Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Patrick Pillow

“More than three decades after the Cold War ended, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty remains in operation — and Congress is now considering a major increase in its funding. As Americans continue to grapple with rising prices and persistent inflation, Washington DC’s attention has increasingly shifted toward foreign policy priorities rather than domestic economic concerns. When foreign spending does enter the public conversation, it is often through provisions buried deep within legislative text and only briefly summarized in committee reports, with limited public attention.” (06/16/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/radio-free-europe-the-cold-war-weapon-congress-still-funds/

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“‘How proud are you to be an American?’ a new NBC News poll asked. ‘At the turn of the century, three quarters of Americans were ‘extremely’ or ‘very proud,’’ Steve Kornacki explained to Meet the Press host Kristen Welker yesterday. ‘That number’s fallen to 56 percent.’ It is a sizable drop, leading Kornacki to inquire, ‘What’s behind this?’ before supplying an answer: ‘it’s partisan.’ Boy, is it. Fully 90 percent of Republicans are ‘extremely’ or ‘very proud’ to be Americans, with just a mere 3 percent ‘only a little’ or ‘not at all’ proud. Compare that to Democrats, less than a third (29%) of whom are ‘extremely’ or ‘very proud’ to be Americans with a whopping 36 percent ‘only a little’ or ‘not at all’ proud.” (06/16/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/16/partisan-pride-divide/

Source: Understanding AI
by Timothy B Lee

“Anthropic stunned the AI world on Friday by announcing it was revoking access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, the powerful new models it released just three days earlier. The government, Anthropic said, had ‘issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States.’ Because Anthropic doesn’t have a way to limit access to Americans, this amounted to a de facto ban on the technology.” (06/15/26)

https://www.understandingai.org/p/the-maga-power-struggle-that-could

Source: The Eternally Radical Idea
by Greg Lukianoff

“I am not a social media utopian. As regular ERI readers and FIRE supporters will know, I co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind with social psychologist Jon Haidt. In that book, we argued that overprotection was making young people more anxious, fragile, and less prepared for adult life. I also happen to think that the phone-based childhood has been a bad bargain for many kids, and that phones should be out of schools entirely. But that does not mean governments should build a national identity-checking system for the internet, give government a foot in the door for controlling artificial intelligence, or create broad new liabilities that pressure platforms to suppress lawful expression in the name of protecting minors.” (06/15/26)

https://eternallyradicalidea.com/p/the-online-safety-trap

Source: CounterPunch
by Melvin Goodman

“The New York Times posted a long editorial last week to make the case against choosing Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence. That was not a difficult case to make, but it didn’t question whether we should even have an Office of National Intelligence. The answer to that particular issue requires an understanding of why the intelligence failure of 9/11 took place and why the many investigations of the failure came up with the wrong answers.” (06/16/26)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/16/the-office-of-director-of-national-intelligence-should-not-exist/