“China’s playing hardball, and it’s not just about tariffs and the global economy: Our lives could be on the line. Soon after President Donald Trump announced his first round of tariffs on Chinese goods this month, China hit back by totally suspending its exports of rare-earth minerals and magnets, a key strategic monopoly. Those materials are essential to manufacture automobiles and electric vehicles, as well as America’s fighter jets, drones, robots — basically the next generation of war-fighting weaponry. China’s move puts a stranglehold on these industries, and threatens our national defense. Its next logical step is to cut off our medical supplies. China has a death grip on America’s generic-drug market, as well as on basic medical equipment that every hospital and doctor’s office relies on.” [editor’s note: When you pick a fight, don’t whine about losing – TLK] (04/15/25)
“New York Attorney General Letitia James has been hit with shocking allegations by the Trump administration, accusing her of mortgage fraud. In documents obtained by Fox News Channel’s ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice on Tuesday, accusing James of mortgage fraud. FHFA Director William Pulte said in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that James appears to have falsified records to meet certain lending requirements and receive favorable loan terms. Pulte cited a property in Virginia that James allegedly claimed as her principal residence and a property in New York she claimed as a four-unit structure instead of five, which he said could mean she was able to get a different and more favorable loan.” (04/16/25)
“Iran confirmed Wednesday that the next round of nuclear talks with the United States this weekend will be held in Rome after earlier confusion over where the negotiations would be held. The announcement by Iranian state television came as Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian formally approved the resignation of one of his vice presidents who served as Tehran’s key negotiator in its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also arrived in the Islamic Republic on Wednesday. His talks may include negotiations over just what access the IAEA inspectors can get under any proposed deal. The state TV announcement said Oman will again mediate the talks on Saturday in Rome. Oman’s foreign minister served as an interlocutor between the two sides at talks last weekend in Muscat, the sultanate’s capital.” (04/16/25)
“For the past couple of days, Mark Zuckerberg has been inside a D.C. courtroom reviewing more than a decade of email communications about his company, Meta. This is the last place Zuckerberg wanted to be; he literally visited the White House to lobby to get out of it, and offered $1 billion to settle. The effort failed, and we now know plenty about the ruthless tactics that Zuckerberg used to build his sprawling social media empire. And this exposure has already had a preventive effect: It’s why Meta’s control of public attention is likely to shrink over time, as competitors rise up that Meta won’t be able to buy. In a world without this aggressive antitrust enforcement, for example, Meta would have likely bought TikTok by now.” (04/16/25)
“A German palliative care doctor has been charged with murdering 15 of his patients using a cocktail of lethal drugs. Prosecutors in Berlin have accused the 40-year-old of setting fire to the homes of some of his suspected victims to cover his tracks. He allegedly killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024, though prosecutors have said they believe that total could rise. The doctor, who has not been named due to strict privacy laws in Germany, has not admitted to the charges, prosecutors said. He is accused of administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent. The relaxant ‘paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes,’ the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.” (04/16/25)
“Over the past decade, the leaders of corporate and international organizations became used to being lauded for making grand but ultimately empty, green promises on stages in Davos and climate summits. How quickly things have changed. Fear of being called out by the Trump administration is forcing many leaders into changing course – at least in their rhetoric. World Bank president Ajay Banga’s first move when he took over the institution in 2023 was to extend its mission from ending poverty to incorporate climate change and making the planet ‘livable.’ Last November, as he headed to the COP summit in Azerbaijan, Banga graced the cover of Time magazine’s ‘climate issue’ and warned that climate change was ‘intertwined’ with every challenge. Yet today, he somewhat implausibly tells reporters, ‘I’m not a climate evangelist.'” (04/16/25)
“While American taxpayers are familiar with the annual rigmarole of filing their federal taxes and realizing just how much of their hard-earned money Uncle Sam is taking away, several House Republicans are pushing a proposal to take some things away from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS): Guns and ammunition. The ‘Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act’ would disarm the federal agency, prohibiting the commissioner of internal revenue from using funds to buy, receive or store firearms and ammo, and requiring the transfer of IRS firearms and ammunition to the Administrator of General Services. The guns would then be sold or auctioned to licensed dealers and the ammo would be auctioned to the public. Proceeds would go to ‘the general fund of the Treasury for the sole purpose of deficit reduction,’ the measure stipulates.” (04/16/25)
“The State Department has shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that he had closed what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the United States and elsewhere. The center has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports that it said are biased or untruthful. At times, it has identified U.S. websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war. ” (04/16/25)
“Diana Greene Foster is responsible for landmark research on the effects of abortion access — a massive 10-year study that tracked thousands of people who had an abortion or were denied one. But funding for a follow-up to her seminal Turnaway Study has just been cut as part of a wave of canceled health policy research. Foster received a MacArthur ‘genius grant’ for the Turnaway Study. That piece of research, which examined the impact of restrictions even before the fall of Roe v. Wade, helped shape public understanding of how abortion access can affect people’s health and economic well-being …. Foster’s new study was meant to build on that research, using quantitative analysis and in-depth interviews to follow people who sought abortions in or outside of the medical system after federal abortion rights were terminated, as well as those who carried their pregnancies to term.” [editor’s note: So get private funding as with the first study. “Problem” solved – TLK] (04/16/25)
Source: TomDispatch
by Liz Theoharis & Noam Sandweiss
“The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the 10 richest people in the world — including nine Americans — expanded their wealth by nearly $64 billion, the greatest single-day increase in recorded history. Since then, an unholy marriage of billionaire investors, tech bros, Christian nationalists, and, of course, Donald Trump has staged an oligarchic assault on our democracy. If the nation’s corporate elite once leveraged their relationships within government to enrich themselves, they’ve now cut out the middleman. We’re living in a new Gilded Age, with a proto-fascistic and religiously regressive administration of, by, and for the billionaires. With the wind at their backs, leading elements in the Republican Party have rapidly eschewed euphemisms and political correctness altogether, airing their anti-immigrant, anti-Black, and anti-poor prejudices in unapologetically broad and brazen terms. The effect of this, especially for the most vulnerable among us, is seismic.” (04/15/25)
