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From Copilot – 11/13/2026

• The earliest U.S. export controls date to World War I. In 1917, Congress passed the Trading with the Enemy Act, which gave the President authority to restrict exports and other economic activities involving enemy nations during wartime. [nationalac…demies.org]
• Arms export controls were established in 1935 through the Neutrality Act of 1935, which provided a legal basis for controlling exports of arms to nations involved in wars. [nationalac…demies.org]
• Modern export controls are generally considered to begin in 1940 with the Export Control Act of 1940. This law authorized the President to restrict exports of military equipment, strategic materials, and related goods in the interest of national defense. It was initially aimed at conserving critical materials and limiting exports to Japan before the U.S. entered World War II. [en.wikipedia.org], [jamesjtennant.com]

The first export controls of any kind, was in 1917. The beginning of the modern U.S. export control system was the Export Control Act of 1940. [nationalac…demies.org], [en.wikipedia.org]

The rationale for export controls evolved over time:

1. Wartime security (World War I and II)
2. Restricting strategic exports to Japan before Pearl Harbor
3. Cold War technology controls against the Soviet bloc under the Export Control Act of 1949
4. Today’s system, which focuses on national security, advanced technologies, military items, sanctions compliance, and protection of critical technologies. [en.wikipedia.org], [nationalac…demies.org]

Whether export controls could be viewed as a government “taking,” the 1940 and 1949 Acts are the key starting points because they created the broad peacetime export-control framework that still influences U.S. policy today.

While this has never become a mainstream constitutional doctrine, scholars, litigants, and some judges have argued that certain export controls, sanctions, and other trade restrictions can resemble a regulatory taking and therefore should require compensation under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. [constituti…center.org], [constituti…center.org]

The basic argument goes like this:

• A company develops a product, customer base, and export market.
• The government then prohibits sales to certain countries or customers for national security or foreign policy reasons.
• The burden of pursuing that public objective falls heavily on a relatively small group of firms.
• Therefore, the public as a whole should bear the cost through compensation rather than forcing the affected firms to absorb the loss.

This reasoning echoes a famous Supreme Court formulation that the Takings Clause exists to prevent government from forcing “some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.” [constituti…center.org]

However, courts have generally been reluctant to treat export controls as compensable takings. The traditional view is that restrictions on international trade are exercises of the federal government’s sovereign powers over foreign affairs, national security, and commerce, rather than appropriations of private property. Export controls usually regulate how property may be used or sold; they do not physically seize the property. Courts have historically given the political branches especially broad latitude in this area. [chambers.com], [media.bis.gov]

There are a few related intellectual traditions:

1. Libertarian/property-rights scholars, most notably Richard Epstein, have argued for a much broader reading of the Takings Clause. Under that view, regulations that severely destroy economic value, including trade restrictions, often should trigger compensation. [constituti…center.org]
2. Regulatory takings theory more generally holds that regulations can become so burdensome that they effectively amount to expropriation even without physical confiscation. This doctrine is well established in land-use law, though applying it to export controls is much more controversial. [law2.umkc.edu], [ebsco.com]
3. During major embargoes and sanctions programs, affected industries have sometimes argued in policy debates that the government should compensate exporters for losses incurred in pursuit of national objectives. For example, agricultural exporters affected by grain embargoes or sanctions have occasionally made that case politically, even when their legal arguments under the Takings Clause were weak.

An interesting historical example is the 1980 grain embargo against the Soviet Union. Many farmers argued that they were being forced to bear the economic cost of a foreign-policy decision that benefited the nation as a whole. Congress responded with various assistance measures, but not because the Constitution was understood to require compensation.

So the short answer is: yes, the argument has definitely been made, both academically and politically. But U.S. law has generally treated export controls as non-compensable exercises of sovereign regulatory authority rather than takings requiring compensation. Courts have been far more willing to recognize takings claims involving real property and direct appropriations than restrictions on international trade. [law2.umkc.edu], [ebsco.com], [constituti…center.org]

A particularly interesting modern test case would be the recent semiconductor export restrictions on sales to China. Those rules have imposed very large costs on some firms, and they fit almost perfectly into the policy argument for compensation, even though existing Takings Clause doctrine would likely make a successful constitutional claim difficult. [chambers.com], [pwc.com]

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from: https://www.echovita.com/us/obituaries/ca/culver-city/paula-fins-22371500

Paula Fins of Culver City, California passed away on October 31, 2026, at the age of 78. Paula will be remembered by family members, friends, and others whose lives were connected in meaningful ways. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Paula Fins to pay them a last tribute.

Paula will be remembered for the impact she had on the lives of those around her. Friends, family, and colleagues will cherish their memories and the time shared. Those who knew Paula will remember moments of kindness, warmth, and presence. Though words cannot fully capture her life, the legacy of connections and experiences remains. Paula’s absence will be deeply felt by those who valued her companionship.

