Soulful, Doleful, Schmaltz-By-The-Bowlful Tabs: Mon. May 19, 2025

Morning news roundup and things to read!

First day with new legs? Tabs gif by your friend Martini Glambassador!

Happy Monday, Wonklets!

How was your weekend? What did we miss?

Oh no: Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer that has has metastasized to the bone. Hopefully it can be slowed! (NBC)

Dear Leader returned from getting fetid/fêted in the Middle East to a pile of L’s at home: criticism of his big beautiful bribe plane; Moody’s downgrading the US’s credit rating from perfect for the first time since 1917 (!); Walmart saying it’ll have to raise prices; the Supreme Court temporarily blocking his Alien Enemies Act deportations and calling government lawyers liars in judge language. President Pomeranian Wig responded in his usual way, pounding out rambling, ranting screeds on his web platform about AUTOPEN, and THE UNSELECT COMMITTEE OF POLITICAL THUGS and DIRTY COP James Comey, Obama, Sleepy Joe Biden SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN! Walmart should EAT THE TARIFFS! Release terrorists at the Chevy Chase Country Club! And he reTruthed that Obama should face a military tribunal. Normal stuff. (BBC / AP / AARP v Trump / Truth Social)

And Trump also Truthed that he’s going to talk to Putin at 10 a.m. today and make Russia stop the BLOODBATH, and then he will call up Zelenskyy and NATO and tell them the good news that there is CEASEFIRE. So that will be nice! (Truth Social)

Speaking of Zelenskyy, new pope Leo XIV met privately with him and the Peruvian president after holding his inaugural mass on Sunday, and JD Vance was not invited. Hope he doesn’t couch it like an insult! (The Daily Beast)

Elon Musk’s Grokbot, which last week was pushing South African “white genocide” conspiracy theories, got on another one: skeptical that 6 million people died in the Holocaust. Then it bot-fessed: “My skepticism about Holocaust figures was due to an unauthorized change to my programming on May 14, 2025, which altered my responses to question mainstream narratives,” and “some rogue employee at xAI tweaked my prompts without permission on May 14, making me spit out a canned political response.” Who touched you, Grokbot? Grokbot won’t say, but noted “tampering with my prompt isn’t something a random intern could pull off.” Indeed! Training software to lowkey repeat conspiracy lies is apparently harder than it seems, but somebody in Muskland is sure ham-handedly trying. (Rolling Stone)

Hey, the US media sure has been mighty quiet about how Musk and Peter Thiel were the target of Russian agents! (ZDF)

Military trans ban update, Sec. Def. Hooch-hound realized that combing through 2.1 million service people’s mental health records to witch hunt for gender dysphoria would violate HIPAA, so now everybody who stays in the military past the June 6 is going to get a self-confession questionnaire to suss out any gender dysphoric feelings, and commanders have been told to out anyone who they suspect is not performing gender up to standards for trans-vestigation. Dystopian! (AP)

Tornadoes have killed 27 people across Missouri and Kentucky, and Trump is gutting the National Weather Service and FEMA right as hurricane season is getting started. (NPR / LA Times)

Trump is reportedly in talks with civil-war-torn Libya about the idea of transferring a million Palestinians there, though forcibly moving them would be a war crime and Libya has no infrastructure to absorb a million people. The State Department denies these talks happened. (NBC)

The New York Times has new details on the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther,” their plan to gut universities and progressive activism by focusing on antisemitism on the left and ignoring antisemitic harassment and violence from the right. (New York Times archive link)

A suspect is dead after a terrorist car-bombing at a Palm Springs fertility clinic, he was a nut who thought the “world should not be populated.” (OC Register)

Those January 6ers just can’t keep themselves out of trouble. Pardoned Zachary Alam, convicted of eight felonies, got arrested for a home invasion. (WUSA9)

Former sugar plantation the Nottoway Resort in Louisiana burned down, and many people are not displeased. As you can tell by the “resort” in the name, it was not a former plantation museum like the Whitney, but a wedding and event venue where certain whites could live out their romanticized antebellum fantasies. Historian Dejon Campbell explains the plantation’s history.

@dejoncampbellBuilt by enslaved people in the 1800s. Then marketed as a “Southern experience”. Used for weddings and events. A couple of days ago? Burned to the ground. Nottoway Plantation was the largest antebellum mansion in the South - but for over 150 years, the real story was buried beneath white columns and wedding brochures. This isn’t just about what was lost in a fire. It’s about what was never told. #BlackHistory #nottowayplantation

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Romanians voted Sunday to elect a new president, while Russia was trying its best to meddle. Pro-EU and Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan was in a runoff with far-right “former soccer hooligan” and proud pro-Trumper George Simion. And Dan won! (International Herald / Politico EU)

Enjoy Jim Jordan trying to give a speech while “Send in the Clowns” is piped in.

There’s better versions.

Wonkalonks! Your pal Suzy Greenberg has seized the means of Wonkmeet production! Save the Date! Sat., June 7, she’s hosting a Wonkmeet at Camp Plymouth State Park, 2008 Scout Camp Rd, Ludlow, Vermont! She’s rented the Wedding Grove Pavillion and is thinking 1-5 p.m. $5 for adults to get into the park. Parking and restrooms nearby. Stay tuned and spread the word.

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