As you may be aware, early this year President Trump commenced a personal litigation against the federal government, seeking compensation for various alleged wrongs committed against him during the Biden presidency, and even during his own first term. According to this New York Times piece from yesterday, the wrongs that Trump has alleged against the government include “leak of his tax returns during his first term, as well as the investigations into his handling of classified documents after he left office and into his 2016 campaign’s potential ties to Russia.” The amount of damages Trump seeks has been reported as $10 billion.

And then two days ago (May 14) there comes news that there is a tentative settlement in the case. ABC News appears to have been the first with the story. Excerpt:

President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have the total authority to hand out approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system, including the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as well as potentially entities associated with President Trump himself. While the settlement is expected to be agreed upon in the coming days, sources caution that the final terms will not be set until they are officially announced.

So how do you feel about that?

You will not be surprised to learn that the New York Times is outraged. Here is an excerpt from their piece linked above:

The Trump administration is considering the establishment of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate the president’s allies and others investigated by the Justice Department under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., creating an ethical and political minefield for Republicans and the department’s leadership. The unusual plan, which Democrats and former government officials criticized as a vast political slush fund financed by taxpayers, is being fast-tracked. . . .

So, according to the Times, this potential settlement is “an ethical and political minefield,” and the plan for a compensation fund is “unusual” or, in another place, “highly unusual.” But is it? The Times piece strongly insinuates that this potential settlement is improper because the Justice Department is not really adversarial to Trump at the current moment when he is their boss, and also that setting up a compensation fund for political allies as part of a legal settlement is something unique. But the Times doesn’t provide the reader any further context to make an independent judgment about whether this settlement is “highly unusual” versus the norm for the agency going by the dubious name of “Department of Justice.”

So let me provide some context. In fact prior administrations have regularly used litigation settlements to accomplish goals that they could not get enacted by Congress, including setting up large slush funds to hand out to political allies. Before now this strategy has been almost entirely a phenomenon of Democratic administrations. Conservative critics have dubbed the strategy “sue and settle.” The strategy particularly took off during the Obama presidency, and then exploded under Biden. As far as I am aware, the New York Times has never criticized any of this as long as it was done by their ideological allies in support of causes that they approved.

The “sue and settle” game has several variants. One is where the government gets sued by an ideological ally of the bureaucracy, seeking some outcome that they would like to implement. A quick collusive settlement with the plaintiff avoids the difficulty of going through a notice-and-comment rule making process, let alone the necessity of getting a statute passed by Congress.

There are many hundreds of examples of this phenomenon. Perhaps the most notorious have been instances where lawsuits by environmental groups have been used to restrict economic development of public lands. For example, here is a piece from Real Clear Investigations in February 2024 reporting on Biden administration agreements to remove certain federal lands from oil and gas leasing. The agreements were in apparent contravention of Congressional intent, but accomplished through the form of settlement of lawsuits brought be environmental groups friendly with the administration. Excerpt:

When the Biden administration announced in 2022 that it would remove some 4 million acres of federal land in Western states from oil and gas exploration, environmental groups hailed the decision as a milestone in their fight against global warming. . . . The administration’s move was part of a private settlement of a lawsuit filed by WildEarth and others over the objections of energy consortiums, whose efforts to intervene in the matter were dismissed. . . . A similar thing happened last August, when the Biden administration announced it had agreed to exclude 6 million acres of the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico seabed from exploration to settle a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, including the Sierra Club – an announcement that triggered operational delays for the industry and expensive litigation to overturn. Administration critics say these moves reflect the resurgence of a practice embraced by the Obama administration . . . “sue and settle.” The tactic is simple: An advocacy group sues a federal agency for failing to enforce laws or regulations. Agency officials and the plaintiffs then come to a private agreement and that deal is ratified by the courts via a binding consent decree.

And here is a piece by Donald Kochan from November 2023 that appeared in Bloomberg News, again critical of use by the Biden administration of “sue and settle” tactics to remove territory from potential oil and gas leasing, in this case in contravention of the Inflation Reduction Act. Excerpt:

The Biden administration’s resistance to holding the lease sales for oil in the Gulf of Mexico required of it by the Inflation Reduction Act is the latest example of its disregard for regular constitutional order. And its method could set a dangerous precedent for the future of the rule of law. A tactic dubbed “sue and settle” is increasingly allowing powerful interest groups to use the courts system as a pawn in developing environmental law without Congress. It works as follows: An interest group sues a friendly administrative agency, claiming the agency has violated the law. Rather than seek dismissal of a likely meritless claim, the agency settles, because the settlement agreement is a way to avoid a court setting limits on doing what the plaintiffs request, to exceed its authority, and to impose new rules—without going through the normal order of deliberative processes.

