Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“‘Authoritarian regimes have developed strong cyber espionage capabilities that enable their influence and coercion operations,’ explains a National Intelligence Council ‘assessment,’ dated April 7, 2020. … The report calls this technological capacity ‘digital authoritarian capabilities’ — yet our own government has the same. It accuses China of marshaling ‘mass surveillance and AI-driven algorithmic tracking of its citizens’ behavior at home to inform the use of soft or coercive incentives and disincentives to control them,’ but that, I’m afraid, is what our government does, too.” (03/24/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/03/23/weaponized-data-via-silencer/

Source: Isonomia Quarterly
by Vikash Yadav

“What are the conditions under which a federation or union of liberal states is possible in the international system? This question preoccupied Friedrich Hayek’s thinking on international relations from the nineteen-thirties onward as he looked to revive liberalism and ease the political frictions that were convulsing through Europe.” (03/23/26)

https://isonomiamag.substack.com/p/supplementing-hayeks-vision-of-interstate

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Martin Di Caro

“As the war in Iran absorbs the world’s attention, with its images of dead school girls and flattened buildings, it may be easy to overlook Gaza. It has been a full five months since a ceasefire went into effect. It did not stop the bloodshed and intense suffering: Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians since October, and the enclave remains in dire need of food and medicine. Yet Gaza has disappeared from America’s front pages as the Trump administration’s Board of Peace, mostly bereft of Palestinian leadership, attempts to steer a peace plan to its second phase.” (03/23/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/the-destruction-of-gaza-has-not-ended/

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Bobbie Anne Flower Cox

“hough I am an attorney in practice for almost thirty years now, I have always said that not all issues can be resolved in a court of law. I say this not because I lack confidence in our judicial system, but because not all issues are subject to the decision of a court. In other words, judges can’t have a say in everything! This is the premise behind our stalwart foundational doctrine of Separation-of-Powers where each of our three, co-equal branches of government have their own sphere of influence and power, and each is to stay out of the others’ lanes.” (03/23/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/when-judges-go-rogue/

Source: EconLog
by Steven Horwitz

“There are many things Adam Smith got right about economics, including the discipline’s fundamental insight about the unplanned nature of market-driven economic and social order. He is rightly called the founder of economics for that reason. However, he did not get everything right. One of his most important errors, and one he shared with many 18th and 19th century economists, including Karl Marx, was his erroneous theory of value and explanation of price.” (03/23/26)

https://www.econlib.org/econlog/adam-smith-on-the-labor-theory-of-value

Source: The Contrarian
by Jennifer Rubin

“As unpopular as Donald Trump’s ill-conceived, incompetently managed war was when it began, it is now more unpopular with a key segment of voters. ‘Trump’s net approval of -20 for handling the situation in Iran represents a drop from last week’s poll. Then, 39% of Americans approved of how Trump was handling Iran and 52% disapproved — a net approval of -13,’ The Economist/YouGov reported last week. While Democrats and Republicans have not changed their minds about the war much, ‘opinion among Independents of how Trump’s handling Iran fell to 24% approve / 63% disapprove (-39 net) this week from 30% approve / 53% disapprove last week (-23 net).’ The longer the war drags on, and the higher gas prices go, the worse those poll numbers will look for Trump and his pusillanimous enablers in Congress.” (03/23/26)

https://www.contrariannews.org/p/trumps-disastrous-war-comes-home