Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye

“[US House leadership] spent nearly all of Wednesday and Thursday pressuring reform-minded Republicans to get in line on an amended [FISA renewal] bill that would include a ‘warrant requirement.’ The thing is, the amended bill didn’t really include a warrant requirement. The amendment says two main things. First, it says the government can’t use Section 702 to intentionally target the communications of a U.S. person. If the government wants to surveil an American directly, it has to use the legal authorities that already exist for that purpose, such as traditional FISA surveillance or a criminal warrant supported by probable cause. That’s not reform; that’s literally current law, which already says that the government cannot target U.S. persons under 702 and must use existing authorities under Title I of FISA or traditional criminal warrants if it wants to surveil an American directly.” (04/21/26)

https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/the-proposed-fisa-warrant-requirement

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“For at least a decade, Americans have wrestled with growing questions and doubts about their institutions of higher education and the value of a traditional four-year degree. The declining confidence has been driven by concerns over escalating costs and growing student indebtedness, uneven job prospects, and on-campus political polarization. These concerns have fed into calls by the current administration for changes to accreditation procedures and transparency in admissions processes, especially among elite institutions. There are indications, however, that the downward trend in Americans’ trust in higher education and its outcomes is not irreversible.” (04/20/26)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0420/Pointers-for-restoring-trust-in-higher-education

Source: The Daily Economy
by Daniel J Smith

“In 1895, Greek journalist Vlasis Gavriilidis traveled to Cambridge University seeking advice from three leading economists — Alfred Marshall, Henry Sidgwick, and John Neville Keynes — on the most urgent economic problem facing his country: a collapsing market for currants (Corinthian raisins), which then accounted for roughly half of all Greek exports. \Overproduction, fueled by earlier government policies and a temporary export boom, threatened widespread rural unemployment and poverty. The economists offered divided counsel. That ambiguity gave organized currant growers the opening they needed to lobby successfully for a price-support system — a ‘temporary’ intervention that promised stable incomes for growers while shifting costs onto taxpayers and distorting the broader economy. … The measure was anything but temporary.” (04/21/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/greeces-19th-century-currant-crisis-a-warning-against-temporary-government-support/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Mark Pulliam

“Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has served on the US Supreme Court for 20 years, but has never gotten the attention — or credit — he deserves. … Alito’s lack of public recognition is about to change. Mollie Hemingway, well-known center-right journalist and best-selling co-author of an excellent account of the tortuous confirmation process inflicted on Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, Justice on Trial, has written the first biography of Alito, entitled Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution.” (04/21/26)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/a-justice-in-full/

Source: TomDispatch
by Tom Engelhardt

“When he’s on full blast, Donald Trump (not so long ago the ‘drill, baby, drill’ candidate for president) is distinctly a furnace. And he seems intent on turning this planet, our only world, into a version of the same. But here’s the strange thing, when it comes to almost anything — from Iran to suddenly firing two key women, Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, in his government (but certainly not the no-less-chaotic men) — there’s no minute, it seems, when he’s not flipping himself on his head and then spinning or stumbling or catapulting off in a new direction. There’s only one exception I’ve noticed and, all too sadly, that’s climate change, where everything he does — every single thing — is guaranteed to be a disaster for our children and grandchildren.” (04/21/26)

https://tomdispatch.com/you-dirty-orange-maniac-you-blew-it-all-up-damn-you-to-hell/