“A mere 15 years ago, during an epoch that now seems as distant as the Paleozoic era, an American president attempted to use military power to prevent a dictator from slaughtering his own citizens. Barack Obama billed the action in Libya as a humanitarian intervention, citing the new United Nations doctrine of ‘responsibility to protect,’ or R2P. The president hoped to avert a massacre by Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi rather than, as usual, coming in afterwards to count the dead and try to bring the malefactors to justice. Obama intervened like a global police officer, following the letter of the (international) law. Eager to be seen as a ‘good cop,’ the president even promised to ‘lead from behind.’ It’s impossible to know if the US-led action did indeed prevent massive war crimes.” (02/14/26)
“For someone like me, economics is everywhere, if only you know where and how to look. Where is ‘economics’ when it comes to Valentine’s Day? Here are some of the less romantic suggestions” (02/13/26)
“That the U.S. Surveillance State is rapidly growing to the point of ubiquity has been demonstrated over the past week by seemingly benign events. While the picture that emerges is grim, to put it mildly, at least Americans are again confronted with crystal clarity over how severe this has become. The latest round of valid panic over privacy began during the Super Bowl held on Sunday. During the game, Amazon ran a commercial for its Ring camera security system. The ad manipulatively exploited people’s love of dogs to induce them to ignore the consequences of what Amazon was touting. It seems that trick did not work.” (02/13/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Deborah Palma
“The history of human progress is not written by government decrees, but by freedom of choice and the protection of property. The success of the most prosperous societies, from the founding of the United States to Argentina’s economic recovery in 2026, for example, results from principles discovered centuries ago. These ideas are part of the Austrian School of economics, in which it is explained how order arises from the individual and why any attempt at central planning results in failure.” (02/13/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Educataion
by Daniel J Mitchell
“Ed Crane, the self-described Beloved Founder of the Cato Institute, passed away on February 10. He should be remembered first and foremost as an institution builder. In his 30-plus years as President of Cato, Ed took libertarian ideas from the fringe to the mainstream. That was no trivial accomplishment, given that so many of us in the liberty movement are nonconformists (organizing libertarians is akin to herding cats).” (02/13/26)
“A state-by-state breakdown of the Senate primaries shows Democrats have largely, but not completely, averted a debilitating ideological civil war in the midterm elections.” (02/13/26)
“As the entire world is having a temper tantrum over the most recent Epstein case revelations about our discredited elites – obsessing over the power networks, the private jets, the bank accounts in the Virgin Islands, the French ministers, the European royalty, the foreign intelligence agencies, etc. – I’m having an entirely different epiphany. And, strangely, a flicker of hope. The rot on display is hard to take your eyes away from, but I find myself thinking more about what might rise in its place. I’m not talking about another faction of whip-crackers wearing better suits or pushing slicker slogans, but a quieter bunch, who appear to have the capacity to generate moral assent to a new political formula. That new elite prototype has started to take shape inside the MAHA movement. It might not yet be a fully formed counter-elite, but it certainly looks like a promising kind of one.” (02/13/26)
“A lawsuit argues that Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem coerced Apple and Meta to censor two popular ICE-monitoring tools, which violates Americans’ right to freedom of expression.” (02/13/26)
“When I was growing up in the 1980s, there was a galaxy of left-wing, even socialist, intellectual stars such as Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault and Gore Vidal whose works were like an inkwell that politicians and commentators could draw from. Judging from the Munich Security Conference this weekend, that inkwell has run dry. Take this gem of a comment on global order from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, queen of the democratic socialists: ‘What we are seeking is a return to a rules-based order that eliminates the hypocrisies around when too often in the West we look the other way for inconvenient populations, to act out these paradoxes.’ Allow me to translate this into English: ‘The West is bad and mistreats the marginalized rest of the world.'” (02/14/26)
“When the George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq in March 2003, that war had 72% support among Americans, according to Gallup. If Donald Trump now wants to start a U.S. war with Iran, the president would not remotely enjoy that level of support. He doesn’t even have half of it. Scratch that, not even a quarter of Americans want him to bomb Iran today. A SSRS/University of Maryland poll asked participants earlier this month: ‘Do you favor or oppose the United States initiating an attack on Iran under the current circumstances?’ Only 21% favored, 49% opposed, and 30% answered ‘I don’t know.'” (02/13/26)
