“Most of you have heard of Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who visited America in the 1830s and wrote a two-volume classic, Democracy in America, about his findings. De Tocqueville was an incredibly brilliant man, and I’d like to share with readers a little of his genius. Like our Founding Fathers, he had a solid grasp of history, human nature, and great, eternal spiritual truths. Here are a few of his thoughts: 1. ‘The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.’ … I find it interesting that he said that Congress would bribe the people with their own money. The man was honest. … 2. ‘I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.'” (06/21/26)
“It is a sad and disturbing fact that the white supremacist cis hetero chauvinists behind the mirage factory that is Atlantic neoliberalism have adopted the notion of ‘LGBTQ rights’ as one of their many excuses for flattening the planet and turning it into a colossal beige fulfillment center at the service of the global 1%. But this must be seen for what it truly is; fickle, empty and totally deceptive propaganda.” (06/20/26)
“This week, a federal judge in Montana cancelled oil and gas leases on 1.5 MILLION acres of land in the State of Wyoming (a different district). And more acres in Montana and the Dakotas. … The State of Wyoming alone will lose $330 million in royalties and fees – not counting the taxes paid by the people who work getting and transporting the natural gas, and the taxes as the money circulates through the local economies. Now, as lovers of liberty, we are of mixed feelings about the bureaucrats and politicos down in Cheyenne (or Helena, or Bismarck and Pierre) getting less money. But it is the people that won’t get paid because that oil and gas will stay in the ground, instead of fueling the economy, that really take it in the shorts. … So why did this judge do this? Including going outside his district? Bluntly, because the guy is in bed with the environists.” (06/20/26)
“The mainstream media has no problem guesstimating the deaths (500,000) from the Assad Dictatorship’s Civil War in Syria, nor the estimated deaths in the wars in Ukraine, Sudan, or Iran. Somehow, media editors do not let their investigative reporters assess the extent of Israel’s mass murder of civilians in Gaza, an exposed, defenseless population of 2.3 million people in an enclave the geographic size of Pennsylvania. … Why? One reason is that the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health certifies deaths in Gaza based on reports from hospitals and morgues that were mostly blown up well over a year ago. (They report presently around 73,000 fatalities.) But Hamas has admitted that there are tens of thousands of bodies under the rubble, thousands more blown into bits or incinerated and unidentifiable.” (06/20/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Back when I was a college student, a very long time ago, coat and tie were required wear in the dining hall. I kept a rolled up tie in my pocket, to be worn for meals and only for meals, have rarely worn one since. Part of the reason may have been that my sport at the time was judo, where choke holds are legal. Neckties are an obsolete technology. Their purpose was to seal the shirt at the neck to help keep the wearer warm in unheated rooms. They have been made obsolete twice, first by central heating and a second time by elastic. They are still worn, although less often than when I was young. Neckties are a fossil. There are others.” (06/19/26)
“Democrats take great offense at being accused of being unpatriotic, but the data don’t lie. A new NBC News poll captured the partisan gap over pride in America. Overall, 56% of Americans are extremely or very proud of the country, but only 29% of Democrats, compared to 90% of Republicans. That’s a yawning gap, and about a matter that really shouldn’t be controversial. We aren’t talking about abortion, or Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, but an elemental thing (pride in country) that in most times and places has been taken for granted.” [editor’s note: If you (irrationally, IMO) want people to be “proud” of their “country,” keep it a country that inspires pride. Otherwise, shut yer whining – TLK] (06/19/26)
“Everyone is right to expect a big blue wave—maybe a tsunami—in the midterms this fall. Even with all of the gerrymandering, the odds of Democrats winning control of the House are strong. The Senate, which Republicans now control 53-47, is much closer, which makes it more likely to be the locus of a constitutional crisis. Donald Trump is a chaos agent, and his fear of impeachment and a Senate trial are making him desperate and more dangerous. He can’t cancel the midterms, but he will use the enormous powers of his office to try to invalidate the election of Democrats, even where the margins aren’t close. It’s easy to miss that a slow-motion rolling coup attempt is already underway, staged by Stephen Miller and, of course, Trump himself.” (06/19/26)
“Starmer’s growing unpopularity (he is now tied with Liz Truss for least popular prime minister ever) invited a series of challenges over the last few months, especially following a disastrous result for Labour in May’s local elections. But none of his opponents, including the ambitious health secretary Wes Streeting, managed to get sufficient backing from other Labour MPs to launch a challenge. The amateurish plotters resigned from the cabinet without drawing blood. But all along, the real threat to Starmer was far from Westminster. Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester since 2017, has long been gunning for the top job.” (06/19/26)
“[W]hile the rest of the Gulf countries went one way, toward restraint and staying out of a war they were trying to end, the United Arab Emirates went another. The UAE urged the other Gulf countries to take a more aggressive posture in their defense and to join the United States. They alone said they would be willing to join a U.S.-led international effort to ‘secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.’ And on the very day the Gulf Cooperation Council opened its recent summit, the Emirati government announced it was leaving the Saudi-led OPEC group of oil-producing nations. But then the more sensational revelations came. In an extraordinary first, Israel sent an Iron Dome battery, interceptors, and dozens of IDF operators to the UAE, to help intercept Iranian missiles fired at the UAE.” (06/20/26)
“In the course of my roughly three-quarters-of-a-century-long life, I’ve lived in just three cities: Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. By year’s end, there’s a decent chance that all three of those cities will have a socialist mayor. Just to be clear, despite the fact that I’ve been an avowed democratic socialist in all three cities (for all of my adult life, in fact), I’m claiming no credit for their new socialist proclivities. Yesterday, the candidate running second in Tuesday’s D.C. Democratic mayoral primary conceded the race to the front-runner, city council and DSA member Janeese Lewis George. With three-quarters of the ballots counted, Lewis George has a 53 percent to 37 percent lead over the second-place finisher.” (06/19/26)
