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04/17 -- Boasberg moves to hold Trump administration in contempt over deportation flights; The United States of El Salvador
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Thomas L. Knapp
Apr 17, 2025, 6:22:07 AMApr 17
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 04/17/25
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Presented by the Liberty International
https://liberty-intl.org/
Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Boasberg moves to hold Trump administration in contempt over deportation flights
2) Ukraine: Regime prolongs martial law amid Russian air attacks, heavy ground battles
3) Puerto Rico: Power outage leaves most of the island in the dark
4) Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq smoked as Powell warns of “challenging” tariff impact
5) Court grants 60-day pause of SEC v. Ripple appeals case
6) Trump regime sues Maine regime over transgender athletes in schools amid funding threats
7) WHO member regimes agree on a draft “pandemic treaty” to try to avoid COVID-19 mistakes
8) CA: Newsom, Bonta launch lawsuit aimed at Trump administration
9) China: Q1 GDP growth beats expectations, but US tariff shock looms large
10) Detained activist Mohsen Mahdawi suspected US immigration interview was “a trap”
11) Judge temporarily blocks Trump from retaliating against firm that sued Fox News for election lies
12) NY: Trump administration refers AG Letitia James for possible prosecution for mortgage fraud
13) South Africa: Abducted US pastor rescued in shootout
14) Iran confirms second round of nuclear talks with US will be in Rome
15) UK Supreme Court: Equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female
16) Germany: Doctor charged with murder of 15 patients
17) Two top Pentagon officials placed on leave in probe of public finding out what government is up to
18) Bill would strip IRS of guns and ammo
19) France: Cars Set on Fire in Second Wave of Prison Attacks
20) US State Department closes office that “flags disinformation” from Russia, China & Iran
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) The United States of El Salvador
22) Yankee, Stay Home
23) Why Do Domestic Prices Rise with Tariffs?
24) Political Violence Surges as the Use of Force Becomes Mainstream
25) How to fix the Paperwork Reduction Act
26) Foreign Student Persecution Imperils any American Who Advocates for Freedom
27) Liberty a powerful right you own
28) The Great Migration Deficit
29) Lebanon digs deep for its identity
30) Sleazy Boomers and Wholesome Zoomers
31) Washington’s Latest Tax Assault on Economic Success
32) Alternatives to Tariffs
33) Uncle Sam, Deadbeat Customer
34) Tell Congress to Stop Spending Your Tax Dollars on Nuclear Weapons
35) The elevating, at times appalling, path to America’s founding
36) The Root of Totalitarianism is Social Engineering
37) Limiting the President’s Authority is a Good Idea
38) China’s chokehold on US medicine puts American lives in danger
39) Are Chinese Soldiers Fighting in Ukraine?
40) Trump’s Huge Tariff Exemption Grift
41) In Garcia, SCOTUS risks handing Trump a “loaded weapon”
42) The Government Has Already Won the Meta Case
43) Excellence in Success
44) The Trouble with Compulsory Globalism
45) Time to pull the plug on corporate virtue-signaling
46) How to Argue for Libertarianism
47) Congress Should Never Have Created Fannie Or the GSEs
48) On Making My First Gun
49) She was tracking post-Roe abortions; the government just pulled her funding
50) Trump Has Found A More Constitution-Free Zone Than Guantanamo
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Interview: Jason Furman
52) Rising, 04/16/25
53) The Learning Curve, 04/16/25
54) The Bryan Hyde Show, 04/16/25
55) Pink Flame of Liberty, 04/16/25
56) The Political Orphanage, 04/16/25
57) The Good Fight, 04/16/25
58) The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, 04/16/25
59) The Corbett Report, episode 474
60) Fountainhead Forum, episode 296
61) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/16/25
62) Power Problems, 04/15/25
63) Politics Politics Politics, 04/15/25
64) Nonzero, 04/15/25
65) (Re)Imagining Liberty, 04/15/25
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Boasberg moves to hold Trump administration in contempt over deportation flights
Source: The Hill
“A federal judge Wednesday found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for willfully disobeying his order to immediately halt deportations under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act and turn around any airborne planes. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order gives the administration a final opportunity to come into compliance but says he otherwise will take steps to identify the specific people who flouted his March 15 ruling, which was later lifted by the Supreme Court, and refer them for prosecution. ‘The Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt,’ Boasberg wrote.” (04/16/25)
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5251829-boasberg-trump-contempt
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2) Ukraine: Regime prolongs martial law amid Russian air attacks, heavy ground battles
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Ukraine’s parliament has voted to extend martial law and military mobilisation for another three months, prolonging the wartime measures until at least August 6. Lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said the extension of martial law passed by a 357-1 vote, while a measure to maintain troop mobilisation was approved 356-1. Under Ukraine’s constitution, elections cannot be held during martial law – a provision that remains in effect despite external calls, including from Russia and the United States, for a timeline on a future vote. … As peace talks led by the Trump administration created hopes for a potential ceasefire and eventual elections, some Ukrainian opposition politicians have grown more vocal in their criticism of Zelenskyy. Still, there is broad support for maintaining martial law.” (04/16/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/16/ukraine-renews-martial-law
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3) Puerto Rico: Power outage leaves most of the island in the dark
Source: CBS News
“An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the largely Catholic residents of the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate the Easter weekend, a power company spokesman said. All hospitals on the island are operating on generators after the power went out at 12:38 p.m. Eastern Time, Veronica Ferraiuoli, acting governor and secretary of state for Puerto Rico, said at a news conference. All 1.4 million clients on the island were without power, Hugo Sorrentini, spokesman for Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, told The Associated Press. … Restoring most of the power will likely at least 48-72 hours, Luma said Wednesday evening. At least 78,000 customers were also without water, according to the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority.” (04/16/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/puerto-rico-power-outage-april-2025/
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4) Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq smoked as Powell warns of “challenging” tariff impact
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“US stocks tumbled on Wednesday with tariff fears returning to Wall Street in earnest, as Nvidia revealed costly new curbs on chip exports to China and Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned of the ‘challenging’ impacts to come from the uncertainty around President Trump’s trade policy. The benchmark S&P 500 dropped more than 2.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed roughly 700 points, or around 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell over 3% as the new chip provisions weighed on the tech sector.” (04/16/25)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-smoked-as-powell-warns-of-challenging-tariff-impact-nvidia-plunges-7-133757963.html
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5) Court grants 60-day pause of SEC v. Ripple appeals case
Source: CoinTelegraph
“An appellate court has granted a joint request from Ripple Labs and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pause an appeal in a 2020 SEC case against Ripple amid settlement negotiations. In an April 16 filing in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the court approved a joint SEC-Ripple motion to hold the appeal in abeyance — temporarily pausing the case — for 60 days. As part of the order, the SEC is expected to file a status report by June 15. … Despite support for the end of the case coming from both Ripple and the SEC, the August 2024 judgment and appellate cases leave some legal entanglements.” (04/16/25)
https://cointelegraph.com/news/court-pause-sec-ripple-appeals-case
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6) Trump regime sues Maine regime over transgender athletes in schools amid funding threats
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The Trump administration sued Maine on Wednesday for allowing transgender girls to compete in school sports, dramatically escalating a confrontation that has already seen threats to cut the state’s education and school lunch funding.The attorney general, Pam Bondi, announced the lawsuit flanked by Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer turned conservative [sic] [whiner] who has become the public face in opposition to transgender athletes. … Trump administration officials claim Maine violates Title IX by not barring transgender girls from female sports teams. Maine has flatly rejected this interpretation, refusing to sign a settlement that would implement those restrictions.” (04/16/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/trump-sues-maine-transgender-athletes-schools
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7) WHO member regimes agree on a draft “pandemic treaty” to try to avoid COVID-19 mistakes
Source: Associated Press
“Five years after COVID-19 triggered national lockdowns, economic uncertainty and killed millions, the World Health Organization’s member countries agreed on a draft ‘pandemic treaty’ that sets guidelines for how the international community might confront the next global health crisis. After the world’s largely disastrous response to the coronavirus, countries tasked the WHO with overseeing a pandemic treaty in 2021. Negotiations concluded early Wednesday on an agreement expected to be adopted next month at the U.N. health agency’s annual meeting in Geneva.” (04/16/25)
https://apnews.com/article/who-pandemic-treaty-covid-trump-9003e25d3a9dda95277a9f79cbf77a1d
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8) CA: Newsom, Bonta launch lawsuit aimed at Trump administration
Source: KTVU News
“California Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta are taking on the Trump administration in a new lawsuit, according to a press release from the governor’s office. The two are filing a lawsuit in federal court to challenge President Donald Trump’s emergency powers, which were used to enact sweeping tariffs in the past month. The lawsuit [notices] that the President ‘lacks the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs through the International Economic Emergency Powers Act.’ … The suit will be filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, according to the governor’s office.” (04/16/25)
https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-newsom-bonta-launch-lawsuit-aimed-trumps-tariffs
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9) China: Q1 GDP growth beats expectations, but US tariff shock looms large
Source: Reuters
“China’s first-quarter economic growth outstripped expectations, underpinned by solid consumption and industrial output, but analysts fear momentum could shift sharply lower as U.S. tariffs pose the biggest risk to the Asian powerhouse in decades. President Donald Trump has ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods to eye-watering levels, prompting Beijing to slap retaliatory duties on U.S. imports that have raised the stakes for the world’s two biggest economies and rattled financial markets. Data on Wednesday showed China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.4% in the January-March quarter from a year earlier, unchanged from the fourth quarter, but beat analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a rise of 5.1%.” (04/16/25)
https://archive.is/ACDBq
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10) Detained activist Mohsen Mahdawi suspected US immigration interview was “a trap”
