[The Hype Cycle: Uppers and Downers in Our Bipolar Culture by Arnold Schelsky (Open Universe, 2025); 320pp.]

I heard that, in his younger years, he liked his beer—by the sloshing bucket hauled from the local tavern. However, it was peach schnapps my grandfather requested to toast his last evening at hospice, poured from the uncapped bottle smuggled in by a grandson.

Several times President Donald Trump has made the claim that tariffs, especially during the McKinley era, made America wealthy; so wealthy, in fact, that the government did not know what to do with the money.

In a libertarian world, the streets and highways would no longer be state-owned, but instead managed by private entities such as companies and cooperatives. Under this system, the state would have no role in street design, pricing, or public transport.

The death of Pope Francis highlights a concern of many Catholics, including myself. Can we believe in the free market consistently with our faith? If we accept the Peronist views of the late pontiff, we obviously cannot do so. But fortunately, there is a better option available to us.

All jobs are not created equal. This isn’t a snobbish comment meant to glorify executives while looking down on workers or that one type of industry is better than the others. Instead, it’s a statement about the difference between private sector and public sector jobs. Private sector jobs add productivity to the economy, while the public sector exists by taking away those gains through taxation. The public sector is dependent on the private sector for its existence.

A former toadie to Dick Cheney, sources say Waltz will soon be fired from his job as Trump’s National Security Adviser.

SecDef says this shows there is “no daylight” between the US and Ukraine. For those wanting the US out of Ukraine, this moves the US in the wrong direction.