“You might as well ask why someone tugs his earlobe or scratches his chin as ponder why Trump went to war. On a certain day, in a certain place, after conversation with somebody – or all by himself – Trump decided to attack Iran. Perhaps it was a somatic reaction to an external prompt? Or an autonomic response – a fight or flight reaction – to an unknown stimulus ? We’ll never know; Trump himself doesn’t know. … Given that, it’s not surprising the U.S. is losing.” (03/20/26)
“Plato once called Diogenes ‘a raving Socrates’ and a dog. The latter insult stuck. The word ‘Cynic’ is a transliteration of the Greek Kynikos, which means dog-like. Diogenes owned the insult because the life of a dog so much resembled his own ideal of how human life should be lived. Human beings organize themselves into families and cities, and these institutions are upheld through strict customs and laws. We are animals but have deeply ingrained convictions about when and where to eat, to relieve ourselves, and to express and satisfy sexual desire. Diogenes thought these institutions and convictions, these nomismata, were ‘absurd’ and ‘ridiculous.'” (03/20/26)
“Since the inauguration of Donald Trump for a second presidential term, a student loan borrower has fallen into default every nine seconds. A federal appeals court wants to accelerate that process. Last week, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit (which includes two Trump appointees and one appointed by George W. Bush) nullified the Biden administration’s income-driven repayment (IDR) program, versions of which have been in place under presidents of both parties for over three decades. The specific Biden-era version, known as Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE), which nearly seven million borrowers have opted into, was authorized through 2028 by Congress and President Trump in the fiscal mega-bill passed just last year. Yet without any hearing on the merits, the Eighth Circuit unilaterally tossed out the program.” (03/20/26)
“he Iran hawks got the war they’d been seeking for the past decade or more—and they managed to kill off not just nuclear nonproliferation, but the concept of nuclear negotiations altogether. Every regime around the world remotely hostile to superpower interests will have to consider investing in nuclear weapons, as those have proven to be the only way to ensure any given regime’s survival. Given what just happened in Iran, the concept of negotiating that away has been torched, not unlike Golestan Palace in Tehran.” (03/20/26)
“When Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu launched their military aggression against Iran on February 28, they appeared convinced that the war would be swift. Netanyahu reportedly assured Washington that the campaign would deliver a decisive strategic victory – one capable of reordering the Middle East and restoring Israel’s battered deterrence. Whether Netanyahu himself believed that promise is another matter.” (03/20/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Five years ago, the Postal Service came up with a 10-year plan for fortifying its financial situation. That was after it had lost $14 billion over a period of 14 years. For the past five years, however, the financial situation has not gotten any better. … Thus, to resolve its crisis, the Postal Service is asking Congress to permit it to borrow more money and to charge more for postage. But does anyone really think that borrowing more money and charging consumers more for postage is going to resolve the Postal Service’s financial woes? There is another solution, one that seemingly hasn’t yet entered the minds of the members of Congress: Simply abolish the Postal Service.” (03/19/26)
“Since Congress hasn’t declared war, the executive branch has no authority to wage war. Congress shouldn’t fund something that only Congress has the power to approve when it hasn’t exercised that power. … The beauty of the situation is that all Congress has to do to take control of the situation is the same thing it’s been doing: Sit on its hands, with one of those hands gripping the budgetary wallet tight. They don’t even have to say ‘no.’ They just have to NOT say ‘yes.’ … If Congress doesn’t even possess the testicular fortitude to refrain from shelling out billions every time Hegseth sticks his hand out, what is Congress even good for? The question kind of answers itself.” (03/19/26)
“During the first Trump administration, the FBI quietly spent $5 million on Pegasus, an Israeli-developed software product known generically as zero click. Zero click permits the user to download the contents of another mobile or desktop device without tricking the user of that device into clicking on a viral link. When FBI Director Christopher Wray was confronted with evidence of this purchase in 2021, he stated under oath at a congressional hearing that his agents did not and would not use it; but they bought it because they wanted to understand how it worked. … Not trusting his own FBI director, President Joe Biden signed an executive order in 2023 prohibiting the use of this software by any employee of the federal government except for true national security emergencies. Last week, we learned that President Donald Trump quietly rescinded Biden’s executive order.” (03/19/26)
“Working taxpayers are encouraged to think of themselves as ‘lending’ money to the government to finance future benefits, but instead of the government investing those payments to generate the needed resources, those ‘loans’ are simply consumed by today’s retirees. This creates the monetary disequilibrium we experience today. Think now about bondholders. Savers believe that the instruments of public debt they own constitute wealth, even though that wealth has already been consumed and not invested. Distortions in interest and exchange rates follow from this disjunction. Either the wealth exists, or it does not, and at some point in the future, every society that creates false rights will have its day of reckoning. Unless something is done, it will be no different for the United States.” (03/19/26)
“At a recent Senate hearing on the fiscal outlook, legislators and budget experts said the quiet part out loud: the United States is running historically large deficits in non-crisis times, and we need to stop pretending that we can grow our way out of it. Washington’s problem isn’t ignorance. It’s that the only politically safe position is to acknowledge the debt crisis — and then do nothing to fix it.” (03/19/26)
