Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Citizens worry about promised benefits as the Trust Fund runs dry by 2033. Instead of tax hikes that punish the young, here are four proven reforms.” (06/12/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/social-security-insolvency-the-lies
Source: The Daily Economy
by Kimberlee Josephson
“Fair trade, organic, reef-safe, rainforest friendly, cruelty-free: are ethical labels useful signals, or simply morality as marketing?” (06/12/26)
Source: EconLog
by John Phelan
“When Winston Churchill was named Chancellor in November 1924, he is said to have assumed it was the largely ceremonial post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and was as surprised as anyone, given his lack of interest in economics, to find that it was Chancellor of the Exchequer, constitutionally the second most powerful office in the British government. ‘I was surprised,’ he wrote, ‘and the Conservative Party dumbfounded.’ The controversy that would follow Churchill’s tenure has implications for policy debates today. It all has to do with macroeconomics and exchange rates: how they affect trade and development, whether they should be fixed or floating, and the problems these questions create for policymakers. In the short term, the decisions Churchill made led to the General Strike of 1926, and these debates continue to echo in the longer term.” (06/12/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/churchill-keynes-and-the-general-strike-at-100
Source: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
by David Beckworth
“Why the Friedman Rule Alone Cannot Determine the Optimal Size of the Fed’s Balance Sheet.” ()6/12/26)
https://macroeconomicpolicynexus.substack.com/p/missing-the-forest-for-the-trees
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Joshua Villanueva
“Observers could easily dismiss Pope Leo XIV’s ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ as just another document on artificial intelligence. But under the surface lies a deeper question: whether modern political elites still have both the ability and the moral clarity to place restraints on power.” (06/12/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Robert C Koehler
“Suddenly my cynicism vanished and things started making sense… America started making sense, from past to present. I was already in the process of writing this column — hey, the nation’s 250th birthday is coming up — and had never felt more lost. Where, where, where am I going with this? What am I trying to say? My words had no core, no soul. I felt like I had given myself the random rubble of a bombed-out building to write about. Then a friend sent me a link to a New York Times opinion piece. I decided to give it a quick read. I don’t necessarily trust the Times. It can be smugly wrong. But I took a look — it was by literary critic A.O. Scott — and I couldn’t stop reading it.” (06/14/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter
“As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is likely that we will hear a common, but mistaken, interpretation of the Declaration by both establishment conservatives and progressive egalitarians. After repeating Jefferson’s words ‘that all men are created equal,’ they will make a simple, true observation — at the time of writing, not everyone was treated as ‘equal’ (e.g., slavery). Following that observation comes the supposition: since the historical period of colonial America did not match the ideal of modern, progressive egalitarianism, therefore, the centralized nation-state was required to increasingly achieve that ideal.” (06/12/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/declaration-independence-versus-egalitarianism
Source: CounterPunch
by John W Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
“America has become an occupied nation. Not by one invading army, but by many occupying powers: the police state, the surveillance state, the war state, the corporate state, the foreign influence machine, and a ruling class that treats the American people as little more than collateral damage in its pursuit of power, profit and control. We have been policed, surveilled, taxed, indebted, manipulated, censored, tracked, searched, silenced and sold out.” (06/12/26)
Source: New York Post
by Victor Davis Hanson
“The grotesque sexual misconduct involving Democratic politicians (from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to California Rep. Eric Swalwell) has finally put #MeToo to rest. We were reminded of its demise when it was revealed that Maine senatorial candidate and socialist heartthrob Graham Platner had been discovered to possess a long social media history of crude and pornographic put-downs of women. The demise of Black Lives Matter offers another example of a recurring left-wing phenomenon: movements that begin as moral crusades and end as self-parodies. Almost every BLM cause célèbre has proved fraudulent, following a long tradition that stretches from Al Sharpton’s Tawana Brawley myth to the Duke lacrosse scandal. The aftermath of the death of George Floyd did lasting damage to the country that still reverberates. The current leftist habit of urban intersection takeovers, statue-toppling, name-changing, and violent demonstrations is a legacy of that summer of lawlessness.” (06/14/26)
Source: Law & Liberty
by Rebecca Burgess
“Today’s veterans owe a special debt to the Greatest Generation of World War II.” (06/12/26)