Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“If you want to sign up for a gym membership, you can make one click on its website and pay. But for many gyms, if you want to cancel, you have to go to the gym in person and find the right manager, or mail a form with a specific ask, or any of numerous other steps. The point is to make getting out of a subscription much harder than getting into it …. Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission reasonably suggested that canceling subscriptions should be as easy as signing up. They issued a rule called ‘click to cancel’ with that goal in mind. It was supposed to go into effect next week. But the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals put a stop to it, by ruling that if the FTC wanted to write a rule stopping people from having to go to the gym in person, it had to, rhetorically speaking, go to the gym in person.” (07/10/25)
https://prospect.org/justice/2025-07-10-anti-bureaucracy-measure-runs-into-bureaucracy-ftc-click-to-cancel/
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
“Everything You Need To Know About the U.S. / Israeli War With Iran (w/ Alastair Crooke).” (07/10/25)
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/everything-you-need-to-know-about
Source: The UnPopulist
by Jacob Grier
“But he is an embodiment of America’s essential goodness and promise.” (07/10/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/maga-pundits-are-triggered-that-superman
Source: CNBC
“A Catholic bishop in California has issued a rare decree allowing parishioners to miss Mass due to fears of raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bishop Alberto Rojas of the Diocese of San Bernardino wrote that ‘such fear constitutes a grave inconvenience that may impede the spiritual good of the faithful.’ Catholic bishops have occasionally granted Mass exemptions during natural disasters, war or societal events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. But this appears to be the first time a bishop has invoked such a decree over immigration enforcement. … For decades, American presidents have traditionally limited the authority of federal agencies to conduct civil immigration enforcement actions in sensitive locations like churches, hospitals and schools. President Donald Trump revoked these restrictions on his first day in office. Since then, federal immigration officials have [abducted] people suspected of being undocumented in schools and on church grounds.” (07/10/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/09/trump-catholic-bishop-san-bernadino-mass.html
Source: The Dispatch
“Apocalypse Now | Interview: Ross Douthat.” (07/10/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/apocalypse-now-interview-ross-douthat/
Source: Cobden Centre
by Alex J Pollock
“The US housing finance system is unique in the world by being dominated by the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. GSEs are a really poor and dangerous idea. By definition, they combine private ownership of their stock with special privileges, including most importantly a guarantee of their obligations by the government, i.e. the taxpayers. This guarantee is said to be only ‘implicit,’ but is fully real, as history demonstrates. It naturally leads to overexpansion of mortgage credit and inflation of house prices.” (07/10/25)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2025/07/after-50-years-of-us-government-sponsored-housing-finance-why-are-houses-so-unaffordable/
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Chris Menard
“American fascism didn’t descend a golden escalator. Just crack open the history book — if you’ve got the stomach for it. This nation was founded on blood, dispossession, and state-sanctioned terror. American exceptionalism was born of genocide, carried out by the so-called founding fathers and their successors in wave after wave of deliberate extermination. The Mystic Massacre, Sand Creek Massacre, and Sullivan Expedition weren’t isolated incidents — they were state policy. George Washington, lionized as a hero, ordered the destruction of Iroquois villages, burning crops and homes and leaving entire communities to starve and freeze.” (07/10/25)
https://c4ss.org/content/60516
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by James Borton & Sherry Chen
“While Washington sends speeches and militaries to Southeast Asia, Beijing shows up with money, projects, and people.” (07/10/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/china-us-soft-power/
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Former US Secretary of State John Kerry has told the BBC his fellow Democrats allowed the US-Mexico border to be ‘under siege’ during Joe Biden’s presidency. In sometimes sharp words, Kerry – who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and a US senator from Massachusetts – said he told Biden the party had ‘missed’ on the issue of immigration for years. He said this had allowed Republicans [sic] like Donald Trump to gain political advantage. The comments, made during an interview with BBC special correspondent James Naughtie, underscore an ongoing debate within his party over whether their pro-immigration [sic] policies cost them in recent elections.” [editor’s note: Trump is a life-long progressive Democrat whose immigration policies are the Democratic Party’s on steroids – TLK] (07/10/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4wk52rwqpo
Source: ABC News
“A Colombian soldier was killed and two others wounded Wednesday when explosives carried by a mule exploded in rural northeastern Colombia, authorities said. Antioquia Gov. Andrés Julián Rendón confirmed the soldier’s death and blamed the National Liberation Army (ELN), a group of about 6,000 fighters that is still fighting Colombia’s government. Rendón said ‘an equine armed with explosives’ targeted soldiers patrolling near Valdivia. The army later confirmed the animal was a mule and condemned ‘the cruel and macabre use of animals to carry out terrorism.'” (07/10/25)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/colombian-soldier-killed-2-wounded-attack-explosives-laden-123632747
