“If you listen to pundits, the cause of both the President and his party’s electoral struggles is the war in Iran. The war is deeply unpopular, 61% of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict. Fuel prices have exploded since the beginning of the war and Iran’s predictable moves to control or at least disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The price of gasoline has risen nearly 50% since February and diesel is up a whopping 75%. Bombs make headlines, and there are constituencies on both the far-left and far-right who have a particular obsession with the state of Israel, making conflict in the Middle East an easy scapegoat, but this misses the root cause of the Right’s current woes.” (09/25/26)
“As Thomas Sowell wrote in 2013, ‘sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.’ Government perceives, or even creates a problem. In this case, the US government created the problem of high fuel prices with its war on Iran. Government intervenes in markets to ‘solve’ the problem. But that intervention creates new, different problems — usually while failing to solve the previous problems. And those new problems are addressed with yet more interventions. At every point in that never-ending loop, things get generally worse than they were before the latest intervention, and even in specific areas it’s usually hard to discern any improvement.” (09/27/26)
“Undeterred by the axiom that there can be indecent exposure of the mind as well as the body, the Democratic Socialists of America candidly announce their agenda. Religious ‘integralists’ should be similarly explicit. DSAers want to scrap the Constitution in order to facilitate confiscating wealth, private property and other impediments to government-enforced equality and social perfection. Christian integralists, who are disproportionately Catholic, are devout and determined to make the nation more so. They would enliven politics if they would specify the measures they advocate to (as they mistakenly say) return America to being a ‘Christian nation.’ Integralists want to integrate spiritual and temporal (government) power, subordinating the latter to the former.” (09/25/26)
“The warning signs have accumulated for years: Trump’s ‘fake news’ obsession, the Associated Press access dispute over ‘Gulf of America,’ new Pentagon restrictions on reporters and battles with media companies facing federal decisions. Seen separately, these episodes can look idiosyncratic, even absurd. Seen together, they raise a serious concern about using government power to shape who can cover the government and on what terms. That is why the response should extend beyond journalism. The proposed statement should be narrow enough to attract people who disagree about almost everything else. Its purpose would be to establish a rule for presidential power, not adjudicate the merits of CNN, Fox, Trump or or any particular story.” (09/27/26)
“With our semiquincentennial on July 4 now history, we are at the start of our 240th year since the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the vital document that has long guided our nation and which Leftists fervently seek to dishonor and destroy. Those who are highly knowledgeable about American history are likely familiar with this story: In September 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel, a premier social figure within the Colonies, approached Benjamin Franklin after the signing of the Constitution. She asked, ‘Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?’ Franklin answered with a reply for the ages, ‘A republic, if you can keep it’. Franklin understood that creating a government of and by the people was a tenuous undertaking.” (09/26/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“There are two quite different models of why democracy works held by people who think it does. One is a model of incentives, one of selection. The incentive version relies on the fact that politicians want to get elected and reelected. To get elected they have to support the policies that a majority of the voters want; to get elected again, they have to actually work for those policies. … The selection model relies on the facts that people differ and that we have some ability to tell what other people are like.” (09/26/26)
“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. … close to half have doubts about election integrity – not a good sign for democracy. But this is precisely what is spurring greater efforts among local election official and volunteers to boost both trust and transparency. And that is a good sign for democracy.” (09/25/26)
“A year after launching his explosive antidrug campaign, President Donald Trump routinely rains death on alleged cocaine couriers.” (for publication 11/26)
