“Paintings by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse worth millions of euros were stolen in a heist on a museum near the Italian city of Parma, police say. Four masked men entered the Magnani Rocca Foundation villa on 22 March, police said, making off with Les Poissons by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Still Life with Cherries by Paul Cézanne and Odalisque on the Terrace by Henri Matisse. The gang was in and out in three minutes, Italian media outlets have reported, and was only interrupted by the museum’s alarm system, preventing them from stealing more. … The thieves involved in the robbery forced their way through the main door to the Villa dei Capolavori, nestled in the Parma countryside, and nabbed the paintings from the French Room on the building’s first floor, Italian media outlets have reported.” (03/30/26)
“The president of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, was sworn in for a third term on Monday three months after a disputed general election. Touadéra will be serving a new seven-year term. He was declared the winner of the vote in December, which was boycotted by the coalition opposition party following a 2023 constitutional referendum that removed term limits and increased the presidential term from five to seven years. ‘We aspire to build a sovereign economy and ensure transparent management of our natural resources,’ Touadéra said at the swearing-in ceremony in Bangui, attended by the presidents of Congo-Brazzaville and Comoros. Opposition parties and civil society rejected the results of the election, which the Constitutional Council said that Touadéra won with 77.9% of the vote. ‘You have to be a fool to believe that,’ said Frédéric Godoba, a civil society activist.” (03/30/26)
“The overriding fact about the American economy in the past four decades, and even more so in the past four years and the past four quarters, is the massive upward redistribution of wealth and income. Therefore, the opposition to wealth taxes and income tax surcharges on the very rich that’s held by some prominent Democrats (particularly the governors of the two states that are home to the most billionaires) is intellectually and empirically (not to mention politically) indefensible. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul are either oblivious to this massive change to our economy or complicit in it. These are not mutually exclusive alternatives. The K-shaping of our economy, in which the rich have both steadily and now suddenly amassed a far greater share of the nation’s income and wealth, while the working poor struggle, should be plain for all to see.” (03/30/26)
“As the world understandably focuses on the Middle East, the Russia-Ukraine war shifts to a fulcrum moment. This new juncture provides President Trump with an opportunity to prove that he is still, indeed, a president for peace. He can reaffirm to his base, and to the world, that he is the negotiator-in-chief who brokers diplomatic solutions across the globe, including the historic Abraham Accords. Regarding the Trump base, polling shows that only 38% of Republican voters now believe that the war vs. Iran will conclude in the days or weeks to come. Moreover, 37% of GOP voters oppose any ground troops in Iran. So, opportunity beckons in the Black Sea region. In a recent breakout interview by the Associated Press of General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former top military commander of Ukraine, provides startling revelations regarding his battles with Zelensky – and the relevance for the future of postwar Ukraine.” (03/28/26)
“If you thought Hollywood was done trying to corrupt and destroy the legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien, think again. This week Variety reported that Warner Brothers announced yet another Lord Of The Rings spinoff film is in development — and that Stephen Colbert and his son are writing it. Colbert is apparently a ‘vocal Tolkien fanatic,’ and is working on a script derived from the early chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring that didn’t make it into Peter Jackson’s acclaimed trilogy. … Colbert said he pitched Jackson on the idea of a film ‘that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies that you guys had already made?’ Based on the synopsis of Colbert’s script, the answer is clearly no.” (03/27/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“LBC has a report titled ‘Republicans ‘storm out’ of Iran briefing as they claim US ‘war machine’ is trying to put boots on ground’ about MAGA lawmakers whining that Trump’s war looks set to turn into a land invasion. I get so tired of all this American hand-wringing about ‘boots on the ground.’ It’s a symptom of a wildly sick dystopia that these people are fine with raining military explosives on a densely populated city but draw the line at putting American troops in the line of fire. Sure, killing kids is fine, just don’t put boots on the ground! Sure you can rain hellfire on hospitals, homes and schools for weeks, just make sure you do all your massacring from the sky where nobody can return fire. Killing is okie dokie, so long as our troops aren’t the ones getting killed.” (03/28/26)
“Friedrich Hayek published The Road to Serfdom in 1944, a classic book on economics for the ages. We would do well to understand his message, because it reads today less like a theory and more like a warning. What Hayek described is unfolding right before our eyes, yet it is so gradual and insidious that few recognize it is happening. Hayek believed prosperity and freedom are inseparable. In [his book], he warned about what happens when government begins to control economic decision-making through central planning. The result, he argued, is the slow erosion of freedom. When societies abandon individualism and classical liberal economics, the power of the state expands and the liberty of the citizen contracts. Eventually, this evolves to government control.” (03/28/26)
“What should the American people, especially the hundreds of millions of their voters, expect Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden to do against the vicious, serial law-violating, violent, corrupt, agency-dismantling Donald Trump and the crony Trumpsters who are wrecking our government and our economy? These former presidents should mobilize the citizenry from the grassroots to the Capitol and take on the unpopular Tyrant Trump. Having sworn to uphold the Constitution and ‘… take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ they should strongly uphold their patriotic duty to resist tyranny and save our Republic and our besieged democratic institutions, and stop the assault on our civil liberties and civil rights. Our former presidents all get along with each other. … [T]hey are living luxurious lives and are largely AWOL from connecting with the existing but overwhelmed civic opposition to Trump.” (03/28/26)
“Here’s a number that should make every American wince: $4 million. That’s what it costs to fire a single Patriot interceptor missile. Here’s another: $30,000. That’s an estimated price tag of an Iranian Shahed drone — the kind that Tehran has been lobbing across the Persian Gulf at US bases and allied cities since the start of the war four weeks ago. In other words, we’re spending at least 100 times more to shoot down each drone than our enemies spend to build one. And it’s not just the cost that’s a problem — it’s also our production capacity. … Just replenishing those weapons at current production capacity will require 18 months. That is no way to fight against Iran, much less against a larger adversary like China or Russia.” (03/27/26)
“The main theme in much writing on contemporary politics is how ideologically polarized Democrats and Republicans have become. But the truly consequential change is that Republicans have broken with their own past. Under Donald Trump, the party hasn’t just reversed its positions on specific policies. It has routinely betrayed basic tenets of the conservative philosophy that Republicans have long claimed was the bedrock of their party. No one is shocked by Trump’s betrayals. What is more surprising is that most Republicans haven’t seemed to care. I’ve been thinking about the Republican betrayal of the party’s own tradition because of a comment about my work by Glenn Loury, the conservative Black economist. When I was on The Glenn Show in December, he criticized my new book American Contradiction because of my ‘apparent disregard for the positive contributions of conservative thought and policy to American life.'” (03/27/26)
