Source: Wired
by Ali Winston & Maddy Varner
“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)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/04/02/the-empire-is-losing-its-ability-to-hide-its-ugly-nature/
Source: Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin
“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)
https://expression.fire.org/p/uk-government-admits-the-obvious
Source: Washington Post
by Keith B Richburg
“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)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/print-blocking-anti-consumer-permission-print-part-1
Source: Beat the Press
by Dean Baker
“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)
https://cepr.net/publications/lesson-from-the-iran-war-42765-making-enemies-makes-us-poorer/
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Winton Bates
“We do not yet know whether AI will develop a sense of self. We can be confident, however, that if an AI system does develop a sense of self, it will be because it serves a useful purpose for that system. That suggests to me that any intelligent system that has evolved to have a sense of self is likely to have good reasons to cling to it. I refer to AI to invite readers to ponder the motivations that humans have to cling to their individual identity rather than seeking to dissolve it or escape from it.” (04/02/26)
https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/04/would-conscious-ai-also-cling-to-its.html
Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama
“It’s a conceit of foreign policy intellectuals to try to infer from statements and events a consistent doctrine underlying an administration’s activities. It should be clear by now that there is no such thing as a Trump doctrine. The administration itself tried to articulate such a doctrine last November when it went through the ritual of producing a National Security Strategy for the second Trump term. It’s clear today that that strategy document bears no relationship to actual administration foreign policy.” (04/02/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/theres-no-such-thing-as-the-trump
Source: Cobden Centre
by Tim Price
“The petrodollar, per Grok, refers to U.S. dollars earned by oil-exporting countries (primarily OPEC members, plus others like Russia and Norway) from crude oil exports. It is not a separate currency but simply dollars received in payment for oil. The term also describes the broader petrodollar system: the longstanding global practice of pricing and trading most international oil in U.S. dollars, which creates sustained worldwide demand for the dollar. … The decision by the West to freeze Russia’s foreign reserves (including US dollars and US Treasury bonds) was the first nail in the coffin for the dollar, obliging sovereign countries to favour stateless assets such as gold. The decision by the US to join Israel in military adventuring against Iran will likely prove the first nail in the coffin for the petrodollar (and similarly boost prospects for the likes of gold over the medium term).” (04/02/26)
Source: Fox News
by Mike Davis
“At the core of our sovereignty is the right to determine who is entitled to citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to people born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a case concerning the lawfulness of President Trump’s commonsense executive order that restores the original understanding of birthright citizenship.” [editor’s note: Even before the 14th Amendment, the US practiced birthright citizenship from its founding, as did it its parent country. “Born here, citizen here” IS the original understanding – TLK] (04/02/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mike-davis-sanity-must-restored-birthright-citizenship