“After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Donald Trump in 2024, Republicans added a woo crowd to their base. Some outsiders found the connection odd. But in retrospect, it’s easy to see why it works. What unites alternative medicine practitioners, organic fanatics, tradwives, and Trump voters isn’t all that strange when you think about it: Each group is obsessed with what’s supposedly ‘natural.'” (04/10/26)
“Tesla owners in the Netherlands can now use their cars’ self-driving feature — with some conditions — making it the first European country to approve the feature. The country’s RDW agency for roadworthiness certifications said Friday that Tesla’s driver assistance system can now be used in the Netherlands ‘with possible future expansion to all member states of the European Union.’ The agency said drivers would need to be in the vehicle and keep a watchful eye on it. The move aligns the Netherlands with what is allowed in the United States, where Tesla owners can already use the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) function in the cars.” (04/11/26)
“Is personal freedom a reality or a myth? Does the government execute the will of the governed or the will of those who finance its officials? Does the Bill of Rights restrain the government? Are the levers of government power pulled by those the governed have elected or those we don’t see? Do elections change anything? Can the president kill people whom he suspects might commit a crime? Aren’t even those who would cause great harm entitled to due process? Isn’t everyone entitled to a fair trial in front of a neutral judge and jury before any punishment can be administered?” (04/10/26)
“Host Megan McArdle breaks down why the corporate tax system is so complex, costly and potentially inefficient — and explores a bold idea: What if we eliminated it altogether? From hidden economic trade-offs to who really pays corporate taxes, this episode challenges how we think about fairness, efficiency and the future of taxation.” (04/10/26)
“Paul Fischer’s The Last Kings of Hollywood reads as a tragedy rather than a triumph. The title of this epochal tale is a bit misleading; Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg (as documented in plentiful detail by the author) all respected, fought, and bent to Hollywood. This is a story that follows shoguns and warlords allying, betraying, and battling against one another. Each carrying away ever more impressive victories at the box office, building their fiefdoms, yet at the height of their powers, they nevertheless had to yield to the chrysanthemum thrones of Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros., and Fox. Left is one winner, or winning tactic: money power.” (04/10/26)
“Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are trying to sell the war with Iran as a show of American might. Sure, the bombing conducted by the United States and Israel set Iran back substantially, taking out a number of top officials. That’s only one element of the war. Overall, the war has been a foreign policy blunder that combined strategic overreach, economic self-sabotage, and rhetorical escalation into a single, costly episode. It may well leave the United States with fewer options, higher prices at home, and an adversary that, in some ways, looks more entrenched than before. This war didn’t begin the way the White House now frames it. It wasn’t an unavoidable response to an imminent threat that left policymakers with no choice.” (04/10/26)
“On July 15, 1979, Jimmy Carter delivered an address to the American people from the Oval Office. Formally known as ‘A Crisis of Confidence,’ the address has since been memorialized as ‘the malaise speech,’ and held up as a prime example of Carter’s morally rigid and politically inept presidency — one of the great last gasps of the miserable 1970s. Oil shortages, turbulence in the Middle East, and the lingering shadows of Watergate and the Vietnam War left Americans, in Carter’s view, morally and civically adrift. And, in what most analysts have considered a failure of a presidential speech, he told them so.” (04/10/26)
