Source: The Bulwark
by Sarah Longwell
“When I was coming up in the conservative movement, one of the hallmarks of Republican grievance was the belief that the ‘mainstream media’ was controlled by liberals and had a systemic bias against conservatives. The political and cultural right responded to this imbalance by building an industry designed to reduce public trust in mainstream media—hammering the ‘liberal bias’ narrative relentlessly. But they didn’t stop there. They also built an entire competing media ecosystem. And they had a roughly fifteen-year head start on doing it. By the time Trump arrived in 2015, the infrastructure was already firmly in place.” (09/13/26)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-maga-bewildered-voters-into-its-alternate-reality
Source: SFGate
“A sexual assault trial starts Monday for a New Hampshire man whose arrest more than seven years ago kicked off one of the biggest youth detention scandals in U.S. history. Former youth counselor Jeffrey Buskey, 60, of Litchfield, faces allegations involving four boys held at the Youth Development Center in Manchester in the late 1990s. In the first of his cases to go to trial, he is charged with 21 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault involving David Meehan, who was 14 when he arrived at the facility now called the Sununu Youth Services Center in 1995. Meehan filed the first of more than 1,100 lawsuits alleging physical, sexual or emotional abuse spanning six decades. His allegations led to the arrest of Buskey and another former worker in 2019, an unprecedented criminal investigation, nine additional arrests, and the establishment of a settlement fund to compensate victims.” (09/14/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/ex-youth-detention-center-counselor-faces-sex-22430980.php
Source: Liberal Currents
by Maia Mindel
“The main criticism of liberalism is that liberals lack a theory of power. Liberalism sees itself as the enjoyment of a life of peaceable private cultivation absent the onus of public duty. The critique is that the private and civic life of individuals is also profoundly shaped by values and economic relations. Liberalism is seen as not able to formalize the relationship between wealth, power, and culture. This point was best made by one of liberalism’s most prominent, and dare I say most insightful, critics: the Nazi jurist and political thinker Carl Schmitt. His ideas, largely for the worse, are currently very influential on liberalism’s opponents.” (09/13/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-liberal-economy-the-car-without-an-engine-goes-to-the-mechanic/
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“‘My name is Randy Villegas, and I’m for Medicare for All.’ That was how Villegas, a 31-year-old Democratic candidate for Congress, opened a health care town hall in late August for close to 100 residents, most of them Latino. He was speaking at Salon Juarez, a dance hall that hosts quinceañeras and weddings in a historic section of Bakersfield known as Old Town Kern. Preceding him on stage was Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), the progressive House member who is flirting with filling the left lane in the 2028 presidential race. Sandy Reding, a president of the California Nurses Association (CNA), one of America’s most left-wing unions, spoke before Khanna. The Working Families Party, which supports progressive populists across the country, had a table along one side. You wouldn’t know that this is one of America’s most hotly contested swing seats.” (09/14/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/09/14/oct-2026-the-new-majority-makers/
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar has said that he will move to revoke the citizenship of filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor after their documentary on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, NAZA, won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. In an X post on Sunday, Zohar called the documentary ‘vile’ and its win at the film festival ‘shocking’. He accused the filmmakers of harming the country ‘just to get applause from antisemites around the world’. The minister said that Abraham and Szor’s actions ‘constitute treason against the state’. … The 80-minute film documented Israel’s use of AI-powered systems to commit ‘calculated mass killings’ of Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Venice Film Festival’s official synopsis. The documentary received a 25-minute standing ovation at its premiere during the film festival.” (09/14/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/14/israeli-minister-threatens-to-revoke-filmmakers-citizenship-over-gaza-film
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Bush says America didn’t overreact after 9/11. We don’t let that pass. Kyle Anzalone sits down with Scott Horton to walk through what Washington knew before the attacks, what it chose to ignore, and how a moment that demanded focused justice became an open-ended Global War on Terror.” (09/13/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/the-kyle-anzalone-show-guest-scott-horton-did-the-us-overreact-to-9-11/
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joseph Varon
“When was the last time your doctor actually examined you? I do not mean when someone checked your blood pressure, copied your medication list, looked at your laboratory results, or listened briefly through a shirt before returning to the computer. I mean examined you. Looked at you. Watched you breathe. Felt your pulse. Looked at your eyes. Examined your neck. Listened carefully to your heart and lungs. Palpated your abdomen. Watched you walk. Noticed the color of your skin, the movement of your hands, the expression on your face, and the thousand other small pieces of information that a human body offers to someone who has learned how to observe it. For most of the history of medicine, this was not an optional ritual performed before ordering the ‘real tests.’ This was medicine. Today, increasingly, it is treated as something quaint, inefficient, or unnecessary.” (09/13/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/medicine-has-forgotten-how-to-touch-the-patient/
Source: US News & World Report
“Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels [sic] captured more strategic islands in the southern Red Sea, government and Houthi officials said Monday, strengthening their control of a major maritime shipping route. The capture of the islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish came as [Saudi puppet regime] forces attempted to rally over the weekend and fight back after the rebels’ [sic] swift advances around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. The Houthis’ new gains further enable them to threaten Saudi crude oil shipments, which have used the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has been attacking shipping.” (09/14/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-09-14/yemens-houthi-rebels-seize-more-key-islands-in-southern-red-sea-tighten-grip-on-shipping-routes
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“American law recognizes the right of a jury to acquit a defendant ‘in the teeth of the facts.’ We call it ‘jury nullification’: The jury decides that even though the defendant did X, the law forbidding X is wrong, at least in that case. Prosecutors hate that because they prefer convictions at any cost. Judges hate it, because they like to be in charge and don’t think anyone should be free to ignore their ‘instructions.’ The lone juror in the Clancy case is a flip side of jury nullification. He decided, based on the evidence he’d seen and the testimony he’d heard, that she was guilty, and he wasn’t going to let himself get bullied into saying otherwise. The effect isn’t as broad as acquittal — the prosecutor is free to bring the case again — but it’s the same principle. Jurors get to vote their conclusions and their conscience. Period. That’s important.” (09/13/26)
https://knappster.blogspot.com/2026/09/garrison-center-op-ed-trial-by-jury-in.html
Source: Unattended Baggage
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and AI feels fine.” (09/12/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-356-its-the-end-of-the-world
