Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott

“‘Strong, if not perfect’ was European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s verdict on the trade deal hammered out between the United States and the European Union (EU) and signed at Turnberry, Scotland, in July 2025. Nothing is perfect, of course — but the carefully hedged endorsement has appeared increasingly prophetic as the deal overcame hurdles and was finally voted through by the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee on March 19, 2026, by 29 votes to 9, and by the wider Parliament on March 26, by 417 votes to 154. The road to passing was not a smooth one.” (04/05/26)

https://fee.org/articles/a-delicate-balance/

Source: In These Times
by Joseph Bullington

“The taxi judders uphill into a forest brimming with life. Palm fronds droop over the road like huge, oily hands, and green birds flap between trees. And then, abruptly, the forest ends, and we emerge onto a denuded plain where the sun beats down on road and car and red dust. I am here to see firsthand how the ultra-rich are remapping the Earth’s remaining wild places, deciding what is sacrificed and what is conserved and for whom. For me, this road into the Brazilian Amazon began a few weeks prior and nearly 5,000 miles away, on a different dirt road through a sprawling Montana ranch. I had followed that county road up through creek bottoms onto a rolling plateau of rangeland, where the southern front of the Crazy Mountains filled the windshield. I stopped the truck and stepped out into the quiet.” (04/06/26)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/yellowstone-billionaires-conservation-montana-deforest-amazon

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Ronald Dodson

“The ‘just war’ theologian understood that force must be governed by prudence, reckoning with second and third order effects. We didn’t do that in Iraq, or now.” (04/05/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/war-global-impact/

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joseph Varon

“Contemporary medicine is not failing for lack of knowledge. It is failing under the weight of its own complexity. The present era is defined by unprecedented access to data, advanced technologies, an ever-expanding network of subspecialties, and a dense architecture of protocols and performance metrics. Nearly every aspect of patient care can now be measured, quantified, and standardized. Interventions that were unimaginable only decades ago are now routine. Yet despite these advances, a fundamental element has been eroded. This erosion is philosophical.” (04/05/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-lost-art-of-medicine-what-maimonides-knew-that-we-forgot/

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“At the height of the US war in Vietnam, in 1969, the US government spent about $85.5 billion ($761 billion in inflated 2026 dollars) on ‘defense.’ In 1991, when the US deployed hundreds of thousands of troops for Desert Storm, the US government spent about $313 billion, or $750 billion accounting for inflation. In 2004, while fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that number was about $450 billion, or $780 billion in 2026 dollars. … The president keeps telling us THIS war will be over Real Soon Now, and he started talking about a $1.5 trillion military budget months before he launched Operation Epic Fail, so the 40% bump clearly isn’t about Iran. In what universe does the already bloated US military need nearly half again as much money next year as this year, and twice as much as it needed during previous wars?” (04/03/26)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20499