Rip’s Newsletter
August 19, 2026
Compiled and Edited
by
Jim Reynolds
Articles in This Issue
Victor Davis Hanson - Hating Israel Fatigue
Sasha Gong - A Chinese in Havana
Jay Rogers - Use Of National Defense Resources To Protect The Border Is Legal
Jim Reynolds - The Left That Scared William F. Buckley
Overview
This set keeps circling the same fault lines: how far political hatred can be normalized, what a free society owes to its allies and its borders, and how much decay follows when ideology outruns reality.
I’m struck by the contrast between the hard-edged defense of Israel and border enforcement and the more reflective look at Cuba’s long collapse under revolutionary myth.
There’s also a reminder that style still matters in politics, with Buckley standing as proof that wit and discipline can be as powerful as outrage.
Together, these pieces ask whether our public life still rewards clarity, restraint, and moral seriousness.
Hating Israel Fatigue
By: Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness
Date: 2026-08-18 · Words: 3,672
Victor Davis Hanson argues that Israel has become the target of an irrational, selective, and politically useful hatred in U.S. public life, especially on the left and among some on the right.
He contrasts Israel’s democratic freedoms and relative tolerance with the repression common across the Middle East, then says critics ignore far worse atrocities by Islamist regimes and other states while fixating on Israel.
Hanson frames post–Oct. 7 outrage as a surge of old antisemitic tropes repackaged as anti-Zionism, citing campus celebrations of Hamas, Democratic Party hostility to pro-Israel candidates, and conspiracy claims about Jewish influence.
He also defends Israel’s Gaza campaign by arguing Hamas used civilians as shields, casualty figures are manipulated, and the civilian-to-combatant ratio is lower than critics claim.
The piece concludes that America’s turn against its closest regional ally is both morally inverted and strategically reckless.
This story matters because it argues that the fight over Israel is now a test of whether the U.S. can distinguish democratic allies from propaganda-driven hatred.
Reader Experience: ★★★★☆ Minor clutter but easy reading.
Read the original article HERE
A Chinese in Havana
By: Sasha Gong American Greatness
Date: 2026-08-18 · Words: 977
Cuba’s 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth prompted Sasha Gong to revisit Havana in 2024 and view the island through the lens of her upbringing in Maoist China and decades in America.
She describes a city of striking colonial beauty shadowed by decay, ration books, subdivided homes, broken infrastructure, and a daily economy shaped by scarcity and improvisation.
Gong argues that the embargo has imposed real costs but cannot explain Cuba’s deeper failures, which she traces to a dependent command economy that collapsed with Soviet support and never recovered.
She highlights the distortions of a multi-tiered system in which wages, rationing, open markets, and dollars coexist, making tourism tips more valuable than professional salaries and pushing young people toward emigration.
The article contrasts the tourist-friendly image of vintage cars, music, and revolutionary icons with the lived reality of policing, shortages, and stagnation, underscored by her brief detention near the U.S.
Embassy.
This story matters because it challenges romanticized views of Cuba and shows how socialist systems leave lasting damage in everyday life, not just in ideology.
Reader Experience: ★★★★☆ Minor clutter but easy reading.
Read the original article HERE
Use Of National Defense Resources To Protect The Border Is Legal
By: Jay Rogers The Federalist
Date: 2026-08-19 · Words: 1,160
The article argues that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel correctly concluded troops may detain illegal border crossers a short distance beyond a National Defense Area boundary without violating the Posse Comitatus Act, because they are protecting federal property rather than acting as a civilian police force.
It traces the legal and historical basis to Theodore Roosevelt’s 1907 border reservation and says the Trump administration’s conversion of border segments into National Defense Areas simply applies longstanding military trespass authorities to federal land.
The piece says the policy has helped drive apprehensions sharply lower, from about 2 million in fiscal 2023 to roughly 81,000 so far this year, while also noting that courts have already thrown out some charges where the government failed to show adequate notice.
It acknowledges civil-liberties concerns about mission creep and accidental trespass by hikers or ranchers, but argues those are due-process issues to be fixed with better signage and tighter zone placement, not reasons to abandon the approach.
The author frames the broader point as a demonstration that the government already has the tools to secure the border if leaders are willing to use them.
This story matters because it shows how a century-old legal framework can be used to tighten border control without new legislation, while testing the limits of military authority and due process
Reader Experience: ★★★★☆ Minor clutter but easy reading.
Read the original article HERE
The Left That Scared William F. Buckley
By: Jim Reynolds www.reynolds.com
Date: 2026-08-19 · Words: 1,688
William F. Buckley Jr. is presented as a uniquely formidable television intellectual whose style—witty, combative, and precise—made him both memorable and effective at challenging liberal guests without ever raising his voice.
The essay argues that Buckley’s real significance was not that he predicted the exact future, but that he recognized the direction of American liberalism: toward greater centralization, secularization, egalitarianism, and elite confidence in social engineering.
It contrasts the mainstream liberalism Buckley opposed in the 1950s and 1960s with today’s progressive Left, suggesting that what once seemed like modest liberal drift has since expanded into a much more transformative political project.
The piece also notes that while conservatives have adapted culturally, their core philosophy has remained comparatively stable, unlike the Left’s evolving assumptions about equality, speech, sex, merit, and state power.
Buckley’s old warning to “Stop” is reframed as less quaint than prophetic, because the article sees his real insight as identifying a movement with no clear limiting principle.
This story matters because it uses Buckley as a benchmark to show how far modern American politics has moved—and how early some of today’s conflicts were already visible.
Reader Experience: ★★★★★ Clean Substack. No ads. Fast loading.
Read the original article HERE
You may also be interested in the following selected stories:
China’s Ongoing Threat to Our Elections — Peter Navarro, peternavarro.substack.com
Acknowledging Everything, Solving Nothing — Brian C Joondeph, American Thinker
Socialism in the Open and on the Right — Veronique de Rugy, FrontPage Magazine
Iran’s Real Battlefield is the 2026 Midterms — Aynaz Anni Cyrus, FrontPage Magazine
NeverVance Is The New NeverTrump. And It’s Just As Dishonest — John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist
The Long Rise of the New Democratic Party — Michael Barone, FrontPage Magazine
