Inspired by the visual language of old Ray Bradbury and Stephen King paperbacks, Justin Metz created this illustration—among the only covers without a headline or typography in our history.

For a deep dive into what brought us here, this piece from a while back by Zack Beauchamp at Vox is well worth reading.


Like I said… dark. But it’s best to know what we’re dealing with and as I’ve pointed out so many times, and as that cover above illustrates so perfectly, we are dealing with an authoritarian who is also a circus performer and a con man. I don’t know if that combination makes him better or worse than any other autocrat but it does make him different and, I think, weaker than those others. So much depends upon people loving his act. Will they love it so much if he falls off the high wire and goes splat or gets gobbled up by a hungry lion (he forgot to feed?) We’ll see.

That was Iwo Jima, one of the most famous images of the war in the pacific! That war didn’t end until August of 1945, not May.

He couldn’t even put up a picture of the war in Europe to illustrate VE day. He’s that ignorant.

A West Point philosophy professor has announced his resignation after 13 years on the faculty, citing the academy’s rapid shift away from its core educational principles under the Trump administration in an essay for the New York Times.

Graham Parsons, a professor of philosophy at the US Military Academy at West Point, criticized the institution for “failing to provide an adequate education for the cadets” under the new administration.

“I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly,” he wrote in the essay. “I am ashamed to be associated with the academy in its current form.”

He goes on to say that West Point began censoring its curriculum to align with the administration’s ideological preferences following Donald Trump’s executive order and a memo from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. These directives prohibited instruction on so-called “un-American” theories, including gender ideology and any suggestion that “America’s founding documents are racist or sexist.”

. . .

Following considerable cuts to its enforcement workforce, the US's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) plans to use AI to supplement its ability to collect taxes from US citizens.

News of the IRS's plan came from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a House Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday to discuss the Treasury's budget proposal. (The IRS is a subsidiary of the Treasury.) When asked by Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) whether proposed reductions in the IRS's IT budget, along with plans to cut additional staff, would affect the agencies ability to collect tax revenue, Bessent said it wouldn't, thanks to the current "AI boom."

"I believe through smarter IT, through this AI boom, that we can use that to enhance collections," Bessent told Hoyer and the Committee (24:29 into the video linked above). "I expect collections would continue to be very robust as they were this year."

. . .

Tax collections are going to plummet

Biden had pushed through increased funding for the IRS, which they demonstrated is being repaid 6 to 1 in increased enforcement of EXISTING tax law. That is, collecting more taxes without changing any laws just by getting people who owe taxes to pay them.

Even then they estimated there were hundreds of billions in uncollected taxes from fraud and some people outright not filing at all. When the IRS has been gutted, morons are in charge, and AI is supposed to be the police the number of people taking deductions they know they aren't entitled to or simply deciding not to file and dare the IRS to catch them is going to increase.

That's what happens when the administration consists of more than twice as many billionaires as all other administrations combined. What do billionaires want more than lower tax rates? Less ability for the IRS to discover how many income they are hiding or deductions/credits they aren't legally permitted to take.

Trump is going to cut taxes for the only people who cares about even if congress deadlocks and can't pass an extension to his 2017 tax cuts. That would mean you and I pay more, while billionaires pay less. That's what MAGA voters are getting.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ mass dismissals of workers who release government records “raise grave transparency, accountability, and privacy concerns,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday.

In a May 8 letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. provided exclusively to KFF Health News, Wyden, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, wrote that “it is hard to square your commitment to radical transparency” with HHS’ firing of workers who handled Freedom of Information Act requests.

. . .

Wyden wrote in his letter that federal health agencies handle “exceptionally sensitive information,” such as proprietary details about drugs and medical devices, and personally identifiable information about minors. “In either case, non-experts responding to FOIA requests jeopardizes this information,” he wrote.

“I am extremely concerned about the detrimental impact that FOIA office closures will have on HHS’s ability to comply with this powerful government accountability tool,” Wyden wrote.

In a fireside chat with Judge Lawrence Vilardo of the New York Western District:



I’ll bet Stephen Miller had a full blown tantrum when he heard that.

