08/11 -- Russia: Supreme Court bars last anti-war party from elections; The Socialist Surge Revives Failed and Hateful Ideas
8 views
Skip to first unread message
Thomas L. Knapp
Aug 11, 2026, 6:06:27 AM (7 days ago) Aug 11
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 08/11/26
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Presented by the Liberty International
https://liberty-intl.org/
Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
More News, More Commentary, More Audio/Video at Our Web Edition!
https://news.rationalreview.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Freedom News:
1) Russia: Supreme Court bars last anti-war party from elections
2) Trump whines some more about Iran’s surrender demands
3) NYC: Judge blocks implementation of pied-à-terre tax
4) Trump signs executive order to split up MMR vaccine
5) NV: Jury selection begins for ex-gang leader charged with Tupac Shakur’s 1996 murder
6) UK: Radio Caroline breached Ofcom rules after mistakenly announcing King’s death
7) Australia: “Body in suitcase” turns out to be lifelike doll
8) Oman: Regime says grounded tanker oil spill covers 400 square km
9) Trump admits “contractor error” on Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
10) Colombia: 7.4 magnitude earthquake kills at least 20
11) UK: Regime road pirates steal record $10 million worth of cars in one weekend
12) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she’s freezing her eggs
13) Thailand: Former lawmaker arrested for fatally shooting local official
14) Indonesia battles growing wildfires as Mount Bromo blaze spreads
15) Greenland: Regime warns Trump-linked oil company not to drill without permission
16) Under Trump, State Department has yanked over 175k visas so far
17) Trump names Will Scharf as White House counsel ahead of midterms
18) UK: Count Binface seeks Parliament seat
19) WI: Authorities ID cop who murdered cyclist in Madison
20) PA: Libertarian Gubernatorial Ticket Qualifies for November Ballot
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) The Socialist Surge Revives Failed and Hateful Ideas
22) Eurotrash and Holy Water
23) Unhappy Anniversary
24) America vs. the MAGA-Industrial Complex
25) The tactic of AOC and her allies to giggle away the “craziness” of Woke-era abuses should not be tolerated
26) Democrats no longer have the No. 1 weapon to keep their socialist wing in line
27) D’ye mean people queue for below market price items?
28) Who Shot Ricky Pearsall? California’s Pro-Crime Policies Hide the Truth
29) Trump: The Empire-First President
30) Abolish London’s fun police
31) Behind Francesca Hong’s flighty campaign a hateful movement, landing on the right ears
32) Why Oil Keeps Getting More Abundant
33) Organized People Can Still Beat Your Big Money
34) “But Biden” excuses are just admissions Trump has failed
35) The Socialists’ Institutionalism — Tried and Failed
36) Florida Shows How to Demand a More Open-Minded Academia
37) Prepare for the DSA Revolution
38) Why the Trump administration will have to accept a Hormuz toll
39) Will Trump Revive America’s Filibustering Habit?
40) Can Ants Teach Us Anything About Free Markets?
41) Is It (Still) Un-American to Care?
42) The Barbarous Relic’s Revenge
43) You Want a Real Commie?
44) Public presence, public duty
45) Jason Arday, Barack Obama, and the Making of Myths
46) The Choice: Peace and Civilization or War and AI?
47) Drugs For Poor Countries
48) A Transgender Gospel Against Western Civilization
49) Super PACs Find It Hard to Shake Partnerships With AIPAC
50) Anthony Fauci and the Collapse of Scientific Authority
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 08/10/26
52) Rising, 08/10/26
53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/10/26
54) Zooming In, 08/10/26
55) EconTalk, 08/10/26
56) Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 08/10/26
57) LPALive, episode 80
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 08/09/26
59) Free Talk Live, 08/09/26
60) Glenn Greenwald on The Scott Horton Show
vvvvv SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS vvvvv
HOW INDEPENDENT ARE "YOUR" CONGRESS/SENATE MEMBERS?
https://congressionalindependence.deathbutt.org/
SAMUEL EDWARD KONKIN III REVOLUTIONARY FRIEND BY WENDY MCELROY
https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Edward-Konkin-Revolutionary-Friend-ebook/dp/B0DP7B6127
SHARE YOUR OPINIONS. EARN POINTS. REDEEM POINTS FOR AWARDS
https://account.yougov.com/us-en/join?referral=eAi-FP2i9s1Jzb5lj2zw5A
THE CONSTITUTION OF NON-STATE GOVERNMENT: FIELD GUIDE TO TEXAS SECESSION (2nd edition), by TL Hulsey
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1883853117
Tyranny Demands AN ACT OF SELF-DEFENSE: A NOVEL BY ERNE LEWIS
https://tinyurl.com/actofselfdefense
^^^^^ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS ^^^^^
_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Russia: Supreme Court bars last anti-war party from elections
Source: Washington Post
“The Russian Supreme Court has barred the country’s last remaining anti-war party from running in parliamentary elections next month amid an intensifying crackdown on dissent over Russia’s increasingly unpopular war against Ukraine. … Yabloko, which hasn’t managed to clear the 5 percent threshold to win seats in the Duma since 2003, was seen until recently as a fringe party. But as Russians become increasingly dismayed by the expanding reach of Ukraine’s drones and the growing impact of the war on the economy, the party appeared to be gaining support. Recent polls suggested it could win 9 percent of the vote next month, the Moscow newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported. … Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the Supreme Court on Monday and chanted ‘Russia Without Putin!’ After the ruling, security forces attempted to disperse them.” [editor’s note: Russia’s Libertarian Party got suppressed in July, thus the “last” modifier for Yabloko- TLK] (08/10/26)
https://archive.is/DCxD5
-----
2) Trump whines some more about Iran’s surrender demands
Source: AOL
“President Donald Trump on Monday responded to Iran’s demand that the U.S. pay for war damages by calling on Tehran to compensate Americans and others harmed or killed by the country over the last 50 years. ‘I see that Representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran are asking for compensation for the damage done to them during the last five month Military Conflict … even though it was never mentioned in any of our negotiations or meetings!’ Trump wrote on social media. Trump said he is now ‘likewise demanding compensation from Iran’ for Americans killed or wounded in conflicts involving Iran and Iranian-backed groups. He said the demand should be included in any future negotiations with Tehran.” [editor’s note: Apparently he still hasn’t received the “loser doesn’t set the terms” memo from his staff yet – TLK](08/10/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/trump-now-seeks-compensation-iran-172413000.html
-----
3) NYC: Judge blocks implementation of pied-à-terre tax
Source: Politico
“A Staten Island judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday pausing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rollout of New York City’s new tax on second homes worth over $5 million. The ruling from Judge Wayne Ozzi came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday by New York City homeowners challenging City Hall’s administration of the surcharge. The plaintiffs, represented by former First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, took specific issue with the publication of more than 900,000 properties that could fall under the pied-à-terre tax, and letters to some 17,000 property owners the city suspects are actually subject to it. Under Ozzi’s order, the city must take down the public, 900,000-home list, and is prevented for the time being from taking further action based on that list or on the notices mailed to the smaller group of property owners.” (08/10/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/10/judge-blocks-new-york-city-pied-a-terre-tax-01031481
-----
4) Trump signs executive order to split up MMR vaccine
Source: Axios
“President Trump issued an executive order Monday calling for fewer childhood vaccinations, splitting the childhood MMR vaccine into three shots and delivering vaccines at separate medical visits. The executive order states that ‘the combined MMR vaccine should be administered in three separate single-disease shots once such products are domestically available and that, to the maximum extent feasible, all childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits.’ … There currently are not separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella. Companies would have to do clinical trials to bring each through the approval process.” (08/10/26)
https://www.axios.com/2026/08/10/trump-order-split-up-mmr-vaccine
-----
5) NV: Jury selection begins for ex-gang leader charged with Tupac Shakur’s 1996 murder
Source: Reuters
“Jury selection began on Monday in the murder trial of an ex-street gang leader accused of masterminding the drive-by shooting death of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur three decades ago in Las Vegas, a long-unsolved crime that became a seminal moment in rap music history. Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis, 63, is charged in Clark County, Nevada, with a single count of murder by use of a deadly weapon. He has pleaded not guilty. Davis is accused of leading a group of men to kill Shakur, 25, one of rap’s most commercially successful and influential artists, in a 1996 drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip. He faces a potential life sentence without parole if convicted.” (08/10/26)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trial-opens-ex-gang-leader-charged-with-tupac-shakurs-1996-murder-2026-08-10/
-----
6) UK: Radio Caroline breached Ofcom rules after mistakenly announcing King’s death
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Radio Caroline has been found in breach of broadcasting rules after it mistakenly announced the death of King Charles III. The station aired three pre-recorded announcements falsely stating the King had died during the Barry Marsh Show on 19 May. The messages claimed the ‘news media’ had ‘confirmed’ the death, and were followed by the national anthem and 16 minutes of silence on DAB+, while AM listeners heard back-up music. A correction and apology was broadcast 30 minutes later. The ruling by media watchdog Ofcom stated that once the staff member who accidentally played the files realised what they had done, they stopped playing them, ‘panicked and left the premises’. Ofcom said the incident breached Rule 5.1, which requires news to be reported with due accuracy, and Rule 5.2, which says significant mistakes must be corrected quickly.” (08/10/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckge094k2k1o
-----
7) Australia: “Body in suitcase” turns out to be lifelike doll
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Australian police called in to investigate a body found in a suitcase have concluded that the ‘victim’ was in fact a lifelike doll. The suitcase was discovered by two men on the side of a road near the small village of Oallen, about 230km (143 miles) south-west of Sydney. On Monday, police announced a murder investigation, sparking intense interest in the case but backtracked hours later, saying forensic testing had proved the contents were not human. The contents in the suitcase were ‘mistaken for a human originally, so they are very realistic in terms of looking like human remains,’ said Supt Linda Bradbury from the Hume Police District. ‘But we’ve confirmed by other means that they are not.’ The doll was wearing clothing, had hair and a nose piercing, police said, adding that ‘the item also had markings that resembled bruises and grazes’.” (08/10/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyqg4w3gz9o
-----
8) Oman: Regime says grounded tanker oil spill covers 400 square km
Source: Reuters
“Leaking crude oil from a tanker grounded off a nature reserve in Oman has created a slick covering almost 400 square kilometres, the country’s government said on Monday. The Caroline Bezengi is loaded with close to one million barrels of Russian oil bound for Asia and first reported difficulties on June 8 off Yemen, with two maritime security sources saying initial assessments indicated a blast had occurred onboard. No party has taken responsibility for attacking the vessel. Oman, in its first public disclosure on the environmental impact, said on Monday it was seeking to tackle the oil leak near the Hallaniyat Islands.” (08/10/26)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-spill-off-oman-tanker-under-sanctions-against-russia-spreads-over-huge-area-2026-08-10/
-----
9) Trump admits “contractor error” on Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
Source: USA Today
“For the first time, President Donald Trump admitted there was a construction error on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is seeing another round of costly renovations. The initial construction cost more than $16 million, but the iconic Washington DC attraction had to be drained again after the Fourth of July due to peeling of the American-flag-blue liner that Trump ordered. He blamed ‘vandals’ on the issues the pool has seen, but after numerous people were accused of damaging the pool, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia dropped all of their charges. … ‘As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening, but it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential,’ he wrote. Despite no video evidence pointing toward vandalism, Trump stopped short of placing all of the blame on contractors.” (08/10/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/state/washington-dc/2026/08/10/what-went-wrong-on-lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool-trump-admits-error/91238911007/
-----
10) Colombia: 7.4 magnitude earthquake kills at least 20
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake has struck western Colombia and neighbouring countries, prompting widespread evacuations. The earthquake struck on Monday near the municipality of San Jose del Palmar in Colombia’s Choco region, about 400km (250 miles) west of the capital, Bogota, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Colombia’s geological service. Colombia had initially put its magnitude at 6.6 on the Richter scale. … The mayor of Pereira, Colombia, said that 18 people had died there, according to Reuters. Two people are dead in Manizales, the Associated Press reported.” (08/10/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/10/7-4-magnitude-earthquake-hits-colombia-killing-at-least-20
-----
11) UK: Regime road pirates steal record $10 million worth of cars in one weekend
Source: CBS News
“London police said Monday they had [stolen] a record $10 million worth of supercars between Friday and Sunday in an operation aimed at curbing antisocial driving. Officers from London’s Metropolitan Police [stole] a total of 90 vehicles across popular affluent London neighborhoods such as Hyde Park, Kensington and Chelsea, marking the highest value and number of cars [stolen] since they launched an operation to crack down on antisocial driving five years ago. Authorities in England consider antisocial driving to include causing unnecessary noise pollution, street racing and cruising in a convoy, among other types of public nuisance. … This year, police have been given the power to [steal] vehicles involved in antisocial behavior rather than giving motorists a warning, the Met Police said in a statement.” (08/10/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/london-police-supercar-ferrari-seize-impound/
