“From public-health policy to climate change, more and more issues are being removed from public control and handed to ostensibly neutral specialists. Though they may maintain a façade of democratic procedure, today’s Western societies are largely governed by an alliance between expert knowledge and managerial power. They would be more accurately described by the term ‘technocracy.’ Cast your mind back to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was not an aberration, but a revelation. … We might, understandably, be inclined to regard the Covid lockdowns as a bad memory – something best forgotten. But that would be a mistake. The state overreach, censorship, obsession with risk and distrust in people’s ability to make their own decisions were not exceptions to the norm, but the new norm.” (04/02/26)
“There is no doubt that Congress has traded away a lot of its authority over trade policy in the past few decades. But, as the Trump administration is now learning, those policies do not allow for the open-ended, anything-goes approach that Trump wants to take. The IEEPA tariffs were tripped up by the plain text of the underlying law, which courts at all levels agreed did not include the power to tariff. The new Section 122 tariffs face a similar legal challenge over the administration’s attempt to read broad powers into a narrowly tailored law. There is an easy solution to all this. Put a tariff bill in front of Congress. Of course, there is an equally obvious reason why Trump has refused to do that. It would be unlikely to pass.” [editor’s note: And even if it did pass, taxation would still be theft – TLK] (04/02/26)
“When President Trump launched his war on Iran, attention fixed on missiles, drones and the risks of escalation. The real story lay elsewhere: a grandiose and ultimately reckless vision of American ‘energy dominance’ that helped propel Washington into war. This was not simply a security decision, but an economic and ideological gamble rooted in Trump’s long-held belief that U.S. control over international energy flows would translate into global geopolitical supremacy and arrest America’s relative decline. In his second term, that belief hardened into doctrine. But in Iran, it collided with reality.” (04/02/26)
“Afroman can’t beat qualified immunity, and neither can you. But wait, didn’t he win his case? That’s what all the headlines are saying. Yes. He overcame his defamation case. It’s a great victory for free speech. But before that case ever went to trial, he lost a fight that few are talking about. … He wanted the deputies held accountable for the damage they did to his home: the broken door, the smashed gate, the detached cameras, and the $400 in cash that went ‘missing’ during the raid. The judge dismissed his claims. No jury. No hearing. Just gone. Think about that. The deputies got a full jury trial over hurt feelings from a music video. But … Afroman couldn’t get a hearing over a broken door and ‘missing’ money.” (04/02/26)
“A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in US history.” (04/02/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It used to be hard to help westerners see the depravity of the US empire. Now it’s just right in everyone’s face with raw genocide footage and insanely evil warmongering of direct economic consequence. It took a lot of work to help the average westerner understand that NATO aggressions actively provoked the war in Ukraine, or that western interventionism played a major role in the violence and chaos in Syria, or that US economic warfare was largely responsible for the suffering of Cubans and Venezuelans. The murderous savagery of the empire was hidden behind layers of obfuscation, allowing the propagandists to frame the western power structure as a passive witness to the abuses of foreign regimes. Now the propagandists have very little to work with, so those obfuscations can no longer take place.” (04/02/26)
“With an act designated as ‘non-crime,’ you might reasonably expect the role for law enforcement to be quite limited. No crime means no cops … right? For years, though, the United Kingdom has allowed a system of police intervention and record-keeping over ‘non-crime hate incidents’ — including legal speech — to flourish. But new Home Office guidance intends to ‘prevent police from recording lawful free speech.’ Will this signal a new step forward for the UK? It’s complicated.” (04/02/26)
“I’ve seen my share of dictatorships fall apart after decapitation. I saw it in Haiti, where I began my foreign reporting career covering the fall of ‘president-for-life’ Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier …. I witnessed the chaos left behind in Somalia following the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, is still a partially failed state years after Mobutu Sese Seko was run out. When those dictatorial regimes collapsed, it’s because the dictator had hollowed out all the normal organs of a state. Because power was concentrated into one man’s hands, all other institutions just atrophied. But more often than not, authoritarian regimes are deeply institutionalized. … They can survive the removal of the leader because the regime is decentralized, built to endure and buttressed by a sprawling elite whose power and wealth depend on the system’s survival.” (04/02/26)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Rory Mir
“[3D printers] come in many forms and can construct nearly any shape with a variety of materials. This has made them absolutely crucial for anything from life-saving medical equipment, to little Iron Man helmets for cats, to everyday repairs. … Unfortunately some state legislators are looking to repeat old mistakes by demanding printer vendors install an enshittification switch. In the U.S, three states have recently proposed that commercial 3D-printer manufacturers must ensure their printers only work with their software, and are responsible for checking each print for forbidden shapes — for now, any shape vendors consider too gun-like.” (04/02/26)
“Our Secretary of Defense (or War) Pete Hegseth seems to be having a really great time killing people in Iran, but his live action video games come at a big cost, not just in lives, but in budget dollars. To be clear, the main reason to be opposed to this pointless war is its impact on the people of Iran and elsewhere in the region. But it also has a huge economic cost that is seriously underappreciated. The short-term cost is the shortage of oil, natural gas, fertilizers, and other items that would ordinarily travel through the Straits of Hormuz. This shortage has already sent prices of many items soaring. The impact is not just on the goods themselves, but there is a large secondary impact due to higher shipping costs, and if fertilizer supplies are not resumed soon, higher food prices, due to lower crop yields.” (04/02/26)
