“In October 2024, the High Court of American Samoa, an unincorporated territory of the United States, issued a staggering ruling that received little media attention. The justices ruled that, since American Samoa is unincorporated, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms does not apply there. The ruling allowed a near-total gun ban to take effect. President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum can and must reverse this immediately. The issue of territories is obscure, so some background is helpful. The United States has 50 states and several territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. The District of Columbia also is not a state; however, unlike the other territories, it receives three electoral votes for the presidency pursuant to the 23rd Amendment.” (10/01/26)
“There is no greater myth regarding American exceptionalism than the view that only the United States has always seen the promotion of ‘liberal democracy’ as part of its national identity. In actual fact, the United States pledges itself to ‘liberal democracy’ the world over only when its military designs are compromised or stymied. The model was President Woodrow Wilson’s ‘war to end all wars’ during World War I. When Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany in 1917, he famously stated that the ‘world must be made safe for democracy.’ Wilson understood that the American people were not interested in a conflict as part of a larger geopolitical battle, but would rally around the idea of a moral crusade to permanently eliminate militarism and establish a lasting global peace.” (10/01/26)
Source: Cato Institute
by Ryan Bourne & Nathan Miller
“The 10-year Treasury yield exceeded 5.3 percent yesterday—its highest intraday level since 2002. It has risen by roughly half a percentage point this month. Given the scale of the US debt that needs refinancing and projections for ongoing annual federal deficits, such a surge in government borrowing costs could be a big deal for US interest spending levels and, ultimately, the path of the debt itself.” (10/01/26)
“About one-third of the world’s people are between the ages of 14 and 29, the largest youth generation in history. And in recent years, this demographic bulge (dubbed Generation Z) has certainly created history. By tapping social media’s ability to both lament and liaise, youth-led protests have toppled corrupt leaders from Bangladesh to Bulgaria and pushed democratic reforms in institutions from colleges to courts. The latest example: student demonstrations in France over the poor quality of that country’s high schools. As the United Nations declared two years ago, ‘Young people are powerful forces for promoting integrity’. If the worldwide decline in democracy is ever reversed, credit might first go to this global cohort of fresh-faced netroots. One budding success could be in Serbia. Since 2024, the southeastern European country has experienced one the world’s most admired student-led uprisings.” (09/30/26)
“Like many of the brightest minds of his generation (not least Bill Clinton), Christopher Hitchens was seduced by the prospects of humanitarian intervention in the 1990s, after spending his formative years protesting the Vietnam War. Hitchens’[s] turn toward neocon militancy attracted notice among certain of his colleagues well before the war in Iraq. … Hitchens’[s] erstwhile colleague, the legendary Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn, felt that Hitchens ‘craved to be an insider.’ It was a trait, wrote Cockburn, ‘which achieved ripest expression when he elected to be sworn in as a US citizen by Bush’s director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff.’ Yet there were other expressions of this craving, equally ripe.” (10/01/26)
“If such [a ‘self-sovereign’ AI] agent existed, how would it find its way around an economy? It cannot read the minds of the millions of strangers whose choices determine what is valuable. It does not automatically know that a mine flooded yesterday, that a restaurant has empty tables tonight, or that a particular programmer suddenly has three free hours. What can it see? The answer, I think, is the same thing you and I look at: prices.” (10/01/26)
“The decline of higher education into an ideological echo chamber has been widely discussed on this and other sites. Polls show record lows in the public trust in our universities and colleges as revenues decline and closures increase. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon responded to this meltdown with a common-sense call for greater transparency and tolerance. The response from teacher unions has been nothing short of hysteria, led by Randi Weingarten at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Todd Wolfson at the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) — two of the most polarizing and political figures in teaching.” (10/01/26)
“On Tuesday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport immigrants to countries where they have no ties, with little or no notice and no meaningful chance to object. In a 6-3 decision, the Court’s conservative majority put on hold U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s ruling that the policy is unlawful until the justices consider the case, with arguments set for December. It is the third time the administration has asked the Supreme Court to block Murphy’s rulings, and the third time the Roberts Court has shamefully obliged. To see what that means in practice, consider what happened the first time the Court let these removals go forward.” (10/01/26)
“To argue in good faith—the literal translation of the Latin—means assuming that the person on the other side is saying what he actually believes and that disagreement is not itself evidence of corruption, cowardice, or deceit. And vice versa. The assumption and practice of good faith makes intellectual debate possible. And yet it feels increasingly rare. Tell someone you favor free trade and you will quickly learn you are really serving the interests of multinational corporations. Defend immigration and you are importing voters. Oppose a war and you are carrying water for the enemy. Politics, in particular, seems to bring out this line of reasoning.” (10/01/26)
