Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley
“Some of us have been closely following challenges to A1765, New Jersey’s gun industry liability law. In my view, the law is facially invalid and preempted under federal law, and we may now find out after the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit greenlit a challenge from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) yesterday. The court found that the NSSF has standing to bring the lawsuit, which could reach the United States Supreme Court. In 2022, New Jersey enacted A1765 to expose ‘gun industry members’ (gun sellers, manufacturers, distributors, importers, and marketers) to lawsuits as ‘a public nuisance’. This is a common effort among blue states to circumvent Second Amendment cases that reinforce the right to bear arms. These laws are designed to achieve indirectly what the Court denied directly to the states: to effectively suppress the availability of guns.” (09/09/26)
https://jonathanturley.org/2026/09/09/lock-and-re-loaded-third-circuit-greenlights-major-challenge-to-new-jersey-gun-liability-law/
Source: SFGate
“The U.N. atomic watchdog’s board on Wednesday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council for the first time in 20 years, citing it for failure to cooperate in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at undeclared sites. Western officials suspect that the traces could provide evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003. Iran says that it’s not pursuing nuclear weapons, and that its program is entirely peaceful. Reporting Iran to the Security Council opens the country to possible sanctions and asset freezes, though such punitive measures are unlikely because Iran’s allies Russia and China hold veto power on the panel. Twenty-three countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency ’s 35-member board of governors voted for Wednesday’s resolution at IAEA headquarters in Vienna. ” (09/09/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/un-nuclear-watchdog-board-reports-iran-to-the-un-22424034.php
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott froze state funding for automated license plate readers (ALPRs), acknowledging concerns about the warrantless surveillance enabled by such AI-assisted cameras. Abbott took that step the day after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican, declared that ALPRs are ‘out of control.’ … The congressional response to ALPRs, including several bills and an investigation that Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) announced last month, has been dominated by conservative Republicans, which confirms that the backlash is not limited to libertarian or left-leaning critics. Whether it will yield effective constraints is another question.” (09/09/26)
https://reason.com/2026/09/09/why-conservative-republicans-are-worried-about-license-plate-cameras/
Source: Politico
“The EU’s General Court has rejected Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich’s challenge to sanctions imposed on him following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, upholding asset freezes and travel restrictions against the billionaire. The Council of the EU acted within its powers when it extended the measures against the billionaire former owner of Chelsea Football Club in 2022 through September 2025 and March 2026, judges ruled, according to a statement issued by the Court on Wednesday. Abramovich, who holds Russian, Israeli and Portuguese nationality, is the majority shareholder in Evraz, one of Russia’s largest steel and mining groups. He also owns shares in Norilsk Nickel, a major producer of palladium and refined nickel. The EU Court said the bloc’s sanctions criteria were objective, sufficiently precise and proportionate. They target prominent businesspeople operating in Russia, particularly those active in sectors that provide significant revenue to the Russian government.” (09/09/26)
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-court-hands-another-defeat-to-abramovich-in-fight-against-sanctions/
Source: The Dispatch
“Telephone Killed the Convention | Interview: Chris Stirewalt.” (09/09/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/telephone-killed-the-convention-interview-chris-stirewalt/
Source: Antiwar.com
by Norman Solomon
“A quarter-century has passed since the terrorist attack that killed almost 3,000 people in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. During the first seven years after that mass atrocity, Pentagon spending doubled. The aftermath of 9/11 was also a huge boost for ‘the intelligence community.’ Despite – and because of – their failure to prevent the carnage on that day, the CIA and the National Security Agency as well as 14 smaller spy agencies boomed with enormous jolts of funds. Along the way, some line items paid for torture that persisted during the George W. Bush presidency under the euphemism of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.'” (09/09/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/solomon/2026/09/08/25-years-ago-9-11-triggered-a-us-crusade-of-torture/
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Why It’s So Hard to Make Sense of These Midterms (with Chris Cillizza).” (09/08/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/why-its-so-hard-to-make-sense-of
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Daniel L Davis
“On November 12, 2024, I went on NBC News when Hegseth had been announced as Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense and argued that Hegseth might be just what we need, instead of another standard military-industrial-complex ‘veteran’ who never met a war he didn’t like. But I included two key caveats in my support. First, I argued that he had to be different from his predecessors and not just be a yes-man who prosecutes wars even if a sober analysis reveals we could not win them. Second, I warned that if we continued to support other wars and saw our stocks of key weapons systems plummet – especially missiles – he had to tell the president we could not go down that path (as it would put our own national security in unnecessary peril). Hegseth violated both of those warnings.” (09/09/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-hegseth/
Source: Los Angeles Times
“In the 19th century and much of the 20th century, the quadrennial party conventions were indispensable pieces of political technology. I mean that literally. Traditionally, conventions were where party stakeholders — elected officials, party bosses, etc. — chose the nominee. Factions representing regions, interests, even ideas (how quaint!) would debate and horse-trade with each other, sometimes over days of voting, to name someone the party could get behind. That system started to atrophy in the 1930s, as Michael Barone, the great political analyst, has argued, because of the telephone. … Polling, and then television, further sapped away the function of conventions. … party conventions essentially became infomercials ratifying a fait accompli. The brokered convention — even the prospect for one — is gone now, replaced by a coronation. But at least the coronation still serves a purpose. It’s still a necessary function of our electoral system. A boring, intelligence-insulting, performative function, but a function all the same. This midterm ‘convention’ isn’t even that.” (09/09/26)
https://archive.is/Lf5T5
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen & Zachary Groz
“On the day that the Trump administration announced the importation of 300,000 metric tons of ground beef without tariffs in an attempt to reduce current sky-high retail prices, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its monthly Cattle on Feed Report, which showed growth in the amount of cattle on feedlots but at much lower percentages than estimated. Placements were also historically tight, at the lowest level for July in 30 years. What this means in layman’s terms is that ranchers should have been able to earn higher prices for heads of cattle, since supply was at a premium, for the first time in a while. After decades of falling profitability, over half of cattle ranches have shuttered in the U.S.” (09/09/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/09/09/trump-meat-cattle-ranchers-beef/
