Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“Trade wars are odd in that the dueling governments’ weapon of choice is confiscatory taxation imposed on their own citizens. ‘I’m mad at you — I’m going to break my son’s arm.’ ‘Oh yeah? Well fine, I’ll break my wife’s leg — how ya like them apples?’ ‘You’ve done it now — I’m dousing my whole family in gasoline and lighting a match!’ When I point out how idiotic all that is, a few doofs come back at me with: ‘Buy American — problem solved.’ But no, buying American doesn’t solve your problem as a consumer. You’re going to pay more, whether you pay it directly to Uncle Sam or not.” (08/25/26)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20845

Source: Washington Post
by Corey DeAngelis

“In 2021, Columbia University law professor Philip Hamburger argued that the U.S. public school system violates the First Amendment. ‘Education,’ he wrote, ‘consists mostly in speech, and parents have a right under the First Amendment to exercise authority over what their children hear.’ Forcing families to accept government messaging — or pay a steep price to escape it — amounts to unconstitutional pressure. A lawsuit filed in Nebraska on Aug. 13 brings that argument into court — and could open a path toward universal school choice. Justin Jacobsen and Timothy and Joanna Menter, parents in the Lincoln Public Schools district, are suing state and local officials in Lancaster County District Court. Represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, they are challenging Nebraska’s combination of compulsory education and public-school-only funding.” (08/25/26)

https://archive.is/zobPn

Source: Common Dreams
by Joshua WJ Brown

“There is a remarkably simple test for whether the AI boom is actually as economically transformative as its boosters say it is: Make the companies building it pay their own damn electricity bill. Not just the meter at the server warehouse. The whole bill. If a hyperscale data center requires a new power plant, transmission line, substation, distribution upgrade, water system, or grid-reliability backstop, put that cost on the project that caused it. If the economics still work, excellent. Build it. If they don’t, then the public has just learned something extremely important about the business model.” [editor’s note: And if that happens, as it should, this guy will be the loudest whiner that those data centers should then be required to give their excess power generated to everyone else free, because REASONS – TLK] (08/25/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/data-centers-pay-power

Source: Cato Institute
by Jeffrey A Singer

“When Americans repealed Prohibition in 1933, alcohol consumption did not immediately settle into the pattern we recognize today. Consumption rose substantially over the following decades, eventually peaked around 1981 and then declined for more than a decade. … Along the way, Americans learned to live with legal alcohol. Knowledge, customs, and social norms evolved around its responsible use. We learned to distinguish drinking from drunkenness. We came to strongly disapprove of drinking and driving and of drinking on the job. People learned to recognize their own limits, and friends and families learned to recognize when someone’s drinking was becoming a problem. None of those norms required us to conclude that, because alcohol can cause addiction, disease, accidents and death, we should prohibit adults from drinking it. Cannabis may be undergoing a similar period of adjustment.” (08/25/26)

https://www.cato.org/commentary/reports-increases-problematic-cannabis-use-dont-mean-we-should-return-prohibition

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Miles Saltiel

“A few weeks ago, the Labour back-bencher, Paula Baker, was held to have disgraced herself with remarks revealing that she hadn’t much of a clue about the bond market. There have been similar such remarks from Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome, other Labour back-benchers. Cue for much chuntering by those claiming to know better. But this is silly. Why should Labour back-benchers turn up knowing all about the bond market? They have recently been hired to a new job with new responsibilities. Like the rest of us, they have to learn on the job. Come to think of it, why should you, the reader of this blog, know such things? You’re all about politicians, polls and programmes. Even the freest market of inclinations are no education in the gobbledegook of bonds, with its weird vocabulary and unintuitive arithmetic. So, here’s the ‘for Dummies’ story.” (08/25/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/bond-vigilantes-for-dummies

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“In countries with eroding democracies, many people have watched Hungary over the past three months make rapid reforms under a new prime minister, Péter Magyar. In April, he and his center-right Tisza party won a landslide election victory that ousted Viktor Orbán. The pro-Russia conservative leader ruled for 20 years in total, leaving a web of corrupt cronyism in highly compromised state institutions. Mr. Magyar’s reforms have so far required a nuanced distinction between seeking personal retribution for the closest supporters of Mr. Orbán and merely holding them accountable for misdeeds. ‘One thing we … cannot do,’ said András Baka, a former head of the Supreme Court who took over the largely ceremonial position of president this month, is ‘build the new Hungary on revenge.’ ne liberal newspaper, HVG, noted that Mr. Magyar’s supporters are ‘noticeably impatient’ and that ‘their demand for accountability is by no means free from a desire for revenge’.” (08/24/26)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0824/Repair-not-revenge-in-post-autocratic-Hungary