Another variant of the Obama/Biden “sue and settle” program involved the creation of huge slush funds to pass out to political allies. As one big example, after the 2008/09 recession, the Obama administration brought a series of completely phony cases blaming the recession on big banks. All of them settled, many for multi-billions of dollars. Here is a report from James Copland of the Manhattan Institute from March 2015 discussing several of those settlements. One big settlement was with Bank of America. From Copland’s description of that settlement:

The $16.65 billion Bank of America settlement resolves civil claims with the federal government and various states; $9.65 billion of this amount is allocated [to government agencies] as follows: . . . On top of these government payouts, the Bank of America settlement forces the bank to allocate $7 billion to “consumer relief” credits, including:

• Loan principal write-downs, with a cap of $2.15 billion for nonperforming loans and $3 billion for performing and home-equity loans (“extra” credits can be awarded under certain conditions)

• Loans underwriting new “affordable housing” developments, with a minimum of $100 million allocated (and substantial extra credits awarded on a dollar-for-dollar basis to discharge toward the $7 billion consumer-relief total)

• Grants to community-development and housing groups; the bank must give a minimum of $50 million to community-development funds or institutions, $30 million to legal-aid groups fighting foreclosures, and $20 million to various government-sanctioned housing-activist groups. . . .

In other words, some $7 billion from that one settlement alone went to slush funds doled out to delinquent debtors and left-wing advocacy groups friendly to the administration and Democratic Party. And that’s just one settlement. All of the big banks entered into similar settlements. For some more, check out my February 2016 post “The Latest In The Endless Series Of Bank Shakedowns.”

So no, New York Times, there is nothing “unusual,” let alone “highly unusual,” about the government using settlement of a litigation to set up a slush fund to pass out to political friends and allies. The only thing unusual is the use of this strategy by a Republican President. It took him a while, but it looks like he finally figured out that two can play this game.

I should mention that I am not a fan of this business, no matter which side is practicing it at the moment. But the only way to get rid of such tactics will be for the likes of the New York Times to criticize their own side, which they will never do. When they give their own side a pass, and then claim that Trump is doing something unique and unheard of, it only makes themselves look ridiculous.

---

Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

Iranian attacks and the stoppage of seaborne transit have paralyzed Qatar’s vital gas exports, stalling the economic pivots intended to anchor the country’s growth.

In Qatar, a desert peninsula protruding into the Persian Gulf, natural gas turned the country from a pearl-diving backwater into one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Qatar spent three decades building supply lines, shipping tens of billions of dollars of liquefied natural gas each year through the Strait of Hormuz to ports across Asia and Europe.

The state, which derives more than 60 percent of its revenue from gas and gas-related exports, used that money to transform the peninsula into a gleaming metropolis. Unpaved desert roads were replaced by monolithic corporate skyscrapers, at the base of which irrigation systems water perennial blankets of grass and fuchsia flowers.

Gas wealth funded a metro system linking the capital, Doha, to Lusail, a northern city that is home to a Parisian-style mall and a theme park with artificial snow. The riches were also funneled into the world’s most expensive World Cup, and a $600 billion sovereign wealth fund with stakes in everything from Heathrow Airport in London to the Empire State Building in New York.

Then, in February, Qatar’s door to the world slammed shut.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz means virtually no gas has left Qatar’s shore for more than two months. The nation is also cut off from the sea routes through which it imports everything from vehicles to produce. Fears of regional instability have hurt tourism and eroded business sentiment.

Ras Laffan, Qatar’s industrial center for gas production, is shuttered, and roads are blocked. At the vast Hamad port south of Doha, loading cranes stand paralyzed. Throughout the capital, hotels and boutiques sit in noticeable silence. Qatar’s growth forecasts have been slashed amid the cessation of L.N.G. trade.

For Qatar, gas shipments “are nothing short of foundational,” Ahmed Helal, a managing director at the Asia Group, a strategic advisory firm, said in an interview in Doha recently. “Nothing you see here would have been possible without the wealth of energy,” he added. “That is why Qatar is quickly falling into a very challenging fiscal situation.”

Qatar’s economic transformation started in the 1990s. It made a large bet on supercooling gas from the North Field — the world’s largest natural gas reservoir, in Qatar’s northeast — to minus 162 degrees Celsius. This turned the fuel into a liquid, allowing Qatar to bypass regional pipelines and ship gas to every corner of the globe.

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The Iran War Is Crippling One of the World’s Wealthiest Nations

Iranian attacks and the stoppage of seaborne transit have paralyzed Qatar’s vital gas exports, stalling the economic pivots intended to anchor the country’s growth.

