“California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been frantically trying to restart a presidential campaign that appears moribund, with polls showing him losing in some states to figures such as Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In his absence, his multibillion-dollar high-speed train also seems to be going nowhere fast. A new report from the state inspector general revealed that the train will be delayed again and that the public is being kept in the dark about ongoing problems with Newsom’s signature project. Oh, and one more thing: the project will run out of money by December 2027. Benjamin Belnap’s report revealed the project is again running out of money. It found missing details in the project’s 2026 business plan, and concluded that the project will again be out of money by next year. The state has already spent $18 billion, but it will need at least another $18 billion to finish the first segment.” (08/15/26)
“The 47th president has a habit of waffling on important issues ranging from abortion to gun rights, but another position he has long maintained is his commitment to protectionism. Not only did Trump use executive action during his first term to impose tariffs on aluminum, steel, and other products, he also promised the nation that tariffs would be a centerpiece of his second-term economic vision. ‘To me the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff.’ It’s my favorite word,’ he said in a 2024 interview. Occam’s razor suggests the president was not duped by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, White House advisor Peter Navarro, or postliberal pseudo-economists (to be generous) such as Oren Cass any more than he was ‘fooled’ by Bibi Netanyahu or the late-Senator Lindsey Graham. The man just loves tariffs, despite the data.” (08/14/26)
“Of course, understanding who Locke was, or what he actually believed, has always been more difficult than proclaiming what he represents. Despite his qualms about Catholics—and atheists, too, as we shall see—Locke is still commonly celebrated as the inventor of the modern liberal approach to tolerance, understood as a commitment to separating church and state and protecting individual rights.” (08/14/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter
“On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted US Patent No. 174,565 for the speaking telegraph or telephone. Three weeks earlier, on February 14, both Bell and another inventor, Elisha Gray, submitted their respective ideas to the US Patent Office. On March 10, Bell used a liquid transmitter (an early microphone) to call his assistant, Thomas Watson, with the words, ‘Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.’ This is commonly regarded as the first intelligible voice transmission over an electrical wire. With that in mind, this year not only marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, the 100th year of Murray Rothbard, and 40 years of Mises University, but also 150 years since the official invention of the telephone. This provides an opportunity to review the history of how telephone invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship—combined with cronyism, patents, regulations, and monopoly—shaped the landscape of the telephone industry for generations.” (08/14/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Judy Albert, Claire M Cohen, Ed Grystar, Ana Malinow, Julie Noh-Smith, & Kay Tillow
“On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass addressed the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society with an oration called, ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’ In 1852, the United States was a young country, only 76 years old, and given its youth, Douglass held out hope for the country that put him and 3 million Black men, women, and children in chains. He called Congress and judges ‘inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous’. He accused the church of being the ‘bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters’. Still, he held out hope.” [editor’s note: SIX co-writers? I know all too well how song cowriting by committee turns out, most of the time – SAT] (08/15/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Rachel Chiu
“As Jimmy Lai’s imprisonment shows, a country’s economic prosperity means very little if it fails to preserve civil liberties. … Lai, a self-made entrepreneur and billionaire, had the opportunity to flee before his arrest, but chose to stay to encourage millions of Hong Kongers to keep fighting for the freedom and autonomy that the region has had for decades. His plight resonates strongly with me because of my family’s experiences during the Chinese Communist Revolution, but it should be just as meaningful for every American who believes in the virtues of economic and social freedoms.” (08/14/26)
“Between April 2021 and February 2026, the small city of Sedalia paid a single law firm, Lauber Municipal Law, just shy of $2 million—nearly one invoice per business day, according to reporting by Genevieve Smith and Annie Goldman of the Columbia Missourian. Sedalia’s population is a little over 20,000. Out of its $35 million budget for fiscal year 2026, the city set aside $500,000 for legal fees. Residents are asking why. The answer, at least in part, is Missouri’s Sunshine Law.” (08/14/26)
