You might be struggling with the cost of a dozen eggs, but the big egg producers are celebrating record profits! In just one year, egg prices have gone up approximately 59%, pushing what was once considered a dietary staple out of reach for many workers.

As a young girl, I can remember my mother making scrambled eggs for dinner when there wasn’t much else in the refrigerator, and later as a mother myself, telling my family, “Don’t complain, there’s eggs to eat.”

But that’s changed. 

The blame has been placed on the bird flu, which has killed flocks of chickens, undoubtedly reducing production. But another flu that has knocked prices up is called “predatory capitalist profiteering flu.”

Take the example of the largest egg-producing company in the country, Cal-Maine. This Mississippi-based egg giant just reported quarterly profits of $509 million. This is three times what it made in the last year. In fact, Cal-Maine has had three years of incredible earnings since the avian flu outbreak in 2022.

During this period, Cal-Maine tripled the price of eggs.

In addition, Cal-Maine received tens of millions of dollars from the government through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The company received government handouts twice, first for $22 million, then $21 million.

Cal-Maine is not the only major egg producer benefiting from bailouts; Hillandale received $53 million, Versova raked in $107 million, and Rembrandt Foods $26 million. None of these companies reports profit figures.

The only conclusion is that the avian flu might have been hard for the birds and the people who consumed eggs, but it was great for profits. Maybe it’s time for pitchforks at their gates. I can almost hear their million-dollar execs and CEO’s say, “Let them eat eggs.”

On May 15, 1911, Baltimore became the first city in the United States to codify urban racial segregation into law. This policy, enacted by Baltimore Mayor J. Barry Mahool, enforced segregation in Baltimore block by block according to racial lines. 

Although this act was deemed unconstitutional, the practice continued with full support from the dominating white population and all levels of government. During the 1920s, the city government entrenched and expanded this practice by standing up the Committee on Segregation and appointing the city solicitor as its chair. 

The Committee utilized building inspectors, health investigators, the city’s real estate board, and community organizations to enforce this apartheid. As the Second World War came and went, the influx of European immigrants pushed the native Black population deeper and deeper into what are known as the red-lined zones. These zones had no access to capital and saw disinvestment from all levels of government, the banks, and industry. Also within these areas, due to the poor infrastructure, health defects like heart and lung disease, lead poisoning, asthma, and cancer were rampant.

In the 1930s, the map that marked areas in the city into Green, Blue, Yellow, and Red zones was created. And since its enactment, the city government and its wealthy backers have been enforcing this status quo through economic manipulation and brutal police occupation.

During the 1950s and ‘60s, the Federal Urban Renewal policy, joined by the city’s own Urban Renewal plans, was responsible for uprooting over 10,000 Black households. This practice was designed to push out the remaining Black communities near downtown and the city’s economic heart into the outskirts and redlined zones. 

Utilizing the expansion of universities and hospitals along with the creation of highways, the government uprooted and forcefully displaced Black communities, pushing them into areas that did not have enough housing to accommodate the sheer number of people who now had nowhere else to go. To quote the 1950 Analysis of Redevelopment projects 1-A and 3-A: 

“1,671 Negro families will be displaced by the redevelopment projects and Housing authority. The city’s known facility for rehousing is a 500 unit project to be built in Cherry Hill. The Redevelopment Commission and the Housing Authority of Baltimore will be building at the same time. Hence, each will be evicting tenants simultaneously. … It is readily apparent that additional overcrowding in other blighted areas is the only solution. Also these two projects require the City Council to give official approval to segregation in the name of redevelopment.” 

This forced concentration and uprooting of Black families continues. The communities around Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland (UMD) here in the city have been driven out to make way for wealthier, whiter communities. Looking at a map of the city marked with demographics of neighborhoods, you will find that the zones containing majority Black communities are still left with no access to capital or investment. These zones today make up the Black Butterfly and are systematically plagued by the same issues from the 1900s. This Black Butterfly is juxtaposed by the “white L,” which contains areas ripe with fresh investments, access to capital, and more permanent infrastructure.

