‘Revenge is his number one motivation’: how Trump is waging war on the media


The president – who believes he has been treated unfairly by the press – is squeezing the media in different ways than his first term

Chairman James Comer speaks in front of posters of NPR headlines during a House oversight and government reform committee hearing on 26 March 2025 in Washington DC. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Adam Gabbattin 

New York

THE GUARDIAN

Sun 30 Mar 2025 

On Tuesday 4 March, Donald Trump stood in the House of Representatives to issue a speech to a joint session of Congress, the first of his second term.

Near the beginning of what was to be a marathon address, the president declared: “I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It’s back.”


What Trump did not mention was that less than three weeks earlier he had barred Associated Press journalists from the Oval Office, because the news agency refused to use his preferred nomenclature for the Gulf of Mexico. He did not mention that he was waging lawsuits against ABC and CBS, nor that the man he appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission had ordered a flurry of investigations into NBC News, NPR and PBS.

The president ignored entirely what has become an all out attack on the media and other institutions, something that media experts have described as a “broad, systematic assault” on free speech, a vendetta that threatens “the essential fundamental freedoms of a democracy”.


Since that speech the situation has only got worse. The anti-media rhetoric has ramped up from Trump officials, Trump has suggested some media groups should be “illegal”, funding has been cut from organisations like Voice of America and last week the White House lambasted journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and the Atlantic magazine for breaking a scoop about national security lapses on a Signal messaging app.

“Revenge is Trump’s number one motivation for anything in this second term of office, and he believes he has been treated unfairly by the media, and he is going to strike out against those in the media who he considers his enemies,” said Bill Press, a longtime liberal political commentator and host of The Bill Press Pod.

“He’s going in the direction of really curtailing the freedom of the press, following the pattern of every autocrat ever on the planet: they need to shut down a free and independent press in order to get away with their unlimited use of power.”

Trump was critical of the media in his first term. But as Press pointed out, that was more verbal attacks: the never-ending accusations of “fake news”, the encouragement of anti-CNN chants at rallies. Two months into Trump’s second term, he has already taken it further. Associated Press, one of the world’s premier news agencies which is relied upon by thousands of news outlets, remains banned from the Oval Office and Air Force one: the president angered by the agency’s refusal to use the term “Gulf of America” to refer to the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump is suing the owner of CBS News for $10bn, alleging the channel selectively edited an interview with Kamala Harris, which the network denies, and the Des Moines Register newspaper, which he accuses of “election interference” over a poll from before the election that showed Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa.

The FCC investigations, led by the hardline Trump appointee and Project 2025 author Brendan Carr, are ongoing, while in February Trump ejected a HuffPost reporter from the press pool – which refers to a rotating group of reporters allowed close access to the White House – and denied reporters from the news agency Reuters access to a cabinet meeting.

At various times Trump and rightwing groups have accused each of the outlets of bias or of presenting negative coverage of his presidency. By contrast, the White House has allowed rightwing news outlets, including Real America’s Voice and Blaze Media and Newsmax, to be included in the press pool.

“It’s designed to shut down criticism, and I think that the danger of that is that there is this effort to make it look like everyone approves of the government and of the Trump administration,” said Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute, a non-profit which seeks to preserve and advance first amendment freedom rights.

“It’s a threat to the ability of the of the press to critically cover the president, but perhaps more importantly, the function of the press is to inform the public about the workings of government, and allow the public to decide whether or not it wants to vote for these people again, or whether it approves. And so it’s more than just its effect on the media, its effect on the general public.”

In recent days the Trump administration’s attack-the-media playbook has been on show in the way senior officials have sought to discredit Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic who was invited into a secret Signal group where a coming US attack on Yemen’s Houthi militia was being discussed.

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and Trump himself have criticized Goldberg: Waltz described him as “the bottom scum of journalists”, while Trump called the reporting “a witch-hunt” and described the Atlantic as a “failed magazine”.

Trump has also appeared to flirt with using law enforcement to target the media, including a speech to federal law enforcement officials in March. “As the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred,” Trump said

He disparaged certain lawyers and non-profits, before later adding: “The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and MSDNC, and the fake news, CNN and ABC, CBS and NBC, they’ll write whatever they say.”

