Author: nick

In March, the U.S. Senate passed a bill full of tweaks to federal grant programs and regulations. Although nearly all of the bill’s provisions are aimed at increasing the housing supply, one would undermine that goal. That provision, inserted at the last minute, bans investors from owning more than 350 single-family rental homes. Investors could still acquire homes built as rentals, but they would have to be sold off within seven years. Because of these restrictions, the Senate bill, which otherwise could be expected to have a modest positive impact on the housing supply, probably would reduce yearly home construction.…

In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we’re doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation. Women Leaders and Trump 2.0 Karen J. Greenberg Tom Dispatch It’s been a tough couple of months for women officials in Washington — or, more accurately, in Trumpland. In early March (Women’s History Month, by the way), in a Truth Social post, the president fired Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the second woman ever to hold that title. Weeks…

Air power alone is not going to secure Hormuz or remove the Iranian government. Their command-and-control structure is a decentralized mosaic governed by preapproved wartime protocols, with a backup plan for every leader, including three to seven predesignated successors. Air power could not even dislodge the much smaller and poorer Houthis from Yemen. If the US is serious about having any chance of winning the war it started, it would require a big ground invasion. Remember, during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)—back when Saddam was a “good guy”—he threw more than 500,000 Iraqi soldiers at Iran, had the backing of both…

In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we’re doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation. Scott Corey for Informed Comment The intersection of religion and politics is a sensitive realm, but the global conversation has undeniably arrived there. The recent conflict between the Pope and the US President was not a personal tiff or a celebrity feud. Fundamental principles of 21st Century authoritarianism drive explicit rejections of core Christian beliefs. Specific actions of Donald Trump…

Ultrabulk transoceanic cargo ship, Columbia River. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. The Trump administration is framing its barrage of sanctions announced on April 24, targeting the Hengli Petrochemical refinery in Dalian and 40 associated shipping entities, as a masterstroke of pre-summit leverage. As President Trump prepares to meet President Xi Jinping in the middle of May, the White House seems to believe that by tightening the financial stranglehold on China’s energy supply chains, the United States has secured a dominant position. However, a cold assessment of the global maritime landscape suggests the opposite. Washington is attempting to use twentieth-century leverage against…

‘We didn’t kidnap anyone’, Russia’s then-ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, insisted in 2023. ‘We saved these children’. The ambassador was not simply denying the systematic deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children by Russian occupation forces in Ukraine, a crime for which there is a growing body of evidence from international organisations, researchers, and human rights groups. He was using a well-known playbook – an information campaign seeking to paint the crime as humanitarian rescue. The story of Ukraine’s abducted children is not only about the crime itself. It is also about the parallel campaign to obscure that crime…

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo It doesn’t appear as though the jump in energy prices has yet had much effect on the labor market, as the economy added 115,000 jobs in April. Year-over-year wage growth was 3.6 percent, which is likely to be roughly even with the inflation rate that will be reported next week. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3 percent, with little change for most demographic groups. Health Care and Social Assistance Again Dominate Job Growth The job growth was again concentrated in the health care and social assistance category, which added 53,900 jobs in April. Over the…

Brodie Mitchell, a student at Royal Holloway, University of London, is facing possible hate crime charges after saying a pro-Palestinian activist’s keffiyeh looked like a “tea towel.” The incident happened at a campus event and followed a heated exchange where both students insulted each other. Mitchell, a self-described “non-Jewish Zionist,” said the other student first called him a “wannabe Jew” and made reference to him not wearing a kippah. The university suspended Mitchell for nine weeks, and police referred the case to prosecutors. The post Brickbat: No Spilled Tea appeared first on Reason.com. Source link

In the context of the genocide suffered by the Palestinian people, the bodies of women and girls are used as weapons of war by Israel, with the complicity of the United States. They endure multiple forms of violence: intimidation, threats, physical assaults, displacement, dispossession, forced nudity, groping, rape, mutilation, and murder, among others. More than 22,000 women and 16,000 girls have been killed in Gaza in the context of the genocide. This means that 47 women and girls die every day, according to the UN Women report *The Cost of War in Gaza for Women and Girls* (2026, April 17)[2],…

Mike Hammer. Photo: US State Department. Mike Hammer is not your average diplomat. Built more like an SEC football coach than a statesman, Hammer sticks out like a sore thumb on his trips across the island. He was appointed as the ad interim Chargé d’affaires under Biden but has since grown close with Marco Rubio. Hammer’s resumé includes positions at the National Security Council, Bureau of Public Affairs, National Defense University, State Department Operations Center, along with several diplomatic posts. Hammer demonstrates a continuity in Cuba policy between the Biden and Trump regimes: in soothing tones of compassion for the…