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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Johnny Copeland

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist Johnny Copeland. Enjoy!

^{Stevie Ray Vaughan with Johnny Copeland -Tin Pan Alley}

"The warmongers in the United States Congress are not aware of, or they're blind to the fact that what they are doing will bring about the type of war that will end America completely as a power in the world."

-- Louis Farrakhan

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News and Opinion

Ending Western Warmongering Should Be Our Number One Priority

First and foremost the west needs to stop murdering people. Ending western warmongering should take priority over every other societal concern, in the same way your husband being a serial killer would be a more urgent concern than his refusal to wash dishes.

It’s a sign of a deep sickness how much more political attention is given to domestic policy in our society than the fact that our governments are butchering human beings on other continents. This is not to say that those domestic policy issues are not important; it is only to say that they aren’t as horrifyingly urgent as the way imperial core nations are actively participating in actual mass murder.

Healthcare? Very important. Immigrants’ rights? Very important. Social justice and equality? Very important. But imagine if you lived in a place where western-made bombs were tearing your family and neighbors to shreds and then catching sight of a western social media post about the supreme importance of LGBTQ issues or ending discrimination against neurodivergent people. Just pause and put yourself in those shoes for a minute.

Again and again and again thrice over, I am not saying that those issues do not matter. I’m just saying that ending the mass murder should feel like a more urgent concern. I don’t think this should be controversial.

Not an exaggeration to say the literal future of our planet depends on the total defeat of US imperialism https://t.co/zlwa4Ggeyx

— (@hermit_hwarang) May 7, 2026

In no other area of our society do we have trouble making this distinction. If a mass shooting kills twenty people in your country, that’s going to receive more attention than all the other injustices and abuses that happened in your nation on that day. The murder of a seventy year-old woman is going to be far more traumatic and significant for her community than if the same seventy year-old woman died of lung cancer. You would not continue your discussion about intersectional feminism at the restaurant if you saw someone being strangled to death at the table across the room.

When it happens near us, to people who look like us and live like us and speak the same language as us, we have no problem understanding that murder is an urgent problem and preventing it is a foremost concern for our society. But when our own governments are involved in the murder of people with darker skin, speaking different languages, practicing different religions and living in different cultures, we’re able to compartmentalize away from the urgency of the situation.

This says terrible things about us as a civilization. We’re no different than the wife of a serial killer who ignores the bodies being buried in the backyard because she’s more worried about what his online gambling addiction is costing the family. We’re disconnecting ourselves from something precious and important within us in order to psychologically dissociate from the crimes of the empire in the way that we do.

This hurts our fellow human beings, but it hurts us too. We’re doing something ugly to our insides when we twist ourselves into knots to avoid facing the cold hard reality of western military slaughter. It warps us as people. It profoundly impacts the way we experience life. It scratches the lenses of our perceptual filters. How could it not?

All these wars and genocidal atrocities are an invitation to reclaim a sacred part of ourselves by treating them with the urgency they deserve. There’s no way to live an authentic life and move into a truth-based relationship with reality without doing so.

Don't Tread On Me

Heh, remember when the Omanis said that a peace deal was at hand? The closer they get to a peace deal the sooner the war restarts.

US and Iran close to temporary truce, Pakistani officials claim

The US and Iran are close to a temporary agreement to halt the war in the Middle East, officials in Pakistan claimed on Thursday, as diplomatic activity gathered fresh momentum after a near breakdown of the current ceasefire earlier this week. Officials on Islamabad said a very basic “interim” deal could be reached as early as this weekend and that Tehran was reviewing a US proposal. However, Trump and Pakistan have consistently suggested a breakthrough was imminent, and weeks of previous efforts to negotiate a permanent end to hostilities have made little real progress.

Recent days have seen wild swings from hope to despair as the US and Iran test each other’s resilience and will, seeking leverage in any talks through belligerent rhetoric, defiance and sporadic violence.

Despite many observers’ scepticism – and continuing defiance in Tehran – the possibility of even a partial agreement that could lead to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz sent global stocks to near-record highs on Thursday as oil prices dropped steeply.

