Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Lipton Matthews
“Jamaica is currently in the midst of constitutional reform, a process being hailed as a watershed moment in the island’s history. Much of the public debate has been consumed by two proposals: the desire to become a republic and the replacement of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London with the Caribbean Court of Justice as the final appellate court. These ideas are being advanced with great fanfare, yet they are driven more by sentiment than by sober reasoning. They are products of anti-colonial rhetoric rather than serious engagement with the principles that should guide a modern constitution.” (10/13/25)
“It appears that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is emerging victorious in the internal Trump administration battle over the direction of U.S. policy toward Venezuela. The New York Times reported on Oct. 6 that White House special envoy Richard Grenell — who, after meeting President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas this January inked deportation agreements, won the release of American prisoners, and secured energy licenses for U.S. and European oil majors — was told by President Donald Trump to stop all diplomatic outreach toward the resource-rich South American nation. The news comes as some Trump officials, particularly Rubio, have pushed the president to escalate tensions, which he has done by dispatching a major naval deployment to the Southern Caribbean in an alleged counternarcotics operation, killing over 20 alleged drug traffickers in at least four strikes against go-fast boats since early September.” (10/13/25)
“Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, worries that the United States could become a dictatorship. At a press conference on Wednesday, he warned that ‘a Marxist ideology [is] taking over the Democrat party’ and could soon be ‘turning us into a Communist country.’ On Thursday, as he fielded calls on C-SPAN, Johnson invoked the language of The Communist Manifesto: ‘What if the socialists take over the Senate, and Democrat socialists are in charge, and they want to grow government and take over the means of production?’ Johnson isn’t wrong to fear dictatorship in this country. He’s just wrong about where that threat is coming from. It’s coming from his own party. And he’s paving the way.” (10/13/25)
“The main Nobel laureate in economics announced this morning is Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University. In his 2016 book, A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (Princeton University Press), Mokyr explored why economic growth started in the West (Northern Europe and its offshoots) at a rate that the world had never seen before. The explanation is not as simple as a straight connection from technological innovations to economic growth. In human history, episodes of scientific or technological advances were not typically followed by significant changes in the generalized poverty of ordinary people, including famously in China. To translate into economic growth, Mokyr explained, scientific discoveries need to be accompanied by a culture of growth, which in turn is generated by intellectual and economic entrepreneurship in open societies with fragmented political power.” (10/13/25)
“When the Heritage Foundation published Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, the volumes were large-sized — around 8.5 x 11 inches, like a textbook. When Democrats produced oversized pseudo-replicas of the 900-page policy blueprint as visual props to mock Republicans during the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, they made the tomes much, much larger, as if hauled off a monastery shelf. Why? Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow on August 19, and Pennsylvania Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta on August 20 — and others each night — sought to symbolize its ‘weighty’ and ‘extreme’ nature. … That is how seriously Democrats said they were taking Project 2025. So when Donald Trump got elected, and the document’s author, Russ Vought, took on his current position as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget … you might think that Democrats would be very careful dealing with anything Vought touched.” (10/13/25)
“With the executive overreaching and the judiciary acquiescent, the Republic’s immune system strains under political and institutional dysfunction. The legislative branch, meanwhile, toggles between paralysis and performative outrage, its constitutional authority weakened by partisan spectacle. When the formal organs falter, the Republic depends on the dispersed actors of the ‘fourth branch’ — a novel, emergent moral network, tasked with upholding civic and constitutional integrity. Ordinary citizens, lower courts, military officers, advocacy groups, and artists together make up this fourth branch of government, sustaining the body politic when power itself becomes a vector of disease.” [editor’s note: Seems like that would be the “fifth branch” since the unelected bureaucracy already holds slot #4 – SAT] [additional editor’s note: Sixth — don’t forget the court stenographer “mainstream media” – TLK] (10/13/25)
“Six months ago Donald Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs — huge tariffs imposed on just about every nation. As everyone noted, this announcement suddenly brought average tariffs back to 1934 levels. Less widely noted was the fact that the long decline in tariff rates over the previous 90 years had been achieved through many rounds of international negotiations, in which the U.S. and other nations solemnly agreed not to backtrack on past tariff reductions. So Liberation Day was, among other things, a massive betrayal of the world’s trust. Now Trump is learning, to his obvious shock, that other nations can also play trade hardball. … There is, however, one big difference between Trump’s trade policy and China’s. Namely, the Chinese appear to know what they’re doing.” (10/13/25)
“For the first time in several years, there is some positive movement between Russia and the United States on strategic arms control. In late September 2025, Vladimir Putin proposed that Moscow and Washington agree to extend the New Start Treaty – which is set to expire automatically in February 2026 – for one year. That crucial treaty caps the number of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) at 1,550 for each side. President Donald Trump responded that Putin’s suggestion ‘sounds like a good idea to me.’ The Kremlin stated that Trump’s reaction ‘gives grounds for optimism that the United States will support President Putin’s initiative.’ Granted, extending such a crucial agreement merely for a year is a very modest gesture of cooperation, but it reverses an increasingly ominous trend in bilateral relations on arms control.” (10/13/25)
“It is always hard to disentangle the causes of cultural decline. In 1984, a German historian compiled 210 explanations historians had suggested for Rome’s fall, from lead poisoning and barbarian invasions to Christianity, moral decline and gout. After studying dynamic civilizations such as Athens, Rome, Abbasid Baghdad, Song China, Renaissance Italy and the Dutch Republic, I can attest that there is no single explanation. Each golden age had its own character and its own downfall.” (10/12/25)