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By River Akira Davis

Reporting from Doha, Qatar

May 17, 2026See more of our coverage in your search results.Add The New York Times on Google 

In Qatar, a desert peninsula protruding into the Persian Gulf, natural gas turned the country from a pearl-diving backwater into one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Qatar spent three decades building supply lines, shipping tens of billions of dollars of liquefied natural gas each year through the Strait of Hormuz to ports across Asia and Europe.

The state, which derives more than 60 percent of its revenue from gas and gas-related exports, used that money to transform the peninsula into a gleaming metropolis. Unpaved desert roads were replaced by monolithic corporate skyscrapers, at the base of which irrigation systems water perennial blankets of grass and fuchsia flowers.

Gas wealth funded a metro system linking the capital, Doha, to Lusail, a northern city that is home to a Parisian-style mall and a theme park with artificial snow. The riches were also funneled into the world’s most expensive World Cup, and a $600 billion sovereign wealth fund with stakes in everything from Heathrow Airport in London to the Empire State Building in New York.

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Then, in February, Qatar’s door to the world slammed shut.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz means virtually no gas has left Qatar’s shore for more than two months. The nation is also cut off from the sea routes through which it imports everything from vehicles to produce. Fears of regional instability have hurt tourism and eroded business sentiment.

Ras Laffan, Qatar’s industrial center for gas production, is shuttered, and roads are blocked. At the vast Hamad port south of Doha, loading cranes stand paralyzed. Throughout the capital, hotels and boutiques sit in noticeable silence. Qatar’s growth forecasts have been slashed amid the cessation of L.N.G. trade.

For Qatar, gas shipments “are nothing short of foundational,” Ahmed Helal, a managing director at the Asia Group, a strategic advisory firm, said in an interview in Doha recently. “Nothing you see here would have been possible without the wealth of energy,” he added. “That is why Qatar is quickly falling into a very challenging fiscal situation.”

Qatar’s economic transformation started in the 1990s. It made a large bet on supercooling gas from the North Field — the world’s largest natural gas reservoir, in Qatar’s northeast — to minus 162 degrees Celsius. This turned the fuel into a liquid, allowing Qatar to bypass regional pipelines and ship gas to every corner of the globe.

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It was the birth of an energy superpower. Kicked off by its first shipment of 60,000 tons to Japan in 1996, Qatar’s production capacity had jumped to 77 million tons by 2010. For most of the next decade, Qatar was the wealthiest country in the world per capita.

Locals remember this as a period of rapid change. North of Doha and carved out of the desert, the industrial city of Ras Laffan spans more than 100 square miles of gas-processing and liquefaction facilities.

South of the capital, miles of industrial facilities stretch along the coastline, churning out ammonia and fertilizer made from gas piped down from Ras Laffan. Towering gas flares shoot orange flames into the sky, punctuating a landscape otherwise blurred by sand and smog.

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From the 1990s to the 2010s, the economy boomed, growing at an average annual rate of roughly 13 percent. To power this build-out, Qatar relied on an influx of foreign workers. Today, about 90 percent of its 3.2 million residents are noncitizens.

Seeking to build on that momentum, Qatar said in 2019 that it would expand the amount of L.N.G. its North Field could produce to 126 million tons a year by 2027. Before the war, its capacity was about 77 million. The expansion is considered one of the largest energy projects ever planned.

Then, in late February, much of that activity ground to a halt. Unlike its neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have pipelines that can bypass the Strait of Hormuz, Qatar is geographically trapped behind the waterway.

Within 24 hours of the Iranian blockade, QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy giant, announced it couldn’t fulfill its contracts. Two weeks later, Iranian missiles and drones struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant, damaging critical equipment and causing a 17 percent reduction in Qatar’s production capacity.

The damage means that even if the strait were to open tomorrow, it would take years to return to prewar output. Analysts estimate that QatarEnergy has already lost billions of dollars since the war started, and every day that the strait remains closed, the country bleeds hundreds of millions more in lost sales and shipping charter fees.

The International Monetary Fund expects Qatar’s economy to shrink 8.6 percent this year before rebounding in 2027. For countries like Qatar, each day the strait is closed further darkens the outlook, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist at the I.M.F., said at a recent briefing.

The war has also exposed another kind of vulnerability. As part of a long-running effort to diversify beyond fossil fuels, Qatar has tried to transform itself into a tourist destination and a hub for international business and finance.

In 2019, Qatar scrapped a requirement that foreign firms maintain local partners, while the country began subsidizing luxury hotel stopovers for transit passengers. From Formula 1 to fencing tournaments, residents say scarcely a month went by before the war without a major international sporting event.

