The Supreme Court has a message for Kentucky on surveillance: Get a warrant

Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Caleb O Brown & Dan Canon

“Kentucky’s new license plate camera law is now in effect, and it already looks out of step with the Constitution. Just before it took effect, the U.S. Supreme Court handed the commonwealth a warning its lawmakers cannot afford to ignore. On June 29, the Court ruled in Chatrie v. United States that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain a person’s location data — even from a private company, and even for a short window of time. … That case was about cell-phone data. But the reasoning lands squarely on the surveillance network Kentucky’s local governments have spent the last few years building through a single vendor: Flock Safety.” (08/12/26)

https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/scotus-flock/

The Return of Economic Gaslighting

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe

“Around two and a half years ago, as the Biden administration was entering what we now know was its final year, the then-president’s re-election campaign was growing frustrated. … In one of the most unsurprising developments in modern American politics, it turned out that people who were struggling to navigate the aftermath of the government’s destructive economic shutdowns and keep up with rising prices did not like being told by establishment-approved economic ‘experts’ that they were essentially stupid if they didn’t understand how excellent the economy actually was. … now, as the midterms approach and he and his party are the ones in charge, the Republicans are faced with the exact same choice the Democrats had been faced with before 2024. And, notably, they have decided to adopt the same strategy that helped torpedo the Democrats last time around.” (08/12/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/return-economic-gaslighting

US consumer prices rose 0.1% in July, as expected, putting the annual rate at 3.4%

Source: CNBC

“A key inflation reading Wednesday showed prices moderating across a range of goods and services, possibly taking the urgency out of an imminent interest rate hike. The consumer price index, part of the Federal Reserve’s inflation dashboard, showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 0.1% during July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Excluding food and energy, the so-called core CPI rose 0.2%. On an annual basis, the inflation rates were 3.4% and 2.5%, both down 0.1 percentage point from June.” (08/12/26)

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/12/cpi-inflation-report-july-2026.html

Professionals to “Labor”: Why California’s Doctors Are Unionizing

Source: The Daily Economy
by Richard Menger

“California’s unionization campaign reveals the economic and institutional shifts away from physician ownership and professional autonomy.” (08/12/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/from-profession-to-trade-why-californias-doctors-are-unionizing/

Canada: 60,000+ sign petition calling for expulsion of US ambassador

Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]

“Tens of thousands of Canadians have signed a petition calling for U.S. President Donald Trump’s representative in Ottawa to be kicked out of the country. The online petition, which is set to be presented in the House of Commons in the fall, says Pete Hoekstra should be declared persona non grata and the Canadian government should request his removal as U.S. ambassador to Canada. Nearly 60,000 people had signed the petition as of Wednesday morning, almost double the number of signatures 24 hours earlier. The petition accuses Hoekstra of making statements that undermine the Canada-U.S. diplomatic relationship and of ‘making repeated interventions in Canadian political discourse inconsistent with diplomatic protocol.’ It says the Liberal government should also direct a parliamentary committee to review U.S. diplomatic interference in Canadian affairs.” (08/12/26)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/petition-ambassador-hoekstra-removed-from-canada-9.7303372