An Empire Without Liberty?

Source: Libertarian Institute
by William J Watkins Jr.

“Since the beginning of the war, President Donald Trump has touted dismantlement of the Iranian government as the American endgame. Even as U.S. officials negotiate with their Iranian counterparts to end the fighting and restore stability to world energy markets, Trump says he still wants to see a ‘very serious form of a regime change’ in the ultimate peace deal. This imperial hubris is unworthy of the president of a federal republic and would cause the Founding Fathers to cringe.” (04/01/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/an-empire-without-liberty

Afroman’s verdict is just the beginning: Officers also deserve criminal scrutiny

Source: The Hill
by Michael Mellette

“On March 18, a jury in rural Adams County, Ohio, rejected a defamation lawsuit in a matter of hours. That speed was itself a verdict — not just on the merits, but on the character of the case. Seven law enforcement officers had sued a music artist for using his own home security footage to criticize a police raid on his own home. The officers lost, in what civil liberties advocates called a huge First Amendment victory. The more important question, though, is going largely unasked — whether the officers who brought this lawsuit should face criminal scrutiny as well.” (04/01/26)

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/5809358-officers-sued-rapper-security-footage/

Birthright Citizenship Shouldn’t Be Up for Debate

Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman

“The US Supreme Court today will hear a major constitutional case about birthright citizenship. We shouldn’t be debating this right now. But since the president chose to act with such striking disregard for the law, here we are. Birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. The first sentence of the 14th Amendment reads, ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’ This has been the law for more than 150 years. … The Supreme Court in 1898 confirmed the 14th Amendment’s plain meaning. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, it ruled that children born here are citizens, even if their parents are not. That principle gave rise to generations of new Americans. Donald Trump tried to Sharpie this out of the Constitution.” (04/01/26)

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/birthright-citizenship-shouldnt-be-debate

Anthropic Rushes to Limit the Leak of Claude Code Source Code

Source: Bloomberg

“Anthropic PBC is rushing to address the inadvertent release of internal source code behind Claude Code, an AI-powered assistant that has become a key moneymaker for the company. Thousands of copies of the code were removed from GitHub in response to copyright takedown requests from Anthropic, according to a notice on the popular developer platform. Anthropic later said the takedown impacted more GitHub repositories than intended and has since been significantly scaled back. … In a statement Tuesday, Anthropic confirmed the leak and said ‘no sensitive customer data or credentials were involved or exposed.’ The company added: ‘This was a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach.'” (04/01/26)

https://archive.is/ICvx4

Alberta Shrugs?

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Political dysfunction is not limited to the United States of America. Take Canada. Things have gotten bad enough there that one province is taking measures to ‘dissolve the political bands which have connected them’ with the folks running everything from Ottawa. … Alberta’s secession is going to the ballot. Will the voters choose yes? Secession is a messy, difficult business. But it’s easier in Canada than in, say, the United States (where it led to war). So we will see how the people of the province really feel about how horrific the government in Ottawa really is.” (04/01/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/04/01/alberta-shrugs/

Will Oil-Loving Trump Go Down as the Greenest President in History?

Source: Beat the Press
by Dean Baker

“President Donald Trump has an incredibly childish obsession with outdoing his predecessors, who he constantly derides as stupid and corrupt. There is, of course, no evidence for Trump’s charges, like the supposedly terrible economy he inherited from President Joe Biden, but Donald Trump is not a man who feels constrained by reality. While Trump does everything he can to reverse policies to promote clean energy, overturn trade agreements (including his own), and undermine security pacts, there is one area where Trump looks to substantially outpace the work of his predecessors. This is in promoting the transition to a non-fossil fuel-based economy. … his reckless attack on Iran will do a hundred times more to promote clean energy worldwide than all the incentives in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.” (04/01/26)

https://cepr.net/publications/march-2026-jobs-report-preview-what-to-expect/

Defund the War

Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison

“The Iran war is a war of aggression and a crime against the Iranian people. Belatedly authorizing a war that should never have happened would be an endorsement of that crime. It is bad enough that members of Congress failed in their constitutional responsibilities when they did nothing to stop this war. To approve Trump’s actions after the fact would be so much worse.” (04/01/26)

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/defund-the-war