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04/29 -- Canada: Carney pulls off huge poll swing to keep power and condemns American "betrayal;" What "Buying American" Really Means
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Thomas L. Knapp
Apr 29, 2025, 6:23:27 AMApr 29
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 04/29/25
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Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Canada: Carney pulls off huge poll swing to keep power and condemns American "betrayal"
2) Ukraine war: Russian regime declares 72-hour ceasefire for next week
3) Trump whines about negative poll numbers, demands “investigations”
4) Palestine: Israeli troops flatten remains of Rafah ruins as latest strikes on Gaza hit three homes
5) US Senate report: Musk may have used DOGE to do(d)ge $2.37 billion in fines
6) Report: Global Military Spending Hits $2.718 Trillion, Highest Since Cold War
7) Chinese, Filipino regimes unfurl competing flags on disputed South China Sea sandbars, reviving tensions
8) DHL resumes global shipments of packages worth over $800 to US customers
9) Japan: Kyoto hotel requires Israeli tourist to declare non-involvement in war crimes to rent room
10) Kickstarter adds a “tariff manager” to let creators add surcharges to previously funded projects
11) South Korea: Regime Rules Out Tariff Deal With US Before June 3 Snap Election
12) The Vatican closes the Sistine Chapel to the public and prepares for a papal conclave
13) Ultra-processed foods linked to early death
14) TN: Memphis cops to face second trial in murder of Tyre Nichols
15) Huge power outage brings parts of Spain and Portugal to standstill
16) Hungary: Regime accused of illegal subsidies for pro-government media
17) Poll: Majority of US Voters Support Third Trump Impeachment
18) CO: DEA gang raids underground club, abducts 114
19) NY: Mob chases Brooklyn woman after mistaking her for protester
20) France: Police arrest suspects linked to prison attacks, minister says
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) What “Buying American” Really Means
22) America Should Bolt From the World Bank and IMF
23) Mario Vargas Llosa: The Man Who Broke From the Tribe
24) A New Dark Age?
25) The Uhuru Prosecution Brings Egg on the Face of the Justice Department
26) What’s Preventing a United Front Against the Trump Regime?
27) How Tariffs Could Cause Shortages in American Stores
28) Occupational licensing stifles economic growth and labor market equity
29) It’s Always About The System
30) Trump Administration’s Targeting of International Students Jeopardizes Free Speech and Privacy Online
31) How Democrats wage war on “rule of law” and weaponize it against Trump
32) Net Zero Chance of Eliminating Emissions
33) How to Avoid Trade Wars, and World War III
34) Did the Enlightenment Really Happen?
35) The False Claims of WHO’s Pandemic Agreement
36) For the rich, free speech — for others, a SLAPP in the face
37) How a DOGE review can actually improve the programs that fight HIV/AIDS
38) Trump’s Now You See Them, Now You Don’t Tariffs
39) How Is the Media Still Getting the Gaza Murdered Paramedics Story So Wrong?
40) The Grift Society
41) Trump’s Agenda Is Still Undecided
42) Trump can boycott, but the failure and end of Vietnam War is a fact
43) Today’s Stunning Outrage
44) Quantum Vibe, 04/28/25
45) Why Are the Democrats So Desperate?
46) Censorship is far more dangerous than free speech
47) Can Donald Trump Get Americans to Make More Babies?
48) Towards a Post-Colonial Illegalism: When Cartels Become Terrorists, Gangsters Become Revolutionaries
49) Grocery Workers VS Goliath
50) American Panopticon
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 04/28/25
52) Jason Ditz on The Scott Horton Show
53) The Chris Spangle, 04/28/25
54) The Dispatch Podcast, 04/28/25
55) EconTalk, 04/28/25
56) The Opinions, 04/28/25
57) Finding Freedom, 04/28/25
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/28/25
59) Dangerous History Podcast, episode 279
60) Free Talk Live, 04/27/25
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Canada: Carney pulls off huge poll swing to keep power and condemns American "betrayal"
Source: NBC News
"Canadian voters backed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party on Monday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. projects, in a national election strongly influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump. The CBC said it was too early to know whether the Liberals would win enough seats to form a majority government, but it projected another term for the party, which has governed Canada for almost a decade. 'Who’s ready to stand up for Canada with me?' Carney told cheering supporters early Tuesday. He said that Trump’s repeated comments about making Canada the 51st U.S. state were 'not idle threats.' 'President Trump is trying to break us, so that America can own us. That will never, that will never, ever happen,' he said. He said it was important to recognize that 'our world has fundamentally changed,' and that Canada’s old relationship with its longtime ally and trading partner the United States is 'over.'" (04/29/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/canada-election-results-prime-minister-carney-poilievre-rcna203321
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2) Ukraine war: Russian regime declares 72-hour ceasefire for next week
Source: SFGate
“Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire next week in Ukraine to mark Victory Day in World War II as the U.S. presses for a deal to end the 3-year-old war. Kyiv insisted on a longer and immediate truce. The Kremlin said the truce, ordered on ‘humanitarian grounds,’ will run from the start of May 8 and last through the end of May 10 to mark Moscow’s defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 — Russia’s biggest secular holiday. That timing means the truce would start at 2100 GMT, or 5 p.m. EDT, on May 7, lasting until 2100 GMT, or 5 p.m. EDT on May 10. Ukraine, which has previously agreed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal of a full 30-day ceasefire, dismissed Putin’s move as window dressing. ‘If Russia truly wants peace, it must cease fire immediately,’ Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said, according to the ministry.” (04/28/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/russia-and-ukraine-trade-long-range-strikes-as-20297805.php
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3) Trump whines about negative poll numbers, demands “investigations”
Source: Newsweek
“President Donald Trump has said pollsters that have shown his approval ratings sliding in recent weeks should be investigated for ‘election fraud.’ Trump cited recent polls from The New York Times, ABC News/The Washington Post, and Fox News, which put his approval rating on 42 percent, 39 percent, and 44 percent respectively. Responding to the polls, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday: ‘They are negative criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I win elections big, much bigger than their polls showed I would win, loose [sic] a lot of credibility, and then go on cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse.'” (04/28/25)
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-demands-investigations-negative-approval-rating-polls-2064949
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4) Palestine: Israeli troops flatten remains of Rafah ruins as latest strikes on Gaza hit three homes
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“Israel’s army is flattening the remaining ruins of the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, residents say, in what they fear is a part of a plan to herd the population into confinement in a giant camp on the barren ground. No food or medical supplies have reached the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip in nearly two months, since Israel imposed what has since become its longest ever total blockade of the territory, following the collapse of a six-week ceasefire. Israel relaunched its ground campaign in mid-March and has since seized swathes of land and ordered residents out of what it says are ‘buffer zones’ around Gaza’s edges, including all of Rafah, which comprises around 20 percent of the Strip.” (04/28/25)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-army-rafah-gaza-1.7520292
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5) US Senate report: Musk may have used DOGE to do(d)ge $2.37 billion in fines
Source: Economic Times [India]
“Elon Musk may have doged as much as $2.37 billion owing to his role in the Trump administration, according to a new report. As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Trump, Musk initially projected taxpayer savings of $2 trillion through reduced bureaucracy. This figure was subsequently adjusted to $1 trillion, and later to $150 billion. Senate Democrats, however, contend that the primary beneficiary of these savings was Musk himself. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations revealed that by Trump’s inauguration in 2025, Musk’s enterprises faced approximately 65 potential or active enforcement actions across 11 federal agencies, with estimated liabilities of $2.37 billion. The report suggests the actual value of avoided risks could be substantially higher. … Following DOGE policy implementation across federal agencies, numerous investigations into Musk’s companies have diminished. A significant example occurred in February when the DOJ withdrew a discrimination case against SpaceX, potentially saving $46 million in penalties.” (04/28/25)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/elon-musk-may-have-dodged-2-37-billion-in-fines-thanks-to-trump-era-role-claims-report/articleshow/120717860.cms
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6) Report: Global Military Spending Hits $2.718 Trillion, Highest Since Cold War
Source: The Defense Post
“Global military spending reached $2.718 trillion in 2024, marking a 9.4 percent increase over 2023, the largest annual rise since the end of the Cold War, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported. This marks the 10th consecutive year of rising spending worldwide, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. The top five spenders last year were the US, China, Russia, Germany, and India.” (04/28/25)
https://thedefensepost.com/2025/04/28/global-military-spending-2-trillion/
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7) Chinese, Filipino regimes unfurl competing flags on disputed South China Sea sandbars, reviving tensions
Source: CNN
“China and the Philippines have each unfurled their national flags on tiny sandbars in the South China Sea, staking competing sovereignty claims in strategic waters seen as a potential flashpoint for global conflict. The rival photo opportunities unfolded on Sandy Cay, a string of three uninhabited sandbars which lie near a Philippine military outpost in the disputed Spratly Islands. The release of the images comes as US and Philippine forces hold their largest-ever annual joint military drills in nearby waters — and just weeks after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to enhance America’s military alliance with the Philippines to ‘reestablish deterrence’ to counter ‘China’s aggression’ in the region — during his first trip to Asia.” (04/28/25)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/asia/china-philippines-sandy-cave-dispute-intl-hnk/index.html
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8) DHL resumes global shipments of packages worth over $800 to US customers
Source: Fox Business
“DHL Express is resuming shipments valued at more than $800 to consumers in the U.S. from businesses in other countries. The parcel delivery company announced the move on Monday, marking an end to a temporary pause in business-to-consumer (B2C) shipments of over $800 into the U.S. that it had instituted about a week ago. … The temporary suspension of $800-plus shipments into the U.S. was precipitated by a regulatory change that subjected such parcels to formal customs clearances, but, according to the parcel delivery company, shipments worth $800 to $2,500 now ‘can once again be cleared using the expedited informal entry process.’ Its decision to restart the shipments ‘follows constructive dialogue between DHL and the U.S. government, who demonstrated a strong willingness to understand our operational and technical challenges, and who agreed that it was imperative to act quickly in the interest of U.S. consumers,’ DHL Express said.” (04/28/25)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/dhl-resumes-global-shipments-packages-worth-over-800-us-customers
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9) Japan: Kyoto hotel requires Israeli tourist to declare non-involvement in war crimes to rent room
Source: Jerusalem Post [Palestine]
“An Israeli tourist checking into a hotel in the Japanese city of Kyoto was forced [sic] to sign a form declaring his non-involvement in alleged war crimes committed by Israeli forces, Ynet reported on Saturday. The tourist attempted to check in for a stay at the Wind Villa Hotel in Kyoto, but upon presenting his Israeli passport at the desk, he was told to declare his non-involvement in war crimes or face refusal of service. … The hotel employee replied that every Israeli or Russian guest was required to sign it. ‘In the end, I decided to sign because I have nothing to hide.’ … The tourist referred the incident to the Israeli Ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, and sent a letter to Kyoto Prefecture Governor Takatoshi Nishiwaki raising concerns over discriminatory practices in Kyoto’s hospitality sector.” [editor’s note: No “force” involved – TLK] (04/28/25)
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-851607
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10) Kickstarter adds a “tariff manager” to let creators add surcharges to previously funded projects
Source: Engadget
“Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter just announced something called a ‘Tariff Manager Tool’ that lets creators add new surcharges to funded projects. This should help these creators deal with the unexpected costs of Trump’s global trade war. Here’s how it works. Creators will be able to apply per-item surcharges to account for tariff-related cost increases. These charges will appear as a separate line item on the payment page for folks who have funded the project. It only applies to items heading to US-based shipping addresses. Not everyone will want to, or be able to, pay an additional fee for something they backed months or years ago when the economy was stronger. Backers will be given the option to decline the surcharge, in which case a creator can issue a refund. A blog post does suggest that backers and creators could find ‘another resolution,’ beyond a refund, but didn’t get into specifics.” (04/28/25)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/kickstarter-adds-a-tariff-manager-to-let-creators-add-surcharges-to-previously-funded-projects-170851069.html?src=rss
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11) South Korea: Regime Rules Out Tariff Deal With US Before June 3 Snap Election
Source: US News & World Report
“A senior South Korean government official ruled out on Monday that Seoul would agree to a trade package with Washington by the time the country holds a presidential election on June 3, and flagged challenges to reaching a deal even before early July. The countries last week agreed to craft a trade package aimed at removing new U.S. tariffs before a pause in reciprocal tariffs is lifted on July 8, Seoul’s delegation in Washington said after their first formal tariff talks on Thursday. Political analysts noted, however, it may be difficult for South Korea to make any firm commitment on big energy projects and defence costs as it currently has an acting president in power. South Korea will hold a snap election on June 3 after former President Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted for his role in imposing martial law briefly in December.” (04/28/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-04-28/south-korea-rules-out-tariff-deal-with-us-before-june-3-snap-election
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12) The Vatican closes the Sistine Chapel to the public and prepares for a papal conclave
Source: ABC News
“Exit tourists. Enter cardinals. The Vatican has closed the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather for the conclave to elect the next pope after the death of Pope Francis on April 21 at age 88. Francis was buried Saturday after a funeral in St. Peter’s Square that gathered world leaders and hundreds of thousands of others, and a nine-day period of mourning is continuing before the conclave can start. But the church is at the same time turning its attention to the next steps. Key is preparing the Sistine Chapel for the red-robed cardinals who will gather at the Vatican in the heart of Rome to choose the next pope in an ancient process fictionalized in the 2024 film ‘Conclave.’ One key task: installing the chimney where ballots will be burned after votes.” (04/28/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/vatican-closes-sistine-chapel-public-prepares-papal-conclave-121228095
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13) Ultra-processed foods linked to early death
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“People who eat lots of ultra-processed foods (UPF) may be at greater risk of dying early, a study in eight countries including the UK and the US suggests. Processed meats, biscuits, fizzy drinks, ice cream and some breakfast cereals are examples of UPF, which are becoming increasingly common in diets worldwide. UPFs tend to contain more than five ingredients, which are not usually found in home cooking, such as additives, sweeteners and chemicals to improve the food’s texture or appearance. Some experts say it’s not known why UPFs are linked to poor health — there is little evidence it’s down to the processing itself and could be because these foods contain high levels of fat, salt and sugar. The researchers behind the study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, looked at previous research to estimate the impact of ultra-processed food intake on mortality.” (04/28/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm30kwvv17o
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14) TN: Memphis cops to face second trial in murder of Tyre Nichols
Source: Seattle Times
“Three former [sic] Tennessee police officers will face an out-of-town jury when their trial in state court starts Monday on second-degree murder charges in the beating death of Tyre Nichols after a 2023 traffic stop in Memphis. Opening statements are expected to begin in the trial of former [sic] Memphis Police Department officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, who have pleaded not guilty and already face the prospect of years behind bars after they were convicted of federal charges last year. The beating of Nichols, a [b]lack man, was caught on police video and led to national protests, raised the volume on calls for police reforms in the U.S. and directed intense scrutiny toward the police force in Memphis, a majority-[b]lack city.” (04/28/25)
https://archive.is/sQ2KN
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15) Huge power outage brings parts of Spain and Portugal to standstill
Source: Reuters
“A huge power outage brought parts of Spain and Portugal to a standstill on Monday, grounding planes, halting public transport, causing panic buying and leaving the two countries scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses. Some hospitals halted routine work, some shops shut their doors and the two countries’ governments convened emergency cabinet meetings as officials tried to find out what caused the mass blackout from around 1033 GMT. Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe.” (04/28/25)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/large-parts-spain-portugal-hit-by-power-outage-2025-04-28/
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16) Hungary: Regime accused of illegal subsidies for pro-government media
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“Viktor Orbán’s government is being accused of handing more than €1bn in unlawful subsidies to pro-government media, adding to concerns that state support is being used to bolster the Hungarian leader’s grip on power. Two Hungarian media outlets — Magyar Hang (Hungarian Voice) and a second that has requested anonymity — told the Financial Times they were aiming to lodge a complaint with the European Commission on Monday. They claim advertising revenue was channelled to pro-Orbán newspapers, television stations and online platforms between 2015 and 2023 to ensure support for the ruling party and to crowd out critical journalism.” (04/28/25)
https://archive.is/cqB7X
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17) Poll: Majority of US Voters Support Third Trump Impeachment
Source: Common Dreams
“New polling shows a majority of U.S. voters support Congress impeaching U.S. President Donald Trump a third time, which would break a record the Republican set during his first term, when he was twice impeached by the House of Representatives but never convicted by the Senate. Specifically, a polling memo published Friday by ASO Communications and Research Collaborative shows that just a few months into Trump’s return to the White House, 52% of likely voters across the ideological spectrum somewhat or strongly support impeaching him — including 84% of Democrats, 55% of Independents, and even 20% of his fellow Republicans. The survey was conducted from April 18-21 by Data for Progress. The polling firm also asked the 1,171 respondents, ‘Thinking of an impeachment effort led by Democrats in Congress, which of the following comes closest to your view, even if none are exactly right?'” (04/28/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-impeachment-2025
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18) CO: DEA gang raids underground club, abducts 114
Source: United Press International
“Federal authorities over the weekend [abducted] more than 100 people at an underground night club on accusations of being undocumented immigrants, as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on immigration. Some 300 Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agents raided the Colorado Springs nightclub early Sunday, resulting in the [abduction] of 114 people, DEA Rocky Mountain Division said on X. Drugs and weapons were found at the scene. About 200 people were on the premises when the raid began, authorities said. DEA Special Agent Jonathan Pullen told reporters that the suspects would be handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and charged with immigration-related offenses. Despite drugs being found at the scene, authorities will likely not be able to file narcotics charges against them, he said.” (04/28/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/04/28/Colorado-Springs-DEA-arrests/7831745816479/
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19) NY: Mob chases Brooklyn woman after mistaking her for protester
Source: SFGate
“A Brooklyn woman said she feared for her life as she was chased, kicked, spit at and pelted with objects by a mob of Orthodox Jewish men who mistook her as a participant in a protest against Israel’s far-right security minister. The assault, recorded by a bystander, unfolded Thursday near the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Crown Heights, where an appearance by Itamar Ben-Gvir set off clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and members of the neighborhood’s large Orthodox Jewish community. The woman, a neighborhood resident in her 30s, told The Associated Press she learned of the protest after hearing police helicopters over her apartment. She walked over to investigate around 10:30 p.m. but by then the protest had mostly dispersed. Not wanting to be filmed, she covered her face with a scarf.” (04/28/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/mob-chased-brooklyn-woman-after-mistaking-her-for-20297592.php
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20) France: Police arrest suspects linked to prison attacks, minister says
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Suspects have been arrested in connection with attacks carried out against French prisons earlier this month, said French justice minister Gerarld Darminin on Monday. At least 20 people were arrested in police raids raids across France Monday after a series of attacks on prisons that scared staff and rattled the government, a source close to the case said. The early morning arrests took place in the Paris region, Marseille in the south and in Lyon and Bordeaux, the source told AFP, with raids still going on.” (04/28/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250428-french-police-arrest-suspects-linked-to-prison-attacks-minister-says
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) What “Buying American” Really Means
Source: The Dispatch
by David M Drucker
“There’s this great scene in the 1984 film Moscow on the Hudson. The late actor Robin Williams’[s] character, a Russian musician who defected from the Soviet Union, is shopping in an American grocery store for the first time and, overwhelmed by the several coffee brands to choose from on the shelves, nearly has a nervous breakdown. … That Americans can purchase the product of their choice among countless available domestic and foreign brands is a quintessential part of living in a free society. And yet, our leaders in Washington, D.C., have forgotten that. … many economists warn that not only will the president’s liberal use of tariffs fail to deliver the economic miracle he promises, the result will yield fewer consumer choices. That’s academic-speak for: Americans will have less freedom to buy the products they prefer.” (04/28/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/buy-american-tariffs-protectionism-consumer-choice-trump/
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22) America Should Bolt From the World Bank and IMF
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“The International Monetary Fund was created in 1944 to shore up currencies and help nations with temporary balance-of-payment problems. In the decades since the IMF’s founding, global capital markets and fluctuating currency exchange rates have made the IMF a relic. But too many people have gotten rich from IMF largesse to permit the curtain to be closed on this institution. World Bank President Ajay Banga ‘has sought to emphasize the bank’s focus on job creation … and to prioritize private sector involvement in projects around the world,’ The New York Times reported. But the World Bank’s notion of private sector has often been either a fraud or a political smokescreen.” (04/28/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/04/28/america-should-bolt-from-the-world-bank-and-imf/
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23) Mario Vargas Llosa: The Man Who Broke From the Tribe
Source: The Daily Economy
by Emmanuel Rincon
“In one of the many interviews I had with Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, he said he hoped death would surprise him with a pen in his hand. I can’t say whether that dream came true, but what is certain is that Llosa likely had little left to write — the world had already been captured in his books. Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025) died on April 13 in Lima. And with him, one of the most lucid, courageous, and brilliant voices — not only of the Spanish language but of all humanity — has left us. Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, will be remembered for many things. But I’ll remember him for his courage above all else, which was exemplified by his defiance of the dominant trends of his time.” (04/28/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/mario-vargas-llosa-the-man-who-broke-from-the-tribe/
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24) A New Dark Age?
