Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Elrod
“Our system is wildly different from Hungary’s. The story of our last decade and a half is different, as well. But what Sunday did show us is that, so long as a toehold of democracy remains, a people can come together to throw off authoritarian rule.” (04/16/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/two-lessons-from-hungary-for-2026-and-2028/
Source: Reason
by Peter Suderman
“For the better part of a decade, Republicans ran on a single mantra when it came to health care: repeal and replace Obamacare. When the slogan was conceived, it made political and strategic sense. But Republicans never had a plan for what to replace it with. … In January 2026, Trump finally delivered something he dubbed ‘The Great Healthcare Plan.’ Whether it’s great might be a matter of debate. But it is in no way, shape, or form an actual plan.” (for publication 05/26)
https://reason.com/2026/04/16/trumps-great-healthcare-plan-isnt-much-of-a-plan/
Source: The American Cosnervative
by Nicholas Spyridon Kass
“It’s good for the U.S., and for them too.” (04/16/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/keep-the-kurds-out-of-the-iran-war/
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“For decades Washington has advertised its air and naval supremacy as the indispensable guarantor of global order. Recent events have shown this to be little but increasingly expensive theater. The 2026 Iran War has paused not with Iranian capitulation but in a cascade of humiliations that have permanently altered the strategic landscape. Washington’s vaunted power-projection capabilities proved unable to shield even its own forward bases, depleted critical munitions stockpiles, and ultimately ceded effective control of the Strait of Hormuz to Tehran. These lessons will not be lost on Beijing or Taipei.” (04/16/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Today, we’ll talk about jet fuel, the good news/bad news situation for China, and more. For the time being, yes. The U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is starting to actually work, though the Iranian fuel kept in floating storage or already on the ocean is unaffected. Of course, the products a blockade does prevent from safe passage only deepens the damage to the global economy. There has been talk of more talks between the U.S. and Iran, but nothing finalized. I spent Wednesday in LAX and O’Hare Airport in Chicago, and things looked relatively normal. The (actually illegal) payments to TSA workers, despite lapsed appropriations to the Department of Homeland Security, meant that metal detectors were running full-speed, and my flight was full.” (04/16/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/04/16/aftermath-how-the-war-might-cancel-your-flight/
Source: Washington Monthly
by Steven Hill
“The Hungarian strongman’s electoral manipulations created a system so volatile that a modest popular swing wiped out his supermajority.” (04/16/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/04/16/how-viktor-orban-got-rolled-by-his-own-gerrymander/
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Grant Stark
“Adding more generation capacity without hardening the last-mile delivery network leaves the cake half-baked.” [editor’s note: Relying on centralized generation and long-distance transmission is the problem – TLK] (04/16/26)
https://fee.org/articles/energy-reliability-is-only-as-strong-as-its-weakest-wire/
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jackie Calmes
“Once again, as in Trump’s first term, the public and press are inattentive to the nation’s fiscal health relative to past years. But that reflects the president’s own disengagement with reconciling spending and revenue — this from a president many Americans voted for based on his purported prowess as a businessman. For decades back to Ronald Reagan’s time, so-called deficit wars in Washington were a big story. Now, even Republicans in Congress complain of Trump’s absence from the fiscal fray as they struggle to belatedly finish this year’s budget work that was due last fall, and to end a weeks-old partial government shutdown, before turning to the budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. Yet it’s worth paying attention to U.S. budgets even if Trump won’t, for the sake of our children and grandchildren who’ll inherit the bills.” (04/16/26)
Source: Cobden Centre
by Dr. Richard M Ebeling
“This year marks the 90th anniversary of the beginning of modern macroeconomics with the publication of John Maynard Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money on February 4, 1936. Few books have left such a mark on economic theory and, most certainly, on economic policy in so short a period of time.Ninety years after the appearance of The General Theory, many practical men of affairs and politicians in authority remain the slaves of defunct economists and academic scribblers.” (04/16/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/04/the-damage-still-done-by-keynesian-economics-90-years-on/
Source: TomDispatch
by Steve Fraser
“War against Iran. Kidnapping the president of Venezuela. Threatening to take over Cuba and Greenland. Plans to plunder the planet of its land, labor, and vital resources to feed the insatiable appetite of American capitalism are indeed afoot and, in the age of Donald Trump, U.S. imperialism is back with a particular vengeance. Not, of course, that it ever went away. In fact, it’s been there from the beginning. After all, the United States was launched as an act of settler colonialism, dispossessing the New World’s indigenous inhabitants. President James Monroe issued what became known as the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in 1823, proclaiming the country’s exclusive right to determine the fate of the rest of the western hemisphere. Meanwhile, the slave trade and slavery constituted an imperial rape of Africa by America’s planter and merchant elites.” (04/16/26)