“Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously said, ‘Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.’ Friedman’s statement, clear and to the point, is supported by a mountain of evidence. From extended unemployment and crop insurance to deposit insurance and mass income tax withholding, these are but a few ‘temporary’ programs that traded their provisional status for permanency. Each of these examples, as well as many others, has something else in common. That is, each was born because of crisis. From economic recessions to war, policies and programs begun in the name of combating today’s threats have a unique way of staying long after the crisis has passed. This phenomenon is not a relic of centuries past, but one that remains wholly relevant today.” (09/28/26)
“October is when hype meets reality. In baseball, the final teams are sorted out for the playoffs, and your football teams are well into the winnowing-out process for the Super Bowl. For court nerds, the start of the October term at the Supreme Court can have a similar dynamic, as long-watched cases finally come up for oral argument. Although the court continues to accept cases on a rolling basis, this term is looking like another blockbuster, with cases that range from climate change to gun rights to parental rights. The odds of making the oral argument docket make the NFL season look like a walk in the park. After thousands of petitions, the Supreme Court accepts on average between 70-80 cases for the coveted ‘writ of certiorari.'” (09/28/26)
“Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a singular figure in U.S. history. If he remains on the bench for the next two years, he will be the longest-serving justice in American history. But his singular place in history is now tragic. First, he is at the heart of a historic decline in public trust in the Supreme Court. Second, as the most powerful Black Republican in national politics, he has damaged trust in Black conservatives as a source of innovative thinking for dealing with racial problems. … several Democrats running in the midterms appear focused on Thomas as they propose ethics codes, term limits and even adding more seats to the court to restore ideological balance. That political push began after investigative reports showed Thomas accepted, without disclosure, luxury vacations, help with tuition for a relative and real estate funding for his mother from a wealthy Republican.” (09/28/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The Wall Street Journal has a new article out titled ‘Why Are So Many Adults Cutting Off Their Parents?’ about the rising levels of family estrangement in our society. ‘Many experts believe that estrangements between adult children and their parents are becoming an epidemic in the U.S., just like divorce in the 1970s,’ writes Elizabeth Bernstein. ‘Much like then, the movement is driven by a convergence of large societal trends — this time the rise of social-media algorithms, changing therapeutic approaches and a broadening definition of trauma.’ As has become the fashion these days, Bernstein largely pins the blame for this phenomenon on TikTok. ‘Last month, more than 138,000 new videos that mentioned cutting off or going low-contact with parents were posted on TikTok, up more than 10-fold compared with August 2020,’ Bernstein writes, adding that ‘More than 82% of the posts were by women.'” (09/28/26)
“A number of critics scoffed at the notion of the SAVE program being used responsibly (‘Used responsibly?? HAHAHA as if. This will be abused as much as it can be to disenfranchise voters wherever possible.’) I get it. There are valid reasons to be concerned this election season. But the opportunity for abuse isn’t specific to the SAVE program. There are many tools election administrators have that, if used properly, improve voter list accuracy, but if abused, could lead to adverse actions against registrants. For example, election officials receive reports from the United States Postal Service’s National Change of Address portal (‘NCOA’) indicating when a registrant has moved, thereby prompting list maintenance activity. That tool could be abused just as easily as the SAVE program. That’s why it’s important for voter registration offices to have internal controls.” (09/28/26)
“Of the many ridiculous, counterproductive, and outright harmful things that Donald Trump has done, his effort to create a ‘Golden Fleet’ of ‘Trump-class’ battleships is far from the worst offense. But it is absolutely typical of the personalistic and processless state into which American national security decision making has fallen in his second term.” (09/28/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by D Dowd Muska
“In a recent piece for Works in Progress, ‘a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world,’ Zigmund Forrest and Maxwell Tabarrok noted that since ‘the completion of Battery Park City in 1976, there has not been a single major urban land reclamation project in the United States.’ The researchers believe that water-adjacent cities should ‘make more land’ to, among other things, boost affordable housing. But there’s another approach urban America can employ to promote budget-friendly homes, and it doesn’t require massive civil-engineering projects: Sell the properties it’s been hoarding.” (09/28/26)
“Effective altruists have been getting a lot of hate lately. But if you ever actually meet a group of effective altruists, even their harshest critics will struggle to maintain their anger. In person, they’re some of the most cheerful, friendly, curious, and smart people you will ever meet. Effective altruists are the opposite of the angry, self-righteous, apathetic, asocial youths who have given their generation a bad name. (And yes, strange as it seems, human beings can be angry, self-righteous, apathetic, and asocial at the same time). Not only are EAs extraordinarily likeable; they have also made strong arguments that have causally improved actually-existing philanthropy.” (09/28/26)
“The coming midterms lay bare a divide that runs deeper than policy and older than any party platform. Beneath every debate sits a single question, and it is the question on which this election turns: Who do you trust to run your life, you or the government? House Republicans’ answer is our closing argument. The current Republican majority arrived in Congress in January 2025 and spent the next 20 months answering that question. After record highs of hundreds of thousands of illegals [sic] streaming over the southwest border into the country under President Joe Biden, we’ve slammed the door shut. We now have the most secure border in modern American history. Families in El Paso, Texas, no longer worry about migrants roaming the streets at night.” [editor’s note: Yes, Republicans certainly answered that question — but not in anything like the way McClain seems to be claiming – TLK](09/28/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“War is a special preoccupation of governments. And governments, we all learn at a young age, are the foundation of civilization. Without government who would protect us from foreign and domestic threats? Trump finds Iran a threat, as George W. Bush found Iraq under Saddam a threat. A threat to whom? The American people, most of whom happen to live on the other side of the Atlantic. In today’s world and for most of history, ‘government’ means an organization with a territorial monopoly of force and is usually called a state. It is sovereign within this territory. To be under its jurisdiction is to grant approval of government’s right to enforce its commands or laws, one of which is the demand that it be supported economically. … Imposing a state on society doesn’t make life better.” (09/28/260
