“This week, thousands of excited children in Gaza took part in a ritual seen as normal in much of the world: going back to school. Instead of being in classrooms with whiteboards and desks, however, most sat on the floor in makeshift structures or tents. School supplies were scarce and costly. Teachers were few. Nearly three years of a war between Hamas and Israel have devastated most school buildings and staff. Nevertheless, to many in Gaza, the fact that the schools even opened was testament to every child’s desire to be inspired, curious, and skilled for a life of progress. An estimated 540,000 children – the most since the war began – returned to in-person schooling. Working together, Gaza’s residents and international aid agencies upheld the ideal of maintaining a decent life for children, in part because they are the most innocent in any war.” (09/23/26)
“Among the many theories of constitutional interpretation that swirl through American politics, the Unitary Executive Theory (UET) is the most important one circulating today. … To be taken seriously—in an era when the original meaning of the Constitution is the ostensible lodestar of interpretation—a theory of executive power this robust should be strongly grounded in historical sources. In fact, the advocates of the UET presume what they need to prove: that the adopters of the Constitution held a coherent and consensual view of presidential power that could be stretched so far. The more closely one surveys this historical foundation, the more tenuous the theory becomes.” (09/24/26)
“For more than 50 years, the federal government shamelessly pretended that marijuana had no recognized medical use. Last December 18, President Trump signed an executive order entitled, ‘Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research.’ Trump ordered the Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Administration to speed up rule-making to finally enable far more medical research on the benefits of marijuana. … Of course, libertarians want to see all federal restrictions on marijuana abolished. The nearly 100-year federal war on the loco weed has been a disgrace and a failure from the start. But the long history of federal persecution of marijuana users, researchers, and growers provides a high-potency kick on the perils of federal intervention to purportedly protect Americans’ health.” (09/23/26)
“Six years ago, the rise of the ‘Bernie bros’ supporting avowed socialist candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) raised the question of whether decades of soft indoctrination about the ‘horrors’ of capitalism by the Democrat-media complex and the oft-promised but never delivered benefits of socialism had finally produced enough voters willing to elect their way out of free enterprise. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. However, in 2026 the evidence supporting that question is harder to wave away. A self-described democratic socialist now runs City Hall in the nation’s largest city, and a slate of Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed candidates is on ballots nationwide for Congress, statehouses, and mayor’s offices. The question is no longer academic.” (09/24/26)
“Five years ago, LVT was mostly a hypothetical idea people debated on blogs. Today, it has the most legislative momentum it’s seen in decades. Many states introduced bills this year, and Virginia and Kentucky passed land value tax enablement laws in April. These laws allow municipalities to opt into split-rate property taxes, which lower tax rates on buildings and raise them on land. My organization, the Center for Land Economics, maintains a public legislation tracker with an interactive map that makes it easy to keep tabs on these trends.” (09/23/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by John Coleman
“One morning in the spring of 1966, David O’Brien burned his Selective Service registration card on the steps of a South Boston courthouse. … On the facts, the government’s case was airtight. It was a federal crime to knowingly destroy a draft card. When the case reached the Supreme Court, the justices agreed that some actions can contain both expressive and non-expressive elements. But just because an action might send a message, they reasoned, doesn’t mean it’s protected by the First Amendment. Otherwise, someone robbing a bank to protest capitalism could argue their unlawful conduct is actually constitutionally protected speech. … Nearly sixty years later, the O’Brien framework can help us think about the First Amendment’s intersection with artificial intelligence — a technology that is capable of talking and acting at the same time.” (09/23/26)
“In order to restore our lost American principles, the first step is to understand what’s meant by a ‘corrupted republic.’ Today, the politicians and ‘experts’ across the political spectrum love to treat their power like they’ve been given a ‘living, breathing constitution’ that changes with the times. Of course, they don’t ever mean amending it as spelled out in the text of the document. They mean letting politicians, bureaucrats and judges re-write the rules as they go. Montesquieu warned us: that is the very definition of a corrupted system.” (09/23/26)
“President Trump attacked Iran without approval from Congress, as was the Framers’ intent regarding offensive warfare, made plain in the debates at the Constitutional Convention. Trump also violated the War Powers Resolution of 1973 by not withdrawing U.S. forces within 60 to 90 days when Congress hadn’t declared war, given its legal approval or extended the statutory deadline—none of which happened. This is just one more recent example of a hyper-imperial executive thumbing his nose at a quiescent Congress. Yet the Constitution’s Framers intended for Congress, not the executive, to be the dominant branch of government; an independent executive and judiciary were meant to counteract and contain some of this predicted legislative preeminence.” (09/23/26)
