Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jackie Calmes
“Trump will never face the voters again. But for him to be discredited so widely is to help ensure that the Trump line of would-be MAGA heirs ends with him.” (04/30/26)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by staff
“The Department of Justice does not need to wait for Dr. David Morens to turn on his colleagues; the evidence to charge the next key advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci is already in the public record. Greg Folkers was critical to the censorship operation at the heart of the Covid response. As Chief of Staff at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Folkers oversaw operations for the agency’s $6 billion budget and later sought to evade FOIA requests by conspiring with Dr. Morens and intentionally misspelling key phrases such as ‘g#in-of-function.'” (04/30/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-next-indictment-should-be-against-greg-folkers/
Source: Common Dreams
by Norman Solomon
“More than four months after Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin announced that he was breaking his promise to release its autopsy report on the 2024 election, the decision remains highly controversial. Arguments swirl around whether it’s wise to proceed without public scrutiny of what went wrong during the last presidential campaign. But scant attention has focused on how hiding the autopsy provides an assist to Kamala Harris, who currently leads in polling of Democrats for the party’s 2028 nomination. As Harris eyes another run, she has a major stake in the DNC continuing to keep the autopsy under wraps — and has a lot to lose if it reaches the light of day. She must feel gratified when Martin defends keeping the autopsy secret, saying that the party should not ‘relitigate’ the 2024 election and claiming that release of the 200-page document would result in ‘navel-gazing.'” (04/30/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/dnc-2024-autopsy-kamala-harris
Source: Niskanen Center
by Justin Cohen
“While none at the 1791 Battle of Wabash knew it, what was then ‘the most decisive defeat in the history of the American military’ would serve as the foundation of modern congressional oversight authority. The investigation, which focused on the conduct of American General Arthur St. Clair and the events that led to the deaths of 650 American soldiers, was unlike anything Congress had undertaken before, in part because it was not entirely clear that Congress could attempt it at all.” (04/30/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“The United Kingdom has oil in the North Sea. But it chose not to think about this resource in the long term, treating it as a temporary source of revenue rather than an opportunity to build lasting wealth. Already in the 1970s, it was clear to some economists that North Sea oil represented such a unique opportunity.” (04/30/26)
Source: Grist
by Tik Root
“Since President Donald Trump took office, the Securities and Exchange Commission has made it harder for small and activist investors to raise concerns through the government filing system known as EDGAR. Now they’re pushing back with their own alternative platform, which they call the Proxy Open Exchange — or POE. Literary puns aside, the initiative is aimed at bringing greater transparency to an increasingly restricted space. In January, the SEC said it would no longer allow investors with less than $5 million in shares to use EDGAR to send communiqués called exempt solicitations to fellow shareholders.” (04/30/26)
Source: The Realist Review
by Pelle Taylor
“Over the course of a single century, Sweden lost all four of its greatest international figures to assassination or state violence: Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest; Folke Bernadotte, the first United Nations Mediator in Palestine; Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary-General; and Olof Palme, Cold War prime minister and voice for global peace and nuclear disarmament. In each case the trail points toward a foreign state actor. In each case Sweden looked away. It seems strange when Sweden itself has been so peaceful. That none of the deaths was ever satisfactorily resolved says a great deal about how the Swedish state failed to follow through on the consequences of being a so-called moral superpower.” (04/30/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/the-price-of-moral-superpower-sweden
Source: Gideon’s Substack
by Noah Millman
“We all have embarrassing fantasies, I imagine, and most of us keep them to themselves. I have a bad habit of sharing mine with other people. One of these, one I’ve shared before and will share again now, is of an American Senate that works more like the way it was intended to, which is to say: not as a partisan body. Could that fantasy actually become reality? To make it so, you would need a Senate that was closely divided between Democrats and Republicans, and for a small group of senators to refuse to caucus with either party. If they thereby deprived either party of a majority, they would have the leverage to shape the Senate’s rules and agenda, since essentially the only ways the body could get anything done would be either for Democrats and Republicans to work together against them, or for either or both parties to negotiate with them.” (04/30/26)
https://gideons.substack.com/p/the-dream-of-a-non-partisan-senate
Source: Expression
by John Coleman
“A casual exchange with a chatbot can help someone understand a lease, think through a medical question, or navigate a personal issue. It can become specific and personal, even though people understand it isn’t a licensed professional. Yet even basic, exploratory conversations risk being labeled professional advice under a New York bill introduced this session. Senate Bill 7263 would prevent AI chatbots — defined broadly as any system that simulates ‘human-like conversation’ and provides information or services — from generating responses that would amount to the unlicensed practice of a profession like law, medicine, finance, or mental health, if that profession is normally provided by a human.” (04/30/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/licensed-to-speak-how-nys-ai-bill
Source: Fox News
by David Marcus
“Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., much like his mentor and predecessor, Sen. Mitch McConnell [R-KY] is a creature of that austere and august upper body of Congress who has completely forgotten his duty to Republican voters. It’s simple math. The Senate issue that the GOP electorate cares most about is passing the Save America Act, with its voter ID requirements and other election security measures, even if it means blowing up the filibuster. But GOP leadership insists that ending the 60-vote threshold and pushing this hyper-popular legislation through is simply impossible. Thune’s dilemma is whether his duty in this situation is to the institution of the Senate, whose rules and customs he seeks to preserve, or to the 95% of Republican voters shouting from the mountaintop to just pass the bill.” (04/30/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-sen-thunes-duty-voters-senate-colleagues