“I’m not, alas, in Paris right now. But I can certainly imagine myself in a Parisian cafe, enjoying some steak frites and a glass of wine while taking in the glorious streetscape. What’s harder to imagine is soaking in all that ambiance and thinking, ‘Yeah, this place is definitely poorer than Mississippi.’ No, seriously, that’s what gross domestic product statistics suggest. In 2024, France had a per capita GDP of $46,103. Mississippi’s was $55,876. As recently as 10 years ago, French GDP was ahead ($37,024 versus $36,184), but since then U.S. GDP and productivity have grown significantly faster than Western Europe’s. This fact has caused much social media friction between smug Americans and defensive Europeans (allied with American progressives) who argue that you can’t measure what makes their way of life better.” (05/17/26)
“After decades of parental rights victories, Connecticut may become the first state to go backwards on homeschool freedom in the past 50 years. The Connecticut Senate advanced a bill attacking homeschooling families by a vote of 22 to 14, mostly along party lines. Three Democrats joined all Republicans in opposition. The measure cleared the House 96-53 last week, with four Democrats crossing the aisle to stand with Republicans. Those margins fall short of the two-thirds supermajority required in both chambers to override a gubernatorial veto. Connecticut families now have only one remaining safeguard. Leadership should respect the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children and block this Orwellian legislation.” (05/15/26)
“he grim circumstances behind the death of George Washington (1732-1799), America’s first president and popularly known as the Father of the Country, are not wholly unknown. The details have been reported by historians for more than two centuries. What’s strange about this dry biographical knowledge is that it is not reported with shock and alarm and hence never conveyed to popular culture with lessons for our lives. This is because Washington’s physicians were following standard protocols when they bled him to death.” (05/15/26)
“Congressional redistricting — or pejoratively, gerrymandering — has dominated the headlines lately. This is a big deal in the primary-election season with an unpopular president and midterms right around the corner. Few issues provoke such animosity. Each side accuses the other of trying to stack the deck and rig the elections. … What most people refuse to understand is that if the public sees the government as a 24/7/365 bazaar offering virtually any benefit demanded of it to those with clout, then those who want what they cannot acquire through persuasion and voluntary exchange will work overtime to gain advantage from political power.” (05/15/26)
“For American executives who spot fraud and financial misconduct among workers and then quickly report it, the U.S. Justice Department has a refreshing message: Your alertness to right-doing can bring a reward – in mercy. Federal prosecutors were recently handed expanded powers to be lenient toward companies that voluntarily report wrongdoing by individual employees in a ‘timely’ manner, make amends to those wronged, and shape up internal rules – hotlines, audits, etc. – to expose white-collar crime. The accused individuals are then prosecuted, not the company, preventing a hefty fine or forfeiture. Shareholders and employees also benefit from the avoidance of some kinds of negative fallout, such as bankruptcy. Yet the biggest result so far, according to Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York – which includes Wall Street – has been faster and greater detection of fraud.” (05/15/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Death has always been a central feature of America’s immigration-control system. Death has become normalized. Sure, there will be the standard laments about this tragic occurrence, there will be the standard condemnations of the immigrants themselves for violating U.S. immigration laws, and there will be the standard diatribes against human traffickers who prey on people who are simply trying to survive or improve their lives through labor. But the fact remains: Death has long been an inherent part of America’s immigration-control system. In the absence of that system, all those victims would still be alive.” (05/15/26)
“It’s great that the FBI is probing former CIA Director John Brennan’s role in the Russiagate conspiracy, but the country needs a lot more than criminal investigations and prosecutions to fully air the truth about the 2016 plot to smear Donald Trump as a pawn of Vladimir Putin. The probe turns on Brennan’s apparent perjury in congressional testimony about one part of his role, namely the fact that in 2016 he ensured that the ‘Steele dossier’ would be part of an Intelligence Community Assessment that claimed to find real Trump-Russia collusion. … The dossier, you’ll recall, was a farrago of fiction (including the ‘pee tape’ lie) about Trump’s alleged connections to Russia; the Clinton campaign paid British ex-spook Christopher Steele to fabricate it as a weapon against Trump during the 2016 campaign.” [editor’s note: The Clinton campaign was Steele’s second client for the “dossier” material. The first client was a Republican news site – TLK] (05/16/26)
“If you ask President Donald Trump, he is winning the Iran war, implementing a ‘comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict,’ and making serious progress on ending the war in Ukraine. So much winning — on Main Street, in the Persian Gulf, and everywhere else. But pollsters will tell you that Americans are largely against the war in Iran and feel the president hasn’t really explained why the U.S. is there. Moreover, 60% now have an unfavorable view of our ‘iron clad’ relations with Israel, and a majority have low trust in Trump’s decision-making regarding Ukraine and Russia. These are negatives that could obviously affect his party in the approaching midterm elections.” (05/15/26)
“The US military has been carrying out extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Pacific over the past nine months with impunity. On May 8, the US military struck another boat in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor. US Southern Command claimed ‘the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes’ and ‘was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.’ According to The Intercept, there have now been 58 such boat strikes since September that have killed at least 193 people. As with the May 8 attack, the names and nationalities of most of these victims remain unknown. The Trump administration has accused civilian boats of transporting narcotics to the US and says its killing ‘narco-terrorists.’ But the Pentagon has provided no evidence for these claims or any indication that the people killed posed an imminent threat” (05/16/26)