Trump continued: “It’s totally illegal what they do,” adding: “I just hope you can all watch for it, but it’s totally illegal.”

The war on free speech has not just been limited to the media. Trump’s efforts have increasingly also focussed on areas including education, law and charitable organizations, as the government seeks to bring key aspects of society into line.

“You have to look at this as part of a broad, systematic assault that the president and his administration have been waging since he returned to office on every other power center that impacts politics in any way,” said Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, a watchdog group.

“All the sort of liberal, civil society institutions: big law firms, universities, the government itself, the courts and the press have come under fire, and as part of that, we have this really unprecedented multifront attack on media institutions.”

Trump has been aided in this endeavor by the owners of some media organizations. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon co-founder and owner of the Washington Post, pulled an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris during the campaign and recently overhauled the newspaper’s opinion pages.


Amazon donated a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration, and Bezos’ space company Blue Origin competes for federal government contracts. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, also blocked the newspaper from endorsing Harris, while Mark Zuckerberg dismantled Facebook’s factchecking network after Trump won the presidency. (Like Bezos, Zuckerberg donated to, and attended, Trump’s inauguration.)

“What makes the situation so worrying is that for the last several years, Donald Trump himself and the leading lights of the rightwing media and political movement: from Tucker Carlson to Kevin Roberts at the Heritage Foundation, have cited as their exemplar Viktor Orbán of Hungary. That’s what they want to accomplish,” Gertz said.

“And what Orbán did with the press was squeeze different media corporation owners until they agreed to either make their press more palatable to him, or sell their outlets to someone who would. I think that is basically, by their own admission, what the Trump administration is trying to bring about in this country.

“I think the hope is that we have more guardrails than Hungary did to prevent that from happening. But it’s unnerving that the president of the United States is trying to follow in those footsteps.”

Book excerpt: 'Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood'

Photo by Paul Zoetemeijer on Unsplash

Rev. Angela Denker,

 Minnesota Reformer

March 31, 2025


The following is an excerpt from the recently published “Disciples of White Jesus.” In its description, Publisher’s Weekly says, “A shifting American culture is pushing white Christian boys toward radicalization, isolation, and violence, according to this persuasive treatise.” 

Consider buying the book at an independent Minnesota bookstore.

We cannot understand the problems of radicalization among young, white Christian boys in America, nor fully grapple with the challenges and troubles facing these boys, without understanding what’s happening in American schools. And without consulting that most underpaid and too-often scapegoated American professional, the public school teacher.

A teacher I’ll call Joe, 59, is just the kind of teacher that hard-core advocates of traditional masculinity might dream up as their ideal educator for young, white Christian boys and men — at least at first blush. Joe, who has been teaching for 36 years in total, and 33 years in the Minneapolis Public Schools, stands 6 foot, 5 inches tall. When it comes to physical education instruction, which he has led for 23 years at his current school building, Joe is no-nonsense and almost stern, cutting a strong, athletic and disciplined figure, a product of his Marine veteran father, who worked for decades in underground pipelines after leaving the military.

Joe spends his winter days at an upper elementary school in a relatively affluent neighborhood of Minneapolis, with a student body that’s more than 85% white; only to drive across the Mississippi River after school to St. Paul’s Central High School, where he works as an assistant basketball coach at a school that is 59% POC students, including 29% Black students, in a neighborhood where 18% of residents live in poverty.

It’s a fitting dual existence for Joe, who describes his childhood as a life in two worlds. His dad was a member of the Red Cliff Native American tribe, and the family lived together on the reservation near Bayfield, Wisconsin, even though Joe’s mother was white. He recalls that sometimes he was bullied on both ends, about his Indigenous ancestry by the white kids, and from the Native kids, called an “apple,” suggesting that while he was “red” on the outside, he was really “white” on the inside. Joe thought maybe that was because his teacher mom encouraged her four boys to do well in school, something that wasn’t always popular on the reservation, for myriad reasons.

