But, it is also important to remember that, about 20 years before he became Federal Reserve chairman, Greenspan was challenging the state, including by criticizing the abandonment of the gold standard in America that went on to be replaced largely by actions of the Federal Reserve.

In 1966, Alan Greenspan’s essay Gold and Economic Freedom was published in novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand’s newsletter The Objectivist. It was also reprinted a year later in Rand’s book Capitalism: The Uknown Ideal.

In the first two paragraphs of his essay, Greenspan stated his assessment that a gold standard advances freedom, while its elimination is a tactic for suppressing freedom. Wrote Greenspan:

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense — perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire — that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.

In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is necessary first to understand the specific role of gold in a free society.

For many free market and liberty supporting individuals attracted to the ideas espoused by Rand, Greenspan’s essay provided an introduction to the importance of a gold standard for advancing both liberty and prosperity. You can read the essay here.

Read here Jacob Sullum of Reason’s informative analysis of the court’s decision.

A new report from the Pew Research Center indicates that an American family with children under 18 years old having mom, or sometimes dad, either not working or working only part time has transitioned to being the situation in just a minority of households. The June 16 report at the Pew Research Center website relates:

The work arrangements of moms and dads who are married or living together have changed considerably in recent decades. As of 2025, just over half (52%) of different-sex couples with children under 18 consist of two full-time working parents. This is up from 46% a decade ago and 31% in 1975, according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

If this trend reverses so that the percentage of households where one parent is not working full time increases over coming years, we will have a strong indication of economic improvement in American households. Such a reversal should also yield benefits for the children who as a result will have more time with and more guidance from parents.

Asked at the press conference how the US military “hitting bridges, electrical infrastructure” in Iran “would not be a war crime potentially targeting civilian infrastructure,” Hegseth did not answer the query. Instead, he complained that the query was “precisely the kind of disingenuous question that I’m used to from the media, impugning the motives of folks on our side who are incredibly professional and incredibly effective.” Continuing, stated Hegseth, “We will hit them hard on our terms on the targets that improve the environment for us to operate in and undermine the capabilities that Iran wants to have.”

This answer suggests that the US secretary of defense does not think that avoiding war crimes is a significant part of deciding how to engage in military actions. Instead of explaining how war crimes would be avoided or how the questioner is misinterpreting what would constitute war crimes in the situation, Hegseth just declared that everyone involved in the US government’s war effort is beyond reproach and that any actions they take that advance the US position in the war relative to the position of Iran is fine.

Americans have had special reason to become aware of reasons to dislike Israel given that the United States government has been working as a coconspirator, funding and otherwise assisting Israel’s mayhem. Indeed, a new Pew Research Center poll of the views of people across 36 countries found that in America 60 percent of queried individuals have a very or somewhat unfavorable opinion of Israel, while only 37 percent have a somewhat or very favorable opinion of Israel.

Still, Americans, compared with other people questioned across the world, come in as less critical of Israel than most. The figures for median views of people in the 36 surveyed countries came in at a 67 percent unfavorable view of Israel and a 25 percent favorable view.

In each of the 36 surveyed countries where people were questioned, the opinion regarding Israel tilted negative except for in India and three African nations — Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria — where the positive opinion regarding Israel came in on top.

Longtime drug war chronicler Jacob Sullum provided in a Friday Reason article an assessment of the failure of this new tactic to achieve even a modest US government gain in its war on drugs. Concluded Sullum in his article, “nearly nine months after Trump launched his new, deadlier version of the war on drugs, there is no evidence that it is more effective than the traditional tactics he derides as insufficiently homicidal.” This conclusion, Sullum detailed, is supported by outcomes including increased cocaine seizures at the border, stability in street prices of cocaine and the amount of adulterants added to cocaine, and no drop in cocaine being detected in drug fatalities.

Enough with pursuing this and the other foreign interventions, as well as violations of liberty in America, in the name of fighting the war on drugs. Instead, stop the destruction, killing, and oppression. End the war on drugs.

At The Intercept, Nick Turse is keeping a tally of the ongoing slaughter at sea. He counts, relying on information derived from US government sources, 60 strikes killing 197 people. The number of survivors of the strikes is just six.

This is a killing spree, not an ordinary drug interdiction effort.

The blowing up of small boats started in conjunction with the movement toward a regime change war against Venezuela. The small boats were claimed by the Trump administration, though never with convincing argument, to be part of a supposed grand threat of “narco-terrorism” from the South American country. Even if that argument had some credibility, discerning observers asked: Why were the small boats being summarily destroyed and everyone on board killed instead of more typical actions being taken, such as stopping and searching boats and detaining and arresting people on board?