Source: Quillette
by George Case
“In greatly simplified terms, the Dark Ages were the centuries following the fall of Rome circa 500 AD, during which the accumulated Greek and Roman learning of the previous millennium was lost to all but a few monks and scholars. The breakdown of continental stability maintained from the imperial capital left a patchwork of feudal kingdoms from the North Atlantic across the European plain, sporadically warring with each other and invaders from the north and east, while ordinary serfs lived under omnipresent shadows of plague, scarcity, and superstition. Most contemporary historians prefer the terms ‘Middle Ages’ or ‘Medieval Era’ to ‘Dark Ages,’ but in any case, the designation has become a shorthand for a lengthy period of stagnation and ignorance. … Although they differ in their specifics, forecasts that our civilisation’s rich heritage of wisdom and achievement is at risk of being neglected and forgotten remain pertinent today.” (04/28/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/04/28/a-new-dark-age-technology-social-media-musk-bezos-zuckerberg/
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25) The Uhuru Prosecution Brings Egg on the Face of the Justice Department
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Why should anyone have to register with the federal government for any reason, including working for a foreign government? Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the power to enact such a law? How can such a registration requirement be reconciled with the principles of a free society? It can’t be. In a genuinely free society, people have the right not only to work for foreign governments but also the freedom not to register their names with the federal government. It’s probably worth mentioning that Russia also has the same type of registration requirement.” (04/28/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/04/28/the-uhuru-prosecution-brings-egg-on-the-face-of-the-justice-department/
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26) What’s Preventing a United Front Against the Trump Regime?
Source: TomDispatch
by Norman Solomon
“America desperately needs a united front to restrain the wrecking ball of the Trump regime. While outraged opposition has been visible and vocal, it remains a far cry from developing a capacity to protect what’s left of democracy in the United States. With the administration in its fourth month, the magnitude of the damage underway is virtually impossible for any individual to fully grasp. But none of us need a complete picture to understand that the federal government is now in the clutches of massively cruel and antidemocratic forces that have no intention of letting go. Donald Trump’s second presidential term has already given vast power to the most virulent aspects of the nation’s far-right political culture. Its flagrant goals include serving oligarchy, dismantling civil liberties, and wielding government as a weapon against academic freedom, civil rights, economic security, environmental protection, public health, workers’ rights, and so much more.” (04/28/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/whats-preventing-a-united-front-against-the-trump-regime/
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27) How Tariffs Could Cause Shortages in American Stores
Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm
“Tariffs make it more expensive to bring goods into the United States, and one of the primary consequences of artificially inflating the cost of imports is that you get less of them. Possibly a lot less. American retailers are bracing for supply chain disruptions that could lead to price hikes and shortages as soon as next month — and might continue for a while, even if the Trump administration backs down from its trade war with China. Cargo volumes to American ports are expected to ‘significantly decline because of canceled or delayed orders due to the tariffs,’ says Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy for the National Retail Federation (NRF).” (04/28/25)
https://reason.com/2025/04/28/how-tariffs-could-cause-shortages-in-american-stores/
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28) Occupational licensing stifles economic growth and labor market equity
Source: Orange County Register
by Christos A Makridis & Patrick A McLaughlin
“Not long ago, only a small fraction of American workers needed a license to do their jobs. Today, nearly a quarter of the workforce is subject to legally mandated licensing — everything from hair stylists to plumbers to travel guides. That explosion of regulations hasn’t just inconvenienced would-be professionals; our new research published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications shows it’s impeding employment, especially for low- and middle-wage earners. … To be fair, these restrictions do raise wages for those who manage to get the license — a result consistent with prior work. At first glance, that might sound like a boon to workers. But it’s also clear that when licensing rules pile up, there are fewer jobs to go around.” (04/28/25)
https://archive.is/FvVbT
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29) It’s Always About The System
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The main reason more people don’t just go all in with opposing the US empire and rejecting all its propaganda about enemy states is because they can’t handle working through the heavy cognitive dissonance which comes with recognizing that everything you’ve been taught is a lie. Most people recognize to some extent that the US and its allies do bad things, but those who take it all the way into a clear understanding that this power structure is responsible for most of our world’s ills are a small minority in the west. Even the relatively awake ones will try to cling on to this or that imperial propaganda narrative about nations like China, North Korea, Iran and/or Russia.” [editor’s note: While Johnstone clings to the imperial propaganda narratives OF China, North Korea, Iran, and/or Russia – TLK] (04/28/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/04/28/its-always-about-the-system/
-----
30) Trump Administration’s Targeting of International Students Jeopardizes Free Speech and Privacy Online
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Lisa Femia, Sophia Cope, & Saira Hussain
“The federal government is using social media surveillance to target student visa holders living in the United States for online speech the Trump administration disfavors in an effort to revoke their visas. This new program, called ‘Catch and Revoke,’ appears to be a cross-agency collaboration between the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Justice. It includes a dedicated task force and the use of AI and other data analytic tools to review the public social media accounts of tens of thousands of student visa holders. … This social media surveillance program is an alarming attack on freedom of speech and privacy — for both visa holders here in the United States and their American associates.” (04/28/25)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/trump-administrations-targeting-international-students-jeopardizes-free-speech-and
-----
31) How Democrats wage war on “rule of law” and weaponize it against Trump
Source: New York Post
by Victor Davis Hanson
“Since 2021, the left has waged a veritable war against the American legal system in a variety of ways. One serial target of Democrats and the left has been the Supreme Court. In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke to an angry throng of pro-abortion protesters assembled at the very doors of the court chambers. He threatened two of the justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, by name. Schumer yelled to the volatile crowd that the justices’ views would make them ‘reap the whirlwind’, and the two would ‘not know what hit’ them. In the ensuing months, protesters mobbed some of the conservative justices’ homes — likely committing felonies. The sympathetic Biden Justice Department chose not to follow the law, and so did nothing — although eventually a would-be assassin turned up.” (04/28/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/04/27/opinion/how-the-democrats-are-waging-war-against-the-rule-of-law/
-----
32) Net Zero Chance of Eliminating Emissions
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by James Price
“The commitment in Britain to ‘net zero emissions by 2050’ was signed into law in the dying days of Theresa May’s premiership, as an attempt to give her a ‘legacy’ after three painful years as Prime Minister. That legacy is likely to be lost, like the works of Ozymandias, as the world comes crashing back to economic reality. The debate over the introduction of net zero was conducted during the Conservative Party’s leadership contest to succeed May, and therefore all attention was away from what would prove to be the most impactful economic decision of the year. The debate lasted all of 90 minutes. The results have been completely devastating for Britain’s economy in all sorts of corrosive ways.” (04/28/25)
https://fee.org/articles/net-zero-chance-of-eliminating-emissions/
-----
33) How to Avoid Trade Wars, and World War III
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“Not a day goes by without a new shock to Americans and our neighbors around the world from the Trump administration. On April 22nd, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgraded its forecasts for global growth in 2025, from 3.3% to 2.8%, and warned that no country will feel the pain more than the United States. Trump’s policies are expected to drag U.S. growth down from 2.7% to 1.8%. It’s now clear to the whole world that China is the main target of Trump’s trade wars. The U.S. has slapped massive tariffs (up to 245%) on Chinese goods. China hit back with 125% tariffs of its own and refuses even to negotiate until U.S. tariffs are lifted. Ever since President Obama announced a U.S. ‘pivot to Asia’ in 2011, both U.S. political parties have seen China as the main global competitor, or even as a target for U.S. military force.” (04/28/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-to-avoid-trade-wars-and-world-war-iii
-----
34) Did the Enlightenment Really Happen?
