The US Supreme Court on Friday did Republicans another solid on the gerrymandering wars and turned away Virginia Dems’ bid to have Los Supremos overrule the state Supreme Court.

So yeah it’s over… For this year. As previously stated here the GOP may have weaseled their way out of any consequences in the Old Dominion State this year, but next year will be different since the Dem-majority state legislature picks a replacement for one of the MAGA justices in January.

For some unfathomable fucking reason that will not even be linked here, not even the upstream source because doing so would potentially dignify the rationale, Dem Colorado Governor Jared “Pussy” Polis tells said outlet that he is commuting the sentence of notorious MAGA scumbag Tina Peters and she will be released soon. What a fucking worm, capitulating to Trump like that.

US cyber officials tell CNN that they suspect Iranian hackers have breached into systems that monitor the amount of fuel in storage tanks serving gas stations in multiple states, opening the door to (further) messing with the supply chains and potentially compromising safety as false readings on the gauges could also allow a gas leak to go undetected, though that relies on an actual leak.

Still, you’d think for a crew that screamed until their vocal chords were ragged and dry over a malfunctioning Chinese balloon three years ago that such a hack would be a pretty big deal.

In a Tuesday press release the Manatee County, Florida Sheriff’s Office announced they’re “actively investigating vandalism that occurred at the Old Memphis Cemetery. Deputies located 17 damaged gravesites. The damages ranged from broken and knocked down headstones, spray painted gravesites, and damaged concrete on graves. Detectives believe the incident occurred within the past few weeks. No arrests have been made at this time and the investigation continues.”

Then in a Wednesday update the office added that “during the investigation, detectives have located evidence that indicates at least some of the gravesites were damaged and defaced with spray paint on or before March 2026. At this time there is no indication that any remains were removed from the gravesites. This investigation remains active and ongoing.” At neither point did the law enforcement agency disclose the nature of the graffiti, raising the question of why it’s on local station WFLA to report that the graves were spraypainted with “Trump” and “DeSantis” in red.

No, it would not have gone over well at all in the deeply red county if the sheriff’s office were to have written “racist graffiti” in the press release, only for the station to report that it was the names of their favorite president and governor. Even if the department themselves are no doubt hardcore MAGA who don’t actually consider it a hate crime they would still have described it as such if it had been the N-word and other slurs painted on the gravestones. If anything the fact that it likely took at least two months for the vandalism to be noticed kind of points in the opposite direction as WFLA describes the cemetery as having been declared full in 1977 and handed over to the county in 1988.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin joined ICE officers on the ground in Virginia during an early morning operation that resulted in the arrest of a repeat criminal illegal alien previously removed multiple times from the United States.

Mullin said the suspect’s record included drug… pic.twitter.com/FxFX6eZDQs

— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 15, 2026

He probably should have retired anyway given that he’s 77 and had been faced with the emergence of a primary bid by standout state Representative Justin Pearson but it was last week’s draconian gerrymander that ended his Memphis-area district that led 10-term Dem Congressman Steve Cohen to announce on Friday he’s pulling the plug on his reelection bid, Fox News reports.

The Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, “Admiral” Dr Brian Christine, led a press conference last week on the hantavirus where he told the public there was little to no danger from the bug that struck passengers stuck on a cruise ship in the Atlantic last month.

Christine was right: Hantavirus is no COVID and barring a rapid and drastic mutation it simply isn’t anywhere near as transmissible as the upper respiratory bug that turned the world upside-down in 2020. Still, CNN’s KFile has some questions about Christine after having done some research into the Alabama-native urologist who specializes in penile implants and, you guessed it, is a far-right forced-birther freak who specializes in COVID vaccine and 2020 election conspiracy theories.

