- Protest shuts down ferry rides between Puerto Rico and Vieques, snarling travel plans
Source: ABC News
“A protest over a rate increase forced Puerto Rico’s government on Wednesday to cancel ferry rides between the U.S. territory and the tiny island of Vieques that is popular with tourists. The protest comes as Puerto Rico reports a surge in visitors this month, with many locals and tourists traditionally visiting surrounding islands during Holy Week. Police said in a statement that some 12 trucks were blocking the boat terminal in Vieques. A one-way ferry ride to the island for decades had cost $2, but officials recently increased it to $11.25 for anyone who doesn’t live on Vieques, prompting an outcry.” (04/01/26)
- Chinese navy arrives in Sea of Japan just as Tokyo deploys long-range missiles
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong state media]
“Five ships transited Tsushima Strait and were tracked heading northeast after China warned of strong response to ‘neo-militarism.’ As Tokyo was completing the deployment on Tuesday of its two Type 25 missiles targeting China, a Chinese naval fleet entered the Sea of Japan, while bilateral tensions continued to escalate. China has strongly protested the Japan Ground Self-Defence Force’s addition of the newly designated Type 25 long-range surface-to-ship guided (SSM) missile and hypervelocity gliding projectiles (HGP).” (04/01/26)
- US private sector hiring totaled 62,000 in March, better than expected
Source: CNBC
“Private sector employment growth was a bit better than expected in March, but health care and construction continued to provide nearly all the momentum, payrolls processing company ADP reported Wednesday. Job growth totaled 62,000 for the month, down just 4,000 from February’s upwardly revised level but above the Dow Jones consensus for 39,000. ADP’s report does not include government employees. Like February’s report, two sectors essentially provided all the gains. Education and health services contributed 58,000 — identical to the February total — while construction added 30,000. The health services total was held back in the prior month due to a since-resolved strike at Kaiser Permanente that sidelined more than 30,000 workers in Hawaii and California.” (04/01/26)
- Tunisia: Political prisoner sentenced to two years for journalism
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“A Tunisian court handed down a two-year prison sentence to news website editor Ghassen Ben Khelifa, in the latest prosecution targeting media workers, a move the journalists’ union described as part of a ‘systemic’ attack on free speech. The SNJT union said on Tuesday that Ben Khelifa, editor-in-chief of the news website Inhiyaz, was charged with publishing false news in a case dating back more than three years. Ben Khelifa denied the charges, saying the case was fabricated and calling it evidence of a failing system.” (03/31/26)
https://www.newarab.com/news/tunisian-journalist-sentenced-two-year
- Hegseth lifts Army suspension of Kid Rock flyby pilots
Source: United Press International
“Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that helicopter pilots who conducted a flyby of musician Kid Rock’s Nashville estate over the weekend would not be punished, an abrupt reversal of the U.S. Army’s decision to suspend the Apache helicopter crews amid review of their conduct. … Rock published a pair of videos to social media on Saturday showing him cheering on a pair of Apache helicopters flying by and hovering near his Nashville estate, which he has called ‘The Southern White House.'” (03/31/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/03/31/Hegseth-Kid-Rock-helicopters/5201775007536/
- Kidnapping of US journalist in Iraq linked to Iranian militants
Source: Politico
“An American journalist has been kidnapped in Iraq with the apparent involvement of an Iranian-backed militia, the State Department said Tuesday. Shelly Kittleson, a freelance journalist who has contributed to various publications including POLITICO, was seized from a Baghdad street, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which said efforts were underway to recover her. … In a statement, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on ‘Iraqi authorities to do everything in their power to locate Shelley Kittleson, ensure her immediate and safe release, and hold those responsible to account.'” (03/31/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/31/kidnapping-us-journalist-iraq-iranian-militants-00853116
- Exposing the FBI’s Human Experimentation Studies
Source: Racket News
“‘You’re only going to create a real problem for an FBI employee if you call ‘em direct this way.’ Senior FBI official Thomas Gregory Motta was upset that I dared to call him to talk about the bureau’s hidden experiments on humans. He joined the bureau in 1998 and was promoted to the FBI’s senior ranks nearly 20 years ago. During his tenure, the bureau has grown proficient at snooping on journalists — as documented in a secret government report published by Racket — without having to face their questions.” (04/01/26)
- Free Market Ozempic Will Make a Huge Difference to Tens of Millions of People
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker“Ozempic sells for close to $300 for a month’s dosage in developing countries like China and India. It is expected to sell for around $15 for a month’s dosage when generics are introduced, and the price could eventually fall to around $3 when there is enough competition in the market. The price differentials in the United States and other wealthy countries are even larger. People without insurance can pay as much as $1,000 for a month’s dosage, although discounts are available that can cut this price in half. The drug still has several more years of patent protection in the United States …. With rare exceptions, drugs are cheap to manufacture and distribute; however, they can end up being expensive because governments give drug companies patent monopolies or other forms of protection.” (04/01/26)
- Tiptoeing Towards Abundance?
