“With a new academic year due to start in the United States, states and districts are seeking to manage students’ cellphone use during the school day. Proposals range from developing usage guidelines to implementing outright bans. Amid the discussion over what adults – educators, parents, policymakers – should do, students are signaling their ability to exercise individual agency. And they want nuanced and flexible approaches to help balance use and manage screen time. In a 2025 Pew survey in the U.S., 44% of teens reported cutting back on both social media and smartphone use. In 2023, that share was 39% (social media) and 36% (smartphones). A wider survey of 20,000 children ages 12 to 15 and parents across 18 countries found 40% of students taking deliberate breaks from their screens, up 18 percentage points from 2022. (07/29/25)
“The most recent Wall Street Journal political poll shows that Democrats have swerved into a deep ditch. Only three of 10 voters have a positive opinion of the Democratic Party, and that is the lowest this number has been for Democrats since Bill Clinton’s first term in office. Republicans aren’t very popular either — but they have a big lead over the donkeys. I’m not a cheerleader for the Republicans, and it’s clear the GOP is not the solution to all our nation’s problems. Republicans have been coconspirators in the runaway spending and debt crisis in Washington. What is concerning is that the Democrats have become what might be called a donut party: They have no middle. (07/30/25)
“There has been debate among economic historians about the point at which average real wages actually began to rise in England during the 19th century (even some discussion on this blog) but there can be no doubt that the industrial revolution was the beginning of a golden age of material well-being. Why does the myth [that the industrial revolution caused a great deal of misery] persist?” (07/30/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“A liberal Israel apologist named Brianna Wu has made a mealy-mouthed tweet acknowledging the reality of what’s happening in Gaza that is so obnoxious I need to have a quick rant about it. Wu, who has managed to translate her public attention from the 2014 Gamergate harassment scandal into a role as a pro-Israel spinmeister, tweeted a screenshot from a New York Times headline titled ‘Total Failure: Israel’s Return to War Heaped Ruin on Gaza and Did Little for Israelis.’ … This enrages me in ways I’m struggling to fully articulate. ‘After countless exaggeration, the cries of wolf are actually true?’ So it wasn’t exaggeration or crying wolf then was it, you fucking asshole? Almost like you’ve spent two years defending A FUCKING GENOCIDE and attacking anyone who opposed it?” (07/30/25)
“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)
