“By positioning himself as the indispensable face of the pandemic, Fauci ensured that questioning the official narrative meant questioning him—and questioning him meant questioning science itself. The diary thus reads as the logical prelude to his 2021 declaration: ‘They’re really criticising science because I represent science.’ After reading these private entries, the remark no longer sounds like an off-the-cuff comment, but rather the inevitable conclusion of a man who had come to believe he was the final arbiter of truth.” (07/30/26)
“Despite being pardoned by President Biden for his COVID crimes, Anthony Fauci pled his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. He refused to answer a single question about his role in pandemic policy before the Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Senator Rand Paul, despite being immune from prosecution. I think I know why.” (07/29/26)
“Claims to ‘protect consumers’ often shield established industries from competition. The century-old battle over the definition of ‘whiskey’ shows how.” (07/30/26)
“[Adam Smith] explains the mechanisms that Crown and Parliament in Great Britain used to achieve their goals through intervention into and control over the lives of colonists. Great Britain imposed protections and privileges for a subset of society, foreclosed on the colonists’ right to self governance, and advanced institutions to promote British nationalism. In contrast, Smith and the colonists seek after impartial institutions that govern for the welfare of all, analogous to a market.” (07/30/26)
“If believing something suits MAGA’s prejudices and interests, they don’t hesitate: they simply insist that it’s true. They routinely dismiss scientific and statistical evidence, but they don’t stop there. They’re perfectly willing to deny reality even if the truth is staring them in the face. Thus, Trump urged Americans to remember that 2024 TV blackout, which nobody remembers because it didn’t happen. He insists that California has ‘blackouts and brownouts every weekend,’ when the state’s 39 million residents can tell you it doesn’t. He says that you must show ID to buy groceries, which everyone who buys their own food knows isn’t so. Do Trump and his followers actually believe these things? As I see it, that’s a category error, starting from the presumption that they even accept that objective facts exist.” (07/30/26)
“Four days before Donald Trump took the oath a second time, a company controlled by the intelligence chief of a foreign monarchy wired the president-elect’s family its first installment. The date was January 16, 2025. The buyer was Aryam Investment 1, a vehicle backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates and brother of its ruler, a man his own country’s press calls the spy sheikh. The purchase was 49 percent of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency firm, for $500 million. … What that money bought is the subject of this account. It did not buy a dinner, though there was a dinner. It bought the machinery of the American national-security state, piece by piece, and the transactions can be traced with the precision of a bank statement, because for once the participants did not trouble to hide them.” (07/30/26)
“[W]hen Fauci — formerly known as ‘the Science’ — asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times before Congress (NBC says 106), refusing to answer questions about his past role as a government official, it was illegitimate. Because on those matters, he cannot be incriminated. ‘No person,’ reads the amendment, ‘shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.’ There can be no criminal case brought for his past lies. But the problem for Dr. Fauci is that he can be prosecuted for telling those lies again to Congress. Like at yesterday’s hearing.” (07/30/26)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“For nearly twenty-five years, Washington has quietly expanded America’s Global War on Terror across Africa. Today, U.S. military activities stretch from the Horn of Africa through the Sahel to the Atlantic coast, encompassing intelligence bases, drone operations, special operations deployments, partner-force training, logistical support, surveillance missions, and recurring multinational exercises. Yet if the objective has been to produce a more secure region, the strategic picture is difficult to reconcile with the investment. To understand why, begin with a map.” (07/30/26)
“For 14 seasons right up to his first run for president, Donald Trump was the star of his own reality shows, ‘The Apprentice’ and then ‘The Celebrity Apprentice.’ The shows stopped, but Trump as president is still creating his own reality. … In the increasingly warped world in which the showrunner president appears to dwell, he inherited messes and created the best economy in history. Trump took a country that was an international laughingstock and made it respected again. He won election three times, he said yet again at Friday’s White House Correspondents Assn. dinner. But the second was rigged against him, so brave ‘patriots’ revolted on Jan. 6, 2021; they were ultimately foiled and then unfairly prosecuted and convicted — only to have super-hero Trump return to dispense clemency and spring the freedom-fighters on his first day back in office. Daily, on matters big and small, the president just makes things up.” (07/30/26)
