Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Thiago VS Coelho
“The Good Food Institute openly says it works with governments to advocate public investment in alternative proteins, while New Harvest says that ‘publicly-funded groups like ours’ are needed to steer cellular agriculture toward the public good. By GFI’s own 2024 policy report, governments were estimated to disburse about $560 million on alternative proteins in 2024, with cultivated meat alone drawing $84 million in public investment that year, double the previous high. In the United States, USDA already put a historic $10 million grant into Tufts’[s] National Institute for Cellular Agriculture, where the research agenda includes consumer acceptance, willingness-to-pay, scalable cell lines, serum-free media, scaffolds, and process optimization. That is not a picture of a market proving itself. It is a picture of advocates trying to socialize the cost of proving whether a market exists.” (04/23/26)
“Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s distinction between medical and recreational cannabis is hard to reconcile with the relevant scientific and statutory criteria.” (04/23/26)
“Virginia voted, and the Democrats treated the Republicans and Independents in the state like Bill Clinton treated so many women over the years – forcing their will on everyone else. If southern and rural Virginians didn’t want to be overpowered into submission, they shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt. In an election decided by three points after last year’s Governor’s race was won by the Democrat by more than 15 points, Democrats switched the state’s Congressional district map from six Democrats and five Republicans to 10 Democrats. Hitler would be proud. This is why we are a Constitutionally Limited Republic and not a democracy.” (04/23/26)
“In 1966, the famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow came up with a description of a mental bias that became known as ‘Maslow’s hammer.’ ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, I suppose it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail,’ Maslow contended. Or, as some have reworded his theorem: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is a good diagnosis for how President Donald Trump has trapped us all in his unnecessary war with Tehran. A war from which he can’t find a good exit.” (04/23/26)
“There’s broad bipartisan agreement that the federal government pays too much for goods and services yet procurement timelines remain far too slow. Over the past year, the Trump administration has been working on the ‘Revolutionary FAR Overhaul’ (RFO), described in an executive order as an effort to ‘create the most agile, effective, and efficient procurement system possible.’ To achieve this, the EO directs an overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and agency supplements so that they contain ‘only provisions required by statute or essential to sound procurement.’ So far, the administration has succeeded in making provisional changes to the FAR, which many agencies have adopted.” (04/23/26)
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by Dylan Soares
“State management is the rule, not the exception, of wildlife management in the U.S. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) displaces it only when the best available science shows a species is endangered or threatened, thereby requiring federal oversight. That principle is at the heart of PERC’s amicus brief in Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which argues that political and policy disagreements with state management cannot override the ESA’s science-based standard.” (04/23/26)
“How does the supposedly most fearsome regime in the violent Middle East now find itself on the verge of an utter economic and military collapse? Iran’s half-century-long deadly terrorist reputation peaked with the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel that it helped fund and coordinate. Iran’s terrorist ambitions of running the Middle East had accelerated after witnessing Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and his administration’s distancing itself from Israel. Biden’s humiliation by a series of Chinese slights and the Russian invasion of Ukraine further eroded American deterrence. European appeasement was another force multiplier of Iranian hubris.” [editor’s note: And yet somehow the mighty US hasn’t decisively defeated them – TLK] (04/23/26)
“For Earth Day in 2026, the celebratory events held April 22 numbered well over 10,000 worldwide. From cleanups to teach-ins to tree planting, such activities help boost enthusiasm for caring about the environment. Ultimately, however, it is during the other days of the year that follow-through can bring those good intentions to fruition. Over decades of Earth Day celebrations, many individuals have found that a focus on environmental care in local communities can reap tangible civic and social benefits. A case in point is Philadelphia, where a long-standing project in urban greening has been linked to drops in crime. That success has led the neighboring city of Chester to trod the same path. Philadelphia’s story began with green-thumbed activists from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society seeking to recover good neighborliness, square foot by square foot.” (04/22/26)
“I’ve been suspicious of the Southern Poverty Law Center for some time. The SPLC, a nonprofit founded in 1971, was built to combat hate and discrimination. The mission sounds worthy enough. But then the group began publishing its annual ‘Year in Hate and Extremism’ report, identifying hundreds – sometimes more than 1,000 – ‘hate groups’ across the United States. In 2019, it labeled Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent conservative legal organization, a ‘hate group.’ Calling a firm that focuses on First Amendment and religious liberty cases a hate group is like calling a defense attorney a criminal for representing the accused. For many conservatives, that was a bridge too far, and it eroded their trust in the SPLC. I thought I might have been onto something. It turns out the situation could be even more serious.” (04/23/26)
