“Over the course of his three presidential campaigns (2016, 2020, 2024), President Donald J. Trump promised an America First foreign policy — one that would see America pull back from postwar European security commitments, end the war in Ukraine, and keep the country out of the Middle East ‘forever wars’ that so beguiled (and then bedeviled) every US president for the past quarter of a century. Instead, as we head into the 2026 midterms, his record is, to a surprising degree, primarily one of continuity with the national security policies of his predecessors. In the context of foreign policy, Trump II might properly be seen as Bush-Cheney’s third term, such has been the influence of neoconservative personnel and ideas within his two non-contiguous administrations.” (05/27/26)
“Every time there’s an election — a religious ritual for those who believe in the imaginary authority of the state — the cheers and tears begin as soon as the votes are tallied. The reaction depends on whether the individual voter ends up on the winning or losing side. Either outcome means the state has won at the expense of liberty. Politics is designed to divide people into winners and losers, and the only way to truly win is to refuse to play.” (05/27/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by David Volodzko
“In the spring of 1873, the U.S. postal inspector, a prudish Christian named Anthony Comstock, arrived in Washington carrying a box of dildos. There were also dirty books, naughty pictures, French playing cards, abortion pamphlets, ‘intermediate tegumentary coverings’ (condoms), and enough sexually explicit material to scandalize Congress into trying to legislate the Devil out of Americans. Comstock called the collection his ‘Chamber of Horrors’ and went around showing it to lawmakers like a traveling freak show. The performance worked. On March 3, President Ulysses S. Grant signed what became known as the Comstock Act, one of the most sweeping censorship laws in American history. … For the next four decades, Comstock stalked publishers, raided bookstores, and helped criminalize public discussion of sex in the United States.” (05/27/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter
“Public goods theory is presented as scientific, value-free economic theory, however, it implicitly smuggles in normative presuppositions that lead to the conclusion that the modern nation-state, and the state alone, must provide certain essential goods and services, which legitimates the state and its actions as necessary and legitimate. Historically, many applications of public goods theory emerged less as neutral demonstrations of state necessity than as retrospective justifications for functions governments had already monopolized.” (05/27/26)
“For my six decades, the United States has been the dominant military power in the world. Yet, with China’s massive military buildup that is now an open question in Asia. Which is why failure to help Taiwan defeat a Chinese attack would destroy U.S. credibility there … and likely far beyond. So, how do we ever relinquish the badge of world’s policeman? One word: Allies.” [editor’s note: Three words — non-interventionist foreign policy – TLK] (05/27/26)
“It seems modern Democrats can’t object to Nazi-lovers inside the party. Massachusetts Rep. Jake Auchincloss just got major lefty backlash for calling Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s Nazi tatoo (and his pathetic excuses for it) ‘disqualifying.’ ‘I’ve been clear about Graham Platner. I find that tattoo and his commentary about it to be personally disqualifying,’ Auchincloss said Monday on CNN; ‘I hope Maine voters agree with me.’ That brought a storm of progressive social-media fury, accusing Auchincloss of wanting President Donald Trump to have a Republican Senate majority for his last two years in office. Saikat Chakrabarti, the former AOC staff chief now running to replace the retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi, called on Bay State Dems to oust Auchincloss in his coming primary; others demanded Jake get kicked out of the Democratic Party.” (05/26/26)
“Two years ago I published ‘The Philosophy of Conservatism’ as a series of essays on Conservatism and Conservatives. I divide it into small-c conservatism, which is a character trait, ‘a disposition averse from change,’ as Lord Hugh Cecil put it. The small-c conservatives oppose change because it is upsetting, and because the loss of the familiar is threatening. ‘Every change is an emblem of extinction,’ as Oakeshott expressed it. Large-C Conservatism is a political tradition, not a character trait. It recognizes that change happens because of new technology, new information and new ideas. But it wants change to come from below, organic, evolutionary and unplanned. It opposes imposed change, preconceived plans.” (05/27/26)
“Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) wouldn’t schedule a vote before the House left town for the Memorial Day recess on the Iran War Powers Resolution because it would have passed. There’s no other way to say it.” (05/27/26)
“For months, the Trump administration has aimed various types of punishing force at the regime in Havana to free the Cuban people: An oil blockade. Criminal charges against the dominant leader, Raúl Castro. The deployment of an aircraft carrier and its strike group in the Caribbean Sea, hinting at an invasion. Much of this strategy has been driven by influential Cuban Americans who have long sought retribution against the island’s communist rulers. ‘It will be difficult to completely control the impulse for revenge that some Cubans may feel during a transition,’ an opposition leader, José Daniel Ferrer, told Cuban news outlet 14ymedio in January. Yet another force might be strengthening among the political opposition, one that could erode the regime from within, official by official. It entails ridding oneself of thoughts of revenge and, as respected dissident and former political prisoner Óscar Elías Biscet puts it, loving one’s adversaries.” (05/26/26)
