Featured Stories

Four senior senators express alarm, push for 'hard' Social Security votes

(The Hill) Four senior senators, two Democrats and two Republicans, are calling on Congress to tackle the “hard” debate over how to extend the solvency of Social Security after the program’s trustees issued a new report this week projecting it will face a significant shortfall at the end of 2032. “It’s clear now that Congress shouldn’t delay any longer. Several of us have been coming together to talk about how we can strengthen Social Security for current and future generations of retirees.

Wholesale prices rose 1.1% in May, more than expected

(CNBC) Wholesale prices rose more than expected in May, indicating that pipeline inflationary pressures are percolating higher, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. The producer price index, a measure of final demand costs, increased a seasonally adjusted 1.1% on the month, putting the 12-month wholesale inflation rate at 6.5%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a monthly move of 0.7%. The annual headline inflation rate was the highest since November 2022.

House Dem Says 'Explosive' NY Times Report Shows Todd Blanche 'At the Heart' of Epstein-Trump Cover-Up

(Mediaite) Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) spoke to Capitol Hill reporters on Wednesday following sitting in on a closed-door Oversight Committee deposition of Bill Gates. Gates was called before Congress to testify about his ties to sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein in the ongoing House investigation into Epstein’s illicit activities, which Stansbury said will next look at Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Trump Moves to Deeply Censor the Entire Internet

(Futurism) The White House and Congress are working on a deal to clamp down on what US citizens are allowed to say online. According to new reporting by Axios, the Trump administration is negotiating with key senators in an effort to shoehorn a massive legislation package which would limit states’ abilities to regulate AI in exchange for placing broad federal limits on digital speech.

Thursday's Condensed News Cartoons

Trump sees 22 medical specialists, appearing to set new bar for presidents

(Washington Post) For George H.W. Bush’s first medical checkup as president in 1989, he was seen by five specialists, the White House said at the time. His son George W. Bush was seen by 12 in his first presidential checkup, White House officials said a dozen years later. President Donald Trump appears to have set a new bar: 22 medical specialists assessed him as part of his latest checkup, according to a medical report recently released by the White House. That figure is nearly double the number of specialists who assessed Trump for his past medical checkups as president, according to a review of publicly available statements by Trump’s doctors.

The Supreme Court is in its final stretch this term. Here are the major cases left.

(NPR) The U.S. Supreme Court is heading into its crunch time, the part of the year when the justices are racing to finish decisions and dissents in the cases that remain undecided. There are 23 cases left, out of the 58 that have been argued. Two major cases have already been decided: One essentially gutted what remained of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, prompting Republicans in a number of Southern states to redraw congressional maps to diminish or eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Black members of Congress.

USPS proposal could halt ballot deliveries to states that don't share voter lists

(KGW-TV) Oregon leaders are pushing back against a proposed U.S. Postal Service rule that would require states to share voter registration lists and ballot-tracking barcode information with the agency in order to ensure mail ballot delivery. The Postal Service says the proposal is intended to comply with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March, ostensibly aimed at strengthening election integrity and oversight of mail voting. But Oregon officials argue election administration should remain under state control. "It's incredibly bizarre to take a postal service — that their job is to deliver mail — and then tell them, 'You can't deliver mail to certain people,'" Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said.

Why MAGA can't hear the Trump boos

(Salon) The most revealing moment of Donald Trump’s week was not the boos that rained down on him at Madison Square Garden on Monday night. It was the almost instantaneous insistence, by him and his media ecosystem, that the boos never happened. What we witnessed this week — the feverish, almost liturgical insistence that a crowd loudly booing the president of the United States was actually chanting “USA!” — is something more disturbing and dangerous than ordinary propaganda.

Event honoring fallen servicewomen was cancelled because it was too DEI for Kegbreath's military

(Task & Purpose) An annual event put on by members of Congress to honor fallen servicewomen was canceled this year after the Navy, Air Force and Space Force bowed out, citing Pentagon and White House policies on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to the Democratic members of the caucus leading the event. The Bipartisan Women’s Caucus’ 28th annual wreath-laying ceremony is typically held at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The Democratic Women’s Caucus announced the cancellation on Monday.