“On April 30, 1956, the commander of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Moshe Dayan, spoke at the funeral of Roi Rotberg. A young man in charge of security at the Gaza border settlement of Nahal Oz, Rotberg had been murdered and mutilated by Palestinian fedayeen. Dayan, who had met Rotberg a few days earlier and was impressed by his youth and courage, quickly drafted a eulogy that, in the original Hebrew, runs just 285 words. Nearly the same length of Abraham Lincoln’s 272-word address at Gettysburg, Dayan’s speech has assumed nearly the same foundational role in his own nation’s self-understanding.” (04/30/26)
“Constraint consequentialists believe that you should try to do good things that improve the world, unless those break hard-and-fast rules (‘deontological bars). For example, you shouldn’t assassinate democratically-elected leaders, even very bad ones. Why not? Since bad leaders set bad policy, and bad policy can kill many thousands of people, wouldn’t it be for the greater good? Because there’s always one gun-owner who thinks any given leader’s policies are bad, so without the rule, every leader would face constant assassination attempts, probably some of them would succeed, and the nation would either crumble or degenerate into a security state.” (04/30/26)
“In one sense, the debate about abundance is about the future of the left in America. That is the political agenda underlying many of the economic ideas promoted by the journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their 2025 book Abundance. Right now, the center-left in America is fixated on regulating everything to realize greater social justice in the economy. Abundance liberals like Klein and Thompson, however, want to shift the left’s attention towards the matter of how we can diminish many of the blockages that create artificial scarcities throughout the United States. The fight about abundance on the left, however, has great import for the right as well. The lurch toward economic nationalism and populist economics on the part of large segments of the right has made the possibility of deeper conversations and even possible alliances with abundanistas a live topic among classical liberals and fiscal conservatives.” (04/30/26)
“A full federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump’s request to rehear his appeal of an $83.3 million defamation judgment awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused the president of lying when he denied sexually abusing her. Trump has been fighting the multimillion-dollar penalty since a jury in 2024 ordered him to pay Carroll compensatory and punitive damages. The president is expected to ask the conservative-leaning Supreme Court to hear his case next. … The ruling marked the third and fourth times the full 2nd Circuit court had voted to deny en banc rehearing of rulings in this specific defamation case and fifth and sixth denial opinions it has issued involving both cases Carroll brought against Trump.” (04/30/26)
“[T]he term ’86’ has been around since the 1930s, commonly used in restaurants and other contexts to mean ‘get rid of,’ ‘throw out,’ or ‘refuse service to.’ When combined with the number 47, referring to our current 47th president, the message becomes clear: Get rid of Trump. To assume that ’86’ means ‘kill’ or ‘assassinate’ is, at best, uncharitable. There are obvious ways to ‘get rid of’ a president without ending his life …. Even if they can somehow establish that ’86’ unambiguously means what they say it means, the prosecution still has their work cut out for them. … The law is clear that merely wishing for someone’s death is and should be protected speech, as distasteful as it may be, absent more evidence proving intent to cause harm.” (04/30/26)
