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Several entertainers abruptly backed out of President Donald Trump-linked Freedom 250 concerts this week after learning more details about the patriotic celebration planned for the National Mall.

As American Greatness reports, the cancellations add to the long-running tensions between Americans and the politically progressive entertainment industry.

Young MC, Morris Day, the Commodores, Bret Michaels, and country singer Martina McBride were among the performers who announced they would no longer appear at “The Great American State Fair,” a series of concerts and events scheduled for June 25 through July 10 in Washington, D.C.

The event is being organized by Freedom 250, a group launched by Trump late last year that describes itself as a “national, non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation’s 250th birthday.”

Trump selected former State Department official Keith Krach to serve as the organization’s CEO.

The cancellations came just one day after organizers unveiled the first wave of performers.

McBride said on social media that she initially agreed to participate because she believed the event would remain politically neutral.

“Yesterday things started changing and what we were told is, in fact, not what is happening,” she wrote Thursday.

Young MC similarly suggested he was uncomfortable with the event’s political ties.

“The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” he wrote on Instagram, adding that he hoped to “perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.”

Morris Day also confirmed his departure in a brief Instagram statement.

“Contrary to rumor, Morris Day & The Time will not be performing at the ‘GREAT AMERICAN STATE FAIR,’” he posted.

C& C Music Factory issued a confusing statement, distancing themselves from the event:

“As the Creator of C&C MUSIC FACTORY, I can state that we stand for love of all people and races globally and neutrality in all beliefs, in freedom and justice for all humanity”

The greatest lip-syncers ever – Milli Vanilli – are also out:

“The original/real vocalists of Milli Vanilli, Jodie Rocco, Linda Rocco. Brad Howell, John Davis, and Charles Shaw will NOT be performing their hits live at The Great American State Fair. Others using the name ‘Milli Vanilli’ that appear on the advertisement should be considered a tribute band with no association vocally or musically to our sound or songs.”

At least one “I Love the 90s” act will be there: Vanilla Ice.

“He is proud to help celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary!” a representative for the “Ice Ice Baby” rapper wrote in an email to the AP.

“Everyone is welcome to attend and celebrate USA’s Birthday and our Freedom!”

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

A federal district judge on May 29 ordered that President Donald Trump’s name be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and blocked officials from shuttering the venue for two years for renovations.

Obama-nominated, Washington-based Judge Christopher R. Cooper issued an order temporarily halting the closure and preventing the name change.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” the judge said.

The new ruling came in response to litigation initiated in December 2025 by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) who sued Trump and the Kennedy Center board of trustees over its renaming as the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Beatty is an ex officio member of the center’s board of trustees.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) (C) and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) (C) arrive for an event on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 3, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“Representative Beatty is entitled to summary judgment on the renaming issue,” Cooper wrote Friday.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President [John] Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” the judge wrote.

Cooper also ordered that Beatty have her voting rights restored as an ex officio trustee.

“The Center’s organic statute makes no distinction between the powers of general and ex officio trustees,” Cooper wrote.

“Nothing in the statute permits the Board to discriminate categorically between the two as to fundamental trustee rights,” the judge wrote.

“And stripping ex officio trustees of their voting rights runs afoul of common-law trust principles incorporated into the statute, principles which presumptively place trustees on equal footing when it comes to participating in the trust’s administration.”

Days before, the Kennedy Center board had unanimously voted to rename the institution the Trump-Kennedy Center.

That same day, new lettering was installed on the outside of the building along with digital rebranding.

With Japanese bond yields recently hitting record highs and bond market volatility soaring, overnight Reuters floated a trial balloon that Japan’s central bank may pause the unwinding of its massive debt holdings next fiscal ​year, which would give Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi some relief amid growing investor concerns about her growing spending plans.

A pause would mark a turning point in the Bank ‌of Japan’s quantitative tightening plan – started in 2024 as part of Governor Kazuo Ueda’s efforts to unwind a decade-long, massive stimulus which everyone said would result in failure. Well, there it is. The next step, of course, is more QE.

According to Reuters, which is well known for being the mouthpiece of BOJ insiders, at its June 15-16 meeting, the Japanese central bank will review its bond taper plan running through March next year and lay out a new plan for fiscal 2027. With no change expected to the existing taper plan, markets are focusing on whether the BOJ would keep reducing its monthly bond purchases in fiscal 2027 or maintain the current pace.

While ​there is no consensus yet within the BOJ on the final decision, a pause in taper is increasingly seen as the preferred option with uncertainty over the Iran war keeping ​bond markets jittery, said two sources familiar with the deliberations.

“Markets remain volatile, so there’s no need to rush,” one of them said on the BOJ’s ⁠taper, adding that many market players appeared to favor maintaining the current pace of buying. Ironically, the market volatility is precisely the reason to rush. 