Paula was registered at North High but attended classes at Classical High that were not offered elsewhere in the city.

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from: https://www.fff.org/2026/10/19/much-ado-about-russia/

by Jacob G. Hornberger — October 19, 2026

Right-wing and left-wing interventionists and interventionist mainstream-press commentators are up in arms over President Trump’s decision to ease economic sanctions against Russia in connection with the Russian government’s agreement to supply diesel fuel to the United States. The notion is that nothing — not even the midterms — must be permitted to interfere with the Cold War II racket that holds that Russia is an aggressor nation that is hell-bent on conquering the world and, therefore, that it is necessary to target the Russian populace with severe impoverishment and even death by starvation or illness with ever-more economic sanctions.

Center to this racket, of course, is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The notion was that Russia was on the march. As soon as it conquered Ukraine, U.S. officials maintained, it would re-conquer Eastern Europe, and then Western Europe and England, and then make its way to South America, Central America, Mexico, and finally the United States, all of which Russia would reconstitute into a new Soviet Union of the world. In other words, the Russia is coming to get us again.

The Cold War I racket was used to justify the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state, a type of governmental structure that came with omnipotent powers, including the power of orchestrating and committing state-sponsored assassinations. The racket enabled the national-security branch of the government to quickly become the most powerful branch of the federal government, one to which the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court decided to defer to.

The Cold War I racket was also used to justify an anti-communist crusade, during which the U.S. national-security establishment targeted suspected communists, both here and in foreign countries, with destruction of reputation or even with assassination.

Beginning in 1989, the Cold War racket came to a sudden and unexpected end. The Berlin Wall was torn down, Germany was reunified, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Russian troops withdrew from Eastern Europe.

Officials in the U.S. national-security branch — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — naturally were extremely concerned. Suddenly, they had lost the justification for their existence and for the racket that they were certain would go on forever. People were talking about a “peace dividend,” which would involve a deep reduction in national-security-state spending and maybe even a restoration of America’s founding governmental system of a limited-government republic.

To replace the old racket with a new racket, new official enemies were developed, such as “the terrorists,” “the Muslims,” “the drug dealers,” and “the illegals.” They were all coming to get us, or so they said. Everyone remained deathly afraid.

But the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA were not about to let go of their old Cold War racket so easily. After providing Soviet officials with assurances during the negotiations over German reunification that NATO would not expand eastward, U.S. officials proceeded to do precisely that. NATO began marching eastward, absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact and moving inexorably toward Russia’s borders, knowing full well what Russia’s reaction would be.

That was what the threat to absorb Ukraine into NATO ultimately accomplished — provoking Russia into invading Ukraine in an effort to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. U.S. officials had been warned for years that NATO expansion, especially into Ukraine, could produce precisely such a confrontation. Yet they proceeded anyway.

Voila! The national-security branch had its old Cold War racket back, albeit in a revised format. The Russians are coming to get us … again (along with the terrorists, the Muslims, the drug dealers, and the illegals). The big fly in the ointment, however, is that Russia has been unable to conquer Ukraine. That’s, of course, a problem. If Russia can’t even conquer Ukraine, how is it going to be able to conquer Eastern Europe, Western Europe, England, South America, Central America, Mexico, and then the United States? Whoops!

Never mind that inconvenient problem. In the eyes of national-security statists, it is imperative that we continue hewing to the official narrative. Russia is coming to get us, just like before. We need ever-increasing budgets for the national-security establishment and its ever-growing army of voracious fat-cat “defense” contractors. Who cares if the United States goes bankrupt in the process? We need to again be kept “safe” from the Reds — I mean, the Russians (and from the terrorists, Muslims, drug dealers, and illegals.)

Oh, and don’t forget the Cuban Reds! They are coming to get us too. No doubt the right-wing and left-wing interventionists and the interventionist mainstream press, all of whom remain steadfast acolytes of the national-security establishment, are scared to death that President Trump might lift the old Cold War embargo and the new Cold War blockade against the Cuban people as well. Of course, fat chance of that happening given Trump’s own interventionist mindset.

The Tapestry of Natural Order — Chapter 1

Companion to Chapter 1

The Tapestry of Natural Order — Chapter 2

Companion to Chapter 2

The Negligence of War and Peace

Bryan Caplan

Sep 21, 2026

I was still in college the year of the Gulf War. At the time, I opposed the war; and in hindsight, I still do. But I freely admit that the U.S. planned its war carefully. They assembled over half a million troops, got buy-in from almost all their allies, and after four days of ground combat, the U.S. was totally victorious.

After victory, however, conflict with Saddam Hussein persisted for 12 more years. Why? Because although the U.S. had a careful plan for the war, they decided to wing the peace. There was a confused combination of sanctions, no-fly zones, demands for WMD inspections, and periodic bombing. If not for the totally unrelated 9/11 attack, Saddam Hussein might still be in power today. If the U.S. had any plan for peace after the Gulf War, it wasn’t much of a plan.

