Agents from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were in Colorado Springs yesterday collecting evidence at the scene of a mid-morning bomb attack on the local NAACP office there yesterday. According to local media accounts, witnesses saw a balding, middle-aged white man fleeing the scene in an old white pickup truck.
PrinceIn 2003, Erik Prince used his wealthy parents’ connections in right-wing politics to land over $1 billion in security contracts for Blackwater, his private security company. During the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, Blackwater was one of dozens of contractors deployed into the war zone at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars — a deployment with disastrous consequences, especially in Blackwater’s case.
In the spring of 2004, U.S. Marines had to be sent into Fallujah twice after local fighters released video they’d taken while they killed Blackwater contractors and mutilated their bodies. The result was some of the bloodiest fighting of the occupation. On Dec. 24, 2006, an allegedly drunk Blackwater contractor shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraq’s vice president. Nine months later a squad of Blackwater mercenaries rolling through Baghdad opened fire at a crowded intersection killing 17 civilians. That incident was the beginning of the end for Blackwater. Its security contract in Iraq was cancelled after Bush left office.
Over the weekend, in a session at Maverick PAC, a right-wing political group with ties to the Bush family, Prince seemed to suggest that if only the Obama administration hadn’t cut off flow of millions in taxpayer dollars to Blackwater, his mercenaries could have stopped the rise of ISIS:
The video rejected in The Ruth Institute’s “Reel Love Challenge.” The contest asked for college students or young adults age 18 to 30 to answer the question, “What makes lifelong love possible?” Apparently it has to be man-lady lifelong love only.
This video was first accepted, but after someone at the “Institute” actually watched it, it was thrown out. The Ruth So-Called Institute is a project of the National Institute for Marriage Education Fund, which is just another Focus on the Family spin-off that claims these bizarre “core values:”
Respect for the contributions of men to the family Marriage as a lifelong commitment between one man and one woman
Lifelong spousal cooperation as a solution to women’s aspirations for career and family
FEMA executive Greg Phillips used to be a complete unknown,
But that was before he started using teleportation to roam.
He entered some spiritual portal,
To transport 50 miles across Georgia,
But no one ever saw him at any of the three Waffle Houses of Rome.
“Why should we keep the majority? We’ve gotten one bill passed, and that was President Trump pushing and pushing and pushing, and it took us 18 hours to get Republicans to vote for it — 18 hours straight on the Senate floor. And it’s embarrassing that we’re up here raising money to continue with the same people being up here. It’s just nonsense.”
— Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), on Benny Johnson’s podcast.
“People in higher-income countries are generally more likely to say their nation’s political system needs only minor or no changes, according to recent Pew Research Center surveys. Conversely, people in middle-income countries are more likely to say their political system needs major changes or complete reform. … The United States, however, is a notable exception to this pattern. Despite having the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of any of our surveyed countries, 77% of Americans say the nation’s political system needs major changes or complete reform.”
“Trump might have moved on, and Vance, a relatively recent convert to Catholicism, would have been able to stay out of a dustup between his president and his spiritual leader. But no. Vance just had to speak up. He could have taken his cues from John F. Kennedy or Mario Cuomo, Catholic politicians who were careful to note that their faith was personal and important to them, but that in their public life, they must govern as Americans according to the Constitution. … Vance decided on a different approach: The pope, he implied, wasn’t a very good, or very smart, Catholic.”
A new Gallup poll finds 42% of young men saying religion is very important to them, up sharply from 28% in 2022-2023. By contrast, during this period, young women’s attachment to religion has held steady at about 30%.
US business adoption of AI crosses 50% for the first time in March, according to Ramp AI Index; Anthropic goes from 7% to 30% market share year-over-year, nearly equal to OpenAI (35%).
“U.S. wholesale prices surged last month as the Iran war drove up the cost of energy,” the AP reports. “The Labor Department reported Tuesday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it hits consumers — rose 0.5% from February and 4% from March 2025. The year-over-year gains was the biggest in more than three years. Energy prices surged 8.5% from February.”
A new Yale Youth Poll finds 57% of all voters disapprove of Donald Trump’s job performance as president, including 68% of voters aged 18-22 and 72% of voters aged 23-29. Compared to the fall 2025 poll, Trump has lost the most ground with women under 35 and men under 30.
“Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in April as fears mounted over rising energy prices and the broader impact of the Iran war, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday,” CNBC reports.“The university’s headline index of consumer sentiment tumbled to 47.6, down 10.7% from March to its lowest on record. Current conditions and expectations indexes also saw double-digit monthly declines.”