Teaching PE and coaching basketball enable Joe to use parts of his skill set and personality that some advocates of gender absolutism might consider contradictory. He retains much of the “tough-love,” “old-school” military mentality that his dad instilled in him. And at the same time, Joe also saw the ways in which that hard-core masculine identity led his dad to a life of physical pain and even premature death. Joe saw the strengths and limitations of a masculinity that’s only rooted in hardness and discipline. So he brings a bit of his mom’s more nurturing side to his role as an educator and coach as well. After all, Joe says the best parts of his day are often the hours he spends in physical education with a smaller group of students with disabilities and cognitive delays. These students, who are often withdrawn or quiet or uncooperative in public settings, seem to innately trust Joe, something I saw firsthand when I served as a substitute teacher in his classroom. They know the rhythms and routines of the gymnasium; it was a place they clearly felt accepted, loved, and known — something achieved by an educator rooted in discipline and athleticism but also in emotional connection, patience, and kindness.

Given his popularity among many of his students and student athletes, and his continued commitment to athleticism even into his 59th year, you might think that Joe is supremely confident and undeterred in any school setting. But he knows that washboard abs or biceps would be no match for an AR-15 in a potential school shooting situation.

“That scares me more than anything as a teacher,” Joe told me, when we discussed the potential of a school shooter coming to our shared neighborhood. “Even who I am, there is very little I can do to stop that situation. The best thing we can do is just barricade ourselves.”

Joe says he thinks about it often, imagining himself in the shoes of fellow teachers and educators who have faced active shooters in their buildings.

“They probably thought the same things I do,” he said. “Your senses are so heightened as a teacher. You’re making sure all your doors are shut. You’re following the proper procedures for code red. What do you do? What do I do? What if I’m at prep? What if it’s happening in another area of the building? Of all the things, that’s the one that scares me the most.”

I’m struck at this moment by the seriousness and vulnerability and sadness that has come over Joe’s face. This is a man who deeply loves being a teacher. By the nature of his work with disabled students — among whom boys are overrepresented — and his role as a boys’ basketball coach, Joe does tend to spend a bit more time with boys as an educator and coach, though his office is also filled with cards from former students, divided equally between boys and girls. He’s also the father of a 20-something son, whom he watched attend school in the same district where he teaches. He says the two of them will talk about those boys who seem to fall through the cracks, the ones for whom traditionally male-dominated outlets like sports or mathematics don’t seem to fit, but who also don’t find their place in outlets like music or drama. He and his son recently together discussed the fact that two of his classmates — despite their relatively privileged backgrounds — had recently died of drug overdoses. Joe talked also of watching the boys who used to run with joy and abandon around his gym classes, pelting each other with balls, turn into sullen, withdrawn, and angry teenagers. Sometimes seeing them makes him feel sad and powerless.

“When you, as a teacher, can pinpoint those students out, you try and let them figure out a way for themselves, and also serve as advocate for them and help them find a way,” Joe says. “Sometimes they just need an ear to bend. Sometimes parents will ask me about younger kids and help them find a group, or a place to fit in.”

I realize, in talking with Joe, that it’s not his height or his athleticism or his perceived traditional masculinity that makes Joe a favorite among his students, or that has enabled him to have such longevity as a PE teacher in a challenging time for public school teachers, especially in inner-city, urban school districts. For Joe, for his students: the key is trust and relationship. He has been able to carve out a unique sense of both in his role as teacher and coach in Minneapolis. But it doesn’t escape me that even in this ideal school, Joe still faces the fear and anxiety of the violence of the wider world, the ominous threat of a school shooting.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

NATO: More Militarism, No Defence against US Expansionists

by Yves Engler / March 31st, 2025

If you believe Donald Trump might invade, you should be calling for Canada to withdraw from NATO. The alliance won’t defend Canada, has enabled US interference, and gobbles up resources.

During a recent meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, US President Donald Trump questioned the border and Canadian sovereignty. He said, “if you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it, between Canada and the U.S. … somebody did it a long time ago, many many decades ago, and (it) makes no sense.” Trump also repeatedly said Canada should be a US state, noting “to be honest with you, Canada only works as a state.”

