“Coal’s decline was not caused by a federal plot to transition away from coal, like Trump thinks, but rather by markets and innovation. Advancements in renewable energy technologies—which were, and continue to be, supported by subsidies—made the energy source more attractive to investors. Breakthroughs in horizontal drilling in the early 2000s brought a flood of cheap and abundant natural gas to the market. These technologies priced coal out, which lowered energy bills for consumers and significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
The energy source is also not as cost-effective as the executive order claims. Coal plants are expensive to build and operate, and transportation costs can exceed the price of coal at the mine. These economic factors have informed investors and utilities not to build coal-fired power plants—the most recent large plant was built in 2013—which has made the current fleet of these power plants less efficient than other energy sources.
To be sure, some regulatory barriers, including federal air quality standards and state-level bans, have made coal less competitive. However, “it is the market that explains coal’s decline better than regulations,” Philip Rossetti, an energy policy analyst at the R Street Institute, tells Reason.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/10/markets-dont-want-more-coal-trump-is-propping-up-the-industry-anyway/
“If Washington truly abandons its role as the world’s police officer, Europe would struggle to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army, at least in that time frame. Many European countries, especially Germany, have neglected their own military in recent decades. While Russia has converted everything to a war economy, parts of Europe have only just woken up from the dream of a peaceful world. Military experts proclaim that it will take more than four years to manufacture an arsenal of conventional weapons of the size needed to counter a Russian invasion. While most observers consider a Russian attack on Germany unlikely, even this is not an impossible scenario.
That’s why, to deter Russia, Germany and Europe need their own nuclear shield.”
…
“relying solely on France seems risky especially with French nationalist Marine Le Pen, a known Russia sympathizer, or another figure from her nationalist party potentially taking over the Élysée Palace in the near future. A broader European solution also involving Britain’s nuclear capabilities — and possibly Poland as a front-line state — would be far more prudent.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/08/nuclear-weapons-europe-defense-trump-00278754
More than half of all retired Americans rely on Social Security for over half of their revenue. Social Security is very important to helping people retire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoxFNhY17gQ
The Bible doesn’t say that you need to believe every part of the Bible or else you don’t get salvation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhyDvIhqHok
“Argentina’s poverty rate fell sharply in the second half of 2024, according to official data released this week, marking a major milestone for President Javier Milei’s sweeping economic reforms.
According to the country’s official statistics agency, the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC), the poverty rate fell to 38.1 percent between July 2024 and December 2024—down nearly 15 percentage points from the first half of the year. Household poverty also declined by 13.9 percentage points, hitting 28.6 percent. And extreme poverty was cut by more than half, falling from 18.1 percent to 8.2 percent.
It’s a major turnaround from the beginning of Milei’s presidency. When he took office in December 2023, he inherited a poverty rate of 41.7 percent, which quickly surged to 53 percent as his administration launched a “shock therapy” program to end Argentina’s economic misery.
One of the biggest drivers behind the poverty decline is the sharp drop in inflation. Annual inflation, which reached 276.2 percent a year ago—one of the highest in the world—dropped to 66.9 percent last month. Monthly inflation has also dropped, from 25.5 percent in December to just 2.4 percent in February.*
“These figures reflect the failure of past policies, which plunged millions of Argentines into precarious conditions while promoting the idea of helping the poor, even as poverty continued to increase,” Milei’s office said in a statement following the release of the INDEC report. “The current administration has shown that the path of economic freedom and fiscal responsibility is the way to reduce poverty in the long term.”
In other words, Milei’s bet on free market reforms is starting to pay off.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/02/javier-mileis-free-market-reforms-are-starting-to-pay-off/
“Vaccine “skeptic” David Geier has reportedly been hired by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a data analyst to oversee a new study probing the possible links between vaccinations and autism.
High-quality research and transparency are not likely outcomes from a project headed by Geier. Geier and his physician father, Mark, have published in a variety of obscure journal articles claiming that vaccines cause autism. Based on those sketchy publications, they began hiring themselves out as “expert witnesses” in hundreds of vaccine-related lawsuits. Mark Geier was stripped of his medical license by the Maryland Board of Physicians over dosing autistic children with his home-brewed treatments.
The Geiers asserted that their research had found that tiny amounts of ethyl mercury preservative (thimerosal) in some vaccines was the culprit behind the rise in autism diagnoses. Interestingly, thimerosal has never been used in the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine that has most widely been blamed for causing autism. However, excepting seasonal flu vaccines, thimerosal in the U.S. was removed from any other vaccines in 1999. Amusingly, the Geiers took note of that fact and published an article in 2006 claiming that autism rates were subsequently declining. As it happens, the rate of autism diagnoses has increased since then. Evidently tiny amounts of mercury in vaccines has nothing to do with autism.
In any case, the claim that vaccines cause autism has been comprehensively debunked.
“The problem with the Geiers’ research is that they start with the answers and work backwards,” said Dr. Steven Black, director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, California, in 2005. “They are doing voodoo science.”
By applying his methodology in his new study of the putative relationship between autism and vaccines, Geier will doubtlessly and transparently get the answers that our new secretary of Health and Human Services thinks he already knows.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/03/rfk-jr-hires-a-vaccine-skeptic-to-find-the-cause-of-autism/
“CNN’s Jake Tapper has released a book on this subject: Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. That’s in addition to the books by Parnes, Allen, and Whipple. One can’t help but wonder, however, why it took so long to get the real story. Maybe journalists weren’t properly clued in to Biden’s decline until after the debate? That’s a bit hard to believe, though: At the very least, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s claims some months earlier that Biden appeared to be an “elderly man with a poor memory” should have set off alarm bells.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/03/joe-bidens-handlers-definitely-knew-did-the-media/
USA Announces UK Trade Deal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EReJBPwFxj0
A lot of uncertainty in what’s really going on in the air war between India and Pakistan. A lot of propaganda and biased commentators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elImXpteVdI
India and Pakistan War: Here’s What’s Happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVrCpoAsMyc