Source: Mother Jones
by Schuyler Mitchell

“According to President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, you may be a member of a criminal conspiracy if you have done any of the following: worn black to a demonstration, given face masks to protesters, joined a book club, distributed a zine. Recently, federal prosecutors have cited these actions as evidence that activists protesting Trump’s deportation machine are part of an organized criminal enterprise. Call it antifa, domestic terrorism, the radical left—in Trump’s eyes, dissent is never organic. It’s all just part of one big ‘conspiracy.’ … Trump has stoked this deep state paranoia to further his own agenda. His winks at Pizzagate and QAnon have grown into an outright embrace of the people promoting the conspiracy theories. And he’s scapegoated minorities by linking them to alleged plots perpetrated by powerful Democratic institutions: Thanks to the liberal elite, immigrants are eating your pets, and trans people in prison are taking your tax dollars.” (07/23/26)

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/trump-conspiracy-antifa-cell-arrests/

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie

“There is a strong case for saying that equality diversity and inclusion (EDI) imposes costs upon businesses that make them more expensive and less competitive than they could otherwise be. EDI functions rarely pay for themselves. Diversity officers, training programmes, consultants and reporting systems all carry direct costs. For a large firm this might be marginal. For a small or medium enterprise it can be a meaningful fixed cost that a foreign competitor without equivalent obligations does not bear. EDI involves time diverted from output because training sessions, unconscious bias workshops and committee meetings consume staff hours. Those hours are not spent on production, sales or innovation. The opportunity cost is real even where the direct financial outlay looks small.” (07/23/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-costs-money

Source: Townhall
by Veronique de Rugy

“Last year, 36,640 Americans died in traffic crashes. That was the fewest since 2019, yet it still works out to more than 100 fatalities per day. The new generation of vehicles quietly accumulating mileage on our streets offers enormous promise to bring the number down even more and more each year. Over at Marginal Revolution, economist Alex Tabarrok reminds us that as of March, Waymo’s driverless vehicles had logged more than 220 million miles across five of its areas of operation. Compared with human drivers on the same roads over the same period, and counting every crash regardless of fault, the Waymo Driver was involved in 94 percent fewer crashes causing serious or fatal injury. … So, who is working to slow this happy development? Tabarrok points to trial lawyers.” (07/23/26)

https://townhall.com/columnists/veroniquederugy/2026/07/23/why-the-debate-over-life-saving-vehicles-n2679980

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“I confess that I am perplexed by the various casting controversies surrounding Christopher Nolan’s excellent and moving The Odyssey, a film inspired by Homer’s poem of that title. It is true that Nolan cast a black woman, Lupita Nyong’o, in the role of Helen of Troy, a Spartan queen who is not described as black …. It also is true that a transgender actor is cast in the role of Sinon, the Greek soldier who plays a critical role in the affair of the Trojan horse. The whiny little men who complain about these things for a living have made a few other minor objections. … Well, raise my rent. Christopher Nolan evidently has taken some artistic license in telling a story about men and women who never actually lived and the war they never actually fought as related by an ancient oral tradition attributed to Homer, a poet who (probably) did not exist.” (07/23/26)

https://thedispatch.com/article/odyssey-movie-nolan-fiction-zeus/

Source: Antiwar.com
by Jason Jones

“‘Our children are being indoctrinated,’ says Senator Ted Cruz after the latest poll showing young Americans’ growing opposition to the Israeli government (He carefully picked one with a forced binary choice between Israeli forces and Hamas – obscuring the general thrust of young people’s moral revulsion to Israel’s violence visible in numerous polls). Daily Wire influencer Jordan Peterson says he’s ‘sickened’ by the trend, which he flatly frames as ‘the rising tide of antisemitism.’ (He chose to make his case as a defense of ‘Judeo-Christian’ values, but in the same post quickly makes clear he is defending the literal state of Israel). … ‘Socrates is corrupting the youth of Athens!’ these Zionists might say, calling for the death of the Gadfly. But they’re about to learn it doesn’t pay to sentence Socrates to death.” (07/23/26)

https://original.antiwar.com/jason_jones/2026/07/22/zionists-are-about-to-learn-it-doesnt-pay-to-sentence-socrates-to-death/

Source: Washington Monthly
by Jon Marcus

“It seemed like a win-win: A proposal to let community colleges in Illinois award bachelor’s degrees in certain fields to rural residents and working adults who live beyond commuting distance of any four-year university. Backers, including Governor JB Pritzker, said the change would not only make things ‘easier and more affordable for students,’ but also increase the supply of workers with the skills employers need. But four-year universities lined up against the proposal. A political ally, flanked by several of their presidents, was blunt about why: It would cut into their business.” (07/23/26)

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/07/23/facing-political-attack-and-falling-enrollment-colleges-take-the-fight-to-each-other/