Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin
“Spain is no longer just talking about regulating online ‘hate.’ Now it’s building an AI system to track it. Fresh off an announcement that he intends to pursue an under-16 social media ban, as well as regulations holding tech owners personally liable for hateful content on their platforms and algorithms that share that material, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is promoting the launch of an AI program to track online hate. … It’s valuable for governments to know and understand how prejudice operates and affects the citizens they govern, but this system risks expanding government pressure on platforms to censor lawful political expression.” (03/17/26)
Source: Niskanen Center
by Rachel Levine & Michael Goggin
“Initial results from Niskanen Center and Grid Strategies’ Winter Storm Fern report underscore the need for more interregional transmission capacity and new grid resources of all forms to meet rising demand for electricity while keeping prices low. In particular, generator performance varied by region and by fuel type while gas supply constraints and transmission congestion increased costs to consumers.” (03/17/26)
“Irish history is lost in the infamous mists of time (so Irish) and buried under the bright green of the island’s sod (again, so Irish). Popular history speaks of Celts as being the ‘indigenous’ people of an Eire (Ireland) who were colonized and disinherited by evil Norman and English invaders (aided by their minion warriors and settlers of Scotland). It is much more complicated, of course. The history of Eire is indeed very much like that of North America (Turtle Island): a constant series of invasions, occupation, colonization, and war.” (03/17/26)
“The SAVE Act is coming up for a Senate vote soon, having passed the House back in February. On Tuesday, it cleared its first hurdle, advancing a motion to begin debate on a 51-48 vote that fell mostly along party lines; that’s well short of the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster and ultimately pass. This bill is probably the most sweeping abrogation of voting rights since Jim Crow. As the Brennan Center explains, it would require both voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote, as well as force the states to send their voter files to the Department of Homeland Security. Tens of millions [sic] of U.S. citizens do not have ready proof of their citizenship, and tens of millions more [sic] don’t match with the documents they do have (for instance, married women who have changed their last name).” (03/18/26)
“[A]s a matter of history, the BMT and the IRT were originally built, owned and operated by private companies. That ought to put paid to the notion that there is a ‘market failure’ going on in this sector of the economy, and that free enterprise, which has done so much for our prosperity … is an utter failure here, and, necessarily so. Nonsense on a pogo stick. If the marketplace is so great, why, then, are these NYC subways under government control? The market couldn’t hack it after all? Not a bit of it. These two subways were in the process of raising their fares from a nickel to a dime, and the government authorities were horrified! So, in 1940, they nationalized these entities, or, rather, municipalized them (soon afterward, they doubled the fare that had so horrified them when under private control).” (03/17/26)
“I doubt the Iranian regime WANTED the US and Israeli regimes to escalate the region’s long-standing tension, constant low-intensity fighting, and occasional flare-ups to full-on war for the second time in less than a year … but now that it’s happened, the Iranians seem intent on extracting a real price for the blunder instead of negotiating another lull or, as some keep putting it, giving Donald Trump an excuse to ‘declare victory’ and take an ‘off-ramp’ back to the status quo ante. Can you blame them? … Getting out won’t be quite so smart and easy. We’re seeing.” (03/17/26)
Even in conservative Texas, I didn’t think a jury would buy the government’s case that these defendants were ‘North Texas Antifa Cell operatives’ — an organization fabricated whole cloth by the Trump administration — who had orchestrated an elaborate ambush of the ICE facility. Last week, a jury found eight of the defendants guilty of terrorism charges for simply being present and wearing black at the protest. The government scored a resounding victory: A few of the protesters, none of whom had fired any weapons, were acquitted of attempted murder charges, but the Justice Department won on almost all the other charges. … If that can be sold to juries as the work of an organized terrorist cell, deserving of up to 15 years in prison, then Trump’s fantasy of rounding up and imprisoning leftists en masse becomes a reality.” (03/17/26)
“What distinguishes [Leonard] Read from many contemporary libertarians is his insistence that liberty is not merely an efficient social or political technology but a moral imperative. This is exemplified in his reflections on security and dependence. ‘True security is an outgrowth of freedom, not an alternative to it,’ he writes in an essay on the welfare state, warning that being made dependent on political favor is ‘a move away from true security.’ In other words, security does not come from concentrating power in benevolent hands but from preserving the conditions under which individuals bear responsibility for their own choices.” (03/17/26)
“The law is clear that the First Amendment bars the government from dictating news coverage or punishing outlets for publishing what the president claims is ‘false.’ The American people are entitled to uncensored news about what their government and military are doing. No matter who occupies the White House, war does not justify the government erecting barriers between the people and the press. To the contrary, the life-and-death stakes of war make public scrutiny and accountability more important than ever. … The law is also clear that broadcast licensees which operate under the public interest standard are shielded from [Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan] Carr’s threats.” (03/17/26)
“Two weeks after the start of the war in Iran, the picture is coming into focus. Why would a president who promised countless times not to start new wars, particularly ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East, have leapt into this conflict? As always in the age of Trump, it’s necessary to separate the president’s motives and mindset from the old ways we used to decide questions of war and peace, tariffs, sanctions, immigration, taxes, and other matters. Before venturing into Trump’s mind, let’s consider the shape of the discussion. People who imagine that we are still operating in a normal world are making arguments in favor of military action as if we were engaged in a national debate.” (03/17/26)