Source: Law & Liberty
by Kevin Schmiesing
“Our conception of the past is littered with expressions that are often poorly defined or understood: ancient, barbarian, empire, liberal, progress, capitalism. The distinguished historian J. C. D. Clark wishes to draw our attention to the equivocal character of another widely used term: Enlightenment. To be precise, the more problematic formulation is ‘the Enlightenment,’ not ‘enlightenment’ per se. In a phrase that appears multiple times in his latest work, The Enlightenment: An Idea and Its History, and that might be considered a simplified statement of its thesis, Clark contends that across Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ‘enlightenment was everywhere, but the Enlightenment was nowhere.’ He sets out to demonstrate that the Enlightenment — a mainstay of intellectual, social, and political history — is in fact a figment of our imagination. It never happened.” (04/28/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/did-the-enlightenment-really-happen/
-----
35) The False Claims of WHO’s Pandemic Agreement
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Bell
“One way to determine whether a suggestion is worth following is to look at the evidence presented to support it. If the evidence makes sense and smells real, then perhaps the program you are asked to sign up for is worthy of consideration. However, if the whole scheme is sold on fallacies that a child could poke a stick through, and its chief proponents cannot possibly believe their own rhetoric, then only a fool would go much further. This is obvious – you don’t buy a used car on a salesman’s insistence that there is no other way to get from your kitchen to your bathroom. Delegates at the coming World Health Assembly in Geneva are faced with such a choice.” (04/28/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-false-claims-of-whos-pandemic-agreement/
-----
36) For the rich, free speech — for others, a SLAPP in the face
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Carolyn Iodice
“Fourteen years ago, the legislature passed vital protections for freedom of speech in the Texas Citizens Participation Act. This week, they’re looking to gut it. The TCPA addresses the common problem of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs. These are frivolous lawsuits brought by the wealthy or powerful against private citizens to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. … This week, a House committee is going to vote on HB 2988, from Rep. Mano DeAyala, R-Houston, which would end the requirement for people who file SLAPPs to pay the other side’s legal bills when the case is dismissed. This would make it harder for SLAPP victims to get lawyers to defend their free speech rights, and invite more suits aimed at silencing people — a fundamental encroachment of constitutional rights.” (04/28/25)
https://www.thefire.org/news/rich-free-speech-others-slapp-face
-----
37) How a DOGE review can actually improve the programs that fight HIV/AIDS
Source: Fox News
by Joe O’Neill
“President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been aggressively overhauling the bloated and cumbersome U.S. federal bureaucracy by re-examining contracts, questioning what taxpayer dollars are funding and who that funding is going to. The public health sector hasn’t been immune, with the Trump administration poring over the layers of bureaucracy and freezing or canceling millions in grants. Countless programs within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including those designed to target the treatment and spread of HIV/AIDS, are, or will be, in the crosshairs. As a former White House director of national AIDS policy who was one of the chief architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) … I believe HIV/AIDS advocates should embrace and support such a review.” (04/28/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/how-doge-review-can-actually-improve-programs-fight-hiv-aids
-----
38) Trump’s Now You See Them, Now You Don’t Tariffs
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker
“The Trump tariff story keeps getting crazier. It may seem like ancient history now, but it was just over three weeks ago that Donald Trump gave us ‘Liberation Day,’ a set of massive tariffs on imports from almost every country in the world, including the uninhabited Heard and McDonald islands off the coast of Antarctica. The tariffs were billed as ‘reciprocal’ even though they bore no relationship to any tariffs or other trade barriers these countries impose on US exports. … As the markets were crashing Trump backed away on April 9, eliminating his so-called reciprocal tariffs and saying that he would lower his tariff on most countries to 10 percent. Note that this is still a very large tariff. … Trump boasted that a reason for the rollback was that 75 countries around the world had called to negotiate with him, although he refused to give the list of countries.” (04/28/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/04/28/trumps-now-you-see-them-now-you-dont-tariffs/
-----
39) How Is the Media Still Getting the Gaza Murdered Paramedics Story So Wrong?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Jonathan Cook
“We are now a month on from Israel executing 15 paramedics and hiding their bodies in a mass grave. Since then, video footage has surfaced of that atrocity, showing Israeli soldiers firing on a convoy of emergency vehicles that were clearly marked and with their warning lights on. We have had postmortems of the victims showing they were shot from close-range in the head and torso. And we’ve had eye-witness accounts of the killings. All of that, of course, is on top of compelling circumstantial evidence. Israel sought to destroy the evidence of its war crime by crushing the emergency vehicles and then burying them …. So how on earth is the Guardian still writing a headline like this: ‘New details on killing of paramedics in Gaza appear to contradict IDF’s account.’” (04/28/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2025/04/27/how-is-the-media-still-getting-the-gaza-murdered-paramedics-story-so-wrong/
-----
40) The Grift Society
Source: Liberal Currents
by Peter Michael Gratton
“Where neoliberalism required at least the performance of adherence to impersonal rules, the grift economy revels in the scam of it all.” (04/28/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-grift-society/
-----
41) Trump’s Agenda Is Still Undecided
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Congress is back in action. OK, that might be overstating it. In Donald Trump’s first 98 days in office, only five bills have been signed into law, amid a flurry of presidentially directed actions. Outside of shouting matches at hearings, Congress has gone into hibernation so far in 2025. That theoretically ends this week, as markups begin for the ‘one big beautiful bill’ in the House of Representatives. That’s the vehicle to permanently extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts, layer on a bunch of other tax cuts Trump proposed in the 2024 campaign, boost spending on border operations and the military, and offset at least some of this with potentially trillions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, food aid, student loan programs, clean-energy incentives, and more. DOGE was the unfunny opening act; this is the main event, the entire Trump legislative agenda rolled into one bill.” (04/28/25)
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-04-28-trumps-agenda-still-undecided/
-----
42) Trump can boycott, but the failure and end of Vietnam War is a fact
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Paul R Pillar
“The Trump administration has ordered U.S. diplomats in Vietnam not to attend ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War on Wednesday, according to a report in the New York Times. Although mere ceremonies that look backward in history may seem unimportant compared to the current problems that diplomats must address, this decision to shun official representation at events that the Vietnamese government is organizing is regrettable. It represents a failure to recognize one of the greatest transitions in U.S. foreign policy from a destructive to a constructive path. No better example of the opposite of a policy of restraint can be found than the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.” (04/28/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-vietnam-anniversary/
-----
43) Today’s Stunning Outrage
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Yes, we want an independent judiciary. But independent from politics — not independent from the law.” [editor’s note: EXACTLY. In the Wisconsin case, the judge followed the law by requiring a real, rather than fake, warrant, and temporarily prevented a political kidnapping – TLK] (04/28/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/04/28/todays-stunning-outrage
-----
44) Quantum Vibe, 04/28/25
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (04/28/25)
https://www.quantumvibe.com/strip?page=2532
-----
45) Why Are the Democrats So Desperate?
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis
“I suspect you’ve noticed how desperate the Democrats have become. They’re just hysterical about many things, such as getting that MS-13 thug back from El Salvador. They are also still screeching about DOGE, and they’ve got every judge they can find doing everything possible to block Trump’s agenda: ‘Hey yeah, we want to go to foreign countries and bring in gang members who beat their wives, and let’s waste as much taxpayer money as possible.’ They have to know that these are not winning issues. Well, some of them might not know. But I can’t help but wonder, why are they doing this?” [editor’s note: For the same reason you’re doing what you’re doing, Mr. Lewis … an idiotic obsession with party and power – TLK] (04/28/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2025/04/28/why-are-the-democrats-so-desperate-n2656167
-----
46) Censorship is far more dangerous than free speech
Source: spiked
by David Gelber
“When in his new book, What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea, Princeton history professor Fara Dabhoiwala calls free speech a ‘dangerous’ idea, one might be forgiven for thinking that he is calling it exciting, provocative or liberating. He isn’t. … Dabhoiwala blames free speech for everything from genocides in Asia to the election of Donald Trump. The rise of X, formerly Twitter, and other unregulated social-media platforms has been ‘disastrous,’ he says. … The reader might take these claims more seriously if Dabhoiwala lent as much attention to the nefarious influence of government censorship as he lavishes on the ills of inequality. Yet as his book unfolds, it becomes clear that he sees in the state a largely positive role in regulating speech for the purposes of eliminating disinformation, protecting public morals, preventing disorder and curbing the power of social-media companies.” (04/28/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/28/censorship-is-far-more-dangerous-than-free-speech/
-----
47) Can Donald Trump Get Americans to Make More Babies?
Source: The Bulwark
by Jonathan Cohn
“BABIES. LOTS OF BABIES. As soon as possible. That’s the goal of the intellectual and political movement that’s come to be known as ‘pronatalism.’ And it has the attention of the White House, according to a report last week in the New York Times, which said the Trump administration has been fielding suggestions from some of this movement’s thinkers on how to reverse America’s declining fertility rate. … An intelligent, open-minded conversation about declining fertility rates could reveal some common ground among some normally divided political leaders, and maybe even lead to some helpful legislation as well. Instead, we seem headed toward a conversation that rules out some of the most promising policy responses, while reinforcing retrograde — and in some cases downright creepy — attitudes about gender.” (04/27/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/can-donald-trump-get-americans-to-make-more-babies-total-fertility-rate-pronatalism
-----
48) Towards a Post-Colonial Illegalism: When Cartels Become Terrorists, Gangsters Become Revolutionaries
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“The prison population on the eve of Tricky Dick’s 1972 declaration of war [on drugs] stood at 196,441. It now stands at over 1.25 million with millions more, mostly people of color residing on the condemned battle fields of Black Power, existing under some form of carceral supervision that essentially amounts to a legal caste stripped of virtually every privilege promised them by the Civil Rights Movement. … The comparisons between that pill-popping Quaker mutant and Donald Trump are seemingly endless and have been explored to the point of cliche but the most frightening parallel should be the fact that Trump seems to believe that he can distract a nation exhausted by America’s myriad forever wars overseas by expanding the one Nixon started within our own borders to staggeringly fascist proportions and he might be right.” (04/27/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/04/towards-post-colonial-illegalism-when.html
-----
49) Grocery Workers VS Goliath
Source: In These Times
by Sarah Lazare
“In early February, when temperatures in Denver plunged to seven degrees below zero and snow dusted the sidewalks, Martin Bonilla, bundled in two jackets and a neck warmer, walked a picket line 1,000 miles from his home of Fillmore, Calif. Bonilla works in the produce department at Vons and had flown to Colorado in the early morning after finishing an 11-and-a-half-hour shift. Over the next eight days, Bonilla picketed five of the 77 striking Kroger-owned King Soopers stores in Colorado, in support of 10,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7, putting in 16-hour shifts each day before going back to his hotel, exhausted.” (04/28/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/grocery-workers-local-unions-fight-kroger-albertsons-merger
-----
50) American Panopticon
Source: The Atlantic
by Ian Bogost & Charlie Warzel
“If you were tasked with building a panopticon, your design might look a lot like the information stores of the U.S. federal government — a collection of large, complex agencies, each making use of enormous volumes of data provided by or collected from citizens. The federal government is a veritable cosmos of information, made up of constellations of databases …. A fragile combination of decades-old laws, norms, and jungly bureaucracy has so far prevented repositories such as these from assembling into a centralized American surveillance state. But that appears to be changing.” (04/27/25)
https://archive.is/VbCvn
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 04/28/25
Source: Reason
"Trump's Independent Voter Problem." (04/28/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/04/28/trumps-independent-voter-problem/
-----
52) Jason Ditz on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Jason Ditz on Israeli Operations in Syria and Lebanon.” (04/28/25)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/4-25-25-jason-ditz-on-israeli-operations-in-syria-and-lebanon/
-----
53) The Chris Spangle, 04/28/25
Source: We Are Libertarian
“Inside Canada’s Election: How American Politics Are Shaping Canadian Voters with William Dunstan.” (04/28/25)
https://www.chrisspangle.com/p/inside-canadas-election-how-american
-----
54) The Dispatch Podcast, 04/28/25
Source: The Dispatch
“Surviving Trump’s Tariffs.” (04/28/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/surviving-trumps-tariffs/
-----
55) EconTalk, 04/28/25
Source: EconTalk
“The Past and Future of AI (with Dwarkesh Patel).” (04/28/25)
https://www.econtalk.org/the-past-and-future-of-ai-with-dwarkesh-patel/
-----
56) The Opinions, 04/28/25
Source: New York Times
“Tariffs Could Ruin My Small Business.” (04/28/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydOSjPrF5Uc
-----
57) Finding Freedom, 04/28/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Breaking Down Barriers to Create Free Market Trade in Africa with Magatte Wade.” (04/28/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/breaking-down-barriers-to-create-free-market-trade-in-africa-with-magatte-wade
-----
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/28/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“US Killed 95 Yemeni Civilians in One Week, Iran Says Talks With US ‘Much More Serious,’ and More.” (04/28/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTxdjeBLfME
-----
59) Dangerous History Podcast, episode 279
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Reportage on the Psychopaths Who Rule Us (w/James Corbett).” (04/27/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/dangerous-history-podcast/dhpep279
-----
60) Free Talk Live, 04/27/25
Source: Free Talk Live
“Virginia Giuffre, One of Epstein’s most prominent accusers dies by ‘suicide’ :: Skeeter calls promoting something collectivist :: Lucid caller discussing individualism vs collectivism :: Ridley calls from CO talks about Ride sharing under government pressure :: Robert from VT calls regarding Keene Police officer’s long history of questionable convictions :: David from NH calls — why should I move to NH? :: Sarah from NM calls, advocating state solutions to problems created by the state :: 2025-04-27 :: Hosts: Chris R., Riley, Rich E. Rich.” (04/27/25)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/free-talk-live-2025-04-27
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Canada: Carney pulls off huge poll swing to keep power and condemns American "betrayal"
2) Ukraine war: Russian regime declares 72-hour ceasefire for next week
3) Trump whines about negative poll numbers, demands “investigations”
4) Palestine: Israeli troops flatten remains of Rafah ruins as latest strikes on Gaza hit three homes
5) US Senate report: Musk may have used DOGE to do(d)ge $2.37 billion in fines
6) Report: Global Military Spending Hits $2.718 Trillion, Highest Since Cold War
7) Chinese, Filipino regimes unfurl competing flags on disputed South China Sea sandbars, reviving tensions
8) DHL resumes global shipments of packages worth over $800 to US customers
9) Japan: Kyoto hotel requires Israeli tourist to declare non-involvement in war crimes to rent room
10) Kickstarter adds a “tariff manager” to let creators add surcharges to previously funded projects
11) South Korea: Regime Rules Out Tariff Deal With US Before June 3 Snap Election
12) The Vatican closes the Sistine Chapel to the public and prepares for a papal conclave
13) Ultra-processed foods linked to early death
14) TN: Memphis cops to face second trial in murder of Tyre Nichols
15) Huge power outage brings parts of Spain and Portugal to standstill
16) Hungary: Regime accused of illegal subsidies for pro-government media
17) Poll: Majority of US Voters Support Third Trump Impeachment
18) CO: DEA gang raids underground club, abducts 114
19) NY: Mob chases Brooklyn woman after mistaking her for protester
20) France: Police arrest suspects linked to prison attacks, minister says
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) What “Buying American” Really Means
22) America Should Bolt From the World Bank and IMF
23) Mario Vargas Llosa: The Man Who Broke From the Tribe
24) A New Dark Age?
