Featured

Trump: Iran asked me to be Supreme Leader, but I said no thanks

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Featured

‘Men need to be perp-walked’ after Epstein files release, Massie tells BBC

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Buried.News

The stories buried under the noise

Primary focus

Trump fires Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary

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Featured

The Trump gold coin is not normal : Consider This from NPR

A federal design panel OK’d a Trump portrait for a commemorative gold coin, but the key question is whether Treasury can legally bypass long-standing limits meant to keep living politicians off U.S. money.

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Featured

White House Confronted Over Huge Bets Made Minutes Before Trump’s Big War Move

A $580 million burst of oil-futures selling minutes before Trump’s Iran “talks” post raises a basic public-interest question: did anyone trade on advance knowledge of a market-moving national security decision?

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Norms Impact

Donald Trump Has Lit a Global Match

A sitting president used tariff threats and coercive public messaging against a core ally, normalizing alliance intimidation as executive leverage instead of rules-based, consultative governance.

Executive

Mar 6, 2026

Sources

https://newrepublic.com/article/207218/donald-trump-global-leverage-foreign-policy

Summary

President Donald Trump publicly threatened Canada with tariffs and used coercive rhetoric toward Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney after Carney urged “middle powers” to cooperate against great-power economic weaponization. The administration’s posture is described as shifting U.S. foreign policy away from alliance-based leverage toward explicit bullying and transactional coercion, alongside a National Security Strategy that deemphasizes China and refocuses on alleged Western Hemisphere threats. The practical consequence is accelerating allied reorientation away from the United States, including Canada’s revived strategic partnership with China and European contingency planning for security arrangements that minimize U.S. reliance.

Reality Check

Normalizing coercion against allies shifts U.S. power from predictable, rules-bound statecraft to personalistic retaliation, weakening the trust that makes alliances function as a democratic check on unilateral executive action. When threats and leverage replace consultation, we condition the public to accept foreign policy as punishment-by-whim rather than accountable governance. Over time, allies hedge, build alternatives, and treat U.S. commitments as reversible—reducing our security while expanding the president’s ability to act without durable institutional constraints.

Media

Detail

On January 20 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for “middle powers” to cooperate to resist the weaponization of the global economy by great powers and stated that “the old order is not coming back.” Days earlier, Carney announced a “new strategic partnership” between China and Canada, including welcoming Chinese electric vehicles for sale in Canada.

In response at Davos days later, President Donald Trump said, “Canada lives because of the United States,” addressed Carney directly, and threatened additional tariffs against Canada; other administration officials made similar dismissive remarks. The context described includes Trump advisers stating the administration intends to use U.S. leverage more aggressively.

In December 2025, the administration released its first National Security Strategy of Trump’s second term, described as relegating China and emphasizing alleged threats in the Western Hemisphere such as “narco-terrorists,” drug cartels, and immigrants, without calling China a “strategic competitor.”

Apocalypse now? | School of Social Ecology

A widely held belief that catastrophe is inevitable is measurably reshaping public willingness to accept or reject government action on shared national risks.

General

Sources

https://socialecology.uci.edu/news/apocalypse-now-0

Summary

A new study of 1,409 religiously diverse Americans found about one-third believe the world will end within their lifetime. Researchers operationalized apocalyptic belief as a multidimensional framework that shapes public support for policy action or inaction across major existential risks. The result is a measurable pathway by which cultural narratives can weaken consensus and coordination on climate, pandemics, geopolitical conflict, and emerging technologies.

Detail

Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology surveyed 1,409 Americans across religious backgrounds and found that about one-third agreed the world would end within their lifetime. Led by UC Irvine postdoctoral scholar Matthew I. Billet and developed with colleagues at the University of British Columbia, the work introduced a psychological measure of end-of-world beliefs with five dimensions, examining not just whether respondents expect an apocalypse but how they interpret its timing, agency, control, and aftermath.

Participants were also asked about five categories of global existential risks identified by the World Economic Forum: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological. Respondents who believed the end is near and human-caused reported higher perceived risk and greater support for extreme action. Respondents who believed divine forces control the apocalypse were less likely to support preventive measures. The study reported differences across religious denominations and noted that end-of-world beliefs generally declined with age, except among evangelical Protestants and Muslims, where they remained stable or increased.