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Trump’s Tariff Wars Will Hurt U.S. the Most

President Donald Trump seems to believe that tariffs can help to bring manufacturing back to the States.

Trump’s tariffs have so far been aimed at four targets, the U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico, China and, soon to come, the European Union.

During his first term Trump negotiated the U.S.M.C.A. with Mexico and Canada, a free trade zone covering the U.S. and its neighbors. He is now attempting to change the rules of it. But the way he does so is inconsistent.

On January 21 Trump promised tariffs on Canada and Mexico. On February 1 he announced them. Three days later he delayed the implementation of those tariffs. On February 27 he said the tariffs would go into effect on March 4. On March 5 he was again forced to pull back (archived):

President Trump said on Wednesday that he would pause tariffs on cars coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico for one month, after a 25 percent tariff that he placed on America’s closest trading partners a day earlier roiled stock markets and prompted stiff resistance from industry.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, read a statement from Mr. Trump on Wednesday saying that White House had spoken with the three largest auto makers, and that a one-month exemption would be given to cars coming in through United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

A one-month exemption is a joke. It takes years to move parts production from one country to another. There are hundreds of companies in Mexico, Canada and the U.S. which make the myriad parts that go into a car. It is an completely integrated industry which took years to build.

U.S. car manufacturers had trusted that U.S.M.C.A. would hold. Should the tariffs apply anytime soon they will have to increase their prices by hefty margins or halt their production.

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Missing Boy Whose Case Was Featured on Netflix Show Located by Law Enforcement After 7 Years

A boy who was kidnapped seven years ago, and whose case was featured in a Netflix show, was coincidentally found in Douglas County, Colorado.

Deputies discovered 14-year-old Abdul Aziz Khan on Feb. 23 during an unrelated call about a home burglary, according to KDVR-TV in Colorado.

Two suspicious people had reportedly entered the vacant home, which was up for sale.

Upon arrival, deputies discovered two children in a vehicle parked in the driveway, one of them later identified as Khan. Police have not released the identity of the second child.

The two burglary suspects, a male and female, exited the home and told the deputies they knew the realtor.

But after four hours of attempting to identify the pair, police came to a startling realization.

The woman was 40-year-old Rabia Khalid who was wanted for kidnapping, and the male was 42-year-old Elliot Blake Bourgeois, her husband.

Khalid is the boy’s non-custodial mother, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

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Could a Bombshell Discovery Render All of Biden’s Presidential Actions ‘Null and Void’?

The Biden presidency might have been the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the American people. A shocking investigation by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project has revealed that virtually every document bearing Joe Biden’s signature during his presidency was signed by an autopen — except for one.

What makes this revelation particularly damning is that the only document confirmed to have Biden’s actual signature was his letter announcing his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. Let that sink in for a moment.

Remember when House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) revealed his discussion with Biden when Biden couldn’t recall signing the executive order halting LNG exports? Now we know why — he probably didn’t. The real question is: Who did? Who was running the country while Biden was not all there?

The use of the presidential autopen dates back to the 1950s, and there’s been much debate about its legality. In 2013, Barack Obama became the first president to sign a bill into law using an autopen. He was vacationing in Hawaii at the time. His office relied on a 30-page memo from President George W. Bush’s legal team asserting that the president’s presence was not required as long as said president had authorized the signature. 

What’s not clear, in the case of Biden, is who was running the autopen and whether Biden was aware it was happening. 

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is demanding that the Department of Justice investigate whether Biden’s obvious cognitive decline allowed unelected bureaucrats to essentially run the government without presidential oversight. If this is true — and let’s be honest, all signs point to yes — every executive order, every pardon, and every official action taken under Biden’s name could be constitutionally void.

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‘Civil War Is Now Official’ – Syria Erupts Into Worst Bloodshed Since Assad’s Fall

Any lingering delusions that Syria could emerge from its Western-imposed, regime-change victimhood and enter an era of peace and stability were obliterated on Thursday, as 48 people were killed in battles between supporters of the deposed Bashar al Assad government and the country’s new radical Islamist regime. As all-out civil war looms, increasingly disturbing sectarian violence has an important minority sect asking for Russian intervention to safeguard their lives.

In the town of Jableh, which lies in Syria’s coastal Latakia province, pro-Assad forces ambushed and killed 16 members of the regime’s security forces. In the ensuing retaliation, 28 pro-Assad militants and four civilians died, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Latakia hold the highest concentration of Alawites — the minority sect of Islam that’s principally found in Syria, with the Assad family themselves being the most prominent members. Alawites comprise about 10% of the country’s population. Notably, the province is also home to the Russian-operated Khmeimim air base. The ambush targeted regime forces who’d carried an operation in rural Latakia aimed at arresting a former Assad government official.

