“You may have only recently heard: As of this coming December, all American males will find themselves ‘automatically registered,’ upon the occasion of their 18th birthdays, for a prospective military draft. Given current events, that prospect understandably gives off sinister vibes — ‘but without a draft, who would do the necessary work of murdering Iranian elementary school students and Venezuelan fisherme … er, ‘narco-terrorists?” — so you might be surprised to learn that it’s old news. On December 30, 2024, then US president Joe Biden (or maybe his autopen?) signed the National Defense [sic] Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, which included the relevant provision. Reaction from the general public: Yawn … hey, the Chargers clinched a wild card playoff berth! OMG, Jimmy Carter died! NDAA? Whazzat? War has a way of retroactively refocusing the mind, doesn’t it? In reality, ‘automatic registration’ is even older news, though.” (03/12/26)
“In coverage of the war against Iran, a familiar choreography is playing out again, one that the media have carefully refined to exploit the perceived credibility of diaspora groups in order to push war and empire. This phenomenon of selectively and specifically amplifying diaspora voices who will cheerlead for war is now a well-documented feature of the American media ecosystem. For months in the lead up to this new illegal and unconstitutional war, high-profile American ‘news’ outlets featured almost exclusively Iranians and Iranian-Americans who argued for regime change through ground invasion, a position arguably even more extreme and reckless than that of Donald Trump. Major outlets host sympathetic figures with very good reasons to hate the target country and unassailable arguments that its rulers are authoritarian criminals.” (03/12/26)
“President Donald Trump has lawlessly launched a full-scale war against a distant nation that neither attacked nor threatened America. Instead, Iran was negotiating with the United States, offering substantial concessions. The president justified his aggression with rhetoric similar to that of Russia’s Vladimir Putin in launching Moscow’s ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine. … He is acting more as Roman emperor than American president, wandering the globe conquering foreign lands and looting subject peoples for personal as well as national gain. He has become the sort of reckless despot feared by the nation’s founders. This tragic perversion of the American experiment demonstrates the terrible truth of Lord Acton’s famous axiom: ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely.'” (03/12/26)
“Long before Trump partnered with Israel to attack Tehran, Democrats, libertarians, and even decent Americans warned that Trump would bomb Iran again to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein pedophile scandal. Most American voters believe that ‘Trump launched the war on Iran at least in part to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal,’ according to a new poll by DropSite News. Fifty-two percent of voters agreed with that statement, while 40% disagreed. But according to the Washington Post, anyone who still complains about the Epstein scandal is propelling Iranian propaganda.” (03/12/26)
“I am fascinated by hinge moments in history. I like to cast my imagination into the minds of key players at a point when they know the stakes are high, but the outcome is radically uncertain. In hinge moments, courageous defenders of a cause have no idea how it will all turn out, or how their efforts will be remembered by later generations. … Hinge moments are those when the stakes are high, the future is radically undetermined, and capable but flawed human beings have to act decisively—even when the better world we’re aiming to achieve doesn’t give up its instructions easily. We are living through such a moment now.” (03/12/26)
“Britain’s parliamentary democracy, one of the oldest in the world, has its quirks. For more than 1,000 years, its kings and queens have presided atop a pyramid of lords, earls, viscounts, and other layers of nobility. Alongside elected members of the House of Commons, these titled (and often wealthy) peers have held hundreds of hereditary seats in Parliament’s upper House of Lords for centuries. ‘Undemocratic, overcrowded, dominated by silly archaic practices and unrepresentative of the British population,’ is how one reform-minded member has described the chamber. But all that is about to change: On Tuesday, Parliament adopted a bill abolishing the remaining quota of 92 seats that can be automatically filled by the heirs of titled peers. The act fulfills one of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s election pledges, completing a process started by his predecessor Tony Blair, who removed more than 600 seats in 1999.” (03/11/26)
“Oklahoma’s protectionist casket laws block competition and inflate costs. But some entrepreneurs are fighting back, taking their case to court to defend economic freedom.” (03/12/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Attila Rebak
“In the spring of 1812, British textile workers smashed power looms across Nottinghamshire, convinced that the machines would make their skills worthless and their families destitute. They were right about the disruption. Mills did displace hand-weavers. Communities that had organized themselves around a particular kind of skilled labor were genuinely torn apart. The Luddites weren’t stupid, and they weren’t wrong to feel the ground shifting. They were wrong about one thing: the conclusion. The labor those machines displaced didn’t vanish. It migrated into factories, railways, cities, and industries that hadn’t existed, filling wants that hand-weavers in 1812 couldn’t have imagined needing to satisfy. We are the Luddites now. Not the smashing machines part — the being right about the disruption and wrong about the conclusion part.” (03/12/26)
“[T]he Hunts want to build their new $3 billion domed stadium in Wyandotte County, just across the river from larger and wealthier KCMO. We can debate how much economic development stadiums really bring, but both Republicans and Democrats in Topeka are determined to impose such a one-sided deal on heavily minority and historically economically disadvantaged WyCo that if there were any shame left in this world, they’d be walking around wondering what that unfamiliar but unpleasant feeling might be. The deal, such as it is, exempts the stadium from property taxes and gives the team 100% of both football and non-football revenue, while Wyandotte County residents provide most of the money for building the stadium. There is no community benefits agreement spelled out in writing, and that’s one of many problems. But hey, those pushing this thing do offer free lectures to anyone with questions.” (03/12/26)
