Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter

“On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted US Patent No. 174,565 for the speaking telegraph or telephone. Three weeks earlier, on February 14, both Bell and another inventor, Elisha Gray, submitted their respective ideas to the US Patent Office. On March 10, Bell used a liquid transmitter (an early microphone) to call his assistant, Thomas Watson, with the words, ‘Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.’ This is commonly regarded as the first intelligible voice transmission over an electrical wire. With that in mind, this year not only marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, the 100th year of Murray Rothbard, and 40 years of Mises University, but also 150 years since the official invention of the telephone. This provides an opportunity to review the history of how telephone invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship—combined with cronyism, patents, regulations, and monopoly—shaped the landscape of the telephone industry for generations.” (08/14/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/ahoy-ahoy-telephone-entrepreneurship-and-cronyism

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Rachel Chiu

“As Jimmy Lai’s imprisonment shows, a country’s economic prosperity means very little if it fails to preserve civil liberties. … Lai, a self-made entrepreneur and billionaire, had the opportunity to flee before his arrest, but chose to stay to encourage millions of Hong Kongers to keep fighting for the freedom and autonomy that the region has had for decades. His plight resonates strongly with me because of my family’s experiences during the Chinese Communist Revolution, but it should be just as meaningful for every American who believes in the virtues of economic and social freedoms.” (08/14/26)

https://fee.org/articles/true-courage-in-hong-kong/

Source: Show-Me Institute
by Patrick Tuohey

“Between April 2021 and February 2026, the small city of Sedalia paid a single law firm, Lauber Municipal Law, just shy of $2 million—nearly one invoice per business day, according to reporting by Genevieve Smith and Annie Goldman of the Columbia Missourian. Sedalia’s population is a little over 20,000. Out of its $35 million budget for fiscal year 2026, the city set aside $500,000 for legal fees. Residents are asking why. The answer, at least in part, is Missouri’s Sunshine Law.” (08/14/26)

https://showmeinstitute.org/article/state-and-local-government/small-missouri-towns-are-paying-a-high-price-for-open-government/

Source: Law & Liberty
by James R Rogers

“Christopher Nolan wants to tell a fundamentally different story than Homer told.” (08/14/26)

https://lawliberty.org/taming-odysseus/

Source: Law & Liberty
by George Hawley

‘There may have been costs to uniting the right around a hatred of mainstream media.” (08/14/26)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-last-conservative-consensus/