Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/31/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“This Is Where We Are? Kidnapping Foreign Leaders & Trying To Take Their Oil.” (08/31/26)
Author: Thomas L. Knapp
“Tax the Billionaires” Cannot Fund the DSA’s $200 Trillion Platform
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Is it just me, or have the Democratic Socialists (DSA) buried themselves in such a fantastical fairyland that they have no sense of reality? A recent study of the DSA’s ‘Workers Deserve More’ program would cost around $200 trillion in new federal spending over the next decade, on top of our current spending. And people are supporting and voting for these people to represent them. Voters are being sold a platform whose cost is higher than the wealth it claims it wants to seize. Make the math work! Every time I see an interview with DSA leadership, it makes clear they only have hate for billionaires and no realistic plan to help better the lives of the working class, even though capitalism has been the best system to better their lives.” (08/31/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/tax-the-billionaires-cannot-fund
Hume Contains Multitudes
Source: Law & Liberty
by Max Skjönsberg
“Hume’s philosophic project unfolded over decades, but it was rooted in his view of human nature.” (08/31/26)
Godless and Providential?
Source: Law & Liberty
by Mark Tooley
“The Godless Constitution and the Providential Nation by Steven D. Smith is timely reading for America’s 250th birthday, especially amid increasing debates over Christian Nationalism. Even as American religious practice has declined over several decades, more religious voices are paradoxically clamoring to legally establish their preferred form of religion. Integralists want a Catholic confessional state. Some Calvinists who self-identify as Christian Nationalists believe civil magistrates should repress blasphemy and apostasy, among other spiritual duties. Smith rightly sees this clamoring for more religion in governance as a reaction against the decline of providentialism and civil religion.” (08/31/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/godless-and-providential/
The Next Election May be Our Last
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
by Chris Hedges
“Donald Trump is determined to subvert the midterms. All that can save us, if he succeeds, is a national strike.” (08/31/26)
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-next-election-may-be-our-last
Experts, lawyers puzzled over US-Venezuela oil deal, call for contract transparency
Source: Reuters
“A massive long-term oil deal expected to grant the U.S. access to a fifth of Venezuela’s crude reserves has energy experts and lawyers questioning its legality and eventual execution, while calling on both governments for contract transparency. The unprecedented pact, announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday and confirmed by Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez, will put a whopping 65 billion barrels of recoverable oil under Washington’s control, a volume that surpasses total U.S. proved oil reserves of 46 billion barrels. The agreement did not pass through a competitive process, and its negotiation remained a secret until last week, even amid a sweeping reform of Venezuela’s primary hydrocarbons law and the migration of dozens of joint ventures and contracts to new terms, which authorities and operators have not completed.” (08/31/26)
Rising, 08/31/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed repeatedly downplaying his association with leftist streamer Hasan Piker.” (08/31/26)
Newsom Celebrates a Higher Minimum Wage as California Jobs Struggle
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry Jackson
“California law now provides for an annual adjustment to the statewide minimum wage for inflation. On Jan. 1, 2027, it will jump from $16.90 per hour to $17.40, higher than any statewide minimum wage currently in effect. (In a few cities, the minimum wage is already $20 an hour and in many others it’s dangerously close to that mark.) It is a wage, said Newsom, ‘that rewards work, grows the economy, and puts working families first. We believe if you work hard, you deserve a decent paycheck.’ Put aside for the moment that government is in no position to decide what a ‘decent paycheck’ is and let’s look at the employment numbers and marvel at why advocates don’t see the destructive nature of government-instituted wage floors.” (08/31/26)
https://fee.org/articles/newsom-celebrates-a-higher-minimum-wage-as-california-jobs-struggle/
Global Empire as Domestic Policy
Source: CounterPunch
by David S D’Amato
“We rarely consider the domestic political implications of Washington’s globe-spanning empire, yet government spending on war and empire functions as the de facto national industrial policy of the United States, largely determining which cutting-edge technologies receive the most investment, which companies will enjoy massive state-guaranteed markets, and which physical objects will be the focus of the country’s industrial production capacity. Through the military empire, the state becomes both the architect of and primary consumer for a huge industrial sector. And while it has grabbed more headlines this year due to the parlous speculative bubble surrounding AI, the political consequences of the connection between the global military empire and the private sector tech industry remain woefully under-discussed in the mainstream discourse.” (08/31/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/31/global-empire-as-domestic-policy/
The First Postliberal
Source: The Dispatch
by Stephanie Slade
“Before J.D. Vance, there was William F. Buckley Jr.’s brother-in-law.” (08/31/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/first-postliberal-brent-bozell-buckley/