“Adam Smith, widely considered the first major theorist of capitalism, abhorred the institution of slavery. “Whatever work [a slave] does…can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own,” he wrote in 1776. In an earlier lecture, Smith indicted laws that “strengthen the authority of the masters and reduce the slaves to a more absolute subjection.” The plantation system at the core of this economy was not a competitive market; planters had secured a state-sanctioned “monopoly against all the rest of the world” and “indemnif[ied] themselves by the exorbitancy of their profites for their expensive and thriftless method of cultivation.” Smith singled out the exceptional cruelty found in the British colonies of “Jamaica and Barbadoes, where slaves are numerous and objects of jealousy [and] punishments even for slight offences are very shocking.””
https://reason.com/2025/12/29/this-1300-page-anticapitalist-history-gets-a-few-things-wrong/
“instituting a “duty of care” for AI developers to “prevent and mitigate foreseeable harm to users” (per Blackburn’s summary of the bill). This duty would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
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“It’s basically just an invitation for lawyers to sue any time anything bad happens and someone involved in the bad thing that happened somehow used an AI tool at some point.
And then you have to go through a big expensive legal process to explain “no, this thing was not because of AI” or whatever. It’s just a massive invitation to sue everyone, meaning that in the end you have just a few giant companies providing AI because they’ll be the only ones who can afford the lawsuits.”
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Section 11 of Blackburn’s bill is promoted as combating “the consistent pattern of bias against conservative figures demonstrated by Big Tech and AI systems.” But, in practice, it could require AI systems to have a pro-conservative slant—at least as long as President Donald Trump or other Republicans are in power.
The bill would set up “audits of high-risk AI systems to undergo regular bias evaluations to prevent discrimination based on protected characteristics, including political affiliation.”
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“Right now, 230 lets platforms get frivolous lawsuits dismissed quickly at the motion to dismiss stage. This change would force every platform to go through lengthy, expensive litigation to prove they weren’t “facilitating” (an incredibly vague term) or “soliciting” third-party content that violates federal criminal law.
That’s gutting the main reason Section 230 exists. Instead of quick dismissals, you get discovery, depositions, and trials, all while someone argues that because your algorithm showed someone a post, you were “facilitating” whatever criminal content they claim to find.””
https://reason.com/2025/12/29/the-trump-america-ai-act-is-every-bit-as-bad-as-you-would-expect-maybe-worse/
El Salvador had serious and deadly gang problems. They then heavily cracked down on crime while reaching out to youth with programs offering alternatives to a life of crime. The crime crackdown came with human rights issues and a weakening of democracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ed-O80Vtg
Trump called his Department of Justice lawyers weak and told them they needed to get on his retribution campaign. After this meeting, the lawyers went after the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell.
Unusually, some Republican Congressmen are breaking with Trump and criticizing this move.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owKy9QrEWZA
Fracking creates an ingredient for plastic, and fracking companies can’t release that into the air because it is bad for the environment, so plastic companies get the ingredient to plastic super cheap from fracking companies, making new plastic cheaper than recycled plastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=325HdQe4WM4
Inflation is still at 3%. The goal is 2%. The official numbers are 2.7%, but they just assume steady prices on objects they don’t have data on due to the government shutdown. Other experts who don’t just assume steady prices, estimate three percent.
If Trump successfully abuses the rule of law and uses lawfare to gain control over the Fed, inflation will likely go higher.
Before Trump’s new tariffs, inflation was getting close to 2%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmJ-CTeQQt4
Because states run programs like Medicaid, but the federal government pays for over half of it, states have the incentive to come up with new programs and less incentive to properly police Medicaid spending.
“state and federal prosecutors have been trying to bust fraudulent preschools and other Medicaid fraud schemes in Minnesota for more than a decade. And yet, there are always more. Law enforcement is doing its best, but the problem seems to be that the state’s welfare bureaucracy is doing a terrible job of stopping the scammers in the first place.
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This is not just a problem in Minnesota either. Medicaid fraud is remarkably common. The federal departments of Justice and Health and Human Services run a joint program to catch fraudsters, and in 2024 alone it accounted for 1,151 convictions that recovered almost $1.4 billion.
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Anyone who wants to stop Medicaid fraud should focus less on scoring partisan political points or demonizing immigrants and more on the boring work of fixing federal policy.
Telling states to pay for a larger share of their own Medicaid spending seems like an obvious step in the right direction. It would give state officials—from governors like Walz all the way down to the lowest-ranking bureaucrat—a stronger incentive to prevent waste and fraud in the first place. It would reduce the burden placed on out-of-state taxpayers when states with lax enforcement allow fraud like this to occur.”
https://reason.com/2025/12/30/the-minnesota-welfare-fraud-story-is-really-about-a-broken-medicaid-bureaucracy/
“Only the government could spend 20 years creating a national ID that no one wanted and that apparently doesn’t even work as a national ID.
But that’s what the federal government has accomplished with the REAL ID, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now considers unreliable, even though getting one requires providing proof of citizenship or lawful status in the country.”
https://reason.com/2025/12/31/dhs-says-real-id-which-dhs-certifies-is-too-unreliable-to-confirm-u-s-citizenship/
Disturbing New Videos Show ICE Harassing Minneapolis Residents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXcWzbCYZMw
Legal expert breaks down ICE agent shooting in Minnesota. The ICE agent acted irresponsibly at multiple moments and even shot at her as the car was moving away from him. But, law enforcement have a lot of grace for use of force. It’s not clear if Minnesota could prosecute him because he is a federal officer and the federal government is not sharing evidence with the locals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AQbhes-Ntw