“Since Ahmed al-Sharaa came to power in Damascus last January, a question has hovered in the air: Has Syria truly changed, or merely changed hands Seeking sanctions relief, investment and a measure of international legitimacy, the new leadership, despite its past association with Al Qaeda, has signaled moderation. The symbols of the old regime are gone. The suffocating omnipresence of the Assad state has receded. Cafes have reopened, checkpoints have thinned and Syrians speak more freely. Yes, there have been killings of members of the Druze and the formerly dominant Alawite minorities, which the government denies direct involvement in. But even this mixed picture is no small achievement. The Russia- and Iran-backed Assad regime was not simply authoritarian; it was claustrophobic, built on surveillance, coercion and inherited power. Its collapse created space.” (03/21/26)
“His rage at NATO is actually an admission that he needs our allies’ help — and that he wants somebody to blame as his war goes from bad to worse.” (03/21/26)
“The idea that Trump’s war on Iran is a betrayal of ‘True Trumpism’ is the last gasp of people who told themselves that Trumpism was an ideology. And it’s embarrassing. I don’t agree with Trump on much, but he is incandescently, blazingly, irrefutably correct when he says ‘I think that MAGA is Trump.’ … Whether you call it MAGA or America First or Trumpism, he determines what it is. And that has been true from the beginning. If you sincerely thought otherwise, the joke is on you.” (03/20/26)
“Congress should not treat this supplemental as routine. It’s not. A $200 billion request tied to an open-ended conflict demands more than a simple funding vote. It requires a clear endpoint. Without that, lawmakers are writing a blank check for a war without an endgame, financed through additional borrowing at a time of already elevated deficits. And let’s be clear. If this war expands and boots are put on the ground, the fiscal cost will grow beyond $200 billion. Service members will be killed or wounded, adding to the $3 trillion that the federal government will spend on veterans over the next ten years.” (03/21/26)
“One of the first things I do every morning, even before I get out of bed, is check the news to discover if something good happened while I was asleep. I rarely find any such news. Just about all that is reported is crime, war, hatred, Democrats, Washington, D.C., California, New York City, the Middle East, Congress, China, Trump is Hitler, transgenderism, promiscuity and decadence, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. Every time I see a picture of Gavin Newsom, AOC, Nancy Pelosi, or Chuck Schumer, I want to puke. And since I’m only allowed 1,000 words for this article and want to say other things, I’ll leave it at that, and let the reader add to the list of barbaric and barfable objects as he/she wishes. But I don’t really wonder why I’m so cynical and have chronic depression. However, this morning, I got a boost in the other direction.” (03/21/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Robert Corn-Revere
“[I]f I had to choose an aphorism that sums up the state of the world today, I think I would have to go with Mark Twain. This one may be apocryphal as well, but Twain (supposedly) wrote, ‘Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.’ You can never go wrong with Twain, even if he didn’t actually write that line. There are plenty more where that came from. Here’s one he did write: ‘Suppose I were an idiot. Now, suppose I were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.'” (03/20/26)
“From the Rapid City Regional Airport in the Black Hills of South Dakota, we have a ‘NextDoor’ posting. We are reminded that (courtesy of Congressional wrangling and other factors), DHS has not been funded. So your friendly airport trolls in TSA get-up are not getting paid. So, the poster tells us, travelers in and out of the airport are asked to drop a few dimes (or dollars) into tip baskets to give a little help to the unpaid TSA agents for pawing through your luggage, your carry-on, powering up your laptop, making you take your belt buckle and shoes off, and wanding you so that you can fly to visit Aunt Ginnie in Seattle or Houston. Right.” (03/20/26)
“What’s in a name? For global aid groups hit hard last year when the world’s largest donor – the United States – slashed its humanitarian and development budget, a name change can bring a refreshing change in how to view poor, unwell, and homeless people. On March 18, Mercy Corps, which once directly helped about 37 million people in 35 countries, announced it would soon call itself Prosper Global, after a major downsizing of the Oregon-based organization. ‘We believe strongly that what these communities need is prosperity, not mercy,’ chief development officer Mary Stata told Axios. The rebranding reflects a view that ‘participants’ in programs are leaders, not ‘passive recipients of humanitarian aid,’ as Ms. Stata explained.” (03/20/26)
“As the Iran War has metastasized, a number of conservative intellectuals who strongly supported President Trump have started jumping ship. … A common thread is the comparison of the Iran war to George W. Bush’s war on Iraq, and a belief that, by pursuing a similar war of choice for regime change in the Middle East, Trump is betraying the intellectual foundations and the clear and specific policy goals of the movement he started. I rejoice when any public intellectual admits error, something that happens far less often than it ought to do. But I’m not sure they’ve identified their error correctly, because their analogy isn’t quite right. The Iran War isn’t the right event to analogize to the Iraq War. Rather, Trump himself, and the whole idea of using him as a vehicle for transforming America from the top down, is what is analogous to the Iraq War, and was from the beginning.” (03/20/26)
