What Did Fauci Mean by “Game On?”

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker

“The release of the Fauci diaries has filled in some missing pieces. They help elucidate how the years of hell unfolded in Fauci’s own mind. Working with military intelligence and pharmaceutical companies, Fauci and his colleagues eventually hatched an audacious plan to delay natural immunity for a full ten months as they awaited both the November election and the viable release of the injectable product called a vaccine – all in the hope that it would be given credit for fixing the problem they created in the first place. This scheme, however, was Fauci’s personal Plan B. Plan A is revealed in the diaries. It was to bury the existence and spread of the virus in question within a broader fabric of a bad flu season.” (08/19/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/what-did-fauci-mean-by-game-on/

The invasion of the delivery robots

Source: UnHerd
by Ed Wiseman

“To date, the pavement delivery drone experiment is going as badly as you’d expect, with predictable resistance from its unwilling, unconsenting human participants. But the scheme operators have turned to one of the oldest tricks in the consumer robotics playbook to mitigate public anger: cuteness. Almost all pavement delivery vehicles have smiley faces, exaggeratedly large anime-style eyes for headlamps, and affectedly unthreatening styling that resembles a child’s toy. Many have electronic voices capable of synthetic obsequiousness, humanoid nicknames emblazoned on their flanks, or large dot matrix screens on their fronts that can ’emote’ with basic expressions. Once the robot, called something like Cuthbert, has crashed into you, it can change its digital face to a sad one before whirring off with its cargo of bubble tea. This reflects the unlovably cutesy approach to accountability shared by most of the big operators of delivery drones.” (08/19/26)

https://archive.is/2OG6J

Still recovering from Hurricane Lala, Hawaii prepares for a possible weekend cyclone

Source: SFGate

“Communities still recovering from last weekend’s hurricane in Hawaii could get pounded again in coming days from another tropical system gaining strength over warm Pacific waters. Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rock and left many households without electricity. With thousands of homes and businesses still in the dark Thursday, forecasters warned another tropical cyclone is likely to form southeast of the islands soon. A depression moving west and northwest could become a tropical storm later Thursday and pass near or south of Hawaii’s Big Island over the weekend or early next week, according to the U.S. Central Pacific Hurricane Center.” (08/20/26)

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/still-recovering-from-hurricane-lala-hawaii-22396522.php

MMT: A Political Movement without Serious Defenders

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Per Bylund

“[M]ost, if not all, MMTers who have commented on my article have failed to read it as it was written. They all choose to read it as an Austrian attack on MMT rather than an assessment of a specific argument on its own merits. For this reason, they can attack it as flawed based on my being an Austrian economist rather than the actual arguments made in it. In a similar vein, Marxists could dismiss Böhm-Bawerk’s critique of Marx’s economics based solely on the fact that he was Austrian—regardless of what he said. Needless to say, this is highly unscholarly and unserious.” (08/19/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/mmt-political-movement-without-serious-defenders

Publisher of US military newspaper resigns over differences with regime

Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]

“The longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes, a newspaper focused on the United States military, has resigned amid what he described as disagreements with the Defense Department‘s leadership. Max D Lederer Jr announced his retirement in a memo to staff on Tuesday, as well as in an interview with Stars and Stripes. The memo suggested that Lederer clashed with the administration of President Donald Trump over government efforts to seek greater editorial control over the publication, The Associated Press reported. … Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth accused the publication of promoting ‘woke distractions’. The Trump administration has also slammed the outlet for bringing attention to poor conditions and declining morale on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, involved in the war on Iran. Founded in 1861, Stars and Stripes has been an institution in the US military for well over a century.” (08/20/26)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/20/publisher-of-us-military-newspaper-resigns-over-differences-with-government

A Scandal’s Arc

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“When did you first hear the story of Jason Arday? In 2023, Mr. Arday became something of a public sensation in Great Britain, where his claims to being autistic, mute till age 11, and illiterate till 18 made a striking rag-to-riches/up-from-racism story upon his appointment as Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge. The youngest Black professor at that institution ever. … a month ago, philosopher Nathan Cofnas published his exposé, which began with a litany of Arday’s autobiographical whoppers, not including the one I heard most bandied-about: that at age 7 the young Jason had been interviewed for the famous documentary Seven Up! — a glaring fib because the movie came out 21 years before Prof. Arday was born. … Jason Arday was found dead in his apartment. Suicide? That’s what many surmise, but police have only said his death was ‘unexpected but is not believed to be suspicious.'” (08/19/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/08/19/scandals-arc/

US Regime’s Debt Hits $40 Trillion as Politicians’ Borrowing Binge Continues

Source: New York Times

“[The US government’s] gross national debt topped $40 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, an ominous milestone for an economy that sits on a shaky fiscal foundation after decades of borrowing to pay for the rising costs of the military, social safety net programs and President Trump’s tax cuts. This year alone, the United States [government] is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025. Soaring interest payments to investors who have purchased America’s debt now make up about half of that red ink, pushing the United States [government] into a deeper financial hole.” [editor’s note: A tax cut doesn’t have to be “paid for,” and unless spending is being cut, taxes aren’t being cut — payment of the taxes, with interest, is just being deferred – TLK] (08/19/26)

https://archive.is/EGUPG