Scott Horton puts on a master class explaining the hypnotic grip the elite class has on both Trump, and both war hawk wings of Congress:

The Independent Institute reviews how climate change dogmatism is in retreat, since current research and economic transactions (aka, voluntary action) are addressing issues without state force:

By all accounts, climate change alarmists are on the defensive—politically, scientifically, I would even say morally (see Bill Gates’s comment below). We could leave it at that. But there may be hope for a truce in this conflict—and if so, capitalism can take the credit.

The negatives for the climate change alarmists are substantial. Here are some:

• President Trump’s policies have deregulated oil and gas and withdrawn many subsidies for “clean” alternatives; the shock of the Iran war has made the importance of traditional energy more visible than ever.
• A conflict occurred over the manual that the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine routinely prepares to help federal judges deal with complicated scientific issues. The latest (2025) edition had a clearly biased chapter on climate change. Under political pressure, the publisher, the Federal Judicial Center, withdrew it, causing outrage by some; for others, it reaffirmed scientific integrity.
• Another embarrassment for alarmists is the recent retraction of a 2024 article in Nature. It predicted a stunning 62 percent decline in world GDP by 2100 due to climate change. Widely reported findings didn’t stand up to scrutiny—neither the predictions nor the uncertainties surrounding those predictions. So Nature took the article back.
• Local opposition to wind and solar power projects is high and perhaps growing. Robert Bryce tallied 735 rejections or restrictions on wind and solar between 2015 and 2024.…More

Dr. Singer explains how the bad effects of drugs that are currently illegal could be solved, as ending the drug war would reduce the dangers of their use:

Who needs property rights? As per his recent announcement, Zo is a go for stealing homes, aka using massive force to solve the artificial NYC housing crisis, and transferring them to “community trusts” or non-profits, that are no doubt fronts for various interests who funded his campaign. They got him in, so now they want their payoff. Get ready for lots more central planning, with big government run apartments planted in what were private residential areas. Salty Cracker brutally summarizes the scheme:

LPNY Secretary Andrew Kolstee discusses upcoming plans of the State Committee to deal with current political limitations of the LP, in light of their decision to withdraw Larry Sharpe’s nomination for Governor. See also this discussion on Hardfire from 2024, on the subject of LPNY’s strategy issues in dealing with petitioning problems:

You may be wondering why the Libertarian Party of New York has been silent through the petitioning period this year. This was intentional, and once this year’s process is over in early June, we will elaborate on the decision to be silent, and on the decisions of the State Committee.

The ballot access situation in New York remains extremely difficult. The current requirements continue to place a heavy burden on independent and third-party candidates, especially organizations made up primarily of volunteers. These challenges force us to make hard decisions about where to focus our time and resources.

The Executive Committee has discussed several ideas for moving the Libertarian Party of New York in a different direction. We know what has worked, we know what has not worked, and we recognize that continuing to operate the same way is not sustainable under the current system.

We are currently working on a campaign that will be announced shortly. This effort is intended to help move the party forward while recognizing the practical limitations we face as a volunteer organization....More

Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos rants on CNBC about how Queens nurses pay too much in taxes, compared to billionaires like him, who he says should be taxed more. But isn’t rooting for the progressive income tax exactly how the middle class got heavy taxation burdens misapplied to them in the first place? And don’t fat cats like him avoid being on a payroll, as they live off their assets and corporate revenue, so they aren’t even subject to income taxes? Doesn’t the IRS legalized theft system show it’s wrong to take wealth away from productive people of any class?:

“When you don’t know how to solve a problem, create a villain, blame them, but it won’t solve the problem,” Bezos said, referring to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax proposal. The idea would generate between $340 to $510 million in annual revenue, according to City Comptroller Mark Levine.

Bezos also floated the idea of low-income earners paying nothing in individual income tax, which is already the case for about 40 percent of American households (many of which are low-income), according to a 2025 report from the Tax Policy Center.

The U.S. tax system is highly progressive. The top 10 percent of earners—households earning more than $228,000—take home 45.7 percent of all income but pay 61.3 percent of all federal taxes, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Treasury. In contrast, the bottom 50 percent of earners collectively pay very little, with the lowest income groups actually receiving more in credits than they pay in taxes.

