Martha Stewart went to prison for less, MUCH less

 

+ The Fox Business Network reported that Trump’s team privately alerted Wall Street executives to the state of its trade deal negotiations, giving them inside knowledge to help them profit off the swings in the market. Martha Stewart went to prison for less, MUCH less.

+ Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at the Kennedy School on Trump’s threats against Harvard, including terminating federal grants and banning visas for foreign students:

“What’s at stake is the presence of independent centers of thought in a free society. Ultimately, this is an attempt by the administration to bring Harvard, as the world’s most prominent private university, under its control. If you read the [Trump] letter carefully, they were basically wanting to have control over who got hired, control over what got taught, control over the content of the curriculum, control over admissions, in a variety of different ways. At which point the university is no longer independent. It has to get up every morning, say to itself: ‘Gee, what does the president think of what we’re doing here?’ And that means you don’t have independent thought.”

+ NYPD officers attended a training session informing them that Palestinian symbols like the watermelon and the keffiyeh, as well as phrases such as “settler colonialism” and “all eyes on Rafah,” were antisemitic. Apparently, being born Palestinian is an antisemitic act. “All eyes on Rafah,” of course, stemmed from Biden’s warning to Israel that a full-scale invasion of the city was a “red line” that would trigger a ban on offensive weapons sales to Israel. Israel destroyed the 2,000-year-old city, anyway. Now, to even mention it is evidence of anti-semitism.

+ France’s Jean-Luc Melenchon: “The only reason Trump won is that there is no left in the United States.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/04/28/roaming-charges-show-us-your-papers/