Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Tom G Palmer
“Governments around the world have recently begun imposing massive sales taxes on their citizens and claiming that in doing so they are ‘protecting’ them. The additional taxes their citizens must pay are called ‘tariffs.’ At the end of the Second World War, there began a long trend toward removing extra taxes on trade, which helped to create waves of unprecedented prosperity. Lifespans and living standards rose across the globe. How easily we now take for granted what only a few generations ago seemed miraculous; how easily we fail to remember what made those seeming miracles possible: free enterprise, freedom to innovate, and freedom to trade. All of those are under serious attack around the world today.” (01/30/26)
“The load-bearing pillar of the MAGA-era Republican Party is crumbling under the weight of Trump’s poor economic stewardship. Will the Minneapolis homicides be the last straw?” (01/30/26)
“A video leaked this week of Greg Bovino, the former Minneapolis ICE honcho, that did the media rounds in the last 24 hours. He’s giving directions to his troops when he was in Los Angeles. It contained what you might expect: ‘This is our fucking city! … Arrest as many people who touch you as you want. Those are the general orders, all the way to the very top! It’s all about us now. It ain’t about them.’ Then this: ‘Professional, legal, ethical, moral.’ We’re on camera. But other than that, it’s what we do.’ … The iPhone seems to be the only serious threat to ICE’s violence.” (01/30/26)
Source: Foreign Policy
by Naman Karl-Thomas Habtom
“On Jan. 25, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson confirmed ‘ongoing discussions with France and Britain’ about potentially collaborating on nuclear weapons, going so far as to say that ‘it is important that there are nuclear-armed powers in Europe.’ The United States’ ongoing push for territorial expansion at the expense of Denmark and Russia’s continued resilience to Western sanctions and military aid to Ukraine have brought into question fundamental assumptions about Nordic security. Increasingly, the debate in the region has involved the possibility of developing nuclear weapons. This, however, would be a mistake. A move toward nuclearization would further destabilize security on the continent while being unlikely to yield any actual bombs.” (01/30/26)
“This weekend, what began as a protest in Los Angeles turned into violence. Not debate. Not a peaceful assembly. Violence. As you watch the scenes unfold on television, it feels like something that should be happening in Iran or Afghanistan — not in Los Angeles. Downtown mobs clashed with federal officers outside the Metropolitan Detention Center. Protesters were seen throwing water bottles, bottles, rocks, debris and other objects at federal and assisting law enforcement officers. A dumpster was moved into the street and set on fire outside the federal facility. The image was unmistakable: street chaos aimed directly at the seat of federal authority in the center of America’s second-largest city. This is happening yesterday and today — not in some unstable foreign capital. It is happening in Los Angeles, on streets where families work, live and commute.” (01/31/25)
“These killings are not random excesses or rogue acts. They are calculated performances of power, intended simultaneously to shock the public into paralysis and to provoke mass resistance that can then be cited as justification for escalating repression. The regime’s logic is brutally circular: protest is met with violence, violence generates outrage, outrage is labeled insurrection, and insurrection becomes the pretext for extinguishing democracy at gunpoint. State-sanctioned violence is thus framed as the only means of restoring ‘order,’ even as it becomes the mechanism through which democratic life is suffocated.” (01/30/26)
“Rent is a premium to avoid risk and preserve mobility. Landlords don’t just collect checks: they absorb the financial volatility of homeownership.” (01/30/26)
“The century-old moral panics and persecutions by Anthony Comstock and the Society for the Suppression of Vice are echoed today by cancellation campaigns from the moralistic Left and Right.” (01/30/26)
“Donald Trump has a public relations problem: The agents he unleashed to round up illegal immigrants have been attacking and killing American citizens. The backlash is so bad that Trump had to sideline Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol’s former ‘commander-at-large.’ Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, might be next. Clearly, the administration needs new faces to defend its thuggery. Perhaps it should consider the rich talent pool available in a country with a like-minded government: Iran.” (01/30/26)
