“Socialism is having another moment in U.S. politics. Politicians and activists increasingly describe themselves as socialist while their opponents use the same label as a term of condemnation. Yet both sides employ the word so loosely as to become meaningless. Sweden gets called socialist because it has high taxes and universal health care; Venezuela does because the government nationalized industries and imposed price controls. The rise of the phrase ‘democratic socialism’, which lumps together two unconnected words, adds to the confusion and makes debate difficult. Before deciding whether socialism works, we ought to determine what it actually is—and which countries practice it.” (08/17/26)
“Specifically, utilities want to reduce competition by halting competitive bidding for multi-state transmission projects, as the bidding process can take 16 to 20 months. If approved, the utilities would be the default developers of those projects, with no competition involved. In Missouri, both Ameren and Evergy, our state’s largest utilities, operate in multiple states and would gain that right of first refusal. For starters, it’s worth acknowledging that 16 to 20 months is a long time to select a developer, and these companies are right that we quickly need more energy to serve big new customers. This situation illustrates why Missouri is between a rock and a hard place in its efforts to modernize our electricity grid. … There has to be a better way—and fortunately, there is. Missouri instead could allow private electricity grids (also known as consumer regulated electricity, or CRE) for large customers like data centers.” (08/17/26)
“There are people who still debate the term ‘woke.’ From the beginning, defenders of woke judgments, discourse, and activism claimed it was ‘just good manners’; others said it didn’t exist, a mere figment of ‘right-wing paranoia.’ Truth is, it was a new, trendy term used to replace ‘social justice’ and the peculiar bent and activism methods of ‘social justice warriors,’ after ‘SJW’ became fodder for ridicule by collegiate leftism’s opponents.” (08/17/26)
“Screwworms feeding on cattle across the South, tainted vegetables spreading a parasite causing explosive diarrhea, smoke from wildfires poisoning the air and President Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran surging gas and grocery prices. All would be enough to label summer 2026 a time of crisis in the United States. Still, it’s been made far worse by the brutal heat waves plaguing much of the country …. Every summer is getting hotter, longer and more intense as fossil fuel-spawned climate change warms the globe at an unbridled rate. Now, the pace of these impacts is being accelerated by the rapid spread of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and the energy-guzzling power plants being built to fuel their usage, which Trump has been fervently working to expand.” (08/17/26)
“His decision to scale down military drills could have real upsides — so long as he is willing to coordinate with Seoul to make the most of it.” (08/17/26)
“Fundamentally, the United States and Russia have both launched wars of choice from which they cannot easily extricate themselves. In Russia there is a history of very bad things happening to rulers who lose wars, and Putin is reportedly considering another mass mobilization, despite the disruption and discontent it will cause. Trump is facing the loss of both the House and the Senate, and is open to declaring a national emergency to rule by fiat and rewrite election rules to rig the elections. In other words, both Russian and American leaders are enmeshed in a war they can’t seem to win, and to stave off the consequences of losing, both are willing to take steps that will produce massive unrest. The key difference between the countries is that Russia still has a semi-plausible path to victory.” (08/17/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Upon being elected president, both the first time and the second time, President Trump vowed to make America great again. That’s what his MAGA movement has been all about. Central to Trump’s vow has been his war on immigrants, which I think most everyone would describe as ruthless and brutal. … Has all this immigration police-state mayhem made America great again? It sure doesn’t seem so to me. In fact, all I see is things getting worse and worse, especially from the standpoint of liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony.” (08/17/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Max Friedman
“There is no First Amendment privilege to prevent someone else from speaking in reserved spaces. Blocking others from expressing viewpoints that may be uncommon or unpopular on campus frustrates the marketplace of ideas: It interferes with others’ right to listen and leaves the campus community with an incomplete understanding of the debate. This principle applies equally to all speakers, including those expressing pro-Israel viewpoints. Universities have the tools they need to respond to these incidents. For example, they can prohibit students from intentionally, materially, and substantially disrupting others’ expressive activities in reserved spaces, and they can discipline students who violate that prohibition. … What these institutions — and the state — should not do is respond to illiberal actions by proposing illiberal remedies, such as incorporating the vague and viewpoint-discriminatory IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism into campus harassment policies.” (08/17/26)
“I was undecided on what to call this essay and had thought about Reconciling David Hume and Ayn Rand. I even thought about having AI generate a graphic for it. Ayn and David duking it out in a boxing ring. Ayn and David engaged in a sword fight but using giant pens instead of swords. Or maybe a referee holding up both their gloved hands and ruling the match a draw. I hadn’t thought much about Hume since university in the late 60s and early 70s. But I was intrigued when I read Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. … Haidt reintroduced me to Hume. In particular, Hume’s maxim that ‘reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey.'” (08/17/26)
