“Hundreds of thousands marched in cities across France on Saturday in largely peaceful protests to support schoolchildren’s demands for more teachers and repairs to dilapidated buildings, as Emmanuel Macron faces a social and political crisis in his final months as president. In Paris, at least 110,000 people marched along the eastern edge of the city, according to government estimates. They supported high schoolers but also complained of the high cost of living and the government’s heavy policing, saying riot police had been sent to target school protesters over the past month, instead of the government offering political solutions. … But at the end of the Paris demonstration, at Porte de Vincennes on the city’s eastern edge, different groups of masked men dressed in black emerged who had not appeared to have taken part in the peaceful march.” (10/24/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter
“If one has any awareness of the Panic of 1837 at all, one has likely been treated to the conventional story, wherein—as usual—the economic crisis and ensuing depression were supposedly caused by a lack of sufficient government regulation. In this case, the blame falls largely on Andrew Jackson and his destruction of the Second Bank of the United States. … the traditional anti-Jackson narrative remains influential in popular accounts of the period. However, an Austrian examination of the crisis raises important questions about the role of government intervention, banking privileges, and the credit expansion that preceded the panic.” (10/23/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“There are informal rules for American citizens about living in the U.S. Empire. Mind you, most of them are not codified into law. They are not found in an imperially published citizen’s manual. But American citizens are expected to know these informal rules and abide by them. Violations can result in criminal penalties or, more commonly, social ostracism, accusations of disloyalty and hatred of America, and even charges of sympathizing with terrorists or even being terrorists. In some circumstances, violations of the informal rules can also lead to criminal penalties. One informal rule is that when the Empire initiates a military attack on a small, militarily weak, economically impoverished country, American citizens are expected to cheer for the Empire and support the troops, even though the Empire is the aggressor in the conflict.” (10/23/26)
“An unlikely alliance between farmers and conservationists illustrates how government subsidies create political constituencies that lobby to preserve them.” (10/23/26)
“The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to pay more than $800m to settle the legal claims of about 1,300 survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks said on Saturday that the settlement will be formally signed on November 6 after an agreement with the plaintiffs and their lawyers. … According to The New York Times, which broke the story, each of the approximately 1,300 survivors will receive at least $250,000 from the Archdiocese of New York and potentially more depending on the severity of the abuse suffered. The settlement is the second-largest of its kind after an $880m deal reached by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2024.” (10/25/26)
“Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims more than 1.1 million people have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) combined. But so far, the names of most arrestees have been kept secret. This lack of public disclosure threatens Americans’ ability to hold the government accountable.” (10/23/26)
