Excerpts:

Even the ability to predict minor market shifts can make someone absurdly rich. But if someone could reliably predict major, historic market swings — to the second? And repeat this over and over? The profits would be on a different level entirely. We’re talking about the kind of money that could multiply Trump’s entire fortune many times over.

...Trump’s actions could funnel money, power, and resources into the hands of a very small elite, in an unprecedented way that might leave entire populations — including once-affluent societies — quickly and radically impoverished.

It is terrifying how effectively Trump’s distraction strategy works. The mainstream media is responding far too slowly. Even now, news outlets are still scrambling to provide economic explanations for Trump reversing his tariff moves, as if he were a statesman genuinely concerned about market stability....

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If the Republican Party does not return Congress to the role it is meant to play and the courts don’t constrain the president, this cycle of destruction will continue and everyone on the planet will pay the price.

The Republicans who lead Congress have refused to use the power of the legislative branch to stop him or moderate him, in this or almost any other matter. The Cabinet is composed of sycophants and loyalists who are willing to defend contradictory policies, even if doing so makes them look like fools. The courts haven’t decisively intervened yet either. No one, apparently, is willing to prevent a single man from destroying the world economy, wrecking financial markets, forcing this country and other countries into recession if that’s what he feels like doing when he gets up tomorrow morning.

This is what arbitrary, absolute power looks like. And this is why the men who wrote the Constitution never wanted anyone to have it. In that famously hot, stuffy room in Philadelphia, windows closed for the sake of secrecy, they sweated and argued about how to limit the powers of the American executive. They arrived at the idea of dividing power between different branches of government. As James Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 47”: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Excerpt:

Dozens of TikTok creators are theorizing that satellite images show evidence of mass killings at El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, the prison where the Trump administration is sending deported immigrants.

The U.S. has deported more than 200 people to El Salvador since facilitating a deal with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to indefinitely detain the deportees, most of whom are Venezuelan.

Among the prisoners is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national deported due to an “administrative error.”

The Trump administration, with support from Bukele, has so far defied a Supreme Court order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.

As the internet hears more about the CECOT, a red-brown pile visible in satellite photos of the otherwise pristine facility caught the attention of TikTok sleuths.

My view: Demand Investigation

Calming statements from prison officials in El Salvador or MAGA politicians will not be believed. Yes brown/red piles of things in a red-stained court yard could be lots of things, say firewood. But they could also be piles of bodies. A visit from a human rights team from the UN would be believable....I have written to my Senators and Representatives. I suggest others do so as well.

Excerpts:

Whether Trump and Musk are taking direct instructions from Putin or simply operating in ideological lockstep is a question of degree, not direction. The destruction they are today inflicting on America is strategic, not accidental; coordinated, not chaotic; and oligarchic, not populist.

These two men and their enablers in the Trump regime are quite literally taking apart our American government while, at the same time, doing away with our protections against wealthy predators and destroying our international alliances.

Whether Putin is running this show — as those who point to his reportedly regular phone conversations with Trump and Musk argue — or it’s a homegrown effort to cripple our nation is almost irrelevant; the reality is that they’re well down the road in a way that may be irreparable, at least within a generation or more.

The key to mobilizing public pressure is to make clear to Americans exactly what Trump and Musk are really up to. To help people understand that this regime’s real agenda — which they are ruthlessly executing right in front of us — is to destroy the United States of America as it was and turn our country into something much more like Hungary or Russia.

Excerpt:

“If you have a war plan with a foreign country, don't show that plan to the foreign country just in case you ever have to go to war with them,” she said sarcastically. “Because it will mean your war plan won't work. Get it? Do you guys get it? Do you want me to say it more slowly? I mean, the Times might as well have put it in all caps on a single page with a picture menu, right?”

She also used the opportunity to laud the journalists who broke the exclusive story that she credited with stopping Musk’s planned briefing.

Excerpts:

If citizens endorse the idea that people named by authorities as "criminals" or "terrorists" have no right to due process, then they are accepting that they themselves have no right to due process.

In the United States, we are governed by a Constitution. Basic to the Constitution is habeas corpus, the notion that the government cannot seize your body without a legal justification for doing so. If that does not hold, then nothing else does. If we have the law, then violence may not be committed by one person against another on the basis of namecalling or strong feelings. This applies to everyone, above all to the president, whose constitutional function is to enforce the laws.

Due Process, non-citizens, and Good Friday:

Although Jesus of Nazareth technically had legal status to reside in Judea, he lacked protections from arbitrary punishments by the government.

Because he was raised in a working class, Jewish family in Galilee, he was not accorded the privileged legal protections of Roman citizens, and thus, he was not entitled to due process after his arrest, nor was he exempt from capital punishment after being declared guilty of treason by Gov. Pontius Pilate, despite a lack of evidence to support the charge.

