‘Pivotal warning’: Richest Americans slash spending in sign of coming turmoil

Adam Nichols
March 31, 2025 
RAW STORY



A woman looks at jewelry in a store window. (Shutterstock)

Even America’s wealthiest people are cutting back on their spending amid uncertainty over the nation’s economic future, a report claimed Monday.

“Strikingly, economists say Americans of all income levels, including the wealthiest, are rethinking their spending — in what could be a pivotal warning,” the report in The Washington Post claimed.

“The drop-off in consumer spending is expected to drag down economic growth in the first three months of the year, with many economists now forecasting a contraction after years of consistent growth."

“The highest-earning 10 percent of Americans, with annual household incomes of $250,000 or more, have been driving much of the economy’s post-pandemic boom, accounting for 49.7 percent of all U.S. spending, according to calculations by Moody’s Analytics for the Wall Street Journal.”

The report claimed a plunge in stock prices, together with threats of a trade war as President Donald Trump floats plans to impose tariffs, has caused “well-heeled shoppers” to cut back.

Among spending affected are luxury items — vacations, dining out, jewelry and cosmetic surgery.

“The forces driving Americans’ recent wealth gains 'are under considerable risk of slowing or reversing,'" Moody's Analytics' chief economist, Mark Zandi, wrote in a recent report, according to the Post.

And EY-Parthenon economist Lydia Boussour said, “Consumers are increasingly apprehensive about spending.


“We are seeing clear signs that people are being more careful — they’re reluctant to spend on nonessential expenses. They’re worried about inflation and have preemptive anxiety around tariffs.”

Plastic surgeon Johnny Franco told the Post from his Texas office that patients are opting for smaller procedures and choosing local anesthesia, rather than the more expensive option of being put under.

“There’s only so much money to go around for our patients,” he said. “A lot of them are breaking up their surgeries — maybe a breast lift instead of a full ‘mommy makeover,’ or fillers instead of liposuction. They’re able to save a decent amount of money.”

'It took just two months': Analysts trash Trump as U.S. Asian allies unite with China

Sarah K. Burris
March 31, 2025 
RAW STORY


Donald Trump (Reuters)

Reuters reported Monday that one-time American allies Japan and South Korea joined forces with China to "jointly respond" to tariffs imposed by the United States under President Donald Trump

It prompted political analysts and commentators to expect more and more allies abandon America.

"Who needs Japan and South Korea on our side when Europe and Canada love us?" sarcastically asked former Homeland Security appointee Eric Columbus.

"It took just two months to drive two of our closest and most important allies into China's arms," said commentator Catherine Rampell.

CNBC reporter Carl Quintanilla noted, "Japan's body language in recent days, even with Hegseth on the ground there, has been remarkable."

The investor account Citrini remarked, "Do you know what a cosmic-level a--hole one has to be in order to get CHINA, SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN TO AGREE ON SOMETHING?!"

There's no overstating how huge this is, said entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand. "It's actually the smart thing to do to be effective against Trump. If you act collectively as major economies, there's nothing he can do. Or you can wait to be bullied and threatened one by one for the next 4 years while others wait for their turn."

FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE U$A

‘My life means so little’: Sickest patients face insurance denials despite policy fixes

Lauren Sausser, 

KFF Health News
March 31, 2025 


In 2023, Sheldon Ekirch was diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy, which makes her limbs and muscles feel as if they’re on fire. Specialists recommended a series of infusions to ease her pain, but her insurer refused to pay for the expensive treatment, which it says is “not considered medically necessary.” (Ryan M. Kelly for KFF Health News)


HENRICO, Va. — Sheldon Ekirch spends a lot of time on hold with her health insurance company.

Sometimes, as the minutes tick by and her frustration mounts, Ekirch, 30, opens a meditation app on her phone. It was recommended by her psychologist to help with the depression associated with a stressful and painful medical disorder.

In 2023, Ekirch was diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy, a condition that makes her limbs and muscles feel as if they’re on fire. Now she takes more than a dozen prescriptions to manage chronic pain and other symptoms, including insomnia.


“I don’t feel like I am the person I was a year and a half ago,” said Ekirch, who was on the cusp of launching her law career before getting sick. “Like, my body isn’t my own.”

Ekirch said specialists have suggested that a series of infusions made from blood plasma called intravenous immunoglobulin — IVIG, for short — could ease, or potentially eradicate, her near-constant pain. But Ekirch’s insurance company has repeatedly denied coverage for the treatment, according to documents provided by the patient.

