THANK YOU to supporter AT, whose $25 donation over the weekend brings our annual fundraiser total to (as of 5am) $1,053!
After a fantastic start, our “once and only once a year” fundraising event has slowed in pace … and that sucks, because the more quickly we reach our goal, the more quickly I stop talking about money entirely for the rest of 2026 and mostly for the first nine months of 2027.
Our goal is $5,503. Supporter GL has pledged to “match funds” for half of that, but not until we raise the FIRST half from you.
We’re 38% of the way there.
Let’s hit 50% — $1375.75 — TODAY.
Have a great Monday!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
Source: Associated Press
“Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic of U.S. President Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America. With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.” (10/26/26)
https://apnews.com/article/brazil-election-lula-bolsonaro-runoff-vote-president-e2c9fe8fc4aa3e3675b9a8ec15405d93
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Daniel Nuccio
“If you currently live in the United States, I regret to inform you that you no longer live in a free country. You are no longer a free person. Actually, you haven’t been for quite some time. This may sound harsh with this being the year America celebrated her big Two-Five-Oh. But think about it. Think back to the last time you drove from your home to the grocery store. How many automatic license plate readers did you pass along the way? How many apps logged your route? What information did your car collect about you and anyone who may have accompanied you? When you finally arrived at the store, surely there were cameras, but were they simply there to help catch and deter shoplifters — maybe help police investigate a more serious crime on the off chance one were to occur? Or were those cameras serving other purposes?” (10/24/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/a-surveilled-country-is-not-a-free-country/
Source: Unattended Baggage
“To shreds, you say?” (10/24/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-360-to-shreds-you-say
Source: US News & World Report
“A Russian strike on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia injured four people overnight, regional governor Mykhailo Semikin said on Telegram on Monday. Two more were injured in Russian strikes on the Chernihiv region, Ukraine’s emergency service said on the messaging app. Also on Telegram, the Russian defence ministry said it hit a power station in Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv, a warehouse in the surrounding region and another power station in the Khmelnitskiy region.” (10/26/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-10-26/six-injured-in-russian-strikes-on-ukraines-zaporizhzhia-chernihiv-officials-say
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“Few military figures come off quite so quotable as Confederate cavalry general (and Ku Klux Klan founder) Nathan Bedford Forrest, who said of winning battles, ‘I always make it a rule to get there first with the most men.’ That, of course, also constitutes the conventional rule for winning elections: Get there first (by motivating mail and ‘early’ voters as well as election day voters) with the most votes. … Republicans usually, but not always, get more credit for trying to suppress the Democrat vote than for trying to get out the Republican vote. As this year’s midterm elections approach, that tactic looks a lot like another Nathan Bedford Forrest aphorism. … ‘Whenever you see anything blue, shoot at it, and do all you can to keep up the scare.'” (10/25/26)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20955
Source: New York Times
“Serbia’s longtime nationalist strongman, Aleksandar Vucic, conceded defeat Sunday in a general election held after his once-tight grip on power was weakened by nearly two years of student-led street protests. Serbia’s vote for a new Parliament came just six months after voters in neighboring Hungary rejected their own populist nationalist leader, Viktor Orban, a close ally of Mr. Vucic. The Serbian leader had adopted many of the Hungarian’s authoritarian methods — and, at the end, his gracious acceptance of defeat, as well. … Vucic, Europe’s longest-serving leader outside the former Soviet Union, has been Serbia’s dominant political figure since 2012, serving as both president and prime minister, a post he had hoped to regain after Sunday’s election.” (10/25/26)
https://archive.is/2peAc
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano
“The U.S. Constitution was ratified to create and to restrain the government. It established boundaries beyond which the government may not venture, even when it invokes national security, public order, economic necessity, emergency or the will of a popular majority. Its purpose is not to make government more powerful but to keep the government off the people’s backs. By that measure, the American Constitution is a failure. Formally, the document physically survives, its ceremonies continue, and politicians swear their oaths to abide it. Yet functionally, the government it was designed to restrain has accumulated vast and totalitarian powers that its authors would never recognize.” (10/25/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2026/10/22/our-failed-constitution
Source: The Hill
“A federal appeals court appeared unlikely to immediately agree to the Trump administration’s bid to segregate 20,000 California ballots it says are likely noncitizen voters, expressing skepticism at a rare Sunday hearing that a trial judge needs to move quicker. ‘I don’t see how we have jurisdiction,’ said U.S. Circuit Judge Mark Bennett. The Justice Department (DOJ) sued California earlier this month as the state rebuffed claims that it sent ballots to 20,000 likely noncitizens as part of its universal mail voting program. The DOJ wants the ballots segregated and verified before they can be counted. It’s one of multiple lawsuits the administration has launched in recent weeks as the midterm elections quickly approach. A trial judge is set to hold a hearing on Tuesday, but the DOJ says action is needed sooner, because ballots are already being submitted.” (10/25/26)
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6171263-appeals-court-denies-emergency-california-hearing/
Source: The Hill
by Jonathan Turley
“Far-left professors have long advocated that juries use jury nullification. Georgetown Law professor and MSNBC legal analyst Paul Butler has long advocated that Black jurors engage in nullification in cases involving Black defendants. … The problem of biased jurors has long plagued the legal system. It can work both ways in ignoring the law to refuse or secure convictions. Past cases involving President Trump and other Republicans have raised bias concerns over the jury pool in cities such as Washington, D.C., and New York City. But jury nullification is different; it is a direct assault on the very foundation of the American court system.” [editor’s note: Actually, it IS that very foundation; Turley just doesn’t much like mere peasants defying the lordly lawyer class – TLK] 10/24/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/6169577-jury-nullification-training-investigation/