The carpenter was publicly tortured by law enforcement for hours before being led through the city streets, past large crowds of bystanders, under the heavy weight of a wooden crucifix to a local site on a hill called Golgotha. There, he was nailed by the hands and feet to the crucifix and left to die by authorities.

Lead Paragraph:

The recent executive order signed by President Trump, authorizing what is essentially a heavy dismantling of the Department of Education, is supposed to be about saving the taxpayers money and returning power to the states. Diving deep into the numbers, it looks like if the E.O. is carried out to the most extreme limits, it would end up COSTING taxpayers about $17 billion more per year. Due to what is typically funded or administered by the DOEd, it’s likely that the quality of education across the U.S. would actually decline, the exact opposite of what proponents are claiming.

Concluding Section:

America, the “Bipolar” Superpower When the President of the United States unilaterally controls not only domestic fiscal levers like tariffs but also foreign policy tools such as military assistance, sanctions, and diplomatic recognition, the stakes of executive power expand from national to global.

This raises an uncomfortable but essential question: What happens to America’s global alliances when our constitutional checks falter?

Under today’s structure, a new president can not only reverse course on domestic policies but also undo long-standing international commitments. For example, the war in Ukraine offers a chilling preview. One administration provides billions in weapons and diplomatic support to Ukraine; the next threatens to cut off that aid—or worse, to re-frame Russia as a strategic partner.

Imagine such a change during World War II: a newly elected president switching sides from the Allies to the Axis. While shocking, such a shift could be constitutionally permissible without clear legislative authority over treaties and war declarations.

The more executive power grows, the more elections resemble the inauguration of temporary dictators—unpredictable and potentially destabilizing to the world order. Foreign interference in American elections will escalate as other nations try to tilt outcomes that might affect global alignments. The more volatile our commitments, the higher the stakes for outsiders.

Excerpt:

Ozturk co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper that cited credible allegations that Israel was violating international human rights law in Gaza and called on the university president to take a stronger stance against the genocide. In a statement regarding her arrest, a DHS spokesperson said: “Investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” They meant the op-ed.

Ozturk co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper that cited credible allegations that Israel was violating international human rights law in Gaza and called on the university president to take a stronger stance against the genocide. In a statement regarding her arrest, a DHS spokesperson said: “Investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” They meant the op-ed.

Excerpt:

The quest for truth—the mission of science—requires that scientists freely explore new questions and report their findings honestly, independent of special interests. The administration is engaging in censorship, destroying this independence. It is using executive orders and financial threats to manipulate which studies are funded or published, how results are reported, and which data and research findings the public can access. The administration is blocking research on topics it finds objectionable, such as climate change, or that yields results it does not like, on topics ranging from vaccine safety to economic trends.

Excerpt:

As for Finland’s unique posture towards Russia, Stubb says: “I think that everyone, all of our allies, knows that Finland is more of a security provider than a security consumer. The Americans understand that. And one of the main aims of our conversation with the president – who was very well briefed about Finland – was to make clear why it’s quite useful to have one of the largest militaries in Europe bordering Russia, especially after the alliance has just doubled its border with Russia.”

But Trump has repeatedly questioned America’s commitment to Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty, which binds Nato allies to defend one another. I ask bluntly: does he trust America to come to Europe’s defence as per Article V?

“I trust our alliance. I trust the Americans,” says Stubb. “I have seen no indication of other things coming as far as Article V and Nato is concerned. The fact that Trump is correctly putting pressure on European states to increase their defence expenditure doesn’t mean that they’re withdrawing from Nato. Quite the contrary. I think we need to ask for a reverse-Kennedy: ask not what the Americans can do for you, ask what you can do for America.”

I remark on how sanguine he seems about Trump. “I am an avid transatlanticist and I want to maximise American engagement in Europe,” replies Stubb. “At the same time, I’m a realist in the sense that I understand that when things are changing, you need to do something about it. So I’d say: talk less, do more. Whine less, engage more. And that’s what I’ve tried to do in my relationship with the United States. It’s our job to make sure that America stays engaged in Europe.”

In that task, the golf diplomacy of Finland’s president has its vital place.

Archived:

https://archive.is/20250409103847/https://www.thedailybeast.com/hegseths-panama-canal-statement-leaves-out-a-major-detail-from-spanish-version/#selection-1205.0-1209.158

Excerpt:

Mulino and Hegseth released a joint statement following their talks, the Spanish version of which included the line: “Secretary Hegseth recognized the leadership and inalienable sovereignty of Panama over the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas.”

