Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“In Washington, bad ideas rarely die — they rebrand. Industrial policy — long discredited in theory and practice — has returned under the more palatable language of ‘resilience’ and ‘strategic supply chains.’ The Trump administration’s proposed minerals consortium is the latest iteration. Sold as a necessary response to dependence on China for the processing of rare earths and other critical minerals, it promises coordination, investment, and independence. What it will deliver instead is distortion, waste, and a fresh round of politically-driven malinvestment.” (05/19/26)
“One American view of China — now increasingly popular on the Left and the Right alike, especially among the hate-Trump crowd — is that the communist colossus will be forever ascendant, with continued astonishing levels of food production, ship construction, and industrial output. In this pessimistic view, China will soon replace America as the world’s predominant power. We are, supposedly, like an exhausted British Empire circa 1945, and China is the new version of the postwar American powerhouse. Yet even Beijing’s miraculous 30-year leap out of poverty into first-world affluence and Westernized power is hardly the same as parity with the US. In truth, Trump held almost all the cards at the current summit and will do so again when Xi Jinping visits the US this autumn.” (05/19/26)
“Two weeks ago, five incumbent Indiana state senators ‘weren’t just defeated,’ as NBC’s Steve Kornacki explained, ‘they were defeated in landslides.’ The five had bucked President Trump’s call to redraw the state’s congressional map …. On Saturday in Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a 12-year Republican incumbent, became the first elected U.S. Senator to lose in a primary since 2012. … Cassidy was one of seven GOP Senators who found Mr. Trump guilty in his second impeachment trial, following the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. I cannot recall a president of either party ever wielding so much electoral clout within his own party — perhaps partly because other presidents did not attempt to reshape their party as aggressively as Trump has, and partly because no president has enjoyed the outsider status required to mobilize the disgruntled grassroots.” (05/19/26)
“In every state and in the federal criminal justice system, when a crime victim is killed, the law allows a family member or other representative to step into the victim’s shoes and assert the victim’s rights. That framework has become a routine and influential feature of modern criminal justice, embedded in statutes, constitutional provisions, and everyday courtroom practice. Yet despite its centrality, the justifications for this arrangement have received relatively little sustained scholarly attention. That gap has become more apparent following Professor Lee Kovarsky’s recent article, ‘The Victims’ Rights Mismatch,’ which offers a serious and thoughtful challenge to prevailing assumptions about deceased-victim representation and calls for sharply limiting victims’ rights in such cases.” (05/19/26)
“The hedge fund billionaire turned gubernatorial candidate wants to tax California’s ultrawealthy, regulate AI, and keep Silicon Valley happy at the same time. Good luck with that.” (05/19/26)
“The US/Iran-linked energy crisis has shifted from a commodity shock to structural geopolitics, with Asia at the epicenter due to its dependence on imported oil and LNG. Global reverberations can no longer be avoided.” (05/19/26)
“Like many new technologies that hold both promise and risk, artificial intelligence might be reaching a global inflection point. Last week, for example, China and the United States agreed at a summit to start talks on defining possible guardrails for AI. Meanwhile, a global watchdog, the Financial Stability Board, has invited Anthropic to provide a briefing on how the AI firm’s latest model, Mythos, might pinpoint vulnerabilities in world financial systems. Since 2023, annual AI Safety Summits have been hosted in Asia and Europe. Even beyond such cooperation between governments, religious thinkers are stepping up to offer advice.” (05/18/26)
“Eisenhower warned us: ‘Beware the military-industrial complex.’ Those words are widely remembered. Less so the companion warning: ‘Holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.’ That second warning may prove the more prophetic. The convergence of those two forces – the industrial machinery of power and the technological elite capable of shaping reality itself – is where we now find ourselves.” (05/19/26)
Source: Washington Monthly
by Alex Bronzini-Vender
“Theo Baker’s debut book is a film-worthy investigation of Stanford’s culture of fraud. But his disdain for the tech bros keeps him from understanding them.” (05/19/26)
