The Fall of Fauci
Source: Independent Institute
by Phillip W Magness & Edward J López
“Fauci has met his reckoning, but the cautionary tale will always be important.” (08/18/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/17/the-fall-of-fauci/
Category: Opinion
You were our countrymen – the limits of evil
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Massachusetts is not alone among the 50 States in declaring that it is okay (with a doctor’s agreement) to kill. To kill an unborn, innocent child who is viable, able to be born (delivered) and live. Who presents no true threat to their mother, or at least her health. This is monstrous. This is evil. This is falsely labeled liberty when in reality it is the opposite: active, premeditated violent and fatal aggression against an innocent person. It is, actually, close to slavery. (If actually worse: we submit that killing someone is worse than just enslaving them.)” (08/17/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/08/17/we-know-thee-not-the-limits-of-evil/
Dems’ SC presidential-primary scheme a last-ditch effort to hold off DSA
Source: New York Post
by Daniel McCarthy
“Don’t believe the Democratic National Committee’s official storyline: The DNC’s decision to make South Carolina the first Democratic presidential primary in 2028 isn’t about introducing more racial diversity into the early contests. It’s actually about keeping power in the hands of the party establishment — the people who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and who are likely to wind up supporting Kamala Harris in 2028. The fix is in. South Carolina was the establishment’s firewall against Bernie Sanders’[s] left-wing insurgency twice over. In 2016, Sanders nearly beat Hillary Clinton in the first caucus, in Iowa, and went on to defeat her in the New Hampshire primary. Four years later, there was a brief moment when Sanders looked like the frontrunner — until he got clobbered by Joe Biden in South Carolina.” (08/18/26)
Which Countries Are Actually Socialist?
Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer
“Socialism is having another moment in U.S. politics. Politicians and activists increasingly describe themselves as socialist while their opponents use the same label as a term of condemnation. Yet both sides employ the word so loosely as to become meaningless. Sweden gets called socialist because it has high taxes and universal health care; Venezuela does because the government nationalized industries and imposed price controls. The rise of the phrase ‘democratic socialism’, which lumps together two unconnected words, adds to the confusion and makes debate difficult. Before deciding whether socialism works, we ought to determine what it actually is—and which countries practice it.” (08/17/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/17/which-countries-are-actually-socialist/
Sports: A Training Ground for Liberal Democracy
Source: Liberalism.org
by David Bernell
“Athletics socialize us into essential democratic habits and teach us what liberal institutions require to succeed.” (08/17/26)
https://www.liberalism.org/p/sports-a-training-ground-for-liberal-democracy
Utilities Want More Control to Meet Growing Energy Demand
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Avery Frank
“Specifically, utilities want to reduce competition by halting competitive bidding for multi-state transmission projects, as the bidding process can take 16 to 20 months. If approved, the utilities would be the default developers of those projects, with no competition involved. In Missouri, both Ameren and Evergy, our state’s largest utilities, operate in multiple states and would gain that right of first refusal. For starters, it’s worth acknowledging that 16 to 20 months is a long time to select a developer, and these companies are right that we quickly need more energy to serve big new customers. This situation illustrates why Missouri is between a rock and a hard place in its efforts to modernize our electricity grid. … There has to be a better way—and fortunately, there is. Missouri instead could allow private electricity grids (also known as consumer regulated electricity, or CRE) for large customers like data centers.” (08/17/26)
Awake to Evasion 1.0
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“There are people who still debate the term ‘woke.’ From the beginning, defenders of woke judgments, discourse, and activism claimed it was ‘just good manners’; others said it didn’t exist, a mere figment of ‘right-wing paranoia.’ Truth is, it was a new, trendy term used to replace ‘social justice’ and the peculiar bent and activism methods of ‘social justice warriors,’ after ‘SJW’ became fodder for ridicule by collegiate leftism’s opponents.” (08/17/26)
It’s Time to Topple the AI Oligarchy
Source: In These Times
by Miles Kampf-Lassin
“Screwworms feeding on cattle across the South, tainted vegetables spreading a parasite causing explosive diarrhea, smoke from wildfires poisoning the air and President Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran surging gas and grocery prices. All would be enough to label summer 2026 a time of crisis in the United States. Still, it’s been made far worse by the brutal heat waves plaguing much of the country …. Every summer is getting hotter, longer and more intense as fossil fuel-spawned climate change warms the globe at an unbridled rate. Now, the pace of these impacts is being accelerated by the rapid spread of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and the energy-guzzling power plants being built to fuel their usage, which Trump has been fervently working to expand.” (08/17/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-data-centers-palantir
Is Trump stumbling into a wiser North Korea policy?
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by James Park
“His decision to scale down military drills could have real upsides — so long as he is willing to coordinate with Seoul to make the most of it.” (08/17/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-korea-military-exercise/
“Negotiations” Aren’t the Answer in Iran or Ukraine
Source: The Bulwark
by Brynn Tannehill
“Fundamentally, the United States and Russia have both launched wars of choice from which they cannot easily extricate themselves. In Russia there is a history of very bad things happening to rulers who lose wars, and Putin is reportedly considering another mass mobilization, despite the disruption and discontent it will cause. Trump is facing the loss of both the House and the Senate, and is open to declaring a national emergency to rule by fiat and rewrite election rules to rig the elections. In other words, both Russian and American leaders are enmeshed in a war they can’t seem to win, and to stave off the consequences of losing, both are willing to take steps that will produce massive unrest. The key difference between the countries is that Russia still has a semi-plausible path to victory.” (08/17/26)