Just two weeks after President Trump pulled the US from the Iran nuclear agreement, his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, issued 12 demands to Iran that could never be satisfied. Pompeo knew his demands would be impossible to meet. They were designed that way. Just like Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia in July, 1914, that led to the beginning of World War I. And just like the impossible demands made of Milosevic in 1999 and of Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003, and so many other times when Washington wanted war. These impossible demands are tools of war rather than steps toward peace.

The world has been plagued with periodic bouts of the economic rollercoaster of booms and busts, inflations and recessions, especially during the last one hundred years. The main culprits responsible for these destabilizing and disruptive episodes have been governments and their central banks. They have monopolized the control of their respective nation’s monetary and banking systems, and mismanaged them. There is really nowhere else to point other than in their direction.

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Leftist political commentators continue to be in denial about Venezuela.

On his show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, comedian John Oliver recently covered Venezuela’s current economic crisis.

Like any leftist analysis of Venezuela’s economic disaster, Oliver’s segment completely misses the mark.

The populist coalition in Italy has presented an “economic” program and a threat to the European Union that makes Greece look like a walk in the park.

Let us start with reality.

Italy’s economic problems are self-inflicted, not due to the Euro.

I remember two books from my adult pre-Rothbardian days: Bonfire of the Vanities, and Liar’s Poker. The first written by the recently departed Tom Wolfe, the second by Michael Lewis, who recalled telling his daughter on the way to interview Mr. Wolfe in 2015, “I want at least one of my children to meet him.

“I need a witness!” exclaimed the security screener at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Because I had forgotten to remove my belt before going through a scanner, he explained, I must undergo an “enhanced patdown.” I told him that if he jammed his hand into my groin, I’d file a formal complaint. So he summoned his supervisor to keep an eye on the proceedings.

Whenever the Supreme Court’s end-of-the-term “announcement season” comes around, I am reminded of the importance of handling precedent correctly under a Constitution that is supposed to remain “the supreme law of the land.” Such a result requires that courts actively maintain constitutional rights against government overreaching, meaning that divergent precedents must not be allowed to preempt the Constitution.