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UKRAINE: Justifying A False Narrative Through A Bad Picture

I was sent this picture a few days ago and asked if it reflected reality geographically or geopolitically. My answer was a simple one to start:

“No, if Russia wanted to try to invade and control the rest of Europe, there are faster and easier routes to do that. This picture reflects a false narrative whereby too many want to draw the United States and the West into another unnecessary conflict based on an unrealistic and dishonest threat scenario where Russia’s goals and capabilities are inaccurately advertised.”

Expanding on my statement, let’s consider the following from solely a geographical perspective.

· To claim that Ukraine is the path Russia would choose to use to pursue the remainder of Europe is like saying the United States intends to invade Mexico but only use the Baja Peninsula. Each of these examples is choosing the hardest path forward and would make no sense if, in Russia’s case, Europe was the goal and not only Ukraine in total or in part.

· History instructs us that any invading army would use three routes to move east or west. One is generally through the Baltics, the second through Belarus, and the third through Ukraine. As someone who planned many contingency operations for large-scale possibilities on multiple continents, I would never recommend that Russia invade Europe by way of Ukraine. There is no logical military reason to do so when the central and northern routes allow much faster access to Europe with fewer impediments. Cutting Ukraine off from Europe would also be more effective than invading Ukraine at its strongest defensive points.

· I could go on, but these points are the major ones necessary to answer the question I was asked. The contingencies I planned for in Eastern Europe take up multiple binders; there is no way to account for that in a short essay.

But it’s more dangerous than a simple lack of understanding of what is happening in Europe and the world today. This picture reflects the assumptions of those who’ve bought into the false narrative intended to lure the Western world into a wider conflict. This conflict could grow to its worst form, a nuclear exchange between two of the world’s superpowers, though I think the odds of that are low.

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Why Are We Ignoring The Most Powerful Climate Solution?

Everywhere I look, I see people talking about climate change. There’s no shortage of solutions being pushed—electric cars, lab-grown meat, carbon capture technology—but almost none of these address the root of the problem. Meanwhile, the most powerful solution, one that is already proven to work, is ignored: regenerative agriculture.

I am a regenerative farmer. I don’t just believe in the principles of rebuilding soil, restoring ecosystems, and managing land in a way that sequesters carbon—I live it. Every day, I see the results firsthand: healthier soil, stronger crops, increased biodiversity, and livestock that thrive without chemical inputs. I also see how the current system actively works against this approach, prioritizing profit-driven, industrial solutions over simple, nature-based ones.

So why is regenerative agriculture ignored while flashy, high-tech solutions dominate the conversation? The answer is simple: There’s no money in it for corporations.

Regenerative Farming Doesn’t Fit the Profit Model

Industrial agriculture is built on dependency—on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified seeds. It thrives on monocultures that strip the land of nutrients, requiring even more chemical intervention just to sustain itself. Companies make billions selling these inputs, and governments subsidize the entire system. Regenerative farming, on the other hand, restores soil naturally—through cover cropping, rotational grazing, and composting. When farmers build fertility through natural cycles instead of synthetic inputs, chemical companies lose customers.

This is why you don’t see billion-dollar ad campaigns promoting regenerative farming. There is no corporate giant profiting from farmers planting cover crops or integrating livestock with row crops. Instead, money flows to industries that keep farmers dependent on fertilizers, patented seeds, and ever-expanding government subsidies.

The Climate Narrative

The same forces that created our industrial food system also control the climate narrative. It’s a lot easier to sell wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars than it is to fundamentally change the way we farm. The entire renewable energy sector has been built into a multitrillion-dollar industry, with subsidies, government incentives, and global investment pouring into its expansion.

Meanwhile, regenerative agriculture—the one approach that could actively reverse environmental damage and sequester carbon on a massive scale—is barely mentioned. Why? Because it’s nearly impossible for big corporations to monetize regenerative agriculture the way they can monetize other industries.

When a company sells an electric vehicle, a solar farm, or a wind turbine, they make money. When a farmer plants diverse crops, rotates livestock, and stops using chemical fertilizers, no one gets rich—except the farmer and the community that benefits from healthier land and food.

If climate change were truly about reducing emissions and restoring balance to our ecosystems, regenerative agriculture would be front and center. Instead, it’s pushed to the margins because it doesn’t generate profits for those who control the narrative.

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How Biden Botched the Chance To End the War in Ukraine

As President Donald Trump attempts to engage Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine, supporters of the proxy war in Washington, Europe, and Ukraine claim that President Vladimir Putin is an evil dictator who cannot be trusted. The implication is that talking with the Kremlin is equivalent to surrender for Kiev because Putin wants all of Ukraine, and will use any pause in fighting to gear up for the next invasion.

However, history disproves that assertion. For Moscow, the war was never about seizing Ukrainian territory or attempting to reconstitute the USSR, but pushing back on NATO expansion after the bloc threatened to add Kiev as a member.

