Today's News Rundown

....with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Most measles cases in 35 years:

Congratulations to RFK Jr., Donald Trump, and the anti-vax community. You did it!!! Woohoo!!! You should be so proud of yourselves. Thanks to your hard work and dedicated efforts, you've convinced enough Americans that their children should get measles. A disease eliminated from the nation 25 years ago has returned with a vengeance. In just six months, the U.S. has already exceeded last year's record-breaking viral overload with a staggering 2,318 verified cases. Come on, MAHA!!! You can do better than that!!! Let's keep those vaccination rates down and see if you can infect 6,000 innocent children before New Year's Day.

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Trump probably lied about Putin and Xi:

If we don't get confirmation from Russia and China that Putin and Xi actually said these things, we can assume Donald is lying.

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Trump claims Australia, the EU, Canada, Japan, and others violate forced labor standards. He imposes new tariffs.

You read that right. The lunatic president of a nation that pays illegal migrants pennies on the dollar to hand-pick its produce (while arresting, deporting, and killing them) claims that at least 60 of our trading partners are not adequately enforcing a ban on forced labor.

Back in February, the Supreme Court struck down most of Trump’s stupid tariffs. A lifelong loser who’s incapable of taking the “L,” Trump must have instructed his confederacy of buffoons to come up with a new pretense for imposing meaningless, yet incredibly inflationary, tariffs.

Although the political tone-deafness is staggering (just four months before the midterm elections), the stunning hypocrisy far exceeds it. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told NPR News, “If you compare our labor laws to the ones of the United States, I mean, we have, people have paid vacations, we have very good conditions, labor conditions, for our employees, so it’s not really grounded.”

Here in the U.S., our minimum wage is $7.25, millions work irregular schedules, paid vacation and sick leave are not federally guaranteed, and we offer no paid family leave after having a new baby.

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House says Donald must stop the war. The Senate says keep going.

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution to stop the war with Iran. The anti-stupid-wars caucus prevailed in a 214-208 vote. Four Republicans defected from the Trump-is-better-than-Jesus side of the aisle to help Democrats exercise common sense.

Just a short time later, the U.S. Senate couldn't muster the same courage. Chickenshit GOP senators have yet to grow a full spine, handing Democrats a 49-47 loss in the Upper Chamber by rejecting their war powers resolution.

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Democrats choose South Carolina as first primary election state for the 2028 presidential election.

That’s not completely accurate. The Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) Rules and Bylaws Committee voted Friday to approve it as the initial battleground. This is just a recommendation that has to go before a vote of the full DNC next month.

There’s no reason to expect things won’t go as planned, but there was also no reason to expect that former Vice Chairs Malcolm Kenyatta and David Hogg would get, essentially, tossed out of the DNC back in February 2025. We’ll have to see what happens.

Assuming the DNC goes with the recommendation, South Carolina will replace New Hampshire as the first-in-the-nation primary state. New Hampshire certainly doesn’t like this, but New Hampshire doesn’t look like most of America. New Hampshire is white. All of America, thankfully, is not. Approximately 24% of South Carolina’s residents are Black, while approximately 65% are white.

Although victory in the first primary state doesn’t guarantee a Democratic candidate will win the nomination, it can be a momentum driver. Also remember, in 2020 Joe Biden was getting clobbered by Bernie Sanders in primary after primary. Black women in South Carolina won the state for Biden and changed the outcome of the race.

Bernie won the New Hampshire primary.