Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Marcos Giansante
“Periods of crisis reveal something unsettling about human behavior. Faced with uncertainty, individuals and institutions alike tend to accept measures that would otherwise be unthinkable. Restrictions on movement, suspension of rights, and centralized decision-making often emerge not gradually, but almost effortlessly, as if they were the natural response to danger. This pattern is frequently interpreted as a political or institutional failure. But such an explanation remains incomplete. Crises do not merely alter policies, they alter the very structure of human action.” (04/10/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Sam Aaron
“As the great Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.’ In South Carolina, there might as well be another — government spending. Over the past decade, one pattern has held constant: the General Fund grows nearly every year, typically outpacing both inflation and population growth.” (04/10/26)
“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)
“We now face a defining question of not whether this conflict is difficult but whether the West has the discipline to see it through to the right outcome. That is the backdrop to this weekend’s negotiations in Islamabad, where Pakistan is hosting U.S.-Iran talks amid a fragile ceasefire and continued tension around the Strait of Hormuz. The talks will reveal whether Tehran is prepared to retreat from confrontation or is merely maneuvering for time. One thing President Trump should do immediately is announce that we, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be working together to build pipelines at warp speed that will bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Incisive energy and technology expert Mark P. Mills pushes this idea in an article that can be found at city-journal.org, noting that such pipelines could be built in a matter of months.” (04/11/26)
“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)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has accused Spain of an ‘anti-Israel obsession’ for its criticisms of the US-Israeli war on Iran and its refusal to allow its airspace to be used in the onslaught, a perceived slight to which Israel has responded by banning Madrid from participation in a coordination center for the oversight of the so-called ‘ceasefire’ in the Gaza Strip. We’ve been hearing this ‘obsession’ talking point from Israel and its apologists a lot lately. … The other day right-wing pundit Meghan Murphy had a strange conversation with Tablet Magazine editor Jacob Siegel about our society’s ‘recent insane obsession with Israel,’ speaking as though everyone just randomly began fixating on this genocidal apartheid state out of nowhere a short while ago, for no valid reason.” (04/12/26)
“Why, asks the MacIver Institute, ‘is the government lobbying the government?’ MacIver calls itself Wisconsin’s ‘free-market voice.’ It is a privately funded outfit that makes the case for less government in the Badger State. It has to earn its funds from donors who can, at any moment, stop donating money. One of the things the MacIver Institute found itself up against are other think-tanks and apparently donor-funded organizations advocating for more government in the state, for more programs, bigger programs, and more taxes to feed all the great new stuff. And it turns out that several of these advocacy organizations are themselves funded by government!” (04/10/26)
“Yet another reason that Donald Trump’s and Joe Biden’s presidencies cannot be examined without wincing concerns a constitutional provision that is obscure until it is abused, which it now often is. The presidential ‘power to grant reprieves and pardons’ has become yet another source of political brutishness fueling voters’ cynicism.” (04/10/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen & Whitney Curry Wimbish
“It was the first Rental Ripoff hearing and people were pissed. Set up by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and attended by leaders of his administration and 150 city workers across multiple departments, the hearings gave tenants a chance to describe conditions their landlords refuse to fix: rats, mold, dangerous constructio — along with a spate of unnecessary and hidden fees. They had three minutes each to share their experiences. But they also got to do something unexpected: set policy priorities for one of the largest cities in the world. Arrayed around the room were posterboards, which not only asked tenants what problems they faced but sought their input on policy proposals brainstormed by staff, like fining landlords who don’t make repairs, making it easier to form tenant unions, or enabling the city to take over buildings when there are serial violations.” (04/10/26)
“[T]he American people and the rest of the world saw the president of the United States threaten to destroy the 2,500-year-old Persian civilization. More than half of the Iranian population is ethnic Persian. It’s my policy not to compare anyone to Hitler, but I’ll say this: Trump’s threat was Hitlerian. Further, anyone who stuck by Trump after that post exhibited the same disgusting reverence that many Germans felt for Hitler.” (04/0/26)
