“AI’s embodiment in grimly purpose-built data centers is drawing grassroots opposition from across the political spectrum. Deeper fears of AI doom are generating proposals for more serious regulation of the technology. The EU has already acted. And the ever-growing anxiety over the cultural acid leaking through our phones is leading many schools and parents to clamp down. Will we get a political movement that is equal to the challenge this time?” (01/29/26)
“First it’s nukes, then it’s conventional missiles, then it’s protesters, and now it’s back to nukes again. Kinda seems like war with Iran is itself the objective, and they’re just making up excuses to get there. As the US moves war machinery to the middle east and holds multi-day war games throughout the region, President Trump and his handlers have been posting threats to the Iranian government on social media warning them to ‘make a deal’ on nuclear weapons.” (01/29/26)
“I’ve spent more than two-thirds of a century (since 1958) at American universities. Never in all those years has their earned and deserved reputation as the best in the world suffered bigger threats than today. U.S. colleges and universities not only have behaved abysmally, but they’re now paying a high price for showing contempt for the prevailing values of the public that sustains them. … Can and will universities be saved, overcoming this crisis? Not without some serious behavioral modification.” (01/29/26)
“The libertarian position on driver’s licenses, on drunk driving, on human-driven cars, on speed limits, and every other road rule is the same as it has always been: privatize the roads and let private road owners make their own rules. If one is asked ‘What shall the government do if privatization is off the table,’ the answer is ‘Libertarian principle does not mandate a particular second-best solution, only that the right thing to do is complete privatization.’ If road privatization is thought to be undesirable for whatever reason, then that is understandable — but then the person with this position is simply not a libertarian on this question.” (01/29/26)
“Since Donald Trump took office in 2025, ICE has murdered at least 34 people in the U.S. It has deported 623,900 people. Those are not negligible numbers. They are the beginning – mark that, the beginning – of the ethnic cleansing of America. They are the first shot across the bow of any contraption or conglomeration that might oppose shipping nonwhites out of country. There are 68 million Hispanics in the U.S., and it’s safe to say that Scharfuhrer Stephen Miller wants to deport them all. Will Trump’s henchmen limit their ambitions to Hispanics? I doubt it.” (01/29/26)
“MAGA is committed to the belief that the people ICE is pursuing are inherently bad and that therefore opposing ICE is standing with criminals and rapists against the American people.” (01/29/26)
“The world can be an ugly place, and Washington sometimes faces terrible choices. However, the U.S. president possesses neither the moral nor legal authority to wander the globe randomly imposing his will and killing anyone in the way. Someone claiming to be a peacemaker should stop irresponsibly visiting death and destruction upon other people. Even in Venezuela.” (01/29/26)
“Different families have different educational needs. Scholarship tax credits can help many struggling Kentucky students succeed. While the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act created the opportunity for these scholarships, each state must opt into the program each year. House Bill 88 could begin Kentucky’s process for adopting a more-robust form of educational freedom for low-to-middle income families. Here are some upsides for families of a scholarship tax credit program that Kentucky lawmakers might adopt this year.” (01/29/26)
“[E]scalating and using vile rhetoric is guaranteed to make things worse. It can also fire up one’s political base and raise money. On this latter point, I have two stories. One involved a pastor of a large Florida church who had decided to dabble in politics. He told me of the criticism he had received for sending out so many negative letters about how he saw the condition of the country. He decided to try a positive letter and described the response this way: ‘No one sent any money.’ … You might make money and shore up your base by denouncing others and using foul language, but the result is a deeper and wider divide and a hatred of fellow Americans.” (01/29/26)
