Andy Burnham Takes the Stage

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott

“On July 20, Andy Burnham attended Buckingham Palace, where King Charles III invited him to form a government—making him Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade. Burnham is nicknamed ‘the King of the North,’ inspired by the Game of Thrones series and also speaks to his extremely popular tenure as mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. As a politician, he reflects all of the establishment’s trusted elements and very little of its baggage. Having served as a minister in Blair’s government and won three landslide re-elections since becoming Manchester’s mayor, Burnham has managed to avoid the scandals associated with the Labour Party of the last two decades while building a prominent personal brand—and has cast a shadow over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership as a result.” (07/24/26)

https://fee.org/articles/andy-burnham-takes-the-stage/

The New Vandals

Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Elrod

“Complaints about Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ are mainly complaints about what does and doesn’t count as Western, as manly, and as heroic art. And those complaints are about maintaining a highly circumscribed and prejudiced boundary of American identity downstream of a facile, vulgar conception of the ancient ‘West.’ It’s worth stressing—if, somehow, it hasn’t been stressed enough—that many of America’s right-wing nationalists view the United States as a culmination of a fancifully idealized Western culture. … what matters more here is who is seen as capable of making history. It’s certainly not women, and it’s absolutely not non-whites.” (07/25/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-new-vandals/

Germany: Suspect in deadly Berlin Pride attack is killed in confrontation with police

Source: Associated Press

“The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said. Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. Prosecutors said he had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group. Ballout was suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival Saturday night before apparently stabbing others with a machete in what authorities believe was an Islamic extremist terror attack.” (07/26/26)

https://apnews.com/article/germany-berlin-lgbtq-pride-parade-van-ramming-3ba5e3f1becffd0da5f47b29aa08da9d

Our Currency Icons and America’s National Character

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Charles Goyette

“In what is the monetary equivalent of tearing down statues, the British have decided they must replace iconic images on their currency. Out of an apparent fear of offending the stampede of human beings who have chosen to abandon their own homelands to live in Great Britain, the historic images on British currency of people instrumental in making that nation what it is, have been forced to yield to images of animals. Foxes, badgers, and hedgehogs are in the ascendency. Our problem in the United States is somewhat different. It appears that the iconography of our currency will be made to climax in images of Donald Trump.” (07/24/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/our-currency-icons-and-americas-national-character/

The Manufactured “Bipartisan” Push for an AI Kill Switch

Source: American Greatness
by Jordan Schachtel

“The AI Kill Switch Act, introduced Thursday by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), seeks to hand the government unprecedented authority to order private companies to throttle, suspend, or shut down products in “kill switch” fashion, purely on their own arbitrary determination, with fines up to $20 million a day. Behind this carefully staged rollout is a fanatical coalition that looks like a broad consensus, but it is mostly one funding network with an arsenal of astroturf organizations at its disposal.” (07/24/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/07/24/the-manufactured-bipartisan-push-for-an-ai-kill-switch/

OpenAI launches health bot a day after frivolous lawsuit says ChatGPT advice hospitalized a man

Source: SFGate

“Scott Winters was having dizzy spells but decided not to see a doctor after ChatGPT told him it would take several more serious episodes before he would need care. Instead, it recommended he lounge in a recliner. But weeks later, Winters would find himself being wheeled into an emergency room, convulsing and slipping in and out of consciousness, suffering from multiple blood clots in his lungs. … Winters is now suing ChatGPT maker OpenAI for not only providing unlicensed medical advice but also actively discouraging Winters from seeing a doctor. … Just one day after Winters filed his complaint, the company publicly released ChatGPT Health, a model based on a later version of ChatGPT, designed to interpret intimate medical records and give users health guidance.” (07/25/26)

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/chatgpt-health-lawsuit-22359513.php