“[I]n the span of a week, the White House effectively told Canada, our closest trading partner and ally, that America’s word means nothing and then told them that they are complicit in forced labor. … Then we set a penalty that just so happens to approximate the Section 122 tariffs that just expired. Foreign officials must now contend with an even clearer reality: not only is an agreement with the United States not worth the paper it’s printed on, but we will accuse you of horrendous practices if it means that an administration can re-impose tariffs.” (07/24/26)
“Regime change failed, of course. Worse: the mullahs’ regime hardened and gained confidence from successfully resisting the might of America’s war machine. The US watched helplessly as Iran instantly blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, and couldn’t prevent them from hitting the Gulf states, Israel, and Jordan with what seems like a robust supply of missiles. So we were almost instantly exposed, humiliated, checkmated. The MOU was a recognition of this, but it postponed all the hard stuff and was so vaguely drafted that it soon fell apart. The only clear result of the war is therefore Iran’s control of the strait and enhanced leverage over the gulf. So what now? Escalation to get out of this? That appears to be a live possibility. The president is now in ‘revenge mode,’ we’re told — which is, of course, an emotion, not a strategy.” (07/24/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by James Bovard
“After Al Qaeda terrorists used Afghanistan for training bases for the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan and quickly routed the Taliban government. President George W. Bush boasted that U.S. troops brought freedom and democracy to Afghanistan. But rather than democracy, the United States brought Hamid Karzai, an oil pipeline lobbyist who was expected to slavishly follow U.S. orders.” (07/24/26)
“Why birth tourism should bother the president and his supporters is a bit of a puzzle. Americans who oppose immigration often allege that foreigners who migrate here take jobs, drive up housing prices, sponge off taxpayer-provided benefits, congregate in clannish enclaves, and implant alien religions and customs. So you would think the critics would take a benign view of foreigners who come briefly and immediately leave, interacting with hardly anyone and paying their own way before vanishing like footprints on an ocean beach. The longstanding complaint is that this option allows their citizen children—’anchor babies,’ as they are misleadingly called—to sponsor parents for legal admission to the U.S. But kids can’t do that until they reach the age of 21, and after they do, the process of securing green cards can take a full decade.” (07/25/26)
“The cameras that scan your car on your commute to work have quietly become one of the most widespread surveillance tools in America. They record vehicle sightings, feed searchable databases and, when agencies choose to share data, can connect searches across jurisdictional lines. Recent courts have upheld the particular ALPR networks before them, but they have left open whether a denser, more revealing system could cross the constitutional line.” (07/24/26)
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Dr. Edward W Younkins
“The similarities between Rand and Aristotle are substantial. Both hold that ethics is grounded in a conception of human nature and that the good life consists in the fulfillment of that nature. For Aristotle, eudaimonia is the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue; for Rand, happiness is the state of consciousness that proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. Both identify reason as the distinctive human capacity and the foundation of virtue. For Aristotle, the rational part of the soul is what distinguishes humans from other animals; for Rand, ‘reason is man’s basic means of survival’. Both conceive of virtue as a kind of excellence in functioning—the excellent exercise of one’s human capacities. … Despite these deep affinities, important differences separate Rand from Aristotle.” (07/25/26)
“Everyone agrees that health care costs too much. The disagreements start when we have to decide who should receive less money. That’s a big reason why warnings about Medicaid ‘cuts’ often receive so much attention. But the latest claims from Missouri hospitals about the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) cuts hurting rural hospitals deserve a closer look. At first glance, the concern seems straightforward. Since the government is the single largest purchaser of health care in the country, hospitals operating on thin margins could understandably struggle if they were paid less by Medicare or Medicaid. The first question, though, is what exactly is being cut. The OBBB does not reduce the payment rates hospitals receive for treating Medicare patients or Medicaid patients who remain eligible. Instead, it implements community engagement requirements for some able-bodied Medicaid enrollees beginning next year …” (07/24/26)
“The deal as initially described would allow Saudi Arabia to achieve its long-standing goal of having the US greenlight and assist in its civilian nuclear program without having to make any of the compromises that had previously prevented an agreement. … But within 24 hours, the landmark deal was already starting to unravel. The New York Times reported that the deal was ‘in doubt’ because Trump had ‘added a new condition to the sale of nuclear reactors to the kingdom, declaring that the entire arrangement now depends on the Saudi willingness to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.’ This was a typical Trump negotiating tactic: pulling the rug out from someone after proclaiming a done deal.” (07/24/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Tyler Tone
“Much like the information gleaned from reverse engineering Sega’s copyrighted software, the patterns an AI model learns are not necessarily copyrighted works. Copyright protects an author’s particular expression, not the broader relationships among words, concepts, themes, or writing techniques that readers — or even AI models — may learn and deploy from it.” (07/24/26)
“Was Odysseus, the legendary Greek warrior, actually a wimp? The most trenchant criticisms of Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster movie ‘The Odyssey’ involve how he portrays the hero of the tale. In the original, Odysseus is a clever, multifaceted hero who comes up with the idea for the Trojan horse and then, after the Greeks win the decade-long war with Troy, embarks on his arduous journey home to Ithaca and his waiting wife Penelope. Now, it’s true that Nolan modernizes Odysseus for a contemporary audience, but what was he supposed to do? If he’d given us the 100% Homeric Odysseus — abducting women, slaughtering unarmed people, sleeping around with nymphs, ordering the execution of housemaids — there’d be little chance that movie-goers would be interested in shelling out to see a 3-hour movie about his adventures and travails.” (07/24/26)
