“The latest inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is out, and the news is not great. The price of gasoline is up 34 percent over the last year, while the price of heating oil is up 74 percent. Diesel is up 70 percent just since August. All that, of course, is because of Donald Trump’s war in Iran, which shows no sign of ending. Just on Tuesday this week, Iran struck five different oil tankers in and around the Strait of Hormuz. In almost every country, the Trump oil shock has greatly accelerated the pace of the EV transition. … There’s just one major exception: the United States.” [editor’s note: So Americans are not ALL buying into the idea of a vehicle that can be controlled by availability and location of charging stations? Imagine that – SAT] [additional editor’s note: Americans buy into vehicles that can be controlled by availability and location of gas stations, don’t they? What’s the big difference there? – TLK] (10/15/26)
“Campaigns have a queasy rhythm to them — hype followed by panic followed by hype. We’ve reached the time in the cycle where the party that built a post-Labor Day polling lead begins to question its own confidence.” (10/14/26)
“For a very long time, the FedGov had banned virtually all betting on sports. Not that the ban really was very effective. It was seen as immoral, corrupting, and a form of criminals preying on gullible people. It was seen as corrupting to the sports themselves: when hundreds of thousands or millions of FRNs ($) were at stake, the bribing of sports figures (players, fighters, etc.) was a major issue. The infamous Black Sox scandal in the early 1900s was just one example. But in 2018, SCOTUS decided that the FedGov ban on sports betting was unconstitutional! More and more States since then have explicitly legalized the practice, and the business (industry) sector.” (10/14/26)
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“The spectacle of public executions. Deadly military strikes on foreign countries. Innocent civilian lives lost to war. Aggressive ICE raids. Government officials accused of using their powers to intimidate political opponents. Public office increasingly entangled with private financial interests. Government leaders who glorify violence, spew hatred, stir up racial prejudice, provoke civil unrest, and stoke discontent. This is what it looks like when a nation loses its way.” (10/14/26)
“In the same way that medieval kings seized any excuse to invade neighboring countries, today’s politicians perennially seek pretexts to further invade citizens’ lives. And there is never a shortage of intellectuals who, like the courtiers long ago, assure their masters that God — or at least social science — blesses their aggression. … Washington experts constitute a Greek chorus that bestows accolades on the Powers That Be. There are now more than 400 think tanks in the Washington area, some of which offer little more than an intellectual version of ‘rent-a-mobs’ of political protestors.” (10/14/26)
“Most people have been trained to automatically ask what government allows; what the rules say. They assume they don’t have liberty; otherwise they wouldn’t wait to see what someone says they are allowed to do. They assume someone else owns them and controls their choices. This isn’t healthy and is exactly backward. Everyone should assume their liberty is sacred and will be respected by all decent people everywhere. Assume everyone is decent unless they show you they aren’t by seeking to violate your liberty in some way. Break the mold and assume liberty. Assume you have rights and the freedom to exercise them fully, as America’s founders intended. Assume no one will stand in your way while you are doing what you have a right to do. If they do, it’s how you will recognize them as criminals.” (10/14/26)
“If a treatment can improve your health, does that give the government the right to force it onto you? Should the state compel people with diabetes to take insulin, patients with hypertension to take their medications, or people with obesity to lose weight? Most Americans would recoil at such proposals. Yet when it comes to people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, many people seem willing to make an exception. A physician who administers treatment to a competent adult against the patient’s will violates one of medicine’s most fundamental ethical principles: informed consent. Why should that principle carry less weight when the doctor is a psychiatrist? … A psychiatric diagnosis does not extinguish your right to control your body.” (10/14/26)
“The New York Times tells us that tariffs on musical instruments are making prices so high that student musicians in many junior high school and high school bands and orchestras across the country can no longer afford instruments, nor can their budget-strapped schools afford to provide them. Tariffs on musical instruments are more than twice as high as they were in President Donald Trump’s first term, and some instruments now cost thousands of dollars. As a result, Times reporter Sydney Ember explains, ‘Proponents of musical education say the tariffs are endangering school music programs and threatening to push the extracurricular activity out of reach for many families.’ … How can we as a country possibly benefit from less music-making by young Americans?” (10/14/26)
“Police officers often violate constitutional rights without facing personal civil liability. A Louisiana traffic stop case signals that protection may be narrowing.” (10/14/260
“Wow: United Federation of Teachers chief Mike Mulgrew says the feds should have nothing to do with local schools — the same position as the most hidebound conservatives. At least, that’s what he says: ‘Giving up local control of public education to the federal government through the Trump administration’s private school-voucher scheme is a failure of leadership’, Mulgrew huffed after Gov. Kathy Hochul officially allowed New York families to benefit from federal Education Freedom scholarships. In fact, it’s the ‘education freedom’ part that Mike really hates, but telling the truth rarely serves his interests. The scholarships are not a ‘private school’ scheme; they can support a public education, too — if the family that receives one so chooses. But any parent power is a problem for the UFT, since the union depends on kids having no choice but to attend the schools that employ its members, no matter how rotten.” (10/14/26)
