Category: Opinion

Professors are being squeezed on all sides. The GUARD Act can protect them.

Source: Expression
by Michael Hurley

“From 2000 through 2024, FIRE recorded 102 cases of politicians trying to silence faculty. That’s four cases a year on average. Then, in 2025 alone, we recorded 114. That extraordinary spike comes as federal efforts to reform higher education have too often crossed constitutional lines. At the same time, the old threat of censorship by school administrators never faded. This year, South Florida State College fired professor Vinita Prabhakar after its president called a celebrated short story she assigned about an alcoholic teacher ‘political.’ Now Prabhakar, represented by FIRE and FIRE Legal Network member Gary Edinger, is suing the school.” (08/19/26)

https://expression.fire.org/p/professors-are-being-squeezed-on

Thomas L. Knapp

The GOP’s Fading Economic Advantage

Source: Antiwar.com
by Greg Pence

“As the 2026 midterms approach, a nationwide poll released in early August delivered a warning that goes to the heart of the Republican Party’s political identity: for the first time in nearly a decade, voters said Democrats were better stewards of the economy than Republicans. For years, Republicans benefited from a broad perception that they were more trustworthy than Democrats on economic management, even when the record of Republican administrations was contested. … Now that advantage is beginning to crack – not because the U.S. economy is necessarily on the verge of collapse, but because many Americans are judging it less by macroeconomic indicators than by groceries, electricity bills, healthcare and insurance costs, housing, and what remains in their bank accounts at the end of the month. For Donald Trump and the Republican Party, that change in how voters measure economic performance could be costly.” (08/19/26)

https://original.antiwar.com/greg_pence/2026/08/18/the-gops-fading-economic-advantage/

Thomas L. Knapp

Deadbeat AOC’s student-loan mooching should be a red flag to her 2028 supporters

Source: New York Post
by Betsy McCaughey

“Betting markets show Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the frontrunner to snag the Democrats’ 2028 presidential nomination. But despite earning $173,000 a year as a member of Congress, AOC refuses to pay back her student loans — a red flag that she has no respect for taxpayers. Her supporters claim her college loans make her relatable. ‘This is what happens when we elect normal people to Congress,’ leftist activist David Hogg posted approvingly. ‘I need a president that’s still drowning in student loan debt with me,’ another fan wrote. Households in the top fifth for earnings are three times more likely to have college debt than households in the bottom fifth of the economy. That means when doctors, lawyers and members of Congress don’t pay their college loans, working stiffs who never got to go to college — bus drivers, waiters and sanitation workers — end up on the hook.” (08/19/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/08/19/opinion/deadbeat-aocs-student-loan-mooching-should-be-red-flag-to-her-2028-supporters/

Steve Trinward

Who Rigged Alaska’s Senate Race?

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Challenger Dan J. Sullivan’s run against the incumbent with the near-identical name, one Dan S. Sullivan, doesn’t quite pass the smell test. He sure appears to be gaming the election. Still, the rigging occurred when the state went to an open primary where anyone — regardless of party membership — can vote for anyone on the ballot. … Alaskans should go the opposite direction, allowing — no, requiring — political parties to privately select their candidates. And at their party’s expense, not the taxpayers’.” (08/18/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/08/18/who-rigged-alaskas-senate-race/

Thomas L. Knapp

Pattern Recognition

Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman

“Pattern recognition need not give an unambiguous result. The same black and white picture can be seen either as a vase or as two faces. A paranoid may have a picture of the world that fits all of the data available to him, with apparent inconsistencies explained by the plots of his enemies.” (08/18/26)

https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/pattern-recognition

Thomas L. Knapp

Will Mexico be the next front in WWIII?

Source: UnHerd
by Juan David Rojas

“Last week, the State Department revoked the visa of ‘Andy’ López Beltrán, son of former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). The move is the latest escalation between the Trump White House and the Mexican government of President Claudia Sheinbaum of the Left-wing Morena party. We’ve seen other signs of stealth-conflict: a car crash killing two CIA agents in Mexico – who may have been involved in an alleged CIA assassination campaign against cartel operatives; the indictment by US authorities of Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya, a member of Sheinbaum’s Morena party, over alleged drug ties. Finally, the State Department revoked visas in June for Morena Govs. Alfonso Durazo and Américo Villarreal, stating that both were under investigation. All of this has come amid conflicting statements from Trump officials.” (08/18/26)

https://archive.is/1OdgC

Thomas L. Knapp

Bea Lumpkin and How an Antifascist Rests in Power

Source: In These Times
by Stacy Davis Gates

“When people ask me what it means to be a woman in power, I think about Bea Lumpkin, because power means you don’t wait for permission. Not power as in proximity to the powerful, or having a seat at a table someone else built. I mean power as in knowing early which side you were on, then spending every day of your life standing on the business of that side. Bea passed away June 14 at 107 years old. A lifelong communist and the Jewish daughter of Russian immigrants, she married a Black man during the height of the Red Scare in 1949 and raised a family under the restrictive conventions of Jim Crow fascism.” (08/18/26)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/bea-lumpkin-obituary-chicago-ctu-rest-in-power-antifa-antifacism-activist-communism

Steve Trinward