Source: The Pamphleteer
by Jerod Ra’del Hollyfield
“From $9 billion budget cuts under debate in Congress to the Epstein brouhaha, the first full week after July 4th was stuffed to the brim with newsworthy items. But in pockets of the internet, large and small, the only real story was James Gunn’s new Superman movie. Some folks bristled at Gunn’s red carpet sound bite that Superman was obviously an immigrant. Others rolled their eyes at yet another reboot of a franchise long troubled by its central figure’s perfection. Regardless, the online world’s loudest influencers quickly reached consensus. For them, Gunn’s take ranked somewhere between ‘not good’ and terrible. Never mind that the movie won over most critics and has a nearly perfect Rotten Tomatoes audience score while grossing more than $125 million its opening weekend. Only their opinions mattered.” (07/18/25)
https://pamphleteer.co/post/superman-isnt-the-problem/
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“Investigators on Friday raided the headquarters of the Unification Church in South Korea as part of a widening corruption inquiry involving former first lady Kim Keon-hee, marking another setback for the controversial religious group following the assassination of Japan’s ex-leader Shinzo Abe in 2023. Armed with court-issued warrants, a special prosecutor’s team searched the church’s main compound in Gapyeong, northeast of Seoul, and its Seoul branch office. … Investigators seized documents, computer files and other suspected evidence related to allegations that the church bribed Kim shortly after her husband, Yoon Suk-yeol, was elected president in March 2022 on a platform of ‘fairness and common sense.’ Among the key accusations is that former senior church official Yoon Young-ho gave luxury items – including Chanel handbags and a diamond necklace – to a broker who promised to deliver them to Kim between April and August 2022.” (07/19/25)
https://archive.is/txDhD
Source: Aaron Ross Powell
“Liberalism’s Radical Future (w/ Andy Craig).” (07/18/25)
https://shows.acast.com/reimagining-liberty/episodes/687a41e8b93bd5454d1ccc82
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Anti‑immigration protests have taken place in dozens of towns and cities across Poland. Most demonstrations attracted several hundred people or fewer on Saturday — but police estimated that about 3,000 took part in the largest rally in the southern city of Katowice. The protests were organised by far-right political group Konfederacja, and another nationalist organisation. Politicians from Konfederacja and the opposition Law and Justice party have been warning about a flood of illegal migration in Poland — but official figures do not support their claims. ‘Without closing Poland to illegal immigration, without starting deportation campaigns, without abandoning political correctness … security will gradually deteriorate,’ Konfederacja co-chairman Krzysztof Bosak told the crowd in the eastern city of Bialystok. A minute’s silence was held at some gatherings in memory of a 24-year-old Polish woman murdered in the central city of Torun.” (07/19/25)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce37r27x27po
Source: The Weekly Dish
by Andrew Sullivan
“Well: not so much a miracle as proof that liberal democracy and pragmatism work.” (07/18/25)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-crime-reduction-miracle-f3b
Source: Common Dreams
by Jeff Cohen
“When media critic A.J. Liebling wrote in The New Yorker 65 years ago that ‘freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one,’ he might have glimpsed a media system dangerously dominated by a small number of companies. But it’s unlikely he could have foreseen a president as authoritarian as Donald Trump, and media conglomerates eager to capitulate to him. Thanks to the Paramount conglomerate and its greed-fueled boss, Shari Redstone, the ‘Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ will vanish next year. After the Trump administration responds by approving the Paramount merger with Skydance, Redstone will be roughly $2 billion richer than she is today, and Paramount/CBS may become even more Trump-friendly.” (07/19/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/colbert-cancellation-trump
Source: US News & World Report
“Edwin Feulner, founder and longtime president of the influential U.S. conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, has died at age 83, Heritage said in a statement. The Friday statement did not say when Feulner died or the cause. Feulner, a Chicago-born political scientist, founded Heritage in 1973 and became its president in 1977, a position he held until 2013. Republican President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal in 1989. … Heritage continues to deeply impact American conservatism — including being the institution that created Project 2025, widely considered the policy blueprint of President Donald Trump’s quick-moving second term.” (07/19/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-07-19/heritage-foundation-founder-feulner-dies-at-83
Source: Reason
“Yale’s Jacob Hacker and Sesame’s David Goldhill debate a government-run health insurance plan.” (07/18/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/07/18/should-the-u-s-have-a-public-health-insurance-plan/
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“Growing up, my family developed a tradition of playing spades …. Every now and then, I would get a hand that made me think ‘wow – what are the odds of getting a hand like this?’ And then I’d (usually) catch myself and remind myself that the odds of my getting this particular mix of 13 cards are exactly the same as any other mix of 13 cards. Why did I have this reaction to some hands, but not others (or even most? … If I told you ‘The odds of X happening to you are approximately 1 in 635 billion,’ you might reasonably conclude that you can be near-certain that X will never occur in your lifetime. And yet, every time you are dealt a hand in spades, something with a 1 in 635 billion chance occurs. Massively improbable occurrences happen all the time — but we mostly don’t notice them.” (07/18/25)
https://www.econlib.org/selective-coincidences
Source: The UnPopulist
by Linda Chavez
“Americans take for granted that even if a person is convicted of a crime, he or she cannot be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, much less torture. Nor can anyone be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. These rights are guaranteed by the Eighth, Fifth, and 14th Amendments. They apply to all persons in the U.S. — including undocumented immigrants, as the Supreme Court has reaffirmed …. So how is it that these eight men now find themselves, not just deported to a country they have no ties to (again, only one is South Sudanese), with little or no meaningful opportunity to legally challenge their removal, but to a country experiencing one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the world? And why would the Supreme Court so summarily lift a lower court order temporarily barring their removal, not once but twice?” (07/18/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-conservative-supreme-courts-decision