Political considerations may also push the BOJ to pause as rising bond yields threaten to confine Takaichi’s spending plans. “What the ​administration wants to avoid most is rises in bond yields,” said one of the sources. Of course, if the intention is to avoid bond yields from surging, it’s far too late.

Japan’s 20Y bond yield rises as high as 3.511%, highest since 1996 as global interest rates go vertical pic.twitter.com/Rc1gKjfGyo

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 13, 2026

Confirming the end of the QT is effectively a done deal, some investors are now calling on the BOJ to pause its bond taper plan, a central bank survey ​earlier this month showed, highlighting the challenge it faces in reducing its massive Japanese government bonds (JGB) holdings. 

Even before the Reuters report, there had already been some indications the BOJ might consider slowing its taper plan amid market uncertainty. A clearer signal on the BOJ’s taper plan will come next week, when the central bank releases minutes of its meeting with bond market participants held on May 21-22.

“We’ve seen a pretty fast rise in bond yields, which makes it hard for investors to buy ​bonds. The finance ministry may be getting worried too,” said former BOJ official Nobuyasu Atago. “Given the political headwinds, I see no reason for the BOJ to keep tapering next fiscal year,” he said.

Concerns ​over Japan’s worsening finances and rising inflation pushed up the 10-year JGB yield to a 30-year high of 2.8% last week, nearing the 3% estimate the finance ministry set in compiling its fiscal 2026 budget. A rise ‌above 3% ⁠would boost debt servicing costs and reduce scope for other spending.

The BOJ’s rate-hike decision may also affect its taper plan with an increase in short-term rates to 1% from 0.75% seen as a strong possibility at the June meeting. While the central bank has said its taper program has no monetary policy implications, the case for slowing QT becomes stronger if it pushes through a hike, something it has been woefully unable to do so far despite a collapsing yen. 

“With the bond market so unstable, it would be natural for the BOJ to play it safe and avoid causing undue market turbulence,” said Mari Iwashita, executive rates strategist at Nomura Securities, who projects a taper pause ​in fiscal 2027.

“A combination of a taper pause ​and rate hike would be a good ⁠one,” as the former will ease upward pressure on yields, while the latter would alleviate concern the BOJ is behind the curve in addressing inflationary risks, she said.

It’s not just Japan: rising debt and volatile yields have heightened challenges for central banks unwinding their balance sheets that ballooned from years of heavy asset ​purchases to reflate their economies. In the US, analysts doubt whether new Fed chief Kevin Warsh can push through his calls for a smaller balance ​sheet as U.S. Treasuries lose ⁠their luster.

The BOJ has also been cautious in its QT program which started in 2024, and under which the central bank gradually reduced purchases and currently trims monthly buying by 200 billion yen each quarter. 

Political hurdles for the BOJ’s QT have heightened under Takaichi, who has vowed to cut tax and boost spending by issuing even more debt in the world’s most indebted economy. 

Taper or not, a reduction in the BOJ’s holdings, currently at around 500 trillion yen, will proceed steadily due ⁠to the runoff ​of maturing JGBs that already shaved 20% off its balance sheet from a peak in late 2023.

That’s all the more ​reason for the BOJ to maintain the current pace of buying, said former BOJ executive Akira Otani, currently at Goldman Sachs Japan.

“When inflationary risks from the Middle East conflict and the government’s proactive fiscal policy are putting upward pressure ​on bond yields, proceeding with further tapering could cause political friction by pushing up yields,” he said.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

In the annals of Deep State WTF-ery, is there a stranger case than CIA officer David Rush turning up with $40-million in 303 one-kilogram gold bars, plus $2-million in cash, plus a stash of 30 mostly Rolex watches?

Well, yeah, the stranger story is how the guy got hired by the CIA in the first place.

Rush was arrested on Monday, May 18, by an FBI SWAT team at his home in Loudoun County, VA. Agents searched the house all day long and found the stash. Rush is currently charged with theft of public money and allegedly falsifying his military and academic credentials to obtain federal employment benefits, including roughly $77,000 in improper military leave pay. He’s scheduled to make a federal court appearance in Alexandria today.

Rush first applied for a job at the CIA in March 2006. He claimed to have a bachelor’s degree in math from Clemson University and a master’s from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He was rejected. He reapplied later that same year. Bumped again. He reapplied again in 2009, adding a new credential: that he’d been a US Navy test pilot and flight trainer. This time, he was hired.

Rush’s college credentials were found to be false, but it is unclear when that was discovered. Since he included them in his two earlier 2006 failed applications, why were they not flagged in his successful 2009 application? His claim of being a US Navy pilot was also found to be false (he was an information systems tech in his Navy service). The FBI affidavit unsealed recently details the pattern of lies across all applications.

