05/01 -- ICJ hearing: US regime backs Israeli regime's right [sic] to ban UNRWA from Gaza; The Trump Administration Is Not Serious About Ending Endless Wars
13 views
Skip to first unread message
Thomas L. Knapp
May 1, 2025, 6:37:13 AM5/1/25
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 05/01/25
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Presented by the Liberty International
https://liberty-intl.org/
Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Freedom News:
1) ICJ hearing: US regime backs Israeli regime’s right [sic] to ban UNRWA from Gaza
2) US GDP shrinks in first quarter; Trump tries to pin blame on Biden
3) UK: Local elections put two main parties to the test as hard-right gains ground
4) Judge orders release of ICE-abducted Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi
5) Germany: Merz to form government after SPD backs coalition deal with conservatives
6) US Private Sector Delegation Heads to Greenland
7) Vietnam: Regime holds massive parade to celebrate 50th anniversary of war’s end
8) NV: Shocking decline in visitors to Las Vegas revealed as foreign tourists shun the United States
9) Republicans pull passenger vehicle tax proposal after GOP blowback
10) UN Orders Agencies to Find Budget Cuts, Including via Staff Relocations From New York
11) Update that made ChatGPT “dangerously” sycophantic pulled
12) France: Regime accuses Russia-linked hackers of targeting the Paris Olympics
13) Mexico: Regime says it has accepted 39k deportees from the US regime, mostly Mexican nationals
14) Harvard promises changes after reports on antisemitism, Islamophobia
15) Syria: Israeli regime says it carried out operation against gunmen attacking Druze fighters
16) Yemen: British, US regime forces attack supposed Houthi drone manufacturing targets
17) Bessent says US regime ready to sign Ukraine mineral deal “this afternoon” despite late changes
18) Shenzhou-19 crew returns to Earth after six months on Chinese space station
19) CA: Newsom supports push to make it a felony to purchase 16 and 17-year-olds for sex
20) WI: Judge “temporarily relieved” of duties by state’s high court
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) The Trump Administration Is Not Serious About Ending Endless Wars
22) We must fight politics like a disease
23) On Free Speech, Trump’s as Bad as Biden
24) The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs
25) In defence of dimming the Sun
26) Tariffs and the economy
27) Fall of Saigon, 50 Years On
28) What Can Trump Achieve With Russia-Ukraine?
29) This agency that targets Republicans while shielding Democrats must be dismantled
30) The First Forever War
31) Judge Dugan, the Migrant and the Law
32) 100 Days of Ressentiment
33) Why Europe doesn’t waste a crisis
34) Is Bitcoin Ready To Retire Gold?
35) A Free Speech Test for the Ivy League
36) Dinner With Donald
37) Can’t Make Government Efficient
38) The roots of Trump’s “I alone can fix it” presidency
39) Symposium: Was the Vietnam War a mistake or fatal flaw in the system?
40) Article II as Suicide Pact
41) The Vietnam War Ended 50 Years Ago; People Still Get It Wrong
42) Like a Bad Jankowicz
43) Iran and the United States: Nuclear Argy Bargy
44) The Worst Parts of Trump’s First 100 Days Involved Ignoring Libertarian Principles
45) Trump’s first 100 days illustrate his strengths and mindset: decisive, bold, and in a hurry
46) Detaining Öztürk over an op-ed is unlawful and un-American
47) Dictator on Day 100
48) Capitalism, Socialism, and Social Desirability Bias
49) Waiting for the Supply Shock
50) A Flock of Frightened and Dependent Sheep
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Rising, 04/30/25
52) Best of Cato Daily Podcast: You Have the Right to Remain Innocent
53) Reason Interview: John Arnold
54) The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, 04/30/25
55) Conflicts of Interest, episode 792
56) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 04/30/25
57) SolutionsWatch, 04/30/25
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/30/25
59) Nonzero, 04/29/25
60) System Update, episode 445
61) Trump Watch, 04/29/25
62) (Re)Imagining Liberty, 04/29/25
63) Politics Politics Politics, 04/29/25
64) Power Problems, 04/29/25
65) Mean Age Daydream, 04/29/25
vvvvv SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS vvvvv
ONE IDENTITY FOR ALL YOUR CRYPTO
https://fioprotocol.io/
SAMUEL EDWARD KONKIN III REVOLUTIONARY FRIEND BY WENDY MCELROY
https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Edward-Konkin-Revolutionary-Friend-ebook/dp/B0DP7B6127
SHOP ONLINE, COLLECT A REBATE IN BITCOIN!
https://www.lolli.com/share/MZB4cCpheL
THE CONSTITUTION OF NON-STATE GOVERNMENT: FIELD GUIDE TO TEXAS SECESSION, by TL Hulsey
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853
Tyranny Demands AN ACT OF SELF-DEFENSE: A NOVEL BY ERNE LEWIS
https://tinyurl.com/actofselfdefense
^^^^^ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS ^^^^^
_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) ICJ hearing: US regime backs Israeli regime’s right [sic] to ban UNRWA from Gaza
Source: Times of Israel [Palestine]
“Israel cannot be forced to allow the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, to operate in Gaza, the United States argued Wednesday at an International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearing in The Hague. Israel last year passed a law that banned UNRWA from operating in the country, as it said the organization had employed members of Hamas who took part in the October 7, 2023, onslaught, among a series of other accusations that the organization runs schools that incite to terrorism, perpetuates the refugee status by passing it by generation unlike the rest of the world’s refugees, and more. … The ICJ, also known as the World Court, on Monday opened a week of hearings on Israel’s humanitarian obligations toward the Palestinians, more than 50 days into its blockade on aid entering war-ravaged Gaza, which is aimed at pressuring Hamas to release the 59 hostages it is holding, 24 of whom are believed alive.” (04/30/25)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-world-court-hearing-us-backs-israels-right-to-ban-unrwa-from-gaza/
-----
2) US GDP shrinks in first quarter; Trump tries to pin blame on Biden
Source: CNBC
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday blamed his predecessor and defended his sweeping tariffs after new data showed the U.S. economy contracting last quarter, while warning that his promised ‘boom’ will ‘take a while.’ ‘This is [former President Joe] Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th,’ Trump said in a Truth Social post. … ‘This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!’ Trump wrote. The defensive social media post came less than an hour after the release of a U.S. Department of Commerce report showing gross domestic product fell at a 0.3% annualized pace in the first three months of the year.” (04/30/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/trump-gdp-tariffs-biden-overhang.html
-----
3) UK: Local elections put two main parties to the test as hard-right gains ground
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Britain’s two main parties are tipped to suffer losses Thursday in local elections likely to confirm the rise of hard-right populists and portend the splintering of a century-long political duopoly. The polls in England are the first since Keir Starmer became Labour prime minister and Kemi Badenoch took over at the helm of the struggling opposition Conservatives last year. Anti-immigrant Reform UK are expected to make gains, as are the centrist Liberal Democrats and left-wing Greens, confirming a trend that Britain is entering an era of multi-party politics.” (05/01/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/uk/20250501-uk-local-elections
-----
4) Judge orders release of ICE-abducted Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi
Source: The Hill
“Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, who was [abducted] by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during what was supposed to be a naturalization interview, was released from his detention Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled the green-card holder, who had been held in the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vt., should be set free after weeks of detention, denying the federal government’s request for a seven-day stay on that release. Mahdawi is the first foreign student to be released after being [abducted] by the Trump administration for the purposes of [making political hay with anti-immigration authoritarian/pro-Israel supporters].”
(04/30/25)
https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5274951-judge-release-ice-columbia-student-mohsen-mahdawi
-----
5) Germany: Merz to form government after SPD backs coalition deal with conservatives
Source: euronews [EU]
“Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) have approved a deal to join a new coalition government with the CDU/CSU conservatives, paving the way for conservative leader Friedrich Merz to be confirmed as the country’s new chancellor next week. The centre-left party of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz will join a coalition led by Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which won Germany’s election in February with 28.5% of the vote. The SPD suffered their worst result since World War II, finishing third with just 16.4% of the vote. But the conservatives needed their support to assemble a parliamentary majority without the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came second.” (04/30/25)
https://www.euronews.com/2025/04/30/germanys-merz-to-form-government-after-spd-backs-coalition-deal-with-conservatives
-----
6) US Private Sector Delegation Heads to Greenland
Source: US News & World Report
“A U.S. private sector delegation, led by a former Trump administration official, is set to visit Greenland this week to explore investment opportunities in the Arctic island’s vast natural resources. U.S. interest in Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, has increased since Donald Trump took office in January, causing political tension with Copenhagen. Trump has refused to rule out taking Greenland by military force if Denmark won’t sell it. This visit marks the first by a private sector delegation to the Arctic island since the election of Jens-Frederik Nielsen of the pro-business Demokratiit Party as its premier. … Drew Horn, CEO of GreenMet and former chief of staff for the Office of International Affairs at the Department of Energy during the first Trump administration, will lead the group. ‘I’m not trying to do anything crazy like orchestrate a purchase or acquisition of Greenland by the United States,’ Horn told Reuters.” (04/30/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-04-30/us-private-sector-delegation-heads-to-greenland
-----
7) Vietnam: Regime holds massive parade to celebrate 50th anniversary of war’s end
Source: United Press International
“Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday to revel in a massive military parade marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. Some 13,000 marchers, including troops from Cold War allies China, Cambodia and Laos, made their way past cheering throngs toward Reunification Palace — the site where a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the gates of the then-presidential residence on April 30, 1975, ending nearly two decades of fighting. … A festive spirit swept through the city formerly known as Saigon during the lead-up to the parade, driven in part by social media and heavy youth turnout at nightly events such as fireworks shows. … Uniformed veterans who fought in the war against U.S. troops and South Vietnamese forces, now in their 70s and 80s, were treated like celebrities by younger Vietnamese who surrounded them to pose for photos.” (04/30/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/04/30/vietnam-Vietnam-War-50th-Anniversary-parade-Saigon-Ho-Chi-Minh-City-To-Lam/6791746018839/
-----
8) NV: Shocking decline in visitors to Las Vegas revealed as foreign tourists shun the United States
Source: Daily Mail [UK]
“The number of tourists visiting Las Vegas has plummeted as international visitors have begun to shun the United States. Sin City welcomed 3.39 million visitors last month, down almost eight percent from 3.68 million in February, according to a report by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. … Bloomberg reports that the decline in international tourism could cost the US economy almost $90billion. The article quoted a Canadian family who is shunning the US in the wake of punitive tariffs and inflammatory remarks by President Trump. Tourists from elsewhere have cancelled trips to the US amid fears they could be caught up in the president’s immigration crackdown.” (04/30/25)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14664017/las-vegas-tourism-decline-foreign-tourists-shun-US.html
-----
9) Republicans pull passenger vehicle tax proposal after GOP blowback
Source: Politico
“A controversial measure to charge $20 [an annual federal tax] on cars to help pay for Trump administration priorities is out of the House Transportation Committee’s reconciliation markup plan for today after several Republicans panned the annual registration [tax], a person with direct knowledge of the committee’s plans told POLITICO. … Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) plans to offer a manager’s amendment that will excise the universal registration [tax], the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss private plans, said. The change will also boost the annual electric vehicle registration [tax] to $250 from $200, pare back the air traffic controller system funding from $15 billion to $12.5 billion and reduce the top line number for Coast Guard funding from $23 billion to $21.2 billion.” (04/30/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/30/republicans-pull-passenger-vehicle-fee-00317786
-----
10) UN Orders Agencies to Find Budget Cuts, Including via Staff Relocations From New York
Source: New York Times
“The United Nations, anticipating that President Trump will slash U.S. contributions to the global body, has told its departments to draw up plans for budget cuts, including through staff relocations from New York and Geneva to less-expensive cities. The instructions — outlined in a two-page memo dated April 25 that was reviewed by The New York Times — were sent from Secretary General António Guterres’s office to the heads of all agencies that report directly to him. The memo set a May 15 deadline for all proposals so that they could be added to the 2026 budget. … In February, President Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of the overall U.S. funding and ties to the U.N.” (04/29/25)
https://archive.is/nWs9x
-----
11) Update that made ChatGPT “dangerously” sycophantic pulled
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“OpenAI has pulled a ChatGPT update after users pointed out the chatbot was showering them with praise regardless of what they said. The firm accepted its latest version of the tool was ‘overly flattering,’ with boss Sam Altman calling it ‘sycophant-y.’ Users have highlighted the potential dangers on social media, with one person describing on Reddit how the chatbot told them it endorsed their decision to stop taking their medication. ‘I am so proud of you, and I honour your journey,’ they said was ChatGPT’s response. OpenAI declined to comment on this particular case, but in a blog post said it was ‘actively testing new fixes to address the issue.’ Mr Altman said the update had been pulled entirely for free users of ChatGPT, and they were working on removing it from people who pay for the tool as well.” (04/30/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4jnwdvg9qo
-----
12) France: Regime accuses Russia-linked hackers of targeting the Paris Olympics
Source: ABC News
