Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Law & Liberty
by Josh Blackman

“Two recent decisions show Chief Justice Roberts’s institutionalism can sometimes be more like illusionism.” (08/10/26)

https://lawliberty.org/a-tale-of-two-chiefs/

Source: Students For Liberty
by Ilia Zhuzhunashvili

“Observing a single ant often reveals little about the organization of ant behavior. Its movements may appear erratic: it changes direction, retraces its path, pauses, and resumes without any obvious plan. Considered in isolation, the ant does not seem to act with clear purpose or coordination. The colony, however, presents a very different picture. What appears disordered at the level of the individual can become highly structured at the level of the group. When a source of food is introduced, ants may rapidly establish a direct and efficient route between the nest and the food. The resulting trail can resemble a carefully planned transport network. Yet no individual ant designs the route, issues instructions, or oversees the movement of the colony.” (08/10/26)

https://studentsforliberty.org/blog/can-ants-teach-us-anything-about-free-markets/

Source: The Daily Economy
by Kimberlee Josephson

“Before asking students how businesses should change society, business schools should ensure they understand how businesses create value in the first place.” (08/10/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/rediscovering-the-comparative-advantage-of-business-schools/

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith

“For Americans, the gold standard was killed by presidential decree during the crisis of the Great Depression. In 1971, another president told foreigners they could no longer get gold for American dollars and thus removed the last trace of monetary gold from international trade. Since then all governments have been on a fiat money standard, depreciating their currencies as a matter of policy. The story of gold’s disappearance is part of a larger narrative about the growth of government. Besides being a check on bank counterfeiting, or inflation, gold is also a serious restriction on government expansion. For the advocates of big government, therefore, gold becomes a barbarous relic that stands in their way.” (08/10/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/barbarous-relics-revenge

Source: The Chris Hedges Report
by Chris Hedges

“Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza is a mirage, a conjuring trick in which peace is unilaterally declared as Israel seizes more Palestinian land and brings the genocide to its grim conclusion.” (08/10/26)

https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/gazas-board-of-pieces

Source: The American Conservative
by Bill Kauffman

“Fox World is all a-twitter because a handful of members or fellow travelers of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are about to be elected to the U.S. Congress and various state legislatures. They’re ‘godless communists,’ according to President Trump, and what with inflation, an insane war, and Trump family grift, we’ll be hearing about commies all election season. Michael ‘The Other America’ Harrington, founder of DSA, was about as threatening as the Mills Brothers. The current DSA candidates seem, at first glance, as off-putting as your typical hectoring grad-school wokester, but I can’t get too worked up over them. After all, New York City once sent a real communist to Congress—and his example complicates the Sean Hannity narrative.” (08/10/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/you-want-a-real-commie/

Source: The Erick Erickson Show
by Erick-Woods Erickson

“This is the fundamental weakness of populism. It possesses no governing philosophy, only a disposition. It moves from one grievance to the next, and each time it acts to remedy a single complaint, it creates others that must later be remedied in turn. It resolves that cheap imports are destroying jobs, so it taxes the imports, and then expresses surprise when the toaster, the washing machine, and the burrito all cost more. It demands that the government make housing affordable while defending the guarantees that made housing unaffordable. It insists at once on lower prices and greater intervention, and those two aims cannot be reconciled.” (08/10/26)

https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/populism-is-emotion-without-governing