Chavez-DeRemer out as US Labor secretary

Source: CNN

“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will step down from the Trump administration to take a job in the private sector, according to a statement posted Monday by White House communications director Steven Cheung. … Chavez-DeRemer’s brief tenure has been one marked by turmoil as she’s come under internal investigation following complaints within the department about her conduct. The New York Times previously reported that her husband had been banned from the department’s headquarters amid sexual assault allegations. A criminal investigation into that matter has been closed. In March, two of her top aides were forced out amid an investigation into misconduct at the agency, the Times reported.” (04/20/26)

https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/20/politics/lori-chavez-deremer-labor-secretary-out-trump

The Hyperreality of the State

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Philippe Lemieux

“Modern economic policies increasingly give an impression of unreality. Governments announce reassuring indicators while individuals experience something entirely different: persistent inflation, housing shortages, stagnating purchasing power. This gap is not merely an analytical error. It reveals a deeper problem: the state no longer reacts to economic reality as it is lived, but to a reconstructed version built from models, indicators, and abstract categories. The market, by contrast, does not rely on representation. It emerges directly from human action.” 904/20/26)

https://mises.org/power-market/hyperreality-state

Nothing About This Dystopia Feels Natural

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“We all sense it deep in our marrow. We all know something has gone terribly wrong. If you lived in an alternate reality without wars or poverty, where everyone had enough and governments did what’s in the interests of the people and the ecosystem, it would never occur to you that there was anything odd about it. It would feel completely normal. Things would be more or less how you’d expect them to be. You can’t say the same about the present status quo. The whole thing instinctively scans as weird and counterintuitive. The more you learn about the way the world works, the more insane it all looks to you. Have you ever had to explain war to a young child? It’s terrible. If you’re actually honest with them about what war is and why it is waged, it completely shatters their understanding of the world.” (04/20/26)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/04/20/nothing-about-this-dystopia-feels-natural/

Peru: Regime Reviews Disputed Election Ballots With Final Result Likely Stalled Until May

Source: US News & World Report

“Peru’s ⁠electoral ⁠authorities began reviewing thousands of contested ⁠ballots on Monday, stalling the count in the April 12 general election ​and delaying final results, as no clear presidential rival has emerged to face conservative frontrunner Keiko Fujimori in a ‌June runoff. Roughly 6% of polling stations — ‌representing more than one million votes — were challenged last week due to missing information or errors on ⁠tally sheets, ⁠according to Peru’s National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE). Peru’s top electoral body, the ​National Jury of Elections (JNE), said it has started reviewing disputed polling stations in public hearings before adding them to the final tally, a process that could take weeks.” (04/20/26)

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-04-20/peru-reviews-disputed-election-ballots-with-final-result-likely-stalled-until-may

The Axis of Terror: The Destructive Price of America’s Blind Allegiance to Israel

Source: CounterPunch
by M Reza Behnam

“The unprovoked joint U.S.-Israeli war launched against Iran on 28 February 2026 will manifestly change West Asia. When it ends, Arab despots, who allowed their countries to be used as platforms for aggression against Iran, will confront a new reality. The safety and stability they thought was theirs based on fealty to the United States and its Israeli proxy was shattered as Iranian missiles and drones were en route to destroy the U.S. military and intelligence installations they had allowed on their soil; a subordination they falsely believed would protect them. The Arab world is learning the hard way what the late-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in his cold logic, implied decades ago about American foreign policy: ‘The word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.'” (04/20/26)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/20/the-axis-of-terror-the-destructive-price-of-americas-blind-allegiance-to-israel/

Perhaps only an autocracy can have a directed economy?

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall

“[Ha Joon] Chang positively revels in the power that the military dictatorship in South Korea had over who could produce what, how. It’s positively lipsmacking, that relish with which the stories of commands to produce this or that are described. As we point out, you cannot do that sort of thing in a free society. You can’t even do that sort of thing in a liberal society — because freedom and liberty do indeed mean not being commanded to produce this or that and in what manner.” (04/20/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/perhaps-only-an-autocracy-can-have-a-directed-economy

I Want You to March With Me This May Day

Source: Our Future
by Sulma Arias

“This May Day, I’ll be one of the millions who will peacefully take to the streets to denounce the cruelty and corruption of this administration and the oligarchs it serves. I will march because I believe our lives are worth more than dollars and cents. Every one of us deserves the right to live in dignity with hope for the future. I invite you to join me. May Day began in the 19th century, when industrial workers came together to demand something we now take for granted: an eight-hour workday. At that time, even children worked twelve or more hours straight in factories, every day. We too easily forget how far we have come, and that victories like these were won by organized people.” (04/19/26)

https://ourfuture.org/20260419/i-want-you-to-march-with-me-this-may-day

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket grounded after delivering satellite to wrong orbit

Source: The Verge

“The Federal Aviation Administration grounded Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket after it shuttled its payload to the wrong orbit during its launch on Sunday, according to a report from the Orlando Sentinel. ‘The FAA is aware that Blue Origin New Glenn 3 experienced a mishap during the second-stage flight sequence following a successful launch,’ the FAA said in a statement obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. … Though the rocket’s reusable booster returned to its landing pad without issue, the rocket’s upper stage failed to deliver AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite. … Blue Origin confirmed that its second stage shut off its engines and was in a ‘coast phase’ after reaching an ‘off-nominal’ orbit, but it didn’t provide any other details about what went wrong or when it will return to Earth.” (04/20/26)

https://archive.is/dZt8p