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A university student and Palestinian activist [abducted] by US immigration authorities was worried that an American citizenship interview was a trap. Mohsen Mahdawi, who has permanent US residency or ‘green card’ status, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) when he turned up to the appointment on Monday. One day before his arrest he told CBS News that he believed the interview could be a setup. ‘It’s the first feeling of like, I’ve been waiting for this for more than a year,’ Mr Mahdawi said. ‘And the other feeling is like, wait a minute. Is this a honey trap?’ Mr Mahdawi, a philosophy student at Columbia University in New York City who was due to graduate next month, was [abducted] in Colchester, Vermont. Mr Mahdawi’s lawyer, Luna Droubi, said he was arrested ‘in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian.'” (04/16/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9vn84w27vo
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11) Judge temporarily blocks Trump from retaliating against firm that sued Fox News for election lies
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“A federal judge on Tuesday placed on hold much of Donald Trump’s order forbidding the federal government from doing business with anyone who hires the law firm Susman Godfrey, making it the fourth time a judge has found the president’s targeting of law firms is likely unconstitutional. ‘The framers of our constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power,’ District Court Judge Loren AliKhan said as she entered the temporary restraining order on behalf of Susman, which represented a voting machine firm that won a $787 billion settlement from Fox News over its airing of lies about Trump’s 2020 loss. Trump’s executive order cited the firm’s election work as a reason it was targeted.” (04/16/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/04/15/law-firm-retaliation/
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12) NY: Trump administration refers AG Letitia James for possible prosecution for mortgage fraud
Source: Fox News
“New York Attorney General Letitia James has been hit with shocking allegations by the Trump administration, accusing her of mortgage fraud. In documents obtained by Fox News Channel’s ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice on Tuesday, accusing James of mortgage fraud. FHFA Director William Pulte said in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that James appears to have falsified records to meet certain lending requirements and receive favorable loan terms. Pulte cited a property in Virginia that James allegedly claimed as her principal residence and a property in New York she claimed as a four-unit structure instead of five, which he said could mean she was able to get a different and more favorable loan.” (04/16/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-administration-refers-ny-ag-letitia-james-possible-prosecution-allegations-mortgage-fraud
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13) South Africa: Abducted US pastor rescued in shootout
Source: CBS News
“American pastor Josh Sullivan was rescued Tuesday amid a shootout between South African police and his captors that left three suspects dead, authorities said Wednesday. Sullivan, originally from Tennessee, was abducted at gunpoint during a prayer meeting at his church in South Africa on the evening of April 10. According to a statement issued by the the South African Police Service, a specialized unit dedicated to serious crime, known as the Hawks, they led the operation to rescue the 45-year-old. The American was abducted from his Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell Township, outside the coastal city of Gqeberha, and was rescued from a safehouse being used by his captors in that city.” (04/16/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-pastor-josh-sullivan-abducted-at-gunpoint-in-south-africa-rescued-in-shootout-authorities-say/
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14) Iran confirms second round of nuclear talks with US will be in Rome
Source: SFGate
“Iran confirmed Wednesday that the next round of nuclear talks with the United States this weekend will be held in Rome after earlier confusion over where the negotiations would be held. The announcement by Iranian state television came as Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian formally approved the resignation of one of his vice presidents who served as Tehran’s key negotiator in its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also arrived in the Islamic Republic on Wednesday. His talks may include negotiations over just what access the IAEA inspectors can get under any proposed deal. The state TV announcement said Oman will again mediate the talks on Saturday in Rome. Oman’s foreign minister served as an interlocutor between the two sides at talks last weekend in Muscat, the sultanate’s capital.” (04/16/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/iran-s-president-accepts-resignation-of-2015-20278473.php
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15) UK Supreme Court: Equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female
Source: ABC News
“The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the U.K. equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female. Justice Patrick Hodge said five judges at the court had ruled unanimously that ‘the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman.’ The ruling means that a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female should not be considered a woman for equality purposes. The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament stating that there should be a 50% female representation on the boards of Scottish public bodies. That law included transgender women in its definition of women.” (04/16/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uk-supreme-court-rules-equalities-law-defines-woman-120854059
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16) Germany: Doctor charged with murder of 15 patients
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A German palliative care doctor has been charged with murdering 15 of his patients using a cocktail of lethal drugs. Prosecutors in Berlin have accused the 40-year-old of setting fire to the homes of some of his suspected victims to cover his tracks. He allegedly killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024, though prosecutors have said they believe that total could rise. The doctor, who has not been named due to strict privacy laws in Germany, has not admitted to the charges, prosecutors said. He is accused of administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent. The relaxant ‘paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes,’ the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.” (04/16/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly161m6yj1o
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17) Two top Pentagon officials placed on leave in probe of public finding out what government is up to
Source: Politico
“The Pentagon placed two top political appointees under administrative leave on Tuesday after a probe into potential leaks of sensitive information, according to three defense officials. Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was escorted out of the Pentagon by security officers and had his building access suspended pending further investigation, said two of the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. Darin Selnick, the Pentagon’s deputy chief of staff, was also suspended as part of the same probe and escorted out of the building, according to one of the officials. The leaks under investigation include military operational plans for the Panama canal, a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, Elon Musk’s controversial visit to the Pentagon and pausing the collection of intelligence to Ukraine, the other official said.” (04/15/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/caldwell-pentagon-leaks-00291735
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18) Bill would strip IRS of guns and ammo
Source: Fox News
“While American taxpayers are familiar with the annual rigmarole of filing their federal taxes and realizing just how much of their hard-earned money Uncle Sam is taking away, several House Republicans are pushing a proposal to take some things away from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS): Guns and ammunition. The ‘Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act’ would disarm the federal agency, prohibiting the commissioner of internal revenue from using funds to buy, receive or store firearms and ammo, and requiring the transfer of IRS firearms and ammunition to the Administrator of General Services. The guns would then be sold or auctioned to licensed dealers and the ammo would be auctioned to the public. Proceeds would go to ‘the general fund of the Treasury for the sole purpose of deficit reduction,’ the measure stipulates.” (04/16/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-taking-aim-irs-would-strip-agency-guns-ammo
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19) France: Cars Set on Fire in Second Wave of Prison Attacks
Source: US News & World Report
“French jails were hit by a second wave of attacks overnight, including three cars set alight at Tarascon prison in southern France, the Justice Minister and a prison workers’ union said on Wednesday, as authorities sought to identify those responsible. ‘Cars were set on fire very early this morning,’ Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin told CNews TV and Europe 1 radio, speaking of the attack in Tarascon. The hall of a building in Meaux, east of Paris, where a prison guard works, was also set on fire overnight, as was the car of a prison guard who works in Aix-Luynes, in southern France, the FO Justice union said on X. In Tarascon, three cars burned in the prison’s parking lot, it said. Earlier in the week, at least six prisons guarding some of the nation’s most hardened crime kingpins came under gun and arson attack.” (04/16/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-04-16/cars-set-on-fire-at-french-prison-after-wave-of-attacks-minister-says
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20) US State Department closes office that “flags disinformation” from Russia, China & Iran
Source: SFGate
“The State Department has shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that he had closed what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the United States and elsewhere. The center has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports that it said are biased or untruthful. At times, it has identified U.S. websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war. ” (04/16/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/the-state-department-closes-the-office-that-flags-20279409.php
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) The United States of El Salvador
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“[I]n 2021 the national Legislative Assembly, which was dominated by Bukele’s party, voted to remove the judges in what is called the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Given that it has the power to declare actions of the president unconstitutional, it is the most important part of the Salvadoran Supreme Court. The reason for removing those judges? They were issuing rulings that challenged the constitutionality of Bukele’s ’emergency’ measures during the Covid crisis. Bukele didn’t like judges challenging his authority. Sound familiar? So, he and his cohorts effectively just fired those judges and replaced them with new ones who, Bukele no doubt hoped, would uphold the constitutionality of whatever action he decided to take, including running for a third term as president, which the Salvadoran constitution prohibits. In March 2022, Bukele and the national Legislative Assembly declared a ‘national emergency.’ Sound familiar?” (04/16/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/04/16/the-united-states-of-el-salvador/
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22) Yankee, Stay Home
Source: The American Conservative
by Bill Kauffan
“I daresay not a soul in a million who voted for Donald Trump last November did so because he or she wanted to buy Greenland, annex Canada, seize the Panama Canal, or ‘own’ Gaza and displace 2 million human beings. This expansionist frenzy isn’t America First: Trump’s land-and-people grab is to the historic political tendency of America First as murdering the adulterous lover whose inheritance you stole is to the Ten Commandments. The utter perversion of America First by people who couldn’t even spit the phrase out a couple decades ago — ‘tainted’ as it was by association with the antiwar tradition—astonishes. Once the term America First was denatured, market-tested, and approved, it was coopted by the usual Beltway grifters: people who sneered at Trump 10 years ago but slobber over him now.” (04/16/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/yankee-stay-home/
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23) Why Do Domestic Prices Rise with Tariffs?
