Source: USA Today
by James Bovard
“President Donald Trump is suing the Internal Revenue Service to force the American people to pay him at least $10 billion in damages because he was embarrassed when his tax returns leaked out in 2020. Trump ordered his appointees at federal agencies to speedily give him the billions to settle his lawsuit. But on April 24, federal Judge Kathleen Williams temporarily stopped the greatest shakedown in presidential history. … Trump’s lawsuit pretends he was an innocent bystander. Who was president at the time of that leak? Trump. Who appointed the chief of the IRS? Trump. And who deserves $10 billion because of alleged federal misconduct under his watch? Trump.” (05/01/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2026/05/01/trump-lawsuit-irs-leaked-tax-returns/89838315007/
Source: Axios
“President Trump said the U.S. Navy will start guiding ships from foreign countries through the Strait of Hormuz from Monday and warned that if Iran tries to disrupt the process, the American military will use force. … It was not immediately clear whether this move was coordinated with Iran in any way. … The U.S. sent on Sunday another amended draft for an agreement to end the war in response to Iranian officials’ latest proposal, sources said.” (05/03/26)
https://archive.is/3knat
Source: The Dispatch
by Jonah Goldberg
“On Wednesday, The Atlantic’s Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, two serious journalists formerly with the Washington Post, begin their piece with a question: ‘Had President Trump, we wondered, possibly been reading or at least thumbing through – just maybe — the works of … Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?’ That’s it. That’s the lede. … Is Trump a world-historical figure in the Hegelian sense? Are you high? Of course not. Parker and Scherer are more interested in whether Trump thinks he’s a world-historical figure in the way that Hegel described. The answer to that is also a resounding no. The dude doesn’t read memos. You think he’s thumbing through Hegel? In fairness to them, the real point of their piece is to illuminate that Trump’s delusions of grandeur are worrisomely out of control. And they succeed.” (05/01/26)
https://archive.is/mdZxo
Source: Reuters
“Three people have died and three are ill after a Netherlands-based cruise ship was hit by a suspected outbreak of hantavirus, a rodent-borne virus that can cause fatal respiratory illness, authorities and media reports said on Sunday. Netherlands-based Oceanwide Expeditions said in a news release it was ‘managing a serious medical situation’ on a polar expedition ship, the MV Hondius, which was off Cape Verde, an island nation in the Atlantic west of Africa. The cruise departed from Argentina about three weeks ago with around 150 passengers and stopped in the Antarctic and other locations on its way to Cape Verde, according to media reports. A Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed that two Dutch passengers had died, but gave no further details.” (05/03/26)
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/three-passengers-dead-one-case-hantavirus-confirmed-atlantic-cruise-ship-who-2026-05-03/
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Trita Parsi
“[T]he fragile ceasefire disproportionately favored the United States over Iran: Trump secured his central objective — a swift exit from a costly war — while Iran forfeited its primary source of leverage, namely the inflationary pressure of elevated oil prices. Tehran, by contrast, remained unable to achieve its core objective — meaningful sanctions relief — without entering a difficult diplomatic process with Washington. The asymmetry was stark: Trump could afford strategic patience, whereas Iran risked squandering the most consequential gains the conflict could have yielded if negotiations faltered or collapsed. In short, this emerging status quo could have constituted a quiet but decisive victory for Trump. … But then Trump committed a familiar and consequential error.” (05/02/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-iran-blockade/
Source: SFGate
“President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the U.S. will significantly reduce its troop presence in Germany, escalating a dispute with Chancellor Friedrich Merz as he seeks to scale back America’s commitment to European security. The Pentagon on Friday had initially announced it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but when asked Saturday about the reason for the move, Trump didn’t offer an explanation and said an even bigger reduction was coming. ‘We’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,’ Trump told reporters in Florida. Earlier on Saturday, Germany’s defense minister appeared to take in stride the news that 5,000 U.S. troops would be leaving his country.” [editor’s note: Yet another thing we libertarians have been agitating for for decades? Or just another ploy? – SAT] (05/02/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/germany-focuses-on-shared-interests-after-us-22237978.php
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano
“The Fourth Amendment protects all persons from warrantless government searches and seizures of their persons, houses, papers and effects. It requires that warrants be supported by probable cause of crime and specifically describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. Last week, for the first time in the modern era, the government argued to the Supreme Court of the United States that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution did not outlaw general warrants.” (05/01/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2026/04/30/the-trump-surveillance-state
Source: New York Post
by Karol Markowicz
“The zombies are everywhere. They’re staring at their phones as they carelessly cross the road. They’re constantly watching videos, sound-on and loudly, on airplanes or in store check-out lines. And they’re not Gen Z screenagers; now, the kids’ aging grandparents are quickly becoming the biggest screen addicts of all. … Last month Wired reported that a med student in India used AI to create a character named Emily Hart (a pretty blonde ‘MAGA influencer’ who claimed to enjoy posing in a stars-and-stripes bikini) and profited handsomely from the deception. In March the equally fake Jessica Foster, billed as a US Army service member, was exposed as a money-spinning AI fiction in a similar scam. Youngsters can spot AI from a mile away; it wasn’t Gen Z sending over cash.” (05/02/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/05/02/opinion/screenagers-have-something-to-teach-grandma/
Source: Reason
“California progressives are pushing for a tax on billionaires; so are senators like Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.). But as Andrew Heaton explains, such programs don’t work. Just ask France.” (05/01/26)
https://reason.com/video/2026/05/01/why-wealth-taxes-fail/
Source: Chris’s Substack
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
“The Jackson family is split down the middle on sanctioning the new film and critics have been similarly split, many voicing concern that its ‘sanitized’ version of MJ’s life sidesteps controversial charges of child molestation, which first surfaced in August 1993 and led Jackson to resolve a civil lawsuit in 1994 with the family of Jordan Chandler. A second series of molestation charges led to a 2005 criminal trial, in which Jackson was acquitted. Arguably, his reputation didn’t begin to recover until after his untimely death at the age of 50 in 2009. Conveniently, both the Broadway musical and the 2026 film end their time frame before any of this ugliness came to light.” (05/02/26)
https://chrismatthewsciabarra.substack.com/p/michael-jackson-man-or-monster-in
