“Colorado mom Dana Grueser is still trying to piece together how her sweet son ended up on a locked ward screaming at her for being a Nazi and begging for his phone. … When her son Ari was 14 and starting high school, Dana says, his friend group fell apart. He and his girlfriend broke up, and his parents separated, too. Dana encouraged him to go outside, but he said no one else was out there. He started spending more time online. Dana wasn’t too worried. She’d set up parental controls. And yet, she would later learn, Ari got to the point where he was eluding all the safeguards and spending 12-14 hours online a day. Online he made new ‘friends,’ who urged him to do things like carve pentagrams and upside down crosses on his chest.” (04/12/26)
“As a badly battered Middle East hangs off the edge of a cliff by a string with a temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran, peace or anything remotely resembling it looks even less likely for Southern Lebanon than it does for the rest of that treacherous map drawn by dead British arseholes. Even if Israel were the kind of creature who could be trusted to respect a ceasefire with anyone, much of the damage is already done.” (04/12/26)
“Under the influence of neoconservatism and other varieties of hawkism, America has lost its ability to think strategically and now acts as one of the primary sources of global instability. But herein lies the opportunity, as every time the neoconservatives manage to achieve their aims, their popularity and prestige collapse once the results become apparent. New and establishment-bucking political candidates openly run against them, thanks to a strong desire amongst the public to move on from wars that don’t advance the national interest. And the neoconservatives have, potentially, sown the seeds of their own dismantling in the security state they have helped to build.” (04/12/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“In 1985, inspired by Southwest Airlines, the first major low-cost airline in the world, and following the liberalization of European airspace, Ryanair brought the low-cost model to scale in Europe, revolutionizing air travel across the continent. It did so through an efficiency-driven model that enabled the sale of extremely low-cost tickets in a market previously dominated by expensive legacy carriers. … However, 41 years later, Ryanair is preparing to cut around 3 million seats, corresponding to an estimated 75 to 90 routes across Europe. A combination of aggressive green ideology from the European Union and state-protected airport monopolies lies at the root of this decision.” (04/12/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Daniel Boguslaw & James Baratta
“This week, the Congressional Black Caucus will quietly support an effort to reauthorize surveillance powers that were used to spy on Black Lives Matter activists in 2020, the Prospect has learned. According to multiple congressional sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, CBC support for the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) comes after Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the powerful ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, successfully lobbied CBC leadership to stand down on reforming the vast intelligence authority. Section 702 grants U.S. intelligence agencies the authority to collect communications data on foreign intelligence targets abroad. In practice, however, it has allowed those agencies to amass troves of data on American citizens.” (04/13/26)
“Institutions like Underwriters Laboratory and the Better Business Bureau are titans in these sectors with no assistance from government. User ratings emerging in the digital era have a vast impact on sales success, as any Amazon seller can tell you. And in industries like sports, household construction, and driving skill, private insurers exercise a dominant influence through financial carrots and sticks, as directed by actuaries assessing risks. The very existence of the FDA has crowded out such elaborate and complex systems in the case of food and drugs, which is precisely why their safety and efficacy is the subject of such huge public controversy.” (04/12/26)
“Suppose you carefully, intentionally avoid AI and its product, for whatever reason. Maybe you distrust its output. Maybe you just prefer to do your own research, and reach your own conclusions, from primary human-created sources. But how can you know AI-generated content hasn’t previously ‘polluted’ the human-created sources with ‘facts’ that aren’t true? … People have always lied, and often those lies have persisted and spread, becoming ‘common knowledge’ despite being false. AI, linked to a mechanism of near-instantaneous global spread (the Internet), can produce and distribute lies far faster than humans once did by word of mouth or through print on paper.” (04/11/26)
“I have a message for parents: A four-year degree from a top-tier university does not guarantee career success or fulfillment. College is just one path. In a world where technology is rapidly changing our jobs and hiring managers question whether college graduates have the skills needed to succeed, parents and young people should examine the range of post-high school options. Employers certainly are, and they are embracing new pathways to address the workforce gaps they have experienced over decades.” (04/10/26)
“In The True Believer, a seminal book on mass movements by social philosopher Eric Hoffer, Hoffer writes: ‘Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.’ … An essential feature of socialism is to dehumanize others. Like millions in Pol Pot’s Cambodia or Mao’s China, millions of North Koreans have been taught to hate others. Millions in the ‘hostile class’ have been starved, brutalized, and murdered. Socialism will never produce a different outcome. How is it possible to insist that the next socialist regime will be different?” (04/11/26)