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Alex Tabarrok
“Many people think they understand why domestic prices rise with tariffs — domestic producers take advantage of reduced competition to jack up prices and increase their profits. The explanation seems cynical and sophisticated, and it’s not entirely wrong, but it misses deeper truths. Moreover, this ‘explanation’ makes people think that an appropriate response to domestic firms raising prices is price controls and threats, which would make things worse. In fact, tariffs will increase domestic prices even in perfectly competitive industries. Let’s see why.” (04/16/25)
https://fee.org/articles/why-do-domestic-prices-rise-with-tariffs/
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24) Political Violence Surges as the Use of Force Becomes Mainstream
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“The weekend’s apparent attempted murder over the weekend of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro with an arson attack is, unfortunately, only part of the wave of political violence sweeping over the country. Recent months have seen assassinations and attempted killings, attacks on political headquarters, arson against Tesla cars and dealers, and other acts that make it clear that some people have gone beyond hardened political hostilities to assaults on people and property. Worse, Americans — especially those on the political left [sic] — seem increasingly open to violence as a means of settling ideological disputes.” (04/16/25)
https://reason.com/2025/04/16/political-violence-surges-as-the-use-of-force-becomes-mainstream/
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25) How to fix the Paperwork Reduction Act
Source: Niskanen Center
by Alexander Mechanick
“The Paperwork Reduction Act was enacted to reduce unnecessary paperwork and improve policymaking. But it fails to effectively realize these goals. This paper explains how we ended up with a statute that perversely undermines its purposes, what goes wrong (and right) in the status quo, and how to design a better Paperwork Reduction Act.” (04/16/25)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-to-fix-the-paperwork-reduction-act
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26) Foreign Student Persecution Imperils any American Who Advocates for Freedom
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“[Rumeysa] Ozturk is one of the most high-profile seizures that Trump’s DHS has made of students who criticized Israeli policies in Gaza. Hundreds of student visas have been revoked and the Trump administration has floated proposals to prohibit all foreign students from attending American universities that fail to fully suppress criticism or protests against Israeli policies. It would be the height of folly for Americans to presume they face no peril from entitling the feds to seize boundless power to punish students’ speech.” (04/16/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/04/16/foreign-student-persecution-imperils-any-american-who-advocates-for-freedom/
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27) Liberty a powerful right you own
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“Last week, the news of the dire wolf’s de-extinction was everywhere. It didn’t take long until calmer voices pointed out that these are not really dire wolves, which weren’t even wolves, just gray wolves genetically altered to have what someone believes were some dire wolf traits. The kind of liberty most people offer is similar. It’s not real liberty; it’s authoritarianism with a few tweaks of what some politicians believe real liberty might be like. They’ll claim to support liberty to get votes — until it threatens government power. This isn’t liberty at all, but a watered-down version where government allows you to do some things you already have a right to do, as long as you don’t bother government too much.” (04/16/25)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2025/04/16/voices/opinion-liberty-a-powerful-right-you-own/230606.html
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28) The Great Migration Deficit
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Trade deficits could arise because Americans are living beyond their means, habitually borrowing more than they save. But even good economists habitually overlook a competing story: Trade deficits arise because foreigners think the United States is a fantastic place to do business. So fantastic, in fact, that they would rather invest in the American economy than consume American products. The noble Don Boudreaux has been cogently defending the latter view for years, repeatedly pointing out that — contrary to the ‘living beyond their means’ story — Americans’ net worth has rapidly grown since 1975, the last year the U.S. ran a trade surplus. If you’re skeptical, consider the fact that the U.S. has another, even more durable, deficit: the migration deficit.” (04/16/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/the-great-labor-deficit
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29) Lebanon digs deep for its identity
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Shattered by a war with Israel last year and a six-year depression, Lebanon recently opened a new wing in the National Museum of Beirut. Yes, amid both war and economic destruction, the tiny Mediterranean country decided that showcasing Lebanese modern art was one way to create a common identity in a religiously diverse and torn nation. The new exhibit serves as ‘a reminder that there is something healing about remembering what is still good, what we still have,’ said Juliana Khalaf, co-director of the Beirut Museum of Art, which collected the works for the new space. Lebanon is now in the midst of an urgent identity-building process ever since a Nov. 27 ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed militia group Hezbollah that dominates the minority Shiites.” (04/16/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/0416/Lebanon-digs-deep-for-its-identity
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30) Sleazy Boomers and Wholesome Zoomers
Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
“The Economist has a very interesting set of articles on recent trends in western culture. The first one is entitled Aging disgracefully, and documents a major increase in promiscuous sex and drug use among the baby boom generation. (Yes, that’s my generation.) The second article notes a dramatic decease in this sort of behavior among the younger generation …. If you live long enough you see all sorts of surprising trends, and this is certainly one that I never would have imagined. I had always thought of wild behavior as being a province of the young, whereas elderly people tended to be more conservative in their lifestyles. I’m not in favor of drug prohibition, but if we must have restrictions on drug use then perhaps we should replace the minimum age for pot smoking with a maximum age.” (04/16/25)
https://www.econlib.org/sleazy-boomers-and-wholesome-zoomers/
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31) Washington’s Latest Tax Assault on Economic Success
Source: Town Hall
by Stephen Moore
“What is it about politicians in Washington that they just can’t stand progress or the thought of anyone getting rich? That’s the attitude of many Democrats in Congress as they try to cripple the private equity and venture capital industries with higher tax rates. These financers are some of the most dynamic risk-takers on the economic playing field. They are disrupting the old stodgy banking and Wall Street financing networks. The PE and VC track records in funding small businesses and turning them into the future gazelles is almost a uniquely American success story. But now, thanks to the industry’s winning track record in saving companies and jobs and making people rich, Washington thinks they are doing TOO well and wants to raise the tax rate on the industry by nearly 50%..” (04/16/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/stephenmoore/2025/04/16/washingtons-latest-tax-assault-on-economic-success-n2655560
-----
32) Alternatives to Tariffs
Source: The Daily Economy
by David Hebert
“For all the problems in his reasoning, [Oren] Cass is correct on one thing: These tariffs are like D-Day in that many Americans are finding themselves in the crosshairs of a failed, statist ideology. Rather than sending wave after wave of good, honest, hardworking American manufacturers to their doom with no greater payoff in sight, we should instead focus on what actually works, and what Trump himself promised in his Address to Congress: deregulating manufacturing for export, lowering taxes, and education reform.” (04/16/25)
https://lawliberty.org/alternatives-to-tariffs/
-----
33) Uncle Sam, Deadbeat Customer
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“Michelle’s client [a government agency] typically ordered widgets on a roughly quarterly basis. And then came in the new secretary and the DOGE clowns, who had more important things to do than running the agency. And so she ended up getting a panicked call from the No. 2 guy in the department, telling her that they were down to their last couple of boxes of widgets and instructing her to ‘move heaven and earth’ — at whatever cost — to get them some more. … Michelle did a little old-fashioned scrambling and finagling to get the materials she needed from a supplier other than her usual one and got the agency those widgets post haste. At which point the agency — utterly predictably, this being The Trump Show — refused to pay.” (04/16/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-government-doge-procurement-tariffs-supply-chain/
-----
34) Tell Congress to Stop Spending Your Tax Dollars on Nuclear Weapons
Source: Common Dreams
by Robert Dodge
“This week was the week that our 2024 taxes were due in order to fund the fiscal year 2025 federal budget and thus our nation’s priorities. This year’s budget represents the final Biden budget. It comes at a time when our country is in a deliberate state of chaos instituted by the current administration. Under the non-elected efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency and current cabinet, we find punitive and seemingly random disjointed cutting of essential services and vital programs in addition to international aid that cuts to the core of who America is. U.S. Congress has just passed a budget resolution requiring $1.5 trillion in savings to be realized over the next 10 years. Ultimately, budgets are moral documents. How do the current cuts, in addition to planned cuts in entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, address our needs and follow a moral compass?” (04/16/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/congress-taxes-nuclear-weapons
-----
35) The elevating, at times appalling, path to America’s founding
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“This Saturday is the 250th anniversary of the first day of the 3,059-day war that birthed the modern world. Commemorating the April 19, 1775, skirmishes at Lexington Green and Concord Bridge begins a celebration that will culminate July 4, 2026. These almost 15 months will inflame the perpetual scolds who, examining this nation’s history with a disapproving squint, see little to celebrate. In the half-century since the bicentennial, however, many Americans have developed a deeper, sturdier patriotism. They have benefited from historians who demonstrate how mature minds can combine unblinking assessments of history’s inevitable mistakes, cruelties, tragedies and sorrows with gratitude for those who persevered, and reverence for what they achieved: a wonderful nation.” (04/16/25)
https://archive.is/9xY5F
-----
36) The Root of Totalitarianism is Social Engineering
Source: The Daily Economy
by Mani Basharzad
“Planners who want to ‘perfect’ society often resort to coercion to impose their preferred outcomes. The result has been unthinkable government violence and cruelty.” (04/16/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-root-of-totalitarianism-is-social-engineering/
-----
37) Limiting the President’s Authority is a Good Idea
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker
“Seven Republican Senators have joined together in a proposal that would limit the president’s authority to impose tariffs. If the Democrats in the Senate joined with the Republicans, they would have the votes needed to approve the bill. While they would face a certain presidential veto and other hurdles, it is a goal worth pursuing. The bill, the Trade Review Act of 2025, would sunset any tariffs after 60 days if they are not approved by Congress. It also gives Congress the authority to reverse any tariff before this deadline with a joint resolution of Congress. The bill also requires the president to promptly submit an explanation for whatever tariffs they do put in place. This proposal is solidly grounded, both as a general principle and also given the specific circumstances the country faces now following the tariffs recently imposed by President Trump.” (04/16/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/04/16/limiting-the-presidents-authority-is-a-good-idea/
-----
38) China’s chokehold on US medicine puts American lives in danger
Source: New York Post
by Betsy McCaughey
“China’s playing hardball, and it’s not just about tariffs and the global economy: Our lives could be on the line. Soon after President Donald Trump announced his first round of tariffs on Chinese goods this month, China hit back by totally suspending its exports of rare-earth minerals and magnets, a key strategic monopoly. Those materials are essential to manufacture automobiles and electric vehicles, as well as America’s fighter jets, drones, robots — basically the next generation of war-fighting weaponry. China’s move puts a stranglehold on these industries, and threatens our national defense. Its next logical step is to cut off our medical supplies. China has a death grip on America’s generic-drug market, as well as on basic medical equipment that every hospital and doctor’s office relies on.” [editor’s note: When you pick a fight, don’t whine about losing – TLK] (04/15/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/04/15/opinion/chinas-chokehold-on-us-medicine-is-risking-american-lives/
-----
