by Zeeshan Aleem | Jun 11, 2026 | Opinion
President Donald Trump’s latest gaffe Wednesday in which he said he loves inflation is more than an act of political self-harm. It’s the kind of error that should once again raise questions about his soundness of mind.
A reporter at the White House asked Trump whether he was concerned about Wednesday morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report that inflation hit 4.2% in May, a three-year high.
Trump replied:
No, I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over, you know, I can say it now, something you didn’t know, do you know, we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it, you know. Who doesn’t know about it? Iran, until right now. We took out the other night 22 ships late at night with no lights because they don’t have any radar, because we blasted the crap out of it.
It was a jaw-dropping response.
It’s beyond baffling that Trump would announce that he’s fond of an economic phenomenon that hurts working people and has been leading to losses for incumbent parties across the democratized world. People struggling to put food on the table and make rent are suffering in a tangible way from skyrocketing energy costs, and their corrupt billionaire president is cavalierly describing inflation as a positive. Trump is once again writing Democrats’ midterm attack ads for them.
When Trump gets midway through the comment, one might wonder if he’s speaking in an ironic tone and winding up to offer a counterintuitive explanation for why Americans should see inflation as tolerable. But
by Paul Waldman | Jun 11, 2026 | Opinion
This Friday, SpaceX will execute its initial public offering. The company has set a share price of $135; that would put its value at $1.77 trillion, making it the largest IPO in history. On Wall Street they are practically vibrating with excitement, as banks and investment firms compete to get in on the action. Demand for the shares is reportedly off the charts. The IPO will likely make CEO Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
Some investors consider Musk a genius and a visionary; others just want a piece of the cash grab. But all of them are pretending that this IPO can be separated from the repugnant things about Musk — his promotion of white supremacy and antisemitism, the poison his social media network pours into global debate every day, the damage he has done to the federal government. None of that exists in a separate sphere from his businesses. It is not a hobby or a sidelight. It is the very heart of who he is and the world he is seeking to create. Musk and his IPO are where greed meets hate, and that stain should be on anyone who participates.
Musk has turned the social media network formerly known as Twitter into the most important amplifier of hatred in the world today.
This week, ahead of the IPO, Musk encouraged what became an anti-immigrant pogrom in Belfast. This horrific series of events began when an immigrant in Northern Ireland was charged with attempted murder — an event that was caught on video. Far-right provocateurs in Great Britain and elsewhere immediately called for anti-immigrant protests, which Musk used his X
by Negin Owliaei, Maya Schenwar, Truthout, and Ziggy West Jeffery | Jun 11, 2026 | AI, Article, Opinion, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint
This article was originally published by Truthout on June 09, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
Google made an announcement last month that could turn the journalism world upside down, accelerating the internet’s shift toward an overwhelmingly AI-driven landscape and serving the Trump agenda of media suppression.
At its developer conference in May, the company announced the most disruptive changes to Google Search in over 25 years. Google Search will further demote its index of the web — a list of links that information-seekers can explore as they choose. Instead of prominently displaying links, it will increasingly become a destination that answers questions directly through AI, linking only to the sources it decides to reference in its overview. On the majority of our tests, the AI overview was followed by a heavy block of sponsored results and a combination of videos, short clips, trending posts, and discussions. Index links — for example, to articles on news sites and research studies — were given only a small fraction of real estate. Additionally, Google is aggressively pushing readers to use AI Mode, which completely removes the index links.
In practical terms, this means users of the world’s largest search engine will see, in response to their queries, a summary generated by an AI bot developed by a corporate behemoth with close ties to the Trump White House.
This seismic move builds upon the launches of AI Overview in 2024 and AI Mode in 2025, shifting toward nearly eliminating the user’s ability to search autonomously, and toward an overwhelmingly AI-driven experience of the internet (and therefore, for many people, of life).
