“‘Strict construction’ is a taboo phrase, not just for judicial activists looking for unlimited government, but also for most originalists. Perhaps that is because the phrase can mean several different things; or perhaps it is a concession to the reality of the expansive national state in the twentieth century, as if to say Yes, I want to impose some limits, but I’m not one of those crazies. Or, as Antonin Scalia was often known to quip, ‘I am a textualist. I am an originalist. I am not a nut.’ It is therefore a daring endeavor to put forward an entire, clause-by-clause guide to the Constitution explicitly committed to strict construction. That is what William J. Watkins Jr. of the Independent Institute has done with The Independent Guide to the Constitution.” (06/09/26)
“Thousands of demonstrators blocked an avenue leading to Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium on Tuesday, just days before the 2026 World Cup kicks off at the venue. As football fans flood into tournament co-hosts the United States, Canada and Mexico, the Central American country is grappling with chaotic teacher protests in its capital. Tuesday’s protest, led by a breakaway group of the CNTE teachers union, follows a week of demonstrations that President Claudia Sheinbaum has called a ‘provocation.’ … The CNTE teachers union has been on strike since last week to demand a salary raise and the reversal of a pension law — which the government considers unfeasible.” (06/09/26)
“Imagine Congress debating a bill to integrate Tunisia into the National Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB). Shared military supply chains, joint research, and development, linked battlefield data, and a U.S. executive agent coordinating defense-technology cooperation between Washington with Tunis. Presented plainly, the proposal forces the reaction before the argument even begins. The instinctive question: Why Tunisia? Arrives uninvited. Yet that is precisely what Congress has already begun to normalize.” (06/09/26)
“Firms that grow large before going public raise questions about whether index membership rules shape market reality rather than merely reflect it.” (06/09/26)
“The Soy Pill (Niels Griedel) joins Ryan and Adam to discuss his political awakening, navigating the new media, whether Adam is legacy media or merely old new media, the value of philosophy or lack thereof, the existential problem of climate change and the politics it implies, and much more.” (06/08/26)
“Market failure, which I am defining here as a market not reaching the equilibrium condition where quantity supplied equals quantity demanded, is ubiquitous. Every time we walk into stores, we see market failure happening: shelves and shelves of goods sit, waiting for buyers. This is excess supply (surplus), a market failure. If the market were in equilibrium and perfectly clearing, then when you (the marginal consumer) walk into a store, you should see only the good(s) in the precise quantity you want to buy at the price that precisely equals your willingness to pay for the marginal unit. Nothing else should remain. … Obviously, such an outcome does not exist. Some of the goods we want exist in surplus. Some exist in shortage. And, consequently, the market has failed. But this failure is vital to the workings of the market, broadly called the ‘market process.'” (06/09/26)
“A Congolese military court has sentenced an army colonel to death for taking part in a conspiracy to murder two U.N. experts in central Congo nearly a decade ago, in a case that continues to raise questions about state involvement. At his first trial in 2022, Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni received a 10-year term for failing to assist persons in danger and disobeying orders. Military prosecutors appealed, arguing that he bore greater responsibility. The High Military Court in Kinshasa agreed, finding Mambweni guilty on Friday of the war crime of murder for actively orchestrating the killings, and sentencing him to death, according to a ruling reviewed by Reuters and the sister of one of the victims. Congo has not carried out an execution since 2003, meaning the sentence will in practice become life imprisonment.” (06/09/26)
“A former Taliban commander was sentenced to 42 years in prison on Tuesday for crimes including kidnapping a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Haji Najibullah’s sentencing capped a daylong proceeding in Manhattan federal court that featured a dramatic few moments when the reporter, David Rohde, faced Najibullah and described how Najibullah took part in the abduction of him and two other men in 2008 in Afghanistan but was now ‘refusing to take responsibility as I look at him today.’ … The men were held for more than seven months before making a dramatic escape from a Taliban-controlled compound in Pakistan’s tribal areas. In April 2025, Najibullah pleaded guilty to providing material support for acts of terrorism and conspiring to take hostages. The bearded Najibullah, 50, who wore a black skull cap in court Tuesday, admitted that he provided material support including weapons to the Taliban from 2007 to 2009, knowing it would be used to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.” (06/09/26)