Come January 3, the US military invaded Venezuela and carried off its president to America. The Trump administration has since been imposing demands on the nation’s government. The war justifying rationale for the US government blowing up small boats had thus come to an end. But, the slaughter at sea has continued nonetheless. The latest strike included in Turse’s tally was on Wednesday. It was the fifth such strike this month in the Pacific and Caribbean. The continuation of attacks on boats and the people on them seems to be either a macabre demonstration of the tendency of a government program to continue even after the reason for its creation is gone or part of the preparation for further intervention abroad.

The announcement also suggested future easing of marijuana prohibition may be on the way in noting the initiation of an expedited administrative hearing process to consider the broader rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III.

While all cutbacks in the US government’s war on marijuana are welcome, what is really needed is for the US government to just call it quits on the war. That is an argument put forward well by National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Deputy Director Paul Armentano in a May 12 editorial at the NORML website. Armentano addressed in the editorial various benefits of his suggested approach. He then noted that entirely removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act that provides for its illegality “would affirm America’s longstanding principles of federalism and appeal to Americans’ deep-rooted desires to be free from undue government intrusion into their daily lives.”

Hear! Hear! The US government’s war on marijuana is more than a war on a drug or a plant; it is a war on people, freedom, and the constitutionally defined system of American government.

Read Armentano’s editorial here.

With that grab for profits having largely petered out, it looks like the US government is back to help Moderna along with subjecting Americans to Moderna’s new experimental mRNA flu shots. In a Thursday report on the matter, journalist Alex Berenson provided a one-word summation of the trial results Moderna has provided to US regulators in the effort to obtain approval for the shots: “awful.” Further wrote Berenson:

The trial showed severe side effects from the mRNA shot dwarfed whatever protection against flu it may offer.

Compared to a standard flu shot, the mRNA jab prevented about 1 hospitalization in every 5,000 people who received it.¹ But compared to the standard shot, the mRNA jab caused severe after-injection side effects such as vomiting or a 102- to 104-degree fever in an extra 1 out of 18 people.

In other words, Moderna’s own data show that about 270 people will suffer severe vaccine side effects from its shot to stop a single flu hospitalization. In what world does that risk ratio make sense?²

The trial also showed that more people who received the mRNA shot died from all causes in the next six months than those who got the standard jab.

Read Berenson’s complete report here.

Berenson also explained in his report that Moderna’s new mRNA flu shots’ path to regulatory approval would have been blocked earlier but for the forced resignation in March of Vinay Prasad from the position of chief medical officer of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “largely because of pressure from Moderna — and Blackstone, the giant private equity company that has invested $750 million into Moderna’s mRNA flu shot.”

Interestingly, on Friday news broke that President Donald Trump, who in his first term as president launched Operation Warp Speed that made Moderna its first fortune, has signed off on a plan to fire the top person at the FDA — Commissioner Marty Makary.

Will the Moderna mRNA flu shot achieve approval via political string pulling? That result would be yet another indication that the Make America Healthy Again movement at the Department of Health and Human Services, where the FDA resides, is being consumed by the swamp that Trump used to be fond of promising to drain.

In February, Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock touted in a press release that the state government was doubling its holdings of Israel bonds “from approximately $140 million to $280 million, marking the largest one-time investment in Israel bonds in Texas history and elevating the state from the sixth-largest to the second-largest U.S. state investor in these securities.”

That is a significant investment action. How did Hancock describe that the action was taken to best preserve and grow the wealth held by state government? He did not. Instead, Hancock provided a political justification in the press release:

‘Texas proudly stands with Israel,’ Hancock said. ‘This expanded investment reinforces our long-standing relationship and shared commitment to faith, freedom and economic opportunity. Texas and Israel have built a partnership that stretches beyond finance, and this step reflects both our solidarity and our belief in what we can accomplish together.’

This sort of reasoning does not bode well of the finances of the state. Liking a government is not a valid investment reason for buying its bonds. Is Hancock next going to “invest” in truckloads of puppies because he thinks they are adorable?

The state government, in addition to piling up Israel bonds, has also decreed that government entities in Texas can buy Israel government bonds but are forbidden from buying bonds of any other foreign government. This special permission to purchase Israel government bonds is provided in chapter 2256 of the Texas Government Code (the Public Funds Investment Act). There the listed “authorized investments” for government entities in Texas include “bonds issued, assumed, or guaranteed by the State of Israel” but no similar investments related to any other foreign government.

Is there any reason to think that the bonds of Israel are uniquely good investments when compared to the bonds of every other foreign nation? It seems the answer to that question is “no.” Consider that in May of 2025 Daniel Liberto reported at Investopedia that then “10 countries had perfect credit ratings from all three rating companies” — Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service, and S&P Global Ratings. Israel did not make the list. Yet, Israel’s bonds are determined by the Texas government to be an acceptable investment while these other bond options that have been rated safer are verboten.

It looks like the Texas government, through its preferred treatment of Israel bonds, is ensuring that politics triumphs over sound investing.