“Naturally, as a proponent of the ‘absurd Trump=fascism’ thesis, I’m disappointed that as impressive a historian as [Adam] Tooze doesn’t want to endorse it as well. But I also have a bit of trouble understanding the logic here. Surely, if Nazism is at the extreme end of the breakdown of the state, with its regular notions of law and right, into factional and clique-based power politics, and we are entering a more fierce and disturbing era of unstatehood, then one must at least say, we are heading in a fascist direction? And I don’t think the fascism thesis relies upon a naive separation of the idealized liberal rule of law and the present disorder and reign of terror. Quite the opposite. I think rather it can show how fascism is implicit in liberal democratic institutions and develops out of their internal contradictions and failures.” (07/30/25)
“Libertarians, in general, tend to have an ambivalent view of technological advances, recognizing both the ways in which technology can help the public communicate and become less dependent on government, while also being rightly paranoid about how government will use technology. It is true that AI can improve government efficiency, and it does feel unwise to refuse to use it entirely. I certainly wouldn’t be shedding any tears if some low level government paper pushers lose their jobs to AI. (Athough the reality is that the number of bureaucrats has massively increased since the era when clerical work as all done on paper, and computers have demonstrably not reduced their number.) However, there are a few problems here. The biggest is what happens when AI decides something and no human will second guess it?” (07/30/25)
“Not long ago, you would’ve been labeled a conspiracy theorist if you suggested that a government report about how terribly unhealthy gas stoves are and how they ought to be banned meant that plans were in the works to ban gas stoves. ‘No, the government’s not taking your stove,’ CNET said in January 2024. What were we all worried about? Tightening regulations, that’s what.” (07/30/25)
“The National Education Association (NEA) tried scrubbing its radical 2025 handbook from the internet after I leaked its contents on X, but I saved a copy of their 434-page manifesto. This document, meant to guide America’s largest teachers’ union, exposes a radical agenda: erasing Jews from the Holocaust, blaming ‘white supremacy culture’ for systemic racism, pushing illegal racial quotas, calling for ‘educational reparations,’ and attacking homeschooling while ignoring their own failing schools. The NEA, armed with a unique 1906 federal charter, has become a money-laundering operation for the Democratic Party, funneling over 99% of its 2022 political contributions to Democrats. Its president, Becky Pringle, an at-large Democratic National Committee member, engages in histrionics to rally this partisan machine.” (07/30/25)
“What is taking place in Gaza now is mostly not a war, even though that term commonly is applied to the violence there. It is instead a largely unilateral assault on a population and its means of living. It is a situation in which one side, Israel, has — as Trump might put it — nearly all the cards. The news stories emerging almost daily from Gaza are not about pitched battles between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas fighters. They are mostly not about battles at all. Instead, they are about the latest large-scale killing by Israel of Gazans, mostly civilians, at a rate that has averaged about 150 deaths per day since the current round of carnage began in late 2023. Civilians are killed largely with airstrikes but also more recently through getting shot while seeking ever-scarcer food.” (07/30/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“Donald Trump announced on Sunday that his administration had reached a trade deal with the European Union, which would place a 15 percent tariff on all goods Americans buy from Europe and require the EU to purchase a certain amount of oil and weapons from some US firms. Although European officials clarified that this was a legally non-binding outline and the two sides are still working out some details, Trump is characteristically celebrating the ‘deal’ as a major win for the American people. But it really isn’t. Every supposed benefit that comes from the agreement applies only to a small subset of the country while leaving the American public, as a whole, worse off.” (07/30/25)
Source: Foundataion for Economic Education
by Caitlin Peters
“After 47 years of Superman movies, James Gunn’s 2025 film offers a poignant take on the values Superman has always embodied: truth, justice, and the American Way. Through his origin story as an alien adopted and raised in Kansas, Superman symbolizes the hope and idealism that define the American Dream: that through hard work and determination, anyone has a shot at success.” (07/30/25)
“For nearly two years, the Israeli military has been relentlessly obliterating everything in Gaza. That destruction has not been hidden. The Palestinians who live in Gaza, the majority of whom are refugees forced to flee what became Israel in 1948, have been documenting every moment of the carnage. And in fact, Israeli soldiers have gleefully shared photos and videos of themselves destroying everything they see. The Israeli government has openly and repeatedly declared its intent to annihilate Palestinians. For decades, Israel has denied it planned and carried out ethnic cleansing in 1948. … Now, nearly 80 years later, Israeli politicians at the highest level openly plot to ethnically cleanse all of Gaza. It has been clear since October 7, 2023 that the current Israeli assault is the culmination of more than 140 years of colonization, dispossession, expulsion, and repeated massacres. This is genocide.” (07/30/25)
“After the French President Emmanuel Macron announced last Thursday that France will recognize the state of Palestine, several U.S. and Israeli leaders dismissed the move as merely symbolic. … ‘What he says doesn’t matter,’ Trump told reporters Friday. ‘That statement doesn’t carry any weight.’ But if Macron’s announcement ‘doesn’t matter,’ then why have opponents of Palestinian self-determination reacted to it with such venom? In truth, recognition does matter in international affairs, which is why Israel and its Western backers, unlike most nations, have steadfastly refused to acknowledge Palestinian statehood in the first place.” (07/30/25)
“As racial minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ Americans made social advancements in the decades since World War II, the overt violence of Jim Crow gave way to more hidden structural violence and malign governmental neglect of marginalized communities. If private organizations or foundations wanted to advance social justice, then so be it, but conservatives in government would not help them. However, that is no longer true with MAGA and the second Donald Trump administration. The president and his allies are using government coercion to enforce culture-war bigotry even upon private enterprises. The rhetoric coming from federal agencies and spokespeople echoes 19th-century white supremacist propaganda.” [editor’s note: It also echoes 20th-century “anti-discrimination” and “affirmative action” propaganda – TLK] (07/30/25)
