Source: Antiwar.com
by Ray McGovern
“It has been clear since the Alaska summit that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have come to an overall agreement on Ukraine and that it is now being fleshed out in plain sight. And both are acutely aware of the many forces wishing to sabotage moves toward a negotiated settlement. They have agreed to call it ‘Biden’s war’ and then to conduct themselves as though they have bigger fish to fry – first and foremost improving U.S.-Russia relations. … The shared, overriding objective to improve bilateral ties came through clearly both at the summit on Friday and at the ‘March of the Gnomes’ on Monday when seven European leaders arrived at the White House to back Volodymyr Zelensky (no offense to garden gnomes – or dwarfs).” (08/21/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2025/08/20/trump-the-seven-dwarfs/
Source: Common Dreams
by Les Leopold
“Isn’t it wiping out our jobs, stealing our creativity, blurring fact and fiction with deep fakes, and pushing us into a dystopian future that will suck the humanity out of us all? Are we doomed? For historian Yuval Harari and would-be politician Andrew Yang, AI will create self-driving trucks that will decimate the working-class. Peter Truchin, the mathematical historian, seriously imagines a future in which AI robots are used to colonize asteroids with new weapons that will allow a few powerful men, or maybe just one, to rule the universe. While inflammatory prognosticators predict that hundreds of millions of jobs will be gobbled up by AI, only 10,000 jobs were cut due to AI in the first seven months of 2025. That sure-to-be-slaughtered trucking industry is expected to experience an 11 percent total increase, not decrease, in truck drivers through 2030.” (08/21/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/ai-4-day-work-week
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Members and backers of Tunisia’s largest trade union rallied Thursday in support of the organisation, which has faced mounting pressure from President Kais Saied. It was the largest demonstration Tunisia has seen in recent months, coinciding with what rights groups have denounced as a rollback of freedoms in the birthplace of the Arab Spring. The Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) – part of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize-winning ‘national dialogue quartet’ – remains an influential counterweight to Saied, who has jailed many of his critics since a sweeping 2021 power grab.” (08/21/25)
https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20250821-tunisians-rally-in-support-of-embattled-trade-union-amid-government-clampdown
Source: Gracearchy with Jim Babka
“Speaker Johnson Will Not Be Raptured Pt 1.” (08/20/25)
https://rumble.com/v6xpzj2-ep137-speaker-johnson-will-not-be-raptured-pt-1-gracearchy-with-jim-babka.html
Source: Law & Liberty
by James R Rogers
“Whether anachronistic or not, why might we care what anyone opined about textualism over 750 years ago? As an initial matter, due to Aquinas’s continued visibility, commentators and scholars arguing about textualism often invoke Aquinas to support their views. Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer cites Aquinas in his recent book for the claim that judges have asked ‘purpose-oriented questions’ when interpreting laws ‘for hundreds if not thousands of years.’ So, too, Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule invokes Aquinas in his book Common Good Constitutionalism, distinguishing a classical version of textualism, which he identifies with Aquinas, from what he styles as the modern textualism of Justice Scalia and textualist justices currently on the Supreme Court.” (08/21/25)
https://lawliberty.org/aquinass-defense-of-textualism/
Source: Washington Post
by Gary Winslett
“By now, you’ve probably heard about the weight-loss benefits of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic (semaglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide), but scientists are still discovering that they have all kinds of other benefits too: They help prevent strokes and heart attacks, fight kidney disease and Parkinson’s, curb addiction, and lower risks for several particularly nasty cancers. At this rate, just about every American will have some condition or risk factor that makes these drugs look appealing in their lifetime. And when that day comes, they should be able to get it. Universal access to GLP-1s should be the explicit goal of our federal government. This is not some left-wing fantasy; it’s a smart economic policy.” (08/21/25)
https://archive.is/cOXpE
Source: SFGate
“Republican Rep. Chip Roy, an outspoken fiscal conservative known for his willingness to challenge party leadership, announced Thursday that he is running for Texas attorney general. Now in his fourth term, Roy is a prominent member of the House Freedom Caucus, a hard-line conservative faction that wields outsize influence in the narrowly divided House. He was a central player this summer in the negotiations around President Donald Trump’s big tax bill. But the lawmaker’s relationship with Trump has been complicated at times as one of the few Republicans who initially pushed back against Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Roy enters an increasingly crowded Republican primary field to succeed Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is challenging Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary next year.” (08/21/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/rep-chip-roy-an-outspoken-fiscal-conservative-20827608.php
Source: Politico
“Vance’s big, beautiful sales job.” (08/21/25)
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/POLL2763341791.mp3?updated=1755753072
Source: The American Conservative
by Doug Bandow
“The conflict is a tragedy. Ukraine is suffering greatly, and Moscow is in the wrong. However, blame is shared by the U.S. and Europeans, who did much to turn Russia into an enemy, violating a multitude of assurances to Moscow not to expand NATO. Waging an illegal and aggressive war on Yugoslavia/Serbia, a historic interest of Moscow, over Kosovo was another factor, causing ‘irreparable damage … to Russian perception of NATO,’ according to historian Vladimir Brovkin. Although allied perfidy did not justify Russian aggression, the former helps explain the latter. In any case, Washington should not issue security guarantees against nuclear-armed Russia.” (08/21/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-should-keep-the-u-s-out-of-any-future-ukraine-war/
Source: Niskanen Center
by Jessie Goodman
“State policymakers must carefully manage benefit spending and tax revenue to keep Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs financially stable. UI benefits help workers and their families stay afloat while they search for suitable work, but it’s difficult to maintain robust benefits without comparable tax contributions. Unless lawmakers proactively update tax contribution rules, the risk of program insolvency grows.” (08/20/25)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/iowas-recent-unemployment-insurance-reforms-may-undermine-program-solvency/
