The Pocket Adam Smith
Source: Law & Liberty
by Julia R Cartwright
“Leonidas Montes has spent a whole career thinking about what the eighteenth century Scotsman was trying to say.” (07/30/26)
Category: Opinion
Prairieland: A Tactical and Strategic Analysis
Source: Liberal Currents
by Samantha Hancox-Li
“The events at Prairieland on July 4, 2025, resulted in a large number of activists arrested, no national upsurge in anti-ICE sentiment, and legal and propaganda victories for the government. A tactical analysis of Prairieland is a case study in mistakes. But negative examples are nevertheless useful for future organizing.” (07/30/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/prairieland-a-tactical-and-strategic-analysis/
The Iran War Is Lose-Lose
Source: The American Conservative
by Dr. Ionut Popescu
“The conflict between the United States and Iran has laid bare a profound failure of political judgment and strategic adaptation in Washington and Tehran alike. Both sides locked themselves into rigid adversarial paradigms and prioritized short-term tactical military successes at the expense of long-term strategy. For the United States in particular, this failure is a symptom of a much larger, more dangerous disease—a stubborn adherence to a militaristic, interventionist grand strategy that refuses to accept the realities of a multipolar world in which its relative financial and military resources are much more limited. The on-again, off-again conflict, characterized by tit-for-tat retaliatory strikes, is a lose-lose situation for both parties and for the region as a whole, yet we are unlikely to escape this tragic dynamic unless more realist strategic thinking prevails in both Washington and Tehran.” (07/30/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-iran-war-is-lose-lose/
New data, same problem: No Surprises Act arbitration abuse persists
Source: Niskanen Center
by Lawson Mansell & Caitlin Rowley Gallamore
“The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last week released No Surprises Act (NSA) payment data for the last half of 2025, providing the public’s first complete look at how the law performed on important cost indicators over the last full calendar year. The data reveal troubling patterns: the volume of billing disputes between medical providers and insurers continues to climb, arbitration awards keep speeding past benchmarks Congress established in the law, and the program itself now costs nearly $3 billion a year. Without reform, patients will continue to bear these costs — not through the surprise bills the law was designed to eliminate, but through the higher premiums and slower wage growth that follow when insurers pass their higher costs to customers.” (07/30/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/new-data-same-problem-no-surprises-act-arbitration-abuse-persists
Right-to-Try Laws Could Increase Gene Therapy Access
Source: Independent Institute
by Raymond J March
“The United States leads the world in approved gene therapies. Europe and China aren’t far behind. That sounds like good news, and it is, until you see how far all of them remain from what the technology can do. What’s the holdup? Unsurprisingly, regulation.” (07/29/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/29/right-try-laws-gene-therapy-access/
Your Internet Doesn’t Need to Be Big
Source: Aaron Ross Powell
by Aaron Ross Powell
“You probably won’t ever be big. No matter where you make your digital home. This isn’t a knock against you (I’m sure your content is great), it’s just that basically no one gets big. Certainly not big enough to make a living at it. Still, though, maybe you’ll be the exception? So you might as well stick with the place everyone else is, who knows? … by not moving to somewhere that might be better for you, healthier or more fun, and doing it because you want to be in the one place everyone else is, you’re probably just denying yourself a good deal of digital enjoyment.” (07/29/26)
Ofcom’s quest to censor the world
Source: spiked
by Andrew Tettenborn
“Ofcom has been making a right fool of itself since the Online Safety Act came into force. Over the past two years, it has been chasing US websites, formally instructing them to obey British law, and to fill in reams of compliance paperwork while they’re at it. The results have been predictable. Many of the US operations, supported by the excellent American free-speech lawyer Preston Byrne, have politely declined to take any notice of orders barked at them by bureaucrats from a small island 3,000 miles away. Ofcom, as ever tin-eared, has doubled down in response – making blood-curdling threats and imposing ever-more ludicrous fines on the sites involved.” (07/29/26)
Fauci Is a Falsie
Source: Townhall
by Ashley Evdokimo
“COVID rocked our world, plain and simple. We have never seen anything like it, and in my honest opinion, it was a test. To see how we would handle an outbreak, but that is neither here nor there, and I’m not looking to get into conspiracy theories (right now). One thing is undeniable: millions of Americans lost moments they’ll never get back. Grandparents missed the births of their grandchildren. Families watched funerals through computer screens. Children lost years of a normal childhood. People died alone. And for what? That’s the question I keep asking myself as more of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s private writings and communications become public.” (07/29/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/ashley-evdokimo/2026/07/29/what-fauci-can-never-give-back-n2680308
How Missouri Communities Can Keep Data Centers from Raising Utility Bills
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Avery Frank
“Missouri has already taken some action to limit ratepayer costs resulting from new data centers by requiring large data centers to pay their share of costs for connecting to the grid, such as for transmission lines. … One promising state-level solution are private electricity grids, also called consumer regulated electricity (CRE). This could create a parallel path for energy generation, and help protect ratepayers from risk, accelerate capacity buildout and innovation for both data centers and power plants, and alleviate pressure on the government to meet every aspect of this complex challenge. New Hampshire became the first state to allow it, and the U.S. Congress is considering a federal CRE policy. Similar solutions can be implemented for water usage.” (07/29/26)
The face of evil
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Despite movies and shows, Satan and his minions do not go around wearing horns with red skin and costumes. Evil is described as being a wolf in sheep’s clothing: it disguises itself as doing good. We’ve seen that to be the case with human government time and time again. ‘Hello, I am here to help you’ is the first of the lies we can expect on a visit from a government agent.” (07/29/26)