Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
The U.S. created a world based on relatively free trade. Most benefited from it. Now Trump is pulling us back from that world, and most people, including most Americans, will be hurt by that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4wiPYWVV_4
Why The Multiverse Could Be Real
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX1EfW3euY4
Having independent professionals in parts of the government who provide key statistics is important for having a better idea of what’s going on in the country. We need these professionals to be independent so we can have a level of trust in the numbers. Trump fires such professionals just because he doesn’t like their outcomes, not because he has a fundamental disagreement with their methods. This is how we go dark in understanding our economy; with our main source of data being controlled by the leader.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F7RXXlUM4Y
‘You have Trump derangement syndrome’ is code for ‘I have no arguments against what you are saying’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuIBNSgdxsQ
Trump officials say Epstein killed himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZmKlWTIrT0
“With a series of short-sighted tariff maneuvers, the president has effectively told Toyota (and other Japanese carmakers) that it should do more of its manufacturing in Japan and stop trying to create jobs in America.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump announced a new trade deal with Japan that will include a 15 percent tariff on Japanese goods, including imported cars. The details of the deal remain somewhat vague, but that’s a significant discount compared to the 25 percent tariff the administration has imposed on cars imported from everywhere else.
The reduced tariffs for Japanese cars are significant because of how that provision interacts with the Trump administration’s other trade policies that are aimed at making it more expensive to manufacture cars in the United States. The president has imposed a 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminum (both of which are essential for automakers) and has slapped a 25 percent tariff on imported cars and car parts. Those tariffs are already dinging the profits of American carmakers—General Motors reportedly lost more than $1 billion in the second quarter of the year—and auto industry experts say they will raise prices, reduce demand for new cars, and generally make American cars less globally competitive.
In short, the Trump administration is offering an incentive to import finished cars from Japan, while making it more expensive to buy the stuff you need to build cars in America.
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Ultimately, the problem here is not the specific tariff rates the Trump administration is seeking to charge on steel, car parts, or cars imported from Japan or Mexico. (Those rates are likely to change anyway, if the past few months of the trade war are any indication.)
No, the real problem here is the Trump administration’s belief that it can use tariffs to shape the global trading system toward contradicting goals with no tradeoffs or distortions. In reality, each new tariff move causes both. The market responds to incentives, and right now, the Trump administration is creating a set of incentives that will raise costs for American manufacturers while driving investors overseas.”
https://reason.com/2025/07/25/trumps-tariffs-and-japan-deal-could-encourage-toyota-to-move-manufacturing-jobs-out-of-america/
“Bar advocates in the state are among the lowest paid in New England, receiving $65 per hour in Massachusetts compared to nearly double or more in nearby states, including Rhode Island ($112 per hour), New Hampshire ($125 per hour), and Maine ($150 per hour). Private practice work can yield $300 per hour. But, despite the stoppage, the 2026 fiscal year budget signed on July 4 by Healy didn’t include an increase in hourly pay.”
https://reason.com/2025/07/25/boston-judge-dismisses-over-120-cases-because-there-arent-enough-public-defense-attorneys/
“Carr, in other words, thinks it is entirely appropriate for federal regulators to demand “significant changes” in the way news organizations operate, including what they cover, how they cover it, the sources they interview, the people they invite to comment on current events, and the way they respond to complaints of bias. He is explicitly setting the FCC up as an arbiter of good journalism.
That power grab is consistent with Carr’s understanding of the government’s role in the marketplace of ideas, which he thinks should include restricting the editorial discretion of social media platforms in the name of “reining in Big Tech” and preventing “discrimination against core political viewpoints.” Carr, an avowed free speech champion, presents his concerns about broadcast news bias in similar terms, saying “a handful of national programmers” should not “control and dictate to the American what the narrative is, what they can say, what they can think.” As with his vendetta against “Big Tech,” he perversely portrays government interference with private editorial decisions as a victory for freedom of speech.
Contrary to that puzzling take, FCC oversight of broadcast journalism does not protect First Amendment rights; it undermines them. Such meddling would be obviously unconstitutional in the context of print, cable, satellite, streaming, or online journalism. For reasons that make less and less sense every day, broadcasting is treated differently, supposedly because government licensing and regulation are necessary to address “the scarcity of radio frequencies.””
https://reason.com/2025/07/25/the-fccs-paramount-skydance-decision-aims-to-reshape-broadcast-journalism-by-bureaucratic-fiat/
“Liquor and wine will likely get more expensive next year in Pennsylvania—and residents will have no choice but to pay the higher prices, thanks to the state’s monopoly on alcohol sales.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) voted earlier this month to impose a new “bailment fee,” which it says is necessary to cover rising warehouse costs and improve its distribution system. The $1 fee will be charged on all packages that move through the state’s warehouses, and will take effect at the start of 2026.
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In other states, those producers would have more options when a wholesaler or retailer—the PLCB fulfills both functions—decides to impose a new fee or otherwise raise prices. Some wineries or distilleries might choose to pay the extra per-package fee and build the cost into their pricing. Others might look for different distributors to carry their product, or other distributors might try to undercut whichever one was raising fees in the first place.
In Pennsylvania, like in other states that maintain a monopoly on alcohol sales, those options do not exist. If you want to sell or buy alcohol in the Keystone State, you’ll simply have to accept whatever prices and fees the PLCB chooses to charge.”
https://reason.com/2025/07/28/pennsylvanias-liquor-monopoly-is-imposing-a-new-fee-that-will-cost-15-million-per-year/
“Abrego Garcia is accused of some unsavory actions—apart from the vague allegations of trafficking and gang membership, his wife filed for a temporary order of protection against him in 2021, which she later withdrew.
But importantly, he was never convicted of any of these things; before he was deported to a maximum security prison in Central America, he had not been charged with them, either.
Hanid Ortiz, meanwhile, was arrested, tried, and convicted of three murders, and yet the Trump administration used hundreds of people as bargaining chips, in part, to get him released and back on American streets. Trump seems to care much more about someone’s immigration status than the actual danger they pose.”
https://reason.com/2025/07/28/two-cases-that-demonstrate-the-incoherence-of-trumps-immigration-policy/