“Christopher Rufo, a Manhattan Institute made man, is complaining again about the deplorable conditions of discourse on the right. … This is quite rich considering Rufo made his bones in the movement as a vulgar propagandist, doing things like spreading lies about Haitian cat eaters in Ohio or suggesting that scammers in Minnesota have been funding Al-Qaeda offshoots in Somalia, a claim that even the Trump DOJ rebuts. While decrying the suddenly rampant racism and antisemitism on the right, Rufo routinely demeans the intelligence and moral worth of Somali-Americans. Or acts as a sophist for a White Nationalist up for a Senate-approved post in the administration. Is this hypocrisy, stupidity, or unabashed malevolence? Try all three: it’s politics.” (02/24/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Danielle Henry
“Last weekend, Pittsburghers pillaged their nearest Giant Eagle, stashing bread and toilet paper to prepare for Winter Storm Fern. Unsurprisingly, the City of Pittsburgh was not as diligently fortified as its private residents. After Fern deposited just shy of a foot of snow over the city, nearly 40 percent of the city plows broke down. … Surely, after Allegheny County’s 36 percent increase in property taxes in 2025, residents could expect safe commutes into town days after a snow storm. … What did the city resort to in order to resolve its gross incompetence? On Tuesday, January 26, Mayor Corey O’Connor declared a state of emergency. This state of emergency was required to emancipate the government from the shackles of its own bureaucracy to permit itself to hire ‘contractors.’ ‘Contractors’ are what the government calls private citizens who can do their job better than it can.” (02/24/26)
“There is almost no support for a new war, but there is a vocal group of hardliners in the Republican Party and in Washington that has been seeking this conflict for decades. The report mentions Mark Levin as one example, and there are also ideological fanatics in the Senate including Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham. Genocide denier Bret Stephens chimed in again this week with a despicable plea for war. They have been goading Trump to attack, and I fear they are going to get what they want. The vocal fanatics might not matter as much if they faced real opposition, but there is virtually no one in the Republican Party pushing in the opposite direction.” (02/24/26)
“Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers pulled over several cars in Eagle County, Colorado. They took the people away in handcuffs, according to a witness, and left the cars idling at the side of the road. When family members of the disappeared immigrants arrived, there was no sign of their loved ones. What they found instead were customized ace of spades playing cards that read ‘ICE Denver Field Office.’ When I saw an image of that card, the memories came flooding back. I’d seen something similar many years before. Sitting in the U.S. National Archives building — Archives II — in College Park, Maryland, sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s, I’d spent parts of several afternoons watching film footage shot by, and of, U.S. troops in Vietnam back in the 1960s. One of those silent military home movies always stuck with me.” (02/24/26)
“Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Colombia during 2025 closed at USD 9.173 billion, marking a 14.1 percent drop compared to 2024, according to figures from the central bank, mainly due to an increase in the tax burden ordered by the current socialist government. Meanwhile, in Brazil, FDI reached a significant milestone in 2025, totaling USD 84.1 billion between January and November, the highest level in a decade and surpassing the figures for 2014. In stark contrast, the government has managed to ensure that, for the first time since 2003, FDI in Argentina shows a negative cumulative balance of USD 1.521 billion between January and November 25.” (02/24/26)
“‘We live in the age of the revolt against the elites,’ writes Hugo Drochon in his new insightful book Elites and Democracy, summarizing the strides made by populist forces, on the right and on the left, in the West and beyond, in the last decade. The paradox, he observes, is that while populist leaders all reject the elite, they themselves are often part of the elites, either economic or political. Modern politics is thus best understood as the process of one elite replacing another. This basic insight opens up a perspective on the relationship between elites and democracy, which Drochon theorizes with the aid of twentieth-century political thought.” (02/24/26)
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by Travis Brammer
“As older landowners retire, many have no successor ready to step in. When ranches do not transfer to the next generation, they are far more likely to be subdivided or converted to non-open space. According to the American Farmland Trust, nearly 300 million acres of U.S. farm and ranchland, almost the size of Alaska, are expected to change hands in the coming decades. What happens to that land will shape wildlife habitat, water resources, rural communities, and open spaces across the country. If conservation depends on keeping land intact and working, then keeping ranching viable for the next generation matters more than ever. Virtual fencing offers a promising new tool to meet the challenge.” (02/24/26)
“When I write or speak about the alarming things I see as an Exvangelical in an America where Christian nationalism is ascendant, I sometimes receive indignant replies. I’ll be asked if I actually mean what I said, or if I’m perhaps exaggerating. If I say something in earnest, I mean what I write. I was asked recently if I actually think there is a real movement to repeal the 19th Amendment. Yes. There is.” (02/24/26)
“Tax and expenditure limitations in state constitutions — known to cognoscenti as ‘TELs’ — vary in their scope. But if effective in curbing government fiscal powers, they are invariably controversial, and courts and legislatures regularly seek ways to undermine them. The average effective lifespan of most TELs is only five years. A particularly famous TEL is Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), inserted into the state constitution by popular vote in 1992. Despite dire warnings that TABOR would destroy the state — and continued charges that it is starving government — Colorado has prospered since it took effect.” (02/24/26)
