“President Donald Trump has shown a willingness to overthrow foreign leaders not seen since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in Iraq more than two decades ago, but he has yet to try to occupy and pacify another country militarily on that scale. That is why so far, none of Trump’s military actions have spiraled out of control like Iraq did, which raises questions about whether he can continue this pattern in Iran. It’s the occupation that turns a swift military action into a forever war. Trump tends to strike decisively and then quit while he is ahead, as evidenced by last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on Iran, the toppling of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, and the bombing of Syria.” (03/03/26)
“Published on March 2, an open letter signed by over 400 computer scientists from around the world cautions that ‘those deciding which age-based controls need to exist, and those enforcing them gain a tremendous influence on what content is accessible to whom on the internet.’ They add that ‘this influence could be used to censor information and prevent users from accessing services.’ Even short of the most authoritarian controls, they warn, age-verification mandates encourage centralization and favor large companies and services over smaller providers. The computer scientists aren’t just responding to California’s law. Age-verification requirements are spreading across the world.” (03/04/26)
Interview with Jonathan Cowen. Cowen: “We are now in the middle of a multiyear campaign to get someone more moderate nominated for president, and to make sure to try to block a left-wing candidate. Our view is that parties change direction around their presidential candidates, not around anything else. So, we wanted to gather people around the candidates who could roughly fall in our lane, not the far-left lane, alongside the people from early primary states and the people from battleground states, and get them into a place where two things can happen. One: We can make our case about what direction the party should go in. Two: They can spend lots of time with each other.” (03/04/26)
“The anti-Trump coalition in the United States is broad, spanning the political spectrum from establishment conservatives and libertarians to social democrats, progressives, liberals, and those who prefer to avoid politics altogether. The breadth of this coalition is both its strength and its weakness. A coalition against the current president and administration has the numbers to win any national election, just so long as everyone votes together. But the same coalition can be easily divided over policy: over tax rates, over how to rein in ICE, over policies to address racial inequality, and anything else. In other words, the anti-Trump coalition is a negative coalition, defined by what it opposes rather than what it supports.” (03/04/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Iran is better than the United States. The United States is worse than Iran. This is true not because Iran is especially good, but because the United States is especially evil. Iran isn’t blanketing a major metropolis with military explosives, killing over a thousand people including hundreds of children. The United States is doing this with its partner in crime Israel. Iran isn’t continuously bombing and invading countries around the world, toppling governments, circling the globe with hundreds of military bases, targeting civilian populations with siege warfare and brandishing nuclear weapons at its enemies in the name of securing planetary domination. Only the United States is. The US empire is the single most murderous and tyrannical power structure on earth, by an extremely massive margin. No one else comes anywhere remotely close.” (03/04/26)
“Gen Z uses AI for everything. It’s embedded in apps for everything from social media and messaging to music and podcasts, it fills the role that search engines played only a few years ago, and it’s even common in online dating. The majority of Gen Z uses AI at home, at school, and at work every month, if not every day. In fact, nearly three in ten U.S. teens report using AI chatbots daily, according to a new report from Pew Research Center. But just because Gen Z uses AI doesn’t mean they like it. Despite its omnipresence—or even because of it—Gen Z has a complicated, ambivalent relationship with AI.” (03/04/26)
“On Friday afternoon, Liberty University Law School emailed its first and second-year students about an ‘exciting opportunity to intern with the Department of Labor in DC.’ The available positions covered the full breadth of the DOL’s activities …. For second-year students, the internship ‘could lead to a full-time job offer for after your 2027 graduation.’ One important caveat: only passionate devotees of President Trump would be considered. Students who ‘aligned politically with President Trump’ and were ‘willing to work hard’ were strongly encouraged to apply, even if they had poor grades.” (03/04/26)
“Marco Rubio tries to spin U.S.-Israeli aggression: ‘The bottom line is this: The president determined we were not going to get hit first. … If you tell the president of the United States that if we don’t go first, we’re going to have more people killed and more people injured, the president’s going to go first. That’s what he did. That’s what the president will always do.’ This is Rubio’s attempt at damage control, but this answer is even worse than the one he gave the day before. If the U.S. and Israel hadn’t attacked, U.S. forces weren’t going to get ‘hit’ at all. The president’s threat against Iran was the main reason that American troops were in any danger in the first place.” (03/04/26)
“On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson delivered his inaugural address as our third president. Here is part of what he said: ‘Enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter. With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens: a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned …'” (03/04/26)
“Risk migrated outside traditional banks, but insolvencies and widening credit spreads are raising questions about leverage and liquidity strain system-wide.” (03/04/26)
