Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter
“It has often been observed that it is good for pilots to sit at the front of the plane, because if they make a catastrophic mistake, they will be the first to hit the mountain. While this certainly does not prevent all plane crashes, it simply illustrates a true point: when people personally, immediately, and directly bear the costs of their actions and decisions, it heavily incentivizes them to be circumspect regarding whether their beliefs are true or false.” (07/31/26)
“Is there no good idea a politician cannot spoil? Take what’s on next Tuesday’s Missouri ballot. ‘Amendment 4 was my idea, but I am voting against it,’ Ron Calzone wrote on Monday in The Missouri Times. Mr. Calzone had advanced what is called a Concurrent Majority Ratification process. It was introduced into the legislature by Representative Bill Kidd as HJR 132 in 2022. And then politicians started revising. Everyone agreed, says Calzone, that Missouri’s constitution “was too easy to amend,” considering ‘the fact that 50% + 1 of the vote can come from just the urban areas’ and thereby inflict upon less-populated rural regions a ‘Tyranny of the Majority.’ … The current Amendment 4, however, though promoted as a solution, really adds three humongous problems …” (07/31/26)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Logan Tantibanchachai
“Prohibition won’t stop gambling’s social harms. But regulations aimed at transparency could protect individual rights to informed contract, while limiting predatory platforms.” (07/31/26)
“Tuesday’s Democratic primary for the open U.S. Senate seat in Michigan is a national story, and not only because Michigan and Maine are likely to determine which party controls the upper chamber of Congress come January. The race between public health official Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and four-term U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens is also a microcosm of the struggle for the future of the Democratic Party — the war of position between progressives and centrists that is playing out all over the country. Last week I went to Metro Detroit and spent a few days talking with a range of people about this pivotal race. I was especially curious to explore the political dynamics in Michigan’s Jewish and Black communities, two voting blocks that could prove crucial in this contest.” (07/31/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Eldar Mamedov
“With Trump running out of options, Zelensky saw an opening. He could demonstrate that Ukraine—unlike Western Europe, which Trump has publicly excoriated for its ‘weakness’—was a useful partner in confronting America’s enemies in the Middle East. It was a neoconservative dream come true. But there is critical context to the Caspian and Iraqi gambits that Kiev may have overlooked. The United States has been pressing Iraqi authorities to take on the numerous Iranian-oriented Shiite militias. If Ukrainian intelligence was indeed operating in Iraq, it appears Kiev was attempting to help implement Washington’s plan. However, judging by the statements and actions of Iraqi authorities, not everyone in Baghdad supports these intentions. By exposing Ukrainian involvement, Iraq has effectively told both Washington and Kiev: This is our country, not your battlefield.” (07/31/26)
“Witch hunt tactics aside, US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) performed a valuable public service by releasing excerpts from Fauci’s diaries. I’ve been browsing those excerpts for a couple of days now; they run to several hundred pages so I haven’t had time to do a thorough beginning-to-end read. They unmask (pun entirely intended) Fauci as a not very likable bureaucrat, flattered by attention and susceptible to that flattery, constantly butthurt by any attack on or even public disagreement with his pronouncements, and laser-focused not on ‘public health’ as such nearly so much as on maintaining his position and reputation as America’s top ‘public health authority.'” (07/30/26)
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“We have been ambushed. We should be talking about the dangerous, destabilizing things being done to this country. … Instead, we are trapped in a vicious loop of nonsense, mania, political demagoguery and manufactured spectacle while the country goes to hell in a handbasket. Every day—sometimes every hour—brings another outrage, another threat, another vulgar display of power, another self-glorifying meme, another political provocation and another distraction demanding our attention. Before we can fully comprehend one assault on the Republic, another takes its place. That is not merely the chaos surrounding this government. It is one of the ways this government maintains power.” (07/30/26)
“We’ve reached a point where Bill Kristol can be a featured speaker at a ‘liberal’ conference. It’s hard, in this context, to know which way is up, yet we can see clearly that all ways now point rightward. Kristol is far from alone; this cottage industry includes a who’s who of bloody-handed, Bush-era conservatives who now pretend to care about the rule of law, when their whole careers were spent writing thin apologies for the many constitutional violations of the post-9/11 years. … What the good-faith liberals aligning themselves with this reanimated corpse of the neoconservative right seem not to understand is that these dynamics, migrating the entire acceptable political spectrum firmly into the right, will long outlast Donald Trump. In the end, Trump will have had two terms as president. But the range of politically feasible options could remain bolted down on the far right for many decades or even longer.” (07/30/26)
“Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh pulled back the curtain this week on an economy making more progress than people feel. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index stood at minus 31 in July, and two-thirds of people said conditions were getting worse. Yet consumers continue to spend, workers are holding on to their jobs, and businesses are investing heavily in the technology and productive capacity that will shape what comes next. People may feel uncertain, but they are not acting defeated. Warsh called the economy’s resilience ‘impressive’ after the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady. He pointed to solid growth, job gains keeping pace with the workforce, and an unemployment rate that has changed little, even as inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% goal.” (07/30/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Before the government can give money away, it must first have money. … This is what socialists fail to realize when they advocate socialism. The reason they don’t consider it is because there is already wealth that has been built up in society that they want to seize and redistribute. They see all that wealth and simply take it for granted. Why not have the government seize part of that wealth and use to to help the poor, needy, and disadvantaged as well as seniors? But there are two important points here. One, socialists never ask: What was it that brought that wealth into existence? They just see it and want to grab it. And, two, by interrupting the process of wealth creation, they don’t realize that their seizure of wealth results in lower standards of living for everyone, especially the poor.” (07/30/26)
