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Yours in liberty,
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Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: CBS News
“Two federal immigration agents were attacked while [attempting to kidnap a man] Sunday morning in Bolingbrook in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, police said. Shortly before 10 a.m., Bolingbrook police responded to the 100 block of Williamsburg Lane for a report of a battery. Police said two immigration agents told officers they were trying to [abduct] a 46-year-old man in a parking lot, when two females approached and began hitting them in the head. The females and the man agents were [abducting] fled the scene and went inside a nearby home, police said. The agents declined medical attention. No one was in custody Sunday afternoon.” (10/19/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/immigration-agents-attacked-bolingbrook-arrest/
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro
“I could feel the panic attack set in the second the suggestion was made. ‘Would you go cover the No Kings protests on the 18th?’ my editor asked, reasonably enough. My heart started pounding, my palms sweating. ‘I’d rather slit my wrists,’ I wrote back. Because in my head, 25 years had vanished. I was back in Caracas, in 2000, planning to go to the very first pro-democracy, anti-Chávez protests, and things were about to go very wrong indeed. It wasn’t quite the first time. Reading American news these days, everything feels like a flashback. Or a callback.” (10/18/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/no-kings-and-the-echo-of-venezuela
Source: Washington Post
“A Vermont state senator has resigned over his involvement in a Young Republican group chat after racist and antisemitic messages shared among its members were made public. Republican Samuel Douglass announced his resignation, effective Monday, in a lengthy statement Friday, adding that he was ‘deeply sorry for the offense’ caused by his comments. Politico had reported on the leaked Telegram messages from a group chat including Young Republican leaders from Vermont, New York, Arizona and Kansas. The messages spanned 2,900 pages of chats over a roughly seven-month period and contained racist comments and jokes about gas chambers, torture and rape, according to Politico. Douglass, a first-term state senator, was the only elected official in the chat, the outlet reported.” (10/18/25)
https://archive.is/FbKYW
Source: The Daily Economy
by Michael Munger
“Government shutdowns might look irrational, but they follow a familiar script. When political types gain more from the standoff than the solution, collisions become routine.” (10/17/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/playing-chicken-with-the-federal-budget-the-rational-stupidity-of-shutdowns/
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“Now nine months into his second term, President Donald Trump may be setting a new norm in law enforcement. Under his watch, prosecutors in the U.S. Justice Department have indicted three people who Mr. Trump believes have done him wrong: former FBI Director James Comey, current New York Attorney General Letitia James, and, on Thursday, his former national security adviser, John Bolton. The courts may yet declare all three to be not guilty of charges against them. Yet the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct, such as for vindictiveness, has supercharged efforts to reset the norms of integrity (that is, pursuing justice over ‘winning’) that most prosecutors have honored for decades. For now, much of that norm-resetting is at the state level, where millions of felonies and misdemeanors are handled each year by more than 2,300 prosecutor’s offices.” (10/17/25)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1017/Reviving-the-integrity-of-prosecutors
Source: Axios
“Nearly 7 million protesters gathered across the U.S. on Saturday to take part in rallies against President Trump and his administration. … More than 2,700 events were planned as part of the protests across 50 states as of Saturday, as well as several internationally, including in London, Paris, Rome and Lisbon, Portugal. … GOP lawmakers condemned the movement as ‘a hate America rally’ and cast blame on the protests for the continued government shutdown.” (10/18/25)
https://archive.is/4voTQ
Source: Free Talk Live
“Roger Ver makes a deal :: Skeeter calls to gloat about extortion :: Tim in FL calls about source info vs commentary :: Sarah in NM calls about mayoral debate and homelessness :: no kings protest :: 82nd airstrike by U.S. in Somalia for the year :: caller talks about the papacy :: Dave Ridley calls about court room rituals :: free will :: power corruption :: tribes :: 2025-10-18 Hosts: Stu, Riley, Angelo.” (10/18/25)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2025-10-18
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“An old post by Steve Landsburg offered three examples of actions by one person that another objected to but that did no physical damage. He asked whether the psychic cost to the objector should be considered relevant to public policy, whether the answer was the same for all three and, if not, why not. The first of the three was someone reading pornography and someone else being upset by the knowledge that pornography was being read. The third was someone raping an unconscious victim in a way that did no physical harm. Why, Steve asked, do we have different reactions to those cases and is the difference justified? Discussing reactions to the post with my daughter, I commented that the people who were angry about it, mostly online, struck me as either stupid or evil.” (10/17/25)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/frightening-ideas-913
Source: Foreign Policy
by Christian Caryl
“Remember the kids of Generation Z? You know — that notorious cohort of entitled, lazy, and apathetic people that Boomers so love to mock? Over the past two years, members of Gen Z across Asia, Africa, and Latin America have been taking to the streets, covertly organizing revolutions and dethroning entrenched rulers. Quite a few of those involved in the uprisings have paid with their lives — another indicator that these events are worth taking seriously. … Some observers might dismiss this new wave of activism as irrelevant to the future of established democracies. But such complacency might be ill-advised. If this new revolutionary movement has demonstrated anything, it’s that no one should underestimate its infectiousness.” (10/17/25)
https://archive.is/3qbI1