Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“130 executive orders in under 100 days. Sweeping powers claimed in the name of ‘security’ and ‘efficiency.’ One president acting as lawmaker, enforcer, and judge. No debate. No oversight. No limits. This is how the Constitution dies — not with a coup, but with a pen. The Unitary Executive Theory is no longer a theory — it’s the architecture of a dictatorship in motion.” (04/23/25)
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“The problem [US Senator Mike] Lee’s trying to solve, if it really is a problem, is that individual US District Court judges can, and sometimes do, issue injunctions with nationwide effect. Lee’s proposal would require such actions to be heard by panels of three judges rather than by a single judge, with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court selecting the judges. It would also require the Supreme Court to hear all appeals of injunctions issued by those panels. No problem, I guess. It seems well within Congress’s powers …. Federal judges doing what federal judges are, at the moment, authorized to do (issue injunctions) based on what they’re constitutionally bound to support (due process) doesn’t really seem very insurrectiony, though.” (04/24/25)
Source: Cobden Centre
by Dr. Richard M Ebeling
“Nothing is as enticing as a free lunch. The idea of getting something for nothing surely is appealing to almost everyone. …. there is no end to the list of things we would all like to have with no cost attached, with nothing to have to give up to get what we want. Economists are usually considered the perennial party-poopers … reminding people that often nothing is as expensive as something that is said to be for ‘free.’ … What are we to think, then, when a Nobel Laureate economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and his coauthor, Mark Weisbrot, tell us that there is ‘A No-Brainer for Global Growth and U.S. Jobs’ (Project Syndicate, January 10, 2025) at almost no cost and all benefit to the world. All that is needed is for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to digitally print more of a version of paper money known as Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).” (04/24/25)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2025/04/the-illusion-of-inflationary-prosperity/
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Lawrence W Reed
“Ships of Britain’s massive Royal Navy, the largest in the world, inflicted great damage on American ports, property, and vessels during the years of the Revolution (1775-1783). Perhaps none of those ships wreaked more havoc than HMS Phoenix, and it accomplished its devious work not with a cannon but with a printing press. … the Second Continental Congress authorized the printing of paper money …. What began with a modest batch of six million in continental dollars turned into a blizzard of several hundred million by the war’s end, yielding a steady depreciation and giving rise to the famous phrase ‘not worth a continental.’ With nothing to back the money but murky promises to redeem it in precious metal at a future date, Congress didn’t need any help to make it worthless, but the British were happy to assist, nonetheless.” (04/24/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by William L Anderson
“Fresh off her 2018 upset New York Democratic congressional primary win, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (better known as AOC) and Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey announced they were launching an ambitious legislative plan called the Green New Deal. While people who had a grounding in economic thought found this new initiative to be naïve at best and destructive at worst, nonetheless it has energized American progressives and other environmental true believers. … this kind of largesse needs legislation behind it and the true believers—led by AOC herself—settled on the infamous (and hilariously named) Inflation Reduction Act. In fact, AOC served as a cheerleader for what was the cornerstone measure of the Biden administration, one that supposedly would create nine million jobs and totally transform the US economy. However, the promised transformation never occurred.” (04/24/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/whatever-happened-green-new-deal
Source: Washington Monthly
by Joel Dodge
“In a 2023 New York Times column, Ezra Klein coined the term ‘everything-bagel liberalism’ to describe the phenomenon of projects that liberals favor getting weighed down by seemingly ancillary requirements liberals impose on them. He noted, for instance, that in California, strict labor and environmental standards embedded in various pieces of legislation passed by the Democratic legislature over the years have made it too costly and time-consuming to build subsidized housing for the homeless. This same problem, he warned, would imperil one of the centerpieces of the Biden administration’s economic policy: the CHIPS and Science Act. Klein praised the aims of this flagship legislation to reshore semiconductor manufacturing with a $39 billion fund to attract companies to the United States.” (04/24/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/24/in-defense-of-everything-bagel-liberalism/
Source: Orange County Register
by Ben Bayer
“Donald Trump’s April 2 tariffs paralyzed businesses that rely on international trade, wreaked havoc with financial markets, and injected new economic uncertainty into everyone’s life. Far from offering ‘liberation,’ Trump’s executive orders embody an arbitrary lawlessness that threatens the individual liberties of the entrepreneurs who create goods and services so many of us depend upon. In an effort to stand up for the rights of aggrieved small businesses, two recent lawsuits argue that the executive orders lack statutory authority. … It may be prudent for businesses facing closure to seek relief from these tariffs by asking the courts to overturn the executive orders as lawless. But in truth, the IEEPA itself is lawless at its heart. Its key provisions are ripe for the abuse of tyrants opposed to individual freedom.” (04/24/25)
Source: Foreign Policy
by Emma Ashford
“Vladimir Lenin once noted that there are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen. By that standard, the first hundred days of Donald Trump’s presidency have comprised at least 20 years of foreign-policy change. The administration’s ‘move fast and break things’ approach to foreign policy has been consistent only in its chaos. … how are we to make sense of the chaos? It’s clear that the second Trump administration is aiming for change — not inertia — in U.S. foreign policy, though the direction of that change is unclear. Still, there are four explanatory models worth considering as we try to explain its choices so far.” (04/24/25)
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Nations prone to split over ethnic or religious divides often find ways to bond by embracing a higher civic identity. Ethiopia just set a small example of that. Two top leaders – from different ethnic groups – found a way to avert a renewal of a vicious war that ended two years ago. Peace prevails for now in Ethiopia’s restive state of Tigray, as does a desire for unity around national ideals. Less than a month ago, most observers of East African politics widely expected that simmering tensions in Tigray would boil over into conflict again. Their concerns were heightened when disgruntled members of Tigray’s security forces seized key government buildings in an intra-Tigrayan dispute over jobs. Three officers had been suspended by the state’s interim administration. The then-head of Tigray called for direct federal intervention after he fled in March to the nation’s capital.” (04/23/25)
Source: Yascha Mounk
by Yascha Mounk
“Imagine this scenario. The interior minister of a country that considers itself a democracy reports scores of citizens to the police for making critical statements about her while she is in office. Many of them are given hefty monetary fines or even prison sentences. In protest, a journalist publishes a satirical meme. It features a real photograph of the interior minister holding a sign that is digitally altered so that, apocryphally, it reads: ‘I hate freedom of speech.’ As if to prove the point, the interior minister reports the journalist to the police. He is duly prosecuted and, after a brief trial, given a seven-month suspended prison sentence. Would you say that this nation has a problem with free speech? If you do, then you should be very concerned about what has happened in Europe over the last few years.” (04/24/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/europe-really-does-have-a-free-speech