with expected valuations of around $1 trillion each (reflecting the gargantuan profits investors expect). But what about workers?This is not just morally wrong. “Income from capital risks replacing income from labor,” Pope Leo wrote in Magnifica Humanitas, his encyclical letter devoted to the effects of AI, released this week.It also threatens the future stability of our economic and political system.What accounts for the increasing shift of the American economy from wages to profits, even before AI?One big reason is monopolization. The economy has become concentrated in a few giant corporations with the power both to raise prices and keep wages down.Sure, there are still lots of small businesses and mom-and-pop operations. But the gravitational center of the U.S. economy is now Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Kroger, United Health, Cigna, CVS, AT&T, Verizon, ExxonMobil, Chevron, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Vanguard, Fidelity, Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR.These giants control large swathes of the economy. They also exert significant political power. They’re like black holes in space, sucking in vast sums of money.Their political power makes it impossible to know whether government policy is based on the public interest or private gain.Consider Trump’s war in Iran and its resulting surge in energy prices. The energy-price rise has caused after-tax disposable income to drop and the profits of energy companies to soar. Did Trump decide to go to war because he thought it necessary, or because Big Oil nudged him into it?Workers, meanwhile, no longer have any countervailing power. In the 1950s, over a third of workers in the private sector were unionized. That gave them enough bargaining power to claim a significant share of the total economy. Now, only 6 percent of workers are unionized. Their bargaining power has been further eroded by their easy replacement by lower-wage workers in Asia and by software. AI will further erode it.This trend is not sustainable. It feeds growing anger at the system, which demagogues like Trump exploit for their own ends.What should be done? Let me list five steps (I’ll go into each in greater detail in coming months).1. For one thing, we’re going to need a new era of antitrust. Giant corporations will have to be busted up.2. We’ll also need to tax those at the top, especially on the value of their ownership of capital. (California voters will likely be asked to vote on a billionaire tax in November.)3. We’ll need regulate AI and simultaneously provide a universal basic income to cushion those who lose their jobs because of it.4. Universal health care will be a necessity (perhaps via Medicare for all) along with subsidized childcare and eldercare.5. Finally, we’ll need to distribute capital far more widely, so that the broad American public has a palpable stake in the rip-roaring stock market and the AI tsunami.None of these fixes will be easy. Even if all are implemented, they may still be insufficient.But, my friends, we have no choice but to try. We’ve already witnessed what mass anger can do to America, in the form of Trump. Unless we act soon, we’re likely to have Trumps, or worse, as far as the eye can see.
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Raw Story
Doctor raises prospect of 'underlying condition' as Trump faces non-routine cognitive test
A physician who appeared on MS NOW Sunday morning pushed back on Donald Trump's early morning boast about acing a cognitive screening test, warning that the frequency with which Trump appears to be taking the exam raises questions rather than answering them — because the test is typically administered when doctors are already concerned about something.Dr. Vin Gupta was responding to Trump's 12:35 a.m. Truth Social post in which the president claimed to have scored a perfect 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, calling it an "approved high difficulty cognitive test" that no other president has taken and describing the result as evidence of "extreme intelligence."Gupta was not impressed. "This is a screening tool, at a very high level, for early signs of cognitive decline or dementia," he said. "It is not something that assesses the ability to do the world's hardest job under pressure — executive functioning. It is not that tool. It's not a neuropsychiatric test."He also questioned Trump's characterization of the exam as difficult. "I don't think a lot of people find it to be terribly difficult, as he describes it."But Gupta's sharpest point came when the anchor asked who typically initiates the test — the patient or the doctor."Traditionally, it is the latter," Gupta said. "It's something that if we're getting it frequently, say every four to six weeks, like it seems like they're doing, that is something that is used to surveil an underlying condition in typical scenarios. In this case, this is not a test you routinely would otherwise do with this type of frequency."Gupta also raised broader concerns about transparency surrounding Trump's physical, which was released late on a Friday night and included what he called "overly editorialized language" — including references to an AI tool assessing Trump's cardiac age and an explanation attributing bruising on both of Trump's hands to handshaking. "This is not professional medical language that you use to describe somebody's physical condition," he said.
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The Gateway Pundit
MSNOW Host Claims Joe Biden’s Health Was ‘Litigated Exhaustively’ But Trump’s Health is Getting a Pass (VIDEO)
MSNOW Host Jonathan Capehart appeared on PBS this weekend and claimed that Joe Biden's health was examined closely by the media and the public, then suggested that Trump is getting a pass on the same issue. The post MSNOW Host Claims Joe Biden’s Health Was ‘Litigated Exhaustively’ But Trump’s Health is Getting a Pass (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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The Daily Wire - Breaking News, Videos & Podcasts
The Book Every American Family Should Own
This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** “The American Book of Fables” is unlike anything else in print — or at least, that has been published in the last 200 years. At nearly 400 pages, it’s ...
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Raw Story
GOP strategist predicts how Trump could have 'enormous power' even after his term ends
A Republican strategist predicted that Trump wants to remain in his GOP kingmaker role even more than a third term."I'm not a person who believes he's going to run for a third term," Republican strategist Liam Donavan told journalist Ezra Klein in a video opinion piece. "But could he continue to exert enormous power over the Republican Party by continuing to intervene in primaries all over the country? I think he absolutely could, and you can be the kingmaker even when you're not the king." Trump endorsements have ousted established GOP senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and John Cornyn (R-TX) as well as state lawmakers in Indiana. For Trump, "he is less worried about a world where Democrats have power than he is about a world where Republicans feel empowered to abandon him," Donovan argued."I think just his impulses are to flex his muscles and have Republicans do what he wants," Donovan said.
Far Left
The New York Times Is Late to the Masculinity Crisis
My most loyal readers already know that, as penance for my many sins, I occasionally read the New York Times....
Center Right
Raw Story
Fox's Bartiromo mocked by both sides for getting Kennedy Center case wrong: 'Full-time PR'
Fox's Maria Bartiromo drew ridicule from journalists and conservatives alike after posting a lengthy defense of Donald Trump's Kennedy Center name change that got the basic legal facts wrong — and appeared to pass along opposition research from Laura Loomer targeting the judge's wife.Bartiromo claimed the Kennedy Center board had already approved adding Trump's name to the building and accused the judge who ordered it removed of being part of a "Get Trump" conspiracy. "The way these judges go after Donald Trump is absolutely sick and the history books will reveal how sick and un-American they are," she wrote, before pivoting to information she attributed to Loomer about Judge Christopher Cooper's wife, attorney Dorothy Ames Jeffress, claiming Jeffress had previously represented Lisa Page and Nancy Pelosi.Paul Farhi, the former Washington Post media reporter, cut straight to the problem. "Except the board doesn't have the authority to change the name," he wrote. "Congress made that clear in enacting the law establishing the KenCen. Which is exactly what the judge ruled yesterday."Farhi wasn't alone. Pradheep Shanker, a radiologist and conservative commentator, sided with the court. "Only Congressional action can change the name," he wrote. "Trump is wrong and the Judge is right about the law."Gregg Nunziata, a former Republican Senate Judiciary counsel, offered two words in response to Bartiromo's post: "Noted journalist."John Harwood, the former CNN and NBC correspondent, simply replied with a 🤪 emoji.Carla Marinucci, a veteran political journalist, was the most direct. "Used to be a journalist," she wrote. "Now full-time PR."
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