“Democrats have longed railed against the scourge of ‘dark money’ and foreign influence on elections and spent the entire 2024 election promising to ‘save democracy’ from the dastardly Republicans, but it turns out the call was coming from inside the house. Last week, three House committees released a report after a months-long probe showing that progressive money-making machine ActBlue lowered its standards for fraud twice during the 2024 election cycle. The result: Hundreds of fraudulent donations poured in — some from countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Colombia. Worse, the nonprofit knew mass fraud was likely happening and increased the risk.” (04/06/25)
“An effective resistance agenda is necessarily selective — if democracy defenders scream at equal volume over every harmful presidential move, without distinguishing between their varying levels of illegality, unconstitutionality, irrationality, and cruelty, people will stop listening. We need a strategy to prioritize the most serious assaults on democracy, presidential accountability, and our laws and norms. However, there is no room for passivity or patience in the face of creeping authoritarianism. Early action is critical to frustrating authoritarian ambitions, and it must match escalating assaults with escalating mobilization.” (04/06/25)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“What is the social cost of your cash balance, the cost summed over everyone in the society? The answer is roughly zero. Due to the Law of Large Numbers, on average total consumption and production are almost always equal, the individual differences averaged out. The society as a whole does not need a shock absorber. It follows that individuals will hold the optimal stock of money, the stock that maximizes economic efficiency, only if the nominal interest rate is close to zero. It is possible that a few of my readers, not being economists, are not familiar with the distinction I am making between real and nominal, hence a brief digression.” (04/06/25)
“The history of sacrificing the mass of consumers to the profitability of a few elite producers goes all the way back to the horrible British corn laws. Economists refer to the problem as ‘concentrated benefits, dispersed costs.’ Costs are dispersed such that no one person bearing them really has the financial incentive to take on the costs of fighting them, while benefits are concentrated in a few hands that have the incentive and the means to fight to the death to protect their special privilege.” (04/06/25)
“At the beginning of South Dakota’s short legislative year, which runs from January to March, state lawmakers voted to add the most extreme geographic requirement in the country, which would make it incredibly difficult to qualify constitutional amendments. The plan would have forced canvassers to collect signatures in each of the state’s 35 senatorial districts. The number of signatures would have to equal 5 percent of that senatorial district’s votes for governor in the last gubernatorial election. … After hearing from outraged voters, South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden got the message. Even though he thought the bill was a ‘worthy goal,’ he also surmised that it wouldn’t stand up to an inevitable court challenge, and he vetoed it. Last Monday, in the final meeting of the 2025 session, the members of the state House voted to overturn the decision, but the state Senate sustained the governor’s veto.” (04/07/25)
“What will happen if foreign companies or foreign plants of American companies cannot sell their goods in America without being constantly hit by whimsical American tariffs and threats thereof, up one month, down the next month, and up again? They will move their production facilities to America? But then, they will also know that they risk being hit with whimsical American tariffs on their inputs. And they know that foreign states will often retaliate. Moreover, in these circumstances, the legendary American market will have become much less attractive since most people will be poorer, except for government cronies. The best idea for entrepreneurs may be to stay put or to move to a country still open to trade — or, ideally, to a country unilaterally open to trade if such countries exist.” (04/06/25)
“Nearly three months into Trump’s second presidency and after three consecutive presidential campaigns, none of his supporters have any excuse for not knowing his record …. At least the supporters who continue to make excuses for him — ‘he’s playing 6D chess and you just don’t understand,’ ‘the DEEP STATE is making him do all the bad things he does,’ etc. — can be explained: Half of Americans possess below-median intelligence. And those who, at any point, have finally admitted to themselves and others that they fell for a scam should be supported, commended, and consoled. But the ‘I didn’t vote for THIS!’ crowd? They clearly follow current affairs. They clearly know their votes enabled this craziness. Now they want absolution without first accepting responsibility for what they did.” (04/05/25)
“As I have been writing for some time, Donald Trump’s most fundamental character flaw — his laziness — has been his country’s saving grace, at least at times. Trump is an aspiring caudillo whose political models are Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and a would-be tyrant who attempted to stage a coup d’état after losing the 2020 election to a barely sentient Joe Biden — but, as bad as he was and is, he could have been and could be a great deal worse if not for the fact that he is unbelievably lazy, a Fox News-watching, social-media-addicted couch potato of a chief executive who might have wielded the levers of power to greater malevolent effect if he had bothered to work at his craft a little bit. But the so-called reciprocal tariffs are shockingly lazy even by Trumpian standards.” (04/04/25)
“In January 2025, Newton’s City Council passed an ordinance so absurd, it could only have been conceived by people who think authority equals wisdom. By a vote of 19 to 4, the Council approved a ‘generational ban’ on tobacco products. Anyone born after March 1, 2004, will never — ever — be allowed to purchase tobacco in the city. Not at 21, not at 35, not at 55. It’s a lifetime prohibition based solely on your birth year. Let that sink in: a 25-year-old veteran returning to Newton in 2030 could be carded and denied a cigarette because he was born three months too late. Meanwhile, his 31-year-old neighbor lights up with impunity. What starts as a health measure ends in age-based discrimination enshrined in law. … Indeed, Newton’s law bans everything with nicotine—whether it burns or not. Cigarettes. Vapes. Nicotine gum. Pouches. Even options that help people quit smoking are now outlawed for future generations.” (04/04/25)
“Donald Trump’s economic agenda, from taxes to tariffs (which are themselves taxes), is variable because he believes in the immediate translation of whims into policy proposals, without an intervening pause for study. (His conversation with a Las Vegas waitress quickly became his proposal to end taxation on tips.) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says Trump suddenly favors eliminating ‘taxes’ on people making less than $150,000 a year — in 2022, about 93 percent of Americans 15 and over. If Trump is referring only to income taxes, that would mean (according to Jared Dillian, writing for Reason) that only 7 percent of Americans would pay any income taxes. … Progressives want income taxation to be more progressive so the wealthy will pay ‘their fair share.’ Trump is more progressive still, wanting the wealthy to pay everyone else’s share, too.” (04/04/25)
