Meanwhile, in Sudan
Source: Quillette
by Brian Stewart
“While Iran, Israel, and Gaza have dominated headlines, a bloody power struggle among Sudanese warlords grinds on.” (03/22/26)
Category: Opinion
Warrantless Spying Reform Just Got a Whole Lot More Interesting
Source: The American Prospect
by James Baratta
“For many years, Congress has maintained a bipartisan consensus on warrantless surveillance. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has allowed the U.S. government to surveil foreign nationals abroad since its passage in 2008, and as the Prospect has reported time and time again, domestic intelligence agencies have amassed troves of communications data, including from American citizens, through the program. The National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI do not need a warrant to access this data, regardless of whether it comes from a foreign national or U.S. citizen. Section 702, which must be reauthorized by Congress periodically, is set to expire on April 20. The House is expected to vote on it in the coming weeks. Historically, lawmakers’ attempts to meaningfully reform the program have failed.” (03/23/26)
The Turning Point in Our Lives
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker
“The Covid period was a turning point in our lives. We saw how the system that rules us truly operates and that of which it is capable. We experienced the apotheosis of the corporatist planning state, as close to dystopian-level totalitarianism as we ever knew. We observed how the media, tech, elected and unelected government, and the medical industry all work together when the stakes are high. And we observed and experienced just how completely controlling this cartel can be once it is unleashed on the entire population.” (03/22/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-turning-point-in-our-lives/
Trump Wants to Destroy Anthropic Because It Is Doing Congress’s Job of Preventing Him from Abusing AI
Source: The UnPopulist
by Adam Conner
“Over the last two weeks, the Department of Defense has initiated two wars: one against a nation with a long history of conflict with the United States; the other against one of the fastest-growing new companies in American history: Anthropic, the frontier artificial intelligence lab behind the popular Claude model. The DOD has effectively declared both Iran and Anthropic to be enemies of America, and though the weapons the DOD is using in each conflict differ dramatically — explosive missiles versus bureaucratic legal statutes — the department has made clear in both cases that its objective is to severely damage, if not totally destroy, the enemy. … Why this fight started and how the government has chosen to wage it are two separate questions, and conflating them is one of the major mistakes most coverage of this conflict has made.” (03/21/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trump-wants-to-destroy-anthropic
Autarky: Terrible at Political Scale, But Great as Individual Self-Defense
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“The war on Iran is temporarily producing the same result that actual US ‘energy independence’ — usually promoted as proposed autarky in the production/sale of oil — would deliver without ‘armies crossing borders.’ Almost all oil and gas produced in the US comes from ‘tight formation production’ — horizontally drilled wells and hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) to extract the stuff from shale . That’s more expensive than just drilling a vertical well and pumping the black gold out, as is done in the Middle East. That’s a ‘competitive disadvantage’ for US oil companies. The only way for US oil production to be profitable is for the price per barrel to be kept artificially high through ‘protectionist’ measures … or war. The US producers can only profit by increasing YOUR costs. At the level of the individual American, on the other hand, a certain amount of ‘energy independence’ — autarky! — makes a good deal of sense.” (03/21/26)
Immigration Restrictions Restrict Americans’ Liberties
Source: Liberalism.org
by Ilya Somin
“The biggest victims of immigration restrictions are the would-be migrants, who are consigned to a lifetime of poverty and oppression simply because they were born in the wrong place, to the wrong parents. But the horrific experience of the second Trump administration highlights how restrictionism also poses a grave threat to the liberty and welfare of native-born citizens. While some of the harms caused to natives are specific to the policies of this administration, many are inherent in the very nature of exclusion and deportation, and they occur even under more conventional presidents. The ultimate solution is to end all or most immigration restrictions, or at least to severely curb them.” (903/20/26)
https://www.liberalism.org/p/immigration-restrictions-restrict-americans-liberties
The Palestine Context
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman
“Much turmoil in the Middle East today is attributable to this overlooked fact: Jewish European descendants of people who had freely chosen to leave ancient Judea/Palestine established a project, Zionism, in the late 19th and early 20th century with the intention of displacing the descendants of Judeans who had chosen to stay. This is a dispute, in other words, between Canaanites who remained — from whom the Palestinian Muslims and Christians descended — and the Canaanites who willingly departed — from whom the Ashkenazi Jews descended. … For both Jewish and Christian Zionists, the alleged Roman exile of the Jews from Judea in the first century CE is a key part of the Zionist property claim, on behalf of all Jews the world over, to the land of Israel. But exile did not happen.” (03/20/26)
https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-the-palestine-context
Bluesky raises $100 million but faces a messy reality
Source: Washington Post
by Megan McArdle
“To partisans behind Bluesky, it must have seemed like a gift from the gods when Elon Musk bought Twitter. In short order he changed its name to X, shifted its moderation policies sharply to the right and sent millions of internet refugees searching for a new home. But as the ancients knew, gifts of the gods often come with strings attached. In the two years since Bluesky opened to all comers, the social media app has gained 43 million users, an amazing feat for a company with fewer than 50 full-time employees. That growth got a huge boost from Musk’s antics in the lead-up to the 2024 election, which endowed Bluesky with a base of devoted users — users who skewed heavily progressive and brought with them cancel culture tactics that had flourished on X. Those users are now the platform’s biggest barrier to growth.” (03/22/26)
You Can’t Make People Cheer For Your Wars After Committing A Live-Streamed Genocide
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I saw a clip of Fox News war propagandist Sean Hannity solemnly reading a tweet by Atlantic Council fellow Jamie Metzl which said, ‘It is profoundly disturbing that a growing segment of the far left appears to be almost rooting for Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, and other forces fundamentally opposed to the US and our allies. This seems to reflect a corrosive strain of anti-Americanism dressed up in post-colonial theory that risks blinding us to the moral realities of our world and the nature of our adversaries.’ These assholes really thought they could commit a genocide in full view of the entire world for years and then expect everyone cheer for them to win. Of course we’re seeing more ‘anti-Americanism.’ You don’t get to commit horrific atrocities year after year and then cry when the world starts to hate you.” (03/21/26)
Attacking Iran’s Power Plants Would Be Despicable
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“Threatening to damage or destroy power generation for the entire country is outrageous. If the U.S. does this, it will be inflicting collective punishment on the civilian population on a massive scale. Attacking Iran’s power plants would be comparable to Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, and it would be just as despicable.” (03/21/26)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/attacking-irans-power-plants-would