“My admiration for Denmark is somewhat different from that of Senator Bernie Sanders. He likes Denmark’s social democracy. I instead marvel at the quality of government in this country, its efficiency and relative lack of corruption. We scarcely understand how the Denmark of the Vikings got to be modern Denmark, much less how to transform a contemporary underdeveloped country in a similar fashion. I knew that I had to return to Denmark last February when my president, Donald Trump, began threatening your country and talked once again about taking over Greenland. World order cannot exist without a minimal degree of trust, and today the United States has become a giant source of distrust.” (05/11/26)
Source: Independent Political Report
by Kimber Fountain
“Critics can blame caucuses and opportunistic former chairpersons eternally, but that will not change the fact that the underlying reason the Libertarian Party cratered is because when it mattered, when the country needed it most, the party was recklessly usurped by people who abandoned an entire half of core libertarian values and chose instead the last thing independent voters desire: a small-minded, watered-down version of bigoted Republican tribalism with directions on the package that read, ‘just add weed.’ In the truth-bound, honest world where most libertarians and independents reside, integrity is what sells. Conviction is what drives the masses. Contrary to common protestations, the party was not destroyed by infighting; that is a convenient detraction from the fact that the breakdown was entirely due to the ease with which external forces infiltrated.” (05/11/26)
“Few predicted that blaming Israel and the Jews who support it would flare up in the early 21st century (and in America of all places, where there are nearly as many Jews as there are in Israel). After all, Israel is the only consensual society in the Middle East. It holds regular elections and maintains tripartite judicial, executive, and legislative checks and balances. Free speech is found in the Middle East only in Israel, where religious apostasy, criticism of one’s own country, gender equity, and tolerance of gays are guaranteed in marked contrast to all its neighbors.” [editor’s note: Israel holds regular elections from which unwelcome parties and voters are banned, has government censorship of all media bearing on “national security,” and doesn’t allow, among other things, interfaith marriage. The difference between it and the more “moderate” Arab states is that it supposedly caters to a different ethnic group – TLK] (05/12/26)
“As a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal reports, high-tax states continue to bleed residents and income. Between 2022 and 2023, California lost a net $11.9 billion in adjusted gross income (AGI), New York $9.9 billion, and Illinois $6 billion. Higher earners with income over $200,000 drove much of this exodus. In Massachusetts, they accounted for 70% of outflows, doubling the 2019 share. Meanwhile, no-income-tax states saw the largest gains. Florida added $20.6 billion in AGI, Texas $5.5 billion, and Tennessee $2.8 billion. Even non-income tax states with more frigid climes saw significant inflows, including Wyoming and South Dakota. In short, states without income taxes dominated the top destinations for both people and wealth. Missouri, with its current 4.7% top individual income tax rate, sits in the middle of the pack.” (05/11/26)
Source: Property and Environment Research
by Dylan Soares
“Restoring flows to California’s rivers is a worthy goal. But in a water-scarce state, lasting conservation requires incentive-driven, voluntary efforts, not litigation that upends centuries of water law. It involves careful balancing among fish, wetlands, farms, cities, and using tools that bring people together to solve hard water conflicts. That principle is at the center of PERC’s amicus brief in Bring Back the Kern v. City of Bakersfield, now before the California Supreme Court.” (05/11/26)
Source: Aaron Ross Powell’s Blog
by Aaron Ross Powell
“To harm someone is to inflict suffering on them and to do so out of greed, hatred, or delusion — the three roots Pali Buddhism calls unwholesome. The suffering itself and the mental state and motivations of the person causing it go together in the analysis. The upshot is that, even toward enemies, it’s wrong and, well, harmful to cause harm. What we actually want is for our enemies to be less harmful, which means released from the unwholesome states that drive their harm-doing in the first place, and so less likely to inflict suffering on others, including on us.” (05/11/26)
“There are many things which are part of ‘The Price of Liberty’ that lovers of liberty must pay. It is not just our ‘lives, fortunes, and sacred honor’ that are sacrificed for freedom. One of those offerings on the altar of liberty is giving up cherished beliefs and ‘facts’ that were taught us by our parents and grandparents, or even by others whom we love and respect, or schools from kindergarten to graduate school.” (05/11/26)
“Ridglan Farms was forced to release thousands of beagles from hideous experiments because activists formed a trans-ideological coalition. AOC-style liberals would never dirty themselves in that way.” (05/11/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
“With right-wing courts tearing up American democracy, the Strait of Hormuz blocked for two months and counting, and the price of oil heading toward $150 per barrel, the centrist political think tank Third Way is laser-focused on the most important political issue in the country: the leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Specifically, they are incensed that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been campaigning with Piker. The attacks center on Piker’s anti-Israel positions and what Third Way characterizes as antisemitism. Third Way’s president Jonathan Cowan began the campaign with an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, and the group sent a questionnaire to El-Sayed asking for specific, enumerated instances of agreement and disagreement with Piker. One could imagine a good-faith debate about whether Piker has crossed the line on occasion. He spends hours a day streaming, and that profession tends to select for people with inflammatory positions.” (05/12/26)