Patients with Ekirch’s condition don’t always respond to IVIG, but she said she deserves to try it, even though it could cost more than $100,000.


“I’m paying a lot of money for health insurance,” said Ekirch, who pays more than $600 a month in premiums. “I don’t understand why they won’t help me, why my life means so little to them.”

For patient advocates and health economists, cases like Ekirch’s illustrate why prior authorization has become such a chronic pain point for patients and doctors. For 50 years, insurers have employed prior authorization, they say, to reduce wasteful health care spending, prevent unnecessary treatment, and guard against potential harm.

The practice differs by insurance company and plan, but the rules often require patients or their doctors to request permission from the patient’s health insurance company before proceeding with a drug, treatment, or medical procedure.


The insurance industry provides little information about how often prior authorization is used. Transparency requirements established by the federal government to shed light on the use of prior authorization by private insurers haven’t been broadly enforced, said Justin Lo, a senior researcher for the Program on Patient and Consumer Protections at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

Yet it’s widely acknowledged that prior authorization tends to disproportionately impact some of the sickest people who need the most expensive care. And despite bipartisan support to reform the system, as well as recent attempts by health insurance companies to ease the burden for patients and doctors, some tactics have met skepticism.

Some insurers’ efforts to improve prior authorization practices aren’t as helpful as they would seem, said Judson Ivy, CEO of Ensemble Health Partners, a revenue cycle management company.


“When you really dive deep,” he said, these improvements don’t seem to touch the services and procedures, such as CT scans, that get caught up in prior authorization so frequently. “When we started looking into it,” he said, “it was almost a PR stunt.”

The ‘Tipping Point’

When Arman Shahriar’s father was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma in 2023, his father’s oncologist ordered a whole-body PET scan to determine the cancer’s stage. The scan was denied by a company called EviCore by Evernorth, a Cigna subsidiary that makes prior authorization decisions.


Shahriar, an internal medicine resident, said he spent hours on the phone with his father’s insurer, arguing that the latest medical guidelines supported the scan. The imaging request was eventually approved. But his father’s scan was delayed several weeks — and multiple appointments were scheduled, then canceled during the time-consuming process — while the family feared the cancer would continue to spread.

EviCore by Evernorth spokesperson Madeline Ziomek wrote in an emailed statement that incomplete clinical information provided by physicians is a leading cause of such denials. The company is “actively developing new ways to make the submission process simpler and faster for physicians,” Ziomek said.

In the meantime, Shahriar, who often struggles to navigate prior authorization for his patients, accused the confusing system of “artificially creating problems in people’s lives” at the wrong time.


“If families with physicians are struggling through this, how do other people navigate it? And the short answer is, they can’t,” said Shahriar, who wrote about his father’s case in an essay published last year by JAMA Oncology. “We’re kind of reaching a tipping point where we’re realizing, collectively, something needs to be done.”

The fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk in December prompted an outpouring of grief among those who knew him, but it also became a platform for public outrage about the methods insurance companies use to deny treatment.

An Emerson College poll conducted in mid-December found 41% of 18- to 29-year-olds thought the actions of Thompson’s killer were at least somewhat acceptable. In a NORC survey from the University of Chicago conducted in December, two-thirds of respondents indicated that insurance company profits, and their denials for health care coverage, contributed “a great deal/moderate amount” to the killing. Instagram accounts established in support of Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old Maryland suspect accused of murder and terrorism, have attracted thousands of followers.


“The past several weeks have further challenged us to even more intensely listen to the public narrative about our industry,” Cigna Group CEO David Cordani said during an earnings call on Jan. 30. Cigna is focused on “making prior authorizations faster and simpler,” he added.

The first Trump administration and the Biden administration put forth policies designed to improve prior authorization for some patients by mandating that insurers set up electronic systems and shortening the time companies may take to issue decisions, among other fixes. Hundreds of House Democrats and Republicans signed on to co-sponsor a bill last year that would establish new prior authorization rules for Medicare Advantage plans. In January, Republican congressman Jefferson Van Drew of New Jersey introduced a federal bill to abolish the use of prior authorization altogether.

Meanwhile, many states have passed legislation to regulate the use of prior authorization. Some laws require insurers to publish data about prior authorization denials with the intention of making a confusing system more transparent. Reform bills are under consideration by state legislatures in Hawaii, Montana, and elsewhere. A bill in Virginia approved by the governor March 18 takes effect July 1. Other states, including Texas, have established “gold card” programs that ease prior authorization requirements for some physicians by allowing doctors with a track record of approvals to bypass the rules.

