“Right after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017 someone punched white nationalist Richard Spencer in the face on live television. This led to several days of the internet asking whether it is okay to sucker punch Nazis. (The answer, for those who missed that session, is that no, it is not okay to sucker punch people who have noxious views, because it is not okay to sucker punch people, period.) At the time I was deeply disturbed to see how many people were willing to endorse political violence. In retrospect, this seems almost quaint.” (09/11/25)
“Belarus has pardoned 52 prisoners and released them into Lithuania, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said on Thursday, as the Baltic nation and Belarus both thanked US President Donald Trump for his involvement. It is the latest release of political prisoners by Belarus amid warming relations between Washington and Minsk. A Trump administration official said the United States would ease some sanctions on Belarus’[s] state-run airline, Belavia, ‘based on the prisoner releases to date and constructive engagement.'” (09/11/25)
“At times like this it is worth considering and reflecting upon the history and principles of religious toleration. We often lost sight of just how demanding and challenging calls for religious toleration were in prior times. Religious toleration was not about being nice to people with different customs or holidays, let alone approving or affirming them, but something far more profound.” (09/11/25)
“Consumer prices rose 2.9% in August compared to a year ago, marking an uptick in price increases as President Donald Trump’s tariff policy intensified. The reading matched economists’ expectations. The fresh inflation data indicated an acceleration from a 2.7% inflation rate recorded in the month prior, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Price increases remain below the 3% rate recorded in January, the month Trump took office. The new report arrives days before the Federal Reserve is set to announce a widely expected quarter-point interest rate cut.” (09/11/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Allen Mendenhall
“My son, age 13, knew Charlie better than I did, if it can be called knowing to watch a man through a screen. Thirteen is an age suspended between innocence and experience: old enough to see that ideas have consequences, young enough to hope those consequences need not include death. He would watch Charlie debate, and what he learned was not any particular doctrine but something more fundamental: that it is possible to believe strongly enough to defend those beliefs in public, to submit one’s convictions to the test of argument and counterargument. When he got out of school yesterday, I had to tell him that the man whose clarity of thought he admired had been murdered for, it seems, the crime of thinking aloud.” (09/11/25)
“Each year, few developments in healthcare policy are more consequential than the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) payment updates. These rules determine how much doctors and hospitals are paid by Medicare—decisions that ripple across the entire healthcare system, shaping the supply of medical care and influencing the rates private insurers pay. This summer, CMS released the new administration’s first proposal for adjusting Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. The proposed 2026 rule begins to rebalance reimbursements by shifting spending away from hospital-owned settings for care and toward primary care and other freestanding outpatient clinics.” (09/11/25)