-----
12) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she’s freezing her eggs
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed she has decided to freeze her eggs, and has shared her first steps in the process on social media. The 36-year-old New York Democrat posted the clips on Sunday, hours before telling ABC News’s This Week programme that she had ‘not ruled out the possibility’ of running for president. In the clips, Ocasio-Cortez shows herself taking an injection and talks through tips she has learnt, before answering questions about costs, clinical procedures, storage and how fertility care works under what she calls the US’s ‘broken’ medical system. In her later interview with ABC, she explained that she wanted to ‘normalise’ conversations about the process.” (08/10/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewrzrekwv5o
-----
13) Thailand: Former lawmaker arrested for fatally shooting local official
Source: United Press International
“A former lawmaker from Nonthaburi province, which is still reeling from last week’s school shooting, was arrested Monday after allegedly storming a local government office and shooting a local administrator dead, according to local reports. The alleged gunman has been identified by police as former Nonthaburi MP Chalong Riewraeng and the victim as Pol. Col. Thongchai Yenprasert, president of the Nonthaburi Provincial Administrative Organization, the Bangkok Post reported. … Police said Riewraeng called a TV anchor mid-broadcast and admitted to firing five shots at Yenprasert, the Bangkok Post reported.” (08/10/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/08/10/thailand-lawmaker-shooting/7221786347063/
-----
14) Indonesia battles growing wildfires as Mount Bromo blaze spreads
Source: SFGate
“Indonesia intensified efforts Monday to combat a growing number of wildfires across the archipelago, deploying helicopters, thousands of firefighters and disaster personnel as blazes spread through a popular national park in East Java and peatlands on Sumatra and Borneo islands during an unusually dry season, officials said. Scores of firefighters, backed by 43 helicopters, have been deployed to battle wildfires that have burned more than 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) of forests and other land across the Southeast Asian nation as of Monday, said Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Djamari Chaniago. Strengthening El Nino conditions have raised the risk of more forest and land fires during the peak dry season, he said. East Java authorities said the largest blaze is burning in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java province, where about 743 hectares (1,836 acres) have been scorched. Authorities have closed the park to visitors until further notice.” (08/10/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/indonesia-battles-growing-wildfires-as-mount-22381318.php
-----
15) Greenland: Regime warns Trump-linked oil company not to drill without permission
Source: Yahoo! News
“Greenland has issued a ‘strong warning’ after a US oil company linked to Donald Trump landed drilling equipment onto the Arctic island without permission. The Greenland government said it was aware of drilling machinery being brought onshore on the island’s eastern coast last month ‘in connection with planned oil exploration drilling’. … The equipment is for a large oil-drilling project being funded by Greenland Energy, a Texas company set up last year with ties to Mr Trump. … Days after oil-drilling equipment was seen being hauled ashore by Greenland locals last month, Mr Trump renewed his threats to claim the semi-autonomous island.” (08/09/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/greenland-warns-trump-linked-oil-170943746.html
-----
16) Under Trump, State Department has yanked over 175k visas so far
Source: Fox News
“The U.S. State Department announced on Monday that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas during President Donald Trump’s administration so far. The announcement comes less than two years since Trump started his second term. ‘Under President Trump, the United States Department of State has revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals who violated the terms of their visas, committed crimes, called for violence against U.S. citizens, defrauded Americans, abused our immigration system, or endangered national security,’ the State Department noted. ‘The majority of these visas were revoked due to law enforcement encounters for a range of criminal activity, with assault, driving under the influence, theft, and drug crimes being the leading causes. A significant share of visas were revoked for reckless driving, sexual assault, child abuse, fraud and embezzlement, and other crimes,’ according to the department.” (08/10/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-state-department-has-yanked-more-than-175k-visas-under-trump-administration-so-far
-----
17) Trump names Will Scharf as White House counsel ahead of midterms
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“United States President Donald Trump has named White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf as his next White House counsel, elevating a longtime legal ally to one of the administration’s most important legal positions months before November’s midterm elections. The former Trump lawyer, who worked on the presidential immunity case and later oversaw approval of the president’s disputed White House ballroom project, will replace David Warrington on September 1, with Warrington leaving the administration for the private sector.” (08/10/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/10/trump-names-will-scharf-as-white-house-counsel-ahead-of-midterms
-----
18) UK: Count Binface seeks Parliament seat
Source: ABC News
“Timing is everything in comedy and, so it seems, in British politics for a perennial joke candidate who wears a garbage can on his head. Count Binface, a self-described intergalactic space warrior, has landed in the center of the U.K.’s political universe ahead of a special election Thursday that was derided as a farce long before the ballot was packed with nearly three dozen candidates — many from the silly end of the spectrum. Binface, who has run against prime ministers past and present, was the first to throw his bucket in the ring when Reform UK leader Nigel Farage abruptly quit Parliament and said he would seek reelection to clear his name over financial allegations. … when the major political parties denounced Farage’s move as a political stunt and boycotted the Clacton-on-Sea election in southeastern England, the trash-talking comedian was launched into prime position as default challenger. He has been on a nonstop media blitz since.” (08/10/26)
https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/count-binface-man-plan-seeks-parliament-seat-britains-135508257
-----
19) WI: Authorities ID cop who murdered cyclist in Madison
Source: SFGate
“Investigators on Monday released the name of the Madison police officer who shot and killed a 38-year-old [b]lack man in July — a shooting that was captured on video and sparked protests that put Wisconsin’s capital city on edge over how authorities treat people of color. Kiel Baitinger-Peterson, a white officer with nearly 11 years’ experience in law enforcement, fired the shots that killed Corey Ruiz on July 22, the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation said in a statement. Baitinger-Peterson was one of four officers who surrounded Ruiz, who was on a bike, in response to calls about someone who was checking out parked cars and an alleged burglary attempt, police said. The shooting sparked days of protests and calls from the [b]lack community for Madison to address racial justice issues. Baitinger-Peterson did not reply to an email seeking comment.” (08/10/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/authorities-id-the-officer-who-fatally-shot-a-22381872.php
-----
20) PA: Libertarian Gubernatorial Ticket Qualifies for November Ballot
Source: Independent Political Report
“Ken Krawchuk and John Thomas, the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial ticket, have officially completed the signature petitioning process and qualified for the state’s general election ballot this November. … Though certified, the ticket’s nomination papers still remain subject to a challenge through the state’s objection period, which runs until August 10. In the event that happens, Pennsylvania courts then have until August 18 to determine their outcome. … The Libertarian ticket joins incumbent Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro and Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis, Republican nominees Stacy Garrity and Jason Richey, and Green nominees Anthony Dastra and Craig Bolton, all of whom have also qualified.” (08/09/26)
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2026/08/pennsylvania-libertarian-gubernatorial-ticket-qualifies-for-november-ballot/
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) The Socialist Surge Revives Failed and Hateful Ideas
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“As democratic socialists in general and the DSA in particular take over the Democratic Party, it’s worth examining the positions they take, the enemies they pick, and who supports them to see what they have in store for us as they seek to remake the country. … Given that the rise of the DSA is likely rooted in disillusionment and resentment, it may be a losing proposition to point out that socialism’s nostrums are nonsense. Still, we need to emphasize that free-market [sic] capitalism is good and contributes to liberty and prosperity while socialism does the opposite.” (08/10/26)
https://reason.com/2026/08/10/the-socialist-surge-revives-failed-and-hateful-ideas/
-----
22) Eurotrash and Holy Water
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“It’s called the Fourth Political Theory (4PT for short). It’s gotten the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin two major fans among throngs of minor ones. The first is Vladimir Putin. The second is Tucker Carlson. Each, in his own way, is important. But together, the three make for a subversive head-heart-gut triad: Dugin the thinker, Carlson the relator, and Putin the muscle. Much like the social justice left with its beachhead in the academy, these three are propagating their own form of ideological imperialism online. But don’t call it right-wing. Like most positions these days, 4PT defies a linear spectrum, despite the parrots of the progressive media calling him ‘far-right.’ Instead, Dugin searches through the ruins of history to put together pieces of something new.” (08/10/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/eurotrash-and-holy-water
-----
23) Unhappy Anniversary
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“This month marks 55 years since President Richard Nixon closed the ‘gold window,’ severing the last link between the US dollar and gold. Under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, foreign countries pegged their currencies to the US dollar, which was then pegged to a fixed value of gold. Foreign countries could exchange their dollars for gold at a rate of 35 dollars per ounce. … Closing the gold window left the US with a pure fiat currency. The results have been disastrous. The dollar has lost over 97 percent of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, with most of the dollar’s decline occurring since 1971.” (08/10/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/unhappy-anniversary
-----
24) America vs. the MAGA-Industrial Complex
Source: Antiwar.com
by Jason Jones
“Have you seen the ruling classes’ latest ploy for holding onto power rather than allow the public to hold them accountable through straightforward and honest elections? It’s clear as day to anyone with eyes to see. And the fact that the powerful now operate as much within the ‘MAGA’ brand as in the Democratic establishment shouldn’t blind us. If we let it, then even some of the best of us will soon be taken in – becoming useful idiots for the same ruling classes that the MAGA movement was founded to oppose. I’m referring to the new game of stirring up hatred against our neighbors of Middle-Eastern and Eastern heritage and labeling all dissenters against U.S.- and Israeli-led wars and war crimes as ‘radicals’ and ‘communists.'” (08/10/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/jason_jones/2026/08/09/america-vs-the-maga-industrial-complex/
-----
25) The tactic of AOC and her allies to giggle away the “craziness” of Woke-era abuses should not be tolerated
Source: Glenn Greenwald
by Glenn Greenwald
“Many Democratic Party candidates emerging on what one might call the populist left are finding success in primaries across the country. But most of them have a shared liability: they were fully on board with the worst excesses and abuses of the ‘peak wokeness’ that emerged in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 killing, enduring and contaminating most of our institutions for several years after. … AOC, who herself aggressively advocated those policies, sought to laughingly dismiss this all as just some momentary, harmless frenzy of ‘craziness’ that never really meant much and that everyone has all just agreed to move beyond …. It is, I suppose, a net positive that those who imposed extremist woke dogma are now too embarrassed to defend it. … But when AOC tries to giggle her way out of her behavior and the behavior of her allies, it actually is more offensive and cowardly than anything else.” (08/10/26)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-tactic-of-aoc-and-her-allies
-----
26) Democrats no longer have the No. 1 weapon to keep their socialist wing in line
Source: Fox News
by Tom Del Beccaro
“American politics is an ever-changing game of power and big money. For the modern Democrat Party, that means being challenged and sometimes eclipsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) – and there is little to nothing the Democrat Party can do about its rise. The United States has had many political parties in its history. They include everything from the Federalists (1789) and the Whig Party (1830) to the Libertarian Party (1971) and the Green Party (2001). The current Democrat Party (1828) is the longest reigning major political party in American history. The role of the many lesser-known parties in American history has been to chasten the then-dominant parties and/or to champion particular issues – such as the Greenback Party (1874), which fought for paper money in the late 1800s. While that Greenback Party is no more, paper money has replaced gold as the dominant American currency.” (08/10/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/democrats-no-longer-have-no-1-weapon-keep-their-socialist-wing-line
-----
27) D’ye mean people queue for below market price items?
