It’s a FIREHOSE FRIDAY at the freedom movement’s daily newspaper — we’ve got at least 125 news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links for you today at our web edition (maybe more by the time you read this).
Why? Three reasons:
First, to remind our email digest subscribers of a change, effective a month or so ago, that you might have missed: EVERY day is now a “drink from the firehose” day, with extra content above and beyond the 60-70 items in the email edition. We usually have AT LEAST 15-20 extra links for you, sometimes more. So after you’ve looked at the digest, come on over for a visit at the web if you want more!
Second, to remind our web readers that we DO offer a daily email digest. It’s one, and only one, email message a day — no spam, and we never sell, rent, or share our subscriber list — with 60-70 handy summaries and links.
And third, of course, to remind our readers that we’re a reader-supported publication. We try to go easy on fundraising nine months out of the year (we run one real “fundraiser” in the fourth quarter), but we do have to occasionally bring it up. You can help out at:
“President Donald Trump said Thursday that progress has been made in negotiations with Tehran aimed at ending the Iran war. … Trump said he would delay attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure by an additional 10 days. … Statements from Iran about the negotiations have struck a different tone from Trump’s. Iran’s state-run media reported earlier Thursday that Tehran had rejected a 15-point ceasefire proposal by the White House. But the Iranian report did not suggest a total breakdown in negotiations, leaving open the possibility that Washington could issue a follow-up proposal. Iran has previously offered its own terms for ending the conflict, including demands for the United States and Israel to pay compensation for war damage, the cessation of Israeli attacks against Lebanon, and the recognition of Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.” (03/27/26)
“MySpace kicked off an era in which nearly two out of three humans on the planet use social media platforms to connect with others, share opinions and content, and, yes, sometimes scroll obsessively through everything on offer. You or I may or may not like social media. You or I may or may not use social media. And, even though it’s pretty much the unique distinguishing development of the 21st century (everything else, including perpetual war, is just variation on eternal themes), you and I don’t HAVE to use social media. Nor was K.G.M. forced to use social media. But on March 25, a California jury awarded her $6 million in ‘damages’ — half ‘compensatory’ and half punitive — from Google (which owns YouTube) and Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), because she allegedly suffers from anxiety and depression and blames social media for those problems.” (03/26/26)
“CBS Sunday Morning correspondent and a New York Times bestselling author David Pogue joins the lads to talk Apple, China, AI panic, and whether the company still knows how to invent the future.” (03/26/26)
“The Senate agreed unanimously early Friday to reopen the Department of Homeland Security after a 40-day shutdown, but without funding for immigration enforcement and deportation operations. Senators approved the package at 2:20 a.m by voice vote after a marathon session, which followed arduous bipartisan negotiations that occurred in fits and starts over the last six weeks. The measure is expected to have President Donald Trump’s support but faces an uncertain future in the House. … Trump announced Thursday that he would sign an order to pay Transportation Security Administration officers who have gone without paychecks during the funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security. … The House is set to hold an unrelated vote at 10:00am before leaving for recess.” (03/27/26)
“Here’s a good rule of thumb, both for understanding foreign policy and also for life in general: When someone offers a bunch of rapid-fire and mutually irreconcilable justifications for a controversial decision, they’re not telling you the whole story. William Shakespeare might have invoked letting slip the dogs of war to describe the unleashing of violence, but these days we just ‘wag the dog.’ Popularized by Our American Cousin — the play being performed at Ford’s Theatre when President Abraham Lincoln was shot — the phrase took on an explicitly political meaning after the ripped-from-the-headlines 1997 film Wag the Dog. In that otherwise pretty awful movie, a fabricated military conflict was used to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. Since then, the term has become shorthand for the idea that leaders sometimes use military action to divert attention from problems at home.” (03/26/26)
“Vladimir Putin has asked Russia’s oligarchs to donate to the country’s dwindling defence budget to continue its invasion of Ukraine, it has been reported. The Russian president is expected to continue the conflict, which began in February 2022, until Moscow has secured the remaining areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region not under its control, according to the Financial Times. At least two businessmen have told Putin they would be willing to make contributions to the defence budget after talks on Thursday, the newspaper reported. Putin is understood to be pressing ahead with the invasion after Ukraine refused to withdraw unilaterally from Donbas during recent negotiations brokered by the US.” (03/26/26)
“American officials and commentators are outraged that Moscow would stoop so low, helping another country to — cue manifold expressions of fury and outrage — kill U.S. military personnel. (Some have also claimed that Russia provided intelligence to the Yemeni Houthis targeting Western merchantmen and American warships in the Red Sea, and, less credibly, paid the Taliban to kill Americans in Afghanistan.) Such critics of Moscow are like Captain Renault, who famously discovered gambling occurring at Rick’s Café Américain in the movie Casablanca. Shocking! Shut the establishment! Those demanding action offer few helpful suggestions, preferring, for instance, to call on the administration to ‘respond with clarity and resolve.’ Meaning what, precisely? Perhaps provide financial and military support to Moscow’s adversary, even planning the latter’s battlefield operations. Oh, wait! That is what Washington has been doing for years.” (03/26/26)
“A judge has blocked the Trump administration from labeling Anthropic a ‘supply chain risk’ and cutting off all federal work with the artificial intelligence firm, an early win for Anthropic in its bitter feud with the government over AI guardrails. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin on Thursday ruled in favor of Anthropic, which sued the federal government earlier this month for taking actions that it called an ‘unprecedented and unlawful’ attempt to punish the company for First Amendment-protected speech. Lin’s ruling in the case prevents the government from enforcing its supply chain risk designation against Anthropic, a move that aimed to stop private government contractors from using the company’s powerful Claude AI model.” (03/26/26)
“The Israeli-American attack on Iran has been defined more than anything by the nonsensical nature of the messaging, with statements listing any number of potential goals. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, always eccentric and erratic, has been ranting about an endless variety of topics, with each day bringing about new unhinged statements. It is as if we have watched the White House become a Greek tragedy before our very eyes, with Donald Trump in the role of a mad king. This represents an incredible fall for a man who defeated all of his opponents and orchestrated the greatest comeback in American political history. However, his advanced age and hubris seem to have got the best of him. Trump must on some level know that his attack on Iran was a strategic disaster, hence his spiraling behavior.” (03/26/26)
“A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed X Corp’s antitrust lawsuit that accused the World Federation of Advertisers and major companies including Mars, CVS Health and Colgate-Palmolive of illegally boycotting billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s social media company. U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle in the federal court in Dallas said X failed to show it had suffered any harm under federal antitrust laws. X Corp’s lawsuit, filed in 2024, said the advertisers, acting through a World Federation of Advertisers initiative called Global Alliance for Responsible Media, collectively withheld ‘billions of dollars in advertising revenue’ from X, previously known as Twitter.” (03/26/26)
