AS IT SHOULD BE:  Chinese Tourist Faces Federal Charges After Drone Flight Near NASA Launch Pads.

ALL OF THIS:  For thirty years we’ve argued that software deserves First Amendment protection because software is speech. But the Constitution gives us another reason: software is a press. The Free Press Clause protects not merely expressive outputs but the individual’s freedom to possess and use technologies for producing and disseminating expression. The founding-era printing press is the paradigmatic example. That is the original understanding of the clause. Software and open-weight generative models are modern instances of the same constitutional category. Regulation directed at their capacity to produce or disseminate expression and an Americans’ right to own and control them directly implicates the Press Clause even when government characterizes the regulated object as a machine rather than speech.

DEAR BOB. THERE SHOULD BE NO BALLOT FRAUD, PERIOD, AND EVERY SANE PERSON SHOULD OPPOSE IT:  Kavanaugh throws Trump ‘a lifeline’ on mail ballot rules despite Supreme Court rejecting restrictions.

BLINK, BLINK, BLINK:  What Will Be the Ultimate Relationship Between AI and Humans?

AI is NOT a new lifeform. Let me rephrase that title: What will be the Ultimate Relationship Between Giant Calculators and Humans? None. AI is a tool. Get your head out of science fiction and keep on trucking. I write the stuff, and I know when it’s fantasy.

INFRINGEMENT OF BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS:  Oppression By Bureaucracy.

WHO DIED AND MADE WOMEN G-D?  The Mommy Standard.

THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS IS THE UNOFFICIAL SIGN AND COUNTERSIGN OF MY BLOG:  Have You Ever Kippled?

NARRATOR: CLAIRE VALDEZ WAS BORN IN TEXAS:

THIS EXAMPLE OF THE IRANIAN REGIME’S BARBARISM DESERVES MUCH MORE ATTENTION THAN ITS BEEN GETTING: Iran’s Expanding Campaign Against Jewish Targets Outside Israel

OPEN THREAD: One night in this place makes a hard man humble. I can sense the Devil walking next to me.

JUSTICE IN AMERICA: Lone Holdout Juror in Lindsay Clancy Case Gets a Lawyer — and a Safe House.

PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Space weather caused a 16-minute train delay in 1848: ‘Our research has a hint of a detective story.’

FASTER, PLEASE: A 3-Year-Old’s Metastatic Cancer Disappeared After Two Doses of Experimental Therapy.

MAKE THE LEFT PLAY BY ITS OWN RULES: Karol Markowicz: Macklemore Is No Free-Speech Martyr: Jewish artists were being canceled long before the controversy over the rapper’s anti-Israel rant.

The scale of the backlash to his concert comments was surprising. Concerts have long been a breeding ground for a self-important musician to deliver his thoughts on the issues of the day. It was boring. It was tedious. It was expected.

So when artist Pink shared a long condemning message pointing out that “Jewish fans bought tickets to see Ed Sheeran sing last night in NJ, not to be ambushed by Macklemore’s anti-Israel propaganda,” it felt new. When Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, said the politicized performance wouldn’t be welcome at his Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, one of Mr. Sheeran’s tour stops, it wasn’t the same old hand-wringing with no action. Few expected that Macklemore would end up canceled from the remaining tour dates. That’s not normally what happens to activists on the left. . . .

It turns out it works both ways. The uproar from people at the Ed Sheeran show, including from non-Jews, put Macklemore’s spectacle front and center. It had been the left’s game and Macklemore was the first time they had prominently lost at it.

The complaints now are about “free speech.” But no one cared about that when Jewish singers, comedians, artists and authors had their speech shut down. The publishing world, in particular, has gotten so impossible for Jewish authors that new Jewish imprints have become necessary for Jewish authors to get published at all.

It isn’t free speech the left is now demanding for Macklemore. It’s free speech for its side only. That’s something our culture can no longer abide.

Sauce for the goose.

I DON’T LIKE TICKS: New Tick-Borne Virus May Explain Mysterious Cases of Severe Illness.

MAGA: Americans are richer than ever — and poverty hits an all-time low. “The good news came despite a wild series of economic headlines in the US and beyond, touching on everything from tariffs to international conflicts.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: It’s not just heartburn — 5 symptoms you may not realize are related to acid reflux.

VENERABLE: Lockheed hopes to sell a new F-16 to U.S. Air Force.

Lockheed Martin is pitching the U.S. Air Force on a new version of the F-16 fighter, designated the F-16G, as a way to replace aging Fighting Falcons faster than the F-35 production line can keep up.

