Author: nick

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seen during a meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Israel, April 12, 2021. (Credit: Pentagon / Staff Sgt. Jack Sanders) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday reaffirmed his position that Israel won’t withdraw from southern Lebanon and end its war in the country despite the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding that calls for an end to the conflict. “We will restore security and prosperity to northern towns,” Netanyahu said. “That requires maintaining the security zone in southern Lebanon; it requires that we not leave there, as long as Israel’s security needs require it.” The…

Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900 held in “East Woods” on East 24th Street in Austin. Photo: Austin History Center. Let’s talk about the holiday America is celebrating today. Ready for an uncomfortable truth? I’m not sure we should be. This won’t take long. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops set foot in Galveston, Texas, and informed enslaved Black people that they were free…more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Yeah. Let that sink in. For generations after Black Texans—and later Black communities across the country, thanks to the Great Migration—marked the occasion with church services, family…

The Ninth Circuit held argument last week in a very interesting case on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the computer hacking statute, Amazon.com Services v. Perplexity AI, No. 26-1444.  The basic issue: If an Amazon user wants to use an AI agent to help make purchasing decisions on the user’s behalf at Amazon, but Amazon doesn’t want users to do that, has the AI company committed a federal hacking crime if Amazon tells the AI company to stay away but the AI company continues to make its services available to the Amazon customers? Perplexity AI’s main brief is here,…

Andrew P. Napolitano on the form of government U.S. citizens will be celebrating next month, on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Ultimate Fighting Championship fanfare on June 13 ahead of the UFC – Freedom 250 fights the following day outside the White House. (White House/ Austin DeSisto) By Andrew P. Napolitano The Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, embraces two value sets. The first is natural rights, and the second is limited government. After 250 years, neither value has survived, and the opposite of each currently prevails in America. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration in three days…

IN SHORT Russia blames NATO for driving escalation in the Baltic region Ukraine is falsely portrayed as seeking a war with Belarus EU budget rules are framed as political retaliation against Bulgaria LAST WEEK IN REVIEW This week’s pro-Kremlin FIMI narratives again sought to invert reality and recast Russia and its allies as victims. One false claim portrayed the NATO Gallant Boar 2026 exercise as preparation for a NATO invasion of Kaliningrad, despite its stated defensive purpose of protecting the Suwałki Gap. Another narrative alleged that Ukraine is trying to provoke a new war with Belarus, ignoring Belarus’ military build-up…

USS Abraham Lincoln transits the Arabian Sea (Source: CENTCOM) US Central Command announced on Thursday that the US military was lifting its blockade of Iranian ports in line with the Memorandum of Understanding signed by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to bring an end to the conflict between the two nations. “Today, US forces lifted the blockade on all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports and coastal areas, in accordance with the President’s direction. American forces are not impeding the transit of vessels to or from Iranian ports. All US military blockade enforcement efforts have ceased,” CENTCOM said. The…

Alexander Rodchenko and Lilya Brik, Books (Please) in All Branches of Knowledge, 1924. (Public domain) A few recent AI queries 1) I strained my back lifting a bag of potting soil. What now? 2) Is autarky possible in the U.K? 3) The gauge on our gas boiler is in the red zone. Will it blow up? 4) Did Fritz Lang like Joseph Losey’s 1951 remake of his film M? 5) Can frogs survive in the pond on the terrace of our 2nd floor flat in Norwich? (See answers at end of column.) AI then and now When Chat GPT was…

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in his keynote address to the graduating class of Yeshiva University on May 28, “I want you to know I’m not a Zionist because I’m Jewish.” It’s worth noting that Huckabee is a Southern Baptist minister from Arkansas and is the first non-ethnically Jewish U.S. ambassador to Israel since 2011. Huckabee continued, “I’m a Zionist and an unapologetic one because I believe the Bible.” Many American evangelical Zionists, including by his own admission here, Southern Baptist Huckabee, believe that the current state of Israel formed in 1948 are the Jews of the Old…

Musk giving a Roman (fascist) salute at the second inauguration of Donald Trump before saying “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.” Public Domain. You can’t have capitalism without racism. –Malcolm X Elon Musk is less an aberration than the grotesque byproduct of a capitalist order that converts inequality into virtue, exploitation into spectacle, and mistakes its own deepest failures for its greatest successes. The media frenzy surrounding the prospect of Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire is not a celebration of human progress or individual initiative. It is…

This morning in the Court I heard Justice Kagan hand down Hunter v. United States. As she announced it, I thought the Court reached a consensus ruling on a criminal procedure issue. But at the end, she said that Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett wrote separately. My immediate thought was “they have too much time on their hands and need to grant more petitions.” But as I read through the decision, I realized how this case reflects the cost of near-unanimity. Of the eight member majority, only Justice Kagan and Chief Justice Roberts did not write separately. There were two camps…