Source: The Corbett Report
“Photographs. Paintings. Editorial cartoons. Cover art. Memes. We are steeped every day of our lives in visual art. And who can doubt the profound effect that a particularly striking image can have on our psyche? Today, James explores the way art and imagery can be used to unlock minds and deprogram the masses with two practicing artists, Anthony Freda and Jordan Henderson.” (07/01/26)
Source: Liberal Currents
by Roz Milner
“In recent years the American right’s been inverting phrases taken from the left, taking something that meant well and turning them into cliches. Triggered. Woke. Social justice warrior. Critical race theory. They use these as a shorthand to mock and belittle, while also reducing the left to something separate and less than. At the same time, these phrases are often ill-defined: what is woke, exactly? One may as well ask who leads the oft-cited but hard to find antifa organization. Once one starts looking at how they use these phrases to delegitimize the left, one sees the pattern all over the place: gender ideology, fake news, and perhaps most nefarious of all, cultural Marxism.” (07/01/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-ever-shifting-cultural-marxism/
Source: The Daily Economy
by Corey A DeAngelis
“Should taxpayers be required to subsidize unions’ lobbying for more taxpayer subsidies? Three states say ‘no, spend our money on students.'” (07/01/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/teachers-unions-are-losing-one-of-their-government-perks/
Source: SFGate
“Italy on Tuesday put on display one of the best known examples of Etruscan painting, panels from a tomb that it acquired for 15 million euros ($17 million) in the Culture Ministry’s buying spree of big-ticket pieces of the country’s cultural heritage. The ministry announced in May that it had acquired the fresco panels, dating from the 4th century, from members of the Torlonia family, one of Italy’s ancient noble families whose vast collection of antiquity has long been kept out of the public domain. The Francois Tomb was discovered in 1857 by the French archaeologist Alessandro Francois in Vulci, on land owned by the Torlonia family. The frescoes were detached from the necropolis in 1863 and became part of the Torlonia private collection, while the contents of the tomb were divided up among Francois, colleagues and the family.” (06/30/26)
Source: Politico
“Running on an anti-establishment ticket.” (07/01/26)
Source: Cato Institute
“The Dangerous Push to Tax AI.” (06/30/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/dangerous-push-tax-ai
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“Speaking Sunday night at the Trump Kennedy Center, where he was receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Bill Maher offered an excellent bit of advice for politicians who do not wish to be mocked: ‘Stop being funny.’ It is a simple thing, and a not-so-simple thing. When politicians are being ridiculous, Maher said, ‘I put them in jokes—jokes that work.’ Jokes that work is the key thing. It is axiomatic in comedy that the way to kill a joke is to explain it, but it is worth thinking about why and how Maher’s jokes, and other jokes about politicians, work. If politicians are to stop being funny, then they will need to answer the question: When are politicians funny? … Naked dishonesty in politicians is funny. So is incompetence. So is howling demagoguery. Quiet, unshowy competence is not very funny.” (07/01/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/bill-maher-politicians-humor/
Source: The American Prospect
by Sean M Flaim
“When Congress passed the Sherman Act in 1890, John Sherman told the Senate, ‘If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life’. The act intended to keep concentrated private power from becoming a sovereign authority unto itself. It lasted five years before the Supreme Court took it apart. In United States v. E.C. Knight (1895), the Court held that manufacturing was not commerce and therefore lay beyond the reach of federal antitrust law. The case concerned the American Sugar Refining Company, which by acquisition controlled more than 90 percent of the nation’s sugar refining capacity. The Court drew its commerce line precisely where the largest industrial concentration in the country sat, and the trust walked free.” (07/01/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/07/01/supreme-court-assault-on-congress-anti-monopoly-solution/
Source: Reuters
“Anthropic said on Tuesday that the U.S. Commerce Department lifted export controls on its most advanced Fable and Mythos AI models, less than three weeks after the company was ordered to suspend their access over national security risks. Washington has stepped up oversight of new model releases to identify potential threats amid concerns that advanced AI models could be misused by military intelligence in China, Russia or other countries of concern. … Anthropic said the June 12 export-control order followed Amazon researchers reporting a way to bypass Fable 5’s safeguards, allowing the model to identify software vulnerabilities and, in one case, generate code demonstrating how one vulnerability could be exploited. Anthropic said it has now implemented a new safeguard that blocks the behavior described in the report.” (07/01/26)
Source: The New Republic
“MAGA Rage Takes Unnerving Turn as Birthright Loss Rattles Trump Badly.” (07/01/26)