Source: Washington Post
by Daniel A Witt

“Here’s a not uncommon situation confronted by tax attorneys and advisers: A U.S. citizen is suddenly, perhaps unexpectedly, elevated to a CEO position. And that CEO holds dual citizenship in a country with which the United States does not have a bilateral tax treaty. To complicate the situation, the company’s headquarters — or siège social, in international law — are in a third country with which the United States also does not have a bilateral tax treaty. I’m referring, if you haven’t already guessed, to Pope Leo XIV. He is an American citizen and a citizen of Peru. He is now also head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign nation. That’s a complicated tax posture under any circumstances. … absent some relief, His Holiness could spend next April 15 finishing a Form 1040. (One can only imagine the issues with valuing the Apostolic Palace as a fringe benefit or parsonage allowance.)” (07/10/25)

https://archive.is/a7UKC

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“The spectacular fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk over the Big Beautiful Bill in particular (but deficit spending and debt accumulation in general) promises political watchers a big, ugly brawl.
Now, billionaire Musk appears to be serious about his proposed ‘third party,’ the ‘America Party.’ A name perfectly designed to ruffle Trumpian feathers. It might steal some of the thunder of ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again.’ The president mocks the notion, saying that third parties ‘have never succeeded in the United States.’ Well, that is not exactly true. For a long time, it was second parties that had problems.” (07/10/25)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/07/10/upstart/

Source: Liberal Currents
by Matthew McManus

“Rawls the Good oftentimes seems like a nice way of saying Rawls the boring. For a figure said to have reinvigorated English speaking political philosophy (the word was once political philosophy wholesale) it can be hard to figure out why upon first reading Theory of Justice. Rawls'[s] style is technical, hyper-academic, and dull. At 600 pages even dedicated Rawlsians often admit to tedium going through his opus. … So goes the conventional wisdom around Rawls critiques. The accumulated effect is to induce starry-eyed wonder that his work could ever provoke so much attention. And yet like so much conventional wisdom relayed to undergraduates, much of it is wrong.” (07/10/25)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/rawls-in-the-streets/

Source: Cato Institute
by Scott Lincicome

“For today’s purposes, I’ll avoid the obvious Soviet breadline jokes and even ignore that — per the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney — Mamdani appears to have embarrassingly botched how the city would pay for his experiment. (Insert even more commie jokes here.) His eagerness to pursue the system once in office is also somewhat unclear. Yet the grocery proposal remains noteworthy both for its massive weaknesses and what it says about those still championing it today. In that sense, Mamdani’s grocery plan is a classic example of a statist hammer — and in this case sickle (sorry I couldn’t resist just one) — in search of a ‘market failure’ nail.” (07/10/25)

https://www.cato.org/commentary/state-run-supermarkets-bad-statist-solution-search-problem