Source: The Intercept
by Natasha Lennard

“The Trump administration wants America paying attention to this sickening spectacle of mass deportations: broadcasting ICE raids featuring television personality Dr. Phil; meme-posting chained men sent to a gulag in El Salvador; and sharing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s various ‘ICE Barbie’ photo ops. What the Trump administration doesn’t want, however, is for anyone to hold ICE agents accountable. Attempts by the public to keep tabs on ICE are provoking predictable and pathetic responses from the government. The latest cause of outrage is ICEBlock, an app that lets users share local ICE sightings. … ICE agents, of course, have reasons they’d prefer not to be located or identified. They have no desire to face protesters who mobilize in response to reports of their presence. They wear masks to avoid being held personally responsible for carrying out the regime’s desired acts of cruelty.” (07/01/25)

https://theintercept.com/2025/07/01/masked-ice-agents-victimization-accountability/

Source: Show-Me Institute
by Patrick Tuohey

“PortKC has become Kansas City’s go-to agency for economic development incentives — but with a troubling condition. Applicants must sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), quietly embedded on page 16 of its Development Application Package. Why? Secrecy isn’t standard practice. The Economic Development Corporation — which oversees the TIF Commission and other incentive bodies — does not require NDAs.” (07/01/25)

https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/transparency/why-is-portkc-keeping-secrets/

Source: In These Times
by Hamilton Nolan

“The U.S. government has fallen into the hands of people who lack proper metaphors; all they know is business. The nation should be ‘run like a business’ according to these unimaginative suits among the GOP, who haven’t read or studied enough to consider how the government might be run like anything else. The problem with this thinking is it will, by inevitably following the profit motive, lead to a terminal phase. With the House passage of President Donald Trump’s budget legislation ​’One Big Beautiful Bill,’ the United States has reached the private equity looting stage of the metaphor. The logic of this scheme will collapse, but it might bring us all down with it. Two hundred and fifty years of civic investment in the United States of America is now over. Like all private equity firms, the Republican Party of 2025 is here to loot.” (07/01/25)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/trump-big-beautiful-bill-debt-inequality-tax-cuts-medicaid

Source: Aaron Ross Powell
by Aaron Ross Powell

“Political persuasion versus the urge to political domination.” (07/01/25)

https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/if-you-want-to-win-political-arguments-stop-being-an-asshole-5725

Source: Reason
by Katherine Mangu-Ward

“Why should a student on a J-1 visa be treated differently from a coder on an H-1B, or a tourist on a B-2, or a man fleeing violence with no papers at all? These distinctions are as artificial as the lines on a map. Yet they are enforced with a level of fervor otherwise reserved for violent crime. As this issue went to press, total bans on travel from 12 countries and heavy restrictions on seven more were abruptly announced. The result is predictable: lost potential, ruined plans, stranded lovers, wasted talent. Restrictions on the free movement of people are not just economic blunders (though they are that too); they are acts of cultural vandalism and personal cruelty. This obsession with control bleeds back into travel itself. You can feel it at the airport, in the endless security lines and biometric scans.” (for publication 08/25)

https://reason.com/2025/07/01/shelburne-vermont/