Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“One year ago, the United Nations General Assembly demanded that Israel must end its occupation of the Palestinian Territories within 12 months. The General Assembly voted, by 124 votes to 14, with 43 abstentions, for a strong resolution that not only ‘demanded’ an end to the occupation within a year, but called on all countries to refrain from trade involving Israeli settlements and from transfers of weapons ‘where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.’ … A year later, Israel has failed to comply with any of the demands of the 124 states. … In response to this unconscionable state of affairs, Palestine’s UN representative has formally asked the UN to authorize an international military protection force for Gaza to help with the delivery of humanitarian aid and protect civilians.” (09/03/25)
“Delsol argues that republicanism requires generous actions, not ideological control over people. If citizens do not freely choose to place the country first, then forcing such actions smacks of authoritarianism. Yet French citizens now freely indulge in a technologically driven individualism, making it almost impossible to envisage the civic fraternity needed to make the republican ideal possible. No one, though, will admit to a reduced identification with republicanism. Delsol wonders why the former trappings of republicanism no longer captivate French hearts. She answers that republicanism as a government ideal has become ideologically corrupted.” (09/03/25)
“It was ‘woke’ for corporations to remove beloved commercial icons such as Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben (now ‘Ben’s Original’), and ‘Mia,’ the Land O’Lakes Indian maiden. In each of these logos the supposedly ‘offensive’ and ‘stereotypical’ images were removed ostensibly to avoid offending the easily offended. Leaving customers with blank, unoriginal, uninspiring and non-comforting signage. Exactly what happened when the corporate bigwigs took out the iconography from the Cracker Barrel logo: All nostalgia liquidated. Cultural erasure used to be a leftist theme, but thanks to today’s enlightened corporations, it has become universal, as the soullessness of modish symbology has become painfully obvious.” (09/03/25)
“A new school year is here, and while millions of students still trudge off to public school classrooms and days divided by subjects, there are fewer kids making that trek than in the past, and their experiences aren’t nearly so similar as once was the case. The ranks of public school students are thinning, partly because of the declining birth rate, but also because a growing share of the population prefers alternatives like private schools and homeschooling. They’re increasingly assisted with funding from education choice programs. It’s a familiar journey to me, since my wife and I mostly homeschooled our son, with detours through charter and private schools. We’re less alone in our choices than ever before.” (09/03/25)
“For decades, Democrats have clung to James Carville’s mantra: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. It became the default excuse for every campaign message, every strategy and every setback. We need to retire that phrase from our political lexicon. My fellow Democrats forget that Carville’s first rule on his whiteboard in Little Rock wasn’t the economy, stupid. It was ‘Change vs. more of the same.’ Voters still want change — not numbers, not excuses. And if President Donald Trump offers change while Democrats defend the system as it is, Democrats will lose. Today, my party is jumping onto a shiny substitute considered to be the winning message that unites all (‘affordability’) as if the idea that lower prices are better than higher ones is a revelation. Has a candidate ever campaigned on the reverse?” (09/03/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“So far, much of the reaction to Trump’s recent order to use military assets against foreign drug cartels has been focused on the cartels in Mexico. But the administration has described the recent deployment of naval assets to Venezuela’s coast as part of the same effort. In fact, yesterday they claimed those assets struck a vessel carrying drugs. But it’s still a bit out of the way from the areas where the bulk of drug smuggling is believed to take place, which suggests that countering Maduro’s regime may be just as big a priority as Trump’s escalation of the war on drugs. But if the hostility between the US and Venezuela is nothing new, what explains the recent escalation? Well, the answer appears to be, as it often is, cronyism.” (09/03/25)
Source: Popular Information
by Judd Legum & Rebecca Crosby
“Chicago is part of a nationwide trend of declining violent crime. 2024 was the safest year in America since the mid-60s. Yet, most Americans believe Trump’s narrative that crime is rampant. A recent Associated Press poll found that 81% of Americans believe that crime is a ‘major problem’ in large cities. The same poll found that 55% of Americans believe that it is ‘acceptable’ for the U.S. military to ‘assist’ local police. Aggregate crime trends, however, are an example of something that no person can observe. People form their beliefs largely on what they learn from the media.” (09/03/25)
“House Republicans tucked tail and left early after fearing the possibility of having to vote for transparency about the biggest underage sex ring in U.S. history, which gives you a good sense of where we are with that party right now. House Speaker Mike Johnson had six weeks to figure out how to manage the intra-party rebellion over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Republican members were still getting an earful at home, so ducking a vote wasn’t practical. But Johnson needed to uphold his prime directive of acting as a human shield for the president and keeping his name out of any revelations. So after weeks of rumination, here’s what Johnson came up with: a resolution, hastily added to the week’s floor voting schedule on Monday, that would ‘direct’ the House Oversight Committee to continue investigating the federal cases against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, which is already in progress.” (09/03/25)
“Is the Trump administration trying to reshape American capitalism? Recent moves by Washington, such as taking a 10% share of semiconductor maker Intel, point to a shift in that direction. For decades, Washington has supported free-market capitalism. Today, the government appears to be supporting a new direction – state-directed capitalism. As a professor at the Questrom School of Business who studies different economic systems, I find this reversal striking.” [editor’s note: Even if such a thing as “free-market capitalism” existed — the free market and capitalism are opposites — the notion that DC has ever supported it would be nonsense on stilts – TLK] (09/03/25)
