Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko

“There has long been an important and consequential discussion about the proper, constitutional role of police, the proper, constitutional role of the military, and the ramifications of blurring the lines between the two. In many ways, it’s a debate that dates back to the founding era, when British soldiers stationed in the streets of colonial American cities — Boston in particular — led to animosity, anger, and eventually violence. It was a precipitating factor in the Revolutionary War, it’s a big reason why we have the Second, Third, and Fourth Amendments, and it’s why the Founders were deeply distrustful of standing armies. In six months, the Trump administration made that debate irrelevant. It has taken two-and-a-half centuries of tradition, caution, and fear of standing armies and simply discarded it. We are now in territory so uncharted that the framing of the police militarization debate no longer works.” (07/15/25)

https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-police-militarization-debate

Source: Town Hall
by Byron York

“On Friday, the Trump administration laid off about 1,350 employees at the State Department. A number of news reports described the staff cuts as ‘devastating.’ Others suggested the downsizing will endanger U.S. national security. The New York Times said the cuts ‘demote longtime U.S. values,’ while The Washington Post said they ‘will degrade America’s standing in the world and curb U.S. soft power.’ First, a little perspective. According to State Department documents, the total number of department employees has grown significantly over the years. In 2007, there were 57,340. By 2015, there were 72,895. By 2024, there were 80,214. That is an increase of 22,874 employees in the course of 17 years. After the addition of 22,874 employees, can a cut of 1,350 be ‘devastating?'” (07/16/25)

https://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2025/07/16/columnistsbyronyork20250715looking-sensibly-at-the-state-department-cuts-n2660428

Source: Rutherford Institute
by John Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“Bodily autonomy — the right to privacy and integrity over our own bodies — is rapidly vanishing. The debate now extends beyond forced vaccinations or invasive searches to include biometric surveillance, wearable tracking, and predictive health profiling. We are entering a new age of algorithmic, authoritarian control, where our thoughts, moods, and biology are monitored and judged by the state. This is the dark promise behind the newest campaign by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, to push for a future in which all Americans wear biometric health-tracking devices.” (07/15/25)

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_wearables_trap_how_the_government_plans_to_monitor_score_and_control_you

Source: Persuasion
by Elan Kluger

“If you sit on Dartmouth’s large outdoor common ground — ‘the Green’ — with a book, it will be assumed that you are reading for class. And even to do class readings for many people is too strenuous. I have glanced over in class at laptop screens opened to ChatGPT. Students proceed to read aloud from the AI output to earn their participation credit. Professors have told me about having to decrease the amount of pages they assign per week, but, even then, some students just cannot be bothered. One can ascribe this change to cellphones …. But it is worth considering that perhaps worries about attention spans are overstated. Serious reading has always been a fringe activity. And, besides, two hour podcasts and three hour movies seem to have become standard fare. It is not the inability to read, it is the missing inclination.” (07/15/25)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/yes-college-students-cant-read-good