NY: Appeals Court Overturns Harvey Weinstein Rape Conviction

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

“The New York state Court of Appeals has overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction. The court, in a 4-3 ruling, ruled that the judge in the New York County trial prejudiced Weinstein with improper rulings, including allowing women to testify about allegations that were not part of the case. The court — the highest court in New York state’s judicial system — ruled that a new trial must take place. … Weinstein also went to trial in Los Angeles, where he was convicted in December 2022 of rape. That conviction means that Weinstein will remain in prison even if a new New York trial gets established.” (04/25/24)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/harvey-weinstein-ny-rape-conviction-overturned-1235881207/

What’s Good About Aid to Ukraine and Israel?

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger

“Advocates of foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel are patting themselves on the back after the passage of a $95 billion bill that includes $61 billion to Ukraine and $26 billion to Israel. They’re saying that such aid demonstrates how good, caring, and compassionate America is. In the case of Israel, the aid supposedly demonstrates that America is not 100 percent antisemitic because the aid to Israel helps to cancel out the thousands of college protesters who are protesting the Israeli government’s military killing machine in Gaza, which, it is said, automatically means that the protestors are antisemitic. Is it possible for an American to oppose the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza without being considered antisemitic? Not according to proponents of foreign aid to Israel.” (04/25/24)

https://www.fff.org/2024/04/25/whats-good-about-aid-to-ukraine-and-israel/

Capitalism Is Still Closer to Caesar Than to God

Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson

“Most corporate profit consists of unearned economic rents of various kinds — returns on absentee-owned land and natural resources (the title to which, directly or indirectly, mostly derive from past expropriation), patents and copyrights, regulatory barriers to entry (mostly legislated at the behest of the regulated industries), etc. That is the very definition of a zero-sum relationship, in which one party’s profit comes at the expense of the others. By far the largest sufferer from such zero-sum exchange is the working class, whose bargaining power is gravely weakened by the concentration of property in the means of production in the hands of an absentee class of capitalist owners. The founding act of capitalism, in the late medieval and early modern periods, was the expropriation of commoning rights and other communal peasant claims to the land.” (04/25/24)

https://c4ss.org/content/59568

US Applications for Jobless Claims Fall to Lowest Level in Nine Weeks

Source: US News & World Report

“Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as the labor market continues to hold up despite higher interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve in its bid to curb inflation. The Labor Department reported Thursday that unemployment claims for the week ending April 20 fell by 5,000 to 207,000 from 212,000 the previous week. That’s the fewest since mid-February. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out some of the weekly up-and-downs, ticked down by 1,250 to 213,250.” (04/25/24)

https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2024-04-25/us-applications-for-jobless-claims-fall-to-lowest-level-in-9-weeks

DR Congo regime demands answers from Apple over “blood mineral” supply chain concerns

Source: Semafor

“Lawyers representing the DR Congo have written to Apple CEO Tim Cook demanding answers on the sourcing of minerals used to manufacture the company’s products. The lawyers shared concerns that Apple’s supply chain may be tainted by blood minerals — those obtained through unethical mining practices — from the DRC. The group of lawyers, led by Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Partners LLP in Washington DC and William Bourdon of Bourdon & Associés in Paris, also wrote to Apple subsidiaries in France, demanding a response within three weeks. Amsterdam & Partners said it was appointed to represent DRC in litigation related to ‘individuals and companies involved in the chain of extraction, supply and commercialization of natural resources and minerals pillaged from the DRC.'” (04/25/24)

https://www.semafor.com/article/04/25/2024/dr-congo-apple-blood-mineral-supply-chain-concerns

Macron’s strategy: A “Gaullist” betrayal of de Gaulle

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Anatol Lieven

“President Emmanuel Macron is pursuing an old Gaullist dream: a militarily and geopolitically autonomous Europe under the leadership of France. The present strategy by which Macron is pursuing this goal is to present France as the military vanguard of Europe in the defense of Ukraine, through the suggestion that French and other NATO troops could be sent to that country …. When this idea was immediately rejected by other NATO governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, Macron doubled down rhetorically by accusing the Germans and others of cowardice. Some have dismissed this as mere cosplay, Macron dressing up as de Gaulle, just as British politicians are incapable of resisting the temptation to pretend to be Churchill. Others have suggested that it is chiefly motivated by domestic politics.” (04/25/24)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/emmanuel-macron-troops-ukraine/

Consider Alex Jones

Source: The Pamphleteer
by Tyler Hummel

“‘Your kids have been turned into mindless vassals who look up to some twit instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson,’ screams Alex Jones into the camera. ‘Kids! Magellan is a lot cooler than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated, with one ship, the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before he got back to Portugal!’ His face reddens and his fists begin to pound the air. ‘That’s destiny! That’s will! That’s striving! That’s being a trailblazer! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! Life is fiery with its beauty!’ He finally explodes, ‘And they want to shutter your mind talking about Justin Bieber!’ This might sound like the ramblings of a madman (and it is), but as presented in the decade old original viral video, it is one of the funniest clips on the internet …” (04/25/24)

https://pamphleteer.co/newsletter/consider-alex-jones/