Wednesday the US military fired on an Iranian-flagged oil tanker hours after Trump issued a fresh ultimatum to Tehran, telling it to accept a deal to end the war or face a new wave of US bombing “at a much higher level and intensity than it was before”.

The gaps between Tehran and Washington appear to make a broader settlement impossible for the moment, but a temporary arrangement set out in a one-page memo aimed at preventing a return to conflict and securing safe passage for shipping through the strait should be obtainable, officials said.

‘Love Tap’: Trump BOMBS IRAN, Says Ceasefire STILL ON

US Bombs Iran’s Qeshm Port and Bandar Abbas

The US bombed Iranian ports on Thursday, an attack that will likely plunge the region back into full-scale war.

Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin first reported that the US was behind strikes on a port in Iran’s Qeshm island in the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, and a naval target in Minab, where the US bombed an elementary school on February 28, an attack that killed 120 children.

Iran’s military then released a statement saying that the US violated the ceasefire by attacking two commercial ships and bombing Iranian ports.

“The aggressive, terrorist, and bandit American army violated the ceasefire by targeting an Iranian oil tanker ship moving from Iranian coastal waters in the Jask region towards the Strait of Hormuz, as well as another ship entering the Strait of Hormuz, opposite the port of Fujairah in the UAE,” said a spokesman for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.
CENTCOM framed the strikes as launched in “self-defense,” and the US official speaking to Griffin said that the US bombing Iran doesn’t mean the ceasefire is over. The Trump administration has attempted to frame its recent military operations, which include a blockade of Iranian ports, as “defensive” even though it’s all part of the war of aggression that the US and Israel launched against Iran on February 28.

Operation Trust Me Bro failed. Now back to routine with Operation Fauxios.

— | MB Ghalibaf (@mb_ghalibaf) May 6, 2026

Operation Epic Failure: How Trump Lost the Iran War He Started w/ Elijah Magnier

Iran says it is attacking US military vessels after US 'violated' ceasefire with fresh strikes

Iran has accused the United States of violating the ceasefire by targeting two ships at the strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian areas, the country’s top joint military command said early on Friday (local time in Tehran is almost 1am).

The US targeted “an Iranian oil tanker travelling from Iran’s coastal waters near Jask toward the strait of Hormuz, as well as another vessel entering the strait of Hormuz near the Emirati port of Fujairah,” a spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said in a statement carried by state media.

“At the same time, with the cooperation of some regional countries, they carried out air attacks on civilian areas along the coasts of Bandar Khamir, Sirik, and Qeshm Island.”

Iran’s armed forces responded by attacking US military vessels, “reportedly inflicting significant damage on them,” the spokesperson said.

The Hook Trump Placed Himself On /Patrick Henningsen & Lt Col Daniel Davis

Trump threatens to hit Iran 'a lot more violently' if deal not reached quickly

Donald Trump is saying “great damage” was done to the Iranian forces that attacked the US destroyers in the strait of Hormuz. He also said in a post on his Truth Social platform that the US would knock out Iran “a lot harder and a lot more violently” if it didn’t agree to a peace deal “FAST”.

Trump also said Iran was being “led by LUNATICS” and repeated his regular theme that Tehran would use a nuclear weapon if it had chance, but said “they’ll never have that opportunity”.

Leaked CIA Analysis Shows Trump and Hegseth ‘Lied Through Their Teeth’ About Iran War

Just hours before the Trump administration conducted what it claimed were “self-defense strikes” against “Iranian military facilities,” The Washington Post reported Thursday that the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that “Iran can survive the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship.”

Citing four unnamed officials familiar with the analysis, the newspaper highlighted that “the CIA analysis might even be underestimating Iran’s economic resilience if Tehran is able to smuggle oil via overland routes.”

Militarily, “Iran retains about 75% of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70% of its prewar stockpiles of missiles,” the Post added. “There is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles, and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began.”

Bravo @realDonaldTrump, @netanyahu, @LindseyGrahamSC, @mdubowitz and many more. https://t.co/9PnaozBO3o

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 7, 2026

Drop Site News’ Murtaza Hussain responded that if this assessment along with a previous one from the Center for Strategic and International Studies about “remaining US munitions and interceptor capacity are even approximately correct, it goes a long way to explaining why Trump seems so eager to end the war whereas the Iranians have either dug in or escalated their negotiating positions. The missile math of continuing the conflict would be much more favorable to the Iranians, especially if the war continued for a significant time.”

