Source: Informed Comment
by Juan Cole
“Trump announced a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday, April 7, the 39th day of the Israeli-US war on Iran. He depended on Pakistani mediators and a 10-point peace plan put forward by Iran itself. It did not win as in, scoring a knockout. It won in the sense that if I went 12 rounds with Deontay Wilder and was still standing up at the end of it, it would count as a win.” (04/08/26)
Source: Popular Information
by Judd Legum
“In March 1968, during the Vietnam War, members of the military killed hundreds of civilians in an incident known as the My Lai massacre. In a subsequent court-martial, Lt. William Calley argued that he was simply following orders from superior officers. Calley was convicted, and the U.S. Court of Military Appeals found that conformity with an illegal order is not a valid legal defense. Therefore, any members of the military who help destroy power plants or assist Trump in killing the entire Iranian civilization could be liable for war crimes.” (04/08/26)
https://popular.info/p/just-following-orders-is-not-a-defense
Source: Cato Institute
by Johan Norberg
“A 16-year experiment has yielded none of Viktor Orban’s stated goals.” (04/08/26)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/hungary-laboratory-illiberal-nationalism-results-are
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Caleb O Brown
“A court ordering the legislature to dismiss a duly passed impeachment resolution is not the judiciary defending co-equality. It is the judiciary subordinating a co-equal branch.” (04/08/26)
https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/supreme-court-senators-oaths-of-office/
Source: Sex and the State
by Cathy Reisenwitz
“Unlike most pride-having, mentally well individuals, I wrote about my anxieties around taking a service-sector job. (Security clearances are a big thing in Huntsville. Recently my dad joked to me that I have at least one qualification: ‘You’re impossible to blackmail!’ he laughed. This is not a challenge.) Among other things, I worried a shit job would somehow preclude me from office work. I imagined a hiring manager smelling the stench of low-skill labor on me before I even walked in.” (04/08/26)
Source: Mother Jones
by Kiera Butler
“Once allies opposing abortion, gay marriage, and supporting Trump, the war broke them.” (04/08/26)
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Today I turn 55. While my kids love to mock my age, the truth is that I feel young. Real young. Every day, my top priority is not fulfilling my duties or conforming to social expectations, but having fun. Biologists have an adjective for my state of being: neoteny. We neotenous creatures retain our juvenile traits long into adulthood.” (04/08/26)
Source: Fox News
by David Marcus
“When President Donald Trump [pretended he had] changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War last year, many saw it as merely a branding exercise, but as the fierceness of Operation Epic Fury in Iran has shown us, it was much, much more than that. On Easter Sunday, our military pulled off a daring rescue of a downed airman behind enemy lines, and what it made clear, once again, is that Trump’s Department of [Defense] is run by soldiers, not by experts, and the results are phenomenal. As Secretary of [Defense] and former frontline veteran Pete Hegseth has put it many times, his Pentagon will focus on ‘maximum lethality, not tepid legality.'” [editor’s note: If Hegseth is Secretary of War and heads a Department of War, he and it need to return all the money Congress appropriated to the Department of Defense – TLK] (04/07/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-trumps-department-war-soldiers-experts-calling-shots
Source: EconLog
by Jacob T Levy
“Over hundreds of pages, Smith patiently shows why both peace and a tolerable administration of justice are historically rare, and continually fragile. To the extent that some society or other happens to have them, it seems to be neither the natural course of things nor the result of wise and judicious statesmanship but rather barely better than luck. Smith was not an esoteric writer, but he was a patient one. He laid out arguments and counterarguments at narrative length and expected readers to follow along with him.” (04/08/26)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Kym Robinson
“Richard Nixon employed a ‘madman theory’ while he negotiated with the North Vietnamese and Soviets. Nixon wanted the leaders of those countries to think that he was unpredictable, volatile and willing to risk nuclear destruction. In turn this caused the Vietnamese and Soviet leaders to tread with reason and use cool minded methods. It forced them to make concessions and placate the irrational leader of the ‘free world.’ The theory is based on the premise that an irrational leader is more dangerous than a rational one. … It is unlikely the current US president has the calculation and awareness for such methods, let alone the understanding of history.” (04/08/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/anti-war-blog-madman-theory/