“America’s dueling populist movements, the Right’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) and the Left’s Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), both believe a powerful, unaccountable entity or entities are unfairly exploiting them and obstructing their personal pursuit of happiness, often colluding among themselves to do so. Exacerbating the situation, at least one of these powerful organizations, the government, is charged with protecting the individual from this very exploitation. Consequently, it is the collusion between the ‘Bigs’ into what G. K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc deemed ‘business government’ that the respective populist movements seek to remedy. Yet, here is where MAGA and the DSA radically differ in their prescriptions.” (08/22/26)
“The motifs of pre-teen children’s stories reflect much about a society: what it values and what it aspires to become. Recent winners of the coveted Newberry and Caldecott prizes are illustrative. Recurrent themes include personal identity, mystical powers, the importance of discovering one’s heritage, and the challenge of navigating cultural boundaries. A common thread is non-judgmentalism, since sharp distinctions between right and wrong would be too harsh in our therapeutic world. Of course, we should never want a child to feel bad about him or herself needlessly, or to endure insecurity about who they are. However, the absence of strict ethical lessons and stern advice in modern children’s stories mirrors and reinforces the moral relativity so prevalent in our current culture.” (08/21/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The Wall Street Journal has a new article out titled ‘The Hidden Debt That Apple Owes to the CIA’, subtitled ‘Without CIA funding that helped keep NeXT afloat in the ’80s, Steve Jobs might not have made a triumphant return to Apple — and the iPhone might not have its foundational operating code.’ All the top tech giants have deep ties to the CIA. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon. Facebook and Instagram are overseen by ‘former’ CIA operatives. Our whole civilization is run by an alliance of oligarchs and empire managers. … In a recent interview with Israel Hayom, Israeli ‘Minister of Diaspora Affairs’ Amichai Chikli said that Zionists need to ‘cooperate with the conservative mainstream, American and European, against radical Islam.’ Chikli argued that the western right doesn’t care about antisemitism, so it doesn’t make sense to place emphasis there, but ‘radical Islam interests them very much’.” (08/22/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“Here we are! We finally made it to $40 trillion in debt! Should we celebrate or hibernate? Congratulations, we are a debtor nation. I can tell you that those responsible for accumulating the nation’s massive debt care little; whether you are talking about the Republicans or the Democrats, they both agree on spending far more money than we have coming in. For all the talk of fiscal restraint, the spending continues, and we’re paying over $1 trillion per year just to pay the interest on the debt, not paying down the debt. This crowds out our ability to pay for necessary obligations, including Social Security, Medicare, and our nation’s defense.” (08/21/26)
“People conspire all the time. Firms collude. Politicians bargain behind closed doors. Militaries deceive their enemies. But other conspiracies are detected, or they do not last long. Why do some remain secret while others are revealed? A simple game theory model can help illustrate that the probability of a conspiracy being revealed depends on the number of independent choosing individuals whose cooperation is necessary, and the incentives those individuals face. The basic intuition of what makes it hard to keep a conspiracy a secret is not new. But there are interesting implications for institutional design.” (08/21/26)
“A Trump-Kim summit would be a spectacle like no other. A carnival extravaganza with the Korean Peninsula holding center stage, and every handshake, expression, seating arrangement, and stray remark dissected by troupes of North Korea pundits across the world’s news networks. But like any great traveling carnival, a few days later ticket holders will be left with an uncomfortable queasiness and a sense that they’ve somehow been cheated. Spectacle, not strategy.” (08/21/26)
“As a charge, ‘racism’ is completely irrelevant in 2026. ‘Wolf’ has been cried so many times that even if it were a wolf crying it, no one would believe it or care. I should say ‘almost no one’. Democrats would still try to make something out of it, and Al Sharpton and Ben Crump would come to perform a little bullshit two-step for the cameras and the checks. But otherwise, no one would care because, well, it is not racist to notice things. Don’t get me wrong, racism still exists, but the most glaring way in which it exists is in the hearts and minds of leftists. It is no longer racist to judge someone by the color of their skin and treat them differently because of it; that’s half the platform of the Democrats (both the regular old kind and the Socialists of America type).” (08/22/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter
“Many mistakenly assume that, on a free market, high barriers to entry and start-up costs so privilege the monopolistic incumbents that it would be virtually impossible for other firms to compete. In such an environment, competition is said to either be improbable or impossible, or—where competition could presumably exist—it is said to be inconvenient or duplicative. Hopefully the reader can see the question-begging in such claims and how the conclusion is presupposed against competition—there is either said to be no competition or there is said to be too much competition. Thus, the public goods argument for ‘public utilities’ and the myth of ‘natural monopoly’ combine to argue that the state ought to provide certain services to prevent market failure and monopoly.” (08/21/26)
“iogenes was one of the most iconic philosophers of ancient Greece. He roamed the streets of Athens in broad daylight carrying a lit lantern. When asked why he was performing such an unusual scene, Diogenes would reply that he was looking for an honest man. He never found one. More than two thousand years later, Diogenes’ questioning remains just as valid and relevant as much of the teachings of the ancient Greek philosophers.” (08/21/26)
