“‘We’ve seen encampments cleared, phones tapped, and permits held up—but this? This feels like they’re preparing for war,’ said Marisol Jennings, a D.C.-based organizer who has coordinated protests since 2017. Just days before thousands of Americans are expected to gather in Washington, D.C. to protest the Trump administration’s policies, a sweeping new executive order threatens to transform the nation’s capital into a showcase for authoritarian policing. Signed on March 27, the order—Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful—appears less concerned with beautification than with containment. Its provisions call for surging federal law enforcement, accelerating immigration crackdowns, and strictly enforcing vague ‘quality-of-life’ directives for the city. And its timing, just a week before what organizers are calling the most consequential day of protest since President Donald Trump’s return to office, is raising alarm from civil rights lawyers, city officials, and veteran demonstrators.” (04/03/25)
“If President Trump wants to secure a national security legacy that will never be other than history changing, the time to do so is fast approaching. The Institute for the Study of War recently published this summary of the moment: ‘Senior Iranian officials are continuing to threaten nuclear weaponization, likely to try to deter a potential US or Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities amid new US threats to strike these facilities. Senior Supreme Leader Adviser Ali Larijani stated on March 31 that a US or Israeli strike on Iran would ‘force’ Iran to develop a nuclear weapon to ‘defend its security.’ Western media reported in January 2025 that Larijani had made secret trips to Russia to gain Russian assistance on Iran’s nuclear program. Hardline Iranian Parliamentarian Ahmad Naderi separately stated on March 31 that the United States ‘wouldn’t dare threaten to bomb’ Iran if Iran ‘had an atomic bomb’.'” (04/03/25)
“I’m aware of the innumeracy of the Trump administration, apparently using a shortcut AI formula to reset global trade imbalances and trying to bullshit their way through the criticism. But I think we give too much credit to Donald Trump and his lieutenants when we suggest that they’re pursuing a misguided trade policy, or that they aren’t pairing tariffs with the necessary steps to boost domestic manufacturing. Those things are true, of course: U.S. trade policy has been deeply inequitable for decades, favoring multinationals over workers and the environment, giving benefits to those corporations in free-trade agreements that they could never get through normal legislative channels, and handing over economic decisions to Wall Street. But these careful explanations, however correct, have nothing to do with what we saw on display in the Rose Garden yesterday. Because these aren’t really tariffs at all.” (04/03/25)
“A Trump administration official said Thursday the United States is in talks with conflict-plagued Congo on developing its mineral resources under a deal that the Congolese president has said could help make his country safer. U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos, did not provide details of the potential deal following talks with Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi in Kinshasa, but he said it could involve ‘multi-billion-dollar investments’. ‘You have heard about a minerals agreement. We have reviewed the Congo’s proposal,’ Boulos said. ‘I am pleased to announce that the president and I have agreed on a path forward for its development.’ American companies would be ‘operating transparently’ and ‘would stimulate local economies’. Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a mineral used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and smartphones. It also has substantial gold, diamond and copper reserves.” (04/03/25)
“Nahid Islam faced a conundrum. Last year, when the sociology student protested the autocratic rule of Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, he had one clear complaint: The system of handing out government jobs was massively unfair. Under the then-prime minister’s watch, more than half of civil service jobs were reserved for specific groups. The largest share (35%) went to the children and grandchildren of those who fought in the country’s 1971 war of independence. That hiring bias helped kindle one of the slogans in the 2024 uprising that forced Ms. Hasina out of office: ‘Equality of opportunity is the essence of the constitution’. Yet earlier this year, Mr. Islam found the roles reversed. The revolution against an autocratic leader had succeeded, and he was now a part of the interim government. Shouldn’t the families of those killed and wounded during the protests – like those in 1971 – be given some quota in civil service jobs as thanks?” (04/02/25)
“We have all been pleasantly surprised and gleeful at many of the accomplishments of the first two-plus months of the Trump administration. A lot of victories. Democrats and the Left are back on their heels, using every device from violence to unconstitutional judicial activism to try to hold off the Trumpian ‘revolution.’ There is hope we might truly ‘Make America Great Again,’ though much remains to be done. But then, Wisconsin got splashed in our faces. Yes, the voters there opted for photo IDs in voting; but, amazingly, 37% were opposed to it. But the big cheese (pardon the pun) was the Supreme Court election between far-left [sic] Susan Crawford and Trump-endorsed Brad Schimel, and that wasn’t even close. Two months do not history make, folks. Some low-intelligence people occasionally do intelligent things, and Wisconsin voters gave their state to Mr. Trump last November (some low-intelligence people NEVER do intelligent things).” [editor’s note: I really wish Lewis would introduce me to his drug dealer – TLK] (04/03/25)
“Several prominent pro-Israel social media accounts have accused ’60 Minutes’ host Lesley Stahl of being sympathetic to Hamas terrorists following a Sunday night interview she conducted with a hostage recently released by the militant group. Stahl asked Hamas hostage Keith Siegel whether his captors starved him on purpose or because they didn’t have enough food to give him. During the CBS News program, she spoke to several hostages who had recently been freed from the terror group’s clutches and returned to their families. Stahl spoke to Siegel, along with Tal Shalom and Yarden Bibas — the man whose wife and two young children were murdered while in captivity — learning details about their horrific experiences living in Hamas-controlled tunnels in Gaza. While Siegel discussed how his captors treated him, he stated that after his wife, Aviva, was released from captivity, Hamas became ‘very mean and very cruel and violent.'” (04/03/25)
“On Tuesday, California lawmakers blocked a bill that would have banned transgender athletes from playing on girls’ sports teams. Following a debate, the bill failed to pass out of the Assembly’s Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism on a 6-2 vote, with one member not voting. Assembly Bill 89, authored by Assemblymember Kate Sanchez, a Republican from Rancho Santa Margarita, would have required the California Interscholastic Federation — the state’s governing body for high school sports — to prohibit athletes assigned male at birth from joining girls’ teams. Sanchez argued the bill was ‘about protecting women,’ while Democratic Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva of La Palma called it ‘wrong’ and ‘cruel,’ ABC News reported. The committee’s hearing on the bill drew large crowds, including conservative commentator Matt Walsh and the mother of a transgender athlete.” (04/02/25)
“‘Who has the right to have rights?’ This is the urgent question asked by Mahmoud Khalil, the recent Columbia University graduate seized from his home on March 8, in the stirring open letter he dictated 10 days later from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement lock-up in Louisiana. In the letter, Khalil affirmed his identity as a Palestinian ’political prisoner’ as well as his solidarity with everyone who has been thrown into the punitive limbo of the Trump administration’s detention and deportation machine. Since the college encampments began, it’s been clear that people like Khalil — international students engaged in campus activism for Palestine — were to have no right to freedom of speech, assembly or movement that the U.S. government must respect and that they would become the target of increased state repression.” (04/03/25)
“Four Republican senators helped Democrats pass a resolution Wednesday that would effectively repeal President Trump’s tariffs on Canada. … The resolution, offered by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), would repeal the emergency declaration that allowed Trump to place tariffs on Canada. The White House has cited fentanyl flowing across the border as a reason for the declaration. The vote is a victory for Democrats who have been banging the table against the tariff policies and pleading for their Republican colleagues to break ranks with Trump. But the measure is likely dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled House.” (04/02/25)
