Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Aaron Terr
“The drumbeat of statements from the administration that are openly hostile to basic First Amendment rights should disturb every American. And when Americans see someone shot dead in the street shortly after recording federal agents — and then hear top government officials immediately justify the shooting before any investigation can begin — they will reasonably fear that exercising these rights carries not just legal risk but physical danger.” (01/26/26)
“As I have argued, Trump’s project is less about controlling crime, and more about deporting those ‘illegals’ who don’t fit into his vision of a country dominated by white identity politics. … The irony of all this is that Trump once decried the administration of George W. Bush as ‘failed and uninspiring.’ But if it were not for the ‘innovations’ of Bush’s presidency, crafted nearly a quarter-century ago, Trump would not have had the instruments of domestic warfare and ethnic cleansing that he’s been using with impunity.” (01/26/26)
“Almost everyone embraces ‘cultural’ critiques of capitalism. The left has ‘cultural studies;’;the right has the mantra, ‘We’re a country, not an economy.’ The upshot, in both cases, is that government ought to do something about culture. Freeze it in place? Force it to progress? Turn back the clock? My latest book of essays, You Have No Right to Your Culture: Essays on the Human Condition, flips this narrative. All of these demands for ‘reshaping culture’ are thinly-veiled calls for coercing humans.” (01/26/26)
“No mentally healthy person wants to rule the world. Nobody with a functioning conscience and a working empathy center in their brain is interested in becoming a billionaire. We are ruled by the most dysfunctional members of our species. The most wounded, neurotic and sociopathic among us. The least wise, caring and insightful. What drives a person to claw their way to the top of a wildly sick society and become a lord of the dystopia?” (01/26/26)
“The Justice Department recently launched a criminal investigation into whether Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell lied to Congress about the costs of renovating the Federal Reserve’s offices. Many believe this investigation was launched in order to support President Trump’s effort to replace Powell, who he nominated to be Fed chairman in 2017, with a Fed chairman who will accommodate President Trump’s demands for lower interest rates. Almost all observers believe that President Trump’s desire to stack the Federal Reserve board with loyalists who will tailor monetary policy to his liking motivated the investigation of Federal Reserve Board Member Lisa Cook. President Trump is using allegations that Cook lied on a mortgage application as a justification to fire her.” (01/26/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Damian Pudner
“For much of the decade before the Covid pandemic, Britain’s inflation problem was its absence. Prices rose too slowly. Policymakers fretted about deflation, secular stagnation and the limits of monetary policy. Interest rates hovered near zero. Quantitative easing was deployed not to restrain demand, but to stimulate it — often with disappointing results, unless you happened to own property or financial assets. Hitting the Bank of England’s 2% inflation target looked less like a ceiling than a distant aspiration. That world has gone.” (01/26/26)
“The NatCons are modern day Tories with a heavy dose of Southern Traditionalism. Most of what they call for belongs at the community level or private sphere, not the nation.” (01/26/26)
“Good and Pretti weren’t accidents, and they weren’t about immigration: these murders were unambiguous messages as clear as could be: ‘Get in our way and we will kill you, and nobody will do anything about it.'” (01/26/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Thomas Eddlem
“Donald Trump has proven Horton’s Law, that politicians only keep their bad promises, true once again. He was always a New York Democrat billionaire, and he was never going to be a champion of working people or free markets. Trump is a Likudnik, not America First, and always was the former and never the latter. The Democrats were right that Trump was an agent of a foreign government; they just got the wrong government. Trump is an Israeli agent, not a Russian agent.” (01/26/26)
