Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman

“Congressional redistricting — or pejoratively, gerrymandering — has dominated the headlines lately. This is a big deal in the primary-election season with an unpopular president and midterms right around the corner. Few issues provoke such animosity. Each side accuses the other of trying to stack the deck and rig the elections. … What most people refuse to understand is that if the public sees the government as a 24/7/365 bazaar offering virtually any benefit demanded of it to those with clout, then those who want what they cannot acquire through persuasion and voluntary exchange will work overtime to gain advantage from political power.” (05/15/26)

https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-the-rotten-roots-of-gerrymandering

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“For American executives who spot fraud and financial misconduct among workers and then quickly report it, the U.S. Justice Department has a refreshing message: Your alertness to right-doing can bring a reward – in mercy. Federal prosecutors were recently handed expanded powers to be lenient toward companies that voluntarily report wrongdoing by individual employees in a ‘timely’ manner, make amends to those wronged, and shape up internal rules – hotlines, audits, etc. – to expose white-collar crime. The accused individuals are then prosecuted, not the company, preventing a hefty fine or forfeiture. Shareholders and employees also benefit from the avoidance of some kinds of negative fallout, such as bankruptcy. Yet the biggest result so far, according to Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York – which includes Wall Street – has been faster and greater detection of fraud.” (05/15/26)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0515/Mercy-for-good-apples-when-they-expose-bad-apples

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Michael D Swaine

“The president’s meeting with Xi Jinping resulted in more fanfare than concrete policy change.” (05/15/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-xi-summit-taiwan/

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger

“Death has always been a central feature of America’s immigration-control system. Death has become normalized. Sure, there will be the standard laments about this tragic occurrence, there will be the standard condemnations of the immigrants themselves for violating U.S. immigration laws, and there will be the standard diatribes against human traffickers who prey on people who are simply trying to survive or improve their lives through labor. But the fact remains: Death has long been an inherent part of America’s immigration-control system. In the absence of that system, all those victims would still be alive.” (05/15/26)

https://www.fff.org/2026/05/15/the-u-s-immigration-control-death-machine/

Source: New York Post
by staff

“It’s great that the FBI is probing former CIA Director John Brennan’s role in the Russiagate conspiracy, but the country needs a lot more than criminal investigations and prosecutions to fully air the truth about the 2016 plot to smear Donald Trump as a pawn of Vladimir Putin. The probe turns on Brennan’s apparent perjury in congressional testimony about one part of his role, namely the fact that in 2016 he ensured that the ‘Steele dossier’ would be part of an Intelligence Community Assessment that claimed to find real Trump-Russia collusion. … The dossier, you’ll recall, was a farrago of fiction (including the ‘pee tape’ lie) about Trump’s alleged connections to Russia; the Clinton campaign paid British ex-spook Christopher Steele to fabricate it as a weapon against Trump during the 2016 campaign.” [editor’s note: The Clinton campaign was Steele’s second client for the “dossier” material. The first client was a Republican news site – TLK] (05/16/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/05/16/opinion/why-america-still-needs-a-complete-accounting-of-the-russiagate-conspiracy/