“Currently, 29 out of 30 Major League Baseball teams host an annual ‘Pride Night’ celebration in June, featuring rainbow versions of the typical logo on caps and jerseys. … players always have the option to revert back to the standard uniform instead, but they may not alter their uniforms themselves in any aspect. Despite this ban, three San Francisco Giants players used Pride Night 2026 as an opportunity to protest. … In response, MLB formally warned the implicated players that they may not ‘write, attach, affix, embroider or otherwise display nicknames or messages on apparel or playing equipment.’ … At first blush, MLB’s move might appear to be at odds with the freedoms of speech and free exercise guaranteed by the First Amendment. But the First Amendment bars the government from restricting our rights to speak and worship freely … Private employers have expansive discretion to limit an employee’s on-the-clock expression, like the players’ alteration of their caps.” (07/22/26)
“House Republicans pushed through a spending bill that would fund the government through early December in an effort to avoid a shutdown just before the midterm elections. The bill, which passed on Tuesday, is similar to what they would pass just before the Sept. 30 deadline. It passed 220-205 almost along party lines, though six Democrats in battleground districts voted for it, and one Republican [Thomas Massie, R-KY)] voted against it. … It’s not clear if it has much of a chance to pass the Senate. Republican leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday that he would try to get a spending bill to a vote before the five-week recess in August. But it may have to wait until lawmakers return in September.” (07/22/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Ehsan Mousavi
“We have all heard many times that hoarding is usually attributed to greed and is highly condemned. For example, in his book The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck attributes hoarding to greed and immoral profiteering, presenting it as a societal failure. In Canto VII of Dante’s Divine Comedy, he groups the hoarders together with the wasters, and states that they are forced to push heavy weights using their chests as their punishment. But is the pursuit of profit during a crisis merely an expression of greed, or does it serve a broader social purpose? Hayek would argue that it serves a crucial one.” (07/22/26)
“The building Adolf Hitler was born in near the Austrian border with Germany officially begins a new life as a police station on Wednesday, a conversion Austria’s government hopes will prevent it serving as a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis. After years of debate about the large, traditional terraced house in the town of Braunau am Inn, which was in private ownership and had housed a charity for handicapped people, Austria made a compulsory purchase in 2017. The government announced in 2019 it would be remodelled and turned into a police station, with work beginning in 2023. … There has been some opposition, including from the Mauthausen Committee, Austria’s main Holocaust survivors’ group, which has argued both that a police station is inappropriate and that more should be done to draw attention to Hitler’s crimes.” (07/22/26)
“Well, well, look here. In its June 2026 update the venerated OED or Oxford English Dictionary, finally added the ‘new’ word, fearmonging. It explains fearmongering as ‘the action or an act of spreading fear or alarm among the public, esp. by exaggerating the dangers associated with a political, social, or economic issue; alarmism.’ Thank goodness, the dictionary has caught up to our society’s most pernicious habit; that is, using fear to sell anything. Especially when it comes to our health.” (07/22/26)
“Every major economic idea deserves more than campaign speeches and cable news debates. It deserves to be tested. Before anyone rushes to point to Scandinavia, Venezuela, Cuba, or any other country to argue whether socialism has succeeded or failed, I’d like to propose a different kind of test. To the Democratic Socialists of America and those who believe this economic model is the future, I have a sincere proposal: Take your principle seriously enough to apply it consistently.” (07/22/26)