Sitting next to the US president, Rutte stayed silent. A bit later Trump suggested Rutte might assist him in taking part of NATO member Denmark, noting “I’m sitting with a man who could be very instrumental. You know Mark, we need that for international security.” Rutte replied, “when it comes to Greenland yes or not joining the U.S. I would leave that outside for me this discussion because I don’t want to drag NATO in that.”

Rutte doesn’t seem to want to commit even rhetorically to defending alliance members’ sovereignty. Even if Rutte had interrupted Trump and told the US president his comments were inappropriate, the idea that NATO would defend Canada from a US invasion is ridiculous. Latvia and Estonia will not send troops to repel a US invasion. Nor will France or the UK.

Will Canada send troops to defend Greenland if Trump takes it from NATO member Denmark? Does anyone think that would that be a good idea?

Article 5 of the NATO Charter is not clear on what collective defence entails. It says an attack against one member “shall be considered an attack against them all.” But it doesn’t stipulate what the response should be, noting only that each member state must take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.” Article 5 has only ever been invoked after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US.

In the past NATO has undercut Canadian sovereignty. Unbeknownst to most Canadians, NATO was employed by Washington to topple a government in Ottawa. When Prime Minister John Diefenbaker didn’t provide unconditional support during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, US President John F. Kennedy used NATO as part of a multifaceted effort to precipitate the downfall of his minority Conservative government. On January 3, 1963, the outgoing commander of NATO, US General Lauris Norstad, came to Ottawa on an unplanned visit in which he claimed Canada would not be fulfilling her commitments to the alliance if the country did not acquire nuclear warheads. It was part of a series of moves by the Kennedy administration to weaken Diefenbaker, which led to the fall of his government. During the subsequent election campaign, Kennedy’s top pollster, Lou Harris, helped longtime external affairs official Lester Pearson defeat Diefenbaker.

NATO continues to undercut Canadian sovereignty. It’s used to justify purchasing expensive offensive kit (think F-35s and surface combatant warships) that are a drag on resources. The alliance also undermines Canadian defence since it promotes a forward military posture. In recent years, Canada has participated in NATO maritime operations in the Baltic and Black seas. In 2018, Canada took charge of NATO Mission Iraq. About 200 Canadian troops were deployed there.

For the past eight years Canada has led a NATO battlegroup in Latvia. About 700 Canadian soldiers are stationed on Russia’s border. There are also Canadian troops elsewhere in Eastern Europe as part of NATO aligned deployments.

NATO has entangled Canada in, what former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson labelled, a “proxy war” that has devastated Ukraine. Ottawa has donated over $4 billion in military assistance and $6 billion in other types of assistance in a bid to continue the fight until the last Ukrainian. While Russian violence is condemnable, NATO provoked the war through its interventionist, antidemocratic, moves.

When NATO promoted Ukraine’s accession to the alliance in 2008, most Ukrainians opposed joining. Subsequently, NATO countries supported the ouster of elected President Viktor Yanukovych who passed legislation codifying Ukrainian neutrality. As John Mearsheimer warned in 2015, NATO was “leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.”

Pro-NATO commentators generally ignore the alliance’s provocations. They oppose Donald Trump’s — who often says the quiet part out loud — bid to end the conflict in Ukraine. Simultaneously they’ve been upended by Trump’s crass attacks on Canada and have suddenly become wary of US power. While they’ve begun criticizing Canada’s military dependence on the US, they continue to support militarism and imperialism.

In a sign of the crisis faced by militarists, the opinion section of last Saturday’s Globe and Mail published a long article headlined “WANTED: NEW ALLIES: Successive Canadian governments have leveraged our close relationship with Washington to get the most out of our low defence spending. This long-standing approach cannot continue.” Next to it, the paper published Thomas Homer Dixon’s “If you want peace, prepare for war” and a column by a Royal Military College professor headlined “Canada needs to develop its own nuclear program”.

The militarists/imperialists can’t see an option outside of militarism and global hierarchy. Their calls to establish a NATO without the US is an excuse for more militarism and prolonging the conflict in Ukraine. It would do little to protect Canada.