Multiple people familiar with the aircraft told Aviation Week that the F-16G builds on the current Block 70 F-16, Lockheed’s newest production version, and would add conformal fuel tanks, 600-gallon wing tanks, an infrared search and track pod, a Sniper targeting pod and a drag chute. Those additions would extend the jet’s range and give it added sensor capability compared with earlier F-16 models still flying in Air Force squadrons.

The idea of buying new F-16s to fill out the fighter fleet is not new. Then-Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Will Roper raised the option back in 2021, pointing to the active F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina, as a way to add capacity while the F-35 program worked through its own delivery pace. Lockheed builds F-16s and F-35s at separate facilities, but the F-35’s more complex production process has left the Air Force short of new airframes to replace F-16s reaching the end of their service lives.

Why not? The heavily upgraded F-15EX Eagle II has proven to be a real winner, filling in the gaps of our unpardonably small F-22 fleet.

INFLATION, GAS PRICES, AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA:

Stocks at record highs.
GDP at 5.1%.
Real incomes at record highs.
Poverty at record lows.
Food inflation below 20 year average.
Factories at 82% capacity.
Standard of living best ever.
Crime at record lows.

Trump approval on the economy – record lows.

What am I missing?

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) September 17, 2026

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Trump ‘I did that’ stickers pop up on gas pumps, four years after Biden got the same treatment.

I’m so old, I can remember Obama’s soon-to-be energy secretary telling the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008 that “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” and the LA Times extolling “The joy of $8 gas.”

But then, I can also remember when candidate Bill Clinton savaged George H.W. Bush for raising taxes, after Clinton’s fellow Democrats begged Papa Bush to raise taxes.

HAPPY CONSTITUTION DAY TO THOSE WHO CELEBRATE. If you’re spending Constitution Day thinking about the Declaration, freedom of conscience, and 200+ years of Americans debating what it all means, check out Jeffrey Rosen’s conversation with David Rubenstein.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: 2026 Porsche Panamera GTS First Test: The V-8 Four-Door Porsche Still Has a Point.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Run Hide Fight: Infidels’ – ‘Red Dawn’ for Academia’s Insane Woke Culture.

If filmmakers won’t tackle the woke Left, Ben Shapiro’s team will step up via films like “Run Hide Fight: Infidels.”

The action thriller takes meaty swipes at:

Woke college administrators
Campus radicals
Wishy-washy deans
Triggered snowflakes
And, of course, the dangers of radical Islam

The latter is center stage with “Run Hide Fight: Infidels,” a spiritual sequel to the superior 2020 film “Run Hide Fight.” Director Kyle Rankin returns to poke progressive Hollywood in the eye.

That’s the good news.

The film’s satirical formula falters after a spell, becoming a generic shoot ‘em up that doesn’t take full advantage of what came before it.

Sounds like a bit of a mixed bag. But it has all the right people’s panties wadded, so I look forward to seeing it.

EMMY AWARDS’ AUDIENCE BECOMING INCREASINGLY MORE SELECTIVE: Emmys Ratings Fall as Awards Show Eyes End to Its Broadcast Era.

Monday’s Emmy Awards, aired Monday by NBC, posted a 9% decline in audience from the show’s 2025 viewership, marking what appears to be the end of the Emmys broadcast-network era.

According to Nielsen’s preliminary audience estimate, 6.7 million viewers watched the Emmys this year, down from the 7.4 million who tuned in last year.

While the viewership of awards shows has been treading downward in recent years, several factors complicate efforts to draw solid conclusions about the cause of this year’s drop in Emmys audience from 2025:

* * * * * * * *

If the Emmys do, indeed, move to Amazon, they will join other awards programs – such as the Oscars, SAG-AFTRA’s Actor Awards and the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards – who have signed deals to move to a streaming service.

One advantage of signing a multi-year deal with a single outlet is that the platform would have more incentive to promote the show, since doing so won’t benefit the competitor who gets the Emmys the next year.

So a streaming platform will be hosting an awards show dedicated to promoting network and cable TV shows? And note that the movie industry’s Academy Awards are moving to YouTube, the original streaming platform, in a couple of years as well: Failing Oscars Demoted to YouTube. “Starting in 2029, the irrelevant Oscars will have its annual irrelevant Academy Awards show broadcast on — lol — YouTube.”

As Steve wrote earlier today: Say Goodbye to Hollywood… If It Even Exists Anymore.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Macklemore Performs Concert In Gaza And Oh No! They've Thrown Him Off A Roof https://t.co/C3l9qDT5JY

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 16, 2026