Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko
“Garry Tan, the CEO of venture capital firm Y Combinator, accused me of unethical reporting. This is my response.” (05/15/26)
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/truth-power-and-honest-journalism
Source: Reason
by Luke Wake
“The ruling is a victory not just for one Texas title company, but for the principle that agencies like FinCEN can only do what Congress actually authorized.” (05/15/26)
Source: SFGate
“A proposal to fund $1 billion in security additions for the White House campus and the president’s new ballroom fails to meet procedural rules, according to the Senate parliamentarian, dealing a blow to Republican plans to include it as part of a bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies for the next three years. The parliamentarian’s ruling, described late Saturday by Senate Democrats, said that funding for a project as large and complex as President Donald Trump’s massive East Wing renovation is too broad to be included in the narrow GOP budget bill, which cannot be filibustered and only needs a simple majority to pass. It’s unclear if Republicans will be able to immediately salvage any part of the billion-dollar Secret Service proposal, which would fund security for Trump’s ballroom along with other parts of the White House, including a new visitor screening center, additional training for agents and extra reinforcements for large events.” (05/16/26)
Source: The Tom Woods Show
“How Bad Numbers Become ‘Science.'” (05/15/26)
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2761-how-bad-numbers-become-science/
Source: EconLog
by Valentin Boboc
“Much of the panic around AI rests on pointing out absolute advantages. LLMs can write clearly and convincingly. They summarise large documents quickly. They generate passable Python scripts in seconds. In these discrete tasks, AI is a direct competitor. If a job is merely a collection of such tasks, the human worker is in trouble. The Ricardian challenge, however, is to identify where AI has a comparative advantage and whether this manifests itself at the job level. Comparative advantage is determined by opportunity costs. For humans, the binding constraint is time. For AI, the constraint is compute. These are very different constraints, and they are different enough to keep humans in the picture.” (05/15/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/ai-and-comparative-advantage
Source: The Hill
“The Senate parliamentarian on Thursday ruled that several elements of the Republicans’ budget reconciliation package to provide $70 billion in immigration enforcement funding failed to comply with the Byrd Rule and would be stricken from the bill if any senator raises a point-of-order objection against the bill. The ruling is a setback for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who wants to bring the legislation to the floor next week, that may push Republicans to redraft or drop some provisions of the package.” (05/15/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5879721-immigration-bill-parliamentarian-ruling/
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“President Trump’s much-heralded trip to Beijing, the first summit in Beijing since 2017, yielded nothing of value. The only good thing about it was that Trump evidently did not give away the store on Taiwan or on exports of sensitive technology. One concrete thing that President Xi Jinping might have done didn’t happen. Xi could have agreed to put pressure on China’s ally, Iran, to split the difference with Trump and end the war. But neither the official communiqué nor White House leaks said anything about progress on Iran. The real work, if any, will continue behind the scenes. There have been leaks that China agreed to buy more U.S. oil, agricultural products, and Boeing planes, but that has not been confirmed by the Chinese side.” (05/16/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/05/15/trumps-nothingburger-banquet-beijing-iran-taiwan-xi/
Source: USA Today
“The United States is moving to indict former Cuban president Raúl Castro, two sources familiar with the matter told USA TODAY. The possible charges are related to a 30-year-old case that involved the Cuban government shooting down two planes operated by a humanitarian group in 1996, the sources said. Any indictment would have to be issued by a grand jury after being presented with evidence in the case. News that the United States was looking to indict Castro came hours after CIA Director John Ratcliffe led a delegation to Havana on May 14 to deliver a message from President Donald Trump to Cuban officials and Raúl ‘Raulito’ Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, who is the elder Castro’s grandson.” (05/15/26)
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Trump Considers Restarting War, Says Iran Ceasefire on Life Support.” (05/15/26)
Source: Antiwar.com
by Greg Pence
“The central question is no longer whether the United States can inflict damage on Iran. The real question is whether such pressure is actually capable of producing Washington’s desired political outcome.An increasing number of Western analyses now suggest the answer is no. The United States and its allies are gradually realizing that they are confronting a country capable of enduring pressure, reproducing internal control, managing crises, and exporting the costs of war beyond its borders. This reality has drawn Washington into what may be called ‘the trap of Iranian resilience’ – a situation in which continued pressure no longer changes Tehran’s behavior but instead exponentially raises the costs for America itself.” (05/15/26)