August 6, 2026

THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:

The GOP Is Warning About Socialism While Quietly Embracing It: Federal ownership of private companies has become routine. And it is happening on the right, even as conservatives point fingers at the left for its socialism. (Veronique de Rugy | 8.6.2026, reason)

A year ago, these deals looked like improvisation—one-offs stitched together under pressure with President Donald Trump’s fluid negotiating style. Now, the department announces them in batches. Federal ownership of private companies has become routine, and it is happening on the right even as members busily point fingers at the left for its socialism.

To be sure, this is not the abolition of private property that some in the DSA would love to see. But strip away the label and look at the mechanism. Socialism’s defining move is to put ownership and decision making in the same collective hands. A government equity stake does exactly that. Washington already regulates these firms, buys from them, and subsidizes them. Now, it owns pieces of them. Every lever it controls—tariffs, permits, contracts, the next tranche of subsidies—moves the value of its own holdings.

Bad enough he brought Protectionism, Isolationism and Nativism with him from his days as a Democrat…

THE CULTURE WARS ARE A ROUT:

An Odyssey without paganism: In Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation, the gods are almost entirely absent—and the hero is motivated by something like Christian ethics. (Kathryn Reklis, August 5, 2026, Christian Century)

Perhaps most surprising is the way Nolan brings the story into a Christianly inflected moral universe (but without making it a Christian movie). The Greek principle of xenia, the reciprocal bond between strangers and hosts that demands hospitality and gift exchange, is updated as a general moral principle articulated by one character as a version of the golden rule and extended by Odysseus even to acts of war. The Odysseus of Homer’s poem does not spend time worrying if his feats of cunning to win the war are ethical or if he has an obligation to treat his enemies with kindness and fairness. Nolan’s Odysseus seems to think of little else.