Source: Niskanen Center
by Rachel Levine & Zachary Norris
“If policymakers are serious about ‘Speed to Power,’ they should focus on permitting reform. Yet a coalition of utilities has repackaged a longstanding argument that the best way to speed up transmission development is to curtail competitive bidding for transmission projects in the Midwest and Plains. Their proposal overlooks both the driving causes of project slowdowns and the many benefits of competition.” (07/16/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/speed-to-power-doesnt-require-a-utility-monopoly
Source: Reason
by Niko Vorobyov
“Late last month, the United Nations published its annual World Drug Report, chronicling the latest developments in the global war on drugs. Not only are the drugs winning that war, but there are greater quantities and more varieties of recreational chemicals available than ever before.” (07/16/26)
https://reason.com/2026/07/16/drugs-keep-winning-in-the-global-war-on-drugs/
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A UK court on Thursday jailed two young men for a 2024 cyberattack on London’s public transport operator that exposed the details of millions of customers, in one of Britain’s biggest data breaches. Thalha Jubair, 20, from East London, and 18-year-old Owen Flowers from England’s West Midlands were each handed five-and-a-half-year sentences at London’s Woolwich Crown Court. The pair pleaded guilty last month to hacking Transport for London’s (TfL) network between August 31 and September 3, 2024, gaining access to around 7 million customers’ names and contacts.” (07/16/26)
https://archive.is/DtstH
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Donald Trump’s Primetime Election Fraud Gambit. The Rise of Gray Money (with Dave Levinthal).” (07/16/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/donald-trumps-primetime-election
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Robert T Miller
“There are two main theories of corporate governance: the shareholder theory and the stakeholder theory. The former, which originated in the earliest corporate law decisions of courts of equity in the nineteenth century, requires directors to manage the corporation for the long-term benefit of its shareholders. The latter, which is largely the creation of academics, holds that directors should balance the interests of all corporate stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, creditors, and the communities in which the corporation operates. In an age of climate change, the class of stakeholders may expand to include all human beings now living or to be born in the future.” (07/16/26)
https://aier.org/article/shareholders-and-stakeholders-in-corporate-law/
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Robert E Wright
“Every mass movement comes to be defined less by what it loves than by what it loathes. Hoffer identified hatred as the most accessible and comprehensive of unifying agents because it helps to channel self-contempt onto scapegoats, the vilification of which strengthens collective unity. So mass movements, Hoffer concludes, can arise without belief in a god but never without belief in a devil. … What, then, should liberty lovers do? Certainly not launch a counter-crusade. A mass movement of individualists is a contradiction in terms, and those who fight monsters by monstrous means soon sport fangs of their own.” (07/16/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/modern-mass-movements-menace-murica/
Source: The American Prospect
by James Baratta
“The reality is that, for all of the claims that Clayton is a saner, more acceptable DNI nominee than Pulte, the two share more in common than his supporters allow. Both of them lack real national security expertise, with Clayton being a corporate litigator, securities regulator, and enforcement attorney for his career. Both are fiercely loyal to the president, as shown by Clayton’s refusal to distance himself from the conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election, which Trump plans to amplify in a prime-time speech tonight. And both have shown plenty of willingness to go after Trump’s political enemies, a significant character flaw in a choice for any DNI, with reams of classified information at their disposal.” (07/16/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/07/16/claytons-trump-loyalty-becomes-a-problem-for-warrantless-spying/
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“These swing voters shrug at Trump earning billions last year.” (07/16/26)
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/16/nx-s1-5895103/these-swing-voters-shrug-at-trump-earning-billions-last-year
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“‘Stochastic terrorism’ is the idea that if you spread fear and mistrust against a target, then eventually people will commit violence against that target, and it will be your fault, even if you never specifically said the words ‘you should commit violence’. … The ‘stochastic terrorism’ concept is near-unique in how effectively it can be discredited merely by listing many examples of its use together in the same place.” (07/16/26)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/against-stochastic-terrorism
Source: USA Today
“Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz was furious to learn that the Trump administration is threatening to withhold grant money the city uses to help prosecute rapists — all because the California city was deemed a refuge for immigrants. ‘Justice for victims shouldn’t be politicized. It has nothing to do with immigration enforcement,’ Janz told USA TODAY. It’s the latest example of the Trump administration’s promise to withhold funding from cities it calls ‘sanctuary jurisdictions.’ It pressures cities to sign cooperation agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials with the strongest tool at its disposal: money.” (07/16/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/07/16/us-cities-police-ambulance-funding-rape-kits-ice-doj/90903355007/