Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Carolyn Iodice

“A new bill under consideration in California is facing criticism for censoring speech about immigration. Elon Musk has claimed the bill would ‘make investigating fraud illegal.’ One opponent has dubbed it the ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act,’ named after the YouTuber known for filming alleged fraud at child care centers in Somali immigrant communities in Minnesota. But its sponsor says the bill simply protects immigrant organizations from threats of violence. So which is it? The bill, AB 2624, does two things. First, it allows people who’ve faced threats or violence for providing or receiving immigration services to join California’s ‘Safe at Home’ program, which allows people to keep their residential address out of state records. Second — and this is the part we’re focusing on — it limits what regular people are allowed to post online about immigrants and the people who help them.” (04/22/26)

https://www.fire.org/news/california-lawmakers-threaten-free-speech-regarding-immigration-groups

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“Are We Still at War? I’m going to say no, not really, although the ultimate resolution is still to be determined. Donald Trump blinked again on Tuesday, announcing an indefinite extension of the cease-fire until the Iranians ‘can come up with a unified proposal’. Unnamed advisers came out later and told go-to regurgitator Barak Ravid that the open-ended cease-fire isn’t open-ended, but I don’t know who they think they’re convincing. Trump is not going to risk further damage to his rapidly deteriorating political position by greenlighting a full-scale attack. He’s had several opportunities to do so and demurred. That’s of course better than the alternative. But instead, we have an ‘end’ to the indiscriminate bombing part of the war that keeps all the economic consequences intact.” (04/23/26)

https://prospect.org/2026/04/23/aftermath-iran-trump-wall-street-is-lying-to-itself/

Source: Show-Me Institute
by Cory Koedel

“We’ve written a lot at the Show-Me Institute lately about A–F letter grades for public schools. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) will soon begin assigning these grades to all schools and districts under an executive order from Governor Kehoe. Legislation to codify the order may follow, depending on how the 2026 session unfolds. A central component of these letter grades is student growth. Growth measures how much students learn over the course of a year, based on state assessments. … I’ve studied academic growth extensively and believe it is the most accurate indicator of school effectiveness we have. No other measure comes close.” (04/22/26)

https://showmeinstitute.org/article/education/test-score-growth-is-the-best-metric-we-have-for-understanding-school-performance/

Source: Liberalism.org
by Michael C Munger

“In policy debates, some see state action as the obvious solution; others say the same about civil society and/or markets. But listen closely, and you’ll often find that everyone’s gone negative: They have lots of bad things to say about the other side, and not much in favor of their own. That’s the ‘pretty pig’ problem: We can all see the downsides — many of them quite real — with one system, and so we conclude, a bit too quickly, that the other one must be better. As I’ve noted before, that approach leads to disagreement without engagement, as the advocates on both sides ignore the problems of their own preferred system: The state I can imagine is clearly a good solution to the real world commercial system I’m immersed in, but that state doesn’t exist, and its powers are not stable or reliable.” [editor’s note: Nietzsche offered a neat, concise, and true “theory of the state” … “Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.” – TLK] (04/22/26)

https://www.liberalism.org/p/yours-mine-or-ours-liberals-need-a-theory-of-the-state