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall
“Isn’t this a shock to everything we know about human nature? ‘In a speech on June 29, delivered before he won the Labour leadership unopposed, Burnham connected the loss of 1.5 million council homes with the increase, to a similar number, of families on the waiting list for social housing. Many, he said, had waited more than 10 years for a home.’ A council house is substantially cheaper – to the tenant – than any other form of housing. People are willing to queue for 10 years to gain something below market price, are they? Isn’t that a shock to everything we know about humans. They’ll be predicting queues at the start of the New Year sales next.” (08/10/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/dye-mean-people-queue-for-below-market-price-items
-----
28) Who Shot Ricky Pearsall? California’s Pro-Crime Policies Hide the Truth
Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley
“Who shot 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall in 2024? No one knows, because California’s insane criminal justice system has kept the suspect’s identity under wraps. … Pearsall, the 31st pick in the 2024 NFL draft, was shopping in San Francisco’s Union Square when a thief approached and demanded his watch. Pearsall would not give it up. In the ensuing struggle, the 49ers’ top draft pick took a bullet in the chest. Miraculously enough, the bullet missed vital organs. Pearsall survived the attack in stable condition. … Meanwhile, the suspect himself remained something of a mystery. One report described him as a boy of 17, an age that brought labels such as ‘teen’ and ‘juvenile.'” (08/10/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/10/who-shot-ricky-pearsall-californias-pro-crime-policies-hide-the-truth/
-----
29) Trump: The Empire-First President
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by Edward Hunt
“The Trump administration marked the 250th anniversary of US independence with a series of statements in support of American empire. Despite the fact that President Donald Trump campaigned against endless war and the White House issued a National Security Strategy that rejected ‘global domination’, the Trump administration celebrated the nation’s 250th anniversary by glorifying empire as one of the country’s highest achievements. Administration officials praised moments in US history when US leaders embraced empire, such as when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams spoke in favor of an ’empire of liberty’ and Theodore Roosevelt acted to take Panama. At a time when many people in the country were reflecting on the ideals of liberty and equality that Jefferson had emphasized in the Declaration of Independence, the Trump administration glorified the country’s imperial history, creating a rationale for Empire First.” (08/10/26)
https://fpif.org/the-new-apologists-for-american-empire/
-----
30) Abolish London’s fun police
Source: spiked
by Lucy Rogers
“Few familiar with Westminster City Council will be surprised by its draft proposal to refuse licenses for new pubs and nightclubs unless they ban standing up while having a pint – an activity it calls ‘vertical drinking’. After all, when it comes to petty killjoy regulations, this council has form. Take its attitude to takeaway pizza. … Westminster council have found a way to spoil even this in Soho. The pizza restaurant ICCO on Greek Street has a limitation on its licence that dictates it may not sell pizza for takeaway after 11pm. … Like other restrictions on venues operating in Soho, the reason cited by the council for this strange ban is the dreaded ‘cumulative impact assessment’ (CIA).” (08/10/26)
https://archive.is/hqNxN
-----
31) Behind Francesca Hong’s flighty campaign a hateful movement, landing on the right ears
Source: New York Post
by Isaac Schorr
“‘We need more witch poems written by fabulous asians.’ ‘We need more algorithms written by immigrant trans folk.’ ‘We need more supreme court decisions written by activist p.o.c. [people of color].’ ‘We need more speculative fiction written by indigenous latinx.’ In a Sheboygan, Wis. café, a series of posters assert as much before following up with a haunting question: ‘What are you doing to help make that happen?’ On Saturday night, attendees of an event hosted by the establishment could answer with their chin up: they’re going to elect Francesca Hong governor. A democratic socialist member of the state Assembly and the prohibitive favorite to succeed Gov. Tony Evers as the Democratic nominee for his office come Tuesday, Hong has featured in headlines for all of the wrong reasons over the last few weeks. In a much-maligned November 2020 tweet, she called on officials to ‘Cancel Thanksgiving’.” (08/09/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/08/09/opinion/behind-francesca-hongs-flighty-campaign-is-a-hateful-movement-and-its-landing-on-the-right-ears/
-----
32) Why Oil Keeps Getting More Abundant
Source: The Daily Economy
by Gale Pooley
“Oil deposits may be finite, but human knowledge is not. Freedom, innovation, and entrepreneurship continually transform our use of resources.” (08/10/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/why-oil-keeps-getting-more-abundant/
-----
33) Organized People Can Still Beat Your Big Money
Source: Our Future
by Sulma Arias
“Every time I hear about the insane amounts of money billionaires like Elon Musk and dark-money super PACs pour into our elections to crush grassroots candidates, it’s hard not to feel our democracy is broken beyond repair. But then I hear about the victory, against all odds, of someone like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who the voters of Michigan just chose as their Democratic candidate for Senate. Dr. El-Sayed is a physician and Rhodes Scholar, born and raised in Michigan, who ran the Detroit Health Department and just defeated a massive dark-money primary campaign against him, the largest in American history. Out-of-state groups spent nearly $70 million to crush his campaign, spreading divisive lies and outspending him by more than ten to one. And yet despite all of the lies big money could buy, El-Sayed won.” (08/10/26)
https://ourfuture.org/20260809/organized-people-can-still-beat-your-big-money
-----
34) “But Biden” excuses are just admissions Trump has failed
Source: The Hill
by Joslin Joseph
“It is now August 2026. More than 560 days have passed since Trump took office again. He has attained more power, surrounded himself with yes-men, has a Republican House and Senate, a 6-3 tilt on the Supreme Court, and no excuse to fail. But here we are, with Trump polling in Biden territory and trying to convince Americans that things are going great. And yet, when pressed, Trump and company keep defaulting to how bad things were under Biden. … We have all dealt with kids that haven’t learned how to take responsibility for their actions. There is always someone else to blame because they believe that their parents, teachers or other adults will believe them.” (08/10/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/6018967-trump-fails-accountability/
-----
35) The Socialists’ Institutionalism — Tried and Failed
Source: Law & Liberty
by Aaron Kushner
“Calls to ‘democratize’ the US Constitution seem shortsighted in the face of the early republic’s failed experiments with unicameralism.” (08/10/26)
https://lawliberty.org/the-socialists-institutionalism-tried-and-failed/
-----
36) Florida Shows How to Demand a More Open-Minded Academia
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Patrick McIlheran
“A political scientist laid out the grim numbers about lopsided ideology among his fellow Florida professors—whose donations go to Democrats by a 9-to-1 margin over Republicans—and ended up giving Wisconsinites who want exposure to a fuller spectrum of ideas something to dream about. Because when that political scientist, Ryan Owens, was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he found in 2024 that the margin there was more like 490-to-1. This tilt isn’t just a curiosity or fodder for talk-radio segments. It leads, Owens tells me, to blind spots that weaken universities’ place in society.” (08/10/26)
https://fee.org/articles/florida-shows-how-to-demand-a-more-open-minded-academia/
-----
37) Prepare for the DSA Revolution
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis
“Karl Marx taught that at some point in the future there would be a ‘Golden Age’ of freedom and equality for everyone, called ‘communism’. He has countless disciples who have believed it, and hundreds of millions of innocent people have died because of it. … But, nooooo, that won’t happen in America. I beg to differ. Marxists won’t get it right in America, either, because Marxism is simply wrong, contrary to history and human nature. So, in frustration and hate, they’ll do the same things they’ve done everywhere they’ve gained power. What do these people — the DSA — really want? They want power, they want money, they want you dead, or at least cowed to where you will keep your head down and your mouth shut. And that’s all they want.” (08/10/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/08/10/prepare-for-the-dsa-revolution-n2680947
-----
38) Why the Trump administration will have to accept a Hormuz toll
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan DePetris
“Of course, permitting an Iranian toll or fee structure isn’t ideal. Before the war, such a hypothetical would have been difficult to imagine. The strait at that time was free and open, and roughly 120 to 150 ships relied on the route each day to get their products to customers worldwide. The United States wants Iran to return to this status quo. Yet Iran has no intention of doing so — and to expect otherwise is to be completely ignorant of how events have played out since. Trump’s war handed Iran the perfect excuse to leverage its geography, and the Iranians didn’t hesitate to do so.” (08/10/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/straight-of-hormuz-toll/
-----
39) Will Trump Revive America’s Filibustering Habit?
Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño
“Men with rifles, investors with appetites, and consultants with slide decks have always read a permissive Washington as an invitation, and America has a long-forgotten tradition of citizens who accepted taking military action without waiting for orders from DC. They were called filibusters, from the Spanish filibustero, borrowed in turn from the Dutch word for freebooter. The practice began in the 1790s, when Americans plotted private assaults on Spanish possessions to the south and British Canada to the north. Congress answered with the Neutrality Act of 1794 and a tougher version in 1818, making it a federal crime to launch a military expedition from American soil against a nation at peace with the United States. Americans flouted both for seventy years.” (08/10/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/will-trump-revive-americas-filibustering-habit
-----
40) Can Ants Teach Us Anything About Free Markets?
Source: Students For Liberty
by Ilia Zhuzhunashvili
“Observing a single ant often reveals little about the organization of ant behavior. Its movements may appear erratic: it changes direction, retraces its path, pauses, and resumes without any obvious plan. Considered in isolation, the ant does not seem to act with clear purpose or coordination. The colony, however, presents a very different picture. What appears disordered at the level of the individual can become highly structured at the level of the group. When a source of food is introduced, ants may rapidly establish a direct and efficient route between the nest and the food. The resulting trail can resemble a carefully planned transport network. Yet no individual ant designs the route, issues instructions, or oversees the movement of the colony.” (08/10/26)
https://studentsforliberty.org/blog/can-ants-teach-us-anything-about-free-markets/
-----
41) Is It (Still) Un-American to Care?
Source: Common Dreams
by Danaka Katovich
“I initially wrote this piece in 2024 during the student uprisings that took place around the United States. The content was focused on Gaza and the people who made up the movement for Palestine in the belly of the beast. I’ve rewritten some of it and replaced Gaza with Cuba. The arguments needed no editing at all. In March, a delegation traveled to Cuba to bring medical aid to Cubans who were suffering under the fuel blockade imposed on them by the United States of America. In recent months, people and organizations who took part, including my own organization, have been targeted by the Trump administration via investigations, subpoenas, and threatening reports such as Marco Rubio’s 100-page report ‘The Capital of 21st Century Communism’.” (08/10/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/un-american-to-care
-----
42) The Barbarous Relic’s Revenge
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“For Americans, the gold standard was killed by presidential decree during the crisis of the Great Depression. In 1971, another president told foreigners they could no longer get gold for American dollars and thus removed the last trace of monetary gold from international trade. Since then all governments have been on a fiat money standard, depreciating their currencies as a matter of policy. The story of gold’s disappearance is part of a larger narrative about the growth of government. Besides being a check on bank counterfeiting, or inflation, gold is also a serious restriction on government expansion. For the advocates of big government, therefore, gold becomes a barbarous relic that stands in their way.” (08/10/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/barbarous-relics-revenge
-----
43) You Want a Real Commie?
Source: The American Conservative
by Bill Kauffman
“Fox World is all a-twitter because a handful of members or fellow travelers of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are about to be elected to the U.S. Congress and various state legislatures. They’re ‘godless communists,’ according to President Trump, and what with inflation, an insane war, and Trump family grift, we’ll be hearing about commies all election season. Michael ‘The Other America’ Harrington, founder of DSA, was about as threatening as the Mills Brothers. The current DSA candidates seem, at first glance, as off-putting as your typical hectoring grad-school wokester, but I can’t get too worked up over them. After all, New York City once sent a real communist to Congress—and his example complicates the Sean Hannity narrative.” (08/10/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/you-want-a-real-commie/
-----
44) Public presence, public duty
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Is it reasonable to say that libertarians, and even lovers of liberty who are rational, free-market, anarchists, believe that members of a community do have some public duties? Even while we recognize that people have a God-given right to reject those duties, just as they have the right to stupidly refuse to accept responsibility for their actions?” (08/09/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/08/09/public-presence-public-duty/
-----
45) Jason Arday, Barack Obama, and the Making of Myths
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup
“Yesterday in these pages, the inimitable Roger Kimball recounted the tall tale of Jason Arday, the youngest black professor at the University of Cambridge. As Kimball noted, Arday has been shown over the last few weeks to be more than just your average modern academic charlatan. With every passing day, it appears more and more that he’s a full-throated fabulist in the contemporary sense, which is to say that he made up almost everything about his life and public persona and plagiarized the rest. All his lies and deceptions were, however, uttered in the service of a larger purpose: to undermine the establishment and force its members to reckon with their hatreds and prejudices. Arday overcame more obstacles and barriers than the average man could ever even imagine, and therefore his struggle must be admired and applauded, while his ‘scholarship’ is celebrated.” (08/10/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/10/jason-arday-barack-obama-and-the-making-of-myths/
-----
46) The Choice: Peace and Civilization or War and AI?
Source: The Realist Review
by Val Aksilenko
“Artificial intelligence may be among the most valuable gifts the Creator has given humanity. It can help us understand languages, cure diseases, reduce exhausting labor, overcome ignorance, anticipate disasters, restore nature, expose deception, and help hostile peoples understand one another. But perhaps every great gift is also a test. … The peril is not that artificial intelligence will suddenly become malevolent in a human-like sense. The greatest peril is that it will become obedient to human enmity — that we will embed our accumulated fear, hatred, falsehoods, and ambitions within an intelligence that is more powerful and faster than ourselves.” (08/09/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/the-choice-civilization-or-ai
-----
47) Drugs For Poor Countries
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Medical drugs have large fixed costs, the costs of research, development and testing, low marginal cost, the cost of making one more pill. If the company sells the drug at marginal cost everyone to whom it is worth at least the cost of producing the pill gets it but the company never covers the fixed cost; if it keeps doing that it goes out of business. If it sells the drug at a price enough above marginal cost to pay back the initial expenditure many people who value the pill above the cost of producing it do not get it. The solution is price discrimination, selling the drug at a high price to customers who are willing to pay it, at a low price to customers who are not. In practice this usually means selling the drug at a high price in rich countries and a low price in poor countries.” (08/09/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/drugs-for-poor-countries
-----
48) A Transgender Gospel Against Western Civilization
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“They say that the arch of history bends towards progress but as a trans person in the midst of the second decade of the twenty-first century, I find myself torn at the crossroads of an increasingly bewildering age. On the one hand, transgender and gender diverse people in the West have never experienced a greater level of exposure and popular acceptance. On the other hand, these same trans people, my people, have also never faced a greater threat of state sanctioned violence and outright erasure.” (08/09/26)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/08/a-transgender-gospel-against-western.html
-----
49) Super PACs Find It Hard to Shake Partnerships With AIPAC
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Throughout this election cycle, big-money super PACs, like AIPAC affiliate United Democracy Project and Democratic Majority for Israel, have laundered their political spending by transferring millions of dollars to other PACs that run independent expenditure ads in primaries. This way, voters see support for candidates from neutral-sounding groups, often on totally unrelated topics, rather than pro-Israel organizations that have become toxic to Democratic voters. Those secondary PACs have other priorities, of course. BOLD America, which has taken $1.55 million from United Democracy Project this cycle, supports Hispanic candidates. Women Vote, the super PAC affiliated with EMILYs List that has received $650,000 from Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) this cycle, backs pro-choice Democratic women. 3.14 Action, which ran into controversy in 2024 as a pass-through for AIPAC donors to support Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-OR), was set up to uplift Democratic scientists and doctors.” (08/10/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/08/10/super-pacs-hard-to-shake-partnerships-with-aipac-minnesota-congress/
-----
50) Anthony Fauci and the Collapse of Scientific Authority
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jason Locasale
“Anthony Fauci is now facing intense scrutiny. His diaries, emails, and testimony have raised fundamental questions about what he knew, what he told the public, and how he exercised authority during the pandemic. Many outside academia describe this as his fall from grace, while universities and medical institutions continue to celebrate him as a heroic public servant and scientific authority. That contradiction is the starting point for this essay. Fauci matters not only because of his individual conduct, but because he exposes the institutions that produced, empowered, and continue to protect him.” (08/09/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/anthony-fauci-and-the-collapse-of-scientific-authority/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 08/10/26
Source: Reason
"Are Socialists Actually Leaving Wokeness Behind?" (08/10/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/08/10/are-socialists-actually-leaving-wokeness-behind/
-----
52) Rising, 08/10/26
Source: The Hill
"Robby Soave gives his radar on podcaster Scott Galloway suggesting that young men should be required to sign up for national service." (08/10/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/6001481-rising-august-10-2026/
-----
53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/10/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
"Will Hegseth Get His $1.5 Trillion For 'Defense'?" (08/10/26)
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1nxnRBYQDByxO
-----
54) Zooming In, 08/10/26
Source: The UnPopulist
“Is Trump’s Populist Coalition Shrinking?” (08/10/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/is-trumps-populist-coalition-shrinking
-----
55) EconTalk, 08/10/26
Source: EconTalk
“Ben Sasse on Faith, Family, and Facing Death.” (08/09/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/ben-sasse-on-faith-family-and-facing-death/
-----
56) Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 08/10/26
Source: Politico
“Can Tucker Carlson build a third party?” (08/09/26)
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/POLL4757463319.mp3
-----
57) LPALive, episode 80
Source: LP Alliance
“LNC Executive Committee Meeting.” (08/09/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k74uNw9vDYI
-----
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 08/09/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Pentagon Strategy To Emphasize Tactical Nukes, Trump Says US-Iran ‘Semi-Negotiating,’ and More.” (08/09/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoUvBo8MXEs
-----
59) Free Talk Live, 08/09/26
Source: Free Talk Live
“Feet juice lemonade :: Turd Ferguson calls about nothing worth hearing :: Dave Ridley calls about USexit :: Sarah in NM calls about vitamins but just talks about Texas :: Skeeter calls about secession :: the best, most proper path to freedom :: 2026-08-09 Hosts: Stu, Rich E. Rich, Mark Edge.” (08/09/26)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2026-08-09
-----
60) Glenn Greenwald on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Glenn Greenwald joins the show to discuss the recent victories of several anti-establishment left-wing candidates in Democratic primaries and the shifts in American politics more broadly.” (08/09/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/8-7-26-glenn-greenwald-on-how-american-politics-is-changing/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FND is published every weekday except on holidays. Forward freely.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
http://groups.google.com/group/freedom-news-daily
Support the Liberty International (tax deductible)
https://liberty-intl.org/join-the-movement/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Presented by the Liberty International
https://liberty-intl.org/
Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
More News, More Commentary, More Audio/Video at Our Web Edition!
