Category: Opinion

Source: The Bulwark
by Dalibor Rohac

“Once the problem area, Central Europe could become the engine of reform the continent needs.” (04/15/26)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/a-new-hungary-is-a-huge-opportunity-europe-orban-magyar-poland-tusk-czech-babis-slovakia-fico-reform-defense-ukraine-putin-visegrad

Source: The American Conservative
by Andrew Day

“If Washington truly wants peace in the Middle East (a rather gargantuan if, I know) it will need to accommodate itself to reality: The U.S. can’t force Iran to accept all its hardline demands, so the White House needs to make meaningful concessions.” (04/15/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-trump-should-handle-the-hormuz/

Source: Washington Monthly
by Ben Wildavsky

“The case for the liberal arts just got a lot stronger.” (04/15/26)

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/04/15/liberal-arts-ai-critical-thinking-skills/

Source: Students For Liberty
by Ketevani Kadagishvili

“Economic progress has always been shadowed by the fear of technological unemployment. It is a belief that a new machine or a more efficient process will leave the human race with nothing to do. In 1845, the French economist Frédéric Bastiat shattered this logic with his famous satire, the ‘Petition of the Candlemakers.’ In his story, the manufacturers of candles and lamps demanded that the government block out the sun because its free light was ruining their business and causing unemployment in the tallow industry. Today, we are seeing those same fears with the onset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) developments or taxing robot labor. Unfortunately, we seem to be repeating the historical mistake of prioritizing the survival of specific job titles over the general prosperity of the entire population.” (04/15/26)

https://studentsforliberty.org/blog/unplugging-the-sun-applying-19th-century-wisdom-to-21st-century-panic/

Source: Reason
by Reem Ibrahim

“Hungary’s voters turned against the poster boy of the national conservative movement.” (04/14/26)

https://reason.com/2026/04/14/with-viktor-orban-gone-will-hungary-embrace-free-markets-under-peter-magyar/

Source: The American Spectator
by James H McGee

“I’ve written an analysis of the April 21st redistricting vote here in Virginia. At that time, I made the urgent and emphatic point that this is an egregious power grab on the part of Democrat Governor Abigail Spanberger and the Democrat majority in our legislature. Not content with their good fortune in the most recent electoral cycle, they now insist that this should be made permanent by rigging our congressional districts in their favor — and permanent it will be, despite the dishonest framing of the measure as temporary. We’ve seen how this works too many times in the years since the left [sic] has taken control of the culture.” (04/14/26)

https://spectator.org/gerrymandering-and-the-tyranny-of-big-cities/

Source: New York Post
by Bethany Mandel

“With one question, Rep. Elise Stefanik became the general of a war against antisemitism on college campuses across America: ‘Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s code of conduct?’ The Ivy League presidents she questioned in December 2023 — just weeks after the atrocities of Oct. 7 led to an explosion of antisemitism at their schools — couldn’t answer it. The viral video of her query became the most-watched congressional hearing clip in history. Stefanik’s new book Poisoned Ivies explains how elite universities arrived at that moment — and why it was no flash-in-the-pan controversy, but an indicator of a long decline. The story she tells is about everything that led up to that hearing, and everything that followed — as reactions and responses came pouring into her office over weeks and months.” (04/15/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/04/15/opinion/elise-stefanik-and-the-sick-truth-of-colleges-moral-collapse/

Source: Quillette
by Michael Morgenstern

“What happens when human manipulation arrives at its Claude Mythos moment?” (04/14/26)

https://quillette.com/2026/04/15/move-37-and-the-coming-mindhack-claude-mythos-anthropic-ai/

Source: The Hill
by Ryan Ellis

“It’s tax time, and talk of budget reconciliation is in the air on Capitol Hill. There is no better time than now to tackle one of the more bizarre features of our tax code: a phantom capital gains tax on mutual fund savers. Most taxpayers assume confusing tax rules have at least one constant: that capital gains tax is only owed when an asset is sold. If only that were true. Each year at this time, millions of Americans open their brokerage statements and find capital gains reported in Box 2a of their 1099 tax forms, despite never having sold a single share of stock or a mutual fund.” (04/14/26)

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5828953-phantom-capital-gains-tax/

Source: TomDispatch
by Douglas H White

“I was born in the American South in 1942 ‘in the land of the free and the home of the brave’ (as the final stanza of the national anthem puts it). Francis Scott Key wrote those words in 1814. However, they were not true then, or in 1942, or today in Donald Trump’s all too reactionary America. My Blackness consigned obstacles to me (as it would have in 1814 and 1942) that White people simply don’t have. Let me explain. Throughout the 1950s, living in a segregated project in Kinston, North Carolina, there were several odd characters who (I now understand) were mentally ill.” (04/14/26)

https://tomdispatch.com/the-mental-devastation-of-racism/