Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Several people have been killed in Russian attacks on port infrastructure in Odesa and Mykolaiv, and Ukraine said it launched drone strikes on 20 Russian vessels as the warring sides escalated their battle over the Black Sea and key trade routes. Odesa region Governor Oleh Kiper said on Wednesday that a ‘massive’ Russian drone and missile attack on the southern region continued for a fifth day, with civilian, industrial and port infrastructure coming under attack. At least three people were killed and three others wounded in the Russian strikes on Odesa, the city’s military administrator Serhiy Lysak said on Wednesday. … Moscow said on Tuesday that it was preparing to redirect exports following waves of attacks on Russian shipping in the Sea of Azov, while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the Ukrainian attacks on shipping ‘terrorism’.” (07/15/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/15/russian-attack-on-odesa-kills-three-as-ukraine-targets-vessels-in-black-sea
Source: The Daily Economy
by Ethan Nevid
“How can one sign a contract before birth? That question can’t be answered by President Bill Clinton, who said ‘we mustn’t break the solemn compact between generations,’ in a 1998 address on Social Security. Such a speech constructs Social Security as a contractual mandate in need of protection rather than an insurance and redistribution program. Grand national ‘contracts’ should face significant scrutiny, as they borrow the moral force of a contract without the requirements that define one. … Legally, the four requirements of a contract are offer, consideration, acceptance, and an intention to create legal relations. A person not yet born cannot be offered a contract, consider it in any manner or ask for compensation, accept it in any way, or intend legal relations. By any measure, Social Security cannot be a legal contract.” (07/14/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/social-security-is-not-a-generational-contract/
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Left-Right Silence on Venezuela.” (07/14/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84TlCBWwFFI
Source: Reuters
“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened to close ‘all other export corridors that benefit the U.S. and its allies’, Iranian media reported, after Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. reimposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports. ‘Regional energy exports are either shared by all, or denied to all,’ the IRGC said in a statement carried by Iran’s IRNA state news agency on Wednesday. Analysts have said Iran has been signalling it may use its Houthi allies in Yemen to shut the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, opening a new front against Washington and putting two of the world’s most vital energy arteries at risk. The narrow gateway links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, through which Saudi oil exports and a substantial share of global shipping pass.” (07/15/26)
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-threatens-block-more-vital-seaways-trump-orders-renewed-iran-blockade-2026-07-15/
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“Rubio’s problem with the ICC isn’t that it can ‘override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states.’ It’s that when an American allegedly commits a relevant crime on the soil of an ICC member state, the ICC, rather than US courts, adjudicates the matter. To put it a different way, Rubio’s demand of ICC member states is ‘global sovereignty for the US, no sovereignty for anyone else.'” (07/14/26)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20759
Source: Washington Post
“Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist who was detained for months as the federal government sought to deport him, sued Trump administration officials and others on Tuesday, alleging a conspiracy to persecute. The case, filed in federal court in New York, has been brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and claims that top administration officials conspired with private organizations such as the conservative Heritage Foundation to terrorize and make an example of Khalil and other noncitizens to intimidate and weaken the pro-Palestinian movement. The case names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, senior presidential adviser Stephen Miller, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, acting attorney general Todd Blanche, former secretary of homeland security Kristi L. Noem, and John Armstrong at the State Department. Khalil also sued the Heritage Foundation as well as Canary Mission and Betar — which describe themselves as defenders of Israel — and their leaders.” (07/14/26)
https://archive.is/IfMRT
Source: EconLog
by Christopher Coyne & Abigail R Hall
“One of the defining features of war is the centralization of state power. War and foreign intervention require the use of resources and the ability to make choices about how to use them. As national governments are responsible for planning, implementing, and overseeing war and other foreign intervention, war necessarily draws peripheral political units (e.g., state and local authorities) toward the political center. … This bureaucratization of life, the drawing of peripheral units of government toward the political center, effectively erodes the pluralism of democratic governments. Instead of working to provide a check or counterbalance to the central government, peripheral political units become aligned with the goals of the central government.” (07/14/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/war-the-dreaded-enemy-of-liberty
Source: NBC News
“E. Jean Carroll has collected her $5 million judgment against President Donald Trump, more than three years after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her, court records show. The money, which was being held in a court escrow account, has been ‘disbursed’ to Carroll’s attorneys, the court filing shows. The amount totaled $5,625,005.48 with interest. … The case arose from a 2022 suit Carroll filed in New York alleging Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store after a chance encounter in 1996, and then defamed her after she came forward with her claims in 2019.” (07/14/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/e-jean-carroll-collects-5-million-trump-3-years-jury-found-liable-sexu-rcna587484
Source: Antiwar.com
by Jason Jones
“Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter recently offered what he apparently believed was a devastating answer to those decrying the genocide in Gaza. ‘Jews do not use children’s blood for rituals,’ Leiter said. ‘Jews do not poison wells. And Jews do not starve populations or commit genocide.’ The smear in this common Zionist talking point is obvious: Those who accuse the Israeli government belong in the same moral category as those who spread medieval blood libels against innocent Jews. To say the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed genocide is not merely to criticize a government, an army, or a political ideology. It is to accuse ‘the Jews.’ But there is a growing problem for Zionism and its favorite smear: the moral indignation of Jews.” (07/14/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/jason_jones/2026/07/13/the-inconvenient-jew-is-one-of-zionisms-biggest-problems/
Source: Space.com
“The International Space Station has three new residents. NASA’s Anil Menon and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina lifted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:47 a.m. EDT (1447 GMT; 7:47 p.m. local time in Baikonur), heading toward the orbiting lab. … The trio caught up to the ISS after just two orbits, docking with the outpost at 1:52 p.m. EDT (1752 GMT). The two spacecraft were flying 260 miles (418 kilometers) above the Mediterranean Sea at the time, NASA officials said during the agency’s docking webcast.” (07/14/26)
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/soyuz-ms-29-astronaut-launch-international-space-station-anil-menon
