“On Tuesday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport immigrants to countries where they have no ties, with little or no notice and no meaningful chance to object. In a 6-3 decision, the Court’s conservative majority put on hold U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s ruling that the policy is unlawful until the justices consider the case, with arguments set for December. It is the third time the administration has asked the Supreme Court to block Murphy’s rulings, and the third time the Roberts Court has shamefully obliged. To see what that means in practice, consider what happened the first time the Court let these removals go forward.” (10/01/26)
“To argue in good faith—the literal translation of the Latin—means assuming that the person on the other side is saying what he actually believes and that disagreement is not itself evidence of corruption, cowardice, or deceit. And vice versa. The assumption and practice of good faith makes intellectual debate possible. And yet it feels increasingly rare. Tell someone you favor free trade and you will quickly learn you are really serving the interests of multinational corporations. Defend immigration and you are importing voters. Oppose a war and you are carrying water for the enemy. Politics, in particular, seems to bring out this line of reasoning.” (10/01/26)
“In this run-up to the 2026 mid-term elections, progressive movements and candidates remain caught up in the challenges of rising authoritarianism and militarism both at home and around the world. We are mobilizing against new US-Israeli wars against Iran and across the Middle East/West Asia region, including Israel’s US-enabled genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. We face explosive US bombing raids and illegal military interventions in Latin America, Africa, and beyond, as well as threats to Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and elsewhere — with President Donald Trump at the center of all of it. What’s different now compared to past crises is that many bold progressive leaders have won competitive primaries in this year’s midterms — often putting opposition to war and genocide at the center of their messaging.” (10/01/26)
“Mill City, Oregon, sits amid a patchwork of green. Across millions of acres at the base of the Cascades, deep-moss old-growth forests mingle with the bright lime of young trees recovering after timber harvests and fires. And roads thread through it all. Most of these forest roads were built in the last century to move ancient fir trees to the mills that gave the town its name. Today, only two mills remain, and the aging roads are a maintenance nightmare for the U.S. Forest Service. The massive Beachie Creek Fire of 2020 compounded the problem, damaging roads as well as Mill City and other nearby towns. Would more roads help or hurt places such as Mill City?” (10/01/26)
“For much of my life funerals were, well, funereal, as black as attendees’ attire. Yet in recent decades, I’ve found that I often leave memorial services less mournful than upbeat. They’re inspiring, these so-called celebrations of life, with eulogies not from impersonal priests but from people who knew the dead person best. Tributes are seasoned with humor and paeans to personal character more than professional accomplishments. I walk out thinking not about death but life — especially my own, and resolving to be a better person. This week I left such a service with a broader resolve: that our nation was once, and can be again, a better country. The celebration was for the full and varied life of Alan Greenspan, the legendary longtime chair of the Federal Reserve who died in June at 100.” (10/01/26)
“Keeping a resolution to restore fiscal order requires confronting the incentives that make promises attractive today and their financing easy to postpone. A new American fiscal constitution should make lawmakers reckon with those costs when they authorize those commitments.” (10/01/26)
“Each year the CDC publishes an estimate of the effectiveness of the flu vaccine in the previous flu season. Recently, the NIH director criticized the test-negative design from which the estimates are derived. He was right. The basic premise of the design is a two-edged sword: on the one hand, restricting the sample to people who sought medical care might reduce confounding by healthcare-seeking behavior; on the other hand, that restriction might add another type of bias — colliding bias — which is not as widely appreciated. The net bias remains unknown.” (10/01/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Harmsworth
“This week the Seattle City Council passed Mayor Katie Wilson’s ‘Fair Pricing and Transparency’ ordinance in a 7–2 vote, a first-in-the-nation ban on so-called surveillance pricing. The ordinance takes effect in 2027. The Washington Retail Association warned for months that the bill was rushed, would have significant and negative impact on prices, and that nearly all suggested fixes were ignored. As approved, retailers must decide whether they can keep offering the tailored discounts and loyalty programs that Seattle families actually use or cancel all the programs and charge more for groceries. Government should not be price-fixing consumer products. Banning the use of loyalty cards and programs, fuel rewards, and targeted coupons hurts businesses and consumers alike.” (10/01/26)