“The French government accused a hacking group linked to Russian military intelligence of cyberattacks over three years, targeting the Paris Olympics, French government agencies and companies. A report released Tuesday by France’s cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, outlined cyber incidents from 2021 through 2024, which it attributes to a group called APT28, also known as Fancy Bear. The report said the hacking aimed to collect intelligence, notably in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine. … The French Foreign Ministry said the hacking was linked to the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, and targeted French entities including a ‘sports organization linked to the planning of the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.’ It didn’t identify the organization or detail the impact of the cyber-meddling.” (04/30/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/france-accuses-russia-linked-hacking-group-targeting-paris-121306312
-----
13) Mexico: Regime says it has accepted 39k deportees from the US regime, mostly Mexican nationals
Source: Fox News
“Mexico has received nearly 39,000 deportees from the United States in the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s administration, according to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. More than 33,000 of the deported immigrants were Mexican nationals, Sheinbaum said on Tuesday during her regular morning press conference. ‘Since President Trump’s administration began, 38,757 have been deported [from the U.S. to Mexico], of which 33,311 are Mexicans and 5,446 are foreigners,’ Sheinbaum said. ‘The majority of people who are returning to Mexico are Mexicans, because the U.S. government, through the Department of State, has agreements for them to return directly to their countries,’ Sheinbaum continued. For ‘humanitarian reasons,’ Mexico has ‘decided to accept people of other nationalities, particularly those who come from the northern border’ by land, the Mexican president said.” (04/30/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexico-says-accepted-39k-deportees-from-us-mostly-mexican-nationals
-----
14) Harvard promises changes after reports on antisemitism, Islamophobia
Source: Seattle Times
“A Harvard University task force released a scathing account of the university on Tuesday, finding that antisemitism had infiltrated coursework, social life, the hiring of some faculty members and the worldview of certain academic programs. A separate report on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias on campus, also released Tuesday, found widespread discomfort and alienation among those students as well, with 92% of Muslim survey respondents saying they believed they would face an academic or professional penalty for expressing their political opinions. The findings come at a delicate time for the university. Harvard is being scrutinized by the Trump administration over accusations of antisemitism, and is fighting the administration’s withdrawal of billions of dollars in federal funding. Harvard has sued the administration in hopes of restoring the funding, the first university to do so.” (04/30/25)
https://archive.is/cy9M5
-----
15) Syria: Israeli regime says it carried out operation against gunmen attacking Druze fighters
Source: SFGate
“Israel said Wednesday that it carried out an attack in Syria on a group targeting members of a minority sect as a new round of clashes left at least 11 people dead, most of them members of the country’s security forces. The clashes on the edge of the town of Sahnaya, south of the capital Damascus, came a day after a heavy exchange of fire between pro-government gunmen and Druze fighters left 10 people dead in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana. A statement released by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel’s military carried out a warning operation and attacked ‘an extremist group that was organizing to continue attacking the Druze population’ in Sahnaya. It didn’t give details about the warning operation.” (04/30/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/israel-says-it-carried-out-operation-against-20301960.php
-----
16) Yemen: British, US regime forces attack supposed Houthi drone manufacturing targets
Source: United Press International
“British warplanes have attacked Houthi targets in Yemen, joining ally the United States in its airstrikes targeting the Iran-backed militia. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the joint operation occurred Tuesday, targeting a cluster of buildings in Yemen identified as having been used by the Houthis to manufacture drones like those the rebels [sic] have been using to attack ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The targets were located about 15 miles south of the Houthi-controlled capital of Sanaa. … The United States has yet to comment on the operation, but its military has been conducting near-daily attacks against the Houthis since mid-March, when President Donald Trump ordered an expanded campaign against the rebels [sic].” (04/30/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/04/30/US-Yemen-Houthi-strikes/5271746001327/
-----
17) Bessent says US regime ready to sign Ukraine mineral deal “this afternoon” despite late changes
Source: New York Post
“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the US is ready to sign a mineral deal with Ukraine ‘this afternoon’ — but added there had been a last-minute snag. ‘The Ukrainians decided last night to make some last minute changes,’ Bessent said during a meeting of President Trump’s cabinet about the pending deal, which has been months in the making. ‘We’re sure that they will reconsider that, and we are ready to sign this afternoon,’ he added. Bessent did not reveal any specifics of the deal, but said that Washington and Kyiv came to an agreement over the weekend. Ukraine Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko was in DC Wednesday looking to finalize the details of the agreement before singing the deal, per two Ukrainian officials. ‘We are finalizing the last details with our American colleagues,’ Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyha told Telemarathon, a Ukrainian TV outlet.” (04/30/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/us-news/bessent-says-us-ready-to-sign-ukraine-mineral-deal-this-afternoon-despite-late-changes/
-----
18) Shenzhou-19 crew returns to Earth after six months on Chinese space station
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday after six months on the country’s space station, state media footage showed, as Beijing advances towards its aim to become a major celestial power. … Pictures from state broadcaster CCTV showed the capsule, attached to a red-and-white striped parachute, descending through an azure sky before touching down in a cloud of brown desert dust. Its occupants had worked on the space station since October, where they carried out experiments and set a new record for the longest ever spacewalk.” (04/30/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20250430-shenzhou-19-crew-returns-to-earth-after-six-months-on-china-space-station
-----
19) CA: Newsom supports push to make it a felony to purchase 16 and 17-year-olds for sex
Source: SFGate
“Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting involved and speaking out after Democratic California lawmakers in the Assembly blocked a proposal that would make it an automatic felony to purchase a 16 or 17-year-old for sex. The issue has been part of a two-year-long debate on the growing child sex trafficking industry in California as lawmakers try to target the consumers of it with harsher consequences. The Democratic governor has consistently supported the efforts. In a statement provided exclusively to KCRA 3 on Tuesday, the governor’s office said, ‘The law should treat all sex predators who solicit minors the same — as a felony, regardless of the intended victim’s age. Full stop.'” [editor’s note: It’s unclear whether this bill refers to actual trafficking/slavery, or to purchasing sexual services from persons of that age under allegedly voluntary conditions – TLK] (04/30/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/gov-newsom-felony-purchase-16-17-year-olds-sex-20302772.php
-----
20) WI: Judge “temporarily relieved” of duties by state’s high court
Source: Axios
“The Wisconsin judge arrested by the FBI last week for allegedly trying to help an undocumented defendant avoid arrest was essentially suspended by the state’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, per a court order. The Wisconsin Supreme Court said in an order ‘it is in the public interest’ for Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan to be ‘temporarily relieved of her official duties.’ Dugan, who has served nearly a decade on the court, was temporarily prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge in the state until further order from the court, per the order.” (04/29/25)
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/29/wisconsin-judge-hannah-dugan-arrest-suspended
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) The Trump Administration Is Not Serious About Ending Endless Wars
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“The factions, interest groups, and foreign lobbies who want Trump to continue or expand the warfare state are working hard and effectively to accomplish their goals. This group clearly learned after his first term that Trump cannot easily be shamed into changing his mind on foreign policy. But he will completely pivot and embrace the foreign policy status quo with enthusiasm if doing so is presented to him in terms that sound like they were plucked out of one of his campaign rally speeches. The narrative in Trump’s circle is no longer that the Biden administration was reckless on the world stage but simply that they were ‘weak’ — implying, ridiculously, that they were unwilling to intervene in conflicts around the world. That’s allowed Trump’s team to continue and expand the exact same policies Biden carried out in the Middle East — like bombing the Houthis — and present it as something brand new.” (04/30/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/trump-administration-not-serious-about-ending-endless-wars
-----
22) We must fight politics like a disease
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“In spite of our best efforts, bad things exist. Nature, as much as I love it, is trying to kill us. So are some people. Entropy, disease, and politics surround us. The first two are simply the way the universe is; the third is a bad choice. All three lead to death and destruction if left to run their course. It takes millions of dedicated people to keep these destructive forces from doing all the damage they would otherwise do. Part of being human is doing what you can to reduce the impact of things that are bad for humans.” (04/30/25)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2025/04/30/voices/opinion-we-must-fight-politics-like-a-disease/230723.html
-----
23) On Free Speech, Trump’s as Bad as Biden
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Jack Hunter
“The Trump administration framing the suppression of free speech as a matter of non-citizens’ rights vs. those of citizens is a cheap way of ignoring the First Amendment, no different than the Biden administration holding up the supposed threats of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ in the name of doing the same. Republicans and Democrats have created spectres supposedly so threatening to convince enough people that the First Amendment no longer applies. Bullshit. So many Republicans right now argue that criticizing Israel’s government is inherently anti-semitic, which is about as ridiculous as arguing that every conservative talk host who criticizes the United States government is anti-American. And if they genuinely were anti-semitic, that’s still protected by the First Amendment. ‘Hate speech’ is protected speech. Do Trump Republicans now agree with Biden-Harris Democrats like Tim Walz that there are no First Amendment protections for hate speech? Apparently they do.” (04/30/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/on-free-speech-trumps-as-bad-as-biden
-----
24) The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“President Trump’s approval rating has fallen to near-historic lows. With economic disruption from the tariffs likely to hit next month, his numbers will probably get even worse; this administration could reach unprecedented levels of unpopularity. If I were a far-right populist, I would be thinking hard about a strategy to prevent the blowback from crippling the movement. Such a strategy is easy to come by. … After Trump leaves the picture, Vance will gain thirty IQ points, make an eloquent speech about how tariffs were the right tool for the mid-2020s but no longer, and the problem will solve itself. Right? Don’t let them get away with this. Although it’s true that tariffs owe as much to Trump’s idiosyncrasies as to the inexorable logic of right-wing populism, the ability of a President to hold the nation hostage to his own idiosyncrasies is itself a consequence of populist ideology.” (04/30/25)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-populist-right-must-own-tariffs
-----
25) In defence of dimming the Sun
Source: spiked
by James Woudhuysen
“Last week, the news broke that scientists in the UK are planning to ‘dim the Sun,’ as part of a £50million government-funded scheme. What this really means is either injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, or brightening clouds to reflect more sunlight, as a counter to the greenhouse effect. … Similarly, earlier this month, we learned of a £3million scheme, based in Weymouth and funded by Whitehall, to strip seawater of the carbon it absorbs from the atmosphere. … geoengineering would essentially allow humanity to carry on as usual – burning fossil fuels, traveling by car and by air, consuming animal products and generally leaving our footprint on the Earth. It would make redundant the need for the various miserable lifestyle adjustments that the Net Zero crowd are so desperately trying to impose on us.” (04/30/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/30/in-defence-of-dimming-the-sun/
-----
26) Tariffs and the economy
Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
“The current level of tariffs, by itself, is probably not enough to trigger a recession. Nonetheless, a recession is possible due to the interaction of tariffs and monetary policy. Put simply, the trade war will reduce the equilibrium or natural rate of interest, likely making monetary policy tighter in 2025. I would recommend rate cuts if not for the fact that previous monetary policy has been too expansionary and inflation remains a significant problem. … The administration faces an interesting dilemma. It can avoid recession by backing off on the trade war, at the cost of failing to address the trade deficit. Or it can press ahead with a more aggressive trade war, at the cost of risking recession. Recessions usually reduce the trade deficit.” (04/30/25)
https://www.econlib.org/tariffs-and-the-economy/
-----
27) Fall of Saigon, 50 Years On
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jon Gabriel
“The Fall of Saigon is what happens when government overreach extends into war-making without clarity, conviction, or constitutional constraint. Congress never formally declared war, violating the very framework the Founders established to avoid foreign entanglements. Instead of empowering military experts on the ground, politicians micromanaged from DC, all the while keeping a twitching eye on public opinion. The war actually was won in the paddies and jungles of Southeast Asia, but was definitively lost in the marble halls of Congress and the editorial offices of the press.” (04/30/25)
https://fee.org/articles/fall-of-saigon-50-years-on/
-----
28) What Can Trump Achieve With Russia-Ukraine?
