“We rely on experts for a lot of our information. By ‘expert,’ I mean someone who is paid for their opinion. Roger Koppl uses this definition in his 2018 book Expert Failure, and I use the same definition in my research, which is based on his book. This definition is useful because it allows us to sidestep the endless (and, frankly, arbitrary) discussion about who counts as an expert. … When we deal directly with an expert (our doctor, our mechanic, our meteorologist), we can get the information firsthand. But in a large organization, there are often several layers of communication between the expert (the one producing the opinion) and the non-expert using the opinion.” (06/25/26)
Source: Antiwar.com
by Dennis Kucinich & Elizabeth Kucinich
“The United States Congress, on the very eve of the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, is preparing to formally diminish American independence and sovereignty through a proposed merger and long-term integration of executive functions throughout the government, coordinated by the Department of Defense. Treacherous provisions in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) mandate that the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Commerce Department, and the heads of other relevant Federal departments and agencies cooperate with their Israeli counterparts for the purpose of consolidating U.S. and Israeli military activities in order to align efforts and avoid duplication.” (06/25/26)
“As today’s AI companies race to create artificial intelligence that is smarter than humans, governments around the world are failing to meet the moment. … The only solution is an international prohibition on the development of superintelligent AI.” [editor’s note: In other words, only “rogue states” would develop superintelligence. How’s that likely to work out for everyone else? – TLK] 06/25/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“The new federal ROAD to Housing Act focuses on relief for community banks, changes to manufactured housing rules, and updates to existing federal programs. It limits large investors from buying single-family homes. The bill authorizes no new funds in most of its sections. Proponents say the country faces a severe housing shortage. As usual, the federal government is behind the curve. But the ROAD Housing Act is a mixed bag, like most laws. The positive: loosens some regulations. The negative: it will restrict supply (opposite of its intent).” (06/25/26)
“The Democratic Party is trying to get born again. For forty years it didn’t want to be. Since Reagan, the Democrats stopped fighting the world he built and started managing it. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and sent the factories south. He signed the crime bill Joe Biden wrote and helped fill the prisons. He ended welfare and called it reform. He tore down the wall between the banks and your money, and a few years later the banks lost your money and got bailed out for it. Obama bailed them out, let the houses go, deported people by the millions, and kept the drone war and the surveillance state running without missing a step. On the things that decide who holds power, money and war and the police and the spying, our party and theirs were one party. That was never where they fought.” (06/25/26)
“A shifted focus to maintenance and care can’t address that need for what’s better. No matter how much time I spend in the garage lovingly tending to a classic car, it’s not going to get the gas millage or safety features of a current model hybrid. Yes, of course, we also buy junk. You’re better off investing more in, and caring for, a great pair of boots or jeans than buying another piece of fast fashion that’ll fall apart in a year or less. Probably. Maintenance is a good approach to some goods, but it fails as a systemic model for areas of rapid technological, environmental, or societal advancement. But the point is that most of the products out there now are, in meaningful ways, better than what came before. That’s growth, in the second sense, not an obsession with growth in the first.” (06/24/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Matthew Blackburn
“Prudence has been replaced by confidence that conflict can be precisely managed. Nowhere is that more evident than in the European approach to Russia.” (06/25/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“One of the puzzling things about certain political and cultural conflicts is how strongly people feel about them. I can understand why some people would prefer that homosexuals not be permitted to marry, find it harder to understand why they care so much about it. Similarly for same sex couples adopting. Similarly for polygamy. And similarly — I think the most interesting case — for attitudes towards transsexuals, individuals who have undergone a sex change operation. In each case, the question is why A cares so much about what B, or B and C, or even B, C, D, and E are doing. I have a conjecture about part of the answer. The world is a complicated place. One way in which we deal with that complication, in law and thought, is by representing a complicated reality with a much simpler model.” (06/25/26)
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Dr. Edward W Younkins
“Randy E. Barnett is one of our most important contemporary defenders of a free society. Trained as a legal scholar but working at the intersection of law, political philosophy, constitutional theory, and economics, Barnett has developed a comprehensive moral and institutional justification for liberty that draws upon natural law, natural rights, individual sovereignty, and the evolutionary benefits of social order. Unlike many economists who defend capitalism primarily on grounds of efficiency, or philosophers who rely exclusively on consequentialist arguments, Barnett seeks to demonstrate that a free society is both morally justified and practically necessary because it provides the legal and institutional framework within which persons can pursue flourishing lives according to their own judgments.” (06/25/26)
