Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Most Americans believe that Social Security is a retirement program, an income replacement program, a savings program, or an investment program. The truth, however, is that Social Security is just another welfare program like food stamps; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); Medicaid; section 8 housing vouchers; and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Social Security from the very beginning has always been an intergenerational income transfer program where the young who work are forced to support the elderly who don’t.” (04/13/26)
“The American people need the Iran war like a fish needs a bicycle. For our politicians and permanent bureaucrats, it’s a different story. The political class, adrift after the Soviet Union fell, needed a new animating mythos. Neoconservatives taught them to experience preemptive war against tinpot tyrants as a civilizational crusade. The Middle East – where America’s ‘greatest ally’ faced existential threats – offered the ideal stage for the clash between order and barbarism. Here was the role of a lifetime: to call the shots on a world-historical mission that cast unilateral hard power as virtue. No wonder they cling to it, even after every failed regime-change war.” (04/13/26)
“Between ages 12 and 17, I was obese, socially isolated and addicted to the fantasy video game RuneScape. I was home-schooled, lived with just my mother and rarely went outside. I logged over 10,000 hours in that game alone, nearly a third of my waking life during those years. That doesn’t include countless additional hours I spent on other video games, television and, of course, social media. I made friends through online chatrooms and pen pal websites because I had none in real life. I averaged well over 10 hours a day on devices. If ever there were a case study for the claim that screens destroy young minds, I would seem to fit it. And yet here I am as a 26-year-old developmental psychologist with a doctorate from Harvard. I am in good mental and physical health, with deep friendships online and off. Maybe I’m the exception. Or maybe the harms are overblown.” (04/12/26)
“Colorado mom Dana Grueser is still trying to piece together how her sweet son ended up on a locked ward screaming at her for being a Nazi and begging for his phone. … When her son Ari was 14 and starting high school, Dana says, his friend group fell apart. He and his girlfriend broke up, and his parents separated, too. Dana encouraged him to go outside, but he said no one else was out there. He started spending more time online. Dana wasn’t too worried. She’d set up parental controls. And yet, she would later learn, Ari got to the point where he was eluding all the safeguards and spending 12-14 hours online a day. Online he made new ‘friends,’ who urged him to do things like carve pentagrams and upside down crosses on his chest.” (04/12/26)
“As a badly battered Middle East hangs off the edge of a cliff by a string with a temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran, peace or anything remotely resembling it looks even less likely for Southern Lebanon than it does for the rest of that treacherous map drawn by dead British arseholes. Even if Israel were the kind of creature who could be trusted to respect a ceasefire with anyone, much of the damage is already done.” (04/12/26)
“Under the influence of neoconservatism and other varieties of hawkism, America has lost its ability to think strategically and now acts as one of the primary sources of global instability. But herein lies the opportunity, as every time the neoconservatives manage to achieve their aims, their popularity and prestige collapse once the results become apparent. New and establishment-bucking political candidates openly run against them, thanks to a strong desire amongst the public to move on from wars that don’t advance the national interest. And the neoconservatives have, potentially, sown the seeds of their own dismantling in the security state they have helped to build.” (04/12/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“In 1985, inspired by Southwest Airlines, the first major low-cost airline in the world, and following the liberalization of European airspace, Ryanair brought the low-cost model to scale in Europe, revolutionizing air travel across the continent. It did so through an efficiency-driven model that enabled the sale of extremely low-cost tickets in a market previously dominated by expensive legacy carriers. … However, 41 years later, Ryanair is preparing to cut around 3 million seats, corresponding to an estimated 75 to 90 routes across Europe. A combination of aggressive green ideology from the European Union and state-protected airport monopolies lies at the root of this decision.” (04/12/26)
