“In the technology arms race between the United States and China for dominance in artificial intelligence (AI), we are often told that the decisive factor will be computational power: who can build more data centers, secure more advanced chips, and train larger models more cheaply. Those are not irrelevant, but nor are they the crux of the competition. The true contest is one of political culture.” (03/16/26)
“My son spent last week training in defensive pistol use at Gunsite Academy, in Arizona. The scheduling couldn’t have been timelier given the double terrorist attacks on Thursday. Both incidents were stopped by people at the scene who were willing and able to end the threat without waiting for police to arrive. It’s not something most of us want to think about. But if somebody decides to take out their grievances on innocents, any of us could become default defensive details for ourselves and the people around us.” (03/16/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“When a monster military like the US circles its prey for possible attack, very little can go wrong. Painful lessons of past wars have taught state leadership how to avoid mistakes that can drag the country into interminable conflict. If the order to pounce is given, the outcome will soon be decided and the winner never in doubt. The foregoing is offered as the naive view of US foreign policy. But maybe the one currently in charge of the planet has digested Sun Tzu. Maybe the blatant seriousness of the threat will frighten the enemy into submission without a single shot—or missile—being fired. But what happens after they surrender?” (03/16/26)
“In Observations upon Liberal Education, Turnbull delivered ‘the substance of all that hath been said [on the subject of education] by the ancients or moderns’ — including Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Locke, Milton, and Rollin. Turnbull borrowed freely from these authors. He described education as the French historian Charles Rollin did, as ‘the art of fashioning the heart and mind.’ Although he recommended the Socratic method — that is, for-and-against argumentation — as the best way to teach, he did not think the teacher’s role was to remain ‘neutral’ about content. He stated plainly that education should be oriented toward the ‘true philosophy,’ which includes ‘just and full conceptions of human duty, dignity, and happiness.’ What makes Turnbull’s educational program liberal is that it enables the student to develop mastery over passions and appetites. This is a far cry from what we think of as ‘liberal’ today.” (03/16/26)
“Tennessee lawmakers have taken a bold stand against the misuse of taxpayer dollars in public education. On March 10, House Bill 793 advanced out of a full committee with a 15-9 vote, divided mostly along party lines, with Republicans in favor and all seven Democrats opposed. The proposal is scheduled to be heard on the House floor on March 16. The measure now requires public and charter school officials to verify students’ immigration status at enrollment and report the aggregate results to the state. The proposal originally empowered school officials to deny enrollment to students who could not prove lawful [sic] presence in the United States or to charge their families tuition.” [editor’s note: If you doubted that DeAngelis’s fake “school choice” advocacy was about anything and everything but freedom, now you know for sure – TLK] (03/16/26)
“I’m going to give our ‘Secretary of War’ a little credit. I will assume that even someone as openly bloodthirsty as Hegseth would not deliberately blow up a school building filled with little girls. But this tragic accident that led to the death of at least 165 Iranian girls between the ages of 7 and 12 was the direct result of Hegseth’s policy. The main point of the ‘woke’ rules of engagement that Hegseth has constantly derided, and told the military to ignore, is to prevent tragic accidents like the bombing of a girls’ school in the middle of the day. The rules are designed to try to minimize civilian casualties. This means reviewing designated bombing sites to make sure they are, in fact, military targets.” (03/16/26)
“Without charismatic Castro and Russian/Venezuelan support, and with sky-high oil prices, the communist regime is brittle. But as the Cuban-born secretary of state discovers in Iran, breaking things is the easy part.” (03/16/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Nick Cleveland-Stout & Ben Freeman
“In 2024, top think tanks received over $25 million from foreign governments and $7 million from Pentagon contractors, according to the most recently available donor rolls. This figure is a conservative estimate, as about 40% of think tanks do not disclose any donors at all. These findings come from our newly updated Think Tank Funding Tracker, which now includes the top 75 foreign policy think tanks in the U.S. and tracks all of the foreign government, U.S. government, and Pentagon contractor money flowing to them. The top Pentagon contractor donor was Northrop Grumman, which gave over $1.1 million to think tanks in 2024. These same think tanks routinely promote ambitious new weaponry which benefit their donors.” (03/16/26)
