Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Brennen VanderVeen
“Imagine putting a political sign in your yard, only to have your town threaten to fine you $1,000 a day for not following arbitrary size and placement rules. That’s exactly what happened to four residents of Lodi, New Jersey. But with the help of FIRE Legal Network attorney Randall Peach and his colleagues at the law firm Woolson Anderson Peach, they fought back — suing Lodi for violating their First Amendment rights. Like many places, Lodi regulates yard signs on private property, but its rules blatantly violate the First Amendment by singling out ‘political’ signs — regulating how tall, wide, and close to the property line such signs can be, as well as whether they are up during the ‘correct’ time of year.” (02/26/25)
“Imagine that you are the mayor of a mid-sized American city. Over the past five years, your citizens have watched serious crime and disorder steadily rise, and now they are demanding action. Unfortunately, like the average municipality, your city has faced declining operating revenue as a share of GDP over the past decade. The additional funds provided by the American Rescue Plan in 2021 have long since dried up, and with Congress divided over spending, it’s risky at best to rely on new federal dollars to combat crime. This means you must do more with the resources you already have.” (02/27/25)
“Since assuming office, World Bank President Ajay Banga has pursued a clear agenda: mobilize vast amounts of private capital in service of the bank’s goal to end poverty on a livable planet. There are many valid criticisms of this approach, but none speaks louder than a deeper look into the World Bank’s own private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, or IFC, and its dealings. Urgewald’s research on IFC trade finance in Financial Year (FY) 2022 and FY2023 shows just how slippery the private sector slope can be. Indeed, the IFC trade finance program’s alarming developments exemplify the World Bank’s overall trajectory: throwing good money after bad, neglecting environmental and social standards, and prioritizing private profit over public well-being. From FY2017 to 2023, the IFC trade finance portfolio saw a hefty 86% increase. In FY2023, trade finance amounted to 58% of the IFC’s total portfolio.” (02/27/25)
“Trump 2.0 began, as promised, with an onslaught of dictatorial executive orders (initiating massive deportation sweeps, revoking temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, threatening to rescind birthright citizenship and withdrawing federal recognition of trans people) immediately followed by across-the-board attacks on the core structures of the federal government. The dizzying pace confounds journalism as well as sanity; by the time this is published, Elon Musk may have gained (likely illegal) access to still more government systems and Trump may have issued and walked back yet more threats. Already, the pardons of Jan. 6 rioters (including leaders of two far-right organizations who had been serving lengthy prison sentences) have receded from headlines amid ever more breaking news of systemic spending freezes, the firing or coerced retirement of countless government workers and a wholesale assault on the national scientific infrastructure, including the extensive removal of public data from government websites.” (02/26/25)
“Over the past few years, DEI has been turned into both a sacred cow and a political scapegoat, depending on who you ask. But here’s what I’ve noticed — too many folks on the right have started blaming DEI for just about everything, from plane crashes to bridge collapses to stubbed toes, without any real evidence. It’s become the conservative version of how the left cries ‘racism’ at everything, and quite frankly, it’s embarrassing.” (02/26/25)
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“Anyone who wants to put America first needs to start by putting the Constitution first. This should be non-negotiable. Winning an election does not give President Trump — or any politician — the authority to sidestep the Constitution and remake the government at will. That’s not how a constitutional republic works, even in pursuit of the so-called greater good. Thus far, those defending the Trump administration’s worst actions, which range from immoral and unethical to blatantly unconstitutional, have resorted to repeating propaganda and glaring non-truths while insisting that the Biden administration was worse. ‘They did it first’ and ‘they did it worse’ are not justifications for disregarding the law.” (02/26/25)
“On ascending the throne in 1881, Tsar Alexander III of Russia proclaimed that ‘From henceforth, all matters of state will be discussed quietly between Ourselves and God.’ Both parts of this statement contain excellent advice for contemporary leaders. If you have a direct line to God (and several obviously think that they do), you should use it. And whether talking to the Divinity or anyone else, international affairs should be discussed quietly. This is probably pointless advice when offered to products of democratic political systems; and in the case of President Trump he would need to experience something like a lightning bolt on the road to Damascus to follow it. Nonetheless, recent days have, or should have, offered a lesson in the folly and dangers of megaphone ‘diplomacy.'” (02/26/25)
“I’m disappointed with how many former libertarians are now fans of big government just because Donald Trump is the president. Some have abandoned all pretense of supporting liberty. If this is all it takes to make someone turn their back on liberty, were they libertarian to begin with? To me, it matters what you do, not what you say you are. This includes some highly influential ‘libertarian’ social media accounts that now seem to be nothing more than Republicans using ‘libertarian’ in the name. … ‘Libertarian’ has a specific meaning; it means you reject the initiation of force, property rights violations, and fraud as ways of dealing with others; those are things no one has a right to do.” (02/26/25)
“Conflict theory is the belief that political disagreements come from material conflict. So for example, if rich people support capitalism, and poor people support socialism, this isn’t because one side doesn’t understand economics. It’s because rich people correctly believe capitalism is good for the rich, and poor people correctly believe socialism is good for the poor. Or if white people are racist, it’s not because they have some kind of mistaken stereotypes that need to be corrected — it’s because they correctly believe racism is good for white people. … I think simple versions of conflict theory are clearly wrong. This doesn’t mean that simple versions of mistake theory (the idea that people disagree because of reasoning errors, like not understanding Economics 101) are automatically right.” (02/26/25)
“Many Americans, including me, have had frustrating experiences with content moderation on social media platforms. Andrew Ferguson, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), wants us to know that such experiences are not just annoying or perplexing; they are ‘un-American’ and ‘potentially illegal.’ Ferguson, who began soliciting complaints about ‘Big Tech censorship’ last week, touts his initiative as a blow against ‘the tyranny of Big Tech’ and ‘an important step forward in restoring free speech.’ But like Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ferguson is flexing his regulatory powers in a way that undermines freedom of speech by meddling in private editorial choices.” (02/26/25)