Before the invasion and in the early months of the war, Putin made serious offers to both Washington and Kiev to allow eastern and southern Ukraine to remain under Kiev’s control if the country agreed not to join NATO.

The Joe Biden administration outright refused to negotiate on those terms, even if they were acceptable to Kiev. Preventing those talks from occurring first provoked the Russian invasion, then prevented it from ending within a few months.

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US Considers Plan To Disrupt Iran’s Oil With Navy Interventions On High Seas

The Trump White House is currently considering a plan that would take the recently reinstated ‘maximum pressure’ campaign back to the high seas, akin to Trump’s first term as Commander-in-Chief.

This would involve US Navy ships stopping and inspecting Iranian oil vessels transiting the sea under an international mechanism aimed at thwarting “spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs),” sources in Reuters said. This had been done at times under Biden as well.

The idea is to crack down once again on Iranian oil sales in order to cut off crucial funding for Iran’s nuclear energy program, which both Israel and Washington suspect could easily be converted to an atomic weapons program.

“Trump officials are now looking at ways for allied countries to stop and inspect ships sailing through critical chokepoints such as the Malacca Strait in Asia and other sea lanes. That would delay delivery of crude to refiners. It could also expose parties involved in facilitating the trade to reputational damage and sanctions,” the sources told Reuters. 

“You don’t have to sink ships or arrest people to have that chilling effect that this is just not worth the risk. The delay in delivery… instills uncertainty in that illicit trade network,” one source clarified. 

The legal mechanism reportedly being examined goes all the way back the ‘war on terror’ 2003 Proliferation Security Initiative, which seeks to prevent the trafficking of WMDs. (Nevermind that the Bush-era ‘Iraqi WMDs’ scare was based on a complete myth and lie advanced by the NeoCons at the time).

“This mechanism could enable foreign governments to target Iran’s oil shipments at Washington’s request,” another source told Reuters.

The Biden administration had at times also sought to seize Iranian oil shipments, especially to disrupt sales in places like China, or also Syria.

As for the Syria situation, this policy helped tighten the noose around Assad in Western regime change efforts which led to his ouster – but the Syrian people continue to starve and be largely without fuel.

The US Treasury Department has frequently alleged that the Islamic Republic maintains a “shadow fleet” which sends Iranian crude oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars abroad. Tehran in response has argued it is fully its right to sell its energy resources utilizing international waters and passage.

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Biased UN Report on Nicaragua Ignores Victims of US-Backed Opposition Violence

Reynaldo Urbina rides his motorbike around the streets of Masaya, Nicaragua, with agility, despite having only one arm. Nearly seven years ago, at the height of a US- supported coup attempt against Nicaragua’s left-wing Sandinista government, Urbina was one of those guarding the city’s municipal warehouse when it was attacked by around 200 armed protestors. Warned of the impending attack, the guards had been ordered to hide their weapons and not resist capture, to minimize casualties.

But Urbina was suspected of knowing the whereabouts of the city’s mayor, whom the hooligans sought to assassinate, so they threw him to the ground and smashed his left arm with a rifle butt until it was practically destroyed. Urbina escaped, but his arm could not be saved, and was later amputated.

When a team was sent by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to Nicaragua to collect evidence on human rights abuses a few weeks later, Urbina was among those offered by the government as a witness. But the team refused to meet him.

The UN’s 40-page report, issued in August 2018, devotes just five paragraphs to violence by anti-government factions; the rest blames the government and its supporters for practically every other violent incident, including many (like an arson attack on a pro-Sandinista radio station) that were clearly part of the coup attempt.

Some time after the coup attempt, Nicaragua’s then vice-minister for foreign affairs, Valdrack Jaentschke, described an exchange with Paulo Abrão, who was the Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The IACHR was another of the bodies which had launched investigations of human rights abuses in 2018. Valdrack had asked Abrão why visiting investigators were not collecting evidence of the severe opposition violence which had taken place. Abrão gave two reasons: that human rights abuses can only be carried out by the state, and that violence by civil society groups is just “common criminality” and therefore not within the investigators’ mandate.

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All the LOLs: Hakeem Jeffries Says Trump Is ‘Losing’ Because Project 2025 or Something

The more I see of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the more I’m convinced that Nancy Pelosi put him in place to make the end phase of her tenure atop the House Democrats look brilliant by comparison. 

Granny Boxwine was one of the most powerful House speakers in American history. A lesser politician would have been out on his or her ear after the shellacking that the Democrats took in the 2010 midterms. She not only survived and remained minority leader, but hung around long enough to become speaker again. True, she was helped by the fact that we let members of Congress stay in office until they drop dead during a floor speech, but she’s also a political force who few in the Democratic Party are willing to go against, even now that she’s “just” a congresswoman. She did kind of limp towards the finish line at the end of her second stint as speaker, though. 

There was never any doubt that she would hand pick her successor, and she needed one who would make Democrats miss her being in charge. 

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