Source: The Daily Economy
by Peter C Earle

“By any serious measure, and certainly by every economic metric, the claim that the United States has been ‘ripped off’ or ‘mistreated’ by its trading partners over the past several decades is incoherent. The rhetorical scaffolding upon which the Trump administration’s protectionist tariff regime rests is a fundamentally flawed understanding of international trade. It substitutes a mercantilist worldview — discredited since the eighteenth century — for evidence-based economic policy, and in so doing risks sabotaging the very system that has helped drive US prosperity, innovation, and leadership in global commerce.” (07/18/25)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/no-we-werent-ripped-off-debunking-the-myth-of-trade-victimhood/

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“On January 20, it was reasonable to suggest that the legislative output of Donald Trump’s second term would be as thin as the first, primarily due to the unwieldiness of the Republican coalition. The recent history of the House of Representatives suggested total dysfunction; they couldn’t even keep a Speaker for an entire term. House Democrats provided deciding votes for essentially all the major bills in 2023-2024, amid splits between mainstream Republicans and the House Freedom Caucus. For a while, it seemed like Trump was operating on the principle that Congress was not worth dealing with. He could rule through edicts and executive orders and never trifle with the need to pass laws. The Supreme Court was all too willing to give whatever he scribbled on paper the force of law, anyway, so why bother with Capitol Hill.” (07/18/25)

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-07-18-crypto-week-revealed-dittohead-congress/

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Stavroula Pabst

“President Trump announced a new arms deal for Ukraine this week, which includes sought after Patriot missiles. The Europeans, via NATO, will reportedly pay for the deal. Indeed, energized by Trump’s apparent change-of-heart toward Ukraine aid, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, reportedly Europe’s ringleader for the weapons deal, have lauded the plan. But it doesn’t appear that all NATO countries are on board as France, Italy and the Czech Republic have signaled outright that they would prefer not to help.” (07/18/25)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-war-2673352952/

Source: Law & Liberty
by Allen Mendenhall

“Death came to Edgar Allan Poe much as it had to the doomed characters who haunted his tales of the grotesque: strangely, symbolically, and shrouded in ambiguity. It is fitting that we should begin there, in that Baltimore setting where the mystery still clings like fog to the facts. ‘The subject [of Poe’s death] is famously fraught,’ writes Richard Kopley. Within that careful academic phrase lies the whole terrible admission of our inability to grasp the ultimate meaning of a man who lived always at the edge of meaning itself.” (07/18/25)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/between-chaos-and-order/