39) Are Chinese Soldiers Fighting in Ukraine?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“If Chinese soldiers are fighting in the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, that is not the big story. The big story is the effect the claim could have on the possibility of peace.” (04/16/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2025/04/15/are-chinese-soldiers-fighting-in-ukraine/
-----
40) Trump’s Huge Tariff Exemption Grift
Source: Washington Monthly
by Jonathan Alter
“The latest shakedown makes Tammany Hall and the Daley Machine look like the League of Women Voters.” (04/16/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/16/trumps-huge-tariff-exemption-grift/
-----
41) In Garcia, SCOTUS risks handing Trump a “loaded weapon”
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Bruce Fein
“The idea that the high court has no jurisdiction over ‘foreign policy’ is not just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.” (04/16/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/court-abrego-garcia-constitution/
-----
42) The Government Has Already Won the Meta Case
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“For the past couple of days, Mark Zuckerberg has been inside a D.C. courtroom reviewing more than a decade of email communications about his company, Meta. This is the last place Zuckerberg wanted to be; he literally visited the White House to lobby to get out of it, and offered $1 billion to settle. The effort failed, and we now know plenty about the ruthless tactics that Zuckerberg used to build his sprawling social media empire. And this exposure has already had a preventive effect: It’s why Meta’s control of public attention is likely to shrink over time, as competitors rise up that Meta won’t be able to buy. In a world without this aggressive antitrust enforcement, for example, Meta would have likely bought TikTok by now.” (04/16/25)
https://prospect.org/power/2025-04-16-government-already-won-meta-case-tiktok-ftc-zuckerberg/
-----
43) Excellence in Success
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The NASA Jet Propulsion Lab has ‘parted ways with’ — I’m guessing fired, despite the glowing words that attended the parting — DEI officer Neela Rajendra. The Free Beacon reports that NASA seems to have been nudged in this direction by a Beacon report that despite the anti-DEI policies of the new U.S. administration, the Jet Propulsion lab had tried to retain Rajendra by changing her title. She still had many of the same responsibilities, including managing ‘affinity groups’ like the Black Excellence Strategic Team. The propulsion lab is now replacing its DEI department with a new one called ‘Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success.’ Even assuming that race and gender consciousness are now no more — probably not a safe assumption — we may wonder why such a department, solely devoted to ‘excellence and success,’ is necessary.'” (04/16/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/04/16/excellence-in-success/
-----
44) The Trouble with Compulsory Globalism
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker
“For years, I’ve resisted deploying the word globalism with approbation because international cooperation is a good thing. Travel is glorious and so is the freedom to trade and migrate. How did the practice of freedom as it extends over national juridical lines come to be so widely loathed and disparaged? There is a complicated story here that speaks to entanglements between states, industry, finance, multinational government structures, and the control of a people over regimes.” (04/15/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-trouble-with-compulsory-globalism/
-----
45) Time to pull the plug on corporate virtue-signaling
Source: New York Post
by Bjorn Lomborg
“Over the past decade, the leaders of corporate and international organizations became used to being lauded for making grand but ultimately empty, green promises on stages in Davos and climate summits. How quickly things have changed. Fear of being called out by the Trump administration is forcing many leaders into changing course – at least in their rhetoric. World Bank president Ajay Banga’s first move when he took over the institution in 2023 was to extend its mission from ending poverty to incorporate climate change and making the planet ‘livable.’ Last November, as he headed to the COP summit in Azerbaijan, Banga graced the cover of Time magazine’s ‘climate issue’ and warned that climate change was ‘intertwined’ with every challenge. Yet today, he somewhat implausibly tells reporters, ‘I’m not a climate evangelist.'” (04/16/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/time-pull-plug-corporate-virtue-signaling
-----
46) How to Argue for Libertarianism
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“There are two ways to defend any political position: Moral arguments or economic, more broadly consequentialist, arguments. The moral argument for libertarianism usually starts with the idea of negative rights, rights not to have things done to you. Moral arguments for other political positions sometimes start with positive rights, rights to get something, enough food, good medical care, an education. Other positions can be defended by claims of obligation to your sovereign, your country, your people.” (04/15/25)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/how-to-argue-for-libertarianism
-----
47) Congress Should Never Have Created Fannie Or the GSEs
Source: Cato Institute
by Norbert Michel
“For hundreds of years, it has been clear that the blending of public and private interests in the economy leads to special favors for some at the expense of others.” (04/15/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/congress-should-never-have-created-fannie-or-gses
-----
48) On Making My First Gun
Source: Waste No More Time
by Nicholas Sarwark
“On December 31, 2024, my business partner and I bought a firearms manufacturer that makes a very inexpensive personal self defense pistol that sells for less than $120 and is made entirely in the USA. Many months of federal paperwork, licensing, leasing, filing, purchasing, moving, and working later, and we manufactured the first Altor pistol to be made in New Hampshire today, April 15, 2025. Tax Day.” (04/15/25)
https://nsarwark.substack.com/p/on-making-my-first-gun
-----
49) She was tracking post-Roe abortions; the government just pulled her funding
Source: In These Times
by Shefali Luthra
“Diana Greene Foster is responsible for landmark research on the effects of abortion access — a massive 10-year study that tracked thousands of people who had an abortion or were denied one. But funding for a follow-up to her seminal Turnaway Study has just been cut as part of a wave of canceled health policy research. Foster received a MacArthur ‘genius grant’ for the Turnaway Study. That piece of research, which examined the impact of restrictions even before the fall of Roe v. Wade, helped shape public understanding of how abortion access can affect people’s health and economic well-being …. Foster’s new study was meant to build on that research, using quantitative analysis and in-depth interviews to follow people who sought abortions in or outside of the medical system after federal abortion rights were terminated, as well as those who carried their pregnancies to term.” [editor’s note: So get private funding as with the first study. “Problem” solved – TLK] (04/16/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/turnaway-study-diana-greene-foster-trump-defunding-abortion-research
-----
50) Trump Has Found A More Constitution-Free Zone Than Guantanamo
Source: Coyote Blog
by Warren Meyer
“For two decades, the US military base at Guantanamo Bay has been a preferred spot to indefinitely detain individuals the US government does not like, mostly accused terrorists. In most cases these are folks the government would like to imprison for life but whom they don’t want to have tried in the US, either because they don’t really want to try to prove their accusations or due to public backlash against repatriating some admittedly bad folks. Whatever the reasons, the net effect is a Constitution-free zone where things we take for granted like due process and habeas corpus don’t obtain. … apparently [Donald Trump] has found an even better place — the CECOT prison in El Salvador. We are seeing now that this is one step even beyond Gitmo — while judges seem to have only limited reach into Gitmo, they do have some. But they have no reach into El Salvador.” (04/15/25)
https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2025/04/trump-has-found-a-more-constitution-free-zone-than-guantanamo.html
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Interview: Jason Furman
Source: Reason
“Former Obama administration economic adviser Jason Furman explains why both major parties have abandoned economic reality in favor of political fantasy.” (04/16/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/04/16/jason-furman-why-everyone-is-wrong-about-the-economy/
-----
52) Rising, 04/16/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on the Republican pushback to government mandating Real ID to fly within America.” (04/16/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5251712-rising-april-16-2025/
-----
53) The Learning Curve, 04/16/25
Source: Pioneer Institute
“Brown’s Pulitzer Winner Gordon Wood on the American Revolution’s 250th Anniversary.” (04/16/25)
https://pioneerinstitute.org/economic_opportunity/browns-pulitzer-winner-gordon-wood-on-the-american-revolutions-250th-anniversary/
-----
54) The Bryan Hyde Show, 04/16/25
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“To be accused of cultish thinking is a pretty strong insult. Having said that, Paul Rosenberg makes a powerful case that most of us belong to the Cult of Rules.” (04/16/25)
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-wrnfa-188126d
-----
55) Pink Flame of Liberty, 04/16/25
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Completely SEPARATE politics and religion.” (04/16/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-yeqWBQgBo
-----
56) The Political Orphanage, 04/16/25
Source: The Political Orphanage
“Faster, Cheaper, Better Government: Derek Thompson on ‘Abundance.'” (04/16/25)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/faster-cheaper-better-government-derek-thompson-on-abundance
-----
57) The Good Fight, 04/16/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Coleman Hughes on the Legacy of Slavery.” (04/16/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/coleman-hughes-on-the-legacy-of-slavery
-----
58) The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, 04/16/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s Unhinged Eruption at Harvard Actually Reveals a MAGA Weakness.” (04/16/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/194046/trump-unhinged-eruption-harvard-actually-reveals-maga-weakness
-----
59) The Corbett Report, episode 474
Source: The Corbett Report
“What I Learned From The JFK Files.” (04/16/25)
https://corbettreport.com/what-i-learned-from-the-jfk-files/
-----
60) Fountainhead Forum, episode 296
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Tony Martinez on Javier Milei’s possible trade deal with the USA.” (04/16/25)
https://rumble.com/v6s5nbb-ff-296-tony-martinez-on-javier-mileis-possible-trade-deal-with-the-usa.html
-----
61) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/16/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“US May Back Ground Offensive in Yemen, US Tells Israel It Will Drawdown Troops in Syria, and More.” (04/16/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg1S5R1cHmk
-----
62) Power Problems, 04/15/25
Source: Cato Institute
“Why America Needs to Change Its Nuclear Weapons Posture.” (04/15/25)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/power-problems/why-america-needs-change-its-nuclear-weapons-posture
-----
63) Politics Politics Politics, 04/15/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“The ‘Peasant’ Problem: US-China Trade War Gets Personal. Will Meta Prevail Against The FTC? (with Tom Merritt).” (04/15/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/the-peasant-problem-us-china-trade
-----
64) Nonzero, 04/15/25
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Untangling Trump’s Tariff Logic | Robert Wright & Samuel Hammond.” (04/15/25)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/68590
-----
65) (Re)Imagining Liberty, 04/15/25
Source: Aaron Ross Powell
“Ayn Rand Would’ve Hated Elon Musk.” (04/15/25)
https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/ayn-rand-would-ve-hated-elon-musk
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https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Boasberg moves to hold Trump administration in contempt over deportation flights
2) Ukraine: Regime prolongs martial law amid Russian air attacks, heavy ground battles
3) Puerto Rico: Power outage leaves most of the island in the dark
4) Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq smoked as Powell warns of “challenging” tariff impact
5) Court grants 60-day pause of SEC v. Ripple appeals case
6) Trump regime sues Maine regime over transgender athletes in schools amid funding threats
7) WHO member regimes agree on a draft “pandemic treaty” to try to avoid COVID-19 mistakes
8) CA: Newsom, Bonta launch lawsuit aimed at Trump administration
9) China: Q1 GDP growth beats expectations, but US tariff shock looms large
10) Detained activist Mohsen Mahdawi suspected US immigration interview was “a trap”
11) Judge temporarily blocks Trump from retaliating against firm that sued Fox News for election lies
12) NY: Trump administration refers AG Letitia James for possible prosecution for mortgage fraud
13) South Africa: Abducted US pastor rescued in shootout
14) Iran confirms second round of nuclear talks with US will be in Rome
15) UK Supreme Court: Equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female
16) Germany: Doctor charged with murder of 15 patients
17) Two top Pentagon officials placed on leave in probe of public finding out what government is up to
18) Bill would strip IRS of guns and ammo
19) France: Cars Set on Fire in Second Wave of Prison Attacks
20) US State Department closes office that “flags disinformation” from Russia, China & Iran
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) The United States of El Salvador
22) Yankee, Stay Home
23) Why Do Domestic Prices Rise with Tariffs?
