Category: Opinion

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Harrison Berger

“With few good options available, the US has left little hope for peace in the Middle East any time soon.” (09/14/260

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-forever-war/

Source: Common Dreams
by John Ripton

“Donald Trump is an instrument of this age, a force propelling capitalism and the global economy into a critical stage of their historical development. Since the beginning of village life some 10,000 years ago, commerce among villages and rural economies intensified as cities emerged and over centuries forged trade networks across regions into a global system of commerce. At the same time, from the beginning of markets, traders, merchants, industries, and governments engaged in the struggle for control of local, regional, and inter-regional markets. Today this struggle continues, but now with devastating consequences: the concentration of wealth on a global scale; the vast productive power and technological innovation; the multiplying flow of market-related information, and the explosive potential of artificial intelligence. Each of these factors is channeling private and public resources to elites, and spurring worldwide trade wars, technological dependency, and military confrontations that threaten humanity’s survival.” (09/14/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-tool-of-the-age

Source: Libertaran Institute
by Thomas Eddlem

“For all the Republican fear-mongering over Democratic Party socialism, the Democrats have had a non-existent record of getting their much-touted socialist schemes enacted; even when President Barack Obama had an electoral mandate for a ‘public option’ on health care and a majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, Democrats couldn’t get it passed. But President Donald Trump’s copying of China’s ‘golden share’ concept via executive order by taking shares in private companies is, unfortunately, a much more real, damaging, and sustainable form of socialism.” (09/14/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-reality-of-republican-socialism

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall

“There was a time when 80% of the nation was involved in growing the food to feed 100% of the nation. Something it achieved patchily, in some years didn’t achieve. Then came the tractor – a catchall for the reaping machine, combine, tractor, seed drill and on – plus ocean going steamships to transport food and on again. We currently use some 2% of the labour of the nation to feed 100% of the nation. That 78% of the nation’s labour is not involved in the production nor maintenance of tractors. Sure, sure, tractors produced new jobs for mechanics and drivers and so on. But that’s not what made us richer. … Rather, it’s the freeing of labour from that now automated task which allows other things to be done.” (09/14/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/we-have-to-understand-the-effect-of-ai-on-jobs-correctly

Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid

“[I]s the Donald in fact the worst president in American history? He certainly seems to be breaking his back trying but there is some very stiff competition, and I’m not convinced that the majority of the navel gazing wonk class are using the proper criteria for judgement. When too many people talk about the worst president in American history, the focus always seems to veer heavily towards dysfunction and scandal. Nixon ransacking the Oval Office like a feral werepig gagging on a fist full of ludes while J. Edna lines up the dudes …. But all of this cracked reasoning negates the simple fact that what we seem to be asking for here is what amounts to a functional conductor for a killing machine.” (09/13/26)

https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/09/trump-may-indeed-be-worst-president-in.html

Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley

“California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) wants you to know that he is evolving. Newsom is facing a rising radical movement among Democrats, including a surging contingent aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America. He is struggling in polls and therefore eager to show the skill identified by Darwin that allows certain species to thrive in their environment: adaptation. Newsom has recently declared capitalism a failure. He is now joining his competitors for president in offering up the Supreme Court and its independence to the far left. His free fall into rage politics is a cautionary tale for those who want to return the Democratic Party to more centrist positions. Often called a ‘political chameleon’, Newsom seems to be morphing into the actual species that evolved to adjust to its environment, including more nimble feet.” (09/14/26)

https://jonathanturley.org/2026/09/14/the-dangerous-evolution-of-gavin-newsom/

Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey

“A government ban here in America would do nothing to keep AI Superintelligence from advancing; it will continue to advance, just not as much here in the U.S. It would progress in other countries or here in America, but underground. Sanders’ Act would help other countries like China to advance with us out of the way. Handing AI Superintelligence into the hands of government bureaucrats is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard in a while coming out of D.C. or Vermont. We do not need a centralized, unaccountable government superpower in control of all this information. We need strict, real-world legal liability, property rights, and contract enforcement rather than preemptive federal licensing.” (09/13/26)

https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/why-banning-artificial-superintelligence

Source: The Bulwark
by Sarah Longwell

“When I was coming up in the conservative movement, one of the hallmarks of Republican grievance was the belief that the ‘mainstream media’ was controlled by liberals and had a systemic bias against conservatives. The political and cultural right responded to this imbalance by building an industry designed to reduce public trust in mainstream media—hammering the ‘liberal bias’ narrative relentlessly. But they didn’t stop there. They also built an entire competing media ecosystem. And they had a roughly fifteen-year head start on doing it. By the time Trump arrived in 2015, the infrastructure was already firmly in place.” (09/13/26)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-maga-bewildered-voters-into-its-alternate-reality

Source: Liberal Currents
by Maia Mindel

“The main criticism of liberalism is that liberals lack a theory of power. Liberalism sees itself as the enjoyment of a life of peaceable private cultivation absent the onus of public duty. The critique is that the private and civic life of individuals is also profoundly shaped by values and economic relations. Liberalism is seen as not able to formalize the relationship between wealth, power, and culture. This point was best made by one of liberalism’s most prominent, and dare I say most insightful, critics: the Nazi jurist and political thinker Carl Schmitt. His ideas, largely for the worse, are currently very influential on liberalism’s opponents.” (09/13/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-liberal-economy-the-car-without-an-engine-goes-to-the-mechanic/

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“‘My name is Randy Villegas, and I’m for Medicare for All.’ That was how Villegas, a 31-year-old Democratic candidate for Congress, opened a health care town hall in late August for close to 100 residents, most of them Latino. He was speaking at Salon Juarez, a dance hall that hosts quinceañeras and weddings in a historic section of Bakersfield known as Old Town Kern. Preceding him on stage was Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), the progressive House member who is flirting with filling the left lane in the 2028 presidential race. Sandy Reding, a president of the California Nurses Association (CNA), one of America’s most left-wing unions, spoke before Khanna. The Working Families Party, which supports progressive populists across the country, had a table along one side. You wouldn’t know that this is one of America’s most hotly contested swing seats.” (09/14/26)

https://prospect.org/2026/09/14/oct-2026-the-new-majority-makers/