“If gratification is so easy, why don’t you feel more gratified already? Because it’s gotten harder. It’s still easy to experience individual feats of gratification when you find them (or they find you). But the ordinary circumstances that once produced so much gratification have gradually receded. Unseen choices in design, business, and social life have made it harder for you to engage directly with the sensory world. This problem snuck up on me, and probably on you as well. Slowly, over time, the world started withdrawing from us. Automation took over ordinary tasks. Things that used to have buttons suddenly did not. Basic activities got taken over by computers. I was slow to notice it happening, too. But once I did, I saw it everywhere and every day.” (07/07/26)
“Britain’s Prince Harry has lost his long-running legal battle against the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday tabloid newspapers, according to court documents seen by CBS News on Tuesday. All claims were thrown out by the court in what is widely expected to be the last of the prince’s courtroom battles against British media outlets. Harry, the Duke of Sussex, was among several claimants in the case — along with pop star Elton John and actor Elizabeth Hurley — who accused the publisher of the popular tabloids, Associated Newspapers (ANL), of unlawfully gathering information about them through methods such as phone tapping, intercepting voicemails and impersonating people to obtain personal information. In its ruling on Tuesday, the U.K. High Court dismissed the claims, saying they could not be proven.” (07/07/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Education
by Chloe Ratner
“While discussions about AI often focus on misinformation and transparency, these concerns miss the bigger picture. The question is no longer whether AI should shape democratic processes — it already does — but how it can be channeled to promote free speech and democracy with imperfect tools. Generative AI has become a hot debate topic in the world of First Amendment rights and free speech. Questions about how to classify AI-generated content, what protections it does or does not deserve, and who bears liability for its outputs represent genuine legal and ethical frontiers. But amid these legal and ethical debates, a fundamental capability of AI gets lost in the noise: its ability to sort, organize, and amplify human speech rather than replace it.” (07/08/25)
“Nigel Farage resigned as an MP Tuesday to trigger a by-election amid intense scrutiny of his financial arrangements. … Farage is being investigated by Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Daniel Greenberg over whether he broke House of Commons rules by failing to declare a £5 million donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. Farage has repeatedly said he was under no obligation to declare the gift because he received it before he was elected as Clacton MP. He said Tuesday he is also being investigated over fresh accusations he failed to declare gifts and donations from crypto entrepreneur George Cottrell.” (07/07/26)
“Governance improves when people and businesses are free to leave high-tax, low-value jurisdictions. Competition can improve public policy just as it improves products and services.” (07/07/26)
“Return-to-office is a compensation decision that hits wallets first and morale soon after. If leaders want people in seats, the fair move is simple: cover the costs or raise the pay. When workers go to the office, they pay to work. The typical in-office day now runs roughly $15 for the commute, $9 for parking, $13 for breakfast or coffee, and $18 for lunch, all detailed in the 2025 Owl Labs report.” [editor’s note: While I agree that it’s a pay cut, if you’re spending $13 for breakfast/coffee and $18 for lunch on a daily basis, I suggest Googling terms like “lunch box” and “insulated mug” – TLK] (07/07/26)
“French far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced that she will run for president in 2027. Le Pen made the announcement during a prime-time TV interview, hours after an appeals court shortened her ban on holding public office. Her presidential hopes had been in limbo since March 2025, when she received the five-year ban for using money from the European Parliament to pay wages for staff at her anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) party in France. The appeals court in Paris upheld her conviction but significantly shortened the ban, so that in effect it is already over. However, the court said she would need to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for a year. Le Pen said she would appeal against the ruling to France’s highest court, the Cour de Cassation. That would suspend her sentence and the order to wear the tag until the court delivers its own decision, allowing her to campaign freely, she said.” (07/07/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“[F]or more than 100 years, Americans were free to keep everything they earned — 100 percent — and there was nothing that U.S. officials could do about. That’s what it once meant to be an American. That’s what it once meant to be free. By the time the late 1800s came along, the standard of living of the American people was skyrocketing. A big reason for that phenomenon was that there had been no income tax for almost 100 years.” (07/07/26)
