Source: Chris’s Substack
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
“Before Russian Radical, both critics and fans of Rand viewed her work strictly as a reaction against her Russian background. Russian Radical fundamentally shifted the interpretive matrix in its focus on those aspects of the Russian context that Rand absorbed. In fairness, then, it’s not as if Russian Radical’s theses were uniquely rejected or ignored by Rand’s critics; many, if not most of her admirers who saw Rand as sui generis, repudiated its theses as well. But in doing so, both the critics and the admirers have bracketed out some of the most sophisticated aspects of Rand’s thought. They are ill-equipped to understand Rand’s historical roots and dialectical sensibilities.” (09/29/26)
“[W]hat happens when every insurance company gets told that, by law, it must pay for this or that kind of genetic screening? In four words, everyone’s healthcare costs go up. … all of us get to pay for testing we may or may not ever want or need. In a free and open healthcare market, many insurers might cover these tests as part of their normal policies, or offer them as cheap add-on options to those most likely to want them. After all, testing for ovarian cancer is much cheaper than treating ovarian cancer. However, we live in the opposite of a free and open healthcare market.” (09/29/26)
“A new report from the Government Accountability Office reveals that federal drug regulators do not have any clear policies or procedures for making scheduling decisions.” (09/29/26)
Source: The Erick Erickson Show
by Erick-Woods Erickson
“Both parties can count on their base. The most loyal Republicans will turn out for anyone with an R beside his name, and the most loyal Democrats will do the same for a D. No party wins with its base alone, though. Most Americans are not party loyalists, and that includes plenty of people who vote in Republican and Democratic primaries. … Those voters, along with the independents who only vote in general elections, decide elections. The parties keep insulting them. Both sides serve up a crap sandwich of a candidate, point across the aisle at the other side’s crap sandwich, and insist you have to eat theirs because the other one is worse. It is no longer a choice between the lesser of two evils. It is a choice between the evils of two lessers, and voters are getting tired of it.” (09/29/26)
“Despite the recent surge in AI doomerism, President Donald Trump is right to maintain his strong support for data centers. As he notes: ‘China couldn’t be happier’ if we were to turn our backs on these centers as a nation, which would effectively let the Chinese Communist Party win the AI race. As Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in July, ‘The country that leads in artificial intelligence in the coming years and decades ahead will be the global superpower’. Victory means capturing trillions of dollars in national wealth, securing an advantage in military technology and gaining enormous leverage in international affairs. An energy bottleneck could pose a serious risk to America’s AI lead. We need data centers to train and run top-tier AI models, and those centers need a lot of electricity.” (09/29/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Trump deserves impeachment for knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally committing high crimes or misdemeanors — (1) the waging of war without a congressional declaration of war and (2) ordering the killing of people on the high seas without according them due process of law. Why should presidents be given a pass to ignore that higher law that we the people have imposed on them, especially since they and other federal officials don’t give us a pass on the need to comply with the laws that they impose on us?” (09/29/26)
“For almost a century, Republicans claimed to be the party of economic growth. They accused Democrats of being the party of communists, socialists, and managed decline. That’s changing. As Republicans increasingly embrace economic interventionism, nationalization, and trade restrictions they are, increasingly, managing American decline. Meanwhile Democrats are picking up the mantle of economic growth, dynamism, and the American Dream.” (09/29/26)
“Countries that try to stay impartial in international disputes are having a tough go these days. That’s also true for countries that serve as trusted interlocutors or simply provide safe venues for adversaries to talk. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine along with U.S. President Donald Trump’s high tariffs on friendly nations and his war with Iran have forced a reckoning of the meaning of diplomatic or military neutrality. On Sunday, the country that epitomized neutrality for centuries, Switzerland, added some clarity to its identity as an icon of evenhandedness. In a referendum, more than two-thirds of Swiss voters rejected a proposal to enshrine ‘perpetual and armed neutrality’ in the country’s constitution.” (09/28/26)