No one from AHIP, an insurance industry lobbying group formerly known as America’s Health Insurance Plans, was available to be interviewed on the record about proposed prior authorization legislation for this article.


But changes wouldn’t guarantee that the most vulnerable patients would be spared from future insurance denials or the complex appeals process set up by insurers. Some doctors and advocates for patients are skeptical that prior authorization can be fixed as long as insurers are accountable to shareholders.

Kindyl Boyer, director of advocacy for the nonprofit Infusion Access Foundation, remains hopeful the system can be improved but likened some efforts to playing “Whac-A-Mole.” Ultimately, insurance companies are “going to find a different way to make more money,” she said.

‘Unified Anger’

In the weeks following Thompson’s killing, UnitedHealthcare was trying to refute an onslaught of what it called “highly inaccurate and grossly misleading information” about its practices when another incident landed the company back in the spotlight.

On Jan. 7, Elisabeth Potter, a breast reconstruction surgeon in Austin, Texas, posted a video on social media criticizing the company for questioning whether one of her patients who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was undergoing surgery that day needed to be admitted as an inpatient.

The video amassed millions of views.

In the days following her post, UnitedHealthcare hired a high-profile law firm to demand a correction and public apology from Potter. In an interview with KFF Health News, Potter would not discuss details about the dispute, but she stood by what she said in her original video.

“I told the truth,” Potter said.

The facts of the incident remain in dispute. But the level of attention it received online illustrates how frustrated and vocal many people have become about insurance company tactics since Thompson’s killing, said Matthew Zachary, a former cancer patient and the host of “Out of Patients,” a podcast that aims to amplify the experiences of patients.

For years, doctors and patients have taken to social media to shame health insurers into approving treatment. But in recent months, Zachary said, “horror stories” about prior authorization shared widely online have created “unified anger.”

“Most people thought they were alone in the victimization,” Zachary said. “Now they know they’re not.”

Data published in January by KFF found that prior authorization is particularly burdensome for patients covered by Medicare Advantage plans. In 2023, virtually all Medicare Advantage enrollees were covered by plans that required prior authorization, while people enrolled in traditional Medicare were much less likely to encounter it, said Jeannie Fuglesten Biniek, an associate director at KFF’s Program on Medicare Policy. Furthermore, she said, Medicare Advantage enrollees were more likely to face prior authorization for higher-cost services, including inpatient hospital stays, skilled nursing facility stays, and chemotherapy.

But Neil Parikh, national chief medical officer for medical management at UnitedHealthcare, explained prior authorization rules apply to fewer than 2% of the claims the company pays. He added that “99% of the time” UnitedHealthcare members don’t need prior authorization or requests are approved “very, very quickly.”

Recently, he said, a team at UnitedHealthcare was reviewing a prior authorization request for an orthopedic procedure when they discovered the surgeon planned to operate on the wrong side of the patient’s body. UnitedHealthcare caught the mistake in time, he recounted.

“This is a real-life example of why prior authorization can really help,” Parikh said.

Even so, he said, UnitedHealthcare aims to make the process less burdensome by removing prior authorization requirements for some services, rendering instant decisions for certain requests, and establishing a national gold card program, among other refinements. Cigna also announced changes designed to improve prior authorization in the months since Thompson’s killing.

“Brian was an incredible friend and colleague to many, many of us, and we are deeply saddened by his passing,” Parikh said. “It’s truly a sad occasion.”

The Final Denial

During the summer of 2023, Ekirch was working full time and preparing to take the bar exam when she noticed numbness and tingling in her arms and legs. Eventually, she started experiencing a burning sensation throughout her body.

That fall, a Richmond-area neurologist said her symptoms were consistent with small fiber neuropathy, and, in early 2024, a rheumatologist recommended IVIG to ease her pain. Since then, other specialists, including neurologists at the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University, have said she may benefit from the same treatment.

There’s no guarantee it will work. A randomized controlled trial published in 2021 found pain levels in patients who received IVIG weren’t significantly different from the placebo group, while an older study found patients responded “remarkably well.”

“It’s hard because I look at my peers from law school and high school — they’re having families, excelling in their career, living their life. And most days I am just struggling, just to get out of bed,” said Ekirch, frustrated that Anthem continues to deny her claim.

