“I recently wrote about Hasan Piker leading a hatefest in San Francisco with thousands mocking the death of Charlie Kirk. He is now being condemned for a livestream statement suggesting that American Jews are asking to be attacked if they continue to support Israel. On the Aug. 20 livestream, Mr. Piker declared: ‘If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel — mind you — but against American Jews.’ The veiled threat was just the latest shocking statement from Piker, who has said that America deserved 9-11 and displays a picture of the attack on his wall during podcasts.” (08/25/26)
“A full refund may balance an airline’s books, but it doesn’t make a stranded passenger whole. The difference illustrates one of economics’ most important insights: value is subjective.” (08/25/26)
“There is no bigger con man in the United States than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Not even President Donald J. Trump. The con began in September 2005, during Roberts’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Articulate, handsome, and energetic at 50 years old, Roberts seemed to have been culled ‘straight from central casting’ …. Roberts was also convincing—he famously promised that if confirmed, he would serve in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling only ‘balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat’. Seventy-eight senators, including 22 Democrats, fell for the ploy and voted to give him the lifetime assignment. The biggest yarn Roberts told during his hearing concerned his views on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), a cornerstone of American democracy, which the Supreme Court gutted this past April in a redistricting case from the state of Louisiana (Louisiana v. Callais).” (08/25/26)
“Roepke was born near Hanover, Germany, in 1899. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1966. After serving in World War I, he attended the University of Marburg and graduated in 1921, and later became one of the youngest professors in Germany; he served on the Brauns Commission of the Brüning administration to propose policies to deal with the growing unemployment crisis during the early days of the Great Depression. He actively opposed the National Socialists, and when Hitler was inaugurated as chancellor in January 1933, he left Germany, heading first for the Netherlands, and then finally to the University of Istanbul.” (08/25/26)
“Don’t worry, America. As you lament the high cost of living, the president is here to protect you from the menace of … imported goods from Canada that he has decided are too cheap. … The self-described ‘affordability president’ keeps coming up with new ways to make goods more expensive.” (08/25/26)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Bell & Ramesh Thakur
“The recent release of Anthony Fauci’s diaries, followed by his refusal to answer questions in an appearance before a US Senate committee by invoking the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 111 times, highlighted a stark divide in how the Covid pandemic was handled by public health authorities. … their private contemporaneous conversations confirm that even the top scientists were making decisions based on scientific uncertainty. Consequently, one of the key legacies of the public-private gap is growing distrust of official claims. That scepticism should extend to the future pandemic agenda. We rely on the World Health Organisation to coordinate among countries to prevent scourges such as pandemics reaching our shores, or at least mitigate their effects. In doing so, we must defer to an army of international bureaucrats who work in such institutions. A deference that relies on trust.” (08/25/26)
“I have never been a deficit hawk, and I’m not about to change my religious affiliation now. But whatever we think of debt and deficits, there is one point that should be very clear: it has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts and their inept management of the economy. Every Democratic president of the last half century has left with a deficit that was lower, measured as a share of GDP, than the one they came in with, except Obama, who left it unchanged. By contrast, every Republican president has left with a considerably higher deficit than what they inherited.” [editor’s note: There have been no “tax cuts,” Republican or otherwise. If spending isn’t going down, taxes aren’t going down. Debt is just deferred payment of taxes – TLK] (08/25/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“On a Sunday night in late July, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and China’s Xi Jinping spoke for more than an hour. It was cordial and faintly triumphant, with the two governments announcing their intention to accelerate a long-stalled China–Mercosur trade agreement. Alongside this, there are plans to deepen cooperation on satellites and critical-minerals processing, and waive short-stay visa requirements. This marks a serious change for Brazil.” (08/25/26)
“The reactions to the Lindsay Clancy case have been appalling: where do people get the idea that she’s innocent, or worse, that she’s not guilty of her actions? The white wine brigade of white, leftist, suburban moms, who are outright morons, is back and worse than ever. The numerous posts from women saying they can relate to Clancy are disgusting, with some posts making me want to call child services because they’re all gushing over a child killer. Is there sharia law, but only for white liberal women? If not, we should make one, since that would codify their shutting up for all eternity, seeking permission to speak and leave the house. They should, if child killing is now an acceptable event for this unholy spawn of fetal alcohol syndrome.” (08/25/26)
“Democrats are widely expected to win control of the House in November’s election. The Senate remains a tossup. But there is a nagging suspicion that Trump will somehow pervert the will of the people to ensure that Republicans retain their majority in the House and somehow steal the election. … Trump will delegitimize eligible voters. He will scare them away from the polls by posting federal agents at their voting places or discouraging them by disparaging mail-in ballots. But here’s the crusher: If the outcome is close, his minions can refuse to seat elected Democrats by reason of a yawning loophole in how congressional elections are administered.” (08/25/26)
