Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Everyone hates Israel now, which is as it should be. But we all need to understand that Israel has never acted alone. If Israel were acting alone, it would be an asshole with a pointy stick instead of an asshole with an attack helicopter. The west gave it the attack helicopter. An asshole with a pointy stick is not much of a problem. The world is full of assholes with pointy sticks. Get yourself your own pointy stick and you can deter their aggressions without much difficulty. An asshole with an attack helicopter can ruin everyone’s day. He can fuck everything up and kill whoever he wants — even people who have pointy sticks. He doesn’t need to negotiate with anyone. He doesn’t need to be polite or diplomatic. You just have to give him whatever he wants or he’ll fly over there and chain gun you and your family.” (04/13/26)
“He didn’t recognize them anymore. The world he knew had shattered, and they were all but shards. Sometimes they cut. Whether he walked among the market throngs or sat alone in the forest, he felt alone. In that solitude, he was hollow and anxious, surrounded by loud waves of change, fear, and anger. Sometimes he wanted to gasp and kick, thinking that soon he might tire of treading water, then fall into the deep and drown. But a few, he saw, had turned back to the old ways—the books, the traditions, the places of worship.” (04/13/26)
“As a full-fledged narcissist, Trump expects complete subservience — no matter how badly he treats others. He, therefore, must have been shocked when NATO countries did not rush to aid his disastrous war of choice against Iran. More recently, the White House was likely flabbergasted when its effort to strong-arm Pope Leo (!) triggered another Vatican tongue-lashing, which was leaked. Never in the post-World War II era have so many world leaders shown open contempt for a U.S. president.” (04/13/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Christopher J Calton
“In recent years, a growing number of states have begun to allow residential construction in commercial zones in an effort to lower rising housing costs. Since 2023, six states — California, Florida, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Texas — have passed laws requiring local governments to permit multifamily and mixed-use developments in commercial zones (and in some cases, industrial zones). Other states have adopted more modest reforms to allow commercial-to-residential conversions. The trend encouraging residential construction in nonresidential zones resembles an early model of zoning known as ‘hierarchical zoning.’ With the country facing rising housing costs and an unprecedented shortage of multifamily homes, it may be time to bring hierarchical zoning back to America’s cities.” [editor’s note: Better yet, ELIMINATE zoning! – TLK] (04/13/26)
“Ascendent leader Peter Magyar is no liberal, and is certainly not pro-Ukraine but tapped into the bread and butter issues pressing on the people.” (04/13/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Bill Kauffman
“While waiting for Vice President J.D. Vance — who as Senator Vance was among the corporal’s guard of war skeptics in that body — either to regain his voice or to reclaim his cojones from a safe-deposit box buried deep within the bowels of Trump Tower, patriots in the administration’s foreign-policy division might examine how their forebears answered the question, ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’ In Resignation in Protest (1975), the political scientists Edward Weisband and Thomas M. Franck wondered why, despite Vietnam and Watergate, there had been so few ‘courageous public defections of key disaffected members of the Johnson and Nixon administrations.'” (04/13/26)
“F.A. Hayek explained how a healthy society functions when individuals submit to the ‘discipline of abstract rules.’ These rules, which we may not even be able to articulate, create an environment where people can form expectations and cooperate with others. Even when meeting strangers, we rely on shared abstract rules.” (04/13/26)
“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 and has grown to 32 nations. Not surprisingly, the United States of America is the largest contributor to the organization, supplying 16 percent of the overall NATO budget and having the largest expenditure on national defense, totaling $980 billion, which is 62 percent of the overall defense spending of all member nations. Realizing that many nations were freeloading and not contributing their fair share, in 2014, the leadership of NATO mandated that members spend at least two percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense spending. Unfortunately, in 2024, then-NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted that nine member nations had still not met their two percent goal. The new goal for NATO is for members to spend 3.5 percent of their annual budget on defense spending by 2035. Currently, only three nations have met that goal.” (04/13/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by J Thomas Perdue
“Georgia is one of many states that has recently begun to look critically at its growing regulatory code. Lawmakers, business leaders and policy advocates have pointed out how regulations enacted by unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch have placed an unnecessary burden on the state’s workers and industries. The lack of legislative oversight in what functions as de facto lawmaking (this is especially true at the federal level) is another concern. This problem is compounded by the fact that Georgia’s code has grown unchecked for decades, resulting in a lack of transparency as well as redundant, outdated and even contradictory rules. But as the state’s code grows, so too does the list of other states that have taken steps to reduce their own.” (04/13/26)
