Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“US forces have struck another vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, [murdering] two people accused of trafficking drugs, the US military said on Monday, in the first attack announced in about two months. The death toll in the nearly year-long US campaign of bombing boats allegedly trafficking drugs now exceeds 210 after more than 60 strikes off Latin America’s Caribbean coast and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. … US President Donald Trump has said the US is in ‘armed conflict’ with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of [murdering] ‘narcoterrorists.'” (08/24/26)
https://archive.is/3PPkC
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on the sudden rise of opposition to data center construction on both the left and right.” (08/24/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/6029363-rising-august-24-2026/
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Carrie Robison
“When government officials threaten to sue and prosecute their constituents over speech, the public should get to see the evidence. Earlier this year, the City of Manton, Michigan, passed a vague resolution condemning what it alleged was ‘a deliberate, ongoing, and escalating campaign of cyberbullying, online harassment, and personal attacks directed at City Commissioners.’ Those so-called attacks included social media posts that allegedly contained ‘deliberate falsehoods’ or threats, or targeted commissioners in ‘an offensive personal manner.’ … It further stated the commission may direct the city attorney to explore legal remedies, including cease-and-desist letters, referring individuals to the county prosecutor for investigation, or bringing civil lawsuits. What were the social media posts that led commissioners to pass the resolution? We don’t know, because the city refuses to say, even after FIRE filed a public records request.” (08/24/26)
https://www.fire.org/news/michigan-city-threatened-critics-over-cyberbullying-now-its-hiding-evidence
Source: Investor’s Business Daily
“The bitcoin price continued its recent surge on Monday, touching a two-month high on news that the Treasury Department might conduct its own version of quantitative easing using its nearly $1 trillion general account. The rally got cooking with a burst of short-covering last Wednesday, when Treasury announced that it would at least double buybacks of long-term government bonds to stem a big rise in 10- and 30-year Treasury yields. … Strategy (MSTR) took advantage of last week’s favorable conditions for bitcoin and the cryptosphere to issue 18.26 million shares of MSTR stock, raising just over $2 billion in cash.” (08/24/26)
https://www.investors.com/news/bitcoin-price-bessent-treasury-general-account-strategy/
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“An important thinker was right about the friend-enemy distinction. A liberalism that can survive the twenty-first century must integrate some of his insights.” (08/24/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-nazi-had-a-point
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup
“The California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) is the largest teachers-only public pension system in the country, with more than $400 billion in assets under management. As of December 31, 2024, CalSTRS directly held three-quarters of a million shares of Target Corporation, worth more than $100 million. If one were to add in the Target holdings of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (the second and third-largest teachers-only plans in the country, respectively), then the total value of shares owned would jump by another $60-plus million. Add in the remaining state teacher retirement systems, plus the city systems of Chicago, Denver, Kansas City (Missouri), New York City, St. Louis, and St. Paul, and the total value of Target shares directly held by teacher pensions is well into the multiple hundreds of millions, at the very least.” (08/24/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/24/a-teachers-union-hits-the-wrong-target/
Source: Washington Post
“The Trump administration plans to charge employers seeking skilled foreign workers through the H-1B visa program a $103,265 fee, a proposed regulation posted on Monday said. Revenue from the fee would be used to run the legal immigration system, the document said, including funding for federal immigration courts and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. President Donald Trump’s administration argues that the H-1B program has been used to take jobs away from Americans and that the current system fails to prioritize the most exceptional foreign workers. Trump tried to implement a similar $100,000 fee last year through a presidential proclamation, but it was invalidated by a federal judge in June.” (08/24/26)
https://archive.is/mFVPb
Source: SFGate
“Iran’s currency hit a record low Monday as Washington prepared to announce new sanctions it said would put more pressure on an economy already battered by previous sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade. The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets. Iran’s official Central Bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rial to the dollar, but the market rate is what most Iranians pay. The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth. The rial has repeatedly hit new lows as nearly six months of war have taken an even greater toll. Iranians find daily staples increasingly unaffordable. Since the war began, rice is up some 60% and beef prices are more than 150% higher. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that gross domestic product will contract more than 5%.” (08/24/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/iran-s-rial-currency-hits-new-record-low-as-us-22400636.php
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“As Americans Suffer, Trump Picks A Senseless Fight With Canada.” (08/24/26)
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1dGYlaLdrjMKX
Source: The Dispatch
by Nathan Beacom
“Are there two different moralities for public and private life? For centuries, the mainstream answer in the Western tradition was no. For Aristotle, the Stoics, Cicero, Boethius, and the Scholastics, it was natural to think that those who held authority in a political community should have exceptional virtue. To be virtuous meant not just achieving good outcomes, but achieving them in the right way and for the right reasons. But later, a different answer emerged from the pen of Niccolò Machiavelli. The Italian diplomat reinvented virtue, not as a nobility of soul expressed in justice, prudence, and self-control, but as the ability to win, hold, and exercise power. To do this well, he wrote, the leader must have a flexible disposition and be willing to do evil in service of the state.” (08/24/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/machiavelli-aristotle-virtue-vice-republic/
