Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“I have spent decades trying to turn political dirt into philosophic gold. I have yet to discover the alchemist’s trick, but I still have fun with the dirt.” (12/19/24)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2024/12/19/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan/
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“On December 18, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an alert banning drone flights over parts of New Jersey through next January 17 for unspecified ‘Special Security Reasons.’ The unspecified actual reason is lots of people getting creeped out because they believe they’re seeing lots of drones hovering over the state at night. There’s an element of panic here, and panic tends to spread and get silly.” (12/19/24)
Source: RealClearPolitics
by Froma Harrop
“The older he gets, the bigger the baby. Donald Trump has turned the U.S. government into one giant pacifier to calm his fear of seeming less than all-powerful. Consider those billionaires now dropping bags of gold at his feet, concerned that he would use his presidential powers to hurt them. … Reputable political analysts say this executive behavior reflects alarm that Trump might try to sabotage their business and hurt their investors. Anyway, the commentators add, paying a million or two in tribute is ‘just a rounding error’ to these guys. The analysts are not wrong. More amazing is that they would calmly portray threats toward leading American enterprises — engines of the economy, creators of jobs — as something a normal president would do. Another word for this is extortion. It’s the mobster message: ‘If you don’t want trouble, you know what to do.'” (12/19/24)
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“Many years ago, shortly after joining the Marines, I signed up for a bone marrow donor registry. … [The process] seemed very daunting. In the end, I decided I’d go ahead and do it. … This stage of being right at the line, right at the tipping point of moving from one option to an alternative, is what economists have in mind when we talk about ‘the margin.’ When making that decision, I was the marginal donor – the person who was just over the cusp of being willing to go through with it. The costs were all the complications described above, the benefits were the fulfillment of a general desire to help someone in need. For me, at that time, the benefits just narrowly outweighed the costs. But suppose it hadn’t.” (12/19/24)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Corynne McSherry
“Discussions about illegal activity clearly are protected speech. Indeed, the Supreme Court recently affirmed that even ‘advocacy of illegal acts’ is ‘within the First Amendment’s core.’ In fact, protecting such speech is a central purpose of the First Amendment because it ensures that people can robustly debate civil and criminal laws and advocate for change. There is no reason to imagine that this bedrock principle doesn’t apply just because the speech concerns copyright infringement –especially where the speakers aren’t even defendants in the case, but independent third parties. And unmasking Does in copyright cases carries particular risks given the long history of copyright claims being used as an excuse to take down lawful as well as infringing content online.” (12/19/24)
Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine
“The shamelessness of the first family was writ large at the White House this week as the president’s final whirl of Christmas parties attracted social media ‘influencers’ whose biggest thrill was posting selfies with celebrity nepotist Hunter Biden. In the very week that he was due to be sentenced to jail for tax fraud, the first son merrily pressed the flesh and flashed his $70,000 pearly whites, secure in the knowledge that his father’s ‘full and unconditional’ pardon has got him off the hook for any and all crimes committed for the past 11 years. The outrage over Hunter’s pardon has been buried in an avalanche of other pardons Joe Biden has been doling out like candy to assorted scumbags. … It’s a fitting end to Biden’s benighted presidency.” (12/18/24)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Heather Carson
“I first came across the idea of fads within the education system upon reading Reginald Damerall’s book Education Smoking Gun. In it, Damerall details the total lack of scholarship in the education colleges, which leads to a vulnerability to faddishness in teaching. Teachers are led away from time tested teaching methods to methods that seem more exciting, more progressive, and less intellectual, in an effort to be more inclusive and make learning more fun. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the area of reading instruction.” (12/19/24)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/nations-reading-instruction-disaster
Source: The Daily Economy
by David Rose
“Tariff increases might make good political sense, but they are bad economic policy. Only addressing entitlements can save us.” (12/19/24)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/protectionism-wont-save-us-from-budgetary-disaster/
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver & Daphne Posadas
“We highlight this year’s decisive moments from across the globe.” (12/19/24)
Source: Independent Institute
by Kristian Fors
“Before the California DMV’s recent transformation, the department was a mess. Wait times were beyond reasonable, with some customers standing in line for five to six hours. Nearly one-third of DMV employees did not show up for work on time. One employee slept on the job for years with no disciplinary action. In 2018, the DMV mismanaged 23,000 voter registrations. In the same year, the Department of Homeland Security revealed that the DMV failed to properly comply with federal REAL ID regulations when it issued nearly 2.5 million REAL IDs. … In July 2019, Steve Gordon was selected to be the new director of the DMV, an individual with an extensive background in technology and the private sector. A recent Stanford case study of Gordon’s leadership has highlighted the many ways he has been able to streamline DMV’s operations during his tenure.” (12/19/24)