Source: The Hill
by Elizabeth Goitein

“Buried in a bill the House passed Friday is a provision that would create the largest expansion of government surveillance on U.S. soil since the Patriot Act. The potential for abuse of this new power, included in the House’s reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is staggering. … Under current law, the government can compel ‘electronic communications service providers’ that have direct access to our communications, such as Verizon, AT&T, Google or Microsoft, to provide assistance — generally by turning over the communications of targets identified by the government. Under the House-passed bill, the government can compel the assistance of individuals or companies that provide any service at all, as long as they have access to the equipment (for instance, servers, routers or cell towers) on which communications are transmitted.” (04/17/24)

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4599695-the-fisa-expansion-turning-cable-installers-into-spies-cannot-stand/

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“Last week, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) announced that the United States has the largest number of medicines in short supply in the history of its survey, which dates back to 2001. As of the end of March, 323 drugs were in shortage, disrupting treatment for patients and in many cases risking prolonged injury or death. The news was accompanied by the usual parade of ignorance. ‘Health care is the US’s most highly regulated, socialist industry and shortages are endemic under socialism so the pattern fits,’ mused libertarian Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University about a system where every single pharmaceutical manufacturer (save for a nascent effort in California) is private and for-profit, and pretty much every provider too (unless you believe the convenient fiction that ‘nonprofit’ hospitals are not adopting that status as a tax dodge).” (04/17/24)

https://prospect.org/health/2024-04-17-our-uniquely-american-drug-shortages/

Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by TJ Martinell

“The Anti-Federalist writer Agrippa powerfully expressed many of the same reservations about the Constitution as other opponents – that it would create a consolidated government leading to a loss of liberty. But unlike most others, Agrippa was also concerned with the implications a strong central government would have on the economies of the states and their people. The Agrippa letters were influential enough for Alexander Hamilton to dedicate at least one Federalist Paper, No. 11, countering these positions.” (04/17/24)

https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2024/04/17/limited-or-absolute-power-warnings-from-anti-federalist-agrippa/

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall

“People eat their capital to finance their retirements. This might be done inside a pension fund, a tax wrapper or simply directly and individually. But it is not true that a pension is simply the income made from some pot of money. It’s eating into that pot itself, that stock, over time. Therefore it is necessary that those assets — whatever they are, shares, bonds, direct assets like buildings, windmills, anything — be bought from the retiring generation by those now beginning to save themselves. Which is why much of the financial markets is indeed trading second hand pieces of paper. Because this generation of retirees needs to sell the things they invested in 30 and 50 years ago.” (04/17/24)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/pensions-net-matters-not-gross