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Public Library Quarterly
DOI: 10.1080/01616846.2026.2725502
Abstract
As artificial intelligence reshapes both library work and the information environment, public libraries must determine whether or how to engage with AI while maintaining library values. To our knowledge, there exists no published analysis of how American and Canadian public library AI policies might link library values and technology adoption. To address this gap, we conducted an environmental scan of public library websites to identify and analyze AI policy statements. Our scan of over 200 library websites identified 32 AI polcies. All reference at least two values, with privacy, security, and responsibility the most frequently cited.
With over 40 years of singing and entertaining kids and families, Jim Gill is just as energetic as ever. His humorous songwriting blended with interactive play was not only revolutionary for the genre, but has had staying power with librarians, educators, and caregivers for generations. I was able to catch up with Jim at Oak Creek Library last month, where he was leading a teaching workshop during the day for librarians, and a family concert in the neighboring park that evening.
Jim Gill and his “List of Dances.” Photo courtesy of Peter Blenski.
I found your backstory and education so interesting, and it felt fundamental to how your career has turned out. Would you be willing to share your story of how it all started?
When I was a teenager I worked at an arts camp for children and teens with special needs. It was THE BEST part of my teen years. When I moved to Chicago, at 20, to go to college I was asked if I might be interested in leading weekly play groups for families with young children with special needs for a therapeutic play program in one of the Chicago suburbs.
The women who ran that program, which was called Lekotek (Swedish for “Play Library”), envisioned a weekly developmental play group that would include children with special needs, Birth thru 8 years old, as well as parents, grandparents and typically developing siblings. Many of the children that attended had some pretty significant delays, and although the program was not specifically a music program, I shared a lot of musical games as part of the content. I shared songs that I knew from the arts camp as well as songs that I learned from children’s records and folk records…that I borrowed from the library!
After a year of leading Saturday morning play groups for this program, I was asked to lead weekly play groups for another therapeutic program in a different suburb. This program was a speech and language clinic that served, primarily, children on the autism spectrum. It is important to note that I was studying education at the time and had no musical training. I led the playgroups by simply singing songs and finger plays and, at times, playing other people’s recorded songs on a cassette-playing boom box!
But I was learning to play the banjo at the time. I was taking lessons on finger picking and, after practicing, would spend time strumming some of the songs that I was singing at the play groups. Soon I started making up some of my own simple musical games that I could use in my play groups. At some point I was asked by preschools and elementary schools if I could visit for concerts. These kept me busy, but I did not really enjoy them because they were different from my play groups, where the children and adults all gathered together and worked together towards the goal of developmental play.
Jim Gill with one of his early school play groups. Photo courtesy of Jim Gill.
I expected that, upon graduation, I might pursue some further studies that would, perhaps, allow me to become a therapist of some kind. But my mentors at graduate school encouraged me to continue doing what I was doing, leading the play groups and trying to structure my concerts in a way that would make them more like my play groups: joyful, but purposeful. I led the weekly play groups for 20 years for various therapeutic, developmental and educational agencies, I led more and more concerts, and began recording the songs that I created through my play groups. And I published a couple of musical books. At some point I realized that it had become “a career!”
When did you realize that you “made it” as a performer?
I love this work and I appreciate every opportunity to share my songs and books with young children and families. But I don’t really think of it as “performing.” And I don’t ever really think that I have “made it!” I approach my concerts in the same way that I approached my family play groups for all of those years. I don’t really “perform” my songs. My goal is to get everyone – children, parents, grandparents and other caring adults – joining in and playing together.
I do lead some concerts in theaters around the country, and those are wonderful opportunities. But my favorite spots to lead concerts are in library meeting rooms. Most families gather on the floor together and sing and dance and play together. These concerts are like bigger versions of my family play groups.
In my work, I end up in some pretty unconventional spaces. For the past couple of years, a community group in Burlington, Iowa has invited me to lead concerts in a shopping mall. I typically refuse to lead concerts in shopping malls, but most of the stores in this mall are closed. This past year we used an abandoned store to carry out a follow-up literacy project after my concert. No typical person would consider this an example of “making it” as a performer. But I love it, and I suspect that librarians, who lead story times in some unconventional spaces, will understand my enthusiasm for those events.
You kept stressing“the words are the motions” during your workshop, meaning what you say, sing, or do in a performance should keep kids engaged. Why is interaction so important as a performer?
