Source: The American Conservative
by Andrew Day
“After the French President Emmanuel Macron announced last Thursday that France will recognize the state of Palestine, several U.S. and Israeli leaders dismissed the move as merely symbolic. … ‘What he says doesn’t matter,’ Trump told reporters Friday. ‘That statement doesn’t carry any weight.’ But if Macron’s announcement ‘doesn’t matter,’ then why have opponents of Palestinian self-determination reacted to it with such venom? In truth, recognition does matter in international affairs, which is why Israel and its Western backers, unlike most nations, have steadfastly refused to acknowledge Palestinian statehood in the first place.” (07/30/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/why-macrons-palestine-gambit-matters/
Source: SFGate
“The federal grand juries that indicted Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges did not hear directly from any of the alleged victims in the case, Justice Department officials said in support of their request to unseal transcripts of the usually secret proceedings. Just two witnesses testified before the panel and both were law enforcement officials, the officials said. In a court filing late Tuesday, the officials again urged the court to release the records, citing huge public interest, but they also sought to assure the judges that making them public wouldn’t harm victims of the couple’s crimes.” (07/30/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/justice-department-says-epstein-and-maxwell-grand-20793399.php
Source: Washington Monthly
by David Atkins
“As racial minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ Americans made social advancements in the decades since World War II, the overt violence of Jim Crow gave way to more hidden structural violence and malign governmental neglect of marginalized communities. If private organizations or foundations wanted to advance social justice, then so be it, but conservatives in government would not help them. However, that is no longer true with MAGA and the second Donald Trump administration. The president and his allies are using government coercion to enforce culture-war bigotry even upon private enterprises. The rhetoric coming from federal agencies and spokespeople echoes 19th-century white supremacist propaganda.” [editor’s note: It also echoes 20th-century “anti-discrimination” and “affirmative action” propaganda – TLK] (07/30/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/07/30/forcing-culture-war-bigotry-on-private-enterprise/
Source: Politico
“Emil Bove, President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, has been confirmed to a lifetime seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals — the culmination of a tumultuous campaign from his detractors that ultimately fractured his support among the Senate GOP. The Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Bove, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska defecting from the rest of their party to join all Democrats in opposing. Bove was plagued by reports of whistleblowers alleging that he recommended the administration ignore court orders that would disrupt Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda.” (07/29/25)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/29/senate-confirms-emil-bove-to-third-circuit-as-dems-fail-to-thwart-trump-pick-00482965
Source: System Update
“What are CBS News'[s] Billionaire Heirs Doing with Bari Weiss? With Ryan Grim on the Funding Behind It; Europe Capitulates to Trump Again.” (07/29/25)
https://rumble.com/v6wt644-system-update-show-494.html
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Expanding production on the intensive margin means getting more grain out of land already cultivated, expanding it on the extensive margin means getting more grain by bringing new land into cultivation. In economics, the intensive margin means writing new articles — new enough, at least, to get published — on subjects that smart people have been writing articles about for most of the past century. … The extensive margin, in contrast, is the application of the existing tools of economics, including mathematics where needed, to new subjects.” (07/29/25)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/the-intensive-margin
Source: New York Post
By Kira Davis
“Pretty much everyone wears blue jeans in modern America. Jeans have gone from workwear to high fashion over the last 150-plus years. Dress them up, dress them down … they’re as flexible as American culture. Perhaps they are so enduring because everyone can wear them. Fat or skinny, tall or short, curvy to curve-less and everything in between — jeans are the fashion of unity. But when we’re buying a pair, we’re not contemplating any of that. We want to think about what we could look like wearing them, or who might be attracted to us while we’re wearing them. I am speaking, of course, about the power of advertising, and last week the latest ad for American Eagle jeans caused extreme distress among the Very Online crowd.” (07/30/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/07/29/opinion/sydney-sweeney-tantrum-is-all-about-the-lefts-rage-at-americas-rejection/
Source: Portland Press Herald
“An appeals court has upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit by a Lincoln County mother who argued that her child’s school district violated her parental rights by withholding information about the student’s gender expression at school. Amber Lavigne, of Newcastle, sued the Damariscotta-based Great Salt Bay Community School Board in April 2023, arguing that the district infringed on her parental rights and violated the 14th Amendment. The suit argued that a staff member provided Lavigne’s 13-year-old child with a chest binder, and referred to them by a different name and pronouns than they had been assigned at birth, while intentionally concealing that information from Lavigne. School officials maintained that their policies followed state laws, which provide equal access to education for all students regardless of gender identity, and a right to privacy regardless of age.” (07/30/25)
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/07/29/appeals-court-sides-against-lincoln-county-mom-suing-school-over-withholding-information-on-childs-gender-expression/
Source: National Review
“Manufacturing Properly Understood.” (07/29/25)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/manufacturing-properly-understood/
Source: Persuasion
by Jacob Mchangama
“Imagine this scenario: one day, Chief Justice John Roberts announces an investigation into ‘fake news, false reports of crimes, slanderous reports, threats, and other infractions’ that ‘affect the honor and security of the Federal Supreme Court, its members, and their families.’ Roberts appoints Justice Samuel Alito to lead the probe, granting him powers to issue warrants, access private phone and messaging data, block social media accounts, and even suspend entire platforms that refuse to comply. Alito then unilaterally expands the investigation to target ‘antidemocratic’ fake news, propaganda, and illegal content more broadly. Such a scenario … would be unthinkable in the United States, or in any democracy that respects the separation of powers and the rule of law. However, in Brazil this scenario is not a hypothetical dystopia but a reality.” (07/29/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/dont-resort-to-censorship-to-fight
