Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“The state government of California spends a lot of money. But how much and on what? That information has, apparently, been a state secret. Until now. For years, a watchdog group called OpenTheBooks.com has been working to discover and disclose government spending in the United States. … The group reports that in 2021, it filed some 47,000 Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain data on some $12 trillion of government spending. So they’ve been busy. California is now the fiftieth state whose spending is being made public in detail.” (08/31/22)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2022/08/31/last-of-the-big-spenders/

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“One of the weirdest, most insane things happening today is the way the entire western world is being trained to freak out about ‘Russian propaganda’ (which barely exists in the west), while ignoring the fact that we are spending every day marinating in billions of dollars worth of US empire propaganda. CNN has an article out titled ‘Darya Dugina’s death provides a glimpse into Russia’s vast disinformation machine — and the influential women fronting it’ on the recently assassinated daughter of Alexander Dugin, a Russian political thinker of wildly exaggerated influence. The article uses Dugina’s assassination to further stoke its audience’s ever-growing panic about Russian disinformation, quickly becoming a commentary on Russia’s entire propaganda network without bothering to articulate how Dugina’s death ‘provides a glimpse’ into its workings.” (08/31/22)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/08/31/were-being-trained-to-worry-about-russian-propaganda-while-drowning-in-us-propaganda/

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Saul Zimet

“The Netherlands, being the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural goods after the United States, is among Earth’s most productive farming centers but is also therefore one of the largest polluters. … The farm animals that will likely soon be regulated out of existence produce manure which mixes with urine and releases the nitrogen compound ammonia. This can harm wildlife and disrupt sensitive ecosystems when it leaks into nearby rivers and lakes. But there are simply no other known methods of producing such bountiful agricultural output with the resources available to the Dutch farmers. So this is a tradeoff between protecting sensitive ecosystems on the one hand, and on the other hand maintaining a thriving Dutch agricultural industry that is able to support its workers while providing the market with maximally affordable products.” (08/31/22)

https://fee.org/articles/why-the-dutch-farmer-protest-is-your-cause-too/