The Black connection to the land has been under constant attack, predating slavery. Black bodies were stolen from Mother Africa and had their entire ways of life from before the shackles beaten or burned out of them. Black bodies were put in cages on display at zoos, all for the entertainment of white people. Black bodies were used as science experiments. It was Black bodies that worked the fields and factories that produced the immense wealth of this nation, and it was Black bodies that built the seats of power that this country’s ruling class uses to continue to oppress and kill us. 

Self-sustaining Black communities had their residents massacred and the locations bombed or burned off the map. All of the musical styles originating from Black communities along the Mississippi Delta were plundered by white musicians and repackaged to erase any connection to the Black population. Black families can never live comfortably due to the threats of kidnapping and locking away of Black parents and the murder of Black children by the police.

Colby Byrd is an organizer with the Baltimore People’s Power Assembly and Struggle for Socialism Party.

News is emerging that the Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to release a review of transgender care intentionally slanted to oppose it. The review is expected to follow the same playbook as Governor DeSantis’ Florida Board of Medicine review and the Cass Review in England—both of which excluded gender-affirming care experts and were engineered to justify crackdowns on care. According to anti-trans organizations, the report is expected by April 28, and could be used to undermine not just youth care, but adult care as well.

The foundation for the new review was laid out in Trump’s executive order issued on January 28, which instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to “publish a review of the existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion” within 90 days. The language of the order already set the tone for what many expect to be a deeply biased and predetermined report. Notably, “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” is a disputed and scientifically unsupported term frequently used by anti-trans advocates to cast doubt on the legitimacy of trans youth identities. The inclusion of this terminology in the mandate signals that the forthcoming report may be more about ideology than medicine.

Adding to concerns, then-acting NIH director Matthew Memoli recently sent out an internal email directing the National Institutes of Health to fund research focused on the “chemical and surgical mutilation of children and adults”—a phrase rooted in anti-trans rhetoric. The email, obtained by Nature, outlined the two main areas of focus for the review: “regret and detransition following social transition,” and outcomes in youth who have undergone what the administration terms “chemical and surgical mutilation.” Given this highly charged language and the apparent lack of participation from experts in gender-affirming care, the review is expected to follow the model used by the DeSantis administration in Florida and the Cass Review in the UK—both of which have faced strong backlash for misrepresenting evidence in order to justify restrictions on care. If released as expected by April 28, this review could become a cornerstone document used to justify sweeping restrictions on gender-affirming care for both youth and adults across the country.

This has been tried and weaponized successfully before. In Florida, a similar review was created to justify bans on trans care in the state—a process criticized as politically motivated by the Human Rights Campaign. Patrick Hunter, a member of the anti-trans Catholic Medical Association, played a significant role in the development of the Florida Review and Standards of Care under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Patrick Hunter was chosen specifically by the governor, who has exhibited fierce opposition towards LGBTQ+ and especially transgender people, and then immediately got to work on targeting transgender care. The Florida review was purportedly designed and manipulated with the intention of having “care effectively banned” from the outset, as revealed by court documents. The Florida Review was slammed by Yale Researchers as “not a serious scientific analysis, but rather, a document crafted to serve a political agenda.”

More recently, the Cass Review in the United Kingdom took a similar approach, handpicking members of SPLC-designated hate groups to serve on its advisory board. The lead reviewer and members of the team also met with appointees from Governor DeSantis’s Board of Medicine, with at least one advisor working closely with the Florida team. Though the Cass Review has been rejected by dozens of international medical societies, updated standards of care in countries like Germany and France, and researchers at Yale University, it has still been used to justify sweeping crackdowns on transgender healthcare in the United Kingdom.

Now, SPLC-designated hate group Genspect is reporting that the Trump administration’s HHS review will be released on April 28. “When the HHS review is published, it will catalyze a transformation in American healthcare,” Genspect boasts, predicting legal attacks, insurance denials, and the collapse of gender clinics. Their vision isn’t subtle: they want to replace evidence-based care with ideological warfare—recasting transgender healthcare as fringe pseudoscience while ignoring the overwhelming global consensus on its safety and efficacy.

