Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“Despite the surface-level rhetoric used by all sides, the growing popularity of ‘socialism’ or ‘populism’ is primarily a non-ideological phenomenon. That becomes obvious if we look back in time. Because there was a period in the early twentieth century when the intellectual battle between advocates of socialism and capitalism was as rigorous and intellectual as many like to pretend it still is.” (07/08/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/country-having-its-socialist-moment
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Edward Hasbrouck
“A military mobilization exercise offers clues about who might be drafted for what sort of conflict (hint: US-China).” (07/08/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/war-draft-selective-service/
Source: Politico
“U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was cutting off trade with Spain over defense spending — reviving a long-running feud between Washington and Madrid. ‘I didn’t speak to Spain. Spain is a wasted cause. We don’t want to do any trade business with Spain anymore,’ he told reporters ahead of a meeting with fellow NATO leaders in Ankara. ‘By the way, I’d like you to cut it off,’ he added, appearing to address U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. … However, it’s unclear how Trump’s idea would work as Spain is a member of the EU, which is in charge of trade policy for all of its member countries.” (07/08/26)
https://archive.is/2YHxC
Source: The Fifth Column
“Are We the Baddies? The Graham Platner Reckoning (w/ Kat Rosenfield).” (07/07/26)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/are-we-the-baddies-the-graham-platner
Source: Checks & Balances
by Gary J Simson
“Rather than trying to neutralize the partisan results of a politicized appointment process, the Democrats would have done well to focus on depoliticizing the process that produced those partisan results. Court expansion threatens to make the process even more political, and although term limits – the other possible Supreme Court reform featured in a report commissioned by President Biden early in his term – is unlikely to make the process any more political, there’s no reason to expect it to make the process any less. A third possibility, however, holds a great deal of potential in this regard: Change the proportion of senators needed to confirm a Supreme Court nominee from a simple majority to two-thirds.” (07/07/26)
https://chkbal.substack.com/p/a-nonpartisan-cure-for-a-partisan
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Scott brings Kyle Anzalone on the show to run through where things stand with the fighting in Lebanon, the talks between the US and Iran, the flare-up between the Houthis and the Saudis, the unending suffering of the people of Gaza and more.” (07/07/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/7-3-26-kyle-anzalone-on-where-things-actually-stand-in-the-middle-east/
Source: New York Post
by Ken Girardin
“As temperatures hit 100 degrees last week, New York City’s unconventional mayor did something pretty conventional: He urged people to use less electricity. But when Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged residents to set their air conditioners to 78 degrees (a past practice of both Democrats and Republicans alike), he revealed something far more harmful than the heat index: how much Albany’s policies have driven New York City’s power grid to the point of collapse. Several factors are at play every summer. About 90% of homes today have air conditioning; as recently as the 1980s, most didn’t. Portions of the electric system are extremely old by national standards, and the sheer physics of generating and distributing the appropriate voltage and amperage to every corner of such a dense and diverse cityscape borders on the miraculous.” (07/08/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/07/08/opinion/mamdanis-ac-warning-accidentally-revealed-a-problem-he-helped-cause/
Source: Fox News
“A Brazilian court has sentenced a couple to 50 days in prison for ‘intellectual neglect’ after they homeschooled their two daughters without a state-approved curriculum. A São Paulo criminal court ruled against Audato and Ieda Denardi, alleging they had failed to include programs on ‘gender and sex education’ and ‘tolerance and diversity’ in the curriculum for their daughters, aged 15 and 11, Alliance Defending Freedom (‘ADF’) International said. According to the legal group, the court also ruled that the parents failed to properly integrate their children into Brazilian culture, citing the girls’ preference for religious and classical music over popular trap or ‘sertanejo’ (folk) music. Isabel Monteiro, the defense attorney representing the family, said the judge made an ‘ideological decision to convict them’ based largely on the older daughter’s preference for sacred music over mainstream music that often features explicit lyrics.” (07/08/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/media/brazil-parents-face-prison-sentence-homeschooling-court-accuses-intellectual-neglect
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Jillian C York & Corynne McSherry
“Six years ago—one month into a global pandemic—we argued that the automated moderation processes many platforms were rapidly adopting should be highly transparent, easily appealable, and temporary. We warned that ‘protocols adopted in times of crisis often persist when the crisis is over.’ That warning proved prescient. The use of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify, flag, and moderate content has become the new norm—a permanent feature of how platforms govern speech online. In this two part series, we’re take stock of this new norm, and considering what platforms can and should do to ensure that AI serves online expression rather than stifling it.” (07/07/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/part-1-automated-moderation-here-stay
Source: CounterPunch
by Peter Bach
“As I travelled on the London Tube to meet CounterPunch writer and esteemed art historian Stephen Eisenham, I read journalist Owen Matthews suggesting Putin ‘lives in a parallel reality, a sealed bubble of disinformation where all the data he receives confirms the wisdom of his choices.’ It got me wondering what else on leaders and protected bubbles was out there. Did it include Donald Trump? It’s called echo chambers, information cocooning, courtier syndrome. Some political scientists call it the ‘dictator’s dilemma’: rulers depending on information from below, while their own power discourages uncomfortable truths.” (07/08/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/07/08/the-dictators-dilemma/
