“Last month, as part of its 2027 budget, the D.C. Council approved a 20-cent fee on carrier-for-hire delivery services. While the fee applies to the delivery of a broad array of household goods, it has been primarily billed as a tax on food delivery, which provides a lucrative source of potential revenue for the District. D.C.’s new delivery tax is merely the latest example of governments targeting food with stealth tax increases in an effort to enhance government coffers. While the strategy may be tempting as a revenue grab, the losers are everyday Americans who are simply looking for a politician that actually can deliver on an affordability agenda.” (08/08/26)
“As wildfires ravage southwestern France this July, forcing more than 220,000 people from their homes in the Gironde region near Bordeaux and burning some 42,000 hectares (162 sq. miles) of forest, the familiar refrain returns: climate change is to blame. France is now enduring its worst fire season on record. Extreme heat and drought clearly worsen conditions. But blaming climate alone hides more immediate, controllable causes: human ignition, fuel buildup, and forest management choices that turn landscapes into tinderboxes. French authorities have detained well over 160 people since early July for suspected arson or reckless fire-starting. Officials say nine in 10 fires have human origins, whether deliberate or careless, from discarded cigarettes to illegal machinery and fireworks. … Matches and carelessness light most fires. Weather merely fans them.” (08/08/26)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Lucio Saverio Eastman
“Overall, progressives may seem very ‘smart’ from the perspective of status quo credentialism. But they tend to lack experience where it matters most: history, economics, objectivity, incentives, genetics, unintended consequences, moral hierarchy. The institutional progressive culture’s ideology is not a healthy path to governance. It’s the path we’ve seen so prevalent in today’s popular social hierarchy. A path full of loyalty tests, state machinery and ultimately, unbridled tyranny. History supplies the repeating and rhyming examples, but it is easily and sometimes wilfully forgotten.” (08/08/26)
“Most politicians pledge to work for the working class, or sometimes for working families, a less Marxist-sounding label. Meanwhile, scholars struggle to define the category. I won’t assess the political posturing or adjudicate definitional disputes, but my work experience (spanning six decades and a wide variety of jobs) illustrates why the claims of working-class authenticity that are prized in today’s politics are so fraught. Once upon a time, the working class was understood as people in capitalist economies who don’t own the means of production and must sell their labor to owners. But as economies grew more complex, anomalies piled up. What about managers who aren’t owners but make lots of money doing the bidding of owners? What about technical employees whose specialized skills give them bargaining power? What about small-business owners of modest means who hire employees?” (08/08/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“As Ryan Bourne at the Cato Institute points out, consumer prices rose roughly 30-40% over the last six years. This price inflation is directly related to government money printing and excessive federal spending. Politicians argue about delivery apps to distract voters from bad monetary policy. The bottom line is that sound money and minimal state interference protect our bank accounts and keep inflation at bay.” (08/08/26)
“As we look ahead to Missouri’s 2027 legislative session, literacy reform is likely to be one of the top education issues. States like Mississippi and Louisiana have surged past Missouri on national reading assessments, particularly in the early grades. While these states have adopted several important reforms, two have been central to their success: improving literacy instruction and requiring students to demonstrate reading proficiency before advancing beyond the third grade.” (08/07/26)
“What America may lack in munitions, we presently make up for in chunks of failed Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool liner. The coatings sprayed on the nearly 70,000 square feet of the pool’s surface are called Rhino 406 and Pipeliner 5000, which sound tough, though apparently not tough enough to withstand water, as the coatings swiftly began to come apart after the pool was refilled. Regardless, I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a hunk of Rhino 406 or Pipeliner 5000 fired from naval artillery or dropped from a B-52 bomber. It’s possible that discarded pool liner warfare is the thing that will break Iran.” (08/07/26)
“In a resurfaced 2016 interview, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks for the entire time in an African/South Asian accent that sounds like a mix between Trevor Noah and Apu from ‘The Simpsons’. It is absolutely bizarre, but it is also telling. At the time, he was promoting a Disney movie that he had worked on as a dance advisor, one of the few actual jobs hizzoner has ever held. His signature smile is on display, but when he opens his lips, he sounds like someone we have never heard. In a sing-songy voice, he decries how in Africa everybody dances, but in New York the men ‘just grind’ but don’t dance. It is a performance entirely in character.” (08/08/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Daniel Sánchez-Piñol
“In a film that runs nearly three hours, perhaps its most important political lesson is delivered in just a few minutes. Before sailing past the island of the Sirens, Odysseus learns that their irresistible song is not a gift of wisdom but a deadly trap. Sailors who succumb to its enchanting melody steer their ships toward the rocks, where they meet their destruction. Odysseus wants to hear the legendary song without falling victim to it. To accomplish this seemingly impossible task, he devises what economists recognize as an ingenious plan. He orders his crew to plug their ears with beeswax so they cannot hear the Sirens’ voices. He then commands them to tie him securely to the ship’s mast and not to release him under any circumstances until the danger has passed.” (08/07/26)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Harshit Singh & Sarika Kumari
“Auniversity degree once distinguished its holder precisely because few people had one. As degrees spread, employers began demanding them as a baseline, and today many jobs that historically required a high-school education demand a bachelor’s degree, not because the work grew more complex, but because the signal became an entry fee. Everyone pays more; nobody stands out. That sentence describes far more of modern life than credentials.” (08/07/26)