25) The Uhuru Prosecution Brings Egg on the Face of the Justice Department
26) What’s Preventing a United Front Against the Trump Regime?
27) How Tariffs Could Cause Shortages in American Stores
28) Occupational licensing stifles economic growth and labor market equity
29) It’s Always About The System
30) Trump Administration’s Targeting of International Students Jeopardizes Free Speech and Privacy Online
31) How Democrats wage war on “rule of law” and weaponize it against Trump
32) Net Zero Chance of Eliminating Emissions
33) How to Avoid Trade Wars, and World War III
34) Did the Enlightenment Really Happen?
35) The False Claims of WHO’s Pandemic Agreement
36) For the rich, free speech — for others, a SLAPP in the face
37) How a DOGE review can actually improve the programs that fight HIV/AIDS
38) Trump’s Now You See Them, Now You Don’t Tariffs
39) How Is the Media Still Getting the Gaza Murdered Paramedics Story So Wrong?
40) The Grift Society
41) Trump’s Agenda Is Still Undecided
42) Trump can boycott, but the failure and end of Vietnam War is a fact
43) Today’s Stunning Outrage
44) Quantum Vibe, 04/28/25
45) Why Are the Democrats So Desperate?
46) Censorship is far more dangerous than free speech
47) Can Donald Trump Get Americans to Make More Babies?
48) Towards a Post-Colonial Illegalism: When Cartels Become Terrorists, Gangsters Become Revolutionaries
49) Grocery Workers VS Goliath
50) American Panopticon
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 04/28/25
52) Jason Ditz on The Scott Horton Show
53) The Chris Spangle, 04/28/25
54) The Dispatch Podcast, 04/28/25
55) EconTalk, 04/28/25
56) The Opinions, 04/28/25
57) Finding Freedom, 04/28/25
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/28/25
59) Dangerous History Podcast, episode 279
60) Free Talk Live, 04/27/25
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Canada: Carney pulls off huge poll swing to keep power and condemns American "betrayal"
Source: NBC News
"Canadian voters backed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party on Monday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. projects, in a national election strongly influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump. The CBC said it was too early to know whether the Liberals would win enough seats to form a majority government, but it projected another term for the party, which has governed Canada for almost a decade. 'Who’s ready to stand up for Canada with me?' Carney told cheering supporters early Tuesday. He said that Trump’s repeated comments about making Canada the 51st U.S. state were 'not idle threats.' 'President Trump is trying to break us, so that America can own us. That will never, that will never, ever happen,' he said. He said it was important to recognize that 'our world has fundamentally changed,' and that Canada’s old relationship with its longtime ally and trading partner the United States is 'over.'" (04/29/25)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/canada-election-results-prime-minister-carney-poilievre-rcna203321
-----
2) Ukraine war: Russian regime declares 72-hour ceasefire for next week
Source: SFGate
“Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire next week in Ukraine to mark Victory Day in World War II as the U.S. presses for a deal to end the 3-year-old war. Kyiv insisted on a longer and immediate truce. The Kremlin said the truce, ordered on ‘humanitarian grounds,’ will run from the start of May 8 and last through the end of May 10 to mark Moscow’s defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 — Russia’s biggest secular holiday. That timing means the truce would start at 2100 GMT, or 5 p.m. EDT, on May 7, lasting until 2100 GMT, or 5 p.m. EDT on May 10. Ukraine, which has previously agreed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal of a full 30-day ceasefire, dismissed Putin’s move as window dressing. ‘If Russia truly wants peace, it must cease fire immediately,’ Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said, according to the ministry.” (04/28/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/russia-and-ukraine-trade-long-range-strikes-as-20297805.php
-----
3) Trump whines about negative poll numbers, demands “investigations”
Source: Newsweek
“President Donald Trump has said pollsters that have shown his approval ratings sliding in recent weeks should be investigated for ‘election fraud.’ Trump cited recent polls from The New York Times, ABC News/The Washington Post, and Fox News, which put his approval rating on 42 percent, 39 percent, and 44 percent respectively. Responding to the polls, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday: ‘They are negative criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I win elections big, much bigger than their polls showed I would win, loose [sic] a lot of credibility, and then go on cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse.'” (04/28/25)
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-demands-investigations-negative-approval-rating-polls-2064949
-----
4) Palestine: Israeli troops flatten remains of Rafah ruins as latest strikes on Gaza hit three homes
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“Israel’s army is flattening the remaining ruins of the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, residents say, in what they fear is a part of a plan to herd the population into confinement in a giant camp on the barren ground. No food or medical supplies have reached the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip in nearly two months, since Israel imposed what has since become its longest ever total blockade of the territory, following the collapse of a six-week ceasefire. Israel relaunched its ground campaign in mid-March and has since seized swathes of land and ordered residents out of what it says are ‘buffer zones’ around Gaza’s edges, including all of Rafah, which comprises around 20 percent of the Strip.” (04/28/25)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-army-rafah-gaza-1.7520292
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5) US Senate report: Musk may have used DOGE to do(d)ge $2.37 billion in fines
Source: Economic Times [India]
“Elon Musk may have doged as much as $2.37 billion owing to his role in the Trump administration, according to a new report. As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Trump, Musk initially projected taxpayer savings of $2 trillion through reduced bureaucracy. This figure was subsequently adjusted to $1 trillion, and later to $150 billion. Senate Democrats, however, contend that the primary beneficiary of these savings was Musk himself. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations revealed that by Trump’s inauguration in 2025, Musk’s enterprises faced approximately 65 potential or active enforcement actions across 11 federal agencies, with estimated liabilities of $2.37 billion. The report suggests the actual value of avoided risks could be substantially higher. … Following DOGE policy implementation across federal agencies, numerous investigations into Musk’s companies have diminished. A significant example occurred in February when the DOJ withdrew a discrimination case against SpaceX, potentially saving $46 million in penalties.” (04/28/25)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/elon-musk-may-have-dodged-2-37-billion-in-fines-thanks-to-trump-era-role-claims-report/articleshow/120717860.cms
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6) Report: Global Military Spending Hits $2.718 Trillion, Highest Since Cold War
Source: The Defense Post
“Global military spending reached $2.718 trillion in 2024, marking a 9.4 percent increase over 2023, the largest annual rise since the end of the Cold War, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported. This marks the 10th consecutive year of rising spending worldwide, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. The top five spenders last year were the US, China, Russia, Germany, and India.” (04/28/25)
https://thedefensepost.com/2025/04/28/global-military-spending-2-trillion/
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7) Chinese, Filipino regimes unfurl competing flags on disputed South China Sea sandbars, reviving tensions
Source: CNN
“China and the Philippines have each unfurled their national flags on tiny sandbars in the South China Sea, staking competing sovereignty claims in strategic waters seen as a potential flashpoint for global conflict. The rival photo opportunities unfolded on Sandy Cay, a string of three uninhabited sandbars which lie near a Philippine military outpost in the disputed Spratly Islands. The release of the images comes as US and Philippine forces hold their largest-ever annual joint military drills in nearby waters — and just weeks after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to enhance America’s military alliance with the Philippines to ‘reestablish deterrence’ to counter ‘China’s aggression’ in the region — during his first trip to Asia.” (04/28/25)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/asia/china-philippines-sandy-cave-dispute-intl-hnk/index.html
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8) DHL resumes global shipments of packages worth over $800 to US customers
Source: Fox Business
“DHL Express is resuming shipments valued at more than $800 to consumers in the U.S. from businesses in other countries. The parcel delivery company announced the move on Monday, marking an end to a temporary pause in business-to-consumer (B2C) shipments of over $800 into the U.S. that it had instituted about a week ago. … The temporary suspension of $800-plus shipments into the U.S. was precipitated by a regulatory change that subjected such parcels to formal customs clearances, but, according to the parcel delivery company, shipments worth $800 to $2,500 now ‘can once again be cleared using the expedited informal entry process.’ Its decision to restart the shipments ‘follows constructive dialogue between DHL and the U.S. government, who demonstrated a strong willingness to understand our operational and technical challenges, and who agreed that it was imperative to act quickly in the interest of U.S. consumers,’ DHL Express said.” (04/28/25)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/dhl-resumes-global-shipments-packages-worth-over-800-us-customers
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9) Japan: Kyoto hotel requires Israeli tourist to declare non-involvement in war crimes to rent room
Source: Jerusalem Post [Palestine]
“An Israeli tourist checking into a hotel in the Japanese city of Kyoto was forced [sic] to sign a form declaring his non-involvement in alleged war crimes committed by Israeli forces, Ynet reported on Saturday. The tourist attempted to check in for a stay at the Wind Villa Hotel in Kyoto, but upon presenting his Israeli passport at the desk, he was told to declare his non-involvement in war crimes or face refusal of service. … The hotel employee replied that every Israeli or Russian guest was required to sign it. ‘In the end, I decided to sign because I have nothing to hide.’ … The tourist referred the incident to the Israeli Ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, and sent a letter to Kyoto Prefecture Governor Takatoshi Nishiwaki raising concerns over discriminatory practices in Kyoto’s hospitality sector.” [editor’s note: No “force” involved – TLK] (04/28/25)
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-851607
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10) Kickstarter adds a “tariff manager” to let creators add surcharges to previously funded projects
Source: Engadget
“Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter just announced something called a ‘Tariff Manager Tool’ that lets creators add new surcharges to funded projects. This should help these creators deal with the unexpected costs of Trump’s global trade war. Here’s how it works. Creators will be able to apply per-item surcharges to account for tariff-related cost increases. These charges will appear as a separate line item on the payment page for folks who have funded the project. It only applies to items heading to US-based shipping addresses. Not everyone will want to, or be able to, pay an additional fee for something they backed months or years ago when the economy was stronger. Backers will be given the option to decline the surcharge, in which case a creator can issue a refund. A blog post does suggest that backers and creators could find ‘another resolution,’ beyond a refund, but didn’t get into specifics.” (04/28/25)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/kickstarter-adds-a-tariff-manager-to-let-creators-add-surcharges-to-previously-funded-projects-170851069.html?src=rss
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11) South Korea: Regime Rules Out Tariff Deal With US Before June 3 Snap Election
Source: US News & World Report
