Walter Appling

Israel’s President Excoriates Growing Israeli Violence and Brutality In a speech, Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, delivered a grave indictment of settler attacks in the West Bank and abuse of prisoners. nytimes.com/2026/05/24/wor… via @NYTimes

A Kazakh mining company partly owned by the Trump family has a $900 million taxpayer-backed line of credit from the Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that subsidizes U.S. companies’ overseas dealings.

"In the end, American consumers paid $159 billion in temporary national sales taxes for which most will never be reimbursed a penny. And rather than those taxes being used by the federal government to, say, repave roads or build bridges, most of the money will instead provide corporate windfalls." publicnotice.co/p/trump-tariff…

@PorchPatriot Zero apologies for blocking you.

@RichardHanania One in six sentences is flattery and the NYT thinks this is a scandal instead of proof he runs a tight ship.

This is amazing. The New York Times put together a graphic of how much time cabinet members spend kissing up to Trump in meetings. "On average, at least one of every six sentences either flattered Mr. Trump, gave him credit or criticized his political opponents." North Korea.

@RichardHanania @MalcolmNance I’m amazed it’s only one out six utterances. Trump will be keeping score now.

Big Pharma has done some bad stuff but on net it is one of the most positive forces in our society

Trump Administration Chips Away at Last Traces of Broad Inquiry Into Jan. 6 Two recent moves aligned the department ever more closely with Trump’s own efforts to whitewash the events of that day. If we pretend it never happened … nytimes.com/2026/05/23/us/… via @NYTimes

61% of Americans Said They Had to Cut Back on Groceries More than three quarters of Americans, including 55 percent of Republicans, said Trump’s policies have nytimes.com/2026/05/23/us/… via @NYTimes

How a Curious FIFA Boardroom Deal Handed Fox an Astounding Bargain A decision to stave off litigation between Fox and FIFA turned into a bonanza worth hundreds of millions of dollars in discounted World Cup rights to the broadcaster. nytimes.com/2026/05/24/wor… via @NYTimes

1 in 10 people in the American West get their drinking water from federal public lands. Trump just stripped the main protection those lands had. On May 11th, the administration quietly erased the rule that required conservation to be weighed equally with drilling, mining, and grazing on 245 million acres of land that belongs to every American. Here's what those 245 million acres actually hold: Over 300 threatened and endangered species. Another 2,460 at-risk species already trending toward extinction. And before this rule existed? 81% of that land was already open to oil and gas drilling. 60% already grazed by livestock. Only 14% set aside for lasting conservation. The rule said: before you do more damage, you have to weigh the cost. That rule is now gone. The government asked for public input before killing it. The overwhelming majority of responses said keep the rule. Didn’t matter. 26 retired federal land managers called the repeal legally unsupportable. State attorneys general called it illegal. 60+ members of Congress said don't do this. The oil, mining, and cattle industries said do it. Guess who won. So who exactly are America's public lands being managed for? #DemsUnited

One of the most corrosive impacts of the Trump presidency is this normalization, and frankly cheerleading, of downright depravity among Trump’s enablers. This daily desecration of the office is a disgrace. The president is supposed to be the best of us, not the absolute worst.

The world’s largest military budget has produced an industrial base that cannot sustain a serious war. How is that possible? Because the system is not designed to produce military capability. It is designed to produce contracts. The five largest defense contractors employ roughly a thousand lobbyists in Washington. They distribute their suppliers across forty-five states deliberately, so no senator can ever vote to cancel a program without firing his own constituents. And here we are. The current leadership will keep fiddling on this as they see our apathy as permission.

Memo to President Trump: 70% of Americans stand with Ukraine. We stand with independence, free markets and rule of law. We oppose a dictator who invades a neighbor. We stand with honor and right… and we oppose evil.

Trump Is Setting His Sights on Restricting Legal Immigration After a year focused on immigrants here illegally, the Trump administration is now making it harder for legal migrants to stay in the country. It is a risky pivot. nytimes.com/2026/05/23/us/… via @NYTimes

A former Trump Interior Secretary forms a lobbying firm. A Chilean mining giant pays it $380K. Republican senators who were leaning against the mine suddenly flip. The White House applies pressure behind closed doors. And a 20-year wilderness protection dies by one vote. Outdoor Life pulled back the curtain on every backroom deal, every vote, and every senator who caved. This is the full breakdown. outdoorlife.com/conservation/b…

Over a million acres of pristine wilderness lakes in Minnesota. The most visited canoe country in America. Generations of families have paddled it, fished it, camped it. The Senate just sold it out outright. They called it "America First." Then handed it to a Chilean billionaire — so his company can ship the copper to China. The Senate voted 50-49 to gut 20 years of Boundary Waters mining protections. Here's the deal they made. A Chilean billionaire's company digs the mine. America can't smelt the copper — we don't have the capacity. So the ore ships to China. China processes it. Sells it on the world market. Chile keeps the profits. Minnesotans don't even get the jobs. Minnesota keeps the pollution. And Americans get to buy it back from China at full market price. This same company has a documented history at their Chilean mines: pipeline spills, regulatory fines, and locals fighting back for years. They paid a former Trump Interior Secretary $380K. The protection died by one vote. Here's exactly how it happened — and who made it happen. Who do YOU think this mine actually serves? #DemsUnited

The Senate sold it to a conglomerate owned by Chileans with family and $ ties to the Pinochet regime.

🎯 The only kind of negotiation Putin understands is threats to his power. That means defeat in Ukraine and/or the collapse of the Russian economy. Neither of those things will happen over a table and everything else is a waste of time.

I’m struck by several paradoxes: For all our fussing over cognition, we seem to get stupider and stupider. We fret about our brains’ juice as we outsource their jobs to artificial intelligence. — Frank Bruni