While there may be an argument for developing a guerrilla type defence structure, membership in NATO undercuts this country’s moral standing. Canada’s best defence against an invasion is making sure hundreds of millions of people in the US and elsewhere know this country is not their enemy.

Image credit: GHY International

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Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His latest book is Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People's History of the Canadian Military. Read other articles by Yves.

 

Canada needs to support health research at home and abroad

Canadian Medical Association Journal

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In the face of major changes to federal policy and funding in the United States, Canada should support Canadian researchers with adequate funding to ensure long-term research in health and science, argue authors in two articles published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

“As the US stands on the brink of tearing down its exemplary system for covering the full costs of research, Canada, with its flawed federal system for indirect costs, should heed the recent commissioned science policy report and a chorus of advocacy calling for an enhanced indirect cost system,” writes Dr. William Ghali, vice-president research, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250406. 

This means overhauling the federal Research Support Fund, which supports indirect research costs through institutions like universities.  

In addition to shoring up funding support at home, Canada can play a key role in helping shape a new World Health Organization (WHO) in the wake of the abrupt US withdrawal, “pushing for and shaping a WHO that can function independently of any single capricious member state,” writes Dr. Kirsten Patrick, editor-in-chief, CMAJhttps://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250418. “Canada should also increase its contributions to the WHO and to global health aid at this time.” 

She warns that Canada needs to commit to supporting high-quality scientific research. This would include adequate funding, timely sharing of health data between provinces — deidentified at the patient level — to ensure we can share up-to-date disease trends with international partners.  

“Reliable North American health data that originate from Canada are more important than they have ever been. Now is the time to fund Canadian health researchers properly and to support them to share their work, publish in reputable journals, and collaborate internationally,” Dr. Patrick concludes.  

---

Journal

Canadian Medical Association Journal

DOI

10.1503/cmaj.250418 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Research and the (full) cost of doing business

Article Publication Date

31-Mar-2025

Liberal PM Carney takes lead four weeks before Canada votes

By AFP
March 30, 2025


Canadian Prime Minister and Liberal leader Mark Carney has taken a strong lead in polls heading into a second week of the election campaign - Copyright AFP ANDREJ IVANOV

Marion THIBAUT

Four weeks before Canadians vote in a general election where threats by US President Donald Trump have taken center stage, Mark Carney has led a Liberal resurgence to take the lead in polls over his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre.

Since coming to office in January, the US leader has threatened the Canadian economy with high tariffs and repeatedly called for the country to surrender its sovereignty and become a part of the United States.

Experts agree that the main question facing Canadians when they cast their ballot on April 28 will be who — current Prime Minister Carney or Poilievre — can push back against Trump.

“The economy is the biggest issue for me in this election, including the whole free trade thing with the United States,” Ottawa voter Carol Salemi told AFP.

“We need some sort of negotiation (with the US) and we need a strong leader to do that,” she said.

Danielle Varga, 22, echoed that viewpoint, saying Canada needs “someone that’s strong against America. It feels like everyone’s on that same page, which is good.”

At the moment, former central banker and political novice Carney, who took over from Justin Trudeau as PM in mid-March, appears to fit the bill.

The 60-year-old has taken the country by storm, completely reversing the fortunes of the Liberals who under a beleaguered Trudeau were headed for an electoral wipeout.

He is now leading in the polls and, observers say, has a good chance of forming a majority government.

“This is the most important election of our lifetime,” Carney told campaign volunteers in Ottawa on Saturday. “It’s critical in redefining our relationship with the United States (and) redefining our economy on our own terms.”

Carney interrupted his campaign this week after Trump announced plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on car imports, coming on the heels of levies on steel and aluminum.

Trump said he had an “extremely productive” first call with Carney on Friday, adding that the two leaders “agree on many things.”

That was a stark change in tone from a US president whose dealings with Trudeau had been frosty, and it was immediately picked up on north of the border.



– ‘Exceptional time for Canada’ –



Conservative leader Poilievre launched his campaign with an emphasis on tax cuts, affordable housing and development of Canada’s resource riches.

