Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey

“I think we can all agree that talk about artificial intelligence (AI) is near-constant. And now we hear that OPENAI (the parent of ChatGPT) is offering 5% of its equity to the U.S. Government, valued at an estimated $40 billion. This is perhaps the most expensive bribe I’ve seen in U.S. history, as such a stake would help OPENAI ease up on political pressure and regulatory scrutiny. Talk about greasing the wheels, is Sam Altman that desperate?” (07/03/26)

https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/why-the-us-government-acquiring-openai

Source: Reason
by Peter Suderman

“America was founded by drinkers, distillers, and maltmen whose consumption would be labeled problematic by today’s public health authorities.” (07/26)

https://reason.com/2026/07/03/americas-founding-drinkers/

Source: The American Conservative
by Reid Smith

“Hours before Iran’s national soccer team took the pitch in Seattle for its group-stage match against Egypt, the U.S. Central Command announced further strikes against the Islamic Republic. This sequence was without obvious precedent. A World Cup host nation had never bombed a participating country during the tournament. Fortunately, FIFA had already provided the punchline by awarding President Donald Trump the FIFA Peace Prize just over six months before the tournament’s opening kickoff. The scene is absurd, but the paradox is typically American. As we reflect on the anniversary of our independence, we may confront the fact that America has always struggled to reconcile words and deeds. We are an ambitious country littered with contradictions between the tales we tell ourselves and the actions that we take.” (07/03/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/foreign-policy-restraint-is-an-american-promise/

Source: Common Dreams
by John Raby

“The history of the government of the United States in this century, especially under this president, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all tending to the establishment of a corporate despotism over the American people. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. On repeated occasions, the current government has manipulated elections from which officials have assumed their offices. A government whose character is thus marked by actions that exhibit such arrogance is unfit to be the government of a free people. Its current president has allowed his subordinates to suggest a postponement of the constitutionally required date of a presidential election, a step unprecedented in United States history, even in times of war and civil rebellion. While doing so, he has suggested that no further national elections will be necessary.” [editor’s note: This began with a paraphrase of the actual D of I, and went downhill into this partisan from there – SAT](07/04/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/2026-declaration-of-independence

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter

“Humans, by their nature, have rights that exist prior to and independent of the state and other people. These rights cannot be surrendered, transferred, sold, or legitimately taken away because they are inherent to human beings by nature. These rights are negative in that they restrict aggression against them. These rights include life, liberty, and the limited, non-aggressive pursuit of happiness, as well as the right of self-ownership and property rights, which are inferred from the previous rights. Jefferson may not have followed John Locke’s triad—life, liberty, and property—exactly because of the issue of slavery. If what Jefferson said about rights is the case, then slavery would be an evident denial of self-ownership.” (07/03/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/tracing-jeffersons-libertarian-thought-declaration-independence