Christine also once hosted a YouTube show called “Erection Connection,” a professional YouTube series on erectile dysfunction for fellow urologists. So continuing on the topic of 2010s Leonardo DiCaprio memes, is calling the conspiracy shit the “you had my curiosity” part and the penile implant thing the “but now you have my attention” an accurate template for convicted felon President Trump’s thought process when he hired Christine last year? Yes, that question was rhetorical.

Happy Friday 🍸 pic.twitter.com/MIGVeTcM99

— RNC Election Integrity (@RNCVoteProtect) May 15, 2026

It doesn’t show up on the above embed but on Twitter proper there’s a little “Made with AI” asterisk under the image, a still from the 2013 version of The Great Gatsby. It probably took them longer to prompt Grok to add the text to the time-honored meme image than it would have to simply type and set the text in Photoshop, so shave a few point off the larger achievement, which is notable.

You do have to give the un-Photoshop-trained Zoomers on the team some credit for actually citing a real, plausible use case for being carded rather than just saying and then doubling down on stupid shit like Auditioning Attorney General Todd Blanche’s inane “showing ID to vote is like showing ID when you go into a restaurant,” from earlier this month. That dumbassery itself was a shout out as well as a slightly less deranged version of convicted felon President Trump’s longtime dedication to undermining the purportedly dire seriousness of the policy objective by saying variously that Americans need to show ID to buy a “loaf of bread,” “a box of cereal,” and just “groceries.”

Really the only issues with the tweet from the “Election Integrity” propaganda squad are the aforementioned laziness on the part of the non-Photoshop-trained zoomers slapping this together, the invocation of “Bottomless Brunch” on a Friday since “Happy Hour” would’ve been more appropriate (or it could’ve waited until Saturday or Sunday when such brunch specials are actually offered), and the implied mockery of a weekend ritual favored by urbane liberal constituencies at effete establishments that never actually bother to card patrons for their $35 bottomless mimosa specials. Oh and the whole thing about how Dems aren’t really resisting any voter ID requirement on “principle” anymore so much as holding onto it as a bargaining chip for when Republicans show a willingness to compromise on other national election legislation. Which will be never.

In a five second-long clip by clip guy Aaron Rupar that’s too brief to justify ripping and putting up on YouTube, Energy Suckretary Chris Wright on Friday told CNBC that something something “…now our oil goes out of the Gulf of Mexico we’ll see more of that going over to China.” Emphasis added on the non-official name for the body of water bounded by five US states totaling 1,700 miles of coastline, northwestern Cuba, and six Mexican states totaling 1,400 miles of coastline. The name “Gulf of Mexico” first appeared on maps in 1550 and by 1672 became the most widely-internationally recognized usage for it when the Spanish Viceroyalty of Mexico was the dominant territorial arc.

The snippet of Wright’s bit separately appeared to be the fruit of a broader fuckup in the boast that American oil is now being sold to China. That’s not actually good for gas prices.

Convicted felon President Trump’s regime is moving to indict 94 year-old former Cuban President Raul Castro over a few planes that got shot down back in the 1990s, CBS News reports.

What this is actually supposed to accomplish is unclear but yeah, they want to indict him.

“Advance estimates of US retail and food services sales for April 2026, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $757.1 billion, up 0.5 percent (±0.4 percent) from the previous month, and up 4.9 percent (±0.5 percent) from April 2025. Total sales for the February 2026 through April 2026 period were up 4.4 percent (±0.4 percent) from the same period a year ago. The February 2026 to March 2026 percent change was revised from up 1.7 percent (±0.4 percent) to up 1.6 percent (±0.2 percent). Retail trade sales were up 0.5 percent (±0.4 percent) from March 2026, and up 5.2 percent (±0.5 percent) from last year.”

“Nonstore retailers were up 11.1 percent (±1.8 percent) from last year, while food services and drinking places were up 2.7 percent (±1.8 percent) from April 2025,” says the monthly US Commerce Department report with zero mention of the… underlying environment that caused “sales” to jump.