Source: Law & Liberty
by Samuel Gregg“Even when thriving markets are the goal, progressives have little interest in restraining the state.” (04/01/26)
- April Fools for America First? Higher Prices and New War
Source: The Daily Economy
by Stefan Bartl“The President returned to office on promises to lower costs at home and restore our reputation abroad. Americans got the opposite.” (04/01/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/april-fools-for-america-first-higher-prices-and-new-war/
- Yes, Iran Is Playing Chess – But Only After Rewriting the Rules of the Game
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ramzy Baroud“The origins of chess are contested, but few dispute that while the game began in India, it was the Sassanian Persian Empire that refined it into a recognizable strategic system. It was Persia that codified its language, symbolism and intellectual framework: the shah (king), the rokh (rook), and shatranj, the modern chess game. This is not a trivial historical detail. It is, in many ways, a metaphor that has returned with force. Since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, 2026, political discourse – across Western, Israeli and alternative media – has repeatedly invoked the analogy of chess to describe Iran’s conduct. The comparison is seductive. But it is also incomplete.” (04/01/26)
- Artificial Intelligence Hammers in the Final Nail in Karl Marx’s Coffin
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Andy Fischer“Karl Marx believed machines would eventually turn workers into something disposable. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote that industrial labor had already reduced the worker to ‘a mere appendage of the machine.’ In Capital, Marx argued that machinery would create a permanent ‘industrial reserve army’ of unemployed workers. As automation increased, workers would lose bargaining power while capital consolidated control. The proletariat would become poorer and more desperate. From that condition, Marx believed revolution would follow. That prediction sits at the center of his entire framework. But history moved in the opposite direction.” (03/31/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/artificial-intelligence-hammers-final-nail-karl-marxs-coffin
- Artemis II: America’s headed back to the moon, and beyond!
Source: New York Post
by staff“America’s space program is once again pushing toward new frontiers: For the first time in more than 50 years, the nation will send humans back to the moon — and then to Mars and beyond. It starts with the liftoff of Artemis II, scheduled for Wednesday evening. Yes, this mission in many ways is an echo, even a repeat, of the Apollo lunar flights of the ’60s and ’70s. The trip will bring them the furthest from Earth any humans have ever been and return them at a record speed of 25,000 miles per hour, facing temperatures of 5,000 degrees. Yet the point this time isn’t simply another lunar landing: It’s to prepare for even greater goals — such as the eventual establishment of a human base, with a continuous human presence, on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit, with a mission to Mars to follow.” (04/01/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/04/01/opinion/artemis-ii-americas-headed-back-to-the-moon-and-then-beyond/
- Why Do US Presidents Keep Risking Foreign Quagmires?
Source: Independent Institute
by Ivan Eland:During the past three-quarters of a century, beginning in 1950 and continuing right through to the current war with Iran, U.S. presidents repeatedly have risked involvement in conflicts that resulted in military quagmires with disappointing endings. Why do presidents keep repeating the same mistakes in the name of ‘national security?'” (03/31/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/03/31/presidents-keep-risking-foreign-quagmires/
- Every Argument Against Birthright Citizenship Is Hollow
Source: The UnPopulist
by Paul Gowder“In the end, every single legal argument for stripping U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants of citizenship fails. The 14th Amendment is clear. Donald Trump’s push to deny them citizenship status is yet another assault on the Constitution.” (03/31/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/every-argument-against-birthright
- Doing as they say, not as they do: The Trump administration’s golden passport problem
Source: Niskanen Center
by Cassandra Zimmer“The U.S. has every right to pressure Antigua & Barbuda and Dominica to reform programs that pose genuine national security risks. However, it does not have the credibility to do so while launching a program that contains design-level gaps that, if left unaddressed, create conditions for similar misuse.” (03/31/26)
- There Are No Good Zionists
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“I don’t believe you can be a good Zionist anymore than I believe someone can be a decent Nazi. The ideology itself describes a major character flaw I cannot take seriously the idea that some ethnicities or religious groups are inherently prone to nefarious behavior; it goes against everything I’ve learned about the human condition over the course of my strange adventures on this planet. I absolutely do believe, however, that there are political ideologies whose adherents are universally dogshit people. If you’ve been watching the incineration of the Gaza Strip and thinking it’s good, or thinking it’s complicated, or thinking it’s an unfortunate development that can be blamed on a few bad apples in the Israeli government but doesn’t reflect Israel’s nature as a whole, then you’re a piece of shit. You’re a horrible human being. It really is that simple.” (04/01/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/04/01/there-are-no-good-zionists-and-other-notes/
- The Political Orphanage, 04/01/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“How To Deal with Political Lizard People.” (04/01/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/how-to-deal-with-political-lizard-people
- PropagandaWatch, 04/01/26
Source: The Corbett Report
“How to Create a COMPLETELY FICTIONAL Terror Hysteria!” (04/01/26)
https://corbettreport.com/how-to-create-a-completely-fictional-terror-hysteria-propagandawatch/
- The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 04/01/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Hannah Arendt and the Crisis of Truth | Interview: Roger Berkowitz.” (04/01/26)
- Cato Daily Podcast, 03/31/26
Source: Cato Institute
“Congressional Feuding and Airport Chaos.” (03/31/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/congressional-feuding-airport-chaos
- Politics Politics Politics, 03/31/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Can Trump Summon Congress to DC? Why the Military Community is Rosy on Iran (with Riley Blanton).” (03/31/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/can-trump-summon-congress-to-dc-why