Source: Washington Post
by Julia Cartwright
“On June 16, 1989, a bearded 26-year-old stood before a quarter million Hungarians in Budapest and demanded that Soviet troops leave his country. His fearless call for free elections helped bring down communism in Hungary. The young firebrand was Viktor Orban. Twenty-five years later, he proudly announced he was building an ‘illiberal state.’ What happened in between is a microcosm of what has happened to liberal democracy itself. That story gives Daron Acemoglu’s new book ‘What Happened to Liberal Democracy?’ its urgency.” (08/11/26)
https://archive.is/iEoeW
Source: New York Post
by Karol Markowicz
“Remember the early 2020s when cancel culture ran rampant, defunding police was a standard position on the left and we were all supposed to fall in line with their bad ideas, or else? Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants us to pretend it all went away. AOC took to ‘This Week with Jonathan Karl’ on ABC to defend Francesca Hong, the latest Democratic Socialist star, running for governor of Wisconsin. In 2020, Hong said Thanksgiving should be canceled, claiming it’s ‘a time that’s incredibly painful for people’ in her community. Now that she wants to get elected, Hong suddenly called Thanksgiving her ‘favorite holiday’. AOC argued that Hong has ‘moved away’ from some of her more controversial positions then giggled that she agreed with NYC Councilman Chi Ossé, who had said, ‘Woke 1 was crazyyyy’. Tee-hee, woke 1, you guys!” (08/10/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/08/10/opinion/lefties-like-aoc-need-to-answer-some-questions-before-we-move-on-from-woke-1/
Source: Reuters
“Four crew members were killed in an attack by Iran-backed Houthis on a small cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Tuesday, Yemen’s [Saudi puppet] transport ministry said, while sources reported a missile attack on a container ship off Pakistan in a suspected U.S. strike. The fatalities aboard the Egyptian-owned Tihamah, if confirmed, would mark the first deaths in a Houthi strike on shipping since the Iran war began on February 28. The Houthis have not claimed the attack. Three Pakistanis and one Indonesian were killed, the Yemeni [Saudi puppet] ministry said, adding the crew lost control of the vessel after being attacked. Three coastguard personnel were injured after being targeted by a drone while trying to rescue the crew, Yemeni military sources said. The Houthis declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea on July 20 in response to what they described as a Saudi siege.” (08/11/26)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/three-killed-attacks-ships-red-sea-gulf-sources-say-2026-08-11/
Source: Parallax Views w/ JG Michael
“Inside Israel’s Big-Budget Campaign of Direct Foreign Influence w/ Nick Cleveland-Stout.” (08/11/26)
https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/stout8-1-26/
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“If a regulator struggles to decide whether a live transmission on YouTube should be considered ‘television,’ the real problem may not be the platform, but the rules and the state’s insistence on continuing to apply them.” (08/11/26)
https://fee.org/articles/when-20th-century-regulations-meet-21st-century-streaming/
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley
“We have previously discussed how many professors seem to compete in finding new forms of racism in every facet of society and education. Astrophysics, math, runoffs, science, statistics, and meritocracy have all been denounced as racist. In this academic cottage industry, professors secure publications and speaking opportunities by identifying racism in expressions, images, or entire fields. Even time itself has been declared racist. Now, however, academics have found another undiscovered continent of white privilege: niceness. When I saw a story in The College Fix on a study of ‘niceness as Whiteness,’ I was skeptical and decided to take a look.” (08/11/26)
https://jonathanturley.org/2026/08/11/niceness-as-whiteness-professors-denounce-niceness-as-perpetuating-white-privilege/
Source: NBC News
“Luigi Mangione appeared in a New York courtroom Tuesday where plans were nearly finalized for his state murder trial next month, including the judge’s ruling that the jury of Manhattan residents will be anonymous. Mangione, 28, has pleaded not guilty to several state charges in connection with the December 2024 fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the New York Hilton Midtown. … Carro also said there would be expanded media and public access to the trial. After fielding complaints from Mangione’s defense team about potential space limitations, court administrators arranged for an overflow room.” [editor’s note: If the jurors’ identities aren’t known the the public, how can the public know the jury wasn’t stacked? – TLK] (08/11/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/luigi-mangione-returns-court-less-month-state-trial-rcna591890
Source: The UnPopulist
by Joshua Reed Eakle
“In the contemporary imagination, liberalism means different things to different people. To some on the left, it means a set of deceptive platitudes masking an eventual, inevitable collaboration with fascists. To those on the populist right, it stands for out-of-touch technocracy, woke identity politics, and globalization hollowing out rural and industrial America. To many less ideological voters, it simply stands for the status quo and existing institutions—a status quo that many believe, or can be convinced to believe, is just not working for them. What liberalism isn’t, for the most part, is appealing. Liberalism is in peril not because of philosophical defects or better available alternatives, but because liberals have too often struggled to make liberalism seem attractive, compelling, and exciting.” (08/11/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-case-for-a-liberalism-that-dares
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Keeping pace with new developments in the world of social media and artificial intelligence is no easy task. Almost as challenging is keeping up with the slew of regulatory, judicial, and civil society actions seeking greater transparency from Big Tech into the design parameters, data extraction, and internal research behind social media apps used extensively by children and adolescents. Last Wednesday, a U.S. Senate committee unanimously advanced the Kids Online Safety Act, which would mandate default privacy settings and require ‘reasonable care’ when designing platforms to minimize potential harm to minors. The next day, a New Mexico court fined Meta $567 million to address harms it knowingly caused to young people through design features of its Facebook and Instagram platforms. The range of recent and pending laws and legal actions is notable for a few key reasons.” (08/10/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0810/Young-people-bid-for-online-agency
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday approved former supreme court chief Andras Baka, a critic of Viktor Orban who was fired during the ex-premier’s time in power, as the country’s next head of state. The post became vacant following the contested removal last month of the previous president, an Orban ally, as pro-EU conservative Prime Minister Peter Magyar pushes to loosen his predecessor’s lingering hold over state institutions. Parliament, where the ruling Tisza party holds a two-thirds majority, elected Baka – who served 17 years as a judge on the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) – with 140 votes in favour and six votes against. Tisza on Saturday nominated Baka, 73, for the largely ceremonial role.” (08/11/26)
https://archive.is/YuGSf
