Source: In These Times
by Rebecca Burns
“The threat of a city government shutdown loomed large in Chicago in December 2025 as the city faced an end-of-year deadline to close a projected $1.2 billion deficit. To counteract the impact of President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax law, Mayor Brandon Johnson had pitched a budget in October that would require some of the law’s biggest beneficiaries to pay more. His proposed payroll tax — on corporations with more than 1,000 employees — would, according to his administration, amount to less than 0.01% of the Trump tax cuts bestowed on companies like Google and Walmart. But a standoff ensued after a group of Chicago City Council alderpersons — led by Nicole Lee, a former United Airlines executive — announced they would refuse to cross a ’red line’: a new tax on the city’s largest corporations, including United. The group raised the specter of businesses fleeing Chicago in droves, despite a Chicago Sun-Times analysis casting doubt on this claim.” (03/31/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/slogan-inside-labors-new-strategy-tax-the-rich
Source: Independent [UK]
“Australia’s e-safety commissioner warned platforms like Meta, YouTube and TikTok of ‘major gaps’ in their enforcement of the social media ban for under-16s, almost four months after the law came into effect. ‘While social media platforms have taken some initial action, I am concerned through our compliance monitoring that some may not be doing enough to comply with Australian law,’ commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement on Tuesday. The legislation requires 10 of the largest social media networks, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, and X, to keep under-16s away or face fines of up to A$49.5m (£26.5m), making it one of the world’s toughest digital restrictions. … Ms Grant said the watchdog was ‘currently investigating potential non-compliance’ by Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.” (03/31/26)
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/australasia/australia-social-media-ban-watchdog-warning-b2948822.html
Source: Reason
“How America’s old-age entitlement system became a sprawling lifestyle-subsidy program that steals from the poor to give to the rich.” (03/30/26)
https://reason.com/video/2026/03/30/you-are-paying-for-retirees-lavish-lifestyles/
Source: Independent Institute
by Kristian Fors
“Milton Friedman once famously stated that ‘inflation always and everywhere is a monetary phenomenon.’ Inflation results from an increase in the money supply and a decline in the real value of fiat currency relative to goods and services. Prices can increase for a variety of reasons unrelated to the money supply, but that is not inflation. While the Iran conflict is certainly going to cause government policy-fueled price increases, there is a technical difference between that and inflation. Military actions do not directly cause inflation; however, they can be enabled by inflation, given the government’s capacity to print money and expand the budget.” (03/30/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/03/30/not-everthing-is-inflation/
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Iran attacked and set ablaze a fully loaded crude oil tanker anchored at Dubai port, with the strike damaging the vessel’s hull, in the latest strike on merchant vessels in the Gulf and strait of Hormuz amid the US and Israel war on Iran. Dubai authorities said the drone attack on the Al Salmi tanker caused a fire on board that was extinguished early on Tuesday, hours after the attack was first reported. They later confirmed there was no oil leak.” (03/31/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/mar/31/iran-latest-updates-trump-threats-oil-spill-dubai-tehran-jerusalem-strikes
Source: The Heartland Institute
by Dalia Marciukaityte
“These days, most people assume that a central bank — in the United States that is the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) — is something that a country has to have. However, the declining purchasing power of our paper money makes more people realize that there is something very wrong with our monetary system, which is controlled by the Fed. Moreover, before the Fed was created in 1914, the United States prospered without experiencing prolonged recessions and depressions. Turns out that a central bank is not something that a country needs, but it is something that financially irresponsible governments and corrupt businesses desire.” (03/30/26)
https://heartland.org/opinion/why-do-we-have-the-federal-reserve-bank/
Source: Reason
“You’re Wrong About Social Media Being Addictive.” (03/30/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/03/30/youre-wrong-about-social-media-being-addictive/
Source: Benzinga
“Manhattan’s top fraud prosecutors met with Polymarket to discuss whether lucrative bets on the prediction market platform have violated insider trading and other federal laws. The meeting follows a warning from Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District and former SEC chairman, who told a securities law conference that criminal cases involving prediction market activity were coming. … One newly created Polymarket account turned $32,000 into over $400,000 in less than 24 hours after the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. In another instance, a trader netted nearly $1 million from making remarkably accurate Iran war bets on the platform. Polymarket and Kalshi are scrambling to get ahead of the scrutiny. Polymarket issued new rules last week banning trades based on confidential information. Kalshi, which has long banned insider trading, went further by blocking politicians and athletes from trading in their own markets and said it has referred over a dozen cases to law enforcement in the past year.” (03/30/26)
https://www.benzinga.com/news/26/03/51552899/polymarket-federal-prosecutors-probe-bets-maduro-capture-iran-war
Source: Liberalism.org
by Radley Balko
“In 2017, six counties in North Carolina changed how they paid their public defenders. Previously, the counties paid private attorneys an hourly rate to represent indigent people charged with crimes. Under the new system, indigent defense would be handled with flat-fee contracts — an attorney would agree to represent a given percentage of a county’s indigent cases in exchange for a set amount of money. Five years later, a study documented the results: People represented under the flat-fee system were more likely to be convicted, far more likely to be incarcerated, and more likely to plead guilty without a trial. Flat-fee lawyers spent less time on each case and were significantly more likely to dispose of a case on the same day they met their clients. … Those outcomes were entirely predictable.” (03/30/26)
https://www.liberalism.org/p/in-criminal-justice-we-get-what-we-pay-for
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Russia has ordered a British diplomat to leave the country over allegations of spying, the latest in a series of expulsions of embassy staff from both sides. The Federal Security Service (FSB) claims the man provided false information when applying to enter the country, as well as trying to obtain sensitive information during informal economic meetings, according to state media reports. The diplomat has had their accreditation revoked and has been ordered to leave the country within two weeks. A UK Foreign Office spokesman called the move ‘complete nonsense’ and accused Russia of an ‘aggressive and co-ordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats.’ In a statement, they said Russia has been ‘pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work.’ ‘The UK does not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families,’ they added.” (03/30/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx94e7j5jpo