Source: The American Conservative
by W James Antle III
“One of [Vladimir Putin’s] key advantages in this war has been that he is by all appearances the least concerned about the death toll, Ukrainian or Russian, of all interested parties. Russia has a history of tolerating high casualties among its troops, which Ukraine cannot (and should not) match. Yet it is Putin, as the most dedicated Ukraine hawks often remind us, who must be prevailed upon to stop the killing. … The basic framework of the peace deal Trump is attempting to secure is simply a recognition of reality. Ukraine cannot for the foreseeable future win back much of the territory it lost in the war — and especially before the current war — or join NATO. Russia cannot realistically take much more Ukrainian territory than it already has, but it can inflict much more death and destruction trying.” (04/30/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/what-can-trump-achieve-with-russia-ukraine/
-----
29) This agency that targets Republicans while shielding Democrats must be dismantled
Source: Fox News
by Steve Roberts
“Elon Musk has claimed that one of the most common errors of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist. But it doesn’t take a SpaceX-level engineer to understand that the Office of Government Ethics — an agency few Americans know by name, but whose unchecked power casts a long shadow over our democracy — simply has no purpose in its current form. The OGE is a partisan, bureaucratic thicket that should be fully dismantled. It selectively enforces hazy rules around the financial arrangements of incoming candidates and officials — often in a heavy-handed manner against Republicans. Commonly, the two winners in a battle with OGE are (1) Democrats and (2) lawyers. As a practicing attorney in the field of political law, I have a first-hand look at this frequently-partisan battle waged by OGE against nominees and candidates.” (04/30/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/agency-targets-republicans-while-shielding-democrats-must-dismantled
-----
30) The First Forever War
Source: The Intercept
by Nick Turse
“When a tank crashed through the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon 50 years ago today, the Potemkin state of South Vietnam collapsed, and the Vietnamese war of independence, fought in its final phase against the overwhelming military might of the United States, came to a close. America lost its war, but Vietnam was devastated. … The U.S. did whatever it could to cripple the reunited Vietnam. Instead of delivering billions in promised reconstruction aid, it pressured international lenders like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to reject Vietnamese requests for assistance. The newly unified nation of farmers had no choice but to till rice fields filled with unexploded American bombs, artillery shells, rockets, cluster munitions, landmines, grenades, and more. The war’s toll continued to rise, with 100,000 more casualties in Vietnam in the 50 years since the conflict technically came to a close and many more in the neighboring nations of Southeast Asia.” (04/30/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/04/30/vietnam-war-anniversary-landmines-bombs/
-----
31) Judge Dugan, the Migrant and the Law
Source: The Wall Street Journal
by staff
“Every dispute between the Trump Administration and the judiciary these days becomes a political morality play about a looming ‘constitutional crisis.’ But the facts of each case matter, and most of the time they don’t support the crisis narrative. That’s the way it looks to us so far in the case of last week’s arrest by federal agents of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an illegal [sic] migrant evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Judge Dugan was charged with obstructing a federal proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest. A federal magistrate found probable cause for the arrest upon reviewing a 13-page criminal complaint. The alleged facts as laid out in the complaint by FBI special agent Lindsay Schloemer don’t look good for the judge.” (04/29/25)
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/judge-hannah-dugan-arrest-fbi-ice-lindsay-schloemer-eduardo-flores-ruiz-b63c754f?st=KPkuA3
-----
32) 100 Days of Ressentiment
Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama
“On the occasion of the Trump administration’s first 100 days, there has been a welter of articles detailing the range of truly awful policies he has sought to enact. … Rather than cataloguing this list of abuses, it may be more useful to consider what motives lie behind them. Since the early days of the first Trump term, a minor industry has grown up trying to put his thoughts and actions into something like a coherent intellectual framework: he is a nationalist, a populist, an isolationist, an imperialist, a postliberal, a nativist, and so on. … The most useful framework in my opinion is psychology, both personal and social. Trumpism is basically a mentality drenched in what Nietzsche labeled ressentiment, that is, acute resentment of others based on wounded pride, perceived disregard, fears of inadequacy, and a desire to exact revenge on those who had earlier failed to pay adequate respect.” (04/30/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/100-days-of-ressentiment
-----
33) Why Europe doesn’t waste a crisis
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Last week, Ukraine and Poland began to put aside a big source of tension in their relationship as neighbors. Work began on exhuming the remains of thousands of Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II. Families of the Polish victims have long wanted answers. ‘We have found the right formula: that we will not bargain over the dead, but both sides will fulfill their Christian duty,’ Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, told the radio station TOK. What helped trigger this step of reconciliation in 2025? One more crisis in Europe, namely the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Both Poland and Ukraine are neighbors of Russia. In recent decades, the continent has had its fair share of crises, from a financial meltdown to a mass influx of migrants to climate disasters.” (04/29/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/0429/Why-Europe-doesn-t-waste-a-crisis
-----
34) Is Bitcoin Ready To Retire Gold?
Source: The Daily Economy
by Walter Donway
“Investors and even central banks have their eye on Bitcoin as a safe haven and hedge, but gold’s global economic shoes are hard to fill.” (04/30/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/is-bitcoin-ready-to-retire-gold/
-----
35) A Free Speech Test for the Ivy League
Source: Law & Liberty
by Tal Fortgang
“When presidents from our top-ranked universities averred before a Congressional committee that they could not crack down on anti-Israel demonstrations last fall, their explanations fell flat. They claimed they were dedicated to the principles of free speech, academic freedom, and the pursuit of knowledge no matter how uncomfortable. Even calls for genocide could be protected depending on the context. That’s what robust free speech norms require. Our universities are meant to embrace robust free speech in pursuit of their fundamental mission to build and promulgate knowledge. Two of the three presidents who made those claims have since resigned. That was likely due at least in part to the rank and obvious hypocrisy in their statements. American universities, including those represented at the hearing, had been the centers of numerous free-speech scandals.” (04/30/25)
https://lawliberty.org/a-free-speech-test-for-the-ivy-league/
-----
36) Dinner With Donald
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“I do not think that I have left much room to doubt my opinion of Donald Trump, but I make liberal allowance for journalists and historians and even for comedians when it comes to meeting people and seeking out opportunities to interact with men and women who are in many cases far from admirable. Larry David lampooned [Bill] Maher in a Times essay headlined ‘My Dinner with Adolf,’ and it was pretty good — not great, but pretty good. (One does not go to the New York Times for big laughs.) But take the counterfactual seriously: How interesting would it have been if some interesting writer of the 1930s — say, Pearl S. Buck or Sinclair Lewis — actually had had a dinner with Adolf Hitler and documented it? Or if Charlie Chaplin had had the opportunity to interview Hitler rather than merely mock him from far?” (04/30/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/dinner-with-donald/
-----
37) Can’t Make Government Efficient
Source: Town Hall
by Star Parker
“Steve Jobs co-founded Apple when he was 21 years old. Nine years later, at age 30, he was purged and fired from the company he founded and built by the professional management he helped recruit. Eleven years later, after that management brought the firm to the edge of bankruptcy, Jobs returned to the helm and saved the company. In 1997, when Jobs returned as interim CEO, Apple lost $1.04 billion and estimates were that it was 90 days from insolvency. Jobs restored discipline and focus. He slashed the product line from 15 to four products and fired 3,000 employees. By the end of the next fiscal year, Apple returned to profitability. … Suppose this was government and not a private company? Suppose Jobs needed votes from Congress to cut product lines? Suppose law prohibited him from firing 3,000?” (04/30/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2025/04/30/cant-make-government-efficient-n2656312
-----
38) The roots of Trump’s “I alone can fix it” presidency
Source: Washington Post
by Ramesh Ponnuru
“Even for President Donald Trump, the trade war is an act of astonishing hubris. When nearly all economists, the markets and the public are registering their belief that a course of action will harm the country, it takes a lot of confidence in one’s own ideas to persist anyway. Yet viewed from a certain angle, the tariffs are exactly the kind of thing Americans always say we want from government officials. Trump campaigned on raising tariffs to revive manufacturing and force other countries to treat the United States better, and he is following through on his promise …. If we dislike the results, perhaps we should reconsider this popular conception of how presidents should govern. That conception traces back to Trump’s predecessor Woodrow Wilson, who explicitly rejected the Founders’ version of the separation of powers because it stifled government action.” (04/30/25)
https://archive.is/f3NRd
-----
39) Symposium: Was the Vietnam War a mistake or fatal flaw in the system?
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Andrew Bacevich, Greg Daddis, Carolyn Eisenberg, Morton H. Halperin, Steve Kinzer, Noah Kulwin, Robert Levering, Anatol Lieven, Daniel McCarthy, Robert Merry, Paul Pillar, Tim Shorrock, Monica Duffy Toft, Stephen Walt, & Cora Weiss.