“Prior to the war, interceptor capacity compared to the size of the Iranian missile stockpile seemed like the most rationally incontrovertible reason to avoid fighting such a conflict, even for people who found it politically desirable,” he added. “This also might explain why the US and Israel pivoted towards the end to threatening countervalue strikes against civilian targets if attempts to destroy the underground missile cities by air were ineffective.”

The Post’s reporting came one month into a fragile ceasefire and starkly contrasts the recent framing of conditions in Iran from President Donald Trump and others in his administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hesgeth.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) responded to the Post’s reporting by quoting Hegseth, who said in March that “never before has a modern, capable military, which Iran used to have, been so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective.”

Murphy declared: “They lied through their teeth. Just straight up fabricated shit.”

Still, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly stuck to the administration’s framing in a Thursday statement to the Post.

“During Operation Epic Fury, Iran was crushed militarily,” Kelly said. “Now, they are being strangled economically by Operation Economic Fury and losing $500 million per day thanks to the United States military’s successful blockade of Iranian ports. The Iranian regime knows full well their current reality is not sustainable, and President Trump holds all the cards as negotiators work to make a deal.”

Meanwhile, some experts were unsurprised that the CIA privately delivered a “sober” assessment contradicting the administration’s public commentary on the conflict—which it now claims is no longer an active “war,” seemingly to dodge a key congressional deadline.

“Nice to know that a confidential CIA analysis is confirming what close observers of the Iranian economy have been saying publicly for weeks! Intelligent policymakers rely on intelligence. But Trump jeopardized diplomacy by instigating a blockade that was never going to work,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Europe and founder of the think tank Bourse & Bazaar Foundation.

Sharing the reporting on social media, Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at the think tank Defense Priorities, wrote: “As I argued a week into the U.S. blockade, Iran can hold out for months without economic collapse. The costs for the US and the world are increasingly unsustainable, however.”

Earlier this week, Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, estimated that the US government spent $71.8 billion on the Iran War during its first 60 days, an average of $1.2 billion daily. The International Monetary Fund warned last month that the conflict could cause a global recession.

Last Friday, Trump responded to the War Powers Act’s 60-day deadline by claiming to Congress that his war—which already violated US and international law—had been “terminated.” The White House said at the time that no fire had been exchanged since April 7, when a ceasefire deal was reached just hours after the president issued a genocidal threat against the Iranian people.

However, on Thursday evening, United States Central Command announced that Iran “launched multiple missiles, drones, and small boats” at American warships. CENTCOM added that it “eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking US forces, including missile and drone launch sites; command and control locations; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance nodes.”

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern., and Scott Ritter : Weekly Wrap. 8-May

Israeli settler to go on trial over attack on French nun in Jerusalem

An Israeli settler suspected of kicking and wounding a French Catholic nun in Jerusalem will go on trial for assault motivated by hostility towards a religious group, Israel’s justice ministry has said. The attack on the nun, a 48-year-old researcher at Jerusalem’s French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, occurred on Mount Zion, just outside the Old City.

The suspect, Yona Simcha Schreiber, 36, is from a settlement in the occupied West Bank named Peduel. He has been under arrest since 29 April and the prosecution has asked that he remain in detention until the trial, the ministry said in a statement. Schreiber faces a charge of assault resulting in injuries, motivated by hostility towards a religious group.

Surveillance footage from the scene shows a man rushing towards the nun, who was dressed in a white habit and black veil, and violently pushing her to the ground where she comes close to hitting her head on a stone block. The man leaves the scene only to return and kick the nun before a passerby intervenes.

Russia Makes Strongest Threats Tells EU Diplomats To Leave Kiev; EU Refuses; Kiev Violates May Truce

Hegseth Lampooned for Absurd Video Claiming $1.5 Trillion Pentagon Budget Puts ‘American Taxpayer First’

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drew instant ridicule on Thursday after he released a video touting President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion military budget as a fiscally responsible plan that is “putting the American taxpayer first.”

