Inside the Great Vaccine Debate

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Max Dublin

“For many months now a historic debate about vaccine safety and effectiveness has been unfolding in America’s regulatory agencies and recently the debate has escalated into open partisan warfare. It started on June 9, 2025 when Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. dismissed all 17 sitting members of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replaced them with his own picks. As one might have expected such a sweeping step was very controversial.” (05/22/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/inside-the-great-vaccine-debate/

Thomas L. Knapp

Israeli opposition leader: Trump’s emerging deal with Iran “bad for the region”

Source: SFGate

“The deal being discussed between the U.S. and Iran fails to achieve any of Israel’s goals for the war, Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid said on Monday, as he accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to influence a better agreement. Lapid, who is part of an alliance attempting to unseat Netanyahu in elections this year, said details of the emerging deal are ‘disturbing’. ‘The deal is bad for Israel, bad for the region, bad for the citizens of Iran,’ Lapid told reporters in Jerusalem. Israel and the U.S. launched the war on Feb. 28 vowing to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile program, end its support for proxy militant groups across the region and end Iran’s ability to pursue a nuclear bomb. Both Netanyahu and President Donald Trump also said they hoped to create conditions to topple Iran’s government..” (05/25/26)

https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/israeli-opposition-leader-lapid-says-trump-s-22275369.php

Steve Trinward

Contra Niskanen

Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman

“William Niskanen, in a book published many years ago, proposed a simple model of government bureaucracy. The more money a bureaucrat controls the more important he is, so bureaucrats want to maximize their budgets. The legislature knows how much any level of output from a bureau is worth to it. The bureaucracy knows — and the legislature does not — what a government bureau can do at what cost. So the rational bureau finds the largest level of output that it can produce at a cost below the value of that level of output to the legislature and exaggerates the cost of any lower level of output by enough to make it higher than its value, thus tricking the legislature into giving it the largest possible budget. When I first read the argument it struck me as implausible.” (05/22/26)

https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/contra-niskanen

Thomas L. Knapp

DC: Secret Service kills man who opened fire at White House security checkpoint

Source: NBC News

“The Secret Service fatally shot a person who opened fire on officers at a security checkpoint Saturday in an exchange of gunfire that briefly locked down the White House, officials said. The shooting happened shortly after 6 p.m. when a male approached the Secret Service checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, pulled a gun from a bag and opened fire on officers, the Secret Service said in a statement. The officers returned fire and shot the suspect, who was taken to a hospital, where he later died, the Secret Service said. The suspect was identified as 21-year-old Nasire Best of Dundalk, Maryland, the Metropolitan Police Department said Sunday. A bystander was also shot, the Secret Service said Saturday. The victim, a man, sustained a non-life-threatening gunshot wound and remains hospitalized, police said.” (05/23/26)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/gunshots-reported-near-white-house-rcna346671

Thomas L. Knapp