“Imagine how Republicans would react if a Democratic president reflexively threatened to yank the broadcast licenses of TV stations because he did not like their news coverage or programming decisions. President Donald Trump has been doing that since his first term, and he did it again last week after ABC and NBC declined to offer live coverage of his speech about election security. These threats are part of an intimidation campaign that has already yielded striking concessions to Trump’s whims. His weaponization of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is designed to chill constitutionally protected speech, establishing a precedent that Republicans may regret when their opponents take control of the White House. Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed FCC chairman, seems to think broadcasters have a legal obligation to please the president.” (07/22/26)
“Washington rarely discovers an economic policy that promotes investment, strengthens national security, improves services for consumers and raises billions of dollars for the Treasury without imposing a new tax. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s newly announced ‘super band’ spectrum auction manages to do all four. Spectrum may be invisible, but it is among the most valuable resources in the modern economy. It carries phone calls, financial transactions, emergency communications, industrial data, streaming video and the growing volume of information moving between connected devices. … Auctions offer the quintessentially American solution: Free up and use markets.” [editor’s note: Not really, since these auctions are based on the fiction that the US regime owns the frequencies being auctioned – TLK] (07/26/26)
“A federal judge has barred the deportation of a witness in the [murder] of a Mexican homebuilder by federal immigration officers during a traffic stop in Houston. Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego was one of three passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Araujo Salgado when Araujo Salgado was [murdered] by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on July 7 while they were driving to work at a construction site. … Rojas Pliego must remain in the Southern District of Texas while his habeas petition is pending, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison wrote in an order on Monday. Rojas Pliego says he is being held unconstitutionally in ICE custody, court records show.” (07/22/26)
“Robby Soave gives his radar on leftist commentator Kyle Kulinski suggesting that the war with Iran will make it harder for terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.” (07/22/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“No American is entitled to health care or health insurance that he does not pay for. No American should be forced to pay for or subsidize the health care or health insurance of any other American. Health care and health insurance are services that can and should be provided on the free market just like other services. No American is entitled to eat or drink anything unless he pays for it or some other American voluntarily pays for it or gives it to him. All food aid should be privately given and privately funded. No American is entitled to welfare payments at the expense of any other American. No income should be transferred from one American to another.” (07/22/26)
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Peter C Earle
“Exploring how a popular phrase conflates monetary creation, accounting conventions, legal liabilities, and the economic nature of money itself.” (07/22/26)
“LA’s World Cup experience reinforces concerns about the city’s ongoing efforts to bring one sports mega event after another to the region. Hosting major events always gobbles up public resources that could otherwise be directed toward pressing needs, while host cities under pressure to sparkle on camera often violate residents’ rights. The people paid to organize these big events, like [Paul] Krekorian, love to repeat myths about mega-event benefits while pooh-poohing questions about the costs.” (07/22/26)
“President Trump must make detailed information about his finances available to attorneys for the BBC in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the venerable UK broadcaster, a Miami judge ruled Tuesday. The president had accused the Beeb of defaming him by deceptively editing his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of the Capitol riot …. The initial complaint, filed in December, argued that ‘the injury to President Trump’s business and personal reputation … continue into the present, thereby causing massive economic damage to his brand value and … direct harm to his professional and occupational interests, including, without limitation, the value of his brand, properties, and businesses’. On Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett ruled that Trump had to back those claims up …” (07/22/26)
“It didn’t take long for President Donald Trump’s latest conspiracy rant about elections, this time dressed up like a national address on July 16, to start falling apart. Trump’s claims about China meddling in American elections flopped, even as the documents he declassified inadvertently confirmed that Russia tried to influence our presidential elections in his favor. Ultimately, Trump offered zero proof that any votes had been changed in the 2016, 2020 or 2024 elections. But what really stood out is just how much Trump showed us he doesn’t know about how elections are run in America. And this, too, matters – he doesn’t seem at all interested in learning the ins and outs of elections, even as he has spent a decade trying to destabilize America’s confidence in how we vote.” (07/22/26)
