“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev met with U.S. officials in Washington on Wednesday as the Trump administration continues to press Russia and Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said. … It was not clear what Dmitriev discussed with the U.S. officials. But his visit comes after President Donald Trump expressed his frustration with the pace of ceasefire talks, saying on Sunday he was “pissed off” with Putin and raising the possibility of imposing sanctions on those who buy Russian crude. Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of crude after Saudi Arabia.” (04/02/25)
“Picture a single woman driving across state lines at night, fearful that her car will break down and leave her vulnerable. Or imagine a truck driver hauling valuable cargo across the country. In states like California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Oregon (which are among ten states that refuse to recognize concealed handgun permits from other states) these travelers risk being defenseless. Nine states either completely deny or severely limit non-residents’ ability to obtain a license. Last week, the House Judiciary Committee advanced the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act and is headed to the House floor. This bill would let anyone legally permitted to carry a concealed handgun in their home state do so across state lines, essentially treating concealed carry permits like driver’s licenses. With 21.5 million concealed handgun permit holders in the U.S., the bill would make a major impact.” (04/02/25)
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by Amelia Newcomb
“My ability to write this column is directly related to the subject of this week’s cover story. Why? Because I’m working online. I’m reading a digital copy of what staff writer Stephanie Hanes filed to her editors. I’m searching the web for some background here, a fact there. I map the location of a neighborhood Stephanie visited in seconds. All the while, I’m sitting at my desk, connected, like all of you, to an enormous world that is impossibly close at hand. It would be easy enough to think that an ethereal “cloud” makes this possible. But of course, it doesn’t. I, and you, are tethered as we work to massive concrete warehouses that form, as Stephanie elegantly puts it, ‘the physical backbone of our digital lives.’ For many people, these structures are as invisible as the internet itself.” (04/02/25)
“Sen. Cory Booker’s pointless imitation filibuster epitomizes Democrats’ pathetic incoherence in the wake of last November’s defeats. The New Jerseyan took to the floor not to achieve something, or even to oppose anything in particular, but as a stunt to symbolize how these are not normal times. Which, actually, nobody who paid any attention denies. The self-promoting, 25-hour marathon drew a few curious viewers online, and might have spoken to those in the party’s left-wing base who are still fuming that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) didn’t force a government shutdown last month. But it did nothing to thwart the Senate GOP majority or slow the Trump agenda. And it certainly didn’t win back a single swing voter. Such symbolic performances are as onanistic as politics gets, but that’s where Dems are right now.” (04/01/25)
“Former first son and convicted felon Hunter Biden agreed to be disbarred from practicing law in Washington, D.C., court records show. Hunter Biden filed an affidavit under seal on Tuesday acknowledging his ‘consent to disbarment,’ D.C. Court of Appeals records show. Biden was ‘suspended immediately from the practice of law’ in Washington, D.C., in June 2024 following his felony conviction in a Delaware federal court. Hunter Biden will officially be disbarred if the D.C. Court of Appeals accepts a disciplinary agency’s recommendation – and his own consent – for disbarment, according to the New York Post. The former first son’s Washington, D.C., bar member standing currently reads that he is under ‘Temp Disciplinary Suspension,’ Fox News Digital found on Wednesday morning. Hunter Biden has been licensed to practice law in the nation’s capital since 2007.” (04/02/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“None of the people applauding Trump’s war on Yemen because ‘the Houthis are attacking ships’ will tell you why the Houthis started attacking ships. The pundits won’t say, and the people don’t know. After two weeks of interacting with people who support Trump’s war I can confidently say that none of them know why the war is happening. They know it has something to do with the Houthis attacking ships in the Red Sea, but they never have any idea why those attacks started happening in the first place. They generally assume it’s because the Houthis are just plain evil and want to attack ships, or because Iran ordered them to do it in order to take over the middle east.” (04/03/25)
“Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared sympathetic on Wednesday to South Carolina’s bid to strip Planned Parenthood of funding under the Medicaid program in a case that could bolster efforts by Republican-led states to deprive the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider of public money. The justices heard arguments in South Carolina’s appeal of a lower court’s decision barring the Republican-governed state from terminating Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.” (04/02/25)
“The New York Times recently released data putting Indiana in the top 10 states Americans relocated to in 2023. Here’s that list, in order according to relocation numbers: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Indiana, Colorado, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. Seven of these are completely Republican-controlled, and two have Republican legislatures. Indiana is the only state on the list without a warm or mountainous climate. Professor Michael New pointed out that eight of these ten states enacted strong pro-life laws after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade. It didn’t damage their attractions one bit. Republican leaders are constantly economically blackmailed into inaction in the culture war, but it turns out the blackmailers are bluffing.” (04/01/25)
“A Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey who was [abducted] by immigration authorities had been moved to Vermont by the time a federal judge ordered authorities to keep her in Massachusetts, lawyers for the U.S. government said. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken by immigration officials as she walked along a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville on March 25. She was put on a plane the next day and moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in remote Basile, Louisiana. There was no available space to detain her in New England, the Justice Department lawyers said. U.S. District Judge Denise Casper … responding to a petition filed last week by Ozturk’s lawyers, issued a ruling on March 28 that Ozturk can’t be removed from the United States ‘until further order of this court.’ But on Tuesday, lawyers for the Justice Department argued that the judge lacks jurisdiction to decide Ozturk’s case.” (04/02/25)
“U.S. President Donald Trump is trashing the world trade system over a basic economic fallacy. He wrongly claims that America’s trade deficit is caused by the rest of the world ripping off the U.S., repeatedly stating things such as, ‘Over the decades, they ripped us off like no country has never been ripped off in history…’ Trump aims to close the trade deficit by imposing tariffs, thereby impeding imports and restoring trade balance (or inducing other countries to end their rip-offs of America). Yet Trump’s tariffs will not close the trade deficit but will instead impoverish Americans and harm the rest of the world. A country’s trade deficit (or more precisely, its current account deficit) does not indicate unfair trade practices by the surplus countries. It indicates something completely different.” (04/02/25)
