Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Chapin Lenthall-Cleary
“Acceptance of violence against speakers used to be a liberal thing. No longer.” (09/15/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/violence-is-now-a-gendered-issue
Source: Persuasion
by Jeffery Tyler Syck
“The idea of an egalitarian human dignity at the heart of the political order was not just Jefferson’s quirky view of liberal government and society. For most of liberalism’s early history, liberal thinkers saw themselves as making more universal and secular the Christian idea of the Imago Dei—that everyone is born with God Himself reflected in their being. Yet, over time, liberals changed emphasis. Between Jefferson’s time and our own they started championing legal proceduralism, free market economics, and religious freedom. To be sure, these are valuable aspects of liberalism and should be defended. But none alone has the moral force and philosophic weight to anchor an entire approach to politics.” (09/15/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/liberalisms-most-important-idea
Source: SFGate
“California lawmakers are demanding Congress immediately pass artificial intelligence safety laws as panic grips much of the tech industry over fears of AI leading to human extinction. Reps. Sam Liccardo and George Whitesides, Democrats from California, co-signed a letter late Friday to House Speaker Mike Johnson urging the Republican leader to take immediate action on the ‘catastrophic risk’ that the new technology poses and requesting that Congress not leave the capital until a new AI safety measure is passed. The letter came just days after an Anthropic safety researcher resigned from the San Francisco company and warned that there’s a 10% chance AI could kill all humans within the next decade. The disclosure set off a wave of panic across the country. President Donald Trump and Johnson downplayed those fears over the weekend and emphasized that if American regulators slow down AI development, the U.S. could risk falling behind China.” (09/16/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/anthropic-congress-ai-panic-22431156.php
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Ohio Governor Ads Get Spicy! Crypto, Congress, and Campaigning for President (with Tim Ryan).” (09/15/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/ohio-governor-ads-get-spicy-crypto
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“Across the political spectrum, Americans continue to tolerate abuses of power so long as those abuses are carried out by the ‘right’ people, against the ‘wrong’ people, or in the name of some emergency deemed too important to question. That is how constitutional government dies. Not all at once. Not with the Constitution formally abolished or the Bill of Rights ripped from the National Archives. It dies by degrees: through executive power that expands while congressional authority withers; emergency powers that never quite disappear; wars waged with little regard for constitutional restraints; surveillance systems capable of tracking whole populations; federal agents empowered to operate with ever less accountability; military forces normalized on American streets; and courts that too often allow questions of standing, immunity and procedure to determine whether unconstitutional conduct will ever be confronted on its merits. Every such precedent makes the next abuse easier.” (09/15/26)
Source: The Crucial Years
by Bill McKibben
“Obviously the story of the moment is the sudden, coordinated bout of cold feet in the AI industry, whose leaders expressed support over the weekend for some kind of effort to slow down the pace of their R&D. This is something that’s never happened in the 40 years of the climate fight, and so it shouldn’t be dismissed; in fact, it could conceivably provide an opening for common sense across the entire apocalypse front. So let’s try to game out how responsible political leaders—which means, I tremble to say, Democrats—might try to talk about it. First, credit where due. The fact there’s an opening at all is owed to the remarkable citizen resistance to data centers that has sprung up in the last year, and also to the courage of a few kids in the AI industry.” (09/16/26)
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/the-two-horsemen-riding-in-formation
Source: In These Times
by Miles Kampf-Lassin
“In June 2024, investor David Sacks hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for then presidential candidate Donald Trump at his Pacific Heights mansion in San Francisco, bringing together the titans of Silicon Valley and venture capitalism to pledge their allegiance — and financial support — to the candidate promising to make their wildest tech-authoritarian dreams come true. The dinner party was orchestrated by then Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who served as a point of contact between Sacks and Trump, the former real estate tycoon who had notoriously been less than friendly to Big Tech during his first term. This time, however, Trump reportedly struck a different tone, criticizing Bidenera regulations on the ascendant industries of crypto and artificial intelligence (AI), promising to lift them if elected.” (09/15/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/tech-trump-vance-crypto-artificial-intelligence-silicon-valley
Source: United Press International
“The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform unanimously voted Tuesday to recommend that the full House hold billionaire Leon Black in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas issued in its investigation of the federal government’s handling of the criminal cases against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. … The GOP-led committee has been investigating Epstein since February 2025, and has sought to speak with Black, a longtime friend and client of the disgraced New York financier, believing he has information related to how Epstein and Maxwell tried to curry favor and exercise influence to protect their illegal activities. Black sat for a transcribed interview in June, but walked out about an hour into the interview after declining to answer questions concerning nondisclosure agreements.” (09/15/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/09/15/House-committee-Leon-Black-contempt/5691789526616/
Source: National Review
“AI Is Slowing Down to Find Itself.” (09/15/26)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/ai-is-slowing-down-to-find-itself/
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Jonah Goldberg
“Just this week, Trump excoriated Ukraine for targeting Russia’s oil infrastructure because it’s creating problems for him. ‘Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing,’ Trump said. ‘He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel.’ Trump — who endlessly insisted on the campaign trail that he could ‘end the war in Ukraine in one day’ — doesn’t demand Putin stop murdering Ukrainians. He instead demands that Ukrainians not fight back in a way that inconveniences Trump amid a surge in oil prices overwhelmingly caused by the war Trump started with Iran.” (09/15/26)