Source: Washington Monthly
by Bill Scher
“Following Trump’s advice on mail-in balloting would be bad … for Republicans.” (08/19/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/08/19/trump-demands-ditch-vote-by-mail-republicans-shouldnt/
Source: Foreign Policy
by Matthew Kroenig
“When U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 15, Putin was greeted by a flyover of an American B-2 strategic bomber. Such flyovers can be a show of respect for a visiting statesperson, but Putin’s reptilian brain likely also registered fear as the stealthy aircraft roared overhead. He knows better than anyone that the world’s most advanced nuclear bomber could end his life within seconds. This show of nuclear force followed closely on the heels of Trump’s order to reposition nuclear submarines to the ‘appropriate regions’ in response to threats against the United States made by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Some analysts have criticized Trump’s nuclear saber-rattling as dangerous. But in fact, Trump can and should ramp up nuclear threats as part of a successful negotiation strategy to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to an end.” (08/18/25)
Source: New York Post
by staff
“President Donald Trump declared Monday a success, posting that he’d ‘had a very good meeting with distinguished guests,’ then ‘a further meeting in the Oval Office.’ After which he phoned Russia’s Vladimir Putin to start arranging a Putin sitdown with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, then ‘we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself.’ Crucially, he was caught on a hot mic earlier saying he believes Putin truly wants to reach a peace deal: ‘I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.’ The day sure offered grounds for hope, starting with an Oval Office love-in as Trump, Zelensky and a pack of European leaders cooed at each other.” (08/18/25)
Source: The UnPopulist
by Vladimir Kara-Murza
“As Putin was clearly building an authoritarian state, silencing the media, rigging elections, persecuting his opponents, Western leaders continued with business as usual. American presidents of both parties looked into Putin’s soul and pushed reset buttons. European leaders rolled out royal red carpets, signed lucrative deals, launched new gas pipelines all the while, I suppose, hoping to maintain some sort of a modus operandi with Mr. Putin in the international arena, at the price of ignoring and enabling his abuses inside of Russia — an immoral policy, if there ever was one. But also, a very impractical one. Because one other clear lesson from Russian history is that internal repression and external aggression are always two sides of one coin — because a government that tramples on the rights of its own people will never respect the borders of its neighbors.” (08/18/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/appeasing-an-aggressor-never-leads
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Rindala Alajaji & Jason Kelley
“HB0043 is a ‘bounty’ law that deputizes any resident with a child to file civil lawsuits against websites they believe are in violation, effectively turning anyone into a potential content cop. There is no central agency, no regulatory oversight, and no clear standard. Instead, the law invites parents in Wyoming to take enforcement for the entire state — every resident, and everyone else’s children — into their own hands by suing websites that contain a single example of objectionable content. … This is a textbook example of a ‘heckler’s veto,’ where a single person can unilaterally decide what content the public is allowed to access.” (08/18/25)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Josh Stylman
“The infrastructure is now visible to those willing to see it. The systematic replacement of natural systems with artificial ones has reached into every domain — money, food, health, education, information. What began as isolated changes has revealed itself as a coordinated operation: the complete substitution of reality with decree, ownership with access, competence with credentials. … As more people realize everything is bullshit and start looking for genuine answers, something interesting happens: many of the solutions are found in the past. Not because we should abandon technology or retreat from modernity, but because we discarded methods and attitudes toward life, humanity, and time itself that actually worked.” (08/18/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/from-fiat-everything-to-real-everything/
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“The Trump administration’s war on reality will make it meaningfully difficult to understand the health of the economy in the coming months. If data is either not being collected or is no longer reliable, now that Trump has fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics as punishment for weak jobs numbers, it’s hard not to succumb to bias or motivated reasoning, on either side of the political divide. So before we get murkier radio signals, we need to assess the numbers we have now, to inform the trends for the future. Most of this picture is mixed and influenced by a bunch of different factors. But we can say one thing definitively: Hiring has been relatively dormant since Trump took the oath of office.” (08/19/25)
https://prospect.org/economy/2025-08-19-what-us-economy-really-looks-like/
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“As Trump met with European leaders on Ukraine, Churchill’s words from days long ago came to mind.” (08/18/25)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by James Rushmore
“During a debate with political commentator Ryan Girdusky back in May, journalist Michael Tracey described a phenomenon he calls ‘Trump devotion syndrome.’ (As far as I can tell, that term was originally coined by the Christian ethicist Andrew T. Walker, who referenced it in a 2024 piece. It was also used by Bill Maher this past March.) According to Tracey, those afflicted with the lesser-known TDS ‘dismiss any critical observation about [Donald] Trump, no matter how substantive, as frivolous or petty — like it’s just about his manner of speech or style.’ In essence, individuals suffering from TDS sidestep any substantive critiques of Trump. … The appeal of such a worldview is understandable. After all, it transforms pro-Trump politics into a form of liturgy, one in which supporters of the president can trust the plan and cede all decision making to The Donald.” (08/18/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-dangers-of-trump-devotion-syndrome
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“It is without dispute among libertarians, or at least it should be, that Medicaid and food stamps are both unconstitutional and illegitimate welfare programs that are immorally sustained by taxes taken from Americans by coercion and threat of violence. … It is not a legitimate purpose of government at any level to fund or operate welfare programs; fight poverty; supplement or subsidize anyone’s wages; help the poor, the disabled, the sick, or the aged; or maintain a safety net. … Because Medicaid and food stamps are illegitimate programs that should not exist, anything done by government at the federal or state level to reduce the number of people eligible for welfare, reduce the number of people on welfare, reduce the amount of welfare benefits, or reduce the time that someone can receive welfare benefits is a good thing that should be welcomed by libertarians.” (08/18/25)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/should-libertarians-support-welfare-work-requirements/