“Election Day is always relatively serene. There’s nothing much to do other than wait for results. We’re in a state of suspended animation, waiting to discover the future after the polls close. The evidence collected from polls, spending announcements, ground reports, and more, points to a big Democratic victory. But let’s go a layer deeper. Here are ten questions we will get clarity about with the election results. There’s a difference between a bad night and a catastrophic one, a tough result that can be overcome in a couple of years and something that will realign the country for a long time. The way that Republicans are acting right now suggests they are trying to stave off the latter.” (11/03/26)
“The U.S. Constitution says ‘the times, places and manner of holding elections’ for senators and representatives ‘shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof,’ although Congress ‘may at any time by law make or alter such regulations.’ Yet in the run-up to Tuesday’s elections, the Trump administration has unilaterally and repeatedly tried to impose its own restrictions on that constitutional power, resulting in a remarkable series of rebukes by federal courts, including four issued during the last five days.” (11/02/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Some of the reasons doom might not happen depend on facts that we have no way to influence, but not all. There may be no way of preventing the creation of AI’s that do not care about human welfare but it might be possible to improve the odds of the creation of some that do. We are a great deal smarter than other living things but some of us still care about some of them.” (11/02/26)
“Imagine a law called the Voter Accountability Act. Or call it the Max Tax, if you like. If a party wins control of government and runs a deficit, everyone who voted for it pays 10 percent more in income taxes during deficit years. If the budget balances, rates stay normal. Voters on the losing side get a 10 percent discount on their tax bills. Non-voters pay the ordinary rate. So described, the Max Tax sounds like justice ringing the doorbell. Whoever installs the government gets the invoice. In other words, if you really want things done your way, then you have to pay for it. I like the idea. But I also know it would probably create a clusterf—. Still, the ways it might fail tell us as much about the absurdity of our current system as they do about the proposal itself.” (11/02/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“Conservatives are well known for launching moral crusades. Because they think they have an ally in the White House, some of them are now openly calling for the federal government to ban pornography. But instead of advocating for new legislation to combat pornography, they maintain that obscenity laws still exist on the federal and state levels and should therefore be used against pornography. The question here is not whether viewing pornography is acceptable, good, useful, or beneficial, or whether viewing pornography is bad, immoral, harmful, or sinful. The question at issue is simply this: Should government at some level, for whatever reason, seek to ban some or all pornography?” (11/02/26)
“As machines take over routine tasks, work might actually become less robotic. When production is cheap, people can be much more entrepreneurial — and more personal.” (11/02/26)
“In 2020, Trump tried to steal a presidential election. This year, he is trying to steal Congress. Once again, it won’t work. Despite his best efforts, he does not have a sufficiently consolidated authoritarian regime, centralized federal control, or enough practical political support to pull it off. But the ineptitude of the attempt should not excuse the gravity of the crime. The president of the United States is attempting, in plain public view and with every power at his disposal, to destroy our democratic republic. He has said as much all year. … When the danger passes, there will be a strong pull to file this away with everything else he tried that didn’t pan out. The courts held, the counties did their jobs, the voters showed up. The country moves on. But the law does not treat failure as an excuse.” (11/02/26)
“The federal government has a legitimate interest in preventing unlawful voting. Noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections, and allegations of deliberate election fraud should be investigated. Nobody should have to abandon those principles to recognize the serious problems with what the administration is doing. Investigations require evidence, and removing voters or refusing to count their ballots requires considerably more than an allegation generated by matching names against government databases. The administration’s actions have repeatedly failed to satisfy those requirements. Worse, some of its demands would have imposed consequences on eligible voters before anyone could determine whether they had done anything wrong.” (11/02/26)
“Eleven billion dollars…. Actually, more than that. Political advertising spending and reservations have now exceeded $11.6 billion, making this the most expensive election cycle for political advertising in American history. For that kind of money, you’d think somebody might have figured out how to make groceries cheaper. Instead, Americans have endured months of attack ads, apocalyptic warnings and politicians insisting that civilization itself is on the ballot. Again. As a researcher, I’ve spent much of this year studying what Americans believe, what frustrates them and, perhaps most importantly, what might motivate them to vote. And I’ve become convinced that five words explain this election better than a thousand campaign commercials. Affordability. Socialism. Corruption. Trump. Turnout. Each tells us something about the American electorate. Together, they reveal something neither party should find particularly comforting. Americans may be less interested in voting for somebody than in voting against something.” (11/02/26)
“Onslaught, the 2026 film from director Adam Wingard, did not do particularly well at the box office or with reviewers. Dropping a few months ago to mostly middling reviews and an underwhelming box office performance, it was ignored by much of the public and dismissed by many critics. Having finally gotten around to seeing it, however, I have to vociferously disagree with what appears to be the general consensus as it exists thus far. Onslaught rocks. Not just as a stand-alone film that plays homage to the classics of John Carpenter, but, more importantly, it has something to say that is far more in line with the reality of post-War on Terror America than any number of self-serious, overwrought, Meryl Streep Starring, prestige cinema beloved by the NPR set ever could.” (11/02/26)
