“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)
“The stock market has been throwing a temper tantrum over the Trump tariffs. The beatdown could get worse because President Donald Trump is expected to announce another round of import tariffs on Wednesday. The liberal media and Democrats in Congress — many of whom once supported tariffs — are feeding the flames. They hate Trump and want to see him fail. But is the market downgrade of American companies to the tune of roughly 10% a rational response to Trump’s trade restrictions? I am an economist, not a stock market sage, but it is worth a reminder that despite some higher tariffs imposed by Trump in his first term — which caused temporary stock sell-offs — those effects were truly transitory. The market later surged month after month. On average, stocks rose by roughly 60% in four years. Not a bad return.” (04/02/25)
“The former president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, says his US visa has been revoked. Arias, a Nobel laureate, said he was informed of the decision weeks after he had publicly criticised Donald Trump, comparing the behaviour of the US president to that of a Roman emperor. The 84-year-old, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering an end to conflicts in Central America, said US authorities had given no explanation. Arias hinted, however, that it may be due to his rapprochement with China during the time he was president from 2006 to 2010. Speaking at an news conference in the Costa Rican capital, San José, Arias said he had ‘no idea’ what the reason for the cancellation was.” (04/02/25)
“A judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a Montana law that restricts transgender people’s use of bathrooms in public buildings. The measure signed into effect by Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, last week threatened to deprive transgender people of their constitutional right to equal protection under the law, Montana District Judge Shane Vannatta ruled. The law prevents people from using restrooms in public buildings that do not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. The five people who sued over the law were likely to prevail, Vannatta added in his ruling. The new law ‘is motivated by animus and supported by no evidence that its restrictions advance its purported purpose to protect women’s safety and privacy,’ Vannatta wrote.” (04/02/25)
“The business world thought Donald Trump would usher in a boom, only to get chaos and uncertainty. Businesses don’t like to make big plans when everything can change in an instant. That’s why merger activity in the U.S. has fallen by 18 percent in the first quarter of this year, despite the belief that pent-up dealmaking would soar once Biden’s aggressive antitrust enforcers were sidelined. The relative continuity in antitrust enforcement among Trump officials probably also has something to do with it. If a company in this environment is pursuing not one but a series of mergers, you have to wonder why they’d risk it. The reward payout must be significant: for example, moving toward a monopoly of the means by which Americans locate, buy, and pay for a home. Rocket is America’s third-largest mortgage lender, with $1.8 trillion in loans originated.” (04/02/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It’s clear that Trump’s State Department spokeswoman has been instructed to respond to any and all questions about Israeli atrocities in Gaza by blaming everything on Hamas, without even pretending to care whether the allegations are true. For some background, Israel has just been caught perpetrating an atrocity so monstrous and so abundantly well-evidenced that even the mainstream western press have felt obligated to report on it. Outlets like the Guardian and the BBC are covering the story of how 15 medical workers for the Red Cross, Civil Defense, and the UN were apparently handcuffed and executed one by one by Israeli forces in Rafah before being buried in a mass grave. According to Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal, they were each shot more than 20 times.” (04/01/25)
“The second administration of President Donald J. Trump has already started working its special magic across the Washington, D.C. capital region. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have fired tens of thousands of federal workers, with more to come. Those who have lost their jobs include people who find housing and other support for veterans struggling with mental illness. They include civil servants who maintained safeguards to prevent our nuclear weapons from becoming dirty bombs. They include healthcare researchers developing treatments for cancer and other killer diseases; workers who ensured that low-income, homeless, and rural students were able to get an education; agricultural researchers who opened up international markets to American farmers; and too many others to mention here. My neighborhood, located on farmland about 40 miles outside Washington, D.C., is among those wracked by this administration’s shakeup of the government workforce.” (04/01/25)
