“How could anyone possibly object to this image? You want immigrants to work hard and play by the rules? These guys managed to get into the flagship campus of the University of Texas. You want them to assimilate to American culture? These guys are all wearing their school colors, roaring their excitement at their football team’s amazing victory. Several are wearing cowboy hats. If you asked an A.I. for an image that would reinforce the view that South Asian immigration is nothing to worry about, this would be the image it would create. Yet this is the image Bo French used to argue that ‘the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,’ said problem being ‘Americans’ being displaced by ‘foreigners.'” (09/24/26)
“Since the early days of the American Republic, political parties have been vehicles through which people of modest means can participate effectively in politics. Like churches, families, associations, and corporations, parties are mediating organizations between the individual and government. And like other mediating organizations, parties have come under fierce attack from the left. One form of attack has been promotion of state election laws allowing non-party members to vote for party nominees. But on June 30, the Supreme Court issued a case that brought it one step closer to ruling that such laws violate the Constitution’s First Amendment, as incorporated against the states by the Fourteenth.” (09/24/26)
“All year we’ve heard predictions of a ‘blue wave’ in the midterms, with Democrats taking majorities in both houses of Congress. As of this writing, most forecasts I’ve consulted say that there’s a good chance of a Democratic House come January, but that the Republicans will likely hang on to the Senate. My own forecast is ‘don’t get your hopes up for substantial change no matter how the midterms turn out.’ That’s just not how American government works. Or at least that’s not how American government USUALLY works.” (09/24/26)
“What, exactly, counts as an insult? For Montrealers, this is not just a hypothetical question about the limits of civility and good taste. In Canada’s second-most populous metropolis, the city council just banned insults to municipal employees — police officers included — and offending parties could now pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for saying the wrong thing to the wrong city worker. If that wasn’t bad enough, the new rules don’t even bother to define what is an ‘insult’ or what speech is ‘offensive.'” (09/24/26)
“Democrats often complain about infighting on the left and argue the party must widen its tent, but figures like Chevalier and organizations like the DSA actually shrink it: they turn off mainstream voters, undermine the anti-Trump coalition’s claim to uphold liberal values, and shift the conversation away from Trump’s disastrous approval ratings toward a movement that legitimately strikes many Americans as weird and menacing. The Democratic Party is the anti-Trump coalition’s single largest vehicle for beating Trump, and handing MAGA ammunition against it is a huge mistake.” (09/24/26)
“The IRS recently did something federal agencies almost never do: admit their approach wasn’t working. They conceded that the approach to the Conservation Easement program tax assessments is flawed and often unfair. In a press release last month, the IRS rightly stopped its assault — at least for now — on more than a thousand separate groups nationwide, comprised of about 250,000 individuals, who have participated in land conservation easements. The agency decided to withdraw its own arbitrary deadlines under its punitive settlement initiative for these donations that taxpayers, relying on qualified appraisals and professional advice, believed complied with federal law. This longstanding program provides tax incentives for people who have put hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine forest, ranch, and farmland into a ‘conservation easement’ — preventing it from ever being developed.” (09/23/26)
“When Altman and other AI leaders ask for government intervention, the possibility of regulatory capture cannot be dismissed. The companies calling most loudly for AI regulation are also among those best equipped to comply with it. Licensing regimes, mandatory audits, reporting requirements, and expensive safety standards impose fixed costs that established firms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google can absorb more easily than smaller competitors. Altman has urged Congress to consider licensing or registration requirements. That does not mean industry warnings about AI risk are disingenuous, but advocating for regulation does allow these executives to present themselves as responsible stewards of a dangerous technology while also supporting rules that could simultaneously raise barriers to entry and entrench their position in the market.” (09/24/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Alan Hibben
“Britain’s political class loves to talk about ‘reforming welfare,’ but everyone knows the limits of that ambition. Voter Welfare—the £333.7 billion the state is forecast to transfer from taxpayers to households in 2025–26—is politically untouchable. A population brought up on free cake is unlikely to vote for the plate being removed, at least until it stares a debt tragedy square in the face. But there is another kind of welfare that receives far less attention and may actually be fixable: Rent-Seeking Welfare, or what is more bluntly called corporate welfare elsewhere. Unlike pensioners, corporations don’t vote—and British households don’t own many shares directly. In theory, this should make reform easier. In practice, the obstacle is not ideology but something more basic: the Government cannot see what it is trying to reform.” (09/24/26)
“I feel like I need to apologize for a column a couple of months ago when I compared the current president of the United States to Caligula, the possibly mad Roman emperor who is said to have nominated his trusted horse for high office. I need to apologize to Caligula. From pitching his triumphal D.C. arch as a storage shed for deadly snipers’ bullets to banning reporters from the White House in a narcissistic rage, Donald Trump is losing his grip on reality. This is unsustainable. Worried about AI killing humans? Bad news: It already is. Which is it? Are the robots of AI, or artificial intelligence, so smart that they’re on the verge of holding a secret meetup in the darkest corner of the dark web and developing a plot to kill all humans through germ warfare, to make sure we don’t kill them first by pulling the plug?” (09/24/26)
“Does a human being have a right to kill themselves? Yes, they do: we believe at TPOL that this is inherent in free will as we were created by God. (It does not make it good (right) to kill yourself, any more than many other things we have the power to do are not good or right. The entire idea of ‘assisted suicide’ is both a gray area and seems to often lead into euthanasia.” (09/24/26)
