Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Informed Comment
by Christian Emery

“Appearing increasingly isolated and weakened, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Washington this week, where he had a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump – his eighth of the US president’s second term. Netanyahu is desperate to revive his image as the closest ally of the most powerful man in the world, but his star has fallen dramatically in Washington since his last trip. The US president has problems of his own, so he clearly had little appetite for a photo opportunity with a deeply unpopular Israeli leader widely blamed for convincing him to launch an unwinnable war against a state few Americans saw as a serious threat.” (07/30/26)

https://www.juancole.com/2026/07/meeting-signals-netanyahus.html

Source: Expression
by Caroline Cunningham

“A formidable enemy of free speech on college campuses is self-censorship. Much has been said about how to make students more willing to voice their opinions, but proposed solutions often overlook the people best positioned to change the culture where self-censorship frequently occurs: professors. Professors shape many of the environments where students decide whether speaking candidly is worth the risk. In a FIRE student survey conducted in 2025, 72% of students said they self-censor at least occasionally either when speaking in class or with a professor. Yet despite their direct influence over students’ willingness to speak, professors — and the classroom techniques they employ — remain underused in efforts to address the problem.” (07/30/26)

https://expression.fire.org/p/the-front-line-of-combating-self

Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Mark D Guilfoyle & Andrew J Vandiver

“Reasonable people can disagree about education policy. They can disagree about charter schools, vouchers, and the proper role of government in education. But House Bill 1 is different from many of those debates.” (07/30/26)

https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/school-choice-benefit-all-students/

Source: Reason
by Tosin Akintola

“Last September, the U.S. military fired the first of 63 strikes against 67 small fishing boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The spate of killings in Operation Southern Spear has claimed 221 lives so far, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization. In April, President Donald Trump boasted about the effectiveness of his extrajudicial maritime strikes against alleged drug traffickers, claiming his methods had stopped 98.2 percent of all drugs coming into the country by ocean or sea. However, new evidence from those inside the Trump administration shows the strikes have not slowed the flow of drugs coming into the country.” (07/30/26)

https://reason.com/2026/07/30/trumps-boat-strikes-killed-221-people-but-didnt-win-the-war-on-drugs/

Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Turley

“The fact is that diaries tend to be self-obsessed, and no one would want their unvarnished private thoughts made public. Rather, my gripe with these passages is one I have previously raised in criticism of Fauci. During this period, dissenting scientists were barred from social media, removed from positions and vilified for expressing views despite now being vindicated on subjects ranging from the lab origin of the virus to the efficacy of masks, the 6-foot rule, natural immunity and school closures. As these courageous scientists were being abused by academic and media figures who still hold their positions, Fauci said not a word in their defense despite privately acknowledging that they could be right.” (07/30/26)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-fauci-took-fifth-diary-may-have-answered