This report will mark another escalation in the dismantling of science within the Department of Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man whose war on vaccines and water fluoridation has already reopened the door to once-eradicated diseases. When the report drops, it won’t be a scientific review—it will be a political weapon. Researchers, physicians, and advocates must be ready not only to debunk the coming wave of disinformation, but to meet it with unrelenting truth. The future of transgender healthcare in the United States may depend on it.

Source: Erin In The Morning

Tariffs spike to 125% on China amidst market chaos

On April 9, President Donald Trump escalated his trade war with new reciprocal tariffs but then, within hours, announced a reversal, suspending the new tariffs for 90 days for all but China, while raising tariffs on China to 125%. The crashing stock market experienced a rollercoaster swing upwards, yet the prospects look harrowing. The stock market had similar swings entering the recession known as the dot-com crash.

Just two days before, on April 7, Trump announced plans for a $1 trillion defense budget next year, a massive increase reflecting the escalation of war plans.

Tariffs as a tool for military funding, not economic revival

During a press event with the Zionist war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump outlined the expanded defense spending as part of his larger plans for U.S. military aggression.

“We’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say, actually, the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military,” he said. “$1 trillion. Nobody has seen anything like it.” A $1 trillion war budget would represent an increase of nearly 12% from current spending levels.

Trump’s trade war is partially designed to fund this significant rise in military spending.

The hollow promise of tariffs in a service-dominated economy

A close look at Trump’s tariffs shows that they aren’t about creating new jobs or increasing wages for workers in the U.S. or eliminating deficits — they’re focused on restoring corporate profitability and enhancing military production. Remember that Elon Musk is one of the leading military contractors who has already made billions in new government contracts since he started DOGE.

Trump’s tariffs apply exclusively to manufactured goods, excluding services. 

The United States holds the world’s largest trade surplus in services, dominating sectors such as technology, software, and other so-called “intellectual property,” as well as finance, education, and entertainment. This surplus — where the U.S. earns more from exporting services than it spends on importing them — offsets the deficit in goods trade (e.g., imported electronics or vehicles). 

Global trade’s shifting landscape: services surge, manufacturing stalls

In 2024, global trade reached a historic $33 trillion, growing by 3.7% ($1.2 trillion). However, this expansion was not fueled by traditional manufacturing or physical goods, which experienced only a 2% rise ($500 billion). Instead, services accounted for 60% of the growth, soaring by 9% ($700 billion), highlighting the shift in the global economy toward high-tech industries.  

However, services still represent only 20% of total world trade. And overall trade growth has been declining since the end of the Great Recession of 2007-09. The era of globalization is coming to an end.

The illusion of manufacturing revival in an automated age

Trump’s tariff strategy to “make America great again” does nothing to address the underlying stagnation of the U.S. domestic economy; in fact, it makes it worse.

For the past 40 to 50 years, industrial workers have seen their wages stagnate. Data shows that since 1973, wages for workers without college degrees have either declined or remained flat. When manufacturing jobs vanished, they were too often replaced by precarious service work — low wages, no job security, and no union representation.

But Trump’s tariffs won’t turn back the clock. The main reason? Rising productivity and automation — today’s factories simply need fewer workers to produce more goods.

Even if Trump were able to completely eliminate the non-services trade deficit (which won’t happen), manufacturing employment would only increase about 1%, rising from 8% to 9% of the workforce.

From post-war dominance to Bretton Woods’ collapse

The manufacturing boom of the 1950s, which Trump idealizes, arose from distinctive historical circumstances. Following World War II, the U.S. industrial base remained intact while other nations lay in ruins, providing the U.S. with temporary dominance. 

The Bretton Woods system, created in 1944, was the final version of a global gold standard. Unlike earlier systems where people and businesses could exchange money for gold coins or bars, Bretton Woods allowed only governments and central banks to swap U.S. dollars for gold bars (not coins). The U.S. dollar became the world’s main currency, backed by gold at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce. But this system had a critical flaw: It relied on the U.S. having enough gold to back all the dollars other countries held. 

Nixon devalues the dollar, unleashing stagflation

As the U.S. printed more dollars for spending (like on the Vietnam War), foreign governments lost confidence and began demanding gold in exchange. By 1971, the U.S. couldn’t meet these demands, so President Nixon ended dollar-gold convertibility, collapsing Bretton Woods. This marked the end of the gold standard era.