“It’s been 50 years since the Fall of Saigon and we still haven’t reckoned with the biggest question of them all. Until today.” (04/30/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/vietnam-war/
-----
40) Article II as Suicide Pact
Source: Liberal Currents
by Patrick J Sobkowski
“In 1949, Justice Robert Jackson warned that ‘doctrinaire logic’ by the Supreme Court would ‘convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.’ In that case, Terminiello v. Chicago, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Arthur Terminiello. Terminiello was a suspended Catholic priest and a rabid antisemite who was convicted of violating a Chicago ordinance against ‘breach of peace.’ … Ironically, Jackson’s warning to the majority in Terminiello has proved prescient, as the Roberts Court has interpreted the Constitution to enshrine vast, indeed royal, prerogatives into Article II. As a result, the Court has aggrandized its own power as well as that of the president. And the end result is that it is Article II, rather than the Bill of Rights, that has become a suicide pact.” (04/30/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/article-ii-as-suicide-pact/
-----
41) The Vietnam War Ended 50 Years Ago; People Still Get It Wrong
Source: Common Dreams
by Arnold Oliver
“April 30th marks the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s end when Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, soon to be renamed Ho Chi Minh City. The war was a terrible experience for the United States, but even more so for the people of Vietnam and much of the rest of Southeast Asia. Estimates are that up to 3 million Vietnamese perished, as well many many thousands of Cambodians and Laotians. Fifty-eight thousand American died, and a trillion American tax dollars were wasted. Many of us who were there are still trying to understand and come to grips with it. Based on years of study, here is what I think people still get wrong about the war.” (04/30/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/wrong-about-vietnam-war
-----
42) Like a Bad Jankowicz
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Nina Jankowicz is back. During the Biden administration, Jankowicz, scourge of ‘disinformation,’ lost her perch as head of an incipient Disinformation Governance Board. People learned that the Board existed; were aghast; got it closed. If only government censorship were always so easy to kill. Now this nag, with no prospect of getting a job muzzling people she disagrees with from the Trump administration, is making a nuisance of herself internationally.” (04/30/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/04/30/like-a-bad-jankowicz/
-----
43) Iran and the United States: Nuclear Argy Bargy
Source: Antiwar.com
by M Reza Behnam
“Like any sovereign nation, Iran has a right to defend itself. Nuclear weapons are a security guarantee that Iran has not sought. Unlike Israel and the United States, it has not threatened nor bombed, invaded or occupied its neighbors. However, after Israeli air strikes in April and October 2024 and continued U.S. threats, Iran has had no choice but to debate and reevaluate its long-held nuclear doctrine which regards weapons of mass destruction against Islam. In a civilized conflict-free world, there would be no need for weapons, nuclear or otherwise. Unfortunately for some countries, like Iran, possessing nuclear weapons may become a necessary tool for survival. For others, like the United States and Israel, the ghastly weapons are used as cudgels to bully countries into submission.” (04/30/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/reza_behnam/2025/04/29/iran-and-the-united-states-nuclear-argy-bargy/
-----
44) The Worst Parts of Trump’s First 100 Days Involved Ignoring Libertarian Principles
Source: Reason
by Brian Doherty
“How Trump’s administration has misgoverned in its first 100 days, with his most destructive abuses arising from his rejection of core libertarian principles about trade policy and immigration, the movement of goods and people across arbitrary government barriers, demonstrates why trying to supposedly balance those ferociously anti-libertarian tendencies with his acceptably libertarian ones (a stated commitment to shrinking size and cost of government, through Elon Musk’s efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency, have delivered less than promised, are rife with reporting errors, and seem to be aimed not at making government any more sensible or useful so much as scoring institutional points against the administration’s perceived leftist enemies) leads to accepting near complete collapse of any meaningful distinctions between the U.S. government and the worst economically interventionist and authoritarian tyrannies.” (04/29/25)
https://reason.com/2025/04/29/the-worst-parts-of-trumps-first-100-days-involved-ignoring-libertarian-principles/
-----
45) Trump’s first 100 days illustrate his strengths and mindset: decisive, bold, and in a hurry
Source: New York Post
by Michael Goodwin
“Any discussion of the opening days of Donald Trump’s presidency must start at the key date — last Nov. 5, when he rose from the political dead to seize his second term in the White House. His comeback victory was decisive as he swept all seven battleground states on the way to piling up 312 electoral votes, winning the popular vote and leading the GOP to control of Congress. But first he had to survive two assassination attempts, with one in Pennsylvania a miraculous near miss, and overcome an onslaught of Democratic prosecutions and civil suits designed to defeat and imprison him. All those cases, the first ever brought against a former president, were necessary, Americans were assured by Dems and their media mouthpieces, to protect democracy. The Big Lie — that the weaponization of the courts was anything other than a partisan power play — seems like ages ago.” (04/29/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/04/29/opinion/michael-goodwin-trumps-first-100-days-illustrate-his-strengths-decisive-bold-and-in-a-hurry/
-----
46) Detaining Öztürk over an op-ed is unlawful and un-American
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by staff
“FIRE has filed a ‘friend of the court’ brief in support of Rümeysa Öztürk in her lawsuit against the Trump administration. FIRE argues that the U.S. government is unlawfully detaining Öztürk for protected speech and reviving the authoritarian spirit of the Alien and Sedition Acts in the process. The brief’s summary of argument follows.” (04/29/25)
https://www.thefire.org/news/detaining-ozturk-over-op-ed-unlawful-and-un-american
-----
47) Dictator on Day 100
Source: The UnPopulist
by Robert Tracinski
“More than a year before he took office, Donald Trump vowed, not once, but twice, that if he were to be elected to a second term as president, he would be a dictator ‘on day one.’ He insisted he would be a dictator only on day one — but what dictator has ever seized power only for one day and then immediately relinquished it? As Trump concludes his first 100 days in office today, the record makes clear what he really intended: Centralize all power in his person, overturning the checks and balances of the American system of government and replacing them with a dictatorship.” (04/29/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/dictator-on-day-100
-----
48) Capitalism, Socialism, and Social Desirability Bias
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Can I really derive any deep lesson about the human condition from truisms about Social Desirability Bias? Strangely, yes. To repeat, the lessons of Social Desirability Bias are twofold. First: When you spend your own time and money, actions speak louder than words. Second, when you spend other people’s time and money, words speak louder than actions. Now consider: If everyone spends only their own time and their own money, what do we call it? Among other things, ‘the free market.’ What about when people spend other people’s time and money? Among other things, ‘government.'” (04/29/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/capitalism-socialism-and-social-desirability
-----
49) Waiting for the Supply Shock
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Two milestones converged this week that seem important in the moment but in retrospect will be minor blips historically: yesterday’s reaching of the first hundred days of Donald Trump’s second term, and today’s announcement of first-quarter gross domestic product showing the economy contracted by 0.3 percent on an annualized basis. The former is just a news hook to overlay ‘what it all means’ stories that are as light as air. The second covers the period before the April 2 Liberation Day, though it was influenced by it. The reason the economy contracted is that imports, in the calculation of GDP, take away from economic growth, and companies bulked up imports in anticipation of tariffs. That’s more of a noisy statistical quirk than a recession setting in.” (04/30/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-04-30-waiting-for-the-supply-shock/
-----
50) A Flock of Frightened and Dependent Sheep
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Isn’t it ironic that Americans have the most powerful government in history and, at the same time, have the most frightened citizenry in the world? That’s not a coincidence. Big government produces little people, and a powerful, omnipotent government produces a weak nation. Americans are scared to death of everything. They are scared of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, communists, terrorists, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, Muslims, gang members, and other entities that U.S. officials have declared to be official, scary boogeymen who are coming to get us. More important, they are willing, even eager, to surrender their liberty to their own government in the hopes of being kept ‘safe.'” (04/29/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/04/29/a-flock-of-frightened-and-dependent-sheep/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Rising, 04/30/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on former NBC host Chuck Todd acquitting mainstream media of President Biden’s mental decline coverup.” (04/30/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv_post/5274893-rising-april-30-2025/
-----
52) Best of Cato Daily Podcast: You Have the Right to Remain Innocent
Source: Cato Institute
“Caleb O. Brown hosted the Cato Daily Podcast for nearly 18 years, producing well over 4000 episodes. He has gone on to head Kentucky’s Bluegrass Institute. This is one among the best episodes produced in his tenure, selected by the host and listeners. Don’t talk to the police, even if you want to help them solve a crime. James Duane says that’s the advice police and lawyers give their own children. He explains why in his new book, You Have the Right to Remain Innocent.” (04/30/25)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-daily-podcast/best-cato-daily-podcast-you-have-right-remain-innocent
-----
53) Reason Interview: John Arnold
Source: Reason
“John Arnold argues that private markets solve problems better than government or philanthropy, and that real reform comes from decentralization, incentives, and evidence — not top-down control.” (04/30/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/04/30/john-arnold-government-cant-be-trusted-to-fix-any-problems/
-----
54) The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, 04/30/25
Source: The New Republic
“‘He Was Pissed’: Trump’s Vile New Tariff Threats Take Unnerving Turn.” (04/30/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/194584/he-pissed-trump-vile-new-tariff-threats-take-unnerving-turn
-----
55) Conflicts of Interest, episode 792
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Israel’s Starvation Warfare.” (04/30/25)
https://rumble.com/v6srvad-israels-starvation-warfare-coi-792.html
-----
56) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 04/30/25
Source: The Dispatch
“Is Donald Trump Hitler? A Chavista? Or a caudillo? Jonah Goldberg is joined by fellow podcast extraordinaire Michael Moynihan to answer this obviously important and salient question. (Plus: The lost potential of Elon Musk and more on the right’s Gramsci turn.)” (04/30/25)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/flood-the-zone-with-german/id1291144720?i=1000705516493
-----
57) SolutionsWatch, 04/30/25
Source: The Corbett Report
“Epstein Justice: What You Need to Know.” (04/30/25)
https://corbettreport.com/epstein-justice-what-you-need-to-know/
-----
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/30/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“Bill To Bring Military Budget Over $1 Trillion, US Has Struck 1,000 Targets in Yemen, and More.” (04/30/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrNQWrLadmM
-----
59) Nonzero, 04/29/25
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Can Trump Make Peace in Ukraine? | Robert Wright & Anatol Lieven.” (04/29/25)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/68632
-----
60) System Update, episode 445
Source: System Update
“Rapid Fire: Canada Elections, Dem’s Sit-In, Israeli Taking Points Escalate; PLUS: Jewish Academics Push-Back on Antisemitism Claims.” (04/29/25)
https://rumble.com/v6sqy0l-rapid-fire-canada-elections-dems-sit-in-israeli-taking-points-escalate.html
-----
61) Trump Watch, 04/29/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Incarceration without Conviction.” (04/29/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=554H7dkAh-A
-----
62) (Re)Imagining Liberty, 04/29/25
Source: Aaron Ross Powell
“The Crank Theory of Everything.” (04/29/25)
https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/the-crank-theory-of-everything
-----
63) Politics Politics Politics, 04/29/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Canadian Conservatives Collapse! Talking the Pope and Catholicism (with Kevin Ryan).” (04/29/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/canadian-conservatives-collapse-talking
-----
64) Power Problems, 04/29/25
Source: Cato Institute
“UFOs, Aliens, & National Security.” (04/29/25)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/power-problems/ufos-aliens-national-security
-----
65) Mean Age Daydream, 04/29/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“WHO Pandemic Countdown / Pride Goes Bankrupt.” (04/29/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/who-pandemic-countdown-pride-goes-bankrupt
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FND is published every weekday except on holidays. Forward freely.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
http://groups.google.com/group/freedom-news-daily
Support the Liberty International (tax deductible)
https://liberty-intl.org/join-the-movement/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Presented by the Liberty International
https://liberty-intl.org/
Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Freedom News:
1) ICJ hearing: US regime backs Israeli regime’s right [sic] to ban UNRWA from Gaza
2) US GDP shrinks in first quarter; Trump tries to pin blame on Biden
3) UK: Local elections put two main parties to the test as hard-right gains ground
4) Judge orders release of ICE-abducted Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi
5) Germany: Merz to form government after SPD backs coalition deal with conservatives
6) US Private Sector Delegation Heads to Greenland
7) Vietnam: Regime holds massive parade to celebrate 50th anniversary of war’s end
8) NV: Shocking decline in visitors to Las Vegas revealed as foreign tourists shun the United States
9) Republicans pull passenger vehicle tax proposal after GOP blowback
10) UN Orders Agencies to Find Budget Cuts, Including via Staff Relocations From New York
11) Update that made ChatGPT “dangerously” sycophantic pulled
12) France: Regime accuses Russia-linked hackers of targeting the Paris Olympics
13) Mexico: Regime says it has accepted 39k deportees from the US regime, mostly Mexican nationals
14) Harvard promises changes after reports on antisemitism, Islamophobia
15) Syria: Israeli regime says it carried out operation against gunmen attacking Druze fighters
16) Yemen: British, US regime forces attack supposed Houthi drone manufacturing targets
17) Bessent says US regime ready to sign Ukraine mineral deal “this afternoon” despite late changes
18) Shenzhou-19 crew returns to Earth after six months on Chinese space station
19) CA: Newsom supports push to make it a felony to purchase 16 and 17-year-olds for sex
20) WI: Judge “temporarily relieved” of duties by state’s high court
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) The Trump Administration Is Not Serious About Ending Endless Wars
22) We must fight politics like a disease
23) On Free Speech, Trump’s as Bad as Biden
24) The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs
25) In defence of dimming the Sun
26) Tariffs and the economy
27) Fall of Saigon, 50 Years On
28) What Can Trump Achieve With Russia-Ukraine?
