“A corrupt Republican president abuses his executive power to restrict free markets, placing legal constraints on free trade in goods and services, and then uses the granting of specific exceptions to shake down contributions from businessmen who are hurt by the restrictions. … That corrupt Republican president? Richard Milhouse Nixon. … Nixon’s wage and price controls inspired David Nolan to gather a group of free market Republicans — all disgusted with Nixon’s schemes — in his Colorado living room. This is how the Libertarian Party was born. … Now would be a great time for the Libertarian Party, founded in opposition to Republican corruption, to oppose another president’s meddling with the markets, potentially for his own gain. Alas, the current iteration of the party is far more dedicated to fighting MAGA-friendly culture war battles than standing up for free market principles.” (04/20/25)
“Before the end of April, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear not one, but two important education freedom cases. At stake in both is the ability of families to determine what children will learn. Unfortunately, no matter how the cases are decided, neither will get us to where we ultimately need to be for a free and equal society: money following children to whatever education they and their families choose.” [editor’s note: Only separation of school and state would achieve the “free” part of that equation; nothing would achieve the “equal” part of it, at least in any good way – TLK] (04/19/25)
“Fentanyl is a wonder drug. Not only is it useful for managing severe pain (e.g., for cancer patients and burn victims) but it also provides policy cover for … whatever. Donald Trump’s senior economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, knows that Trump’s tariff policy is dumb and destructive, and it is very difficult to make an economic case for it, so he insists that the tariffs are really part of a fentanyl interdiction policy. Trump would like to blame illegal immigrants for everything from heartbreak to psoriasis, and he reliably invokes fentanyl trafficking in his litany of immigration denunciations. The problem is that — as so often is the case with Trump and his sycophants — the facts do not quite line up with the story he would like to tell.” (04/18/25)
“It’s probably the case that investors are shifting their portfolios away from a U.S. economy that seems increasingly endangered by Trump’s presidency. (Further evidence of this: the depreciation of the dollar, the currency used to buy U.S. goods and assets.) They may also fear stagflation and are demanding higher yields because they expect the Federal Reserve will pump up the money supply (and push up inflation) in response. This is not an idle worry given Trump’s browbeating of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, even triggering fears that he’ll abuse his executive power and take the unprecedented and prohibited step of firing Powell. But there’s also a possibility of something much worse happening to the economy beyond inflation. Historically, many economic catastrophes resulted from the discovery that some prominent asset wasn’t nearly as sound as people thought.” (04/18/25)
“If any Mideast country has a big heart these days, it would be Iraq. A country that has suffered so much from war and terrorist attacks made a magnanimous gesture this week toward its neighbor Syria, which itself is now emerging from years of conflict. The gesture was to invite Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to Baghdad for an Arab summit in May. The magnanimity lies in its measure of forgiveness: Mr. Sharaa was once a leader of Al Qaeda based in Iraq and was jailed for years after the 2003 American-led invasion. He left Al Qaeda in 2016 and formed a more moderate Islamist group that overthrew Syria’s dictator this past December. He now appears to be a reformist leader guiding Syria toward an inclusive democracy. There’s another aspect to Iraq’s generosity. The country’s majority Shiite Muslims have steadily learned to work toward a common good with the minority Sunnis and others.” (04/18/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Joseph Addington
“Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have created a typical liberal artifact — a pleasant idea that can’t survive contact with political reality.” (04/19/25)
That’s what kicked off the fighting at Lexington and Concord – and started the War for Independence. But they never teach that in government-run schools. It’s almost as if they want you to believe the Founders fought a long, bloody war just to get representatives to tax them. That’s a lie. The truth? Months before the battles of Lexington and Concord, the British launched a systematic campaign to disarm the people – confiscating powder, banning imports, carrying out warrantless searches and seizures, and more. On April 19, 1775, the revolutionaries finally fought back.” (04/18/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Israel assassinated a photojournalist in Gaza in an airstrike targeting her family’s home on Wednesday, the day after it was announced that a documentary she appears in would premier in Cannes next month. Her name was Fatima Hassouna. Nine members of her family were also reportedly killed in the bombing. She was going to get married in a few days. The documentary is titled Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, and it’s about Israel’s crimes in Gaza. In an Instagram post from August of last year, Hassouna wrote the following: ‘If I die, I want a loud death. I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group; I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.'” (04/19/25)
“In some ways, the core character of the Trump administration can be seen in two Oval Office press conferences with two young, informally-dressed foreign leaders. The first was with Volodymyr Zelensky, president of a country invaded and now partly occupied by Russia, who has courageously kept his country free from total Russian domination. The second was with Nayib Bukele, a man who governs in a permanent emergency, has seized 83,000 people with no due process and put them in brutal gulags, strong-armed his Supreme Court to gain an unconstitutional second term, and is one of the worst human rights violators in Latin America. So it’s obvious which one Trump and Vance prefer, isn’t it?” (04/18/25)
“How ironic: The most inefficient bureaucracy in government turns out to be Donald Trump’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency.’ That could be humorous, except that DOGE — a creature of the right-wing Project 2025 — has been devastating to millions of people. And it’s about to get worse. Elon Musk — the flighty überrich autocrat put in charge of ‘efficiency’ by his buddy Trump — is now going after the Social Security deposits of 73 million senior citizens. But wait, hasn’t Trump himself promised (loudly and often) that he would not ax this essential retirement program? Yes … but Elon is his ‘gotcha.’ Rather than an honest kill, Musk is strangling the program with bureaucratic red tape.” (04/19/25)
