“The standard defense of flag-burning, affirmed by the US Supreme Court, treats flag-burning as ‘speech’ that enjoys the protection the First Amendment. Well, OK, I get that. Whether it’s technically ‘speech’ or not it’s at least expressive conduct, and I’m all for freedom of non-violent expressive conduct. But to me, what it’s really about is property rights. If you own a piece of cloth — even a piece of cloth with a particular pattern on it that makes it into what my friend and fellow political writer Kent McManigal calls a ‘Holy Pole Quilt,’ possessing quasi-religious-relic qualities to certain cultists — it’s yours. Not Donald Trump’s. Not Kamala Harris’s. Yours. You don’t get to ride in their limousines; they don’t get to tell you what to do with your flag.” (07/25/24)
“For one of the youngest vice-presidential candidates ever nominated, J.D. Vance sounds a little crotchety. His convention speech last week pined for an America that the 39-year-old himself never knew — a land before drugs and deindustrialization ravaged the Rust Belt, when housing was cheap and families were intact, and proud American craftsmen made the world’s best products with their own hands. Of course, there’s nothing wrong in wishing for things you don’t remember — if they were really good, as many things were during the United States’[s] manufacturing boom: There were job opportunities, families formed easily and people felt support from society. I have sympathy for Vance’s desire to ‘put people to work making real products for American families.’ The problem is that Donald Trump cannot bring those days back. And I suspect Vance is too smart to truly believe the former president could.” (07/25/24)
“[Philip] Hamburger attributes the rise of the administrative state to an American form of classism, whereby Progressive elites foist their good intentions and faith in government on everyone else via the state’s monopoly on force. This certainly jibes with a disturbing 2023 Rasmussen poll showing stark contrasts between elite and mass opinion on economic, social, and political issues. Yet, we would be remiss to neglect the forces of populism.” (07/25/24)
“At least rhetorically, both Trump and vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance reject the failed strategy of liberal hegemony that neoconservatives and liberal interventionists have promoted over the past 30-plus years. They are equally contemptuous of the foreign-policy ‘Blob’ and its stubborn adherence to outdated orthodoxies. … a few realists I know and like seem almost giddy about Vance’s inclusion and the prospect of a Trump victory. Given Vance’s views on Ukraine and a few other issues, you might think I’d be jumping on the bandwagon, too. Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends …. The central problem is that Trump and Vance are operating with an outdated picture of America’s place in the world and its ability to get its way unilaterally. They may reject neoconservatism, but they believe the United States can do whatever it wants and that other states will simply bend to its will.” (07/24/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress was everything you’d expect: packed full of lies and propaganda spin, yet simultaneously very illuminating and revealing. The Israeli prime minister received no fewer than 58 standing ovations while speaking before both houses of Congress and spewing the most despicable lies you could possibly imagine in his conspicuously American accent. Depending on how politically aware you are, this spectacle could be perceived as either deeply un-American, or as American as it gets. Netanyahu repeated evidence-free atrocity propaganda about what happened on October 7, falsely asserting that Hamas ‘burned babies alive’ and killed two babies in an attic. He falsely claimed that Hamas ‘butchered 1,200 people,’ pretending it’s not a well-established fact that many of the 1,139 Israeli deaths that day came from both indiscriminate IDF fire and deliberate targeting in implementation of the Hannibal Directive.” (07/25/24)
“In a mere 11 minutes on Wednesday night, President Biden settled any doubts about whether he was fit for another four years of the presidency. Uncle Joe wrestled with the teleprompter like a slacker high school boy blindsided by trigonometry questions on the math SAT test. By the end of the Bidens brief spiel, most judges declared that the teleprompter had won by technical knockout. A few weeks ago, Biden declared that it would take ‘the Lord Almighty’ to get him to end his re-election campaign. Did the Lord make an unannounced visit to Biden’s Delaware vacation home?” (07/25/24)
“It was October 2001, a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when President George W. Bush created the Office of Homeland Security in the White House. ‘The mission of the office will be to coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks,’ Bush announced. The following year, Congress enacted the Homeland Security Act, consolidating 22 federal agencies into one Cabinet department. … How’d that work out? Not well at all. Although Bush promised that these structural changes would eliminate ‘overlapping responsibilities,’ what we’ve got is a system that has no brakes on bad decisions from the top.” (07/25/24)
“Yesterday Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a dishonest and obnoxious speech to a joint session of Congress. As expected, the prime minister obsessed over Iran and exaggerated the threat from Iran and its proxies. He absurdly claimed that Israel was fighting on behalf of the ‘civilized’ world against ‘barbarism.’ In reality, Israeli forces have been committing countless war crimes and the Israeli government deliberately starves the entire population of Gaza. It was crude propaganda that insulted the intelligence of anyone that heard it, and to their lasting discredit most of the audience lapped it up and cheered.” (07/25/24)
“Understanding how government programs affect people in different places is crucial in helping policymakers determine how and where to target public assistance. For example, to maximize the positive impact of government policies on social welfare, policymakers could focus transfers on areas where assistance yields the greatest benefits. One relatively new metric for measuring the impact of policies on social welfare is the Marginal Value of Public Funds (MVPF). The MVPF for any policy change is the ratio of the benefits provided to recipients per dollar to the policy’s net cost to the government per dollar.” (07/25/24)
