Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Sheridan Macy

“Gail Nazarene, an elected school board member in New Jersey, thought she was performing her duties as a public servant and participating in the democratic process when she asked her constituents about tax increases on Facebook. This simple act led to an ethics complaint by another school board member because, unlike most other states, New Jersey interprets its school ethics rules to potentially cover any speech that’s merely about schools, supposedly because community members are likely to attribute any such statement from a board member as being on behalf of the board. But the First Amendment forbids the government from punishing school board members for speaking their minds on public issues. That’s why FIRE is suing New Jersey on Nazarene’s behalf.” (03/16/26)

https://www.fire.org/news/why-are-school-board-members-afraid-speak

Source: TomDispatch
by Alfred W McCoy

“In the first chapter of his 1874 novel The Gilded Age, Mark Twain offered a telling observation about the connection between past and present: ‘History never repeats itself, but the… present often seems to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends.’ Among the ‘antique legends’ most helpful in understanding the likely outcome of the current U.S. intervention in Iran is the Suez Crisis of 1956, which I describe in my new book Cold War on Five Continents. After Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, a joint British-French armada of six aircraft carriers destroyed Egypt’s air force, while Israeli troops smashed Egyptian tanks in the sands of the Sinai Peninsula. Within less than a week of war, Nasser had lost his strategic forces and Egypt seemed helpless before the overwhelming might of that massive imperial juggernaut.” (03/15/26)

https://tomdispatch.com/imperial-decline-in-the-straits-of-hormuz/

Source: USA Today
by Angelina Olivera

“President Donald Trump has already said that families deserve a voice in life-and-death medical decisions. Duchenne families are simply asking that this principle be carried through in practice.” (03/16/26)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2026/03/16/trump-fda-right-to-try-duchenne/88861876007/

Source: Understanding AI
by Timothy B Lee

“Last fall, a lot of people were worried about a possible AI bubble. AI companies were investing heavily in infrastructure because they expected huge demand for AI services in the coming years. For example, an internal OpenAI document last fall projected that revenue would more than double — from $13 billion in 2025 to $30 billion in 2026. Around the same time, Anthropic expected revenue to triple from $4.7 billion in 2025 to more than $15 billion in 2026. Skeptics didn’t believe companies this large could grow so quickly. But the last few months haven’t gone the way they expected.” (03/16/26)

https://www.understandingai.org/p/it-still-doesnt-look-like-theres

Source: Liberal Currents
by Steve Kennedy

“For advocates of ‘parental rights,’ family autonomy becomes both reward and weapon, extended to those who conform and withdrawn from those who do not.” (03/16/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/parental-rights-and-the-authoritarian-family/

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“My enemies are in Washington and Tel Aviv. In London and Canberra. My enemies are the western oligarchs and empire managers who are poisoning my society and making everything awful while slaughtering human beings with the help of my tax dollars. My enemies are the tyrants who are turning our civilization into a mind-controlled dystopia where it is increasingly illegal to criticize the abuses of my government and its allies, and increasingly difficult to find information which runs counter to the imperial narrative. My enemies are the empire apologists and the hasbarists. The propagandists and spinmeisters. Those who side with Israel and the United States against basic human interests. Imperial bootlickers always accuse me of writing ‘propaganda’ for ‘the enemy,’ with ‘enemy’ meaning whoever the US-centralized empire happens to be attacking or preparing to attack on any given day.” (03/16/26)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/03/16/my-enemies-are-not-in-iran/