Understand that CIA vetting procedures are supposed to be exceedingly rigorous. The process is stressful and invasive — many candidates drop out or are weeded out. The background check involves interviews with practically everybody who knows the applicant going back decades, his criminal history, work, financial history, education, military service. The applicant gets a polygraph exam. Even after getting hired, monitoring continues.

Rush was hired at the very start of the Obama admin; Leon Panetta was the newly appointed CIA Director. Wouldn’t you like to hear him ‘splain how David Rush managed to get hired? Was somebody smoothing his way in? Rush rose to become a senior executive service (SES) officer with a top-secret (TS/SCI) security clearance. His exact duties, the division he worked for, his day-to-day responsibilities have not been disclosed.

Rush allegedly requested the gold and foreign currency from the CIA for “work-related expenses” between November 2025 and March 2026. The agency later could not account for the assets or locate records explaining their official purpose. A search of a storage locker at CIA connected to Rush turned up only a small amount of the requisitioned cash.

“There is a whole process that we go through to get that money. I don’t just walk into the logistics office and say ‘Excuse me, I need $100,000 tomorrow.’ There is a form I have to fill out. It’s not a bank vault you walk into. It doesn’t work like that.” — Tracy Walder, 46, a former FBI special agent and CIA officer, quoted in The New York Post.

Wouldn’t you assume that some higher-up CIA officer would have to sign off on such a colossal requisition of gold and money? (And where does the CIA get so much gold on-demand?) Perhaps the very Director of the CIA approved it — which would be John Ratcliffe through 2025 up to right now. Doesn’t he have some ‘splainin’ to do? (Was Rush set-up? Was this a sting?)

Assuming Rush spent some period of time as an entry-level CIA employee, when did his rise to SES level happen? John Brennan became CIA Director in early 2013 (the start of Barack Obama’s second term). What were David Rush’s relations with John Brennan? Was Brennan his mentor? Does the gold stash have any connection with the current legal problems of John Brennan and other former high officials involved in the long-running “grand conspiracy” case about the attempted overthrow of a president?

You might imagine that Rush’s phone and computers were seized in the May 18th raid on his house — though it’s unlikely he used such conventional channels for black ops chatter. It’s conceivable, though, that any alt-communications of his were captured by the vast national security surveillance apparatus, and that DNI Tulsi Gabbard might have come across them this past year. How else might Director Ratcliffe have been tipped off?

This story is not going away. The scale of the grift is spectacular and vivid — 303 gold bars! — like a Hollywood movie. Rush’s explanation of “work-related expenses” sounds preposterous. If the requisitions were made serially, over several months, as appears, then the agency had more than one opportunity to review and question them.

Rush faked his entire back-story. How incompetent (or corrupt) are the agency’s past managers that he got away with it for so long? How many other gross fakers, rogues, grifters, and tools are embedded in the agency, and who are they really working for? The institutional embarrassment is monumental. Trust in the so-called Intel Community is at an all-time low.

Indictments and trials are coming.

This is the Deep State on parade like a naked emperor.

Via American Greatness,

The number of American men participating in the workforce has fallen to one of its lowest levels in nearly two decades, according to new federal labor statistics.

Just 66 percent of men age 20 and older were employed or actively seeking work as of April, according to data released earlier this month by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure has dropped sharply from 73 percent in 2006 and now sits near levels last seen during the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis.

The numbers mean roughly one in three American men are no longer in the workforce.

The only modern period with lower participation rates came during the economic devastation caused by the 2020 pandemic, when male workforce participation collapsed to 59 percent.

While employment rates gradually recovered during the years following the Great Recession, those gains were wiped out during the pandemic downturn. Participation rebounded somewhat within two years before beginning another steady decline that has continued into 2026.

The downward trend appears ongoing. Male workforce participation fell another full percentage point in April compared with the same period in 2025, according to Labor Department data.

Several economic shifts are contributing to the decline.

Industries that have traditionally employed large numbers of men including transportation, manufacturing and other labor-intensive sectors, have shed jobs over the past year, according to the Washington Post.

At the same time, growing numbers of retirees and male students have reduced the share of men participating in the labor market.

The labor picture for women has followed a different trajectory.

Female workforce participation also declined during the past two decades, though the swings have been less dramatic. Women saw only a 2-point decline during the 2008 recession, compared with a 5-point drop for men.

Women’s labor force participation has also remained more stable since the pandemic recovery, never falling below 56 percent since 2022.

The economy increasingly appears to favor sectors dominated by female workers. Healthcare and education jobs have grown over the past year, helping women capture nearly all recent job gains.

Of the 369,000 jobs added to the US economy since 2025, 96 perent went to women while just 4 percent went to men, according to the Washington Post.

Despite the shrinking share of men participating in the labor force, male unemployment has remained relatively low, hovering between 3 percent and 4 percent since 2021.