Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Patrick McLaughlin & Caleb O Brown
“Regulatory restrictions, accumulated over years of lawmaking, have resulted in thousands of outdated rules that carry burdens for businesses and consumers alike.” (02/24/26)
Source: The Hill
by James D Zirin
“With his campaign trailing [Jasmine] Crockett in the polls, [James] Talarico needed a shot in the arm, and he got one. He was slated last week to go on Stephen Colbert’s CBS ‘Late Show’ for a 15-minute taped conversation. It was a go until it was a stop, when everything hit the fan, including the First Amendment. The broadcast was ultimately not put on the airwaves, because then CBS might have been required to give Crockett equal time. … FCC chairman Brendan Carr called it a ‘hoax’ to blame the Trump administration for CBS’s programming decisions. But since Trump’s return to the White House last January, the FCC has aggressively targeted media institutions Trump has criticized. … Colbert posted the interview on the ‘Late Show’ YouTube channel, where it went viral, becoming his most-watched interview since the start of 2025. As of Monday, the short interview had been seen by more than 8.7 million viewers.” (02/24/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/5750555-colbert-censorship-fcc-controversy/
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“Portugal is one of the national teams favored to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Yet most of the team’s players don’t play for Portuguese clubs. Despite producing world-class talent, the country faces difficulties in retaining it domestically. This paradox has clear economic implications: Portugal knows how to produce elite talent but fails to create conditions to keep it, reflecting a broader structural challenge affecting its economy.” (02/24/26)
https://fee.org/articles/how-portugals-football-success-reveals-its-economic-failure/
Source: Seattle Times
“Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app, said Tuesday that the Russian government had opened a criminal investigation against him on charges of ‘aiding terrorism.’ Durov, who was born and began his career in Russia, accused Moscow of fabricating pretexts to restrict access by Russians to the Telegram service as part of an attempt to ‘suppress the right to privacy and free speech.’ … It comes two weeks after Russia’s communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said it was restricting the Telegram app, accusing the company of refusing to abide by Russian law.” [editor’s note: Fortunately, Durov lives in Dubai and seems unlikely to be extradited – TLK] (02/24/26)
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Janice Stein on When Being Rational Is Irrational.” (02/24/26)
Source: Unpopular Front
by John Ganz
“Christopher Rufo, a Manhattan Institute made man, is complaining again about the deplorable conditions of discourse on the right. … This is quite rich considering Rufo made his bones in the movement as a vulgar propagandist, doing things like spreading lies about Haitian cat eaters in Ohio or suggesting that scammers in Minnesota have been funding Al-Qaeda offshoots in Somalia, a claim that even the Trump DOJ rebuts. While decrying the suddenly rampant racism and antisemitism on the right, Rufo routinely demeans the intelligence and moral worth of Somali-Americans. Or acts as a sophist for a White Nationalist up for a Senate-approved post in the administration. Is this hypocrisy, stupidity, or unabashed malevolence? Try all three: it’s politics.” (02/24/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Danielle Henry
“Last weekend, Pittsburghers pillaged their nearest Giant Eagle, stashing bread and toilet paper to prepare for Winter Storm Fern. Unsurprisingly, the City of Pittsburgh was not as diligently fortified as its private residents. After Fern deposited just shy of a foot of snow over the city, nearly 40 percent of the city plows broke down. … Surely, after Allegheny County’s 36 percent increase in property taxes in 2025, residents could expect safe commutes into town days after a snow storm. … What did the city resort to in order to resolve its gross incompetence? On Tuesday, January 26, Mayor Corey O’Connor declared a state of emergency. This state of emergency was required to emancipate the government from the shackles of its own bureaucracy to permit itself to hire ‘contractors.’ ‘Contractors’ are what the government calls private citizens who can do their job better than it can.” (02/24/26)
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“There is almost no support for a new war, but there is a vocal group of hardliners in the Republican Party and in Washington that has been seeking this conflict for decades. The report mentions Mark Levin as one example, and there are also ideological fanatics in the Senate including Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham. Genocide denier Bret Stephens chimed in again this week with a despicable plea for war. They have been goading Trump to attack, and I fear they are going to get what they want. The vocal fanatics might not matter as much if they faced real opposition, but there is virtually no one in the Republican Party pushing in the opposite direction.” (02/24/26)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/the-us-is-sprinting-towards-disaster
Source: US News & World Report
“A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Americans can’t sue the U.S. Postal Service, even when employees deliberately refuse to deliver mail. By a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled against a Texas landlord, Lebene Konan, who alleges her mail was intentionally withheld for two years. Konan, who is [b]lack, claims racial prejudice played a role in postal employees’ actions. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for a majority of five conservative justices, said the federal law that generally shields the Postal Service from lawsuits over missing, lost and undelivered mail includes ‘the intentional nondelivery of mail.’ In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that while the protection against lawsuits is broad, it does not extend to situations when the decision not to deliver mail ‘was driven by malicious reasons.’ Justice Neil Gorsuch joined his three liberal colleagues in dissent.” (02/24/26)
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“The Real State Of The Union 2026.” (02/24/26)