Lists, Damn Lists, and Critical Correctness
Source: Quillette
by Dave Thompson
“Love them or hate them, lists are now firmly established — along with cats and porn — among the apex predators of the modern internet.” (06/01/26)
Category: Opinion
Who Should Set Prices?
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Walter Block
“If you are in sync with meddlesome government bureaucrats, you probably believe that price gouging is profoundly evil. That charging higher prices than normal, especially during emergencies, is an economic abomination. That any seller who does this is taking advantage of people who are in precarious economic circumstances. When a storm hits, or a flood, or a tornado, heavy snow, ice, the closing of the Hormuz Strait, many of us will be without gas for our car, food, medical help, or other such necessities. Yet we face jacked-up prices to fulfill these needs. Just when we need them the most, these things are more expensive. To anyone who doesn’t understand basic economics, this seems outrageous and unfair. But to those who do understand supply and demand, it makes sense.” (06/01/26)
The impending Republican collapse
Source: Washington Examiner
by Timothy P Carney
“Republicans are on the verge of collapse, and it’s mostly President Donald Trump dragging them down. This may surprise the observer who just watched Trump knock off a handful of dissidents in Indiana’s Republican primaries and Sen. John Cornyn in Texas. But Trump is less popular with voters than he has ever been. Why? Part of the problem is standard mid-term woes, especially for a second-term president. Part of the problem is Trump’s ill-considered war in Iran and the subsequent increase in gas prices. Trump family self-enrichment probably pays a role, too. What does it mean for the GOP? It likely means a tsunami election in the 2026 midterm elections, with Democrats taking the U.S. House and gaining seats in the U.S. Senate while also winning state-level elections. … Republicans should also be worried about today’s bad vibes carrying over to 2028.” (06/01/26)
It’s Ideology, Stupid
Source: Persuasion
by Matt Johnson
“Why Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis is even more wrong today than it was in 1993.” (06/01/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/samuel-huntington-is-still-wrong
Major problems where advanced technology holds real promise
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie
“The common thread is that the hardest problems, those involving scale, complexity, or speed beyond human capacity, are exactly those where computation, AI, sensors, and biotech tend to have the most leverage.” (06/01/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/major-problems-where-advanced-technology-holds-real-promise
Establishment Dems turn on Graham Platner, but it’s way too late
Source: Fox News Forum
by David Marcus
“The world learned this week that Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat all but set to win his party’s Senate primary next month, has been sexting up to 12 women in the past few years while married. For Platner, this just added to his Cadillac Mountain of scandals. You are likely familiar with the fact that the so-called oyster farmer has a Nazi tattoo that he covered up only after lying about knowing its meaning. He also has a long history off-color Reddit posts, including remarks blaming women for being raped. What was most telling about these sordid new sexting revelations wasn’t that it exposed Platner as a creep. We already knew that. It was that the leak came from a fellow Democrat. The party may be starting to realize they have created a Marxist monster they can’t control.” (05/31/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-establishment-dems-turn-graham-platner-way-late
Tom Steyer Assails “Trump’s Tax Loophole” — But It’s Just Prop. 13
Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley
“‘California’s ‘Trump Tax Loophole’ is a billionaire-friendly tax break that lets the wealthiest commercial property owners avoid paying taxes based on what their properties are actually worth,’ proclaims Tom Steyer, candidate for governor of California, on his website. Steyer has described this ‘loophole’ in debates as if it is a special benefit for corporations, a ‘corporate real estate tax loophole.’ In the gubernatorial debate on CNN, for example, he declared: ‘I will on the first day [in office] call a special election to close a corporate real estate tax loophole that’s worth over $20 billion. … California government needs more money.’ But Steyer’s website admits: The ‘loophole’ is actually Proposition 13, the popular constitutional amendment that protects ordinary homeowners across the Golden State.” (06/01/26)
DOJ’s anti-weaponization fund has precedent and purpose
Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine
“The rollout of the DOJ’s ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ may have been botched, but the fund remains a good idea, and the hysteria from Democrats like the hypocritical Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and allied media is absurd. It’s not unprecedented or corrupt or President Trump’s personal ‘slush fund,’ no matter how loudly they shriek. It’s just a rebranding of an existing legal settlement fund Congress authorized decades ago, as Washington lawyer and veteran Senate oversight investigator Jason Foster points out. Administrations of both parties have repeatedly used the DOJ’s Judgment Fund to settle legal claims against the federal government, and Democratic administrations have used it for far more questionable payouts than the Trump administration’s proposal to compensate genuine victims of lawfare.” (05/31/26)
Tyranny or Revolution
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
by Chris Hedges
“Liberalism, which Rosa Luxemburg called by its more appropriate name — ‘opportunism’ — is an integral component of capitalism. Liberalism ameliorates capitalism’s excesses. But capitalism, Luxemburg argued, is an enemy that can never be appeased. Liberal reforms blunt resistance, but later, when things grow quiet, are revoked. The last century of labor struggles in the United States provides a case study of Luxemburg’s observation.” (06/01/26)
We were going to bury 20 tons of nuclear fuel. Finally, we have a way to use it instead.
Source: The Hill
by Guido Núñez-Mujica
“For most of this century, the U.S. has run roughly one-fifth of its electricity on fuel it must import. Russia has long been the single largest foreign supplier of enriched uranium to U.S. nuclear plants. Remarkably, it still held that position as recently as last year, providing 20 percent of the enriched uranium in America’s commercial reactors even after a U.S. import ban became law. We have spent years scrambling to unwind that dependence — a chokepoint that constrains today’s reactors and the pending advanced ones. And this month, the Department of Energy took a step toward loosening that chokepoint. … The real choice is not between a risky program and a safe, free status quo. It is between spending $20 billion to bury energy-dense material, or having private companies pay to turn that same material into electricity.” (06/01/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5899786-plutonium-fuel-advanced-reactors/