This is something that applies most to folks who do programming, such as librarians who lead story time programs or preschool teachers who are leading a circle time. I developed a style of writing songs that combined word play and rhymes in the context of active movement games. Not every song of mine is like that, but the songs of mine that people like best are those songs, like “Hands are for Clapping” and “Jump Up, Turn Around.”
I don’t believe that every song should be like that. A song like “Baby Beluga” is so sweet and I love it, just as it is. When preschool teachers share that song in a circle time, however, they end up adding motions to the words to keep the children engaged with the song. But a hand motion for “a whale” can get tricky for young children in general, and certainly for children with special needs.
I knew exactly what she was saying and the “preachy” phase did not last long. I returned to the lessons that I learned, in my 20s, about family support and put that together with what I learned in graduate school about environments. I started thinking more about how I could achieve my goals about family engagement by working, more purposefully, to make that happen. All without saying it.
So my song “Spin Again” is about a game in which we all spin. I am not asking children to pretend that they are spinning tops or on a merry-go-round because frankly, most of the children that I was working with at the time weren’t very good at pretending and a “pretend game” would have left them out. But they loved sensory play like spinning. In my own way I was honoring their abilities by writing a song that met their special needs. We might say this is “honoring their neurodiversity”, but this was 30 years ago. But I ended up with a song that works well for ALL children.
Jim Gill leading one of his family concerts. Photo courtesy of Jim Gill.
One of the key takeaways from your workshop was a kind of “show, don’t tell” philosophy. That demonstrating early literacy skills within a performance is more beneficial than stating them. Can you elaborate on that and explain your rationale?
I began doing this work before I had even graduated from college, so I wouldn’t have had the knowledge or inclination to tell adults why it was important for them to be involved and engaged during the program. In graduate school I also had the opportunity to visit and study programs that did a wonderful job of intentionally creating environments that helped young children sustain focus while providing opportunities for them to learn.
Unfortunately (and I am embarrassed to admit this) I did go through a phase after graduate school where I became a little “preachy” about HOW and WHY the adults needed to interact with their children at my concerts. And, interestingly, my clients seemed to like it! The preachier I was, the more serious it seemed. This did not last long because one of my favorite professors from graduate school attended a concert and told me that she thought I was “more successful when, instead of TELLING people WHAT to do, you just got them doing it.”
It’s clear that you love performing, whether it’s for a room of librarians or a group of children. Whether the turnout is a huge concert or just a small classroom. How do you adjust your approach, and how do you make sure everyone stays engaged?
I love to share my songs and books, but I really don’t think of it as a “performance.” My goal is to get everyone, the children and the caring adults with them, joining in. Of course there are different strategies for a concert hall with 600 seats, or a library meeting room, or a school cafeteria. And that is what I think about when I arrive at a venue. What is my strategy for THIS room? And what is my back-up plan?
I visited a program in Arizona last year and the host had reserved a LARGE auditorium. Probably 600 seats. But I immediately noticed that the lobby was also large and carpeted and would make a great space for a concert of up to 150 people. At a certain point it was clear that attendance was going to be about 100, so we quickly moved a portable PA system into the lobby and had a GREAT concert right there, in that space.
The Daniel Boone Regional Library in Columbia, MO invited me to lead a concert earlier this year at a big, beautiful theater in town. I was all set up and, as families arrived at the theater, I stood in the lobby with my banjo and greeted everyone. I was thrilled that so many people showed up, on a rainy night, and I wanted to convey that. And I think everyone is more prepared to sing along if they have already met me! Greeting everyone also allows me to see how many toddlers, preschoolers, or school-agers are there. Because I adjust my concerts a bit, depending on who is attending. I think most “performers” would have been in the dressing room until the last moment, unaware that it was raining outside.
Jim Gill–“Silly Dance Contest” Champion, 40 years running. Photo courtesy of Jim Gill.
Mental health and workload are real concerns right now among librarians, and public service workers in general. Between your library workshop and your evening concert, you basically did two high energy shows back-to-back. What helps you recenter and keep showing up for a community like this, and do you have any advice for anyone dealing with burnout?
As a child I spent LOTS of time at the branch library in my hometown of Rockford, Illinois. In 5th and 6th grade I repeatedly checked out all of the books on magic and magicians that were on the shelves and the librarian taught me how to order more books from the main library. And, in high school, the library even hired me to do a few magic shows! The librarian also created a “neighborhood newspaper” so that a couple of friends and I, who were there almost every day after school, would stay busy writing and reading. She didn’t have to do that extra work, but she did. I am so thankful for having that community space and the caring staff available to me as a child.
