Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“Starting in 1993, a small business owner in any EU member state could sell to another member state without having to face new bureaucratic or financial barriers at every border. The potential size of a new business was no longer determined by the size of the country where it was based. Today, the European Commission estimates that the Single Market has increased the European Union’s GDP by 3–4% and created 3.6 million jobs since its creation. A study by Bertelsmann Stiftung estimated that integration increases European citizens’ incomes by an average of about €840 ($974) per person per year. Yet the benefits created by this integration, and the freedom that made these benefits possible, began to come under threat on August 12, 2026, quietly and through an apparently harmless packaging regulation.” (08/24/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“As the Department of Defense fires top editors and reporters at Stars & Stripes, the clash over editorial independence exposes the dangerous urge to replace oversight with state propaganda.” (08/24/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Liam Childers
“The Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit this week, his first to South Korea in five years, comes as Lee seeks China’s help to reopen dialogue with Pyongyang. Beijing reaffirmed its pledge to play a ‘constructive role’ in promoting peace on the peninsula. None of this means Seoul is becoming a Chinese ally. Rather, South Korea, which endured considerable Chinese retaliation for accepting THAAD in the first place, has been reminded that Washington’s priorities often shift without warning. South Korea is simply demonstrating that it is an independent nation with a strong interest in avoiding an unduly antagonistic relationship with its powerful neighbor.” (08/24/26)
“Florida, you might have heard, is no longer purple: Since Ron DeSantis became governor, Republicans have gained nearly 2 million registered voters over Democrats in the Sunshine State. It is an astonishing change in partisanship for the state that famously decided the 2000 presidential election by 537 votes. The outcome of the statewide races in Florida this November, such as those for governor and US senator, are therefore not in much doubt. Democrats might dream about making Florida competitive again, but they might as well believe in the tooth fairy. But if Florida isn’t much in play between the two parties, it’s definitely in play within them. As last week’s primaries indicate, the Sunshine State is the new ground zero for the roiling internal civil wars that have dominated both parties for years. On the Democratic side, the results were a mixed bag.” (08/23/26)
“In a fundamental respect, libertarian minarchism (minimal, or limited, government) and market anarchism (or anarcho-capitalism) have something important in common: neither can guarantee individual rights. But there’s a big difference: unlike market anarchism, minarchism appears to offer a guarantee, which allegedly makes it preferable to market anarchism. Actually, it’s a false guarantee, a bait-and-switch. So it’s not preferable to market anarchism, at least on those grounds. However, what market anarchism can do is show how everyday incentives will tend to protect liberty (and already do now). Minarchism can’t credibly say the same thing because constitutionally limited representative democracy is riddled with well-known perverse political incentives. That makes market anarchism the better bet.” (08/23/26)
“New York Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who is pretty clearly running for president in 2028, made a disappointing statement recently. She was asked about the idea of defunding and/or abolishing the police, and she responded that ‘woke 1.0 was crazy.’ I found that disappointing. I know that by saying I find it disappointing I am encouraging everyone to run their pre-established pundit scripts about elections and voting and political strategy and slogans and AOC as a person and a politician …. I want to focus on why I find Cortez’s statement disappointing—which is that it gave away the frame to bullies, and it’s dispiriting when our politicians, who are meant to represent us, do that. AOC is somebody who has risen to prominence by frequently declining to give away the frame to bullies, so that makes it all the more dispiriting whenever she does so.” (08/24/26)
“People like me used to be ‘crazy’ but now we’re just inconvenient. 1984 is now and it gets worse every day while you scroll through Pornhub on your iPhone and try not to think about it. We can’t pretend like we don’t know anymore. Not after Edward Snowden. Not after Chelsea Manning. Not after Julian Assange and Virginia Giuffre and Wikileaks and the Epstein Files. We quite simply know too goddamn much to go back now. We know ‘they’ know and they know we know. … This was precisely the kind of climate that ignited the Luddite Rebellion of early 19th century England.” (08/24/26)
“The prevailing understanding of poliovirus pathogenesis posits that the virus, following intestinal infection, gains access to the central nervous system (CNS) through viremia and subsequent crossing of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). However, this model fails to adequately explain several key epidemiological and clinical features of the historical polio epidemic, including the localized nature of paralysis, the disproportionate involvement of the lower limbs, the increased susceptibility of young children, and the striking predilection for anterior (motor) neuronal damage while simultaneously sparing posterior (sensory) spinal cord structures.” (08/23/26)
“During the past several months, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a big bet that interest rates were coming down. A whole lot of old 30- and 10-year Treasury bonds with old, low interest rates are coming due over the next year or so, and if they were to be simply rolled over into new same-dated bonds, high borrowing costs would be locked in for a long time. So Bessent rolled them over into short-term bonds instead. The hope was that interest rates would come down, and he wouldn’t have to lock in very high rates. Instead, the opposite happened, and 30- and 10-year rates are at their highest levels in 20 years. Interest costs on the national debt now easily outstrip spending on the military, and are projected to grow, a lot.” (08/24/26)
