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On foreign policy, Washington agrees on almost nothing. How much or whether to arm Ukraine, how hard to push Israel, what to do about Iran—these questions split both parties. But one issue cuts across the partisan divide with something close to consensus: China is the greatest strategic challenge of our era, and America must prevail.

That consensus is both practical and ideological. Unlike when our competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was mostly measured in missiles, ships, semiconductors, and satellites, our competition today with China is mostly measured in economic growth, minerals, manufacturing, and supply chain security. In both cases, the ultimate competition is between a nation built on freedom and limited government and one built on command and control.

The parallel runs deeper than most people appreciate. When America competed against the Soviet Union, we did not try to out-Soviet the Soviets. We did not build a command economy to match theirs. We built a freer one, trusted it to outperform, and won. The technologies that defined American victory—GPS, the microchip, the internet—were byproducts of a freedom-driven competition that unleashed American ingenuity at a scale no command economy could match.

And yet the temptation to abandon this system is growing stronger.

This is a free piece of Notes on the Crises. All pieces in our OMB coverage will be free. Please take out a paid subscription to support this work. Or leave a tip. 

Joshua Lawrence is a research fellow at Notes on the Crises and graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Find him on Bluesky here.

Juan Hanes is a research fellow at Notes on the Crises and a Journalism student at NYU. Find him on Bluesky here.

Readers familiar with Dr. Seuss’s classic, The Cat in the Hat, will remember the twin chaos agents Thing 1 and Thing 2. “‘These Things are good Things,’” the Cat reassures the children whose mother has inexplicably left them under the supervision of a fish. “‘They are tame. Oh, so tame! / They have come here to play.’” The Things briefly feign innocence, then quickly reveal themselves to be marauding imps, knocking over nightstands and ruining the linens. “I do not like the way that they play!” says the son of the house.

Now here comes Woke 1 and Woke 2. “Woke 1 was crazy,” said U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, quoting an unnamed city councilman in a viral interview for ABC. The congresswoman sheepishly acknowledged that Americans did not like the way Woke 1 played out, while also implicitly announcing that there will soon be, or already is, a Woke 2. And it will be tame. Oh, so tame!

There is, in fact, a new version of wokeness in the making. But just as Thing 2 was fundamentally identical to Thing 1, Woke 2 will not be any different in essence from Woke 1. They are both here to upend the furniture. Wokeness in all its forms is grievance politics. Its central idea is that an injustice lies at the heart of America and must be corrected to atone for the historical misery inflicted on groups of innocents.

The report reveals there is little evidence to support claims of fraud within the NDIS by organised crime.

It also found the overriding premise of cuts being required to ensure the ongoing sustainability of the NDIS is false, given a 25% tax on gas exports would, over the next four years, raise $31.8 billion more than the cuts to the NDIS.

That is more than enough to cover the cuts, while the level of fuel tax credits to be provided to mining companies over the next four years is equivalent to 61% of the proposed cuts.

Findings include:

• Over the next four years a 25% tax on gas exports would raise $31.8 billion more than the total of the cuts to the NDIS.
• Over the next four years the budget projects to spend $46 billion on providing fuel tax credits, which is $10.8 billion more than the NDIS cuts.
• $22bn of the fuel tax credits are expected to go to the mining industry.

“The cuts to the NDIS are deep and brutal, revealing in a truly stark fashion what happens when a government chooses the profits of gas companies over the lives of Australians” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.

“Treasury modelling suggests the cuts will lead to a net 160,000 fewer people on the scheme – due to 240,000 people leaving the scheme and 80,000 new people coming into the scheme.

Please attribute the following to Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize regarding Opposition housing spokesperson Andrew Bragg’s proposal to strip back the NCC: 

“Everyone deserves a safe, decent and affordable home. It’s where people sleep, study, raise their families and build their lives.

“Let’s call this what it is. Stripping back the National Construction Code is about helping developers make even more money from the housing crisis by making it easier to build unliveable homes.

“Accessibility, energy efficiency and basic liveability are not luxuries. They are the minimum standards people should be able to expect from their homes.

“Renters already make up around a third of Australians, and too many are being asked to pay enormous rents for poor-quality homes. The answer is to lift standards, not tear them down so developers and landlords can cut more corners.

“Too many renters are already living in homes that are freezing in winter, stifling in summer, riddled with mould and damp, and expensive to heat and cool. Older people and people with disability already struggle to find homes they can safely and comfortably live in.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss why superannuation could be a better way to control inflation than interest rates, the continued hand-wringing about house prices falling a tiny bit after skyrocketing for years, and why Andrew Bragg has communism on the brain.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 12 August 2026.

Pre-order More Fool Me: How the gas industry tricked Australia by Richard Denniss, the latest Vantage Point essay from Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘FOOLME’ on a four-edition Vantage Point subscription to receive a free copy of Richard’s book, Econobabble.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek

Show notes:

Isn’t it amazing what a policy that actually tackles the cause of outrageous house prices can do? by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (August 2026)

The Right should pursue politically feasible policies that will help create a better environment for family formation. Producing more marriageable men and women includes cultivating the former’s virtue and confidence and encouraging the latter to make marriage and motherhood a higher priority.

These policies should appeal to reliable Republican voters without worrying whether they offend reliable Democratic voters. They should also help advance the broader MAGA agenda, defined by defending those putting down roots in America, encouraging republican virtues and self-government, and raising children to responsible adulthood.

