“Zohran Mamdani’s promise to seize the properties of landlords he deems unworthy should send a chill down the spine of every New Yorker. ‘When necessary, we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers,’ the socialist mayor told a cheering crowd of leftists in Brooklyn Tuesday when he unveiled his ‘block by block’ housing plan. ‘For buildings that have suffered chronic neglect, we will work to transfer ownership to responsible stewards [including] community land trusts, nonprofits, or even the tenants themselves.’ Wherever in history his Marxist prescriptions have been applied, misery and tyranny follow — from Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot, 100 million deaths were caused by communist regimes in the 20th century alone.” (05/27/26)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Rindala Alajaji & Aaron Jue
“Even with the best intentions, every online age verification scheme has the same result: users are forced to reveal sensitive personal information to third parties simply to access the web. Once that valuable data is centralized, it becomes an immediate target for leaks, hacks, and misuse. This isn’t hypothetical: it has already happened several times.” (05/28/26)
“The emerging deal between the United States and Iran represents an existential danger to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future. With his coalition fracturing and elections approaching, Netanyahu can’t survive a peace that leaves Hezbollah intact and Iran’s nuclear program deferred. The only path that may keep his future viable now runs through Lebanon. This may help explain why, just hours after President Donald Trump announced that a deal with Iran was ‘largely negotiated’ through talks that excluded Israel, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to ‘increase the blows’ against Hezbollah, adding on Monday that ‘we are deepening our operation in Lebanon.'” (05/28/26)
“In his stumbling explanation of the muddled autopsy report on the 2024 election debacle, Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin uttered two pieces of wisdom that regrettably, neither he nor the party has heeded: ‘The Democratic brand is in trouble and needs repair’ and ‘I agree with folks who have said we have to learn from the past to win the future.’ Had they followed that advice, they would have seen how history tells a neglected and important story. It begins when Bill Clinton was handed the keys to the White House by a group of largely Southern officials who formed the New Democrats with the mission of putting a Southern, pro-business candidate in the White House. With its pointed references to Reagan speeches and policies, Clinton’s Second Inaugural signaled a devil’s bargain that ended a century of Democratic Party policies.” (05/28/26)
Source: Niskanen Center
by Erich Battistin, Richard Hahn, Samantha Pérez-Dávila, & Borui Sun
“Washington, D.C., offers a rare opportunity to study how police departments throughout the country might, and in fact must, do more with less. Since reaching a dramatic peak in 2023, violent and property crime in the District has fallen sharply — even as the police force shrank to its smallest size in half a century. This essay draws on Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) crime and arrest data, officer deployment records, and independent data sources to explain the role police management played in that paradox and extract lessons for American cities facing similar constraints.” (05/28/26)
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Caleb O Brown, Liam Sigaud, & Edgar Orozco
“Indiana and Ohio didn’t fall apart when they pared back certificate of need programs. Their patients ended up with more choices and shorter drives.” (05/28/26)
“AI enables Americans to navigate the legal system without attorneys, operationalizing the right to self-representation and expanding access to justice on an unprecedented scale. Can courts cope?” (05/28/26)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“The increasing arc of instability running across Africa today resembles less a series of isolated crises than a single, widening belt of state collapse, insurgency, proxy war, and foreign intervention stretching from the Atlantic coast to the Red Sea. From Mali and Niger to Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the same themes recur with grim consistency: weak post-colonial states, ethnic and religious fragmentation, weapons flows across porous borders, foreign meddling, and Washington repeatedly insisting it can manage extraordinarily complex societies with bombs, military trainers, intelligence partnerships, and favored clients. It cannot.” (05/28/26)
‘The strength and reliability of a government’s word is a critical factor in its ability to make the deals and exert the leverage which allow it to pursue an agenda at home and abroad. By altering expectations of the future, both the government and opposition can affect how much credibility the government has. This opens several options for undermining the current regime, but also carries danger for the next Democratic president. In the here and now, I see no reason to avoid using our advantage.” (05/28/26)
“There are many ways in which we can make it easier for families to care for members needing social care by giving support at home instead of in care homes. Practical support measures might include direct payments and personal budgets. We could give families control over a care budget that lets them hire flexible, personalized support, such as a known carer for specific hours, rather than fitting into rigid council-commissioned services. Technology can help with smart home adaptations such as telecare alarms, medication dispensers, fall sensors, and voice-activated devices to extend independence and safety at home, reducing the need for round-the-clock supervision.” (05/28/26)
