The Myth of Nationalist Victory: The Articles of Confederation and the Bank of North America

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter

“It is not uncommon for people to conflate victory and liberty with centralization and inflation. Even in the case of the American Revolution—which was relatively decentralized—many at the time, and others since, argued that monetary inflation, standing armies and a state-centric approach to war, consolidation under a centralized national government, direct taxation, and central banking were all necessary to achieve victory and independence. The not-too-subtle implication is that liberty depends on big government.” (06/26/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/myth-nationalist-victory-articles-confederation-and-bank-north-america

Save American Lives & Prosperity by Cutting FDA Bureaucracy

Source: American Greatness
by Thaddeus G McCotter

“By statute, the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to determine the safety and effectiveness of a new drug. If both requirements are met, the new drug is approved. The process usually takes roughly a decade. Most people would reasonably assume the lengthy approval process is due to the need to prove a new drug is safe for use by patients. But the years-long lag between a drug’s submission for approval and its arrival on the market often stems from the process of assessing its effectiveness. The easiest way to think about it is this: determining safety protects patients; determining effectiveness protects consumers.” (06/27/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/27/save-american-lives-and-prosperity-by-cutting-the-fda-bureaucracy/

Don’t Let the Country’s Wet Blankets Ruin Independence Day

Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille

“Leading up to our Independence Day party, my wife asked whether she should buy us T-shirts celebrating America’s 250th anniversary or stick with what we already have. We went with our existing garments. When the red, white, and blue string lights are up and the Gadsden flag is flying out front, my son will don his free speech shirt, my wife will wear one with USA printed across it, and my shirt will show an image of George Washington crossing the Delaware and text reading: ‘Americans. Willing to cross a frozen river to kill you. In your sleep. On Christmas. Not kidding, we’ve done it.’ It will be festive. But not everybody shares our enthusiasm for celebrating the nation’s birthday and the liberty at the core of its founding philosophy.” (06/26/26)

https://reason.com/2026/06/26/dont-let-the-countrys-wet-blankets-ruin-independence-day/

Does US AI Depend on Big Companies Throwing Money in the Toilet? The Chinese Competition

Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker

‘Most of us tend to think that the people controlling billions, or even hundreds of billions of dollars, at major corporations have a pretty good idea of what they are doing with their companies’ money. But that clearly is not always the case.” (06/26/26)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/26/does-us-ai-depend-on-big-companies-throwing-money-in-the-toilet-the-chinese-competition/

Auberon Herbert’s Practical Measures toward Liberty

Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman

“‘I will now sketch,’ English classical liberal, ‘voluntaryist,’ Auberon Herbert wrote in ‘The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State’ (1885), ‘the practical measures by which, as it seems to me, we could give the best effect to a system of the widest possible liberty; our great object being to secure the limitation of services undertaken by the government.’ Herbert was one of the most earnest defenders of individualism in late Victorian England. He remains an inspiration today; seeing how he thought liberty should be protected ought to be instructive.” (06/26/26)

https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-auberon-herbert-and-practical

The Iran war is the most unpopular major conflict in US history

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Stephen Semler

“During an April Senate hearing dominated by debate over the Iran war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth batted down criticisms from skeptical members of Congress, saying ‘I believe we do have the support of the American people’ in this conflict. Hegseth, it turns out, was wrong. Two months later, we can now confidently say that the Iran conflict is the most unpopular war in U.S. history. When I compared public opinion on the Iran War to previous major U.S. conflicts in May, it hadn’t quite reached the Vietnam War’s level of unpopularity. But polling from June shows that the Iran War has now sunk to negative 32% net support — below the negative 31% recorded in the final poll during Vietnam.” (06/26/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-war-polling-us/