When I am at my best, my approach to work reflects that appreciation. At my last training workshop, there were some people that had driven hours to be there. Others had worked that morning and made their way there for the afternoon. And LOTS of those people use my songs in story time! I wanted the workshop to reflect my appreciation for all of that. And that same day, I led a concert for families. Again, folks had worked all day and brought their children to the library and I wanted to honor that. The way that I can best honor that is by bringing my best energy to the event and get everyone singing and dancing and playing together.
Earlier I used the expression “when I am at my best.” None of us are always at “our best.” On those days or at those times within a day when I am not “at my best,” I try to take a private moment -in my car, anywhere – and acknowledge to myself how I am feeling, but remind myself that it is not fair to my clients or the children and families to have that be reflected in my work. I think that I am, in general, a kind, caring and conscientious person. But sometimes I need to remind myself that I can and should be kind, caring and conscientious even if I am feeling challenged on that day.
You come across as an extroverted person and a natural performer. What would you say to someone that wants to incorporate some of your style, but is perhaps more introverted or doesn’t have that natural flair?
I spend A LOT of time thinking and working with my band members and other collaborators about how those songs and books can convey. So if someone is more introverted than I am – which is almost everyone – they can use a song of mine, like “Silly Dance Contest” as a resource to bring silly energy to the program. You can say something like, “I think it is time to play a song by a very silly man named Jim Gill. I am excited to see how silly everyone can dance and how EXTRA silly everyone can freeze!” During the song, that person should dance a bit to the music, but does not need to be the silliest dancer in the room. The recording will provide the musical energy and if the children and families are encouraged, the game will be about THEM, not the story time leader!
The same is true with my book, “A Soup Opera.” The accompanying soundtrack provides energizing orchestration and the silly voices. With encouragement, the children and families will soon be joining in. Honestly, I think it is best if folks develop their own style of how to lead programming and, if they care to, use my songs and books to bring some silly energy every now and then. I am honored when folks put my songs and books to use in that way!
Reach Jim at jimgill.com. Find his music on Spotify, Amazon, and all other major music streaming services. You can find our 2008 Jim Gill interview here.
Peter Blenski has been a children’s librarian in the Milwaukee and Waukesha area for over a decade. He runs the popular library blog, Lego Librarian, where he talks about library programming and marketing. In 2021, he served on the 100th Newbery Award Selection Committee, which gave the award to “The Last Cuentista” by Donna Barba Higuera. He recently served on the 2026 Geisel Award Selection Committee, which gave the award to “Stop That Mop!” by Jonathan Fenske.
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Judge again blocks Trump’s effort to restrict mail voting as ballots start going out.. The move comes as the Trump administration appeals a related order to the Supreme Court.
0 seconds of 5 minutes, 19 seconds, Live 00:0000:0005: The rushed time frame being pushed by the administration will make voter disenfranchisement “practically inevitable” if the rule is allowed to stay in place, the judge found. Matt Slocum / AP file
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a bid by President Donald Trump for the U.S. Postal Service to exert control over mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections as one state begins mailing out ballots.
Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who previously blocked a related effort on mail voting, found the new Postal Service rule dictating how mail-in ballots can be sent is likely unlawful and unconstitutional, prompting her to issue a preliminary injunction.The rushed time frame being pushed by the administration will make voter disenfranchisement “practically inevitable” if the rule is allowed to stay in place, the judge found.
The “court finds, on one side, that immediate implementation of the Final Rule issued less than seventy days before the November 2026 election threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail,” while “on the other side, that the record includes no evidence relating to fraudulent mail voting to support the rushed implementation of the Final Rule,” Talwani wrote.
She rejected the Justice Department’s request that she pause her order while the administration appeals, and noted that her ruling does not bar states that want to follow the new rules from doing do. Talwani also said the ruling applies only to the midterms, since “the Final Rule imposes no irreparable harm as to later elections and judicial challenges may be addressed in the normal course.”The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s order, but said in a court filing Friday night that it would appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
The action comes a day after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to override a temporary order issued by Talwani last week halting the rule. In that ruling, the judge sided with states and voting rights groups that argued the Postal Service rule unlawfully usurped states’ power to regulate their own elections — and left them facing an “impossible” timeline to comply.“Through the Final Rule, the USPS is refusing to send mail ballots to eligible voters unless States or local election officials submit their mail ballot envelopes and return envelopes and receive advance approval from the USPS without regard to impending deadlines for the November 3, 2026 election,” the judge wrote.
