“Marlboro-maker Altria on Wednesday sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, seeking to force the agency to overhaul a product review process that tobacco companies say has stifled their growth in the key U.S. market, a legal filing showed. Under U.S. law, the FDA must review new tobacco products before they can be sold, assessing whether they provide a net public health benefit, such as helping smokers quit. But the system has been plagued by a huge backlog of applications and a booming illegal market of products sold without FDA authorisation. Altria’s lawsuit marks the latest industry challenge to a regime that has become one of the biggest obstacles facing tobacco companies in the $22 billion U.S. market. It follows an extensive lobbying campaign targeting President Donald Trump.” (09/02/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“If we are ever to get our country back on the right track, it is imperative that we never forget that the U.S. national-security state and its foreign policy of interventionism are responsible for the wars in Ukraine and Iran. Let’s start with Iran. It’s obviously tempting to simply blame President Trump for launching his undeclared war of aggression against Iran. But the root cause of what has become a tar baby for Trump goes back a lot further — to the CIA’s coup in Iran in 1953 — a coup that destroyed Iran’s experiment with democracy.” (09/02/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Connor Echols & Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week, raising a flurry of questions about whether his departure is part of a larger political reordering that has pushed skeptics of President Donald Trump’s war policies to the margins. A long-time friend of Vice President JD Vance, Driscoll drew widespread praise for his efforts to modernize the Army. But he has clashed with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth …. Driscoll’s departure is the latest in a string of recent high-profile exits by Vance’s allies and ideological fellow travelers, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Deputy National Security Adviser Andy Baker, White House Director of Legislative Affairs James Braid, and Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent.” (09/02/26)
“Nearly 600,000 New York City public school students will be barred from using artificial intelligence in the classroom and face strict new limits on screen time under a sweeping technology policy Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels are expected to unveil Wednesday. The policy, believed to be the most restrictive of its kind in the nation, would prohibit generative AI tools, including chatbots, AI tutors and instructional programs, for all students through eighth grade. Only high school students would be permitted to use AI, and even then under what officials describe as ‘restricted’ access rules.” (09/02/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Lawrence W Reed
“As the Kremlin sought to portray American democracy as hypocritical and the Soviet Union as a more promising future for mankind, its propagandists made much of racial injustice in the United States, while exploiting internal tensions throughout the West to stir dissent. In response, the US sought out a level-headed Black American who could challenge Paul Robeson’s claims and speak on the dangers of communism. Edith Sampson became that emerging voice during the World Town Hall in 1949, where she earned headlines for publicly denouncing Soviet propaganda about America. Sampson, at the time, was a prominent leader in the National Council of Negro Women while serving as assistant state’s attorney in Cook County, Illinois.” (09/02/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on a mission to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). This implies that America was healthy at one time but is not healthy now. Is this actually the case? How is something like this even measured? Can America be made healthy again? MAHA does not stand for Make Americans Healthy Again. So what exactly does it mean to make America, a country, healthy again?” (09/02/26)
“From the beginning, the boat strikes campaign has been widely condemned as lawless. Contrary to President Trump’s absurd claims, the U.S. is not and cannot be in a formal armed conflict with the unnamed drug cartels supposedly targeted in these attacks. The boat strikes are therefore nothing more than premeditated killings of civilians. A chorus of elected officials, governments and international bodies have thus denounced the strikes as ‘illegal.’ But why focus on the strikes’ illegality in the first place? After all, one could just as easily condemn the strikes for their cruelty. The strikes have torn apart families from across Latin America, depriving them — forever — of husbands, fathers, brothers and sons. ” (09/02/26)
