“Ideally, the screams of infancy and the insolence of toddlerhood fade as a person grows and the scalpel of life begins sculpting away. Yes, problems still persist, but part of maturing is understanding that ‘he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.’ As the Bible story goes, King Solomon asked God for wisdom, and that proverb was among the things he told him. Of course it’s not necessary to be a Bible follower to understand the drawbacks of hot-headedness as an adult. … President Trump’s tendency to erupt at journalists and others is more than embarrassing or unprofessional. It’s informative.” (10/02/26)
“On Monday, as the war with Iran crossed the seven-month mark, Governor Greg Abbott declared a statewide disaster in Texas as a result of a massive increase in diesel prices and a deepening fuel shortage. Texas is hardly alone. Diesel prices have climbed nationwide since the war began …. As the midterm elections near and the war’s costs hit voters’ wallets, Abbott’s declaration is a window into a larger problem for Republicans across the country, including some in deep red states. An increasing number of Republicans are being forced to spend money and political capital defending seats that they carried easily in recent elections.” (10/02/26)
“My book about my time inside DOGE launched last week, and I’ve watched friends who privately cheer me on go completely silent in public. That’s how toxic the stigma around DOGE has become. And that stigma is built on a version of events I barely recognize. My experience inside DOGE was almost nothing like what I read about in the mainstream news. The fairest and most balanced coverage I can remember was our interview on Fox News with Bret Baier in March 2025 — but let me tell you what it was actually like. As the DOGE lead and acting assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of the Interior, I saw the accusations that we cut everything indiscriminately. That could not be further from the truth.” (10/02/26)
“Sometimes, cruel punishment is the usual, as in states like the People’s Republic of China. Everybody is a victim there. But entire ethnic or religious groups of people are routinely subjected to even more cruel tyranny than most Chinese people must put with. If Americans aren’t yet in this situation — not for lack of trying by various local, state, and federal autocrats — one reason is that instances of cruel and unusual punishment can be fought in court. Which is what Ken Jouppi is doing with the help of the Institute for Justice. What was Jouppi’s alleged crime? He let a passenger bring ‘visible’ containers of beer on board his Cessna 206. … Jouppi was punished 13 years ago, a year after the ‘crime,’ with three days in jail and a $1,500 fine. But that wasn’t good enough for the Alaska government, which tenaciously enforces local alcohol prohibitions — it demanded that Jouppi forfeit his $95,000 airplane.” (10/02/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Shahid Islam
“Introductory economics textbooks devote considerable attention to market failure: monopoly power, externalities, public goods and asymmetric information. However, government failure deserves the same scrutiny. Markets are made up of imperfect human beings and so are governments. Legislators, regulators, and civil servants possess limited knowledge, imperfect foresight and incentives of their own. Evidence of market failure is not evidence that government intervention will improve the outcome. The relevant comparison is between feasible alternatives.” (10/02/26)
“The war between the United States and Iran is no longer just a confrontation between Washington and Tehran. A second contest is taking shape alongside and behind it. China is not fighting the United States directly, but its economic, technological and diplomatic links to Iran are complicating Washington’s strategy and ability to win the conflict.” (10/02/26)
“For laissez-faire liberal Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), political trouble began with ‘the unhesitating belief … that evils of all kinds should be dealt with by the State.’ The fatal first step is a government promise to rescue people from their own bad choices, such as their preference for indolence and other irresponsibility. That was a mistake because, as Spencer wrote elsewhere, ‘The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.’ Shielding people from their folly is not only bad in itself, but it also sets in motion a perverse political dynamic that, if allowed to persist, would doom freedom itself.” (10/02/26)
“The warriors who defend this country must have their votes counted. That requires two things. The first is access. They need the time, the training, and the assistance to register and cast a ballot from wherever the country sends them. The second is protection. Their votes must not be diluted by overseas civilian ballots cast under rules Congress never wrote. The Pentagon has failed on both counts. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is correcting that. Start with access. In 2010 and 2011 I served as an infantry rifle platoon leader in Afghanistan. We operated from a remote combat outpost on the Pakistani border, fighting the Taliban and the Haqqani terror network. Those were the deadliest years of the war. I also ran the Federal Voting Assistance Program for my unit.” (10/03/26)
