“In Henry VI, Shakespeare wrote, ‘Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends’. Many today would like to chisel those words above the doors to the Supreme Court. Time and time again, justices waited too long for their own legacies. For many conservatives, the loss of both houses of Congress has created a true nightmare scenario in which two conservatives (Justice Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) could hand Democrats the opportunity to take control of the Court without having to carry out their court-packing schemes. Control of the Court could now be lost by sheer attrition. Timing has always been a looming question for justices who want to see their seats filled by like-minded jurists. However, it is difficult to walk away from being one of nine.” (11/09/26)
“The fall of the Berlin Wall belongs to history, but its lessons do not. Across many countries today, including established democracies such as the United States, we see political forces challenging constitutional constraints, weakening independent institutions, concentrating executive power, or treating political opponents as enemies rather than legitimate competitors. Elsewhere, authoritarian governments have become more confident in suppressing dissent and restricting individual freedom. The forms differ, but the question confronting citizens remains familiar: what do we do when those in power gradually erode the institutions that protect our freedom?” (11/09/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Monopolies consistently deliver poor service and high costs. A government monopoly operates with even less efficiency than a corporate one needing happy customers to flourish. Government solutions fail because they rely on coercion and ‘no choice’ rather than voluntary exchange. The free market forces providers to earn customer loyalty. Government programs trap citizens in a system with no exit. When the government controls healthcare, patients lose their bargaining power and thereby their choices.” (11/09/26)
“I am glad that voters in Kansas, my home state, helped give Trump his final rebuke in the midterm elections. After all, Kansas was home to a girl named Dorothy, who pulled back a curtain to reveal that the Great Wizard who claimed only he could solve the world’s problems was nothing but a fraud. Dorothy is the hero of L. Frank Baum’s classic novel, ‘The Wizard of Oz’. Written in 1900, this beloved children’s story is also considered a parable about the injustices faced by working people during the Gilded Age. Swept away from her home by a storm, Dorothy believes only the Great Wizard has the power to help her. Then, when she visits his castle, she discovers that all along he was lying – and that she had the power to make her own way home.” (11/08/26)
“People want to understand how the Columbine shooters, or Adam Lanza of Sandy Hook, or Payton Gendron of Buffalo—who murdered 10 black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York on May 14, 2022—could do something so terrible to their fellow human beings. We seek and we find unsatisfactory answers. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were goths, were Mansonites, were bullied at school. Adam Lanza was autistic and had OCD. Or, in Payton Gendron’s case, we get the least helpful answer of all: He was ‘radicalized online.'” (11/09/26)
“Many complaints about immigration are really byproducts of state interventions elsewhere in the economy, preventing markets from responding to new arrivals.” (11/09/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Hope Schumaker
“For all its novelty, the technology industry is not immune to the laws of economics. The principles of competition and the rules of supply and demand still apply, even to the most cutting-edge devices. Efforts to manipulate the market through bureaucratic regulation threaten to stifle both innovation from businesses and the consumer experience. Recent developments in the world of broadband internet offer a case study in the power of competition. Internet access is becoming more affordable because competition between different methods of home internet services are driving down prices.” (11/09/26)
“When Donald Trump made the stunning announcement that Stephen Miller is his new chief of staff–preempting the New York Times by a few minutes–I literally said: ‘”Watch for a barrage of negative Miller stories in the next couple of days.’ I was wrong. It was the next couple of hours. MS NOW anchor Katy Tur said: ‘Donald Trump’s whole immigration agenda is Stephen Miller, and for Stephen Miller, it has always been absolutist: do whatever is necessary, as much as we can possibly do, be as cruel as possible as a warning sign for anybody who might want to come over.’ ‘Stephen Miller, one of his most notorious staffers, will instead be taking over as chief of staff,’ CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins … called him a domestic terrorist.'” [editor’s note: “Domestic terrorist” is about the gentlest accurate descriptor I’ve heard – TLK] (11/09/26)
