“Thanks to NCLA, I paid nothing to sue the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for violating my Fourth Amendment rights except some of my time, a little here and a little there, spread over half a decade. The suit never went to trial, so I did not even have to appear in court, though I could have gone to a preliminary hearing once if I wanted. I declined because I had already fled Massachusetts for distant freer climes. I also received nothing from the settlement except the satisfaction of helping to make my fellow Americans a little less like the subjects of a monarchy and a little more like the citizens of a free country. My name came first on the plaintiff side because I was the first to sign on, blazing a trail that made it easier for others aggrieved to join later.” (04/14/26)
“Although the international community still knows very little about the highest-level peace talks between the US and Iran in 47 years, facilitated by Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, some obvious red flags appeared in the morning-after news reports—as JD Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner flew home less than 24 hours after their arrival in Islamabad. As The New York Times reported: ‘Vice President JD Vance summed up the failure of 21 hours of negotiations with Iran in one sentence: ‘They have chosen not to accept our terms.’ To Iranian officials, that line reflected their biggest problem with the talks: The United States they argue, had not come to negotiate.'” (04/14/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Lawrence W Reed
“When Liberty International in collaboration with Libertarianism.org engaged me a year ago to apply the insights of Leonard E. Read’s famous 1958 essay, ‘I, Pencil,’ to the smartphone, I eagerly accepted the challenge. All of us involved in the project believed that it was time to ‘update’ the essay by adapting its message to a product everybody uses today. Why? Because, we thought, pencils are fading into memory, overtaken by a growing number of competing writing implements. Then I ran across some information that surprised me. Global pencil production is actually setting records year after year.” (04/14/26)
“To build public support for rolling back marriage rights, new campaigns have been repeating the claims that legal recognition of same-sex marriages may harm children or even the stability of different-sex marriages. These are some of the same concerns that were raised in the years prior to the Obergefell decision. They were groundless then, and, more than 10 years later, the data confirm these fears to be unfounded.” (04/14/26)
“Donald Trump loathes mail-in voting — except, of course, when he uses this method to cast his own ballot, as he did in a recent Florida special election. Frustrated by Congressional inaction, Trump issued an executive order last week to restrict what he likes to call ‘mail-in cheating.’ Actual proven cases of mail voting fraud? Those amount to a whopping 0.000043 percent of total mail ballots, according to Brookings experts. Trump’s real fear: that vote by mail gives Democrats an edge. In reality, broad, cross-partisan swaths of our electorate benefit from access to this convenient means of exercising our most basic democratic right.” (04/14/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by W James Antle III
“There is simply nothing that has happened in American politics between Trump’s epic 2024 political comeback and the Democrats’ romp in last year’s off-year elections running on an affordability mantra that would suggest voters prioritize a foreign war over higher prices. A thousand clips of Trump expressing his distaste for the ayatollahs or a hundred polls showing rank-and-file Republicans still support him do not prove otherwise. … Salvaging the Republicans’ midterm election prospects is going to require extricating the U.S. from the war in Iran while keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, whether GOP lawmakers know it (or are willing to publicly admit it) or not.” (04/14/26)
“In its 8–1 ruling on Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, the Supreme Court recast mental health care as protected expression.” [editor’s note: The First Amendment is not unclear. Speech is speech, Not liking particular content of speech doesn’t magically make it not speech – TLK] (04/13/26)
“While families struggle with high gas prices in the wake of the Iran war, many American workers are getting help this year from an unlikely place: the Internal Revenue Service. Tax refunds from the IRS are up almost 14% from last year — another reason to file your taxes by Wednesday’s deadline, especially if you’re affected by a handful of changes to the tax code. Last Summer, the One Big Beautiful Bill became law, preserving some tax cuts that would’ve expired but also introducing a few new tax cuts too. Because many of the law’s provisions were made retroactive for the entirety of 2025, these changes significantly reduced some Americans’ tax liabilities, resulting in today’s big refunds.” (04/14/26)
“Healthcare usually benefits Democrats politically, but some of the most important health-policy changes of the past decade have come from Donald Trump’s White House. Now his administration is proposing a reform that could change the U.S. healthcare system as radically as Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act did. This latest proposed reform, the 2027 ACA Exchange Rule, would allow health insurers to offer nonnetwork plans on market exchanges where people buy their own insurance. Today, most healthcare plans cover care only from doctors and hospitals with which they have contracts for treatment and payment. Under the new rule, health insurers would be able to set ‘reference prices’ — say, for an MRI or a knee replacement — that would apply regardless of which provider a patient chooses.” (04/13/26)
“In 2017, journalist Priscilla Villarreal did what good journalists ordinarily do. She was working on two stories — one about the suicide of a border agent and the other about a serious car accident. To confirm the names of the people involved in those incidents, Villarreal texted a member of the Laredo Police Department. The officer responded and provided the information she was looking for. … But then someone in the police department got wind of what Villarreal was up to. Soon afterward, she was charged with violating an obscure, Orwellian provision of the Texas Penal Code, the Misuse of Official Information Act. … the Misuse of Official Information Act cannot be reconciled with the First Amendment’s protection of press freedom. But on March 23, the U.S. Supreme Court let it stand by declining to hear the case.” (04/13/26)
