Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Before the government can give money away, it must first have money. … This is what socialists fail to realize when they advocate socialism. The reason they don’t consider it is because there is already wealth that has been built up in society that they want to seize and redistribute. They see all that wealth and simply take it for granted. Why not have the government seize part of that wealth and use to to help the poor, needy, and disadvantaged as well as seniors? But there are two important points here. One, socialists never ask: What was it that brought that wealth into existence? They just see it and want to grab it. And, two, by interrupting the process of wealth creation, they don’t realize that their seizure of wealth results in lower standards of living for everyone, especially the poor.” (07/30/26)
“There’s a new MAGA personality on the scene: Savanna Cannon. Parroting talking points about wacko liberals and often wearing a Charlie Kirk–style ‘Freedom’ shirt, Cannon looks and sounds like she came straight out of the Turning Point USA or PragerU conservative influencer pipelines. ‘People who don’t like what I say are, more than likely, braindead,’ Cannon declared in one video last week that sums up her facts-don’t-care-about-your-feelings style. But Cannon has one big advantage over her rival conservative commentators: she sits in an unusual way. Cannon typically records her videos leaning back in a chair while wearing yoga pants, with her legs pulled up on either side of her. It’s a pose that highlights everything a more prurient viewer might hope to see: her bare feet and—forgive me, I am only reporting the facts here—the faint outline of her genitals.” (07/30/26)
“Appearing increasingly isolated and weakened, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Washington this week, where he had a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump – his eighth of the US president’s second term. Netanyahu is desperate to revive his image as the closest ally of the most powerful man in the world, but his star has fallen dramatically in Washington since his last trip. The US president has problems of his own, so he clearly had little appetite for a photo opportunity with a deeply unpopular Israeli leader widely blamed for convincing him to launch an unwinnable war against a state few Americans saw as a serious threat.” (07/30/26)
“A formidable enemy of free speech on college campuses is self-censorship. Much has been said about how to make students more willing to voice their opinions, but proposed solutions often overlook the people best positioned to change the culture where self-censorship frequently occurs: professors. Professors shape many of the environments where students decide whether speaking candidly is worth the risk. In a FIRE student survey conducted in 2025, 72% of students said they self-censor at least occasionally either when speaking in class or with a professor. Yet despite their direct influence over students’ willingness to speak, professors — and the classroom techniques they employ — remain underused in efforts to address the problem.” (07/30/26)
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Mark D Guilfoyle & Andrew J Vandiver
“Reasonable people can disagree about education policy. They can disagree about charter schools, vouchers, and the proper role of government in education. But House Bill 1 is different from many of those debates.” (07/30/26)
“Last September, the U.S. military fired the first of 63 strikes against 67 small fishing boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The spate of killings in Operation Southern Spear has claimed 221 lives so far, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization. In April, President Donald Trump boasted about the effectiveness of his extrajudicial maritime strikes against alleged drug traffickers, claiming his methods had stopped 98.2 percent of all drugs coming into the country by ocean or sea. However, new evidence from those inside the Trump administration shows the strikes have not slowed the flow of drugs coming into the country.” (07/30/26)
“The fact is that diaries tend to be self-obsessed, and no one would want their unvarnished private thoughts made public. Rather, my gripe with these passages is one I have previously raised in criticism of Fauci. During this period, dissenting scientists were barred from social media, removed from positions and vilified for expressing views despite now being vindicated on subjects ranging from the lab origin of the virus to the efficacy of masks, the 6-foot rule, natural immunity and school closures. As these courageous scientists were being abused by academic and media figures who still hold their positions, Fauci said not a word in their defense despite privately acknowledging that they could be right.” (07/30/26)
“Obviously, the DSA feels energized and validated by having defeated establishment Democrats and captured the mayoralties of New York and Seattle, the Democratic nomination for Washington, D.C.’s mayoralty, plus four likely seats in the U.S. House in recent months. This raises a troubling question: What if the radicalism of the DSA’s constitutional plan is not its weakness but its strength? That is the really scary possibility. And it’s worth taking seriously.” (07/30/26)
“Mamdani presents democratic socialism as little more than libraries, public schools and fire departments. The Democratic Socialists of America describe something far more sweeping. Recasting those ambitions as familiar public services is an effort to launder radical ideas into the mainstream. … Democratic socialists in office aren’t shy about wanting to replace capitalism. They are, after all, socialists. But their ambitions extend well beyond shifting some industries from private to public ownership. The Democratic Socialists of America’s platform calls for abolishing the police and prison system, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, establishing universal rent control, enacting reparations and much more.” (07/30/26)
“No one has ever seen anything like it, as Donald Trump himself might say. Buried in a new CNN poll is something striking: Trump isn’t just cratering by conventional approval measurements; he’s also absolutely collapsing by many metrics involving personal traits, from his mental state to his disconnectedness from ordinary people to his fondness for building monuments to himself. Welcome to the era of Late-Stage Trumpism. The ‘personalist’ aspects of Trumpian rule—the shaping of much of the government and even the physical capital of Washington, D.C., around one man’s relentless self-dealing and self-aggrandizement—have all started imploding in on themselves, in a collapsing supernova of venality and megalomania.” (07/30/26)