29) This agency that targets Republicans while shielding Democrats must be dismantled
30) The First Forever War
31) Judge Dugan, the Migrant and the Law
32) 100 Days of Ressentiment
33) Why Europe doesn’t waste a crisis
34) Is Bitcoin Ready To Retire Gold?
35) A Free Speech Test for the Ivy League
36) Dinner With Donald
37) Can’t Make Government Efficient
38) The roots of Trump’s “I alone can fix it” presidency
39) Symposium: Was the Vietnam War a mistake or fatal flaw in the system?
40) Article II as Suicide Pact
41) The Vietnam War Ended 50 Years Ago; People Still Get It Wrong
42) Like a Bad Jankowicz
43) Iran and the United States: Nuclear Argy Bargy
44) The Worst Parts of Trump’s First 100 Days Involved Ignoring Libertarian Principles
45) Trump’s first 100 days illustrate his strengths and mindset: decisive, bold, and in a hurry
46) Detaining Öztürk over an op-ed is unlawful and un-American
47) Dictator on Day 100
48) Capitalism, Socialism, and Social Desirability Bias
49) Waiting for the Supply Shock
50) A Flock of Frightened and Dependent Sheep
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Rising, 04/30/25
52) Best of Cato Daily Podcast: You Have the Right to Remain Innocent
53) Reason Interview: John Arnold
54) The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, 04/30/25
55) Conflicts of Interest, episode 792
56) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 04/30/25
57) SolutionsWatch, 04/30/25
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/30/25
59) Nonzero, 04/29/25
60) System Update, episode 445
61) Trump Watch, 04/29/25
62) (Re)Imagining Liberty, 04/29/25
63) Politics Politics Politics, 04/29/25
64) Power Problems, 04/29/25
65) Mean Age Daydream, 04/29/25
vvvvv SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS vvvvv
ONE IDENTITY FOR ALL YOUR CRYPTO
https://fioprotocol.io/
SAMUEL EDWARD KONKIN III REVOLUTIONARY FRIEND BY WENDY MCELROY
https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Edward-Konkin-Revolutionary-Friend-ebook/dp/B0DP7B6127
SHOP ONLINE, COLLECT A REBATE IN BITCOIN!
https://www.lolli.com/share/MZB4cCpheL
THE CONSTITUTION OF NON-STATE GOVERNMENT: FIELD GUIDE TO TEXAS SECESSION, by TL Hulsey
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853
Tyranny Demands AN ACT OF SELF-DEFENSE: A NOVEL BY ERNE LEWIS
https://tinyurl.com/actofselfdefense
^^^^^ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS ^^^^^
_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) ICJ hearing: US regime backs Israeli regime’s right [sic] to ban UNRWA from Gaza
Source: Times of Israel [Palestine]
“Israel cannot be forced to allow the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, to operate in Gaza, the United States argued Wednesday at an International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearing in The Hague. Israel last year passed a law that banned UNRWA from operating in the country, as it said the organization had employed members of Hamas who took part in the October 7, 2023, onslaught, among a series of other accusations that the organization runs schools that incite to terrorism, perpetuates the refugee status by passing it by generation unlike the rest of the world’s refugees, and more. … The ICJ, also known as the World Court, on Monday opened a week of hearings on Israel’s humanitarian obligations toward the Palestinians, more than 50 days into its blockade on aid entering war-ravaged Gaza, which is aimed at pressuring Hamas to release the 59 hostages it is holding, 24 of whom are believed alive.” (04/30/25)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-world-court-hearing-us-backs-israels-right-to-ban-unrwa-from-gaza/
-----
2) US GDP shrinks in first quarter; Trump tries to pin blame on Biden
Source: CNBC
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday blamed his predecessor and defended his sweeping tariffs after new data showed the U.S. economy contracting last quarter, while warning that his promised ‘boom’ will ‘take a while.’ ‘This is [former President Joe] Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th,’ Trump said in a Truth Social post. … ‘This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!’ Trump wrote. The defensive social media post came less than an hour after the release of a U.S. Department of Commerce report showing gross domestic product fell at a 0.3% annualized pace in the first three months of the year.” (04/30/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/trump-gdp-tariffs-biden-overhang.html
-----
3) UK: Local elections put two main parties to the test as hard-right gains ground
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Britain’s two main parties are tipped to suffer losses Thursday in local elections likely to confirm the rise of hard-right populists and portend the splintering of a century-long political duopoly. The polls in England are the first since Keir Starmer became Labour prime minister and Kemi Badenoch took over at the helm of the struggling opposition Conservatives last year. Anti-immigrant Reform UK are expected to make gains, as are the centrist Liberal Democrats and left-wing Greens, confirming a trend that Britain is entering an era of multi-party politics.” (05/01/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/uk/20250501-uk-local-elections
-----
4) Judge orders release of ICE-abducted Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi
Source: The Hill
“Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, who was [abducted] by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during what was supposed to be a naturalization interview, was released from his detention Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled the green-card holder, who had been held in the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vt., should be set free after weeks of detention, denying the federal government’s request for a seven-day stay on that release. Mahdawi is the first foreign student to be released after being [abducted] by the Trump administration for the purposes of [making political hay with anti-immigration authoritarian/pro-Israel supporters].”
(04/30/25)
https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5274951-judge-release-ice-columbia-student-mohsen-mahdawi
-----
5) Germany: Merz to form government after SPD backs coalition deal with conservatives
Source: euronews [EU]
“Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) have approved a deal to join a new coalition government with the CDU/CSU conservatives, paving the way for conservative leader Friedrich Merz to be confirmed as the country’s new chancellor next week. The centre-left party of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz will join a coalition led by Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which won Germany’s election in February with 28.5% of the vote. The SPD suffered their worst result since World War II, finishing third with just 16.4% of the vote. But the conservatives needed their support to assemble a parliamentary majority without the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came second.” (04/30/25)
https://www.euronews.com/2025/04/30/germanys-merz-to-form-government-after-spd-backs-coalition-deal-with-conservatives
-----
6) US Private Sector Delegation Heads to Greenland
Source: US News & World Report
“A U.S. private sector delegation, led by a former Trump administration official, is set to visit Greenland this week to explore investment opportunities in the Arctic island’s vast natural resources. U.S. interest in Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, has increased since Donald Trump took office in January, causing political tension with Copenhagen. Trump has refused to rule out taking Greenland by military force if Denmark won’t sell it. This visit marks the first by a private sector delegation to the Arctic island since the election of Jens-Frederik Nielsen of the pro-business Demokratiit Party as its premier. … Drew Horn, CEO of GreenMet and former chief of staff for the Office of International Affairs at the Department of Energy during the first Trump administration, will lead the group. ‘I’m not trying to do anything crazy like orchestrate a purchase or acquisition of Greenland by the United States,’ Horn told Reuters.” (04/30/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-04-30/us-private-sector-delegation-heads-to-greenland
-----
7) Vietnam: Regime holds massive parade to celebrate 50th anniversary of war’s end
Source: United Press International
“Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday to revel in a massive military parade marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. Some 13,000 marchers, including troops from Cold War allies China, Cambodia and Laos, made their way past cheering throngs toward Reunification Palace — the site where a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the gates of the then-presidential residence on April 30, 1975, ending nearly two decades of fighting. … A festive spirit swept through the city formerly known as Saigon during the lead-up to the parade, driven in part by social media and heavy youth turnout at nightly events such as fireworks shows. … Uniformed veterans who fought in the war against U.S. troops and South Vietnamese forces, now in their 70s and 80s, were treated like celebrities by younger Vietnamese who surrounded them to pose for photos.” (04/30/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/04/30/vietnam-Vietnam-War-50th-Anniversary-parade-Saigon-Ho-Chi-Minh-City-To-Lam/6791746018839/
-----
8) NV: Shocking decline in visitors to Las Vegas revealed as foreign tourists shun the United States
Source: Daily Mail [UK]
“The number of tourists visiting Las Vegas has plummeted as international visitors have begun to shun the United States. Sin City welcomed 3.39 million visitors last month, down almost eight percent from 3.68 million in February, according to a report by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. … Bloomberg reports that the decline in international tourism could cost the US economy almost $90billion. The article quoted a Canadian family who is shunning the US in the wake of punitive tariffs and inflammatory remarks by President Trump. Tourists from elsewhere have cancelled trips to the US amid fears they could be caught up in the president’s immigration crackdown.” (04/30/25)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14664017/las-vegas-tourism-decline-foreign-tourists-shun-US.html
-----
9) Republicans pull passenger vehicle tax proposal after GOP blowback
Source: Politico
“A controversial measure to charge $20 [an annual federal tax] on cars to help pay for Trump administration priorities is out of the House Transportation Committee’s reconciliation markup plan for today after several Republicans panned the annual registration [tax], a person with direct knowledge of the committee’s plans told POLITICO. … Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) plans to offer a manager’s amendment that will excise the universal registration [tax], the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss private plans, said. The change will also boost the annual electric vehicle registration [tax] to $250 from $200, pare back the air traffic controller system funding from $15 billion to $12.5 billion and reduce the top line number for Coast Guard funding from $23 billion to $21.2 billion.” (04/30/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/30/republicans-pull-passenger-vehicle-fee-00317786
-----
10) UN Orders Agencies to Find Budget Cuts, Including via Staff Relocations From New York
Source: New York Times
“The United Nations, anticipating that President Trump will slash U.S. contributions to the global body, has told its departments to draw up plans for budget cuts, including through staff relocations from New York and Geneva to less-expensive cities. The instructions — outlined in a two-page memo dated April 25 that was reviewed by The New York Times — were sent from Secretary General António Guterres’s office to the heads of all agencies that report directly to him. The memo set a May 15 deadline for all proposals so that they could be added to the 2026 budget. … In February, President Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of the overall U.S. funding and ties to the U.N.” (04/29/25)
https://archive.is/nWs9x
-----
11) Update that made ChatGPT “dangerously” sycophantic pulled
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“OpenAI has pulled a ChatGPT update after users pointed out the chatbot was showering them with praise regardless of what they said. The firm accepted its latest version of the tool was ‘overly flattering,’ with boss Sam Altman calling it ‘sycophant-y.’ Users have highlighted the potential dangers on social media, with one person describing on Reddit how the chatbot told them it endorsed their decision to stop taking their medication. ‘I am so proud of you, and I honour your journey,’ they said was ChatGPT’s response. OpenAI declined to comment on this particular case, but in a blog post said it was ‘actively testing new fixes to address the issue.’ Mr Altman said the update had been pulled entirely for free users of ChatGPT, and they were working on removing it from people who pay for the tool as well.” (04/30/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4jnwdvg9qo
-----
12) France: Regime accuses Russia-linked hackers of targeting the Paris Olympics
Source: ABC News
“The French government accused a hacking group linked to Russian military intelligence of cyberattacks over three years, targeting the Paris Olympics, French government agencies and companies. A report released Tuesday by France’s cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, outlined cyber incidents from 2021 through 2024, which it attributes to a group called APT28, also known as Fancy Bear. The report said the hacking aimed to collect intelligence, notably in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine. … The French Foreign Ministry said the hacking was linked to the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, and targeted French entities including a ‘sports organization linked to the planning of the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.’ It didn’t identify the organization or detail the impact of the cyber-meddling.” (04/30/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/france-accuses-russia-linked-hacking-group-targeting-paris-121306312
-----
13) Mexico: Regime says it has accepted 39k deportees from the US regime, mostly Mexican nationals
Source: Fox News
