The “American Dream,” bred and refined in cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, is in widespread disorderly retreat, according to Joel Kotkin. But not everywhere. In Unherd, Kotkin notes that it is flowering in Texas, a state that still celebrates entrepreneurship and freedom and is reaping the rewards population growth, economic development and plentiful jobs.

Toppling a Communist Empire for $2.7 Million
Though widely thought of as focused on waterboarding terrorists or poisoning foreign potentates, it was by smuggling paper that the CIA achieved its most monumental triumph. R.M. Gerecht in a book review for The Washington Free Beacon charts how the late Cold War-era operation to flood Poland with Western books, magazines, printing supplies and audio recordings fatally weakened the country’s Communist dictatorship, setting the stage for the downfall of the entire Soviet empire. Total cost: US$2.7 million.


