“Yesterday, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers issued its annual Economic Report of the President. Like every year, it’s a wide-ranging analysis of several hot-button economic topics. While I can’t speak to the reliability of the analysis in every chapter, one thing that stands out is the chapter on housing supply. Like any policy document written by committee and expected to rationalize even the least justifiable policies of an administration, it doesn’t get everything right. Yet it doesn’t get everything wrong either.” (04/14/26)
“Trump is not the first president to fall out with the Holy Father. That said, this latest outburst is worlds away from the ‘elegant row’ between Theodore Roosevelt and Pope Pius during the Second World War, or the cordial scolding given to Bill Clinton by Pope John Paul over abortion legislation. Trump’s tantrum comes after months of tension between the White House and the Holy See – where, much to his dismay, religious officials have failed to don their MAGA hats and cheer on America’s war with Iran. … American Catholics – who comprise both 20 per cent of the US population and 22 per cent of those who cast their vote for Trump in 2024 – will no doubt be baffled by Trump’s attacks on the pontiff. Moreover, his AI-powered Jesus impersonation managed to upset even the most enthusiastic of evangelical MAGA loyalists.” (04/14/26)
“There’s money to be made in California this spring, no start-up pitch or buzzy screenplay required. Instead, signatures are one of the state’s most coveted commodities: Campaigns are paying $15 apiece to those willing to collect them. Petition distributors can thank Sergey Brin for this pay bump. In an effort to kill California’s proposed billionaire tax, the Google cofounder and other local tycoons are funding a political group that has hiked the going rate for signatures collected in support of countermeasures. In all, foes of the wealth tax are expected to spend $75 million in their attempt to quash the proposal.” (04/14/26)
“In March 2026, three prominent thinkers died within a day of each other. Lavish obituaries immediately marked the deaths of the always-wrong environmentalist Paul Ehrlich and the often-obscure political philosopher Jürgen Habermas. But for two weeks after the death of Robert Trivers, one of the greatest evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin, not a single major news source had noticed his passing. This despite Trivers’s singular accomplishment of showing how the endlessly fascinating complexities of human relations are grounded in the wellsprings of complex life. And despite the fact that the man’s life was itself an object of fascination. Trivers was no ordinary academic. He was privileged in upbringing but louche in lifestyle, personally endearing but at times obstreperous and irresponsible, otherworldly brilliant but forehead-slappingly foolish.” (04/14/26)
“Today [Tuesday], the Tennessee senate will weigh in on a bill requiring local law enforcement agencies participating in the 287(g) program to honor ICE detainers. Under the proposal, participating local law enfocement agencies would be required to hold individuals subject to an immigration detainer for up to 48 hours, giving federal officials time to assume custody. Lay of the Land According to Tennessee’s new Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division, only 49 of the state’s 95 counties now participate in the 287(g) program.” [editor’s note: “Detainers” shouldn’t be honored. If ICE wants someone, ICE should go to an actual judge and get an actual warrant – TLK] (04/13/26)
“Walter E. Williams often made the point that a policy should be judged by whether it works, not by its good intentions. This warning is especially important because politicians are experts at declaring good intentions. If we judge them by their stated intentions alone, when their schemes end in disaster they could simply remind us that they meant well. Unfortunately, Professor Williams’s warnings went unheeded. In their book Who Killed The Constitution, Thomas E. Woods and Kevin R.C. Gutzman make a very similar argument about the irrelevance of good intentions.” (04/14/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“On seeing the deep economic suffering of the Cuban people, who are now on the precipice of massive death by starvation and illness, American right-wingers love to blame Cuban socialism for what is occurring. They say that it’s not really the U.S. economic embargo that has played a critically important role in all this. And, they claim, it’s not President Trump’s and the U.S. national-security state’s oil blockade that has put the finishing touches on this horror story. The U.S. role in all this death and suffering is non-existent, the right-wingers steadfastly maintain. It’s all because of Cuba’s socialist economic system. A big part of the problem here is the moral blindness of the American right-wing when it comes to the U.S. government and, specifically, the U.S. national-security establishment.” (04/14/26)
“Populist politicians in Europe, whether left or right who use tactics of demonization and division to amass power, have been put on notice. In a much-watched election on April 12, voters in Hungary ousted Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who epitomized the continent’s identity politics of fear and hate over the past 16 years. In record turnout, they soundly opted for Péter Magyar, an astute coalition-builder who overcame a smear campaign thrown at him by offering ‘a message of love’ to all Hungarians. In a speech after his Tisza party won a supermajority in Parliament, Mr. Magyar touched on the election’s meaning: ‘It is a sin to divide the nation.'” (04/13/26)