Since the war began, however, the number of international visitors to Qatar has plummeted amid travel advisories from the United States and other governments. Many multinational companies, fearing regional instability, have sent staff out of the country. In March, the World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that the Middle East was losing $600 million a day in tourism revenue.

In Qatar, the shift in mood is palpable. At Souq Waqif, the city’s traditional market, vendors report far fewer international travelers in the closing weeks of what is usually peak tourist season. In the city of Lusail, a choreographed fountain show at the Place Vendome mall on a recent Wednesday afternoon drew a single spectator, slumped against a stone wall, eating a sandwich.

For Qatar, like many of its neighbors, the diversification strategy hinges on sustained foreign capital, a steady supply of expatriate labor and, above all, the perception of stability, according to a recent report by Frédéric Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.

Images of Qatar’s airport under air raid warnings and Ras Laffan under missile attack, broadcast worldwide, are “incompatible with that perception in ways that are slow to reverse,” Mr. Schneider wrote. In that sense, he said, “the war has harmed Qatar’s hydrocarbon and post-hydrocarbon economic foundations simultaneously.”

The Qatari government, for its part, is working to project stability while shielding the population from the immediate shocks of the standoff.

Because Qatar imports about 90 percent of its food, the maritime impasse has forced a major reworking of supply chains. Fresh produce from Europe and grain from the Americas, which once arrived by sea, are now being diverted to costly airfreight routes or trucked through Saudi Arabia.

Such a shift would typically set off runaway inflation, but prices for imported goods — like avocados now airlifted from places like Tanzania — have risen about only 5 to 10 percent, according to supermarket workers, a result of aggressive government subsidies aimed at keeping the cost of living stable.

Residents say they generally feel safe, yet the strike on Ras Laffan remains a source of lingering anxiety. Some in Doha described watching an enormous column of fire rise on the horizon on the night of the attack, the flames so intense they could be seen from the capital, accompanied by the smell of acrid smoke.

Economists forecast that even if L.N.G. revenue were to vanish for years, Qatar’s deep pockets would allow it to continue paying salaries and maintaining essential services. S&P Global Ratings, which maintained Qatar’s sovereign rating this month, noted its “sizable accumulated fiscal and external assets.”

At the same time, the authorities have pressured international firms to return to prevent an exodus of foreign capital and talent. The concern is that if companies are allowed to collapse, the country’s overwhelmingly foreign work force could quickly disappear, said Mr. Helal of the Asia Group.

“If there’s a migration out, then that starts to get quite scary,” Mr. Helal said. So far, the Qatari authorities have “done a good job of projecting calm and managing the fallout,” he said. “But is there a big fiscal gap hole that’s forming? Of course,” Mr. Helal added. “It really depends on the duration of the strait remaining closed.”

River Akira Davis

I am a correspondent for The New York Times, covering Japan, including its businesses, politics and economy. I am based in Tokyo.

According to a statement released by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), archaeologists unearthed a mysterious tunnel beneath the streets of Jerusalem. During construction work near Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, workers unexpectedly discovered the entrance to an ancient cavity, measuring 16 feet high and 10 feet wide, that was once accessed via a rock-cut staircase. At first researchers believed the passageway may have been part of an ancient water installation built to access underground springs, but this was subsequently ruled out, since the walls of the tunnel were not covered in plaster as they typically would have been. Geologists also found no evidence of any subterranean water sources in the area. Instead, experts now suggest that the tunnel may have been cut in order to reach chalk layers suitable for quarrying building stones or producing lime. There has been no evidence yet uncovered that might help researchers to date the feature’s construction, although it may be related to two nearby Iron Age sites that date to the first millennium b.c. “This discovery joins many others being uncovered every day, hour by hour, throughout the city,” said IAA archaeologist Amit Re’em. “Usually we have explanations for the discoveries we uncover, but sometimes, as in this case, we stand astonished and amazed.” To read about another discovery from Jerusalem, go to “Bound for Heaven.”

Archeology Magazine

They will be the ones suffering the so-called consequences,” the Oscar-winner said. “This is a major change”

Javier Bardem believes the tide is turning for actors speaking up for Palestine, and has said that “everyone is beginning to realise” that Hollywood blacklisting was “unacceptable”.

The Oscar-winner is at Cannes for his latest film, The Beloved, and was asked today (May 17) if he ever feared the consequences of denouncing the war in Gaza. Bardem has long been a vocal supporter of Palestine, most recently using his platform at the Oscars to declare “no to war and free Palestine”.

“The fear does exist, granted, but one has to do things even if you feel a bit scared or afraid,” he replied, per Variety. “You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror, look at yourself in the eyes, and that was my case. My mother taught me to be the way I am. There is no plan B. This entails consequences, which I am fully ready to shoulder.”

