Source: The Daily Economy
by Donald J Boudreaux

“In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Trump boasted that ‘one of the primary reasons for our country’s stunning economic turnaround, the biggest in history, where the Dow Jones broke 50,000, four years ahead of schedule, and the S&P hit 7000 where it wasn’t supposed to do it for many years, were tariffs.’ The facts tell a different story. First, because there is no schedule for stock-market gains, it is meaningless to say that the Dow Jones or S&P 500 rose ‘ahead of schedule.’ The reality is that the US economy during the first year of President Trump’s second term simply did not perform a ‘turnaround,’ much less one that could be ranked as ‘the biggest in history.'” (06/12/25)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/measuring-trump-2-0-against-trump-1-0-tariff-boasts-meet-the-data/

Source: Washington Post
by Megan McArdle

“It’s hard to denounce [Graham] Platner while supporting [Ken] Paxton (or Donald Trump), but that won’t stop many Republicans from trying. The reverse is also true. Many Democrats will assure themselves that this is entirely different, even though it’s much the same. It is a rejection of the idea that character matters in politics. Some readers may retort that it doesn’t matter, that people of bad character can still make fine public servants. Politicians needn’t be saints. But nor should Americans mindlessly vote for whoever represents their party without any care for character. Nominating those who are obviously unscrupulous and unstable is bad for the country — and, frequently, for America’s parties.” (06/14/26)

https://archive.is/zgYVP

Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman

“Eugenics, broadly defined, is the use of selective breeding to improve the human race. Most people imagine it as government control of reproduction intended to improve the population’s genetics by encouraging reproduction by those with good genes, discouraging or banning reproduction by those with bad; what policies qualify depends on what you count as improvement. Getting parents more nearly the children they want is in my view a better definition of ‘improvement’ than giving them more nearly the children the government wants them to have. Getting parents the children they want, like getting other people what they want, is best done by leaving the choice up to them. If making it easier for parents to affect the genetics of their children seems to you an odd form of eugenics, consider the equivalent issue in economics.” (06/13/26)

https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/the-right-kind-of-eugenics

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“Under capitalism [sic], humanity exists to serve the interests of the corporation. We are all livestock; beasts of burden used to carry margin expansion forward from quarterly statement to quarterly statement. Enjoyment of life has no value other than the extent to which it can be used to increase the net worth of the shareholders. That’s why everyone’s so unhappy. We’re not living with purpose. We’re not working together to build a better world and a better future, we’re just pulling levers to turn gears to make the arrow line go up on the graph in the conference room. It’s a hollow, pointless way for people to live. It makes our whole culture vapid and soulless.” [editor’s note: Johnstone is often great on foreign policy, but nearly always completely clueless on economics – TLK] (06/12/26)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/12/the-entire-human-species-has-been-turned-into-a-profit-generating-machine/

Source: Expression
by Tyler Tone

“Illinois can tax income. It can tax profits. It can tax businesses. It can even impose generally applicable taxes that happen to reach content mediums like cable or newspapers. But the First Amendment strictly prohibits taxes that single out content the state doesn’t like. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Illinois’[s] new state spending plan does, and it’s poised to soon be signed by Governor Pritzker. Buried in the 1600-page budget, the relevant provision would charge the secretary of state with collecting a ‘social media platform fee.’ … The proposal’s biggest hurdle is the decades of case law that have squarely labeled this kind of tax as exactly what it is: a regulation of speech. And social media sites are very much speech.” (06/12/26)

https://expression.fire.org/p/illinois-doomed-plan-to-tax-social

Source: Los Angeles Times
by Matt K Lewis

“For those of us struggling to understand today’s Republican Party, this past week’s primary elections in South Carolina offered a useful case study. The key developments were these: Rep. Nancy Mace — a former conservative rising star who seems tailor-made for the Trump-era attention economy — finished fifth in her state’s Republican primary for governor. Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham — who seems like a relic from an earlier time in the Republican Party — easily dispatched a wealthy ‘America First’ primary challenger. At first glance, none of this makes sense. Making matters more confusing, when it comes to the defining ‘issue’ of our time — Donald Trump — Graham and Mace have both spent years criticizing him and then crawling back to him. Until, that is, one found the door locked.” (06/12/26)

https://archive.is/HJVIa