Read MoreCommunications strategy consultant. Connect with me for corporate workshops on personal branding. Ex-Ogilvy, ex-Flipkart, ex-Edelman. No paid posts – …
The UNC System issued a response on Aug. 18 to the U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s “National Call to Action” letter. The letter detailed the system’s commitments across seven areas, including merit-based admissions, free speech, intellectual pluralism, degree affordability and artificial intelligence.McMahon’s Aug. 3 letter, sent to university presidents and governing boards nationwide, carried no explicit funding conditions but asked institutions to detail their “commitments to rigorous teaching, pathbreaking research, and national service.”
Critics have referred to the “National Call to Action” letter as “Compact 2.0,” pointing to its resemblance to the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, which UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts refused to sign last November.For UNC students, the response raises questions about what these conversations ultimately mean for them.UNC Student Body President Devin Duncan said he is watching how the principles outlined in the response will be practiced, and identified the key question as how these conversations will change what happens in classrooms, research and the broader student experience. “We should distinguish between asking universities hard questions and then prescribing the answers that scholars are allowed to reach,” Duncan said.
“We as a university absolutely should be accountable to the public, but academic freedom requires space for faculty and students to pursue legitimate inquiry without political actors on the left or the right predetermining acceptable inclusions.” UNC Media Relations did not respond to The Daily Tar Heel’s request for comment. Speaker of the Undergraduate Senate, Liam Kiley, said he expected the System’s response to lean further to the right, saying its leadership has typically worked closely with the Republican majority in the state legislature and the Trump administration. The language used in the System’s response regarding dissent and protests on campus could have a “chilling effect,” Kiley said. Still, he’s waiting to see how UNC’s administration will implement policies.In the letter, the System said it will protect free speech, but Kiley questioned how much it will honor this commitment. He said this stood out to him because it shows limits on how much the System plans to crack down on protests, but he is watching to see what it will actually act on.
Kiley said the response reflects what students are seeing from the University’s administration and policies coming from the UNC System, but that the amount of compliance varies across levels of administration. “I do believe that we have a responsibility, sort of, to engage in dialogue with the board of trustees and the board of governors to try to limit or prevent these kinds of things,” Kiley said. “The challenge is, as you get up higher and higher in administration, they start listening to students less.”Dwayne Dixon, associate teaching professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, said he saw the response as the System’s way of complying in advance with the Trump administration to avoid punishment and potentially reap rewards. He said he doesn’t believe that the leadership of UNC is in full agreement with the Trump administration, but said it looks like they’re willing to be a satellite of what is coming from the White House. One thing that struck Dixon in the response was the System’s idea of teaching American values, which he said codifies a universal definition of what it means to be American.
He said that part of being American shouldn’t insist that there is a generic, static set of values that everyone is forced to read and agree upon. “I was sort of repulsed by this idea that you could teach a singular catechism of American values or ideals,” Dixon said. Diego Quintanar-Dena, a member of TransparUNCy, said he sees the System’s response as a way for the Trump administration to identify its allies and see who’s willing to engage with the federal government. He referred to some branches of UNC’s administration as political appointees, and said that their intrusion into the University’s traditions of shared governance reflects a “very clear political agenda.”“This understanding that as an institution, they are going to do their best to not bolt to political pressures, and yet here they are responding to a Trump official’s beck and call,” Quintanar-Dena said.@dailytarheel | university@dailytarheel.com
You might consider time to be such a fundamental feature of our existence that there really is nothing profound or meaningful that we can say about it. Maybe time, like space, simply is. Many have even argued time out of existence altogether. For example, if we were to split it up into three components: the past, the present and the future, then we can examine each in turn.
Those who deny the reality of time will say something like this: The past has happened and is gone; all we have left of it is the record of past events (in our memories, or in books, photographs, or on film), all of which can only ever form a part of the present moment (when we access those records). But the events themselves no longer exist.
