“Escalation is unfortunately quite likely because the president and his allies don’t understand how to do anything else. Whenever they encounter resistance, they assume that the answer is always more pressure, more threats, more attacks. It never occurs to them that they are destroying any incentive that the Iranians might have to compromise. Like every mindless hawk before them, they believe that they will win if they just inflict more pain. They can’t fathom that other nations might value their dignity and independence highly enough that surrender is not an option. It is the same morally and stategically bankrupt approach that has failed the U.S. many times before, and it will fail again here.” (04/21/26)
“[T]he stunning electoral defeat of Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary raises the question: Has the market for autocratic strongmen peaked? One might see this event as an isolated incident, because Hungary is a small country (with a total population only slightly larger than New York City) and because every nation has its own peculiar political dynamics. Orban’s defeat stemmed from deep dissatisfaction with the consequences of his rule, however, and there are reasons to think that today’s strongmen — and yes, they are all men — are facing a rockier future for much the same reason. Most of them have done a poor job of governing, and for reasons that highlight the limitations of letting a single strong leader determine national policy.” (04/21/26)
“[US House leadership] spent nearly all of Wednesday and Thursday pressuring reform-minded Republicans to get in line on an amended [FISA renewal] bill that would include a ‘warrant requirement.’ The thing is, the amended bill didn’t really include a warrant requirement. The amendment says two main things. First, it says the government can’t use Section 702 to intentionally target the communications of a U.S. person. If the government wants to surveil an American directly, it has to use the legal authorities that already exist for that purpose, such as traditional FISA surveillance or a criminal warrant supported by probable cause. That’s not reform; that’s literally current law, which already says that the government cannot target U.S. persons under 702 and must use existing authorities under Title I of FISA or traditional criminal warrants if it wants to surveil an American directly.” (04/21/26)
“For at least a decade, Americans have wrestled with growing questions and doubts about their institutions of higher education and the value of a traditional four-year degree. The declining confidence has been driven by concerns over escalating costs and growing student indebtedness, uneven job prospects, and on-campus political polarization. These concerns have fed into calls by the current administration for changes to accreditation procedures and transparency in admissions processes, especially among elite institutions. There are indications, however, that the downward trend in Americans’ trust in higher education and its outcomes is not irreversible.” (04/20/26)
“In 1895, Greek journalist Vlasis Gavriilidis traveled to Cambridge University seeking advice from three leading economists — Alfred Marshall, Henry Sidgwick, and John Neville Keynes — on the most urgent economic problem facing his country: a collapsing market for currants (Corinthian raisins), which then accounted for roughly half of all Greek exports. \Overproduction, fueled by earlier government policies and a temporary export boom, threatened widespread rural unemployment and poverty. The economists offered divided counsel. That ambiguity gave organized currant growers the opening they needed to lobby successfully for a price-support system — a ‘temporary’ intervention that promised stable incomes for growers while shifting costs onto taxpayers and distorting the broader economy. … The measure was anything but temporary.” (04/21/26)
“Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has served on the US Supreme Court for 20 years, but has never gotten the attention — or credit — he deserves. … Alito’s lack of public recognition is about to change. Mollie Hemingway, well-known center-right journalist and best-selling co-author of an excellent account of the tortuous confirmation process inflicted on Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, Justice on Trial, has written the first biography of Alito, entitled Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution.” (04/21/26)
“When he’s on full blast, Donald Trump (not so long ago the ‘drill, baby, drill’ candidate for president) is distinctly a furnace. And he seems intent on turning this planet, our only world, into a version of the same. But here’s the strange thing, when it comes to almost anything — from Iran to suddenly firing two key women, Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, in his government (but certainly not the no-less-chaotic men) — there’s no minute, it seems, when he’s not flipping himself on his head and then spinning or stumbling or catapulting off in a new direction. There’s only one exception I’ve noticed and, all too sadly, that’s climate change, where everything he does — every single thing — is guaranteed to be a disaster for our children and grandchildren.” (04/21/26)
“I wonder how many others were amused, as I was last week, to hear Senator Adam Schiff praise members of his party for the ouster of his fellow Californian and Democrat, Rep. Eric Swallwell, from Congress. The tale, as told on this website on Sunday, is that Swallwell — one of Schiff’s closest colleagues pushing the Russiagate gambit against the first Trump administration — was pressured to resign over the massive amount of complaints against him for sexual harassment and other unwanted sexual advances. There is even an accusation of rape. Also resigning was a Republican from Texas, Tony Gonzalez, for similar reasons. Schiff — who claimed to be ‘sickened’ and ‘aghast’ at the accusations and what Swallwell ‘has done’ — followed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in scorning the Republicans for postponing dealing with the Gonzalez problem.” (04/21/26)
“Remember when the leftist [sic] media was upset about Benjamin Netanyahu being in the Situation Room with President Trump? ‘How dare he?’ they cried as they clutched their pearls. Well, at least Israel is an ally [sic] of the United States, whereas the media is not, and the media, as horrifying as it is, is only made worse by the President talking to them. Please, Mr. President, stop giving access to these people.” (04/21/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Marcos Giansante
“In well-ordered legal traditions, disagreement about outcomes is expected. Disagreement about methods is tolerable. But the abandonment of method altogether marks a deeper rupture, one that transforms law from a system of constraint into an instrument of will. Contemporary Brazilian jurisprudence increasingly reveals such a rupture. The problem is often framed as a conflict between legal theories, or as the natural evolution of constitutional interpretation. Yet this framing misidentifies the phenomenon. What is at stake is not the triumph of one doctrine over another, but the quiet dissolution of the very structures that once constrained judicial power.” (04/21/26)
