Why Can’t Hyper-Partisans Admit TrumpRx Is Dramatically Slashing Drug Costs?

Bold New US Action: Drug Smuggling Boat Destroyed, Three Traffickers Eliminated

This contest shames Trump insiders — then costs them their heads

I was stumped. On Wednesday, I watched Trump’s Cabinet meeting. I’m not only a glutton for punishment, but I will not be handing out compliments for a very long time. Stunned, I have been mulling over what to write about that beyond-cringe meeting, trying to figure out what prompts middle-to-older-aged, white adults - educated, although… - suck up to a man like this.I’ve been around and followed politics long enough to know that sycophancy is as old as licking George Washington’s revolutionary boots. I worked on Capitol Hill in the 1980s and 1990s, and believe me, members of Congress lived in self-constructed bubbles where staffers, lobbyists and hangers-on told them exactly what they wanted to hear. But there is not a gross enough word that can even begin to describe what happened in the White House Cabinet Room on Wednesday, an over-the-top lesson in leeching that made your skin crawl, your mouth gape, your stomach churn, your ears melt, your eyes cross.The sensation of watching it was a full-body blow of epic adulating proportions. And if you think I’m exaggerating, try and watch the whole thing as I did. But don’t watch it more than once.Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler looked Donald Trump dead in the eyes and said, “Mr. President, you have made us a nation of builders again. You’re leading us to the greatest economy that the world has ever known… I hear it everywhere I go: ‘Please thank the president for putting us back on track. Thank you.’ They love you.”They love you. Bleck!.Yuck! That is now part of the historical record. And I don’t know whether my eyes were crossed and I wasn’t seeing straight, but she looked like someone AI-generated not only her, but her words.Speaking of bleck and yuck, there was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. When he opens his “manly” moronic motor-mouth, it’s akin to watching a blue whale dump 50 gallons of excrement on your head. His words are that abhorrent and that disgusting, and so hard to wash off.He defecated praise on Trump’s renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, describing the maintenance efforts as "a great segue" and linked it to the Iran war.What?But then again, maybe Hegseth knows of what he speaks. Because Trump said that the reflecting pool was a “disgusting place,” and that crews had to pull "more than 10 dumpsters" of accumulated garbage and waste from it. The reflecting pool sounds an awful lot like Hegseth.Hours before the meeting, as if they knew the tragedy that was about to transpire, the New York Times ran an analysis article titled, “Trump is the Only Person Who Can Save America, According to His Cabinet.” If you haven’t read this, read it now. It found that at least one in six sentences spoken by Cabinet members contains praise for Trump, attributes every administration success to him personally, or attacks Democrats. One in six sentences. Watch yesterday’s Cabinet meeting and you will see that come to life.Six sentences go by fast, so your head will start to spin once your brain starts catching on. It’s almost like each Cabinet member goes five sentences, and then Trump pushes an electrical shock button, and that sixth sentence of praise is jolted out.When you are watching, you have to keep reminding yourself that these are the people running the most powerful government on earth. And they spend a sixth of their time essentially writing pseudo-Hallmark cards to a man who eats McDonald’s everyday and calls people “piggy,” “dummy” and “scum” on social media.This is a man who reportedly emits a bad odor. And if you believe the viral videos from yesterday — and other instances — did Trump have an accident in front of the White House after returning from his medical check-up?Here’s what these people need to understand. You are making absolute fools of yourself and you're wasting your time and your careers tripping over yourselves and fighting each other in order to get a quick lick in on this man’s odorous derriere. History is littered with the political corpses of people who kissed Donald Trump’s ring and got nothing but humiliation in return. Pam Bondi spent years fawning over this man. Gone. Chris Christie practically built a shrine to Trump after 2016. Trump mocked his weight publicly and called him a loser. Even John Cornyn, a senator in his 70s who should have known better, genuflected before Trump and still got crushed in his primary by Ken Paxton, a man with one of the most scandal-ridden records in history. Where do these people go when Trump is done with them? They end up as guests on NewsNation. They write books nobody reads. They show up on panels where the other panelists are also people Trump fired or humiliated. Do they then try and kiss up to Sean Hannity, thinking that’s their way back into Toady Trumpland?Earlier this year, The Bulwark writers Sam Stein and Andrew Eggers did what I did and watched an entire Cabinet meeting.