In contrast, all there is of the future is our predictions, hopes, and beliefs about what might happen, which are again states of our minds in the present. Regardless of whether the future is predetermined or not, it has yet to exist. That leaves the present moment itself; surely “now” is real. But although we “feel” that our now is a solid, changing moment steadily sweeping through time, converting the future into the past, it is nonetheless just an instant and as such does not have any duration. The physical definition of “now” is not a minute long or a second long, the time deniers will argue; it is the edge of the shadow between light and dark, between what is to happen and what has happened. It has no thickness. The constantly changing present moment is no more than a dividing line between past and future and so does not have a tangible existence of its own. Einstein famously stated that “the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Thus, if none of the three components of time exist, then there is nothing left, leaving the whole of time as illusory! Many thinkers going back two and half thousand years have argued thus. If this all sounds like a clever sleight-of-hand, don’t worry: A number of philosophers of time, and physicists for that matter, subscribe to a diametrically opposite view, known as “eternalism.”
This holds that all three components—past, present and future—are equally real! This idea, which we will examine more closely later on, emerges from an idea called the block universe, which gained prominence after Einstein put forward his first theory of relativity, in which time is regarded as the fourth dimension of spacetime. In this picture all moments in time coexist in the same way that all points in space exist. Einstein famously stated that “the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” If you don’t fancy either of these radical views: that time doesn’t exist at all or that all times exist, then there is a halfway house known as philosophical “presentism,” which holds that while the past and future do not exist (one has happened and gone, and the other is yet to happen) the present moment is nevertheless real. A related idea is the “growing block universe” view, in which the past and the present exist while the future does not, but instead gradually comes into being. So, you see all options are available on the menu. But which of them is the correct one? In fact, just to make sure you are fully aware of the scale of the problem and level of disagreement among people who have thought long and hard about the nature of time, it might even be the case that time is what is called an “emergent property” of reality, a bit like the concept of temperature, that only makes sense in our everyday world of experience, but becomes meaningless when we zoom in on the fundamental concepts that underpin reality.
The earliest arguments for the non-existence of time go back to the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Parmenides of Elea, in southwest Italy, who flourished in the fifth century BCE. Only fragments of his work survive, including his greatest work: a poem called On Nature, in which he describes two views of reality. The view of interest here is the first one, called The Way of Truth, in which he denies the reality of change, arguing that change is impossible and that its very notion is incoherent; rather that everything which exists is permanent and unchanging. Parmenides was no fool and presumably could clearly see change all around him, but like many of the ancient Greek thinkers he had talked himself down the rabbit hole of deductive logic from which it was hard to escape.
He was certainly persuasive enough that his more famous student, Zeno, whom we will meet shortly, also held that continuous change, or a “flow” of time, is just an illusion. Two thousand years later, Isaac Newton argued that time provides the backdrop for all change. Another Greek philosopher worth mentioning is Heraclitus, who was born around 500 BCE in the city of Ephesus, now in modern Turkey. Little is known about his life, but what we do know paints him as a complex character and, as far as we can tell, a rather miserable one to boot. His philosophical ideas were, like him, paradoxical and cryptic to the extent that he earned the epithets “The Philosopher of Riddles” and “Heraclitus the Obscure.” Of interest here, however, is that his view of time stands in stark contrast to that of Parmenides.
For Heraclitus was obsessed with change and viewed the world as being constantly in flux, always “becoming” but never “being.” The popular notion of a river of time, flowing past us, can be traced back to him. That is not the only way philosophers throughout history have thought about flowing time. For instance, rather than thinking of time flowing past us as we stand on the riverbank, we can imagine that we are in a boat carried along by this river watching the world unfold. In fact, in this poetic example we would need to be facing away from the direction of travel, with our backs to the future, watching the past recede away from us, but never seeing what is coming up. Two thousand years later, Isaac Newton argued that time provides the backdrop for all change. And because he believed that time is absolute and external, he argued that it continues to exist and flow even when there is no change. But it seems we still need time if we are to measure change. However, while time may not require change in order to exist, what about the other way round: Does change require time? Well, one can easily think of examples involving things that change, but which are not necessarily changing over time.