24) Political Violence Surges as the Use of Force Becomes Mainstream
25) How to fix the Paperwork Reduction Act
26) Foreign Student Persecution Imperils any American Who Advocates for Freedom
27) Liberty a powerful right you own
28) The Great Migration Deficit
29) Lebanon digs deep for its identity
30) Sleazy Boomers and Wholesome Zoomers
31) Washington’s Latest Tax Assault on Economic Success
32) Alternatives to Tariffs
33) Uncle Sam, Deadbeat Customer
34) Tell Congress to Stop Spending Your Tax Dollars on Nuclear Weapons
35) The elevating, at times appalling, path to America’s founding
36) The Root of Totalitarianism is Social Engineering
37) Limiting the President’s Authority is a Good Idea
38) China’s chokehold on US medicine puts American lives in danger
39) Are Chinese Soldiers Fighting in Ukraine?
40) Trump’s Huge Tariff Exemption Grift
41) In Garcia, SCOTUS risks handing Trump a “loaded weapon”
42) The Government Has Already Won the Meta Case
43) Excellence in Success
44) The Trouble with Compulsory Globalism
45) Time to pull the plug on corporate virtue-signaling
46) How to Argue for Libertarianism
47) Congress Should Never Have Created Fannie Or the GSEs
48) On Making My First Gun
49) She was tracking post-Roe abortions; the government just pulled her funding
50) Trump Has Found A More Constitution-Free Zone Than Guantanamo
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Interview: Jason Furman
52) Rising, 04/16/25
53) The Learning Curve, 04/16/25
54) The Bryan Hyde Show, 04/16/25
55) Pink Flame of Liberty, 04/16/25
56) The Political Orphanage, 04/16/25
57) The Good Fight, 04/16/25
58) The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, 04/16/25
59) The Corbett Report, episode 474
60) Fountainhead Forum, episode 296
61) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/16/25
62) Power Problems, 04/15/25
63) Politics Politics Politics, 04/15/25
64) Nonzero, 04/15/25
65) (Re)Imagining Liberty, 04/15/25
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Boasberg moves to hold Trump administration in contempt over deportation flights
Source: The Hill
“A federal judge Wednesday found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for willfully disobeying his order to immediately halt deportations under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act and turn around any airborne planes. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order gives the administration a final opportunity to come into compliance but says he otherwise will take steps to identify the specific people who flouted his March 15 ruling, which was later lifted by the Supreme Court, and refer them for prosecution. ‘The Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt,’ Boasberg wrote.” (04/16/25)
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5251829-boasberg-trump-contempt
-----
2) Ukraine: Regime prolongs martial law amid Russian air attacks, heavy ground battles
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Ukraine’s parliament has voted to extend martial law and military mobilisation for another three months, prolonging the wartime measures until at least August 6. Lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak said the extension of martial law passed by a 357-1 vote, while a measure to maintain troop mobilisation was approved 356-1. Under Ukraine’s constitution, elections cannot be held during martial law – a provision that remains in effect despite external calls, including from Russia and the United States, for a timeline on a future vote. … As peace talks led by the Trump administration created hopes for a potential ceasefire and eventual elections, some Ukrainian opposition politicians have grown more vocal in their criticism of Zelenskyy. Still, there is broad support for maintaining martial law.” (04/16/25)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/16/ukraine-renews-martial-law
-----
3) Puerto Rico: Power outage leaves most of the island in the dark
Source: CBS News
“An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the largely Catholic residents of the U.S. territory prepared to celebrate the Easter weekend, a power company spokesman said. All hospitals on the island are operating on generators after the power went out at 12:38 p.m. Eastern Time, Veronica Ferraiuoli, acting governor and secretary of state for Puerto Rico, said at a news conference. All 1.4 million clients on the island were without power, Hugo Sorrentini, spokesman for Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, told The Associated Press. … Restoring most of the power will likely at least 48-72 hours, Luma said Wednesday evening. At least 78,000 customers were also without water, according to the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority.” (04/16/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/puerto-rico-power-outage-april-2025/
-----
4) Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq smoked as Powell warns of “challenging” tariff impact
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“US stocks tumbled on Wednesday with tariff fears returning to Wall Street in earnest, as Nvidia revealed costly new curbs on chip exports to China and Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned of the ‘challenging’ impacts to come from the uncertainty around President Trump’s trade policy. The benchmark S&P 500 dropped more than 2.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed roughly 700 points, or around 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell over 3% as the new chip provisions weighed on the tech sector.” (04/16/25)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-smoked-as-powell-warns-of-challenging-tariff-impact-nvidia-plunges-7-133757963.html
-----
5) Court grants 60-day pause of SEC v. Ripple appeals case
Source: CoinTelegraph
“An appellate court has granted a joint request from Ripple Labs and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pause an appeal in a 2020 SEC case against Ripple amid settlement negotiations. In an April 16 filing in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the court approved a joint SEC-Ripple motion to hold the appeal in abeyance — temporarily pausing the case — for 60 days. As part of the order, the SEC is expected to file a status report by June 15. … Despite support for the end of the case coming from both Ripple and the SEC, the August 2024 judgment and appellate cases leave some legal entanglements.” (04/16/25)
https://cointelegraph.com/news/court-pause-sec-ripple-appeals-case
-----
6) Trump regime sues Maine regime over transgender athletes in schools amid funding threats
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The Trump administration sued Maine on Wednesday for allowing transgender girls to compete in school sports, dramatically escalating a confrontation that has already seen threats to cut the state’s education and school lunch funding.The attorney general, Pam Bondi, announced the lawsuit flanked by Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer turned conservative [sic] [whiner] who has become the public face in opposition to transgender athletes. … Trump administration officials claim Maine violates Title IX by not barring transgender girls from female sports teams. Maine has flatly rejected this interpretation, refusing to sign a settlement that would implement those restrictions.” (04/16/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/trump-sues-maine-transgender-athletes-schools
-----
7) WHO member regimes agree on a draft “pandemic treaty” to try to avoid COVID-19 mistakes
Source: Associated Press
“Five years after COVID-19 triggered national lockdowns, economic uncertainty and killed millions, the World Health Organization’s member countries agreed on a draft ‘pandemic treaty’ that sets guidelines for how the international community might confront the next global health crisis. After the world’s largely disastrous response to the coronavirus, countries tasked the WHO with overseeing a pandemic treaty in 2021. Negotiations concluded early Wednesday on an agreement expected to be adopted next month at the U.N. health agency’s annual meeting in Geneva.” (04/16/25)
https://apnews.com/article/who-pandemic-treaty-covid-trump-9003e25d3a9dda95277a9f79cbf77a1d
-----
8) CA: Newsom, Bonta launch lawsuit aimed at Trump administration
Source: KTVU News
“California Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta are taking on the Trump administration in a new lawsuit, according to a press release from the governor’s office. The two are filing a lawsuit in federal court to challenge President Donald Trump’s emergency powers, which were used to enact sweeping tariffs in the past month. The lawsuit [notices] that the President ‘lacks the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs through the International Economic Emergency Powers Act.’ … The suit will be filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, according to the governor’s office.” (04/16/25)
https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-newsom-bonta-launch-lawsuit-aimed-trumps-tariffs
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9) China: Q1 GDP growth beats expectations, but US tariff shock looms large
Source: Reuters
“China’s first-quarter economic growth outstripped expectations, underpinned by solid consumption and industrial output, but analysts fear momentum could shift sharply lower as U.S. tariffs pose the biggest risk to the Asian powerhouse in decades. President Donald Trump has ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods to eye-watering levels, prompting Beijing to slap retaliatory duties on U.S. imports that have raised the stakes for the world’s two biggest economies and rattled financial markets. Data on Wednesday showed China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.4% in the January-March quarter from a year earlier, unchanged from the fourth quarter, but beat analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a rise of 5.1%.” (04/16/25)
https://archive.is/ACDBq
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10) Detained activist Mohsen Mahdawi suspected US immigration interview was “a trap”
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A university student and Palestinian activist [abducted] by US immigration authorities was worried that an American citizenship interview was a trap. Mohsen Mahdawi, who has permanent US residency or ‘green card’ status, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) when he turned up to the appointment on Monday. One day before his arrest he told CBS News that he believed the interview could be a setup. ‘It’s the first feeling of like, I’ve been waiting for this for more than a year,’ Mr Mahdawi said. ‘And the other feeling is like, wait a minute. Is this a honey trap?’ Mr Mahdawi, a philosophy student at Columbia University in New York City who was due to graduate next month, was [abducted] in Colchester, Vermont. Mr Mahdawi’s lawyer, Luna Droubi, said he was arrested ‘in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian.'” (04/16/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9vn84w27vo
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11) Judge temporarily blocks Trump from retaliating against firm that sued Fox News for election lies
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“A federal judge on Tuesday placed on hold much of Donald Trump’s order forbidding the federal government from doing business with anyone who hires the law firm Susman Godfrey, making it the fourth time a judge has found the president’s targeting of law firms is likely unconstitutional. ‘The framers of our constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power,’ District Court Judge Loren AliKhan said as she entered the temporary restraining order on behalf of Susman, which represented a voting machine firm that won a $787 billion settlement from Fox News over its airing of lies about Trump’s 2020 loss. Trump’s executive order cited the firm’s election work as a reason it was targeted.” (04/16/25)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/04/15/law-firm-retaliation/
