Source: Show-Me Institute
by David Stokes

“There is a long list of really dumb taxes in Missouri. The St. Louis and Kansas City earnings taxes are actively harmful to growth and opportunity. The personal property taxes on livestock are absurd. The pool table tax has long been an anachronism. But I have always thought that the single worst tax is Missouri is the local economic development sales tax. Why is it the worst? Because while the other taxes are harmful, they at least fund, in part, necessary functions of government. The economic development sales tax is a tax that entirely funds actions that cities should not be engaged in. It’s a tax that collects more money from people to make our communities worse off.” (12/10/25)

https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/special-taxing-districts/webster-groves-should-not-institute-an-economic-development-sales-tax/

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“United States Founding Father Thomas Jefferson was a firm believer in ‘the good sense of the people’ when it came to exercising citizenship in a democracy. To promote constructive public engagement, he urged, ‘give them full information … thro’ the channel of the public papers’. ‘Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,’ Mr. Jefferson wrote to a friend in 1787. The third U.S. president could likely not have imagined the huge volume and varied forms of today’s ‘newspapers’ – accessed 24/7, in print, over the airwaves, and online. However, even as media access has increased exponentially, press freedoms in 2025 are shrinking globally. News outlets are facing unprecedented political and financial pressures, and journalists are increasingly being silenced or targeted.” (12/10/25)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1210/The-democracy-of-a-free-press

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“Mike Johnson has lost control of the House of Representatives. Since reopening the chamber in November after a 53-day sojourn, he has seen continued Republican retirements and resignations in advance of an expected loss of power in next year’s midterms. Voting days have often devolved into recriminations involving individual members. Consensus to avoid a major legislative embarrassment by allowing Affordable Care Act health insurance premiums to skyrocket has been lacking. And Johnson has on several occasions lost control of the agenda-setting power to schedule floor votes, the most basic authority of a House Speaker. Discharge petitions, which if signed by a majority of House members can go around the Speaker and obtain an automatic floor vote, have succeeded on two occasions in recent weeks.” (12/11/25)

https://prospect.org/2025/12/11/house-democratic-leaders-urged-to-force-vote-stock-trading-ban/