Source: The Dispatch
by Mike Nelson

“The current leadership in the Pentagon is quite fond of saying it is ‘the most transparent Department of Defense in history.’ Now, bald-faced misrepresentations by government officials are never healthy in a functioning republic, but one almost has to admire the chutzpah of blatantly lying about being honest. In fact, the Pentagon has endeavored to control, limit, and mislead when it comes to public information about the department, its operations, and facts affecting service members in the United States military. This effort takes multiple forms above and beyond lying to the public—firing officials based on insecure fears of unflattering whispers, putting onerous restrictions on the legacy Pentagon press corps, and, most recently, hiring a roster of propaganda artists.” (09/04/260

https://thedispatch.com/article/hegseth-pentagon-media-control-propaganda/

Source: Reason
by Billy Binion

“A jury narrowly deadlocked on Friday in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the 36-year-old Massachusetts woman accused of killing her children. Accused is the correct word in a legal sense. But it feels like the wrong one in a general sense, because it is not in doubt that in January 2023 she killed Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy, her three young kids. She admits as much. The jurors instead were tasked with analyzing her state of mind. … Did she ultimately plunge into a state of psychosis? Or was she just deeply anxious and depressed? Absent clairvoyance, how on earth was a jury supposed to know which was more likely to be true? All the evidence in the world cannot transport a juror into Clancy’s mind during the moments she killed her children.” (09/04/26)

https://reason.com/2026/09/04/the-lindsay-clancy-jury-was-tasked-with-an-impossible-question/

Source: New York Post
by Glenn H Reynolds

“Lawyers are supposed to protect and defend America’s justice system. Kevin Reddington, the Massachusetts attorney defending Lindsay Clancy, seems more like an abuser thereof. In what law professor Jonathan Turley described as ‘a breathtaking abandonment of restraint and decency’, Reddington went after the lone holdout juror in the case of the killer mom — a (so far) unknown figure who we’re told was one of the panel’s three males. Reddington, in an unhinged press conference after a mistrial was called, accused the dissident of stealing his fellow jurors’ time: ‘They know that they were robbed by one man for whatever his agenda was, who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors.’ He also charged the holdout with hostility toward the disabled — that is, toward the crazed defendant.” (09/07/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/09/07/opinion/lindsay-clancys-lawyer-bashed-our-juries-and-battered-justice/

Source: Los Angeles Times
by LZ Granderson

“When you run a business, the goal is to price as high as you can while producing as cheaply as you can. Using enslaved, indentured and migrant workers is how this country’s economic system came to be. Underpaying factory employees, forcing them to work 12-hour shifts, in poor conditions, with no lunch breaks, no vacations, no health insurance — all of this shaped what it means to be a laborer in the United States today. And the more we need to work to afford to have a life, the harder it is to separate being a citizen of the United States from being one of its employees.” (09/04/260

https://archive.is/aVnRz

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“It may be the president’s goofiest idea yet. His Monday brainstorm was for the federal government to get into the movie business. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump floated the notion of creating a ‘Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America.’ So this isn’t exactly a socialist proposal — where the government would seize the means of production and go about making movies — it’s a subsidy proposal: tax breaks; to ‘benefit ALL of America.’ Trump posts as if he has worked the math out, where the booty the government loses in direct taxation ‘will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury’s coffers.’ A familiar rationale. But does it work?” (09/04/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/09/04/hollywood/

Source: Wired
by Maddy Varner

“Did you buy a beanie from REI recently? The Department of Homeland Security might be looking for you.
New court filings allege that Homeland Security Investigations agents subpoenaed the outdoor retailer in March, requesting the transaction information for ‘all persons’ in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area who had purchased a specific type of dark green beanie from the company since 2024. REI did not respond to questions about whether it had complied with the request and, if so, how many people are affected. The filings are part of a broader lawsuit by the federal government against 39 people who attended an ICE protest at a church whose pastor also worked as an acting ICE field office director. Both protesters and journalists who were attempting to cover the event, including former CNN host Don Lemon, are now defendants.” (09/04/26)

https://archive.is/Ayd1X