“Not all concerns about data centers are so crazy or even unreasonable. They do use a lot of water, though not nearly as much as some claim. They can cause electricity rates to go up. They’re ugly. And, if you’re freaking out about what AI will do to your job or to American society, taking it out on data centers makes a certain amount of sense. Politicians, as a class, tend to indulge moral panics. Which is why it’s no surprise that Republicans and Democrats alike are racing to get on the ‘right’ side of the issue.” (08/26/26)
“A few weeks ago, the City of St. Louis issued a proposal that would require new data center developments to use renewable energy for their operations, among many other requirements. There is now a conditional waiver process to sidestep the renewable requirement if the developer can prove they and Ameren can’t meet it, which is a slight improvement. From a free-market perspective, the flaws of the proposal are clear. The city would be selecting certain types of energy (in this case solar and wind) in the name of ‘clean air’ while excluding from consideration not only energy from coal and natural gas, but even nuclear energy, which also has zero emissions.” (08/25/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Eleanor Davis-Diver
“‘In casinos, the house always wins. With Kalshi, there is no house. We don’t win when our customers lose,’ the nation’s leading prediction market states on its FAQ page, differentiating itself from traditional sports betting. According to its proponents, prediction markets operate on a ‘peer-to-peer’ structure where, instead of a house, the ‘counterparty’ on a bet is another regular person, just like you or me. ‘Unlike sportsbooks Kalshi doesn’t set the odds, other users do’, claims an ad spot currently playing across television and digital platforms, featuring the world’s longest sandwich. These other ‘users’ are known as market makers, a common feature of financial markets, who continuously quote prices for everyone else to ensure consistent liquidity and smooth trading. But contrary to what the advertisement implies, most market makers are not ordinary people but highly advanced trading institutions.” (08/26/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Isabelle Brito
“Parents and community members have every right to criticize what their schools make available and ask officials to reconsider particular books. That’s free speech, too. The problem arises when one individual or group’s political views determine which ideas students can explore in their school library. Massachusetts’ Freedom to Read Law offers a promising solution, one that FIRE has long called for: due process for books. That means fair and clear procedures for reviewing challenged library materials.” (08/25/26)
“A considerable portion of libertarian infighting seems to stem from the largely unrecognized fact that there are two different ways to interpret the non-aggression principle (NAP). On the surface, the NAP seems clear: aggression is wrong. But there is a deontological way to interpret this and a consequentialist way, and these interpretations are mutually exclusive. Deontological reasoning argues people should refrain from acts of aggression, even if that leads to a less free society. Consequentialist reasoning argues people should act to create as free a society as possible, even if that means using aggression.” (08/25/26)
“As a governor and senator, Huey Long is best remembered for his radical proposals to redistribute wealth by force and for criticizing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ as not expansive or progressive enough. So when Vice President J.D. Vance says out loud that he finds Long ‘great’ and ‘interesting,’ that’s worth keeping in mind. While speaking in Ohio last week, Vance invoked Long’s famous ‘Every Man A King’ slogan and hailed Long as a ‘great Southern populist’ who was ‘an interesting guy; kind of a crazy guy.’ … The moment is illustrative both because of Vance’s choice to invoke Long by name—this was a deliberate choice made in a prewritten speech, not some off-the-cuff remark—and for how the vice president seems to have misunderstood the speech he was referencing.” (08/25/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“The U.S. military has just announced that it has carried out two more murders on the high seas near South America. This now brings the military’s high-seas murders to more than 200 people. Mind you, in its announcement, the military did not use the term ‘murder.’ The announcement stated that the military is simply enforcing the U.S. drug war. But make no mistake about it: What the military is doing is engaging in state-sponsored murder, which is ordinarily a felony offense. … Under America’s criminal-justice system, the police are not permitted to kill people they suspect of violating federal drug laws. They are required to instead take them into custody, indict them, and prosecute them. The U.S military does none of these things. It just murders the people it suspects, based on top-secret information, of violating federal drug laws.” (08/25/26)
“Trade wars are odd in that the dueling governments’ weapon of choice is confiscatory taxation imposed on their own citizens. ‘I’m mad at you — I’m going to break my son’s arm.’ ‘Oh yeah? Well fine, I’ll break my wife’s leg — how ya like them apples?’ ‘You’ve done it now — I’m dousing my whole family in gasoline and lighting a match!’ When I point out how idiotic all that is, a few doofs come back at me with: ‘Buy American — problem solved.’ But no, buying American doesn’t solve your problem as a consumer. You’re going to pay more, whether you pay it directly to Uncle Sam or not.” (08/25/26)
“In 2021, Columbia University law professor Philip Hamburger argued that the U.S. public school system violates the First Amendment. ‘Education,’ he wrote, ‘consists mostly in speech, and parents have a right under the First Amendment to exercise authority over what their children hear.’ Forcing families to accept government messaging — or pay a steep price to escape it — amounts to unconstitutional pressure. A lawsuit filed in Nebraska on Aug. 13 brings that argument into court — and could open a path toward universal school choice. Justin Jacobsen and Timothy and Joanna Menter, parents in the Lincoln Public Schools district, are suing state and local officials in Lancaster County District Court. Represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, they are challenging Nebraska’s combination of compulsory education and public-school-only funding.” (08/25/26)
“There is a remarkably simple test for whether the AI boom is actually as economically transformative as its boosters say it is: Make the companies building it pay their own damn electricity bill. Not just the meter at the server warehouse. The whole bill. If a hyperscale data center requires a new power plant, transmission line, substation, distribution upgrade, water system, or grid-reliability backstop, put that cost on the project that caused it. If the economics still work, excellent. Build it. If they don’t, then the public has just learned something extremely important about the business model.” [editor’s note: And if that happens, as it should, this guy will be the loudest whiner that those data centers should then be required to give their excess power generated to everyone else free, because REASONS – TLK] (08/25/26)
