Trump Breaks It, We Pay for It: The Cost of Cleaning Up the Deep State’s Mess

Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead

“The American taxpayer has become the cleanup crew for the American Police State. We pay for the constitutional violations. We pay for the wars. We pay for the lawsuits, the settlements, the cover-ups, the damage control, the reconstruction, the overreach, the incompetence and the corruption. And when government officials are finally called to account for their misconduct, we pay for that, too. That is the dirty little secret of government accountability in America: even when the government loses, the government does not really pay. ‘We the people’ do. This is not a problem invented by Donald Trump.” (06/16/26)

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/trump_breaks_it_we_pay_for_it_the_cost_of_cleaning_up_the_deep_states_mess

Libertarians Are Wrong to Support an “Ellis Island” Immigration-Control System

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger

“On the issue of immigration, there are two completely different positions within the libertarian movement. One position favors a government-controlled, government-managed system in which federal officials centrally plan the numbers and characteristics of immigrants that will be permitted to enter the United States. The other position is commonly known as ‘open borders.’ This position is based on the principles of economic liberty and the free market. … Some libertarians attempt to ‘straddle the fence’ by endorsing what they call an ‘Ellis Island’ type of immigration-control system. … it’s not freedom — not genuine freedom. That’s a problem for libertarians, who purport to favor freedom, especially economic liberty and free-market principles.” (06/16/26)

https://www.fff.org/2026/06/16/libertarians-are-wrong-to-support-an-ellis-island-immigration-control-system/

Brexit’s paradoxical consequence: The unloved colossus of the City matters more than ever

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Miles Saltiel

“Ten years after Brexit, Britons must choke back an indigestible irony. Leaving the EU has been an unexpected success for those who voted against it: the prosperous Southeast, beneficiaries of the unloved colossus of London’s financial services. But it has been a disaster for those who voted for it, the left-behind of the neglected suburbs and provinces. Two reasons explain this paradox. First, the Brits let Barnier walk all over them on the backward-looking issues which dominated exit negotiations and regulate the rustbelt. Second, Brussels discovered that if it wanted to carry on its prodigal ways, it couldn’t do without London’s capital markets.” (06/16/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/brexits-paradoxical-consequence-the-unloved-colossus-of-the-city-matters-more-than-ever

Iran: Another Trophy for Trump’s “First” Shelf?

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“US president Donald Trump loves being ‘first.’ Whenever something newsworthy happens, big or small, in fact or in fantasy, he reliably touts it as being unprecedented in American, possibly even world, history, and a either a personal, positive accomplishment or an unjustified persecution (‘witch hunt’). … now, he’s the first president to oversee US surrender in not one, but two, wars.” (06/16/26)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20701

Economic Warfare, Militarized Diplomacy Are Brutal and Malfunctioning Tools

Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Snider

“On September 15, 1970, Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to ‘make the economy [of Chile] scream.’ (CIA Director Richard Helms’s actual note of the conversation can be seen here). But it wasn’t the economy that screamed: it was people. ‘The economy’ is an abstraction. The concrete reality of sanctions and embargos is people who are starving. Driving people to starvation has become the foreign policy of the United States.” (06/16/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/economic-warfare-militarized-diplomacy-are-brutal-and-malfunctioning-tools/

Who Really Won (or Is Winning) the American-Persian War?

Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis

“Historian Will Durant on the ancient Persian empire: ‘[It is not] natural that nations diverse in language, religion, morals, and traditions should long remain united; there is nothing organic in such a union, and compulsion must repeatedly be applied to maintain the artificial bond. In its two hundred years of empire, Persia did nothing to lessen this heterogeneity, these centrifugal forces; she was content to rule a mob of nations, and never thought of making them into a state…’ (Our Oriental Heritage, 382). I have no objection to trying to prevent dangerous governments, run by questionably civilized radicals, from having nuclear weapons. Actually, I’d prefer to see nuclear weapons completely eradicated from this planet. But unfortunately, humans have this overwhelming lust to kill each other, and some, like communists and other barbarians, like to do it in massive numbers, when possible. So, civilized people must be protected against such.” (06/16/26)

https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/06/16/who-really-wonor-is-winningthe-american-persian-war-n2677787

Accountability Loops

Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders

“You’ve heard of a feedback loop. The thermostat is a classic example. It senses the room, compares the reading to the target, and then acts to close the gap. Output bends back to become input. The system corrects itself because information about how it’s doing reaches the part that can do something about it. Now consider a particular kind of feedback loop, the kind bound up with human performance. Call it an accountability loop. Its defining feature is that the person responsible for an outcome feels its consequences. Do well, and good things follow. Fail, and the failure lands on you. The signal returns to its source.” (06/16/26)

https://underthrow.substack.com/p/accountability-loops

Cutting the Red Tape

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler

“For the last couple of years, the EU has been on a mission to make European businesses more competitive through a process it calls ‘simplification.’ This means slashing red tape — especially in the form of reporting and compliance obligations — by 25% for all companies, and at least 35% for SMEs. Backed by Germany, Italy, and the Nordic countries, the project is said to have already saved EU companies €15 billion in administrative costs, almost halfway to the €37.5 billion savings goal set by Brussels for 2029.” (06/16/26)

https://fee.org/articles/cutting-the-red-tape/

How Pakistan proved its mediation skills

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“It’s been more than 100 days since the United States and Israel launched their first wave of attacks against Iran. With Iran and the U.S. now agreeing to sign a memorandum of understanding on Friday, it will likely be another 60 days before a conclusive end to the war is in sight. Given the thorny issues between the two countries – especially the still-unsettled matter of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program – finalizing a peace deal in the 60-day ceasefire window is a considerable challenge. If the envisioned ceasefire holds, and oil shipments move smoothly through the Strait of Hormuz, a longer period to work out all the details might not be a bad thing for what one analyst described as ‘the slow institutional work of conflict transformation.'” (06/15/26)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0615/How-Pakistan-proved-its-mediation-skills