Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“Conservatives are well known for launching moral crusades. Because they think they have an ally in the White House, some of them are now openly calling for the federal government to ban pornography. But instead of advocating for new legislation to combat pornography, they maintain that obscenity laws still exist on the federal and state levels and should therefore be used against pornography. The question here is not whether viewing pornography is acceptable, good, useful, or beneficial, or whether viewing pornography is bad, immoral, harmful, or sinful. The question at issue is simply this: Should government at some level, for whatever reason, seek to ban some or all pornography?” (11/02/26)
“As machines take over routine tasks, work might actually become less robotic. When production is cheap, people can be much more entrepreneurial — and more personal.” (11/02/26)
“In 2020, Trump tried to steal a presidential election. This year, he is trying to steal Congress. Once again, it won’t work. Despite his best efforts, he does not have a sufficiently consolidated authoritarian regime, centralized federal control, or enough practical political support to pull it off. But the ineptitude of the attempt should not excuse the gravity of the crime. The president of the United States is attempting, in plain public view and with every power at his disposal, to destroy our democratic republic. He has said as much all year. … When the danger passes, there will be a strong pull to file this away with everything else he tried that didn’t pan out. The courts held, the counties did their jobs, the voters showed up. The country moves on. But the law does not treat failure as an excuse.” (11/02/26)
“The federal government has a legitimate interest in preventing unlawful voting. Noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections, and allegations of deliberate election fraud should be investigated. Nobody should have to abandon those principles to recognize the serious problems with what the administration is doing. Investigations require evidence, and removing voters or refusing to count their ballots requires considerably more than an allegation generated by matching names against government databases. The administration’s actions have repeatedly failed to satisfy those requirements. Worse, some of its demands would have imposed consequences on eligible voters before anyone could determine whether they had done anything wrong.” (11/02/26)
“Eleven billion dollars…. Actually, more than that. Political advertising spending and reservations have now exceeded $11.6 billion, making this the most expensive election cycle for political advertising in American history. For that kind of money, you’d think somebody might have figured out how to make groceries cheaper. Instead, Americans have endured months of attack ads, apocalyptic warnings and politicians insisting that civilization itself is on the ballot. Again. As a researcher, I’ve spent much of this year studying what Americans believe, what frustrates them and, perhaps most importantly, what might motivate them to vote. And I’ve become convinced that five words explain this election better than a thousand campaign commercials. Affordability. Socialism. Corruption. Trump. Turnout. Each tells us something about the American electorate. Together, they reveal something neither party should find particularly comforting. Americans may be less interested in voting for somebody than in voting against something.” (11/02/26)
“Onslaught, the 2026 film from director Adam Wingard, did not do particularly well at the box office or with reviewers. Dropping a few months ago to mostly middling reviews and an underwhelming box office performance, it was ignored by much of the public and dismissed by many critics. Having finally gotten around to seeing it, however, I have to vociferously disagree with what appears to be the general consensus as it exists thus far. Onslaught rocks. Not just as a stand-alone film that plays homage to the classics of John Carpenter, but, more importantly, it has something to say that is far more in line with the reality of post-War on Terror America than any number of self-serious, overwrought, Meryl Streep Starring, prestige cinema beloved by the NPR set ever could.” (11/02/26)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Jillian C York
“On November 11, Lina Attalah, founder and editor-in-chief of the independent Egyptian news outlet Mada Masr, will face trial for the second time in just two weeks. This time, she faces charges of spreading false news, an accusation that has become one of the Egyptian government’s most frequently used tools for prosecuting journalists. … Governments seeking to control the flow of information increasingly rely on a combination of legal harassment, financial pressure, criminal prosecution, and restrictions on the infrastructure that makes independent publishing possible. Egypt’s media licensing regime is a particularly troubling example.” (11/02/26)
“APOLOGIES for whoever dislikes me after this column. Praise The Big Man Upstairs for this blessed country where we’re permitted to think for ourselves. Love, hate or shrug — we’re not jailed or tortured. We can think, love or even demean the United States of America. Try that in Russia, China or Cuba. So I beg forgiveness, right now, for what I want to say. Don’t all love Donald? OK. But specialize in beauts who were not Donald? Biden? Whose son specialized in math? Previous Hizzoner whose wife possibly specialized in arithmetic? A back-aways married governor who had bedroom affairs with his knee socks still on? Also Barack, who finally opened his mouth to babble BS. So elect who?” (11/01/26)
“Anthropic recently filed for IPO. At an estimated $1.5 to $2 trillion, it will be one of the biggest IPOs of all time, rivaling SpaceX, and possibly the biggest. For reference, Facebook’s valuation when it had its blockbuster IPO in 2012 was $104 billion, and Google’s valuation in 2004 was $23 billion. Anthropic will instantly become one of the world’s most valuable companies — Google itself is now worth $3.4 trillion, and Nvidia and Apple are both worth around $5 trillion. This naturally has a lot of people asking: What’s the upside to buying Anthropic?” (11/02/26)
Source: Cato Institute
by Clark Packard & Alfredo Carrillo Obregon
“Recently, the American Primary Aluminum Association issued a report claiming as proof that the 50 percent Section 232 ‘national security’ tariffs should stay in place. Some of the report withstands scrutiny. High-purity aluminum matters for military hardware, and the report notes that no smelter in the United States or any NATO country can make it (p. 2). Aluminum also makes up a small share of costs for most finished goods, so the per-unit price effects are relatively modest. The defensible version of this argument is a very narrow, national security case. Yet the report does not make the case. Three problems stand out.” (11/02/26)
