Source: Washington Monthly
by Tamar Jacoby
“Warsaw needs the U.S. even more than it hates and fears Russia. The U.S. president wants more European military spending, but when allies like Warsaw become stronger, they become more independent.” (05/07/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/05/07/polands-trump-conundrum-and-vice-versa/
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“U.S. President Donald Trump has consistently said that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program are limited to preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon: ‘You know, it’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.’ But in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, when the interviewer asked Trump, ‘Is the goal of these talks limiting Iran’s nuclear program or total dismantlement?’ Trump answered, ‘Total disarmament.'” (05/07/25)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“The central assumption of economics is that individuals are rational, have objectives and tend to take the actions that best achieve them. For that assumption to be useful one must add to it restrictions on what those objectives might be, since if one is completely agnostic on the subject any possible behavior can be explained by assuming a suitable objective. Since we have a good deal of information on what humans value, both by introspection and by observing other humans, we can deduce from the rationality assumption a good deal about what humans will do. … The individual about whom I have most information is myself, which makes it interesting to see how consistent the rationality assumption is with my behavior.” (05/06/25)
Source: Town Hall
by Byron York
“We’ve gotten a new tidbit of information about efforts by the Biden White House and some in the press to cover up President Joe Biden’s age-related infirmity. It comes from a new book, 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by reporters Tyler Pager, Josh Dawsey and Isaac Arnsdorf of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, respectively. The authors report that ‘top White House aides debated having [Biden] undergo a cognitive test to prove his fitness for a second term but ultimately decided against the move,’ according to a report on the book in the New York Times. The revelation is the latest in a series of news nuggets about the 82-year-old Biden’s senescence — stories like White House aides putting tape on the floor so that Biden wouldn’t wander off course — that have been included in new books about the 2024 election.” (05/07/25)
Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
by Ilya Somin
“The Southern District of New York rules Trump invoked the Act illegally, because there is no ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion.'” (05/06/25)
Source: EconLog
by Pierre Lemieux
“Barack Obama’s notorious admonishment to business owners that ‘you didn’t build that’ was bad enough, but a recent statement by Donald Trump is even more collectivist: he claims he owns the store.” (05/06/25)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jordi Pigem
“April 28th will be remembered as the largest blackout (so far) in European history. Power went down in the whole of continental Spain and Portugal, taking more than 20 hours to come back in some areas. It has been blamed on technical causes, although the Audiencia Nacional (National High Court) has opened an investigation for possible cyberattack. Whatever the cause, however, we can see it as a symptom of something deeper and more far-reaching.” (05/06/25)
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Medicaid recipients with earnings at or above the federal poverty line would have to pay significant out-of-pocket expenses for their health care coverage, and work requirements would be placed on the program, according to a menu of items in the emerging Republican budget reconciliation proposal seen by the Prospect. The Medicaid cuts, part of the giant tax and spending package Republicans are readying using the reconciliation process to avoid a Senate filibuster, would also roll back Biden-era rules that improved staffing at nursing homes. And they would alter a number of eligibility and enrollment provisions that would make Medicaid harder to navigate for its 71 million-plus enrollees, a common tactic to reduce enrollment.” (05/07/25)
https://prospect.org/health/2025-05-07-medicaid-cuts-in-republican-bill-would-charge-poor-people/
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“If this is the end of the campaign, it just drives home how stupid and unnecessary it all was.” (05/06/25)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/an-end-to-the-bombing-in-yemen
Source: Aaron Ross Powell
by Aaron Ross Powell
“Liberals should stop pretending liberalism is value-free, and instead argue that liberal values are better than the alternatives.” (05/06/25)
https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/liberals-need-to-talk-about-virtue-and-the-good-life