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12) NY: Trump administration refers AG Letitia James for possible prosecution for mortgage fraud
Source: Fox News
“New York Attorney General Letitia James has been hit with shocking allegations by the Trump administration, accusing her of mortgage fraud. In documents obtained by Fox News Channel’s ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice on Tuesday, accusing James of mortgage fraud. FHFA Director William Pulte said in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that James appears to have falsified records to meet certain lending requirements and receive favorable loan terms. Pulte cited a property in Virginia that James allegedly claimed as her principal residence and a property in New York she claimed as a four-unit structure instead of five, which he said could mean she was able to get a different and more favorable loan.” (04/16/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-administration-refers-ny-ag-letitia-james-possible-prosecution-allegations-mortgage-fraud
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13) South Africa: Abducted US pastor rescued in shootout
Source: CBS News
“American pastor Josh Sullivan was rescued Tuesday amid a shootout between South African police and his captors that left three suspects dead, authorities said Wednesday. Sullivan, originally from Tennessee, was abducted at gunpoint during a prayer meeting at his church in South Africa on the evening of April 10. According to a statement issued by the the South African Police Service, a specialized unit dedicated to serious crime, known as the Hawks, they led the operation to rescue the 45-year-old. The American was abducted from his Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell Township, outside the coastal city of Gqeberha, and was rescued from a safehouse being used by his captors in that city.” (04/16/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-pastor-josh-sullivan-abducted-at-gunpoint-in-south-africa-rescued-in-shootout-authorities-say/
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14) Iran confirms second round of nuclear talks with US will be in Rome
Source: SFGate
“Iran confirmed Wednesday that the next round of nuclear talks with the United States this weekend will be held in Rome after earlier confusion over where the negotiations would be held. The announcement by Iranian state television came as Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian formally approved the resignation of one of his vice presidents who served as Tehran’s key negotiator in its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also arrived in the Islamic Republic on Wednesday. His talks may include negotiations over just what access the IAEA inspectors can get under any proposed deal. The state TV announcement said Oman will again mediate the talks on Saturday in Rome. Oman’s foreign minister served as an interlocutor between the two sides at talks last weekend in Muscat, the sultanate’s capital.” (04/16/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/iran-s-president-accepts-resignation-of-2015-20278473.php
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15) UK Supreme Court: Equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female
Source: ABC News
“The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the U.K. equalities law defines a woman as someone born biologically female. Justice Patrick Hodge said five judges at the court had ruled unanimously that ‘the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman.’ The ruling means that a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female should not be considered a woman for equality purposes. The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament stating that there should be a 50% female representation on the boards of Scottish public bodies. That law included transgender women in its definition of women.” (04/16/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uk-supreme-court-rules-equalities-law-defines-woman-120854059
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16) Germany: Doctor charged with murder of 15 patients
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A German palliative care doctor has been charged with murdering 15 of his patients using a cocktail of lethal drugs. Prosecutors in Berlin have accused the 40-year-old of setting fire to the homes of some of his suspected victims to cover his tracks. He allegedly killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024, though prosecutors have said they believe that total could rise. The doctor, who has not been named due to strict privacy laws in Germany, has not admitted to the charges, prosecutors said. He is accused of administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent. The relaxant ‘paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes,’ the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.” (04/16/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly161m6yj1o
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17) Two top Pentagon officials placed on leave in probe of public finding out what government is up to
Source: Politico
“The Pentagon placed two top political appointees under administrative leave on Tuesday after a probe into potential leaks of sensitive information, according to three defense officials. Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was escorted out of the Pentagon by security officers and had his building access suspended pending further investigation, said two of the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. Darin Selnick, the Pentagon’s deputy chief of staff, was also suspended as part of the same probe and escorted out of the building, according to one of the officials. The leaks under investigation include military operational plans for the Panama canal, a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, Elon Musk’s controversial visit to the Pentagon and pausing the collection of intelligence to Ukraine, the other official said.” (04/15/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/caldwell-pentagon-leaks-00291735
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18) Bill would strip IRS of guns and ammo
Source: Fox News
“While American taxpayers are familiar with the annual rigmarole of filing their federal taxes and realizing just how much of their hard-earned money Uncle Sam is taking away, several House Republicans are pushing a proposal to take some things away from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS): Guns and ammunition. The ‘Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act’ would disarm the federal agency, prohibiting the commissioner of internal revenue from using funds to buy, receive or store firearms and ammo, and requiring the transfer of IRS firearms and ammunition to the Administrator of General Services. The guns would then be sold or auctioned to licensed dealers and the ammo would be auctioned to the public. Proceeds would go to ‘the general fund of the Treasury for the sole purpose of deficit reduction,’ the measure stipulates.” (04/16/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-taking-aim-irs-would-strip-agency-guns-ammo
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19) France: Cars Set on Fire in Second Wave of Prison Attacks
Source: US News & World Report
“French jails were hit by a second wave of attacks overnight, including three cars set alight at Tarascon prison in southern France, the Justice Minister and a prison workers’ union said on Wednesday, as authorities sought to identify those responsible. ‘Cars were set on fire very early this morning,’ Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin told CNews TV and Europe 1 radio, speaking of the attack in Tarascon. The hall of a building in Meaux, east of Paris, where a prison guard works, was also set on fire overnight, as was the car of a prison guard who works in Aix-Luynes, in southern France, the FO Justice union said on X. In Tarascon, three cars burned in the prison’s parking lot, it said. Earlier in the week, at least six prisons guarding some of the nation’s most hardened crime kingpins came under gun and arson attack.” (04/16/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-04-16/cars-set-on-fire-at-french-prison-after-wave-of-attacks-minister-says
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20) US State Department closes office that “flags disinformation” from Russia, China & Iran
Source: SFGate
“The State Department has shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that he had closed what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the United States and elsewhere. The center has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports that it said are biased or untruthful. At times, it has identified U.S. websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war. ” (04/16/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/the-state-department-closes-the-office-that-flags-20279409.php
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) The United States of El Salvador
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“[I]n 2021 the national Legislative Assembly, which was dominated by Bukele’s party, voted to remove the judges in what is called the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Given that it has the power to declare actions of the president unconstitutional, it is the most important part of the Salvadoran Supreme Court. The reason for removing those judges? They were issuing rulings that challenged the constitutionality of Bukele’s ’emergency’ measures during the Covid crisis. Bukele didn’t like judges challenging his authority. Sound familiar? So, he and his cohorts effectively just fired those judges and replaced them with new ones who, Bukele no doubt hoped, would uphold the constitutionality of whatever action he decided to take, including running for a third term as president, which the Salvadoran constitution prohibits. In March 2022, Bukele and the national Legislative Assembly declared a ‘national emergency.’ Sound familiar?” (04/16/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/04/16/the-united-states-of-el-salvador/
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22) Yankee, Stay Home
Source: The American Conservative
by Bill Kauffan
“I daresay not a soul in a million who voted for Donald Trump last November did so because he or she wanted to buy Greenland, annex Canada, seize the Panama Canal, or ‘own’ Gaza and displace 2 million human beings. This expansionist frenzy isn’t America First: Trump’s land-and-people grab is to the historic political tendency of America First as murdering the adulterous lover whose inheritance you stole is to the Ten Commandments. The utter perversion of America First by people who couldn’t even spit the phrase out a couple decades ago — ‘tainted’ as it was by association with the antiwar tradition—astonishes. Once the term America First was denatured, market-tested, and approved, it was coopted by the usual Beltway grifters: people who sneered at Trump 10 years ago but slobber over him now.” (04/16/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/yankee-stay-home/
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23) Why Do Domestic Prices Rise with Tariffs?
