“Numismatic egomania aside, the ballroom and the arch are exercises in grandiosity and vulgarity, monuments to Trump’s fragile ego, excrescences on the face of the nation’s capital city. Shubow professes to defend aesthetic standards—except, apparently, when the patron is Donald Trump. Trump may aspire to be a strongman, but he is no Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un, let alone a Hitler or a Stalin. He is an aged lame-duck president who, belying his pretensions to strength, frequently drifts off to sleep in front of television cameras. The new Democratic-controlled Congress should halt the bulldozers and cranes in their tracks and begin restoring what Trump has taken without the public’s consent.” (11/06/26)
“No one needs reminding that populism is fashionable. That might sound good to opponents of elitist authoritarianism, but it is not good. That’s not to say the latter is attractive to liberty-loving individualists who cherish the pursuit of happiness through, among other voluntary institutions, the marketplace. Not a whit. Yale Professor William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) would agree. Yet the remarkable classical-liberal sociologist insisted that populism would provide no relief whatsoever from government oppression.” (11/06/26)
“Paraguay’s Senate on Friday impeached President Santiago Pena over a banking crisis that left millions of people unable to access their deposits. Senators voted overwhelmingly to remove Pena for misconduct in office. The move cleared the way for Vice President Pedro Alliana to succeed him. He will serve the rest of the presidential term, which ends in August 2028. Pena had already resigned on Thursday, but by impeaching and convicting him instead of accepting his resignation, senators stripped him of the lifetime Senate seat and immunity granted to former presidents, leaving him vulnerable to prosecution. Following the Senate vote, prosecutors ordered the arrest of the ousted president alongside former central bank chief Carlos Carvallo as part of a criminal investigation. Officials later said Pena was placed under house arrest pending a decision by the public prosecutor’s office on the final charges against him.” (11/07/26)
“Norm [Macdonald] was extremely intelligent, even though his comedic approach often entailed playing the ‘dumb guy.’ He was also deeply introspective. He suffered from bowel cancer in his twenties and thought often about death, faith, and the human condition in the postmodern world. He was a devoted reader of great literature, especially Tolstoy. And of course, for over his last eight years, he waged his courageous battle with leukemia without telling anyone outside his immediate family and agent. He was a joke maker who was very familiar with the deeper questions of human life. But like most good comedians, he wasn’t out there to show off his own smarts. His intelligence manifested in his ability to puncture the stupidity around him—usually not by straightforward mocking, but by subversion.” (11/06/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“On October 28, 69 people were killed in a train crash in the Toledo province of central Spain. The collision occurred on the high-speed line connecting Madrid with the southwestern city of Seville, just one month before a general election on November 29. It is the second disaster on the Madrid–Seville corridor this year, after a crash near Córdoba in the south in January killed 46 people. Due to its timing, the Toledo collision is likely to be even more politically contentious than the last, further diminishing Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s chances of reelection. Both tragedies suggest that a once cutting-edge rail network is now showing its age—and that successive Spanish governments have failed to invest in its maintenance.” (11/06/26)
“President Donald Trump said Friday that Stephen Miller was replacing Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, installing as his closest adviser a loyal, combative bulldog for his ‘America First’ [sic] agenda as the president prepares to stare down a newly empowered Democratic Congress next year. Miller, long a member of Trump’s tight inner circle, is a key architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration policies. He is one of Trump’s longest-serving aides, joining his long-shot 2016 presidential campaign as a speechwriter. He most recently has served as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and oversees a broad portfolio, though he is best known for his role in Trump’s immigration policy.” (11/06/26)