When progressive politicians talk about an unfair tax system, they’re ostensibly referencing the difference between one’s effective and statutory tax rates. With exemptions, deductions, and credits unequally distributed—even amongst taxpayers with similar incomes—tax liability often boils down to which provision a filer qualifies for.

Differing tax rates for capital gains, business profits, mortgage interest, and family size mean that those at either end of the statutory rate can end up with a higher effective tax rate than others in their tax bracket. Taxes such as the estate tax, gift tax, and payroll and corporate taxes are also paid almost entirely by the wealthy, who are more likely to have non-wage income. At the same time, policies like the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit favor low- and middle-income families.

Bezos is right when he says higher taxes on the rich won’t solve the affordability crisis; more revenue for the government doesn’t mean wiser spending… More 

Will the defeated Massie run for President in 2028? Will he seek the LP nomination, and/or the GOP nod? One more analysis of the $32 million spent by a foreign power and its supporters to supplant the one truly antiwar, libertarian-friendly voice still left in Congress:

Is the younger demographic decisively shifting libertarian, even within the statist Republican universe? How did Massie go from being Charlie Kirk’s favorite Congressman, to Trump’s enemy no.1? Liberty Lockdown goes over the battle between the donor elite controlled media (on and offline) and the true outsiders represented in the KY primary case.  Judge Nap talks to Max Blumenthal about the strangely huge ramifications of the Massie defeat, Iran, Cuba, and the subversion of what the US populist movement once was, into how it has ended up:

Zo closes the city’s $12 billion deficit in the new budget through a variety of fiscal force measures, as per the below City Journal summary. How about our big government guy do so mainly by cutting spending, unneeded programs, laws and regulations, or eliminating legalized tax theft, along with encouraging voluntary business enterprise to return to NYC? Inconceivable:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took a victory lap around the City Hall rooftop with the release of his proposed balanced budget for fiscal year 2027, which begins on July 1. He’s closed a $12 billion funding gap he inherited on taking office, he claims, without resorting to the dreaded austerity measures supposedly demanded by budget grumps who, unlike him, want to harm “working people” and benefit the wealthy.

Balancing the budget is, of course, the mayor’s job, by law. Mamdani deserves credit for submitting a credible financial plan. Despite his inexperience, he has mastered the process and successfully worked with the governor and the legislature to get the budget relief he needed. But his plan is good for just one year. If he had listened more to the budget critics, less trouble would be in store for the future. Depending on unfolding events, many beyond his control, working people may still find their benefits under serious strain.

The mayor closed the funding gap in two phases. In his preliminary budget, last February, he included $6.6 billion in additional tax revenue over fiscal years 2026 and 2027, and $1.5 billion in state aid promised by Governor Kathy Hochul. That closed most of the gap, but Mamdani also included $1.77 billion in projected agency savings, drew down reserves, and proposed a $3.7 billion property tax increase.

The property tax hike was in lieu of the mayor’s desired increase in personal and business income taxes, which required state legislation that the governor opposed. That ploy was received coldly by the city council, and the mayor has now dropped it. Commentators also criticized drawing down the city’s already inadequate reserves. So Mamdani went back to the drawing board for the May executive budget… Read the Rest

This video explains a Supreme Court decision that wipes out the use of gun permits to restrict access to firearms. If the gun control freaks are calling it a “libertarian  victory,” you know it’s got to be good:

Scheerpost blog discusses the Doomsday Debt problem from the point of view of what to do about job losses brought about by the AI explosion:

…A Universal Basic Income (UBI) has long been proposed as a way to cushion the blow of jobs lost to automation. Under that model, everyone receives a modest monthly payment – enough to cover basic needs and prevent extreme poverty.

But Elon Musk has gone further. On April 16, he posted on X:

Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.

AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money
supply, so there will not be inflation.

Rather than a subsistence stipend, Universal High Income (UHI) would be a level of income allowing ordinary people to live well in a world where machines do most of the work. Musk has also said that AI and robotics are the only things that can solve the massive U.S. debt crisis.

That sounds promising, but where will the government get the money to pay the UHI? Critics say any government that tried it would go bankrupt. There are also other concerns, which will be addressed in Part 2 of this article. Here we will look at the financial underpinnings: why UHI is even thinkable, why AI forces a reexamination of how money enters the economy, why the current system cannot scale to meet what is coming, and the implicit transition needed to meet that challenge.

Why the Current Money System Cannot Scale

The national debt of the U.S. government just topped $39 trillion. China’s is $18.7 trillion. Japan’s is $8.6 trillion. Those of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are each in the multi-trillion-dollar range. Collective global debt now stands at $353 trillion, 305% of the world’s annual economic output. So even if, hypothetically, everything produced in the world in a year were applied toward liquidating the debt, it still would not be enough to pay it all off.

In fact the debt can never be repaid, because of the way money currently enters the system. Nearly all of the money supply today is created by banks when they make loans. Banks do not lend their existing capital. The loan itself creates the money. The bank adds the loan amount to the asset side of its balance sheet and balances that sum with the same amount on the liability side. When the borrower withdraws or transfers the funds, either the bank takes them from its reserves in “vault cash” or the Federal Reserve debits the bank’s digital reserve account at the central bank. But the lending bank typically has funds coming into its reserve account at about the same rate as they are going out, so its reserves are continually replenished. Thus a very small reserve account can support a much larger money creation engine. For decades before the Fed discontinued the reserve requirement in 2020, it hovered at around 10%.

The chief problem with this debt-based system is the interest, which the bank does not create in its original loan. For a typical long-term loan, interest can double the total tab or more. Where is the money to come from to pay this added liability? Across the system as a whole, it must either come from more borrowing or from existing funds. In the case of governments, that means issuing interest-bearing bonds or tapping taxes and other revenues. The interest on the debt compounds, meaning the government is paying interest on interest. This makes the debt increase exponentially, until it is mathematically unsustainable. Then bankruptcies occur, of banks or even whole governments. Booms turn into busts, and the cycle begins again.

Today, interest on the federal debt is the second largest budget line item after Social Security, exceeding $1 trillion. Meanwhile, workers are losing jobs to AI/robotics, shrinking the income tax base. The system is clearly unsustainable… Read More

With Round Two of the Iran War seemingly on the horizon, Smith calls for free speech advocates everywhere to take a stand:

Join us for QL’s Mother’s Day weekend meeting as the Libertarian Party of Queens County (LPQC) on May 9 at noon. It will be held will be held at our Astoria location, Stamatis Greek and Mediterranean Restaurant at 29-09 23rd Avenue (in the back area, menu details at stamatisrestaurant.net). This official LP county committee function will serve as a full general meeting, in anticipation of the upcoming LP National Convention.

We hope to have an update by Larry Sharpe or a representative about the progress of his campaign for Governor, and the LPNY candidate situation. New candidates for office are given an opportunity to announce their interest in running and meet and greet those attending. We also expect to give a tribute to longtime Queens activist John Clifton, who will also discuss solutions to current party issues and circumstances.

Attendees are asked to pay/renew dues of $20 to LPQC by or during the proceedings in order to vote. In this session members will again be offered to serve as LPQC officers, and as key persons or “team members” for the following positions: media contact, membership/fundraising, candidate/activist outreach, youth/campus outreach, community/business outreach. Please attend, and volunteer to help in one of these areas! Hope to see you there!

The Big Brother, or Beast system is not just coming, or not just here, it’s in your vehicle, which is now being hardware rigged to read your biometric data, and cancel your rights. Melanie King reports:

Reason’s Damon Root (who used to interview LPNY candidates at Columbia University back in the day) on the Supreme Court case that evaluates the privacy violations implicated by the use of “geo-fencing” (police getting mass digital location info of cell phone users):

…At issue in Chatrie v. United States is a law enforcement tool known as a “geofence warrant.” In this case, the police told Google to search the location histories of every one of its users in order to determine which users were present in the vicinity of a bank robbery.

Adam Unikowsky, the lawyer for Okello Chatrie, whose conviction stemmed from that geofence warrant, told the justices that the government’s tactics should be viewed as an illegal “general warrant,” the sort of all-compassing search that the Fourth Amendment was originally written to prevent. “There was not probable cause to search the virtual private papers of every single person within the geofence merely because of their proximity to the crime,” he argued.

By contrast, Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin told the justices that Chatrie’s position, if adopted, would result in an “unprecedented transformation of the Fourth Amendment into an impregnable fortress around records of his public movements that he affirmatively consented to allow Google to create, maintain, and use.” Read More