“The days of laughing off Trump’s threats of turning Canada into the 51st U.S. state are long past. A new reality has suddenly rippled across Canada: that the United States under Trump is, as strange as it may be to stomach, suddenly Canada’s largest national security threat. It is a reality that Canadians are finally beginning to adapt to. But it is also a reality that taps into a far longer, far deeper vein of U.S. peril facing Canada. Indeed, the past 80 or so years of U.S.-Canada comity — in which the world’s longest border was largely peaceable and in which Washington and Ottawa became perhaps the closest allies in the entire world — may increasingly seem like an anachronism, an anomaly in which the United States simply paused on its far broader history of expansion in North America.” (02/03/26)
“A small crowd of abortion rights advocates gathered at a public comment session of the Gwinnett County Department of Planning and Development in July 2025. The most diverse and second-most populous county in Georgia, Gwinnett County distributed millions of dollars in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants to local nonprofits in 2025, with most recipients receiving something in the tens of thousands. One organization, Georgia Wellness Group, was set to receive a much bigger prize: $450,000. According to its website, Georgia Wellness is a clinic that provides ’compassionate holistic care’ for women and families. But this is a rebrand from its longstanding religious, explicitly anti-abortion identity. The group arguably fits into a category known as ‘crisis pregnancy centers,’ or CPCs, part of a project from the Christian Right dedicated to replacing public reproductive healthcare with anti-abortion ‘clinics.'” (02/03/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Mark Thornton
“Labor divided into the production of different goods or even into various tasks involved in the production of a single good is one of the earliest observations on the nature of human civilization. From a scientific point of view, civilization or society is the division of labor. Unfortunately, opinion down through time mistakenly considers it a mixed blessing, indicating that it is a great force for both good and evil. This common opinion falters largely on the basis of observation, measurement, and personal bias, absent economic law. The prevailing fallacies can only be eradicated with the theoretical perspective provided by the Austrian School of economics and its predecessors. Unfortunately, Adam Smith’s central importance on this topic and his basic mistakes continue to have an unhealthy impact on the economics profession and social ideology more generally.” (02/03/26)
“Trump has already lost the support of hordes of folks who voted for him in November 2024. Consumer confidence last month plunged to the lowest level since 2014, according to a Conference Board survey. More than half of voters say Trump has ‘made life less affordable’ for them and their families, and only 34% approved of his handling of ‘the cost of living.’ Trump’s economic victory proclamations are starting to resemble a bad magician whose tricks are so lame that his audience starts to heckle him. But in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Trump taunted his critics by telling them to wear ‘one of my favorite red hats — the one that reads, ‘TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!’'” (02/03/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“The newest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Dietary Guidelines for Americans turns the iconic food pyramid upside down. It recommends that Americans eat the right amount of food, prioritize protein at every meal, consume full-fat dairy with no added sugars, eat vegetables and fruits throughout the day, incorporate healthy fats, prioritize fiber-rich whole grains, and avoid highly processed packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat, or other foods that are salty or sweet. … People are asking many questions about the new guidelines, but there is one question that only libertarians ask whenever the federal government issues new or revised guidelines: Why is the government issuing guidelines in the first place?” (02/03/26)
“When David Brooks claims that his preferred ‘moderate conservative political philosophy’ is in 2026 ‘so fantastically successful … that moderate Republicans are now the dominant force in American politics,’ his intentional sarcasm is clear before the fourth paragraph of his final New York Times column (‘Time to Say Goodbye,’ February 1): ‘I’m kidding.’ Even if a reader missed out on the decades of Brooks’s commentary as resolutely as literally-frozen-in-time Futurama protagonist Philip J. Fry, its remainder would beg for the response of Fry’s snarky robotic sidekick Bender: ‘Oh wait, you’re serious. Let me laugh even harder.'” (02/03/26)
“Americans suffer in large part because we don’t know our government‘s history, because we don’t care about that history. We root for our teams and we don’t notice or care until it’s too late. What we are watching play out today is an upshot of the fathomless ignorance and apathy of Americans who treat politics as professional sports or fake wrestling. Don Lemon’s case represents something close to the opposite of its portrayal in the corporate media. Rather than breaking with some pristine history of free speech and press freedom in our country, this moment represents our embarrassing history of noticing persistent constitutional violations only when they touch some celebrity.” (02/03/26)
“The answer to the question ‘Who pays the cost of tariffs?’ is obviously important. If the costs of all tariffs were paid exclusively by foreigners, with no negative consequences suffered by citizens of the country that imposes the tariffs, the case for a policy of free trade would be far weaker than if tariffs inflict some damage on the domestic economy. Ethical objections to tariffs would still be available, but the conventional economic case against protective tariffs would be null and void, as that case focuses almost exclusively on the economic welfare of citizens of the home country. Yet the costs of tariffs are always shared by buyers and sellers of tariffed goods and services.” (02/03/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I saw a video of a food delivery robot navigating around the body of a homeless person lying on the sidewalk, and I can’t stop thinking about it. This video is as close to a self-portrait of western civilization as it gets. This is who we are. This is where we’re at. … It captures so perfectly the creepy dance between suffering, apathy, frivolity and corporate profiteering that makes our particular dystopia so distinctive, in just a few short seconds of footage. This is the dance that makes the empire go round. It’s got everything: * A man splayed out on the concrete because it hurts to be human in this global ghost town, and because he was unsuccessful at becoming a productive gear-turner in the capitalist machine, and because social safety nets have been stripped bare in order to help millionaires become billionaires.” (02/03/25)
