Source: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
by Sarah McLaughlin
“The United Kingdom is unveiling a grand new policy it claims will protect children on social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and X. The exact rules governing the ban will be released before its launch next year, but it will use age verification tools to restrict youth access to social media and other programs. But this new ‘under-16’ policy, like many others before it, is a misnomer. Because whether you’re 15 or 55, it will affect people regardless of age — and drain away all UK citizens’ ability to speak freely and anonymously online.” (06/16/26)
“A $69 billion merger between two real estate behemoths is set to create the largest publicly traded apartment landlord in U.S. history, dramatically expanding the market power of two firms that have been sued repeatedly over alleged tenant abuses and illegal price-fixing. Together, real estate investment trusts (REITs) AvalonBay Communities and Equity Residential own more than 180,000 apartments nationwide, with another 20,000 under development. Were these two companies banks or broadcast networks or grocery stores, their merger would face mandatory review by federal regulators. But long-standing loopholes exempt real estate mergers from antitrust scrutiny — even as concerns mount about the consolidation of housing in the hands of large investors.” (06/17/26)
“With midterm elections just around the corner, both major political parties are themselves coping with divided constituencies. The Democratic Socialists vie for dominance against more moderate Democrats. MAGA Republicans confront disaffected libertarians and neocons. And outside all these polarized factions are millions of voters that don’t find any politician or political agenda credible enough to earn their allegiance. But there is a common thread shared by most disillusioned voters. They believe that America’s ruling class has abandoned its fellow citizens. They’re right. Notwithstanding notable recent defections, America’s elites view ordinary citizens as no longer necessary. Because of globalism, they are replaceable. Because of automation, supercharged by AI, they are superfluous. Because of environmentalism, they are unsustainable. A plurality (at the least) of America’s elites have decided the nation’s middle class is disposable, and this is the real reason they continue to push woke degeneracy and extreme environmentalism, designed to lower birthrates and reduce standards of living.” (06/17/26)
“The US government crackdown on Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 hides a glaring truth: AI models with advanced hacking capabilities will soon be the norm.” (06/16/26)
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“The American taxpayer has become the cleanup crew for the American Police State. We pay for the constitutional violations. We pay for the wars. We pay for the lawsuits, the settlements, the cover-ups, the damage control, the reconstruction, the overreach, the incompetence and the corruption. And when government officials are finally called to account for their misconduct, we pay for that, too. That is the dirty little secret of government accountability in America: even when the government loses, the government does not really pay. ‘We the people’ do. This is not a problem invented by Donald Trump.” (06/16/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“On the issue of immigration, there are two completely different positions within the libertarian movement. One position favors a government-controlled, government-managed system in which federal officials centrally plan the numbers and characteristics of immigrants that will be permitted to enter the United States. The other position is commonly known as ‘open borders.’ This position is based on the principles of economic liberty and the free market. … Some libertarians attempt to ‘straddle the fence’ by endorsing what they call an ‘Ellis Island’ type of immigration-control system. … it’s not freedom — not genuine freedom. That’s a problem for libertarians, who purport to favor freedom, especially economic liberty and free-market principles.” (06/16/26)
“Ten years after Brexit, Britons must choke back an indigestible irony. Leaving the EU has been an unexpected success for those who voted against it: the prosperous Southeast, beneficiaries of the unloved colossus of London’s financial services. But it has been a disaster for those who voted for it, the left-behind of the neglected suburbs and provinces. Two reasons explain this paradox. First, the Brits let Barnier walk all over them on the backward-looking issues which dominated exit negotiations and regulate the rustbelt. Second, Brussels discovered that if it wanted to carry on its prodigal ways, it couldn’t do without London’s capital markets.” (06/16/26)
“US president Donald Trump loves being ‘first.’ Whenever something newsworthy happens, big or small, in fact or in fantasy, he reliably touts it as being unprecedented in American, possibly even world, history, and a either a personal, positive accomplishment or an unjustified persecution (‘witch hunt’). … now, he’s the first president to oversee US surrender in not one, but two, wars.” (06/16/26)
“On September 15, 1970, Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to ‘make the economy [of Chile] scream.’ (CIA Director Richard Helms’s actual note of the conversation can be seen here). But it wasn’t the economy that screamed: it was people. ‘The economy’ is an abstraction. The concrete reality of sanctions and embargos is people who are starving. Driving people to starvation has become the foreign policy of the United States.” (06/16/26)
“Historian Will Durant on the ancient Persian empire: ‘[It is not] natural that nations diverse in language, religion, morals, and traditions should long remain united; there is nothing organic in such a union, and compulsion must repeatedly be applied to maintain the artificial bond. In its two hundred years of empire, Persia did nothing to lessen this heterogeneity, these centrifugal forces; she was content to rule a mob of nations, and never thought of making them into a state…’ (Our Oriental Heritage, 382). I have no objection to trying to prevent dangerous governments, run by questionably civilized radicals, from having nuclear weapons. Actually, I’d prefer to see nuclear weapons completely eradicated from this planet. But unfortunately, humans have this overwhelming lust to kill each other, and some, like communists and other barbarians, like to do it in massive numbers, when possible. So, civilized people must be protected against such.” (06/16/26)
