Source: EconLog
by Max Molden
“Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs has sparked a lively debate among economists and others: are tariffs good? Maybe some of them? Should governments then impose those tariffs that are good? While these discussions are interesting in themselves, they also raise a more general question: what should economists be doing at all?” (03/31/25)
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“China has launched a new round of military exercises around Taiwan in its latest ‘warning’ to the island’s democratic government. The Chinese military said on Tuesday that the drills served as a ‘powerful deterrent’ to ‘separatist forces’ advocating Taiwanese independence. … China [pretends] Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy, [is] part of its territory and has pledged to take control of the island by force if necessary.” (04/01/25)
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“On March 25, six masked federal agents seized a Turkish graduate student on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Rumeysa Ozturk … was abducted and vanished into the maw of the federal prison system. The Trump administration ignored a federal court order and took Ozturk from Massachusetts to Louisiana federal detention facilities. But the Trump administration knew Ozturk had criticized the government of Israel a year earlier, enough to seal her doom according to the latest iron-fisted political correctness dictates. She co-authored one piece for the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s refusal to divest from Israel despite ‘credible accusations of …. indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.’ … Does the Trump administration consider op-eds to be a weapon of mass destruction?” (03/31/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/03/31/first-they-came-for-the-op-ed-writers/
Source: Reason
“Time for a DOGE Dance Party.” (03/31/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/03/31/time-for-a-doge-dance-party/
Source: ABC News
“With the successful launch of SpaceX’s Fram2 mission on Monday night, an all-civilian crew is attempting to do what professional astronauts have never tried — orbit the Earth from pole to pole. Riding on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, a SpaceX Dragon lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida just after 9:46 p.m. and carried the team into a 90-degree polar orbit. During the three to five-day mission, the autonomous Dragon will repeatedly travel from the North Pole to the South Pole at an altitude of 267 miles, with each orbit taking about 46 minutes. The privately funded mission is being led by Maltese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Chun Wang. Wang is joined by Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian film director and cinematographer, Rabea Rogge, a robotics researcher from Berlin and Eric Philips, a self-described professional polar adventurer.” (03/31/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/4-astronauts-aboard-spacex-rocket-set-become-1st/story?id=120343123
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“In an apparent attempt to appease President Trump in the hope of averting the imposition of U.S. tariffs on Mexico, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum did four things: 1. Sent 29 Mexican citizens to the United States so that they could be prosecuted for violating America’s drug laws; 2. Sent thousands of Mexican troops to the Mexico-U.S. border, ostensibly to help prevent fentanyl and other drugs and illegal immigrants from entering the United States; 3. Busted several illegal fentanyl operations inside Mexico; and 4. Assured Trump that Mexico was doing — and would continue doing — everything possible to stem the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants into the United States. Trying to appease Trump, however, is the wrong way for Mexico to go. Instead, the best thing Sheinbaum could ever do is declare directly and forthrightly that Mexico will no longer have anything to do with America’s ridiculous, deadly, destructive, and corrupt wars on drugs and immigrants.” (03/31/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/03/31/mexico-should-reject-appeasement-and-choose-peace/
Source: India Today [India]
“The Palestinian terror group Hamas is executing and kidnapping the very people of Gaza it claims to be fighting for. Days after thousands of angry Gazans took to the streets in a rare show of dissent against Hamas, the group responded with a brutal crackdown, executing at least six protesters. Many others have been publicly flogged, several kidnapped, and numerous Gazans remain missing, according to reports on mainstream and social media. … Although Gaza saw uprisings in 2019 and 2023, they were swiftly suppressed by Hamas. The threat of violent crackdowns often kept Gazans from taking to the streets for years.” (03/31/25)
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“Recently a new front has been opened in the war on free speech and it is one that Americans must take seriously. On university campuses across the country students – both American and foreign guests – have taken to protesting US support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, where tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed. The political class in the United States is determined to defend Israel from its critics and has responded to these protests by threatening and blackmailing the universities if they do not crack down on speech the powers-that-be do not like. Both Presidents Biden and Trump have used the power of US government funding to demand a crackdown on speech they don’t like, with President Trump recently pulling 400 million dollars in federal funding for Columbia University if they don’t silence the protesters.” (03/31/25)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/free-speech-is-worth-fighting-for
Source: Daily Mail [UK]
“Russia has ordered the largest increase in conscription since the Ukraine war began as a further 160,000 servicemen are called up to the frontline. The planned draft size has increased from 150,000 in 2024 and 134,500 in 2022, when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. It comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia to boost the size of its army to 1.5 million active servicemen — an increase of some 180,000 troops over three years. This is despite growing efforts from the United States to bring forward a ceasefire to the three-year-old conflict with Putin being accused of delaying the peace process. Despite the Kremlin’s claim that those called-up are not linked to the war in Ukraine, Kyiv has said throughout the conflict that it has taken Russian conscripts captive and Putin previously admitted that some had been sent to fight by mistake.” (03/31/25)
Source: Washington Post
by Heather Long
“President Donald Trump is pushing the economy to a breaking point with sweeping tariffs and rapid cuts to immigration and the federal workforce. There is growing fear of not just a recession but stagflation, a frightful situation — not seen in the United States since the 1970s — in which the economy contracts and people lose jobs but prices remain high. This is a self-inflicted wound from Trump. Many of his economic advisers, including Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore, are urging him to show restraint on tariffs. But Trump is set to unleash the biggest increase in tariffs since the Depression era on Wednesday. He’s calling it ‘Liberation Day.’ It may turn out to be Stagflation Day.” (03/31/25)