“Many of my friends and former neighbors in New York — where I lived for 27 years — are anxious about the city’s future if it elects as mayor a self-proclaimed Muslim socialist. Another great world capital already offers a glimpse of what might lie ahead: London, under its far-left mayor, Sadiq Khan. I recently returned to my native London for the first time in more than two decades. What I found wasn’t the inclusive, cosmopolitan capital I had known and loved but a city so altered in tone and appearance that I scarcely recognized it. Over the course of a fortnight in June, neighborhood after neighborhood left me feeling not just like a visitor, but like a stranger in my own birthplace.” (08/02/25)
“For a long period during the 2000s, when the Democratic Party establishment seemed largely to have lost the ability to connect to swing voters, it was more or less Comedy Central that acted as the real locus of the Democratic Party — it was very difficult to watch Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert and not end up feeling that Republicans were humorless fanatics and that the Dems, if absurd in their own way, were at least roughly on the side of sanity and good governance. But what has happened, with a change-over in the structure of informational flows over the past decade, is that Democrats have lost that advantage — and still somehow haven’t processed the change or how catastrophic it is for their party’s prospects.” (08/01/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“In a world where global power is measured by military strength, technological innovation, or cultural influence, it is striking that the European Union, without housing major tech giants or centers of disruptive innovation, has turned bureaucracy into a tool of global power. It shapes the behavior of global companies, including American big tech firms, which adapt their products to comply with European norms. This phenomenon is known as the ‘Brussels Effect’ and has positioned the EU as the world’s regulatory superpower, fueling growing tensions, particularly with the United States following the re-election of Donald Trump.” (08/01/25)
“In Great Britain, you can get police to show up at your door just by posting an unauthorized opinion on social media. Things are about to get worse. By talking about it online, Britons who think that the country has an immigration problem could draw the attention of a new police unit, National Internet Intelligence Investigations. Saying ‘we’ve got to protest about this’ will probably cause the sirens to go off.” (08/01/25)
“Over the past week, as multiple international bodies, human rights organizations and health workers warn that Gaza’s starvation crisis has reached a tipping point, and Palestinians there are facing ‘the worst-case scenario of famine,’ politicians and pundits across the political spectrum have discovered a new sense of urgency. On July 24, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), speaking on the Senate floor, decried mass starvation and pleaded with Israel to change course. Two days later, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) posted on X about Gaza’s ’humanitarian crisis’ and the need to ’flood the zone’ with aid, noting that ’the strategy of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ has failed. The day after that, former President Barack Obama denounced ‘the travesty of innocent people dying of preventable starvation.’ But it wasn’t just centrist Democrats. Within the last week, there have been abrupt shifts in many corners of the Right as well.” (08/01/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by Sumantra Maitra
“There is no Trump Doctrine; it is a fool’s errand to justify strategic irrationality. This administration is increasingly running on instincts. Some of them are coherent: Burden-shifting in Europe is one example. The policy execution of these instincts, however, often leaves a lot to be desired. But, even by that standard, this new tariff regime is a bit difficult to understand. Tariffs on India can seem like a strange policy, especially, given the desire to pivot to Asia and balance China. … That said, this is a deeper issue, one lurking under sophisticated analysis. India is turning out to be a global problem. And it is in part the Indian government to blame.” (08/01/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“As smart as some conservatives are, many of them just don’t get it when it comes the concept of open borders. They make two common mistakes. First, they are convinced that open borders means no borders. Second, they think that an immigration-control system that doesn’t work — that is, one where lots of people are successfully circumventing the border-control system — is ‘open borders.'” (07/31/25)
“‘My bill,’ US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted in June, ‘will require the U.S. Census Bureau to conduct a new census immediately upon enactment of the bill. In conducting the new census of the U.S. population, it shall require questions determining the citizenship of each individual, and count US citizens only.’ The money shot: ‘[T]he bill will direct states to immediately begin a redistricting of all U.S. House seats process using only the population of United States citizens.’ Naturally, US president Donald Trump supports the idea. So does Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Why? Because Republicans want to rig future elections by re-drawing — that is, re-gerrymandering — the American political map to benefit themselves. One problem with the idea: It’s wholly, completely, and unquestionably illegal.” (07/31/25)
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“The government’s war on homelessness — much like its war on terrorism, its war on drugs, its war on illegal immigration, and its war on COVID-19 — is yet another Trojan Horse. … An Orwellian exercise in doublespeak, Trump’s executive order suggests that jailing the homeless, rather than providing them with affordable housing, is the ‘compassionate’ solution to homelessness. … Trump wants to see more use of civil commitments (forced detentions) for anyone who is perceived as posing a risk ‘to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time.’ Translation: the government wants to use homelessness as a pretext for indefinitely locking up anyone who might pose a threat to its chokehold on police state power.” (07/31/25)
“Long ago the economist Joan Robinson arguably pre-butted Trump’s argument for protectionism because, he claims, other nations are treating us unfairly: ‘The popular view that free trade is all very well so long as all nations are free-traders, but that when other nations erect tariffs we must erect tariffs too, is countered by the argument that it would be just as sensible to drop rocks into our harbours because other nations have rocky coasts.’ But it’s even worse when a president mines our harbors based on the false claim that other nations have rocky coasts — and the media declare that he’s winning.” [editor’s note: I’m so used to Krugman being wrong that it’s always an invigorating experience to notice he’s being right – TLK] (07/31/25)
