“Three mainstream political parties in Austria said on Thursday that they had reached an agreement to form a new government that excludes the far right, ending five months of roller coaster negotiations after an election last fall. The coalition is set to announce ministerial posts on Friday, but the new chancellor is likely to be Christian Stocker, the head of the People’s Party, the biggest coalition partner. The new government is set to include left- and right-of-center parties but not the far-right Freedom Party, which finished first in the September vote.” (02/27/25)
“President Donald Trump doesn’t have fond feelings for whistleblowers. During his first term, Trump’s Justice Department carried out a clandestine spying operation to try to catch leakers. On the campaign trail, Trump on multiple occasions threatened to arrest journalists who don’t reveal their sources — and suggested they should be raped in prison until they give up names. For those who want to speak out against wrongdoing within the U.S. government, it has never been more critical to take steps to keep themselves safe. So we compiled these best practices for leaking information in public interest under the Trump administration.” (02/26/25)
“The first six weeks of this administration have felt like a year. Every day brings a firehose of brazen corruption, mad power grabs and jaw-dropping idiocy. And that of course is the point. Trump aides and allies like Russ Vought, Stephen Miller, and Steve Bannon have said for months that their plan is to overwhelm the press, public, and critics with so much activity that no one can possibly keep up. This roundup is a snapshot of what we saw over just a single five-day period — February 21 – 25. Incredibly, includes a weekend! Not long ago, more than half of these bullet points would have been enough to bring down an administration. Instead, many weren’t news for more than a couple hours.” (02/27/25)
“During the last two legislative sessions, the Teamsters and other labor groups convinced the California legislature to pass bills effectively banning driverless trucks from the state’s highways. Both times the bills were vetoed by California governor Gavin Newsom. But even if Newsom had signed that legislation, it wouldn’t have kept Aurora out of business-friendly states like Texas. So labor unions have also tried to stop driverless trucks at the federal level. One surprising front in this battle: the reflective triangles truckers place on the road to warn other drivers when their rigs are stopped at the side of the highway.” (02/26/25)
“A child in West Texas has died of measles, state health officials said on Wednesday, the first reported U.S. death from the highly contagious disease in a decade, as a Texas outbreak has grown from a handful of cases to more than 130 across two states. The child, who was not vaccinated against the disease, died overnight in a children’s hospital, the Texas health department said in a statement. … Lara Anton, a Texas health department spokesperson, told a local ABC affiliate that the ongoing outbreak has hit mostly small children and teenagers, and that the cases were originally concentrated in a ‘close-knit, under-vaccinated’ rural Mennonite community in Gaines County, where children are largely home-schooled.” (02/27/25)
Source: Independent Institute
by Randall G Holcombe
“When President Trump was running for election in 2024, he said he’d end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office. That hasn’t happened. Lately, he’s called Ukraine President Zelensky a dictator and even blamed him for starting the war with Russia. It seems he’s tilting toward Russia in his attempt to negotiate an end to the war. President Trump wants a personal victory in that dispute, and for him, a victory would be the end of the war. It matters little to him whether the war ends with Russia pulling out and leaving Ukraine with its old boundaries, or with Russia taking full control of Ukraine, or something in between. He isn’t taking Russia’s side, or Ukraine’s side. He wants a win for himself.” (02/26/25)
“The EU Court of Justice should rule in favour of Austria in its appeal against the European Commission’s decision to approve Hungary’s state aid for the expansion of its Paks atomic plant, the court’s adviser said on Thursday. The court’s advocate-general said Austria had been correct in arguing that the Commission should have examined whether the direct award of the construction contract to Russian company Nizhny Novgorod Engineering was compatible with EU procurement rules. Opinions of the advocate-general are non-binding, but ECJ judges, who are expected to rule on the case in the coming months, typically follow the majority of them.” (02/27/25)
“If President Donald Trump was elected with a specific mandate, it was to lower prices. Poll after poll reveals that inflation is a top worry for Americans. So the administration should be worried that it’s ticking back up. Further, the president — who seems to think he can solve all problems unilaterally with executive branch orders — will soon discover that to conquer inflation, he will need the help of Congress. Today’s rising inflation isn’t Trump’s fault. When inflation first spiked several years ago, the Federal Reserve insisted for months that it was under control and on its way back to the 2 percent target. It had yet to arrive there when, this past September, the Fed began prematurely cutting interest rates by 100 basis points.” (02/27/25)
