Welcome to The Now

 Google threatens to fire more employees if they don't show up in person at least three days a week. Less business from Amazon causes UPS to fire 20,000 employees .  Everything's bigger in Texas, including the job loss .  Transportation companies are facing a double-whammy of layoffs and bankruptcies .  Hope people in California weren't too attached to their wine .  School bus company in Pennsylvania to cut 70 employees. 

 

 

 

 So earlier today, Amazon was preparing to itemize their products a bit by explaining how the Trump Tariffs would impact the prices, but after a call from the president, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had his company back down . For their part, the White House is complimenting Bezos' swift knee-bending while downplaying the true impact of the tariffs: At a briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the move a “hostile and political act,” adding that she had spoken about the matter with President Trump earlier. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick echoed Levitt’s comments, saying it’s a hostile act if a company goes out of its way to “make it seem” like tariffs have caused prices to change. “It’s nonsense,” he said Tuesday in a CNBC interview. “A 10% tariff is not going to change virtually any price,” he added, referring to the nearly universal baseline tariff on all countries. “The only price will change would be a product that we don’t make here, like a mango.” ...

 

 

 

 

 

 R.I.P., Virginia Giuffre:

  Spain and Portugal experience a massive power outage .  Putin to declare 3-ceasefire to correspond with WWII holiday .  68 reported killed in US strike on Yemen .  Why is the US birth rate so low ? Distrust in the two-party system among young independents is growing .

  Black Agenda Report : Trump is only able to do the things he's doing because of previous presidents. Prism Reports : Apparently helping the homeless is a crime in Miami.  Common Dreams : ICE doesn't want something minor like warrants to impede their mission to rout immigrants.  Market Watch : Welcome to the economy of the 1970's.

 

  The Cradle : After 3 months, Hamas has turned a "military advantage into opportunity." Fortune : Japan was supposed to be the "test case" for Trump's trade negotiations, and it's not going well... Prism Reports : Treatment, health care and medical evacuations for injured Gazans continue to be blocked by Israel. Scheerpost : Jeffrey Sachs thinks that it's time to shut down the Us military bases in Asia. Substack : Dr. Powell on how the Trump Administration Tariffs created havoc on the supply chain.  Black Agenda Report : America is not the only nation cracking down on dissenting voices... Mint Press News : ...and to drive that last point home, a journalist in Germany is in prison for criticizing the writer of a hit piece.

 

 

As we close on on Day 15 of the 90-Day Tariff Pause ( with no deals at the moment ), let's focus a bit on the two big players: China and the United States. China says that, " Any claims about the progress of US-China trade negotiations are groundless as trying to catch the wind and have no factual basis " and that the US " should cancel all unilateral measures on China " (read: tariffs) if they want to proceed.  President Trump's tone regarding China and their tariffs has seemed to change , and everyone's taken notice. Seeing as we're entering a slightly new phase in these Trade Wars, here's recent posts/videos related to the matter... First we have CNN talking about whether Trump "chickened out" to China (keep in mind that the guests on here agree with Trump on principal more than execution): Danny Haiphong hosts a segment with Dr. Warwick Powell, Carl Zha, and KJ Noh that highlights when and how China took the advantage: On his own ch...

  Also, here's the link to the analysis paper from the Brookings Institution . 

 

 

 

 

 Of course, the other 35 hospitals that were bombed weren't covered so I guess this is progress:

First, the CNN story : Women in the United States are less likely to have babies than ever before, but key figures in the Trump administration seem keen on changing that – even as federal programs focused on reproductive health face significant upheaval. About 3.6 million babies were born in the US in 2024, according to a new report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fertility rate last year – 54.6 births for every 1,000 women of reproductive age – increased less than 1% from the record low in 2023, hovering well below rates from years earlier. The US fertility rate has been trending down for decades, with a particularly steep dip after the Great Recession of 2008. An uptick in 2021 spurred theories about a Covid-19 “baby bump,” but the rate quickly returned to its more consistent downward pattern. Experts say that year-to-year movement in the fertility rate tends to be incremental and that a single year of change – such as this year’s slight increase – does not ...

 

 

 Phillip Scott from African Diaspora News Channel breaks down the rules that "Foundational Black Americans" (and any member of a minority in a similar position) must follow to keep their spot.

 

 

 

  So first we have Netanyahu's most recent speech : Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Saturday night that he would not end the war with Hamas in Gaza until the terror group is removed from power, calling its current demands for a hostage release deal “capitulation conditions.” Speaking in a prerecorded video address that his office described the day before as a “special statement on a diplomatic matter,” Netanyahu argued that Hamas would rehabilitate its military capabilities if the conflict were ended. He asserted that it was not possible to “trick” the terror group into ending the war in return for the hostages and then resume military operations, due to “binding” international commitments Hamas was demanding as part of an end to hostilities. Those who were suggesting this “illusion of deception” had no idea how international politics works, he said. The prime minister also accused Hamas of stymying a recently proposed deal for the return of Israeli hostages due to its d...

  Written form of the video can be found here .

 

 Another political autopsy, sure, but an insightful one: My take is that the Democrats are compromised, they know this, and as a result criticisms of their policies are interpreted as personal attacks as a ways to cope with the guilt. 

 

 

 Sounds like Trump's at it again:

 

 

  Mint Press News : The United States can't help but bomb hospitals. The Cradle : Palestinian Christians won't be allowed into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  Prism Reports : How did Obama's policies lead to borders under Trump? Scheerpost : Americans perception of Israel is changing, thanks to Gaza.  CT Mirror : No more Head Start for New England.

 Worth the 3+ hours:

 Beginning the 3-nation tour on a high note : China's President Xi Jinping called on Monday for stronger ties with Vietnam on trade and supply chains amid disruptions caused by U.S. tariffs, as he attended the signing in Hanoi of dozens of cooperation agreements between the two communist-run nations. The visit, planned for weeks and part of a wider trip in Southeast Asia, comes as Beijing faces 145% U.S. duties, while Vietnam is negotiating a reduction of threatened U.S. tariffs of 46% that would otherwise apply in July after a global moratorium expires. "The two sides should strengthen cooperation in production and supply chains," Xi said in an article in Nhandan, the newspaper of Vietnam's Communist Party, posted ahead of his arrival on Monday. He also urged more trade and stronger ties with Hanoi on artificial intelligence and the green economy. After he met Vietnam's top leader, To Lam, the two countries signed dozens of cooperation agreements, including deals...

The Caver In Chief strikes again...  

 

  FYI, Maersk made $55.5 billion in 2024 .

 

 

 

  The Trade Wars continue ... The Chinese government has told the country's domestic airlines to stop accepting deliveries of Boeing jets as a trade war between the world's two largest economies escalates, Bloomberg News reports. China is also instructing its carriers to stop buying airline parts and other components from U.S. companies, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the situation.  Boeing declined to comment. The aviation giant's shares fell $2.59, or 1.6%, to $156.74 in morning trading. The order to stop accepting Boeing jets comes after China boosted its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods to 125%. That matches the level of tariffs that President Trump has placed on Chinese imports, although those taxes can rise as high as 145% for some products. China's tariffs would have more than doubled the price of U.S.-made aircraft and parts, making the cost unaffordable, Bloomberg reported. Boeing is scheduled to ship about 10 737 Max aircraft to Chin...

 

 

 

  Will someone please think of the Centrists ? After months of wrestling with the decision of whether to run for reelection for a third term in the swing state of Michigan, Sen. Gary Peters took a pass. At a moment when Senate Democrats are grappling with how to win back voters they lost to Trump in 2024, Peters was the first of at least three Senate Democrats who have opted against running for another term in the Senate, citing in part the changes to a body that used to be much easier to make deals in. “I will say, over these last few years, it gets harder every single year,” Peters said in an interview in his Washington office last week. “The middle is disappearing.” The retirements of the three Democratic senators – Peters of Michigan, Tina Smith of Minnesota and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire – illustrate the challenges Democrats face out of power. They also reflect the broader problems of the institution, which had already grown less collegial and productive even before it al...

