Source: Reuters
“U.S. President Donald Trump has removed Attorney General Pam Bondi from her post, a White House official said on Thursday, following mounting frustration with her performance, including her handling of investigative files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump had also reportedly grown frustrated that Bondi was not moving quickly enough to prosecute critics and adversaries who he wanted to face criminal charges. In a social media post, Trump praised Bondi as ‘a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend’ and said she will move to a job in the private sector. Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, will lead the Justice Department in the interim.” (04/02/26)
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-fires-pam-bondi-us-attorney-general-cnn-fox-2026-04-02/
Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm
“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)
https://reason.com/2026/04/02/a-year-after-liberation-day-trumps-tariffs-will-never-be-legitimate-without-a-vote-in-congress/
Source: AOL
“Russian forces maintained a day-long barrage of drone strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Thursday, injuring at least two people, local officials said. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov posted reports on Telegram throughout the day and well into the evening, noting strikes in four city districts. One city official said there had been at least 20 impacts from drones. Further south, in the city of Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said a Russian attack damaged a high-rise apartment building and a local business. No injuries were reported. Over the border in Russia’s Belgorod Region, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said 13 people were injured in a series of drone attacks, 11 of them in the village of Shebekino, just inside the border.” (04/02/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/russian-forces-maintain-day-long-220012118.html
Source: The Hill
by Brahma Chellaney
“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)
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5810758-the-war-for-oil-that-backfired/
Source: TradingView
“After aggressively accumulating Bitcoin over the past two years, several public companies are now reversing course. With BTC hovering around $66K and prolonged price weakness weighing on balance sheets, firms, especially mining companies, are increasingly offloading holdings to stay liquid.” (04/03/26)
https://www.tradingview.com/news/coinpedia:2568b3efe094b:0-bitcoin-sell-off-begins-as-miners-sell-over-15-000-btc-in-q1-2026/
Source: Downsize DC
by Jim Babka
“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)
https://downsizedc.org/afroman-qualified-immunity/
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Rich, Lori, and Riley discuss the Free State Project endorsing racism, whether or not facts can be racist, why poor people should just live within their means and have babies if they want to, and why Gen Z should just stop whining.” (04/02/26)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2026/04/03/the-anarchist-experience-574/
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“At least 43 people have been killed in an attack by a rebel group linked to ISIL (ISIS) in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the army. Regional army spokesperson Lieutenant Jules Tshikudi Ngongo said on Thursday that at least ’43 compatriots were killed and 44 houses torched’ during the previous day’s attack in Bafwakoa, located in Mambasa territory, in the province of Ituri. Authorities blamed the attack on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group led by former Ugandan rebels that has sworn allegiance to ISIL.” (04/02/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/2/at-least-43-people-killed-in-adf-attack-in-northeast-dr-congo-army-says
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)
https://archive.is/CFOgS
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/