In a prepared statement, Kersha Cartwright, a spokesperson for Anthem’s parent company, Elevance Health, said Ekirch’s request for IVIG treatment was denied “because it did not meet the established medical criteria for effectiveness in treating small fiber neuropathy.”

On Feb. 17, her treatment was denied by Anthem for the final time. Ekirch said her patient advocate, a nurse who works for Anthem, suggested she reach out to the drug manufacturer about patient charity programs.

“This is absolutely crazy,” Ekirch said. “This is someone from Anthem telling me to plead with a pharmacy company to give me this drug when Anthem should be covering it.”

Her only hope now lies with the Virginia State Corporation Commission Bureau of Insurance, a state agency that resolves prior authorization disputes between patients and health insurance companies. She found out through a Facebook group for patients with small fiber neuropathy that the Bureau of Insurance has overturned an IVIG denial before. In late March, Ekirch was anxiously waiting to hear the agency’s decision about her case.

“I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, though,” she said. “I feel like this entire process, I’ve been let down by it.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Slashed U.S. funding threatens millions of children: charity chief

AFP
March 31, 2025 

If the United States slashes its contribution to the Gavi organisation that vaccinates children in poor countries, there will be 'too big a hole' to be filled, its chief Sania Nishtar says. (AFP)

A halt to US funding for Gavi, an organisation that vaccinates children in the worlds poorest countries, will leave a dangerous gap threatening the lives of millions, its chief warned on Monday.

"The first impact would be for the most vulnerable children of the world," Gavi chief executive Sania Nishtar told AFP.

She spoke via video link from Washington, during a visit to try to convince US authorities that their 25-year collaboration with the Geneva-based organisation must continue.

The New York Times broke the news last week that President Donald Trump's administration, which has been aggressively slashing foreign aid, aims to cut all funding to Gavi.

That step featured in a 281-page spreadsheet related to a cuts to USAID that was sent to the US Congress.

The decision would impact about 14 percent of Gavi's core budget -- and came just days after the Congress had approved $300 million in funding for the organisation.


"I was very, very surprised," Nishtar said, adding that her organisation still had received no official termination notice from the US government.

The medical doctor and former minister and senator in Pakistan said: "Gavi was supported by the previous Trump administration. We had a very good relationship."

If the cuts go ahead, Nishtar warned it would have devastating effects.

- 'Children will die' -

"Frankly, this is too big a hole to be filled," Nishtar warned, even as Gavi scrambled to find donors to offset the missing US funding.

"Something will have to be cut."

Gavi says it helps vaccinate more than half the world's children against infectious diseases including Covid-19, Ebola, malaria, rabies, polio, cholera, tuberculosis (TB), typhoid and yellow fever.

Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has provided vaccines to more than 1.1 billion children in 78 lower-income countries, "preventing more than 18.8 million future deaths," it says.

Before the US decision, the organisation has a goal of vaccinating 500 million more children between 2026 to 2030.


The US contribution is directly responsible for funding 75 million of those vaccinations, Nishtar said.

Without them, "around 1.3 million children will die from vaccine-preventable diseases".

Beyond Gavi's core immunisation programmes, the funding cut would jeopardise the stockpiling and roll-out of vaccines against outbreaks and in health emergencies, including for Ebola, cholera and mpox.

"The world's ability to protect itself against outbreaks and health emergencies will be compromised," Nishtar said.

- 'More exposed' -

During her Washington visit, the Gavi chief said she aimed to show how effective funding has been so far for her organisation.

For every $1 spent on vaccinations in developing countries where Gavi operates, $21 will be saved this decade in "health care costs, lost wages and lost productivity from illness and death," the vaccine group estimates.

Unlike other organisations facing cuts, Gavi has not received an outsized contribution from Washington towards its budget, Nishtar noted, insisting that the US contribution was proportionate to its share of the global economy.

Other donors were paying their "fair share", while recipient countries also pitch in and are provided with a path to transition away from receiving aid, she said.

Some former recipients, like Indonesia, had even become donors to the programme, she pointed out, voicing hope that such arguments would help sway Washington to decide to stay the course.

Without the US backing, "we will have to make difficult trade-offs", Nishtar warned.

That "will leave us all more exposed".

