“[E]ach year, as our primary means of sewage disposal, millions of tons of toxic sewage sludge, labeled as ‘biosolids,’ are spread as agricultural fertilizer across our nation’s farmland, where rural Americans call home. I know this because my family lived it, and it made us very sick. We had to leave our home to save our health. The unthinkable illnesses my family suffered motivated me to seek independent facts. After all, we had authorities at every level telling us that this practice was safe, but our experience told us otherwise. What we uncovered in our testing and research — including the statistically significant increased relative risk of disease in a community where sludge is used on farmland — left us no option but to take action.” (03/13/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Stephen Weese
“In the US, we love our cars. Nearly 92% of households have access to a motor vehicle. We have car shows, car racing, car dealerships everywhere, and even TV shows about cars. It’s an accepted part of our society. In a geographically expansive country like ours, cars are essential for many. Along with car culture, we also have a cultural acceptance of the dangers and even fatalities that come from car accidents. The US (human) accident rate is approximately 2,000 per million miles driven. Around 40,000 people are killed each year in auto accidents. … What if we could reduce the number of injuries and fatalities to 50% of what they are now? Or even further, what about 80%? Would it be worth it to switch to self-driving cars then? Interestingly enough, preliminary numbers from Waymo indicate that they already are 80% safer.” (03/13/26)
“When tax rates rise, taxpayers work less, shelter their money and invest differently, compressing the tax base until the yield reverts to its historical equilibrium.” (03/13/26)
“As my colleague Bob Kuttner explains, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tim Scott (R-SC) have moved through a bipartisan housing bill supported by President Trump that if signed would represent the most (only?) progress of the second Trump term. The bill passed 89-10, reflecting awareness that housing affordability is a critical subject to loosen public anger over an economy that doesn’t work for most of them. The bill mostly adds funding to build housing, tackles land use rules, and lifts restrictions on manufactured housing that could lower costs of construction. But on Wednesday, there was apparently only one provision worth talking about on the shambling mound that used to be Twitter: a requirement that investment companies that build single-family homes in order to rent them out (a strategy that has advanced over the past decade known as ‘build-to-rent’) and have over 350 properties sell them after seven years of rent collection.” (03/13/26)
“World War III will not start with an exchange of nuclear weapons. It won’t ignite from the jostling of great empires. Nor will it result from a single madman (or two) bent on taking over the world. It won’t be any of those things because World War III has already begun. The current global conflagration began not with the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. It began with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. This blatant land grab was not only a massive war crime. Russian President Vladimir Putin also had another target in mind: the rules-based order.” (03/13/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Phillip W Magness
“[F]or all its posturing as a conservative sea change, postliberal theory has more in common with Bush-era foreign policy than it cares to admit (as we are now seeing in Iran). The main intellectual link comes in the person of Carl Schmitt, an eccentric German legal theorist from the early 20th century. Once a leading conservative academic figure in the Weimar Republic, Schmitt fell into disrepute after 1933 when he joined the Nazi Party and wrote the legal justifications for Hitler’s seizure of power. Schmitt’s involvement with Nazism rightfully wrecked his postwar academic career, yet he managed to retain a stream of academic interlocutors who saw flashes of brilliance, or at least provocative insight, in his writings on constitutional theory.” (03/13/26)
“War with Iran is being sold as ‘strategy,’ but it looks a lot like habit. A familiar pattern repeats: vague objectives, elastic legal theories, and a confident promise that the costs will be contained. Then the bill arrives anyway, in blood, money, and credibility. In this round, the costs are already visible in the most predictable place: energy. Fighting that threatens traffic through the Strait of Hormuz does not just ‘hurt the other side.’ It shakes a chokepoint that, in 2024, carried about 20 million barrels per day of oil, roughly 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption. Markets do not care about speeches. They price risk, and they pass it along to households and firms. Calling this ‘a small price’ is not analysis. It is marketing” (03/13/26)
“If you’re looking for the most elegant way to wrap up our ‘little excursion’ in Iran, it’s this: President Trump should follow what might politely be called the ‘declare victory and head for the airport’ strategy. You know the drill: Announce that we’ve set back Iran’s nuclear programs a decade, pounded their navy into submission, and turned the ayatollah into a fine mist. Mission accomplished! … Trump will have signaled to the world he (we) can’t endure any insurgent resistance, empowered the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to run the country and likely angered Israel in the process. But his domestic political base will believe he won, and fan service has always been his top political priority. Besides, once you’ve entered a war without a coherent justification, clearly defined goals or a credible exit strategy, you’re lucky to get out at all.” (03/13/26)
