Harvey Mansfield’s Master Class
Source: Law & Liberty
by Rachel Mackey
“The Harvard professor’s new book is an invitation to escape history through liberal education.” (04/02/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/harvey-mansfields-master-class/
Category: Opinion
The FBI’s FOIA Blacklist
Source: Antiwar.com
by Patrick Eddington
“The Freedom of Information Act was designed to empower citizens to hold their government accountable. But evidence suggests the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has quietly adopted a practice that turns that principle on its head: labeling some of the people who file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as ‘vexsome.’ In effect, the agency has created a FOIA-specific blacklist. Yet when asked, it denies having done so.” (04/02/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/patrick_eddington/2026/04/01/the-fbis-foia-blacklist
For Passover: Four Questions Trump’s Iran War Speech Didn’t Answer
Source: The American Prospect
by Harold Meyerson
“As America is no stranger to war, it’s also no stranger to presidential addresses that justify and report on the wars then ongoing. No matter whether we’re winning or losing, first-strikers or get-struck-firsters, advancing or just holding the line, every previous wartime president has managed to stay on topic. But not Donald Trump. His Wednesday night speech was notable only in that he repeatedly strayed off topic. … Even granting that the topic of every Trump speech is Trump, that theme plays least well in an address supposedly intended to convince his fellow citizens that the course on which he’s set the nation is worth the sacrifices of combat and the travails (in this case, economic) of the home front.” (04/02/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/04/02/for-passover-4-questions-trumps-iran-war-speech-didnt-answer/
The Pentagon’s “Orwellian” Case Against Anthropic
Source: Washington Monthly
by Matt Watkins
“A federal judge sided with the artificial intelligence company’s argument that the government violated its right to free speech, but the dispute is far from over.” (04/02/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/04/02/the-pentagons-orwellian-case-against-anthropic/
Liberty Beyond “Rational Control”
Source: Law & Liberty
by Daniel J Mahoney
“[Harvey] Mansfield is a political scientist as much as a political philosopher, an Aristotelian who never disparages moral virtue, political nobility, or patriotic attachment to a decent and free political order such as the United States. As one, he has repeatedly instructed fellow political scientists to care more about politics as the distinctively human realm than about narrow ‘methodological’ concerns that risk obscuring the reality and true stakes of human and political life. Mansfield has never been remotely tempted to identify the theoretical life with Epicurean disdain for the dignity and grandeur of the political vocation. At the same time, he is perfectly immune to the moralism that animates so many academics and intellectuals today.” (04/02/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/liberty-beyond-rational-control/
Why Presidents Don’t Care About Inflation as Much as You Do
Source: The Dispatch
by Jessica Riedl
“For the past four years, inflation has consistently polled as voters’ top economic concern—and often top concern overall. Nevertheless, President Joe Biden steadfastly ignored those concerns and pursued an inflationary agenda until it cost his party the White House. Then, after Trump campaigned on ending ‘Bidenflation,’ he re-entered the White House and immediately unleashed his own aggressively inflationary agenda — tariffs, tax cuts, spending expansions, immigration deportations, and demands for Federal Reserve rate cuts. … presidents invariably decide to focus on offering tangible benefits and roll the dice on any macroeconomic consequences.” (04/02/26)
Burnt Toast, Stoics, and Finding Growth in Small Frustrations
Source: The Daily Economy
by Barry Brownstein
“A viral mental habit about burnt toast echoes Stoic philosophy: adversity — no matter how small — is an opportunity to practice discipline, perspective, and self-mastery.” (04/02/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/burnt-toast-stoics-and-finding-growth-in-small-frustrations/
The Evils of Paper Money: Roger Sherman and A Caveat Against Injustice
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Michael Boldin
“You are being ripped off. When it comes to fiat paper ‘money,’ Richard Sherman didn’t hold back. He saw it as an unjust and totally immoral weapon that turns government into a legalized protection racket for fraud. He made that case in his incredibly important, but almost completely unknown pamphlet A Caveat Against Injustice, where he called for criminal punishment for the perpetrators.” (04/01/26)
Trump’s April Fools’ Address to the nation
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“Expectations reached a fever pitch Wednesday, but he neither called for an end to the war nor announced a ground invasion. Bottom line: We’re not finished.” (04/01/26)
Shutdown ends with America doubting there was ever any point to it in the first place
Source: New York Post
by staff
“Not only are TSA agents getting paid, the whole absurd Homeland Security shutdown will soon end … with a whimper, wouldn’t you say? It leaves all sides in Washington a bit disgruntled and the public (especially those about to fly!) simply relieved. Senate and House GOP leaders John Thune and Mike Johnson announced Wednesday that they’d pass the bill to fund everything except some immigration-enforcement functions, then cover ICE and so on (which are fine for now thanks to special funding passed last year) in a reconciliation bill (which dodges the Senate filibuster) in a few weeks. Of course President Donald Trump took the key steps in ending the standoff, first by sending ICE agents to airports to help out and then by issuing an executive order to get TSA agents paid and so remove whatever cudgel Democrats thought they had to force ‘reforms’ to gut immigration enforcement.” (04/02/26)