“What don’t I know? I don’t know exactly how you should live or every detail of your situation. I don’t know how to solve every possible random problem in the world. I don’t know what complications might arise. I don’t know solutions I can’t see or haven’t thought of. All the variables; the consequences of any potential solution. I don’t know how, or if, society should be run. I don’t know, and I accept it. While I’m comfortable saying I don’t know, there are also things I do know. I know that no one else knows those answers, either. If they claim to, they are being dishonest. Those who make up legislation are often even more ignorant about the topics they legislate on than the rest of us.” (09/09/26)
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he had instructed his lawyers to file a defamation lawsuit against Haaretz, journalist Shlomi Eldar and others over the newspaper’s claims that the United Arab Emirates had warned him ahead of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre. Netanyahu said reviews by the Prime Minister’s Office, National Security Council and military secretariat found no record of a conversation between him and UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan from the beginning of September through Oct. 7, 2023. He also said entry records showed no visit by an Emirati representative who, according to Netanyahu, would have been required to facilitate such a call. … Haaretz reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed senior foreign sources, that Mohammed bin Zayed had warned Netanyahu shortly before Oct. 7 that Hamas was planning a major attack.” (09/09/26)
“The state should not be dismissed as evil, but neither should it be romanticized as inherently good, a focus of moral value in and of itself. There are legitimate and difficult questions about whether there is a collective ‘will’ that the state discovers and enacts. The most plausible, and modest, claim is that people use the technology of ‘state power’ to provide mutual protection and achieve shared goals. The alternatives to this modest view of the state are a wide and haphazard range of different moral and practical collectivisms, imposed by central authorities. We can agree that the state must have police authority, but endowing the state with moral authority is simply incompatible with liberalism.” (09/09/26)
“The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed changes to the US census intended to exclude immigrants without legal [sic] status in addition to other groups, with potentially significant effects on the allocation of federal resources and drawing of districts in the House of Representatives. In a proposed rule published in the Federal Register, the Census Bureau also announced it was considering changes to the data it collects about race and ethnicity, amid the Trump administration’s push to rid the government of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Conducted decennially, the census historically counts the ‘whole number of persons’ in the United States …” [editor’s note: Counting the whole number of persons in the US is what it’s constitutionally required to do and all it’s constitutionally allowed to do. Anything less or more isn’t “the census” as defined therein – TLK] (09/09/26)
Source: The Erick Erickson Show
by Erick-Woods Erickson
“The people who brought us tariffs and said they’d cost us nothing now insist that putting stay-at-home moms on welfare will cost us nothing, too, so long as they get to keep picking the winners and losers. Moms who go to work get to subsidize those who do not. The GOP gets to open a new front in the culture war, pitting moms against moms. Superficially, the policy sounds good. Children raised in stable two-parent homes outperform every other group in school and in earnings, and a policy that makes those homes easier to build deserves a hearing. … The Vice President’s heart is in the right place, but his plan is a terrible idea. In the face of rising socialism, the Vice President is offering socialism-lite. And just as Diet Coke is never as popular as regular Coke, Diet Coke Socialism can’t beat the real thing either.” (09/09/26)
“Rhode Island Democratic Gov. Dan McKee became the first governor in eight years in the U.S. to lose a primary, falling on Wednesday to former CVS executive Helena Foulkes and becoming the latest victim of a rough year for incumbents. McKee’s campaign was bogged down by the botched handling of a years-long project to rebuild the Washington Bridge, which transports more than 70,000 drivers through Providence each day. The project has suffered from delays, cost overruns and disputes between state officials and former contractors that have raised questions about transparency and accountability for the project. … The last incumbent governor to lose a primary was Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer in 2018.” (09/09/26)
“A rare leak of significant opposition among top U.S. military brass to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s intention to keep more than 50,000 American forces on alert in the Middle East reports a ‘more dire’ outlook for the Iran conflict’s effect on U.S. military readiness globally. According to the Washington Post, a source familiar with the generals’ assessment reported that the brass viewed the six-month war as ‘too much for too long.’ The leak was prompted by the Pentagon’s decision to keep some forces in the region into fiscal year 2027. U.S forces have been pulled from areas of the globe more strategic to U.S. interests than the Persian Gulf for a needless attack that turned into yet another American quagmire in the Greater Middle East, thus degrading worldwide training and readiness for more important missions.” (09/09/26)
“The Metropolitan Police is carrying out a criminal investigation into Reform UK over allegations it broke foreign funding laws, following a broadcast by Channel 4 News last week. An undercover reporter recorded two senior Reform aides apparently suggesting a way around electoral law to secure foreign party donations, one of which would have totalled £500,000. The police investigation by the Met’s Special Enquiry Team is being folded into an inquiry that has been under way into other donations to the party. A Reform UK spokesman said the party ‘denies any wrongdoing and will fully cooperate with the investigation’.” (09/09/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“About 15 years ago, the great drug war boogeyman was bath salts. Instead of using these salts in the bathtub, people took to swallowing, snorting, injecting, smoking, and otherwise ingesting them. Fentanyl, a type of synthetic opioid more potent than heroin and morphine, soon replaced bath salts as the great drug war boogeyman. More recently, the new drug war boogeyman was nitazenes, another type of synthetic opioid. Nitazenes were said to be more potent than not only heroin and morphine but also fentanyl. The newest drug war boogeyman is kratom — leaves from a tree native to Southeast Asia that are used to increase energy and alleviate pain, coughing, anxiety, and depression.” (09/09/26)
