Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Maddie Daly
“The Senate Commerce Committee is poised to consider the Youth AI Privacy Act, a bill that would require AI companies to create kids-only privacy rules and implement so-called ‘safe design features,’ which would—like three other bills under consideration this week—require more data collection and make it harder for people to access lawful speech online. While the bill is narrower than some other proposed chatbot bills, it still has massive data security implications because it protects information for only certain users.” (08/03/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/youth-ai-privacy-acts-privacy-paradox
Source: SFGate
“A man who went to prison for killing his father in 2010 has been charged with intentionally setting the largest of the wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of buildings in and around Washington state’s second-largest city and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes. Aaron F. Farinacci, of Spokane, was arrested Monday and booked on suspicion of first-degree arson in connection with the Old Trails Fire, the biggest of the three blazes in and around the eastern Washington city, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said. His bond was set at $1 million and he’s due in court later Tuesday. The fires, which hadn’t been contained at all as of Tuesday morning, have destroyed at least 700 buildings and forced about 67,000 people to evacuate. Authorities haven’t said what might have caused the other two blazes.” (08/04/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/authorities-arrest-arson-suspect-in-connection-22372854.php
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson
“[I]n fairness to Rose, this logic fail is one he shares with virtually all right-libertarian polemicists. These people will deny that businesses whose profits result from state subsidies, protections, or artificial property rights exemplify ‘real capitalism’ — and then turn around and celebrate as an ‘accomplishment of capitalism’ a product like the iPhone, created by a corporation whose entire profit model depends on intellectual property, government subsidies, and neoliberal foreign policy. … all of the things Rose celebrates came into being because of investments from people with a ‘crap ton of money’ in the same sense that everything people consumed in the USSR came into being because of state-owned industry and Gosplan.” (08/03/26)
https://c4ss.org/content/61260
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“Over the weekend, it looked as if President Trump had backed himself into a corner in his efforts to get Todd Blanche confirmed as attorney general. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who was recently primaried by Trump ally Ken Paxton yet remains a key vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee for the rest of the year, wasn’t budging in his insistence that Blanche commit in writing to killing the corrupt deal in which the government set up a $1.776 billion slush fund to compensate supposed victims of government violence and Trump personally got immunity from IRS audits. Trump himself poured oil on the flames in a series of comments and social media posts in which he walked back his previous commitment to end the slush fund and further insulted Cornyn and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who was following Cornyn’s lead.” (08/04/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/08/04/republican-senators-pretend-to-constrain-trump/
Source: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
“A Rochester homeowner shot and killed a man who allegedly broke into his house early Monday morning. … the homeowner told police he was awakened when someone entered through the rear of the residence. The homeowner then used a legally-owned and legally-registered handgun to shoot the intruder.
The intruder was located in the kitchen and was pronounced dead at the scene …” (08/03/26)
https://archive.is/mCUM0
Source: Antiwar.com
“US To Expand Military Presence in Somalia’s Bosaso, ‘Board of Peace’ Walks Back Gaza Deal, and More.” (08/03/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz92_m3Rmlk
Source: The UnPopulist
by Tim Ganser
“How a country shaped by its fascist past is on the verge of watching the far-right party close in on control.” (08/03/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/germanys-afd-is-closer-than-ever
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“The war which was supposed to last a couple of weeks and ‘pay for itself’ is entering into its sixth month and the price tag so far is above $100 billion. A war that was started to thwart an Iranian nuclear threat that according to US Intelligence didn’t exist has become a war to open a waterway – the Hormuz Strait – that was open before the war started. … There is no path to victory in the war. It is now only about how to manage defeat.” (08/03/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/call-off-the-iran-war-just-walk-away
Source: Reuters
“Conflicting signals from the United States and Iran over the status of talks to end their five-month-old war boosted uncertainty on Tuesday, with the latest attack on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz highlighting risks to global energy flows. U.S. President Donald Trump said the talks were under way on Monday, warning of a ‘last chance’ for Tehran to sign a good deal, but Iran denied that negotiations were being held or planned. … One cargo vessel broadcast it had been hit by an unknown projectile near the strait off Oman’s coast, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said.” [editor’s note: I don’t think the status is “uncertain.” On this issue, at this time, the Iranian regime is clearly more credible/believable than the US regime – TLK] (08/04/26)
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/status-us-iran-talks-uncertain-ship-struck-hormuz-2026-08-04/
Source: The Realist Review
by James W Carden
“Surveying the devastation wrought by the wars in Ukraine and Iran, the Nigerian writer and former secretary general of African workers, Owei Lakemfa, concludes that ‘humanity is moving back to the pre-World War era when there were no agreed universal rules, might was right.’ Today, writes Lakemfa, ‘strongmen, and nations roam around as terrorists and bandits playing God. The strongest is the Zelensky, Netanyahu, and Trump triumvirate.’ This is how the world outside of NATO and Tel Aviv sees things. This might spur a normal country run by normal people to question the wisdom of its current course. Needless to say, in 2026, the US is no such country.” (08/03/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/the-new-big-three
