“Just how badly would Missouri’s Amendment 4 have failed if Gov. Mike Kehoe had left the initiative on the ballot for November instead of moving it to August? That’s about the only question left after a mammoth beatdown of a measure designed to minimize the power of the voters in this deep-red state. Amendment 4 emerged from Republicans’ anger at the temerity of their citizens to display independent streaks rather than down-the-line conservatism. Beginning in 2020, voters unleashed a successful series of ballot initiatives legalizing abortion, approving recreational cannabis, expanding Medicaid, raising the minimum wage, and enabling sports betting. Voters also approved a paid sick leave mandate: one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Lawmakers managed to dispense with the last one: Since the measure was a state statute and not a constitutional amendment, legislators passed a law to repeal it.” (08/18/26)
“Your kid can’t sit still, so the doctor writes a script before asking what he eats or how many hours he stares at a screen. He’s not broken. He’s a seven-year-old boy. Your buddy can’t get it up, so he reaches for the blue pill instead of putting down the beer and chips. Your sister-in-law wants the influencer body, so she injects herself into a thinner version of being sick. A different disease, dressed up as discipline. Can’t sleep? Ambien. Anxious? Xanax. Sad for more than a week? Antidepressant. It’s easy: a fifteen-minute appointment, prescription in hand before you’ve finished saying what’s wrong with you.” (08/18/26)
“There’s a senselessness to Europe’s attempt to manage wine supply and dictate prices that echoes the New Deal’s effort to alleviate poverty by destroying millions of pigs.” (08/18/26)
“Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) posted the following on Twitter/X Thursday night: ‘It’s no longer Republicans vs. Democrats. It’s Americans who love this country vs. terrorists who want to destroy it.’ … Fine is a vocal Zionist who has repeatedly called for the total destruction of Gaza, has dehumanized Palestinians, has said all Muslims must be ‘destroyed,’ and dismissed the deaths of innocent non-combatants such as women and children. Which leads to the obvious question: Who is an actual ‘terrorist,’ here?” (08/18/26)
“Massachusetts is not alone among the 50 States in declaring that it is okay (with a doctor’s agreement) to kill. To kill an unborn, innocent child who is viable, able to be born (delivered) and live. Who presents no true threat to their mother, or at least her health. This is monstrous. This is evil. This is falsely labeled liberty when in reality it is the opposite: active, premeditated violent and fatal aggression against an innocent person. It is, actually, close to slavery. (If actually worse: we submit that killing someone is worse than just enslaving them.)” (08/17/26)
“Don’t believe the Democratic National Committee’s official storyline: The DNC’s decision to make South Carolina the first Democratic presidential primary in 2028 isn’t about introducing more racial diversity into the early contests. It’s actually about keeping power in the hands of the party establishment — the people who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and who are likely to wind up supporting Kamala Harris in 2028. The fix is in. South Carolina was the establishment’s firewall against Bernie Sanders’[s] left-wing insurgency twice over. In 2016, Sanders nearly beat Hillary Clinton in the first caucus, in Iowa, and went on to defeat her in the New Hampshire primary. Four years later, there was a brief moment when Sanders looked like the frontrunner — until he got clobbered by Joe Biden in South Carolina.” (08/18/26)
“Socialism is having another moment in U.S. politics. Politicians and activists increasingly describe themselves as socialist while their opponents use the same label as a term of condemnation. Yet both sides employ the word so loosely as to become meaningless. Sweden gets called socialist because it has high taxes and universal health care; Venezuela does because the government nationalized industries and imposed price controls. The rise of the phrase ‘democratic socialism’, which lumps together two unconnected words, adds to the confusion and makes debate difficult. Before deciding whether socialism works, we ought to determine what it actually is—and which countries practice it.” (08/17/26)
“Specifically, utilities want to reduce competition by halting competitive bidding for multi-state transmission projects, as the bidding process can take 16 to 20 months. If approved, the utilities would be the default developers of those projects, with no competition involved. In Missouri, both Ameren and Evergy, our state’s largest utilities, operate in multiple states and would gain that right of first refusal. For starters, it’s worth acknowledging that 16 to 20 months is a long time to select a developer, and these companies are right that we quickly need more energy to serve big new customers. This situation illustrates why Missouri is between a rock and a hard place in its efforts to modernize our electricity grid. … There has to be a better way—and fortunately, there is. Missouri instead could allow private electricity grids (also known as consumer regulated electricity, or CRE) for large customers like data centers.” (08/17/26)
