“Given the energy disruptions in the Middle East since the start of the war with Iran and the topsy-turvy fluctuations in the price of crude oil ever since, here are five facts Americans should be aware of regarding the geopolitics of energy. First, America is now producing more oil and gas than ever. Since 2022, we’ve produced more than any other nation, including Saudi Arabia. The best way to inoculate ourselves from foreign supply disruptions is to generate every barrel of oil we can here at home. Second, the Green New Deal was and continues to be an energy belly flop.” (03/12/26)
“A Georgia judge denied Jose Ibarra’s motion for a new trial following his conviction in the killing of nursing student Laken Riley. Superior Court Judge Patrick Haggard rejected the request, leaving in place Ibarra’s sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ibarra, a Venezuelan migrant, was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, hindering a 911 call, tampering with evidence and peeping tom in connection with Riley’s death. The ruling means Ibarra’s convictions and life sentence remain intact.” (03/12/26)
“A 656-acre parcel of land tucked into the desert mountains south of Palm Springs and Cathedral City has been returned to the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the tribe and local conservation groups announced this week. The parcel is located deep in the upper Palm Canyon area within the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains and neighbors several parcels that are already owned and managed by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians as part of its Indian Canyons trail system. Tribal Chairman Reid D. Milanovich called the return of the unceded ancestral land ‘the restoration of responsibility’ in a news release issued Monday. ‘Since time immemorial, our people have stewarded these mountains and waterways. We are grateful to Friends of the Desert Mountains, the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, and the State of California for their partnership in advancing land conservation through Tribal stewardship,’ Milanovich said in the news release.” (03/12/26)
“Before she was Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice in New York City, before she was President Biden’s Labor Secretary in Washington D.C., even before she led California’s Labor Department, Julie Su had a long career as a civil rights attorney. It was in that role in 1995 that Su served as lead attorney in the El Monte Thai garment slavery case, which would lead to a landmark ruling in favor of 72 Thai nationals who had been enslaved in a sweatshop, winning them $4 million in stolen wages and legal status, and eventually leading to the creation of the ’T visa’ for victims of human trafficking. Su had successfully argued that manufacturers should be held liable for wage theft, part of a broader campaign around the El Monte case which Su has said, ’turned my life upside down and changed me forever.'” (03/11/26)
“Few constitutional rights generate more debate in American politics than the right to free speech. The First Amendment protects both freedom of speech and freedom of the press, principles often described as absolute pillars of a democratic society. In reality, the Supreme Court has consistently recognized that these freedoms have limits. Courts have long permitted restrictions based on time, place, and manner, and American law has also recognized boundaries when speech collides with competing interests such as national security, defamation, or public safety. The same principle applies to freedom of the press. Newspapers and journalists enjoy broad constitutional protections, but those protections were never intended to create a system in which the press operates without legal accountability. From the earliest days of the republic, American law recognized that publishers could be held responsible for false statements that damage a person’s reputation.” (03/11/26)
“All the way back in 2023, the surgeon general diagnosed Americans as suffering from an epidemic of loneliness. More recently, amid the rise of American fascism, I started to notice that people were not only lonely but had also begun referring to the world as simply ‘the news.’ Perceived that way — as a phenomenon pre-packaged via our devices — our bond with the world was distilled into just two options: consume the news or don’t. A sense of powerlessness is baked into such a perception. By contrast, I remembered once reading an interview with billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs, who described the world as atoms constantly shifting and moving. With intention and focus, she pointed out, you can move those atoms yourself, and so move the world. Baked into that worldview was a sense of interconnectedness, not to mention power. Was such a perspective a luxury of the billionaire class? In fact, no.” (03/10/26)
“On Monday, while visiting Australia to compete in a tournament, five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team were struggling in a hotel room over whether to defect and escape suppression back home. Their struggle ended when Naghmeh Danai, an Iranian-Australian and a migration agent, told them, ‘You will have more respect [here].’ … This minor tale of Iranians seeking to be honored on their merits reflects a major theme during the many years of protests in Iran: An authoritarian theocracy purposely set up in 1979 to replace a dynastic monarchy has come to rely on nepotism and crony networks to keep itself in power, denying opportunities for many Iranians and leading to corrupt, ineffective governance.” (03/10/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Nobody wants to believe they’re the villain in the story. Nobody wants to believe their government is run by psychopaths who are inflicting unfathomable evils upon populations around the globe in order to rule the world. It’s much nicer to believe you’re the Good Guys. Much easier to sit with the idea that your government might make an innocent mistake here and there, but overall is a driving force for the good of humankind, and is certainly superior to the villains it makes war with. That’s a fiction, though. It’s a comfortable lie. A fairy tale that westerners tell themselves to avoid a profoundly uncomfortable truth: We are the villains. We are the terrorists. We are the tyrants. We are the evil regime. Our soldiers aren’t out there defending our country, they’re out there murdering people for defending their country.” (03/11/26)
“It’s never easy working for tips. For eight years, from 2014 to 2022, I did just that. I was a server at a Maine hotel, taking orders at the restaurant and bringing customers their food. Some nights, I’d make $200 or even $300. Other nights, I’d make half that, or less. … I got married to a coworker I met on the job, and before leaving the dining room, we had two kids. I had to bring home the bacon, but it was hard to estimate how much I’d make in a given year. And every year, come April 15th, I had a choice to make. Would I report my tip income on my taxes? Or would I keep it off the books and keep more money in my pocket? I always made the lawful choice. But it was tough.” [editor’s note: The “lawful choice” would be to pocket it all as “gifts” with no paperwork involved – SAT] (03/11/26)
“The new U.S. ambassador to South Africa has been summoned to explain his criticism, the country’s foreign minister said Wednesday, as a diplomatic rift continues over foreign policy that the Trump administration describes as anti-American and domestic policies it calls anti-white. Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III was summoned after speaking at a meeting of business leaders on Tuesday, where he challenged the South African government over its diplomatic ties with Iran and its affirmative action laws that advance opportunities for Black people ahead of other races. The rift has grown between the former allies since President Donald Trump returned to office. Ties have plunged to their lowest point since the end of apartheid, or white minority rule, in 1994. Trump has been critical of South Africa’s Black-led government. Bozell, a conservative activist appointed by Trump, took up his role in Pretoria last month.” (03/11/26)
