Source: Reason
by Peter Suderman
“Health care fraud is an all-too-common feature of the U.S. health care system, not only in Minnesota.” (for publication 04/26/26)
https://reason.com/2026/03/10/minnesotas-fraud-scandal-isnt-about-immigration/
Source: Glenn Greenwald
by Cole Crystal
“Before Operation Epic Fury began, the Trump administration spent very little energy trying to justify the looming war with Iran. The few defenses they did offer were banal platitudes, just echoes of the case for the Iraq War from more than twenty years ago: that Iran was weeks away from obtaining a nuclear device, that their ballistic missile program posed a significant threat to American assets and allies in the region, and that the Iranian people deserved liberation via regime change. But not long after the bombing began, a new (admittedly more creative) justification emerged online and in the pro-Israel media that war supporters assume will be more persuasive to those doubting the wisdom of yet another Middle East conflict. The war with Iran, we are now told by many, is not really about Iran at all. It is, instead, all about China.” (03/09/26)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/iran-war-supporters-invent-a-new
Source: New York Post
by Marc Siegel
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared war on kratom, an unregulated herbal medicine that comes from the leaves of the mitragyna plant in Southeast Asia. In a Facebook post last week, the governor boasted that state agents have removed over 3,300 kratom and related 7-OH products from the shelves of licensed businesses in California in just three weeks. This is in response to growing numbers of kratom-related deaths. Newsom points out that from 2020-22, 242 deaths in the state have been linked to kratom, with 27 due to kratom alone. Now that many kratom products have been stripped from the shelves of California gas stations and convenience stores, problem solved, right? WRONG. Unfortunately, Newsom’s response only scratches the surface of the problem.” [editor’s note: The “problem” is the idea that Newsom, Siegel, or anyone else should get to decide what other people eat, drink, smoke, snort, inject, etc. – TL] (03/09/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/03/09/opinion/gas-station-heroin-ban-newsom-gloats-too-soon/
Source: Quillette
by Brian Stewart
“Too often, the UN’s valuable field work is overshadowed by cynical political posturing. As a result, collecting annual dues from member states has become more difficult.” (03/10/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/03/10/the-united-nations-is-going-broke/
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
“Contemporary academia’s equation of ‘science’ with ‘measurement’ represents a positivist assault on Ludwig von Mises’s praxeology, not due to his mathematical deficiency, but his superior ontological grasp. While physics successfully models inanimate bodies — where a copper atom reacts to heat according to immutable, universal constants — economics concerns human action driven by conscious, fluctuating intent. Because no constant dictates that a 10 percent income rise yields an 8 percent consumption increase, economic data is merely unrepeatable history, not scientific law. Attempting to extract universal predictions from this historical debris is ‘historicism’ — a methodological error akin to using Napoleonic War statistics to forecast World War III.” (03/09/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-ai-and-big-data-cannot-plan-economy
Source: The Realist Review
by Ivana Nikolić Hughes & Peter Kuznick
“Breaking international law seems to be a feature, and not a bug, of Trump’s actions, consistent with his admission that he is expressly not guided by international law, norms, traditions, or common decency, but by ‘My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.’ … It would be the ultimate expression of Trump’s unbounded power for him to break the one remaining international taboo — which, despite far too many close calls, has persisted for more than 80 years — detonating a nuclear weapon.” (03/09/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/breaking-the-nuclear-taboo
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The Mexican government wants to stop people from using cellphones anonymously. Every mobile phone number in Mexico — some 127 million — must now be biometrically tied to the owner’s identity. Cellphone owners must register their numbers by June 30 or lose signal. The ID card to which numbers must be linked will in turn be linked, via QR code, to a national registry of biometrically verified records. Who needs anonymity? Just criminals? … The safety of journalists, dissidents hiding from other governments, targets of abusers and stalkers, and anyone with good reason to keep his identity separate from his phone will be endangered by Mexico’s new mandate.” (03/09/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/03/09/the-war-against-anonymity/
Source: Niskanen Center
by Lawson Mansell
“When it comes to ensuring that America’s supply of doctors is sufficient to meet Americans’ demand for medical care, one of the most significant investments is also one of the most overlooked: Medicare’s Graduate Medical Education (GME) payments. As the largest funder of medical residency slots, GME subsidies are a powerful lever in determining whether we have enough doctors where they’re most needed. So why aren’t we making the best use of it?” (03/09/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/congress-is-asking-the-right-questions-about-americas-doctor-shortage
Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann
“Americans awoke on Saturday, February 28, 2026, to discover that the United States had launched one of the largest military operations in its history. Operation Epic Fury followed the collapse of diplomatic talks purportedly aimed at ending the Islamic Republic of Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons and its 47-year history of aggression against the U.S. and the nations of the Middle East by Iran and its proxy forces. The effort began nearly two months after President Trump first called for a 50% increase in the U.S. defense budget, bringing it to $1.5 trillion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. government was already on track to run a $1.9 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2026. Without any plan to reduce the government’s excessive spending, the new spending would require the U.S. government to borrow more, above and beyond that amount.” (03/09/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/03/09/fiscal-security-risk-national-debt/
Source: The American Prospect
by Henry Burke
“A group of Democratic Party moderates gathered in Charleston, South Carolina, last Sunday and Monday for an event organized by Third Way, an influential group in the party’s moderate wing. The event, entitled ‘Winning the Middle’, brought together elected officials, prominent pundits, data gurus, communication savants, and industry figures with one goal in mind: how to block a progressive from winning the party’s nomination for president in 2028. The event’s speakers celebrated their claim that a similar conference hosted by Third Way in the same location back in 2019 helped power Joe Biden (whom they touted as ‘the most conservative Democrat in the 2020 field’) to the White House, recalling that South Carolina served as both the last refuge of and launching pad for the then-former vice president’s flailing presidential campaign.” (03/10/26)