“It was June in northern Norway, a time of year when there’s little night to speak of anyway, and Tommy Olsen had spent most of it fielding distress calls from migrant boats crossing the Aegean Sea into Greece. Like most mornings, the schoolteacher and father of five awoke to dozens of WhatsApp messages. This, too, was usual enough. He made coffee and settled into what stood for his office — a desk crammed into a narrow hallway between his daughter’s room, the kitchen and the family bathroom — and got to work. One message was from a group of refugees from West Africa who were in the southeastern Aegean Sea off the small island of Kos.” (02/19/25)
“The United States has twelve separate federal financial regulators and state regulators for securities, banking, and insurance companies. Americans are right to clamor for streamlining the government.” (02/18/25)
“Even for those who believe there’s such a thing as ‘legitimate’ government spending and don’t want the baby thrown out with the bathwater (I’m with the late Harry Browne, who noted ‘we have to remember — it’s Rosemary’s Baby‘), it seems like the Trump administration is accomplishing at least some positive public service with government employment buyouts, reining in USAID, etc. Maybe we WILL actually see a more ‘efficient’ executive branch out of all this, an organization with fewer extraneous employees and with less inclination to pay (an old example) $435 for a $15 hammer. But without congressional action to cut spending, it will all end up costing us at least as much, and probably more, than it did before.” (02/18/25)
“Logically and normatively, the Left and the Right are both wrong together against libertarianism and classical liberalism. Therein lies the reason why mainstream libertarians have alternatively fought the Left and the Right depending on which represented the most imminent danger, as Matt Zwolinski and John Tomassi emphasize in their recent book The Individualists. … From the vantage point of the distinction between individual and collective choices, the Left and the Right are, in reality, very similar monsters: they just want to impose different collective choices.” (02/18/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“President Trump has upended the liberal/progressive policy of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by decreeing its immediate end within the federal government. Is that a good thing? Conservatives sure think so. My position? I don’t really care how presidents run their welfare-state, warfare-state departments and agencies. I’m with Murray Rothbard when he was asked about the importance of ferreting out communists in the federal government. He responded — just abolish the jobs and the problem goes away. … What is concerning, however, especially insofar as dictatorship is concerned, is Trump’s efforts to rid private-sector entities of DEI. What authority does a U.S. president have under the U.S. Constitution to dictate the policies of private-sector companies?” (02/18/25)
Source: Students For Liberty
by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
“Economics is easy. Thinking like an economist can be reduced to easy and even obvious principles. Consider two of them: (1.) Much of what we want is scarce. Having one such thing means giving up another. … (2.) Every act in society has two sides, at least.” (02/18/25)
“Last week, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance shocked an A-list group of European political and military leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Germany with a blunt message: Europe has gone too far in restricting speech. … At a time when global free speech protections are eroding, Vance’s critique of Europe could have been a powerful call for realignment between the United States and Europe on advancing free expression. But America’s credibility as a defender of free speech is being undercut by the very government Vance represents. If he and the Trump administration are serious about championing free expression worldwide, they must recognize that the problem isn’t just in Europe — it’s at home, too.” (02/18/25)
“Imagine a trillion-dollar publicly-traded company that was regularly in the news for corruption scandals, couldn’t account for a majority of its assets, and has never passed an audit. Shareholders would demand resignations. The SEC would launch investigations. Executives would be forced to resign. Yet, when it comes to the Pentagon, the largest line item in the federal discretionary budget, this persistent level of dysfunction has largely been met with indifference. … If the Trump administration is really serious about reducing wasteful spending, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency would have spent the last month at the Pentagon, not the U.S. Agency for International Development.” [editor’s note: Does someone want to tell this “pundit?” The DOD audit is still to come; “You said” was just the lowest hanging fruit. – SAT] additional editor’s note: Does someone want to tell SAT that the word “gullible” is written on the ceiling? – TLK] (02/18/25)
“Online shoppers can bid on a sleek black Camaro, a commercial fishing boat, silver coins, and other items at a first-of-its-kind government auction today. However, the news release announcing the event from Hawaii’s Department of the Attorney General does not tell the full story. The state is vague about where it got these items to be auctioned. Public records show the government took nine of the 15 vehicles available from people who were never convicted. Overall, only seven of the 26 people named in these cases were convicted of any crimes. Much or perhaps all of this property comes from civil forfeiture—a moneymaking scheme that allows the government to take and permanently keep cash, cars, and other valuables that are suspected to be connected with criminal activity without having to prove wrongdoing in criminal court.” (02/18/25)
“There is no question that Eric Adams is corrupt. In September, he was accused of, among other things, receiving unreported benefits from business people and a government official from Turkey, applying pressure to FDNY to skip a fire inspection on his patrons’ behalf, and defrauding the city of New York out of $10 million in public campaign fund subsidies. The top members of his administration clearly had no faith in either his innocence or that he had covered his tracks particularly well, because the moment they caught wind of an investigation they fled like rats from a sinking ship. … Trump is seeking to leverage the charges to control the executive branch of New York City.” (02/18/25)
