“We practice medicine in a country capable of replacing heart valves through catheters, sequencing a human genome, performing robotic surgery, supporting failing lungs with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and developing entirely new classes of medications within a few years. Yet I can walk into an American intensive care unit caring for critically ill patients and discover that a basic medicine or fluid I have used for decades is unavailable. … Americans usually think about national security in terms of aircraft carriers, missiles, energy supplies, semiconductor factories, telecommunications infrastructure, and strategic minerals. Medicines belong on that list. A country that cannot reliably supply its population with antibiotics, anesthetics, vasopressors, chemotherapy agents, sterile injectables, IV solutions, and other essential medications has a strategic vulnerability whether policymakers acknowledge it or not.” (08/28/26)
“It is true that trade can create strategic vulnerabilities. Even if Chinese companies could make guns, ammunition, tanks, and fighter jets cheaper than every U.S. company, it would be a mistake to import our military equipment from a potential adversary that could cut off our supply of weapons. A similar, though weaker, argument can be made for things like steel, rare earths, magnets, certain pharmaceutical ingredients, or computer chips. The existence of these vulnerabilities, however, does not tell us anything about how to address them.” (08/28/26)
“Every election season (and election seasons are getting longer and longer), we hear from Democrats about just how wonderful Medicare, the health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, is. It’s so amazing that they want to destroy everything that currently exists and replace it with this entitlement for everyone. To the average person, especially a leftist trained to look to government to take care of them, this sounds great – who doesn’t love Medicare? Well, me, for one, and a lot of people who know how it actually works. As you watch Democrats across the country campaign on this issue, maybe try to ask them about just a few of the obvious problems with Medicare they don’t want you to think about. In this discussion, you have to put aside the cost.” (08/30/26)
“One of the great foreign policy disappointments of Donald Trump’s first term was the failure to advance his initial promising initiative to begin normalizing relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Trump had abandoned the threats and bluster toward Pyongyang that marked his early months in office. Instead, he moved to open a personal dialogue with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and facilitate productive negotiations on several important issues. … Unfortunately, Trump failed to prevent hawks from both parties in Congress and in the overall national security establishment from sabotaging such conciliatory efforts. … Despite that bruising political experience during his first term, Trump has indicated that he would be receptive to a new dialogue with the North Korean leader before the end of 2026.” (08/28/26)
Source: The Erick Erickson Show
by Erick-Woods Erickson
“The word ‘Ontario’ is Iroquoian. English settlers put ‘Ontario’ on their maps in the early 1600s, borrowing it from the Indians already here, and it meant roughly ‘great lake.’ The water named everything else. The colony took the name from the lake, the province took it from the colony, and the Dominion of Canada did not exist until 1867, two years after Appomattox. That name predates Canada, predates the United States, and predates every man who has ever held the presidency. Yesterday, the President signed an executive order renaming it Lake America. Now picture the American voter who was on the sidelines Tuesday, arms folded, undecided about the midterms, who read that headline and thought, ‘Well, now I’m voting Republican.’ Take your time. I’ll wait.” (08/28/26)
“Dolly understood that human nature includes not just sweetness, but much envy and resentment besides, aimed especially, of course, at the beautiful, the wealthy, and so on among us. But her obvious love of people and loyalty to her roots, her tireless work raising money and creating jobs, in short becoming such an astonishing benefactor — that overwhelmed any resentment and made people love her even more for it. That’s a remarkable American life.” (08/28/26)
“In the latest twist in the saga of President Trump’s efforts to get the U.S. Postal Service to restrict or condition mail-in voting, a federal judge once again has enjoined the Postal Service from moving ahead with its plan. District Court Judge Indira Talwani’s order yesterday came after the Supreme Court had admonished her on Monday, overturning her earlier injunction on the grounds that the Postal Service had not finalized any changes; thus the suit and injunction were supposedly premature. But as Judge Talwani wrote in her latest order, the Postal Service had actually gone ahead and issued a final rule providing that unless a state provides voter information to the USPS and meets other arbitrary conditions, the Postal Service will not deliver mail-in ballots.” (08/28/26)
“Between 1876 and 1896, the individualist, pro-capitalist Victorian polymath and evolutionary sociologist, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), published his massive three-volume The Principles of Sociology. Part five he titled ‘Political Institutions.’ In it he described mankind’s move from what he called the primitive ‘militant type of society’ to the modern ‘industrial type of society.’ His narrative is detailed and fascinating. Spencer’s general point was that the obsolete militant type was characterized by force, slavery, regimentation, and centralized power. In contrast, the beneficent industrial type was grounded in individuality, freedom, contract, interdependence, and decentralized power.” (08/28/26)
“The trade war between the United States and Canada—or, more exactly, between Donald Trump, who declared it, and Canadian politicians, who try to limit the damage though using the same logic as Trump’s—provides a good opportunity to reflect on how trade and freedom work. It is not a brilliant idea for the Canadian government to impose a tariff on Canadians who purchase American appliances, for example, in order to retaliate against the American ruler who has imposed a tariff on Americans importing Canadian whisky. … Instead of retaliation—imposing a border tax on Canadians because Trump has imposed one on Americans—[prime minister Mark Carney] could make a declaration of unilateral free trade along the following lines …” (08/27/26)
