Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry McDonald
“On the day the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, I wrote in this space about ‘the world’s homeschooling moment,’ projecting a spike in the number of families who would choose homeschooling and other alternative education options in the wake of school closures. I predicted that while most children would return to their conventional classrooms post-pandemic, some families ‘may start to wonder if homeschooling or other schooling alternatives could be a longer-term option.’ Six years later, it’s clear that many families wondered this. … Hybrid homeschooling programs, along with other creative schooling options, are expanding across the US. These models often provide more curriculum freedom, scheduling flexibility and individualization than traditional schools — public and private.” (04/26/26)
“The executive order President Trump signed in February protecting and encouraging the production of glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Roundup, is a major victory for Bayer AG, the German biotech giant that produces the notorious herbicide. The company has been aggressively implementing its five-point plan to thwart the ability of cancer patients to sue over claims that it failed to warn them about the link between Roundup and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But Bayer is not resting on its laurels, and is pushing for a more permanent win in the Supreme Court this spring — and eventually in Congress. By the time Bayer introduced its plan to stem a flood of Roundup-related lawsuits in 2021, the company already owed billions in verdicts and settlements.” (04/27/26)
“The longtime Nashville public defender discusses what she’s learned from 20 years in the trenches, what needs to change, and what she would do on the bench.” (04/26/26)
“When the goal of a war is not clear, it makes any negotiation for achieving a face-saving solution very difficult, especially when the opponent has the strategic advantage. The history of American war has always involved starting and stopping them with an eye toward the election calendar. Unfortunately, the sophisticated Iranians are aware of this fact. They have every incentive to appear reasonable in any negotiations, but stall in an American election year. They understand that Trump and the Republicans will get ever more desperate and be willing to make ever greater concessions to get rid of the martial tar baby as an election nears, in which the Trump administration has already made Republican prospects dim.” (04/25/26)
“I’m no pacifist. I fully support violence in immediate self-defense of one’s own life or the lives of innocent others, and you won’t find me shedding any tears for those who, having overseen and ordered non-defensive violence, eventually pay the ultimate price for their misdeeds. BUT! When considering an attempt to kill someone, even if the target arguably deserves to die, the likely consequences of one’s own actions are worth considering. If Donald Trump — or any other president — dies at the hands of an assassin, two such consequences follow as night follows day. First, that president becomes a martyr. His party and/or movement become stronger, not weaker. … Second, the regime that president led opportunistically uses the assassination to expand its police and surveillance powers, and clamp down on dissent. Especially the varieties of dissent associated with the assassin’s persona.” (04/26/26)
“I first encountered the term ‘omnicause’ in a 2024 article by Hadley Freeman. As Freeman puts it, ‘The Omnicause is, simply, every cause you must care about if you’re A Good Progressive rolled into one, because everything in the world is connected.’ Thus, ‘trans rights are connected to Palestinian rights are connected to environmental concerns, and any self-respecting progressive who cares about one has to care about the other two … According to The Omnicause, they’re all magically connected. It’s the fatberg of causes, and the fat gluing them all together is Western narcissism.’ Freeman defines the omnicause as specifically a progressive thing. I disagree. The right — and I have my own personal experience to back this up — is more than capable of having an omnicause, and what we saw from President Trump’s awkward interaction with DoorDash Grandma was an assumption that the MAGA fatberg would hold strong.” (04/24/26)
“A truism of life — right up there with ‘don’t read the comments’ — is that what goes around comes around. Put another way, if you live by the sword, you will eventually die by the sword. For more than a decade, these maxims didn’t seem to apply to President Trump — a man who once strongly suggested that Barack Obama had not been born in America, that the 2020 election was stolen, and that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating dogs and cats, just to name a few of his whoppers. … Trump is finally discovering what it’s like to be on the losing end of a conspiracy theory. Trump’s failure to release Epstein files was probably the inflection point. But more recently, the conspiratorial thinking about Trump has metastasized.” (04/24/26)
“In every political system, wealthy and powerful people will try to write the rules to favor themselves. Liberal democracies should use a range of policy tools to resist elite capture.” (04/24/26)
“Washington is gearing up to crack down on ‘Big Medicine,’ with populist Sens. Elizabeth Warren [D-MA] and Josh Hawley, [R-MO] leading the charge. Over the past decade, America’s healthcare system has become increasingly consolidated, leaving patients with higher prices, fewer choices, and more bureaucratic frustration. But before lawmakers swing a scythe through the healthcare sector, they should ask how it became so consolidated in the first place. Insurance and hospital behemoths didn’t emerge by accident. They’re the predictable result of federal health policy — especially the Affordable Care Act — which has made size a prerequisite for survival. Obamacare’s rules have made it far harder for smaller insurers and independent healthcare providers to compete — while giving larger firms a decisive advantage. The law’s many mandates increase costs, complexity, and financial risk, all of which are easier to absorb at scale.” (04/25/26)
“It is increasingly clear to me that our systems and institutions — of government and technology, of religion and journalism, of justice and enforcement, of economy, of enterprise, even of entertainment — are run on abuse and for the sake of abusers. This convinces me that we are dealing with a culture of abuse, a collective spiritual alignment with abuse know as supremacy — the belief that only some people matter. It’s a sickness that is systemic and social and spiritual more than it is individual, which suggests to me that the remedy will need to be systemic and social and spiritual as well. How to heal from this systemic, social, and spiritual sickness?” (04/25/26)
