“Consumer sentiment was essentially unchanged this month, inching down a scant 1.4 index points following four consecutive months of steep declines. Sentiment is now down almost 30 percent since January 2025. Slight increases in sentiment this month for independents were offset by a 7 percent decline among Republicans. While most index components were little changed, current assessments of personal finances sank nearly 10 percent on the basis of weakening incomes. Tariffs were spontaneously mentioned by nearly three-quarters of consumers, up from almost 60 percent in April, uncertainty over trade policy continues to dominate consumers’ thinking about the economy.”

“Note that interviews for this release were conducted between April 22 and May 13, closing two days after the announcement of a pause on some tariffs on imports from China. Many survey measures showed some signs of improvement following the temporary reduction of China tariffs, but these initial upticks were too small to alter the overall picture – consumers continue to express somber views about the economy. The initial reaction so far echoes the very minor increase in sentiment after the April 9 partial pause, despite which sentiment continued its downward trend.”

“Year-ahead inflation expectations surged from 6.5 percent last month to 7.3 percent this month. This month’s rise was seen among Democrats and Republicans alike. Long-run inflation expectations lifted from 4.4 percent in April to 4.6 percent in May, reflecting a particularly large monthly jump among Republicans. The final release for May will reveal the extent to which the May 12 pause on some China tariffs leads consumers to update their expectations,” says the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers in a statement, finding that even GOP voters are starting to feel “somber.”

"This administration is doing such great things": @KidRock responds to Bruce Springsteen's anti-Trump rant on stage pic.twitter.com/lfF7Fyom5J

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) May 16, 2025

Kid Rock seemed cool with losing money after his shitty “Honky Tonk” bar and restaurant in downtown Nashville shuttered over the weekend when all the kitchen staff ghosted due to the fear of ongoing ICE raids in the city, preferring instead to bitch to Fox and Friends on Friday about Bruce Springsteen’s recent anti-MAGA rhetoric as if Bruce being an outspoken liberal is anything new.

The International Criminal Court on Friday announced that Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan will be on leave while an investigation into accusations of sexual assault against a former female aide is conducted, the Wall Street Journal reports on what will no doubt do wonders for Israeli and Russia propaganda operations as their respective dictators Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin face arrest warrants for crimes against humanity authored by Khan himself.

“Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?'” posted convicted felon President Trump on Friday, apparently believing that the conclusion of Swift’s 21-month worldwide tour that sold out all 149 shows in 51 cities across five continents – grossing as much as $2 billion – and what’s probably her taking a break to work on a new album means she’s no longer “HOT” since he posted his hatred of her for endorsing Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

Well you can’t prove he didn’t make a dent in her popularity, so the post checks out.

“THE SUPREME COURT IS BEING PLAYED BY THE RADICAL LEFT LOSERS, WHO HAVE NO SUPPORT, THE PUBLIC HATES THEM, AND THEIR ONLY HOPE IS THE INTIMIDATION OF THE COURT, ITSELF. WE CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN TO OUR COUNTRY!” the fat bastard later screamed in a subsequent post. Yeah nobody else thinks Thursday’s arguments went that well for his batshit insane attempt to abrogate the 14th Amendment did either so at least he recognizes it.

Friday’s a big day for the MAGA GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” – and that’s actually the official name now, as the current draft literally says “This Act may be cited as the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act,'” and whether it can get out of the House Budget Committee is a serious question.

What’s interesting here is that the page for the committee says “This hearing will not be webcast” and the above stream is billed as a “press conference” on its YouTube description, yet moron Chairbilly Jodey Arrington just gaveled in for what’ll probably be a long day.

The leader of Portugal’s far right Chega Party was seen grabbing his chest and trying to undo his tie before collapsing into the arms of his minions who carried him away during an outdoor rally on Thursday, the second time in a week the asshole had publicly suffered from severe medical distress in full public view just before Sunday’s big national Assembly elections, Reuters reports.

“Everything is well with his heart,” said Chega lawmaker Marta Silva of her party’s dear leader, 42 year-old Andre Ventura, with Silva insisting it was some kind of “esaphogeal spasm” caused by acid reflux. Even if that’s true, it appears that sudden doubts over Ventura’s health would simply make a bad situation for his nationalist anti-immigrant party worse, as polling finds they’re in third at 18 percent support. Per Reuters, Chega’s stuck in the same spot they were last year as the party’s once-serious momentum has stalled due to a series of scandals involving senior members.

