“Every few years, cities fall into the same trap. A major event — whether it’s the World Cup, the Olympics, or the Super Bowl — gets dangled in front of local leaders like a golden ticket. The promises, as we are hearing time and again as Kansas City gears up to host some games in the 2026 World Cup, include floods of tourists, economic growth, and a new era of prosperity. The reality? A financial hangover that lasts long after the final whistle blows.” (03/12/25)
“North Dakota lawmakers are on the verge of making their state the first to tell the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decade-old ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Similar efforts — which would not have any direct sway with the nation’s top courts — have been introduced in a handful of states this year. North Dakota’s resolution passed the Republican-led House in February but still requires Senate approval, which is not assured. … The North Dakota measure states that the Legislature ‘rejects’ the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision and urges the U.S. Supreme Court ‘to overturn the decision and leave unaddressed the natural definition of marriage as a union between one man, a biological male, and one woman, a biological female.'” (03/13/25)
“The Trump administration has removed all the migrants who were being held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba and flown them back to the United States, a Defense Department official said Wednesday. The 40 men have been transported to Louisiana, where there is a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Alexandria. It comes two weeks after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent another group of 48 migrants back to the same city from Guantanamo. It is unclear why DHS routed the group of migrants back to the United States after the costly flights to the military base on Cuba. The agency did not immediately respond to a request about the latest transfer. The defense official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.” (03/12/25)
“Since the 1950s, every effort to reduce the size and scope of government has been bulldozed by a political establishment more concerned with furthering its own interests than those of the American people. Between sacred cows and special interest groups, we’re always told why nothing can get cut. With the exception of Social Security, there is no bigger scared cow than the Department of Defense (DOD). Of course, defense policy is a legitimate function of government—a textbook example of a public good. It’s hard, though not impossible, to imagine national security being provided privately. However, it doesn’t follow that every dollar spent on defense is effective or even legitimate. It’s often the reverse. Sacred-cow status grants relative immunity to the Pentagon’s waste and poor strategic spending.” (03/13/25)
“Whatever good intuitions and commendable intentions Mr. Trump has — and he has expressed some — they look like random blips likely to fail among his enervated interventionism, his imperial entertainment, and the infatuation with collective choices that he shares with the other major political party. He just wants to impose different tastes and values on the 50.2% of voters who did not vote for him and, tragically, on many rationally ignorant voters in his 49.8%. A grave danger is that this be mistaken for the defense of individual liberty.” (03/13/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Given the wish that American right-wingers have expressed over the decades that Mexico get its economic house in order so that Mexicans will stay at home instead of ‘invading’ the United States, you would think that right-wingers would be exultant over this state of affairs. Yet, President Trump and his merry band of tariff supporters are now threatening to wreak economic devastation on the Mexican people with a 25% tariff on many Mexican products shipped into the United States.” (03/12/25)
“Promising to drive ‘a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion,’ Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Wednesday outlined plans for an aggressive rollback of environmental regulations. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece and an EPA news release, Zeldin announced that he intends to reconsider more than a dozen core EPA rules and regulations, including those pertaining to emissions standards for vehicles, pollution from power plants and the finding that provides the scientific basis for addressing climate change.” (03/12/25)
