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)
“Each year for Tax Day, my colleagues and I at the Institute for Policy Studies release a tax receipt so you can learn where your taxes are actually going. This year, you may be more worried about the price of eggs than your tax dollars. But with President Donald Trump now urging a $1 trillion military budget, it’s worth thinking about what we’re already spending. Last year, the average taxpayer paid $3,707 for weapons and wars. That’s the equivalent of 628 dozen eggs. So if you thought buying a dozen or two a week for your family was taxing, well, that’s just the beginning. Taxpayers are directly subsidizing the world’s wealthiest man even as he cuts programs for the poorest people on Earth.” (04/15/25)
“Yesterday was the day democracy in our nation officially died. We no longer live in the America we grew up in: ‘The land of the free and the home of the brave.’ … The country that claimed to follow the rule of law, and valued compassion and the protection of its most vulnerable people. We are now in the midst of a outright coup against the Constitution, against the United States, and against our founding ideals: Donald Trump proclaimed it yesterday when he openly defied the Supreme Court and our founding documents with a sneer, and his neofascist sycophants chuckled and giggled in the Oval Office. When Marco Rubio claimed that arresting and deporting a man legally living in the US was ‘foreign policy’ that can’t be overseen by the Supreme Court and then congratulated himself on his cleverness.” (04/15/25)
“Before the Liberation Day tariffs were imposed on April 2, grocery giant Albertsons sent a letter to its suppliers, noting the potential economic challenges ahead. ‘We understand this situation may raise concerns for your business operations and the ongoing relationship we share,’ stated Albertsons executive vice president and chief merchandising and digital officer Omer Gajial, who wrote that he wanted to ‘clarify’ Albertsons’ policy regarding the tariffs. ‘We are committed to maintaining the value proposition our customers expect,’ Gajial continued. ‘Therefore, with few exceptions, we are not accepting cost increases due to tariffs.’ In other words, regardless of higher supplier costs from components of their goods sourced from China or other countries, they would have to absorb those increases if they want to sell to Albertsons. Tariff costs could not be included in invoices without prior authorization, Gajial said.” (04/15/25)
“Hear me out, members (and staffs) of the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee. Do not raise taxes on anyone, even those making a million or more a year. That should be a red line for Republicans. But you need revenue to pay for extending and expanding the Trump 2017 tax cuts that powered the explosive growth of his first term before the Covid curtain came down. Here’s an option. According to the Investment Company Institute, Americans had $8.9 trillion invested in 401(k)s and $15.2 trillion in IRAs in the third quarter of 2024. Let’s call it $22 trillion in yet-to-be-taxed money.” (04/15/25)
“The Palestinian Columbia University student [abducted] by ICE agents in Vermont led disruptive anti-Israel protests on campus, and engaged in ‘threatening rhetoric and intimidation’ against Jewish students, State Department sources tell The Post. Mohsen Mahdawi, who hails from the West Bank, was at an interview to obtain his US citizenship on Monday when he was [abducted] by immigration authorities, his lawyer said. ‘Mahdawi, through his leadership and involvement in disruptive protests at Columbia University, has engaged in antisemitic conduct through leading pro-Palestinian protests and calling for Israel’s destruction,’ a senior State Department source said. The source said screenshots of Mahdawi’s social media activity that show his virulent anti-Israel views only tell part of the story.” (04/15/25)
“Fewer people crossed state lines to obtain abortions in 2024 than a year earlier, a new survey has found. The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, estimates in a report released Tuesday that the overall number of clinician-provided abortions in states where it’s legal rose by less than 1% from 2023 to 2024. But the number of people crossing state lines for abortions dropped by about 9%. The report, based on a monthly survey of providers, is the latest look at how the abortion landscape in the U.S. has evolved since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022 in a ruling that eliminated a national constitutional right to abortion and opened the door to state bans and restrictions. Guttmacher estimates there were 1.04 million abortions in 2024, up about 1% from its total the previous year.” (04/15/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“On Sunday Israel bombed the al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital, which readers may remember as the hospital that Israel ferociously insisted it didn’t bomb in October 2023 and accused anyone who said otherwise of antisemitic blood libel. According to a statement from the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Jerusalem, this is now the fifth time this hospital has been bombed since the beginning of the Gaza onslaught. The IDF is predictably claiming there was a Hamas base in the hospital, because that’s what they always do. The hospitals are Hamas, the ambulances are Hamas, the journalists are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the schools are Hamas, the children are Hamas, every building in Gaza is Hamas, and anyone who disputes this is also Hamas. God this gets old.” (04/15/25)
“A leader of the advocacy group Free Press Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) arm of Free Press, on Monday denounced a plan by the Trump administration to reportedly ask Congress to take back more than $1 billion in already approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the congressionally funded and created company that supports public media in the United States. The request to yank CPB funding, which would impact the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), National Public Radio (NPR), and their local member stations across the country, will be part of a broader package to rescind already approved funds and is also expected to impact funding for the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, according to Politico, which cited an anonymous White House official. Congress had already approved $535 million in federal spending for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.” (04/15/25)
“No adult should go by an ‘ie’ or ‘y’ variation of their name – Billy, Timmy, etc. Once puberty hits, any man with self-respect prefers to drop it to sound less like a buddy and more like an adult. CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan doesn’t care. While it’s not ‘Donny,’ and maybe it is Donie on his birth certificate, it doesn’t matter – you come off like a douche with the ‘y’ sounds on a name that could easily be shortened to ‘Don.’ Donie, the porky Irishman CNN employs to cut their anti-Americanism with an accent, had a special Sunday night called ‘Misinformation: Extreme America’ that was supposed to be about political extremism. It devolved into what seemed like an attempt to get him laid at the next These Lives Matter or Occupy Someplace mutant march/riots on the left.” (04/15/25)