Inflation won Trump the presidency, but could cost him the midterms

Trump’s pursuit of policies that drive up prices, including tariffs and war, might be punished in November’s electionsFor such an uncannily successful politician, Donald Trump exhibits a perplexing political myopia. His most recent own-goal was endorsing Ken Paxton, a state attorney general, against four-term senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary for Senate in Texas. Trump’s endorsement helped push the ethically compromised Maga firebrand over the top, to run against popular Democrat James Talarico in November, complicating the Republicans’ chances to keep the seat.But what truly screams “I want us to lose the midterms” is what Trump is doing about inflation, which is becoming his most vulnerable issue. According to a New York Times/Siena poll of registered voters earlier in May, Trump’s approval on handling the cost of living is underwater by 42 percentage points, poorer than his rating on handling the economy (minus 31 points) and the unpopular war in Iran (minus 34 points). Continue reading...

Trump's drug boat strikes made zero dent in cocaine smuggling: NYT

Despite bombing small boats, Trump's aggressive military operations outside South America have made zero progress towards stopping the flow of cocaine, according to reporting by The New York Times. Nine months ago, the Trump administration started attacking dozens of small boats, killing nearly 200 people in the process. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth touted the strikes as "highly effective" at stopping drug trafficking into the United States.However, epidemiologists, addiction scientists, and public health experts are saying that cocaine is just as easy to get in the United States as it was before those strikes began, according to the Times. "In addition to being morally abhorrent, this method is as likely to succeed as much as would bombing a handful of McDonald's in Dallas, Texas and claiming that you've made America healthy again," Dr. Carl Latkin, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the Times. "Cocaine remains highly available, highly prevalent and relatively inexpensive," Latkin added. Other experts told the Times that another sign of the campaign's ineffectiveness is that the purity and price of cocaine in the U.S. have stayed the same.The Trump administration deployed gunships, F-35 fighter jets, guided-missile destroyers, drones, fixed-wing aircraft, and 15,000 U.S. military personnel to fight small boats, all to the tune of $4.7 billion, according to a Brown University study cited by the Times."Signs are also emerging that traffickers are simply adopting other methods for smuggling cocaine," the Times reported. Drug smugglers are basically going around Trump's military operations by "shifting to land routes through Central America or placing cocaine in container ships, while absorbing the occasional loss of shipments on small boats," according to the Times.The U.S. military also captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to face drug trafficking charges and started ground strikes in Ecuador, the Times noted. "They're not moving the needle at all," Adam Isacson, the defense director at the Washington Office on Latin America, told the Times. "Is that worth killing all these people?"

Blue Origin rocket that blew up during test debacle cost Jeff Bezos’ space company $150M

The Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin rocket that dramatically exploded on Florida’s space coast Thursday night costs upwards of $150 million to construct — and the Amazon founder pledged to “rebuild whatever needs rebuilding.” It costs more than $100 million to build the New Glenn rocket’s first stage, a 188-foot-tall rocket booster, and north of $50...

Trump administration cracks down on Brazil's biggest drug gangs with ‘global terror’ designation

The State Department designates Brazil's Red Command and PCC as global terrorists, with foreign terrorist organization status effective June 5.

Right-wing journalist predicts Tulsi Gabbard will end her tenure on a dramatic note

Right-wing journalist John Solomon predicted Thursday, outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard will make a dramatic exit by releasing evidence claiming to prove foreign interference in the 2020 election. Solomon, who works closely with Gabbard on declassifications, spoke with Bannon on the "War Room" podcast. "Tulsi is gonna go out in a blaze of glory in her final month because she will be able to release in succession some extraordinary evidence of foreign interference in our election in 2020 and since," Solomon shared.Solomon claimed the intelligence community concealed evidence of "active measures" by China, Iran, and other adversaries, and alleged Gabbard would systematically destroy the official narrative that 2020 was secure. He also claimed China interfered with voter databases in multiple states and made unverified allegations about Ukraine laundering federal grants to Former President Joe Biden's campaign. Gabbard resigned in May, citing her husband's cancer diagnosis. During her tenure, she was involved in President Donald Trump's 2020 election efforts, including overseeing ballot seizures in Georgia and voting machine confiscation in Puerto Rico.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.

'Dr.' Jill's Dramatic New Spin on Biden's Debate Disaster Fails the Smell Test—Complete With Receipts