Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mani Basharzad
“Each year after the Nobel Prize announcements, laureates, who are among the greatest minds of their generation, gather and shape a broader intellectual conversation. At this year’s gathering, a Nobel laureate in physics posed a question to the economic laureates: ‘Can we grow without limit? What about finite resources?’ He added, ‘At some point, must we also modify this growth system — which wants to consume more and more of the Earth’s resources?’ To answer this question, we need to go back to a bet made about humanity’s fate in 1980. Economist Julian Simon and biologist Paul Ehrlich made a wager about the future of humanity. At the heart of the bet was a simple question: Would population growth lead to resource scarcity and human decline, or to greater prosperity and innovation?” (03/31/26)
“American taxpayers could be forgiven if recent events have left them wondering why the largest and most expensive Navy in the world is sitting well outside the Strait of Hormuz, watching powerlessly as the Iranians decide which ships they will allow to transit the waterway. After all, they must wonder, why can’t the Navy simply blast the Iranians away and re-open the strait, sending life and the global economy back to normal? Alas, the days of omnipotent U.S. sea power as a power projection instrument close to well defended shorelines are coming to an end. This change raises questions about the future of navies and the wisdom of investment in these extremely expensive instruments of national power.” (03/31/26)
“The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received over two-hundred complaints from American troops that their commanders used the Book of Revelation to frame the Iran War as a ‘Holy War’ in which President Donald Trump was chosen to ignite ‘The End Times’ as part of ‘God’s divine plan.’ When I decided to make this series about the ‘Four Horsemen of New Zionism,’ I meant it purely metaphorically. It seems some of our top brass have a more literal interpretation (welcome to the End Times). The Horseman, or rather Horsewoman, we will be spotlighting in this article is none other than the Empress of Identity, the Herald of Cancellation, Bari Weiss.” (03/31/26)
“The point of tariffs is not to make those things made by evil Johnny Foreigner more expensive. It is to enable the domestic capitalists to raise the prices of their domestically made goods: ‘HS2 firm says new steel tariffs will ‘exacerbate’ cost pressures for UK construction industry’ Doubling tariffs on imported steel will raise cost of the metal when Iran war is already inflating steel and concrete prices This is not an error nor a happenstance: it’s the whole and precise point of the act itself. … So, let’s not do that. Let’s not make everything in the country more expensive just to benefit that fraction of the 1%.” (03/31/26)
“The numbers from No Kings protests made a big splash. Roughly 8 million people declared their opposition to the present administration this past weekend in over 3100 cities and towns across the nation. But in the long run the impact of quality will be greater than quantity. Beyond the splash, the values expressed in the protests will continue to ripple through our collective consciousness. Here are some of those ripples that will spread out and energize resistance efforts in the weeks, months, and years ahead. Harmony and Equality: Those who showed up on the streets joined as one, all equal, no person better or more entitled than the other. Their participation loudly reaffirmed cherished democratic values as expressed in the First Amendment and human values anchored in the world’s religions.” (03/31/26)
“On Friday, the Iranians destroyed a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry aircraft at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The drone and missile attack on the base also injured 12 U.S. soldiers. This was foreseeable — and in fact foreseen. Yet if President Donald Trump was concerned about this predicted threat, he hid it well. … perhaps the Iranians just got lucky with the shot that destroyed the E-3 Sentry in Saudi Arabia. But since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, numerous reports have indicated that the Russians are helping Iran with their targeting of U.S. forces.” (03/31/26)
Source: The Dispatch
by Greg Lukianoff & Adam Goldstein
“Everybody understands, at least instinctively, why it matters when a president threatens the press. People also more or less understand why it matters when he menaces universities, museums, or other cultural institutions. Those are visible targets, and they read as political in an obvious way.
Attacks on law firms land differently. Part of that is because many major firms are hardly natural objects of public sympathy. Most everyday Americans won’t shed many tears for institutions associated with enormous hourly rates, corporate power, and a profession that people tend to joke about until they need a lawyer. … But that perception is exactly why this threat is so easy to underestimate.” (03/31/26)
“Meet the conservative legal minds telling the Supreme Court to side with Trump.” [editor’s note: By definition, a “conservative legal mind” would support birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship is what the US has always had, and what the US Constitution has unambiguously mandated for the last 150 years. Only “living constitutionalists” (usually calling themselves “progressives”) could hold otherwise – TLK] (03/31/26)
“For months, lone vibe coder Rafael Concepcion has obsessively built tools to counter the federal immigration crackdown — pivoting as he’s been outmatched. He’s also lost his job and become a target.” (03/31/26)
