“There’s broad bipartisan agreement that the federal government pays too much for goods and services yet procurement timelines remain far too slow. Over the past year, the Trump administration has been working on the ‘Revolutionary FAR Overhaul’ (RFO), described in an executive order as an effort to ‘create the most agile, effective, and efficient procurement system possible.’ To achieve this, the EO directs an overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and agency supplements so that they contain ‘only provisions required by statute or essential to sound procurement.’ So far, the administration has succeeded in making provisional changes to the FAR, which many agencies have adopted.” (04/23/26)
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by Dylan Soares
“State management is the rule, not the exception, of wildlife management in the U.S. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) displaces it only when the best available science shows a species is endangered or threatened, thereby requiring federal oversight. That principle is at the heart of PERC’s amicus brief in Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which argues that political and policy disagreements with state management cannot override the ESA’s science-based standard.” (04/23/26)
“How does the supposedly most fearsome regime in the violent Middle East now find itself on the verge of an utter economic and military collapse? Iran’s half-century-long deadly terrorist reputation peaked with the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel that it helped fund and coordinate. Iran’s terrorist ambitions of running the Middle East had accelerated after witnessing Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and his administration’s distancing itself from Israel. Biden’s humiliation by a series of Chinese slights and the Russian invasion of Ukraine further eroded American deterrence. European appeasement was another force multiplier of Iranian hubris.” [editor’s note: And yet somehow the mighty US hasn’t decisively defeated them – TLK] (04/23/26)
“For Earth Day in 2026, the celebratory events held April 22 numbered well over 10,000 worldwide. From cleanups to teach-ins to tree planting, such activities help boost enthusiasm for caring about the environment. Ultimately, however, it is during the other days of the year that follow-through can bring those good intentions to fruition. Over decades of Earth Day celebrations, many individuals have found that a focus on environmental care in local communities can reap tangible civic and social benefits. A case in point is Philadelphia, where a long-standing project in urban greening has been linked to drops in crime. That success has led the neighboring city of Chester to trod the same path. Philadelphia’s story began with green-thumbed activists from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society seeking to recover good neighborliness, square foot by square foot.” (04/22/26)
“I’ve been suspicious of the Southern Poverty Law Center for some time. The SPLC, a nonprofit founded in 1971, was built to combat hate and discrimination. The mission sounds worthy enough. But then the group began publishing its annual ‘Year in Hate and Extremism’ report, identifying hundreds – sometimes more than 1,000 – ‘hate groups’ across the United States. In 2019, it labeled Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent conservative legal organization, a ‘hate group.’ Calling a firm that focuses on First Amendment and religious liberty cases a hate group is like calling a defense attorney a criminal for representing the accused. For many conservatives, that was a bridge too far, and it eroded their trust in the SPLC. I thought I might have been onto something. It turns out the situation could be even more serious.” (04/23/26)
“Writing more than 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian Plutarch gave us an eloquent description of what modern historians now call ‘micro-militarism.’ When an imperial power like Athens then, or America now, is in decline, its leaders often react emotionally by mounting seemingly bold military strikes in hopes of regaining the imperial grandeur that’s slipping through their fingers. Instead of another of the great victories the empire won at its peak of power, however, such military misadventures only serve to accelerate the ongoing decline, erasing whatever aura of imperial majesty remains and revealing instead the moral rot deep inside the ruling elite. There is mounting historical evidence that America is indeed an empire in steep decline, while President Donald Trump’s war of choice against Iran is becoming the sort of micro-military disaster that helped destroy successive empires over the past 2,500 years …” (04/23/26)
“Mancur Olson’s The Rise and Decline of Nations doesn’t provide a particularly optimistic picture: once your nation has been stable for a while, and may even have risen to wealth, it becomes more and more vulnerable to ‘institutional sclerosis.’ This happens because small groups are better able to overcome free-riding, resulting in their ability to effectively skew the system towards their own interests. As more and more of these groups emerge, survive and are able to reap their rents—protected from that competition which makes for general progress and growth—the overall system deteriorates. If you take Olson’s work to its logical conclusion, a very effective cure for economic stagnation is a catastrophic war. That is obviously not a desirable solution. But Olson was pointing to a real issue: the longer a society remains stable, the more it gets choked by special interest groups.” (04/23/26)
“[W]hat are Republicans to do? They try blaming Joe Biden, but the public does not buy that he is still responsible for the economy. They try preconditioning the electorate to dispute the 2026 election with specious fraud claims, but have found none: courts have slapped down demands for voter rolls (a scheme to purge voters), and a blue wave would make fraud claims entirely unbelievable. They try labeling the affordability crisis a ‘hoax,’ which only further enrages voters. They try to distract voters from serial failures with mean-spirited attacks on trans Americans, but the vast majority of voters do not put that on the list of their top concerns. … In sum, Republicans are rarely asked what they have done to deserve re-election.” (04/23/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mike Salem
“As London heads toward local elections on May 7, voters will hear plenty about housing, crime and the cost of living. But on the streets, literally underfoot, a smaller, more visible issue is shaping perceptions of how well the city is run: the explosion of dockless e-bikes. What should have been a triumph of consumer choice and green innovation has instead become a daily frustration. Across the capital, rental bikes are left sprawled across pavements, obstructing pedestrians and provoking growing public irritation. For many, this looks like a failure of the market. In reality, it is the opposite.” (04/23/26)