The 45-year-old career politician has sought to dispel comparisons with Trump — both right-wing populists — that have dimmed his appeal in Canada.

“President Trump has said he wants the Liberals back in power. We know why, because they will keep Canada weak and keep our investment flowing out of this country, to the US,” he said at a campaign stop in Toronto on Sunday.

Other parties such as Jagmeet Singh’s leftist New Democratic Party and the separatist Bloc Quebecois led by Yves-Francois Blanchet have struggled to be heard, as voters focus on the two frontrunners in this time of crisis.

“This is truly an exceptional time for Canada,” said Ottawa University politics professor Genevieve Tellier, adding: “Canada is looking for a savior.”

In a sign of the tensions, Carney declared on Thursday after Trump’s latest tariffs announcement that the era of deep economic, security and military ties between Canada and the United States “is over.”

Tellier said Carney’s “firm tone” and explanation that “relations with the United States would never be the same again” seem to be resonating with voters.

Those remarks have “captured the current mood in Canada,” she said.

Voters are turning to Carney because “they want security and a reassuring figure in times of crisis,” added Daniel Beland of McGill University in Montreal.

In a country of 41 million people, 343 seats are at stake in this year’s snap election. The party that wins a majority will form the next government, and its leader will become prime minister.

If no party gains a clear majority, the party with the most seats will be invited to attempt to form a coalition government with the help of smaller parties.


Economy and especially Trump: Canadians’ thoughts on campaigns


By AFP
March 30, 2025


Canada's Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks at a rally in February 2025 in Ottawa - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

 Andrej Ivanov

Canadians are going to the polls on April 28 to elect a new government at a time of unprecedented turmoil with the United States, as President Donald Trump threatens the country’s economy and sovereignty.

Here is how voters, most of whom expressed concern over the US leader, viewed the first week of campaigning between Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney and his main rival, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

– Avoid a recession –

Monika Wetzel, a health sector policy analyst, has voted for different parties in the past and has not yet made up her mind for this election.

“I’d be a happier person without Trump in my life at the moment,” said the 34-year-old from Winnipeg, Manitoba in the western Canadian Prairies region.

“Everyone is so fixated on Trump. He’s everywhere. It’s overwhelming. I just don’t want to hear anything more about him.”

At the same time, she said she wants candidates “to provide reassurance to Canadians that we’ll get through this,” as well as to keep the country united and prevent it from going into a recession.

– Economist needed, not politician –

Rob Vandertogt is an executive living just north of Toronto in Alliston, Ontario, the nation’s most populous province.

For him, the top issue in this campaign is the economy and US tariffs on Canadian products.

“The Conservatives seem completely disconnected from what’s really happening in the country. The election has been all about Donald Trump and they’re focused on everything else,” said the 62-year-old voter.

“We don’t need a politician right now to lead the country. We need someone who understands economics,” he said, and so he’s throwing his support behind Carney, who is a former central banker.

– Make ends meet –

Conservative supporter Valerie Orr, 81, is most concerned about high costs of living, and believes Trump’s dominance in the campaign is counterproductive.

“This threat from the south has diverted too much attention,” she told AFP at a Poilievre event in a Toronto suburb.

“Who ever heard of a state the size of Canada… Come on, be real,” she added, praising Poilievre for focusing on the challenges people face trying to “make it through the week.”

– ‘One-two punch’ –

Matthew Bishop, 27, usually votes for the leftist New Democratic Party, but when Carney took over from Justin Trudeau as prime minister and Liberal leader earlier this month, his plans changed.

The bar owner from Nanaimo in the westernmost province of British Columbia said he has high hopes that Carney will get the economy back on track after several years of small business closures.

“He has experience leading central banks and solving crises. I think he has a good grasp of our financial situation,” he said.

He also wants the next prime minister to “respond in kind” to US tariffs. “They put a tariff on us. We give it right back, one-two punch.”

– Too much like Trump –

Nathalie Guibert, who lives in rural Quebec, an hour and a half from Montreal, hasn’t made her choice yet.