Nixon’s move changed the dollar from being credit money (convertible into a fixed amount of gold) into token money (a variable amount of gold). By separating the dollar from a fixed gold standard, the U.S. was able to devalue the dollar, making exports less expensive and reducing its trade deficit. The Vietnam War debts were paid with devalued dollars.

Removing the dollar from the gold standard did not change the status of the dollar as the world’s main currency. Prices on the world market continued to be set in dollars, not in gold.

While Nixon secured the dollar’s dominance, he also set the stage for further declines in U.S. manufacturing industries throughout the 1970s. 

Volcker’s Shock and the neoliberal turn

Since prices in terms of the depreciating dollar were rising faster than the central banks were printing it, interest rates soared and credit froze. Credit-sensitive industries such as construction and automobiles fell into sharp recession. But there were also big movements into oil and many other primary commodities as the capitalists sought to rid themselves of dollar — and other currency — denominated assets.

The overall result was that demand was stagnant, real wages were rapidly declining, and interest rates were rising sharply. Stagflation had arrived.

Finally, in 1979, Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker raised interest rates to a historic peak of 19%, known as the Volcker Shock. While this succeeded in curbing price surges, it triggered a severe recession in the U.S. and reverberated globally, crippling economies dependent on dollar-denominated debt. 

The policy also caused the dollar’s value to skyrocket, rendering U.S. exports prohibitively expensive and accelerating the offshoring of manufacturing to lower-wage countries. This marked the rise of neoliberalism — an era prioritizing free-market deregulation, globalization, and financial sector dominance over domestic industrial production.

The Plaza Accord and deindustrialization

By 1985, the U.S. sought to recalibrate trade imbalances through the Plaza Accord, a pact with Japan, Germany, and other major economies to devalue the dollar by strengthening their own currencies. While the agreement succeeded in weakening the dollar, it dealt a devastating blow to Japan’s industrial powerhouse, which had thrived since the 1960s through sectors like automobiles and electronics. However, the Accord failed to revive U.S. manufacturing; instead, production shifted to emerging economies like South Korea and, later, China. The U.S. increasingly pivoted toward a service- and finance-driven economy, leaving its industrial base hollowed out — a legacy of deindustrialization that persists today.

Trump’s tariffs, somewhat like Nixon’s policies, are designed to offset the massive war debts that have built up over the last two decades, with Pentagon budgets exceeding record levels every year. And they are meant to finance an increase in military expansion.

The threat of war is escalating, with Trump aiming particularly at China.

Baltimore Tax Day 2025: MONEY FOR PEOPLE’S NEEDS, NOT FOR WAR & GENOCIDE

Rally & worker speakout
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
6 pm
Baltimore Main Post Office
900 E. Fayette St. Baltimore MD

Where are our taxes going, exactly?

Trump, Musk, and their billionaire buddies have already begun the mass layoffs of federal workers. It’s the first step in a sabotage of vital public services in order to privatize them later.
Social Security, SNAP, Medicaid — just a few of the survival programs the billionaires have already started looting.

These are the same survival programs that were fought for and won by the righteous, fighting mass movements of the past.

And what do you think the billionaires want to do with all that freed up federal money?

It’ll mean more money to funnel into the most profitable enterprise of all: war. And when their system (capitalism) is in crisis, war is certainly on the menu.

The billionaires make it no secret that they want war with countries like China, Russia, Iran. The saber rattling has been resounding through the press for decades, escalating with every single presidential administration.

All this while U.S. billionaires commit a genocide in plain view of the entire world. They do this via their military occupation dressed up like a proxy nation known as Israel. The israeli military budget is a line item in the U.S. federal budget.

It’s not just Trump and Musk. It’s their entire class and their system: their representatives in the White House and Congress; their enforcers in the police stations, prisons, courts, and military bases.

That’s where our taxes are going on this Tax Day of 2025.

Only a fighting mass movement can beat the billionaire attack!

Thursday, April 17 – 5:00 p.m.

