Welcome to The Now

 

 Lee Camp explains:

  Via CNN : The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump violated federal law when he unilaterally imposed sweeping tariffs across the globe, a striking loss for the White House on an issue that has been central to the president’s foreign policy and economic agenda. The decision is arguably the most important loss the second Trump administration has sustained at the conservative Supreme Court, which last year repeatedly sided with the president in a series of emergency rulings on immigration, the firing of the leaders of independent agencies and deep cuts to government spending. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority and the court agreed 6-3 that the tariffs exceeded the law. The court, however, did not say what should happen to the more than $130 billion in tariffs that has already been collected. “The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope,” Roberts wrote for the court. “In light of...

 

 To paraphrase Abunimah: "the lengths nations, groups and organizations will go in order to allow one country the ability to starve children in peace."

 

 

More can be found here .  Bonus: Claude McKay 's " If We Must Die " If we must die, let it be not like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

 

 

 

 Remember when most of Europe were freaking out about President Trump's obsession with controlling Greenland (and not in a, "I will compensate the Danish" way but more of a, "I'll just take it" way)? Well now that the Trump White House (via Marco Rubio) is setting their colonial and militaristic sights on countries run by Slavs and non-white people , Europe is breathing a sigh of relief: For the "too long, didn't watch" crowd:   Nothing says "all is forgiven" like the United States telling Western Europeans that they are not on the imperialist menu. Let's close with Richard Wolff setting some things straight:

 

 

 Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Congo and others: 

 Shorter: Trump White House thinks references to America slavery is "indoctrination," and wants to get rid of it, but a judge said , "NOPE." A federal judge ordered the National Park Service to restore exhibits about slaves who lived at the nation’s one-time executive mansion in Philadelphia, agreeing with the city that the Trump administration likely unlawfully removed the displays.  U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe invoked the dystopian novel “1984” as she blocked the Trump administration from changing or damaging the site, which is now an outdoor exhibition. “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims—to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not,” Rufe wrote.  Rufe is an appointee of former President George W. Bush.   The Hill has reached out to an In...

Going by the comments of many in the know of Iran, last year's attack (as well as this year's "grassroots uprising") went the way it did due to the element of surprise, which doesn't appear to be the case anymore: Of course, time will tell.

  The Civil Rights leader and advocate for racial justice (who picked up the mantle after the passing of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X) was 84. 

 

 

 

 

 

In a horrible mix of it's policy on Palestine/Gaza and Venezuela, the United States of America has turned it's sights on Cuba:  

 

 

 

 

  Via the BBC : Indonesia says it is preparing up to 8,000 soldiers for deployment to Gaza, the first country to do so as part of phase two of the ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States late last year. The army chief of staff, General Maruli Simanjuntak, said training for the soldiers had already begun, and that they would focus on medical and engineering roles in Gaza. Indonesia has joined President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, which was announced last month. It has a mandate from the United Nations Security Council to establish an International Stabilization Force (ISF), which will help secure border areas in Gaza and ensure the territory's demilitarisation, including the disarmament of Hamas. The board, which is due to have its first meeting in Washington on 19 February, will also oversee a new technocratic Palestinian government in Gaza and post-war reconstruction. The timing of the Indonesian troop deployment and their exact role in Gaza have not yet been fina...

  You read right :  A Florida A&M University College of Law student said she was told to strip the word “Black” from promotional materials for a Black History Month event — a move she called censorship at a Historically Black College and University. Aaliyah Steward, a final-year law student who helps run the Black Law Students Association, told ClickOrlando that during the office approval process, campus staff flagged language including “Black,” “affirmative action,” and “women,” forcing organizers to abbreviate or rework copy. “We couldn’t use the word ‘Black’ in Black History Month. We would have to abbreviate it,” Steward said, calling the direction “insane” given FAMU’s HBCU status.  FAMU is pushing back on earlier reports that promotional materials for a College of Law Black History Month event were censored — saying the controversy stems from a staff-level mistake that has been corrected. In a statement sent to BET, FAMU President Marva B. Johnson, J.D., affirme...

 

 China, Russia, Iran and others, whether "allies" or "enemies," it's all the same to the United States. If your country will not submit to the wishes of the US, you are an obstacle to be dealt with: Of course we know that the one-two punch of China & Russia makes a military & economic combination that is tough to beat. Which is why the United States aims to attack one nation at a time (Syria, Venezuela, Iran, etc.) to isolate Russia and China. "Negotiations" are just a stalling tactic to prepare for an economic, intelligence and/or military strike. 

 

 The Banking Class and Jeffrey Epstein seemed to think so: It does present an interesting theory: that Black Lives Matter was essentially co-opted by the Democratic Party (and affiliates) to prevent it from becoming another Occupy Wall Street movement. 

 

 The better question would be, "What wasn't?"

 

Sigh. First the bad news : TikTok keeps track of everything you do on its app – no surprises there. What's less obvious is how the company follows you around other parts of the internet that have nothing to do with TikTok.  In fact, TikTok collects sensitive and potentially embarrassing information about you even if you've never used the app. Over the past week, I've watched websites sending TikTok data about cancer diagnoses, fertility and even mental health crises. It's part of a tracking empire that extends far beyond the social media platform. Now, thanks to a new set of features, TikTok is poised to expand its network and see even more details about your life. The change comes just weeks after the sale of TikTok's US operations to a group of companies with ties to US President Donald Trump. The deal has led to fresh privacy concerns from some human rights experts and users, though TikTok says it has transparent guidelines on how it responds to government reques...

