Posts on Wednesday, May 6, 2026

The man accused of sparking the deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles was upset that he didn’t have plans for New Year’s Eve and ranted about being angry at the world before the initial blaze was sparked, according to court documents filed by prosecutors.(snip) According to court filings, Rinderknecht ranted to passengers about accused UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione, capitalism and vigilantism. In an interview with investigators on Jan. 24, when asked why someone might commit arson in the Palisades, Rinderknecht “responded that it would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as ‘we’re basically being enslaved by them,’” and again referenced Mangione’s alleged crime, the documents

WASHINGTON — The United States and Iran appeared to be moving closer Wednesday to an initial agreement to end the war, as U.S. President Trump sought to pressure Tehran with threats of a new wave of bombing if a deal is not reached. Trump posted on social media that the two-month war could soon end and that oil and natural gas shipments disrupted by the conflict could restart. But he said that depends on Iran accepting a reported agreement that the president did not detail.

Global oil prices fell sharply and financial markets rallied Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump paused a military operation to reopen the Hormuz Strait to commercial shipping to give advanced peace talks with Iran a chance to deliver "a complete and final deal." Falls in Brent crude of more than $10 a barrel to $99, American crude by $13 to $92 a barrel and rallies in Asian stock markets overnight that fed into Europe when bourses opened there failed to feed through to U.S. gas prices, which jumped 5 cents a gallon to their highest level of the war.

Average gas prices in the United States have gone up by almost 40 percent since March 1. The reason appears straightforward: Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S. military operation that decapitated its regime and degraded its military. Hundreds of tankers trapped behind the strait cannot deliver their oil, depriving the world of 7 percent to 10 percent of its supply. Although that explains drastic price increases and even shortages in Europe and Asia, the United States gets almost no oil through the strait. In theory, the country should be energy-independent, as it is a net petroleum exporter. But in reality, the United States is highly intertwined

Ted Turner, the media visionary who forever altered the news business by founding CNN and helped introduce Americans to pay TV by creating cable channels like TNT, Turner Classic Movies and Cartoon Network, has died. He was 87. Turner, who later turned his attention to saving the planet and pushing progressive political causes, died Wednesday, according to a statement from the family released by Turner Enterprises. Turner died peacefully surrounded by his family. He battled Lewy body dementia in recent years.

Nowadays, U.S. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) isn’t much liked outside his district. He’s butted heads with President Trump, incurring the president’s wrath. Trump is trying to unseat him in the midterms. MAGA grassroots are with Trump, unsurprisingly. Fair enough, but setting aside personalities and squabbles, Massie deserves praise. [snip]. He wanted to defund a Biden-era mandate requiring installation of AI-guided “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” in new cars and trucks, likely starting with 2027 models. Meaning, installing kill switches in vehicles so when the technology detects driver impairment -- or is so convinced -- it shuts off the vehicle’s engine.

With no relief from high energy costs, ongoing concerns over the simmering U.S.-Iran conflict and a widening political schism among voters, President Donald Trump’s favorability continued to slump in early May, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows. As the U.S. nears the midpoint of 2026, can Trump turn around voters’ negative opinions in time to help his party win the 2026 midterm election? Each month, the I&I/TIPP Poll asks a series of questions about the president’s leadership performance, starting with: “Overall, is your opinion of Donald Trump generally favorable, generally unfavorable, or are you not familiar enough to say one way or the other?”

A Virginia prosecutor determined Tuesday not to bring criminal charges against a resident who has been accused of threatening White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller and his family. The case centers on whether Barbara Wien, a political activist in the state, engaged in a doxing and intimidation scheme against Miller and his wife, Katie Miller, last year, after she posted flyers in northern Virginia that depicted Miller's face and address. She has also been accused of attempting to intimidate Miller's wife at their Virginia home. Arlington and Falls Church Commonwealth Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti said in a 166-page court filing that she reviewed the case

Happy Wednesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. (Snip) The Democrats have quite the mixed bag of various freakshow candidates vying for various offices in 2026. There is, of course, Swastika Tattoo Guy in Maine. Over in the California gubernatorial race, toxic rage queen Katie Porter was hoping to supplant serial sexual predator Eric Swalwell as the top Democrat in the jungle primary. Porter has been fading a bit in the polls now that California voters are getting to know her better. In Texas, faux moderate James Talarico is becoming problematic, which Matt wrote about yesterday. Then there is the Georgia Senate race, which,

There is something going on at the Obama household, and it looks like Trump Derangement Syndrome to me. It appears that Mr. & Mrs. Obama have the same problem that so many Democrats have, i.e. too much thinking about Trump. There is a story at The Guardian that I had to share with you today. Here it goes: Barack Obama has offered a rare and candid glimpse into his marriage - and it turns out Donald Trump is causing trouble at home. The former President, 64, admitted in an interview that Michelle wants him to step back from public life so the couple can enjoy their later years together.

It's nice when something you knew was a fraud all along turns out to be a fraud, but it's even nicer when the people perpetrating the fraud admit it was a fraud all along. "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published the next generation of climate scenarios," science policy analyst Roger Pielke Jr wrote late last week, and in what he called "big news," the new framework "eliminated the most extreme scenarios that have dominated climate research over much of the past several decades." So the oceans aren't about to boil off or freeze over or whatever the current scare story is? Exactly: "The IPCC and broader research community

Text messages released by the Senate Judiciary Committee show two former federal prosecutors discussing desires to prosecute nuns during investigations of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Joseph Cooney and Molly Gaston, career prosecutors at the Justice Department rather than political appointees, played a role in prosecuting President Donald Trump during former President Joe Biden’s administration. Both were fired shortly after Trump became president a second time and are legal partners at Gaston & Cooney PLLC. Cooney is running for Congress in Virginia.

When my kids were very young, one of the first words that we banned was “stupid.” No one is stupid, I would tell them; some people just don’t think things through. Well, to borrow from that explanation, I probably didn’t think that all the way through. While I don’t regret teaching the kids not to use “the S word,” as we used to call it, the older I’ve gotten, I’ve had to face the reality that, yes, some people who otherwise are of sound mind are just stupid. Nowhere is this more evident than on social media. The latest example is a social media manager, of all things,

President Trump and his allies vowed to oust the Indiana Republicans who opposed the president’s proposed redistricting efforts last year — and on Tuesday evening, they largely made good on that promise. Indiana voters headed to the polls on Tuesday for the state’s primary elections, with Trump-backed challengers handily defeating at least five of the seven state senators who opposed the president’s effort to eliminate Democratic congressional representation in the Hoosier State late last year as part of a mid-decade redistricting tit-for-tat between the parties.

Over the weekend, we saw Secretary of State Marco Rubio getting down in the DJ booth at a family wedding in Florida. At some point in the next 24 hours, he's going to hop on a plane to go have a nice little diplomatic chat with the pope and top Italian government officials. On Tuesday afternoon, he took a few moments out of his busy schedule to stop by the White House to fill in for Karolina Leavitt, who is currently on maternity leave. The result? A masterclass in foreign policy. As I write this, "Rubio 2028" is trending on X.