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Alex Tabarrok
“Many people think they understand why domestic prices rise with tariffs — domestic producers take advantage of reduced competition to jack up prices and increase their profits. The explanation seems cynical and sophisticated, and it’s not entirely wrong, but it misses deeper truths. Moreover, this ‘explanation’ makes people think that an appropriate response to domestic firms raising prices is price controls and threats, which would make things worse. In fact, tariffs will increase domestic prices even in perfectly competitive industries. Let’s see why.” (04/16/25)
https://fee.org/articles/why-do-domestic-prices-rise-with-tariffs/
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24) Political Violence Surges as the Use of Force Becomes Mainstream
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“The weekend’s apparent attempted murder over the weekend of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro with an arson attack is, unfortunately, only part of the wave of political violence sweeping over the country. Recent months have seen assassinations and attempted killings, attacks on political headquarters, arson against Tesla cars and dealers, and other acts that make it clear that some people have gone beyond hardened political hostilities to assaults on people and property. Worse, Americans — especially those on the political left [sic] — seem increasingly open to violence as a means of settling ideological disputes.” (04/16/25)
https://reason.com/2025/04/16/political-violence-surges-as-the-use-of-force-becomes-mainstream/
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25) How to fix the Paperwork Reduction Act
Source: Niskanen Center
by Alexander Mechanick
“The Paperwork Reduction Act was enacted to reduce unnecessary paperwork and improve policymaking. But it fails to effectively realize these goals. This paper explains how we ended up with a statute that perversely undermines its purposes, what goes wrong (and right) in the status quo, and how to design a better Paperwork Reduction Act.” (04/16/25)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-to-fix-the-paperwork-reduction-act
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26) Foreign Student Persecution Imperils any American Who Advocates for Freedom
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“[Rumeysa] Ozturk is one of the most high-profile seizures that Trump’s DHS has made of students who criticized Israeli policies in Gaza. Hundreds of student visas have been revoked and the Trump administration has floated proposals to prohibit all foreign students from attending American universities that fail to fully suppress criticism or protests against Israeli policies. It would be the height of folly for Americans to presume they face no peril from entitling the feds to seize boundless power to punish students’ speech.” (04/16/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/04/16/foreign-student-persecution-imperils-any-american-who-advocates-for-freedom/
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27) Liberty a powerful right you own
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“Last week, the news of the dire wolf’s de-extinction was everywhere. It didn’t take long until calmer voices pointed out that these are not really dire wolves, which weren’t even wolves, just gray wolves genetically altered to have what someone believes were some dire wolf traits. The kind of liberty most people offer is similar. It’s not real liberty; it’s authoritarianism with a few tweaks of what some politicians believe real liberty might be like. They’ll claim to support liberty to get votes — until it threatens government power. This isn’t liberty at all, but a watered-down version where government allows you to do some things you already have a right to do, as long as you don’t bother government too much.” (04/16/25)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2025/04/16/voices/opinion-liberty-a-powerful-right-you-own/230606.html
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28) The Great Migration Deficit
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Trade deficits could arise because Americans are living beyond their means, habitually borrowing more than they save. But even good economists habitually overlook a competing story: Trade deficits arise because foreigners think the United States is a fantastic place to do business. So fantastic, in fact, that they would rather invest in the American economy than consume American products. The noble Don Boudreaux has been cogently defending the latter view for years, repeatedly pointing out that — contrary to the ‘living beyond their means’ story — Americans’ net worth has rapidly grown since 1975, the last year the U.S. ran a trade surplus. If you’re skeptical, consider the fact that the U.S. has another, even more durable, deficit: the migration deficit.” (04/16/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/the-great-labor-deficit
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29) Lebanon digs deep for its identity
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Shattered by a war with Israel last year and a six-year depression, Lebanon recently opened a new wing in the National Museum of Beirut. Yes, amid both war and economic destruction, the tiny Mediterranean country decided that showcasing Lebanese modern art was one way to create a common identity in a religiously diverse and torn nation. The new exhibit serves as ‘a reminder that there is something healing about remembering what is still good, what we still have,’ said Juliana Khalaf, co-director of the Beirut Museum of Art, which collected the works for the new space. Lebanon is now in the midst of an urgent identity-building process ever since a Nov. 27 ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed militia group Hezbollah that dominates the minority Shiites.” (04/16/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/0416/Lebanon-digs-deep-for-its-identity
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30) Sleazy Boomers and Wholesome Zoomers
Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
“The Economist has a very interesting set of articles on recent trends in western culture. The first one is entitled Aging disgracefully, and documents a major increase in promiscuous sex and drug use among the baby boom generation. (Yes, that’s my generation.) The second article notes a dramatic decease in this sort of behavior among the younger generation …. If you live long enough you see all sorts of surprising trends, and this is certainly one that I never would have imagined. I had always thought of wild behavior as being a province of the young, whereas elderly people tended to be more conservative in their lifestyles. I’m not in favor of drug prohibition, but if we must have restrictions on drug use then perhaps we should replace the minimum age for pot smoking with a maximum age.” (04/16/25)
https://www.econlib.org/sleazy-boomers-and-wholesome-zoomers/
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31) Washington’s Latest Tax Assault on Economic Success
Source: Town Hall
by Stephen Moore
“What is it about politicians in Washington that they just can’t stand progress or the thought of anyone getting rich? That’s the attitude of many Democrats in Congress as they try to cripple the private equity and venture capital industries with higher tax rates. These financers are some of the most dynamic risk-takers on the economic playing field. They are disrupting the old stodgy banking and Wall Street financing networks. The PE and VC track records in funding small businesses and turning them into the future gazelles is almost a uniquely American success story. But now, thanks to the industry’s winning track record in saving companies and jobs and making people rich, Washington thinks they are doing TOO well and wants to raise the tax rate on the industry by nearly 50%..” (04/16/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/stephenmoore/2025/04/16/washingtons-latest-tax-assault-on-economic-success-n2655560
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32) Alternatives to Tariffs
Source: The Daily Economy
by David Hebert
“For all the problems in his reasoning, [Oren] Cass is correct on one thing: These tariffs are like D-Day in that many Americans are finding themselves in the crosshairs of a failed, statist ideology. Rather than sending wave after wave of good, honest, hardworking American manufacturers to their doom with no greater payoff in sight, we should instead focus on what actually works, and what Trump himself promised in his Address to Congress: deregulating manufacturing for export, lowering taxes, and education reform.” (04/16/25)
https://lawliberty.org/alternatives-to-tariffs/
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33) Uncle Sam, Deadbeat Customer
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“Michelle’s client [a government agency] typically ordered widgets on a roughly quarterly basis. And then came in the new secretary and the DOGE clowns, who had more important things to do than running the agency. And so she ended up getting a panicked call from the No. 2 guy in the department, telling her that they were down to their last couple of boxes of widgets and instructing her to ‘move heaven and earth’ — at whatever cost — to get them some more. … Michelle did a little old-fashioned scrambling and finagling to get the materials she needed from a supplier other than her usual one and got the agency those widgets post haste. At which point the agency — utterly predictably, this being The Trump Show — refused to pay.” (04/16/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-government-doge-procurement-tariffs-supply-chain/
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34) Tell Congress to Stop Spending Your Tax Dollars on Nuclear Weapons
Source: Common Dreams
by Robert Dodge
“This week was the week that our 2024 taxes were due in order to fund the fiscal year 2025 federal budget and thus our nation’s priorities. This year’s budget represents the final Biden budget. It comes at a time when our country is in a deliberate state of chaos instituted by the current administration. Under the non-elected efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency and current cabinet, we find punitive and seemingly random disjointed cutting of essential services and vital programs in addition to international aid that cuts to the core of who America is. U.S. Congress has just passed a budget resolution requiring $1.5 trillion in savings to be realized over the next 10 years. Ultimately, budgets are moral documents. How do the current cuts, in addition to planned cuts in entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, address our needs and follow a moral compass?” (04/16/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/congress-taxes-nuclear-weapons
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35) The elevating, at times appalling, path to America’s founding
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“This Saturday is the 250th anniversary of the first day of the 3,059-day war that birthed the modern world. Commemorating the April 19, 1775, skirmishes at Lexington Green and Concord Bridge begins a celebration that will culminate July 4, 2026. These almost 15 months will inflame the perpetual scolds who, examining this nation’s history with a disapproving squint, see little to celebrate. In the half-century since the bicentennial, however, many Americans have developed a deeper, sturdier patriotism. They have benefited from historians who demonstrate how mature minds can combine unblinking assessments of history’s inevitable mistakes, cruelties, tragedies and sorrows with gratitude for those who persevered, and reverence for what they achieved: a wonderful nation.” (04/16/25)
https://archive.is/9xY5F
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36) The Root of Totalitarianism is Social Engineering
Source: The Daily Economy
by Mani Basharzad
“Planners who want to ‘perfect’ society often resort to coercion to impose their preferred outcomes. The result has been unthinkable government violence and cruelty.” (04/16/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-root-of-totalitarianism-is-social-engineering/
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37) Limiting the President’s Authority is a Good Idea
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker
“Seven Republican Senators have joined together in a proposal that would limit the president’s authority to impose tariffs. If the Democrats in the Senate joined with the Republicans, they would have the votes needed to approve the bill. While they would face a certain presidential veto and other hurdles, it is a goal worth pursuing. The bill, the Trade Review Act of 2025, would sunset any tariffs after 60 days if they are not approved by Congress. It also gives Congress the authority to reverse any tariff before this deadline with a joint resolution of Congress. The bill also requires the president to promptly submit an explanation for whatever tariffs they do put in place. This proposal is solidly grounded, both as a general principle and also given the specific circumstances the country faces now following the tariffs recently imposed by President Trump.” (04/16/25)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/04/16/limiting-the-presidents-authority-is-a-good-idea/
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38) China’s chokehold on US medicine puts American lives in danger
Source: New York Post
by Betsy McCaughey