“A senior South Korean government official ruled out on Monday that Seoul would agree to a trade package with Washington by the time the country holds a presidential election on June 3, and flagged challenges to reaching a deal even before early July. The countries last week agreed to craft a trade package aimed at removing new U.S. tariffs before a pause in reciprocal tariffs is lifted on July 8, Seoul’s delegation in Washington said after their first formal tariff talks on Thursday. Political analysts noted, however, it may be difficult for South Korea to make any firm commitment on big energy projects and defence costs as it currently has an acting president in power. South Korea will hold a snap election on June 3 after former President Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted for his role in imposing martial law briefly in December.” (04/28/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-04-28/south-korea-rules-out-tariff-deal-with-us-before-june-3-snap-election
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12) The Vatican closes the Sistine Chapel to the public and prepares for a papal conclave
Source: ABC News
“Exit tourists. Enter cardinals. The Vatican has closed the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather for the conclave to elect the next pope after the death of Pope Francis on April 21 at age 88. Francis was buried Saturday after a funeral in St. Peter’s Square that gathered world leaders and hundreds of thousands of others, and a nine-day period of mourning is continuing before the conclave can start. But the church is at the same time turning its attention to the next steps. Key is preparing the Sistine Chapel for the red-robed cardinals who will gather at the Vatican in the heart of Rome to choose the next pope in an ancient process fictionalized in the 2024 film ‘Conclave.’ One key task: installing the chimney where ballots will be burned after votes.” (04/28/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/vatican-closes-sistine-chapel-public-prepares-papal-conclave-121228095
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13) Ultra-processed foods linked to early death
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“People who eat lots of ultra-processed foods (UPF) may be at greater risk of dying early, a study in eight countries including the UK and the US suggests. Processed meats, biscuits, fizzy drinks, ice cream and some breakfast cereals are examples of UPF, which are becoming increasingly common in diets worldwide. UPFs tend to contain more than five ingredients, which are not usually found in home cooking, such as additives, sweeteners and chemicals to improve the food’s texture or appearance. Some experts say it’s not known why UPFs are linked to poor health — there is little evidence it’s down to the processing itself and could be because these foods contain high levels of fat, salt and sugar. The researchers behind the study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, looked at previous research to estimate the impact of ultra-processed food intake on mortality.” (04/28/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm30kwvv17o
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14) TN: Memphis cops to face second trial in murder of Tyre Nichols
Source: Seattle Times
“Three former [sic] Tennessee police officers will face an out-of-town jury when their trial in state court starts Monday on second-degree murder charges in the beating death of Tyre Nichols after a 2023 traffic stop in Memphis. Opening statements are expected to begin in the trial of former [sic] Memphis Police Department officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, who have pleaded not guilty and already face the prospect of years behind bars after they were convicted of federal charges last year. The beating of Nichols, a [b]lack man, was caught on police video and led to national protests, raised the volume on calls for police reforms in the U.S. and directed intense scrutiny toward the police force in Memphis, a majority-[b]lack city.” (04/28/25)
https://archive.is/sQ2KN
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15) Huge power outage brings parts of Spain and Portugal to standstill
Source: Reuters
“A huge power outage brought parts of Spain and Portugal to a standstill on Monday, grounding planes, halting public transport, causing panic buying and leaving the two countries scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses. Some hospitals halted routine work, some shops shut their doors and the two countries’ governments convened emergency cabinet meetings as officials tried to find out what caused the mass blackout from around 1033 GMT. Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe.” (04/28/25)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/large-parts-spain-portugal-hit-by-power-outage-2025-04-28/
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16) Hungary: Regime accused of illegal subsidies for pro-government media
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“Viktor Orbán’s government is being accused of handing more than €1bn in unlawful subsidies to pro-government media, adding to concerns that state support is being used to bolster the Hungarian leader’s grip on power. Two Hungarian media outlets — Magyar Hang (Hungarian Voice) and a second that has requested anonymity — told the Financial Times they were aiming to lodge a complaint with the European Commission on Monday. They claim advertising revenue was channelled to pro-Orbán newspapers, television stations and online platforms between 2015 and 2023 to ensure support for the ruling party and to crowd out critical journalism.” (04/28/25)
https://archive.is/cqB7X
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17) Poll: Majority of US Voters Support Third Trump Impeachment
Source: Common Dreams
“New polling shows a majority of U.S. voters support Congress impeaching U.S. President Donald Trump a third time, which would break a record the Republican set during his first term, when he was twice impeached by the House of Representatives but never convicted by the Senate. Specifically, a polling memo published Friday by ASO Communications and Research Collaborative shows that just a few months into Trump’s return to the White House, 52% of likely voters across the ideological spectrum somewhat or strongly support impeaching him — including 84% of Democrats, 55% of Independents, and even 20% of his fellow Republicans. The survey was conducted from April 18-21 by Data for Progress. The polling firm also asked the 1,171 respondents, ‘Thinking of an impeachment effort led by Democrats in Congress, which of the following comes closest to your view, even if none are exactly right?'” (04/28/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-impeachment-2025
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18) CO: DEA gang raids underground club, abducts 114
Source: United Press International
“Federal authorities over the weekend [abducted] more than 100 people at an underground night club on accusations of being undocumented immigrants, as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on immigration. Some 300 Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agents raided the Colorado Springs nightclub early Sunday, resulting in the [abduction] of 114 people, DEA Rocky Mountain Division said on X. Drugs and weapons were found at the scene. About 200 people were on the premises when the raid began, authorities said. DEA Special Agent Jonathan Pullen told reporters that the suspects would be handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and charged with immigration-related offenses. Despite drugs being found at the scene, authorities will likely not be able to file narcotics charges against them, he said.” (04/28/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/04/28/Colorado-Springs-DEA-arrests/7831745816479/
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19) NY: Mob chases Brooklyn woman after mistaking her for protester
Source: SFGate
“A Brooklyn woman said she feared for her life as she was chased, kicked, spit at and pelted with objects by a mob of Orthodox Jewish men who mistook her as a participant in a protest against Israel’s far-right security minister. The assault, recorded by a bystander, unfolded Thursday near the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Crown Heights, where an appearance by Itamar Ben-Gvir set off clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and members of the neighborhood’s large Orthodox Jewish community. The woman, a neighborhood resident in her 30s, told The Associated Press she learned of the protest after hearing police helicopters over her apartment. She walked over to investigate around 10:30 p.m. but by then the protest had mostly dispersed. Not wanting to be filmed, she covered her face with a scarf.” (04/28/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/mob-chased-brooklyn-woman-after-mistaking-her-for-20297592.php
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20) France: Police arrest suspects linked to prison attacks, minister says
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Suspects have been arrested in connection with attacks carried out against French prisons earlier this month, said French justice minister Gerarld Darminin on Monday. At least 20 people were arrested in police raids raids across France Monday after a series of attacks on prisons that scared staff and rattled the government, a source close to the case said. The early morning arrests took place in the Paris region, Marseille in the south and in Lyon and Bordeaux, the source told AFP, with raids still going on.” (04/28/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250428-french-police-arrest-suspects-linked-to-prison-attacks-minister-says
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) What “Buying American” Really Means
Source: The Dispatch
by David M Drucker
“There’s this great scene in the 1984 film Moscow on the Hudson. The late actor Robin Williams’[s] character, a Russian musician who defected from the Soviet Union, is shopping in an American grocery store for the first time and, overwhelmed by the several coffee brands to choose from on the shelves, nearly has a nervous breakdown. … That Americans can purchase the product of their choice among countless available domestic and foreign brands is a quintessential part of living in a free society. And yet, our leaders in Washington, D.C., have forgotten that. … many economists warn that not only will the president’s liberal use of tariffs fail to deliver the economic miracle he promises, the result will yield fewer consumer choices. That’s academic-speak for: Americans will have less freedom to buy the products they prefer.” (04/28/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/buy-american-tariffs-protectionism-consumer-choice-trump/
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22) America Should Bolt From the World Bank and IMF
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“The International Monetary Fund was created in 1944 to shore up currencies and help nations with temporary balance-of-payment problems. In the decades since the IMF’s founding, global capital markets and fluctuating currency exchange rates have made the IMF a relic. But too many people have gotten rich from IMF largesse to permit the curtain to be closed on this institution. World Bank President Ajay Banga ‘has sought to emphasize the bank’s focus on job creation … and to prioritize private sector involvement in projects around the world,’ The New York Times reported. But the World Bank’s notion of private sector has often been either a fraud or a political smokescreen.” (04/28/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/04/28/america-should-bolt-from-the-world-bank-and-imf/
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23) Mario Vargas Llosa: The Man Who Broke From the Tribe
Source: The Daily Economy
by Emmanuel Rincon
“In one of the many interviews I had with Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, he said he hoped death would surprise him with a pen in his hand. I can’t say whether that dream came true, but what is certain is that Llosa likely had little left to write — the world had already been captured in his books. Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025) died on April 13 in Lima. And with him, one of the most lucid, courageous, and brilliant voices — not only of the Spanish language but of all humanity — has left us. Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, will be remembered for many things. But I’ll remember him for his courage above all else, which was exemplified by his defiance of the dominant trends of his time.” (04/28/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/mario-vargas-llosa-the-man-who-broke-from-the-tribe/
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24) A New Dark Age?
Source: Quillette
by George Case
“In greatly simplified terms, the Dark Ages were the centuries following the fall of Rome circa 500 AD, during which the accumulated Greek and Roman learning of the previous millennium was lost to all but a few monks and scholars. The breakdown of continental stability maintained from the imperial capital left a patchwork of feudal kingdoms from the North Atlantic across the European plain, sporadically warring with each other and invaders from the north and east, while ordinary serfs lived under omnipresent shadows of plague, scarcity, and superstition. Most contemporary historians prefer the terms ‘Middle Ages’ or ‘Medieval Era’ to ‘Dark Ages,’ but in any case, the designation has become a shorthand for a lengthy period of stagnation and ignorance. … Although they differ in their specifics, forecasts that our civilisation’s rich heritage of wisdom and achievement is at risk of being neglected and forgotten remain pertinent today.” (04/28/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/04/28/a-new-dark-age-technology-social-media-musk-bezos-zuckerberg/
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25) The Uhuru Prosecution Brings Egg on the Face of the Justice Department
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Why should anyone have to register with the federal government for any reason, including working for a foreign government? Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the power to enact such a law? How can such a registration requirement be reconciled with the principles of a free society? It can’t be. In a genuinely free society, people have the right not only to work for foreign governments but also the freedom not to register their names with the federal government. It’s probably worth mentioning that Russia also has the same type of registration requirement.” (04/28/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/04/28/the-uhuru-prosecution-brings-egg-on-the-face-of-the-justice-department/
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26) What’s Preventing a United Front Against the Trump Regime?
Source: TomDispatch
by Norman Solomon
“America desperately needs a united front to restrain the wrecking ball of the Trump regime. While outraged opposition has been visible and vocal, it remains a far cry from developing a capacity to protect what’s left of democracy in the United States. With the administration in its fourth month, the magnitude of the damage underway is virtually impossible for any individual to fully grasp. But none of us need a complete picture to understand that the federal government is now in the clutches of massively cruel and antidemocratic forces that have no intention of letting go. Donald Trump’s second presidential term has already given vast power to the most virulent aspects of the nation’s far-right political culture. Its flagrant goals include serving oligarchy, dismantling civil liberties, and wielding government as a weapon against academic freedom, civil rights, economic security, environmental protection, public health, workers’ rights, and so much more.” (04/28/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/whats-preventing-a-united-front-against-the-trump-regime/
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27) How Tariffs Could Cause Shortages in American Stores
Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm
“Tariffs make it more expensive to bring goods into the United States, and one of the primary consequences of artificially inflating the cost of imports is that you get less of them. Possibly a lot less. American retailers are bracing for supply chain disruptions that could lead to price hikes and shortages as soon as next month — and might continue for a while, even if the Trump administration backs down from its trade war with China. Cargo volumes to American ports are expected to ‘significantly decline because of canceled or delayed orders due to the tariffs,’ says Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy for the National Retail Federation (NRF).” (04/28/25)
https://reason.com/2025/04/28/how-tariffs-could-cause-shortages-in-american-stores/
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28) Occupational licensing stifles economic growth and labor market equity
Source: Orange County Register
by Christos A Makridis & Patrick A McLaughlin
“Not long ago, only a small fraction of American workers needed a license to do their jobs. Today, nearly a quarter of the workforce is subject to legally mandated licensing — everything from hair stylists to plumbers to travel guides. That explosion of regulations hasn’t just inconvenienced would-be professionals; our new research published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications shows it’s impeding employment, especially for low- and middle-wage earners. … To be fair, these restrictions do raise wages for those who manage to get the license — a result consistent with prior work. At first glance, that might sound like a boon to workers. But it’s also clear that when licensing rules pile up, there are fewer jobs to go around.” (04/28/25)
https://archive.is/FvVbT
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29) It’s Always About The System
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The main reason more people don’t just go all in with opposing the US empire and rejecting all its propaganda about enemy states is because they can’t handle working through the heavy cognitive dissonance which comes with recognizing that everything you’ve been taught is a lie. Most people recognize to some extent that the US and its allies do bad things, but those who take it all the way into a clear understanding that this power structure is responsible for most of our world’s ills are a small minority in the west. Even the relatively awake ones will try to cling on to this or that imperial propaganda narrative about nations like China, North Korea, Iran and/or Russia.” [editor’s note: While Johnstone clings to the imperial propaganda narratives OF China, North Korea, Iran, and/or Russia – TLK] (04/28/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/04/28/its-always-about-the-system/
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30) Trump Administration’s Targeting of International Students Jeopardizes Free Speech and Privacy Online
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Lisa Femia, Sophia Cope, & Saira Hussain
“The federal government is using social media surveillance to target student visa holders living in the United States for online speech the Trump administration disfavors in an effort to revoke their visas. This new program, called ‘Catch and Revoke,’ appears to be a cross-agency collaboration between the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Justice. It includes a dedicated task force and the use of AI and other data analytic tools to review the public social media accounts of tens of thousands of student visa holders. … This social media surveillance program is an alarming attack on freedom of speech and privacy — for both visa holders here in the United States and their American associates.” (04/28/25)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/trump-administrations-targeting-international-students-jeopardizes-free-speech-and
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31) How Democrats wage war on “rule of law” and weaponize it against Trump
Source: New York Post
by Victor Davis Hanson
“Since 2021, the left has waged a veritable war against the American legal system in a variety of ways. One serial target of Democrats and the left has been the Supreme Court. In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke to an angry throng of pro-abortion protesters assembled at the very doors of the court chambers. He threatened two of the justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, by name. Schumer yelled to the volatile crowd that the justices’ views would make them ‘reap the whirlwind’, and the two would ‘not know what hit’ them. In the ensuing months, protesters mobbed some of the conservative justices’ homes — likely committing felonies. The sympathetic Biden Justice Department chose not to follow the law, and so did nothing — although eventually a would-be assassin turned up.” (04/28/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/04/27/opinion/how-the-democrats-are-waging-war-against-the-rule-of-law/
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32) Net Zero Chance of Eliminating Emissions
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by James Price
“The commitment in Britain to ‘net zero emissions by 2050’ was signed into law in the dying days of Theresa May’s premiership, as an attempt to give her a ‘legacy’ after three painful years as Prime Minister. That legacy is likely to be lost, like the works of Ozymandias, as the world comes crashing back to economic reality. The debate over the introduction of net zero was conducted during the Conservative Party’s leadership contest to succeed May, and therefore all attention was away from what would prove to be the most impactful economic decision of the year. The debate lasted all of 90 minutes. The results have been completely devastating for Britain’s economy in all sorts of corrosive ways.” (04/28/25)
https://fee.org/articles/net-zero-chance-of-eliminating-emissions/
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33) How to Avoid Trade Wars, and World War III
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“Not a day goes by without a new shock to Americans and our neighbors around the world from the Trump administration. On April 22nd, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgraded its forecasts for global growth in 2025, from 3.3% to 2.8%, and warned that no country will feel the pain more than the United States. Trump’s policies are expected to drag U.S. growth down from 2.7% to 1.8%. It’s now clear to the whole world that China is the main target of Trump’s trade wars. The U.S. has slapped massive tariffs (up to 245%) on Chinese goods. China hit back with 125% tariffs of its own and refuses even to negotiate until U.S. tariffs are lifted. Ever since President Obama announced a U.S. ‘pivot to Asia’ in 2011, both U.S. political parties have seen China as the main global competitor, or even as a target for U.S. military force.” (04/28/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-to-avoid-trade-wars-and-world-war-iii
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34) Did the Enlightenment Really Happen?
