Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine

“Anybody who watched the entire Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky would know that it was not an ‘ambush’ or ‘setup’ by Trump, as characterized by Democrats and malign media entities. It was the opposite. If anyone came to that meeting in bad faith, it was clearly Zelensky, whose body language and attitude was negative from the start. Trump could not have been more cordial, having steered the complex negotiations with Russia and Ukraine to a first step where he believed peace was a real possibility. But Zelensky had other ideas. He contradicted, interrupted and insulted Trump, even before Vice President JD Vance said a word. It was 11 minutes in when Zelensky first contradicted Trump with a gratuitous defense of Europe’s financial support for the war, which Trump repeatedly has noted has been less than America’s.” (03/02/25)

https://nypost.com/2025/03/02/opinion/zelensky-was-the-true-instigator-of-the-oval-office-fracas-not-an-ambush-from-trump/

Source: Coyote Blog
by Warren Meyer

“Here is Coyote’s first law of incentives: There are always incentives. If they are not embodied in written performance metrics, then there are unwritten ones that rule behaviors. And these unwritten incentives are generally a) very powerful and b) almost never aligned with the greater organization’s goals. … To some extent the agencies I worked with were better than most because public lands agencies (eg NPS, state parks) attracted people with a sense of mission which could motivate people even when the organization did not. But in general, government employees operate in a vacuum without any positive metrics — they can’t prove themselves by meeting or exceeding this or that goal because the goals have not been assigned and are not measured. So the default metric becomes this: to avoid screwing up.” (03/03/25)

https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2025/03/performance-measures-and-incentives-part-2-what-they-teach-us-about-government-behavior.html

Source: Cato Institute
by Ryan Bourne

“My colleague Deirdre McCloskey, back in 2018, listed over 100 economic and social problems that, through the ages, have been deemed as market imperfections, bad consequences of markets and challenges of limited government, or else failures of standard economics, that supposedly require corrective government action or at least different policies. I’ve trimmed and then added a bunch to her list below. Many of the new additions have surfaced or grown in prominence since her paper was published. What are we missing?” (03/03/25)

https://www.cato.org/commentary/problems-supposedly-requiring-government-action

Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser

Cartoon. (03/03/25)

https://www.quantumvibe.com/strip?page=2524

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Thomas Eddlem

“Establishment Democrats have long whined that working people pay a higher rate of combined income and payroll taxes than billionaires. They’re not wrong. Income from labor is taxed three times (payroll taxes, income taxes, and inflation) while income from capital is taxed only once (capital gains). In America today, capital gains tax is capped at 20%, but labor’s floor is 15.3% with a payroll tax, plus the 3-8% inflation tax, both of which start at dollar one. Add the income tax, which tops out at 39%, and labor is generally taxed at twice the rate of capital. … The Democratic Party’s solution? ‘Tax the rich,’ as if that would put more of the workers’ own money back in their pockets.” (03/03/25)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/plutocratic-americas-war-on-the-working-class

Source: TomDispatch
by Liz Theoharis

“‘There has almost always been an outright hostility that is shown towards people of the Christian faith,’ House Speaker Mike Johnson said on a podcast recently. He was talking with Tony Perkins, a former Louisiana lawmaker and president of the Family Research Council, about freedom of religion and the actions of the second Trump administration. I have to admit that such a statement from this country’s third most powerful politician and an avowed Christian nationalist almost takes my breath away. Of all the people facing hostility, discrimination, and violence now and throughout history, Christians like Mike Johnson rank low on the list. Still, his comment is consistent with a disturbing religious trend in the country right now. As an early act of his second administration, Donald Trump has created an anti-Christian bias task force to be chaired by Attorney General Pam Bondi.” [editor’s note: Yet another “progressive” flack without a clue, just a roster of scapegoats – SAT] (03/03/25)

https://tomdispatch.com/woe-to-you-who-deprive-the-poor-of-their-rights/