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ICYMI: Our exclusive interview with the American Economic Liberties Project’s Matt Stoller on why conservatives should care about fighting monopolies–and having a more effective government.
#Immigration – Axios has a new poll showing that American Latinos are much more hawkish on immigration than coastal journalists imagine. We really can’t do better as a response to this not-quite-Earth-shattering news than the National Center for Immigration Enforcement on X dot com: “This poll is only a shocker for the media and Dems who conflate Latino citizens and illegal aliens in nearly every facet of immigration coverage and policymaking. It’s clueless and offensive. Americans of every race, color, or creed want secure borders and our laws enforced!” The frequent immigration hawkishness of recent legal immigrants is often missed by the commentariat, even though it makes complete sense if you just don’t look at things through a racialist lens: firstly, people who played by the rules and jumped through the hoops tend not to appreciate cheaters; secondly, more recent immigrants are the most direct labor market competitors of recent immigrants. So it makes sense from both a moral-psychological perspective and an economic interest perspective. But if you’re a 25 year old white Brown graduate who’s never met Hispanics who weren’t taking her Frappucino order, or a Democratic political consultant, you simply believe that all brown people think the same (because it’s anti-racist, or something).
#PublicPolicy – Heartwarming piece from EPPC’s Rachel N. Morrison: while submitting public comment might seem like a pointless, purely formal exercise, it can actually make a difference, she writes.
#Trans – The Cass Review, a comprehensive report by British pediatrician Dame Hillary Cass, finds that puberty blockers are medically unnecessary. As more and more European countries back away from irreversible approaches to gender dysphoria to minors, the US may look like an outlier. More at the Washington Stand.
#Trade – “US-China Trade Decline May Have Hit a Bottom“
#Healthcare – The Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has been holding hearings on Telehealth. Telehealth boomed during Covid, and seems like a low-hanging-fruit way to lower healthcare costs. It’s also not something that’s an obvious partisan football. Which is why a good place to start reading about it is the Bipartisan Policy Center’s research on Telehealth.
#Drugs #Tobacco – Speaking of healthare, R Street points to California and progressives in general’s obvious inconsistency in favoring so-called “harm reduction” strategies when it comes to hard drugs, but punitive approaches when it comes to tobacco. Hard not to get the impression that the main motivation is that one of the biggest tobacco-smoking demographics is working-class white Americans, and this is a demographic progressives enjoy annoying as a sport. Anyway, here’s the article.
#Budget – Cato’s Spending Madness bracket is over! Click to find out the winner.
#Environment – It’s not exactly news, but it’s still an always-welcome reminder from the Mises Institute: past environmentalists’ dire warnings of population explosion disasters were unfounded.
#MilitaryReadiness #Veterans – Long but important report from RAND: “Projections of Disability in the Department of Defense Workforce Through 2031: Estimating Future Assistive Technology Requirements for Department of Defense Civilian Employees and Service Members“
It’s Friday, which is a good day to link to some longer essays on some broader topics. In this spirit…
At First Things, Leah Libresco reviews Timothy Carney’s new book on how contemporary society is hostile to child-rearing.
From Public Discourse: “Get Married: An Interview with Brad Wilcox“
Brownstone Institute: “How Awesome Is The Deep State, Really?“
From American Purpose, a new centrist magazine, none other than Francis Fukuyama: “The United States’ inability to build things has big ramifications for its international position“
Brownstone Institute: “A Retired Physician’s View of American Healthcare“
Let us know if you’d like to see “Friday Essays” as a recurring feature.
Chart of the Day
Just because it’s a fun-looking chart (via the St Louis Fed)
Meme of the Day
