“Imagine waking up to the sound of your front door being rammed in at six o’clock in the morning — armed agents in tactical gear pouring into your living room, rifles raised, shouting commands, kids screaming. And when you ask for a warrant signed by a judge, they wave a piece of paper their own agency printed and tell you that’s good enough. This is not a hypothetical scenario.” (01/26/26)
“Small creators don’t outperform big accounts because they’re better marketers. They outperform them because they’re better embedded in the lives of the people they serve. Their audiences aren’t scrolling past them. They’re listening, asking questions, and coming back. That dynamic is incredibly familiar if you’ve ever taught anything. Educators, coaches, and practitioners have always operated this way.” (01/26/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken
“It’s increasingly difficult to imagine anything the Trump administration can do that conservatives and Republicans will not make excuses for. There is apparently no federal power and no act by the US’s standing army of federal cops that Trump supporters won’t endorse. The latest example is Republicans new assault on the Second Amendment and against private citizens carrying firearms. GOP mouthpieces are informing us that Americans are not allowed to be armed with a gun at a protest.” (01/26/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Aaron Terr
“The drumbeat of statements from the administration that are openly hostile to basic First Amendment rights should disturb every American. And when Americans see someone shot dead in the street shortly after recording federal agents — and then hear top government officials immediately justify the shooting before any investigation can begin — they will reasonably fear that exercising these rights carries not just legal risk but physical danger.” (01/26/26)
“As I have argued, Trump’s project is less about controlling crime, and more about deporting those ‘illegals’ who don’t fit into his vision of a country dominated by white identity politics. … The irony of all this is that Trump once decried the administration of George W. Bush as ‘failed and uninspiring.’ But if it were not for the ‘innovations’ of Bush’s presidency, crafted nearly a quarter-century ago, Trump would not have had the instruments of domestic warfare and ethnic cleansing that he’s been using with impunity.” (01/26/26)
“Almost everyone embraces ‘cultural’ critiques of capitalism. The left has ‘cultural studies;’;the right has the mantra, ‘We’re a country, not an economy.’ The upshot, in both cases, is that government ought to do something about culture. Freeze it in place? Force it to progress? Turn back the clock? My latest book of essays, You Have No Right to Your Culture: Essays on the Human Condition, flips this narrative. All of these demands for ‘reshaping culture’ are thinly-veiled calls for coercing humans.” (01/26/26)
“No mentally healthy person wants to rule the world. Nobody with a functioning conscience and a working empathy center in their brain is interested in becoming a billionaire. We are ruled by the most dysfunctional members of our species. The most wounded, neurotic and sociopathic among us. The least wise, caring and insightful. What drives a person to claw their way to the top of a wildly sick society and become a lord of the dystopia?” (01/26/26)
“The Justice Department recently launched a criminal investigation into whether Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell lied to Congress about the costs of renovating the Federal Reserve’s offices. Many believe this investigation was launched in order to support President Trump’s effort to replace Powell, who he nominated to be Fed chairman in 2017, with a Fed chairman who will accommodate President Trump’s demands for lower interest rates. Almost all observers believe that President Trump’s desire to stack the Federal Reserve board with loyalists who will tailor monetary policy to his liking motivated the investigation of Federal Reserve Board Member Lisa Cook. President Trump is using allegations that Cook lied on a mortgage application as a justification to fire her.” (01/26/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Damian Pudner
“For much of the decade before the Covid pandemic, Britain’s inflation problem was its absence. Prices rose too slowly. Policymakers fretted about deflation, secular stagnation and the limits of monetary policy. Interest rates hovered near zero. Quantitative easing was deployed not to restrain demand, but to stimulate it — often with disappointing results, unless you happened to own property or financial assets. Hitting the Bank of England’s 2% inflation target looked less like a ceiling than a distant aspiration. That world has gone.” (01/26/26)
