Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.
Today we discuss:
• Trump’s Justice Department charged the SPLC civil-rights group with a financial crimes, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment focused on its past use of paid informants to infiltrate far-right groups. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, accused the SPLC of “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”
• When is a Blockade not a Blockade? Lloyd’s List Intelligence says “a steady flow of shadow fleet traffic” has passed the U.S. blockade, including 11 tankers with Iranian cargo that have left the Persian Gulf since April 13. “The dilemma for the U.S. is: The tighter the blockade, the greater the pain is in the global oil market, so there are conflicting priorities there, and it seems there is a policy of not intercepting every single shipment of Iranian oil,” Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal Middle East analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, says. Almost all that oil is going to China, and the U.S. has to manage that relationship as well, with Trump planning to visit from May 14 to 15.
• Navy Secretary John Phelan is fired.
• For the first time in decades, the U.S. could be experiencing negative net migration — more people leaving than entering. Brookings estimates net migration turned negative in 2025, the first time in at least half a century. People born in the U.S. who move abroad make up a small portion of those numbers, but influencers on social media are helping bring wider visibility to the shift.
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