“In the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, you can learn that the first animals with backbones evolved during the early Cambrian Period, 525 million years ago. Outside of that museum, few backbones can be found in Washington, DC. As you wonder why, muse on the fact that all of the information on life’s history is contained in the museum’s David H. Koch Hall of Fossils. When Koch died in 2019, he had amassed a fortune of $50 billion. There was a time when that was considered real money. Not any more. Downtown D.C. has an ambient glow at night, the light from omnipresent office windows suffusing the dark, bland streets. Yesterday evening, after dinnertime, the lights were still on in many of the cheerless, rectangular government office buildings below Independence Avenue, buildings that the new administration just announced are for sale.” (03/05/25)
“China, Canada and Mexico responded angrily on Tuesday to steep new tariffs imposed by President Trump, setting off a day of retaliatory actions, stern warnings and falling stock prices as the potential ramifications of an escalating trade war began to sink in. Stung by the tariffs — an additional 10 percent on imports from China and 25 percent on almost all imports from Canada and Mexico — prompted Canada and China to quickly announce retaliatory actions, including measures that could bar some American products from their markets entirely and hit U.S. farmers particularly hard. … The S&P 500 fell as much as 2 percent, before moderating losses in the afternoon and ending the day down 1.2 percent. The day’s selling was broad based, with roughly 80 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 lower for the day.” (03/04/25)
“The waiting is almost over, Donald Trump is about to hit America’s workers with the largest tax increase they have ever seen. Trump’s taxes on imports (tariffs) from Canada, Mexico, and China will cost people in the United States somewhere around $400 billion a year or around $3,000 a household. This is far larger than any tax increase we’ve seen in the last half-century, and unlike tax increases put in place by Clinton and Obama, it will primarily hit low and middle-income households. Their tax increases primarily hit the top 1% percent, which is probably why they got so much more attention from the media. It is not clear what our reality TV show president hopes to accomplish with these tax hikes. His stated reasons don’t make much sense. Canada, Mexico, and China are already cooperating with the U.S. on the issues he is complaining about. There is a minimal flow of fentanyl and undocumented immigrants from Canada.” (03/04/25)
“In war-torn Sudan, a key to peace may be in a child’s fingertips. After nearly two years of civil war, an estimated 25 million people in the predominantly Arab country in northeast Africa face acute hunger and 15 million have been forced from their homes. Roughly 90% of schools have closed, leaving 19 million children without a classroom. Yet along Sudan’s relatively calm Red Sea coast, thousands of displaced children have space in more than 600 schools that remain open. One, a third grader who fled fighting in the south with her family, sat sketching in a notebook with colored pencils. ‘The war is very bad,’ she told the United Nations last week from a classroom in Port Sudan. ‘I will share the colours with my siblings.’ ‘In times of crisis,’ UN News reported, ‘education is critical, not just for academic learning, but also for providing a sense of normalcy, stability and safety.'” (03/03/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“As the Trump administration pauses military aid to Ukraine and western liberals continue their shrieking meltdown over Trump hurting Saint Zelensky’s feelings, it’s probably worth reminding everyone that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was indisputably provoked by western aggressions. That’s why so many western experts and analysts spent years warning ahead of time that western aggressions were going to provoke an invasion of Ukraine. Now, some may hear this and say ‘Okay but Russia still shouldn’t have invaded even though our western leaders were aggressively provoking them to.’ But before you do that it might be a good idea to look inside yourself and ask where that impulse is arising from.” (03/04/25)
“In his farewell Presidential address to the American people, George Washington gave the country some very excellent advice, most of which subsequent generations, including our own, have ignored. Here are two pieces of rejected advice from Mr. Washington: ‘Avoid entangling alliances’ and ‘No political parties.’ Disregarding both of these has caused tremendous difficulties for the country, cost taxpayers trillions of wasted money, and has divided the country, probably irreparably. But we were warned. Let’s examine Mr. Washington’s words of wisdom: 1) Washington was intelligent enough to recognize that ‘alliances’ sometimes must be made; indeed, America might never have become an independent country without an ‘alliance’ with France. But it’s the ‘entangling’ part that is dangerous, and if you can say ‘NATO,’ then you should be able to understand what Mr. Washington meant.” (03/04/25)
“An income tax rate of over 100% would be hard for anyone to sustain. At a rate a smidge over 100%, our deepest pockets might be able to get by if they drew down their wealth or borrowed against it. But keeping up, year in and year out, with an income tax rate of over 1,000%, 10 times income? That seems, on its face, totally implausible. Yet the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation would have us believe Warren Buffett did just that for at least five years running, all while enormously growing his own personal wealth. This conclusion about Buffett’s tax situation emerges inescapably out of the claims the Tax Foundation makes in a research paper published just after last year’s November election. The paper’s title (‘America’s Super Rich Pay Super Amounts of Taxes, New Treasury Report Finds’) could hardly lay out the Tax Foundation’s case more starkly.” (03/04/25)
“Arab leaders meeting in Cairo on Tuesday are set to endorse a counterproposal to U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for the Gaza Strip to be depopulated and transformed into a beach destination, even as the continuation of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire is uncertain. The summit hosted by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi included the emir of Qatar, the vice president of the United Arab Emirates and the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia — countries whose support is crucial for any postwar plan. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also attended. Israel has embraced what it says is an alternative U.S. proposal …. [and] has blocked the entry of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza to try to get Hamas to accept the new proposal and has warned of additional consequences, raising fears of a return to fighting.” (03/04/25)
“On May 20, 2011, inside the Oval Office and before the cameras, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured President Barack Obama. The incident was the closest the two countries came to a total breakdown. I was then Israel’s ambassador to the United States and had a ringside seat to the clash. It left a deep impression on me, underscoring the importance of interpersonal relationships in the shaping of foreign policy. Those lessons proved especially applicable last week in the wake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Oval Office meltdown with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance. By repeatedly interrupting and finally lecturing his hosts, the feisty Ukrainian leader supplied a textbook example of how not to handle a foreign leader of formidable pride and breakaway policies. To understand how he might get out of this mess, it’s worth going back to the Netanyahu-Obama collision.” (03/03/25)
“A young woman is due to testify in a Spanish court today in a bid to persuade a judge to let her die voluntarily against the wishes of her father, in the first case of its kind. The 23-year-old woman who wants to end her life is paraplegic due to injuries suffered when she tried to take her own life in 2022. She has the support of the regional government of Catalonia after a local euthanasia guarantee and evaluation board unanimously supported her decision in July 2024. … The woman was due to die in August, but the process was suspended at the last moment due to legal objections raised by her father, with the backing of the campaign group Christian Lawyers (Abogados Cristianos).” (03/04/25)