At the start of the video, Hegseth accuses defense contractors of bilking the Pentagon for expenses such as factory construction, while also constantly charging more for cost overruns.

Hegseth then claims that Trump has brought together a group of private-sector negotiators whom he’s labeled “Deal Team Six” to lay down the law on the defense industry and save the US taxpayer money.

Performative dipshittery, wrapped in fictional jingoism, delivered by an incompetent drunk wearing the clothes of an adolescent boy. https://t.co/fjvrQBrBKB

— Jeff Timmer (@jefftimmer) May 7, 2026

Hegseth never explains how it is possible that the president and his “Deal Team Six” are saving US taxpayers money while at the same time asking US taxpayers to fund a $1.5 trillion military budget that would be over 50% more than the 2025 US defense budget and more than four times the money spent on defense by China, the world’s second biggest defense spender.

Regardless, Hegseth wrote in a social media post that the $1.5 trillion budget would be “a FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT in our Arsenal of Freedom—ensuring our military remains the most lethal fighting force in the world.”

Critics of the Trump administration erupted in mockery after seeing the Hegseth video.

“Spread this lame ass video everywhere,” wrote Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council staffer under

President Barack Obama. “I want every voter to know that Trump has requested a $1.5 TRILLION Pentagon budget. Shut up if you want better healthcare or for Social Security to remain solvent. All you get is more bombs to drop on Iranian schools.”

Indigo Olivier, a reporter for The New Republic, said Democrats could make the proposed Trump budget a winning issue given how many other problems—including the rising costs of gasoline, groceries, and healthcare—that the Trump administration seemingly has no interest in addressing.

“I would love to hear Democrats talk about Pentagon price gouging with even half the energy they devote to Hasan Piker,” she wrote. “The administration pushing a $1.5 trillion defense budget somehow becoming the face of anti-waste messaging is political malpractice.”

Former Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) described Trump’s proposed Pentagon budget as “hundreds of billions more in waste and fraud—at taxpayer expense.”

“Remember when this administration pretended it was going to bring down the national debt?” Amash asked.

Former Republican political strategist Jeff Timmer delivered an even harsher assessment of Hegseth’s video, which he labeled “performative dipshittery, wrapped in fictional jingoism, delivered by an incompetent drunk wearing the clothes of an adolescent boy.”

Journalist Patrick Henningsen ripped Hegseth for delivering a “desperate, dumbed-down message” that he predicted would “go down in history as one of the biggest own-goals yet—and the worst pieces of war propaganda we’ve ever seen.”

Steven Kosiak, nonresident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote an analysis last month of Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion military budget in which he said, “It is difficult to overstate just how massive an increase in defense spending this would represent, or how unhinged it seems to be from reality and sober policymaking.”

Pfffftttt!!!

John Roberts insists supreme court not ‘political’ after Trump-friendly rulings

US chief justice John Roberts has insisted supreme court judges are not “political actors” amid outrage over its recent decision undermining the Voting Right Act, and other moves that have benefited Donald Trump and his allies.

“I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” Roberts told a conference for judges and lawyers in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. “I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.”

The supreme court is “simply not part of the political process”, Roberts claimed. He acknowledged, however, that some of its decisions may spark controversy. “One thing we have to do is make decisions that are unpopular,” he said, according to the AP.

Roberts leads a court on which conservatives have held a six-justice majority since 2020, and handed down a series of decisions that have upended longstanding precedent and, in Trump’s second term, allowed many of his policies to take effect, at least temporarily.

Jury finds LA police officer not liable in death of teen killed by stray bullet in 2021

A Los Angeles police officer who opened fire in a clothing store in 2021 while confronting a disgruntled customer has been found not liable for the death of Valentina Orellana-Peralta, a teenager who was fatally struck by a bullet that bounced off the ground and hit the wall of her dressing room. A Los Angeles county jury reached its decision on Thursday, capping the wrongful death trial that began early last month.

On 23 December 2021, in the midst of Christmas shopping, the Los Angeles police department (LAPD) received multiple 911 calls about a man using a bike lock to smash things and attack customers in the North Hollywood Burlington store, according to audio released by law enforcement. A store sales associate, in her call, said the man was armed.

