“The ongoing Trumpian plot to rig the midterms and end democracy is getting crazier and more dangerous by the day. The plot is also becoming increasingly layered and will likely continue all the way to next January 3, when newly elected members of the Senate and every member of the House will be sworn into office. Keeping abreast of all the twists and turns as the scheme unfolds can be exhausting and overwhelming, and that’s exactly how our narcissist-in-chief and his assorted obergruppenführers want you to feel. But don’t give in. The plot is inherently flawed and, although we can never be certain, it will ultimately fail in the face of the president’s plummeting poll numbers, the deepening affordability crisis, and the growing popular resistance movement. In the meantime, here is a list of the plot’s main elements to help you stay informed, connected, and, above all, engaged.” (03/12/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by George D O’Neill Jr.
“It is abundantly clear that most of the American people are against this latest Middle Eastern war, yet Congress is afraid to fulfill their constitutional duty to stop it. Congress is not even willing to debate our participation in that frenzy of death and destruction. Why? This decades-long pattern suggests there is some force or forces able to maintain an almost continual pro-war agenda. How does this happen in administration after administration without fail? It never seems to go the other way.” (03/12/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Damian Pudner
“Britain was once the workshop of the world. Later it became one of the most open and dynamic economies in Europe. When the post-war economic model began to falter in the 1970s the country eventually recognised that incremental tweaks would not suffice. Structural reform became unavoidable. What followed was neither cautious nor gradual. The reforms of the 1980s dismantled large parts of the existing economic model and replaced them with something far more competitive. Nowhere was that clearer than in the financial sector. The Big Bang of 1986 swept away restrictive practices, opened London’s markets and helped turn the City into one of the world’s dominant financial centres. Whether one applauds or criticises those reforms, their ambition is undeniable. That sense of ambition is strikingly absent from Britain’s economic debate today.” (03/12/26)
“In a series of sketches for Saturday Night Live, Billy Crystal played a fictionalized version of actor and director Fernando Lamas as host of the talk show ‘Fernando’s Hideaway.’ Crystal’s character would often say that it is better to look good than to feel good. This was on my mind as I reviewed recent evaluations of St. Louis’s guaranteed basic income pilot by Washington University’s Center for Social Development. The review’s claims will sound familiar to anyone who has followed these pilot programs around the country. … But as economists Hilary Hoynes and Jesse Rothstein of the University of California, Berkeley note in a review of the universal basic income literature, the new wave of guaranteed-income pilots is ‘not well suited’ to answer the most important questions about the policy.” (03/12/26)
“It is hard to overstate what a complete shambles American foreign policy has become since Donald Trump launched his war against Iran on February 28. Trump clearly believed that the initial decapitation strike would lead to the collapse of the Islamic regime and its replacement by a new leadership willing to work with the United States. He seems to have had Venezuela on his mind as a model, as he referred to it several times during the war’s first week. He and his associates failed to anticipate Iran’s capacity to strike back, as it launched rounds of missiles and drones at U.S. allies and bases in the region, disrupting Gulf economies and raising gasoline prices in the United States. What is particularly maddening about this is that anyone who has lived through the last quarter century of U.S. Middle East policy should have understood that war would produce multiple unintended and devastating consequences.” (03/12/26)
“As a gun owner in Rhode Island, you may think that no matter what wacko state laws legislators impose to make it harder to buy weapons, at least you’ll remain secure in your right to the arms you’ve already legally purchased. Not so. Bearing Arms alerts us to the fact that two bills pending in the state legislature jeopardize your right to keep your already owned — lawfully obtained — firearms. One bill does so immediately. The other paves the way for follow-up legislation that does so immediately.” (03/12/26)
“Many in the West gaze in awe at China’s apparent dominance in green energy. ‘“China is becoming a green superpower,’ read a BBC headline last month. ‘China’s Green Triumph,’ trumpeted The New York Times. China is indeed churning out solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and batteries that flood global markets — proof, advocates say, of an inevitable green transition. Yet these supposed marvels are forged amid overwhelming and surging use of fossil fuels, particularly coal. Its real energy achievements — dramatic energy ramp-ups to fuel prosperity, and advances in nuclear power — remain overlooked. In 2025, as the world invested $2.3 trillion in green energy, more than a third of that investment, $800 billion, came from China, nearly matching the US and the EU combined. But spending isn’t the best measure of investment quality. After China’s real-estate bubble went bust in 2020, capital flowed into the solar-panel industry, and the sudden influx created vast overproduction and overcapacity.” (03/11/26)
“The Roberts Court has been restoring the separation of powers in the administrative state by strengthening presidential control over the executive branch, pressing Congress to speak clearly when it delegates major authority, and insisting that judges—not agencies—say what the law means. This judicial duty is weakened by doctrines that require courts to defer to administrative agencies’ interpretations of the law. When an agency and a citizen disagree about what a federal law means, judicial deference to the agency can be decisive. That deference affects not just lawyers but also citizens subject to the rules governing energy, health care, finance, and immigration.” (03/12/26)
“Noah Webster told us exactly what happens when people join a political party – they become mindless puppets of people in power. His timeless warning that ‘faction is death to liberty’ is one we can’t afford to ignore any longer.” (03/11/26)
