◼ Totalitarian states spend gobs of money on the Olympics, often through stealing from their relatively poor citizens to train athletes, who are selected by the state from childhood to specialize in certain sports and then cheat to demonstrate on the world stage the glory of the regime, all while the government manufactures enthusiasm and censors dissent. Meanwhile, the United States, which does none of those things, is by far the most successful Summer Olympics nation of all time. Many Americans don’t care about the Olympics at all, and it’s somewhat fashionable to dislike them. The U.S. won the most medals at the Paris games this year, as it has done in 19 of the 28 Summer Olympics that have awarded them. It has 2,755 medals all-time; among existing countries—sorry, Soviets!—Great Britain ranks second, at 981. Some U.S. metro areas win more medals than entire countries, and some U.S. states would be near the top of the leaderboard. Many athletes who compete under other countries’ flags train here. Unlike even most democratic countries, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee does not receive a penny of government funding. Team USA owns the Summer Olympics as a national side hobby, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

◼ Taylor Swift’s plans to perform in Vienna were canceled after Austrian authorities received word of an ISIS-inspired plot against her scheduled concerts there. Police arrested three teenagers they said had plotted the attack. One of them revealed that he had pledged allegiance to ISIS; another had ISIS and al-Qaeda propaganda at his home. The terror group was rooted out of its original center of operations in Syria and Iraq during the exhaustive bombing campaigns of the Obama and Trump eras, though it has found a foothold in Central Asia in recent months. Between Vienna, the attack that ISIS-tied individuals carried out at a mall in Moscow this year, and revelations that individuals linked to ISIS and other terrorist groups have entered the U.S. at the southern border, it’s worth recalling that FBI director Chris Wray recently told the Senate that he sees “blinking red lights everywhere.” Americans have largely dropped their focus on the terror threat as other dangers have emerged. But the terrorists have not forgotten about us.

◼ Britain’s new Labour government appears ready to use the recent rioting as an excuse to clamp down on what remains of Britons’ free speech. That was predictable, but some comments by Mark Rowley, the commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, were more of a surprise. He warned that Britain’s authorities would be “coming after” not only “those committing crimes on the streets” but also those who did so “from further afield online.” The latter, it was clear, included “keyboard warriors” posting beyond Britain’s shores. Rowley’s remarks reflected anger over comments made on Twitter, including remarks by Elon Musk. While some Britons have already been convicted (and imprisoned) for social-media posts deemed connected to the unrest, Americans could be extradited to George III’s former realm to face the same fate only if their online remarks crossed into territory no longer protected by the First Amendment. Rowley’s threats, like the gathering storm over the EU’s Digital Services Act, are a useful reminder that, across the Atlantic, free speech is, despite fine words to the contrary, a privilege. In the U.S. it is a right. That must not change, whether online or off.

◼ Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, has resigned. She follows Claudine Gay of Harvard and Liz Magill of UPenn, both of whom stepped down after they failed to effectively handle a series of antisemitic protests on campus—among other issues. In her resignation letter, Shafik said that “it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.” But that was not the problem she faced. The problem Shafik faced was that she was transparently sympathetic toward the protesters—even after they had started shouting in support of “intifada,” declaring “death to Zionists,” demanding “Jews out,” and threatening Jewish students that “the 7th of October is going to be every day for you.” Asked in Congress whether she believed that there had been any antisemitism on campus, she replied that she had seen none. Faced with an extended occupation of the university’s grounds and buildings, she did nothing. Told unequivocally that the atmosphere at Columbia was hostile, she equivocated until the anarchy escalated to the point that the university had no choice but to call in the NYPD. “Over the summer,” she lamented, “I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.” Maybe. Certainly, Shafik’s conduct was egregious. But it was not unique. Rather, it was symptomatic of a pernicious ideology that has taken hold in academia. If Columbia genuinely wishes to “traverse the challenges ahead,” it will look to the model laid out by Ben Sasse at the University of Florida. Faced with the same questions, Sasse published a comprehensible explanation of what the First Amendment protected and what it did not, laid out clear rules as to what would yield punishment and what would not, and then followed through on his vow. Good riddance to Shafik.