https://news.rationalreview.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Freedom News:
1) Russia: Supreme Court bars last anti-war party from elections
2) Trump whines some more about Iran’s surrender demands
3) NYC: Judge blocks implementation of pied-à-terre tax
4) Trump signs executive order to split up MMR vaccine
5) NV: Jury selection begins for ex-gang leader charged with Tupac Shakur’s 1996 murder
6) UK: Radio Caroline breached Ofcom rules after mistakenly announcing King’s death
7) Australia: “Body in suitcase” turns out to be lifelike doll
8) Oman: Regime says grounded tanker oil spill covers 400 square km
9) Trump admits “contractor error” on Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
10) Colombia: 7.4 magnitude earthquake kills at least 20
11) UK: Regime road pirates steal record $10 million worth of cars in one weekend
12) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she’s freezing her eggs
13) Thailand: Former lawmaker arrested for fatally shooting local official
14) Indonesia battles growing wildfires as Mount Bromo blaze spreads
15) Greenland: Regime warns Trump-linked oil company not to drill without permission
16) Under Trump, State Department has yanked over 175k visas so far
17) Trump names Will Scharf as White House counsel ahead of midterms
18) UK: Count Binface seeks Parliament seat
19) WI: Authorities ID cop who murdered cyclist in Madison
20) PA: Libertarian Gubernatorial Ticket Qualifies for November Ballot
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) The Socialist Surge Revives Failed and Hateful Ideas
22) Eurotrash and Holy Water
23) Unhappy Anniversary
24) America vs. the MAGA-Industrial Complex
25) The tactic of AOC and her allies to giggle away the “craziness” of Woke-era abuses should not be tolerated
26) Democrats no longer have the No. 1 weapon to keep their socialist wing in line
27) D’ye mean people queue for below market price items?
28) Who Shot Ricky Pearsall? California’s Pro-Crime Policies Hide the Truth
29) Trump: The Empire-First President
30) Abolish London’s fun police
31) Behind Francesca Hong’s flighty campaign a hateful movement, landing on the right ears
32) Why Oil Keeps Getting More Abundant
33) Organized People Can Still Beat Your Big Money
34) “But Biden” excuses are just admissions Trump has failed
35) The Socialists’ Institutionalism — Tried and Failed
36) Florida Shows How to Demand a More Open-Minded Academia
37) Prepare for the DSA Revolution
38) Why the Trump administration will have to accept a Hormuz toll
39) Will Trump Revive America’s Filibustering Habit?
40) Can Ants Teach Us Anything About Free Markets?
41) Is It (Still) Un-American to Care?
42) The Barbarous Relic’s Revenge
43) You Want a Real Commie?
44) Public presence, public duty
45) Jason Arday, Barack Obama, and the Making of Myths
46) The Choice: Peace and Civilization or War and AI?
47) Drugs For Poor Countries
48) A Transgender Gospel Against Western Civilization
49) Super PACs Find It Hard to Shake Partnerships With AIPAC
50) Anthony Fauci and the Collapse of Scientific Authority
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 08/10/26
52) Rising, 08/10/26
53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/10/26
54) Zooming In, 08/10/26
55) EconTalk, 08/10/26
56) Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 08/10/26
57) LPALive, episode 80
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 08/09/26
59) Free Talk Live, 08/09/26
60) Glenn Greenwald on The Scott Horton Show
vvvvv SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS vvvvv
HOW INDEPENDENT ARE "YOUR" CONGRESS/SENATE MEMBERS?
https://congressionalindependence.deathbutt.org/
SAMUEL EDWARD KONKIN III REVOLUTIONARY FRIEND BY WENDY MCELROY
https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Edward-Konkin-Revolutionary-Friend-ebook/dp/B0DP7B6127
SHARE YOUR OPINIONS. EARN POINTS. REDEEM POINTS FOR AWARDS
https://account.yougov.com/us-en/join?referral=eAi-FP2i9s1Jzb5lj2zw5A
THE CONSTITUTION OF NON-STATE GOVERNMENT: FIELD GUIDE TO TEXAS SECESSION (2nd edition), by TL Hulsey
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1883853117
Tyranny Demands AN ACT OF SELF-DEFENSE: A NOVEL BY ERNE LEWIS
https://tinyurl.com/actofselfdefense
^^^^^ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS ^^^^^
_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Russia: Supreme Court bars last anti-war party from elections
Source: Washington Post
“The Russian Supreme Court has barred the country’s last remaining anti-war party from running in parliamentary elections next month amid an intensifying crackdown on dissent over Russia’s increasingly unpopular war against Ukraine. … Yabloko, which hasn’t managed to clear the 5 percent threshold to win seats in the Duma since 2003, was seen until recently as a fringe party. But as Russians become increasingly dismayed by the expanding reach of Ukraine’s drones and the growing impact of the war on the economy, the party appeared to be gaining support. Recent polls suggested it could win 9 percent of the vote next month, the Moscow newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported. … Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the Supreme Court on Monday and chanted ‘Russia Without Putin!’ After the ruling, security forces attempted to disperse them.” [editor’s note: Russia’s Libertarian Party got suppressed in July, thus the “last” modifier for Yabloko- TLK] (08/10/26)
https://archive.is/DCxD5
-----
2) Trump whines some more about Iran’s surrender demands
Source: AOL
“President Donald Trump on Monday responded to Iran’s demand that the U.S. pay for war damages by calling on Tehran to compensate Americans and others harmed or killed by the country over the last 50 years. ‘I see that Representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran are asking for compensation for the damage done to them during the last five month Military Conflict … even though it was never mentioned in any of our negotiations or meetings!’ Trump wrote on social media. Trump said he is now ‘likewise demanding compensation from Iran’ for Americans killed or wounded in conflicts involving Iran and Iranian-backed groups. He said the demand should be included in any future negotiations with Tehran.” [editor’s note: Apparently he still hasn’t received the “loser doesn’t set the terms” memo from his staff yet – TLK](08/10/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/trump-now-seeks-compensation-iran-172413000.html
-----
3) NYC: Judge blocks implementation of pied-à-terre tax
Source: Politico
“A Staten Island judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday pausing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rollout of New York City’s new tax on second homes worth over $5 million. The ruling from Judge Wayne Ozzi came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday by New York City homeowners challenging City Hall’s administration of the surcharge. The plaintiffs, represented by former First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, took specific issue with the publication of more than 900,000 properties that could fall under the pied-à-terre tax, and letters to some 17,000 property owners the city suspects are actually subject to it. Under Ozzi’s order, the city must take down the public, 900,000-home list, and is prevented for the time being from taking further action based on that list or on the notices mailed to the smaller group of property owners.” (08/10/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/10/judge-blocks-new-york-city-pied-a-terre-tax-01031481
-----
4) Trump signs executive order to split up MMR vaccine
Source: Axios
“President Trump issued an executive order Monday calling for fewer childhood vaccinations, splitting the childhood MMR vaccine into three shots and delivering vaccines at separate medical visits. The executive order states that ‘the combined MMR vaccine should be administered in three separate single-disease shots once such products are domestically available and that, to the maximum extent feasible, all childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits.’ … There currently are not separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella. Companies would have to do clinical trials to bring each through the approval process.” (08/10/26)
https://www.axios.com/2026/08/10/trump-order-split-up-mmr-vaccine
-----
5) NV: Jury selection begins for ex-gang leader charged with Tupac Shakur’s 1996 murder
Source: Reuters
“Jury selection began on Monday in the murder trial of an ex-street gang leader accused of masterminding the drive-by shooting death of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur three decades ago in Las Vegas, a long-unsolved crime that became a seminal moment in rap music history. Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis, 63, is charged in Clark County, Nevada, with a single count of murder by use of a deadly weapon. He has pleaded not guilty. Davis is accused of leading a group of men to kill Shakur, 25, one of rap’s most commercially successful and influential artists, in a 1996 drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip. He faces a potential life sentence without parole if convicted.” (08/10/26)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trial-opens-ex-gang-leader-charged-with-tupac-shakurs-1996-murder-2026-08-10/
-----
6) UK: Radio Caroline breached Ofcom rules after mistakenly announcing King’s death
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Radio Caroline has been found in breach of broadcasting rules after it mistakenly announced the death of King Charles III. The station aired three pre-recorded announcements falsely stating the King had died during the Barry Marsh Show on 19 May. The messages claimed the ‘news media’ had ‘confirmed’ the death, and were followed by the national anthem and 16 minutes of silence on DAB+, while AM listeners heard back-up music. A correction and apology was broadcast 30 minutes later. The ruling by media watchdog Ofcom stated that once the staff member who accidentally played the files realised what they had done, they stopped playing them, ‘panicked and left the premises’. Ofcom said the incident breached Rule 5.1, which requires news to be reported with due accuracy, and Rule 5.2, which says significant mistakes must be corrected quickly.” (08/10/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckge094k2k1o
-----
7) Australia: “Body in suitcase” turns out to be lifelike doll
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Australian police called in to investigate a body found in a suitcase have concluded that the ‘victim’ was in fact a lifelike doll. The suitcase was discovered by two men on the side of a road near the small village of Oallen, about 230km (143 miles) south-west of Sydney. On Monday, police announced a murder investigation, sparking intense interest in the case but backtracked hours later, saying forensic testing had proved the contents were not human. The contents in the suitcase were ‘mistaken for a human originally, so they are very realistic in terms of looking like human remains,’ said Supt Linda Bradbury from the Hume Police District. ‘But we’ve confirmed by other means that they are not.’ The doll was wearing clothing, had hair and a nose piercing, police said, adding that ‘the item also had markings that resembled bruises and grazes’.” (08/10/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyqg4w3gz9o
-----
8) Oman: Regime says grounded tanker oil spill covers 400 square km
Source: Reuters
“Leaking crude oil from a tanker grounded off a nature reserve in Oman has created a slick covering almost 400 square kilometres, the country’s government said on Monday. The Caroline Bezengi is loaded with close to one million barrels of Russian oil bound for Asia and first reported difficulties on June 8 off Yemen, with two maritime security sources saying initial assessments indicated a blast had occurred onboard. No party has taken responsibility for attacking the vessel. Oman, in its first public disclosure on the environmental impact, said on Monday it was seeking to tackle the oil leak near the Hallaniyat Islands.” (08/10/26)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-spill-off-oman-tanker-under-sanctions-against-russia-spreads-over-huge-area-2026-08-10/
-----
9) Trump admits “contractor error” on Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
Source: USA Today
“For the first time, President Donald Trump admitted there was a construction error on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is seeing another round of costly renovations. The initial construction cost more than $16 million, but the iconic Washington DC attraction had to be drained again after the Fourth of July due to peeling of the American-flag-blue liner that Trump ordered. He blamed ‘vandals’ on the issues the pool has seen, but after numerous people were accused of damaging the pool, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia dropped all of their charges. … ‘As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening, but it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential,’ he wrote. Despite no video evidence pointing toward vandalism, Trump stopped short of placing all of the blame on contractors.” (08/10/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/state/washington-dc/2026/08/10/what-went-wrong-on-lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool-trump-admits-error/91238911007/
-----
10) Colombia: 7.4 magnitude earthquake kills at least 20
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake has struck western Colombia and neighbouring countries, prompting widespread evacuations. The earthquake struck on Monday near the municipality of San Jose del Palmar in Colombia’s Choco region, about 400km (250 miles) west of the capital, Bogota, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Colombia’s geological service. Colombia had initially put its magnitude at 6.6 on the Richter scale. … The mayor of Pereira, Colombia, said that 18 people had died there, according to Reuters. Two people are dead in Manizales, the Associated Press reported.” (08/10/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/10/7-4-magnitude-earthquake-hits-colombia-killing-at-least-20
-----
11) UK: Regime road pirates steal record $10 million worth of cars in one weekend
Source: CBS News
“London police said Monday they had [stolen] a record $10 million worth of supercars between Friday and Sunday in an operation aimed at curbing antisocial driving. Officers from London’s Metropolitan Police [stole] a total of 90 vehicles across popular affluent London neighborhoods such as Hyde Park, Kensington and Chelsea, marking the highest value and number of cars [stolen] since they launched an operation to crack down on antisocial driving five years ago. Authorities in England consider antisocial driving to include causing unnecessary noise pollution, street racing and cruising in a convoy, among other types of public nuisance. … This year, police have been given the power to [steal] vehicles involved in antisocial behavior rather than giving motorists a warning, the Met Police said in a statement.” (08/10/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/london-police-supercar-ferrari-seize-impound/