“Mexico has received nearly 39,000 deportees from the United States in the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s administration, according to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. More than 33,000 of the deported immigrants were Mexican nationals, Sheinbaum said on Tuesday during her regular morning press conference. ‘Since President Trump’s administration began, 38,757 have been deported [from the U.S. to Mexico], of which 33,311 are Mexicans and 5,446 are foreigners,’ Sheinbaum said. ‘The majority of people who are returning to Mexico are Mexicans, because the U.S. government, through the Department of State, has agreements for them to return directly to their countries,’ Sheinbaum continued. For ‘humanitarian reasons,’ Mexico has ‘decided to accept people of other nationalities, particularly those who come from the northern border’ by land, the Mexican president said.” (04/30/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexico-says-accepted-39k-deportees-from-us-mostly-mexican-nationals
-----
14) Harvard promises changes after reports on antisemitism, Islamophobia
Source: Seattle Times
“A Harvard University task force released a scathing account of the university on Tuesday, finding that antisemitism had infiltrated coursework, social life, the hiring of some faculty members and the worldview of certain academic programs. A separate report on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias on campus, also released Tuesday, found widespread discomfort and alienation among those students as well, with 92% of Muslim survey respondents saying they believed they would face an academic or professional penalty for expressing their political opinions. The findings come at a delicate time for the university. Harvard is being scrutinized by the Trump administration over accusations of antisemitism, and is fighting the administration’s withdrawal of billions of dollars in federal funding. Harvard has sued the administration in hopes of restoring the funding, the first university to do so.” (04/30/25)
https://archive.is/cy9M5
-----
15) Syria: Israeli regime says it carried out operation against gunmen attacking Druze fighters
Source: SFGate
“Israel said Wednesday that it carried out an attack in Syria on a group targeting members of a minority sect as a new round of clashes left at least 11 people dead, most of them members of the country’s security forces. The clashes on the edge of the town of Sahnaya, south of the capital Damascus, came a day after a heavy exchange of fire between pro-government gunmen and Druze fighters left 10 people dead in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana. A statement released by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel’s military carried out a warning operation and attacked ‘an extremist group that was organizing to continue attacking the Druze population’ in Sahnaya. It didn’t give details about the warning operation.” (04/30/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/israel-says-it-carried-out-operation-against-20301960.php
-----
16) Yemen: British, US regime forces attack supposed Houthi drone manufacturing targets
Source: United Press International
“British warplanes have attacked Houthi targets in Yemen, joining ally the United States in its airstrikes targeting the Iran-backed militia. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the joint operation occurred Tuesday, targeting a cluster of buildings in Yemen identified as having been used by the Houthis to manufacture drones like those the rebels [sic] have been using to attack ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The targets were located about 15 miles south of the Houthi-controlled capital of Sanaa. … The United States has yet to comment on the operation, but its military has been conducting near-daily attacks against the Houthis since mid-March, when President Donald Trump ordered an expanded campaign against the rebels [sic].” (04/30/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/04/30/US-Yemen-Houthi-strikes/5271746001327/
-----
17) Bessent says US regime ready to sign Ukraine mineral deal “this afternoon” despite late changes
Source: New York Post
“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the US is ready to sign a mineral deal with Ukraine ‘this afternoon’ — but added there had been a last-minute snag. ‘The Ukrainians decided last night to make some last minute changes,’ Bessent said during a meeting of President Trump’s cabinet about the pending deal, which has been months in the making. ‘We’re sure that they will reconsider that, and we are ready to sign this afternoon,’ he added. Bessent did not reveal any specifics of the deal, but said that Washington and Kyiv came to an agreement over the weekend. Ukraine Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko was in DC Wednesday looking to finalize the details of the agreement before singing the deal, per two Ukrainian officials. ‘We are finalizing the last details with our American colleagues,’ Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyha told Telemarathon, a Ukrainian TV outlet.” (04/30/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/04/30/us-news/bessent-says-us-ready-to-sign-ukraine-mineral-deal-this-afternoon-despite-late-changes/
-----
18) Shenzhou-19 crew returns to Earth after six months on Chinese space station
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday after six months on the country’s space station, state media footage showed, as Beijing advances towards its aim to become a major celestial power. … Pictures from state broadcaster CCTV showed the capsule, attached to a red-and-white striped parachute, descending through an azure sky before touching down in a cloud of brown desert dust. Its occupants had worked on the space station since October, where they carried out experiments and set a new record for the longest ever spacewalk.” (04/30/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20250430-shenzhou-19-crew-returns-to-earth-after-six-months-on-china-space-station
-----
19) CA: Newsom supports push to make it a felony to purchase 16 and 17-year-olds for sex
Source: SFGate
“Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting involved and speaking out after Democratic California lawmakers in the Assembly blocked a proposal that would make it an automatic felony to purchase a 16 or 17-year-old for sex. The issue has been part of a two-year-long debate on the growing child sex trafficking industry in California as lawmakers try to target the consumers of it with harsher consequences. The Democratic governor has consistently supported the efforts. In a statement provided exclusively to KCRA 3 on Tuesday, the governor’s office said, ‘The law should treat all sex predators who solicit minors the same — as a felony, regardless of the intended victim’s age. Full stop.'” [editor’s note: It’s unclear whether this bill refers to actual trafficking/slavery, or to purchasing sexual services from persons of that age under allegedly voluntary conditions – TLK] (04/30/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/gov-newsom-felony-purchase-16-17-year-olds-sex-20302772.php
-----
20) WI: Judge “temporarily relieved” of duties by state’s high court
Source: Axios
“The Wisconsin judge arrested by the FBI last week for allegedly trying to help an undocumented defendant avoid arrest was essentially suspended by the state’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, per a court order. The Wisconsin Supreme Court said in an order ‘it is in the public interest’ for Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan to be ‘temporarily relieved of her official duties.’ Dugan, who has served nearly a decade on the court, was temporarily prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge in the state until further order from the court, per the order.” (04/29/25)
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/29/wisconsin-judge-hannah-dugan-arrest-suspended
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) The Trump Administration Is Not Serious About Ending Endless Wars
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“The factions, interest groups, and foreign lobbies who want Trump to continue or expand the warfare state are working hard and effectively to accomplish their goals. This group clearly learned after his first term that Trump cannot easily be shamed into changing his mind on foreign policy. But he will completely pivot and embrace the foreign policy status quo with enthusiasm if doing so is presented to him in terms that sound like they were plucked out of one of his campaign rally speeches. The narrative in Trump’s circle is no longer that the Biden administration was reckless on the world stage but simply that they were ‘weak’ — implying, ridiculously, that they were unwilling to intervene in conflicts around the world. That’s allowed Trump’s team to continue and expand the exact same policies Biden carried out in the Middle East — like bombing the Houthis — and present it as something brand new.” (04/30/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/trump-administration-not-serious-about-ending-endless-wars
-----
22) We must fight politics like a disease
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“In spite of our best efforts, bad things exist. Nature, as much as I love it, is trying to kill us. So are some people. Entropy, disease, and politics surround us. The first two are simply the way the universe is; the third is a bad choice. All three lead to death and destruction if left to run their course. It takes millions of dedicated people to keep these destructive forces from doing all the damage they would otherwise do. Part of being human is doing what you can to reduce the impact of things that are bad for humans.” (04/30/25)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2025/04/30/voices/opinion-we-must-fight-politics-like-a-disease/230723.html
-----
23) On Free Speech, Trump’s as Bad as Biden
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Jack Hunter
“The Trump administration framing the suppression of free speech as a matter of non-citizens’ rights vs. those of citizens is a cheap way of ignoring the First Amendment, no different than the Biden administration holding up the supposed threats of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ in the name of doing the same. Republicans and Democrats have created spectres supposedly so threatening to convince enough people that the First Amendment no longer applies. Bullshit. So many Republicans right now argue that criticizing Israel’s government is inherently anti-semitic, which is about as ridiculous as arguing that every conservative talk host who criticizes the United States government is anti-American. And if they genuinely were anti-semitic, that’s still protected by the First Amendment. ‘Hate speech’ is protected speech. Do Trump Republicans now agree with Biden-Harris Democrats like Tim Walz that there are no First Amendment protections for hate speech? Apparently they do.” (04/30/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/on-free-speech-trumps-as-bad-as-biden
-----
24) The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“President Trump’s approval rating has fallen to near-historic lows. With economic disruption from the tariffs likely to hit next month, his numbers will probably get even worse; this administration could reach unprecedented levels of unpopularity. If I were a far-right populist, I would be thinking hard about a strategy to prevent the blowback from crippling the movement. Such a strategy is easy to come by. … After Trump leaves the picture, Vance will gain thirty IQ points, make an eloquent speech about how tariffs were the right tool for the mid-2020s but no longer, and the problem will solve itself. Right? Don’t let them get away with this. Although it’s true that tariffs owe as much to Trump’s idiosyncrasies as to the inexorable logic of right-wing populism, the ability of a President to hold the nation hostage to his own idiosyncrasies is itself a consequence of populist ideology.” (04/30/25)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-populist-right-must-own-tariffs
-----
25) In defence of dimming the Sun
Source: spiked
by James Woudhuysen
“Last week, the news broke that scientists in the UK are planning to ‘dim the Sun,’ as part of a £50million government-funded scheme. What this really means is either injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, or brightening clouds to reflect more sunlight, as a counter to the greenhouse effect. … Similarly, earlier this month, we learned of a £3million scheme, based in Weymouth and funded by Whitehall, to strip seawater of the carbon it absorbs from the atmosphere. … geoengineering would essentially allow humanity to carry on as usual – burning fossil fuels, traveling by car and by air, consuming animal products and generally leaving our footprint on the Earth. It would make redundant the need for the various miserable lifestyle adjustments that the Net Zero crowd are so desperately trying to impose on us.” (04/30/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/30/in-defence-of-dimming-the-sun/
-----
26) Tariffs and the economy
Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
“The current level of tariffs, by itself, is probably not enough to trigger a recession. Nonetheless, a recession is possible due to the interaction of tariffs and monetary policy. Put simply, the trade war will reduce the equilibrium or natural rate of interest, likely making monetary policy tighter in 2025. I would recommend rate cuts if not for the fact that previous monetary policy has been too expansionary and inflation remains a significant problem. … The administration faces an interesting dilemma. It can avoid recession by backing off on the trade war, at the cost of failing to address the trade deficit. Or it can press ahead with a more aggressive trade war, at the cost of risking recession. Recessions usually reduce the trade deficit.” (04/30/25)
https://www.econlib.org/tariffs-and-the-economy/
-----
27) Fall of Saigon, 50 Years On
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jon Gabriel
“The Fall of Saigon is what happens when government overreach extends into war-making without clarity, conviction, or constitutional constraint. Congress never formally declared war, violating the very framework the Founders established to avoid foreign entanglements. Instead of empowering military experts on the ground, politicians micromanaged from DC, all the while keeping a twitching eye on public opinion. The war actually was won in the paddies and jungles of Southeast Asia, but was definitively lost in the marble halls of Congress and the editorial offices of the press.” (04/30/25)
https://fee.org/articles/fall-of-saigon-50-years-on/
-----
28) What Can Trump Achieve With Russia-Ukraine?
