Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott

‘At the end of June 2026, Brazil’s National Treasury published a document forecasting the nation’s fiscal future, though it read more like a confession of failure than anything else. The eighth edition of the Fiscal Projections Report, first issued just over three years ago, was phrased in the usually dry government statements of routine transparency: reference scenarios for fiscal projections, sensitivity exercises on macroeconomic parameters like interest rates and inflation, a box on how oil prices are predicted to hit federal revenue, and so on. The headline fact, however, was clear: the government’s own fiscal targets are unreachable beginning in 2028. The government’s arithmetic shows that it is no longer able to reach these goals, and what makes matters worse is that there is no permissible measure capable of closing the fiscal gap that yawns beneath the target.” (07/20/26)

https://fee.org/articles/brazils-fiscal-reckoning-has-arrived/

Source: Antiwar.com
by Nolan Denaro

“One thing that is always thrown by the wayside in times of war is the maintenance of the national soul. When faced with the inherent brutality of war, the emotions of the moment can overshadow the values we seek to uphold. When the job of maintaining this national soul is left to the state, – a group Murray Rothbard labeled a ‘centralized, regularized organization of theft’ – more enticing projects tend to arise. Often those projects directly harm the citizens of the nation, as by the state’s very nature, they tend to involve aggression, theft, murder or coercion. Despite the lack of care given by the government to our nation’s soul, it is nonetheless a core pillar of a cohesive country. It defines the virtues our country intends to project to the world.” (07/20/26)

https://original.antiwar.com/nolan_denaro/2026/07/19/trumps-war-and-the-decay-of-the-american-soul/

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Wendy McElroy

“There are about a dozen ways to argue against the exit tax, but the constitutional approach is all that should be necessary; that is, if the tax is found to be unconstitutional — against the most basic law of the land — then other arguments should be unnecessary. The constitutional argument should be given priority for another reason, however. It shows whether or not the government is willing to play by its own basic rules by abiding by the Constitution. If it is not, then no other argument will be effective against the exit tax because the game is rigged. Only it is not a game being played; this is people’s lives.” (07/20/26)

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/americas-exit-tax-is-an-unconstitutional-violation-of-human-rights-part-2/

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Andre Pagliarini

“[T]here’s a reason Washington’s tariffs and the Brazilian presidential race have become inseparable. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the convicted former president and Lula’s likely opponent in the October election, visited Trump, Rubio, and other senior officials in Washington in May. He returned to lobby USTR directly again in July, this time asking for a 180-day delay so the tariffs wouldn’t land before Brazilians voted. His argument was candid about the politics involved: imposing the tariffs now, he told American officials, would hand Lula ‘precisely the political victory’ the president’s campaign has been ‘engineering.’ Lula, for his part, has accused the senator, whose brother advocated for Trump’s trade war against Brazil last year, of committing ‘yet another act of treason against the Fatherland.'” (07/20/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-brazil-tariffs/

Source: The American Prospect
by Maureen Tkacik

“How can Freedom Fuel afford to sell gas for $3.47 a gallon? That’s the wrong question to ask.” (07/20/26)

https://prospect.org/2026/07/20/kleptocrat-nesting-dolls-behind-trumps-potemkin-gas-stations-freedom-fuel/

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, 84, has been absent from Congress, hospitalized for weeks — first with no comment on his medical condition, still with very little information divulged. There should be an ethic in public service that when one is incapacitated, one hands the trust given back to the public to fill anew. Sadly, this tradition has fallen victim to … take your pick: incumbency, partisanship, lack of electoral competition, Cicero’s times/mores. History’s third-oldest U.S. Congress ‘boasts’ 23 members of the House and Senate now eighty years old or older.” (07/20/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/07/20/terminal-representation/