“Earlier this month, the California-based organization Consumer Watchdog uncovered an incredible scandal involving rideshare company Uber, which we covered on the most recent episode of my podcast Organized Money. The company pleaded to the California legislature last year that its insurance costs had spiked so much that the state needed to decrease required payouts on its mandated uninsured motorist coverage. ‘They literally said 45 cents out of every dollar is going to insurance,’ Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, told me. It turned out that these excessive insurance payments were going to a Hawaii-based company called Aleka that is run by Uber executives. Aleka was raising rates on Uber higher than other insurers, but that money just got transferred into a reserve bank account under Uber’s control.” (06/11/26)
“When Missouri and Kansas agreed to a border war truce in 2019, the agreement was widely celebrated as the end of an expensive and counterproductive competition. After spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars moving jobs back and forth across State Line Road, both states agreed to stop subsidizing the relocation of existing employers within the Kansas City region. The agreement, which consisted of legislation on the Missouri side (which sunset last year) and an executive order from the Kansas side, was a good idea. But I argued at the time that Kansas Governor Laura Kelly’s executive order contained a glaring weakness.” (06/10/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Marie McMullan
“We need to talk about Bama. The University of Alabama delivered a real blow to the student magazine editors, writers, and photographers who staffed Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six last December. UA shut down these publications, which focused on women and black students, citing a nonbinding memo from then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that warned against the use of ‘unlawful proxies’ for discrimination. What followed was a scene from a student media horror story: Student journalists lost access to their old facilities, and administrators refused to reopen the publications, even after condemnation from student press advocates — including FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative — came flooding in.” (06/10/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Blind submission to authority is the result of propaganda and indoctrination, but it’s also the result of bad parenting. Raising kids who aren’t allowed to say no to you is raising adults who don’t think anyone should be allowed to oppose their rulers. That’s mainly what you’re seeing in the comments section of any viral police brutality video with people defending the cop’s actions and saying the victim should have complied with commands more perfectly. All they’re really saying is ‘Don’t disobey Daddy and you won’t get smacked!’ … Discuss the latest act of war or abuse with someone who’s been trained to reflexively obey authority and you can watch them running calculations trying to find excuses to justify why the powerful are correct in this given instance, even if you’re presenting them with brand new information.” (06/09/26)
“The Libertarian Party expelled its New Hampshire chapter from the national party. For years, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire (LPNH) has prided itself on being the radical vanguard of the liberty movement and made itself a public relations nightmare for the wider libertarian movement. Its chair, Jeremy Kauffman, became notorious for tweets he posted from the New Hampshire chapter’s account, including implying that historically black colleges and universities were ‘chimp factories’ and declaring that ‘Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero.’ Faithless to the wider party, the LPNH endorsed and campaigned for Donald Trump over the Libertarian Party’s own presidential nominee, Chase Oliver, in 2024. When the vote by the Libertarian National Committee to eject the LPNH finally came during the party’s national conference, it was swift and decisive.” (06/10/26)
“I’ve never considered myself a particularly brave person, but I’ve never been afraid enough to feel like I needed to be governed or to have you governed on my behalf. I’ve never been so afraid that I was willing to give up essential liberty for a false feeling of safety. I can’t comprehend this level of irrational fear.” (06/10/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“[A]fter saying 12 years ago that marijuana policy should decided by the states, the Times now wants the federal government to be involved: ‘The federal government needs to be part of these solutions. Leaving taxes and regulations to the states threatens to create a race to the bottom in which people can cross state lines to buy their pot. Congress can set a floor, as it has done, however inadequately, with alcohol and tobacco, and states can build on it as they choose.’ The goal should be ‘to balance personal freedom and public health.’ Libertarians have likewise had some second thoughts about marijuana legalization, but not for the same reasons as the New York Times, Republican and conservative drug warriors, or state marijuana prohibitionists. The issue with libertarians is that marijuana legalization is not marijuana freedom.” (06/10/26)
Source: Cato Institute
by Emily Ekins & Jonah Messinger
“The newly released Social Security Trustees’ annual report shows that the Social Security Trust Fund’s finances have deteriorated further. The trust fund is now projected to be depleted sooner than previously expected, meaning Congress will face an even larger financing gap. Closing that gap will require larger tax increases, deeper benefit cuts, or some combination of both. Recent polling on Social Security from the Cato Institute in collaboration with YouGov offers some clues about how Americans are likely to respond to this news. Americans are aware that Social Security is underfunded, but many do not understand the severity of the problem.” (06/10/26)
“The handful of U.S. firms that dominate global tech and artificial intelligence has almost universal name recognition. And it’s quite widely known that they rely on semiconductors manufactured in East Asia, mainly Taiwan. But it’s safe to say that very, very few people realize that the world’s only maker of the complex lithography machines – used by Asian firms to fabricate the chips that power American tech advances – is headquartered in … Europe. (The Netherlands, to be precise.) Not knowing this little factoid is about more than industry trivia. It points to long-standing, and not entirely merited, views of the continent as an economic has-been, held back by red tape, capital constraints, and innovation inertia. In fact, the European Union is making quiet, consistent progress in undoing both limiting perceptions and policies – even as global markets are more focused on multitrillion-dollar Wall Street listings …” (06/09/26)
“By now, everyone knows the basics of the California fires that burned down the Palisades and Altadena. And most people are aware of the shady ‘Make it make sense’ particulars around our elected officials and the quasi- and government agencies like the LA DWP. Some people understand the corruption, fraud, and coordination of criminal activity that has led us here. Far fewer understand how deeply that dysfunction persists, and the degree to which it has been amplified.” (06/10/26)