“China’s playing hardball, and it’s not just about tariffs and the global economy: Our lives could be on the line. Soon after President Donald Trump announced his first round of tariffs on Chinese goods this month, China hit back by totally suspending its exports of rare-earth minerals and magnets, a key strategic monopoly. Those materials are essential to manufacture automobiles and electric vehicles, as well as America’s fighter jets, drones, robots — basically the next generation of war-fighting weaponry. China’s move puts a stranglehold on these industries, and threatens our national defense. Its next logical step is to cut off our medical supplies. China has a death grip on America’s generic-drug market, as well as on basic medical equipment that every hospital and doctor’s office relies on.” [editor’s note: When you pick a fight, don’t whine about losing – TLK] (04/15/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/04/15/opinion/chinas-chokehold-on-us-medicine-is-risking-american-lives/
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39) Are Chinese Soldiers Fighting in Ukraine?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Snider
“If Chinese soldiers are fighting in the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, that is not the big story. The big story is the effect the claim could have on the possibility of peace.” (04/16/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2025/04/15/are-chinese-soldiers-fighting-in-ukraine/
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40) Trump’s Huge Tariff Exemption Grift
Source: Washington Monthly
by Jonathan Alter
“The latest shakedown makes Tammany Hall and the Daley Machine look like the League of Women Voters.” (04/16/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/16/trumps-huge-tariff-exemption-grift/
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41) In Garcia, SCOTUS risks handing Trump a “loaded weapon”
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Bruce Fein
“The idea that the high court has no jurisdiction over ‘foreign policy’ is not just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.” (04/16/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/court-abrego-garcia-constitution/
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42) The Government Has Already Won the Meta Case
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“For the past couple of days, Mark Zuckerberg has been inside a D.C. courtroom reviewing more than a decade of email communications about his company, Meta. This is the last place Zuckerberg wanted to be; he literally visited the White House to lobby to get out of it, and offered $1 billion to settle. The effort failed, and we now know plenty about the ruthless tactics that Zuckerberg used to build his sprawling social media empire. And this exposure has already had a preventive effect: It’s why Meta’s control of public attention is likely to shrink over time, as competitors rise up that Meta won’t be able to buy. In a world without this aggressive antitrust enforcement, for example, Meta would have likely bought TikTok by now.” (04/16/25)
https://prospect.org/power/2025-04-16-government-already-won-meta-case-tiktok-ftc-zuckerberg/
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43) Excellence in Success
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The NASA Jet Propulsion Lab has ‘parted ways with’ — I’m guessing fired, despite the glowing words that attended the parting — DEI officer Neela Rajendra. The Free Beacon reports that NASA seems to have been nudged in this direction by a Beacon report that despite the anti-DEI policies of the new U.S. administration, the Jet Propulsion lab had tried to retain Rajendra by changing her title. She still had many of the same responsibilities, including managing ‘affinity groups’ like the Black Excellence Strategic Team. The propulsion lab is now replacing its DEI department with a new one called ‘Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success.’ Even assuming that race and gender consciousness are now no more — probably not a safe assumption — we may wonder why such a department, solely devoted to ‘excellence and success,’ is necessary.'” (04/16/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/04/16/excellence-in-success/
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44) The Trouble with Compulsory Globalism
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker
“For years, I’ve resisted deploying the word globalism with approbation because international cooperation is a good thing. Travel is glorious and so is the freedom to trade and migrate. How did the practice of freedom as it extends over national juridical lines come to be so widely loathed and disparaged? There is a complicated story here that speaks to entanglements between states, industry, finance, multinational government structures, and the control of a people over regimes.” (04/15/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-trouble-with-compulsory-globalism/
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45) Time to pull the plug on corporate virtue-signaling
Source: New York Post
by Bjorn Lomborg
“Over the past decade, the leaders of corporate and international organizations became used to being lauded for making grand but ultimately empty, green promises on stages in Davos and climate summits. How quickly things have changed. Fear of being called out by the Trump administration is forcing many leaders into changing course – at least in their rhetoric. World Bank president Ajay Banga’s first move when he took over the institution in 2023 was to extend its mission from ending poverty to incorporate climate change and making the planet ‘livable.’ Last November, as he headed to the COP summit in Azerbaijan, Banga graced the cover of Time magazine’s ‘climate issue’ and warned that climate change was ‘intertwined’ with every challenge. Yet today, he somewhat implausibly tells reporters, ‘I’m not a climate evangelist.'” (04/16/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/time-pull-plug-corporate-virtue-signaling
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46) How to Argue for Libertarianism
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“There are two ways to defend any political position: Moral arguments or economic, more broadly consequentialist, arguments. The moral argument for libertarianism usually starts with the idea of negative rights, rights not to have things done to you. Moral arguments for other political positions sometimes start with positive rights, rights to get something, enough food, good medical care, an education. Other positions can be defended by claims of obligation to your sovereign, your country, your people.” (04/15/25)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/how-to-argue-for-libertarianism
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47) Congress Should Never Have Created Fannie Or the GSEs
Source: Cato Institute
by Norbert Michel
“For hundreds of years, it has been clear that the blending of public and private interests in the economy leads to special favors for some at the expense of others.” (04/15/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/congress-should-never-have-created-fannie-or-gses
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48) On Making My First Gun
Source: Waste No More Time
by Nicholas Sarwark
“On December 31, 2024, my business partner and I bought a firearms manufacturer that makes a very inexpensive personal self defense pistol that sells for less than $120 and is made entirely in the USA. Many months of federal paperwork, licensing, leasing, filing, purchasing, moving, and working later, and we manufactured the first Altor pistol to be made in New Hampshire today, April 15, 2025. Tax Day.” (04/15/25)
https://nsarwark.substack.com/p/on-making-my-first-gun
-----
49) She was tracking post-Roe abortions; the government just pulled her funding
Source: In These Times
by Shefali Luthra
“Diana Greene Foster is responsible for landmark research on the effects of abortion access — a massive 10-year study that tracked thousands of people who had an abortion or were denied one. But funding for a follow-up to her seminal Turnaway Study has just been cut as part of a wave of canceled health policy research. Foster received a MacArthur ‘genius grant’ for the Turnaway Study. That piece of research, which examined the impact of restrictions even before the fall of Roe v. Wade, helped shape public understanding of how abortion access can affect people’s health and economic well-being …. Foster’s new study was meant to build on that research, using quantitative analysis and in-depth interviews to follow people who sought abortions in or outside of the medical system after federal abortion rights were terminated, as well as those who carried their pregnancies to term.” [editor’s note: So get private funding as with the first study. “Problem” solved – TLK] (04/16/25)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/turnaway-study-diana-greene-foster-trump-defunding-abortion-research
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50) Trump Has Found A More Constitution-Free Zone Than Guantanamo
Source: Coyote Blog
by Warren Meyer
“For two decades, the US military base at Guantanamo Bay has been a preferred spot to indefinitely detain individuals the US government does not like, mostly accused terrorists. In most cases these are folks the government would like to imprison for life but whom they don’t want to have tried in the US, either because they don’t really want to try to prove their accusations or due to public backlash against repatriating some admittedly bad folks. Whatever the reasons, the net effect is a Constitution-free zone where things we take for granted like due process and habeas corpus don’t obtain. … apparently [Donald Trump] has found an even better place — the CECOT prison in El Salvador. We are seeing now that this is one step even beyond Gitmo — while judges seem to have only limited reach into Gitmo, they do have some. But they have no reach into El Salvador.” (04/15/25)
https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2025/04/trump-has-found-a-more-constitution-free-zone-than-guantanamo.html
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Interview: Jason Furman
Source: Reason
“Former Obama administration economic adviser Jason Furman explains why both major parties have abandoned economic reality in favor of political fantasy.” (04/16/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/04/16/jason-furman-why-everyone-is-wrong-about-the-economy/
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52) Rising, 04/16/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on the Republican pushback to government mandating Real ID to fly within America.” (04/16/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5251712-rising-april-16-2025/
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53) The Learning Curve, 04/16/25
Source: Pioneer Institute
“Brown’s Pulitzer Winner Gordon Wood on the American Revolution’s 250th Anniversary.” (04/16/25)
https://pioneerinstitute.org/economic_opportunity/browns-pulitzer-winner-gordon-wood-on-the-american-revolutions-250th-anniversary/
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54) The Bryan Hyde Show, 04/16/25
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“To be accused of cultish thinking is a pretty strong insult. Having said that, Paul Rosenberg makes a powerful case that most of us belong to the Cult of Rules.” (04/16/25)
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-wrnfa-188126d
-----
55) Pink Flame of Liberty, 04/16/25
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Completely SEPARATE politics and religion.” (04/16/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-yeqWBQgBo
-----
56) The Political Orphanage, 04/16/25
Source: The Political Orphanage
“Faster, Cheaper, Better Government: Derek Thompson on ‘Abundance.'” (04/16/25)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/faster-cheaper-better-government-derek-thompson-on-abundance
-----
57) The Good Fight, 04/16/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Coleman Hughes on the Legacy of Slavery.” (04/16/25)
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/coleman-hughes-on-the-legacy-of-slavery
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58) The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, 04/16/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s Unhinged Eruption at Harvard Actually Reveals a MAGA Weakness.” (04/16/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/194046/trump-unhinged-eruption-harvard-actually-reveals-maga-weakness
-----
59) The Corbett Report, episode 474
Source: The Corbett Report
“What I Learned From The JFK Files.” (04/16/25)
https://corbettreport.com/what-i-learned-from-the-jfk-files/
-----
60) Fountainhead Forum, episode 296
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Tony Martinez on Javier Milei’s possible trade deal with the USA.” (04/16/25)
https://rumble.com/v6s5nbb-ff-296-tony-martinez-on-javier-mileis-possible-trade-deal-with-the-usa.html
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61) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/16/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“US May Back Ground Offensive in Yemen, US Tells Israel It Will Drawdown Troops in Syria, and More.” (04/16/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg1S5R1cHmk
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62) Power Problems, 04/15/25
Source: Cato Institute
“Why America Needs to Change Its Nuclear Weapons Posture.” (04/15/25)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/power-problems/why-america-needs-change-its-nuclear-weapons-posture
-----
63) Politics Politics Politics, 04/15/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“The ‘Peasant’ Problem: US-China Trade War Gets Personal. Will Meta Prevail Against The FTC? (with Tom Merritt).” (04/15/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/the-peasant-problem-us-china-trade
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64) Nonzero, 04/15/25
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Untangling Trump’s Tariff Logic | Robert Wright & Samuel Hammond.” (04/15/25)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/68590
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65) (Re)Imagining Liberty, 04/15/25
Source: Aaron Ross Powell
“Ayn Rand Would’ve Hated Elon Musk.” (04/15/25)
https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/ayn-rand-would-ve-hated-elon-musk
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