The Weekly Readlines May 2

From the Editor’s Desk: It’s been a helluva year … I mean week. So much destruction, so little time. Amazon kissed the Imperial ring yet again, declining to include tariff charges on their items. Gee, I guess people paying $10 more for something won’t notice if it doesn’t say “tariff,” or at worst they’ll blame vendors and Joe Biden.

I try every day to keep my perspective, and every day it gets more challenging. What’s happening was never about grocery prices, or cutting federal spending, or stopping drugs from coming into a country that can’t seem to get enough of them, or deporting super scary brown people. It was about power and control. Always. Nothing else. Power and control, and our institutions are all proving eager to give it to them. May we march while we can, get off the damn parade floats, and record it all for posterity. Someday people will survey the ruins and want to know what happened. – Mark

BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES

Trump Promises ‘Two Dolls in Every Pot’ with Crushing Tariffs
Truly a man of the people

Army Plans For A Potential Parade On Trump’s Birthday Call For 6,600 Soldiers
Grotesque does not begin to describe it

Trump Orders Military to “Assist” Local Law Enforcement
What Posse Comitatus Act? This way lies martial law

LGBTQ

New Era: Major Companies Are Reportedly Reversing Course on LGBT Marketing – MSN

Trump Administration Issues Anti-Trans Health Care Report That Recommends Conversion Therapy

Governor Newsom Supports Bill To Put LGBTQ Helpline Number On Student ID’s

US AND BEYOND

We Are Witnessing Slow Constitutional Collapse In The US | Moira Donegan – The Guardian

Ukraine And U.S. Sign Economic And Reconstruction Deal

HEALTH AND AGING