Atmospheric pressure changes when you climb to higher altitudes, the speed of a car changes when you press your foot on the accelerator pedal, the clarity of an image under a microscope changes when you use different lenses or alter their focus, and my mood changes when my football team wins or loses a match. However, in physics when we talk about changes over time we are generally referring to those quantities that vary dynamically, such that they are different at different moments of time. The physicist Paul Davies dismisses the notion of a flowing time thus: “Attempts to ‘graft on’ a mysterious extra quality to bestow a flowing motion upon time which is simply ‘there’ is reminiscent of attempts to explain the vital quality of living organisms by adding a ‘life force’ or ‘elan vital’ to otherwise lifeless matter.” While we have the strong sense that we are moving through time—or conversely that time flows past us—this sensation of flowing time seems to be an entirely subjective experience. After all, what could actually be flowing? If time flows then that would suggest it should be flowing at some rate, but what would we measure that rate against? Does time go by at a rate of one second per second? What does that even mean? And if it is our consciousness moving along some sort of static time axis, then how fast is it moving, and what (external) measure of time do we need to define this rate? The very notion of a rate of change is itself embedded within time.
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In the trade-off between privacy and security, it helps to know the extent of your local surveillance infrastructure. There are now easy ways to find out.
I didn’t tell anyone I was meeting Michelle Dahl, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a watchdog group. But by the time I greet her in Brooklyn, New York, the system knows we’re together.”It’s kind of invisible if you’re not looking for it,” says Dahl, pointing up to a lamppost, where two tiny cameras labelled New York City Police Department hide in black plastic domes.They’re part of the NYPD’s massive AI surveillance platform: the Domain Awareness System (DAS). “Every police officer in the city can access it on their phones and pull up a profile of basically anyone walking around,” she says.The platform connects more than 80,000 cameras with drones, social media data, even systems that follow cars when you drive to another state. Dahl says it can unveil who I’ve seen and everywhere I’ve been in the last week. My whole life: tracked.
Every day, across the US, your life is also being recorded by a growing system of mass surveillance that reaches far deeper than many of us may realize.
Controversy around an American surveillance company called Flock Safety exploded in recent months, but it’s only one player in a giant industry. Flock and other advocates say we need to strike a compromise between privacy and safety. Is it worth the trade-off? To decide for yourself, it’s worth understanding how comprehensive the surveillance really is. So I went looking for cameras in my own neighborhood. You can too, and you don’t even need to leave the couch to find them.‘The more you start looking, the more you’ll see’ Some of those concerned about surveillance seem to think Flock is the whole issue. New York City demonstrates why that’s not true. The company doesn’t operate here, but we’re still being watched.
Dahl is taking me on a surveillance tour to the BBC’s Manhattan office, pointing out cameras and other devices along the way. I’ve covered privacy for 10 years, but even I was stunned by the infrastructure following our every move.After just a few steps, we stop and look around. I count 16 different cameras.”I would assume these are owned by businesses, buildings and renters,” she says. These are additional to cameras run by the city, she says. “But the NYPD likely has easy access. They often just ask the owner if there’s an investigation, and people hand over the footage.”Some camera vendors, like Amazon’s Ring, even have automated systems to make it easier for police to request and receive footage directly from users.Cameras in public are now so ubiquitous I barely notice them anymore. But with Dahl’s help, my eyes refocus: small pill-shaped cameras hanging in front of stores, ageing grey devices on the corners of buildings, advanced dual-camera systems run by the city that pan, tilt and zoom to laser in on people of interest.
I try to count as we walk, but there are so many it’s impossible to keep track and hold up a conversation. “The more you start looking, the more you’ll see,” Dahl says.Why the Flocklash?
These systems can capture and store your every move, and Flock has become the posterchild for surveillance. In recent months, there’s been nation-wide, bipartisan backlash against the company.
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On Sept. 6, 1947, a rocket launched from an aircraft carrier for the first time. The V-2 rocket was captured from a German manufacturing site by the Allied forces at the end of World War II.
V-2s were the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. They were designed by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, a famous aerospace engineer, invented them for Nazi Germany before he was secretly moved to the U.S. and started working for NASA. Von Braun and the seized V-2 missile parts were brought to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where the scientists assembled the parts and began experimenting with launches.
The first V-2 to launch at sea blasted off from a U.S. Navy ship called the USS Midway in a mission titled “Operation Sandy.” The aircraft carrier sailed a few hundred miles south of Bermuda for the launch. After liftoff, the V-2 started tilting midair and only made it to an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,600 meters) before falling back to Earth.
A V-2 rocket ignites its engine on the deck of the USS Midway during the U.S. Navy’s first ballistic missile test on Sept. 6, 1947. (Image credit: USS Midway Museum)
Why it mattered
Rockets may be great for space exploration, but the technology’s roots are firmly embedded in military applications, with the V-2 rocket standing out as a clear example.
