Faster, Pussycat! Annual Fundraiser!

Hey, everyone …

Today is NOT a “Firehose Friday” at the freedom movement’s daily newspaper — we’ve got full 60-item email/social media editions for you. But we also have EXTRA content (another 20+ news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links) for you here at the web edition.

Yesterday was a “zero-dollar day” in our annual fundraiser. Our total remains at $1,151.50.

Our goal is $5,503. Once we’ve raised the first half ($2,751.50), supporter GL has pledged to “match funds” for the other half. We’re $1,600 short of — only 41% of the way to — the goal.

This weekend, help us out with a “great leap forward” to the $1,500 mark. If we raise $348.50 between now and Monday, we’ll be at $1,500 (and 54% of the way home). So …

PLEASE SUPPORT RRND/FND!

https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd

… and then have a happy, healthy, and prosperous weekend!

Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily

Paraguay: President tries to quit, parliament insists on impeachment

Source: Brussels Signal [Belgium]

“Paraguay’s President has tried to resign over the collapse of a digital bank that left millions of depositors unable to reach their money. Lawmakers have refused to let him go. Santiago Peña announced his resignation yesterday in a video posted on social media. He said he was acting for the sake of the country’s stability, social peace and its democratic institutions, and apologised to Paraguayans for any failings on his part. Minutes later the Chamber of Deputies voted 78-0 to impeach him, sending the case to the Senate. It shelved a parallel motion against Vice President Pedro Alliana, who is next in line. A joint session of Congress called to accept the resignation then collapsed. … A president who steps down normally becomes a senator for life with immunity from prosecution, a status that removal from office would strip away.” (11/06/26)

https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/11/paraguays-president-quits-over-bank-collapse-but-congress-blocks-his-exit/

The Boogeyman Ballot

Source: Libertarian Party
by Rob Yates

“Two tribes, one reflex. When we are frightened, the person who chooses differently stops being a neighbor and becomes the threat. Every uniparty election campaign in America is built to harvest it. Politics learned the curfew lesson long ago. Fear travels faster than facts, and every cycle brings a new creature under the bed with a party beside it holding a flashlight and a donation link.” (11/05/26)

https://lp.org/the-boogeyman-ballot/

CA: Newsom commutes all of state’s death sentences

Source: NBC News

“Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted all California death sentences on Thursday, declaring that ‘state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with’ values in America’s most populous state. In an open letter to constituents, Newsom said taking this step is ‘among the most difficult of my career.’ ‘I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values,’ he said. California has not put a prisoner to death since Jan. 17, 2006 when Clarence Ray Allen was put to death via lethal injection.” (11/05/26)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-gov-gavin-newsom-commutes-death-sentences-rcna607727

We Don’t Need Politicians to Make it So

Source: Garrison Center
by Joel Schlosberg

“The ultimate testament to [Patrick] Stewart’s acting skill is that he made it hard not to suspend disbelief, one hour at a time, in what [Ryan] Zickgraf calls ‘authority with authoritarianism apparently filtered out.’ In the real world, we have what we need to exclude authoritarians from getting in the way of getting things done.” (11/05/26)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20970

Massie Gives Hegseth a Choice: Resignation or Impeachment

Source: Common Dreams

“Republican US Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said Wednesday that Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, the most prominent cheerleader and architect of the Trump administration’s illegal war on Iran, will face an impeachment vote in the House of Representatives – unless he submits his resignation first. ‘There is one contingency in which I won’t reintroduce the articles of impeachment: Hegseth resigns,’ Massie, who unveiled eight impeachment articles against the Pentagon secretary in September, wrote following Democrats’ rout of the GOP in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Massie is expected to force a vote on the articles (which accuse Hegseth of extrajudicial killings, waging wars without congressional authorization, and kidnapping a sovereign foreign leader) as soon as next week.” (11/05/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/news/pete-hegseth-impeachment-massie-2678297497

The Rule of Law Will Sometimes Be Unjust. Defend It Anyway.

Source: Liberalism.org
by Michael Burger

“Rules of law can never always produce justice. That’s because life really is complicated. The facts that pertain to doing true justice are unpredictable. Inevitably, even the best-designed rules of law will sometimes get it wrong, with unjust results. When that happens, the law will be an ass. So in a perfectly just world we need sometimes to ignore rules of law. We need a government, or at least agents of government (in other words, judges) who will take into account all of the truly pertinent facts, not just the facts that rules of law say are pertinent. We need a government, in other words, that is not bound by the law, to really deliver justice in a way that the law cannot. Now medieval intellectuals had a term for a ruler unbound by law: a tyrant.” (11/05/26)

https://liberalism.org/essays/the-rule-of-law-will-sometimes-be-unjust-defend-it-anyway

Nigeria: Court nullifies presidential contender’s candidacy two months before election

Source: Associated Press

“A Nigerian court disqualified a leading presidential candidate Thursday, complicating the electoral process two months before the election. A Federal High Court judge in Abuja, the country’s capital, ruled that the leadership of the African Democratic Congress, one of the three major parties contesting the January 2027 election, was illegally constituted and therefore voided the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar. Earlier in the year, a court ordered the party deregistered for failing to meet constitutional requirements, but an appeals court overturned the ruling. The party and government critics say the case was orchestrated by the ruling party.” (11/05/26)

https://apnews.com/article/nigeria-election-atiku-abubakar-court-e37403f0930a889b9e48b4e93eca2fd3

Hungary’s Lesson: Beware the Dangers of Socialism

Source: The American Conservative
by Doug Bandow

“With ever more Americans bizarrely rating ‘socialism’ favorably today, we should remember the high price paid by Hungarians to escape real socialism. Hungary’s tortured history reminds us of the fragility of liberty. Tragically, the Hungarian people lost their battle for freedom 70 years ago. However, their loss planted seeds for the ultimate destruction of Moscow’s satellite system and Europe’s liberation from communism.” (11/05/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/hungarys-lesson-beware-the-dangers-of-socialism/