Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Why in the world should the American people be forced, through their tax system, to fund a government that they might not wish to fund if they were free to decide what to do with their own money? Where is the morality in such a program? Where is the justice in such a program? How is such a program reconcilable with the principles of liberty?” (06/19/26)
“More than fifty-two million Americans used marijuana during 2021, according to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, and another ten million people used other illicit substances. Actual usage is higher because some people are paranoid about confessing crimes to federally funded survey takers. Roughly 40% of American households possess firearms. Thus, roughly twenty-five million gun owners were probably felons because of their possession or use of marijuana or other illicit indulgences. Though most gun owners who violate marijuana laws pose no threat, federal agencies could have potentially rounded them up as if they were hostile Indians being confined to a reservation. … Despite the victory at the Supreme Court, gun owners should remember that most of Congress, the Justice Department, and the Trump White House remain dire threats to their rights and liberties. Any politicians who brazenly seeks to destroy the Second Amendment cannot be trusted to respect any other constitutional right.” (06/19/26)
“In what we used to think of as ordinary times, commemorating the anniversary of D-Day—when Allied forces stormed the Normandy beaches to break Hitler’s grip on Europe—would have been a straightforward assignment for the U.S. secretary of defense. The commemoration earlier this month offered Pete Hegseth, the current secretary, an opportunity to stand with our allies and remind them of a shared commitment to democracy and freedom. Almost anyone else in Hegseth’s position would have given a speech that fit the occasion, one focused solely on honoring the American and allied service members who fought and died on June 6, 1944. But these are not ordinary times. Instead, Hegseth delivered a profoundly unsettling address, one echoing the message of The Camp of the Saints, a racist and genocidal 1973 novel by the French writer, Jean Raspail, that has found a serious following among the mainstream U.S. right wing.” (06/19/26)
“Recently I saw an ad on Youtube which advertised a preventative medicine for Alzheimer’s and dementia. The ad claimed that there is a recipe repeated many times in the Bible for this miraculous preventative and that’s why there is so little incidence of these maladies in Israel. I’m generally skeptical of such claims but if such a claim is false, it simply wouldn’t be permitted to be published, right? Wrong! I decided to check out the claim with my buddy CoPilot (Microsoft’s AI) and it led to an interesting discussion of this and many other false, misleading and fraudulent advertising on big tech platforms. I have flagged such false and misleading ads on Facebook many times and yet the ads keep appearing? Why? Here is our very revealing discussion.” (06/19/26)
“Federal gun control enforcement actions by the ATF are on the rise again. While the numbers are still below record highs set by President Trump during his first term, and in one key metric, lower than they’ve been in a decade, the overall picture is still terrible. And in some cases, they’re heading in the wrong direction once again. Every year the ATF releases a fact sheet detailing the number of employees engaging in gun control measures as well as the number of cases pursued and defendants named in said cases. The following report is based entirely on the recently-released data provided for 2025.” (06/19/26)
“From the gas pump to the produce aisle, Americans are seeking respite from high prices. They now have a new champion. On Wednesday, Kevin Warsh made his debut as head of the Federal Reserve, easily the world’s most influential economic institution. The central bank chief told reporters the many ways he would change the Fed to rein in inflation. Yet, after being in office for only about three weeks, he also noted his own surprise at one immediate change. ‘I was just incredibly impressed” about how much the Fed’s colleagues have been ‘very open about changes,’ he said. The comment is noteworthy because Mr. Warsh believes that ‘genuine’ deliberation among experts – relying on patient inquiry, respectful listening, and civil attentiveness to alternative views and data – is key to controlling the nation’s money supply and interest rates.” (06/18/26)
“There is actually one predictable pattern in Trump’s behavior, and that’s that he’s completely unreliable and terrible to do business with. This looks like one of his business deals: a lot of noise, brutal recriminations, hair-raising threats, grandiose plans and promises, and then he walks away, leaving behind a mess, usually a much crappier version of what he claimed he was gonna do, and, of course, leaving his partners and creditors in the lurch. This is all he is in the end: a schiesty hustler. He got tired of the war; it isn’t working the way he wanted, so he’s trying to pull out.” (06/19/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter
“Among the key men involved in the American Revolution and the following periods, we find an oft-repeated concern that may seem foreign to us today—the threat of standing armies. This was a heritage of British legal thought and history, and it became an underappreciated part of American political thought and experience. Why were peacetime standing armies viewed as such a threat? To many Americans of this period, peacetime standing armies posed a threat not only because they could be used by the state to overthrow liberty, but because they tended to reshape society and government itself. A permanent military establishment could develop interests distinct from those of the people, become an instrument for enforcing unpopular or unconstitutional policies, and concentrate power in the hands of central authorities.” (06/19/26)
“The problem with AI today is not that it often hallucinates; it’s that it hardly ever does and is therefore quickly becoming indispensable. For the moment, it’s a shared resource, a digital commons available free to the peasants (that’s us). But every day, more of it gets enclosed so it can be put to other uses: waging war, immigration enforcement, and the capitalist exploitation of people and expropriation of nature. In the hands of the rich and powerful, AI is bringing closer the omni-surveillance world of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). The essential task therefore – for us like for the protagonists in these novels — is to turn the apparatus against the people who control it.” (06/19/26)
