“On September 10, Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal looked at the state’s law against ‘open carry’ of firearms, looked at the US Constitution’s 2nd Amendment, and noticed that the latter supersedes the former. Five days later, Florida Attorney General James Uthmier issued ‘guidance to Florida’s prosecutors and law enforcement,’ notifying them that ‘as of last week, open carry is the law of the state.’ … Such a straightforwardly correct court ruling, and its relatively quick acceptance by a power-hungry politician whom one might expect to reflexively contest it, may seem strange even by Florida standards (interestingly, the now-common ‘Florida Man’ phenomenon emerged a few months after I moved to the state … make of that what you will). Even stranger, though, is the reaction I’m seeing from some hoplophobes — people who suffer from an irrational fear of guns — in Florida (and elsewhere, but let’s stick to Florida).” (09/16/25)
“Russia is deliberately targeting Ukraine’s key railway junctions in a bid to destroy the country’s main transportation artery, according to Ukrainian authorities. ‘The enemy tried to disable substations that power the railway network with a massive drone attack this night,’ Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said in a post on Facebook published early Wednesday. … According to Kuleba, some 20 trains were in transit when Russia launched its massive overnight attack on the railways of eastern Ukraine. While no one was injured, 26 trains have been delayed in the Dnipro and Odesa regions due to the attacks. Passengers on board the trains reported they had been stuck for more than five hours as a result of the strikes.” (09/17/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Nasiyah Isra-Ul
“The only thing ‘traditional’ about my schooling was my time in front of the whiteboard, where I practiced vocabulary and math problems. I spent most of my days taking trips to local libraries and museums, studying online, having hands-on experiences, journaling, and designing a schedule that worked for me. By the time high school hit, self-directed education was my main mode of learning …. You could easily think I ‘missed out’ on some valuable experiences that most children in America grow up having in public school. But between the four-hour school days and being grades ahead in certain subjects by the time I hit middle school, I don’t think I missed out on too much. In fact, I’d argue that the way I was educated taught me an important lesson about the value of education.” (09/16/25)
“President Donald Trump on Tuesday extended the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. business, which will be owned by an investor consortium that includes Oracle and Silver Lake, CNBC’s David Faber reported. It’s the fourth time Trump has extended the deadline. The extension, as described in an executive order, precludes the Department of Justice from enforcing a national security [sic] law that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. until Dec. 16. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on Monday that a ‘framework deal’ had been reached involving TikTok. Under the national security [sic] law, which would have come into effect on Wednesday, app store operators like Apple and Google and internet service providers would be penalized for providing services to TikTok’s U.S. operations if a deal was not reached.” (09/16/25)
“Charlie Kirk championed free speech as a fundamental American value. So, it’s sad—and ironic—that the murder of the 31-year-old conservative activist has triggered a fresh round of censorship, alarmingly aimed at teachers and other government employees. Educators in a dozen states have been fired or placed on leave for online statements that criticized Kirk or expressed approval of his death. … teachers have no right to propagandize in their classrooms about Charlie Kirk or anything else. But the ones who were fired or suspended last week commented on social media, imagining it was a forum for free and open dialogue. … Republicans used to worry that technology companies censored speech via content moderation and other restrictions. Now they’re calling for restrictions to ensure nobody besmirches Kirk.” (09/16/25)
“A judge on Tuesday dismissed terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione in New York state’s case over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but he kept the state’s second-degree murder charges against the Ivy League graduate. Mangione’s lawyers argued that the New York case and a parallel federal death penalty prosecution amounted to double jeopardy. But Judge Gregory Carro rejected that argument, saying it would be premature to make such a determination. … Mangione pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism, in the Dec. 4, 2024, killing.” (09/16/25)
“When we look at the utter devastation that the Israeli government has wrought over the last two years, it is not a close call. Genocide is the only appropriate word that can describe what we have seen in Gaza. The crime is still ongoing, and it is imperative that we act to stop it from claiming more victims. … Our government is bound by its commitments under the Genocide Convention to stop abetting the genocidal regime and it also has the duty to bring this horror to an end. If our government will not honor its obligations, we must bring enough pressure to bear on our leaders that they have to act.” (09/16/25)
“Are President Trump’s tariffs proving that two and a half centuries of economic analysis exaggerated the virtues of free trade? Have economists been wrong all these years to insist that consumers should be free to buy imports even when the prices of imports are quite low and their purchase takes business away from particular American firms and workers? Most economists, including myself, believe not. But if we’re mistaken, our professional duty demands that we point out that Trump’s protectionism is insufficiently ambitious; it should go much further. Trump’s protectionism overlooks a source of low-priced goods that poses a far worse threat than do foreign producers to American producers and workers. That source of low-priced goods is the past. Goods sold in resale markets cost nothing to manufacture today.” (09/16/25)
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson
“[T]here’s an entire milieu of self-identified ‘libertarians’ whose views are characterized mainly by ‘hostility toward openness to foreigners and the wider world and to anger at what presents as scientific authority.’ For starters, that describes about nine-tenths of the commenters under Reason articles. There’s also Argentina’s Javier Milei, widely celebrated as a ‘libertarian’ in publications like Reason, whose authoritarianism I recently examined. There’s Walter Block, who has repeatedly vouched for the libertarian character of ‘voluntary slavery’ over the course of his career. And then there’s the entire paleolibertarian movement, which can be described with little exaggeration as having grown into a giant festering sore with the withered cadaver of the historic libertarian movement attached.” (09/16/25)
