Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Andrew Jason Cohen
“Last week I spent several days in Philadelphia at the Braver Angels National Convention. During one session, it occurred to me that the anti-polarization work they and others do responds to three problems of modern society and only the first, polarization, is obvious. Two others are perhaps less obvious but also important—both on their own and because they are intertwined with polarization. Let me take each in turn.” (07/06/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Spencer Neale
“Against the wishes of his doctors, Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) returned to Congress on Tuesday, his first appearance there in more than 100 days. Addressing the House floor, Kean began by noting that he is a ‘private person’ before explaining his multi-month absence from his duties in Washington, DC. ‘Several months ago, due to health concerns, I entered the hospital for some testing,’ said the 57-year-old Kean. ‘I was given the diagnosis of depression.’ It was a stark admission for a politician whose critics have long questioned his absence but were met with silence. Though depression is not disqualifying in and of itself, the lack of transparency from a person who was elected to provide it is worrying. Furthermore, if a disability keeps you off the job for four months …. then the job likely isn’t compatible with the disability Kean is currently navigating.” (07/06/26)
“Monetary policy deserves insulation from politics, but regulation and emergency lending powers may not. Can Congress and the Courts differentiate?” (07/06/26)
“A state that invades the same neighbor across eight decades, covets its water and land, punishes its civilians as a matter of doctrine, and then defies its own superpower sponsor is not behaving like a normal nation. It is behaving like a rogue one. Washington has spent those decades underwriting the behavior, supplying the aircraft, bombs, and diplomatic cover that make each new occupation possible. The honest response to a partner that treats American requests as optional is to stop financing and eventually break ties with it. The United States should end military aid to Israel and begin economically decoupling from it, and the wider international community should treat a serial occupier the way it treats other states that seize territory by force, with isolation rather than embrace.” (07/06/26)
“As someone born in Michigan, and whose family all still live there, you never really fully leave your home state, even when you live somewhere else. As such, I’ve been watching the Senate race there with keen interest. I have to wonder: are Democrats about to nominate a terrorist sympathizing anti-Semite? I know that doesn’t really narrow the field much when dealing with Democrats, as this seems to be about half their candidates these days. But in this case I’m thinking of Abdul El-Sayed. Abdul is allegedly a doctor, though I’m not sure he’s ever really practiced medicine, or at least that much. He’s mostly been a left-wing bureaucrat for Democrats – a diversity box-checker who happily will do whatever the ‘progressive’ wing of the party demands. Like most people in that basket, he would’ve made a great Nazi – following orders without question.” (07/06/26)
“The 250th anniversary of American independence is fundamentally incompatible with a foreign policy defined by overwhelming civilian casualties and global devastation. As the United States commemorates its semiquincentennial with celebratory pageantry, this milestone forces a reckoning. How can a nation built on the promise of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ justify its role in upending and extinguishing millions of lives across the Middle East?” (07/06/26)
“Sometimes, the confluence of disparate events unexpectedly illuminates ideas and ideals that have universal and enduring resonance. Three occasions that come to mind this July Fourth, fittingly, revolve around the essential nature of Americanness, of what it is to be American: the weekend celebrations of 250 years of independence, the Supreme Court ruling this week on birthright citizenship, and the annual recognition of ‘Great Immigrants, Great Americans’. The thread of citizen rights and responsibilities weaves through each of these, uniting evolving conceptions of freedom, self-government, and individual achievement from the nation’s past through to its present. In their 1776 Declaration of Independence from British rule, the Founding Fathers claimed for all future Americans the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’. In Tuesday’s court ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts affirmed that all individuals born on U.S. soil have a constitutional right to citizenship, which he described as ‘the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community’.” (07/04/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“The Donald J. Trump International Airport mandate costs taxpayers millions. Leaders from all parties waste public money on monuments. We must demand infrastructure maintenance instead.” (07/05/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Emma Ashford & Will Smith
“At Davos in January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney surprised the audience with his open call for ‘middle powers’ to band together and resist pressure from the great powers. His implication that these states need to resist both China and the United States was somewhat shocking to hear in a policy speech, but it nonetheless reflected a growing consensus that, as the world moves toward multipolarity, middle powers will become more important, especially if they can figure out how to free themselves from the whims of the great powers. For some of the most prominent middle powers, however, the war in Iran has shown the limits of their agency in global affairs — and the difficulties they face when confronted with an intransigent great power.” (07/06/26)
