“America’s early and strong support for the Jewish State faltered as President Biden’s cognitive impairment grew worse and more obvious. We do not know whether the former president’s infirmity impacted his original, resolute support for Israel by allowing the anti-Israel wing of his party to ascend within the West Wing or to worry his campaign’s guiding hands into advising him that appeasement of Iran and its forces was necessary to win last fall. Thanks to the new book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House by NBC’s Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes, however, we now know for sure that the divide between the U.S. and the equal of any of its allies on the planet widened and deepened as the months went by.” (04/08/25)
“The CBO’s Long-Term Budget Outlook: 2025 to 2055 provides a thirty year window of alarming projections for the federal government’s deficits and debt. The most important thing to know about the CBO’s projections is they’re based on current law. They assume every tax cut with an expiration date expires. They assume there will never be new spending for anything we do not already know about today. They assume there will never be another recession that tanks revenues while blowing up spending. They assume Washington D.C.’s politicians and bureaucrats will be able to continue doing business exactly the way they have been. And they will continue doing business that way forever. This means the CBO’s projections are very much like a best-case scenario. But the long-term budget outlook is dismal even when viewed through the rosiest of rosy-colored glasses.” (04/07/25)
“Peter Dutton says his government would separate the domestic price of gas in eastern Australia from the export price. For efficient resource use for tradeables, whether meat, steel or gas, prices within Australia need to be driven by prices in world markets. That is fundamental to the liberal trading order long supported by Australia. Seeking to make the price of gas used in Australia independent of the price in international trade is a policy of distorting the gas market and the broader economy. Not efficient. Not liberal. Not smart.” (04/07/25)
“In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, transforming American healthcare. Today, those programs have become so much part of our national consciousness that imagining a world without them borders on the unthinkable. And yet, just seven decades ago, the United States had a medical and hospital care system that functioned well for most Americans largely without government. Was it a perfect system? No. But the question we should be asking is if the radical transformation that came with Medicare and Medicaid was ever an improvement or sustainable economically or systemically.” (04/07/25)
“One of the principal difficulties facing the Democratic Party establishment and most leaders of organized labor is a failure to accept a fundamental reality: there is no normality. The failure to grasp this state of affairs has led to strategic paralysis and a tendency to believe that by being ‘the adults in the room,’ the Democrats — or the trade union leadership — can embarrass the Republicans and force them to engage in good faith behavior. That is not the case. The rise of President Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement has represented the morphing of a broad, rightwing populist movement into a fascist movement that seeks to destroy constitutional democracy. The current purging of the federal government, through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), aims at both opening the doors to a kleptocracy as well as ensuring loyalty to the MAGA vision and its retrograde goals.” (04/08/25)
“Just after I published a piece describing how the elites, government, and its opinion molders provoke division to help them amass more power and influence, we were given a prime example in the tragic killing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf. The online reactions to this story provide a glaring example of how social media influencers use these stories to pit Americans against one another based on race.” (04/07/25)
“Suppose your doctor suddenly insisted that you needed to follow a strict diet and exercise regimen. He said he realized you had a serious problem when he divided your height by your birthday, and it came out way too high. You would probably decide that you need a new doctor. This is basically the story of Donald Trump’s new round of import taxes (tariffs) on our trading partners. Trump somehow decided that trade was bankrupting the country, even though we were creating jobs rapidly, the economy was growing at a strong pace, and inflation was slowing to normal rates when he took office. Trump’s response is to give the country the most massive tax increase in its history, possibly exceeding $1 trillion on an annual basis, which comes to $7,000 per household.” (04/07/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kym Kent
“Within the traditional setting, the phrases ‘held back’ and ‘grade retention’ drip with shame and condemnation, and the social stigma attached to both phrases results in ‘lower self-esteem and increased anxiety,’ according to education professors Laura Link and Diana D’Amico Pawlewicz. The alternative, social promotion, allows students to be promoted alongside their peers regardless of academic performance, which can also have significant drawbacks within a traditional school setting. As a homeschooler, I have embraced the ‘do-over’ and have experienced its benefits firsthand, both with my own kids and from working with students at eXtend Homeschool Tutorial …. we have the flexibility of targeted do-overs, where repeating a specific class does not mean repeating an entire grade. Instead, do-overs provide an opportunity to strengthen foundational skills. In our program, they have been vital to future success.” (04/07/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“The pundits are having a difficult time understanding how President Trump would fulfill his expressed desire to serve a third term as president. Some of them have fallen back on the possibility that he is joking and just trolling his critics. Others have come up with unlikely scenarios for achieving a third term. For example, one commentator asked Trump whether he planned to have J.D. Vance run as president, with Trump as his vice-presidential running mate. Under this scenario, Vance would resign immediately after the election, thereby elevating Trump to the presidency. However, there are two problems with that scenario: One, Trump couldn’t trust Vance to fulfill his part of the bargain. … Two, the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits someone from being a vice-presidential candidate if he is ineligible to serve as president.” (04/07/25)
“[W]hile knowledge in most sciences is cumulative, in economics and perhaps finance, it remains cyclical — rediscovered and then discarded only to resurface again when the same errors are repeated. We face another stark reminder that economic policy crafted in defiance of established principles may provide temporary relief or political appeal, but it ultimately invites far greater disruption and instability. Americans are justified in questioning exactly what they are being liberated from — and with growing unease, wondering what they may find themselves freed from next.” (04/07/25)
