“Earlier this month, former Republican congressman and Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers appeared on the campaign trail with his wife Kristi, handing out $10 gift cards at a Detroit gas station. ‘We’re all struggling with incredibly high gas prices’, Ms. Rogers said in a video taken from the scene. ‘And Mike knows this[‘. What voters would not have known from that video is that Ms. Rogers runs a Beltway trade group representing energy traders, mining companies, and manufacturers in their efforts to influence federal officials and federal policy. According to ethics watchdogs, Ms. Rogers’s position, which has not been previously reported, raises the potential for serious conflicts of interest should her husband win his hotly contested Senate race against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.” (10/29/26)
“Friedman challenged the idea that governments could spend their way to prosperity. Fifty years after receiving the Nobel Prize, his most enduring lessons remain crucial — and largely ignored.” (10/29/26)
“The recent rioting in France, and in the past in the UK, set me wondering ifrioting and looting are more likely to be done by groups that feel themselves to be marginalized. There is an important qualification. Feeling marginalized raises the odds of joining a riot. It does not explain who loots, or when. The current European wave makes the point. On October 17th some 550,000 people marched in France against the cost of living by the Interior Ministry’s count, and the processions were mostly calm. The violence and looting broke out on the margins, in cities from Limoges and Lyon to Marseille and Paris.” (10/29/26)
“The boom in AI-related spending is already enormous relative to the size of the U.S. economy and is widely expected to grow even bigger. Indeed, a widely cited projection by Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of the Columbia Business School concludes, based on announced plans by major players in the industry, that this will be the biggest investment boom in U.S. history, measured as a percentage of GDP …. Well, I’m going to make a prediction: This will not happen. Instead, the splurge on AI will run into two walls that will force either postponement or cancellation of many of those announced projects.” (10/29/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver
“It’s becoming an annual event that I write something about Halloween. I discussed Spirit Halloween Stores in 2024, and the economics of the holiday in 2025. This year, there have been controversies about candy. What it’s made of, how much it costs, and didn’t it used to be better? One debate started when the heir to the candymaking Reese family accused current brand owner Hershey’s of besmirching his family’s legacy by (he claims) using cheaper ingredients for the peanut butter cups. In an open letter on LinkedIn, he claimed that the product was so bad that he ‘had to spit it out.'” (10/29/26)
“Earlier this month a Fox News poll found that corruption in government is now the top concern of American voters, above inflation and gas prices. Most people who answered that poll were picturing current scandals. But some of the worst corruption in modern American history played out over decades, under Democrat and Republican presidents, and most voters have never heard of it.” (10/28/26)
“As the midterms approach, the Left has gone nearly berserk in its hatred of trillionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Yet its escalating venom would have been almost inconceivable before 2022, when Musk publicly declared that he would be voting Republican. Before Musk’s recent political reversal (he voted for both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020), he was beloved by the Left as the first successful upstart challenger to the century-long dominance of the Big Three fossil-fuel automakers. Liberals once loved his revolutionary, electrically powered Teslas and drove them proudly as a green virtue signal. Not now. Far-left podcaster Jennifer Welch has run out of Nazi epithets for Musk. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (ironically, given her own limited talents) trashed Musk as ‘probably one of the most unintelligent billionaires I have ever met or seen or witnessed’. ” (10/29/26)
“[O]n Alaska’s four-person ballot, the choices are incumbent Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan; Democrat Mary Peltola; the other Dan J. Sullivan, recruited by the Peltola campaign and the DSCC; and a registered Republican, Gerald Heikes, also recruited into the race by the Peltola campaign and the DSCC. All while lying about it, of course.” (10/28/26)
Source: Liberalism.org
by Christopher R Hallenbrook & Ryan Reed
“The harms of climate change are now well documented, from rising sea levels to destructive wildfires, severe flooding, and now the strongest El Niño on record. Yet classical liberals have often criticized proposals addressing this threat as impractical, costly, and/or beyond the legitimate scope of government power. We engage the latter critique by turning to John Locke’s writings. Locke is both a proponent of limited government and profoundly influential on liberal democracies. He argued that government exists solely to enforce natural law, and in doing so, it protects life, liberty, and property. While Locke presented the earth’s resources as existing to be exploited, he crucially limited property acquisition, arguing that natural law prohibits spoilage and requires we leave ‘enough and as good for others.’ We argue that because these caveats are part of the natural law, governments are obligated to take comprehensive action addressing climate change.” (10/28/26)