The rocket was designed as a military weapon first and foremost, and it was U.S. military’s push to secure such tech that led to Operation: Paperclip, which secreted Von Braun and many other German aerospace scientists out of Germany at the end of World War II.
Operation: Sandy marked the first ballistic missile launch by the U.S. Navy, but today the such missiles are a standard part of the arsenal of some ships. That all started with the 1947 test flight. It also marked a step forward in U.S. missile technology, which would later evolve into orbital rockets just over a decade later.
While the V-2 rocket that launched from the USS Midway veered off course and began to break apart at an alttude of about 12,000 feet, according to MidwayCurrents.org, it did prove the concept of a missile launch at sea.
Editor’s Note: This editorial provides the updated operational companion to our foundational blueprint published earlier this year: The Heritage of Havoc: Mapping the Post-Trump Reconstruction of 2029 (May 20, 2026). The initial framework cataloged the erosion; this update establishes the specific statutory, administrative, and legal mechanisms required to rebuild the American republic in 2029. AI Support: Gemini assisted in the editorial reports.
The Evil Trump Did To America
Section 1: The Inherited Repair Job — Operationalizing Institutional Recovery
“The next president won’t get a real first term. They’ll inherit a repair job.”
When this assessment was first analyzed in May, it diagnosed an administrative assault on constitutional guardrails. The developments across the summer have removed any lingering doubt: the 48th President will not simply face policy differences, but a compromised executive architecture designed to impede future lawful governance.
The practice of “anticipatory obedience” by corporate executives and administrative leadership has transitioned into structural entrenchment. By utilizing expansive unitary executive theories, the administration has bypassed statutory directives, hollowed out career non-partisan agencies, and reallocated appropriated public funds. The mandate of 2029 requires an administrative recovery program capable of neutralizing patronage networks while rapidly restoring technical competence to core federal agencies.
Section 2: Archive of the Abnormal — Updated Chronology of Systemic Erosion
The institutional damage cataloged in the May baseline has hardened into ongoing administrative practice. The 2029 Reconstruction Mandate must systematically address these core operational areas:
Patronage Conversions & Workforce Attrition (Schedule F): Beyond reclassifying career civil servants into at-will employees, the summer experienced an exodus of senior scientists, career attorneys, and technical analysts across the EPA, FDA, and Department of Justice. The 2029 remediation plan must shift from simple defensive litigation to active civil service restoration.
Weaponization of the Justice Department: Preemptive pardons and the directed pursuit of political rivals have tested traditional norms of prosecutorial independence, underscoring the need to structurally insulate federal prosecutors and Inspectors General by statute.
Subversion of Defense and Intelligence Leadership: The appointment of hyper-partisan loyalists into permanent defense and intelligence advisory positions has compromised non-partisan threat assessment pipelines, necessitating immediate statutory qualification guardrails for key security posts.
Deregulatory Edicts & Rollbacks: Federal oversight across environmental protection, worker safety, and antitrust enforcement has been systematically reduced via emergency orders and non-enforcement directives. The restoration must mandate compliance reviews across all impacted agencies.
Multilateral Treaty Disruption: Unilateral international actions and threats of international disengagement have weakened traditional security alliances, requiring binding statutory requirements for treaty withdrawals and reaffirmed collective defense protocols.
Suppression of Official Data and Scientific Integrity: Public releases of environmental, meteorological, and economic data have faced administrative vetting and suppression, requiring independent scientific integrity boards with subpoena authority.
Immigration Enforcement Bypassing Local Authority: Mass enforcement actions and expanded detention facilities have disrupted community civil liberties and local jurisdiction frameworks, requiring modern legislative standards, transparency mandates, and strict judicial oversight.
Budgetary Impoundment and the Power of the Purse: Unilateral freezes on congressionally appropriated funds for local infrastructure, social programs, and renewable technology have challenged Article I legislative authority, demanding structural amendments to federal budget laws.
Section 3: The Reconstruction Mandate — Statutory Solutions for 2029
A return to executive status quo agreements is insufficient to protect constitutional checks and balances. The 48th President and incoming legislative majorities must enact binding statutory guardrails:
Civil Service Repatriation: Enact statutory protections that permanently bar arbitrary at-will reclassifications, provide whistleblowers with enforceable legal recourse, and establish expedited re-entry programs for career specialists forced out under patronage initiatives.