It sounds as though Roberts, and perhaps some of the other members of the Supremes, are not amused by Trump’s assertion that he, and only he, will interpret the law — or ignore it at will.

On April 16, I wrote to you about a hearing in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, which is before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland. At that time, she characterized the steps the government had taken to facilitate his return to the U.S. following the Supreme Court’s direction they must do by saying, “The record reflects defendants have done nothing at all.” As we discussed that evening, she ordered expedited discover including that “Abrego Garcia’s lawyers can also take depositions of four specified government officials and two players to be named based on what they learn in discovery.”

. . .
Of course, Donald Trump has already publicly stated in an ABC interview that he “could” secure Abrego Garcia’s return.

“You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk,” ABC’s Terry Moran told Trump, pointing at the phone on his desk in the Oval Office.

“I could,” Trump said rather proudly.

“You could pick it up, and with all—” Moran began to say before Trump cut him off.

“I could.”

That’s evidence. Evidence the government could have complied with the Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision ordering it to facilitate return but deliberately refused to. Trump concluded that “if he [Abrego Garcia] were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that [call and ask for his return],” yet again entirely missing the point that this has nothing to do with Abrego Garcia’s character. It is about his right—and by extension all of our rights—to receive due process before the government takes action against us. That’s what’s at stake here and the stakes are high.

. . .

At least 216 children have died of influenza in the US during the last flu season in what the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said was classified as the first high severity season overall and for all age groups since 2017-2018.

That number marks the highest pediatric death toll in 15 years; the previous high reported for a regular (non-pandemic) season was 236 pediatric deaths in the 2009-2010 season, according to the CDC. More recently, 207 pediatric deaths were reported during the 2023-2024 season.

. . .

Health experts warned of a growing wave of vaccine hesitancy fueled in part by federal officials, including from Robert F Kennedy, the health and human services secretary. Soon after his Senate confirmation, Kennedy canceled a federal vaccine advisory committee meeting to help select next winter’s flu vaccine.

Last month, Anita Patel, a pediatric critical-care doctor at Children’s National hospital in Washington DC, told the Washington Post that this was the most severe flu season she has seen in more than a decade.

. . .

In this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum reflects on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, examining how postwar reconciliation—not battlefield triumph—became America’s true finest hour. He contrasts that legacy with Donald Trump’s recent bombastic Victory Day statement, urging a rededication to the values that built a more peaceful world.

David is then joined by The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum to discuss the astonishing and brazen corruption of the Trump presidency, how authoritarian regimes seek to break institutions, and the hardship of losing friendships to politics.

Finally, David answers listener questions on fostering open-minded political dialogue among polarized high-school students, why America hasn’t developed a strong worker-based political movement like its European counterparts, and how to think about class in modern U.S. politics. He also weighs in on the risk of data suppression under the Trump administration and reflects on whether his long-held conservative values still belong to the political right.

I had been dealing with pain for weeks — a bothersome ache that felt like a bad runner’s cramp. But now it was so intense I had to brace myself against the wall to stand up.

A few hours after arriving at the emergency room, I heard my name. A doctor asked me to follow him to a private area, where he told me a scan had uncovered something “concerning.”

There were lesions, areas of bone destruction, on top of both of my hip bones and on my sternum. These were hallmarks of multiple myeloma. “Cancer,” he said.

. . .

For decades, I’ve reported on outrageous health care costs in the U.S. and the burden they place on patients. I’ve revealed the tactics used by drug companies to drive sales and keep the price of their products high.

Even with my experience, the cost of Revlimid stood out. When I started taking the drug, I’d look at the smooth, cylindrical capsule in my hand and consider the fact I was about to swallow something that costs about the same as a new iPhone. A month’s supply, which arrives in an ordinary, orange-tinged plastic bottle, is the same price as a new Nissan Versa.

I wanted to know how this drug came to cost so much — and why the price keeps going up. The price of Revlimid has been hiked 26 times since it launched. Some of what happened was reported at the time. But no one has pieced together the full account of what the drugmaker Celgene did, how federal regulators failed to rein it in and what the story reveals about unrestrained drug pricing in America.

What I discovered astonished even me.

. . .