Bardem then spoke about changes he felt were happening across Hollywood, which comes just months after Susan Sarandon said she had been blacklisted after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in 2023.

Bardem, however, said he had “a whole host of offers” come in from across the US, Europe, South America, and in Spain. “That made me think that in narratives things are changing,” he said.

“Everyone is beginning to realise, thanks to the younger generation, which is more aware of situations, situations we’re experiencing quite directly on our phones and on other screens.

“Therefore, I think what is happening is quite the contrary. I believe that those who are drawing up the so-called blacklists will actually be exposed, and they will be the ones suffering the so-called consequences, at least on a public and social level. And this is a major change.”

He went on to say that genocide being committed in Gaza was an unequivocal fact. “You can fight against it, you can try to justify it, explain it,” he said. “You can be against it, or you can justify it,” Bardem said. “If you justify it with your silence or with your support, you are pro-genocide. Those are facts, for me.”

Last September, the United Nations found that Israel had committed genocide. At the time, Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission, said it was “clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”

“The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” Pillay said. “The Commission also finds that Israel has failed to prevent and punish the commission of genocide, through failure to investigate genocidal acts and to prosecute alleged perpetrators.”

Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of waging genocide, and denies committing any war crimes, maintaining that its operations are lawful acts of self-defence following Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens at the Nova Music Festival on October 7 2023, which killed over 1,100 people and saw 250 taken as hostages.

Bardem’s statement follows him clarifying his support for Film Workers for Palestine. He was among a number of fellow entertainment world figures, including Olivia Colman, Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton and Ayo Edebiri, who vowed not to work with Israeli institutions amid the conflict in Gaza.

Explaining that the group holds “companies and institutions” to account rather than “individuals”, he told CNN: “I want this to be very clear. We do not discriminate against any person based on their nationality, race, religion, or gender. We of course believe discrimination of any kind is wrong and do not support that and have continued to reiterate this.

“We support holding companies and institutions all over the world accountable, not individuals, for their complicity and participation in the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and the illegal settlement of the West Bank.”

SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Sarasota, Florida, woman has been sentenced to over a year in federal prison after being found guilty of making threats against MAGA supporters on social media, the Department of Justice said on Monday.

Desiree Segari, 41, was indicted in September 2025 after posting a TikTok the month prior, calling for supporters of President Donald Trump’s agenda to be “shot on sight,” according to evidence presented at trial.

She was found guilty of interstate communication of a threat to injure on Jan. 13, 2026.

The DOJ quoted Segari’s video, “MAGA people deserve to be terrified and scared to walk in the streets because they should know that real Americans are gonna [mouths expletive] kill them.”

She also mimicked firing a gun with hand gestures during the video and captioned the post “#seemagapewpewmaga starting a new trend, hope it catches on. Please spread the word. Share this video. Repost it. Use the hashtag all over the internet. Let’s go guys. It’s time to fight back in a potentially effective manner.”

Segari posted another video the next day, the DOJ said.

“See MAGA pew pew MAGA, see MAGA pew pew MAGA, see MAGA pew pew MAGA so these [expletive] know we ain’t here to play,” she said while again mimicking firing a gun.

The charge carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Segari was sentenced to 14 months.

A post moving fast across X on Saturday claimed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “has announced he is standing down.”

That is not the confirmed position. No official resignation announcement has been verified from Downing Street.

But the reports underneath the viral claim tell a story that is almost as dramatic.

According to a Daily Mail report from columnist Dan Hodges now circulating widely on the platform, Starmer has “told friends he intends to stand down and set out an orderly timetable for his departure.”

That language is sourced to private conversations, not to a formal public statement from the prime minister.

Still, the leadership crisis engulfing Starmer is real, and the reporting from established British outlets paints a picture of a prime minister losing control of the timeline.

ITV News political editor Robert Peston wrote that the departure timetable question is already dominating the top of Labour politics:

Peston wrote that the consensus at the top of the Labour Party appeared to be that Starmer would not announce a timetable for his departure until Andy Burnham fights the Makerfield by-election.

He argued that waiting makes very little sense because the probability that Starmer can survive as prime minister, even if Burnham loses the by-election, is low.

Peston said Starmer’s cabinet colleagues and trade union leaders had made that clear to him.

He also wrote that the timing and manner of Starmer’s exit are now at the mercy of events, leaving him a lame duck prime minister whose policy statements risk being drowned out by speculation over how and when he will go.

That is the serious version of the viral claim: not an official resignation announcement, but a prime minister whose allies and enemies are already planning around his exit.

The ITV analysis is important because it does not depend on one anonymous Daily Mail column.

