“The current narrative would have you believe that higher education is a dying institution. Experts consistently claim that a four-year degree is no longer worth the investment, warning that artificial intelligence (AI) is on the verge of rendering human labor obsolete. The prevailing message dictates that machines will soon dominate the workforce, leaving the next generation with no viable career paths. But a recent Gallup poll reveals a contrasting reality. While public anxiety is high, the job market tells a different story. According to a recent Gallup study, a staggering 80% of employers prefer to hire candidates with a college degree, even for roles that do not explicitly require one. Furthermore, six in 10 employers express a high level of confidence in higher education. While public trust in institutions has undeniably plummeted, the people actually handing out paychecks still find immense value in the university system.” (10/24/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Phillip W Magness & David J Hebert
“Of all the arguments for protectionism, the infant industry argument probably has the strongest theoretical appeal. By protecting a new industry from its more developed foreign competition, the story goes, tariffs give domestic producers the time to grow, learn, and become efficient enough to stand on their own. Domestic consumers feel the short-term pains of higher prices, but they enjoy the long-term gains of job growth and lower prices as the new industry blossoms. … When Hamilton made this claim in 1791, his argument may have seemed suitable for a new nation seeking to firm up its economy and security against established European powers. … Nearly 250 years later, those same infants apparently have yet to advance into adulthood.” (10/23/26)
“Multiple annual measures of political openness and the rule of law have found both in global decline in recent years. The latest Rule of Law Index, released by the World Justice Project (WJP) Wednesday, underscores this democratic recession. As checks and balances on governments have weakened, authoritarianism has ‘become entrenched’, the nonprofit noted. This, in turn, has constricted freedom of expression, association, and civic participation in about two-thirds of the 143 countries assessed. But there are also positive glimmers: The share of countries registering decline dropped from 68% in 2025 to 62% this year. And access to and affordability of civil justice have improved. Perhaps more significant, the WJP’s findings reaffirm the robust link between transparent, consistent rule of law and a key dimension of citizen well-being – economic prosperity.” (10/23/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Trace Mitchell
“Most coverage calls it a privacy case. But a jury judged whether Facebook’s moderation claims were true, creating a blueprint for policing moderation.” (10/23/26)
“The end of the Trump era is in sight. … But we also know that Trump will never go gently. This is not conjecture. We already have proof that Trump is incapable of accepting defeat, that he is not above trying to cheat to get what he wants and that he is perfectly willing to sit back and watch a violent mob try to overturn election results he didn’t like. The Washington Post reported last week that a small, nonpartisan group of current and former U.S. national security officials ‘motivated by a growing sense of alarm’ has been quietly advising state and federal lawmakers on how to prepare for Trump administration interference with the midterm elections. It’s not just security officials. Most of the country is worried.” (10/25/26)
“It is doubtful that any other American small town has contributed so much to the advancement of human freedom during the twentieth century as Mound Bayou. Without it, such civil rights icons as Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, and possibly Rosa Parks might have remained invisible to history. Evers and Hamer both lived and worked in Mound Bayou during the early 1950s, and as we shall see, Parks’s story intersects with it as well. … One precondition of Mound Bayou’s success as an outpost for free expression was a political environment that encouraged business ownership and law and order. In this respect, the founders of the community shared the same view as their ally Booker T. Washington, who argued that economic power provided the most secure foundation for the protection of individual rights.” (10/23/26)
“We need not agree with every detail to see what Sumner was getting at. Reality is real; everything is something specific; A is A. To live properly—life is conditional—we must understand the facts. Further, people differ in intelligence, talents, preferences, and predispositions. That’s the way it is. The behaviorist delusion that all individuals are essentially the same and could achieve anything given the right environment is balderdash.” (10/23/26)
“The English say all bad ideas come from France, but that is unfair to the Germans. The scenes of riot and destruction from France may arise from our Gallic friends’ particular circumstances and peculiar habits, but they reflect Europe’s general malaise — one to which the United States is not immune. The ‘French intifada’ is overthrowing the icons of France. The images are as memorable as the menu at Maxim’s restaurant. A statue of Joan of Arc is defiled with the Palestinian flag. A bust of Marianne, the icon of the French Revolution, is cast to the ground in the trashed city hall of Marseilles. The 19th-century town hall of Limoges goes up in flames. The statistics are as stunning as Maxim’s prices.” (10/24/26)
“We often talk about how much worse the second term has been, and it has been worse. But that is not because they were just innocent men in the first term—their position was simply weaker, then. They were complete outsiders to the practice of politics and had to rely on personnel that did not share their objectives or methods. They began hollowing out that institutional resistance and building relationships that would give them a freer hand. That began right away, in 2017, with things like Kushner’s Dubai slush fund. It is a cliché to note that the abuses of empire frequently end up coming home. What we see in the Trump family instead is decades of cozying up to Gulf ‘monarchies’ and dictatorships coming home. Every ‘common form of Gulf Arab corruption’ is on display in both terms of the Trump administration, and then some.” (10/23/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Sebastian Charleton
“Britain was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution—where cheap, abundant coal fuelled the inventions that built the modern world. Those breakthroughs—railways, modern medicine and electricity—transformed humanity. But we often forget that it was energy, our ability to produce it and (crucially) to store it, that made all of this possible. Yet despite this proud history as the original energy superpower, modern Britain is anything but: it is burdened by crumbling infrastructure, a sclerotic planning system and skyrocketing bills. Central to these energy challenges is our energy insecurity.” (10/23/26)
