Freedom Works with Paul Molloy, 08/24/26
Source: Freedom Works
“Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center ‘National Debt Hits $40 Trillion.'” (08/24/26)
https://internetradiopros.com/freedomworks/?name=2026-08-25_zfw0081212026.mp3
Post-9/11 Fear Grew the Surveillance State — Still Growing 25 Years Later
Source: Independent Institute
by Abigail R Hall
“Just as every baby boomer knows exactly where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, people my age can tell you precisely what they were doing just after 9 a.m. on 9/11. I was in seventh grade music class. In other classrooms, my friends watched people jump out of buildings. My mom picked me up early from school, and I distinctly remember that every television channel had been overtaken by news coverage. I watched the twin towers collapse over and over again for what felt like days. … The U.S. government responded in many ways that either were largely kept secret from the public or are so integrated into daily life that we no longer recognize them as what they are: marked expansions of government that have weakened constraints on government and eroded our liberties.” (08/24/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/24/post-9-11-fear-surveillance/
Russia: Regime to seize poorly protected infrastructure amid Ukraine drone attacks
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree opening the way for the Russian state to take temporary control of critical infrastructure found to be inadequately protected from attack. The decree, published on Monday, would allow Moscow to strip owners of physical and financial control over facilities should it be determined that they are failing to secure them or repair damage quickly. The move comes as Ukraine maintains an intense drone campaign against Russian infrastructure. … Fuel and energy facilities, including nuclear power, are included under the legislation as well as industry, communications, transport and logistics, public utilities and other facilities deemed essential to state security and economic stability.” (08/24/26)
Not So Obvious, Not So Simple
Source: Liberalism.org
by Matt Zwolinski
“Economic planners can’t obtain the knowledge they would need. Prices carry information that no committee could produce. Attempts to impose a uniform design on a spontaneous order tend to destroy the very thing they were trying to improve. But then we turn to politics, and many of us start acting like engineers. Rothbard is the clearest case. About markets he was a thoroughgoing Austrian, insisting that no mind could assemble the knowledge that prices convey. When the subject turned to rights, though, he proceeded almost entirely by deduction, deriving an entire legal and political order from self-ownership and homesteading. … The same thinker who found the market unknowable found the just constitution derivable, as though a system for restraining violence, settling disputes, and determining who owns what were somehow less demanding than the coordination of a grain market, rather than more.” (08/24/26)
Reason Roundtable, 08/24/26
Source: Reason
“How Did America Get $40 Trillion in Debt?” (08/24/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/08/24/how-did-america-get-40-trillion-in-debt/
SCOTUS rules blue states sued too early over Trump’s postal election rigging scheme
Source: The Hill
“The Supreme Court lifted a judge’s block on President Trump’s executive order adding to mail voting requirements, removing a key roadblock that prevented the policy from going into effect for the midterms. Over the public dissents of the three liberal justices, the high court said Monday that the judge had no authority to block Trump’s directive ahead of the U.S. Postal Service implementing the new ballot standards. ‘Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule. If the Postal Service’s final rule harms the States, they may challenge that rule,’ the court wrote. It allows Trump to move closer to implementing his mail ballot restrictions for November’s contests. But now that the Postal Service announced its final regulation late last week, the states had already begun their new push to block it.” (08/24/26)
ICE Wants Our Emails
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano
“When a government agency comes to an internet service provider demanding information about Americans because of what they have said on social media, the provider should discard the demand, close the door or hang up the phone. The government is not entitled to rummage through the political opinions, associations, criticisms and angry rhetoric of anyone merely because a government official finds those opinions offensive, threatening to an agency’s reputation or inconvenient to its mission. Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dramatically expanded its monitoring of social media platforms and has issued administrative subpoenas seeking information identifying users whose posts have criticized ICE. The reported investigations have included Americans and aliens who have not been charged with crimes.” (08/24/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2026/08/23/ice-wants-our-emails
Judge postpones trial for man charged in Lockerbie bombing over “new evidence”
Source: AOL
“The US trial of a former Libyan intelligence operative accused over the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing has been delayed after fresh evidence came to light, a federal judge ruled on Monday. Defence attorneys requested time to review the material in the case, which spans nearly four decades. Jury selection was due to start on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., for Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, in what will be the first trial held in the US regarding the attack on 21 December 1988. An order issued by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich did not elaborate on the nature of the newly revealed details. … Al-Marimi is charged in the US with building the bomb that destroyed the aircraft, killing 270 people, mostly Americans.” (08/25/26)
https://www.aol.com/articles/judge-postpones-trial-man-charged-055831000.html
One Bad Week
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“It took around two hundred years for US government debt to reach one trillion dollars. By contrast, in less than half a year a trillion was added to bring the debt total to the 40 trillion dollars it reached last week. According to the Peterson Foundation, US government debt is on a path to reach 50 trillion dollars within the next six years. Despite promising to reduce government spending in all three of his presidential campaigns, President Trump, with the assistance of congressional Republicans and Democrats, has continued to grow the government debt.” (08/24/26)
UK: Iran-linked hackers suspected in power plant shutdown
Source: Fox News
“Iran-linked hackers are suspected of forcing a small British power generator offline for four days last month, the latest sign that Tehran-linked cyber activity may be moving from probing vulnerable systems to causing disruptions U.S. officials have long warned about. Iran-linked hackers were behind the outage, according to British security officials who spoke with multiple news outlets. … The British shutdown came weeks after hackers struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota, accessing technology used to remotely monitor and control pumps and other equipment. Minnesota officials have not publicly attributed the attacks. Several news outlets, citing U.S. officials and a leaked industry threat-sharing memo, reported that Iran was the likely culprit.” (08/24/26)