'Who approved this?' Jasmine Crockett slams 'disgusting' House GOP for sharing morbid meme

David Edwards
March 31, 2025 

RAW STORY

Meme of J.D. Vance, Donald Trump and Elon Musk. (House Republicans/X/screen grab"

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) lashed out at House Republicans after an official House Foreign Affairs Committee's social media account shared a spoof video of President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Elon Musk dancing while carrying a casket labeled USAID.

In a post to X over the weekend, House Republicans celebrated the demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development with the video meme. A message on the post read, "MAGA 1, Libs 0."

"While children starve, civilians suffer, and global crises worsen because of their cruelty, the House GOP is out here making memes and playing," Crockett wrote on Monday. "This is disgusting. Who approved this?"

Last week, the State Department announced it was formally closing the foreign aid agency after winning a court battle.

"Unfortunately, USAID strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Watch the video below or at this link.

'Can't take the heat': Elon Musk ridiculed on his own app over how he handled heckler

David McAfee
March 30, 2025 

RAW STORY



Elon Musk Sunday was ridiculed on the app he owns after he accused a heckler of being a paid protester.

Musk over the weekend appeared in Wisconsin as part of his effort to influence the voters there to choose a MAGA candidate for a position as state supreme court judge.

Musk responds to someone heckling him by saying, "It was inevitable at least a few Soros operatives would be in the audience. Give my regards to George."

"Say hi to George for me," Musk added.

Journalist and researcher Hannah Gais chimed in: “Anyone Who Doesn’t Like Me Works for George Soros: An Airhead Rightwinger’s Guide to Political Debate."


Another journalist, Kate Ross, replied with, "Can’t take the heat without being anti-Semitic."

One popular X user, @_celia_bedelia_, also responded, "Does Elon know he’s actually doing everything he accuses George Soros of doing?"

TV host Krystal Ball wrote, "Pretending like they are paid Soros operatives while you are LITERALLY THERE TO BRIBE PEOPLE TO VOTE!"

Musk deploys wealth in bid to swing Wisconsin court vote

By AFP
March 30, 2025


Elon Musk has thrown his political clout, and his world-record fortune, into Wisconsin's supreme court race - Copyright AFP Robin LEGRAND

The world’s richest man took to the stage in the US state of Wisconsin on Sunday in a bid to swing the local supreme court to the right, with the help of two $1 million checks for voters.

Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla and SpaceX and an advisor to US President Donald Trump, deployed his largesse along with his rhetoric to try to turn out the vote on Tuesday in favor of a conservative judge.

Wisconsin is a swing state, in the balance between the Democratic and Republican parties, and Musk argued that only a supreme court leaning to the right could protect pro-Trump districts from gerrymandering and voter fraud.

“What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the US House of Representatives,” Musk declared, arguing that the federal congress was so evenly balanced Wisconsin’s seats could decide its majority.

“And whichever party controls the House … to a significant degree, controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization,” said Musk, who arrived wearing the “cheese head” wedge hat favored by local football fans.

“So it’s like, I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.”

To back up this ambition, Musk has piled some of his own money into the Wisconsin Supreme Court vote.

The race pits conservative Brad Schimel against liberal Susan Crawford. The outgoing judge was backed by Democrats, so a Schimel win would tilt the court right, while Crawford would preserve its liberal leanings.

Wisconsin was won by Trump in the 2024 presidential election, but its electoral districts could be redrawn before the next mid-term Congressional elections in November next year.

The liberal candidate, 60-year-old Crawford, was campaigning Sunday the old-fashioned way, addressing a crowd at an antiques shop meeting on a rainy morning.

“So Elon Musk, folks, that guy, right? He has now spent more than $25 million, it goes up every day,” Crawford told the crowd. “He’s working as the unelected right-hand man to the president. He’s got an agenda.”



– Straight-armed salute –



There was an enthusiastic crowd at Musk’s Green Bay rally but, at small-town meetings, the South African-born oligarch’s eruption into Wisconsin’s affairs seems to have provoked as much resistance as support.

Rob Patterson, a 65-year-old retired electrical engineer, came to a rally in Crawford with a sign showing Musk giving a straight-armed salute.

“Oi wanker, our Supreme Court is not for sale,” the sign read.

Since buying himself a $277 million role in Trump’s presidential campaign last year, Musk has gained unprecedented un-elected power.

Once Trump returned to the White House he invited his sponsor to head a new cost-cutting agency named after an internet meme: the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

In just a few weeks Musk has already sacked or suspended tens of thousands of federal workers, gutted foreign aid and begun the job of dismantling several agencies.

