Source: Show-Me Institute
by Cory Koedel

“While it is unfortunate that the federal budget is off the rails, it is hard to get too worked up about this program when (a) it is a drop in the bucket compared to our broader fiscal problems, and (b) so much of our debt-financed spending benefits older Americans. If we’re going to keep borrowing, why not direct at least a small share toward expanding opportunities for children?” (07/16/26)

https://showmeinstitute.org/article/education/how-much-will-the-new-federal-scholarship-tax-credit-boost-school-choice-funding/

Source: The Bulwark
by Matt McManus

“For all its claims to represent the interests of the People, the far right sure doesn’t appear to like a lot of them. The movement’s list of enemies is so capacious it would put Richard Nixon’s to shame. Some days, it seems as though it encompasses most of the human race. You might wonder how to square this with the right’s commitment to tradition and order. How can a society be justly ordered if it has been set up to exclude most people? The answer is that much of the far right’s social vision is fundamentally volkisch: Homogeneity and unity are goals that override democratic inclusion, and this is where the movement’s resentful agonism comes from. ‘Resentful’ is a key term here: Anyone who has read or listened to the movement’s leading figures is familiar with the tone of endless aggrievement.” (07/16/26)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/whos-to-blame-ask-the-far-right-they-have-list

Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jackie Calmes

“There are plenteous reasons not to confirm [US attorney general nominee Todd] Blanche, as I’ve written. He’s the man behind the Epstein files cover-up, vindictive prosecutions of Trump enemies and Trump’s $10-billion lawsuit against the IRS, litigation that was purportedly ‘settled’ in exchange for a $1.8-billion slush fund for Jan. 6 rioters and tax immunity for the Trump family. This week a federal judge skewered that suit as having been filed for ‘improper purpose’: the president’s self-dealing.
On top of that sorry record, Blanche is the architect of Trump’s ICE impunity. … Conventional wisdom says that Republicans won’t vote against a man so close to Trump. But that’s exactly why Blanche should not lead the Justice Department. The people’s representatives in the Senate could see that he doesn’t.” (07/16/26)

https://archive.is/x2jJF

Source: Unherd
by Kat Rosenfield

“As a writer of murder mysteries, I often joke that making these stories believable requires making them profoundly unrealistic — simply because actual crimes and the investigation thereof have a way of being offensively uninspired. Readers want complex murder plots, twisted motives, a tough and passionate detective in dogged pursuit of a killer who is as brilliant as he is depraved. They do not want acts of impulsive violence committed by a guy with a room temperature IQ, one whose misdeeds are the product not of months of detail-oriented planning and plotting, but a single inauspicious moment in which he had a) a really bad idea and b) access to a gun. We think we want true stories; we don’t. We want good stories that just happen also to be true.” (07/16/26)

https://archive.is/jqMbJ

Source: The UnPopulist
by Shikha Dalmia

“What happens in America doesn’t stay in America—it reverberates around the world. American liberal democracy has never been perfect, but it was the best the world had. As the University of Hong Kong’s Alejandro Reyes noted last year, ‘For decades, U.S. democratic ideals—however flawed or inconsistently practiced—served as a global reference point. America’s constitutional architecture, civic pluralism, and free press, though deeply imperfect, represented a kind of aspirational horizon.’” (07/16/26)

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-world-needs-america-to-save-its

Source: Informed Comment
by Jerry Elsea

“The Founders knew the untamed frontier abounded with bullies. They also knew about felons and cheats. But you can bet they never imagined a devious, half-literate bully/lawbreaker/cheat could be elected president — not just once, but a second time (with a large plurality of voters approving) following a criminal conviction. … Still, the Founders apparently thought, any miscreant in office would be bound by constitutional restrictions. Here, from several sources, are the 10 things a president cannot do while in office. Trump has played hob with all of them.” (07/16/26)

https://www.juancole.com/2026/07/things-president-anyway.html