Source: Isabelle Brito

“The city commission of Emporia, Kansas, has endured countless hours of public criticism. What it could not endure was a few seconds of clapping. At its July 22 meeting, citizens contested a proposed data center, briefly applauding between public comments as one speaker left the microphone and another approached. Commissioners sometimes ignored the applause and other times warned the audience to stop. But their warnings soon expanded to cover even more muted reactions like finger-snapping and a woman in the back of the room silently waving her hands. When high school physics teacher Lux Claridge clapped five times for a speaker, a commissioner told officers to remove the next person who clapped. But instead of waiting for another round of applause, officers immediately ordered Claridge to leave.” (07/31/26)

https://www.fire.org/news/applause-disrupted-nothing-yet-still-led-arrest

Source: Town Hall
by Jay Rogers

“I’ve spent 30 years as a fiduciary, which mostly means telling people why they can’t do the thing they want to do. When a trustee wants to make a distribution the trust document doesn’t authorize, there are two honest answers. Amend the document, or don’t make the distribution. What you don’t do is rewrite the beneficiary definition until the distribution qualifies, book it, and hope nobody opens the file for 20 years. About 14 states took the third option on college tuition. Somebody finally opened the file. On July 24, Judge David Dugan of the Southern District of Illinois struck down the state’s in-state tuition rules, its RISE Act, and its DREAM Act as unconstitutional for illegal [sic] aliens. A day earlier, the Justice Department sued Colorado, the 14th such case. Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Nebraska have already surrendered; suits are pending against a dozen more, including California and Virginia.” (08/01/26)

https://townhall.com/columnists/jay-rogers/2026/08/01/the-tuition-rule-14-states-decided-to-ignore-n2680419

Source: Los Angeles Times
by Veronique de Rugy

“There are many ways to measure the health of a country. One way is growth of gross domestic product. Another is economic productivity. But there’s a less conventional measure worth watching: Do the world’s most talented and ambitious people want to immigrate here? Throughout most of America’s history, the answer has been an emphatic yes. Scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists and strivers from around the world have chosen the United States because they believed they could build something, discover something or start a business while making a better life in this country. We should worry about the day when that is no longer true. Unfortunately, the Trump administration seems determined to make that day arrive sooner rather than later.” (07/31/26)

https://archive.is/vtCkK

Source: Law & Liberty
by Wilfred M McClay

“America’s founding document remains the guide we need to understand our past—and our future.” (07/31/26)

https://lawliberty.org/forum/why-we-still-read-the-declaration/

Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille

“The president’s protectionism has constituted the largest tax increase since 1993.” (07/31/26)

https://reason.com/2026/07/31/trumps-tariffs-will-cost-each-american-household-900-in-2026/

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“Donald Trump is cheap in every sense of the word: cheap in that he is an infamous deadbeat who cheated his creditors; cheap in the sense of tacky; cheap in that he is the sort of man whose virtue, such as it is, can be overcome at no great expense — a cheap date. Trump is a $40 fake Rolex made copious flesh. … the CEO of Rolex, Jean-Frédéric Dufour, bought the whole Swiss watch industry a better deal on tariffs with a desk clock that was not even solid gold but merely gold plated, along with a 1-kg bar of gold engraved with the word ‘PRESIDENT’—in case Trump, who seems to believe that there is something called the Islamic Republic of Japan and who conflates Vladimir Putin with Volodymyr Zelensky, finally forgets which office it is he holds.” (07/31/26)

https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-moral-bribes-diamonds/