“American’s first Red Scare took place from 1917 to 1921. Pres. Woodrow Wilson’s terror campaign against American radicals, dissidents, immigrants and workers makes the current Trump-Rubio effort look like a pathetic puppet show. Wilson jailed his charismatic Socialist opponent, the 63-year-old Eugene Debs, for opposing America’s descent into the carnage of the First World War. … The second Red Scare dragged on between 1947 and 1954. In 1954, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-W) was at the height of his campaign against ‘communism,’ alleging that hundreds of Communists had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies. … Today’s Red Scare 3.0 is driven by the growing opposition to Trump’s foreign and domestic policies. Trump needs a new front to contest the opposition and give him – and his Republican Party backers, especially in Congress — a wedge they can use to fight the challenges they face. Nothing is better than an ill-defined yet omni-threatening enemy.” (07/29/26)
“OpenAI has updated its blog post about the rogue agent that breached Hugging Face and admitted that it also infiltrated other other third-party accounts and services to achieve its goal. In the updated post, the company said it has been finding ‘a small number of cases where the models identified and used publicly exposed credentials at the account-level on other publicly-available services’ during its ongoing review. So far, it has determined that the rogue agent used the credentials of ‘four accounts’ to infiltrate ‘four services’ as part of the Hugging Face incident. It also said that it accessed a ‘few accounts’ as part of other evaluations.” (07/29/26)
“Encouraged by Ukraine’s sustained advances in drone warfare, Western media is abuzz with the idea that Kyiv just might be able to defeat Russia after more than four years of bitter fighting. … But this isn’t the first time the press has played up Ukraine’s military capabilities, despite repeated setbacks on the battlefield. As experts warn RS, such coverage reinforces the idea that more military aid can still help Ukraine win back all of its territory, thus downplaying the need for a negotiated solution.” (07/29/26)
“A Kansas high school teacher was arrested and dragged out of a contentious city zoning meeting for continuously clapping in opposition to a proposed data center. Lux Claridge was yanked out of a chair by three police officers and carried out of the Emporia City Commission meeting on July 22 for seemingly disobeying the mayor’s orders regarding clapping against the controversial Flint Hills Digital Campus data center proposed in Emporia, Kansas, the Emporia Police said. … Several oppositionists gave comments and testimonials against the 1,000-acre, gigawatt-scale project that garnered rounds of applause, which provoked one board official to call for order against the clapping that was ‘rude and disruptive.'” (07/29/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Patrick Barron
“So-called ‘Democratic Socialists’ are winning elections in America (New York City and Colorado). I’m sure that no one who either is running on a socialist platform or who voted for a socialist candidate has ever visited a real socialist country. One of the reasons is that there are not that many left. I can think only of Cuba and North Korea.” [editor’s note: Bernie Sanders honeymooned in the Soviet Union, and many American “democratic socialists” have made highly publicized trips to Cuba – TLK] (07/29/26)
“he Trump administration’s 13 nights of strikes on Iran, including on bridges and energy infrastructure, have been followed by three nights of calm. The Iranians, however, clearly do not trust Trump to halt his war of aggression on their country for very long, especially with the visit to Washington, D. C. this week of Trump Whisperer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even Trump is complaining about Netanyahu’s loud campaign to have Trump bomb specific targets in Iran. To show what they thought about Netanyahu’s warmongering against them, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders sent a barrage of missiles against covert US bases in Jordan early on Wednesday local time.” (07/29/26)
“The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is banning imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots and power inverters, citing national security risks, in a move that targets China. The measures are likely to test relations with Beijing ahead of a planned U.S. visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in September. China dominates the global market for humanoid robots with an estimated market share of roughly 85%. The FCC’s ban also includes new imports of quadruped robots – often referred to as four-legged robot dogs. … The ban on power inverters, which are used to convert direct current (DC) electricity into alternating current (AC) electricity and are used in renewable energy systems, data centers and household appliances, could have sweeping ramifications.” (07/29/26)
“Acoustic gunshot detection (AGD) systems are designed to detect and report gunfire to law enforcement. Promoted as a high-tech solution to urban gun violence, AGD has been widely adopted by police departments across the United States, with California a leader in the number of cities that use the technology. To be considered a successful public safety innovation, a technology would be able to demonstrate effectiveness in assisting law enforcement in reducing violence and solving crimes and do so in a cost-efficient manner. However, AGD does not meet these criteria and constitutes a costly failure that undermines effective policing.” (07/29/26)
