“A number of critics scoffed at the notion of the SAVE program being used responsibly (‘Used responsibly?? HAHAHA as if. This will be abused as much as it can be to disenfranchise voters wherever possible.’) I get it. There are valid reasons to be concerned this election season. But the opportunity for abuse isn’t specific to the SAVE program. There are many tools election administrators have that, if used properly, improve voter list accuracy, but if abused, could lead to adverse actions against registrants. For example, election officials receive reports from the United States Postal Service’s National Change of Address portal (‘NCOA’) indicating when a registrant has moved, thereby prompting list maintenance activity. That tool could be abused just as easily as the SAVE program. That’s why it’s important for voter registration offices to have internal controls.” (09/28/26)
“Of the many ridiculous, counterproductive, and outright harmful things that Donald Trump has done, his effort to create a ‘Golden Fleet’ of ‘Trump-class’ battleships is far from the worst offense. But it is absolutely typical of the personalistic and processless state into which American national security decision making has fallen in his second term.” (09/28/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by D Dowd Muska
“In a recent piece for Works in Progress, ‘a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world,’ Zigmund Forrest and Maxwell Tabarrok noted that since ‘the completion of Battery Park City in 1976, there has not been a single major urban land reclamation project in the United States.’ The researchers believe that water-adjacent cities should ‘make more land’ to, among other things, boost affordable housing. But there’s another approach urban America can employ to promote budget-friendly homes, and it doesn’t require massive civil-engineering projects: Sell the properties it’s been hoarding.” (09/28/26)
“A Colombian warlord, whose extradition to the United States had been delayed for several months while he was designated a peace negotiator by the country’s previous government, was flown to California and placed in custody of federal agents. Geovany Andres Rojas faces drug trafficking and terrorism charges in the United States. For years, he acted as a spokesman and leader of Comandos de la Frontera, a rebel group known for trafficking cocaine in Putumayo, a Colombian province that borders Ecuador and Peru. … a new government, led by conservative President Abelardo de la Espriella, lifted the ban on Rojas’s extradition, signaling a shift in the nation’s security strategy.” (09/28/26)
“Caleb O. Brown joined Kentucky Focus to discuss how in 2027 Kentucky’s HB 1 introduces a new scholarship tax credit program aiming to provide families with more educational options and supplemental resources.” (09/28/26)
“Effective altruists have been getting a lot of hate lately. But if you ever actually meet a group of effective altruists, even their harshest critics will struggle to maintain their anger. In person, they’re some of the most cheerful, friendly, curious, and smart people you will ever meet. Effective altruists are the opposite of the angry, self-righteous, apathetic, asocial youths who have given their generation a bad name. (And yes, strange as it seems, human beings can be angry, self-righteous, apathetic, and asocial at the same time). Not only are EAs extraordinarily likeable; they have also made strong arguments that have causally improved actually-existing philanthropy.” (09/28/26)
“Robby Soave gives his radar on the upcoming film ‘The Social Reckoning,’ which portrays the events surrounding the 2021 leak of Facebook documents.” (09/28/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“War is a special preoccupation of governments. And governments, we all learn at a young age, are the foundation of civilization. Without government who would protect us from foreign and domestic threats? Trump finds Iran a threat, as George W. Bush found Iraq under Saddam a threat. A threat to whom? The American people, most of whom happen to live on the other side of the Atlantic. In today’s world and for most of history, ‘government’ means an organization with a territorial monopoly of force and is usually called a state. It is sovereign within this territory. To be under its jurisdiction is to grant approval of government’s right to enforce its commands or laws, one of which is the demand that it be supported economically. … Imposing a state on society doesn’t make life better.” (09/28/260
“With Amtrak smashing ridership records and Brightline’s ridership rising, Americans appear increasingly willing to travel by rail. Brightline’s financial troubles raise a more difficult question: Who will pay to build the infrastructure needed to give more of them that option?” [editor’s note: It seems obvious to me, but not to the author, that the people who should pay for passenger rail infrastructure are the people who run companies hoping to offer rail travel profitable to paying customers. If people really “want more trains,” they’ll pay for those trains – TLK] (09/28/26)
