“Private market discipline is dynamic: prices adjust continuously as participants update their perceptions. Public prudential regulation is static: fixed rules define the playing field, and market participants optimize within those rules, arbitraging every gap. Once public regulation and ownership crowd out private discipline, political overseers add conflicting social objectives that further distort incentives. The 2008 crash was not a failure of free markets but the catastrophic consequence of unleashing Wall Street finance quants on a socialized housing market.” (10/27/26)
“Ofcom has a low batting average in collecting its extortionate fines. This is the UK agency enforcing the UK’s Online Safety Act. Ofcom’s mission includes forcing sundry websites to require all visitors to present proof of age — essentially, to ID themselves. The Act also lets Ofcom compel services that enable encrypted messaging to provide a way to tell whether anything illegal is being said or shown in the messages. That is, compel them to render the encryption pointless.” (10/26/26)
“On Thursday the Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to block certification of the results in one specific case: if [US Senator Daniel S.] Sullivan loses but would have won had [candiate Daniel J.] Sullivan’s votes gone to him. The Justice Department argues that voters will be confused under Alaska’s ranked-choice system. It says the senator’s supporters may not know how to rank the Republicans on the ballot, and some may leave the incumbent off entirely. Election law scholars are skeptical of the suit’s legal footing. The deeper problem, though, is its logic. The confusion DOJ describes is far more damaging under the voting system the administration seems to prefer than under the one Alaska uses.” (10/26/26)
“Over decades of repressive government, public opinion surveys in Venezuela became increasingly rare before they stopped entirely – because citizens were too afraid to answer honestly. But after the United States’ capture of President Nicolás Maduro in January, when pollsters ask Venezuelans whom they would vote for in elections, one name has consistently topped the list: María Corina Machado. This, despite the opposition leader having been out of direct contact with her fellow citizens for close to two years, while in hiding and exile. On Sunday, Ms. Machado returned home, announcing her surprise arrival with a brief post on the social platform X: ‘I am here. With you’. Almost immediately, thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets and highways as she attended a church service near the western border, before traveling to the capital, Caracas. Their enthusiastic reception underscored the enduring aspiration for democratic liberty and dignity after decades of political repression, economic mismanagement, and corruption.” (10/26/26)
“Gallup released another poll showing just how divided the nation remains on core values. When asked, ‘which values the country most needs today?’, Republicans ranked ‘patriotism’ as number one while Democrats ranked ‘equality’. What is most alarming is that no shared value cracks fifty percent overall. Patriotism is only ranked in the top three shared values by 32 percent. (Freedom tops the list at only 38 percent). Gallup reports that ‘though no single value is selected by a majority of Americans, freedom (38%), patriotism (32%) and service (30%) receive the most mentions’.” [editor’s note: Does Turley think it’s a BAD thing that Americans value freedom more than those two varieties of servitude? – TLK] (10/27/26)
“Democrats can’t seem to decide whether they want higher or lower gas prices. On the one hand, they’re promising that if they win a majority in Congress, they will work to bring down prices at the pump. On the other hand, they can’t bring down prices in their own blue states. We at Unleash Prosperity recently analyzed gas and diesel prices in the 50 states. Here’s what we found: The more Democratic a state, the higher the price of gas. For each additional percentage point of the state’s vote that went to former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, gas prices are about 2 cents higher. On average, deep-blue states pay about 25 cents a gallon more for gas than deep-red states. Yes, we know correlation is not causation (umbrellas don’t cause rain), but it does suggest that relying on Democrats to lower gas prices is probably a fool’s errand.” (10/27/26)
“Government-run, tax-funded schools are the ‘standard’ – even today, most people who home-school their children, or even who use private schools (including parochial ones) are looked on as being abnormal. While there are many problems with the GRTF schools, here is one critical challenge – which usually is not overcome. Auron MacIntyre recently shared his experiences as a schoolteacher under less than ideal conditions. Since everyone is taught to be a bean counter and be obsessed with ‘balancing,’ every standard of decency and excellence has to be sacrificed.” (10/26/26)
“While perhaps bumpy, the election will proceed as expected. Millions of people will cast their ballots—in fact, many already have through early or mail-in voting. Thousands of election workers will uphold democracy by counting ballots fairly and accurately. Election officials will certify the results. Close races may lead to post-election lawsuits. All of that is normal. What is abnormal is the president meddling in election processes. It’s also unconstitutional and unprecedented. Let’s make sure the American people have that vital information in every headline, push notification, social media post, and news story.” (10/26/26)
“With a lawless administration still in power, and Trump still wielding the veto pen, it’s far from guaranteed a Democratic Congress will be able to significantly rein him in. But there are still better and worse scenarios for what Democrats can accomplish depending on how strongly the party of Trump is repudiated at the polls. Partly it depends on how much they’re willing to play hardball. But partly it depends on just how many seats they win.” (10/26/26)
“We Americans are the luckiest bunch of humans to ever live. We are more affluent than ever before, even though most Americans also have much more leisure than earlier generations. Our success is demonstrated by the large numbers of immigrants trying to permanently enter our country, often illegally [sic] at great risk. Compared with a century or even a generation ago, our houses are bigger and nicer (with air conditioning and upscale kitchen appliances), our cars are more luxurious and reliable than those of earlier generations, and we have new pleasures like social media and ocean cruises to entertain and titillate us when we are not watching movies or shows on giant screens unheard of a generation ago or on technologically advanced hand-held devices.” (10/26/26)
