Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Andrew Napolitano
“The world is filled with self-evident truths — truisms — that philosophers, lawyers and judges know need not be proven. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Two plus two equals four. A cup of boiling hot coffee sitting on a table in a room, the temperature of which is 70 degrees Fahrenheit, will eventually cool down. These examples, of which there are legion, are not true because we believe they are true. They are true essentially and substantially. They are true whether we accept their truthfulness or not. Of course, recognizing a universal truth acknowledges the existence of an order of things higher than human laws, certainly higher than government.” (03/12/25)
“An overnight Russian attack on Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region injured three people and targeted energy facilities of the state railways, according to local officials. The attack on Dnipro, which injured three women who were hospitalized, also blew out over 100 windows in the city’s apartment buildings, governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on Telegram. The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that Russia launched one ballistic missile and 117 drones to attack Ukraine overnight.” (03/13/25)
“When I first arrived in the United States, less than two decades ago, the assumption that WASPs were the true rulers of America remained widespread, and there was still some real grounding for it. In politics, their ranks comprised the president, the vice president, the treasury secretary, the secretary of the Interior, both the Senate majority and minority leaders, and at least a good dozen senators. Three out of nine Supreme Court justices were WASPs, as were three out of five CEOs of the largest publicly traded companies. Since then, the influence of WASPs in American life has — largely unremarked by the general public — cratered.” (03/13/25)
“Alibaba Group on Thursday launched a new version of its artificial intelligence assistant app that will be powered by its own flagship Qwen AI reasoning model, amid a heating global race to produce next-generation tech. The launch is the company’s latest effort to gain an edge amid growing competition on the AI application front, further intensified by the emergence of DeepSeek’s blockbuster R1 model model earlier this year. Up till now, Quark, which was launched in 2016, had been using the app’s own AI models, known as QuarkLLM. The updated version will integrate functions including a chatbot, deep thinking, task execution into a one-stop app, Alibaba said Thursday.” (03/13/25)
“The White House has directed the U.S. military to draw up options for increasing the American troop presence in Panama to achieve President Trump’s goal of ‘reclaiming’ the Panama Canal, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the planning. During a joint address to Congress last week, Trump said, ‘to further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.’ Since then, administration officials have not said what ‘reclaiming’ means. U.S. Southern Command is developing potential plans that vary from partnering more closely with Panamanian security forces to the less likely option of U.S. troops seizing the Panama Canal by force, the officials said. Whether military force is used, the officials added, depends on how much Panamanian security forces agree to partner with the U.S.” (03/13/25)
“Washington, D.C.’s empty federal office buildings rank high among the most visible examples of wasteful government spending. Where else can you find blocks of high-dollar real estate going virtually unused by the very bureaucrats for whom these buildings are supposed to be the nerve centers for their supposed vital functions? Well, as it turns out, you can find similar examples of federal government waste all across the country. Bureaucrats don’t just pay millions to not use their own buildings. They also pay millions in service contracts to outside organizations for facilities they don’t use either.” (03/12/25)