-----
12) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she’s freezing her eggs
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed she has decided to freeze her eggs, and has shared her first steps in the process on social media. The 36-year-old New York Democrat posted the clips on Sunday, hours before telling ABC News’s This Week programme that she had ‘not ruled out the possibility’ of running for president. In the clips, Ocasio-Cortez shows herself taking an injection and talks through tips she has learnt, before answering questions about costs, clinical procedures, storage and how fertility care works under what she calls the US’s ‘broken’ medical system. In her later interview with ABC, she explained that she wanted to ‘normalise’ conversations about the process.” (08/10/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewrzrekwv5o
-----
13) Thailand: Former lawmaker arrested for fatally shooting local official
Source: United Press International
“A former lawmaker from Nonthaburi province, which is still reeling from last week’s school shooting, was arrested Monday after allegedly storming a local government office and shooting a local administrator dead, according to local reports. The alleged gunman has been identified by police as former Nonthaburi MP Chalong Riewraeng and the victim as Pol. Col. Thongchai Yenprasert, president of the Nonthaburi Provincial Administrative Organization, the Bangkok Post reported. … Police said Riewraeng called a TV anchor mid-broadcast and admitted to firing five shots at Yenprasert, the Bangkok Post reported.” (08/10/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/08/10/thailand-lawmaker-shooting/7221786347063/
-----
14) Indonesia battles growing wildfires as Mount Bromo blaze spreads
Source: SFGate
“Indonesia intensified efforts Monday to combat a growing number of wildfires across the archipelago, deploying helicopters, thousands of firefighters and disaster personnel as blazes spread through a popular national park in East Java and peatlands on Sumatra and Borneo islands during an unusually dry season, officials said. Scores of firefighters, backed by 43 helicopters, have been deployed to battle wildfires that have burned more than 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) of forests and other land across the Southeast Asian nation as of Monday, said Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Djamari Chaniago. Strengthening El Nino conditions have raised the risk of more forest and land fires during the peak dry season, he said. East Java authorities said the largest blaze is burning in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java province, where about 743 hectares (1,836 acres) have been scorched. Authorities have closed the park to visitors until further notice.” (08/10/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/indonesia-battles-growing-wildfires-as-mount-22381318.php
-----
15) Greenland: Regime warns Trump-linked oil company not to drill without permission
Source: Yahoo! News
“Greenland has issued a ‘strong warning’ after a US oil company linked to Donald Trump landed drilling equipment onto the Arctic island without permission. The Greenland government said it was aware of drilling machinery being brought onshore on the island’s eastern coast last month ‘in connection with planned oil exploration drilling’. … The equipment is for a large oil-drilling project being funded by Greenland Energy, a Texas company set up last year with ties to Mr Trump. … Days after oil-drilling equipment was seen being hauled ashore by Greenland locals last month, Mr Trump renewed his threats to claim the semi-autonomous island.” (08/09/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/greenland-warns-trump-linked-oil-170943746.html
-----
16) Under Trump, State Department has yanked over 175k visas so far
Source: Fox News
“The U.S. State Department announced on Monday that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas during President Donald Trump’s administration so far. The announcement comes less than two years since Trump started his second term. ‘Under President Trump, the United States Department of State has revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals who violated the terms of their visas, committed crimes, called for violence against U.S. citizens, defrauded Americans, abused our immigration system, or endangered national security,’ the State Department noted. ‘The majority of these visas were revoked due to law enforcement encounters for a range of criminal activity, with assault, driving under the influence, theft, and drug crimes being the leading causes. A significant share of visas were revoked for reckless driving, sexual assault, child abuse, fraud and embezzlement, and other crimes,’ according to the department.” (08/10/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-state-department-has-yanked-more-than-175k-visas-under-trump-administration-so-far
-----
17) Trump names Will Scharf as White House counsel ahead of midterms
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“United States President Donald Trump has named White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf as his next White House counsel, elevating a longtime legal ally to one of the administration’s most important legal positions months before November’s midterm elections. The former Trump lawyer, who worked on the presidential immunity case and later oversaw approval of the president’s disputed White House ballroom project, will replace David Warrington on September 1, with Warrington leaving the administration for the private sector.” (08/10/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/10/trump-names-will-scharf-as-white-house-counsel-ahead-of-midterms
-----
18) UK: Count Binface seeks Parliament seat
Source: ABC News
“Timing is everything in comedy and, so it seems, in British politics for a perennial joke candidate who wears a garbage can on his head. Count Binface, a self-described intergalactic space warrior, has landed in the center of the U.K.’s political universe ahead of a special election Thursday that was derided as a farce long before the ballot was packed with nearly three dozen candidates — many from the silly end of the spectrum. Binface, who has run against prime ministers past and present, was the first to throw his bucket in the ring when Reform UK leader Nigel Farage abruptly quit Parliament and said he would seek reelection to clear his name over financial allegations. … when the major political parties denounced Farage’s move as a political stunt and boycotted the Clacton-on-Sea election in southeastern England, the trash-talking comedian was launched into prime position as default challenger. He has been on a nonstop media blitz since.” (08/10/26)
https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/count-binface-man-plan-seeks-parliament-seat-britains-135508257
-----
19) WI: Authorities ID cop who murdered cyclist in Madison
Source: SFGate
“Investigators on Monday released the name of the Madison police officer who shot and killed a 38-year-old [b]lack man in July — a shooting that was captured on video and sparked protests that put Wisconsin’s capital city on edge over how authorities treat people of color. Kiel Baitinger-Peterson, a white officer with nearly 11 years’ experience in law enforcement, fired the shots that killed Corey Ruiz on July 22, the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation said in a statement. Baitinger-Peterson was one of four officers who surrounded Ruiz, who was on a bike, in response to calls about someone who was checking out parked cars and an alleged burglary attempt, police said. The shooting sparked days of protests and calls from the [b]lack community for Madison to address racial justice issues. Baitinger-Peterson did not reply to an email seeking comment.” (08/10/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/authorities-id-the-officer-who-fatally-shot-a-22381872.php
-----
20) PA: Libertarian Gubernatorial Ticket Qualifies for November Ballot
Source: Independent Political Report
“Ken Krawchuk and John Thomas, the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial ticket, have officially completed the signature petitioning process and qualified for the state’s general election ballot this November. … Though certified, the ticket’s nomination papers still remain subject to a challenge through the state’s objection period, which runs until August 10. In the event that happens, Pennsylvania courts then have until August 18 to determine their outcome. … The Libertarian ticket joins incumbent Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro and Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis, Republican nominees Stacy Garrity and Jason Richey, and Green nominees Anthony Dastra and Craig Bolton, all of whom have also qualified.” (08/09/26)
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2026/08/pennsylvania-libertarian-gubernatorial-ticket-qualifies-for-november-ballot/
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) The Socialist Surge Revives Failed and Hateful Ideas
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“As democratic socialists in general and the DSA in particular take over the Democratic Party, it’s worth examining the positions they take, the enemies they pick, and who supports them to see what they have in store for us as they seek to remake the country. … Given that the rise of the DSA is likely rooted in disillusionment and resentment, it may be a losing proposition to point out that socialism’s nostrums are nonsense. Still, we need to emphasize that free-market [sic] capitalism is good and contributes to liberty and prosperity while socialism does the opposite.” (08/10/26)
https://reason.com/2026/08/10/the-socialist-surge-revives-failed-and-hateful-ideas/
-----
22) Eurotrash and Holy Water
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“It’s called the Fourth Political Theory (4PT for short). It’s gotten the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin two major fans among throngs of minor ones. The first is Vladimir Putin. The second is Tucker Carlson. Each, in his own way, is important. But together, the three make for a subversive head-heart-gut triad: Dugin the thinker, Carlson the relator, and Putin the muscle. Much like the social justice left with its beachhead in the academy, these three are propagating their own form of ideological imperialism online. But don’t call it right-wing. Like most positions these days, 4PT defies a linear spectrum, despite the parrots of the progressive media calling him ‘far-right.’ Instead, Dugin searches through the ruins of history to put together pieces of something new.” (08/10/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/eurotrash-and-holy-water
-----
23) Unhappy Anniversary
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“This month marks 55 years since President Richard Nixon closed the ‘gold window,’ severing the last link between the US dollar and gold. Under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, foreign countries pegged their currencies to the US dollar, which was then pegged to a fixed value of gold. Foreign countries could exchange their dollars for gold at a rate of 35 dollars per ounce. … Closing the gold window left the US with a pure fiat currency. The results have been disastrous. The dollar has lost over 97 percent of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, with most of the dollar’s decline occurring since 1971.” (08/10/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/unhappy-anniversary
-----
24) America vs. the MAGA-Industrial Complex
Source: Antiwar.com
by Jason Jones
“Have you seen the ruling classes’ latest ploy for holding onto power rather than allow the public to hold them accountable through straightforward and honest elections? It’s clear as day to anyone with eyes to see. And the fact that the powerful now operate as much within the ‘MAGA’ brand as in the Democratic establishment shouldn’t blind us. If we let it, then even some of the best of us will soon be taken in – becoming useful idiots for the same ruling classes that the MAGA movement was founded to oppose. I’m referring to the new game of stirring up hatred against our neighbors of Middle-Eastern and Eastern heritage and labeling all dissenters against U.S.- and Israeli-led wars and war crimes as ‘radicals’ and ‘communists.'” (08/10/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/jason_jones/2026/08/09/america-vs-the-maga-industrial-complex/
-----
25) The tactic of AOC and her allies to giggle away the “craziness” of Woke-era abuses should not be tolerated
Source: Glenn Greenwald
by Glenn Greenwald
“Many Democratic Party candidates emerging on what one might call the populist left are finding success in primaries across the country. But most of them have a shared liability: they were fully on board with the worst excesses and abuses of the ‘peak wokeness’ that emerged in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 killing, enduring and contaminating most of our institutions for several years after. … AOC, who herself aggressively advocated those policies, sought to laughingly dismiss this all as just some momentary, harmless frenzy of ‘craziness’ that never really meant much and that everyone has all just agreed to move beyond …. It is, I suppose, a net positive that those who imposed extremist woke dogma are now too embarrassed to defend it. … But when AOC tries to giggle her way out of her behavior and the behavior of her allies, it actually is more offensive and cowardly than anything else.” (08/10/26)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-tactic-of-aoc-and-her-allies
-----
26) Democrats no longer have the No. 1 weapon to keep their socialist wing in line
Source: Fox News
by Tom Del Beccaro
“American politics is an ever-changing game of power and big money. For the modern Democrat Party, that means being challenged and sometimes eclipsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) – and there is little to nothing the Democrat Party can do about its rise. The United States has had many political parties in its history. They include everything from the Federalists (1789) and the Whig Party (1830) to the Libertarian Party (1971) and the Green Party (2001). The current Democrat Party (1828) is the longest reigning major political party in American history. The role of the many lesser-known parties in American history has been to chasten the then-dominant parties and/or to champion particular issues – such as the Greenback Party (1874), which fought for paper money in the late 1800s. While that Greenback Party is no more, paper money has replaced gold as the dominant American currency.” (08/10/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/democrats-no-longer-have-no-1-weapon-keep-their-socialist-wing-line
-----
27) D’ye mean people queue for below market price items?
