“Federal gun control enforcement actions by the ATF are on the rise again. While the numbers are still below record highs set by President Trump during his first term, and in one key metric, lower than they’ve been in a decade, the overall picture is still terrible. And in some cases, they’re heading in the wrong direction once again. Every year the ATF releases a fact sheet detailing the number of employees engaging in gun control measures as well as the number of cases pursued and defendants named in said cases. The following report is based entirely on the recently-released data provided for 2025.” (06/19/26)
“The British bar association temporarily suspended the embattled chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Friday, pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings. British barrister Karim Khan was formally removed from his duties at the ICC last week after the court’s oversight body found he had engaged in ‘serious misconduct’ over accusations he had an inappropriate relationship with a female staff member. The 56-year old has strongly denied the allegations against him. The move by the Bar Standards Board, which regulates lawyers practicing in England and Wales, is the latest challenge Khan is facing. Last week the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties — the executive committee of the ICC’s oversight body — concluded he had engaged in ‘serious misconduct’ and ‘serious breach of duty’ and recommended his removal from office.” (06/19/26)
“Political parties keep asking voters to overlook scandals, bad judgment and unstable behavior because the other side is worse. Senate candidates Graham Platner and Ken Paxton are only the latest examples. Host Megan McArdle argues that character still matters in politics — and that voters are not helpless victims of polarization.” (06/19/26)
“There is actually one predictable pattern in Trump’s behavior, and that’s that he’s completely unreliable and terrible to do business with. This looks like one of his business deals: a lot of noise, brutal recriminations, hair-raising threats, grandiose plans and promises, and then he walks away, leaving behind a mess, usually a much crappier version of what he claimed he was gonna do, and, of course, leaving his partners and creditors in the lurch. This is all he is in the end: a schiesty hustler. He got tired of the war; it isn’t working the way he wanted, so he’s trying to pull out.” (06/19/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter
“Among the key men involved in the American Revolution and the following periods, we find an oft-repeated concern that may seem foreign to us today—the threat of standing armies. This was a heritage of British legal thought and history, and it became an underappreciated part of American political thought and experience. Why were peacetime standing armies viewed as such a threat? To many Americans of this period, peacetime standing armies posed a threat not only because they could be used by the state to overthrow liberty, but because they tended to reshape society and government itself. A permanent military establishment could develop interests distinct from those of the people, become an instrument for enforcing unpopular or unconstitutional policies, and concentrate power in the hands of central authorities.” (06/19/26)
“The problem with AI today is not that it often hallucinates; it’s that it hardly ever does and is therefore quickly becoming indispensable. For the moment, it’s a shared resource, a digital commons available free to the peasants (that’s us). But every day, more of it gets enclosed so it can be put to other uses: waging war, immigration enforcement, and the capitalist exploitation of people and expropriation of nature. In the hands of the rich and powerful, AI is bringing closer the omni-surveillance world of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). The essential task therefore – for us like for the protagonists in these novels — is to turn the apparatus against the people who control it.” (06/19/26)
“Social Security’s financing problems stem not only from an aging population but also from benefit formulas that grow more generous with each generation.” (06/19/26)
“While it’s impossible to know whether President Trump’s ‘memorandum of understanding’ with Iran will be deemed by history to be a blip or a humiliating defeat for America (if it even holds), one thing looks increasingly clear: Israel lost. That’s not just because Israel’s archenemy has arguably emerged more dangerous than ever. It’s also because Israel repelled large swaths of the American public along the way. When I was growing up as a Christian conservative kid in the 1980s, support for Israel wasn’t so much an option as it was a law of physics. Gravity pulled things downward, taxes were too damn high, and Israel was the good guy. But those days are gone, at least in terms of public perception.” (06/19/26)
“The Trump administration plans to stop funding HIV programs in South Africa under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief over policy differences. The U.S. State Department is winding down the funds South Africa receives from PEPFAR to care for the roughly 8 million people there who are living with HIV, Semafor, Politico and The BBC reported. PEPFAR was launched in 2003 by former President George W. Bush and, over the last two decades, has partnered with health authorities in more than 50 nations to save 25 million lives and prevent millions of new HIV infections, State Department figures show. President Donald Trump in a February 2025 executive order accused South Africa of permitting discrimination against white Afrikaners and has slowly pulled back U.S. funding for its HIV programs over the last year.” (06/19/26)