We must take into account the
by Jarvis DeBerry | Jun 11, 2026 | Opinion, Politics
President Donald Trump’s penchant for characterizing pretty much any Black person who disagrees with him as “low IQ” hasn’t been called out enough as the nasty, unrepentant bigotry it is. Many Americans have come to tolerate all sorts of insults from Trump, but it’s important that we as a country condemn this racist filth, if only for the sake of Black children growing up during Trump’s presidency.
Trump expressed doubts about the intelligence of ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith after the commentator, a huge New York Knicks fan, correctly predicted that his team would lose Monday’s NBA Finals game at Madison Square Garden against the San Antonio Spurs if Trump showed up. After the game, a reporter, who mentioned that Smith has flirted with the idea of running for president in 2028, asked Trump about his comments. The president replied, “I think he’s a nice guy. You need a certain aptitude to run for president. You need a high IQ. I’m not sure that Stephen has that. I don’t think he does, actually.”
You need a certain aptitude to run for president. You need a high IQ. I’m not sure that Stephen has that.President donald trump on ESPN’S stephen a. smith
Trump has called Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “a low-IQ person.” In a May 1 social media post, he stacked up racist tropes when he wrote, “Low IQ Democrat Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, is nothing but a THUG, and he is a danger to our Country!” Speaking about Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, Trump said, “This is a low IQ person who I can’t even believe is a congressperson.” And Trump said then-Vice
by Hayes Brown | Jun 11, 2026 | Opinion
The $70 billion immigration enforcement funding bill Republicans have been working to pass for months finally got President Donald Trump’s signature Wednesday afternoon. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was on hand at the White House for the signing, along with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and a smatter of other GOP senators and representatives.
Missing from the celebration despite spearheading the effort to get it passed: Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
It may be a simple matter of scheduling that allowed Johnson to attend and not Thune. But the South Dakotan’s absence was notable given how often he’s lately been forced to play the uncomfortable role of the person who has to tell Trump “no.” And when it comes to Trump, even big wins like a bill funding one of his top priorities can easily be forgotten as his focus slips back towards his more esoteric demands.
Trump’s relationship with Thune is best examined in contrast with the president’s interactions with Johnson. Punchbowl News framed the dynamic succinctly Wednesday morning: “Thune derives much of his power from his conference, not Trump. Johnson derives a good deal of his power from being close to the president.”
The two-vote majority Johnson controls in the House means both ends of the GOP’s contracted ideological spectrum can make demands that grind legislation to a halt. The Louisiana lawmaker’s, at times, tenuous grasp on the House and reliance on Trump to get his ducks in a row have been constant themes of this phase of his speakership. NOTUS recently reported that Trump has, at least once, declared in front of Johnson and other lawmakers: “I have two jobs: being
by Ja'han Jones | Jun 11, 2026 | Opinion
As the Republican Party copes with the pitfalls of its allegiance to a historically unpopular president ahead of the midterm elections, conservative lawmakers are scraping the barrel of desperate tactics and resorting to brazen racism.
Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demonstrated this when he lobbed a deluded accusation on Fox News that “minority communities” in blue states are “especially” responsible for “rampant fraud.” It’s the sort of racist remark one might expect from a Ku Klux Klansman, not the leader of a congressional committee.
Comer: “What we’re seeing especially in the blue states is there is rampant fraud, especially in the minority communities” pic.twitter.com/fkmHORqDGV— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 9, 2026
To state what should be obvious, Comer’s racist claim is also baseless. It aligns with bigoted claims that President Donald Trump — someone who has been found liable for fraud — has made while his administration has pushed debunked claims to portray the Somali community as rife with fraudsters. (Trump is appealing in his civil fraud case.)
Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., echoed Trump’s racism back in December when he made the false claim that Somalians were responsible for “80%” of crime in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. The fundamental conceit behind these baseless attacks — apparent attempts to portray nonwhite people as more prone to crime — is a tired trope that has been deployed by white supremacists for centuries.
But with regard to Comer’s remarks, there’s no evidence that “minority communities” are responsible for rampant fraud. The term “minority” is a nonspecific one that can essentially mean whichever group the person uttering it wants to include, but in this case it’s effectively useless
