Source: USA Today
by Nicole Hurley

“I’ve been suspicious of the Southern Poverty Law Center for some time. The SPLC, a nonprofit founded in 1971, was built to combat hate and discrimination. The mission sounds worthy enough. But then the group began publishing its annual ‘Year in Hate and Extremism’ report, identifying hundreds – sometimes more than 1,000 – ‘hate groups’ across the United States. In 2019, it labeled Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent conservative legal organization, a ‘hate group.’ Calling a firm that focuses on First Amendment and religious liberty cases a hate group is like calling a defense attorney a criminal for representing the accused. For many conservatives, that was a bridge too far, and it eroded their trust in the SPLC. I thought I might have been onto something. It turns out the situation could be even more serious.” (04/23/26)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/04/23/southern-poverty-law-center-indictment-unite-right-rally/89730972007/

Source: TomDispatch
by Alfred McCoy

“Writing more than 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian Plutarch gave us an eloquent description of what modern historians now call ‘micro-militarism.’ When an imperial power like Athens then, or America now, is in decline, its leaders often react emotionally by mounting seemingly bold military strikes in hopes of regaining the imperial grandeur that’s slipping through their fingers. Instead of another of the great victories the empire won at its peak of power, however, such military misadventures only serve to accelerate the ongoing decline, erasing whatever aura of imperial majesty remains and revealing instead the moral rot deep inside the ruling elite. There is mounting historical evidence that America is indeed an empire in steep decline, while President Donald Trump’s war of choice against Iran is becoming the sort of micro-military disaster that helped destroy successive empires over the past 2,500 years …” (04/23/26)

https://tomdispatch.com/american-micro-militarism/

Source: EconLog
by Max Molden

“Mancur Olson’s The Rise and Decline of Nations doesn’t provide a particularly optimistic picture: once your nation has been stable for a while, and may even have risen to wealth, it becomes more and more vulnerable to ‘institutional sclerosis.’ This happens because small groups are better able to overcome free-riding, resulting in their ability to effectively skew the system towards their own interests. As more and more of these groups emerge, survive and are able to reap their rents—protected from that competition which makes for general progress and growth—the overall system deteriorates. If you take Olson’s work to its logical conclusion, a very effective cure for economic stagnation is a catastrophic war. That is obviously not a desirable solution. But Olson was pointing to a real issue: the longer a society remains stable, the more it gets choked by special interest groups.” (04/23/26)

https://www.econlib.org/econlog/ai-vs-the-rent-seekers

Source: The Contrarian
by Jennifer Rubin

“[W]hat are Republicans to do? They try blaming Joe Biden, but the public does not buy that he is still responsible for the economy. They try preconditioning the electorate to dispute the 2026 election with specious fraud claims, but have found none: courts have slapped down demands for voter rolls (a scheme to purge voters), and a blue wave would make fraud claims entirely unbelievable. They try labeling the affordability crisis a ‘hoax,’ which only further enrages voters. They try to distract voters from serial failures with mean-spirited attacks on trans Americans, but the vast majority of voters do not put that on the list of their top concerns. … In sum, Republicans are rarely asked what they have done to deserve re-election.” (04/23/26)

https://www.contrariannews.org/p/what-have-republicans-done-for-voters