IT’S FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2026
First, the good news: If you forgot about Mother’s Day, it’s not too late to redeem yourself. Or maybe you didn’t forget about Mother’s Day, but you’re not panicking because your wife said she “didn’t want anything” this year. You moron, you incompetent fool. That is not what she meant. She was lying. Start panicking. What makes me so sure, may you ask? No, you may not.
Now, the bad news: Three cruise ship passengers have died after an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare and potentially deadly disease that doesn’t typically spread between humans—except for the Andes strain found in Argentina, where the cruise ship departed last month en route to the Canary Islands. Eight total cases have been identified thus far, as authorities scramble to track down passengers who have disembarked and returned home to Europe and the United States.
The “leading hypothesis,” according to the Associated Press, is that two of the victims, a Dutch couple, may have encountered infected rodent droppings while birdwatching in a landfill, the sick bastards. On the one hand, there’s probably nothing to worry about. On the other hand, the experts at the World Health Organization are monitoring the situation and have insisted there is nothing to worry about.
Time to panic?
BARACK TO REALITY (OPE, THERE’S MY LIBRARY)
Barack Obama is back in the spotlight promoting the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which will finally open to the public next month. He sat down with Stephen Colbert, the former comedian, and spoke with the New Yorker about his vision for the Center and his role in helping the Democratic Party navigate the Trump era.
In case you haven’t seen it already, the Obama Center is an aesthetic abomination. Part alien spacecraft, part brutalist mausoleum, part Bond villain lair, the structure itself is so ugly it could only have been designed by a racist architect.
But that’s not what happened.
The actual architects, according to the New Yorker, did not envision a “hulking gray tower” when they started pitching the project. It was Obama who repeatedly “pushed them to go bigger,” complained that they weren’t being “bold enough,” and demanded they study the works of modernist sculptor Constantin Brâncuși.
The works of Constantin Brâncuși:
Everything about the Obama Center is remarkably on brand. The exorbitant price tag: $850 million. The plodding pace: More than a decade from start to finish, thanks in no small part to stringent DEI quotas and the numerous delays tied to environmental reviews and discrimination lawsuits. The location: A poor neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago where Obama cut his teeth as a community organizer, where local activists have repeatedly complained that residents will soon be priced out due to inevitable gentrification.
The Obama Center gift shop is already open, offering a selection of items that faithfully capture the Obama vibe. Hats and trinkets adorned with single-word slogans such as “hope,” “empathy,” and “courage.” Kits for children to build their own wind turbines. A $400 pearl necklace from an AAPI- and woman-owned jewelry brand inspired by Michelle Obama’s “whimsical elegance.” A clay lapel pin depicting the center’s towering obelisk designed by an Indian-born architect specializing in “sustainability and social equity.” A $40 dog hoodie so your canine companion can “represent the mission of shared progress.” Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is available for purchase—for nearly double its price on Amazon.
Obama will continue to dabble in politics, though his real passion is partying with celebrities and vacationing with billionaires. He is busy enough trying to finish the second volume of his post-White House memoir. Fittingly, Obama is the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to require multiple volumes. (The first was 768 pages.) He is also managing an extensive real estate portfolio that includes a 6,400-square-foot Georgian-style mansion in Chicago, an 8,200-square-foot mansion in Washington, D.C., a 6,800-square-foot waterfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard, and a three-acre beachfront compound in Hawaii.
So far this year, Obama has publicly endorsed the gerrymandering efforts led by Democratic governors in California and Virginia—a jarring departure for the “skinny kid with a funny name” who launched his career at the 2004 Democratic convention by scolding those who “slice and dice our country into red states and blue states.” He recently praised Zohran Mamdani, the anti-capitalist mayor of New York City, as an “extraordinary talent” who gives him hope for the future of the Democratic Party.
Talk about a kiss of death. Unfortunately for Mamdani, few people have demonstrated worse political instincts over the previous decade than Obama. He shunted Joe Biden aside to anoint Hillary Clinton in 2016, then fell in love with Beto O’Rourke in 2020. He was also a fan of Kamala Harris, though his efforts on the campaign weren’t enough to propel her to victory in 2024. It didn’t help that Obama’s most notable sound bite was scolding black men for being sexist.
Congrats on the vanity complex!
Related: Someone made an Obama musical that is playing in our nation’s capital. Catch my review of 44: The Musical in the next edition of the Weekend Beacon.
THE QUIET PART, OUT LOUD
Last fall, the mainstream media had a field day “fact-checking” Republicans for suggesting Democrats wanted to give free health care to illegal immigrants. NPR, the Associated Press, CNN, the New York Times, and others scolded the GOP for lying. It wasn’t long before prominent Democrats started publicly endorsing free health care for illegal immigrants.
“Trump often lies about Democrats giving healthcare to undocumented immigrants,” Times columnist Ezra Klein wrote in a social media post promoting his interview with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.), in which the 2028 hopeful openly defended his policy of giving free health care to illegal immigrants.
Katie Porter, the rage-prone former congresswoman running to succeed Newsom as governor, enthusiastically embraced this policy during this week’s primary debate. Free health care for illegal immigrants was a good thing, she argued, because it would incentivize more illegal immigrants to come. “They’re one of the only ways that our state has been growing in recent years,” she admitted. Porter isn’t wrong, but it’s shocking to hear a Democrat say that out loud as her party steadily runs out of ideas to fix the messes they’ve caused in deep blue states.
Related: Spencer Pratt, the former reality star running for mayor of Los Angeles as a Republican, made a splash in his own debate against Karen Bass, the incumbent Democrat, and Nithya Raman, a socialist city council member. Pratt is almost certainly going to lose by a huge margin, but he’s getting a lot of attention on social media for speaking like a human being who is genuinely angry about the sorry state of his city. At one point during the debate, Pratt offered to take Raman on a tour of one of LA’s various meth encampments but feared she would get “stabbed in the neck,” which is probably true.
VARIOUS & SUNDRY
Self-immolation: Democrats in California and beyond insisted that the Palisades fire, which killed 12 and destroyed thousands of homes (including Spencer Pratt’s) in January 2025, was caused by “climate change.” In fact, the fire was caused by a left-wing lunatic who hated rich people and was obsessed with Luigi Mangione. In other words, a typical LA voter.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics: More than a dozen police officers in Washington, D.C., were placed on leave this week amidst an internal investigation into the department’s alleged manipulation of crime data. This is the same data that Democrats and journalists passionately cited in August 2025 when Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to D.C. to crack down on crime. It was totally unnecessary, they argued, just look at these statistics.
He fights, but so can you: Almost 40 percent of Republicans said Donald Trump would beat them in a physical fight, compared to just 19 percent of the general population, according to a recent YouGov poll. Have some self-respect, Republicans. The man is almost 80 years old. Aim for the shins!
PALATE CLEANSER
Congratulations to actress Megan Fox, who will celebrate her 40th birthday on May 16. She doesn’t look a day over 37!
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND
Email: stiles@freebeacon.com
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Those sculptures were of big Mike's sitting for the artist and his impression on the Obama's, Spencer Pratt , should win mayor of la because he's the only candidate I can see that actually cares what goes on there. Now to Megan Fox.. looks good but she's batshit crazy and STDs are the gift that keeps on giving.. no thanks 😂
Oh my...those horny sculptures blend right in with obama and whoever he married? His library depicts EVIL.