Source: Owensboro Messenger and Inquirer
“Haiti opened a new political chapter Thursday with the installation of a transitional council tasked to pick a new prime minister and prepare for eventual presidential elections, in hopes of quelling spiraling gang violence that has killed thousands in the Caribbean country. Ariel Henry, the prime minister who had been locked out of the country for the past couple of months due to the violence, cleared the way for the transition by presenting his resignation in a letter signed in Los Angeles. … The council was officially sworn in at the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince early Thursday as the pop of sporadic gunfire erupted nearby, prompting some officials to look around the room. The council had been urged to seek a safer venue because gangs have launched daily attacks in the area.” (04/26/24)
https://www.messenger-inquirer.com/news/haiti-warily-welcomes-new-governing-council/article_a197a439-02e0-547c-8b05-70ed21dbdeb7.html
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano
“In the last days of East Germany, when government officials detected that their power was unraveling, they ratcheted up enforcement of the nation’s reporting laws. The reporting laws made it a felony to know of a crime and fail to report it. It was also a crime to tell the person of whose crime you learned that you had done so. There was no right to privacy and there was no freedom of speech. This Orwellian tangle resulted, of course, in many false reports of crimes. It also resulted in many prosecutions for failing to report crimes or for warning others that they were being spied upon. As of this past weekend, we in America are headed to the same authoritarian place.” (04/25/24)
https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2024/04/24/killing-the-constitution/
Source: Reason
“David Beito: Was FDR a Tyrant?” (04/25/24)
https://reason.com/podcast/2024/04/25/david-beito-was-fdr-a-tyrant/
Source: Courthouse News Service
“Five months after a jury convicted them on dozens of prostitution and money laundering charges, a federal judge acquitted former executives of the controversial classified advertising website Backpage.com on most of the counts lodged against them. Backpage founder Michael Lacey and two executives Scott Spear and John Brunst were convicted in November after five years of prosecution and two lengthy trials — the first of which was declared a mistrial in 2021, and the second of which came close — over their roles in the Craigslist copycat. … Federal prosecutors spent two months during trial last year trying to convince a jury that Backpage executives knew of and actively facilitated the promotion of prostitution on their site by encouraging sex workers to post ads and helping them get around language filters to avoid police detection.” (04/24/24)
https://www.courthousenews.com/backpage-executives-acquitted-of-previous-prostitution-money-laundering-convictions/
Source: Reason
by Veronique de Rugy
“This week, Congress moved closer to passing four separate bills with $95 billion in funding for Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific allies, and the domestic submarine industrial base. This funding has been debated for months, with much of it intended for wars that have been going on — and likely will continue — for a while. In other words, it’s not new or surprising. Yet once again, it will be labeled ’emergency spending,’ a tool allowing legislators to double down on their fiscal irresponsibility.” (04/25/24)
https://reason.com/2024/04/25/congress-continues-to-abuse-emergency-spending-for-non-emergency-purposes/
Source: Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
“Even as Ukraine works to get arms from a huge U.S. aid package to the front line, its government is seeking to reverse the drain of its potential soldiers, announcing that men of conscription age will no longer be able to renew passports from outside Ukraine. The Cabinet of Ministers said late Wednesday that men between 18 and 60 years old who are deemed fit for military service will only be able to replace their passports inside Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, mostly to neighboring European countries. The European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, says 4.3 million Ukrainians are living in EU countries, 860,000 of them men 18 years of age or older. … Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, said the measure was a violation of individual rights — and also unlikely to succeed in getting Ukrainian men to return home from abroad.” (04/26/24)
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2024/apr/26/ukraine-tightens-passport-renewals/
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“The phrase ‘accidental shooting’ is usually a contradiction in terms. There are, in the normal course of events, only two kinds of shootings: Intentional and negligent. An intentional shooting occurs when a competent individual intentionally loads, points, and fires a properly functioning firearm. A negligent shooting occurs when a competent individual fails to do his or her job. That job includes: 1. Knowing what’s in a firearm’s chamber or magazine before pointing it. 2. Taking care not to point a firearm at anything the shooter doesn’t want to hit. 3. Taking care to not pull the trigger if there’s anything or anyone other than the intended target in front of the firearm. 4. Taking care to secure the firearm such that people who shouldn’t have access to it DON’T have access to it. Truly ‘accidental’ shootings are incredibly rare.” (04/25/24)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/18533
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“The US Supreme Court on Thursday wrestled with how to define the scope of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution as Donald Trump fights charges of interfering in the 2020 election. During oral arguments the court sought to draw the boundaries between a president’s personal and official acts, suggesting the matter might need to be sent back to lower courts to evaluate the nature of Trump’s actions. Such a move could further delay one of the most serious criminal trials against Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential elections in November. A decision is expected before the end of the high court’s term, typically in late June. Trump has argued for a broad interpretation of immunity, saying presidents may only be indicted if previously impeached and convicted by Congress for similar crimes — even in some of the most extreme circumstances.” (04/25/24)
https://archive.is/8W09Y
Source: Agorist Nexus
by Free Market Militia
“Bitcoin, emerging as a defiant symbol of financial sovereignty, operates on a decentralized ledger that transcends global borders, eluding state control and its punitive tax regimes. It epitomizes the Agorist principle that true market operations require no state intervention. In stark contrast, CBDCs represent the state’s attempt to cloak its insidious control in the guise of modern financial innovation. By mimicking the technology behind cryptocurrencies, governments aim to seduce the public back into the fold of regulated financial systems, under the pretense of improved efficiency and security. However, this maneuver is fundamentally flawed. The very essence of blockchain technology, upon which Bitcoin thrives, is its ability to operate beyond the reach of centralized control.” (04/25/24)
https://www.agoristnexus.com/5061-2/
Source: St. Albans & Harpenden Review [UK]
“Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group fired anti-tank missiles and artillery shells at an Israeli military convoy in a disputed area along the border, killing an Israeli civilian, the group and Israel’s military has said. Hezbollah said that its fighters ambushed the convoy shortly before midnight on Thursday, destroying two vehicles. The Israeli military said the ambush wounded an Israeli civilian doing infrastructure work, and that he later died of his wounds. Low-intensity fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border has repeatedly threatened to boil over as Israel has targeted senior Hezbollah militants in recent months. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border.” (04/26/24)
https://www.stalbansreview.co.uk/news/national/24280185.hezbollah-ambushes-israeli-convoy-killing-civilian/