Binding Impoundment Control: Amend the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to establish automatic 48-hour disclosure mandates, confer direct legal standing on the Comptroller General to sue for immediate fund disbursement, and trigger civil penalties for executive officers refusing to execute appropriations.
Emergency Power Sunset Provisions: Amend the National Emergencies Act to mandate that all executive emergency declarations automatically lapse within 30 days unless affirmatively reauthorized by both houses of Congress.
Independent researchers, policymakers, and civic coalitions are tracking litigation and developing structural solutions to rebuild institutional independence. Key resources include:
Civil Service Capacity & Agency Governance: The Roosevelt Institute outlines actionable strategies for recruiting, retaining, and safeguarding expert public servants in their published study: Building a More Effective, Responsive Government.
Legal Defenses Against Patronage Reclassification: Governing for Impact provides detailed analysis of the Civil Service Reform Act and statutory avenues to challenge civil service purges: Governing for Impact Legal Work and Regulatory Archives.
Statutory Frameworks for Executive Emergencies: The historical and legal compendium analyzing presidential authorities and necessary emergency power limitations is maintained in the A Guide to Emergency Powers and Their Use Archive.
Section 5: Editorial Conclusion — Hardening the Constitutional Shield
From the Desk of DrWeb: The developments of 2025 and 2026 demonstrate that informal constitutional norms cannot withstand calculated institutional dismantling. When the current governance cycle concludes, superficial restoration will leave democratic institutions vulnerable to future overreach.
The reconstruction agenda must implement an ironclad statutory framework. This begins with judicial reform: establishing regularized 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices, codified financial and ethical reporting standards backed by independent investigative bodies, and clear statutory definitions that reject sweeping presidential immunity for official lawbreaking.
Second, Congress must pass the Protecting Our Democracy Act as a primary legislative measure. Executive discretion to impound funds, abuse emergency designations, or grant self-serving pardons must be bound by clear statutory limits. Preserving a constitutional republic requires permanent, enforceable protections that place the rule of law beyond the reach of executive fiat.
Selected Bibliography & Key Works
Bauer, Bob, and Jack Goldsmith. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency. Washington, D.C.: Lawfare Press, 2020.
Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.
Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown, 2018.
Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017.
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SpaceX launched 27 more of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit today (Sept. 6).
The spacecraft rode to low Earth orbit (LEO) atop a Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base at 10:26 a.m. EDT (1426 GMT; 7:26 a.m. local California time). The Falcon 9 rose into blue morning skies, which was something of a rarity; Vandenberg, and other areas of California’s central coast, are often cloaked in fog.
The Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth as planned 8.5 minutes later, landing in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You.”
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 27 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sept. 6, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)
It was the 19th flight for this particular booster, which is designated B1088. This marks about the halfway point to the SpaceX record of 37 flights, which was set by B1067 during a Starlink launch on Aug. 25.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, carried the 27 Starlink satellites to LEO, deploying them on schedule 62 minutes after launch.
SpaceX’s sooty Falcon 9 rocket first stage on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean after a successful launch and landing on Sept. 6, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)
Today’s launch was the 103rd Falcon 9 mission of 2026. Eighty of those flights have been dedicated to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, by far the largest satellite network ever assembled. It currently consists of more than 11,000 active spacecraft, according to astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
Starlink missions fly exclusively out of Vandenberg these days. SpaceX used to launch them from Florida as well, but the company recently put those missions on hold until it gets its Starship megarocket up and running on the Space Coast.
SpaceX will rely on Starship to launch its next-gen Starlink V3 satellites, which are bigger and more capable than the current V2. The company wants to assemble a network of about 100,000 Starlink V3s in LEO, Elon Musk has said.
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Star Wars’ starships are almost as memorable the saga’s character and thanks to Lego’s Star Wars range, you can build your own replicas of these iconic craft. We’ve rounded up the very best, from a palm-sized version of Darth Vader’s Tie Fighter to a massive, table-hogging Star Wars Clone Wars-era Venator Star Destroyer.
While several of these sets are display pieces, we’ve included some play-friendly models, such as this mid-sized Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon that can be swooshed around your living room and this Lego Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer which, with seven mini-figures and removable roof, will delight younger Star Wars fans.
Read on and build the largest fleet the galaxy has ever known.
Lego
Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon
Lego
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Arc-170 Starfighter
Lego
Star Wars Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser
Lego
Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer
Lego
Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series X-Wing Starfighter
