Source: Antiwar.com
by Jeffrey D Sachs & Sybil Fares
“To make lasting peace in the Middle East, the US must end its blank check to Israel’s perpetual wars and join with the rest of the world to force Israel to live within its internationally recognized borders.” (04/15/26)
“In 2024, Trump urged Congress to ‘KILL FISA.’ With a vote upcoming this week, he now demands its renewal with no limits or safeguards, and he has ample Democratic support.” (04/15/26)
“The reality that the U.S. is an empire is now a commonplace, a terminology widely used across the political spectrum. A declining empire, perhaps, but a globe-spanning hegemon nonetheless. Yet many U.S. of Americans have assumed it is overall still a force for good in the world. That illusion has been shattered in recent years, first by the complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza, then by the preemptive U.S.-Israel war against Iran, a clear violation of international law. The evils of empire are out in the open now.” (04/15/26)
“Three drivers in San Jose, California, filed a class action suit against the city and police department over the deployment of nearly 500 cameras operated by Flock Safety, a controversial surveillance tech company that uses AI and dedicated cameras to catalogue vehicles’ movements. Organized by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian nonprofit law firm, the suit argues that the city’s use of the technology constitutes an unreasonable law enforcement search, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. … Unlike other ALPR companies, Flock offers its customers the chance to share access locally, statewide or across the country. Its databases can be accessed without warrants by officials at participating law enforcement departments. San Jose shares its Flock data with hundreds of other law enforcement agencies in California, but not nationwide.” (04/15/26)
“The blockades are bad but consider them points of leverage for an actual negotiation. Here is what a positive outcome — for both sides — might look like.” (04/15/26)
“Over the last decade or so, Hungary became for the new right what Sweden or Cuba were to the old left. For generations, various American leftists loved to cite the Cuban model as better than ours when it came to health care or education. Some would even make wild claims about freedom under Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. … President Trump, Tucker Carlson, and J.D. Vance (most recently while campaigning for Orbán) have all lavished praise on Hungary. Patrick Deneen, a leading new-right intellectual, saw in Orbán’s Hungary ‘a model of a form of opposition to contemporary liberalism that says, ‘There’s a way in which the state and the political order can be oriented to the positive promotion of conservative policies.’’ … Orbánism is not a new model, or ‘wave of the future.’ It was a tide of the past. And it’s good news that it’s receding.” (04/15/26)