“It’s like a bull in a china shop. He has no idea what he’s doing,” complained Patterson.

Outside a supermarket in Elkhorn, 70-year-old retired elementary school teacher Linda Suskey says she plans to vote for Crawford to keep balance in the court.

And she doesn’t have much time for Musk’s blandishments.

“He uses his money to get what he wants, which is more money,” she told AFP.

“I think he’s got too much power, and he doesn’t answer to anybody — and yeah, he’s just controlling things to help the rich get richer.”



– ‘Activist judges’ –



Aside from campaign donations to the conservative, Musk handed two prize checks of $1 million each.

This mirrored his scheme during the presidential race to hand out $1 million a day to a voter who registered in a swing state vital to Trump’s victory.

Through his political organization, Musk has also offered $100 each to voters who sign his petition against “activist judges” in Wisconsin.

When he launched the petition, Crawford accused him of seeking to buy a seat on the state supreme court in order to swing judgements in favor of his companies.

Tesla has launched a legal challenge to Wisconsin’s law banning car automakers from directly owning car dealerships. The case could well end up before the court.

'People don't like you': LinkedIn founder strikes back at Elon Musk after major accusation

David McAfee

March 30, 2025

RAW STORY

Elon Musk on Sunday accused the co-founder of LinkedIn of funding protests against Tesla, but Reid Hoffman hit back over the weekend.

It started when a right-wing page on X called Western Decline alleged that, "Hoffman is a major funder of Indivisible, a group actively funding and organizing anti-Musk demonstrations at Tesla showrooms, factories, and dealerships—events that have led to widespread vandalism."

Another user the identifies as a Tesla shareholder, @TeslaBoomerMama, said, "Reid Hoffman ...? Major donor of Indivisible, organizer behind the protests. Up to $200 reimbursement for protestors? Bread crumbs, bread crumbs..."

That led Musk himself to reply, "Reid will have many layers between himself and the organizations attacking me, but the probability is 100% that Reid is funding them."

"100%," Musk then added on his social media post.

That caused Hoffman to reply, "The probability many, many people don't like you? 100%."

"Probability that Tesla polls need to be rigged by bots to cover up the fact that people don't like you? 100%. Probability you'd rather make s--- up about me than fix your problems? 100%," Hoffman added.

One user replied to Hoffman with, "You did the liar tell, Reid. Which is to say you didn't deny Elon's specific allegation," to which Hoffman responded bluntly, "I am denying elon's specific allegation."

‘False choice’: GOP congressman breaks ranks to deliver Trump history lesson in NY Times

“The United States must firmly oppose any approach that rewards Mr. Putin for his ruthless aggression"

Adam Nichols

March 31, 2025 

RAW STORY

U.S. President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn while returning to the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 30, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

 Republican congressman representing deep red Nebraska took to the New York Times Monday in an effort to convince President Donald Trump to backtrack on current Ukraine policy.

Rep. Don Bacon urged Trump to resist capitulating to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and he delivered a history lesson in an attempt to persuade him.

“The United States must firmly oppose any approach that rewards Mr. Putin for his ruthless aggression,” Bacon, a vocal Trump supporter, wrote in an opinion piece.

“In recent weeks, too many of my fellow Republicans — including Mr. Trump — have treated Russia with velvet gloves, shying away from calling out Mr. Putin’s flatly illegal war and even blaming Ukraine for starting it.

“As the White House works to end the fighting and forge a just and durable peace, my party must reaffirm our commitment to opposing Mr. Putin’s expansionism and to supporting Ukraine’s defense of its sovereignty.”

He then laid out a history of Russia’s brutal repression of Ukraine, the nation Putin invaded three years ago and in which a bloody war is still waging. Trump has signalled he’s willing to make a deal with Russia in an attempt to end it.

Bacon described the deaths of up to five million Ukrainians under Joseph Stalin’s rule in the 1930s, followed by a life “blighted by collectivization, disappearances, executions and gulags,” up to the fall of the Soviet Union.

He then detailed the 1994 pact that “extended explicit security guarantees for Ukraine — including a commitment by Russia to respect its borders — in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.”

“The United States and the rest of Europe shamelessly abandoned these security commitments when Mr. Putin ordered the Russian military to annex and occupy the Crimean Peninsula,” Bacon wrote.

“ … This history makes clear that America has a moral obligation to continue providing aid to Ukraine until Russia commits to fair and just peace negotiations. That means including Ukraine in the conversation.”

