Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The most culturally consequential fictional fantasy land ever authored is not Oz or Narnia or Middle Earth, but the liberal Zionist creation of Alternate Reality Israel. In the minds of its authors, Alternate Reality Israel exists in a parallel universe at the geographic location of actual real-life Israel, but never became a genocidal apartheid state. In this fictional timeline, Alternate Reality Israel magically came into existence without the mass murder, ethnic cleansing and land theft which would normally be required for the creation of a brand-new ethnostate dropped on top of a pre-existing civilization. Because of magic, Alternate Reality Israel has not needed to use nonstop violence and tyranny to maintain its existence as a theocratic ethnostate …. The position of the liberal Zionist is therefore not self-contradictory, because the existence of Alternate Reality Israel is not at all incompatible with progressive values.” (08/18/25)
“First of all, I’d like to thank Kristi Noem for making it possible for me to apply for a job with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one of the agencies under her purview as secretary of homeland security. On August 6, Noem announced that she was waiving the age limit for new applicants ‘so even more patriots will qualify to join ICE in its mission to arrest murderers, pedophiles, gang members, rapists, and other criminal illegal aliens from America’s streets.’ … I just turned 66, and I hate to be excluded from anything. … Anyway, I decided to look into what the government was offering.” (08/18/25)
“A productive person can get a lot done in 7 days. Democrats are not good at getting things done, but still manage to do a lot. Most of what they do is standing in the way of getting things done, and while they’d like to portray themselves as the Chinese man standing up to the tanks in Tiananmen Square, ideologically they are more in line with the guys driving those tanks. Over the last 7 days, Democrats have packed in a lot of stupid. It’s almost a skill, really, as people with high or even average intelligence would have difficulty finding so many new and creative ways to be idiots.” [editor’s note: Like most Democrats, Hunter is certainly no “liberal;” he’s a “progressive” who likes to cosplay as a “conservative” – TLK] (08/18/25)
“Although Trump is in office, the U.S. military might be the last line of defense for protecting our democratic republic, since Congress and the courts have largely capitulated to his autocratic rule. What happens if top military officers and next year’s voters don’t stand up to Trump? We can ask the nearly 6 [n]illion people, more than 70 percent of the world’s population, what their lives are like under authoritarian rule. America is on a slippery slope to join them.” (08/18/25)
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“Donald Trump came into office promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Now, six months later, his high stakes meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska may have put the United States and Russia on a new path toward peace, or, if this initiative fails, could trigger an even more dangerous escalation, with warhawks in Congress already pushing for another $54.6 billion in weapons for Ukraine. After emerging from the meeting, Putin correctly framed the historical moment: ‘This was a very hard time for bilateral relations and, let’s be frank, they’ve fallen to the lowest point since the Cold War. I think that’s not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole. Sooner or later, we have to amend the situation to move on from confrontation to dialogue.'” (08/18/25)
“The writer Doreen St. Félix has struck gold twice. In 2017, at the age of 25, she secured a staff position at the ne plus ultra of literary prestige, The New Yorker. Then, this week, her profile rose again when she became the subject of a pile-on from conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who decided to punish her for an August 2 think piece about American Eagle’s supposedly racist ad campaign featuring the actress Sydney Sweeney. Rufo’s method of choice? That reliable standby: decade-old tweets.” (08/18/25)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Bobbie Anne Flower Cox
“We are living in a point in history where so many, if not all, of the foundational pillars of our society are being questioned. In some cases, those pillars are almost wholly being cast aside. Once the cornerstones of our American backbone, we are finding ourselves doubting it all as we ask ourselves and one another … Can the government truly be that corrupt? Are the courts actually compromised? Are major media outlets really just mouthpieces for propaganda? Is modern medicine a sham?” (08/18/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Arthur Diamond
“Tim Friede let venomous snakes bite him roughly 200 times, suffering anaphylactic shocks, and spending four days hospitalized in a coma. But this wasn’t a suicide attempt. He was seeking immunity to all snake venom, so that his blood could be used to create a universal antitoxin. … The FDA does not ban people from letting snakes bite them, so Friede had the freedom to be bitten. His choice was focused on the greater good, as was Jonas Salk’s choice to test his polio vaccine on himself and his family, and as was the choice of over 38,000 volunteers who signed up for Covid ‘human challenge trials,’ which would have involved taking an experimental vaccine and then being deliberately exposed to Covid. If such trials had been allowed, we could have had safe and effective vaccines much sooner, saving many lives.” (08/18/25)
“‘Cashless bail’ is one of the most misleading phrases in modern politics. Reform advocates coined it, the media amplified it, and it stuck. The reality? What we provide is secured bail — a constitutionally protected, privately funded system that ensures defendants appear in court and protects the public, all without costing taxpayers a dime. Ironically, the term ‘cashless’ could make us sound like the good guys. We accept all forms of payment. We take the financial risk. We are legally liable for producing defendants in court. … Courts and judges who still have secured bail know it works, because we have skin in the game. In 2016, New Jersey passed the Bail Reform Act, removing the accused’s right to bail and replacing private secured bail with a taxpayer-funded pretrial release bureaucracy.” (08/18/25)
“Finding consensus among economists is an occasional treat. Last week’s firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner Erika McEntarfer by President Trump was one such occasion. With few exceptions, the reaction has been that the claims she was dismissed for producing ‘low-quality’ data or displaying ‘partisanship’ are mere cover — a simple case of machine-gunning the messenger. There is little to substantiate the claim that the BLS produces low-quality data. The BLS (and every other statistical agency) frequently issues preliminary reports from surveys it conducts. As such, revisions are common. How big are those revisions? Pretty small!” (08/18/25)