“UraniumX Discovery Corp confirms with profound sadness that one independent contractor passed away on May 8, 2026, following a wildlife encounter at the Company’s Zoo Bay property in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin. The Company is cooperating fully with local authorities, wildlife officials, and government agencies in their investigation. As a precaution, all field activities at the Zoo Bay property have been temporarily halted while the review is completed. Exploration and development work at the Company’s other projects, including the flagship Murphy Lake Uranium Property, continue as planned and remain unaffected,” says a UraniumX press release

“Esen Boldkhuu, CEO, stated: ‘We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss. Our thoughts and deepest condolences go out to the family, friends, and colleagues of the deceased. The safety and well-being of our employees, contractors, and all personnel working on our projects is, and will always remain, our highest priority. We commend the rapid response of our on-site team, service providers, and emergency responders who attended the scene,'” the release continued and sure, it LOOKS like a random incident. Probably is. People unfortunately get killed by wild bears all the time.

Still… Gotta wonder if anyone with the company is at least considering that the bear knew what it was doing. Or whether the bear was even in control of its own territorial impulses at all.

Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks tells Fox News he’s quitting, effective immediately, without citing a reason. “It’s just time,” Banks said, adding “I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure disastrous chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen. Time to pass the reigns, 37 years, it’s time to enjoy the family and life.” The above is roughly as long as the Fox News “exclusive” which they say will be updated when they have more information.

Last month the Washington Examiner picked up a possible cause for the exit as well as a reason to LOL at the part where the fucking asshole said “it’s time to enjoy the family and life”: Banks’s love of sex tourism in South America and Southeast Asia, “vacations” he regularly bragged about to other top officials in the agency and repeatedly nagged them to join him on his foreign adventures.

“I don’t know how he became the chief of the Border Patrol with his character. He’s going to third-world countries to take advantage of poor fucking women, which disgusts the hell out of me,” a source told the Examiner. “Women” was doing a lot of work there and it’s worth raising whether Banks – a diehard Trump fanboy who’s supposed to be combatting sex trafficking – went out of his way to make sure that every establishment he patronized in those countries had all 18+ staff.

“UKMTO has received a report of an incident 38NM northeast of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. The CSO has reported that the vessel has been taken by unauthorised personnel whist at anchor and is now bound for Iranian Territorial Waters. UKMTO continue to investigate,” says an incident report brief from the UK Maritime Trade Office. Not clear what “CSO” means in this context but it sure sounds like the waters of the region aren’t nearly as secure as the Trump Regime wants you think.

A day after Popular.Info’s Judd Legum printed a story that the “Trump Mobile” scam operation had still yet to deliver on the $500 Trump T1 phone nearly nine months after the September 2025 ship date promised last June – and that they had recently changed the preorder deposit terms to “a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale,” lol – USA Today reports that the T1 will finally start shipping to customers this week.

“The TI Phone isn’t just powerful, it’s shaped by American innovation,” the Trump Mobile website reads. “With American teams helping guide design and quality, we focus on delivering a device built with care and precision,” even though it’s just a reskin of some cheap piece of shit Android phone.

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting has resigned from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet, Sky News reports on a move that in British politics means Streeting is very likely to mount some kind of internal challenge for the premiership as the Labour party faces an electoral cataclysm.

“As you know from our conversation earlier this week, having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded that it would be dishonourable and unprincipled to do so,” Streeting wrote in his resignation letter. “It is now clear that you will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election and that Labour MPs and Labour unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism. It needs to be broad, and it needs to be the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope you will continue to facilitate it.”

The closest analogue in American politics would be the House Speakership though, say, Steve Scalise wouldn’t resign his post as Majority Leader to challenge Mike Johnson. He would just gather enough support for a motion to vacate and then make a run for the gavel. Without going further down the rabbit hole of differences, Labour is right and truly fucked and it’s worth asking what the hell new leadership is going to do. It’s not like it saved the Tories after Boris Johnson quit.