Author: nick

With the average price of gasoline in the U.S. reaching its highest level since the start of the Iran war, lawmakers are thinking about giving energy producers special treatment to supposedly cut costs at the pump. As part of the negotiations over the Farm Bill, which is expected to be voted on by the House of Representatives this week, a bipartisan group of Corn Belt lawmakers is proposing a measure to authorize the sale of E15—gasoline with an ethanol content up to 15 percent—year-round. This fuel is typically not allowed to be sold in the summer months because it evaporates…

Take me out to the ball room, Take me out with the crooks; Buy me some pardons and Ranger parks, I don’t care if the water gets scarce. Let me rob, rob, rob for the home team, If Tehran gets nuked, it’s our doom. For it’s one, two, three bombs, you’re out, At the old ball room 🎵 Voyager 1 has little time left in interstellar space. An ambitious ‘Big Bang’ fix may change that. Light-propelled ‘metajets’ could enable 20-year journey to Alpha Centauri, study suggests. Tough fungi could survive the trip to Mars— No kidding! says Terrence McKenna. 100…

The Left's Embrace of Political Violence Source link

For the last two and a half years, the State of Israel has unilaterally — and with jaw-dropping illegality — reimagined warfare as a religiously-mandated existential struggle against alleged “forces of darkness” in which there are no rules, and no sense of proportionality or restraint. Everyone in the Gaza Strip — 2.3 million people at the start of this “conflict” — has been regarded as, in one way or another, “associated” with Hamas, the administrative government of Gaza whose military wing, along with other armed factions, broke out of the “open-air prison” of Gaza on October 7, 2023, killing hundreds…

The grotesque spectacle practically writes itself. For years, the guardians of “consumer welfare” in Washington postured as vigilant sentinels against consolidation in the airline industry, so that when JetBlue sought to acquire Spirit Airlines, the Department of Justice intervened immediately and with all earnest. The argument, we were told, was simple: Spirit, the plucky ultra-low-cost carrier, provided downward pressure on fares. To allow its absorption into a larger competitor would be to deprive consumers, especially cost-conscious ones, of a vital check on airline pricing power. It was a familiar story. Antitrust, in its modern form, is less about law than…

The Most Ridiculous Lawfare Yet Source link

As Trump’s excursion veers into quagmire territory, he may just try to walk away amid a host of new distractions. Source link

From ‘Fine People' to Assassinations Source link

I’ve finished reviewing the Supreme Court’s 92-page decision in Louisiana v. Callais (rhymes with waylay). I’ve distilled it down to about 16 pages for the 2026 Barnett/Blackman supplement. My focus here was on the ConLaw aspects of the case, so much of the history of Section 2, the 1982 amendments, and Gingles is trimmed. I also did not include the lengthy and complicated procedural posture. I’m not sure that it will matter too much as the Court found the application of the “updated” standard to be easy. I’ll have more to say about the case in another post. Source link

With the U.S.-led Pax Silica framework, the Philippines is becoming a dual-use platform where military strategy and supply-chain restructuring are converging. Over the past year, the Philippines has moved decisively into the front line of US–China friction, thanks to expanded access under the bilateral Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), large-scale military exercises near Taiwan-adjacent waters, and growing interoperability with U.S. forces. The Philippines is transitioning toward a logistics hub in a possible regional contingency. What is new is that this military alignment is now paired with an economic architecture: Pax Silica. Pax Silica, a risk multiplier In April 2026, the…