Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“[T]he Ellis Island system wasn’t an open-border system. It was actually the start of a border-control system that would ultimately morph into the massive immigration police state that we have today, which has now broken out of the borderlands and is being expanded nationwide. A genuine open-border system is one in which there are no restrictions on the free movement of people into and out of the United States. That was the system that characterized the United States from the time that the Constitution was ratified until the federal government began imposing significant immigration restrictions in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was also the system that existed between the U.S. and Mexico from 1848, when the U.S. government eagerly absorbed the northern half of Mexico, until the 1930s, when, during the Great Depression, Mexican immigrants were increasingly blamed for unemployment and subjected to mass repatriation.” (09/28/26)
“Rome has provided both inspiration and warnings for Americans since our founding. Roman influence is in the names of our institutions (Senate, Capitol, republic, plebiscite, tribunal, census, veto, candidate, magistrate, quorum, et cetera) and in the very architecture of Washington, D.C. The Framers studied Roman history closely and built a formal Constitution to avoid Rome’s mistakes. Most importantly, they made it a higher law that ordinary legislation could not override, a concept Rome never quite developed, to their detriment. Unfortunately for us, that innovation alone is not enough. Americans have been comparing ourselves to the Romans since 1776 and before.” (09/28/26)
“Organizing and running elections in the United States is left to individual states to determine and oversee. But this month alone, the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on these processes multiple times. On Sept. 14, it issued a one-paragraph concurrence limiting proposed federal changes to mail-in voting. Earlier this week, Missouri’s redistricted voting map was back on the emergency docket for the third time this month. And on Friday, the court ruled to allow use of a vast federal database to check voter eligibility. Amid the legalese and partisan arguments surrounding such cases, American voters are both confused and concerned about the trustworthiness of the country’s election processes. According to two recent surveys, the share who believe that November midterms will be ‘fair’ ranges from 49% to 55%.” (09/26/26)
“Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously said, ‘Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.’ Friedman’s statement, clear and to the point, is supported by a mountain of evidence. From extended unemployment and crop insurance to deposit insurance and mass income tax withholding, these are but a few ‘temporary’ programs that traded their provisional status for permanency. Each of these examples, as well as many others, has something else in common. That is, each was born because of crisis. From economic recessions to war, policies and programs begun in the name of combating today’s threats have a unique way of staying long after the crisis has passed. This phenomenon is not a relic of centuries past, but one that remains wholly relevant today.” (09/28/26)
“October is when hype meets reality. In baseball, the final teams are sorted out for the playoffs, and your football teams are well into the winnowing-out process for the Super Bowl. For court nerds, the start of the October term at the Supreme Court can have a similar dynamic, as long-watched cases finally come up for oral argument. Although the court continues to accept cases on a rolling basis, this term is looking like another blockbuster, with cases that range from climate change to gun rights to parental rights. The odds of making the oral argument docket make the NFL season look like a walk in the park. After thousands of petitions, the Supreme Court accepts on average between 70-80 cases for the coveted ‘writ of certiorari.'” (09/28/26)
“Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a singular figure in U.S. history. If he remains on the bench for the next two years, he will be the longest-serving justice in American history. But his singular place in history is now tragic. First, he is at the heart of a historic decline in public trust in the Supreme Court. Second, as the most powerful Black Republican in national politics, he has damaged trust in Black conservatives as a source of innovative thinking for dealing with racial problems. … several Democrats running in the midterms appear focused on Thomas as they propose ethics codes, term limits and even adding more seats to the court to restore ideological balance. That political push began after investigative reports showed Thomas accepted, without disclosure, luxury vacations, help with tuition for a relative and real estate funding for his mother from a wealthy Republican.” (09/28/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The Wall Street Journal has a new article out titled ‘Why Are So Many Adults Cutting Off Their Parents?’ about the rising levels of family estrangement in our society. ‘Many experts believe that estrangements between adult children and their parents are becoming an epidemic in the U.S., just like divorce in the 1970s,’ writes Elizabeth Bernstein. ‘Much like then, the movement is driven by a convergence of large societal trends — this time the rise of social-media algorithms, changing therapeutic approaches and a broadening definition of trauma.’ As has become the fashion these days, Bernstein largely pins the blame for this phenomenon on TikTok. ‘Last month, more than 138,000 new videos that mentioned cutting off or going low-contact with parents were posted on TikTok, up more than 10-fold compared with August 2020,’ Bernstein writes, adding that ‘More than 82% of the posts were by women.'” (09/28/26)
“A number of critics scoffed at the notion of the SAVE program being used responsibly (‘Used responsibly?? HAHAHA as if. This will be abused as much as it can be to disenfranchise voters wherever possible.’) I get it. There are valid reasons to be concerned this election season. But the opportunity for abuse isn’t specific to the SAVE program. There are many tools election administrators have that, if used properly, improve voter list accuracy, but if abused, could lead to adverse actions against registrants. For example, election officials receive reports from the United States Postal Service’s National Change of Address portal (‘NCOA’) indicating when a registrant has moved, thereby prompting list maintenance activity. That tool could be abused just as easily as the SAVE program. That’s why it’s important for voter registration offices to have internal controls.” (09/28/26)
“Of the many ridiculous, counterproductive, and outright harmful things that Donald Trump has done, his effort to create a ‘Golden Fleet’ of ‘Trump-class’ battleships is far from the worst offense. But it is absolutely typical of the personalistic and processless state into which American national security decision making has fallen in his second term.” (09/28/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by D Dowd Muska
“In a recent piece for Works in Progress, ‘a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world,’ Zigmund Forrest and Maxwell Tabarrok noted that since ‘the completion of Battery Park City in 1976, there has not been a single major urban land reclamation project in the United States.’ The researchers believe that water-adjacent cities should ‘make more land’ to, among other things, boost affordable housing. But there’s another approach urban America can employ to promote budget-friendly homes, and it doesn’t require massive civil-engineering projects: Sell the properties it’s been hoarding.” (09/28/26)
