“After more than four years of war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin might be discovering that adherence to truth and open communications can be essential to ensuring a motivated military. A Kremlin attempt to steadily shut down Russia’s most popular and effective messaging platform, Telegram, has stirred dissent among civilian volunteers who assist the war online. They are the patriotic digital influencers who arrange money and supplies – the resources the military does not reliably provide – for soldiers on the front lines. Without free access to an independent app like Telegram, which has already been slowly throttled for months, this civil society of auxiliary supporters could turn on the government. Morale in the army ranks might fall fast. Spotty access to Telegram has also begun to reduce the ability of soldiers to message their families.” (04/01/26)
“What will the costs of the latest round of illegal, ill-fated U.S. military adventurism in the Middle East amount to? Some of the toll is already clear. Washington has squandered billions of dollars on a reckless war of aggression against Iran. A merciless campaign of aerial bombardment has driven millions from their homes. American and Israeli airstrikes have rained destruction on 10,000 civilian sites and already killed more than 3,000 people in Iran and Lebanon. Among the dead are more than 200 children, many killed in a U.S. strike on a girls’ school, a war crime that evokes the grim precedent of such past American atrocities as the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam or the 1991 Amiriyah shelter bombing in Iraq. The latest war has also dealt a potentially fatal blow to our already battered democratic institutions. It’s a war neither authorized by Congress nor supported by the public.” (04/02/26)
“Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University graduate student fighting deportation, have asked Judge Emil Bove to step aside from an appellate panel that could weigh in on his case because of Bove’s previous role as a top Justice Department official involved in investigating student protesters. Khalil’s lawyers this week asked that the full complement of judges on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals — minus Bove — review and reverse a January ruling by a panel of three 3rd Circuit judges that put the Trump administration one step closer to detaining and ultimately deporting the pro-Palestinian activist. As the Justice Department’s Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, Bove ‘directed immigration enforcement investigations and decisions against student protesters on college campuses,’ including at Columbia, Khalil’s lawyers wrote. Bove’s immigration enforcement work ‘demonstrates the existence, or at least the appearance of, a conflict of interest’ that should disqualify him from having a say in Khalil’s appeal, they said.” (04/02/26)
“The threat of a city government shutdown loomed large in Chicago in December 2025 as the city faced an end-of-year deadline to close a projected $1.2 billion deficit. To counteract the impact of President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax law, Mayor Brandon Johnson had pitched a budget in October that would require some of the law’s biggest beneficiaries to pay more. His proposed payroll tax — on corporations with more than 1,000 employees — would, according to his administration, amount to less than 0.01% of the Trump tax cuts bestowed on companies like Google and Walmart. But a standoff ensued after a group of Chicago City Council alderpersons — led by Nicole Lee, a former United Airlines executive — announced they would refuse to cross a ’red line’: a new tax on the city’s largest corporations, including United.” (03/31/26)
“As the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran enters its second month, Iran has found a new way to hold leverage over the world economy: closing and opening the Strait of Hormuz at will. Iran’s ability to shut off one of the world’s major shipping routes, which transports one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas, allows it to dictate the cost of energy in the U.S. and everywhere else. Reporting suggests that Iran’s control over the strait won’t clear up whenever the war ends. … on Monday, the Iranian parliament passed a bill that would impose tolls on any ship passing through the strait, while banning U.S. and Israeli vessels from entering.” (04/01/26)
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman
“The US Supreme Court today will hear a major constitutional case about birthright citizenship. We shouldn’t be debating this right now. But since the president chose to act with such striking disregard for the law, here we are. Birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. The first sentence of the 14th Amendment reads, ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’ This has been the law for more than 150 years. … The Supreme Court in 1898 confirmed the 14th Amendment’s plain meaning. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, it ruled that children born here are citizens, even if their parents are not. That principle gave rise to generations of new Americans. Donald Trump tried to Sharpie this out of the Constitution.” (04/01/26)
“President Donald Trump has an incredibly childish obsession with outdoing his predecessors, who he constantly derides as stupid and corrupt. There is, of course, no evidence for Trump’s charges, like the supposedly terrible economy he inherited from President Joe Biden, but Donald Trump is not a man who feels constrained by reality. While Trump does everything he can to reverse policies to promote clean energy, overturn trade agreements (including his own), and undermine security pacts, there is one area where Trump looks to substantially outpace the work of his predecessors. This is in promoting the transition to a non-fossil fuel-based economy. … his reckless attack on Iran will do a hundred times more to promote clean energy worldwide than all the incentives in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.” (04/01/26)
“It is widely thought that the February 5 expiration of New START, the last arms control agreement capping US and Russian nuclear weapons, could usher in a dangerous and highly destabilizing new nuclear arms race. Since the Cold War peak of over 70,000 nuclear weapons in 1986, arms control treaties have reduced the number to approximately 12,200 today—still equivalent, however, to 145,000 Hiroshimas. Many of these decommissioned weapons remain in storage where they can be readily redeployed, making it possible to double Russian and US arsenals in one to two years. If a new nuclear arms race begins between the US and Russia, the US could ‘upload’ 800 bombs and cruise missiles stored at military bases back onto B-2 and B-52 bombers in a matter of weeks. ” (04/01/26)
“‘Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.’ — James Madison … Our biggest concern in America today is the Democratic Party’s abuse of power, their desire for tyrannical control, and an unlimited government (‘Our rights come from government, not God,’ Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said a few months ago). If government gives us our rights, then government can take them away at will, and that is as good a definition of totalitarian government as one could wish for. It is exactly what Communist China has today, what Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and every other tyranny the world has ever seen foisted upon their people. It is exactly what tyrants and government (and Democrats) want. So, patriotic Americans (following our Founding Fathers) fear unlimited, oppressive government.” (04/01/26)
“A judge in Brazil has blocked a project to build a zipline connecting the famous Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro to a nearby hill, Morro da Urca. The attraction’s developer said it would allow visitors to descend from Sugarloaf Mountain at speeds of almost 100km/h (62mph) via four ziplines covering a distance of 755m (0.47 miles). The project – which started four years ago — had triggered protests from locals and environmentalists, who argued that the construction work was causing irreparable damage to the Unesco World Heritage Site. The developer is expected to appeal against the decision.” (04/01/26)
