Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“At a time when gambling is increasingly treated by governments as a vice to be regulated or restricted, it is worth recalling a curious episode in European economic history: a casino once saved a country. In the 19th century, Monaco went from being a virtually bankrupt state to the playground of millionaires that we know today.” (03/17/26)
Source: Project Liberal
by Oliver Gale
“Why democracies must confront Russian hybrid warfare and the return of fascism to Europe.” [editor’s note: Fake “liberals” might want to keep the McCarthyism at least a little hidden until they actually have power – TLK] (03/17/26)
https://projectliberal.substack.com/p/the-ghost-of-1938-the-russian-threat
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“The Iran war is a regional war in a way that previous reckless U.S. interventions were not, and it is having global effects. The Iran war is already wider and more damaging to international peace and security in its first three weeks than the Iraq war was in its early years. If it is allowed to continue for several more months, the damage to regional security will be severe. The damage to the interests of many of our treaty allies will also be significant, and the entire global economy will suffer. This was an entirely avoidable disaster, and the U.S. and Israel are responsible for causing it.” (03/17/26)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/the-iran-wars-terrible-effects
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter
“I’m not one of those people tapping their foot saying, ‘When is the war going to end? It’s been dragging on and is a disaster!’ No, those people are idiots actively hoping the United States is damaged because of who the President of the United States is. Nor do I think the Iranian regime didn’t deserve to be wiped out; those who used to be in charge (and alive) were evil and them no longer existing is a great thing for humanity. But what comes next isn’t up to us, it’s up to the people of Iran to act. And there is still an open question about what it is they want, so we have to consider the possibility that most of them simply don’t want to be ‘free.'” (03/17/26)
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jon Duffy
“In describing the U.S. war in Iran, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth often sounds less like a leader burdened by the grave public trust of killing in the nation’s name than like a man performing for an audience. On ’60 Minutes,’ he said ‘the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re gonna live.’ Days earlier, Hegseth described the torpedoing of an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka — an attack that killed more than 80 sailors — as ‘quiet death,’ with a relish that has no place in the public voice of American war. Some will hear lines like that and dismiss them as swagger from a man temperamentally unsuited to his office. The deeper problem is the view of war those lines reveal. … Hegseth does not speak of war as responsibility, burden or tragedy. He speaks of it as a stage for display.” (03/17/26)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Jeffery L Degner
“COVID lockdowns transformed education and exposed the limits of centralized policymaking. Six years later, students are still paying the price.” (03/17/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-long-shadow-of-covid-school-closures/
Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“It is supremely ironic that President Donald Trump, who in 2016 gained a reputation as a staunch opponent of regime-change wars, is 10 years later placing a huge political bet on achieving success with multiple U.S. crusades of that nature. He has already launched regime-change military campaigns against Venezuela and Iran. Some comments by Trump indicate that he is contemplating a campaign to oust the entrenched communist regime in Cuba. It’s a massive gamble for the president and the Republican Party. If Trump can carry off the strategy, and pro-U.S. successor governments replace repressive and hostile systems in all three countries, his historical legacy would be impressive in the eyes of many. … A failure to achieve such transformational outcomes at low cost in American blood and treasure, though, would likely prove politically disastrous for Trump and his supporters. The early indicators are not especially encouraging for the administration’s strategy.” (03/17/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-risks-it-all-on-regime-change-abroad/
Source: Common Dreams
by Leonardo Flores
“I’m traveling to Cuba for the first time on March 21 to be in Havana with the Nuestra América Convoy, in which people from dozens of countries representing a variety of organizations will break the blockade, bringing much-needed supplies to the island. CODEPINK is bringing 6,300 pounds of medical equipment and medicine with help from Global Health Partners and others. These supplies will be given to clinics, hospitals, and maternity centers as Cuba deals with the latest horrifying crime against humanity perpetrated by the United States. The US is blockading oil, seizing and chasing away Cuba-bound tankers in the Caribbean. No oil whatsoever has entered the island since early December. Trump characterized Cuba as an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat,’ paving the way for more unilateral coercive measures (so-called sanctions).” (03/17/26)
Source: Washington Monthly
by Bill Scher
“Whatever happens in Illinois and elsewhere this primary season, the risks to democracy are clear. In multi-candidate primaries that can be won by small pluralities, special interest groups can misrepresent themselves, spend lavishly, and watch their preferred candidates, who are not representative of their party’s voters, eke out narrow wins. That could not only damage a party’s short-term prospects but also threaten its integrity in the long term.” (03/17/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/03/17/crypto-aipac-corrupting-democratic-primaries/
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“At what point must we be frank about the fact that Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb author who died last week at the age of 93, was not simply wrong about almost everything he ever wrote or said or thought, but positively and culpably dishonest? If ever there were an intellectual grave that deserves pissing on posthaste, it is Paul Ehrlich’s. So let us commence. Ehrlich was an intellectual fraud, something he had in common with many of the celebrated pseudoscientists, quacks, and cranks who became intellectual heroes to our era’s progressives, from Sigmund Freud to Noam Chomsky, Rachel Carson, Margaret Sanger, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. until about five minutes ago. (Right-wingers don’t go around reading books by crackpots — they put them into the Cabinet.)” (03/17/26)