“It’s not exactly a mystery why Sean Duffy, President Donald Trump’s secretary of Transportation, seems so befuddled and embittered about the backlash that followed his May 8 reveal that American corporations funded a five-part reality television series about a “Great American Road Trip” for his family. … Television shows have sponsors. And the Duffy family road trip has some of the biggest corporations paying the bills. And some of them are regulated by the Department of Transportation. Trump’s administration has always seemed at least as interested, if not more interested, in content generation than in governing. Why do boring public servants work when you can be an influencer on television and social media? But the look-at-me crowd gets pretty huffy when they receive actual scrutiny.” (05/13/26)
“Donald Trump has apparently not figured out that Iran holds all the cards. Still fixated on the notion that the ‘winner’ of the war is the side that blows up the most stuff, he remains convinced he can dictate terms to Iran. But the Iranians hold the Strait of Hormuz and have remained convinced that Trump has no stomach for more military action. In any event, they are confident they can sustain any further U.S. attacks. Naturally, then, Iran is sticking to demands to keep control of the Strait, obtain sanctions relief, and even extract reparations from the U.S. … Trump’s trip to China may only deepen his predicament.” (05/13/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Marie McMullan
“The PPA limits the use of search warrants against those who intend to disseminate information to the public, which means it’s not specific to journalists in application. The PPA’s protections apply to any person intending to publish their ‘work product’ or ‘documentary’ materials (more on that later) in ‘a newspaper, book, broadcast or other similar form of public communication,’ which covers journalists but isn’t limited to the press. These protections are valuable to communicators who are independent and who don’t operate within the mainstream media, such as citizen journalists or documentarians. … the PPA’s protections require the federal government to adhere to its limits. The Natanson case is a recent example of what happens when assistant United States attorneys fail to do just that.” (05/12/26)
“On April 1, 114 guests and 61 crew members, unaware of the presence of a killer virus among them, boarded the MV Hondius. That ship has earned the moniker ‘Ship of Fools.’ Because of the top brass’s reckless disregard of infection control principles, the ship’s passengers and thousands of people around the world have been exposed to the rare Andes strain of the hantavirus, a disease found in rat urine and feces, and which has a 40% mortality rate. Among the passengers who boarded that day was a 70-year-old birdwatcher who had spent his final days ashore traipsing through an Argentinian dump covered with rat feces and looking for rare birds. He was looking for species, not feces, but it’s the feces that did him in.” (05/13/26)
“Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine testified before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on Tuesday ostensibly to justify the President’s request for an historic $1.5 trillion budget. Unfortunately, they offered no strategic justification for this nearly $500 billion increase in military spending and, instead, raised even more questions about the Pentagon budget and the cost of the war in Iran. What was most surprising about the hearings was perhaps what was missing: a real enemy. Historically, increases in Pentagon spending have been justified by a monster abroad we’re told we must destroy. … While the usual suspects — China, Russia, and Iran — were all mentioned in the hearings today, neither Hegseth nor Caine made the case that they were enough to justify the enormous increase in military spending they are asking Congress for.” (05/12/26)
“‘It just shouldn’t be this hard,’ Abdul El-Sayed, the insurgent candidate for Michigan’s open Senate seat, says to a packed Mumford High School auditorium in Detroit’s northwestern corner. ‘Shouldn’t be this hard to afford a second bag of groceries … to get your kid to a doctor or to pay your taxes and know that that money’s gonna be spent on you and your kids instead of dropping bombs on other people and their kids’. El-Sayed is here with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s passing through town on his ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour, and state Rep. Donavan McKinney. El-Sayed is locked in a tight three-way race with establishment picks for Michigan’s open seat, a must-win for Democrats hoping to reclaim the chamber, while McKinney is running to unseat incumbent Democratic Congressman Shri Thanedar (MI-13), one of the body’s richest members, whom McKinney has called a ‘cardboard cutout of a congressman.’ Sanders has endorsed both.” (05/13/26)
“As many are likely already aware, automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are high-speed cameras that can identify vehicles as they pass and record their time and location. Over the last decade, the technology has rapidly expanded across American roads and is found in nearly every major city. In a recent posting, I offered a rough estimate of how many ALPRs are deployed in California, suggesting the number is plausibly in the 9.3k–14.9k range, well above the 5k documented in the best records of the technology. However, there has been considerably less attention paid to whether or not the number of ALPRs changes the constitutional calculus. I argue that it does, and that it may render some elements of ALPRs unconstitutional.” (05/12/26)
“Recently several dozen articles defending homeschooling have crossed our desktop here at The Price of Liberty. Unfortunately, they are vastly outnumbered by articles and comments attacking homeschooling. And at the same time, we are seeing more and more State governments and local school districts and boards working very hard (for the bureaucrats and politicians, at least) to come up with more ways to regulate and restrict homeschooling and ‘ensure’ that parents and their families and friends are ‘properly educating’ their children.” (05/12/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Jamie Beran & Rabbi Jill Jacobs
“When thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents invaded Minneapolis this past January, Twin Cities residents, and people across the country, jumped into action, trailing these agents, organizing major protests, and dropping off food and supplies to those understandably afraid to leave their homes. Both of our organizations, too, took action. Bend the Arc: Jewish Action leadership traveled to join a clergy day of protest alongside close partners in Minneapolis, and T’ruah sent some 50 rabbis to support dozens of their colleagues who live and work there. Lay people and clergy alike similarly stepped up in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and other cities targeted by major Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Minnesotans successfully diminished the massive ICE takeover of their city. This is a testament to the power of citizen organizing and action.” (05/13/26)