13461 Ramona Ave, Chino, CA 91710

Just two weeks ago, Sonja Shaw, the Chino Valley School Board President, publicly ripped up a cease and desist letter written from a concerned parent of a transgender child and student. This is one of several hostile instances in where Sonja Shaw has made it clear, she will continue to harm trans youth as long as she remains on the Chino Valley School Board.

Trans children have been targeted in Shaw’s anti-trans and discriminatory policies. She claims to be “protecting” children but she is willingly harming them in the process.

This is our time to stand together against bullies and bigots like Sonja Shaw that are targeting all of us when they target our younger generations. Trans kids deserve safety, visibility and protection from hostile adults like Sonja Shaw. Fighting for trans youth is a fight for all of us.

We will be standing in soldarity with our trans youth this April 17th at 5:00pm at the CVUSD board meeting.

Please join us and show these bullies that we do not stand for harmful policies that target our trans communities. We must stand strong and together against hateful groups that aim to oppress our lgbtq+, trans, immigrant and black and brown communities.

We are Queer and Forever here.

April 5 — Tens of thousands came to the U.S. empire’s capital in the Black colony of Washington, D.C., today to stop the genocide in Gaza. They marched on the headquarters of ICE to demand an end to the kidnapping of political activists and immigrant workers.

People gathered on Constitution Avenue with the U.S. Capitol in the distance. A huge banner reading “Let Gaza Live!” was a backdrop on the stage.

The banner also carried the names of Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Badar Khan Suri — two students and a professor who were seized by ICE for simply speaking out against genocide.

This important action was initiated by the Palestinian Youth Movement; American Muslims for Palestine; U.S. Palestinian Community Network; Palestine Feminist Collective; U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Jewish Voices for Peace; and the ANSWER Coalition. Hundreds of organizations endorsed it. Organizers estimated that at least 30,000 participated in the demonstration.

Eugene Puryear of Breakthrough News chaired the event. He paid tribute to the hundreds of journalists whom the Zionist apartheid state has assassinated.

Among the speakers were Iman Abid of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights; Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations; Imam Omar Suleiman; Taher Dahleh of the Palestinian Youth Movement; Gabby Ballard of the Party for Socialism and Liberation; and Layan Fuleihan of The People’s Forum.

Also speaking was Grant Miner, president of UAW Local 2710, Student Workers of Columbia University. (Most of the actual teaching in universities is done by “adjuncts,” low-paid graduate students.) Miner was expelled and fired by Colombia for his solidarity with Palestine.

There was a labor contingent that included members of UE (United Electrical workers) and SEIU. Union activists carried a banner reading “Free Mahmoud, Rumeysa and Badar! Stop the repression! Free speech is a union issue!”

Activists from the People’s Power Assembly and Struggle-La Lucha came from Baltimore.

People marched to the headquarters of ICE. A long scroll, 200 feet long, with the names of over 40,000 people murdered by the U.S. and “Israel” was carried by demonstrators.

Thousands of colorful signs and banners were carried.

Three tall, narrow banners were carried that said: “Israel bombs / USA pays / Maersk delivers genocide.” This referred to the criminal role of the Danish shipping giant that carries U.S.-made bombs and shells to the Zionist military.

Doctors Against Genocide carried an extended red banner reading “End Genocide.”

A woman carried a sign saying “Thank you South Africa for your voice!” Trump is punishing South Africa for daring to bring genocide charges against Netanyahu.

At the ICE headquarters, people turned around and marched toward the White House before dispersing. The struggle to stop the genocide in Palestine will continue.

Sick from Genocide? A Pop Up Clinic prescribed by Doctors Against Genocide and Health Care Workers for Palestine to help “end this genocide and alleviate the stress the horrors of genocide have put on our community,” exercised its right April 4 to speak out about the harm in Gaza and Palestine and its repression reverberating across the streets and campuses of the U.S. 

According to an article in The Metro Times the initial bi-weekly gathering on a sidewalk at Wayne State University, which began on Jan. 17 near the Medical School, was suppressed by the Wayne State University officials.  

Although several weeks ago, WSU administration officially recognized that university guidelines permitted such gatherings, they called police to rout and potentially arrest participants on March 21. It took a signed contract binding the university to respect the right of faculty, students and community to call out the ongoing genocide in Gaza for the event to take place on April 4 without incident.