“As the war enters its fourth year, Americans understandably question why the United States should continue supporting Kyiv,” Bacon wrote.

“They ask whether we can afford it, whether it’s our fight or whether Ukraine’s fate truly matters to them.

"To me, the answer is simple: Supporting Ukraine in its struggle against Russian aggression is not only morally right. It is also in our national interest, because the future cost of abandoning Ukraine would vastly outweigh the investment we have made in rejecting Russia’s aggression.”

He concluded, “Peace won’t be easy, but we must reject the trap of making a false choice. It is possible to end the war for Ukraine, preserve our moral clarity by holding Russia accountable and advance America’s long-term national interests in the process. This is a Ronald Reagan moment.”

Trump team eyes emergency plan to offset 'financial devastation' for farmers: NY Times

David Badash, 

The New Civil Rights Movement
March 31, 2025 


A farmer stands in a field (Shutterstock).

President Donald Trump has dubbed April 2 “Liberation Day”—the date he’ll unveil his sweeping and controversial tariff package—but behind the scenes, White House officials are quietly admitting it could be anything but liberating for America’s farmers.

Trump’s tariffs are expected to cost Americans tens of billions of dollars annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The cost to farmers could be “financial devastation,” The New York Times reported on Monday. And since the White House is mulling a necessary bailout for the American agricultural industry, the ultimate cost of Trump’s tariffs could grow even more expensive.

The Trump administration “is weighing a new round of emergency aid to farmers, who are likely to be caught in the middle if America’s trading partners retaliate.”

“The early discussions offer a tacit acknowledgment that Mr. Trump’s expansive tariffs could unleash financial devastation throughout the U.S. agricultural industry, a crucial voting base that the president similarly tried to safeguard during his 2018 trade war with China,” the Times reports.

The American taxpayer ended up paying farmers about $23 billion during the first Trump administration’s trade war with China. Trump’s new tariffs could push that number far higher, if he decides to protect the agriculture industry.

This quiet acknowledgement that Trump’s tariffs could be calamitous to farmers, likely requiring billions to offset their losses, would appear to destroy his claims that tariffs will enrich the government’s coffers. A top aide, Peter Navarro, has claimed, in what has been described as “Orwellian” remarks, that tariffs are a “tax cut.”

The Times explains that “an expensive federal bailout threatens to cut deeply into one of Mr. Trump’s signature reasons for pursuing protectionist policies in the first place: a desire to rake in ‘lots of money,’ as the president himself has said. Mr. Trump and his Republican allies say the new tariffs could help pay for their still-forming plan to expand and extend a set of expiring tax cuts, which could cost into the trillions of dollars.”

Trump’s tax cuts are expected to disproportionally benefit the rich, some say.

Meanwhile, critics are blasting the news.

“Farmers feed the world,” noted Wisconsin Democratic state Senator Brad Pfaff, a former acting agriculture secretary. “But Trump’s tariffs will hurt farmers and drive up consumer food costs. This is not sound economic policy.”

“Trump’s first government bailout for farmers cost way more than what DOGE has claimed to save,” writes HuffPost senior political reporter Igor Bobic. “Now we’re doing another liberation bailout.”

“He has barely launched his trade war that was gonna make us rich, and it’s already going to cost the taxpayers billions,” adds former Biden and Obama administration official Brian P. McKeon.

RFK Jr. ANTI-VAX CAMPAIGN

'Worst fears coming true': Conservative WSJ hits Trump for letting Cabinet member run amok

Jennifer Bowers Bahney
March 31, 2025 

RAW STORY


Trump hosts a campaign event at the Prairie du Chien Area Arts Center Source: REUTERS

Health advocates sounded the alarm when President Donald Trump first nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, due to his controversial stance on vaccines and a penchant for promoting conspiracy theories. Now, the conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is slamming the administration for allowing Kennedy to operate largely unfettered.

On Monday, the board stated that some Senate Republicans who voted to confirm RFK Jr. "hoped that other Trump HHS appointees — e.g., FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya — would keep Mr. Kennedy in check. It isn’t working out that way."

One of the more disturbing actions, according to the board, revolves around Kennedy's potential choice of longtime vaccine critic David Geier as "senior data analyst" with a new CDC study on vaccines and autism, although the White House did not confirm Geier's involvement.

