Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy will not serve time with an electronic ankle tag as punishment for illegal funding of his 2012 re-election bid, an informed source said Wednesday. Sarkozy, 71, has faced a raft of accusations since leaving office after a single term from 2007 to 2012. He has denied all allegations in all cases. Last year, he became modern France’s first-ever president to go to jail, serving 20 days in a case related to alleged Libyan funding in his 2007 election campaign. His appeal trial in the case is ongoing. … a court on Tuesday decided Sarkozy would not have to wear the tracker due to his advanced age, the source with knowledge of the case told AFP, requesting anonymity.” (05/07/26)
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20260507-nicolas-sarkozy-escapes-ankle-tag-in-re-election-campaign-financing-case
Source: Antiwar.com
“US Attacks and Disables Iranian Oil Tanker, Trump Threatens Iran With Higher Level Bombing, and More.” (05/06/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euSyNALyTl4
Source: Independent Institute
by Sam Jenson
“Meta Inc., previously known as Facebook Inc., intends to implement facial recognition technology in its smart glasses, which are produced in collaboration with Ray-Ban and currently sold without this capability. The proposed feature would facilitate real-time translation and allow users to ask on-demand questions. However, the integration of facial recognition technology introduces significant privacy and legal concerns for individuals in public spaces.” (05/06/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/05/06/personal-panopticon-smart-glasses/
Source: Le Monde [France]
“A US judge on Wednesday, May 6, released a suicide note purportedly written by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein weeks before his death in a New York jailhouse. Epstein’s cellmate has said that he found the letter in a book following a failed suicide attempt by the disgraced financier, several weeks before his eventual August 2019 death. … The letter had been sealed for years as part of the cellmate’s criminal proceedings, but was released by Judge Kenneth Karas of the US District Court for Southern New York after a request by the New York Times. While the document has not been authenticated, its release comes as questions continue to swirl about the well-connected financier’s death while awaiting sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide, but numerous security lapses at the jail and missing CCTV footage have led to persistent doubts about the official account.” (05/07/26)
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/05/07/alleged-epstein-suicide-note-released-by-us-court_6753213_4.html
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“Contrary to its misunderstanding and misrepresentation by Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives, libertarianism has nothing to do with greed, selfishness, one’s lifestyle, morality, vices, or religion. It is a political philosophy that deals with the proper role of violence in society. … The creed of libertarianism is nonaggression: freedom from aggression and violence against person and property as long as one respects the person and property of others. … Most Americans would claim to hold to the nonaggression principle on a personal level. … Yet most of these same people have no problem supporting government aggression against those who are not aggressing against the person or property of others, are participating in certain activities, or are engaging in prohibited commerce in order to effect changes in behavior, compel virtue, punish vice, or achieve some desired social end.” (05/06/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-shocking-nature-of-libertarianism/
Source: The Political Orphanage
“The Non-Profit Industrial Complex.” (05/06/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/the-non-profit-industrial-complex
Source: The Hill
“Russian air defenses shot down 347 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday, in what appeared to be a major attack after Moscow spurned Kyiv’s ceasefire earlier in the week and tension mounted over Russia’s upcoming Victory Day celebrations. Incoming drones were destroyed over 20 Russian regions, including Moscow, according to the Defense Ministry, in Ukraine’s second-biggest aerial attack since Russia’s all-out invasion more than four years ago. The largest was last March when it launched 389 drones. The attack came ahead of Russia’s most important secular holiday, when it marks the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Russian authorities have declared a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine for Friday and Saturday. Ukraine had responded to that with its own suspension of hostilities from midnight Tuesday. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow disregarded the goodwill gesture and launched fresh attacks.” (05/07/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/ap-russia-says-ukraine-launched-a-major-drone-attack-after-moscow-shunned-ceasefire-offer/
Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein
“What [Dr. Edith] Eger understood, and what makes her work so urgent now, is that Jew-hatred is never only about Jews. It is a symptom of a deeper moral disorder; the same disorder she spent her career treating in her patients and herself. When we dehumanize any group, we do not harm only them. We do something to ourselves. We coarsen the inner voice that Adam Smith called the impartial spectator. We silence the conscience that might otherwise call us back. The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers; it began in the minds of people who decided that some human beings do not belong to humanity. That decision is always available to us. So is the opposite one.” (05/06/26)
https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/what-never-again-demands-of-each
Source: United Press International
“The Food and Drug Administration approved some flavored vapes delivering on a campaign promise from President Donald Trump to ‘save vaping.’ The FDA gave its OK to electronic cigarettes from Glas, a company based in Los Angeles. The approved flavors are mango, blueberry and two varieties of menthol. Court filings show the FDA previously rejected more than 1 million vapes flavored like fruit, candy and desserts and nicotine companies sued the FDA for changing its standards unfairly, but the Supreme Court backed the FDA. … The FDA said in the announcement that the vape products will be age restricted via government ID and a Bluetooth connection with the user’s smartphone.” (05/06/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/05/06/fda-approves-flavored-vapes/5121778072996/
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall
“It’s possible that modern slavery is indeed increasing. We tend to think that’s a result of the expansion of what slavery is meant to mean but perhaps that’s just us. There is though this problem of using independent bureaucracies to run all of these different things. Commissioners for this and that, commissions for the other and so on. … Say that you had a touch of the cynic in you. What would you expect a report from a bureaucracy to say about the issue that bureaucracy is meant to be dealing with? … The aim of a bureaucracy, as an organisation, is to continue to exist and to grow – to increase its budget. That’s it, that’s just what happens with this life form. Therefore every report from a bureaucracy is going to be well … yes … very difficult problem … growing all the time … give us more money.” ()5/06/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-problem-with-independent-bureaucracies-running-things
