Source: Cato Institute
by Jai Kedia and Norbert J Michel
“Tariffs would be bad policy even if they had hit every one of their stated targets because those targets are not measures of economic welfare. That they have missed those targets anyway only makes the verdict against tariffs even harsher. Congress, which holds the constitutional power to set tariffs, should stop grading them on inflation prints, factory payrolls, and the trade balance. There is no world where increasing taxes, restricting trade, and pushing people into jobs that wouldn’t otherwise exist will increase Americans’ living standards.” (10/15/26)
“While tooling down the freeway one day, you’re pulled over by a cop and it comes to light that you don’t possess a government-issued ‘driver’s license.’ Does that mean you aren’t a ‘driver?’ ‘Admission to the bar’ and other occupational licensing schemes don’t exist to distinguish ‘real’ lawyers, doctors, and even (in some states) hair braiders and interior decorators from ‘fake’ ones. Nor do they exist to ‘protect the public’ from less qualified practitioners. They exist to raise the incomes of people who procure those Extra Special, Very Important Permission Slips and to make it more expensive and difficult to competitively join those anointed elites. Which is why the strongest lobbying for implementing and enforcing such schemes always comes from the existing practitioners. If you ‘practice law,’ you’re a ‘lawyer’ or ‘attorney,’ whether you have government credentials saying so or not.” (10/15/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“During my entire life, there have been crises and chaos along the U.S.-Mexico border. That’s because of America’s immigration-control program, which has been in existence for more than 100 years. This program is based on the socialist principle of central planning, whereby government officials centrally plan the movements of millions of people who seek entry into the United States. Rather than rely on free-market principles, including the law of supply and demand, the central planners determine how many total immigrants will be permitted to enter the country over the course of each year, how many will be allocated to different countries, and what their credentials will be. It simply cannot be done, at least not without continuous, never-ending chaos and crisis.” (10/15/26)
“The federal government just closed fiscal year 2026 with a deficit of nearly $2 trillion, according to figures the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released last Thursday. Only the two pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 were worse. Today, though, there is no recession and no emergency. These enormous budget deficits are the new normal. The usual response to a deficit warning is that the government just needs more money. It doesn’t. Thanks to the remarkable strength of the private sector, federal revenue rose by 3 percent, to more than $5.4 trillion, over the fiscal year. But spending rose by 6 percent, reaching $7.4 trillion.” (10/15/26)
“A government that claims the authority to kill persons after they have been subdued, disarmed, tried, convicted and confined in prison has made a startling claim about the nature of political power. It claims not merely the authority to protect the innocent from violence, but the authority to inflict violence when no immediate threat exists. It claims that the taking of human life, which it rightly condemns when committed by private individuals, somehow becomes morally permissible when committed by government agents. This is the fundamental contradiction of the death penalty: Government killing the helpless protects the living. The Declaration of Independence offers a radically different understanding of government.” (10/15/26)
“Nearly every week, another psychodrama arises between the United States and its NATO partners. Europeans blame the Trump administration for the usual things—a lack of cordiality and bombastic threats. But two truths, rarely spoken, characterize all these spats. One is hypocrisy; the other is insecurity. Take Trump’s recent demand that Ukraine cease attacks on Russian diesel refineries. Given the midterms and the critical issue of fuel prices, it was understandable that Trump might request an energy ‘ceasefire’. So both Russia and Ukraine were asked to stop their attacks on refineries to calm jittery global diesel markets and help stabilize sky-high prices. But the American Left, the Ukrainians, and the Europeans went ballistic – given that the aggressor, Russia, is blanketing Ukrainian skies with missiles and drones, while Russia’s critical refining industry remains vulnerable to retaliatory Ukrainian drone attacks.” (10/15/26)
“Everyone claims to believe in free speech – until someone says something they dislike. That produces a censorious tit-for-tat cancel culture, not just on the left but increasingly on the right. Instead, we must uphold free speech as a principle for all. And we need to start exercising our free-speech muscles that risk atrophying in an era of progressive censorship. That is why the Battle of Ideas, the original free-speech festival, matters.” (10/15/26)
“Would it be possible, given the growing divide between the Red and Blue States from coast to coast, to go back more than 200 years, and come up with a new version of the Articles of Confederation? That was, after all, what the men in Philadelphia were supposed to do. Not replace the Articles with a ‘Constitution’ but improve them. Address the issues that were keeping things in an uproar? Today, we find that in the last 237 years, we’ve come up with a lot of ideas, techniques, that would let us address those issues while still restoring the full sovereignty that the 12 States had.” (10/15/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Jennifer Hernandez & Kristian Fors
“This report analyzes 498 appellate court decisions involving the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) from 2013 to 2023, finding that housing remains the leading target of CEQA litigation. It explores how CEQA has become a major obstacle to development in California and how various interest groups exploit the law to obstruct projects. It also offers recommendations for reform aimed at removing barriers to development, encouraging economic growth, and promoting greater prosperity in the Golden State.” (10/15/26)
“Executions open to the public, once a popular spectacle in early America, began to lose whatever moral purpose they once had nearly two centuries ago. The last legally sanctioned public execution in the United States was in 1936. And, as a sign of how sentiments have shifted, a monument was erected in Massachusetts just nine years ago to mark the site of the most famous public hangings: 19 people accused of witchcraft in 1692 Salem. This week, three TV news networks reported that the Trump White House is leaning against a plan by the Pentagon to livestream an execution – by firing squad on Dec. 3 – of an ex-Army major convicted of killing 13 people at a Texas military facility in 2009. Not only has airing such an official and gruesome act ignited bipartisan backlash in Congress, but House Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice President JD Vance also say they would not watch the broadcast.” (10/14/26)
