THANK YOU to subscribing contributors AN and DY! Their donations yesterday, totaling $12.50, prevented a “zero-dollar day” in our annual fundraiser and bring our total (as of 5am) to $1,003!
That leaves us just $1,748.50 short of our goal (once we’ve reached $2751.50, supporter GL will “match funds” to get us to the $5,503 finish line.
We’re not yet at the point where I hammer you, tediously and at length, with our glorious 30+ year history by way of trying to pry your wallets open. Here’s the short and sweet of it:
And thanks in advance for doing so. Have a great day!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: Associated Press
“Voters in Canada’s oil-rich Alberta province overwhelmingly backed remaining in Canada, with early referendum results Tuesday delivering a boost to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s push for national unity amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and annexation threats. With more than 1.5 million votes counted, 76% supported remaining in Canada, while close to 24% backed beginning a process toward separation, according to unofficial results from Elections Alberta. The referendum wasn’t a direct vote on independence. Approval would have set Alberta on a path toward a future vote on separation from Canada.” (10/20/26)
https://apnews.com/article/alberta-canada-referendum-indepence-carney-ed0d58ef051859ce12052e75d2d6e8a0
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“Last week, not only did Oregon’s restrictive gun laws fail to stop a shooter intent on killing innocent people, but a passing good Samaritan had to violate those laws to end the murder spree. Fortunately, authorities don’t appear intent on prosecuting Kaylub Giamanco, father to two girls who attend the school, for ignoring the ban on guns on school grounds to save lives. But the law is clearly more of a threat to people with good intent than it is to those bent on doing harm. Such laws should and must be defied, but lawmakers need to remove these legal minefields before they do more damage.” (10/19/26)
https://reason.com/2026/10/19/hero-oregon-dad-showed-the-importance-of-defying-restrictive-gun-laws/
Source: Reason
“France’s Welfare State Is Finally Imploding.” (10/19/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/10/19/frances-welfare-state-is-finally-imploding/
Source: The Guardian
“The US Department of Justice has filed criminal charges against 28 green card holders in California accused of fraudulently registering to vote and casting illegal ballots. The crackdown marks another escalation in the federal government’s ongoing efforts against alleged noncitizen voting, efforts that Democrats and voting rights groups say are part of a strategy by the Trump administration to sow doubt in the results of the upcoming midterm elections. The justice department announced Monday that 28 noncitizens from across California were facing charges, including making false statements in a naturalization application and fraudulently signing up to vote, felonies that could carry five years in prison. The defendants are lawful permanent residents, who have legal status in the US but are not citizens authorized to vote. A justice department spokesperson said 21 of the 28 defendants had cast unlawful ballots.” (10/19/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/19/california-illegal-voting-charges-doj
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“South Korea is making a concerted effort to avoid becoming entangled in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to promote a possible rapprochement between Washington and Pyongyang, and to ease the ROK’s own tensions with North Korea. Lee and his advisers are also attempting to steer a middle course with respect to the mounting animosity between Japan and the People’s Republic of China. Both Beijing and Tokyo seek Seoul’s backing regarding a number of disputes. One emotional spat is the territorial dispute between Japan and the PRC over control of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands, which has led to several provocative deployments of maritime vessels in the past year.” (10/19/260
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2026/10/18/south-koreas-hedging-strategy/
Source: CBS News
“The Republican Party of Florida filed suit on Friday against the Florida Democratic Party, many of its candidates, and a slew of television stations, seeking to stop the airing of a political ad that highlights the leaked grand jury presentment in the Hope Florida scandal. … State statutes ‘make it unlawful for any person to knowingly broadcast the content, gist, or import of testimony of a witness examined before a grand jury. The advertisement does exactly that,’ the lawsuit states.” [editor’s note: If I was a Republican official or candidate, I wouldn’t want the Democrats to mention that prominent people in my party misappropriated $10 million and used it to rig an election, either. But I might want to look up “Streisand Effect” before filing suit over it – TLK] (10/19/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/florida-gop-lawsuit-democratic-ad-hope-florida-grand-jury-report-tv-stations/
Source: The Atlantic
by Brewster Kahle
“Many people assume that once something is published online, it will remain forever retrievable. The saying that ‘the internet never forgets’ has produced a dangerously false sense of permanence. In reality, the internet forgets continuously. Websites are constantly revised, deleted, and abandoned altogether. This is why, 30 years ago, I founded the Internet Archive. I wanted to build a mechanism for permanence in the internet age. Soon after that, I helped build the Internet Archive’s most-used resource, the Wayback Machine, a system that would preserve webpages as they appeared at any one moment in time, allowing future readers to return to those moments. … What began as an effort to preserve the web has become an essential tool for journalists, researchers, historians, and the broader public.
Yet the future of this tool has become extremely vulnerable.” (10/19/26)
https://archive.is/th2ju
Source: Axios
“President Trump wants to hold a trilateral summit with Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin in China next month to discuss ‘denuclearization’ — but not necessarily Ukraine. Such a summit between the leaders of the U.S., China and Russia would be unprecedented. Trump has been talking for two years about his aspiration to reach a deal with Russia and China to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. But so far Putin and Xi haven’t shown much openness to the idea. … The Kremlin has been floating the idea of holding such a meeting since July. Putin raised the issue in two phone calls with Trump, including one last week. The Chinese government hasn’t expressed willingness to hold such a summit. … When asked on Monday whether such a summit could discuss ending the war in Ukraine, Trump said he wants to hold such a trilateral meeting, but in order to discuss other issues.” (10/19/26)
https://www.axios.com/2026/10/19/trump-summit-xi-putin-denuclearization-ukraine
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul
“The idea that tax cuts, deregulation, and a slightly less destructive monetary policy can produce enough economic growth to eliminate deficits has been an article of faith among many conservative economists and Republican politicians since the late seventies. An insight of supply-side economists is that, since cutting taxes incentivizes people to work and invest, government can increase revenue by cutting taxes. Over time, the growth produced by low tax rates is expected to enable government to reduce or even eliminate its debt without making spending cuts. This theory benefits Republicans who can campaign promising to cut taxes while avoiding discussing what may be unpopular spending cuts. One of the problems with this theory is deficit spending itself inhibits economic growth by causing the Federal Reserve to monetize the federal debt.” (10/19/26)
https://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/the-us-governments-really-big-debt-problem
