Category: Opinion

Source: spiked
by Albie Amankona

“Working-class Brits face genuine hardship, but not the Dickensian destitution that the left seems to imagine.” (02/22/26)

https://archive.is/nrXLt

Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine

“Abigail Spanberger, the new governor of Virginia, who has been tapped to deliver the Democrats’ State of the Union reply Tuesday night, is the perfect avatar for her party’s deception. With her long blond bob, minimalist makeup, pinched face and brisk air, she looks like the sort of competent working mom you’d encounter at school drop-off in any affluent suburb. In other words, she seems like somebody you instinctively trust. But don’t be fooled by appearances. Spanberger is an expert at subterfuge, having spent eight years as an undercover CIA case officer, aka a spy, under Barack Obama and John Brennan, in the era when Democrats turned national security back on itself.” (02/22/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/02/22/opinion/miranda-devine-dems-will-roll-out-their-perfect-agent-of-subterfuge-abigail-spanberger-in-response-to-sotu/

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling

“Academic positions at universities in Austria, especially after the First World War, were few and far between. Mises’s well known classical-liberal, free-market views did not fit in the Vienna of his time, which was filled with socialist, Marxist, and nationalist ideas and ideologies. Furthermore, the fact that Mises came from a Jewish family meant that degrees of anti-Semitism also worked against him in various academic circles. While he did have the status of a privatdozent (an unsalaried lecturer) who could deliver a course each term at the University of Vienna with the title of Professor Extraordinary, it did not provide an income to live on. From 1909 to 1934 (except during the First World War when he served in the Austrian Army), Mises worked as an economic policy analyst and advisor to the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, Crafts, and Industry.” (02/23/26)

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/ludwig-von-mises-on-economic-policy-in-interwar-austria/

Source: The Reframe
by AR Moxon

“I’m contemplating the overall discourse, of which these two stories are just a part, and whose presence in my inbox represents a synecdoche and a catalyst. This is the discourse about what is commonly called the male loneliness epidemic, which is a problem, usually one that is presented as something for the rest of us to solve on behalf of lonely men. If we don’t solve it, we’re usually warned, we will be at fault for whatever these men do next, in retaliation for not having their problem solved. There’s apparently nothing the lonely men themselves can do, I’ve noticed.” (02/22/26)

https://www.the-reframe.com/fix-your-hearts-or-die/

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Bryan Tehunissen

“Americans are told that high medical costs are inevitable. Medicine is complex. Technology advances. The population is aging. Saving lives, we’re assured, simply costs more. But that explanation collapses the moment we look at parts of medicine that operate under different economic rules. Consider LASIK eye surgery. Since its introduction in the 1990s, the procedure has become safer, more precise, and more technologically advanced. Yet when adjusted for inflation, the price for the procedure has remained stable or even dropped. Cosmetic surgery shows a similar pattern: improving quality, competitive pricing, transparent costs. These are not simple services. They require advanced equipment, skilled specialists, and serious safety standards. What they lack is something else: third-party payment distortion.” (02/22/26)

https://fee.org/articles/why-is-american-healthcare-so-expensive/

Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman

“Will Section 122 give Donald Trump enough time to invoke Sections 232 and 301? If not, is Section 338 really a possibility? Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? I hope not.” (02/22/26)

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/tariff-policy-by-the-numbers

Source: Washington Post
by George F Will

“By curtailing the president regarding tariffs, the Supreme Court on Friday perhaps applied a defibrillator to Congress. Its weak contemporary heartbeat threatens the constitutional architecture of powers separated, checked and balanced. But Congress’s fluttering pulse requires a stronger jolt than last week’s 6-3 decision. It addressed only part of the problem that Congress has created by behavior that fuels today’s rampant presidency.” (02/22/26)

https://archive.is/PY5Yu

Source: The Dispatch
by Matthew Mitchell

“It is clear now that many Republicans saw constitutional fealty as a nice talking point, a way to skewer Democrats for their unpatriotic rejection of the American founding. But it appears that some Republicans’ own constitutionalism runs about as deep as Trump’s understanding of economics. They favor the Constitution when it thwarts the Democrats. They favor it because it is old and vaguely patriotic. Its antique and loopy cursive make for a beautiful backdrop for a speech. Like the flag itself, it’s the kind of thing you can hug (awkwardly). But it isn’t the kind of thing you think about.” (02/22/26)

https://archive.is/c7r6P

Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid

“I adored Chomsky growing up. I knew the man through his work as a tireless crusader for the voiceless and the disenfranchised. His writings strongly informed my own writings and beliefs. But his relationship with billionaire child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has been exposed to be far more significant and far more sinister than a handful of chance encounters. Quite the contrary, Chomsky appears to have been complicit in a garish attempt to rehabilitate this man’s flagging reputation in hopes of allowing him to get away with his sundry predations a second time. And once again, there is a line of well-intentioned, thoughtful people curling around the block, waiting on bated breath to make the same tired old excuses.” (02/22/26)

https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-message-to-valeria-chomsky-from.html

Source: In These Times
by Amie Stager

“For Eric Chornoby, leisure time is a ​’luxury’ he can’t afford. He’s a union postal worker from Detroit who hasn’t gone on vacation in five years. ‘Everyone told me our generation was getting it good. I did what I was supposed to do. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot get ahead,’ Chornoby said at a rally in Washington, D.C., on February 7. Chornoby, along with other workers from the American Postal Workers Union’s (APWU) Young Members Committee, traveled to the U.S. Capitol to attend the first-ever march for young workers. Today, the federal minimum wage sits at $7.25 an hour, and it hasn’t been increased since 2009. Many states and cities have doubled their minimum wages, but workers want to see an increase at the federal level that’s adjusted for inflation.” (02/23/26)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/young-worker-march-washington-labor-federal-government