April 20, 2026

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE:

Posted at 12:07 pm by Glenn Reynolds

GOODER AND HARDER, FUN CITY: New York City Isn’t Prepared for a Recession.

In mid-February, just seven weeks into office, New York City Mayor Zohran K. Mamdani delivered somber news to state legislators: the city faces a $5.4 billion deficit for the fiscal year beginning July 1, the result, he said, “of budgetary failures of the past.” Even after spending cuts, he argued, the state should raise income and business taxes and transfer the proceeds to the city immediately—“the most direct route out of this budget crisis.” Thankfully for New Yorkers, the mayor was mostly bluffing: this year’s budget gap is manageable, and the city faces no acute emergency.

But Mamdani’s push unwittingly raised a graver point: If things are this strained when the global, state, and local economies are nominally doing all right, and when city tax revenues are therefore rising, what would happen if the city entered a recession—historically, a matter not of if but when?

No modern New York mayor, save for Mamdani’s one-term predecessor, Eric L. Adams, has avoided a downturn, and the economy is overdue for one. Aside from the sharp unemployment spike caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns in the spring of 2020, the U.S. economy has not experienced a normal cyclical recession since 2008, nearly two decades ago. And no modern mayor is less equipped than Mamdani to grapple with an economic and fiscal crisis.

After attacking him during the mayoral race, Mamdani has wisely attempted to buddy-up to Trump. Will that be enough to prevent the “TRUMP TO CITY: DROP DEAD” headlines that are sure to follow from New York’s tabloids?

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

YES, IT SHOULD:

Posted at 11:52 am by Stephen Green

DO YOU SEE THOSE, TOO? I For One Welcome Our New Giant Melting Purple Neon Spider Overlords. “At the very least, hopefully we should get some good data on whether psychedelics like ibogaine are actually effective in treating PTSD and other disorders. Maybe they’ll help, and maybe they won’t.”

Early studies showed promise with MDMA, but not in a later, bigger study. Same with THC.

So my hopes aren’t high, but maybe one of these days…

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM:

Posted at 11:24 am by Stephen Green

ALSO, THE TRAILER MADE IT LOOK HEAVY HANDED AND POORLY DONE:

Posted at 10:53 am by Stephen Green

A HUNDRED MILLION HERE AND A HUNDRED MILLION THERE…: Putin losing $100M a day from Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s oil infrastructure.

Ukrainian drone strikes targeted Russian oil refineries overnight into Saturday, hitting four important sites.

Fire raged at the Novokuybyshevsk and Syzran oil refineries in the Samara region, as well as at an oil terminal in Leningrad and the Tikhoretsk oil pumping station in Krasnodar Krai, Ukraine’s Armed Forces said.

Ukrainian drones also hit oil storage sites in the occupied Mariupol region.

Russia, meanwhile, launched 219 drones across Ukraine, killing at least one and wounding 26 others.

The worst attack was in Zaporizhzhia, where drone and missile strikes that lasted for hours injured 10 civilians. A multi-story apartment building and nine houses were destroyed.

It comes as Russia’s top diplomatic envoy said Saturday peace talks with Ukraine are not at the top of Putin’s to do list.

Moscow’s spring offensive has yet to accomplish much, and casualties remain high.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll

REMINDER:

Posted at 10:22 am by Stephen Green

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

Posted at 10:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

HMM, WITH A CHICAGO TWIST:

Posted at 9:51 am by Stephen Green

HEY, BIG SPENDER: Massachusetts paid out $1 billion in improper SNAP payments while 75% of able-bodied recipients didn’t work, new report finds.

The report, released Thursday and authored by visiting policy analyst Hayden Dublois, found that the Commonwealth now carries a SNAP error rate of 14.1 percent — significantly higher than the national average of roughly 11 percent, and the worst of any state in New England. New Hampshire, by contrast, ranks among the best in the country.

SNAP enrollment in Massachusetts has surged 40 percent over the past decade, climbing from just under 785,000 recipients in 2015 to more than 1.1 million in 2024. The study found that between 65 and 75 percent of able-bodied recipients are not working, while state policies continue to allow individuals to bypass federal asset limits and remain eligible for benefits regardless of accumulated wealth.

A whistleblower cited in the report described fraud within the system as “rampant” and “unabated,” along with a workplace culture that actively discourages basic verification of eligibility.

If the workplace culture “actively discourages basic verification of eligibility,” then fraud is the desired result.

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green

SOME OF US WERE SAYING THIS BEFORE HE WAS SWORN IN:

Posted at 9:20 am by Stephen Green

GOOD QUESTION:

On a wide range of issues, the long tail of East Bloc Cold War propaganda has much more of a foothold in American politics, both left and even more surprisingly, right (I’m looking at you, Tucker Carlson), than it ever had during the Cold War.

Two reasons come to mind, though they are at best partial explanations. One is our elite universities, which have long been home to domestic radicals, but now also house a large contingent of Third World Communists and Islamists, such as Mamdani’s father. A second is the popularity of Bernie Sanders, who had a long career as a Communist fellow traveler before pretending to moderate to become a Vermont senator, and whose increasingly radical rhetoric on everything from greedy bankers to “Palestine” is right out of the wrong side of the Cold War playbook.

Posted at 9:16 am by David Bernstein