Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Antiwar.com
by Greg Pence

“The sharp swings in oil prices following the latest round of attacks and negotiations over safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz demonstrate that wars do not always reveal themselves first on the battlefield. Sometimes, their earliest signs appear on gas-station price boards, in transportation bills, and on the balance sheets of farmers standing thousands of miles from the front lines. Now that the confrontation between the United States and Iran has moved beyond pressure and deterrence and turned into direct military conflict, the issue is no longer limited to security calculations. It is about the real costs of war – costs increasingly borne by American farmers, truck drivers, and consumers.” (08/04/26)

https://original.antiwar.com/greg_pence/2026/08/03/war-with-iran-a-double-edged-sword-for-the-us-economy-and-agriculture/

Source: Liberal Currents
by Matthew McManus

“Marx once famously quipped that he wasn’t in the business of writing recipe books for the cookshops of the future. History being the complicated thing that it was, it wasn’t for socialist intellectuals to imagine what socialism was to be from the comfort of their armchairs. Instead, working-class movements struggling against exploitation and domination would birth the new society with which old society was pregnant and stamp it with their features. As a consequence of this attitude, Marx and many Marxists have had surprisingly little to say about what socialism ought to look like, let alone how it might be viable. And that has left everyone from Lev Trotsky to Donald Trump feeling free to project their most fantastic dreams and ghoulish nightmares onto the hypothetical socialist future.” (08/04/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/democratic-socialism-gets-serious/

Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño

“An unseen battle is being waged across the digital landscape, turning the very devices we rely on into silent observers. Civil liberties organizations have persistently shined light a constellation of Israeli technology enterprises—many birthed by alumni of elite military intelligence units such as Unit 8200, Unit 81, and the Mossad—as pivotal actors in a burgeoning global commercial surveillance market. These firms have supplied powerful tools deployed against journalists, activists, political dissidents, and, in several verified instances, individuals residing within the United States and other Western democracies.” (08/04/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/invisible-invaders-how-israeli-surveillance-penetrated-american-networks/

Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker

“It doesn’t seem likely that tens of millions of people have suddenly been grabbing up copies of Karl Marx’s works and become convinced by the insights of his writings. A more plausible story is that for two decades, people have seen Democrats who stand up for programs like Social Security and Medicare being denounced as ‘socialists’ by Republican politicians who want to cut back or eliminate these programs. These programs are overwhelmingly popular with the American people, but especially among Democrats. If voters believe the Republicans’ charge, that people who support these programs are socialists, it is understandable that they would say they have a positive view of socialism. By contrast, Republicans seem to have a qualitatively different view of the role of government.” (08/04/26)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/04/democrats-are-socialists-they-support-social-security-and-medicare/

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh

“Lawmakers will feel good voting for Lindsey Graham’s ‘passion project’ but it won’t end the war and if anything hurts American economic and political interests.” (08/04/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-sanctions-bill/