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall
“Isn’t this a shock to everything we know about human nature? ‘In a speech on June 29, delivered before he won the Labour leadership unopposed, Burnham connected the loss of 1.5 million council homes with the increase, to a similar number, of families on the waiting list for social housing. Many, he said, had waited more than 10 years for a home.’ A council house is substantially cheaper – to the tenant – than any other form of housing. People are willing to queue for 10 years to gain something below market price, are they? Isn’t that a shock to everything we know about humans. They’ll be predicting queues at the start of the New Year sales next.” (08/10/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/dye-mean-people-queue-for-below-market-price-items
-----
28) Who Shot Ricky Pearsall? California’s Pro-Crime Policies Hide the Truth
Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley
“Who shot 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall in 2024? No one knows, because California’s insane criminal justice system has kept the suspect’s identity under wraps. … Pearsall, the 31st pick in the 2024 NFL draft, was shopping in San Francisco’s Union Square when a thief approached and demanded his watch. Pearsall would not give it up. In the ensuing struggle, the 49ers’ top draft pick took a bullet in the chest. Miraculously enough, the bullet missed vital organs. Pearsall survived the attack in stable condition. … Meanwhile, the suspect himself remained something of a mystery. One report described him as a boy of 17, an age that brought labels such as ‘teen’ and ‘juvenile.'” (08/10/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/10/who-shot-ricky-pearsall-californias-pro-crime-policies-hide-the-truth/
-----
29) Trump: The Empire-First President
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus
by Edward Hunt
“The Trump administration marked the 250th anniversary of US independence with a series of statements in support of American empire. Despite the fact that President Donald Trump campaigned against endless war and the White House issued a National Security Strategy that rejected ‘global domination’, the Trump administration celebrated the nation’s 250th anniversary by glorifying empire as one of the country’s highest achievements. Administration officials praised moments in US history when US leaders embraced empire, such as when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams spoke in favor of an ’empire of liberty’ and Theodore Roosevelt acted to take Panama. At a time when many people in the country were reflecting on the ideals of liberty and equality that Jefferson had emphasized in the Declaration of Independence, the Trump administration glorified the country’s imperial history, creating a rationale for Empire First.” (08/10/26)
https://fpif.org/the-new-apologists-for-american-empire/
-----
30) Abolish London’s fun police
Source: spiked
by Lucy Rogers
“Few familiar with Westminster City Council will be surprised by its draft proposal to refuse licenses for new pubs and nightclubs unless they ban standing up while having a pint – an activity it calls ‘vertical drinking’. After all, when it comes to petty killjoy regulations, this council has form. Take its attitude to takeaway pizza. … Westminster council have found a way to spoil even this in Soho. The pizza restaurant ICCO on Greek Street has a limitation on its licence that dictates it may not sell pizza for takeaway after 11pm. … Like other restrictions on venues operating in Soho, the reason cited by the council for this strange ban is the dreaded ‘cumulative impact assessment’ (CIA).” (08/10/26)
https://archive.is/hqNxN
-----
31) Behind Francesca Hong’s flighty campaign a hateful movement, landing on the right ears
Source: New York Post
by Isaac Schorr
“‘We need more witch poems written by fabulous asians.’ ‘We need more algorithms written by immigrant trans folk.’ ‘We need more supreme court decisions written by activist p.o.c. [people of color].’ ‘We need more speculative fiction written by indigenous latinx.’ In a Sheboygan, Wis. café, a series of posters assert as much before following up with a haunting question: ‘What are you doing to help make that happen?’ On Saturday night, attendees of an event hosted by the establishment could answer with their chin up: they’re going to elect Francesca Hong governor. A democratic socialist member of the state Assembly and the prohibitive favorite to succeed Gov. Tony Evers as the Democratic nominee for his office come Tuesday, Hong has featured in headlines for all of the wrong reasons over the last few weeks. In a much-maligned November 2020 tweet, she called on officials to ‘Cancel Thanksgiving’.” (08/09/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/08/09/opinion/behind-francesca-hongs-flighty-campaign-is-a-hateful-movement-and-its-landing-on-the-right-ears/
-----
32) Why Oil Keeps Getting More Abundant
Source: The Daily Economy
by Gale Pooley
“Oil deposits may be finite, but human knowledge is not. Freedom, innovation, and entrepreneurship continually transform our use of resources.” (08/10/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/why-oil-keeps-getting-more-abundant/
-----
33) Organized People Can Still Beat Your Big Money
Source: Our Future
by Sulma Arias
“Every time I hear about the insane amounts of money billionaires like Elon Musk and dark-money super PACs pour into our elections to crush grassroots candidates, it’s hard not to feel our democracy is broken beyond repair. But then I hear about the victory, against all odds, of someone like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who the voters of Michigan just chose as their Democratic candidate for Senate. Dr. El-Sayed is a physician and Rhodes Scholar, born and raised in Michigan, who ran the Detroit Health Department and just defeated a massive dark-money primary campaign against him, the largest in American history. Out-of-state groups spent nearly $70 million to crush his campaign, spreading divisive lies and outspending him by more than ten to one. And yet despite all of the lies big money could buy, El-Sayed won.” (08/10/26)
https://ourfuture.org/20260809/organized-people-can-still-beat-your-big-money
-----
34) “But Biden” excuses are just admissions Trump has failed
Source: The Hill
by Joslin Joseph
“It is now August 2026. More than 560 days have passed since Trump took office again. He has attained more power, surrounded himself with yes-men, has a Republican House and Senate, a 6-3 tilt on the Supreme Court, and no excuse to fail. But here we are, with Trump polling in Biden territory and trying to convince Americans that things are going great. And yet, when pressed, Trump and company keep defaulting to how bad things were under Biden. … We have all dealt with kids that haven’t learned how to take responsibility for their actions. There is always someone else to blame because they believe that their parents, teachers or other adults will believe them.” (08/10/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/6018967-trump-fails-accountability/
-----
35) The Socialists’ Institutionalism — Tried and Failed
Source: Law & Liberty
by Aaron Kushner
“Calls to ‘democratize’ the US Constitution seem shortsighted in the face of the early republic’s failed experiments with unicameralism.” (08/10/26)
https://lawliberty.org/the-socialists-institutionalism-tried-and-failed/
-----
36) Florida Shows How to Demand a More Open-Minded Academia
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Patrick McIlheran
“A political scientist laid out the grim numbers about lopsided ideology among his fellow Florida professors—whose donations go to Democrats by a 9-to-1 margin over Republicans—and ended up giving Wisconsinites who want exposure to a fuller spectrum of ideas something to dream about. Because when that political scientist, Ryan Owens, was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he found in 2024 that the margin there was more like 490-to-1. This tilt isn’t just a curiosity or fodder for talk-radio segments. It leads, Owens tells me, to blind spots that weaken universities’ place in society.” (08/10/26)
https://fee.org/articles/florida-shows-how-to-demand-a-more-open-minded-academia/
-----
37) Prepare for the DSA Revolution
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis
“Karl Marx taught that at some point in the future there would be a ‘Golden Age’ of freedom and equality for everyone, called ‘communism’. He has countless disciples who have believed it, and hundreds of millions of innocent people have died because of it. … But, nooooo, that won’t happen in America. I beg to differ. Marxists won’t get it right in America, either, because Marxism is simply wrong, contrary to history and human nature. So, in frustration and hate, they’ll do the same things they’ve done everywhere they’ve gained power. What do these people — the DSA — really want? They want power, they want money, they want you dead, or at least cowed to where you will keep your head down and your mouth shut. And that’s all they want.” (08/10/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/08/10/prepare-for-the-dsa-revolution-n2680947
-----
38) Why the Trump administration will have to accept a Hormuz toll
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Dan DePetris
“Of course, permitting an Iranian toll or fee structure isn’t ideal. Before the war, such a hypothetical would have been difficult to imagine. The strait at that time was free and open, and roughly 120 to 150 ships relied on the route each day to get their products to customers worldwide. The United States wants Iran to return to this status quo. Yet Iran has no intention of doing so — and to expect otherwise is to be completely ignorant of how events have played out since. Trump’s war handed Iran the perfect excuse to leverage its geography, and the Iranians didn’t hesitate to do so.” (08/10/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/straight-of-hormuz-toll/
-----
39) Will Trump Revive America’s Filibustering Habit?
Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño
“Men with rifles, investors with appetites, and consultants with slide decks have always read a permissive Washington as an invitation, and America has a long-forgotten tradition of citizens who accepted taking military action without waiting for orders from DC. They were called filibusters, from the Spanish filibustero, borrowed in turn from the Dutch word for freebooter. The practice began in the 1790s, when Americans plotted private assaults on Spanish possessions to the south and British Canada to the north. Congress answered with the Neutrality Act of 1794 and a tougher version in 1818, making it a federal crime to launch a military expedition from American soil against a nation at peace with the United States. Americans flouted both for seventy years.” (08/10/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/will-trump-revive-americas-filibustering-habit
-----
40) Can Ants Teach Us Anything About Free Markets?
Source: Students For Liberty
by Ilia Zhuzhunashvili
“Observing a single ant often reveals little about the organization of ant behavior. Its movements may appear erratic: it changes direction, retraces its path, pauses, and resumes without any obvious plan. Considered in isolation, the ant does not seem to act with clear purpose or coordination. The colony, however, presents a very different picture. What appears disordered at the level of the individual can become highly structured at the level of the group. When a source of food is introduced, ants may rapidly establish a direct and efficient route between the nest and the food. The resulting trail can resemble a carefully planned transport network. Yet no individual ant designs the route, issues instructions, or oversees the movement of the colony.” (08/10/26)
https://studentsforliberty.org/blog/can-ants-teach-us-anything-about-free-markets/
-----
41) Is It (Still) Un-American to Care?
Source: Common Dreams
by Danaka Katovich
“I initially wrote this piece in 2024 during the student uprisings that took place around the United States. The content was focused on Gaza and the people who made up the movement for Palestine in the belly of the beast. I’ve rewritten some of it and replaced Gaza with Cuba. The arguments needed no editing at all. In March, a delegation traveled to Cuba to bring medical aid to Cubans who were suffering under the fuel blockade imposed on them by the United States of America. In recent months, people and organizations who took part, including my own organization, have been targeted by the Trump administration via investigations, subpoenas, and threatening reports such as Marco Rubio’s 100-page report ‘The Capital of 21st Century Communism’.” (08/10/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/un-american-to-care
-----
42) The Barbarous Relic’s Revenge
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith
“For Americans, the gold standard was killed by presidential decree during the crisis of the Great Depression. In 1971, another president told foreigners they could no longer get gold for American dollars and thus removed the last trace of monetary gold from international trade. Since then all governments have been on a fiat money standard, depreciating their currencies as a matter of policy. The story of gold’s disappearance is part of a larger narrative about the growth of government. Besides being a check on bank counterfeiting, or inflation, gold is also a serious restriction on government expansion. For the advocates of big government, therefore, gold becomes a barbarous relic that stands in their way.” (08/10/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/barbarous-relics-revenge
-----
43) You Want a Real Commie?
Source: The American Conservative
by Bill Kauffman
“Fox World is all a-twitter because a handful of members or fellow travelers of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are about to be elected to the U.S. Congress and various state legislatures. They’re ‘godless communists,’ according to President Trump, and what with inflation, an insane war, and Trump family grift, we’ll be hearing about commies all election season. Michael ‘The Other America’ Harrington, founder of DSA, was about as threatening as the Mills Brothers. The current DSA candidates seem, at first glance, as off-putting as your typical hectoring grad-school wokester, but I can’t get too worked up over them. After all, New York City once sent a real communist to Congress—and his example complicates the Sean Hannity narrative.” (08/10/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/you-want-a-real-commie/
-----
44) Public presence, public duty
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Is it reasonable to say that libertarians, and even lovers of liberty who are rational, free-market, anarchists, believe that members of a community do have some public duties? Even while we recognize that people have a God-given right to reject those duties, just as they have the right to stupidly refuse to accept responsibility for their actions?” (08/09/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/08/09/public-presence-public-duty/
-----
45) Jason Arday, Barack Obama, and the Making of Myths
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup
“Yesterday in these pages, the inimitable Roger Kimball recounted the tall tale of Jason Arday, the youngest black professor at the University of Cambridge. As Kimball noted, Arday has been shown over the last few weeks to be more than just your average modern academic charlatan. With every passing day, it appears more and more that he’s a full-throated fabulist in the contemporary sense, which is to say that he made up almost everything about his life and public persona and plagiarized the rest. All his lies and deceptions were, however, uttered in the service of a larger purpose: to undermine the establishment and force its members to reckon with their hatreds and prejudices. Arday overcame more obstacles and barriers than the average man could ever even imagine, and therefore his struggle must be admired and applauded, while his ‘scholarship’ is celebrated.” (08/10/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/10/jason-arday-barack-obama-and-the-making-of-myths/
-----
46) The Choice: Peace and Civilization or War and AI?
Source: The Realist Review
by Val Aksilenko
“Artificial intelligence may be among the most valuable gifts the Creator has given humanity. It can help us understand languages, cure diseases, reduce exhausting labor, overcome ignorance, anticipate disasters, restore nature, expose deception, and help hostile peoples understand one another. But perhaps every great gift is also a test. … The peril is not that artificial intelligence will suddenly become malevolent in a human-like sense. The greatest peril is that it will become obedient to human enmity — that we will embed our accumulated fear, hatred, falsehoods, and ambitions within an intelligence that is more powerful and faster than ourselves.” (08/09/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/the-choice-civilization-or-ai
-----
47) Drugs For Poor Countries
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Medical drugs have large fixed costs, the costs of research, development and testing, low marginal cost, the cost of making one more pill. If the company sells the drug at marginal cost everyone to whom it is worth at least the cost of producing the pill gets it but the company never covers the fixed cost; if it keeps doing that it goes out of business. If it sells the drug at a price enough above marginal cost to pay back the initial expenditure many people who value the pill above the cost of producing it do not get it. The solution is price discrimination, selling the drug at a high price to customers who are willing to pay it, at a low price to customers who are not. In practice this usually means selling the drug at a high price in rich countries and a low price in poor countries.” (08/09/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/drugs-for-poor-countries
-----
48) A Transgender Gospel Against Western Civilization
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“They say that the arch of history bends towards progress but as a trans person in the midst of the second decade of the twenty-first century, I find myself torn at the crossroads of an increasingly bewildering age. On the one hand, transgender and gender diverse people in the West have never experienced a greater level of exposure and popular acceptance. On the other hand, these same trans people, my people, have also never faced a greater threat of state sanctioned violence and outright erasure.” (08/09/26)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/08/a-transgender-gospel-against-western.html
-----
49) Super PACs Find It Hard to Shake Partnerships With AIPAC
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Throughout this election cycle, big-money super PACs, like AIPAC affiliate United Democracy Project and Democratic Majority for Israel, have laundered their political spending by transferring millions of dollars to other PACs that run independent expenditure ads in primaries. This way, voters see support for candidates from neutral-sounding groups, often on totally unrelated topics, rather than pro-Israel organizations that have become toxic to Democratic voters. Those secondary PACs have other priorities, of course. BOLD America, which has taken $1.55 million from United Democracy Project this cycle, supports Hispanic candidates. Women Vote, the super PAC affiliated with EMILYs List that has received $650,000 from Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) this cycle, backs pro-choice Democratic women. 3.14 Action, which ran into controversy in 2024 as a pass-through for AIPAC donors to support Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-OR), was set up to uplift Democratic scientists and doctors.” (08/10/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/08/10/super-pacs-hard-to-shake-partnerships-with-aipac-minnesota-congress/
-----
50) Anthony Fauci and the Collapse of Scientific Authority
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jason Locasale
“Anthony Fauci is now facing intense scrutiny. His diaries, emails, and testimony have raised fundamental questions about what he knew, what he told the public, and how he exercised authority during the pandemic. Many outside academia describe this as his fall from grace, while universities and medical institutions continue to celebrate him as a heroic public servant and scientific authority. That contradiction is the starting point for this essay. Fauci matters not only because of his individual conduct, but because he exposes the institutions that produced, empowered, and continue to protect him.” (08/09/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/anthony-fauci-and-the-collapse-of-scientific-authority/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 08/10/26
Source: Reason
"Are Socialists Actually Leaving Wokeness Behind?" (08/10/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/08/10/are-socialists-actually-leaving-wokeness-behind/
-----
52) Rising, 08/10/26
Source: The Hill
"Robby Soave gives his radar on podcaster Scott Galloway suggesting that young men should be required to sign up for national service." (08/10/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/6001481-rising-august-10-2026/
-----
53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/10/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
"Will Hegseth Get His $1.5 Trillion For 'Defense'?" (08/10/26)
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1nxnRBYQDByxO
-----
54) Zooming In, 08/10/26
Source: The UnPopulist
“Is Trump’s Populist Coalition Shrinking?” (08/10/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/is-trumps-populist-coalition-shrinking
-----
55) EconTalk, 08/10/26
Source: EconTalk
“Ben Sasse on Faith, Family, and Facing Death.” (08/09/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/ben-sasse-on-faith-family-and-facing-death/
-----
56) Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 08/10/26
Source: Politico
“Can Tucker Carlson build a third party?” (08/09/26)
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/POLL4757463319.mp3
-----
57) LPALive, episode 80
Source: LP Alliance
“LNC Executive Committee Meeting.” (08/09/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k74uNw9vDYI
-----
58) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 08/09/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Pentagon Strategy To Emphasize Tactical Nukes, Trump Says US-Iran ‘Semi-Negotiating,’ and More.” (08/09/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoUvBo8MXEs
-----
59) Free Talk Live, 08/09/26
Source: Free Talk Live
“Feet juice lemonade :: Turd Ferguson calls about nothing worth hearing :: Dave Ridley calls about USexit :: Sarah in NM calls about vitamins but just talks about Texas :: Skeeter calls about secession :: the best, most proper path to freedom :: 2026-08-09 Hosts: Stu, Rich E. Rich, Mark Edge.” (08/09/26)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2026-08-09
-----
60) Glenn Greenwald on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Glenn Greenwald joins the show to discuss the recent victories of several anti-establishment left-wing candidates in Democratic primaries and the shifts in American politics more broadly.” (08/09/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/8-7-26-glenn-greenwald-on-how-american-politics-is-changing/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FND is published every weekday except on holidays. Forward freely.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
http://groups.google.com/group/freedom-news-daily
Support the Liberty International (tax deductible)
https://liberty-intl.org/join-the-movement/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages