Source: Independent Institute
by Ryanne Swanson & Raymond J March
“Payton Herres successfully underwent heart transplantation surgery as a preteen. A year later, she began taking everolimus—a vital medication used to prevent her body from rejecting the transplant. Her insurance provider soon after denied coverage, leaving her with an indispensable but largely unaffordable prescription. Herres’[s] situation was alarming, but not uncommon. About 30% of Americans find themselves with uncovered treatment despite having health insurance. Unfortunately, medications for rare and/or chronic conditions, in some cases, have no generic alternatives. Not covering expensive but seldom-utilized treatments is an easy way for health insurance providers to cut costs. Unfortunately, these decisions can leave unsuspecting and financially strapped policyholders with few options. This is when Mark Cuban stepped in.” (09/04/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by James P Pinkerton
“So is the Pentagon doing right by drones, or not? Until there’s some new war somewhere, we simply won’t know. Obviously, plenty have loud opinions, but the paucity of hard facts—the proof is in the fighting—has inspired one savant, abiding in the immortal empyrean, to warn against bad methodology: ‘One begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’ Who is this sage? Why, Sherlock Holmes, of course. Okay, Holmes is a fictional character, and yet his methods—pattern recognition, omission analysis, structured inference—are timeless.” (09/04/26)
“Since the U.S. and Israel started the war at the end of February, at least 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed, and the total is probably much higher. Compared to the horrors of the war in Gaza, that may seem low, but these are all lives of innocent people snuffed out in a war that the president started on a whim. If not for the criminal actions of the U.S. and Israeli governments, all these people would be alive today. When we count the human cost of our government’s wars, we tend to give short shrift to the lives of the people in the country that our military is bombing. Even though Iranians are the ones bearing the brunt of our government’s aggression, their deaths and injuries are often treated as an afterthought. The loss of innocent lives caused by our military never seems to generate that much outrage.” (09/03/26)
“Democratic socialism is a terrible ideology. If implemented, its agenda would cause grave harm and imperil democracy itself. And in seeking massive state control of the economy, today’s socialists ironically have much in common with the MAGA nationalists they claim to oppose. Both promote government control over the economy, and both paths undermine liberty, prosperity and democracy. Socialists do not control the Democratic Party in the way MAGA largely dominates the Republicans. But their influence is growing.” (09/03/26)
“It is curious how ‘the common good,’ when it bubbles into public discourse, always seems to be at the center of bitter controversy. One would expect that everyone would be in favor of ‘the common good,’ or at worst that it would represent the kind of vaguely uplifting language that few find objectionable. Instead, it leads to rancor. That was certainly the case with the recent controversy involving public personalities at the Daily Wire, National Review, and other right-wing outlets. Critics of the New Right suspect that its members are using the phrase ‘common good’ as a sanctimonious smokescreen to avoid serious discussion of their real priorities and purpose. That suspicion, it seems to me, is largely correct.” (09/03/26)
“In ancient Greece and Rome a leisured class could pursue philosophy, politics and the arts because slaves did the work. … A similar transformation happened much more recently, and to far more people, without anyone being enslaved at all. It happened in the twentieth century, in the ordinary home. Before the washing machine, doing the laundry for a family could take the best part of a day: hauling water, heating it, scrubbing, wringing, hanging out to dry. Before the vacuum cleaner, carpets were beaten by hand. Before the dishwasher, someone stood at a sink after every meal. … We are now entering a new phase of the same process, and it is set to be larger than anything that came before. Robots and artificial intelligence are beginning to do the work that used to require a person.” (09/03/26)
Source: Washington Post
by Stuart Anderson & Mark Regets
“Donald Trump is on track to become the first president in a century to oversee a U.S. labor force that will be smaller when he leaves office than when he entered. Since the start of his second term, the number of people in the United States who are either employed or looking for a job has dropped by 1.6 million — and it’s largely because of Trump’s immigration restrictions. Unless those policies change, a shrinking workforce will cause slower economic growth and lead to more expensive public debt. This is an anomaly in U.S. history. The civilian labor force has increased by the end of every president’s term, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln’s because of the number of people who left the workforce to fight in the Civil War.” (09/03/26)
“Congressional Democrats blocked an effort to introduce a constitutional amendment to bar the Court’s expansion, with many members reiterating their demand to pack the Court to create an instant liberal majority. The Democrats insisted the Court is broken and no longer legitimate because of partisan rulings they want reversed by a packed Court. Ironically, the vote came with the release of the latest Harvard-Harris polling showing that Congress itself is still the least respected institution, while the Supreme Court holds higher approval than either the White House or Congress. Congress is still wallowing at 34 percent approval among the American people. Both parties are equally disliked, with 55% disapproval of the GOP and 53% disapproval of the Democratic Party. Conversely, the Supreme Court continues to enjoy far greater approval from the public, currently at 49% at ‘very favorable’ or ‘favorable’.” (09/03/26)
“If Russia attacks Europe, and Europe doesn’t call it war, is it actually a war? As the Kremlin continues to probe the West’s defenses, it’s clear that European leaders would prefer you call it ‘hybrid war,’ hoping that the focus stays on the ‘hybrid’ half of the equation and not on the ‘war.’ … hybrid war is a real category of warfare. It refers to an entire arsenal of non-kinetic actions a country can take to undermine its enemies. Russia has tried just about every hybrid warfare tactic you can think of: Cyberattacks. Troll farms and propaganda. Propping up far-right political parties to disrupt democracy in France and Germany. Interfering in American elections. As a KGB officer, Vladimir Putin is expert in this method, which is more subterfuge than brute force. The problem is that Russia long ago moved beyond this domain to begin carrying out open attacks on the West.” (09/03/26)
“Last week, Polk State College proudly announced that its Board of Trustees had adopted a statement committing the school to institutional neutrality. On Sept. 3, the State University System of Florida’s Board of Governors will consider taking the first formal step toward requiring all 12 universities in the system to adopt institutional-neutrality policies of their own. On the whole, that’s good news. Institutional neutrality can help colleges remain focused on their educational mission while leaving political and social debates to students and faculty. But both the Polk State policy and the proposal before the Board of Governors contain a significant loophole. Rather than hew to the clear and rare exceptions used by many schools that have adopted institutional neutrality, these policies provide a new exception that threatens to render the neutrality commitment meaningless.” (09/03/26)
