Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Daniel J Mitchell
“Recent court actions could finally derail one of the most laughable big government regulatory crusades in recent memory. At issue is a case that the Biden-era Federal Trade Commission brought against Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the nation’s largest alcohol distributor. The agency alleges that the company violated a 1930s law, the Robinson–Patman Act, by offering larger discounts to retailers that buy in bulk. The underlying issue is simple: Should the government punish companies for giving consumers lower prices? Because that is effectively what this case does.” (04/06/26)
“In a Chicago Tribune article last year I wrote, ‘In an ever more complex society, have we run the risk of becoming overly dependent on experts – delegating decisions and responsibilities to them that are outside their domain?’ Several readers called me out, justifiably. They asked whether it was a good idea for anyone other than an expert to fly my plane or perform my open-heart surgery. Point taken. I have spent a lot of time both in planes and operating rooms. Without question, I want experts calling the shots in both of them. … My mistake was in failing to point out the distinction between experts with technical knowledge (the ones who actually know how to do things) and experts who have earned their status primarily as a result of their educational credentials or public opinions.” (04/06/26)
“Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi for doing his bidding poorly. Her vindictive prosecutions flamed out. Her refusal to abide by the law Trump signed to require disclosure of all of the Epstein pedophile files incurred the ire even of Republicans. Trump insists that the fault for serial losses in court and scandals lies with Bondi’s lack of finesse in carrying out his orders, certainly not the underlying unconstitutionality, unreasonableness, and baseless actions he demands. He craved a more ruthless hired gun to oversee the weaponization of the Justice Department.” (04/06/26)
“Younger Americans, born after 1985, may have no frame of reference for the current state of journalism which is highly partisan and considered untrustworthy (at least to partisans on the opposite side). The Gallup Organization’s data shows that trust in ‘Mass Media’ (not identical to but related to journalism) is way down, from 72 percent in 1976 to 28 percent in 2025. The reverse is also true. People who answered positively to survey questions about trust in media, whether they had ‘None at all,’ went from 4 percent in 1976 to 34 percent in 2025. In between those answers was ‘Not very much’ trust in media, which hit a high point of 41 percent in 2016 and has fluctuated since (36 percent in 2025).” (04/06/26)
“The erosion of early work experience is widening inequality. A modern apprenticeship system could rebuild the first rung of the career ladder.” (04/06/26)
“Washington has a habit of changing its budget goals — not because the country solved the spending-driven debt problem, but because each goal proved harder than lawmakers were willing to confront. I remember working on fiscal policy in 2011, when lawmakers still talked about balancing the budget. It was an intuitive target. If the government only spent what it collected in revenues, the debt problem would eventually disappear. Simple in theory. Difficult to achieve in practice.” (04/06/26)
“After being ambushed by privacy activists outside a town hall in southern Connecticut last week, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke at length about the urgency of extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the warrantless spying program he has been actively lobbying Democratic colleagues to support without reforms. The 702 program is set to expire on April 20. Himes assured protestors that ‘anything I said today, you can sort of check if you want’. In a press release Friday, organizers with QuitGPT and a number of Connecticut-based advocacy groups held him to it: ‘Unfortunately, Himes repeated several false and misleading statements about FISA, the data broker loophole, and AI surveillance.’ Their comments came just hours after a separate virtual town hall last Friday where Himes ‘repeated many of the same statements’ about Section 702.” (04/06/26)
Source: Liberal Currents
by Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis
“Toby Buckle’s ‘It Wasn’t Fascism All Along’ is exactly the kind of argument worth engaging directly. It is a serious argument that seeks to address a real epistemic problem, which is the impulse to flatten all right-of-center politics into a single undifferentiated mass. There are real differences between the different brands of conservatism in practice, and it matters—not least because we must understand our opponent, so that we may successfully confront and defeat our opponent. And ultimately, we both agree that at this current moment, there is nothing to redeem or to save in the conservative project—fascism has won the argument within the right decisively.” (04/06/26)
“It’s pretty clear what the TV screen caption should have read as the Donald expectorated a veritable shower of bully boy phlegm and sputum at the White House cameras last night: ‘Attention JD Vance – activate the 25th Amendment now, POTUS has gone full retard into veritable delusionary madness.’ That’s right. There was hardly a sentence in the speech that accords with reality in any way shape or form. Not even remotely. … The yawning disconnect with reality, however, was probably best revealed by Trump’s utterly ludicrous contention that that if he had not cancelled Obama’s JCPOA in May 2018 Iran would have nuked the entire middle east and Israel into oblivion by now.” (04/06/26)