Sucks for Portuguese white nationalists, getting stuck with a leader who can’t handle the stress and pressure that comes with every election season. They should come up with some conspiracy theories about poisoning and directed energy weapons to cope with the impending disaster.

Donors to the US’s sestercentennial celebration committee, “America250” will be given special VIP access to convicted felon President Trump’s $45 million+ birthday celebration military parade in DC next month, as well as other major military events, the Wall Street Journal reports on more shitty slush funding from the “most transparent administration in American history” or whatever the line is.

“We see no reason why these individuals’ names should still be protected, and we demand that you publicly release the entirety of the Epstein files no later than May 16, 2025. There must be absolutely no redactions other than those necessary to protect the personally identifiable information of the survivors,” says a letter sent last week from MAGA House members Anna Paulina Luna, Eli Crane, Tim Burchett, and Eric Burlison to Pam Bondi, demanding what seems to be the impossible.

It’s not clear if they’re going to impeach her when she doesn’t comply, but it’d be smart for some Democrat to maybe introduce articles specifically on this matter just to throw gas on the fire.

The last words of Glenn Edward Rogers, aka “the Casanova Killer,” before he was put to death via lethal injection in a Florida prison Thursday were “President Trump, keep making America great. I’m ready to go,” USA Today reports on the bizarre final invocation of the psychopath who murdered five women in five different states but claimed upwards of 70. He also claimed to have killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman but, you know, that kind of throws the other claims into doubt.

“What the hell?” said execution witness Amy Roberson of her reaction to Rogers’ final words just before watching the murderer of her husband Randy Roberson’s mother. “I was like, ‘Where did that even come from?'” agreed Randy, whose mom, Andy Lou Jiles Sutton was found stabbed to death in Louisiana in November 1995, apparently Rogers’ final victim before he was arrested days later.

So yeah, it would seem the “ironic” joke – if that was even the point – kind of fell flat with the crowd.

We are aware of the recent tweet by former FBI Director James Comey, directed at President Trump. We are in communication with the Secret Service and Director Curran. Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support.

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) May 15, 2025

“On May 9, 2025, deputies with Constable Mark Herman’s Office responded to the Dollar Tree located in the 100 block of East Louetta Road in reference to a road rage incident.”

“Upon arriving, the suspect involved was detained and identified as Arturo Villarreal. It was discovered that he had his one and 17 year old granddaughters in the vehicle with him. Further investigation revealed the complainant threw a burrito at the suspect’s vehicle after they exchanged words and followed the suspect through the parking lot. The suspect then turned his vehicle around and intentionally rammed his vehicle into the complainant’s vehicle, causing major damages. Arturo Villarreal was arrested and booked into the Harris County Jail, charged with Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon. His bond was set at $7,500.00 out of the 179th District Court” – says a Facebook post from Harris County, Texas District 4 Constable Mark Herman’s office.

An anonymous House Republican left this afternoon’s big super-important caucus meeting ahead of Friday’s big super-important Budget Committee vote on the “Big Beautiful Bill” and texted Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman to tell him simply “We’re cooked. Speaker let this get out of control.”

Which kind of tracks with a Politico story that says Johnson can only afford to lose two Republican votes on the committee. Three assclowns – Ralph Norman, Josh Breechen, and Chip “Colonel Sanders” Roy – are already saying no, but as of this printing the committee vote is still on.

Once again, again: If anyone can fuck something like this up it would be House Republicans BUT still operate under the assumption they will get something done, even as impossible and messy as it seems and as incompetent and fractured as they are. There’s still Trump there to threaten to support MAGA primary challenges against them and find other ways to make their lives miserable.

Maybe the question is whether there are too many of them who won’t play along for the fat bastard to crush. He’s kind of busy accepting bribes, pretending to lead the nation, and posting stupid shit online so he might just stop caring and give up if he thinks it’s too much work to whip all of them.

We are moving Jesus out of the basement at the Merchant Marine Academy!

