Source: Liberal Currents
by Peter Michael Gratton
“Even in seemingly powerless positions, the choice to withdraw one’s support from corrupt systems remains a meaningful assertion of humanity.” (05/05/25)
Source: Fox News
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs'[s] legal team and the prosecution in his sex-trafficking case set out to pick a jury of 12 on Monday. Combs appeared in court alongside his lead lawyers – Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos – to begin voir dire. The questioning process is conducted by Judge Arun Subramanian, Diddy’s lawyers and the prosecutors who have been working on the case. Authorities charged Diddy with multiple counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transporting for prostitution in an indictment unsealed in September. Since then, the government has filed two superseding indictments against the rapper that added charges and an additional victim. Diddy has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. Diddy’s team and the prosecution were allotted five days to seat the jury, which will likely be a ‘difficult’ process, legal experts told Fox News Digital.” (05/05/25)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Amir Iraji
“As the tariff debate heats up again, a new ideological group has emerged: defenders of retaliatory tariffs who still claim to support free markets. Their stance differs from the old protectionist arguments about ‘saving jobs’ or shielding domestic industry from foreign competition. Instead, they say: ‘We don’t like tariffs. But since real free trade doesn’t exist — and countries like China already distort trade with subsidies and tariffs — we have to retaliate to level the playing field.’ The argument sounds pragmatic. But beneath the surface, it rests on the same fundamental misunderstanding as any other form of protectionism.” (05/05/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/how-tariffs-kill-knowledge-and-leave-us-in-the-dark/
Source: Common Dreams
by Thom Hartmann
“Trump and his billionaire toadies like Howard Lutnik and Scott Bessent are peddling a dangerous lie to working-class Americans. They’re strutting around claiming their tariffs will bring back ‘good paying jobs’ with ‘great benefits,’ while actively undermining the very thing that made manufacturing jobs valuable to working people in the first place: unions. Let’s be crystal clear about what’s really happening: Without strong unions, bringing manufacturing back to America will simply create more sweatshop opportunities where desperate workers earn between $7.25 and $15 an hour with zero benefits and zero security. The only reason manufacturing jobs like my father had at a tool-and-die shop in the 1960s paid well enough to catapult a single-wage-earner family into the middle class was because they had a union — the Machinists’ Union, in my dad’s case — fighting relentlessly for their rights and dignity.” (05/05/25)
Source: US News & World Report
“A German court said on Monday that far-right party Alternative for Germany had filed a lawsuit challenging the domestic intelligence agency’s decision to classify it as an extremist organisation. A spokesperson for the administrative court in Cologne said the lawsuit and a corresponding emergency petition had been submitted, both of which would be reviewed once the BfV domestic intelligence agency had confirmed that it had been notified. The extremist classification announced on Friday allows the spy agency to step up monitoring of the AfD, the biggest opposition party in parliament, for example by recruiting informants and intercepting party communications. The agency’s 1,100-page experts’ report, which is not to be released to the public, found the AfD to be a racist and anti-Muslim organisation. The German parliament could now attempt to limit or halt public funding for the AfD.” (05/05/25)
Source: Brookings Institution
“How much influence do private firms have over space policy?” (05/05/25)
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“On April 17, the U.S. presented Ukrainian and European officials with a framework for peace that declared itself ‘the final offer.’ On April 23, Ukrainian and European officials, denying the ‘final offer’ statement, presented the U.S. with an alternative peace plan of their own. Western officials and media have complained that the U.S. plan is Russian influenced. That is not a fair accusation. The plan is reality based: it concedes what is inevitable to Russia while refusing Russian demands that are unrealistic. The Ukrainian and European peace plan is not reality based: it suffers from the delusion that the side that is losing can impose a total capitulation on the victor.” [editor’s note: That is indeed a delusion … but it applies to both sides (and to Snider). So far neither side is winning and both are losing – TLK] (05/05/25)
Source: Law & Liberty
by Max Skjonsberg
“Quentin Skinner is surely the most prominent living historian of political thought. In a career spanning over sixty years, Skinner has written about the history of political thought from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. His oeuvre includes landmark studies on Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and ideas of the state and liberty, as well as pathbreaking works on historical methodology and hermeneutics. Skinner’s new book, Liberty as Independence, represents his fullest historical investigation into the concept of freedom to date. In the book, Skinner challenges what he takes to be the dominant conception of freedom in the modern world: Isaiah Berlin’s negative liberty, understood as freedom from external constraints. As an alternative to this ‘liberal’ view of freedom, Skinner proposes his preferred version of liberty understood as independence, and more precisely, self-government.” (05/05/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/liberty-against-liberalism/
Source: CNBC
“U.S. crude oil futures fell more than 4% on Sunday, after OPEC+ agreed to surge production for a second month. U.S. crude was down $2.49, or 4.27%, to $55.80 a barrel shortly after trading opened. Global benchmark Brent fell $2.39, or 3.9%, to $58.90 per barrel. Oil prices have fallen more than 20% this year. The eight producers in the group, led by Saudi Arabia, agreed on Saturday to increase output by another 411,000 barrels per day in June. The decision comes a month after OPEC+ surprised the market by agreeing to surge production in May by the same amount. The June production hike is nearly triple the 140,000 bpd that Goldman Sachs had originally forecast.” (05/04/25)
Source: Antiwar.com
“Yemeni Missile Strikes Israeli Airport, Trump Proposes $1.01 Trillion Military Budget, and More.” (05/05/25)