Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“Though Herbert Hoover was a pioneer among presidents in getting the government to ‘do something’ about a depression, he was no maverick. He had the support of distinguished court economists who promoted the idea that stable prices were the key to lasting prosperity. Common sense tells us that if we walk into a store and find prices consistently lower than they had been, we are better off, other things equal, because our money buys more. As Rothbard wrote, ‘Increased productivity tends to lower prices (and costs) and thereby distribute the fruits of free enterprise to all the public, raising the standard of living of all consumers. Forcible propping up of the price level prevents this spread of higher living standards.’ While the concept ‘stable price level’ may not sound menacing, the mechanism for achieving it was.” (08/31/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Kasia Malinawska-Sempruch
“Nearly $58 billion is now flowing into states and local governments after the recent settlement with Purdue Pharma and other companies whose actions fueled the overdose epidemic, one of the deadliest public health crises in American history. For the first time in a generation, local communities have a critical opportunity to decide how this money is spent and allocate funding to build systems on their own terms, systems that actually save lives and provide care rooted in dignity. The question is whether state, county, and municipal officials will actually take that chance. The settlement money belongs to the people that paid the price. It is restitution for those lives lost, for families devastated, and for communities harmed not only by addiction and overdose, but by decades of failed punitive policies that criminalized suffering instead of treating it. It doesn’t belong to politicians, hospital systems, police departments, or consultants.” (08/31/26)
“Turkey wants a single Syrian state under Ahmed al-Sharaa, its Kurdish militias folded into a national army, its refugees sent home, its northern border shut. Israel wants Syria kept weak and split, its minorities shielded from Damascus, its south left open to Israeli entry. The foreign minister in Jerusalem has been clear that Turkish radar and air defense and aircraft would close skies that Israeli jets now cross at will, and would make a future strike on Iran harder to fly. Al-Sharaa, pressed from both sides, takes Turkish training and reconstruction while quietly thinning the Turkish-shaped units inside his own army, unwilling to become anyone’s client. Syria is not where the rivalry is happening. Syria is what it is over.” (08/31/26)
“There is a point in the decline of republics when the problem is no longer that government breaks its own laws. Governments will always behave unlawfully. The deeper problem comes when the constitutional machinery designed to prevent those acts stops functioning — when spending becomes detached from arithmetic, presidential power becomes detached from law, and Congress and the courts become detached from the Constitution. That’s where America is today.” (08/30/26)
“We know Trump-deranged New York Attorney General Letitia James campaigned on jailing the president, but an explosive all-staff email from one of her star prosecutors Friday claims her office explicitly directed him to ‘find and pursue crimes’ to pin on Donald Trump and his allies, according to the Albany Times- Union. In a bridge-burning email to 2,000 colleagues at 10 a.m. Friday, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Wiesenfeld claimed that he had been instructed by his supervisor ‘to find and pursue crimes committed by specific individuals and organizations affiliated with Donald Trump’. ” (08/30/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“‘It is never too much to remember how much ethnic cleansing was made in the past based on ‘scientific evidence’ that some races were ‘not as intelligent as ours’ … (Comment on my blog) … Claims of this sort, about genocide, slavery, or ethnic cleansing, are offered as a reason not to talk about group differences. The implicit argument is that even if the average IQ of Africans is lower than that of Europeans or fewer women than men are talented at mathematics it is better not to say so, better to pretend it isn’t true. People making the argument rarely put it that way but it is pretty clearly what they believe. This raises three questions.” (08/30/26)
“The Privacy Act of 1974 is the most important bulwark against federal government misuse of the enormous amount of personal data it collects. This applies to information that can be used to confirm an individual’s identity, either alone or when combined with other information linkable to a specific individual. The Privacy Act limits access to and disclosure of such information to those with a need to know regarding the performance of their duties. Individuals harmed by unlawful disclosure may sue the agency in federal court, but only for actual damages. … When officials override agency safeguards, Privacy Act remedies have been insufficient to stop ongoing harms or provide complete relief to a harmed individual. Recent events involving investigation of the President’s political enemies demonstrate the holes in the remedial framework.” (08/30/26)
“Truth, the old saying goes, is stranger than fiction. Which may be why I like biographies. They’re the stories of real people. They tell us about real heroes. Role models. Inspirations. But the most interesting and inspiring of such stories are often autobiographies. Autobiographies go a step beyond the biography. They give us a glimpse into a person’s soul. They reveal personal struggles in a visceral way.” (08/30/26)