Officers observed the suspect, Daniel Elena-Lopez, beating an employee with the bicycle lock, according to a 2024 report from the California Department of Justice. Officer William Dorsey Jones Jr fired a rifle three times in the direction of Elena-Lopez, who fell to the ground. After shots were fired, officers heard screams from a fitting room behind the man.

Orellana-Peralta, 14, and her mother had been hiding in the space. The teenager had a gunshot wound to her torso, according to the report. First responders pronounced her dead at the scene.

During the trial, Jones testified he initially thought the bike lock was a gun. The family’s attorneys cast Jones as negligent. “Officers can’t shoot someone because they possibly have a weapon,” said lawyer Haytham Faraj during the trial. “Otherwise, they’d be shooting everyone.”

US trade court rules against Trump’s 10% global tariffs

The US trade court on Thursday ruled against Donald Trump’s latest 10% global tariffs, finding across-the-board tariffs were not justified under a 1970s trade law.

The US court of international trade ruled in favor of small businesses that challenged the tariffs, which took effect on 24 February. The ruling was 2-1, with one judge saying it was premature to grant victory to the small business plaintiffs.

The small businesses had argued the new tariffs were an attempt to sidestep a landmark US supreme court decision that struck down the Republican president’s 2025 tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

In his February order, Trump invoked section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows for duties for up to 150 days to correct serious “balance of payments deficits” or head off an imminent depreciation of the dollar.

Thursday’s court ruling found the law was not an appropriate step for the kinds of trade deficits that Trump cited in his February order.

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Tennessee Republicans redraw maps to erase last Democratic, Black-majority district

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act. The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.

The district had closely occupied the south-west corner of the state. Now three districts snake out from Memphis’ dense center, with two crossing the Tennessee River to reach Nashville’s suburbs 200 miles away.

“If Republican policies are so great, why are we changing the lines to rig elections?” asked Vincent Dixie, a state representative from Nashville, during debate on Thursday, pleading for Republicans to refrain. “Where is your humanity in this?” As Democratic lawmakers spoke, the house speaker directed state troopers to remove a section of the audience in the gallery, which had begun shouting.

Justin Jones, a state Democratic representative, described Cameron Sexton, the Tennessee house speaker, as the “grand wizard in chief”, and handed a Republican lawmaker a Confederate flag. Jones offered amendments to the bill, which the speaker ruled had been submitted in an untimely manner. Jones described that as a “Jim Crow process”.

The redistricting comes eight days after the supreme court’s landmark Callais v Landry decision, which invalidated swaths of the Voting Rights Act which had restrained state governments from drawing congressional districts that left Black voters at a political disadvantage.

'EPSTEIN CLASS!': Graham Platner GLOVES OFF Against Susan Collins

New Platner Ad Takes Aim at Collins’ ‘Symbolic Opposition’ to Trump Agenda

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.

Susan Collins’ charade is over.

Betraying the voters who’ve delivered mandate for change after mandate for change is disqualifying from the role of United States Senator.

Our new ad pic.twitter.com/2YUMpPH5wL

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 7, 2026

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.”

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Trump’s Iran war may stymie climate gains with boost to big oil

The billions in profits big oil is reaping due to the Iran war may stymie the energy transition, experts and advocates fear, incentivizing oil and gas expansion and boosting the sector’s funds for political lobbying. “Windfall profits from Trump’s war will allow big oil to build a wall of money around its Trump-era political victories,” said Lukas Shankar-Ross, a deputy director at the green group Friends of the Earth.

The deadly conflict in Iran has created a historic energy shock due to attacks on fossil fuel facilities and the blockage of the crucial strait of Hormuz trade route. Amid the chaos, energy prices – and oil companies’ earnings – have soared.

ConocoPhillips last week reported $2.3bn in profits for the first three months of 2026, up 84% from before the war began. Meanwhile, the top petroleum refiner Valero Energy announced quarterly profits of $1.2bn, beating estimates. Liberty Energy, founded and formerly run by Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, saw quarterly earnings of $10m, up 32% from before the war began. BP, meanwhile, said it had seen “exceptional” performance, more than doubling its profits during the year’s first quarter, while Shell on Thursday also reported its first-quarter profits were stronger than expected.

