Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Trump is just as culpable for what happens in Gaza as Netanyahu. Just as guilty as Biden was during the last administration. Trump signed off on the reignition of the Gaza holocaust. He spent weeks sabotaging the ceasefire and then gave the thumbs up to the resumption of the genocide. He did this while bombing Yemen and threatening war with Iran for Israel. I don’t know why Trump has done these things. Maybe it’s all for the Adelson cash. Maybe Epstein recorded him doing something unsavory with a minor during their long association and gave it to Israeli intelligence for blackmail purposes. Maybe he owed somebody a favor for bailing him out of his business failures in the past. Maybe he’s just a psychopath who enjoys murdering children. I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he did it, and he is responsible for his actions.” (03/19/25)
“Even Will Rogers might be hard pressed to come up with an appropriately harsh jibe about the current state of the Democrats. ‘I am not a member of any organized political party,’ the 20th-century humorist famously said. ‘I am a Democrat.’ Now, the problem isn’t a lack of organization per se, but the hangover of their dogged, dishonest support for a comprehensively failed presidency, joined to an irrational commitment to outlandish positions on cultural issues. The Democrats shouldn’t be shocked that after insisting that Joe Biden was hale and hearty and fit to serve as commander-in-chief until January, 2029, the public has a dim view of their party. The Democrats attempted to perpetrate one of the worst frauds on the American public in recent history, and then followed it up with another lie — that Biden’s overmatched emergency replacement, Kamala Harris, was joyful and impressive.” (03/18/25)
“On March 8, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and a prominent leader of pro-Palestinian protests on the university’s campus. They claimed that Khalil’s student visa had been revoked and, when told that he had a green card, said that too had been revoked. While the full facts of the case are yet to emerge, there seems little doubt that Khalil was detained in retaliation for his activism. U.S. President Donald Trump has frequently and explicitly threatened to go after university protestors, including in his Executive Order on ‘Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,’ which I analyzed in an earlier post. Trump celebrated Khalil’s arrest on social media, warning that it was the first ‘of many to come.'” (03/19/25)
“Generally, Americans prefer single-family homes. All explanations for why urban populations across the country are collapsing as suburbs swell centering on public safety concerns, lack of schooling options, and rising costs aside, most people genuinely like living in a house with a yard more than they do in an apartment complex. If they can afford it. Trump campaigned on a vision of building ten new Freedom Cities. Details are scant on Trump’s plan, but directionally, the Trump administration announced plans yesterday to repurpose underutilized federal lands for the construction of affordable housing. … The desire to transform open public spaces into housing units is not new. In New York City, one mayoral candidate proposes building affordable housing on four of the city’s twelve municipal golf courses.” (03/19/25)
“Say what you will about the president who is dismantling our democracy, but at least he says ‘thank you’ once in a while. Two weeks ago, after delivering a lengthy and divisive address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Donald Trump mingled with the crowd, shaking hands with his supporters. In a revealing moment, he patted Chief Justice John Roberts on the back and said, ‘Thank you. Thank you again. I won’t forget.’ Presumably President Trump was thanking Chief Justice Roberts for aiding his election victory and granting him unprecedented power, and not for some great tips on fixing his backswing. Either way, Justice Roberts appeared much obliged. After all, it’s nice to hear a ‘thank you’ when you compromise your personal integrity and trample the Constitution to help a convicted felon win an election.” (03/19/25)
“A leading teachers union announced Wednesday that it is suing the Trump administration for cutting off public service workers with federal student loans from affordable repayment and debt relief programs. ‘By effectively freezing the nation’s student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people, including for millions of borrowers who have taken on student debt so they can go to college,’ said American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten in a statement. ‘The former president tried to fix the system for 45 million Americans, but the new president is breaking it again. … we’re suing to restore access to the statutory programs that are an anchor for so many, and that cannot be simply stripped away by executive fiat.'” (03/19/25)
“The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research office and could fire more than 1,000 scientists and other employees who help provide the scientific foundation for rules safeguarding human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants. As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists (75% of the research program’s staff) could be laid off, according to documents reviewed by Democratic staff on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The planned layoffs, cast by the Trump administration as part of a broader push to shrink the size of the federal government and make it more efficient, were assailed by critics as a massive dismantling of the EPA’s longstanding mission to protect public health and the environment. The plans were first reported by The New York Times.” (03/18/25)
“Thanks to a continuing resolution that passed Congress last week, the government is currently operating under fiscal year 2024 spending levels, but without any specifications on how that money is to be spent. There’s a lump sum available for the Department of Education, for example. But there isn’t any specificity concerning how much of the education budget must go to Title I spending for low-income students, or IDEA spending for schooling students with disabilities, or student loan servicing costs, or anything else. Any of that can be shifted, repurposed, zeroed out in one program and reallocated elsewhere by the Trump administration, as long as the total amount of spending does not exceed the appropriated total. At the same time, numerous legal groups, states, unions for federal workers, and others are entrenched in litigation over whether the Trump administration is illegally firing workers, canceling programs, and shuttering entire agencies of the government.” (03/19/25)
“Heavily armed police swarmed CIA headquarters in Virginia on Wednesday after a man with a gun reportedly started making threats outside. The suspect allegedly pulled out a gun and pointed it at the building in McLean on Wednesday morning, ABC7 reported, citing a law enforcement official. No shots were fired and no injuries have been reported so far, according to the official. Fairfax County Police confirmed they were assisting with a ‘barricade incident’ at the agency’s headquarters but didn’t release further details.” (03/19/25)
“An investigative report on Iran ordered by the United Nations Human Rights Council was delivered on Tuesday and it paints a picture of a theocratic government very much afraid of its own people. Aerial drones fly overhead to spot women without mandatory head covering. Facial recognition cameras look for dissidents in universities. An increase in executions of protesters has turned Iran into the world’s highest per capita user of the death penalty. All in all, the report concludes, the Islamic Republic has committed crimes against humanity since mass protests in 2022 following the death in custody of a woman without a ‘proper’ head scarf. … Yet despite the crackdown, Iranians from diverse social groups, especially young women, still find public ways to express freedom and equality, often through artistic life on the streets or in online forums.” (03/18/25)
