Chile’s Hard Right Isn’t as Trumpy as It Wants to Seem
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro
“How to keep a consensus while pretending to break it.” (04/03/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/chiles-hard-right-isnt-as-trumpy
Category: Opinion
In Defense of Plea Bargaining
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“In theory, criminal conviction in the US legal system is by the unanimous vote of a jury. In practice, the overwhelming majority of felony convictions are due to plea bargaining, the defendant pleading guilty in exchange for reduced charges or an agreement by the prosecutor to ask for a lower sentence. I have criticized the system in the past, mostly on the grounds that a prosecutor can make it in the interest of an innocent defendant to plead guilty by charging him with additional offenses, not because the prosecutor believes he is guilty of them and can be convicted but to persuade him to plead guilty of the lesser offense whether or not he committed it. It recently occurred to me that, while there are serious problems with plea bargaining as it now exists, there could be uses for it.” (04/04/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-plea-bargaining
The Mass Media Are Evil, But They’re Also Really Dumb
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The New York Times has printed an article with the headline ‘A North American Treaty Organization Without America?,’ apparently having spent the entire Ukraine war completely unaware that NATO stands for North ATLANTIC Treaty Organization. At the same time, CNN ran a segment on an American bomber whose plane was shot down over Iran in which analyst Amy McGrath suggested that the Iranians might help the pilot because they’re ‘happy’ he’s bombing their country, saying the pilot would be worried because they don’t know ‘if you’re gonna be picked by somebody who is going to turn you over to the Iranian forces that are gonna use you and capture you, or is the population happy that you’re there?’ Really illustrates how fucked western journalism is, doesn’t it?” (04/04/26)
How campus deplatforming has evolved since WWII
Source: Expression
by Sean Stevens
“What postwar data reveals about the evolution of campus culture.” (04/03/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/how-campus-deplatforming-has-evolved
Trump Realized He Can Just Do Things. Who Can Stop Him?
Source: Reason
by Gene Healy
“There are far too few checks left on executive power.” (for publication 05/26)
Hormuz is not a tool to end the war but how Iran wins the aftermath
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Mohammed Eslami & Zeynab Malakouti
“Trump has miscalculated again. He is trying to win the battle; Iran is focused on winning the war. In Tehran’s plan, the strait is not a tool to end the war, but a permanent fixture for its aftermath.” (04/04/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/strait-of-hormuz-and-iran/
All the pieces lining up for regime change in Iran
Source: New York Post
by Zineb Riboua
“‘I think we’ve had regime change’ in Iran, President Donald Trump declared Sunday. In his prime-time address Wednesday night, he repeated it: ‘Regime change has occurred.’ Critics dismissed Trump’s claim out of hand. They’re wrong — because they’re measuring regime change by the wrong standard. ‘Regime change’ doesn’t necessarily mean an invasion, a decapitation strike, a new flag over the capital. That was Iraq and Afghanistan, where American power underwrote both the military campaign and the political reconstruction that followed. Iran is a different problem, and Trump is running a different playbook. Start with a basic fact: Iran is a revolutionary state. Its survival depends on three pillars — an ideology, a patronage network and a coercive apparatus drawing legitimacy from a founding idea. To bring such a system down, all three must fail simultaneously. And Iran was already decomposing when Operation Epic Fury began.” (04/03/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/04/03/opinion/all-the-pieces-are-lining-up-for-regime-change-in-iran/
Sitcoms: A Defense
Source: Liberalism.org
by Shal Marriott
“Liberalism, of course, is more than just a set of principles, or formal, institutional, or legal rules. It is a habit of character, and it requires cultivating an orientation toward those values which form the basis of liberal institutions. From this perspective, liberalism can be understood as a practice. It is not enough that we merely believe in the principles of freedom, fairness, and equality — we have to enact them in our personal lives. Rather than being merely an abstract theory, liberalism as an ideology informs who we are as members of a political community — indeed, the survival of liberal institutions requires that at least some of us adopt and adhere to this outlook. One way to cultivate these values is through an engagement with works of popular culture. Even sitcoms—or so I hope to convince you.” (04/03/26)
A MAGA Crack-up?
Source: Mother Jones
by David Corn
“Often political movements end up as circular firing squads, especially when there’s a competition for leadership. The same can be true for cults. With Trump’s misnamed Make America Great Again cult movement, the firing squad is shaped more like a Möbius strip. In the past year or so, MAGA World has been racked with a series of cross-cutting feuds, with incoming and outgoing fire ricocheting across the Trumpian landscape in all directions, causing chaos and confusion, as multiple conspiracy theories clash and vitriolic accusations pile up. An outsider cannot keep track of the infighting without a program or a wire diagram that would make Carrie Mathison proud.” (04/03/26)
Why the US south is rising
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Douglas Carswell
“While New York and California are losing population, states like South Carolina and Alabama are not only gaining residents at a record rate, but they are also experiencing rapid economic growth. A recent JL Partners poll captures a shift in perception: 36% of Americans now expect the South to lead economic growth over the next decade — far ahead of the West Coast (23%), Northeast (21%), and Midwest (19%). This is quite a transformation for a region sometimes regarded as a backwater.” (04/03/26)