“Two weeks before this year’s primary elections,” according to a recent report, “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the creation of a tip line for the public to report people or groups suspected of voter fraud.” Oops! “Despite his own warnings, Paxton appears to have used an address where he did not live while voting in six elections in the past two years, including in May’s runoff that made him the Republican nominee for U.S. senator, according to records obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.“

Paxton’s campaign responded by calling the report “a baseless, lie-filled tabloid story” and said the candidate “is a registered Texas voter who is in full compliance with state law.” Perhaps it would be most prudent to defer drawing conclusions until after a probe can be completed. When that will happen is uncertain, given that Paxton, as incumbent state attorney general, is himself responsible for conducting any such investigation.

Yesterday, I helped record a Cato video for later release on the subjects of voter fraud and election integrity. While I didn’t bring up the Paxton allegations, I observed that the kind of voter fraud that’s probably committed most often in national elections is the kind carried on by persons with multiple residences who vote from a residence other than the one that the law designates as lawful for that purpose. 

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins put out a statement last week highlighting the release of the SEC’s 2026 regulatory agenda, which aims to return the SEC to its core mission of protecting investors, facilitating capital formation, and maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets.

Based on the items on the agenda, the SEC is certainly on the right track. Four issues illustrate this particularly well: enhancing retail exposure to private markets, updating the exempt offering pathways, rethinking the Consolidated Audit Trail, and clarifying the rules surrounding crypto assets.

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In a new Wall Street Journal op-ed, senior White House official Peter Navarro argues that the Pentagon’s support for Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies is central to breaking China’s chokehold on critical minerals. To explain the administration’s role, he points back to the COVID-era GM-Ventec ventilator partnership. 

But the COVID-era proposal to finance Kodak’s production of pharmaceutical ingredients, which Navarro helped spearhead, may prove the more revealing precedent. The proposed $765 million loan was celebrated before its terms were settled or due diligence was completed. The loan was ultimately never issued, and the episode now looks less like an isolated fiasco than an early prototype for the second Trump administration’s governance by deal and governance by headline.

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For years, Puerto Rico has been unable to import natural gas from the US mainland. Thankfully, that has now changed. According to the International Gas Union’s recently-released 2026 World LNG Report, the United States last year became Puerto Rico’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) supplier, accounting for roughly 35 percent of the island’s imports. And that actually understates matters, as the LNG Puerto Rico imports from Mexico — Puerto Rico’s third-largest supplier — is produced from US natural gas. Counting LNG shipped from Mexico but produced from American natural gas, 59 percent of Puerto Rico’s LNG ultimately originated in the United States.

That remarkable turnaround became possible only because market participants found two ways around the Jones Act, the 1920 law restricting shipments between US points to vessels that are built, flagged, owned, and crewed by Americans. For years, the complete absence of Jones Act-compliant LNG tankers effectively placed abundant American natural gas off-limits to Puerto Rico, forcing the island to import LNG from other countries, including Russia, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, and Egypt.

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As the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) makes its way through Congress, with the Senate set to vote on it later today, it’s important for the public to be made aware of its waste. Such examples include the Golden Dome, the F‑35, and the F‑47. Each weapon and program in this legislation should have clear national security objectives, though many of the weapons in this defense authorization fail at this. 

Yet critics of the NDAA should note what is not included in its current draft. Congress has put forth no proposals to address the sources of the waste and corruption within the defense industry. One source of this waste is the revolving doors between the Pentagon, defense contractors, and Congress.

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Since the Trump administration issued a Jones Act waiver in March for moving energy products and fertilizer, the data it has generated has not done the law’s defenders any favors. It shows substantial volumes moving during the suspension and new domestic commerce being spurred, which is exactly what Jones Act critics have long said would happen without it in place. What was once a largely theoretical argument about suppressed demand is increasingly based on demonstrable facts.

Unsurprisingly, groups that support the Jones Act have stepped up their campaign to kill the waiver.

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After years of fighting back against the rise of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), I’m happy to share that the United States is the first country to prohibit its central bank from creating a CBDC. 

The ban was passed as part of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. As the name suggests, the legislative package is primarily about housing policy—something my colleagues have written about at length. It’s only at the very end that Congress included a prohibition on the creation of both a retail and intermediated CBDC. 

Given the risks of CBDCs, this passage marks a great win for financial freedom. 

At the same time, however, this battle is not over. Unfortunately, Congress decided to have the ban expire at the end of 2030. This decision makes little sense. President Donald Trump already issued an executive order to ban the creation of a CBDC during his presidency. Once a new administration takes office and 2031 rolls around, these protections will disappear, and the door will reopen.

So celebrate today’s win, but don’t mistake it for the end of the story. The fight against the rise of CBDCs is not over yet.