The oil majors Chevron and ExxonMobil both saw their profits drop during the first three months of 2026, executives reported in earnings calls. Yet in short order, that trajectory will shift, analysts say. Consensus estimates shows ExxonMobil’s second-quarter earnings will more than double from a year ago, while Chevron profits are expected to increase by 56% for the year.

“The reason why oil companies are doing so well right now, or at least are projected to do very well in the near term, is exactly because Americans are hurting,” said Kelly Mitchell, executive director of Fieldnotes, a watchdog organization tracking the oil and gas industry. “Their business interest is to extract as many dollars out of a barrel of oil as possible, and the folks on the other side of the equation are Americans who are just trying to fill up their gas tank and get to work.”

Diesel prices squeeze US farmers ‘barely getting by’ amid tariffs and drought

It has been a tough few years for American farmers. Squeezed last year by tariffs, they lost an estimated $34.6bn when former trade partners stopped buying. Now, the war with Iran has not only depleted crucial fertilizer stores but has also driven diesel fuel up to record prices. Like the trucking industry, agriculture relies heavily on diesel to run machinery, as diesel-powered engines are more fuel efficient than gasoline-powered ones. Worst of all, the price increase is taking place during the spring planting season.

“These rising costs are hitting us at the wrong time here in the north country in New York,” said Blake Gendebien, who owns a 1,200-acre dairy farm with 500 cows in Lisbon, New York. “I use 20,000 gallons of fuel to get my crops in the ground and harvested.” Last April, he paid about $2.65 a gallon for off-road diesel. Off-road diesel is for vehicles used off public roads and is therefore exempt from federal and state excise taxes. Depending on the state, it can be anywhere between $0.20 and $0.80 cheaper a gallon than on-road diesel.

This year, it’s pushing $5 a gallon. According to the most recent statistics, 86% of farmers in America run small family farms, defined as having a gross income of $350,000 a year or less. And the majority of those farms have high-risk profit margins of 10% or less. So rising diesel costs pose a serious threat to their ability to stay in business. “It’s a massive cost for farmers that are already barely, barely getting by,” Gendebien said.

Gendebien believes there’s a large disconnect between rural America and Washington. “We don’t have enough farmers in Congress,” he said. “We don’t even have a farm bill.” (The House passed its version of a farm bill on 30 April, and the Senate is expected to introduce its own version in the coming weeks.) That’s why he is running for Congress against Elise Stefanik, he said. “It would be so nice to have a congressman from the north country here that understands the beginning of food production at the farm gate all the way to the dinner plate.”

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.

Iran Has Broken The US Middle East Raj

Iran War: Iran Pushes Back Against Trump “Deal Is Nigh” as More Evidence of US Failure Emerges, Including Gulf State Mini-Revolt, Even More US Base Destruction, Jet Fuel Price Rise Damage, Conservative Opposition to Trump Climbdown

A War Nobody Voted For — And a Congress That Let It Happen

After Deadly Beirut Strike, Israel Resumes Pounding Southern Lebanon

War On Iran: – Saudis Pulled Break On Trump’s Escalation

US reinstates deportation proceedings against Palestinian green-card holder Mohsen Mahdawi

Royal Navy tracks Russian frigate for one month off UK coast

Russia’s Threat of a Massive Retaliatory Strike on Kiev Likely Isn’t A Bluff

‘Are Readers Meant to Take This Seriously?’: Economist Refutes Latest Attack on Wealth Tax by Bezos’ Washington Post

The Trump administration is deleting government data. From infant deaths to hunger, here are five ways it’s hurting Americans

How AI Will Fail Like The Music Industry

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A Little Night Music

Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Johnny Copeland – Lion's Den

Johnny Copeland – Rock Me Baby

Johnny Copeland – Devil's Hand

Johnny Copeland - Houston

Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Johnny Copeland – Bring Your Fine Self Home

Johnny Copeland – Come On Y'All

Johnny Copeland - Everybody Wants A Piece Of Me

Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Johnny Copeland – Black Cat Bone

Johnny Copeland - Live at the Lone Star Cafe, NYC [1991]

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