“Let me be straight: the March jobs report was much better than I had expected. I always give my wife my predictions just before the report comes out, because that’s when I have all the data I’m going to have. My pre-release numbers were 40k jobs and 4.5% unemployment. The actual numbers were 178k jobs and 4.3% unemployment. That’s a big miss. Okay, so what did I get wrong?” (04/07/26)
“Suppose you’re a juror on a murder trial. A witness testifies that he saw the accused hack the victim to pieces with an ax. When the defense lawyer cross-examines the witness, his only challenges are: ‘Prove it wasn’t a dream’ and ‘Maybe you’re a brain in a vat.’ The correct reaction for the jurors is not to peruse philosophy journals for the latest replies to these classic canards. It is to summarily declare, ‘Bah.’ If that’s your lawyer’s best defense against the charge of murder, the jurors should convict you. If ‘Bah’ seems dogmatic, my response is: ‘I’m not dogmatic; you’re gullible.’” (04/07/26)
“Sometimes, a highly controversial political or social issue will lead to a highly fractious Supreme Court decision. Chiles v. Salazar is a reminder that even the most contentious issues do not always raise equally difficult legal questions for the Supreme Court to answer.” (04/07/26)
“It’s easy to propose ideas that make things feel more affordable without actually making them less expensive. And while both parties traffic in this kind of theater, the GOP — especially under President Donald Trump — has turned it into a governing ethos. The formula is simple. First, Trump will create an affordability problem through his own policies. Then, instead of fixing the underlying cause, he will propose to paper over the problem with a subsidy, a tax gimmick, or a check. Tariffs are the most obvious example.” (04/07/26)
“A former Australian soldier was charged on Tuesday with war crimes on allegations that he killed five unarmed Afghans while serving in Afghanistan from 2009 and 2012, police said. Police have not confirmed the 47-year-old man’s name. He is expected to appear in a Sydney court later Tuesday. The soldier is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime. … The charges follow a military report released in 2020 that found evidence that elite Australian SAS and commando regiment troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and other noncombatants.” (04/07/26)
“Congress can brandish the power of the purse to end President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional attack on Iran, a criminal war of aggression as defined by the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal. Congress ended the Vietnam War through the power of the purse. All Congress needs today is a fraction of the courage displayed by the 56 signatories to the American Declaration of Independence who signed their death warrants in defense of unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness 250 years ago.” (04/07/26)
