Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley
“Redistricting measures in Texas and California have all eyes on the Nov. 3 midterm election. That contest also marks 30 years since the people of California won a victory for civil rights, now ignored by the ruling class in the Golden State and across the nation. … The California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), Proposition 209 on the November 1996 ballot, was the project of California State Hayward (now Cal State East Bay) professors Glynn Custred and Thomas Wood, backed by University of California regent Ward Connerly. CCRI ended racial and ethnic preferences in state education, employment, and state contracting. … Long after the people approved CCRI, the University of California built a vast DEI bureaucracy, with UCLA paying a vice chancellor for ‘equity, diversity, and inclusion,’ a salary of $440,000.” (01/22/26)
“Stat News hit the ethical and scientific bottom two weeks ago when they published an article by Stephen B. Soumerai, professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Christine Y. Lu, professor at the Sydney Pharmacy School of the University of Sydney. I have rarely seen so much disinformation in so few words, only 1,220. I reproduce the article in its entirety, in italics, with my comments.” (01/22/26)
“No, the midterms will not turn on the issue of ‘affordability.’ If affordability truly were decisive, Republicans would easily retain the House and the Senate. Consider the economic backdrop. Gas prices are at a five-year low, with gas stations in several states selling a gallon of regular for under $2. Several times since Trump’s reelection, the stock market indexes have recorded all-time highs. GDP growth hit 4.3% in the third quarter of 2025. Wage growth is exceeding inflation, but as always, some benefit more than others. Inflation itself is under 3% and trending lower.” (01/22/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Marcos Giansante
“Public policies are rarely judged by the effects they produce. They are far more often evaluated by the intentions they declare. In The Vision of the Anointed, Thomas Sowell identifies this habit, not as a mere analytical error, but as a moral failure. Intentions have no causal power, results do. This distinction offers a precise lens for understanding contemporary fiscal policy when taxation is presented as social action. Taxes are seldom described as extraction; they are framed as instruments of justice, care, and/or inclusion. Language shifts attention from effects to purposes; cost fades; intention becomes an alibi.” (01/22/26)
“With Donald Trump’s actions in Greenland, Minneapolis, and Venezuela, a foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck the standing of the United States.” (01/22/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler
“Every single moving mouth and face I see in the media seems to be obligated to stress the barbarity and illegitimacy of the Maduro government to establish some acceptable moral clarity even before they can carry on with any analysis of the current political situation, or the current political conditions in the world. Likewise, each personality seems obligated to make similar statements as a prerequisite to speak on the Iranian regime and the religionists controlling the country. Each is evil they must claim, and that they expressively disagree and denounce them in all shape and form. Each is beyond the specter of acceptable civilization, they must state. Each has no inkling of morality, but is simply obsessed with power and control. This was the same in any discussion of Hamas in Gaza.” (01/22/25)
“Of course it’s possible to insist that climate change isn’t a thing, if it is it’s of no matter, or that we’re not doing it. It’s also true that whatever the truth of any of that society as a whole insists it is, it is and we are therefore something must be done. At which point we should have had a carbon tax …. At which point we would be done. Lower petrol tax and raise, modestly, taxes elsewhere and we’ve solved climate change. All of which is, of course, just a repeat of the grand lesson of the 20th century. Those places which tried to use planning, direction and insistence as a method of economic management remained poor. All of those that used markets and prices to achieve the same end, that of economic management, became grossly rich by global or historical standards.” (01/22/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“Tourism might have exacerbated Spain’s housing problem, but it’s not the root cause. The gap between sluggish supply and explosive demand has resulted in a deficit of around 700,000 homes. As a result, rental rates have doubled and house prices risen by 44% since 2020. In its last Financial Stability Report, released in November, the Bank of Spain identified historically low construction levels as a key factor in the deficit. … Still, it’s easier to blame tourists.” (01/22/26)
“Trump’s assault on the Federal Reserve demands a structural solution: rules-based monetary policy that protects central bank independence whilst delivering better economic results.” (01/22/26)
