Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Walter Block
“Ordinarily, in the absence of such market interferences, free trade would be the policy most conducive to prosperity. We produce the products for which we have a comparative advantage, and interfere with the international division of labor as little as possible. However, matters change with marketing boards. Is it possible that a second economically illiterate regulation may benefit us by (partially) reducing the impact of the first? Yes, without marketing boards, free trade is the ticket to economic well-being. But with them, is there a case for tariffs on grounds of economic development? Here is the argument in favor of such a paradoxical hypothesis.” (03/08/26)
“This war with Iran is an extension of the dynamics that have always driven US foreign policy. And nothing will stop this President from the path of destruction he has chosen — certainly not the Congress, which has long been ceding its constitutional responsibilities to the executive branch. Indeed, House Speaker Mike Johnson denies that the US is even involved in a ‘war.’ And Senate Republicans have blocked any war power limits to this operation, giving Trump a rubberstamp to do whatever the hell he wants. The warmongers among us serve the administration by labeling as ‘traitors’ those who oppose US intervention abroad. This has become a virtual rite of passage for critics in times of war.” (03/07/26)
“A New York Times columnist offering pointers for ‘Pitchfork Pat’ Buchanan-type populists on ‘the isolationist right who thought Trump shared his views’ might seem akin to a mad scientist named Frankenstein offering a road map to a pitchforks-and-torches peasant mob. Yet Michelle Goldberg does just that in ‘The President Was Never Antiwar’ (March 2). While maintaining that Donald Trump was indeed the embodiment through which ‘the once marginalized politics of Patrick Buchanan became a dominant force in the Republican Party,’ Goldberg insists that ‘Trump was never Buchanan’s heir when it came to foreign policy.’ … While ‘it is true that he broke with key elements of neoconservative ideology,’ he hasn’t distanced himself from even ‘the most fanatical of neoconservatives,’ preferring instead to discard the ideology’s ‘notion that American power should ever be constrained by a veneer of idealism.'” (03/07/26)
“MAGA’s philosophical twists and turns are hard to follow given that whenever Donald Trump changes his mind his supporters have three go-to approaches. First, they claim his latest notion is part of a 3D chess game even if, by all appearances, Trump would struggle to play one-level tic-tac-toe. Second, they distract our attention: Didn’t Barack Obama do this, too? Third, they get with the program and shamelessly back whatever the president is doing. Sometimes MAGA-supporting influencers with their own agendas and philosophies take issue with some Trump policy. But rank-and-file MAGA always follows the Dear Leader even if it means contradicting some Deeply Held Principle they espoused weeks ago.” (03/06/26)
“For me and many others, the Iraq War of 2003 was a life-altering lesson in humility. In the wake of 9/11, with trauma warping my frontal cortex, I backed a pre-meditated, pre-emptive war for regime change in the Middle East — something stupid and immoral I soon realized, however well intentioned. It changed me. But at least in those tense, polarized months of 2002 and 2003, we had hashed out the case for war thoroughly beforehand, as democracies do. … Come with me a little further back in time to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. That was a war started by Saddam Hussein, not us. How did we go about a new war in the Middle East back then? Well, we had another big public debate, another trip to the UN, and then another vote in the Congress. It was closer than we remember: just 52-47 in the Senate (with one abstention). … Seems like another planet, doesn’t it?” (03/06/26)
“We live in a great Age of Conspiracy Theories. I’m not quite on board. As the Internet grew up, with it came all the condemnations of conspiracy theories, run rampant. The Internet, we were told, was problematic in that not only was information readier at hand than ever before, but so was it easier to share and nurture all these goofy conspiracy theories. You know: JFK was killed by someone other than Oswald, or also by others, in addition to Oswald. Or … UFOs are real, and the government is covering it up. Or the Rothschilds are behind it all. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. Ick. Yet: The government now admits that UFOs are real …. Further: As we uncover the grotesquerie in the Epstein Files, we learn that he proudly served Rothschild banking interests! So let’s not get started on the JFK assassination.” (03/06/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The US soldiers who are getting killed in the war with Iran were not heroes. They did not die defending their country. They did not die fighting to protect Americans. They died advancing the geostrategic agendas of oligarchs and empire managers which benefit ordinary Americans in no way. It’s important not to valorize these people for two reasons. Firstly, it assists US military recruitment by falsely portraying these imperial stormtrooper careers as noble and heroic. Secondly, it falsely frames the war they died in as a righteous cause which is making the world a better place, rather than as a war of aggression against a nation that posed literally zero threat to their homeland. These are not harmless little white lies. They are extremely destructive propaganda narratives which facilitate acts of mass military slaughter on real human beings. Don’t assist the warmongers in circulating these lies.” (03/07/26)
“U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice have been openly violating a federal law for two and a half months to shield President Donald Trump from transparency in the metastasizing ‘Epstein files’ scandal. And now Bondi will get a second chance at explaining herself in Congress. But based on her last performance before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in February, expect only more pathetic theatrics and zero acceptance of accountability. Still, something has shifted …. It looks like Bondi will finally face some tough questions from members of her own political party about how she has botched the release of the Epstein files. And that’s long overdue.” (03/08/26)
“President Trump is reportedly considering an order requiring financial institutions to check customers’ citizenship, a curious departure from the administration’s professed concerns about the burden of bureaucracy and debanking. … Customers unnerved by the order might move their money from chartered depository institutions to informal family, religious, and community-based financial networks. … Federal statutes forbid financial service companies from alerting customers when surveillance reports are sent to authorities. But being asked to prove citizenship on everyday occasions is an intrusion people are sure to notice.” [editor’s note: Singleton’s wording implies that she MAY think moving money from state-surveilled institutions “to informal family, religious, and community-based financial networks” is a bad thing. I disagree. I consider it an essential precursor to restoring economic freedom, even though I also oppose the prospective “order” – TLK] (03/07/26)
“A very old type of information warfare – spreading false narratives to rattle an enemy’s population during a conflict – now has a new and vital adversary: fact-checkers. On March 3, for example, a video went viral showing Israel’s second-largest city, Tel Aviv, in flames from multiple strikes by Iranian missiles, four days after the first Israeli and American attacks on Iran. It attracted more than 14 million views. ‘The video is AI-generated, and features multiple errors consistent with AI clips,’ posted BBC Verify senior journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh. ‘It’s not real.’ After spotting many similar fake images, Mr. Sardarizadeh concluded: ‘This war might have already broken the record for the highest number of AI-generated videos and images that have gone viral during a conflict…. Welcome to our brave new world of AI misinformation.'” (03/06/26)
