“‘I want to stop American aid,’ Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 30. ‘It’s like welfare; I don’t want it.’ Usually, Netanyahu gets anything he demands from Uncle Sugar. But on July 15, the US House of Representatives voted, 314-104 against even partially granting his wish. Every Republican except Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and more than half of Democrats, voted down an amendment that would have removed $3.3 billion in ‘Foreign Military Financing’ aid from the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act. What’s up with that? … This may be the first time I’ve ever found myself in agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu on anything. Well, partial agreement, anyway. US aid to Israel isn’t ‘like welfare.’ It IS welfare.” (07/16/26)
“The news is awash with reports that younger Americans are learning less than their parents did a generation ago. One in eight freshmen at the highly selective University of California, San Diego campus place below high school levels in math, leading professors to complain that declining student proficiency is imperiling their ability to provide at least a modicum of math competency. Grade inflation is also leading university students to study far less than their parents or grandparents did in college—for much higher grades. Are we becoming a nation of lazy dumbbells?” (07/16/26)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“Allies and clients have frequently entangled their great power patrons in needless geopolitical crises and sometimes even bloody wars. The tragic events leading to World War I in 1914 are a classic example. Serbia helped drag Czarist Russia into that bloody maelstrom and Austria-Hungary did the same to Wilhelmine Germany. Similar dangers exist today in the international system. Two of Washington’s current most odious and dangerous ‘loose cannon’ allies are Israel and Turkey. U.S. administrations have funded and armed both countries for decades and routinely excused outrageous acts that their clients have committed. Even worse from the standpoint of America’s best interests and purported values, the respective governments have increasingly competitive political and strategic objectives.” (07/16/26)
“One of the greatest worries for the Founding Fathers was the specter of ‘standing armies’—a permanent, professional military under the direct control of the president. … Two and a half centuries later, with permanent armies and police forces very much the norm, we view such statements as a relic of the 18th century no longer applicable to the modern world. Yet the Founding Fathers were right to draw a connection between standing armies and liberty—and in this case, Madison’s comment about an ‘overgrown Executive’ is prophetic.” (07/16/26)
“The ceasefire was supposed to mark the beginning of the end of a crisis. Instead, it quickly became a symbol of strategic failure. With renewed clashes in the Strait of Hormuz, fresh U.S. strikes on Iranian military targets, and Tehran’s retaliation, the last hopes that the Donald Trump administration could manage the Iran crisis through negotiations have collapsed. What remains today is not a clear path toward an agreement, but a return to the familiar instruments that have defined U.S. policy for years: economic pressure, military threats, and the use of hard power.” (07/16/26)
“Before Graham Platner’s dramatic exit from the Maine Senate race last week, the Democratic hopeful received glowing coverage from the legacy media that pushed the narrative that he was a salt-of-the-earth oyster farmer who could win back male voters and unseat longtime Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Now out of the race after multiple scandals, including a rape allegation from a former girlfriend that he’s denied, the friendly coverage he received is getting a second look.” (07/16/26)
Source: Niskanen Center
by Rachel Levine & Zachary Norris
“If policymakers are serious about ‘Speed to Power,’ they should focus on permitting reform. Yet a coalition of utilities has repackaged a longstanding argument that the best way to speed up transmission development is to curtail competitive bidding for transmission projects in the Midwest and Plains. Their proposal overlooks both the driving causes of project slowdowns and the many benefits of competition.” (07/16/26)
“Late last month, the United Nations published its annual World Drug Report, chronicling the latest developments in the global war on drugs. Not only are the drugs winning that war, but there are greater quantities and more varieties of recreational chemicals available than ever before.” (07/16/26)
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Robert T Miller
“There are two main theories of corporate governance: the shareholder theory and the stakeholder theory. The former, which originated in the earliest corporate law decisions of courts of equity in the nineteenth century, requires directors to manage the corporation for the long-term benefit of its shareholders. The latter, which is largely the creation of academics, holds that directors should balance the interests of all corporate stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, creditors, and the communities in which the corporation operates. In an age of climate change, the class of stakeholders may expand to include all human beings now living or to be born in the future.” (07/16/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Robert E Wright
“Every mass movement comes to be defined less by what it loves than by what it loathes. Hoffer identified hatred as the most accessible and comprehensive of unifying agents because it helps to channel self-contempt onto scapegoats, the vilification of which strengthens collective unity. So mass movements, Hoffer concludes, can arise without belief in a god but never without belief in a devil. … What, then, should liberty lovers do? Certainly not launch a counter-crusade. A mass movement of individualists is a contradiction in terms, and those who fight monsters by monstrous means soon sport fangs of their own.” (07/16/26)
