“It’s hard to denounce [Graham] Platner while supporting [Ken] Paxton (or Donald Trump), but that won’t stop many Republicans from trying. The reverse is also true. Many Democrats will assure themselves that this is entirely different, even though it’s much the same. It is a rejection of the idea that character matters in politics. Some readers may retort that it doesn’t matter, that people of bad character can still make fine public servants. Politicians needn’t be saints. But nor should Americans mindlessly vote for whoever represents their party without any care for character. Nominating those who are obviously unscrupulous and unstable is bad for the country — and, frequently, for America’s parties.” (06/14/26)
“Bitcoin climbed to its highest level in nearly two weeks after the US and Iran reached a deal to end hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, removing the energy-supply fear that had weighed on markets for months. The token traded around $65,844 on Monday, up 2.1% over 24 hours, after touching a low near $63,722 in the early hours of Asian trading before the deal news broke, per CoinDesk data. The move puts bitcoin about 9% above the sub-$60,000 low it hit last week, its weakest level since October 2024.” (06/15/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Eugenics, broadly defined, is the use of selective breeding to improve the human race. Most people imagine it as government control of reproduction intended to improve the population’s genetics by encouraging reproduction by those with good genes, discouraging or banning reproduction by those with bad; what policies qualify depends on what you count as improvement. Getting parents more nearly the children they want is in my view a better definition of ‘improvement’ than giving them more nearly the children the government wants them to have. Getting parents the children they want, like getting other people what they want, is best done by leaving the choice up to them. If making it easier for parents to affect the genetics of their children seems to you an odd form of eugenics, consider the equivalent issue in economics.” (06/13/26)
“Brian Rauch has felt the squeeze of higher gas prices on his 30-mile (50-km) drives from his home in rural Stevensville, Montana, to the doctor’s office. He has also noticed food prices going up and, as an Air Force veteran, sees little rationale for the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. These are among the reasons the 42-year-old increasingly disapproves of the performance of President Donald Trump, the man he voted for in the last three presidential elections, putting him among a growing portion of rural Americans disappointed by his leadership in Washington. Trump’s approval rating among rural Americans dropped in June to a new low of 50%, according to the June 3-8 Reuters/Ipsos poll. That compares with 60% approval in February 2025 shortly after Trump took office. Rural disapproval of Trump’s performance meanwhile rose to 48% from 34% in February 2025, according to the poll of 4,531 U.S. adults nationwide.” (06/14/26)
“Illinois can tax income. It can tax profits. It can tax businesses. It can even impose generally applicable taxes that happen to reach content mediums like cable or newspapers. But the First Amendment strictly prohibits taxes that single out content the state doesn’t like. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Illinois’[s] new state spending plan does, and it’s poised to soon be signed by Governor Pritzker. Buried in the 1600-page budget, the relevant provision would charge the secretary of state with collecting a ‘social media platform fee.’ … The proposal’s biggest hurdle is the decades of case law that have squarely labeled this kind of tax as exactly what it is: a regulation of speech. And social media sites are very much speech.” (06/12/26)
“For those of us struggling to understand today’s Republican Party, this past week’s primary elections in South Carolina offered a useful case study. The key developments were these: Rep. Nancy Mace — a former conservative rising star who seems tailor-made for the Trump-era attention economy — finished fifth in her state’s Republican primary for governor. Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham — who seems like a relic from an earlier time in the Republican Party — easily dispatched a wealthy ‘America First’ primary challenger. At first glance, none of this makes sense. Making matters more confusing, when it comes to the defining ‘issue’ of our time — Donald Trump — Graham and Mace have both spent years criticizing him and then crawling back to him. Until, that is, one found the door locked.” (06/12/26)
“The leader of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been killed in a U.S. military strike, President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday night. ‘At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua,’ Trump said in the post. The president described Friday’s action as ‘retribution’ for what he claimed were the deaths of American citizens at the hands of illegal immigrants that he claimed are Tren de Aragua members. The post included a 10 second video showing a strike on a structure. The president said the action was coordinated with Venezuelan leaders.” (06/13/26)
“We have surrendered power for more than a century and a half to the parasites (elected and appointed) in DC and fifty State capitols and thousands of local jurisdictions. We have given them power over our minute-to-minute lives that I think it is safe to say that few nations and societies in history have ever held. Yet we continue to claim that we are free, in this Anno Libertatus 250. Yes, we have won a few victories, in a number of States, and sometimes at the FedGov level. But while we celebrate those victories for a few essential rights we often fail to understand the significance of the creeping loss of many, many more. Worse, we fail to see and understand why these liberties are being stolen away.” (06/12/26)