Poor peacetime planning led to another war — and an even more impressive military master plan. In 2003, using only 250,000 troops, the U.S. achieved full regime change in less than a month. While their list of active allies was much shorter than in 1991, they clearly weren’t necessary.

The shock-and-awe military performance of the U.S. was matched only by its truly harebrained plan for peace. Guerrilla warfare and sectarian violence began almost immediately and lasted for many years. Instead of installing a reliably pro-Western government, the U.S. quickly handed power over to the Shiite Islamist Nouri al-Maliki. He proved to be uncooperative, incompetent, and power-hungry. While he desperately needed U.S. military support, he went out of his way to antagonize his benefactors.

In the same vein, the U.S. had little trouble engineering the military overthrow of the Taliban or Gaddafi. But their plans for post-war Afghanistan and Libya were little more than wishful thinking. And to belabor the obvious, it showed.

You could consider “Since 1990, the U.S. has carefully planned its wars, yet poorly planned for the aftermath” a mixed compliment. But when the lives of millions hang in the balance, it’s a harsh condemnation. Actual war means killing a lot of innocent people — and that cannot be justified unless you have high confidence that the long-run effects are very good. Truly, with great power comes great responsibility.

That has long been my view, and I haven’t changed my mind. But Trump’s Iran War really does put all of the wars of my adult lifetime in a new perspective. Why? Because for the first time in decades, the U.S. has failed even to competently plan for the war! Before February 28, at least Iran wasn’t attacking its Arab neighbors. Oil freely flowed through the Strait of Hormuz. Now, over six months after killing much of the Iranian leadership, the U.S. has no idea how to even get back to square one. Alternating between sour grapes and empty threats may confuse the new Iranian leadership, but that’s about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this conflict runs into 2028. Nor would I be surprised if the U.S. simply withdraws and hopes that its allies can somehow make peace on their own.

But even if the war ends today with a durable restoration of the pre-war status quo, the U.S. government has reached a new level of negligence. It used to demonstrate selective care: When we fight, we win — and win quickly and decisively; we just don’t know what to do after we win. Now it can’t be negligent after victory, because there will be no victory. Instead of learning from past failures, it has become a model of failure for future leaders to study. If they’re the kind of leaders who bother.

Drew Bachrach produced and edited this video.

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from: https://www.bibberfuneral.com/memorials/susan-elwood/5747620/

Susan Elizabeth (Doherty) Elwood, 79, passed away peacefully on September 17, 2026, after a brief illness.

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on August 24, 1947, Sue was the daughter of the late Richard Doherty and Dorothy (Donahue) Doherty Savage. Following her father’s early passing, her mother married William Savage, who proved to be a wonderful and caring father throughout her life.

On June 7, 1969, Sue married the love of her life, Robert Elwood. Together, they built a home filled with love and warmth until his passing in 2006. In 1980, the couple built a beloved cottage in Moody Beach, Maine-a place that held a special spot in her heart. Sue fulfilled a long-time dream in 2021 when she moved to Maine full-time to be closer to her children and grandchildren.

Sue dedicated her life to caring for others as a Registered Nurse. She began her career at Worcester City Hospital and went on to make a lasting impact working for Elder Home Care, and as a Certified Case Manager for Cigna and Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital. Just a day before her passing, Susan was deeply honored to be recognized by the Southern Maine Nurse Honor Guard for her decades of compassionate service.

Beyond her professional life, Susan was a woman of quick wit, warm conversation, and vibrant passions. She could strike up a chat with anyone, anywhere, and was famous among family and friends for her notorious “Irish whisper,” which inevitably made its presence known at the most inopportune times. An avid reader who loved sunny days at the beach, she was a dedicated fan of the Red Sox, Jeopardy!, crosswords, and daily Wordle games. Susan also had a great love for comedy; she faithfully recorded the late-night monologues every evening-never missing Stephen Colbert-and checked off a major bucket list item in the summer of 2025 when she saw John Mulaney live in Portland, Maine.

Susan is survived by her three devoted daughters, Erin Elwood, Shannon DeLello, and Meghan Hubacz and her husband, John. She leaves her six cherished grandchildren, Madison and Alexander Bernard, Sean and Elizabeth DeLello, and Rachel and Andrew Hubacz. Sue was lovingly surrounded by her brothers, sisters, and their spouses through the end of her life.

A private celebration of Susan’s life will be held in the near future. The family is grateful for the loving care that she received at Pinnacle Health and Rehab-Sanford and Compassus Hospice Services. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in her honor to Abby’s House in Worcester, Massachusetts.Read Less

Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on Foreign Policy (July 4, 1821)
John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State

AND NOW, FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and
Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of
nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force….

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….

America’s glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.