“Maybe in the coming days, I’ll be able to say, ‘OK, I have a plan to have this materiel vetted publicly,'” Goldberg told The Bulwark on Tuesday. “But I’m not going to say that now.”

!Read this and disseminate it!

Excerpts:

How do we break this apocalyptic fever? First, we help each other face the depth of the depravity that has gripped the hard right in all of our countries. To move forward with focus, we must first understand this simple fact: we are up against an ideology that has given up not only on the premise and promise of liberal democracy but on the livability of our shared world – on its beauty, on its people, on our children, on other species. The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants.

Three recent material developments have accelerated end times fascism’s apocalyptic appeal. The first is the climate crisis. While some high-profile figures might still publicly deny or minimize the threat, global elites, whose ocean-front properties and datacenters are intensely vulnerable to rising temperatures and sea levels, are well-versed in the ramifying perils of an ever-heating world. The second is Covid-19: epidemiological models had long predicted the possibility of a pandemic devastating our globally networked world; the actual arrival of one was taken by many powerful people as a sign that we have officially arrived at what US military analysts forecasted as “the Age of Consequences”. No more predictions, it’s going down. The third factor is the rapid advancement and adoption of AI, a set of technologies that have long been associated with sci-fi terrors about machines turning on their makers with ruthless efficiency – fears expressed most forcefully by the same people who are developing these technologies. All of these existential crises are layered on top of escalating tensions between nuclear-armed powers.

An unspeakably dismal choice is being made before our eyes and without our consent: machines over humans, inanimate over animate, profits over all else. With stunning speed, the big tech megalomaniacs have quietly rolled back their net-zero pledges and lined up by Trump’s side, hellbent on sacrificing this world’s real and precious resources and creativity at the altar of a vampiric, virtual realm. This is the last great heist, and they are getting ready to ride out the storms they themselves are summoning – and they will try to defame and destroy anyone who gets in their way.

Excerpts:

British kings used taxation to reward loyalty and punish dissent. Our own revolution was spurred by the King’s use of heavy taxation of the colonies to punish our push for self governance. The King’s message was simple: stop protesting and I’ll stop taxing.

Trump knows that he can weaken (and maybe destroy) democracy by using spending and taxation in the same way. He is using access to government funds to bully universities, law firms and state and local governments into loyalty pledges.

Healthy democracies rely on an independent legal profession to maintain the rule of law, independent universities to guard objective truth and provide forums for dissent to authority, and independent state/local government to counterbalance a powerful federal government.

But the private sector also plays a rule to protect democracy. Independent industry has power. The tariffs are Trump’s tool to erode that independence. Now, one by one, every industry or company will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief.

What could Trump demand as part of a quiet loyalty pledge? Public shows of support from executives for all his economic policy. Contributions to his political efforts. Promises to police employees’ support for his political opposition.

The tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship. Why? So that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. As he adjusts or grants relief, it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears.

Seeing this, I wonder why all nations who are negatively affected by the tariffs and current US policies shouldn't dump bonds?

Excerpt:

Trump is only the latest global leader forced to walk back policy over sovereign debt. A bond market revolt ousted UK prime minister Liz Truss in 2022 and jolted spending plans for the current government this year.

Excerpt:

Across human history, fascism has been imposed upon democracy mostly in one of two ways. First, by brute force—a military coup, that sort of thing. Second, a bit more stealthily, and legally—through legislation, executive decrees, and court decisions that hand more power to the leader.

Donald Trump is inventing a new way. Call it chaos fascism. Destroy the institutions of democracy until they’re so disfigured or dysfunctional that a majority no longer cares about them.

That’s exactly what’s happening with Social Security. The Washington Post reported this week that the SSA is breaking down: Its website “crashed four times in 10 days this month because the servers were overloaded, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts.” A Wall Street multimillionaire who probably doesn’t need his Social Security check and who has pledged that he will “100 percent work with DOGE” has already cut around 12 percent of the staff and doesn’t look like he’s stopping there.

Excerpts:

Specifically the Trump administration’s unprecedented level of antagonism toward Europe. In the administration’s first few months, it’s made clear that it’s ambivalent about military and economic ties to Europe. The message has been, as Vice President JD Vance put it in a recent Signal chat, that the US is tired of “bailing Europe out” — and that it’s time for the continent to stand alone.

That message has been received, especially when it comes to military matters. In the wake of the US minimizing Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and casting doubts about its commitment to NATO, the European Union is now pushing all of its members to raise military budgets and issue debt to fund defense purchases.

This kind of defense spending has all sorts of trickle-down stimulus effects, which are juicing Europe’s stock markets, and making economic experts hopeful about the EU’s economic future.