It says the same pressure is now baked into the political conversation around Starmer’s premiership.

The revolt inside Labour has been building in public.

The Guardian reported earlier this week that cabinet pressure and backbench pressure were hitting Starmer at the same time:

Starmer’s grip on power appeared to be slipping as cabinet ministers urged him to set out a timetable for his departure.

More than 70 Labour MPs publicly called for him to stand down after heavy election losses.

Several senior cabinet ministers were said to have spoken to Starmer, with some telling him he should oversee an orderly transition of power.

Starmer’s answer at the time was defiance. He warned Labour would never be forgiven for plunging the country into leadership chaos and said he intended to prove his doubters wrong.

His speech did not stop the flow of Labour MPs calling for an orderly transition.

That means the current Daily Mail report is landing in the middle of an already-open revolt, not a normal Westminster rumor cycle.

The practical question inside Labour is no longer only whether Starmer can survive, but how long the party can tolerate him staying while rivals maneuver around him.

By Thursday, the story had moved beyond anonymous grumbling.

Associated Press described the leadership crisis after one of Starmer’s own Cabinet ministers walked out:

Health Secretary Wes Streeting quit Starmer’s Cabinet on Thursday in what was expected to be a precursor to challenging his leadership.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner had resolved the tax issue that forced her resignation the previous year, allowing her to consider a challenge.

More than 80 lawmakers had urged Starmer to set a timetable for his departure.

At that point, Starmer was still publicly saying he had no intention to stand down.

That public line is why the distinction matters now. A report that Starmer has privately decided to set a timetable would not be the same as an official resignation, but it would mark a major shift from the position he was taking only days earlier.

The AP account also placed the crisis after Labour’s heavy local and regional election losses, which turned a simmering leadership problem into a direct challenge to Starmer’s authority.

Streeting, Rayner, Burnham, cabinet pressure, and the backbench revolt together form the real pressure system around No. 10.

That is why a timetable rumor now carries real political weight.

So the careful bottom line is this: Downing Street has not confirmed a Starmer resignation.

Reports now say he may be preparing to set out a departure timetable, and the wider evidence shows Labour’s revolt has reached the point where even his allies are talking about how he leaves.

That is usually what the end looks like in parliamentary politics.

First comes the public denial. Then the private timetable.

Then comes the formal announcement.

If these reports are right, Starmer may already be somewhere between step two and step three.

Staff, One-Hundred Per Cent Fed Up

The Chinese government is tightening the screws on American investment in its artificial intelligence sector. The core purpose is to keep U.S. capital out of technologies it deems “strategically sensitive” to national security. The protective action is a reminder that Washington also needs to prioritize insulating our own critical sectors from foreign adversaries.

Few industries are more important to our national security than healthcare. More than 131 million people – nearly two-thirds of all U.S. adults – use prescription medications. Yet the United States has allowed its pharmaceutical supply chains to become dangerously dependent on foreign rivals – particularly China.

That vulnerability became strikingly clear during the pandemic, when U.S. leaders scrambled to secure masks, gloves, and other protective equipment from overseas. But our overreliance on China runs far deeper than just rubber and fabric.

Today, China produces an outsized portion of the world’s Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). These are the chemical backbone of most medicines, from insulin to antibiotics to asthma treatments. In a crisis—whether military confrontation, sanctions escalation, or a broader trade disagreement—Beijing would have us by the pills.

It’s not theoretical. China has already demonstrated its willingness to weaponize supply chains. During recent trade disputes, Beijing leveraged its control over rare earth minerals—critical inputs for everything from aerospace systems to consumer electronics—to strengthen its negotiating position against the United States.

This kind of market dominance is by design. Every five years, leaders from across China congregate to decide a new national development plan. Because of the country’s highly-centralized structure, the government systematically targets strategic industries.

In 2020, that five-year plan focused on electric vehicles and semiconductors. Now, Beijing is expanding its ambitions into biotechnology and “frontier science.” China is positioning itself not just as a pharmaceutical inputs supplier, but as a potential gatekeeper of future medical breakthroughs.

Washington cannot let that happen. Fortunately, the U.S. has a powerful tool that our chief competitor across the Pacific doesn’t. Free market capitalism—as opposed to a top down, state-directed economy—is America’s competitive edge against China. Congress just needs to provide the right incentives so we can maximize on that advantage.

Recent tax reforms that allow manufacturers to immediately expense some of the costs associated with research and development are a strong start. These legislative changes are providing businesses with greater certainty to invest in domestic production and expand “Made in America” pharmaceutical capacity.

