Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye

“The so-called ‘Election Integrity Network’ has released its ‘Model Election Laws Handbook.’ The problem with the handbook isn’t that every proposal in it is unreasonable. Many of the proposals, of course, absurd, but they tend to hide behind reasonable rhetoric …. the handbook repeatedly treats ordinary features of election administration as evidence that the system itself lacks legitimacy. I’ve seen a quote floating around online that states, ‘Everything’s a conspiracy if you don’t understand how anything works.’ The basis of the handbook is that administrative imperfections stop being problems to manage and increasingly become proof that elections can’t be trusted unless the system becomes more restrictive, more adversarial, and more procedurally rigid.” (05/19/26)

https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/the-far-rights-new-election-handbook

Source: TomDispatch
by John Feffer

“Ever since North Korea suffered through the death of its first leader in 1994, a loss magnified by an economic collapse and a devastating famine, outside observers have likened the country to an airplane experiencing a serious malfunction. The major question they posed: in the end, would North Korea experience a soft landing or a catastrophic crash? Perhaps a reformer would come along — say, a North Korean version of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — who could right the airship of state and guide it toward the runway of reunification with South Korea. More direly, the North Korean regime could collapse all of a sudden, like the Communist governments in Eastern Europe in 1989. Those were relatively peaceful affairs, but North Korea’s worst-case scenarios might involve violent power struggles, the return of famine, and a free-for-all scramble for the country’s loose nukes.” (05/19/26)

https://tomdispatch.com/is-the-u-s-heading-toward-a-hard-landing/

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen

“In Washington, bad ideas rarely die — they rebrand. Industrial policy — long discredited in theory and practice — has returned under the more palatable language of ‘resilience’ and ‘strategic supply chains.’ The Trump administration’s proposed minerals consortium is the latest iteration. Sold as a necessary response to dependence on China for the processing of rare earths and other critical minerals, it promises coordination, investment, and independence. What it will deliver instead is distortion, waste, and a fresh round of politically-driven malinvestment.” (05/19/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/minerals-consortium-will-result-malinvestment

Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson

“One American view of China — now increasingly popular on the Left and the Right alike, especially among the hate-Trump crowd — is that the communist colossus will be forever ascendant, with continued astonishing levels of food production, ship construction, and industrial output. In this pessimistic view, China will soon replace America as the world’s predominant power. We are, supposedly, like an exhausted British Empire circa 1945, and China is the new version of the postwar American powerhouse. Yet even Beijing’s miraculous 30-year leap out of poverty into first-world affluence and Westernized power is hardly the same as parity with the US. In truth, Trump held almost all the cards at the current summit and will do so again when Xi Jinping visits the US this autumn.” (05/19/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/05/19/america-the-real-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon/

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Two weeks ago, five incumbent Indiana state senators ‘weren’t just defeated,’ as NBC’s Steve Kornacki explained, ‘they were defeated in landslides.’ The five had bucked President Trump’s call to redraw the state’s congressional map …. On Saturday in Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a 12-year Republican incumbent, became the first elected U.S. Senator to lose in a primary since 2012. … Cassidy was one of seven GOP Senators who found Mr. Trump guilty in his second impeachment trial, following the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. I cannot recall a president of either party ever wielding so much electoral clout within his own party — perhaps partly because other presidents did not attempt to reshape their party as aggressively as Trump has, and partly because no president has enjoyed the outsider status required to mobilize the disgruntled grassroots.” (05/19/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/05/19/king-kingslayer/