Source: Law & Liberty
by Kevin Schmiesing
“Our conception of the past is littered with expressions that are often poorly defined or understood: ancient, barbarian, empire, liberal, progress, capitalism. The distinguished historian J. C. D. Clark wishes to draw our attention to the equivocal character of another widely used term: Enlightenment. To be precise, the more problematic formulation is ‘the Enlightenment,’ not ‘enlightenment’ per se. In a phrase that appears multiple times in his latest work, The Enlightenment: An Idea and Its History, and that might be considered a simplified statement of its thesis, Clark contends that across Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ‘enlightenment was everywhere, but the Enlightenment was nowhere.’ He sets out to demonstrate that the Enlightenment — a mainstay of intellectual, social, and political history — is in fact a figment of our imagination. It never happened.” (04/28/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/did-the-enlightenment-really-happen/
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35) The False Claims of WHO’s Pandemic Agreement
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Bell
“One way to determine whether a suggestion is worth following is to look at the evidence presented to support it. If the evidence makes sense and smells real, then perhaps the program you are asked to sign up for is worthy of consideration. However, if the whole scheme is sold on fallacies that a child could poke a stick through, and its chief proponents cannot possibly believe their own rhetoric, then only a fool would go much further. This is obvious – you don’t buy a used car on a salesman’s insistence that there is no other way to get from your kitchen to your bathroom. Delegates at the coming World Health Assembly in Geneva are faced with such a choice.” (04/28/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-false-claims-of-whos-pandemic-agreement/
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36) For the rich, free speech — for others, a SLAPP in the face
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Carolyn Iodice
“Fourteen years ago, the legislature passed vital protections for freedom of speech in the Texas Citizens Participation Act. This week, they’re looking to gut it. The TCPA addresses the common problem of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs. These are frivolous lawsuits brought by the wealthy or powerful against private citizens to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. … This week, a House committee is going to vote on HB 2988, from Rep. Mano DeAyala, R-Houston, which would end the requirement for people who file SLAPPs to pay the other side’s legal bills when the case is dismissed. This would make it harder for SLAPP victims to get lawyers to defend their free speech rights, and invite more suits aimed at silencing people — a fundamental encroachment of constitutional rights.” (04/28/25)
https://www.thefire.org/news/rich-free-speech-others-slapp-face
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37) How a DOGE review can actually improve the programs that fight HIV/AIDS
Source: Fox News
by Joe O’Neill
“President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been aggressively overhauling the bloated and cumbersome U.S. federal bureaucracy by re-examining contracts, questioning what taxpayer dollars are funding and who that funding is going to. The public health sector hasn’t been immune, with the Trump administration poring over the layers of bureaucracy and freezing or canceling millions in grants. Countless programs within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including those designed to target the treatment and spread of HIV/AIDS, are, or will be, in the crosshairs. As a former White House director of national AIDS policy who was one of the chief architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) … I believe HIV/AIDS advocates should embrace and support such a review.” (04/28/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/how-doge-review-can-actually-improve-programs-fight-hiv-aids
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38) Trump’s Now You See Them, Now You Don’t Tariffs
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker
“The Trump tariff story keeps getting crazier. It may seem like ancient history now, but it was just over three weeks ago that Donald Trump gave us ‘Liberation Day,’ a set of massive tariffs on imports from almost every country in the world, including the uninhabited Heard and McDonald islands off the coast of Antarctica. The tariffs were billed as ‘reciprocal’ even though they bore no relationship to any tariffs or other trade barriers these countries impose on US exports. … As the markets were crashing Trump backed away on April 9, eliminating his so-called reciprocal tariffs and saying that he would lower his tariff on most countries to 10 percent. Note that this is still a very large tariff. … Trump boasted that a reason for the rollback was that 75 countries around the world had called to negotiate with him, although he refused to give the list of countries.” (04/28/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/04/28/trumps-now-you-see-them-now-you-dont-tariffs/
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39) How Is the Media Still Getting the Gaza Murdered Paramedics Story So Wrong?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Jonathan Cook
“We are now a month on from Israel executing 15 paramedics and hiding their bodies in a mass grave. Since then, video footage has surfaced of that atrocity, showing Israeli soldiers firing on a convoy of emergency vehicles that were clearly marked and with their warning lights on. We have had postmortems of the victims showing they were shot from close-range in the head and torso. And we’ve had eye-witness accounts of the killings. All of that, of course, is on top of compelling circumstantial evidence. Israel sought to destroy the evidence of its war crime by crushing the emergency vehicles and then burying them …. So how on earth is the Guardian still writing a headline like this: ‘New details on killing of paramedics in Gaza appear to contradict IDF’s account.’” (04/28/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2025/04/27/how-is-the-media-still-getting-the-gaza-murdered-paramedics-story-so-wrong/
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40) The Grift Society
Source: Liberal Currents
by Peter Michael Gratton
“Where neoliberalism required at least the performance of adherence to impersonal rules, the grift economy revels in the scam of it all.” (04/28/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-grift-society/
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41) Trump’s Agenda Is Still Undecided
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Congress is back in action. OK, that might be overstating it. In Donald Trump’s first 98 days in office, only five bills have been signed into law, amid a flurry of presidentially directed actions. Outside of shouting matches at hearings, Congress has gone into hibernation so far in 2025. That theoretically ends this week, as markups begin for the ‘one big beautiful bill’ in the House of Representatives. That’s the vehicle to permanently extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts, layer on a bunch of other tax cuts Trump proposed in the 2024 campaign, boost spending on border operations and the military, and offset at least some of this with potentially trillions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, food aid, student loan programs, clean-energy incentives, and more. DOGE was the unfunny opening act; this is the main event, the entire Trump legislative agenda rolled into one bill.” (04/28/25)
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-04-28-trumps-agenda-still-undecided/
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42) Trump can boycott, but the failure and end of Vietnam War is a fact
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Paul R Pillar
“The Trump administration has ordered U.S. diplomats in Vietnam not to attend ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War on Wednesday, according to a report in the New York Times. Although mere ceremonies that look backward in history may seem unimportant compared to the current problems that diplomats must address, this decision to shun official representation at events that the Vietnamese government is organizing is regrettable. It represents a failure to recognize one of the greatest transitions in U.S. foreign policy from a destructive to a constructive path. No better example of the opposite of a policy of restraint can be found than the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.” (04/28/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-vietnam-anniversary/
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43) Today’s Stunning Outrage
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Yes, we want an independent judiciary. But independent from politics — not independent from the law.” [editor’s note: EXACTLY. In the Wisconsin case, the judge followed the law by requiring a real, rather than fake, warrant, and temporarily prevented a political kidnapping – TLK] (04/28/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/04/28/todays-stunning-outrage
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44) Quantum Vibe, 04/28/25
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (04/28/25)
https://www.quantumvibe.com/strip?page=2532
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45) Why Are the Democrats So Desperate?
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis
“I suspect you’ve noticed how desperate the Democrats have become. They’re just hysterical about many things, such as getting that MS-13 thug back from El Salvador. They are also still screeching about DOGE, and they’ve got every judge they can find doing everything possible to block Trump’s agenda: ‘Hey yeah, we want to go to foreign countries and bring in gang members who beat their wives, and let’s waste as much taxpayer money as possible.’ They have to know that these are not winning issues. Well, some of them might not know. But I can’t help but wonder, why are they doing this?” [editor’s note: For the same reason you’re doing what you’re doing, Mr. Lewis … an idiotic obsession with party and power – TLK] (04/28/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2025/04/28/why-are-the-democrats-so-desperate-n2656167
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46) Censorship is far more dangerous than free speech
Source: spiked
by David Gelber
“When in his new book, What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea, Princeton history professor Fara Dabhoiwala calls free speech a ‘dangerous’ idea, one might be forgiven for thinking that he is calling it exciting, provocative or liberating. He isn’t. … Dabhoiwala blames free speech for everything from genocides in Asia to the election of Donald Trump. The rise of X, formerly Twitter, and other unregulated social-media platforms has been ‘disastrous,’ he says. … The reader might take these claims more seriously if Dabhoiwala lent as much attention to the nefarious influence of government censorship as he lavishes on the ills of inequality. Yet as his book unfolds, it becomes clear that he sees in the state a largely positive role in regulating speech for the purposes of eliminating disinformation, protecting public morals, preventing disorder and curbing the power of social-media companies.” (04/28/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/28/censorship-is-far-more-dangerous-than-free-speech/
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47) Can Donald Trump Get Americans to Make More Babies?
Source: The Bulwark
by Jonathan Cohn
“BABIES. LOTS OF BABIES. As soon as possible. That’s the goal of the intellectual and political movement that’s come to be known as ‘pronatalism.’ And it has the attention of the White House, according to a report last week in the New York Times, which said the Trump administration has been fielding suggestions from some of this movement’s thinkers on how to reverse America’s declining fertility rate. … An intelligent, open-minded conversation about declining fertility rates could reveal some common ground among some normally divided political leaders, and maybe even lead to some helpful legislation as well. Instead, we seem headed toward a conversation that rules out some of the most promising policy responses, while reinforcing retrograde — and in some cases downright creepy — attitudes about gender.” (04/27/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/can-donald-trump-get-americans-to-make-more-babies-total-fertility-rate-pronatalism
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48) Towards a Post-Colonial Illegalism: When Cartels Become Terrorists, Gangsters Become Revolutionaries
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“The prison population on the eve of Tricky Dick’s 1972 declaration of war [on drugs] stood at 196,441. It now stands at over 1.25 million with millions more, mostly people of color residing on the condemned battle fields of Black Power, existing under some form of carceral supervision that essentially amounts to a legal caste stripped of virtually every privilege promised them by the Civil Rights Movement. … The comparisons between that pill-popping Quaker mutant and Donald Trump are seemingly endless and have been explored to the point of cliche but the most frightening parallel should be the fact that Trump seems to believe that he can distract a nation exhausted by America’s myriad forever wars overseas by expanding the one Nixon started within our own borders to staggeringly fascist proportions and he might be right.” (04/27/25)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/04/towards-post-colonial-illegalism-when.html
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49) Grocery Workers VS Goliath
Source: In These Times
by Sarah Lazare
“In early February, when temperatures in Denver plunged to seven degrees below zero and snow dusted the sidewalks, Martin Bonilla, bundled in two jackets and a neck warmer, walked a picket line 1,000 miles from his home of Fillmore, Calif. Bonilla works in the produce department at Vons and had flown to Colorado in the early morning after finishing an 11-and-a-half-hour shift. Over the next eight days, Bonilla picketed five of the 77 striking Kroger-owned King Soopers stores in Colorado, in support of 10,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7, putting in 16-hour shifts each day before going back to his hotel, exhausted.” (04/28/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/grocery-workers-local-unions-fight-kroger-albertsons-merger
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50) American Panopticon
Source: The Atlantic
by Ian Bogost & Charlie Warzel
“If you were tasked with building a panopticon, your design might look a lot like the information stores of the U.S. federal government — a collection of large, complex agencies, each making use of enormous volumes of data provided by or collected from citizens. The federal government is a veritable cosmos of information, made up of constellations of databases …. A fragile combination of decades-old laws, norms, and jungly bureaucracy has so far prevented repositories such as these from assembling into a centralized American surveillance state. But that appears to be changing.” (04/27/25)
https://archive.is/VbCvn
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 04/28/25
Source: Reason
"Trump's Independent Voter Problem." (04/28/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/04/28/trumps-independent-voter-problem/
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52) Jason Ditz on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Jason Ditz on Israeli Operations in Syria and Lebanon.” (04/28/25)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/4-25-25-jason-ditz-on-israeli-operations-in-syria-and-lebanon/
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53) The Chris Spangle, 04/28/25
Source: We Are Libertarian
“Inside Canada’s Election: How American Politics Are Shaping Canadian Voters with William Dunstan.” (04/28/25)
https://www.chrisspangle.com/p/inside-canadas-election-how-american
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54) The Dispatch Podcast, 04/28/25
Source: The Dispatch
“Surviving Trump’s Tariffs.” (04/28/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/surviving-trumps-tariffs/
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55) EconTalk, 04/28/25
Source: EconTalk
“The Past and Future of AI (with Dwarkesh Patel).” (04/28/25)
https://www.econtalk.org/the-past-and-future-of-ai-with-dwarkesh-patel/
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56) The Opinions, 04/28/25
Source: New York Times
“Tariffs Could Ruin My Small Business.” (04/28/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydOSjPrF5Uc
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57) Finding Freedom, 04/28/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Breaking Down Barriers to Create Free Market Trade in Africa with Magatte Wade.” (04/28/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/breaking-down-barriers-to-create-free-market-trade-in-africa-with-magatte-wade
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58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/28/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“US Killed 95 Yemeni Civilians in One Week, Iran Says Talks With US ‘Much More Serious,’ and More.” (04/28/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTxdjeBLfME
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59) Dangerous History Podcast, episode 279
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Reportage on the Psychopaths Who Rule Us (w/James Corbett).” (04/27/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/dangerous-history-podcast/dhpep279
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60) Free Talk Live, 04/27/25
Source: Free Talk Live
“Virginia Giuffre, One of Epstein’s most prominent accusers dies by ‘suicide’ :: Skeeter calls promoting something collectivist :: Lucid caller discussing individualism vs collectivism :: Ridley calls from CO talks about Ride sharing under government pressure :: Robert from VT calls regarding Keene Police officer’s long history of questionable convictions :: David from NH calls — why should I move to NH? :: Sarah from NM calls, advocating state solutions to problems created by the state :: 2025-04-27 :: Hosts: Chris R., Riley, Rich E. Rich.” (04/27/25)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/free-talk-live-2025-04-27
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