“The Declaration of Independence has a special place in American public discourse. Its stirring rhetoric and ringing message inspire even the most cynical and make it a suitable primer on American political ideals. That said, for many decades, there has been significant, even acrimonious disagreement concerning the Declaration’s nature and role in shaping our public life. Radicals like those behind the 1619 Project dismiss all such documents as mere cover for race-, sex-, or class-based oppression. Those more well-disposed to our constitutional order still debate its basic meaning and influence. Matthew Spalding’s new book, The Making of the American Mind, provides an excellent and admirably disciplined entrée into continuing interpretive issues and the possibility for common ground on such fundamental issues.” (01/05/26)
“The first pill version of the blockbuster GLP-1 weight loss drugs has been launched in the US by Novo Nordisk at a lower cost than jab varieties, accelerating a price war in the sector. The Danish pharmaceutical company said on Monday that its once-a-day Wegovy pill, which received approval from the US regulator just before Christmas, was now available in the country. … the highest doses cost $299 a month. Patients with insurance pay from $25 a month. Matt Weston, a pharmaceutical analyst at UBS, said the price was lower than expected. US list prices for weight-loss jabs are about $1,000 a month or more, although Novo Nordisk started selling its Wegovy injection at $349 a month to cash payers in November.” (01/05/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Luke Nicastro
“When it comes to defense industrial policy, the Trump administration contains multitudes. On the one hand, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has embarked upon a crusade to remake the defense acquisition system (now rechristened the warfighting acquisition system) on more market-friendly lines. … But at the same time, the state’s role in defense production is massively expanding. … One way to interpret the administration’s Janus-faced posture is as simple incoherence, the result of different principals pursuing different policies with different aims. A deeper read, however, suggests an essential compatibility between these two tendencies. Consciously or not, the White House is executing an ambitious double movement, simultaneously blasting open an arena for market competition while anchoring strategically critical production against the vicissitudes of fortune.” (01/05/26)
“The ratifiers of the 14th Amendment could not have contemplated excluding the children of unlawful entrants, because the concept did not yet exist in 1868. There were no visas or standardized passports, or other official travel documents, and thus no defined legal categories of immigrants. The first general entry restriction — a blatantly racist law that applied only to Asians — was not enacted until 1882. There were, however, many temporary residents, the other group subject to Trump’s executive order. Naturally, some of them produced children. As Professor Amanda Frost and her student coauthor, Emily Eason, brilliantly determined, at least a dozen members of Congress in the years 1865 to 1871 may have been the American-born children of temporary residents, whose citizenship would therefore have been ‘suspect under President Trump’s interpretation’ of the 14th Amendment. And yet, there were no challenges to their qualifications to sit in Congress, for which citizenship is a constitutional requirement.” (01/05/26)
“A U.S. judge on Monday rejected Amazon.com‘s bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the online retailer of price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic. … Consumers in the proposed class action claimed to suffer losses because Amazon failed to take steps to prevent sellers from using its platform to charge excessive prices.” (01/05/26)
“Until policymakers accept that financial regulation shifts risk rather than eliminates it, we will keep cycling through crisis, overreaction, unintended consequences, and the next crisis.” (01/05/26)
