Source: The American Conservative
by W James Antle III
“It is the attempted political transformation of foreign countries, especially in the Middle East, that leads inevitably to American failure. George W. Bush wasn’t unsuccessful at overthrowing Saddam Hussein or the Taliban. He was unable to quickly replace them with anything better (or in the case of the Taliban, after 20 years in Afghanistan, really to replace them at all). Trump of course doesn’t want to devote much time or resources to a political transformation of Iran …. He is perfectly happy to stroll into Pottery Barn, smash everything on the shelf, and then leave someone else with the bill. The problem is that means you have to either leave behind a political vacuum or do business with the remnants of the regime you went to war with in the first place.” (04/28/26)
“In normal fraud cases, it is the defrauded who feel the most aggrieved. But here it is their political enemies who express the outrage that the defrauded should be feeling.” (04/28/27)
“America’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been receiving lots of scrutiny right now from journalists and ordinary citizens like me — and for good reason! Detaining people en route to their kids’ schools, in hospitals, or at work shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind these days when I think of ‘freedom,’ ‘civil rights’ or ‘America.’ Nor should spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to rebuild warehouses so that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, can hold people without charges in subhuman conditions. What do you think? In all of this mayhem, it’s easy to overlook new human rights violations because there are so many each day. Violations of the rule of law have become the air Americans breathe.” (04/28/26)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Rev. John F Naugle
“Our political leaders view their own constituents with a sort of boredom or indifference. In the leadup to the [NFL] draft, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania engaged in a number of public works projects designed to improve the area in preparation for the draft. Suddenly, our governments remembered that potholes aren’t supposed to be allowed to exist and that crime isn’t supposed to be allowed to happen. For three days, Pittsburgh had a heavily subsidized and highly functional public transit system, something that hasn’t existed the entirety of my lifetime. Any one of these projects could have been accomplished at any time, but the actual people who live there provided insufficient motivation for our leaders. Rather, what really mattered to them was looking good in front of millionaires, soon-to-be millionaires, and the powerful elites who would gather to party the night away with Nelly, Steve Aoki, and 2 Chainz.” 904/28/26)
“As ‘Mad Men’ depicts, history reshapes people’s lives, perspectives, and interactions, often without them fully realizing that things have changed.” (04/28/26)
“Government uses various methods to divert wealth from wealth producers toward its activities. These methods include direct and indirect taxes and levies, monetary printing as a result of government borrowings from the central bank and borrowings from the private sector. The method of diverting wealth is of secondary importance. What matters here is that wealth is taken from wealth producers. The more that is taken, the higher the effective tax imposed on the wealth-generating private sector is going to be.” (04/28/26)
“In the week before the latest attempted assassination of President Trump, The New York Times conducted the softest of softball interviews with leftist pundit Hasan Piker. A typical line from Piker on his Twitch livestream: ‘Let the streets soak in [landlords’] red Capitalist blood.’ Talking to the Times, Piker refused to condemn Luigi Mangione for murdering a complete stranger, Brian Thompson — because, in Piker’s view, Thompson had committed ‘social murder’ by being the CEO of a health-insurance company. Piker isn’t ‘a fringe figure’ on the left [sic]. He has interviewed major Democrats and plans to sit down with California Gov. Gavin Newsom soon. New York Times journalists nod along with his ideas. If that’s fringe, what’s mainstream? The alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter also didn’t sound fringe in his manifesto.” (04/27/26)
“Energy-driven inflation and slowing growth have put the Fed in a difficult position. A look at monetary policy rules shows why holding rates steady may be the most prudent response.” (04/28/26)
“John Adams was more than the chief architect of American independence—he also gave the new states a constitutional vision for republican government.” (04/28/26)
“President Donald Trump’s televised tantrum during his April 26 interview with ’60 Minutes’ on CBS News – which aired a day after he was rushed from an event after it was crashed by a gunman – revealed the obvious fear he still holds about the Epstein files. Those more than 6 million documents potentially detail the life and crimes of his former friend, the now-dead registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. I think we’ll see more of that fear and more tantrums from Trump as the push for transparency with the Epstein files intensifies, since only about half of them have been released. Katie Phang, a former prosecutor who now works as an independent journalist, sued the Department of Justice on April 27, asking a federal judge to appoint a special master to review and release more Epstein files.” (04/28/26)