To all the midshipmen: this painting is going back where it belongs. pic.twitter.com/bJ9c0FUr4e

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) May 15, 2025

Heels-wearing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed a bill increasing tooth decay in a state where it’s already doing pretty well, banning “certain minerals” from being added to public drinking water – meaning fluoride – on the advice of his quack surgeon general, NBC News reports

“You’ve had this debate, and really Florida’s led on this, too, partially because our Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, has really led the charge by going to counties and saying forcing fluoride into your water is actually not good,” DeSantis told reporters. “Yes, use fluoride for your teeth, that’s fine. But forcing it in the water supply is basically forced medication on people. They don’t have a choice.”

DeSantis also signed that batshit stupid anti-chemtrails/weather control bill into law.

UnitedHeath Group hasn’t bought enough $TRUMP shitcoin, or maybe not any at all, is the only reasonable conclusion one can draw from a Wall Street Journal article about how the company is under federal criminal investigation for some sort of “Medicare Advantage” scam.

Or they haven’t offered the fat bastard a luxury 747 jumbo jet. That’s a reasonable conclusion too.

MAGA Congressman Andy Barr was not having any of your libtarded “reality” shit on Thursday, telling CNN’s John Berman that magically Walmart will lower prices “in the long run” because something something convicted felon President Trump is a master negotiator and dealmaker.

Former Acting DC US Attorney-turned-some-made-up-Justice Department-job-that-Trump-gave-him-after-replacing-him-with-Judge-Box-O-Wine Ed Martin told staffers in a goodbye email sent Thursday that he’s under investigation by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel for something but didn’t say what it was, the Washington Post reports. Hopefully the son of a bitch gets disbarred.

Writing yet another one of his ridiculous document demand letters, spandex-wearing grapple-freak Jim Jordan this time harasses Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla with some shit about them withholding news that their COVID vax tests were successful claiming that British pharma company GSK wrote the following: “November 2024, shortly after the election, [former Pfizer exec Dr Phil] Dormitzer approached a representative from the GSK human resources team to speak about a potential relocation abroad. As the HR representative recalls, in their meeting, Dr Dormitzer was visibly upset; he requested that he be relocated to Canada due to concerns that he could be investigated by the incoming Trump Administration over his role in developing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. According to the human resources representative, when asked what prompted his request, Dr Dormitzer made a comment to the effect of: ‘Let’s just say it wasn’t a coincidence, the timing of the vaccine.'”

Jim continues with “GSK further informed the Committee that Dr Dormitzer had told GSK employees that ‘in late 2020, the three most senior people in Pfizer R&D were involved in a decision to deliberately slow down clinical testing so that it would not be complete prior to the results of the presidential election that year.’6 GSK alleged that ‘Dr Dormitzer was clear that this was not a situation of delaying disclosure of completed results but was a situation of slowing down results before disclosure became necessary.’ This new information appears to suggest that Dr Dormitzer and other senior Pfizer executives conspired to withhold public health information to influence the 2020 presidential election,” before demanding a shit ton of documents and emails, etc.

Nice how he’s having it both ways, that the Biden Administration was violating the First Amendment by “cracking down on vaccine misinformation” but Pfizer supposedly waiting a few extra days in November 2020 to announce that the trials were successful was election interference.

Linking to a story by Providence, Rhode Island NBC affiliate WJAR headlined “Human remains found in Westerly,” Fox News added some of their signature creamy, sugary, cholesterol-laden industrial-lard byproduct frosting to the recipe called for in the original article Thursday, titling it “Human remains found near Taylor Swift’s beachside Rhode Island mansion amid serial killer fears.”

“Taylor Swift? SERIAL KILLER? Oh fuck yeah, I’m reading this!” Google’s algorithm may or may not have said as soon as it crawled the headline. “Pffft, fuck that boring-ass WJAR article. LMAO the cops said ‘No foul play is suspected’ in the original article and then Fox News leaves that out, lol.”

“OMG there’s definitely some amateur ‘sleuth’ podcaster out there with like 35 listeners who just added a little pin to their map of New England as they ‘piece together all the clues’ in their hunt for the serial killer just because they saw this Fox News headline,” the algorithm added, probably.