Source: The American Conservative
by W James Antle III
“One of [Vladimir Putin’s] key advantages in this war has been that he is by all appearances the least concerned about the death toll, Ukrainian or Russian, of all interested parties. Russia has a history of tolerating high casualties among its troops, which Ukraine cannot (and should not) match. Yet it is Putin, as the most dedicated Ukraine hawks often remind us, who must be prevailed upon to stop the killing. … The basic framework of the peace deal Trump is attempting to secure is simply a recognition of reality. Ukraine cannot for the foreseeable future win back much of the territory it lost in the war — and especially before the current war — or join NATO. Russia cannot realistically take much more Ukrainian territory than it already has, but it can inflict much more death and destruction trying.” (04/30/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/what-can-trump-achieve-with-russia-ukraine/
-----
29) This agency that targets Republicans while shielding Democrats must be dismantled
Source: Fox News
by Steve Roberts
“Elon Musk has claimed that one of the most common errors of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist. But it doesn’t take a SpaceX-level engineer to understand that the Office of Government Ethics — an agency few Americans know by name, but whose unchecked power casts a long shadow over our democracy — simply has no purpose in its current form. The OGE is a partisan, bureaucratic thicket that should be fully dismantled. It selectively enforces hazy rules around the financial arrangements of incoming candidates and officials — often in a heavy-handed manner against Republicans. Commonly, the two winners in a battle with OGE are (1) Democrats and (2) lawyers. As a practicing attorney in the field of political law, I have a first-hand look at this frequently-partisan battle waged by OGE against nominees and candidates.” (04/30/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/agency-targets-republicans-while-shielding-democrats-must-dismantled
-----
30) The First Forever War
Source: The Intercept
by Nick Turse
“When a tank crashed through the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon 50 years ago today, the Potemkin state of South Vietnam collapsed, and the Vietnamese war of independence, fought in its final phase against the overwhelming military might of the United States, came to a close. America lost its war, but Vietnam was devastated. … The U.S. did whatever it could to cripple the reunited Vietnam. Instead of delivering billions in promised reconstruction aid, it pressured international lenders like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to reject Vietnamese requests for assistance. The newly unified nation of farmers had no choice but to till rice fields filled with unexploded American bombs, artillery shells, rockets, cluster munitions, landmines, grenades, and more. The war’s toll continued to rise, with 100,000 more casualties in Vietnam in the 50 years since the conflict technically came to a close and many more in the neighboring nations of Southeast Asia.” (04/30/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/04/30/vietnam-war-anniversary-landmines-bombs/
-----
31) Judge Dugan, the Migrant and the Law
Source: The Wall Street Journal
by staff
“Every dispute between the Trump Administration and the judiciary these days becomes a political morality play about a looming ‘constitutional crisis.’ But the facts of each case matter, and most of the time they don’t support the crisis narrative. That’s the way it looks to us so far in the case of last week’s arrest by federal agents of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an illegal [sic] migrant evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Judge Dugan was charged with obstructing a federal proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest. A federal magistrate found probable cause for the arrest upon reviewing a 13-page criminal complaint. The alleged facts as laid out in the complaint by FBI special agent Lindsay Schloemer don’t look good for the judge.” (04/29/25)
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/judge-hannah-dugan-arrest-fbi-ice-lindsay-schloemer-eduardo-flores-ruiz-b63c754f?st=KPkuA3
-----
32) 100 Days of Ressentiment
Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama
“On the occasion of the Trump administration’s first 100 days, there has been a welter of articles detailing the range of truly awful policies he has sought to enact. … Rather than cataloguing this list of abuses, it may be more useful to consider what motives lie behind them. Since the early days of the first Trump term, a minor industry has grown up trying to put his thoughts and actions into something like a coherent intellectual framework: he is a nationalist, a populist, an isolationist, an imperialist, a postliberal, a nativist, and so on. … The most useful framework in my opinion is psychology, both personal and social. Trumpism is basically a mentality drenched in what Nietzsche labeled ressentiment, that is, acute resentment of others based on wounded pride, perceived disregard, fears of inadequacy, and a desire to exact revenge on those who had earlier failed to pay adequate respect.” (04/30/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/100-days-of-ressentiment
-----
33) Why Europe doesn’t waste a crisis
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Last week, Ukraine and Poland began to put aside a big source of tension in their relationship as neighbors. Work began on exhuming the remains of thousands of Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II. Families of the Polish victims have long wanted answers. ‘We have found the right formula: that we will not bargain over the dead, but both sides will fulfill their Christian duty,’ Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, told the radio station TOK. What helped trigger this step of reconciliation in 2025? One more crisis in Europe, namely the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Both Poland and Ukraine are neighbors of Russia. In recent decades, the continent has had its fair share of crises, from a financial meltdown to a mass influx of migrants to climate disasters.” (04/29/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/0429/Why-Europe-doesn-t-waste-a-crisis
-----
34) Is Bitcoin Ready To Retire Gold?
Source: The Daily Economy
by Walter Donway
“Investors and even central banks have their eye on Bitcoin as a safe haven and hedge, but gold’s global economic shoes are hard to fill.” (04/30/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/is-bitcoin-ready-to-retire-gold/
-----
35) A Free Speech Test for the Ivy League
Source: Law & Liberty
by Tal Fortgang
“When presidents from our top-ranked universities averred before a Congressional committee that they could not crack down on anti-Israel demonstrations last fall, their explanations fell flat. They claimed they were dedicated to the principles of free speech, academic freedom, and the pursuit of knowledge no matter how uncomfortable. Even calls for genocide could be protected depending on the context. That’s what robust free speech norms require. Our universities are meant to embrace robust free speech in pursuit of their fundamental mission to build and promulgate knowledge. Two of the three presidents who made those claims have since resigned. That was likely due at least in part to the rank and obvious hypocrisy in their statements. American universities, including those represented at the hearing, had been the centers of numerous free-speech scandals.” (04/30/25)
https://lawliberty.org/a-free-speech-test-for-the-ivy-league/
-----
36) Dinner With Donald
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“I do not think that I have left much room to doubt my opinion of Donald Trump, but I make liberal allowance for journalists and historians and even for comedians when it comes to meeting people and seeking out opportunities to interact with men and women who are in many cases far from admirable. Larry David lampooned [Bill] Maher in a Times essay headlined ‘My Dinner with Adolf,’ and it was pretty good — not great, but pretty good. (One does not go to the New York Times for big laughs.) But take the counterfactual seriously: How interesting would it have been if some interesting writer of the 1930s — say, Pearl S. Buck or Sinclair Lewis — actually had had a dinner with Adolf Hitler and documented it? Or if Charlie Chaplin had had the opportunity to interview Hitler rather than merely mock him from far?” (04/30/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/dinner-with-donald/
-----
37) Can’t Make Government Efficient
Source: Town Hall
by Star Parker
“Steve Jobs co-founded Apple when he was 21 years old. Nine years later, at age 30, he was purged and fired from the company he founded and built by the professional management he helped recruit. Eleven years later, after that management brought the firm to the edge of bankruptcy, Jobs returned to the helm and saved the company. In 1997, when Jobs returned as interim CEO, Apple lost $1.04 billion and estimates were that it was 90 days from insolvency. Jobs restored discipline and focus. He slashed the product line from 15 to four products and fired 3,000 employees. By the end of the next fiscal year, Apple returned to profitability. … Suppose this was government and not a private company? Suppose Jobs needed votes from Congress to cut product lines? Suppose law prohibited him from firing 3,000?” (04/30/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2025/04/30/cant-make-government-efficient-n2656312
-----
38) The roots of Trump’s “I alone can fix it” presidency
Source: Washington Post
by Ramesh Ponnuru
“Even for President Donald Trump, the trade war is an act of astonishing hubris. When nearly all economists, the markets and the public are registering their belief that a course of action will harm the country, it takes a lot of confidence in one’s own ideas to persist anyway. Yet viewed from a certain angle, the tariffs are exactly the kind of thing Americans always say we want from government officials. Trump campaigned on raising tariffs to revive manufacturing and force other countries to treat the United States better, and he is following through on his promise …. If we dislike the results, perhaps we should reconsider this popular conception of how presidents should govern. That conception traces back to Trump’s predecessor Woodrow Wilson, who explicitly rejected the Founders’ version of the separation of powers because it stifled government action.” (04/30/25)
https://archive.is/f3NRd
-----
39) Symposium: Was the Vietnam War a mistake or fatal flaw in the system?
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Andrew Bacevich, Greg Daddis, Carolyn Eisenberg, Morton H. Halperin, Steve Kinzer, Noah Kulwin, Robert Levering, Anatol Lieven, Daniel McCarthy, Robert Merry, Paul Pillar, Tim Shorrock, Monica Duffy Toft, Stephen Walt, & Cora Weiss.
