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Did Trump Just Surrender on Iran After 68 Days of Bloodshed?
Sixty-eight days. Sixty-eight days of bombs, dead civilians, and a strangled global economy, and what did Donald Trump and his pathetic Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth get for it? A one-page memo. Axios reports Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are closing in on a 14-point memorandum to end the war. It declares the war over, opens 30 days of talks, lifts sanctions, and hands Iran billions in frozen funds. Iran’s nuclear program? A moratorium. Trump’s demand of dismantling Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow is gone. The 15-point ultimatum sent through Pakistan in March is in the trash. Thousands dead. Energy markets in chaos. Gas prices through the roof. Allies humiliated. And we’re right back where we started, with Iran’s money on a plane home. Trump and his Fox News Defense Secretary picked a war they couldn’t finish, and working people paid the bill at the pump and in body bags.
How Many Hospitals Have to Close Before Republicans Notice?
The bodies haven’t stopped piling up from one Trump disaster, and another is already crashing down. Protect Our Care reported Monday that 900 hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics across all 50 states are now shutting down or facing collapse. Why? Because Republicans rammed through more than a trillion dollars in healthcare cuts last year, including over 900 billion ripped out of Medicaid. Brad Woodhouse, who runs the group’s Hospital Crisis Watch, said access to care is evaporating as those cuts ripple across the country. Nebraska just became the first state to enforce the law’s punitive Medicaid work requirements. Rural America gets gutted first. Maternity wards shutter. Grandmothers lose nursing home beds. And billionaires keep their tax break. That’s the trade.
Why Did the FDA Bury Studies Proving Vaccines Are Safe?
The New York Times broke a story Tuesday that should infuriate every parent in America. Officials at the Food and Drug Administration blocked publication of multiple studies showing Covid and shingles vaccines are safe. Studies funded with millions in public money. Studies done by the agency’s own scientists, who reviewed millions of patient records and confirmed serious side effects are very rare. In October, scientists were ordered to withdraw two Covid vaccine studies already accepted for publication. In February, top FDA brass refused to sign off on Shingrix safety abstracts headed to a major drug-safety conference. This is what happens when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. runs Health and Human Services. Science gets buried. Quackery gets promoted. And Americans get sicker.
Why Did Trump Spend Millions to Punish Republicans Who Followed the Law?
Donald Trump got his revenge Tuesday night. Five of seven Indiana Republican state senators who refused to gerrymander their state for him last December lost their primaries to Trump-backed challengers. Their crime? Listening to their voters. Trump and his allies poured millions into races that normally see tens of thousands in spending, drowning sleepy local primaries in attack ads. Ohio Democrats showed strength too. Former Senator Sherrod Brown easily took the Senate nomination to face Republican Jon Husted, and former state health director Amy Acton ran unopposed for governor. Vivek Ramaswamy won the GOP gubernatorial nod. The lesson from Indiana is plain. In Trump’s Republican Party, doing the right thing is now a fireable offense.
Did Trump Really Tell a Mother Her Son Deserves to Die?
Marjorie Taylor Greene says yes. The former Georgia congresswoman now claims Trump texted her that her 22-year-old son Derek deserves the death threats he’s been getting. Greene said she forwarded the threats, including a pipe-bomb threat on her home, to FBI Director Kash Patel, Vice President JD Vance, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. According to Greene, only Vance responded with any real compassion. Trump? She says he blamed her, told her if her son got killed, it would be her own fault. Greene says she’s saved the texts, and would probably end up in jail if she released them. Whatever you think of MTG, threatening a mother’s child is monstrous. And so is whoever sent that text.
Why Are American Cities Stuck in Traffic While the World Rides Trains?
Finally this morning, the Guardian asks why American cities have fallen so far behind their global peers on public transit. The numbers are brutal. The average U.S. city runs 27 buses and trains per 100,000 residents. World-class cities like Berlin, Paris, Oslo, and Buenos Aires run more than 130. Transportation for America says it would take 4.6 trillion dollars over 20 years to catch up, less than the 6.3 trillion America’s projected to spend on highways in the same period. Only 18 percent of Americans live within walking distance of frequent transit. In France it’s 75 percent. We pay 12,000 dollars a year to own a car because politicians paved the country instead of building it out. The fix exists. The math works. We just need leaders who believe in public goods.
And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday May 6th. I’m Thom Hartmann.
