Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Johan Wennstrom

“This summer the Pentagon handed NATO members a questionnaire asking whether they support in part, ‘U.S. foreign policy priorities.’ Dubbed a ‘loyalty test’ in the press, it was seen by many Europeans as the most recent sign that the alliance is coming apart because of American petulance. Yet what is actually happening is that the U.S. is putting stress on an inherently flawed and now exhausted form of alliance politics. The roots of the present discord were planted not in the 2024 reelection of President Donald Trump, but in the moment of NATO’s Cold War triumph thirty years earlier. Indeed, one of the more puzzling developments after the dissolution of both the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was the conviction of Western leaders that the time was ripe for new, grand projects of expansion and integration.” (09/03/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/nato-europe-trump/

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“Today in dystopia, war pundits have begun suggesting that the US could recruit sufficient troops for a ground invasion of Iran by offering young Americans debt forgiveness in exchange for enlisting. I guess it was only a matter of time. … In a Twitter essay on the same subject published earlier this month, AJ Jaff used more blunt language: ‘When the choice is decades chained to $45,000+ in debt, or a few years of service that erases it and hands you a clean start, a huge share of desperate young people will take the offer. Not because they ‘support the war’. Because the debt was engineered into a cage, and service is the ONLY door out.'” (09/03/26)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/09/03/hey-americans-escape-debt-by-going-to-war-with-iran/

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“Good news for housing-hungry Californians: A new development in Orange County was approved in May. The bad news: Approval took almost 50 years. The Saddleback Meadows project in Trabuco Canyon, California, first appeared on the Orange County supervisors’ agenda in 1978—when your favorite correspondent, who passed the eligibility age for unrestricted AARP membership a few years back, was in kindergarten. As my Competitive Enterprise Institute colleague Steve Swedberg points out, most projects do not undergo such incredible delays, but the ordinary approval process is enough to add almost $40,000 to the cost of building an average new home—not only in California but across the United States.” (09/03/26)

https://thedispatch.com/article/california-housing-market-subsidies/

Source: Niskanen Center
by Sylvia Bryan

“When the Council of the District of Columbia finalized its version of the municipal FY2027 budget, it set the city on a path toward a troubling milestone: As of October 1, D.C. will become the first jurisdiction in the country to implement cuts to paid family and medical leave (PFML). A majority of the program’s dedicated payroll tax revenue, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, will be diverted to unrelated expenditures. Meanwhile, the maximum weekly benefit will be decreased for all PFML categories, the maximum leave duration will be reduced for some, and D.C. will continue collecting the program’s dedicated payroll tax at a rate of 0.75 percent.” (09/03/26)

https://www.niskanencenter.org/d-c-s-paid-family-leave-cuts-take-the-trust-out-of-trust-fund

Source: Law & Liberty
by Sary Levy-Carciente

“In contemporary political economy, it is sometimes helpful to draw a distinction between a Proper State and an Improper State. The distinction tracks the relationship of the state’s public sector apparatuses to the productivity and fiscal consent of its citizenry. When a state is properly accountable to its citizens, it uses taxpayer revenue to support functions that the people broadly approve. If that traditional bond of institutional accountability is severed, a more pathological configuration materializes wherein the state operates independently, decoupling its structural survival from the prosperity of its people. The improper state maintains its power with two primary tools: narrative and institutional control.” (09/03/26)

https://lawliberty.org/the-benevolent-smokescreen/

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
by Marj Halperin

“Raise your hand if you have affordable, accessible healthcare. Anyone? Yeah, that’s what I thought. With independent studies showing that close to half of all Americans struggle to afford healthcare, I expect I got the rest of you with the addition of the word ‘accessible.’ That’s because, while rising costs are a barrier for too many, even those who can afford comprehensive health insurance are finding money can’t buy you a timely appointment with most doctors.” (09/03/26)

https://triblive.com/opinion/marj-halperin-healthcare-is-more-badly-broken-than-political-leaders-admit/