President Trump is adding fuel to that momentum through his pro-business agenda. A 2025 order that streamlines approvals for companies looking to onshore drug production is a prime example. But executive action is fragile. America’s next leader could reverse that progress with the stroke of a pen. As the Trump administration continues to hack away at layers of red tape, lawmakers should codify these reforms.

America already has a strong foundation to build from. Indiana, North Carolina, and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, among other areas, anchor a significant share of existing American pharmaceutical production. By encouraging more innovation in our own backyard, these hubs can be strengthened to secure supply chains and reduce our dependence on China.

Recent investments—including $300 million committed to Puerto Rico to expand domestic drug manufacturing capacity—are proof of concept.

U.S. Congressman Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) recently said it best when he warned “America’s medicine cabinet runs through Beijing.” As China tightens its grip, securing America’s healthcare supply chains against foreign disruption is not just sound economic policy—it is a national security imperative.

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Will Coggin is the managing director of the American Security Institute.

It’s time to crack down.

M.B. Mathews | May 17, 2026

or too many years, congressional “Republicans” have been voted into office who are really stealth Marxists or Democrats.  Local or worldwide Marxists buy a candidate, run him, then plug him into office, where the money determines the agenda.  This is what happened with Biden.  He had no idea what was going on while the people who bought the election for him just plugged him in, then played him like a thumb drive.

Samuel Ronan and Kate Barr in North Carolina are two more recent examples.  Ronan, a former Democrat candidate for the DNC chair, ran in the 2026 GOP primary for Ohio’s 15th District but was disqualified by SCOTUS after evidence showed that he had urged Democrats to “infiltrate Republican spaces.”

Similarly, Barr openly declared herself a “fake Republican” while running in N.C.’s GOP primary, admitting she had always voted Democrat and was running strategically in a gerrymandered GOP stronghold.  Ronan had to sign a sworn declaration affirming Republican Party support, which courts found false.  Barr’s campaign stated she was a progressive entering the GOP primary because it was the only viable path to power in her district.

But these two got caught.  Most did not.

Democrats running as Republicans is a form of shape-shifting, a strategic and deliberate deception to get into the power-brokering halls of Congress to make laws that favor Marxism.  Mamdani can be considered an offshoot of this kind of lie: He ran as a “democratic socialist,” but he governs like a full-blown communist.

Ohio secretary of State Frank LaRose called such cases “political transgenderism,” warning of strategic party-switching.  I’ll call the party-crashers “TransPols.”  These people, exorbitantly funded by SorosCo, have little to do but run the race on autopilot.  After the election is purchased by a flood of money flowing into cheating techniques, bribery, and graft, the faux official then carries out the marching orders of the one-world communists whose raison d’être is world domination and power.  And we get stuck with the cultural, economic, and political detritus left behind, like snail slime.

It’s not as though this is all a mystery, but it seems that Republican conservatives are not doing their due diligence by asking the right questions of these TransPols: “What is your voting record?”  “How long have you been in American politics?”  “Do you have a track record we can check to see if you’ve got any conservative cred at all?”  “Where is your funding coming from?”  “Are you even an America citizen?”

There is no sense asking them what they stand for or how they plan to craft legislation, because the TransPols will lie. 

We are steeped in a political crap bath of fetid liars who have a moral code that eschews truth.  We must stop taking the word of candidates for whom the truth is inconvenient and start asking hard questions, the answers to which are then seriously scoped out for truth claims.

Are we not yet tired of being Charlie Brown to Lucy?

American Thinker

In yesterday’s subscribers-only newsletter, I posited that Tommy Robinson is to the Islamo-socialist government of the UK what Lech Walesa was to the communist government in Poland. Through his courage, Walesa managed to knock down the first domino that led to the Soviet Union’s collapse. Robinson’s courage shows signs of doing the same against the UK’s current morally corrupt government, as evidenced by the absolutely massive Unite the Kingdom rally in London today.

The rally wasn’t just humongously large; it was also openly pro-Christian. This Christian element is important because the rally is a pushback against the British government’s open-door policy to mass Islamic immigration (both legal and illegal) and its obeisance to Muslims once they arrive, a policy invariably at the expense of non-Muslim British subjects of all races, colors, and creeds.

It should be said that the British government did its best to shut down the event, and at least one Muslim knew why:

How commonplace is political violence these days? A man shooting at federal officers near the White House as JD Vance’s motorcade passed by was barely mentioned in the papers. Still, the timing could not be better for Noah Rothman’s new book, Blood & Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence in America. Ian Haworth returns to the Weekend Beacon with a review.

Since World War II, economists have developed theories to try and explain the business cycle’s ups and downs. They have also identified indicators to give us a sense of what phase of the business cycle we may be in.

“But what if it is the case that there is nothing cyclical at all about the economy’s fluctuations? This is a key question raised by the economist Tyler Goodspeed in his new book, Recession: The Real Reasons Economies Shrink and What to Do About It. A former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and presently chief economist at ExxonMobil, Goodspeed is an accomplished scholar who has published books on topics ranging from the Keynesian revolution in economics to 18th-century Scottish banking.

“In all these works, Goodspeed integrates attention to economic theory and history with analysis of existing datasets. But he is also adept at deploying language and concepts drawn from other disciplines to add precision to his arguments.

“This way of proceeding is replicated in Recession. The book’s core thesis is that recessions are usually sparked by unforeseen external shocks to the economy in the form of events such as natural disasters, the outbreak of war, plagues, or pandemics. Goodspeed also regards many such jolts as emanating from mistaken government interventions that end up inducing and prolonging periods of economic contraction.

“To make his case, Goodspeed looks primarily at major recessions that have occurred in Britain and America going back to the 18th century. The available data, Goodspeed argues, makes it difficult to discern any business cycle-like patterns to the process of economic growth and contraction. He also maintains that ‘the forecasting record of the business cycle indicators’ initially developed by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the late 1950s ‘is unimpressive.’ This and other critical datapoints illustrate, according to Goodspeed, that the causes of recessions are better described as idiosyncratic.”

We were entirely different people. She was born in Hamburg just after World War II (or 11, as our better public intellectuals might put it). Her father was one of 5,000 or so German survivors of the Battle of Stalingrad, where hundreds of thousands of fellow soldiers died. After the family came to America, her mother got a job at the Tolstoy Foundation, run by the great writer’s daughter. By contrast my dad served in the Pacific theater, then started out his career in a gas station. My mother was a public school teacher.

“Manuela was bright and ambitious. She wrote a few articles for William F. Buckley’s National Review and then, in 1975, joined the Wall Street Journal, where she stayed for over 20 years in various capacities, including book editor. She won a Pulitzer in 1983 for criticism, in which she truly excelled, once writing of a Metropolitan Opera performance that ‘the place was so empty I thought I’d missed an air-raid drill.’

“She also had a heart as warm as a Christmas fire.”

“I had just finished (I hope) rewriting a novel the day Manuela died. I hadn’t talked to her in a while. Her love life had gone bad, her beloved Beagles had died, she’d been battling cancer, and I wasn’t feeling that great myself. I might have dared to send her the title page (Three Clicks Past the Paraclete) to see what she thought.

“I can imagine her response. ‘Shiflett—you’re groping for profundity. Try again. But don’t give up!’

“She now belongs to the ages, and the ages had better watch their step.”

“

Happy Sunday.

Vic Matus

Arts & Culture Editor

Washington Free Beacon

Democrats don’t want to admit it publicly, but they are still the same party that tried to ‘Defund the Police’ a few years ago.

We know this because last week was National Police Week, and a Republican rep. from Iowa named Zach Nunn introduced a resolution to honor law enforcement officers. 173 Democrats voted against it. Every single Republican voted for it.

This would seem to indicate that the Democrats have not changed at all. How else can their behavior be interpreted?

FOX News reported:

173 House Democrats vote against resolution honoring police amid rising attacks

House Democrats split over a resolution backing law enforcement as assaults on officers surged last year.

Just 29 House Democrats on Wednesday voted for a GOP-authored measure paying tribute to the “extraordinary sacrifice” law enforcement officers make and criticizing the defund the police movement for jeopardizing public safety.

Meanwhile, 173 Democrats voted with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., against the resolution, while every GOP lawmaker present supported it.

“We want to take that best practice of respecting law enforcement in Iowa to the nation’s capital, and I was thrilled that we got bipartisan support,” Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, who introduced the measure, said in an interview with Fox News Digital.

But the Iowa Republican said he expected his resolution to receive unanimous backing.

“I think it unfortunately puts a real spotlight on a chasm we have between those who support law and order and those who are supporting those who undermine it,” Nunn said.

The vote comes as assaults against law enforcement officers climbed to a 10-year high last year, according to an FBI report released Monday. The number of officers killed saw a slight decrease between 2024 and 2025.

Zach Nunn put out this statement:

“It shouldn’t be controversial to stand with the men and women who put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe,” said Rep. Nunn. “But from the ‘defund the police’ radicalism to sanctuary city policies that prevent cooperation with federal law enforcement, too many politicians have put ideology ahead of public safety — and Americans are paying the price. This Police Week, the House sent a clear message: we back the blue. I’m proud to have led that effort.”

This is all about the base. The Democrat base.

The far left, radical faction of the Democrat party is in charge and the House members who voted against this resolution are absolutely terrified of them.