Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Sina Azodi

“For decades, the United States treated the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon as an intolerable threat. Yet when Washington and Tehran went to war twice in roughly a year, America’s own nuclear arsenal provided remarkably little leverage. … In neither war did America’s overwhelming nuclear superiority prevent Iranian retaliation or compel Tehran to capitulate. The paradox is striking: the weapon the U.S. had long insisted Iran must never possess proved largely incapable of shaping Tehran’s calculations, or determining the course of a war of choice that has consumed Trump’s presidency.” (08/25/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-nukes-iran-war/

Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey

“It appears the executive branch seeks to use the USPS, a government-protected federal monopoly, to circumvent judicial rulings and override constitutional federalism. The new USPS rule gives states 60 days before the November general election to notify USPS if they intend to submit a list of eligible voters based on citizenship data. Only then will USPS send mail-in or absentee ballots to the states’ respective residents. It is clear President Trump and his administration have zero respect for the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court is currently reviewing a lawsuit from a California-led coalition of states, and without a ruling in their favor, the USPS cannot enact these new rules for the November midterm elections. Using the USPS to implement the same restrictions through a regulatory backdoor undermines the separation of powers as well as the rule of law.” (08/25/26)

https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/executive-overreach-at-the-post-office

Source: Antiwar.com
by Trita Parsi

“One of the important characteristics of Israel and Donald Trump’s war on Iran was that it never had the support of the American people. When George Bush launched his illegal invasion of Iraq, support stood strong at 72%. As the war turned into a debacle, that support waned. By contrast, the Iran war had the support of only 27% of the American public at the outset. It took four years for support for the Iraq war to fall to the low levels of support the Iran war enjoyed from the beginning. But an untold story is the apparent opposition – though the exact numbers remain unknown—within the ranks of the US military. I am not talking about frustration, as evidenced by complaints about living standards on the USS Abraham Lincoln, but actual opposition.” (08/25/26)

https://original.antiwar.com/trita-parsi/2026/08/24/an-american-soldier-in-the-persian-gulf-sent-me-a-picture-it-went-viral/

Source: Reason
by Matthew Petti

“The surveillance contractor Flock Safety argues that police customers don’t need a warrant to track drivers with its automated license plate reading cameras because drivers have ‘no reasonable expectation of privacy’ on public roads. So YouTube host Benn Jordan applied the same logic back on Flock. He sat outside Flock’s recent police convention in Atlanta with radio equipment and a drone, which he used to unmask attendees and even listen to microphones inside the convention hall. ‘Flock values their privacy. Oh well,’ Jordan wrote in the title of his video on the convention.” (08/24/26)

https://reason.com/2026/08/24/this-youtuber-got-kicked-out-of-the-flock-convention-so-he-ran-his-own-surveillance/

Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman

“Musk is building them. The Chinese are building and selling them. Why? The first answer that occurred to me is that if we end up with robots neither much abler than humans nor much less able we will want the option of employing a mixed workforce, being able to have humans and robots substitute for each other. That is easier if they are about the same size and shape.” (08/24/26)

https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/do-humanoid-robots-make-sense