“The United States of America may be the greatest place for functionally illiterate people to live in all of human history. An eye-popping column in The Financial Times the other day noted how people in the United States with very low literacy make about as much per hour as the average worker in Great Britain. Is this the result of brilliant public policy, carefully crafted to boost the prospects of those on the margins? No, it’s a byproduct of the vast, endlessly dynamic wealth-generating machine that is the American economy. The Financial Times also compared cohorts of low-literacy workers in the US and the UK: ‘The same proportion of US workers who score stunningly low on literacy earn an average of almost $30 per hour, and two-thirds of them are in work. Their British counterparts make the equivalent of $20 and fewer than half are employed.'” (08/11/26)
“Time to face an uncomfortable truth: America lost the Iran War. It’s a development not only discomfiting but world-historical, marking the pitiful conclusion of American primacy and the ‘U.S.-led international order.’ President Donald Trump is in a bind. Escalating the war in hopes of changing the outcome would worsen its deleterious effects and almost certainly fail to force Iranian capitulation. But reaching a peace agreement is difficult, thanks to a near-total absence of Iranian trust in any commitments that Trump might make. The solution to Trump’s predicament, I’ve come to believe, can be found in an unlikely source: a little-discussed work of political psychology published more than a half century ago.” (08/12/26)
“At first glance, a new mother taking part in a drug screening seems reasonable. For the sake of the mother and child, a doctor performs a clinical test to rule out any complications or signs of risks to the newborn. But the story quickly takes a dark turn. If there’s a positive test result, it doesn’t stay between the doctor and the patient. In 24 states and Washington, D.C., a positive test alone is enough to initiate a child welfare report, according to a report by the Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association. Depending on the state, that test could land the mother on a child abuse registry. Worse still, the mother may be notified the test has occurred only after the fact.” (08/11/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Christopher J Calton
“Last month, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) suspended funding to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), which quickly sued to block the decision. The controversy raises an important question: to what extent are local bureaucracies entitled to federal funds?” (08/11/26)
“In one of America’s daily political subplots that would have been rejected from a pre-2025 Armando Iannucci script for being too silly, it turns out Donald Trump was recently smuggled out of Air Force One in a catering container for fear of being assassinated by Iran. He was visiting Turkey last month, and apparently intelligence came in warning of an Iranian threat. Trump had already forgone his Qatari bribe jet, which has not yet been outfitted with the usual security systems, and so was traveling on the old presidential 747. It seems he was too frightened to use that plane as well, so he boarded by the normal door in sight of the cameras, then was quickly bundled out the side entrance onto a catering truck and into a military jet.” (08/12/26)
“Colorado has been labeled as ‘increasingly blue’ for several decades. Not just the most recent governors (Hickenlooper and Polis) have been extremely liberal and left (‘Regressives’ as TPOL labels them), but the General Assembly (both houses) has had super-majority Democratic control for a long time as well. (Yes, the Colorado GOP is as much to blame for this, due to their own stupidity and lack of skills and internal cohesion, as the Colorado Democrats are. And don’t get us started on the worthlessness of the Colorado Libertarian Party.)” (08/11/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Most Americans have never heard of the Jones Act, which is a protectionist law that has been on the books for over 100 years with the intent to protect U.S. based shipping and shipbuilding, put in place after World War I. As with many U.S. laws, it has backfired on the American people and business, with higher costs to consumers for their goods and energy. I argue that government should just get out of the way and let the free market run, which benefits both consumers and business. Now, the Trump administration has extended its 90-day waiver of the Jones Act, allowing foreign-flagged shipping vessels to transport fuel and energy commodities between U.S. ports (The Hindu). This 90-day waiver exposes the reality that the Jones Act helps to lower energy costs for Americans and helps to prevent economic bottlenecks, confirming my assertion to let the free market run.” (08/11/26)
“The purpose of political events these days isn’t so much retail public engagement as it is the production of sound bites for campaign use that’s more controlled and enjoys more reach than a huddle with a few citizens at a high school auditorium. But the main reason for real, physical, local ‘town hall aversion’ is the possibility of embarrassing confrontations with the angry sector of the public in question. And there’s ALWAYS an angry sector of the public, no matter which party the politician in question affiliates with or what policy positions that politician takes. We’ve all seen it on TV. In fact, it’s generally the only part of a ‘town hall’ event we ever DO see on TV outside of actual campaign ads.” (08/11/26)
“Washington has long debated individual interventions while paying less attention to the expanding presidential authority that made them possible. Trump did not create this system; he inherited it. His presidency, however, exposed how much war-making power has accumulated in the executive branch and how far the country has moved from the constitutional balance the founders envisioned. The Constitution’s principle is clear: decisions about war should not rest with one person. The president is commander in chief, but Congress received the authority to declare war because the framers feared concentrated power.” (08/11/26)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Alex Tokarev, Gabriel F. Benzecry, & Kristin Tokarev
“ou’ve no doubt heard the horrifying stories of dictators who abused their people for personal gain or sheer cruelty. Stalin’s Great Purge, Mao’s engineered famine, and Pinochet’s brutal torture of dissidents are just a few notorious examples. If all dictatorships are hell, a difficult question remains: which offers the better odds of survival, or even prosperity? Is it a dictatorship that tolerates some free-market capitalism, or one built on socialism?” (08/11/26)
