Source: CBS News
“Iran claimed attacks Monday on Persian Gulf countries that host U.S. military bases after another round of U.S. strikes the previous evening, as renewed fighting over control of the Strait of Hormuz continued into a second week. U.S. Central Command said Sunday that forces targeted various Iranian vessels and facilities, and it contradicted Tehran’s claim that the Strait of Hormuz is closed, insisting that ‘Iran does not control’ the vital shipping lanes. Oil prices shot up nearly 5% Monday after the weekend’s strikes, with benchmark crude prices nearing $80 a barrel again after plunging briefly to pre-war levels.” (07/13/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/us-iran-war-trump-ceasefire-attacks-strait-of-hormuz/
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“On June 9, Graham Platner won the Democratic Party’s nomination for US Senate from Maine with 72.1% of the primary vote. On July 10, Platner withdrew from the race, presumably due to popular demand by the same voters who nominated him. I’m tempted to a bit of schadenfreude toward those voters. This was not a case of ‘seems like a really good guy, very consistent, upright citizen … oh my God, I had no idea!’ Platner’s entire short political career — his whole adult life, in fact — resembles a locomotive, on fire, pulling boxcars stuffed full of dynamite, accelerating down tracks that terminate at a children’s playground.” (07/12/26)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20757
Source: Unattended Baggage
“Weekend at Mitch’s.” (07/11/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-348-weekend-at-mitchs
Source: euronews [EU]
“The official death toll from Venezuela’s devastating twin earthquakes rose to nearly 4,500 on Sunday, as the government reported more than 19,500 people were now living in camps due to the destruction. The latest toll offered by the government on its official Telegram account listed 4,490 as dead, about 150 higher than the day before, and 16,740 injured. It did not give an estimate for the number of people still unaccounted for. On 24 June, the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes hit Caracas and the coastal state of La Guaira, flattening entire high-rise apartment blocks into layers of rubble.” (07/13/26)
https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/13/venezuela-quake-death-toll-rises-to-4490-officials-say-but-no-number-given-for-missing
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Ella Dawson
“Can economic systems really be moral or immoral? The end of all economic systems, according to one interpretation of Plato’s Republic, is justice. ‘Plato’s starting point is that the organization of society depends ultimately upon knowledge of the end of existence,’ John Dewey, the father of modern education, writes: ‘If we do not know its end we shall be at the mercy of accident and caprice. Unless we know the end, the good, we shall have no criterion for rationally deciding what the possibilities are which should be promoted, nor how social arrangements are to be ordered’ Dewey is correct, that without a certain end, we shall be at the mercy of accident and ‘caprice’—meaning unpredictable and sudden changes. But Dewey is wrong (and potentially Plato as well) both about approaching economics from a collective angle, and implying that social arrangements even need to be artificially ordered.” (07/10/26)
https://fee.org/articles/are-economic-systems-amoral/
Source: Reuters
“Israeli attacks killed at least six people in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including a 9-year-old girl, Palestinian health officials said, as mediators held more talks to safeguard the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Medics said Israeli gunfire directed at a tent encampment on the eastern side of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed 9-year-old Tala Abu Matar. The Israeli military said it was not aware of the incident. An airstrike at a metal foundry in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood killed four people. Witnesses said the site was hit with three Israeli missiles. The Israeli military said it had struck Hamas militants operating inside a weapons production facility, in what it described as a violation of the ceasefire by the Islamist faction.” (07/12/26)
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-attacks-gaza-kill-three-people-including-girl-say-medics-2026-07-12/
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Municipalities allow a private corporation to track free citizens while corrupt officers use the data for personal stalking.” (07/11/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/why-local-governments-must-ban-flock
Source: ABC News
“A Ukrainian attack in southwest Russia killed one person and wounded three more, local officials said Sunday, as Kyiv’s forces continued to bombard Russia’s oil facilities. The head of Russia’s Samara region, Gov. Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, said that a child was among the injured. He also said that residential homes and apartment buildings were damaged in the strike, as well as an unspecified ‘industrial site.’ Russian media outlets reported that the attack’s target was the region’s Syzran Oil Refinery, with many sharing images that appeared to show plumes of black smoke rising over the site.” (07/12/26)
https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/ukrainian-attacks-russia-kill-1-kyiv-continues-target-134689098
Source: Washington Post
by Megan McArdle
“I stand by my assertion that the Soviet Union’s demise cast a long pall over the word ‘socialism’” — at least for those who had not already recoiled from the purges, famines and censorship. I grew up on the Upper West Side, one of the remaining redoubts of socialism in the Reagan era, and watched as the toppling of the Berlin Wall crushed the last hopes that central planning could work. Encountering a socialist holdout in the 1990s was as quaint as finding someone who still believed in alchemy. This makes the current renaissance all the more remarkable. Yet what’s also striking is how little the movement resembles the socialists I remember from my youth.” (07/12/26)
https://archive.is/zuxiW
Source: The Block
“U.S. spot bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds returned to weekly net inflows for the first time since early May, collecting a combined $281.8 million over the five trading days ending Friday, according to The Block’s analysis of SoSoValue data. The spot bitcoin ETFs posted approximately $197.4 million in net inflows for the week, ending an eight-week run that had drained about $8.26 billion from the products. The funds last recorded a positive week in the five days ending May 8, when they brought in roughly $622.7 million, per the data. The losing streak was the longest since the funds began trading in January 2024.” (07/11/26)
https://www.theblock.co/post/407957/bitcoin-ether-etfs-snap-eight-week-outflow-streaks-with-282-million-combined-inflow
