“‘Daddy’s back,’ is what Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds proudly said in January 2025. Which is why removing the president’s picture from the Donalds gubernatorial campaign website, as he reportedly did earlier this month, won’t remove the smell of Trumpism. Not mentioning the president’s name in television ads or suddenly being against the war in Iran that Trump started — which is what Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers is attempting to do in Michigan — will not get Trump’s thiols off of his skin. Nor will deleting the phrase ‘Trump-endorsed candidate’ from your social media bio …. those men were endorsed by the president. Each of them knew what he smelled like. Each of them agreed to smell like him … when it was politically advantageous. Now they can’t get the Trump stink off of them fast enough no matter how many times they lather, rinse and repeat.” (09/25/26)
“Lindsey Granger gives her lens on Tucker Carlson’s NPR interview, where he once again called for President Trump to be removed from office.” (09/25/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“In Manila, on Tuesday, September 22, the European Union and the Philippines agreed on the substance of a free trade agreement, one that revealed the shape of Europe’s strategy in Southeast Asia. The deal, giving Philippine exporters permanent preferential access to the EU market of roughly 450 million consumers, follows agreements already in force with Singapore and Vietnam, an Indonesian pact awaiting approval, and Thai talks entering what Bangkok hopes to be their final round. Together, these agreements tie the EU, already the third-largest trading partner for the ASEAN bloc, and its largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI), into several of the largest economies in the region—but not the bloc as a whole. The EU is building its Southeast Asian relationship nation by nation, undermining the prospects of a bloc-to-bloc agreement that both sides still profess to want.” (09/25/26)
“The White House on Friday evening announced plans to claw back $810 million in congressionally appropriated funding, prompting criticism from lawmakers. A year ago, President Donald Trump’s administration blocked $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid through a pocket rescission, marking the first time in roughly 50 years that the president has attempted to use that authority. The controversial budget maneuver occurs when a president submits a request to Congress to block funding so close to the end of the fiscal year that the funds can expire before Congress receives the full 45-day consideration period under the law. … The rescissions would block $567 million appropriated for Health and Human Services programs for refugees, asylees and other non-citizens and $28 million for HHS research. Additional cuts target the Department of Education’s special programs for immigrant students, among other programs.” (09/26/26)
“Mark is away this week, so his son Jack steps in for his first show with Sal. Sal goes through the backlash to his viral ‘Islam is a natural ally of libertarianism’ tweet and answers his critics. Then we play Sal’s talk to a room of cypherpunks in Amsterdam, covering agorism, the counter-economy, Ross Ulbricht, and the privacy tools you can use today. After that, Mark Edge sits down with David D. Friedman, author of The Machinery of Freedom, to talk about private law and arbitration, why you can’t opt out of the criminal justice system, plea bargains and wrongful convictions, the Chicago School, and his decades in the Society for Creative Anachronism and the Pennsic War.” (09/25/26)
“American farmers rely on imports for many of their most critical inputs—fertilizer, chemicals, machinery—and rely on exports to large overseas markets such as China for a big part of their profits, and, as such, conducting a series of trade wars fought with tariffs is just about the worst possible economic policy for them as a group. Naturally, American farmers and farming communities keep voting roughly two-to-one for trade wars—a vote for Donald Trump, the guy who insists that ‘trade wars are good and easy to win,’ is a vote for trade wars. Farmers voted for trade wars, and trade wars they got. And—surprise!—agriculture is in something like a full-blown recession, with farm incomes projected to decline by a whopping 5.5 percent in real terms this year. Farm bankruptcies are up 46 percent since 2024, and some 15,000 farming operations went dark last year.” (09/25/26)
“The robotic spacecraft that failed to rescue an aging NASA telescope plunged back to Earth on Friday less than three months after launching on the bold mission. Katalyst Space Technologies announced the demise of its three-armed spacecraft named Link. It reentered the atmosphere overnight, bringing the $30 million, NASA-sponsored salvage effort of the Swift Observatory to a close. Swift is expected to follow in early November as its orbit steadily sinks.” (09/25/26)
“Did you know that the U.S. government has an agency called the ‘Office of Remigration’? In case you’re unfamiliar with the term ‘remigration,’ it’s typically used by white nationalists to describe the mass expulsion of nonwhite immigrants, done in the quest to ethnically cleanse ‘Western’ countries. It’s mostly a European term, but Trump himself employed the phrase ‘reverse migration’ last year, mainstreaming ‘remigration’ on the American right—and true to its name, the office now helps facilitate mass removals in some very dark and sordid ways. So let’s lay down a marker: If Democrats take over the House and/or the Senate, they should make it their business next year to ensure that this agency faces truly withering scrutiny. As many Americans as possible should know what their government is doing in their name.” (09/25/26)
“America’s government has become a masterclass in deliberate, costly failure. You can order dinner, hail a car, transfer money across the country, trash a pundit, praise a friend, and run a business from your phone in seconds. The private sector figured this out years ago. Yet the second you deal with your own government, you step into a dysfunctional time machine: endless paperwork, overloaded websites that crash, multi-hour hold times, lines that stretch for blocks, and approvals that crawl at the speed of 1985. … The private sector rebuilds itself constantly. Yet government clings to legacy processes written for a slower century. Why? Because broken systems protect power.” (09/25/26)