In short, this agenda should form self-governing men and women who can become the backbone of an electoral coalition capable of ruling.

The American Mind Podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

AOC Goes from Woke 1 to Woke 2: A New Left Coalition Forms | The American Mind Podcast

“Woke One was crazy.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, questioned this week on ABC about a fellow Democratic Socialist’s call to cancel Thanksgiving in 2020, rolled out a new messaging strategy for the Left. Woke 2 will try to distance itself from COVID-era messaging while still demanding that America be transformed to suit its latest grievance coalition. Plus: inflation of the racial oppression narrative, and the purge of liberal arts colleges.

Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent Member for Clark, joins the Australia Institute’s Noah Schultz-Byard to reflect on the government’s gambling reforms, making polluters pay for the damage they do to the climate, and the state of Australian politics.

This episode was recorded live as part of the Australia Institute’s webinar series on Wednesday 5 August.

If this episode raised issues for you, you can call the National Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858 for free, professional and confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Or visit Gambling Help Online at www.gamblinghelponline.org.au.

If you or anyone you know needs help, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or online at www.lifeline.org.au.

‘Nice forest you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if somebody messed with it.’

This isn’t a line from a mobster movie, it’s effectively what the NSW government is saying to the koalas and people of NSW.

The NSW government is proposing to make a Great Koala National Park to protect forests in the north east of the state. In fact, making the Park has been NSW Labor policy for more than a decade, but it has recently taken on a new twist.

The Minns government now says that the koala park will happen if, and only if, it can take the rights to the carbon in the trees to sell on the carbon market.

If this sounds dodgy, that’s because it is. The NSW Labor government first promised to make this national park as far back as 2015, without selling carbon offsets. They promised it again in 2023. Now they say they will need some protection money for those trees.

Demanding payment to do something you had already promised to do is not good public policy. In the language of the carbon market, it does not provide “additionality”.

It is, in plain language, a shakedown.

And while the person doing the standover work is the NSW Premier, the mob bosses are the big polluters – coal and gas mines.

It is these industries that need, not only carbon offsets, but specifically carbon offsets in NSW.

Federal Parliament should disallow a controversial new method for making carbon credits, according to a working paper released by the Australia Institute today.

The working paper by University College London Associate Professor Fergus Green takes aim at a  proposal by the NSW government to sell carbon credits in return for creating a national park to protect koala habitat.

The Senate will vote on a disallowance motion on the “Improved Native Forest Management” (INFM) on August 18, put forward by the National Party.

The Australia Institute has also released new polling showing overwhelming public support to protect koala habitat regardless of whether carbon credits are involved.

Australians overwhelmingly (82%) say that governments have an obligation to protect koala habitats (3% think governments have this obligation only if they are paid to do so)

• This includes three in four Liberal (77%) and One Nation (73%) voters.
• Most Australians (59%) agree that protecting forests should not be used to justify continued fossil fuel pollution. (25% disagree; 17% don’t know)
• Most Australians (57%) support the Minns Government’s decision to ban coal and gas companies from buying carbon offsets from the Great Koala National Park. (23% oppose; 20% don’t know)

“Australia’s carbon offset system is already plagued with integrity problems, and this method takes it from bad to worse,” said Louise Morris, Head of Fossil Fuel Transition at The Australia Institute.

We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?

David Adler is the Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, a left-wing political international with over 70 member groups, including trade unions, political parties, peasant organisations, and social movements, that mobilizes progressive forces around the world. The Progressive International is a relatively new organization, developed to counter the so-called ‘Reactionary International’: the decades-old networks of right-wing institutions, organizations, money, and political power that have sought to undermine working-class democratic power.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who exemplifies the growing red-green alliance in the United States—he is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and a follower of Twelver Shiism, the apocalyptic state religion of Iran—has been in office for little more than seven months. But he’s already made it clear what this confluence of radical ideologies means in practice: manufacturing scapegoats and fomenting class, racial, and religious hatreds. In this, Mamdani is following a political playbook used by both Communist and Islamist regimes to advance revolutionary aims.

This is a Premium piece of Notes on the Crises.

With the 52nd anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation, his reputation is experiencing a resurgence—especially among younger generations.

For example, in just the past month and a half, at least a half-dozen articles have examined Nixon’s legacy. There was Tim Rice’s Daily Wire article, “How The Kids Learned To Love Richard Nixon,” which ends with this sentence: “Maybe Nixon wasn’t a relic come too late, but a visionary come too early. Maybe his time is now.” Frontier Magazine published a cover story by Blaze Media Editor-in-Chief Christopher Bedford, “The Once and Future Nixon.” Then there was Philip Wegmann’s full-page Wall Street Journal feature, “Young Conservatives Have an Unlikely New Icon: Richard Nixon,” which characterizes me as “the main architect of modern Watergate revisionism.”

Human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry’s findings of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Trump administration’s attacks on the institutions of international law, and how the Australian government could act in support of a genuinely rules-based international system.

This episode was recorded Friday 7 August.

More Fool Me: How the gas industry tricked Australia by Richard Denniss, the latest Vantage Point essay from Australia Institute Press, is available now. Use the code ‘FOOLME’ on a four-edition Vantage Point subscription to receive a free copy of Richard’s book, Econobabble.

Guest: Chris Sidoti, Commissioner, UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Show notes: