Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin
“In the United States, campus speakers, online expression, blockbuster movies, and printed books are all, of course, protected by the First Amendment. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re protected against influence and censorship by foreign powers, particularly the Chinese government. This censorship may go under the radar for many Americans, but make no mistake: It can influence not just what you encounter in the secular world, but maybe the spiritual one, too. A report this week from the National Catholic Register paints a disturbing picture: A U.S.-based Catholic organization chose to disinvite a speaker from its conference at the University of St. Thomas in Houston after facing direct pressure from Chinese officials. Apparently even the speaker lists at religious events in the U.S. cannot escape pressure from foreign officials who vest in themselves the authority to censor the world.” (09/01/26)
https://www.fire.org/news/blogs/free-speech-dispatch/why-chinese-government-dictating-who-speaks-religious-event-texas
Source: Politico
“The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said Wednesday that the thwarted drone attack at Leipzig-Halle Airport bore ‘all the hallmarks of state-sponsored terrorism,’ after Germany blamed Russia for the incident. Speaking as the bloc’s foreign ministers gather in Wicklow, Ireland, Kallas said Germany’s attribution sent a ‘very strong signal’ and praised EU governments for closing ranks behind Berlin. … Berlin formally blamed Moscow on Tuesday for the Aug. 4 incident, in which three explosive-laden drones were detected around Leipzig-Halle Airport. Germany announced retaliatory diplomatic measures and plans to seek fresh EU sanctions. Russia denies any involvement.” (09/02/26)
https://www.politico.eu/article/kaja-kallas-labels-leipzig-drone-attack-state-sponsored-terrorism/
Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko
“In April 2025, Louisiana District Court Judge Alvin Sharp declared Duncan innocent of the crime for which he’d been convicted and sentenced to death nearly 30 years earlier. It would take another seven months before he was finally released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola. … Duncan was arrested in 1993 for raping and murdering Haley Oliveaux, the 23-month-old daughter of his girlfriend. … Duncan had no history of sex offenses or abusing children. He was convicted primarily because of testimony from Steven Hayne — a now-disgraced medical examiner who performed the vast majority of autopsies in Mississippi for two decades — and his sidekick Michael West, a notorious forensics fraud best known for finding ‘bite marks’ and matching them to alleged perpetrators. Duncan is the ninth person to be exonerated after being convicted with testimony from Hayne, West, or both.” (09/01/26)
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-framing-of-chris-duncan
Source: KMBC 9 News
“Voters in Independence have successfully recalled a councilman after his vote to approve a multibillion-dollar data center. District 1 Councilman John Perkins was recalled during a special election on Tuesday, with unofficial final results showing over 68 percent of voters in the district supported the recall. … Perkins, in March, voted to approve a proposed data center on 400 acres near Missouri 78 and Little Blue Parkway. He was one of five who voted to support the data center. … McKenna Cobb, who filed the recall petition, criticized the council’s decision to approve significant tax incentives for the project. ‘There’s hours of public testimony and they still vote in favor of billions of dollars in tax incentives,’ Cobb said.” [editor’s note: They left the corporate welfare part for the end of the story; it wasn’t just an “anti-data-center” thing – TLK] (09/01/26)
https://www.kmbc.com/article/independence-john-perkins-recall-data-center-election/73586616
Source: The Daily Economy
by Jeffery L Degner
‘Voters demanded the 1996 welfare reform law that limited eligibility and emphasized work. Since then, executive agencies have used their discretion to quietly loosen those rules.” (09/01/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/congress-reformed-welfare-bureaucrats-regrew-it-anyway/
Source: Fox News Forum
by EJ Antoni
“Listening to most of the media and Canada’s prime minister, you’d think the U.S. and its northern neighbor were in a full-blown trade war after new tariffs were announced days ago. Au contraire: Anyone who checks the numbers can see this is merely a skirmish. On Aug. 22, the administration’s Section 338 tariffs took effect, at 50% on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods, or about 5% of what Canada sells the U.S. Ottawa’s answer, effective Sept. 8, will be varying tariffs on roughly $20 billion of American exports to Canada, about 6% of what Canada buys from the U.S. While tariffs on $40 billion aren’t chump change, they’re a small portion of the roughly $900 billion in products and services that are exchanged across the U.S.-Canadian border annually.” (09/01/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/fears-canadian-trade-war-overblown-skirmish
Source: euronews [EU]
“The White House has published the terms of its Venezuela oil deal, naming the private company at its centre and confirming Washington’s majority control of more than 65 billion barrels, as President Trump vowed the US would be taking ‘all’ of it. … Venezuela’s interim authorities have granted NABEP 100-year concessions over 17 fields with the agreement signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. The Venezuelan reserves dwarf America’s own, as the 65 billion barrels covered by the concessions compare with roughly 46 billion across US territory. Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, US President Donald Trump called the reserves ‘unbelievable value that was sitting dormant’ and added that the US is ‘going to be taking all of that. We’re going to be taking that oil out.'” (09/01/26)
https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/09/01/trump-vows-us-will-take-all-of-venezuelas-oil-as-deal-details-emerge
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“The Politics of AI Data Centers – Suddenly a Big Deal?.” (09/01/26)
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1vJpPNZWOAgJE
Source: The Hill
by Harlan Ullman
“Presidents do not like hearing bad news. CIA Director John Ratcliffe went to Moscow to brief Russian counterparts on the U.S. assessment of the state of the war in Ukraine. The news could not have been good. Even if Ukraine is not winning the war, its costs to Russia in blood and treasure have been extraordinary. Now, Russia’s energy infrastructure is being increasingly shut down. Suppose Russian President Vladimir Putin reversed the favor, sending Foreign Intelligence Service head Sergey Naryshkin to brief President Trump on America’s ‘excursion’ into Iran. Imagine how that would go down if Naryshkin relayed the reality? Trump would be apoplectic. … Neither Trump nor Putin respond well to negative feedback. Few presidents do.” (09/01/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/6062270-presidents-rejecting-bad-news/
Source: Washington Monthly
by Christoph Irmscher
“Imagine you hear a speech in which a ruler, reflecting on his first months in office, boasts that he has secured the borders, imposed tariffs, purged the civil service of corruption, eliminated Marxism, and protected Christianity. You might reasonably assume it was delivered in Washington sometime in the past year. In fact, Adolf Hitler delivered it on March 23, 1933, before the newly constituted Reichstag in Berlin’s Kroll Opera House.” (09/01/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/09/01/the-swastika-and-the-red-hat/
