“The seizure of Max Blumenthal’s phones shows how the war on Iran and the border-security state can turn foreign conflict into domestic repression. Max Blumenthal returned from a reporting trip to Iran and left Washington Dulles International Airport without the two phones that contained much of his working life. According to a federal filing submitted on his behalf, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers questioned him about his journalism, funding, and travel plans and seized the devices after he declined to provide their passcodes. The Committee to Protect Journalists called the episode alarming. What happened at Dulles exposed how war abroad, exceptional border powers, and hostility toward dissenting media can converge in a single act of state pressure.” (07/23/26)
“Drive through almost any established suburb in the United States, and you’ll see the pattern: single-family homes large enough for growing families occupied by just one or two retirees whose children left the nest a decade ago. Meanwhile, young families double up in cramped apartments, first-time buyers are priced out of the communities where they grew up, and school enrollment data tells the story of whole neighborhoods closed off to the people who would benefit from access to what they offer. It’s a problem made worse by our tax code, but it’s one that the tax code can help correct.” (07/23/26)
“Liberty is a big jewel with many facets. All its facets are important, but you can pick favorites. I do. Even then, don’t try to dull the shine of the facets that don’t affect you as much. To someone, those are the important ones. No one can focus on every important liberty issue. Pick a few that matter most to you, or the one most under attack at this moment. If the threat shifts, adapt. Some people try to pass off cut glass or shiny plastic as jewels. Don’t be fooled. If it obligates you to provide something for someone else, or requires someone else’s life, liberty, or property to be violated, you have no right to it.” (07/22/26)
“Chief Judge James Boasberg is frustrated … and he is not alone. Recently, the D.C. federal judge reportedly groused that the D.C. appellate court had ordered him to reconsider a case about whether the D.C. government engaged in biased enforcement against political graffiti. Conversely, the litigants are equally irked over what they see as Boasberg’s bias after he responded by, again, dismissing their claims without a trial. For a second time, Boasberg has barred pro-life groups from access to a jury after members were arrested for writing in chalk, ‘Black Pre-Born Lives Matter’ on a sidewalk while Black Lives Matter writings were left untouched.” (07/22/26)
“We recognize that developing and operating large facilities which consume megawatts of power constantly and require constant disposal of the waste heat generated by their operations can create major problems. Just as we recognize that noise, electromagnetic emissions, sound levels and types, and the exhaust from internal combustion engines all have the potential for significant impacts on human health and the environment. But it appears that the truth, and rationally addressing the issues, including those of surveillence and privacy, is not adequate for a growing (but still tiny) minority of Americans.” (07/23/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Elyse Everest
“From 1896 until 1986, and over 5,000 miles from where the U.S. Constitution was written, the Hawaiian Islands were subject to one of the most harmful and forgotten large-scale violations of free speech in our nation’s history. Although Hawaii did not become a state until 1959, the Hawaiian language ban of 1896, or Act 57, made English mandatory in all public and private schools. In practice, this meant corporal punishment and public humiliation for children caught speaking the Hawaiian language (ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi) on school grounds, a policy that survived annexation, the territorial period, and statehood itself, remaining on the books until the state legislature quietly discovered and repealed it in 1986.” (07/22/26)
“When you hear the phrase ‘Ancient Greece’, what are the first words that come into your head? The names of a few great thinkers, perhaps: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Zeno? Or maybe some grand abstractions: democracy, philosophy, geometry, reason? If so, then you are in good company: if there is one thing everyone knows about the Greeks, it is that they forged the great systems of knowledge and philosophy upon which all Western thought depends. But this is precisely the conception you ought to put out of your mind if, like thousands of others this week, you decide to go to the cinema and watch The Odyssey.” (07/22/26)