“It’s been 50 years since the Fall of Saigon and we still haven’t reckoned with the biggest question of them all. Until today.” (04/30/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/vietnam-war/
-----
40) Article II as Suicide Pact
Source: Liberal Currents
by Patrick J Sobkowski
“In 1949, Justice Robert Jackson warned that ‘doctrinaire logic’ by the Supreme Court would ‘convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.’ In that case, Terminiello v. Chicago, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Arthur Terminiello. Terminiello was a suspended Catholic priest and a rabid antisemite who was convicted of violating a Chicago ordinance against ‘breach of peace.’ … Ironically, Jackson’s warning to the majority in Terminiello has proved prescient, as the Roberts Court has interpreted the Constitution to enshrine vast, indeed royal, prerogatives into Article II. As a result, the Court has aggrandized its own power as well as that of the president. And the end result is that it is Article II, rather than the Bill of Rights, that has become a suicide pact.” (04/30/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/article-ii-as-suicide-pact/
-----
41) The Vietnam War Ended 50 Years Ago; People Still Get It Wrong
Source: Common Dreams
by Arnold Oliver
“April 30th marks the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s end when Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, soon to be renamed Ho Chi Minh City. The war was a terrible experience for the United States, but even more so for the people of Vietnam and much of the rest of Southeast Asia. Estimates are that up to 3 million Vietnamese perished, as well many many thousands of Cambodians and Laotians. Fifty-eight thousand American died, and a trillion American tax dollars were wasted. Many of us who were there are still trying to understand and come to grips with it. Based on years of study, here is what I think people still get wrong about the war.” (04/30/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/wrong-about-vietnam-war
-----
42) Like a Bad Jankowicz
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Nina Jankowicz is back. During the Biden administration, Jankowicz, scourge of ‘disinformation,’ lost her perch as head of an incipient Disinformation Governance Board. People learned that the Board existed; were aghast; got it closed. If only government censorship were always so easy to kill. Now this nag, with no prospect of getting a job muzzling people she disagrees with from the Trump administration, is making a nuisance of herself internationally.” (04/30/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/04/30/like-a-bad-jankowicz/
-----
43) Iran and the United States: Nuclear Argy Bargy
Source: Antiwar.com
by M Reza Behnam
“Like any sovereign nation, Iran has a right to defend itself. Nuclear weapons are a security guarantee that Iran has not sought. Unlike Israel and the United States, it has not threatened nor bombed, invaded or occupied its neighbors. However, after Israeli air strikes in April and October 2024 and continued U.S. threats, Iran has had no choice but to debate and reevaluate its long-held nuclear doctrine which regards weapons of mass destruction against Islam. In a civilized conflict-free world, there would be no need for weapons, nuclear or otherwise. Unfortunately for some countries, like Iran, possessing nuclear weapons may become a necessary tool for survival. For others, like the United States and Israel, the ghastly weapons are used as cudgels to bully countries into submission.” (04/30/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/reza_behnam/2025/04/29/iran-and-the-united-states-nuclear-argy-bargy/
-----
44) The Worst Parts of Trump’s First 100 Days Involved Ignoring Libertarian Principles
Source: Reason
by Brian Doherty
“How Trump’s administration has misgoverned in its first 100 days, with his most destructive abuses arising from his rejection of core libertarian principles about trade policy and immigration, the movement of goods and people across arbitrary government barriers, demonstrates why trying to supposedly balance those ferociously anti-libertarian tendencies with his acceptably libertarian ones (a stated commitment to shrinking size and cost of government, through Elon Musk’s efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency, have delivered less than promised, are rife with reporting errors, and seem to be aimed not at making government any more sensible or useful so much as scoring institutional points against the administration’s perceived leftist enemies) leads to accepting near complete collapse of any meaningful distinctions between the U.S. government and the worst economically interventionist and authoritarian tyrannies.” (04/29/25)
https://reason.com/2025/04/29/the-worst-parts-of-trumps-first-100-days-involved-ignoring-libertarian-principles/
-----
45) Trump’s first 100 days illustrate his strengths and mindset: decisive, bold, and in a hurry
Source: New York Post
by Michael Goodwin
“Any discussion of the opening days of Donald Trump’s presidency must start at the key date — last Nov. 5, when he rose from the political dead to seize his second term in the White House. His comeback victory was decisive as he swept all seven battleground states on the way to piling up 312 electoral votes, winning the popular vote and leading the GOP to control of Congress. But first he had to survive two assassination attempts, with one in Pennsylvania a miraculous near miss, and overcome an onslaught of Democratic prosecutions and civil suits designed to defeat and imprison him. All those cases, the first ever brought against a former president, were necessary, Americans were assured by Dems and their media mouthpieces, to protect democracy. The Big Lie — that the weaponization of the courts was anything other than a partisan power play — seems like ages ago.” (04/29/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/04/29/opinion/michael-goodwin-trumps-first-100-days-illustrate-his-strengths-decisive-bold-and-in-a-hurry/
-----
46) Detaining Öztürk over an op-ed is unlawful and un-American
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by staff
“FIRE has filed a ‘friend of the court’ brief in support of Rümeysa Öztürk in her lawsuit against the Trump administration. FIRE argues that the U.S. government is unlawfully detaining Öztürk for protected speech and reviving the authoritarian spirit of the Alien and Sedition Acts in the process. The brief’s summary of argument follows.” (04/29/25)
https://www.thefire.org/news/detaining-ozturk-over-op-ed-unlawful-and-un-american
-----
47) Dictator on Day 100
Source: The UnPopulist
by Robert Tracinski
“More than a year before he took office, Donald Trump vowed, not once, but twice, that if he were to be elected to a second term as president, he would be a dictator ‘on day one.’ He insisted he would be a dictator only on day one — but what dictator has ever seized power only for one day and then immediately relinquished it? As Trump concludes his first 100 days in office today, the record makes clear what he really intended: Centralize all power in his person, overturning the checks and balances of the American system of government and replacing them with a dictatorship.” (04/29/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/dictator-on-day-100
-----
48) Capitalism, Socialism, and Social Desirability Bias
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Can I really derive any deep lesson about the human condition from truisms about Social Desirability Bias? Strangely, yes. To repeat, the lessons of Social Desirability Bias are twofold. First: When you spend your own time and money, actions speak louder than words. Second, when you spend other people’s time and money, words speak louder than actions. Now consider: If everyone spends only their own time and their own money, what do we call it? Among other things, ‘the free market.’ What about when people spend other people’s time and money? Among other things, ‘government.'” (04/29/25)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/capitalism-socialism-and-social-desirability
-----
49) Waiting for the Supply Shock
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Two milestones converged this week that seem important in the moment but in retrospect will be minor blips historically: yesterday’s reaching of the first hundred days of Donald Trump’s second term, and today’s announcement of first-quarter gross domestic product showing the economy contracted by 0.3 percent on an annualized basis. The former is just a news hook to overlay ‘what it all means’ stories that are as light as air. The second covers the period before the April 2 Liberation Day, though it was influenced by it. The reason the economy contracted is that imports, in the calculation of GDP, take away from economic growth, and companies bulked up imports in anticipation of tariffs. That’s more of a noisy statistical quirk than a recession setting in.” (04/30/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-04-30-waiting-for-the-supply-shock/
-----
50) A Flock of Frightened and Dependent Sheep
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Isn’t it ironic that Americans have the most powerful government in history and, at the same time, have the most frightened citizenry in the world? That’s not a coincidence. Big government produces little people, and a powerful, omnipotent government produces a weak nation. Americans are scared to death of everything. They are scared of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, communists, terrorists, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, Muslims, gang members, and other entities that U.S. officials have declared to be official, scary boogeymen who are coming to get us. More important, they are willing, even eager, to surrender their liberty to their own government in the hopes of being kept ‘safe.'” (04/29/25)
https://www.fff.org/2025/04/29/a-flock-of-frightened-and-dependent-sheep/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Rising, 04/30/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on former NBC host Chuck Todd acquitting mainstream media of President Biden’s mental decline coverup.” (04/30/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv_post/5274893-rising-april-30-2025/
-----
52) Best of Cato Daily Podcast: You Have the Right to Remain Innocent
Source: Cato Institute
“Caleb O. Brown hosted the Cato Daily Podcast for nearly 18 years, producing well over 4000 episodes. He has gone on to head Kentucky’s Bluegrass Institute. This is one among the best episodes produced in his tenure, selected by the host and listeners. Don’t talk to the police, even if you want to help them solve a crime. James Duane says that’s the advice police and lawyers give their own children. He explains why in his new book, You Have the Right to Remain Innocent.” (04/30/25)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-daily-podcast/best-cato-daily-podcast-you-have-right-remain-innocent
-----
53) Reason Interview: John Arnold
Source: Reason
“John Arnold argues that private markets solve problems better than government or philanthropy, and that real reform comes from decentralization, incentives, and evidence — not top-down control.” (04/30/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/04/30/john-arnold-government-cant-be-trusted-to-fix-any-problems/
-----
54) The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, 04/30/25
Source: The New Republic
“‘He Was Pissed’: Trump’s Vile New Tariff Threats Take Unnerving Turn.” (04/30/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/194584/he-pissed-trump-vile-new-tariff-threats-take-unnerving-turn
-----
55) Conflicts of Interest, episode 792
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Israel’s Starvation Warfare.” (04/30/25)
https://rumble.com/v6srvad-israels-starvation-warfare-coi-792.html
-----
56) The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 04/30/25
Source: The Dispatch
“Is Donald Trump Hitler? A Chavista? Or a caudillo? Jonah Goldberg is joined by fellow podcast extraordinaire Michael Moynihan to answer this obviously important and salient question. (Plus: The lost potential of Elon Musk and more on the right’s Gramsci turn.)” (04/30/25)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/flood-the-zone-with-german/id1291144720?i=1000705516493
-----
57) SolutionsWatch, 04/30/25
Source: The Corbett Report
“Epstein Justice: What You Need to Know.” (04/30/25)
https://corbettreport.com/epstein-justice-what-you-need-to-know/
-----
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 04/30/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“Bill To Bring Military Budget Over $1 Trillion, US Has Struck 1,000 Targets in Yemen, and More.” (04/30/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrNQWrLadmM
-----
59) Nonzero, 04/29/25
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Can Trump Make Peace in Ukraine? | Robert Wright & Anatol Lieven.” (04/29/25)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/68632
-----
60) System Update, episode 445
Source: System Update
“Rapid Fire: Canada Elections, Dem’s Sit-In, Israeli Taking Points Escalate; PLUS: Jewish Academics Push-Back on Antisemitism Claims.” (04/29/25)
https://rumble.com/v6sqy0l-rapid-fire-canada-elections-dems-sit-in-israeli-taking-points-escalate.html
-----
61) Trump Watch, 04/29/25
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Incarceration without Conviction.” (04/29/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=554H7dkAh-A
-----
62) (Re)Imagining Liberty, 04/29/25
Source: Aaron Ross Powell
“The Crank Theory of Everything.” (04/29/25)
https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/the-crank-theory-of-everything
-----
63) Politics Politics Politics, 04/29/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Canadian Conservatives Collapse! Talking the Pope and Catholicism (with Kevin Ryan).” (04/29/25)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/canadian-conservatives-collapse-talking
-----
64) Power Problems, 04/29/25
Source: Cato Institute
“UFOs, Aliens, & National Security.” (04/29/25)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/power-problems/ufos-aliens-national-security
-----
65) Mean Age Daydream, 04/29/25
Source: Lions of Liberty
“WHO Pandemic Countdown / Pride Goes Bankrupt.” (04/29/25)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/who-pandemic-countdown-pride-goes-bankrupt
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FND is published every weekday except on holidays. Forward freely.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
http://groups.google.com/group/freedom-news-daily
Support the Liberty International (tax deductible)
https://liberty-intl.org/join-the-movement/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages