“Lithuania is calling on NATO to help strengthen its air defenses after a drone carrying 2 kilograms of explosives entered the country from Belarus and crashed in a military training area.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/lithuania-nato-air-defense-drone-belarus-russia/
Statues of leaders in parks have less to do with history and more to do with celebrating certain ideologies and causes. A statue doesn’t tell you much about history, but it does honor the person in stone, and it honors what they are known for. Confederate leaders and soldiers are known for using deadly force in rebellion against the United States of America for the primary cause of keeping most black people in the south as slaves. These acts were traitorous, anti-freedom, racist, and anti-democratic because the south only seceded because they lost an election to an abolitionist named Lincoln.
Such statues should be removed legally.
“the National Park Service says it’s obligated to restore the Pike statue by executive orders issued by President Donald Trump”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/04/confederal-statue-reinstated-washington-00493394
Europe has given more than twice as much to Ukraine compared to the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0W1ULjXaW4
Exclusive: Ukraine prepared to cede territory held by Russia & ‘breach’ sparks eastern front alarm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkEB6WCgqVU
Aid workers have confirmed, Gazans are starving.
Seems pretty clear that Israel can argue that their goal is regime change, not genocide. It makes sense that a country would not want to live next to a regime that actively wants to wipe them off the face of the planet. Hamas and other terrorist groups could end this at any time by surrendering and allowing the rule of a non-terrorist entity. As long as they don’t, Israel has to either fight the terrorist group, which cannot be done without civilian casualties, or just wait for the next Hamas attack. Nevertheless, Israel has committed war crimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrhBypHFYPY
“Congressional Republicans really like the 2017 Trump tax cuts. It’s why the “big, beautiful bill” costs so much.
The decision to either extend those cuts or make them permanent before their year-end expiration date was the driving force behind the original, $2.4 trillion price tag of the House-passed megabill. Then the Senate GOP went even further, deepening the financial impact of the vast domestic policy package.
That exacerbated the string of intraparty fights that consumed Republicans for weeks. Even as different factions squared off over issues such as slashing Medicaid — hundreds of billions here, tens of billions there — the extension of the 2017 tax cuts had already set the table. In the end, the Senate added another $1 trillion to the price tag.
Detailed final estimates from Congress’ scorekeeper haven’t yet been released, but the overall picture is clear: The cost of President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending legislation was inflated by the desire to extend the tax cuts from his first administration. Other political fights shifted the price tag from there, but there was not much the staunchest deficit hawks could do but chip away at the margins.”
Where is the Tea Party!?
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2025/megabill-cost-trump-2017-tax-cuts/
“the Israeli military will also start a complete occupation of Gaza in order to stamp out Hamas, with the end goal being to surrender the territory to “Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us,” in Netanyahu’s words. This means the 800,000 to 1 million Palestinians who still reside there will be evacuated south, with a deadline of October 7 of this year.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/08/the-occupation/
“Texas already has several mechanisms to use in coaxing the Democrats back. Each day they’re gone, the fleeing Democrats incur a $500-per-day fine. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott also released an order for their arrest by the Texas Department of Public Safety, describing the Democrats’ conduct as “abandonment or forfeiture.” Republicans in the Texas House, meanwhile, have issued arrest warrants for the absent Democrats, and Attorney General Ken Paxton—who is challenging Cornyn in his re-election bid—has called for their removal from office.
…
Regardless of how involved the FBI will become, the bureau’s involvement at all degrades the principle of federalism by infringing upon Texas’s authority to discipline its lawmakers. It is also the most recent example of the Trump Justice Department being weaponized for political gain and tasked with duties outside its standard wheelhouse.
…
Though Patel dismissed concerns during his confirmation hearing that he would weaponize the FBI, he seems to have set his sights on the Texas Democrats, despite Trump’s Day One executive order to end the “weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
While the Democrats’ plan is an attempt to circumvent a vote, they’ve broken no federal laws or statutes. There is simply no need for the FBI’s involvement.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/08/the-fbi-has-no-business-tracking-down-texas-democrats/
Gaza has a lot of hospitals relative to their population. This is partly because Gaza has smaller hospitals. Hamas has intentionally built terrorist tunnels under hospitals to make targeting terrorists in them a war crime due to a hospital being in the way. Hamas forces Israel between a rock and a hard place. If Israel doesn’t hit the terrorist/military targets to avoid hitting hospitals, then Hamas can continue to operate there. If Israel does hit the targets, then Hamas propaganda can scream about how evil Israel is for hitting hospitals. Hamas is sacrificing its own people and civilian infrastructure as a tactic against Israel. Many in the West aid Hamas by screaming about hospitals hit while ignoring Hamas’s tactic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONXgdGLNSkw
“I’m hugely in favor of stopping violent crime, but using federal agents to get the job done—and perhaps more worryingly, having the president direct how minors are charged—is likely to get into sticky territory rather quickly. “Because D.C. is not a state, the federal government has unique authority to exert control over city affairs—even amid objections from the residents and locally elected government,” notes The Washington Post. “The Home Rule Act of 1973 gave D.C. residents the ability to elect their own mayor and council members. A federal takeover of the D.C. police force would be an extraordinary assertion of power in a place where local leaders have few avenues to resist federal encroachment.””
https://reason.com/2025/08/11/big-balls-attacked/