 

 

  We may need to make "Walmart Tax" one of the phrases for 2026.

 

  Whenever I hear about France and any African country, I can't help but think about...

 

  More on Onesimus' introduction of inoculation can be found here .

 

 

 They keep trying , but they'll keep failing: Again, explain how Russia benefitted from Epstein. Explain why neither the United States or Europe is calling for regime change in Russia over this, when they've pushed for regime change over less.  

 

 

 If you are to believe these two news articles...possibly. First the Times Now World : Savannah Guthrie's 84-year-old mother, Nancy, went missing from her Tucson home earlier this month, drawing national attention. Speculation arose on social media linking her disappearance to Guthrie's past interviews with Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors, although law enforcement continues to search urgently for Nancy. When Today show co‑anchor Savannah Guthrie’s 84‑year‑old mother, Nancy Guthrie, disappeared from her Tucson home in Arizona, earlier this month, the news quickly became a national headline. In the days since, social media users have dredged up archival footage of Guthrie’s 2019 interviews with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring, a line of reporting she pursued as part of her journalistic work. Those clips are now trending online, often shared alongside unfounded speculation that the two events could be connected, even as law enforcement continues an urgent search fo...

  Also, I can't help but think that is by design. American politicians benefit from their voters focusing on Blue/Red domestic policy issues and ignoring foreign policy.

  For more on Mount Bayou, check here .

 

 

 

Everything that the United States of America does abroad will eventually make it home. Every foreign policy is just a domestic policy being tested in another country.  Just for the sake of context, we have BreakThrough News (via Brian Becker and Professor Richard Wolff) and Due Dissidence discussing President Trump's idea that Republicans should essentially be controlling the election process for the 2026 midterms: There are already ways in place to make sure that actual citizens vote. And just to address the hypocrisy of the group advocating bringing a suitcase full of documents with you to vote in a two-party system: these same people, whenever there is a school shooting are so quick to dismiss calls for gun legislation by saying, "just enforce the laws on the books." Why, oh why, can't we use that same logic for voter registration? Anyway, I have to stress that this ploy reinforces the theory that the those in power will not allow the system they've benefitted ...

  More on the ADF here .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 If the United States can do it: This is another example of what happens when "rules-based order" and "international law" gives way to "might makes right." The logical conclusion is, "As long as I have the troops and weapons, I can do whatever I want." The AP has more here .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sure, America is trying to compensate for BRICS (and more specifically, China and Russia), but t here's a price to pay for lashing out at "foe" and "friend" alike : Bullied and buffeted by President Donald Trump’s tariffs for the past year, America’s longstanding allies are desperately seeking ways to shield themselves from the president’s impulsive wrath. U.S. trade partners are cutting deals among themselves —- sometimes discarding old differences to do so — in a push to diversify their economies away from a newly protectionist United States. Some European governments and institutions are reducing their use of U.S. digital services such as Zoom and Teams. Central banks and global investors are dumping dollars and buying gold. Together, their actions could diminish U.S. influence and mean higher interest rates and prices for Americans already angry about the high cost of living. Last summer and fall, Trump used the threat of punishing taxes on imports to stron...

 

 

 

 

 

 What is done abroad eventually makes it way back home...

 Seriously...even if this were true, where's the evidence that Russia benefitted at all from this? If you're keeping track of the world leaders involved in the latest leaks (or even the ones before), how many of those countries have been falling over themselves trying to defend or protect Russia? What kind of elaborate blackmail operation gains you essentially no political benefits whatsoever ? 

Confused? Let NPR try to explain : President Donald Trump is suing the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion, as he accuses the federal agencies of a failure to prevent a leak of the president's tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020. The suit, filed in a Florida federal court Thursday, includes the president's sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump organization as plaintiffs. The filing alleges that the leak of Trump and the Trump Organization's confidential tax records caused "reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs' public standing." In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn of Washington, D.C. — who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm — was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax inf...

 

 

 

 "Political Hubris" is on point: Imagine screwing up so bad, you risk losing the gerrymandering-in-progress state of Texas. It's like in their blind embrace of Donald Trump, Republicans forgot that George W. Bush's overture to Latino Americans helped to rebuild their base . But the facts about immigration escape these people.

 

 

 

 

  "While Republicans began to demur and ruling class chieftains expressed opposition, the so-called leadership of the Democratic Party were largely silent. They claimed to be outraged by the ICE onslaught, but when it was time to show opposition, seven of them joined Republicans to maintain ICE funding. Just two days before Pretti was killed, seven House democrats voted with the Republicans to continue ICE funding. House leader Hakeem Jeffries recommended a vote against funding but there was no whip operation to guarantee that his members would stay in line, a sure sign of a political performance. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Laura Gillen of New York, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Tom Suozzi of New York, and Congressional Black Caucus member Don Davis of North Carolina were the seven who voted against the will of most Democratic Party voters." - - Margaret Kimberly, on the ineffectiveness of Democrats on the issue of ICE...