“An uncanny strength of the second Trump administration has been its ability to be involved in so many scandals that no single one seems to become a dominant story. Take the most recent allegations about Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, who recently landed a plush gig working for Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan banker. Habba will get $50 million over five years to do unspecified work for a company that barely exists, according to The New York Times, while Herrera got a presidential pardon for a 2025 campaign finance charge. That’s just a typical day for the current White House, where the mingling of personal and public business has become routine.” (10/22/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“According to election polls, Democrats are fairly certain to take control over the U.S. House of Representatives. There is now also the possibility that they could take control over the U.S. Senate. Realizing the danger he faces of losing control over Congress, President Trump is barnstorming the country, doing his best to rally his MAGA supporters to go to the polls and vote. But a question naturally arises: If Trump becomes certain that he faces defeat next month, will he switch directions and simply suspend the midterm elections? After all, one cannot lose an election if no election is held.” (10/22/26)
“After leading with the theory of perfect competition, economics textbooks standardly add a ‘corrective’ chapter on the evils of monopoly. While they occasionally mention government-created monopoly, the focus is almost always on the harm of free-market monopoly, and the necessity of antitrust laws to combat such monopoly. A free-market monopoly is a business that manages to control a whole industry, and uses its control to slash output and raise prices. Later textbook chapters move on to markets with varying degrees of ‘monopoly power’ – and broadly conclude that as monopoly power goes up, market performance goes down. The moral: Free markets are only optimal in an extreme polar case. The further the real world strays from that case, the more suboptimal they become – and the more regulation improves the free-market outcome. Murray Rothbard rejects this picture, using three different sets of arguments.” (10/22/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“American farmers are in crisis, facing rising costs, disrupted export markets, and mounting financial pressure. While farming has always faced unavoidable challenges, such as weather, pests, and the vagaries of demand, the present problems are entirely of Washington’s making. The Trump administration’s tariffs have damaged critical trading relations, and its war against Iran has disrupted energy and fertilizer trade through the Strait of Hormuz. Washington’s response to beleaguered American agricultural interests has been billions of dollars in emergency aid and promises that future trade deals will deliver additional relief. It is a familiar cycle: Washington creates new risks for American producers, taxpayers absorb part of the resulting losses, and the underlying policies remain in place. Farmers receive temporary assistance but are left to navigate the same uncertain markets and elevated costs that made the assistance necessary.” (0/22/26)
“The United States continues to underwrite Europe’s security, forcing Washington to maintain an oversize military and risk American lives and wealth on behalf of prosperous, populous allies able to defend themselves. Yet the Europeans are ever less willing to follow American geopolitical dictates, despite enjoying a de facto subsidy for their more generous welfare states. And Trump’s commercial extortion hurts Americans more than it helps them, raising prices, distorting trade, and inflaming conflict. Washington should instead encourage the emergence of Europe as a friendly, if at times competitive, geopolitical player, able and ready to promote shared economic, political, and other international objectives.” (10/22/26)
“Barack Obama is like a firefighter parachuted in by the Democratic Party at times of crisis to put out fires. So when he weighed in on Sunday on the federal investigation of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar over potential allegations of immigration fraud and financial offenses, you just knew that the party is seriously worried about the national implications if she were to be indicted and potentially denaturalized and deported. Railing against the ‘appalling’ investigation, Obama claimed Omar was ‘a law-abiding elected official’ targeted because she ‘has dared to criticize the president’, and we should all be ‘outraged’ about the weaponization of the Justice Department. ‘It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say.’ That’s quite some chutzpah from the former president who launched the Russia-hoax persecutions of Trump.” (10/22/26)
“Yes, President Trump wants an end to the war, but not for the sake of Ukraine or the defense of NATO; rather, to secure ‘economic opportunities’ with Russia. Putin has had Kirill Dmitriev travel to Miami, Moscow, New York and Washington to entice Team Trump to win something that his military cannot deliver — Ukraine. Trump has not been able to deliver Ukraine either. Mr. Art of the Deal cannot close the deal, and he continues using tactics unbecoming of any president before him to pressure Zelensky into making a bad deal.” (10/22/26)
“What can the public do about the poison, the indecency, in our politics? The answer: Not reward it. Not vote for it. If you reward something, you get more of it. If you penalize it, you get less. Something else: Decent people ought to stop backing indecent candidates, party politics be damned. The current governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, is a famously decent pol. He and his wife, Fran, are known for their many charitable works. A Republican, he has endorsed Ramaswamy to succeed him. Why? And can’t he rescind his endorsement? After 50 years in public life, he is retiring at the age of 79. What does he have to lose?” (10/22/26)
“Canada (thanks to just one of its 10 provinces, which holds 97.5% of national oil reserves) is among the world’s top five oil producers. But residents of that far western province, Alberta, have been increasingly frustrated by decades of environmental and green energy goals and regulations that, they say, have constrained the use of and benefits from the natural resource at their disposal. Still, on Monday, Albertans declared a clear ‘no’ to the notion of seceding from Canada in a referendum (on whether to hold a future binding referendum on separation). The 3-to-1 result bolsters Prime Minister Mark Carney’s stated goal of making Canada a ‘global energy superpower’ as well as the cause of national unity – for now.” (10/21/26)
