Source: The Daily Economy
by Caleb S Fuller & Scott Burns
“Trade isn’t complicated. People around the world work to produce things for one another — and protectionism makes that cooperation harder.” (10/02/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/keep-the-case-for-free-trade-simple/
Source: New York Times
“An 18-year-old man has been charged by New South Wales Police after a vehicle allegedly struck 10 people during a parade of rugby league side Newcastle Knights fans. A five-year-old girl is in a critical but now stable condition, while a 67-year-old man’s condition was considered critical but is currently reported to be serious but stable. A two-year old girl and a second five-year-old girl, whose conditions are described by police as stable, were among eight others hit. … NSW Police said that the driver had been released from hospital and charged with nine offences, including three counts of dangerous driving, three counts of negligent driving and three counts of causing bodily harm by misconduct, in charge of motor vehicle.” (10/03/26)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7655514/2026/10/03/newcastle-knights-australia-fans-parade-car/
Source: The UnPopulist
by Gabriel Schoenfeld
“A lesson from the 20th century is that intellectuals sometimes choose to serve monsters. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all found thinkers willing to sing their praise even as they murdered millions. On the spectrum of evil and death, Donald Trump, a crass, ignorant would-be authoritarian, is not in their league. And yet already, under Trump’s rule, people have died—and already lives are being ruined by the tens of thousands. As all this happens, crankish right-wing intellectuals have been drawn to Trump’s scepter as moths to a flame. A case in point, not exactly a household name but not entirely unimportant, is Chad Pecknold.” (10/02/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/a-catholic-theologian-signs-up-for
Source: mint [India]
“Nicolás Maduro is not entitled to immunity from criminal charges, US prosecutors said, countering the former Venezuelan president’s bid to toss the US’s narco-terrorism case against him. Maduro and Cilia Flores — Maduro’s wife who also faces charges — are ‘former rogue officials of a formerly rogue state with no entitlement to immunity,’ the US argued in a filing in Manhattan federal court late Friday. His defense team argued last month that he is immune to prosecution in the US as the head of a sovereign country.” [editor’s note: The better argument is that the Constitution limits criminal prosecutions to “the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and Venezuela is neither a state nor a district of the United States – TLK] (10/04/26)
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Weave Within the Weave.” (10/02/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“How often were Americans told that if Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, they would be able to rein in federal spending and even balance the budget. Well, Republicans now control both houses of Congress and the presidency. They could balance the budget today. Have they done so since they took control after the 2024 elections? Nope. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.9 trillion federal deficit for fiscal year 2026. Same old, same old. American right-wingers and left-wingers like to emphasize their differences, but those differences aren’t fundamental in nature. Their fight is over control of the welfare-warfare state.” (10/02/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/10/02/should-americans-vote-for-tweedle-dum-or-tweedle-dee/
Source: Washington Post
by Matthew Schmitz
“Donald Trump championed international religious freedom in his first term, turning a long-standing bipartisan cause into a foreign-policy priority. His administration gave the Office of International Religious Freedom a higher position within the State Department’s bureaucracy, stressed religious freedom in its 2017 National Security Strategy and appointed officials focused on religious freedom at the National Security Council and United States Agency for International Development. Trump’s second term has been dramatically different. Trump has failed to issue statutorily required annual reports, inflicted DOGE-style cuts on religious freedom advocacy groups and demoted the religious freedom office within the State Department’s hierarchy. … Some religious freedom advocates have called the Trump administration’s new approach ‘a betrayal.’ But the challenges faced by international religious freedom extend far beyond the current White House.” (10/02/26)
Source: ABC News
“Two Iranian men conducted surveillance of a Manchester synagogue that was the site of a deadly attack a year ago as part of a plot to bomb it this year, a prosecutor said Saturday. Salam Ahmadyan, 36, and Rahman Salehi, 34, researched attacking the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in Manchester in northwest England and the Jewish Museum in nearby Cheetham Hill, the court was told. Ahmadyan and Salehi were arrested last month and charged Friday with engaging in conduct in preparation for terrorist acts. … Prosecutor Mark Luckett said the duo were directed by a third person believed to be in Iran who coordinated plans and provided instructions on making a homemade chlorine bomb.” (10/03/26)
Source: Freakonomics
“Here’s Why Your Hamburger Just Got So Pricey.” (10/02/26)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/heres-why-your-hamburger-just-got-so-pricey/
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“I believe that global warming is probably real, probably anthropogenic, may well impose net costs. This raises an obvious question: What, if anything, should we do about it? If I were dictator of the world and wished to maximize economic efficiency, the answer would be fairly obvious. Impose a tax on activities that create greenhouse gases designed to reflect the marginal cost they create. That is the standard economic solution, due to Pigou, for problems of negative externalities. Since the tax brings in additional revenue, combine it with a corresponding reduction in whatever taxes currently have the largest adverse effects. I do not, in fact, support carbon taxes. The reason is that I do not believe that, if imposed, they would fit the pattern described above.” (10/02/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/global-warming-carbon-taxes-and-public-e98