The Memory Hole

Source: Consent Factory, Inc.
by CJ Hopkins

“I’m beginning to think something is wrong with my memory. It’s strange, the feeling. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not like I have amnesia or anything. I remember who I am, I think. And I remember things that happened in the past, but I don’t think I remember them the way they happened. The history of the Covid years, for example. My memory of that period is all messed up. I hadn’t realized how messed up until I saw the news about the Fauci hearing, where Fauci refused to answer questions about his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.” (08/06/26)

https://consentfactory.org/2026/08/06/the-memory-hole/

Trump’s New Section 301 Tariffs Are a Tax on American Consumers

Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey

“The administration says the 10 percent to 12.5 percent import taxes will fight forced labor. The reality is they raise prices, punish working families, weaken manufacturers, and restrict free trade.” (08/06/26)

https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/trumps-new-section-301-tariffs-are

The Parasocial Style in American Politics, Part 2: Witch Hunts and Comfort Blankets

Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Elrod

“As during witch hunts, social media enables a process of rendering people into totemic figures in a war between Good and Evil.” (08/06/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-parasocial-style-in-american-politics-part-2/

Permanent Victory for the Democrats’ Left Flank Is Not Assured

Source: The American Conservative
by W James Antle III

“Trump’s job approval rating dipping below 40 percent, especially on the economy, creates openings for Democrats of all stripes. But most importantly, he has allowed the populist left to steal the America First mantle, with candidates promising to spend taxpayer dollars on needs at home rather than on weapons and wars abroad. But the socialists seem hell-bent on blowing their political opportunity as well. Even if their economic message is flawed, to put it mildly, an economically motivated left can compete better than a culturally motivated one.” (08/06/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/permanent-victory-for-the-democrats-left-flank-is-not-assured/

Open Questions On Open Weights

Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander

“Last month, some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies signed an open letter supporting open-weights AI. Open weights AI is like open-source software, where the creator makes the raw code publicly available for free download. It’s good insofar as it’s the only way an AI can truly be the user’s property, as opposed to something that companies like OpenAI or Anthropic temporarily let you use subject to their corporate guidelines and increasingly-nanny-state-like restrictions. If AI becomes the linchpin of the future, open weights AI feels like the sort of thing that could be the difference between being free yeomen vs. corporate serfs.” (08/05/26)

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-questions-on-open-weights

Trump tries to revise frivolous BBC lawsuit to avoid discovery

Source: Politico

“President Donald Trump is seeking to stave off a court order that requires him to begin giving the BBC financial details on his business empire by Thursday in connection with a defamation lawsuit he is pressing against the network. Trump’s attorneys filed the emergency stay motion Wednesday with Miami-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett, urging her to lift the order she issued last month that the British TV broadcaster is entitled to information on the financial performance of hundreds of Trump’s companies because he claimed his ‘brand, properties and businesses’ were damaged by a documentary the BBC aired in the U.K. in 2024. … The proposed new complaint ‘focuses on President Trump’s damages allegations on the reputational harm that he has suffered, which is at the core of this defamation action,’ Trump attorney Alejandro Brito wrote.” (08/05/26)

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/05/BBC-donald-trump-lawsuit

The DSA Is a Menace

Source: Persuasion
by Garry Kasparov

“The DSA has moved from a principled pro-democracy stand on world affairs to tankie turpitude. Today’s DSA includes explicitly communist factions. Yet Harrington rejected the brutality of Soviet and Chinese communism and his icons were real social democrats. In 1980, the DSA founder organized a conference attended by West Germany’s Social Democratic Chancellor Willy Brandt, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, and future French President François Mitterrand. In 1990, Mayor David Dinkins (the first DSA-member to serve as mayor of New York—not Zohran Mamdani) hosted Brandt, who was by then president of the Socialist International (an alliance of mainstream social democratic parties), at City Hall. Today’s DSA would regard those men as insufficiently socialist …” (08/05/26)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-dsa-is-a-menace