According to the WSJ board, Geier "has spent decades spreading the discredited theory, embraced by Mr. Kennedy, that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism and neurological damage in children. He has published more than a dozen studies that trial lawyers have cited as evidence of vaccines’ harms, though they have been rejected by judges and the government’s special vaccine courts."

In addition, Geier has "accused the CDC of concealing vaccine safety data and claimed that better nutrition and hygiene — not vaccines — are responsible for the disappearance of deadly infectious diseases."

The Editorial Board wrote that if Geier is involved in the research, "The study’s results look preordained."

The board also wrote of its fear of a DHS "brain drain" if Kennedy starts firing scientists who aren't dedicated to his anti-vaccine stance, such as Peter Marks, who was instrumental in President Trump's Operation Warp Speed for life-saving Covid vaccines.

"On Friday Mr. Marks resigned," the board wrote, "which is especially regrettable since he pushed the FDA bureaucracy to accelerate life-saving therapies for children with rare genetic disorders. He also pushed back against those in and outside of the agency, including Biden FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, who fretted that the FDA was approving too many novel drugs with high prices."

In his resignation letter, Marks wrote, "It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”

The Board concluded, "Our worst fears about Mr. Kennedy are coming true."

Read The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board piece here.

Beachcomber in France hunts fragments of migrant lives


By AFP
March 30, 2025


Clues to a long migrant journey towards a better life - Copyright AFP Sai Aung MAIN

Kenan AUGEARD

The sand-covered notes outlining a migrant’s travel plan to a better life read like an itinerary of hope: from Ethiopia to Sudan, Libya, Italy, on to France and finally, England.

The document had travelled thousands of kilometres by the time it was picked up on a beach in Gravelines on France’s North Sea coast by a Belgian who likes to scour the beach in search of interesting things to collect.

Aaron Fabrice de Kisangani, 27, who calls himself a “beachcomber” and a “citizen scientist”, carefully unfolded the piece of paper that was soaked, dirty and covered in sand fleas, hoping for clues to the owner’s life.

The item is one of many objects migrants leave behind when they board one of the small boats they hope will carry them to the English coast. Sometimes they lose things in the hurry, and sometimes they throw them away deliberately, to travel light.

This is how shoes, clothes, bags and documents belonging to migrants end up strewn on northern French beaches, along with things left by fishermen and visitors.

Over the past two decades, Fabrice de Kisangani has made some unusual finds, including exotic plant seeds and shark teeth. He never used to pay attention to objects left by migrants, until about a year ago.

“I started to think, why don’t I take them, because otherwise they will be lost,” he told AFP.

The written notes he found probably belonged to an Ethiopian woman called Rose I., at least that is the name scribbled at the top of the page.

Rose meticulously listed cities, journey times and means of transport, drawing arrows between each entry.

The itinerary starts with “A.A.” for Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Eight hundred kilometres (500 miles) and 17 hours by car later comes Metema, on the Sudanese border. “Ten minutes on foot”, Rose predicted, would take her to Gallabat on the other side.



– ‘Humanise those people again’ –



Then on to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, followed by thousands of kilometres across sand, marked simply as “desert”, to Tripoli, in Libya.

Next came the voyage across the sea to Italy, followed by a train journey to France. And then, at last, the final destination: “UK”.

Fabrice de Kisangani found many other fragments of exile life during his morning search: a summons for a March 18 expulsion hearing for an Albanian in detention, or tickets from the Romanian capital Bucharest by plane to Paris, and then by train to Dunkerque in northern France.

These objects could help “humanise those people again”, because they tell “their story”, said Fabrice de Kisangani.

“I want to show the problem from another angle, as a beachcomber,” he said, admitting however that he has not worked out yet what exactly to do with the objects.

But in the meantime, the finds taught him “a lot” about the migrants, “about how they travel and how fast”, the beachcomber said, adding he often does research to find out more about their home countries and “why they are fleeing to the UK”.

Walking back to his car, Fabrice de Kisangani saw a scene playing out in the distance that has become commonplace around here: dozens of migrants emerging from the dunes and running towards a boat waiting in the water. At first they were stopped by police but, in another attempt a few minutes later, most managed to climb aboard.

A child could be heard crying. A man, one of three members of a family who didn’t make it, urged his mother to climb back off the boat, without success.

Such existential scenes, illustrating the undertaking’s fragility, are never documented in the objects jettisoned on the beach. The final pieces of the puzzle remain elusive.

Did Rose, the travel plan author, ever make it to England? Did she stick to her itinerary?

On this, the notes are silent.