Source: The UnPopulist
by Andy Craig
“This president’s vulgar self-glorification is revolting to a self-governing people and must not stand.” (04/20/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/from-res-publica-to-the-united-states
Source: The Atlantic
by Eliot A Cohen
“A reasonable rule is that once you begin making an argument ad Hitlerum — comparing some malevolent politician to Hitler or some malignant movement to the Nazis, or declaring a brutal (but non-eliminationist) war a genocide comparable to the Holocaust — you have lost the plot. The facile but extreme analogy is the first resort of the unimaginative alarmist. To this we should now add the argument ad Orbánum, namely, the view that the Trump administration is just like that of the creeping, well-nigh unstoppable, and irreversible corrupt authoritarian ruler Viktor Orbán.” (04/20/26)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Cindy Cohn & Betty Gedlu
“For years, EFF has pushed technology companies to make real human rights commitments—and to live up to them. In response to growing evidence that Palantir’s tools help power abusive immigration enforcement by ICE, we sent the company a detailed letter asking how the promises in its own human rights framework extends to that work. This post explains what we asked, how Palantir responded, and why we believe those responses fall short.” (04/20/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“When we had shipping expert Sal Mercogliano on our Organized Money podcast, he said that for every day the Strait of Hormuz is shut down to traffic, it’ll take a week to untangle the problem afterward. Yesterday was day 52 of the crisis, so that’s a year on the back end, even if it ended imminently. So get used to more from us at Aftermath, as we detail the consequences before the fighting even stops. Tell your friends and scroll through previous editions at prospect.org/aftermath. We are [still at war]. My colleague Bob Kuttner ran down the latest as of yesterday afternoon. The fundamental problem is that this war turned the Strait of Hormuz into a bargaining chip, and both sides want to use that chip by closing the strait, which continues to punish the global economy with price spikes and shortages.” (04/21/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/04/21/aftermath-hormuz-farm-crisis-gulf-states-fertilizer-aluminum/
Source: Reason
by Joe Lancaster
“In recent weeks, a growing number of Democrats and progressives have called on federal officials to invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to remove President Donald Trump from office. Even some of Trump’s most stalwart onetime allies are joining in. While it may feel good to wishcast about booting Trump from the presidency, the 25th Amendment is perhaps the most unlikely strategy possible.” (04/20/26)
https://reason.com/2026/04/20/dont-count-on-the-25th-amendment-to-dethrone-donald-trump/
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by James Bovard
“Presidents perennially claim that they possess their power thanks to ‘the consent of the governed.’ This phrase, a signature line of the Declaration of Independence, has echoed in official declarations ever since Jefferson’s time. President Harry Truman assured Congress in 1952, ‘No government can be invested with a higher dignity and greater worth than one based upon the principle of consent.’ But this has long since been a charade. As the federal government has become far larger and more heavy-handed, it is ever more important to persuade people that they consented to their oppression. But political consent is gauged very differently than consent in other areas of life.” (04/20/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/consenting-to-endless-coercion/
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“I might not win an argument explaining how San Jose’s public surveillance relates to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. But. … That amendment insists that people have a right ‘to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,’ and that governments may not search and seize property without a warrant ‘upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’ … I’m biased: mass surveillance is Orwellian. Do we want our government keeping track of us that much? Especially as in San Jose, where not only can over a thousand police department employees scour the data sans any legal warrant, but the department also shares this resource with over 300 agencies across the state. Creepy. That’s the word for it.” (04/20/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/04/20/c-word-in-surveillance/
Source: Reason
by Jeff Luse
“From higher crime to teenage stoners, here are things that the weed debate got wrong.” (04/20/26)
https://reason.com/2026/04/20/3-disasters-that-legal-weed-didnt-unleash-despite-the-forecasts/
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“Supporters of the income tax implicitly endorse the idea that our rights are gifts from government and, thus, can be revoked by government at the will of our rulers. Adoption of the income tax signified the abandonment of the belief that individuals have inalienable rights granted them by the Creator. Therefore, those who believe in natural rights must reject income taxation. It is also a violation of the people’s rights when the central bank reduces the value of the dollar, and thus the people’s purchasing power, via the hidden inflation tax.” (04/20/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/america-land-of-the-not-really-free
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Philippe Lemieux
“Modern economic policies increasingly give an impression of unreality. Governments announce reassuring indicators while individuals experience something entirely different: persistent inflation, housing shortages, stagnating purchasing power. This gap is not merely an analytical error. It reveals a deeper problem: the state no longer reacts to economic reality as it is lived, but to a reconstructed version built from models, indicators, and abstract categories. The market, by contrast, does not rely on representation. It emerges directly from human action.” 904/20/26)