“‘Tariffs,’ President Donald Trump is fond of reminding us, ‘is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.’ It’s the most beautiful word ‘because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell. It’s going to bring our countries businesses back that left us.’ And that’s how it started. On ‘Liberation Day,’ on April 2, Trump announced a 10% minimum tariff on goods from all countries with some countries being hit with higher ‘reciprocal tariffs.’ ‘For decades,’ he explained, ‘our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.’ But Trump’s use of tariffs and sanctions quickly broadened as a versatile tool for much more than returning business to America. First they became a blunt tool for regime change; then they became the go to tool for everything from foreign policy goals to election interference.” (01/28/26)
“Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that the automaker is ending production of its Model S and X vehicles, and will use the factory in Fremont, California, to build Optimus humanoid robots. ‘It’s time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end with an honorable discharge,’ Musk said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. ‘If you’re interested in buying a Model S and X, now would be the time to order it.’ After the original Roadster, the two models are Tesla’s oldest vehicles, and in recent years the company has slashed prices as global competition for electric vehicles has soared. Tesla started selling the Model S sedan in 2012, and the Model X SUV three years later.” (01/28/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Whitney Curry Wimbish & David Dayen
“Executives who lobbied for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which enabled the immigration terror in their state, now want everyone to believe they are on the people’s side.” (01/28/26)
“Amazon said Wednesday it plans to eliminate about 16,000 corporate jobs, marking its second round of mass job cuts since last October. In a blog post, the company wrote that the layoffs were part of an ongoing effort to ‘strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.’ That coincides with a push to invest heavily in artificial intelligence. The job reductions come just a few months after October’s layoffs, when 14,000 employees were let go across Amazon’s corporate workforce. At the time, the company indicated the cuts would continue in 2026 as it found ‘additional places we can remove layers.'” (01/28/26)
“By many measures, we are living in one of the most divisive moments in our nation’s nearly 250-year history. Disagreement has hardened into mistrust. Americans are trading blame. As we saw in Karl Zinsmeister’s recent op-ed, even the deeply American commitment to charitable giving is increasingly under scrutiny. With mistrust distorting perceptions of philanthropy, a concerning narrative is taking hold. This narrative, visible in Zinsmeister’s piece and elsewhere, holds that the generosity we disagree with is inherently suspect, even illegal. A clear-eyed view of how charitable foundations work helps put the debates about the sector in the proper context.” (01/28/26)
Source: Antiwar.com
by William D Hartung & Tom Engelhardt
“Trump’s rush to war in Latin America is a phenomenon that, until recently, seemed long over. Its revival should raise multiple red flags, given the history of Washington’s failed efforts to install allied governments through regime change. (Can you spell Iraq?) In fact, given this country’s lack of success with such attempts since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it’s a good bet that regime change in Venezuela will not end well for any of the parties concerned, whether the Trump administration, the new leaders of Venezuela, or the people of our two countries.” (01/28/26)
“Trump, through his appointed Secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense, has converted ICE into a militarized agency that operates more like a private police force than a public one. In fact, ICE agents are not trained to act as police because they cannot legally enforce local laws that police are trained to enforce. However, a federal statute (8 U.S.C. § 1357) allows them to arrest anyone who commits a federal offense in their presence or for whom there is probable cause to believe they have committed a federal felony. Neither condition concerns immigration status.” (01/28/26)
“Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the government is pushing ahead with plans to halve the number of jury trials in England and Wales because he had given his word to crime victims that he would tackle delays to justice. The government is facing a rebellion by Labour MPs over the proposals, which are aimed at cutting the huge backlog in cases that built up during the Covid pandemic. Opponents argue that judge-only trials for less serious cases would undermine public trust and have little impact on the backlog.” (01/28/26)
“A federal judge in Oregon dismissed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit against the state for refusing to provide its unredacted voter rolls. U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, an appointee of former President Biden, is set to issue a written opinion in the coming days, according to The Associated Press. ‘The court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these records in the first place,’ Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield (D) told the AP in an emailed statement.” (01/27/26)
