“[D]ecentralization prevents a lot. The idea is that because you control and own your own data, and because the entire network isn’t owned by a single person or company, you have long-term freedom that can’t get taken away by the whims of the company behind whatever platform you’re using. On a centralized and closed platform, if ownership shuts it down or changes it in ways you find intolerable, you’ve got two options: stick it out and suffer or leave and lose all your friends. On a decentralized and open network, if the particular piece of it you’re on (the server, the app) shuts it down or changes it in ways you find intolerable, you’ve got a third option: head somewhere else, but keep your connections to all your friends. … Decentralization is, in other words, insurance. And that’s why it’s such a hard sell.” (08/14/26)
“Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday there’s a ‘possibility’ that the Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to intervene in dozens of cases in which judges have ruled against the federal government’s efforts to gain broad access to state voter rolls ahead of November’s midterm elections. ‘Absolutely, it’s a possibility,’ Blanche told NBC News’[s] ‘Meet the Press’ when asked whether he’d appeal the 22 cases the Justice Department has lost so far to the Supreme Court. … The cases stem from an executive order Trump signed asking [sic] states to turn over their voter rolls, including voters’ names, dates of birth, residential addresses, state driver’s licenses and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.” (08/16/26)
“Before reading Mark Pennington’s recent book, Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom, it would not have occurred to me that libertarians could learn anything from the social theories of Michel Foucault. Pennington has persuaded me that some beliefs associated with Foucault, and postmodernism more generally, are not devoid of merit. As will be discussed below, however, the beliefs that he identifies as postmodern differ somewhat from the collection of beliefs that I have hitherto associated with postmodernism.” (08/16/26)
“At least one person has been killed and three have been wounded in a Ukrainian drone barrage targeting Moscow, a local official says, as Russia has bombarded Kyiv with ballistic missiles. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it destroyed 822 drones across the country overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on social media early on Sunday that the city was targeted with 600 drones and ‘201 drones were destroyed in Moscow region’. … The drone assault came after Ukrainian authorities said late on Saturday that at least one person was killed and seven were wounded in Russian air attacks.” (08/16/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
‘FDR signed the program into law in 1935. Demographic shifts and federal spending created trillions in unfunded liabilities. Private accounts offer a direct path to real wealth.” (08/14/26)
“Naval families with loved ones deployed for months on US warships amid the Iran war have reacted with fury to Donald Trump and the defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal of their concerns about the extreme pressures and dire conditions they are enduring. … The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier with more than 5,000 sailors and marines onboard, has been at sea for nearly nine months, having begun its deployment in November. There have been reports of multiple suicide attempts including jumping overboard. When Trump was asked on Friday whether naval families were worried about conditions on board, he replied: ‘No, they’re not.’ He said that the Lincoln’s deployment, now in its ninth month, was ‘not nearly long enough’. Earlier, Hegseth also swatted away families’ concerns, saying that the reality onboard the Lincoln had been ‘completely misrepresented’.” (08/16/26)
“Politician steals from taxpayers and is caught :: Jason Arday professor in Cambridge who didn’t earn his position fairly kills himself :: Arday had lied about being mute and sports achievements and his attendance at various universities :: DEI and woke’s dark side :: FSP in the news :: Atilis Gym owner in NJ used Kickstarter to fund his fight against gov during Covid :: FlockHopper.com to search for cams near you :: haveibeenflocked.com/ to check if a cam has spotted you and a cop searched your LP number :: Fighting for free speech to have a license that says FTP&ATF :: WhatNot app. Gambling? Only a crime without a license :: 2026-08-15 Hosts: Bonnie, Chris R.” (08/15/26)
“Trump’s populist style ensures he will always try to project himself as the outsider on a crusade against ‘the establishment’—but as his party’s nominee in the last three presidential elections, and as a winner of two of them, he has no business portraying his movement as the rebellion when it is actually the empire. It’s time liberals made that clear by embracing an underdog spirit befitting liberalism’s new underdog reality.” (08/15/26)
“Although President Donald Trump is unable to publicly admit that ‘mistakes were made’ in his war with Iran—as American leaders sometimes describe their own blunders—he seems to be implicitly acknowledging that the military strategy he pursued has failed. He’s moving to a new strategy of extracting concessions from Iran via economic coercion, rather than bombing. Trump has described this as a ‘low-key’ and longer-term approach to the conflict. … Trump’s strategy of wearing Iran down economically would seemingly require him to keep the blockade and sanctions in place and the assets frozen, and certainly rules out providing war reparations. Moreover, the strategy isn’t truly ‘new’—America has long maintained economic pressure on Iran—and there’s little reason to suppose it will work now.” (08/15/26)
“The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to bless the construction of President Trump’s White House ballroom to replace the demolished East Wing. The planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom has been mired in litigation ever since the president tore down the East Wing in October as part of his plan to dramatically remake the White House campus. But the courts have let Mr. Trump build even while questioning the project’s legality, allowing the ballroom to steadily rise in recent months. The administration’s request for intervention from the nation’s highest court comes after an appeals court said on Aug. 7 that the president had most likely exceeded his authority by moving ahead with the privately financed project without approval from Congress.” (08/14/26)
