“Moderation and centrism are not necessarily virtuous: A man should not be moderately honest or split the difference between virtue and vice. But in the realm of electoral politics—and, especially, in this time of populist demagoguery—bipartisanship and moderation have real practical value. We do not want our elected officials to be easily carried away by ideological enthusiasm and passion—especially in the Senate, which is meant to be a brake to the House’s accelerator. And because we have a big election every two years, the only sure path to creating a stable policy environment (and there are many cases in which an imperfect stable policy is preferable to an improved but unstable policy) is bipartisanship. Sen. Collins also provides a reminder that more than a few supposed conservatives in our time need: To be conservative is not the same thing as to be a right-wing revolutionist.” (07/10/26)
“Kudos to the State Department for putting the kibosh on city International Affairs Commissioner Ana María Archila’s bid to meet with Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, even as America and Iran are at war — but the affair poses a challenge to Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Does he have the grit to break with the openly anti-American factions of the Democratic Socialists of America? Mamdani’s tried to downplay the disgraceful episode, insisting Archila had no clearance to do such outreach, yet he’s not firing her or imposing any discipline. Nor even saying outright how very wrong she was. Which raises the question of whether he prefers the theocratic regime in Tehran to the United States government.” (07/11/26)
“A May 29 article in the IMF’s F&D Magazine argues in favor of using U.S. tariffs as a policy tool. It begins by questioning the argument for free trade, claiming that economists have based U.S. and global trade policy on theoretical models rather than empirical evidence: ‘Tariffs were not tried and found wanting but rejected by au courant economic models and left untried. Policymakers, scared of challenging the elite consensus derived from such models, closed off the universe of options and strategies to solve America’s challenges.’ However, in the U.S. there is an extensive history of trying to use tariffs strategically, especially in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s.” (07/10/26)
“Are We Still at War? Yep. We’re back to where we were in early March; the U.S. is attacking targets in Iran, and Iran is attacking targets throughout the region, in Bahrain and Kuwait and Jordan, though those last ones were intercepted. Where international shipping was starting to revive, that now has ended, and I’d expect the reimposition of the blockade, following the U.S. revocation of Iran’s license to sell oil internationally. In retrospect, this was not a hard thing to predict. Donald Trump gets ornery when he doesn’t get his way, and there was no way to get his way in this war. Iran has asserted operational control of the Strait of Hormuz, with eventual fees inevitable, and it was only a matter of time before there would be tensions around that” (07/10/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin
“A recent records request revealed that a Canadian government department is working up a potential new federal strategy on misinformation. But the section explaining what ‘legal action’ would be taken against misinformation, and either the users posting it or the platforms hosting it, is obscured by a large black bar.” (07/10/26)
“Mary Beard meditates on her own life and some of her favorite tales or artifacts from the ancient world to justify an irreverent approach to the classics.” (07/10/26)