 

  Scheerpost : "The purpose of the separation of powers is not to enhance the hegemony of each branch of government. Rather, it is to safeguard personal liberty by preventing one branch from dominating either of the other two." Golden Monarch : The Bitcoin bait-and-switch is real.  Black Agenda Report : Why did Marco Rubio go to Guyana, Suriname and Jamaica? Prism Reports : "An estimated 94,000 veterans do not have U.S. citizenship, leaving them vulnerable to detention and deportation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not report the veteran status of people who have been deported, so the exact number of deported veterans is almost impossible to know. Some organizations have reported there have been hundreds of cases of deported veterans—and this is likely a gross underestimate." Zei Squirrel : Liberal Zionist Ezra Klein and his "agency" strikes again.

 

 

 

  Supporting Israel is bad for America's national security, and there's a lot of support .

 

Watching (and reading about) people defending the Trump Administration's actions (take your pick) as it becomes evident that said actions are not producing the promised results ("your life will get better!") reminds me of the times Biden's supports defended him, or Trump's during his first term. Or Obama before that, or George W. Bush before that or Clinton before that.  What do they all have in common? They're worse people than their supporters. Their supporters are either smarter, kinder or braver than they are; sometimes more than one of these things (and in a rare case, all three).  Clinton supporters claimed that Republicans going after him for "just a blow-job" was a witch-hunt, ignoring the abuse of power (a boss having a relationship with his employee) and the slander that was being thrown at the other party. NAFTA was cheered on despite the long-term impact on the economy and immigration. The Crime Bill was lauded despite the fact it condemn...

  HE BLINKED . Just two days ago: Then rich people barked and Israel called a meeting . And as of a couple hours ago:

 

 

 

 

  Trade Wars: The Imperialists Strike Back ! President Donald Trump is set to impose an astounding 104% in levies across all Chinese imports on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Tuesday. This comes on top of Chinese tariffs that were in place prior to Trump’s second term. China was already set to see tariffs increase by 34% on Wednesday as part of Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs package. But the president tacked on another 50% after Beijing didn’t back off its promise to impose 34% retaliatory tariffs on US goods by noon Tuesday, adding an additional 84% in duties. Earlier Tuesday, China’s Commerce Ministry said it “firmly opposes” the additional 50% tariffs on Chinese imports, calling it “a mistake upon a mistake.” The ministry vowed to escalate its retaliation on US exports. US stocks, which soared Tuesday morning, began moving lower off Leavitt’s comments . By 3 p.m. ET the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 were all in negative territory. “Countries li...

 

 

See, the problem with being political attack dogs is that when your "side" wins, you have to make the shift to guard dogs, and it's way easier to attack than defend:

 

 

 

 

 

  Black Agenda Report : "Foundational Black Americans" is a folly of "otherism" disguised as black nationalism.  Mint Press News : Ben Shapiro is really trying to downplay the JFK files; why? Scheerpost : Publisher's firing shows a double standard in cartooning. 

 

If mental health involves connections, what happens to those who have little or no connection to the struggles and suffering of the people?  

 They range from "We're screwed," to "Let's wait and see," to "Hey, I'm rich; it's not my problem"

 

 

 

 Interesting :  Starting today, Namibia is reviewing its visa-free entry agreements with several countries deemed “non-reciprocal.” In short, these are nationalities whose citizens could previously enter Namibia freely, while Namibians were required to complete visa formalities to travel to these countries. April 1, 2025, therefore marks a turning point. For reasons of diplomatic reciprocity and sovereignty, the Namibian government now requires visas for citizens of 33 countries, including the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, UK, and France. Aware of the implications of this decision for tourism, Namibia is supporting this reform with a modernization of its visa system. Since March 3, 2025, travelers can apply via a brand new e-Visa platform. Namibian authorities announce that they have approved more than 10,000 e-Visas since the service was launched. The process is entirely paperless on the eservices.mhaiss.gov.na portal: account creation, online form, uploading of ID photo and ...

 A few notes: The formula used to calculate tariffs is, at best flawed . Tariffs are an import tax on American consumers for the countries listed; the countries will not be paying the difference.  Not sure if this will reverse the practice of farmers being paid to not grow certain crops .  Mr. Stock Market isn't happy . Apparently, uninhabited islands are among the target s. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The versatile actor was 65 . 

 

 

 

 It's the policies and the system, not just the person in charge: