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StarmerWatch – The Wednesday AM Quickie 5/13/26

By Whitney Curry Wimbish —

Rest your eyes with the gentle sway of underwater life off the Channel Islands. Bye for now, Corey is back tomorrow. -Whitney

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THE BIG NEWS

StarmerWatch

Get out your Tesco lettuce, we’re on StarmerWatch. The calls for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to get tae are getting louder after last week’s “disastrous local and devolved election results – the worst on record for the Labour Party,” as the Independent put it. As of Tuesday night, Starmer was still insisting he would not resign. He promised to “face up to the big challenges,” the AP reported, including somehow making nice with the European Union after the UK’s self-harming decision to leave it six years ago. 

“I know I have my doubters and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will,” Starmer said in a speech that did nothing but prompt Labour lawmakers to complain about him on social media and say he should resign “either now or soon.” By Tuesday afternoon, four Labour MPs had quit, according to the Guardian, and nearly 90 Labour MPs signed a letter saying he should resign. Another group of 103 Labour MPs signed a counter-letter, saying now is “no time for a leadership contest.” 

As the post-Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party continues to dither with its careerist, pedo-laundering, technocratic, stuffed-shirt of a leader, far-right anti-immigrant and antisemitic bigot Nigel Farage, who orchestrated the UK’s departure from the EU, gained nearly 1,450 council seats for his Reform UK party and took control of 14 councils. Farage, a Trump ally, wants to do to his country what MAGA is doing to the United States: plunder the nation for profit. Specifically, he wants to conduct a massive wealth transfer to the tippy top, halt all immigration, and replace the National Health System with an American-style pro-death for-profit healthcare industry. In other words, he wants to rid the country of the excess population and immiserate everyone who is left for his own gain and Starmer is helping him do it. 

Nebraska Democratic Senate Primary Winner Pledges to Drop Out So Independent Candidate Can Flip Seat in November  

Democrat Cindy Burbank won last night’s primary against Republican plant William Forbes, a pastor who registered as a Democrat but has repeatedly voted for Trump and wants to force women to give birth, the Guardian and the Washington Post reported. Now that she’s neutralized Forbes, Burbank says she’ll drop out so that Independent Dan Osborn can win in November. Democrats see Osborn as the best chance of taking the seat away from incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts; Osborn is a labor leader whom the state Democratic Party endorsed. Burbank has said from the beginning that she ran specifically so that she could win and then drop out to clear the field for Osborn. Good job Burbank, Good job Nebraska voters, let’s go blue wave, and solidarity forever. LET’S GO.

WHO: More Hantavirus Infections Ahead as Another Cruise Ship Passenger Tests Positive After Evacuation

A Spanish passenger aboard the MV Hondius tested positive for Hantavirus following Sunday’s evacuation, prompting the World Health Organization to warn that more infections are likely ahead, according to the Guardian and AP. The new confirmed case brings the total to 11, including three who have died; WHO general director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there is “no sign” of a larger outbreak, “but of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks.” The new person suffering from the virus is in quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid and joins a growing number of people impacted by the cruise ship outbreak. In the Netherlands, 12 staff members at a hospital where another hantavirus patient is receiving treatment are in quarantine “after incorrectly handling bodily fluids.” As AMQ relayed earlier this week, a French woman on the ship is in intensive care after testing positive for the virus. The French government held emergency meetings yesterday to discuss the situation. 

Hantavirus is a virus humans can catch when they come into contact with infected rodents. The rare strain that infected people aboard the MV Hondius spreads between people. There is no vaccine or cure.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Inflation Is Highest in Three Years at 3.8 Percent Everything is much more expensive than it was in 2023 thanks to Trump’s war on Iran; inflation is now considerably higher than average salary increases, which means people have less money to cope with his ongoing affordability crisis. Please watch Sam’s explainer about inflation and see below for more governmental financial malfeasance. via NBC News and the Washington Post. 
  • $29 Billion in Taxes Down the Drain for Trump’s War on Iran That’s $4 billion more than two weeks ago; drunken Secretary of Defense Peter Brian Hegseth wants $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon, which he yelped about on Capitol Hill yesterday. via the Guardian and the NYT. 
  • Senate Confirms Trump Ally to 14-Year Term as Federal Reserve Governor Senators will now move ahead to confirm M&A financial executive Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair today; all Democrats voted against him in the first round, except for John Fetterman, who again crossed the aisle to side with Republicans. via the FT and the Guardian.  
  • Tech Oligarchs Propose Defiling Space With Orbiting Data Centers Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and their fellow bad men say they are working on putting their AI machines off-world to avoid “headaches they are facing on Earth” and harness the strength of enormous solar arrays. No. via the WSJ.

SOME NUMBER

45,000

That’s how many votes Louisiana’s Republican governor Jeff Landry says he will discard after they were cast in the state’s primary election following the Supreme Court’s decision on gerrymandering. He says it’s no biggie because the same voters will get to vote in the general election in November. “Well, it’s not a big deal,” Landry said. “It’s not my fault. If anyone has a grievance, take it to the United States Supreme Court.”

ON THE SHOW TODAY

5/13: Sam and Emma are expected in the studio today and their guests are Brad Lander, candidate for New York’s 10th Congressional District; and Isaac Saul, politics reporter and founder of Tangle.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

Bill Maher's Pathetic Trump Worship Backfires

The scene is very Black Lodge.

Is Tom Steyer’s Radical Pivot For Real?

There is no reason to trust the ultra-wealthy. So just speaking for myself, me personally, he has to prove it before I believe it. Go ahead man. Prove it.

PARTING WORDS

“Alone.”

– Ahmad Turmus, a 62-year-old man in Beirut, responding to an Israeli military officer who called his phone and asked, “Ahmad, do you want to die with those around you or alone?” Turmus, who was a liaison between Hezbollah and residents of the small village Talloosah, told his family there was nothing he could do because the Israeli military knew his face and could track his every move with artificial intelligence. So he hung up, left the house, got in his car and started driving, family members told the LA Times. “Less than 30 seconds later came the shriek of the two missiles that lanced through Turmus’ car.”

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