Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“The Washington Post recently pointed out that ‘starting this year, the Social Security benefits formula gives the very-highest-income couples who retire at age 67 over $100,000’ per year. And the Post is very upset about it: ‘With the federal government $39 trillion in debt and running deficits larger than during the Great Depression, there’s no reason that the largest federal spending program should be sending six figures in annual benefits to rich people.’ But I thought that Social Security recipients were entitled to collect benefits because they paid into the system their whole working lives? Isn’t that what we are continually told?” (05/11/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/should-there-be-a-cap-on-social-security-benefits/
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“One gauge of a society’s level of interpersonal trust lies in how much the central government shares power – with local authorities, courts, private citizen groups, and others. For the last 16 years in Hungary, such trust has been evaporating. An increasingly authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán, had been centralizing power and creating ‘us versus them’ polarization around often-fabricated issues. On Saturday, all that changed with the swearing-in of a new prime minister, Péter Magyar. His broad-tent Tisza party won big in elections a month ago. In his inaugural speech, Mr. Magyar pledged not to rule over Hungary but to ‘serve’ it – through reconciliation, inclusiveness, and democratic renewal. ‘We are going to remake the constitutional system so that such a concentration of power can never happen again,’ he declared.” (05/11/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0511/Power-sharing-as-trust-building-in-Hungary
Source: CNN
“A Russian cargo ship likely carrying two nuclear reactors for submarines, possibly destined for North Korea, suffered a series of explosions and sank in unexplained circumstances, about 60 miles off the coast of Spain, a CNN investigation has found. The extraordinary fate of the Ursa Major has been shrouded in secrecy since it sank on December 23, 2024. … US nuclear ‘sniffer’ aircraft have flown over the sunken ship twice in the past year, according to public flight data. And its wreckage was also visited a week after it sank by a suspected Russian spy ship which set off four further explosions …. The Spanish government has said little, only releasing a statement on February 23 after pressure from opposition lawmakers. It confirmed that the ship’s Russian captain had told Spanish investigators the Ursa Major was carrying ‘components for two nuclear reactors similar to those used in submarines,’ and that he was unsure if they were loaded with nuclear fuel.” (05/11/26)
https://archive.is/pEgF6
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on his concerns with the response to the hantavirus outbreak, as the U.S. government is not mandating a hospital quarantine for the Americans who were on the infected cruise ship.” (05/11/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/5869847-rising-may-12-2026/
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The Department of Justice’s case against the egregious former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, is as weak a case as he could hope. Comey had shared an image on social media — a photo of shells on a beach gathered together to markout ’86 47′ — and, when people interpreted it as a possible threat, he deleted it. … Don’t get me wrong. Was it a dumb thing for the disgraced former government official to share? Sure. But even outstandingly horrible former FBI heads have freedom of silly speech. This is not the first time Comey’s been prosecuted by the Trump DOJ. The last time it fizzled. And, considering the First Amendment, this one will fizzle.” (05/11/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/05/12/prosecutorial-shell-game/
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“I’ve never had much time for social engineering. Not only is it usually an affront to freedom, but it usually comes with perverse unintended consequences. Still, one might make the case: If somebody’s gonna do it, it ought to be done better. While I would never want to offend the sensibilities of those who just want to be left alone by the authorities, I would like at least to imagine less poorly designed systems than the ones we currently suffer under.” (05/11/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/superior-social-engineering
Source: TomDispatch
by Juan Cole
“After British troops had beaten German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s tank forces at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt on November 4, 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.’ The same might now be said about humanity’s struggle to defeat the dire threat of global climate change caused by our never-ending burning of fossil fuels. The illegal war of aggression on Iran, abruptly launched on February 28, 2026, by the governments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, has indeed provoked a global energy crisis of a unique kind.” (05/12/26)
https://tomdispatch.com/the-electric-car-is-the-only-winner-in-the-latest-iran-war/
Source: WTOP News
“The Justice Department filed criminal charges against the operator of the Dali and an employee on board the container ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland, leading to its collapse and the death of six people in March 2024. The indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses two corporations and the ship’s technical operator of causing the death of the construction workers and the collapse of the Baltimore bridge on March 26, 2024. Federal prosecutors announced the indictment in Baltimore, naming Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., based in Singapore, and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd., based in Chennai, India.” (05/11/26)
https://wtop.com/baltimore/2026/05/federal-charges-filed-against-dali-operator-employee-in-crash-that-caused-the-deadly-collapse-of-baltimores-key-bridge/
Source: Cato Institute
“Washington’s Tariff Whack-a-Mole.” (05/12/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/washingtons-tariff-whack-mole
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“Back in January 2023, Aimen Halim bought an order of ‘boneless wings’ at a Buffalo Wild Wings outlet in Mount Prospect, Illinois. At the time, he claims, he assumed the product was composed of deboned chicken wing meat. But to his horror, he discovered that it was in fact made from chicken breast meat. That revelation resulted in a federal lawsuit: Halim sued the restaurant chain two months later, alleging breach of express warranty, common law fraud, and unjust enrichment. When U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. dismissed that lawsuit in February 2026, he did not question Halim’s claim of confusion about the nature of boneless wings. But even if Halim honestly thought he was getting a deboned version of Buffalo Wild Wings’ ‘traditional’ wings, Tharp said, ‘his complaint has no meat on its bones,’ because ‘Halim does not plausibly allege that reasonable consumers are deceived by boneless wings.'” (05/11/26)
https://reason.com/2026/05/12/are-boneless-wings-fraudulent/
