“Five years ago, when pro-Israel groups began spending to beat left-wing candidates, their raison d’etre didn’t really become an issue in their races. UDP and the Democratic Majority for Israel didn’t focus on the Jewish state in their advertising. Progressives, winning or losing to them, didn’t talk about it either. But nowadays, unconditional US aid to Israel is deeply unpopular with Democratic voters, who are more likely than ever to sympathize with Palestinians over the Jewish state. That’s an existential threat to AIPAC. Why hasn’t it translated clearly into more primary victories for critics of the Netanyahu government?” (03/18/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“When I read what the feds did to secure the conviction of Ian Freeman for money-laundering, I was absolutely shocked. What they did perfectly exemplified the moral rot that exists within the federal criminal-justice system that operates within the statist box. Moreover, what is equally shocking to me is what appeared to me to be an utter lack of deep moral outrage by the federal judges in the case, both at the district-court level and the appellate-court level.” (03/18/26)
“In our contemporary era, there have been a slew of controversies surrounding pardons, often issued by lame duck presidents. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon is the most famous of these, but there is also George H.W. Bush’s pardon of the Iran-Contra defendants, Bill Clinton’s pardon of the financier Marc Rich, and George W. Bush’s commutation of I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby (subsequently granted a full pardon by Trump). Joe Biden does not escape scrutiny and judgment. … Is there anything that can be done to help us exit our pardon dystopia? As Trump’s second term proceeds, things are likely to get far worse.” (03/18/26)
“My first official act as the Marine Corps officer instructor at the Naval ROTC at Vanderbilt University in 1979 was to blow up a classroom. My predecessor had warned me that I would be teaching the evolution of warfare at the death hour (1 p.m.) after lunch, when the students were drowsy. He recommended an ‘attention getter.’ That day, I was lecturing on ancient Greek naval warfare and decided to use a cardboard scale model of a period warship to demonstrate the early use of fuel-air explosives. Frankly, chemistry had never been one of my strong points, and I apparently used more white gas in the mix than was needed. The resulting explosion blew the door open and set off the fire alarms.” [editor’s note: I had assumed the piece would be about the idiotic attempt to make the Corps no longer a complete self-contained force, but no, it’s another one of those “a noun, a verb, DEI” rants – TLK] (03/18/26)
“Over the last week, the war between Iran, Israel, and the United States has played out in a second theater that never sleeps: the timeline of X/Twitter. The feed is saturated with claims about battlefield damage, casualty numbers, ‘secret’ losses, and the health or death of leaders. The problem is that much of the evidence people think they are judging is no longer anchored in reality. Independent researchers and reporters have documented a surge of AI-generated, mislabeled, and recycled ‘war footage’ circulating widely on X/Twitter, including fake missile strike visuals and staged-looking scenes of U.S. troops allegedly captured. In multiple cases, digital-forensics experts concluded that viral clips were likely AI-generated. Independent fact-checking is strained not only by volume, but by automation.” (03/18/26)
“The Ides of March came and went with less drama than in 44 B.C., when Julius Caesar was assassinated. Nevertheless, 2,070 years on, there was a reason to beware mid-March this year. It marked another momentous, if mostly unremarked, moment in the nation’s accelerating self-assassination. The Peterson Foundation says that on or about March 18, the national debt will reach $39 trillion. This was less than five months after it reached $38 trillion. At our current pace of profligacy — it probably will accelerate — three trillion-dollar milestones can be passed during one fiscal year. … The debt has doubled in the 10 years since Donald Trump, on March 31, 2016, vowed to eliminate the debt in eight years. He did not try, but if he had, he would have been stymied by this grinding political dynamic: The fastest-growing age cohort is people 65 and older.” (03/18/26)
“Health care has become so expensive in the US now that it has become a threat to public safety. At least that’s the message out of Okanogan County, Washington, where Sheriff Paul Budrow announced this month he’s stepping down because the elected position doesn’t come with health insurance for his family. … ‘As an elected official, the Sheriff’s position does not provide insurance benefits, and ensuring healthcare coverage and financial stability for my family became a responsibility I could not set aside.’ Health care affordability has become a national issue, with President Donald Trump having discussed it in his State of the Union address.” (03/18/26)
“My childhood (metaphorically speaking) ended in the early 2000s, when traditional, kid-focused, Saturday morning broadcast television was fading away. Being in my thirties at the time, it was probably overdue. Even so, the misguided government regulations that helped end a rite of youth now form a case study in the futility that often results when bureaucrats wedge themselves between producers and consumers.” (03/18/26)
