Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
by Trudy Rubin

“In 1966, the famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow came up with a description of a mental bias that became known as ‘Maslow’s hammer.’ ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, I suppose it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail,’ Maslow contended. Or, as some have reworded his theorem: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is a good diagnosis for how President Donald Trump has trapped us all in his unnecessary war with Tehran. A war from which he can’t find a good exit.” (04/23/26)

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/iran-war-trump-strait-hormuz-ceasefire-weak-deal-20260423.html

Source: Niskanen Center
by Jacob Brown

“There’s broad bipartisan agreement that the federal government pays too much for goods and services yet procurement timelines remain far too slow. Over the past year, the Trump administration has been working on the ‘Revolutionary FAR Overhaul’ (RFO), described in an executive order as an effort to ‘create the most agile, effective, and efficient procurement system possible.’ To achieve this, the EO directs an overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and agency supplements so that they contain ‘only provisions required by statute or essential to sound procurement.’ So far, the administration has succeeded in making provisional changes to the FAR, which many agencies have adopted.” (04/23/26)

https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-hidden-cost-of-simplicity-procurement-reforms-fragmentation-problem

Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by Dylan Soares

“State management is the rule, not the exception, of wildlife management in the U.S. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) displaces it only when the best available science shows a species is endangered or threatened, thereby requiring federal oversight. That principle is at the heart of PERC’s amicus brief in Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which argues that political and policy disagreements with state management cannot override the ESA’s science-based standard.” (04/23/26)

https://www.perc.org/2026/04/23/wildlife-management-must-be-driven-by-science-not-politics/

Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson

“How does the supposedly most fearsome regime in the violent Middle East now find itself on the verge of an utter economic and military collapse? Iran’s half-century-long deadly terrorist reputation peaked with the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel that it helped fund and coordinate. Iran’s terrorist ambitions of running the Middle East had accelerated after witnessing Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and his administration’s distancing itself from Israel. Biden’s humiliation by a series of Chinese slights and the Russian invasion of Ukraine further eroded American deterrence. European appeasement was another force multiplier of Iranian hubris.” [editor’s note: And yet somehow the mighty US hasn’t decisively defeated them – TLK] (04/23/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/04/23/how-iran-committed-suicide/