“I think it’s good that Mark Carney went to Europe, that he’s saying the United States is no longer our ally and is seeking new trade partnerships,” said the 56-year-old housewife.

“I associate Pierre Poilievre with Trump. I don’t like his belligerent tone, his Trumpist manner.”

CANADA INVASION PLANNED

'People fight back': Military expert warns Trump vow could trigger decades-long insurgency

Brad Reed

March 31, 2025

RAW STOR7

A militia member with a rifle in an open field (Shutterstock)

President Donald Trump has repeatedly mused about making Canada into America's "51st state," which has prompted one expert to conduct a war game mapping how a U.S. invasion of Canada would play out.

The Montreal Gazette reported that Aisha Ahmad, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, said that the American military would likely easily defeat Canada were Trump to really give the green light for an invasion.

However, he also said that wouldn't be the end of the story as Canadians would not passively accept being conquered.

In fact, Ahmad believes that Canadians would wage a bloody, decades-long insurgency against the United States until the Americans left their country.

“It’s impossible to annex Canada without violence,” said Ahmad, who in the past has advised American officials at the United States Department of Defense about counter-insurgency strategies. “No one is born an insurgent or resistance fighter. This is something that happens to people when their mom is killed, or when their kids are unable to get to a hospital. People fight back because they have to.”

He said that the U.S. military would struggle to occupy Canada when hundreds of thousands of Canadians would be engaged in a concerted campaign of sabotage that they would adopt as a "secret, part-time job."

"Trump is delusional if he believes that 40 million Canadians will passively accept conquest," he emphasized.

In fact, it would only take one percent of the Canadian population working as insurgents to produce a force of 400,000 fighters, which would be ten times the number of Taliban fighters who eventually pushed the American military out of Afghanistan after a 20-year occupation.

'Why would he mess with that?' Economist bewildered as Trump threatens major advantage

Travis Gettys
March 31, 2025 

ALTERNET

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks before departing for Florida from the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 28, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Investors have been unnerved by the first two months of Donald Trump's second presidency and have been left bewildered by many of his moves on an ascending economy, according to a report Monday.

Trump's off-and-on tariffs, sweeping cuts to government spending and immigration crackdowns have upset the predictability that Wall Street craves, and even the president has refused to rule out a recession as a result of his early policies. Influential economic consultant Julia Coronado told Politico Magazine that she's at a loss to explain where the economy was headed.

"What am I certain of? In terms of the policy outlook, I’m certain of absolutely nothing," said Coronado, a former Federal Reserve economist and co-founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives. "I’m not even certain which direction interest rates are going next. I have baseline scenarios, and ways to think about it, but we are seeing just a tremendous and intentional disruption to the status quo."

Coronado explained that investors tend to stay away from placing big bets when uncertainty is high, as it is now, and she said Wall Street is finding out that Trump isn't as sensitive to the stock market — which was on an upward trajectory when he was elected — as they thought.

"There was this sense that [his actions] wouldn’t be substantial or significant enough to disrupt what was a pretty solid growth backdrop," Cornado said. "We had a pretty great setup for Trump. Why would he mess with that?"

In addition to tariffs and spending cuts, Coronado said the breakdown in the rule of law had also spooked investors.

"This administration is aggressively taking actions that are being challenged in courts," she said. "They’re ignoring court decisions. That can affect the economy. It can affect market functioning. It’s hard to say when and exactly how, but we always talk about one of the reasons [for] U.S. exceptionalism is stability, rule of law, clarity of contract law and a stable operating environment. We’re really disrupting that right now."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that the economy needs a “detox” from government spending, and Coronado said that should be considered an ominous sign.

"It feels like they’re laying the groundwork for things to get worse," Cornado said. "They’re trying to tell a story about how you know this near-term pain will equal longer-run gain. Maybe that’s true, maybe it will work out that way ... This is different from the narrative they were telling when they got elected. They were like, you know, 'It’s going to be amazing on Day One,' and now they’re saying: 'Well, actually, we might need to hurt a few things before you get to the good stuff.'"

‘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.