In a better world, the media would treat the appearance of the hammer and sickle at this weekend’s No Kings rallies the same way it treated the appearance of the tiki torches in Charlottesville, Va. That is to say, as evidence that something has gone deeply wrong in our political culture.
In 2017, a platoon of fascist dorks marched across the lawn at the University of Virginia chanting, “You will not replace us.” The entire political world flipped out for weeks—months, years even. They’re still recovering.
In 2026, keffiyeh-clad tankies clustered in New York’s Times Square chanting, “Only one solution, Communist revolution.” How much do you want to bet you’ll never hear about it again?
Communism is like Covid-19: a pathogen of relatively recent vintage that will be with us forever. As Free Expression columnist Louise Perry wrote in January, communism’s “infantile morality” is perennially attractive to the young. Its empty promise of a new world built on sharing and caring appeals to the ignorant envy of the unformed mind. It’s baby stuff
A well-functioning society educates the baby stuff out of its citizens. That doesn’t happen here because the people who do the teaching tend to be communist sympathizers, if not outright believers.
…..
The hammer and sickle represents repression and dictatorship, stagnation and misery, the negation of human rights, the opposite of progress. It is the symbol of unfreedom, and therefore of slavery. It is death on a stick.
When an American sees the hammer and sickle he should feel the same instinct to retch that he feels when he sees the swastika. That he doesn’t—that he rolls his eyes and thinks, “They’re just kids, they’ll grow out of it”—is an insult to the memory of the 100 million [innocent people killed by communism]. And it suggests that the grand total is perhaps not the final tally.
Peter Earle writes wisely about AI. Here’s his conclusion:
History suggests that the economic consequences of sweeping technological change hinge less on the invention than on the institutional ecosystem surrounding it. Electrification required factory redesign. The internal combustion engine required road networks and suburban development. The Internet required specialized software, new legal frameworks, and payment systems. Artificial intelligence will be no different. Its aggregate productivity impact will depend on education systems that adapt, firms that reorganize workflows, and regulatory regimes that neither stifle experimentation nor generate moral hazard. In that sense, the Productivity Panic of 2026 is likely to be less about machines replacing workers than about whether our institutions can evolve as quickly as our technologies.
Artificial intelligence is currently the white-hot center of America’s economy. Big Tech is investing more than $750 billion in data centers this year, mostly domestically. Unsurprisingly, wages for construction workers and the skilled trades are skyrocketing. Communities like Virginia’s Loudoun County are almost covering their entire operating budgets through data-center taxes.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders want to put a stop to all of that. On Wednesday, the pair jointly proposed a universal halt to America’s AI economy. Their bill would enact a moratorium on new and existing data-center growth as well as a ban on exporting AI chips. The pause would last until Congress passes a “framework” to regulate the industry.
In other words, the degrowth duo want to tie up America’s most innovative and globally competitive industry using the same bureaucratic process that has recently resulted in TSA airport security lines snaking through terminals and parking garages. And they want to take advantage of Americans’ understandable fears about new technology to impose their radical beliefs on the nation’s economy.
The Editors of National Review decry progressives’ determination to further soak the rich. A slice:
Above all, a wealth tax would be unjust because it aims to perpetrate the very expropriation that republican government exists to prevent. The purpose of the tax code is to pay for legitimate state functions, not to seize money from one set of citizens and dole it out to another. Contrary to popular belief, the richest households already contribute the bulk of federal revenue and pay higher effective tax rates than anyone else. Any leftover wealth is rightfully theirs to spend as they see fit.
Absent a compelling message on affordability, progressives are attempting to channel voters’ economic discontent into class resentment. But a punitive tax on the rich would do no one any good, while risking U.S. investment and competitiveness.
Two years after the European Union (EU)’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) took effect, the results have been mixed to negative. Promises about certainty, lower enforcement costs, and a more innovative and competitive digital ecosystem haven’t materialized.
Rather than learn from Europe’s mistakes, Californian policymakers and federal proponents of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)’s American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) would import similar ideas to ostensibly help small businesses and hold tech giants accountable. The EU’s experience shows that DMA-style proposals aren’t just unlikely to achieve these goals. They’re also likely to harm consumers, competition, and innovation.
Fossil-fuel opponents aren’t letting the Iran war go to political waste. Progressives are using rising energy prices to seek higher taxes on oil and gas companies, which would discourage the investment needed to increase supply and bring down prices after the war is over.
Iran’s harassment of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on the region’s energy infrastructure have driven up oil and gasoline prices. Enter Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and California Rep. Ro Khanna, who have introduced a bill that would impose a 50% tax on U.S. crude sold above the 2025 Brent average (roughly $68 a barrel).
Democrats have proposed similar bills to tax the so-called windfall earnings of oil producers in the previous two Congresses, which is a giveaway that the war in Iran isn’t what’s motivating them. They want to reduce U.S. production at any time for any reason.
U.S. producers have benefited from higher prices caused by the war, but much less than the left claims. Some frackers began pulling back rigs last year as prices fell below what they needed to break even on their investments. Producer margins last year were squeezed by inflation, higher interest rates and tariffs.
The price of Brent crude has been bouncing around north of $100 a barrel, though U.S. shale blends trade at a steep discount in part because they are more costly to refine. At a Brent price of $112 under the Whitehouse-Khanna bill, the government would extract $22 in tax for every barrel sold. That’s more than what some producers have been earning in profit.
Higher prices enable companies to boost supply. Taxing production does the opposite. The short-lived U.S. experiment with a windfall oil profits tax from 1980 to 1988 reduced domestic production and resulted in 80% less tax revenue than projected. Congress finally repealed the tax because it made the U.S. more dependent on foreign oil.
The Trump administration is hard at work raising Americans’ cost of living. (HT Scott Lincicome)
The Trump administration ordered U.S. refiners on Friday to blend a record amount of #biofuels into their gasoline and diesel this year and next, a move the refining industry said would raise #gas pump #prices already spiking due to the war in Iran.
