Just One Thing
The terrorized Ukrainian city of Mariupol is now described simultaneously as no longer existing...and also as having a small group of remaining defenders who are defying the murderous forces of Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol defy surrender-or-die demand | Miami Herald
Today's Guests
Matthew Continetti is a scholar of American conservatism at the American Enterprise Institute. His new book is entitled "The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism" and it will be published tomorrow.
Matthew Continetti | American Enterprise Institute - AEI
The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism
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Dan Mitchell is the co-founder and CEO of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. We'll talk about tax day, Tax Freedom Day, and the downside of the existence of paycheck withholding as a way for people to pay their federal income taxes.
Dan's blog and free email notes are a MUST: International Liberty | Restraining Government in America and Around the World (wordpress.com)
Dan Mitchell (freedomandprosperity.org)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/tax-withholding-miracle-grow-government
Other Stuff
A big thank you to Talkers (once primarily a magazine and now primarily a web site and online newsletter) for naming me to their "Heavy Hundred" list of "the most important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America."
It's my first time on the list and I join my friend Mandy Connell (who has been there for several years now.) If you're a talk radio junkie, you'll find looking through the list quite interesting: 2022 Heavy Hundred - 76-100 | TALKERS magazine - talk radio trade : TALKERS magazine – “The bible of talk media.” (That link is for the last quarter of the list, which is where I am in my first year on it...you can work up from there!)
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It's Tax Day...and Tax Freedom Day. As has been the case for a long time, the top 1% pay more in federal income taxes than do the bottom 90%, and almost as much as the bottom 95%...it's probably around 94%. So, yes, the tax system is "unfair" as our friends on the left so often say; it's just unfair in exactly the opposite way from what they claim.
https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data
Americans Will Spend 6.5 Billion Hours on Income Taxes This Year (reason.com)
Tax Freedom Day in USA in 2022 | There is a Day for that!
Hey, it could be worse: you could be Canadian: Tax Freedom Day | Fraser Institute
It's also a good day to talk about the tax code's opiate of the masses which doubles as its own super-growth formula: withholding. https://www.cato.org/commentary/tax-withholding-miracle-grow-government
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A month or two ago, as Ilya Shapiro was getting in trouble with his new employer, Georgetown University Law School, for unartfully saying that it was a mistake for President Biden to only consider black women for the Supreme Court (Ilya was not saying anything bad about black women but rather that such a process was deeply flawed), Judge James Ho arrived at GU Law to give a speech to the students there, many of whom were calling for Ilya's firing because they're oh-so-tolerant of differences of opinion. Oh, I should note that Ilya had quickly deleted the triggering tweet and apologized for not making his meaning clearer even though honest people knew what he was saying. Anyway, Judge Ho threw out his prepared remarks and instead gave a brilliant short speech extolling the virtues of interacting with people of differing views and subtly chastising the GU snowflakes among the students and management. The Judge has just released that speech as an article including footnotes/references and it's well worth your time to read. The first half is particularly timeless: Hon. James C. Ho - GJLPP.pdf - Google Drive
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Democrats keep pushing President Biden to cancel student debt. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wants up to $50,000 per borrower canceled. This is insane. Even the left-leaning Brookings Institution says it's a bad idea, noting "Forgiving all student debt would be a transfer larger than the amounts the nation has spent over the past 20 years on unemployment insurance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, or food stamps. And in contrast to those programs, which serve deeply poor families, beneficiaries of student debt forgiveness would be higher income, better educated, and whiter than beneficiaries of just about all other programs designed to reduce economic hardship and promote economic opportunity." Student loan forgiveness is regressive whether measured by income, education, or wealth (brookings.edu)
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A tremendous (and fairly short) article by two reporters who interviewed Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Kyiv last week. The stakes (at least for now) appear slightly smaller than a full world-war, although I'm sure WWI and WWII also did for a while but it's impossible not to think of Zelenskyy as a man born for his time in much the same way that Winston Churchill was even if the two men could hardly be more different in every other way that I can think of. Volodymyr Zelensky: The Worst May Be Ahead of Us - The Atlantic
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The original artwork for the logo for the iconic rock band Kiss is up for auction: Ace Frehley’s Original Kiss Logo Design Up for Auction (ultimateclassicrock.com)
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I saw Dune this weekend. Good but not as good as I'd hoped from the rave reviews. The story itself (and I have read the book) was slightly plodding. The acting was fairly good. The visual effects were stunning. It has the feel of an epic, obviously with more than one sequel intended, like when the first Star Wars movie came out, but with a less interesting plot (so far) and less varying of mood than in Star Wars which ranged from (moderately) violent to downright funny and which had more interesting characters than Dune does.
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Lesson learned: Don't throw a surprise party for an employee who doesn't want one, and definitely don't fire him if he gets mad when you do: Kentucky man's birthday surprise costs his employer $450k after adverse reaction | Fox Business
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Washington Post reporters whining about the possibility of a rich guy controlling a major media platform...don't they know who owns them? Twitter under control of one person frightens online safety experts - The Washington Post
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Sorry for all the articles today, but this too is a worthwhile short read about American entrepreneurial dynamism and its discontents: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-case-for-american-seriousness
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This house comes with a very special bonus: House on Sale for $800,000 Comes With Mystery Basement Dweller Who Doesn’t Pay Rent (odditycentral.com)
Today's Videos
The ironically named Ever Forward container ship was stuck on a shoal in the Chesapeake Bay for a month. She was freed with the help of barges, tug boats, and the removal of about 500 of the roughly 5,000 containers it was carrying. So fortunate that this didn't turn into a disaster. By the way, this is the sister ship of the Ever Given, the ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal last year.
Ever Forward ship freed from Chesapeake Bay in Maryland | WTOP News