Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“As the United States and Israel press their war of aggression against Iran — now entering its second month — attention has understandably focused on the carnage in the Middle East. Yet with the Strait of Hormuz effectively blockaded and global energy markets in turmoil, the conflict’s ripples extend far beyond the Persian Gulf. In East Asia, America’s closest treaty allies, Japan and South Korea, are absorbing punishing economic shocks from their dependence on Middle Eastern oil, while Washington’s diversion of military assets has left them feeling exposed and annoyed. Meanwhile, Beijing, Washington’s bete noire, looks on with barely concealed satisfaction, its state media churning out satirical videos that mock yet another American entanglement in the region’s endless conflicts. For those who have long warned that empire abroad undermines security and prosperity at home, the spectacle offers a textbook case of the predictable, if unintended, costs of interventionism.” (04/02/26)
“In President Trump’s first term, many members of his Cabinet were establishment conservatives with tangible, executive experience who were willing to follow the president far to the right … but had lines in the sand they were unwilling to cross. In this second term, Trump has prioritized surrounding himself with those who are unwilling to cross him. And during her time as attorney general, Pam Bondi was unquestionably one of those people. On Thursday, she lost her job anyway. Not because Bondi wasn’t loyal but because she couldn’t make ‘it’ go away. And you know what I mean about ‘it.'” (04/02/26)
“The Freedom of Information Act was designed to empower citizens to hold their government accountable. But evidence suggests the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has quietly adopted a practice that turns that principle on its head: labeling some of the people who file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as ‘vexsome.’ In effect, the agency has created a FOIA-specific blacklist. Yet when asked, it denies having done so.” (04/02/26)
“As America is no stranger to war, it’s also no stranger to presidential addresses that justify and report on the wars then ongoing. No matter whether we’re winning or losing, first-strikers or get-struck-firsters, advancing or just holding the line, every previous wartime president has managed to stay on topic. But not Donald Trump. His Wednesday night speech was notable only in that he repeatedly strayed off topic. … Even granting that the topic of every Trump speech is Trump, that theme plays least well in an address supposedly intended to convince his fellow citizens that the course on which he’s set the nation is worth the sacrifices of combat and the travails (in this case, economic) of the home front.” (04/02/26)
“A federal judge sided with the artificial intelligence company’s argument that the government violated its right to free speech, but the dispute is far from over.” (04/02/26)
“[Harvey] Mansfield is a political scientist as much as a political philosopher, an Aristotelian who never disparages moral virtue, political nobility, or patriotic attachment to a decent and free political order such as the United States. As one, he has repeatedly instructed fellow political scientists to care more about politics as the distinctively human realm than about narrow ‘methodological’ concerns that risk obscuring the reality and true stakes of human and political life. Mansfield has never been remotely tempted to identify the theoretical life with Epicurean disdain for the dignity and grandeur of the political vocation. At the same time, he is perfectly immune to the moralism that animates so many academics and intellectuals today.” (04/02/26)
“For the past four years, inflation has consistently polled as voters’ top economic concern—and often top concern overall. Nevertheless, President Joe Biden steadfastly ignored those concerns and pursued an inflationary agenda until it cost his party the White House. Then, after Trump campaigned on ending ‘Bidenflation,’ he re-entered the White House and immediately unleashed his own aggressively inflationary agenda — tariffs, tax cuts, spending expansions, immigration deportations, and demands for Federal Reserve rate cuts. … presidents invariably decide to focus on offering tangible benefits and roll the dice on any macroeconomic consequences.” (04/02/26)
“A viral mental habit about burnt toast echoes Stoic philosophy: adversity — no matter how small — is an opportunity to practice discipline, perspective, and self-mastery.” (04/02/26)
“You are being ripped off. When it comes to fiat paper ‘money,’ Richard Sherman didn’t hold back. He saw it as an unjust and totally immoral weapon that turns government into a legalized protection racket for fraud. He made that case in his incredibly important, but almost completely unknown pamphlet A Caveat Against Injustice, where he called for criminal punishment for the perpetrators.” (04/01/26)
