Source: Niskanen Center
by Matt Darling
“The United States funds unemployment insurance (UI) in an unusual way. Most nations fund unemployment insurance through a flat payroll tax — similar to how the United States funds programs like Social Security and Medicare: Every person who works has some fixed percentage taken out of each paycheck1 (up to a certain amount) to fund the unemployment insurance program. The United States uses a different system called experience rating. Under experience rating, unemployment insurance is paid for by a tax on firms, and the level of that tax depends on each firm’s history (or ‘experience’) sending laid-off workers into the unemployment insurance system.” (04/23/24)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/creating-a-more-dynamic-unemployment-insurance-system-the-case-for-eliminating-experience-rating/
Source: The Federalist
by David Harsanyi
“‘I condemn the antisemitic protests’ Joe Biden told reporters after days of anti-Jewish demonstrations at Columbia University and other Ivy League schools. ‘I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.’ Any morally clearheaded American already has a very good idea of what’s going on. Biden is both-siding the actions of Kafiya-wearing terror cheerleaders on Columbia’s Gaza Quad (who target American Jews who have absolutely no bearing on Israel’s actions) with those who refuse to accept the blood libel of ‘genocide’ in Gaza. It is the kind of odious moral relativism one expects to hear from a ‘squad’ member or clout-chasing far-right ‘influencer,’ not the president.” [editor’s note: There was a time, long ago, when Harsanyi seemed to lean kinda sorta a little bit libertarianish. Apparently the lobotomy was a complete success – TLK] (04/23/24)
https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/23/joe-biden-says-there-are-very-fine-people-on-both-sides-of-the-oct-7-debate/
Source: Fox News
“Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed a bill aimed at strengthening the rights of homeowners looking to evict squatters from their property, despite the bill being passed in bipartisan fashion and as a wave of squatting cases continue to terrify homeowners across the country. The bill, SB 1129, would have permitted a homeowner to request law enforcement to immediately remove a squatter from their property, had the squatter invaded a home and unlawfully claimed a right to live there. Police, acting on an owner’s affidavit, would have had the permission to immediately go in and have someone evicted. But Hobbs nixed the bill on Tuesday in a short letter to the president of the State Senate.” (04/24/24)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/arizona-gov-katie-hobbs-vetoes-bipartisan-bill-combat-squatting-election-bills
Source: The UnPopulist
by Matt Johnson
“The former biology professor weaves grand narratives of shadowy elites plotting a totalitarian takeover by ‘just asking questions.’” (04/23/24)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/bret-weinstein-conspiracy-theorist
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Russia has arrested Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov on organised corruption charges in the most high-profile case since the start of the country’s all-out war on Ukraine. A brief statement by Russia’s Investigative Committee citing a statute for accepting bribes ‘on a particularly large scale’ said on Wednesday that the arrest was made a day earlier. State media showed brief footage of the military official standing in a Moscow court. He faces 15 years in prison if convicted.” (04/24/24)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/24/russia-arrests-deputy-defence-minister-suspected-of-corruption
Source: Serious Trouble
“If You Voir Something, Dire Something.” (04/23/24)
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/if-you-voir-something-dire-something
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“Secretary Blinken made a claim yesterday that absolutely no one will believe: ‘We apply the same standard to everyone,’ Blinken said. ‘And that doesn’t change whether the country in question is an adversary, a competitor, a friend or an ally.’ … It is obvious that allies and clients are given a free pass for things that would trigger condemnation, sanctions, or possibly even military action when others do them. The problem isn’t just that the U.S. lets allies and clients get away with more crimes, but that it simply refuses to impose significant penalties on them no matter what they do. There isn’t a double standard so much as there is no standard for allies and clients at all.” (04/23/24)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/reckless-clients-and-double-standards
Source: SFGate
“A federal judge Wednesday sentenced a longtime U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent to four years in prison for leaking DEA intelligence to defense lawyers in a $100,000 bribery scheme that prosecutors said jeopardized drug cases and the lives of confidential informants. John Costanzo Jr. was found guilty last year of bribery and honest-services wire fraud, joining a growing list of DEA agents convicted of federal crimes. Another former DEA supervisor, Manny Recio, is scheduled to be sentenced next month in the same case. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken, in handing down his sentence, noted that the 49-year-old Costanzo was ‘especially culpable’ as a supervisor because he ‘knew what he was doing was wrong’.” (04/24/24)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/veteran-dea-agent-sentenced-to-4-years-for-19420481.php
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Most of us have encountered or been told about an encounter with a vicious dog. A dog which, seemingly for no reason, will suddenly lash out at another animal or a human. Attack with no provocation, or even when (as has happened to several of us) when the human is attempting to help the dog. (It’s common enough to promote a saying, ‘biting the hand that feeds you.’ An uncontrolled (or uncontrollable) dog which is vicious is often put down. Hopefully and preferably by its owner. Sometimes by the person who is the object of its assault.” (04/23/24)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2024/04/23/vicious-government-and-vicious-dogs/
Source: In These Times
by Ankur Singh
“Momtaj Begum was scared, but there was no time. She immediately started packing everything her family owned — for herself, her husband and their three children. At 11 o’clock one night in September 2021, thousands of residents of Dhalpur (a village on a sandbar in the Brahmaputra River in India’s northeastern state of Assam) received notice from the government that they must leave by 10 a.m. the next morning, when their homes would be demolished. State officials claimed the villagers, who lived half a day’s drive from India’s border with Bangladesh, were ‘illegal’ immigrants encroaching on government-owned land, despite families having citizenship documents and living there for decades. While Begum and her neighbors packed, Nur Hussain, a leader in the local All Assam Minority Students Union (AAMSU), messaged villagers frantically on WhatsApp, trying to make a plan. They weren’t going to leave so easily.” (04/24/24)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/ethnonationalist-playbook-india-israel-bjp-technology-genocide-assam-muslims
