“Under the banner of modernization and efficiency, the Trump administration has launched a campaign to tear down what it calls ‘data silos’ across agencies. … We are witnessing the construction of a massive surveillance dragnet, built on a flagrant disregard for legal safeguards and people’s rights. People should understand — and be alarmed — that once these data silos come down, they won’t go back up. The power to track, target and punish will exist for every future administration. Will a future Democratic president, for example, cross-reference state gun registration and license records against medical records from the Department of Veterans Affairs to identify unsuitable owners? Even those who support the current ramp-up of immigration enforcement should want a system that is targeted, precise and operating within the rule of law. But the administration is scooping up entire populations in the hope of catching a few.” (08/28/25)
Source: Expression
by Eli Kronenberg & Dinah Megibow-Taylor
“[I]n Plato’s Apology, Socrates famously declares himself wiser than a certain unnamed statesman because unlike the statesman, Socrates knew better than to be too sure of things. And, in J.S. Mill’s On Liberty, we find the line, ‘The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.’ That’s how safeguarding a touch of uncertainty, even when it comes to your most tightly held beliefs, can help promote a culture of free speech. Because people only become censorial when they are sure of themselves. But if you keep open the possibility that you might be wrong, and that the other person might be right, you are more likely to want to hear what they have to say.” (08/28/25)
“‘Politics is the science of fraud.’ And politicians? They’re the ‘professors of that science.’ Richard Henry Lee wasn’t talking about a few bad apples. He was warning about the nature of the system itself. It has been the same playbook throughout history. The founders knew it. The great thinkers they studied knew it. They left us warnings about exactly what to watch for. The pattern reveals itself through three specific methods that have toppled republics and established tyranny for thousands of years – a system built on fraud, fear, bribery, and corruption.” (08/28/25)
“Concerns about the Federal Reserve’s independence have grown following repeated attacks by President Donald Trump, including this week’s decision to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook based on questionable allegations. But this debate is too narrowly focused on the president’s political pressure, ignoring a growing danger in our system. It is true that since the Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord of 1951, the Fed has had operational independence — the ability to set interest rates day to day — without any obligation to make government borrowing cheap. But it never had true economic independence because the bank’s monetary policy cannot be insulated from the effect of fiscal policy, and vice versa.” (08/28/25)
“Killing from the sky has long offered the sort of detachment that warfare on the ground can’t match. Far from its victims, air power remains the height of modernity. And yet, as the monk Thomas Merton concluded in a poem, using the voice of a Nazi commandant, ‘Do not think yourself better because you burn up friends and enemies with long-range missiles without ever seeing what you have done.’ Nine decades have passed since aerial technology first began notably assisting warmakers. Midway through the 1930s, when Benito Mussolini sent Italy’s air force into action during the invasion of Ethiopia, hospitals were among its main targets. Soon afterward, in April 1937, the fascist militaries of Germany and Italy dropped bombs on a Spanish town with a name that quickly became a synonym for the slaughter of civilians: Guernica.” (08/28/25)
“The nomination of Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York suddenly has people talking about ‘Left Abundance.’ Where earlier this year it looked as though the movement to create a more effective, problem-solving state and unlock the supply of crucial goods might end up fitting best with political moderation, it suddenly seems to have an avatar cut from a different cloth, arguing that we need to clear away roadblocks obstructing housing and … publicly owned supermarkets. Mamdani’s election raises the question of whether abundance will actually become a project of ‘Red Plenty,’ one in which we deregulate the public sector in the name of more effective central planning and state provision.” (08/28/25)
“I specialize in trillion-dollar ideas: policy reforms which, if implemented, would generate trillions of dollars of net social benefits. Ideas like open borders, educational austerity, and by-right construction. While I’m well-aware that my thoughtful critics have thoughtful criticisms, I also maintain that thoughtful critics with thoughtful criticisms are few and far between. When I present my trillion-dollar ideas, most of my critics present emotionally compelling but quantitatively trivial drawbacks. … I have a standard reply to all such criticisms: Even if you’re totally right, even if the problem is ten times worse than you fear, we should still implement the trillion-dollar proposal under discussion. Why? Because when we’re evaluating policies, we should ‘put a price tag’ on every problem — and the price tag on your problem is a rounding error.” (08/28/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Western leaders who say they’ll recognize a Palestinian state while feebly calling on Both Sides to reach a ceasefire deal are just cuter, more photogenic versions of Netanyahu. They’re making empty noises to appear as though they’re doing something while refusing to actually lift a finger to stop the genocide. They know Israel’s not going to make a permanent ceasefire deal because Netanyahu has explicitly stated that the slaughter won’t end until the ethnic cleansing of Gaza is complete. That’s why Tel Aviv is just ignoring the fact that Hamas agreed to a ceasefire a week and a half ago; there is absolutely nothing Hamas could agree to which would stop Israel from doing everything it needs to do to steal a Palestinian territory from the Palestinians who live there.” (08/28/25)
“‘Fiscal dominance’ refers to the state’s expenditures (fiscal policy) dominating monetary policy. Instead of the legislature (Congress in the US) controlling government expenditures while the central bank (the Fed) tries to control inflation, the latter helps finance expenditures and Congress obtains more leeway to run deficits. Fiscal dominance is the opposite of central bank independence. … One way or another, sooner or later, fiscal dominance will lead to inflation, which is defined as a sustained increase in the price level.” (08/28/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by William L Anderson
“Although some may be nostalgic for Bush, perhaps we should be reminded of his disastrous record as president, a record that still is creating negative dividends to this very day. Forget the rhetoric about how ‘this guy is decent.’ The term ‘decent’ is no way to describe Bush’s two terms in office.” (08/28/25)
