The Trump Administration is preparing to restore sanctions on Iran that his predecessor lifted as part of a nuclear disarmament agreement. This week John Bolton also indicated that they were considering new sanctions on Nicaragua during a speech that lumped the Central American country with Cuba and Venezuela as the “troika of tyranny” — a new tropical-flavored version of the Axis of Evil.
As the election nears, politicians will more and more frantically point out what wonderful favors they’ve done for the voters — or what favors they will do for the voters, if elected.
Of course, they never mean all the voters. They mean groups or individuals within the voting population who believe they benefit from laws, taxes, regulations, and spending programs supported by the politician in question.
Candidates in this year’s elections are raising record amounts of money for their campaigns. Democrats are out-raising Republicans, but on both sides, the numbers are huge. According to Reuters:
Senate candidates — who have six years to raise funds due to their longer terms — have raised more than $950 million, surpassing the $844 million raised during the same period ahead of the 2010 election.
On October 9, President Donald Trump announced that he was lifting the EPA’s ban on summertime sales of E15—a motor fuel blend consisting of 15% ethanol instead of the usual 10%. Trump’s announcement is telling. It teaches much about politics, trade policy, and the sorry state of the environmentalist movement.
The media is railing about Trump for fearmongering ahead of the midterm elections. Like this never happened before? Like this is not the job description of modern politicians? Like Obama, George W. Bush, and Clinton did not fearmonger whenever they could profit by spooking Americans? Trump is continuing a tradition that was firmly established by Woodrow Wilson. Fearmongering is simply another proof of the rascality of the political class – and another reason why their power should be minimized.
The distinguished entrepreneur Robert Luddy, a friend and benefactor for many years of the Mises Institute, has extended his innovations in education from elementary and high schools to universities. His Thales Academy has had great success, and he now proposes a Thales College as well. This college will not seek accreditation, in that way cutting through oceans of bureaucratic red tape.
The #MeToo movement is spurring millions of Americans to reconsider the meaning of consent in sexual relations. But there is another realm where far too much has been presumed because of often token gestures. Political consent is defined radically differently than the consent that people freely give in their daily lives.
